The Unmitigated Audacity of Calum Kerr

National Short Story Day Story

2011-12-22T13:11:00.002Z

In honour of National Short Story Day, here's a story of mine which first appeared in Transmission magazine in 2007. Hope you enjoy it!

Can you spare a minute?

Daniel stands at the top of Market Street, just down from the corner; JJB Sports behind him, BHS opposite. This is his pitch; his spot. This is the best place.

He clutches the black plastic clipboard close to his chest and watches the groups of people walk towards and past him. Some see him early and cross the width of the pedestrianised area to avoid him. Some don't see him at all and walk close by. Either way, few stop. Undeterred, he offers his call to each one who comes near enough.

"... just a few minutes?..."

"... spare a few minutes?..."

"...can you just?..."

"...a few minutes?...."

"...spare a?..."

"...can you?..."

"...minutes?..."

"...it'll just take a sec."

Some brush past him. They see his shining eager face, his cold fingers creased round the edge of the black plastic clipboard, the other hand reaching out, imploring, and they keep their heads down and walk on.

Some glance at him and then away, quickly, as if he has some kind of disease which could be caught simply by looking at him.

Some look up long enough for him to catch their eye, but then they smile and shake their heads and keep moving, putting distance between them.

Many others, whether they look up at him or not, utter their own mantra in this traditional call and response, with all the rote dullness and precision of catechism.

"...sorry, no time..."

"...I can't spare any..."

"...no time..."

"...have to be somewhere..."

"...maybe on my way back..."

"...five minutes ago..."

"...can't at the moment..."

"... I haven't got the time to spare."

But every once in a while, one stops. He tilts the clipboard away from his chest and explains what he wants. They give Daniel his few minutes and, he likes to think, they go away feeling better and lighter for doing so. He feels he's doing them a service and each one he is able to help makes the whole thing worthwhile.

Daniel stays at his pitch longer than he should. He stays through rush hour and out the other side. The people on the streets now are a mix of those going home after working late and those heading out for the evening. In either case they have no time for him.

With a resigned shrug of his thin shoulders, he turns and starts to walk away from the bright lights and towards the lesser-travelled parts of town. The buildings he passes now are older, more worn, their facades crumbling and stained. Some of them have their windows boarded up but, as he walks down the road, more and more of them are bricked up, revenants of the window tax. Mist gathers and the tarmac becomes broken under his feet, rough cobbles emerging from under. The sound of the city dies at his back and the clump and thud of his boots on the ground becomes more noticeable. The streetlights soften and start to hiss. A horse goes past pulling a coach as Daniel turns into a narrow alley between two warehouses. He walks its length to the small wooden door at the far end. Candle-light glows from the window as he grasps the handle and presses the catch. The door opens with a soft creak and the smoke from the woodstove billows out past his face, carrying with it a smell of watery stew.

Daniel steps into the room and closes the door, he turns and places the wooden board he's carrying onto the worn table. An old woman, his mother, stands at the stove and stirs a large pot. She looks over and smiles at him, pleased to see him home. He smiles back and raises his eyebrows in a question. She shakes her head and goes back to her stirring.

Turning his attention to the room's other occupant, Daniel steps forward to see him better in the firelight. His father's bed, nothing more than a wooden pallet with a rag-stuffed mattress, was moved downstairs when he grew ill, to bring him nearer the warmth of the fire. He lies, propped up in the bed, wearing all the clothes he owns, most of them reduced to rags themselves, merging him with the mattress below. His gaunt face peers out from atop this mass, old and lined, but smiling and expectant.

"Danny, lad. You're back. Did you get me some?"

Daniel nods. "Yes, Dad. I did. "

His father licks his lips and some saliva dribbles down through the cracked flesh of his lips. Daniel feels vaguely disgusted for a moment, but then realises that he can see the wall through the edges of his father's face, ragged edges where he is starting to fade, and the feeling is replaced by one of urgency. He pushes his hands into his pockets and brings them out again, full. He opens them and shimmering jewels fall slowly onto the table top like insubstantial glass snowflakes.

He gestures to them. "It's the usual kind of thing, Dad."

He picks one up and gazes into it. It looks like a large diamond, but compresses between his fingers like jelly. In its heart there is a shimmer, which resolves into images of a man sitting at a desk, waiting.

"A couple of minutes waiting for a computer to boot up."

He drops this one and picks up another containing a woman in a coat. "Just over six minutes waiting for a bus."

A third, a man standing, staring into space. "The photocopier needed to warm up. Nearly a minute."

He drops the three fragments of time and looks back up at his father. "The usual. Nearly six hours in all." He picks up another, this one much larger than the others. "This was a three hour exam."

"Only six?..." His mother has turned from the stove, her face fallen.

"Only?" says his father. "It'll do me, and it doesn't matter what kind of time you've got, son. It's all the same to those of us who need it. And wasted minutes can feel like years." He reaches up to the tabletop and grabs a handful of the jewels. He squeezes them between his fingers and the light in the heart of each bursts and flows over his hand like water from a sponge. Slowly, the light fades as it soaks into his skin; skin which is now a little younger, a little firmer, a little more there.

Daniel looks around the room and sees the candles have been replaced with gas lamps, the window has thick curtains to keep out the cold, and his father's bed now has an iron frame with a proper mattress.

His father takes the second handful and squeezes them. The lamps become electric bulbs, the bed a floral divan on thick plastic legs. The pot his mother is still stirring is sitting on the electric ring of a cooker. She looks around, still trying to keep the disappointment from her face.

"Nineteen sixty or so, I'd say," his father comments. "Not bad at all." He looks up at Daniel. "But we'll still need more tomorrow."

Daniel nods, but then can't hold it anymore and breaks into a smile.

"What?" his father asks.

"Maybe not," Daniel replies. Struggling to hold his excitement he reaches into his inside pocket and brings out a jewel the size of a cricket ball.

His mother, having turned at the sound of Daniel's excited voice, gasps. "That looks like..."

Daniel nods. "It's a whole day."

His father reaches out a hand towards it, but pulls back, almost afraid to touch it. "How...?" he asks.

"A woman gave it to me. It was a day not of wasted time, but a day she no longer wanted. It was a day of sharing, a day of wonder. A day of beauty." Daniel can feel tears catch in the back of his throat. "It was a day of sitting, watching the clouds move over hills, of watching flowers open and turn their heads to follow the sun, a day with a box and a ring. A day of love and laughing and joy." He falters for a moment as he remembers the woman's tale. "But she lost the one she shared it with. She no longer wanted it, and when I told her what it would be used for-"

"You told her the truth?" his father asks.

"Yes. I told her about you and us and -" he gestures round the room, "- all this. And she gave it to us with her blessing. It was such a beautiful day that with her loss, it brings her nothing but pain and suffering. The thought that it could bring us as much joy as it used to bring her, was all she wanted to know. She gave it willingly and left with a smile on her face and a weight removed from her heart."

His father looks up from his bed with tears in the corners of his eyes. "You know what this means, don't you, son?"

"Yes, Dad. I do. It means we can finally go home."

Daniel presses the giant jewel, coloured with the greenest of grasses and the bluest of skies, into his father's hands and together they squeeze it, feeling it burst between them like an overripe peach, its juices surprisingly warm and soft. The bright light crawls over their fingers, growing brighter, up their arms and out, over their bodies and over the room, covering everything; brighter and brighter until all that remains is light.

Dark in here, isn't it?

2011-12-20T13:19:00.003Z

Well, I promised you a third post today, on darkness, and here it is.

A little while ago, poet Cathy Bryant kindly commented on one of my stories: 'You do dark better than anyone currently writing, I think' and that got me thinking.

I do venture into the dark side with my writing, it's true, but I still sometimes feel uncomfortable about it. Things like swearing, violence, death and just plain nastiness all feature, but part of me worries that readers will think it's me that's like that and start to steer clear of me.

Of course, this is silly, but it is something I worry about. And yet, I think it's important and something which is missing from my past novel writing.

You see, when I write a flash, I can throw in a little bit of darkness and then walk away from it. When I write a novel, I find it harder to deal with. Last year, for NaNoWriMo I wrote a book with zombies, aliens, vampires and robots in it. There were many deaths and quite a bit of violence. So far, so good. But all the characters in it were nice, and pleasant. Even the guy who I'd set up to be a bit of a player, a bit of a cad, turned out to be nice in the end. The monsters were largely off-stage and always beatable. There were no extremes of light and dark, and no real bad-guy to focus on, and I think that was it's failing.

You see, the good guys in a story can never really be good unless we see how bad the bad guys are. If Star Wars hadn't had Darth Vader then the bad guy would have been the disreputable smuggler, Han Solo, and it would have been pants.

So, I'm aware that I need to put in a bad guy, without which I won't have jeopardy. And I need to make things genuinely threatening, not just kinda, you know, a little bit, whoo, that was close.

And I need to not worry what people will think of me when I write it. I've been reading some dark things recently and I think I've realised when that association with the writer arises. If the darkness is there because the author wants it to be there, and they crowbar it in - if it's gratuitous - then you start to think 'Blimey, Writer X is a twisted weirdo' and that's because the dark doesn't arise naturally from the story. However, when the darkness is part of the plot, and a driving force of the story, then you forget about the writer. It's just what is happening to the characters, as nasty and horrible as it might be.

I like to think that I'm never gratuitous and that the dark in my stories arises purely because the narrative needs it. I think that my slightly oblique, slightly tentative approach to it is the cause of Cathy's comment. The sparing nature of the darkness in my flashes makes it all the darker.

So, my lesson in darkness is that oblique works better than full-on, but that the darkness needs to be there, otherwise no matter how bright the light, it'll only ever be grey.

Moves Like Janus

2011-12-20T12:02:00.003Z

Okay, this is the entry I planned to write. I think the previous one happened because the list in the previous previous post felt like a bunch of questions that needed answering.

Anyhoo, here I am, being Janus, looking backwards and forwards at the same time. So, what can I see?

Well, just over a year ago I was published in Bugged, and since then my writing life has changed. Jo Bell (editor of Bugged) even commented recently that she had created a monster. I've had publications nearly every month since my October 2010 appearance in Bugged, and I've now written over 270 flash fictions (more than 135,000 words, if you prefer). As I mentioned before one whole month worth of flash365 is currently under consideration with a publisher, and a large section of the current month's stories will be appearing on Radio 4 on Christmas Eve.

In terms of success it's been quite a year. Hell, I even had a poem published in the Best of Manchester Poets Volume 2! But what else? That's what I've been asking myself.

Because if I have been doing all this writing, what has been its purpose? Is it really just a tool to make myself write more and more stories for publications, or is there something deeper? If it's the former, then it's done it's job. If the latter, then what? And what can I learn from the past year as I move forward into the next?

Well, in the past twelve months I've written the 31 collection and, of course, 245 stories under the flash365 banner. In all of those stories I have attempted to write in different genres, different, styles, address different topics, and generally push myself into new areas of writing. It's impossible to do this without learning about yourself as a writer in terms of what you prefer to write, what you're actually good at writing, and the limitations that you place on yourself.

I've realised that I'm quite good at this short-short story malarky. I have the confidence now that I can sit down and write a complete - and sometimes not half-bad - story every day. I know that if I sit down and start, the story will come. However, I also know that I can't just go on writing these for ever. They take me away from the possibility of other things. As long as I do a tiny story every day, I feel I've done enough. I thought they would prime the pump for more, but they have become the end, rather than the means.

So, I'm already starting to think beyond the end of flash365 and towards what might come next. I don't want to simply carry on and change the name to flash730. That's not to say I'm going to stop writing flashes, it's just I feel that the benefit I'm getting as a writer from this particular activity - a flash a day - is starting to lessen.

And I'm starting to think about writing a novel. Now, I've already written four of them, and they all live in my drawer. I don't want to simply create another one to join them, I want to produce something that I think can be published, but also something which I think represents my best work.

The ideas for this novel have emerged from looking back at the year's flash writing. You see, the process has, as I mentioned above, shown me what I'm good at and what I like to do. Surely this is the seam I need to mine for the larger lode of a novel?

Most of my stories could be considered as belonging to a genre like fantasy, horror, sci-fi, or even crime, but none of them fit firmly within any one of those genres. I tend to tell a story about the real world as seen through a distorting lens, rather than embracing a whole 'world-building' kind of thing. So, that would seem to be a good place to start.

What else? Well, it seems that I do funny quite well, so I need to include that. In some of my previous novel attempts I have tried to do 'serious' and while that has its merits, I think I get bored. And if I'm bored, you can bet my readers are. So I need to remember to bring the fun and the funny.

I also, seemingly, do 'dark' well. The constant repetition of deaths, serial killers, and other homicidal impulses in my stories suggests that I need to head in that direction too. I am aware that I sometimes shy away from this, and that I tend to be quite oblique in my darkness, but it still needs to be there. (I have another blog post to write on this whole issue at some point. Maybe later, eh? A three-post day?)

What else? Well, I think I need to bring my flash-writing into it. November's linked stories were very successful with the audience. I managed to create something like a cross between a TV series and Rashomon, where 30 different perspectives of the same event also unfolded a larger story. Why not bring some of that to the novel?

In the past, I have thought of novels as a single large story which needs telling. But why not embrace the complexity that I seem to enjoy so much, and fragment at least some of the narrative?

So, what does that give me? A novel with some element of flash-fictions embedded in it which looks at the world with a skewed eye and sees the humour and the darkness in it. Sounds good to me.

I'm also going to take some of my own advice and actually plan and structure this one a little before I start it. I usually start to see where it goes, and that doesn't seem to have worked for me in the past. This time, let's take a new tack and see what happens. And, again, I think I can learn from flash365. Writing every day seems to work for me, so I shall do that with the novel. But the reason why I've been able to keep it up is due to the structure imposed by the prompts. So, if I plan the novel ahead of time, creating in effect a series of prompts, then I should be able to keep up the momentum.

Anyway, that's it for now, looking back, taking stock, and moving it on into the next thing. Any thoughts on this would be welcome. Me, I'm off to plan a novel.

Did he do well?

2011-12-20T11:35:00.004Z

December the 20th already?! Must be time to take stock of the year, look forward to the next one, and post one of my sporadic blog entries!

