A bit of rejection can do you good

Here’s another piece of good news I want to mention. I’ve finally had a story accepted by Metazen, the international literary magazine based in Canada.

I say finally because they’ve rejected two of my stories so far this year. This is a case of third time lucky.

Having a story turned down is never pleasant, but in this case their kindly worded rejections inspired me to try harder. When I sat down to submit the original draft of the piece they finally accepted I took a last look at it at realised that, no, it just wasn’t quite good enough.

The story was solid and people had already said some kind things about it. There was a strong central idea, the right degree of cleverness, all that sort of stuff. But the language just wasn’t working as hard as it needed to.

There were weak metaphors and sections that dragged. I started editing and began to notice other flaws; and there wasn’t enough room for the reader to step in and do their share of the work. I ended up rewriting most of it.

I’m particularly happy that the story they’ve decided to publish is Eggbox Eyeballs.

This is the piece that I performed as street literature recently. I worked with a group of other writers to find a way of presenting this piece live: knowing I’d be sharing the story with them was another reason for revising that inadequate first draft.

It pleases me that one short piece of writing can appeal to bemused pensioners on the streets of an English seaside town and literary connoisseurs on the far side of the Atlantic.

The story will be out in November.

Competitive story reading success

Well, I have now taken part in my first ever competitive story reading event, part of the Electric Lantern Festival. The exciting news, for me, is that I came second. I’m rather happy about that.

It was an odd experience. I arrived at the Trinity Theatre in Tunbridge Wells, was allocated a number and told where to sit in the auditorium – in the front row, with all the other writers. There were seventeen of us taking part. We took the stage in turn, did our stuff and sat down again. I was number five.

There seemed to be a real mix of first-timers and seasoned performers. Everyone gave a good reading of their work and the standard was very high.

When it came time for the judges to announce their decisions, it didn’t occur to me that I might have placed anywhere. I was confident in my story, and the reading went well enough. But would anyone else like it? I didn’t have much humour in my piece; there was no twist in the tale. And it was very short – 90 words or so against a limit of 250 words.

The third prize was given out and then the judges began to talk about the story that came second. I should have taken notes here. They said something about excellent metaphors, tight writing, building sense of horror, a “proper short story”. I remember thinking, that sounds like a good piece. And then they said my name.

Winning a prize was a wonderful surprise, and I need to think of an interesting way of spending my £25 (yes, that’s £2.50 a word!). It was nice, too, to meet some other writers and hear them say positive things about my story.

But it was particularly pleasing to meet a man and his young son who had come along for a tour of the theatre and were nothing to do with the flash event. When they heard there was going to be some sort of story reading competition, they decided to hang around and listen. They sought me out afterwards and I had a great chat with them both about reading and writing.

The judges made diplomatic comments about how hard it was to choose between my story and the one that took first prize, but when I say that I’m pleased Ellie Stewart won it’s not just an effort to be gracious in defeat. She is a really talented writer and poet. You can read her winning story, Zombie Ward, on her blog. I’d also recommend Witch – telling a fairy tale from the perspective of a minor character is a common workshop exercise, but Ellie does it just brilliantly. Her poems are also wonderful, especially the ones about her mother.

As for my story, it is about to be published in the excellent Flash magazine, so I don’t want to put the text here just now. But you can hear me reading it in this short film.

Blimey, it’s my competitive story reading debut

My journey to find new ways of making a fool of myself enters scary territory this coming weekend. I will be taking part in my first competitive story-reading event.



On Sunday, I’ll be on stage at the wonderful Trinity Theatre in Tunbridge Wells, a participant in “Flash Factor”.

The boards that I shall tread

This is X-Factor meets short stories: me and a bunch of other writers read our flash fiction; the audience and a panel of fearsome judges will…. Well, I don’t know what they’ll do: cheer, boo, throw stuff? We’ll see. But at the end of it all, there will be a winner.

