V for Victory and other words

Caitlin Moran's fabulously funny book How to be a Woman, has gone in at Number 8 on the NYT Bestsellers list: Hurrah! Not only that, but she also said the word Vagina on the Today Show. She is just The Cool! (I once got the word "Boobs" printed in The Sunday Times. Seriously there is a thrill to such things...)

 HTBAW is a must read for anyone who a) has a vagina about their person, and b) has a pulse. Moran writes in a way that makes me deeply jealous, expressing sentiments in words that make me blush and swoon at the same time.

For anyone who doesn't know of Caitlin Moran, then there is an article on her and the book here.

And look at that, she got me to write the V word twice. In public! It is obviously catching...

Name That Book...

 So it is Friday, and I thought a quick quiz would be easy on the tired.

 Here you see a front cover of a popular book. It is in fact a UK First Edition, and the cover has always struck me as odd.

 As I am a doofus with the computer, I obviously couldn't do anything tricksy with pixels and stuff, hence the white shape on the front that is obscuring the title and author. I made it with real paper. Nothing virtual at all. Shush now, that makes me crafty and creative, not a Luddite...

So can you guess the book? (Here is where if lots of people have seen the book, in this version, the quiz could be very short. But I’ve never seen it in this guise before. Not even on Amazon, so don’t bother looking.*goes to double check*)

 You can scroll down for the answer.

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No, lower than that. Someone might be looking at this on a mahoosive Mac.

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 No, still lower *eyerolls at the impatience*

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Bit more...

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There we go. Did you guess? Am I the only one that finds this cover strange, given how used we are to the black & red cover now?

(And what is Bella wearing?! She's supposed to be in school. I'm not even going to mention the weird shape of her shoulders...)

Disruption to the usual service.

I am facing a spell without the computer, so posts may be a little sporadic for a few weeks. It will also mean that I won't be able to keep onto my 750words habit, but thankfully I'm able to schedule time off there. And given that it is now the summer hols (Hurrah!!!), I think I could do with a little mental break.

 That said, I do like to keep my hand in and my brain ticking over slightly, and thanks to my Lovely Critique Partner, this book, 642 Things To Write About, is how I’ll be doing that.  See, yet again thank goodness for old fashioned pen and paper, as I can still write when offline. I can write anytime, anyplace, anywhere. Martini, anyone?

This lovely book, by The San Francisco Writer's Grotto, has literally 642 prompts to write about. For example;

You realise you have inadvertently become a stalker...

On becoming a tycoon...

A beginner’s guide to getting noticed

Death is like this...

A conversation you regret never having

What can happen in a second.

See? Loads of things to write to keep the juices flowing, and all prompted so my offline brain doesn't even have to come up with them. Bring on the Pimms and a pen...

Strange happenings & writerly guilt.

Can I draw your attention to the top left-hand corner of this photograph, taken this morning. It shows a phenomenon that has been happening here for the last two days. I have looked it up on Wiki, and by all definitions it is apparently referred to in scientific circles, as Blue Sky. Not unlike the Northern Lights in other regions, here in the UK this spectacle is very rare. In fact, records  show that Blue Sky, of this cloudless variety, has not been sighted or reported since Easter.

Now I understand that in some parts of the world, this is as common as a common thing, but for we on this constantly rained-on isle, Clear Blue Sky, is now something we take pictures of, to show our grandchildren. We are used to 100 shades of grey and 50 types of wet.

So suddenly we are all wearing our favourite summer clothes, mainly through paranoia that the moment will be fleeting. We are standing in direct sunlight in order to get our hit of Vitamin D for the year, and hopefully not look so very very pasty. Fair is fine, but pasty- that washed out, drained and sallow complexion – no.  Pasty is not a good look on anyone. I do believe that is an established fact underwritten by Vogue. 

The only downside is that Clear Blue Sky is not conducive to sitting indoors, in front of the computer, writing. Hence I’ve decided the only answer is to ditch the keyboard and divert to some plotting and planning, which I can legitimately do under that there Blue Sky.  I will not feel guilty, I will not feel guilty. I will not...

Free Book Friday!

OK , don't get too excited. This is not a regular event I am establishing. It just sounded good.

I blogged  4 posts ago about Flash Fiction, and I mentioned Helena Mallett and her ebook 75 x 75 = Flash Fraction.

For today and tomorrow (20th and 21st July) it is available  FOR FREE on Amazon.

Download and enjoy!

