Angela Slatter's Blog, page 56

Top Ten Pets for Writers: the Good, the Bad, the Really, Really Unwise

Over at the JFB blog I offer advice about pets for writers. I should point out I don’t own any pets. But Sam from JFB did add excellent gifs.

Writers are often solitary creatures, and this isn’t always a good thing. You start talking to yourself and people look at you strangely, especially when you start to do it outside of the home environment; in the supermarket for example. So, I propose all writers should have a pet of some description – that way, at least you’re talking to something instead of an imaginary friend – even if its a stuffed animal because you can’t be trusted to remember to feed a living creature (plants are probably also not for you).

Each pet gets an ego rating – as in how well they’ll affect your ego – on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being ‘This pet will make you hate yourself’ and 10 being ‘This pet believes you are a god’.

The rest is here.

Despatches from KSP – Day 11

Art by Kathleen Jennings

Despatches from KSP – Day 11: Top Five Tips for Public Readings

Last night I had the pleasure of attending the KSP Literary Dinner and talking to people who are passionate about writing and reading. We were fed lovely food and I had the opportunity to read “The Badger Bride” (which was shortlisted for the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Short Story for 2014- but was beaten by “St Dymphna’s School for Poison Girls” by some hack) aloud. I was scheduled to do three readings between courses, about 10-15 minutes each. That’s usually a long time for a reading – most events only want about 3-5 minutes, and that’s what I’ve trained myself to do, but I was up for the challenge. The story had natural breaking places and was well received – huzzah! – so I thought I’d give my Top Five Tips for Public Readings.

1. Choose an event-appropriate piece

You need to consider your audience and venue when you’re selecting something to read. It’s an unwise choice to debut the profanity-laced decapitation scene from your new spy thriller at a children’s books festival – just saying. Who will be listening to you? Are they likely to be genre readers or more on the side of Big L Literature? Are you going to be reading at a festival, in a bookstore, in a bar (dingy or otherwise)? Choose your piece to suit the audience, the occasion and the vibe of the venue. Also keep in mind whether you’re going to have a microphone or will need to use your best projecting voice.

If you can, read a short story that fits into your time limit – this gives the audience a nice sense of completion. If you’re reading an extract from a novel-length work (maybe your new book is coming out and promotion is foremost in your mind) then choose carefully: you don’t want it to be too slow, you don’t want it to give too much away (don’t read the end!), and you don’t want to have to spend too much time on an introduction to the piece that is longer than the piece itself so the audience will understand the context.

If you’re a second-stringer – an up-and-comer at, say, a salon evening which has a big name as the drawcard – then choose something snappy and complete. You’re not there to compete with the star, you’re there to be an able support act until you hit the big time. Give a good performance that people will remember for the right reasons.

2. How long is a piece of string?

As I said above, usually I’ve been asked to read 3-5 minute pieces, and that’s what I normally prepare. It’s a good length of time: less chance of an audience getting restless, less chance of you running out of breath, and a goodly span to tell a tale, whether it be a whole short story or an extract from a longer work. Make sure you always check with the organiser as to their expectations. If you know you need to do a longer reading – some writers festival spots are thirty minutes long – then you must prepare.

3. Practice makes perfect

You need to read your chosen piece aloud. You need to read it more than once. You need to read it before you have to perform it. The reasons for this are several-fold.

Firstly, so you get to know its rhythms, so your tongue isn’t getting tripped up as if it’s meeting the words for the first time – there are few things more uncomfortable for an audience than listening to an unprepared reader, and few things more terrible for a reader than hearing the shuffles and coughs and whispers of a bored audience. Or worse still, the sound of a chair being pushed back, of someone making excuses as they exit from the middle of a row of seats, tripping over audience members too polite to leave.

Secondly, what looks perfectly lovely on the page does not necessarily sound perfectly lovely when spoken aloud. Sentences might not have the same rhythm on the tongue and to the ear; when you’re practising, keep a pencil handy and cross out any lines that strike you as superfluous or overly long or complicated, likely to cause tangle-tongue. Don’t cross out important details the audience needs in order to understand the tale, but perhaps reword things for easier articulation. Know where the pauses need to be, know the cadences of your sentence so the words sing from your tongue, rather than sounding like a parent at three a.m. stumbling over a floor covered with Lego.

Thirdly, listening to yourself read will help you get the voice right, the tone you want to deliver the story in – the pitch that will do it justice. That will make the listening experience for the audience all the richer – and keep the number of shuffles, coughs and whispers to a minimum. You will also hear whether you’re one of Life’s mumblers – if you are, remedy that immediately. Don’t chew on your words, don’t let the nerves get hold of you and make you vomit them out at speed. Take a deep breath before you start; it’s calming, it helps you feel in control. Not to mention that doing a few run-throughs will help you control your breathing whilst reading, and the words will stop feeling so terrifying when you’ve got used to them.

