Writing Stats for 2018

Just as the new year gets started, here are my writing, submissions and publication stats for 2018 and for 2017 to compare. 

2018

68 new poems
finished 5 previously started poems
94 submissions to magazines, 8 to book publishers
65 magazine rejections, 9 book rejections
10 acceptances
15 poems appeared in 7 publications, 5 online
6 acceptances awaiting publication
48 blog posts

2017

19 new poems
finished 9 poems
65 magazines submissions, 12 to book publishers
45 magazine rejections, 10 book rejections
7 acceptances
1 book competition long-list
17 poems appeared in 8 publications, 4 online
21 blog posts

It's the first number I'm proudest of, 68 new poems written this year, most in the last quarter of the year due to Wendy Pratt's online writing course. I've done my best to continue without the course and I'm happy with how well I've been able to keep up, I've written 13 poems since the course finished. 

Having so many new poems to send out for consideration has helped up my submission numbers. I'm still only getting around a 10% acceptance rate, but more submissions equals more acceptances, even if only at one out of ten gets accepted. Considering I have 43 submissions awaiting adjudication I'm hoping that my acceptance numbers will be up next year as well. 

The publication numbers are never reflective of the current year because many print publications accept work but then take months or even up to a year to publish. Online magazines are often quicker, though I have a few from earlier in 2018 still waiting to appear. The six acceptances awaiting publication already show next year's numbers will be better. 

The Poetry Bloggers Revival Tour challenge has helped me increase my blog writing. I'd like to keep that up in the new year, so I have joined the Poetry Blogging Network for 2019 which is a follow-on of the PBRT. I've had a lot more views on my blog as well, down to joining the challenge, but without adding up monthly totals which are difficult to figure out, I can't say for certain what the numbers are. 

I've also finished one poetry collection and am almost done with the second. I am writing so many new poems that I keep wanting to shoehorn them in, so need to have a serious read-through in the next few months and finish it off. I've also done a lot of work on my novels, including rewriting the beginning of my old novel. I have this idea to sort out some issues in the new one I need to work on, so I hope to get back to that in the new year. I'll come back to my resolutions for 2019 later.

It's funny how much I enjoy seeing the numbers add up even though I'm not very mathematically minded. It reminds me how much effort I'm putting in and that there are some rewards to that effort.

For anyone looking for a prompt based poetry challenge Angela Carr has started one for January, link here.  It's free and there's a Facebook group to post your work if you wish. I'm going to give it a go.  

So welcome to 2019. I hope it has a lot of good things in store for all of us.  

Ups and Downs

After feeling so positive and energised at last week's post, my mood and writing have taken a nose-dive this week. I haven't done any new writing or any daily prompts. I know it's a blip and I'll come out the other side, so I'm trying not to beat myself up over it. I've had a very productive year, so I'm not complaining at all. I can't wait to look over the numbers for the year in January. 

On a happier note, I did get an acceptance for 5 poems for an online magazine that I've been trying to get into for a while. I'll post a link when it's up. 

I also think I may have figured out a way to get around my problems with my novel, though I don't have any energy to actually do the rewriting. I've sketched out the idea in one of my notebooks, but I will have to go back to the beginning of the novel to make the changes. Hopefully in the new year I can start that and take the revised chapters to my writing group. 

The kids are off school at the end of the week, so I'll be taking some down-time anyway. I hope to do a bit of writing, but won't be able to commit much time. But now that they're older and can entertain themselves a bit more, I should be able to carve some writing space out. 

Winding Up Autumn

I've managed to catch up a bit with my writing from a prompt a day, 17 out of 30, and I'm back to at least sketching out a poem every day if not writing a good first draft. So that's encouraging and many of us will continue to write once the group is finished, so the sharing of our efforts will continue for a bit on the Facebook page.

Many of the poems I've been writing have been working from the problems I had a few months ago that put me in such a dark place. It's cathartic to be able to work through some of those emotions and the fall out to what happened. There's still things I won't touch on, but the end of summer and autumn in full force seems to be a good metaphor for the time. I've been grouping these poems into a rough collection just now, though I'm not sure where they'll take me in the end. 

I'm struggling with the oncoming winter darkness. I work to my UV sunlamp most mornings, but I still want to curl up on the couch under a blanket and hibernate. I have no energy for fiction at all. I'm enjoying the burst I've been getting from these courses for my poetry, but untangling the mess my novels have become seems like too much work. The new novel has become too complicated, I can't figure out how to express all the character's motivation. It's never enough for my readers, they either want more dramatic complications or less. 

So I think I need a break from fiction. Wendy Pratt's next online course won't be until January and it's a more intense, limited numbers course. Then February will be back to the original set-up. I'm torn whether to do the January course. I like the daily prompts, but this will be two weekly assignments which will get some close reading from Wendy instead. I guess it won't hurt to try it and it will give me something to focus on until February. 

I've been working a bit on my Finnish poetry collection. I think I have all the poems, just trying to sort format and editing. I still haven't heard about my Scottish collection's fate at the publishers.

So I keep on moving on. 

Backtracking - Rewriting Fiction

My second novel was written with no plan, no plot in mind. Just a setting, a character and a question. I let the character travel through her world to find an answer to the question. After the first draft was done, the question had been answered but it wasn't so important to the story anymore. Other questions, problems appeared, new characters became a focus as well.