Gone Girl By Gillian Flynn

Amy disappears on her 5th wedding anniversary. The signs of a struggle mean that the police are immediately on the case and soon their attention falls on husband Nick. So far, so every crime series on TV. However, in Gone Girl, the viewpoint is primarily Nick's, who of course protests his innocence, and we follow his increasing dismay and panic as the evidence continues to pile up against him.

This book had my stomach in knots. Not only is it a gripping thriller, but it is also a chilling portrait of a deteriorating relationship.  Not that I don't find decaying marriages deeply depressing (Blue Valentine anyone?) but Gone Girl was engrossing. And my God does it bite you on the bum. This is not so much the Seven-year Itch, but the Seven-year Ire.

And to top it all it’s also a very good looking book, or at least my copy was; hardback, black matt cover, with yellow text and black page edges. It just looked The Business; A proper book that can aesthetically compete with all the e-readers on the train...

This is a novel you could pass onto your partner as soon as you have finished reading it, and I think many a marriage/partnership could be the better for it – if nothing less from the fear...

*Cue fanfare* My Summer TBR List

Yay, Yay, Hurray! It is almost the school holidays and frankly, Roll On Friday, as I am sick of making packed lunches now. Six weeks without feels like a lottery prize and so it is with much excitement (because clearly my excitement is easily won) that I am unveiling my Summer Reading Pile.

 It is a mixed bag, there are some Classics that I've never got around to reading (yes, of course I am ashamed); there is an ARC courtesy of my next-door neighbour who is a Super-editor’s mother-in-law; there are some new books that are the latest instalments in series that I enjoy; there are books that I have been meaning to pick up for ages, but have never quite made it into my hand when there was a vacancy; a couple of epistolary stories and finally some non-fiction too. (Actually, I think it might be fictionalised non-fiction in the case of Roman Woman, but I am a sucker for Social History, so I'm not going to quibble.) Some of it might even be classable as Research - at least that will be the story I will stick to as I sit, book in one hand, glass of wine in the other, ignoring the spawn, starting next week.

What's on your list for the summer?

FREE book of priceless knowledge

Ooooh Golly, two posts in one day, but this one is time sensitive, so needs must...

The amazing Nicola Morgan is about to publish a new ebook Dear Agent. A How To.. guide to querying agents, to sit alongside her brilliant Write a Great Synopsis book. She is giving away a few copies. Now obviously I don't want the competition as I'd like to get one of them, so perhaps you can just visit the site and buy a copy when it comes out on the 10th of August? No? Well, it was worth a try. The link is over there to the right...

From Flash to Explosive Fiction

Aside from writing longer stories, I like to write Flash Fiction. Mine weighs in at 650 words as a rule, which I know is long by some standards, but still under the 1000 word mark, so I am claiming it. I love the puzzle of it, the discipline, the identification and merciless gutting of superfluous sentences to achieve the prized word count.

And what started as an exercise for revising drafts, has now become a self-improvement programme for dropping the preciousness. Being űber-precious about the words is not helpful. I know we have lovingly handcrafted the words, laboured over them and given birth to them, but sometimes they are just the cuckoo in the nest. Much as it hurts, they’ve gotta go.

Admittedly, I am weak and can't kill them off completely, so I stash those words, -or in some hideous cases scenes and plotlines- in an Outtakes folder. No, let’s not call it cyber-hoarding, let’s just say it is pre-recycling, and recycling is Green, which makes it Good.

Being comfortable with my 650 words, I was intrigued to come across Helena Mallett’s ebook 75x75 = Flash Fraction, where she writes a wide range of stories in just 75 words. Well that impressed me.  Co-incidence was obviously on a roll, as then I found Helen MacKinven’s paragraph fiction on ParagraphPlanet, again with a 75 word limit. There's loads of people at it, these 75 words!

But trumping it all was a post on Carol Lovekin’s site about stories told in just 6 words. 6!  Which blew my mind. She uses an Ernest Hemingway example and it immediately sets your head spinning to have a go. The only one I have come up with is rude, and blatant plagiarism on a 6 word story in itself, "Veni, Vidi, Vici" - or does that count as three words, in which case my head will officially explode...

Blume-ing Marvellous

It was with a great amount of pleasure that I read an article this morning and found that Judy Blume's Forever is being reissued as an e-book (Simon & Schuster).  Like her earlier book, Are You There God? It's Me,  Margaret  this book was for many girls of my generation, a revelation and an education.

