Tag: WIPpet Wednesday

WIPpet Wednesday – Feeling nervous (and a cover reveal mention…)

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 27 Comments

Hi everyone!  Hope you’re all well.  This is gonna be a special week for me – or I should say a special day on Friday because… IT’S MY FIRST COVER REVEAL!  It’s for my new novel Reunion of the Heart, a romance, which I’m going to publish shortly.

To coin an American phrase  (or at least I think it’s American!) which I’ve heard in blog land  I’m super excited!!!  Thank you in advance to my 10 lovely volunteers who’re gonna help me out with it.  It’s going to be great.

All right, back to the main event.  Today’s WIPpet is for my… all right, yes, still untitled novel-to-be romance about the school teacher.  To remind you non-British people, she works at a secondary school for 11-16 yr olds.  In this scene Rebecca, my MC, is facing the dreaded parents’ evening.

Now because we’re such an international group of writers in WIPpet Wednesday, I’m not going to assume anything, so in case you’re unsure what a parents’ evening is (forgive me if you do know what it is!!), it’s just a chance for parents of children at a school to discuss their child’s work and achievements (or lack of them!!) with their child’s teacher(s).

Rebecca is a new teacher and this is her first term (semester??), so she wants to get things right.  I’m sharing 3 paragraphs, 2 + 1 from the year.

Rebecca looked at herself in the mirror and adjusted the collar of her white blouse.  Her long jet black hair was pulled back into a neat chignon, her blouse and skirt suit had been carefully ironed and she’d taken extra care with her makeup, wanting it to be subtle but enhancing at the same time.  Anyone would think I was going on a date, she thought, her wry smile reflected in the mirror.

But this evening would be ten times more nerve wracking than a date.  Tonight was parents’ evening at Wyncliffe High and Rebecca was feeling as scared as someone about parachute out of a plane for the very first time.  It was the middle of October and Rebecca had been dreading this evening for weeks.  Now that it was finally here she just wanted it to be over and done with.

She sighed as she walked out of the bathroom, picked up her heavy bag, coat and keys from the living room and exited the flat.  She would have liked to cycle to the school as she normally did, but hadn’t wanted to be too sweaty and out of breath when she got there.  Rebecca desperately wanted to make a good impression.  She was particularly anxious about meeting one of the parents there – Audi-Man.

If you’ve been reading our WIPpets and you’re thinking ‘That’s something I’d like to do’, it’s easy to join in.  Just post on your blog whatever you’ve been working on writing-wise lately and ideally make sure it relates in some way to the date.  Then put your details on this linky.  Don’t forget to have a read of what the other WIPpeteers have shared too. 🙂

Thank you to our wise and knowledgeable leader aka K. L. Schwengel for also being our gracious hostess. 😉

Review of ‘Bound’ by Kate Sparkes

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ Leave a comment

Bound

I’m very pleased to be sharing with you my review of Bound by Kate Sparkes. Kate is a writer friend of mine and fellow WIPpeteer for our WIPpet Wednesdays.

Anyway she recently published Bound, her debut novel, and seeing as it’s so fantastic, I wanted to share my review of it with you here. I just want to add before I do that it really is a stunning novel, hugely enjoyable and I highly recommend it. So here’s my review:

This story blew my mind – I loved it! I don’t read a huge amount of fantasy novels, but this certainly makes me want to read more.

It’s the story of Rowan Greenwood, a young woman who’s in love with the idea of magic and finds herself taken away from everything she knows and thrown into a dangerous world, where each day she faces may be her last. Having unknowingly saved the life of her one of her people’s worst enemies, Rowan finds herself powerless to help herself as she begins a journey. She doesn’t know where it will end.

I don’t want to say any more than that in case I give away the plot. But this novel was wonderful, so incredibly imaginative, with a plot that constantly twisted and turned and two main characters who I absolutely loved. Rowan especially was an endearing character, brave and selfless. Aren, although flawed, was an amazingly complex character. By the end of the story, I felt as if I knew both of them well.

The world that Sparkes has created is wonderfully colourful, memorable and vivid. I thought her descriptions were fantastic and they drew me right into the world. I liked the whole history to that world that she’s given us and it makes me realise that a lot of thought must have gone into depicting it. It’s certainly paid off – the countries that Rowan and Aren travel through are not to be soon forgotten.

I won’t forget this book for a long while and I would highly recommend it to anyone.

Bound is available from Amazon.com, Amazon UK and Amazon.ca. For more info about the author you can visit her blog here.

