ANOTHER HURDLE CROSSED, AND ANOTHER TO GO

Hi,

September has been a busy month getting things on track after the summer holidays.

This week, I can say that I have crossed another hurdle. 

My report from the RNA NWS on The Last Year of Childhood was positive and promising.

This makes me happy, because I have worked for a long time to get things as right as they could be, so that readers would appreciate and enjoy this book.

Good comments from a total stranger, and a body such as The Romantic Novelist's Association, are not to be pushed aside, so I am not going to be too modest about it on here. Well maybe only very slightly...

Here are some of the comments from the critique:

- Greatly enjoyed it
- A most unusual story
- A location and community about whom many readers will not know
- characters are very well defined
- I particularly congratulate you on they way you have captured the dialogue of the characters
- use of their indigenous words also works well
- the context is clear
- I could hear them talking
- The scene is set very well
- Your description of the locations is also very vivid
- All in all, this is a splendid story

My next task is finding a suitable literary agent, who would want to represent such a novel.

The main theme of the book is around ARRANGED CHILD MARRIAGES, and the disaster to young lives when parents ignore the facts of the world in order to preserve cultural traditions. Whilst this novel is set in 1917 Trinidad, the problems of Arranged CHILD Marriages are many, and are happening today in various parts of the world, INCLUDING THE UK.

For many, this is a very current issue, and the rest of us need to think about it and act on a solution, because whilst the world gears towards creating better opportunities for children and young people, child marriages actually halts childhood, in a mentally and physically intrusive and destructive way.

The Last Year of Childhood, tries to demonstrates how tangled knots develop from this one action in parenthood, which instead of enhancing young adults, it actually destroys them. For those young people who face this problem, they need to be empowered from others outside the family who are in a position to help them.  

Thank you for reading! Will keep you posted on progress!

Love, Marilyn xx

Re-Writing

As part of the editing process of The Last Year of Childhood, I have decided to rewrite. It started with rewriting Chapter 1, then went on to Chapter 2, and 3 .... Now I am up to Chapter 8. Tedious as it sounds, I think that what is happening, is that I am using the main plot points, and making some changes where I have identified that change needs to be done.

I am also sharpening up the language, using more active verbs, and trying to concentrate on my characters, who they are, and that they have a good impact on the reader. I am mostly not referring to the previous draft. So I am really cutting out a lot of the bits that were not adding to the story.

Part of me is disappointed that I chose to rewrite, because it feels like a longer process than I wanted. But I am really hoping that it would be another learning curve for me, and with some luck, the next draft will be closer to something more ready for publication.

Something that happens while doing this, is that the brain does fresh thinking, and some aspects of the story turn a different corner - which is a better one. I choose not to turn some of those corners though, because it is easy to chase wild geese! In this draft, I have to choose carefully to make sure the whole thing does not go off course.

The Last Year of Childhood is the new title. Because it concentrates on two young girls, aged 11, and 14, who both have the same dilemma, of a marriage arranged for them, against their will. The book is set in 1917, Trinidad.