What's it all about?

A lovely lady named Jess commented that it would be quite helpful if I told my fantastic blog readers what I'm actually writing - as in is she actually even writing something or is it all a ruse...?

Now some of you will now that you can find all the details about my work via my website www.emmashortt.co.uk - excerpts, blurbs FAQs etc (pass the link around, friends, family, pets...) for those of you that were not aware of my website (you are now so no excuses family, friends, pets...)I thought I would post some details for you about my current project Immune.

Now I love this book, totally adore it, it's probably the first book I have worked on which just came totally naturally. The idea came, I sat down and that was it - obsession for months on end. I wrote till the early hours, during lunch breaks, during meetings even whilst in the bath. I just wrote and wrote and it was truly like the story was there just waiting. I'd added odd asides in early parts and then weeks later when I considered another part they linked up perfectly as if they were always going to.
My characters started to appear in my dreams berating me for not writing that part properly and suggesting new plot twists.
And then I found myself talking to my characters at random moments asking their opinions in my head - and they answered me back.

This told me one of two things - either I was going ever so slightly mad (and truly it wouldn't have been the first time) or Immune was the best book I had ever wrote.

So lovely readers read on below for the intro and an extract. x

It is 2013 and humanity has been ravaged by the most terrible virus ever seen; governments have fallen, civilisations have crumbled; few survivors remain.

The Outpost is deep underground and home to some of these survivors, among them eighteen year old Jess Philips.
Jess was separated from her family during the onset of the virus and she is desperate to find out if they have survived, to do this she must secretly leave the safety of the Outpost and enter the world above ground.

But the real world is nothing like the one Jess remembers, feral gangs of survivors stalk the streets, food and water are scarce and law and order is a thing of the past.
When disaster strikes Jess puts her life in the hands of Leo, dangerous and mysterious he seems as desperate to find his family as she is to find hers.

As the remaining world crumbles around them Jess and Leo set out in search of those they loved, facing dangers they could never have imagined both from others and from themselves and all the while the virus is still very much alive, adapting and changing and ready to infect anyone who is no longer immune...


The door swung open easily to reveal a bedroom, a child’s bedroom, all frills and flowers. The bed was made, the curtains open. Dusty plastic toys spilled out of an open toy box, mouldy picture books lined the windowsill.
It was empty.
The second door opened into a bathroom – a mildew, mould filled bathroom. The bath was almost blue with fungus and the toilet was yellow with encrusted grime.
The smell pushed through my mask so that I had to steady myself on the banister to stop from vomiting.
It was awful – truly awful, the smell of the end of the world.
I don’t know what I expected to find in the last room, more of the same perhaps?
I know that at this point I did not expect to find a person because surely no one would be living in such a hovel; no one had lived in it for years. The adults and the child must have left, maybe when the virus hit – they must have left and hid elsewhere.
I pushed open the last door slowly, my hand clutching at the heavy torch – just in case.
The door opened and I looked and then I gasped.
A bedroom, another bedroom - the parent's bedroom.
And it was light, no net, no curtains to stop the weak rays of the sun filtering in through the outer grime, I could see... everything.
Everything.
The smell alone would have been enough to send me reeling back becuase it was a hundred times worse than the bathroom but that wasn’t what sent me running down the stairs and out of the back door to grab my mask from my face and vomit my entire stomach contents up over the path.
What sent me running were the people.
The people lying on the bed.
The three dead people.
The three decomposed people, skeletal arms wrapped round each other, eye sockets empty, wide and unseeing a rotting, filthy blanket lying over them.
The three infected people.

A Time To Wait

I hate waiting for things, I am by my very nature an impatient person.
I'm impatient when I see a movie (what's going to happen!), impatient downloading files (stupid ISP!), impatient doing my weekly grocery shop (fast lane? call this the fast lane!) - impatient all round.

