Author: Sara Crowley

A better class of rejection?

Sara Crowley9 Comments

I was advised that it would be better if I didn’t talk about rejections and submissions on my blog in case it gives a “bad impression” of my writing abilities. The person who advised this meant well, and said it kindly, but I just don’t think it’s my style to pretend that I only ever send out successful submissions. I don’t sub a lot, I rarely enter competitions, and I am trying to focus wholeheartedly on completing my novel, however, I have several small fictions that I would like to see published, and I mentioned here that I had sent a few to various places. So far I have had three rejections for three different pieces. As far as rejections go, these are lovely and encouraging. Three different editors have bothered to send me these comments:

Editor one – “We’re passing but this is a fine piece. Would be happy to read more of yours”

Editor two – “How’s it going? I just read the flash fiction piece you submitted. I regret to say that “xxxx” didn’t make the final cut for ZZZZ. Nevertheless, i really dig your style and think your style would make a great fit for ZZZZ. So feel free to submit a fresh batch of work for future consideration.”

Editor three – ” Thanks for sending us “xxxx”. We’re sorry to say they didn’t quite find a home in ZZZZ. We had a bumper crop of submissions and had to make a lot of hard decisions fast, and live with them, unfortunately. It was a close run thing. We always like pieces that are a little off the main road like this, so we do hope you’ll send us something for the next issue. We think you were unlucky this time around.”

Nice huh? All three say they would like to see more. That’s great. But (y’all knew there’d be a but, right?) really, hmm, if it’s so fine, and you dig my style and so on…erm…what else do you want? Gimme a clue maybe and I’ll see if I have something that works.

Ho hum, onwards….

Oh, and yes, dear writing chums, I hear you, I will send them elsewhere, I will keep faith, I’m not unhappy, I’m merely pondering.

: )

One World – A global anthology of short stories

Sara Crowley6 Comments


One World is a splendid new anthology. It contains stories from around the globe from some friends of this blog (Vanessa Gebbie, Ravi Mangla), some very well known names (Chimamanda Nozi Adichie, Jhumpa Lahiri) and some as yet unfamiliar:

Full author list:

Elaine Chiew
Molara Wood
Martin A Ramos
Henrietta Rose-Innes
Lauri Kubuitsile
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Shabnam Nadiya
Ravi Mangla
Chika Unigwe
Dipita Kwa
Vanessa Gebbie
Sequoia Nagamatsu
Jude Dibia
Konstantinos Tzikas
Petina Gappah
Ken N Kamoche
Lucinda Nelson Dhavan
Adetokunbo Gbenga Abiola
Skye Brannon
Wadzanai Mhute
Ivan Gabriel Reborek
Ovo Adagha
Jhumpa Lahiri

Not only does buying this collection mean that you will have a fiction feast to enjoy but also all the profit will be donated to Médecins Sans Frontières.

Win win eh?

I want to write this post without appearing to be vain in drawing your attention to a nice thing said about me, but the nice thing is relevant!

Sara Crowley7 Comments

Jenn Ashworth
 was interviewed at Dogmatika
part of the interview is reproduced below:

AK: There are some fantastic female writers of the Offbeat Generation, Emily McPhillips, Sally Cook… Do you feel female writers are overlooked in the underground writing scene or on an equal footing with the lads?

JA: Sally Cook and Emily McPhillips and Sara Crowley and Emma Lannie are doing sparkling, vivid, original work and although they are hardly overlooked, I do think there should be more of a fuss made over them. I can’t speak for them, but I wonder if this lack of online attention is about gender, or if it’s about our unwillingness to get into that kind of ’scene’, a scene that is very incestuous and doesn’t quite represent what we do.

The definition of ‘offbeat’ is becoming narrower and I wonder if as readers and writers we are growing up and if it might be time for something else now. I don’t know what that something else is going to be, but I think the women we’ve mentioned are among the writers who are going to be doing it.

