Gill's Blog

How Writers Earn Money

2012-01-21T12:31:00.000-08:00

At what point should writers be paid? Do they qualify forthe job like a doctor or a teacher does, after a lengthy apprentice and is partof what they are paid for all those years of training?

Parallels with other professions

I used to be a language teacher and it looked to many as ifI worked 9.00 until 3.30 39 weeks a year. Of course, that isn’t really true: teaching weeks tended to involve 52 hours’work and some work carried on during the holidays. I had to keep my languages upalso. This meant going abroad and reading books and watching films in otherlanguages. Or were those leisure activities? Did it ever really stop?

It is similar for me now as a writer. Is reading work? Orthinking about my plot and characters as I drive, cook or iron? Or perhapswatching and critiquing TV dramas?

Or are we rather like those who work in the catering andbeauty industries? The basic wage (the advance or the fee) is very small so werely on tips to bolster our income (royalties, PLR and ALCS payments, andrevenue from advertising)?

Content cannot be free

One of my books has been downloaded several thousand timesfrom a site that is displaying it illegally. It’s getting good reviews, mind.My publisher has requested its removal twice. It has been removed but up it haspopped again. I’d be at least £2000 better off if those people who haddownloaded it had bought a copy of the book or borrowed it from the library.There is still the impression that if something is available electronically itshould be free.

No guys, people who write, produce music and make films,need to eat, be clothed and be sheltered. They also need some money in order to be able to carry on producingcontent.

But for goodness sake, IT people, shouldn’t it be theeasiest thing in the world to be fair to everyone? Charge a low rate for thecontent – there are fewer overheads, no stock to carry or ship - yet pay enoughso that the years of experience and hours of work are rewarded – includingthose of the IT experts?

Sidelines

Writers often do other things to keep the cash flowing. Hereare a few examples:

Offer readings. Again there is a strong parallel here with the music industry; the live performance is a type of value-added commodity
Edit others And why not? It’s hard, perhaps impossible, to edit yourself.
Teach creative writing - hopefully because they have something to offer and not because “those who can’t, teach”. In fact, most people who teach creative writing accelerate their own learning as they teach. There is, anyway, a sort of obligation for those who can to pass it on.

The point is, even those who are recognised as writers whoproduce something worth reading often have to supplement what they earndirectly from their writing by earning something from extra activities.

Who should write?

Anyone who writes is a writer. Only the very best, so itseems, however, are allowed to earn purely from writing. And many whoeventually do serve that long apprenticeship. Charles Dickens, Louisa MayAlcott, and more recently David Almond and Philip Pullman, worked as jobbingwriters before they found the big time. J K Rowling may seem to have struckgold at the first attempt but she had a long creative development and a fewhard knocks first.

The Dutch offering state benefits to any artist who has soldanything in the last five years and the Irish exempting writers from taxrecognise this a little.

It is hard, but anyone who truly wants to get there can, ifthat person perseveres. But it’s a big if. It is certainly not easy. We have topass the gatekeepers. It’s probably going to be a little easier if you havesome talent and a heck of a lot of self-discipline.

Who are the gatekeepers?

If you are published traditionally, then agents and editorsare quite significant. Then come the booksellers, the reviewers and the generalpublic.

Anyone can self-publish directly to the Internet. Then thepopularity of the writer can have an influence on what is read and what isliked. We all become gatekeepers as we select, recommend and comment. Thewriters themselves play a role as they ensure a fine balance betweenmaintaining visibility and overloading others with information about theirtexts.

Can it be done?

Get it all right and eventually you may be allowed to spendyour time writing and doing activities related to it. Pass all of the gatekeepersand you may even eventually earn enough that you do the secondary activitiesout of a sense of moral obligation rather than because you need the money.

Above all else, you must, of course, write brilliantly.

Which services should self-publishing authors pay for?

2012-01-08T07:49:00.000-08:00

More and more people are self-publishing. Print on demandfacilities and Amazon’s Kindle have made it extremely easy and you can now dothis without the fear of ending up with a garage full of books.

The message seems to be, particularly from writers who havegone the conventional route but who are now resurrecting their out-of-printbacklist, that people who self-publish will have to market like mad, but thenthose published by the Big Six have to do than anyway, and that you shouldnever pay huge sums of money to have your book published.

Some services you need

I agree with the former argument, I’m not so sure I agreewith the latter.

Editing

Your book needs editing. Even the best writers need editingand copy-editing and the writers themselves are not the best placed persons todo that. Editing takes time. I’m a publisher as well as being a writer and evena beautifully and competently written 1000 word short story will take me atleast 30 minutes to edit. Now think of a patchier 100,000 novel. I can edit,copy-edit and critique, but find it best not to do all three for the same text– especially if I actually wrote the text. Even at minimum wage, you’d soon beracking up the £s. It’s absolutely accepted that freelancers charge more perhour than staff earn per hour – because so much of their time is spent intendering for more work – and for publishing houses / indie authors they’restill better value for money than employing someone full time.

£240? Low estimate?

Designing

Your book needs designing. You may be able to learn how todo this correctly but this will take time. This isn’t just a matter of gettingit to look nice. It’s also about making sure that the software that’s going toprint the book understands what you want. Different formats require differentformatting. The Unicode you use in a Word programme is not supported on AmazonKindle, for example. Just look what it does to foreign accents. You save a lotof time and effort if you let someone in the know deal with this. Also, if youuse a proper designer, they’ll know about all of the conventions.

£120.00 / 12 hours?(after you’ve learnt the ropes?)

Cover design

You can use a stock picture for a few pounds or pence butyou’re still need your designer to make sure the title, spine, bar-code andblurb all look right and end up in the right place. Of course, again, you can learn this yourselfbut remember this will take time and actually designing each cover will alsotake time.

£60- £300? 6 hours if using stock photo /art work

Marketing / publicity

Word of mouth always works well but you have to beestablished. Do you want to get someone to do the nitty gritty – getting outpress releases, contacting indie bookshops, nagging W.H Smiths andWaterstones etc? Or is that just moretime you’re willing to steal from your writing day? Buy £150 worth of someoneelse’s time? Or expertise – they might be better at press releases than you are.

I’m not counting all the social networking here – we all dothat anyway. You’ll have to do that as well.

Book trailer

If you have the expertise, the insight and the time to dothis yourself, great, if not I’ve seen people charging €30 - €150 – and muchmore, I’m sure. They do seem necessary these days.

When you should pay and when you shouldn’t

To sum up, I’d say most of the above you can learn and ifthe budget’s tight you could even swap editing procedures with a group ofcolleagues. Whatever happens, however,you should own your own ISBNs or you could form a cooperative with writingcolleagues.

If you add the above up, and then throw in the costs forsetting-up printing costs you’re around about the £1000 mark. This isremarkably similar to what some self-publishing companies and some vanitypublishers charge.

The crucial difference comes in what happens once the bookhas been set up. If you’ve paid these charges for someone to do all of theseactivities for your book, that company should have no more profit from it. Ifthey handle the orders for you, fair enough, an admin charge should come inevery time. And probably it’s best not to use the same company for each procedure.Employ people according to their strengths.

If you’ve paid those upfront charges you should receive allof the profits. You have become thepublisher. Vanity publishers and less scrupulous self-publishing companies wantto charge you an upfront fee and merely give you a royalty. Steer clear ofthem.

The way forward

The traditional publisher risks those services on you andpays you a royalty on every book sold. These days royalties on electronic booksare quite generous. There are still many advantages for going this route to thewriter.

Personally I’m enjoying having books published in a varietyof different ways – some are by traditional publishers, some are merely onKindle, some are self-published but in print and some are published by smallpresses. Diversity is probably healthy anyway these days.

Writers and Twitter – a personal view

2011-12-18T13:22:00.000-08:00

Twitter helps to keep me sane and keep me connected. Ifollow a lot of writers and a lot of writers follow me. I also follow a coupleof choirs, some teachers, one or two Holocaust organisations, a couple oflanguage students, one or two news organizations, the Greater Manchester Police(I started doing that during the riots in August 2011), a few publishers and afavourite seaside resort in Spain.

How I useTwitter

As soon as I switch on my computer each day, I check myTwitter account for mentions, retweets and new followers. Then, I take a lookat the latest posts after I’ve finished certain chunks of work. It gives me a five to ten minute break everyso often. It’s a mental getting up from your desk and stretching your legs. Whenyou’re working in such an isolated way it’s good to know there are other folkout there.

Why Twitter and notFacebook?

I’m not so keen on Facebook and I guess I might walk awayfrom that sooner or later. I’m there because I feel that I should be. It constantlyconfuses me. At least Twitter is easy to follow. Even when they change it, it’seasy to get used to the new format. I love how it is organic – even if that canbe funny at times. I mentioned the wordSEO recently and suddenly had all these bright young things approaching me andmy multiple identities trying to sell me search engine optimisation. (No guys,can’t afford it and that’s why I went on the course- to find out how to do it.)You can guess what happened when I blogged about a girl in my latest novelhaving a puncture. But on the whole itworks very well and I’m quite chuffed that the Wiener Library found me before Ifound them.

Follow Friday

I guess within this system, we all have our likes anddislikes. For instance, I’m not too keen on #ff (people you think are worth following youmention on Fridays). Everybody I followis recommended- or – durh - I wouldn’tbe following them. And of course, all those people who follow me are very wise.So they’re worth a look. Of course, I’m really pleased when somebody mentionsme. Every time I do it though I feel very bad about the people I’ve notmentioned. So, I tend to duck out of that one.

Sample Sunday

On the other hand, I find #SampleSunday underused. I seem tobe one of the few that use it. The ideais you put up a sample of your writing on a blog every Sunday and then past alink to that blog in a Tweet. I’ve had quite a few hits on the samples I’veposted and I’ve certainly read others’ samples.

To promote or not topromote

Some say you should, some say you shouldn’t. Some say yourtweeting should be 80% about other things, 20% about self-promotion. I tend to agree with the latter. I tend tounfollow anyone who only self-promotes. However, I have one writing friend whoonly uses Twitter for self-promotion. She does it charmingly and her Tweets area joy to read. Several of her books / stories are on my reading list now. Inher case it’s working. And I will unashamedly promote other people’s work if Ilike it.

Tweets as headlines

I’m following over 1,000 tweeps. (people who use Twitter). Ican’t possibly hope to read every single one and especially not all the linksthat people have included. You have to learn to read tweets a little like theway you read the newspaper: cherry-pick what really interests you.

Cheating on the 140characters by including links?

This was a point made by someone new to Twitter – and Inotice that this person is now putting links into her tweets. No, not really.Twitter is also an extremely fast way of letting people know you’ve saidsomething in more detail. They can choose whether to read the whole or not. Ioften click through on to a link and then find it not so interesting after all.On the other hand, I also find I haven’t got time to read an interesting post.Well, in that case I’ve saved the link and read the post later.

Do as you would bedone by

I’ve shuddered a little when I’ve heard some people say theyonly spend a few minutes a day on it. But they accept 500 or more followers,scatter their worldly wisdom in front of them in the form of two or threeposts, expecting 1500 viewings, and aren’t prepared to listen to what theirfollowers have to say? Is that fair? It’s really a matter of finding a way ofkeeping time spent reasonable but also not missing out on what could beimportant and / or interesting. Youactually stand more chance with 140 characters than you do on Facebook andvarious newsgroups and forums.

How I’ve benefitted

· I’ve found out about competitions and calls forsubmission for me and my students

· I’ve found out about the activities of other writers

· I’ve put out my own calls for submission.

· I’ve found out about other books and events

· I’ve told people about my books and events

· I’ve laughed, joked and commiserated with friends

· I’ve got news out real fast

· I’ve found out news real fast

· I’ve made lots of new friends

· I’ve learnt to get my message across in 140characters

· I’ve had a good giggle

· I’ve communicated to Richard Branson, StephenFry, Paul McCartney, Stella McCartney and one or two others. (Of course, I haveno idea whether they’ve ever read my message, but that would also be true if I’dcommunicated with them any other way except face to face. At least this way thereis a chance.)

· I’ve read some really good tweet-length stories

· I’ve shown my approval of others’ words veryquickly and easily: I’ve retweeted them.

A real joy

Yes, indeed. Twitter is a realjoy to me. For me personally it’s the best the Net has brought yet. It even improvesother platforms by the way it interacts with them. So, here’s to more tweeting.

Master class with Melvyn Burgess, Catherine Pellegrino and Shannon Park

2011-11-26T10:05:00.001-08:00

This excellent class was offered last Saturday by Commonword, Manchester. It was by invite only and I felt privileged to be invited. Wewere quite a small group and so there was plenty of opportunity to askquestions.

Over the years, I’ve attended hundreds of workshops, many ofthem facilitated by well-known people in the writing industry. But I still learntsomething last Saturday.

I’m not going to give you all of the detail – much of what Icould say would repeat what is contained in the very detailed blogs kindly postedby those who were able to attend the SCBWI-BI Conference in Winchester last week. I’m just going to go through whatfor me – an already published but not yet best-selling author – were the highlights.

The most important points for me from author Melvin Burgess were:

· The difference between an amateur andprofessional is about 10,000 hours. Write, write and keep on writing if youwant to be published. (I keep totting up my hours and I keep getting adifferent figure- I never was all that good at maths!)

· Ultimately, you learn to be your own best editor– but don’t always start at the beginning as one then tends to rush the end. I’veput that into practice already this week!

· Be a little cautious about seeking the opinionsof others until you are satisfied with the work yourself. Maybe the questionsyou need to ask are “Where doesn’t it work?” “Where are you bored?” (I’ll addin here that I also find it useful to get people to tell you what they’veunderstood about your characters – have they come out the way you intended themto?)

Agent CatherinePellegrino assured us that it is all right to submit to more than one agentat once “otherwise you’ll be waiting forever” though there may come a pointwhen an agent wants to read exclusively the whole of a manuscript. This is onlyfair and other agents would understand this. So, shortly I’ll be sending out alittle more vigorously two novels that are doing the rounds.

She advised to mention if we had worked with such organisationsas Cornerstones and emphasized that this is a good example of that type ofbody. They are expensive and writers shouldbe proactive enough to make sure that they do get their money’s worth.

She emphasized that humour and great voices are important toher.

We were very fortunate in also having commissioning editor ShannonPark with us. She works for Puffin, which is, as she says, the number onechildren’s publisher. She gave us the usual depressing news about how publishersare taking on fewer but “bigger” books and how all revolves around sales. She highlightedsome of the trends. “But of course,” shesaid, “it changes all the time.” I’malways a little wary of this – what is trending now won’t be any more by the timeyou’ve finished writing. Also, I can only write what I feel confident I canwrite well. However, sometimes things can be reshaped a little to fit a trend,so it is still worth knowing.

Her most useful tip is to imagine what you would say to the concernedadult wondering whether they should buy the book or not. I’m quite used to the two-line summary I putat the beginning of the query letter. But what Shannon meant is shorter than anelevator pitch. Perhaps Twitter is good training. Maybe all those tweets have beenuseful after all! And she also mentioned humour.

It was a really enjoyable and useful day. All of the writersthere were to some extent experienced. It was good to be amongst like-minded people.We had a lovely lunch courtesy of Prêt à Manger and Commonword. It’s the first time for a while that I’ve someaway from such a meeting feeling optimistic.

Writing characters = becoming characters?

2011-11-05T14:04:00.000-07:00

I wrote recently about how we become totally absorbed in theworlds we create. Do we become such parts of those worlds because we actuallybecome the characters we create who live there.

