Category Archives: Creative Writing Exercises

Author Isabel Ashdown talks to PhD2Published about the value of writing competitions

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Set up in 2010 by Dr Charlotte Frost, PhD2Published provides academic book publishing advice for first timers.  It offers a wealth of hints and tips for early-career academics on how to get published as well providing discussion on the future of academic publishing in the e-age.

This month, as we approach the release of my second novel Hurry Up and Wait, Managing Editor Dr Sarah Quinnell invited me to contribute a blog post with an emphasis on creative postgraduate publication.  Click on the link image below to read more about my journey into publication, following my time as a mature student at the University of Chichester:

Buzzards, skylarks and mutant hens’ eggs: My Room with a View

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My third novel is well underway, a story almost entirely set on the Isle of Wight.  Having received travel sponsorship from my kind supporters at Wightlink Ferries, my husband and I sold the family car and scraped together the funds for a camper van.

This weekend as we headed off over the water on Saturday morning, I was able to write for 30 minutes as the kids played on their DS games and Colin read the newspaper.  Whilst I usually need quiet to write, somehow I find these very public spaces conducive to creative thought.  It was enough to get me started and once I’d laid down those first paragraphs, they were there inside my head, growing in momentum, storing up for later.

Once there, we pulled up at a pretty viewing spot just outside of Yarmouth, where we opened up the doors and ate our picnic in the emerging sunshine.  Colin then took the kids off to Yarmouth (on some secret business), leaving me for a solid 90 minutes of writing.  I wrote and wrote, with that charge of excitement which comes from knowing it’s free-flowing … putting my pen down just as they re-emerged along the coastal footpath.

That afternoon we set up in our campsite; a large, lush field in the North of the island.  I sat watching a trio of skylarks through my bird-glasses (I’m an enthusiastic amateur), while the kids played with the dog and Colin listened to the football on his radio.  As the sky turned red, we opened a bottle of wine and cooked chilli over the stove before settling in to watch Toy Story 3 on a tiny 7″ screen, crushed together on the lower bed.

When we woke around seven, the kids flopped down from their loft bed to give me their lovely Mother’s Day presents: a green glass buoy and a scented candle. Outside, three buzzards circled in the sunlight overhead.  Colin fried us fresh farm eggs the size of avocados; lots of jokes ensued about squawking hens with watering eyes and sore bottoms.

So, set up for the day, we headed off on our walk: a six mile circular trek starting at Newport and taking in marina and woodland, bringing us back by way of the old dismantled railtrack.  We got a bit lost, so we ended up doing nearer eight miles; I spent the last three of those telling the kids, “Just think how fit you’ll be/not long to go/just around the corner/alright, there’ll be a bag of sweets at the end of it …”

But the BEST bit of the walk was a discovery that will shape a pivotal moment in my new story.  It was a piece of landscape that we stumbled upon, and when I stopped to ask two locals about it, I was able to fill pages of my notebook with wonderful details to draw on.  It felt like being handed a gift – and I’d never have found it if I hadn’t got out there to sniff around the territory.  By the time we arrived back at the camper I was buzzing with excitement.  We also wandered past this surreal display of old postboxes, like something out of a Lewis Carroll story …

We won’t be back over for a little while, but now I feel that I’ve enough material to keep me going for a good few weeks.  It’s wonderful to be able to travel back and forth to the island to write and research; but it’s even more enjoyable to be able to do it with my family, and to include them in these central moments of my writing journey.

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You can find Isabel on Twitter @IsabelAshdown:

or visit the Glasshopper Facebook page:

What Good Reviews can do for Books

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Just how much impact do good reviews have on the sales of a novel?  Well, I’m no industry expert, but I think it’s likely that there’s no quantifiable answer available.  However, I do suspect that the impact of reviews has a lot to do with how you use them.

National Press / Glossy Magazines

A quote from a positive review in one of the high-profile publications is exactly what you want on the back of your book cover.  As a customer faced with thousands of books to choose from, I invariably refer to the review quotes on a book’s jacket.  I’m impressed by quotes from publications I admire, and equally from celebrities I enjoy.  For example, if Jonathan Ross says a book is very funny, I’ll believe him, because I think he’s quite funny.

