Pitch Party

Every now and then I struggle to come up with blog posts and that's when it's time for a pitch party. I take a look at the next couple months, what is the season, what am I up to personally, what I am reading, what do I WANT to be reading? I make a BIG list of blog titles with a rough idea of what I am planning.

Now, I know that I am conjuring possibly the wrong image for what actually happens. As much as I would like to wear a tiny party hat and put on some pop music and invite all my friends, picture instead me curled up on my bed with about 4 different notebooks and scraps of paper that I try to organise into ideas. There isn't even wine at this party, but there are books, and that's MY kind of party.

I know I will write a review blog every month, so that's locked in. I know the new year will be full of resolutions and December is wish list posts and Christmas themes. Summer is the holidays, Autumn, and spring all remind me of different books and make me think of different things to write about.

Having these pitch parties for my self are a great way of stimulating my excitement for my blogging and getting ideas down on the page. And if I don't get around to writing the blogs in the right timeline then I have a stock of ideas left over from last year to work off of.

It would be great to have ideas from other people, but this is just for me and I am on my own on this blogging adventure. I do this purely in my free time, and I only write for my friends and family who occasionally drop by to indulge me. (Hey, guys!)

Getting views on my blog is hard work, many people won't drop by to read unless I share a link on social media, which means I have to dedicate time to promotion. I am trying to build blogs that might spark views on their own without promotion, which is why my pitch parties are essential. How can I make this attractive to readers? Is this a blog I would want to read? How can I tag this to be viewed as much as possible?

If anyone has any ideas of blogs for me to write in 2017 please feel free to pitch to me! Until then, I will keep having quarterly pitch parties on my own and try to come up with new ideas...

Mid Month Pep Talk

Dear Georgia,

Come on man, take a good hard look at your word count right now. You could be doing so much more. Stop whining and get on with it. Sure it isn't quality, but you really should just get the story down.

These characters have been sitting in your hard drive since you were sixteen and now you've given them a little airing, you owe it to your characters to finish their story. You've never finished a piece of fiction that is longer than about 5000 words. That is an atrocious record.

Once it was your ambition to be an author. The teenage urge to write beautifully and be told that you aren't a bad writer and have half of an imagination in your noggin is still in you somewhere. So dig deep and pull out that fighting spirit.

On the other hand. LOOK how far you've come! You've written more this month than you have in your whole life. Your focus is awesome. Don't do it now...but look forward to December because you are about to have SO much fun editing this.

You can still finish this.

You can win.

Na No Wri Mo?

One of the biggest pieces of advice that I give out at work and that I was given at Uni was that if you have writers block, JUST WRITE. What better way to do this than to try Na No Wri Mo through November.

What is it?
National Novel Writing Month where writers around the world attempt to write 50000 words in 30 days. They couldn't have picked a month with 31? That's about 1667 words a day.

Why would you do it?
I'm doing it this year because I have a fantasy story which I wrote when I was 16/17 and never finished.  As I get older, I read less YA fiction, less fantasy and therefore I write less about it as well. I feel like if I am ever going to finish this story, it had better be when I am closer to teens than later when I'll have lost touch and become too cynical to try.

I'm also trying to practice the advice that you should learn to finish your stories as well as start them.

But I think for most people the attraction is the community, every week a Pep Talk email arrives from an author who gives you advice and enthusiasm to keep going.

Na No Wri Mo gets alot of flack because the quality of the writing isn't really taken into account when you are trying to get 50000 words out. And that is fair enough, a few people I know, not naming names, have entered Na No Wri Mo a few times and call themselves a Novelist.


So I'm doing Na No Wri Mo, it is very possible that I won't be speaking to ANYONE for the next month...I just have a few little things planned. so forgive me for the next 30 days, I'm MIA behind Na No Wri Mo lines.

How To Write Spooky Stories

It's Halloween tomorrow night and my tradition is to read by candle light. Something about the flickering shadows spooks me. There is a superstition to have a candle burn at your window to let the gouls and other beasties know that you are home and alive and not to come creeping. It is also supposed to be a beacon for loved ones who have passed on, to visit and come home, while the veil between worlds is at its thinnest.

This year I will be reading Frankenstein.

Hook

This is important in all writing. You have to make your readers interested in what you are writing about.  Your characters should make your readers FEEL. Make your characters loveable or loathsome, but the reader has to care about the characters. All suspense writing starts with the reader’s empathy and then reader’s concern.

Set up. Twist.
The greatest example of the set-up-twist is the two sentence horror story. Here is one taken from sunnyskys/blog by Therealhatman:

“I woke up to hear knocking on the glass. At first, I thought it was the window until I heard it come from the mirror again.”