Is writing character a little like being an actor?

Both the writer and the actor have to realise that thecharacter is there for a lifetime, not just for the brief time they are onstage or between the pages of a book. They have a back story and a potential futureand when we are not reading or writing about them, or showing a theatreaudience what they are doing, they still exist and continue to live their lives.

We empathize with our characters and in portraying them correctly,we create empathy in their readers / observers.

In the last couple of days I’ve had to be a father explaininga rather unfathomable divorce to his daughter and I’ve had to be the samedaughter not wanting to tell this very father that she has changed and can nolonger live with him.

Is it possible that we become even more absorbed in the characterswe write about than those that we read about? Or does the character we’ve created with such care,gain empathy form the reader because of the empathy we’ve employed in creatingit? Can our characters actually become rounded and believable unless we put theeffort into getting to know them properly?

Living in Other Worlds

2011-10-22T03:15:00.000-07:00

Because I’m currently on sabbatical from the University of Salford and because one of the things I’ve agreed to do is complete the first draft of a novel, I’m spending a little more time than normal on my writing. I’m up to three hours a day – about 3000 words and am spending another three hours a day on research. In November, I go up to 4 + 2 and then in December 5 + 1 etc.

My project is to do with the Holocaust and brings in three strands. The usual players are all there: the victims, the bystanders, the perpetrators (though I’ve not tried to get into their minds – and there’s a thought -maybe I should), the innocent and the resistant. During the rest of my working time I’m keeping the other balls in the air. In my leisure time even I happen to be reading a book with a Holocaust connection. I talk to my husband and he is a fascination to me: he is a second generation Holocaust victim and I’m finding out more about his family than he knew himself.

TV programmes like QI, good food and wine, and connections with all my friends keep me sane. But the rest of the time I’m back in the 1940s and really feeling the anguish on all sides (except the perpetrator’s, though I have watched Eichmann’s trial). I read the facts, find out what the settings were like and explore it all with my words. It takes quite a lot to drag me back to the 21^st century.

When we write we become absorbed into the worlds we create, perhaps even more so than when we read.

Book launch – Emma Jane Unsworth – Manchester City Library

2011-07-08T01:13:00.000-07:00

This was my artist’s treat for this month. Naturally, I ended up buying the book. I was surprised and delighted to see that my colleague from MMU, Sherry Ashworth, and husband are the publishers, The HiddenGem Press.

The atmosphere of the City Library's Becker Room with its carved panels and what I call doctor’s chairs – little wooden chairs with armrests and backrests which circle together – my first GP had one - is quite magical. The sun made a natural spotlight for Emma as she read.

The book has been described as literary fiction and a good holiday read. That sounds just like my sort of book. I still love the feel of a print book in my hands and my favourite way of buying is at a book launch where I can get the book signed. I do approve of Amazon, at least as a book-buying reader, and I can’t wait to get a Kindle, but actually buying a book in the presence of the author is a much more satisfying experience.

The event was part of the Not Part of the Festival 2011 Festival– the Manchester Literary Fringe Festival if you like. The room was packed. Wine and nibbles were provided. That always brings value-added to the event, I think. I was also pleased to meet one of my former students there. She is still writing, I am happy to say. It was good, too, to catch up with Sherry. She is to MMU what I am to Salford University and we have much else in common, not least of all being publishers.

Malorie Blackman’s Double Cross

2011-06-09T00:27:00.000-07:00

I’ve just finished reading this, and guess what folks, I borrowed my copy form the library. I’d read Nought and Crosses and Knife Edge some time ago and had been rather put out by the annoying cliff-hanger at the end of Knife Edge – and the spoiler when you look at the blurb on Checkmate. I borrowed Checkmate from the Radcliffe library when I joined on 5 February 2011 – you know, that day when we all tried to show how important libraries are.

Checkmate was fine and it seemed that the whole story in the trilogy was resolved, more or less satisfactorily. So would Double Cross be a type of epilogue?

Hardly! Most of the way through I thought the conclusion was going to be that there would be no way out of the poverty trap and that life was hopeless on a gangland controlled social-housing estate. It threatens to become depressing though Blackman successfully gains our empathy for main character Tobey.

Then comes the amazing twist. I won’t put in a spoiler here. You may think she used some sort of deus ex machina, but not really: everything has been very carefully set up. The ending is upbeat, and at first glance possibly a little too upbeat for the young adult market. But no, she has left the reader much to ponder and plenty of scope for different interpretations of what the epilogue actually implies.

A fantastic read. No wonder Malorie Blackman is such a respected writer.

Lots of Books

2011-05-27T00:36:00.000-07:00

I’m feeling a tad prolific, a trifle gob-smacked, if not somewhat overwhelmed and even a little inert.

I have four books just out and a fifth out any minute now.
Babel is out as a paperback, it and The Prophecy are now available on Kindle. Hipp-O-Dee-Doo-Dah, the anthology which I’ve edited and in which my story The Gargoyle appears, is available now.

Shortly, my novel for 9-11, Kiters comes out with Tabby Cat Press.

I’m doing a special offer on signed copies until 30 June. Sign up for my newsletter if you want to know more.

It’s all good, I guess, but I’m so busy, I can’t get my head round launching properly.

Your Identity as a Writer

2011-05-24T02:19:00.001-07:00

The Sharing Skills session for writers who work in school, held last Saturday in Birmingham, was very useful. As usual, much of the usefulness came from the contact it gave you with colleagues. All the sessions were interesting, though none of them were quite what I thought they would be. One that stood out, though, was about maintaining our identity as writers.

So often on school visits we end up teaching. As a former teacher I don’t find that onerous – I even quite enjoy it – but I do question what value the school and the students are getting from that. By teaching them creative writing, I’m only doing something their own teachers could do better. Yes, granted, many teachers are afraid of writing and don’t write themselves. Even so, a more practical model might be for us to teach the teachers how to write and let them pass that skill on to the students. They are the best people to teach their students.

We must remember too that not every student will go on to be a writer and will only need to write as much as they need to show their knowledge in other areas. It’s just like the fact that although a visit form the local fire service may be extremely interesting, not every student is going to become a fire-fighter. Now and then, however, it may be appropriate to work with a small group of students who have writing ambitions.

Maybe the traditional author visit is no bad thing – read a little from your work, ask the students questions, let them ask you questions. Let them read or hear some quality literature.

Yes, probably we are expected to entertain. But it may be our writing that engages. We must bring something the teachers can’t and something that we bring because of the type of writers we are. And maybe it’s fine to let students try out some of the things we do.

One delegate said that he always tried to make the workshop in school bring him something as well. Perhaps we might research with our students.

We were asked to think of our tag line and logo in the session. I couldn’t get mine. It kept coming out too long. But I have it now. “Writing for and with young people.” I write primarily for young adults, but do also write for younger children and enjoy working with them. I also work with university students, many of them still relatively young. Hence, “young people”. Writing with students rather than just getting them to write also seems appropriate.

The logo is yet to arrive. But I’m thinking butterflies or something similar that represents the young at heart.

I’ve also made some decisions about the type of workshop I am prepared to offer in schools, based on what we talked about in that session.

The Rewards of Self-promotion

2011-05-20T00:37:00.000-07:00

I am a great fan of Twitter. Those of you who follow my Opportunities list are offered so many ideas because many of them come to me this list. I also use this wonderful social networking platform as a means of giving myself a treat; after every chunk of work is finished, usually about an hour’s worth, I reward myself with looking at the Tweets and posting one of my own.

I follow about 500 people and some are more present than others. I consider these to be my friends and worry if I’ve not heard from them. Many of them self-promote, and I’m happy with that because that’s not all they do. Besides, as we’re in the same game they just might be promoting something I’d be interested in.

Take my mate Trevor Belshaw aka Trevor Forest. I’m about a centimetre away from buying Peggy Larkin’s War. It appeals because I’m a sucker anything to do with the war – especially as I’m about to embark on my own rather unusual take on World War II. I write for children and this is a children’s novel. I love the name. Peggy Larkin. Fantastic. The cover appeals. So what if it’s self-published? I’ve read some brilliant self-published material and some absolute dire mainstream published writing.

But there are lots of other books that appeal as well. Goodness, I stopped keeping a wish list on Amazon because I realised I’d never live long enough to read all of those books. And I’ve got three shelves full of bought books and ten library books waiting for my attention. So why Peggy Larkin’s War? Because Trevor keeps mentioning it. I’m sort of thinking “Go on then. I’d better see what that is all about.”

We need to be exposed to adverts at least three times before we act. The first time sows the idea. The second time confirms the possibility. The third time calls us to action. The bombardment thereafter pricks our conscience until we submit. We have to have an interest anyway, or the bombardment just becomes a background noise. However, the background noise still serves if the interest arises later. Just imagine, if I had no interest in Peggy Larkin but my kids were having to do a project on children during the war, Ah yes, I might think, Peggy Larkin’s War, and I wonder what Trevor did for his research.

So, friends, self-promote like mad. We are fortunate that these days we have many tools to help us.

Why We Should Treasure Rejections

2011-05-12T00:37:00.000-07:00

The pain of getting a rejection never goes away, even if we have a good publication record. Rejections come, of course, for all sorts of reasons, not always for poor writing and we’re often rejected even if our writing is good or even brilliant.

“This doesn’t fit our lists, we’re not taking on any new writers at the moment, and we have just published something similar to this.” Even a more encouraging “This isn’t quite what we’re looking for but it you do not manage to place this with an agent, do send us your next one,” is still a rejection.

But think of this. If you are seriously being a writer and writing every day, as well as reading some good quality writing, you will be improving all the time. A little look at your work even after the blandest, most impersonal of rejections, can often leave you thinking “Thank goodness they did reject it.” This may be alarming, as when you sent the work out, you thought it was the best you could ever do. Thank goodness we move on, or we’d never be able to work with editors once our work was accepted.

If we get a more positive rejection, we may have something concrete to work on. Remember, though, although editors are often right about what is wrong with a piece, they are rarely right about how to fix it. That skill belongs to the writer. We have to find a third way.

This is partly what makes me nervous about self-publishing. I have self-published, and I am about to self-publish again. I am, however, going to employ the services of an editor.

We should treasure every rejection. Statistically every rejection brings us one step nearer to being published. It probably stops us from making fools of ourselves as well.

The Truth about the Dream

2011-05-10T02:24:00.001-07:00

Sometimes we can be so carried away with the dream about being a writer that we forget to be a writer.

We open our emails or Twitter eagerly, looking for that one break or that one promotion opportunity that will make our books sell millions. We are often so worried about whether our book is selling or not, or indeed whether it is even accepted or not, and what the critics are saying, that we forget to write or don’t find the time or the brain space.

Many writers, after becoming published, mourn their former easy routines. They no longer find the hours of solitude they used to carve for themselves with so much discipline. They learn a new routine of forcing the muse and writing on the train or in the hotel room.

It would be great, wouldn’t it, to be in demand at literary festivals? Except that you have to travel around a lot. They might forget to feed you or give you a drink or allow you a loo break. But you get to sign lots of books, right? Sure. But you might worry about how short your queue is compared to the one over there. Don’t stop to work out the royalties you’d be earning for this. Even with a really long queue - especially with a very long queue - it’s very little per hour. The same often applies to school visits.

But you’re published. You get to work with an editor. You get to see your work in print. Yes, but think of this: before you sent your book off you made it the very best it could possibly be and now they want even more. Can you find the extra? And what if once the book’s printed you want to change it again? Ha!

What if they don’t like it? The people who buy the books…

There may be some explanation here about why some very good writers are not published. They are so dedicated to their writing that they don’t even find time to send their work out, and if it should become published, they don’t find the time or the inclination to join in the promotional activities. They have to rely on luck for the book to get noticed. Once it is noticed, if it’s good, it will still fly. But it is a risk.

On the other hand, a reasonably good and reasonably proactive writer can get so sucked into a round of “writerly” activity that they can lose the power to write. The mind becomes agitated and it is far easier to complete the other little activities – create an email shot about school visits, tart up your website or put up a notice on Twitter – than devote the concentration needed to something more creative.

If you are already accepted your next step has got to be to write something even better. You can only do that if you keep at the writing. You have to cut everything else off and go for it. Just look at a few writers who plodded for years then suddenly had a breakthrough: Louisa May Alcott, David Almond, Philip Pullman.

We have to preserve our ability to write. That is a task and not a dream Dreaming does not produce.

This is one reason the first two hours of my working day is always devoted to my writing. And sometimes it’s very hard.

HUROPEL and Babel

2011-04-11T02:01:00.000-07:00

Babel had its first outing on Friday. I talked about the issues in it and how the society on Terrestra in the year 3500 dealt with a healthy but aging population.

The HUROPEL Conference is taking place at the University of Salford 4-15 April 2011. HUROPEL is a collaboration between Universities in 6 countries in Europe running an ’Intensive Programme’ for two weeks on the themes of Human Rights, Older People and End of Life Care.

Babel fits, because in Babel there is “switch-off”. Much of the novel is about doing away with “switch-off”. Yet the issues are complex. Terrestra is scared of disease because it has none. So, it keeps itself isolated. Coupled with this is an intolerance of imperfection. It’s actually quite difficult to talk about one issue without bringing in another.

Fiction is useful to us, however, because it can explore factual material in a closer emotional way. Science Fiction is particularly useful for young adults because it stylises and symbolises our present lives. It can be to young adults and adults what anthropomorphism and glove puppets are to younger readers.

I talked and read passages for about 50 minutes. We then spent another 45 on questions. Which were lively and interesting. I had the impression that Babel’s first public appearance actually went rather well.

More about HUROPEL. More about the world of Babel .

CWIG One-day Conference 2 April 2011

2011-04-03T06:56:00.000-07:00

This was a day that started off with us all licking our wounds and ended with us feeling cautiously optimistic about the future and remembering that what we do has value.

We have to be realistic: school budgets are slashed, librarians no longer have their School Librarians Association fee paid and are often only employed for the weeks the children are in school, and school visits are harder to come by because schools no longer have the money. Even if you do one for free… you often fail to sell books – parents don’t have the money either.

And yet, a publisher who came to talk to my students this week reported that his sales had only gone down by 2% because of the recession.

Tony Bradman reminded us that we have a responsibility to be paid properly. We have an economic value. Perhaps it will be difficult to return to the golden days for the 1950s and 1960s when children’s literature had a special place possibly because of the 1944 Education Act, but we still have something very important to bring.

Yes, we have to promote ourselves now. I do already do a lot of what was mentioned – blogs, Twitter, Facebook etc. but for some time have been looking for a sensible way of providing a newsletter. One of the other delegates came up with the answer: Mailchimp. It’s a package that will manage your database and is free up to 500 subscribers.

That’s why we go to these occasions: to find out from our friends.

And yes another great value is meeting up with old friends and meeting in the flesh for the first time those chums we know in cyberspace.

Ideas were shared also for the full conference to be held at reading in 2012. That already sounds as if it too is going to be inspirational.

Frank Cottrell Boyce was the final speaker. He reminded us that everybody can benefit from reading and not everybody is going to write. So the traditional author visit, with the writer reading from their book, still has enormous value.

The whole conference was so inspiring that my little note-book, in which I jot down ideas for short stories and blog posts, had as many pages filled in a couple of hours as it normally has in a couple of weeks. We have a future and it actually looks quite bright. It just needs managing.

