Onwards & Upwards

Welcome to our revamped blog, Francesca and I are proud of ourselves for achieving this new look.
I can’t believe Christmas has come and gone and we are now into 2015, where did 2014 go?

Every year, January is about fresh starts, turning over a new leaf and making resolutions, with most of us breaking them within days. For this reason I decided a long time ago to stop making them, it had a feeling of starting the year on a negative foot, so 2015 is all about feeling the love, positive energy and thoughts, after all the world is our oyster.

Regular readers of this blog will know we have downsized from five writers to two but our content will not be downsizing, so we hope you will still enjoy reading and commenting on our posts.

With my day job and the lead up to Christmas I gave up trying to write anything in December so I need to get to know my characters again, refresh my memory of where I am in my current work in progress, despite having another idea bubbling away in my mind for my next novel. I often wonder how other people manage with juggling work, family and writing, or anything else that consumes them as an interest that they would like to take further.

Last summer I sent two very different novel manuscripts to publishers. Fingers, and everything else, are crossed in the hope that at least one of them comes to fruition, making me eligible for the Joan Hessian Award and a full member of the Romantic Novelist Association (RNA). What a great start to 2015 that would make, so watch this space.

January is also the time to become a member of the RNA New Writer’s Scheme, I joined two years ago when my children gave me the money at Christmas and what a wonderful present it turned out to be. It has given me serious encouragement. The critique service and the conferences, with the many seminars and available meetings with agents/publishers, are worth their weight in gold. Then there’s the networking and the guidance that other writers freely offer, it’s always good to know you’re not on your own with the trials and tribulations of becoming a published author. My advice to any new members is to be motivated and utilise it to the fullest, as the rewards are great.

In fact, may I be so bold to suggest that if you have anything you are passionately interested in achieving, start putting your building blocks in place to achieve your goal, let 2015 be a year to remember for all the right reasons.

Good Luck.

 Elaine Roberts