Penny is an agent at the Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency Ltd.


The author I wish we’d ‘discovered’ most is…..
Oh, have a guess!

Left on a cliffhanger or told all?
Sadly, it’s an agent’s lot to have the ending ruined so if this question relates to the synopsis, please tell all! When I’m reading for pleasure (a vain aspiration) I prefer to have things resolved. The last two books I’ve read seemed to race to a close and left me wanting somewhat.

The perfect book deal is…
Decided upon quickly, for the right kind of money, with the right kind of contract, but most perfectly when the author and editor are perfectly married and everyone from sales, marketing and publicity to the post room are excited about the book and the author.

You really must read…
Something is Going to Fall Like Rain by Ros Wynne Jones. This is partly a gratuitous plug for a friend’s book but also a great example of how first novels, with work, can become expertly polished.

I get most excited by…
Ahem, at work? It’s weird, I’ve been working in the publishing for 14 years now and I still get the biggest buzz when someone places a finished copy in my hand.

My biggest tip for a writer is…
One thing that irritates me the most with unsolicited submissions are the people who’ve read just enough to know that their idea might have a commercial application but not nearly enough to know how utterly derivative their submission is. I know authors are always told to read but I might venture that revision is more valuable.



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The most horrendous thing happened to me last night! Knowing we had guests to dinner, I stopped off on the way home from the Day Job to get a few extra things, decided to pay with my Maestro card and was knocked for six when the card was refused twice. Fortunately I had enough cash on me to cover it but I was so embarrassed. I couldn't understand it. I only got paid two days before. Then I remembered - the mortgage and a number of direct debits had all gone out together and this was one of the few months of the year that the input date of my salary differentiated to Hubby's.


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Megan Taylor thinks my blog is fabulous. Thank you Megan, yours is rather fine as well.

Now, as part of accepting this lovely award I have to do meme shenanigans. Namely: List five obsessions. Megan offered 5 obsessions in her writing which I may do as well. We'll have to see how I feel further into this post (it's feeling like a long day already!).

Nik's Obsessions (or what he's obsessive about - are they the same thing?):

Fountain pens. (Like you didn't know that.)
Stats for this blog. (Yes, I'm watching you.)
Getting writing right. (A hopeless one.)
Not being too sensitive. (As above.)
Birds. And leopards. I really like leopards.


And writing obsessions? Why not.

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I’ve gone Wireless.

Viki (local white witch, astrologer and computer expert) spent several hours sorting this out for me. Part of the process involved me having to change into red clothes because of Mars. But let’s not go there.

You must understand that I am a Luddite of the first order. Technological change is anathema to me. I’m the one who tried to back up my work onto a mouse modem. Let’s not go there either.

I went Wireless because I wanted to be able to use my laptop in my attic study alongside my trusty old PC (1996 – the Luddite in me hates to let it go). And I wanted to do this because then I wouldn’t be continually drawn to checking my email at the kitchen table. Like many Luddites, I suspect, I am hideously addicted to any small technological thing I can do.

So now I have a sweet little white doo-dah with feet and a tiny tail (I keep wanting to feed it snacks because it crouches beside me in a permanent begging position) which sends magic rays to my laptop and allows it to work anywhere.


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Sorry not to have posted here in a little while. I don't know what came over me. I have told myself off.

I wasn't sure what I was going to post here aside from apologies and saying that I've been writing a lot (which I have) until, oh, about two minutes ago.

It's about editing. Now, we all know, as writers, published, unpublished, almost published, that editing's essential. It's what changes a story from a good idea into something that others can understand. It makes something good, better, or something very dodgy into something wonderful and cohesive. Editing's where the work is.

This is my editing process:

1. I write the story, with a pen, in a notebook.
2. I type it up, making changes as I go.
3. I print it off and read it through, making changes as I go. This stage is repeated until I'm happy that it's Almost There.
4. I read it aloud (and record what I read). - Often things stand out as being obviously wrong AS I'm reading* and can be changed there and then (and this can be anything from unintentional rhymes to structural problems or things simply not making any sense).
5. I listen to it back. Make changes. Go back to stage 4.