Unlocking the Salford Quays

2011-03-29T02:41:00.000-07:00

The sculpture trail was opened on Sunday 27 March. I went to the event and it became for me yet another Artist’s Treat.

I have to admit, though, it was quite a shock walking into the Lowry and first up seeing a screen with me on it and the rest of Diva’s Dockers performing the Salford song. Never mind, the day got better.

The walk around the Sculpture Trail takes about one hour, though it took me ninety minutes, as I stopped to watch a display of dance by young people, chatted to the guide at each spot and spent time reading the rubric at each spot.

It was a mild day and very pleasant for walking. It was flat, anyway. It struck me that there is a lot about the Quays that I don’t know. I found some interesting houses as I wandered around. It’s always pleasing anyway to see the wildlife that exists on the former Ship Canal now that the industry has gone.

I managed to catch the tail end of one of the guided walking tours that had ended up at the final sculpture, The Casuals. The sculptures themselves give a real sense of Salford’s history. Listening to this talk enhanced my feeling of connection with the past – especially as the son of one of the former dockers was there.

I ended the afternoon at a drinks reception in the Quays Bar. The Lowry gives you a fantastic view of the Quays, especially from that bar.

There is some sadness at the passing of the old way of life “what once was, is no more, memories of the Salford docks”… “a way of life has now changed, gone are the pubs and the big steel cranes.” Yet there was also a feeling of celebration about what the area has now become.

Writers and Time

2011-03-11T00:39:00.000-08:00

I tried to write 1,000 words a day. I mainly managed it – at the time when I was a full-time teacher and had young children. A few years in I decided to do an MA in Writing for Children. By then my little children were teenagers, with all that that brings along, and I was Head of Modern Languages at a quite difficult comprehensive. The writing was a little more demanding because it had two masters: the academy and the industry. Nevertheless, I managed to write a lot: MA assignments, competition entries, and some projects of my own. This happened after 10 p.m. on week days, at weekends and during the school holidays.

I eventually got published and decided to give up the day job, though still did supply teaching and one-to-one tuition. One book deal led me to upping my daily quota to 2,000 words. I now have over 50 works in print and could class myself as a full-time writer. I have a job as a lecturer in creative writing because of my writing. I still aim at 2,000 words or two hours writing a day. I’ve actually found that even with all the time in the world, I can rarely do more than this. After the first two hours, the energy flags. Because of the other things a writer has to do – and most of what I do for the university can be described as just that – there sometimes isn’t time to do the actual writing.

Many writers recognise this. Jacqueline Wilson now often writes on the train, Alan Gibbons in hotel rooms and Philip Pullman misses his earlier routine of writing for a couple of hours after a busy day teaching.

I know many writers, in fact, who have given up the day job and are now writing less than they did before. It’s almost as if they needed the other routines of their lives to make this one stick. Maybe there is also an element of now having less to write about as they have less contact with the outside world.

So, getting published isn’t the golden ticket to a life where you stay cocooned in your writer’s room, sending the works electronically and watching money being transferred into your bank account. It often means you’ve got to get out there, get behind your book and help sell it, and that can sometimes put a squeeze on your writing time. We have to learn even more self-discipline now. We must be able to write in any circumstance and to drop into writing mode without difficulty after a busy time doing other things. We may no longer have the luxury of a room of our own and of an uncluttered mind that we had before we were published.

Artist’s Treat Bury Museum and Art Gallery

2011-03-03T08:28:00.000-08:00

I actually got around to awarding myself an Artist’s Treat yesterday. The first one since September. The Artist’s Treat is recommended by Julia Cameron, of The Right to Write and The Artist’s Way. One needs to get away from the thoughts and ideas, the black-and-whiteness of words on a page and from the constant need to hit a deadline.

One needs colour for starters. And life. So actually anything will do. I chose a museum and art gallery – preceded by a ride on the tram.

There’s also a need to do nothing. I remembered a similar exercise from my MA in Writing for Children, University of Winchester, when we were invited to walk around the cathedral without any expectations. I was taken by surprise, and hey-ho, the story that came then is appearing at last, 13 years later, in the Bridge House 2011 charity collection.

Yesterday’s treat was a visit to Bury’s Museum and Art Gallery. I found out more about the Sculpture Trail, which some of my colleagues are working on and which is partly situated in the country park opposite where I live. Paintings are always good, anyway, for bringing colour. The latest installation tells of a life and a death and interfaces with serendipity. It was good to talk about this to one of the guides.

Then, an amble through the rest of the town centre.

Retail therapy just does not do it for me any more. Maybe the sitting in a café and leafing through the brochures I’d picked up at the museum was a luxury. Even so, I’d have rather been at home getting on with my creative and critical bits and pieces. I don’t think I need a hobby any more. The treat begins to feel more like a chore.

However, I suspect the contrast is still necessary.

2011-02-21T01:25:00.000-08:00

There are thousands of competitions out there. They naturally need money to be able to run so generally there is a fee of some sort. There isn’t all that much relationship between the size of the fee and the usefulness of winning or even just submitting to the competition.
Examples
Here are a few examples:

Competition: Winchester Annual Writers, fee £5.00 - £7.00 , prize books, usefulness -you always get feedback
Competition: Terry Pratchett Prize, fee - free, prize £20,000 advance and publication of novel, usefulness - this will make or break you – forever.
Competition: The Red Telephone, fee - £10.00, prize publication of novel, usefulness - small publisher, but it’s a line on your CV
Competition: Arvon Foundation, fee -£7.00, proze - publication in anthology + £7,000 usefulness -cash will come in handy.

Just that short list raises a heap of questions about fairness.
The fee you pay at Winchester covers the expenses of the judges – many of whom work really hard. Often the judges are those writers who got their first break through the Winchester Conference. The writers always get a little feedback.
Transworld, who offers the Terry Pratchett Prize, is a huge publisher with lots of resources. A £20,000 advance is easy for them. It is still very generous. But there is a word of warning. If you win and your book is a flop, it may be difficult to become published again. It is a massive advertising campaign for both Pratchett and Transworld.
The Red Telephone – I know because I was one of the judges – raised enough to publish the book and put something towards marketing. The judges were not paid – much. The people at The Red Telephone will no doubt work really hard at getting the book out there. However, they do not have the resources or the connections of a big publisher. What if the prize-winner had submitted normally to a mainstream publisher?
The Arvon Foundation is a very respected organisation that organises courses for writers. This prize is amazing. The anthology in which your work will appear will have some built-in respect but it probably won’t become a best-seller.
Why fees are charged
You might also like to consider why people who organise competitions are charging fees. This may be:
To make a profit to pay the organisers
To cover the cost of the organisers – sometimes including paying the judges a fee
To make a profit for the organisation that sponsors the prize. This may be a commercial venture or a social enterprise venture.
To spend on the status of the competition – e.g. the competition organiser might host a prestigious awards ceremony.

To cover the cost of publication.
To cover the cost of publication and marketing the publication.
To cover the cost of marketing the competition.
Any combination of the above.

You need to balance any judgement about how fair these reasons for charging a fee are against how much you benefit if you win the competition.
Benefits of winning or of taking part
Here is a list of the benefits you might get from winning a competition:

A line on your CV
A cash prize
Publication
Publicity
An opportunity to write with a purpose
Feed-back on your writing.

Obviously, if more than one benefit is offered, the competition is even more beneficial. Just entering a competition gives you an opportunity to write with a purpose and in some cases to get feedback on your work.
However, even that is not is not all that straight forward. Here are some extra thoughts in connection with all of these benefits.
The line on the CV
The more prestigious the competition, the more impact winning has on how your CV looks. It’s a good idea to get your own web site as soon as you have one thing published or you are placed in one competition. Then keep a list of “awards” on that site. If as time goes by you win more prestigious prizes, you can delete earlier ones. Do get a web site you can edit yourself.
A cash prize
Always useful. Why not keep anything like this, including advances and royalties from eventual publications in a separate bank account? Put a tax allowance from royalties and advances into a separate savings account so that when the taxman calls for his share you have it ready. You don’t pay tax on competition wins. Then invest your earnings so that they grow more cash for you. Part of that investment should be in paying for further competition entries.
Publication
This always sounds good but a word of warning. The average novel sells 2,000 copies, anthologies of short stories and collections of poetry somewhat less. Will the organisers of the competition sell that many? Might not your work be better submitted normally to a publisher?
Beware, however, also of a really big publisher publishing your book. No matter how good your work if it is early work it will probably sell less well than that of an established writer. And even if it sells well because the organisers of the competition market well, it may not be received all that well. The big publishing houses show little mercy. If your work does not do well, they’ll never publish you again and you’ll possibly have less chance than complete unknowns of being taken on by any other big publishing house.
Only go for this option if your work is extraordinarily good.
Publicity
Winning any competition will give you two sorts of publicity:

That generated by the organisers
That which you generate yourself by using social networking platforms and by contacting local press and media.

What will be the balance between these two ways of attracting attention? Will they between them expose you to over 2000 people? If not, consider submitting to a publisher instead. Also consider whether you have the time, the energy and the resources to achieve that exposure if you have to supplement what the competition organisers do.
An opportunity to write with a purpose
Competitions always give you the opportunity to work with a purpose. They can become almost like creative writing exercises. You also have a deadline to write to and some specific submission criteria. This gives a framework that reflects what happens generally in the industry.
However, don’t be too hard on yourself if you cannot write to that particular brief. Look for something else instead.
Feedback on your writing
Not many competitions offer direct feedback on your writing. However, you can extract your own feedback. If you win or are placed, the judge will give you some feedback. Take note of what they say and try to do it again.
If you don’t win or are not placed, look at the wining entries and what the judges say about them. What can you do to improve your script next time?

Which competitions should you enter?
Those:

That you’ve deemed to be fair.
For which you already have something suitable.
For which you could easily write something suitable.

Don’t ever think that you have to enter every single competition. However, you do need to develop a strategy for deciding which to enter and for keeping track of your submissions.
A few suggestions are listed below.
Entering the competition

Find out all you can about the work of previous winners.
Make sure the work is the very best it can be. Edit it several times. Share it with your critique group or workshop and as many other people as possible before you send it out. Let it rest for a while and then look at it again. Allow sufficient time for all of this to happen.
Check, double check and triple check that you have submitted correctly. Each competition has its own collection of idiosyncrasies.
Then, job done, get on with the next one!

Strategies for keeping track of competitions

As opportunities arise, cut and paste the details into a file. Keep entries in order of last submission date. Work through the entries in chronological order. Include in this file competitions that you’re not sure you might be able to create something for. If you keep on thinking about it until submission date, you might come up with something.
Construct a spread sheet with dates of winners’ announcement day order. Check this regularly. Make an informed decision of about how long.
Once you know that you have not won, put your entry into a folder of short stories, poems, flash fiction or whatever and look out for other opportunities. BUT ALWAYS REVISE YOUR WORK BEFORE YOU SEND IT OUT AGAIN.
Look out for information about why the winners won. Open a file on that competition and keep these files in a competitions folder. Refer to them again before you enter next year.

Dangers of the Digital Age

2011-02-09T04:18:00.000-08:00

I’m vain enough to set up a Google alert for myself. I’m now glad I do. What a shock two days ago when I came across the whole of my book digitized and displayed on the Scribid site.
I immediately contacted my publisher and the Society of Authors. Then I whinged to several of my social networking contacts. Everybody had heard it all before. It wasn’t news.
The publisher is asking them to take it down and the Society of Authors says that this site is quite good at responding to take-down requests. My publisher thinks they will just put it back up again.
I actually believe the person who posted the book is a little naïve and doesn’t actually know she is breaking the law. In some ways it’s very flattering: she thought my book was so good she wanted to share it with everyone. It is a poor quality scan and the pages load very slowly. I’m guessing that if anyone really wants to read my book, they’ll go out and buy it. “Exactly,” said my publisher when I shared that with her. So, no such thing as bad publicity.
However, what has happened is actually strictly illegal and in my opinion this site that encourages such rampant breaking of copyright law should be taken down. The ISP should be concerned. Think what happens when people are caught filming inside a cinema. They often get away with it, but when they are caught, punishment is severe.
One problem is that we have had the whole file-sharing precedent which rocked the music industry. It is recovering a little, and control is getting back into the hands of the recording companies. It does still not always favour the musicians.
Writers now also face a dilemma about genuine e-publishing. It is extremely easy to publish straight to Kindle. What a fantastic thing to do with your entire collection of out of print titles. Getting paid is a different matter. No UK platform. You need a US bank account and Amazon does not seem to appreciate that there is a tax agreement between the US and the UK.
Another model would be providing content for free and financing through advertising. Google-Adsense is almost ethical in that the advertising tends to match the projects and the advertisers do not have an input into your content. If you go to advertisers direct, you can be choosy about who advertises with you. You can refuse to be dictated to. However, if you want to earn enough you may be forced to compromise.
So, whilst we’re entering a new age with many exciting possibilities, there are plenty of dangers, too.

Libraries

2011-02-06T07:16:00.001-08:00

I visited my local library yesterday. It felt good. I’ve joined, and I took out my twelve books. Now, I’m white and middle class. I have a vested interest in literature because of my writing and because of teaching at a university. I probably actually need my local library a lot less than some other people. I tend to buy books – I have 60 unread on shelves in my bedroom at the moment. I’m going to get a Kindle soon, so that will be another format. I get plenty of reading anyway from my students and the work I edit for Bridge House and The Red Telephone. And now I have an extra twelve books to read. I shall read them, alternating with my bought books.
My point is, that whoever said that libraries were the preserve of the white middle class has it slightly wrong. Radcliffe library was buzzing yesterday: pensioners, children doing homework, people looking up local information, using the computers and one or two reading newspapers while I suspect the other half was shopping. And despite this being Radcliffe, those people were not all white.
Going to the library brought back memories. First of all of being a child and later a sixth-former and using West Bromwich library to bits. Radcliffe library is in a rather grand building. West Bromwich is in an even grander one.
I was reminded too of visits to the library with my children who owned plenty of books but needed even more and relished our fortnightly Saturday morning visits. That particular library was housed in a converted chapel that added to the charm.
I love visiting bookshops, but libraries are somehow even better. The book carries with it the history of all the people who have borrowed it and of the care with which the librarians have chosen it and shelved it. And I smile as I think of the writer who might get some PLR because I have borrowed their book and hope that somebody is borrowing mine.
I always work in Bolton library while my car is being serviced. There is a great study area there, a good selection of books and a busy but studious atmosphere. Oh, and by the way, I’m usually the only white, middle class, working-age person there.
I had a vision yesterday of being retired – if they ever allow my husband and me to do that – and making a monthly trip – or even going more frequently – to the Radcliffe library. It would be unthinkable for it not to be there. It is well-stocked, though the non-fiction would not meet all of my needs. Maybe Bury would be better.
Yes, there is certainly still a need for libraries. The way they are used may change slightly: these days you can renew online and they will soon be lending out e-books. The shelves of books, however, must remain

Born to Write

2011-01-27T02:12:00.000-08:00

I have to write. I just have to. Writing was always the delight of the school day, even when I could hardly scribble a few letters together on the page. It was the time to tell a story. The imagination would run wild. But it wasn’t just the content that was important. Weaving the words together to make the magic happen counted as well.
Grammar School killed it, though it at least taught me to write correctly and if I do break the rules, I do it for effect. Studying for a degree in French and German didn’t seem to help. But in retrospect I realise it provided rich experiences from which to draw stories.
Having children reawakened my intuitive side. And when they needed even more story than the books we had available could provide, I started to write.
We all need stories. It helps us to make sense of our worlds. I write mainly for young people and hope that what I show them with my words might give them a pattern against which to measure their experiences. I am a teacher, and I love being that too, but I think I can engage even better with my students when I write for them.
I constantly grow as a writer and get nearer and nearer to my goal of perfectly showing the world in all its beauty and diversity, though there is still a long journey ahead.
I was born to write. I can’t not write every day – it would be worse than not cleaning my teeth.

