Guest Blog by Colin Mulhern - Why Blother?

I’ve noticed the question, ‘Should writers blog?’ appearing on several writing forums. The thread usually follows the line of what a writer’s blog should contain, whether they have anything useful to say or advice to give and what sort of numbers are reading. If the readership is low then it seems to reimburse the right to question, why bother?

No one ever asked that question about keeping diaries, so why blogs?

I’m guessing it’s because a blog, unlike a personal diary, has a potential audience. It’s out there; it’s published. And for the writer, that’s a good thing. Just having a blog puts a pressure on you to update the thing. If you include “writer” as a hobby or occupation, then there is added pressure to make sure the posts are something half decent. Not only do you have to think of a subject worthy of posting, but have to edit it and kick it into shape to prove you really can do what you claim.

And that, for me, is enough reason to sit in front of a screen and bash out updates to a blog that perhaps only one or two people ever read.

There is always the chance of an editor considering a manuscript to Google my name and end up on my blog, so I have to maintain a certain quality of narrative. Sometimes I post about writing, sometimes about personal stuff, and sometimes I post book reviews. But it’s all writing. It requires planning, drafting and polishing to a level you might not do if the work wasn't going on show.

So, should writers blog? My opinion - yes, because the more a writer uses those fundamental skills, the better those skills will be.

But, if you are a writer who blogs, bear in mind that you really are putting your wares on show to the world. It really is essential to produce work you’re proud of, because the bottom line is as simple as this: if your blog stinks, maybe your fiction will too.

Colin Mulhern writes dark fiction for Young Adults. His first novel, The Devil's Prayer is currently with publishers. While waiting for the millions to roll in, he works as a teaching assistant in a primary school. Check out Colin's blog here.

A guide to writing course dwellers

As a connoisseur of courses, here’s a directory of the type of people you will meet if you sign up for a series of evenings, or an inspirational weekend.


The Bookwife
She writes now the children are at school, or ideally have buggered off to university. She fits writing between school runs, food shopping, house cleaning, cooking, and dutiful love-making. Her one aim is to validate her life by achieving something. She is galled at her husband’s expense account lifestyle and important sounding lunches, and longs for something to show what she’s worth. That means one thing – publication. Bookwife wants to learn as much about the craft of writing as she can, as quickly as possible, and then churn out something publishable.

Output: she’s on her third unpublished novel.

Spends most of the course: frowning, and the breaks phoning in to check that the kids are alright.


The Lit-chick
She’s a girl on the town complete with glossy shoes and glossy hair. Writing is what she always wanted to do; it’s why she read Eng Lit (at Oxford, of course). She’s doing a job that she calls “dullsville” as an assistant to some big knob in advertising. The job's not important, just a way to earn a little pocket money, but somehow that, and keeping up with hundreds of friends, leaves little time to write. The party last weekend was such a hoot, she could hardly miss it. Her output of text messages betters the word count of most authors.

Output: she hasn’t a novel on the go and might never finish one, but if she does it will be an instant best seller.

Spends most of the course: giggling with the other Lit-chick sitting next to her.


The Bookfly
Each day he wears the same pair of scuffed leather jeans and the black tee shirt. To acknowledge his late arrival on the second morning, he grunts in the direction of the course tutor and then explains how he drank a whole bottle of whisky last night in some dodgy club in Brixton. When he learns that you don’t worship Bukowski, he sneers. Whenever one of the other writers reads their work aloud for criticism you can see him scratching his stubble and raising his eyebrows in feedback. His own idea, still in concept form, is for a novel about an altered political state based on a cult of violent sex.

Output: he’s got too much of a hangover to write today.

Spends most of the course: eyeing the Lit-chick.


Gramps
He’s been writing, on and off, for sixty years. Now retired from his job as an Educational Realignment Counsellor and Coordinator with Brent Council, he’s free to do so full time. He generously offers willing advice based on his vast experience to all, including the course tutor. He also shares from his life experience without reserve, in detailed anecdotes for the benefit of the whole class.

Output: Over three hundred “poems”, some published in the Brent libraries annual. Collection upon collection of short stories including a volume he had printed himself in 1967 which he’d love you to take a look at, if it's not too much of an imposition. A novel he’s been working on for five years, set against the background of the Boer wars, now standing at two hundred thousand words.

Spends most of the course: comparing his own narrative style to the great English diarists.


