Rae of Light

Since the middle of May I've been completely caught up in getting the first 50 pages of SDT honed and ready to send off to Cape at Random House .  I haven't felt so nervous since my competitive skating days.  But I breathed deep and finally clicked SEND on Wednesday 25th.  Just thinking about it makes me hyperventilate ever so slightly. So it's been a huge relief to work on the blog, especially as Sarah has delivered yet another stunning drawing. I can't wait to see what she has to offer when I next meet up with her. Here is Sarah's Queen Aurelia. Aurelia was never meant to rule Faetaera . She trained with her father's guards and planned to travel and meet adventure before it met her. But the War to End All Wars put a stop to that. “ Aurelia stood to receive her father, laying her sword on the stool she had occupied. Her legs no longer feeling that they belonged to her, she forced herself to take the necessary steps t...

Here is Sarah's most recent drawing. This is Larell Lac Taal. He is the security chief for The Citadel of Faetaera. Larell takes his job seriously as Queen Aurelia (more about her to come in a subsequent blog) specifically chose him for the job. “ To others these small inconsistencies in Faetaera would seem insignificant. Unless, they had an inbuilt distrust of anything more out of the ordinary than usual. Why was he wired this way? He wasn’t sure. It certainly made for an interesting youth but now in his middle years he was less enthralled by this quirk. The queen was only too aware of it. She told him it was the main reason she had appointed him as head of security, a post never before held within the kingdom. That she felt the need for the position was disturbing in itself. Larell had been unable to decline her offer. ” © Rae Stoltenkamp His character is led first and foremost by duty. He puts his personal needs aside to do what must be...

I can't continue telling you about SDT without explaining about Faetaera  (pronounced Fay-terra) . The novel is nothing without this fairy world. It is intrinsically linked with events in Alanna's life. She  inadvertently  becomes aware of it when she discovers that her mother is ill. " Alanna was certain she saw a previously unnoticed jaundiced nimbus around her mother's seated figure. And a host of nightmare creatures consisting mainly of sharp dark claws and daggers were hacking away at Moxi's aura, tearing jagged holes, leaving ugly serrated edges; all the while grimacing with pleasure. "   © Rae Stoltenkamp Alanna is pulled into it further when she meets the pixie Sprax who she believes she has manifested through a kind of spell she created when she wrote a WANTED ad at the back of her sketch book. She is fully convinced she has conjured him into being when he appears shortly after she has written this ad. He mentions ot...

I thought writing the novel was hard. I mean, it's taken me 5 years to get to this point. But let me tell you – doing the synopsis is hell. Figuring out how to synthesis 80.000 words into 300 and   explain what the novel's central themes are along with the basic plot seems nigh on impossible.   But it has to be done. I'm planning on sending the novel off for an open submission which closes in June. Not to mention a few other competitions and open submissions fighting for my attention. The work of a writer after completing the novel is never done it would seem. Of course, I also have to write a synopsis which will make agents, publishers and competition judges think my book is worth reading. Aaaaaaargh! The re-ordered novel In my bid to get to grips with the synopsis I spread the novel out on my living room floor and tried to view it as a map. This was useful as it gave me valuable insight into the structure of my novel. It also made m...

Most of my friends and writing support network knows that I'm working on my second novel – Sharp Dark Things [ SDT ]. The thing which has always left me floundering with regards this novel is that I feel it is essential that sections of it be illustrated. I found an illustrator a couple of years ago but things didn't work out. The main problem is that I can't afford to pay my illustrator and so can only offer shared notoriety once the book is published. Please take note of the positivity here. Not an if in sight. The prospect of finding an illustrator crazy enough to go along with me seemed impossible, but life has a wonderful way of throwing you what you need . Enter the exuberant Miss Sarah Pennock. I met the lovely Sarah through my work with Inkhead Creative Writing . I watched her create a sketch of an Olympic swimmer from descriptions provided by a group of children attending a writing workshop and knew I had to ask h...

Us writers give ourselves a really tough time about how much writing we get done. We beat ourselves up about whether our characters are convincing enough or if we've used too many clichés or adverbs. We agonise over word count and have endless inner debates about the merits of a word in a sentence or the construction of a sentence to clarify meaning. We worry that we'll befuddle our readers or over egg a description. Writers have indeed turned self flagellation into an art. So I feel it's crucial that we also do a serious amount of R&R. In my view this should involve indulging in your vice of the moment to the max. We writers live on the edge when it comes to our attempts to deliver a piece of writing worthy of our audience. I feel our readers may think the writing process is all too easy. After all, we only have to sit down and write something. How hard can that be? So it seems only fair that we should be allowed to be a little extreme when ...

Sydnee Blake was born in New York, lived in France but spent most of her working life in London.  She has been an actor, theatre director and teacher.  Her stories appeared in Worldwide Writers and Brittle Star .  They have also been placed in awards, including The Ian St James, The New Writer and Fish.  She has two sons and four grandchildren. It’s published!   I have my book Finding Words in Whitechapel and other stories. It looks beautiful BUT the cost. The journey… The adventure began a year ago with a small publisher, who will remain nameless. For £680.00 my master-piece received Publishing Services: Title set-up and administration, an ISBN allocation, legal deposit, bar code which resulted in a 250 gsm printed full colour outside only paperback book. Print on demand = £3.46 for each copy. Less for large orders, of course. Okay. I had friends do the cover, friends edited my book and that saved me a lot but what happens...