Getting the Ego Out of the way

2011-01-25T01:54:00.001-08:00

I had a pretty good time with Peace Child yesterday. It went like a dream and in just over two hours I wrote just over 2,000 words. I think for once they were quite good. Often when I feel that I’m on a roll, I have to go back and do some drastic editing later. This time, I think, the writing was good, I could really see the whole plot and my main character was settling down. Also, the end seems to be in sight.
So, what was different this time?
I think my ego had got out of the way. I’d put the dream aside. It doesn’t matter whether I have a bestseller or carry on plodding for the rest of my life; I have to write. This is more a disease than a blessing. One day it might seem like a blessing. That day will never come if I don’t actually write. So what if I’m tired? I’ve just got to concentrate and do it.
So, I just concentrated and did it. The book’s the thing and not what it might do to my life style. I got some of the clearest pictures I’ve had for a while of the world I’ve created and some plot points also firmed up for me. I really did begin to care deeply about my protagonist. Coincidentally, I had an email from my editor about this character who appears also in a volume that’s about to come out. I have created the impression I wanted to. The efforts do pay off, then.
I recognise this from my days as a secondary school teacher. I’d swear I actually taught better on the occasions when I was a little tired or slightly ill, or even when my confidence as a teacher was shaken slightly. I tended then to be a little more in tune with what was actually going on and therefore became more aware of the needs of the students in front of me.
So what happened yesterday? Nothing much. I was a little tired, a little cold – although it’s warmer in Salford now it’s damper and that always feels cold – and a little under the January grey-sky weather. I wasn’t a glorious writer about to beat words into submission. I didn’t matter. The writing did. That’s all there was to do.

The Struggle

2011-01-19T00:25:00.001-08:00

It happens every so often. I get temporary “writer’s block”.
I’m immensely self-disciplined and know that once I’ve been at the keyboard for a while, the words will begin to flow. I’m aware too, that the days on which everything seems to flow smoothly, I write less well. On the days when I struggle a little, I write better.
But what I’m writing about here is a little different. It is the day of the Big Struggle. Yesterday was such a day. I could not think where to take my story next. I had lost the plot – literally. I was beginning to question the main premise of the novel. There are many themes and many issues, and the main one was getting lost in all of the detail. Plus, I worried about some pacing issues. My main character was irritating me.
One problem may be that I’ve had to put this aside for the best part of six weeks whilst I did some remedial work on the novel’s prequel – due out next month. It is easy to forget the details when you’re working with such a multi-layered plot. There’s pressure, anyway. I need to get at least the first draft of this novel finished by September, because then I have to leave the world of futuristic science fiction and plunge into the world of the historical novel. There are, of course, a number of parallels – both include creating another world.
Whatever the cause, for once yesterday, I did not enjoy writing.
I guess we all go through this at some stage – somewhere towards the end of the middle of our novels. Knowing that is useful to me: it’s happened before and it will happen again. How do I get out of it? I carry on writing.
I’ll have that joy tomorrow. I alternate working on the big project with working on others. Today I’ll be working on a non-fiction book. Fortunately, it seems to be writing itself. That could mean, of course, that I’m writing less well.
I guess it’s a matter of confidence. At least I know that this is just a passing phase. The first time you meet this, it can be devastating. If you’re facing that right now, have faith: it will pass.

An Optimum Day

2011-01-10T00:38:00.000-08:00

It was rather glorious at the weekend. I was in Wales, and for once the weather there was much better than in England – clear, mild for the time of year and snow-free. I’d left four inches of very wet snow and driven through freezing fog to get there.
I was there for a variety of reasons: to celebrate a friend’s birthday, to discuss a little business with her as she also a business partner, to catch up with some old friends and to meet one of our new authors.
It all worked like a dream. The journey was fine, I was delighted to meet the new addition to my friend’s family – a, friendly, very wriggly, puppy-come-dog. We swapped a few opinions about the business but of course couldn’t make any decisions without the other two partners. Mainly good, though.
We met up with some members of Cellar Writing Group on the Saturday morning at the Blue Sky café, Bangor. It is such a vibrant place. Some of our friends had one of the delicious breakfasts. We were being good. But we were intending to have lunch there.
The Cellar Writing Group had just started when I lived on Bangor. It has developed so positively. There are now genre-specific sub groups that work in a very professional way and send each other work in advance. Meeting at Blue Sky for breakfast every now and then is just another option – a great one, actually. It’s always good to talk to other writers about writing. Even better in a place with the ambience of the Blue Sky.
We met our new author. She won the Bridge House novel-writing competition. The noble happens to be set in North Wales. As the writing group gradually dispersed we were able to talk about our marketing ideas and an editing schedule.
We actually occupied a table for four hours in the café. We did them proud though: everyone had at least two rounds of drinks and one round of food.
It’s all appropriate anyway. Blue Sky is one of my Creative Cafés and what we did there epitomised what the Creative Café is all about. It optimizes the day even more when I remember that Blue Sky actually belongs to my second-cousin-in-law.
Yes, Friday evening / Saturday morning were part of an optimum day. I just had to round it off by stopping at Colwyn Bay on the way home. This was a favourite seaside place when I was a child and I used to dream then of someday living there. Well, I’ve sort of managed that.
And I was very pleased that on Saturday the tide was in and the waves were bouncing up on to the promenade. Definitely an optimum day.

Thank Goodness for Social Networking

2011-01-04T00:54:00.000-08:00

I have worked as a writer for ten years now and for six of those also as an academic. Both of those occupations can lead to isolation. Ironically, there is also a need in both to network and make one’s presence felt so complete isolation is not an option. .
Once I had instilled some self-discipline into myself, I actually found I enjoyed being absorbed in my writing. The blank page never disturbed me and I learnt to write myself out of writer’s block. I found the days I was most dissatisfied with my work I produced the best writing. There was never any need to fear. A problem, though, was that a sort of cabin fever set it. I missed the school staffroom and I missed people. I found any excuse to go out and even visiting the accountant to talk through my tax return felt like a treat.
In addition networking opportunities didn’t come cheap and they always took up valuable writing time.
Gradually, though, I took on email and the inbox became a source of delight. It brought opportunities and contact with other writers. I joined some forums: notably Wordpool and SCBWI, later NibWeb and one or two others and I can quite honestly say that most of my writing success has come through connections I’ve found through these forums.
These days, the in-box brings in quite a bit of junk – despite two good filters -, quite a lot of stuff I elect not to read but allow to keep coming because some of it is useful, and one or two painful ones – like editorial comment I don’t agree with, a less than favourable review or even a bill. Nevertheless, there are still plenty of delights.
And then there’s the rest. I love Twitter and I tolerate Facebook. I find the latter clunky to use and it easily becomes a time--waster. I tend to be a passive user of it. I respond to what it sends me, though I do force myself to advertise my events and my books on it. Twitter is on all the time and I reward myself at the end of each task by going and having a peek.
I’m also an avid blogger and maintain six different blogs and regularly contribute to Triond. I usually start my writing day by writing something for one of the blogs, though I don’t force it if I don’t have anything to say.
The point is, even though I work in one of two little rooms, shut off form everyone, I feel connected to the world. Most of the people I follow on Twitter and who follow me are connected with the writing world, but there are a few others – for instance, I follow Jodrell Bank. Well, I do write science fiction.
Natalie Goldberg once pointed out that writers like working in cafés because the part of the brain that needs to feel connected with the world is satisfied because in a café you’re surrounded by the world. I feel a little like that knowing that I’m logged into Twitter. I don’t have to look at it all the time, but I know that the water-cooler is just a click away.
And of course, it’s all free networking.

Creating Worlds

2011-01-02T06:22:00.000-08:00

Before I started writing The Prophecy, I spent months creating my world. I sat in cafés dreaming of Terrestra 3500. I worked out how people lived, what they ate, how they dressed, how society was organised, how they travelled around, what they believed in, what they did for fun and what the physical attributes were of the planet. On top of that, there were also the normal thoughts about character and plot.
Now, I’m revisiting all of that and thoroughly enjoying it. One of the editors at The Red Telephone has suggested that I provide a glossary of characters and setting features for readers of Babel as they may not remember it all from The Prophecy. He has a point. I’ve had to look up some things myself.
However, I’d never suggest using a glossary instead of setting everything up correctly. It should be obvious what certain things are and who certain people are from the way they are introduced. It would be wrong to bore readers of the second volume who knew the first for the sake of the handful who go straight to volume two. I’d like to emulate Oisín McGann who is a real master of setting up worlds, especially in his novel The Gods and Their Machines. There are no words of exposition. He simply shows us his world. This is extreme showing not telling.
Another writer who does this successfully, this time in an historical context, is Caroline Lawrence in her Roman Mysteries series. The first time you meet a Latin word or a little Roman culture, Lawrence makes her meaning transparently clear. She also includes these items in a glossary at the back of the book in case you have forgotten what an expression means the next time you meet it. For those readers who are really interested in Latin words and Roman culture there is more on her web site.
Yes, I’m really enjoying writing the glossary about the world I have created. It’s also reassuring me that my world works.

Story Time

2010-12-27T03:12:00.000-08:00

Once again we’ve been trapped pretty much indoors over Christmas – just like last winter. It was colder this time with the cold snap starting earlier but the snow has been less problematic, though I did have a scary journey back from a concert in Chester cathedral on the Friday before Christmas. The snow has only started to melt today.
It really has been too cold to go out. I normally love walking in cold, crisp winter weather but five minutes on Christmas Eve was enough. There was nothing for it but to indulge in extra story time. Isn’t that what this time of year is all about?
I’m now making headway into that pile of books on the shelves in my bedroom. Plus there are all the films – reruns of old cheesy ones and those that have now been around long enough to make it to the small screen – the ones I would have liked to see at the cinema. The Other Boleyn Girl is one such example .Of course, I’ve had to rewatch Miracle on 34th Street and The Railway Children.
Then there are the TV specials: My Family (hilarious), Dr Who (a little disappointing but possibly because it had been so built up) and the return of Upstairs Downstairs (yet to be watched.)
And all the DVDs given as Christmas presents or found on the coffee table, left over from Sunday supplements.
We did get out, though, to see an excellent version of David Copperfield at Bolton’s Octagon theatre. They captured the whole story so well. I’m sure even people who had not read the book would have understood.
Yes, it is time for absorbing story. For a writer it is also a time for making stories. The enforced house arrest aids this also. So here I am, on the day we have our second Christmas –our grown-up children form London are coming a little later – working away. It is, of course, a pleasure. I did have a new computer for my birthday (22 December).

Panic Setting In

2010-12-15T00:55:00.000-08:00

Assignments are due in now. Students are emailing like mad with what are, after all, pretty valid questions. I’m tied up today and although tomorrow I’m technically free all day, I’m expecting a steady stream at my door. Two added complications, though. The assignments are due in tomorrow. And the snow is also supposed to come.
At least this amount of panic shows that they care. They are really trying to give their best shot with the current assignments.
Impressively, most of my students are already very clear that a text is never really complete – merely abandoned at the point where they run out of time or talent. Welcome to my world. And at least the marking should be very pleasant. I’m looking forward to reading some impressive scripts.

Our Libraries are Under Threat

2010-12-06T01:07:00.000-08:00

Throughout the UK and I suspect throughout many other countries libraries are threatened with closure. This feels to me as bad as burning books. Where would I be now if it hadn’t have been for some excellent libraries? I’ve recently worked out that if and when I retire – I’ll be 59 in a couple of week’s time, so this is a serious consideration- I’ll not be able to keep on buying books at the rate I do now. I was relying on the free bus pass and the library in town as a way of getting round this.
When I was a child I couldn’t afford books either. I remember very clearly the Easter holidays of the second year at junior school. This was the year I discovered the Famous Five. I was at the library every day changing my books. Of course, I soon got though all of the Famous Five books and went on to what my teachers no doubt labelled “better things”. Having access to so many books at that age is probably what allows me to be a writer today – and also a lover of reading.
Later, as I started reading fluently in French and German I was glad to be able to borrow books in those languages because then the cost of importing them was prohibitive.
University meant owning books, so I neglected the public library for a few years, though I made great use of a university library. Then, a few years on, came the children and weekly visits to the library became a part of our family routine. I loved going to the library with the kids and helping them to choose the books I would later read out to them.
The children grew up. I started studying first for an MA and then a Ph D. This brought me in touch with university libraries again but the municipal ones were also important: I was studying writing for children. Indeed now that I’m teaching at university level I recommend that students on two of my modules join the town library: if they want to write children’s; literature or need to write an essay about it they will never afford to buy as many books as they need to read in order to understand. Our university library stocks a few titles but it cannot afford to stock as many as they need to read. Besides, going to the children’s section of the library gives the students some contact with children.
As we gradually take on e-book technology, no doubt the role of the library will change a little. But it will remain a great force in keeping books alive. It will stock older editions of books and different libraries may distribute different types of e-literature. The physical buildings still need to be there with their shelves, reading and studying spaces. Even the most financially stable of us need them occasionally. For instance, I use Bolton’s library whilst my car is being serviced. This library provides decent study space, though, for me, the rows upon rows of interesting books and the interesting people are a distraction. Other people who visit are mums with young children, college students, retired people, and mature people, possibly out of work, who are clearly studying to better their prospects. The computers with internet access are popular and thank goodness this facility is there: we all have our IT crises.
Some libraries are thriving: they have cafés attached and arrange all sorts of events. Sometimes, however, this can be to the detriment of one of the library’s traditional roles: that of providing a quiet space for reading. That is where I think my university library has it right. There are there types of zone: one geared for group work where open chatting is acceptable, another where some noise is tolerated and a third where absolute silence must be observed.
The library may have to change in order to survive. We must not lose sight, however, of its primary role. Note that Alan Gibbons’ activity is called “The Campaign for the Book”, not “The Campaign for the Library.” It’s just that one of the greatest threats to books as we know them is, of course, the closure of libraries.
Thank goodness, then, for the legal deposit libraries and their hoards of books. At my university, we have a constant battle to stop the library throwing out books – including some first editions. We have to sign to say we want them preserved. Surely a function of any library is to have that out of print book that only a few will want. I often go back to a really old source and find that what is suggested is surprisingly up to date and what I had thought were new ideas are in fact very old. We have to change our thinking here. The librarians constantly say there is no room so they must get rid of the books. Some books are priceless. We should see the problem from the other angle and create more space instead of getting rid of books.
So, why do we need libraries?
• To preserve books.
• To provide access to books that are difficult to find elsewhere.
• To offer books to people who cannot afford to buy them.
• To provide a public space for study.
• To provide a public access to the web.
• To support literature in other ways (and without the commercial restraints under which festivals and bookshops have to work).
Get involved. Support your local library and join Alan’s campaign.

