Given those facts, I didn’t bother to print out a map, just had a quick check on a bus stop and leapt on a bus bound for Farringdon Street.

It gradually dawned on me as I headed in an unfamiliar direction that this wasn’t going well. The bus terminated at Farringdon Street, at which point I remembered the meeting was being held in Farringdon Road… Luckily the two streets are not too far apart, so I stomped up to Farringdon Road, cursing my inability to check details, only to see I was at the wrong end – number 500, when I was after number 60.

So, in very much a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ piece of advice – check small details – in my case it would have saved me from a long walk – in the case of a manuscript submission, it can make the difference between getting read and being rejected.

Best wishes,

Cressida
(editorial consultant)

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If you visit I Write Like you can find out which famous writer your writing most closely resembles. All you need to do is copy and paste a few paragraphs of your writing, hit the ‘analyse’ button, and hey presto! The site does some complicated statistical comparison against a database of famous writers (the site developers know about this sort of stuff) and comes up with a name.

Not entirely happy with Asimov, I tried again with some different prose and ended up with William Gibson.

So successful has ‘I Write Like’ been that the site has even got its own spoof. It’s called I Actually Write Like and offers to tell you “who or what writer, animal or household object you most write like”.

Ok, so here the answer is somewhat less flattering. It came up with “I actually write like… a drunk working through issues”!

Well, it is Monday.

Go on, have a go. I’d really like to know who you (actually) write like. Let me know in the comments below.

Best wishes,
Claire Fogg (Publisher)

I Write Like is now on Twitter

You can follow Claire Fogg on Twitter »

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Something I hadn’t considered until recently is why writers write. But last week I had a series of emails from clients which addressed this very specifically.

One writer wants to get her book out to get a message across. She’s not concerned so much about getting a publishing deal, she’s happy to be self-published, but she wants her specific theory to reach a wider audience.

Another writer is writing to answer the big questions in life, who are we, where have we come from, what happens to us after death.

And my third client really surprised me with his insight into his reasons for writing.  He’d suffered a number of personal tragedies, and was writing to show his family that his spirit was unbowed, that he still believed in a purpose in life, and to reassure them and himself.

So – why do you write?  Tell me about it.

Cressida
(editorial consultant)

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I’m always excited but slightly anxious at the prospect. I love the look of the uncreased cover, the perfect un-thumbed pages and the unbroken spine (I’ve never been one to treat books very well – does that make me a bad book person?). I can’t wait to give it a quick smooth, a quick fan and a quick sniff  before I get out the post-its and spoil another perfect copy with my scribbles and coffee stains.

But what about you – the reader? Do you need a new copy?

It’s a question I’m often asked because I know some people are loathed to buy a new edition every year – and I get that – the Yearbook is designed to help writers make money, not take it from them. But sometimes you have to spend to save, and I can promise that the Yearbook will save you time – lots of it.

So much happens in the publishing industry in the space of a year – companies move, merge or go broke, new trends sweep the market then drop off the radar,  new technologies make an impact, submission policies change, editors move jobs and so on.

I spend my year gathering up-to-date industry information and putting it all in one convenient, red-jacketed place, so that you, the writer, can go direct to the right place and the right person at (hopefully) the right time.

What else? Well the Yearbook is second to none when it comes to editorial content. This year I’ve made space for lots of new articles.

We have a brilliant foreword by John Boyne, author of bestseller The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks about her experiences of writing short stories and her book The Thing Around Your Neck. Kathy Lette reveals the serious business of being a comic writer and Simon Trewin, literary agent at United Agents, offers invaluable advice to the unpublished author.

You can also read how Alexandra Pringle, editor-in-chief for Bloomsbury, spots a bestseller; journalist and author Nicholas Clee discusses the state of book commissioning in today’s publishing climate and expert coach and trainer Alison Straw gives her pointers for coping with the rejection – handy for manuscripts and life in general.

So buy cheap, buy twice? Not so with the Yearbook. It’s worth every penny.

Warm wishes, Jo

Click here to buy the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook »

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After months of  hard work – updating all those 5,000 or so listings, adding new ones, updating articles and making room for more – the buzz of having finished what I started has been short lived.

This is the pattern – I’ll rush to the finish line and then find it’s followed by a strange feeling of deflation. I imagine authors must feel similar when their books are completed? All that time and energy and then it’s done, the pressure is off. It’s the calm after the storm, but what happens during the calm?

