annethology
  • Home
    • About Annethology
    • About me >
      • A little more about me
    • About my books
    • Author talks
    • Contact me
    • Forthcoming events
    • World Mental Health Day
    • Privacy
    • Sign up for my newsletter
  • Sugar and Snails
    • Acknowledgements
    • Blog tour, Q&A's and feature articles >
      • Birthday blog tour
      • S&S on tour 2022
    • Early endorsements
    • Events >
      • Launch photos
      • Launch party videos
    • in pictures
    • Media
    • If you've read the book
    • Polari
    • Reading group questions
    • Reviews
    • In the media
  • Underneath
    • Endorsements and reviews
    • Launch party and events
    • Pictures
    • Questions for book groups
    • The stories underneath the novel
  • Matilda Windsor series
    • Matilda Windsor >
      • What readers say
      • For book groups
      • Interviews, articles and features
      • Matty on the move
      • Who were you in 1990?
      • Asylum lit
      • Matilda Windsor media
    • Stolen Summers >
      • Stolen Summers reviews
  • Short stories
    • Somebody’s Daughter
    • Becoming Someone (anthology) >
      • Becoming Someone (video readings)
      • Becoming Someone reviews
      • Becoming Someone online book chat
    • Print and downloads
    • Read it online
    • Quick reads
  • Free ebook
  • Annecdotal
    • Annecdotal blog
    • Annecdotal Press
    • Articles >
      • Print journalism
      • Where psychology meets fiction
    • Fictional therapists
    • Reading and reviews >
      • Reviews A to H
      • Reviews I to M
      • Reviews N to Z
      • Nonfiction
      • Themed quotes
      • Reading around the world
  • Shop
    • Inspired Quill (my publisher)
    • Bookshop.org (affiliate link)
    • Amazon UK
    • Amazon US
    • books2read

About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

TELL ME MORE

Useful writers' blogs

22/1/2013

3 Comments

 
Pictureat least I'm not blogging about the weather

My fifth post in my first fortnight of blogging: is this professional dedication; the typical novice's enthusiasm; or a worrying case of blogivitis, that disturbing affliction in which one's every passing thought becomes a prompt for a 200 word post that quite likely no one else will read?
So, just to show I'm not being totally solipsistic as I sit at my desk dictating into my new computer, here's a list some of the blogs I've started following to see how it's supposed to be done.


This Itch of Writing

Juliet O'Callaghan writes




http://www.mslexia.co.uk/blog/

http://shelleyharris.co.uk/

http://www.tribalwriter.com/

http://alibacon.com/blog/
Not many? Well, I'm going for quality, of course. No men? Now, that certainly wasn't my intention but I'm interested how it's turned out.

By the way, even though mine is not nearly as sophisticated, with seemingly no sidebar to list my developing links, it's still possible to comment, suggest other sites I should be looking at and to sign up for regular updates by clicking on the RSS feed link.
3 Comments

Narrative voice

19/1/2013

6 Comments

 
PictureMartin in full voice
Not being an early adopter of all things technological, I wasn't in a great hurry to join the blogging bandwagon. Except for the fact that both involve using ideas to construct sentences, I didn't see much overlap  between writing fiction and a blog. Would it be worth the time and effort if no  one were to read it? Would I be opening myself up to spiteful anonymous attacks? Might I, through the mysterious machinations of playground politics (sorry, the freedom of the internet), be simultaneously  lambasted and overlooked, and still be no further forward with what I consider to be my real writing?

Ten days in, I'm beginning to revise my opinion. The similarities are
greater than I'd – naïvely, glibbly – imagined. Because, in any kind of writing, there are always choices to be made about how to present oneself. There's always the question of narrative voice.

I'm writing as me, but as a particular version of me. Perhaps that's why I adopted the playful/witty/irritating/endearing username Annecdotist (delete as appropriate, but before you judge, please consider  what it's like to spend your whole life answering to an indefinite article). It's me, with a tale on the end. 

Unlike creating a narrator for my fiction, I'm not burdened with designing the details of Annecdotist's appearance and habits as these, for better or worse, are fixed. Or should they change, they do so in negotiation with me. No need to file reminders about the colour of her bedsheets or that she needs to stand on a chair to reach the spare mugs on the top shelf of the kitchen cupboards. But this doesn't mean I have no decisions to make about how I present my narrator. Far from it. It merely draws my attention to the more subtle aspects of narrative voice, that are perhaps more important but harder to pin down:
Or it may be because a voice admits us to a mind, a spirit and soul, which is distant from our own and yet the voice makes us live and breathe it. It doesn't mean that your narrator must be narrating explosions or heartbreaks, it means that your narrator must be someone we keep listening to. 'Listen!' s/he says, and we do.
Emma Darwin
How chatty should I try to make Annecdotist to entice you to listen? How authoritative? How humorous? How open? If I allow her to be too opinionated will I alienate some potential readers, but if I don't take that risk will the whole thing be altogether too bland?