My second draft has been trying to explore some of the ideas that developed later in my writing and to work in these new threads from the beginning. I've submitted my rewritten chapters to my writing group over the past year and we've reached Chapter Eight recently. Again, my readers asked new questions, showed interest in minor characters, struggled with aspects of the story. So I've been going back over the first seven chapters to makes sure it flowed and there weren't repeats or continuity errors or just problems.

I've also asked another writer to reread all seven chapters together. The problem with submitting 1,500 words at a time to the group that there is often long gaps between sections, as in the summer when I went on holiday, and not everyone can attend every weeks, so readers miss out on parts. Having a reader go over everything up to a certain point can give you good feedback on flow, pacing and development. 

I'm doing the same for another writer as he has also submitted about four chapters of his novel and we've both had the same sort of feedback about slow development. Our group mostly contains fantasy, science fiction genre pieces, so our two novels which are literary fiction, mostly relying on character development for their action rather than fighting or physical activities often feel slow. It's been helpful to get feedback on how things are working so far. 

And now that I have his comments I'm going over the chapters again. I'm also pushing forward with the next section for group this week. Until I get a firmer handle on the story, I'll continue to go back and rework as I move forward. It would have been easier to have a strong plot sorted before I started, but I can't always work that way. For me fiction develops from a grain of an idea and grows, expands as you learn more about the characters and the place you've set them in. It's one of my favourite things about the genre. I'm willing to take the time to move slowly back and forth over my story until I feel it's ready to face the world. 

Harvesting

The weather has definitely switched to autumn here, lots and lots of rain, temps cool enough to put on the heating, a desire to light a fire and wrap up in blankets. So it feels like time to start making plans and preparing. Harvest time.

Halloween is the end of the old year in the pagan calendar. I'm not a pagan, but I've always like this idea. My birthday is near Halloween so it's always been my new year point as well. For me autumn is a time to take stock, to prepare for the new year, to gather in resources and provisions for the winter. To finish old jobs and start new ones.

Life has given me a jolt and I've needed some time to curl up and reevaluate things from a distance. The same applies to my writing. The last week was quiet, but now I want to really begin to move forward.

I'm hoping the new course will give me lots of new poems to work with in October, but I also want to look at my Finnish poetry collection at terms of how I can start shaping it. I have enough poems as the moment for a full collection, but I need to reassess it in terms of theme and direction. See if I need to fill in any gaps or start from a new direction.

I'd like to read through the first 8 chapters of my second novel, the point where I've reached with my writing group, and see if it flows coherently. There's a worry from my writing group about pacing and development, so I need to look into that.

With my first novel, I need to brave looking at it again. I set it aside after rewriting the beginning as it needed time to set in my head. Now I need to read through it and see if it works and go forward with the rewriting if I'm happy with it.

So I'm taking small steps forward and it feels right for where I'm at just now. 

Working Through It

Another tough week. I've tried to focus on the daily writing prompts as a way of getting through it. Some days it worked because the prompt clicked with me, other times I couldn't see past the fog to focus on the prompt or anything at all. But I'm trying to be present at my notebook and computer every day possible. Even if I scratch nothings before giving up. 

I haven't been able to write much about the things going on lately, even in my journal, but I see it sneaking into the poems I'm writing. I'll let it simmer, reach out tendrils when it needs to as I try to work my way through it, in my head and in my writing. 

I have written 20 new poems this year, 12 through this poetry course with another 7 still in progress. That's one more than last year already. So I'm considering the course a success. For a tenner, it's been totally worth it. I will probably take the next one in October which will possibly be about autumn and aging which feels appropriate for the turn in the weather and my emotional mood. I feel I've aged a lot this month. 

I need to get back into my fiction, however. All this focus on poetry has slowed down my work on my current novel. But my writing group is back to a quieter, more serious venue, so I hope to return to bringing my novel sections rather than poems which seemed more appropriate for a busy cafe. Unfortunately, most of us are working on novels or longer fiction, so getting through 4 or 5 longer pieces in a night is difficult. Poems are quicker to discuss and they're getting better at it as most of them are not comfortable with poetry. 

Back in the Groove with Poetry

Obviously what I've been needing to get my poetry writing going again is daily prompts and rough deadlines. One week into Wendy Pratt's online poetry course and I've written five poems. Almost a poem a day which is unhead of for me. They're coming together quickly and solidly. The prompts aren't earth-shatteringly complicated or different from ones I've done in the past. They're all focused around nature and our place within it and relationship to it. Some ask for a specific structure or form, others don't. There's no problem if you go off topic or don't follow the form. The main goal is to get us writing.

We can if we choose, post our poems on a secret Facebook page and the feedback is mostly positive with a bit of critical suggestions. The writers are all of varying level, so we're mostly trying to encourage. I'm missing more critical feedback, but that's what I thrive on. There's over 40 people on the course and you're lucky to get 5-7 comments, including Wendy's. I'd maybe like the opportunity to submit one poem for finer feedback from Wendy, but in reality she'd have to charge more than a tenner for that, just for the time it takes, time forty students. So for what it is, the course is good value for money. Some of these poems I wouldn't have written without the course, others I had in the back of my mind and I found a prompt to fit. All new writing is good.