Now I've never really seen this as a bad thing, my impatience has stood me in good stead in many areas of my life (I write my books really quickly - I'm impatient to see the ending)- and in the areas it hasn't, well... I've become very good at hiding it.
See me in the monster one o clock post office queue about to send out my manuscript and you would see a calm, patient looking woman waiting sedately for her turn, she won't even raise a brow at the screaming children or even frown at the chatty counter staff who are holding everyone up.
Even in the doctor's office, waiting one hour past her pre-alloted appointment time you won't see her striding up to the counter and demanding to know why her time is deemed less important than the doctor's. (and yes I really have seen people do this)

My impatience is manageable, I can deal with it in pretty much every area of my life, but now... I have to admit I am finding it very difficult.
This waiting, this waiting for something I really really want... ahh it's unbearable.
The phone rings and I jump (even though theres like a one in a million chance it's an agent), I check the post as soon as I'm through the door, I check my e-mails every single hour!!!!!!!!

I'm waiting and waiting and drowning in impatience.

Will it be worth it? Will my impatience be answered?
I am, of course waiting impatiently to find out...

Geez Louise how many would be writers are there?

So now that my submissions have gone a flying it's down to the editing, my least favourite part of the process.

In an effort to avoid it I have been 'researching' on the net.
Now of all the perks of being a writer this has got to be the best (I might change my mind when the cheques show up but until that happy day researching it is).

'What'cha doin' mom?' my daughter asks as I prowl a random website called the dullest blog ever, 'What? Er... researching...' I say with a completely straight face, 'For the next book you know.' She nods understandingly.
'Are you on facebook again?' A voice pipes up, 'I'm promoting the book!' I reply, 'Networking!' I mean honestly as if I was playing tetris again...
'Checking you e-mails for the fifth time today?' 'What! No! I mean gosh I'm looking for replies from agents not talking to my friends...'

Ah yes the joys of researching... really I can't wait till the day comes, 'You're going to Italy?' 'Well yes, I'm thinking of setting the next book there and I need to understand it properly... I'm sooo not going to eat icecream and admire young fit Italian men!'
You get the picture.

So I'm been surfing the net 'researching' when I realise something that I really wish I hadn't.
There are a lot of writers out there. And I mean a lot.
I'm signed up to all the facebook and Myspace writing groups and they're just... like full, everyone wants to be a writer, no scratch that, everyone is a writer.
Some of the stuff I've stumbled across is really interesting and you kinda think it's only a matter of time before you see their books on the shelves, but some... some stuff I've looked over, well I'm not sure what to say.
Now before you jump in... yes I know I'm hardly Shakespeare but I like to think I can string a decent sentence together... some of these people... well, words really do fail me.
Think X-Factor, think the funny auditions, the Oh My God do they really think they can sing moments. Yes it really is like that.

And now I'm thinking their submissions are sat in the pile next to mine and the agent is going to read through them all and by the time she gets to mine will she have jumped out of a window in despair?
Could I blame her if she did?

Its like when you're at a party and a random stranger asks what you do and you say 'Well in the day I'm a sewage cleaner/sorter but I'm hoping to get my first book published soon.' 'Ooooh they reply, I've always felt like I've got a book in me.' or 'Yes I've never wrote anything myself but I like to think I'm a writer as well.' or 'Yes I've always thought I could write... it can't be that difficult can it?'
Enter much grinding of teeth and pulling of hair, no it's not that difficult, six hours a night for the last year... lost all my friends, boyfriend's left me... my hairs falling out... nope not that difficult anyone could do it.

And that must be true because anyone seems to think they can. Don't believe me? Just take a wander around all the writers sites and have a read.

Editors note: Has Emma just become bitter? Is she losing the will to live or does she just need to feel the good karma? Comment now!!!!

The waiting starts...

So off they have gone, my A4 sized packages winging their way to a select bunch of literary agents.

