Linda Lewis, aka Catherine Howard
see my blog at www.akacatherinehoward.blogspot.com
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!
There’s such a lot going on right now, I hardly have time to write this!
For me the most exciting thig of all is the long awiated news that my lodger has found somewher else to live and will be moving out before 1st March. I'll miss the rent he pays but I'll miss the bad things, too numerous to mention, even more.
Byker books have published two of my books on Kindle. One is a collection of crimes stories called CRIME, the other is my guide to writing fillers called HOW TO EARN £10 IN TEN MINUTES. Both are priced at under £1.
My new book, being published by Filament Publishing is due out in a month or two and is called THE WRITER’S TREASURY OF IDEAS. It’s all about teaching yourself how to come up with those all important ideas for stories/films/books and so on. I’m busy planning a new web site at www.writingiseasy.net where details of the book will be available as soon as I have them. Right now I don’t even know how much it will cost.
I’ve been working so hard on non–fiction that shorts stories have been put on the back burner so if you were wondering why you haven’t seen my name in magazines quite so often, that’s why. Last year I wrote two full length non fiction books, three writers guides, and published three short story collections (details on the books page) which hopefully explains why I didn’t write so much fiction.
I hope to get back to short stories soon. The People’s Friend fiction editor has passed another of my stories to the editor for approval so I'm hoping my first sale to them isn't far away.
Now for a bit about me.
I’ve been writing fiction for various magazines for several years now and have lost count of the number of stories I’ve sold.
When I started out, I decided to use different names for different magazines, so that when I wrote a story for Womans Weekly I could put on a different ‘hat’ to when I was writing for Take a Break. I chose Catherine Howard because it’s a nice name, plus she was Henry VIII’s fifth wife. Henry VIII was born on June 28th and married too many times, not always for the right reason. I was born on June 28th and have also been married too many times!
My first novel, THE MAGIC OF FISHKEEPING (ISBN 978 – 3 8454 4538-0)has been published and is available for sale on Amazon. An electronic version will be available soon.
I’m hoping to publish a book for, and with NAWG, once they give me the go aheead. It will probably be called THE HANDY LITTLE BOOK FOR WRITERS GROUPS. It won’t be about how to set up a group as information about that is best taken directly from the NAWG website. It will offer tips and guidance about feedback, rejection, creative writing exercises, first lines, how to deal with writers block, some market information, and lots of other bits and pieces. If anyone can think of anything that could be covered by such a book, do let me know.
As mentioned above I’m also venturing into Kindle thanks to a newly formed partnership with Byker Books (www.bykerbooks.co.uk). They are a publisher based in Newcastle Upon Tyne. Their tag line is ‘industrial strength fiction’. They are responsible for the Radgepacket series, short story collections featuring ‘tales of the inner cities’. I was lucky enough to have a story in Radgepacket 5 last year and have just heard that I will have one in Radgepacket 6 when it comes out in March. I'm hopign to get to the launch.
The People’s Friend have passed two of my stories to the editor for approval. The fiction editor likes them but she has to wait for the editor before I can call them sales. That could be two or three months away but it’s a definite step in the right direction.
I have also written a book called HOW TO EARN £10 IN TEN MINUTES which resulted from a workshop I gave at Swanwick this year. It’s all about writing fillers for magazines. The book is available from Lulu and costs £5 plus postage. It’s also available from Amazon with the title, Writing Guide no. 3.My autobiography, A MOTHER’S LOVE: HOW I LEARNED TO LIVE WITHOUT IT will also be available on Amazon so, as will my first two writing guides. As always, you can buy my books direct from me. Just visit the books page of this site.
On a personal note, this year has been strange for me, a complete mix of great highs and very deep lows. I’ve now realised that the problems I had with my mother affected me far more deeply than I had realised. As a result, I am now giving myself some much needed therapy. I’m hoping that by the time I’ve worked through this and come out the other side I will feel a lot happier about life. If you want to know the background to my troubles, it’s all on my blog – http://akacatherinehoward.blospot.com
I spent most of November fighting off a virus and judging the first NAWG open short story competition. Luckily I only had to judge them to short list stage as the standard was very high. I did the judging for free, to help NAWG get some much needed funds. After that I was kept busy writing 101 short critiques for people who requested them. If you entered, thank you very much for making the contest such a success. Results should be out fairly soon.
I began my career writing non fiction in the form of articles about the care, behaviour and breeding of tropical fish. I did this quite happily until 1997, when my husband died. At that time, I was writing for several magazines both in the UK and overseas. When Gareth died, I lost interest in fish, mainly because I didn’t want anything that could die on me. I gradually switched over to short stories.
More than two years ago I was given a column in Writers Forum. It’s called SHORT STORY SUCCESS which I really love writing.
This year, I went to Swanwick Writers Summer School for the first time and LOVED it. I ran a workshop on writing fillers. If you want to read about my experience, have a look at my blog where I've published a day by day account..
I'd only just started to recover when it was time to go to the NAWG writers festival in September which, this year was held in Nottingham. I'm glad I went as that's where I met the man from Filament Publishing.
If you want to follow me on twitter, just search for Linda Lewis. I've also given in and joined Facebook.
As always, if you want to get in touch, I’d love to hear from you. My email address is akacatherinehoward@yahoo.co.uk
As well as being a full time writer, I’m also a registered dog boarder, which is great fun. I was working with an agency, but as they have stopped dog baording, I decided to carry on by myself. It was either that or miss having the dogs come to stay. As I've grown very fond of some of them, that wasn't an option.
My latest venture is into teching, running workshops and public speaking. So far, I’ve been to the West Yorkshire Playhouse, a synagogue and a branch of the WI amongst other places. I'm happy to say that the talks are going down well.
Next year, I'll be running the short story course at the NAWG Festival of Writing. More details when I have them.
Meanwhile, if I can be of any help in any way, or you belong to a group within easy rail distance of Leeds and you'd like me to come and speak to you (I don't drive) do get in touch.
Finally, I’m happy to report that my record of selling a Christmas story and A Valentine story every year (since 2003) is still intact with a sale to Yours on December 3rd. .
And remember, to be a successful writer you need to do three things
1. write
2. read
3. never give up!
