Lessons learned from an editorial team

My new library card. Yes, I am ashamed to say, I have only just joined the local library.

Hi all, I’m back… again… yes I know I promised to start writing more often… last time I wrote… what seems like an awfully long time ago…

OK, I’m dilatory. But I’m also determined, and probably lots of other adjectives beginning with D that I can’t think of at the moment. I really am going to write more often. And this time I really mean it.

So, what are my excuses? Well, I’ve been busy. I had assignments to finish for last term’s courses. I had a student anthology to get off the ground. I was volunteered to run a poetry competition. I’ve been looking for some way of making money. And I did sweet Nothing At All over Christmas…

Bits of news

I’ve managed to get £5K worth of funding for the student anthology! This is brilliant, as we can now do some really funky stuff, like have a proper website, do some interesting things for our performances, and even get a local film-maker to put together a short film.

I’m going to be an Official Volunteer for the Southwell Poetry Festival. This means that not only do I get to run the competition, but I can hob-nob with some very well-known poets (I’m not sure if I’m allowed to name them yet, but one of them might have been Poet Laureate not so long ago) and I get free entry to all the events.

I’ve started to pick up some bits of paid work, providing practical support for students with disabilities. I start note-taking tomorrow on a course entitled ‘Derivation of Algorithms’. Gulp. But it’s all money going into the bank account.

Classes started again this week, and I realised how much I miss my fellow students during the breaks. Note to self – make sure you make more effort to keep in touch with them outside classes.

Get to the point, Pip

OK, OK. Enough rambling. So, we’re nearly at the point of making the final selections for the anthology. We had 149 pieces submitted, from 26 people. I’ve reviewed all of them, and I’ve sent them all out to 6 other reviewers to get a broad spectrum of opinion.

I used a simple feedback scheme, reviewers say for each piece whether it should be definitely included (Yes), possibly included (Maybe), or definitely left out (No). I have about 80% of the responses in so far, and I can’t resist twiddling in Excel to find out what the trends are. I came up with a couple of interesting observations earlier today

82 pieces (55%) had at least one reviewer giving each of the three responses.

Of the 11 pieces (7%) on which all reviewers were all agreed, 8 were ‘Yes’, one was ‘Maybe’ and two were ‘No’.

I would draw the following conclusion from these observations.

If something you submit to a competition or a magazine or an agent or a publisher or whatever is rejected, that doesn’t mean it’s bad.

1. It could just mean you didn’t hit one of the people that would have liked it.
2. If it’s rejected, chances are higher that there are people out there who would disagree.

OK, the second point is (very) dodgy, and the evidence doesn’t necessarily support the first point either as my reviewers are not professionals, but I do think it’s a strong indication.

What I am taking away from this is:

Don’t lose heart. Even if your writing is excellent, chances are still high that some people won’t like it. You just need to keep trying till you find those enlightened agents or editors or competition judges who appreciate the delights that you present to them.

Here endeth today’s lesson. I have a list of subjects I want to blog about, so expect more soon

New Year Resolution

Yes, I’ve made one. I guess it should have been ’stick to my resolution to post here at least twice a week’. But it isn’t.

I did try to make four, but things went horribly wrong. This is what happened.

Be SMART and positive…

I read a blog post the other day that suggested the way to keep your New Year Resolutions was to make them positive and not negative. So ‘I will not overeat’ is bad. As is ‘I will avoid eating cake’. Does that mean ‘I will always eat healthy food’ is bad too? After all, it implies never eating unhealthy food, and it is therefore about as negative as you can get.

Enough of that. I’ll end up disappearing inside my own navel.

So, the first draft of my resolutions looks like this:

• I will enter more writing competitions this year than I did last year.
• I will finish my novel.
• I will eat healthy food as often as possible.
• I will embrace opportunities to meet new people.

That’s not too bad, I guess. But there are problems.

I will enter more writing competitions this year than I did last year… I don’t actually know how many I entered last year. So do I need to guess, then double it to be safe? Or maybe even triple it, because I’d hate to think there was even a possibility of missing the invisible target.

