Making the journey from hobby writer to pro involves learning new lessons, and making various choices. Some choices, such as choosing to sacrifice large swathes of my social life for my nascent writing career, are major. Others, such as how to refer to my books in print, aren’t. However, this is still a choice I […]
Writing’s fun … must do more of it
Posted by Jaine Fenn on 8 August 2008 0
Recently the real world has been intruding into my writing life. I’ve had to do extra hours at the day-job, and weekends have been – pleasantly – filled with festivals. Much of the time I have spent in t’garret hasn’t been on actual wordsmithing. With the detailed comments on CONSORTS back from my editor, I’ve […]
Summer pastimes
Posted by Jaine Fenn on 5 August 2008 0
This week, I have mainly been plotting. I find dancing a surprisingly good way of working on gnarly plot points, and with festivals the last two weekends and another this weekend, there’s a lot of that going on at the moment. My friends are very understanding of my tendency to suddenly exit the Mosh/Morris pit […]
Upcoming short story
Posted by Jaine Fenn on 29 July 2008 0
I’ve just heard that my short story ‘Twilight at the Change House’ will be published in next month’s issue of Aeon magazine. The story isn’t set in the ‘Hidden Empire’ universe, but does feature a smattering of my usual obsessions: the true nature of reality, paying the price and stories that eat their own tails. […]
Not too bad, thanks
Posted by Jaine Fenn on 25 July 2008 0
Despite not currently working very hard (finished by 7pm weekdays, and hardly writing at all over weekends), it’s been a constructive couple of weeks. As well as the excerpt of PRINCIPLES going up on Jay Tomio’s website (see below), the book continues to get largely positive reviews. It occurs to me that I should post […]
Free sample
Posted by Jaine Fenn on 22 July 2008 0
If you’d like to read the first chapter of PRINCIPLES OF ANGELS, it’s currently up for free perusal on fantasybookspot. A quick poke around the site revealed many other treasures hidden therein. Meanwhile the local rag has run an article on me under the headline ‘Vote to have the politicians assassinated’. I’ll expect a visit […]
Saturday sign-a-thon
Posted by Jaine Fenn on 19 July 2008 0
I’ve just got through signing 80 hardback copies of PRINCIPLES on my kitchen table. More experienced pros have warned me of the perils of RSI during long signing sessions, but I had my special pen, and took the job slow and steady. More of a problem was re-wrapping the books and getting them back in […]
It’s a fine line between order and avoidence
Posted by Jaine Fenn on 14 July 2008 0
The original plan was to start writing GUARDIANS OF PARADISE as soon as my editor said she was happy with CONSORTS OF HEAVEN. Several reasons: firstly, CONSORTS is that tricky second novel and until I know whether it’s made the grade I feel uncomfortable moving on to another major project; secondly, I needed more envelope-scribbling […]
Future conventions
Posted by Jaine Fenn on 10 July 2008 0
As part of my (so far remarkably successful) efforts to spend my publication advance from PRINCIPLES before I have the chance to get used to having money, I’ve registered for a couple of upcoming conventions. The first one is Newcon 4, held the second weekend in October in sunny Northampton. It’s a small convention, but […]
The greatest pleasure
Posted by Jaine Fenn on 7 July 2008 0
I’m not entirely comfortable with shameless self-promotion. At the same time, I’m aware of the need to make sure I (well, Waterstone’s, Amazon etc.) sell as many copies as possible of PRINCIPLES OF ANGELS (I cringed slightly as I wrote that – even the standard convention of capitalising book titles seems rather vulgar to me). […]