Writer. Reader. Human. Managing editor of Forge LitMag. Winner of the Excellence in Prison Libraries Award.
I have a wee story up at BLM
You have to scroll down a little to reach it, do stop and read Sarah Hilary’s story, she is always good. Also check out Ravi Mangla’s ache of a drabble. I am noticing his words more and more frequently on my travels around the lit mags, he’s pretty cool bananas.
Having chatted online for years Kellie, it was beyond super cool to meet up with her. And here is the pictorial proof that a) meeting her made me happy, and b) that it was blooming hot at LitCamp!
Thanks to Alison for taking the photos.
LitCamp took place yesterday, and it was a really fun and buzzy day. I gave a tiny talk on the usefulness of blogging as a writer, so I figured I’d better update the blog!
It is always good to see Vanessa Gebbie, she was interesting as ever. It was the first time I have ever met Lane, who organised the whole thing, and hats off to her. It was an ambitious event, and she must have worked phenomenally hard to get it all to come together. I came home exhausted, I can’t imagine how wiped out she must be, but I’d like to offer public thanks for this fabulous unconference.
I was thrilled to meet Kellie in “real life” as we have been chatting away for years without having ever met face to face. She was even lovelier than I had imagined!
I had the pleasure of meeting Julia, Alison and Kerry who all work at The Fiction Workhouse., and were all delightful, and I hope we can get together again some time for a big old writerly natter.
I also bumped into Jacqueline Applebee. We first met a couple of years ago at the Chichester writing festival and I was pleased to hear that she is now enjoying success as an erotic fiction writer.
There were lots of different panels and talks going on: writers, agents, editors and teachers.
Stephen Moran was offering post-it note critiques of short stories, I handed one in, and he thought it was missing a story! Oops.
In the evening there were some really great readings. Jay Bernard is a poet that I was entirely unfamiliar with, but whooo, she was brilliant.
Gavin Ingliss read a very funny story that may or may not have been called “Mr Shoe.”
Farahad Zama read an extract from his debut novel “The marriage bureau for rich people” He was a cool guy with a very business like approach to his writing. He writes on his twenty minute train commute, and really makes a mockery of wafty, faffy types like me who protest that we don’t have enough time.
I was sorry that I had to leave before hearing all the readers, but travelling home took about 2 1/2 hours and I had to work today.
Apologies also for not mentioning all the people I got to meet, listen to, and see, but there were soooo many.
I came home thinking quite calmly “well, i’d better get on and write some good stuff then” which surely has to be a very positive outcome from an event like this! But before I do that…sleep!
My colleague asked me that on Saturday. He said he is surprised by how deluded some authors can be. They seem to think that because their book has been published by x,y, or z, they have reached the climax of their writerly journey. The baby is born, on shelves, so therefore people will buy it. The truth is different. Much as people complain about 342’s everyone loves a bargain, so when a shop offers that if you buy a couple of these you can have a free book it works very well. How many new unknown authors get into those promotions though?
Reviews help massively, customers often come in clutching torn out bits of newspapers and magazines, or ask for something they have heard mentioned on the radio. But what if you can’t get a review?
In-store signings can be ghastly to watch if the author doesn’t have an established fan-base. The author sits at a table, books piled hopefully around them, smiling at customers, and often doesn’t sell a single copy.
It’s so difficult, a series of hoops that a writer has to keep jumping through. It’s not enough to write dazzling prose and hand it over to a publisher to publish and publicise. The author is expected to sell it. The journey has been long, the words struggled over, edited, rewritten. The manuscript submitted in hope. Joy at publication must be enormous, but then what next, how is a writer to get their work noticed?
On Saturday an “unknown” (meaning not one of the big names) children’s author came to the shop. He arranged a table on the ground floor with copies of his 2 books on and a hand made sign explaining who he was. David Alric is an older man, well dressed, polite, quiet. He is the author of two books The Promised One, and Valley of the Ancients. I can’t explain what he did, but he sold over 70 copies of his book. He approached people, gently, talked a bit about the book, and over they came to the counter, smiling, and bought a copy. Nobody was harassed by him, everyone was delighted. He had no bells, whistles, gimmicks, just his stories. He explained to me that once he told people the stories, they were interested. There is an article in The Telegraph’s archives about him.