There are a couple of other possibly ambiguous areas that also need clarification. Let’s rewrite it:

• On the assumption (and I acknowledge that this is possibly incorrect) that I entered 15 writing competitions last year, to ensure that I enter more this year I shall enter at least 25 competitions. A competition shall count as occurring in the year 2010 if its deadline is between January 1st 2010 and December 31st 2010 inclusive (although results may be announced in 2011). The total shall be made up of competitions entered rather than individual pieces entered, so if I enter three pieces for one particular competition that shall count as one entry for the purpose of this resolution.

Looking at the second resolution: I will finish my novel… On the basis that no author ever feels that a piece of work is finished, there is no chance that I will achieve this unless I define ‘finish’ very carefully. Got to make this one SMART. More rewriting required:

• By December 31st 2010 I will have reached the point where I have completed a draft of my novel that I would feel comfortable about seeing in print. As part of this process, I will have carried out the following steps:
  • Complete first draft by end April 2010, this involves finishing the story but not polishing the text to any extent
  • Complete second draft by end July 2010
  • …

OK, I’ve had enough of this. Let’s just stick to the first resolution for now.

First resolution, third draft

So what was wrong with the last draft? Well, it doesn’t define what a competition is. Does it count as a competition if I submit something to a Mslexia themed issue? Probably not. Or what about a Leaf anthology? I think that does count. Hm. Grr.

And then there’s the little lie I told for semi-comic effect – I know exactly how many competitions I entered last year. Of course I do.

Sod it

My New Year Resolution for 2010 is:

I will enjoy writing, I will write what I want to write, I will take pride in my work.

That’ll do. A bit late, but then what can you expect?

My first success!

I won a competition on Tuesday! It was the Christmas open mic evening at the Flying Goose in Beeston, and the competition was to write a triolet about liquid soap… yep, you read that right.

The Flying Goose poetry evenings are excellent – run by the wonderful John Lucas of Shoestring Press, they’re great value at £3 for a glass of wine and some wonderful poetry (and prose) readings. They run Oct-Mar on the third Tuesday of each month, and I was introduced to them this spring when Anne Stevenson read – wow.

So far this season we’ve heard Nicola Monaghan, Wayne Burrows, Derrick Buttress and Cathy Grindrod, all of whom were fabulous.

And then came the Christmas Special. I don’t remember much detail of the poetry readings, as it was the first time I’d read in front of so many strangers and I was very very nervous (the mulled wine possibly didn’t help much either). I was quite overawed by how brilliant everyone was though.

We read our triolets after the break – I wasn’t quite so nervous, as the first poem I’d read seemed to go down ok. Judgement was by public acclaim, and Eireann (bless her) bolstered my applause by cheering and clapping wildly, so I won joint first prize along with Deidre O’Byrne (who deserved to be the outright winner, but I’m not complaining). My prize was the lovely Life Class by Glyn Hughes, which is an autobiographical poem that is a pleasure to read.

So, I thought I’d give you the pleasure of reading my PRIZE-WINNING (!!!!) triolet.

Liquid Soap

I never saw the point of liquid soap
You may frown, I don’t care what you think
Perhaps I’m just a grumpy misanthrope
But I never saw the point of liquid soap
It’s yet another way to push the envelope
And I can’t abide the dribbles in the sink
I never saw the point of liquid soap
You may frown, I don’t care what you think.

See, it isn’t very good, is it? Must have been the way I read it – I put everything I had into performing it!

As it’s nearly Christmas, here’s another triolet just for you. I like this one a lot more.

A Prayer for Love

Barefoot on the grass with the pigeons, praying.
Your dark eyes held mine as you passed. Over
a shared banana split we first kissed, cleaving.
Barefoot on the grass with the pigeons, praying
our spring would last for ever, dreaming
of summer. Through six seasons you were my lover,
barefoot on the grass with the pigeons. Praying,
your dark eyes held mine as you passed over.

Why I Like Poetry

So much for all my good resolutions… haven’t written a blog post for days and days.

