Getting better

Some uplifting news this week. My novel made the long list for the Virginia Prize for an (as yet?) unpublished novel. Obviously, it would have been much better to make the short list, but given that Part 3 of the book is in need of a face lift, I was cheered by this. Also, over fifty per cent of the short list are novelists with form - they have published books. All six on the short list sound interesting, and I wish the authors the best of luck for the ceremony in Richmond later this month. The winning book will be published by Aurora Metro in the Spring. As for me... I'm beginning another rewrite and will start sending out again in the New Year, all being well. So three lucky agents have something to look forward to in 2010 - Hahaha!!!

Boo-hoo-hoo

Anne-Marie Doulton has finished my book and said 'no'. Her feedback isn't all bad, she said some very nice stuff, but in the end it 'wasn't quite as involving as (she'd) hoped', so I'm guessing this means that she just didn't love it? Oh, boo-hoo. At least she responded promptly and I can open my emails now without my stomach turning over with anticipation and dread. Back to the Writers’ and Artists’ Year Book. Of course, I'm really disappointed and beset with all those 'what if no one loves it' and 'what if it's crap' feelings, but I understand that rejection is the norm in this business and not the exception. The worse thing is that in a funny way I feel like I’ve let her down – the use of the word ‘hoped’ has sparked this I’m guessing – because I think that most people want to like stuff. Anyway, onwards... It’s my boy’s birthday today, so I have to get my ‘happy mummy’ face on. Kids are great for stopping self-pity and navel gazing.

Another day, another rejection

Strange one this. Or maybe not? Maybe this is common. I don’t know yet.
Anyway, I received a ‘thanks, but no thanks’ from a small Kent-based agent the other day. So what’s odd I hear you cry? Well, I received the email at lunchtime the day after I’d posted my submission package… So they’d had it for a maximum of four hours.
Either this agent doesn’t receive the usual gazillion MS a day like most others say they get, and hence their slush pile is so miniscule (non-existent) and they have so little to do for their existing clients that they have the luxury of being able to read each submission as it drops onto their clear desk, or they bin them straight away, unread. If so, fair enough, but why not make it clear on the website that they are not looking to take on any new clients unless they are JK Rowling or Dan Brown? The email was so standard that I wondered if the package had been read. (It must have been opened, they had my email address). It wasn’t even topped or tailed. No ‘Dear Laura/Ms Wilkinson/Misguided Fool. No ‘Yours sincerely/yours dying of boredom having just read the turgid nonsense you laughingly describe as the opening chapters of a novel’.
Perhaps the work experience kid charged with the daunting task of ploughing through the slush pile read it, chucked it on the ‘You’ve GOT to look at this’ pile, but it slid off, unnoticed, onto the ‘Chuck IMMEDIATELY’ pile? Ha ha. Perhaps someone read the synopsis and thought ‘Cobblers’, or read the opening paragraph and thought the same? After all, I will choose a book in a shop in this manner. Who knows? Perhaps many agents are, as the fabulous Mr Edit says, plain rude? I’d like to think not. In optimistic mood, ‘til the next time…

The Whispering Wall

A short story of mine, The Whispering Wall, is published this month, November Issue 09, in First Edition Magazine. You can find copies at all good bookshops. Well, WHSmith and Borders at least...

You'll find the website here - http://www.firsteditionpublishing.co.uk/

Good Golly Mrs Molly!

The almost unbelievable has happened. One of my four applied-to agents has requested the entire manuscript. Says she likes the first two chapters, though they may need a little work (a very good sign I feel. I know the book is flawed and will be suspicious of any agent who doesn't request edits), and would be delighted to read more.
Ohmagod! I had to read and re-read the mail to check that I hadn't missed something, or that it wasn't a prank. I wanted to scream out loud and laugh and cry... I will NEVER, EVER laugh at those actresses who blub on the Oscar podium as they receive their award... I was pathetic.
Anyway, I whizzed over the remaining chapters and I wait with baited breath. Now this was two days ago and the euphoria has worn off. I am still a long way from representation, let alone publication and I am already convinced that she will say 'no' in the end. However, I have to remind myself that it is a good sign... If she likes it, others will, and having validation from an industry person is priceless. Unless she's completely bonkers, of course.