Fourthly, you need to get your timing right. You might be utterly certain that those thirty pages equal five minutes. They don’t. Trust me, they really don’t. It’s agonising to hear a reader panic and speed up, or stop mid-sentence and leave the stage apologising because they realise they’ve been going on for twenty minutes in a three minute slot.

4. Always give your all

No matter how many or how few people turn up to your reading, always give the same performance. You may well feel disappointed that only two blokes and one chicken wearing an eye-patch have turned up to hear you – that’s only natural – but the important thing is not to act that way. Give the same level of performance as you would to an arena of cool kids and celebrities. Why? Because the folk who’ve bothered to turn up will go away and tell others about you and your work – what you want them to say is “It was a great reading! Look out for this author!!!”not “Total douche-canoe, bro, don’t ever bother reading their stuff.”

Yes, it’s a Kathleen Jennings cup from Bitterwood

5. Save the best for last

Finally, I know it’s nerve-wracking to stand up and speak in public, and it feels so much worse when you’re doing something creative, but consider not drinking beforehand to settle the nerves. Sure, alcohol loosens inhibitions, makes us relax … but sometimes it loosens inhibitions so much we think, “Yeah, three drinks of the cheap and nasty wine will be fine, I feel great, I’m confident!” But by then you’re slurring; the words move around on the page; maybe you trip up the stairs to the dais/podium; you’re talking too loudly, too quickly, you’re not funny. I have been in audiences where the author is sloshed – I have paid to be there – and I’ve not been happy or impressed. This isn’t based on any Temperance League objections to booze, just a preference for professional behaviour. “There’s many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip” as the saying goes – don’t get caught out saying something you probably shouldn’t because you’re too relaxed. Or worse: unintentionally ending up as the newest YouTube sensation.

Save the drink for afterwards, for the celebration, when no one cares if you’re a bit messy, in fact they think you’ve earned it.

Much Vigil-related Excitement

Master Maxim Jakubowski has selected Vigil as one of his July picks over at LoveReading!

Striking urban fantasy set in Brisbane, featuring the indomitable but ever grumpy Verity Fassbinder, of mixed human and magical ‘weyrd’ stock and with special powers to walk between worlds. She, however, only uses her powers with discretion, preferring to blend into normalcy rather than stand out and monitor the balance between worlds. But when children and sirens start going missing, the call to action cannot be resisted in a city in which reality seems to be leaking and a terrible menace is looming. Verity has touches of Katniss Everdeen but quickly establishes herself as a strong, likeable and positive female heroine in her own right, and her topsy turvy adventures fighting for the powers of good in an almost divergent world are pleasing and fast-paced. This is the opening to a trilogy and the next volumes will prove most welcome. ~ Maxim Jakubowski

Bad Blood: Gary Kemble

Gary Kemble’s award-winning short fiction has been published in Australia and overseas. His debut novel Skin Deep was published in 2015 by Echo Publishing. The follow-up, Bad Blood, is out now. When he’s not writing or being a dad, he works as a digital journalism specialist. You can find him on Twitter: @garykemble and Bad Blood will be launched at Avid Reader on Thursday 21 July, 2016.

1. First of all, what do new readers need to know about Gary Kemble?

I’m a Brisbane-based writer and journalist, and I’m drawn to the dark side.

2. How did your first novel, Skin Deep, come about?

I had this concept kicking about in my head for a long time, about tattoos spontaneously appearing on someone’s body. I’ve always wanted to write a series of books about a journalist investigating paranormal events. The two ideas clicked. And then I was extremely fortunate to get an Australia Council grant, which allowed me to take time off work to research and write Skin Deep.

3. When did you first start writing and can you remember the first thing you finished?

I remember in primary school we used to write and illustrate stories and then our teachers would help us turn them into books (in other words staple the pages together). The two I remember most are ‘Back from the Grave’ (about a ‘Master of Weapons’ with a black Trans-Am, battling an evil ghoul) and ‘Lost in Space’ (about a space explorer coming to a grisly end).

4. How did you come into contact with Echo Publishing?

My wonderful agent Alex Adsett was trying to find a home for Skin Deep. She contacted me and told me she had a publisher interested, but they were a new publisher — so new they didn’t even have a name yet! Skin Deep was Echo’s first Australian fiction title.

5. Who were/are your literary heroes/influences?

Stephen King is a huge influence and inspiration to me. The Shining was the first book that made me genuinely scared. I love Kurt Vonnegut’s books because he breaks the rules and it works. Over the years I’ve read lots of Harry Harrison, Tom Clancy and John Birmingham. Nick Earls also holds a special place in my heart — Zigzag St was the first Brisbane-set book I read that really resonated with me.

