Competitions to Enter in February

Lucy Cavendish College Prize 2017. The winner will receive a cash prize of £1,500, together with the offer of a ‘guaranteed’ contract with Peters Fraser Dunlop.   A longlist of twenty will be published in March/April, with a subsequent shortlist of five invited to a dinner in Cambridge on May 25th, when the winner will be announced. In addition, all shortlisted entrants will receive a half-hour consultation with Judge and literary agent, Nelle Andrew, who will give editorial feedback and discuss the marketability of the work submitted – something that money can’t buy! Deadline is noon on February 10th, with an entry fee of £12. One vital point: you must be a female author, aged 21 and over.(Sorry, Ed!) Details and entry: http://www.lucy-cav.cam.ac.uk/fictionprize/

Writers & Artists’ Yearbook Short Story Competition. 2,000 words on an open theme. ENTRY IS FREE, but you must be registered on http://www.writers-andartists.co.uk. The prize is an Arvon residential writing course of your choice, plus online publication. Deadline: February 13th. Details: http://www.writersand-artists.co.uk/competitions.

Exeter Writers Short Story Competition. 3,000 words on an open theme. Entry fee: £6. Prizes: £500, £250, £100, plus £100 for a Devon writer. Deadline February 28th. Details: http://www.exeterwriters.org.uk

Bath Flash Fiction Award is for 300-word entries. Prizes: £1,000, £300, £100, plus fifty long-listed entrants offered publication in an anthology. Entry £9. Deadline: February 12th. Details: https://bathflashfictionaward.com/enter/

Flash 500 Short Story Competition. 1,000-3,000 words. Entry: £7 for one, £12 for two, £16 for three, £20 for four. Prizes: £500, £200, £100. Deadline: February 28th. Details: http://www.flash500.com

Kelpies Prize – novel for children. Are you based north of the border? This prize is for a children’s novel ‘set wholly or mainly in Scotland’. Entry is FREE. Prize £2,000, plus publication. Deadline 28 February. For details, including suggested manuscript lengths for different age categories: http://www.florisbooks.co.uk

Nottingham Writers’ Club Short Story Competition. 2,000 words on the theme of ‘food and/or drink’. Prizes: £200, £100, £50, plus runners-up prize. Non-professional writers only, please. Entry fee: £6 for one or two on-line entries; £5 each for three or more. Deadline: February 28th. Details: http://www.nottingham writersclub.org.uk

And finally – because the deadline is March 1st –  the CWA Margery Allingham Short Story Competition. 3,500 words, but see website for Margery’s definition of a mystery. Prize: £500, plus a selection of Margery Allingham-related books. Entry fee: £12. Details: cwa.co.uk/debuts/short-story-competition 

DO PLEASE CHECK OUT ALL DETAILS BEFORE ENTERING. Good luck!

You will see that the typewriters are getting older. Next month we will feature a quill pen…

Of Human Telling

Today is publication day for Tanya’s new novel Of Human Telling, the second to be set in the fictional town of Wharton. The novel follows the hidden struggles of three families, beneath the smooth veneer of middle England. Jane, a music teacher coping with recent heartbreak, finds herself the thread linking them all together.
This is a subtle, perceptive study of family conflict, which manages to be devastating, funny and ultimately hopeful.

The book can be purchased on Amazon, or at any good bookshop.

(Eight of the ninevoices)

