Writers' & Artists' Blog

If you have not met flash fiction before, you are in for a treat. If you have, here is yet another attempt to define it, to pin down this most slippery of beasts. And because I am a writer, I’ll define it like this:

Imagine standing at the open door of a room where all is in darkness, and you can see nothing. Imagine someone flicking on the lights - to the count of one, two - then plunging the room back into darkness. You didn’t have time to take in much, but you know exactly what room this is, now - a bedroom, an operating theatre, a kitchen, a courtroom. Odds are, you also remember a few things about the room - something about the bed, for example - something out of place? Something odd about that operating theatre... what was that on the floor in the corner? The kitchen - who was that peering back at you from the window? The courtroom - was that a small boy crying in the dock? But this is today - we don’t put small boys on trial? Do we?

…

Let me nail the ‘Long-Distance’ bit of the title as I don’t imagine that the ‘Loneliness’ part needs any explanation.    It’s purely a function of time, not miles.

In the time-honoured cliché, I’d always felt a book lay within me, albeit invisibly deeply.  Being made redundant and deciding to go freelance created the space and time in which to contemplate the possibility.  I didn’t set out to write something that might be published.  It was much more that I needed to know that I could do it; ‘it’ being create something from thin air that worked. ‘Worked’ meaning that it had integrity, a sense of purpose and being.

If you’d told me then it would take eighteen years from first contemplation to final realisation, I may well have taken up some other life challenge, perhaps crocheting or self-waxing.

But then again ...

Who, once they’ve written, would ever really want to be without the joy of sculpting a …

Good morning and good Monday writers! Have you been thinking about submitting your work to an agent or publisher recently? If so, does the prospect fill you with fear?

Don’t despair – you’re not alone. It takes a different set of skills to put together a good submission package than to write a book. There are obviously some areas of overlap, but it’s worth putting the time in to learn a few tricks of the trade, as it can make all the difference between your envelope being opened and swiftly returned, and an actual assessment of your writing.

So what do you send? Firstly, check the agent’s submission requirements. There is no point sending what hasn’t been asked for, they will assume you can’t follow instructions which is not a great start to a potential professional relationship.

Most agencies will ask for a similar amount of material, and will include a submission letter, a synopsis, and the first three chapters.

So – submission letter – a simple statement of what …

The journey begins ...

... or, to be more accurate, the next stage of the journey begins.

A publishing contract has been signed and so the first leg, writing the thing, is over.  I now must treat it as though hewn from stone, rather than the waters of creativity.  No more tweaking, time to move on.  It's been with me so long that it might be hard to let go ... but let go I must!

So what are my hopes and fears for ‘Grosse Fugue’?  Should I reveal my innermost thoughts?  Perhaps not yet.  As any author knows, the greatest hunger is for an audience, preferably one as large as possible.  Of course, there's a revenue attraction to that.  But for many, it's just the notion of our work being read by many hearts and minds.

A few may love it, many may loathe it.  A handful might be moved, others offended.  With any luck, no-one will be indifferent, the true mark of failure.  But I hope that some may be …

If you know that spelling isn't your strong point, you are probably familiar with the little red wavy line.  And the right click.  The choice of options, easy peasy - and there you are - a corrected spelling mistake.

The trouble with spell check is that it doesn't know what you mean.  I can always tell when an author's used it, and there are sometimes some hilarious consequences.  The following are adapted slightly to spare the blushes of the writers concerned:

'My main charter is an alkali'.

'She was a really sexy wrench in a flattening dress.'

'I'm selling a Harley used mattress.'

That woman?  She's no shrieking violet!'

As you can see, you can get some beautiful pictures from this mistakes, but they are not what the author intended.  Do you use spell-check?  What do you use to check the spell-check?

Written by Crisis Dowsing..