Sophie Playle

Reminder: The Blog Has Moved

2011-03-02T08:22:00.001-08:00

I've launched a 'proper' website: http://sophieplayle.com/

The new blog is at: http://sophieplayle.com/?page_id=337

PLEASE UPDATE YOUR BOOKMARKS/FEEDS.

BLOG MOVING

2011-02-20T04:28:00.001-08:00

I've launched a 'proper' website: http://sophieplayle.com/

The new blog is at: http://sophieplayle.com/?page_id=337

PLEASE UPDATE YOUR BOOKMARKS/FEEDS.

I <3 you all, so don't get left behind :)

Interview with Creator of iwritereadrate.com

2011-02-04T08:13:00.000-08:00

Advancements in technology and social networking have created a system in which readers are more interactive, and where writers are taking publishing into their own hands. Online platforms for writers are on the rise. Iwritereadrate.com is a new website that aims to give power to readers and writers through an online critiquing community. I caught up with one of the creators to ask for more details.

Q: What makes iwritereadrate.com different from other online writing workshops?

A: www.iwritereadrate.com is first and foremost a website for unpublished writers to upload free of charge, sell, and receive constructive feedback from other writers/readers who love to find new voices and stories. We're about helping writers improve and prove their writing to a broader audience than they would otherwise have access to. Our website will be a place where readers can find new works and ideas, and become part of the writing process and experience, a new dynamic in the relationship between writers and readers of all kinds.

As an unpublished writer myself I understand the trials, tribulations, and disappointments of sending your hard work off to agents and not getting any feedback. Our website is about building a constructive community where unpublished writers can develop and find a market for their work; I'm convinced that in today's internet connected age that most writers will find an enthusiastic audience for their work, it's just a matter of reaching them. Fundamentally the idea comes directly from my experience trying to get feedback on my own writing but being unsuccessful due to the large number of MS the industry professionals receive. I'm never going to know if I've got something interesting - or eloquent - to say if other people don't have the ability to read and rate it.

For us, as unpublished writers, our website is all about utilising technology to help other writers like us - whatever stage of their writing journey they're presently at. We've thought long and hard about what features will be beneficial and have tried to pack as many of our ideas into the site from day one. We sincerely hope that other writers will also see the site as a great way to get feedback and to be active members of the rating community.

We think they're loads of reasons to use www.iwritereadrate.com, and each person who joins will likely find particular area's that are of most interest to them. We're also hoping that as well as all the features we're packing into the site that the social element will also be something that gives writers an additional support that they didn't have before. The only way for each individual writer or reader to find out what makes us different is to join and give us a try!

Q: What incentives are there for readers to rate work and provide feedback?

A: We'll be running a points system from the site launch. The more you rate, the more points you'll earn. There will be a number of levels that our members can achieve through getting involved and rating others work. We're about building a constructive and interactive community, so rating something when you've read it is very much an integral part to the experience of utilising our website.

Q: How would a writer use iwritereadrate.com to sell their work?

A: It's simple, once you've self-edited and got to a stage that you're happy to put your work out there, you just login (or register!) and follow the process to upload the document, a cover picture, set the price and away you go.

Our writers will receive 60% of a Cover Price that they set themselves from a number of options in £GBP, $US, Euros, or $AUS.

Q: Would a writer have to sell their work on the site, and would the reader have to buy it before feedback is given?

A: No, writers potentially don't have to charge for their work (depending upon total word count) and they can receive ratings even if they haven't had anyone download their work yet. Also, readers will be able to feedback in several ways before they have to decide whether to purchase the full length work - more detail on this below.

There will be five document size bands on the site - XS/S/M/L/XL - and this will determine the pricing options available for a writer to choose from. XS and S documents will have a FREE option, if this is the writers wish. The size bands will be based upon the total word count of each document. Also, just to mention, uploading any sized document will always be completely free for the writer, and they'll have a short Bio to sell their individual passion alongside their hard work.

In terms of feedback there will be three different levels at which a reader will rate any work - Synopsis, Preview, and Full - from the start there will be a rating system for the synopsis & preview, and an expanded rating system as well as a free-text review for the full document. We're considering opening up a free-text review for the preview as well (this didn't make it into the initial site build but is something we're keen to add as soon as we can).

We think that readers will be willing to pay a reasonable price to download the full work from new writers, as long as it has been judiciously self-edited and the work is of sufficient quality.

We're aiming to give readers the same level of information before choosing to download as they would have if they picked up a paperback in a bookstore - it will be free to view the synopsis and a short preview of the story so they can make an informed choice as to whether it is for them, and they will also be able to rate at all stages of this decision process.

Q: How would a reader know if a work has been 'judiciously self-edited' before they purchase it, if there are no 'gatekeepers' as such? And do you think readers will be willing to pay for the opportunity to critique someone else's work?

A: It's very much a subjective decision made by the reader based upon the impression that our writers have made with their Bio, Synopsis and Preview - all of which are free for a reader to view. We all know that when we're in a bookstore, we pick up a paperback, read the blurb on the back and if we like the sounds of it we might open it to read the first few pages, before making the decision to buy it - it's exactly the same principle on our website.

We hope that there will be a mix of writers at different stages of their development on our site so it will be down to the community to decide what it is that they consider a well written, well edited, and worth paying for to read the full work. The nature of the rating system will mean that the 'best' work is more easily accessible and visible on the site, but you'll also be able to search by genre to drill down to find more works that are of particular interest to you as a reader. As a caveat on this, what our individual members consider 'best' or 'judiciously self-edited' will likely differ from person to person. The rating system will be designed to flatten out the averages, as a guide to what they should investigate further. For me personally I often find books that aren't necessarily highly publicised or rated that I find well written and inspiring - hopefully this will also happen on the website.

I don't think it's a matter of readers paying for an opportunity to critique someone's work: I think it's about them accessing new writers and paying for a good read, the feedback element is about building a community around helping each other - altruistic I know, but then I'm an idealist at heart. I think there are undoubtedly a lot of diamonds out there which, for whatever reason, haven't had any luck through the traditional channels. I absolutely do think that readers will be willing to pay for unpublished work, and the writers should polish what they have as much as they can, to ensure they have the best opportunity for positive ratings.

However, I don't think that uploads which have spelling or grammatical mistakes (or don't flow) will be very popular at all, so it's important that writers do their best to self-edit if they want to get positive feedback and ultimately have their work downloaded. So whilst the site doesn't have any official 'gatekeepers' the community will decide what is highly rated and what requires some further work to get it up to an appropriate standard.

We interviewed a Literary Consultant in January - Helen Corner from Cornerstones - about tips for new writers and posted her answers on our blog. We'll also be posting a basic self-editing process that I follow on our blog during February and looking to post more about this in the future. You can take a look at these and other articles at: blog.iwritereadrate.com.

Q: In the FAQs on your site, you say that you believe it is every writer's dream to be published in the traditional manner using the publishing industry, and that by selling work on iwritereadrate.com a writer can ‘show the industry your success’. However, by selling their work on iwritereadrate.com, a writer has self-published, which means a large publishing house is unlikely to pick up the work. What are your thoughts on this?

A: Yes, I truly believe it is every writers dream to be published in the traditional manner. However, writers already submit pretty long extracts all over the place in an effort to get feedback and support from their peers and the reading community, as the industry generally is not able to give them it. We just see our site as an extension of this. We don't really see what we're doing as self-publishing - we're just providing a central platform for writers to sell their passion, their work, and get valuable feedback which is often difficult to find. If a writer wants to take down their work, for whatever reason, then they can do so at any time.

If the work is good enough it would be self-destructive for a publisher not to publish it to the mass market just because it's been on our site. In the end the industry needs to embrace new technology - the change is happening all around us - and our website is ultimately there to help writers on their journey. Publishers shouldn't be afraid of this, they should embrace it. We think our site has the potential in improve the quality of submissions they receive and potentially illustrate that there is a market for a particular story, which I'm sure they'll be happy with. They should be expecting that writers need this type of support and encouragement in the very competitive environment of new fiction. Also, they should expect to see it more that motivated, pro-active, aspiring authors are searching out ways of improving their writing and should see this as an extremely positive step in the evolution of writing and publishing.

We'll be uploading our work from the beginning, so we're putting our money where our mouth is on this; however it still remains our dream to be published in the traditional manner. Once the site is live we'll be trying our best, as it says in the FAQ's section of our website, to forge strong links with industry professionals. We think that the benefits of our website significantly outweigh any old-fashioned concerns that it may raise.

Q: Though the company is new, what are your visions for the future of iwritereadrate.com?

A: We're just taking it one step at a time at the minute. I've had this idea bouncing around my head for several years, and the seed is finally about to germinate thanks to the team, so just loving every minute of it. When the site is live it'll be down to our members to make it bloom, as we've basically built it with them at the forefront of everything, and then we'll see where it takes us from there.

That being said we're constantly coming up with new idea's for the site and people we think we should approach to join up with. It will undoubtedly evolve over time, but at the minute we're really focused on the short term - getting the site ready for Pre-Launch uploads and then the Full Launch.

Thank you for taking the time to talk to us. I wish you the best of luck with your venture.

You can register now to be given pre-launch access, enter into a competition to win an eReader, and receive a monthly newsletter by visiting: www.iwritereadrate.com

Syntax - Crafting a Powerful Sentence

2011-02-03T06:51:00.000-08:00

Syntax changes everything. It's not just about what we put in a sentence - the words we choose, the punctuation - but how we put that sentence together. A well-crafted sentence can make all the difference to a reader. It can convey the writer's message more clearly, more effectively. Careful syntax is the difference between a messy, meandering piece of writing, and a crisp, powerful piece of writing.

This is something we discussed briefly last week in our creative writing class. It's something that writers don't (and shouldn't) pay attention to in the first drafts of their writing. Though you may find a lot of your sentences are constructed efficiently first time around, this instinct for good syntax comes with practice and knowledge. It is definitely something a writer should think about when it comes to editing their work.

Things to think about:

Is this sentence clear in meaning?
Though you might want to use ambiguity as an effect, more often than not it appears in work by accident. Sometimes, when an idea is clear in your own head, you might not be able to recognise that it could be confusing for the reader. This is occasionally due to word choice (e.g. 'The witch stared at him. He became petrified.' - Does this mean she turned him to stone, or that he was frightened?). Other times, confusion arises due to incorrect or absent punctuation. The famous example that the panda 'eats, shoots, and leaves' comes to mind.

Is this sentence repetitious?
Have you said the same thing twice in your sentence, but in a different way? For example, 'Jimmy was only a toddler, so he had to reach up to the table because he was so small.' Here, 'because he was so small' is redundant, because we already know that from the use of the word 'toddler'. We often over-write in this way in our first drafts, as we're eager to purge the information. Yet when we read our work back, we can hopefully see where repetitious words and phrases can be cut, as we view the work from a reader's perspective.

Does this sentence end on the right word?
We're more aware of this device in poetry: using certain words at the end of lines or stanzas for impact. It's the same for prose. For example, 'In a rage, Mike threw the soap that he'd washed the blood from his hands with.' Ending the sentence with the word 'with' creates no sense of impact. Instead, try: 'Mike washed the blood from his hands, and threw the soap in a rage.'

Does this paragraph end with the right sentence?
Syntax is more than just looking at isolated sentences. You have to look at the writing as a whole, building it up piece by piece. Ending with emphasis doesn't just apply to sentences, but also to paragraphs. A paragraph should contain one idea or encapsulate one part of the action. The sentences should build up this idea, beginning with its seed and finishing in a blossom. This is something we think about when writing academic work, but it also applies to fiction.

Is this sentence passive? Passivity in writing is dull. It suggests to the reader that the writer is unsure of themselves, and also gives the impression that the action is happening at arm's length (although, this can sometimes be a deliberate device). The passive voice is initiated when an object becomes the focus of the sentence, instead of the force that is acting upon the object. For example 'The cake was eaten by Sophie' is passive, because 'The cake was eaten' becomes the main clause, excluding the greedy perpetrator from the action. 'Sophie ate the cake' is in the active voice, and is much more immediate. Nom.

Does this sentence create the effect I want?
There are many syntactical techniques a writer can use to invoke a response in the reader. For example. To create a sense of fear. Or foreboding. Or tension. The writer can use short, fragmented sentences. Or they could create long and winding sentences, with many sub-clauses, such as this sub-clause here, or the one before, in order to create a sense of confusion, or drawn-out pace, or similar. Or perhaps a comma here, and here, and here, creates a sense of rhythm. You get the idea. It's a matter of making sure the syntax matches the idea behind the sentence.

Our tutor, Jo Shapcott, suggested that we all become more aware of syntax when we read. Studying published work in this way will hopefully make us more aware of syntax as writers.

A fellow student suggested copying out passages from books (purely as an exercise, of course), to really get a feel for the way an author writes. This would probably work best for people who learn by practice, rather than by theory.

A really useful little book that is full of tips on style, punctuation, grammar, and general 'do's and 'don't's of effective writing is The Elements of Style by Stunk & White. You can find a link to a free electronic copy to this book in the sidebar of my blog. (Scroll down to Writers' Resources.)

What about you? Is syntax something you think about in your writing? Editing? What are your tips? How do you craft the perfect sentence?

My Tutor, Jo Shapcott, Wins the Costa Book of the Year!

2011-01-26T10:16:00.000-08:00

Jo Shapcott is currently teaching our workshop group on the Creative Writing MA. I was thrilled to hear her poetry collection, Of Mutability, won the Costa book of the year. I even saw her on BBC Breakfast this morning. She excepted the award with humility, and 'on behalf of the genre of poetry'. The total prize money for the award was £35,000 - ah, what a dream! We plan to celebrate with cake in our next workshop :)

For the Love of Dystopia

2011-01-07T03:24:00.000-08:00

It recently occurred to me that I absolutely love dystopian film and fiction. I seem to be constantly drawn to writing dystopian fiction, and writing about it in my critical essays. So what is it that appeals to me?

In its simplest term, dystopias are utopias that have gone wrong. Usually a force comes into power, or a technology or advancement emerges, which seemingly aids to create the perfect society. Either the power is corruptive, or the vision of perfection is skewed.

Generally, dystopian worlds are set in the future, or occasionally on an alternative plane of reality. Because of this, they often contain elements of science-fiction, though not always. I suppose they would fit nicely into the genre of speculative fiction, as they deal with the premise of 'what if...?'. For example: The Matrix - what if machines took over the world and used humans as their power source? Or 1984 - what if the government constantly watched and monitored all human activity? Or Logan's Run - what if people were executed as soon as they reached the age of thirty, to keep the population youthful?

This website has managed to break down the dystopian genre into a further fourteen sub-genres. Most (if not all) dystopian fiction will fall into at least one of these categories, and quite possibly multiple categories. The fourteen sub-genres are: Totalitarian, bureaucratic, cyberpunk, tech noir, off-world, crime, overpopulation, leisure, apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, alien, surreal, uchronian (alternative history), machine, pseudo-utopian, feminist, time-travel, and capitalistic. Visit the website for definitions and examples of each.

I love the broadness of dystopian fiction. The scope for imagination. The main purpose of dystopian fiction is to hold a mirror up to our own society, or our own perception of the human experience. They show us possible alternatives to our current state of existence, and break down the mental misconceptions we have about ourselves. And often this mirror shows a fascinatingly dark and ugly world.

Here's a list of the 'Top 50 Dystopian Movies of All Time'.

Personal recommendations:
Gattaca - set in a world where genetically enhanced people are superior.
Battle Royale - School children have become out of control, so every year a different class is sent to an island and told to fight to the death until only one is left as a bid to control youth through fear.
The Matrix - Typical 'brain in the vat' premise.
28 Days Later - More horror than dystopian, but I would argue the latter half set in the army camp has strong elements of dystopia, as well as the premise of the 'Rage' virus.

And 'The 16 Best Dystopian Books of All Time'.

Personal recommendations:
The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells - Looks at the experimentation of human and animal genetics.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess - Though it is unclear in the film, this novel is actually set in the near future, where youths are running riot. Follows the story of a boy who is psychologically conditioned, and looks at the philosophy of free will.
I am Legend by Richard Matheson - One man is left alone in a world infected with a vampiric disease. (Way, way better than the film.)
The Road by Cormac McCarthy - Incredibly dark and bleak. An unexplained apocalypse has left the world a barren wasteland. The few remaining humans wander the planes, either as solitary nomads or gangs of cannibals.

Here are a few slightly obscure dystopian films you might want to watch:

THX 1138 (1971) - The ideas in this film are interesting, but I feel many of them have been implemented into more modern fictions, so they're not quite as original as they would have been when this film was first released. This film has a dream-like quality to it that creates a horrible sense of unease. Surreal, but slow paced in places.

The City of Lost Children (1995) - Extremely surreal and sometimes a little hard to follow (unless that's just me...). Wonderful visuals, such a beautifully ugly film. The first film that made me respect Ron Perlman as an actor!

Dystopian fiction is so versatile. It's recently become quite popular in the Young Adult sector, and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of The Hunger Games when I have the time. And dystopias don't always have to be horrific or bleak.

I by no means have exhausted dystopian recommendations in this post. I still have a lot more iconic films to see and books to read. What are your recommendations?

Highlights of 2010

2010-12-21T04:53:00.000-08:00

This is my 100th post! According to my counter, I've had over 10,000 visits to my blog. And according to Google Analytics, I've had over 2,000 individual visitors this year. And I have 50 blogger followers at the moment. Those are some nice stats :)

Anyhoo. It's nearly the end of 2010. Once again I shall be moaning about how quickly time flies, and moaning even more that I can't get used to writing '11' instead of '10' in dates. Inevitably, the end of the year is a time for reflection.

Last year I set myself one goal for 2010: write at least 500 words a week. Unfortunately, I quickly forgot about my goal. I didn't record any word counts. But considering I've written 10k of a novel, and a bunch of short stories and poems, I think it's possible I may have nearly reached the target. Who knows!

Here are the highlights of 2010:

APR. I published the first issue of Inkspill Magazine.
MAY. I travelled to Greece.
JUN. I got to travel to Portugal for the EurOMA conference, and stay in a 5 star hotel - all in the name of work!
JUL. I got to read and comment on the unpublished draft of Write to Be Published by Nicola Morgan, before it hits the shelves in June 2011.
AUG. I was accepted onto Royal Holloway's Creative Writing MA.
SEP. I racked up 1 year's experience in the publishing industry.
OCT. I was short listed in Mslexia's poetry competition.
NOV. I was published in the highly successful Hint Fiction anthology.
NOV. I was whisked away to Venice for my birthday.
DEC. I managed to reach the first 10k of a novel - the most I've ever written for a single project.

Strangely, looks like the first quarter of my year was pretty uneventful. I think I was just focusing on work, and spending my free time creating the first issue of Inkspill Magazine. Either that, or I can't remember that far back.

Fingers crossed for an even better 2011!

Inkspill Magazine Update & Advice from Lord Sugar

2010-12-19T02:51:00.000-08:00

Inkspill Magazine issue 3 has been on hold for a while, due to my MA and freelancing taking up a lot of time. But I'm nearly there with the third issue now. I have all the content commissioned (and what a great load of content it is!), and I've drafted it all up in InDesign. I've drafted the cover, and am just awaiting confirmation from the photographer that she likes what I've done with her image. I'm hoping that I can finish everything before January, and send off for a proof copy, ready to start selling in early January.

Running the publication has taken a lot more time and effort than I had originally anticipated. And since my Masters degree and my freelancing work takes priority, sometimes I let things slip a little. I have been on the verge of giving up on it for some time... But in my heart I don't really want to.

I was watching 'The Apprentice' the other day, and someone on it said something along the lines of: If your business is failing, you don't give up on it, you adapt it. You have to constantly evolve it.

Well, Inkspill isn't exactly failing, but it could be better. Issue one and two were printed by differing companies, in an attempt to keep costs low and quality high. But the main problem is the distribution. I have been buying in bulk, and sending out printed copies to contributors across the globe. This leaves me massively in the red. And now that I'm not working full time, I can't afford to be in the red. So once again, I am having to re-think my strategy. And the solution is going to be print-on-demand.

I have always been against print-on-demand because one-off printing means higher costs. So I'm also working on changing the format to keep the price down. I want Inkspill to be an affordable publication. The set postage costs by the print-on-demand company are the biggest worry, though.

And contributor copies... I started off sending a print copy to every contributor, even if they lived in America or Russia. For this issue, I am only sending print copies to those in the UK and Europe, and those outside this area will receive a PDF version. For future issues, I'm considering only sending PDF copies to contributors, BUT having a £10 'prize' for the best piece in the issue. Just some ideas at the moment.

Talking of PDFs, I'm also considering perhaps making the PDF version free. At the moment, I'm charging £1.50, and get quite a lot of people buying them. Yet I wonder, if I make it free, it should reach a much larger audience, and I could hopefully secure some advertising to generate the finances. Again, this is something I'm unsure of, and might have to experiment with...

I'm also going to be changing how I receive submissions. I get hundreds of email submissions, and it's a nightmare to keep them organised. For the new issues, I'm looking forward to finally using SubMishMash.

A while ago I advertised for the help of some guest poetry editors. Again, I have let things slip, and have yet to go through the submissions and select some guest editors, but this is something I am intending to do, to help with issue 4 and 5. I'm hoping SubMishMash will make it very easy for me to share the workload of submissions.

I'm also considering overhauling the website. Many days of work went into creating the current site, but I'm considering changing to a blog platform, simply because I need something that is much easier to change, adapt and move around. Once again, this isn't set in stone.

One last thing. I intended for the magazine to be published quarterly. Yet this year, I have only managed 2 issues. And so I'm considering making it bi-annual. But again, I'm not sure on this point yet.

Any thoughts and opinions on all this greatly welcome. After all, this magazine isn't for me - it's for you! Anyone with a creative spirit. So suggestions and opinions welcome.

Inkspill Magazine issue 3 will be available to buy January 2011.

(With thanks to Captain Cat for the wonderful promo shots)

Panic

2010-12-15T02:08:00.000-08:00

The first semester of my MA in Creative Writing is over. It's gone so quickly. Though there are three semesters in the year, only two of them are teaching semesters, so I've already had half of my teaching - a daunting thought!

Over the Christmas break I'm writing a 3-4k theory based essay. I've never had to do an academic essay to do with Creative Writing before. The essay side of Creative Writing at undergraduate level was about self-responses. Likewise, I've not had much experience of inventing my own title - about anything. Again, this is quite daunting. If I chose a bad title, my whole essay could fall through.

Luckily our first assignments are marked twice, and we have a chance to re-write them before the final submission. So that's quite comforting.

We also have to submit the first 5k words of our novels. I am going to go over all the parts I have been workshopping, and spruce them up a bit. I'm not too worried about getting this work done. But I'm very apprehensive of having it marked.

Now that a third of the academic year has gone, I'm also starting to panic about what I'm going to do in the future. Should I go back into the publishing industry? Can I expand my freelancing? Could I become an English teacher? ... I just have no idea.

Ideally, I think I need a job I can do part time, and one where I have a balance between working alone and interacting with people. Above all, though, it needs to be something I enjoy. That has always been my number one goal when it comes to a permanent job.

I know I have time to figure this all out. But sometimes time has a nasty habit of speeding up.

Student Riots - Punks Down on Their Luck

2010-12-10T04:41:00.000-08:00

"You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?"

Personally, yeah, I do. When I first went to university, just four years ago, I felt pretty unlucky. I was the first generation to have to pay £3k per year instead of £1k per year for my education. Now, students are facing £9k per year.

At the moment, I'm shouldering about £20k's worth of debt for my undergraduate degree (including living cost). I can imagine that with these new student fees, many students will be facing around £35-40k of debt. It's outrageous.

I'm unsure how post graduate degrees will be affected, but I'm also feeling lucky that I went for mine when I did. The cost was already on the cusp of an absurd amount to me. If it had been any higher, I would not be a student again right now.

MPs are saying that £9k a year is still a small price to pay for a degree, considering that students are given loans and won't have to pay anything back until they are earning £20k+. But degrees seem to be decreasing in value, since so many people have them, and there is already a lack of jobs. Graduate enemployment is at an all-time high, so how can it be justified that a degree is worth £40k in the end? It is not a guarantee for a higher paid job, or even a job at all.

If this price increase discourages people to go to university, the value of a degree will increase. But the people whole are dissuaded will be those from working and lower-middle-class backgrounds, for whom £35-40k of debt is actually a significant figure.

The BBC's top story today seems to be about a few protesters kicking Prince Charles' car. Because that's obviously the most important thing here.

