Five in March

I read five books in March.

 

 

The Art of Dying by Ambrose Parry

Set in mid 19th century Edinburgh, the second in the Raven and Fisher mystery series – and featuring real-life medical hero Dr James Simpson.

Will Raven, assistant to Dr Simpson, has been in Europe for a year and has returned to the esteemed doctor’s practice in Edinburgh. He’s taken aback to find that former housemaid Sarah Fisher, for whom he had feelings (while at the same time thinking she was socially beneath him) is happily married to another doctor.

A series of mysterious deaths, one of which is being laid at Dr Simpson’s door, bring Will and Sarah together to find the cause – Sarah, with medical ambitions of her own being more than a match for Will.

 

 

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

I read this many years ago but didn’t have a copy in the house so when I saw one in a charity shop I bought it (although it didn't have this nice cover – there are dozens of editions). It stood the test of time – manages to be both erudite and very funny. My favourite set piece was of his friend Harris’s experience in the maze at Hampton Court.

Recently I adjudicated a Humorous Short Story competition for the Scottish Association of Writers. It made me think about what makes a piece of writing funny – although of course one person’s rolling in the aisles reaction is another person’s poker face. But, although I could think of quite a few funny novels, I couldn’t think of any writer who consistently writes humorous short stories – please let me know in the comments if you have any recommendations.

 

Death on the Small Screen by Jo Allen

I was lucky enough to read this before it went ‘live’ online as I know the author. (We are in a group called Capital Writers.)

It’s the latest in the DCI Jude Satterthwaite police procedural series set in the lovely Lake District.

A murdered body is found on the fells by a young actress. It turns out there is no shortage of suspects, mostly thanks to the victim’s tangled love life.

 

American Housewife by Anita Abriel

Farmer’s daughter, turned radio personality in 1950s New York, Maggie Lane is thrilled to be asked to host her own television show The Maggie Lane Baking Show. She has to ‘bake’ (I use inverted commas because all the cakes and desserts are from packet mixes … ) – and to sign a ‘morality clause’ and ensure that nothing will spoil her squeaky clean image. But Maggie has a past she is hoping to keep hidden, even from her husband.

Enjoyable, but reminiscent of Lessons in Chemistry without that book’s depth.

 

 

A Half-Baked Idea by Olivia Potts

Grieving the death of her mother, barrister Olivia Potts decided to leave the law and enrol on Diplôme de Pâtisserie at Le Cordon Bleu, in London. If that wouldn’t concentrate her mind on something else it’s hard to see what would – the course must be the most exacting anywhere, with its team of classically trained teaching chefs demanding perfection from their students.

She describes her progress – with recipes and very mouth-watering they sound (if someone else has made them).

 

 

Wine, winning and song

The Scottish Association of Writers’ annual conference was held last weekend in the lovely Westerwood Hotel in (not-so-) sunny Cumbernauld, two days of camaraderie, competition adjudications, workshops, readings, after-dinner speaker Helen Lederer, a quiz, a talent show with some fabulous singing, and eating and drinking twice as much as usual …

I was delighted to win the Woman’s Short Story Competition and to be the first recipient of the lovely trophy above.

I couldn’t enter any competitions last year as I was adjudicating this one.

This year it was judged by Kirstin Zhang who has won several major short story competitions including one run by Harpers Bazaar magazine which resulted in twelve literary agents vying to sign her up – so it was an honour and a thrill to have my story picked out by her.

As you don’t always know what an adjudicator is looking for in the Woman’s Short Story Comp I’d hedged my bets by putting in two entries, one a more traditional magaziney love story. But The Shimmering Shores is set in the early 1970s and its protagonist, Joy, has an unhappy home life from which she escapes every Saturday by taking the bus to North Berwick and ‘the shimmering shores’ of the Firth of Forth. It’s actually a story I’m thinking of expanding into a novel and, when I told her that, Kirstin said she’d thought that there was more to be said about Joy. Watch this space …

The 2017 Harpers’ short story comp has a theme – ‘the anniversary’ – closing date 30 April. More details here

And I came third in the General Article Competition, judged by Gill Hoffs. 

