Just a quick message to let you all know that my novel, Festival Fireworks, is published today and is available here:
It’s on at its special price of 99p but only till Monday, when you’ll have to pay full price for it. So don’t miss out!
I hope you all enjoy it and please review it for me.
Thank you.
There is nothing like moving house for raising stress levels to dangerous heights. It’s not the clearing out and packing that does it, no, it’s dealing with those organisations which appear to have been set up to provide the highest level of annoyance in the shortest possible time. Take phoning them up for instance; a long number followed by a long spiel about this and that, followed by a variety of numbers to press to get you through to another series of numbers till eventually, eventually you hear a human voice. Only to have it tell you that it’s going to cost you a lot of money to transfer/cancel/change whatever it is you’ve got with them.
Thank heavens for books and Jane Austen in particular! When I feel stressed I turn to her and this time it’s Mansfield Park. It’s quite a long time since I read it and I’ve discovered I’d forgotten quite a bit of the story. I remembered the part about the theatricals and the displeasure of Mr Bertram but I didn’t remember what came after. Fanny Price is such an insipid little thing that she wouldn’t stand a chance nowadays but then she was admired for her high principles and quiet ways. She’s in no way like the sparkling Elizabeth Bennet or the interfering, high-handed Emma Woodhouse; more like Jane Bennet perhaps, but even less confident of her charms.
Another book I reread recently was Jo Baker’s take on Pride and Prejudice from the servants’ point of view, Longbourn. Hill is given an interesting backstory which sheds a different light on the Bennets and on the master of the house in particular.
It’s glorious to escape into a book and put the day’s problems to one side. I’ve also read Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman, a wonderful book with a feel-good message for all of us introverts who have ever felt apart from the mainstream of life, who have felt awkward amongst people, who have never fitted in – for everyone in fact.
All these books could be classed as romantic fiction; the heroines get their fella at the end, or are well on the road to doing so but you’d never find them alongside the Miils and Boon titles on the site of that great river of books purveyor.
So what makes them different? The quality of the writing for starters, the development of the characters, the depth and realism of the emotions portrayed – all add up to a rich and satisfying read and one which guarantees an escape from the trials of everyday life.
And I can’t miss out on a plug for my take on the genre – Festival Fireworks, published as an ebook on April 18th at its full price of $3.99 but available on a special pre-order cost of $1.39/99p.
March is Scottish Association of Writers conference time which I blogged about this time last year. And here I was again, arriving with my suitcase, greeting friends I hadn’t seen since then and eagerly scanning the programme to see what was on offer.
Last year I was an adjudicator with lots of things to do and a workshop to run, but this year I could relax and take things easy and enjoy attending all sorts of talks and workshops (and pick up some tips from other adjudicators!)
Our Club Winners
Party Time
Friday evening always starts for our members with a gathering in the biggest bedroom for a wee drink and catch up before dinner. Then the exciting bit – the results of the competitions, or at least some of them. It continues on Saturday morning when the clubs’ tallies of trophies is assessed. This year, the Perth club took the honours, while in the Poetry competition, the Angus club swept the board.
What with workshops, book sales, informal get-togethers and loads and loads of food, it’s a hectic and filled (and filling!) weekend.
More Avid Listeners
Avid Listeners
My best moment came when in the middle of a seminar, I heard my phone and quickly checked it to find that my second novel had just been accepted by Tirgearr Publishing. Unable to shriek with joy, jump up and down or generally celebrate as I wanted to, I sat there with a silly grin on my face until I could leave and go skipping along the corridor to tell my writerly mates.
There’s a grand gala dinner when the trophies are presented and this year’s guest speaker was Simon Brett who entertained us royally with spoofs of Nordic Noir, Agatha Christie and sundry other characters from his rich repertoire.
…and the speaker, Simon Brett
The Gala Dinner…
Sunday saw a new President and Vice-president voted in – Wendy Jones took over from Marc Sherland as president, and Gillian Duff became Vice-president in place of Jen Butler. They both have a hard act to follow but I’m sure they’ll be very successful.