Can I keep this up after this course finishes or should I sign up for Wendy's next course, which she's hinted will be on age/aging? I'm not sure. In theory, she's not offering anything I couldn't do myself. A daily prompt and some basic feedback. I can find a prompt from my books or my head, I can use my writing group more for poetry which I did do last week. But there's something different about someone else taking the lead, coming up with the prompts, setting a deadline, a group atmosphere even if it's unlikely that anyone would notice if I didn't post a poem. 

And it's obviously working for me. I'm enjoying the pressure and challenge and I even like some of my poems, others I will continue to work on.

The University of Iowa fiction course continues to flail. This week's section again has issues with the discussion questions. One question is pasted in 3 times. But I have enjoyed the most recent podcast I watched, the author actually had a bit of a screen presence and was discussing problems similar to what I'm having in my book. I've written that difficult scene and am now moving on to editing the following one, so that's a good thing. I'll keep pushing on.

My youngest went back to nursery on Monday so I've had a bit more time to work in the mornings, almost interruption free as the older kids either go out or disappear in the house with their books or toys. I'm trying to write my poem, do a chunk of the fiction course in the morning and then proof my and post my poem online in the evening and hope for feedback. 

Write on.

Prompted into Action

Just over a week until the kids go back to school and I have to say I'm looking forward to it. I've just started Wendy Pratt's The Wild Within course and that on top of the University of Iowa's is hard with the kids about. Neither are labour-intensive, but I need small pockets of time to focus on reading texts and to work on my own writing, but that's difficult with my 4 year old. 

We've taken today off after a hot day walking around an island yesterday, but I'm having to tell the little one, 'I just want to finish this reading' before I bake cupcakes or see whatever toy she has this morning. 

Wendy's course started today and it looks like it's going to be a good one for me. She's sending a weekly email, poems to read, ideas to think about and will also be sending out a daily writing prompt to get us started. There's no expectation to produce a poem every day, thank goodness, but just getting into the habit of doing a writing exercise daily will hopefully get me out of my poetry slump. 

I've scribbled four pages of notes on today's prompt, but I'm not focussed enough for a poem, I don't think, but it's nice to start the process again. I like the directions it is taking me, but I'm struggling because part of what I want to write about it in the past and my memory is so bad that I can't sort out details without my old journals, half of which are in a loft in Scotland. So I need to focus on the more recent details. 

I'm getting some work on my most recent novel done as well, connected with the Moving Margins course. I've been working on a section that's been eluding me for a while - the funeral scene of one of my favourite characters. It's been difficult to find a balance of how to describe it, but to also put some weight in it beyond just telling what's happened. I think I know which way to take it now.

To be honest, this week's course selection seems thrown together. The texts and questions and are about setting, but the video lectures are about character. The discussion questions are badly copied and pasted as two are the same and another a section repeated. Disappointing, but if I get this chapter written, I'll forgive them. 

It may seem a strange way to work I'm sure, two screens open - poetry and fiction - and my notebook. Reading stories and emails, watching video lectures while cupcakes go in the oven and Bolognese bubbles on the stove. Things get done, in drips and drabs. My technique won't change once the kids go to school, but there will be more time to focus rather than fitting around their needs. 

And tomorrow they'll need to get out of the house, so I'm trying to get as much done here as possible today. Of course as soon as I basically finished up for the day, my littlest was happy to play in the bath for an hour and then colour for an hour with little demands for me (except to see and comment on every picture she drew). That's the way things go some days. 

Catlapsed and Numbsweet

This is my last week before all the kids are home all the time from school and summer camps for seven weeks. I should be writing and writing and writing, but we all know it doesn't always work that way. There's still the house to maintain, dinner to sort, a phone call from one camp to check on a child's eye problem and tons of other things that pop up. The hours whisk by. 

I'm finishing my latest poem. I took it to my more laid-back summer edition of my writing group and got some good feedback, especially in terms of boat terminology which I know nothing about, but which help improve the feel of the poem immensely. I really have nothing new in mind to write though which feels odd.

So I've gone back to some old notebooks for inspiration and came across this list of compound words I made up for a writing practice. 

numbsweet     stankstone         

catlapse          saltshine

bootslap          bindsweet

rainheal           bloodnumb

rainclasp         smothershine

So much potential there. I used to play a lot more word games and wrote a lot more stream-of-conscious style practices. Something I should try to get back into. 

I've taken some notes from two unrelated writing exercises I did in 2005 about crabs. Why two exercises focussed on crabs? I don't know, but I'm wondering if I can do something with them. Maybe I'll try and use a word or two from the list above. 

I'm still editing both novels, but very little. I've received more rejections and submitted more poems to magazines. I'll need to set a new routine for me and the kids next week, so will take advantage as much as a I can of the extra time now. 

Common Writing Mistakes to Look Out For

While I'm editing and rewriting my second novel, I find it's worth looking for common mistakes that slow the writing down or just look amateurish. As I write first drafts without rereading and checking over things except for plot elements, these little mistakes sneak in easily. It's best not to do this while you're writing as you'll never move forward. 

I have a list of these from my teaching past, but I've picked up some new ones from the writing group I've been attending. Some of these you may not do often, some you may over do.

These are just a few that have popped into my head as I've been rewriting and workshopping lately, not an exhaustive list by any means. 

- 'to be' and boring verbs. 'He was old.' 'It had been a long day.' Give me more information, don't tell me about it, show me. Spice up your verb usage, break out the dictionary and look for synonyms. It's nice to mix it up, but don't be afraid to use 'to be'. As in all things, balance.