The reason that this works is because it has a set up. The reader is set up to think a certain way, a false sense of security even, and then the second sentence is the twist that makes you think very differently about the first. In a short story or a novel you can do this in every chapter by creating conflict between characters or in a scene. The secret is in the twist, so let your imagination run wild!

 

You can extend the ‘set up’ for as long as you like which brings me to number two.

Avoid the dot dot dot

Suspense is a very important part of writing scary stories. A cheat to build suspense in your writing is to make big promises of action, give the reader more information than the characters, extend moments of uncertainty and always keep your promises.

A couple plan to meet at a meeting point. That is a promise of action.

But the young man’s rival finds out and hides at the meeting point with a gun. Giving the reader more information.

The couple arrive at the place with no idea of the danger. Extend this moment for as long as possible and the reader will be on the edge of their seats waiting for the rival.

Conflict. Either a fight, or a murder, or another character arrives, whatever works for your story. Keep your promises.

Remember though, that a murder or violence is not suspense. Too much violence or gore will start to not mean anything to your readers. A murder is not suspense writing. An abduction with the threat of murder is.

NOTE: Using Elipses (…) is actually the worst and a very lazy way of building suspense, avoid the dot dot dot!

Description

One of the greatest writing tips of all time is: Show Don’t Tell. Most people don’t even notice when writers use this technique but it is what turns a good story into a great one. It can be hard, when you are writing a story to spend time on the description especially when you have a really good idea you just want to get on the page as quickly as possible. But when it comes to suspense writing you HAVE to show not tell and it really helps to extend those moments of uncertainty I mentioned. It will also make your moments of conflict when you keep your promises really exciting.

An example of show don’t tell:

Tell: Megan shot him.  Show: The smell of gun powder filled the air and Megan’s arm jolted back into her shoulder as the gun went off. She hardly heard the bang before her ears were ringing. She stared across the room, where a trickle of black blood was already being sucked up by the carpet; she could almost hear it.

Use all of your senses for description so that the reader is drawn into the scene.

READ

If you want to write scary stories READ scary stories. This goes for any kind of writing. This doesn’t mean just copy an author you like. There is actually a part two to this tip.

Read and Analyse.

When you begin to feel scared while reading, stop and think HOW the writer made you feel that way. Once you understand the technique they’ve used you can use a similar technique on your own story. Maybe you will notice a Set Up-Twist or the building of suspense. Take note of how the author did it and you can start to practice it with your own writing.

Your Manuscript

When I speak to aspiring writers about what I do during my internships, I am often faced with anger. Everyday I lift a pile of envelopes and read the contents. Then there are two piles. Yes and No. and who am I to decide?

There is more that goes into this choice than you think. I have to decide first of all if the writing is good enough. Can they spell, is it well presented? What is the story line? Who would buy this (publisher wise) and does it fit in with the books already being published?  For example,even if I like it, but I know none of the agents at this agency would take it up: it's a No. 

But seriously, who are these interns? Who in a writers eyes aren't qualified to decide on an author's fate like that. Well we are and we aren't...I would say, after a year of learning and reading and judging, I am pretty qualified to decide which pile things go into. I also went to university for three years to understand how writers edit and work and change their manuscripts, I also heard of advice on how to improve writing and how to practice. I really do think I am qualified to decide. But I didn't have this much experience from the beginning, it had to be learned and as always, reading is subjective, no matter how much you try to remove yourself, your opinion is what counts. 

Why do they give what seems like the most important job to interns? For every book that is published there are 200 which didn't make it. That is 200 underdeveloped, badly timed and misdirected manuscripts just for each book. But more than anything else, the manuscript just isn't good enough. Agents have to work on the books they have already accepted, they cannot spend hours and hours reading many BAD manuscripts day after day. We are the filter system. 

Here are some mistakes that people make: 

Some writers didn't do the right research, 

only sent it to one agency, 

sent it to a publisher that doesn't accept manuscripts, 

didn't send a synopsis, 

wrote a bad/arrogant cover letter/didn't put their contact details anywhere, 

didn't follow the guidelines.

Advice to get published.

1) WRITE. SOMETHING. WORTH IT.

2) Read Simon Trewin's 'letter to an unsolicited author'. You can read the final chapter here. or the full version in the Writers and Artists' Yearbook 2014.

3) Find an agent. by sending your work to as many as possible.

 - make sure you follow the guidelines of each agency. 

 - write a new cover letter every time. 

4) If you get rejected, (which you will) send it in again a few weeks later. Don't mention it in your cover letter and just try again. WARNING most agencies will have a submission log, if you spam them they will know about it and automatically reject you. If you have been rejected more than twice go back to the manuscript. is it really ready?

5) submit the best product you can. re write, edit, change, improve. Or, submit something new.

6) Understand how publishing works, understand that the person reading your manuscript has read 10 already today, understand that you can and should try again. 

It takes a lot of work to get there but if your book is worth being published someone will recognize it. 