6. How did your second Harry Hendrick novel, Bad Blood, come into being?

I’d always envisaged a series of Harry Hendrick books, and I wrote the first draft of Bad Blood before Skin Deep was published. (And I am so glad I did, because I don’t know how I would have gone trying to write the second HH book after Skin Deep was published). Skin Deep was looking like it was doing okay sales-wise so I pitched Bad Blood and Echo, Gods bless them, picked it up.

7. When you’re in the mood to read, who is your first choice?

If I’m after a comfort read I’ll generally pick up a Stephen King classic, like Salem’s Lot or The Stand (not necessarily to read the whole thing). Generally though I’m quite gregarious. I save up a stockpile of books and have a big reading session over the summer holidays.

8. Which book, either fictional or otherwise, would you say taught you the most about writing ?

On Writing by Stephen King. I really appreciated his no-bullshit approach to writing, which boils down to: ‘just write, and never give up’. He also provides an insight into his own development as a writer and a person. I often find myself remembering the anecdote about the rail spike he had in his room as a teenager, which he would use to spike short story rejections.

9. You invite five fictional characters for dinner and shenanigans: who makes the guest list?

Kilgore Trout, Roland of Gilead, Elizabeth Bennett, Arya Stark and Ash Williams.

10. What’s next for Gary Kemble?

We’re currently in the process of moving back to Brisbane after two years in Scotland. I’m working on book three of the Harry Hendrick series, tentatively titled Stone Cold.

 

Meanwhile, over at Kaaron Warren’s place …

… I take part in her “Refreshing the Wells” series.

Angela Slatter is an astonishingly good writer. Her story in In Your Face is one of my faves of the year so far, and that’s only one of her excellent stories. I asked her how she refreshed her well.

“As I’m a writer who always has multiple projects (read: deadlines) on the go, I’m also a writer who needs to refill the well regularly. Unfortunately, I’m also a writer who doesn’t always remember to refill the well.

The rest is here.

Despatches from KSP – Day 7

Art by Kathleen Jennings

I’ve written before about rejections and how to handle the dent they make in your self-esteem, and I think it’s advice that bears revisiting from time to time. One thing any writer needs to develop (apart from mad writing skills and the ability to respect the deadline) is a thick skin. Not everyone is going to like your writing. Some folk will love it, some will loathe it, some will feel neither here nor there about your hard-won wordage – the only thing you can control is yourself and your reaction.

The thick skin doesn’t mean that you listen to no one – after all, if someone’s correcting your spelling (and they’re correct), it’s not a matter of your artistic integrity being attacked. Be grateful and gracious, say “thank you”; don’t be embarrassed even if the person is a bit of a douche and is trying to make you feel embarrassed – that’s their damage, not yours, their insecurity, not yours.

The thick means that you keep on writing even after you receive a rejection. I do know people who’ve given up after their first rejection. Don’t be one of those people. Write in spite of the rejections because you should always be writing your story – your first draft – for you. You are your first reader, your first audience member. We never learn anything without trying and failing – the greatest teacher in the world is failure. Writing is hard, submitting it to another’s gaze is hard, suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous editors is hard; but the important next step is to work out what went wrong. One of the ways you can do this is to read your rejections. Now some writers will laugh and call this “rejectomancy” a form of scrying as dodgy as peering at the entrails of pigeons, but really there are genuine lessons to be taken away.

So I give you, the Hierarchy of Rejections.

The Bad Rejection

The bad rejection can be a sign of a few things. You’ve sent your sexy nurse story to a gardening magazine. This is also a lesson to research markets and read submission guidelines very carefully. Chances are you may well get a bad rejection from an overworked, underpaid, very tired and impatient editor.

Or it is possible the editor is simply not accepting any more submissions, or stories of a particular type. You might have missed the deadline. There’s also the possibility that your story sucked. It might be a mostly invitation-only anthology with just a few open sub spots, which means you’re competing against a lot of other writers (please note: this is not a reason not to try – by all means submit, it’s good practice and editors may well start to remember your name in a positive fashion).

No rejection should ever say “Please hand in your pencil/pen/quill/stylus/laptop at the door and never, ever write again”, but the sad fact is that sometimes the bad rejection may well be rude or mean. Maybe you got someone on a bad day – you didn’t do anything wrong, you just got caught in the jet stream of an editor’s bad mood (donut shipment didn’t arrive; failure of a project; pet death, etc – you don’t know what’s happening in other people’s lives, so keep a little perspective); or the intern who’s doing the slush reading has an agenda. I once got a rejection letter from the editor of a leading spec-fic magazine that did not mention my story at all, but did offer quite a lot of personal abuse because I had provided an email address for notification of rejection/acceptance in order to save trees. This editor was so moved/offended/drunk that he typed this rejection letter personally, used his own envelope, schlepped to the post office, paid for the stamps himself, and roundly abused me for forcing him to do this. Have I ever submitted to that magazine again? Will I ever submit there again? If asked/begged for a story by that magazine will I ever say “Yes”? The answer to all three questions starts with an N.

