November update

The River Wensum, Norwich

 Well, I've slipped on my weekly writing of a poem, but I'm not going to beat myself up about it. I  began November with the intention of writing a daily flash using the prompts emailed to me, but that also fell by the wayside. I usually love these prompts, but it didn't do anything for me. I wrote one, and also one using my own prompt, but that's it.

However, this month I did meet up with my writing buddy who now lives in Norwich, and on a very wet morning we adjourned to Norwich Cathedral Cafe to write over pots of tea. It was like old times and we soon slipped back into the habit of free writing and laughing over the results. We had a ready-made prompt board in the cafe (see photo) which saved us searching for words. We had a wonderful time writing together, and had a chance to catch up with each other. We last met in August.

A ready made prompt board!

I have been thinking of putting together a short story collection. I have a few that look at the funny side of life, including dark humour. Some of my stories are longer than the normal short stories, so much harder to find homes for them, so with three or four of these interspersed with shorter or even flash would work. 

To add to the collection I wrote a new story last week. The first draft is done and I really had fun writing it. There's bit of me in there (not going to say which bits!), but then doesn't every writer add bits of them into their stories? This one has very funny moments in it, but also sad moments. The story has the working title of The Holiday and it is set in Eastbourne.

Looking at my list of books read this year, I am on my 75th! My bought book pile is quite small now, but I'm off to the library on Thursday. There are a few books on my Christmas List, one being Elly Griffiths Norfolk which has locations of scenes from her Ruth Galloway series, which I have read. If I only get one book this year it has to be this!

In other news, we got the Christmas Tree up yesterday because I couldn't wait any longer. I love Christmas and look forward to carols and mulled wine. I'm singing tomorrow night with a new choir that started in January this year. Syrinx will be singing in St John's Church, Hoxton, including This Woman's Work by Kate Bush and a Finnish Reindeer calling song! Not to be missed. Have a look at the website. There are a few videos available to view.

That's all for now folks.

Review for 2022

 

Mslexia Diary

Well, here we are into another year. It's pouring with rain, so an ideal time to write my review for the last year.

My goal for 2022 was to submit at least five pieces to different publications each month during the year. I began with much enthusiasm, but later things became a struggle, and some months I wondered if I would make it. I did! Some months I sent submitted seven times, but there was no way I could keep that up! So, here is breakdown of what I sent and the results:

Poetry I submitted 59 poems (obviously sometimes I sent two or three at a time as most publications prefer to see a variety of your work). Of those 59, 11 were published and one longlisted. That's about 20% of my work!

Flash I submitted 21 flash stories, and of those 4 were published and one longlisted.

Short Stories Nine were submitted and one was published.

Pamphlets Two submitted. Still waiting on the result of one.

Novellas One submitted on which I am awaiting the result.

I am also waiting to hear on 12 of those poems submitted last year (I heard back on a block of three this month) and waiting on six flash fictions.

At the end of September I published my second Novella, The Chair. 

I took part in several online workshops in writing flash, poetry and horror, as well as a weekend online conference run by Alliance of Independent Authors.

For the second year running I took part in flash-a-day during November and got myself a whole host of new stories to work on.

At the beginning of last year I won Writers' Forum magazine's poetry competition which I had entered in 2021, but the result wasn't printed until early 2022 when I also received my prizes!

The biggest highlight of the year for me was having my flash story published by Popshot, a magazine I admire very much. One of the most beautiful magazine must be Seaborne, in which I was luckily enough to have two poems published in the same issue.

Last year was the most successful for me and the most exciting. So what are my goals for this, I hear you ask. Well, I would like to set up my own website. Over Christmas, I read a book about doing just that. It was a library find, but when I come to look into creating my website, I shall have to borrow the book again! It showed various platforms and the ease of use, as well as what they can or cannot offer. I've more or less decided on which platform to use.

My other goals are to continually review my projects and publish another book. 

