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.

 

15 Minutes – A Cover Story

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15 Minutes, Andy Warhol, apes, book covers, book design, books, celebrities, celebrity, crowdfunding, fame, Laura Wilkinson, Mark Ecob, Mecob, publishing, short stories, short story collections, Skin Deep, starlings

Last year I was signed by British crowd-funding publisher Unbound and now my short story collection about fame, 15 Minutes, is almost ready for release. Yesterday I was sent the final cover proof and I’m sure you will agree that it is an arresting image!

Writers don’t usually get any input in their cover designs. With my first book, Starlings, I was just sent the finished cover with a note saying ‘here’s your cover – hope you like it.’ Bizarrely that cover looked like the front of my house at the time. In the first few months of editing Unbound Digital send their authors a questionnaire to fill out for their cover designer Mark Ecob to work from.

It’s quite a long document and it really makes you think about the book you have written. The questions vary from the practical; title, buy-line, genre, to, ‘Describe the tone and mood you want to come across on your cover,’ and, ‘who do you think your readers are?’  These questions really make you think about your reader. Who is going to buy your book? What are their age, gender, interests? They even ask how they will buy it and where from. As a writer I have to admit I don’t actually think that much about my reader, certainly not when I’m writing, but in order to sell you have to know who you are appealing to. The first reader I listed was ‘short story enthusiast’. Then came the question about genre and the book is obviously made up of short stories but  I realised there and then that each story is its own beast, there’s literary fiction and sci-fi and experimental fiction and memoir and  it became very hard to pin down.

I was asked for a synopsis, again something the writers of short story collections will know is an almost impossible task, I provided key words and a list of the celebrities in the stories. I tried to get across the idea that fame is not necessarily a good thing. At one point I suggested that if there was a face on the cover it should be hidden in some way, blinded by paparazzi flashbulbs perhaps or masked.

Finally, they ask you what sort of cover you have in mind. This was a curve ball – I didn’t have anything in mind. I made a few suggestions. The Warhol connection was the obvious route, pop-art, bright colours, paparazzi photos. I also had to send an extract and I picked one from a story about a man obsessed with Scarlett Johansson.

Mark phoned a few days later. Surprisingly he didn’t seem that keen on a Warholesque cover but had picked up on the idea of fame as artifice. We talked about masks and dropped cameras. Then I mentioned that the last story was a flash fiction about a talking ape and Mark asked me to send it to him.  A few days later he sent over a series of ideas but the one that was the basis for the final cover was the standout. Not Warhol, not pop-art but the suggestion that fame is nothing more than a performing monkey seemed to sum up what I was trying to say.

The proposed cover designs then went to Unbound and I had a long wait before finally getting to see the finished cover complete with cover quote and blurb.  Seeing the finished image brings home the fact that this book is really happening and I am absolutely thrilled that soon you’ll be able to read my take on the masks and artifice of fame.

 

Unbound Diary Part 11 – Almost There!

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competitions, crowdfunding, literature, mentoring, publishers, Riptide Journal, short stories, short story appraisals, starlings, submissions, The Bristol Short Story Prize, The Fish Short Story Prize, The Manchester Review, Unbound, workshops, writers, writing, writing workshops

A lot has happened since I last blogged here. I was stuck around the 45% mark for what seemed like an eternity, thinking that I was never going to get this thing funded. Last week I had a conversation with a Twitter friend, the fab short story writer Safia Moore, who not only pledged to the book but suggested that the pledge options I should be pushing were the ones for large sums, the short story appraisals and mentoring packages. She pointed out that I am the director of a short story prize, have been short-listed in a few myself, and am a tutor! She is of course right on all counts. It’s funny how when you are in the middle of something you can’t see it for what it is. I started pushing these options on social media and so far someone has pledged for £400 of mentoring and four people have pledged for short story appraisals. I suddenly find myself 81 % funded, so thank you Safia for reminding me of what I have to offer!

If you keep getting nowhere when sending out short story submissions, or entering competitions, perhaps you could do with a little help from the director of a prize, who has been published in Riptide and The Manchester Review and short-listed for The Bristol and Fish prizes. I am an experienced tutor, mentor and editor with an MA (dist) in Creative Writing and an acclaimed novel.

