Tonight’s guest blog post is brought to you by writer / editor Sandra Miller.
Pros and Cons of Self-Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing
As a writer, if you want to get your words out to a wider audience and, ideally, earn some money along the way, you have two main options: to hire a traditional publishing agency, or to keep all the control over the process, and try yourself as a self-publisher. Both of the options have their own advantages and disadvantages, and here are the pros and cons of self-publishing over the traditional way that you should consider before you decide which road to take:
Self-Publishing Advantages
Autonomy. When self-publishing, as a writer, you also have complete control over the process of publishing, while the traditional publishing agency keeps the rights to have the final say over how the book is edited, or what cover design and copy to choose, and how to handle the marketing efforts.
Marketing. Largest part of the marketing attention and activities of the traditional publishers is focused on well-known authors who, for the luckiest, represent most of the writers they work with. But the Internet and the Social Media had made it possible for writers who have an established audience, like bloggers, or experts, speakers, to also successfully market their self-published work by themselves.
Timeliness. A traditionally published book can be found on the market, usually, after more than a year since it was first accepted for publishing, while you can distribute a self-published book in only few weeks, or months, at most.
Compensation. The compensation you’ll get from a traditional publisher is about ten percent or less, while if you self-publish your book, you’ll roughly get half of its sale price. In both situations, you can decrease some of your expenses by figuring your taxes.
Trial. If you’ve already tried to get to some literary agent or traditional publisher, but haven’t succeeded, you can try getting their attention by self-publishing a book. This opulent experience will also help you determine whether you can work through the traditional way of publishing.
Self-Publishing Disadvantages
Isolation. Yes, it’s great that you get to determine everything and have control over all aspects of the publishing process, but the catch is you don’t have all the needed skills and experience to do all that alone, so you’ll either have to acquire that knowledge, or find others to help you complete the tasks.
Selling. Selling a self-published book certainly isn’t easy. There are lots of activities you need to organize – identify your target readers, get the needed publicity materials, appear to certain events, or even host your own. This alone takes enough time and effort, without even considering the actual sale of the book.
Workload. You can choose to delegate some or all of your responsibilities around producing, marketing and selling your self-published book, or you can carry them all out by yourself. Either way, it will take you some time and effort, at least to manage and control them.
Expenses. If you decide to self-publish your book, you’ll have to be prepared to invest up-front in its production, marketing, distribution, while a contract with a traditional publisher would cover all the risk and the expenses, in some cases even providing an advance or pay out royalties. Also, when self-publishing, you need to hire a distributor for your book, because in most cases booksellers don’t buy books directly from their authors.
Prejudice. There are some self-publishing success stories, but we all have to admit that most of these books are poorly written and/or designed and the readers and agents can rightly assume there’s a valid reason the traditional publishers rejected their manuscripts. It also isn’t certain that if you have succeeded as a self-publisher once, you’ll get better chances to be accepted by a traditional publisher for a new edition of that book, or for a completely different piece of literature.
*
That was really interesting. Of all the 800+ authors I’ve interviewed only two have said that their publishers do all their marketing, yet the same authors are active on Twitter and Facebook so it’s a necessity for raising the profile – a necessary evil, some have said. 
Thank you, Sandra.
Sandra Millers works as a writer at editing services Help.Plagtracker. She has a PhD in English literature.
***
If you would like to write a writing-related guest post for my blog then feel free to email me with an outline of what you would like to write about. There are other options listed on http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog.
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You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
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Welcome to the seventh in a 31-day series Story A Day May 2013.
Late April 2011 I discovered http://StoryADay.org and the project that is to write 31 stories in 31 days. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog, knows how passionate I am about short stories so my clichéd eyes lit up at this new marvel. And just a few days later there I was, breathing life into new characters. This went on to become (with some editing of course) my 31-story collection eBook Story A Day May 2011.
I was nearing completion of the 2012 project when I decided that I didn’t want to stop at the end of May so 5PM Fiction was born. This is on hold this month as I write a story a day for SADM2013
Today’s prompt was to write a story in the first person viewpoint. Below is my 812-worder.
*
Quiet and noisy
The candle flickered while the man crouched over my ankle. It looked like a candle but I think it was probably a lighter.
Someone had put their briefcase under my head and I could feel the catch digging in. I didn’t like to complain because it meant I had a better view of the man. Compared to the pain in my right leg, my head was OK. Uncomfortable, not painful really.
Pain’s good though isn’t it because it means I can feel it, that it’s going to be OK. I know there’s something on it, my leg, pressing down, so once they get it off they can move me, take me to hospital.
I remember shouting when I first came to, but no one took any notice apart from that one guy but I think he was close to me and it seemed like I was the only one making any noise, so I stopped. The woman next to me had take the full force of the metal caving in and I think died instantly because she didn’t answer me and she hadn’t stopped talking since she’d got on at Milton Keynes so I know she would have said something if she could have done.
The lights going out was the worst thing. I hate the dark.
Noise. I had expected to be more noise but I remember the impact then the quiet. Too quiet. I thought everyone was dead but then I sensed people moving around, shadows, then the pain of my leg took over.
I think the man went to tend to someone else, there are bound to be people worse off than me, but the briefcase is still there.
My head’s beginning to hurt a bit now and if I concentrate on that, my ankle isn’t so painful. I know I should think of something else, good things like meeting Josie for lunch.
Oh shit, I must phone her, tell her what’s happened, that I’m OK. She’ll hear it on the news and worry. She’s a worrier when everything’s going well, so…
A light! There’s a light! Hello? Over here! No, this way…
It’s OK. I’ll wait. I’m not going anywhere and the train certainly isn’t. Not for a while at least. They’ll have to clear it out the way, bring in cranes. The poor sods on the later commutes are going to be pretty pissed off. They’ll either have to divert… not sure if they can do that. Buses. They put on extra buses, don’t they?
Something doesn’t smell very nice. Not like petrol or diesel so that’s good. At least we’re not going to blow up.
And it’s cold. Whatever ran into us… it definitely ran into us because it came into the side, we didn’t run into it, must have made a hole… of course it did you stupid sod. Even if it caved the side in there’ll be a hole.
Poor train company. I don’t usually feel sorry for them… costs me over a grand a year just to get to work and back, but trains are expensive aren’t they. I suppose they’ll have insurance.
It’s still quiet. Can’t understand why there aren’t people panicking, you know, pulling at things, trying to get out or get other people out. I know someone will come for me… back for me soon. They know I’m alive so they’ll come.
Just need to get to my bag. I should have left it on, across my chest like I always do but I wanted to read my book, the latest Kate Atkinson, only just started it so can’t even tell you what it’s about. It’s another Jackson Brodie so it’ll be good for sure. Can’t help picturing Jason Isaacs now with his lovely blue eyes.
Need to find my bag. Get my mobile then I can ring Josie and she can ring for help. It’s fully-charged with plenty of credit. She’s my ICE. In Case of Emergency. I was going to ask her to move in with me. Think she’d say “yes”. They say something like this tests a relationship. You know, when one person’s injured and will need rehabilitation but I’m lucky in that respect too. Josie’s a nurse. Senior. Not long had a promotion. That’s where we met. At the hospital. I’m a bit accident prone, you see, although this is the worst one yet. Usually just come off my bike… bicycle not motorbike. No, not going fast enough to cause any real damage.
It’ll get light soon. That’ll help. They’ll be able to see where everyone is, not rely on torches.
You’d think there would be mobiles ringing. Everyone uses mobiles, don’t they? Shout too loudly because of the noise, even quiet electric trains are noisy. That doesn’t make sense. Quiet and noisy.
Hello? I’m here! Anyone? Can someone see my bag? I need to ring, Josie. Hello?
***
Picture above courtesy of morguefile.com.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
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Complementing my interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the two hundred and twenty-fifth, is of thriller novelist Barry Johnson.
Barry is now seventy-four so I’ll just skip across his life. I’m sure if you ask him he won’t say he has done anything of note but let me just explore that. He was born the fifth of November 1938. He was a couple of weeks premature due to some kids throwing fireworks. A banger frightened a bulldog that bit his mother and he was on his way, his mother having been taken to Honeypot Lane Maternity Hospital.
He was christened Barry Edgar Johnson. Shortly after that war was declared. This, he claims had absolutely nothing to do with him but it did have a massive influence on his life.
Barry’s mother was a tailoress and took up with a guy working the black market and her skills were vital. His Gran called her a gangster’s moll. Powder puffs were an excluded item during rationing so some of the housebreakers and burglars used to steal furs and sheepskins etc. and his mother made fancy powder puffs for wealthy ladies. How did this affect him? At regular intervals the black marketeer was arrested, and Barry was put into homes. His gran used to get him out and a few months later it would happen again so when he should be learning in school he wasn’t. The only thing that did happen to him when he was with his mum was the Germans decided to bomb the mews they lived in. His skull was badly fractured and he says if he goes bald people will think he is from Star Trek. At seven he contracted TB so was put into an open-air convalescent home. This was a pre-antibiotics time so fresh air and nourishing food was the cure. He says he just got better to get warm.
The criminal went to prison but bought his mother a shop (Newsagents). His mother met Bert Smith, got pregnant and married him and Barry came home. His Mother had some money now so sent him to Lower Latimer School and they tried to educate him but before they made much progress the family moved to Sussex and he went to the village school in Rottingdean in a class, he says, that must have had fifty kids in it. Still he could swim and captained the school swimming team and they won the Brighton championship that year. He also was the captain of the football team.
With a fragmented early education he stood no hope of passing the eleven plus so he spent a year at Whitehawk secondary modern school. The only thing the school did was sharpen his fighting skills. He swam for the school (the only boy that won anything) and he played football for the school. He also came top of the class, One A despite playing hooky on Mondays and Fridays. After a year they moved to Newhaven and he went to Newhaven Secondary modern school into 2A. At Christmas they jumped him into 3A and the following summer he went to Lewes County Grammar School for Boys into the third year that was called the forth year because of the crazy numbering system they had.
The Grammar School was a different world; he loved it. It was all about tough intellectual challenge and sport. He joined the Army Cadets and became a corporal. Played Rugby for the school, was the school swimming champion, winner of the Sinfield Cup, and taught other boys to swim on sports afternoons in the summer. Then they had to wear swimming trunks because the girls from the secondary modern school went onto the roof of their school to watch the boys swim in the nude. Barry thought the binoculars were over the top.
The school leaving age was fifteen then, so his stepfather, Bert, expected him to leave school. ‘Thrasher’ Thompson invited his stepfather to come to the school on an open day. His parents had never visited the school. Bert was blown away. Barry had his name on an honours board. He appeared on photos next to trophies and photos of the cadets winning things so he agreed Barry could stay another year and take ‘O’ levels. He did and got eight subjects. He says it was a cheat really as some of them overlapped like physics and applied maths.
In his final year at school Barry had to think about what he was going to do. The only thing he knew was he wanted to leave home.
Barry joined the Royal Navy as an Artificer Apprentice. It was renowned then as the best apprenticeship in the country. He not only gained entry but also managed to get selected into the Fleet Air Arm for which the selection was tougher. He did a five-year apprenticeship four of those in a RN training establishment. The top quarter of the class would be selected as engineering officers. Barry passed out in the top four but by then he was married and didn’t see the Navy as the life he wanted but he had to serve until he was thirty.
Barry had a great Naval career and was a Chief Petty Officer at twenty-three. Of the fourteen years he served the Navy trained him for seven so he ended up with a whole bunch of qualifications.
Barry’s thirtieth birthday was approaching. The Navy once again offered him a commission and BOAC (now British Airways) offered him a job as a technical training officer training pilots, flight engineers and licenced aircraft engineers to the required CAA licence standards. BOAC created a learning environment and he achieved a degree in psychology, a teaching qualification and some other qualifications.
To gain broader industry experience Barry joined the Food, Drink and Tobacco Industry Training Board (A Government QUANGO) that the Government closed – he claims it wasn’t his fault.
Barry job-hunted, had some offers and joined STC as the Training Manager of their largest site (5000+ people). While at STC he became a Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and Member of the Chartered Management Institute. STC was taken over by Nortel and Barry was moved to the European HQ to become the Senior Manager of the European Learning Institute. Nortel was the most progressive telecommunications company in the world and then the Canadian Board sacked the CEO (he got his PA pregnant). The company made the classic mistake and appointed an accountant, and Nortel started to go down the tubes. The Learning Institute was closed in every geographical zone so Barry was redundant.
With three people that Barry describes as wonderful they set up Learning Partners in 1994. Their aim was to design and apply assessment centres and run people development programmes. They thrived by staying small and focused around three clear values – make a difference, have fun and earn some money. Barry says they didn’t get paid a lot of money but they built a solid reputation and worked for some very good companies. Learning Partners is still a thriving consultancy primarily working internationally. Barry retired and now he writes, using the varied experiences he has had.
*
And now from the author himself:
Writing and my goals as a writer
I don’t think I even considered writing anything until I went to the grammar school. I don’t suppose I would have had any interest then if it hadn’t been for my English teacher, Colin Silk. Not that I did anything about it for many years. I can remember him sitting cross-legged on a desk in the front of the class as selected members of the class took parts in a Shakespeare play. He knew the plays by heart and if you read anything incorrectly he would correct you. The other thing he would do is insist I spoke correctly. “Johnson, ring your ‘ings’,” or “Johnson, explode your ‘bees’.” I learned to speak two languages from Colin Silk, the one I spoke in school and the one I spoke at home. What a foundation for now. In writing dialogue I think back and adapt to the character I have speaking. Colin Silk was my hero, the man I admired most. He had survived the Burma-Siam railway and the evil treatment by the Japanese and had no hatred or even resentment of them. He was my role model for life that I’ve never been able to live up to but I have tried. I suppose Jake Robinson, the protagonist of my thrillers, owes much to my view of Colin Silk.
Colin Silk got me through ‘O’ level English language. He knew I had mild dyslexia but nobody spoke about those things back in the early 1950s but his encouragement guided me in writing essays though he did chide me for writing short stories instead of essays. So I had an inbuilt recognition of what a story was.
When I look back I suppose I’ve always enjoyed writing, I just got a kick out of writing home when I was at sea describing what I had seen and where I had been and I knew the readers of my letters enjoyed them and had a laugh, well I did exaggerate just a bit.
