Diary of a Writer – October

Being a mum of school-age children, daughter of a widowed mum and daughter-in-law of two, meant that the summer in years past passed in a blur. I used to look forward intensely, immensely to a small conference held in early October in Pitlochry. It was run by various people over the years and the late Hugh Rae used to attract speakers he’d met at Swanwick (a much bigger conference}.

My own room in Scotland’s Hotel was bliss and the first day of the first year I attended, the time between 4pm and 6pm stretched almost to infinity. As anyone with children knows, their blood sugar levels as tea-time approaches lead to all sorts…

Alas, that event is no more, but I still have an internal clock that gears up to chime in late September/early October.

The reason for posting October while September is still with us is to publicise the wonderful EDINBURGH WRITERS’CLUB, which has its opening meeting on Monday 23rd September and of which I have the honour to be a Life Member. So, October first would be too late! The approach of the first club meeting is a wonderful stimulus.

The opening night speaker is Caroline Dunford, novelist. Caroline is currently chair of The Society of Authors in Scotland.

Meetings are held in the Grosvenor Hilton Hotel in Grosvenor Street at 7.30 pm. Come along around 7 on the opening night to join or pay the guest night fee and try it out.

The website is here Edinburgh Writers’ Club

In addition, being a member of the EWC entitles a person to enter their internal competitions which is useful if you’re trying to discover what genre suits you. It also entitles you to enter the competitions run by the Scottish Association of Writers. Some of their competitions, associated with the weekend school in March, are now open.

Scottish Association of Writers

So, I’ll be back soon with September’s Round Robin, but in the meantime Keep Writing (or Start, make this the year)

Anne

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Diary of a Writer – April – Helping Others

ADJUDICATION WOMAN’S SHORT STORY – SCOTTISH ASSOCIATION OF WRITERS

Margaret McConnell Trophy

This post looks back to what I did in February and early March. Looking at the file this morning, I see I wrote over 13,000 words between the adjudication overview, below, and the individual critiques. It took a wee while. In addition, I evolved a workshop which was attended by 15 writers on the Sunday morning of the Fiftieth Anniversary Conference.

I hope you’ll find the general comments of interest, readers and writers.

Adjudication delivered on Saturday 23rd March 2019

It has been a great pleasure to read the 47 entries in the category, Woman’s Short Story.

I was entertained by a wide variety of subject matter. There were single ladies in search of love. There were ladies fleeing from broken relationships. There were a few children causing heartache and occasionally mayhem. Of interest to me was the high number of entries with a touch of the supernatural. There were stories reflecting the electronic nature of our lives – be that the internet or the mobile phone. There was loyalty.

Looking For:

What was I looking for? Entertainment, emotional sincerity, strong characterisation, careful plotting, historical accuracy where relevant and impeccable editing.

What did I Find?

Overall the MSS submitted were short stories. However, there were two I thought would work better as articles and one as a sketch. There were another couple I thought were either literary type stories or more suitable for a general market such as The Weekly News or perhaps competitions run by the writing magazines.

The standard at the top of the competition was high and I think it might be helpful to indicate some general issues I encountered. Matters that might help you move out of the bulk and onto the shortlist in another competition.

Dialogue:

Please read in your market. Studying any woman’s magazine will demonstrate that the short stories are dialogue heavy. Properly used, dialogue enables the writer to dramatize scenes, to show characterisation, to get the thoughts of characters other than the ViewPoint character onto the page and to move the action along. Improperly used, dialogue might have two characters telling each other things they already know – in the story world of which they are a part – in order to tell the reader those facts.

The entries included several with excellent dialogue but also some with poor dialogue and some with virtually none.

Scene-setting:

The word count for this competition was 1,000 – 2,000. Therefore, it might be a mistake to use 500 words to set up your story. You the writer need to know what has brought the VP character to this point in time when the action starts, the reader doesn’t. It’s an enormous temptation to set out the VP character’s problem and then write a 2-page flashback explaining how the problem came about. Please resist that temptation and feed the information into your story, bleed it in as the action progresses.

To a lesser extent, but nonetheless important, were two other issues. In a short piece, it can be a mistake to split the VP. In a novel or novella you have more leeway to tell the story from opposing points of view. In a short story, the reader likes to know early on who they’re rooting for. Finally, the computer is our friend, but we need to use it with care. Have you altered a sentence? Did you check the surrounding ones to see whether their content is affected by that change? I encountered a few misplaced articles and verbs of the wrong tense. There were also a few stories where the layout was in need of attention. Again, check printed work.