On offer as part of crowdfunding for In The Future Everyone Will Be Famous For Fifteen Minutes are:

Short Story Appraisal up to 5,000 words with full edit and notes – £100

Mentoring,  4 face to face sessions (skype, email or phone for those too far away) up to 20,000 words with full edit and notes. This can be part one manuscript or several short stories. £400

2 hour Short Story Workshop for 5 people (South East and possibly Yorkshire) £200

These packages are offered at a much lower price than my usual rate and at a much lower price than most literary consultancies. Not only will they greatly benefit your writing but you will facilitate the publication of a book of short stories that would not otherwise be published.

You could of course just prove all the people who think short stories aren’t worth publishing wrong and pledge £10 in support of the book. You will be a patron of the arts and I am so very grateful that so many of you have already done so.

 

 

Unbound Diary Part 10 – I’m Trying To Prove The Popularity Of The Short Story

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Beach Hut Writers, Brighton, crowd-funding, Latest TV, Laura Wilkinson, publishers, short stories, ShortStops, spoken word, starlings, The Short Story, Thresholds, Unbound, Women Writers, writers

It’s been quite a week. I could see that I was getting towards the deadline for raising funds for my short story collection In The Future Everyone Will Be World Famous For Fifteen Minutes. It felt like I was stalled at the 40% mark and that I would never get enough support for the project to go ahead. I couldn’t really see what to do but I knew that I didn’t want this opportunity to slip away. In the last few weeks I have done events, sent out emails and press releases, written blog posts and had stories from the book published in journals and still there were only a handful of responses. I was very grateful to each and everyone of those new pledgers but I needed more. I decided it was time to change tactics. Over the last few days I have spent 6 hours a day solidly marketing. I have contacted every journal and short story organisation I could find and asked for their help. To my surprise the answer has  almost always been yes. One editor replied within minutes with the opening line, ‘Hi Erinna – you’ve come to the right place!’ I was so grateful I could have cried. In the next few weeks I have articles coming out on Women Writers, The Short Story, Thresholds and Short Stops as well as guest posts on the blogs of friends and colleagues. The first of these is out today on Laura Wilkinson’s blog and she has cleverly called it In The Future Will Everyone Be Crowdfunding?

Last Friday morning I’d just got in from the school run when I took a phone call from Latest TV , in response to a press release I’d sent out a couple of weeks ago, could they come around in an hour to film me? I looked around my extremely messy house in horror but obviously I agreed. Creatives aren’t meant to be tidy, right? The film was posted on their Youtube channel on Tuesday and it has been an absolute godsend. It really represents what the book is about, how celebrity culture is everywhere and that this is not necessarily a good thing, and that one of the aims of the crowdfunding project is to draw attention to the lack of support given to the short story by UK agents and publishers. (When I write this in any article the editors always tell me I have to say ‘most UK agents and publishers’ but you know what, fuck it, this is my blog, and I want to go on the record as saying that this is true of 99.9999% of all UK agents and publishers!) I have set the film up to post on a loop on Twitter and Facebook with the buy-line ‘I’m trying to prove the popularity of the short story,’ and it’s getting quite a lot of attention as well as bringing me new pledgers. I am going to use the film as the basis for the campaign over the next couple of weeks. As of today I am at 58% and it really feels like I’m going to make it. I still need people to pledge so if you love short stories and think that they should get more attention from publishers please pledge to this collection.

Latest TV video

 

Full Of Things That Have Never Been

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Araminta Hall, Bridget Whelan, Brighton, Catherine Quinn, competitions, Cornerstones Literary Agency New Writing South, David Headley, Emlyn Rees, Jo Rees, Kate Harrision, Laura Wilkinson, literature, Lizzie Enfield, Myriad Editions Julia Crouch, publishers, Rattle Tales, Rilke, Sharon Bowers, short stories, Simon Toyne, Simon Trewin, Small Batch, spoken word, starlings, Sue Teddern, The Angel House, The Beach Hut Writing Academy, The Short review, William Shaw, Write by the Beach, writing

And now we welcome the New Year. Full of things that have never been.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Isn’t that a glorious quote for the new year? January is a difficult month, everyone is full of lethargy and Christmas excess. This year it seems like all our heroes are dying. The weather is awful. The nights are long and dark. It’s hard to get motivated. For a writer it can be the most depressing time of year. I have often found it hard to get started. If I haven’t written for a couple of weeks, getting back into stride can feel like climbing a mountain. It’s all a matter of perspective of course, as Rilke’s quote illustrates. This year I am determined to see the new year not in terms of the past but in terms of what’s to come.