On the panel will be writers Sarah Salway, whose work I love, and Danuta Kean. I hope they are kind. My main worry is that, while there is a 250-word limit on stories, my two (not chose which to read yet) only come in at about 100 words. Too short? Or maybe less is more?
Writing this now, it occurs to me that the Trinity is where my journey into writing short stories began, many years ago. I used to live in the town and signed up for a “so you want to write fiction….?” course that was held in the theatre. Seems such a long time ago.

I remember in the second week reading three paragraphs of a story – my first – and nearly suffocating with fear and nerves. I hope to do better on my return.

Finding a new audience for literature and stories

Normally, you’d get yourself in trouble if you broke an egg on a stranger’s trousers. But such behaviour is fine when one is performing live street literature. Then it’s just part of the act.

I learned this interesting lesson on Saturday. I was on the promenade of Herne Bay, an English seaside town, “performing” – and I use the term loosely – my short story Egg-box Eyeballs as part of the rather excellent Herne Bay Festival. The action concluded with me smashing an egg on the floor in dramatic fashion.

In my one rehearsal I used a tennis ball rather than an egg, so as not to make a mess in the church hall where the piece was conceived.

Doing it for real on Saturday, I was surprised at how far an egg will splatter if you chuck it on hard ground. You can see just how surprised in the short film of the event below. Fortunately, my audience/victims took it all in good spirit.

Getting ready to go

How did I get myself in this situation? A lovely group of creative people called the Reauthoring Project told me they were looking for five writers to present work at the festival. Would I like to be one of them? they asked. Yes, please, I said.

Their challenge was a simple one: each of the five writers had to take an existing piece of their work and find a way of presenting it to the public in a way that didn’t involve the traditional author reading. Our stage would be a beachfront shelter; our audience would be whoever happened to be passing.

The five writers produced a fascinating mix of work. Apart from me barking away and chucking eggs about, there was interactive poetry, two sound installations and a “found” story experience on the beach. The people of Herne Bay were open minded about it all and showed a remarkable willingness to watch, listen and take part. I hope they enjoyed it. I know I did.

But why agree to a challenge so rich in possibilities for creative disaster and public humiliation? Fellow writer-participant Peggy Riley gives a good answer on her blog. The aim, she explains, is “To bring text and writing and writers out into the open, to let words breathe in air.” Peggy continues:

“With paper-based writing the writer is not a part of the reading – unless we hover or stalk, we do not know when a reader rejects the writing, when the page is folded down or the cover is closed. Live literature asks readers to engage with writing in a way that is live. It is unexpected and unrehearsed. It is authentic. It is raw. It is an offer made in a public space. It will not be everyone’s cup of tea, and it is all the more exciting for that, as a writer.”

Exciting? Yes. Raw? Totally, especially the eggs. I learned a great deal about how to engage an audience and I realised the folly of thinking that I can control how people experience a story. I also challenged a lot of my stereotypical assumptions about the kind of people who might enjoy my writing.

We went to the pub afterwards to consider how we might do this kind of thing again. All very exciting.

Taking literature to the streets, man

It’s good to step outside of one’s comfort zone occasionally, and I will be a very great distance away from mine next week.

I’m “performing” a short story at the Herne Bay Festival. That is not the scary bit. I have done a few readings before and enjoyed the experience. But in the past I was mainly talking to an audience of arty writerly types: they knew what to expect from me; I knew what to expect from them.

It will all be very different in Herne Bay. I’m working with what is euphemistically called a “found audience”; I’m doing my stuff on the pavement, for however many passers-by I can persuade to listen. They might enjoy it. They might stand and jeer. There might be no audience at all.

My piece is called Egg-box Eyeballs. I describe it thus: “A man plans to bake the special cake that will make his girlfriend love him. At the supermarket, shopping for ingredients, he finds a new pair of eye balls in an egg box. He uses them to see everyone’s secrets, but sees more than he wants to.”

