TO BOLDLY ALLUDE… Guest Post from Alex Woolf

TO BOLDLY ALLUDE…

by Alex Woolf

Last year I was writing a horror story called ‘Soul Shadows’ and I needed a couple of characters whose purpose was essentially to provide fodder for the monster. As well as furnishing my sacrificial lambs with rudimentary personalities (to give their deaths some level of meaning in readers’ minds), I had to come up with names for them. To help me in this task, I started thinking about the role of these two characters in my story, and I was immediately reminded of those 1960s Star Trek episodes, when, if you wore a red shirt and were beamed onto a planet, your death was pretty much a foregone conclusion. It occurred to me that there would have had to be a whole stable of bit-part actors in those days whose sole purpose was to get blasted, vaporised or eaten within ten minutes of materialising on the surface of Exma III (or whatever the planet happened to be called). It was the work of just a few minutes on Wikipedia to dig out the names of a couple of these extras, and guarantee their immortality by affixing them to my own pair of bit players. As well as enjoying this arcane nominal coupling for its own sake, I also felt I was, in my own small way, honouring these young actors of yore for their gallant, unheralded contributions to my Saturday evening entertainment all those years ago.

I love planting obscure references and allusions in my fiction – the obscurer the better. I don’t know if anyone will pick up on them and that’s not really the point. In fact, that may be the opposite of the point. I actually like the fact that I may be the only person in the world who knows why Character A happened to be honeymooning in Hotel B in the summer of 19XX. Many of my allusions are to other works of mine. A major character from one story may make a cameo appearance in another. She may not even be named, but I know it’s her, and that’s enough to give me a tingle of satisfaction. As it happens, quite a few of my stories, when they’re not set in an alternative London, are located in the fictional county of Wintershire – though I rarely mention the fact in the text. With this in mind, it’s less surprising, I suppose, that characters from different stories sometimes run into each other.

There’s no name for this disease of obsessive cross-referencing. Some may view it as unhealthily incestuous, maybe even cannibalistic – but I simply can’t (or don’t want to) help it. And occcasionally it can prove useful. Earlier this year, I wrote a couple of middle-grade stories about a pair of young time travellers. Right at the start of the first story, a German World War II fighter plane crashes into an English church in August 1940. The incident had no bearing on the plot, and seemed pointless at the time, even to me, except that it served to give the story a dramatic opening. The publisher was fine with it, but I wasn’t. I was determined to find some significance in this event, and eventually I did – in the second story. It turned out that the entire motivation of the second story’s main antagonist hinged on the plane crash. A trivial incident in the first story became a pivotal one in the second. So sometimes this disease of mine bears unexpected, creative fruit.

Incidentally, ‘Soul Shadows’ (mentioned above) is due to be published in paperback in April 2013 by Curious Fox. It got brilliant reviews from readers during its first incarnation on the web last year. Here’s a little flavour of what it’s about…

Estelle’s therapist has prescribed her a dose of solitude. So she’s staying in a cottage in the middle of nowhere, trying to come to terms with her traumatic past. But there’s more going on in the quiet nearby woods than she knows.

An army of unnatural shadows lurks among the trees. Unlike those that harmlessly follow our footsteps, these shadows can rise up, they can touch … and they can kill.

Estelle and her old friend Sandor must battle this shape-shifting army and the sinister forces that have called them into being. But how can you defeat your enemies when you’re afraid of your own shadow?

You can read more about me and my work on my website: http://alexwoolf.co.uk

How To Improve Writing Skills Coaching Video

Watch this Videojug movie to get a quick overview on how to improve your writing skills. It starts from finding out your weak areas in terms of writing and strengthening them through a variety of ways. The dictionary and thesaurus are two great friends of a writer. It's nice to have a mentor or to be part of a writing group as you develop your skills, too. Some nice tips on character development and plot development are also shared in this video.

They'll Never Get It At Goodreads - Guest Post by Dennis Mahagin

They'll Never Get It At Goodread
by Dennis Mahagin

 
I need a plan. My poetry collection has just been published, and I've no idea how to promote it.

"The poet chooses his fate," said Gregory Corso, once upon a time; yet Gregory certainly never mentioned anything about Social Media! How does a writer shift into a new set of gears after chasing the chimera of book publication for many years? Is there such a thing as "Writers' Post Partum Depression?" Can I save my book from the "Remainder Bin?" Where do I begin?

*

"Are you on Goodreads?" an editor friend asked me on the phone a week or so before my book was to be released. "Tumblr, too," she said, "don't forget about Tumblr..."

"What the heck's a tumbler?" I asked her.

It seems of late, the many fast flux iterations of the Internet are quite passing me by.

It wasn't always this way. Eight or so years ago when I first began working on my poetry collection in earnest, I made my reputation (such as it is) publishing on the Net. This led to landing an unlikely book contract with an independent press; I started a blog and joined several online literary communities as an obsessively obsequious, aggrandizing way to keep my semi-burgeoning Bio in the public eye. I was more than a bit caught up in it all — looking forward, ever forward, to my book's launch, which at that time was slated for late 2008.

