Ooh, I won Chocolate!

I like chocolate (ask anyone who knows me) and I approve wholeheartedly of Halloween, so I was delighted to win some Halloween chocolate in Nicola Morgan's Hotel Chocolat Halloween Writing Competition today. The brief was to write a piece of flash fiction (up to 100 words long) that touches upon three themes : chocolate, fear and the written word. I wrote a couple of pieces, one about a vampire and one about - well, you'll have to go and read it on the Help! I Need a Publisher! blog to find out.

As I said to the delicious Alison, "It's not quite the Booker." But she thought about this and replied, "Better in some ways." And I think she has a point.

And actually, it's the piece that didn't win that has stayed with me. I think there's definitely some mileage in the vampire character. I just might work on a longer story about him. Here's that original flash fiction story :

'Have some chocolate.'
They stood overlooking the twinkling city. Surveying their domain.
'Toxic to canines,' said the werewolf. 'Theobromines.'
'But it’s a crescent moon, my friend,' the vampire said, biting off a chunk. The words Dark, 100% Pure slipped into his mouth.
'Gone off blood?'
The vampire swirled his black overcoat as if preparing to fly.
'Ah, they all taste so infected, Swine flu or worse. Quite disgusting. Chocolate helps. It's the iron.'
Amused, the werewolf shook his shaggy head.
'Problem is, I still get the cravings, my friend.’
The werewolf’s eyes went wide with fear as the vampire lunged.

Heh. As an aside, I do find writing to a strict word-limit like this immensely pleasureable. It really helps instil an economy of style. I must write some more.

Coalmining Published

Coalmining, the poem accepted by Bolts of Silk the other day, has just been published online. You can read it here.

Flash Fiction : Light Years (7/100)

... centuries ...








Light Years is a work of flash fiction. In fact it is the slowest piece of flash-fiction ever written. In real-time its one hundred words would take exactly 10,000 years to recount. Because of the limitations of a normal human life-span, it has been specially accelerated to the speed of one word per week. It will therefore take just under two years to tell from start to finish.

For a full history of the transmissions, click here.

Five Writers' Market Web Sites

I spend quite a lot of time researching magazine markets to submit short stories and poetry to. It's something that can really eat into valuable writing (and, um, blogging) time. Of course, this is something that you should take trouble over. Sending your latest space opera off to a magazine interested only in haiku is a waste of everyone's time. There's obviously no substitute for getting to know a market by actually reading it, but the following web sites are the ones I use to help with some of the initial leg-work. All are free to use and are generally updated frequently. Well worth bookmarking.

Duotrope's Digest

Currently lists 2,650 markets for fiction and poetry, with a flexible and powerful search system. Very good on the various different literary genres. Also collects statistics on response times and acceptance ratios. Updated regularly. Donations welcomed. Highly recommended.

Litmags
Currently lists 488 "literary" markets for fiction and poetry, with a good if slightly eccentric search system. Not so strong on genre markets although it does list some of them. Updated weekly.

Writers Write

Currently lists around 670 markets for fiction (both genre and non-genre) and non-fiction. There's a simple but effective search system or you can browse by category. You can sign up for a free email of updates and news. Frequency of update not clear. Advertising-supported.

Ralan
Currently lists around 550 markets for fiction and poetry, generally just those interested in "speculative" and humorous works. There's no search system, but you can sign up for a free email of updates and news, which is well-worth receiving. Updated frequently. Donations welcomed.

The Write Market

Lists a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction markets - it's difficult to say how many. There's a Google-based search system that kinda works, but you can browse by category. You can also sign up for a free email of updates and news. Update frequency unknown but doesn't appear to have been updated for a couple of years. Advertising-supported.






I'm sure there are other sites I could add to the list - if anyone has any favourites, do let me know via the Comments.

