The only time I really get to read the newspaper these days is when I am preparing the fire, scanning each page before I scrumple it up and shove it into the woodburner. Yesterday was such a day and it found me reading the Review section of the previous week's Saturday Telegraph (a newspaper which typically only gets looked at for the big general knowledge crossword on the day it comes out, and then ignored until, as I say, it's getting pushed into the fire).So it was, sitting in front of the woodburner, poised, ready to scrunch, I learned that short stories are "the literary form for our times" and that we can find out how to write them by joining in with the Telegraph's creative writing course, delivered as part of their Short Story Club.I took a look and it seems there's quite a lively forum developing. Definitely worth checking it out... and the competition side of things allows you to submit a story a month.Since Wordwatchers began over ten years ago, we've had a tradition for short stories, running two competitions every year. 2012 sees them going as strongly as ever, as John's blog posting shows. Let's see what the year brings as we start sending some of the new batch out in to this brave new world of short story opportunity.
I'm Done With Fine
I was out in the US last week with work and had the chance to go to a local music bar one evening. We went to Antone's, something of a legend in Austin, where a couple of bands were playing, the second of which was fronted by an old Muddy Waters cohort. We stood there, having paid our $15, listening to some fine blues, drinking our Lone Star lager, watching this virtuoso blues guitarist with a rich gravelly voice deliver note-perfect song after song.
And then my friend, the local who'd suggested the venue, asked me what I thought.
I wrestled with my conscience for a few moments, nodding appreciatively as I sought the right response, and then told him they were actually causing me to question whether I still liked blues as much as I'd always thought, since they were clearly a very good band. He smiled and suggested we go see what was happening at the Continental Club.
My immediate reaction was to think of the $15 we'd already paid to get in, and the half drunk can of Lone Star that was slowly warming in my hand, not to mention the fact it was a 'school night' and going somewhere else meant at least another couple of hours 'investment'.
But we went, and it was great.
The band, fronted by fiddle man, Warren Hood, was in full swing (and Bluegrass) and suddenly I was alive. The style of music was irrelevant; just like at Antone's, these were performers at the top of their game in a small venue, but unlike the sterile set we'd just walked away from, these guys were clearly loving what they were doing - and their personalities shone large on the small stage and made for an infectious evening.
I called out 'thank you' to my friend, for rescuing our mediocre evening, and said, "The other place was fine. But, you know what, I think I'm done with 'fine'."
And if you're wondering why I'm writing this in a Wordwatchers blog, it's because I'm currently on draft 3 of The Stationary Half of Goodbye, and with the words of a few good people lingering in my ears, telling me that draft 2 was fine and that I should be sending it to more agents, I can't help thinking I have a much better answer for them now.
And the winner is...
...Mel!What is so particularly wonderful about this win is that Mel wrote her story about two hours before the deadline of our most recent short story competition. Of course Mel now has absolutely no excuses for not writing as she can clearly knock out 2000 words of brilliant prose in less time than it takes to watch a film.The January meeting was possibly one of our longest ever, but we did manage to cram in a meal (Multiple "Feasts" from the Jade Cottage in Thatcham), the announcement of the winners of the aforementioned short story competition, followed by the critiques and then all the normal stuff - confessions and promises.There was also a lengthy discussion about Wordwatchers itself and what to do with our sudden and unusual position of being inundated by membership requests - we have a plan - of sorts - I think! (Stay tuned all will be revealed once I've got it straight in my head)So once again, congratulations to the now excuse free Mel for winning as well as a big thank-you for hosting the evening. Well done to Julian for once again taking up his bridesmaid position and to Pam for coming third (jointly, as it turns out, with me!)Also, well done to Debbie, our newest member who battled through after a 14 hour day to make it back from Windsor in time for food and the important bits of the meeting. Also, to keep us on our toes, Debbie has also started re-writing her children's book, as per her promise, giving the rest of us the kick up the backside we sometimes need when it comes to actually fulfilling our monthly promises.Finally, with the help of the critiques I've already rewritten my short story in the hope of putting on a good show here: http://www.writersandartists.co.uk/writers/advice/stage2/competitions - it will be submitted once any additional feedback comes through from my fellow Wordwatchers.I foresee that 2012 is going to be a very exciting time for Wordwatchers. I can't wait.
Almost time again...
Well, very unusually for Wordwatchers, our next meeting is on a Thursday. Even more unusually, we're combining the critiques of our most recent short story competition ("Identity") with the announcement of the winner. Normally, we'd hand in the stories, they'd be scored, we'd have a little get together, announce the winners and then, at a later meeting, critique all the stories. Critiquing 'blind' is an interesting process since at this point I only have my suspicions of which of my fellow Wordwatchers has written which story. I thought, with only six of us in the competition that guessing who had written which story would be accomplished with relative ease. However, that has definitely not been the case - I knew I was doomed when I'd convinced myself that I'd definitely got Charlotte's story picked out, before realising that Charlotte wasn't even in the competition!So, I'm really looking forward to Thursday, for lots of reasons: to see my Wordwatchers friends again, to find who wrote what, to find out who won and, most importantly, to find out the rest of the group thought of my story - because it's the critique that makes you see what you didn't want to see - the mistakes, the plot holes, the dodgy grammar, and it's that, which helps hone my skills as a writer...
