Pete Sutton's Blog, page 4

Writing about Writing about Writing 24

Part 24 of an intermittent series where I read or re-read the writing books on my shelf to see if they’re worth keeping. See previous part here and Index of all books here.

WAWAW rises from the mists of time – I last did a post almost a year ago but due to ‘the circumstances’ I’ve been forced to let the blog languish. So dusting it off

A woman blowing the dust off of the cover of a book.

and giving it yet another revival – because of course I have been reading writing books this year and I have been accumulating writing books this year and I’ll be starting, once again, the book versus book death match to fit on the ‘writing’ shelf (currently double/triple stacked)  – at the moment I won’t return to any of the books in the Index but rather read the books that have somehow sneaked into the house in ’22 when I shouldn’t be buying any more writing books…

How to write your first novel – this isn’t a bad book, but it’s far too ‘starter writer’ for me (‘ark at ‘ee) and, I think, pretty much a ‘if you haven’t read a creative writing book before you could start with this’  and so onto the discard pile it goes.

Points of View edited by James Moffat is a fat book because it’s full of example stories – the editors posit a new (to me) schema for narrative POV, based on ‘distance’ and a universal scale, explain each POV and demonstrate the technique with one or more short stories. This made me think about POV in a whole different way. Recommended.

Improve your punctuation and grammar – a nuts & bolts does what it says on the tin style book – a charity shop purchase, a refresher quick read, but not keeping as already have the books I like on this subject.

Before we get started – Bret Lott isn’t a well-known author but this book of essays as ‘writing memoir’ is very good – it gets you to think about some topics in a different way, which to me is the mark of a good writing book (see points of view)

In a similar vein On Writing Fiction by Jauss is an excellent collection of essays on the craft, recommended by, I think Laird Barron on Philip Fracasi’s The Dark Word Podcast (recommend this podcast btw) – the essay ‘long shots to x-rays’ is worth buying the book for.

Burning down the house – Baxter is better known as an editor I think (the art of series) and the author of a previously discarded The Art of Subtext (13). I’m in two minds about this book – many of the essays failed to land with me but there are several very good ones too – a very uneven read. At the moment it’s on the shelf but it might not survive a re-read

The complete book of scriptwriting is comprehensive but not quite the one stop shop bible I was hoping it would be. At the moment it sits on a second rung along with Syd Field’s books and may not survive a cull when one falls…

Shukla’s Your story matters feels as though Nikesh is sat with you cheering you on and it’s a great guide to writing craft and attitude, recommended.

Writers Block and how to use it – I know several writers who say writers block doesn’t exist. Good for them that their fight/flight/freeze response doesn’t kick in or doesn’t manifest in doing anything other than writing. The rest of us chronic procrastinators and ‘blocked’ writers need a guide and Nelson provides a non-judgmental cheer to get you going. If you’ve ever suffered from procrastination or block then this is the book for you.

In a similar vein but with added exercises is The Writer as Artist – confront your writing fears in a safe way and find your own voice. I think this complements the Writers Block book pretty well so am minded to keep both of them

Drop a comment with your favourite writing book or tip here or email me via the Contact page. If you’re a publisher or Indie Author and would like me to review your writing book drop me a line!

BristolCon

As usual I shall be at BristolCon and appearing on the programme (hopefully – it’s yet to be finalised.) I’ll add more news as and when.

In case you missed it I am now editor-in-chief for BFS Horizons

Slowly dusting off

Things are starting to settle into a new normal and I should start to have more time to spend on my writing ‘career’ from this month. So I shall be dusting this blog off and slowly becoming more active in posting.

This weekend past I attended a rather fabulous FantasyCon (many thanks to the Exec of the BFS for rescuing FCon!) and was nominated for a British Fantasy Award for Best Collection for The Museum for Forgetting. I didn’t win but it was nice to get a third nomination (previously nominated in best short story and best collection for A Tiding of Magpies.)

I also have a story in The Best of British SF 2021 from Newcon Press – The Stone of Sorrow which was published in the reprint/relaunch of A Tiding of Magpies.

I shall be at BristolCon on 29th October but will be blending that with watching some films at Forbidden Worlds Big Scream.