We said we wouldn’t…

Tags

dog training, puppies

…but we did. After eight dogless months we decided that was enough, and Skipper came into our lives.
Both Skipper’s parents, Mum bichon frise and Dad cavalier spaniel, are classed as toy breeds. Skipper, if he were required to reveal his ethnicity, would probably state “lupine.” As he howls into the darkness of the garden chasing away all phantoms and hobgoblins he proves he is no lap dog.
Now we no longer focus on the day-to-day needs of children or grandchildren, our Benjamin pup has established himself as the centre of our lives. We buy his expensive food – no supermarket cheapies for him – in bulk to economise (ha!). He has three winter coats and it seems he will embark on a grooming regime that surpasses our own.
Skipper goes to training classes and workshops. Our previous dogs learnt from their older companions, but Skipper is an “only” and demands the best. The classes that involve a pocketful of treats are tolerated until ten minutes before the end when Skipper’s body language says, ‘I’m out of here.’
He’s been here six months now. He’s just announced, ‘Mum, I’m a teenager now. Leave me alone. You can get back to your writing now. I’ve distracted you long enough. There’s a bird in the garden that needs chasing. Yohoooooo!’

Amazon Literary Prize for Self-Published Authors

Tags

Costa Book Award, Man Booker Prize

Amazon is apparently to create its own literary prize, with £20,000 going to an author who has self-published their work on its Kindle platform. The winner will be announced at a ceremony in London in July 2017 and the prize will include a marketing campaign supporting the winning book, plus the opportunity to have it translated for international sales.

Amazon have presumably been moved to do this because self-published works are ineligible for Britain’s major prizes (including the Man Booker and the Costa Book Awards), being seen by some as the poor relation of books with the weight of a major publishing house behind them.

The new award will recognise authors who are popular with the public, with the winner being decided by a panel of ‘expert judges’. Sales figures and online reviews will be taken into account.

Time was, when serious writers avoided self-publishing because it seemed synonymous with vanity publishing. No longer. And a good thing too…

Printers …

Tags

BBC Radio 4, Inanimate objects, Malice, Mark Forsyth, Printers, writing groups

Printers. They exemplify the innate malice of inanimate objects.

Your printer waits for you to be late for a session of your writing group, when you just have to print off six copies of your new chapter and then rush off to catch the bus, at which point it announces that the magenta cartridge has run out. Why does that matter? You’re printing in black and white! Can’t the magenta wait till you’re back this evening and actually want to print off something with colour in it? No, you must change it now.

Or you run out of paper and you forgot to buy some more the last time you were passing Rymans.

Or you’re being good and conservationist, and want to print something on the other side of a used piece of paper, but you forget just how to put that paper in and find you’ve printed your new text all over the used side.

Or, the machine sits there talking to itself, over and over again, muttering but NOT PRINTING. You daren’t turn it off and on again, for what terrible revenge might it then wreak?

Or, you press ‘Print’, but nothing happens. You click on the status bar and it tells you that you have one document waiting to be printed. Yes, indeed you do! There’s nothing else waiting so why doesn’t it get on with it?

When you’re really up against the deadline, it can play the jammed paper stunt. How to retrieve that crumpled piece of paper, without tearing it and leaving behind a scrap of paper that will continue to jam up the works?

No, it just sits there and waits …

I’ve not turned on my printer while writing this. I just hope its pal my PC doesn’t tell on me when I wake it up.

[These thoughts were prompted by today’s broadcast of ‘The Museum of Curiosity’ on Radio 4, when the etymologist Mark Forsyth’s donation to the Museum was a printer that doesn’t work. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b088f2vz, 19 minutes in ]

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Help!  Since writing the above, I’ve turned on my printer, only to read a message telling me not to use it because it is ‘sending usage information’.  To whom? Did my PC grass on me after all?  Is ‘sending usage information’ a euphemism and what it’s really doing is summoning help or plotting retribution?  What other machines are in this fearful network?

 

 

To Pay or Not to Pay (or How Much to Pay)

Tags

Cornerstones, Curtis Brown, Daniel Goldsmith, feedback, Fish Publishing, Hilary Johnson, Manuscript submissions, mentoring, Novel, The CWA, The Literary Consultancy, The Romantic Novelists Association, Writers & Artists

I recently had this somewhat disconcerting exchange with a writer I met in a chat room:

Me: Do you belong to a writing group of any kind?

She: I am a published writer.

