What to learn from rejection; as for feedback, never a lender be

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Lending money, Piers Blofeld, rejection, Twitter

Thanks to Maggie for tweeting a link to the agent Piers Blofeld talking so helpfully on the five types of rejection (for authors, that is, not in love or life generally!). That’s at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leHTWbBces4&feature=youtu.be. Well worth six minutes of a would-be published author’s time.

He also speaks of the need for harsh feedback on one’s work. Quoting an unnamed author, he advises, “Never seek feedback from someone you’d be prepared to lend money to.” I’m not sure I’ve worked that out yet.

(Incidentally, and at the risk of causing embarrassment, I’ll add that Maggie’s tweets on writing and the frustrations and satisfactions thereof themselves always repay study. https://twitter.com/maggiedavieswr1 )

 

 

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How Proust can change you into a best-selling author

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Marketing, Proust, Social Media, Writing Magazine

It seems that self-promotion is now part and parcel of being a writer, whether self or traditionally published. But where should the line be drawn?

Discovering that Marcel Proust, the creator of the iconic In Search of Lost Time, cunningly wrote a critic’s review citing the first volume Swann’s Way as a ‘little masterpiece … almost too luminous for the eye’ will hardly shock anyone in the business today. Proust was just ahead of his time.

Authors are bombarded with advice on how to promote their books, especially on social media. While it isn’t ever suggested that posting fake reviews of their own work is a good idea, the advice to authors is relentless, even ruthless, enough. There is no room for shrinking violets in this game.

Readers certainly like to be informed about a new book by an author but they may well begin to feel annoyed and manipulated if the chasing is too hard-boiled. Like ‘an insane cuckoo clock’ was the expression describing it that caught my eye when researching the subject on the internet. Is this what marketing on social media can turn into? The last thing many writers feel like being part of.

But I can feel Proust egging me on. Maybe not to write a lyrical review about a ‘little masterpiece’ of my own, but to point to a couple of prize-winning short stories in ninevoices’ writings. Maggie Davies’ Till Death Do Us Part won a Henshaw Press competition and Tanya van Hasselt’s Marshmallow Truth won the subscribers ‘Changes’ competition in Writing Magazine. Whilst the writing style in the latter story is nothing like that of my two self-published novels, it was both fun and fulfilling to try something new. Thank you Writing Magazine for this encouragement. 

Poetry, Please.

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National Poetry Day, The Times

 

How better to celebrate National Poetry Day than to share with you words penned by our resident poet, Jane, on the birth of a grandchild?

Reuben was one of the poems in Jane’s book Fragments of Love, the title poem of which was originally printed in The Times in February 2010 as Love’s Fragments.

Jane generously donated profits from Fragments of Love to the ‘Cinderella’ charity PMRGCAuk, which supports sufferers from the painfully debilitating condition, polymyalgia rheumatica.

Being any kind of writer is hard. Being a poet is almost impossible. Let’s celebrate every last one of them on this, their day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Congrat…s!

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Cliff Richard, Eurovision, neologisms, Paradigms, Pet hates, Rafael Nadal

For many of us there are new words or new usages that we love to hate – or maybe just hate. Some of us dislike the increasingly widened use of ‘curate’ (as in a museum, not an apprentice vicar!), or of ‘paradigm’ (I’m sure it has a proper meaning, even if what that is escapes me …). For me a recent one has been ‘Congrats!’. For some reason it has grated on me. Irritated me beyond measure.

Sir Cliff didn’t sing ‘Congrats!”. What would have come next – ‘And celebrats!’? I don’t think that’d have come second in Eurovision. Twenty-second, perhaps.

Which words or usages have this effect on you?

When you’re writing, can you bring yourself to put these words into the mouths of your characters? If you just hate the unliteral use of ‘literally’, would you make one of your characters use it as showing rather than telling an aspect of their characters? Or, perhaps, are you so annoyed by it that you wouldn’t want any piece of work with your name on it to contain this solecism? Tricky one, eh?