I watched around three hours of news coverage of the riots last night, with mixed emotion. Students are rightly protesting. The minority are (in my opinion) wrongly protesting using violence.

Many people are saying that the decision is undemocratic. News reporters retaliated saying that the MPs making this decision were democratically elected. To which protesters responded that when they voted, these student fee increases were not in the parties' policies. Liberal Democrats said they would fight to abolish student fees, and the Conservatives said they would not increase student fees. Many people are angry because the voting system seems to be nothing more than a façade.

I'm still in a state of disbelief. It's simply unsustainable, ridiculous, and outrageous.

'Soulless' by Gail Carriger - Humorous Supernatural Victorian Steampunk Erotica Romance... etc...

2010-11-26T02:50:00.000-08:00

[CONTAINS MILD SPOILERS]

Soulless by Gail Carriger fearlessly spans many genres. The book doesn't take itself too seriously, and because of this it is quite a fun read. There are many dark and solemn supernatural or steampunk tales out there. The humour in Soulless is quite refreshing in comparison. However, I fear that it's array of genres ultimately dilutes this book.

Blurb from Amazon.co.uk:

Alexia Tarabotti is labouring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette. Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire - and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate. With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London's high society? Or will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart? SOULLESS is a comedy of manners set in Victorian London: full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking.

At first, I found the main character, Alexia, slightly annoying. Unused to reading humour, it took me a while to relax into the tone of the book. Alexia first appeared as prissy, but as I began to see the world she lived in, and as I began to uncover more about her character, I started to warm to her. By the end of the novel, though, she had began to irk me a little again.

The book deals with Victorian high society. And to be honest, it's this kind of corset-wearing, tea-drinking, party-going superficial pointlessness that I find least appealing about this era in history. I'm really not bothered about the colour and trim of a dress, or how many parasols or hats one person can own... This isn't a criticism of the writing, but I think it all adds to the slightly irritating prudishness of the book. One reviewer on Amazon said they found the writing 'smug', and I think some people might well read it that way, mostly because of the high society that the book deals with, blended with the richly sarcastic tone. Some may view this as a flaw, but others I'm sure will view it as a strength. This aspect of the novel, I feel, is very much down to personal preference.

This aside, my favourite characters by far were the werewolves. In Carriger's world, supernaturals are integrated into society, and are even part of the government. Lord Maccon (alpha werewolf and head of the Bureau of Unnatural Registry) is gruff and rude; his beta Professor Lyall is intelligent, loyal and well respected. I thought both their characters were very well painted.

Lord Maccon quickly becomes the story's main love interest, and Carriger has perfected the art of teasing us with this sub-plot, and doesn't give us what we want until the very end - as it should be with all good love stories. By the end of the novel, however, the story did start to boarder on Mills and Boons. The slightly more graphic Epilogue cheapened the eroticism and romance that was so well executed throughout the rest of the book.

The steampunk elements of this book seemed fairly tacked-on. In one of the early chapters, Alexia and her even more annoying friend Ivy are taking a walk. They come across some airships tethered in Hyde Park. Alexia makes some fleeting comments about how amazing they are, and then they never crop up again.

Steampunk comes more into play at the end of the novel, when were are faced with revolutionary and horrific cog-filled torture machines. These were fascinating, yet their darkness contrasted almost unnaturally with the light-hearted tone of the rest of the book.

An automaton also becomes integral to the plot. Carriger describes this mechanical man with appropriate horror (the unyielding strength, the dead skin, the carved forehead...). The mystery around this character really drives the novel forward, but once we find out what it is, so much suspense is lost, and from that point, the automaton loses much of its original character and falls very much into the background. The revelation about the carving in its forehead was a disappointment to me, too. The word was 'VIXI' and I thought it would represent Roman numerals, perhaps suggesting there are many more of these monsters, but instead it turns out it is part of some magic spell, and all that is needed to defeat the automaton is essentially a face wash.

In all, the book is well structured and the characters are rich. Though the main themes have been done many times before, Carriger brings a freshness to them with some original thought. The amalgamation of genres makes this a difficult book to place in the market, and I feel the light tone and the supernatural romance elements are the strongest. The steampunk elements are mostly aesthetic, and I feel that Carriger is more enchanted by high society Victorian England mixed with supernatural creatures than anything more technological.

Rating: **1/2 (Two and a half stars out of five)

'Boneshaker' by Cherie Priest - All Steam and No Punk

2010-11-25T08:21:00.000-08:00

Boneshaker seeks to combine the steampunk genre with zombie horror. Published by Tor in 2009, it was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2010, though public reviews are mixed and varied.

Blurb from Amazon.co.uk:

At the start of the Civil War, a Russian mining company commissions a great machine to pave the way from Seattle to Alaska and speed up the gold rush that is beating a path to the frozen north. Inventor Leviticus Blue creates the machine, but on its first test run it malfunctions, decimating Seattle s banking district and uncovering a vein of Blight Gas that turns everyone who breathes it into the living dead. Sixteen years later Briar, Blue's widow, lives in the poor neighbourhood outside the wall that s been built around the uninhabitable city. Life is tough with a ruined reputation, but she and her teenage son Ezekiel are surviving until Zeke impetuously decides that he must reclaim his father s name from the clutches of history.

And surprisingly, I'm not giving away too much of the plot, as much of that background info is crammed into the first couple of pages. It is presented as an extract from a historical novel, which one of the characters is writing.

This character, Hale Quarter, is one of the first people we come across in chapter one. We see the world from a mixture of his and Briar's point-of-view. Then, Quarter disappears, and doesn't reappear again in the novel. Not a particularly smooth introduction to the story.

The novel is structured with two dominant view points: Briar and Zeke. Each have their own chapters. Briar's chapters are illustrated with a pair of goggles at the beginning, and Zeke's chapters with a gas lamp. A nice touch.

I felt Priest painted Briar's character quite well. Her history, her flaws, made her more human. However, she boarded on the stereotypical 'mother who will stop at nothing' to save her child.

Zeke, on the other hand, was an incredibly annoying character. He is meant to be an older teenager, but acts more like a ten or eleven year old. He lacks a sense of maturity, and his thoughts are simple. Often, he comes across as rather dumb, and I felt almost completely unsympathetic towards him.

Whereas Briar has a much more active stance in moving the plot forward, Zeke is lead around by others, making him passive and quite boring.

All four-hundred pages of the book take place within a few days. And this slow pace often takes its toll. The action scenes are well executed and exciting, but the spaces between them are often bogged down with unnecessary description, bantering, and time-fillers. It seems to me that there is no real control over the contours of action and suspense.

I commend Priest's original zombie ideas. The term 'rotter' is both apt and phonetically pleasing, and I liked the idea that these zombies were created by a poisonous gas. However, there is no attempt to explain why this 'blight' created the undead, or why or how it was being formed beneath the city. The characters don't even wonder about this, which I found strange. The role of the zombies in the plot is quite unoriginal. They are just there to loom, chase and destroy.

The steampunk elements are largely aesthetic. There are copious amounts of goggles, airships, weird weapons and strange devices. Nothing seems superficial in the sense that all the steampunk objects are important to the narrative. However, there is no real sense of rebellion in this text, no real sense of the 'punk'. This book doesn't really try to hold up a mirror to anything, to reveal any ugly truth.

The book itself bears a sepia text (as opposed to traditional black) which I personally found a little hard on the eyes. However, I adore the cover art and design.

Overall, I did enjoy reading Boneshaker, despite its flaws. Priest's imagined world is rich and dark. Perhaps with a little more editing and fine tuning, this book could have been even better.

Rating: *** (3/5 stars)

Belief

2010-11-19T02:17:00.000-08:00

In my last post, I talked about creative doubt. Last night, I went to see Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story which was showing at my local cinema. The most interesting part of the documentary, to me, was about Izzard's beginnings. His sheer determination. To try new things. To keep going even when everyone told him he was terrible. His belief in himself.

"You've got to believe you can be a stand-up before you can be a stand-up. You have to believe you can act before you can act. You have to believe you can be an astronaut before you can be an astronaut. You've got to believe."

And it's true. Because if you don't believe in yourself, then you're setting yourself up for a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure. As Izzard says in the documentary, it's a mind game. It's psychological.

And yet, you still have to question yourself, otherwise you 'could be lying in a ditch, at the end of your career' when you thought you were on top of the world. You have to believe in yourself, but not to the point of self-delusion. It's a careful balancing act.

Doubt

2010-11-17T03:04:00.000-08:00

Am I a writer? Do I want to be a writer? I’ve invested all of my worldly savings into my Masters course. A brave move? Or a stupid one? Am I buying the time to write? Or am I using it to justify myself as a writer? In which case, surely I’m not really one.

The thought of having to sit down and write isn’t pleasant to me. It seems like a chore. I’m crippled with self-doubt before I even start. It’s only once I’ve written something, I feel good. It’s only once I have a chunk of text down, and edited it, I’m sometimes quite pleased with what I’ve written. I feel like a writer.

And then if I don’t write, I feel guilty. I feel terrible.

Last night I had a strange experience. I was getting ready to have my bath. I usually read in the bath, and I was looking round my bedroom for a book to take with me. I had an urge to read a certain story, to find out what happens, and then I realised after a few seconds that the story I was thinking of was my work-in-progress. I guess that’s quite a good sign (for my writing – a bad sign for my sanity).

I’ve written nearly 10,000 words of my novel. My most sustained project yet. But it’s taken me over two months to write it. About an average of 150 words a day. Terrible, since I’ve quit my full time job to do this.

Why do I write? I don’t know. I yearn to see my writing in print, to hold my novel in my hands, printed by a respectable publisher. But that thought also fills me with fear. I have thin skin. I see premonitions of my novel being rated ‘one out of five stars’ on Amazon. Of scathing reviews. Worst, of being accused of ripping off others’ ideas. That my work is horribly unoriginal.

And if I find writing so hard, and it takes me so long, how on earth could I write more than one book? How awfully un-author-like that is. I should be biting at the bit to get to my keyboard, to furiously exorcise the stories in my head. And yet I’m not. I’m lounging around in my dressing gown, watching day-time telly, refreshing Facebook.

Would I be damning myself if I publish this post? Would I be admitting something terrible? Or am I just going through a phase? A phase that’s hard to shake. I’m hoping things will get easier.

Weird Writing

2010-11-11T04:37:00.000-08:00

I came across this great article today over at Uncanny Valley. 'Workshopping the Weird Kid' talks about the difficulties of giving group feedback to those writers who produce strange and unsettling work.

"It's simply inappropriate to suggest to someone who's written a story with a unicorn that the unicorn be taken out because it's weird. Because it's not relevant, because it's not effective, because it's not putting tension on any part of the story, sure. But its weirdness is conditional to its existence. If it wasn't weird, it would be a horse."

"It can be really difficult... to examine the weirdness present in a story for its utility instead of for the effects it was intended to produce--confusion, disgust, shock, alienation. These are valid effects for fiction, but like any other writing decision, they must be made to do work on the level of story and not just the level of reader reaction. Saying 'I wanted the reader to feel confused', ... does not in itself justify confusion."

Tracy Bowling really gets to the heart of this issue in her article. And it's something I come across when reading submissions for Inkspill Magazine. I want to publish highly creative work, including things that are considered 'weird'. But just submitting a weird story won't cut it. As Bowling points out in the quotes above, the weirdness needs to be intrinsic to the work.

An Evening with Booker Prize Winner Howard Jacobson

2010-10-22T02:19:00.000-07:00

Last night, I had the privilege to attend a talk from this year's Man Booker Prize winner, Howard Jacobson. I luckily obtained a free ticket via the university (though tickets were only £10 anyway). It was my first venture into the British Library(!) which, as it turns out, is a very impressive and welcoming place.

I haven't read anything by Jacobson... I must admit, I hadn't actually heard of him until the event, and I hadn't been following the Man Booker Prize... Prizes don't particularly interest me, because of their subjectivity and exclusivity. I'm no where near the stage when I can start to dream of nominations and wins...!

But he was a fantastic public speaker. Very insightful, and very funny. I liked his views on literary prizes: they're not the driving force of writing, but once you know they are out there, you think it would be nice to have one!

Howard Jacobson's writing insights:

- Don't give your characters boring names. 'I don't want to read about Paul and Jane!' Some of Jacobson's character's names include: Sefton Goldberg, Julian Treslove, Sam Finkler...

- Plot is boring. 'I don't read a book to find out "who dunnit"' - for Jacobson, the best novels are character driven. A fan of Dickens, he said Great Expectations is a great novel, because even though it is driven by plot, the revelation at the end changes the character of Pip, and so it is more about character growth than anything else.

- Don't plan. Otherwise it sounds too much like plot, and you end up forcing the novel to direct it towards your pre-planned scenes.

- Know your characters by writing them. Jacobson says he doesn't know anything about his characters until he starts writing about them, and the novel then shapes around them.

- Edit as you go. This doesn't work for everyone, but I have heard this technique from many authors. Don't write a first draft and then go back and edit it, but edit each sentence as you write them. Jacobson says on a bad day, he will write one sentence.

- Write what you know. Now, Jacobson didn't directly say this, but it was implied. He said the only novels he had to abandon (after only writing a few pages), were the ones in which he tried to be like James Joyce or the like. Instead, he found himself writing about things that were much closer to his current situation. Sometimes so much so that he had to move after a novel was published because too many of his colleagues would recognise themselves in the story!

Of course, what works for Howard Jacobson won't work for everyone. But it was incredibly interesting being able to have a little insight into the way the Booker Prize winner writes.

Creative Writing MA: The Workshop

2010-10-21T04:36:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I'm fast approaching the fifth week of my Creative Writing MA, and it will soon be Reading Week! (The university equivalent of half term... but with lots of reading to do.)

This first term is divided into two units: the workshop, and supplementary discourse.

Both these units are taught on the same day. Three hours for the workshop, a half hour break (across the road to the nice Italian cafe), and then one and a half hours for the supplementary discourse unit. The lessons end at seven o'clock in the evening, and then we usually head to the pub for a quick drink.

The Workshop

This is very much like the workshops I experienced as a third-year undergraduate, though the amount of work we submit is much greater. We take it in turns to submit 10-15 pages of double-spaced work, which we then have a week to read and comment on, before coming into class. The work can be anything we want feedback on.

People's projects are all at varying stages, depending on how much they have written, and how much they know about their own story. I feel sort of 'in the middle', as I haven't written a great deal, but I feel like I know quite a lot about the world I'm creating and its back story, even if I'm not entirely confident about the plot at the moment.

By now, everyone has had at least one piece workshopped. Things we have discussed have included wider topics such as point of view, how much information to use as 'hooks' and how much to withhold, tone, expectations and predictions from what we have first been presented with, and smaller details such as limiting dialogue tags, using layout to its full potential, and where and how to end sentences and paragraphs for the greatest impact.

We discuss the work, one piece per hour, and the writer is encouraged to remain quiet.

After talking to a few people from the other group (there are two Prose MA groups), it seems they have the opposite approach. The writers spend 10-15 minutes introducing their work, explaining what they were trying to achieve etc. However, it seems that the other group would prefer to adopt our workshop structure, as they feel that the introduction too greatly effects the type of feedback they receive.

I have to agree, I think the 'silent author' technique is the best way to go about workshopping.

Once the discussion is over, we all hand our annotated manuscripts back to the author.

I've found it to be a very constructive experience. Not only is it great to receive feedback, but it's also great fun discussing everyone's work, bouncing ideas of each other and looking at things in different ways.

Rising University Student Fees

2010-10-14T09:04:00.000-07:00

It's currently in the news that student fees are to rise, yet again - rumour has it, up to £10,000 per year, and this time with interest on the loan. This would, of course, mean that only the more privileged people will be able to afford to go to university, or those who would be happy to leave with tens of thousands of pounds of debt hanging over them.

Though I believe in free education for all, I think a line has to be drawn when it comes to university education. The recent systems just aren't sustainable for our country.

When my elder sister went to university, her fees were just £1200 per year. By the time it was my turn, they had risen to £3150 per year. My younger sister has just deferred her place, and she might be facing £6-10,000 per year. It's criminal.

Yet I think the current university system is all wrong. Simply put: there are too many universities.

Back in the day, it was actually impressive to have been to university. Now, people see it as their right. Whereas only a few college students would go on to study at university in the past, it seems that most do now days. And guess what? It's devalued the degree.

It still seems that degrees from some universities are worth more than degrees from other universities, but sometimes it is hard to tell. There are the league tables, and then there are the league tables by subject... And it all gets a little blurry.

I say, cut the number of universities. Cut the number of places on offer to college students in the UK. Make students work their asses off to get into university, instead of just getting average grades and deciding to go to uni on a whim because they'd rather not get a job just yet.

Then the universities will be nurturing the best minds with the right attitudes. Just like the good ol' days.

The government can pour all of the funding into those few universities, and bam, tuition fees go down. People can afford to go to university, and degrees are worth something again. The trick is getting the balance of places right, and keeping all opportunities equal.

Writers Write

2010-10-13T07:09:00.001-07:00

I'm always plagued by the same thought: how can I be a writer when I find it so hard to get the words out? Now, when I do get the words out, they usually aren't too bad (I hope). I quite like editing. I know about grammar and punctuation, and layout convention etc. I understand much of literary theory. But it's getting the words out in the first place that I struggle with the most.

When I see how much the other writers on my course produce, it makes me wonder why I seem to find it so difficult. Other writers I connect with online seem to punch out several thousand words a day.

I've only got about 3500 words down (and that's not even properly edited) for my novel, and I've been working on it for several weeks. I don't even have a full time job as an excuse any more.

I need to just let go and splurge. But I think there is an element of fear that stops me doing that. I need to get over this, or else how can I call myself a writer?

(Image by Shannon Runquist)

Creative Writing MA: The Induction

2010-10-06T10:16:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a couple of weeks. I promised to keep everyone updated on the MA and share the experience, and I feel a little guilty that I've had so much to say and no time to say it! (Seems like a reoccurring theme in my life...)

I'll start at the beginning.

On Thursday 23rd September, I had my Induction. For this, I had to travel to the Royal Holloway University campus, which is in Egham. Quite far from my house. I was rather apprehensive about having to get there for 9am.

To make matters infinitely worse, despite having not been ill for the whole of 2010, the day before my induction I came down with a truly rotten, stinking cold. I could go into details - but I'll try to keep a dignified silence.

So, my face swollen to the point that my teeth hurt in my jaw, and the apprehension of knowing I had to get up at 5am and navigate my way through unknown train lines, I barely slept a wink.

I was so close to not going. But I forced myself up at 4.45am (I was awake before my alarm, since I barely slept at all), and pumped myself full of medicine and phoned the taxi. No going back.

Too tired and too ill to eat, I waited for my taxi in the dark. It was late. I just about caught my train. I had a bitch of a journey. The university was a 20 min walk away from Egham station (according to Google maps), but they hadn't accounted for the campus being up a huge hill, the fact that I was coughing up my own lung, and I hadn't had any food. And that it was raining.

So I barely made it to the introductory lecture - which started 20 mins late anyway!

Turned out, the lecture really had nothing to do with Creative Writing. Waste of time.

With four hours to kill before the Creative Writing meeting, it then became apparent that I was meant to register. Where and how, no-one seemed to know!

After being sent on several circular journeys, and realising that I (as well as many of the other Creative Writing students) hadn't been sent any information about registration and therefore didn't have the right documents with me, I finally got it all sorted, but not before seriously considering yelling 'Screw your damn MA!' and going home.

I'm a grumpy, impatient (and at that moment, self-pityingly ill) person. I can't help it.

BUT, the Creative Writing talk reignited my faith. It sounded good, it sounded fun. Everyone on the course seemed really nice. There was a 'welcome party' in one of the conference rooms with wine and nibbles, where I chatted to some people in my group. It was all good, apart from the fact I was losing my voice and sounded rather like a teenage boy whose voice was breaking. Good first impressions, I think.

We then had a (pretty pointless) computer session. I was invited out for coffee afterwards, which I would have gladly gone to, but by that point I could barely whisper, and had a 3-hour journey home ahead of me, and was ready to fall to the floor, so I made my way hurriedly home.

The following Monday, we had our first seminar. Of course, I got lost on the way to the central London-based building, but got there in the end. The building is rather shabby (the campus was much, much nicer!), but one of my classmates commented on how typical it was for a University of London building...! Fair enough!

We have two seminars each Monday. My tutor is Susanna Jones (author of The Earthquake Bird among other novels), for both the workshop and the Supplementary Discourse modules. There was some confusion about which group was getting what tutor for what module due to conflicting paperwork, but the tutors seemed oblivious to this! Susanna seems like a great tutor. I'm happy.

My group is 8-strong, though we have been 1 short for the past few weeks. A good size, I think.

The first Monday was quite introductory, but we had our first 'real' seminars this week. But I'll leave that for another post...

Misses, Short Lists, and an Advance Copy

2010-09-25T02:44:00.000-07:00

I don't submit much and I don't submit often, but recently I've been unable to break a string of rejections. I submitted to Shock Totem and was rejected. I submitted to the 50 Stories for Pakistan, but didn't make the cut (quite gutted as there was a 1 in 5 chance of publication with that one, and I really wanted to be included in such a great project). I have one more submission 'out there'... keeping my fingers crossed.

Already feeling very down about my ability as a writer, these rejections really didn't help. I know I have to have a tough skin... It's something I'm still working on.

But in this morning's post I received quite an awesome rejection. Though I hadn't made the final cut, one of my poems, 'The Hiding Place', had been short listed in the annual Mslexia Poetry Competition. I was chuffed. I entered last year and didn't hear anything back. So this year I got one step closer. Quite encouraging.

In other news, the Hint Fiction Anthology has nearly reached its publication date. On November 1st, you'll be able to get your hands on a copy. I received an email this morning saying my contributor copy will be in the post shortly. I'm very excited about seeing it, and my huge 25 word story!

Here's Robert Swartwood opening the box of advance copies.

And here's tortoise Franklin having a read. I think the brevity of the stories is keeping him pretty engaged.

MA Preperation

2010-09-21T07:41:00.001-07:00

It's my first week since I left my job. I haven't been lazing around in bed (too much). Set my alarm for my usual 7.30am workday schedule, but ended getting up at 8.30am. Not too bad. Doesn't bode well for my bright idea of getting up at the crack of dawn and writing 1000 words before breakfast. My intentions to adhere to that schedule are always strongest at night. Then I can't get myself up in the morning. Will try harder once the course starts...

I've been to the library today. Only for a couple of hours. I have been researching Victorian Britain... in the Children's Reference section. Because, well, let's face it, Horrible Histories and books with lots of pictures are much more fun. If I find anything I want more detail on, I'll delve into the 'grown ups' section (which I doubt is very extensive) or have a look online. In a couple of hours, I had several pages of notes on dates and things I found interesting.

I have a strong idea of what I want to do for the beginning of my novel - the fist couple of chapters perhaps - but then my MC gets literally thrown out of an airship. All I could see was her standing in the middle of empty countryside. But after this little bit of research, my imagination has been populated with a variety of rich settings I could place her in...

So I've made a bit of progress, though research doesn't really feel like progress. And it bores me a little. I was only in the library for two hours, at least half an hour of which was spent browsing.

I also finally finished reading How Fiction Works by James Wood. I'll try to get round to writing a full review later, but it was a cracking read. Very interesting and insightful.

This week, via the power of email, I found out which group I'll be in for my Creative Writing MA. There are two groups of 10, and I'm in Group B. The course website says there are only three members of staff, but on the title table there is actually six. My tutors will be:

Susanna Jones, author of The Earthquake Bird, Waterlily and The Missing Person's Guide to Love, all published by Picador between 2001-2007.

Kate Williams - Though I'm unsure who exactly this is. There isn't any information about her on the university's website. I have found a Random House author of this name, and also a recent graduate of the Royal Holloway MA who has secured a huge book deal, so I'm wondering if it is her. That would be quite interesting, to be taught by such a successful veteran of the course. Furthermore, her novel is set in the Victorian era, too, which would be quite handy to talk about.

Giles Foden - Author of (most famously) The Last King of Scotland. I had no idea Giles Foden would be teaching on this course. He was my dissertation tutor at UEA in 2009. I'm not sure if he would remember me.

I received an email today (I've had numerous emails from Royal Holloway, but zilch paperwork through the post!). The email was from Susanna Jones, who will by my workshop leader. She asked for volunteers for the first workshop on Monday, for which 10-15 pages of double spaced writing needs to be presented. No way could I do that for Monday!

