Tempted by travel writing?

If you're tempted to dip your writing toe into travel writing then why not test the water with Have A Lovely Time's Beautiful Britain family travel writing competition.  Invitingly your first entry is FREE and any subsequent entries cost £5 (an additional fee of £12.50 can be paid for a critique of your piece, which could be of interest if this is a new genre for you) - the site will also make a donation to charity from entry and critique fees.

Prizes:
1st prize
• £200
• English Heritage family day pass to visit a property of your choice
• Copy of Travelling with Children by Catherine Cooper

2nd prize
• Weekend break at the Park Inn, York
• English Heritage family day pass to visit a property of your choice
• Copy of Travelling with Children by Catherine Cooper

3rd – 10th prizes – Highly commended
• English Heritage family day pass to visit a property of your choice
• Copy of Travelling with Children by Catherine Cooper

Click here for full details of the competition.

On looking at the whole website I would envisage successful entries are likely to involve and focus on children i.e. informative tips for fun family days out, funny stories of family holidays etc.  But that is purely my opinion!

Good luck it you plan to have a go.
Keep writing ...

Sense and insensibility

What are they thinking?  Last week it was announced that Joanna Trollope is to 're-write' Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility and now today we hear P.D. James will be working on the re-write of Pride and Prejudice.

Both of the above women are excellent writers: accomplished, successful and set a high standard for authors everywhere.  So why do they want to re-write another novelist's works?  Jane Austen is beloved by many (I'm her number one piggy fan) and so to re-invent/re-write/re-work (however it will be described) is blatantly asking for a multitude of Austen fans to jam up twitter for eternity ... though all good publicity for when the books actually come out.

And why re-write any author's works?  The film world is suffocating from a plethora of remakes and "new" versions (Jane Eyre just released and Wuthering Heights coming soon...) so heaven help us if this trend escalates within the book world.

I love the classics and enjoy re-reading cherished novels (Pride and Prejudice is definitely one of these), but I also adore reading new fiction, exploring new genres, new authors and sprinting out to buy the latest copy of a favourite series (Lindsey Davies, Peter James etc).  My plea to all writers is look forwards and challenge us with new stories, new characters - please don't keep us in our comfort zones.

This has been my rant of the day.  Now need a good wallow in some choice mud.

September is the new January and Monday is blogday!

At the West Sussex Writers' Club (WSWC) AGM the presiding Chair, Nina Tucknott, stated that "September was the new January", a time to re-set our goals.  With autumnal mornings now nipping at our toes (or trotters) the year feels like it's cruising down to Xmas and there are just four months left to realise those writing objectives enthusiastically dreamed up back in January.  Creativity is an essential part of a writer's tool box but discipline is the oil that keeps the output flowing.  I'm a little embarrassed that this blog is not regularly fed, something else on the writing to-do-list always climbs to the top, so one September resolution is to ensure I publish at least one weekly new entry.  From now on Monday will be blogday and a new post will always come out.  Doesn't stop me putting up other pieces, as the mood takes me, during the rest of the week, but this will ensure a weekly output.

Remember: the more you write means you write more ...

Tears of Eve - Entry for Writers' Week

Tears of Eve

There’s only one cure for stupidity, thought Kyle, the careful extraction of dollars from an overstuffed wallet.  Kyle was a professional, an extractor of surgical precision.

As predicted the man returned to the bar.  Kyle sipped at his pale beer.  The white-haired gentleman beside him held the vial in trembling fingers.  Mesmerized he rocked the transparent liquid, commanding his own miniature sea.

       “Collected that the last day it rained, before the drought began,” said Kyle.  “Do you remember that day?  The rain fell like angels’ kisses.  Of course I didn’t know, none of us did, it would be the last time we’d ever taste real rain.  Yet something told me it was special.”  He wiped the back of his hand across his top lip.

       “Goodness,” was all the older man could muster.

            “Reckon that day Eve was up in heaven weeping for the children of our future and for what they’d lost.  Our poor deprived children who will never experience the sweet caress of mother earth, never hear the melody of her gentle refrain.”  Kyle offered up a handkerchief, crisply folded into a neat triangle, from inside his jacket.

            “My granddaughter was born too late, born after the drought,” said the man, dabbing at his eyes.  “She’s only known synthetic water.  I have cash.  I’ll give you whatever you want, just name your price.”

            After the man had left Kyle swallowed down the dregs of his beer and flicked open the mobile.  “He’s bringing the money round later.  Yeah, he bought it.  How about I pick up a nice big bottle of champagne on the way home.”  His smile was feline.  “And Evie, babe, how about onions for dinner?  Lots and lots of onions.”

The above piece is an entry into Writers’ Week competition click here for more details.

In brief:

Pick a first line from 50 prompts. Start your entry with the words in the prompt, and then just keep going. There is no word minimum or maximum. Works can be fiction or non-fiction, haikus, essays, technical manuals—whatever!

Deadline for entries is Friday, September 16, 2011 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern.

