Happy New Year...

Happy 2017...

I hope your Christmas went well.

Today is very foggy and cold, so apart from a brief trip outside I've been indoors in the warm, relaxing, catching up with friends online and reading.

I've also being making a few definite plans for the first few months of 2017.

With Take A Break Fiction Feast moving to only accepting fiction from those writers on their preferred list, it means that the remaining markets are going to be getting even more submissions, so I need to get on with writing and sending out the stories that I have ideas for (that fit their requirements).

But first I want to get on with adding to and revising my epistolary story (that I got second place for in the writers' club winter quarterly prose competition 2015/16), as there's currently a subscribers only competition in Writing Magazine for this form. The deadline for this is mid February, so my personal deadline will be the end of January.

Having not looked at it since the spring, my subconscious has developed the idea a bit more.

Of course I also need to get back to the second draft too.

Finally there's my annual word total that I reveal at the end of the year- to remind myself what I've done, and that I can do more the next year...

In 2015 I wasn't including my blog posts, which I did include this year. And of course when I'm editing something I'm usually taking away not adding words so that will drop the 2016 total a bit.

2015 total: 28,795

2016 total: 34,612

That's an increase of  5,826 words on last year.

So that's it, my last blog post of 2016.

It's been another year of surprises, learning and improving.

See you in 2017...



image: pixabay

Merry Christmas to All...

This is my last post before Christmas as I'll be busy this week with the final preparations for the big day, now all my family are home...

I don't have room for a proper Christmas Tree at the moment, so I have a little fold-out paper one that sits on my office window-sill; and there's purple, red and blue tinsel around the doors, while the Christmas cards get stuck to the wall with Blu-Tack. :-)

However you may celebrate this time of year...

image from Pixabay

Guess What I Won?

Well it's the day after the night before and I can now reveal what I've been keeping quiet about since late October...

I won one of the annual competitions at Nottingham Writers' Club, the Rosemary Robb trophy for a ghost story titled, 'The Wishful Spirit'.

Winning the Rosemary
Robb Ghost Story
Trophy

Writers are told to persevere and never throw anything away. Well the story that won this competition proves that statement...

In 2008 it was the first year the ghost story trophy competition ran; it was for a 1,000 word story (that year). I'd never written a ghost story before, but I tried anyway, and received some useful comments from the judge- the writer whom the trophy was named after, and who died a few years later.

The story was filed away and over the years I'd revised it and then put it away again. You see my ghost wasn't the scary type and most markets wanted the creepy sort...

In 2013 I rewrote it and entered it into a national competition, but didn't get anywhere again. Honestly I think it was really just the wrong competition for it.

So back in the box it went until late 2015 when I began to rewrite it yet again making some major changes and eventually submitting it to Woman's Weekly, as they mentioned in their guidelines at that time, 'quirky', and my ghost certainly fitted that description.

Sadly it was rejected.

Meanwhile, as Prose Secretary for the writers' club, I'd asked writer Wendy Clark to judge this year's Rosemary Robb Competition this autumn ( after reading her blog post about writing ghost stories) and she agreed. 

Having received the story back from the magazine I decided I'd enter it into our club competition to get some feedback, and hopefully find out what wasn't working.

I'd already decided a couple of things needed a slight adjustment, and one bit removed. As the maximum word count was 2,000 words I needed to lose about 500 words while still making the changes I needed. After a number of intense revisions I reached the maximum word count and entered it into the club competition.

As writers can have lots of contacts both online and off, the club has always asked members to use a pseudonym on their entry's cover sheet. 

We know our judges would never be influenced by already knowing an entrant, and as Prose Secretary I'm careful not to inadvertently write or say something that one of our judges might see- if I know them, and I intend entering.

So I was absolutely amazed when the results were returned. I'd won! I actually read the email twice to ensure I hadn't misread it.

One of the comments in the judge's feedback that made me smile was, "I found myself chuckling at the phantom, Bold Jack's, asides and imagined him dressed in full 'Captain Jack Sparrow' pirate regalia!" 

That wasn't too far off my mental image of 'Bold Jack' too, although older than the movie pirate... :D

So there we are full circle; the story first written for this trophy competition in 2008, finally won it in 2016. Even though it had rejections and all those revisions, the core of the story never changed.

