If you’ve not come across NaNoWriMo yet, it’s a fabulous mass-writing project that has been running for 13 years and encourages everyone to write 50,000 words of a novel in a month (National Novel Writing Month).

This year I know 3 people who are signed up to it and I’m doing a shadow write.  I have failed in my attempt to get my e-book up by the 1st November(see my confession post here), so I’ve decided to write along with the NaNoWriMo (non-fiction isn’t allowed, nor is any work you’ve already started).

Are you signed up?  If it’s not quite right for you – what else could you commit to for November as a writing project?

Cressida
(Editorial Consultant)

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There has been some controversy this year (as there often is).  The chair of the Judges is Dame Stella Rimington, a thriller writer who gets some help with her own writing.  The question seems to be – are the judges, and therefore the shortlist, too down-market?  The Guardian has set up its own short-list  - the Not The Booker Prize – also being announced today.

Do you find a divide between quality and readability?  If something’s easy to read – does it automatically disqualify from being literary fiction?  I don’t think I agree – Animal Farm is eminently readable – for example – and no-one would claim that that’s not a multi-layered classic.

Let us know.

Cressida
(Editorial Consultant)

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I rashly decided that as e-books are here to stay, and that as publishing your own e-book is supposed to be easy – I’d give it a go.  The idea was that I would be able to give better advice to those authors who decide to go down that route.

I figured I’d write a ‘how-to’ book on throwing children’s parties (I’ve done 16 so far), a topic I know a lot about and I enjoy.  The mistake was – inspired by NaNoWriMo – to declare on my blog that I would get it up there by 1st November.

In the space of the last two weeks, I’ve been hit by all the problems I casually describe and prescribe against for other writers.  I have procrastinated.  I have worried about the whole book before getting so much as a word down.  I have got caught up about the title, again without a single word hitting paper.  Life has got in the way.  My inner critic has got in the way.  My fear of technology has got in the way.

The only useful thing I’ve ever written is to try writing somewhere different.  A coffee shop really has made the difference for me.  I’m up to two paragraphs of the introduction…

Anyway – the purpose of this post is to talk about NaNoWriMo – the challenge to write 60,000 words in a month.  Have you tried it before?  Will you be trying it this year?  Let us know your thoughts.  I’m sure you’ll do better than I am!

Cressida
(Editorial Consultant)

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And it only goes through ten different words so there’s still plenty of time to do some writing today!

Cressida
(Editorial Consultant)

PS to ‘Kern’ is to adjust spacing and characters in a piece of text.

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From the point of view of a publishing house and a bookseller, the clearer you can be about your genre, the better.

Let’s start with the basics  - are you writing fiction or non-fiction?  This is not as stupid a question as you might think. I have read a number of submission letters that start with ‘My novel is all TRUE’, or ‘I’m writing about an important issue but I’ve turned it into fiction’.  Try and draw a line, and decide which side of it you’re writing.

Then – adult or children?  Very very few books are genuinely cross-over titles.  I know Philip Pullman and JK Rowling managed it – but what they actually did was to write children’s books that appealed to adults, rather than attempt a hybrid.

If you’re writing for children, what age are you aiming it at?  The most common mistake I see when reviewing submissions is that the author has aimed a book at ‘children from 3 to 13′.  Very few – if any- books will appeal across that wide an age bracket.  Have a look at your local bookshop and how they divide up books for children, and use that as your blueprint for where your book would sit.

All that seems strikingly easy compared to catergorising adult fiction.  Is your novel chick-lit (or has that had its day – see this Guardian article), crime, romance, historical, literary, mass-market – or something else?  And how can you tell?

By the time you’re seriously writing a book, you should know what sort of book you’re writing.  Think of it less as pigeon-holing, and more as defining the sort of reader you’re looking for.

Remember, you don’t have to restrict yourself to one area of writing.  Jo Nesbo, dark Norwegian crime writer, also writes humorous children’s books.  Louisa May Alcott wrote inspiring children’s fiction, and shocking ’sensation’ novels.   Iain Banks writes literary fiction, while his alter-ego Iain M.Banks writes science fiction.  Just make sure each piece of writing contains its own coherent identity.

