The definition of crazy.

Just received this update on views on my blog in the past month. This is absolutely mental and I am beyond grateful. Every single person who has taken the time to read my little story has meant so much, in theory I am sending it off to agencies sometime this week.

Please continue to share my blog with others who might like it :) If everyone who reads it shares it with two people, it would be phenomenal!

Thanks again and love to you all x

Why I love reading...

On a journey back to Coventry in which I, unfortunately, am not the driver, so thought I would wile away the time thinking about reading.

I've always been a reader. My Mum loves to tell an anecdote of me when I came out of my first day of school. Apparently I told her that I wanted to teach people to read and write one day. At the age of 25 on the brink of my 5th year as an English teacher, it strikes me as funny that I managed to do exactly what the 5 year old me wanted.

Reading really is my life, and I don't mean that in an over sentimentalised schmaltzy kind of way. I mean it truly is part of me. I'm always reading at least one books. At some times, I am reading more. I don't really believe in book monogamy. I mean there are some books you have to devote yourself to heart and soul. But some... Well some just feel more like flings than serious commitment.

I digress... The best part about reading is the sense of calm it brings. The moment when you are wrapped up in the blanket of a life you've never lived, a world you've never experienced with words you wish you had written. When I read a really good book, one that brings chills so vivid that no fire can warm me (to paraphrase Emily Dickinson) I feel totally at ease. It doesn't matter that my car might need fixing, or that there's some kind of family emergency or even that a pile of marking is sitting on my desk. No. When I'm reading, time stops and to quote another book, I become infinite.

So when somebody says to me that they don't like reading, it stabs me. Like actually wounds me, because I just feel so much pity for that person. To live only one life in one world. To miss out on all those experiences. To miss that spread of serenity that creeps over you as you assume the character of another.

My only wish is that one day, my book is an escape for somebody else too...

The Cafe scene. Meet Faye...(and more Lee of course!) The last snippetyou're getting for a long while...

It was only as Rosie left, that Faye became acutely aware that she was being watched. It was an odd feeling. Faye was used to being inconspicuous, save for the occasional jibe made at her in the corridor at school. She certainly had not been invisible earlier. Feeling the hairs on the back of her arms standing on end, she tentatively raised her eyes to meet another pair. They were russet,with an odd metallic glint as if glitter lingered in the irises. She quickly looked away, feeling as though she was far too exposed. The sound of a cup being placed on the table, and the smile in Rosie’s voice as Rosie told her that she hoped that she enjoyed it, signalled to her that it was safe to look up. Leaning forward, she inhaled the rich scent of cocoa and closed her eyes.For the first time that day, she felt calm and level headed.

‘Mind if I join you?’ a sleek rich voice questioned. Faye’s eyes snapped open at the sound of a stranger’s voice. Faye raised her eyes, peering up over the lenses of her glasses and was momentarily caught off guard. Those eyes, back again,were staring into hers awaiting a response. On any other day, these smoky quartz irises might have stunned her into silence, but not today. She was too far past the point of caring to notice their unique glamour.

‘Whatever,’she gestured to the seat with bitter sarcasm. Before he could take a seat, she forced herself to move her struck eyes from his striking face down over the rest of his body. He was well-dressed, so clearly someone with money. The cut of his black tight jeans seemed like they had been painted onto him, hugging his legs perfectly. His shirt was equally well-tailored .Under the glare of the café’s fluorescent lights, it was hard to decipher the exact colour. In some places, where the light avoided, it seemed to be black, yet in the aspects where the bright light illuminated it, she was sure she could detect a roya lpurple glimmer. Nevertheless, it suited him, contrasting with his pale skin. He had opened the top two buttons, allowing the base of his throat to be exposed and for Faye to peek at the silver chain wrapped around it on which hung a small round pendant. Before she could look closer, he purposefully coughed and her eyes darted down to the table in embarrassment.