And so on.

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Last Friday I blogged about the criticism aimed at Dan Brown’s latest novel, The Lost Symbol.

The debate my post sparked was lively and enjoyable. I, for one, love nothing better than discussing the craft of writing with other writers.
But what became clear to me as the day wore on was that writers appear to fall into two camps. Those who believe that story is all and those that feel the style of a piece is what makes it sing.

To be fair, I’m sure most of us would say we aim for both...a riveting plot, well told.


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My poem, Chess, is one of the editors' choices for the Third Quarterly Review at Bewildering Stories.

Also, congratulations to Oonah V. Joslin for her short story Pure Research, also up there!

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Four days at a short story festival, what a wonderful idea! From Thursday night until Sunday night, at gorgeous Charleston, home of Virginia Woolf's sister Vanessa Bell, writers reading from their stories and talking about stories. And in a large barn, with atmospheric lowing from the cows next door and the soothing hum of milking machines.

I came on Thursday night and stayed til Sunday lunchtime with Vanessa, in the company of several other writer friends, which meant late night chats about that thing that we do! I went to six events, and to sum it up I would say that while the concept of Small Wonder is fabulous and the organisers are to be applauded, it is, as most of these festivals must be, driven by commercial considerations, or, to use that lovely British phrase, "bums on seats". In other words: ticket sales and then book sales. Of course this is important since, sadly, there are no billionaire short-story-loving angels dispensing money to the few short story festivals that exist..........

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f you hang around on writing forums for a while, you'll discover that one of the guaranteed topics to get everyone hot under the collar (or rather the keyboard) is how - and why and how often and if - members spend time critiquing other members' work. Indeed, the only times a forum member - let's call him Caliban - has got their knife into me have been on that very topic, I should imagine because it is, exactly, a guaranteed recruiting ground for strong feeling among the members. (Though it didn't really work, because strong feeling is not always directed as its recruiter would wish.)

Why should this be? Clearly, critting each others' work is the way that writers have always learnt: no doubt Sophocles and Aristophanes swapped scenes in the pub over the retsina and calamari. It's not just that we all need an external eye cast over our work, and earn it by doing the same in return. Much more important is that one of the fundamental elements of learning to be a writer is to learn to stand outside your own work, and read it as another reader would who doesn't know what you're trying to say before you say it. And since that takes different muscles from learning to write, the best place to learn to control and exercise that capacity is on others' work. What doesn't work for you? Which bit? Why not? Why not? As a teacher I spend a lot of time trying to force people to get down to reading and discussing specific words, to do close reading as the literary critics say, because writers have to write specific words: all writing is close writing.

But still, new people join the circle or the forum, and put work up but don't comment on others. And eventually either they're taken to task for being all take and no give, or people just stop commenting. An egotist, people decide, only interested in themselves and what they can get. Meanwhile other new people happily dive in and comment but don't post their own work in return. This is likely to cause less trouble, but a writer who's willing to crit others without laying themselves out in return is also, ultimately, not a full member of the crew, because part of the coin of such intimate relationships is equal vulnerability, equal exposure.

But when the right phase of the moon comes round and a bout of forum soul-searching asks what's going on, a rather different picture emerges.

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I've read that Stephen King writes 2000 words a day six days a week, always listening to heavy metal music. JK's been known to write longhand in busy cafes. My own act of writing involves sitting at my familiar desk looking out over the garden, cup of tea by my side - in complete silence. I begin by re-reading what I wrote the previous day, do a mini edit on it and usually, most times, it's at that moment that the characters come out to play. And I don’t just mean the characters featuring in my Work In Progress. I mean the my own character traits made flesh, who regularly turn up to help or hinder me in the writing process. What I'm writing, where I am in the story, or how I'm feeling in general will completely dictate which one may make an appearance.

Take the Lion. She’s a hunting Lioness, strong and dependable, sure in her ability to take care of business. She urges me to be strong. Keep the Faith. She nurtures me, feeds me, encourages me to grow. She's most apparent during first draft months.


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