I can remember when I worked for STC having to write my monthly report. I would do a different style each month, a sermon one month, the format of the report of a football match the next month and most of my bosses enjoyed this. Mind you some didn’t. It was interesting that I was asked to write papers and brochures for the departments and when thing got really tough a report of what had gone wrong and for that I had to interview miscreants and I suppose I learned a lot there that I can use now.
In Learning Partners I just loved writing, the challenge of putting together the ideas, the very process of writing, together with the research needed. I have written training and guidance material, courses, assessment centre scenarios and assessment guides. Over the years I have written over fifty published professional articles always supported by another director of Learning Partners and the feedback and advice has always caused me to think and rewrite so what I wanted to achieve could be achieved with both learners and fully experienced professionals.
I wrote a newsletter for the retirement village I live in that included short stories both fiction and non-fiction, audience was key to that.
I started writing full-length novels in 2009. This was about interest rather than with publication in mind. I wrote four historical fiction novels with a single central character and the theme was the Trojan wars. These I may revisit and rewrite. I’d always done research in my former professional life so, I suppose I was used to that. I even had the third one published and gave it to friends just to see if I could write.
The Jake Robinson series I started in 2010. I had no idea how to write a thriller. I just started with an idea. Supposing bird flue was modified so it could be transmitted between people and a terrorist group decided to use it. Simple idea. So I sat down one afternoon and started writing a novel, not planned had no idea about who was going to do what or when, I just did it. That was the fun, The JBDI approach (Just Bloody Do It). The shear excitement of wondering where it was going next and the sheer surprize when it happened. The first thriller that I wrote and the one that will be the last in the series, Venom 27, I had published privately and I have given it to friends and relations with very positive feedback but that might be expected from friends and relations. Why the last in the series – the nature of the story dictated that.
The first one spawned the next three. I thought others may arise and they have. These had the goal of eventual publication. So I chanced my arm and Wherein Lies Justice has been published by Book Guild; with the sort of support and advice that a publishing company gives you.
I love the feeling that here is something complete and achieved that then triggers another idea for a novel.
I get a kick from the idea that others may enjoy reading what I have written and perhaps, in my arrogance, that they may discover something, for or of themselves, from the novels.
The hope I will get pleasure from seeing a book I have written in a bookshop and those who have read my attempts have encouraged me to go down that route.
Lastly the chance that I might earn some money to enable me to get for my wife the things she wants more than anything else.
I have no interest, no skills and no motivation to venture into the field of marketing and selling of my books. I have a need for an agent who has the skills, interest and motivation to market and sell that which I can produce. So lets try another one.
**
I then invited Barry to include an extract from his book…
I came to a dead stop in the doorway, looking at a lady’s handgun pointing at me. It was rock steady. Her body was square to me with her feet wide apart and knees bent.
She had her arms extended and was using a firm, double-handed grip. The weapon was pointing at my head and was brought down slowly to my chest. Now this was worrying. I felt my stomach contract and my heart beating fast. Less worrying was the expression on her face, which indicated that she was at least as scared as me. The difference was that I’d been here before.
‘Wherein Lies Justice’ is available from…
and you can find out more about Barry and his writing from…
***
If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog (the spotlights are option (a)) or email me for details.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, Barry Johnson, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jane Wenham Jones, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to Post-weekend Poetry and the seventy-fifth poem in this series, this week by Ute Carson.
Today’s Slippers Become Tomorrow’s Army Boots
Warm bodies, heated anticipation
fuse our solidarity.
Snug in knitted booties
we stretch out on our magic carpet,
the children young, content as kittens.
I orchestrate flights of fancy
and promise the little ones
that the swords and crowns missing by morning
will reappear come dreamtime.
Years later,
a grandson soldier walks down his chosen path,
boots shining with confidence,
but the back of his grey army coat
bars me from seeing through to his heart.
My hands fling forward wanting to hold on
but I pull back,
my fears clinging to my upturned palms.
We lose our children to the world
which shapes them beyond our wishes and control.
Proudly we teach them
to be self-sufficient
but never learn ourselves
not to worry.
*
I asked Ute what prompted this piece and she said…
Parents hope to provide safe and happy childhoods for their children, perhaps even filled with magical moments. In this poem that magic takes the form of a flying carpet which propels the child into the land of dreams and the imagination.
When children grow up and go their own way parents stay behind with their worries, evoked in this poem by a grandson’s eagerness to be a soldier and his choice of a military profession.
Parents try to instill confidence in their children and encourage them to spread their wings. But they themselves must live with apprehension which is as eternal as their love.
**
Thank you, Ute. It was very touching.
A writer from youth, German-born Ute Carson’s first story was published in 1977. Her story “The Fall” won the Grand Prize for Prose and was published in the short story and poetry anthology, A Walk Through My Garden, Outrider Press, Chicago 2007. Her novel “Colt Tailing,” was published in September 2004 and was a finalist for the Peter Taylor Book Award Prize for the Novel. Her second novel “In Transit” was published in 2008. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and magazines here and abroad. Carson’s poetry was featured on the televised Spoken Word Showcase 2009 and 2010, 2011 ChannelAustin, Texas, USA. Her poetry collection “Just a Few Feathers” was published in 2011.
An Advanced Certified Clinical Hypnotist, Ute Carson resides in Austin, Texas with her husband. They have three daughters, five grandchildren, two horses and a number of cats.
Ute Carson’s website is www.utecarson.com.
***
If you’d like to submit your poem (40 lines max) for consideration for Post-weekend Poetry take a look here or a poem for critique on the Online Poetry Writing Group (link below).
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
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Bailey’s Writing Tips podcast ‘short stories’ episode number 24 went live today and contained three flash fiction pieces that have appeared on my blog as Flash Fiction Fridays. Do email me should you like to submit your own.
This episode contained:
See the links above to read the stories… or hear my dulcet tones on the podcast.
The podcast is available via iTunes, Google’s Feedburner, Podbean (when it catches up), Podcasters (which takes even longer) or Podcast Alley (which doesn’t list the episodes but will let you subscribe).
*
BIOS
Bethany Rycek was born in Pusan, South Korea and adopted into a wonderful home at a young age. She has since traversed the world, from Boston to Hong Kong, Singapore to the Philippines, New Jersey to Philadelphia.
She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Massachusetts with a B.A. in Japanese Language and Literature and currently tutors Japanese. Ms. Rycek is pursuing a career in voice acting and is currently represented by TAG Talent. She loves penguins and singing. Her voice demos can be found at http://www.voices.com/demos/NatsumeRika.
**
Elizabeth Cage is a writer, speaker and fundraiser. Her stories, poems and articles have appeared in numerous magazines including Scarlet, Desire, Forum, For Women, In the Buff, The Hotspot, and the International Journal of Erotica, as well as The Mammoth Book of Lesbian Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica 2010 (Cleis) and her fiction regularly appears in the fiction anthologies and e-books from Xcite.
Her collection, Kissing Velvet, was published in 2003 by Chimera. She also does guest blogs, author talks, interviews, events and workshops. Her website is http://www.elizabethcage.com.
**
Kathy Lynn Harris, a native Texan, has written children’s books, poetry, short stories, newspaper and magazine articles, and personal essays. Blue Straggler is her debut novel.
Kathy likes to play in the snow year-round, which is easy since she lives in a log cabin in the high mountains of Colorado at 10,500 ft. above sea level.
Stellar mountain playmates include her husband, her son and two fairly untrainable Golden Retrievers who own both couches. Her website is kathylynnharris.com.
***
Thank you for downloading / listening to this short story episode – I hope you enjoyed it. The next episode will be a hints & tips episode in a fortnight, then short stories return a fortnight thereafter.
All the details of these episodes are listed on this blog’s Podcast Short Stories page and my email address to submit a short story for critique (or review for the Short Story Saturdays) is morgen@morgenbailey.com.
The podcast is available via iTunes, Google’s Feedburner, Podbean (when it catches up), Podcasters (which takes even longer) or Podcast Alley (which doesn’t list the episodes but will let you subscribe).
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
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Welcome to the sixth in a 31-day series Story A Day May 2013.
Late April 2011 I discovered http://StoryADay.org and the project that is to write 31 stories in 31 days. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog, knows how passionate I am about short stories so my clichéd eyes lit up at this new marvel. And just a few days later there I was, breathing life into new characters. This went on to become (with some editing of course) my 31-story collection eBook Story A Day May 2011.
I was nearing completion of the 2012 project when I decided that I didn’t want to stop at the end of May so 5PM Fiction was born. This is on hold this month as I write a story a day for SADM2013
Today’s prompt was to write a story set in a location I’ve never been to before. Below is my 588-worder.
*
Sally never listened
As holidays go, this one was definitely going to be one of the most memorable.
Ted clicked on the right arrow, flicking through the array of photographs. The camera told him he was on number 173 of 1,729. The joy of digital. He was surprised there weren’t more, although he had been through them, back in the hotel room, deleting the fuzzy ones. Following wildlife around on safari, there had been plenty of those.
He wished Sally had been there to see the results of the last few but then she would have said that 2D could never replace 3D, having a rhinoceros charge at you, a lion feeding its young, hyenas ripping apart… Ted didn’t need to picture that image, he was looking at it.
He looked up as the announcement called for his flight. He picked up his bag and walked to Gate 17. This was the bit he usually loved and Sally usually hated but today he felt the same. They were travelling on different flights and that felt too weird.
The woman in the blue and yellow uniform smiled as she took his boarding pass.
He tried to smile back but knew it was fake.
She read his name and her smile faded. She nodded and held out her arm to indicate his path.
He trudged in line following the other passengers, some in suits, most in casual clothes. He was still in khaki, a last memory to his two-week vacation, one he didn’t want to remember but knew he always would.
As the ‘no seatbelt’ sign dimmed, Ted removed his belt then swung his legs round as the man in the next seat asked to be let out. Ted watched him walk up the aisle and into the toilet. His wife was staring out the window, hands gripping the seat arms.
Ted laughed, not just to himself, but out loud, to the whole plane and he couldn’t stop laughing.
As he started to unnerve the other passengers, an air stewardess approached. “Is everything alright, sir?”
Ted nodded, tears rolling down his face.
“Is there anything I can do, sir?”
Ted shook his head, and wiped his cheek. “I told her…”
“Yes, sir?”
“I told her, my wife Sally, not to get too close but she wouldn’t listen. She had to get out the jeep and see for herself. Had to get the best photographs. It was a new camera you see. I bought it for her for our anniversary. She bought the holiday. Very brave, I thought, seeing as she doesn’t… didn’t like flying.”
The stewardess looked at the woman staring out the window.
“Oh, that’s not her,” Ted said. “No, she’s on the next flight.”
The stewardess looked puzzled.
“They wouldn’t let us travel together. I said I’d wait but-”
“That’s terrible,” the stewardess said half-heartedly, then went to attend to another passenger.
The woman carried on staring out the window as her husband returned. He took his seat and turned to Ted. “I hope you’ve not been trying to talk to her. You won’t get anything unless you touch her. Deaf as a post. Never listens to a word I say. Still in shock, I suppose.”
“Shock?”
“Oh yes, terrifying really. Came a bit too close to a pack of hyenas on one of our jaunts. They said afterwards that a woman did exactly the same thing the day before and wasn’t so lucky. I’d told her to be careful but as I said, never listens to a word I say.”
***
Picture above courtesy of morguefile.com.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
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Complementing my interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the two hundred and twenty-fourth, is of multi-genre author and interviewee Gary Dobbs.
Gary M. Dobbs (The M being for Martin or Matilda depending on his mood) was born and bred in the small Welsh village of Gilfach Goch. Since reaching adulthood, and realising he doesn’t really like it that much Gary has been a taxi driver, factory worker, stand up comedian and actor (see photo). The pinnacle of his acting remains a part in a Doctor Who two parter and playing a gimp in the Neil Jones movie, The Reverend.
As an author Gary first made his mark writing westerns for Robert Hale LTD’s Black Horse Western imprint. For these books he used the name Jack Martin but he’s also written horror as Vincent Stark, crime as Gary M. Dobbs and for the Granny Smith series he is G. M. Dobbs.
“I don’t stick to one genre,” he says. “Why should I? I think it absurd that writers are only supposed to work in the one genre. Actors work in all kind of movies, as do screenwriters and it is only with novels that authors seem to be expected to fit into a particular spot. I go where the muse takes me regardless of the genre.”
And over the last few years that muse has led Gary into some strange places – a zombie infested world for the Dead Walked series, to Victorian South Wales for his historical thriller, The Welsh Ripper Murders and out West for several best-selling westerns. Lately the muse has been hanging around the Welsh village of Gilfach for the popular Granny Smith series.
The village of Gilfach is fictional though Gary prefers to call it semi-fiction, since it is based very much on his home village of Gilfach Goch. This semi-fictional village is populated by a surreal bunch of characters such as Dai Twice, the local special police constable and Mr Patel the owner of the minimarket.
Granny Smith, billed as Miss Marple on steroids, is a seventy odd years old hippy chick who just happens to find herself mixed up in all manner of mayhem. One reviewer compared the character to Stephanie Plum but with more wrinkles.
“I liked that,” Gary says. “After all the Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum series is bloody good. Having Granny compared to the character is a thrill.”
It was a long road into print for Gary. He’s always written, ever since he was a child and over the years published short stories and articles in magazines as diverse as Interzone, Skeleton Crew and People’s Friend. A particular highlight of what he calls his early years was having plays broadcast on both Radio Four and Radio Wales. However it was not until he was forty that Gary saw his first novel published when he sold a western, The Tarnished Star to the respected publisher, Robert Hale.
From there on in it’s been all systems go and Gary has a backlist that includes several westerns, a handful of horror thrillers and a sprinkling of mysteries. This March saw the digital publication of Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs, and late summer will see the third and final book in the Walking Dead series. And in November Gary’s new western, The Afterlife of Slim McCord (about a mummified outlaw) will be published in hardcover by Robert Hale LTD.
So where does Gary get his ideas? “I like people watching,” Gary Explains. “Well one woman in particular but the police have told me I’ve got to stop it.”