And just in case you’ve missed the news I’m now the editor of BFS Horizons – Issue 14 will be going out to BFS members soon, Issue 15 is with the typesetter and I am currently choosing stories for Issue 16, so if you have a suitable story then please send it to me soon, before I fill the issue.

I am editing two anthologies this/next year – The Milford Anthology which is a collection of stories that have been workshopped at the Milford annual conference which is due to launch Easter 2023 and Frost, the follow up to the North Bristol Writers Fire anthology.

And finally I am working on getting The Certainty of Dust revised for next year which will be published by Grimbold Books.

Why the silence?

Given that I know there are at least a few people that read my blog posts I thought I’d explain why there haven’t been any this year so far. There has been a major family illness and this has upset all the rhythms of life. I’m not sure when things will settle down (they certainly won’t get ‘back to normal’ any time soon) so things are on an indefinite hiatus.

Writing About Writing About Writing Review 23

And so the return of Writing About Writing About Writing and a new review.

In the previous post I explained that one of the types of writitng books I have on the shelf is ‘Exercise and Prompt’ books. I also promised: “I’m going to be using those exercise and prompt books to practise and come up with new stories – I’ll blog about the experience, about the stories, about the submissions and rejections and acceptances, warts and all.”

To start I read What If? by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter

and didn’t do any of the exercises. They failed to spark anything new despite their promise at the beginning of the book that: “The raconteur will be able, at last, to write his story, and the competent composer will to come up (sic – I think that should be ‘will be able to come up’) with fresh and original ideas”

There is good advice in here – “No matter how widely published, a writer always needs to begin again.”

And I went up and down on whether to keep the book or discard it – it’s a bit muddled as it aims in some exercises for the beginning writer, a lot of the exercises are ‘bit pieces’  – write several first lines for example, and the student examples are not that useful (to me at least). But there are some very useful exercises in here – especially in the sections on story elements, invention and transformation and mechanics.

But, in the end, I failed to write a story using any excercise in this book. Maybe it was due to them not being prompts as such, but exercises?

As an example – opened to a random page and taking the first exercise I came across: “Using the first person, write a self-deceiving portrait in which the narrator is not the person she thinks she is – either more or less admirable. You must give the reader clues that the narrator is skewing the truth.” To me that’s not a story prompt – and maybe that’s not what the book is aiming for – after all it is a writing exercise book not a story prompt book. But I read that exercise and it doesn’t prompt anything for me…

Maybe I’ll have more luck with the next on the list:

The Observation Deck by Naomi Epel – “A Toolkit for Writers.” On the back it says it is an “ingenious solution for writer’s block,” and that it’s an inspiration deck. So maybe I’ll be able to write a story this month using this book? Tune in next month to see if I do…

Drop a comment with your favourite writing book or tip here or email me via the Contact page. If you’re a publisher or Indie Author and would like me to review your writing book drop me a line!

MeddwlCoed writing retreat

This weekend just gone I joined a bunch of writers in mid-Wales for another MeddwlCoed Writing Retreat. This one at the Glynhir Estate. A fantastic location for some rest and writing.

We left Bristol under cover of darkness and joined the throng on the M4 which flowed well until we reached near Cardiff where Google informed us there was an ‘eight minute delay, but you are still on the fastest route.’ Ha! And so we arrived last and later than we’d estimated and hadn’t seen the message from Jo asking if we were alright. We were greeted with hot food and friendly faces and immediately had to go through introductions. I knew most people at the table but there were a couple of new faces. Once we retired to the sitting room and Jo and Roz introduced the weekend and workshop aspects and beer flowed I felt a bit more relaxed. Glynhir estate is a sprawl of many buildings and outbuildings, barns and pig stys (complete with woolly pigs), and a pack of geese, ducks and peacocks.

The next day I got out of bed at a leisurely 8am and after a quick shower and breakfast it was back to the sitting room for a day of writing. I’d arrived with an idea of finishing off a magazine article, read and edit some short stories (with the idea of submitting once the retreat is over) and reading and creating a revision plan and schedule for the novel I was writing at the last retreat.