Why I'm Not a Writer

There is an essay in the Writers and Artists Yearbook 2012 (Bloomsbury) by Alison Baverstock called Is There a Book in You? It is a very thought provoking essay:

I graduated from Bath Spa University, where the English and Creative Writing staff are some of the best in the country. Spa's MA writing course has a reputation for producing a long list of published authors alumni.  So - budding writers flock to the West Country.  My classes were filled with very talented people, amazing writers with potential basically oozing out of them.

I went to a uni acclaimed for producing authors, I did a creative writing course, and I'm not an author. Why?

I went to university with my GREAT NOVEL unwritten.  I had no big idea to give, really. I already knew that that feeling I saw in my classmates, the great work that just needed to come out of them wasn't in me. I loved my Literature modules, carrying on where I left off A levels with MORE reading, and taught by some fantastic tutors. Creative Writing was my fun. My cathartic 6 hours off from reading (and everything else) to write.

Lecture 1 of my second year I had one of the most simultaneously depressing and inspiring lectures of my uni career. Talking to this tutor was like being hit over the head with your favourite book. You love it, but it hurts! He told us to basically forget the dream of making a living out of writing. That raised some hackles, I can tell you! He probably pushed one or two of the people in the room to really focus on their goals and prove him wrong. But I never wanted to be a writer, and what he did over the next two years was give us some excellent examples of alternative routes that would still keep us in contact with books. I now realise that that is all I've ever really wanted. 

That tutor and many others drilled a sense of hard work and the importance of reading into me.  I have never met a more well read man in my life. He ended up lending me three pivotal books as source material for my dissertation, that he just happened to have! He used to make us read our work out loud to the class so that we could hear how the writer intended it to sound. And he made us comment on people's work, out loud and to their faces.  If I didn't know it before, I knew it after every one of my creative writing seminars.

I'm not a writer because I am an editor.

BLOG EXTRA KATSU CURRY

BLOG-CEPTION!!!

My excellent blogger chum at Chic It Yourself is full of ideas to keep up appearances on a budget. If you love sales, crafts and quirky tips this is the blog for you. I love Wagamamas, but I always have the same thing, yaki soba - not very interesting. CIY put up this recipe for Katsu Curry from another BBC food blog by Gizzi Erskine and inspired me to try something new. So here we go - entering the third layer of food blogging!

Keeping it stylish in my slippers and PJs before we begin.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil 
• 1 onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 carrots, roughly chopped
• 1 tbsp medium curry powder
• 600ml chicken stock (I used an oxo cube, as recommended by CIY)
• 2 tsp honey 
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• ½ tsp garam masala 
• Salt and pepper
• 4 x 100g chicken breasts
• 100g flour, seasoned with lots of salt and pepper
• 1 free-range egg, beaten 
• 120g breadcrumbs

RICE

First I started washing the rice, you cannot really wash it enough. This is how I cook my rice: I wash it a few times in cold water (until I get bored, maybe 3 - 5 rinses). Then I let it stand in warm water with a pinch of salt. This par cooks the rice so I leave it until it cools down a fair bit.
I then rinse it once more in cold water before putting it into a sauce pan with a knob of butter. I fry the rice in butter and then cover the rice with water, bring to the boil. Once it's boiled for a few minutes, I take the rice off the heat, cover, and let it steam for 10-15 minutes.


THE CURRY

First, sweat the vegetables. saute the onion and garlic for a few minutes. Roughly chop the carrots and sweat them with the onion for ten minutes with the lid on. 

Next, stir in 2tbsp of flour and 1tbsp of medium curry powder. The flour and curry powder will turn to a nice paste that coats the carrots. Slowly add the chicken stock. Spoon in the honey and splash in some soy (this is the healthy way to make sauces glossy, rather than using butter). Simmer for 20 minutes.

SIDE NOTE . . .

Is anyone else's lid cupboard similar to this? I had a bit of a panic looking for the right size!

Meanwhile, across the kitchen . . .

Seasoned flour, egg and breadcrumbs. I was baffled by bread crumbs... how did CIY get hers so small and crumbly? I don't know the secret so my breadcrumbs were a bit of a disaster, still tasty though. Can you buy these perfect breadcrumbs? Chic It Yourself, seriously, what is the crumb-y secret?

 Coat the whole chicken breasts into the flour, then the egg and finally cover with the magic breadcrumbs.

Into a hot oven for 12-15 minutes and then slice diagonally when ready. 

Here's the rice steaming. I was a little worried that there wouldn't be enough to go round. (I'm used to cooking huge comfort portions) So I decided to use the left over egg to make fried rice.

 It is starting to look rather gorgeous. And smell incredible! I added the 1/2 tsp of garam masala and salt and pepper while I fried the rice.

We loved it! Try it  at Chic It Yourself