Ideas, he claims, can come from anywhere. From items in the newspapers, from movies, from other books or just out of thin air. Gary tells us that he initially had a dream about the character that became Granny Smith, though no doubt this was fuelled by his love for Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple books as well as the comedic crimes of writers like Simon Brett and M. C. Beaton and the more farcical elements of authors like Tom Sharpe.
There are certainly comedic elements in the Granny Smith books. In the latest book Granny Smith and The Deadly Frogs there are scenes in which Granny finds herself having to defend herself against two naked lesbians as well as a high-speed pursuit of a drugged up joy rider.
*
And now from the author himself:
These days there seems to be a lot of buzz about enhanced books – you know books or eBooks with added content and I wanted to stretch this a little and so I’ve created an enhanced web presence for Granny Smith – for instance Granny has her own blog and Facebook page and these sites are maintained as if by Granny herself. This, I feel, allows the reader to have some fun in Granny’s world and the blog and Facebook page are very much an extension of the books. And when you read about Granny Smith’s detective website in the books a Google search will take you to that very page.
Granny Smith has her own Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/granny.smith.1029
And her own blog at http://grannysrockshack.blogspot.co.uk
These pages are not exactly fake since there is no secret that I am actually the author, but I find it fun posting on Granny’s Facebook page in the guise of a seventy one year old ex hippie chick who once bedded Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. Check out the Wings song, Famous Groupies and there you have the younger Granny Smith.
Granny Smith, the geriatric sleuth, takes it all in her stride. I love the character and have outlines for another five books featuring Granny’s world. The character’s proven popular with readers and I hope to eventually extend the lives of the secondary characters who pop up from book to book. I think Dai Twice could carry a standalone novel as could Granny’s gay son, Gerald.”
In the future I hope to finish the script I am writing for a possible Granny Smith TV series as well as continue to pen novels that people will want to read. At the moment I’ve got the proofs of my next western, The Afterlife of Slim McCord on my desk waiting for my attention. I need to get these to my publisher by the end of the week and then I’m going to finally complete the Dead Walked trilogy, before starting work on another Granny Smith.
It’s all go…
**
As well as the Granny Smith links above, you can find more about Gary and his writing via…
***
If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog (the spotlights are option (a)) or email me for details.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
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Complementing my interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the two hundred and twenty-third, is of non-fiction author and interviewee Peter Jones.
Peter Jones started professional life as a particularly rubbish Graphic Designer, followed by a stint as a mediocre Petrol Pump Attendant. Then one day a freak accident with a credit card zip zap machine (remember those?) restructured his DNA at the molecular level and gave him entrepreneurial powers. The next twenty years were spent helping humorless men with more money than they deserve separate the man on the street from his hard earned wedge.
Nowadays, Peter spends his time – most of it anyway – writing. He is the author of two and a half fabulously popular self-help books on the subjects of happiness, dieting and dating. If you’re over-weight, lonely, or unhappy – he’s your guy.
US cover
His first book ‘How To Do Everything and Be Happy’ was re-published by Harper Collins UK in January (2013), whilst their colleagues across the pond have given it a brand new cover for the American launch in June. His second book ‘How To Eat Loads and Stay Slim’ – co-written with the lovely-as-she-is-slender Della Galton – will be available as an audio book in May (2013), and all other formats shortly after that.
Peter lives just a few miles outside London with his cat. He doesn’t own a large departmental store, and probably isn’t the same guy you’ve seen on the TV show Dragons’ Den.
*
And now from the author himself:
Well this is all very exciting. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a spotlight before. It’s a little like being on stage isn’t it? Or being interrogated. One or the other. Which strangely enough is pretty much how I feel about writing too. Somedays I’m an actor, playing a part, delivering lines as best I can, to an audience I can’t quite see, and who might very likely turn out to be row after row of empty seats. Other days I’m strapped to this chair (metaphorically speaking of course, but still against my will), and even when I’ve torn out part of my soul, shredded it into words, and arranged those on the page in what I’m hoping is an entertaining order – it isn’t enough! My agent wants something more. My publisher would like some changes. The magazine wonders if I could expand that line into a paragraph or three.
Still. I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.
One of my earliest ambitions was the desire to create books. I would kneel on my Grandparent’s living room floor, take as many sheets of paper as I was allowed, and use my Grandmother’s stapler to create a ‘book’. I’d then proceed to fill the pages with illustrations and narrative, until I ran out of space, which is when the story would – sometimes quite abruptly – end.
Those publications were distributed on a strict ‘read and return’ basis. I don’t remember the stories I wrote. I have no idea what happened to the manuscripts. But I do remember it used to make me happy. I remember that.
But you know how it is. You grow up. Put aside childish things. Get real. And all the dreams you had – becoming James Bond, becoming an actor, working in a job that you enjoy – they all get compromised. Down to nothing.
On my thirty-second birthday, I finally realised that there was a distinct possibility that the last of my ‘dreams’ might also never come to pass. At the time I hadn’t even realised that it was a dream – I just hadn’t had a proper girlfriend for a while. A long while. A really long while. But I’d always assumed that things ‘would work themselves out’. Eventually.
Apparently I was the only one who thought so. Colleagues had long since stopped describing me as an eligible bachelor, and some had even questioned my sexuality, which wasn’t exactly helping the situation.
So in order to avoid a life of bachelorhood, I started to plan. I made lists. I came up with a strategy. I took all the problem solving skills I was developing to make rich men richer, and applied them to my own life, and the gargantuan task of finding a girlfriend.
And a year or so later my strategy worked.
Kate was a wonderful person. A real visionary. When we met I had vague notions of settling into a rather typical domestic life-style; putting up with a job that I didn’t care for five days a week, in return for the company of a loving woman in the evenings and at weekends. Kate had very different ideas.
Life wasn’t about ‘settling’ for things. To her there was a world of possibilities out there. We could go anywhere, do anything, have everything, all we had to do was put our minds to it. During the three years we were together Kate became more than my wife, she was also my teacher.
I didn’t realise it at the time of course. I had no idea that the ideas she kept sharing with me would become such a central part of who I am. That didn’t happen until I lost her. To a brain haemorrhage. At Stansted airport.
I’ve learnt since that sudden deaths like hers (a sub-arachnoid haemorrhage) are surprisingly common. Kate had a weak part in her brain, probably since birth. It could have happened at any moment. It was almost inevitable. I learnt too that after the shock of losing someone comes the guilt. Every cross word, every nasty thought, every lie – they all come back to haunt you. And amongst the demons that were queuing up to torment me was the realisation that I still wasn’t happy, and maybe I never had been. There had been happy moments, of course. Quite a lot of moments. Most of them in the previous three years, and most of them down to Kate, but they were moments none the less. And I wanted to be happy all the time. Not just occasionally. Not just for a moment.
And so I decided to tackle the problem in the only way I knew how: by coming up with a plan. Making lists. Developing a strategy.
I kept it to myself at first. Well, you would wouldn’t you. But one day a colleague got me talking and I told her about ‘Boxing Day’. And my ‘Now List’. The items on my ‘Wish List’. My yearly goals – and how I make sure I actually achieve them. I told her how I’ve taken back control of my life, decided how I want it to be, pointed it in that direction, and given it a kick up the backside. I told her how I’m having more fun than I’ve ever had. Smiling more than I ever did. How there’s love in my life again. How I think Kate would be proud of me. And that I can finally say, I’m happy.
“Those ideas are too good to be kept to yourself,” she said eventually. “You ought to write those things down.”
And so I did.
Thirty something years later after kneeling on my Grandparent’s living room floor I am finally doing something that I always wanted to do. I’m realising a childhood ambition. I’m making books again. And I remember now, how happy this makes me.
**
You can find more about Peter and his writing via…
Peter Jones
UK cover
How To Do Everything And Be Happy
How To Eat Loads And Stay Slim
***
If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog (the spotlights are option (a)) or email me for details.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, Peter Jones, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-help, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Straight from the horse’s mouth… or rather from much better looking (although I love horses) Jane’s blog…
Taa-Raaa – we have the first set of results of the Fight the Flab Competition, judged by Janie Milman, co-owner of the fab Chez-Castillon, Morgen-with-an-e-Bailey - blog-designer extraordinaire and me. Thank you so much to everyone who entered. Morgen has been the organised one and done all the admin, so over to her….
Hi Morgen here
Yes, that’s right – the entries were so impressive that we couldn’t agree on just ten.
Five of the twelve received a vote from all three judges, the other seven were picked by two of us.
Below are the shortlisted twelve and we shall be putting our heads together to pick out a winner… we may be some time! Only kidding, we will be posting the Top 5 here on Saturday 11th May then the winner on Saturday 18th May… listen out for the fanfare.
For a reminder of the prize…
The entrants had to: Write a diet or fitness tip in no more than 250 words. Entries were be judged on originality and entertainment value.
The author of the best tip will win: a week’s writing course with Jane Wenham-Jones, September 28th-4th October 2013 at Chez Castillon (see http://chez-castillon.com for full description) including meals and accommodation (flights not included) – worth £875.
***
and now for the Top 12… (in alphabetical order by surname)
|
Name
|
Tip Name
|
| Karen Booth |
The Regulating Waistband Plan |
| Philippa Bowe |
Clean out your colon |
| Tracy Fells |
The E-Plan |
| Jessica Kennedy |
Stop Doing the Dishes |
| Cathy Lennon |
Acquire a Labrador |
| Jane Lovering |
Bum’s Away |
| Clare Mackintosh |
The upside-down diet tip: a poem |
| Jan Newton |
Make Rejection Work for You |
| Janet O’Kane |
Why join a gym when you can work out at the supermarket? |
| olivespastavino |
Sleep The Fat Away |
| Rebecca Stanley |
In a Spin |
| Tony Tibbenham |
Roll 6 for Chocolate |
So good luck to those 12 and watch this space for the top 5 next weekend and the winner the weekend after!
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jane Wenham Jones, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to the fifth in a 31-day series Story A Day May 2013.
Late April 2011 I discovered http://StoryADay.org and the project that is to write 31 stories in 31 days. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog, knows how passionate I am about short stories so my clichéd eyes lit up at this new marvel. And just a few days later there I was, breathing life into new characters. This went on to become (with some editing of course) my 31-story collection eBook Story A Day May 2011.
I was nearing completion of the 2012 project when I decided that I didn’t want to stop at the end of May so 5PM Fiction was born. This is on hold this month as I write a story a day for SADM2013.
Today’s prompt was to write a story inspired by the current http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. I picked:
and decided to combine all three. Below is my 834-worder.
*
The Thing and the Nameless Page
“What was that?” Willem-Alexander, the 10-minute-crowned King of the Netherlands, scanned the large state room.
His right-hand man, a strange-looking tall, thin Englishman called Nigel Barron-Smythe, followed his employer’s gaze. “Sorry your… Highness? I can’t see…”
“There! Over there!” the King pointed towards one of the gold and red embossed wallpapered walls.
“May I ask, sir, what I might be looking-”
“There! There! That thing! What is it?”
“Oh yes. I see… well, I don’t rightly know sir. Perhaps it’s a-”
“Spy!”
“Spy sir? I highly doubt-”
“Someone catch it! Over there before it flies to the… you there! Shut the window!”
A page who no-one knew the name of and had almost nodded off during the ceremony which had taken place on the hottest day in the Netherlands’ history, leapt to his feet and bolted for the window. He’d not been able to see the ‘thing’ either but knew he had to do as he told or he’d follow the way of the last page who had missed fulfilling an order and had been turfed out with the recycling. Rumour has it that he’d had to put it out en-route but there had been no witnesses to confirm that, or none that would tell him. After he’d shut the window, he’d felt something buzz past his ear. He swung round to see the tiny flapping of wings and an electronic hum.
“Catch it!” he heard as he watched the ‘thing’ fly towards another open window so he bolted again and managed to get to the window before it reached it. Thwarted again it hovered and spun in circles looking for other exits. Using his initiative, the boy did the same and shut every other window.
The room’s gaze then loomed on the door, seconds before the thing spotted it.
“The door!” the King shouted and two sentries who had been chatting about which maid-in-waiting they’d get off with at the next door after-ceremony party, slammed the front door which such force that it made the 12-tier cake, the centrepiece of the festivities, wobble.
Encouraged by his earlier success, the page ran after the ‘thing’, remembering a bag of treats he had in his pockets for the King’s Smoushonds, he retrieved it, threw out the treats – oblivious to the resulting scurrying of claws along the newly-polished floor – and lunged at the ‘thing’, wrapping it expertly in the bag, twisting the top so it had no chance of escape.
His heart thumped as the object battled to get out. Eventually, the thrashing subsided and the page realised the only sound he could now hear was his heart thumping. He looked up, around the room, and realised that everyone was staring at him. He swallowed, then as the King beckoned him, the page stepped forward, slowly, head lowered, inching step by step.
“Bring it here!” the King boomed and the page quickened along the long old room.
“Run, man!”
So the page did as he was told, the bag bumping in his hands, a squeak escaping from it as he did so.
When he reached the King he stopped, held out his hands and bowed his head.
Not sure what to do now, knowing it would likely escape if he undid the bag, the King called on Barron-Smythe.
“I… er, don’t know sir. Perhaps if-”
“Anyone else?” the King boomed, looking around the room. His gaze stopped on a short red-faced man standing near to where the King had first spotted the ‘thing’.
“You!” the King shouted. “Step forward.”
The flushed-faced man looked to his left, right, then pointed to his chest.
“Yes, you! Step forward.”
The man did as he was told.
“You look familiar. What’s your name?”
“Herbert, sir.”
“Herbert… Herbert what?”
“Herbert Wintergrund, sir… your Highness.”
“Sir is fine. Who are you?”
“I’m your Science Advisor, sir.”
“Oh yes, so you are. You look shifty, what’s the matter with you?”
“I… erm. That…” He looked over at the bag that the page was still holding.
“Yes. Go on! What about it?”
“It’s… I’m sorry, sir, but it’s mine.”
“Yours? Yours? What is it?”
“It’s a new type of robot, sir. A present from the Herschel Space Observatory. For you. They thought you might like one – it does all sorts of clever things – and…”
“And?”
“I was going to put it with all your other presents next door but I was late arriving so I stuffed it into my pocket. The little blighter… sorry, your Highness. It escaped and well, went for the light.”