Rilke was himself was a wanderer, a traveller of no fixed location, he sought lovers and patronage and never truly settled. He moved from one possibilty to another, across Europe into the Middle East and Russia, back to Paris and then, fatefully,Switzerland where he died at 51 of leukemia. A short and packed life of longing and regret that produced breathtaking poetry. Read some.

This year my resolution isn’t to lose weight or drink less! I probably will, but under no pressure to do so, 2016 will instead be a year of action. I have plans. I have words to write and opportunities to exploit. I have a fully finished short story collection and a half finished novel. This year I will find an agent and a publisher and move things on and if I don’t find either I will move things on anyway. There is always a way. There are always things that have never been.

The first Rattle Tales show of 2016 takes place on Feb 16th at The Brunswick in Hove. We had an amazing response to our call for submissions and we are reading through them all now to come up with a programme as varied, entertaining and thought provoking as all our shows. Do come along and see what we are all about.

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I am involved in two very exciting projects this year. Firstly, The Brighton Prize (of which I am a co-director) enters its third year and we are in a position to expand. The competition will go international for the first time and we are adding categories for flash fiction and local writers. I will have more information on this very soon but we recently asked for volunteers to help us develop the prize, and Rattle Tales in general, and were literally overwhelmed by the response. I’m really looking forward to the group taking this project forward and to working with new, talented and enthusiastic people.

I am also involved in The Beach Hut Writing Academy, a new writing school established by professional writers in Brighton. I did my first course for them last year, co-teaching on short story practice with Bridget Whelan, and it was a very enjoyable success. The new courses begin on Jan 21st with a Fiction Writing course run by best-selling author Aramanita Hall and then a TV and Radio course taught by Sue Teddern and Hannah Vincent. Our most ambitious plan for early 2016 is a writers conference in Brighton on March 12th. Write by the Sea will feature, best-selling authors, publishers and agents taking part in panel discussions, workshops and one to one pitches, all at the beautiful sea front venue The Angel House. We have agents Simon Trewin, David Headley and Sharon Bowers, Cornerstones Literary Agency, local publishers Myriad Editions, The Writer’s Guild of Great Britain, authors Simon Toyne, Julia Crouch, Lizzie Enfield, Laura Wilkinson, Araminta Hall, Catherine Quinn, Kate Harrison, Sarah Rayner, Sue Teddern, Bridget Whelan, Jo and Emlyn Rees, William Shaw and me. There will also be one to ones where you can pitch or discuss your current project. The full programme is available on our website and the early bird rate is in place until Jan 24th.

Before I had a publisher for Starlings I attended a similar event at The Jubilee Library run by New Writing South. I met other writers, agents and publishers and came away with a wealth of advice and contacts that really helped me get my book published. Rattle Tales is sponsoring a session on Writing A Prize-winning Short Story and so two worlds collide. You’d be crazy to miss it.

Rejection Revisited

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competitions, Jaqueline Paizis, Keats, short stories, starlings, Stephen King, The Manchester Review, The Short review

A few months ago I wrote a post about rejection. It was my most sucessful post since I ranted about old punks wittering on about The Jubilee. Lots of people left insightful and encouraging comments and I was left with the sense that rejection is something we all have to cope with and writers take comfort from all being in it together.

In the six months since 2015 began I have submitted stories and poems to fifty journals and competitions. I didn’t intend it to be so many, in fact, in my last post I said that I wasn’t going to submit to competitions at all. The thing is I have a completed short story collection on the look out for a publisher and I know that a major competition win would help, I have been shortlisted for a few so I know this is not beyond the realms of reason. Of those fifty submissions ten are still out, I was asked to rewrite one (the piece that got me a distinction in my MA) by an American publisher, because it wasn’t satisfying enough, thirty-eight have been rejected out right and then a couple of weeks ago I got my first acceptance of the year.