I ought to be asking these same questions of the narrators of my fiction, but it seems more acute here, where I'm developing the voice in public (I wish!) right from the start. I'm curious as to how Annecdotist will develop over time and how she will feed into my fiction, if at all. Even though I do all my writing directly onto the computer, it's only Annecdotist that I identify strongly with the digital world. She's like one of those people kids used to think lived in the telly or one of those sophisticated androids from films like Blade Runner and if only I could locate the screen on my computer to fine-tune her settings, I'd have nothing to worry about.

Perhaps other more experienced writer-bloggers have sussed this one out yonks ago, or maybe your personalities are so well integrated your one-size-fits-all personas will serve you well at anything from a job interview to a beach barbecue. Whatever you think, perhaps you'd like to enlighten me?

6 Comments

Viewed from another angle

15/1/2013

0 Comments

 
My short story, Reflecting Queenie, has just been published at Creative Writing Ink. It's Snow White from the point of view of the mirror. (Not as dreadful as it sounds, honestly.)

As a reader, I've always loved books that bring a fresh perspective to a well-known story. Jane Eyre has never been the same for me since I came across The Wide Sargasso Sea. Looks like others appreciate this kind of novel too.
PictureI like the way the young one's a lady, the old is a woman. I think she used to be a crone when I first met her.

My first taste of the potentially subversive nature of a shift of perspective was with Chaucer at A level. What a revelation! 


Read More
0 Comments

Voice recognition software

11/1/2013

2 Comments

 
Picture
I've recently bought a new laptop. Presumably the updated technology will make my writing life easier in the long term but, in the short term, I find the whole thing a pain. Even with my husband taking on most of the donkey work, time spent weighing up the virtues of different models followed by
learning the quirks of a new operating system is time away from writing, as far as I'm concerned, and that's before I get started on the guilt at what the rich world's lust for progress does to the impoverished south.

I wonder if creative writing would be so popular these days if we didn't have
such easy access to word processing technology. I doubt I could've managed several drafts of a 100,000 word novel on my mother's old Olivetti portable where, if I got overexcited and typed too fast, the keys clumped together in the middle. I suppose if you  were to develop RSI in those days, you'd either have to hire a secretary or fall by the wayside. One way of weeding out the competition.

Due to RSI, which crept up on me in the middle of an MA course (not a writing MA) over ten years ago, I'm dependent upon voice recognition software for all my writing.


Read More
2 Comments

Is this thing switched on?

10/1/2013

0 Comments

 
Happy New Year!

While many people are already shedding over-optimistic New Year resolutions, I'm still writing cheques for January 2012 so I hope I can be excused for kicking off my blog with a review of the last writing year.

It's been a good one for networking, getting my short stories out into the world and progressing my novels.

Read More
0 Comments
    Picture
    Free ebook: click the image to claim yours.
    Picture
    OUT NOW: The poignant prequel to Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home
    Picture
    Find a review
    Picture
    Fictional therapists
    Picture
    Picture
    About Anne Goodwin
    Picture
    My published books
    entertaining fiction about identity, mental health and social justice
    Picture
    My latest novel, published May 2021
    Picture
    My debut novel shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize
    Picture
    Picture
    My second novel published May 2017.
    Picture
    Short stories on the theme of identity published 2018
    Anne Goodwin's books on Goodreads
    Sugar and Snails Sugar and Snails
    reviews: 32
    ratings: 52 (avg rating 4.21)

    Underneath Underneath
    reviews: 24
    ratings: 60 (avg rating 3.17)

    Becoming Someone Becoming Someone
    reviews: 8
    ratings: 9 (avg rating 4.56)

    GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Issue 4 GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Issue 4
    reviews: 4
    ratings: 9 (avg rating 4.44)

    The Best of Fiction on the Web The Best of Fiction on the Web
    reviews: 3
    ratings: 3 (avg rating 4.67)

    2022 Reading Challenge

    2022 Reading Challenge
    Anne has read 2 books toward their goal of 100 books.
    hide
    2 of 100 (2%)
    view books
    Picture
    Annecdotal is where real life brushes up against the fictional.  
    Picture
    Annecdotist is the blogging persona of Anne Goodwin: 
    reader, writer,

    slug-slayer, tramper of moors, 
    recovering psychologist, 
    struggling soprano, 
    author of three fiction books.