An Anthology of Stress

I’ve been busy getting the student anthology properly off the ground (it’s quite nervewracking when you go to a meeting with a potential source of funding and she says, ‘They’re assessing bid proposals this afternoon, can you write one for us now?’ This being 75 minutes before a meeting half an hour’s drive away, and you’ve left the car five minutes’ walk away and you promised to collect a friend on the way… AAARGH!

Still, I got to the meeting on time, the bid proposal was accepted, and I’m now waiting for information about submitting the actual bid. And fretting about whether we’ll get enough submissions, and worrying about the design of the blasted thing, and being very very thankful that other people on the team are being active and constructive and Getting Things Done.

Be my mentor, Jo Shapcott!

The Arvon Centre at Lumb Bank

Between then and now I’ve been trying to write a 1200 word statement to persuade Arvon they want to fund me to be mentored for the next year. Three options – scripts (not my thing, I don’t think, despite excellent ideas about gravediggers and pandemics), fiction and poetry. Fiction – well, I’m 1/3 of the way through a first draft of a novel and went on two Arvon novel-writing courses last year, so one would have thought that would be obvious. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to go for poetry. I love writing poetry. I really love writing poetry, and I really want to be good at it.

I wrote all sorts of stuff, all of which I believe, but none of which really gets to the bottom of why I love poetry. I think it’s the most visual of the creative writing disciplines in a strange kind of way. A good poem will make you see not only the image represented by the words but all the links and associations and history and future and everything that goes with it. And that will be stuff that’s in the poet’s mind and stuff that you add for yourself as a reader, to make the poem yours for the few minutes it takes you to read it.

Damn. Wish I’d put that in. (in flowerier words, of course)

I don’t really hold out much hope of getting this mentoring thing, but you never know… I do know my poetry is getting better all the time, and I can’t pass up a chance to help it improve even more.

It’s epic

Epic theatre, that is.

This is a story about how Della Galton rescued me.

One of my courses this term is Writing for the Stage. A lion also attends classes, although he hasn’t said much:

The B6 Lion

The course manages to be really enjoyable and a hard slog at the same time. Our tutor is so enthusiastic and knowledgeable that each lecture has been fascinating and stimulating, and has left me fired up with ambition to write the next Mother Courage or Hedda Gabler. Then I sit down to compose sublime dialogue and riveting action, and I realise that while I love watching plays, writing them really isn’t my thing.

But… it’s my first diploma-level course, and as such the mark will contribute to my final degree grading, so I really want to do well…

The first assignment wasn’t too bad, but I’ve been struggling with the second one for weeks. I have to write a fifteen-minute epic play. Now, epic theatre aims to make the audience think about the message of the play, which is usually political or social in nature. It is about ordinary people trying to do their best in extraordinary situations. The audience is aware at all times that they are watching a play, they don’t engage with the characters, and the playwright, director and actors all go to great lengths to ensure this is the case.

So not only do I have to come up with a story to tell, but it has to have a message, and it has to be set in a context of external upheaval of some sort. And on top of that, I’ve got to write the characters so that the audience doesn’t identify with them.

This is different to just about everything I’ve ever written! It’s very scary… and I was floundering. I just couldn’t come up with anything epic enough. No message, no characters, no desperate situation, nothing. So I trudged into Caffe Nero this morning and snuggled into my usual corner with my usual two diet cokes, and stared at a blank page of my notebook for a while.

Then I started writing. I didn’t want to set it in the context of war – no real reason, mainly a matter of principle. What horrible things are going on outside people’s control at the moment? Ah, I know, recession. So let’s have an Ordinary Bod who’s been hurt badly by the credit crunch, and then maybe an MP who tries to help Bod out, MP discovers he can’t do anything because the system is corrupt and evil… ta-da…

No.

Nonono.

That’s rubbish. I know I’m not supposed to emotionally identify with the characters, but I can’t even rationally work out what’s going on and why. And the message is so cliched. And I’m blowed if I can come up with any flesh to put on the bones of this deformed monstrosity.