I tell you what I do – I  usually get a dose of coughs and sneezes, a few days of feeling grumpy, and then I start over. I tend to feel as if this is too daunting to contemplate. But, just like the buzz of completing the last job, those feelings are short lived and I’ll return to the case, my enthusiasm flows and I’m back on track.

So deep breaths, onwards and upwards, battle on, grit those teeth and psyche up.

Warm wishes, Jo

Click to order your new edition of the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook »

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When I first started writing I used to think that there was nothing in the world quite as intimidating as a blank sheet of paper. A thought I was reminded of only a few days ago when staring at one myself, waiting for the inspiration to begin my new novel, the next in the series after The Pindar Diamond.

There is something about it that always seems – well, so improbable somehow.

It always feels as though there’s something else I should be doing. Some sort of preparation: reading, researching, dancing round a maypole, perhaps? It’s the reason that writers’ houses are always supposed to be so terribly clean. We are forever putting off the evil moment.

It’s hard beginning any book, but novels are particularly difficult. Before you start it, a novel is something that does not yet exist. It is – what? A thought. A feeling. A castle in the air. In my own case, a ghostly presence (the character of John Carew) who has been stalking me for the last 15 years, damn him, wanting his moment in the sun.

Here are a few strategies that I’ve tried over the years. If beginning at the very beginning seems too daunting, I try writing small fragments (a description of a character or a place, or a piece of dialogue) which might end up at any point in the novel.

On Monday I started by writing a scene that I’ve had in my head for many months now. It’s rural England, 1606. Sometime towards a winter nightfall. A man in ragged clothes is making his way down an ancient drover’s path. Who is he? Where has he come from? Where’s he heading?

At first, it’s all horribly creaky, but I spend all Monday and Tuesday fleshing out a description of the man and the drover’s path (it helps that I have a real location in mind), and by Wednesday, suddenly, things are beginning to happen.

Everything I’ve been doing this week begins to feed into that one scene. I think of the photographic portraits I went to see at a friend’s exhibition on Bankside (Tessa Traeger: Voices of the Vivrais) and somehow they insinuate their way into my description of the man – who then mysteriously becomes two men.

My mystery man now has a companion, some sort of… well, he looks like a vagabond, or a country type that used to be called a ‘moocher’. Who is he? What’s he doing there? And where is he going?

(Want to know more? I will be writing a detailed, almost daily description of the process of writing this new novel in my blog.)

So: how do you begin a new novel?

Firstly, don’t wait for inspiration. Inspiration comes during the actual process of writing, not while you’re waiting to begin.

Instead: put a date in your diary. Sit down. Start writing.

Katie Hickman will be talking at the Writers’ & Artists’ How to Get Published conference on Saturday 19 June. Read the full programme and book your ticket now »

For more on Katie Hickman see her Bloomsbury Publishing page and her official website.

Read her blog now »

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I love whimsical stories about the role of books and writers on the greater events of history.  Contributions anyone?

All best, Alison

Alison Baverstock is the author of Marketing your book, an author’s guide (A&C Black) and is course leader of the MA Publishing at Kingston University.

She is speaking at the Writers’ & Artists’ Insider Guide to How to Get Published conference on Saturday 19 June. Click here for booking information »

Her latest book, How to Get a Job in a Museum or Art Gallery (A&C Black), is out now.

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Venture inside the writing process, says guest blogger Laura Jane Cassidy:

Often when authors are asked to give their number one tip to aspiring writers, they reply with ‘Read, read, read’.

I know that reading is important, but I think rewriting is even more so.

When you read a book you are looking at the finished product, and in most cases it’s the result of a lot of rewriting. I watch an insane amount of movies, but that doesn’t mean I’d be any good at making one.

Just like a budding filmmaker has to get off her couch and out with a video camera, as an aspiring writer you have to venture right inside the writing process. You have to try things out, move chapters, delete paragraphs, add plotlines, scrap characters, change sentences and change them back again.

I wrote three drafts of my first novel Angel Kiss before I sent it out to agents, and I found rewriting tough. But it was an exhilarating kind of exhaustion and when I saw my book improving with each draft, I knew it was worth it.

During the rewriting process I asked a few people I trusted to read my book. I considered their opinions, listened to the advice of published writers, went with my gut instinct and didn’t stop rewriting until I knew my book was the best it could be.

When I got a publishing deal there was even more rewriting to be done.

Since signing with Puffin last November I’ve been steadily working with my editor, making changes to my book. People often ask if I mind changing things. Initially it was difficult, seeing all that red pen on my manuscript was a little disheartening. But now I absolutely love the editing process. Every piece of advice my editor gives helps to evolve Angel Kiss into something I’m really proud of.