As we say in this part of the world, ma heid’s nippin, filled with information, ideas, tips and contacts which I need to digest and act on.
But meantime, there’s a house move to organise and next year, I’ll be arriving at the conference from the other side of the country. Can’t wait!
Changes are afoot in the Burnett household; we are moving across country to the east of Scotland. A new house, a new town, a new area to explore, new friends to make…
All very exciting but breaking up a home where we’ve lived for nearly thirty years is hard work, both physical and emotional.
My office where I work, has had a good clear out of thirty years of writing.
I’ll keep all my published work which at the moment fills almost an entire bookcase, what with the 250 Postman Pat comic scripts and annuals I wrote, the hundred or so BBC radio and TV programmes I scripted, the numerous articles on all sorts of subjects I wrote for magazines and online sites, and the magazine short stories published here and abroad. And then there were the many writing workshops I ran and the materials I prepared for them.
But as well as the ‘successful’ pieces, there were very many more rejected manuscripts – hundreds of them in fact. For every piece I had accepted, there were ten ‘failures’ which I kept, just in case I could work on them or a market came up which would be suitable or because I didn’t want to throw them out.
Well, I have now. Reading them over, I can see exactly why they were rejected and I tossed them all out – they weren’t worth saving after all.
I also found my first piece that I entered into a club competition many years ago and received a crit for. The adjudicator had attached a single line of type to my manuscript which said:
Hackneyed. Full of clichés. Subject has been done many times before.
I was devastated when I read that and almost gave up writing there and then. But it taught me a valuable lesson; temper your criticism with kindness and encouragement. Make it like a sandwich with some positive comments at the start, the meat on how the writer can improve it in the middle, and a final positive note of encouragement at the end. When I’ve been an adjudicator, I’ve always tried to do that. The memory of my first crit still rankles!
I’m looking forward to the newness of everything, home, area, friends, and hoping it acts as a stimulus to more writing. But first, there are a few more cupboards to empty. Let’s hope I don’t find any skeletons – or maybe, as a writer, I should look out for them. You never know where they can lead.
My latest book, Festival Fireworks, published by Tirgearr, is now available to pre-order for Kindle at a special price of only $1.39c/99p. I hope you enjoy reading it!
Twenty-seven year old Aussie, Jill Kennedy, has arrived in Edinburgh during the festival and is staying in her aunt’s empty flat. Immediately, she crosses swords with her new neighbour, Andrew MacCallum-Blair. To make things worse, she discovers he’s her boss in the temporary job she’s taken so she can afford to see Scotland.
For his part, Andrew has decided to harden his heart against falling in love again but Jill’s fresh and frank approach to life threaten to break down the barricades he’s erected around his heart.
Jill can’t understand Andrew’s changing moods, and even more, her own confused feelings for ‘Mr Bossy’, as she has nicknamed him.
As fireworks burst over Edinburgh Castle, Jill and Andrew must decide whether the fireworks sparking between them will lead to love or a parting of the ways.
And here’s the link to my Tirgearr author page.
I am thoroughly enjoying reading Marriage by Susan Ferrier. I had never heard of this author, yet she was a very successful writer in the nineteenth century and her books were much admired by Sir Walter Scott. In fact, she earned far more from her writing than Jane Austen herself. But her name has disappeared from readers’ minds.
Thanks to the Scottish writer, Val McDermid, that, hopefully, will change soon. She is publicising Ferrier’s work by having it illuminated across buildings in Edinburgh, Susan’s home town. Follow the link to read all about it.
Marriage is set in Edinburgh, the Highlands and London and follows two generations of women, mother and daughter, with very different views of life and love. Lady Juliana elopes with her lover, whom she marries and almost instantly regrets it when she meets up with his family in the Highlands. One of her daughters, Mary, is brought up by her aunt there while Lady Juliana returns to London and life, as she sees it. Mary eventually joins her there but is not enamoured of her mother and her behaviour.
