News 1 September 2020

 

Zooming around

I’m continuing to enjoy some excellent on-line events. I even managed to attend a book launch in Florida recently.  It was eight o’clock here and lunch-time there.  I think this was deliberate as the launch was of an anthology that included some UK writers.  One of the speakers came from just a few miles from where I’m based.

We missed the Bolton Food festival, always a great event this summer bank holiday weekend. However, the online version was pretty good. You don’t get the smell and tastes as you wander around but there were a lot of interesting demonstrations and you could buy online many of the items they usually sell at the stalls.  

I now have three events arranged myself. You are all cordially invited to all of them. The first  is the Lancashire Authors Association’s talk led by Nick Oldham, a local writer and publisher. This is by invite and if you would like to be invited, please contact me. It takes place on 12 September at 2 p.m.

Then on 17 September at 8 p.m. I will be speaking with three colleagues about writing the 1940s. There will be readings, a Q & A, possibly the opportunity for an open mic and digital giveaways for everyone who attends.

Join here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1940s-writers-and-readers-tickets-118201910095

On 26 Sep I’ll be reading from my short story collection and will be joined by two other readers. Again there will be readings, a Q & A, an open mic, if there’s time and again there will be digital giveaways for all attendees.      

Do join us: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-afternoon-with-some-of-our-authors-tickets-118046896445

    

         

News about my writing and other creative projects

I’m still carrying on much as before: The Round Robin, the fifth book in the Schellberg Cycle, Not Just Fluffy Bunnies, and I’m still working on The Business of Writing.  And of course I’m interspersing this with short stories and flash fiction.

I’m also continuing to write stories relating to what might happen after the virus leaves us – if it does. This is Aftermath, an invitation to write speculative and near future fiction about what may happen after the virus. Reflective writing about what is actually happening now is also welcome, along with stories set now or a little into the future.  

      

The Young Person’s Library

The full catalogue is gradually moving from http://www.gilljameswriter.eu/p/blog-page_81.html to https://www.theyoungpersonslibrary.co.uk/

I’ve added new this month:  

The B on Your Thumb: 60 Poems to Boost Reading and Spelling by Colette Hillier (writer) Tor Freeman (illustrator)

This a book of poems that help with spelling and pronunciation. It is suitable for primary school.

I am Brown by Ashok Banker (writer) Sandhya Prabhat (illustrator)

This a picture book for the pre-school child and presents multiculturalism effectively.

Eagle Strike by Anthony Horowitz and Scorpia by Anthony Horowitz These books are becoming even more exciting – and they’re getting thicker and longer. Alex is growing up.

 

  

Current reading recommendation

I’m still making my way through the full series of the Anne Shirley and the Alex Rider books and also the 2019 short list for the Man Booker prize.

This month’s choice therefore has to be The Testaments by Margaret Atwood .

These accounts by three individual witnesses are beautifully written. Margaret Atwood has created a unique voice for each of the narrators. We have the accounts of two young women, both of whom are training to be Aunts in the Gilead system. We also have the voice of the feared and revered Aunt Lydia.

All is not well in or outside Gilead.

It would be difficult to understand these accounts if you are not familiar with The Handmaid’s Tale. You really need to have read that first book or have seen the TV productions. The story in this volume contradicts a little what we have seen in the TV series.

It is the story of what happens after Baby Nicole is smuggled out of Gilead. Certainly the events described here happen when Nicole is a teenager. However, we still don’t have the full story. Will there be one? Or must we use our imaginations?

I gave this a five star review on both Amazon and Good Reads.  It was interesting reading other reviews including some one and two star ones.  Yes, even the literary greats get those!

For me this remains one of those rare books that I’d gladly read again. Perhaps this is partly because I feel I may have missed something. It is also in part because I find the prose so enchanting and not as one reviewer said: “dull and lifeless with no linguistic subtleties that Atwood is so very good at.” So, take heart if you’re a writer and get some one or two star reviews. It’s all so subjective after all.              

 

Giveaway

Note: these are usually mobi-files to be downloaded to a Kindle.  Occasionally there are PDFs.

This moth I’m giving away Fibbin’ Archie, a young adult text that is also a writing experiment using the Fibonacci series.  I hope you like the pun.  

Here’s the blurb:

Archie has quite a reputation as a practised fibber. Normally his lies are harmless but as time goes by they begin to get him into more and more trouble. They lose him his girlfriend, and bizarrely, his hearing as his ears begin to react in a very strange way every time he is less than truthful.  Giving honest opinions isn’t enough. Deep truth is called for. But finding that isn’t easy. Some truths are very hard to face. Then numbers become interesting, too.

Fibbin’ Archie, is, however, more than the story of a disenchanted young man. It is also a writing experiment based on a fascinating number series (Fibonacci!) It is a piece of experimental writing, a humorous story of love and sex, an examination of social issues affecting young adults and a story of coming of age.

You can download it and lots of other free materials here.

Please, please, please review it if you read it.     

