a few things

Just some bits and bobs.

I had a great weekend away with my writer-friends last week. We spent a few days in a ramshackle house in the Yorkshire Dales, talking, writing, cooking, and drinking. I actually wrote very little, but that's okay. We did a couple of critique sessions, and just being with like-minded people, who I happen to like a whole lot, was useful and inspiring.


My letter about the Lee Child article got printed in July's Writing Magazine. I was a bit alarmed (in a minor way) when I saw the heading they'd put above it, 'Challenging Child', and also that the letter by the side of it is from a writer who agrees with everything Child said in that interview. Only alarmed because I hoped I didn't come across as prissy, because actually I did agree with a lot of Child's points about writing, apart from the bit I wrote the letter about. I can't include the whole letter here (rights are with the mag) but here are a few snapshots:









Other stuff...

In an attempt to be useful to my readers who are writers, here a few competitions that close on June 30th:

The Bridport Prize
Stories: up to 5000 words
Flash: up to 250 words
Poems: 42 lines max
Story and poems 1st prize: £5000 each
Flash prize: £1000
Entry fees: Story £7, poem £6, flash £5.


Lightship Literary Competitions
Stories: up to 5000 words
Poems: up to 200 words
First chapter: up to 5000 words + 400 words synopsis
Story and poem first prize: £1000
First chapter prize: expert mentoring from an acclaimed literary author, a top literary agent and a commissioning editor as you write your novel.
Entry fees: Story £12, poem £8, first chapter £12.

*Note - this is the first year of this prize and the judges are very high profile - looks promising*


The Cinnamon Press Writing Awards
Stories: 2000-4000 words
Poems: up to ten poems, each 40 lines max
Novel/novella: first 10,000 words
Story and poems 1st prize: £100 + publication
Novel/novella prize: £400 + publication
Entry fees: £16 for all categories
(steep, but includes copy of winners' anthology. I guess it's a high entry fee to fund the novel/novella category?)


Okay folks, those are the basic details, take a look at each website for more information on how to enter etc.

Good luck if you enter any of them.

Question: do you get put off by competitions that only accept hard copy submissions?

The Fiction Project 2011

It's a few weeks since I completed my notebook for Art House Co-op's Fiction Project. Right now it's somewhere in the US amongst thousands of other notebooks getting ready to go on tour.

I wonder what the other notebooks are like. I wonder if my notebook is getting on okay with all the other notebooks. It's very lo-fi. I hope no one's making fun of him.

Having a blank notebook to fill was a really exciting and different way of writing a story. Different because the physical-ness of having the book, the end 'thing', gave focus as well as freedom - all these pages (80 sides) to fill with anything... could have been almost too much freedom. It would have been easy to get too distracted by all the ways you could fill these pages. Having a theme and a deadline helped with that.

I chose the theme 'Inside/Outside' when I signed up, and it inspired some early ideas before the final story I went with. And what I didn't expect was that I would re-work an already existing story in a really new way. Crazily, it's one of the first stories I ever wrote once I decided to 'be a writer' about 5 years ago.

'The Box' was about two just-broken-up-lovers who meet to go over the contents of their 'box' - a shoe box - that held all the mementos of their relationship. It was, as is common for new writers to do, written about a real life personal experience. But it wasn't really a story, it was me working through some old but resonant feelings from being dumped when I was 17. But I've often gone back to have a look at it, to see if something will click and I might be able to make something from it.

So - you know where this is going - but I'll lay it out anyway. I was writing out some notes, thinking about 'Inside/Outside' and it lead onto the idea of love - how we are fall in it, fall out of it, and when we're dumped it's usually because the other person suddenly isn't 'in' anymore, and it's baffling, hurtful, but wtf does it mean? It just means they've changed their minds really, but the effect on the dumped, the trying to make sense, and failing, appealed to me.

And I knew what it felt like, but I didn't want to write it from my POV. So I wrote it from a guy's perspective, a boy who has just been dumped out of the blue. Suddenly all this energy and comedy came to the story, and I got to use my own experiences, and see them, in a new way. The whole tone changed, and 'The Box' morphed into...