It gave me a jolt of fear. I knew I'd have to write a lot for this course. And that's my biggest weakness as a writer: my fear prevents me from even beginning. Big word counts scare me. So far in my writing life, I've been a short story/flash fiction writer. But that's the reason I took on this course. I need those deadlines and that expectation to jolt me into action. I want to write a novel. No excuses.

I've heard that you shouldn't be the first (or even second) to submit work to a writing group. The group needs time to settle and understand each other before people are comfortable giving feedback. If I can, I'd like to submit in week 3, but if that's not possible, I'll try to get something written for the second week. We'll see how eager my fellow classmates are to volunteer. They probably all feel the same as me!

Full Time Student, Part Time Freelancer

2010-09-19T07:21:00.000-07:00

Well, on Friday I left my job. I have been working full time for the world' leading publisher for nearly a year. It was a very surreal day. The desk that I had sat at for literally hundreds of hours. The faces I saw every day. The routine. All ended!

I had a lovely send-off. My colleagues all signed a card with some really nice messages, and gave me a £30 Amazon gift voucher (which is going to be extremely handy for getting books for my course!). My girl gang (all the other editorial assistants, assistant editors, and associate editors) also got me a card, and a £10 HMV voucher (which I'm going to buy The Proposition with - they know I love films!) and some gorgeous earrings.

I've learned an awful lot over the past year, and the people I have worked with have all been brilliant. But I'm not going to miss the stress. With so many of our team members leaving recently, and it taking so long for their roles to be filled again, things became quite difficult for many of us. Though I had a lot of support, it was still a difficult time.

I had an exit interview on Friday in which I raised a few concerns. My interviewer said that the interview could either be kept confidentially on file, or that it could be shared with my managers. I thought, what's the point in doing the interview if it's just going to be put in a filing cabinet and not read? So I agreed for my managers to read it. My main concerns were about the big gaps between people leaving and their positions being filled again, and the potential for promotion. It seemed that for an assistant at my entry level, it was very possible to be promoted to assistant editor and then to associate editor, within about three years, but it also seemed that all this meant was taking on more and more responsibilities and a bigger work load, while still effectively remaining on the bottom rung of the 'team' ladder. It would have made more sense to get more assistants in once someone had reach the status of associate editor.

Furthermore, it seemed that quite a few people had to leave the company because once they got to that level, there just wasn't anywhere higher they could get to, unless an editor left. I'm sure it's the same in most publishing houses, though.

Of course, my main reason for leaving was so I could go back into education. I think it is more than likely that when I come back to work again in a year's time, I will go back into publishing. However, I think I will definitely try to get into fiction publishing instead of educational publishing. I have heard they are very different roles.

It is very, very scary knowing that I won't be getting a pay package every month. I have one more month's pay to come to me, and that will be it. Which is why I'm going to use the contacts I've made over the past year to hopefully get some freelance work. Pearson have already offered me several freelance projects, some to be completed by the end of the year, and some ongoing for 2011. I'm extremely happy about this. I know exactly how to do this work, as it is a task I often did while working there, and the money is better than if I'd been working in-house (though only marginally).

I also have a few ideas for e-courses. I want to set up some passive income streams, so I'm going to have my work cut out for me setting those up. I want to make them really, really good quality and great value for money, but very simple to orchestrate.

I had a bit of a nightmare with my university enrollment recently. It seemed that though I had been accepted by the English department, they hadn't passed my application onto the applications office, so I didn't have an official place for a while. I found this out after contacting the uni expressing my concern that I hadn't had any paperwork though. Thankfully, it was resolved and I still had my place. But I had missed the early payment discount for paying the fees, which I was quite angry about. After a few more days of waiting, I found out that because it was the university's mistake and not mine, I could still pay the discounted fee. So I have already paid my full £4300 (£200 discount for paying early). And that's all my money at the moment. My bank account now echos.

So the stresses of work have been replaced with the stresses of money. I have to keep reminding myself that 'it's only money' and that I'll be okay, but I still have a lot of major doubts about whether I'm doing the right thing. I could have gone travelling with that money, or moved out. My dream of holding my first publishing novel in my hands is what keeps me going. Doing the MA gives me a legitimate excuse not to be working full time. It gives me deadlines and people to help and encourage me. It gives me that creative mindset and environment. I'm just hoping it's enough.

I'm aiming to make at least £200 per month to pay my rent and travel fees. Hopefully I can make a little more than that. I would like to be able to have £1000 saved up by the time I finish my course so that I can move out or go travelling. Not sure how realistic that target is. I want to focus as much as possible on my course. I have taken it full time so that I don't have to be a burden on the family home for more than another year. But I still need to support myself financially and save for my future. A tricky balancing act.

Relating to that, I need to have a big think about the future of Inkspill Magazine. I want to keep the project going, but with the current structure, I'm loosing around £80-£100 per issue. Which was do-able when I was working full time, but I can't do that on a student budget. I do want to keep it as a printed publication, but I have a feeling it might have to go to print-on-demand. Which would be a real shame as this means the price will inevitably go up, which I really don't want to do. Like I say, I need to have a big think about this, and come up with a way that I can publish it without making a loss, and keeping it good value for the reader. Issue 3 is delayed for these reasons, and because I have been terribly busy recently with work and setting up for university.

Well, that's it for now. It's Sunday afternoon and I don't have those 'Sunday blues' today, knowing that for the first time in a year I don't have to go into work tomorrow. I have my induction day on campus on Thursday (getting up at 5am to get the 6am train is not going to be fun), and I believe my course officially starts in central London the following Monday. I'm very excited.

50 Stories for Pakistan

2010-09-09T03:08:00.000-07:00

From the man who created 100 Stories for Haiti...

Pakistan … The United Nations estimates that twenty million people have lost their homes as a result of the flooding that started last July. Add to this the thousands who have already lost their lives, and the thousands who will lose their lives because of famine and disease … And well, it is once again time to do something!

100 Stories for Haiti has raised about £4000 for the Red Cross Haiti Earthquake Appeal. I am honoured and proud of the effort put in by writers and readers in supporting the project … So, let’s do it again!

Stories for Pakistan.

Let’s put together a book of 50 stories, each no more than 500 words in length. Any subject or genre is acceptable, however, no stories with any violence, death, or mass destruction.

Let me repeat that and add some extra rules just to be clear … Blimey! Anyone would think I’d done this before!

* 500 WORDS MAXIMUM.
* ANY SUBJECT OR GENRE.
* NO STORIES WITH ANY VIOLENCE, DEATH, OR DESTRUCTION.
* NO MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS.
* NO EMAIL ATTACHMENTS!

Please cut & paste your story into the body of an email, include your name, postal address, email address, and (if you have one) website. Include a short bio if you have one. Short, as in, one or two paragraphs.

ANY SUBMISSIONS FAILING TO FOLLOW THESE SIMPLE RULES WILL BE INSTANTLY REJECTED.

Please send your stories to storiesforpakistan@gmail.com

Stories for Pakistan will go out as an ebook and paperback published by Big Bad Media. We will also look to producing an audiobook version, as well as a version packaged as an iPhone app.

Proceeds will go to the Red Cross Pakistan Floods Appeal.

Writers, come on, it’s time to make a difference!

storiesforpakistan@gmail.com

Oh, deadline! SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19.

– Greg McQueen

Visit the 50 Stories for Pakistan website.

I've submitted my story, and will be buying a copy of the anthology as soon as it's out. Please help spread the word about this wonderful project.

Do You Know What's in Your Character's Fridge?

2010-08-19T03:11:00.000-07:00

Stumbled across this great photography project: You Are What You Eat.

It is a selection of photographs of people's fridges. The captions tell us about the owners. You can tell quite a bit about lifestyles from these photographs.

For example, this is the contents of a 1-person household. The owner was a World War II prisoner of war. He has a well-stocked fridge, which even includes cans of food. Make me wonder if he now has a fear of hunger, and makes sure his food supply is always well-stocked with long-lasting products in case of emergency.

The caption for this photo is: "Short Order Cook | Marathon,TX | 2-Person Household | She can bench press over 300lbs. | 2007". I'm mostly wondering why the hell there is a snake in her freezer (top right).

Anyway, food for thought. How well do you know your characters? What would they have in their fridge?

New-Fangled eReaders: The Growing Appeal

2010-08-16T03:25:00.000-07:00

This is the age of technology. Didn't you get the memo? Paper is so last decade.

But despite my general excitement about most advances in technology (usually paired with a subconscious sense of impending doom - I've seen enough sci-fi movies to know that technology can be scary stuff), I've not really jumped on the eReader bandwagon. Mostly because of the emotional attachment I feel with worn, well-loved paperbacks that I can read in a hot bath. I can't imagine using an eReader in the bath. The screen would steam up, it would slip out of my wet hands and plop into the water and I'd electrocute myself to death. (Note: I have yet to drop a book in the bath.)

Not only that, but they are bloody expensive.

However, I have been watching the developments with interest. This month, Amazon released a UK beta version of the Kindle. Despite the drab grey colour, it looks more compact and you can get it with free wi-fi or swanky 3G for a little extra dosh. At £109 for the wi-fi only version, it is much more affordable than the beautiful looking Apple iPad, which is not a steal at £429 - thought the iPad does a lot more than host eBooks, of course.

Following Amazon's new Kindle release, Waterstone's slashed the price of its Sony pocket eReader to £99, and announced today that a new Sony eReader is on the way.

There is much debate about whether or not eBooks should be cheaper than printed books. When it comes down to it, the only cost saving is on the paper, which costs the publisher pennies. So technically, no, eBooks shouldn't be cheaper. However, since the reader will have to cough up for an expensive (though now declining in price) eReader, paired with the expectation that eBooks should be cheaper, eBooks do indeed seem to be a lot cheaper than paper books at the moment. Perhaps this is why Amazon recently reported that digital sales outstripped hardbacks for the first time. Good going, I'd say, especially since I still don't think everyone has heard of eReaders yet. My sister, an avid reader, asked me yesterday: 'What's a Kindle?'.

Perhaps the 'green' issue will help lift sales. eReaders have been labelled more 'green' than traditional paper books. After all, think of how many forests are cut down for the tonnes of paper needed to print the latest Dan Brown novel? However, eReaders run on electricity and end up in landfills when they are thrown away - surely that can't be that green? This recent article explains that eReaders are indeed more environmentally friendly, that the little electricity it takes to run them outweighs the carbon footprint of the paper book, and that Kindles are completely recyclable. Interesting.

So, eReaders are coming down in price. eBooks are cheaper. And an eReader is more eco-friendly than paper books.

I'm starting to see the appeal.

Other reasons I'd love an eReader include:
- So many up-and-coming authors provide awesome free e-content.
- Many eReaders support the use of PDF, and I'd love to try Inkspill Magazine out on them.
- Saving space on my bookshelf appeals to me.

So what about you? Do you have an eReader? What do you think of it? Do you want an eReader?

No Time To Say Hello! Goodbye!

2010-08-13T03:14:00.001-07:00

Things are hectic as usual, and there are some big changes happening. Recently, I was accepted onto the Creative Writing MA at Royal Holloway, University of London. (Woo hoo! - Looks like Hogwarts, don't it?). Last week, I handed in my notice at work.

Many, many people think I have a screw loose. Leaving paid employment at a big publishing house, in a national economical crisis, to go back to being a broke student, and to study such a flopsy subject like 'creative writing'?

Yes, I can see how that sounds crazy.

But it is something I have been considering for a long time. It is my dream to be a published author, and if I don't try to achieve that dream, I'll regret it. I would rather fail knowing that I've tried than not try at all.

But an MA won't make you into a published author, I hear you cry. Indeed. I know that. I know the pros and cons, and I know the risk. (And boy do I know the financial risk!) But the way I see it, I'm investing in time to write, and legitimacy to write (somehow I don't think my mum would approve if I just quit my job to write - at least at the end of this I will have another qualification). And hopefully, I'm also investing in a creative, supportive environment. I felt I got a lot out of my BA, so I'm hoping I will suit being in the MA environment.

Now is the right time for me. Firstly, I want to get in quick before the fees go up. Secondly, I squared it with my lovely mother so that I could live at home for another year (paying a bit of rent), which means my living costs will be minimal. I shall commute into London. Thirdly, I have a good year's publishing experience under my belt now, which will hopefully help me get another job after I complete the MA. Fourthly, I have a few contacts now, who I believe I can draw on for some freelance work so that I can keep a bit of cash coming in.

So fingers crossed that I'll get what I'm looking for out of this.

Funnily enough, I have published an article in the second issue of Inkspill Magazine called 'Creative Writing Courses: What are they good for?' by Charles Christian, which has some less up-beat views about creative writing courses than my hopeful post here.

The PDF eVersion of Inkspill Magazine is available now. As some of you may know, I have been experiencing some trouble getting the printed copies of this issue, but thankfully that is nearly sorted and they should be on their way soon. Issue 1 is on sale at the moment to compensate the delay of issue 2! Please buy it. I am soon to be a very broke student!

Nick Cave to remake The Crow

2010-07-28T02:43:00.000-07:00

I love The Crow. I love the 1994 film (but not the terrible sequels), and I loved James O'Barr's graphic novel even more. Usually when I hear of a remake, I despair. But after hearing Nick Cave is to rewrite the original script, making it closer to the original graphic novel, I became quite excited.

I've not listened to much of Nick Cave's music beyond the soundtrack for The Proposition - which, coincidentally, is my preferred music to write to at the moment. Not only did Cave write the music for this film, he also wrote the screenplay. The Proposition is set during the colonisation of Australia and follows the story of an outlaw facing a difficult decision. The desolate shots of landscape, the minimalistic music and use of dialogue make this a beautiful yet unsettling piece of cinema.

I am very interested to see what Cave can bring to The Crow franchise. Will it be darker than the original? Can a serious film ever be made about a man dressed as a crow and out for revenge (a criticism of the new Batman films)? What will Cave bring to the soundtrack?

I, for one, am intrigued.

(I'd love to see Cillian Murphy in the lead role... But that's just me. I love that guy.)

Submission Managers for Indie Publishers

2010-07-27T05:14:00.001-07:00

I recently came across this online submissions manager for independent publishers. Submishmash (submishmash.com) is a free service and has a lot of useful-looking features such as defaul letter-drafting and statatistical analysis. However, the biggest turn-off for me is that a writer will have to sign up to submit. Another hope to jump through. I wonder if this would put writers off. On the other hand, they will be able to track their submission through the website, as well as their submissions with other publishers who use Submishmash.

HTMLGIANT reviewed the service well. I noticed that PANK magazine has recently started using this system, as do Word Riot.

I wonder if writers are more likely to jump through an extra hoop to submit to established 'zines. I wonder if a start-up 'zine would suffer if they chose this method.

On the other hand, this may filter out the half-assed submissions from people who don't bother to read the guidelines. In the age of the internet, people are looking for quick, free, easy ways to get published - not all people, but a lot of people. Will signing up to a site such as Submishmash filter out some of these types of submission? Is that a good or a bad thing?

Just some general thoughts here.

Writers and publishers - what do you think?

As a writer, would such a system put you off? Why/why not?

As a publisher, if you've used submissions managers, what was your experience? If you haven't used them, would you consider it?

Planning and Writing a Novel: from Sticky Labels, How-To Books, and Computer Software

2010-05-30T10:28:00.001-07:00

It's becoming increasingly difficult to keep this blog up to date. Not because I don't want to update it, but because free time is becoming a rarity! Inkspill Magazine is closing to submissions for Issue 2 tomorrow and I've got a lot of subs to read. Work has been hectic, with one of the editors I work for changing roles in the company. I'm off to Portugal next Sunday for a few days to attend a business conference. At the moment I'm still a little deaf from my trip into London to see The Frayed Laces. And on top of all that, I'm flat-hunting with my other half.

I've not managed to write another word of my novel over the past few weeks. BUT I have been making progress. I have been brainstorming and outlining like crazy. I've been trying to figure out how to weave all the history and past events of my novel's foundation into the present, without having to do lots of flashbacks. That's quite a challenge, but I'm getting there. It's hard to 'let go' of so much work, but I've realised that an awful lot of the foundations I've created are for my head only, and not necessarily for the readers' eyes.

I've been dipping in and out of a few books on novel writing, as I've never completed a novel before. An online friend, Bob Jacobs, recommended these books when he started writing his own novel. (I even won a signed copy of the third book through his blog!) The three I've been using are:

1. First Draft in 30 Days, by Karen S. Wiesner - This is a step-by-step walk through of how to build up a complete draft from scratch using worksheets in the back of the text. Interesting and relevant, but a bit too 'hand-holding' for me in parts. I feel like I can get lost in planning TOO much detail. Though the plot-building sections are the most useful.

2. Novel Writing, 16 Steps to Success by Evan Marshall - I've only skimmed about the first third of this, but it looks a bit too basic for me so far. It looks like it has a few interesting sections later on in the book, to do with submitting to publishers. Has some interesting ideas on 'sections', which brings me nicely to...

3. Make a Scene, Crafting a Powerful Story One Scene at a Time, by Jordan E. Rosenfeld - This has been a very handy book. I'm still working my way through it, but it has helped me understand the foundations of a good plot is created through building a story scene by scene. It describes how different scenes work and how they fit together... This type of theory is what I've been finding most useful from the other two books, too.

Today I've been planning my plot further by thinking up scenes and writing them on sticky notes and sticking them on a big piece of cardboard. Very old-school. Then I remembered recently reading a blog post by Sandra Patterson about a piece of novel-writing software called Scrivener. It looked pretty damn cool, but I was gutted to learn it was just for Macs (I'm increasingly regretting buying another PC laptop instead of spending an extra £500 on a MacBook).

So I had a little hunt round the internet for alternatives. There are an awful lot. So many of them looked pretty crap, though. Then I stumbled across Liquid Story Binder XE by Black Obelisk Software, which looked pretty swanky. I've downloaded the 30-day free trial ($45 dollars for an access code if you want to keep it permanently) and I'm having a play around. Will let you know how I get on with it.

How do you go about planning and writing your novels? Have you ready any 'how-to' books that have really helped? What works best for you?

Inkspill Magazine Issue 1

2010-05-18T01:01:00.000-07:00

Well, the first issue has been out for a little while now and has sold quite a few copies. Bob Jacobs, a writer I've know over the inter-web for a number of years now, has written a review of the issue here: Inkspill Magazine's Debut Issue.

Inkspill Magazine is A5 in size, with 64-jam-packed pages of fiction, poetry, art and articles. It has a glossy full-colour cover and a creative black and white internal design. The text is laid out in two columns which is interjected with quotes from the text and illustrative photographs in order to look more like a magazine and less like a book full of chunks of text.

Contributors are from across the globe, from the UK to the US, Denmark, Russia and Germany. Previously published or unpublished, Inkspill Magazine commissions work based on merit, not the reputation of the writer.

Articles include insights into performance poetry with tips for beginners, the analysis of a famous tale and the mediums it has been told in, and the editor of 100 Stories for Haiti tells us about the project's conception.

Short stories include tales of conjoined twins, blood-thirsty trees, invisible girls, imaginary friends, babies for sale and personal revelation.

Poetry ranges from the surreal to the humorous, from prose-poetry to visual poetry.

Art punctuates the text, with full pages dedicated to mixed media pieces, abstract paintings, and beautiful photographs.

All this for just £3.50 + P&P. PDF download will be available soon for just £1.50.

Website: www.inkspillmagazine.com
Email: hello@inkspillmagazine.com

Currently open to submissions for Issue 2 until the end of May. Please read the submission guidelines before submitting.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Articles:
100 Stories for Haiti: The Editor Speaks - by Greg McQueen
Thoughts from a Performance Poet - by Ray Morgan
Book vs Film: Watership Down - by Lindsay Oberst

Short Stories:
The Art of Invisibility - by Angela Readman
Before Helping Others - by Kat Hausler
Kevin - Bernard Brachya Cohen
The Carver's Son - Django Gold
Jasper's Betrayal - Jessica Patient
The Pump Twin - K. R. Sands

Poetry:
A Woodchip Fell from the Sky - William Doreski
The Course of Empire - Gardner Mounce
Red Door - Neila Mezynski
Speaking of Mayer - Lee Minh Sloca
Any Dope Can Write a Ditty - Russell Bittner
Pedro - Ray Morgan

Art:
Swell - Gardner Mounce
Steps Leading Up to Lookout Hill - Russell Bittner
Attack of the Furies - Jim Fuess
A young Midwestern girl looking bored, lace curtains in window light and the silhouette of a flightless bird - Todd R. Behrendt

Cover Art:
Alexander Gordeev

The No-One Prince of Nowhere

2010-05-10T11:31:00.000-07:00

Now... I could bang on about how excited I am that I finally received my batch of Inkspill Magazine from the printers today... and that it is available to buy from the website for merely a few quid...

OR, I could share with you my crummy poetry. No contest, really, is it?

The No-One Prince of Nowhere

The No-One Prince of Nowhere
sat on his throne and stared.
Hand on chin, elbow on knee
in his ancient royal chair

which was nowhere to be marked
on any map or any chart.
It’s where my kingdom used to be,
The No-One Prince remarked.

The field was empty, bare and dead,
The grass all shrivelled, the earth all red.
And though alone, the Prince would see
battles play inside his head.

Slash! Clash! Clank-Clank!
Sounds of war, the smells so rank,
lived on inside his memory,
though his face was always blank.

The men all fell, one by one,
And it was clear that none had won.
Now No-One lived and all were free,
because the Prince was dead and gone.

Coming Out of the Closet...

2010-05-06T01:30:00.000-07:00

No, not like that. I found my old YA fantasy novel I was writing when I was about fifteen or sixteen. I thought I may have lost it after two computer transfers and throwing away all my hand-written notes. (Note to self: don't throw away writing notes, no matter how crap they seem at the time.)

I'm really happy I found it, along with some notes I'd typed up. I can't believe how much I had written (nearly 10,000 words - the longest piece of fiction I've ever written), and it wasn't half as bad as I expected it to be.

I spent about an hour cleaning up the first 4,000 words last night. I'm going to outline the rest of the story. I had a bit of a brain-wave in the pub at the weekend that fixed one of the problems I was facing with the plot.

I recon I could get at least 100,000-150,000 words out of this huge plot and history I'm making up in my head. I'm considering trying to plan a trilogy of 50,000 words each. Apparently 50,000 words is about 175-200 pages of a standard book. Does that sound right?

And I'm also going to try and illustrate it. I haven't done much art since A-Level, where I began developing my skills with pen and ink, finding it a comfortable and versatile medium to work with.

I adore John Tenniel's illustrations in Alice in Wonderland, and I think I'll aim for something similar (though I'm slightly more sketchy than Tenniel).

If anyone can recommend some good YA fantasy novels, please do. I think I need to read some more. I'm hoping that my story has some originality to it, but I think I should read more of what is out there already to get a better idea.

Cars, Books and Finding the Time

2010-05-05T01:33:00.000-07:00

My old banger of a car has been slowly deteriorating. It is currently down my dad's workshop, and will probably need the clutch replacing. I only live a few miles from work. I walked home yesterday and it took me nearly an hour. I walked to the train station today, which took me about twenty-five minutes, and then got the train. In total, nearly an hour from door to door again.

It's made me realise that I'm terribly unfit (I knew that anyway). It's a bit of a pain having to walk, but perhaps if I do it all this week, I might start to feel a bit fitter. Nice to get a bit of air and exercise instead of driving to work, sitting at a desk all day, driving back and sitting in front of the TV/laptop all evening.

Which brings me onto my next point. I'm always complaining that I don't have time to write, or that I'm too tired after work to write. I'm going to try and change that.

A little while ago, I posted on here that I was going to try to write a novel. Well, after my idea had gone round my head a few times, I concluded that it was boring.

When I was about sixteen, a group of us wrote a short fantasy story for an English assignment. I tried to turn it into a novel, but didn't get very far. Recently, I've been thinking about that story again. I went to dig out my folder of notes for it... but I must have thrown them away when I 'sorted out' my room. I'm very annoyed at myself.

I think I have what I wrote on a disk somewhere. This week I'm going to dig it out and see how bad it is. I'm going to flesh out an outline, and start writing. I might have a go at writing in my lunch hour at work - though I usually like to get away from my desk for a bit. Might try writing in the evening, and... possibly... the morning. I'm incredibly lazy, though, and not a morning person. But I feel like I should try, and see what slots suit me best.

I know of lots of writers who have full time jobs and a family to look after. I don't have the family stuff, and I don't have a very long commute (usually - bar the car trouble), so I know that I don't really have an excuse.

Small, gradual changes are needed, I think.

