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Not all may have prizes … but how does funding play a part in who enters the race?

16/10/2018

With the Man Booker Prize winner announced tonight, my fingers are crossed for Washington Black, although I’d raise a cheer for either of the other contenders I’ve reviewed (The Mars Room and Milkman). Right now, my thoughts are also with those authors who not only don’t succeed in dazzling the judges, but don’t even get the chance to step onto the stage.

You’re familiar with those email scams, aren’t you? Congratulations, you’ve won a prize! Just send us a cheque to cover administration costs, and we’ll deliver it. Feels good, doesn’t it? Until you wonder whether the winnings will cover your fees. But that wouldn’t happen in the literary world, would it? Awards are dispensed purely on merit, surely? No paying for prizes there?

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Should I stretch this short story to a novel?

27/8/2018

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One moonless night, when her daughter was but a few months old, Eve clawed back her silken baby skin and planted a bomb in her chest. It wasn’t as difficult as you’d imagine; a baby’s body is more malleable than an adult’s. Getting under her daughter’s skin was rather like peeling an orange. Or picking at the flap of a sealed envelope to slip an extra something inside.

It was only a small bomb, the size and shape of a button battery, albeit large in relation to her daughter. It was bigger, for example, than her daughter’s dainty fingernails, bigger than the snub of her nose. But, like a school uniform, the child would grow into it, grow until the bomb was eclipsed by the face of her wristwatch or an ornament she might hang from her ear.

I wouldn’t blame you if the opening has put you off my most recently published short story (or the length at over 3000 words) but, if you do choose to read it, you might be able to help me decide where, if anywhere, to take these ideas next.

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Flesh on the bones: Beyond the 99-word story #flashfiction

27/4/2018

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I wrote recently about how practising the 99-word story strengthens my editing muscle. But, of course, the discipline can also have benefits in the other direction, planting a seed that can grow into a longer piece of fiction. The recently published Congress of Rough Writers Flash Fiction anthology contains five such expanded stories (including one of mine) along with the original 99 words. I not only relished reading the other four on their own merits, but I also wondered about the different ways we’d fleshed out our original bones. Would a closer examination of the authors’ process from flash to the longer story (or, in one case, from long to flash) help elucidate that enigmatic creature, creativity? Here’s what three of the other authors told me, along with my own 99 words. (Photos and links are from/to the relevant author page on the Congress of Rough Writers list.)

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No feelings? #amwriting #mentalhealth #Flash4Storms

9/10/2017

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One day last summer, I had an errand to do ten minutes’ drive or half an hour’s walk away from home. Even though the route, along a fairly busy road, isn’t particularly pleasant, I prefer to walk, both for the exercise and to feed my writing. So I grabbed my raincoat (it was that kind of summer) and laced up my boots. On the way back, the sun came out at the moment I levelled with a track I’d never previously taken. It was time to investigate.

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BBC National Short Story Award: Q&A with Cynan Jones

3/10/2017

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The winner of this year’s BBC National Short Story Award will be announced this evening. Of the five shortlisted stories I’m rooting for “The Edge of the Shoal” by Cynan Jones. You can listen to the story on the BBC website or get the collection from Comma press. Thanks to Frances Gough for arranging my review copy and Q&A with Cynan Jones.

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Two novels and a short story about marginalised females

21/9/2017

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Life’s tough on the fringes of society, perhaps particularly if you’re female. Not only have you your own vulnerability to contend with, but the projections of others who feel safer dwelling on your difference than on your similarity to them. Let me take you into the worlds of three such fictional females: The Parcel is harrowing novel about sex workers in Bombay; Dance by the Canal is a lighter novella about a homeless woman in East Germany; my recently published short story, “Ghost Girl” is about an African girl with the wrong colour skin.

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What life is actually like: In Extremis by Tim Parks

8/7/2017

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[T]his is what life is actually like. Your mother is going through every kind of hell, in excruciating pain, not knowing what bed she will die in, your sister sounds relaxed and jokey, and you are thinking of your old friend Dave and the precariously double life he always led.

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Do you hear a voice when you read fiction?

29/6/2017

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Signing copies of my new novel, Underneath, for a couple of acquaintances recently, I was interested (especially given my recent post on the unconscious and hallucinations) when both said they heard a voice when reading a novel to themselves. Because they know me, and I have a distinctive voice (and not necessarily in a good way), I wondered if they thought they’d hear my voice when reading my novel (even if it is narrated by a man), as has been reported before (I didn’t ask just because I’m a narcissist). But no, one said she hears her own voice, the other a voice specific to the story she’s reading. I wonder what that’s all about.

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Fictional affairs in Paris and Dublin

22/5/2017

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If you’ve ever held back from having an affair for fear of the hurt it might cause other people, let me offer you a risk-free alternative. These two novels about women with roots in America who stray from marriages to European men can furnish the excitement and eroticism without the guilt or fear of discovery. If you like to read on-screen, no-one need even know you’re having a fictional affair.

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Nineveh: Trading in painless pest relocations

13/5/2017

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It’s strange, what disgusts people. Who would scorn the friendship of a gecko, for example: golden-eyed, translucent-skinned, toes splayed on a farmhouse wall? Who could resent a long-legged spider, knitting its silver in the corner of the room? But they do: people will pay to have them killed, poisoned, destroyed.

