2022 - 07/2022 Meeting

Page Created: 02/24/22. Last Updated: 07/13/22.

ELIZABETH CHATSWORTH

ONLINE

Website: https://elizabethchatsworth.com/about/

Social Media:

.....FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/ElizabethChatsworth

.....Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizabethchatsworth/

.....Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/ECHATSWORTH/

.....Twitter (on hiatus): https://twitter.com/EChatsworth

SELECTED TITLES

Books:

.....The Brass Queen

.....Ten Minutes Past Tea Time (Novelette)

Meeting Date: July 9, 2022.

Meeting Site: Zoom Video Conference.

Attendance: 23.

Meeting Program: Talk, Q & A with Steampunk Author / Voice Actor.

Notes:

The Virtual Diner Run consisted of Kathy Cannarozzi, Philip De Parto, and John Upton. The group discussed books by George R R Martin and Donald Wollheim, recent movies including MINIONS, and the covid virus.

Newsletter Account:

Notes for Newsletter Account:

Lived in England until 22.

Watched Doctor Who when she was 2 or 3 in Sheffield, England and hid behind the couch when the Daleks appeared.

Was always accident-prone. Shattered her legs in a skiing accident when young and spent two years in bed, reading Asimov and Tolkien besides her class assignments.

Captivated by fantasy / sf humorists like Douglas Addams, Terry Pratchett, and RED DWARF.

Wrote a 112 K manuscript. It sold five years later after multiple rewrites.

She knew nothing about writing and wrote it like a movie, lovingly describing every detail. "But how do you create a world without all the detail?"

She wrote the first draft of THE BRASS QUEEN in Word and wrote it straight through without skipping around because she didn't know any better. Now uses scrivener. She can break work into scenes and keep track of the individual scenes.

Graduated with a degree in English. Came to New York at 22 and landed a job doing voice overs for BBC Radio. People found her voice unthreatening.

Joined a chapter of Romance Writers of America.

Camcat is her publisher. Small press. Does not need an agent.

THE BRASS QUEEN won the Benjamin Franklin Award of the Independent Book Publishers Association.

Heroine: Constance Haltwhistle. Hero: J F Trusdale

Readers: 60% Female. 40% Male.

Constance is an extension of the fiery romance redhead who flamethrowers and other high-tech steampunk weapons. Trusdale is an American cowboy / secret agent. He was inspired by the unnamed American cowboy in H G Wells' THE INVISIBLE MAN who shoots the man through the window of the pub. Who is he and what was he doing in England?

Wanted to use all the steampunk hardware, but do it tongue-in-cheek.

Constance's father has disappeared to another universe with an alien artifact, so she has to marry or lose the family weapon-works business. She hosts her own coming-out ball to land a man, solving production problems and dodging assassins.

Written as a screwball comedy. Won the MMRWA Best Banter Contest.

- - -

An accident gave her a concussion and tinnitius. Took a year to adjust and recover. Was unable to read. Words moved around.

Uses Calm to help her focus and relax: https://www.calm.com/. She cannot listen to music with lyrics when she writes or she gets distracted.

Not very technical. She has not yet installed her desk treadmill. Also hopes to use dragon voice software to help her. She goes to her local library's history room to write to be free of distractions at home.

Now lives in New Hampshire. It's beautiful, but an alien world. "There are things out there which will eat me." She's living the life of the GREEN ACRES television show.

Chat comment from Sean O'Connor - A pack of squirrels can strip a hiker to the bones in 15 minutes. That's why there are no homeless people in Canada.

Working on Book Two. It's a job! They give you a deadline to write it!

Steampunk story The Widow's Might won Writers of the Future Contest # 37. Set in Brass Queen Universe. Like the A-Team, except in Victorian Connecticut.

When she goes back to England after 30 years, she feels like a stranger in a strange land. But she doesn't really feel at home in America, either.

Met her husband when buying a mini-cooper in Connecticut. Her future husband worked in IT at the building next door. He was walking there with a coffee in his hand and he spotted her vanity plates: Doctor Who. He stopped. They chatted. She had planned to enter the mini-cooper in a road rally the following weekend and needed a co-pilot. That was their first date. Go to Stamford and get yourself a car and a husband.

She entered a number of RWA contests. She won some. People either loved or hated her work. Nothing in between.

She knew nothing about how publishing worked. She looked up science fiction's biggest literary agent and sent her novel and the world's worst query letter. The agent let her down gently and pointed her at some resources about how to do things properly.

She gets lots of feedback before sending out a work and uses Query Tracker (she uses pay version to help the creator) to keep track of her submissions.

She was told that she would never sell a steampunk book. She landed an agent who sent it to the major players. A couple of editors liked the book but were not able to sell it internally. Her agent left the business. An editor who had liked the work moved to new small press publisher Camcat. The Brass Queen was their first release. They gave it a big push. It got reviewed in a number of big venues. The work made it to # 16 on Amazon (all titles). Sold thousands of copies for the time she was on the list. She went with Camcat because they would do a real book - a hardcover with a map.

PR sells the author. Marketing sells the book. She does FaceBook, Twitter, & Instagram. She had 5000 subscribers by the time her book was published. She pimped out her dog for cute pictures.

Winning Pitch Wars, RWA contests, WOTF, and prestige book reviews got her the recognition / hype to get a book bub deal. Book bub was huge in moving her on Amazon.

Full time job (pre-move, pre-concussion) was as a voice over artist. She worked out her plotting, etc., on the train commute to and from work..