The trick with these review quotes is to use them.  Badger your publisher to include as many as possible in the next print run, and don’t be afraid to clutter your beautiful book design with them.  A great example of this is David Nichols’ One Day, the latest cover of which is crawling with spectacular reviews.  I’d heard of the book, but when I saw the cover endorsements I bought it without hesitation.

If you have a website, ensure you have a page dedicated to reviews, so readers can find them easily.  But also, dot them around the other pages of your site, and if possible include one as a sub-header (see mine above).  It’s hard to boast about your own book, but the inclusion of others’ glowing opinions is fine.  Use it!

When you do literary events, at book stores, festivals etc, always insist that the flyers/posters include your most impressive review quote.  It can tip the balance between a full-house and a half-empty hall.

Amazon Reviews

Many readers like to post up reviews of books they’ve read, whether they’ve bought them from Amazon or not.  I know several people who get most of their books from the library, but still go onto the Amazon site to leave their feedback.  It’s become a recognised forum to view readers’ responses to books, rather than the perhaps more high-brow opinions of the literary supplements.

In many ways, I think the Amazon reviews are just as important as press reviews.  It’s a form of word-of-mouth; real people, real feedback.

As a writer, I’ve come to value these reviews more and more, and as a result I’ve started leaving reviews of the books I’ve enjoyed – because now I know, from personal experience, what a good review means to an author.

If you’ve read Glasshopper and would like to leave a review, click here for the chance to win an advance copy of my forthcoming novel Hurry Up and Wait.

In the past, I found it quite difficult to ‘big up’ my own achievements as far as my writing was concerned.

But now, I look at it like this: I’ve spent hours, months and years of hard graft, juggling work, study and family life, to bring my longed-for book to print.  How crazy would I be if I didn’t give it the best possible chance to go out into the world and meet its readers?  Use your reviews well, and they’ll undoubtedly help to boost the sales of your book.

Twitter Confessions: Sometimes I don’t follow back. Sometimes I even unfollow …

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Over the past few months I’ve been getting into twitter.

It’s incredible – SO much more enjoyable than Facebook and other forms of social networking I’ve dabbled in.  It’s the interaction that makes it so appealing, along with the brevity.  I never thought I’d say this but, as well as being a great vehicle for reaching new and existing readers and book groups . . . it’s fun!

I’ve chatted to some amazing people, and I find myself feeling more optimistic that the world IS a place where people are generous spirited and good to be around.

This week I need to go through all my followers who I’m not yet following, and decide which of them to follow back.  I’ve started to organise myself with twitter lists eg ‘Bookyfolk’, ‘Cool South Coast’, ‘Authors’ which allows me to look at different groups of ‘types’, otherwise I’d end up seeing nothing but a continuous stream I couldn’t keep up with.

More often than not I follow back.  But there are some things that will put me off:

  • A crazy/scary profile pic.  If your photo makes you look insane, I suspect that perhaps you are, so I’m unlikely to follow.
  • A sexy profile pic.  I’m guessing you’re not who you say you are.
  • No biog information.  What are you hiding?
  • Wacky biog information that tells us nothing about your interests or you eg My friends all think I’m mad … maybe I am!!!!
  • Your twitter feed contains only your own random thoughts, with no retweets and no conversations or interaction with others.
  • Your twitter feed predominantly contains bitchy comments about celebrities/writers/the world & his wife.  Is that what everyone on twitter calls a ‘hater’?
  • Promotion only tweets.  Your twitter feed ONLY promotes your product/book/service.  Of course twitter is a great vehicle to promote things, but not exclusively.  I have a rule: for every shameless plug I make, I do two more tweets to others/about others.  As a result, I end up having some fascinating conversations with some great tweeps.
  • Following V Followers number – unless you’re a mega-star, if you have lots of followers but are following very few, I tend to think you may not be sociable/interested in others.  I’m not bothered how few followers you have, so long as you seem to be into similar things to me.  Last week I followed someone with 6 followers, just because their biog was nice and their twitter feed looked like my kind of chat.