I don’t usually enter this competition (I prefer to make things up) but I’d written a piece of memoir after we had a workshop led by Bashabi Fraser at Edinburgh Writers’ Club so I thought I’d put it in.

Anyone who belongs to a writers’ club in Scotland which is affliliated to the Scottish Association of Writers is automatically a member of the Association and can attend the conference. I have been in Edinburgh Writers’ Club now for around twelve years and I love it. Thirteen members attended the SAW conference this year and won fourteen competition places, including four first prizes – a great way to celebrate the Club’s 70th birthday.

A bit of a spree

The annual conference of the Scottish Association of Writers was held 18-20 March, at the Westerwood Hotel, near Cumbernauld, a place that may not strike you as the most glamorous destination for the weekend but the hotel is out of the town in a hollow surrounded by hills and it was hard to believe that the M8 (I think – road numbers not my strong point) was only a few hundred yards away. The food was scrumptious and the young staff efficient and friendly.

‘But what about the “Writers” bit?” I hear you cry. “You didn’t go there just to scoff apple crumble tart with vanilla custard, did you?”

No, but that crisply pastried, lightly cinammoned confection was certainly a bonus. Yum.

Ten members of Edinburgh Writers Club including our Honorary President Alanna Knight attended, got nine places in the competitions and won the quiz on Friday night.

I had been asked to judge the Women’s Short Story Competition. The thirty-eight entries were wide-ranging in their topics – abseiling, dancing bears, suffragettes, selkies, a yellow car, DNA tests, Christmas angels, the bedroom tax and the Bell Rock Lighthouse to name but a few.

The winning story was full of excellent fishy puns while still being a very touching story. Magazine editors (and competition judges) always say they don’t see enough humorous stories so I do hope Chipping Away will be submitted and accepted and in print before long.

On Saturday afternoon I gave a workshop on structuring a story for women’s magazines (if this is something you are interested in there are a few spaces left in The People’s Friend story-writing workshop in Dundee 29 March:

http://www.thepeoplesfriend.co.uk/fiction/fiction-editors-blog/2016/february/16/story-writing-workshop/

There was a bookstall and I took along some copies of of my recently published story collection ... may have mentioned it before ...

I attended two excellent workshops myself – one by crime writer Caro Ramsay called From Pen to Publisher and Beyond, and Putting the Fiction into Face and the Fact into Fiction by journalist/non-fiction writer turned crime novelist Douglas Skelton. If you get the chance to hear those writers talking about anything I recommend you take it. And read their books of course ...

The crime theme continued on Monday night back home when Russel MacLean came to talk to Edinburgh Writers’ Club and to adjudicate our crime-writing competition. His enthusiasm for and knowledge of the genre was brilliant and we came away with writing tips (he uses a five-act structure) as well as a list of other crime writers to look out for.

And on Tuesday … more crime. The launch in Blackwell’s of Michael J Malone’s book Bad Samaritan (isn’t that a great title?). An advance review said the book ‘Hits you like an express train.’ I look forward to being hit.

Writerly goings-on

Various writerly goings-on.

Edinburgh Writers’ Club session 2015-16 got off to a cracking start on 22 September with opening speaker Elaine diRollo. She gave us a very frank insight into her publishing experiences and her writing and research methods. I had read and loved her quirky historical novel A Proper Education for Girls. Her third novel, Beloved Poison (she is now publishing under the name Elaine Thomson), is due from Constable and Robinson (an imprint of Little, Brown) in March 1916. 

The second meeting was a ‘speed-chat’ arranged just like a speed-dating event (so I’m told …) except that you didn’t have to give anyone marks out of ten. As there were four new potential members that night, as well as members ranging from one to thirty years standing, it was an excellent way to get to find out what everyone was working on, what their writing goals were, and generally find out more about them.

Not one but two fellow EWC members are having novels published in the next few weeks.

See my interview with Victoria Hendry here about her first novel A Capital Union. Her second The Last Tour of Archie Forbes is being launched at Blackwell’s Bookshop, Southbridge, Edinburgh on 29 October, 6.30.

The book tells the story of a traumatised Afghanistan veteran fending for himself in Austerity Britain. The publisher (Saraband) describe it as 'A dazzling, empathetic and darkly funny portrayal of the hostile home front' and novelist Manda Scott says it's 'One of the most engaging, powerful, original, heartbreaking books I've ever read.'

