News 2 September 2019

 

Troubling Times

Extinction Rebellion activists are clogging up a main street in Manchester.  All over the country people are protesting against the suspension of Parliament.  An extremely powerful hurricane is hitting the US.

A few years back on holiday both my husband and I read a book about the weather behaving strangely and indeed before the end of that holiday we had nine foot waves on the Med. Yet that seems very tame compared with what’s happening now.

What can we do?

I’m taking more care with my carbon footprint, querying very journey I make. We have a smart meter now and although we’re sceptical- we’ve always been careful haven’t we? – I do find myself studying it and reacting to it. I’m working on the garden and introducing plants that the wildlife will like. We’ve joined the local wildlife trust. But these are just tiny gestures.

We can all of course write and talk to people. I’ve noticed my stories getting more political and my near future ones now assume climate change gets worse. But more about that in the next section.   

Yet I look out of my study window now and I still see the birds and I hear them singing. The sun is still shining. The flowers are still blooming.  There’s hope?

         

News about my writing

Yes, indeed my writing is getting political, especially 240 X 70.  That is perhaps not so surprising. I look each day for the first picture I see on Twitter and so often it’s one of BoJo. So there you go.

My short story The Reckoning is about the after-life of someone who sat on the fence.

The Last Ocean is about a world dying of thirst.   

Peace Child 4 (The House of Clementine) as a YA (?) science fantasy is almost obliged to reflect our world and I certainly have references to Brexit and Trump in there.

Not Just Fluffy Bunnies, my non-fiction about the darker side of children’s literature, seems more neutral. But then it’s about the darker side ….

Note to self: remember the upbeat ending. End on hope.  

         

Catalogue of books for children

This month I’ve added:

The Children of Green Knowe by Lucy Boston This is a delightful classic suitable for fluent readers.  

The Stuff of Nightmares by Malorie Blackman  Here we have a horror story suitable for teen or young adults. Blackman recycles her own nightmares here. As engaging as ever. And it has an upbeat ending.  Phew!

Night Birds on Nantucket by Joan Aiken  This is suitable for upper primary fluent readers. It starts off as an adventure at sea and then on land continues as a mystery / crime story.

Only the Ocean by Natasha Carthew I also reviewed this for Armadillo Magazine Target readers are young adults and teens.  The writer uses a very unusual style but it works beautifully.

Current reading recommendation

I’m a little bit naughty when I select my library books. I always look at the new ones first and this one definitely caught my eye. Giles Milton’s D Day, the Soldiers’ Story is all about the Normandy landings on D Day.  You can find it here. This is a pleasing example of narrative non-fiction. The title is bit of a misnomer; we have stories of civilians as well. The stories are from both sides and include ones of the French civilians. There has obviously been a lot of research into this book. There are hundreds of anecdotes and vignettes. Milton uses an engaging narrative style. He certainly uses the senses well and we’re transported there. So, it’s not a particularly comfortable read.  But who says we need to be comfortable all the time? Even though I knew the outcome I was gripped by this throughout.  

 

Giveaway

This month I’m giving away Clara’s Story. This is the second story in the Schellberg Cycle. It might be described as a tragedy or it might be described as a story of survival. In the end it is up to the reader or even Clara herself to decide.

It is labelled as fiction and as biography on Amazon. Holocaust biography. Historical fiction. Clara Lehrs really existed, as did many of the characters in the Schellberg Cycle. We have a few, a very few verifiable facts about them. The rest we have had to find out by repeating some of their experiences and by using the careful writer's imagination.

Certainly the Schellberg Cycle examines the stories of several German Jews. Ironically Clara does not consider herself to be Jewish and sees no danger. She possibly needs Holocaust education even more than her readers do. Her dealings with Steiner Education help her to throw a little light on her situation and she becomes engaged in her own form of Holocaust resistance. So, we might even label this Holocaust fiction.

Get your free mobi-file and lots of other goodies here.

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.   

Naturally I welcome reviews.

The Schellberg Project

The posts may be helpful for teachers who are familiar with the Schellberg stories or who are teaching about the Holocaust.

This month I’ve added a post about Käthe Edler as a refugee. She came over to England as a young mother in 1939. I’ve also written about the third book in the series, Girl in a Smart Uniform. This is to date the most fictional of the Schellberg stories.   