So, what's been happening since I last waffled to you? Well, I had a list in my last entry, let's see how I did:

30 flash365 stories for November - I was planning to write these early to lighten my load. It didn't happen. However, the stories which did emerge were, I think, amongst my best yet. I managed to write a whole series of linked stories which were both stand-alone and a single piece. The whole collection is currently with a fabulous publisher and I hope will come out as a pamphlet sometime next year. So, you know, that's okay.

I then found I had to write all of December's stories early. All 31 were done before the 9th December. This was so they could be passed on to the BBC who are going to broadcast 15 or so of them. So, if you want to hear them, they will be on Radio 4 at 5.30pm on Christmas Eve, read by Rory Kinnear, Emelia Fox, Kenneth Cranham and Diana Rigg! (The podcast will be up after the broadcast at http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/ipm)

30 days of NaNoWriMo novel writing (1,667 words a day) - nah, never happened. I decided it was just one too many things to try and do. Next year, maybe. Though I have other novel plans in the pipeline. More on that below.

start work on the rewrites for my York Notes - started, yes, and got good feedback from the editor that I am on the right lines. Then I stopped to do all the other things I had to do. Need to restart soon as they all have to be done by 15th Jan. But, you know, there was this blog to write and - ooh, squirrel!

mark student work which will start arriving soon - this has taken up most of the last 6 weeks. It's quite ridiculous really. Still, there was some really good work in there, including an essay to which I gave one of my highest marks ever. That's always a pleasure.

continue promoting National Flash Fiction Day including building a website and running a competition - This carried on, and the website was finally built. It's up at http://www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/ if you fancy a look. Of course, with something like this, the workload grows, so I currently find myself putting together an Arts Council bid, as you do.

read the entries for the new edition of Word Gumbo and put the issue together - managed this, late but in earnest. And, I have to say, it's a great issue. Why not have a read: http://gumbopress.co.uk/wordgumbo.html

pay a visit to Manchester at the end of the month to read at Bad Language - This was a great event. It was fab to be back in Manchester with all my friends. Being upstaged by David Gaffney and Sarah-Clare Conlon was dispiriting but expected. Still, I think Lucy Burkhampton went down well.

submit stories, as per usual - This also went by the board. However, with November's stories being considered for a pamphlet and December's being broadcast on Radio 4, I don't feel too bad about this. Still, with the Christmas break now upon me, I'm hoping to get a whole bunch sent out.

teach - yep.

and finally, live - this did happen, occasionally, and I need, as ever, to thank Kath for her support, and for making those moments of life so good! And, of course, to Milo, without whom my life would be a dark, dank, stinking hole.

Anyway, that wasn't what I was planning to blog about at all. I was going to do so much more... Ah well, I think I'll drop this coin in the fountain, and write another one. You know, the one I actually planned to write... So, don't go anywhere, I'll be back in a minute.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel Just Sounded its Horn

2011-10-23T16:52:00.002+01:00

I've just been looking ahead to what I have planned for November. It looks like this:

30 flash365 stories
30 days of NaNoWriMo novel writing (1,667 words a day)
start work on the rewrites for my York Notes
mark student work which will start arriving soon
continue promoting National Flash Fiction Day including building a website and running a competition
read the entries for the new edition of Word Gumbo and put the issue together
pay a visit to Manchester at the end of the month to read at Bad Language
submit stories, as per usual
teach
and finally, live

I'm starting to think I may be attempting to munch more than is possible.

So, I hear you ask, what am I going to do about it?

Well, there is one thing in there which is not November-critical. It's not what you might expect, though. It's my daily flash365 story.

You see, the promise for flash365 is to publish a story every day, not that it has to have been written on that day. And, I will be doing NaNo every day so it's not like I'll be taking a month off.

Also, the plan for November is a series of linked stories all set in the same location at the same time. As such, it would be great to write them all before the first is posted, then there can be forward links as well as backwards ones.

So, there's my plan. I'm going to try and write 38 flash fictions in 8 days. It sounds insane, I know, but if I can do it then November has a chance to become that little more manageable.

Okay, off I go. Wish me luck!

Another crazy idea...

2011-10-16T16:36:00.000+01:00

So, as often happens whenever I have an idle moment, I have had an idea.

A couple of weeks ago was National Poetry Day. In December we will be having National Short Story Day. But what, I wondered, about National Flash-Fiction Day? I searched and looked and it turns out... it doesn't exist.

Well, now, with your help, it just might.

May 16th 2012 sounds like a good day for flash-fiction writers all over the UK to stand up and be counted for what they do. I'm hoping we can organise loads of events - readings, open-mics, workshops, publications, competitions and more. But I can't do this on my own. There is no funding behind this project, no large bodies of administrators, just me with a big idea asking for your help.

I shall be creating a website to promote the day, feature writers and their work (plus online links to buy your books...), promote your events and generally co-ordinate things, but the rest will be up to you.

So, if you're interested in this, want to help make it a day to remember, and perhaps even help out with the organisation, email me at nationalflashfictionday AT gmail DOT com and I shall add you to the mailing list.

Let's make this the best National Flash-Fiction Day there has ever been, whaddya say?!

Flash Writers List

2011-10-11T14:04:00.001+01:00

I have been gathering a list of people's favourite flash writers and here it is. It'e not exhaustive, I'm sure, so if you want to add people to the list (or volunteer your own name for inclusion) them comment here, tweet me on @flash365tweets, or send me a message through Facebook.

Christopher Allen
Alan Beard
Aimee Bender
Randall Brown
Joanna Cannon
Rachel Carter
Nuala ní Chonchúir
Myfanwy Collins
Sheldon Lee Compton
Sarah-Clare Conlon
Sara Crowley
Lydia Davis
Gay Degani
Berit Ellingsen
Rebecca Emin
Alex Epstein
Kathy Fish
David Gaffney
Roxane Gay
Vanessa Gebbie
Niven Govinden
Bosley Gravel
Amelia Gray
Dave Hartley
Percy Herbert
Tania Hershman
Sarah Hilary
Holly Howitt
‎Emma Lannie
Alex Lockwood
Kirsty Logan
Femi Martin
Kim Mcgowan
Nora Nadjarian
Joyce Carol Oates
Valerie O'Riordan
Grace Paley
Nik Perring
Jonathan Pinnock
Meg Pokrass
Amy Rebecca
Ethel Rohan
Fat Roland
Sarah Salway
Marcus Speh
Robert Swartwood
Laura Tansley
Alison Wells
Martha Williams
Tony Williams
Eunice Yeates
Barry Yourgrau

Crisis!

2011-10-09T17:59:00.000+01:00

I'm having a crisis of faith.

It feels indulgent and self-pitying, but it's a real feeling and being rational isn't helping. If you don't want to read a writer whingeing about writing, then move on, this is not for you.

Now, you may say, if you follow my exploits on Facebook, that in the last few weeks I've appeared on Radio 4, I've had an article accepted for Writing in Education and a story accepted for Shoestring; I've started back to teaching a full timetable - mostly Creative Writing for the first time in years - and I've continued writing my daily flash-fictions. So, what's to be down about?

It's the things that aren't happening that are getting to me. In the same period as these successes I've had a number of stories rejected, I've had a number of stories - stories I consider to be among my best - not short-listed for competitions in which I felt sure I had a chance. I've had rejections for jobs and other opportunities, and I've had speculative emails disappear into the ether with no response.

Swings and roundabouts, you say? Good and bad? It's all part of the life you've chosen. I know all that, but it doesn't raise the spirits. Instead I find myself questioning what I'm doing. I know that some important people in the business are taking me seriously, and there are likely to be some big breaks just around the temporal corner, but it doesn't stop the feeling that I'm howling into the void.

When I started flash365 I envisaged a crowd of people eager to read my stories. Instead, as time goes on, it seems that people have simply become used to them as a wallpaper to their lives. If they are reading them, they don't tell me. If they like them, they smile to themselves and move on with their day. If they don't, they simply shrug and move on with their day. I'm not asking for adoration, I'm really not, but just the feeling that someone has noticed would be nice. I thought maybe my radio appearence would help, but it seems to have had no effect.

I have a really large project that I'm thinking of starting up, but I'm even starting to wonder if I have the right to do it. Am I suffering from delusions of grandeur? If I do it will anyone care, will anyone join in, or will they just say 'Oh, it's him again. Ignore him and he'll go away.' Rationally I don't think so, but rationality has a hard battle against such negative thoughts.

Am I whingeing? You bet I am. But this is how I'm feeling. Because, when this starts happening, you start to doubt yourself. Yes, I've had things published, but maybe I'm not as good as I think I am. Maybe, in fact, I'm pretty crap, pretty run of the mill, pretty ordinary. And in that case, the big break I'm working towards will never come and I will always be just bumbling along and making a fool of myself.

Being a writer requires dedication. This has been stated over and over again. But it also requires self-belief and confidence because you can never actually assess how good you are. When that gets knocked, it's easy to lose faith, lose hope, lose direction and start to believe that it's all pointless.

So, what am I going to do? Well, I'm going to carry on writing my daily flash-fictions. Are people reading them? Yes, some are. I don't have the huge following I'd hoped for, but I'm certainly not going to let down those people who are following. And, more importantly, I'm not going to let myself down by failing after 160 days of success.

Am I going to undertake my large new project? Yes, I'm going to try. I can fail and fall flat on my face, but that won't kill me. And, if I succeed....

Am I going to keep submitting and sending out stories even though only 1 in 10 make it? Of course, what else can I do. If I don't submit I won't be published and if I'm not published I'm just talking to myself.

So, forgive me for this whining blog entry. Its impossible, I think, to be guns-blazing and gung-ho all the time, and who knows, if you've read this far you might just identify a little.

Looking Back

2011-09-23T16:13:00.001+01:00

So, September is here and so is the new teaching year. As ever at this time I start up the engines ready for teaching, sort out the rubbish - both physical and mental - that has collected over the summer and, this year, I'm looking back and taking stock.

It's been one hell of a year.

Reading back to last September, I was happy and optimistic because I had had a couple of stories accepted - one for Bugged and one for the Bad Language anthology, Scattered Reds. I was talking about a new determination to write more and submit more. So, how have I done?

Well, in the last twelve months I have achieved a further 15 or so publications including one competition win and two stories commissioned and read by me on Radio 4. I've also taken up reading at open mics and other events - some as the guest speaker.

I've also, thanks to NaNoWriMo written over 150,000 words of creative work including more than 175 flash fictions (if you add 31 and flash365 together and add in the other incidental stories).

In other areas, York Press have informed me that my York Notes on The Kite Runner is a 'best-selling title' and have asked me to revise it for a completely separate book to come out next year, and I have also had a properly academic article accepted for publication in the coming months.

It has to be said, it has been my most productive and successful year ever.

The only problem now is to carry on so that, when I look back at this post in 12 month's time, I can also crow about what has been achieved. A good year means I need to work even harder.

Things I have not managed to do this year include getting a novel published, nor have I been able to finish a new novel with which I might have more success. These are still on my to-do list. I also need to find a publisher for a collection of short fiction, rather than self-publishing it all. Add that to the list too.Oh, and more reading spots would be nice too.

So, the year has been good, goals have been achieved. But there is still much to do. I'm going to try and come back here and blog more regularly, as well; not just about the successes but about the insights. But for now, I think that'll do. I have this short story to finish, and my daily flash to write, and the hoovering to do, and....

Out of the Wilderness

2011-07-22T16:02:00.000+01:00

Okay, so I should come clean and state that I haven't actually been in any wilderness. But it has been over 6 weeks since I blogged here, so you would be forgiven for thinking I had.

Where have I been, you ask? Well, if you follow my other blog at flash365.blogspot.com (and if you don't, why not?! Go and follow it now, and 'like' the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/flash365 while you're at it, too!) then you know that I have, if nothing else, been carrying on with my project to write a new flash fiction every day for a year.

However, considering these are such short stories, they can't account for the whole lost time. So, what else? Well, I've been moving house from Manchester to live with my gf in Southampton. A much bigger and more difficult experience than I had ever anticipated. However, I am now safely ensconsed and getting back to work, hence my return to this blog.

One thing which has been good, however, is that despite the disruptive, tiring and time-consuming nature of the house-move, I have still managed to make time every day to write my new flash365 story. I've talked before, both here and in other places, about how useful I find it to have an external project which is publicly announced as a way of applying pressure to myself to write. This is a prime example of this. Under any other circumstances (and if I was actually sane!) I would have used the house-move as an excuse not to write for a while. Knowing me as well as I do, that excuse would have lasted most of the summer, perhaps even into the next teaching year (when that becomes the next excuse). As it is, I've kept my motor turning over with a few hundred words a day, and now that I am settled I am ready to start up again on the other projects I have in mind, as well as that single flash a day.

So, to all of you who do nothing more than read my stories on a daily basis, thank you for keeping me writing through it all.

Now I'm back I shall blog a bit more often about the other things I'm up to. But for now, I'm off to actually do them!

Hello again

2011-06-02T10:23:00.000+01:00

Well, I can't believe it's been over a month since I last posted an entry on here. That said, it has been one hell of a month.

As per my last post, I did actually start the flash365 project. Not only that but I've been keeping it up. Yesterday I posted my 32nd story, and I'm on course for today's. So that, of course, has been taking up some time.

On top of that, May was Word Gumbo month, in which we read through all the submissions for the first issue of Gumbo Press's online magazine. Once the pieces were sorted, biographies had to be gathered, and the more fearsome task of soliciting editorials from the editors. After that the mere act of type-setting was a walk in the park.

What else? Well, I've done about half a dozen different readings in both the north and the south of the country, promoting 31, which is still selling well and gathering lots of feedback.

Oh, and I've been teaching my classes and doing my marking too.

Busy, enough, you'd think. But I've also been doing other writing - completing one and a half longer short stories (it was meant to be 15 rather than 1.5, but ah well, even I can't do everything!), coming up with a couple of ideas for novels to attempt writing in the summer, planning my conference paper for Great Writing in two weeks, getting a few more stories into print and preparing to move the length of the country.