Have you ever had any stories which took a long time to succeed?

 

Not Long To Go...

A gem of a book...

Not long to go has a few meanings.

Christmas is of course fast approaching, and this coming Wednesday it's Awards Night at the writers' club.

I may have a few photos I can share next week...

College and Uni finish this coming Friday so I'll have a houseful from next weekend until early New Year. As much as I love my brood, it does mean any quiet time to write is reduced to a dripping tap that quickly gets fixed.

So there will only be a couple more posts until after Christmas.

Meanwhile I've been considering ideas for both my blog and Serena's.

I've also been catching up on my reading while I've had a spare ten minutes, or while waiting for appointments...

One of my recommended reads that would make an ideal Christmas present is From Story Idea to Reader by Patsy Collins and Rosemary J. Kind. And it's not because I know the authors.

This is a book I wish had been around when I first started writing, as it has a friendly and very comfortable and clear style; but there are sections more experienced writers can dip into that inspire me, and (new to me) techniques to try out. It's available on Kindle and as a paperback via Createspace, either from Alfie Dog (see link below) or Amazon.

I haven't finished reading it yet as I've not had enough free-time, so that's another delight to come over the holidays.

Earlier this year Patsy guest posted about using Createspace to turn her e-book novels and short story collections into paperbacks; and Rosemary is the owner and editor of Alfie Dog Fiction.

If you're in the UK and are signed up to Goodreads then there's an opportunity to win a copy. Click here.

I still have a number of photos to finish sorting and labelling up too, and I want to get a few blog posts written up for those busy times...

More soon...

Review of 2016...

As the next few weeks will be busy, I thought I'd do my annual review now.

I feel it's helpful to remind myself what I've achieved across the year, and if something hasn't gone as I'd hoped, well perhaps there's something I can learn from it, or accept that circumstances sometimes interfere in our plans, but that's life and writers aren't immune to those issues.

My word count total isn't yet complete for the year, but I've already exceeded last year's total...

2016 hasn't been as good as previous years, and not everything has been positive.

 So here goes.

January

I was rewriting and editing a short story for submission to the women's magazine market - sadly it was rejected just under the three months after it was submitted.
Though I never give up on my stories, so I'll look at it again and see if anything obvious punches me in the nose.

As I was intending to enter the writers' club's winter quarterly prose (deadline early-March) I was pondering a few ideas. Epistolary fiction is an interesting medium for a story and can be hard to get right, but also easy to get horribly wrong.

February

The magazine short story (mentioned above) was sent out, and the epistolary story was under construction.

March

My old Windows 7 desktop finally packed up, so I had to shift my office around to remove the defunct equipment and replace it with a Windows 10 device.

It took me a while to get my brain to work around Windows 10, and there are still times that it's frustrating, but I've learnt to live with it.

I also did a guest post about writing groups over on Patsy Collins' Words About Writing and writing about words blog.

As a reader for the Nottingham Writers' Club National Short Story Competition (link to the 2017 competition) I had a portion of the first round to read and comment on.

And the epistolary story came 2nd in the club's prose competition.

April

The posts this month were popular. I had guest posts from author (and writing buddy) Patsy Collins; who not only had a new book out, but was giving helpful advice and information for anyone interested in going from e-book to print using Createspace on Amazon, here and here.

This month also began the second draft of my Nottinghamshire short novel.

There was time for a one-day workshop on historical fiction with author Judith Allnatt, in the Alan Sillitoe Room on the top floor of the Nottingham branch of Waterstones.

One of the exercises at the workshop had presented me with a new character (I'm still not sure how her story will end up, but I'm sure I'll find out some time in the future).

I've been on the Talkback forum (part of the Writing Magazine writers- online website) for years, and taken part in the One Word Challenge, 200 words to write a story on theme of that month's chosen word.

April's word happened to be Jeopardy, so I rewrote the exercise piece that was based on the senses- and I was one of the runners-up on April's Challenge.


May

May was a challenge.