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Amid the splendid scenery of Orkney and the Monros

10/4/2017

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Let’s take a look at a couple of debut novels with some fine evocations of the natural world and a strong sense of place published by small independent presses based in Scotland.

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It’s not humbug, I just don’t like Christmas

17/12/2016

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If you trade in trees and turkeys, I wish you a prosperous one. If you’re a Christian, I wish you a divine one. If you can’t get enough bling, I wish you a glittery one. If you like old movies, I wish you a nostalgic one. If you’re an extrovert, I wish you a carousing one. If you’re happy to devote hundreds of hours to food creation and consumption, I wish you a gastronomic one. If you’re skilled at shopping, at giving and/or receiving presents, I wish you a gratifying one. If you have children, or an uncomplicated relationship with your roots, I wish you a familial one (and if you don’t, you might appreciate this flash from Sarah Brentyn). If you appreciate being nudged to consider others less fortunate, I wish you a charitable one. If you’re getting to know a new partner, I wish you a romantic one. If you’re in need of a break from a hectic job, I wish you a tranquil one.

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On denial, light and dark

14/11/2016

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As I speed walk along the path, the low sun flickers on and off through the trees. Dark light, dark light, it dizzies my brain as if I’m in a zoetrope, making me pause and clasp a column of rough bark for balance. Usually, I welcome the winter sun on my face, but now I turn from the light that mocks me. Usually, I’m good at seeing in the dark but, even after Brexit, I did not foresee the triumph of Trump and I’m distraught.

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The aftermath of war in The Gun Room & Now and Again

10/11/2016

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These two novels explore the impact of two of America’s controversial wars (Vietnam and Iraq) on combatants, observers and their nearest and dearest.

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Hotels and expectations: Lover by Anna Raverat

16/10/2016

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Kate has a new job as an executive for a hotel chain and two young daughters when she discovers her husband is having an affair. As her marriage implodes, the pressure mounts in the workplace where Kate finds it increasingly difficult to reconcile the competing demands of caring for the guests and providing dividends to the shareholders.

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Prickly characters

4/10/2016

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We all know a prickly character, someone around whom we need to tread carefully so as not to get stung. In our social lives, we might keep them at a distance but, in therapy, they’re often intriguing and we might relish the challenge of discovering what lies underneath that porcupine skin. In fiction, they can also be appealing but, like the shy character with whom there might be an element of overlap, they aren’t so straightforward to write.

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The amazing workings of the unconscious mind

19/9/2016

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I had a dream last night. Don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you with the details, as I can’t remember much more than the basics of the characters involved: a mother, father and three young boys. It was one of those dreams that feels extremely vivid, but doesn’t translate into the waking world. And, while I don’t think the dream content merits interpretation, I do take it as a communication from my unconscious mind. A reminder of its existence, or my belief in such, in good time to provide a theme for the post I wanted to write today in response to the latest flash fiction challenge.

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Office memorandum

31/7/2016

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The Man Booker Prize longlist was announced on Thursday and, despite being well on the way to a hundred books so far this year, I’ve read only two of the thirteen. Much as I enjoyed Hot Milk and Lucy Barton, a few months on they don’t feel as mind blowing as Richard Flanagan’s 2014 winner. Then I’m worrying that I’m falling into the trap of judging male writers and subjects as more deserving than female. Then I wake up on Friday to find I’ve made the shortlist of six for the Polari Prize, the one where gender might not be so black and white. (I’m still reeling from the shock, but I’m sure I’ll have more to say about this in a later post.)

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The Course of Love by Alain de Botton

20/7/2016

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It will take Rabih many years and frequent essays in love … to recognise that the very things he once considered romantic … are what stand in the way of learning how to sustain relationships. He will conclude that love can endure only when one is unfaithful to its beguiling opening ambitions; that for his relationships to work he will need to give up on the feelings that got him into them in the first place. (p6)

In a nutshell, The Course of Love is about the need to adjust our ideas of marriage in order to make it a success. In a similar vein, let me suggest the reader adjust her expectations of this book in order to fully appreciate its wisdom and compassion.

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Homeless inside

27/6/2016

14 Comments

The Carrot Ranch is on the move and, sadly, not by choice. Forced out of her home and on the road, Charli has nevertheless grabbed the reins for long enough to deliver another flash fiction challenge. Fittingly, the topic is home and she’s served up two brilliant examples from her own novels in progress. While a collection of 99-word stories might not provide the much-needed bricks and mortar, there’s a virtual round-the-campfire homeliness on her blog when writers ride up with our responses to the prompt.

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<<Previous

Not all may have prizes … but how does funding play a part in who enters the race?

Should I stretch this short story to a novel?

Flesh on the bones: Beyond the 99-word story #flashfiction

No feelings? #amwriting #mentalhealth #Flash4Storms

BBC National Short Story Award: Q&A with Cynan Jones

Two novels and a short story about marginalised females

What life is actually like: In Extremis by Tim Parks

Do you hear a voice when you read fiction?

Fictional affairs in Paris and Dublin

Nineveh: Trading in painless pest relocations

Amid the splendid scenery of Orkney and the Monros

It’s not humbug, I just don’t like Christmas

On denial, light and dark

The aftermath of war in The Gun Room & Now and Again

Hotels and expectations: Lover by Anna Raverat

Prickly characters

The amazing workings of the unconscious mind

Office memorandum

The Course of Love by Alain de Botton

Homeless inside

2018 Reading Challenge

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