Miracles of Kindness

There's a lot of information on the internet for writers. You can learn all about techniques and templates, how to craft your work, sales, marketing and how social media is your new best friend. (I think that's the freezer actually, but only because I recently freelanced a piece on the subject.)

There's some - though notably less - information out there about how being a writer impacts on the rest of your life (and the lives of those closest to you), and even a little about how your writing can help others. 

What struck me recently though was how often writers are the recipients of kindness from other writers. Even when they're embroiled and immersed and often submerged in their own work writers will give you an honest opinion. They'll also add a review or offer a blog interview or tell their friends about your book, or make a you a cake with your cover on it. (I'm told that happens...) If you write you are a part of a culturally rich and diverse community.

At A Word with You Press, time and again I have seen connections form over a love of words and stories, and the transformative and liberating power of language. More than that, I see kindness in action. A friendly word to a fledgling writer sharing their work for the very first time, or a question answered, or an insight offered. Each time seeking only to lighten someone else's literary load. (Yes, I do love alliteration.)

It's a cliche that writers are competitive, frustration-filled adversaries, fuming at one another's successes. I have to tell you though that it's not my experience. Writers understand one another's struggles to make sense of the stories in their heads and the all-consuming desire to spend chunks of their otherwise perfectly happy lives in isolation, staring at the screen or the page. 

Yes, we obsess about feedback, reviews and 'the numbers'. However, I have a theory about all that. I think, rather than yearning for fame and fortune, we are really looking for some indication that it's getting easier. A sign - from royalty sheets or online reviews or attendance at book signings - that we are making progress along the path we have chosen. We want to know it's getting easier because we also know, come what may, we will never stop writing. 

If you're in need of a reminder that the glass is half-full, there's a collection of uplifting true stories available, which includes my anecdote Street Angel.

Miracles of Kindness

True Tales of Kindness in the Modern World

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Miracles of Kindness is also available in a multimedia format on iTunes.

Miracles of Kindness is a collection of stories, submitted by participants from all over the world and rewritten for dramatic consistency, that tell of simple acts of kindness that have had a profound effect on people’s lives. The stories are told from the perspective of the recipient of the act, so that the impact of the miracle of the event, spelled with a small “m”, can be truly felt. There are also three “Profiles in Kindness” stories which tell of visionaries who helped thousands of people by simple but determined acts. The stories in Miracles of Kindness range greatly in subject matter, from simple acts like a well-timed hug or the return of a lost wallet to getting a wounded grandmother to a hospital or helping to find sobriety for a lost soul. Each story will inspire as you are reunited with humanity’s good side.

All For One - Anthologies

One of the more obvious challenges a writer faces is how to fill a book. Ask any novelist and they will likely tell you that the second half of a novel is easier to write because the characters and plot are already well established, and part two is often largely about resolving the consequences of part one.

For those who pen shorter material, although there are competitions and magazines out there eager for flash fiction or 2000 words on a theme, putting together a collection of stories for publication can seem onerous because short fiction can be a hard sell.

One solution is to create or contribute to an anthology, showcasing the work of several writers. Books can be themed or stand as a general celebration of the art of short fiction. (If you thought sculpture was difficult, try sculpting a 250-word piece.) Anthologies are also a blessing for those writers who are uncomfortable in the spotlight – there may be more of those than you think!

Other advantages of a multi-writer anthology

-       You have more chance of filling a book.

-       Individual writers can focus on a small number of contributions.

-       You automatically start off with a group of people keen to spread the word.

-       Those same people (unless they all live on the same street) are likely to have separate communities, increasing the potential for word-of-mouth recommendations.

-       Every author is likely to buy at least one copy* so that ought to get the ball rolling.

The challenges of a multi-writer anthology

-       There may be differences of opinion in the editing process, unless you have clear ground rules or an editor-in-chief.

-       Some contributors may not want or be able to get involved in the marketing of the book.

-       There has to be a running order, preferably one that’s carefully balanced.

-       Erm…the money.

Anthologies can be funded in several ways. Costs can be shared among the contributors (in which case it might be wise to agree a set word count for each story). Grants may be available, especially if it’s a thematic anthology or raises funds for a particular cause – the Arts Council is a good place to start in the UK. There’s still the faint possibility of anthologies being funded by publishers in what used to be called the traditional way with contributors receiving royalties from sales. There’s also the buy-out option where writers are paid a one-off fee to use their material in perpetuity.