The Exotic
Her parents escaped from some war-torn hell-hole ten years ago. She reads from her work with a bowed head in a voice barely audible. Her words seep onto the walls and are splattered on the ceiling in a way that changes the whole atmosphere in the room. When she finishes, silence grips every throat as we absorb the horrors that have just been related. Finally, the tutor calls for a break. In the break, Gramps and The Bookfly can be heard agreeing that she can’t write.

Output: the book is nearly finished and she has an offer from a publisher.

Spends most of the course: taking feverish notes, staring at the page, avoiding eye contact.


The Gossamer Strand (can be male or female, or some combination of the two).
As thin as a sheet of paper. When Gossamer reads there is silence too: an awed appreciation of the poetic nature of the work. There’s a wispy translucent quality to the prose as she reads in a stumbling voice. In the breaks, when Lit-chick or Bookwife try to befriend him, he shies away, says he'll stay in the room, finish the exercise the tutor set. He doesn’t turn up on the last day of the course.

Output: carries a binder stuffed with manuscript pages, but it’s nothing worth mentioning, ‘Just an early draft’.

Spends most of the course: saying that she’s no good.



All of the above characters are entirely fictional and any resemblance to members of my writing circle is entirely accidental.

Why bother with Twitter?

Some say Twitter is essential for writers; others sneer at it as a time-wasting exercise in vanity. I wouldn't say it's essential (which for me means stuff like oxygen and water), but I do find Twitter useful and, what's more, fun.

I've only been on Twitter a couple of months, having resisted joining for ages because it seemed pointless. Like many people who have never looked at it, I thought it would consist of morons informing the world that they're about to eat a doughnut, or that their baby is a genius because it just did a poo.

I was finding, however, that most people I knew elsewhere on the net were other writers, and could not necessarily be expected to have an interest in my history blog. I wanted to find people with shared non-writing-related interests and - dare I say it - I wanted a change from the kind of tortured writerly discussions that always include the phrase 'oh God that's so depressing'. I joined Twitter mainly to promote my blog, but was pleasantly surprised to find there's a lot of interesting, intelligent and funny tweeting going on.

I am certainly no social media guru, but from my limited experience, the advantages of Twitter are:

• You can tweet your blog posts to a wide audience. My blog stats have more than doubled since I've been on Twitter. I also use it to catch up with other people's posts and now don't bother much with RSS.
• If you already have a book out, chatting to people on Twitter encourages them to check it out – but this is all about talking with others because they are interesting, not about constantly begging everyone to buy your masterpiece.
• If you don't have a book out, gathering a crowd of relevant followers who get to know and like you will be useful if you ever do get published.
• Many agents, publishers and book trade news sources are on Twitter, so you can get an insight into what they're doing and what they're looking for.
• Some famous authors are also on there, and if they're using it properly they'll engage with their readers – you can actually find yourself chatting to your literary hero or heroine as if they were a normal person, which usually they are. (Certain ones just broadcast and won't respond to anyone, but this doesn't do them much good.)
• It's a useful exercise in brevity – you have to choose words carefully to keep to the 140-character limit.
• People post interesting links – brilliant for finding research sources, writing advice, short story markets, book recommendations etc.
• You don't have to talk about writing all the time. Well, you can talk about nothing but writing if you want to, but there are lots of other people out there too.

So, is it worth a published writer joining Twitter to publicise their book, or for an unpublished writer to build up a following ready for when that six-figure deal comes along?

Well, yes and no. It's worth it if you will enjoy it anyway. Joining purely to promote yourself or your work could backfire – either people will get bored with your egotism or you'll get bored because your heart's not really in it. And if you aren't published as yet, there is the possibility that you never will be, so being on Twitter under sufferance purely to prepare for a deal that might never happen is a bit sad. If you don't want to join Twitter, don't. You and your writing will survive without it.

If, however, you plan to enjoy it for its own sake and are prepared to join in the conversation and appreciate what other people are saying, then give it a go - it could have a lot of benefits for your writing career.

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www.carolinerance.co.uk

twitter.com/quackwriter

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UPDATE: Nicola Morgan at Help! I Need a Publisher! has a great post today about how to get started on Twitter - click here for her excellent advice.

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Thank you to Crystal Church for the picture.

Winner of Guest Blog Competition!

Some of you might remember our Guest Blog Competition from September and today we announce the winner who will have their article posted on Strictly Writing, plus will win a signed copy of Damaged Goods, by our very own Helen Black...

So, without further ado, well done to... CATHERINE HUGHES! We couldn't resist her idea of sharing the positive experiences she has had with literary agents, as these people so often receive bad press.

Many thanks to everyone one who took part - we enjoyed sifting through some intriguing and humorous entries.