I can imagine them now making their way through the postal system, being handled by postie after postie - none of whom would have the slightest idea that they're holding years of work in their hands... holding a tiny little bit of me.
And then within the next couple of days they will land on various door mats or fall into postboxes and then...

Then I wait.

Because so far as I can tell when it arrives with the agent, once it is date stamped and recorded and so on my submission is added to a pile, a very very large pile.

A totteringly large pile (think leaning tower of Piza size pile, think chocolate wrapper size pile after a sex and the city session, think... well you get the drift)

Agents get hundreds of submissions every week - and within those hundreds my one little submission has to stand out enough to capture their attention.
No scratch that it has to stand out a lot.
It has to have that something, that elusive bit of oomph that will make an agent think, make them stop what they're doing and consider...
Can I take a bet on this person, are they good enough, do I like the sound of them, will they make me money?
And I have to convince them of all of this and more in an intro letter a synopsis and my three chapters.
Urggghhh
I've had to do more for normal jobs, jobs I didn't even want... all day psychometric testing, presentations, group discussions - as annoying as these were they gave me a chance, a chance to sell myself... trying to catch an agent with so little info leaves me feeling edgy and fretful.

Is it enough I worry, have I done enough, will someone, somewhere stop and consider... will they take a bet on me...

The waiting starts here... I'll keep you posted...

To submit or not to submit

Trusty copy of the Writers and Artists Yearbook clutched tightly to my chest, check.
Envelopes, check.
Stamp roll, check.
Printer cartidge... hmmm... just about.
Check, check, check... because yes it is time.
It is time...

After a year or plot outlines, character development, editing and reworking, after a year of sleepless night, insomnia, red rimmed eyes and far too many bars of chocolate the time has come for the next step.

Time to try and catch an agent...

So where to start, the yearbook of course, the hopeful winds of fate breezing in my direction and a large slathering of luck.
Because I have heard, from everyone I have spoken to that trying to find an agent is like trying to build a sandcastle in the middle of the ocean.
Finding an agent I have been told is the holy grail of publishing.
Finding an agent is harder than dieting (including me dieting!)
Finding an agent... is well you get the point... rather difficult.

And I'm about to enter those murky waters.
The printer is chugging (actually it sounds like its about to die) the chapters are coming out, the intro letter is polished, the synopsis is ready... its time to submit...

It begins

It begins...

Ok let me disclaimer straight away, I am by no means encouraging stalkage of publishers or anyone connected to said publishers. The title of this blog is meant to be humorous and eye catching and I certainly do not encourage any stalk related activities (except by me). Publishers do not take kindly to repeated e-mails, constant phone calls and late night visits... not that I would know of course, having never done any of these things... ever... never...

Anyhows moving swiftly on... so what is this blog about, well I guess its all about me (no no not a vanity blog!!!) its about my attempts to become a published author.
Yes a real life, books in the shop, actual readers, real life author.

I think I've always wanted to be a writer but I got a little lost along the way - real life intruded and it was always something I would do as soon as I got time. I took a science degree and got a job to feed myself and writing was something I did in my spare time, articles, news letters and the beginnings of my very first (woefully poor) books.
Then about two years ago something strange started to happen, my head started filling up with stories, it was like someone had turned on an antennae and all of a sudden I was getting all these ideas - I don't know where they came from, but come they did.
I started to write them down purely because I had to, I had to get them out of my head and bring them to life somewhere. My characters were talking to me, appearing in my dreams and generally demanding I make them real. And so in the interests of my mental health thats what I did.

Its been a long long road for the last two years, my characters have not been easy to live with and neither have I. I work full time, have two children an evening job and numerous hobbies and they have all suffered because of my writing. I realised quite quickly that I really needed to get published and regain some balance in my life. Oooh and get some sleep - surviving on 5/6 hours a night does absolutely nothing for my skin!

So here goes, it begins... the rocky road to publication... I will keep you posted...

http://www.emmashortt.co.uk/

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