From the party that broke out on the Cloud yesterday, you would think I was a published author, but The Blackbird Effect does still have a journey to travel. What has been great for me is the support of so many people who know just how hard it is to get a book this far. At every stage, there have been people who have kept me going, and while writing is by nature a solitary profession, I think those other people are vital, and not just for support.

A story is just words without a reader, and to truly write, we need also to listen. Something that makes sense to me may be nonsense to Harry or Skylark or Whisks. While I can’t claim to have been inside those three remarkable heads, I have had quality feedback from them and from many more people.

I’m going to try and outline the journey the book has taken to give you an idea of just how many people have been involved so far.

The Blackbird Effect grew out of the ashes of two previous novels in 2007, retaining two characters who became the narrators, after an Arvon course showed me that those novels were my apprenticeship. I needed more of a challenge, and focussed on the relationship between two sisters.

In 2008, another Arvon course with the novelist Kamila Shamsie confirmed that I was onto something, but that the problems I had set myself were immense: two first-person narrators, unreliable in different ways, one past-tense, one present tense, and a cyclical structure that borrowed more from musical form than anything resembling a traditional plot.

That summer, after years of cuts in the service we could provide for adults with learning disabilities through the county council, I finally decided that enough was enough, and after 24 years, I couldn’t be part of such a service. I left, and gave myself, optimistically, a year to write my book. It was great fun: I did a lot of research and went through three drafts in the year. Key advice came from workshops with poet Glyn Maxwell and two workshops with the lovely Tiffany Murray. For the first time, I began to believe that this wasn’t just me following my dream, but a book with a serious chance of success. However.

That was the however moment. To stand any chance of getting published, I would have to stop playing around with an experimental novel, and give it a traditional structure. I looked around for help and found a friendly inviting website called The Writers’ Workshop offering a self-editing workshop in the Oxford Union in February 2009 - not as an add-on to a literary festival, but as an intensive day’s work.

I booked up, and found two extraordinary tutors, Harry Bingham and Emma Darwin. They sent my confidence sky-high by loving the voices I had created. But voices have never been my problem, and I left knowing that I still had a long way to go with structure and plot. I had a string of great scenes that didn’t have much cumulative effect when added together.

I felt I needed more specific help, and was slightly surprised when my wife agreed to me paying for a full WW critique.

The result was a bit of a shock, because for the first time I met an editor who didn’t really ‘get’ my main characters. But that didn’t matter: Daren King gave me some very helpful guidance on creating a progressive plot through the book. Maybe it was a bit much to ask a young contemporary novelist to enjoy my purposely insecure and ‘soft’ characters. His review and many further comments from Harry helped me shape the material in a completely different way. Essentially, this was a new book.

2009 was the year when I launched myself as a professional storyteller, and so much less writing got done, but I had wonderful encouragement from something new: this very Cloud on which we all sit. Here were a bunch of writers going through the same agonies as me!

2010 was the year of the first York festival. Putting faces and voices to a cupcake, a Derbyshire fell and various other mysterious icons was great fun. And it was the first time I met a fiery-haired writer called Debi Alper who had been a source of wisdom and encouragement long before we actually met. Late in the festival, I read a passage to a big, slightly sozzled audience in a literary death match that included Harry taking black humour into a morgue, amongst others.

Meetings with agents suggested that yes, I was a good writer, but my ‘son of’ book wasn’t yet polished enough.

I left York with a plan of action for a project that had stagnated for a year or so. Later that year was Harry’s Getting Published day, to celebrate the launch of the book that told me everything I needed to know about the interview I’ve just had this week. Another ten-minute session with Debi confirmed that now The Blackbird Effect was really getting there, with a much-improved opening chapter. “Be ultra persistent,” she said.

I sent that draft out to agents, with a mixed response: one positive, helpful rejection, six refusals and several no-replies.

I let it lie for a few months while I began a new writing project, taking the manuscript to York 2011 with the intention of focussing on small publishers and forgetting any grand designs. But everyone still liked it. Julie Cohen gave me some great advice on pacing. In my attempts to make my project into something like a conventional novel, I had given my narrators alternating chapters to avoid confusion. But my writing had evolved, and she suggested I go back to my original plan of intercutting the voices, and see if it worked. Bingo! What I couldn’t manage before was now easy. The icing on the cake was winning a free editorial review as one of the most promising manuscripts at the festival.