WIPpet Wednesday & call for cover reveal volunteers

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 18 Comments

Classroom

Welcome to the wonderful, weird world that is WIPpet Wednesday when we writers share our work. Today as well as sharing some of my writing with you, I wanted to ask if any of you would be willing to take part in my cover reveal for Reunion of the Heart.

I haven’t set a date for it as yet, I thought I’d see how many people would be willing to participate first. But it will be soon as I’m making the final touches to Reunion of the Heart and it won’t be long before I publish it. Yay!! I’m amazed, actually, that it’s come around so fast – I was expecting things to take a lot longer to prepare it for publication. But things have come along really well.

So anyway that’s that.  For my contribution to today’s WIPpet Wednesday, I’m being generous and sharing with you 30 sentences for the 30th July (see what I did there?  Genius!!).  OK so maybe not generous by some people’s standards… Anyway it’s another excerpt from my romance about a school teacher.

Before you ask, no I haven’t decided on a title yet.  It’s currently saved on my computer under the hugely original title of ‘school’.  I’m rubbish at thinking up titles for my novels and this one is no exception!  I’m completely stumped at the moment.

In the scene I’m sharing today, my teacher MC Rebecca has kept two of the boys in her class behind at school because they were messing around during the lesson.  They’re not too happy about being given a detention and Rebecca isn’t wildly thrilled at having to keep them there either…

As they’d been told, Daniel and Richard stayed behind at the end of the lesson.  As they were standing in front of Rebecca’s desk to learn their punishment, their faces were surly, their shoulders slumped.  Outside it was a beautiful afternoon, the sun was shining, the sky was blue – and it was a Friday.  Rebecca didn’t really want to be there herself, but it had to be done.  She couldn’t let this go; they needed to understand that rudeness and disrupting the class was unacceptable.

‘Daniel and Richard, I’ve decided in the next hour, you will both write me a two page essay on a book you’ve read which you enjoyed.’  She saw their scowls deepen and sighed inwardly.  This was going to be a long hour.  She watched as they took the paper she handed them and trudged back to their desks.

In spite of her better judgement, curiosity won out and Rebecca pulled out the piece of paper which she’d seized from Daniel from her desk drawer.  She glanced at him, hoping he hadn’t noticed her looking at it.  But Daniel’s head was bent in concentration over his writing.  Rebecca’s lips twitched as she read what was written on the piece of paper, and she had to purse her lips to stop herself smiling.   

It was a little poem about her – she assumed it was written by Daniel.  Not only did it rhyme perfectly, it had a clear rhythm as well.  It was cheeky, yet not offensive, although she did note the allusion to her looks.  But that didn’t bother her.  Rebecca knew what young men were like and she was aware that she wasn’t unattractive.  She stole another glance at Daniel; this time he was looking out of the window and while she had the chance, she quickly put the paper back in her drawer.

Looking at the clock, she saw that there was still ages to go until Daniel and Richard’s detention was up.  Resigned to her fate, Rebecca picked up the first in a large pile of exercise books to begin marking.  But the stories the year 8 pupils had written about their favourite weekends were engaging and often amusing.  She had to suppress a chuckle now and then.  Before she knew it, she looked at the clock and saw that the time was up.

‘All right then,’ she said to the two boys who were looking tired and fed up, ‘you can go.  Put the essays on my desk,’ she added as they approached, ‘and I’ll see you both tomorrow.  And I hope I won’t be seeing any of that misbehaviour again.’

Daniel and Richard shook their heads, clearly itching to be gone.  They turned to leave the room.  Then Rebecca thought.

Oh BTW I should say if you need to contact me re. the cover reveal my email address is: elaine (dot) jeremiah (at) gmail (dot) com

That’s it from me today.  If you’re reading this, but you’re not involved in WIPpet Wednesday and you think it’s something you’d like to get involved with, it’s easy to take part.  Just share on your blog anything you’ve been working on recently writing-wise.  Your excerpt should preferably relate in some way to the date.  Then once you’ve done your post, add your details here.

Thanks once more to K. L. Schwengel for hosting.

Struggling to keep it together

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 42 Comments

Depression

I’ve been working on character profiles for my WIP about a school teacher which I’ve been sharing with you. So while I’ve been doing that I haven’t been writing.

So I’m sharing with you something different today. It’s from a story I was working on some years ago, but never finished. It’s a highly personal tale – you could say it’s semi autobiographical. I would like to finish it one day and maybe publish it.