I’m working with a group of brilliant local writers as part of the Reauthoring Project. If you’re in the neighbourhood, come and check me out. I need all the support I can get. I’m doing my thing on Saturday August 27 at 12pm, 2pm and 3.30pm.

The photo above shows me at a workshop to devise my performance, pondering what on earth I’ve got myself into. (That’s a tennis ball at my feet. I found it kicking around on the floor and it became the creative spark that unlocked my performance idea)

And here’s me checking out the “venue”: a wooden shelter on the seafront at Herne Bay.

Reading with White Rabbit

An interesting new writerly experience for me last week. I was lucky enough to have one of my stories selected for a public reading by the lovely people at White Rabbit a while ago, and on Wednesday I went along to a pub in Ashford to see it performed.

I’ve read my own stories to an audience before, but I’ve never seen one of them read by someone else. Gareth Brierley did a brilliant job. It can’t have been easy for him; unlike most of the other stories featured in the evening, mine contained no humour at all and didn’t really tell a story.

It was more of an atmosphere piece, really. That’s not the kind of thing I usually write. In fact, if someone tells me a story of theirs is “more of an atmosphere piece, really”, I tend to interpret that as an admission of failure. But I won’t anymore!

Like I say, Gareth did a great job. And I had a good chat with him afterwards to get some tips on public reading. Video of the performance exists somewhere, I’m told, but I don’t have any yet.

Interestingly (for me, anyway) I wrote the first draft of the piece – “One of us is a ghost” – in the room where it was eventually performed, and then developed and edited it in the knowledge that, if it were accepted for performance, I wouldn’t be reading it out myself. That seemed to change my writing style in interesting (for me, at least) ways that merit some reflection. But not now.

Staying analogue

(This post started life as a comment added to someone else’s blog. Thought I might add it here, too)

I bought myself an iPad last week – or rather, it finally arrived last week – so that I had another way of writing when out and about.

I’ve since been reflecting on the “cool” new ways of working that this impressive piece of technology is urging me to adopt: electronic diaries for every area of my life, synched across all my devices; details of every project at my fingertips, wherever I happen to be; ways of generating ideas, planning stories and creating, all achieved without paper and pen.

The iPad certainly gives me more efficient ways of achieving work tasks, but I don’t think those digitised ways of working are necessarily any more effective – not for me, at least. And its ability to automate certain activities does seem to strip out a lot of simple, everyday creative thought and reflection.

If I write a to do list on paper, I have to think about it: how should I use my time, what are my real priorities, how do I balance my goals with the expectations of others? The act of writing the list is a moment for reflection. But if the computer generates the list for me, I just perform the tasks it offers.

The iPad has been a surprisingly good writing tool, but yesterday I went out and bought a new paper diary, some sticky labels, glue and coloured pens. Sometimes analogue is better.

Today’s favourite word: Cummerbund

I just updated my membership of 26, the brilliant community of creative business writers. As part of the process, I had to nominate my favourite word. I don’t really have one of those. Or if I do, it would probably take days of ruminations to decide what it might be. So, in a hurry, I opted for Cummerbund.

This was a surprising choice. I very rarely attend black tie events, and when I do, I always decline the opportunity of renting a cummerbund. I actively dislike them. And yet, I like the word. It has a pleasant sound; strong vowels; resonant consonants. Say it slowly, and there’s even a bit of an eastern mystical mantra going on – the Ummmm followed by the Unnnn. Pleasingly – and another surprise – this connects with the roots of the word.

Cummerbund, I discover, is from the Hindi word kamarband. “Kamar” means waist or loin; band is from “bandhah” – a fetter or something that ties.

This interests me. I’d have thought that a cummerbund, back in the 1600s, when the word was first recorded, had little practical purpose – it was just a clothing accessory. But that would be wrong. It’s original use, based on the etymology, was to strap a flabby stomach in place – which is mostly its purpose today, of course.

