Gabrielle Lord

Edward from UK

gabrielle — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:59:42 +0000

Your email bounced. Contact Hodder Children’s Publishing in London and they might know when Revenge will be available there — or you might be able to buy it online

Please enter accurate email addresses

gabrielle — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:57:27 +0000

I get too many contact emails from readers who’ve used this website to ask questions, send messages, etc and it’s very disheartening for me not to be able to email people. So please please please be REALLY CAREFUL that the address you give me is correct.

Back on the Book 14 road….

gabrielle — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 21:19:44 +0000

This morning, I put in the last little bit of ‘tidy up’ on my new adult novel, Death By Beauty, the fifth in the Gemma Lincoln PI series, and it will shortly be on its way, back to the publishers for another editor to go over what I’ve ‘fixed’ — in case I’ve created a new problem! This final editing stage is very refined and time-consuming. Everything has to make sense, the times and days have to be in order, the phases of the moon (if it’s mentioned) and I can’t have a character in two places at once (as I”d done unwittingly!) People have to sleep, have a break, do the washing and the cooking, all things I’m inclined to overlook in my rush to push the story out. (Or does it say something about my own disinclinations?)

Now it’s tidy the desk, respond to some delightful letters from readers in the US and then back to Book 14, where I”ve left Winter in a frightening situation. Better get her out of that somehow. I believe the publication date for this book will be sometime in October.

Book 14 interrupted!!!

gabrielle — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 03:01:04 +0000

I’m currently having to go through the copy edit of my new adult novel Death By Beauty, due out in September. This means reading through the copy editor’s pencil notes on the typescript and thinking about the comments she’s made. If they’re okay with me, I simply leave them, if not, I write something else in red pen to be added to the printed text later. It is time-consuming work but it is this edit that checks on consistency and details. I had unwittingly written in a way that meant one of the characters was in two places at once — this would have been a big problem but the editor picked it up and now I need to rewrite this section. The only person I”m aware of who cold be in two places at once was St Anthony of Padua. Sometimes, it seems babies can do something similar. I hope to be back writing Book 14 again though, within several days. Juggling two completely different works can be tricky — it’s a bit like living in two worlds or like my errant character, being in two places at the same time.

Contact details

gabrielle — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:16:34 +0000

Please be accurate with email addresses if you use the contact field to write to me. Twice now, I”ve had emails bounce back as undeliverable because the return email is invalid. If you’re one of the people who’s contacted me and not had a response, please try again with a viable email address for me?

Book 14 is charging along well — I”m so enjoying writing this one. You will be amazed at Winter’s challenges and the courageous way she handles them, with of course, help from Boges, Ryan, Repro and Cal. Can’t wait to see it finished and with a chilling, thrilling cover!

Ep 2 and Book 14

gabrielle — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:15:09 +0000

It’s been an exciting week since I last posted. I’m thoroughly loving writing Book 14 — getting really involved with it. I even scared myself last night with one scene involving Winter — had to look up from the writing and recollect myself, that I was safe in my house with Pushkin the Guard cat and the brave man of the house…

It will be good to watch Ep 2 February tonight and find out how the audience reaction is going. Each Ep gets better, the producer told me and I’m looking out for that. The first Ep is always tricky — like the first part of a novel — setting up the story in a clever way, delivering a lot of information among the action — it takes skill otherwise things can get bogged down in long descriptions. So, dear readers, I”d better get on with it so that you have a nice new thrilling Conspiracy book to read this year.

Episode 1 of Conspiracy 365 airs on Family Movie Channel 14th January

gabrielle — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:24:36 +0000

It’s finally started and the reviews have been good. Ian Cuthbertson in The Australian described Ep 1 as

‘…a junior Underbelly…original, thrilling and does not condescend…’ I’ve been lucky enough to see Ep 2 and it is even more gripping. Even though I know the story(!!!!!!) I sat rivetted, watching Cal, Boges, Winter and the supporting cast. In Ep 2, Cal is left in a seemingly impossible fatal predicament…. Ep 2 goes to air on February 4th, 7pm on FMC. I hope it draws an even bigger audience.

I’m busy writing Book 14 which I can promise readers is going to be as exciting and compelling than anything else in the series — I can’t say much except that it rocks along with action-packed, high tensile incidents and will have you on the edge of your seats. (Don’t try reading this in class — you won’t even hear the teacher calling your name out! I look forward to hearing from you.

Hullo Victor!

gabrielle — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 23:21:34 +0000

You truly are — and have been — my number one fan!

Questions…..

gabrielle — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 23:14:31 +0000

It’s cool that people ask me questions on the contact form and I’m sure they’ll understand that I might not be able to answer every one of them in person! But I had a question about whether or not a writer needs an agent. First, you need to have written a book before this becomes a relevant question. Then you need to send that book to an agent. Many agents won’t look at unsolicited manuscripts. But if it’s good, it’ll find a home. So, get writing and complete a major work. Then look for an agent. Good luck and best wishes….

How it all happens…

gabrielle — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 04:37:08 +0000

I’ve had some requests concerning how I write and where I get ideas from. The world is full of ideas, newspapers, gossip, noticing things… ideas are ten a penny. The hard part is taking an idea and then pinning it down into a story line. Just like making a cake or building a house, a book must be planned, from the rough plans on the back of an envelope, to a more formal planning stage, to the ‘scaffolding’ and the foundations, the structure, the plot and the creation of characters. This part takes a lot of time and thinking. Then I have to go out to find the information I need — it might be spending a day with the police dogs to learn about the daily life of a police dog handler, it might be a visit to the morgue or a lab, to see the technicians at work, taking the bits of physical evidence provided by the police, clothes, weapons etc, and testing them for DNA traces. It might be speaking with a lawyer in order to get something legally ‘right’ in the book. Then I start writing because by that stage, I know where I”m going. Of course, I might deviate from my plan if a better idea emerges, scrap what I’ve done and rewrite. That gets me to first draft and then I see what a mess I’ve got! Then it’s a matter of just going over and over ‘all writing is re-writing’ some famous author said. After perhaps six drafts or so, the MS is ready to be seen by a professional editor who is trained to focus on the flaws and weaknesses that the author hasn’t noticed, or failed to rectify. Then it all comes back to me with pages of editor’s notes asking for adjustments, changes to strengthen consistency of character or plot, improving coherence etc. FInally, it goes off to the publisher again, for another polish and close edit. Then, it goes to the printers. Finally, draft jacket designs are examined and the blurb written. The whole process can take 18 months.

My tips for aspiring writers? Start writing! Start planning out a story with a beginning, a middle and an end. Then start writing it. It will take hundreds of hours. It means not going out on weekends, but staying home at your desk. When I was working nine to five, before the success of Fortress and the film rights money, I used to get up at four in the morning and write till six thirty then I’d get myself and my daughter breakfast and then off to work/school.

If you want to be a write, stop ‘wanting to be’ and starting writing. It should have first priority in your life if you want to be a successful professional writer.