Writers’ Week has been put together by Emily Suess (@EmilySuess) on her blog – it’s packed full of writing tips and articles.

FREE competition: The Short Story

Only a few days left to enter The Short Story competition - it's FREE to enter with prize money of:
1st - £300
2nd - £150
3rd - £50
all winners are published on the website.
Deadline for entries (email only) is 15 September 2011.

Click here for submission guidelines which are clear and to the point.
If you have a short story between 1-5,000 words (no sci-fi, novel chapters or children's stories) which is unpublished and not entered in any other competitions then why not submit.  Free competitions are rare to find!
After all if you don't submit ...

Keep writing!

Recipe for a literary summer fruit pudding

Here is our special recipe for a literary summer fruit pudding.  ENJOY!

Luscious fat strawberries...
The House At Riverton (Kate Morton) is the book equivalent of a bowl of  strawberries.  Large and juicy but disappears quickly once you get stuck in.

An elderly lady in her nineties remembers when she first started as a housemaid at 14 years in the imposing Edwardian manor house at Riverton.  Her story tells of two sisters and their love for a Great War poet whose death lies at the heart of the tale.  A riveting read (sorry) ideal for hot sunny afternoons in the garden.  Good old fashioned story telling.


Ripe sweet blackberries...
White Crow (Marcus Sedgwick) is a modern gothic tale set in a crumbling seaside town.  A succulent story with a dark under-current as the memoirs of a eighteenth century vicar recount dark and evil deeds.  Two teenage girls become entwined in a frail friendship over the summer and tragedy waits patiently in the wings.  The short snappy chapters keep you reading on and you're soon over confident about predicting how it ends.  There is a twist.  Marcus keeps this the right side of gruesome, but always chilling and intriguing too.

Tartly tantalising red currants...
Wereworld: Rise of the Wolf (Curtis Jobling) is the first book in the new Wereworld series.  Curtis Jobling is best known for being the creator of Bob the Builder (not joking!) but has now woven a whole new world of characters that you soon become addicted to.  This is more than another werewolf saga as the medieval style kingdoms are ruled by Werelords: men who can transform into all types of creatures such as lions, bears and even boars.  By the end of this story we genuinely cared about Drew Ferran (last of the werewolves) and his friends.  Looking forward to book two: Rage of Lions.

Rich ruby raspberries...
Out of Breath (Julie Myerson) is a tempting sumptious read lulling you into a daydream idyll of a perfect cottage beside a secret waterfall.  A cottage where whatever you wish for appears.  The narrator is a fourteen year old girl who begins to experience first love after meeting a group of runaways. Myerson's prose is quite intoxicating at times and lulls you into a summer daze, where you start to believe the daydream.  The blossoming feelings of the two teenagers is expertly drawn and believable.  At first the absence of speech marks is odd but you soon accept this and you begin to suspect all you are hearing is actually the creation of the narrator - you begin to live only inside her head.

Our only grumble was the rather weak ending.  In the final pages the story is sewn up quickly (almost sprints to the finish) and far too neatly for comfort.  But still the prose and story continue to haunt long after closing this book.  Looking forward to reading more of Myerson's work.

No summer pudding is complete without a good dollop of forbidden  cream... (this is the real stuff)
The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood) is a futuristic (though not too distant future!) story, which at times is scarily believable.  The narrator is a woman in her early thirties (we never learn her true name) a Handmaid known as Ofred (Of Red - all handmaidens take the name of their patriarch, a high ranking males in the Gilead society).  Her memories are recognisable to all modern women - she sounds like one of us but lives in a new society where women have become subjugated to men - to become breeding stock.  There is also a rich vein of dry humour that enthuses the writing skillfully merging horror, incredulity and farce into a narrative feast that you hungrily devour but don't want to finish.

What would you choose to put in your summer fruit pudding?  Let us know...

Submission etiquette

The indoor writer finally plucked up the courage to submit a pitch for her children's novel to a publisher.  In accordance with the guidelines she emailed the first 3 chapters and a brief synopsis.  This particular publisher only accepts enquiries via email and an automatic response came whizzing back: You will be contacted only if successful.  Great - so she got her finger out and submitted - but what happens now?  How long do you wait to hear if your pitch was successful?  If a publisher wants to see more then when will they get back to you - in a week, two weeks, a month?  What is the etiquette here?

Many agents and publishers want single submissions.  Okay understandable but there doesn't seem to be any accepted timeframe involved.  It would help if an auto reply indicated a timeframe e.g. If you do not hear from us within XX weeks then assume... (rejection, desolation and time to hit the chocolate biscuits etc etc).

The publishing industry seems unique in its approach to clients.  As the writer is the client (unless commissioned) and also the provider of the product (manuscript) then we would anticipate a certain amount of attention from those who need our product to survive.  Yet the converse is the reality.  Guess we live with this because we live to write and not the other way round.

Would appreciate hearing other's thoughts on this etiquette and how long should you wait before pitching to other publishers/agents.

Keep writing!