Last year I attended Swanwick Writers School for the first time and I had one of the best weeks ever. I made great friends, had a lot of fun and learned a lot about writing. So here I am again, slightly tipsy, very tired and happy to be back at Swanwick.

My first day experience couldn’t be more different than it was last year. Last year I was so overwhelmed that I missed almost everything on the first day and was in bed by ten. This year I met a friend from last year at St Pancras and we travelled here together. Instead of the anxiety that I felt last year, I felt excited and relaxed. Swanwick Writers School could not make the journey any easier. We got off the train and there were people waiting to direct us to the bus to the Hayes (where the conference takes place).

We didn’t have long before the welcome talk but actually this year it wasn’t much of a problem because the check in process was so much quicker and more efficient than last year. The weather was lovely and the grounds of the Hayes are beautiful so after the talk we sat on the lawn and drank coffee (which is included in what you pay for the week,the week is literally all inclusive). We had a chance to catch up with friends from last year and meet some new people too. First timers have white name badges instead of yellow ones so it’s easy to see who they are. It was nice to be the person approaching newcomers rather than the person hiding in her room.

At dinner I sat with people who I had never met before which was great. I think it’s the nice thing about Swanwick, you can literally talk to anyone and you’re almost guaranteed that they will be friendly.

When I got back to my room after dinner, I found that one of the pipes in the bathroom had broken and there was a really huge leak. The water was coming out of the door. The people at the Hayes were so nice about it. They’ve had to put me in another room (with the possibility of having to change again tomorrow) but they gave me free fudge so that makes up for it!

I have now eaten the fudge.

The evening speaker tonight was John Lamont who gave an interesting (and evidence based) talk on how the way that we think influences outcomes. It was very thought provoking and an excellent way to start the week.

After a few drinks in the bar with new and old friends, I went to an informal session called What Are You Writing Now? Each person has the opportunity to stand in front of the group and talk for three minutes about what they are writing. Although public speaking is a huge part of my day job, outside of work I hate talking in front of a group of people. However, everyone else had done it and I thought it was only right that I should too. It was so interesting to hear what other people were doing, where they were at with their writing and how they had gotten there. I think the great thing about the session is that it really encouraged people to talk to each other afterwards and gave you something to talk about (not that having anything to talk about is an issue at Swaniwck, conversation just seems to flow here).

So day one has come to an end. I’m tired but happy to be back at Swanwick.

I start 2016 feeling pretty good about things. 2015 was, overall, a good year for me. Here are my low points and my high points.

The Lows

There have (thankfully) been very few lows this year. Of course there have been plenty of rejections but isn’t that to be expected? Each rejection feels slightly easier than the previous one so in many ways the rejections are good too and they make me appreciate it when I get an acceptance.

The real low for me this year with regard to writing was receiving some really bad advice at the beginning of the year from two separate sources. The first was during a writers retreat. I paid to have a one to one session with the writer in resident who spent the majority of the session talking about herself and promoting her own books and then advised me to change the genre of my novel. I am a romance writer. I write romance and not fantasy because I want the relationship to be the primary focus of what I write. Romance is what I enjoy reading, it’s what I enjoy writing and it’s what I’m going to keep writing. Part of me felt amused by the session because I have met lots of really successful writers on the many writers retreats that I have attended who are (generally) all humble and incredibly generous with their time and advice while she was being paid to help me and was clearly just there to feed her own ego. The other part of me felt really low about the whole thing and it put a downer on what had been a really lovely retreat. However, it did make me put the novel down and write Mistress so that was a good thing.

The second piece of bad advice came from a company who I had previously had good experiences with. They had a new editor and I agreed to try him out. He sent back the critique of my novel late and it was just a critique of romance novels in general. He kept describing my novel as a supernatural thriller, even though I had said that it was a romance novel. He made bitchy comments about the kinds of women who read Fifty Shades of Grey and then explained to me what (in his opinion) women should want to read and why romance novels oppress women. That’s right, an editor mansplained to me why women should not read romance novels. The company gave me a refund so at least I didn’t lose anything financially. This really highlighted for me the importance of getting feedback from the right people. Romance is a distinct genre, it doesn’t play by the same rules as other genres and there is absolutely no point in getting feedback from people who don’t understand it. Like everything though, something good came out of this. It prompted me to join the Romance Writers of America.