The overall Winner was Linda Brown of Ayr Writers. Linda is an unpublished writer at present, but I cannot think that will be the case for very long.

The Scottish Association of Writers is an umbrella organisation for writing groups thorughout Scotland and their website is here.

Have you enjoyed any competition success recently? Drop by and tell us about it, please.

Anne

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR – Diary of a Writer

Charles Street

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having just returned from a delightful walk in the grounds of Dalkeith Palace, I was thinking about my Bella. Her story opens in an inn situated on Dalkeith’s High Street. Within hours, she’s travelling along Charles Street to her aunt’s house in the then fashionable George Square.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While Edinburgh remains the city of my heart, I do have some news I’m holding tight about another one. You’ll have to check back to find out what it is, but then that’s what writers do, isn’t it? Tease a little.

Other things coming up in January include the adjudication of the Scottish Association of Writers’ Women’s Short Story competition. I’ll be delivering my decision at their annual conference, the 50th, in March, but the hard work starts this month.

Together with Kate Blackadder, Jane Riddell and Jennifer Young, I produced Capital Writers’ Christmas Stories. Four short stories on the themes we might associate with Christmas.

To complete a trio of great books for your kindle, Capital Writer, Jennifer Young is offering Blank Space at 99p for a limited time.

CAPITAL CHRISTMAS STORIES

BELLA’S BETROTHAL

BLANK SPACE

i look forward to bringing you up-to-date on my exciting, if embargoed news, really soon. Happy New Year, lovely readers, ANNE

2018 Weekend Conference Scottish Association of Writers

SCOTTISH ASSOCIATION of WRITERS (SAW) is an umbrella organisation for writing groups, clubs, workshops throughout Scotland and has many such affiliated.

Edinburgh Writers’ Club, celebrating its 70th Anniversary this year, is a founding member club. So, I’m a member of both.

SAW has recently published the Schedule for its 2018 conference, again to held in the centrally situated, Westerwood Hotel, and you can view or download it here.

SIMON BRETT is the keynote speaker and the weekend features adjudications by experienced professionals like Shirley Blair, fiction editor of People’s Friend.

Hope to see you there, ANNE

Diary of a Writer – Writing Prompt January – the Door to the Year

The Door of the Year

The Door to the Year is Georgian and I found it while walking around Dublin’s beautiful Georgian streets. As many readers know, I focus my own Regency and early nineteenth century fiction in Edinburgh and London. On the other hand who wouldn’t wonder what’s behind this lovely door and its equally tempting neighbour?

Early January is the time for handing in entries to the Scottish Association of Writers annual conference competitions. I have at least a short story – can’t give any clues what that’s about – and you may be going along and have entries, too. Headline speaker is Helen Lederer and you’ll find the Conference Schedule by typing September into the search box. Day delegates are welcome. The Westerwood Hotel and Sports complex is welcoming, comfortable and easily accessible from the train to Croy or by car.

Occasionally competitions excite my creative imagination, but more and more, they’ve become a distraction from the main work. Of course, as with the People’s Friend serial writing competition, sometimes the distraction pays off. Shortlisted and published, together with two subsequent short story sales, it was a profitable distraction.

So, what is The Door to the Year opening up for your writing.? Will you share a few hopes with us?

Diary of a Writer – Start in Time

Wise Owl

Start in Time

Time management has never been one of my stronger character traits. I greedily gather in brochures and leaflets. I note deadlines for Edinburgh Writers’ Club, founded 1947, competitions and for comps or challenges being run by other organisations I belong to and they approach steadily. They approach so steadily that I often reel with astonishment to see a closing date is now tomorrow.

Why is this? I do know, and in fact live with, people who are capable of starting in time. whether it be planning a holiday, whittling down the purchase of Christmas presents or writing a paper, they do it bit by carefully timetabled bit.

I have tried it and while it was great last year when I knew I needed to lose some weight and achieved my goal with three weeks in hand, it sometimes leads to duplication of effort. I cannot ever believe that I can leave the house for three weeks unless I’m in a lather of organisation and waist deep in lists, lists, lists. So I start re-checking. Yes, I did cancel the milk and the paper delivery. Yes, I have emptied the fridge. Yes, I did ask someone to water the house plants.

