Emerald Writing Competition Winning Entry

Click Here to Read Tracy's winning entry in the Emerald Writing Short Story Competition.
Thanks again to Eddie for running these competitions.  Amazingly Eddie has only started charging an entry fee this year and to be honest the entrance fee is good value.

Check out upcoming competitions at Emerald's site.

A Gem of a WIN

The indoor writer got a phone call last night from Eddie Walsh.  He organises the competitions held by Emerald Writing Workshops (see link to website on left of Blog).  Her entry 'Gods of the carousel' for the first competition of 2011 (500 words - theme: set in airport) had WON!

Several bottles of beer were then imbibed to celebrate.   Winning story will soon be published on the Emerald Writing workshop - go and check it out.

Also check out the other competitions running in 2011 on this website.  Eddie often provides critiques for entries which are all published on the site.

Keep writing!

Julia Churchill at West Sussex Writers' Club

On the evening of Thursday 10th March Julia Churchill (Agent for Greenhouse Literary Agency) gave the monthly talk for the West Sussex Writers' Club (Worthing).  Julia talked for over an hour on life as a Literary Agent and gave many top tips on what an agent is looking for in a submission and manuscript.  It was fascinating to hear of the work involved by an agent, particularly the daily routine, and a surprise to find that Julia reads all submissions herself.  She was clearly passionate about her work and loves the children's market.  All information was submitted by excellent examples which really helped to get across her message.  This was an excellent talk and full of key facts for any writer seeking an agent in the current market.  It was also good to hear Julia support ebooks and the markets for new media within the publishing industry.

February Reads

We polished off the last of the Christmas presents by end of Feb.  Two stalwart favourites were: Kate Atkinson and C.J. Sansom and their hardback offerings.  'Started Early, Took the Dog' was Kate Atkinson's  fourth outing for Jackson Brodie - a sardonic but very human ex-private investigator.  Unusally it took us a while to get into this book, but by half way we were totally hooked.  A good array of Atkinson characters - oddly attractive and by the end you are just rooting for the retired cop Tracy.

Similarly experience with C.J. Sansom's fifth adventure for the Tudor hunchback lawyer Matthew Shardlake: 'Heartstone'.  Found this very slow going at first but stuck with it and post 200 pages it started to zoom along.      The twist was virtually impossible to see coming - well we didn't see it coming, but then I don't get out much (why would I want to leave my lovely cosy bed).  If you like historical detective fiction then sample this series, Book 1 is 'Dissolution'.

Invite to write

If you enjoy writing short fiction and writing to a time limit i.e. true FLASH FICTION then check out the weekly competition run by Write-Invite.  A genuinely friendly competition where once you've registered you have the opportunity of entering the weekly Saturday evening challenge (£4 entry fee for £50 prize money for winner).  At 5.30pm the three topics are revealed, pick one and write a story before 6pm - your story has to be written online and submitted before the cut-off after 30 mins.  This is fun and a real test of creativity and writing skills, but be warned it's also addictive and stressful.  My indoor writer needs a steady supply of Jelly Babies to get through the ordeal and usually a copious amount of alcohol is consumed post 6pm (I think she'd be more successful in the competition if she imbibed the alcohol before it started).

If you fancy a go then check out the link to the Write-Invite website on this blog.

Happy writing!

Twenty Thousand Words

Today the indoor writer hit twenty thousand words on her children's novel.  Yeah, okay not bad but I'm celebrating when she gets to fifty thousand - that would be worth a slice of chocolate cake ... with fudge icing ... and hot chocolate sauce .. yum

In praise of fairytales

We've just finished reading two very different books, but both could be described as fairytales.

Firstly, Angela Carter's collection in The Bloody Chamber - a series of gothic and folk tales, several quite adult and all delicious.  Her prose is exquisite she delights in eloquent descriptive scenes, which are not really the vogue today, and her stories contain minimal dialogue (apparently Angela despaired of writing good dialogue and instead chose to live without it).  These are best picked one by one, as a continuous reading can become too heavy on the eyes.  Our favourite story was The Werewolf, which has an unusual twist as to the identity of Red Riding Hood's wolf.

Secondly, read Rowan Coleman's The Happy Homes For Broken Hearts - a more modern fairytale with a happy ending (for once). Really enjoyed this - quite a surprise as was expecting a frivolous chick-lit romp.  It's certainly a romp but with lots of heart too.  Got into the main character and at the end was quite sad to have leave the cast of likeable lodgers.  A good holiday read.