And all of a sudden I had two editors! Jill Foulson carried out my winnings: a rigorous critique, instructed to look at it clinically as a commercial proposition. And I also began exchanging manuscripts with Skylark, finding the sharing of material with a trusted friend incredibly valuable. The two editorial processes dovetailed. Skylark’s many smiley faces on passages that worked for her - not to mention her rude comments when my character simply couldn’t see that she was hopelessly in love, or trust her own feelings, were an amazing confidence booster. And Jill’s comments were easy to work with. Again, I didn’t take them all at face value, but took the criticism and found solutions that worked for me.

I felt quite smug when I showed the manuscript to Harry in December. Until it came back with three points to look for in the easiest edit I have ever done. It took less than three weeks and trimmed 5,000 words-worth of baggage off the book.

Harry suggested that Juliet Mushens at PFD might like to see it a week ago today. She read the book cover-to-cover (not that it has covers yet) in one evening, and now I have an agent. But still, as ever, there is just a little more work to do to the manuscript…

 

All those people named above have contributed to The Blackbird Effect, and so have many others. Today, I had a storytelling session with my friend Hayley. Hayley can’t read, but if this book gets as far as publication, her name will be on the dedication page, and she and her friends give me plenty of reasons to keep on writing. If you have a manuscript that seems to be taking a long and winding road, I would suggest that it could just be the one that works for you.

I've just recieved a long awaited critique from 'WritersOnline', recommended to me by a friend. I sent my synopsis and first three chapters off on 13th August along with £49. A month later, I'd had no response. I couldn't email them, so had to make a phone call. Blah. So the lady doing the crit for my genre had personal problems and hadn't read my work. Okay, that fine, we all all only human. So, they agreed to me sending some revised work ( synopsis & first 3 chapters) for her to look at. That was on 23rd Sept. Just received a response today after a further phone call. 'Oh, she's in london today' blah, blah.
Anyway, today I received the critique. I think perhaps I was expecting more than a couple of hundred words, most of them about my punctuation and indentation in the first couple of paragraphs.
The rest almost made me laugh out loud. She said that my m/c came  across as being racist. Me? Now I had to think very long and hard about this, once I had stopped laughing of course.
So, my m/c's best friend is Northern Irish, she grew up in a working class, abusive background and was pushed from one foster home to the next.
If I were to take this critique seriously, by mentioning potatoes and alcohol and she once says 'so it is' as many a Belfast person does, I am being racist and stereotyping the Northern Irish as being spud eating, drinking 'so it isers.'

When the mist cleared, I thought, 'No, actually they are not my stereotypes or my pre-conceived ideas, they are yours - and you are actually ther racist, not me!'

I come from County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Lou, the NI character who, through her conversations with my M/c, has made her come across as racist.

Obviously I am worried 1) about stereotyping - and 2) There was not a mention of structure, pace, dialogue, setting in my critique.

Any thoughts would be most welcome as I am at a bit of a loss!!  

May I give a gentle reminder - nay - a huge plea - to people NOT to put their work up on the BLOG section? I can't find even yesterday's blogs without going down screens and screens of poems and chapters from cloudies wanting advice/critique. Please put these in the critiques or groups section, you will get a greater response there. If there are a group of kind folks who read for each other, please start a group and invite people - it keeps all your chapters together for your future reference and keeps WIPs seperate.

If nobody comments for a couple of days then perhaps put a one liner on your wall or the blog with the title and request for readers? Thank you. :) :) :)

Well, this is odd...

Since I started revising my story, I've become quite good at being ruthless. I'm actually quite proud of this; even though it's hard to see so much hard work being consigned to the ether in a fraction of the time it took to create, the fact that I can do this now without wanting to sob is something I view positively. If I get 'The Niggle', then it's a case of 'stand up to reworking or die' - no prisoners are taken.

This happened to chapter 8. I think I knew when I started writing it that it wasn't working - it was the only chapter I didn't finish properly, but I hadn't learned to listen to 'The Niggle' at that point and so I just kept going. And, as sure as eggs is eggs, when I came to re-read it back, 'The Niggle' became more of 'The Big Fat NOOOOOOOO!!!!!', and so I scrapped the lot, alongside a lot of the chapter 7 set up and the subsequent sub plot that followed it. It was a lot of writing to scrap, but once that lump was cut away, I did feel better.

So, although happy with getting rid of the excess flab, I also had a huge, gaping wound in my story to suture. Whilst the sub plot was cut (something I am now deliriously happy about, since it has freed of juggling too many balls at once), there was a character that still needed introducing and a whole set of questions that needed setting up. So I had a think and realised that I could make a later scene make more sense if I wrote this new chapter in a specific way.