So, is that a good enough excuse for not blogging? No? Well, I'm sorry and I'll make sure it doesn't happen again!

Now, I'm afraid I have to head off. I have things to do, probably.

Flash... aha! (again)

2011-04-28T22:31:00.002+01:00

I have a new project. When I announced it my Bugged and Gumbo Press colleague, Jo Bell, commented that I obviously wasn't busy enough. It's not true, I'm as busy with writing related activities as I've ever been, but this project just seemed like too good an idea to pass up.

So, last week I announced it, and this Sunday - May 1st - I will start and publish a new flash-fiction every day for a year. The project will appear on a blog at flash365.blogspot.com and you can also follow it on Facebook at www.facebook.com/flash365.

But why, you may be asking, am I taking this on if I'm so busy?

Well, the whole experience of doing 31 left me with a hankering to take on a similar project - partly because I find writing flash-fiction such fun and so satisfying - but also because the forced nature of the daily deadline really helped me get on with my writing.

The other thing I found, however, was that writing flash-fiction worked as a perfect way to get the writing engine turning over. In a previous post I talked about how hard I was finding it getting in to writing longer stories. Writing flash will actually help by getting those muscles up and running. I might also be able to get to my novel rewriting, and starting a new novel idea I've had.

Another reason, of course, is the advice we give to writers that that should write every day. It is the only certain way to improve. What better way to force yourself to do it than announcing it to the world, and publishing the stories online, leaving yourself open to public ridicule if you fail?

Of course, it will also help me to build up a huge bank of stories that can be submitted (to places that accept stories that have been previously published on blogs, of course).

Finally, I need to mention that part of the inspiration was the project started by Max Wallis, Something Every Day, in which he wrote... well... something every day. Not only did he get a great way to practice his craft, but built up a following and got himself noticed at the same time. I would be lying if I said I didn't hope that flash365 would raise my profile, and bring me new readers. It's what every writer wants, after all.

So, please visit the Facebook page and 'like' it, follow the blog, and, if you can, spare me a thought as I head off into the coming year.

Win or Lose

2011-04-20T10:13:00.003+01:00

I know, I know, my blog posts are like buses: none for ages and then two come along at once. But this one will be brief, I promise.

First, I just want to boast. I won a competition! My story, 'Unquiet', written a couple of years ago, won the March competition at A Very Short Story. It is my first ever competition win, so I'm rather proud. However, my larger reaction to it has been interesting, to me at least.

I've been sending out to the occasional competitions and magazines over the years, but have only really got serious about my submissions in the last year. I'm getting quite used to rejections from magazines, and getting nothing at all - or the occasional short-listing or honourable mention - from competitions. When I was just sending out the odd one or two here and there, these rejections would be tragic events that would set me back, and stop me from submitting for a while. A fairly normal reaction for many writers, I've come to realise.

However, with my increased level of submissions, the rejections have become easier to take, at least in part because of the occasional acceptance (or short-listing, etc.), and in part because if you send more pieces out you have to accept there will be more rejections.

My reaction to these snubs has not been to curl into a ball and wait for the pain to pass, but instead to redouble my efforts and send out even more stories - courting more hurt, but also the possibility of more acceptances.

And then, yesterday, I heard that I had finally won a competition. Not just that, but a competition with a prize! Of money! I'm not sure I ever considered what my reaction would be. Perhaps I thought it would finally be confirmation of something or other, and I could relax and enjoy it.

Nope. My reaction has been the same as it would have been to a rejection. 'They like it? They want it? They think it's worth awarding money? Fine. Time to send out some more then!'

So, my point (and yes, there is one other than basking in the glow of success) is this:

If you get rejected - submit again, submit more, and submit more often.
If you get accepted - submit again, submit more, and submit more often.

The key to success as a writer is persistence. All you can do is keep sending work out, as often as possible, and wait for it to find its home.

Here endeth the lesson...

Slow, slow, quick, quick, slow...

2011-04-19T16:42:00.003+01:00

Well, if you've been keeping up, you know that I've been a busy old bee. Selling the book and working on Gumbo Press have taken up a lot of my time - along with the usual round of teaching/marking/living etc.

It's now fewer than four weeks since its arrival, and the first edition of 31 has all but sold out (2 copies left, if you're interested... Buy online now!). This was at least partly thanks to the interest of the audience at the Bugged reading who bought all the copies I had with me. I have other readings coming up, so have ordered a second edition. The first of these readings is my customary visit to the Bad Language at the end of April, but this will be followed by two guest slots - one for a writing group in Oldham and another for an open-mic evening in Cheshire, and a couple of other possible appearances, about which more as I have it.

As if these weren't enough, Gumbo Press has been taking off. The website has been built, designed and redesigned. Exciting ideas have been formulated and, as of writing, we already have over 40 submissions with 11 days still to go before the deadline. Winning Words asked me to write a blog entry for them about it, which will hopefully help promote the first issue of the magazine.

In the midst of all this, and my return to teaching at Winchester next week, I have taken on another project. Crazy? Me? Possibly.

Following on from the success of CalFlaWriMo, without which 31 wouldn't exist at all, I have decided to do something similar, but with longer stories. So, my latest plan is to write 15 brand new short stories (not flashes) of no less than 1500 words each, before the end of May. It may kill me, but it's got to be worth a go.

I started the first one on Friday, 15th April. It was a story which had been working around in my mind for a while, so I had a pretty fair idea of how it was going to go on the page. I was wrong.

I have obviously got so used to the quick fix that is flash-fiction, that the mental muscles that work on the longer form of the full short story have atrophied. It took me over 4 hours to get the first 1000 words done. I knew the story, but a combination of old-fashioned resistance, being daunted by the task, and just trying to remember how to write one of the damn things, held me back. I realised, as I struggled with it, how much more you can put into a short story, but also how much more you HAVE to put into a short story. In a flash, character, setting, even plot, can be implied rather than described. In a short story, all of these elements have to be there in actuality, but you also have to keep them short, and to the point. Just as with a flash, there is no room for spare words. Every single one has to serve the story, but in a longer story, the job of picking your way through them is so much harder.

Anyway, long story short (no pun intended), I crested the half way point and picked up speed as I came down the other side. The story ended up at around 2700 words, with the last 1700 only taking 1 hour. Job done, one down, fourteen to go.

This morning, I sat down to write the next one. This was based on another idea which I have also been mulling over for a while. I thought it might be easier, but no. The resistance kicked in, and this time I have ground to a halt after little more than 150 words. There was even an hour break as I tried to find the right name for my character, without which I couldn't complete the first sentence.

Maybe I'm trying to hard. Maybe I have too much else on my plate to tackle this at the moment. Maybe the deadline is just too far off and the panicky adrenaline hasn't arrived yet. Whatever, I'm not going to give up. My goal with this project is to make my brain and my spirit bend to my will, so that writing one of these stories starts to feel as easy as writing a flash. And I guess that's why I'm doing it.

So, wish me well. And if you see me at a reading, and I look tired and lost, just leave me, I'll be fine.

Phew

2011-04-07T09:01:00.007+01:00

Well, it's been nearly two weeks since my last blog post, and what a two weeks it has been. My book arrived, as you know, and it's been selling well, but I've also gone ahead with a plan which has been at the back of my mind for a while, and set up a small press. I've also been doing the marking and teaching that comes along at the end of a semester as well as sending stories out etc. etc. It's been a busy couple of weeks but very rewarding.

In my last post I talked about the book, and my reasons for doing it - as well as my fears and hopes. It's been out for two weeks now and I've sold a little over half the print run, and feedback is proving very positive. I was particularly pleased with the comments I received from Cathy Bryant (a poet who's wonderfully titled book, Contains Strong Language and Scenes of a Sexual Nature, came out last year). She said

Such a treat... I was reading it thinking ah, so this is what good flash fiction is like. These should have won prizes and been lauded to the skies... The best and most energetic book of flash I've read for aeons!'

Does it get any better than that? It certainly helped to calm my fears over the audacity of self-publishing to know that I was doing something that others would consider to be good work.

As a result of the feedback, and the speed with which this edition is selling (plus the fact that a number of proof-reading errors have been spotted by eagle-eyed readers which need fixing), I started to think about a second edition. And, I decided, this time it needed to have an ISBN number so that it could be listed on Amazon and ordered from bookshops. It also - I was advised by a colleague - needed to issue from a 'press' rather than just myself.

I can see the need for that. I won't hide behind the press, but it removes my name explicitly from the copyright page and makes the whole thing look a little more professional. However, with the way my mind works, it wasn't enough to simply invent a name and go for it. I started thinking about setting up a real small press.

The thing is, I used to be a publisher. From 1997-2004 I ran CK Publishing. We produced the Writer's Muse magazine (still in existence, and run by my friend and colleague, Jim Palmer) and a number of chapbooks, anthologies, and trade paperbacks. That company moved out of books and into websites and became WebGuild Media, another company that still exists. I left there in 2008 to concentrate full-time on teaching and writing, but ever since CK Publishing's demise, I have been toying with the idea of getting back into the business in some way.

This seemed like the perfect opportunity. Both I and the world are in different places than we were when I set up the last company. With the wonders of blogs and Facebook, it's much easier to spread the word and get people to submit. And with the network of writers I have developed, it's also easier to get supporters for your project.

So, last Sunday, after thinking through some - but by no means all - of the issues, I announced the birth of Gumbo Press, and then started setting it up. Along with my partner, Kath Lloyd, the poet Jo Bell, and my friend and colleague from the Writer's Muse, Mike Somers, we are now putting together how the whole thing is going to work.

Suffice it to say, there will be an e-zine featuring writing in all its forms, and we plan to move into chapbooks and anthologies as time goes on. Competitions, events, and other things we haven't even thought of yet will join the mix. It's a lot of work, but so exciting, and with 76 followers on Facebook in less than a week, hopefully a success.

Tonight I'm back reading with Jo for a Bugged event (with a few copies of 31 floating around too, perhaps) and in a couple of weeks I'm back at Bad Language (who have selected one of the 31 stories for their next anthology) to read and promote the book there as well.

So, anyway, that was my two weeks. What have you been up to?

Shhhh... Don't tell anyone

2011-03-26T11:54:00.006Z

Okay, I'm going to come right out and say it: I've published a book.

In January I wrote 31 flash fictions, and when I finished I decided to go ahead and self-publish them as a collection. This was partly because people very kindly asked where they could read them, partly so I could have a permanent record of the project, and partly as a way of promoting myself and maybe, just maybe, having a 'real' publisher pick up the collection (or a collection at least) for their list.

So, it was a low key thing, just a little project to see if I could do it, see if anyone would like it, and it would give me and my friends a little keepsake.

Even during the whole editing, type-setting, cover-design and printing phases I never thought of it as any more than that. That was, right up until the book arrived on Wednesday.

There is something about the reality of the book which changed how I saw it. This was no longer just a little whimsy, it's an actual book. My perspective of what I had done changed in an instant. I held the book in my hands, saw my name on the front, spine, title page; saw all my words covering all of the pages, and realised that this was an actual thing that I should be proud of, rather than slightly embarrassed at my presumption.

You see, it hadn't occurred to me consciously, but up until that point I had been self-conscious about self-publishing my own collection. I thought it might come across as self-aggrandising and arrogant. People would think: Who is this guy who has decided for himself that his work is good enough for a book that we actually have to give money for?

But, once I had the book in my hands, I realised that this was really important to me. It was something I had slaved over and created, and something I was incredibly proud of.

With the book now a reality, I built a page on my website to sell it, and started telling people about it, and some of them came along and bought it. And these weren't all just kind friends, they were also writers who I respect.

So, today I have been finding envelopes and printing postage labels ready to send them out. In total, in the three days since the book arrived, I have sold 10 copies. This will never make it a best seller, but I am so pleased, and so proud. I have made this thing, and whatever people might think of it when they read it, I know that it's a good piece of work. And I'm no longer thinking about another publisher picking it up. It already exists, it is a thing in and of itself, and that's enough for me. The clamouring publishers will have to wait for me to write the next 31. What do you think? May?

The arrival of this book has managed to change how I view myself as a writer, and find a new level of self-confidence. So what if it's self-published. I think it's a good book, worth reading, and I've managed to do all the extra work (with help, I should add) to bring it into being. That should be worth more, not less, don't you think?

If you're interested in a copy of 31, you can find out more at http://www.calumkerr.co.uk/pp014.shtml.

Fragile

2011-03-09T15:36:00.002Z

Over-optimistic? Prideful? Bombastic? Arrogant?
A definite maybe to all of those things, is my response, when looking back over my last few blog entries. I have been guilty of the sin of pride and been dealt the suitable response. I will now exist on nothing more than bread and water for 40 days and 40 nights, and never again presume to tempt the fates...

Too much? Yeah, okay, maybe. But still, that's how it feels when the rejections start rolling in after a period of success.

I have written a number of entries recently about the various things I have been doing and the stories which have been accepted. All was going so well until last week when 9 stories were rejected in one go. They were all to one publication, to be sure, but they couldn't find anything in any of the stories that they wanted to use, despite being a wide spread of different styles, genres, and formats. On the same day I checked in with a competition that I entered back in October - having sent them what I considered to be my strongest piece - to find that not only had I not won, I wasn't even in the shortlist.

It was a dark day.

My response? Well, I whined about it a bit, and then I immediately sent out two of the rejected stories to another magazine. Despite warning of a possible lengthy delay in response, as most magazines do, they managed to assess and reject both of the stories in less than 24 hours.

I was suitably chagrined and chastened.

And, really, that's all it takes to knock a writer's ego. We are only ever as happy as our last success, and one rejection (never mind 13 in two days!) is enough to wipe the slate clean again.

It was pointed out to me by my friend, Elaine, commenting on one of my whinges, that these rejections were actually a sign that I am sending a lot of work out. The more you send, the more you have accepted, yes, but also the more you will have rejected. And this is entirely true. One of the key skills in being a writer is to learn to take the rejections and carry on anyway. The 95% perspiration which contributes to success, is probably composed of at least 50% sheer, damned, dogged persistence.

And so that is what I shall do: persist. Rejections? Smejections! I shall lick my wounds, and get all those stories back out and trotting round the world once again. I know they're good, and for some unsuspecting editor, they will be just the thing.