This originally self published man reckons to sell between 70 – 100 copies of his books each Saturday. He says it takes 4 1/2 minutes to make one sale, so there is a limit to how many he can in one day.
Fascinating, I think. And I wish him continued success.
Bullet points! What a horrible expression. I wonder how that originated, but can’t be bothered to google.
* It is 2.37 a.m, and I am up, not sleeping, fretting about the fact that I have to officially get up at 7 and start the day. I am tired, but frazzled – can’t switch my mind off, fed up of laying in bed twitching.
* I am going to LitCamp on Friday. Hurrah!
* We are now “on” Buffy season 4, and I had previously intended to write up each season as we went, but abandoned that due to lack of ability to see things through!
So very briefly:
Season 2
Thank god for Spike. First time round I entirely missed his genius. I was a strict Angel fan, but now I see how he brought light to the dark. He’s very funny, very witty. A bit pathetic and bumbling. Kendra! Crap! The whole Jenny Calendar story is pretty good, and of course, Angel turning bad is tragic, but enormous fun for the viewer. Oh, and is it this season where Oz catches sight of Inuit Willow? I love that scene, so cute.
The end is uber tortured and angsty.
Season 3
This is where it all really gets super excellent.
Faith! Wow. So cool, so wrong, so dark, so hot. It’s a great thing to have an opposite Buffy. I love Willow’s reactions too, they seem eminently believable. Oz and Willow are sweet. First showing of Anya, whoo hoo! Two great relationships; Buffy and Angel and their DOOMED love, and Faith and the Mayor, which somehow manages to avoid anything icky and inappropriate and is warped but touching.
The end is the perfect counterpart to Season two’s close.
A new edition of The Short Review has just gone live.
Today see’s the publication of “The White Road and Other Stories” by Tania Hershman. I haven’t had the pleasure of reading it yet, but I have read quite a few of her stories before, so feel confident in recommending you check them out.
Tania’s website is here, and she has set up one for the book too, here.
I am very much looking forward to getting this collection. (Drums fingers a little impatiently.)
Whooo hoooo Tania, you go girl!
Surprise! I love short stories. Yup. And I have a short story display case at work which I refresh every week, putting in my favourites, trying to make it enticing and irresistible. A woman came into the shop and asked where the short stories were, so I was yay and delighted, and showed her “my” selection, and then showed her the shelves where other anthologies are and so on. And I couldn’t resist asking if she was a short story buff as she ended up buying six or seven books. And she said no, she wasn’t, didn’t read them, didn’t know anything about them, but she has to teach the subject at Uni this term.
😦
I had two acceptances yesterday. First time I have had two in one day, quite a lovely feeling.
The first was astonishingly quick. I subbed something, and 35 minutes later received an acceptance.
The second took rather longer. I subbed the piece in April, received a query about it in June, and an acceptance yesterday.
I am delighted about both, and as it came just after a couple of form rejections it is all the more pleasant.
I won’t tell you where just yet. I like to wait until something is actually published before whoo hoo-ing.
In an interesting post Sean Lovelace suggests that the skewed stats at Duotrope make it a much less valuable resource than it should be. And this may sound rather slow of me, but erm, yeah. Of course. See, I was advised to use Duotrope by a few more experienced writers, and I joined up and browsed. I personally would prefer not to be published at “easy” places that appear to accept anything and everything, so I was looking for the ones that have lower acceptance rates, and then reading their zines, seeing if I thought my work would fit, keeping an eye on the market. But I rarely updated my subs file there,(actually, I think I did once) instead I write them all in a rather fetching notebook, tres old skool of me. Then I stopped looking, preferring instead to read other writers blogs and follow their recommendations, reading work I admire and aiming to be as good as that. Sean points out that saying a place has a 50 per cent acceptance rate only works if erm, like, a hundred per cent of people who sub report what happens to their subs.
Hmmm.
Thoughts?
EDIT – I have had a response from someone calling themselves thesingularitysucks in which they explain very clearly why Mr Lovelace’s suggestion is incorrect, so it’s well worth anyone interested reading through the comments.
Sara Crowley 