It unnerves me more than a little and perversely I head off sure that I’ve forgotten something.

But in some walks of life, I am getting better. For example, today I’ll be decorating large boxes for the local church’s Gift Services. Every year, I collect 7 or 8, strengthen them with parcel tape and cover them with Christmas wrap. This year I have all the boxes, I have the parcel tape and the wrap. Ready to go without having to stop and buy extra – provided no one has ‘borrowed’ my stanley knife. There’s no doubt it makes the job feel less stressful.

If you would like to donate a new and unwrapped Christmas Gift to someone who might otherwise receive nothing, check out The Salvation Army’s local appeals here.

Writing the next novel..

Well, it’s on the stocks and I have two lovely central characters, a setting and I’ve made enquiries of an editor. What’s holding me back? Thinking I might enter those competitions. Is it maybe over-programming rather than lack of planning that gets in my way?

Naw! I don’t really do time-management. How about you?

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Read my Books

KATE BLACKADDER The Family At Farrshore Ulverscroft Linford Romance Library

Kate B at Penrith

Kate Blackadder, Edinburgh based author of Family at Farrshore, is a well known writer of short stories and her name will be familiar to many readers of large circulation mags such as People’s Friend and Woman’s Weekly. In 2011 Kate’s first serial for People’s Friend, The Family At Farrshore was published in seven weekly instalments. It has now been produced by large print label Ulverscroft in their Linford Romance Library and is available from April the first.

Kate and I are both members of the Edinburgh Writers’ Club.Together with a third member, Jane Riddell, we have our first novels coming out this Spring. Novels Now may refer to this as the Edinburgh Three, but only while editorial sense is switched off. An interview with Jane, author of Waters’ Edge will appear later this month.

I took the chance to ask Kate Blackadder a few questions about this exciting future for Family At Farrshore. I’m sharing her answers here.

You’re a well established short story writer, Kate, with People’s Friend and Woman’s Weekly among others. How challenging was it to write so many more words about your characters?

It was certainly a learning curve. The serial came about because I won The People’s Friend First Instalment of a Serial competition at the Scottish Association of Writers Annual Conference. But that’s all I had written – the first instalment. So when The People’s Friend asked me to write a scene-by-scene synopsis before they gave me the go-ahead, it was like walking into a roomful of people I’d barely met. But in writing that synopsis (which took me weeks …) I got to know them all very well, especially the five characters who had viewpoints. Each of their stories had to be interwoven and I ended up with seven instalments rather than the six I thought I’d have.

I know you read widely. How does the magazine serial differ from a ‘normal’ novel?

In a People’s Friend serial each weekly instalment of around 5000 words is divided into ‘chapters’ with headings.

This is how it looks in the large-print edition too. And of course the end of every instalment has a cliff-hanger!

The writing process though, in my experience, was certainly different from ‘normal’ writing because I submitted each instalment to The People’s Friend and waited for their comments before proceeding with the next one. This meant that I couldn’t go back and change anything I’d written earlier – which might sound an impossible way to work but, in fact, it was great and I really enjoyed it.  The People’s Friend staff were very supportive and encouraging.

Are you working on anything at present?

I’m very good at starting things … so, yes – a pocket-novel-length story, a longer novel which will involve lots of research, and short stories.

How about a short extract to tempt readers along to their local library?

Kate’s First book

This is how The Family at Farrshore begins:

“Cathryn’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. She could hardly see through the windscreen although the wipers were working overtime.

It had been fine in Lancaster when she left just after lunch, anxious to put the miles between herself and Daniel, but the weather had got steadily worse and the road more narrow. She’d hoped to get to Farrshore by six but the dashboard clock told her it was almost eight when all of a sudden a figure loomed up at the side of the road, an arm held out.

At home she wouldn’t dream of stopping for a stranger, and the May evening was still light, but she couldn’t leave someone standing in all this rain. It might be hours before another car passed.

As she came nearer she could see that it was a man, tall and fair-haired. He bent down and wiped the window with his hand and smiled. Just for a moment she was reminded of Daniel and her heart jumped.

She pressed the button to open the window a fraction and leaned over to hear him.”

Well…

Actually, I know what happens next, but for those of you who don’t, I highly recommend The Family At Farrshore and local libraries.

Thanks for dropping in, Kate, Novels Now wishes you every success with your first book and all those projects.

Kate is Membership secretary of Edinburgh Writers’ club. edinburghwritersclub/