Throughout, Ferrier’s wit and humour enliven the story and her telling little details of Scottish life in the capital and in the north, as well as her knowledge of London society, combine to produce a story to rival that of Austen at her best.
I can’t tell you the ending as I’m not there yet, but I wouldn’t spoil it for any of you potential readers even if I did.
The Roman God Janus is always depicted as looking both ways – back to the past and forwards into the future.
So, looking back: 2017 was quite a year. I self-published two books, A Drop of Rainbow Magic for children and an illustrated memoir,A Scottish Childhood; Growing Up a Baby Boomer.
On top of all that, I spoke and adjudicated competitions at a couple of events, ran several workshops on various aspects of writing, attended conferences and lunches organised by the Scottish Association of Writers and the Society of Authors in Scotland, did readings and sold books at book fairs, as well as writing a children’s book (rejected but still trying!) and revising a novel which was accepted by a publisher.
And in 2018? I’ve finished the first round of editing for the novel, Festival Fireworks, so it’s on to having the cover designed ready for its launch in the spring. I’m 22,000 words into another novel, thanks to the push of NaNoWriMo, and I want to get a move on with that this month.
Who knows what else I’ll get up to? It’s exciting looking forward but also there’s a bit of trepidation too. Anything can happen.
Janus was also the god of beginnings and endings, of gates and portals; in times of peace his gates were closed and only opened in times of war.
Let us hope that in 2018 his gates remain firmly closed to war and that he heralds new beginnings for us all.
A Happy New Year to all my friends and followers!
It was off to Edinburgh on a clear, very cold morning for the Society of Authors Christmas lunch. As the train travelled up the coast towards Glasgow, I could see the Isle of Arran glittering in its light dusting of snow. The quiet, peaceful scene was soon shattered when we reached Glasgow and its hordes of shoppers already out looking for Christmas bargains.
The train to Edinburgh was packed. Were they all going there to shop? What was wrong with the Glasgow shops? Or were the trains going the opposite way also packed with people coming to Glasgow to shop? I sat beside a lovely young Polish family, the two girls practising their knowledge of the language while writing and drawing. They were very talented young artists so I couldn’t resist handing over a couple of my bookmarks and suggesting they buy A Drop of Rainbow Magic where they could be the illustrators of the stories. Never miss an opportunity – that’s my motto!
Edinburgh is a city of stairs and steps and we climbed the Scotsman Steps, all 105 of them to reach our venue in the Royal Mile, the Radisson Blu hotel, reputed to be haunted!
Lunch was a constant babble of voices as we chatted and caught up with friends, but not a ghost was to be seen, fortunately.
Two of my fellow Tirgearr authors were there and they filled me in on what to expect as I went through the processing of editing, launching and publicising my book. (Festival Fireworks in case you’re asking, out in March 2018. And set in Edinburgh too.)
Self-publishing, virtual book launches and book and craft fairs were other topics I learned a lot about from speaking to other authors and I came away with plenty to mull over and swot up. 
And Scotrail decided that after all that lovely food and drink, we would need some exercise to walk it off. So after climbing down the Scotsman Steps again to Waverley Station, we crossed and recrossed the station trying to find a train going to Glasgow that wasn’t cancelled. Third time lucky, we squeezed into a carriage and set off home.
Why is it that the trains to and from Ayr to Glasgow are long, comfortable with plenty of seats and lovely views while the trains between the two main cities in Scotland are much smaller, cramped, packed out and liable to be cancelled there and then? Or is that a question for another time, another blog?
But we all had a lovely day and many thanks to the President Linda Strachan and her committee for organising it all. Here’s to the next one!
This week has been celebrated as Book Week Scotland when writers all over the country have left their garrets and travelled the length and breadth of the country talking about books and writing and more books and more writing.
My friend Michael J Malone has been touring the west coast talking about his new book, House of Spines. (Cracking great read! I recommend it.) He’s been to Rothesay, Dunoon, Millport, Tobermory and …er…Wishaw. Definitely not on the west coast, that one!