New Poem, Coalmining, to be Published

I've just heard that the fantastic Bolts of Silk poetry blog/magazine will be publishing a poem of mine in the next month or so. The poem is called Coalmining. I'll post a link to it here at the relevant time. After the recent run of near misses and "good" rejections, it's wonderful news to have an acceptance.

It's strange how things work out, though. Some pieces take years to reach publication, but this poem was only finished ten days ago, in fact on National Poetry Day (which is what prompted me to finish reworking it).


w00t!

Flash Fiction : Light Years (6/100)

... Six ...








Light Years is a work of flash fiction. In fact it is the slowest piece of flash-fiction ever written. In real-time its one hundred words would take exactly 10,000 years to recount. Because of the limitations of a normal human life-span, it has been specially accelerated to the speed of one word per week. It will therefore take just under two years to tell from start to finish.

For a full history of the transmissions, click here.

The View from my Window

It's a glorious autumn day here in the UK. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness and all that. I couldn't resist posting a picture of the view I'm seeing from my writing desk as I tap away.

It's a bit of a distraction. Perhaps I should rearrange things so there's just a blank wall for me to look at ...

A Recommended Creative Writing Book

I noticed recently that this book - Creative Writing (ed. Linda Anderson, ISBN 0415372437) - can be bought in all good book shops. It's highly recommended. It was the main text for one of the creative writing modules I did for my recent Open University degree (which I promise to stop going on about) but I assumed that it was, you know, just an OU book and not generally available.

It's split into five sections : The Creative Process, Writing Fiction, Writing Poetry, Life Writing and Going Public. Not all sections will be of interest to everyone, but I'm sure all developing writers will find much of interest in it. I know I learned a lot from it. In fact, I could usefully dip back into it and remind myself of one or two things now. I don't think you ever stop learning as a writer. But beware that it isn't a quick read. Although it is self-contained, it is designed as a university course so there are many exercises and activities to attempt if you're to get the most out of it.

Now, of course, books on how to write are a bit like sex manuals. They suggest approaches you might not have thought of and tell you the best ways to do things you have, but they're not as good as doing the real thing. There's obviously no substitute for just writing. Or for reading fiction, come to that. Still, this is a book I keep by my desk. I've just dipped back in and re-read the discussion of Raymond Carver's wonderful I could see the smallest things for example. Fantastic stuff.

Flash Fiction : Light Years (5/100)

... home. ...








Light Years is a work of flash fiction. In fact it is the slowest piece of flash-fiction ever written. In real-time its one hundred words would take exactly 10,000 years to recount. Because of the limitations of a normal human life-span, it has been specially accelerated to the speed of one word per week. It will therefore take just under two years to tell from start to finish.

For a full history of the transmissions, click here.

National Poetry Day

Today is National Poetry Day (here in the UK.) There's a whole variety of poetry-related stuff over on the web site, including an e-card of Carol Ann Duffy's new poem Atlas that you can send to your poetic (and, even better, non-poetic) friends.

Poetry is something I should do more of. The problem is that the fictional ideas and characters tend to muscle their way to the front, drowning out the voices of any poetic inklings. Bullys. Can't they form an orderly queue? When I do write poetry I love it. The words fill my mind for days on end and I walk around trying out rhythms and rhymes in my head when I should be concentrating on other things ...

As it happens I was rereading some of my earliest poetry the other day. Now it all looks rather naive but there are some good moments. I still like this couplet from my first ever published poem, In the Peak Forest :

And hill-top copses are the havens of ravens
That curse cultivation with primitive croaks

You get the idea. There were several verses of sing-song iambic tetrameter like this. Still, I loved it. Bringing things up to date, I thought I'd reproduce my most recent poem, which was published on the wonderful Bolts of Silk site earlier this year. Typographically it's a bit hard to reproduce as the title is supposed to be a single, large opening quotation-mark. So it may not come out properly on your display. But here goes :

   ʽ

Curled up asleep there
as seraphic as
the furled e in serene.
Crossed feet for
perfectly drawn serifs,
your soft body
a rune of tightly cuddled limbs
as you revert to
the bliss of the huddled womb.
A quiet quotation mark
at the start of a life's long speech,
the hushed susurrus of a slowly drawn breath

Definitely, definitely I need to write more poetry ...