Catherine, we'll be in touch! And look forward to eventually reading your post...

"Our Spoons Came from Woolworths" - review

It was Josa Young, author of “One Apple Tasted” and recent guest blogger here on SW, who chose Barbara Comyns’ “Our Spoons Came From Woolworth’s” as her favourite book. I was immediately taken by the title and looked it up on Amazon. A Virago Modern Classic. Published in 1950. A novel set in the Bohemian London of the 30’s about marriage, poverty, and adultery, praised by none other than Graham Greene as having “an off-beat humour” and ending happily. Oh, yes. I already knew this was my kind of book and I was right.

Sophia is twenty-one when she marries Charles, spoiled only son of divorced parents - the ghastly Paul and the even more ghastly Eva. Despite having no money, they are happy at first. Charles stays at home all day and paints his still lives – the description of which had me howling with laughter - while Sophia goes out to work and learns how to cook, though until she gets the hang of it everything tastes of soap and she has little idea about what to ask for at the butcher’s.
' “Can I have a small joint of bones stuck together?” '

So far so light-hearted. It all starts to go wrong though when the cheques in the drawer run out, unfortunately coinciding with Sophia’s realisation that she is pregnant. Here is the conversation the newly weds have together to discuss their plight:-

‘Charles said, “Oh dear, what will the family say? How I dislike the idea of being a Daddy and pushing a pram!” So I said, “I don’t want to be a beastly Mummy either; I shall run away.” Then I remembered if I ran away the baby would come with me wherever I went. It was a most suffocating feeling and I started to cry.’

Sandro’s arrival marks the start of the end of their marriage. Charles refuses to take on any work to support the family and no one will buy his paintings and they are plunged into greater poverty though occasionally it’s alleviated by offers of modelling work for Sophia. When she gets pregnant for the second time, she is forced into an abortion, which goes badly wrong and leaves her hating Charles. She turns to Peregrine, an older artist, for comfort and enters into an affair, which results in a third pregnancy.

So many things go wrong for Sophia but she tells her story with an admirable stoicism, dipping into a delicious black humour, which buoys up the reader throughout the grim bits – and there are some – particularly her experience of giving birth and the episode where she contacts scarlet fever. But we know from the first paragraph that it will all end well for her, so we can put up with the bad bits.

Comyns writes in an almost childish way, though it is far from artless. She uses slang of the period – ‘frit’, ‘waddy’ (lame) and ‘stiff with’ to mean ‘full of’ are her favourite words and she has an occasional habit, when using two adjectives, of putting them in the wrong order, which makes what she says sound very childlike.

Her descriptions are short but always original. Here she is on her landlady: ‘Her face (was) like a melting ice cream, rather a cheap one’

Occasionally she steps right outside the story, as in this example: - ‘This book does not seem to be growing very large although I have got to Chapter Nine. I think this is partly because there isn’t any conversation. I could just fill pages like this:
“I am sure it is true,” said Phyllida.
“I cannot agree with you,” answered Norman.
“Oh, but I know I am right,” she replied.
“I beg to differ,” said Norman sternly.
(There is neither a Norman nor a Phyllida in the entire novel, by the way!)

“Our Spoons Came From Woolworth’s” is a little gem of a novel, shining a light on a dreadful era in history – the Great Depression – while at the same time managing to appear so very modern. One word of advice – don’t read it while you’re in the middle of writing your novel/story/whatever. Comyns’ idiosyncratic style works its way off the page and fastens itself onto your imagination to the extent that you won’t be able to stop it rubbing off on your own prose.

Quickfire Questions with... Penny Holroyde

Penny is an agent at the Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency Ltd.

The author I wish we’d ‘discovered’ most is…..
Oh, have a guess!

Left on a cliffhanger or told all?
Sadly, it’s an agent’s lot to have the ending ruined so if this question relates to the synopsis, please tell all! When I’m reading for pleasure (a vain aspiration) I prefer to have things resolved. The last two books I’ve read seemed to race to a close and left me wanting somewhat.

The perfect book deal is…
Decided upon quickly, for the right kind of money, with the right kind of contract, but most perfectly when the author and editor are perfectly married and everyone from sales, marketing and publicity to the post room are excited about the book and the author.

You really must read…
Something is Going to Fall Like Rain by Ros Wynne Jones. This is partly a gratuitous plug for a friend’s book but also a great example of how first novels, with work, can become expertly polished.

I get most excited by…
Ahem, at work? It’s weird, I’ve been working in the publishing for 14 years now and I still get the biggest buzz when someone places a finished copy in my hand.