Students Inspire

2010-12-02T04:08:00.000-08:00

Every Thursday I know why I like my job despite all of the incongruities and uncertainties. I meet my two Final Portfolio groups and they actually inspire me. I hope I also inspire them.
All three students who were due to submit did and four out of six came to class. I guess the ones who are committed show in these snow-covered times. One student lives locally- the other three had a commute. The others who did not come in actually did have very good reason – one of them to do with a meter of snow. The local student allowed plenty of time in case the pavements were covered. She actually arrived early and came along to my office. It was good to see her.
The conversation throughout the session was focussed and useful. These students are really learning to critique well. Are they becoming better self-editors? We hope so: this is the point of the exercise.
One student stayed behind for a short chat. She has learnt the networking lesson. She presented herself as a writer to be involved with a history project in her home town. She felt a bit of a fraud: several other people there had many publications to their name. Yet she wasn’t alone. However, there were several other people there who had thinner portfolios.
She held her own, and this has led to other opportunities. She now runs and participates in open mic events. She has some involvement with schools. Her writing is improving apace, too, partly because she is becoming more confident and partly because she is getting even more feed-back now.
I pointed her towards NAWE. They will help her keep her CRB check up to date and then there’s the Public Liability Insurance - £10,00,000 of it. NAWE also naturally provides further networking opportunities.

Intro to Children’s Literature – A Pub Quiz

2010-12-01T02:09:00.001-08:00

Week 10 is our “pub quiz”. We look at the essential facts about Children’s Literature with an emphasis on late 20th and 21st Centuries. There is a certain amount of general knowledge students should be expected to have by the end of this course. So, they are presented with a “pub quiz” which they can access before the session. They then work their way through this in class in teams along with fitting a list of children’s writer’s into a series of grids that identifies who wrote what for whom when.
It was a bitter cold day yesterday and some roads were difficult to access because of snow and ice. The class is from 4.00 to 6.00. Many students commute quite a long way. Nevertheless, a committed bunch of seven turned up and worked through the material with gusto. We also spent a little time looking at a picture book text that one of the students had written. It broke all of the rules but still worked.
The answers were given after about one hour. This led to some quite lively discussions about some of the key figures in Children’s Literature. There were many grey areas. A discussion of those bought us to some consideration of what happens in the study of English Literature. Basically if you believe something is true it is up to you to prove it with convincing and extended arguments quoting the texts. Could J.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling fit into most of the boxes, in fact, followed closely by Enid Blyton, Rudyard Kipling, C. S. Lewis and Charles Dickens? And did they think to put my name in any of the boxes?

The Copy Edit

2010-11-26T00:41:00.001-08:00

I’m just going though, accepting and rejecting changes, on the final copy-edit of Babel. The copy-edit proof can look horrendous. It can really put off an inexperienced writer. By this stage, anyway, one is weary of the book and one may want to just get it signed off. The temptation is to “accept all changes”. This is actually rather a dangerous thing to do, for several reasons.
I know the copy-editor who worked on Babel quite well and thoroughly trust him. Even so, I had plenty of cause to examine every single suggestion very carefully.
One of the most worrying things was that half way through, he suddenly got a different take on how to punctuate direct speech. It’s easy to make this sort of mistake: I know that my students sometimes get the same thing wrong persistently and I begin to query my own judgement. I actually disagreed with some of the rules that he seemed to follow about commas, especially after “and”, and when to start a new paragraph. Interestingly, he was using same rules that I’d learnt at school – and that was a Grammar School, so there must be something in it. However, I sincerely believe that our fast-paced life has made us move away from using commas where we used to and that a comma in front of “and” is often acceptable and frequently creates another meaning. I’m actually seeking a third opinion on that and on the paragraph breaks. We always have two copy-edits and the other copy editor did not pick up many of these.
Sometimes the suggestions did not improve the text. Neither did they spoil it. Why not go with the suggestion, anyway?
In other cases I absolutely agreed with the copy editor but decided not to change: the slight clumsy phrase or the overwritten sentence was part of the text’s or a character’s voice.
In most cases, however, the copy editor’s suggestion made the text much tighter and much more readable. These suggestions are probably also lessons for me for next time I do my own copy edit.
Perhaps then, we need a set of rules for reacting to a copy-edit:
1. Don’t believe that your copy-editor is infallible.
2. Read and respond to each suggestion carefully.
3. If what the copy-editor suggests is no better nor no worse than what you put in the first place, why not go with it anyway? It’s the copy-editor’s job to know about these things.
4. If you disagree, discuss this with him / her and / or get another opinion.
5. Resist any changes that will spoil the voice of the text or one of its characters. You may have to make your case!
Happy writing!

Calling for Angels

2010-11-24T01:28:00.000-08:00

I am absolutely enthralled by this book. I have now read it four times and still get a lump in my throat when I get to page 143. It is rather amazing, as well, that it is written by a 17 year-old who was actually only 14 when she completed her first draft.
As a university lecturer in English and Creative Writing, specialising in young adult literature, and because my Ph D thesis was entitled Peace Child: Towards a Global Definition of the Young Adult Novel I get to read a lot of teen and young adult novels. There are many published ones I love and I see extraordinarily good extracts of novels, as yet unpublished, written by my students. But I have never seen anything as rich, light and engaging as this one.
The launch that we held last Friday was fun. Caffe Yum, an independent coffee shop in Hertford, was exactly the right place for such an event.
I recommend this book as an ideal Christmas present for younger teen girls. But note, it moved also the young male editor and the older male designer at The Red Telephone.
Calling for Angels by Alex Smith. Available here.

To Do Right Now

2010-11-19T00:24:00.000-08:00

There is quite a lot to do when you are a writer. Here is my list of ongoing writing projects:
• Accept – or not – copy editor’s remarks on Babel (2nd part of Peace Child trilogy).
• Finish first draft of Peace Child (third part of Peace Child trilogy).
• Complete And They Thought I didn’t Know ( verse ya novel)
• Final edit in response to peer reviewer of an academic paper.
• Complete first draft of an academic paper I’m writing.
• Continue enrolling writers for a book I’m editing
• Resubmit thrice rejected ya novel Spooking.
• Write for various competition and small press calls to submission.
• Write some sort of article about the workshop I delivered at the recent NAWE conference.
• Write various blog posts.
• Write for Triond.
And over the next week these are my writing related activities:
• Drive to Hertford for the book launch of Calling for Angels, the debut novel of Alex Smith, just 17, and winner of The Red Telephone’s competition.
• Mark the first assignment from my students on the Intro to Children’s Literature Module.
• Complete many routine administration jobs at the university.
• Teach on two modules: Final Portfolio and Intro to Children’s Literature
• Look at a lot of student’s work, including one dissertation.
• Talk to students about writing.
• Prepare two lectures on Narrative Fiction and the Novel.
• Edit and think of ideas for Bridge House.
• Edit and think of ideas for CafeLit and the Creative Café Project.
• Go to my choir practice and the MACC competition.
• Go to my Opening the Quays rehearsal.
• Keep an eye on my various email accounts, Facebook and Twitter.
All in all, a very satisfying way of spending my time.

NAWE Conference 2010

2010-11-18T01:58:00.000-08:00

This conference, held in a very comfortable hotel in Cheltenham, excelled itself last weekend. Possibly this is a reflection of the fact that NAWE itself is going from strength to strength. As usual much of the joy and the usefulness came from the opportunity offered between sessions and over meals to network.
NAWE is doing well. That is very clear. The new web site is splendid. Literature training has been renamed Writer’s Compass. What is provided is just as good as ever. Professional and institutional members get £10,000,000 of public liability insurance and can download the certificate from the site. NAWE will do a CRB check for those writers who need to work in schools or with vulnerable adults. And you can join the Professional Register to advertise what you offer. The new HE committee was formed at the conference. One of the highlights was hearing reading from the Young Writers’ hub. Another good initiative.
All of the sessions I attended were good and my own workshop, about using foreign language work to enhance our creativity, was well received, it seems. There was a mixture of workshops, information about conducting school visits, and discussions about current concerns. Naturally, “cut-backs” featured highly in the latter. But when don’t we always have concerns about funding? There was a real choice of sessions, and often I found myself wanting to go to two or even three at once, including at the time when my own session ran. The most important one for me, I think, was a discussion of the failings of the traditional writers’ workshop and how we might improve it. Some good ideas were discussed but we must be careful about anything that will increase our marking load.
We were also provided with two excellent after-dinner speaker. And oh, I ended up buying yet more books. The speakers and the bookstall full of members’ books were just too irresistible this year.

Contrasts – Writing Fiction / Non-fiction

2010-11-05T01:25:00.000-07:00

I have fixed myself another writing-routine in order to ensure enough I actually do some writing whilst holding a demanding day job albeit one that is very related to writing. Now I do my two hours writing first. And I’m alternating working on my novel and some academic writing. I have a list of academic projects and that does actually include some competition entries etc. It’s a good variety.
Yesterday was an academic writing day and I managed more than my 2,000 words in under two hours. I was actually preparing a short article about point of view for the Virtual Learning Environment, Blackboard. I find that my students – and other inexperienced writers - make more mistakes with point of view than almost anything else. The article was almost written and I’d actually got to the easy final couple of paragraphs.
On Wednesday I’d worked on my novel Peace Child. Now that I am spending some time every other day on it it is flowing better. However, I only managed 1657 words in the time. This is because I also had to digest and respond to some editorial comment to its prequel, Babel.
I generally do find non-fiction, apart from very intellectual academic papers, easier to write. It requires less concentration and I can listen to music while I write. When I’m writing fiction, even the birds singing in the garden can become annoying. On the other hand, I have little trouble planning fiction: I have story theory down to a fine art. Non-fiction I find difficult to marshal. A collection of given facts can be arranged in so many different ways. But once I know what I’m doing, the writing just flows.
I do actually enjoy the contrast, though.
Today is fiction: I’m anticipating editing Babel.

Singing joy- what writers do in their spare time

2010-11-04T01:33:00.000-07:00

I love my job. I used to dream of the hours at the desk writing things that people wanted to read and then other hours talking to people about their writing and giving advice. I have all of that now – and a good deal of isolation, bouts of self-doubt and a fatigue of self-promotion. Plus there’s the feed-back, and though often positive, usually contains a call to compulsory improvement. And you do get stuck in your own head.
An antidote to all of this, I find, is belonging to a choir. You may have read the article I posted on Triond yesterday. My choir activities have become a little routine and when I was offered an additional opportunity and I found that I was available for all of the meetings, I jumped at the chance.
This meant that I spent yesterday evening at the Lowry Theatre, Salford Quays, on one of four song-writing / singing workshops. The talented Gospel and Soul Diva Yvonne Shelton is our leader and she is aided by the Lowry’s own Dave Smith. There were just four singers – there will be a few more next time.
We had a fascinating time looking at the words that two Salford song-writers had put together based on their research and thinking about what Salford means to us. I personally see this north-west British town as a big spider of a place that turns up everywhere. You’re driving along anywhere in north-east Manchester and suddenly you see the bright pink sign that tells you you are in Salford. Salford is older than Manchester, and as I come form West Bromwich, which enjoys a similar relationship to Birmingham, I can relate to that. I used to think West Bromwich was the dirty old town in the song. Salford is now post-industrial, as is West Bromwich. Both towns have a history of poverty and mucky industry. This is all symbolised for me, in both cases, by watching and actually enjoying the sunset over the gasworks. And the big question for me now is: Has the development on the Quays, including the BBC coming to Media City, been fair to the real people of Salford?
The song-writing really turned out to be thinking of and trying out sounds that went with the words. Though I’m not a confident singer Yvonne managed to put us at our ease and convince us that we can do it. It reminded me a little of when our choir split into smaller groups for our concert at Ordsall Hall: you do perform well because you have to. It was good moving in a space as well.
I am so glad that I decided to join in this!

Fascinating Research Day

2010-10-28T01:09:00.000-07:00

Our subject group held a research day yesterday. The presentations were diverse: two reasonably conventional academic papers were read. They were interesting in their own right. It’s good for us anyway to exercise that intellectual academic muscle. This, in the end, is what we are all about.
There were other discussions too about early career researchers, funded doctoral programmes with outside bodies and taught doctoral programmes where students with similar research interests across institutions are collected. We talked about how we might reshape our present research clusters. One colleague gave us some ideas about how we might maximise our research time. This included only writing papers for conferences in bullet points, so that one does not end up writing the papers twice. Other ideas were to link teaching and research and to do one’s creative writing at the time of day that suits you best.
So, now I’m full of plans. I’m champing at the bit to apply for one of these doctoral programmes. I’m thinking of linking to IBBY or Seven Stories. Any interest out there in getting a funded Ph D linked to one of those?
I agree absolutely about the bullet-pointed conference paper. It was good to hear my ideas confirmed.
And I’m trying it. I’m writing this now as part of my two hours’ writing before I start on uni admin. Lets see how it goes.
We did struggle more to see how we could make our onerous admin part of our research. Maybe I have an answer: today, for instance, I might finish off my application for sabbatical in my “writing” time. It is a form of writing after all.
In the end, we creative writers have to write. It is part of what we are and is the bottom line of why the university employs us anyway.

This week’s portfolio classes

2010-10-21T05:33:00.000-07:00

My two groups have been really good again today. They’re all writing prose – life writing or fiction. The work is good on the whole but it all still needs another tidy up. I am confident that most of them can manage this. They are all missing the chance to show rather than tell, yet they are getting a real sense of what that means. We talked about editing and perhaps looking for one item at a time. This will inevitably distort the shape of the text they are producing and may lead to word count problems which will also have to be resolved. Yet this all belongs to the craft.
There were some clumsy sentences and some run-on sentences in some pieces. They will probably deal with the former in their editing process. They must learn to avoid run-on sentences. They point to a lack of understanding of grammar in the writer and could preclude the text from being published in the USA. They should only use them if the effect is worth the hassle with the copy-editor.
I was very pleased to find out that all of my students are working on their writing outside the course. Some are working on the same material as here, others on new material. They are becoming professional writers. They run their own critique groups amongst their peers and some post to on-line sites and e-critique groups. Some are using social networking tools to create themselves as writers though they are all aware that they may need to create a different identity from their social identity.

On Autobiogrpahy

2010-10-19T07:06:00.001-07:00

We all know 250 people don’t we? We are not short of people to help paint our lives. Some of them can be very colourful. Other people define who we are. I often think my creative writing students would do well to take a course in human psychology. Everybody’s life is interesting, actually, if we frame it carefully.
Yet we must be careful. There is even more danger of losing friends if we make them feature in our autobiographies for here we imply that we tell the truth. We may see them one way but they may see themselves entirely differently.
Perhaps the best option is to just show the reader scenes from our lives and let them come to their own conclusions. However, we must be aware that we are being selective in what we chose to portray and how we choose to portray it. We are painting our pasts from our position here and now in the present. Nevertheless if our own stories are constructed through the type of scenes we use in fiction, filmic scenes grounded in time and space and relying on us writing with the senses, they make for more interesting reading anyway than if they are simply told.

A Life of Boasting

2010-10-15T00:55:00.000-07:00

It strikes me that I spend much of my time saying how good I am. Even writing this blog can get a bit like that sometimes. A large part of my job is to do with bidding for funding. This is involves proving why I am the right person for the particular job. We have to regularly update our profiles at the university. Yesterday my colleagues and I had to prove that we are innovative and that claiming to have a strength in innovation in creative writing is not to be smirked about. When you write a simple query letter you feel obliged to point out how you’ve been successful in publication elsewhere and how you might bring other qualities and aptitudes to the process of getting your book out there – in my case the fact that I do numerous school visits and am actually a university lecturer. Then there are my qualifications – an MA and a Ph D in writing. Ah, there I go again. We have to repeat it all when we go to our appraisal meetings.
I do know I am good but that there are many people even better. Yet I don’t need to exaggerate. I’m pleased with my progress. Every so often, for example when applying for a new post or for promotion, it’s actually good to list all that you’ve achieved. But frankly at the moment I’m bored with it all. Plus, all this self-glorification is leaving me little time to actually get on with being good in my field.