Fancy a literary splash?

Fiona Robyn is going to blog her next novel, Thaw, starting on the 1st of March next year. The novel follows 32 year old Ruth’s diary over three months as she decides whether or not to carry on living.

To help spread the word she’s organising a Blogsplash, where blogs will publish the first page of Ruth’s diary simultaneously (and a link to the blog).

She’s aiming to get 1000 blogs involved – if you’d be interested in joining the splash, email her at fiona@fionarobyn.com or find out more information here.

Thank you!

----------------------------
http://www.fionarobyn.com/
http://www.plantingwords.com/

A Personal Odyssey

I've not blogged for a long, long while but I am feeling the need once more. And why I hear you cry?

For nigh on two years I have used almost every bit of free time writing and, more accurately, rewriting a novel. Like many who write I harboured a dream of writing a novel for years. For many moons fear held me back. That and two young boys and a full-time job. I continued to write non-fiction - journalism, copywriting, reviews and the like - and even wrote a small selection of short stories, with a moderate degree of success. But the novel existed in my head only. Finally, I read Jacqui Lofthouse's marvellous The First 30 Days, a brilliant guide to ending procrastination and getting a thousand words a day down on paper, or pc. It worked for me. Less than twelve months later I had a first draft and another eight months on I had a fifth draft that I was, if not exactly happy with, at least not desperately ashamed of. No doubt it is flawed, but it is 100,000 words of a coherent story, and I'm proud of it.
The whole thing started as an experiment - to see if I could do it - and I was always open to the idea that I might not be able to. It was only when I reached the 60,000 word mark and realised that I knew, finally, where the story would end that I admitted that I would complete a novel. Good grief.
What a journey it was. I learnt so much and, most importantly, I enjoyed the process. So much so that I am starting my second book and seeking representation for the first. Hence the blogging again. I will record the next stage of my journey here on A Scorpion Scribbles...
The story so far.
I have submitted a one page synopsis and the first 10,000 words along with a brief covering letter to four agents. I sent my submission package to three in the first instance - around five weeks ago - and pledged that as the rejections come in, another package would go out. So, I have had one rejection so far. And if one is to believe the stories by literary luminaries like Sarah Waters and Joanna Trollope I have 29 or more to receive before the six figure deal is struck and the Brooker prize awarded (ahem)! Although it was disappointing it was at least not a rejection of the 'have you considered taking up horticulture as a hobby Ms Wilkinson?' variety. Onwards say I.
Of course, being human I am beset with doubt and easily depressed by (the increasingly frequent) newpaper reports detailing the death of the publishing industry and difficulties faced by debut novelists struggling to get published. But I am a realist, and do not dream of giving up the day job and revelling in a life spent at the pc pouring out bestseller after bestseller. It would be a dream come true to have the book published and read by more than a few hundred people. Keep your fingers, toes and anything else you can think of crossed for me.

I'll keep you posted...

A review of The Loudest Sound and Nothing by Clare Wigfall

There is something of the fairy tale around the publication of Clare Wigfall’s collection of short stories – you can read about it on her MySpace site http://www.myspace.com/clarewigfall - and so it is gratifying to report that indeed there is magic in her words. If not happy-ever-after endings.

‘Safe’ is a haunting, menacing tale set in present day Britain about the mysterious disappearances of newborn babies and a plague of malevolent rodents, seen from a new mother’s point of view. There are overtures of The Pied Piper of Hamelin and Wigfall cleverly ensures that we are never certain how much of it is the product of a disturbed, or chronically sleep deprived, mind.In ‘The Party’s Just Getting Started’ Wigfall brings Adam, Eve and Adam’s first wife, Lilith, to modern day LA. ‘Night after Night’ transports us to shabby, post-war Bethnal Green where Joycie’s husband is arrested for a heinous crime. And in ‘The Ocularist’s Wife’ we are taken to a besieged nineteenth century Paris.