The Pencil, Largs
For my part, I was in Largs, not as part of Book Week but to do some research for my next novel. It was a beautiful sunny clear day with the temperature just hovering above freezing as we walked along the shore to the Pencil monument commemorating the Battle of Largs in 1263, and then on to the Marina, filled with yachts of all shapes and sizes, mainly parked up until the spring. And there was a very welcome restaurant where we had coffee and Danishes and thawed out before we walked all the way back.
Then it was to Perthshire, and past the Ochil Hills just tinged with snow, to the Auchterarder Book Fair, part of their celebration of Book Week. We set up our stalls, or rather tables, in the hall with our books on display. I was surrounded by historical novels, crime, science fiction and fantasy, and did I detect an element of competition as we tried to attract customers to look at our books and hopefully buy one?
I was one of the authors who gave a short talk about their writing life, starting with my five years with Postman Pat and moving on to the present day and A Scottish Childhood, and the future with my novel Festival Fireworks.
And all this gallivanting doesn’t stop there. Next weekend is the Society of Authors Christmas lunch in Edinburgh where there will be many friends to catch up with and have a jolly, merry afternoon.
Can’t not mention the success at the Imprint Writing Awards of members of Ayr Writers Club. Six members were shortlisted and the club scooped 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the poetry section, (one member winning two prizes) and 1st and 2nd in the short story. It’s a sign of a very vibrant and talented club and one I’m pleased to belong to.
Shortlisted for Imprint
I designed some new bookmarks to publicise my recent books, ordered a large number and was pleased when they were promptly delivered.
Two days later (and yes, it took me all that time) I spotted a typo on them that I’d missed. To say I was furious is an understatement. I pride myself on my ability to spot an error in a manuscript at ten paces but I had totally missed this one. And not only that, despite reading and admiring them over the two days, I still hadn’t seen the mistake. 
I had made some last minute changes to the wording and in a rush to get the order away in time for the various book fairs coming up, I hadn’t paused to calm down, put on my proof-reading hat and read the wording carefully. I even signed the disclaimer saying I had checked the spelling etc and was happy with everything!
Now all I can see on the bookmark is the typo. It jumps out at me whenever I look at it.
Why is it so hard to proof read your own work? Why can’t we see our own mistakes, yet can spot other people’s right away? Because we read what we think we wrote, not what our clumsy fingers actually typed. Other people’s work is new to us and we don’t have those preconceptions so we read what is actually there and thus spot the typos.
I got some friends to read over one of my books for me and what they picked up that could be improved was quite astonishing. And of course, once I’d had them pointed out to me, I couldn’t miss them.
And I’m probably not as good as I liked to think I was! I once sat a proof-reading test but failed miserably after failing to spot a huge spelling error in the second line!
So one of the morals of this sorry tale is always get someone else to read what you’ve written, no matter how short. But failing that, don’t rush, take your time, go and have a coffee and then come back to it.
However, I remembered the story I heard of how the weavers of those beautiful Persian carpets always wove a tiny mistake somewhere into them as they believed that only Allah was perfect and we mere mortals are imperfect. Googling it, I discovered that such a belief is common in a variety of religions. In North America, the Navaho Indians always weave an imperfection into a corner of a rug as that’s where the spirit moves in and out of the rug.
The Amish quilters apparently also share that belief.
“One of the first bits of wisdom imparted to a novice quilter is that the Amish, who make some of the most simple but exquisite quilts in the world, purposely plan a mistake into each of their projects because they believe attempts at human perfection mock God. Of course, any quilter knows that you don’t have to plan for imperfections in your work; they come quite naturally on their own, so I don’t know if this bit of Amish folklore rings true or not, but the idea does.”
from A Single Thread by Marie Bostwick
As a knitter and cross-stitcher, I can tell you how hard it is to create perfection and all my pieces have mistakes in them somewhere and not deliberate either.
So perhaps I should be kinder to myself and not rail about one small typo which could well pass unnoticed by most people.
No prizes for spotting it on my bookmark either!
ann burnett 