As I was writing it, I had a sneaking suspicion that the scene was a bit twee, and wasn't sure whether I liked it or not. But since I tend to feel this about near enough everything I write, I figured I'd write it anyway and see what became of it - after all, the sneaking suspicion turned into 'The Niggle', I could always delete it and start again. And I'd even had another idea just in case this one did turn into 'The Niggle' and needed to be banished - RESULT!

After I wrote it, I decided - like a good girl - to leave it to rest. I went back to other chapters, did loads of work on those, found a greater sense of exactly what the story needed and my perceived doubts about this new chapter grew. Without even reading it, 'The Niggle' began to slink out of its lair, and with a heavy sigh, I began planning out yet another chapter 8. I knew there were a few things I  wanted to keep, though, so I steeled myself to wince and printed off a copy and, red pen in hand, prepared to cannibalise what I could.

But life is never that simple, is it? As I read the re-write, another feeling crept over me. It was insidious and wholly unexpected. A 'Niggle' of another kind, in fact. Far from disliking the chapter, I... liked it?

So now my Inner Critic is in a total tizz. It wants to hate. It really, really does. I can feel it there, boiling away, trying to summon 'The Niggle'.  But 'The Niggle' doesn't want to come out and play. And for some, weird reason I cannot fathom, this has unsettled and confused me more than when I need to cut stuff out. I'm used to the Inner Critic sitting there with her arms crossed, giving me a disapproving shake of the head whilst tutting under her breath. What I am not used to is her sitting there with confounded look on her face, trying to justify her bile but failing to do so.

Which leads me to one conclusion and one conclusion only: writing is a strange, strange fruit indeed, and something I don't think I'll ever fully understand. Ever.

And you know what? In a way, I'm kind of glad of that... ^^D

           

 

 

 

            I am very busy now! Perhaps that exclamation will make my point. My apologies for my recent absence, but the fact is I have had little free time since beginning my new occupation at work. I will indulge your curiosity for a moment and share a brief segment of my life before moving onto my work update.

            You might remember that I am employed in the food and beverage field, and was formerly the evening shift supervisor of a Starbucks Coffee Shop on an academic campus in Central Florida. I worked the job until two weeks ago, when the supervisory position in the Catering Department became available. Management was very encouraging, and I decided to take the position. I have been retail since I began working at the campus; now, I am in a totally new field, with new hours (a positive change), and a lot of responsibility. In fact, to make my point, tomorrow I will be preparing a breakfast for the university president and some guests. It is an exciting move, and I stand to gain a lot from it. It has been a good week in the new field so far and I am enjoying it immensely. There are items and people in the coffee shop I miss, but the transition has, overall, been a very positive one for me. I am now home most evenings with my wife (as opposed to working 6 pm-3 am every night) and I have a wonderful manager and crew with which to work.

            Now, I have said the above to point out that my new position leaves me little time to engage in blog writing. My wife is my first priority in the evening, so I write and research when time allows. I have been a week in the job, so hopefully I will begin to learn to use the new schedule to my advantage, as I still desire to keep my writing career going. That being said, onto the update.

            I spent most of today working on the novella, and am pleased to say I have finally gotten through the first draft! It was a bit of a pain, as the first read-through was extensive, but it came out well. Only two more edits and it is finished. I am pleased so far with the story and its outline, pace and style; only a few more critiques and it will be near perfect.

            You are reading my blog, so it means I was successful in creating it today. On my list are this blog and my short story, The Unbinding Tie, which I am currently editing. It is my hope to have this posted and the story completed soon. There do no seem to be many corrections as of yet (that frightens me!), but it is coming along nicely.

            As far as ideas go, I have one project I will begin shortly. This one is a short story about a hiker who ventures off trail into the old, abandoned house of the supposed town witch. Once inside, he finds and reads from a book she wrote about her own life and experiences with the judgmental townspeople. It has been rattling around in my cranium for a long while now, and demands attention. I hope to begin work on it in the next few days, time permitting. I am excited about the story’s prospects, as I feel it is going to be a good one for me. It will be nice to get it underway.

            Well, that is all for now. Wish me luck with my new endeavors, and as always, good luck writing!

I read an interesting article this morning, which really got me thinking.