The man’s face was getting redder and redder, and the page wondered whether he might explode at any moment but then the King burst out laughing. He clapped his hands twice, whistled for his dogs, and announced that there was enough food next door to feed an army and that they might even play pass the parcel before the disco started.
***
Picture above courtesy of morguefile.com.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Jane Wenham Jones, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Complementing my interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the two hundred and twenty-second, is of novelist, artist and entertainer Natalie Buske Thomas.
Natalie Buske Thomas, author of the Serena Wilcox series, is also an artist and entertainer. She is best known for her oil painting “Savannah Reading in the Butterfly Garden” and the Serena Wilcox Dystopian Trilogy that began with Angels Mark. Angels Mark hit Amazon’s bestselling list shortly after its debut in 2011. It was followed by Covert Coffee, an ALLI author pick in 2012. New release Bluebird Flown is the final book of the trilogy. The Serena Wilcox series will depart into a new trilogy in 2014.
Natalie lives near Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minnesota with her husband and three children. She likes container gardening, photographing weather and nature, and gourmet cooking. “Life’s short–do what you like” is her motto.
Natalie was a dance student and teacher for over twenty years. She has also directed community theater and has performed as a vocalist. She is working on her first CD.
Natalie attended Purdue University and was a journalist for the college paper. After her first year of college she lived in Germany for three years, where she taught dance arts through the military family entertainment branch. When she returned to the United States she graduated from Ball State University with a degree in German. She has taught German as an independent teacher throughout the years.
In addition to the Serena Wilcox series, Natalie has penned The Miracle Dulcimer (a music method book), Fred Born Gifted, and juvenile book, The Magic Camera, with plans for a children’s poetry and art book.
*
And now from the author herself:
I write suspenseful, futuristic, political thrillers that are hard-hitting, dystopian, and humorous. The books have plots that twist, twist and twist again, but the series is really all about the characters. Serena Wilcox and her crew have become real to readers, and real to me personally. Some of the characters are based on people I know, and their involvement in the series has grown to the point that I seem to be collecting people who want to be “in” the book.
And why stop at people? I held a Serena Wilcox Mysteries pet contest to find which pet “has what it takes to be in a mystery novel”. The winner was decided by popular vote. I couldn’t bear for only one beautiful animal to win, so I expanded the contest to include second and third place winners. Writing the pets into the series was a joyful experience.
Besides animals, the newest Serena Wilcox thriller Bluebird Flown also has celebrity guest appearances. I met Eric Dittelman, finalist in last season’s America’s Got Talent, after his show in River Falls, Wisconsin. He was game to be included in the book as himself. Another celebrity, radio host Bob Krejcarek, volunteered himself to be a character while interviewing me live on the air! I held him to it and his fictional role turned out to be much bigger than I expected.
Having been a dance teacher and theater director, I was used to working with large groups of people, juggling multiple projects, and conquering stage fright on a regular basis. When I fictionalize real people that I know, and involve them in the book, my series becomes more alive. I have never enjoyed solos as much as I enjoy working with a cast and crew.
To maintain excitement the Serena Wilcox series is bundled into trilogies. When one trilogy ends, the series departs into a new direction. My first three books were so short that they are now sold as a collection of short-stories. My second set of three is the dystopian trilogy that began with my break-through novel Angels Mark. The final book of the dystopian trilogy, Bluebird Flown, is my new release:
“Bluebird Flown, the final book in the Serena Wilcox Dystopian Trilogy, goes even deeper into the madness of futuristic America; corrupt, heavy with conspiracies– chillingly close to tomorrow’s headlines. President Ann Kinji trusts no one, except for government outsider, former private detective mother-of-three Serena Wilcox and her motley crew of vigilantes, burned agents & the criminally insane. As the United States continues to spiral out of control, can Serena stop all of the traitors before they kill the President? As the layers of betrayal are peeled, will anyone remain standing?
Covert Coffee’s dystopian, eerie, and intense vibe continues! What began in Angels Mark and escalated in Covert Coffee is revealed in Bluebird Flown.”
I’m currently working on book one in the third Serena Wilcox trilogy, Project Scarecrow.
**
You can find more about Natalie and her writing via…
***
If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog (the spotlights are option (a)) or email me for details.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, Natalie Buske Thomas, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to Novel Nights In where I’ve been bring you guests’ novels in their entirety over a maximum of ten weeks. Tonight’s is the fourth, and final, book in this series and tonight features the conclusion of a 100,900-word novel by Alberta Ross. You can read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, and Part 9.
NB. This novel does contain some strong language.
*
Ellen’s Tale: the first of The Sefuty Chronicles series – Synopsis
2060: The catastrophic results of climate change lead to mass migrations, whole nations fleeing rising seas and desertification. The world at war: land, water and survival the prize. The survivors split, most scrambling to the purpose-built cities the others fortifying their settlements behind the false security of rings of land mines.
Genetic manipulations lead to populations in the cities being freed from greed and violence but this has resulted in the destruction of the drive which made the human race so successful.
Imprisoned behind the mines, deprived of resources, the settlements battle famine, natural disasters and despair. Populations everywhere continue to tumble.
2162: Young researcher Maia Linne contacts archivist Ris Menai for assistance with a study of Ellen Wellfit, a young girl who had lived and loved 50 years previously. Through incomplete correspondence we follow their increasing interest and eventual love for each other.
2111: Ellen Wellfit, innocent and naïve. Bix Sefune, dangerously charming. They meet when she seeks his help to fulfil the dying request of an old lady. Terrified of life outside the city walls Ellen, is forced to cling to Bix and he, responding, finds his interest in her growing.
They both dare to think of a future together. It is Ellen who seeks to find a way to achieve their dreams. The results of her actions hold out hope for them and also for the dwindling survivors of mankind.
An historical romance in the future, with three time periods and two love stories set against a background of climate change, child soldiers, land mines, genetic engineering and eugenics.
*
Ellen’s Tale (conclusion)
BIX SEFUNE
My Mouse, well not such a Mouse, I guess, but I like the name so Mouse she stays. She is full of surprises that girl. I have a feeling she’s rattling a few cage doors around here; good for her, they need it. Life’s not so bad at the moment, come and go as I choose. I can manage small doses of the City, especially when Ellen is there with her smile of welcome. No matter what time of day or night I appear she smiles and comes to me. Never a frown, because of the hour or the inconvenience, just pleased to see me. Somewhere, somehow, I must have done something to deserve her but damned if I know when or what. Not questioning it mind, doesn’t do; just enjoy it I say, just enjoy it. And I do.
Must say, though, it’s a funny set up really. Here I am making free with the City, father of three . . . Stop just there. Father of three, never in wildest dreams did I see that one coming. Still don’t really believe it. Ah, well. Then there’s Ellen setting them all by their heels with a revolution. Okay, maybe not a revolution but the ideas she’s got. Marshall listening to them as well, as if she was his equal. Neither of us can quite take that on. Her head is buzzing with ideas, she hasn’t told them the half of it yet. Breaking them in slowly, very wise. They might have her head otherwise. She’s an important person now, new tunic and all. Actually I like her in it, the colour reminds me of Outside: sky, flowers, that kind of thing. But Ambassador no less. Well, well, little timid Mouse has grown indeed. Hasn’t she done well? I tell her every time I come back I find a new woman here. Am I lucky or what?
Marshall is the one I feel sorry for, he doesn’t stand a chance against my girl. Told him so. I never did, none of the Riders managed either. Why did he ever think he could resist her? He just smiles and inclines his head, like this. I have no hard feelings now, and I understand why the Programme was put into place. Ellen told me about the unAltered children and Marshall’s hopes for them. That’s great but I told him not to stop the Programme. Listening to all this stuff about Manipulation and Alteration has made me realise the advantages. I am firmly on the Geneticists’ side here. Marshall and I have many a discussion about it, quite heated sometimes; well, quite heated for him, anyway.
Outside? Well, our house is almost ready now; Jack and I have done well there, I think. Hope Ellen likes it. This Trade Route business Ellen has handed us will curtail our time in the Village if it takes off and I worry a bit about having to provide for Ellen and the babies. The Villagers have said they will look after them but the original deal was for us to look after ourselves, with their guidance, not for them to do it all. I’m not happy with them doing my job.
Ellen laughs at me. Says I’m playing man games. No respect. Actually, I don’t think I’m cut out for farming, this Trade Route stuff is much more my line. Have made a few trips to other Villages. A bit of work still needed to convince them all. They do like that I can mostly point them to more land. It’s always been a problem for them all, not knowing where the mines are laid, and good land going to waste for want of that knowledge. Marshall is most interested in how well they are all doing and how they have been coping with the weather and bandits. Well, we have helped with that last of course, the Ferals I mean. We have them pretty well beaten here in this part of the country, not sure about the west or across the sea.
I think the Trade Routes will work well, there is talk of me escorting a few of the Council to some of the Villages I have found and then maybe, if they can be convinced, getting them into the City to meet with Ellen. I think Ellen will have left by then so maybe I’ll bypass the Council and take her straight there. If she’s able, of course. She won’t talk about the problem. Outside I mean. She turns the subject every time.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Welcome to the fourth in a 31-day series Story A Day May 2013.
Late April 2011 I discovered http://StoryADay.org and the project that is to write 31 stories in 31 days. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog, knows how passionate I am about short stories so my clichéd eyes lit up at this new marvel. And just a few days later there I was, breathing life into new characters. This went on to become (with some editing of course) my 31-story collection eBook Story A Day May 2011.
I was nearing completion of the 2012 project when I decided that I didn’t want to stop at the end of May so 5PM Fiction was born. This is on hold this month as I write a story a day for SADM2013
Today’s prompt was to write an obituary. Below is my 544-worder.
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RIP Lenny ‘Shades’ Froug
Characters as colourful as Lenny ‘Shades’ Froug don’t come along very often and the world is most certainly a darker place without him.
Born Leonard Dennis Froug on the 4th of May 2013, the only son to Dennis Froug Snr and Lillian Froug neé Smith, of Northamptonshire, England, Lenny ignored fashion trends, wearing stripes with spots, snakeskin with floral, and neon with nylon. He earned his nickname not by the sunglasses he wore – he loved direct contact with the sun – but by those worn by the people around him on particularly colourful days.
As soon as he could talk, Leonard Jnr told his parents that he only had a limited time to live and wanted to fill it with as many experiences as he could. Being an only child, he was not short of love and attention, forming the easy-going personality that endeared him to everyone he met.
As a child, he would venture into his father’s shed, help with Dennis Snr’s experiments and soon he was trying his own, with success, leading him to ultimately find the cure to the common cold, all strains of cancer known to man, and some unknown, and why the underneath of a yoghurt pot lid always falls the wrong side down (gravital proportion to the square coverage of surface area on each side).
With those achievements, all before the age of 12, under one’s belt – in his case, a skinny Rattlesnake – some would then have taken a step back and settle into a more normal life, but Lenny would regularly be spotted jetting off to war-torn countries where he would take over the peace negotiations and bring them to a satisfactory conclusion – the Gaza Strip now a nature reserve – to parched and famished African countries where he would dance his version of a rain dance, powerful enough to whip up the fiercest of rainstorms, filling the Froug Developments’ wells deep enough to last the rest of the century.
One of many figments of English writer, Morgen Bailey’s imagination, who is famous for killing off many of her characters, she and Leonard had a short (544-word), but endearing relationship and Ms Bailey is quoted as saying, “I wish I could have known Lenny better. Maybe I’ll bring him back to life in a later story.”
Those who knew Lenny, are devastated by his early demise and are, at the time of this item going to press, raising funds for his return.
Lenny leaves behind his parents, Dennis and Lillian, and a hamster called ‘Pixie’.
The memorial service will be held on 14th May 2013 at the Chapel in the grounds of the Leonard Froug Garden on Mars’ Fourth Quadrant, near to the florescent rock pools that Lenny loved so much. A free shuttle bus will be available from all UK airports, where Lenny was a season ticket holder, and Mr and Mrs Froug welcome all attendees back to their home, Froug Mansions, which Lenny bought them with the money he received from his seventeenth Nobel Prize.
Those attending are forbidden from wearing black, including underwear – security guards have been instructed to check – and a disco will be held after the service in stretch marquees in the grounds of the family home – formerly known as Buckingham Palace – until ‘late’.
***
Picture above courtesy of morguefile.com.
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Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
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Complementing my interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the two hundred and twenty-first is of David W Berner.
David W. Berner is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, author, and teacher. His first book, Accidental Lessons was awarded the 2011 Royal Dragonfly Grand Prize for Literature. His broadcast reporting and audio documentaries have been aired on the CBS Radio Network, NPR’s Weekend Edition and a number of public radio stations across America. David has been the recipient of awards from the Associated Press, RTNDA (Radio and Television News Directors Association) and the Broadcast Education Association.
David was awarded the position of Writer-in-Residence at the Jack Kerouac Project in Orlando, Florida for the summer of 2011. His writing, both reporting and personal essays, have appeared in publications and online journals such as Under the Gum Tree, Chicagoland Journal, PERIGEE, Tiny Lights Journal, Shaking Like a Mountain, Travelgolf.com, Worldgolf.com, Golf Chicago Magazine, The Sun Newspapers, and Write City Magazine. David is also a performer. He’s a regular on the Chicago storytelling circuit, reading his personal essays at events such as 2nd Story, Story Club, Essay Fiesta, and This Much is True. As an associate professor at Columbia College Chicago, he teaches radio narrative, audio documentary, and writing. He has presented writing workshops at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and for numerous literary organizations throughout the Chicago area.
David holds a Masters in Education/Teaching from the Aurora University and a MFA in Creative Writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University. He also tries to find still time to play guitar and watch as much TV coverage as possible of his beloved Steelers.
He lives in Forest Park, Illinois just outside Chicago.