What I learned from last year:

• While submitting so much writing helped me gain more successes, I also found I might sometimes submit something that wasn't quite right just to hit my target!
• The Legend Planner I bought for 2022 worked to a certain extent, but there was much I didn't use, and I tailed off half way through the year. It did have lots of pages to write on and I used it to write a list of projects on the go and see where I was at with them and what to do next to move forward. I also worked out my review in it. However, for this year I have purchased the Mslexia Diary as it is written by women writers for women writers. It has listings of publications and competitions at the start of each month and loads more useful stuff depending where you are with your writing. This feels more relevant and useable.
• I over committed myself sometimes by signing up to things with enthusiasm and ending up not being able to give everything my full attention, November being one of those months. I also missed an online workshop I'd signed up for with Mslexia because I totally forgot!

Before I end, I thought I would list my top three reads of last year in the fiction and non-fiction category. I read a lot of books in a year (though not as many as some in a Facebook Book Club I belong  to, but then I also read magazines). I read a total of 72 books and here are my top three:

Fiction

The Island of Missing Trees - Elif Shakaf for it's beautiful prose and story set in Cyprus and England. Outstanding read.

Sea Change - Alix Nathan. A mother waves to her child as she sets off in a new contraption called an air balloon. When it crashes in the sea it is thought the mother is lost. Instead, she is rescued and lives in a different part of the country, but the shock of what has happened makes her speechless and for a while unable to remember. Meanwhile, her daughter is brought up by the artist man who loved the mother, but he drinks and suffers from depression. The story follows both mother and daughter until they are brought together.

Small Pleasures - Clare Chambers. An usual story about a woman who claims she had an immaculate conception and a woman news reporter who is asked to follow the story. This brings her into contact with the mother and daughter and also the man who is not the father but loves the little girl. The story has a tragic ending. When I saw it coming I was yelling 'no!' Have the hankies ready.

Non-fiction

The Wicked Boy - Kate Summerscale. I could not put this down. Far better than The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, this is about a young boy who murders his mother and what happens to him during the rest of his life. The murder is gruesome, but there was evidence of parental abuse. The boy was sent to Broadmoor where he turned his life around. I was astounded at the positive way mentally ill patients who had committed crimes were treated. I thought it would be awful, but they were forward thinking, and the boy was finally released and had a whole new positive life, even serving in the war. An incredible story.

The Seven Ages of Death - Dr Richard Shepherd. If you don't like detailed autopsies, this isn't for you. The saddest were the babies. The evidence the doctor gleans, often proved the opposite of what the police hoped because they wanted to pin a conviction on someone they have arrested. It is fascinating and absorbing. The book is split into the seven ages of man (just like Shakespear's poem The Seven Ages of Man, that I so like). I loved this book so much (I have a 'thing' about forensics and death, it seems) that I've borrowed another of his books from the library. 

Bodysnatchers - Suzie Lennox. Do you see a pattern here? I took part in an online author event about a year ago with Suzie Lennox. Her passion for the subject rubbed off on me and I had to buy the book. I'd seen the film Burke & Hare who operated in Edinburgh, but this subject has always interested me (yeah, I'm weird that way). The book is full of events both macabre and funny of how people made a living from digging up the newly dead and selling them to medical students studying autonomy, as well as selling teeth and hair. A lively, informative book, well researched.

Well, that's it for now. I've submitted my first poem today. Let's see where this year will take me.

 

Year Review

I didn't think I would bother reviewing my output, sucesses and failures from last year, but sometimes it does help to get things into perspective.

Last year I only submitted to publications that I like/read, or felt I had something that fitted a competition/theme. It was less random. What my list shows is that I submitted far more poetry than anything else. Here is a breakdown:

Poems submitted           31 - Three have been published, one is about to be, and two I am still waiting                                                    on.

Flash submitted              7 - Three were published.

Short stories submitted  5 - One was highly commended and may appear in a future Anthology.