Final Portfolio Groups

2010-10-14T06:01:00.000-07:00

I had my two Final Portfolio groups today. Each group has just six students. They are a joy to teach. Half of them submit work in advance of our meeting. We all look at it, give feedback, discuss generally and then look forward to the next week when the other half of each group submit work.
We often notice same items. Sometimes though there are disagreements. Sometimes the writer may disagree with everyone else. This is actually an important point for new writers: they have to take responsibility for the decisions they ultimately make about their work.
We learnt a trick today: if the reader understands what we want them to understand we have written well. It is often hard for us to judge these things ourselves. This is a really effective way we can gain useful feedback on our work. Ask open-ended questions about the impression the reader has gained.
Often more general topics come up in these sessions. What should we do after we’ve finished this course? I offer my five suggestions, go on to post grad work, write your bestseller, go into a job that uses the same skills (advertising, teaching), become a jobbing writer or pick an uncreative job to allow space for creative activity. Then there are discussions about how to clearly mark changing points of view, how we often have to get rid of the first parts that we have written for that is how we ourselves get into the story and how it can be useful to get the story down quickly and then go back and worry about the details. We are using an art with a little craft. Writing is not an exact science even though we may look at it scientifically.
Yes, it’s great working with these lively minds. Again I say I have a fantastic day job.

Towards Publication

2010-10-13T07:23:00.000-07:00

I’m suggesting a new module at the university here where I teach. It is a very hands-on one for students who wish to become published whilst still at university. Students on the course will be asked to keep a portfolio of work they wish to submit, of work they are in the process of submitting and of submissions they have already made.
The course will equip them with their own personal strategy for maintaining a future portfolio of submissions and for maintaining a full-time or part-time writing career. It will also show students how to submit effectively.
There will be lectures about ways of submitting, including all the ones that the new technology affords and performance as an alternative form of submission. There will be a seminar on creating the portfolio that will be assessed in the course. There will be two one-to-one tutorials. The first will discuss strategies for the individual and the second will discuss the current portfolio. Alongside these, distance learning components with formative assessment will be offered on submission strategies, submission methods, entering competitions, networking and coping with rejection. A wiki and a discussion forum will also be offered to the students.
Many Creative Writing programmes offer these sorts of modules as compulsory components. And the students hate them – either because they have decided they don’t after all want to become writers or because they are forced to face one of the realities of the writer’s world. This module offers some guidance and mentoring to those who are really keen to get their work published.
There is still a vocational element for others: others not taking this as credit-bearing course will be able to attend the lectures and have access to the on-line materials.

What a privilege

2010-10-07T06:59:00.000-07:00

I have had an absolutely fabulous day at my day job today. A writer’s dream perhaps and I’m even getting some time to write.
Admin was exciting – two more acceptances for writing the chapter on the books I’m proposing. And absolutely perfect suggestions as to what people would write.
Then, two groups of almost perfect Final Portfolio students. They had sent work of a rigorous standard. They were open to suggestion. They made helpful, intelligent suggestions. They were fun to be with. In between the two sessions, I met up with three of my colleagues and we had a fairly relaxed informal but important chat.
We also had a visit form the Octagon Theatre, Bolton. They do fabulous things! And I’m going to see them tomorrow.
In my office hours, I saw a student who wants to make a career of writing… and or teaching. It was easier to talk to her than try and write it all in an email.
I’ve also been marking an interesting MA dissertation.
Later, I’m teaching my Introduction to Children’s Writing Course. Fab!
And then I meet a colleague and the exchange students in the pub for half an hour.
What a day job!

New MA Students

2010-10-01T03:50:00.000-07:00

I met my new Writers Workshop students last night. Some students I already knew either because they’d graduated from Salford or they are part-timers and did two modules last year. There were two new faces.
We had a very lively discussion. They all spoke about their work to start with then we discussed poetics referring to the work of Robert Sheppard and looked at a few ideas form Hazel Smith’s The Writing Experiment. They left buzzing with ideas.
We’ve worked out some quite strict workshop rules. I’m really pleased that they will be sending each other work and annotating it electronically before the session.
There’s seven of them altogether – all female. I think we’ll continue to have lively discussions.

Academic Writing

2010-09-30T07:37:00.001-07:00

There was an interesting article in the ACLS magazine recently about academic writing. Academic writers anyway seem to be paid a salary for having ideas so don’t so much need to be paid for their writing. In fact their writing is a way of spreading their ideas.
I’m a rather unusual creature, in that I research and teach in “creative writing” so much of my work has a commercial presence as well. My work is not too commercial, however, as it includes a good degree of experiment. And so it should if it’s part of the learning offered at university.
I do get a ALCS payment and a PLR payment each year. Both are mainly to do with two books and yet I have over 30 in print. We were surveyed by ALCS here at the university last year. A fascinating process. Every time we photocopied something we had to copy the title page and say how many of which pages we’d used.
A friend of mine has published her novel an e-book and is giving it away for a few weeks. It’s gong well.
I expect once the e-book-reader technology settles down it will become popular with academics. I’m personally looking forward to that.
All food for thought.

Keeping track

2010-09-29T02:28:00.000-07:00

I have a task manager provided with my email account at work. Great, sometimes, you get invited to an event and have the option of it being put in your dairy. It’s magical watching it easily slide in. As I keep a paper diary, I have to make a copy as well but it’s actually fine. Belt and Braces.
I do use the task manager, though. I do find it stops me agonising about what I have to do next. It’s all listed there and with tasks that have a time critical element to them I put in extra reminders.
I’m working generally on my novel, Peace Child and on the post-proof reading edit of its prequel Babel. I intersperse that with academic writing and entries to competitions and interesting submissions. For the latter I keep a list, in date order, in my “academic writing” task box. I try to do two hours of this four days a week. I don’t always manage it of course.
I do find it reassuring that everything is there and I don’t have to try to hold everything in my head. I can reserve my brain for the more creative stuff.
There are plenty of task managers around. I’m using the Microsoft Office one. Lotus Notes is good too. I’ve used that in the past. I use the Microsoft one as it’s provided by my employer.

First Creative Writing Lecture of the Semester

2010-09-28T07:34:00.000-07:00

Yes, that’s right. We lecture on creative writing. Thirty-eight students turned out to an introductory lecture. We were expecting 41. But five did not show who were on our lists.
What does one lecture about in creative writing?
Well, this week there was a lot of housekeeping. The programme leader came and talked about the programme. I talked about some specific module details. The other two tutors were introduced. We chose student reps. Six people volunteered. Usually it’s a struggle to find one.
Then there was the real content.
Usually, only a handful of our students have a portfolio of writing. This time, most of the room put their hands up to say they had. The secondary and tertiary education systems do not normally allow much space for creative writing.
I emphasized the need to write every day. They should set themselves a goal of two minutes – that’s right – just two minutes. Chances are, they’ll get started and end up doing two hours. I also pointed out how important it was to take part every week in the workshop and how this will actually make the completion of the assignment easier. I encouraged them too to keep a writer’s journal.
I pointed out how gradually the way they read will become different. They will become quicker and more critical. They’ll find they can’t read without critiquing but it does mean that they can enjoy texts in a different way.
And then there are all those activities that are to do with writing that don’t seem like work – people-watching, reading and watching films. Absorbing story in all sorts of different ways.
The biggest shock may have been, I suspect, that I told them they should be spending 200 hours on each module they’re on. They have, of course, already done some of the work. They’ve probably been doing it all their lives.

Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi and Flow

2010-09-23T06:13:00.000-07:00

Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi’s books on creativity and flow make for fascinating reads, whether you’re an academic or not. They explain a lot about how creativity happens.
My first encounter with one of his books was most bizarre. I’d read an article in the NAWE magazine which mentioned his idea of “flow”. I was in Portsmouth University Library looking of another book – and then I suddenly saw it on the shelf. It wasn’t, I didn’t think, at that time, pertinent to my studies. I borrowed it anyway as the way I’d found it must mean something. I found it was in fact relevant to what I was studying. Some ideas from it were integrated into the critical commentary within my Critical and Creative Writing Ph D: Peace Child, Towards a Global Definition of the Young Adult Novel. When I had to reduce 80,000 words to 40,000 it disappeared again. On passing my Ph D and having to make minor amendments, I found myself revisiting Csikszentmihalyi’s ideas again. Was I in that moment as I saw the book on the shelf in a state of flow?
It’s uncanny and yet reassuring (oh is this another paradoxical trait) that I recognise myself when he describes paradoxical traits of the creative person: Physical energy / quietness, smartness / naivety, playfulness / discipline, responsibility / irresponsibility, imagination / reality, introvert / extrovert, humility / pride, rebellious / conservative, passion / objectivity, pain / enjoyment.
He defines “flow” as intense enjoyment and something we experience when fully absorbed in a task. This happens when: there are clear goals every step of the way, there is immediate feedback to one’s actions, there is a balance between challenges and skills, actions and awareness are merged, distractions are excluded form consciousness, there is no worry of failure, self-consciousness disappears, the sense of time is distorted and the activity becomes worth doing for its own sake. That is, I think, what happens to me when I am writing. I don’t really fear the failure until the rejection slip arrives.
His work is certainly interesting and certainly worth a look.

Hectic start to semester continues

2010-09-22T08:30:00.000-07:00

It’s really a case of not remembering correctly, I guess. And it’s partly because of the contrast. There are times when we work in a totally different way - when we’re researching, attending conferences or writing for instance. Other times it’s like being back at school. The change from one mode to another is not always easy.
What is certain about now is that it is hectic.
We had the first BA Creative Writing meeting of the year today. There are some issues and the solutions are not crystal clear yet. So much to take up brain space. Much to think about.
The first years continue looking startled and perplexed. We know how thy feel.
We met with personal tutees today. They seemed very clued up. We got through the routine questionnaire really smoothly. And they seem a nice bunch too.
The year is definitely beginning to take off.

They used to call it Fresher’s Week

2010-09-21T09:05:00.001-07:00

It’s now called Induction Week. I’ve had a busy day today with four separate meetings and just a little time in between to get a few other things done. It’s felt a little fraught. I remember back to my own first week as an undergraduate. The programme they’d offered had seemed confusing, yet it all fitted into place quite smoothly. There was never a dull moment though there were enough quiet ones to allow you to get your breath back.
I asked my husband it he remembered his first week as a first year at university.
“Fresher’s Week?” he said. “All I can remember is signing up for lots of societies that I never attended and finding out the best places to drink.
Hmm. Has much changed?
Well we don’t offer them the sherry parties that used to be favoured at Sheffield. I always thought that they were an academic standard in the early 70s. Not so, I have learnt since: they were a Sheffield special.
We did offer them a breakfast this morning –bacon butties, veggie sausages, croissants, muffins, Danish, orange juice and coffee. The catering’s quite good here. The staff mingled, getting to know names and getting first impressions of the students we’re going to be teaching this year. Some of our other current students were also there to meet them.
They then have a series of other meetings – library induction, meeting their programme leaders, and being warned against plagiarism.
The Students Union are also offering some activities.
Registration itself is somewhat complex.
So, it’s not all that different. It’s just as busy as our Freshers’ Weeks were. Except we don’t offer them alcohol. They make their own arrangements for that.

Plots out of Control?

2010-09-17T02:26:00.001-07:00

Or is it rather that this particular plot is being more finely tuned?
I’m currently writing my third novel in my Peace Child trilogy. This is possibly the novel where for me the plot has been the least clear. I do know roughly how I want the story to go and how it should end, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to know exactly what the next step is.
I’m not sure exactly why this is happening though I suspect a few reasons. One must be that this time I am not working towards the end of just one story but towards the end of an over-arcing story that takes place through three novels. Secondly, my time and brain-space are more fragmented these days because of my job as a university lecturer. This isn’t a complaint about the latter – I love the work and it complements my work as a writer very well. However, it does dominate at times and I then require even more self-discipline than normal to keep on task. I hope I’m right about a third reason: I am a more competent and more experienced writer and know even more about plotting than I did when I wrote my last novel. There is a constant growth as we learn the craft, unless we become jaded, and I don’t actually think I have.
Yet I feel increasingly insecure about this plot. I find myself constantly poking in details and am continually struck by new ideas. Could it be, though, that I am being more open to a creative process? I know anyway that I often do my best writing when I’m feeling less secure about it. That also, I guess, is because I’m being more open to suggestion.

Finding My “Duende” in Lorca’s Country

2010-09-16T06:55:00.001-07:00

I have just come back off holiday. I’ve been to the place that actually got me writing in the first place. I went slightly blocked but have come back with some new energy and some new resolve. The writing has to be the most important thing, the bottom line. That is the resolve. What I need to write is now also clearer.
The south of Spain, Andalucía, is the place for inspiration, whatever that may be. Lorca certainly found his “duende” there. This is a type of spiritual, almost demonic influence. The angel and the muse come together, with the devil looking on. Nietzsche is in there too. Is that what was there for me in 1988 when I first started writing Jason’s Crystal?
I think much of it has to do with the very relaxing atmosphere. The sun cheers, the heat and the good food makes one sleepy and dreams are vivid and revealing. Ideas come because they have more time to fester. There is even a touch of the devil because it is all wickedly indulgent.
We go to Nerja, not that far from Granada where Lorca lived at one time. Although it is geared up to the holiday industry and although they cope well with people of many nationalities, this is still the real Spain. It is a little strange and a little different and it takes you out of yourself – just enough to let a few creative ideas come through. Often movement seems to trigger ideas. Poincaré himself, that great recorder of his own creative process, a mathematician, recalls that he found the answer to a question with which he had been grappling for some time as he stepped on to a bus when going out on a “jolly” whilst attending an academic conference.
Perhaps linked with this, too, is the opportunity that holidays offer us to daydream. Nerja in particular and Andalucía in general provide that in heaps.
Yes, I came back raring to go. Maybe all writers need the opportunity to work with their “duende”.

Ludic or even plaedic reading and writing

2010-08-20T00:31:00.000-07:00

I am becoming more and more interested in this as I work. I’ve encountered school students who, though they are very competent readers, do not enjoy reading. I’ve always found this difficult to understand: reading is my default activity. When questioned, the youngsters admitted to not getting a film in their head of the story and still seeing the dark marks on the pale page.
I often ask my creative writing students and even my English lit ones about their experience of reading. In five years I’ve only had one student admit to not getting pictures in her head and even she, arguably, if we look at exact meaning, reads ludically.
“Ludic” really means “playful”. Even my learner who sees no pictures plays with the abstract meaning of words. She has a Platonic relationship with what she reads. If she encounters a common noun – e.g. “cat” – she “plays with the idea of “cat” rather than “seeing” a particular moggy. Yet “ludic” comes from a word that means playing according to rules. Sure, we have rules about how we turn the dark marks into pictures or ideas, but there are no rules about how our imagination interacts with the ideas the dark marks give us. That seems to me to be more akin to “plaedus” – the type of imaginative games and role-play that I used to play as a child: Mums and Dad, hospitals and doctors, cowboys and Indians, Famous Five adventures. Maybe the term we need, then for this “film in the head” type of reading is “plaedic”.
I find this plaedic experience is even greater when I write than when I read. The pictures are sharper. Another interesting phenomenon occurs in my “Character magic” exercise. I suspect that the plaedic picture in the writer’s head is so strong that sub-consciously the writer picks exactly the right details to enable the plaedic reader to get the same plaedic image.
I’m interested in pursuing this further – starting with a little qualitative research through semi-structured interviews. Anyone interested in being part of the study? I’ll be aiming at a balanced demographic so may not be able to use everyone who volunteers. If so, let me know your details. I’ll aim to make a start mid-September.