Another friend - Angi Holden - told me that in this situation her father would have uttered the word 'FIFO!' - 'F**k It, Forge On'. I'm thinking of having it as a tattoo, now I just need to decide where.

Workshop opportunities

2011-03-09T15:32:00.000Z

Vanessa Gebbie, a writer of excellent short stories and flash fictions, and the person who introduced me to flash fiction in the first place, is running some courses which would be well worth attending.

The first will be at the Anam Cara Retreat in Co. Cork, Ireland, for one week from the 28th May. Entitled 'Short Fiction: So Much More Than It Seems…' it promises to be a wonderful week. More information can be found at http://www.anamcararetreat.com/index.php/workshops/68-short-fiction-so-much-more-than-it-seems.

If you can't make that, then she is also running workshops, masterclasses and one-to-one sessions at this year's Winchester Writing Conference. More details at http://www.writersconference.co.uk/.

Stuff and things...

2011-02-09T20:22:00.002Z

I usually like to write a blog post which focuses on one thing at a time, but there are too many things clouding my brain right now to do that. So here is a grab-bag of things that have happened, are happening or will happen, all in no particular order.

Having finished teaching at MMU before Christmas (and having finished the marking hangover from there just today!) this week I started teaching at Winchester. Having been an Associate Lecturer for years, the process is somewhat simplified in that I know all the things I don't know (thank you, Donald Rumsfeld). So, I was able to get all of the admin sorted either before I got there, or on the first day. That much was simple. It didn't, however, take away from the first day nerves. After years at MMU, and a couple of years at Edge Hill working with people I already knew, I was the new boy again. It all went well - they were, after all, only introductory sessions - and I have no doubt that it will continue to do so, but it never stops the nerves. It's a sign that you're fresh and eager, I suppose.

I'm teaching 2 Creative Writing modules there, which is gratifying as my teaching for the last few years has been heavily biased towards literature and theory. The first is a Year 1 Module in 'Creative Voice' which is an introductory module that aims to tie together all the students' previous first-year modules in writing in various forms. It's rich, varied and exciting, and I can't wait to get my teeth into it. I shall be teaching alongside Carole Burns, who seems to have a good grasp on the course and lots of interesting ideas. More on that as it progresses, no doubt.

The other, while also being called 'Creative Voice' is the third year version of the module. This one aims to bring together everything the students have done in their entire degree and prepare them, if such a thing is possible, for the real world. My section finally allows me to use some of my PhD knowledge as I shall be talking about Electronic Writing and Publishing. This is one for me to write and design, and should be even more fun. Again, more on that as it happens. One thing which makes it even better is that I'm teaching that module alongside my friend, Vanessa, who took me under her wing on my first day and showed me around (thanks, Ness!). So, I'm looking forward to working with her too.

In the meantime teaching of Lit Theory and Life Writing continues at Edge Hill. I have promised my Life Writing students that I shall do a small memoir of my own - partly to put the pressure on myself to write a piece which I have been thinking about for a while - but that is definitely for another blog post.

In other news I heard today that my paper proposal for this year's Great Writing conference has been accepted. It will be on the pros and cons of high-pressure writing projects like NaNoWriMo and CalFlaWriMo, so much of what you have read here will form the basis for it. It's not till June, so I don't have to write it yet, but the brain is already turning it over.

While all this has been going on, I have been sending out stories to magazines and competitions. I haven't heard anything back yet, but fingers crossed. Now that I've finished my marking (for the time being, at least) it's time to send out a load more.

On the subject of stories, I have also started editing and finalising the stories from CalFlaWriMo for the book Just Another Ordinary Day, which I hope will be out at the end of the month. More news on that when I have any.

Also, despite the end of the project, my brain hasn't wanted to let go. I've already written a new story in Feb, and have ideas for 3 more just waiting for me to have the time to get to them. Maybe after I finish this blog post, what do you say?

As if that wasn't enough, I'm also plunging back into the world of Slipstream (my NaNoWriMo novel), familiarising myself with the plot and characters and making notes of where it needs any major rewriting. That needs to be done before the finer job of cleaning and polishing can be done.

I haven't yet got to my other novel, Endless Days, nor to my conference article from last year, 'Stranger than Faction', (which I want to submit by Monday, so I guess that has just moved up the schedule to tomorrow morning.) That said, I have been turning bits and pieces of Endless Days over in my mind, and having read Negotiating with the Dead by Margaret Atwood, for one of my Winchester courses, I now have some idea of how to make the article better, so I guess they're moving on whatever I do.

In amongst all that, I've also found time to do a reading and an open mic night, mark essays, read text-books, teach my classes, and somehow become embroiled in a scheme to set up a new Flash-Fiction Laureate. Possibly. How do I find the time? I have no idea.

Anyway, that's what's on my mind at the moment. A little glimpse into the life of someone who more and more feels he has every right to call himself a professional writer. Any questions?

Next?

2011-01-30T15:54:00.000Z

Well, you'll be glad to know that I finished my 31 stories, and with a few days left of the month, too. So, that's another project done. What now? I hear you ask.

I considered starting a new project for February - or maybe even continuing my flash-writing project - but have decided to give my creative brain a rest for a little while and pour the energy which has been created by January's writing sprint into the tasks which have been backing up.

So, as we move forward into February I shall be doing the following:

- re-writing Endless Days. This is the novel which has been hanging around for a while. I started the rewriting last year, but the arrival of NaNoWriMo put it on hold. Time to go back, knock it into shape, and see if I can't find an agent or publisher for it.

- re-writing Slipstream. This is the novel that I wrote for NaNoWriMo in November. It's had a couple of months off, so now time to add, remove, rewrite, tidy etc. and see if that can't be placed somewhere too.

- working on Just Another Ordinary Day. This is the title I have decided to give the collection of stories I wrote in January, which I plan to self-publish as a chapbook. The stories, having been written in a 'hot-house' style now all need cleaning up and editing before I can put the book together. Then I need to type-set it and get it printed. I plan to have the finished thing ready by the end of February, so in a week or so, I'll crack on with that.

- working on 'Stranger than Faction'. This is the paper on life-writing that I wrote for last summer's Great Writing conference. It's doing no good just sitting on my computer, so I shall finish turning it from a conference paper into a journal article and send it out. I have one place in mind already (deadline date 14th Feb) but if they don't want it, I'm sure someone will.

- sending out stories. As well as the 31 stories written in January I have another 21 in my pile ready to send out. So I shall be tidying, editing, and sending as many of these out to magazines and competitions as I can.

- working on Hotel. This is a collaborative hypertext project which I have been meaning to get going for years. Time to crack on with this too.

Oh, and February is also the month when I start teaching at Winchester. So, plenty to be going on with there, don't you think?

I'm not sure I'll get them all done in the month, but if I can get them all started, that will be a good step forward.

And then it will be time to find a new project for March. Any ideas?

You read the blog posts, now get the book

2011-01-25T21:47:00.000Z

As you know, I have been spending January writing regular flash fictions. It is now the 25th and I have written 28. My goal is 31, so only 3 more to go.

As I've been writing them, I've been trying out different things including: 1st, 3rd and even 2rd person narrative perspectives; lots of dialogue, no dialogue, or only dialogue; as many different genres as I could think of; and trying to find many different sources - photos, jokes, lines from books, films, music and TV shows. The result is a real mix of different stories, each of them written with little or no advance planning, in a single sitting, ranging from 85-1093 words.

I have already started sending some of them out to magazines and competitions, seeing if they can go beyond this project, and one of them has already been accepted. But it has occurred to me that, as a project, it is a unique snapshot of a group of stories emerging from a hothouse of invention, and something I would like to see kept together in some way.

As a result, I have decided to self-publish the stories in a single volume. I don't plan any mass sales, I just want to share it with my friends, family and anyone else interested to take a look, and to have a copy for myself to look back on.

So, if you would like a copy, let me know either here, on Facebook, or by email. It should only be a couple of pounds and will be about 80 pages and 31 stories. Look forward to hearing from you.

Update

2011-01-18T22:48:00.000Z

Well, as you know, in a previous post I proposed the idea of CalFlaWrimo - that I would write 31 flash fictions in the 31 days of January. It is now the 18th - just over half way - and I have finally caught up with myself, having only started the project on the 4th. So, 18 down, 13 left to do.

I'm really pleased with the work I've done, not least because one of the stories (entitled 'The Spark of Inspiration') was written on the 6th, submitted to a magazine on the 9th, and accepted on the 16th. More than that, though, it's stretching me and energising me at the same time.

Having to come up with at least one new idea every day has been, at times, taxing. And I'm trying to do as many different things as I can - different styles, perspectives, structures, topics, genres, etc. - which stretches me even more.

However, what I have now found is that, having primed the pump, ideas are starting to come thick and fast. I don't know, come the end of January, if I'm going to be able to stop. And that makes me very happy.

I had one of my long drives yesterday (and you know how productive my long drives can be) and I came up with three new ideas. Today I came up with another two. Those five stories (all written now) are what finally brought me up to parity between date and story-count. But can I keep it to just one a day for the rest of the month? Okay, I could write two and take a day off, but could I even manage that?

I think, between NaNoWriMo and CalFlaWriMo I have finally got the writing engine in my head up to speed, and I don't want to lay off the throttle while it's running so well. So, the question is, what project shall I start in February?

Like Topsy

2011-01-09T22:34:00.001Z

In my last post I mentioned the idea of writing 31 flashes in January. Well, it's the 9th and I've done 5. Not wonderful, but not too bad. However, in the meantime, the project has started to grow.

First there was the Facebook group entitled CalFlaWriMo for those wanting to join in, or at least to watch the progress of those of us taking part (search for CalFlaWriMo and feel free to join) and now there is the 95% Inspiration blog set up by myself and Kath Lloyd to post prompts and inspiration for flash writers.

Finally, just to show that this thing is really happening, I'm going to post my latest story (finished about 20 minutes ago!) below. This is a first draft, so be kind, but any feedback is, as ever, welcome.

Enjoy!

Wrong Number

“You just don’t like to admit when you’re wrong, do you?”

“I’m not wrong!”

“Exactly!”

“What do you mean, ‘exactly’? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re wrong and here you are, not admitting it. You’re doing exactly what I said!”

“But, I’m not wrong.”

“You so are, you always are, always have been, and you always will be. Don’t you get that yet?”

“Look, my phone was ringing, and I saw who it was, and I decided not to answer it. What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s rude!”

“It was my ex. You hate it when she rings. You hate it when I speak to her. You hate her! Why would it be so wrong to talk to her?”

“Because it’s rude! And anyway, how did you know it was her?”

“It came up saying it was her.”

“You still have her number in your phone? Why do you still have her number in your phone?!”

“So I can tell when it’s her and then not answer it!”

“But that’s rude!”

“Okay, maybe it is, but if I’d answered it and spoken to her, then we’d still be having an argument, but this time it’d be about how I still talk to her and I should have been paying attention to you.”

“Yes. And?”

“So, I can’t win, can I? It didn’t matter what I did. If I’d answered the phone, I’d have been wrong. When I didn’t answer the phone I was wrong. There is no solution to that problem. There is nothing I could do that would make you happy. Whatever I chose to do in that situation would have been wrong. So, tell me, what should I have done? Huh? Tell me. Enlighten me. Just tell me what should I have done!?”

“You should never have gone out with her in the first place!”

“Oh...”

The Turn of the Tickle

2011-01-05T16:25:00.000Z

It is sometimes a strange thing being a 'creative' type. As you know, if you read this blog, I spend my time doing other things - teaching, marking (groan...), writing academic papers and essays, readings, radio interviews, etc. all of which are quite prescriptive and set-out in advance. But, as you also know, I also do my creative writing.

One thing which often occupies my mind - as it does many other writers and readers - is the concept of where ideas come from. The truth is, I don't know. Okay, sometimes the moment of inspiration is obvious: you see a news story, or see something happen in 'real' life, and there it is, the story you want to tell. But the thing which appears on the page is always changed and altered. You will have added characters, changed details, provided motivations, or explored areas that you never read about or saw. Where did they come from, eh?

In other cases, the moment of inspiration is less clear. You may be grouting the bathroom, driving to work, shaving the cat or cleaning a lamppost and, all of a sudden, poof, there it is, an idea. It appears in your brain without any warning and suddenly you have lines of prose (or poetry, if you're a poet) unspooling in your head. You try and trace what the thought was which led to the thought which led to the thought which led to the idea, but it's pointless. The aliens have beamed it into your head and there it is.

And then there is the wonder of flash fiction (yes, that again) whereby you don't even wait for the aliens, but sit down, pull up a prompt, plug your brain into your keyboard or pen, and watch the story emerge from nowhere.

None of this is news, this is the stuff writers have always talked about: the impossibility of pinning down just where the stuff we do come from. However, yesterday I reached a new level of this mystery. A friend posted a picture of an abbey on their Facebook profile. I didn't click on it to look at the larger version, I was hardly even aware that it was there in amongst all the other posts in my news feed, and yet... I felt a tickle. It wasn't inspiration, it wasn't a story, it wasn't anything more than the knowledge that if I sat down to write then this picture had a flash-fiction buried within it. I didn't know what it was, and I did my best not to think about it, but I could feel that the story was there, waiting.

And, sure enough, several hours later I sat down, had another look at the picture and then 20 minutes later I had a nice little story which I am very pleased with. Now, can somebody tell me, just where did that come from, and how did my brain known that this picture contained the seed?

Ah well, I guess if we knew the answer to those questions, then the mystery would disappear and it would all be boring and prescriptive and pointless.

Still, the whole thing has given me the inspiration for a project. Having found the strictures of NaNoWriMo to be so useful and productive, I have decided to see if I can write 31 flash-fictions in January. I'm allowing myself to count yesterday's ('The Abbey') as the first, which leaves me with 30 more to write. That's one a day with a few 2 story days in order to catch up. As best I can, I shall keep you up to date with my progress. What I would ask, though, is if you come across a phrase, a word, an image, a photo, or whatever, that you think might serve as a prompt for a story, send it through to me, and I'll see what it provokes. All prompts which lead to stories will get a public credit. (In that spirit, a public thank you to Vanessa Gebbie who's photo of Kirkstall Abbey led to last night's story.)

