Promoting Yourself & Others

As I don't have a new book to promote yet I might as well promote some other people ...

Click here to read my poet friend Chris's blog The Daily Whale. Now the interesting thing about this blog is that I didn't know that it existed until I happened to see a post on Facebook a couple of weeks ago. In his latest blog post Chris confesses that he's not very good at self-promotion, hence me being oblivious of his blog. He had my blog on his link list though which made me very happy.

Most people find self-promotion very hard. Publishers and agents do their bit, but you also have to do your own bit ... If you don't have a publisher and/or an agent yet it's even more important.

One author who's very, very good at self-promotion is Isabel Ashdown. She's written a blog post called Twitter Confessions, and she says "for every shameless plug I make, I do two more tweets to others/about others." That's very fair I think.

What goes around comes around. I sometimes blog about other peoples' blogs or books and I believe this is indirectly a way of promoting myself. It's great to discover a link to your own blog on somebody else's blog!

The Middle of the Hunger Trace

A while ago I went to the launch party for Edward Hogan's second novel, The Hunger Trace and was very lucky to get a copy of the book. There's something quite majestic about holding a fresh hardback in your hands, more exciting to me than holding a new born baby ...

To the point. Even if I no longer bring this hardback baby to bed it's still with me.
What I liked best about The Hunger Trace was the middle. It's not that the beginning and the end were bad, it's just that I liked to be inside the novel, following the characters' daily life. I wasn't that bothered about a beginning or an end, it felt like the story had gone on forever and had no end, like real life. And I mean this in a positive way. Unless someone is dead or not yet born you don't really think of their lives as beginning or ending, and that's what I felt about Louisa, Christopher and Maggie in the Hunger Trace. I had the privilege of spending a few months with them and liked it best when I was in the middle of the book. I must admit that the first page didn't grab me, mainly because I didn't know what an ibex was, but as soon as Louisa entered on page two I started to feel connected.

I really like Louisa. Not because her name is similar to mine, but because she's a flawed unusual character. A falconer. A woman still in love with a guy from her childhood whom she could never have. The guy is called David - owner of a wildlife park - and David is dead. He's outside the novel, but we get to know him not only through Louisa but also through his widow Maggie (much younger and a bit tarty), and his son Christopher from another marriage(portrayed very well as an odd teenager who is into internet dating and family values).

I love the Louisa-Christopher-Maggie drama, and when the novel ended it didn't end for me (to be honest I can't even remember the exact end), it carried on in my mind, and I still sometimes wonder what Louisa, Christopher and Maggie (in that order) are up to.

All over the place or in one place?

If you focus on something for five years and really believe in it you're going to be successful in one way or other. That's what my ex (who gets paid to travel to tropical countries to fix computers) told me while I was working on my debut novel. And almost exactly five years after I started writing seriously I had a novel published. I did focus on my novel writing and I really believed in it. But it's not always this simple ...

What is success anyway? Are you less of a novelist if you spend five years perfecting a novel, focusing on it and really believing in it and still not getting it published ...? The optimist in me wants to believe that those people don't exist, that they didn't try hard enough .... The realist in me doesn't want to wake up because I am a dreamer ...

Another person(in his early thirties)who is a poet, MC, songwriter and musician told me that he would've been successful by now if he had focused on one thing only. I'm not sure whether to agree or disagree. Surely these areas all feed into each other, but if you're pre-occupied by making a living and having a very rich social life it's tricky. It's also matter of how much you're willing to focus, how much you're willing to offer in terms of time and money.

I've been writing seriously in English since 2007, so according to the five year focus and belief I should be published by next year. But at the moment I'm all over the place ... I'm waiting for my agent to find a publisher for UNDER THE LIP (former REPLACING ANGEL). Waiting is not a very active space to be in so in the meantime ...

*I'm making notes on a new novel, note: making notes, not actually writing

*I'm writing random poetry

*I'm working with improvising jazz musicians

*I performing poetry

*I'm reading/performing short stories

*I'm taking voice classes

*I'm going to drop-in acting classes

*I'm going to drop-in 5Rhythms dance classes

*I'm lying down in the Alexander Technique semi-supine position

*I'm reading all sorts of stuff, fact and fiction

*I'm taking more photographs than my harddrive can handle

*I'm making collages (see picture)

But above all I'm working on getting to know my body. Hence the voice classes, acting classes, dance classes and the Alexander Technique. (I can't afford to do these things every week even if I wanted to do, but I try to do at least one physical thing every week).

All my life I've lived in my head, intellectualising all my actions. Now it's time for me to get in touch with my body, and I believe this will make me a better and more confident performer. Indirectly it will also help me with my novel work as a part of "the job" is to promote your novel, do readings etc.