A rejection that gets better by the minute

2010-08-19T08:46:00.001-07:00

A rejection that gets better by the minute
Rejection is rejection and it’s not nice, no matter how used you are to it. Yet I can’t quite get myself to delete this one from my in-box. If it had been a hardcopy I would have kept it.
It is from an agent. They said they wouldn’t want to represent me with this story because they didn’t’ think it was strong enough for the current competitive market but that if I failed to get representation this time, then send them the next. They liked my writing. They had seen the whole novel.
I keep coming across the email. The more I see it, the more I like it.
I now have two tasks:
- rewrite this novel and make it stronger.
- write the next, equally strong, and send it to them if I still haven’t got an agent.
That’s how you have to go on, making the steady improvements

The Trouble with Edward Cullen and Other Vampires

2010-08-10T06:45:00.000-07:00

Oh yes, I was enthralled, too, the first time I met this lover-boy monster. I read most of Twilight in the womb-like, soporific bar of Limerick Airport, in the Republic or Ireland. I’d been taken there early and I’d run out of reading material. So, I bought a second copy of Twilight – one that’s got the hands and the apple. The one I’d left at home still intrigues me. On its cover is a rather mysterious, very handsome Edward who I’m sure is not Robert Pattinson though Bella is almost certainly Kristen Stewart.
I was hooked.
It’s amazing how many women fall in love with Edward. Not Robert Pattinson, though he’s amiable enough, a reasonable actor and pleasant to watch. In fact, I’m sure Robert Pattinson will be quite relieved that I’m talking about Edward and not him when he reads the next paragraph.
You see, it’s perfectly okay for middle-aged women to be completely besotted with a 17-year-old vampire. Because he’s not seventeen. He’s 104 – or more depending on where in the story we’re talking about and which year we’re in now. Actually, that makes his connection even to a middle-aged woman a little bizarre.
At first I thought it was poor use of language on the part of Stephen Meyer when she made Edward speak in that slightly old-fashioned way. It was almost unbelievable when he insisted that he and Bella should marry. Except when you remember he was a young man at the beginning of the 20th Century. Then you realise she has it exactly right.
It seems to be part of vampire lore that the age is fixed, as they change from human to monster. What then of Mitchell in Being Human? An even more interesting vampire for the grown-up ladies. Now, he does age as the years go by.

Phrases that irritate

2010-08-06T00:28:00.000-07:00

I’m a great fan of Rudolfo Anaya. His Bless Me, Ultima is, I believe, one of the best novels ever written for young adults. He wrote it in 1972, many years before the current explosion in YA texts. It is very well written and deals with identity possibly better than any other book. I’m currently reading The Anaya Reader – a collection of novel excerpts, short stories and essays. They are good – especially so if one remembers that he is not writing in his own language.
Yet he still gets away with some clichés and overwriting that I would pull my students up for. He uses “pervades” and “fills the air” quite often. These annoy me. Not as much as those writers who use the word “garb” or “vestments” when they really mean “clothes”. Such language should only be used as part of a character’s voice and even then there is an argument that says one should use modern speech… because in Tudor time, or whenever, they used what was then modern speech.
I think the more abstract examples, such as those I’ve quoted form Anaya, might come about because the writer is writing aurally. They are matching the voice they hear in their head of other writers reading their work out loud. As with all clichés, the “fills the air” and “pervades” were quite clever - the first time, but even then I suspect that particular writer ought to have killed off a darling.
Not that Anaya need worry. I award Dan Brown 58% for his work. So any of my own students who receive 59% or higher – and most of them are considerably higher – stand some chance of publication. I’m not afraid to award marks over 70% - a first class mark and again, several of my students achieve this. To Anaya, for all his works, I give 75%. If he ditched the clichés he be in the region of 87% - or higher.

Writing Bios

2010-08-05T08:50:00.001-07:00

I’ve just had to write a 100 word bio to accompany an article I’m sending to a peer-reviewed journal. Every time you have to write a bio you should really provide a fresh one. It needs to some extent to be customised to what you are writing. For instance, in this latest one of mine, pasted below, I say first that I am a Lecturer in English and Creative Writing because the workshop I’m describing I gave in that role. Then I mentioned what I write: this seems important as I’m submitting the article to a publication called Writing in Education. I emphasize my school work as this is relevant to the project I describe. I put something about my latest initiative last. That possibly needs the most attention.
Sample bio reads therefore:
“Gill James is a lecturer in English and Creative Writing at the University of Salford. She writes fiction and educational materials for children and young adults and short stories for adults. Each year she conducts an extensive programme of school visits, often offering her Build a Book in a Day workshop. The Build a Book in Two Days workshop is now becoming a regular part of the Aimhigher Salford Young People’s University programme. She is also the founder of the Creative Café project and is currently launching the magazine CaféLit in association with this.”
I guess next week it will be different again. I’ll have grown. The bio itself will be associated with a different project. There is definitely an art to bio writing.

Getting Down to It

2010-08-04T08:37:00.001-07:00

Back to an article / paper I’m submitting for a periodical. It’s quite a descriptive article, so in that sense quite easy to write. Getting the right tone is harder. Making sure everything is correctly formatted is tedious, but, as I say to my students, easy to get right if you make the effort. So it’s odd that I find myself so reluctant to get down to this – at this very moment.
Part of it, I guess is timing. If only I could go back to the times when I wrote first thing in the morning when my head was clear. But I cannot come into this office and settle down to writing when emails and other bits of admin are waiting for me. They have my attention first. When enough of that is done I can get down to the writing. Sometimes, though, I don’t feel that I have the brain space.
I suppose, though, in the end, it’s a matter of just doing it.

Ludic Reading

2010-07-30T10:20:00.000-07:00

Ludic Reading
I’ve recently had an academic paper rejected. Well, it’s to be expected that that will happen from time to time. What really surprised me, however, was that the reviewer said it had spelling mistakes in it. No, it didn’t. When I looked at it again, it had one small typo. But the peer reviewer accused me of misspelling “lucid”. I referred five times to “ludic” reading.
Ah well, I probably need to include a definition of what I mean by that.
The word “ludic” actually means playful, and in the sense of playing to certain rules. So, it’s actually used a little bit wrongly in the term “ludic reading”. This has a sense of reading for pleasure, and probably includes that type of reading where you are totally gripped by a story and lose sight of your real world. In my case, as I read, I stop seeing marks on paper and just have a film playing out in my head. I’m amazed that this isn’t the experience that most people get when they read and certainly most other creative writers I know do have that experience. It’s stopped being “play”, though, for me as it is now part of my job. But what a job, eh?
Incidentally, this film in the head is even stronger when I write.
This type of reading is actually very interactive, not relaxing at all. As early as 1988 Victor Nell discussed this in his book Lost in a Book and more recently in an academic paper on the process. Further work has been conducted since and both Nell’s work and the more recent work include looking at what actually happens in the brain when we read in this way. The results have been quite surprising and very exciting. This feels like something I want to find out more about.
Another potential research topic then?

Coping with a Writing Academic’s Stress

2010-07-21T02:03:00.000-07:00

I love my job. It’s like being paid for doing what used to be a hobby. But there are stresses and quite severe ones at times.
Sometimes you don’t know what the priority is – you actually have three jobs: admin, teaching and research. Research, for me, is further divided into academic writing and my own creative writing. All bring what seem to be impossible deadlines.
Rejection is a big part of the game – and sometimes it’s by a so-called peer reviewer who isn’t really a peer at all because they clearly know a lot less about the subject than you do. You are paid to have reached a point of expertise. You probably have a Ph D, so you have “added to the body of knowledge”. The pressure is on to add even more or become even more of an expert. Yet you’re judged by people who lack that expertise.
Ironically, though, other people do regard you as an expert and you can be overwhelmed by questions. It actually makes you write more. If you’ve written about x, y and z, they don’t need to ask you questions – they can read the book, paper or blog.
You work alone. It is all down to you. You have rights and you have responsibilities. They can weigh heavy.
There is no end to the work. You finish one project and another looms. I except this happens in many jobs. There is no sense of finishing because no matter how good a paper, novel, story, article is that you write, the pressure is on to produce the next and make it even better.
I do have an antidote. I sing with a choir. Research says that singing is good for your mental health. It has a physical effect, releasing endorphins, the “feel good” chemicals in the brain. In addition there are other physical benefits – for example it can improve lung function. But being a part of a choir is actually also about working with other people. A really good choir sings as one voice, even if it is singing in four or more parts. I also find that I can be more in the moment, totally absorbed in the music. Sure, I’m totally absorbed in my writing when I’m creating characters and scenes, but as I do that I’m still aware of a pressure to create perfection. In the choir, we’re encouraged to make our singing as good as we can and then we look to see how we can do it even better. We help each other with that and we’re pushed forward by our director. It’s a real contrast to how I work in my other world where I have to push myself forward but am then judged by others. With the choir, rehearsal and performance alike contribute to this feeling of working with other people.
Yes, I love my job. What was a hobby now earns me my bread and butter. Yet I’ve managed to find another hobby. One that helps to keep me sane and ironically thereby also contributes to the day job.

Writing – an addiction?

2010-07-20T04:24:00.001-07:00

At a recent critique group meeting we had a new member. We all introduced ourselves. It was tempting to say “My name is Gill and I am a writer.” You know, you don’t feel right if you haven’t done a certain amount of writing a day. You are only truly happy when you are writing and it seems to be going well.
We each have our routines – and this can include no routine. Mine is two hours a day, two thousand words. And I love being behind on a deadline. That is the ultimate excuse to spend even more time writing. I do give myself a word of caution here though. Because if I try to write for more than two hours or beyond two thousand words on any given day, then I tend to get less done or write less well. It’s as if all of the energy is used up.
So, is this a balanced addiction? Just enough makes you feel good? Too much kills you? An addiction it certainly is though, and not one I’d be without.
My name is Gill and I am a writer.

Graduation Ceremonies

2010-07-16T13:04:00.001-07:00

I guess in the end that is what it is all about. Just once a year we get to wear our academic robes. There is something about wearing them. We feel as if we command a different presence. Do we? What is it all for this that we worked so hard?
There is always a good atmosphere at the Lowry. I opted for going there by tram from Radcliffe. I changed at St Peter’s Square – and promptly saw the Manchester University graduates coming out of Bridgewater Hall. A great atmosphere there, too.
The tram was packed. Lots of people were on their way there to the same ceremony. Just as we arrived – and it’s a decent work form the nearest tram stop to the Lowry Theatre – it started to pour with rain. Yet it was so warm and windy that by the time we all arrived and it had stopped raining for just a couple of minutes, we were dry again.
Then there was the usual struggle to get the hoods to look good and the hats to stay on. This year we were offered the opportunity to remove our hats once seated on the stage. We took this up: it can get uncomfortably hot up there under the theatre lights.
There is something quite thrilling about the actual procession. It is good too, watching your students come up and receive their degree certificates. I do fear for some of the girls, though, in their very high heels.
The ceremony yesterday was short enough, despite a huge number of students graduating. One spotted me and waved just before she picked up her certificate. We shared our ceremony with another school and they had some very lively students. Applause was particularly enthusiastic for some of our African students.
Afterwards we try to catch them on the way out. They escape us. I did find five, including one of our MA graduates. I had my photo taken twice. Again, it feels different as you talk to them when both you and they are in academic dress. And the sun did continue to shine as we spilled out on to the concourse in front of the Lowry.
I can quite honestly say that that was the second nicest degree ceremony I’ve ever been to. The best was my own, when I received my Ph D, in Bangor, July 2007.

Work in Schools

2010-07-15T01:04:00.001-07:00

This can be so different from school to school. In a sense I did some work with schools last week. I did a two day workshop for the Aimhigher programme. That went like a dream and I got some fabulous work out of the youngsters. Yesterday I did a short one and a half hour visit to a boys’ school and it almost totally exhausted me.
There was a lot against us: we were moved to the hall at the last minute – the room we were supposed to use had a problem, the girls who were supposed to be joining us from the school next door cancelled at the last minute, it was almost the end of term and of some the session clashed with a drama lesson and – we’re talking about Y9 boys. Forty minutes into the session, some students got hauled out so that a senior teacher could discuss an “incident” with them. And there was this uninteresting-looking woman with greying hair, professing to be a writer for young adults, talking about how to make characters and settings.
And yet:
• They listened well as I read to them and talked about how I came to write The Prophecy and Babel.
• They came up with some fabulous ideas – after we pushed through the silliness.
• They eventually – possibly too late – started to produce some good work.
• They were delighted to receive a signed post card from me – even though one declared he was going to sell it on e-bay. Well, at least that would be interesting, I guess.
• A few hung behind and thanked me personally.
In the end, although it was a tiring visit, I was glad that I’d made it. Appeal to children’s imagination and something exciting always happens.

A New Take on Rejections

2010-07-14T00:53:00.001-07:00

We all get them, even those of us who have a track record in publishing. In fact there are some who have a sort of superstitious belief that you have to have a certain number of rejections before you are accepted – and then actually relish each one as it arrives as “… down … to go.”
I used to be of the school that sent out three submissions to agents and three to publishers then sat back and waited, replacing each rejection with a new submission. There is a vital flaw in this: if an agent does accept you, you may have limited some of the work they can do. The agent may now have fewer publishers to approach.
Now, I’m taking a slower tack. I’m actually submitting to just one agent at a time and when I’ve exhausted the agents, I’ll start on the publishers who accept unsolicited scripts. Exceptionally, though, I’ll send out to some opportunity that seems to fit my script like a glove. I have had one or two successes that way.
We do grow as writers and the chances are that by the time an agent or a publisher has sat on a work for three months or so, you will see the text with new eyes. A writing friend of mine used to call rejections “rewrites”. What a healthy attitude! We learn all the time. Even if we get no feedback at all from the publisher we should be capable of being our own best editors and taking a closer, fresher look at out text. If there are any pointers from the agent or publisher – great.
I find by only having each manuscript in one place at a time, I can give each rejection my whole attention and give the script some good honest scrutiny. A word of warning, here, though: don’t look at just the three chapters and synopsis. Revise the whole novel. I do believe I’ve spotted several that start off really well and then deteriorate at about Chapter Four.
Yes, our writing has to be the very best it can be all of the time. Eventually then, the rejection will turn into acceptance.

What Writers Do Apart from Writing

2010-07-03T14:09:00.000-07:00

This week I’ve written about 7000 words. Over the last ten days I’ve also:
Driven to North Wales,
Attended a book reading in a bookshop
Had people round to my house to attend a book reading
Attended an English board meeting at the university where I work
Completed quite bit of admin for said university
Processed about 500 emails
Posted and read several tweets
Attended a training course to do with posting reading lists for my students
Attended a book pitching event
Driven to Canterbury
Attended a conference at Canterbury where I’ve given a paper
But writing remains the main thing….