Let me just say that on that morning I got two rejection emails and was ready to give up on submitting indefinitely. Constant rejection can accumulate into a heavy burden, weighing on your shoulders so much it restricts the movement of your hands over the keyboard. In short, self-doubt prevents creativity. It was either stop the rejection or stop writing. Fellow writer Jacqueline Paizis wrote a heartfelt blog about failing to list in a prestigious short story competition. I failed to list too so I recognised the words of the rejection email.

‘All short stories are about change and transformation’ and ‘need to kick into life immediately with a strong, vivid and involving first paragraph.’

Jacqueline wonders if this is the case for writing to be considered good or if it’s just a proviso of the competition. She also goes on to wonder about the historical writer’s relationship to rejection.

I know stamina is a vital ingredient of any writer’s recipe but I wonder if  Dickens felt he could add nothing to the world because it had all been said before? Did George Elliot doubt she was writing something revolutionary about her sex? Answers anyone?

The thing is they probably did. Even established writers are only as good as their last book. Think of Keats toiling in obscurity, relying on his friends to pay the rent as the critics hold his masterpieces up for ridicule. More recently, think of Stephen King teaching high school and drowning out the volume of failure with buckets of bourbon. They didn’t compromise what they wrote for an easy route to publication.

My story, Miley Cyrus Fault, has no punctuation. I wrote it like this on purpose. It is about a suicidal Big Brother contestant and the form reflects the narrator’s state of mind. It was always going to be a hard sell. I didn’t expect it to win any competitions. People would either understand or they’d hate it and probably not even finish it. I know I polarize opinion with my writing. The first two reviews for Starlings were equally damning and gushing. One said the prose was turgid and over-ambitious; the other compared it to A Visit From The Goon Squad and The Wire. I have kept those two reviews  because both, in their own way, confirm I am on the right track. I refuse to temper my writing to win a competition or get a good review. I am writing for me.

The rejections came in for Miley Cyrus Fault within a week. As a judge for The Brighton Prize and a co-director of Rattle Tales I regularly send out rejection emails. I was sending some out on the morning I got mine fom the competition Jaqueline and I had entered. It’s not personal, but quite often it does comes down to personal preference.

On Friday afternoon an email came in from The Manchester Review telling me they wanted to publish Miley Cyrus Fault. I almost filed it unread because I really wasn’t expecting anyone to publish it. I wrote back explaining my gratitude as I was about ready to give up. The editor, Valerie O’Riordan, wrote back, Keep subbing – it’s a numbers game, really. Persist! I think what she means is simply that the more you submit the more likely it is for something to get published. I would add to that, don’t compromise. If it’s good someone somewhere will like it.

Creative Gifts At Forty Two Brighton

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ALarm Girl, Alexa De Castihlo, Alium B, AOH, Artists Open Houses, Christmas, Forty Two Bright, gifts, Hannah Vincent, Ian Williams, Lark Rising, Maria Tilyard, Modern Love, Myriad, One Must Dash, Penguin, Rattle Tales, Readings, Rob Mettler, salons, starlings, The Good Doctor, The Mysteriious Affair at Castaway House, Vivienne Ridley

This Christmas I am very proud to be a part of the creative community exhibiting at the Artists Open House known as Forty Two. Every year the city’s artists set up shop in their homes to provide an alternative to the mass-produced Christmas shopping experience. This year I am taking part in the house carefully curated by my good friend Vivienne Ridley. Vivienne (formerly of jewellery designers Ridley & Dowse) has launched her new collections at Forty Two. I am particularly pleased because one of these collections is a collaboration with me. I adore Vivienne’s jewellery and she has been nothing but supportive of my writing career, I’ve hardly done a public reading without her present. In the summer I suggested that we could combine jewellery and creative writing to produce stories inspired by unique pieces or vice-versa. I was sure she wouldn’t be interested but to my delight she was very interested and 6 months later we have The Riddler Collection.