Occasionally, I unfollow . . .

  • When I do follow back, I HATE it when I get an instant Direct Message back, telling me how great their new book is, where I can buy it and how much I can expect to pay.  That’s a yellow card – one more strike and I unfollow.
  • From time to time I go through the Friend or Follow list to see who I follow who doesn’t follow me back.  There are a couple of hundred on the list eg @Guardian @Mslexia @PollySamson @MrsStephenFry – I’ll keep following so long as I’m enjoying what they’re saying.  But if it’s someone whose tweets haven’t set my world on fire, I might just unfollow them to make space for someone else.
  • I don’t like it if I’ve made contact with someone and they’ve ignored me.  That’s just rude, isn’t it?  Unfollow.
  • Sometimes you’ll come across a tweep who sneers at everything/everyone, tweeting every mean thing that pops into their head.  Instant unfollow.

There are so many great people using twitter, that there’s no need to keep following anyone who makes you feel anything less than positive about the experience.

So, to all the good-hearted people who have tweeted me words of encouragement, who have shared glowing reviews of  Glasshopper, whose books I have loved reading, and who have cheered me up with a funny word or two – thank you, and let’s keep tweeting!

Literary festivals and author events: what should writers be paid?

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Early in 2011 I was invited to be a speaker at an event in Brighton, which brought together individuals from the creative industries, to discuss networking and support in our community.  Attendees included writers, musicians, artists, acrobats – and a whole host of associated creative workers.

One of the questions that came up again and again was this: “Why are creative individuals so often expected to give their time and efforts for free?”  It’s a good question.  You’d never invite a technical expert to speak at a ticket-paying seminar and not expect to pay them.  Then why are writers and artists regularly invited to appear at ticket-paying festivals and talks with no offer of remuneration at all?

In my first year as a published author, I consciously made the decision to accept every literary event offered to me.  I’m glad I did, as I’m now much clearer on what’s worth doing and what’s not.  Today, I’m comfortable turning down an unpaid gig if I can’t see evidence that the event will be a) well attended, b) lead to book sales, or c) offer something of value within my local community.

The Society of Authors recently issued a report on ‘Authors’ Appearances’, to provide members with some basic guidelines to refer to in terms of what to charge and when.

The SoA report gave some examples of authors regretting giving their time for free.  One member is quoted: “I do get cross when you take in, say, 500 people paying £8 each, and are paid not a penny out of the £3,500+.  No rock group or comedian would dream of accepting such a deal.”  Another said: “Bearing in mind that some festivals are now big business, they should pay speakers commensurate fees.  £250-500 should be the norm.”

However, the report also talked about reasons its members gave for being willing to accept a low/no fee.  They included: Feeling confident of being treated well and having fun; supporting a charity or under-funded cause; seeing clear opportunities for raising their profile; having the chance to network with others; supporting a local event which is nearby and incurs no expenses.

Having now experienced a wide range of different author events, I’ve worked out a loose rule of thumb for my own appearances:

Local events: If it’s an organisation with low-funding, and I feel my presence will add something I am happy to give my time for free.  But only if there is also a clear opportunity to sell books and gain exposure through press/radio etc.

Festivals & Conferences: I expect to be paid – but of course that’s not always the reality.  Early on in my career I was a speaker at a small festival for which my publishers were told there was no budget for fees.  It was a lovely event, reasonably well attended and I sold a good number of books.  The 50 or so attendees each paid £6 of which I received no fee at all.  On the one hand, this might be acceptable – I was a relatively new writer, and it helped me to gain exposure.  On the other hand, the bigger name writers were all paid large fees, and of course my non-payment effectively helped to subsidise those.  Now I’m a little more seasoned, I do expect some kind of payment for my time and efforts, whether it be an actual fee, being put up in a nice hotel or free tickets for the weekend’s events.

The Society of Authors recommends £350 for a full day and £250 for a half-day engagement at a literary festival, plus expenses.