And Mairi Wilson’s first book Ursula’s Secret, which won the Sunday Mail Fiction Prize, is being launched at Waterstone’s West End, Edinburgh on 4 November, 6pm. Here's Mairi (on Facebook) talking about it. The paperback will be out for the launch; the Kindle version is available now for 59p.

A former EWC member has a book launch this very evening. Margaret Skea's first novel Turn of the Tide won all sorts of awards and is a brilliant read so I have high hopes of her new one A House Divided.

What inspiring company to be in!

As for me, I am really looking forward to judging the Scholarship Award at the Scottish Association of Writers Conference (SAW) in March. This is for a story aimed at a woman’s magazine and the winner will have their expenses paid to attend the conference. (NB The competition is open only to members of writers’ clubs affiliated to SAW.) I should be getting a pile of manuscripts around 23 November so that will keep me very busy for a couple of months.

I was delighted to be guest author again at a People’s Friend workshop on 10 October in Dundee. There were twenty delegates and as before it was great to listen to the advice from PF Fiction Editor Shirley Blair and her team, and to hear what delegates made of the various exercises. I always learn something myself from these events. Looking forward to the York workshop later this month (fully booked) – and to the train journey down when I can read, write or stare gormlessly out of the window.

Toot, toot

I’ll give a little toot on my trumpet if I may.

I submitted six stories over the last couple of months, three each to Woman’s Weekly and The People’s Friend; five were accepted, of which two have now been published; I’ve been asked to tweak the end of the sixth one.

Usually when I start a story I have a destination for it in mind, and that works – some of the time. An exact science this writing lark ain’t.

The two published stories were in Woman’s Weekly, one a couple of weeks ago and one this (issue dated 29 September 2015).

Both of them were inspired by prompts in my weekly creative writing class. Neither was written with the magazine in mind but with the goal of using them as competition entries.

As far as I remember the prompt for Lucky Tatties was the memories that are conjured up by taste. Maybe you called them lucky potatoes or maybe you’ve never heard of them – they were a hard flat sweetie about the size of an old penny, dusted in cinnamon and with a little plastic toy inside. You had to be careful not to swallow it.

Like my heroine, Anne, I never liked them very much.

The feedback from one competition I entered it was to chop the story off two-thirds of the way through. I didn’t want to do that; it was short enough as it was. I could tell the adjudicator didn’t like the rest of it much either, and I can see that it isn’t the easiest of stories as it flies in the face of various received wisdoms – it tells rather than shows (a deliberate decision on my part) and there is no dialogue.

Increasingly, Woman’s Weekly (in their weekly magazine and monthly fiction specials) publish stories in a variety of styles so I thought I’d nothing to lose by sending it to them. And everything to gain as it turned out.

Pittenweem did win a competition, the General Short Story competition at the Scottish Association of Writers’ conference, judged by novelist, short story writer and playwright Catherine Czerkawska. After WW accepted Lucky Tatties I thought, well, maybe there’s a chance to see Pittenweem in print there too.

I think the original prompt for the story was when we were looking at character in the class and I thought I’d have an office as the setting. (Said office is not in Pittenweem (a fishing village on the east coast of Scotland) but a postcard of it becomes a kind of talisman for my main character.)

In other writing-related news, my People's Friend serial The Ferryboat, which was published in the magazine last year is now the 'daily serial' on the PF website. Catch up with it here.

And I am delighted to be doing two more People’s Friend story-writing workshops, with fiction editor Shirley Blair, in Dundee on 8 October, and York on 22 October; and judging the Woman’s Short Story competition at the Scottish Association of Writers conference in March 2016.

A room of my own

Virginia Woolf advocated A Room of One’s Own to write in. Jane Austen wrote in the family parlour. Paper and pencil/laptop being portable, writing is physically possible anywhere but not always mentally possible. 

Some write in coffee shops – I’ve tried that but find it hard to tune out other people’s conversations, not to mention the noise of the coffee machine. But complete quiet around you, in the Reading Room of the National Library for example, can have a paralysing effect. Am I making too much noise tapping keys, making notes, breathing?