Now obviously I am enormously chuffed that she has said such kind things about my writing, but also I am fascinated by her response in general. I wonder what you think? Is there a boys club? I have been musing about this since I first read the interview, a week ago I think. The problem is that the whole world I live in is a bit of a boys club. When younger I thought all was equal and would remain so. I am entirely comfortable calling myself a feminist, despite the negative connotations some people add to that label. I have always had many male friends, they would not feel that I am inferior, or I that they are superior. The world that surrounds me though, that is different in many ways. It can be subtle, it can be blazingly obvious, but especially since becoming a mother it has been ever more clear to me.

Last Saturday I went for a drink after work with a female friend. We sat in a pub in Brighton, and at a nearby table three men yelled and swore and pushed and rowed with each other. A couple of tables away three men I work with were sitting drinking beers. Their presence comforted me, I wasn’t worried by the rowdy guys, if they had bothered me I knew my work mates would have helped me. I was with neither group of men, but still, them being there meant something to me, one a threat, one a protection. I left earlyish as I don’t like to brave a late train back from Brighton, so at nine thirty I got on a train. Two drunk guys sat in front of me, one wanted to be sick and I was concerned he was going to puke on me. Across from them sat a muttering older guy. A young bloke got on and stood despite there being plenty of available seats, and he stared at me, making me feel nervous. There was no direct threat, but I felt uneasy all the way to my station. When I got off the train I went to the cab office. Five guys sat inside the small cabin and made jokes about who the lucky one to take me home would be. I smiled, uncomfortably. The man whose car I got in started revving his engine and told me he was going to give me a smooth, fast ride. He then started ranting about the police and told me how his friend had punched one. I got home and felt utter relief at closing the door.

Sometimes when I go for drinks with male friends I become suddenly aware that I am the audience, they like me when I appreciate how clever they are, how funny. Sometimes I am “one of the lads”, and that is meant as a compliment. I don’t want to be one of the lads though, I want to be me, I want to be one of the humans. It’s not all men, it’s not all the time, but it is what surrounds.

What this has to do with writing is debatable, but I think that online can be a bit like being in the pub, sometimes women are included and at other times shown off to, flirted with, sometimes women are protected, and sometimes, sadly, bullied. Women only things like The Orange Prize and Mslexia magazine are derided, the assumption being that females need a separate competition or whatever because they are not good enough to compete with men. Many women agree with that too. I have no conclusion, this is more a wondering, meandering thought that could change at any moment! I’d love to hear yours.

(Email vs postal subs.) The writers in my head are better than me at this.

Sara Crowley6 Comments

I steeled myself and sent off another few bits and pieces to various literary magazines. My printer is broken (my printers always become fucksy real fast, it’s a thing) so I only sent to places that accept online subs. Thinking about it though, I rarely post my stories. I entered a couple of big competitions early this year, but the printing and finding the right envelope and the age old question, to staple or paperclip, then the post office queue – I’m probably a bit too crap to do it very often.

I imagine other writers who are super organised, and have printers that work smoothly, whose ink never blobs on an essential page, whose paperclips are shiny and new, whose paper is just thick enough, but not off puttingly fancy. When they print the words on the page look just as they want them to, not suddenly skew whiff or with no margin or sudden jumbo spacing. These writers post their words. I envy them a little.

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld

Sara Crowley1 Comment

This is a big slab of a novel, 550 plus words, large pages, divided into 4 sections. I enjoyed Sittenfeld’s debut novel Prep very much but was disappointed by The Man of My Dreams, so I wasn’t sure how I’d get on with this. Apart from tsking about having to carry such a hefty novel in my bag, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The American Wife refers to Alice, who by marrying Charlie Blackwell ends up being America’s First Lady. The book is based on the real life Laura Bush. True facts about Laura Bush’s life (such as a fatal car accident she was involved in) are taken and fictionalised. I am impressed that despite us knowing how it’s going to end there is still enough moderate cliff hanging to keep us reading on.

I thought Sittenfeld was immensely skilled at bringing to life teen anxieties and school concerns in Prep, and here again she paints a rounded portrait of young Alice. It is the earlier parts of Alice’s life which I enjoyed the most, the fact that she winds up marrying the president was almost incidental.