Oh, and if you feel like joining me on what I have christened CalFlaWriMo (Cal's Flash Writing Month) then feel free. Let me know and we can jolly each other along.

So, with all that said, here's to the next tickle!

All things post-Nano

2010-12-19T15:39:00.000Z

I've been rather quiet for a while. The last stages of NaNoWriMo kept me busy, but, as you know, that finished nearly three weeks ago. So, what's the news? I hear you ask.

Well, I finished the 50,000 words required by NaNoWriMo on 28th November - 2 days before the deadline - but I have yet to actually finish the book. Without the external deadline pushing me on (plus the embarrassment of failure after all my going-on about it) it just hasn't been a priority. Plus, I already know in my head how it all ends, so the impetus to find out by writing has also dropped away. Add to that the burden of teaching and marking and it just hasn't been done. Which is not to say that nothing has been done with it. Thanks to pressure applied by my partner, Kath, I have completed all but the final chapter and the epilogue, and over the Christmas break I hope to write those too.

So what next for the Nano-book? Well, once it's finished I plan to do a quick clean-up on it, and then I'm going to send it off to anyone who wants to read it and give me feedback. If you think you might like a look, drop me a line and I'll add you to the list.

In other news, I've had more stories accepted - two in Flash and one in the delinquent - and have been doing some other writing of flash fictions.

I've also been doing some readings for the Bugged anthology, and one for the Bad Language anthology, all of which have been very rewarding. I even managed to end up on Radio Lancashire/Radio Manchester's Late Show last week, being interviewed about Bugged and writing in general for about 40 mins.

So, all in all, it's an exciting time in my writing life. When I get round to it I shall blog about all the things I learned from doing Nano - of which there are many - and about my plans for 2011. But that's for another day. Today, I shall just use the approaching end of the year to bask in the successes, and send out many thanks to all of you who have helped and supported me.

So, Kath, Elaine, Jo, Ness, Mike, Ian, Daniel, Angi, Liz, Carrie, Mignon and Becky, this blog's for you.

NaNoWriMo Day Twenty Two (Sorry, been too busy writing to blog)

2010-11-22T23:48:00.000Z

Important pre-writing activities undertaken (non-procrastinatory):
- Oh, you know, life.

Procrastination undertaken:
- Other types of life.

Writing music used:
- Various including They Might be Giants and Little Feat.

Important Writing Creative Decisions taken:
- Bringing in new character focii, despite the novel starting to head towards its end.

Important Realisation:
- That just pushing through and not caring how little you actually want to write can still be productive. Okay, so those days might need more rewriting than others, but at least the story is moving. And some of the words might just be okay.

Daily goal: 1,667.
Today's actual amount (according to Nano): 1,748.

Today's cumulative word goal: 36,667.
Today's actual total (according to NaNo): 42,552.

Chocolate treat to be eaten:
- Guinness. No, not chocolate, but tasty and treaty nonetheless.

NaNoWriMo Day Thirteen

2010-11-13T22:29:00.000Z

Important pre-writing activities undertaken (non-procrastinatory):
- Visiting my mum.

Procrastination undertaken:
- Watching tv, doing the washing-up, eating. You know, life.

Writing music used:
The Craig Charles Funk and Soul Show on 6 Music.

Important Writing Creative Decisions taken:
- Allowing one of the character's story-lines to lie dormant for a few chapters while I followed the other one.
- To go back and delete a flash-forward I had written as it just wasn't going to work, and I was trying to skew the story in its direction, rather than letting it flow.

Important Realisation:
- That the concept of an 'Ivory Tower' for writing - a particular space, using a particular chair, and an uninterruptable block of time - which I had thought was necessary, isn't. In the last week I have taken my netbook (a new computer, not my usual 'writing' one) to a number of locations, and written equally easily in each of them. I have also written in tiny blocks, sometimes as small as 10 or 15 words between interruptions, and have still found that the story flowed.
- That a structure for writing is a wonderful thing. I have been more productive in the last 13 days than in the last 2 years.
- That my remaining wordcount for NaNoWriMo success - 21,667 - is the same as the amount I should have written by today. That feels significant but probably isn't.

Daily goal: 1,667.
Today's actual amount (according to Nano): 2,554.

Today's cumulative word goal: 21,667.
Today's actual total (according to NaNo): 28,333.

Chocolate treat to be eaten:
- Oreos.

NaNoWriMo Day Nine (apologies for the break in transmission...)

2010-11-09T21:58:00.000Z

Important pre-writing activities undertaken (non-procrastinary):
- Eating tea and thinking about that the heck I was going to write tonight.

Procrastination undertaken:
- None. Ate tea and then sat right down.

Writing music used:
None.

Important Writing Creative Decisions taken:
- Decided, once the opening section was over, to expand the focussed third-person narration to include new characters. Some of these may not survive.
- To just relax and have fun.
- Whenever I get bored I am allowed to blow something else up (in the book, that is...)

Important Realisation:
- That somewhere along the line, around the same time as I started teaching and studying for my PhD, that I became somewhat ashamed of writing sci-fi, action, fantasy etc. For some reason I have always allowed myself a little crime or magic realism, but this is the first really 'imaginative' fiction I have written in a while. It's incredibly character-based, but it still has aliens and zombies in it. It's nice to be back.

Daily goal: 1,667.
Today's actual amount: 1,676.

Today's cumulative word goal: 15,003.
Today's actual total: 20,254.

Chocolate treat to be eaten:
- Maltesers.

NaNoWriMo Day Four

2010-11-04T21:14:00.000Z

Important pre-writing activities undertaken (non-procrastinary):
- Just getting out of bed was an effort.

Procrastination undertaken:
- Loads. Facebook, reading, watching tv, marking essays. All kinds of non-writing things.

Writing music used:
- The Number of the Beast - Iron Maiden.

Important Writing Creative Decisions taken:
- To bring other characters into the book, and start to create tension between my two leads so I can resolve it later.

Important Realisation:
- I have now written over 10,000 words and yet not even 30 mins have passed. This book might be longer than I anticipate.
- That the beginning is over, and it's time to get stuck in.

Daily goal: 1,667.
Today's actual amount: 2,513.

Today's cumulative word goal: 6,668.
Today's actual total: 10,096.

Chocolate treat to be eaten:
- Ice Cream Mars Bar.

NaNoWriMo Day Three

2010-11-03T16:35:00.001Z

Important pre-writing activities undertaken (non-procrastinary):
- Student assignment marking, so that writing feels like a reward.

Procrastination undertaken:
- Looking out of the window and taking the 'Which rock musician do you most resemble?' quiz on Facebook.

Writing music used:
- None.

Important Writing Creative Decisions taken:
- Allowing myself to write chapters of different lengths. My last novel had uniform chapters of about 2000 words. In this one, because of shifting perspective, I have decided it's okay to allow short chapters of only 400 words, or longer ones of 3000 or more, if necessary.
- I'm still not happy with the male character name (thanks, Kath, for helping me clarify this thought) but I don't know what else to use. Global search and replace will sort this later.

Important Realisation:
- Writing a third person narrative with multiple characters is much different to my last novel - first person autobiographical style - not least because I get to include dialogue. I realise how much I missed that and how much I like writing dialogue.

Daily goal: 1,667.
Today's actual amount: 3,456.

Today's cumulative word goal: 5,001.
Today's actual total: 7,582

Chocolate treat to be eaten:
- Another Tesco's Cookie.

NaNoWriMo Day Two

2010-11-02T20:39:00.000Z

Important pre-writing activities undertaken (non-procrastinary):
- Getting out of bed.
- Not emptying the bin.

Procrastination undertaken:
- Answering student emails and playing around on Facebook.

Writing music used:
- Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd

Important Writing Creative Decisions taken:
- Realised that the name I had chosen for my main male character, an irresponsible love-rat and photocopier salesman was the name of the main bad guy in the Christopher Brookmyre book I've just finished reading, so changed it from 'Simon' to 'Tony'.
- Decided to start describing the book as The War of the Worlds (H.G. Wells not Tom Cruise) meets Much Ado About Nothing.
- Chose some very useful 80s rock hits as symbolic references.

Today's cumulative word goal: 3,334.
Today's actual total: 4,131.

Chocolate treat to be eaten:
- Tesco's Cookie.

NaNoWriMo Day One

2010-11-01T16:10:00.000Z

Here are the statistics:

Day One

Important pre-writing activities undertaken (non-procrastinary):
- Clipped fingernails to aid typing.
- Bought tasty chocolately reward to be allowed when word count reached.

Procrastination undertaken:
- None. (But it is only day one.)

Writing music used:
- Glass Houses - Billy Joel
- Graceland - Paul Simon

Important Writing Creative Decisions taken:
- To name rather than number chapters. Although there will be a large amount of mayhem and 'fantasy' death (whatever that is) in the book, I also want it to be light and, at times, amusing. So I have decided to use song lyrics as chapter titles. Chapter one is taken from Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody and is entitled 'Thunderbolt and Lightning'.
- To not name my main female character 'Carol' but instead 'Nicola'. I want to make her feisty (what else?) and thought that a later argument over someone calling her 'Nicky' could be useful. Carol has no useful abbreviations. I also decided to call her daughter 'Alyssa' as 'Sasha' just wasn't doing it for me.

Today's cumulative word goal: 1,667.
Today's actual total: 1,917.

Time spent writing: 1 hr 7 mins.

Chocolate treat to be eaten:
- Minstrels.

The deep breath, the holding of the nose, and the run up...

2010-10-31T20:41:00.000Z

Pinch and punch, first of the month!

Okay, so I'm early. But tomorrow is the first day of November. For some it is the sign of Bonfire parties hoving into view, for others it is the last month to wait through before the one which contains Christmas. For me, it is the start of NaNoWriMo, the event which asks its participants to attempt to write a whole novel in a single month.

The novel need only be 50,000 - the same length as classics such as 1984 and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - and so all that is required is 1667 words a day. Every day. For a month.

All?

It's quite a tall order, but as I look at it from the day before, it seems doable. What makes it even easier is that I already know what I'm writing and have had a number of long car journeys to mull over character biographies and the like.

In a previous post, I offered a selection of ideas that I might be trying. I asked for your votes. From the lack of response, I could tell that, far from being apathetic, you were quietly willing me to pick idea number 2, but were too polite to foist your wishes on me. But, who am I to ignore your silent demands. Number 2 it is.

(I'm not going to go back over the idea, check back and see what it was, then come back. I'll wait...
...
...
Okay? Up to speed? Good. I'll carry on.)

I'm glad you all picked this one. It is going to be a sea-change from my last idea, as this one is all action and adventure without the stress and suicides. The first idea, which looked like the front-runner for a while till you all wordlessly spoke, is much in the same vein. And because of this it looks like I might just be allowed to have fun! If I'm going to spend the dark November nights locking horns with this beast of a project, I think a little fun should be allowed, don't you?

I shall endeavour to blog about the experience as I go through it, though I might occasionally have to sacrifice the analysis for the actual writing. But stay tuned, and feel free to chivvy me if you think I'm falling behind. Even if you do it silently, I'll know.

And if you don't, and I fail to complete the project, it'll all be your fault, won't it?

Structural Analysis for Cylons

2010-10-17T17:52:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a boy, later a man, who could watch TV and read books simply to enjoy the story. Part of him is still inside me and he likes a good tale, whether it's told by Charles Dickens, Terry Pratchett or Joss Wheedon. But, as a writer, and as an academic who, let's face it, spends a lot of his time deconstructing texts, there is now always a part of me casting a critical eye over whatever I read or watch, whether it is Northanger Abbey, The Wasp Factory or Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

My current favourite waste of time is the third season of the new version of Battlestar Galactica. Much has been written about how this series is a critique of the events of 9/11 and the war in Iran and Afghanistan, and all of that has passed through my mind as I've watched it. But, above and beyond all that, it is a well-told story which works. The realisation of that is the point at which my inner critic starts to pick that story apart to try and find out why it works.

Some of the things it does - and I'm talking about the third season here - are particular to serial drama. At the end of the second series everything has changed and all the things we think we know are overturned. As a result, the season starts by showing us the intractable problems of all this change and then slowly, piece by piece, it returns us to the status quo. This is typical of this kind of drama. Normality - even if this is the whole of humanity on the run in a small number of spaceships from an overwhelming and evil force of Cylons - needs to be maintained for the story to continue. Back in the 80s, the story-writing guidelines for Star Trek: The Next Generation were publicly available and they made this clear. No-one could be killed, ships could not be destroyed, things that were known to be could not be otherwise unless, that is, they were returned somehow at the end of the story. There must be continuity.

But, within this larger arc of continuation, there are the ups and downs which make this highly acclaimed series so engaging and addictive and each episode features the things we would expect from any great show, box-office success, or award-winning novel.

First, there is conflict. Any writing teacher will tell you that drama and plot emerge from conflict. Those who are together will split. Those who are apart will find a way back together. Friends will become enemies, traitors will be revealed as trusted allies, the weak will find a way to be strong.

In the course of any single episode there will be a set-up in which questions are posed. Some of these are based in the past; in previous conflicts. Some propose possibilities for the future. As the story carries on, these questions will be unpicked as the missing details are revealed. At about the 2/3 point there will be a major conflict which seems, in some way, to be the premature end of the story, but instead merely leads to the confrontation which forms the real end of the story. These are often, but not always, the result of two seperate sub-plots which in some way mirror each other - either directly or in opposition.

And so, as the episode closes, the story has moved on to a new place, with new questions to be unravelled in a future episode and old questions settled. The status quo is maintained, all the main characters are alive, the things that are needed to move the whole story forward are still there, but allegiances have shifted and the plot, as a whole, has moved on.

I'm not saying that we should all write books, or dramas, based on spaceships fleeing the destruction of the human race, and in search of the mythical 'Earth'. I'm also not saying that this structure is one which underpins all good drama or literature, and nor should it be. But I am saying that there is something in these TV series which can be analysed and understood on the basic levels of good-story-telling and may give us insights into the dynamics that in the end make a story engaging for the viewer or reader.