Nonchalantly,he slid into the opposite booth, placing his own cup of steaming black coffee on the dirty table. Great, she might actually have to make conversation now that she had completely humiliated herself. He must have thought she was a hormonal teenager, she fretted.

‘Sorry for disturbing your revelry,’ he began with equal amounts of sarcasm. ’but you seemed like you could do with someone to talk to.’ His voice softened at the end of his sentence and she saw genuine concern frame his burnished eyes.

‘Yeah,I guess…’ Faye automatically softened her brusque attitude in response to him.It was strange; never had she been talked out of a mood so quickly. ‘The world and I are not really friends today.’ Her shoulders shrugged, attempting to heave the burden of the day off her shoulders, and onto somebody else.

He laughed without humour ‘Tell me about it. It seems like I’m in a daily battle with it. Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.’ He looked her dead in the eye as he spoke. It unnerved her.

‘Don’t let the bastards grind you down? The problem is they keep trying every single day.Do you ever feel like putting your sword down and surrendering to them all?’Faye visibly relaxed, and before she could rein herself in, she had slouched her body language and allowed the corners of her lips to curve into an ironic smile. He didn’t reply at first, sipping his coffee. Cautiously, Faye began to allow her eyes to survey his face properly. Apparently, this man had more to him than just a set of eyes. He seemed older than her- about 19, yet despite his youth there was something old about him. He had perfectly defined cheekbones, as any self respecting stranger would, and a smatter of stubble around his thin lips. A halo of tawny curls adorned his porcelain skin, hanging slightly longer than normal because of the rain, she surmised.

The silence lingered, and Faye began to feel an awkward sense of discomfort creeping through her.

Re-drafted Prologue

Based on the invaluable feedback of my target audience book group, I have made a couple of changes to the Prologue of the novel below. What do we think of the new version? Is it better?

Prologue

‘Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed 
 In one self-place; for where we are is hell, 
  And where hell is, there must we ever be.’

(Doctor Faustus. Christopher Marlowe.)

Hell isn’t what people say it is. I remember going to ‘Sunday School’ when I was younger and being told that it was heat, pain, fire and torture. They got it half right.

Hell isn’t under the ground either. In the films, you see zombie-like arms pushing through the ground as a screaming victim is dragged down to its murky depths. It isn’t like that either; more like stepping into the next room, albeit a room that you didn’t know existed. A flash of ultraviolet light. A portal in the air. A living portal. One which moves and swells, swallowing up the room around you, swallowing up you.

When the hour struck and he came to retrieve me, a ferocious cold snapped at me. I thought my bones would shatter into a million fragments, and then slip through my fingers like gold dust. Tentacles of ice slithered and snaked their way around my ankles, my wrists, my neck… Where each feeler grasped at my skin, obsidian crystals began to form. Tiny clusters of these grain-like crystals meandered their way over my limbs, tracking the veins as they ruthlessly made their way to my heart. I didn’t scream and wail, like I should have. The contract had been signed in my tears. I had made the deal. I was his.

An ashen blue flicker. I know; you would expect reds and oranges and yellows, flames which lick at the carbonated air, emanating blasts of heat and sending plumes of smoke into the atmosphere. The mixture of blues, purples and silver fog the air, creating a dull sheen between your eyes and what is in front of you. The mist is the only thing down there to remind you that you can breathe at all, even if the air itself is clammy and scented like maple syrup. Scented like death.

When he took my shaking hand and led me deeper into the cavernous tunnels ahead of us, I was not afraid.  I knew what I had signed up for and the surprising thing was, I wanted it.  My feet scraped over hard rocks and debris on the ground and where the mist was thickest around my feet, I felt a tickling sensation.

Surprisingly, hell is not dark. Like the brightest of all angels who created it, its incandescent light filled the tunnels as we ventured into them. A light so blinding, it made it impossible to see what was ahead, or what you had left behind. We suddenly came to an abrupt halt and he turned around. Taking both hands in mine, he brushed his thumb across my palm and I shivered.

