• About
  • GCA and the need for funds
  • Publications
  • Writings

ninevoices

~ Nine writers on reading and writing.

ninevoices

Monthly Archives: February 2015

Writing Opportunities in March

27 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by ninevoices in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Bath Novel Award for the first 5,000 words of a novel, plus one-page synopsis. Prizes: £1,000. Entry fee £20. Closing date 31 August. Website: http://bathnovelaward.co.uk

Mslexia Women’s Short Story Competition. Up to 2,200 words, by women. Prizes: £2,000, £500 and 3x£100m plus publication in the June 2015 magazine. Closing date 16 March. See website: http://www.mslexia.co.uk for details and entry charge.

Jane Martin Poetry Prize. Up to 4 poems, prizes: £700 and £300. Free Entry. Closing date 21 March. Website: http://www.girton.cam.ac.uk

Scottish Arts Club Short Story Competition. Stories up to 1,500 words, entry fee £10, closing date 31 March. Website: http://www.scottishartsclub.co.uk

West Sussex Writers Short Story, stories up to 3,000 words. Entry fee £5. Prizes: £200, £75, £50. Closing date 31 March. Website: http://www.westsussexwriters.co.uk

Short Fiction Journal International Short Story Prize. Stories up to 5,000 words. Entry fee £5. Prizes: £500 plus publication, £100. Website: http://www.shortfictionjournal.co.uk

The Power of the Writing Group

27 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by ninevoices in Maggie

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

C J Sansom

Have just finished C J Sansom’s LAMENTATION, the latest of his excellent Shardlake whodunit series set in Tudor England.

He has over two pages of acknowledgements, but his very first sentence gives tribute to …’my friends in the writing group’.

Find me a hero worthy of the name

26 Thursday Feb 2015

Posted by ninevoices in Observations, Reading, Tanya

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Charlotte Bronte, Fifty Shades of Grey, heroines, modern heroes, Mr Rochester

‘Reader, I married him’ – such a splendid and triumphant remark from Jane Eyre.

She was marrying a creep of course, but that is by modern standards. In Charlotte Bronte the heroes are generally bossy, arrogant, and sadistic if not actually wicked. Women had such a hard time of it then, it’s hardly surprising they turned a blind eye to men’s defects – or actually found them sensually attractive.

A letter written by Charlotte Bronte to a friend sheds some light on how women probably coped: ‘Man is indeed an amazing piece of mechanism when you see, so to speak, the full weakness of what he calls his strength. There is not a female child above the age of eight but might rebuke him for spoilt petulance of his wilful nonsense’.

But Charlotte Bronte’s heroes are at least memorable, both in themselves and the passionate love they inspire in the women who fall for them. Think of Lucy Snowe’s feelings for Paul Emmanuel in Villette: ‘Once – unknown and unloved, I held him harsh and strange; the low stature, the wiry make, the angles, the darkness, the manner displeased me. Now, penetrated with his influence, and living by his affection, having his worth by intellect, and his goodness by heart – I preferred him before all humanity.’

Paul Emmanuel is very far from perfect, and certainly not handsome, but he is a substantial three-dimensional character who dominates the novel. Where are the comparable heroes in modern fiction?

Our celebrated tradition of complex and magnetic heroines who forever linger in the mind continues, but I can’t immediately think of any particularly admirable men in novels published recently. Are we, in an age of equality, really happy to be reduced to the likes of ridiculous Christian Grey who might be said to follow in a direct line from Mr Rochester, that would-be bigamous seducer with a habit of buying women?

Writing poetry – how I get started.

20 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by ninevoices in Jane

≈ 4 Comments

It usually comes from an experience. I start with a story. And then it evolves. And changes. Very occasionally, the whole thing appears and I have to put it down. Usually, it is a long slow process. Writing. Re-writing. Sometimes, I end up revising poems months, or even years later. A lot of scribbling takes place. It is often frustrating, but also can be cathartic. With all of us in ninevoices, I think writing is a kind of compulsion.

Marketing is no fun

18 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by ninevoices in Tanya, Writing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

All Desires Known, Marketing

“So what’s it all about then?”

The polite enquiry from people who haven’t read my novel All Desires Known. A nasty moment when my mind becomes a blank sky, thoughts disappearing like migrating birds. A faltering explanation which gives the wrong impression and might be about a different book altogether. My novel is boring. I am a bore.

Ridiculous to be floored by the question. If you’ve written and published a novel of course you know what it’s about. But it’s about lots of things and you aren’t any good at soundbites.

