Bronwen and Pawl, with sewing and pipes. 

Bronwen's Dowry was published, along with the eleven other finalists of the inaugural Ian St. James literary awards, in an anthology called 'At the Stroke of Twelve'.  An Irish magazine, Next, also published it, alongside this lovely picture.  I really wanted to buy the original but the editor never answered my letters to let me know who had painted it - so all I have is a now somewhat faded page from the magazine.
It is fascinating to see how someone else imagines your characters.  It gives your writing a totally new dimension.

Now that Silvana is heading towards publication, my main concern is the artwork for the front cover.  It needs to be eye-catching but more than that, it needs to capture something of the spirit of the novel.

I have long since come to believe that writing a book is the easy part.

Writing hint #1.  

Words conjure images.  Just because something is correct doesn’t mean readers won’t be confused and get a somewhat different picture in their minds than you intended.

 “As her head came through the door, her eyes fell on the table.”

I wrote the first draft of Silvana rather more years ago than I care to admit.  I had daydreamed the whole story over about a fortnight - in the time between going to bed at night and falling asleep (I was single and childless at the time. . . .) During the day, I constantly thought about it and it wouldn’t let me concentrate on much else - it demanded to be written.  It was the first thing I didn’t write longhand.  Up until then I had been a ‘flow of consciousness’ sort of writer - a specific colour ballpoint pen (black) on a specific size notepad (A4) with specific line spacing (wide) and always with margins. I didn’t need that with Silvana as I knew exactly what happened and so I could go straight to the keyboard for the first time in my life.  I wrote for several hours each days for three weeks until I had the whole story down - all 34,000 words.  I could relax.

Of course, I had no idea what to do with a story that was just short of 100 pages.  I read bits out at the Wexford Writer’s Circle meetings and someone there read the whole thing and told me in a beautiful letter (that of course I still have) how much she loved it.  Beyond that, I was stumped.

So Silvana joined Minimus Goes to the Moon, The Binding, and The Bond Stone of Eishe in the filing cabinet and I returned to writing copy for local council calendars, travel brochures and car hire companies and doing the odd ‘arty’ interview for the local paper.

Little did I know then that I was only beginning a journey that would take so long to complete, or one that would be so much fun.

Welcome to 'Bronwen's Dowry'.  This is a writer's diary and an editor's advice surgery all in one.
Here I intend to chart the progress of my various writing projects from seeds of inspiration to whatever they grow into.  Along the way, I hope to be able to share some ideas, lessons learnt and good advice - from various sources.  Mainly, I hope to have fun and make some new friends.
'Bronwen's Dowry' was the title of my Ian St. James award winning fantasy short story.  Bronwen had no money but she had her own special talents.  Through the use of these, step by step she built up her and her new husband's fortunes until he was in a position to realise his potential and she to see her dreams come true.  It seemed an apt name.