Then came the recession. My publisher went out of business; my contract was canceled. To say this turn of events took the "wind out of my sails" would be an understatement. I got pretty despondent, in fact, and my book went on the back burner. I languished in a hiatus of hiding and not writing. I tried to stay off line most of the time. Self doubt was having a field day in the forefront of my consciousness. I began questioning my motives, my talent, my prospects: in short, everything I'd been working toward, for half a decade.

In the end, I just couldn't bring myself to throw in the towel. In early 2010, I returned to my manuscript with a fresh set of eyes. I saw that it was still good, in spots, but it required a great deal of work yet, too. So I went about revising it... and revising some more. And more. I began to see my setback as an actual opportunity to make the book better. Then I sent a version of the book, which barely resembled its origins, to a dozen publishers. Nine of them said no. Time kept its brutal vigil.

Then, late in the year, my book was accepted for a second time.

 *

Two more years would go by before the eventual publication of the book. During this period, I continued to tinker with the work, firing off new version after new version over the transom, until finally one day about three months ago, my publisher sent me an email that said. "We have a release date for you now. Please stop sending revisions!"

It seemed that the dream had caught up with the self; I breathed it in and left it alone. What remains, of course, is the future. One of my biggest fears, aside from the book "flopping" in a commercial sense, is that I will examine the book in its finished form after a year or so and lament that I didn't have enough time to make it better.

"Alrighty then," I tell my friend on the other end of the phone. "Explain this Tumbler thing again to me, like I'm a four year old?"

Yes, I need a plan, but I'm not terribly worried. As Gregory Corso would no doubt concur, self promotion is the nasty chore we writers endure, before returning to the "work" — as nothing but a reward: Thank goodness creation (whether it be poem, essay, story, or novel) takes place blissfully, mercifully, and only in the present.

Goodreads may not be ready for me; but I've got another book to write.

　

Dennis Mahagin is the author of a debut poetry collection entitled "Grand Mal," published by Rebel Satori Press. The book is available on Amazon at the following URL: http://www.amazon.com/Grand-Mal-Dennis-Mahagin/dp/1608640515/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350263902&sr=8-1&keywords=dennis+mahagin

How To Write Well Coaching Video

Do you want to write a book, but don't know how to do it well? Writing coach Jurgen Wolff shares some of the essential advice for making your story work.

Plot? Who needs it? - Guest Post from Phil Tate

Plot? Who needs it?
by Phil Tate


I can crank out short stories in three weeks or so, from inception to final polishing, and I’ve had some success with publishing them, too, including in the final issue of The Battered Suitcase. But I’ve always wanted to be a novelist, and I’ve had nothing but trouble writing one agents like. It’s taken a few years, but I’ve finally figured out what’s wrong. It has to do with the way I write, which is influenced to some degree by the software I use. I write on a Mac, and anything will do for short stories, but I wanted something more sophisticated for novels, so I bought Scrivener, a wonderfully complex program that makes child’s play of organizing and reorganizing chapters and scenes. I love it, and I wouldn’t use anything else, but here’s how I use it. I write a scene. I click a button to create another one. I write that. This goes on an on, hundreds of scenes, all of them wonderful and polished and profound. Each one is self contained (kind of like a short story) and invariably shows character development and growth, introduces or reinforces symbols, continues motifs, etc. But what I have had trouble with is the overall arc of the story, the big novel-sized story. The increasing tension, the climb toward a climax, an overall thrust or momentum or whatever you call it. Maybe you call it plot. That’s where my trouble is. Voice? You got that down. Character? Realistic, authentic, interesting. Dialogue? A real knack for that. But plot? Oh, my.

Some years ago I was at a workshop led by Natalie Goldberg, and she told a similar story: "Natalie, you have to have a plot!" her friends told her, and everyone laughed, including me, because it was so obvious. How could anyone write a novel without plot? Ha, ha. Well, I’ve found out. It’s pretty easy, actually. Just keep writing those wonderful scenes, one at a time, and forget that people want something simple. They want, as in Winter’s Bone, a girl who desperately needs to find her father, or as in Moby Dick, a man who must kill a whale. Readers want a reason to keep turning pages. They want to find out what happens. It’s not enough to watch them grow up.

So I set out to write Winter’s Bone and Moby Dick, only I started with two teenage girls fighting for survival. Their mother dies, their father left them years ago, and the girls set off to find him. But they never do. I mean, after all those flawless, enlightening scenes, including beer and sex and perverts, who needs him?

Tate’s stories have appeared in Glimmer Train, Narrative, Black Warrior Review, and others. He has three novels packed with great scenes (and a little plot). See more at http://www.philtate.com

One-Million People Pre-Order J.K. Rowling's New Book

Famed author J.K. Rowling who wrote the Harry Potter series is releasing her first non-Potter book, "The Casual Vacancy" on Thursday. The publisher has already set aside more than a million copies for pre-orders. Vanessa Yurkevich tell us why some are saying it will be the biggest book release of the 21st century.

