Tale of a book.

This is a tale of a book, it doesn’t matter what it’s called. It was my second published book, had a short run for library distribution and then began to gather dust. This book was always a favourite of mine. It still is.

            With electronic publishing coming into its own, I got the rights back to the book, and placed it with a publisher who republishes out-of-print novels. The file had been through several computer conversions, first on floppy disks, (remember those?) compact disks, and one of those flashdrive thingies that I’ve just learned how to use. They’ve been filed as Claris, Appleworks, and whatever I’ve got now, Microsoft word, I think. I loved my Macs, all four of them. Steam Mac - Power Mac – see through IMAC  in flashy red - Skinny G Mac, and my latest, the apple of my eye, the big, bold and beautiful Mac the knife! Doc X and RTF come into it somewhere - all very confusing.

            My latest Mac has word 2008, with all its bells and whistles, and an inbuilt feature that munches the words off my old files. How did I discover the cannibalistic nature of Mac the knife? Easy. It has a handy little twiddly bit at the bottom of the file that busily counts words, adds and subtracts, and tells you what your numbers are worth from second-to-second, like an enthusiastic gnome of Zurich. A quick glance and I was informed that my original 100,000 file had shrunk to a mere 70,000 in its travels.

            Bookworms! That was my first facetious thought, quickly dispelled because everyone knows the gentle bookworm - although able to devour words in by the dozen, doesn’t keep them after they’ve been digested.  My second thought was a surprised, good gracious! (Oh shit! actually) I’ve been robbed!                          Then I remembered that Mac has a veritable zoo inside it, with leopards, tigers and a paw print called growl, so it wasn’t fair to blame the worm.”

            I’d promised the publisher to flick through the book over last weekend in case it needed a couple of spellings corrected. Hah! famous last words. I’ve just spent a week revising it. There were random sink holes everywhere, in the dialogue, the narrative, single words, paragraphs, whole pages.

            I sat there for a week, hunched over Mac the knife, my eyes darting from screen to hard copy, seeking out the blanks. I was going to compare it to the actual book, but it had one of those spines that were so rigid with glue that to spread the book open would have broken it – besides, the print was too small to read without binoculars. Luckily, I still had the old-fashioned, double-spaced hard copy of the original that had been waiting patiently in the cupboard to be useful again. There were the big words, the big spaces between lines, and the bright red corrections made by hand. Bless you, you old-fashioned hard copy. I can see why editors loved you. Nobody can siphon those little suckers off the page.

            I emerged from that exercise with a hunched back, sore eyes, no fingernails and a stiff neck. I’ve just sent the book off - electronically, of course. The computer has its uses. It made the crossing intact, completing it in 10 seconds, and receiving an answer in 10 minutes.

            Because I still haven’t been able to find the creature that chomped off 30,000 of my words, the thought occurred; could it be that my Mac tried its hand at editing when I wasn’t looking?

             Whatever? I’m just glad I decided to do a thorough job on it before sending the thing off.

Lady Lightfingers review.

Review
Appeared in
 Historical Novels Reviews, Issue 58 (November 2011)
Reviewed by 
Viviane Crystal


Lady Lightfingers
By Janet Woods


Celia Law is the daughter of an Englishwoman who was hoodwinked by the man who fathered Celia and quickly deserted both of them. Although Celia longs to take revenge against him, she is living a life in London in 1850 that requires the conniving skills he possessed. She begs and picks pockets in a crafty style that makes her victims angry but confused by her innocent looks. She is trying very hard not to turn to the life of a prostitute as her mother was forced to do out of dire poverty.
Without spoiling the story, Celia, after her mother’s brutal, untimely death, comes under the wings of one poet/scholar who does much good for the poor. It is he who encourages Celia to continue writing in the book she entitled, Famous Fictional Tales from the London Slums. Celia is then forced to escape the wiles of a woman who extorts money from prostitutes and travels to her aunt’s house, only to find only Aunt Harriet alive and welcoming. Then Celia encounters two men from her past life in London, one who is unsure about her “potential” as a socially acceptable lady and the other who is constantly drawn to her despite his words. Finally, Celia will discover some truths about her origins that will be shocking to characters and readers.
The essence of surviving poverty is not always so easy to define. Janet Woods writes in a Dickensian style but with more of a balance between the light freedom and weighty darkness of that period. Lady Lightfingers is a wonderful story that depicts the social problems of 19th-century English life but also offers a coming of age, historical story that will delight every reader. A fine, fine novel!

