My Ode To Autumn

Tags

Alice Cunninghame, Autumn, Ben Wishaw, Brighton, Brighton Digital Festival, Bristol Prize Anthology, Charleston, Halloween, John Keats, Lastest Music Bar, Lonny Pop, novel, Ode to Autmn, poetry, Rattle Tales, short stories, Slam, Small WOnder, summer, The Bristol Short Story Prize, What Me & Pa Saw In The Meadow, writer's block, writers, writing

Autumn has arrived. Last week was all sweltering heat and last minute camping trips then the storms came and swept summer away in a flash. The sun is still shining but there’s a morning chill on the school run and I have plans to make blackberry jam! I love autumn; it’s my favourite time of year. My friend Sara Crowley (sara crowley.com) posted on Facebook that the first week in September is the start of a new year; it has a new pencil case smell. I have to agree and it also means it’s nearly Halloween, which is my favourite day of the year, but I’m getting ahead of myself. 

What did my summer bring? One thing I can tell you is that I only wrote 300 words in the whole season.  All intentions of finishing my short story collection vanished in a haze of French sunshine and days on Brighton beach, followed by frantic preparations for my oldest starting secondary school. From Latitude Festival (which for me marks the start of summer) to September 4^th I wrote practically nothing. But, aren’t writers supposed to write every day? Isn’t it a compulsion that can’t be denied? Obviously not for me. I have to admit I was quite surprised. I have written something (anything!) almost every day for a number of years. However, I didn’t start writing seriously until I was thirty-nine so I suppose I haven’t followed convention to begin with. To all those people who think you have to start when you are a tortured teen and build from there I say – Pah! (sticks tongue out and blows seasonal raspberry). It’s never too late to start; if you feel compelled just have a go. Granted, there is a lot of bad middle-aged writing out there but there’s a lot of terrible writing by people under thirty too. Good is good. And bad is bad. If you want to start writing in the autumn of your life there’s nothing to stop you, you could have fifty years of work ahead of you (think Diana Athill, Frank McCourt, Richard Adams hell, Bram Stoker was fifty when he wrote Dracula). Plus you have all those years of wisdom behind you to try and sense of it all. Autumn see, it’s a wonderful time.

Anyway, after eight weeks away from writing I have been unstoppable. Inspired by my son starting big school I started on a short story based on dramatic events at my secondary school in the 1980s. I have written 10,000 words in five days. This short story is no such thing, it is a novel, the novel I have been looking for since Starlings flew from my imagination in a little under nine months. I have characters and plots and a beginning, middle and end and no dirty great road block saying stop.

There’s so much happening elsewhere this autumn too. Brighton Digital Festival is underway. The spoken word group I’m involved with, Rattle Tales, joined in by putting on a show of global consequences. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend but it sounded amazing. Members of Rattle Tales, the audience at The Latest Music Bar and writers on Skype created a story live from a skeleton of pre-prepared words, themes and actions. There was a lot of shouting and then there was a story! The results will be posted on the Rattle Tales website later this week. Well done to Alice Cunninghame who organised and led the event.   

On September 27^th, Rattle Tales is helping out with the Short Story Slam at the Small Wonder Festival in Charleston. One of our founders, Lonny Pop, is hosting and members of the group with be setting the tone by reading three-minute shorts on the theme The Shovel. Believe me you want to go to this one if you can. Lonny is a brilliant host; her motto is ‘never yawn!’ There will be no chance of that , when Rattle Tales have finished it’s over to the audience; names pulled from a hat and then three minutes to delight the judges and the chance to win £100. Click here for tickets. There will be another Rattle Tales show next month, keep checking the website for details www.rattletales.org.

The thing I’m looking forward to most in the next few weeks is The Bristol Short Story Prize on Oct 19^th. I am utterly thrilled to have made the short-list this year. All year, what I have considered to be my best work, has been rejected by EVERYONE, not even a sniff, no long-lists, no publications, barely even a reply until the Bristol long-list was published in July and my story What Me & Pa Saw In The Meadow was on it! Then came the email telling me I was short-listed and would be included in the anthology. I have several Bristol Prize anthologies and I think the standard and originality of the stories is incredible so I am awed to be included. I am really glad that someone enjoyed reading my story as much as I enjoyed writing it. You will be able to buy a copy on their website.

I leave you with a link to Ode to Autumn by Keats because it’s lovely. I was trying to find a version brilliantly read by a woman (because I’m sure there are some out there and you rarely get to hear one) but I want to get back to my writing and, in my humble opinion, Ben Wishaw reads it as well as it can be read.

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

Tags

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.