The Tail of a Writer’s Chair

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adverbs, writing groups

After a mug of coffee, a writer’s most valued accessories are often a cat (or dog) and a comfortable chair on which to sit and tinker with some editing.

So when I spotted an affordable inlaid mahogany Edwardian chair in an antiques shop in Edenbridge High Street I didn’t hesitate. The shop was at one end of the street and my car parked at the other, by the recreation ground, but it was not much more than a five minute walk and the chair, though awkward to carry, was light. Mission accomplished, I loaded the chair into my car and drove smugly home. (Apology for the adverb)

The chair was considered a success by my other half and would also, I thought, be useful for meetings of ninevoices at my house when nine seats were required.

HOWEVER, my resident beta-reader, Gizzie, immediately decided the chair was hers. It was adjacent to a radiator and it showed off her tail to perfection. End of story…

How I (Finally) Got Published

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Fish Publishing, How I Got Published, HWA & Sharpe Books Unpublished Novel Award, London's Foundling Hospital Museum, The Historical Writers Association, The Servant, writing groups, Writing Magazine

 

Back in 2015 I visited London’s Foundling Hospital Museum for the first time. It is an emotive place and I couldn’t get the heart-breaking stories it told – about the tokens desperate mothers left in the hope that they might, one day, be able to retrieve their precious child – out of my head. My book, The Servant, is the result.

Founded by Royal Charter in 1739, The London Foundling Hospital came into existence after seventeen years of effort by retired sea captain, William Coram, to make ‘Provision for Foundlings’. His eventual success was due, to a great extent, to his gaining the support of sixteen ladies of high rank, headed by the Duchess of Somerset. Their signatures on The Ladies Petition was presented to George III in 1735.

Initially, it was a short story – The Gingham Square – sent off to a Fish competition which also offered the bonus of a critique of your entry. The story itself (fortunately, as it turned out) failed to be placed, but the feedback I received from their editor was more than positive. It suggested that while the scope of what I had written was overwhelming for the short story form, it had the potential for something larger: a book.

Reader, I set my shoulder to the wheel.

Producing The Servant been a tortuous process which would have been impossible without the support of the outstanding input of other members of ninevoices. Extracts were read out loud at our WIP meetings, red pencils were flourished over purple prose, tactful hints made about pruning my obsessive use of research material, with even the odd encouraging cartoon added in the margin. 

Finally, last September, I learned from the invaluable pages of Writing Magazine that the Historical Writers Association, in partnership with Sharpe Books, were promoting a competition to find an unpublished historical novel. The prize was £500 and a publishing deal. To my delighted amazement, after the excitement of being shortlisted, I discovered that I had won.

Our followers will know that I have been writing and submitting for years and, despite having a couple of short stories published and some encouraging feedback from agents, rejection was the absolute norm. Until now.

Please let me encourage all you other writers out there to keep going. To keep entering competitions. And to find some like-minded writing friends. Not to mention a few supportive beta-reading dogs to rest an encouraging head on your knee.

 

‘The Servant’ is available to buy on Kindle from today, at £2.99: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B087N8H9PB/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=the+servant+maggie&qid=1587807272&sr=8-2

 

Printers …

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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?

 

 

‘Delayed Reaction’

Tags

Amersham, King's Cross, Short stories, Trains, writing groups, York

The latest publication by a writing group to adorn my shelves is Delayed Reaction, the work of the Just Write writing group from Amersham in Bucks. This collection of short stories is ingeniously put together: they all take place on the 15-08 train from King’s Cross to York, which comes to a halt because of a broken-down train ahead of it. It sits in the Cambridgeshire countryside for over an hour. The delay materially affects the lives of the protagonists of the 10 stories – some for the better, some …

They are free-standing stories but some characters appear in more than one.   Why is the Essex boy banker so agitated and so concerned with his briefcase? Why is the woman sitting opposite him so unhappy, and why does she ask his advice on how to commit fraud? What have the expensively clad businesswoman and the slatternly dressed woman in flip-flops got to say to each other? Will the 16-year-old schoolgirl finally change into the frilly pink dress she hates so much? Why for the young man could the delay be literally a matter of life and death?

Leave the last story to last, is my advice. Talk about a twist in the tail …

The writing group must have had a lot of fun at the meetings where they worked out how their characters interlocked!

Delayed Reaction is produced in aid of the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity. ISBN 978-0-9931222-2-4 RRP paperback £6-99 e-book £5-99   Go to http://www.delayedreaction.org.uk/ for purchase details and other details about the Just Write group.

Mirror, mirror on the wall…

Tags

criticism, writing groups

‘Hold it up to the mirror,’ said the tutor at the portrait drawing class.

I’d asked her to come and look at my work. It looked all right to me. Secretly, I thought I was doing rather well.  I’d followed the usual advice of standing back from it every ten minutes or so. I knew that staying too close for too long in front of a drawing means you lose a sense of perspective.

I gave the mirror idea a go. A nasty shock. How could I not have seen what was now so obvious? Eyes too far apart, neck too thin, not enough back to the head. Errors that I’d missed, but which were clearly shown up in the mirror image.

A writing group can act as a mirror. How many times have I been grateful for the incisive comments of other writers. They’ve homed in on faults and omissions I’d never have spotted for myself. The value of other people’s ideas and suggestions as to how a piece of work can be improved cannot be over-estimated.

But there may be dangers. In a long-established group, familiarity with, and enjoyment of, the work of other members may make the mirror a little dusty. We may sit too close to the work being read to be as objective and sharp in our criticism as we once were.

On one level none of this matters. The happiness gained from sharing the whole business of putting words together and the generous encouragement of others must be worth more than anything. But it would be interesting to learn of the experiences of other writing groups. Any comments, anyone?