I’ve changed my mind on ‘Congrats!’, for two reasons. The first was seeing Rafael Nadal use it twice in his victory speech after having just won the American Open: if one of the best tennis players the world has even seen can use it, speaking in a language not his mother tongue, clutching one of the sport’s biggest prizes, then who am I to criticise …

The second reason is more prosaic. I was composing a tweet. I needed to cut some characters to keep within the magic 140. And, yes, it was ‘ulation’ that went. There. I’ve admitted it. I’ve used it myself. It’s not so bad.

Christmas murder stories

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Adam Dalgliesh, Agatha Christie, Camden Town, Christmas, country house murder, Hercule Poirot, P D James, Suffolk, whodunits

Each year I try to write a Christmas short story, usually with a murder in it. With varying success. I find I have contradictory emotions on just having finished The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories by the great PD James. On the one hand I realise that what I produce comes nowhere near the quality of these stories. On the other, I’m spurred to greater effort.

These four stories aren’t festive tales.  And at the same time they are so atmospheric. PD teases us about what we’re reading: in one she says that the butler and his wife, the cook, are “indispensable small-part characters in any country-house murder”; and in another Adam Dalgliesh is flagged down on a country road on Christmas Eve, when “… his first thought was that he had somehow become involved in one of those Christmas short stories written to provide a seasonal frisson for the readers on an upmarket weekly magazine.”

The Mistletoe Murder (1995) is set in wartime, at a Christmas house-party in a practically empty country house. The period is well evoked, as is a pervading sadness. A gruesome killing takes place and there are very few suspects. The clues are there for us, but I didn’t manage to work it out. The ending was beautifully unexpected. A story told with real atmosphere.

A Very Commonplace Murder (1969) is a sordid story set in Camden Town, involving a voyeur who spies on lovers in a house opposite his place of work. The scene of adultery becomes a scene of murder.

The Boxdale Inheritance (1979) is an Adam Dalgliesh story.   He is asked by an elderly Canon (his godfather) to investigate a murder that happened in 1902. An inheritance depends on it. That ancient crime took place in another gloomy large house, with a family assembled for Christmas, a family riven (as is de rigueur in such a setting) by jealousy and greed. Unbreakable alibis abound. The principal clue to the solution is presented to the reader but in such a way that I sailed straight past it.

The Twelve Clues of Christmas (1996) also features Adam Dalgliesh. One Christmas Eve he finds himself at an unwelcoming Harkerville Hall, deep in Suffolk, faced with a bizarre apparent suicide. Again, members of a divided family are in attendance. Our hero solves the mystery by spotting the twelve clues of the title.

He concludes that story by observing, ”My dear Aunt Jane, I don’t think I’ll ever have another case like it. It was pure Agatha Christie.’” You’re too modest, Lady James.

Talking of Agatha Christie – one of the few whodunits I’ve read a second time is Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, which I reread in order to see where the clues to the solution were. And yes, the main clue is there: as clear as day when you know its significance, but when read the first time it’s hidden in plain sight as just a piece of description. Similar to that in The Boxdale Inheritance.

So: if at this early stage you’re looking for a seasonal stocking-filler for a whodunit-lover, The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories would fit the bill. And if you’re yourself a writer of Christmas short stories, here’s a standard to aim for!

The most delightful competition ever

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Barbara Pym, Barbara Pym Society North American Conference

If you are a fan of Barbara Pym and looking for the perfect short story competition to enter, the Barbara Pym Society’s 2018 Ellen J Miller Memorial competition could be made for you.