The writer in question then inundated me with copies of her (self-) published poems and stories. I didn’t have to read very far to conclude that, while I admired her self-confidence, she would have greatly benefited from feedback of some kind.

But this raises a question: How far should we go in seeking feedback and assessment before pursuing publication?  Agents and publishers are inundated with submissions and can rarely take the time to provide individualized comments along with their rejections. Writing groups such as our own ninevoices provide a wonderful forum for reaction, constructive criticism, advice and, at times, brainstorming. But after twelve years together we know each other well and have become as familiar with and protective of one another’s work as we are of our own. This is when we consider using paid manuscript assessment services for an ‘objective’ outside view.

There is a wide array of such services available. You can pay as little  as £100 for a detailed critique of your first 3000 words and a 1000 word synopsis to as much as £2,650 for twelve months/60,000 words mentoring with extra fees for each additional 1000 words. The critics/mentors are generally published authors or industry professionals and most of these claim working connections with agents and publishers.  In other words, pick the right assessment service and you could have a one-stop shop for unbiased, professional advice and, if your work is good enough, a foot in the oh-so-heavy-door to publication.

The problem, of course, is finding the right service for you. Will the person reading your manuscript understand what you’re trying to achieve? Will they appreciate your quirky style? Are they experienced in your genre? Members of ninevoices have had mixed experiences. Two found the assessments of their work truly constructive and professional. A third felt the reader had completely missed the point and, in the event, reclaimed some of what she had paid. And, of course, while ostensibly objective, some of these businesses can play on our eagerness for publication by soft-peddling criticism and encouraging us to use more of their services to whip our manuscripts into shape. I’ve yet to hear of any manuscript assessment service advising an aspiring writer to take up watercolours.

There are other (not always cheaper) ways of obtaining feedback outside the group setting: many competitions will provide a brief critique should you make the shortlist, or, for a small additional fee, for any entrant. Genre-specific associations such as the Crime Writer’s Association and the Romantic Novelists Association also offer services for aspirants.

And then, of course, there is the growing number of courses linked to literary agents or publishing houses. Curtis-Brown Creative, for example, offer a range of courses led by published authors both online and in their offices. According to their website 27 of their students have achieved major publishing deals. At £2990 for a six-month novel writing course, the cost is not dissimilar to a University course with the added benefit of exposure to agents.

For many of us, creative writing courses are where we began our writing journey.  But we continue to find genre-specific workshops, retreats and even longer courses useful. And we can return to our writing groups energized and inspired from having garnered a different perspective.

However we get it, most of us, including published writers, need and benefit from feedback. We’d love to hear how our readers go about getting it and whether they’ve found paid-for services useful and value for money

Some of the services researched (this list is not comprehensive and readers are encouraged to check carefully the details of each company’s services as they vary widely):

http://cornerstones.co.uk/uk/

http://www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk.

http://www.thecwa.co.uk/debuts/manuscript-service/

http://www.danielgoldsmith.co.uk/

http://www.fishpublishing.com/editorial-services/critique-service/

http://www.hilaryjohnson.com/

https://literaryconsultancy.co.uk/

http://www.romanticnovelistsassociation.org/join/new_writers_scheme

https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/writers/services/bespoke-mentoring

 

Synopsis and blurb writing: is escape possible?

Tags

blurbs, Marketing, self-publishing, synopsis

Writers struggling to write a synopsis for their novel are not short of advice. There is almost too much of it, and most of it repeats the same things. Yet we still turn to it, always hoping for that vital crutch which will somehow give us the magic touch and get the beastly time-consuming thing done.

Writing a synopsis is especially annoying because it’s not for the author – it’s for the agent, publisher or the competition judge. It’s all made worse by them each wanting something different: one page or five, single-spaced or double-spaced, the ending specified or not. And we are always going to feel that somehow our synopsis does not do justice to the novel we have written.