    

You can read the posts here.      

 

School visits

I’m still promoting my school visits associated with The House on Schellberg Street project. I’ve now developed a whole workshop for this. It starts off with a board game, includes some role play and creative writing and ends with a discussion.

It is now possible to purchase the kit to work on on your own. Find details here.

Costs for my workshops = travel expenses plus £400 for a full day and £200 for a half day. This includes all materials and some freebies. Two schools near to each other might consider splitting the day and halving the travel expenses and fees. This is open to negotiation in any case.       

I also offer a free half day visit, though you pay my travel expenses, if you allow me to promote my books.      

I’m continuously adding materials for schools to the site that are different from the ones I use for the workshops. I’ve recently added in resources and books to do with the topic. See them here:      

Query for a school visit here.

I’m also happy to tailor a visit for your agreed donation. This can be for either a Schellberg Cycle visit or a creative writing workshop. Any monies raised this way will go specifically to a project I have for a non-fiction book about a journey that will follow the footsteps of Clara Lehrs. I’m hoping to do the whole journey by train, including departing via my nearest Metrolink station. It’s important to feel the rails beneath my feet.       

I offer as well standard author visits which include readings from my books, Q & A sessions and creative writing exercises.

Please remember, with these as well, I’m open to negotiation if you can’t afford the full price.

 

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, Chapletown 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. Find it here.   

Opportunities List Remember I keep a full list of vetted opportunities on my writing blog. See them 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.  

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.   

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. 

Happy reading and writing.

Stages of revision – all fifteen of them

I’m writing here about the stages of revision I put my novels through. I take between a month and three months to write the first draft and between six and eighteen to get it to the stage where I’ll let beta readers read it and then I send it out to agents and publishers or I self-publish. 

I’ve shared my young adult material with my friends from SCBWI as I’ve gone along, so they see my work at a very early stage sometimes.  

Anyway, I have the habit of writing a section and then reading it through three times. There is something optimum about three. After three times you’ll probably not notice much more unless you’re doing the very focussed edits I’ll write about in the next few posts.  The first read through at this point is largely about correcting typos. It’s amazing how much the other two read-throughs pick up as well.  

Why go to all this trouble you might ask, if an editor is going to work on it anyway?  Well an important point is that the better the script is in the first place, the better it will become after a professional edit, be it from an in-house editor in an established publishing house or a free-lancer you’ve employed to edit the text you intend to self-publish. 

As I work through my fifteen edits I’ll still adjust anything I see that’s out of kilter. It becomes like peeling layer after layer off.   

It is hard, then, when your beta readers or editors come back with something you haven’t noticed. But there are a few things you can consider here:

You are too close to the text so you may not see what is blindingly obvious to others.

It’s your choice in the end but if more than one person has said the same thing, they may have a point.

You and our editors are on the same side – you’re both trying to produce the best text possible.

You’re not an idiot because you made that mistake – that was then and this is now.  You’ve moved on as a writer.  

Over the next few posts I’ll be going into more detail about my self-editing process.                     

Event Planning

Alongside my  writing I enjoy arranging events and find this as creative as the writing itself. Here are my tips on the process.

Define your event

What do you actually want to do at this event? What will it look like? How will you define its success? What do you want to achieve? How many people would you like to attend?  Who do you think is likely to attend? 

     

Setting a budget

Do you have a set amount of money to spend? Will you have to charge participants? Do you expect to make more money out of the event e.g. by selling books, charging for catering or asking people to pay what they can afford.

Tip: assume you will make nothing on the event but if you do you can put that into the budget of the next event.  

Possible costs:

●  hire of room

●  cost of catering

●  personnel  - e.g. compeer, book seller, front of house, food server

Some ways that you might save money:

●  Some venues may be offered for free for a minimum spend

●  Choose somewhere where there is cash bar or servery.  You can still supply a cake or similar so that you look generous. 

●  Form a mutual support group where you help each other with events.   

     

Inviting people

You've probably selected your venue according to the number of people you're expecting. Remember some people will drop out nearer the time - illness, weather, family problems, car breaking down etc.  It's wise to overbook by about 15%. You'll get a full room. I once "sold" fifty tickets for an event . Thirty-one people turned up. Ll the "drop-outs" had genuine reasons.