Little Children, by Tom Perrotta - book review

2010-04-29T08:23:00.000-07:00

Little Children is based in suburban America and follows the story of former-feminist and housewife Sarah, who hates the life she has fallen into, and her affair with 'The Prom King' Todd, while the whole town is disrupted by the arrival of a convicted sex-offender.

The characters are well developed and the pace hardly ever lags in Perrotta's intelligent and witty black comedy drama. We don't see Ronnie commit any of his offenses (apart from one unpleasant exposure) but instead hear only speculation and witness the town's reaction towards him, which makes for interesting reading.

The ending of the film has one major difference to the ending of the book. (Read the book first, by the way.) The film has a more dramatic ending, whereas the book has a more subtle ending that evokes a sense of empty epiphany. On first reactions, film ending seemed more satisfying as it was more climatic. But on further reflection, the ending of the novel was far more realistic and in tune with the characters.

Royal College of Nursing Congress - where I met some student nurses and Nick Clegg

2010-04-29T01:42:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm really not updating the blog as much as I'd like. I've been completely run off my feet lately with work and Inkspill Magazine.

On Tuesday I was at the RCN Congress Student Day in Bournemouth for work (I am an editorial assistant on the Nursing list for Pearson Education). It took a while for me to get there on the train (3.5 hour there, 3.5 hours back!), but it was a good day. I was there with the commissioning editor and the marketing manager. We had our own book stall with a nice selection of our titles. Sold quite a few, and collected quite a few questionnaires for some research we are doing.

I had a wander around, and there were tonnes of stalls from health care recruitment to NHS stalls, army recruitment to food and beauty stalls. Lots of freebies (though I didn't take many). There was also a stall giving out free massages, but I didn't think that would have been quite appropriate while I was meant to be working!

The most exciting part of the day was the unexpected arrival of Nick Clegg. I jokingly said we should get him to sign one of our books, and the editor dared me to do it. So I did! He signed a nice copy of 'Becoming a Nurse' for us, which we then put back on the book stand to be sold.

It was a very long day, but it is nice to get out of the office every now and then, and to get chatting to the students we sell our books to.

Publishing is a Business

2010-04-18T03:25:00.001-07:00

In my whole life, did I ever picture myself as a business woman? The answer is no. If I were able to go back in time and tell my 15-year-old self, 'Hey, you get to work in the book industry when you're older!' I would have said 'Cool!'. If I'd said 'Hey, you have a 9-5 desk job in a huge business office when you're older,' I would have raise my eyebrows (I can't just raise the one) and said 'You're kidding, right?'

On Thursday, I had a particularly business-like day. I was dressed smart, armed with paperwork full of computer-generated statistics and some preparatory notes, and I had my first commissioning meeting.

I'd been to commissioning meetings before, with the editors I work for. This is when we get together lots of stats, facts and figures and convince the big cheeses of the company that a book is worth publishing. Then we get them to sign the paperwork, that includes the budget and the schedule of the project, and off we trot.

On Thursday, I lead my first meeting. I had never felt more like a business woman in my life. Talking about the statistics of previous sales in the series, and budgets for the expanding series, and reasons why the book would sell. I was pretty damn nervous. Everyone I had to present to were very nice, and I'd gotten to know most of them over my six months at the company, but I really do hate having to do presentations. My editor didn't leave me high and dry, though. He knew a lot more about the book and the series than I did, and was there to back me up when people asked questions I wasn't sure how to answer.

With one amendment to the finance stats, they agreed to commission the book. So I had to re-print all the paperwork and find all the right people to sign it the next day. (I still need three signatures.)

The editor I work for bought me a bottle of wine, which was unexpected and incredibly sweet. He wants me to take over the series in the future, and it's a really good feeling knowing that he's eager to support me advance my career.

I'm still readjusting to this image of myself as a business woman. All my life I've been interested in the creative arts. And I kinda miss it.

(The Director of Salt Publishing talks about the business of publishing in an interview over at Ink, Sweat & Tears.)

How Not to Promote Your Novel

2010-04-01T10:09:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you a story.

Sophie and Paul walk into Waterstones. Before having a chance to shake off the rain, a man approaches with a tray-- 'Would you like a chocolate?!'

Automatically, Sophie's mouth says 'Yes' before her brain processes suspicious motives.

'My book has just been published! Look! Please, read the blurb. Have a look. No pressure, of course. If you want.' Author rocks back on forth on his heels, tight smile on face, watching Sophie politely read the blurb while munching on the chocolate (that tastes bitter now that it is tainted with deception -- she should have known chocolate always comes at a price). Sophie can't focus on what the blurb says because she is acutely aware of an expectant author's stare.

Paul eats chocolate and lets Sophie deal with the situation.

'Thanks,' Sophie mutters and she and Paul quickly scurry away as far into the depths of the bookshop as possible.

'Well that was awkward,' Paul observes.

True story.

Pearson Charity Book Sale Raises £4,850

2010-03-30T04:46:00.000-07:00

Last week, I attended my second Pearson Education charity book sale at work. This is where lots of unsold Penguin stock (Penguin is owned by Pearson) is sold to Pearson employees at a ridiculously low price. Paperbacks were 50p, hardbacks were £1. One of the perks of working for such a big publishing company.

As usual, hundreds of people were queuing for the doors to open. This time, I was right at the front! Behind me, I could see a dangerous light reflecting in the eyes of every book-crazy employee. Fingers were flexing, ready to grab armfuls of the nearest books.

The doors opened and the room flooded before I could blink. The more experienced employees knew exactly where to go to get the best books. I hovered near the classics for a while, slightly dazed. The room filled and I spent forty minutes trying to circulate round all the tables.

I spent only about £15, but I got two bagfuls of books.

Today it was announced that the grand total raised was £4,850 from books that would have otherwise been pulped. The money is being split between the Stairway to Heaven Memorial Trust and The Michael Roberts Charitable Trust.

New Blog Design

2010-03-29T13:17:00.001-07:00

I've just changed my blog design. Hopefully this one looks smarter and more professional. Let me know what you think. I'll still be tweaking it over the next few days, and cleaning up the page now that I have discovered the new 'tab'/'pages' feature (by the way, if anyone knows how to customize the design of the tabs, please let me know!).

Writing, writing, writing... Reading, reading, reading!

2010-03-18T12:53:00.001-07:00

Busy, busy, busy!

I've done a fair bit of writing recently. Not a huge amount, but considering I have a full time job and I'm starting my own magazine, I've done more than I thought I would.

My New Year's Resolution was to write 500 words a week. I haven't kept that resolution. It didn't work for me. But you know what IS working for me? Contests!

I'm partaking in the Critters Bar writing forum's Flash League III. It's in its 8th week now. I've written an original piece for each round. The prompts get my juices flowing, and my incredibly competitive nature spurs me on.

Likewise, I've written something for Shock Totem's monthly flash competition.

And of course, I've been reading all the submissions for both of these things. There is a lot. Only a handful each week for the Critters Bar contest (though it is weekly), and there were a good 30 entrants to the Shock Totem contest - which is about 30,000 words.

Not only have I been reading contest entries, I've been reading submission entries for Inkspill Magazine. The submission deadline has just passed for Issue 1. I have been drafting up the content I've commissioned so far into InDesign to make sure I haven't over-commissioned. I have about 3/4 of the content, and so have to choose the best few stories from the remaining 50 submissions I have in my inbox. In total, I've probably read about 200 submissions for this first issue.

Luckily for me, I work in publishing, and some of the girls at work have offered to help out with the next issue. I may take them up on that offer sooner than I planned! I'd always intended to build a team for the magazine, so seems like the perfect place to start.

So that's been my last two months: shitloads of reading and writing! Who'd have thunk!?

A Day in the Life... #2

2010-03-10T11:43:00.000-08:00

I keep meaning to do more of these...

Today wasn't the most typical of days. Even though I have a ton of work to do (at the moment that includes conducting lots and lots of accademic reviews of our textbooks, sample chapters, and proposals; and preparing a manuscript for handover to the production team), I didn't get anything done today!

I wasn't slacking - I had other stuff to do.

The whole of my morning was spent in training. I attended an 'Introduction to Questionnaires' session, which was quite interesting. Very relevant since I have to write questionnaires to use as part of the reviewing process.

Then I had lunch with the other editorial assistants and assistant editors. We had three new people start this week, so that's quite exciting.

I spent the next hour or so sorting out emails. They tend to build up.

The rest of the afternoon I was in a meeting with the Nursing List staff. This included myself, the editor, and two of the marketing team. We were discussing some exciting up-coming plans to do with social media and putting together a student advisory team. I got the go-ahead to start a Twitter feed for the Nursing List! (I've been wanting to do that for months.) So yay!

Then I came home and ate a huge bar of chocolate. But that isn't part of the job.

Goodbye WordVooDoo

2010-03-01T03:26:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted much recently as I've been extremely busy with work, with my magazine project (full post about that another day!), with family, and with a little project called WordVooDoo.

In my second year of university, I volunteered to help moderate a creative writing project called WordVooDoo, run online by Mr Savage, a teacher at George Mitchell School, London. And I've been a moderator there ever since.

Selected pupils from the school, aged between 12-16, anonymously posted their responses to creative challenges, set by Mr Savage. The team of moderators were allocated about three students each, and commented on their posted work, offering advice and encouragement.

The standard has been impressive, and it has been a pleasure to see the students improve.

A 'Junior WordVooDoo' was even run for a little while.

But it would be impossible for projects like this not to run into a few problems here and there, and after several years, the project has come to an end.

To go out with a bang, the project's last task was competition-styled. I spent a few hours this weekend reading and commenting on my students' last pieces of work, and reading through all the students' entries. I sent my judgments via email to Mr Savage, who will announce the winners soon. Prizes include book tokens, and a year's worth of mentoring from some of the moderators.

All the students are extremely talented, and I hope that they all continue to write creatively. I only wish there had been a project like this when I was at school!

(image by 'blended-notes')

A Good Rejection

2010-02-20T11:20:00.000-08:00

About a week ago, I submitted by dissertation piece - a short story of 6,500 words - to ParsecInk's new anthology, Triangulation: End of the Rainbow. It said on their website that they have never commisioned anything over 5,000 words, though they wouldn't rule it out. I decided to give it a bash.

After reading their previous anthology, Triangulation: Dark Glass, and listening to their very helpful podcasts, I knew they only published the best quality stuff. And these were people who knew what they were talking about, too.

After I had submitted the story, part of me knew it wouldn't quite cut it. But I was still pleased with the story overall, and had a shred of hope.

Today I recieved the rejection, which read:

Thanks for sending this story our way, but we've decided to pass. While we found the opening intriguing, the story moved too slowly for us. There's some good world building here, but it's faintly reminiscent of Children of Men (the movie) and not really novel enough (from our perspective) to carry a story of this length.

We wish you luck in placing this elsewhere and will be happy to consider other stories from you that fit our theme.

That last comment is good news. They obviously liked my writing, just not the story. I was glad that Steve Ramey was the Assistant Editor who got to look at my story, because he always posts about individual stories on his blog. Which meant I got a little bit more insight. On his blog he writes:

This starts out quite promisingly, with a hint of near future complication, but soon begins to stretch into a simpler tale that lacks the substance to support so many words. There’s some interesting world building, though it feels faintly reminiscent of Children of Men (the movie, at least). There’s not enough newness to carry the idea and not enough narrative to carry the length. Plot elements are a little obvious in places. The actual writing is good, often very good, and the voice engaging. Pass to second read.

Steve then goes on to talk about his 'pick of the slush pile'...

And this week’s slushy goes to — drum roll, please — Story 1. It’s too long for its idea, which is not really novel enough, but it features an intriguing hook, engaging voice, and smooth delivery that set it apart from the others this week.

So as far as rejections go, at least I know it was a good'un! And I've been given some things to think about. I have a few ideas how to improve my story, though I'm not quite sure what the obvious plot elements were, and would have been more than happy to have them pointed out to me. As far as the 'Children of Men' comparison goes, yes, it does have an extremely similar theme (not only to the film, but the book too, as well as Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale'), but I was hoping I had created an original angle. I guess I have to work on that too.

YA Literary Heroes for Girls

2010-02-15T14:05:00.000-08:00

I have just read an article in the 2010 Jan/Feb/Mar issue of Mslexia (my favourite lit mag) called 'The new It Girls' (Deep in the heart of Young adult literature, a real, arse-kicking revolution is brewing. Could this be the rallying cry of a brave new feminist movement?).

It was a very insightful, logically written piece that contrasts the different portrayals of young women in the media and in fiction books. The article compares 'drippy' heroines like Twilight's Bella Swan to the strong heroines of many modern YA novels, such as Lyra in Pullman's Northen Lights and Katniss in The Hunger Games (a book I've seen mentioned in quite a few articles lately - I think I'll get hold of a copy).

The article looks back, too, at heroines such as Mary Lennox (The Secret Garden) and how strong female characters are not simply imitations of male characters, but assert themselves in their gender.

I found another heroine at the end of the article, though: the writer. This article was written by Leonara Craig Cohen, who is 17-years-old and studying English, Russian, Art and History of Art. She's written for The Guardian and The Times as well as various other places. And she's just SEVENTEEN.

My initial reaction was jealously, of course. Closely followed by admiration. Sometimes you don't have to look to fiction to find heroes for young women.

Short-Story.Me : The Edge of Extinction

2010-02-14T04:39:00.000-08:00

My sci-fi/fantasy flash fiction 'The Edge of Extinction' is up at Short-Story.Me today. It's on the front page as I write this, but I'll link to its own page so you can read the full story.

It had been four years since he’d seen his own kind alive. There was a white-hot explosion. He shielded his eyes with his arm, too little too late, and was thrown into the air. When he woke up, half his face had melted away and most of the flesh was gone from his arm. The sounds of war had silenced.

Read More...

(image from www.reneeprince.net)

Have All the Ideas Run Out?

2010-02-11T15:15:00.000-08:00

I went to the cinema the other day to see the remake of 'The Wolfman'. It was very disappointing. Predictable and boring for the most part (though I did think the transformation scenes weren't bad, as you'd expect with modern technology). Thing is, it was never really a good idea, was it? Back in the day, it was a fresh idea. Now it's just a cliche.

All the trailers before the film were for remakes. A remake of the 1973 film 'The Crazies' - I haven't seen the original, but I knew of it. I'm going to watch the remake when it comes out, though I have a feeling its going to be one of those films where the trailer is the best part. And a remake of 'Clash of the Titans' is coming out soon, too. I loved the original. That stop-start animation had such a freaky quality to it. Much scarier than CGI realism in my opinion.

I don't see the point in remaking films. I really don't. I'm trying to think of a remake that's better than the original. Perhaps my brain is a bit too tired at the moment to think. Or perhaps there just aren't (m)any.

I wish the film industry would stop taking a film and shoving a load of new effects into it. I wish they would stop focusing on special effects, and start thinking up some new ideas.

Because, as with creative writing, you can have all the fancy effects you like, but it's the story that's the core of it. Without the story, everything else falls flat.

A Day in the Life... #1

2010-02-02T10:21:00.000-08:00

Perhaps I don't blog enough about my experiences as an editorial assistant. Seems that it might be something people would want to read about... (Correct me if I'm wrong!) I've written several more general posts about my job, such as 7 Weeks as an Editorial Assistant. Well, I've now been in my position for about three and a half months. And I'm feeling pretty settled.

I got to work at five past nine. I usually aim for nine o'clock, though as long as you're in before half nine and you do all your hours, no one seems to mind. I was late because I'm not a morning person and it takes every shred of my energy to drag myself out of bed. I feel pathetic saying that, because I only live down the road from where I work, so I set my alarm for quarter to eight. By anyone else's standards, that's already a lay-in!

I curse the traffic as I drive to work. If the traffic wasn't there, it would take me five minutes to drive. In the traffic, it takes me closer to twenty minutes. I plan to cycle to work in the summer.

I get in, and the first thing I do is check my emails. I usually have about ten new messages in the morning. The other editorial assistants say they can have up to fifty. I guess I haven't quite reached their level yet. This morning, I only had one email!

I spent most of the morning photocopying and circulating the paperwork for PCM on Thursday. PCM stands for... Project Commissioning Meeting... I think... I attend these meetings with the editors I work for.

Then I jumped on the train into London. I was meeting one of our authors with the Business editor I work for. But the author didn't show up! He had sent an email to Editor cancelling the meeting, but Editor didn't receive the email in time. Oh well. We had lunch in a cafe, anyway. I got the train back to base. At least I got out of the office for a bit.

For most of the rest of the day, I was finding replacement web links to go on one of our book's website. Web links to external sites often go out of date, so we have to make sure we keep up.

All of this was punctuated with lots of cups of tea. And one cookie. It's all about the cookie... Remember that.

Boudoir of Books

2010-01-29T13:05:00.000-08:00

I have quite a lot of books. I'm sure most of you do. I don't have as many as I'd like. I often have to purge my horde due to lack of space. I have an increasing number of books on writing and publishing. And an increasing collection of lit mags and small press anthologies and the like. I started wondering about how those books would look, grouped together instead of scattered round my room. So I took some photos. Then I thought I might as well take some photos of all the nooks and crannies my books live in.

Here are all my books on writing. There are a few I'm currently reading ('First Draft in 30 Days' - Wisener, 'Make a Scene' - Rosenfeld) and some I haven't finished reading but started years ago ('The Ode Less Travelled' - Fry), and some I haven't even looked at yet. Mostly I've read them.

(That little guy in the corner is Rufus.)

And these are all my writing magazines and small press digests and the like. As you may notice, my copy of 'First Edition' isn't here. That's because I threw it away. I have also bought copies of 'Writer's Forum' and the other writing magazines that usually appear on the shelves of WHSmith. I buy them every so often, but they don't hugely appeal to me so I don't often keep them.

(As you can see, I'm a fan of 'Mslexia'.)

As for the rest of my books. I have two shelves over my desk. Highlights in this picture include my 9 inch vinyl of Nine Inch Nail's 'March of the Pigs' single, which my neighbour gave me for my 18th birthday, the Meowth pokemon sitting in front of my Narnia collection, and you can see my degree in the corner there too.

And the full shot of my shelves, where you can see my not-so-secret love of Anne Rice's 'Vampire Chronicles'. I also love my dragon book ends, which I got on The Isle of Wight, and you can see one of the masks I have from Venice.

My weird bookcase. My guitar shrunk in the wash. Okay, it's a ukulele.

This next one is my mini bookcase. From Argos. I put it together. It's not very sturdy. And I have so little room for all my stuff that I've had to stick my CD rack in front of it :( And yes, that book does say 'SEX' - it's a book of erotic art through the ages. And that middle shelf is mostly DVDs. And that's the 'Alien' quadrilogy on there too. Oh yeah.

This last one is the pile on top of my CD player. Mostly 'am vaguely reading' pile. And a couple of CDs, including Sue Foley and Rage Against the Machine, just to mix it up a bit.

There. I hope you've enjoyed looking round my room. Now get out before I call the police.

I Have 'The Fear'

2010-01-23T05:28:00.000-08:00

I think I am experiencing the writer's worst enemy: The Fear.

We're nearly a month into 2010, and I've failed my simple New Year's Resolution miserably. I've hardly written anything. I've not even started on the novel in my head.

There's a silent voice that's constantly telling me not to write, because it will be terrible and a waste of time. Without even realising it, I'm listening to this voice. I'm giving into The Fear of being a crap writer.

The logical part of my brain is being over-powered. I know that in order to write well, you must write a lot. Writing is like anything else: the more you practice, the better you'll be.

I know that there is this wonderful thing called 'editing' which means that a first draft doesn't have to be perfect.

I know these things, and yet I'm finding it increasingly difficult to write anything.

Mixed Feelings About Self-Publishing

2010-01-21T11:18:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to feel like a teenager again, who has been feuding with a boy for a long time. So long that I want to end the twenty-seventh rage-fuelled argument by shoving them up against the wall and kissing them violently.

Okay, that might be a slight exaggeration.

My position on self-publishing has always been that it's a bad thing. It was my gut-reaction, and my logical reaction, too. But increasingly my thoughts have been slipping to the dark side... Maybe this annoying rebel isn't so bad... In the right light, it might even be pretty sexy...

Let's start at the beginning of this thought process.

Why Self-Publishing a Novel is a Bad Idea

IF IT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE PUBLISHERS, HOW IS IT GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE PUBLIC?
I always thought that one of the main reason's someone would self-publish is because their manuscript simply isn't good enough for a publisher to want to invest in. Publishers know the business. If they think it ain't good, and that it won't sell, they're probably right.

THERE'S NO QUALITY CONTROL.
There's no editor, there's no standard that has to be met, there's no proofreader...

THEY LOOK CRAP.
Most people have no idea how to put an attractive cover together. Self-published books look bad aesthetically.

THERE'S NO ESTABLISHED 'BRAND' FOR READERS TO PUT THEIR FAITH INTO.
Without the 'brand' of a publisher, potential readers have no reason to assume that the book is worth reading. If a publisher has had enough faith in the manuscript to take it under their wing, then it means it isn't a pile of utter wank.

SMALL NAME, SMALL SALES.
As fellow blogger Aaron Polson mentioned, if you're a famous writer and you decide to self-publish, you're probably going to still sell a shit-load of books. This, again, is an issue of branding. One step above having a publisher's brand on your book, is having your name as the brand instead. Do you know what publishing house Irvine Welsh is with? No, nor do I. But I know his name, and I know he's a good writer. That's enough for me. Would I buy a complete novel from Billy No-Name? No - I have no idea who this guy is, or if he's capable of writing a decent novel.

Even as I write this, I am beginning to see more and more holes in my previous way of thinking.

There are things that you need to ask yourself about the goals of your own writing, your writing career.

What do you want to achieve with your writing?

Do you want to be published with a big name publisher? Why? To make money? To get the thrill of seeing your book on the shelves of Waterstones? It sounds nice. Essentially, that's fame and a bit of an ego-stroke. Maybe a bit of cash. Though unless you're an uber-best-seller like Stephen King, J. K. Rowling or Dan Brown, you'd probably not be able to give up your day job.

Do you want to create? Do you want control over the publication process of your work? Do you want to reach readers, but without quantity as the ultimate goal? Make a bit of cash? Be a bit rogue? Use modern technology to its full potential?

There are a few more issues to consider. These days, we're increasingly told that since social networking is so easily available to us all now, authors and potential authors should be building their own 'platforms'. Don't think that if you get a book deal with a big publisher, that you're not going to have to do any promotion yourself.

Also, there's the issue of royalties. At the publishing house I work at, author royalties are on average about 10%. I'm not saying that isn't fair (there are an awful lot of expenses that go into making a book at a publishing house), but getting more than that would be nice. Then again, you have to balance it out. You would most likely get fewer sales if you self-publish, so even if the pay is a higher percentage, it will probably be a lot less money overall.

Why Self-Publishing is a Good Idea

YOU AREN'T RESTRICTED BY TRENDS.
Publishers aren't there to publish the best writing. That may be one of their aims, sure, but essentially a publishing house is a business. They want to make money. If your book is awesome but the publishers don't think they will make enough money out of it, you're going to get rejected.

YOU HAVE MORE CONTROL.
It's your work. You can make the decisions. Sure, publishers 'know what they're doing' in the traditional sense. But maybe YOU could do something different. Something creative. Something that breaks the mould. Isn't that exciting?

YOU CAN MAKE A NAME FOR YOURSELF.
It can be done. Even if it's small scale. The Internet is a powerful tool. Social media is booming. Word of mouth is a far stronger sales tool than any advert can ever be. If you're savvy, you can do it.

How to Make the Most of Self-Publication

I'm no expert, but it doesn't take a genius to realise what mistakes are often made by self-publishing authors. Firstly, you need to PUT YOUR ALL INTO IT. Don't think that you can just do what you want because you're not going to get rejected by a publisher. If you product poor, you'll get rejected by readers. And you're back at square one - might as well have not wasted your energy trying to get published in the first place.

WRITE YOUR BEST.
Don't just write any old crap and chuck it on Lulu.com and expect people to buy it. People like that are the ones who have been giving self-publishing a bad name.

EDIT, EDIT, EDIT.
Same point as above, really. Writing takes time. It needs time to ferment. Leave your writing to rest for a while, then go back to it with a fresh mind and edit it. Don't rush into publication, as tempting as it is. You'll only embarrass yourself with a typo-ridden, poorly-structured painfully obviously rushed piece of writing.

WORKSHOP/ HIRE AN EDITOR.
Get some opinions on your piece. As the writer, you'll never be able to read your own novel from a reader's point of view. And since you're so close to your work, you might miss some major problems with it. A few pairs of fresh eyes (or better still, professional eyes) are invaluable.