See, I said it was lo-fi. That's the girl being sick on the front, not a metal detector. There are a few drawings in amongst the words. I didn't fill the whole book, but I've invited anyone who reads it to write on the blank pages, to tell a story about a time they were dumped, or dumped someone else. It's nice to think the book could be added to.

It will be soon be available to read in full online, until then I'll leave you with a few more photos of the process and of some of the words.

It takes several notebooks to make a notebook - different drafts in different places ready to be copied up into the blank book on the right.




A slightly neater version than this made it into the end version. But I think the scruffiness of the drawings work for the story.

A couple of pages from the final version




The back of the book showing my unique bar code so anytime someone 'checks it out' to read it I'll get an email notification.





Me and the book just before I sent it away. We will never be reunited. Unless I go to Brooklyn Art Library where he will live out the rest of his days post-tour.

So yeah, a really free-ing way to put words together. And it's very 'fulfilling' that an old piece of writing from an even older event has found a new way of living.

I'm still not sure it's a 'story', it's probably a slice of life, but that's what I love about this project - you can do anything with your book, and I know there will be some amazing works of art around my offering, but I love the connected-ness of it, all these books with a bit or a lot of heart poured into their pages being read by total strangers who can scan their fingers over the pages and feel the dents I made with my pen.

For more information on Art House Co-op and their notebook projects have a look here.

freedom

It's been too long since my last post. I've been using the internet a lot less, mostly because I bit the bullet and downloaded the ironically-named software 'Freedom' which you can use to banish the internet connection from your computer for a time of your choosing (between 15minutes and 8 hours).

It's pretty simple, and I like it. It allows me to control what I do when the part of my brain that's restless during writing prods me and suggests I check my emails (just in case I got any in the last 4 minutes). I've had it on my desktop for about 2 weeks, and actually I just realise now I haven't used it much this past week. I'm cured!

So I've been working on my book, and I'm about 6000 words in which is good going for me. I've started and stopped and re-worked and re-approached this idea so many times. I get so far and think, 'Is this really the right way to write this idea???' and that can be debilitating. But whatever I'm doing is working at the moment so I'm just steaming on with it, picking it up whenever I have the time/energy/inclination.

There's a nice mention for my story Willesden Herald shortlisted story Blue Raincoat in this interview with the first prize winner, Mary O'Shea. I was really thrilled when I read what Mary said, really honoured to be in her top 3 from the anthology. Which you can win a copy of if you leave a comment below the interview (before May 31st).

Other stuff... hm, didn't get longlisted for The Bristol Prize. Bugger. Still waiting to hear back from a few places for other stories. The new issue of Writing Magazine will be out in the next week or so, I'll let you know if my letter gets in. My letter-writing is at an optimum this month - I've also written to the head office of the company I work for about a policy they've put in place that has, erm, how to put this? Angered myself and the rest of the staff. Adding 'Disgruntled letter writer' to my CV fo' sure.

Dear Sir

Have gone all indignant about an interview I read with Lee Child in Writing Magazine - indignant enough to write to the letters' page about how I really don't agree with his view that writers who struggle with finding time to write, or the discipline to write 'are probably not motivated correctly to be a writer.'

My problem with it is that it's too black and white, doesn't allow for much deviation, but mostly I think it could be dangerous to read if you're a writer who's going through a bad spot.

I'll let you know if it gets published.


Other news

The Fiction Project book I'm putting together is almost finished - I have the content ready (remember - it's the story called 'Oh hey so I love you! Oh, no, I just sicked it up') and will transfer it into the Moleskine tomorrow and the day after, then it's going to the US where it hooks up with all the other participating Moleskines to go on tour, eventually winding up at Brooklyn Art Library. The whole process has been useful and interesting - I'll write a post about it when I've got it finished and posted away.

Away I go now to my evening bar shift. Often when I'm working later in the day I get more done, a race against the clock kinda thing.

age, lambs

I have passed into a new decade: I'm 30.

Aagh, eeugh, oooh. It's not that different. Is it? It is a bit.

