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Why Writing Life doesn’t have to be lonely.. | Writing.ie
https://www.proseandpalate.com/home/2017/7/30/little-bird-by-sharon-dempsey-blog-tour
Little Bird by Sharon Dempsey Blog Tour — Prose and Palate
Loving this blog post. Little Bird takes flight today.
Little Bird ready to fly
Are we there yet?
Little Bird is almost ready to take flight. It can be pre-ordered on Amazon so it must be a real live book. Go grab yourself a copy and make me happy. And remember, every time a book gets a review, a writer gets their wings.
The Final Count Down
Writing the book is only the beginning. There’s the rewrites, the second, third, fourth and even fifth drafts. There’s the proper edits and then at the end of all that, if you are still mad enough to love writing, you have something resembling a book. I am almost at that stage.
My brilliant publishers, Betsy and Fred, partnered me up with editor Emma Mitchell. Emma read the manuscript, marked up her suggestions and then we had a telephone conversation where we talked about my characters as if they were real people. It has been amazing to have someone with such insight and editorial clarity working on my manuscript. She could see the world I had created, could inhabit it, and relate to my characters and care about them.
Reaching this stage was not easy. The final hurdle felt like an insurmountable wall. My computer chose to die with my final three weeks of edits apparently lost, along with realms of other stories, the beginning of my next book, workshop notes and research documents. Thankfully, a computer fixer guy on the Lisburn Road was able to do whatever technological magic it took, to retrieve almost all of my work. I am hoping that this marks the end of a month long period of everything going wrong. Seriously, if I told you the things that happened and got broke, during those four weeks, you’d think I was exaggerating. Scruffy, below, nearly dying was one of the bad things to occur.
But…deep breath, it’s over. On to good things, like planning the book launch, and making progress on book two. Wish me well!
Reading: Here and Gone, Haylen Beck, Little Deaths, Emma Flint
Listening to: KOL, disappointed not to be able to make the Dublin concert
Watching: House of Cards
Little Bird Book News
So, good news.
My debut crime novel Little Bird is being published by the wonderful Bloodhound Books. Cue much excitement and terror at the thought of my 103, 577 words being read by real people.
Bestselling crime writer, Louise Phillips has been kind enough to support the book throughout its creation, and has given me a fine quote to put on the cover:
“A search for identity, set against evil and revenge…a thrilling debut.”
Little Bird will be published on 31st of July.
Sharon Dempsey is a Belfast based writer of fiction and non-fiction books, with four health books published. She facilitates therapeutic creative writing classes for people affected by cancer and runs a creative writing group for young people, called Young Scribblers. Sharon studied Politics and English at Queen’s University and went on to City University to do a postgraduate diploma in journalism.
Through the Arts Council NI’s Support for the Individual Artist Programme, Sharon was awarded funding, to be mentored by Irish crime writer Louise Phillips, while writing Little Bird, her first crime novel.
Celebrating World Book Day!
Scrumptious Delights
Roald Dahl provided the inspiration for today’s workshop. We read the chapter Chocolates from Dahl’s autobiography ‘Boy’ and discussed how real life can inspire all sorts of stories.
Each child was asked to create their own chocolate confectionery. They had to come up with a weird or wacky design and to write about how they would market their product.
We then held presentations – each inventor had to present their idea to us, the chocolate factory board of directors, and we voted for the design which we felt was most innovative.
Sharon Dempsey 