If you’re funding the book yourself / yourselves, costs can be reduced by publishing as an ebook (if you have the time and the know-how, your only expense will be the cover design), or by producing a Print-on-Demand version.

I’ve been fortunate to contribute to four anthologies.

Beyond the Horizon is a general fiction anthology published by Bamboccioni Books. I contributed a sci-fi tale, in the spirit of Asimov, Rogue, about what it means to really live.

The Coffee Shop Chronicles Vol 1 (Oh the Places I Have Bean) is a themed anthology about coffee from A Word with You Press. It contains a mixture of anecdotes, poetry and fiction celebrating the much-loved** caffeine creation. I was one of four editors and my fiction contribution is Diner, a short tale about relationships, lies and self-deceit.

Kissing Frankenstein in a general fiction anthology published by Flash-Fiction South West. I contributed some really short pieces (some only six words long) and my main piece, Between the Lines, was a story about taking chances.

Miracles of Kindness is a themed anthology contains anecdotes about…well…kindness. My contribution, The Street Angel, is about the folly of first impressions when I found myself stranded in Chicago late one night.

My plan, later this year, is to put together an ebook anthology of my own work. Entitled Into the Void and sporting a stylish cover design supplied by www.goonwrite.com, it will feature a mixture of favourite pieces, new material and experimental work.

* Not always though. I know of an anthology where the contributors received a small buy-out fee and a significant proportion of writers never bought a copy.

** Although, ironically, not by me.

July 4th

Every item tells a story.

Well, of course I wasn't going to let US Independence Day pass without a blog post. 

After all, as someone once said, parodying a comment allegedly made about Billy Connolly and the shipyards, I spent one year living there and 25 years talking about it. (To which, I replied, "Don't forget about the short stories and the novel.")

July 4th is one of those occasions steeped in myth and history that has come to mean something fixed, even though some of the reasons behind the decisions, battles and, ultimately, the birth of an independent nation are still up to debate. If you're open to a good conspiracy, I recommend The Temple and the Lodge. On the other hand, whether you're British or an American and if you're capable of reflective humo(u)r, you might enjoy this glorious piece on revocation, which airs periodically and has been wrongly attributed to John Cleese over the years. You see, mythology again.

Our ability to attribute fixed meanings to events, or even to non-events, is probably connected to our  innate need to tell stories. As Mark Twain may have said: "Never let the truth stand in the way of a good story, unless you can't think of anything better."

Recently, Thorn Sully and I were chewing the fat over skype about A Word with You Press's inaugural anthology - Coffee Shop Chronicles, Vol 1, Oh the Places I Have Bean. It's a conversation we've had a few times since the book was released into the wild. Should we create a second book? Ought we to focus on an ebook rather than a more expensive paperback, and could we maybe reduce the size of it to slim down the unit price. We chat about the weather too, sometimes.

Anyhow, I happened to mention that it may be time to promote the book a little more deliberately by cranking up Twitter, Facebook and all the other toys. Out of interest and intrigue, I checked the book out on Amazon and discovered that we had zero reviews. That's not a terrible thing; we had sold in low figures after all, opting for a more organic (some might even say lesiurely) approach to marketing. But none? 

If I explain that there were 100 entries in the anthology, it might go some way to explaining my disbelief. And, since you ask, as I was on the editorial team (as well as being a contributor), it didn't seem right to me to wave the flag personally. We've since emailed all those involved with the book, to ask for their participation, and at least a couple of reviews have appeared.

There is a valuable lesson here, and it's no criticism of those non-reviewers. People are busy; people form and lose connections with equal speed and so we, as writers, need to work hard to maintain a relationship with readers and contributors. Simply creating a book is not enough to keep readers engaged. 

Maybe they didn't like it. Maybe they didn't even know it was out there. Maybe they're wondering why we haven't been in touch since the book launch (we actually have a website and online community at www.awordwithyoupress.com, but we have had some changes recently). 

Who knows?

What we do know is that it's up to us to make the relationship work with the reader (and the contributors). 

It's important to separate facts from conjecture and to not get lost in our own stories about what we consider to be the truth. So, stories on the page but not off it!

Happy Independence Day, people, wherever you are!

Evolution of an idea

It's not big and it is clever

Give me a writer who knows exactly where they're going and I'll give you - and them - a round of applause. Any writer I've ever met, be they published or yet-to-be-published, may have an inkling, or even an ambition, but that's about it.

In a sense, that's part of the joy of writing. You never know quite where it will lead, either on the page or off it.

So if you're sitting comfortably, I'd like to tell you the story of a story. Two stories, actually.