*
And now from the author himself:
Where I Write
There’s forever been that romantic belief that writers do their work in wonderful, even glorious spaces. Dylan Thomas had his shed, the boathouse in Wales, a spare spot of fertile ground where wonderful ideas germinate. Some see the writer toiling away in the oak lined room of a country estate; the surrounding shelves lined the classics. But here’s the reality: many if not most writers work in far less picturesque or grand places. An author friend of mine writes nearly everything on a simple, lined legal pad while lying on her twin bed in her tiny studio apartment on Chicago gritty West Side. The place where I write is somewhere between the meager and the grand. Truth is, I write in a lot of places: coffee shops, trains, slumped in my living room couch. But one spot is a favorite. It’s a corner of my small dining room near the window where I can hear city noises. I like the soundtrack of traffic, car tires on rain, the bells of the old church across the street, the voices of those walking by. I like being surrounded by books I’m reading and the beloved old ones. Their presence inspires. Coffee is necessary. And behind me there are two photographs that have always been special to me. One is of Hemingway’s writing space at his home in Key West and the other is by photographer Zeny Cieslikowski entitled “San Francisco”. It’s an image of the street outside City Lights Bookstore, one of my favorite literary destinations. Below them is a portable Royal typewriter, circa 1940. I don’t always write in this space, but when I do it may be the best place in the world. It not only drives my work, but it helps to present the importance of “place” in my stories.
I first experienced how important a writing space could be when I was given the opportunity to be the writer-in-residence at the Jack Kerouac House in Orlando, Florida. It’s the modest home he lived with his mother after all the attention of On the Road, and where he wrote The Dharma Bums. The three-month experience of writing in such a revered place, allowed for a renewed attention to “place” in a story. Setting can be as much a character in a work as the voices heard in those spaces. When I started writing Any Road Will Take You There: A Journey of Fathers and Sons, my memoir of a 5000-mile road trip and the struggles and triumphs of fatherhood, I rediscovered the importance of space, setting, and place. Where the story happens, why it happens in that location, in that house, on that road is crucial to the story. Each of the stops along the long journey in Any Road Will Take You There evokes a memory, a moment that fuels the trip and the story.
Just like the places where I write, the places in my stories have meaning, something true and honest and revealing.
**
You can find more about David and his writing via…
***
If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog (the spotlights are option (a)) or email me for details.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
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Taken from my Competitions Calendar, below are some competitions run with May deadlines (in order of genre then deadline dates). If you know of ones that I haven’t listed here, find any of these have closed or discover any broken links, please do email me with details. I will be adding more as I get them. Also see the ‘Submission info.‘ page (and genre sub-pages) for submission opportunities.
NB. I may well not have tried these competitions myself so please take a good look at the websites before parting with money and submitting your hard work! ALSO please note that not all the competitions run each year so please check their validity before entering (and their guidelines do change from year to year).
- Details of the H.E. Bates Short Story Competition that one of my writing groups runs (late October deadline) is here.
- Details of the NLG Flash Fiction Competition that I’m Head Judging (end June deadline) is here.
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MAY
- Children’s: bookweek.ca/information-artists
- Flash Fiction: Indies Unlimited hosts a weekly 250-word max. prompt competition – also see Indies Unlimited and ‘Short stories’ below.
- Flash Fiction: Each week on http://theironwriter.com, four writers agree to compose a five hundred word story involving the same four elements. Please remember to give your story a title. The stories can be in any genre except erotica. The writers will not know what the four elements are prior to committing to the challenge. There is a four day time limit to complete the story. I email the elements early Thursday morning, my time. The story is due at midnight, Sunday, your time. Each author retains full and complete copyright of their story submitted to The Iron Writer for this competition. However, it is understood each story will remain on this website indefinitely. The Iron Writer will not publish any submission outside this website without express permission from the author. So, if you are up to the challenge, please email me at HERE and we can schedule when you are willing to participate. Please include your main blog or website. I will link your story to your site. You may participate as often as you want.
- Flash Fiction: Writer Austin Briggs runs a monthly 55-word competition (different theme each month). It’s free to enter and you can win $55 (of his own money!).
- Flash Fiction: http://theironwriter.com
- Flash Fiction: 16th May is National Flash Fiction day and you can find some competitions (various dates) on http://www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/competitions.html.
- Flash Fiction: The Bridport Prize. Poems 42 lines max, short stories 5,000 words max, flash 250 words max. £15,000+ prize fund, closing date 31 May. See http://www.bridportprize.org.uk.
- Flash Fiction: The New Writer 17th Annual Prose & Poetry Prizes launched April 2013. £2,000 in prizes. Closing date 30th November. Short stories, flash fiction and poetry.
- http://www.lightshippublishing.co.uk/competition/the_lightship_short_memoir_contest.
- Mixed: Free prose and poetry competition with a 10th May deadline: see http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/2013/04/13/listenupnorth-com-national-uk-prose-poetry-competition-18-10th-may-deadline.
- Mixed: Winchester Writers’ Conference has opened their 17(!) mixed writing competitions (deadline Friday 24th May). Details in their competitions brochure 2013. £7 per entry if attending, £9 if not.
- Mixed: The International 2013 Yeovil Literary Prize has a closing date of 31st May 2013 and there are three categories:
THE NOVEL – Please send the synopsis with opening chapters (up to 15,000 words in total) :
Prizes: 1st = £1,000; 2nd = £250; 3rd = £100. Fee £11.
THE SHORT STORY – Up to a maximum of 2,000 words.
Prizes: 1st = £500; 2nd = £200; 3rd = £100. Fee £6.
POETRY – A poem with a maximum of 40 lines.
Prizes: 1st = £500; 2nd = £200; 3rd = £100. Fee £6, two for £9, three for £11.
The Yeovil Literary Prize can be entered online or by post. The judges are all professional writers and publishers. For details see the website (http://www.yeovilprize.co.uk) or write to: Yeovil Literary Prize, The Octagon Theatre, Hendford, Yeovil, BA20 1UX.
- Mixed: Christian magazine Pockets has a different theme per month.
- Mixed (novels & short story collections): iWriteReadRate and Cornerstones Literary Consultancy (http://www.voteformyebook.com) are offering a monthly social competition to members of the community – see ‘Monthly’ towards the end of this page.
- Non-fiction: Elephants. You gotta LOVE ‘em! And can you WRITE about them? Let’s find out. We’re looking for FICTION (including but not limited to fantasy and humor) and for narrative non-fiction, between 500 and 5,000 words.Prize for 1st place is $150 and 2nd place is $50. Plus, the top tales may be included in an anthology {ELEPHANTHOLOGY} with your name. See http://www.phylsbooks.com/#!contest/c1kbb. Submissions accepted from 1 April 2013 to midnight of 1 July 2013. Cost $10.
- Non-fiction: another non-fiction competition is FBFT Sports Writing.
- Novels: A brand new ‘Navegator’ Competition is now officially launched. This time writers are invited to produce the first pages (800-1500 words) of a credible continuation of the first novel. The judging panel will be guided by Philip Purser, who has several books to his credit and a prestigious career as a journalist. Another crime novelist, Leo McNeir, will also be one of the judges. No purchase is necessary and you can enter from anywhere in the world. Entries close on 31st May and full details can be found on the website: http://www.navegator.co.uk
- Novels: Novel Rocket runs an annual Launch Pad Contest: Boosting You Out of the Slush Pile. Entries will be accepted in all genres beginning mid-January. The deadline for submission is different for genre categories according to the following schedule. In each case, entries must be received by 11:59 PM EST on the 10th day of the month (April to September) listed on http://www.novelrocket.com/p/launch-pad-contest.html. They also post a new writing-related article seven days a week, from author interviews to marketing discussions to articles about the craft of writing.
- Novels: Words With JAM is running a ‘First Page Competition’ where you can enter the first page of a finished novel, work in progress or page specifically written for the competition. Closing date 31st May 2013.This year’s judge is Sue Grafton. Prizes £500 / £100 / £50 with fee of £6 first entry, £4 per entry thereafter. See http://wordswithjam.co.uk/#/first-page-competition-2013/4573741026 for details.
- Playwriting: RealDeal Theatre is looking for 10-15 minute scripts for its new event, Popcorn Saturday!, short plays inspired by the movies, to be held on Saturday, 29th June 2013 to be held at Westminster Reference Library, off London’s Leicester Square. The entry window for sending entries to scripts@realdealtheatre.org.uk is Monday 20th May – Sunday 26th May 2013. A link straight to the entry details http://realdealtheatre.webs.com/scripts.htm.
- Playwriting: Lightship First Act Competition. Judges: Micheline Steinberg, Dave Whybrow, Anthony McCarten. Maximum 6,000 words, closing date 31 May. See http://www.lightshippublishing.co.uk/competition/lightship_first_act_competition.
- Playwriting: Pint-sized Plays 2013. Scripts should be capable of being staged in a pub with a running time of 5-10 mins, closing date 31 May. See http://www.pintsizedplays.org.uk.
- Poetry: Templar Poetry Pamphlet & Collection Awards closes for submissions on 7 May.
- Poetry: Northampton Literature Group usually runs a yearly poetry competition with a mid-May deadline but it has 2013 off and is running a flash fiction competition instead!
- Poetry: The Montreal International Poetry Prize has a top prize $20,000 CDN, single poem, max 40 lines. Closing date 15 May. See http://montrealprize.com.
- Poetry: Printerpix Poetry Competition is a free competition to enter and winners will receive $100 worth of Amazon vouchers and a free canvas. The theme for this competition is ‘sunshine’. Entries can be no longer than 45 lines and must be original work. Competition closes Friday 24th May 2013. For more details and how to enter, click here.
- Poetry: The Welsh Poetry Competition. £4 entry per poem. Prizes: £400, £200, £100. The judge for their 7th competition (2013) is Eloise Williams and the deadline is Sunday 26th May. Poems in English, 50 lines, unpublished. See http://www.welshpoetry.co.uk for entry forms and rules.
- Poetry: The second ‘Poems Please Me’ Poetry Competition has a deadline of 31st May. Entry is by subscription to the site and the example given is a ‘single’ at £12 which entitles you to three entries to the competition. See http://www.poemsplease.me/?page_id=118 for more details.
- Poetry: The fourth Battered Moons Poetry Competition is now open to all UK residents aged 18 or over and accepts poems on any topic and style of up to 40 lines. Main judge Alice Oswald and Cristina Newton will read all the poems. The 3 winners and 4 commended poets will be invited to read their poems at the Swindon Festival of Poetry on Saturday 5th October 2013, when Alice Oswald will present the prizes and read from her own work. Winning and commended poems will appear in the Battered Moons pamphlet and website. First prize, £300; second, £150; third, £75. Entry fee: £3 each poem or £10 for 4. Closing date for entries is 31st May 2013. Online and postal entries accepted. For further information and to enter, visit http://batteredmoons.com. Queries to Cristina Newton on cristina.ne.newton@gmail.com. Supported by Swindon Artswords, the Swindon Festival of Poetry, and Arts Council England.
- Poetry: David Burland International Poetry Prize 2013 - in either French or English - closing date 31st May, 1st prize £200 + website publication. See http://www.davidburlandpoetryprize.com.
- Poetry: The Bridport Prize. Poems 42 lines max, short stories 5,000 words max, flash 250 words max. £15,000+ prize fund, closing date 31st May. See http://www.bridportprize.org.uk.
- Poetry: The Frogmore Poetry Prize 2013 has been annual since 1987. You can win 200 guineas and 2-year sub to The Frogmore Papers. 2013 adjudicator is Stephanie Norgate. Max 40 lines, closing date 31st May. See http://www.frogmorepress.co.uk.
- Poetry: Another 31st May deadline is Wigtown Poetry Competition. First Prize: Main Prize £2000. Runner-up £400. Gaelic Prize £250. Scots Prize £250. Eight additional prizes of £25 each. The first poem submitted costs £7.00. Multiple entries: the first three poems cost a total of £19.00. Each subsequent entry after the first three costs £5 or a total of £14 for every additional block of 3, ie: 1 poem £7; 2 poems £14; 3 poems £19; 4 poems £24; 5 poems £29; 6 poems £33; 7 poems £38; 8 poems £43; 9 poems £47; 10 poems £52; 11 poems £57; 12 poems £61 etc. Main Prize Judge: Robin Robertson, Gaelic Prize Judge: Meg Bateman, Scots Prize Judge: Liz Niven. Winners will be invited to read their poems at the Wigtown Book Festival 2013 (28th September to 7th October). Winning poems will be published on the Festival website. For further details, rules and entry form, visit: www.wigtownbookfestival.com/poetrycomp.
- Poetry: The Writers’ Forum Poetry Competition is a monthly contest for poems of up to 40 lines. Closing: Monthly. Entries arriving too late for one month go forward to the next. Prizes: 1st – £100. Runners-up – A Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Entry Fee: £5 each, £3 each thereafter. Includes a free critique (sae required if entering by post). Comp Page: http://www.writers-forum.com/poetrycomp.html.
- Poetry: The New Writer 17th Annual Prose & Poetry Prizes launched April 2013. £2,000 in prizes. Closing date 30th November. Short stories, flash fiction and poetry.
- Poetry: Other poetry competitions include Bridport Prize (also shorts / flash), Northampton Literature Group (on hold for 2013 but flash fiction instead), Partners, Templar Poetry Pamphlet & Collection Awards, Writing Magazine (WM: subscriber-only theme: poetry for children), Stephen Spender.
- Screenwriting: Canada-based Wildsound run monthly screenwriting competitions.
- Scriptwriting: Mini Operas scriptwriting competition opens March closes May.
- Scriptwriting: The 10th Annual Screenwriting Challenge is a competition open to screenwriters around the world. There are 3 rounds of competition. In the 1st Round (June 14-22), writers are placed randomly in heats and are assigned a genre, subject, and character assignment (see examples of past assignments here). Writers have 8 days to write an original short screenplay no longer than 12 pages. The judges choose a top 5 in each heat to advance to the 2nd Round (July 25-28) where writers receive new assignments, only this time they have just 3 days to write an 8 page (maximum) short screenplay. Judges choose a top 25 from the 2nd Round to advance to the 3rd and final round of the competition where writers are challenged to write a 5 page (maximum) screenplay in just 24 hours (August 23-24). It’s easy to register. First, download and read the Official Rules and Participation Agreement. Once you have read, understood, and agree to the terms, you are ready to register by clicking here. The entry fee is USD $39* until the Early Entry Deadline of May 16, 2013 and USD $49* until the Final Entry Deadlline of June 13, 2013.