There’s no excuse. “Sum up your novel’s unique selling point in a single sentence” – anybody who’s attended a creative writing class or read a writers’ magazine will be familiar with that little exercise. Can it really be done?

I only know it needs to be. Here’s what I wanted to say to my questioners.

The contradictory and confused impulses of the human heart; the claustrophobic world of public schools; false allegations of abuse; the devastating nature of teenage mental illness; and over it all, the power of art to reveal and redeem.  Do we have a right to be happy at the expense of other people? How far should sacrifice be taken? It’s a question that the three main protagonists of All Desires Known have to face.

Psychiatrists get a bad press. They’re usually presented as creepy, sinister or plain barking. The hero of All Desires Known, Dr Lewis Auerbach, a Jewish expert on childhood psychosis, reverses the trend. He’s a good man, he’s giving his life to helping children with mental illness, he thinks he can stick to the rules he’s set himself. He’s got his life organised into two tight compartments…

Nor is Martin Darrow, the exemplary chaplain at Wharton public school, any more successful at knowing himself – and to what depths he might sink. There’s a lot of hot air talked about forgiveness, especially by the Church. It’s easy enough to preach. And where is God in the whole homosexual debate?

It’s hardly surprising that the heroine, portrait painter Nell Garwood, is attracted to these two men. Like them, she has made wrong choices in the past, misread herself and other people, not least her indulgently generous husband Alastair.

People are not what they seem, cries Nell, halfway through the novel. No, they aren’t, we’re all getting it wrong about each other most of the time. In All Desires Known, characters comment on each other, but they’re all prejudiced in one way or another, so are they reliable narrators? The reader must work it out, but there must always be uncertainty, because people and life will always be half-finished and messy.

How can this be summed up into a handy soundbite selling sentence? Writing a novel is easy compared with marketing it.

 

Recycling the plot?

16 Monday Feb 2015

Posted by ninevoices in Maggie

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Hamlet

The Honourable Lucinda Cholmondeley-Coutts wasn’t doing anything unusual in stealing the plot of Hamlet (see Meeting the Agent, below, on January 8).

Browsing the DVD’s recently I noticed something called Thrones & Empires, mainly because it featured Helen Mirren: Fenge steals the throne of Jutland by killing his brother, King Hardvanael and marrying his widow. Hardvanael’s son, Amled, feigns insanity to avoid his own execution, but Fenge doubts his condition and ships him off to England to be murdered. Instead the prince marries an English rose, returns and extracts his revenge.

It’s been tweaked a bit, but then Shakespeare wasn’t averse to a bit of tweaking of his own…

Writing Challenge

12 Thursday Feb 2015

Posted by ninevoices in Maggie

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Writing Challenge

Ring the bells, grab that good bottle of red from the back of the cupboard, I’ve finally finished DOUGLAS DODD’S WOMEN. My deadline was the beginning of January, so I’m four weeks late, but without putting myself on the spot, I’d still be floundering around at 40,000 words.

Finished isn’t finished, of course. Lots of polishing and tinkering still to do. But the story is there, I knew where I wanted to go and, finally, I got there. It’s a good feeling, especially as I haven’t yet sent it out and received any of those dreaded rejections…

Writing Opportunities in February

01 Sunday Feb 2015

Posted by ninevoices in Coming up

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

chapbook publication, Poetry Competition

Some of these deadlines are soon, so no time to lose!

Lumen/Camden Poetry Competition for poems up to 40 lines. Prizes: chapbook publication. Entry fee: £2.50, or £10 for six. Closing date February 14. Email adele@wardwoodspublishing.co.uk

Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook Short Story Competition. Up to 2000 words on the subject of ‘Joy’. £500 prize, plus place on an Arvon writing course of your choice and publication on their website. FREE ENTRY. Details from http://www.writersandartists.co.uk/competitions

BBC National Short Story Award. Stories up to 8000 words on any subject. Prizes: £15000, £3000, three £500 runners-up. All to be broadcast on Radio 4. FREE ENTRY. Closing date 28 February. Details http://www.bbc.co.uk/nssa/

Exeter Writers Short Story Competition, any genre and theme, but not children’s. Up to 3000 words. Prizes: £500, £250, £100.
Closing date 28 February. Details from http://www.exeterwriters.org.uk

Grace Dieu Writers’ Circle Short Story & Poetry Competition. Poems up to 40 lines and stories up to 2000 words, on any subject. Entry fee for poems, £5 for three, £3 for each additional; short stories £6, then £4 for each additional. Closing date 28 February. Details http://www.gracedieuwriterscircle.co.uk

