Festival of Writing ... What a weekend!

I've had the most amazing week! And I have to apologise for not blogging for two weeks! I can’t believe the time has gone passed so quickly.

But in my defence, I've been working hard preparing for the festival of writing in York, England. Many of you will be aware that I've been working hard running the one-to-one’s at the festival with my trusty team Ellen Hanns and Mark Clementson find him on twitter @clem1000. It was an amazing weekend and made all the hard work prior to the event worthwhile. With a lot of table juggling, we managed to accommodate thirty-six, agents, editors and book doctors and thirty-six delegates every ten minutes. I have to congratulate all the agents etc.  for their dedication, staying power and support during the odd moment of madness – there were a few, like the one minute warning that was only 47 seconds!

This year we took a couple of hours out to walk in to York from the University campus and partook of a roast dinner which was a very special fast food. We looked around the Shambles and York Minster and walked around some of the city wall. There should be these places all over the country – and the Yorkshire puddings were wonderful. Our walk back had us crossing a cemetery and climbing over a barbed wire fence to escape. It all made for an interesting start to the weekend.

Click on the link ‘Festival of Writing’ to know more about the things you could be part of next year. You might also like to join ‘Word Cloud’ and online writing group with loads of members.

On a personal level I've been energised with the writing vibe again and I'm getting my head down to finish and send work as requested. You may also be pleased to know that I will be buying a new laptop, so there will be no more of the computer crashing every few minutes, seconds or just not turning on at all. I will be sure to be able to write properly.

So, with the thought of the conference still buzzing in my head, I thought it might be a good idea for you to look at your own novel and write a pitch which would engage the interest of an agent. It isn't as easy as it might sound. Play with different approaches. What works for you? Try it out on your family, friends, and random people in the street. Can you engage their interest? If so, how can you hone the pitch to grip them into wanting to read more?

If you have yet to write a novel, you can use the same pitching practice with short stories – how could you pitch the story to a magazine? This will need to be brief and concise to encapsulate the whole plot in a very few words.

So go on, get writing.