Just received this press release.

New Award Categories

When we established The David Gemmell Legend Award For Fantasy it was with the intention of subsequently introducing further award categories to cover other aspects of the fantasy genre. We are now pleased to announce two new, additional awards, to be presented at next year’s ceremony. They are -

The David Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best Newcomer

and

The David Gemmell Ravenheart Award for Best Fantasy Cover Art

The Morningstar Award will give recognition to emerging talent in the field of fantasy fiction. As David Gemmell always took a keen interest in new writers, and helped many onto the path to publication, we regard this as an appropriate category to add, and one we feel sure David would have approved.

The Ravenheart Award will honour the best fantasy book cover art. The importance of fantasy cover art deserves admiration, as do the artists who produce it, yet there is no major UK award acknowledging this. The Ravenheart Award will fulfil that role.

Like the Legend Award, the winners of these new awards, for best debut author and best cover/artist, will be decided by popular vote. The first Legend Award, for best fantasy novel of the year, presented at a ceremony in London in June of this year, garnered an incredible 11,000 votes from around the world. We are confident that the Morningstar and Ravenheart awards, which are being created with the full approval of the Gemmell family, will be greeted with no less enthusiasm.

Details of the process whereby these new awards will be administered can be found on our website.

Our aim is to establish, over time, a set of awards covering all aspects of the fantasy genre. Launching this pair of new awards takes us a step nearer to that objective.

The 2010 David Gemmell Awards ceremony will again be held at The Magic Circle headquarters in London, on Friday 18th June.

Please feel free to contact either of us if more information is needed.

Stan Nicholls (Chair)

Deborah Miller (Awards Administrator)

www.gemmellaward.com

In October I proclaimed I would be writing a 50,000 word novel in November to take part in NaNoWriMo.  So, how well did I do?  If you’ve been following my blog you’ll notice a complete lack of updates after I posted this.  Yes, that’s right, I made it as far as two days and 1868 words before I stalled.

Two days.

After those two days I had decided I didn’t actually like the story.  In fact, I’d started worrying about that before I even started writing it when I was doing the plot outline in October.  I’m not going to blame that for my lack of writing though, nor am I going to blame the cold I had early on, or the worry about my visit to the dentist.

Basically, I didn’t really enjoy writing.  I enjoyed thinking about the plot and coming up with ideas and problems, but I didn’t enjoy the process of converting those little ideas into a story, developing them.

I’m not sure if that means anything.  I just wanted to say it.  Anyway, for those who care, the 1868 words show up after the link (or right NOW if you’re using a feed reader).

Read the rest of this entry »

No progress on the novel today, in fact, negative process.  I don’t like the story, I don’t like where it’s head and I’m not sure I even like the genre.

Or the hero.

That can’t be good huh.

In the spirit of NaNoWriMo I’m not going back and editing the stuff I’ve written.  No time for re-writes.  However, I am going back and re-reading it (to keep consistent) and to see how I well or badly I think I did certain bits.

There’s one bit I’m pleased with so far (yes, I know, early days).  In the first major conversation of the story one guy is doing a lot of talking and is clearly agitated.  Twice I went to write “so and so, clearly agitated” and stopped myself, and instead, I wrote these.

Philip sat down again, clasping and unclasping his hands.

Philip stood, and then sat down again almost immediately.

… his hands returned to gripping his knees tightly.

Hopefully I got the show don’t tell bit right.

Had a bit of a burst, got the main character in to a chat with his first contact, and that conversation drove the word count up.  Hopefully it drives the story along and doesn’t sound like I’m just telling a story.

NaNoWriMo word count:1868

Day 1, and after a full breakfast, and some shopping, I still feel crap with the cold.  I really had no clue where to start the novel.  But I guess everything starts with the first letter.

590 words in now and actually quiet excited, because it’s already the most I’ve ever written in terms of a book.  I’ve written many thousands of words for roleplaying modules and backstory etc.  But this is the first time I’ve really had a go at writing an actual story for the sake of it.

The NaNoWriMo site is slow (they warned us it will be for a few days), and I’ve got an image link in the sidebar so the page may load slowly for a little while until things calm down.

Wish me luck.

NaNoWriMo word count: 570

So, I found an interesting web site (http://mysite.du.edu/~bkiteley/exercises.html) which has some creative writing exercises (from a much larger selection in the author’s book, The 3 A.M. Epiphany). Found it while I was searching for various creative writing resources. Anyway, it’s the kind of thing I’d been looking for, never having had any formal creative writing teaching, something to give me some actual exercises to have a shot at.

And of course, now you have to suffer the consequences. Since Brian’s exercises are from his book, I won’t post the full text of the ‘question’ here, but I’ll tell you which number I had a shot at (#2) in this case. I actually ended up writing a story which in no way had anything to do with the question, but it was fun none-the-less.

The little bell tinkled as Jane opened the door. She loved that bell, it meant somewhere warm and relaxing where she didn’t have to think about work or Ben, or any of that. Alice looked over as she set down two scones and a pot of tea, “Coffee? Usual?” She turned away again, not really waiting for the answer and caught the pot with her hand. Everyone scooted backwards as hot tea covered the floor.

The waitress looked more surprised than anyone and apologised over and over, “I’m sorry! Here, let me get a cloth and some more coffee, really, I am ever so sorry!” The man in the seat looked mean, but he just nodded.

Jane shook her head a little, watching Alice bustle about getting more tea for the two pensioners in the corner, before taking a seat for herself near the window.

Watching had always been a favoured pastime. Even during a wet drizzly today like today there were always people moving out there, rushing to be somewhere else or to get back to where they had already been.

Jane looked up as two young boys ran past, almost losing a football to a bus, laughing and enjoying another sunny day. Her coffee arrived, her usual. She nursed it for a while before adding sweeteners and watching the little patches of foam form on the top. She would ask Ben what caused that, and then reminded herself she wasn’t thinking about Ben today.

The door swung open, a little squall blowing in some rain and a gentleman struggling to hold onto his hat. She hunched a little closer to her mother, hugged her little bear a little tighter; nervous but not sure why. She got a pat on the arm, everything was all right.

The door swung open and the bell tinkled. Her eyes snapped from her coffee to the door. Two girls had come in and were ordering some sandwiches for a nearby office, Jane didn’t quite hear everything, enough to remind her of her time running around getting lunch for other people. Which led to Ben, and another lapse.

She watched as he walked over to the table next to theirs. She gripped her mother’s arm a little tighter, her bear tighter still. There was a bang, a scuffle, the man was pushed into their table, she fell to the floor and her mother’s arm was out of reach. Another bang.

Mother? But so much blood, even at seven she knew it was too much.

Jane snatched her phone from her bag, dialled her mother. “Mum?”

“Who else Jane?”

“You never told me how Gran died?” There was a short silence.

“Jane, are you okay you sound… has something happened?”

“How did she die?”

“Well, it’s been such a long time, are you sure? Okay, I remember it had been raining.”

So, now when I try out the various exercises on that page (and maybe if I buy the book and try a few more) you guys get to suffer! You can petition Google to add a feature to Blogger if you want, to filter out certain tags. I’ll tag all these as ‘Fiction’ so if they ever do add that feature you can avoid them!