Schools & Universities: If I’m invited to run a teaching workshop, give a talk etc I will always charge a fee.  Contrary to common belief, schools often do have budgets for this kind of event, and it’s only right that they pay you, just as they would if you were a visiting TV or sports’ personality.  If it’s clear they can’t afford it, I sometimes offer other options eg “OK, if you buy 20 copies of my book for your library or to sell on, I’ll come in to talk for an hour.”  In order to get your book out there, you have to be creative!  I’ll also give up my time to judge a poetry competition or meet with a small group of local high school kids at their book club – it’s my community, and I’m glad to help encourage literacy and creativity where I can.

The Society of Authors recommends £350 for a full day and £250 for a half-day engagement at a school, plus expenses, or £150 for a single session not exceeding one hour.

TV & Radio: Unless you’re a mega-star, TV and radio just never pays a fee, so be grateful if they invite you to appear, and make the most of the free publicity!

Libraries: The SoA report states that some libraries will pay for author appearances.  I have to say, I’ve never received a payment and in the current climate of library closures and cutbacks, I wouldn’t dream of requesting a fee.  Just view it as a chance to engage with your readers whilst supporting your local community.

The debate over payments for authors’ appearances will, I’ve no doubt, roll on.  My advice to anyone starting out would be this: Initially, do everything that you’re comfortable with in terms of promoting yourself and your book.  Use it as a time to make friends and contacts in the literary world, and enjoy it.  Then, take time to reflect on what has worked and what has not before deciding on a plan for the future promotion of your efforts.  Finally, join the Society of Authors, as their quarterly magazine, advice and support is worth every penny of the £90 annual fee.

Many thanks to the Society of Authors for their characteristically clear information and advice on ‘Authors’ Appearances’ sent with a 2011 issue of The Author magazine.

Writing Competitions: a vital step on the journey to publication

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One of the best pieces of advice I received early in my writing career was from a tutor during the last year of my degree at the University of Chichester.  It was this: if you are to stand any chance of getting your writing published,  you must work hard to get examples in print.  This means entering competitions, sending your poetry and short stories off to magazines and journals, and sticking at it until you have a portfolio of successes to show to prospective agents and publishers.

I was in my final year as a mature student on an English & Creative Writing degree course.  By this point I knew I had to write – there was no other option if I was to be fulfilled in life.  The tutor was David Swann, a talented writer whose work I admired and who was himself enjoying considerable publication success with his own short stories and poems.  I rushed home and starting googling, working into the early hours until I had constructed a spreadsheet detailing all the writing competitions I would enter for the forthcoming 12 months.  I worked out which stories/poems would go to which competition, calculated my budget for the entry fees and got to work polishing and submitting my first attempts.

Needless to say 90% of my submissions went unnoticed, and as prize announcements came and went I experienced that sinking feeling of uncertainty and self-doubt.  But I ploughed on, improving my stories with each attempt.  In 2006, I received a call from The Bridport Prize, telling me that I had been shortlisted in their poetry category.  I had won £50, my poem would appear in their prestigious anthology, and I was invited to the grand thanksgiving lunch at the beautiful Bridport town hall.  I was overjoyed.  During the next two years I received other small prizes, but in 2008 the turning point arrived on a warm afternoon in August, via a phone call from from Paula Johnson of the Society of Authors.

A year earlier, my husband and I had taken the kids for a swim at the local leisure club, using free tickets we’d been given to try out the facilities.  Afterwards we had a drink in the sunshine on the terrace , and I read the only newspaper left in the rack: The Mail on Sunday.  I spotted their novel openings competition and jotted down the details.  That afternoon I prepared my submission, sent it off – and then I forgot all about it.  Now, almost a year later, Paula’s phone call  told me that I was the overall winner of The Mail on Sunday novel competition 2008, for which I had submitted the early opening of my debut novel Glasshopper.  The prize was judged by Fay Weldon, Sir John Mortimer and Michael Ridpath, who described the passage as “magnificent … made every word work and left the reader anxious to read on.”