Once upon a time, David French and I created As Above So Below magazine - a satirical take on all things 'alternative', along with anything else that took our fancy. In Issue 13, I wrote a piece, The Daily Grind, about an imagined encounter with a new age luminary in a San Diego coffee house. It included new choices for a modern generation:

Crappuccino - with a laxative for colonic health.

Mocha Shocker - with a battery in it to jumpstart your day.

Americano - with oil dashes.

Bratte - with a mild sedative for children.

Depresso - with serontonin for that extra lift.

As you might have guessed, I'm not a coffee drinker. At all.

Wind forward some considerable time and a jaunt through Craigslist brought me to a competition to get a story / piece of writing in a coffee themed anthology. Naturally, having read the rules, I thought of modifying Daily Grind. And spookily, the indie publisher was based in San Diego. Fate, huh? Ish.

Good news: they liked the piece and said it was funny. Fortunately, the editor-in-chief had spent time in the UK and enjoyed British humour. 

Complicated news: the prizes were vouchers for coffee houses and they planned to sell the anthologies there. Consequently, my anti-coffee piece wasn't quite the ticket, but if I wanted to write something else they would consider it favourably. 

I took a different tack next time and wrote a short story with a serious motif, Diner, about domestic abuse. They accepted the story for print.

Wind forward a couple of months or so and I'm on the anthology editorial team, as well as helping out with administration and posting on the site. Pretty soon I am officially the go-to guy* for new projects in indie publishing house A Word with You Press.

Four of us edit the book in chunks. The paperback comes out and is well received by those who bought it. However, it did not sell well, partly because the price point was too high (the editor-in-chief wanted to include every writer who submitted something, to give them a start in print) and partly because our distribution chain wasn't up to the job. We were learning on the fly, and my, how we learned - often at the e-i-c's expense.

Wind forward a little more time and AWwYP has several books on the go, and one or two in the pipeline. Coffee Shop Chronicles Vol 1 will hopefully become a collector's item, as there are plans afoot to bring out a smaller version instead, containing just 50 entries (we like to think of it as the espresso version). It will give us the price point we need to make the book cost-effective.

My point though (because you've probably been wondering by now) is that the first stepping stone to CSC Vol 1, and my association with AWwYP, was writing a piece for a magazine that hardly anybody read. So few, in fact, that AASB magazine hasn't had an issue out for over two years. If there is a moral here, it's that a good idea is never wasted - not unless we forget it or refuse to act on it.

I'm proud of CSC Vol 1 for many reasons: the cover, my story being in it, the way that four editors worked so well in our respective cities, the fact that 100 writers were given a little floor space by Thorn Sully, and that it's a real, live paperback. And a little bit shiny.

AWwYP recently vacated its premises, and the e-i-c is going on a book tour and considering what the future of AWwYP will look like. It's an uncertain adventure (but all the best ones are) and I look forward to the next chapter. 

Get it while it's hot.

* Project Development Director - all writers love a good title!

Mondays with Monika - 1

As you may recall, a trainee clinical psychologist, exploring the therapeutic benefits of creative writing, interviewed me. The experience got me thinking about some themes I return to in my fiction, such as loss, separation and change, and the ways in which fiction comes to be as authentic as non-fiction.

But what about non-fiction that tells the truth - warts and all? How far can or ought we go in our quest to connect with the reader?

I'd like to introduce my friend, Monika. We 'met' at San Diego based A Word with You Press, although I'm at least 50% certain that neither of us has visited the HQ.

What makes Monika's blog special is its combination of honesty, engaging writing and ability to connect with you emotionally.

It's my great pleasure to bring Monika into the limelight.

Let's start with what might seem a steep dropping off point. 

Your mother died recently and you chose to write about it in detail - not just how you were feeling, but also what was going on around you. Was it a conscious decision to commit it to the page and has that helped you in the grieving process? 

Regarding writing about my mother's death: it was both a conscious decision and a reflexive action. Writing a blog is like having a conversation with yourself that you allow other people to overhear. I have occasionally kept a journal, but I just couldn't get motivated to write anything that no one else was going to read. But I really enjoy talking to myself, and I find that I can be a very clever self-conversationalist if I think that someone else might be listening. And that's the whole value of therapy right there--just knowing, or at least hoping, that someone is listening. I mean, besides myself. (Maybe blogging could be called "tautological therapy" - a self-referencing and self-reinforcing loop with restorative powers.)