These days it’s very easy and very tempting to diverge from the traditional publishing path, and thus risk bypassing the editing process. I naively thought that an editor’s job was just to check things like grammar and continuity, but since signing with Puffin I’ve realised the extent of the invaluable direction an editor gives.

Just like a rising actor can’t excel without a good director, I believe that an emerging writer needs the guidance of an editor. They are the Tim Burton to your Johnny Depp, and they are definitely worth holding out for.

So what’s my number one tip? ‘Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite.’

Best wishes,
Laura Jane

Laura Jane Cassidy writes supernatural crime for teens and her first novel Angel Kiss will be published by Puffin in summer 2011. She blogs about writing, reading and other stuff at First Three Chapters.

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This is the last in our series of guest posts from Thomas E. Kennedy about the 4 questions a writer must answer for him – or herself. Once you know the answers to them, in your heart, you know what you are about.

“In his wonderful book On Writing, Henry Miller said that if you don’t listen when the Muse sings, you get excommunicated. He claimed that when they sang his racy tropics to him, he begged to be let off the hook; please, they’ll kill me! But – fortunately for us – he listened and he wrote.

“The fastest way to a writer’s block is to be super-critical of the words that are offered to you from the place – be it mind, soul, body – that words are offered  up from.

“As a writer, in my experience, you have an impulse to write something, but you don’t know what  you are going to write until you have written it. To berate and reject the words that are rising up in you, crying out to be told is to insult that within you which is most important to you as a writer – the place where the spirit becomes word and takes form.

“There is time enough afterwards to pinch and poke them into shape, to discipline and revise them – but first allow them to take form.  Allow your stories or poems to tell themselves before you begin to go at them with the editorial knife.”

Thomas E. Kennedy is the author of eight novels, as well as several collections of short stories and essays. He teaches creative writing at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

In the Company of Angels, published by Bloomsbury in June 2010, is one of four novels comprising the Copenhagen Quartet. It is the first of Kennedy’s books to be published in the UK.

Read Thomas E. Kennedy’s other guest posts:

1. When do you become a writer?

2. Must you write?

3. What is the greatest reward of writing?

Click to visit the official website of Thomas E. Kennedy

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It’s our last event before the summer and also the perhaps the one I’m most excited about because of how much my own writing life has benefited from attending similar experiences in the past.

The summer can be a fortuitous time to focus on your writing if you are able to plan ahead. Writers’ retreats and conferences the world over take advantage of the slower pace in most offices to offer workshops, residences, and other opportunities for writers to gather and work on their craft.

We’ve talked about the importance of working on your writing alone – the discipline of showing up regularly to get out the words – and also the value of writing in groups where people can give and receive feedback. This post covers the benefits or participating in a conference, masterclass, or other intensive training, led by an experienced facilitator. While some of these are expensive or quite a distance to travel, investigating what might be offered can be a worthwhile investment.

The first time I went to a summer residency, it was a week-long course that met mostly in the mornings and focused on generating new material. I was getting married three months later, so while the course included voluntary afternoon sessions to write and share material, I spent that time picking out invitations and attending a bridal shower. Needless to say, despite staying onsite with the other participants, we rarely had time for discussions as I was rushing in and out.

One conversation I did manage to have, late at night, and that lasted for about 15 minutes was with the programme organiser. She was really interested in the work I was doing and we agreed to keep in touch. Amazingly, this is the person with whom I would later co-edit three collections of essays and offer four day-long workshops.

The second time I attended a residency, it was to participate in a novel-writing masterclass with an established published author. This time I went with the full intention to take part in all the extras and to focus on my writing for an entire week. Though I never previously had qualms about sharing my work with others, the moment I put my manuscript into the mail to the six strangers who would also be attending, I felt a few moments of panic.

We spent the week with a different day devoted to each manuscript and then also with an individual meeting with the facilitator. From this experience I had three women with whom I exchanged regular notes of encouragement to keep writing, offers to link to one another’s websites, publicise book releases, and read drafts of manuscripts – all online (they were in various states in America and I was in the Middle East).

From last year’s week-long course, such camaraderie developed that for six months afterwards participants met monthly in people’s homes to read out new material and brainstorm ideas. What you can get out of a residency is a bit like life: What you put into the time you are there will directly determine how much your writing may benefit and you as a writer develop.

Best wishes,

Mohana

(Reading & Writing Development Director)

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