Pamplet submissions     2

Novel in flash                1

The poetry and flash are all (except for one) published by either Visual Verse or Paragraph Planet. I had one other poem published but the acceptance came the year before! The People's Friend work so far in advance that I forget about them once I've had the acceptance, as it can be six months or more before publication. The two waiting poems are at The People's Friend for (hopeful) publication at the end of this year!

Last year I also got three projects completed - my year of poems, and two novellas that I had been struggling to finish. I also wrote my first novel in flash, and took two online poetry courses, and a poetry prompt challenge. 

As for this year, I don't have any plans or projects in the pipeline, apart from learning about self-publishing. Also there is certainly a lot of editing I could do with the novellas. For now I am taking a break as I had a full-on December to get my Christmas based novella finally completed after about three years. Never has so few words taken so long!

Writing to order

I've been struggling to write new things, apart from the odd poem. So I had this idea which I presented on my Facebook page for my friends. I gave them a list of questions for a story idea with the option of answering all or just what they wanted. Only two people did it, but it's worked for me. The questions were:

Setting - the name of village, town or city (invented or real)

Names for three characters, at least one has to be female

The job of one character

Season

An object to be mentioned somewhere in the story

Genre

The opening line

The closing sentence

A word to be included in the title of the story

How many paragraphs the story should run to - 20, 30, 40

The last idea, about paragraph length, I got from a competition I once entered where we were given the opening and closing paragraphs, but all the rest was ours to write. The final piece had to come to 50 paragraphs including the two we were given. Having some restrictions is fun to work with, if sometimes frustrating! 

As both friends gave answers to all questions I posed, I decided to write two stories instead of picking and choosing which parts to use. I think that's fair. The first story is written and I will be sharing it soon. What floored me was once written I had ended it at the precise paragraph length my first friend had asked for, 30 paragraphs. I thought I'd overwritten and would have to do some cutting. I've ended up with a story I'd never have written otherwise. Like poetry prompts this helps motivation and it's good fun to do. It also reminds me of the timed writing sesions I did with my writing group (I really miss that).  I'm pleased with my story. I hope my friends are too.

New year, new beginnings

The first colour in the garden

This year I intend to do things differently and that means writing will be taking a back seat. It's been coming for a while, the winding down process, but I have to admit that right now the passion for writing is not as strong.

Having said that, I did write a Christmas ghost story. I think this was inspired by reading some in Jeanette Winterson's book about Christmas. That was a jolly good book, by the way. I wrote my story in one go and edited it over the next two days. It now sits on my laptop waiting for the right place to send it.

My poetry challenge moves on and I'm now in week 37. I had a period where I was stuck and asked my Facebook friends for some random words. Two friends came through and I've ended up with a love story poem involving a tandem and a poem about the Australian bush fires, the latter I share with you at the end of this post.

On the climate subject I am reading Extinction Rebellion's Handbook. I knew they were organised just from being around them in London last year, but I never realised just how much thought and planning goes into everything. I bet not many know that at their safe zones they feed anyone who needs food - commuters, homeless, even the police. There is a lot of sympathy from those who have to intervene due to their job. I think before people slag them off for being a nuisance they should read this book. I think they will be surprised.

I have no courses booked this year, which has come as a great shock to my friends! I aim to walk more, visit places, read lots and experience new things. Last year was a particularly tense one and I'm looking to see which way the wind blows this year, go with what seems right and be a bit more impulsive. I feel I might be on a new path, or maybe its just a break from the usual I need. I am, as they say, going with the flow!

The Design Museum, Kensington High Street.
Went to see Moving to Mars exhibition here with my techie son
who made it more interesting because he could answer my questions!

Tip of the Iceberg

And still there were doubters and deniers

as the inferno licked at walls of houses,

destroying everything before it.

Some said it was normal, just a blip

in the season. This was Australia, after all.

And as the fires raged through the bush,

smoke could be seen from space

edging towards New Zealand,

while masked people walked the city

of toxic fumes, praying for rain.