MAKE IT LOOK GOOD.
If you're crap at using Photoshop, ask a friend or hire someone to create an awesome cover for your book. Make the interior look professional. People do judge books by their covers. They really, really do.

SET THE RIGHT PRICE.
No one is going to buy a book from a no-name author if you're selling it at £25 excluding postage and packaging. It's better to make a 50p profit per book and sell 100 books than make a £15 profit per book and sell 1 book (to your Mum, probably).

PROMOTE CORRECTLY.
Not all press is good press. Don't spam. Don't demand that people read your book. Build a platform. There are plenty of articles out there on how to do this well. Social networking is not for advert spamming. It's about communication with people. SHOW people that you're a competent, intelligent, interesting writer, and maybe they'll trust your product. If you tell people you're awesome, with no evidence to back that up, I'm pretty sure they won't believe you.

Why Self-Publishing Has a Bad Name

Someone you know online self-publishes several books. They bash them out at a dizzying rate. You've seen their writing before. Perhaps they've posted a sample on Facebook or their blog. It's always riddled with typos, stereotypical characters, and the plot closely resembles the number 1 selling book at Tesco. Their book is over-priced, and the cover makes you want to put pins in your eyes. Every two weeks you get a request to 'Become a Fan of Mr No-Name'. Does this scenario sound familiar?

That's largely been my experience of self-published writers.

But I reckon the right writer, with the right idea and the right book could probably use this whole self-publishing malarkey for something good.

Would I self-publish? Until recently, my answer would have been a resounding 'No!', followed by a snort of offended disgust. But after reading articles like The Death of the Slush Pile in which we're told 'each unsolicited submission [has] a .008% chance of rising to the top of the [slush] pile', I'm starting to think that maybe I shouldn't be so quick to stick my nose in the air. Maybe I should open myself up to the changing publishing world, and keep a bit more of an open mind.

I'm not saying by any means that self-publishing is 'good' or that it is 'bad'. I'm saying that the publishing world is in flux. Writers have more tools available to them than ever before. If they use those tools well, maybe something brilliantly non-traditional can come of it.

I'm sure you all have opinions on this subject. I'd love to hear them.

Newbie No Longer?

2010-01-15T11:06:00.000-08:00

One of the editorial assistants at Pearson, Jess, will be moving to Penguin in The Strand, London, as of Tuesday. Today was her last day at Pearson. Pearson own Penguin, so she's technically staying in the same company. It's very exciting as she's gone from being an editorial assistant for nearly two years, straight to editor.

At Pearson, Jess worked on the Humanities list. Today, while we toasted Jess with a glass of wine over at her desk, I saw a few of the books on that list. Books on Tarenito and Hitchcock, Shakespeare and Grammar... Those are my kind of books! A very small part of me wanted to request to be moved to that list... But I've just settled in the Business and Nursing lists, and feel like I'm getting to grips with it and getting to know the authors and the projects, so there's no way I'll request to move any time soon. Plus, the editors I work for, Matthew and David, are great guys and they have told me how much they appreciate my help! It would be a bit of a kick in the teeth.

So, there's an editorial assistant position open! I'll no longer be the newest one. I won't be at the bottom of the food chain any more! Nearly all the editorial assistants were promoted to assistant editors (yes, there's a difference!) at the beginning of this year. Obviously I wasn't as I've only been at Pearson three months.

I wonder where I'll be a year down the line. Assistant Editor? An Editor at Penguin? Or will I have ditched it all in for a Creative Writing MA? Who knows.

The Notebook

2010-01-11T11:38:00.000-08:00

Okay, so it seems the new year's resolution hasn't turned out so well so far. I have yet to write 500 words. But, I have revised a few poems, a story or two... And I've made a small start on something else.

For the first time ever... I'm going to attempt a novel.

I feel slightly reluctant to tell you this. With my attention span, it is highly likely to fall through. But perhaps it will motivate me, knowing that people know I'm trying. Perhaps I've been unable to write as much as I would like because I haven't had anything to keep my focus. I flit through ideas for short stories, and rarely type them up. So I'm going to try to sink my teeth into something bigger. Try to get my ideas rolling and sticking together, like a snowball.

My aunt bought me a notebook for Christmas. I have a lot of notebooks. I love notebooks. But I hate the idea of my scribbles ruining a beautiful one. This notebook is pretty, but not beautiful. It has a floral design on the front, which is totally incongruous to the subject of my novel.

I've started scribbling some character notes, and a spider-diagram of the main ideas of the story. And if you really want to know, I came up with the story while lying in the bath with my boyfriend. He's good to bounce ideas off. I'm sure he prefers that to hearing me moan about how I want to do a writing MA.

So there we go. I've started brewing a novel in a notebook.

Anyone got any tips?

3 Things That DIDN'T Help Me Get a Job in Publishing

2010-01-08T14:55:00.000-08:00

If you're thinking about cracking the publishing industry, let me share with you a few of my own discoveries. I've been working for a large publishing house for nearly three months now. I recently had an appraisal with the two editors I work for - it went pretty darn well. We looked back at what I had achieved so far, and set some goals for this year. It made me think about how I landed my job in the first place and, on reflection, what I didn't need to get the job. This included:

1. An MA in Publishing
Fairly controversial for me to say this. Many of the other editorial assistants have an MA in Publishing. I have a BA in English Literature, and I'm sure that I wouldn't have got the job without my degree, but it seemed that there were more important things for my employers to consider than whether or not I had a Masters degree. I suspect it was the work experience that comes with some MAs that was considered most valuable.

2. A Copy-Editing Qualification from The Publishing Training Centre (Book House)
When I graduated, I thought it would be best if I had some kind of qualification to do with publishing in order to land a job in the industry. I couldn't afford an MA (which was my first thought) so I searched around for cheaper, long-distance learning courses. I enrolled on a copy-editing course for roughly half a grand. That was about seven months ago. I still haven't completed Unit 2. During my appraisal, my bosses had even forgotten that I was enrolled on this course! They said I probably didn't need it, unless I specifically wanted to become a copy-editor - and bore myself to death, they added! Oh well. I still find the ins and outs of language and layout interesting. I will keep going with the course. I've always liked the idea of being a freelancer, so it may be a good thing to have in the future.

3. The Bookseller Jobs Bulletin
Or any well-known jobs site. For this simple reason: they are TOO well-known. Only the biggest publishers can afford to advertise with places like this, and they get hundreds - if not thousands - of people applying to one job. I applied to several jobs from sites like this and didn't hear back from any of them, not even just to say they had received my CV. Much better to look on the websites of smaller publishing companies or, better yet, find out something through word of mouth/networking!

See my post '5 Things That Helped Me Get a Job in Publishing' for further information on the things that did help me.

Interview with Daniel I Russell (Associate Editor of Necrotic Tissue Magazine)

2010-01-01T07:24:00.000-08:00

Daniel I. Russell was born near Wigan in 1980. He has been featured in various horror anthologies, magazines and ezines. His novel Samhane is due for release in paperback by Stygian Publications in 2010 as well as Come Into Darkness with Skullvines Press. He is a member of the Australian Horror Writers' Association and the associate editor of Necrotic Tissue magazine. Daniel lives in Western Australia with his horror-poet partner Sherie and three children Mason, Amity and Tobin. He had a budgie, but it died. (From Dan’s blog, which you can read here: http://daniel-i-russell.blogspot.com/)

Hi Dan, welcome to the blog. Let’s start with the fun stuff. You’re a horror writer – what scares you the most? Have you ever had any terrifying experiences that have inspired your fiction? And have you ever scared yourself with your own writing?

Two scariest things for me: sharks (after a bad experience watching JAWS at 4) and injections (tried to punch out a dentist at 7), strangely two subjects I haven't approached in my writing! Maybe I could scare myself if I did. Who knows?

There was once a weird event in my early childhood involving a human-shaped silhouette and some weird, hunched thing that followed it around. I might have been dreaming, but the image stuck with me. Only after I wrote a novel called The Collector and looked at the characters a bit more critically, I did notice that the titular baddie and his pet might be offshoots from this strange visitation.

Do you think the modern experience of horror is more extreme than it has ever been? Do you believe that people can become desensitised to horror? How do you think this has an impact on horror fiction?

I think the consensus is that horror is getting more extreme, especially in the movies, with the likes of SAW and HOSTEL and Twilight. I disagree. I believe that extreme, gory horror (or 'gore-no' as some people call it) has emerged from the shadows in the last decade and has touched on being, dare I say it, fashionable! Looking back to stuff in the 70s that was banned, it's just as extreme. Nowadays, the effects are a bit more realistic and the movies are marketed, even pushed, on these gory scenes. In the SAW movies, I've been in many arguments with people about them. Other writers and myself enjoy the twists and intervening character story lines, yet other people can't see past the blood.

I get a lot of: "You like the SAW movies? They're so shallow and just gore. You must be fucked up." My response: "You haven't read any of my books, have you?"

Unfortunately, with the production companies pumping out movies like this on a bloody production line and trying to out-extreme each other, the viewing public are getting a little bored now. Even SAW has been pushing it the last few years. This does lead to desensitised audiences, which is a shame. Still, I'd rather a long run of uninspired extreme horror flicks over a chain of remakes (go to hell, Michael Bay!).

In horror fiction, things have been constant for the last thirty or so years on the extreme front. Those that write splatter still write splatter, and well too. Check out Richard Laymon, Bentley Little, Ed Lee, Jack Ketchum, Graham Masterton and many more if you search the small presses. These guys have been writing stuff that would make Jigsaw cringe!

You have recently moved to Australia. Has this had much of an impact on your writing? What’s the horror scene like down under?

I've always agreed with the sayings 'write what you know' and 'travel broadens the mind'. So this has been a combination of the two.

I've written a few short stories based in Australia, mainly By the Banks of the Nabarra, a 14,000 story about a bunyip, which is due to appear in the Australian publication Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and The Taken, which is currently shortlisted for an Australian anthology. I also have a story short listed for the Tasmanian anthology Festive Fear 2, and after the success of the first volume, really have my fingers crossed for that one. I'm a member of the Australian Horror Writers' Association, which led to a story published in Midnight Echo #3 and even a private online chat between members and Clive Barker on Halloween! To chat with a lifelong idol was an amazing experience. The AHWA is a great organisation and has been one of the best things about moving to Australia...writing wise.

As for the general horror scene in Australia? It must be underground somewhere. ALL of the agents I queried over here all turned down anything horror/supernatural related. There's very few small press horror novels in the shops, and a minuscule number of markets to submit to (my partner talked to a writer who compiles information on Australian markets. When she told him where I'd been published with over here, he said that was pretty much all there is!).

There are some very talented and passionate horror writers over here...but I guess we just have to pitch our work to the States, like most people.

You have been published by Wild Child Publishing. Care to share your experience with them?

I entered into a relationship with WCP early in my career in the knowledge that the editing was top-notch. Writing is forever a learning process, and I craved technical experience (nothing more embarrassing then being caught with your modifier dangling for all to see, is there?). This done, I knew I would have a couple of ebooks out to whore to all and sundry and start building a fan base.

This, unfortunately, didn't occur.

The publisher did little to advertise the books, nor had any interest in getting the word of their authors out there. As some of the other writers have complained, what was I giving them 60% of the take for? My excerpt was wrong and formatted without paragraph breaks. My reviews weren't posted or sent out. I would have had more success financially self-publishing, but as I'm a firm disbeliever in this path, I persevered and hopefully, the future's looking brighter, particularly for Samhane, which is due for a paperback release next year with Stygian Publications.

Maybe some authors had a better time with WCP. I can only go from my own experience. But like I said just above, writing is always a learning process. That doesn't just cover the verbs and syntax, but also the industry.

Your novel, Samhane, is coming out in paperback with Stygian Publications and you’re also being published with Skullvines Press – congratulations! What has your experience been like with these publishers?

Amazing! I'd worked with R. Scott McCoy a few times in the past, being a featured writer in the debut Necrotic Tissue and Malpractice: Anthology of Bedside Terror. We grew to become good friends, which later led to more work with Necrotic Tissue. Stygian Publications, after the critical success of Malpractice and the stuff Shroud is releasing, decided to branch out. 2010 sees the release of their first graphic novel Bad Billy written by John P Wilson (quite a guy) and their first full novel, my very own Samhane. Those that read the ebook enjoyed it, so it will be nice to reach new readers. Scott has edited a novel for me before, so I trust his opinions. They simply make a book better.

I worked with SD Hintz and Jerrod Balzer over at Skullvines Press during a guest writing appearance in Tabloid Terrors #3, which is due out in January. We had such fun with that filthy little book! Come Into Darkness just felt right to be with them. It's a sexy, violent, disturbing book, and I know that the Skullvines boys will do it justice. They also work so damn hard to get books in readers hands. As a writer, you have to appreciate that and want to work with them.

How did you become Associate Editor for Necrotic Tissue? What’s it like being on the other side of the submissions process?

After appearing in the debut issue and Malpractice, Scott and myself became friends. Originally, Scott had someone else help him reading submissions, but that fell through and left him in the lurch, buried under a mountainous slush pile! He asked if I'd help him out by reading a few. I did, and it kind of became a long term thing. Now, as associate editor, I'm more an integral part of the magazine, especially now we're in print. It all feels a bit professional when I'm sat in the meetings, but when I hold the proof of the latest issue in my hands, it's all worth it. One of the best jobs I've ever had! (Do I get that raise now?)

Being on the other side doesn't change me as a writer really, but being a writer, I know how disappointing a form rejection can be after waiting six months for a response. We bust a gut to give writers a timely reply (usually within 1-2 weeks) with personal feedback if we aren't accepting the story. We get about 500 submission per monthly reading period, and it's a lot of work, but we owe that bit of respect to writers. They took the time to write the story and send it to us, so we have the time to give you feedback. (Holds up issue and grins)

What are the perks and challenges of your role with Necrotic Tissue?

It's always great when the issue arrives and you have your name in the staff page! I'm also being elevated (some may suggest foolishly) to the post of head editor for the October issue. The pressure will be on, but what a great way to learn more about the business and feel proud for putting a quality magazine out. I can't wait.

A challenge is the constant reading during the submission windows to keep on top of things. This obviously cuts into my own writing time, and when you have deadlines to meet, things can get hectic. I also have a newborn baby to add to the mix this time. Bring it on! (Holds up issue)

When reading submissions to the magazine, do you have any pet peeves, or anything that results in an instant rejection?

You can tell normally in the first few lines if a story is a contender or not. As a writer, I think you know when a story has been scrutinised and edited enough to be worthy of submitting to a magazine. We get some that look fresh off first draft, where the writer has sent it in because a) it's free and they have nothing to lose or b) they're impatient. It's a given that badly written stories will get rejected. Thankfully, most we receive are at a high standard, but that doesn't make life any easier. There are a lot of standard stories. We might get five or six stories that basically exactly the same, just with different characters or setting. This happens a lot with zombie stories or Lovecraftian pieces. We want fresh ideas please, or takes on these traditional subgenres to blow us away.

And jokes. We love horror-humour, but don't think you can get away with sticking in a joke from last night's Family Guy and we won't notice. I love Family Guy, but it's the bane of humour for me and NT submissions!

Certainly none of these things crops up in the current issue! (Holds it up)

What is your ultimate ambition as a writer?

I have varying ambitions as a writer, some realistic...some not. I'm happy to get my acceptances and have readers see my work, especially with the novels. I'd love to be published with Dorchester to rub shoulders with some of my idols and obviously make a little bit more money. It's not all about the money; I wouldn't sell out and write something more generally acceptable to generate more sales. To make a living doing what I love is the ultimate ambition. And a movie deal...just so I can visit the set of a horror film! lol

Thanks, Dan.

A pleasure, Sophie. Anyone fancy a pint?

www.danielirussell.com

Writing Resolution

2009-12-22T12:00:00.000-08:00

A new year is drawing closer. It's almost time again to start feeling guilty about the Christmas binge, resolve to be healthier, be more productive, be... a 'better' person. And then feel terrible when we slip back into habits (or, normality).

So this year I'm setting myself only one writing target:

Write at least 500 words a week.

This is based on these three rules of resolution setting:

1. Set a realistic goal. Change something small that will have a big impact.

2. Set a measurable goal. Writing 500 words a week is more solid that just 'writing more'. Unmeasurable goals lack focus, and are quickly abandoned.

3. Don't over-burden yourself. There may be a lot of targets you want to set yourself, but if you set yourself too many, you'll become disheartened if you don't acheive them all.

Good luck in your goals for next year. If you've set yourself some, please share what they are in the comments - I'd be interested to hear. If you haven't set any, any particular reason why not?

5 Things That Helped Me Get a Job in Publishing

2009-12-11T11:37:00.001-08:00

So, I've been working at Pearson Education for about two months now. I feel so lucky to have a job at the moment, especially in a competitive business such as publishing. I remember going to the interview, being extremely nervous. My voice probably trembled; I couldn't answer all the questions. But the interview lasted for nearly two hours, so I thought that had to be a good sign.

I really didn't expect to get the job. But luckily for me, I did. And I've been reflecting back on what I thought went right for me. What advice could I offer to others trying to break into the publishing industry?

Here are five things that I think helped me get my job as an editorial assistant:

1. An independent project
While I was looking for a job, I edited, created and (self)published an anthology with the writers of an online writing forum. (I wrote a post on this here: 'Shot Glass Stories - Reflections on Editing an Anthology'). I took a copy along with me to the interview. Even though I only had a proof copy (with a typo on the front page), and the story that my interviewers read was about a one night stand, they seemed pretty interested in it. I guess that this showed that I was enthusiastic about publishing, and capable of managing my own project. I imagine that it also made me stick in the minds of my interviewers - I wonder if anyone else they interviewed had anything like that?

2. My degree
More and more people these days are going to university and getting a degree. I went to a pretty decent university, and studied English Literature with Creative Writing. Fairly relevant to the publishing industry. I had considered trying to get a Masters degree in Publishing, but I was lucky enough not to have to do this. Some of the other editorial assistants at my work place have Publishing Masters, though; doing an MA in Publishing is still a good option if you are trying to get into the industry.

3. Work experience
I spent a few weeks gaining some experience by working for a small publishing house called Whittet Books. It was really great. I only did about four or five hours a day, and worked from the publisher's office in her house. Shirley was really, really lovely and I loved helping out with the books. If I hadn't done this experience, I would not have got my job at Pearson: it was Shirley's relative who told me of the vacancy. Plus, I learned some valuable inside information about the publishing industry.

4. Who you know
It is not just what you know, but definitely who you know, too. My mother's partner's daughter-in-law (yeah... I think that's right) works in a book distributor's. They recently bought out a small publishing house. They needed an extra pair of hands... thus, work experience at Whittet. You know the rest. So, my point is, exploit your contacts! Ask around. Socialise and integrate with people who are already in the business. They might be able to point you in the right direction.

5. Research and preparation
After submitting my CV, I was called for an interview. But I was also given a couple of research tasks to complete before the interview. I took the whole day off working for Whittet to focus on this. I took a good three hours or so researching these tasks, and then another good three hours or so writing it up and presenting it well. I wasn't confident that I had done this well enough, but my interviewers seemed to like that I had printed off copies of my work for them - I think they only expected me to talk about it. I also researched Pearson, since I didn't honestly know a great deal about them. I felt well prepared for my interview.

There are a few other things I think helped. But these are perhaps the main ones. And, as always, a little luck wouldn't go amiss!

Interview with Vanessa Gebbie, Editor of 'Short Circuit'

2009-12-05T13:33:00.000-08:00

A short while ago, author and editor Vanessa Gebbie very kindly asked me if I'd like to host an interview with her on my blog as part of her virtual book tour of Short Circuit: A Guide to the Art of the Short Story. I was more than happy to oblige. So, here is my very first interview.

Welcome to the blog, Vanessa. So, how did the idea for Short Circuit come about? How did you decide which writers would be included, and the topics that they would write about?

It came about during a wander round Cork in September 2008 with Salt director Jen Hamilton-Emery, after the Frank O’Connor Festival lunch with the amazing Jhumpa Lahiri. We were blathering, as you do, and I said, ‘You’ve got a gap in your provision’. Which did not refer to her coat being unbuttoned on a cold afternoon...
It was true. Salt had a how-to book for poetry, written by Jen’s husband, poet and fellow director, Chris. But nowt for the short story. Jen sent me an email a week or so later, saying ‘that idea of yours? Do it!’.

How did I pick the contributors? Easy. I had met a few short story prize winners on the circuit and through networking, superb writers who also happened to be experienced writing teachers– so I went to them first. (Er… when I say prize winners, I mean from the top comps - The National Short Story Prize, Bridport, Fish et al… it seems there are zillions of ‘prize winners’ these days, from comps organised by god knows who or what. It’s important to make the distinction, sadly.)

‘Please would you write a chapter for a new book?’ I said to them ‘Let me know what craft element you would like to talk about. And I also want you to talk about what it is like being a writer. Your writing processes. How to use the craft and how you work. And I want lists of stories you love. Oh, and a few writing exercises. Would that be OK?’

I asked 23 writers, and 22 said yes straight away. I think that’s right…amazingly, the craft elements panned out brilliantly without too much interference from me.

What was it like to edit Short Circuit? Tell me a little bit about the process. What were the challenges of the role, and what were the perks?

It was lovely. I just let them get on with it, after agreeing broad parameters for each contributor. It was important to have them speak, in their words, their voices, their thoughts. Not to have me interfering. I was just ringmaster, working with friends or almost-friends, people who were equally passionate about writing and about the short story in particular. The challenges have to include working to necessary deadlines, and herding writers is like herding cats only harder. I also had to shelve my own writing for a long while as I found I couldn’t do both at the same time. But it was fun. I got to know one or two of the writers better through the process, and I value that hugely.

There are quite a few books in the current market about the writing process. Specifically, what makes Short Circuit different? What do you think makes it stand out from the crowd?

There are some very good ones, but there are also some duff ones. I have found many how-to books unhelpful, purely because they are a single voice telling me how they write. And in the end, my response is ‘Oh OK, so that’s how YOU do it. But what about the others?’

Of course, that is a gross over-simplification. Many single-author books cover valuable craft information and guidance. But in the end, I often feel short-changed, and end up reacting against what I’m being ‘told’ to do!

When I was given the commission to do Short Circuit, I went back to first principles and decided to put together the book I would have loved when I started out. And that meant this:

1. It would be written not by one successful writer but by many.

2. It would treat the reader as an intelligent adult, not as a kid who knows nothing.

3. The writers would be top prize winners as well as well-published, (meaning they could write!) but also, I wanted them to be gifted writing teachers as well.

4. It would cover the craft elements in a systematic way, but from many different voices, different perspectives. It would allow me to discover which voices chimed with mine.

5. It would give me ideas for further exploration. Not ‘writing exercises’, as such… but ideas to expand my own experience, ways to broaden my writing practice.

6. The processes described would be totally personal. Each writer would reveal a little of themselves, talk about 'behind the scenes', if you like.

7. The writers would not necessarily agree with each other. Give me 100 writers and I bet you have 100 different ways of approaching the job.

8. The writers would be honest. They would talk about their own ups and downs and their own strategies for unlocking their creativity. They would not make writing out to be something easy, but something engaging and part of them as people.

9. It would be like sitting down with a series of friends, who just happen to be strong writers…friends who want to share their love of writing with you.

10. It would NOT be stuffy and academic. Although it would need to cover tough topics, it must do that engagingly – not make the newer writer feel small. Just fired up!

You tell me – Did I do any or all of that??

I'd say so, pretty much! You wrote a chapter of the book on short story openings. What made you decide to write about that, and if you could have written on a second topic, what would it have been?

I just waited until I knew what they were all doing, what topics they were covering -then added what was missing. A few had mentioned short story openings in passing, and their importance, but no one else wanted to concentrate solely on that. I think story openings are so fundamental, not only to the story but to the process of writing them… so it was a perfect one for me to tackle. And I put it at the end. Because you’ve never finished, with this writing stuff, have you? You just assimilate info and start again.

I also have a chapter on writing for competitions. It was commissioned originally by The New Writer magazine.

If I’d done another (which I wouldn’t…!) it would have been on theme. (On the ‘why’ of the writing, not the plot!). But that was already done far better than I ever could.

Some of the chapters in the book are interviews with other writers – with you as the interviewer. Could you tell me a little bit about your interviewing process? What, in your opinion, makes a good interview?