So I stared at my now-full page, and scribbled it out in a fit of pique.

Time to go back to basics. Rather than start with a global context, let’s start with a character and a problem…

Hang on a minute, that rings a bell. At Caerleon, Della Galton gave us a fantastic tool for generating short stories. Come up with a load of random characters and a load of random problems, pick one of each and go. And the character we had to write about was a gravedigger – which is ultimately appropriate for epic theatre, isn’t it?

Hoorah!

So I wrote down ‘Gravedigger’. Then I thought, what would give a gravedigger a problem?

I sneezed. Snot, yuck. People looking sidelong at me to make sure I caught all the germs in a tissue which I then discarded before disinfecting my hands and every other exposed bit of skin.

Genius!

Pandemic!

I have my story. Well, at least I have the beginnings of one. So I’d better go and write the play now. I may regale you with a scene from it in due course, as long as you promise not to become emotionally involved with any of the characters.

Look out world, I’m back!

My good friend Adrian phoned me yesterday and berated me (don’t frown like that, Adrian, you know that was a berating!) about not keeping up with this blog. I hemmed and hawed (people didn’t half look at me strangely, I was in WH Smith at the time buying book tokens) and was forced to agree that I have been somewhat dilatory. What’s the point having a blog if you don’t post? No-one will read it, and indeed, why should they?

So. This is my New Pip Resolution – to write a blog post at least twice a week from now until the End of Never.

What I did on my holiday

Not exactly a holiday…

When I last posted, a couple of months ago, I was on the way down into the gloomy depths of a recurrence of my perennial depression. I didn’t get all the way there, thank goodness. Or I should say, thank the generosity of my therapist, who gave me a couple of free sessions and reminded me I do have the tools to kick my own ass into gear.

I’ve been thinking about depression, I wonder if it’s a common writer’s affliction… I suppose it must be. Good writers, anyway. I have to say, most of the blisteringly self-confident writers I meet aren’t brilliant, it’s the insecure ones that question their own worth and eternally strive to improve. Or give up and fall by the wayside, which is something I’m determined not to do. Maybe I’ll turn out to be a good writer, maybe I won’t, but either way I want to look back in a decade or two and be able to say I tried my hardest.

Anyway, things I have done:

• Spent a week on an amazing Arvon course at Totleigh Barton.
• Kicked off and am now running a project to publish an annual student anthology for the Creative Writing degree course I’m on.
• Lots of poetry writing, which I think/hope is getting better.
• Been involved in a fantastic new (ongoing) project at my writers’ group.
• Got quite enthused about <luvvie voice> the theatre </luvvie voice>.
• Analysed the English Patient to death and loved every moment of it. Good job he was dying anyway.

So considering I’ve been thoroughly miserable at times, that’s not a bad list! I shall write about at least some of the above in more detail over the next couple of weeks.

Oh, one other thing, I’ve fallen in love with this cutie – a new arrival at a friend’s house:

Polly the Puppy

I’m glad to be back. Hope you’re glad to see me

National Poetry Day

Happy Poetry Day! Here’s a poem for you…

Spindrift

west backing south-west, gale 8
increasing severe gale 9 for a time
squally showers
good

blown off course we scream down
the throat of the Devil’s Limekiln
bounce then bounce again
sheep scatter and we’re down
doubled and running
rotor blades dip towards us
like the king’s sword
or the executioner’s axe

St George’s bloody cross
slices through the clouds
above St Helena’s tower
while the Hangman’s Hill flagpole
rusts beneath gorse and heather
and a wren’s nest

we lean against the storm
and watch a herring gull
wings bent awry
beak wide in defiance
too young to know the wind
will always win

the sea rides the air
stolen from our mouths

Present Imperfect

I am writing.

Did you see what I did there? (sorry)

Wabi-sabi

I stole the title for this post from a post on the Strictly Writing blog by Susie Nott-Bower. She wrote about wabi-sabi – the Japanese art of imperfection and impermanence – and how the concept can be used to whack the Inner Editor over the head and churn out a Shitty First Draft (SFD).

