Car crash Sunday

Hi There,

well I have pulled my latest version of Roaming Romans - I really wasn't happy with it after reading it through. For a start there is not enough about the wild child of the Iceni - Boudicca, and too much wafle without really getting anywhere.

So, after a hard weeks re plotting (I was off for 3 days last week as it was half term) then I have come up with somehthing I am a lot happier with. All I have to do now is write it...

My friend Erich Orser has just mailed me back after completing a read through of Space Ace and the Mysterious Black Craw and has given me some great feedback - so thank's Erich. His book, Young and Evil, is also a good read, but totally different from anything I have a mind to write.

And as for the car crash - well that was number one daughter, some stupid burk pulled out across the oncoming traffic and she could do nothing but side swipe him. Luckily she only suffered minor injuries - whiplash and the like - but it does put things into perspective a bit.

So, with our (my) mortality in mind, it has made me even more determined to publish in 2008 - either some very lucky publisher will have the wisdom to see how much potential there is in my work to make us both a tidy income and will write me an amazing e mail telling me just that.... or, I will set up my own publishing company, publish my own work, put together an rocket fuelled marketing strategy and, well let's just say that if I do, it will cost them a lot more toget me to come qnd work with tem the 2nd time fo asking. So... see you at the launch party.

Ian

A Writer's woes

Hi There,

well another month has come and gone, and what was an enormous high (a No: 1 slot on YouWriteOn Top 10) has dribbled out to a lamentous low as afer a single poor review I got knocked down to 14th at the end of the month. So, so crtique from an agent or professional this month then.

Ho, hum - there is still next month to try again.

On the other hand.... ok, so now up to 10 out of 18 rejection letters from my fumble with US agents, but hey; some have them have come back unopened with 'gone away' all platsered all over them - was it something I said?

You know you keep reading that getting noticed and getting published is hard at the moment - and you thought, like me, pah! A load of bunkem. Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but I'm begining to think they're right.

But, you know what they say; every cloud, and all that. I have been reading the yet unpublished work of a friend of mine, his name is Erich Orser from Tucson, Arizona. It is called 'Young & Evil' and is about a group of kids trying to survive after a plague wiped out all the adults - and it's fab. I am really hooked.

I hope you get chance to read it - if you want to have a look go to youwriteon.com and search for 'Squid' or 'Erich Orser' and then click onto his book and take a look.

Weel, I am off to try - yet again - to have a go at finishing Roaming Romans, this weekend. Ok, so it's after plumbing in my mate John's bathroom, and avoiding the snow - is it me, or do all writers get side tracked when all they really want to do is write?

Got to number one in the charts !!

Wow, can't believe it - I got straight into number one on the Youwriteon web site top ten chart with my new book - 'Space Ace and the Roaming Romans' I just hope I can stay in the top 5 for the next 11 days and then I get a review by an agent or some other professional - here's hoping.

I have got close in the past and then someone has come alaong and posted a poor review and bad marks and I have gone crashing out the top 5 - it's all a game - I thought at first people were just being honest with their marks and reviews and trying to help each other improve - and to be fair, most are, but then I got to thinking that there might just be others who think if they mark low, then it might help promote their own work forwards - but that might just be me being paranoid.

I get to the stage that the cynic in me just doesn't believe what I'm told anymore and I start looking for the hidden agendas - once burnt, three times shy, hey.....

But that's enough of the depressive - Think lucky, enjoy the journey, celebrate the winning !!!

Keep plodding along

Hi there

Well I know I have to keep working to pay the bills, but it does tend to interfere with the writing - I try to get up early and write when I'm fresh, but when it's dark outside and the warm bed beckons, that plan goes out the window. So then I try to write at night, but by the time I have made the tea, fed the women in my life and then washed up etc I'm creamed, so I am not writing at my best - so I wait until the weekend and promise myself some quality time at the PC, but there are always so many jobs to do around the house.

Eeeeek !! I just want to write - but I am destined to write little and often and try to remember where the heck I was in the plot. Ho hum - keep plodding along.

I made the best seller chart !!

Hi folks - Happy and prosperous New Year to you all.

Brilliant news for my new year - I made the Youwriteon.com best seller chart for 'I hate baked beans' which of course has now changed title to 'Space Ace and the mysterious Black Craw' - so that's a great bonus.

I am still waiting to hear if I have won the Times/Chicken House competition, not long to go now until there is some news.

I have also sent the ms off to 18 US agents - just because I love to wait for the postman to see what he brings.

Then, I launched 'Space Ace and the Roaming Romans,' onto the YWO website and have been having some amazing reviews for that - so fingers crossed it will get me out there and some lucky publisher will pick it and realise they can make a fortune out of selling my books.

So, I had better get it finished, hadn't I. I am about four fifths done, I am just trying to ties all the loose plot lines together at the end - its great fun, it's just time I am short of, the day job keeps getting in the way!

I'll let you know when it's done.

New title and updated website

Hi folks - well, I haven't been having much luck with getting 'baked beans' published in the UK, so... USA here I come, and with a new name for the book:

Out goes 'I hate baked beans' and lets say a big welcome to 'Space Ace and the Mystery of the Black Craw.'

I have also updated my website accordingly - so go and have a look at iansanday.com, if you haven't already.

And, no, I haven't finished the 2nd book yet, it's harder than you think because I have had a bit of a layoff as I have been concentrating on other projects and to be quite frank with you, I have forgotten where I have got to. It's funny, because when I go back I just find the characters in mid action where I had left them - a bit mean really to have them hanging around waiting for me to come back and tell them how it all finishes.

I can just imagine them like on a film set as they are waiting around in their foldaway chairs with STAR written on the back, tapping their feet saying: "come on Ian, get on with it.... "

Nearly finished book 2

OK, so nearly finished means work still in progress on first draft - I am at a bit of writers block at the moment just getting the ending right. I know where I want to be, I just have to write it and the trouble is there are so many ends that need tying up and so many subplots and twists I don't want to over complicate the issue. Still, it's good fun trying.

I have been Christmas shopping and got myself a CD of bagpipe music. I love the sound of the pipes and it reminds me so much of my holiday in the summer touring Scotland - so lets hope it gives me some inspiration to crack on and get finished.
I have now drawn up a list of agents in the US to send ' I hate baked beans' to, so watch out America, here I come !