The Highs

There have been so many highs in 2015:

Getting Mistress Published
Joining the Romance Writers of America
Finding a Great Critique Partner
Casa Ana Writers Retreat
Greenacre Writers Retreat
Swanwick Writers School
Having Secretly Submissive Accepted for Publication
Finally Letting Someone I Know Read Something I Wrote

Mistress and Secretly Submissive

Earlier this year my short story, Mistress, was published in Summer Love, an anthology of lesbian romance stories published by Ladylit. This was so exciting for me. It was the first story that I have ever had published and I got to see my name (not my real name of course) in print. And one of the reviewers on amazon said nice things about it. In my excitement I allowed two people who I know in real life to read it. The first was a writer friend whose own style of writing had inspired me to write in first person so it seemed natural to allow her to read the result. The second was a friend who convinced me to send her the story while I was drunk. I woke at 3AM, sobering up and in a panic. I may never look at her without blushing again.

I usually write paranormal/urban fantasy romance. Mistress was the first contemporary romance story that I have written and I enjoyed writing it, getting it published and working with Ladylit so much that I just had to submit something for their next anthology which just so happened to be a BDSM themed lesbian romance anthology. I wrote Secretly Submissive and that was also accepted for publication and will be published some time in the new year. Sadly, there are currently no open calls for submissions from Ladylit so I am back to working on my novel (which is a good thing of course!).

Romance Writers of America

I think that joining the Romance Writers of America is probably the best thing that I have ever done as far as writing goes. As I said earlier, I love romance. Lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual, monogamous, polyamorous, fantasy, historical, contemporary…if it’s romance then I am interested. When people meet me it’s not what they expect of me. I am a professional, I am analytical and straight speaking, I like facts and statistics, research and evidence based practice. I like talking about politics, the care system, public family law, domestic violence and disability. I am an introvert through and through and the things that I enjoy talking about often lean to the darker side. People assume that my taste in fiction reflects those interests. I used to tell people that I read non-fiction, which is a half truth. I read non-fiction and I read romance. Nothing else. Now I tell people the truth, I love romance novels. I like reading something with a happy ending. I like creating stories where no matter what happens you know that everything will be alright in the end. Other people do not always get that.

Other members of the RWA do get it. It’s a whole organisation of people who love romance as much as I do. Everyone there takes romance seriously, no one there suggests that I should take out the romance and turn my book into a fantasy novel. It feels like a safe space full of people (mostly women) from diverse backgrounds who all love romance and in general are very supportive of other writers. Writers in general are supportive of each other, romance writers especially so (I could be biased).

The RWA is of course not just a safe space for romance writers, it is also (and perhaps primarily ) a great resource for romance writers. There is so much information on their forums and their website and I have found it more useful than every other writing website that I have used combined. As I said earlier, romance is a distinct genre and sometimes the advice and information available on general writing websites just isn’t relevant.

One of the best things about being a member of the Romance Writers of America is their critique partner match up. I found my wonderful critique partner Sharon Buchbinder on there. After the bad experiences that I had at the beginning of the year I was quite nervous about letting someone else read my novel but she has been amazing. She is honest but encouraging, she gives great advice and sympathy when needed. I think I have learned more from her about writing than I have from anyone else and I feel so blessed to have found her. However, probably the best thing about having her as a critique partner is that I get to read her stories too. If you haven’t read them I would highly recommend doing so. Kiss of the Silver Wolf was one of my favourite books of 2015.

Writers Retreats

My first retreat of the year was to the wonderful Casa Ana. Casa Ana is in a tiny village in Spain. There are no distractions, just lots of supportive writers, good food and beautiful views. This retreat was a really productive one for me. I did a lot of editing, met a lot of great people and ate a lot of great food. For more information about the retreat, read my review.

My second retreat was the Greenacre Writers Retreat. Greenacres Writers Group have regular retreats at St Katharine’s. I plan to write about it in detail at some point soon. It was one of the most enjoyable retreats that I have attended. I can’t say it was the most productive because I spent so much time talking to interesting people that I didn’t get as much done as I had hoped. I didn’t feel bad about this though because I got so much out of talking to the other writers. I am really looking forward to attending more of their retreats in the future.

Swanwick Writers School

When I attended Swanwick I planned to update my blog daily with information about my day but by day three I was having so much fun (and drinking so much wine) that I didn’t actually manage to update my blog after that. I had also planned to write a review after but the week was so full that writing a review was too overwhelming. It really was one of the best experiences of my life. To quote a friend, “The flowers are too bright, the people are too nice and nothing here seems real.” It really does feel like stepping out of the real world into some kind of writing utopia. I can’t wait for next year.

2016

I am so excited for 2016. I know that this is going to be another great year and I can’t wait to see what it holds for me.

Happy New Year!

Swanwick

Swanwick 2016: Day One

2015 in Writing

The Lows