The article mentioned the fact that that Blume wrote the story after a request from her daughter for a book where nice teens can have sex and don't have to die as a result. Yes yes yes!  Books like this are vital. I honestly believe that. Just as I honestly believe that had it not been for Forever, I might just have freaked out when encountering a boy’s bits at close range for the first time. Instead, I was able to stay calm.  Not that I come from a prudish home, or didn't have those lessons at school, but despite being a curious girl, I wasn't one to ask about sex stuff, and I hated those lessons. To be able to gain the information, in a form that was designed for me, that I could come to at my own pace, was a God-send. I seem to remember the only other choice at the time was Jilly Cooper’s  Riders, and I am just not the horsey type...

 And yes, Forever  was doing the clandestine rounds in the classroom, with the relevant scenes earmarked and sniggered over, but the fact remained, that once read, we came away with more clues regarding what all that mysterious stuff was about, and without feeling guilty or scared about it. And for that, my generation of girls, (and probably as a result, my children) have the amazing Judy Blume to thank.

 

Critical friends

One of the best things I’ve done while being a writer is find my Lovely Critique Partner.

We swap and critique 50 pages at a time (or whole stories when the occasion arises) and her thoughts and advice on my writing have been worth their weight in gold. We read similar books, and write mostly in the same genre.  She understands when I am frustrated with the words, she understands my need to eat rejection-chocolates. She gives a stirring pep-talk and doesn't flinch from kicking butt when I am being pitiful. I value her judgment over anyone else’s who sees my work, and yet, funnily, if I passed her in the street I wouldn’t know her from Eve.

We met via a critique partner hook-up on Maggie Stiefvater’s website, where I’d posted an ad, and she responded. It’s now been over a year and LCP and I email regularly, not just about the writing but about general life too – so not just a critique partner, but a friend too.

So I wanted to flag up that there is another such Critique Partner Hook-up going on at the moment, but this time over on Miss Snark’s First Victim. If you don’t have a critique partner already, I can’t recommend them enough. Take a punt, post an ad and see who turns up. You can always walk away or alternatively you could walk on with a new friend and someone who supports you and your writing to boot.

What have you got to lose?  

Every day is a schoolday.

The other day I Googled myself. For the record, I do not do this often. I just don’t think it is a healthy thing to do. However I wanted to see if this site had registered in the Ether anywhere. And it had! Just. Hurrah. And then in the search results I spotted something else that tickled me.

 Several years ago I took a course in Writing for Children. One of the assignments was children’s poetry and I wrote a little ditty called Colourful. The course then required that we send some samples off to poetry anthology editors (I’m sure they were delighted! I suspect the course was trying to thicken our skins.) 

 A week or so later, on a Friday night, I picked up the phone to none other than the lovely Benjamin Zephaniah, who was asking my permission to post Colourful on his website. Just to be clear; the Benjamin Zephaniah, calling me on a Friday night. OMG. Obviously I answered Yes please.  (I might even have gushed a bit.  Well, it was Friday night -there had been wine in the near area...)

Fast forward then to now and my Googling, and I see a search result with Colourful mentioned on a site that wasn’t Benjamin Zephaniah’s.  Turns out a French journal for Teachers of English, New Standpoints, had made a classroom worksheet which focuses on the poet,Jamaica and family relationships. AND it used my poem. How random is that? I’m teaching French people English! Who knew?!

Isn’t it amazing what you can learn on Google?

Today’s Distraction Tool; Googlewhacks

Catching up with the rest of the planet (again)...

I've been immersed in a juicing Detox for the last 6 days (only 1 day to go, hurrah!! because it sucks.) And El Husband was away for 4 days, so for distraction I finally decided to see what all the fuss was about and read Fifty Shades of Grey. To be honest I knew precious little about the series, other than EVERYBODY is reading them, and that they are about a dominant/submissive relationship. That's it. That is all I knew. No, I don't know where I have been either. Clearly in some kind of children-coma. However, I have now rectified the situation and as EL James would say- and does many many times in the books- Oh my...

From what I could see they are essentially Bella's story had the Cullens not been in town when she moved in Forks. There are many similarities to Twilight in the story and characters, also in various lines and scenes too. The apparent winning formula is the same; Clumsy pretty girl, who perceives herself as average wins heart of tormented Adonis with dangerous secret. In contrast to Twilight though, Fifty Shades is the X-rated version -  not just laced but saturated with extremely detailed sex scenes. E L James either knows her stuff or is a very thorough researcher.  I stormed through all three in the space of three days, which I guess is a review in itself. Makes you wonder though as a writer whether, commercially, the formula is the key? That would make me a little sad if it were true.

I don't just think it'll be the book industry that gets a helpful lift from this series, and given the current economic climate who can begrudge that? Methinks there’s going to be a run on silver eggs at Christmas...