David Weller Author Blogspot

Make a date in your diary because Secret of Heathcote Manor is due to be released by Level Best Books on 19th December 2023.

Having been sworn to secrecy for several months, I can finally reveal that Secret Of Heathcote Manor, an Upper Middle Grade time travel adventure, has been accepted for publication.

If you would like to find out what really happened to Jack the Ripper, go to @DavidWeller06 on Twitter and click on my pinned tweet.

If you'd like to read a Night Out in Whitechapel, head across to my twitter page @DavidWeller06   and click on the link. 

I outlined the sequel to Truthseeker several years ago, but have never gotten round to writing it until now. Earlier this week, I was busy working through edits on other projects when I suddenly developed an urge to begin writing again. In the space of a few hours, I'd knocked out the first chapter and began writing the second. With 3000 words written, I've now completed 5% of my target word count. The last time I developed an urge to start a new project, I completed the first draft in under two weeks. With my other commitments at the moment, I'm not sure I'll be able to match that with Truthseeker Book 2.

One way of writing a blurb for your query letter is to use WH Questions. ·           Who is the story about? ·           What is the story about? ·           Where is the setting or location of the story? ·           When does the story take place? ·           Why= the characters plot motive. The following example may help you to write one of your own. Hitting him with a nine iron wasn’t very sporting, but when someone is trying to disembowel you changing golf clubs is the last thing on your mind. Lady C is in a bit of a bind. Her father has just passed away at his London Club after an encounter with an officer of the Grenadier Guards dressed as a French maid and some wet lettuce. And to make matters worse, the terms of her late father’s will state she will only inh...

Unless you give up writing in English, and use a language such as Russian or Polish instead, articles will appear all over the page. In English these are ‘a’, 'an’ & ‘the.’   I’ve never come across any advice warning about their overuse, apart from not using them with a noun which can stand alone. However, I was stunned by how many times they cropped up in my own work.  I read through the first chapter and looked for ways to eliminate them. I was astounded when I cut the use of  ‘the’  by one third. My guess is that even when applied correctly, they can still be used too much.  Other words to watch out for include  of ,  by ,  into ,  about ,  in  and  for .

I spent years writing formal English in the workplace and some of this formality crept into early drafts of my  first  novel. Once this had been pointed out to me, I set about rooting out every example I could find. Relaxing sentence structure and simplifying words really helped.

Being represented by a literary agent is what authors, who wish to be traditionally published, aspire to. It's the only way their work will ever be seen by a major publishing house editor.  This is not always an easy thing to achieve and statistics say that the odds of receiving an offer of representation are about 6000 to 1. This is how I received my offer of representation. On the 18th of March 2021,  I sent a query letter and a 10 page writing sample to Cindy Bullard at Birch Literary. 39 days later, on the 26th of April I received a request for the full manuscript. Not wishing to blow my chances, I spent 10 days editing the manuscript and sent if off on the 6th of May. The next day I received an email saying that Cindy would be in touch within 8 weeks. On the the 1st of July I received an email saying that Cindy was behind on her reading and asking if the manuscript was still available. I said it was, and the next day Cindy emailed and thanked me for my patience as she con...

Secret of Heathcote Manor is still out on submission with several major publishers. With the Christmas and New Year festivities well and truly behind us, and spring on the horizon, we may receive some news soon. Hopefully it will be good news. Fingers crossed!