Fires swept people towards the coast

where they waited for boats

to take them to safety,

while ninety-five per cent of Koalas

perished. Bodies of Australia’s

wildlife lay scattered by roadsides,

charred and scarred.

And unbelievers still deny

as the world carries on

imploding around them

in floods and wildfires.

The tip of the iceberg

is melting.

Late summer update

Found this on the pier in Worthing this week.
Well, I never knew that!

Well, that's August gone! I completed the Live Canon Poetry Treasure Hunt and have one of their Anthologies winging its way to me. My own poetry challenge has moved into the 18th week. One day I could think of nothing to write at all, so I wrote about that! I sent out the most submissions I've ever done (I think). It was a no from Mslexia (as usual) over my short story for the Journeys theme, and I've had another rejection on another short story. However, I have been published by Visual Verse again this month, and I'm really chuffed about this flash story. You can read it here.

I've been told the critique for my novel will arrive by the 20th of this month, so if you don't hear from me for a while it may well be because I'm crying in a dark room.

Having enjoyed the Live Canon event last month I've signed up for their course on writing climate change poetry which starts in a couple of weeks time. I've been a warrior for the planet since before it became the most talked about thing (apart from Brexit). Back when I was in my twenties I was asking people to sign petitions and doing my bit for a kinder planet. Yet although I have written a few poems about certain aspects of earth's destruction I struggle with how to go about it, especially how not to be preachy. So I will learn from those who have done it and try and write my own. It will be a challenge.

Happy writing folks.

Inspirational Writing Groups and still searching for the 'right fit' submission

Photo: Columbus Square, Canary Wharf

Recently I had the nicest rejection letter I have ever received from a magazine in the USA. I almost felt it was an acceptance! They praised one particular poem and said that they believed in the power of my writing and encouraged me to submit again in the coming months and years.

It took me a while to come down from that, yet I still struggle with this 'right fit' business. I do study magazines and choose the poem or poems I feel will sit well within it. Yet time and time again I get the same reply. It's easy to see where my poems don't fit, but much harder to find a magazine willing to publish me. It's frustrating.

Meanwhile, the writing group I've been attending for the last few years is having a break until September. The group leader has been unable to lead or attend in the past few months. Numbers have dwindled and the format of the group has not worked for me for a while.  So after the last time in which two of us just socialised there was a brief moment when I wondered whether now was the time to give up. Nothing has been working for a long time and it seemed like this was another nail in the coffin of writing.

But something changed. I had challenged myself to write a poem a day for a year and that was going quite well, but I needed inspiration, new ideas. I began searching for writing groups in my area. Nothing. I found myself on the Meet-Up website and while there were lots of groups in London, most met in pubs at night and crossing London late at night on my own is not something I want to do. Also finding the right group can be hit and miss. For me I think I've been lucky this time. I have found a group that meets in Hammersmith on a Saturday afternoon in a cafe. It's a bit of a trek but doable. So two weeks ago I went along. It was the right choice. We did two hours of free writing with timed sessions and random word exercises. We were encouraged to feedback our work, but it's not obligatory. I came away inspired and with ideas I was able to turn into poems. I went again yesterday afternoon, when the theme was decay. We were a larger group, all new people to me, and again I came away with a poem and the first few lines of a potential story. We laughed a lot and we wrote a lot. While we haven't done feedback on work we do outside of meetings, this is great for generating new ideas. This felt like a shot in the arm. A good one! It's always interesting to see how each of us in the group interprets the random words in a piece of writing. I love random words!

This morning I sat down to develop the potential short story. It's my first love story set in the dark ages! It's also the first new story I've written in some time.

Meanwhile the rejections keep coming and more and more I'm beginning to think that I might just go it alone and self-publish my work. Still, that's for the future, and certainly not this year.  For now I just want to enjoy my writing and try new things.

A nice surprise and the problem of endings

I am really happy because today I received my copy of The Dark Angel, the latest novel by one of my favourite authors, Elly Griffiths. I entered a prize draw on her Facebook page and was one of the lucky winners. When it arrived I hugged it!