As it turned out, that post couldn’t have come at a better time for me. If you’ve been reading my blog lately, you’ll know that (a) there hasn’t been much of it to read and (b) I had fallen into a pit of procrastination and self-doubt.

I’m 40,000+ words into the SFD of my novel, and it is so S it’s painful to re-read. I tried to emulate Katie Fforde – write 1000 words every day, and before that, edit yesterday’s 1000 words. That might be OK if you’ve got the skills to make your FD not quite so S, but all it did for me was allow me to convince myself that my writing skills are non-existent.

I also find myself having to check back through the text on a regular basis to find out what X was wearing that morning, or what the weather was like, or who was in the room when Y said Z. That’s another opportunity for my Inner Editor (who is vile and vicious, and I believe is trying to make me start smoking again) to tell me how S my writing is.

Three Golden Rules

After reading Susie’s post, I sat myself down and had strong words with myself. Then I imposed three rules:

1. The First Draft of anything I write is expected to be Shitty. No, actually, it’s required to be Shitty.
2. Do not, under any circumstances, edit anything until you’ve finished the Shitty First Draft.
3. Make notes of all important facts in another place so you don’t have to look at the Shitty First Draft until it’s time to turn it into the Barely Adequate Second Draft.

And hey presto, I’m writing again. I know it’s shitty. I know it’s going to take a long time to edit into something resembling a novel. And I expect I’m going to have to impose a whole new set of rules for when I start work on the second draft. But I can’t work on the second draft till I’ve finished the first.

My Tomatoes Aren’t Ready

They’ll be ready to harvest in an hour and a half. So I thought I’d catch up on reading blogs and #fridayflash, and I found this wonderful meme at dovegreyreader’s blog, which I couldn’t resist having a go at. The most difficult part is remembering which books I’ve read this year – if I inadvertently cheat I apologise.

“Using only books you have read this year, answer these questions. Try not to repeat a book title. It’s a lot harder than you think!”

Describe yourself: The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes by Jack Bickham

How do you feel: Still Breathing by Cathy Grindrod

Describe where you currently live: Ghost World by Daniel Clowes

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Your favorite form of transportation: Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins

Your best friend is: The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

You and your friends are: Beggars and Choosers by Nancy Kress

What’s the weather like: May Contain Traces of Magic by Tom Holt

You fear: A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin

What is the best advice you have to give: Eternity is Temporary by Bill Broady

Thought for the day: When Will There Be Good News by Kate Atkinson

How I would like to die: Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King

My soul’s present condition: Postcards from the Edge by Carrie Fisher

Jesus Finds Sammy – #fridayflash

Sammy took extra care over his appearance that Saturday. He persuaded Anna to iron his blue shirt, the one with a collar, and he borrowed Jim’s pair of nearly smart black leather shoes. He even pulled a comb through his hair before leaving his room.

‘Sammy, you can’t go out without a coat,’ Anna called after him as he shuffled down the corridor towards the front door.

He took no notice. His trench coat stank, and his saggy brown cardigan would spoil the effect he’d achieved. He looked at himself in the full length hall mirror with approval. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think the slightly scruffy 43-year-old man looking back was just like anyone else.

Suddenly Johnny appeared, his grey scrunched-up face sneering over Sammy’s left shoulder, eyes glittering. ‘You’ll never be normal, you won’t. Look at you, can’t even button your shirt up right.’

It was hard to ignore Johnny, but Sammy managed it. He hastily adjusted his shirt and opened the door.

‘I know where you’re going. You’re pathetic. They won’t want you.’ Johnny’s voice whined in Sammy’s ear like a mosquito following the scent of blood.

‘Shut up shut up shut up…’ Sammy muttered to himself over and over again as Jim’s shoes rattled over the gravel path outside The Oaks. The wind lifted the tails of his shirt and swirled around his torso, icy teeth biting at his chest and belly. Sammy didn’t notice, not really.

He turned left along Oak Lane, trying to pick his feet up when he walked, the way Anna had taught him. It felt like Johnny was following him, but he didn’t turn round to see. He was afraid he would stumble if he looked up.