Open University Creative Writing MA Latest

Judging by the number of people browsing to my previous post about the Open University's forthcoming Masters degreee in creative writing, there's a very great deal of interest in this course. There certainly is from me.

I've gleaned a little more information from the Faculty of Arts at the OU and it now looks like the date of 2010 mentioned on this page is wrong. By the time you read this, they may well have updated it. Apparently the date "is still not finalized". I infer from this that 2011 is actually more likely than 2010 - i.e. starting two years hence.

That's just me guessing though, and I hope 2010 is still a possibility. Whichever, they really, really could do a better job of keeping (potential) students informed. Are they still at the vague planning stage or have they got a first draft? As I said before, I think the development of this course (or any course) is a natural candidate for a blog. Using technology to reach students wherever they may be is part of the whole point of the OU. And a course about Creative Writing, which will surely touch upon blogging somewhere along the line, seems to me to demand one even more.

Flash Fiction : Light Years (4/100)

... from ...








Light Years is a work of flash fiction. In fact it is the slowest piece of flash-fiction ever written. In real-time its one hundred words would take exactly 10,000 years to recount. Because of the limitations of a normal human life-span, it has been specially accelerated to the speed of one word per week. It will therefore take just under two years to tell from start to finish.

For a full history of the transmissions, click here.

Another "Good" Rejection ...

Sorry to go on like this. I'm not just moaning, it's therapeutic, honestly. But today I got yet another "good" rejection. Sigh. Is there a pattern emerging here?

Thing is, this one was a biggie for me - my first (completed) novel, Hedge Witch, rather than a short story. It was with an agent who was the first to ask for the completed manuscript to read, rather than just the sample chapters. So it felt like I was making some progress. Plus they'd had the completed manuscript for months. So at least (I rationalized) they hadn't just dismissed the book out of hand. Maybe they even liked it ...

Amongst other things their rejection letter said :

I think you've chosen a very interesting subject to write about, and I think you write well, [but] I didn't find myself absolutely engaged by your execution of the subject matter, so I'm not the right agent for you.

The blow has been softened a little by those encouraging words. Oh yes, an essential part of being a writer is learning to find any hints of encouragement in what people say about your writing, any slight silver lining to the clouds. Meanwhile I've been through the usual gamut of emotional reactions : rage, gloom, fatalism. I'm sure they'll all be familiar. For a couple of minutes there I decided to pack the whole ridiculous writing thing in and do something else with my life. I could spend more time practising the guitar. I could play more computer games. I could enjoy novels without constantly thinking, Hmm, not what is the author doing with the POV there?

But, with the passage of a little time, what I mainly feel is determination. I'm bloody well not going to just give in. I can do this and I need to do this. So, wounds licked, it's onwards and upwards ...

Storyglossia Magazine Rejection

I seem to be going through a phase of getting "good" rejections on the short story front. There was the New Myths one the other week for instance, and now I've had something similar from Storyglossia. On the one hand it's great to be getting such encouraging rejections. On the other hand, it's bloody annoying to be getting encouraging rejections ...

Still, I'll quote a little from the Storyglossia response, partly for the purposes of shameless self-aggrandizement and partly because I'm so impressed* with their response : 

This one was close. Good back and forth between the characters. Pig's part felt more real; but there was something missing for me in the Buckley sections, not as strong a connection felt between his language and the consequences. You're an excellent writer so I hope for the opportunity to consider more of your work.

So they took the trouble to give me a considered and very helpful explanation for their decision. And this after having had my manuscript for just five days. Not months, days. Ah, if only it was always like that!

So, yes, I'll certainly send them something else. Highly recommended.





* Although, not as impressed as I would have been if they'd accepted my story, obviously.