Rocky Path to Publication by Novelist, Rosemary Morris. Many people daydream about what they would like to accomplish. I am fortunate because my dream of becoming a published historical novelist has come true. Looking back, it seems that since childhood I prepared to share my tales of times past. Maybe, while I was in my cot, a good fairy blessed me with a vivid imagination. If so, it was too lively for my parents, who couldn’t relate to it. They wanted a child with her feet firmly planted on the ground. Instead, my head was either filled with history, make-believe people, or the book I was reading. So many obstacles intervened between my dream and reality. I have three very painful memories connected with writing and reading. The first, is my mother’s refusal to give me some paper on which to write a story when I was ten years old. The second is of borrowing a book every day from the library, and the librarian’s doubt that I had read all of them. The third ...
Five out of Five stars review for Spectral Evidence by Eileen Charbonneau and Jude Pitman. Until I read Spectral Evidence by talented novelists Eileen Charbonneau and Jude Pitman, I did not know what the title meant. A definition of it is “evidence based on the dreams and visions of the accuser.” During the Salem Witch Trials that I knew little about, “it was testimony entered into the court record by witnesses, who testified that a specter spirit came to them in a dream and caused harm to them.” Eileen and Jude draw their readers back to colonists in Newfoundland, who, in 1692, wanted to stay out of Old World politics. When war was declared between France and England they feared the might of the French navy. Events are experienced through seventeen-year-old Charlotte Jaddore whose Mi’kmaq and Beothuk grandmothers taught her ‘sacred healing arts.’ Will she help her father to save their prosperous American relatives arrested after neighbours acc...
Thoughts About How to Write a Novel I can’t remember how many times people have told me they would write a novel if they had time. Serious authors, published or unpublished, find time. It is important to establish a routine. I recommend an achievable schedule, fifteen minutes or more a day, a fixed period at the weekends, or writing a set number of words every day. If you have an idea, don’t dream about writing. Begin with the first sentence and continue to the end. Then revise and edit the drafts until the final one, in the correct format, is ready to submit to an agent or publisher. (Should you be in doubt, pay an editor to streamline it.) If your novel is rejected, don’t be discouraged, either polish your novel or begin a new one. I wrote eight novels before one was accepted. By then, I knew more about how to write. I revised five of my earlier novels, and each year submitted one to the Romantic Novelists Association for a reader’s report. Subsequently each nove...
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