South Bank Poetry

Walking along the south bank of the Thames today, I came across a wonderful poetry installation. Called the Lion and the Unicorn, it’s part of the Festival of Britain anniversary celebrations. Hope the images from my Blackberry are legible.

A short story in slides – I attempt digital fiction

This is my first stab at “digital fiction”. Scroll down to read about how I made it, and why…

So…What an inspiring and mind-numbingly frustrating few days.Over the weekend I went to another excellent workshop organised by the lovely people at East Kent Live Lit. This one was all about digital storytelling. At the helm was Andy Campbell, a master of the art.Hearing Andy talk about his work was truly inspiring. He produces great stuff and is an incredibly patient teacher.Andy showed us a few simple ideas for telling interactive stories, which involved a little bit of raw html coding. Surprisingly easy, so I thought I’d give it a go.For my own efforts, I decided to jump straight into the – very, very – deep end, downloading a trial version of Flash Professional CS5.Andy uses this software to create beautiful, engaging dreamscapes – I used it to make a word follow a block around a screen. It took two hours, but I did get it to happen. Behold the masterpiece that I call Block/Words (note, I can’t make it loop – duh!):


Next, I tried to get a bit clever, adding some images and textures to my creation. Lord, it was a nightmare. I gave up in frustration.Then, refuelled with caffeine, I fired up the MacBook and made my own Flash message for the people at Adobe:


After a fitful night worrying about Timelines, Stages and Layers, I decided to try again in the morning.I gave up on Flash and tried to combine the inspiration from Andy’s workshop with the low-fi, DIY, punk attitude that I took away from my previous Live Lit session. (Thanks to the excellent Matt Rowe, who gave my brain a cold rinse in February)I set myself a simple challenge: make something creative; spend only one hour doing it; use only the tools at your disposal; put it online, however crappy the end product.I took the text of a story that is about to be published in Cent magazine and mixed it up with some photos I shot at last year’s Latitude festival. The aim was to produce a simple slideshow. How hard could that be?I used Keynote – the Mac alternative to PowerPoint – to make the slides and edited the images in iPhoto: just basic cropping and colour-fudging. I exported the whole thing as a QuickTime movie and – bingo! – I had my first piece of interactive fiction.That all took an hour.Then the hard work started: how to share it online?I tried to upload the movie to Blogger, TypePad, Tumblr and elsewhere, but each platform’s video conversion gizmo stripped out the “clickability”: the slideshow ran straight through each time, like a crappy five-second movie. No good.What next? I exported each slide as a jpeg from Keynote and imported them into Soundslides, a neat app for creating online slideshows. This worked really well, except that the only export was to a bunch of html files and folders; I had nowhere to upload them.Next step, I thought I could put the jpegs on Flickr or Picasa and create an embedded slideshow. I could, and did, but couldn’t retain the “clickability” – each slide changed after a three-second interval; too quick to read my text.Finally, I tried Slideshare, a site for sharing presentations and other stuff. (I kind of like the idea of sneaking a bit of fiction onto a site meant for corporate stuff)First up, I tried to upload a Keynote version of the story. Slideshare struggled to convert this, so I produced a PowerPoint version instead, which it dealt with in seconds.The result looks a bit rubbish. You have to click the little maximise arrows in the bottom-right corner if you want to see it properly. But here it is:

After many hours of algorithmic crunching, Slideshare finally spat out the Keynote version, which is below (and looks much better):

My conclusions:

1/ The best version of my story remains the QuickTime movie, and that just took an hour to make. But I can’t work out how to get it online, and even when I emailed it to someone the sound failed.

2/ The technology was a nightmare, but the creative side of mixing words and pictures was fun and rewarding. I will try again.

3/ The workshop was great. If you live in my part of the world, and  get a chance to attend anything that the Live Lit people do, I’d recommend it.

Must go and earn some money now….

(oh, for the sake of completeness, here is the embedded Flickr version:)