Frozen stiff!

I am becoming resigned to a life in a frozen waste, I no longer look for thaw. although it has only been a matter of weeks and days it seems like years. I am scott of the antartic, I am an inuit, I am a yeti. i long for the colour green, to squelch in warm mud again, to see a worm or a mole hill ...even a slug! Beneath the thick layer that smothers my flwoer beds I wonder if the green shoots of spring that I spied before Christmas have perished or if they will be t here after the great melting. I have not left the farm, the road is sheet ice that I cannot hope to stay upright on; instead I trudge the fields and garden feeling like the only woman left alive. The ponies, so glad to see me bringing their morning and evening hay steam like engines, they ignite a poem, here it is.

In the lea of the hedge
I hear them
crunching frozen hay,
heads down,
bodies steaming
in chilly sun.
I sprinkle summer scents,
on winter ground.
They push against me,
hot breath stealing
into pockets, cold lips
seeking warmth.
The old tin bath is
brimful of ice;
With a brick I fragment
solidity into
shards of water that
cascades like jewels.

A return to normality

Well, all that fuss and its over in a trice! Our festivities were pleasantly dull, it was nice to see my grown up children all at on table, nice to eat so much chocolate without feeling guilty, nice to have a new shiny laptop to fill with fabulous novels but so very, very nice that things can now go back to normal!

Most of all I am looking forward to the resumption of my writing group and long for enough peace to get on with writing The Forest Dwellers. I have done little to it in the past two months but there are ideas popping into my head all the time.
The story so far: Aelf's family have been evicted from their forest home to make way for the King's hunting ground. The strangely beautiful Alys has made a home with them and her presence unintentionally brings discord between the brothers. Aelf and Alys run foul of Prince Richard and during a flight across the forest the king's son meets an early death. Knowing they cannot return home, the family seek refuge with other outlaws in the depths of the New Forest and prepare their fighting skills to drive the Normans from their lands. A battle and a raid on the camp see an end to many of Aelf and Alys' friends and Alys makes a shocking discovery. They are taken prisoner, set to work as slaves in the nearby Norman castle until Alys' beauty catches the attention of a Norman baron. More excitement to follow!

It promises be a busy year. I hope to promote Peaceweaver and sell as many copies as possible, seek out some book fairs etc. and continue with on-line promotions. The feed back on Peaceweaver has been very gratifying; the biggest complaint being that it is keeping people awake long into the night.

Happy New Year to all and may it be a healthy one, prosperous and full of book sales!

What I'd like for Christmas is some extra time

Christmas is only a matter of days away now; I am doing my best to feel christmassy. I have bought and wrapped pressies, brought the tree in from the garden and draped it in twinkly bits and made a start on the rest of the house. I have made a list, lost it, made another, lost that and then found the first one again. Every year we have this palavar, I wrack my brains as to what to buy them, track the thing down, wrap it in paper, only to find they already have it or didnt really want it. My own gifts tend to be toiletries I cannot use or a jumper that doesn't fit when, really I am perfectly easy to buy for. I have a wish list on Amazon of books that I cannot justify buying for myself, I always love notebooks and pens, or sketchbooks or things to make my P.C run better. I like gardening so a new trowel or some packets of seeds are always welcome. If there is anyone out there wracking their brain as to what to wrap for me what I really need is more time. Time to work on The Forest Dwellers, to market Peaceweaver or to research. If my children are reading the best way to give me time is to help more effectively with the christmas arrangements; I am not the only one that can wrap, bake, clean, decorate or shop and i would so love and appreciate the help and it wouldnt cost you a penny!
Merry Christmas everyone!!

Letting Go.

Do you remember the first day you took your child to school? you dressed him in his new uniform, tied his tie for him, made sure he had his plimsoles in his slipper bag. Then you held his hand all the way to the classroom, helped him find the coat peg with his name beneath it. And then you left him and went home alone, painfully aware that you had launched your boy into the wicked world and it was up to him whether he sank of swam? Do you recall your grief at the lost babyhood?

that is how i feel about Peaceweaver. Up until now it has been mine to play with, i could add/subtract commas, delete paragraphs, change the title but now it is mine no longer. it is out there alone in a world of unkind critics. i dont know if it will sink without a trace or bounce triumphantly to the bestseller lists.

Peaceweaver - Available now!

It is all systems go now that Peaceweaver is available to order on Amazon. soon it should be available on other book seller sites and bookshops too. I am currently getting ready for my first book fair on Saturday, making leaflets, bookmarks and posters. My friends on Facebook, Youwriteon.com, authonomy.co.uk etc, have already been blasted by my messages and emails and there is great excitement here at home. My family are already making lists of what they want when I hit the best seller lists :D
I should be over the 'stagefright' by now but I am still so anxious that people will hate it and slate it. Historical novels are a very specific genre, people either love them or hate them and the genre itself varies so. Some are blood thirsty and very political, some are gushy, lovey dovely romances and some are rip roaring adventures. Peaceweaver, I think, covers all those aspects at some point. I'm not sure if that is a good or a bad thing. But, if everyone buys a copy and then recommends me to their friends I should do alright.

I've got the contract!

It all seems suddenly very real now. The publishing contract came today and I've spent the morning carefully reading it, forcing my eyes not to glaze over and trying not to let my mind wander. My instinct is to just sign the flipping thing and speed up the next part of the process but I can hear my mother's voice telling me to read the small print.

I can scarcely believe it and am still not entirely convinced that something still won't go wrong. Things like this don't happen to me. I have always written; poems, stories when I was a child and steamy romances when I was a teenager. When I was at university I loved writing essays, the research was a source of joy and the construcion of the final essay, the longer the better, gave me a real sense of satisfaction. It was just a small step to progress to my first novel. Friends and family raised eyebrows but to me it was a perfectly natural thing to do. My first two attempts leave a lot to be desired but almost as soon as I began to write Peaceweaver, I felt a sense of 'rightness'. It is as if she (EAdgyth)spoke to me and the story developed beneath her guidance. But that is just me being fanciful, writers are like that :D

My next novel is set in the new forest just after the norman conquest and tells the story of a community evicted from their homes to make way for the King's new hunting grounds. The adventure begins with an attempted rape, progresses through murder and exile and culminates in regicide. I hope I can do justice to the story of Aelf's family.

Learning curve

This week I had the confirmation that Peacweaver will be published by Christmas. I am excited and terrified all at once. Although I have always written, the last few years have been a steep learning curve. I have learned to rein myself in, cut out alot of the frilly bits and emerge myself in the character rather than use my novels as a canvas for my poetic tendencies. When I re-read my first two attempts at full length novels I can see how sadly lacking they are. I was too heavily influenced by classic novelists who, as great as they are, are now outdated. I think now I have learned to let my 'self ' colour the page and write instinctively rather than consciously trying to be something I am not. Now, with Peaceweaver ready to hit the presses, I find I have to learn a whole new skill. I have to market the flipping thing!

I am a writer not a business woman and have not the slightest confidence that I can promote my book properly. My inclination is to say, 'Well, I've written this book, you probably won't like it but it would be nice if you'd read it.' That won't work will it? So I have to practice extreme confidence and convince the world that my novels are worth reading. I will be shortly running a competition on Face book -Peaceweaver by Judith Arnopp- when I have a hundred members I will post a question and the winner will receive a signed copy of Peaceweaver. I hope to see you all there. you can reach the page by clicking the facebook tab on the top left of the page ... I think.