Novels, Novels, everywhere...

2010-10-11T17:25:00.000+01:00

The combination of low summer sun, recasting the smears on my windscreen as opaque tigerstripes, and Radio 4's Book Programme whispering in my ears seems to be my recipe for inspiration. So, another long journey yesterday: another novel idea.

My mind is working on novels at the moment as National Novel Writing Month approaches. NaNoWriMo, as it's known, asks you to write a brand new 50,000 word novel, from scratch, in the 30 days of November. Only one week of actually planning is allowed, but that doesn't preclude thinking about it and casting about for ideas.

The idea behind this was originally to get non-writers to take part and see what they could do, so why am I, I hear you ask, taking part in this? Well, as you might already have worked out, I need a deadline. And, being a budding novellist, the only deadline you have is a self-imposed one. We all know how stretchy they can be. So, by taking the challenge of NaNoWriMo - and by telling everyone that I'm taking the challenge! - I hope to force myself into producing at least a workable first draft of a new work before the 1st December.

So, as the month approaches, and I start to think about what I'm taking on, my mind, as I say, has been throwing novel ideas out at an alarming rate. I now have three completely different ideas to chose from and I find myself in a quandary. So, I shall turn myself over to you, and let you make the decision.

What follows are short indications of the three ideas I've had. Let me know, by commenting, by email, by text, by call, by pigeon, or by letter held in a cleft stick by a small boy, which one you want me to write, and I will:

1. A novel about the lives of a depressed man and a troubled teenage girl.

2. An action-type story in which the protagonist is caught in the backwash of a much larger story.

3. The walls of reality and imagination break down and only a man with no imagination can help.

So... that's it. Let me know what you think, and then keep watching as I slowly disintegrate over the month .

For more on NaNoWriMo go to http://www.nanowrimo.org/.

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain

2010-10-06T10:35:00.000+01:00

I'm poorly.

One week back to teaching and the mingled bugs of a thousand students have wormed their ways past my defences to give me a good old-fashioned cold. The red eyes, the streaming nose, the tissues and cough-sweet wrappers scattering from my pockets. It's not pretty.

But elsewhere, something has happened. On their way to attack mucous membranes and alveoli, the bugs seem to have unlocked doors in my head.

Two night ago, tired of sneezing and coughing, I turned the light out and lay down, in search of an early night. But instead of passing into a lemsip-induced coma as I wished, I found myself plotting parts of a new novel. This is the book that I intend to write for NaNoWriMo in November (more on this at a later date) and already I found small ideas and scenes coming together in my head. Unlike other late-night mental writings, I found these were still present in my mind the following morning, and I'm starting to look forward even more to my novelling month so I can get them down on paper.

And then, last night, with the cold at it's peak, and feeling as rough as I can remember in a while, once again my mind delved into my 'pending' file and started work on an idea that I've been toying with for a few years.

A couple of years ago, my friend Mike and I started to write a collaborative project set around the idea of multiple characters in a hotel. The result would be published on the web as a hypertext which allowed for navigation between characters and also a progression through time. It was a nice idea, and we wrote a few room's-worth of stories before it ground to a halt. Partly this was due to other things getting in the way, partly it was due to my not being able to work out how to structure the thing to make it work. Well, last night I found my brain pondering the problem again, and this morning I was able to sit down and write out the structure of the hotel and a series of rules for how it would work.

My next plan is to set the thing up and then invite other writers to come and take rooms in the hotel, to create a vast, online, collaborative story, using the power of hypertext to create a web of narrative. Not bad for a fever dream, eh?

So, today I'm feeling a little better, and part of me is slightly disappointed. Tonight I may well have a good night's sleep. What a loss that will be.

Grinding my nose

2010-09-29T17:21:00.000+01:00

And so the academic year has started up again. I'm teaching 6 different classes - more than many full-time lecturers - but, hey, it pays the bills. For the practise of writing the start of the new year has two effects.

The first is the one you would expect. I am now busy with all kinds of teaching related activities. Preparing seminars and lectures, planning ahead for the term, reading the texts I shall be teaching, reminding myself of the theories I need to cover and, oh yes, teaching the classes themselves. As a result, the time I have to dedicate to writing has been vastly truncated. Where, in the summer, I had the luxury of time, now, if I want to write, I have to squeeze it in around my work. You would think the result would be less writing.

But that is where the other effect comes in to play. Over the summer, the vast endless tracts of time sucked up motivation and urgency. There seemed to be so much time that nothing had to be done right away. I did get a lot done, but not as much as I wanted, and probably not as much as I could. Now, with time short, the urgency is back and so the motivation is there to work on writing when I get the chance.

The other effect of teaching starting is like having my brain jump-started. A summer of reading and occasional writing and, let's face it, growing lethargy, didn't help at all. But now that I have to get up, have to get my classes ready, and have to go out and teach, my energy levels are up, my brain is firing again, and my motivation is returning.

I have had to devote the last couple of weeks to preparation for the new term. New courses meant new books to read and new concepts to get my head around. But now that it has all started, I can see how to fit in all the things I want to do with all the things I have to do.

So, more stories have already been finished off and submitted, and my head is once more bowing over my novel. Penguin are accepting unsolicited manuscripts up to the end of October, and I plan to get my book to them within that time. And November is time for Nanowrimo's 'write a novel in a month', and I'm already planning for that.

So, despite the new teaching load, I will carry on with the writing, and let the stimulation of teaching feed into it. And you'll be hearing lots more from me about all of this and more. So, all together... 'Hi ho, hi ho...'

Words, Words, Words.

2010-09-23T22:09:00.001+01:00

You will hopefully be pleased to know that at the weekend I learned that another of my stories, "2o Words" has been accepted for the Bad Language anthology, to be published later in the autumn. Beyond the obvious pleasure at having a story accepted, I am pleased that this story in particular has been picked up as it is one of my personal favourites.

It has this position for two reasons. First, it was the story which broke my creative logjam and led to a productive summer of writing. From Jan to Nov 2009 I wrote nothing creative at all. After that, although I started writing again, the pieces I created came from prompts rather than internal inspiration. Ideas were not swimming around in my head, but the desire to write was still there, so I would sit down and jump-start my brain with a trigger-word, phrase or image. I've written about this process earlier when talking about Flash fiction, so check back if you want to know more about that.

Anyway, "20 words" simply came to me one day in late spring, when I wasn't thinking of anything much. I was in the shower, actually, and suddenly the opening line was in my head. I then got the chance to do the thing which had eluded me so long, that thing which makes writing so exciting, which was to hurry up what I was doing so I could get to the computer (still dripping!) and start to write because the story was coming, like a premature baby, forcing its way out ready or not.

The other reason I like the story is that it aims to the core of what I feel writing is about. It shows rather than tells, it asks the reader to make their own decisions and to provide their own input, and it concerns the importance of words in our lives. The story tells, in only around 300 words, the story of a life through the important words uttered by a man over the course of that life. What is key for me is that these are not large, long, important words, but the simple building blocks of everyday transaction and communication which, in context, can change everything.

As such, this story, the first product of my recharged battery, shows how important words and language are in describing and changing our lives. As you can tell, I like it

If you're intrigued and want to read the story, the Bad Language anthology will be out later in the year. I will put a note up here when it's out, or you can keep a track at their website: http://badlanguagemcr.co.uk/.

Beautiful Baby Competition

2010-09-06T16:16:00.000+01:00

Please tell me it's pretty, please don't tell me it's ugly. Look, the ears are symetrical and the eyes are such a pale blue. The hair is so fine and blonde and the skin so soft and pink. The sentences are balanced, the words well chosen and the plot finely honed. Please tell me you like it.

For years I have been telling my students that sending out short stories for publication is like showing your baby to the world and asking for kindness. Your writing is so personal, and so close to your heart, that sending them out is like leaving your baby at the creche for the first day and hoping the other children will play with them.

Okay, maybe I'm going a little over the top, but it is nerve wracking!

In the last couple of weeks I have had a story I am particularly fond of rejected. Entitled 'Palimpsest' it was written as a flash fiction, but then honed to make sure all the layers could be read, one through the other. I sent it out in Februrary and it has only just come back, so - with so long to dwell on it - I had innured myself to the possibility of disappontment. It still stings, as all rejections do.

However, at almost the same time the lovely people at Bugged - the eavesdropping project I have waffled on about in previous posts - have accepted a different story, also written as flash fiction and entitled 'The Four' for publication in their anothology which comes out in mid-October. And that eases the sting and warms the heart. They liked my child enough to put his photo in the gallery!

Surrounding these two events I have been researching and reading and editing and rewriting and sending out stories to a variety of places. Over a dozen have gone out in the last week. I know most of them will come back to me to be sent out once again for adoption. But some of them - I hope! - will find good homes where they can grow and prosper. I will, of course, keep you posted.

In amongst all this story work, I have also been working on my novel. I have re-read it, and given it to my girlfriend to read and comment on too (Thanks, Kath!). If you think it's bad having someone read a story, ask them to read a novel. This is far more personal than asking for compliments for your baby. This is asking for your soul to be evaluated. Thankfully, it seems to pass muster (the book, that is, I can't comment on my soul), and now I am onto the work of rewriting and reworking into the second draft. After that, and maybe some more tinkering, it will be time to send that out into the world too. You'll know when that happens as I will be online every five minutes, sharing my worries.

Sometimes I ask why I put myself through this torment, but it's the age old thing. If I write a story and show it to no-one then it might as well not have been written. Only when a story is shared and read does it really exist. And so, it's not so much sending the child out into the world, having a manuscript accepted is the very act of birth itself, giving life to something new.

So, I shall go back to my gestation and let you know as and when the brood increases. I shall push and I shall do my best to remember my breathing. If you'll just hold my hand, mop my brow, and ignore the screams, I think we can get through this.

Stardom at last!

2010-09-02T17:40:00.000+01:00

I haven't blogged for a little while - I've actually been getting on with some writing and rewriting - but was going to sit down yesterday and talk about the recent spate of submissions I have been sending. That post is still to come, but the day kinda got away from me. At midday I got a phone-call asking me if I would do a radio interview later in the afternoon.

The call came from my head of department at Edge Hill. They had been approached by Radio Lancashire who, prompted by the publication of Tony Blair's memoirs, wanted to talk to someone about Life Writing. Well, as that's the creative writing subject I teach for EH, they came to me. The idea was to give the listeners some ideas on the role of life writing - biographies and memoirs in particular - and also what they should think about if they were going to write their own.

I have never given a radio interview before and so was pretty nervous. It didn't help that it was going to be live rather than a pre-recorded interview, but I figured it was exactly the stuff that I know about, so I was happy to do it. The process was interesting.

First I spoke to the presenter of the programme, to introduce myself and he then proceeded to ask me what would be good questions for him to ask. We agreed them between us and I gave him some quick sketchy answers and that was that, I just had to wait for the radio station to ring me at about 5.15 to give the interview.

Butterflies took up residence in my stomach as the time approached, but the time was usefully spent refining what I was going to say. The flutters multiplied when the phone went and they asked me to wait another 20 mins. Finally, they called and I was patched through to the studio. I listened to about 5 minutes of the programme and then, with a rather over-the-top introduction, I was live.

It went pretty well. There were a few ums and ahs, and I changed tack at one point. I also managed to be really snobby at the end, but in the main I feel I got the information across in a concise and interesting way, answered all the questions as asked, and didn't sound too much of a prat. The interview finished, he thanked me, the line went dead, and that was that.

Thanks to the wonders of the web I was soon able to 'Listen Again' to the interview. I scrolled the slider through the programme to about the point where I thought I would be. A voice was talking and I presumed it was the item after me, but then I recognised some of the words and realised I was listening to myself. I didn't recognise my voice at all! Still, I listened back and was quite pleased with it. I sounded rather posh - a combination teaching/phone voice - and there was a trace of my father's tone in there, especially when he used to give interviews on radio or TV, but I sounded confident and like someone who knows what they're talking about. So that's not so bad, eh?

And that was that: my brush with fame. It was only 3 minutes, so if Andy Warhol's right then I still have another 12 minutes to have some other time. If it's like yesterday, I think I might just be looking forward to it.

The interview is available to listen to at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009lpqp until 7th Sept. I'm on at about the 1 hour 37 mark. Let me know what you think, either of my performance or what I had to say. All feedback welcome.

Adventures in Rewiring

2010-08-16T09:22:00.000+01:00

Take the thick wire and follow it through walls, under floorboards, round the various sockets and light-fittings. Then, once you know its length and path, yank it out and replace it with a thicker, dual-core wire which will work better and not send the house up in smoke. Done that? Good. Now do it with the other 96 wires, make sure none of them take a wrong turn or will short-circuit the others, and you're done.

No, I've not changed jobs and ditched writing altogether in favour of a life as an electrician, but it seemed like an apt analogy for the job I am currently undertaking. After a hiatus of 18 months, I am returning to my novel, Endless Days, with its twisty-turny fragmented storyline (and a disintegrating narrative voice, don't forget that - like pulling the wires through crumbly dry-rot), and attempting to rewrite, edit and generally sort the damn thing out.

I started the book way back in the beginning of 2007. I ground to halt around May of that year, with just 11,000 words done. Following some personal interruptions, I picked it up again in early 2008 and finally finished the 100,000 words in January 2009. Since then more personal interruptions have stopped me returning to it - or wanting to - but now I've been drawn back to it.

I did wonder, last year, if I would ever return to it. Maybe it was dead and maybe it was better to leave it like that. But a couple of months ago, on a long car journey, I suddenly discovered that I was thinking about it and wondering if that section from chapter 30 might not make a better opening. And should my epilogue be my prologue? And should I change the narrative voice? If so, how? And on, and on... And so I find myself with the block of paper in my hand, setting out to trace all the conduits and see if I can't get the lights on again.

Rewriting is always a strange thing, but doing it with something which has lain fallow for so long is very strange, as it seems familiar but it no longer feels like your words. In some ways that is good, as you can be more objective and so hack and trim without a care. In other ways it's strange, as you discover things you had forgotten and start to feel a little abstracted from it, like you are floating above the work and looking down at it with detached interest but none of the emotional connection which made you write it in the first place.