The sheer breadth of variety and style on display in The Loudest Sound and Nothing is enough to impress. On top of this striking diversity, you can add plaudits like beautifully crafted, an original voice, erudite and fresh. And this is a debut collection.All seventeen tales are meritorious, and deliciously surprising. Wigfall packs a mean punch into the shortest of stories - there is no excess flab in her work and she proves beyond any doubt (if you were ever in need of any) that less is most definitely more.

If you like resolution in your tales you won’t find it here. These stories are laced with ambiguity, and their depth and power lies in the silences, the ‘nothings’, which Wigfall leaves to her reader's imagination.Unforgettable, dark stories covering the prosaic and the extraordinary, often in the same breath. Wigfall is a talent to watch.

The Loudest Sound and Nothing by Clare Wigfall, published in paperback by Faber and Faber, £12.99

A review of Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan

Claire Keegan’s first collection of short stories, Antarctica, heralded her as a literary talent to watch. It won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and Keegan has been compared to Raymond Carver and William Trevor. Her second collection of short stories, Walk the Blue Fields, has been eagerly anticipated.

Keegan was raised in county Wicklow and all bar one of the seven tales are set in rural Ireland. But these stories do not speak of a pastoral idyll. The Ireland evoked here is dark and unsettled, the characters dislocated and alone, despite the proximity of others.

All the protagonists in these stories are well formed, despite the brevity of the narratives. She provides glimpses into significant moments in their lives rather than complete explorations and the short story form is perfectly suited to this. Keegan is dedicated to the form, it’s all she really wants to write, and this shines through her work. So though the reader is treated to a mere snapshot of characters’ lives, the impression left is deep and resonant. There is a haunting melancholy to Walk the Blue Fields.

In ‘The Parting Gift’ a young woman articulates her reason for leaving Ireland, and her familial home, for New York. It is a moving and disturbing piece made all the more so by Keegan’s use of the second person point of view. Lonely Martha is unhappily married to the forester, her only joy, her daughter, the result of a brief liaison with a passing rose bush salesman. Tension builds slowly and imperceptibly until everything comes tumbling down.

In the title story, an achingly beautiful piece, a priest marries a young couple and throughout the celebrations he is haunted by the memories of a love affair and the choice he made. When everything begins to close in on him, he leaves the party, and walks and walks. He stumbles upon another alienated character in the region, a Chinese healer and masseur, and his cathartic touch releases the priest from pain. “Why is tenderness so much more disabling than injury?”

The characters do a lot of walking in these tales – across the green fields, along beaches and in all sorts of weather - and it is an indicator of Keegan’s connection to the land, her truthfulness and her deep understanding of human nature. For in times of pain, anger and confusion how many of us have experienced the restorative power of walking?

Keegan is a true wordsmith and her lean, elegant prose has no need of fancy tricks. These tales are dripping in atmosphere and their austere, visceral touch stayed with me for a long time. Bleak though the stories may be the collection is not without humour. A talking dog, strange customs and odd human behaviour add a light comic touch.

‘Night of the Quicken Trees’ borrows from Irish folklore and is a personal favourite of mine. A damaged, barren woman moves into the dead priest’s house, burns all the furniture, makes a habit of urinating outside and embarks upon a strange relationship with the middle-aged bachelor living next door. A delightful, quirky story of love lost and found, magic and mystery. Quintessentially Irish, finely nuanced and unforgettable.

The priest in Walk the Blue Fields reflects on “How strange it is to be alive.” This superb collection captures this observation beautifully.

Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan, published in paperback by Faber and Faber, £10.99

Ten Years of OK Computer

One of my favourite albums of all time, Radiohead’s devastating dystopian masterpiece OK Computer, will be 10 years old this month. When I first read this, I could hardly believe it. But this disbelief is an all too common emotion these days… the relentless march of time really does appear to be speeding up, damn it. However, this anniversary got me thinking about my life back in 1997. And my golly, how things have changed. It feels like 20 years ago.