Yup. Two writers (Tobias Hill and Clare Wigfall) wanted to contribute, but time and work constraints meant they couldn’t write entire chapter-essays. So we decided to have conversations instead, with me wielding a pen and paper and scribbling notes. I had wonderful natters over the phone with Clare and with Tobias. Hours of phone bill! I had questions ready, after they decided what areas they would like to concentrate on. And then I just let the conversation run as they will.

What makes a good interview? One in which it is natural, flows well, and gets the information across in an interesting way, in which the interviewer probes a bit, perhaps? But in which the interviewee says exactly what they mean in their own words and voice. I sent both writers my draft chapters, and they tweaked the drafts. Nice people!

Each chapter in the book ends with some writing exercises. I’ve always thought that different writing exercises work for different kinds of writers. Do you do many writing exercises? If so, can you give us a few examples of the exercises you’ve personally found most useful?

Some of the writers added ‘ideas for exploration’ – and others didn’t. Salt Publishing decided they wanted them after each chapter, to standardise the book, and so either the writers had another think and came up with something, or I did.

I like trying different things, personally. I find it good to stretch the writing muscles, and try things out that you don’t do normally.

The best one, for me, is doing flash writing. It’s a great buster of writer’s block, and opens up all sorts of good things, if you let it.

The book’s subtitle is The Guide to the Art of the Short Story, but many of the contributors talk about flash fiction, too. What do you think are the main differences between flash fiction and short stories? Is the writing process similar, or vastly different?

The only difference is the length. Written stories come in many different forms – and we love to label them. For me, the best length for a story is the length it wanted to be in the first place, without to much interference from the writer. If you think about it, all a ‘novel’ is is a very long story. A novella is a slightly ‘less long’ story. Etc etc! But I think many of the writers here are aware of the power of using the flash process when they write, as I outlined above. Letting go, and spilling out, then editing. Or not even editing much… sometimes it is possible to write publishable pieces very fast using flash techniques. Watch out for workshops from two of the Short Circuit contributors working in partnership on flash and flashing!

Your anthology of award-winning short stories, Words from a Glass Bubble (Salt Publishing), has had great success, and I hear you’ll soon be publishing a new anthology of shorts. What is it about writing short fiction that appeals to you? Have you ever tried to write a novel?

Glass Bubble came out in March last year, and has done fine. It is ranked 16th by Salt in their league table of ‘bestsellers of all time’. (Which is slightly gigglesome – they’ve not been going for all time, but it’s still nice to know it has done relatively OK.) And yes, Ed’s Wife and Other Creatures comes out in the Spring of 2010. Not sure of the date yet. Ed’s Wife is a series of some 80-90 micro-fictions that began life as a daily flash fiction exercise on Critter’s Bar, and they had such fantastic responses from everyone, especially the blokes, who loved them. So I thought, hmm, I’m on to something here...

Why do I like writing short? Short stories are difficult to write well, and I like the challenge. I like the challenge of creating a believable world with believable characters doing something meaningful, in a paragraph or so, so that the reader wants to find out…

I also get bored easily. I’m not sure I have yet found something that will keep me engaged for a couple of years – and if I’m not engaged, the reader won’t be either. So although am writing something I call a novel, (which is approaching 100,000 words!), it is actually a linked series of short stories, linked characters, all set in the same place. I’ve been advised to apply for an Arts Council grant to polish it… we’ll see!

It’s been said that there is not much of a market for short fiction; it seems that a lot of people write it, but not many people read it. Would you say there was much truth in that statement?

No!!! Read The Short Review, Tania Hershman’s site dedicated to the review of short story collections. There are so many being published by mainstream and independent presses, she can’t keep up. They wouldn’t publish them if they don’t sell. It’s a business, after all.

Pulitzer prizes have been awarded to two short story collections in the last couple of years, and the number of enormous cash prizes being chucked at short stories is amazing (Sunday Times, National SS award, Manchester). And that just the ‘literary’ end, if that means owt.

The genre short story market seems huge and lucrative. Women’s short fiction thrives, horror shorts thrive, fantasy shorts thrive. Erotica shorts thrive. They are just different to novels. There doesn’t seem to be any problem, to this reader/writer.

And lastly, ‘Short Circuit’ is full of musings and advice about writing short stories. But if you could give aspiring writers only one piece of advice, what would it be?

Short Circuit is about writing well, full stop. Sure, the advice is focussed on the short forms, as that is what we love, and what Salt is known for. But many of us also love longer work too. Advice? I’d say this. Just write. Forget the length.

Good craft advice is diamond stuff, and it applies whether you are writing a tiny micro-piece or a novel. It applies whether you write horror, fantasy, literary, crime, women’s romances or commercial. Just write. But write as well as you can. There’s no point in not.

My Mum used to say, ‘If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well’ Thanks Mum!

Thanks Sophie for such brilliant questions, and for hosting me and my new baby on our travels!

Thank you, Vanessa.

Click to buy Short Circuit from Salt Publishing with a 20% discount.

7 Weeks as an Editorial Assistant

2009-11-29T11:31:00.000-08:00

Time has flown. I can't believe it has already been seven weeks since I landed my job at Pearson Education, an international publishers. It's about time I wrote a post about it.

Firstly, let me start by saying that everyone at the company has been really nice - even the post guy, who learnt my name within a few days. Everyone has been so welcoming and patient and helpful. The building itself is extremely impressive - eco-friendly, spaciously designed, has a cafe, a restaurant, a gym... It's amazing.

I expect that the title 'editorial assistant' means different things to different publishers. As I work with educational books, I expect that the role of an editorial assistant who works with fiction would be fairly different.

These are generally the types of things I have been doing these past few weeks:

Reviewing
- Writing questionnaires about textbooks or book proposals; finding tutors to reviewer them; gathering up the reviews; writing review summaries to pass on to the authors. Quite a large chunk of my time has been spent doing this, so far.

Author Contact
- Keeping in touch with the authors; checking up on how their manuscripts are coming along, etc.

Contracts
- Working with the contracts team to make sure the right information gets put into contracts, then posting them out and keeping track of them.

Supplement Handovers
- Many of our books have extra features (e.g. companion websites). It's my job to sort out the supplements that the author provides, and make it easily accessible and presentable for the sups team.

Manuscript Handovers
- I've only done one of these (and with a lot of help). Making sure manuscripts are presentable and everything is included, so that the production team can work on them.

Design Briefing
- One of my favourite parts of the job. Briefing the design team on cover ideas; collaborating with other team members and the authors on improving designs, choosing designs, etc.

Blurb Writing
- I quite enjoy this. Writing the blurbs for new books/new editions.

Payments
- Making sure the right people get paid the right amount for the right thing. Basically, I have to fill out the forms - the payments team deal with the actual money.

Prelim Checking
- Checking that the preliminary pages of a new book are all in order. Making sure all the rights are covered, and the contents list matches up etc.

Research
- Putting together reports/data sets of potential markets for new books, that kinda thing.

Admin
- Putting data into the big database we use, to make sure that all the electronic information about books and their publishing schedules are up to date. Quite tricky - the database is huge and I'm still getting to grips with it.

Meeting Authors
- Haven't done this yet, but I'm meeting up with one of our author's on Monday with my boss to talk about his new book proposal, which I have gathered the reviews for.

Posting
- I post out a lot of books. Mostly to reviewers, but I recently had to post out about thirty books to a bunch of contributors as part of their payment.

Attending Meetings
- There are weekly meetings held to discuss whether or not a new book should be published. I don't say much in these meetings yet as I'm still learning a lot, and feel I don't yet have much of value to add to the discussion, but I find these meeting interesting nevertheless.

Drinking Tea
- This is a big part of the job. It is compulsory to drink at least three-four cups a day (many editorial assistants drink much more than this - but they've had more experience than me!).

In all, I feel like I've learnt a huge amount over these few weeks. And I still have a lot more to learn. I'm enjoying it and feel very privileged to be working for such a great company.

Tiny Tweeted Tales

2009-11-21T05:47:00.000-08:00

By now, most net-savvy people will probably have heard of the social networking site Twitter - a place to connect to people by posting 'tweets' of 140 characters or less.

Flash fiction is extremely popular at the moment, but sites like Twitter are proving a platform for even shorter stories. Tiny, tiny miniscule stories. And these kinds of stories are becoming quite trendy in todays fast-paced technology-driven world.

Here are three Twitter-based micro-zines which I follow. If you have a Twitter account, you might like to follow them too.

@SixWordStory - For sale: baby shoes, never worn. Supposedly Hemingway's best work. Tweet your six-word story to @sixwordstory now!

@VeryShortStory - Twitter sized fiction for your entertainment. Stories by @sean_hill. Feedback welcomed. Send me a noun and I'll use the ones that inspire me in a story. Thanks.

@TweetTheMeat - Twitter Horrorzine. Fear in 140 characters or less.

If you've come across any good ones, feel free to share them in the comments.

First Impressions of First Edition

2009-11-17T14:15:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I picked up a copy of 'First Edition' magazine: issue 08 October. I was so excited to see a magazine of short stories and poetry on sale in W H Smith that I instantly bought it without even looking through it. The cover looked professional enough - the only dubious aspect being the big orange 'sticker' on the front that said 'Get yourself published for FREE!' which I thought was a bit iffy to say the least.

Anyway, have you heard of the saying 'If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all'? Well, if you agree with that phrase, you better not read on.

I'm afraid to say that I have only read half of the magazine. And that's because after reading the first half, I simply didn't want to read the rest.

The first thing that struck me about the magazine while flicking through it was the odd little bright blue 'Did You Know?' boxes. Did I know that the collective noun for ladybirds is a "loveliness"? No, I didn't. But I didn't see what that had to do with the coffee-shop story on the same page. Do the editors really not have enough confidence in the stories they have chosen that they have to fill the magazine with these bright, child-like boxes of unrelated trivia?

As for the stories, this magazine has obviously endeavoured to publish the previously unpublished, or little published, writer. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, that's good. There are plenty of talented writers out there that haven't had much published. It's just a shame that the magazine has found so few of these writers. It's an even bigger shame that the editors haven't made the effort to advise a few of the writers of minor changes or tweaks to their work which would make all the difference - or perhaps they didn't know how. Things like removing repeated phrases or words in close secession, or removing redundant phrases. Some of the stories by international authors could have done with a bit of light editing to smooth out some of their phrases.

I couldn't finish one story because not only did the speech have too many exclamation points in it for my liking, but the narrator of the piece used several exclamation points too. As well as this, there was the double exclamation point (!!) and even the question-mark-exclamation-point (!?) - I don't much like having stories shouted at me, but at least they could try to be grammatically correct. This is something the editors should have caught.

Another thing that greatly annoyed me was the un-uniformed way that paragraphs were presented. Some stories had line breaks, and some had indented paragraphs. There really should be a house style to the magazine. It would have made everything fit more visually together.

The presentation of the magazine didn't seem overly professional on closer inspection. The justified text was often stretched to fit the line, especially when each word was on a new line to wrap around an image. And the pixilated advert on the back cover didn't look so sharp either.

Overall, the writing wasn't that great. There were a lot of tell-tale signs that these were inexperienced writers. I'm not claiming to have the greatest experience as a writer, but I noticed quite a lot of the following:

+ Semi-colons where there should be colons.
+ Commas where there should be full stops.
+ Many stories were comprised of too much 'tell' and not nearly enough 'show'.
+ Too much back story - some stories didn't really get started until the middle of the text.
+ Unnecessary detail.
+ Cliched subject matter - yes, there was a story about writers block. There was also a story that seemed suspiciously based on the Watchman premise.

These were the main things I picked up on. I could write more specific things about each story, but I don't think it is needed.

The magazine is also dotted with poetry. I am a fan of poetry, but I'm afraid I didn't much like many of the poems that I read. The editors seem to have favoured rhyming couplets, even when the subject matter is serious. Using rhyming couplets for a somber poem is very hard to do well because of the contradictory 'sing-song' nature of the rhyming structure. Saying that, I did enjoy a poem called 'Thingymebob' by Vincent Pryer.

A few of the stories I really enjoyed. I thought 'Burnt' by Joel Williams was very well executed. I also enjoyed the observant yet engaging prose of Brian Lockett in 'Ken, Doreen and Bernard'. 'Beautiful Jeanette' by Vanessa Woolf-Hoyle was pleasantly wacky, and a few other stories I thought had merit too.

It is a shame that not all of the stories were quite of the same standard. Nearly all of the stories had potential. But potential isn't a finished story. And I want to read a magazine that is full of great, polished stories.

As the title of this post says - these are just my first impressions of the magazine. I have spent a good few hours reading it thus far. I'm in two minds as to whether or not I will finish it.

I find it a shame that with so many great short story magazines out there, this is one of the only ones I've seen on the shelves of a mainstream store.

If you want to read some great short stories, I recommend you try this magazine:

Greatest Uncommon Denominator

At the moment they are promoting a great offer on all the PDF versions of the magazine where you can set your own price. Oh, and unlike First Edition magazine, GUD don't make you pay to submit your work to their electronic version - which I found out about over at Nik Perring's blog. Nik also posted First Edition's editor's response to this issue.

I hope I haven't offended any of the writers - that was never my intention. I simply feel that some of these stories may have been prematurely published.

In my opinion, First Edition could do with some redrafting. Perhaps a Second Edition is in order?

Book Review: The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan

2009-11-10T12:22:00.000-08:00

This is the first book by Ian McEwan I have read. It was a nice, quick read after getting through 'Cloud Atlas' by David Mitchell. I took 'The Comfort of Strangers' on holiday with me to Venice, completely and honestly ignorant of the book's plot: a couple go on holiday to Venice, where they become unintentionally involved with some strange locals.

As an Ian McEwan virgin, and as I'd heard so many good things about this writer, I wasn't disappointed. McEwan's writing style is both familiar and original. It flows easily, and is extremely observational - perhaps a little too observational at times, which slows the pace slightly. However, this book is so short that the pace could never be slowed for long. McEwan seems to effortlessly turn what first appears to be stereotypical characters into complex protagonists. By the time the novel reaches its horrific climax, the reader is totally shell-shocked by the empathy they feel.

By other half read this book in two days, and it is the first book he has read for years. He loved it, and I really enjoyed it too. Definitely worth a quick read.

Kreativ Blogger Award

2009-11-03T12:24:00.000-08:00

This is quite exciting. After years of blogging, and nearly two thousand hits on this blog, after seeing these little blogger awards cropping up on other people's blogs... I've been awarded this little badge of honor!

(I'm asuming it has been spelt 'Kreativ' cos truely creative people don't follow rules like spelling... Ha ha, I jest.)

I think that passing these kinds of badges around is a great way to network between blogs, and drum up some awareness for the blogs that you enjoy and think everyone should read too.

So, thank you to Sage Darien for awarding me this badge.

Now to fulfil my badge-holder responsibilities:

Terms of acceptance include forwarding the same award to 7 other more deserving bloggers, who must follow the instructions below:

1. Copy and paste the pretty picture which you see at the top of this post onto your own blog.
2. Thank the person who gave you the award and post a link to their blog.
3. Write 7 things about yourself we do not know.
4. Choose 7 other bloggers to award.
5. Link to those 7 other bloggers.
6. Notify your 7 bloggers.

Seven things about me you do not know:

1. When I was little, I used to think that dogs were made entirely of fur, all the way through.

2. I love baths. The bath is the best place to read.

3. I heard this quote recently: 'Love is a misunderstanding between two fools.'

4. I'm rather fascinated by masks. I love all the carnival masks of Venice. I adore the masquerade scene in 'Labyrinth' - mimicing that is my idea of a perfect birthday party. I'm interested in the philosophies of masks...

5. I have a thing for pretty photo frames, but never know what photos to put in them.

6. I used to have a pet rabbit who I called Mary Jane (MJ for short) after a character from 'Spiderman'. I loved that rabbit.

7. The sky is spectacularly beautiful, in my opinion.

Here are seven bloggers, in addition to Sage Darien who continually entertain and inspire me:

1. Vanessa Gebbie's News - Vanessa is a great writer, whose short stories have won so many prizes I've lost count. I loved her collection 'Words from a Glass Bubble', which is available from Salt. Her blog is always interesting.

2. Writerly Type - This blog is full of snappy, interesting posts from a great creative writer.

3. Robert Aquino Dollesin - News, thoughts, memories and recommendations from another great writer.

4. Inkygirl: Daily Diversions for Writers - Does what it says on the tin. I love her cartoons.

5. Sandra's Blog - 'One writer's journey to fulfillment... and stuff.' An entertaining and insightful blog.

6. Unspoken Words - Bob Jacobs set up and ran the writing forum crittersbar.com but has now taken a step back from that to write his first novel.

7. Steven J Dines - Writer of dark and literary fiction. I always find Steven's opinions both interesting and intelligent. Oh, and he's a great writer, too.

Well, there you go. I hope you enjoy those blogs as much as I do. There are so many more I could have added to this list.

Review of an Online Critiquing Service

2009-10-20T10:48:00.000-07:00

My fellow creative writers out there will all know the value of a good critique. I usually post my work to an online group to get some feedback, but I thought I would try out a 'professional critiquer'.

I found 'Constructive Critiques' (www.constructivecritiques.com), the site of Karlyn Thayer, Writing Instructor. On her site, Karlyn offers a free critique of 1000 words, so I decided I had nothing to lose.

I sent her the last 1000 words of one of my longer short stories. I was very impressed with the speed at which Karlyn processed my request. By the end of the day I had a confirmation email, and by the end of the next day I had my critique.

Karlyn wrote me a two page critique, and at the end added a highlighted version of my 1000 words to pick out exactly where I was going wrong. She started by picking out what she thought the strong points were. My initial reaction to this was that it sounded a little too complimentary, but perhaps I am used to receiving harsher crits. Anyhow, it was quite nice and she wrote in a way that made me feel confident in my ability.

Then Karlyn picked out a relevant quote which lead smoothly into her criticisms. She picked out three main areas of improvement and presented them in an easy-to-understand and logical way.

Karlyn highlighted some problems with my writing that I was unable to see, and that my online critiquing group had also missed. After she had picked them out, they seemed so obvious to me, yet I'm sure even after ten re-reads I would not have seen them! I think this reinforces that it is always a good idea to get a fresh pair of eyes look at your work, and even better than that a fresh pair of professional eyes.

The critique ended with a polite, quick and complimentary summary.

Karlyn's critiquing rates are very reasonable (check out her website), and her free critiquing offer is definitely worth a go. I may use her services at some point in the future.

Book Review: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

2009-10-17T14:21:00.000-07:00

Holy frick, I finally finished it.

I bought this book about two years ago. Started reading it, got confused, put it down, picked it up several months later, got confused, kept reading, started loving it... but it's rather dense and has taken me many, many months to finish. I am rather a slow reader, though.

WARNING: SLIGHT SPOILERS

I'm not going to give anything major away in this review, but I am going to talk about the gist of the plot and the structure quite a bit.

Cloud Atlas is a literary masterpiece. It is hugely creative in terms of both plot, style and structure. It is always great to read a piece of creative fiction that has tried to do something different in terms of not just content, but style and structure too.

The book is comprised of six different narratives that span across time, from the 19th century to a post-apocalyptic future, and then begin to collapse back in on themselves so that the first and last narratives form a story, the second and the second-from-last form a story... etc.

These stories all link in strange ways, and are unified through little phrases or items or philosophies that crop up in each. The ending left me a tiny bit unsatisfied as I expected a more profound link to be made apparent, but on reflection, it did actually produce a satisfactory conclusion. In response to the last line (which I will not type): indeed, what is Time but a multitude of narratives? Something like that, anyway.

Each different narrative is written in a completely different style. Hats off to Mr. Mitchell for being such a diverse writer. Unfortunately for me, I found the first/last narrative, set in the 19th century South Pacific, to be the most boring, and I found it hard to get into the language. I find it strange that I could find the post-apocalyptic language easier to follow. Let me give you an example of this:

O, eery'n'so beautsome'n'blue she was, my soul was achin'. Suddenwise the ghost-girl vanished back into that egg an' a man took her place. A ghost-Prescient he was, this'un COULD see me an' fiercesome he speaked at me.

However, by the end of the book I had eventually become immersed in the first/last narrative, and was glad about it as I didn't want the book to end on a low point for me.

The sudden changes in narratives did slow the pace a little. I often find it hard to 'get into' a book, so when I'm just becoming familiar with a story and it suddenly stops and throws me into another, I find it slightly difficult to adjust. However, Mitchell always creates hooks, and always leaves cliffhangers, so you do want to read on. And the reader is greatly rewarded for doing so.

While reading this book, I really felt as though I was exploring the world through limitless time, exploring an 'atlas of clouds'.

Buy your copy here:
Cloud Atlas

Venice & New Job

2009-10-14T10:59:00.000-07:00

Don't worry, my dear readers, I have not deserted you! I have two reasons for not updating much recently (reasons, not excuses! ...kinda). Firstly, I have been to Venice, which has been my dream for a while now. It was so beautiful. Would love to go back, but perhaps only for a weekend instead of week as everything was so damn expensive. Which I may be able to do thanks to...

... becoming an Editorial Assistant at Pearson Education! I've just finished my third day. Everyone is so nice, and the building is amazing. I just hope I can do all the work to the standard they need. Slightly nerve-wracking. And I think it is going to take me a while to adjust to the 9-5 lifestyle.

In other news, I just checked my emails to find that one of my 'Hint Fiction' submissions have been accepted for publication. The anthology will be out later next year. I'm really happy about this one.

In conclusion: WOO!

Quality, Not Quantity

2009-09-22T11:39:00.000-07:00

I have a word document with a big list of magazines, competitions and anthologies I want to sub to, all with deadlines. I've had a bit of a string of rejections over the last few months. I keep thinking 'Oh no, I have to write something for this publication - the dead line is in a week!' But hang on a minute. I think I've lost focus a little bit.

I keep thinking 'This is my only chance to submit to this...', but that's simply not true. With a lot of contests, there's always next year. With a lot of magazines, there's always next issue. I've been rushing myself, thinking that if I'm not subbing then I'm procrastinating - but what about the middle ground?

So it's time for a new approach. I'm going to pick a few places to sub to and focus on the stories for those. I have two in mind right now. The rest can wait. There's no rush.

Not Forgetting... To Support Each Other!

2009-09-18T04:10:00.000-07:00

A while ago, I mentioned Jennysha, a graduate who blogs for Prospects, in my post Ugly Betty is Stealing My Job. Well, she repaid the favour and mentioned me in her blog! (Jennysha's Blog.) In my post, I mentioned that all us graduates looking to crack the publishing industry are, in essence, all in competition with each other - there are very few jobs about, and too many people applying for them. Jennysha raised a much more important point: even though that is the case, we should all be supporting each other, too. And yes, I couldn't agree more, Jennysha. Publishing is a tough business, and so it is always nice to have some friends who are in the same position. We can share stories and experiences, ultimately making ourselves feel a little less isolated during quite a lonely period!

'Shot Glass Stories' Reviewed

2009-09-18T03:50:00.000-07:00

A big thank you to David Hebblethwaite for reviewing the anthology over at his blog. You can read his review here: "Shot Glass Stories and Other Small Indulgences (2009), ed. Sophie Playle".

And if you want to see what all the fuss is about, don't forget you can order your copy for just £3.10, or get a free download, here: 'Shot Glass Stories'.

'Shot Glass Stories' - Reflections on Editing an Anthology

2009-09-14T01:32:00.000-07:00

As many of you will know, I belong to an online creative writing group over at www.crittersbar.com. About three years ago, the members started running a weekly challenge to write a story in no more than 200 words, inspired by a one-word prompt. The winner would then post and judge the next week's contest. The challenge has been a big success, and continues to run. It's a great way to nudge you into writing something if you've been a little lax, and there have been some great stories produced.

Last year, Skive Magazine's Matt Ward (one of our members) put together an anthology of stories from Critters Bar within 48 hours: Critters Bar Anthology 2009. Matt made a very smart looking publication, but because of the challenge of creating it within 48 hours, the copy wasn't edited, and there was no submission process. It was a case of the writers having to submit their best work. On reflection, many people thought that for future projects it might be better to edit the content, as writers kept spotting mistakes they wish they had caught before the anthology was printed. Of course, this meant a lot more work.

There was a lot of talk about creating an anthology for the 200-word challenge, but we couldn't reach a decision that everyone was happy with, so the idea was buried.

After finishing university, and after deciding that I wanted to crack the publishing industry, I thought it would be a good time to take on the project. I probably didn't handle it the way everyone wanted, but I guess you can't please everyone. I received a lot of support, which was great.

Selecting Stories

I decided that there should be a selection process in order to try and get the best content. However, I also decided that everyone who submitted to the project would be guaranteed at least one accepted story. After all, this was a non-profit community project that, on the most part, would serve as a nice souvenir to the members of the site.