All that notwithstanding, I am currently in the reading phase, and despite the problems with those first 11,000 words, which seem to belong to a different book, I am enjoying it. The distance means I can read it like any old book and enjoy it for what it was. At the moment, I am not trying to work out how to solve the problems, I am letting the little guy who lives in the back of my brain work on those, as he does on so much else. Instead I am just taking it in, soaking in it, letting it diffuse through my pores and fill me up again. Then it will be out with the pliers, the wire-trimmers and we'll start restringing those cables.

I will update on the process as I go along, and let you know every time I electrocute myself or black out the whole block. Hopefully, by the end, the house will still be standing and the lights will be blazing. Here's hoping.

PS. Ever noticed how easy it is to write the word 'rewiring' when you mean 'rewriting'...?

The Waste Land

2010-07-20T15:16:00.000+01:00

Last week I gave myself a 'writing day'. I didn't answer emails, I didn't do any of the little writing or editing jobs that I often tinker around with. It was a day to do nothing more than write new work. On that day I managed to write 5 completely new and individual short stories. Today, I gave myself another writing day. And the result?

Nothing.

Despite having a list of prompts, I have not been able to find my way into writing a single new story. My motivation has disappeared into the garden to catch some rays, and my inspiration has gone with it to keep it company.

I'm not worried, though. Any writer will tell you that sometimes this just happens. It's all very well putting aside the time to work on your magnum (or minimum) opus. And sometimes the brain will rise to the challenge. But sitting down, with no plan of what you intend to write, and hoping for the Muse to pay a visit, is a very hit and miss affair. You sit and look at the blank page and wait for your brain to bleed and nothing happens. Some emails get answered instead, maybe; a phone call or two are made; you finally pay those bills, and some vitally important games of Solitaire are played, but nothing gets written.

However, this is the time when the bane of a writer's life can be his salvation. You've set the day aside for creative work, but no creation is happening. Time to get to grips with the editing. Even more than the writing, it is the greatest cause of displacement activity, but when you enter a creative wilderness, it can give you focus and direction.

So, today, instead of creating new works, I am rewriting, redrafting, and editing old ones. I'm getting to grips with stories which just need a polish and some which were never really finished but put aside for another day. Today is that day. And the wonderful thing about this, is reconnecting with your old work, seeing where you have been before and you can already feel your brain brewing new potions to spring forth the next time you try to prime the pump.

So, today isn't a wash out, and maybe, just maybe, if I try for another writing day later in the week, the words will flow like wine. (But hopefully without the cliches.)

A little something...

2010-07-16T14:46:00.001+01:00

(This was one of the stories written last week for the Bugged project. Thought you might like to see it. Any comments more than welcome.)

Persona
By Calum Kerr

"Oh, God, I'm so nervous."

Lizzie could tell her friend wasn't making it up. Janet was literally shaking. The coffee cup was rattling against it's saucer as she tried to put it back down, some of the foam and coffee slopping over the edge. She reached out and took the cup from her, putting it back down, and then took hold of her friend's hands, trying to still them. They felt cool and a little sweaty.

"Look, it'll be okay. It's only a job interview. It's not life and death." She rubbed at Janet's hands trying to warm them and remove some of the moisture. She had always thought that the phrase 'cold sweat' was simply a cliché, but now she had found it's origin in fact. "You'll go in, you'll wow them, and you'll get the job. No worries."

Janet gave a nervous laugh, a strand of her dark hair coming loose from the band that exposed her face so severely. Lizzie wanted to tell her to take it off, to let herself go a little, to stop being so controlled and confined. In the days since she got the letter inviting her for interview, Lizzie had watched Janet become more and more tightly wound, letting her nerves take her over until there was nothing recognisable left of her confident, easy-going friend.

"I just want this job so badly. It's such a wonderful chance. Good pay, good prospects, the chance to meet all kinds of people and to travel. It's just so important and I know I'm going to mess it up." Janet's voice was not only shaking in time with her hands, there was an edge of hysteria to it that would guarantee that her fears would come true.

"No, you're not," Lizzie tried to comfort, attempting to put a confidence into her own words that she was no longer feeling. It was hard to have to bolster someone who was so clearly falling apart. She glanced up at the clock and was surprised to see how much time had passed. They'd barely touched their drinks, but it was time to go.

Lizzie had planned to say goodbye and good luck to Janet here, but was worried that without her guidance, Janet wouldn't even make it to the building across the street where the interviews were being held. Where was the girl she had always known?

"Come on," she said, "It's time."

"Oh God!" Janet's voice was almost a wail, but she stood up and brushed herself down. Lizzie, although starting to be a little frustrated with her friend's pessimism, was proud of Janet as she watched her try to pull herself together. Janet's hands even started to shake a little less as she smoothed her skirt.

The girls stood, donning jackets and bags, and with a hand on her back to guide her, Lizzie helped her friend through the tables of the coffee shop to the door.

It was bright and sunny outside, the heat of the day a shock after dark, cool of the café. The pavement was busy with all the people who had no idea of the turmoil that was emerging into their midst. Lizzie led her friend by the hand, afraid that if she let go the girl would either collapse or simply turn and run. The traffic slowed in front of them as the lights at the top of the road turned red, and they moved out amongst the stationary cars.

Halfway across, Janet's hand came free, and Lizzie looked back over her shoulder to check on her friend. Janet was reaching up to her hair. Lizzie thought maybe she was going to tuck the errant strand of hair back under the band, but instead she grasped the band and pulled it free. She shook her head and her hair loosened out, spreading down onto her shoulders, curling round the edges of her face and softening its shape.

They carried on across the road, Lizzie only half aware of the cars they were stepping between as she watched her friend undergo a transformation. With each step she seemed steadier and her face warmed as the blood finally started to return to skin which had been on the green edge of pale for days. Janet straightened, her shoulders pushing back to fill the hollows in her jacket, and her stride lengthened so that the two girls reached the far pavement at the same time, neither leading, neither being led.

Lizzie all but gaped as her friend moved towards the doors of the imposing building and turned. She looked older, more mature, and more attractive than Lizzie could ever remember. All of a sudden Lizzie felt like a child in the presence of an important adult.

Janet took a deep breath and smiled. "Right," she said, with no trace of tremor in a voice which seemed to have deepened and softened, "let's do this." She gave Lizzie a kiss on the cheek, turned, and with a strong straight arm, pushed in through the doors into the lobby beyond.

Lizzie stood for a moment, unsure what had happened, then set off to find a shop to sell her a 'Congratulations on your New Job' card.

Under Pressure

2010-07-13T17:58:00.000+01:00

I decided that today would be a writing day. Having taken part in the Bugged project, as mentioned in previous blogs, I had a raft of story prompts to use, and I decided to set aside one day to use as many as I could. I sat down this morning with ten of them and the intention to write as many stories as I could in the day.

Five stories later, I'm done. And I'm happy.

All of them were prompted by the overheard lines I wrote down on 1st July, and I have plans to send at least two of them in for the Bugged project to see what they think. Others will hopefully find publication elsewhere, once they've been redrafted and tidied up. I tried to make them as different from one another as possible: to change perspective, topic, character-types and language from story to story. Where would be the fun in repeating myself?

Did I notice any themes emerging? Well, there seems to be quite a lot of violence, but I'm not worried about that. It was just the way that the stories tended, I don't think it says anything too serious about me. (I hope.) But, more than that, there was a questioning of perception. All the stories seem to deal with how we see others, ourselves, and the world, and the preconceptions we bring to bear on them.

My plan now is to rewrite the pieces and then start sending them off. And, if you're very good, I might post one or two of them here, just to see what you think.

All in all I'm pleased with my day's work. I don't remember a day like this where I set myself such a task and then was able to follow it through. I wrote nearly 4600 words across the stories, which, while not my record for a single day's writing, comes a close second. And my previous best (just shy of 7000 words) was on a novel, so was quite different. It's something which I feel I should do again, putting myself under a specific pressure to be productive and varied. It felt really good. Maybe you should try it too.

(Today's title is courtesy of Queen, of course.)

Fear of a Blank Planet

2010-07-07T14:15:00.000+01:00

Two blogs in one day. Anyone would think I'm avoiding something.

And maybe I am. Yesterday I got an idea for a new short story. I have a structure, I have a plot, I even have a small handful of characters, and yet I find myself delaying.

All writer's know the problem of the blank page, where to start, what to say, how to say it. It doesn't even matter if, as in my case, you know what you are going to write. The moment when you open a new screen, helpfully titled Document1, and set out to write the first words, is one of fear mixed with hope. The fear comes from having to create something new, something interesting, something which will speak to your readers. The hope comes from knowing that you have the whole of time and space - real and imagined - to play with, and an almost infinite combination of words to use in new and surprising ways to act as your method of exploration. And that's the second source of fear.

I blogged a while ago about the journey never being quite what you expected, and that being the joy of writing. But it's also the curse, because you have to forge the path yourself. And if your route goes off course, then you have no-one else to blame. At the moment before you type your first word - take your first step on the path - all is possible. But once you start to move, you don't know if you are heading anywhere near the right direction until you get to your destination.

And, of course, that is also an exciting thing. The lure of the unknown. This is a journey into territory that has never been taken before. The story you write will be a combination of words which has never existed before. You are weaving a fabric from threads of your own invention.

The only way to solve the fear, and to feed the excitement is to write, and the more you do it, the more the excitement overcomes the fear. But the fear never goes away, and if it did I think the writing might die.

So, anyway, diversionary-blog over, it's time for me to go and write. I have my machete, my compass, and a flask of water. I should be okay. See you on the other side.

PS. Blog title courtesy of Porcupine Tree by way of Public Enemy.

Life in a nutshell

2010-07-07T09:59:00.000+01:00

If you follow my blog then you know I've recently been working on some study-guide essays. As part of the deal with the company I write for, I was also asked to write short biographies of two authors. Yesterday I finished the first of these, a biography of Daniel Handler, aka. Lemony Snicket.

The format of the biographies asks me to write a potted history of the author's life and short sections on each of their main works. Now, I have to admit that until I accepted the assignment I had never heard of Daniel Handler and had only a vague, 'oh yes, I've heard the name', acquaintance with Lemony Snicket. So, this was a ground-up research job.

Most research I do these days - whether for a story or a conference paper, or even for teaching materials - is a case of finding the information or the suitable quotation to back up what I already want to say. Even when writing a study guide, my first source is the text in question, and my analysis is usually based on my own reading with research backing it up. But when putting together the life of a writer, there is no primary source. There is no single place to go to for the information you want. So, it's one of those cases where everything comes from research.

As a result I have spent the last few days involved in the kind of research which I haven't really undertaken since I finished my PhD back in 2005. I have been reading, absorbing, sorting, sifting, condensing and writing. At times it has left my head spinning, but was also, in a strange way, quite fun. Assimilating all that knowledge at speed and then spitting it out again in condensed form (such as reducing all 13 Lemony Snicket books down to fewer than 500 words!) leaves you feeling gorged on information. Exhilarating, in it's way.

And the result? Well, I wrote something for which I will be paid, which is always nice. But I also found that, in conversation with my girlfriend about what I was working on, I was able to talk knowledgeably about Handler and about all his books, where just days before I barely knew who he was. After the event it feels a little like being Neo in The Matrix; as though I have downloaded a 'Daniel Handler module' into my head. And this, I guess, gets to the root of why I do what I do: all this writing, researching and teaching. I do it because after a BA, an MA and a PhD, I have learned is that there is still so much more to learn, and I want to know it all.

Now, the keen eyed amongst you will note that I have two biographies to write. With one down, who is the other one? Well, it's a man called William Woodruff. At this point I know that he was a historian who wrote two books with the place-name Nab's End in the titles. Ask me again after I've downloaded the module, and I'll tell you the rest.

PS. Thanks to Barenaked Ladies for today's blog title. No research required.

Flash... aha!

2010-07-01T17:15:00.000+01:00

I have been Bugging today. Last week I blogged about a project called 'Bugged' where the idea is to head out into the world, listen in on fellow humans, and use the overheard words as source materials for writing. The day for listening is today, so that's what I've been doing.

At first it was frustrating, lunch in the pub had seemed like a good idea, but the pub was almost empty so sitting close enough to someone to hear what they were saying would have been far too obvious. A trip round Morrison's gave me a few choice titbits, but not very much. I am also planning a trip to the pub tonight, but after lunchtime I didn't want to leave it to chance, so I headed into the town centre to do some lurking.

I found myself, at times, alongside people who had stopped to have a proper chat, but these weren't always that fruitful. It's not easy to pick a particular phrase when you have the full conversation, and being given context and background makes those phrase less inspiring. The best ones were snippets overheard from people walking past, mid-conversation: "People come and talk to me.", "I'll ring that lot and tell them we'll just leave it.", "And then it goes all criss-cross which is why I like it."

However, amongst these more interesting eavesdroppings, I was slightly disappointed at how much was mundane: "Okay, I'll call you later." and, of course, "I need a wee." But then I realised that it was only mundane in the original context. In the hands of a writer, even these things could be given new life. It was at that point that I realised how wonderful an exercise this was for generating prompts for flash fiction.

For those who don't know, flash fiction is very short fiction (mostly fewer than 500 words), written with no planning, in a single sitting, usually with a time limit, and from a prompt of some kind. The idea is to start from the prompt and simply see where the story takes you. It is a great way of getting started in the morning and often takes you to places you didn't expect. Writers gather words, phrases and images to use as prompts, and it occurred to me, as I lurked in the town centre, that 'bugging' is a great way of generating them.

I have gathered about a dozen phrases today, and hope to get some more tonight, and I plan to use my favourite to write a story for the Bugged project. But I will keep all the others, and when the urge to write a flash comes over me, I shall refer back to them, heading out and replenishing the list whenever it runs low. It provides you with material which is inspiring, intriguing, and wonderfully random. And, best of all, coming from others, they start you in places outside of your usual thought processes, always useful for making your writing more interesting and varied.

If you haven't been out and Bugged today, there's still time. For more info on the project, go to www.bugged.org.uk or visit 'Bugged' on Facebook.

Tell me everything...