At home my writing space used to be the kitchen table but now that my son lives far away from home I’ve commandeered the desk in his bedroom … bought a new chair … put up a notice board … and added bits and pieces to make it look like a writer’s room.

There’s a lovely view from the window (shame about the cars though) and gazing at it is not procrastination of course – staring out of windows is part of the writer’s job description. The green on the other side of the road is a golf course in the summer – and beneath the velvet grass, it’s said, is a burial ground for long-ago plague victims. In the winter when the trees are leafless, and if I crane my neck, up on the right I can see Edinburgh Castle.

On the wall in front of me and my laptop is the aforementioned notice board. Scribbled notes on various works-in-progress (hope I can still read them.) On the bottom left, the illustration of my story, Class of '64 published last month in The People’s Friend, the red-haired young girl looking spookily like my teenage self (see photo on the right). 

In front of the notice board is my favourite red-head, Anne of Green Gables, a doll brought back by my sister from Prince Edward Island.

There was a TV show a few years ago called End of Story (sadly, never repeated), a competition where well-known writers, such as Ian Rankin and Marian Keyes, wrote part of a story and viewers finished them – the winners had their stories read out and got to meet the authors. I didn’t enter but sent off for the End of Story mug to keep pencils in and to inspire me to keep going. It's sitting on top of a box of index cards, one for each story I've written.

On the chest of drawers is a lovely sunflower tin with horrible receipts in it – book writing is one thing but book-keeping is something else and the downside of being self-employed. Next to it is the quaich awarded when I won the Romance Novel competition at this year’s Scottish Association of Writers’ Conference. And next to that a collection of bookmarks in a (washed …) syrup tin.

I can’t always be sitting in that office chair though. A useful piece of advice is to print out the last page of your wip, or write the last sentence down on an index card, and carry it around with you – then you can keep writing wherever you are.

And eventually you, or even I, will get to the end of the story.

Serial writer

In 2008, as a member of Edinburgh Writers’ Club, I was entitled to go to the conference of the Scottish Association of Writers’ Conference. One of their competitions that year was to write the first instalment (7000 words) of a serial for The People’s Friend.

At that time, once a month, I met up with four writing friends and we took turns to provide a prompt or an exercise from which we would write for twenty minutes or so and then read our work aloud. One month our hostess, Vicki (now acclaimed novelist Victoria Hendry), handed out some paperbacks of various genres and asked us to select a page at random, look at the first line and use that to start our own piece. I can’t remember the title of my book but it was a horror story; the line I picked out was about a woman driving in the rain. I decided she was travelling up to the very north-west of Scotland and (although I don’t even read horror never mind write it) I vaguely had in mind that she was on her way to some pagan ceremony which would end badly. I called the scribbled piece The Stone Mother without having any idea what that meant.

When I read about The People’s Friend competition I thought of that piece of writing and how I might take it further. My heart had never been in pursuing the pagan ceremony idea and of course The People’s Friend doesn’t do horror … So the woman in the car with her windscreen wipers working overtime became an archaeologist en route to join a Viking dig and I came up with a cast of characters for the community she was going to be living in.

(If anyone wants to take up The Stone Mother and go off to a horrorific pagan ceremony be my guest.)

No one was more surprised than me when I won the competition. I had not thought beyond that first instalment and it was both thrilling and frightening to realise I had a commission to finish the serial. But before it could be taken any further The People’s Friend wanted some changes – some scenes swapped around, there were too many single people, one character was over-the-top … and I had to produce a complete synopsis of the rest (five or six instalments of 5000 words each). I’d had some short stories published before but had never written anything of length so this seemed an impossible task – like going into a dark room full of people I’d never met and being expected to know them. It took me weeks. 

At one point I really thought I couldn’t do it and had to give myself a severe talking to; it would have been so stupid not to grasp the opportunity offered to me. Eventually I produced an A4 page for each of the next six instalments, broken down into five chapters/scenes and once that was all approved I was off – and it was great, rather like joining the dots. I had a blueprint in front of me to follow.

I submitted the second instalment, waiting for their approval/comments before beginning the next one. It was quite a long process but at last The Family at Farrshore was published in The People’s Friend in 2011 and then I sold the large-print library rights to Linford Romance Library (an imprint of Ulverscroft).