Secrets and Lies

Severn House UK
May 25th UK
ISBN:9789847513670
SECRETS AND LIES – Janet Woods (A sequel to Tall Poppies.)


A destructive secret is guarded by a network of lies . . . until they begin to unravel. 1933. Esmé Carr travels to Australia with her best friend in search of adventure. Left behind is Esmé’s adolescent niece.

Meggie Elliot has an imaginative and independent frame of mind, but there is mystery surrounding her birth – one she intends to unravel, despite her mother’s warnings to leave the past alone. When the truth surfaces it’s not what Meggie wants to hear, and Esmé must reconcile the rift between mother and daughter.

Celebrations!

Celebrations!

One of the pleasures in my writing life is the meeting of the Wordwrights critiquing group every month. There are six of us, taking it in turn to act as host to the other five and at each meeting we discuss the work we’d critiqued the previous month. Our monthly aim, of course, is to assess a couple of chapters of each other’s work in progress. This consists of making suggestions for improvement, checking for repeat phrases, weeding out the occasional typo, and praising the good bits, along with munching on a few goodies such as chocolate to create a feeling of well-being. The ultimate aim, of course, is for us to reach a standard where the work in progress can be published. Now and again that happens, and we celebrate with a bottle of bubbly, as well.

So an added pleasure this month was learning that the completed novel of one of our members had been accepted for publication. It’s early days yet, so I’m not going to give away any details, but will post a review for the book here at a later date – and perhaps an interview with her. This will be her first published novel. It’s a beautifully crafted fantasy by a writer with a fertile imagination and a lyrical voice, one who can sustain the story-telling ability and word-power throughout the book.

Another of our writers’ group has a publisher showing an interest in her novel, so we have fingers crossed for a favourable development regarding that one, too.

As for my own news: My next book is called “Secrets and Lies,” which is a sequel to “Tall Poppies.” It will be released in the UK in May, and is available for preorder though the usual online bookstores, and at a considerably lower price than it will be when it’s released. Details to follow when I’ve got them.

ROMANTIC INTERLUDES

It's a while since I wrote some of these romantic shorts stories, and publishing a collection of them wasn't really feasible - until electronic publishing came along.

I had fun choosing which stories would go into the collection. Those picked were stories I thought were truly romantic, as well as being a bit on the adventurous side, they also suited all age groups. Oddly - because I haven't had a dog own me for several years, I also noticed that dogs feature as secondary characters in many of my stories. So these stories will suit dog lovers, as well. Oh yes, and there's a dolphin called Dora for music lovers . . .

With that little teaser I'll wish everyone a terrific Christmas, and get back to my editing.

Runner up in the SWW,WA Bronze Quill award for poetry

I'm a novelist and short story writer. I rarely write poetry, and know nothing about structure or poetical terms. In fact, I can count on one hand the number of poems I've written. Problems I come across is never being able to judge whether my poetry efforts are actually finished, since the more I look, the more words and phrases I find to replace another word or phrase with. And what does a poet do with a poem after it's written? My small store of verse is lurking in my poetry file, never to see the light of day again. I entered this one in a competition. There were one-hundred other entries, and my offering became the runner-up. There was an amount of money and a certificate. And then, there was the judge, a successful and deservedly respected poet in his own right. He saw something in my entry that worked for him as a poem. Last, but not least there is space on my blog . . .


Twelve months in an English village


1) I went there in the summer.

Waves of wheat, waves of water
Undulate and curl over the child,
A naked creature unashamed in hat
Sunshade and smoothed zinc balm.
She attracts a crust of sand grains, like
Sunday’s rhubarb crumble and cream.
Wasps in stripes drink cola and
Sharpen stingers in sugar.
Crabs swell inside their carapaces.
Boats slice the sea and cast sails wide
To capture the fuel in the wind
And follow the ferries to France.