1997 was one of the wettest summers last century and on a very grey London day, in a bright silver, grey dress I got wed. Thom Yorke’s brooding, mournful voice and the multi textured musical sounds were a big part of the day (at least the reception) and indeed the rest of the year. And into 1998. I listened to OK Computer so much when I was pregnant with my first child that when he was restless and agitated as a baby it was Thom and co.’s sounds that calmed him down.

However, what struck me most about my life 10 years ago was just how small a part computers, and technology, played in it. I did have a pc – given to me by a techie cousin who is now persona non grata following a bitter family feud – one that even had Windows ‘95 on it. But it was something that sat in the corner of our tiny Brixton flat, dusty and barely used, looking out at our busy lives with its large grey eye, winking at us occasionally when we remembered to turn it on. It must have been quite lonely.

I typed the odd letter and article on the thing and understood from more up to date colleagues that you could do all sorts of wonderful things on it – like mail merging and spread sheets. But I had little need of such things. If I wanted to research something I had to trek to the local library, or Collingwood, holidays were booked at a travel agent and if I needed to know the time of the next train to say, Chester, I phoned national rail and a real, live person gave me the options. Friends telephoned – on landlines – and distant aunts and friends overseas received, mostly handwritten, letters.

I had never heard of email or the internet, let alone used it. I didn’t ‘discover’ email until around the millennium; it could well have been 2001 before I took to it in earnest. But take to it I did, like the proverbial duck to water. As did the rest of the world. Now I cannot imagine how I got by without it but I do find myself wondering how healthy it is. Like all things, best in moderation, perhaps. After all a telephone call can resolve some things in minutes – things that take up inordinate amounts of to-ing and fro-ing via email, or worse, text. I can type pretty quickly but I simply don’t have a well developed enough thumb to text that fast and can’t be fagged to get to grips with predictive programmes.

And I know it’s been said a gazillion times before but are we losing the ability to communicate properly – person to real, live person? Also, it’s not often said but computers do malfunction and break down and generally don’t do as they’re told. And we all know how infuriating that can be. There are online games which allow you to thump a pc, smash it to smithereens and I’ll bet some of us have given the real thing a beating. I’ve certainly smacked a few and raged at them. But I wouldn’t dream of smacking a child and yet, computers are still in their infancy. Who knows what they’ll be able to do in another 10 years time. Run our lives for us I expect. They could take over, they’re pretty close already.

So back in 1997 when Radiohead railed against the optimistic zeitgeist and sang of paranoid androids, subterranean homesick aliens, globalisation and being let down they were on many levels, particularly in relation to technology, prophetic. You have been warned.

Overdeveloped Arm Syndrome

Am I the only mother to suffer from this affliction? Getting back into some kind of shape after the birth of a baby is a priority for many women. That and getting some sleep and time to ourselves (ha ha). But whilst we’re focussing on our tums, bums and boobs all kinds of weird things could be happening to other, often neglected, areas of our bodies.

I imagine my problem is mostly confined to women who, like me, have produced more than one thumping big baby. Both sons’ birth weights topped the 8lbs mark – my first boy was closer to 9lbs and my second only missed such dizzy heights because he was whipped out two weeks early. As toddlers they were best described as ‘solid’. Lugging them here, there and everywhere meant that there was no need to focus, exercise wise, on the upper arm area. They were weight training in themselves. In fact my youngest isn’t quite three so I’m still hauling him round when he decides that his (chubby) little legs cannot walk any further. He rarely gets into his buggy these days.

So what’s your problem you may be asking? Well, the easiest way to cart a small child round is to plonk him or her on your hip and support their back with your arm. As with other things, like handwriting, I tend to favour one side. And though I do shift them to the opposite side on occasion this is usually only once chronic stitch has set in. I’m right handed, or right sided, and I have noticed that my right arm, bicep to be precise, is considerably larger than my left. I’m lop-armed.