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • July 2014
  • April 2014
  • February 2014
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013

Categories

  • 2017 Hysteria Writing Competition
  • Adventure
  • Agents
  • Alan Bennett
  • Amazon Self-Publishing Award
  • Art
  • audiobooks
  • Authors
  • Autobiography
    • Claire Tomalin
    • Stephen King
  • Barbara Pym
    • A Glass of Blessings
  • BBC1
  • Bestsellers
  • Biography
  • Book etiquette
  • Books for Christmas
  • Bookshops
  • Bridport Longlist Published
  • challenge
  • Characters
  • Children's books
  • Christopher Fielding
  • Classics
  • clergy
  • Collaboration
  • Colm Tóibín
  • Comedy
  • Coming up
  • Competition
  • Competition Win
  • Competition Winners
  • Competitions to Enter
  • Crime
  • criticism
  • Dame Hilary Mantel, Reith Lectures 2017, Historical Fiction
  • Dialogue
  • Drama
  • eBooks
  • Exeter Novel Prize
  • Factual writing
  • Fame
  • feedback
  • Festivals
  • Film
  • Finding an Agent
  • Finishing that novel
  • Forty-six years
  • Fowey Festival Adult Short Story Competition. Daphne du Maurier
  • Genres
  • Getting down to it
  • Getting Published
  • Girls Gone By Publishers
  • Good Housekeeping Novel Competition
  • Grammar
  • Halloween Writing Competition
  • Heard lately
  • heroes
  • heroines
  • Historia
  • Historical
  • History
  • Homework
  • Horror
  • How to Write a Short Story
  • Humour
  • Hystyeria 6
  • Ideas
  • Imagery
  • Imagination and the Writer
  • Inspiration
  • Jane Austen
  • Jane Austen House Museum
  • L. M. Montgomery
  • Laptops and Coffin Lids
  • Location
  • Lockdown
  • Maggie
  • Management
  • manuscript services
  • Margaret Kirk
  • Marketing
  • McKitterick Prize
  • Memoir
  • Military
  • Mslexia
  • Mslexia Writer's Diary
  • Myslexia Magazine
  • Mystery
  • Mythology
  • Newly Published
  • Newly Published Author
  • News
    • Competitions
    • Obituary
  • Ninevoices
    • Anita
    • Christine
    • Ed
    • Elizabeth
    • Jane
    • Maggie
    • Sarah
    • Tanya
    • Valerie
  • Ninevoices' winning short story
  • Observations
    • Grammar
    • Words
  • On now
  • Orion Publishing
  • Our readers
  • Plot
  • PMRGCAuk
  • Poetry
  • Publish Your Book
  • Publishing
  • Punctuation
  • Puppy Dogs
  • radio
  • Read Lately
    • Articles
    • Books
  • Reading
  • rejection
  • religion
  • Research
  • reviews
  • RNA Learning Programme
  • Romance
  • Romantic Novelists' Association
  • Sarah Dawson
  • Satire
  • Science fiction
  • Seamus Heaney
  • Seen lately
  • Shadow Man
  • Short stories
  • Short Story Competition
  • Social Media
  • Spelling
  • Sport
  • Spotlight Adventures in Fiction
  • Structure
  • Style
  • submissions
  • Synopsis Writing
  • Technology
  • Television
  • The Bridport
  • The Bridport, Lucy Cavendish, Bath, Yeovil, Winchester
  • The Daily Mail Crime Novel Competition
  • The Impostor Syndrome
  • The Jane Austen House Museum
  • The London Magazine Novel Competition, Henshaw Press, Writing Magazine, Writers' Forum
  • The Mirror & the Light
  • The Servant, Getting Published
  • The Times
  • Theatre
  • Thomas Hardy
  • Thrillers
  • Translation
  • Travelling hopefully
  • Uncategorized
  • Valerie
  • villains
  • Vocabulary
  • Volunteering
  • War
  • Websites
  • Windsor Fringe Kenneth Branagh Award for New Drama Writing
  • Winning Competitions
  • Wolf Hall
  • Words
  • Writercraft
  • Writerly emotions
  • Writers' Forum
  • Writers' groups
  • Writing
    • Column
    • Drama
    • Fiction
    • Poetry
    • Stories
  • Writing Competitions to Enter
  • Writing games
  • Writing Historical Fiction
  • Yeovil First Novel Competition

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy