Jenni's Off-Grid Newsletter No 55: Off-Grid Writer's Summer
December 16, 2024
My year has been taken up with writing my latest novel, finished! (well first round at least) and sent off, and now the endless wait starts. This cartoon is not far off the mark for most writers; a standard productive day.
It is a long process, the birth of a novel. First, for this one, a year of research, then 10 months of 8-hour days writing and re-writing including a three-month writing class with Curtis Brown Creative where I 'workshopped' it, then querying agents (can take six months to a year) and if that bears fruit, waiting with fingers and eyes crossed while the agent tries to convince a publisher to take it on, then more revising and editing and finally probably about 18 months later it might be published! Then of course the marketing... Or I might have shoved it in the bottom drawer, or more likely self-published it (which would be much faster... but this novel I hope might be one that a traditional publisher will be interested in).
But once the novel has been written and it has been sent off to a few agents, there is nothing to do but wait and dream and hope and do the sorts of things normal sensible people do which is a strange state to be in for a while. So here it is, glorious summer weather on our off-grid island at the bottom of the world and as yet almost no-one on 'our' beach, but there will be soon as Christmas arrives —although never too many as Aotea Great Barrier Island is not very easy to get to—so I can now spend some of my time reading other people's novels and even better not the novels I have mainly been reading that have been sort of research for my own 'work-in-progress'. So yesterday I did the awake, breakfast, coffee, daydream as in the cartoon but then inserted lunch in daypack, walk along the pretty walkway to the sand-dunes and down to the white sand beach and along the edge of the clear clear blue blue sea to the north end of the beach where there is shade. And a swim and a good book (definitely written by somebody else) and perhaps a nap and a dream about someone else's characters and not mine!
Novel News
'Dancing with Dragons' published in July, 2024 is doing OK. It has won
GOLD: 2024 INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER BOOK AWARDS (IPPYS), BEST FICTION, AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND-AOTEAROA/PACIFIC RIM
SILVER: 2024 READER'S FAVORITE BOOK AWARD FOR LITERARY FICTION
SEMI-FINALIST IN THE BOOKLIFE PRIZE (Publisher's Weekly)
FINALIST IN THE ZIBBY BOOK AWARDS IN (i) Best Book for Best Friend, and (ii) Best Book for Animal Lover (Winners announced in New York in late January; sadly I won't be able to attend in person!)
It is in a 'Best Cover' competition run by 'Bedside Reading' where the winner is chosen by popular vote so I shall send a quick e-mail early in January asking you to please vote for it if you like the cover! (Even if you didn't like the book or haven't read it...this is only about the cover).
The e-book is currently on sale at US$3.99 until end of December (at all online retailers).
And my three previous novels, 'A Drop in the Ocean' 'The Moon is Missing' and 'Call My Name' are all on sale at US$0.99 each until end of December. (So you can get the set for less than the price of one cup of coffee! )
FIND ALL MY BOOK RETAILER LINKS HERE
So from me down here to you wherever you are, have a lovely, relaxing and fun festive season, read a book or two, throw a snowball or have a swim and keep fingers crossed that in 2025 the world will become kinder than it has been in 2024.