What could be more blissful than the brief which is that entries must prominently feature one or more characters from Barbara Pym’s published novels, in any setting or situation the author chooses? Readers of Barbara Pym know how her characters continue to live beside them, in moments of recognition, both painful and comic, while offering endlessly comforting human solidarity …

The prize for the winning entry is $250 and the story will be read at the Society’s annual North American Conference held in Boston March 2018. The deadline is 4 December. Details at http://www.barbara-pym.org/

 

 

‘Catching the Wind’

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Faith, Forgiveness, Kent, Melanie Dobson, National Archives, Sussex, Tonbridge, Traitors, World War Two

I’m impressed by the structure of the novel I’ve just read, Catching the Wind by Melanie Dobson.  It’s in split time – in the 1940s and in the present day, and I found myself really wanting to know what would happen next in both stories.  Much careful planning must have gone into the plotting – it doesn’t read at all like ‘seat of the pants’ composition.

In World War Two 13-year-old Dieter and 10-year-old Brigitte run from their homes in Germany to escape the Gestapo.   After a terrible journey they manage to get to England, but are soon separated.  Dieter promises Brigitte he will come back and find her.  However, he is interned and can’t do so.  Brigitte finds herself in a most dangerous situation, exploited on a rich man’s estate and at risk from people who may be Nazi sympathisers.

Today, now aged 90, Dieter has become Daniel Knight, a successful businessman in America.  He has tried without success to keep his promise and find Brigitte.  He recruits Quenby Vaughn, a young American journalist living in London, to try once more.  She is working on another assignment, investigating possible espionage and subversion for the Germans in Britain in WW2: a possible link with Brigitte leads her to agree, despite her having to work with Daniel Knight’s arrogant lawyer Lucas Hough.

We follow Brigitte’s story in WW2 and, in parallel, Quenby’s search for her in 2017.  Quenby is strengthened in her search by her Christian faith: however, in her past she suffered a dreadful wrong, and she has to wrestle with issues of forgiveness.  And there’s a twist in the tail that quite caught me by surprise.

The novel is set largely in Kent and Sussex, as well as in London and North America. It’s interesting to see ourselves with an outsider’s eye.  The author is American, and I met her last year when she was in this part of Kent researching for this novel.  She describes the nearby town of Tonbridge thus:  “The town centre was a paradox … , modern storefronts mixed with the medieval past.  A river ran through town and lapped against the foundations of old shops now housing establishments like Subway and Starbucks.  And an abandoned old castle perched on a grassy hill, overlooking the town.”

I found it salutary to learn of the activities of British pro-German saboteurs and spies in WW2.  The Author’s Note makes clear that what we read in Catching the Wind is based on what she found in the National Archives at Kew.   So our idea of the nation all pulling together, backs against the wall, united against the common foe, is not entirely true.  Fortunately for us the traitors’ efforts were insufficient …

Thanks, Melanie.  I enjoyed it.

Catching the Wind, by Melanie Dobson, was published earlier this year by Tyndale House Publishers, ISBN 978-1-4964-1728-2  You can order it through Waterstone’s, for the equivalent of $14-99, with no postage and packing: it might take 2 weeks or so to come to Britain from America.  It’s also available online from Amazon, or from the publishers at http://www.tyndalefiction.com.  The author’s own website is http://www.melaniedobson.com.

Brian Aldiss

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Arthur Conan Doyle, Brian Aldiss, Frankenstein Unbound, Greybeard, H G Wells, Helliconia, Non-Stop, Prep schools, The Brightmount Diaries, The Hand-Reared Boy

RIP Brian Aldiss, who has died aged 92, the prolific author of over 40 novels, plus poetry, short stories, autobiographies and criticism, in different genres. He also edited anthologies of science fiction.   His Times obituary (published on 22 August) described him as an “ebullient and highly sexed author and poet who persuaded the literary establishment to take science fiction seriously.” His ability in different genres can be compared to his admired H G Wells or Arthur Conan Doyle. In his obituary in the Guardian on 21 August it was stated that “one of the most exhilarating aspects of reading Aldiss is the diversity of his imagination.”