When he looked into the depths of my eyes and told me it was time, I allowed it to happen. I wanted it. I needed it. I wasn’t dragged down to hell; I volunteered.

The joys of editing

After a week back at work and a sudden return to reality, I am starting to feel like writing the book was the easy part. The chapters, the characters, the events, and to some extent, even the words came easily in comparison to this new stage. Editing.

As a writer you feel this strange attachment to creative work. Like if someone criticises a part of your work, they are actually criticising a part of you. Or your child... I know this is something I am going to need to deal with. Brutal honesty, though harsh, is necessary in order to ensure any degree of success with this book. Not even necessarily publishing success, rather any success in terms of pride and accomplishment.

There are simple challenges: typing errors being one. Once work has 'gone cold', so to speak, I can print it out and spell check it like I would a pupil's piece of coursework. The problem then comes with the larger details. Is my characterisation right? Do my vocabulary choices match my audience? Do I repeat certain words or phrases? Have I described the setting well enough? Are the plot developments convincing? All these questions can form a bit of a middle in the mind, threatening to over cloud that initial enthusiasm and confidence you had for writing in the first place.

I know that editing is going to be a long process. I know that it will be a drawn out process where I will need to draft, redraft and then redraft again. I just need to keep the faith I have in the story I have written and hope that it captures the imagination of people. Everything else is just perseverance and time.

If anyone has any editing advice/tips I would appreciate any help.

Thanks, Stace

Writing Playlist

So I discovered that my love of music not only manifests itself in my house/car/office at work to help me concentrate. Music also played a massive part in writing. There were certain parts of the book where I was struggling to put the emotion I wanted into words and music really helped put me in the right mood/frame of mind.

I've split the playlists down into the two main protagonists. Each song relates to a key part of the novel, and once the book is out and about, I'll let you know which bit correlates to each part.

Faye.

Angels-The xx
Cosmic Love-Florence and the Machine
Make Me Wanna Die- The Pretty Reckless
Explosions-Ellie Goulding
Ignorance-Paramore
Judas-Lady Gaga
Feeling Good-Muse
Always Attract- You Me At Six
Radioactive-Imagine Dragons
Starry eyed- Ellie Goulding
Weak- Skunk Anansie
Shelter-Birdy
Up In The Air-30 Seconds to Mars
When You Want Something You Can't Have-Courteeners
Born to die-Lana Del Rey



Lee.
God and Satan -Biffy Clyro
Heaven-Hurts
Lost in Paradise- Evanescence
Running Up That Hill-Placebo
Flaws-Bastille
Crashland- Twin Atlantic
Stellify- Ian Brown
S and M- Rihanna
New York- Snow Patrol
Sweet Dreams (Are made of this)- Marilyn Manson
Smother-Daughter


Hope you enjoy!

How does it sound as soundtracks go?
Stacy

Over

Lost Glory is now finished. I have officially written a whole book during my Easter Holidays :)

Endings

When I started writing this book, it was pretty safe to say i thought I would get bored after about chapter 5. The fact that my word document now reads 71,000 words with the final chapter to finish and the epilogue to write is more of a shock to my system than anyone else's I imagine.

Furthermore it is fair to say that whereas I had a fairly vague idea of where it was all going, the details did not exactly slot into shape into I actually started writing the chapters. I knew I had all these threads tangled up in each other. Questions that needed answering, the crucial factor of Faye and Lee's relationship hanging in the balance, and my own need for closure on it all battling together on the page.

I hate happy endings. Happy endings for me, are the 'Disney' way to end a story. Life doesn't have happy endings, so why should it then follow then that books should do? I also had to think about my source material- 'Doctor Faustus' by Christopher Marlowe. I'm sure I am causing no great shakes by declaring the somewhat obvious ending to that play. He gets dragged to hell. It is unavoidable, a fixed point in the plot of the play, but then the play ends. So where does that leave me? I made it obvious in my Prologue that Faye was going to find herself in hell too. What my source material fails to illuminate is what happens to Faustus once he is down there. So it was with that opening up in the ambiguous ending of Faustus that I could stage my own ending in 'Lost Glory'.