It’s about a girl of about 15 who’s struggling at school.  She has few friends and is very unhappy.  Then a new girl joins the school and she’s kind to my MC.  They become friends.  But unfortunately for my MC it doesn’t last.

I’m sharing with you 23 lines for the 23rd July:

I withdrew into myself, trying to talk to as few people as possible.  If Mum and Dad asked how I was, I put on a brave front, smiling and saying I was fine.  No one guessed how I was feeling.  At school, I tried to stay by myself as much as possible, not wanting to be seen.  At lunchtimes, I didn’t go out, I just stayed in the library, trying to absorb myself in a book, hoping that somehow a good story would make the pain go away.  Christine had been the only friend I had had in as long as I could remember, and now she was dead.  I couldn’t bear it.

   I stopped sleeping.  My nights were ones of restless tossing and turning, throwing the bed covers away from me, and then in turns gathering them towards me.  I was always very quiet, not wanting to wake my parents or Bryony.  Even so, Mum started to notice a change in me.  Whereas before I had answered her questions, be it monosyllabically, now I didn’t say anything.  When I went down to breakfast a couple of days after the announcement of Christine’s death, she was sitting at the breakfast table reading a newspaper.  Looking up at me with a serious expression on her face, she said,

   ‘There was something in the news this morning about a girl from your school who was killed in an accident.  It was Christine, wasn’t it?’

   I didn’t answer.  Mum sighed.

   ‘Kate, why didn’t you tell us?  Your dad and I wondered what was wrong with you.  Lately you haven’t been yourself.  We had no idea of what you were going through,’ she said, coming over to me and laying a hand on my shoulder.  ‘We want to help you in anyway we can,’ she added.

I’d love to know your thoughts on this so please comment. 🙂  And if you would like to take part in WIPpet Wednesday, all you have to do is post some of your writing (old or new) on your blog.  It should (ideally!) relate to the date.  Once you’ve posted it, add your details to this linky.

Thank you K. L. Schwengel for hosting.

Review of ‘Emergence’

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 9 Comments

Emergence

I thought I’d post another review of a book I’ve enjoyed here on my blog. It’s by the lovely K. L. Schwengel who kindly hosts WIPpet Wednesday on her blog once a week.

It’s called Emergence and it’s the second in her Darkness and Light series. It was a hugely enjoyable book to read. Here is my review:

This novel picks up the story of Ciara, and the battle for her power, where the last story ‘First of Her Kind’ left off. As the story begins Bolin, who is trying to protect Ciara, has a summons from the Emperor of Nisair demanding that he bring her to him. Bolin does everything he can to try to avoid this. There are powerful people who want Ciara and her powers for themselves and Bolin doesn’t want to risk taking her away from the safety of the Greensward, where she is being cared for, on a potentially perilous journey where she could be captured…

I really enjoyed this novel. I thought it was even better than the first, although I would say that to understand the story fully it might be helpful to read the first in the series, ‘First of Her Kind’, before this one.

The characters were vivid and memorable. Bolin in particular stands out for me. He is a troubled character, desperately trying to ignore what he feels for Ciara and always putting himself in dangerous situations before others. He refuses to let anyone get properly close to him and the consequences are often near fatal.

Reading this novel, it is clear that the main character, Ciara, is maturing. She is less hotheaded and headstrong than in the first novel, and she actually listens to people who’re trying to give her advice. Like Bolin, she is a memorable character – a strong young woman, yet endearingly vulnerable at times too.

I thought that the battle scenes were realistically described and the author also drew me, as a reader, into her world. The people and places felt real to me. All the characters were well drawn and I really felt that I got to know them as the story unfolded.

The story was gripping and exciting. There were plenty of twists and turns and the author kept me guessing as to who would have the upper hand by the end.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys an adventurous, thrilling tale. You won’t be disappointed.

If you would like to read it, it’s available from Amazon.com and Amazon UK.

A quick WIPpet for Wednesday

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 37 Comments

Hey!  I thought I’d do a quick post today as I’m quite tired and rather busy.  So I’m gonna share with you 7 sentences for the 7th month from my current WIP.  It still doesn’t have a title yet lol.  I’ll get there in the end.

