Award Winning…

No, no, not me personally – but I did contribute to an Anthology that has just won an award. An award for Best Collected Work, no less!

Tales for Canterbury was entered into the Sir Julius Vogel awards earlier this year. When it was nominated, we were all very chuffed about it, but never ever expected that it would actually have a shot at winning the award. But it did. It’s not that I don’t have faith… it’s just that it was up against some very big competition, and yet it still managed to pull through.

Anna Caro and Cassie Hart pulled together this Charity Anthology almost in record time last year after the February 22^nd Canterbury Earthquake. This meant sending out word to authors all over the place, reading through and accepting or rejecting work, then having the joy of editing it, and finally pulling it into a beautiful polished piece. Now as the crowning jewel, it has won the Sir Julius Vogel award for Best Collected Work.

So… A huge congratulations goes out to all of my fellow authors in this collection, as well as to our amazing editors – Anna and Cassie. I feel very privileged to have worked with them to be published alongside this brilliant collection of authors.

Go check them out: RJ Astruc, Philippa Ballantine, Jesse Bullington, Anna Caro, Cat Connor, Brenda Cooper, Debbie Cowens, Matt Cowens, Merrilee Faber, AJ Fitzwater, Janis Freegard, Neil Gaiman, Cassie Hart, A.M. Harte¸ Karen Healey, Lynne Jamneck, Patty Jansen, Gwyneth Jones, Tim Jones, Kim Koning, Jay Lake, Helen Lowe, Kate Mahony, Tina Makereti, Juliet Marillier, Angel Leigh McCoy, Linda Niccol, Ripley Patton, Simon Petrie, Grant Stone, Jeff Vandermeer, Mary Victoria, and Sean Williams

There are still a few copies of Tales for Canterbury left if anyone wants to buy one. But you only have until the end of June to get your hands on it. After that, Tales for Canterbury will be wrapped up and finished.

That’s all for now… much excitement, happiness, and satisfaction on a job well done J

 

Middle Book Blues Magic | Leigh K Hunt (via Wrestling the Muse)

One of my good writing friends asked me to guest post on her blog. So, feeling very privileged, I drafted up a post and sent it through to her.

If you wish to have a read, head on over to Kim’s blog to discover my woes with the Middle Book Blues and how I learnt how to fight them.

Happy reading!

Today I have the pleasure of Leigh K Hunt guest posting. She comes with a wand of magic dust that she is going to use to blow magic back into your manuscript. We all have those times in a manuscript when we hit a crossroads. We may have been excited by the beginning and can’t wait to write the climax but then there is that pesky middle that we have to get through. We know we have to get through it, there is no other way to the climax. We may read … Read More

via Wrestling the Muse

 

Who said writing was a solitary profession?

So, I just thought that I would write a quicky blog about my day today.

7000 words later, and here I am… tired, exhausted, satisfied… Damn this is almost better than ………..!

My good friend and Critique Partner, Kim Koning, told me this morning that she was going to attempt to write 10,000 words. So since I had nothing better to do apart from go to the market, lunch with my mother in law, and a dinner date – I though ‘why not word war with my buddy to help keep her motivated.’

And so I did. All day. We had plenty of scheduled breaks, but five and a half hour worth of work later, we each had more than 7000 sitting on our plates. And do you know what this means?

This means that if I manage to crank out another 10,000 or so words between now and the next five days – I would have finished this book by my goal time that I set. And I probably wouldn’t have been able to even get close if Kim hadn’t decided to try the impossible but yet possible task of writing 10,000 words in a day.

So… whether or not I meet my goal will be a different story – but I just thought that I would blog about my 7000+ words day… as I don’t think that this will be a very common occurrence in my writing life. Something to celebrate. Just a little celebration….probably more like a pat on the back. But I feel better, and my characters are all in turmoil, and the end of this book is very close.

 

When it rains, it pours

It appears that this blog has made another impression on someone today. Kim Koning at Dragonfly Scrolls has decided that I should be awarded the ‘Stylish Blogger’ award as well.

It’s funny, you know, as I have been seriously contemplating giving my blog a bit of a facelift so that it aligns better to my new website: Leigh K Hunt – A Parchment Journey. So, hopefully it will look a lot smarter and more along the lines of a ‘thriller writer’s’ blog. So, who knows, next time you see this blog it might just be in a different style – you never know.

Consider this the pre-warning of things that may be to come. (If I find a theme that I actually like.)

Oh, and the picture of the dragon? Well, that’s my wee welsh dragon that sits on top of my writing desk in our bedroom. Posting it on here for Deena Remiel… since she asked to see it. She believes in angels… I believe in dragons.