When I pointed this out to my fella he confirmed my fears, laughed and commented that I now resemble a Russian shot-putter. Actually, it was me that made the Russian shot-putter reference but the point is he didn’t deny it. My dilemma is whether or not to try and work my left arm up to the same level of beefiness as my right for balance? Or stick to wearing three quarter length sleeves in dark colours to disguise my problem? Much as I admire the fabulous Mrs Ritchie I really don’t want to be as muscle bound as she is in any area of my body. And whilst I’ve been obsessing about my chunky arm my stomach has started developing too – outwards. Yikes!

Age cannot wither her

What a lot of brouhaha there’s been following the news that Sophia Loren will appear in next year’s Pirelli calendar. As you’d expect most of it has focused on the fact that La Loren is almost 72 years old, just a smidgen older than another Oscar winning actress Dame Judi Dench, and the last time she posed nude - that’s Loren and not our Judi you understand - was as a fresh faced and, crucially, unknown starlet aged sweet sixteen. It has since been confirmed that the iconic Italian actress will, very patriotically, be wearing a dress by Georgio Armani so the nudity thing ceases to be an issue. A piece in last week’s Grazia magazine shows that the age thing rumbles on …
I may be a dummy but I just don’t get it. Sophia Loren is drop dead gorgeous. She was as a young woman, as a middle aged woman and unsurprisingly – to me at least – is as a mature woman. The truly, classically, preternaturally beautiful tend to remain beautiful regardless of the unrelenting march of time – Honor Blackman, Julie Christie, Audrey Hepburn, Rachel Welch, Lauren Bacall, Twiggy and Cindy Crawford to name the first few that pop into my head. Of course they’ve changed a bit, but isn’t change good? Now I’m aware that some of these lovelies have been surgically enhanced but it’s been done subtly; they look like older glamour pusses rather than weird alien beings from Star Wars II like many American actresses who shall remain nameless. And the Pirelli calendar – probably the most famous and prestigious glamour calendar of all time – is all about honouring beauty. What ever its age. We should be celebrating this shift in our culture rather than slamming Loren for doing something supposedly undignified for a woman of her advanced years.
As Ms Loren said herself it’s fun and much more importantly it sends out a good message. Being older doesn’t have to mean that you cease to be attractive and sexy, stop having a laugh, hold back from new experiences, etc, etc. Signs of this shift are everywhere. Big companies are choosing older faces – Madonna for Versace, Jane Fonda, Andie MacDowell for L’Oréal, Elizabeth Hurley still holds on to her Estée Lauder contract, the list goes on. There are those who will argue that Loren is not representative of female OAPs and you know what, I’d agree. But hell, Penélope Cruz and Naomi Watts who also appear in the 2007 calendar are hardly representative of your average 30 something. The glamour and beauty industry is all about aspiration and aesthetics. If you’re in the public arena and easy on the eye you may get offered a beauty contract. If you’ve a lot to say or you write wonderful stories you may get published. Horses for courses. I for one like looking at beautiful images of gorgeous people, no matter what their date of birth.
And the best thing is that the Italian siren will appear in a normal Pirelli calendar, not a specially made for the oldies, making a political statement one like the Women’s Institute calendar of a few years back – spunky though it was. Beauty is not the preserve of the very young. Anyway, she won’t look like a wrinkly – she’ll be air brushed to within an inch of her life…