I took out a book from the Children's Library simply titled The Inside & Outside Guide to Your Body. I'm fascinated by the fact that under my skin there is a skeleton. It's not like I didn't know before, but I finally understand that I've got a skeleton. I'm learning to breathe.

I could skip all this body work and just plunge into working on my new novel and ignore all the other parts of me. But at the moment it's more important for me to become a whole human being.

Tuned in Stories at Story Studio, Komedia Brighton

Short Fuse has changed their name to Story Studio and the night on Sunday was a great success. The theme for the night was "Tunes" and apart from traditional story readings the audience was treated to visual art by Lee Thacker, singing by Pam Hewitt and performance art by Amanda Evans.

I performed my story I'm from Further North than You that was inspired by the Wedding Present song with the same title. Last time I read this story was at the Edge of the Sea festival in august so it was less nerve-wracking this time ... It was great to have Lee Thacker's illustrations of the story behind me, and I felt very honoured to have David from the Wedding Present at my table. I found out that the song was originally titled Edinburgh. I didn't know this, but had subconsciously set the story in the Scottish capital anyway.

Next up was Brian Bell reading Shite Ole' Deep Purple Records. What I particularly liked about this story is that it dealt with the snobbishness of some music fans ... e.g. that you can't be a punk and also listen to Deep Purple. (Swedish rock band Backyard Babies once kicked a band member because they found a Suzanne Vega record in his collection ... And my Swedish debut novel "Punk industrial hard rocker with attitude" deals with being bullied for liking both Guns N'Roses and punk stuff ....)

Jeff Noon was probably the most famous name on the bill. I've never read any of his novels although I've seen them lying about in my friends houses. My first ever flatmates kept going on about Needle in the groove and it's still on the list of books I want to read ... Jeff didn't get up on stage himself, instead Alistair Lock did a brilliant job reading Jeff's story The Queen is Dead inspired by the Smith's song.

Amanda Evans in full action, telling her tale from Jamaica called The Third Drawer. She was accompanied by soft drumming which made the story very hypnotic.

The duo Felstead and Waddell seem to be the act in residence at Story Studio and they always amuse me. Their stories are only about a 100 words long, but each story is a complete sketch with props. The stories they read on the night were all inspired by song titles, e.g. River Deep - Mountain high and Living la vida loca. How they manage to keep their faces straight I don't know ...

This Genesis guy was not at Story Studio. But Tara Gould had written an amazing rhythmic story about losing your virginity titled The Guaranteed Eternal Sanctuary Man, and it was performed by Wendy Quelch. I got so into the story that I forgot to get my camera out hence the substitute picture ...

Another highlight was Louise Hume's story Porquoi Es-Tue Devenue Si Raisonnable? performed by Simon Drake and Louise herself. The french title is English for the Wedding Present Song Why are you being so reasonable now?
Apparently it was a huge hit in France ...

Last up was Lee Thacker. Well last up was a graphic short story of his, read by Wendy Quelch & Holly Dawson. Unfortunately the ending of this story Nickles and Dimes was missing, but maybe it was an intentional trick to get everybody to buy the forthcoming anthology with The Wedding Present-inspired stories ... I don't know exactly when it will be out, but I'll keep you posted.

Next Story Studio happens in June and the theme then is Sport & Leisure. Maybe the above picture from post Brighton Marathon will inspire you ... (I took this photo on my way home feeling inspired by writer & photographer Erika Szostak who also has a story in the above mentioned anthology.) More info about Story Studio and submission guidelines here.


Thanks to Lee Thacker for the photo of me.

Reaping my Shorts

I dedicated last year to short stories. And now I'm reaping what I sow ..

*On Sunday I'm reading at Story Studio (former Short Fuse) at Komedia. The theme for this night is Tunes so I re-submitted the story I read at the Edge of the Sea Festival in August. The story is called Further North than You and is inspired by the Wedding Present song with the same title. This story will also be included in an anthology with other stories inspired by the Wedding Present titles or lyrics.

*This week I received a copy of Spilling Ink in the post - an excellent anthology of fiction, nonfiction and prose poetry/flash fiction. My short story Lovers of the Planet is one of the featured pieces.

*My short story The Party is Over made it to the shortlist for the annual Mslexia Short Story Competition. Although shortlist in this case doesn't mean it will be one of the published pieces, just that it came close.

This year I haven't written a single short story. Here you can read about my change of scene last year, but now I'm think I'm back to poetry again ... What I learnt from dedicating a year to short stories is that every word and semicolon matters. I've become better at writing in general, yet I don't think of myself as a short story writer. I write novels for a living (well, for a tiny tiny part of my living), I write poetry for fun and for performing (and therefore am not too bothered about semi-colons and perfecting them for the page), but short stories ... They are still beyond me.