    LATEST POSTS HERE
    I don't post to a schedule, but average  around ten reviews a month (see here for an alphabetical list), 
    some linked to a weekly flash fiction, plus posts on my WIPs and published books.  

    Your comments are welcome any time any where.

    Get new posts direct to your inbox ...

    Enter your email address:

    or click here …

    RSS Feed


    Picture

    Tweets by @Annecdotist
    Picture
    New short story, “My Dirty Weekend”
    Picture
    Let’s keep in touch – subscribe to my newsletter
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Popular posts

    • Compassion: something we all need
    • Do spoilers spoil?
    • How to create a convincing fictional therapist
    • Instructions for a novel
    • Looking at difference, embracing diversity
    • Never let me go: the dilemma of lending books
    • On loving, hating and writers’ block
      On Pop, Pirates and Plagiarism
    • READIN' for HER reviews
    • Relishing the cuts
    • The fast first draft
    • The tragedy of obedience
    • Writers and therapy: a love-hate relationship?

    Categories/Tags

    All
    Animals
    Annecdotist Hosts
    Annecdotist On Tour
    Articles
    Attachment Theory
    Author Interviews
    Becoming Someone
    Being A Writer
    Blogging
    Bodies
    Body
    Bookbirthday
    Books For Writers
    Bookshops
    CB Book Group
    Character
    Childhood
    Christmas
    Classics
    Climate Crisis
    Coming Of Age
    Counsellors Cafe
    Creative Writing Industry
    Creativity
    Cumbria
    Debut Novels
    Disability
    Editing
    Emotion
    Ethics
    Ethis
    Family
    Feedback And Critiques
    Fictional Psychologists & Therapists
    Food
    Friendship
    Futuristic
    Gender
    Genre
    Getting Published
    Giveaways
    Good Enough
    Grammar
    Gratitude
    Group/organisational Dynamics
    Hero’s Journey
    History
    Humour
    Identity
    Illness
    Independent Presses
    Institutions
    International Commemorative Day
    Jane Eyre
    Kidney Disease
    Language
    LGBTQ
    Libraries
    Live Events
    Lyrics For The Loved Ones
    Marketing
    Matilda Windsor
    Memoir
    Memory
    Mental Health
    Microfiction
    Motivation
    Music
    MW Prequel
    Names
    Narrative Voice
    Nature / Gardening
    Networking
    Newcastle
    Nonfiction
    Nottingham
    Novels
    Pandemic
    Peak District
    Perfect Match
    Poetry
    Point Of View
    Politics
    Politics Current Affairs
    Presentation
    Privacy
    Prizes
    Psychoanalytic Theory
    Psychology
    Psycholoists Write
    Psychotherapy
    Race
    Racism
    Rants
    Reading
    Real Vs Imaginary
    Religion
    Repetitive Strain Injury
    Research
    Reviewing
    Romance
    Satire
    Second Novels
    Settings
    Sex
    Shakespeare
    Short Stories General
    Short Stories My Published
    Short Stories Others'
    Siblings
    Snowflake
    Somebody's Daughter
    Stolen Summers
    Storytelling
    Structure
    Sugar And Snails
    Technology
    The
    The Guestlist
    Therapy
    TikTok
    TNTB
    Toiletday
    Tourism
    Toxic Positivity
    Transfiction
    Translation
    Trauma
    Unconscious
    Unconscious, The
    Underneath
    Voice Recognition Software
    War
    WaSBihC
    Weather
    Work
    Writing Process
    Writing Technique

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013

    Picture
    BLOGGING COMMUNITIES
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from havens.michael34, romana klee, mrsdkrebs, Kyle Taylor, Dream It. Do It., adam & lucy, dluders, Joybot, Hammer51012, jorgempf, Sherif Salama, eyspahn, raniel diaz, E. E. Piphanies, scaredofbabies, Nomadic Lass, paulternate, Tony Fischer Photography, archer10 (Dennis), slightly everything, impbox, jonwick04, country_boy_shane, dok1, Out.of.Focus, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Midwest Region, Elvert Barnes, guillenperez, Richard Perry, jamesnaruke, Juan Carlos Arniz Sanz, El Tuerto, kona99, maveric2003, !anaughty!, Patrick Denker, David Davies, hamilcar_south, idleformat, Dave Goodman, Sharon Mollerus, photosteve101, La Citta Vita, A Girl With Tea, striatic, carlosfpardo, Damork, Elvert Barnes, UNE Photos, jurvetson, quinn.anya, BChristensen93, Joelk75, ashesmonroe, albertogp123, >littleyiye<, mudgalbharat, Swami Stream, Dicemanic, lovelihood, anyjazz65, Tjeerd, albastrica mititica, jimmiehomeschoolmom