But the agony – if that is what it is – may have  its uses. Having to give a clear, short account of the premise, story and principal characters could help us spot weaknesses which we were previously blissfully unaware of – such as unnecessary characters, lack of tension, a flat ending. Uncomfortable moments for any author. Time for a bit of tweaking to the manuscript.

One of the joys of self-publishing is escaping the slog of writing a synopsis. But it’s only trading one thing for another. A traditional publishing firm will have experts in-house to write that vital marketing tool, the blurb. The self-published author is on her own.

There is only room for a few pungent sentences on the back of a novel. The blurb must give an instant and unequivocal explanation to the person who has picked up the book and turned it over. What kind of novel is this, what’s it about, and what’s in it for me?

This is when a blurb seems even more daunting to write than a synopsis. It’s the permanent, public face of the novel, not something that’ll happily disappear into a publishing firm’s recycling bin. Go into any bookshop and scan the blurbs of new novels, super-charged with superlatives and best-seller promise. They are sometimes rather alike but they do sound as though they have been written by an extremely talented marketing person. It’s very tempting to wish that person would do the job for us.

But perhaps the blurb we write for ourselves will be more true to our own novel, because it will convey the unique flavour of our voice, the individual way we use language. This may not dazzle the casual reader, and it may even repel some, but it will capture something that can be lost in professional blurb writing and marketing expertise, what can best be described as tone. Something that makes our book different from the rest.

 

 

 

 

Competitions

Tags

The Book Guild, Writing Magazine

There was an important omission from our recent Competitions to Enter in January post for those keen to see their book in print.

The Book Guild, in partnership with the excellent Writing Magazine will pick one winning book, which will be published by The Book Guild later in 2017, subject to the winner signing a contract with them.

They need:

• The first chapter
• A one-line elevator pitch, or tagline
• A 500-word synopsis of the entire story
• A brief account of your publishing/writing experience to date
• A 500-word plan of any promotional opportunities and how you see your book fitting into the marketplace.
• Your novel manuscript to be ‘finished and ready to go’ at 60,000-100,000 words

The closing date is 31 January 2017.  Entry is £5.  So, only two weeks in which to get your act together.

The Book Guild will provide a copy edit, cover design, full text design and layout, one set of proofs for the author to check, ISBN allocation, bookshop sales representation, marketing to the trade and media and distribution to the trade for one year.

Whew! Too good an opportunity to miss. PLUS the winner will also receive £1,000 in cash, courtesy of the David St John Thomas Charitable Trust.

Paste each of the five required texts into a single document and enter through the website: http://www.writ.rs/winabookdeal which gives full details. You do not appear to need to be a subscriber to the magazine.

Time to hit the keyboard – though you should maybe use something more up-to-date than this old typewriter, photographed on a freezing pre-Christmas visit to Knole, where it sits in the office of the estate’s agent.

 

 

 

Anglicanism and Women Novelists: A Special Relationship

Tags

Barbara Pym, crime fiction, P D James

 

The lecture at the 2017 May meeting of the Barbara Pym Society  in London looks like being a good one for anyone interested in the relationship between Anglicanism, women novelists and detective fiction. It’s being given by Alison Shell, a professor in the English department at University College London. She is currently co-editing Anglican Women Novelists (Bloomsbury 2018) to which she will be contributing an essay on P D James – Baroness James was an honorary  life member of the Society and a great admirer of Barbara Pym’s books.

The Barbara Pym Society website is http://www.barbara-pym.org

Procrastination

Tags

oven cleaning, Procrastination

Running out of things to do rather actually starting that chapter? Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty more ideas if you play Procrastination Bingo – on Jennifer Moore’s site at https://jennifermoore.wordpress.com/2016/04/29/procrastination-bingo/

I’ve already ticked off the Spider Solitaire one (in fact I do every day).

Would one way out of this problem be to reverse the situation? Perhaps you could set yourself the task of cleaning the oven, and then beginning your new chapter could be one of the things you just have to get out of the way before you start? Just a thought.

Thanks, Jennifer.