Saturday 15 January 2011

Writing plans for the month - I'm entering a competition!

Originally I was working on A Price Worth Paying. However, as of yesterday (with thanks to the people who have already encouraged me to do this), I'm changing my wip.

There is nothing wrong with APWP. I love it, Muse loves it, and we both want to work on it.

However, there is this thing called a deadline. No, I'm not published (yet!). I fully intend (barring events out of my control) to participate in the Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Award 2011.

The deadline is 25th Feb (just under 6 weeks away).

I can't submit Inescpable Ties because it is double the required length of 15-35k. And it is most definitely Young Adult.

I thought it wouldn't be too much trouble to figure out a story before then. It was scary, but doable. Then inspiration hit.

Muse reminded me about Diplomatic Disaster. It does involve Safiya, but it's a little later on her life when she's a member of ISFU. The protagonist is a few years  younger than Safiya, which fits in for the 9-12 year old readership.

So far I've got 4 chapters written. I know I'll need to split some of them because they are quite long. I'm nearly 1/3 through the story already (it's weird writing shorter stories! But the original version of IT was 33k, so I know I can do it).

It'll be good experience to write to a specific deadline (yes I'm feeling the pressure already!), and I'll keep you posted if there's any news :)

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