I've been ready for it, I have to say. I've seen it coming. Been flexing myself. Facing it.

It's funny, I can feel old in some areas of my life like my day job: surrounded by students; my weekend job: mostly working with 20-somethings. But then I go to the shop for a bottle of wine and get asked for ID, or I'm at a writing event and people say - 'You're young to be a writer'.

S'confusing.

I know that when I was younger, I imagined a different 30 year old. She was definitely in control and totally sure of who she was and she probably had everything she'd need in life by then because she's 30 - i.e. she is OLD.

But it's not like that, is it? Does anyone ever feel they have it all sussed, feel totally in control, totally sure of everything they do? If they do, do I believe them? If I believe them, how interesting will they be after a few minutes? (Harsh?)

I know that I am grateful for what I have and where I am. Counteract any doubts with thankfulness. Be happy with now (because really - what else is there?).


So they are just some thoughts that happened when I crossed a decade.


Other stuff...

Holiday!

I worked to be at peace with 'the now' while on holiday - because it was so beautiful, so good to be away from things, with Mario, that on Day One I felt some kind of panic about leaving in 4 days! How ridiculous.

I'll share a few photos, and I'll end with some video footage of lambs. It's lambing season - and I must own up to loving all kinds of lamb, esp Souvlaki, before you think me a veggie, but I especially get excited by little (live) lambs. These photos will conclude with a video of some frolicking lambs.

I call it (imagine how thrilled I was to think up this play on words): 'Lamb-cam: Lamb-pede'.

Photos first.

Our cabin

Had a veranda (we live in a flat and I long for outside-ness) where we ate breakfast, drank tea, coffee, wine...

Where I had a sit and writ

We did lotsa walking

and climbing over stiles

and lamb-looking

Ready for Lamb-cam: Lamb-pede?

update

So - last week I went to the prize-giving for the 2011 Willesden Herald Prize, held in a room within an unexpectedly big library space in London. I knew I was one of the 12 finalists, and that my story was to be published in the anthology, and I also knew I hadn't bagged one of the top spots - so it was actually a more relaxed affair, as relaxed as these weird literary events can be.

Pleasingly, I got to speak to the judge, Maggie Gee, for some time in the pub afterwards. She was great, and encouraging when she found out we had something in common: both not taking a career route in our 20s, instead working in a job with little responsibility to have a go at being a writer.

This is good to hear. Every so often, especially as I'm 30 next week, I have a 'What have I done?' moment, compare myself to friends who are succeeding in their chosen fields and feel inadequate. It's part to do with confidence, and we all falter with that from time to time, and part because it's not always easy to measure success on this route. Being published and winning prizes are part of it, especially as markers, assurances that you're heading the right way, but they're not the whole story. Publication is good for your outer-writerly-ness, but nothing is ever really as good as the moments you are writing something that feels right and good at that very moment in time. But that's a solitary thing, a hard to communicate thing.

The prize-giving event itself was interesting and the whole thing was an enjoyable night. I feel really lucky to be one of the 12 writers in the book, especially as there were 385 entries to start with. It was also a real pleasure to meet Mary O'Shea, who won first prize with her story 'Out of Season', which I read the next day and thought was brilliant, moving and a very worthy winner. I'm in the process of making my way through the rest of the stories, but so far another stand-out story is 'Overnight Miracles' from A.J. Ashworth.

It was good to meet organiser Stephen Moran, and also see Vanessa Gebbie too - we met at Bridport in 2009 - she'd been a winner in 2007 and returned to host the after-event, and at this year's Willesden she was a kind of guest of honour, a previous winner again - I joked that I'm following her around the lit prize circuit, a few years behind.

Vanessa has written a review of the Willesden anthology here, and it was pretty wonderful to read within that review "There is the spare and enigmatic writing of Teresa Stenson" . This could be my first review... Although, Maggie Gee did a really generous thing too - in the speech she gave on the judging process she mentioned all 12 stories and why she liked / chose them.