- overuse of adverbs. This also falls in the telling versus showing category. Don't tell me 'he ran quickly', show it through more details. 'His feet skimmed over the grass as he raced down the hill'.

- filter words. We talk a lot about getting more of the character's senses involved in the story. How does she feel, how does an item taste or smell or sound like. But you don't need to broadcast the fact that you're adding these descriptive details by telling is 'it tasted like', 'she felt'. Here's an article that lists lots of filter words which could be used less. The hard part is editing them out as it's not as easy as replacing a verb. Rather than say 'it smelled mouldy' say 'mould oozed from the cracks, filling the air with its rancid spores'. It makes your writing more immediate and interesting.

- using the phrase 'began to/begins to' or 'started to/starts to'. For example - 'she started to get up.' Why not just say 'She pulled herself up.' or be more specific and tell us how she did it.

- using the word 'just'. I discovered I use this word a lot. 'I just don't know what to do.' 'He was just picking up the car when . . .' Do you need to use it so often? Do a search and discover how many times you use it and if it seems like a lot, go through and see if they're necessary.

- repeating information - this can be through over-explaining an image or detail or it can be giving the same information in different scenes through different characters. If you've just showed your main character breaking up with her boyfriend, don't have her explain what happened to her best friend in the next scene. You can use indirect speech for this 'I told her I broke up with Joe' and then move on to new information.

- character descriptions - describing every character's hair and eye colour, what they're wearing in depth. This is not something I do, in fact I probably don't describe my characters enough, but I really dislike reading it in other's books. Pick a detail or two, preferably not hair and eye colour, and focus on that, something that gives us a feel for their personality rather than just how they look. 

- using 'there' too much - This is a new one for me and my next edit will involve looking at how I use 'there are' and 'there were'. Here's an interesting article about it. 

On to rewriting my first novel, I'm getting to the point where I feel the new section will soon meld with the old novel. I still have a lot of patching and smoothing to do and adding things later on to up the action. 

Best of luck with your writing or rewriting.

Moving Forward

I'm still rewriting my first novel. Thirty-six pages of mostly new material so far. I'm a slow writer, but I'm getting there. I don't really have a plan, just trying to get my character up to where the novel previously started and to have more action and suspense. I'm not sure how it's going as I'm not rereading yet, but I'm happy that I'm able to keep moving forward at this point.

Do you reread and edit as you're working on a first draft? I tend not to, unless I have an idea that needs incorporating earlier or I need to change something plot-wise. I like to keep pushing the characters into new situations without worrying too much about fixing the mistakes or tidying up the writing. This is especially important when I have no firm plot I'm working to. If I spend too much time going back and fixing things, I'll never move on to writing the new material. 

There's a buzz in following your character's first steps through a scene, meeting a new person for a first time. If you're worrying too much about tidying up your previous scene, you may miss an important detour the character wants to take or the details of this new adventure. I find it easier to go back and sort the language and add, take out or move information than it is to discover it the first time. 

I think it was Hemingway, but don't quote me on it, who said he liked to leave off writing knowing where the character was going next, so when he sat down to write the next day he could start off right away without figuring out that information. I try to do this as well. It doesn't always work because sometimes I just can't see how to get my character out of whatever situation she's stuck in and need some time away from the screen to ruminate on it. But if I can, I leave my character ready to head off on their next adventure. 

Actually, do quote me on it: The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel you will never be stuck. That is the most valuable things I can tell you so try to remember it. - Ernest Hemingway from an article in Esquire, Oct 1953. More advice from the man here.

Today I finished off a scene that had been hanging over me for a week as I was uncertain of how to get her out of it. Now her next steps are planned, well, I know who she's going to be with and what they plan on doing. What actually happens is totally up to them on the day. 

I've also been working on the poem I started last week. It's basically done, I'm just tidying up the language which could take another week. First poem I've written in a while. 

The magazines have been very quiet lately. I know Finland starts to grind to a halt in June and totally goes dormant in July, but I didn't think the literary world would go so silent this early. I haven't had a rejection or acceptance or anything for over a month, I think. It's frustrating to sit here and wait to send out more work. I'm sure there are editors everywhere buried under reading piles, but let's hope they get some responses out soon. 

A Break and Returning to Routine

I've had a friend visiting from Scotland for half of last week and while I did very little work while she was here. It happens and is to be expected, better yet plan for it.

A break from your writing routine can be a good thing, but only if you remember to push back into it afterwards. Take advantage of the rest and change of scene and people and use the time away from your routine to stimulate your writing. It's easy to slide into being lax, so you must be ready to start back right as soon as possible after your break. 

A change of location is often good. I usually write in the kitchen, occasionally in waiting rooms or cafes. In the past, public transport was a good place for me to write, the monotony of the rhythm and the views if it's a regular trip, but also sense of movement and the flashes of scenery and people. I rarely go on buses now because I am reliant on the car to get the kids to their various venues, so a half hour of scribbling notes to the stop and start hum of the bus while I was heading into town to meet my friend was enough to stimulate my poetic juices which have been buried under fiction for the past few weeks.

I also get a burst of writing adrenaline from talking to new people or ones I haven't seen in a long time, even if it's not about writing. I've had four days of talking to people I haven't spent time with in months or even a year, visiting places I rarely go to. Along with the unusually warm, sunny weather the past week has been a wonderfully exciting change of pace.