My biggest tip for a writer is…
One thing that irritates me the most with unsolicited submissions are the people who’ve read just enough to know that their idea might have a commercial application but not nearly enough to know how utterly derivative their submission is. I know authors are always told to read but I might venture that revision is more valuable.

An author should never…
Compare their work to Rowling or Pullman.

My pet hate in a submission package is…
Oh don’t get me started! There are so many transgressions in this regard – ribbons, treasury tags, folders, Sellotape, staples, string yadda yadda yadda but difficult-to-open packages is a particular bugbear of mine because I’m already bristling with resentment for the author before I’ve read a single word. Also a too-small envelope for return.

Favourite desktop snack
Oh God help me, I have become completely addicted to Walkers Sensations roast chicken and thyme flavoured crisps.

Best thing about my job is…
Seeing something go from a twinkle in the author’s eye to a bound book on a shelf in a shop. There’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears from many people along that route and as an agent, you get to see it all.

Email or phone?
Email all day long. I like the phone but people in publishing (agents included) seem to rarely be at their desks when one wants them.

The hardest part of my job is…
Apart from the workload it’s rude responses from total strangers. It should be water off a duck’s back I know but agents are people too. At least I don’t keep them any more.

The most common mistake I see is…
I focus on writing for children and the most common mistake I see is [writing] patronising tone and [illustration] no children.

If I didn’t work in the literary business I would be a…
Chef. In my darker moments I think perhaps a media lawyer but no, really, I’d be a chef.

ONLY DISCONNECT

I’ve gone Wireless.

Viki (local white witch, astrologer and computer expert) spent several hours sorting this out for me. Part of the process involved me having to change into red clothes because of Mars. But let’s not go there.

You must understand that I am a Luddite of the first order. Technological change is anathema to me. I’m the one who tried to back up my work onto a mouse modem. Let’s not go there either.

I went Wireless because I wanted to be able to use my laptop in my attic study alongside my trusty old PC (1996 – the Luddite in me hates to let it go). And I wanted to do this because then I wouldn’t be continually drawn to checking my email at the kitchen table. Like many Luddites, I suspect, I am hideously addicted to any small technological thing I can do.

So now I have a sweet little white doo-dah with feet and a tiny tail (I keep wanting to feed it snacks because it crouches beside me in a permanent begging position) which sends magic rays to my laptop and allows it to work anywhere.

Anywhere. Suddenly, the umbilical cord which has tied me to the kitchen table has been cut. I sense freedom. For the first hours after Viki leaves, I wander the house with my laptop, drunk on all the possibilities. I can email in my attic! I can email in the garden! I can email in my living-room – here, where the sun shines! Ooh, I can email at the other end of my kitchen under the boiler! Oh my god - I can email sitting on the toilet! (which, given some of my output, may be the most suitable place for a Shitty First Draft.)

So why am I sitting back at my kitchen table writing this (in between obsessively checking my emails)? I suspect that this may be a turning point in my writing life. I thought I wanted to move forwards technologically. Now I think that I also need to move backwards.

Let me explain. Laptops and PCs are wonderful. In the click of a mouse they can take me to distant countries, can give me information on any subject I need to know about. I’m a very fast typist (I trained on old, metal-gilled recalcitrant typewriters, so the freedom of a touch-sensitive keyboard was like sprouting wings). I wrote my non-fiction book and my first novel on a PC – it came easily because the words seemed to leap straight from my head to the screen. Why, then, do I recently feel a deep yearning to write longhand, in a book?

Patrick Gale planted the seed. At a seminar, he passed around his first draft of Notes From An Exhibition – an A4 lined book, full of scribblings and notes and pages of longhand. For me, it felt like the Holy Grail, though I didn’t then know why.

Wirelessness represents freedom. Flexibility. Portability. Being able to pick up email anywhere is undoubtably an advantage. But where writing is concerned, I need to go back to basics. I need to go not only Wireless, but Machineless. After all, what’s the epitomy of portability and flexibility? The human hand. The pen, the paper. You can do it anywhere, plugless, wireless, bootless. There’s something intensely sensual and intimate about writing longhand. The contact between the body and the page. The way the words tumble out onto paper, ill-formed, awkward, scruffy, shitty.

So yes, I’m still scuttling back to my laptop-in-the-kitchen. But the seed is growing. Reculer pour mieux sauter. Because one day, one day soon, I will do it. I will roll up my sleeves and write longhand. And I will probably wear red.