- Short stories: Elephants. You gotta LOVE ‘em! And can you WRITE about them? Let’s find out. We’re looking for FICTION (including but not limited to fantasy and humor) and for NARRATIVE NONFICTION, between 500 and 5,000 words.Prize for 1st place is $150 and 2nd place is $50. Plus, the top tales may be included in an anthology {ELEPHANTHOLOGY} with your name. See http://www.phylsbooks.com/#!contest/c1kbb. Submissions accepted from 1 April 2013 – midnight of 1 July 2013. Cost $10.
- Short stories: Curry Mallet History Festival Short Story Competition judge is novelist Amelia Carr, max 2500 words with the title The Reunion or The Journey or The Letter, 1st prize £100, closing date 17 May. See http://www.currymallet.org/short-story-competition.
- Short stories: The Bridport Prize. Poems 42 lines max, short stories 5,000 words max, flash 250 words max. £15,000+ prize fund, closing date 31 May. See http://www.bridportprize.org.uk.
- Short stories: The Fiction Desk Ghost Story Competition welcomes ghost stories from 2,000 – 5,000 words. Closing date: 31st May 2013. (Annual competition). Prizes: First prize £500, second prize £100. Entry fee: £6 for one story; £9 for two stories submitted together. For more details, see: http://www.thefictiondesk.com/submissions/ghost-story-competition.php.
- Short stories: Bridport Prize (shorts/flash, was June), The British Fantasy Society, Glimmer Train (different category each month), The Lorian Hemingway, Writing Magazine, Biscuit Publishing and the monthly competition Five Stop Story.
- Short stories: Hayley Sherman also runs a monthly short story competition for submissions on any subject up to 2,000 words. The winners are published on the website, promoted online and receive a £10 First Writer voucher. All entrants are also considered for publication in The New Short Story Annual at the end of the year. Deadline 25th of the month. Heather Marie Schuldt runs a similar contest, although 500-750 words max., but with the same deadline.
- Short stories: The New Writer 17th Annual Prose & Poetry Prizes launched April 2013. £2,000 in prizes. Closing date 30th November. Short stories, flash fiction and poetry.
- NB. Don’t forget to check out the ongoing competition websites listed at the end of this page.
And do let me know how you get on.
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Welcome to Flash Fiction Friday and the eighty-fifth piece in this series. This week’s is an 833-worder by poet, critic, short story author, novelist and interviewee John Brantingham. This story will be podcasted in episode 29 (with two other stories) on Sunday 14th July.
Silence Was His Answer
It had been a long time since Robert Mann had been on an interview, and this was the first he’d been on where he’d taken a gun, but he had the .45 in his jacket pocket. It was a cold morning on the north side of what Robert assumed was Mt. Baldy, anyway, one of those mountains that looked out of the Mojave, the freeway leading out towards Las Vegas.
He crunched up the path where the men had pointed, the men with their own pistols stuffed into their waistbands. They were meant to intimidate Robert, he supposed.
They hadn’t.
It was a good half-mile up the trail and around a long outcropping of the mountain before Robert came upon Calvin Carson. He stood over a kid who had dug his own grave and then was beaten badly enough that he lay in the fetal position at Carson’s feet. It was gruesome, horrible, and fairly clichéd too. Robert grimaced at the cliché.
Carson nodded. “Glad you made it here. I was worried. You’re twenty minutes late.”
“Sorry about that,” Robert said. “I had to stop to take care of some things.”
At his voice, the kid on the ground looked up and squinted at Robert. He shook his head a little to clear it.
“So, this is the job interview,” Carson said. “I can always tell someone’s quality by the way he takes out a guy.”
“What did this kid do?”
Calvin Carson shrugged. “Gambling debts.”
Robert frowned. “That doesn’t make sense to me. A guy owes you money, you let him live, so he can pay you back.”
Carson took two steps away and looked over the long desert, adopting a philosophical pose. “He’s paid out as much as he’s going to. Gave us the college scholarship. Stole from family until they’ve cut him free. I don’t think a college dropout is going to get a good job, and he failed the job interview that you’re about to take. Didn’t kill the guy.” Carson sighed deeply. “He’s better dead than alive now.”
By the time Carson turned around, Robert had his gun pointed at him.
A smug smile flashed across Carson’s face. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Now, it’s time for your interview. You have one chance. I want you to forgive his debt. He’s more than covered it and the interest.”
“Are you out of your mind? I know you’re good, Thompson. You’re not that good.”
“My name’s not Thompson. I just look a little like him.”
“What, you took him out?”
Mann didn’t respond. He let silence be his answer.
“Well, if you’re good enough to take out Thompson, you’re smart enough to know you’ll never get away with it. My men will hear the gunshots and come for you.”
“No,” Mann shook his head. “They’ll never hear them.”
“You can be sure?”
“Well, you didn’t hear the shots when I took them out, did you?”
Calvin Carson stared at Mann. “Okay, so what, you’re with a competitor? Who are you?”
Mann nodded his head at the kid. “I’m his history professor. Was before he had to drop out. I do other things on the side.”
Carson now stared at the kid, processing what Mann had just said.
“What’s your answer?” Mann asked.
But Carson didn’t have to answer. Robert could see the answer forming in his eyes. He could see the lies and manipulations. He could see the kind of thinking that went into the life that Carson had lived, pushing its way into some kind of statement that was meant to trick Mann, meant to control the situation.
So Mann allowed silence to be Carson’s answer. He raised his .45 to the man’s chest and fired the entire clip. Why save bullets after all?
There was a moment of pure quiet, the kind of quiet that’s filled with wind through scrub bushes and birds talking to each other, the kind of quiet that could refresh a person on normal days. Maybe not on a day like this but usually. Then the silence was broken by the kid letting out a long breath he’d been holding.
“Professor Mann?” he asked.
He helped the kid up. “Can you walk?”
“I can walk out of here.”
“Can you keep secrets?”
The kid looked him in the eyes. “I can keep this secret.”
“That’s good,” Mann said without smiling. “Because I can get to people.” He glanced at the body on the ground to make his point.
The kid had no response to that one. What was there to say after all? They started to walk back, and Mann thought about the kid. He prayed the kid didn’t talk. Taking out mob guys, assassins, henchmen, the scum of the world. That was easy. He knew he’d never be able to take out some poor gambling addict who’d never really done anything truly terrible, not just to protect himself.
There were just some lines he’d never be able to cross.
*
I asked John what prompted this piece and he said…
It’s inspired by my new novel, Mann of War, and features the main character of that novel.
**
Well, I loved it, especially when Mann explains who he was. Thank you, John.
John Brantingham is the author of East of Los Angeles, and his work has appeared on Garrison Keillor’s daily show Writer’s Almanac. He has had hundreds of stories and poems published in the United States and England in magazines such as The Journal, Confrontation, Mobius, and Tears in the Fence. He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for a poem in his chapbook Putting in a Window, which was published by Finishing Line Press, and his second chapbook, Heroes for Today, was published by Pudding House Press. He is a full-time professor at Mt. San Antonio College in Southern California and one of two fiction editors of The Chiron Review, a nationally distributed literary magazine.
His latest suspense novel is Mann of War, available at Oak Tree Press. You can check out the trailer for his book and many more of his humorous vlogs at johnbrantingham.blogspot.com.
John lives happily in the city of Walnut with his wife, Annie and their canine companion, Archie.
***
If you’d like to submit your 1,000-word max. stories for consideration for Flash Fiction Friday take a look here or for the online writing groups (links below).
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You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
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Welcome to the third in a 31-day series Story A Day May 2013.
Late April 2011 I discovered http://StoryADay.org and the project that is to write 31 stories in 31 days. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog, knows how passionate I am about short stories so my clichéd eyes lit up at this new marvel. And just a few days later there I was, breathing life into new characters. This went on to become (with some editing of course) my 31-story collection eBook Story A Day May 2011.
I was nearing completion of the 2012 project when I decided that I didn’t want to stop at the end of May so 5PM Fiction was born. This is on hold this month as I write a story a day for SADM2013
Today’s prompt was to write a character-led story and there’s little more character-based than a monologue. Below is my 279-worder.
*
It’s Not You, It’s Me
It’s not you, it’s me.
No, that’s too clichéd.
You’re a lovely person but…
Can’t do that either.
OK, pull yourself together. Three years isn’t that long. She won’t go too mad, will she?
Of course she will, what are you thinking?
Oh God, she’ll be here soon. Why didn’t I say twelve-thirty? Suppose I should have gone to her instead of her coming here then I could have done a runner.
There’ll be tears of course and I’ll never get rid of her. Suppose I could have done it by letter but then she’d have come over anyway… or by text. No, that’s the coward’s way. I’ll come straight out with it. Best to do it quickly. Like a plaster, rip it off in one go and the pain subsides quicker.
Of course she’ll say she needs me, can’t do without me. Heard it before. You’d think I’d be an expert by now; not being my first. She was the best though. Even I’d admit that. Hard decision but has to be done. Things just aren’t working out. I suppose if I hadn’t lost my job we could have carried on but things change, don’t they? No point burying your head in the sand. OK. I’ll do it then and…
Oh God, she’s here.
Hello. Oh, I love your jacket. Cup of…
Listen, there’s something I have to say. Please sit down. Anywhere.
Look, I’m really sorry but there’s no other way to put this but I’m going to have to…
I’m going to have to let you go Mrs Jones. I’m sorry but it’s economics – I’m going to have to clean my own house from now on.
***
Picture above courtesy of morguefile.com.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
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You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 085: Friday 3rd May
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: final, line, slip, flood, best
- Random: A haiku ending with ‘always’
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- One-word prompt: killing
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 089: Friday 3rd May
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: shredded, routine, platitude, severed, wonky
- Random: S/he loves old movies
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- One-word prompt: fortune
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Complementing my interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the two hundred and twentieth, is of short story author Brian Wilson.
Brian Wilson is a New Zealand writer who has travelled around the world, and has drawn on these and New Zealand experiences to write his short stories. He has qualifications in accountancy, management and psychology- an MA (honors). Brian has grown up in the recently earthquake-destroyed city of Christchurch where he has raised his own family and enjoyed recreational pursuits of writing, sport and music.
*
And now from the author himself:
At 12.51pm on the 22nd of February 2011, Christchurch City, New Zealand rocked to a 6.3 Richter scale earthquake. This violent shaking came as an unwanted lunch-time surprise to workers, reducing much of the central business area to a pile of rubble. Across the road from where I was working, the six-storey Canterbury Television Building collapsed entombing 113 occupants. That day people died, businesses collapsed and over 10,000 homes were destroyed. This was a moment in time- just another story in our lives. Tragic as this event may be, it marked the beginning of my first book of short stories “Moments in Time – a collection of short stories,”
The 30 short stories include not only some first-hand experiences of the Christchurch earthquake, but also humorous stories based in New Zealand and overseas. Many have surprised twists. “Moments in Time”, reminds us that every day is a unique experience and not always a bunch of roses. However, there is always light at the end of the tunnel, even though there may be a few trains in between. This is a book of inspiration and humour dedicated o the people of Christchurch who have endured too much for too long. Their resilience is admirable and an inspiration to all who are experiencing hard times.
I am currently completing my second book. This will include stories based on experiences in New Zealand, Australia, Zimbabwe, France, Italy, England, China and Japan and uses many of the same characters. This book is expected to be published and for sale late September.
**
You can find more about Brian and his writing via…
***
If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog (the spotlights are option (a)) or email me for details.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
And now for something different…
Tonight’s blog post is my review of two items sent to me by the lovely people at www.thepencompany.com.
Fisher Space Pen (RRP £26.96 with free delivery)
An author is nothing without their pen (or keyboard) and whilst some are quite happy with a 20-for-a-pound/dollar biro (I’m rarely), it is lovely to have luxury every now and then.
I’m on various writing lists dotted around the internet so am used to getting random emails and on the 23rd March I received one such from Anna Rainbow (a wonderful name for a character – Anna watch out!), Marketing Assistant at The Pen Company, letting me know about their writing competition (which is on http://www.thepencompany.com/blog/competitions/spring-poetry-competition by the way and I listed on my competitions page: http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/competitions-calendar but unfortunately finished yesterday 
) then during emails backwards and forwards, Anna invited me to review one of the pens and of course I said “yes” so she sent me off shopping through their electronic shelves (my kind of shopping, sorry Mr Corner Shop).
Me being me, I spotted the word ‘stylus’ and had my heart set on one of those. Anna’s colleague James Gill then took over when I picked my weapon of choice (yes, I kill characters with my pens!).
It turns out that that type of stylus pens were being phased out because they’re not compatible with certain types of touch screens aka my iPad2. So after more lovely email tennis, James directed me to the hot-off-the-press (arrived with them on Tuesday, I received it yesterday, Wednesday) Fisher Space Pen.
Review
The pen comes in a pass-the-parcel-get-anywhere-in-perfect-condition packaging and I remember a while back reading that packaging is the number one bugbear in a reader’s poll so I tested that out too. One end was tough to open (the sort that has cuts into the ends with a middle flap into the end of the box) so I tried the other and it opened quite easily. Part 1 passed.
Part 2: the inner case. Solid, durable black plastic with ‘fisher SPACEPEN®’ in silver lettering (and what looks like a single-ring Saturn – astronomers will probably correct me here) on the top. The opening is a click-shut-push-the-bottom-in snug fit. The pen rests on a silver velveteen-style (pen experts – James? – will know the word for it) hollow plastic mould which is super-snug. No chance of this baby escaping. Removing (easier said than done) the grey moulded tray reveals a pamphlet with Paul C Fisher’s picture and signature on the front. Opening that up, concertina-style, reveals on one side the History of the Company (more about that on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_C._Fisher) in English, German, Spanish, Italian and French (I can converse, just about, in all but Italian, so some bedtime reading perhaps). Then on the other side, in the same languages, is headed ‘Technology’ – that’s me! –
- Ultra-hard tungsten carbide ball
- Stainless steel precision-machined socket prevent leaks and oozing, yet delivers instant uniform in ink flow.
- Visco-elastic thixotropic ink in the hermetically-sealed and pressurised cartridge writes three times longer.
- Sliding float separates ink from pressurised gas.
- Gas plug seals in almost 50psi when full.
I only understand about half of that but it sounds impressive. I recognise psi from tyres so perhaps the car mechanics reading this can explain that bit to me.