I managed to write the article and revise three short stories before Jo & Roz arrived and led us in a workshop centred around writer’s block – many of us reported that our writing had fallen silent over the last couple of pandemic years. After some freewriting, discussions on what we were working on and setting goals I went for my Shiatsu massage – Heather, a qualified therapist was offering a ‘Writer’s Special’ for us folk at the retreat aiming to massage shoulders, necks, arms and hands – all the places that can cause problems for those of us who hunch over laptops all times of the day. Major relaxation followed.

After a spot of lunch (homemade bread and aged goat’s cheese and cake) it was back to the writing. I revised a few more stories and then reached a bit of an impasse – I didn’t want to start on the revision plan for the novel until I’d had my 1-2-1 (or should that be 1-2-2) with Jo and Roz for their thoughts on the extract I’d sent them. I tried to start a new story but the muse had deserted, possibly I was too relaxed after the Shiatsu. So I read for a while (something for WAWAW).

After a lie in and a cooked breakfast I set off to find the waterfall (the estate has it’s own) and went for a wander around the estate

The waterfall wasn’t the only thing of interest on the estate…

Once I returned I then sat with Jo & Roz who gave me some feedback on the novel extract I’d sent them. Both are very experienced editors and they had some great critique, especially on chapter 2. The major thrust of which was ‘insert more weirdness.’ Sage advice for life.

That Sunday feeling had crept in and we writers gathered together in the main sitting room and discussed various things – including, occasionally, writing. I revised another story and explored the orchard in the walled garden and spent some time with this little guy:

But all too soon it was time for me to leave. The retreat actually concluded today but I had to leave Sunday night because of the day job.

The main thing you get out of a retreat is a space carved out of the calendar that’s away from your ‘real’ life. A time to pause and reflect. I didn’t get a massive amount of writing done – but I did re-read the draft of The Certainty of Dust, I edited several of the stories I aim on submitting and I got great feedback. I also spent some time with friends discussing writing.

The estate had a number of peacocks and it was slightly disconcerting that when it came time to leave, the light was fading and the tree outside the accommodation was full of giant birds…

And so back to Bristol, in the dark – but at least it wasn’t raining and the traffic gods were smiling.

The return of Writing About Writing About Writing

WAWAW Is an intermittent series where I read or re-read the writing books on my shelf to see if they’re worth keeping. See previous part here. And an index of the books in the series here. In my previous post way back in June I put the series on pause as I needed to use my time to do some writing for hire. That’s now over and it’s time to dust WAWAW off and start posting again.

One type of writing book I have on the shelf is ‘Exercise and Prompt’ books which I will be diving in and using. ‘No-one does the exercises in writing books’ is the received wisdom (and to be sure I’ve rarely done so in the books in the WAWAW series.) But it’s been a while since I was writing short stories on spec and subbing them to magazines and anthologies and so I think returning to writing with ‘beginner’s mind’ may be of some use. Therefore I’m going to be using those exercise and prompt books to practise and come up with new stories – I’ll blog about the experience, about the stories, about the submissions and rejections and acceptances warts and all.

First up is What If? by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter. Which definitely sticks to the theme of bad covers on writing books!

I’ll be reading this and doing the exercises with the idea of generating stories but at the same time I’ll be returning to The Certainty of Dust in order to revise it to give to the publisher early next year with the intention of the book coming out next year. I also have a bunch of stories I wrote last year and earlier this year that need a bit of polishing to then send out.

My short review of the book will be along the lines of how useful it is to generate new writing. A lot of writing exercises are basically ways to get you freewriting. Although freewriting is a useful method to train you to get into a flow state and turn off the inner critic, it tends not to generate stories (for me at least). Writing exercises could be considered similar to playing scales as a musician or sketching as an artist preparing to start a new work, it’s not wasted time. However I specifically want to get some stories and will be judging these books by that criteria, which may lead to an idiosyncratic review.

In addition I’ll be at a weekend writing retreat (at MeddwlCoed) in a couple of weeks time and hoping to generate some new writing. Time to get back in the saddle…

Drop a comment with your favourite writing book or tip here or email me via the Contact page. If you’re a publisher or Indie Author and would like me to review your writing book drop me a line!

New head shot

It’s always a weird experience going to get photographs professionally done but it had become necessary as my appearance has changed (age, lockdown, beard). On a quiet weekend day I crossed the city to spend an hour or so in the company of Tom from TomShot Photography in order to get some new photos done. See my profile (scroll down) for the one I’ve chosen for this website. I’ve also got some more ‘serious’ poses for any book jacket or similar work and a mix of poses in both black and white and colour.