The Fair to Middling Rejection

This is your standard “thanks but no thanks” letter. It doesn’t say you’re a bad writer. It just says not this story, not now. Maybe not ever. Maybe you’ve chosen the wrong market. Maybe you need to revisit the story and do a bit of flensing. And once again, some of the reasons listed in the bad rejection section may apply. But do not be downhearted, do not vow never to submit that magazine again. Keep trying.

The Hopeful Rejection

This is the letter that is almost the same as the fair to middling rejection, except it an editor asking if you’ll consider re-working the story, with no guarantee of acceptance. Depending on the extent of the re-writes, give it some thought. Work out if the time investment is worth it for the pay day, and for the time it will take away from working on other stories. And consider whether this re-working can be a good learning experience for you in terms of craft and editing.

The Best Rejection of All

This is the gold standard of rejection letters, the one that says “Okay, not this story, but please send another.” What this means is “This particular story is not for us, but we like your style and ability so much that we want to see something else from you – yes, you! Yes, this is an invitation to YOU. And you know what? This shows we have noticed your work; we will remember your name and, with any luck, you will now get out of the slush pile a little faster.” These are all good things, dear reader-writer; these are not cause for depression.

In Conclusion

Don’t just accept one rejection and assume that’s it for your writing career – your skin cannot be that thin, your ego that fragile. How many rejections is too many? How long is a piece of string? If a tree falls in the forest does anyone hear it? Questions with either no answer or an infinite variety of answers, all of which may be right, wrong or a little of both. How much persistence do you have? Because the best friend of talent is persistence. Personally, I give a story twenty rejections – it’s an arbitrarily chosen number. It gives me time to get a story across a variety of markets. If it gets the boot from all twenty then I look at re-writing or re-purposing the story. Sometimes the rejection letters help with this because sometimes you get that rarest of things: the rejection letter with feedback telling you why the story was not right for them. These are rare because editors of magazines, journals, anthologies, etc, don’t generally have time to provide feedback on every story they get. Nor should they have to do so. You want feedback? Join a writing group.

The main thing to remember is this: your writing is not you. At the beginning of your career especially, a rejection feels like someone saying your baby is ugly. You may well be tempted to wander around the house doing an Agnes Skinner impersonation: “A dagger! A dagger through my heart!” The greatest danger is reading a rejection letter and only picking out the negative bits and then translating that negative part into self-loathing – “I’m a bad writer! My stories suck! I’ll never make it! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Okay, you get to do this for fifteen minutes – time yourself, then move on. Go back to writing. Send the story straight back out.

And a golden rule? Do not reply to a rejection unless it is to say “Thank you for taking the time to consider my work”. “Thank you” goes a long, long way. Don’t argue with the rejection. Don’t try to get the editor to reconsider. Don’t write back rejecting the rejection. Don’t blog about the rejection, naming and vilifying the editor – if you’re going to do that, then just save some time and shoot yourself in the foot right now (off you go, we’ll wait). Take Neil Gaiman’s advice. My favourite part is “The best reaction to a rejection slip is a sort of wild-eyed madness, an evil grin, and sitting yourself in front of the keyboard muttering “Okay, you bastards. Try rejecting this!” and then writing something so unbelievably brilliant that all other writers will disembowel themselves with their pens upon reading it, because there’s nothing left to write.”

Remember that every writer at some point suffers rejection – you’re not alone.

 

 

Reviews and Stuff

Hello, lovely readers.

Angela here with a small request (and I’ll not bother you again, I promise).

If you love Vigil (or any of my books), would you mind leaving reviews on Amazon and Goodreads? Obviously as well as telling friends and family and anyone else you can corner without actually infringing their personal liberties.

And if you are already one of those delights who leave reviews on Goodreads, would you mind cross-posting to Amazon?

A writer lives and dies by Amazon reviews apparently, so if you could help out that would be ace.

If you don’t like Vigil, that is absolutely your privilege, but if you do like/love it then any assistance would be most appreciated.

Thank you!

A

xx

What Makes You Weyrd?

Over at the JFB blog a competition is being run – tweet @JoFletcherBooks and let the lovely folk there know what makes you Weyrd.

So far, we’ve had psychics and goblin secretaries. Can you top that?

Also, there’s a Loki gif.

Top Ten Tuesday!

Coz it’s still Tuesday in the UK!

Over at the JFB blog I give my Top Ten Tip for Curing Writer’s Block.

Because I am full of opinions and bright (and sometimes not so bright) ideas.

Chatting about Vigil

And here’s the link to the interview I did with Sarah Howells at ABC Radio National yesterday about Vigil.