Great Writing 2010

2010-06-24T02:58:00.001-07:00

This was another successful conference. There were some old faces there and some new ones. As usual, there was as much value in the discussions over coffee and at mealtimes as in the sessions themselves. We were blessed with warm sunny weather and much time was spent on the balcony outside. This enhanced our mood as did the wonderful food provided during breaks.
The old debate about why do a Masters or a Ph D in Creative Writing was there again. Two sessions addressed this in particular: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, presented by Sara Bailey, Craig Batty and Sandra Cain. In the audience and the panel, some people have completed a Ph D, others are part way through and others can’t or don’t want to find the time. Those of us who have them are pleased that we do, but we still grapple with the question. We were partly answered by Sally O’ Reilly, who started on her Ph D after being published. What she said resonated with my take on it: it is another way of being given permission to write and another way of having your writing endorsed. One investigates that whole practice with a view to evaluating one’s own and improving it and investigates more deeply a particular part of it. I actually think that writing within the academy is about more than being published.
I was struck by two items in particular this year. Many presentations contained a delightful mix of the creative and the reflective and even the critical and seemed to epitomise what we are all about.
The pursuit of excellence and the practice / training needed for that – in other words, the need to write and write and write – was something else that became clear to me. I’ve come back determined to write more and better.

The Anthony Burgess Foundation – Opening of New Premises

2010-06-17T01:37:00.001-07:00

The Anthony Burgess Foundation – Opening of New Premises
What a fabulous occasion this was yesterday evening. One of my colleagues is a member of the Foundation and consequently we were all invited. A large number of us went along.
The new premises are at the Engine House, Chorlton Mill, Cambridge Street, Manchester. It was easy to park and not too costly - £2.90 for four hours. There is a medium size car park opposite the venue and it was nowhere near full although all of the slightly cheaper on street parking was used up. Then there were probably more people there at one time than there would be normally be.
Goodness, we were fighting over the space. We could all see excellent uses for it. I personally would like to launch Babel from there. There is a small auditorium which is blessed with impressive light. There is a café – and I suspect this is going to become one of my creative cafés. Downstairs there is a small study area. Everywhere is tastefully decorated with interesting pieces of furniture and books – just right for the type of venue this is.
We were served drinks and small canapés throughout the evening. If this was an example of the catering, it bodes well for the future. There was a tasteful elegance about the way all was served, yet it was without pretension. The atmosphere was exactly right.
A highlight of the evening was a recital of some of Burgess’ music.
My goodness, what an extraordinary evening and my goodness what a fantastic venue.

Three Meetings in a Productive Day

2010-06-09T00:43:00.000-07:00

This is the business side of being a writer, of being an academic and of being a partner in a publishing house. I enjoyed an extremely productive day yesterday – and managed to sell ten books to boot.
My first meeting was with an enterprise organisation with whom I’m going to work at St Patricks High School, Eccles. I’ll be involved with two groups of children who are going to produce a modern version of a traditional fairy story. It will be all about working in team. I met with a representative of the enterprise organisation and one from the school yesterday morning. We sat and sipped coffee at the bottom of Crescent House. It’s remarkably quiet at this time of year. I’m so glad they changed the layout there. It is now conducive to those types of meetings. They seemed thrilled with my ideas. They’ve to buy ten of my books – five for each group as prizes. I’m offering The Prophecy, Nick’s Gallery, Scum Bag, Scream and Gentle Footprints. I’m actually really looking forward to this day.
At lunchtime, I joined a working lunch with the Aimhigher team. This time we were in the Old Fire Station. It’s a great building – even if you can hear the A6. There was a lot of lunch and not much team – I even managed to take some of the food for my pre-choir snack. The lack of people did mean those of us there could thrash out much of the detail about the courses. Again, I find myself looking forward to this. I’ve done it before. I know what I’m doing. I can do it even better this time.
My third meeting was with a lady who wished to pick my brains about forming an independent publishing company. I explained the Bridge House model.
“We’re not really in competition, are we?” she asked.
I think we are, actually, but it’s healthy competition: we’re not deadly rivals. I wonder what our mission statement really is. On our site we have “passionate about new writing” but I actually think it’s a bit more than that – maybe it should be “producing beautiful books in a way that is fair to the authors and the workers”. However, that is terribly clunky. All suggestions welcome.
The new company will be a women’s press. Some of us may even find ourselves submitting to them.
The day was extremely satisfying and was what it is all about.

Hay Day One

2010-06-01T02:41:00.000-07:00

There is an incredible atmosphere at the Hay Festival. The main events are held on a field just outside the town. Large marquees are sponsored by the likes of Barclays Bank and the Guardian newspaper. There are quirky side-stalls such as the one selling a Monopoly-like board game based on books and the tombola for original and reproduced artwork. Proceeds support green initiatives. Young people wander around with beehive-shaped backpacks giving samples of honeybeer. There are open meadow areas with people sitting on designer deckchairs and on the grass and guess what – they’re reading. Reading, of course, is a respected activity at this festival. There’s the atmosphere of a rock festival though it’s a little more subdued – and of course the inevitable queue for the ladies’ loo.
I actually attended two events: a reading and interview with Audrey Neffenegger who wrote The Time Traveller’s Wife and Andrea Levy who wrote Small Islands. They were both extremely interesting though totally different from each other. Both good speakers in their own way. Speakers and presenters at Hay are awarded a long-stemmed rose. You can spot them as you wander around the town afterwards. We walked straight past Levy later in the afternoon.
I was fascinated that Neffenegger is part writer, part artist and part college professor. Sounds familiar somehow. Even the best of us have to juggle. She did give us a tip for a book we really need: Time Travel for Writers. Need to google that.
Levy was a performer. She read with a fabulous Caribbean accent. She sets out to portray amongst other things the ordinary day to day life of the 300 years of slavery. She talked of a distinction between voice and accent.
We also visited the Rainforest Rescue stand which was interesting and supported by Sky Arts and the World Wildlife Fund, so there’s a connection with Gentle Footprints and our launch on Friday.
We took some time afterwards to visit the town of Hay itself. You can see that the locals are milking the festival. One family were offering cream teas in their garden. A house for sale is having its Open House in exactly this week. Many people are holding garage sales. But who can blame them? If the world invades their space at festival time… why not? In a way, it’s a form of hospitality.
We took the time out to investigate the Swan where we’re having our meet-and-greet before the main event on Friday. It was crowded but delightful. The evening menu seemed very reasonable and they didn’t seem to have inflated prices at the time of the main festival. That too is a form of hospitality.
We dined at the cheaper of the local hostelries, The Wheel Wright, recommended by our landlady. There was actually more choice there and it was cheaper. The people were very friendly if a little noisy.

A Feeling of Summer

2010-05-28T08:14:00.001-07:00

Yes, there has definitely been the feeling of end of term about this week. Our students are starting to drift away. The last exam was on Wednesday. A few late course work assignments are coming in and a few students are dropping by to pick up ones which have been marked. The staff, of course, get a little short tempered when friends from outside of the academy remark: “I suppose it’s getting quieter now that the students have finished?”
Well, not really. Have you seen our offices lately? Mountains of scripts on every floor. We have the marking, the moderating, gradebooking (putting the grades into an electronic system) and the exam boards yet. Already, also, we have emails making demands about what needs to be done for next year.
Yet there was something about this week. Even though a temporary bout of hot weather came to an end on Wednesday, it’s picked up again and is now actually just right.
A colleague and I went as usual to our choir practice on Tuesday. That is always such a great contrast to the day job. A university lecturer can be quite isolated… an expert in a narrow field working alone in an office, and no one really knows whether you are there or not.
On Wednesday, the whole of our school, academic and support staff were invited to the home of our Vice Chancellor. He has insisted on living close to the university in a house he wishes to share with his colleagues. It is a beautiful place with a lovely garden – yes there are beautiful places within five minutes’ of our drive of Salford University. The VC entertained us for two hours. He knows us all by name now.
Then Thursday two of my creative writing colleagues gave readings at the Chorlton Festival. Several colleagues from our school and even a few students turned up. It was a lovely evening.
Today the VC has excelled again and organised a party on the greener part of our campus from 12.00 until 4.00. There was good food and live music provided by community groups. A pity our choir wasn’t there. But we scored. As I walked into the marquee with a colleague another choir was singing a couple of our songs. I immediately phoned the other choir member who had not yet come down. At that very moment the VC walked up to greet us.
“Hello there, again,” he said, addressing us both by name. I was impressed.
I hurriedly got off the phone and explained what I was doing.
“Which choir is that?” he asked.
“The Ordsall Acapella I told him.
“Ah, they’re good aren’t they?” he said.
“Oh yes we are,” I replied.
Lets hope we can do a gig at the university soon.
And despite that little frustration, the party had a good feel to it. Yes, there is definitely a feeling of summer.

Dan Brown as Benchmark

2010-05-27T09:06:00.000-07:00

“I couldn’t get out of MA marking mode,” said my colleague form Australia. “I was trying to read The Da Vinci Code on the plane. I was so disappointed. I would have failed it.”
Just sour grapes, I thought. She’s jealous. Because with the sort of money that book brings in she could afford to do what the heck she liked the rest of the time. It can’t be that bad, can it?
A couple of years later I read it.
What a disappointment indeed. Where was all that promising intrigue about Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene producing a family? All exposed in a short fast-paced episode when unbelievably the detective involved in the case is one of the “sang royal”. Oh come on, if my undergraduates constructed something like that they’d get exclamation marks all over their scripts. Never mind failing an MA.
“It gets worse,” said another colleague. “The first one’s not so bad.”
“Isn’t it?” I say.
“The first is bearable,” she says. “But after that, it’s the same old story over and over. When you’ve read one, you’ve read them all.”
But he must be doing something right, mustn’t he?
Well, yes, he is and actually I wouldn’t fail him on a BA assignment. I’d give him 58. A strong 2.2. His plots are well worked out even if they’re infuriatingly formulaic and improbable. He handles dialogue well even if it’s often trite. His characters are consistent even if not well drawn and believable. He has control over his writing – or he’s well edited - because he doesn’t have the lack of consistency and lack of grammatical accuracy that so often spoils the work of our otherwise talented students. But oh my, their work is so much more exciting, so much more convincing most of the time.
So when it comes to assessing my students’ work I ask myself –“Better or worse than Dan Brown?” Of course, there are other components to mark than just the wonderfully innovative but often quite raw piece of creative writing, so sometimes our students arrive at even less that Dan by another route.
Nevertheless, he’s a useful benchmark

How Networking Works

2010-05-14T01:07:00.000-07:00

You do have to be entrenched in this world to get to where you want to get. The writing always has to be good. That is a given. But good writing on its own is not enough. Even great writing isn’t enough. At the simplest level, that’s obvious: write better than Shakespeare and it’s of no use whatsoever if you don’t show it to anybody. Naturally, we all do a little more than that. But it’s not just about talking to people; it’s also about talking to the right people.
If I’m honest, every bit of writing I’ve had published has been as the result of a tip-off. Sometimes it’s been because of something that everyone has access to – such as an article in Writers’ News. Other times, it has been through the recommendation of another writing friend and sometimes because I’ve rubbed shoulders with the right people. Often, it takes years to percolate.
Here’s an example:
I’m putting together a proposal for a text book. I have targeted one particular publisher because I consider them to be friendly. They have also published quite a few books which influenced my academic career. I’ve met the appropriate editor on several occasions, and significantly, five years ago, dined with her most evenings when we were at a conference together. She has constantly invited me to write something for her.
Well, now I have an idea that I think may suite her company. However I’m also aware that when I first knew her she was very new at her job. Now she is an experienced, confidant editor. I can’t really pull any strings. I just need to submit like anyone else and hope that she recognises my name and puts me at the top of the slush pile if the script eventually comes her way.
Except there is a fortunate question that needs to be asked. My book doesn’t quite seem to fit the series they describe yet I do know that they publish this type of text. I email my contact, asking if she is the editor to whom I should send my work.
Just a few hours later, I get a response. Yes, indeed, she is my chap. She even sends me some specific guidelines for text books. These are not on their site. She seems pleased to hear from me and indeed remembers me even though I am now at a different institution.
Of course, it is not yet definite that she will accept my proposal. It still has to be excellent and even then may not fit in with the sort of book they currently want, but I’m in with a fighting chance: I have the specific guidelines that will help me to make my proposal more fit for purpose. Without my contact, I may never have known about those. She also already knows that I am reliable.

Writers' Reflections

2010-05-12T07:41:00.001-07:00

I have now completed my first batch of marking from semester two. I have actually enjoyed this very much. I was marking from two different year groups – our second and our third year. The third year work was of a better quality than the second. The writing was more fluid and more sophisticated. That is to be expected. The content differed less.
They have all submitted their Writer’s Reflections. In these, they talk of their progress as writers over a module or in the case of third years of their progress throughout the whole of their degree programme.
In part I mark the process they describe and in part I mark the quality of the writing. The former is extremely interesting. Different students find different points of interest in the course. My second years have been concentrating on writing novels for young people. Just like last year, they are all generally conscious of how difficult it is to write a synopsis and how important it is. Some have realised the importance of planning, others the importance of editing. Many have grappled with voice. I have been impressed by the number of drafts they have worked on. Many have read well and widely. And although I felt they did not use the workshop elements as much as they might have, they seemed to appreciate the opportunity they had been given to do this. I was impressed by how much they had absorbed and taken on from the course. It was fascinating reading of each student’s journey.
I have now marked one or two of the creative pieces and have looked at a piece of creative writing by a colleague. Some amazing work is coming to light.

Writing Novels for Young People

2010-05-07T07:07:00.000-07:00

This is the title of one of the modules I teach at the University of Salford. We are very close to the time now that they give in their final assignment. They have already submitted a synopsis of their novel. This means they have thought carefully about their plot and made an accurate précis of that.
It was a small select group today: assignments are due in every day at the moment, so attendance dips dramatically. In fact I’ve picked up their second assignment but we talked about the third one today.
We started off talking mainly about the publishing industry – how you submit to publishers. It’s a little surprising how much they don’t know as we talk about it on every module. And we also discuss how there’s also something about doing creative writing at university that takes it beyond the commercially publishable. There is room for experiment. This may be one of the only chances.
We did then go on to look at the editing process. I see editing in three basic chunks but actually go through eighteen processes myself.
The first stage is to do with overall structure. I include also roundedness, believability and growth characters. Then there is suitability for reader and conformity with the market. So, as we’re talking young adults, we’re talking about characters looking like their readers, emotional closeness, fast pace and stories of growth. I think it’s a good idea at this stage too to check that time works correctly. I actually pre-empt this anyway by knowing exactly when each scene takes place and how long it lasts. No three year pregnancies please!
The second stage includes many technicalities in the actual writing. Is there a balance of pace? Is there cause and effect? Are you showing instead of telling, knowing the difference and also knowing when telling is appropriate? Are the characters consistent? Does the dialogue work correctly? Is there a balance of narrative styles?
The third stage then is line by line. This is where you are looking at the language itself. Are there clichés that would best be replaced with something else? Or should you leave the cliché because it actually works rather well? Do you have a few darlings that you need to kill off? What about overall flow? This is the point where you should read it out loud. Lastly comes the proper copy edit with an emphasis on spelling, grammar, and sense.
My students seemed to lap this up and I thoroughly enjoyed talking to them about it. This group is particularly responsive.