To give you a bit of background to the scene my MC Rebecca, a new teacher, has been working at the secondary school (11-16 yr olds) for a few weeks.  In this scene she’s surprised to see a pupil she hasn’t seen for a while…

Looking up from her desk, Rebecca was surprised and pleased to see Melanie Bailey standing beside it, an uncertain expression on her face.  She’d barely seen the girl since she started but Rebecca was still grateful to her for her concern when she’d nearly been hit by that awful man’s car.  But Melanie hadn’t been in any of her classes so far.  She wondered what she was doing here now, during lunch break when all the pupils would be either in the cafeteria or skulking around the school grounds.

‘Can I help you, Melanie?’ Rebecca asked her.

‘You remembered my name,’ she smiled, her features brightening a little.  Then she lowered her eyes as if embarrassed by her statement. 

So that’s it from me!  If you want to take part in WIPpet Wednesday all you have to do is post an excerpt on your blog of whatever your working on currently writing-wise.  The general rule is that it relates in some way to the date. Then add your name here.

Thanks once again to K. L. Schwengel for hosting. 🙂

 

Feeling misunderstood

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 35 Comments

Misunderstood

Hello one and all and welcome to this week’s WIPpet Wednesday here on my blog. Well technically it’s still Tuesday here, but I’m posting early again. 🙂 My apologies for being absent last week – though I did manage to comment on a few WIPpeteers’ posts, I didn’t do my own.

This was down to fatigue – I’m working quite hard at my day job and sometimes I just don’t have the energy for extras (for want of a better word), such as WIPpet Wednesday.

Anyway I read some good excerpts last week and I’m glad you’re all keeping up with your writing.  Which I am with mine, though not quite every day.  I did manage over 600 words on my WIP last night despite feeling shattered so I was happy with that.

For this week’s WIPpet,  I thought I’d share with you 11 sentences (9 for the day + 2 from 2014)  from my current WIP.  (I’m definitely gonna need to think of a title soon – I’ve done over 11,000 words now!) In this scene my MC Rebecca, a teacher, is talking with a colleague about the way her family and friends don’t seem to be able to understand the pressures of her new job:

‘That badly, eh?’ Jenny’s sympathetic tone forced Rebecca to be brighter.  She wasn’t going to have anyone feeling sorry for her.  That was one thing she wouldn’t be able to stand.

‘Actually no,’ she replied turning to Jenny and smiling with an effort.  ‘It’s just that teaching is a lot of hard work.  I knew it would be when I decided to train, but it’s made harder by my family and friends not really understanding that.’ She looked away again, remembering her spat with Michelle which she still hadn’t resolved.

Jenny was nodding.  ‘I completely understand.  When I first began teaching – well to be honest with you it led in part to the breakup of my marriage.’

If you would like to take part in WIPpet Wednesday, all you have to do is post an excerpt of your writing on your blog.  Only stipulation is that it must relate to the date in some way.  Then add your name here.

Thank you to the wonderful K. L. Schwengel for being our hostess with the mostess!

Unsure

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 19 Comments

Unsure

This is going to be a quick post as I haven’t got a lot of time this evening. But I just wanted to share with you a little about what’s been on my mind today.

As with many of my thoughts it’s to do with my writing and how it’s going.  To update you, I’m about to send my upcoming novel Reunion of the Heart to my proofreader. Once I have it back from her, I’ll start making the final preparations to publish it – hopefully by the end of the summer.

But it’s not Reunion of the Heart I’m stressing over – well not much anyway! 😉  It’s actually my new WIP, as yet untitled.  I’ve shared bits of it on WIPpet Wednesday; you can read this week’s excerpt here.

What I’m unsure about is the fact that it’s about a teacher (it’s a romance), a young woman, who works in a secondary school (11-16 yr olds), but I don’t know a huge amount about secondary schools in the 21st century – I haven’t been at a secondary school for the best part of 20 years.  I’m kind of feeling that I may be out of my depth.  I just don’t know enough about, for example, how technology is used in schools nowadays.  I’m sure it’s light years away from when I was there.

Also, although I’ve planned quite a lot for this story (I am DEFINITELY a plotter not a pantser!!), I feel that it’s still not clear in my head the way it should go in the middle.  I know the beginning and the end, I even know part of the middle, but it’s the in between scenes I’m trying to create now which are wearing me down.

So I was wondering… what do you guys do when you’re in a similar position to me?  Do you keep going and plugging away at it?  Or do you think ‘I’ll stop and do something else, or go back to the drawing board’?  And have you ever been writing something where you’re unsure you know enough about it?  If so, what do you do?

It’s  a lot of questions, I know.  But as always your thoughts are welcome. 🙂

A chance encounter in a cafe

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 23 Comments

Costa cafe

Hello one and all and welcome to this week’s WIPpet Wednesday.  I hope you’re all well and, for those of you that are in the UK or anywhere else that’s sunny right now, I hope you’re making the most of the weather!

