'The New Writer' Article

I have an article (paid... lovely!) in the current issue of The New Writer, a subscription magazine for writers of short fiction, poets and feature writers, based in the UK.

Link HERE to the magazine's website.

Title of article:

Persistence, Hard Work, Luck and a Bowl of Fruit.

Thoughts on maximising your chances at short fiction competitions.

Book Launch in London: The Foundling Museum

The Foundling Museum; the perfect place to launch this book.

The room shown above, the gallery, will be where we hold the launch. This is a family 'do'. I have older son organising the wine, younger son desperate to get off school for the evening, husband helping with guest lists.

Why is this place perfect? For many reasons. I am drawn to the place personally, and have been ever since I was introduced to it by the friend to whose memory the book is dedicated, Jan Newton. She was a patron. We shared the often difficult experience of being adopted kids, as do many of my closest friends. And The Foundling Museum gave all of us a strong sense of validation.



I'm taking the whole place over for an evening, so guests have the place to themselves. They can wander at will round the collections, ask questions, enjoy, and be moved. This is an extraordinary place.



The Museum is a tribute to the collaboration and vision of three men, a sea-captain named Thomas Coram, a musician called George Frederic Handel, and a painter called Hogarth. It is a beautiful, outstanding place. It will be a privilege to bring friends here.

Foundling Museum Website HERE

I quote from the website:

The Foundling Museum not only showcases the Foundling Hospital art collection and the Gerald Coke Handel Collection but most importantly tells the story of the 27,000 children who passed through the Hospital between 1739 and 1954.

Self Publishing success story

Wow. I have just read about a writer who has signed a $2,000,000 book deal after she and her husband formed a company to market her self published book.

Mind you, I guess this isn't your average self-publication. Does make you think though, that a writer who can write something like this decides deliberately to bypass the mainstream...

FULL STORY HERE

Eragon is another example of a self publishing success. It can be done...

WRITERS AND EDITORS EXCHANGE VIEWS

Kelly Spitzer, Submissions Editor for the flash fiction ezine Smokelong Quarterly, starts a series of exchanges between writers and editors

HERE


This one concentrates on the topic of feedback from editors when rejecting your work. Do writers want critique from editors, or not?

and

The Editors reply

HERE

Mind-mapping your fiction

Have you ever tried mind mapping your ideas for fiction? It’s not how I usually approach work, but occasionally it is very useful, producing fascinating stuff. Maybe I ought to do this more often before I start.

Yesterday the next character to be looked at closely for the novel kept popping into my head and knocking. He’s been doing this for a while, and details about him are appearing very slowly. Nothing is written yet as a result. I don’t want to grab too early and miss important stuff that with time would have rounded him, made the piece far better, themes more resonant.

So last night I tried mind mapping.

Simple really… try it.

Blank sheet of paper. Character’s name in the centre. And from the name make a series of ‘rays’, to include everything you know about him so far. You’ll find some will either link or fall into categories.

Example… my character, an adult, can’t read. This fleshes out in the mind map to refusal to go into library and refusal to listen to stories. Bullying appears and I add it to the map. He can’t bear bullying as he was bullied himself. Minor characters swim up from nowhere… a bullying incident years ago…I add them in. But this guy is a natural poet in his head. The things he chooses to see and do will be said in a particular voice. He sings. He’s a miner. He learned poetry from hymns then started his own. But he has told no one, as he fears ridicule.

Within minutes I have many more connections and possibilities than I did before, things that appeared ‘randomly. But which I was able to put into some coherent order…and story is already richer for it.

Give it a go.

OMIGAAAD!!! JANE AUSTEN ‘TOO UGLY’

I and others have blathered on for ages about how ridiculous this obsession with image is in publishing today.

Now, it seems, they are even giving the greats make-overs!

Jane Austen has a book coming out… well a previously unpublished memoir, (not my cuppa) edited by a relative.

But the publishers deemed Austen’s traditional portrait painted by her sister, ‘too ugly’ for the cover, so they have given her a complete make-over, including… wait for it… make-up and hair extensions.

BEFORE:


and AFTER:



Full story HERE courtesy of the BBC


Question: If you are still alive, will a make-over make you a better writer?

Doing a Reading??? An exercise.

Are you doing a reading? Unsure of how you will come over?

Here's an exercise I was taught.

First, find a clean cork, wine bottle type.

Second, print out this poem: (W B Yeats)



Had I the Heaven's
Embroidered cloths,
Enrought with golden
And silver threads,
The blue, the dark and the dim cloths
Of night, and light, and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths
Under your feet.
But I, being poor
Have only my dreams;
Tread softly,
For you tread on my dreams.

Third, read it through out loud. (You'd best do this while the study door is locked!)

Now


Fourth, insert the cork between your front teeth and hold it there. And recite the poem again, slowly, making sure you enunciate clearly every single syllable, every single consonant, especially.

Do it again, until you are certain you are actually sounding every single sound there is.


Now take the cork out, make a few silly faces to stretch the jaw muscles etc.

And recite it again.

Can you hear the difference? Magic isn't it!

(On the day, don't sit there in the venue practicing with a cork between your teeth, or you'll get locked up. But you can do the jaw stretches in the loo...!)