This is actually rare, from my experience so far, and it definitely 'seals' something. It was filmed and should be available for me to link to at a future date. Aside from the ego-trip (for me) I think it's a useful speech about the judging process in general. I'm always fascinated to hear how these things work, even on a practical level. I like to know how many entries there are, who reads them all, how many get passed on to the judge, and that's all before you get down to the subjective nature of picking the 'best' stories. Anyway, I am going on a bit...


So that was Willesden. Sadly, it looks like it was the last one.

*UPDATE* - it is not the last one - they've only gone and bagged Roddy Doyle to judge this year's prize! (closing around Dec I should think, like last year) Amazing.



Other stuff...
I'm getting ready to go on an eagerly awaited holiday next week. Just somewhere in the countryside, just me and Mario, just can't wait. Reading and writing materials at the ready.


Fiction project
I'm working on making my book for the art project I said this about in February:

"I've signed up for this: The Fiction Project - it costs $25 to participate - they send you a Moleskine notebook, you fill it, send it back, it becomes part of an exhibition with other completed notebooks, goes on tour across America to selected arts venues, winds up at Brooklyn Art Library. It can be read, 'checked out' by visitors, and if you want to pay the extra $20 it will be digitised for the website, for you, for anyone to view whenever."

Here's a photo of what I started out with:




Pretty much a blank Moleskine notebook.

The theme I'm working with is 'Inside/Outside', which has done what I expected and hoped for - led to some interesting and exciting tangents of stories, snippets, scenes, that I am putting together to make a fairly light hearted story called 'Oh hey so I love you. Oh no I don't, I just sicked it up.'

Maybe the most charming title I've ever come up with.

You - what about you, reader - say hello to me (if you have a Blogger account, that is. If not, just wave.)

worth remembering, I think.

Shaun Tan writes and illustrates picture books - beautiful creations. His book, The Red Tree, is one of my favourites.

"A nameless young girl appears in every picture, a stand-in for ourselves; she passes helplessly through many dark moments, yet ultimately finds something hopeful at the end of her journey."


Anyway, the thing that's resonated with me enough to write a blog about it is this quote of his I came across a few days ago:

The artists’ responsibility lies first and foremost with the work itself, trusting that it will invite the attention of others by the force of its conviction.

It's the first bit of the sentence that has struck me. It's not that I haven't heard something like that before, or felt it, it's maybe that it articulates it better than I've heard before. Or that it's come at a time when being reminded of that is good for me.

What do you think? Do you agree? If you're a writer, who is your responsibility to?

question

Does anyone know, legally, if it's okay to use a living celebrity in a piece of fiction?

I've written a short story, set in this world, in a very ordinary setting, but a famous person happens to be in it. There's no slander, it's a humorous piece, but I just wonder if there are any laws that say it's not okay to use a living famous person as a character.

Anyone have any ideas?


*Later... I emailed the organisers of the competition I'm sending my story to and they are fine with it. Sac magique! Good to know. *

I knew this woman who fell in love

originally published in hum-drum Magazine a few years ago, it's a very short story with 2 picture accompaniments. Click here, or on the tab up there, to read it.

oh look it looks so new!

So I've just spent a bit of time making the blog look new, and then I've added links to some old stuff - up there - those 'tabs' that say 'But in the voice (short film)' and 'Ball Wall' - take a look if you like if you will...

'But in the voice' is a short film based on a story I wrote a few years ago and features a spider and the voice of Peter O'Toole*, and me.

'Ball Wall' is one of the first very short stories I wrote and felt good about writing. Both stories appeared in hum-drum Magazine 2007-2008.

I just thought it'd be nice to have them here on my blogsite.

But looking forwards...

I haven't been blogging so much but I have been writing. My picture book / illustrated book / I-don't-want-to-categorise-you-yet-book is developing and I can feel myself getting closer to putting the bottle of Sancerre Mario bought for me at Christmas in the fridge ready for the 'I've written something longer than a short story!' moment which is its purpose.

Resisting the urge to start looking at agents/publishers until it's written. Blocking out the usual cries of advice to 'know your market!' - going with the flow and writing it first.


*voice of Peter O'Toole done brilliantly by me friend and movie maker Miles Watts