Author Insides: E.S. Parkinson

E.S. Parkinson is a writer and historian interested in and inspired by the lives of "ordinary" people. She has worked as a social historian and as a midwife, and these roles impact on everything she writes, in direct and indirect ways. She is fascinated by people’s stories; their ways of making sense of their world and their ways of getting through. She likes cricket, tea, and old books about cooking and housecraft. She lives in Nottingham, United Kingdom with her partner and teenage children.

Her short story "The Red Shoes" appeared in the July 2008 issue of The Battered Suitcase, and her LGBT historical coming-of-age novel, Somethin' Else, was published by Vagabondage Press in March 2012.


When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

‘Writer’ seems a very strong word – I probably shy away from it a bit. I do write, I have always written, but there is no particular sense, I don’t think, of wanting to take on that persona. I couldn’t tell you when I first wrote a ‘story’ that wasn’t for school. I scribbled a lot in my teenage years – diaries and manifestos and letters and fragments of places and of people. I struggled with characters though – it seems to be abrogating so much power to create someone. I think I’ve got over that a bit now and maybe it’s because I’m older but I suppose I no longer feel that I can write only about me.

Why do you write?

Because I have to. Which sounds really stupid, or egotistical at the very least, but the stories itch in my blood and it’s a relief and a release to get them down on paper.

Is being a writer/poet anything like you imagined it would be?

I’m not a writer, I’m just someone who writes so I’m not sure I can comment. I don’t even feel that I have a particular idea of what a writer should be or how they should live.

What do you think makes a good story?

I don’t know. I can tell you what works for me, but writer, written and reader are so individual. That is one of the things that fascinates me about fiction – the fact that what I see, what is in my head is so clear, so obvious, but I have no control over what other people will see or even, weirdly enough, how the characters I try to write about will develop and behave. Once you have written a story, once it is out of your head, it begins to breathe on its own. It’s hard to get your head round, and sometimes I panic, but mostly I like that aspect.

I need characters I can care about. That's the bottom line for me I think.

What's your favorite genre to read?

When I was a teenager and in my early twenties I read a lot of fiction. Now days I find I don’t at all. In fact I hardly read anything for ‘pleasure’, I don’t watch television and I don’t go to the cinema.

Who is your favorite author or poet?

Larkin for poetry, PG Wodehouse and James Joyce for everything else.

What books or stories have most influenced you the most as a writer?

Probably Wodehouse, which sounds daft given my current writing, but he has had a huge influence on me. It doesn’t show except in small ways I suspect; I certainly couldn’t plot like he did. But his writing seems to me to have economy and elegance, and he had the most delicious way of turning a phrase. He’s fun and the best answer to stress and gloom.

What books or stories have most influenced you as a person?

I have no idea. I don’t think I’ve lived my life through books at all.

Where/how do you find the most inspiration?

In the everyday. In the people on the streets, in snippets of conversations on buses or in shops. I have, for my ‘real’ working life read and used a lot of oral history and that has been very significant to me. I’m interested in ordinary things.

What does your family think of your writing?

Writing is very much part of my working life as well as my being this itch in my blood. I write all the time, so I think they’ve got used to it.

What is your work schedule like when you're writing?

This question makes it all sound very grand! I work full time so fiction gets squeezed around this and family life. I write very fast and I write long hand in pencil in A4 notebooks, and then type it up. I tend to work like this because it does mean I can write anywhere – on the sofa, at the kitchen table, in bed, on trains or in cafes. It also works for me because although I can scrawl very fast, nearly as fast as I can think, my typing is very C3. I type one handed, generally using one finger, though I’ve recently graduated onto using my thumb for the space bar. Although I find I have become more adept at writing directly onto a keyboard when its work related, it does impact on my flow of thoughts. Writing long hand and then typing also gives me a first pass at corrections.

Do you have any writing quirks or rituals?

I don’t know whether typing one fingered is a quirk or a handicap! I’m not particularly ritualistic because my writing time is opportunistic and time limited.

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?

Possibly all of it.

What are your current projects?

When I first wrote Somethin’ Else I envisaged it as primarily a two-hander between Jim and Edward, with quite a limited and claustrophobic palate. To a certain extent it stayed like that, but I was caught unawares by how strong a character Jim’s sister Dorothy became. I am currently trying to tell her story, which has overlaps and parallels with Jim’s in terms of the themes of entrapment and escape.

What are you planning for future projects?

The idea, possibly, maybe, is that Somethin’ Else will be the first part of a trilogy told backwards.

Do you have any advice for other writers?

None at all I’m afraid.

You can find E.S. online at her blog at http://esparkinson.wordpress.com/ and purchase Somethin' Else at Amazon, B&N, Powell's or other bookstores both in print and ebook.