So this morning was the disappointing drop back into stressful mornings of getting everyone to school. But after the kids are finally at their various schools, I return home to silence, breakfast, tea and my writing routine.

I should be outside, enjoying the gorgeous weather, I should be sorting out my allotment, I should be cleaning up the house after it's been ignored for four days, but I'm hiding from the birch pollen and writing in the kitchen. Sometimes I just have an hour or two, other days I have longer. I can choose whether to focus on poetry, fiction, submissions or research. I set the rhythm, but the routine is familiar and comforting.

I'll need to look into setting a new routine soon as the kids will be off school at the end of the month. We have a few weeks of summer camps and the littlest still in nursery, but after Juhannus, mid-summer, regular life shuts down in Finland for the slow summer crawl.

The kids will be home all day and I'll struggle to find time to write between finding things to entertain them and catering to their needs. My hope is I can get up relatively early with them and write while they eat and potter around on their screens. Then we can go out in the afternoon and have a quiet early evening at home where I might get a bit more done. We'll see how well it goes.

Enjoy the fantastic weather, if you're getting any, while it lasts. 

Rewriting After Rejection

I love to edit my work, I'm always tightening pieces and trying to bring out their best. In the rewriting stage especially, I take on reader's feedback and consider it when working on my novels or poetry. So it's not unexpected that after a big rejection like I had last week that I’ve been looking at my first novel with new eyes. 

Or maybe clearer eyes. I often know when a piece of writing isn't working, but finding a way to fix it is more difficult. I was partially aware that my first novel had some problems. It's not a mainstream novel and my unusual style is difficult for readers to become comfortable with: too poetic, too disjointed, the main character in too many pieces at the beginning to connect with. For years, I have been unable to find a way to approach this without losing how I saw the novel. 

I spent a lot of time last week pondering this. I did some simpler editing based around the problem of using a first-person narrative, too many I's, the sentence structure too similar, but the bigger issues continued to haunt me. How to make the beginning of the novel more approachable, but not lose my poetic sense of the novel?

I'm not sure if it's going to fix the problem, but I've decided to give it a go. I'm taking a person from the main character's past who is referred to in flashback scenes and bringing him forward and building a foundation from which the main character can fall into her disjointed state. I'll try to reduce the scenes from what is now the beginning, so that they are shorter and hopefully by embedding them in the foundation it will feel less of a jump for the reader. 

It will involve writing a substantial new chunk for the beginning and doing a lot of rewriting to make everything mesh. 

I'm not totally chucking my original. It might still find a home at one of the other publishers where it languishes in a slush pile. And I might hate the rewrite, so will want to go back to the original or start again from there. 

When the feedback is negative, it's not necessary to immediately jump to rewriting. Sometimes you have to valiantly cling onto your novel or poem with all your might until you find the right magazine or publisher. But if there's a niggling feeling that they might be right, it's worth exploring other options. Or if the same feedback comes back time and time again, you might need to admit it's a problem that needs to be fixed. 

Sit back and let the readers' comments and criticism sink in. Some questions to ask yourself. 

Is there a basis for their comments? Can they back it up with examples?

How will it improve the piece: help the readers' understanding, improve the saleability, etc?

How much does it change the original concept?

Is it a fix-it from the reader?

How dramatic and time-consuming is the change?

How do you feel about changing this?

I've mentioned 'fix-its' before when I was writing about criticism from writers' groups. It is when a reader suggests how you should 'fix' a problem your piece of writing. I am wary of these because the reader makes it personal, fixing the story to their needs. Sometimes the suggestion is good, but I prefer when the criticism is more about what they feel doesn't work, rather than how to fix it. I want to figure out my own way, do it in my style. Point out my story needs more suspense or hooks, don't suggest I should have my character get pregnant or have her mother abuse her. These are real life suggestions I've received for my current novel. Comments from readers can sometimes be very blunt. 

I've been sitting on this finished novel for ten years with the feeling that it wasn't quite right and that it wouldn't find a market as is. I'm at the stage where I'm happy to consider playing around with other ideas. 

In the end, it's your story or poem, you have to be proud to send it out, to see it with your name on it. 

Well, back to the rewriting. Best of luck. 

Rejection

Part of the waiting is over. One editor has come back to me with a negative response for my novel. Actually two this week, but I really wasn't expecting anything from the first.

I'm usually not bothered, I get lots of rejections. For my poems, my novel, but I allowed myself to hope a bit with this one. I researched the company and really liked the sound of their editing procedure. The editor was really nice and personable in her emails and requested to see the first 50 pages, then the whole thing very quickly. It seemed all positive.

The rejection, though half-expected because I'm not 100% sure of my fiction, hit me hard at first. I was literally numb for a few minutes looking at the email.

Her comments were brief, but to the point. One problem she mentioned can be fixed with some work. A few of the others I've known in the back of my mind since completing the novel, but I'm not sure how to rework it, rewrite it to fix them. Some surprised me. I can't tell how far she really read, it seems like maybe only the first 50 pages from her email. Maybe it improves after that point. It might be a matter of rejigging things to move some of the scenes around, but it might require a whole rewrite. It could mean changing my idea behind the novel.