I am sure I've spoken about Elly Griffiths' books before but for me they tick a lot of boxes. This series (the Ruth Galloway series) is set in Norfolk (the land of my ancestors), includes archaeology, crime and paganism, all of interest to me. There is also humour. I cannot wait to read this one but as I started reading a new book two days ago it will have to for wait a few days.

Back into the world of writing I have been busy editing and have put in a couple of submissions. A friend who reads some of my stories mentioned that she likes ends tied up when she reads and she mentioned one story of mine she'd read that she felt ended too quickly, so I've been thinking about endings a lot. I sometimes do like to leave the reader with questions - room to imagine an ending for themselves. Maybe some readers just have preferences for neat endings. I would say that  I do struggle with endings at times and I wonder if leaving some loose ends is a cop out. What do you think? Do you like to a concrete ending or do you like working out what could happen to the main character after you finish a story?

A similar comment came from a lady at my writing group about one of my stories. The lady wanted to know what happened next, but there was no next in that story because going on would have spoiled it for me - too neat and would have dragged things out. I know you shouldn't end a story too quickly. I think maybe that is the problem and this is an area I need to work on with some of my stories. Obviously the more feedback I get the better idea I will have if this is a problem or just that some readers prefer everything neatly tied up.

Do you find endings difficult? Please do comment. I'd love to hear from you.

NaNoWriMo - The finish line

I'm a winner! Well, of NaNoWriMo at least. I completed my 50,000 words last week and decided I don't need to write anymore for a while!

Of course I did start writing about a week before the start of NaNoWriMo but only four stories were actually written before that time - ones I felt belonged with the theme for this short story collection. So, including the four pre-written ones I have a collection of twenty-eight stories. However, there is one story I haven't included because I still feel that there is much to work on. It's an older story. It has been heavily edited and I think I'm now getting closer to what I want with it.

Some stories need details filling out, explanations or bits need to be re-jigged, and I suppose when I look seriously at them some stories might not be strong enough. During NaNoWriMo it's more a case of getting the word count done - quantity rather than quality. Hopefully quality will come with the edits.

Having completed my 50,000 words and all but packed up, I had an idea for another story. It fitted the theme so I wrote it. Well, you can't dismiss an idea. Ideas have to be written whatever!

I do have a few favourite stories in this collection and the more I wrote the more ideas came. I'm sure I am not finished with stories of the unusual kind. The really long story I wrote set on an island is not included in the word count. It ran to around 15/16,000 words. Not quite sure where that one will end up. I do have another novella so maybe I should publish them together one day.

A friend asked me if I would put any of my published stories in the collection. At first I thought I might, yet I have enough without doing that.

Apart from a piece I wrote for Visual Verse (it was published on their website earlier this month). I have not sent out any other stories or poems. However, the other day I did look to see who had their submission windows open and I might be able to send out one or two stories by the end of the year.

One website quoted a waiting time of six months for a reply. Am I just being impatient....six months? I appreciate these magazines run on a voluntary basis and that they have hundreds of submissions but I'm not prepared to wait that long for one story or poem. If it was a novel, maybe. At least with competitions you have a date when results are published. I'm waiting on a couple of things now. One said 'two months' and it's coming up to four with no answer. Does that mean no? I hate the thought of chasing. I've never yet done that. Maybe I'll given them until the end of the year and try somewhere else. It's a dilemma as work gets caught up in the system.

The local NaNoWriMo meet ups have been great. They are a supportive bunch and we have lots of laughs. The group has dwindled somewhat but we have the final meeting on Friday and I think there might be wine involved. Yes, it's party time! I'm looking forward to it.

Now it's all about editing. I can see my months will be filled with nothing but editing. Wish me luck!