What genre are you writing currently?  And how easy is it for you to define your genre?  An inspiring blogger is writing 12 books in 12 different genres over a year – see Ali George’s website.  Why not try a different genre, just as an exercise?

Cressida Downing
(Editorial Consultant)

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This week is Banned Books Week, an annual celebration of the freedom to read and a fantastic opportunity to draw attention to the censorship of literature. Right now in small towns across the US a battle is being fought between the American Library Association and outraged parents over the availability of “offensive” books.  

In the past decade there have been 4,660 attempts made to remove books from schools, libraries and national curriculums, and the list of the ten most challenged books in the last decade includes classics such as The Catcher in the Rye, The Color Purple and To Kill A Mockingbird. Perhaps more surprising is the appearance of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World in the top three most challenged books in 2010.

In the last few months, the censorship of books has been a hot topic, Meghan Cox Gurdon’s recent Wall Street Journal article condemned Young Adult fiction as depraved and corrupting, which in turn sparked the twitter campaign #YAsaves in defence of the YA genre and a deluge of articles in the press debating the censorship of children’s and young adult’s books.

Which leads me to wonder, as a writer do you have a responsibility to your audience? In my opinion, authors do have a responsibility and that is to tell a story honestly. If the story is challenging, it’s the writer’s responsibility to tell it truthfully and inspirationally. Be true to your characters and to the story and a difficult subject will be moving, rousing and responsible.

What responsibilities do you think writers have to their audience? Do you think writers should censor their writing?

For more information on Banned Books Week and the books that have been deemed “offensive” visit: http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/index.cfm

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Among what is certainly the first of many changes to the ailing book chain, he has announced the end of the ‘3 for 2′ offers that tend to clog up the front of most branches.  It turns out that this may be slightly misleading, as they will almost certainly be discounting books in other ways that will probably add up to the same financial outlay for the customer.

What do you think of the 3 for 2 offer? I’ve been known to spend half an hour trying to find my one ‘free’ book, sometimes choosing from what feels like an indifferent selection – but other times discovering an author I wouldn’t have picked up otherwise.

When it comes to the Kindle, the temptation to go for the most popular titles is reinforced by the layout of Amazon’s Kindle Store.  You are led painlessly to the top 100 paid for e-books, and the top 100 free e-books, and of course – every time you chose one of these titles, you help it to stay in the fairly static list.  There’s nothing wrong with a title being popular, unless it crowds out other interesting reading.

What ways do you use to read ‘outside the box’?  Do you resist recommendations?  Do you have a favourite independent bookshop that is bulging with staff dying to tell you about their treasured finds? I use my local shop – Toppings in Ely – to persuade my daughter to read titles that she wouldn’t be interested in coming from me.  Whose suggestions do you like best?

Cressida Downing
(Editorial Consultant)

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A curry dinner at the Gurkha restaurant with authors Viv French and Margaret Elphinstone.  Lots of  prayer flags but no sign of a Joanna Lumley shrine.  We’re on an island 170km north of mainland Scotland and somewhere between the Atlantic and the North Sea.  Along with 40 other writers and artists I’ve been taking part in Shetland’s 10th Wordplay, the UK’s most northerly book festival.  It’s been a brilliant weekend, but a bit exhausting.  “There’ll be instruments later!” cries an Orcadian poet happily, but I never found out what they were because I fell asleep at my hotel at 9.30.  

Earlier … 

Jonathan Meades was staying at my hotel, discussing the merits of Stornaway black pudding with Roger Hutchinson at breakfast.  At another table a grey-faced man who’d just been flown in from his oil-rig with a suspected heart-attack was looking nervous.  Probably best to avoid a black pudding breakfast experience.

Wonderfully inventive results from children taking part in my comic strip workshops.  It meant I missed some of the other events though, including Scotland’s National Poet Liz Lochhead being interviewed, but managed to have a chat with her as she nipped into my workshop room to do her make-up before the interview.  We discussed the pros and cons of putting on one’s make-up in public, and both agreed we didn’t approve of the Queen re-applying her lipstick at dinner.