It might be the fatal flaw and need changing, I can't decide right now. And I won't. For now, I'm fixing the fixable and scribbling notes of what I could do to approach the other bigger problems.

Rejection this big is heart-breaking, but it doesn't signal the end. There might be an editor who can see what I see, it's still at a few other places. I might find a way to rework it without losing my original vision. I have scrapped 30,000 words of this novel and started from scratch before. It didn't stop me from writing then, it won't now.

I will give myself time to recover, I will continue on with this novel and with my second. With my poetry. With writing. 

Hard Graft

The past few weeks I've had blog posts lined up for Monday morning, but the past two weeks have taken their toll with illness for the kids and myself, so this week I've had to start from scratch.  

I'm still feeling drained, but I'm still pushing through with the work: writing, editing and submitting. That last poem for my Scottish collection is still lingering, though I'm just doing small edits. Once I have a week of looking at it every day and making no changes I'll consider it done. 

I'm steadily rewriting my second novel. I submit about 1500 words a week to my writing group and then rewrite it according to their feedback. It's a slow process, but because of the haphazard way I wrote the first draft it's the best way. I'm having to stitch the various threads of the story together, expand a lot and figure out the motivation for some of the characters. It's coming together slowly. 

I've submitted my first novel to two competitions, a publisher and an agency so far this year. It's my goal to get it published in 2018. I'm getting a bit frustrated at the amount of entry fees I've paid for this novel over the past years so am trying to find publishers with calls for submissions or competitions with no entry fees. When you're not currently earning much it seems a waste to keep paying £15-£25 an entry. I've also been submitting a chapbook of poems from my Finnish collection to free competitions and calls. 

I fall between many categories in competitions. I'm a woman, but am not in any other minority grouping, I'm not even considered an immigrant by most standards. I'm over 45 so often am excluded from a lot of competitions aimed at younger writers, but I'm not old enough for the senior competions. I am not resident of an English-speaking country so that often goes against me as well. Finding a free competition for a novel or poetry collection/chapbook that is open for non-residents, over 40s and not a member of any minority bar women is really difficult. Especially if I add the wish of being published in the UK rather than the US. I just feel my writing is a better fit for the UK and I have more of an audience there, though I have tried a few poetry chapbook competitions in the US recently. So my choices are limited which is why I still pay for the occasional competition. 

Trying to get published is an uphill battle, hours spent writing, rewriting, editing and submitting, but as it's only part of the goal of writing it's worth all the hard work. My ultimate goal is to write something I'm proud of, that I want to share with others and that they will hopefully enjoy. Fingers crossed this will happen soon. 

Making Writing Fit into Your Life

Last week was our half-term spring holiday and all the kids were home for most of the week. Luckily I had my blog post written because I know that even if they give me a bit of peace I don't write well with others in the house. 

My kids are not quiet by a long shot and even if they're playing nicely they are shouting, singing, stomping. They demand a million cups of milk (just one child), need someone to break up disputes, to help them fix or find toys, to put on plasters and remind them to eat or clean up one mess before starting on the next. They need regular exercise and getting out of the house. Damn, they need a lot of supervision.  

I love my kids and the chaos in some ways, but I like to write in silence. I was berated recently in an online group because I said I didn't listen to music when I wrote. Really, do people need such strong opinions on everything? I don't listen to much music in general besides in the car, but even background music distracts me too much to focus on my writing, especially poetry.

Over years of writing I have developed various routines that have changed with my circumstances. I used to write on trains and buses when I was commuting a great distance for work. When I lived in Greece I woke up early and sat at the window looking out over the sea before going to teach all afternoon and some evenings. I love to write in cafes and museums when I'm at home and when I'm travelling.

I've always written in notebooks and for the last 20 years or so with the same type of pen, but have recently widened this to include a laptop for fiction. Transferring pages and pages of scribbles can be quite time-consuming and that has become the biggest problem of my life since having kids: finding time for my writing. 

I was once many moons ago granted a bursary to finish my first novel. So for a short period, I became a full-time writer, or my version of it. I went to my allotment first thing after I woke (not early though, let's be realistic) and after working there for a bit I wrote in the greenhouse or if the weather was nice in the fresh air. Then I would go home, have lunch, write some more and then type out all my pages. I would also edit earlier chapters. Then it was time to be a grown-up and sort dinner, etc. I loved it, the rhythms of my days, the amount of work I could churn out, the sense of purpose. 

Now, I average about 3 hours a day if I'm lucky and that time has to include things like cleaning the house and prepping food for meals. I write my blog, write and edit poetry, my poetry collection and novel. I also submit work to magazines. I don't have time to linger among the brassicas before writing a chapter and then spend 2 hours typing it out again when I return home. I write poems between making soup and doing laundry. I submit poetry before I pick up my son for physio. I write in the physio's waiting room. I have a regular half hour of writing practice in a gluten-free bakery's cafe while waiting for my kids to finish their music lessons. I've written a lot of rough drafts in that cafe in the 4 years my son has been learning the guitar. 

It's not my ideal, but I have to make it work. I will never get back to those heady days of being a full-time writer. I'm lucky I don't have a full-time job on top of the kids at the moment, so I can carve out those three hours here and there. 

I carry my notebook with me everywhere and sometimes even write notes on my phone. I try to be strict about my writing time, don't browse on my phone until I've done the specified time. I keep a pen and paper next to my bed as I sometimes get ideas for lines or structure while I'm drifting off.