Selecting stories was hard. I had wanted to get a small team together to help with the process, but I ran out of time to do this properly. Instead, I sought the opinion of one of the writers (Diete Nickens) if I was very unsure of something, which helped greatly. I didn't want the project to be too biased towards my preferences.

I accepted roughly 75% of the content, and asked the writers to change a couple of little things in some of them.

Proofreading

The next step, after reading through everything myself, was to send the document off to my proofreaders, Kate Louise and Amy Roskilly, another two members of the site. They did a great job of spotting things I had missed.

Cover Design & Title

While they were doing this, I designed the front and back cover. I had the members brainstorm titles, and we voted for 'Shot Glass Stories and Other Small Indulgences'. That gave me a good idea for the cover image. The back cover was harder to design; it seemed so simple, but was actually quite tricky!

Illustrations

While all this was going on, one of our other members, Rich Sampson, who had been away for a while due to becoming a dad for the second time, returned to the site. He posted some of his artwork, and I asked him to draw a few illustrations for the project. I let him choose the stories he wanted to illustrate, and he provided three great pictures for the project. By this point, I had realised that the project was very much catered towards adult readers!

Formatting

During all this, I was trying to order the stories into a sequence that flowed well. I downloaded a Word template from Lulu to get the document size right, and started laying up the content. That was trickier than I thought it would be. Word is a little bit rubbish sometimes. I had to figure out things like section breaks, which I hadn't had to use before.

Once all the files were ready, and I'd put the illustrations in, created the content list and the prelims etc, I tried uploading it all to Lulu.

Using Lulu

I wasn't looking forward to this part. I'd never used Lulu before, and I didn't trust it one bit... Right away I ran into a problem. Even though I had downloaded the correct size Word document for the publication size I wanted, I was told that my document had been re-sized because it was wrong. Great. I had a peak, and it had mucked up the whole layout.

So I had to change the size of the product from 'pocket size' to 'standard US trade' size, as this required the minimal amount of change from the (seemingly) random sized document that Lulu gave me in the first place. That took an extra hour to format.

Next was the cover wizard. That took a long time to load, was quite fiddly, and I wasn't given the option to design the spine (it might have been too thin).

Hard Copy Proof

I made it a private project so that I could order myself a hard copy to make sure everything looked okay. I was pleased that it only cost me about £2.60, but was then hit was a stupidly expensive postage and packaging charge of nearly £5. Sickening.

Despite the postal strike, here, the book arrived within a week. Right away I noticed a terrible typo on one of the title pages that I hadn't spotted on screen! I also noticed a few spaces where there shouldn't be spaces. I felt that I had been looking at this text for so long that I had become blind to it. A good argument why having more than one person look at your text before publication is essential.

Final Product

I made the changes, uploaded the file again... I tried to choose the option for getting a free ISBN, but annoying Lulu only do this if you are in the US.

Then, because I made the file public, Lulu decided to add roughly another 50p onto the price for seemingly no reason. I made the item completely non-profit (I wanted to keep the cost down as much as possible and I didn't like the idea of Lulu getting 25% of any profit anyway), and I opted for a free download to be available.

And now it's live!

ORDER A COPY

You can get your copy for a very modest price of £3.10 (plus a nasty postage change, unfortunately - please write nasty letters to Lulu demanding this to be reduced) or you can download it for free, here:

Shot Glass Stories - various authors

Conclusion

It was definitely a learning experience for me. I learned that this sort of thing takes a lot more time and effort than I had first anticipated. And that it is essential that more than one (preferable more than two, three, four...) pair(s) of eyes looks at the copy before it goes to print.

Lastly, a BIG thank you to all those involved, and for all the support.

Everyone should at least go and download the free version as there are some great stories to be read :)

Review: Inglourious Basterds

2009-09-04T02:47:00.000-07:00

I like Tarantino's style, most of the time. I'm not usually a fan of war films, so I didn't let myself get too excited about this film. Tarantino, however, has created one hell of a movie.

The story builds scene by brilliant scene. Tarantino has a knack for taking his time with a scene while subtly building the tension until you realise that you're holding your breath. He has great control over human reaction and interaction - something that I loved about Dusk Til Dawn. And man, are there some great characters in Ingloirous Basterds.

Tarantino is famous for his vanity and boldness: he does what HE wants with a movie. And you know what? It works. The soundtrack, the humour, the dialogue, changing the course of history... It could have all fallen apart so easily, but everything in this film works so brilliantly to create something stylistic and original.

The only downsides to this film were that I couldn't understand half of what Brad Pitt's character was saying... and that they really took the piss out of the English. But oh well, I can forgive that. Every now and then I thought that the Nazis said some things that they probably wouldn't have (e.g. Col. Hans Landa saying that he could 'think like a Jew' - a Nazi probably wouldn't want to admit that they are like a Jew in any way; and another Nazi mentioned 'Hitler's propaganda' - they would see it as information, not propaganda, which has more negative connotations. But I guess I'm being picky.)

Anyway, go see this film. It's brilliant. I do find it slightly worrying that I was quite absorbed in the last scene whereas everyone else in the cinema were reeling with disgust.

First Line (Meme)

2009-09-01T13:44:00.000-07:00

The rules...

From the biggest bookcase you have, pick out one book whose author’s last name starts with each letter of your last name. If you have no books by an author whose last name starts with a particular letter, go to the next letter. If you have two of the same letter in your last name, get two separate authors, not two books by the same author.

Post the first sentence of each book, along with the author and title. Feel free to skip prefaces and such, especially if they’re by a different writer.

P
It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York. - Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

L
Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have know that trouble was brewing not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego. - Jack London, The Call of the Wild

A
Despite the fact that Carol Jackson has to sit in a pram, she and her mother are going out together, while mine is downstairs whispering with a perfumed woman in an animal skin. - Trezza Azzopardi, The Hiding Place

Y
I can't find a book for this one!

L
When he was nearly thirteen my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. - Harper Lee, To Kill a Mocking-Bird

E
*backwards writing* This inscription could be seen on the glass door of a small shop, but naturally this was only the way it looked if you were inside the dimly lit shop, looking out at the street through the plateglass door. - Michael Ende, The Neverending Story

Yes, and the moral of the Meme is that first lines are important. Remember that!

Review: Words from a Glass Bubble - by Vanessa Gebbie

2009-09-01T09:41:00.000-07:00

Just like a certain famous ogre, this book is like an onion: it has layers. These short stories have more depth to them than first meets the eye, and they leave quite an impact. They will make you cry, too, sometimes - both tears of laughter and tears of sadness.

Don't be fooled by the innocent skipping girl on the front cover. Even though many of these stories are poetic and subtle, some of them are gritty and dark.

It took me quite a while to read this book, simply because I wanted to savour each story. I can certainly see why Vanessa has won so many prizes for her short fiction.

Thank you, Vanessa, for my signed hardback copy - I will treasure it. In a climate where most emerging authors are discouraged to write short story collections, you are an inspiration.

Buy it here:

Words from a Glass Bubble (Salt Modern Fiction)

A Foot on the Ladder

2009-08-28T04:33:00.000-07:00

Yes, after four months of job-hunting, I have actually been offered a position in a publishing house!

My mum's partner's son's wife (!) works in a book distributor. They recently bought out a small publishing house, and she kindly passed on my CV to them. They emailed me yesterday and have offered me some part-time work there. I guess it really is about who you know, not what you know.

I start on Wednesday afternoon. It seems so perfect for me - it's about half an hour's drive away, and I don't have to commute to London. I don't have to get up early. It's casual dress code and part time. Really is the perfect way to ease me from the unemployed life of leisure I've been leading recently, into the world of work.

I'm really looking forward to it. But I'm also extremely nervous. My biggest fear is that I won't be able to do the work they ask me to... But I'm sure it will be okay after I've settled. It's the not quite knowing what to expect that is making me nervous. Once I know my way there, I've met the people, I know the surroundings and what work I'll be doing, I'm sure I'll be fine.

The company I'll be working for is Whittet Books. They are a small publishing house, and I'll be working from a home office (I believe). They publish wildlife books, and I'll be working on one about squirrels! Sounds brilliant!

Waterstones Endorses Plagiarism

2009-08-22T06:30:00.000-07:00

On Twitter yesterday, Waterstones held a quick contest: whoever 'tweets' the best piece of student advice gets five free books.

This blog post is not a bitter retaliation because they didn't choose my pieces of advice, but because the piece of advice that they actually chose was, in my opinion, very bad advice, and if students followed it, they could end up in a lot of trouble.

I'm fairly sure that Waterstones didn't realise this, but I messaged them several times and they have ignored me.

The tweet they chose as the best piece of student advice was from a university drop-out and read:

"My moto (chant this!): Copy and paste and you'll be caught out, but paraphrase and you'll get straight A's!!!"

(Here's another few pieces of advice: don't use multiple exclamations marks, and learn to spell 'motto'.)

My problem with this piece of advice is simple: it is teaching students the best way to PLAGIARISE.

I have been taught, right from school through to university, that if you quote OR paraphrase another person's words, you MUST cite the source. Regardless whether you are quoting or paraphrasing, you are still taking someone else's words and ideas, and they should be credited for them.

I am hoping that Waterstones did not intend to teach students how to plagiarise, but I think they really should know better. And rewarding someone for suggesting this piece of 'advice' with free books is a bit unfair when lots of people suggested much better pieces of advice.

Here are some good ones:

@jetowey - Get a bottle of antiseptic gel - not everything is as clean as it looks in the common room or bar

@lesleyparsons - The Three S's of student years... sleep, study, celebrate!

@Gem_Lou - Do your share of chores in halls - you'll be unpopular otherwise, & it might encourage others to do the same!

@Gem_Lou - Put bag with everything you need for lecture next day, sunglasses, paracetamol and water by your bed before night out!

@Jobelfield - Make friends, play hard, work harder!

Ugly Betty is Stealing My Job

2009-08-20T10:00:00.000-07:00

So, while I was in the middle of designing my website (it's taking a lot more time and effort than I thought it would), I was half watching 'Ugly Betty' on television, feeling too lazy to channel hop and find anything better. And it reminded me that Prospect's grad blogger Jennysha had said in one of her posts that Ugly Betty is her idol.

Betty works as an assistant editor in a fashion magazine. Granted, I am not particularly interested in the fashion world, but it dawn on me today that Betty is on the same mission as me: climbing from assistant editor upwards in the publishing world.

With Miss Betty's world fame and popularity, has she inspired more people to enter the publishing world? Has she been persuading people all these years to become my competition?

Have people who have be Betty-lead to the publishing industry been getting the jobs I've been applying for, while I'm still sat watching the telly?

The Woman in Black - Theatre Review

2009-08-18T06:11:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the mobile phone company O2, I managed to get hold of a two-for-one offer on theatre tickets. I've been wanting to see 'The Woman in Black' for a very long time, so now was the perfect opportunity. I booked a week in advance and was delighted to get second row seats. However, on arriving at the small, cramped Fortune Theatre in London's West End, my partner (his first time at the theatre!) and I discovered that perhaps they were not the best of seats. The stage was three feet above us.

But as soon as the show started, we forgot about our slightly craning necks and was swept away by the story. An old man arrives and begins to dryly narrate from a manuscript. A young theatre producer/actor interrupts him and teaches him how to make his story come alive in the Victorian theatre. The story that unravels is a very dark and horrifying ghost story, one that the old man thinks he only relives in his nightmares...

I don't want to give too much away. My older sister had seen the play years ago and warned me that it was scary. I find ghost stories the scariest kind of narrative, so I was a little nervous. The first half did not scare me much at all. Even when The Woman in Black swished past my aisle seat, I didn't jump - I saw her much more as an actor than a ghost.

However, after the interval the fear was turned up more than a notch. With an impeccable sense of timing, lighting, sound, and brilliant acting, the whole audience was screaming and giggling to relieve the fear. I squeezed my partner's hand pretty tightly in some parts, and I admit I screamed at one point.

The theatre was the perfect place to tell this story. It was part way between reading a book and watching a film: the audience's imagination had to be engaged, to imagine Victorian streets and galloping horses, but many of the visuals were there, the sounds were there, the people were there in the flesh. The ghost could have reached out and grabbed you, if she wanted to...

The story was chilling, and reminded me a little of Henry James's 'The Turn of the Screw'. The acting was brilliant. I highly recommend seeing 'The Woman in Black', but be prepared for a sleepless night or two after the experience...

Call for Submissions: Hint Fiction

2009-08-13T07:34:00.000-07:00

I've seen this around on a few people's blogs and have been meaning to re-post for a while. Looks like a great opportunity! I'll get my thinking hat on for a few stories.

hint fiction (n) : a story of 25 words or less that suggests a larger, more complex story

Anthology Guidelines

Tentatively scheduled for the fall of 2010, W.W. Norton will publish an anthology of Hint Fiction. What is Hint Fiction? It’s a story of 25 words or less that suggests a larger, more complex story. The thesis of the anthology is to prove that a story 25 words or less can have as much impact as a story 2,500 words or longer. The anthology will include between 100 and 150 stories. We want your best work.

It’s possible to write a complete story in 25 words or less — a beginning, middle, end — but that’s not Hint Fiction.

The very best Hint Fiction stories can be read many different ways.

We want stories we can read again and again and never tire of. Stories that don’t pull any punches. Stories that make us think, that evoke some kind of emotional response.

Take a look at the winners and honorable mentions of the Hint Fiction Contest for examples.

Payment is $25 per story for World and Audio rights.

Reprints? Sure, but unless you’re one hundred percent confident in the reprint, why not try to write an original piece?

For formatting purposes, you must include a title (which actually works in your benefit, as the title helps give a better “hint” of the overall story).

Writers can only submit up to two stories, both embedded in the same e-mail. Don’t worry about a cover letter. We don’t care where you’ve been published or what graduate program you’ve attended — all author identification will be stripped by a third party so we will only see the stories and nothing but the stories.

To make everyone’s lives easier, embed the stories like this:

TITLE

Story.

TITLE

Story.

Your name.

Submissions will open August 1 and close at midnight Eastern time August 31. Submit only to this address:

hint.fiction@gmail.com

(An auto responder has been set up so you can get immediate confirmation that your submission has been received. On the off-chance you do not receive an automated response within an hour, submit again. If on the off-off-chance you still receive nothing, e-mail me at my personal address and we’ll get it figured out.)

Please note that due to the expected volume of submissions, we will be forced to respond with form letters.

Thank you, and good luck.

***For a limited time, if you link to these guidelines on your blog or Twitter, you can submit a third story. These must be posted between July 1 and August 15. Include the link at the end of your e-mail. If you don’t include a link, the third story will be deleted unread.***

Maybe You're Not a Writer...

2009-08-06T05:22:00.000-07:00

I was watching the brilliant TV show 'Six Feet Under' last week, and there was a particularly interesting conversation between the character of Claire, who was previously an art student but now works in an office, and her Aunt Sarah.

SARAH: Maybe you're not an artist.

CLAIRE: Why would you say that?

SARAH: Did it hurt your feelings when I said it?

CLAIRE: Ah, yeah!

SARAH: Maybe I'm right. Maybe if you were an artist, you'd have laughed when I said that. Like if you told me I was purple, I would laugh because I know I'm not purple. But when I said you weren't an artist you felt bad, maybe because you know there is a grain of truth in it.

So, if I told you that you weren't a writer, how would you feel?

Sneaky Words - another reason I should get rid of my television

2009-07-31T05:54:00.000-07:00

The obvious reason I should get rid of my television is that it is far too easy for me to sit in front of it, watching the same old rubbish every day instead of doing something productive. But another reason to get rid of it is so that my brain isn't subconsciously assaulted by adverts every ten minutes.

It really bugs me how nearly every advert, whether it's about face wash or compensation lawyers, uses sneaky words like 'COULD', 'APPEAR', or indefinite quantities like 'THE AMOUNT YOU DESERVE'. Listen carefully enough and you'll see that most adverts promise NOTHING about the product they are trying to sell. Even phrases like 'RECOGNISED by the British Skin Foundation' mean nothing.

Words can be powerful things. Sometimes they seem like they are full of promises, but look a little closer and you'll spot the sneaky ones that snatch those promises away.

How to Avoid and Correct Dangling Participles

2009-07-27T06:27:00.000-07:00

“Thou art a yeasty, onion-eyed, whoreson rabbit-sucker, and I shall remove from thee a pound of flesh if thou dost permit thy participles to dangle."
~ Shakespeare (Cannibal) on dangling participles

I toyed with the idea of writing a wittier title to this post - but I personally find the phrase 'dangling participle' humorous enough. I don't know quite what that says about me. Besides, I think the Shakespeare quote introduces the topic nicely.

Everyone wants to tidy up their writing, but most people (myself included) get a little confused with all the technical mumbo jumbo in grammar guides and the such. So what is this little bugger, the 'dangling participle'?

Firstly, 'participles' are the -ing and -ed forms of verbs. So a 'dangling participle' is a participle (usually at the beginning of a sentence) that apparently modifies a word other than the word intended.

It becomes a lot clearer with examples.

'Flying across the country, the lake came into view.'
- I didn't know lakes could fly...

'Cycling down the road, the dog knocked me over.'
- That dog should be in the circus...

'They said it was going to rain on the radio.'
- Well that might break it!

The best way to AVOID writing dangling participles is to understand the structure. If you understand the structure, you are less likely to get it wrong in the first place. However, if upon re-reading/editing your work you do come across a dangling participle, they are pretty easy to CORRECT. It's just a case of simple logic - rewording and reorganising the sentence.

'As we flew across the country, the lake came into view.'

'While I was cycling down the road, the dog knocked me over.'

'On the radio, they said it was going to rain.'

As the confusion created by dangling participles has much to do with the intention of the writer verses the understanding of the reader, it is often best to get a friend or an editor to read through your work. Since you already know what you mean, the dangling participle might not stand out to you as much as it would to a fresh pair of eyes. However, the better you understand dangling participles, the easier they become to correct, or better still, avoid completely.

Graduation

2009-07-24T07:44:00.000-07:00

About time I wrote an update. Exactly one week ago today, I graduated from university.

To be honest, I was completely underwhelmed by the experience, and wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. Most of the way through university, I pretty much knew what grade I would end up with: it seemed that if I tried really hard on a piece of work, I'd get a 2.1 grade, and if I didn't try too much, I'd also get a 2.1 grade. On occasion I produced work that was of a First grade, but because of averages, for every unit I did, I got a solid 2.1. So I wasn't surprised with my final grade. Part of me is a little disappointed, though. Perhaps I could have tried really hard...

Typically for Norwich weather, it was a grey day. Luckily, though, the rain held off until the journey home. I felt pretty ridiculous in my gown. And the gown was a horrible colour: navy blue and orangey-pink. Very disappointed that it wasn't black.

The hall was also underwhelming. It was the exam hall, so full of pleasant memories, and it was underground. It used to be an old gym. There was a big blue curtain to act as a backdrop. Nothing like the grand old halls or cathedrals that many other universities use to hold their graduation ceremonies. A shame.

I hated going up on stage to get my degree. All I was focusing on was not tripping over.

My partner thinks that I don't value my achievement as much as I should. I think that's true. It just seems to me that so many people have degrees these days, and they don't play as big a role in getting a job as I had previously expected. I didn't particularly enjoy my time at university. I wish I could do it over, better. I'm mostly relieved that it is all over now.

The aspect I most miss is my creative writing seminars. The group I was in for my final-year was brilliant: a good bunch of people, and a great tutor. I really enjoyed the work-shopping structure.

Previously, I thought that the course hadn't really done much to improve my writing. We weren't 'taught' as such, more 'guided', or self-taught through discussion with each other. However, I recently looked back at some of my first-year work. Compared with the last piece of creative writing I submitted (my dissertation), it was shockingly bad! So, on reflection, I have improved. However, I don't believe it was all down to the course content/structure, but also due to the simple fact that I was constantly practicing my writing skills. Writing is like a muscle, and the more you exercise it, the stronger you work will become.

As for the literature side of the course... I felt slightly mislead. Before I started university, I was lead to believe that there was a lot of choice about what you got to study, and what you got to write about. I had in my head all these exciting ideas about writing essays on 'Gormenghast' or Angela Carter. None of that ever came about because, really, my unit choices were very restricted. Out of all the units I had to do, I think I only really wanted to do about a quarter of them. And the reading load was completely unrealistic, at least for me. I'm a slow reader, and there was no way I was ever going to get through four books a week, excluding secondary reading.

Going to university definitely had value. I enjoyed part of it. I guess it just wasn't what I had expected. Something must have gone right though, because I'm still itching to do a Masters degree...!

Join Us...

2009-07-15T03:51:00.000-07:00

Already dizzy from a heavy night out across the interweb, you decide to take a short-cut home. This alley looks like it cuts some time off your journey. Your footsteps echo as the sounds from the street are left behind. A trashcan clatters over; a cat screeches. The shadows shift suspiciously. You become lost - this wasn't the simple short-cut you had anticipated.

But then there, piercing through the darkness in electric blue, a neon sign flickers: Critters Bar.

The name sounds familiar, you think. It's one of those phrases that you read somewhere, and once the name is implanted in your mind, you hear it mentioned in passing whispers. But... Critters? Who are these Critters? Little creatures that scuttle in the shadows?

Curiosity draws you closer, and you feel like the proverbial moth.

'Can I help you?'

You hadn't expected there to be a bouncer at the door. Perhaps this is some kind of secret cult.

'Can... I come in?' you ask, a little unsure of yourself.

'Of course. Everyone is welcome.'

You step towards the door, but the bouncer blocks your way. You look at him, confused.

'Sign here, first,' he says.

A registration form? Sure, can't hurt. Nothing too probing is asked. You don't even have to give your real name.

You feel a tingling sense of excitment as you step past the bouncer. You climb the narror stairs. The sound of low music and chatting voices invite you up. You open the doors and see...

a regular bar, with a regular bunch of people. Some people are standing in small groups, holding martini glasses or pints of beer, laughing and joking. Others are huddled round tables, deep in conversation, taking notes. Many sit on their own, furiously scribbling stories onto paper napkins, or into little notebooks. It dawns on you who the 'Critters' are... They are writers. You've joined a creative writing group.

Suddenly the conversations stop. A barrage of writers shuffle towards you, extending welcoming hands to shake, offered drinks to take. Someone puts their arm around your shoulder and leads you to the bar.

'So, what'll it be? Post a story? Critique someone else's? Try the poetry challenge! Want to submit to the anthology?'

Yup. I'm plugging the writing forum Critters Bar again. This time with a whole post all to itself.

Critters Bar is an intimate writing forum of about a hundred members, all with different writing backgrounds. We welcome everyone. Here are just a few of the exciting things happening at the moment:

Story-a-Day July Blast

In the Creative Corner forums we have a Story-a-Day area. We're currently running a July Blast in there, where a small number of us are trying to write a story a day throughout the month. You don't have to write every day, just to average one a day, hopefully lasting out to the end with 31 freshly written stories (or poems, or non-fiction). Quality isn't an issue. The main thing is to sit down and write. If the work posted is a rough draft, that's fine. If it's polished, that's fine too. Typically, some of these will find their way to being published somewhere later.

Weekly 200-word flash challenge

A weekly 200-word challenge has been running for almost three years. Each week the previous challenge winner posts a single word prompt. Anyone wanting to take part that week posts a piece of flash, no more than 200 words in length, based on the prompt. The person who posted the prompt selects the winning post. Usually just for fun, but now and then a small cash prize (or some other prize) is on offer.

Weekly poetry challenge

Runs on the same lines as the flash challenge, above. The previous winner picks a theme, a style, and anyone participating writes a poem to suit. usually for fun, sometimes a small cash prize. Critters Bar evolved from a Short Story (only) site over at the East of the Web site, and more poets are always welcome.

Critters Bar Anthology

Last year, with support from Matt Ward, the editor of Skive Magazine, an anthology of members' short stories was self-published through Lulu. This was a souvenir anthology produced in 48 hours, after several aborted attempts in the prevous few years. This year we're planning to produce another anthology, selecting quality stories from the members. Exact dates and details still to be determined, but we're planning to have it available in time to fill people's Christmas stockings.

200 Word Anthology

Since the 200-word weekly challenges have been so popular over the years, we are now putting together a small anthology of various stories which are no more than 200 words in length. Choose your favourite challenge submission, or write something new. Only three more weeks to get your submissions in!

Hopefully, I'll see you at the bar. My username is Capulet. Drop me a PM if you join, or need any help, or want to have a chat.