There are three tools that may help:

Facebook events - free to use but if your event is paid for it won't handle money. However, you can use it in connection with the other two listed below and make it point to them.  It's the extra advertising for your event.    

Eventbrite  - for free or paid for events.  There are lots of helpful tools.

Ticket Source - better for paid-for events. Like Eventbrite  it offers a lot of useful tools. It has the look and feel of a theatre box office. 

Tip: charge for an event but include a free book. Folk are more likely to turn up if they have had to pay.             

Organising what happens

Work out a timetable but be prepared for it to change. Factor in setting up and clearing up. Here is an example:

5.30 - set up

6.00 - guests arrive, mingle, serve drinks.

6.30 - intro

6.35 - readings from the book

6.50 - 7.10  Q & A

7.10 - 7.25 serve cake

7.25 - 8.00 sell books, sign copies, more mingling

8.00 - 8.30 clear up   

  

Critical Time Planning

This is a must for any type of event. It's the order in which you do things. For example you don't look at taps for your bath before you have laid the foundations for your house. And yes: even looking at them may be counterproductive - by the time you get the bathroom installed they may not be made anymore. On the other hand you need to be sure of lead times so that you order them in time.

The key is to work backwards. What does the even look like? What do you need to do in order for it to turn out that way?

Here is an example, and note it is set out with the event at the top.

50 people at the International Crumpsall Centre for book launch of Daisy Days 17 April 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. 

Pick up cake / wine 17 April  12.00

Plan timings - discuss with helpers 10 April 2020

Order cake and wine 17 March   

Order 35 copies of book 12 March (Why not 50? Experience tells me this number is about right.  Would you be able to sell the further 15 afterwards? And if you do order more don' put them out all at once. Seeing a huge unsold pile puts people off. If it looks as if stocks  are running out people may make the effort to buy.

Find people to help - by 1 March                

Send invites (Invite 60 -writing friends, other friends, people interested in dementia) 1 March 2020.  Keep going until all tickets have gone.      

Book venue by 26 February

Set budget by 20 February 

      

Evaluating your event

This is a really important step and should be completed as soon as possible after the event has finished.

For a simple book launch you will probably not need to survey your participants. Even if your event is one where you have offered a service or a product I urge some caution. Invite people to complain and they will. Even if they are mainly satisfied ask them what could be done better and they'll tell you! And that may feel negative to you. Certainly that element should be there but it should be only one of many. Ask open questions such as:

What have you gained from this course?

What will you do next?

What else could we do for you?

What might we have done better?

For other sorts of events be kind to yourself. Still keep a critical head, though, and ask yourself these focused questions.

What went well?

What went less well?

What else would you do?

What would you do differently next time? 

It's important to record the answers and look at them before you plan the next event.    

Editing: a never-ending process

In a Facebook Group I belong to we recently discussed when you should give up on a short story. Almost everyone said: “Never!” I tend to agree. I’m putting together now collections of my own stories but only where they’ve been published elsewhere and when I have the rights back.

And here’s the thing: I edit them again before I publish them.

In fact, I read through again and often tweak those stories that are rejected before I send them out again.      

Surely, though, shouldn’t every story be the very best it can be before it goes out? Yes of course. But what was “the very best it could be” a couple of months ago may not be today. We all move on as writers and usually become better.  Language changes anyway. New facts creep in. 

On the other hand I very rarely alter stories to make them more suitable for a particular publication.  The story is what it is.  The trick is to find the right publication. I’ll make an exception, though, if I get some concrete feedback from an editor. I’ll often act on that unless it totally compromises what I was trying to achieve. 

I’m not alone either, in editing as I read my work aloud. The text sometimes needs to be a little different if you’re reading it aloud form if the reader is taking it in through her eyes. Also, again, you have moved on as a writer since you wrote the piece. 

Be warned as well, when that novel that you’ve slaved over and edited to what you perceive to be perfection, is finally accepted, your editor will proceed to tear it apart. Do not be discouraged: she is on your side. We scrape back the layers. The better it is to start with, the better it will become with more editing. 

Over the next fee posts I’ll be describing the stages of editing I put my novels through – before I release them to a beta reader, let alone send them out to publishers.