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Welcome

I started this blog in 2013 to share my reflections on reading, writing and psychology, along with my journey to become a published novelist.​  I soon graduated to about twenty book reviews a month and a weekly 99-word story. Ten years later, I've transferred my writing / publication updates to my new website but will continue here with occasional reviews and flash fiction pieces, and maybe the odd personal post.

ANNE GOODWIN'S WRITING NEWS

Into the light

5/11/2018

6 Comments

 
Like a satisfying story, the journey to selfhood often entails working through conflict. Sometimes, it’s only through opposition that we begin to discover our own values and beliefs. This can be frustrating to witness in others, especially those for whom we’re responsible: think of the tantrumming toddler or the belligerent adolescent. But, while others can guide, prompt and set boundaries to prevent us harming ourselves or others, we must all forge our own paths to the someone we become.
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If identity is so idiosyncratic, is it possible to generalise about it at all? I hope so, since I’ve spent the last few weeks drafting guest blog posts to promote my forthcoming short story collection, Becoming Someone. I’ve been musing, among other things, on different aspects of the writer’s identity and why we sometimes struggle to embrace it, and how it might also function to protect us from other identities we’re less eager to own. I’ve also been exploring how identity is represented in several classic novels and in my favourite short stories. (Actually, the latter’s still on the starting blocks, and something I need to knuckle down to this week.) I hope you’ll be able to find the time to read these posts when they hit the blogosphere, beginning a fortnight today.

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My anthology reflects the multifaceted nature of identity and how it develops in a relationship – often conflicted – with the self and with others. Some of the stories are about the difficulty of growing into oneself, about the blocks to personhood and how other people’s changing identities impact on ours. But I hope I haven’t made it sound like a textbook! Few of these stories were written with a theme or even a collection in mind.
 
But now they’re together in a book, can they collectively illustrate the process of becoming someone? Sara-Jayne Slack, my publisher and editor at Inspired Quill, hit on the bright idea of arranging the stories in order of the central character’s increasing confidence with who they are. So, after a fair amount of back and forth, the collection begins with a struggling teenage mother and ends with a widow marking her husband’s passing in style. Despite the mix of metaphors with roadblocks, diverted paths and spinning signposts in the middle, there’s a progression from characters stranded in the dark to emerging into the light. I hope this works for readers.
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My character Diana goes through a similar process my debut novel, Sugar and Snails. Although she seemed to grasp her desired identity in adolescence, it takes her another thirty years to feel comfortable in her skin. If you haven’t yet read her story, you’re in luck, as it’s on Kindle promotion throughout this month. (As her outrageous blue fascinator declares!)

Immersed in pre-publication fever, it’s both a relief and a challenge to switch to fiction. I can’t stretch much further than 99-word stories at the moment, and even for them it takes a long walk for inspiration to take root. Yesterday’s low cloud kept me from the moors (so no bolving) but I managed to find a couple of stories.
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With the last of the Rodeo contests a couple more days to run, I struggled. Courting danger has never been part of my identity, and there’s little to connect me to the mindset of anyone who would. But I found a seed in an earlier challenge and I’ll submit my puny plant to the judges later today before it withers away.


As soon as November struck, Charli launched a new season of challenges. With fireworks bursting on the horizon as I drafted this post, the cue was too colourful – and noisy – to ignore. But what to do with the theme of bonfire night? My thoughts eventually settled on an identity I haven’t attempted to capture in my anthology, although a couple of characters come quite close.


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November the fifth … and the third and the fourth and the sixth too

Rainbow sequins burst onto a velveteen sky. With every screech and bang of the lightshow’s soundtrack, she feels him flinch. People scowl: his barks and yelps foul their outdoor entertainment. She grips his collar, strokes his head.

In the before, they baked potatoes in the embers, her brother’s boxer snug in his basket beneath the stairs.

Only one more night before the park’s returned to her and him and others like them. Pitch and peace from sunset to sunrise. Until Christmas. Hopefully, they’ll be bedded down in a shelter then. When another batch of fireworks explodes in the sky.
Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
6 Comments
Molly Stevens link
5/11/2018 01:48:17 pm

Congratulations on the anthology, Anne! What a lot of work that represents. We have just waved goodbye to tourists in Maine, and I feel a bit of the relief you've expressed in your flash today - our state has been returned to us!

Reply
Annecdotist
5/11/2018 06:48:59 pm

Thanks, Molly, I hope you can make it to the Facebook launch.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
6/11/2018 11:46:26 am

Hi Anne, Your launch is getting closer and closer. How exciting. I look forward to your blog tour and hope to read most of your posts, at least. If you need another stop along the way, I'm happy to put you up for a while. Apologies for not extending the invitation sooner. If you are all booked up, that's fine too.
What a great November opportunity for readers to catch up with Diana's story in Sugar and Snails for a very small cost. It is a great book and one that I am happy to recommend. Readers won't be disappointed.
Good luck with your dangerous story. I haven't written one yet - I think I'm getting dangerously close to the finish line with nothing to offer.
I enjoyed your response to Charli's first 'return-to-normal' flash prompt. Your opening sentence is exquisite. I do hope she and he are more securely sheltered come Christmas time.

Reply
Annecdotist
6/11/2018 07:20:34 pm

Thanks for your support, Norah. I think the posts are going to be bunched together in publication week to try to drum up support for the launch so you might need to put them aside to read later, but I’m bound to keep flagging the links! And thanks for the invitation for a slot on your blog, which I was going to decline as I haven’t anything suitable unless you’d like to host an extract from my fractured fairytale? I wouldn’t want to commit either of us to much extra work.
Glad you liked that flash. It’s amazing what a walk on a cloudy day can do – although I almost lost that opening line when I was diverted into a conversation about Jane Eyre!

Reply
Charli Mills
7/11/2018 06:22:58 am

Identity is something we cling to and some reshape it and others set it in stone. But life has a way of challenging us on identity and no wonder, as writers, we struggle with it. A good theme to explore as a writer and I'm looking forward to your stories of Becoming Someone.

Your flash is heart-breaking -- there are those among us who lose a sense of identity in their homelessness. Your story frames the insecurity in holiday lights. brilliantly.

Reply
Annecdotist
7/11/2018 08:33:25 am

Thanks, Charli, I was pleased with this flash then worried I might not have got the point across clearly.

Reply

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