Starlings Reborn

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amwriting, books, Brighton, Brighton Pier, characters, ebooks, inspiration, locations, piers, publishing, Revenge Ink, seaside, self-publishing, starlings, writing, writing practice

I’m on Brighton Pier in the half term holidays. The skies are white with low cloud and there’s a sea mist blowing in but it’s warm enough to be outside so I’m sitting at one of the tucked away tables by Horatio’s Bar. Their playlist is quiet enough to ignore as are the distant screams of children as they hurtle through the air on the twirling aeroplanes of the nearest ride. My youngest and his friend are finally old enough to go on rides on their own so I’ve got them all areas wristbands and have settled down for a couple of hours of writing.

Brighton Pier has a lot of memories for me. I came here as a kid then brought my kids and since I started writing it has always inspired me and often features as a setting in my work. It’s a haven for detail; competing, smells, sounds, lights, people of all types from babies in prams to pensioners with walking sticks, smiling children hopped up on sugar, hungover stags and hens, parents, grandparents, teenagers trying to be cool. I had a little walk around the hidden bits, the alleyways between the rides, the end behind the Turbo, because that’s what I did when I was writing my first book, Starlings. I’m feeling nostalgic. Starlings is entirely set in Brighton. I wrote it when I first moved here and it helped me get a handle on my new home, I wanted to really get into the nitty gritty of the lesser-seen aspects of a British seaside town, to explore it as I would a character. Brighton has a personality that changes day to day, very different in the height of summer to a rainy day in December. I spent a lot of time seeking out the more unusual locations or looking at the well-known ones from a different angle. One of my proudest moments was at an event when a Brightonian reader exclaimed surprise that I wasn’t born and bred because I’d got it spot on.

The reason for all this nostalgia is that Starlings will very shortly be out of print. I bought the remainder paperbacks from my publisher and I’ll be getting all the rights back very soon. This makes me both sad and hopeful. Starlings was my first book and I had no idea what had to be done to market it to readers. For me it was a huge achievement that it was published at all but I’ve always thought it didn’t live up to its full potential. I’d like to give it a re-edit and a cover make-over. I have plans to publish a new edition paperback and release it on ebook and I know a lot more about publishing now than I did then. It’s seven years since it came out, my publisher, Revenge Ink, was a gutsy little maverick trying to showcase the type of books being ignored by the mainstream (if anything this situation has got worse and the industry has got more blinkered in what it chooses to publish). I am forever grateful to Revenge Ink for trying, for taking on my little book because they really understood and believed in it and we part on very good terms.

People still buy Starlings, they come up to me at readings and say they’ve just discovered it and ask why I was so mean to Barney. I’m asked to local book groups on a regular basis and it’s still in the Brighton books section of the city’s bookstores. I’ll be peddling the ‘limited edition’ originals at book fairs and market stalls until I run out (or hell freezes over). If you want a signed copy, personally dedicated by the author email me at erinnamettler@gmail.com or look out for me at car boot sales, a copy is yours at the knockdown price of £5 plus p & p.

‘This is the last bench in Brighton. To the left of it are the rickety legs of the Mousetrap. At the height of summer they rattle constantly under the weight of the mouse-shaped cars that whizz along to the screams of happy tourists. On this day they only shudder slightly in the wind.’ 

Now we’re off for fish n chips.

 

Diary Of A Book Trailer – Part One

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book groups, book trailer, Brighton, diary, locations, niche publications, Publicity, Reviews, starlings, The West Pier, writer's block, writers, writing

A marvellous opportunity has recently come my way. A friend of a friend has offered to make a book trailer for me. Charlie Rose, who was introduced to me by my friend and co-Rattle Taler Charlotte Feld, wants to make a trailer for my first novel Starlings. Starlings was released over a year ago but I have always felt that it didn’t get enough attention at the time. It was published by the gutsy but small Revenge Ink and the marketing budget was limited. Revenge Ink is one of the few publishers accepting speculative submissions from authors– this is great, it meant I could get my book published without the help of an agent unfortunately it also meant that I didn’t have an agent to help me publicise it. You might think it’s a bit arrogant to think my novel deserves to have been noticed but it’s not that honestly.  The reviews it did get (apart from the very first one!) where all so good but they were in niche publications and the local press, it was impossible to get it reviewed nationally. Likewise, the readings I did for the book were all met with very positive feedback and the book groups I went to were all extremely enthusiastic. The book is set in Brighton (where it seems at times that everybody knows everybody) and even now I’ve given up actively promoting it, people will stop me in the street and tell me how much they loved it. It was long-listed for the Edge Hill Prize so there is some merit in it; I’m not just full of bluster. I sometimes think that the niggling feeling of not being done with Starlings is what is preventing me from finishing a second novel. I’ve plenty of ideas and I write every day but I can’t quite settle down to it, as if I’m not yet ready to give it my full attention.

When Charlie offered to make a book trailer for it I jumped at the chance. What harm can it do? If it brings a new audience to the novel then I’ll be more than happy and if it doesn’t I won’t be any worse off than I am now. We had our first meeting last week to discuss what kind of trailer to make, the main themes, how to start it, how to portray Brighton and the book in just a few minutes. We went over the genesis of the novel, the process and the generalities of how and where I wrote it. It was really interesting to discuss the book in depth again especially with someone who has just read it. I haven’t looked at it for many months but it was such a big part of my life for so long that of course I remember a lot about it but there are things I’ve forgotten.  The structure is very complex, the stories link into a narrative that makes you reflect differently on the action and the characters by the time you’ve finished reading it. All the characters are related in some way to others in the book even if they don’t initially appear to be. The aim was to show how everyone is linked to everyone else, something the trailer should show too. In addition to this, every time I talk to someone about Starlings something I’ve never thought of surfaces. This time Charlie said he thought it was perpetually summer in the novel that the sun was always shining and that this contrasted with the dark and gritty underside in the stories. I wasn’t aware of this, in fact I thought a lot of it was set under a cloud with stormy seas but, now it has been pointed out to me, I realise a lot of the stories do take place in the hot summer sun. This could be a problem for the book trailer as we want to start filming it pretty soon and the last time I looked it was threatening to snow. We’ll have to improvise, maybe con some friends to walk about in shorts eating ice-creams!

We also plan to film in some of Brighton’s lesser known locations, to look at the city from a different angle, a slightly skewed vision of the tourist image so often presented. There was even talk of taking a boat out to film the West Pier from the sea-bound edge.

It’s an interesting process, deciding where to film and what passages to include and also what background information to talk about. It’s all very exciting. I’ve decided to blog about it at each stage so if we have to call the coast guard during filming you’ll be the first to know.