The Riddler Collection consists of four stories paired with precious charms in the form of necklaces or cufflinks. They make truly unique presents. We have tried to connect each piece to life events, Sunflower makes a great gift for new mothers or anyone embarking on a new career. The Greyhound could be a retirement gift or a good luck charm. Indian Summer would make a beautiful heart-felt present for the man in your life, combining as it does etched silver cufflinks and the amusing tale of a doctor discovering the meaning of life. Especially for Christmas we have The Christmas Monkey, a pretty silver marmoset and a seasonal story of snow and charity. The jewellery is beautifully packaged in a deep blue box with the story printed on sumptuous heavy card, this is no ordinary Christmas present.

Vivienne’s other collections include Gumball Grandeur in which she takes low value 1950s gumball machine prizes and transforms them into lifelong treasures. With Buttons & Coins everyday vintage items are re-imagined as rings and necklaces and histroy is made current and wearable. Vivienne says, ‘ when I don’t know the history I like to imagine one.’ This is the ethos behind our collaboration. Forty Two is getting loads of local press attention (The Argus, Ect Magazine, We Love Brighton) and it’s no wonder, because it’s not only The Riddler Collection that offers the opportunity to pick up a unique gift. There is gorgeous jewellery from Alexa de Castilho, bright and bold pieces reminiscent of exotic holidays featuring gold and silver palm trees, sharks teeth and animal etchings. There’s plenty to wear with the jewellery too as local fashion labels Modern Love and Alium B are selling their much loved originals. Both labels already have a fond following locally and Forty Two stocks their current collections as well as discounted one offs. Lark Rising provide utterly unique knitwear, no one else will have a winter cardigan like it. Dress your new outfit with vintage wooden decoupage from Use & Take Care, who combine modern and traditional techniques to produce incomparable items.

Maria Tilyard makes heart-stealing creatures from re-cycled materials – foxes, greyhounds, the gorgeous elephant shrews, almost everyone left last week’s private view with a new pet under their arm. The same can be said of the monochrome prints from One Must Dash, who give us posters, T-towels, cards and bags, all in their distinctive quirky modern style. Take it to the other extreme with a handmade bird from Amanda Lawrence, her collection of tiny avains recalls the treasues of Victorian drawing rooms and prove very popular with all who see them. In keeping with the clever naturals theme are De Casa Limited Editions, showcasing bold silk print cushions, tea towels, lights and even deckchairs.

The sell out starat the private view was the work of Vivienne’s seven year old daughter Kitty with her still life collection Kitty Blossom – almost all gone I’m afraid.

I may be biased but my husband Robert Mettler is exhibiting his photographs at Forty Two and they really do have a rare and wonderful beauty. Rob reinvents Brighton’s familiar images by giving them a new and usually unseen quality. The West Pier is bared down into monochrome in Filigree Pier, floating like an apparation over an almost white sea. Scooby Doo Pier captures the modern one from below so that we see what is underneath the surface. Robert has prints that make particularly thoughful presents for locals, showing them a different side to the place we all share, far better to open one of these on Christmas morning than a pair of socks. Robert has collaborated with Rattle Tales on a number of times when we have asked members of Brighton & Hove Camera Club to provide images for the stories read at our events always with unexpected and striking results.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the next two Sundays several authors will be reading at Forty Two. I will be reading stories from The Riddler Collection, Stephanie Lam will treat us to an extract from her Penguin published debut The Mysterious Affair At Castaway House, and Myriad Editions authors Hannah Vincent and Ian Williams will be reading from their latest books. You can also buy my Brighton-based novel Starlings. There are how to craft books on embroidery and print making from Super+Super. Come to these salons to hear inspiring tales, sample the refreshment provided by Brighton craft brewer Goldstone, scoff homemade cakes and afterwards meet the authors and stock up on signed books. We really hope you can join us in this very special shopping experience.

www.fortytwobrighton.co.uk

Elegy To The West Pier

Tags

Brighton, Brighton Beach, i360 tower, inspiration, landmarks, memory, piers, starlings, storms, The West Pier, The West Pier Trust, weather, writers, writing

The West Pier is dying. Last Wednesday a huge chunk of her fell into the sea, dislodged by heavy winds and swelling tides. Now there is a gap on the Eastern side of her and the middle hangs precariously over pirana waves. Brighton’s residents gasped collectively and wailed about her not lasting the next twenty-four hours, many braved the wind to gaze on her last moments. The wind raged through the night but the Pier stood defiant. She won’t last the weekend, they said. Tomorrow a week will have passed but tomorrow the weather forecast is gales and high swells. 