Dating Myself in London - Inspiration & Nostalgia

Julia Cameron - the woman behind The Artist's Way - writes about the importance of Artist's Dates. And sometimes we need Artist's Days. Days when we take ourselves out to gain new inspiration and energy. Yesterday I took myself to London.


I started off at the British Library. Little did I know that it was like boarding an aeroplane. You had to check that your bag was the right size, and to go inside any of the reading rooms you needed a pass. The book I wanted to read (a John Cage one) was in Yorkshire which didn't make any sense. A member of staff said "it says DSC in the entry" as if an idiot would know that DSC meant Yorkshire. I didn't let myself get put off though.

Instead I had a look at one of the exhibitions and saw original manuscripts/notebooks from authors like Virginia Woolf and Oscar Wilde. I also put on headphones and listened to Help! by the Beatles while looking at the original piece of paper that John Lennon wrote down the lyrics on ... After all entering a library is like boarding an aeroplane: you are travelling to another place.


The British Library cafe was too full of laptops, books and conversations so I moved to a cafe across the road and spent two hours with myself, my notebook and a gigantic mug of green tea. I found my words flowing in all sorts of directions without forcing myself to writing anything good.


To feed my tummy I had an over-priced sandwich. But my mind was hungry for something else, so I decided to treat myself to Camden. (And am very proud that I found my way there without looking at the map in my bag.) Camden still feels magic to me. Camden changed my life when I was eighteen. And again when I was nineteen. It would take a whole novel to explain why, but basically it was a shock for a small town girl. Like moving from grey to neon. Like moving from safe to dangerous. Like moving from innocence to experience.

Note the punk with the placard in the middle to the right. I bet he's the same guy who stood there when I first came up from the tube all those years ago ... (The next tube could take you to another world was the slogan on the walls then.)


After only five minutes in Camden I was exploding with memories mixed with new impressions and I just had to sit down and write again. At a crossroads someone asked "Where's the rainbow?" because at that very moment it started to rain at the same time as the sun was shining ... I didn't find any rainwbows but I found Spiral (a cafe by the canal) and that was colourful enough with hippies in green trousers and orange tops. I had Spirulina. Not something I would've done ten years ago ... It wouldn't have been "punk" enough ...


Nostalgia hit me really bad so I just had to carry on to Angel ... To Islington Green where me and a friend once sat in October, drinking before going to legendary goth club Slimelight ... This was ten years ago and I couldn't help thinking of the line from the above mentioned Help!: When I was younger, so much younger than today ...


And this is what my novel is about. Someone with a glamorous name who is not glamorous. (REPLACING ANGEL is no longer the title, but Angel is still very much the subject or perhaps the object of my novel.)


This is the real reason I went to London: I was invited to perform at Beat - a diverse but dynamic monthly poetry event at Charlie Wright's Bar hosted by ...


Andreas Grant. Who is a fellow Swede. (Some of the best Swedes have left their native country to grow elsewhere)

So ... This is one of the longest blog post I've ever written. I feel inspired and overtired, but I want to see myself again. After another couple of dates I might even fall in love ...

And if I get bored with myself I have filled half a notebook with thoughts notes hopes dreams fragments of poems and other ideas. It's funny how I had the intention of gaining new inspiration, but got this craving for nostalgia. Sometimes you have to travel to the future to find your past (path.) Oh dear ... I must be in love to write this rubbish. Lust for life la la la ... Bedtime or beertime? "Me!" my pillow calls, like London was calling yesterday ...

Dressing Up for my Hometown

CLICK HERE TO READ A NEW POEM OF MINE

Rattling Stories

From top left: Edward Rowe, Katherine Doggrell, Louise Halvardsson, Jo Dillon, Linda Baker, Lonny Pop, Alice Cunighame, Erinna Mettler, Mike Liardet.

There are several short story nights in Brighton, each with its own flavour. Or should I say noise? The audience at Rattle Tales were given rattles to make their voices heard. Because the unique thing with this event is that anyone can ask the authors questions after they've read or just give their opinion. I think this worked very well and I find myself remembering all stories this morning. For me it worked because it made me listen more carefully and it was also fascinating to find out where ideas came from or what the authors struggled with in their stories.

There were stories about spears, anorexics, pillow fights, facebook suicide, unopened letters, more death, cannibals, homelessness and winning the lottery. All in one evening ... For only £3.

Yes I am trying to sell this ... The next Rattle Tales is happening in June and they welcome submissions. More info at www.rattletales.org

Rattle Tales - New Short Story Night in Brighton

I'm very honoured to be a special guest at Rattle Tales opening night! Come and hear me read my story Playing Horse.

I could've been a banker - Poetry Video by Alison Boston

It seems to get more and more popular to make poetry videos. Why not? Videos are not only for musicians.

