Reflections on writing - with two reviews

Hello folks

This is my first post and it's likely to be "the voice of one that crieth in the wilderness" as no-one even knows I have a blog yet.

I'm just back from the Festival of Writing in York and I'm all fired up to get back to my MS and trim it back a bit. It's at the stage noew where there's some flab that needs liposuction (a bit like me really). Still, although the comments I got on it from the professionals were mixed, they were consistent and that gives me hope.

I've already read the two YA books I bought at the festival - The poisoned house by Michael Ford and Wasted by Nicola Morgan. they were both good but definitely Wasted was the one that stands out as being edgy and really different. It concerns Jacj, a teenage boy who is obsessed with bad luck because of a freak accident that killed his stepmother. he tries to cheat fate by the habit of tossing a coin and acting on whatever choice the toss throws up. This habit has become a dangerous addiction to risk-taking that comes to a head when he meets an exciting girl called Jess. She also has her problems, which include an alcoholic mother. The story manages to switch between points of view without confusing the reader, which is a rare feat, and is suffused with an impending sense of doom all the way through that keeps the reader on edge.

Michael Ford's book is an historical thriller set in Victorian London, told from the point of view of a teenage servant girl. It has a very strong opening and some dramatic set pieces, and is well-researched without being over-burdened with information. However, overall I think it's for a younger audience than Wasted.

Both authors were very nice and I learned a lot from them, as I did from the two agents I met. I had more interaction with Julia Churchill because I attended two classes that she gave. In the one-to-one she struck me as being incredibly business-like and focussed - not easy to impress.

Well, that's it for my first shot. I don't know how I'll follow this up but I expect that wildlife, food, history, writing, books and movies will be topics for future blogs.