There is actually an explanation on the leaflet and picking up that it won’t run out for at least 100 years (depending upon how much I write!) and I can use it in temperatures from -30oF to +250oF (no danger there).
Part 3: the important bit – the pen. The first thing that surprised me about the pen (or rather the pen via the packaging) was how small it is. I thought that perhaps it came in two pieces but no, sure enough, it is dinky.
Housed in a shiny silver metallic casing, it opens smoothly, has the stress-ball-type-feel stylus on the top, so no switching of refills etc. and I played WordDrop (on the aforementioned iPad2) with it seamlessly.
The pen itself is reassuringly weighty and the cap fits neatly on to its rear end (ooh er missus). When the cap it replaced, it does so with a nostalgic Rice Krispies Snap, Crackle and Pop “pop”.
The pen, when in use, fits comfortably in the fingers, made all the more so by a soft black rubber ribbed (minds out the gutter please!) inch-wide band just back from the tapered pen end. The refill is accessed by a smooth central screw-thread fitting. Everything about the pen is solid and firm, a feel of quality.
*
Faber-Castell
James also kindly (because I ‘wowed’ about it) sent me a Faber-Castell 4gb memory stick which arrived separately today (the top item on http://www.thepencompany.com/special-offer-pens and free with any Faber-Castell pen). I’ve only just used it to copy a couple of folders across (on my MacBook Air) but it looks so cute, and me being a girl, that’s what we like (the first thing we ask about a car is the colour – even me being a techie nerd).
It also arrived in a stylish silver box, this time with a window with the Faber-Castell logo showing. The memory stick is safely stored in grey foam and comes complete with a long black cotton lanyard (with detachable clip). It took me a couple of attempts to get the lanyard on (it’s a push loop through hook on end of stick then feed the lanyard through) but I did it when the stick was in my computer, with the curtains close at 7pm, so not the best test environment.
I did mention that I’m a techie nerd, didn’t I. One thing I loved about this (which I only found out when I ejected the stick – which you should always do (or ‘Safely Remove Hardware’ on a PC)) – is that the cap, which felt a little too loose, reunites with the stick magnetically. Added sexiness. I could be really picky and say that the hexagonal sides aren’t flush but the magnetism beats that hands proverbially down.
*
Conclusion
You can never have too many backups of documents, pictures etc. and what could be more endearing to any writer than a memory stick in the shape of a pencil.
The pen’s catchphrase is ‘Goes anywhere, writes everywhere’ and it certainly will be going everywhere with me… including off to my writing group in about… oops, minus three minutes.
Finally, why is it called the Space Pen? Because NASA have approved it and if it’s good enough for them…
*
The Pen Company can be found at
and my thanks go again to them for giving me this opportunity and two lovely new pieces of kit.
*
This is where I’d normally put the guest author’s biography so here’s a little about me…
Based in Northamptonshire, England, Morgen Bailey (“Morgen with an E”) is a prolific blogger, podcaster, editor / critiquer, Chair of NWG (which runs the annual H.E. Bates Short Story Competition), Head Judge for the NLG Flash Fiction Competition and creative writing tutor for her local council. She is also a freelance author of numerous ‘dark and light’ short stories, novels, articles, and very occasional dabbler of poetry. Like her, her blog, http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com, is consumed by all things literary. She is also active on Twitter, Facebook along with many others (listed on her blog’s Contact page).
She also recently created five online writing groups and an interview-only blog. Her debut novel is the chick lit eBook The Serial Dater’s Shopping List and she has six others (mostly crime) in the works.
***
If you would like to write a writing-related guest post for my blog then feel free to email me with an outline of what you would like to write about. There are other options listed on http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to the second in a 31-day series Story A Day May 2013.
Late April 2011 I discovered http://StoryADay.org and the project that is to write 31 stories in 31 days. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog, knows how passionate I am about short stories so my clichéd eyes lit up at this new marvel. And just a few days later there I was, breathing life into new characters. This went on to become (with some editing of course) my 31-story collection eBook Story A Day May 2011.
I was nearing completion of the 2012 project when I decided that I didn’t want to stop at the end of May so 5PM Fiction was born. This is on hold this month as I write a story a day for SADM2013
Today’s prompt was to write a story inspired by a Flickr picture (at random from http://www.flickr.com/explore) – I picked the picture below because seeing it as a thumbnail size, I thought the rock on its own was a body and then looking at it as a larger picture, the rock formation behind it looks like another body so there’s my plot. Below is my 302-worder.
*
The Quarrymen
Photo courtesy of Tim Parkin
You’d come here as a boy, not for years, not realising, remembering, how far down it actually was.
Quarries are high, deep, you think to yourself and look up at the edge. For a split second you think you see someone, movement, another human looking over the edge, looking at you, but the seagull flies off and leaves the rock, the face-like rock, sitting staring at you, a silent witness to your downfall, the misjudged edge.
You have other company, human, but you know there’s no more chance of it helping than the rock-face.
It, him, Charlie – you don’t know his second name – was luckier than you, as you fell together, in a fury embrace, you heard his last breath, the expel of air as his body hit the ground, cushioned your fall, the bounce just a foot high.
It’s a full moon, a clear night, so you concentrate on the stars, wishing you’d paid more attention in physics. Or was it geography? Closing your eyes, you picture the teacher. Mr Phillpott, double L, double T, the not-so-jolly brown giant. Physics.
You could kick yourself for being so stupid, all the things you could have done, wanted to do, thinking you had forever, but your legs stopped working when you hit dirt.
You start singing ‘A Day in the Life’ and wonder how yours got so complicated, brought you here.
“4,000 Poles in Blackburn, Lancashire”. You wonder how many there are now, then you remember it’s ‘holes’, potholes to be exact, and laugh.
Then you remember; the envelope on the park bench – the bench you use every weekday lunchtime – the envelope stuffed with money, the envelope you’d stuffed into your jacket pocket, for safekeeping until you could go to the police station after work.
Then you remember the hand grabbing your shoulder.
***
Picture above courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/timparkin/8697523591/in/explore-2013-05-01.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 084: Thursday 2nd May
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: France, tune, whistle, none, clown
- Random: An old vicarage
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Thursday Title: Three keys
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 088: Thursday 2nd May
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: waste, break, way, choke, smile
- Random: Take one of these three stories and either change the point of view from one character to another and/or change the tense.
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Mixed bag: jazz singer (character 1), nurse (ch.2), odd shoe (object), cinema (location), impatience (trait), sneezes loudly (dilemma)
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Complementing my interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the two hundred and fifteenth, is of short story author and novelist Vic Fortezza.
Vic Fortezza was born in Brooklyn in 1950 to Sicilian immigrants.
He has had more than 50 short stories published worldwide. He has four other books in print: novels Close to the Edge, Adjustments and Killing, and story collection A Hitch in Twilight.
Employed in data entry in the commodity trading business in Manhattan for nearly 25 years, until 2007, he stills lives in Brooklyn, where he promotes his work on the streets.
He has accounts at several social media sites. Many of his short stories are available on the web for free. Google his name to find them.
*
And now from the author himself:
I started writing in November 1975. Ninety-five percent of my work is a relating of my experiences in the bittersweet mystery of life. The other five percent is comprised of Twilight Zone-type stories, screenplays and the occasional essay on music, film or life.
For 20 years I wrote or revised what I wrote 365 days a year. I was unpublished for the first 13 of those, until I landed a short story in a small press magazine.
Publication remained irregular until the late 90’s, when I finally heeded the advice of friends and went online. That resulted in having at least one story published per year.
By then I had also completed nine novels. I had one of them accepted by a small press firm in NYC in the mid 90’s, but the publisher reneged. In 2000 I decided to self publish it. I’d suffered a broken heart and needed something positive to focus on. The experience prepared me for the publication of my next three books through small press houses. Although my overall sales have been disappointing, I continue to submit.
The writer’s life often seems akin to banging one’s head against the wall. For some reason I continue the futile quest. Despite paltry sales, I’ve had another novel accepted by small press. I so appreciate the publisher taking a chance on it, as it is rife with political incorrectness, as was my previous. It is based in large part on personal experience, my work on the floor of the Commodity Exchange in Manhattan, a unique world filled with diverse personalities.
The next I will try to have published is a near 200,000-word rock n roll epic, my only stab at best seller-type fiction.
I also have an American version of James Joyce’s Ulysses on file, although I found that classic so difficult. I wonder if I understood even ten percent of it. It was at once fun and scary to delve into the subconscious. One risks being taken for a weirdo, but that has been the case with all of my books except my short story collection.
Tales of suspense and the supernatural seem to be taken as fun, the product of the imagination, escape from reality. Works which look into the souls of humans are troubling in that they force readers to look reality in the face.
I enjoy entertainment, but when I read or write I prefer to look into the souls of characters, even when they veer into a chilling darkness.
**
You can find more about Vic and his writing via…
***
If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog (the spotlights are option (a)) or email me for details.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, Vic Fortezza, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Tonight’s guest blog post is brought to you by fantasy and thriller writer and interviewee Tracey Alley.
Writer’s Block or Writer’s Doubt?
If you’ve been in the writing game for any length of time then I’d be willing to bet there were moments when you suffered from what is usually termed ‘writer’s block’. It’s happened to me, more than once. I find myself staring at a blank screen almost as if I were willing the words to appear on the paper by magic. It’s not that the words aren’t there. Like most writers I have a seemingly never-ending cast of characters in my head who are all clamouring for me to tell their story.
So if the muse is still there, if the characters are still calling to you then how could you suffer from ‘writer’s block’? That’s when I began to wonder if maybe, what we’re experiencing is not actually a ‘block’ but a brief existential moment of doubt. Are we, perhaps, listening to that tiny little voice in the back of our minds who so frequently tells us ‘you’re no good’, ‘you’re just fooling yourself’, ‘no one will want to read that‘ etc. instead of listening to the characters in our minds that we want… nay, we need to share with the world?
I’ll confess I’ve always had a tendency in my life to ‘over-think’ things. You may be the same. The problem is, at least for me, that I think that also spills over to my writing. I over-think it, whether it’s a scene or a chapter or even a whole novel idea, to the point where I’ve stopped listening to the characters and started listening to my own self-doubt. And so sets in the dreaded ‘writer’s block’.
Now I’m not suggesting that I have any answers. If I did I’d probably be famous by now What I do have though is a suggestion. The next time you begin to feel that dark, heavy blanket of ‘writer’s block’, stop for a minute and ask yourself one simple question. Do you really have nothing to say or are you actually just wondering if you have anything that anyone wants to hear?
I won’t make any promises but it’s gotten me through more periods of ‘writer’s block’ than anything else I’ve ever heard suggested. Just tune in your mind, like a radio, to your characters and your muse, instead of your own self doubts. I think you’ll find that puts an end to writer’s block for good.
*
I think you’re right. Thank you, Tracey.
Tracey Alley was born and raised in Queensland, Australia but caught the travel bug quite early and lived in Melbourne and Christchurch, New Zealand for a while.
She considers herself a Christian, albeit a slightly esoteric, left of center one who also has a great amount of respect for Buddhist tradition and philosophy.
She’s infinitely curious about the world and her friends describe her as an intellectual butterfly as she flits from one topic to the next.
She’s a pacifist, a little bit left of center and can, like most people, be very complex. She’s passionate about the things she believes in and believes firmly that you have to keep learning as you grow.
So far she has two degrees and will likely do more study.
She believes she was born to be a writer and feels blessed that circumstances allow her to write full-time and still survive [although not on royalties yet ]
She fell in love with words at a very young age and is a voracious reader, often with two or three books on the go at the same time.
One little known but rather interesting fact about Tracey is that on the paternal side her great-grandfather owned a circus. He was a lion tamer and worked with all the big cats and her great-grandmother was a trapeze artist and of Romany Gypsy blood. On her mother’s side of the family she was born into Scottish aristocracy.
Tracey’s website is http://traceyalley.weebly.com.
***
If you would like to write a writing-related guest post for my blog then feel free to email me with an outline of what you would like to write about. There are other options listed on http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to the first in a 31-day series Story A Day May 2013.
Late April 2011 I discovered http://StoryADay.org and the project that is to write 31 stories in 31 days. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog, knows how passionate I am about short stories so my clichéd eyes lit up at this new marvel. And just a few days later there I was, breathing life into new characters. This went on to become (with some editing of course) my 31-story collection eBook Story A Day May 2011.
I was nearing completion of the 2012 project when I decided that I didn’t want to stop at the end of May so 5PM Fiction was born. This is on hold this month as I write a story a day for SADM2013.
Today’s prompt was to write a Drabble, a 100-word story (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drabble). Below is my 100-worder.
During April, I was also doing Camp NaNoWriMo alongside the 5pm fiction slot and I’m pleased to say that I reached the 50,000 target – the final balance was 50,115 I shall leave it for a while. I have plenty of other things to eBook, then will go back to it later.
*
How the Drabble came about
Margaret stared at her computer. The cursor flashed encouragingly but both Margaret’s brain and the screen were empty.
I need an idea, she thought, but still nothing.
“Write about writing,” said a voice from nowhere, so she started…
Margaret stared at her computer. The cursor flashed encouragingly but both Margaret’s brain and the screen were empty…
…and soon she’d written a short story, a very short short story, 100 words in fact.
“I know!” she said. “I’ll name it after me.” So she called it a ‘Margaret’, but her publisher thought that a terrible idea and renamed it a ‘Drabble’.
***
Picture above courtesy of morguefile.com.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 083: Wednesday 1st May
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: dozen, magazine, people, photos, complete
- Random: Second-person viewpoint poem about a skydive
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Sentence start: Some years back…
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 087: Wednesday 1st May
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: light, honey, sleep, company, breathe
- Random: S/he has a scar on her/his neck
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Sentence start: Turning on the radio…
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Complementing the full interviews on this blog, which have now dropped to weekend mornings only, another new interview on my interview-only blog has been posted! The (670+) interviews from this blog are there as well so there’s plenty to read.
The latest interview on the new blog is with graphic and prose novelist Leonardo Ramirez and can be read in full at http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/author-interview-with-graphic-and-prose-novelist-leonardo-ramirez.
***
If you are reading this and you write, in whatever genre, and are thinking “ooh, I’d like to do this” then you can… just email me and I’ll send you the information. They do now (January 2013) carry a fee (£10 / €12.50 / $15) for the new interviews on this blog but everything else (see Opportunities on this blog) is free.