As the First Lady Alice rates far higher in the popularity stakes than her husband does. She is also perceived to have great influence on him, and a variety of people wish her to use that power. Sittenfeld ponders what it would be like for the President’s wife to not share his values, and this, along with Alice’s guilt about the car crash, seems to be the central theme.

It’s not a particularly challenging or flashy novel, rather it is something to relax into and enjoy. There were times when, with my writers hat on, I thought, but surely this is telling and not showing, but it didn’t seem to matter a jot. I guess it’s just another of those “rules” I’ll never quite get.

I’ll be rating it 4 out of 5 on my Good Reads page.

Technological gubbins

Sara Crowley4 Comments

Thanks so much to Matt Bell for helping me open the .DBX files. As I’d hoped, there were over a 100 emails from Matt. I have been rereading them, laughing and crying, and just so glad that I weirdly backed them up.

To avoid any such future calamity, on Friday I bought a My Book external hard drive, and today I have been backing up my beloved Mac. The hard drive came without an instruction booklet (it says there’s one, there is not.) So, I have plugged and clicked and hoped. It seems to be doing things, tho’ as soon as it turned on Time Machine asked me if I wanted to back up, so I said yeah, imagining the 2 things were happening in tandem. Apparently not. Time machine has finished and My Book has only just begun.

I also bought a cooling tray for the mac, in the hope that if I treat it well and keep it cool it will reward me.

Yesterday was spent trying to get my mother’s Sony reader operational, and download a book for her birthday. That was in-between the trying to open the .DBX files and googling hopefully. The reader should have been easy, but unfortunately wasn’t, as the Digital Editions I had installed didn’t work, and I had to re-install.

My printer has gone wrong and sends me on a cycle of “Check the ink” “Check the paper” – they are both fine, but it still won’t work.

My paper shredder has ceased functioning properly. It will only shred paper if I reverse first, and then quickly wedge the paper in. It’ll only do that once, then I have to reveres again. I have spent ages poking at it, unclogging it, revving it. Bah!

Anyway, this is all by way of saying aaaaargggghhhh, I love my shiny techy things, but I do not have the noggin to understand them. They have been taking up too much time, but hopefully it’ll all be done by tomorrow, and I can get back to some focussed writing.

Phew!

Anyone know how to open a .DBX file? (A thrilling title huh?)

Sara Crowley4 Comments

I have a techy problem, and being super non-techy I have no clue how to solve it.
Back in 2006 I used a pc, and one day a guy online (who I am no longer in touch with) advised me to back up my mail for some reason, (can’t recall why), and talked me thru how. So I did, and created a mail backup cd. Forgot all about it. Moved from London to Sussex, PC kaputt, didn’t care, bought a MacBook.

(I heart my MacBook.)
Bought my twins a PC so they can use the same system at home as they do at school. PC uses windows xp. Outlook Express has been replaced by Windows Live apparently.
Who cares? Well…I didn’t until yesterday when I had a day off work and the sun was shining, a cool breeze was wafting thru the open window, and I felt a spring clean was in order.

Matt and I had a long history of emailing back and forth, and when he died I kept thinking how sad it was that I had lost so many of his emails. He was the best letter writer/correspondent/emailer ever. He wrote lengthy, hilarious diatribes, rants, and thoughts. He offered support and advice, punned admirably, and rocked y’know. So when I found this cd from 2006 my heart swelled, and I felt excited, upset, scared, anxious all at the same time. I put it in the PC but the fucking thing won’t open. I can’t get it open. I don’t understand.

Apparently .DBX files need opening with something, but what? The link that it takes me to makes zero sense to me. I am googling and I can’t tell the difference between a rip off, a virus, and a legitimate device. Nothing is clear to me. Does anyone have any idea what I should do please?

To clarify, I have a CD that contains .DBX files, it shows up when I put it in but the files can’t be read. I no longer have outlook express as the PC operates Windows XP, so the mail programme is windows live mail.