Wrinkle Free Future

I was talking with a friend at the weekend. We were pondering the look of the future. Not clothes, or buildings or cars or anything. People – what people (westerners) might look like in, let’s say, 40 or 50 years time. Once the preserve of the very rich and famous, cosmetic surgery is now commonplace, even amongst mere mortals. We all know someone who’s been done – even if it’s a so-called non-surgical procedure like botox or a chemical peel.
My mate and I are rather old fashioned and like to think that we can hold out against the surgery tidal wave and grow old, if not gracefully, at least reasonably naturally. But we are of an age when we are starting to talk more and more (no, not quite incessantly) about the relentlessness of the march of time and the often devastating effects it can have on one’s appearance, and my motto has always been never say never…
Back to the future and last Saturday lunchtime’s idle chat. We talked products, procedures and surgery. Do any of them really hold back the effects of time? Hardly. I’ve never seen anyone who’s had surgery and genuinely thought they look younger after it (and God knows, I watch enough of those 10 years younger type programmes and read enough glossies). Better, mostly. But not younger. Even now in these medically advanced techno glorious times surgery only touches the surface and a good haircut, flattering, fashionable clothes and decent make up can work wonders. Costs a lot less too. Most people who have had surgery simply look like older people who have been Done. Others look plain weird. The exception for me is in dentistry and a good bleaching can take years off you – but do beware the Osmond’s style veneers. Very spooky, very American and very ‘Done’.
Of course not all cosmetic surgery is bad – breast reduction for the extremely well endowed can improve health, physical and mental, no end. Facial rebuilding following car accidents or disease offers the chance to look normal once again. But the key issue here is that on the whole the work needs to be done only once. Women who undergo breast augmentation in their twenties are looking at surgery every 10 years – when do they stop? At 50? 60? How do their breasts look then, with skin elasticity virtually nil and no silicon? When does one stop the facelifts? At 70? 80? Does your face hit your chest when you do? What are the effects of 60 sessions of botox on the forehead (first shot in your thirties or forties, twice a year)?
My friend and I agreed that one possible future is a society divided into the Dones and the Naturals, the smaller group forming a sub-culture all of its own. Maybe it will be hip to be natural… the toothless, grey and wrinkled will rise up and celebrate old age in all its ghastliness? Or what if those who hold out against surgical enhancement are in the minority? Will they be pushed out of sight, ignored and abused? Given that money will no doubt be a determining factor it could be yet another way of marking out the poor and powerless in our world? And given that we change our scapegoats regularly in 40 years time the bete noire of society won’t be asylum seekers but it could be Naturals…

Making Time

I hate it when people say: “If you really want to do it, you can make time.” What a load of old cobblers. We use time, we can’t make it. And those who spout this kind of nonsense are not parents of young children who have jobs and any kind of a social life. Unless they are one of that rare breed like Mrs Thatcher who require five minutes sleep a night. Of course if I really want to do something, like most people, I go ahead and do it. But, and here’s the rub, something has to give. So by spending time writing that short story for the flash fiction competition I subject my family to a week of: living in a pig sty/having no clean clothes to wear/ no food in the cupboard/forgotten lunch boxes, money for the school trip etc/ repeated messages from friends asking why I’ve not returned their calls/ calls from irate clients asking where the latest draft of x,y,z is/ calls from the school/nursery asking why I‘ve not picked the kids up/ a mother who stinks with hair that wouldn’t look out of place on a yak (delete one item only). You get my drift.
And I’m pretty lucky. I’ve a bloke who is not totally adverse to washing dishes and putting the kids to bed. But the truth is that there simply isn’t enough time in the day to get everything done. How did we get to this point I often ask myself? We have all manner of labour saving devices. But we also have all manner of time gobbling gizmos – email, texts, answer phones, the internet. We’re expected to spend oodles of time improving ourselves in all manner of ways – as parents, as lovers, as home makers, as professionals, as friends. And if we’re to keep our friends we have to be totally up to date with Lost/Big Brother/Desperate Housewives. Schools and nurseries send kids home with enough paperwork for parents to read and deal with to require a small area of rainforest to be felled each week. Then there are the kids’ social arrangements and activities…And we spend more time with our kids than parents in the 70s ever did. I’m exhausted just thinking about it all. No wonder I haven’t had time to pen the 21st century version of War and Peace. And another thing, I’ve my blog to write…ahhhhh.

“There is never enough time, unless you’re serving it.” Malcolm Forbes, author and publisher.