2) It feels like autumn now

Soggy, the forest floor disturbs
Aromas of decay and mushrooms.
Above, fall wears drifts of metallic colours,
Brass, copper, gold, and bronze
Hazelnuts slide from shells and spiral
Blackberries plump drip and prick
Days shrink into contemplation as
Earth meditates to slow each heartbeat.
Like squirrels we scurry to store.
Apples lie in the attic, nuts nudge
Shoulders in jars, plums stew in syrup
And mice nibble in the grain.

3) So this is what winter is like?

The mist swallows the thatch
An apple tree tangled and gnarled
Splays naked limbs against a wall
Splashed with gaudy lichen.
Orange and red berries kiss pearls
Of mistletoe, holly stabs the air
Lies in wait for the draughts to stir and
Scratches fingernails against shutters
To mark the haunting hours.
The captive is offered no comfort by the firelight.
The remains of the hibernation rarely stirs
But the slap of the sea on shore is a frenzy.

4) A spring thing happens!

The pines have an over-abundance of sap.
Streams of slow, seeping amber captures a gnat
And congeals. It claims a maiden’s finger
Or presses a golden toffee against her breast.
Beneath the bridge the water scurries
And froths. Such a carry-on of drakes
Parading their territory like battleships,
Lady ducks are imprisoned by egg clutches.
Speckled troutlings dart in dappled light
Buds unfold into lambent country dancers,
A fiesta against a sky drenched in lapis lazuli
To celebrate a fruitful copulation.

Daughter of Darkness

History of this novel.

(Warning - blatant Promo!)

1996. In manuscript form, Daughter of Darkness took third place in a national competition run by Australian Women’s Day/Random House.

2001. “Daughter of Darkness” was published in hardcover by Robert Hale Ltd. UK, and mainly for libraries distribution.

2002. It won the mainstream section in the Australian, Romantic Book of the year Award.

2002 – 2010. It was read by library patrons, and gathered dust. A copy was listed as “lost” in a New Zealand library. I was a bit chuffed to think someone might have liked it enough to steal it . . . but, then, perhaps they wanted it for a doorstop! I never checked back to discover if it had turned up.

2010. Toot de la toot! I got the rights back, blew the dust off, and to my surprise, went international.

Belgrave House USA transformed it into an ebook. Then Brazilian publisher, Nova Cultural picked it up and translated it into Portuguese. Shades of Carmen Miranda! (She wore hats made of baskets of fruit and shook her hips like crazy) Can’t remember her? Well okay . . . you can probably look her up.

To move on . . . shortly, another English version of “Daughter of Darkness” will be released by large print publisher, Magna. Hopefully, the latter will replenish dwindling library stocks, as well as New Zealand doorstops.

Now we have the latest version, in downloadable audio form, and recently released by IAMBIK of Canada. I got to pick the reader from voice auditions, and chose Tadhg Hynes, who has a lovely Irish lilt to his voice. I think the rest of him is invisible, since I can only find a photograph of his glasses, and suspect he may be a leprechaun.

Anyway, here’s a plug for my Canadian version, which can be downloaded very cheaply from iambic . . . I love the cover. It makes me want to sing Wagner! Don’t worry; I’ll spare you that little treat! Instead, I’ll say hello to my Canadian readers. I know I have a few, since I get letters from them now and again.

About this book.

Set around 1750 in Dorset, DAUGHTER OF DARKNESS is the story of Willow Givanchy, daughter of a reputed witch and a corrupt Marquess.

A marriage is arranged, and Gerard Lytton is tricked into becoming the groom to the reluctant bride.

This is a slightly gothic tale, but not horror driven. It’s a story-driven romance. A raven appears . . . deaths follow. Against all odds, Willow and her husband fall in love.

Try it! Listen to the exerpt . . .

http://iambik.com/books/daughter-of-darkness-by-janet-woods/