Bank Holiday Writing

I took yesterday to draft a couple of new short stories (and edit a few odds and ends.) One for a woman's magazine -- probably Take a Break -- with a twist ending, and one for Writing Magazine's "The Sea" competition.

I had already written one for "The Sea" comp, but initial reader feedback (and the fact it's about 200 words too short) suggests it might be ideally suited to a woman's magazine. I may enter it for the competition, then send it out to magazines in six months or so -- I believe they're buying Christmas stories at this point...

It came to over 3,500 words of "new" writing (rather than redrafting) yesterday, in total, so not bad. I also listened to a few back episodes of Michael A Stackpole's The Secrets podcast; some excellent advice there.

1,850 words tonight

I managed to draft a whole short story this evening, which was good going, for a Friday night. I usually take Fridays "off" writing, but since I spent the whole of yesterday evening in the pub, figured I'd write today instead.

I've been trying to follow Iain Pattison's excellent advice about entering competitions, so this one had a bit more "bite" to it than my usually slightly-bland, unobjectionable stories. On the down side, it needs a lot of rewriting and work, but on the plus side, I feel it's a bit different to what I usually write, and has quite a nasty dark edge...

I also emailed off a short story to Sunpenny Publishing's Open Competition: it doesn't close until the end of September, though.

Tomorrow morning, I'm heading back to Oxford for a week, to help with St Nic's holiday club; hoping I can get a decent amount of writing done in the afternoons/evenings. I'm meeting up with a good friend from my old writing group for dinner tomorrow, so looking forward to that. And I have another of Iain's books ("Cracking the Short Story Market") that I've been saving to read on the coach...

Writing this Week

So far this week:

- Monday evening: drafted a 1000-word proposal to send to the Arts Council (the gist being "Please give me some money so I can do less tech support and more writing")

- Tuesday lunch: my copy of Writing Competitions: the way to win arrived -- hurray! Picked up some very useful tips

- Tuesday evening: Reworked (most of) short story for Writing Magazine's "The Sea" competition, in the light of useful tips...

- Wednesday evening: Revised short story 'A Glass of Orange Juice' a bit, in the light of Nick's feedback. Packaged up and stuck in postbox for Take a Break. Finished reworking "The Sea" story. Wrote new cover letter for "The Programmers Downstairs" and bunged it in an envelope, with SAE etc.

Feeling a Little Rejected

Two short stories returned yesterday -- one from an online market I wasn't too enamoured of anyway, and one from Interzone (my long humourous sci-fi story about zombie computer programmers). The latter is going off to Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine tomorrow, if I can get hold of an International Reply Coupon to enclose...

I also had an email from My Weekly, saying that they'd been inundated with submissions since producing their new guidelines, and asking me to resubmit after 24th September, to give them time to deal with the backlog. So not a rejection as such, but a delay.

Lulu delivers!

The return to work today after a week's holiday was lightened by:

• The presence of Nick (though it is very weird seeing him in an office, as opposed to a pub...)



• The arrival of a package from Lulu ...
  
  

Coloured Words Card

I made this yesterday, for The Boyfriend's step-niece (I think I've got that relationship right), who's two tomorrow.

Incidentally, it's even harder to create coloured-paper-poetry than magnetic-poetry; you have to get a good balance of colours, as well as choosing the words...

Swanwick Writers' Summer School

I'm slowly readjusting to the real world this afternoon, post-Swanwick fun. It was a great week, though a little different from what I'd expected.

It was fantastic to meet several other young (and not-so-young!) sci-fi/fantasy writers, many of whom were also into fanfic and roleplaying (hurrah!) We had some good chats over meals, cups of tea, and drinks in the bar -- and a couple of workshop sessions that I bullied people into...

I think I picked my courses unwisely, opting for Image in Creative Writing despite suspecting it "wasn't quite me" (something of an understatement), then switching to The Novel which was interesting but somewhat repetetive of information I'd already had from books, and focusing on genres I don't write. The workshop structure for the Character sessions was hampered by the size of the group, too.

However, there were some outstanding talks and courses; Della Galton's two-part workshop on writing for the womens' magazine market was excellent, full of detailed and specific information about the big players in that area. (Incidentally, I picked up a copy of My Weekly for the train home, which had a nice little humourous story by her -- it was great to be taught by someone who's making a full-time living from their short story writing.)

The other highlights were Iain Pattison's very informative (and funny) talk about being a competition judge (I'm going to buy his books now), and a self-development/confidence type talk from John Lamont, who was an excellent speaker.

Certainly, the week has had the intended effect of making me feel more encouraged and inspired about my writing; I'm now thinking of doing a chick lit novel for NaNoWriMo this November. The Boyfriend can cook dinner for the duration. (I haven't told him this yet...)

Off to Swanwick

I'm off today for a week at the Swanwick Writers' Summer School. I've been looking forward to this for ages; it'll be great to spend a week focusing on writing!

My mum's coming too, so also pleased to have the chance for it to just be the two of us. Odd how much more I appreciate my parents now I've left home. ;-)

Back in a week, hopefully having learned lots and met lots of writers...

Lots of writing, and submitting

I am still around, and still writing -- been working on three different short stories over the past week. (One drafted, one complete-and-ready-to-post, one only first draft.)

I sent out four magazine submissions on Monday; I'm expecting it to be a month or so before I get replies (judging by the response time on the last batch.) And I sent a letter to Writers' News and a poem for the readers' page to Woman's Weekly Fiction Special. I need more stamps...