Anyway as the title of this post suggests, today’s WIPpet that I’m sharing takes place in a cafe.  It’s from my as-yet-untitled WIP romance about a school teacher.  In this scene it’s the weekend and my MC Rebecca has cycled into the centre of the city where she lives for some R&R.

While she’s there, she sees someone she knows and what follows is their encounter.  I’m sharing with you just over 25 lines for the 25th June, which I think is generous seeing as I haven’t written much yet!

Rebecca headed across the pedestrianized area towards the large Next store.  She needed a new belt; her current one had seen better days.  But as she approached the store, the smell of fresh coffee brewing washed over her.  Led astray, she followed her nose to its source: the nearby Costa.  There were only three other customers in the café, a man and two young women chatting together. 

Still feeling the effects of her lie in, Rebecca ordered an espresso and sank down onto a large leather sofa facing a low table.  She picked up the crumpled copy of the previous day’s Times, and became engrossed in an article in the culture section on the newest book by one of her favourite authors.  She was so absorbed in what she was reading that when someone cleared their throat, seemingly right by her ear, she jolted upwards in her seat, nearly spilling her espresso all over her pale blouse.

Her brow furrowed as she looked up, and then un-furrowed itself as she saw Nick’s friendly face smiling down at her.

‘Interesting article?’ he asked her.

‘Yes actually,’ she replied smiling back.  Seeing that he was hovering with a drink in his hand, she added, ‘You can join me if you want.’

‘Thanks, that’d be great.’ He sat down opposite her, crossing his long legs in front of him underneath the table.

Rebecca took another sip of her espresso, determined not to be awkward with Nick.  He’s just a member of staff, she told herself.  A very cute member of staff, but a member of staff none the less.

‘So, Rebecca, how’s your first couple of weeks been?  I bet it’s a lot to get used to.’

She nodded. 

And there you have it.  If you would like to take part in WIPpet Wednesday, all you have to do is post an excerpt of whatever you’re working on writing-wise at the moment and post it on your blog.  Ideally it should relate in some way to the date.  Then post your details here.

Thank you our lovely K. L. Schwengel for being our marvellous hostess!

It’s OK now cos I’m back!!!

~ Elaine Jeremiah ~ 24 Comments

I'm back no 2

My apologies for missing last week’s WIPpet Wednesday. I’d been very busy with work and I was also really tired. But now I’m back! And I’ve actually written some more on my WIP – finally after months. So I’m happy about that.

If you follow my blog, you may have seen that I’ve been thinking about how to increase my presence online, particularly with this blog.  You can read about that here.  This is with the ultimate aim of publicising my writing.  I guess that’s fairly obvious, but I find it amazing how the whole purpose of social networking i.e. to promote our writing can become obscured until we have less and less time to spend on the writing which is what it was all about in the first place.

That’s how I see it anyway.  I certainly find it to be true of me.  I’m finding it hard to keep up with everything, what with work and blogging, tweeting and most importantly writing.  I feel that I maybe need to scale back what I do on social media a little to focus more on my writing.

Anyway for this week’s WIPpet Wednesday post, I’m sharing with you 4 short paragraphs from my current WIP.  My maths goes like this: 6 for the month – 2 from 2014.  Not great but I couldn’t see another way to do it.  In this scene, my MC Rebecca, who is an English teacher at a secondary school (11-16 yr olds), is teaching her class of fifth formers (15-16 yr olds).  Some of the boys are mucking around.  She’s determined to maintain control over the class…

‘Daniel Leavis, what do you think you’re doing?’ Rebecca said sternly.  She was teaching the fifth formers’ English class.  It was two thirty on a Friday afternoon, the end of a busy and stressful two weeks for her – and they were only the first two weeks into her job.

Daniel looked up at her, smirking.  She saw a bit of folded paper in his hand that he was attempting to conceal.  Feeling her patience wearing thin, Rebecca stalked up to him.

‘Whatever that is in your hand, you can give it to me.’

‘Ooh give it to you, yes please,’ Daniel’s sidekick Richard snickered under his breath.

That’s it from me this week.  If you’d like to take part in WIPpet Wednesday but are unsure how, all you have to do is post on your blog something that you’ve written recently.  Make sure it relates in some way to the date.  Then add your name here.

Thank you K. L. Schwengel for hosting. 🙂