As he walked through the alley between the newsagent and the launderette, he strained to hear the jingling of tambourines and the joyous sound of singing voices. Maybe they weren’t there this week? He hadn’t been able to sleep the previous night for worrying.

When he heard the music, relief filled his mind, leaving no room for concentrating on his feet. He tripped, put out a hand to save himself, and was horrified when he felt it sink into wool-covered flesh.

‘Get off me!’

Sammy backed away from the indignant old woman. She glared at him, then wrinkled her nose, pushed past him and stalked away.

Johnny sniggered. ‘See, you do smell. No-one wants Stinky Sammy.’

It took all his willpower not to cry, but he managed it by focusing on the singing.

‘They do want me,’ Sammy said. ‘They do.’

He started shuffling towards the shopping precinct again, all thoughts of lifting his feet up forgotten in his need to reach the source of the music.

‘Jesus loves me, Jesus loves you,
Come rejoice, accept His love.’

Sammy stopped at the end of the alley, and an enormous grin spread over his face. There they were. A circle of people. Men and women, dancing and singing and clapping, and children waving tambourines in the air. He jiggled across the block-paved pedestrian area towards them, trying to clap in time with the music. He knew the words to this one, he’d listened to it for many Saturdays, so he joined their circle and sang along as loudly as he could.

Johnny was laughing so much he could barely stand up. ‘Oh, Sammy, you’re such a dickhead.’

‘Piss off, Johnny. You’re the dickhead,’ Sammy yelled. He’d finally come to accept Jesus’s love, and he wasn’t going to let Johnny spoil it.

The people around him stopped singing. Oops, thought Sammy. Jesus probably didn’t like bad language.

‘I’m sorry. It’s just Johnny, he doesn’t love Jesus like I do. Can we sing again please?’ Sammy started to sing another of his favourites. A couple of the children joined in, but the adults continued to stare at him, and a man with a bright red pullover walked quickly away.

‘What’s wrong?’ said Sammy.

A warm hand clamped around his arm. ‘I’ll tell you what’s wrong, sir, you’re disturbing these nice people,’ said a very large policeman.

Johnny chipped in, ‘That’s right, Sammy the dickhead’s disturbing the God-freaks.’

‘Shut up,’ Sammy shouted. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Policeman, but Johnny won’t shut up.’

The man in the red pullover said, ‘There’s no-one called Johnny here. He’s obviously one of those nutters from The Oaks. Can’t you take him back there?’

‘Nutter, nutter, Sammy’s a nutter,’ sang Johnny.

Sammy wasn’t quite sure what happened next. The man who’d called him a nutter somehow had red all over his face as well as his pullover, and Sammy was on the ground with the policeman on top of him, handcuffing his hands behind his back. Then he was being hauled past the shops, past crowds of people with cold eyes like Johnny’s.

‘Where are we going, Mr Policeman?’ he asked. ‘I’m looking for Jesus, I want to accept his love.’

The policeman jerked Sammy’s arms upwards. ‘I’ll show you Jesus’s love, you weirdo.’

‘Thank you, that’s very kind.’ said Sammy. He could hardly believe his luck. He’d thought the people singing would help him find Jesus, but he’d been wrong all along. He shuffled docilely through the car park and into the police station.

‘Is Jesus in here?’ he asked the policeman.

‘Can you keep a secret?’ said the policeman, grinning.

‘Of course I can.’

‘I’m Jesus.’ The policeman was laughing aloud now, obviously really happy that Sammy had finally found him.

‘Do you love me?’

‘Of course I do. Now go and sit in there.’

Sammy entered the cell and sat on the wooden bench. The door clanged shut, but not before Johnny slid in.

‘You don’t really believe he’s Jesus, do you?’

Sammy’s eyes were closed and his face was radiant. He couldn’t hear Johnny any more.

The policeman shook his head as he walked back towards the front desk, followed by Sammy’s quiet off-key singing.

‘Jesus found me, Jesus loves me,
Rejoicing, I accept His love.’