Alternatively, if you’d like a free Q&A-only interview, I now have http://morgensauthorinterviews.wordpress.com on which I’ve rerun the original interviews posted here then posted new interviews which I then reblog here. These interviews are Q&A only, so I don’t add in my comments but they do get exposure on both sites.
If you go for the interview, it’s very simple; I send you a questionnaire (I have them for novelists, short story authors, children’s authors, non-fiction authors, and poets). You complete the questions, and I let you know when it’s going to go live. Before it does so, I add in comments as if we’re chatting, and then they get posted. When that’s done, I email you with the link so you can share it with your corner of the literary world. And if you have a writing-related blog / podcast and would like to interview me… let me know.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, Leonardo Ramirez, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Complementing my interviews, today’s Author Spotlight, the two hundred and fourteenth, is of non-fiction writer and novelist Julie L Casey.
Julie L. Casey lives in a rural area near St. Joseph, Missouri, with her husband, Jonn Casey, a science teacher, and their three youngest sons. After teaching preschool for fifteen years, she has been homeschooling her four sons for ten years.
Julie has bachelor of science degrees in education and computer programming and has written four books. She enjoys historical reenacting, wildlife rehabilitation, teaching her children, and writing books that capture the imaginations of young people.
Julie has written four books, including:
- a non-fiction book about the problems with the public school system titled Stop Beating the Dead Horse
- a humorous novella titled In Daddy’s Hands
- a futuristic post-apocalyptic young adult novel titled Holt: Guardians of Hope (not yet published)
- and a modern-day post-apocalyptic young adult novel titled How I Became a Teenage Survivalist, which will be published by Pants On Fire Press in June 2013.
*
And now from the author herself:
I’ve always enjoyed writing, but I never attempted to write anything significant until I wrote my first book, Stop Beating the Dead Horse, in 2010 at the age of 49. After that, I was hooked and wrote three more books in quick succession.
My first book is non-fiction and took a lot of research to back up my thoughts and ideas. I had been thinking about all those ideas for many years – since high school, as a matter of fact. It was very cathartic and affirming to finally get all those thoughts out of my brain and onto paper. The actual writing and editing of it took about six months. I had a group of peer editors who read each chapter as I wrote it and helped me refine my ideas and fix my grammar / typo errors.
The next book I wrote, In Daddy’s Hands, was just a quick, funny little novella inspired by actual events and took only a couple of weeks to write and edit.
I wrote my third book, a young adult post-apocalyptic novel called Holt: Guardians of Hope, in about three months with another month for editing, thanks to my friend Landi Quinlin, a terrific English teacher.
![Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000039_00071]](http://morgenbailey.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/how-i-became-cover.jpg?w=98&h=150)
How I Became a Teenage Survivalist was my fourth book and it has a very interesting story of how it came to be. I started with just a few basic ideas about the story, such as the solar event, the names of the brothers, and that they would live on a farm, but other than that, I began the novel with no preconceived ideas. I had decided in October, 2012 to write this story for the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) contest, in which you must write a 50,000+ word novel within the month of November to qualify. I began on November 1st, 2012 and finished on November 22nd with How I Became a Teenage Survivalist as the finished product. The story was so fun to write. Every morning I’d sit down at the computer, place my fingers on the keyboard and the story would just start pouring out of me; I had no idea where it would take me each day. It was like I was reading the story as it unfolded. I would pause only occasionally to research parts of the story to make sure it was as accurate as a fiction novel can be.
I self published the first two books. Self-publishing was a very enjoyable and creative process, but in order to sell books, you have to be good at marketing. I decided to try a traditional publisher to get some help with the marketing.
I found querying literary agents to be a tedious task. A writer needs an agent to land a contract with one of the “big six” publishers. After querying 20 agents and getting three requests for the full manuscript (which is good considering the average rate of requests is only about 2%), all of whom ultimately declined, I decided to try another route – indie publishers. While these are still traditional publishers (as opposed to self-publishing or vanity presses), they often take submissions from authors without agents. I sent my manuscript to three indie presses, all three of whom expressed interest in my story, and ultimately chose to go with Pants On Fire Press out of Florida.
My advice to new writers: just do it! Many new writers fear failure and rejection, so never really get serious about writing. My advice is to just write for yourself; write to clear the jumble of thoughts and emotions out of your brain. And when you’re through, if you like what you wrote, go back and make it better, word by word, line by line. When you’re really feeling confident about it, let someone else read it and see what they think. In time, you will gain the confidence to consider publishing your work.
**
You can find more about Julie and her writing via…
***
If you would like to take part in an author spotlight, take a look at http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog (the spotlights are option (a)) or email me for details.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Tonight’s guest blog post is brought to you by psychological thriller novelist, guest postee (also on marketing) and interviewee Rachel Abbott.
Evolving your marketing plan
Just over a year ago, I wrote a post for my own blog called “Using Twitter – are you a writer, a brand or a salesman?” and it received more responses than any other post I have ever written. I talked about how, as a writer, you have three choices: you either write books and don’t worry at all about marketing on the basis that if you publish enough books, they will take care of themselves; you are a brand, and you are trying to connect with people at a deeper level, so that readers remain faithful to you in the years to come; or you’re a salesman and all you care about right now is people buying your book!
There is absolutely no doubt that when I launched Only the Innocent, I was a salesman. I desperately needed to get people to notice my book, and I believed that, given most people’s Twitter streams zip by at a rate of knots, I had to tweet about my book at least every 15 minutes, or nobody would never get to see the tweet. I can almost hear people screaming in horror at the thought – but do you know what? It worked. I don’t regret it, and even though I know it turned some people off completely, I did sell a lot of books.
I am not quite naïve enough to believe that I sold them all because of Twitter. In reality, it probably had a relatively low impact once the book started to take off – but I did measure Twitter’s impact in the early days, and I do think that at a time when I was building the book’s visibility it was accounting for about ten sales per day. Not huge, but enough to get the book noticed and more visible on Amazon. Ultimately it was the positive reviews and the fact that people started to talk about it in forums that made it take off – two things that I had very little control over.
However… one year on, and it’s a different story. When I wrote Only the Innocent I had a target of selling about a thousand copies. That was what success looked like to me. I had a vague plan for another book, but I didn’t know when I was going to get the time to write it. I ended up being incredibly lucky, and my first novel has now sold over 150,000 copies. And nobody is more shocked than me. Because of this success, I have changed a few things in my life and I’ve found the time to write the next book.
So why is it a different marketing story this time around?
It’s because now I want to focus on the brand. I was lucky enough to get some terrific readers who have been very supportive of my writing. If these people follow me on Twitter or on Facebook, they’re not doing that to have my new book thrust down their throats every two minutes. I now plan to be a writer for the long haul, and I already have book three planned. So I would love to have these readers stick with me.
In many of my previous blog posts – both on my own site and as a guest blogger – I have talked about my marketing plan. For book one, it was seven pages long. My second book – The Back Road – was launched in the UK on the 18th March 2013, and in the US at the beginning of October 2013, and my marketing plan this time is twenty-eight pages long. And the big difference is that it’s all about reader engagement.
I haven’t got this right yet, so don’t check my Twitter stream and say “oh yeah” in a scathing tone, but the whole focus of my new plan is to create content online that my readers are interested in. That’s on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and the various forums. I want my readers to continue to follow me, and continue to be interested in the future – so that they may (hopefully) decide to read book three, four, five.
The question that my marketing plan tries to identify is exactly how to go about this, and it’s not easy. Some authors seem to think that they must never mention their books – almost as if the title’s a dirty word (or words). They assume their readers are interested in their daily lives, and tweet about what they had for breakfast, or how much they spent at Tesco. That doesn’t interest me at all, so I’m going to assume that it doesn’t interest my readers either. Other writers are funny. I love the funny ones – but I know that I’m not very, so that’s never going to work. Then there’s the group that somehow believes that their tweets are invisible and they write snarky comments about people who have reviewed their books. I really don’t understand that.
To be clear, I am not going to stop talking about my books on social media, but I am going to look at innovative and fun ways of engaging my audience, in a bid to get to know more of them. When The Back Road was almost finished, I was able to approach readers who I had been chatting with on social media to ask if they would be early readers. The response was terrific, and they gave me honest comments about storylines and characters – all of which I was able to incorporate before it went to final edit. I’d love more of this engagement.
Getting a solid bank of people who are interested in my books to follow my tweets and engage on Facebook is now more important that striving to reach the number one spot – a nearly impossible feat given the plethora of 20p books. That level of pricing is beyond my control – it is a decision taken by Amazon to price match other retailers. But that’s okay. I have to focus on what really matters.
And if you’ve published a book, so do you. The decision in terms of marketing is exactly the same as it was a year ago, and each individual will have a different point of view. The question is – are you a writer, a brand or a salesman? If you go the salesman route, you won’t be alone. There was a post in The Guardian recently that demonstrates quite clearly that some big names have no compunction about self-promotion. But for now, I am going to try a somewhat gentler route.
I don’t deny that there will be some promotional tweets – but not one every fifteen minutes! I ‘m going to try to develop ideas for tweets and posts that readers will enjoy in the hope that they stay with me in the years to come. I’m still trying to figure it out, but I’ll get there, and I’m sure it’s going to be worth it.
*
That was great. Thank you, Rachel.
Rachel Abbott spent the majority of her working life running an interactive media company that designed and developed software and websites, mainly for education. Her company was sold in 2000, and although she continued working for another 5 years, she also fulfilled a lifelong ambition of buying and restoring a property in Italy, where she now lives with her husband and their two dogs. Her website is http://www.rachel-abbott.com and she blogs at http://rachelabbottwriter.wordpress.com.
Rachel’s new book, The Back Road, is available exclusively from Amazon UK until September, when it will be available in other formats.
The paperback will be published in the US in October.
Only the Innocent is available in Kindle format from Amazon UK, and in paperback, Kindle and audio formats from Amazon US.
For other ebook formats please visit http://www.rachel-abbott.com/how-to-buy.html.
***
If you would like to write a writing-related guest post for my blog then feel free to email me with an outline of what you would like to write about. There are other options listed on http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/submission-information/opportunities-on-this-blog.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, Rachel Abbott, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
Welcome to the two hundred and ninth in this daily series that is ‘5pm Fiction’.
Late April 2011 I discovered http://StoryADay.org and the project that is to write 31 stories in 31 days. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog, knows how passionate I am about short stories so my clichéd eyes lit up at this new marvel. And just a few days later there I was, breathing life into new characters. This went on to become (with some editing of course) my 31-story collection eBook Story A Day May 2011.
I was nearing completion of the 2012 project when I decided that I didn’t want to stop at the end of May so 5PM Fiction was born. I put a load of prompts on the 5PM Fiction page and today’s was to write a story using the keywords: cuddle, shuffle, whimper, hospital, Daddy. Below is my 198-worder.
I’m also doing Camp NaNoWriMo this month alongside this 5pm fiction slot. Although Camp’s minimum is 10,000, I’m aiming for NaNo’s 50,000… as well as these daily short stories – yes, a glutton for punishment!
In the first twenty-nine days of April, I’d written 42,026 words (against a target of 48,333) and at the time of posting this, 5pm Tuesday UK time, the balance is now 47096, but I have until midnight to get to the 50,000 target so I’m very confident.
Now on with today’s story which is the last 5pm fiction for a month as Story A Day May takes over tomorrow (yay!). So 5pm Fiction will return on Saturday 1st June.
*
All he wanted
All he wanted was a cuddle. I could see it in his big brown eyes. He looked up at me, pleading silently.
I sighed. I’d have given anything to pick him up, like I’d done a hundred times, but I couldn’t.
“Sorry, Bertie.” I looked up at the clock. “Daddy’ll be here shortly. He’ll give you a cuddle.”
On hearing the magic word, Bertie’s ears pricked up and he barked, edging closer to the side of the bed.
“Shhh, Bertie! You’re not supposed to be here. The nurses will kill me if they hear you.”
Bertie whimpered and lay down, chin on paws.
I heard someone in the corridor and on a silent cue, Bertie shuffled under the bed.
The door swung open and I smiled as the tall figure entered the room. “Yay! Daddy’s here Bertie!”
Bertie re-appeared, thankfully without any verbal greeting, and leapt up at Elliott.
“Honey?” I said.
“Yes dear?” he said, lowering the dog’s front paws.
“Can you do me a favour?”
“Anything.”
“Scratch my nose.”
Elliott stared at my broken arms, tilting his head sympathetically. “Sure.”
“And give Bertie a cuddle.”
Elliott laughed, scratched my nose then crouched down, holding out his arms and gave our Doberman a hug.
***
Picture above courtesy of morguefile.com.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: 5pm fiction, agent, Amazon, author, author interview, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, Barnes and Noble, biographers, biography, blog, blogger, blogging, books, characters, children’s, competitions, copyediting, copyeditor, copywriter, copywriting, cozy mysteries, creative writing, crime, crime series, crime thriller, crime thrillers, critique, critique groups, debut novel, editing, editor, erotic romance, erotica, exercises, Facebook, fantasy, fantasy horror, fantasy writer, feedback, fellow authors, fiction, fiction author, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, future tense, Goodreads, grammar skills, graphic novels, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, historical, historical author, historical writer, horror novel, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, indie, interview, interview with writer, interviewees, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, memoirist, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mysteries, murder mystery, mystery author, mystery series, mystery suspense, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novelists, novels, open mic nights, pantoum, paranormal, paranormal romance, paranormal romances, past tense, pinterest, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry collections, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, present tense, pseudonyms, publisher, publishing, query letters, reading books, red pen, rejection letter, rejection letters, rejections, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, romance fantasy, romance writer, science fiction, scriptwriters, second person point of view, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, sonnet, story a day, Story A Day May, story author, story authors, story collections, story writer, submissions, suspense novelist, suspense thriller, tanka, terza rima, travel memoir, travel writer, triolet, Twitter, vampire, villanelle, Waterstones, western, western author, Wordpress, writer, writer interview, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing exercises, writing fiction, writing group, writing magazines, writing novels, writing poetry, writing prompts, writing workshop, YA, young adult novels, youtube
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