Introduction

Hello! Welcome to my blog, The Writer's Hideaway. Thank you so much for reading. Please subscribe, then you will be sure to see any new entries I post. Feel free to comment on anything I write here. I will do my best to reply to all comments.

Who am I?
I am Jess, a 20-year-old student in my second year at the University of Winchester, and an aspiring writer.  I'm a social creature who loves meeting new people and learning about them and chatting about all sorts of topics. None-writing interests include music, reading, theatre, events organising and travel.

Writing
I write in a wide range of forms. I'm currently especially into writing creative non-fiction and poetry. I do write fiction, but it tends to be either very short flash-fiction, or of novel length. I struggle with the standard 1500-4000 word short story, though I'm working on developing my skills in this area.

I have two novels. The first is a long-standing project that has developed slowly over five years, a contemporary gothic fantasy, In the Shadows. The main storyline follows a forbidden love-affair between vampyre Errol Richmond, and young human girl Raven Lockleare, while moving around in time with flashbacks from Errol's life - a life spanning some 150 years.

The second (working title Trust Me, subject to likely to change) was written during NaNoWriMo 2010 and is currently in the editing stages. I think it's about as different from In the Shadows as two books from the same author can be. At the moment the genre is labelled 'mainstream fiction.' It's a three-part narrative centering around two women, Lilly and Kate, fighting for justice against the same man, who has hurt each of them very badly. Full synopsis and excerpt can be found here.

I feel now like I want to launch into an essay about why I write and how it started, but that will be a post all of its own soon.

This Blog
The idea for this blog came to me while reading an article in Writing Magazine about blogging and how it can be a good way to network and for an unknown writer to get noticed. So, I thought I would give it a go.

My basic idea is to use this to talk about writing, what I am working on, how it is going, the triumphs and the difficult days, etc. I will share bits of my work occasionally. It might also include book reviews and talk about what I am currently reading.

Finally...
If you have a blog or website to do with books or writing, I am very happy to link to you if you link to me in return.

Please ask my permission before sharing any of the content I write here.

I own the copyright of everything written here unless otherwise stated.

Twitter: @amaranth_dreams
NaNoWriMo: miss_amaranth