The West Pier features in the first proper short story I ever wrote, a story which went on to form the first ‘chapter’ of my episodic novel, Starlings. For me the landmark is the most beautiful place in the city. She is definitely female and also old. I don’t mean in terms of actual years, I mean anthropomorphically. She is, to me, an old lady. She was once a great beauty, immaculately dressed, popular at parties, blessed of many lovers but then she aged and she couldn’t afford the fine clothes and shiny jewellery the younger girls had and her looks began to fade, people didn’t come calling anymore. She still paddled in the sea, as she had in her youth, but she grew thin through lack of sustenance and good company and her legs withered, the bones showing through. Then there was the fire.

I remember visiting Brighton in the 1980s and 90s and seeing her listing downwards, her paint peeling and windows broken and I remember thinking how romantic it was that she wasn’t a naff bells and whistles fun-fare like the Palace Pier. Every seaside town had a pier. I’m from the North, you couldn’t really beat Blackpool for seaside attractions, but Brighton had the West Pier, decaying, abandoned, loved only by the birds. It was special. The white picket fence brigade hated her then, she was an eyesore, a blight on their beautiful city, someone should do something about her. But whenever I came here she was the thing I wanted to see the most.  She was Miss Havisham. She appealed to my introverted younger self. I wore black then, even in the sun, Wuthering Heights was my favourite book, the Mary Chain played in a loop in my head and I wouldn’t have been caught dead swimming in the sea. What better than a pier you weren’t allowed on because it wasn’t safe! I didn’t want a kiss-me-quick hat and a stick of rock; I wanted to gaze on decay.

I’ve changed, I hope, I like nothing better than a sea swim these days, but I’m still drawn to the desolate beauty of West Pier.  I thought she was at her most beautiful after the fire. I didn’t move to Brighton until 2003 so I wasn’t here for the fire but afterwards she seemed elevated into a new art form, something truly unique.  Her burnt out wreck has inspired me in so much of my writing, even when the work isn’t actually about her, the image of her guides my hand, churning up thoughts of lost beauty and aged stoicism. She is memory personified. She is death. She is anything you want her to be.

Brighton will be a much less interesting place without her. There won’t be the collective thrill of walking around her ruin at extremely low tide or watching the waves crash over her prow in stormy seas. I won’t be able to hear the peculiar metallic  ting of the wind shaking her strutts or see clouds of starlings crowd her at sunset. If I’m honest though I’m really looking forward to seeing her fall. To me she is a reminder of our mortality, that technology is meaningless and that all things eventually come to an end. How much sweeter it is to be here when she goes? To be able to say ‘I was there when…’ This is selfish of me I know, but I don’t want her rebuilt like she was, because then she’d just be another pier and in the end she’s so much more than that.

If you are not as selfish as me and you would like to see a life size sculpture of the West Pier on the front when she goes then please sign this petition (anything is better than a stupid tower).

Diary Of A Book Trailer – Part One

Tags

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.

Unblocking With Poetry

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Aadvarks, Arthur C Clarke, astronauts, fathers, fiction, novelists, novels, Paragraph Planet, poetry, Rattle Tales, science, short stories, starlings, Ted Hughes, writer's block