Note, that normally my books and the books supplied by the imprints I manage sell for anything from £0.99 to £10.99, with most on Kindle being about £2.99 and the average price for paperback being £7.00. We have to allow our writers to make a living. But I’m offering these free samples so that you can try before you buy.

 

The Schellberg Project

The posts may be helpful for teachers who are familiar with the Schellberg stories or who are teaching about the Holocaust and also for other writers of historical fiction.

This month I’ve highlighted a few useful accounts of the Nazi era in five books that might be of interest to younger readers. You can find this post here.  

I’ve also written more about the BDM girls.  You can find that discussion here. This topic is a crucial aspect of the whole project. What was life like for young German women during and in the years surrounding World War II? Their membership of the BDM has to be very significant.    

School visits

I’ve suspended these until further notice. I’m now starting work on a series of on-line materials.  

Some notes about my newsletters and blogs

They do overlap a little but here is a summary of what they all do.

Bridge House Authors For all those published by Bridge House, CaféLit, Chapeltown or The Red Telephone or interested in being published by us. General news about the imprints. News for writers. Links to book performance. Sign up here.

Chapeltown Books News about our books. Sign up here.

The Creative Café Project News about the project and CaféLit – for the consumer rather than for the producer.  Sign up here.   

Gill’s News: News about my writing, The Schellberg Project, School Visits and Events. Book recommendations and giveaways. Find it here.   

Pushing Boundaries, Flying Higher News about conferences and workshops to do with the young adult novel. (infrequent postings) Sign up here.  

Red Telephone Books News about our books and our authors. Sign up here.

A Publisher’s Perspective Here I blog as a publisher. Access this here.   

The Creative Café Project Listings and reviews of creative cafés. See them here.   

CaféLit Stories Find these here

Gill James Writer All about writing and about my books. View this here.

Gill’s Recommended Reads Find information here about books that have taken me out of my editor’s head and a reminder of the ones I’ve highlighted in this newsletter.    

Gill’s Sample Fiction Read some of my fiction here.

The House on Schellberg Street All about my Schellberg project. Read it here.

Writing Teacher All about teaching creative writing.  Some creative writing exercises. Access this here.     

Books Books Books Weekly offers on our books and news of new books. Find them here. 

The Young Person’s Library I am gradually moving the children’s book catalogue over to this site.  Access it here.

Fair Submissions I am gradually moving the Opportunities List to this site.  Find it here.   

New ones are added several times a day. Roughly once a month I go through it and take out all of the out of date ones. At that point I send it out to a list. If you would like to be on that list, sign up here.  

Happy reading and writing. 

Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay

Stages of revision 16: final copyedit and some further suggestions

 

The end or not the end?

This is the last time you’ll look at your script ….  until it’s accepted and you go through it with an editor or it’s rejected and you take another look at it, some months down the  line, before you send it out again.

Oh yes, by the time you get to this stage you’ve really polished it … and the first thing the publishing house’s editor is going to do is take it apart.

You yourself will do this as well at a later date – because fashions in writing change and you move on as a writer anyway.

To be honest, editing never ends.

 

More of a proof read?

You’ve probably got rid of most of the more obvious mistakes by now. The read aloud edit helps a lot. It may be wise here to concentrate on a few specific things. There are some things that we all get wrong frequently and there will be your own specific common mistakes. E.g. I often type “form” when I mean “from” 

Here is a suggested list but it is by no means comprehensive. It’s a good idea to develop your own list over time.

·         Is dialogue set out correctly?

·         Are you using a word too often e.g. “Gosh” “seems”

·         Is your use of the apostrophe correct?

·         Look out for confusions  such as

o   who’s / whose

o   its / it’s

o    your / you’re, 

o   to/too/two

o   their / there

o   bare / bear

o   affect / effect  

·         Are you consistent in the way you hyphenate words?  

·         Are you consistent in the way you write numbers as words (different styles recommend numbers up to twenty, up to fifty or up to one hundred – can you see which style I’m using?)

·         Are you distinguishing between generic relations – mum, dad, grandpa, and proper  nouns Mum, Dad, Grandpa  

Some proof-reading tricks

Can you bear to start at the end reading one paragraph at a time?

Complete this edit in small chunks.

But perhaps the wisest of all: ask someone else to proof read, or even pay someone else to do it.   

Change the way the text looks

This will help you to get some objectivity. You can:

• Change the font.  
• Single space
• Set it out as booklet
• Print it out as a booklet

 

A final tip

Start each stage of revision in a different place. Otherwise, you tend to rush as you get towards the end and your final chapters will receive less attention.  How many pages does your text have? Divide that by 16.  Say you come up with 25.  So start revisions 1 on page 1, revision 2 on page 26, revision 3 on page 52 etc.

Then get submitting!       

Image by  Lorenzo Cafaro from Pixabay 

Another interview with a Waterloo Festival Writing Competition winner, Mehreen Ahmed

Another interview with a Waterloo Festival Writing Competition  winner. I've been very pleased to be involved in judging the Waterloo Festival Writing Competition  over the last three years. We're currently putting the three e-books we've produced of the winning entries into one paperback book to be launched on 5 December. In recognition of this, I'm publishing an occasional series of interviews with some of the winners. Today I welcome Mehreen Ahmed.       