Writing is also a good way to separate the strands of thought that get so tangled inside my head. My head is like a big knitting basket, with a bunch of crazy-knotted balls of yarn inside. Writing allows me to take out one ball of yarn at a time, examine it, and untangle it. And the delightful part about writing is that, as you're untangling your yarn-thoughts, you find strings that connect to other balls of yarn in unexpected ways. Although sometimes that's exhausting, because you're like, "Damn! I thought I was DONE untangling this ball of yarn!"

And then writing is also a way of recording what's happening to me, so that I can remember it more clearly. I don't mean that I go back and read my blog entries from two years ago, because I generally don't. I mean that the act of writing helps to cement an event in my mind more clearly. It's like this: I write down a shopping list, go to the store, and realize I've left my list in the car. But I still get everything I came for because the act of writing things down has made me remember them. It's the way my mind works--some people have to hear things spoken to remember them, and some people have to write things to remember them. Some people think in images, some people think in words. My thoughts are almost completely in words; my inner images and feelings are always accompanied by descriptive language.

Another benefit of writing-as-therapy--a therapeutic aspect that many people overlook--is the act of producing something, and the corresponding feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction when you are done. You made art! You told a story! You didn't just sit around and stew about what's bothering you; you put a bunch of words together and you made something beautiful, something real, something that exists OUTSIDE of your head, something independent and separate from you. It's part of you, and it came from you, but it's also not-you. It now also belongs to whoever reads it, and it takes on a life of its own that you have little or no control over. You made a baby. And the best thing about this baby is that you don't have to change its poopy diapers or pay to send it to college.

More from Monika next Monday - if you've enjoyed what you read here, you won't be disappointed.

The Ones That Got Away (and one that didn't)

Hello and ahoy to everyone. I'm just back from a relaxing and contemplative week on the Isles of Scilly. But more about that in a separate post, teaser that I am.

It appears I've been more circumspect than I intended recently, regarding my progress in securing representation for one of my novels. I had an email from someone upon my return, asking if in fact I now had an agent for my Brit thriller Standpoint. So it seemed only fair to clear the air, like a literary twitter.

In a word: no. The agent was concerned about my novel's distinctiveness and felt an agent specific to that genre would be more likely to secure a publishing deal for me. Since then I've approached his three recommended publishers directly and I'm waiting to hear from two of them (one will only talk to agents).

Elsewhere, I finally got a response back from a sci-fi / fantasy publisher in the US about another novel Covenant (God loves a trier, as our mum used to say). Writers typically expect to wait around 3 months for a response to a submission, whether it be by email or the trusty envelope. But I think I have reached something of a record here - something that even rivals the year it took to get a proof edit of the same novel by a previous publisher (who then went out of business).

Cue drum roll...

Dear Author,

Thank you for your patience as we considered your novel. Unfortunately, it does not seem right for us. Due to the volume of manuscripts we receive and the press of other business it is impossible for us to go into particulars. Please do not take this rejection as necessarily a reflection on your work; we can accept fewer than one percent of the manuscripts submitted to us. Best of luck in another market.

And how long did it take to get that feedback? Take a breath...

1 year, 3 months and 16 days.

Patience, is is said, is a virtue. This timescale, however, is just a week shy of the gestation of the Grey Rhino (source: Vaughn Aubuchon). Still, it could have been worse; it could have been an Indian Elephant.

And because I know everyone likes to end on a high note - there's a joke in there somewhere about the sex life of an opera singer - I do now have another little book out there in print. I was going to wait for the link to be set up then badger you all mercilessly about it (I still might), but there's no time like the present. And no present as suitable as this book.

The Wanderer is a contemplative read, described by an editor from another publishing house as 'wonderfully reflective'. It's a short tale of a man who wakes up on a beach and who then sets out on a journey of self-discovery. www.awordwithyoupress.com/store

How low can you go?

Wordcount, that is. The 100 word One Tight Write competition, run by A Word with You Press, is going great guns. It's remarkable how much you can fit into such a small space, like the literary equivalent of the joke about fitting four elephants in a Mini.

I've written 50 and 60 word stories in the past, but the most celebrated short story is surely Ernest Hemingway's masterpiece: For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.

The Arvon Foundation ran its own six short words competition earlier this year and these were my entries (with thanks to fellow writer Susie, who is better at archiving my emails than I am):

One survives, one dies; now choose.

Last human, online; then instant message.

Congratulations! I blanch, knowing I'm impotent.

Good to see you again, Lucifer.

Published at last and no one suspects.

Till death us do part... goodbye.