This was surely serendipity at work?  The prize was a week’s stay at an Arvon course of my choice plus £400 of book tokens – what a dream!  Winning the prize spurred me towards the finishing line in writing my novel, and by Christmas that same year I was ready to send my opening chapters and synopsis out into the world in search of an agent.  I approached seven agents, of which three came back wanting to see more.  I signed with Adrian Weston, and very soon agreed a publication deal with Myriad Editions, an independent publisher who had just been awarded Arts Council funding to expand their fiction list.  All three agents said that my Mail on Sunday win was a strong factor when it came to reading my submission, rather than putting it to the bottom of the pile.

So, my advice to writers starting out would be this: make your work the best it can be, send it out there (it’s no good letting it languish in your bottom drawer), be on the look out for opportunities at all times, and grasp them when they arrive.  And finally, be nice to people; it always comes back in good ways.  Here are a few websites I found useful when searching for competitions/submissions:

The Short Story

NAWE

The Society of Authors

Sally Quilford’s Calendar

Mslexia Magazine

Writing Magazine

Good luck with it!

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Isabel’s books are currently on special ebook offer: 99p from Amazon for Kindle

Insomnia: The Writer’s Curse – Isabel Ashdown talks about her nocturnal habits

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So, it’s started.  The insomnia.  The 3am inner alarm call, the invisible phantom of wakefulness, there at my bedsite to shake me into pre-dawn lucidity.  The restlessness usually begins with me shifting around a bit, trying to get comfortable.  Then I’ll make the mistake of checking the clock, and if it’s anywhere between 2:30 and 5:00 I know I’ve had it.  My mind will start to dredge up the half-thoughts of the day before, and before I know it I’m standing in the kitchen in my dressing gown, watching the kettle boil.

It’s taken me a good few years of writing to learn that these periods of insomnia actually signal a period of good writing.  They coincide exactly with those points when I am making breakthroughs in terms of my characters and their stories, and whilst my reduced sleeping hours can be tiring, I have learned to embrace these witching hours as a gift to my writing.

The insomnia reached its peak when I was in the final stages of writing Glasshopper back in 2008.  At the time I was simultaneously working, studying for an MA, running a family home and trying to write a novel.  My mind was a ragbag of activity as I tried to balance all of it – the kids, the husband, the job, the essays, the washing, the ironing, the dog . . .  Every night I was waking around 3:00 or 4:00, and by the time I staggered into bed at the end of the day I was like a limp tea bag.  Then the breakthrough came.  One morning I woke at 5am, and instead of lying around trying to fight it, I leapt out of bed, made a cup of tea and sat at my writing desk for two hours.  I wrote effortlessly in the quiet of the dark basement, and when I stepped away from my desk I felt euphoric.  I’d found a way to make my insomnia work for me – and for the rest of that year I set my alarm to rise at 5am several mornings a week, and my residual insomnia ebbed away as Glasshopper drew nearer to completion.

As spring draws closer (please, please let it be drawing closer), I shall start to set my alarm clock for 5am again.  I can’t face it quite yet, but by the end of February I’ll be up with the lark, and hopefully my next novel will feel the benefits.

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To buy Glasshopper, click here.

To view Glasshopper Book Club & Reading Group Discussion Questions, click here.

 

Creative Writing Exercise/Tip 26: Embrace your Space

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I love those Guardian features on writer’s rooms.  They incite in me emotions of empathy, intrigue and envy – but most of all they satisfy my inner voyeur.  After all, writers often work alone, without the benefits of an office environment – there’s no-one sitting on the desk behind me, no-one to share gossip with at coffee break, no-one else’s new boyfriend photos to have a nosey at.

I live in a 3-bed Victorian semi, with my husband, two kids, a border terrier dog, a fat hamster and two goldfish tanks.  My husband is a carpenter so the hallway is often stacked out with tools, but thankfully we have a basement to spill over into with our dirty wellies, raincoats and junk.  Over the past few years, I’ve tried a few different locations for my writing, and I’m currently located at a desk in my bedroom, where the light is good, the room is warm, and the dog is happy to curl around my feet beneath the desk.