I thoroughly enjoyed writing about Faye's descent down into hell. I researched and read about Dante's Inferno, using much of his perception of what hell would look and feel like in order to get a sense of what Faye might see or hear. Describing either hell or heaven is an absolute bind as a writer. What can you already say that hasn't been said for? It isn't exactly the type of location you can travel to in order to undertake research. In this sense, the work of other writers in invaluable, and Dante's Inferno in particular was something I could take and use.

Then at midnight last night, I found myself writing the apex. The crucial moment in the whole novel where everything is defined and decided. As a reader, I love that part in a book where you turn the pages, reading faster and faster to find out what happens next. I had no idea that it was something writers participated in too. As I listened to music for inspiration, to capture the mood I was aiming for, my fingers seemed to drum the keys of my laptop faster and faster. I knew what I wanted to happen. I knew the way I wanted it to happen. I even knew how it was all going to end. Yet that reader inside me wanted it on the page in black and white. Concrete. No going back.

I cried writing it. By the time I had typed the last page of the chapter, the tears were streaming down my face. I never understood why. I don't know if it was the words, the music I was listening to, the realisation that it was nearly over, or the feelings towards my characters. All I know is that I wept. Is this normal for writers on approaching the ending of their work,or am I clearly just insane?

Right, back to my final chapter...

Thanks for reading.
Stace x

Publishers or self-publishing? That is the question.

From the moment I realised that I didn't want this book to stay on my laptop, entertaining only me and a few others, I have been pondering the best way to get my work out there. All of the websites have advised me  to get a following, to assess whether there is actually a market for what i'm trying to do. With these words I mind, I created this blog, my own facebook page (www.facebook.com/lostglory1987) and my own twitter account @Glorylost. It doesn't seem to be doing badly so far. Both my facebook and twitter following seems to be growing day by day, and some great people I know have shared my links to help spread the word.However the likes and follows are starting to slow now, so I feel like I'm getting to a crossroads.

The book is nearly finished (about another 5 chapters left now) and hopefully the final word count will end up about 65,000. I am planning to get a focus group of my target audience together to give me some honest and critical feedback, and I have a potential person to design my book cover for me. Once it is finished, I can also start doing some thorough and brutal editing. My lack of typing ability is making me particularly aware of typing errors, and with it being an extended work, I am eager to check things like character development/continuity/plot holes.

But even once that's done (and it will take a good few weeks once I'm back at work), where do I go from there? If I send it to a publisher, I risk the following: they will reject it outright and I will feel disheartened or it will disappear into a publishing black hole and I never see it again. But... in the unlikely event, an agent picks it up, it will also give me physical copies of my book, and support/advertising and all the things a writer needs to stand a chance. If I chicken out of that option, and self-publish, the advantages are clear to see. I will collect a 70% royalty share (if anything sells) and it is a way to get exposure so that a publisher can then pick you up. Writers such as Amanda Hocking have done it and made thousands, and more importantly, have established a writing career.

I feel like I have to try and get the book out there somehow, but at the moment, with the threat of my 'real job' looming, I need to work out the best route for me...


Please keep following and reading. Every like and follow means a lot to me.

Stace

30 likes on Facebook (www.facebook.com/lostglory1987)

As promised guys, 30 likes on Facebook (or follows on twitter @Glorylost) would mean I would give you a sneak peak of chapter one. So here he is... A Perfect Stranger.

The dingy backstreet café was dimly lit, and the small of charcoaled fried onions permeated the heavy air. A rickety neon sign swayed in the wind outside, and as splatters of rain began to hit the glass windows like bullets, forgotten people came inside seeking shelter from the cold.

 He liked this place; it was the place where people sat when they had nothing left to lose. Running his fingers through his chestnut curls to displace the remnants of rain water, he promptly ordered from the bumbling waitress.