I know what works for me. I write at the kitchen table because I'm usually having to jump up to sort something on the stove. I also like the light in that room. I write first drafts of poems in my notebook over and over again until I have a strong basic structure. Then I type it up on the computer. I don't listen to music unless I need to get the feeling or the lines of a particular song for my novel. Then I listen once before heading back to silence. I work in spurts, taking short breaks to do something else, usually cleaning or maybe check FB for five minutes. I switch a lot between what I'm working on, so can do poetry, fiction and submissions all in the same morning.

It's taken me a long time to work out my writing habits and I've had to adapt and start over several times. You have to find what works for you. Try different locations, even around your own house. You don't need a desk, but sometimes it works best. 

Try different mediums, paper, laptop, large whiteboard for plotting. Try silence, with music or telly on in the background. Try long and short blocks of time. Write while communting or in places you wouldn't think of like waiting rooms, in soft play or in bed. 

Try different times of day. You might think you are a night owl, but by the time it rolls around you are too mentally exhausted to write anything of quality. So try early-ish in the morning, before your family awakes, before work. Or try after dinner when everyone's occupied by their own things. 

Make time for it and be flexible.

Creative Writing Degrees - Are They Worth It?

When I was a lass in the United States, looking for a University to call my own, there were no such things as creative writing degrees or MFAs and such. 

Well, there were, but I didn't know about them, didn't know I would be interested in that sort of thing in the future. They were definitely there: the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop has been around since 1936 and it's just down the road from where I grew up and the University of Montana near where I went to University is even older. I had never heard of them or any creative writing degrees.

I wanted to be a writer but had been thinking along more practical lines. I signed up for a Wildlife Biology major with an English minor. I wanted to write for National Geographic, be the next Farley Mowat. OK, maybe not exactly practical. After a year and a half of this, I realised for various reasons that Wildlife Biology was not the field for me and switched to an English major. The University I attended didn't have a creative writing degree programme, but you could focus your degree electives on creative writing (or pre-law or education). So I doubled my focus on literature and creative writing. I attended every workshop and lecture I could fit in, every reading held in the town. I joined a writing group through the University. I loved it, but by the time I heard about creative writing degrees, I was looking more to leaving the country rather than continuing my education. I signed up to a literature M.Phil in Scotland and the rest is history.

To be honest, looking back on my writing then I think I would have struggled to get a place on a MFA. My writing wasn't really that good and the programmes available out there were few and elite. Or so they seemed. 

So I slogged away on my own, writing away every free moment I had. I had no real goal in mind, I just needed to write. I craved it, and used it to remember and celebrate the good times as well as sift through difficult situations. 

I was lucky enough to work in publishing early on where I got a first-hand look at rejection and publication from the other side. This gave me the confidence to start trying to get my poems published.

Around the late 90s, I realised how popular creative writing courses were and how they could benefit writers. I couldn't really afford a course, I needed to work, editing, waitressing, freelancing with teaching and other things. I didn't have a lot of free time. I slowly started getting my work published, took the occasional evening course, joined lots of writers' groups and workshops over the years and eventually began to teach them. 

All the time, I was glancing at the creative writing degrees popping up in Scotland, first St Andrews, I think, and then Glasgow and Edinburgh. I saw the success of writers connected with these programmes and wondered if it would be worth my while to join one. 

Doing a creative writing degree, at any level including a PhD, has its major benefits. First of all, you suddenly have a tribe. No more the lonely writer in the garret. Well, yes, writing is still a solitary activity, but you have workshops to share your work, events to attend, like-minded people to talk to and most importantly teachers and mentors to guide your writing. You can get a bit of this from writers' groups and working hard to be in the literary scene, but walking into an already established programme saves a lot of hard work. 

The tribe follows you once you've completed the course. There are literary magazines that focus on publishing students and alumni of certain writing programmes and 'who you know' is as important in the publishing world as it is in any other field. Friends and colleagues promote and recommend each other, of course they do. 

You also get time to focus on your writing, to really break it down to learn the underpinnings of poetry and fiction and to discover and develop your own themes and interests. You write analytical essays on your own work as well as literary examinations of other writers. This time and focus can be so beneficial to improvement, but I'm sure it can also lead to burnout. I know after spending 3 years dissecting writers I loved to learn their techniques in my literature degrees, I sometimes grew out of love with them. It must be more difficult if it's yourself and your own work. 

In a degree course, you get used to criticism and rejection as well. Not every piece will be perfect and you'll learn to recognise this and hopefully how to avoid or repair the problems probably faster than a self-taught writer. Good teachers will give a balance of support, encouragement and criticism. 

There are negatives, of course. Degrees can be expensive and in no way guarantee success. It's not just writing your own poems or stories, you have to read tons of other people's work, and do proper essays and thesis just like regular university degrees. That's one thing that's put me off. I don't want to go back to university after having done two degrees already. I want to focus just on my own writing. And just because you walk away with a MFA or whatever in creative writing it doesn't mean your writing is good or sellable. 

And just because the tutors and lecturers and visiting writers are hopefully established and experienced it doesn't mean they will give you the best feedback for your writing. They are human and have their own interests and styles which may not mesh well with yours or with teaching in general. I've attended workshops from 'names' that were a waste of time because the visiting writer was drunk or had something else going on which were not helpful to giving feedback to novice writers. I've been shouted at, and had poems torn apart in public with no consideration for my inexperience. I've also had poems praised to a false level which also didn't help me in the future as I thought I was good when I really needed more critical guidance. 