A busy night but the marvels of technology
Last night (Friday the 16th), I found myself in a pub in London (The Coach and Horses, near Oxford Circus) to watch the launch of a new book...And I really do mean watch - Drew, fellow writer, fellow Ooliter, released Finis, the final book in his mammoth 5 years of writing, 4 part saga set in the fictional Universe of the game Oolite (or Ooniverse as we call it), while in the pub. With his HTC phone acting as a wi-fi hotspot for his laptop he tapped a few keys and Finis went live, in a variety of e-book formats, all over the internet. Brilliant, simply brilliant.To get hold of a copy of Drew's latest novel and to stock up on his back catalogue, visit his site here: http://www.wagar.org.uk/
Time to get voting...
The latest round of WordWatchers short stories are now written, collated, bound and ready for voting on. Results will be revealed sometime in January. Good luck everyone!
The WordWatchers' Short Story competition runs every six months, open to members only, with stories submitted anonymously and judged in classic Eurovision style (vote for everyone but yourself, award most points to your favourite and then continue down to 1 for your least favourite). Top 3 stories get called out.This year we've chosen a theme that's also being run in a national competition so we'll be submitting in time for this one too. Let's see how we get on.
Even more success for Katherine!
It would seem there's no stopping Katherine's rise to literary stardom - as well as making it on to the Sunday Times Top 10 best sellers list, she's also topped this week's Love Reading poll! (http://www.lovereading.co.uk/genre/top/Lovereadings-Top-10.html)From everybody at Wordwatchers Katherine - well done!
Times Bestseller!
Katherine Webb's The Unseen has made it into the Times Top 10 Bestseller list this week...
The Times' Recommended Read of the Week
As mentioned in an earlier posting, Katherine Webb's The Unseen is currently spending a high profile week in WHSmith's outlets around the country as The Times' Recommended Read of the Week. Once again, well done Katherine!
Farewell to Anne McCaffrey
Anne McCaffrey, author of the "Pern" series of books (looks like fantasy, but reads like Sci-Fi) died on Wednesday (23/11/11), aged 85.Fabulous writer, great characters, believable Universe, amazing stories.She will be missed, but her books, at least, will go on forever.
Like Frankenstein's Monster...
...it's alive! The new Wordwatchers site that is.Which of course, if you're reading this, you'll know already.Welcome anyway...
The Unseen - paperback out Nov 24th
From Katherine Webb's Facebook page..."Only two weeks and two days until the paperback release of The Unseen... I had a fantastic lunch to celebrate with some lovely Orion people yesterday, and got the great news that the book will be stocked in pretty much every UK supermarket and major bookstore, and will be The Times/WHSmith book of the week from November 24th... Plenty of time to grab a copy as a Christmas present for somebody, folks!"Fantastic news, Katherine. So excited that The Unseen is about to get its turn in the limelight. Well deserved!
New competition underway - Identity
As you can see from some of the previous entries on this site, every six months or so, we set ourselves a short story competition. It's a great opportunity to try out different writing styles or different genres... or stick with what we already know and hope our voice continues to get stronger for the practice.This time, we've decided to align our competition with a public short story competition being run by the Writers and Artists Yearbook. It's on the theme of Identity, and details can be found here. The public competition's entry date is Valentine's Day next year. We'll be handing ours in at the December meeting, ready for voting by January, so hopefully we'll all be ready in good time for the February date, should we decide to enter.It seems only five minutes since the last batch of stories (misleadingly titled 'light and fluffy') got dragged into existence (at least, that's how most of us seemed to feel by the time we'd made our attempts at what should have been the simplest of styles). And now it's Identity. Interestingly, one piece of advice for would-be entrants to the W&A competition was how refreshing the judges found it when they came across something that made them laugh... or presumably just not plunge them into some angst-ridden patch of purple prose.So, who knows, maybe all that sweating over 'light and fluffy' will pay off after all.
Wordwatchers joins Facebook
Well, it had to happen eventually didn't it? Wordwatchers now has a group page on Facebook. It's currently open to everybody on Facebook (an estimated 700 million individuals) so this may change when we start getting 100s of requests per day (one can hope (or is that fear?)).The members of Wordwatchers who are currently also on Facebook have been dragged in as the initial members, so I don't look like billy-no-mates. Next part of the plan is to drag in the Alumni members (doesn't Alumni sound much nicer than "ex"?) and then other authors I also know on Facebook.After that, who knows, perhaps one big virtual writers love-in!Find us here.
The Legacy goes from strength to strength
WordWatcher's Alumni Katherine Webb is continuing to enjoy international success with The Legacy's latest international release. Taken from Katherine's Facebook page, her September 14th post says:"Just had the most amazing news that The Legacy (aka Das Geheime Vermachtnis) has sold 70,000 copies in its first two weeks of release in Germany! Absolutely fantastic - thank you so much, German readers!"Congratulations Katherine!