NaNoWriMo update

Twelve days into NaNoWriMo and I briefly hit writing fatigue. Last time I posted I mentioned about writing some longer stories for the collection. There was one story I was hopeful might get to around 10,000 words. Indeed it did and still it kept going. The story is set on an island did actually begin to wear me down. It is rather dark and was affecting my mood. I wanted it finished so I could move on. It finally came out at just over 15,000 words - so more an novella than a short story. I'm now thinking it's too long for the collection. Oh well, at least it bumps up the word count, though I've not added it yet. I have instead been adding other stories including previously written ones that fit the theme (about four or five) and those I wrote leading up to the start of NaNoWriMo.

As well as these I have been crashing away at the keys like a mad women and thankfully even though I have panicked that I'm running out of ideas something appears at the last moment. Last Sunday I had the most vivid and funny dream. It fitted the theme and when I woke up I almost kicked my husband out of bed to get downstairs and on the laptop to write it. It was just what I needed. I can't go long without humour so there will be a few slipped into this collection as light relief.

I have attended two workshops at the local library where we have discussed the highs and lows of this exercise as well as looking at finding characters and plots. We also had a post-it note session writing out scenes we would either like to write or were coming up in our stories. We were then asked to move the scenes around and see how that worked. How did it change things? I concentrated on one story idea that is in my notebook but as I wrote the scenes it was starting to develop into an Agatha Christie yet it felt flat. I had no enthusiasm for it. Maybe this is one story that will end up not being written. While I don't generally use post-it notes I do write scenes down (when I'm writing a novel) and then I pick the order, so similar thing really.

Way back in the spring I saw a call for Christmas spooky tales and I thought, yeah maybe I could write one of those. So I started it but stopped after three paragraphs and forgot about it. Yesterday I opened that file and threw myself into it. I may have missed the deadline for the competition but at least I'd completed it. I actually frightened myself a bit! It is based on something that happened to me and I told a friend. She said 'I bet you'll find a story in that.'  Finally, I have. Of course writing is a licence to exaggerate and change things a little and I've done all that.

When I began this venture I had a tentative title for the collection. That's changed now and I'm re-writing the blurb. Some of my stories are spooky but they are not only ghost stories. I have widened the criteria to include dark tales which cover the supernatural, myths and crime. I have pushed my writing further, gone down routes I have never explored before and that has also influenced what I'm choosing to read now (or maybe it began with the reading).

I have even chosen a cover for the collection. It's temporary and involved me looking through pages of free art online. It just helps to have an idea of where I am going, makes it feel real.

I've done my word count for today so I can take a break and head back to some reading.

Day Four - 10,000 words (NaNoWriMo)

I'm so excited. I reached the 10,000 word mark today and got my next writing badge. Having a free day today has helped. Once I dealt with the ironing, which has been haunting me all this week, I got to it. The weather today has been pretty awful and that helped because when the weather is good I want to be outside doing something else.

Half of those 10,000 words was written today. One complete short story (yes, I'm still going with that collection idea) was written. I'm into another long story and others have titles and basic notes made. I'm feeling quite hopeful that this will work.

Meanwhile, I broke off from NaNoWriMo yesterday (or was it the day before - it's all becoming a blur) to write a 500 piece for Visual Verse.

I'm finding my stories are taking over my life. I'm planning them (or mulling them over) when I go to bed, while I'm walking down the road. I have a special music mix for one story I'm writing. It sets the atmosphere. I also find that the stories affect my mood and sometimes I need a break. This is a rather unsettling collection after all. I think I'll need to put a couple of humorous stories in there to lighten things. At the end of the month (after I've had a chance to collapse and revive) - maybe after Christmas - I should be able to choose the strongest. I'm hoping there will be enough to choose from, and of course they will need editing.

Unlike when I wrote my novel for NaNoWriMo a few years back I have been editing a little as I go. It's easier with short stories. Editing a novel seems so much more daunting than a story.

I said to my husband just now that (and maths not being my strong point) I've completed one fifth of my total word count. Yes, he said (I was so glad he agreed with my calculation), that's 20%. Is it, I asked. That's sounds even better!