Here I am two weeks into 2013 and despite my best intentions I am not sticking to my creative resolutions. Like every other writer I set myself the unyielding target of 2,000 words per day, every day. But, like many others I’m sure, I only managed to stick to this target for a matter of days. It’s not that I’m not writing but the first resolution, written in capitals at the top of my list is WRITE SECOND NOVEL IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE YEAR! For the last ten days I have diligently sat down at my desk and tapped away at my brilliant new idea, heartened that it was following a very different trajectory to the one I had envisioned (I always think this is a good thing, that it means it has its own life and that I’m just the means of expression). I appeared to be writing a science fiction novel with a creationist theme, in which the only beings left on earth are six female astronauts, a couple of angels and a whole lot of demons – it’s deep, either that or it’s just plain silly. Around seven days in, a bit like God I imagine, the doubt started to creep in. What am I doing? Do I think I’m Arthur C. Clarke or something? Because of this whispering devil I found myself coming to a standstill, wasting my time researching Hilary Clinton and the Chinese space program on the internet I realised that despite my best intentions I was blocked, the words just weren’t coming.

I’m no stranger to writer’s block. Starlings came to me in a rush, from first sentence to final draft in less than nine months. I was a thing possessed. I just HAD to write it. I have tried to write a second novel three times in the last two years and each time I have failed to get passed 20,000 words. Granted in that time I have completed an MA, helped established Rattle Tales on the spoken word circuit, almost accidentally accumulated a themed short story collection and set up this blog, so it’s not as if I’ve done nothing, but I am getting slightly nervous about my inability to press on with a new novel. I don’t want another false start but the fact is that 2,000 words a day isn’t happening. Who am I kidding? 500 words a day isn’t happening.

Last Christmas my husband Rob gave me a Writer’s Block – a small brick of a book with an idea for beating the block on every page. Should you find yourself creatively stalled you open It at random and follow the instruction, a bit like the creative equivalent of throwing a dice. On Friday, frustrated by several hours at the keyboard with nothing to show, I decided to give it a go, flipped it open and read,

Write A Poem.

This was unexpected, but in fact last year, after a hiatus of around thirty years, I have begun to write poetry on a regular basis. It all started because I wrote a couple of 75 word paragraphs for the website Paragraph Planet.  I thoroughly recommend you try this, especially at the start of your writing day; creating a fully-formed mini story certainly helps you focus, my post productive days usually start this way. Because each word is so important I tried to be as poetic as possible in my descriptions in order to make a lasting impression. A startling image sticks in the mind and makes the best use of your 75 words. (You can see my contributions to Paragraph Planet in their archive – there’s also an author interview). I took the first two paragraphs I’d contributed and began to experiment with form to create something more akin to poetry than prose. My friend Lonny, who writes poetry as well as prose, always tells me not to be afraid of poetry, to just give it a go, but most people are terrified of it, even reading it seems scary. I really got into reading poetry when I did my MA. I remember loving it in 6th Form – doesn’t everyone? – Ted Hughes was on the syllabus so that helped, knowing that poems could be written by someone from Yorkshire and still be considered good! After playing around with my paragraphs a bit I came to the conclusion that what I had written were actually a couple of poems, not very accomplished poems, but poems nonetheless. It was fun, deciding where to break lines, which words to rhyme, repeat, what rhythms to use. I’m not saying I’m any good at it but it’s extremely creative and it makes you think in ways you wouldn’t normally, especially about the flow of language.

So, using a poem to help writer’s block appealed to me. This is what I wrote. It’s a first draft – I don’t like the end and it doesn’t flow yet – and if you want to comment on it please feel free. I might go back to it next time I’m blocked so constructive criticism welcome.  Now, back to those astronauts…

A Jacket for My Father

There, at the end of the rail,

brown suede with zippered pockets

like snoring eyes

and a soft mocha collar.

I reach out and touch

bringing sleeve to cheek,

and with it, memory

bittersweet.

So much history was lost

with your bones;

a pit escaped on horseback –

galloping to another hue.

Khaki stripes that saw

the founding of the Jewish State,

and dodged from shells in the East.

You danced to Elvis as a wall erected

piece by piece.

Finding symmetry in a divided place,

Your daughters grew and loved,

stood to attention

as red blossoms fell

like confetti from above.

Grandsons born and never cradled –

the stallion now asleep in his earthen stable.

Do you need help?

She asks, with wry eye and kindly smiles.

Lost in the nap against my cheek,

inside, I yelp and cry

focus its label with my moistened eye.

A jacket for my father,

comes my reply.

This one’s too small 

I say

too small by miles.