James Naughtie gave a talk about journalism, stressing the importance of the psychology of politics, with wonderful anecdotes about for instance, Peter Mandelson’s trousers and the height of President Sarkozy’s heels.  

Simon Armitage read from Shooting Stars and other anthologies in his beautiful voice, tapping the rhythm of each poem with his foot, his broad face impassive under the almost-Beatle haircut.  He talked about his version of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and how representatives from Disney had taken him out for a power breakfast in Huddersfield to discuss it. “We see it as a family film,” they’d said.

I didn’t manage to hear Mark Kermode talking about his new book The Good, the Bad and the Multiplex: What’s Wrong with Modern Movies?” because I’d arrived late at the festival the previous friday.  The little twin-engined  plane which was supposed to get me from Edinburgh to Shetland had a bit of a problem and we had to divert to Glasgow and get on another one.  But I got here in the end. And now I don’t want to leave this fantastic place.

www.sallykindberg.co.uk

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I’m not a fan of Writer’s Block. To me it sounds too much like Tennis Elbow, or some sort of obscure medieval punishment for daring to be a scribe. (A writer, eh? To the Block with ye!)

However, I can understand page fright.

Staring at a blank sheet of paper is like standing in the wings of a theatre, characters from your story standing mute and inanimate on the stage. They wait patiently as you shuffle from foot to anxious foot, knowing that any minute you have to go out there and get the show started. Whether the play triumphs or fails is on your shoulders.

Nothing like a bit of pressure!

But we have to get over this fear of beginning otherwise nothing will happen, and our lovely stories will exist only as pleasant daydreams. I tend to flutter around for a while before writing anything – I’ll have lost my glasses, be in desperate need of a cup of coffee, or will rummage around for a mislaid notebook. All my fidgeting has to be out of the way early as once I get into a story I don’t move for hours. But each time I have to push myself to make that first mark on the page, to step out from behind the wings.

I wonder if it feels different when you are a published author with a large expectant audience already waiting. Somehow I don’t think it does, although I am happily willing to test this analogy at any time, of course.

How do you get over page fright?

Blog: http://jayneferst.blogspot.com/
Writer’s block: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writer%27s_block
Overcoming Writer’s Block: http://www.webook.com/911writersblock

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Many successful authors have rejection letters hidden away in the back of a drawer. I like Stephen King’s attitude – he staked his letters to the wall behind his desk, a gesture which is at once both practical and appropriate for his genre. But whatever you do with yours, first smooth them out from the crumpled ball of despair and see if they offer any clues as to why the story was rejected.

The only message to take from a form rejection is that something isn’t working. It could be the way the submission is presented; that the query has been sent to the wrong people; that the writing style needs improving; or that the story itself isn’t suitable. So even though the rejection stings, this is actually a chance to be seized with both hands. Research your chosen destination, check over your work, revise and redraft if needed, and make your next submission super-shiny.

Sometimes a rejection will also include words of advice. This is as rare as a Dodo feather and just as valuable. Pay attention to any suggestions offered – agents and publishers do not run a charity, and they genuinely want you to send them a fantastic story. Any hints therefore should be deeply considered.

Above all, the bottom line is to stay professional. Rant privately as much as you like but never vent frustrations online. Aspiring authors are not the only ones who use Google.

My chosen way to handle rejection begins with a tragic look into the middle distance. This will be followed up by a dejected mooch around the house and the desire for the largest piece of cake I can find. But pretty soon I will square my shoulders, pick up that story, and ponder it afresh.

What rejection advice would you give?

Source paragraph one: Stephen King – On Writing, page 33.

 My blog: http://jayneferst.blogspot.com/
Every writer gets rejected: http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2010/05/every-writer-gets-rejected.html
Thirty famous authors whose work was rejected: http://www.examiner.com/book-in-national/30-famous-authors-whose-works-were-rejected-repeatedly-and-sometimes-rudely-by-publishers

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