We chat about writing in particular and the winning story in particular. There is also an excerpt of 

the story. 

What do you write? Why this in particular? 

I write literary fiction. As an English graduate, I grew up on a steady feed of literary fiction to an extent that it has influenced me so much that it has become a part of me. 

What got you started on writing in the first place?

My journals. I always wrote them as a child. I penned whatever little event was happening at the time. Or create stories at times too, based on my surroundings.

Do you have a particular routine? 

Not really. I write when I feel inspired. Anything can inspire me, be it a wet path, or trembling of a leaf, raindrops or rainbow.

Do you have a dedicated working space?

Yes, I usually write in bed on my laptop in my pyjamas sometimes, with a pot of tea by my side.

When did you decide you could call yourself a writer? Do you do that in fact?

When I began to get recognised by reader reviews, and prizes.

How supportive are your friends and family? Do they understand what you're doing?

I hope so. I hope they understand what I am writing. My mother has been very supportive although she did complain about the lack of punctuations in my stream- of-consciousness fiction.

What are you most proud of in your writing?

I love writing in stream-of-consciousness fiction. I love this style of writing. I find it both challenging and artistic. A successful stream-of-consciousness style of writing entails a fine balance between presenting chaos in the raw as they appear in the head with a semblance of filter for the sake of art. That is hard to achieve, I think. 

How do you get on with editing and research?

I don't edit much. I think too much editing distances the end product from the wilderness in the writer's head. There should be some of that left, I think to touch base with reality so to speak. The reality in the head. However, the research must be top notch.

Do you have any goals for the future?

Yes, I would like to write a few more books. And I would love to see my books used in education.

Which writers have inspired you?

Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Pablo Neruda, Nazrul Islam, Tagore to name a few.

Tell me about your story in the collection.

Dolly is about a flower girl. She sells flowers on the streets. One day, she came across a car. As she came to the car, to sell her flowers, she got kidnapped. However, for her personal protection, the girl always carried a doll. She believed in this doll that it would save her from danger one day. And it did. The doll came through when she needed her most. She saved her from her kidnapper.

What inspired you to write this?

Flower girls. Once I was sitting in a car when a lad came up to the car to sell garlands, I gave him money and asked him to keep the garlands and sell them elsewhere. He told me that I needed to keep them, because if I didn't then a super power would punish him. He dropped the garlands on my lap through the car window and he disappeared.

How did you hear about the competition? 

I heard about it via one of your emails.

Have you had any other success in short-story writing?

I have been published by nearly 160 publishers internationally. I have also published a short story collection and two more short and flash fiction in the pipeline.

I am still writing them and publishing.

What for you makes a good short story? 

The one which comes out of reality but gradually fades into absurdity or impossibility.

Do you have any tips for new writers or writers seeking publication? 

Be imaginative, transcend reality.

An excerpt from Mehreen's story:  

 Dolly

Not without her,” Ana screamed. “I’m not leaving without Dolly.”

But the police officer kept pestering. She put Ana’s hands in hand-cuff. Ana yelled at the constable. She told Ana that she must leave without her doll. For it was really she who was in trouble, not her doll. Ana realised that police officer didn’t understand that Dolly was her security blanket, now and always. Ever since she was five, now fifteen.

“Trouble?” she screamed. You say, I’m in trouble? A parasite? Under the radar until you caught me out?”

“What else would you call yourselves? You, downy mildews of fester? You steal buns from that bakery, there.

“I only steal for hunger.”

“Little snitch! I’ll get you sorted out.”

“Ha! You make me laugh. I have been like this since five. I sold flowers on Harlon Street, an orphan, and a phantom to most. Those who saw my flowers, never saw me; invisible like a camouflaged screech owl on a living bark. Then one day, someone noticed me,” she said.

“Who? Who noticed you?” asked the police constable.

“He did. The big man. One evening, it rained. I appeared at his car window with a bunch of yellow chrysanthemums. He rolled down his windows and offered me money. He told me to take the money, and re-sell the wet bunch. Just when the lights changed, I dropped the flowers on his lap, saying that he must take them or else Dolly would get offended and she would punish me. The man drove away.”

 She looked down at the grooved pavement littered with torn plastic bags. A bed made out of slippery bags for a slippery life. Her doll lay there, too.

“Is this a way to live? You should be ashamed of your life?” the constable yelled.

“Yeah? You have a better idea? Where were you when they took me? Those big men’s playing doll that I had almost become. Where were you when those leeches nearly lay me down in their valley? The dark night’s under-bridge.”

Read more here:

 

https://www.waterloofestival.com/post/writing-competition-2020-and-the-winners-are

http://authorshout.com/2019-reader-ready-awards-winners/

amazon.com/author/amazon.com.mehreenahmed

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5267169.Mehreen_Ahmed

http://www.midwestbookreview.com/sbw/may_17.htm#fiction

https://theeditorschoice.wordpress.com/