I have no hesitation in recommending Tom – we’ve known each other for years but he was the right combination of friendly and professional and is set up to take portraits in a studio in his house. We also managed to have a bit of a natter about his forthcoming Podcast series The Real Writing Process the first episode of which will drop this weekend.

I’ll be at BristolCon at the weekend and will be doing a reading in Panel room 1 at 11:50, on a panel at 12:00

New Weird Britain 

In recent years there has been a surge of reawakened interest in our folklore, traditions, landscape and prehistory, from fanzines and podcasts to radio programmes and heavily illustrated glossy coffee table books.  Where has this come from? What opportunities does it offer to genre practitioners?

Chrissey Harrison, Peter Sutton, J E Hannaford, Ken Shinn , Nik Whitehead (M)

and moderating a panel at 16:00

Storytelling in Games 

Some of the best genre storytelling is being done in console games. What are the challenges of getting your story over in a non-linear format? How do you cope with the idea that many players may not even see the end of your story?

Jonathan L. Howard, S. Naomi Scott, Stark Holborn, Allen Stroud , Peter Sutton (M)

I shall also be doing a bit of bookselling on the Grimbold Books table, plan on doing at least 1 small group session and will otherwise mostly be found in the bar.

Drowning in content

I have a book buying problem – Hi I’m Pete and I’m a biblioholic. You’re probably already aware of that from the fact that I’ve been doing the Writing About Writing About Writing (WAWAW) blogposts (which will return next month, more on that below.) I do the category challenge on Librarything every year and I’m noodling ideas for next year’s challenge as I use it as a method to reduce the TBR (doesn’t always work.) And I was thinking of doing a Year of Reading Short Stories. I have enough short story books to fill a year of reading (yes I have that many unread books on the shelves that just this one category could fill a year.) At the same time as continuing my WAWAW. Since I’ll also be opening submissions for BFS Horizons again next year I’ll be reading a lot of short story submissions too (I hope there’s a lot of submissions anyway.) So that’s challenge 1 for next year – to reduce the TBR of as many short story books as possible.

Challenge 2 is of course WAWAW – I’ve basically finished the ones on the shelves apart from the prompt books. I have a bunch of writing books on the Kindle that I will be challenging myself to read as part of WAWAW too. But with the prompt books I thought the only real test of them is to do the prompts – so I’ll be reading them and using them to produce short stories next year. Short stories that I’ll then try and sell. I’ll blog about the experience here – the stories, how they come together, where I’m submitting, any successes, any feedback etc.

Not exactly a challenge but in addition – I’ll be revising Sick City Syndrome and once that’s ready I’ll be creating an email list and offering it for free if you sign up. I’ll also be revising Certainty of Dust with the aim of getting it published in 2022.

Some stuff happened

Last weekend was FantasyCon and it was awesome to see friends in the flesh again and get the con experience. OK it was a bit smaller than usual and the panels and events were quieter as people (quite rightly) put their efforts into socialising but it was a glimpse of normality.

My story – We Do Like to be Beside (from the Alchemy Press book of horrors 2) was shortlisted for Best Short Story in the BFAs and sadly didn’t win. I did get to present the award for best audio though which was fun.

Following the BFS AGM it was announced that I will be the editor in chief of BFS Horizons and I’ll be working with the current editor, Shona Kinsella, on the next issue and then in charge from issue 15.

I have bought membership for FantasyCon 22 and hope it’s back to normal numbers. The new comittee are set to take the BFS in exciting new directions and I’m looking forward to being part of the team.

I’ll also be at BristolCon and ChillerCon – if you’re coming along come say hello?

As the nights are drawing in and we enter the last quarter of the year my thoughts are turning to 2022. I am thinking of creating a proper email newsletter with my first (out of print) novel as a gift if you sign up. I’ll be restarting Writing About Writing About Writing (WAWAW) soon with a twist – I’ll be using the half dozen prompt books to write short stories that I’ll then try and sell and talking about the experience on the blog. Although I’ll also be doing more standard WAWAW posts as well.