There was a lot going on personally, and I'd also lost, and attended the funerals, of two writer friends, one in late March, and the second a few weeks later. Though both were older and infinitely wiser, they were willing to ask advice about blogging and e-books, and I was happy to be able to help.

Both Stan and Ron were gentlemen, and they willingly shared their knowledge. I will not forget their generosity, and their support.

June

As in other year's there was the writers' club stall at the Lowdham Book Festival.

Plus I was able to get to a couple of exhibitions courtesy of a long weekend in York; Shaping the Body at the Castle Museum, and the final week of a Shoe Exhibition at the 18th century Fairfax House.

The visit also gave me the opportunity to meet up with writer friend, Maggie Cobbett.

July

With university and college finished for the summer, home life was noisy, and my inability to get quiet to write was frustrating and depressing me.

I did some research on a new project, and struggled on.

August

Was the memory stick issues. Discovering I'd lost some work on a stick that would not open on my new computer, or my OH's laptop. But the sorting, checking and labelling of the remaining functioning sticks has proved time well spent.

September

Disaster with the discovery that I had  also lost the whole of my first draft, and the first three chapters of the second draft on another memory stick. Thankfully I had everything printed out, so all was not completely lost.

I purchased a portable hard drive- no explanation needed...

Revised another story Woman's Weekly rejected.

October

I hadn't been feeling too good for months, so saw my GP. Had to stop taking one of my medications and wait for six weeks to completely clear it out of my system. Surprisingly I started feeling the improvement quite quickly and the ongoing lethargy faded.

I enjoyed meeting up with #writingchat co-hosts Patsy Collins and Maria Smith for a few hours at the Attenborough Nature Reserve.

With the renewed energy I ventured further afield to Leicester and was welcomed into the RNA (Romantic Novelists Association) Chapter, the Belmont Belles. In the short time I've been connected, I've learnt a lot.

With the additional energy (because my blood pressure had gone up) I began the second draft again, using the printed copy to retype and make other changes- I've almost done Chapter Two.

November

The blood pressure is now sorted, but I need to lose weight. I also need to see the Osteopath about my back too... :(

I've had a small success with a letter in the December issue of Writing Magazine.

And I get a mention in the current Writers' Forum magazine, where the writers' club national competition is the Competition of the Month on the page compiled by Helen Walters.

December

Well I know I have good news to share, but you'll have to wait a bit longer for that.


I didn't set too specific targets last year - on the 23rd November to be exact - my Serena Lake website and blog has suffered with my lack of energy and tiredness, so I didn't give it the attention I wanted to.

I have been open to writing and researching opportunities, so I've met that target.

And reading and writing, well probably more of the former this year.


So for 2017 my general aims are:

Carry on with the second draft.

Get out into the world more.

Continue being open to writing opportunities.

Read more.

Write more.

And lose weight... :-)

November Means the Bad Sex in Fiction Shortlist...

Around this time in November the shortlist for the Bad Sex in Fiction Award is announced.

The Award  was established by Auberon Waugh, the then editor of the Literary Review, and literary critic Rhoda Koenig.

It has been awarded every year since 1993.

"the Bad Sex in Fiction Award has honoured an author who has produced an outstandingly bad scene of sexual description in an otherwise good novel. The purpose of the prize is to draw attention to poorly written, perfunctory or redundant passages of sexual description in modern fiction."
Literary Review

When you consider how many books are produced, it's going to be the mainstream published type that will get the most notice, and readers who think these books deserved nominating...

You can read about a few of the nominated authors who escaped the shortlist in this Guardian article about this year's list.

(The new US President Elect was nominated apparently, but was excluded because it wasn't fiction...)

So this year's contenders:

A Doubter's Almanac by Ethan Canin

The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler

Men Like Air by Tom Connolly

The Butcher's Hook by Janet Ellis

Leave Me by Gayle Forman

The Day Before Happiness by Erri De Luca


Having read the entries for this year, I can't see why Gayle Forman was included...

Whoever wins will likely see a rise in sales following the announcement on the 30th November.

Of the candidates this year, it has to be Erri De Luca's The Day Before Happiness. But Janet Ellis does deserve a commendation for The Butcher's Hook...

Which will win?

image courtesy of       & freedigitalphotos.net