2010-06-29T22:30:00.000+01:00

Writing study guides is a strange thing. When I teach essay writing skills to students we make the point of telling them to answer the question only. I make the point of telling them that it is not an exercise in 'telling everything you know'. However, when it comes to writing study guides, that's exactly what you have to do.

At the beginning of last year I wrote the York Notes Advanced guide on Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner. There had been almost no critical writing on the book, and there was very little material to go. The result was that I did something that one very rarely gets to do in academia. I just wrote what I thought. I didn't rely on secondary sources. I didn't quote from what people had previously said. I had no giants on whose shoulders I could stand, I just looked at the book, decided on an interpretation, and went for it. It was remarkably liberating. Of course, I had all the close reading skills I had ever learned, all the theoretical standpoints I had brushed up against, and a whole body of comparative literary studies to work from, but you know what I mean. And in that case, it really was about 'telling everything I knew'.

Recently I have been finishing off two smaller guides. One on Stephen King's The Stand, and one on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. The first has been a little like my work on the The Kite Runner. There isn't a lot out there, so I've been able to provide my own interpretations. Of course, with Shakespeare, pretty much everything has been said, so it's more a job of collation than of creation. But still, in both cases, as with The Kite Runner, compiling a study guide, a written account to try and help a student to a rounded understanding, is a really interesting thing to do.

Okay, so, anyone who knows me will know I complain about writing them. They are, after all, work, and who enjoys that? But to immerse yourself in a text to that extent, to try and explain all the aspects of a book or play, to try and find the 'everything' so you can tell it, is a chance that you don't often get. Even when you teach a text, you don't often have the chance - or the time - to explore all the various facets of a text. So, for all that I complain, I do enjoy doing them. I wouldn't keep coming back if I didn't.

Anyway, enough of all this. After I finish off these guides and submit them, I'm going to work on my own novel. A very different proposition, much more creative, but another chance to tell everything I know. Wish me luck.

Hear, there and everywhere

2010-06-23T15:54:00.000+01:00

"No, Will, that's naughty!"
"Oh, dear..."
"No! it's naughty!"
"Oh, dear..."
"William, that's naughty!"
"Oh, dear..."
"Come away from that, William!"
"Eat your doughnut, Willie..."

What was going on? What had William done that was so bad? How had he managed whatever it was when he should have been eating his doughnut?

I have no idea the answers to these questions, the fence was too high to see what was happening, and standing on something to peer over would probably have been at best nosey, at worst ridiculous and intrusive. But it was all good practise for next week. On Thursday next week I have already booked a pub-lunch with a friend, and I plan to head into other public spaces with my ears open and my notebook in my hand. Why? Am I some kind of Peeping Tom? One with a timetable and a work ethic?

Well, in a way, yes. But I have an excuse. Next Thursday, the first of July, an event has been created for writers to work together on a mass project. Jo Bell (poet) and David Calcutt (playwright and novelist) have asked for writers to go out, eavesdrop on the world, and then write a creative response - poem, story, script or flash fiction - to be submitted for an anthology of work. The whole thing comes under the title of 'Bugged' and many, many writers have already signed up for it.

Personally, I always enjoy working to a brief. I like being asked for a piece of work, given a deadline, and aiming to do the best I can to satisfy. So this is perfect for me. I have been writing a lot of Flash this year, so that might be my route, but I won't know until I get home from my day of officially-sanctioned voyeurism. I'll keep you posted.

Why not go to www.bugged.org.uk or visit 'Bugged' on Facebook and join the project?

And the story rolls on...

2010-06-22T10:57:00.000+01:00

After I finished my PhD in 2005 I didn't write any new stories for nearly a year. At that point it had been over six months since I had finished the creative part of the thesis, so it added up to a break of over eighteen months. When I came back to writing fiction it was with a new voice, a new approach and new stories, many of which surprised me.

The thing which surprised me most was how much of myself I was now putting into my stories. Whole chunks of my autobiography would find their way in, often without me noticing. It was at times, disturbing to discover how much of myself I had inadvertently used, but over time I got used to it and learned to control it.

For different reasons it has once again been about eighteen months since I have written a full story. In that time I have finished a novel and written a number of flash fictions, but these are different beasts from a full short story. They're more like keeping an engine ticking over than opening it up full-throttle and taking it for a burn.

And then, over the weekend at a conference, a discussion provoked an idea for a story and I found myself taking notes during sessions, waking up with my mind already word-processing, and even took a time-out to start writing it. This morning I finished writing it and now I'm stepping back to look at what I've done.

My original idea was heavily autobiographical, calling on a range of things that have happened to me in the last year or so. But, having written it, I am slightly surprised to see how much fiction is in there. Yes, there are elements of myself, as their must be in any work of fiction, I feel. But the reality of situations has been twisted further than has happened in a while, all to fit the themes of the story.

I guess any extended break is going to change you as a writer, but it's always interesting, and, to be honest, slightly discomfiting, when it happens. All of this is part of my progression as I writer, I feel. I started with fiction as pure as I could make it, but little emotional engagement. I then engaged with emotion, through autobiography, but perhaps at the expense of story. Maybe I have now found the balance between the two, serving the story but also the reality of emotion too. I can only hope that's the case.

Ahead of me lies the rewriting and editing before submission. And then we'll see if it's good enough by other standards than my own. For myself, I'm pleased with it, not least because it felt so good to be writing again that I know I can use it to motivate my writing over the oncoming summer.

The Call of the Conference

2010-06-21T17:36:00.000+01:00

I spent last weekend in Bangor at this year's Great Writing Conference. It is the 6th year I have attended and it keeps calling me back. For an associate lecturer in particular there is something wonderful about spending such a block of time with Creative Writing colleagues, discussing all the things that interest you.

There was a great variety at this year's conference, from creative work by poets such as J. Matthew Boyleston and story-writers Sam Francis and Philippa Holloway; pedagogical work by Kate North and, well, me; discussions of work in progress from the likes of Andy Thatcher, Brooke Davis and Heather Richardson; and theoretical explanations from Nigel McLoughlin, Simon Holloway and Anthony Caleshu. Everything I saw was interesting and stimulating and has sent me back to my desk with my mind whirling with ideas and plans.

It's a tiring weekend, partly because of the many papers which you cram into your head, swelling your cortex with new information, but also because of late nights and beer-soaked conversations. But it is a wonderful experience that feeds me as a writer, a teacher, a thinker and, at quite a basic level, as a person.

And this year I have come away with two projects which wouldn't have happened without the conference. The first is a short story which has been requested for a journal - about which I shall blog more at a later date - and the second is an idea for an article which was inspired by the conference as a whole. There was a feeling to the conference that the tribe of Creative Writing academics have started to grow tired of forelock-tugging with regard to the English Dept.s that spawned them, and are finally standing up straight and proud. There is something there worthy of investigation, I just need to work out what it is. More on that when I've worked out what it all means. But in the meantime, Say it Loud: I'm a Creative Writer and I'm proud!

The journey changes the destination

2010-06-17T11:03:00.000+01:00

Having blogged last week about starting to write my conference paper, now that I've completed it I thought I would write about the process and the finished thing.

Something I forget until I go through the process, is how an idea can shift and morph under your hands as you bring it into being. Writing for me is always a journey, and I never end up quite where I thought I would be as I set out. It doesn't matter if it is a story, a paper or even a novel, the sheer act of writing changes the content and I discover new aspects and concepts as I travel.

The analogy of a journey is a useful one. When I set out I can see the first few steps of the path in front of me. I can see landmarks on the horizon, and I have a basic map in my hands. As I walk along the trail, the landmarks come closer and appear clearer in my vision. But somehow, up close, they never look quite like they did from a distance. They have more facets, more detailed crenellations and carving on the gargoyles. Eventually I find myself standing alongside them on the ridge, looking onward to the next section of the path, and a new set of landmarks in the distance. The path has taken a subtle turn and the sun is now off to the other side. Looking back, I can see the twists and turns which have pointed me in this new direction but which were hidden when I set off.

As I continue my journey I realise that I am going to end up somewhere different from where I intended; not where I thought I would be, but definitely where I want to be.

This has been the case with this paper. It still explores the things I intended to explore, but the journey has been richer and had more interesting cairns littering the side of the path than I realised it would. The result is something which I am pleased with and which has done a good job of telling me what I think about the subject.

Like many others, I write because I want to know what I think, but don't really know it until I put it down in words. However, in line with Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, in the act of examining what I think, I change it, so the destination I set out for is never the one I reach, not because it's really changed, but because the journey itself has changed me. And that, I guess, is really why I write, because travel broadens the mind.

Art meet life. Life, this is art.

2010-06-08T15:52:00.000+01:00

Today I have started work on my conference paper for this year's Great Writing conference at Bangor. I plan to look at the way in which fiction writing and life-writing cross over and interact.

The paper was inspired by my first experience of teaching Life Writing, which was this year at Edge Hill University. I had previously taught elements of it in Adult Ed writing courses, and done some 'Reminiscence' writing with older people for Stockport Education Authority, but had never taught it at HE level before. It was a steep learning curve, but one I enjoyed immensely.

I discovered that there were a host of problems with teaching life-writing, as it is not something that students normally do once they are past the age of 11 and no longer writing 'What I did on my holidays'-style essays. One is getting them away from exactly that juvenile style of "We went here, then we did this, then we did that, etc." auto-biographic writing. Another is to get them to write about a more interesting topic than just a holiday or a party but to deal with something more emotional, more personal, and more involved. Lastly there is the whole problem of how much they are allowed to bend the truth to fit the art.

Over the course of the year I devised a range of exercises which allowed the students to stretch themselves in all these areas, and many of them rose to the challenge and will feature in my paper. Some of the exercises were invented during my drive to the University to teach the class, and then were later quoted back to me by the students as being incredibly useful.

In my other job, I was also still teaching fiction writing. However, my experience teaching life-writing made me realise that I could use the same exercises to fix a whole different range of problems in fiction writing: lack of realism, lack of emotional involvement, poor dialogue. So I did.

All of which has made for a fascinating year in my teaching career, but also a great topic for a paper. Now, all I have to do is finish writing it.

And all you have to do is decide whether any of the above tale actually happened, or did I make it all up?

In brief.

2010-06-03T14:02:00.000+01:00

Today's task has been to start work on my study guide essays. These are for an online database leased to schools, colleges and universities, and provide students with information about a variety of texts along with sources of further reading.

I've complete a number of these over the years - they're a reliable source of income from writing - from Fight Club to 'The Yellow Wallpaper' and from Candide to Metamorphosis to A Midsummer Night's Dream.

My current essay is The Stand by Stephen King, and my first job is to write the synopsis of the text. The text itself is over 700 pages long and my job is to summarise all its complexities in about 3500 words. No mean feat!

Writing a synopsis is not something I was ever taught to do, it's not a skill we tend to teach at universities even though we are told we will have to write one of our own book when we are looking for a publisher. It is an interesting process which involves trying to find the through-line in a text and pull out all the strands which make it work, in the smallest number of words possible. It is a really useful way to get to grips with the themes in a book, and works wonders on making your writing concise.

Along with simply regurgitating the story, I try to capture something of the tone of the text being synopsised (is that a word...). The synopsis for Fight Club had short punchy sentences. Slaughterhouse 5 was conversational and fractured. Shakespeare is always a little lyrical and I have to avoid the temptation to write in iambic pentameter.

After the synopsis comes the research, but for the moment, it's back to simplifying the post-apocalyptic world of the superflu.

The next essay is Twelfth Night. Variety is life-spicy indeed.

And so it begins...

2010-06-02T11:51:00.000+01:00

With the bank holiday weekend now passed, and the last of the teaching admin sorted for the year, today has been that red-letter day, the writing of the 'To Do' list.

It's quite long and contains a lot of entries which start with the word 'write', its brother 'rewrite', and its cousin 'finish'. As I go through what I want to accomplish over the summer it seems that I have more things to finish off - either by actually writing the remainder of an abandoned work, or by redrafting a first draft - than I actually want to start from scratch. Hopefully, as I work on those older pieces and reconnect with what made me want to start them in the first place, they will inspire other new works.

Among the things to work on are the novel I finished at the beginning of last year but have been unable to work on until now for a variety of reasons. However, in the last weeks, I have found my mind returning to it and starting to work on it without me being conscious of planning to do so.

I also have two plays - one for radio, one for stage - which are only each a quarter finished, but which still run round in my mind from time to time.

Add to this the range of stories, flash fictions and poems which have been written but never sent out and I have more than enough to keep me going.

However, these are not my first priority. I shall be starting with something which is much more like 'work'. I occasionally write study-guides for the EBSCO Literary Contexts database. I have a few of these to write by the end of June, so I shall be starting with these. They will be interspersed with writing my conference paper for the Great Writing conference in Bangor later this month. I'm presenting on my experiences of teaching both life-writing and fiction writing this year and the way the two crossed over, but more on that in a later blog post, I think.

Oh, and the first entry on the 'To Do' list (after the already crossed off 'Write 'to do' list', of course) is 'Write Blog post', so I shall start with the feeling of accomplishment that comes from crossing that one off. Now to start work on all those others.

2010-05-29T11:55:00.000+01:00

Marking has come to an end and the long academic summer (longer even for us 'associates') stretches before me. My plan for these light-eveninged days? To write.

I have plans for essays, papers, stories, plays, poems and a novel. Some of it will be new, some re-writing, some working on part-finished projects abandoned some time ago.

The problem with so much time and so many things to work on is finding the motivation to work. So, here is my blog, a way for me to write about my writing - a wonderful diversionary tactic - but also a good way to force myself to write. If others are following what I'm doing then I will feel the need to keep up the work. So, if you feel like watching over my shoulder and providing a silent (or not so silent) monitoring presence to ensure I'm hard at it, then please feel free follow me.

For those of you wondering about the title of the blog. Well, it's a Frank Zappa quote and the title of one of his albums. But, additionally, I also think that blogging about my writing makes an assumption that you will think it's important enough for me to spout on about it. So, if you can forgive my unmitigated audacity, then why not come on this journey with me.

Come on, the engine's running, the tank is full, and the door is unlocked. Open it up and climb in, let's see where this road leads.