He would recount that he learned how to tell a good story at his prep school, when in the dormitory at night he would tell ghost stories, standing on his bed. The penalty for disappointment was having shoes thrown at him: he was never hit, and he said “I never feared criticism since.”

His early life and wartime experiences in the Far East led to his Horatio Stubbs sex comedies (starting with The Hand-Reared Boy). His first published novel, The Brightmount Diaries, is an account of the life of an assistant in a bookshop, and its success meant that he could leave his job as an assistant in a bookshop! His science fiction included Greybeard, Non-Stop, Frankenstein Unbound and the Helliconia series (about a planet where the seasons last, literally, for ages, and the inhabitants have to adjust accordingly). This SF writing and his work as editor of numerous SF anthologies did much to establish SF as a genre worthy of respect.

Aspiring writers can look to the sheer quantity of his output, to his not being afraid to write in different genres or to write in unfashionable genres. Thanks, Brian.

Richard Gordon

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Anaesthetists, Doctors, Hospitals, Richard Gordon, Soup, Walking the dog

Today’s obituary in the Times of Richard Gordon, the author of the comic Doctor novels, records his writing routine thus: in the morning he would write; a tin of soup would be his lunch; in the afternoon he’d walk the dog, dictating as he went any ideas that came to him; he’d then put in another couple of hours writing (except during the cricket season).

He’d given up his job as an anaesthetist (which he said he chose as he didn’t like patients, so here was a medical job where they were all asleep) when his writing started to progress. His wife (also an anaesthetist) supported him until the Doctor books became so successful. I hadn’t realised how much else he wrote, novels and non-fiction.

He said, “I have had a jolly easy life doing nothing, because writing is nothing, really, it’s dead easy.” Well, he was a writer of fiction …

He made a lot of people laugh.  RIP.

‘The Glass Room’ (re)visited

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'The Glass Room', Architecture, Brno, Czechoslovakia, Mies van der Rohe, Simon Mawer, The Velvet Divorce, Václav Klaus, Villa Tugendhat, Vladimír Mečiar

My wife and I were both so taken with The Glass Room by Simon Mawer that on our visit to the Czech Republic this month we made a point of visiting the Villa Tugendhat, the location (and indeed the centrepiece) of that fine novel. (See https://ninevoices.wordpress.com//?s=Glass+Room)

The Villa Tugendhat was a ground-breaking design in its time, the work of Mies van der Rohe in 1929–1930, and it’s a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site. It’s in Brno, the second largest city in the Czech Republic. Mies van der Rohe was given an unlimited budget! Of which he took full advantage …

The description of the Villa Landauer – and of its creation – in the novel seem to be exactly those of the Villa Tugendhat. We marvelled at the onyx wall, the wall of glass and its mechanism for being moved up and down, and the wonderful views through it of Brno’s Castle – all of which feature prominently in the novel. Mies van der Rohe forbade the house’s first occupants from putting anything on the walls, as does the novel’s architect, Rainer von Abt, as ornament was a crime: our guide gleefully showed us the room where the Tugendhats hid their pictures when Mies van der Rohe came to visit.

Simon Mawer has thus written his novel about the real house: it’s even set on the Villa’s actual street, Černopolní. The stories of the occupants are rather more fictionalised, though not always drastically so. So, writers, this is what you can do with location!

Our guide told us that in real life the house has played its own part in the recent history of Central Europe. She told us that it was under a tree in the garden that in 1992 the Czech Premier Václav Klaus and the Slovak Premier Vladimír Mečiar met to discuss their opposing views on the way forward for newly free Czechoslovakia, and ended by deciding to split the country into two! That tree, apparently, died not long after …

My wife and I were thrilled by our visit to the Villa. The novel had inspired us to go, and our visit made the novel even more memorable for us. You can visit the Villa but you are advised to book at least two months in advance (see http://www.tugendhat.eu/en/). Guided tours in English are available, and well worth it. The young lady who took us round was clearly in love with the building herself!

Thanks, Simon.