The explosion of creative writing degrees over the past 30 years also means your tribe becomes your competition. Universities continually churn out new 'writers', but publishing houses are publishing less, rarely taking on new names. With the internet, e-books and on-demand publishing anyone can publish their own books, so chances are you will be lost in the crowd if you self-promote. Jobs for writers like writer-in-residence or creative writing teaching posts are rare and highly competitive and with the economic downturn community groups and arts funding agencies are cutting back on supporting them. 

I know a few writers who have done very well after finishing their writing degrees, but I also know that they were good before they started the course. I'm sure the course improved their skills and saleability but was it necessary to help them along? I'm also sure that lots of graduates from these degrees drop off the map. You'll find examples on both sides of the aisle, those who have succeeded after creative writing degrees, those who have done so off their own backs and those who have failed whatever their background. Would I be doing better in my own career if I attended a creative writing programme? No one can really say. 

It really is a personal choice. Creative writing degrees can translate into other careers, the skills of improving your writing, and being able to read, analyse, comprehend and critique written text are essential in many careers. So it's not necessarily a waste to attend one, but it's also not always the most beneficial move. It might be the boost your writing needs, but they are a huge commitment and not for the faint-hearted. 

I'd love to hear from those who have a creative writing degree. Did it help or hinder you? Would you recommend it?

Getting Out of a Rut

Getting started writing again after the long Christmas break has been difficult; moving past all the admin I need to catch up with, organising the family, the gray weather and a general feeling of malaise and being unfocussed. I haven't been able to attend a writing group in ages because of illness, cancellation, house guests. All just excuses, however legitimate they may be.

It's easier to edit, to submit to magazines, to write this blog, to do organisational work. It all needs to be done, but for my own writing mental health I need to be putting new words on a blank page. I have the time, a new notebook waiting for me, two poems I need to finish, but I have no new ideas and no motivation.

What is your motivation? It's not always clear. Some writers require a goal to aim for: the next project, a deadline, a collection to finish. I have those. Some are pushed from behind: a need to say something, a character that demands to be heard, a poem ready to be born. This is how I ususally work, but I'm not feeling the pressure at the moment. So I need to step out of my normal routine to shake something new loose.

How do you find motivation when it's lacking? Writer's block is the grand, scary term often used. It can be a problem for some writers. Sometimes when you finish a piece, it's hard to get going again. I find that after I finish a draft of a novel, I've run out of energy to start something new. I do need some time to relax and reset my mind. I've reached that point with my poetry. I've basically completed all the poems I had planned, so am scrabbling around for new ideas. 

Even mid-project when the writing has been flowing well you can just stall. It can be your brain sabotaging your work by being overly self-critical or just anxious about what you're trying to say. Then you just need to ignore the voice of your internal critic and just keep writing. 

Sometimes the piece you're trying to write just isn't working and you need to take a step back to evaluate. You can let it simmer unheeded for a bit and work on something different, but if you leave it for too long it can be very difficult to get started again. You can also try turning it upside down and approaching it from a totally different angle. 

There are lots of writing exercises to help push past being stuck or writer's block, but it starts with putting those first words down. They can be gobblygook to begin with, just to grease the engine a bit. Scribble them on a piece of scrap so you can immediately throw them out so you're not burdened with the idea of them having to be perfect or even readable.

Write lists if you're not ready for full sentences yet. List your character's favourite places or their favourite music and then the next day pick one of those to write a simple scene with. Take that list of 'what I want to write' and bluntly write the synopsis for each one, five or ten sentences as if you were telling a friend what your next poem or story is going to be about.

Write about why you can't write. What's holding you back? Rant about the Blue Monday, gray January weather. Go off on the fact that you have a mountain of ironing to do or you haven't translated yet another medical report from Finnish. Tell how you've painted your character into a corner, that their actions aren't believable, that you've fallen out of love with them. Try and find solutions, even ones that are implausible and fun just to get you out of the rut. Have an angel pull your character from their conundrum and take them on a 'this is your life' type adventure. Write your suddenly boring character as if they've just arrived on the scene; someone exotic and mysterious. Get to know her again from scratch.

Play with words: write down ten verbs connected with one occupation (like mountain climbing: scramble, hoist, perch) and ten nouns connected with another (DIY: paint, hammer, drywall) and 10 adjectives from another (cooking: moist, rising, fried) put them together in grammatically corrected but crazy sentences and then try and turn them into a poem. Find 10 new words from a dictionary and use them in a writing practice.

Rewrite a poem or scene where you're stuck from a different character's point of view. Describe the event from the end first. Rewrite a poem by replacing every verb and adjective with its opposite.

Give yourself deadlines or word limits: a poem a week, 1500 new words by next writing group. Arrange writing dates with a friend to write new material and to share it afterwards. Schedule yourself strict writing time, no screens, no answering the phone. Pen and paper and an hour to write. Go someplace unusual and write as if you were taking snapshots of the place.

Think about what pushes or pulls your writing along. Sometimes revisiting old techniques work, other times you need to discover new ones. 

Good luck and wish me some too. Tomorrow I have scheduled writing time and will take one of my prompts books with me to see if I can reignite the spark.