‘Coffee. Strong. Black. No sugar’ It was his usual drink and his line of work had given him a very thorough knowledge of the ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ of café etiquette. He did not have time for inane questions tonight.

‘Sweet enough already, are you?’ The toothy waitress blushed as she attempted to flirt with the enigmatic man in front of her. Pitiful, he thought to himself, pitiful and pathetic.

‘Oh, you have no idea!’ His answering predatory smile silenced her and she hurriedly turned her back to make his drink. It was such a paradox, he mused, as he regarded his reflection in the sodden window. His appearance was intended to attract, to entice, to seduce. But there was always that edge, that undertone, which made people hyper-aware, which spelled dangerous. He loved the taste of their fear; it had a homely, familiar tang to it.

 Taking his steaming liquid, he retreated to a table in the corner and surveyed his surroundings. It looked no different from any of the other ‘Greasy Spoons’ he had frequented. Black and white tiled floor, stained of course, with crass red leather booths and silver unsteady tables lined the window. It was supposed to look like an authentic ‘American Diner’. It didn’t. The stench of poverty and despair reeked, even above the scented smile of the grease laden food. His personal distaste for his environment was not allowed to matter much though. He had been sent here to retrieve a new recruit. They were due to arrive any time now, and his instructions were never wrong. He had never failed in his duty yet, making him his Master’s right hand man. She must be important, he considered, if he had been sent for the task. His prominent role meant that he was only sent on high profile cases. That said, he loved his job, no matter who the victim. He relished in the power of the game and the sickening end result. It made his almost translucent skin feel warm for the first time in years. The thrill of a successful catch.

The momentary clink of a bell alerted him to the presence of someone new. A girl. The first thing he noticed was that she was soaked to the point of saturation. Her jeans clung to her like a second skin in a most unflattering way and her pumps were so threadbare, they barely clung onto her feet. Leisurely, he scanned up her body, drinking in her hopelessness and despair. Wearing a band hoodie emblazoned ‘Bleeding on the Ballroom Floor’, it became apparent that she was ‘emo’, and was therefore, prone to a little melodrama. A white lead dangled down the front of her hoodie leading to her ears where her headphones were buried into her ears. Her hair appeared black in the rain, although he sensed that if it had been dry, she probably had some wacky dye in its place. A cry to be different it would seem, which ironically made her exactly the same as every 16 year old girl he had ever seen. She had wide spaced, sea green eyes but they seem panicked and too alert, like she was expecting someone to pounce on her and drag her out at any second. Her cheeks were quite rounded, but were drawn at the same time, lacking the rosy complexion he was certain they deserved. Her lips were clearly her best feature, lusciously pink and soft. He knew instantly that she was the one he had been sent for.

Shifting in his seat, he stretched out his long legs and folded his arms. The games were about to begin, and he couldn’t wait to play…

Priorities

Despite my urge to write, write and write despite myself, I have realised with only a week left of my Easter Holidays, I must revert back to my teacher self and actually mark some of my pupils' work.

Luckily for me, it is a pile of Creative Writing based on the techniques used by Marcus Zusak in 'The Book Thief'. There is something beautiful and effortless about the way 'TBT' has been written. Zusak's use of narrative voice and colour is extraordinary. He creates a world so real, and yet so unlike anything I have ever experienced. His characters are so familiar and wonderful to read about. Even the character of 'Death' manages to be likable, despite his role in the novel. In truth I cannot gush enough about it.

So yes, I am having to put the impulse to write on hold today to mark. But it is okay... If I get half a pile done, I can write for an hour... The little promises we make ourselves to help us balance the things we have to do and the things we want to do.

I also, of course, have to make sure I have put all kinds of 'work' away before 'Game of Thrones' at 9. Words cannot express how much I'm in love with that show. Winter is coming!