Cathryn is delighted to join an archaeological dig at Farrshore, in the Scottish Highlands. Apart from her professional interest, it means she’ll be at a distance from her recently ex-boyfriend, Daniel. Canadian Magnus Macaskill, is in Farrshore for his own reasons, one of which is to trace his ancestry. As they spend the summer lodging with the MacLeod family, Cathryn and Magnus are drawn into the small community and to each other. But how will Cathryn react when Daniel reappears?

 In 2013 The PF’s Fiction Editor Shirley Blair asked me if I had any other ideas for a serial (I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to myself to start another one). I gave her two suggestions and she went for one with a hotel setting. This time she didn’t ask for the full synopsis but she queried the timeline I was proposing so I did do a plan to show her how it would work. It can be tricky – you send off an instalment and in the weeks before you get a reply your head is in another story and then you have to reacquaint yourself with your serial characters – but I did find it easier the second time round. The Ferryboat began last week (23 August 2014), the first of six instalments. 

It’s about an English couple who move up to the west highlands of Scotland (to Lorn, a fictional place but in my head it’s near Oban) after buying a run-down hotel with their daughter and her chef husband. It’s a time of change there because a new bridge is about to replace the age-old ferry service; not everyone likes the changes the new hotel owners make.

I’ve sent another serial idea for Shirley to consider … watch this space.

Out of the garret

I’ve had a lovely writerly week – although not much actual writing got done.

Last weekend was the forty-fifth Scottish Association of Writers Conference at the Westerwood Hotel near Cumbernauld. Around 140 writers from all over Scotland met for two days of competition adjudications, workshops, talks, old and new friendships, and some very delicious sticky toffee pudding. And, yes, a few glasses of wine were taken. I was delighted and amazed to win the Romantic Novel Award judged by novelist Rosemary Gemmell.

I’m on the right, with fellow Edinburgh Writers’ Club trophy-winners: Sheila Adamson (Young Adult Novel) on the left, and Kath Hardie (General Short Story/Scholarship). Thanks to Lorna Fraser (also among the prize-winners) for the photo. My prize was a quaich (a drinking cup) and it looks very nice on a shelf in my writing room although whether I shall ever put it to its intended purpose and fill it with whisky depends on how many writing successes/rejections the next year holds.

My novel (actually a novella), provisionally called The Road Home, is set in Edinburgh and in Melrose and the strapline is: A family crisis brings Stella back to the Scottish Borders and the man she left behind. I will say no more for the moment, just get on with those last few thousand words …

Shirley Blair, Senior Commissioning Editor of The People’s Friend, was an adjudicator/workshop leader at the Conference. I hadn’t met her before and as she is my editor at The PF it was lovely to have the opportunity to talk to her face to face. She has been with D C Thomson since the seventies so there is nothing she doesn’t know about writing for women’s magazines. I'm writing another serial for The PF – yes, Shirley, don't worry, I'll just finish this post and get on with the fourth instalment ...

On Thursday a friend and I went through to Glasgow for a launch in Waterstone’s of Catherine Czerkawska's novel The Physic Garden published by Saraband. It is set in Glasgow in the early 1800s and is the story of William Lang and his unlikely friendship with botanist Dr Thomas Brown. Both men were real people but as they disappeared from the records early in their lives Catherine was able to imagine what became of them. I’m really looking forward to reading it and would urge you get a paperback copy; the cover, featuring a sampler from Glasgow Museums, is gorgeous as you can see and the book comes with a matching bookmark.

On Friday morning I went as usual to the creative writing class at the Southside Centre. We've just finished a couple of terms of writing on the theme of transport – planes, trains, automobiles ... not to mention mountain rescue land rovers, space ships and broomsticks – look forward to finding out what next term's topic will be.

To finish off the week was the launch of KelpiesTeen, the new YA imprint from Floris Books. One of the first three titles to be published in the series is Mind Blind by former Edinburgh Writers' Club member, the very prolific Lari Don. This is her first teen novel and if it's as good as her picture books, storybooks for younger readers and retelling of traditional tales, it will be fabulous.

So, a very sociable week. Now it's back to the garret. I believe I said I had some writing to do.