Mslexia Poetry Competition Results

2009-07-07T08:48:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I entered the Mslexia poetry competition on a whim. This was the first time I'd entered a poetry contest. I wasn't that hopeful, but you gotta be in it to win it, right? And poetry, gah, such a subjective thing to judge!

Well, yesterday I got my new issue of Mslexia. I hadn't heard back from them, but I flicked through just to make sure. Nope, none of my poems in there.

The judge, Ruth Padel, gave a bit of feedback in her introduction for all those who weren't chosen. She said that she rejected many poems because of tiny imperfections. In essence, these were some of the reasons for rejection:

- Too many unnecessary adverbs/adjectives
- Clumsy line-ends
- Lapses in tone/form
- Over-reliance on very short lines for impact

Obviously she went into much more detail. I would recommend the magazine, and you can buy it online at mslexia.co.uk

Here is one of the three poems I submitted. I wrote it as a response to a challenge at Critters Bar and, as I said, submitted it on a whim. In hindsight, it probably didn't quite fit in with the tone of the magazine. Well, that's my excuse. Perhaps I abused the first point listed above. Perhaps all of them...

The Mouth of the Jungle
by Sophie Playle

I have come too far
into this wet and wild place.
Sweat sticks to my face like a
second layer of hot skin. Birds sing
a violent war cry, and insects roar
as one angry gnawing mouth.
The forest tastes me, takes tiny bites,
tests my flavour. It does not starve,
it swells with might, and tests the brave
or the foolish.

I have been deemed worthy for devour;
I see it in every pair of narrowing eyes,
every bright flower. Fixed eyes, cold,
unblinking and alive with vibrant shards of
gold, stop me in my tracks.
I have come too far, they say, and now I must
pay with my flesh, my bones soon to be reduced
to toothpicks for the king.

My damp fingers curl around the hilt of my blade.
I am not afraid – I am ready for this test, I feel
my heart swelling in my breast and my breath
is steady.

He growls, an echo of the forest’s hunger.
Muscles tense and ripple as he leaps.
Claws, teeth; sharp, wide.
The eyes grow large as my blade strikes
upwards. Blood covers me
like a third layer of skin.

Busy Week

2009-07-02T03:55:00.000-07:00

Just a few bits and pieces for you today, dear reader, as I've been quite ill this week.

Judge bans 'Catcher in the Rye' book sequel
Some of you may remember from my June blog post that author JD Salinger was suing a writer for trying to release a book called 'Coming Through the Rye' which contained a character extremely similar to Salinger's Holden Caulfield. Well, the judge has ruled in Salinger's favour. Salinger's lawyers called the attempted sequel a "rip-off pure and simple".

The BBC says:
"Mr Colting's novel sees 76-year-old Mr C - who the author has admitted is based on Caulfield - escape from a retirement home and head to New York."

You can read the full article HERE

Fastest Writer in the West
Last week, I wrote a story in response to a challenge at Critters Bar, a writing forum. Every week we have a 'write a story in 200 words using this prompt' contest. The prompt for that week was 'sand', and with the blog-zine Six Sentences in mind, I wrote a response in about twenty minutes, and sent it off for submission to 6S. Within the hour I had received an acceptance and the story was up on the site! The fastest response I've ever received. You can read the micro-story HERE - 'A Sandy Found Sock'.

Twitter helps find me work
My cousin Tracy Playle, who runs her own business, Picklejar Communications, saw my unemployed plight via Twitter and offered me some proofreading work. I spent a few hours proofreading Nottingham University's student handbook. This was my first paid proofreading job, so I'm really pleased and very grateful for my cousin for taking a chance on me :)

I score a creative writing column in new youth magazine
Some people from my university course who used to run the student newspaper are setting up a brand new newspaper/magazine for the young people and students of Norwich. It's called The Project, and I was asked to write an article about submitting short stories to horror magazines. I suggested that I do a more general article about submitting stories as well, and they said go for it. Then I suggested that I could write another one on writing forums, and another one on entering writing competitions... They said sure, why not? And after sending my first two articles, and asking if they needed any more help with the creative writing section, they offered me the job of Creative Writing Commissioning Editor. That sounds uber-impressive, and I'm just waiting now to be sent a list of duties. It's not all official yet, but it would be really fun to be a part of this project.

WordVooDoo kicks off again
I've been volunteering as a creative writing moderator/tutor for an online project called WordVooDoo for the past year. This is where pupils of the George Mitchell School in London post their responses to set tasks and various university student moderators post encouragement and gentle criticism. This year I'm working on the new sister project, Junior WordVooDoo, too. This means I'm working with kids from ages 8-16, I think. We're not told the ages of our pupils so that we judge their work based solely on what is written. I really enjoy it, and some of the kids are really talented. I think it's great that creative writing is being encouraged so professionally at this academic level. I only wish I had the chance to be involve in such a scheme what I was their age!

And oh yeah, I got my uni grade
I got a 2.1, which is one grade below a first. I was expecting this as nearly every piece of work I wrote was marked a 2.1, with only a few pieces marked as a First grade. I really wish I had tried a little bit harder, but I do have a string of reasons/excuses that I think hindered me a little throughout the three years, including getting glandular fever, food poisoning, my nan dying, and breaking my foot which meant the ten minute walk to campus took me over half an hour of pain. So yeah. A 2.1 isn't too bad.

Completing a Creative Writing Degree... What's Next? Masters Degree?

2009-06-25T01:58:00.000-07:00

This is the question that is plaguing many creative writing graduates at the moment, myself included.

Creative writing is a very, very broad topic. There are hundreds of things you could do as a creative writer, which can actually be more confusing than if there were only a few directions to take.

To MA, or not to MA?

One thing I have learned from my three years at university is that being taught by writing professionals, as well as mixing and workshopping frequently with other writers, greatly improved my writing. Last week I read through my first year work, and then looked at my short story dissertation - I was actually quite shocked at how much I had improved without realising it.

Not only that, but I loved being around other writers, and having tasks and assignments gives me that extra bit of motivation to write. I would LOVE to do a Creative Writing MA. But is now the time to do one?

There are three main issues I think need to be addressed.

1) COST
Finishing university with £20,000 of debt, no job, and with no government funding for an MA, £5000 is perhaps a little steep... There is no way I personally can afford to do an MA at the moment. Others may be in a different situation. However, I fear that the longer I put it off, the higher the fees will creep...

2) EXPERIENCE
Is it the best idea to go straight from a BA to an MA? Much of our creative writing roots from personal experience. I don't mean all our stories actually happened to us in some way, but being in the world and experiencing it as much as possible adds richness to writing, whether it's through meeting lots of interesting people, to observing different cultures while travelling, or simply discovering a giant ant nest underneath your BBQ (this happened to me last week!).

As time goes on, your history of life experience inevitably increases. This is not to say that young writers have nothing to say - by no means! But maybe now is a good time to have a break from taught and assessed writing schemes and go and do something different. I guarantee your writing will benefit from it.

(In fact, I heard that Andrew Cowan, one of the directors of the UEA's Creative Writing MA, prefers students who have spent time doing something different between a creative writing BA and MA for exactly these reasons.)

3) JOB PROSPECTS
This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. If I had money to burn, I would do a creative writing MA at some point simply for the pleasure of it. However, since I'm having to scrape my pennies together, I'm wondering what the best education is for my career path. If I am one hundred per cent set on becoming a full time writer and author, then yes, I would probably do a creative writing MA in a heartbeat. However, the reality is that most writers don't make it big enough to live off their writing alone. And writing full time is a lot tougher than people think.

So, would I be better off doing a creative writing MA, or perhaps a business MA, or a publishing MA, or would it be better to spend my money on some other kind of education or course altogether? Right now, I have chosen the latter option. I am currently enrolled in a long-distance learning course to obtain a copy-editing qualification. This cost me about a tenth of the price of an MA, at £550. So, it's important to look at the bigger picture. I can still be a writer without having a MA in writing, while also increasing my job prospects in other areas.

If you would like to see what types of creative writing MAs are out there and where, Prospects has a great database HERE.

Fairies, Dying Swans, and Dancing to the Death

2009-06-18T07:22:00.000-07:00

Last night my sister and I had a very cultured evening and went to see The English National Ballet perform at Sadler's Wells in London. I was quite looking forward to it, but a little unsure if it would be the type of thing I would enjoy. As it turned out, it was absolutely amazing.

We sat in the stalls, fairly near the back, but we could see everything fine. I was slightly worried that the dancers would just be dots flying around to us, but if I squinted I could almost make out their facial expressions, so the seats weren't too bad.

The red curtain lifted to reveal what I had expected of a ballet. A swarm of white-tutued ballerinas, and one man wearing a very, very skintight costume. This was Les Sylphides, and from what I could understand, it was about a man stringing along two fairy lovers, though he most definitely preferred the blond. The dancing was impressive, but so much shuffling around on tip-toes looked very painful. The set was very beautiful, all dark-leafed trees.

After the interval, we saw Le Spectre de la Rose. This was quite a short dance about a woman who falls asleep holding a rose, then dreams that the rose comes to life as a man and they dance together. The interaction between the two characters was very entertaining.

Then was The Dying Swan, which I recognised instantly. It was so beautiful and tragic it made me want to burst into tears. I still cannot get over how fluid the dancer makes her arms move at the beginning of the piece.

After that short performance was something much more contemporary. The first dancer started before the music, which looked very strange. Faun(e) seemed to be about two stags fighting for dominance (I have no idea if that is right, but that's what it looked like to me). The dancing was much more interesting and experimentational. On the stage were two grand pianos, and the set was very sparse, as were the costumes, which added to the sense of modernism.

Another interval, and last but not least, we saw The Rite of Spring. From the moment it started it blew me away. It couldn't be any more different to the first ballet, and nothing like I expected it to be. It was so colourful, but the movements and music and strange beats (a different time signature in every bar, my sister tells me!) made it very strange and sinister. It was very tribal, in a way. Half way through the dance, three skeletal looking Elders selected a sacrifice to the gods in thanks of Spring, and she had to dance herself to death. Although these photos don't capture the movement, they give you an impression of the performance: Patrick Baldwin Photography. It was absolutely amazing.

The Rotten Foundations of Wonderland - Short Story Trailer

2009-06-10T12:15:00.001-07:00

Ok, I'm jumping on the bandwagon here after seeing Catherine J Gardner (at The Poisoned Apple) and Aaron Polson (at The Other Aaron) create movie trailers for their short stories. I thought it was a great idea and, since I'm a lazy unemployed bum with time on her hands, I decided to have a crack at it (no pun intended).

I'm fairly tech-savy... well, I'm not too bad, and I thought it wouldn't take me long to get to grips with Windows Movie Maker (I hadn't even realised that it was on my computer), but this took me a grand total of six hours to make, including spending a fair bit of time looking for the right images! Plus I had to do a little photo-shopping. And then I kept getting all the text wrong. And then I had to try and make it last exactly as long as the music I had chosen... haha...

I just hope I haven't infridged any copyright laws...

So, here it is.

The Curse of the Horror Writer

2009-06-10T07:22:00.001-07:00

To be a writer you need a good imagination. Sometimes having a good imagination is an absolute curse, especially if you are a horror writer. See, my head is often in the clouds, and I do lose sight of reality. Especially at three o’clock in the morning when I think I’ve heard a pulsing sigh at my ear, or felt a weight lower itself onto my feet beneath the duvet. In short, every now and then, I scare myself shitless.

There are two things I find incredibly scary. I don’t mind vampires or werewolves, and I’m not too concerned with mad axe murderers; aliens are a little scary, and I’m getting use to the idea of zombies. Ghosts. Ghosts scare the hell out of me. And the thought of going insane.

So yesterday I stumbled across a video on a horrorzine website that apparently shows real footage of ghosts. *Here* if you want to see it. Of course, my logical mind knows that in all likeliness these are fakes, set-ups, hoaxes. But it still freaks me out. Just because I have that kind of mind that always thinks anything is possible.

Last night I went to sleep at about 2am. I thought I was still awake. There was something in my room, but the torch by the side of my bed wasn’t working. I flipped on the lamp switch, but that wasn’t working either. I try my fairy lights that hang above my bed, but they aren’t working. I’m trapped in darkness, and I can’t tell when my eyes are open or closed, or if what I’m seeing is real or imagined. And there’s a fucking arm protruding from my chest-of-drawers-desk next to my bed, and it’s holding a book. There’s a book in my drawers somewhere that was written by someone dead, and they want something of me, but I don’t know what. I can see this arm, right in front of me. And on this occasion, I really don’t know that I’m dreaming.

I run into my sisters room, calling her name. I flick on her light, but it doesn’t work, until she wakes up and the room is only dimly illuminated. I ask her if I can stay in her room because there is something weird going on in mine. As I get into bed beside her, I wake up. Very confused, and still fucking scared. Thank god my lamp works. I don’t turn it off...

As I force myself awake for an hour between 3.30am and 4.30am, knowing that if I go back to sleep too soon, the dream will still be there. I think to myself: how the fuck do horror writers do it? How can you live through your worst nightmares in your waking moments, just to be haunted by them at night? I think about Steven King and all the scary stuff that must go through his head. How has he not driven himself insane?

I write horror, too, sometimes. But I’m not sure if I could really write what truly terrifies me, and I’m pretty sure I couldn’t make it make sense anyway.

Bits and Pieces of News in the Writing World

2009-06-08T04:13:00.000-07:00

Twitter and the BBC website are probably the main sources I use that allow me to stumble upon tid-bits in the writing world. Over the past few days, here are some interesting highlights:

Salinger sues over 'The Catcher in the Rye' sequel
BBC article here
A Swedish writer is releasing a book later this summer (UK) entitled 'Coming Through the Rye'. Salinger is outraged that the protagonist of this book is a guy extremely similar to his own character, Holden Caulfield.

According to legal expert, Amy Cook, “If a character has a distinctive name and well-defined personality... they belong to the copyright holder, and you can’t use them without permission. Character names can even become well-known enough to warrant trademark protection.”

So this Swedish author cannot have stolen Caulfield's identity outright, but if it's got Salinger's knickers in a twist there must be something dodgy about it.

World Book Day to repeat flip books
Bookseller article here
I love World Book Day (though I always forget when it is... must remember it is on 4th March 2010!) and it seems next year will see the re-launch of the £1 flip-books to get people back into reading. This little gimmick has produced a 16% increase in sales per title over last year's totals. Can't be a bad thing.

Booked Up
Bookseller article here
The Booktrust charity "is to give away more than two million free books for every pupil in reception and Year Seven". Wow, that's a lot of books for one 12-year-old to read...

And last but not least, this is a really interesting article that any writer must read:

5 Writing Lessons Learned from Pixar
Go to article
Pixar are masters of story-telling. That is certainly reflected in their profits. (To see a mind-blowing pictogram of Pixar vs The Rest go HERE.) They make $540 million profit per film. This article breaks down the 5 basic reasons that Pixar make such good stories, and how any writer can learn from them. My favourite point is number 3, that a character's first interactions can often tell you all you need to know about them. An example given is the way Wall-E befriends a cockroach he sees rather than crushes it; this sets up his whole personality, and becomes the catalyst for the action of the film. Definitely worth a read-though if you have a spare five minutes.

Job Hunting

2009-06-04T02:14:00.000-07:00

I've been job hunting for about eight weeks now. My plan at first was to get a local temp job to raise a bit of cash, then find a 'proper' grad job later. Well, it seems to be getting closer to being later rather than sooner. I had the advantage of finishing my university work early, and time is running out before graduates flood the market.

So... I've been up the town centre. The only advertised vacancies are for places like Weatherspoons, Sports World and ... Linen World... Sigh. I couldn't bring myself to hand my CV over to any of them. The thought of working in retail again, especially after working so hard for three years for a degree, made me feel more than depressed.

I've looked in the local paper. The only job that didn't require previous experience, ownership of a car, child-care experience, or to do with mechanics or factories... well, there weren't any.

I've been looking online almost every day for a job. There are so many sites, with so many jobs, that it is actually pretty hard to sort through it all and find something suitable. Made even harder by the fact that I don't really know what I'm looking for.

But alas, a few days ago I stumbled across a job that I think actually sounds good, and that I think I might be qualified for. So the past two days I've been re-writing my CV and trying to compose my first covering letter. Thank goodness for my lovely publishing tutor, Rachel Hore, who offered me great feedback on my CV and also agreed to be my second reference.

A few things I learned about
Writing a CV:

+ Start with a few short lines about where you are now and where you are aiming to be.

+ Keep it crisp and to the point.

+ Decide whether your education or work experience is more relevant to the position you are applying for, and put that first.

+ Make the layout clear and easy to read. Use bullet points, line spacing, bold/caps for headings (but not italics).

+ In MS Word, using tables can really help with structuring a layout (with aligning separate pieces of text on the same line to different areas of the page, for example). Simply right-click and find the table options, and select 'none' under the boarder settings so you don't have ugly lines all over the place.

+ Tailor your CV to each job you apply for.

+ Spell check and proofread.

I'll be sending my application off later today. Fingers crossed!

A Room of One's Own

2009-06-01T05:14:00.000-07:00

As an unimployed bum who has just finished university and moved back into the parental house, I can't afford my own place. The only private space I have to write in is my bedroom.

I live in a recently built area which contains modern houses and appartments of all shapes and sizes. Every so often tour buses come round to see the innovative housing designs. I am extreemely jealous of the rows of houses which have connecting office buildings to them. How I dream of having my own little office where I can house shelves and shelves of books, a propper writing desk and a comfy chair.

I spend most of my time sitting in bed with my laptop burning my thighs. It's not practical. It makes me feel sluggish. I don't really want to spend all my time in bed.

My desk isn't very suitable for writing. It's more of a storage unit. In fact, it used to be a display unit in my dad's workshop. We replaced the glass top with MDF and painted it, and I've had it in my bedroom for about ten years. I considered removing some of the drawers to create an area I could fit my legs, or cutting the desk in two to make it easier to fit all my furniture in... but I couldn't bear to accidently destroy it.

This weekend I've mostly been sitting in the garden. I tried to do a little writing, and got a rough opening for a short story down, but the sunshine just makes me sleepy.

I read that a good writer can write anywhere. But I think that if you write a lot, for most of the day, a specific writing place can only be a good thing.

What do you think? Is it important to have a specific place to write? Where do you like to do your writing? (Post a photo of your writing area if you like.)

The Importance of Being Published

2009-05-31T04:17:00.001-07:00

This Guardian article tells us that award-winning author Kate Atikinson would rather not be a published writer. She says that if she had enough money, she would rather not face the critics, although she thinks that she couldn't give up writing.

I haven't had much experience in being published. I very, very much consider myself still learning at the moment. I will always be learning, though. So it is hard to tell when I have reached that standard I'm striving for... or ever what that standard is, and how to recognise it when I get there.

Right now, I submit short stories or poems to magazines and competitions every now and then. I find it a usful way to see where I'm 'fitting in' with all the other writers out there. I can hit the small press zines, and now I've started aiming a little higher. To make any money at all from my writing will be a huge bonus. And a very welcome one. I've made a little, probably enough to buy a few notebooks.

I have not had much experience in the working world. I've had two jobs. I worked for a year in retail during my sixth-form days, only working Saturday mornings. That was mind-numbing enough. And I worked full time two summers ago doing data entry. Again, mind-numbing. These bad experiences of 'real life jobs' have tainted me. I now very much resist getting a job. I am beginining to need the money, now that my last student loan installment is diminishing fast. But I'd rather be poor than sell my time for boredom and resentment at minimum pay. Graduate jobs? You have to be kidding me. They are hiding themselves well.

So, making money from writing would be ideal. But it's not all about the money. I haven't made much money from it over the past five years, and that hasn't stopped me. I simply enjoy writing.

But there's also the ego-boost that comes with being published. That's how so many small press magazines get away with not paying their contributors, and make money from the published contributors buying the copy their piece appears in. There are pros and cons to that. But that's another topic.

I would be proud to get published. Facing the critics might be harder. As Kate Atkinson says in the article, we writers are tender things sometimes. I would be interested to see how I would react to reviews and critics... But I guess I'm getting ahead of myself there.

If money wasn't an issue, would I still want to be published? At this moment in my carreer, I would say yes. Simply because if I have a story to tell, there's something compulsive in me that wants to share it. I'm one of those annoying people who have epic and vivid dreams, and insist on recalling them in tiny detail to whoever will listen.

So I put the question to you, readers. Would you still want to be published if money was not an issue, and why?

Frustrating BBC // Radio Play

2009-05-27T03:23:00.000-07:00

I came across this radio play "The Complete Smiley - Call for the Dead which is a dramatisation by Robert Forrest of John le Caré's first novel. I really wanted to listen to it, but BBC's stupid iPlayer demands that I install Real Player. I HATE Real Player. Several times before I have installed it to listen to something on the BBC radio website, then uninstalled it soon after, as it messes up all my other media settings and bombards me with stupid messages. It's just a pretty poor program, really.

So today I installed it again, just to listen to this. And it still doesn't work. Urg. The BBC need to sort this out.

Anyhoo, maybe you guys will have more luck listening to it, if you fancy it. Let me know if it is any good.

It is 90min long, and there are only THREE MORE DAYS that it is avaliable to listen to online, so you better get your skates on.

Super Grammar!

2009-05-26T01:55:00.000-07:00

I saw this on Sarah Salway's blog and thought it was worth a re-post.

Back in the day, when I was at secondary school, I used to dread lessons in grammar. They were so boring. They usually involved copying tonnes of sentences and applying the same rule until we got the hang of it. I did get a bit of a buzz knowing that I had mastered a new rule, though. I suspect I was in the minority of thirteen-year-olds in my class.

While I was at university, I was at first suprised at how many English Literature and Creative Writing students didn't know how to follow simple grammar and punctuation rules. By the end of my three years, however, I was more suprised if a short story did use speech marks correctly, or have semi-colons where they actually made sense. I sound snobbish, but it's true. That's not to say the quality of writing wasn't good. Often the best stories had the poorest grammar - and I think that's a shame.

Perhaps it all comes down to secondary (and primary) school English lessons. Our grammar lessons were boring as hell, but I'm glad I went through them. Grammar is a tool that a writer uses to enhance their work. Grammar works for you, it isn't your enemy.

And thus enter...

GRAMMAR GIRL

Grammar Girl provides 'short, friendly tips to improve your writing' via daily emails to your inbox or short podcasts. I'm also now following her on my twitter account.

Happy Towel Day

2009-05-25T03:28:00.000-07:00

According to Twitter, it is Towel Day today. So, always know where your towel is. You never know when you might need it.

"He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which." - Douglas Adams

Poetry Slam

2009-05-20T14:00:00.000-07:00

Just watched 'Why Poetry Matters' presented by Griff Rhys Jones on BBC2 this evening. Some really interesting stuff. I hope it is on the iPlayer so I can watch it again as I was somewhat distracted by improving this shiny blog.

Here's a video of an impressive poetry slam. Looks like great fun.

UEA Writing Fellows Book Reading

2009-01-28T05:29:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to the UEA Writing Fellows book reading. It was free and it is my last semester as a student here, so thought I would take advantage. I dragged my friend Jess along too, since I didn't want to go alone and she is awesome. There were five writers reading from their various projects. The whole thing lasted just over an hour.

Joyce Dunbar read a children's book to us. It was very enjoyable, but a bit of a shame I couldn't quite see the pictures from where I was! The basic plot was about a monster who was constantly hungry (sounds familiar...) and ate all the darkness in the world. By the end he realised that love satiated his hunger. A metaphor for greed, apparently.

Stephen Foster read an extract from his memoir. I'm not a big fan of memoirs, and I think I was perhaps too young to connect to the period he was talking about.

Nam Le read an erotic extract from one of his short stories. He was a lot younger than I thought he would be, and his writing was tuned, original and exciting. He had a sense of confidence and modesty about him, which I really liked.

David Sornig read an extract from a novel he's working on. I think it was called 'Sunshine', but I can't quite remember. It was written very well, perhaps slightly over-written in places I thought, and the story was very gripping. I would definitely buy a copy of the novel once it's published. The only distracting aspect was that he was writing from the perspective of a thirteen year old girl, but still sounded like a middle-aged educated creative writer. The balance between authorial voice and narrator could have perhaps been more subtle if it was written in the third person. But who knows how different it will be once it is published.

The last writer to read was Henry Sutton. He captured the annoyances of real life very accurately, with a hint of dry humour. Not my kind of thing, but for what it was it was well done.

Afterwards Jess and I bought cookies from the union shop and sat in the pub with a cup of tea while everyone else got drunk around us.

Ahh, what a cultured evening.