First off - a link:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/russell-smith/want-some-writing-advice-ignore-any-advice/article1927034/

I'm not sure how I feel about what he says, to be honest. On one hand, I completely disagree with him - if it hadn't been for the honest feedback I received on my work, I would still be stuck in the doldrums of the beginning of the last century, drowning in a sea of adjectives (which I know it a fast-track to Rejectionsville nowadays, and have tweaked my natural rather baroque style into something I am *hoping* is a little more agreeable to the modern literary palate) ... but on the other hand, I do see what he is saying. Which brings me to something I have noticed on every single writing site I have been to, and has forced me to ask myself this question an awful lot: is it critique, or is it just 'wish-listing' on behalf of the critic?

We all have our own preferences in writing. Personally, I'm not really a fan of the modern preoccupation with literary austerity, and so I don't write this way. Put plainly, I don't like this whole 'simple sentences with little to no description' thang - I know it is unfashionable right now, but what the hell,  it's a taste thing. So why would (and indeed, should) I write a style I don't like reading? But in every single critique I receive, at least one person will either tell me to pare it down or re-write bits so that the piece fits their taste, leaving me feel a little... I don't know. Not annoyed as such - I'm grateful for the feedback - but... deflated? I end up reading the suggested changes, and they're never bad... but they don't sound like *me*. It always ends up sounding exactly what it is - someone else's work. And I do wonder just how useful that is sometimes - after all, what is the point of writing if you cannot claim ownership of it?

One of the comments on the site hit a particular chord with me:

"One of my grad supervisors kept returning drafts of my thesis literally heavy with red ink. By the 2nd time, I realized that many of his suggestions had self-cancelled and I was effectively back at my original wording."

I've experienced this myself - where critiques by the same person end up contradicting themselves to the point where, in one piece they say 'ooo, no; don't do that!' then, in another, they suggest you do exactly the thing they last advised you to avoid - and I tied myself up in knots trying to satisfy both criteria. And what did I end up with? An absolute mess of a piece that I ended up abandoning out of sheer frustration, because I couldn't get it 'right'. I'm a little way further down the path now (not that far; I've spent a lot of time sniffing the roses and watching the clouds drifting by, which I have been summarily had my metaphorical legs slapped copious amounts of times when it came to feedback time! Old habits dies very hard, especially when you're enjoying yourself...) and realise that you can't please all the people all the time, but that niggling feeling that if you're not slavishly following critiques, you're somehow 'slacking off' is hard to shake. Which leads me back to the article - how do other people feel about this chap's point of view? Have we gone too far down the road (his point about us not learning to be writers, but critics in writers' clothing), or is he just spouting a load of bunk?

 

2057

I posted this in the Sci-fi group, but it is as much political satire as it is futurist. I would appreciate any comments/critiques/discussion.  I hadn't planned on expanding it to a novel, but one of my American readers has suggested it.  I probably have too many other unfinished projects going now to consider it.

Gosh, what good fortune to find the Cloud. You put a chapter up in critiques, and half a dozen people give their views, sometimes coming back to add elaborations. What's so good about that? It's half a dozen viewpoints, that's what.

Yes, it's great to pay for a professional critique, but that critique, however insightful, will ultimately be one person's view. Okay, that person has lots of experience and expertise to back up what they say - well worth investing in.

For that matter, it could be well worth investing in two - from different companies - although that's where you might begin to feel uneasy. It's always possible that the well considered, well argued critique from company (a) might say something quite opposite to the well considered, well argued critique from company (b).

This is bound to happen sometimes - because what are we dealing with? Human reactions. How consistent are human reactions? Blessedly inconsistent. And that's why Cloud Critiques are such a valuable adjunct. You know you can't please all the people all of the time, but if you get half a dozen reactions you have more chance of seeing the general effect of your work.

In my case, it was a chapter that, for various reasons, I could no longer see as clearly as I wished. Consequence? There were some things I simply did not see at all. What happened? Some people pointed out some things, others pointed out others. The benefit? Lots of pointing = lots of things pointed at = more chance they would spot something I had not seen.

Ah Cloud, truly thou are mighty in thy works.

Have you ever sat down at your computer and your mind goes blank?
I have spent the last two days writing a 'horror' chapter. 1,000 words. How difficult is that?

I got stuck several times - my dialogue hit brick walls, or my characters wouldn't have said what I had written - the list goes on. I wrote - I erased, and I re-wrote. It still didn't come out right.

How do you kill someone? What is it I need to reveal to increase the suspense? Do I drag it out - or do I suddenly finish it?

I suppose you want to know what happened? How I got myself out of the black hole I'd dug?

I went swimming; I let my mind think it through without me being there.  When I got back I placed my hands on the keyboard and typed...

...now I have a chapter ready for critique - and that's when I find out it wasn't so good anyway!

Boo Hoo xx