Thanks so much for the numbers of you who have read my extract and followed me on Twitter as a result/Liked my Facebook page. Your support is really invaluable and keeps me writing.

Once I hit 30 likes on Twitter/Facebook, I will introduce you to one of my characters.

Thanks for reading,
Stace x

Where to go next...

When I started writing, I had a very skewed preconception of writing. Somehow in my head, I thought writers were these bohemian radical people who spent their lives reading and occasionally knocked out a couple of hundred words before returning to bed. How wrong was I?

The thing about writing, and I never understood this until I started it myself, is that is consumes you. Like seriously, completely takes over your life. You can't eat properly, or sleep at normal times. Even when you do switch off the light, the characters and what you are planning next eats away at you and plays on your mind. There are days where you feel like you are born to write. The words drip effortlessly from your brain, and the right words, the right phrases gush like rainwater.

Then there are days like today. I know what I want to write. I know why I need to write it. I actually want to write it. But sitting here now, I just can't get started. Never have I felt so frustrated! Every single time I write a sentence, I seem to dislike it. It seems too cliche, or too descriptive or too whiny and juvenile. I've never experienced anything like it. When you're planning a lesson and don't know how to present the topic, you tend to look around and steal what other teachers have already done. With writing your own novel, you can't seem to do that. Not without blatantly plagiarising the words of of a better writer.

I've got my setting established. I have two main characters who I have developed. The reader knows their appearance, their personalities (albeit changing at the novel progresses), and bits of their background are starting to be drip fed to the reader. I know where it is going, and I know exactly how I want it all to end.

But for some reason, the words just aren't there today!!!! Why?????????
All advice appreciated.
Stace

A taster of the novel so far

Prologue

‘Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed 
 In one self-place; for where we are is hell, 
  And where hell is, there must we ever be.’

(Doctor Faustus- Christopher Marlowe.)

Hell isn’t what people say it is. I remember going to ‘Sunday School’ when I was younger and being told that it was heat, pain, fire and torture. They got it half right.

Hell isn’t under the ground either. In the films, you see zombie like arms pushing through the ground as a screaming victim is dragged down to its murky depths. It isn’t like that; more like stepping into the next room, albeit a room that you didn’t know existed. A flash of ultraviolet light, a portal in the air, but it is a living portal, which moves and swells, swallowing up the room around you, swallowing up you.

The day he came to retrieve me, a ferocious cold snapped at me. I thought my bones would shatter into a million fragments, and then slip through my fingers like gold dust. Tentacles of ice slithered and snaked their way around my ankles, my wrists, my neck… Where each feeler grasped at my skin, obsidian crystals began to form. Tiny clusters of these grain-like crystals meandered their way over my limbs, tracking the veins as they ruthlessly made their way to my heart. I didn’t scream and wail, like I should have. I had signed the contract in my tears. I had made the deal. I was his.

Ashen-blue. I know, you expected reds and oranges and yellows, flames which lick the carbonated air, emanating blasts of heat and sending plumes of smoke into the atmosphere. The mixture of blues, purples and silver fog the air, creating a dull sheen between your eyes and what is in front of you. The mist is the only thing down there to remind you that you can breathe at all, even if the air is clammy and scented like maple syrup. Scented like death.

When he took my shaking hand and led me deeper into the cavernous tunnels ahead of us, I was not afraid.  I knew what I had signed up for and the surprising thing was, I wanted it.  My feet scraped over hard rocks and debris on the ground and where the mist was thickest around my feet, I felt a tickling sensation.

Hell isn’t dark either. Like the brightest of all angels who created it, its incandescent light filled the tunnels as we ventured into them. A light so blinding, it made it impossible to see what was ahead, or what you had left behind. We suddenly came to an abrupt halt and he turned around. Taking both hands in mine, he brushed his thumb across my palm and I shivered.

When he looked into the depths of my eyes and told me it was time, I allowed it to happen. I wanted it. I needed it. I wasn’t dragged down to hell; I volunteered.