But I’m a great believer that writing spaces should be fluid.  A change of scene can unexpectedly shift your imagination, as well as allowing you an escape from the confines of every day life.  For example, at times I like to rise at 5am, in which case I will write by hand in the basement or at the kitchen table with a hot water bottle on my lap and a cup of tea in my hand.  If I need to get a bit of work done when the kids are home, I’ll escape to my little desk in the the basement (clambering over bicycle pumps, sledges and hamster feed to get to it), and I can sometimes get away with an hour’s work before they notice I’m gone . . .

However you live, you can make your space work for you.  It’s very easy to make find reasons not to write.  I hear it all the time – ‘but I haven’t got a good workspace’ or ‘I never get the time’ – but you can make the space and you can make the time, if you really want it.

Make 2011 the year you get writing – in your own way.

Creative Writing Exercise/Tip 25: Expand your reading list

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It’s New Year, and I’m about to start writing my next novel in earnest.  I’ve been making notes on this particular book for several years now, so already I have a notebook full of jottings – but now it’s time to start the practical writing; the setting down of words in an order that will make sense to readers other than myself.

When I’m in a heavy writing phase, I stop reading altogether.  I find simultaneously reading and writing fiction clutters my thinking, prevents me from drilling down into the profound detail of the story I’m trying tell.  It feels a bit like watching the TV with the radio on in the background.  But reading is vital to the writer, and so for the past three months, since handing over my finished manuscript for Hurry Up and Wait, I’ve been reading greedily, soaking up as many books as I could fit in before the New Year work begins.

In 2010 I read a wonderful array of books across the genres:  The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers;  A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving; The Hand that First Held Mine by Maggie O’Farrell; The Devil’s Music by Jane Rusbridge; Crow Lake by Mary Lawson; The Outcast by Sadie Jones; The Book of Fires by Jane Borodale; His Last Duchess by Gabrielle Kimm; The Tent, the Bucket and Me by Emma Kennedy; and many others which I’m sure deserve a mention if there were time.

I now have to put my reading on hold – but I’ll still have a pile of books waiting for me when I lift my head again for a brief writing break at the end of February.  Top of the pile is London Triptych, a bold debut by Jonathan Kemp which interweaves the lives and loves of three very different men across the decades.  It was shortlisted for the Green Carnation Prize in 2010 and looks set to be a great read.

I’ll also be looking at the TV Book Club reading list, and I can’t wait to start Room by Emma Donghue.  Here’s their full January Reads List:

Room by Emma Donoghue

The Long Song by Andrea Levy

The Junior Officers’ Reading Club by Patrick Hennessy

Tiger Hills by Sarita Mandanna

The News Where You Are by Catherine O’Flynn

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Whatever you choose to read this year, I hope you find some books which stay with you.  I couldn’t choose a favourite read from 2010 as so many have resonated for different reasons – and that’s why it’s so important to read widely; there’s something to be taken from everything – good and bad!

Happy reading for 2011.

Creative Writing Exercise/Tip 24: write what you know

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I was recently invited to a local book group meeting, to meet readers and talk about my debut novel Glasshopper.  As often happens, I was asked about my ability to write about alcoholism so fluently.  “You write so convincingly about the condition,” one reader said.  “How are you able to do that?”  I explained that I grew up with an alcoholic parent, my father, who died tragically young at the age of 50, something which I wrote about in the Guardian family section last year.

Of course, there is much emotion involved in writing about traumas which bear parallels to our own lives, but it is possible to write about these things with great honesty when we have a degree of first hand experience.  For me, changing the fictional child to a male, and changing the troubled adult to the mother allowed me greater freedom to write what I wanted, safe in the knowledge that this was about someone else – not me.  Yes, my character Jake and I have things in common, like growing up in the 1980s with an alcohol-dependent parent, but he’s a character in his own right in an entirely fictional story.

The portrayal of Jake’s dysfunctional family has been praised for its authenticity – due in great part to that old addage: write what you know.  That doesn’t mean you should never write about things new to you, but your story should always be glued together with a truth which can only come from the things you do know.

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To buy Glasshopper, click here.

To view Glasshopper Book Club & Reading Group Discussion Questions, click here.