Here's a great example of a video made by multi-disciplinary artist Alison Boston whom I worked with at the improv gig.

Minding Peas and Cucumbers in a Windmill

Kay Sexton is an amazing woman. I first got to know her as a person writing literary novels with an erotic touch. Little did I know that she's as passionate about words as she are about seeds. This passion resulted in a book called Minding my Peas and Cucumbers. The subtitle reads "Quirky tales of allotment life."

I'm only on chapter two, but I'd be happy to call it Quirky tales of Life. I have no interest in growing anything. In fact I'm very nervous about the courgette and sunflower seeds that came in the goodie flower pot that everybody at the launch received. Nevertheless I've laughed out loud already. You don't have to be a grower to enjoy Kay's writing and witty comments about the other allotment holders ...

The most quirky (a word I learnt late in life) thing about Kay's launch was that it was set in a windmill! (West Blatchington Windmill in Hove.) Apart from signing books and doing a short reading Kay invited the audience to write limericks on an allotment theme or if you preferred draw a portrait of a famous person based on a fruit or vegetable. There were also a chance to generously sample different homemade chutneys. A book launch in my taste!



And if you missed the launch you can buy your own copy of Minding my Peas and Cucumbers here.

Improvising?

I woke up this morning and thought what the hell did I do last night? Don't worry I remember it all clearly, I wasn't very drunk or anything ... I was improvising! Something I'm not very used to. I've previously blogged about doing improvised workshops with the band 4thirtythree. But last night wasn't a workshop; it was a gig. People came to the Red Roaster and paid to watch and listen to us improvise.

Luckily the band 4thirtythree improvise all the time so they are used to it and they held the night together beautifully. And somewhere between the music there were words. Some of them fitted some of them didn't. I'm surprised how we managed to make the performance flow without any particular plan. Well some of us poets had brought material (either on paper or in our heads) so it wasn't totally improvised, but we did some collaborate pieces that were happening there and then and won't ever happen again.

Talking to a guy in the audience he said that he enjoyed some bits and found other bits painful. He thought our collaborate pieces worked best, when we only spoke for about 30 seconds each and then moved on to another person, creating a stream of words. Quite a fair comment I think.

I'm mostly happy what I did/said, but I also felt that I missed the "freshness" from the workshop where I felt more free as I had not brought any material at all. I'm still questioning what the hell I was doing last night, but I feel happy for the experience. A big thank you to Tom Cunliffe for putting it all together!

It has been great working with all those talented people: 4thirtythree, Annie, Yaz, Bernie, Alison and Tom.

750 words a day

I first heard about 750 words from Chris Limb. 750 words is a website where you are encouraged to write 750 words about anything. (All privately). The advantage is that there's no spell- or grammar checker. Nothing to distract you. Just a screen where you type.

I'm not using this tool to write "just anything". I'm using it to write just anything that relates to my new novel idea/project/embyro. Could be anything from thoughts about the the theme or monologues written from the point of view of the different characters. I can't start writing about what I had for breakfast. If I find myself doing that I have to switch and write about what my characters had for breakfast ...

So far I've only done two days, but it has made me very happy. 750 words a day is so much better than 0 words a day. I'm aiming to keep it up for a month and by then I should have a big chunk of text to work with.

Rip/Cut/Torn

Wednesday 16th March

eg poetry presents.......’Rip/Cut/Torn’
The result of numerous workshops......a collaborative evening of poetry, improvised spoken word and improvised music

6 Brighton based poets meet ‘4.33’, Brighton’s most inventive music improvisation trio.
With Bernie Cremin, Lou Ice, Annie Kerr, Tom Cunliffe, Alison Boston and Yassin Zelestine

‘4.33’ (Stuart Revill, Tim Woods, Chris Parfitt).....”free of cliché... a fine enigma” Don Spicer. Jazz World/Guardian.

......sometimes you have to go to the edge.........and leap

Not to be missed.
Red Roaster Coffee House, St James St, Brighton. £5/£4 8pm Ko

Swedish Novel in English?

Every week I meet English people who want to read my Award-Winning Swedish Young Adult Novel, Punkindustriell Hårdrockare med Attityd ("Punk Industrial Hard Rocker with Attitude"). I hope the whole novel will be translated one day (by someone who's not me ...)! My agent has showed an interest and asked me to write a synopsis and translate a sample chapter, so that's what I've been working on this week.

First I re-read the novel. I've only read it once before ... A strange experience reading your own novel, especially now when I have a fair bit of distance to it. It felt like I was reading but not concentrating as I knew what was going to happen. Yet I surprised myself. There were so many paragraphs that seemed new to me, and I got confused by my own structure ... As the novel is set over the course of three years there are obviously big leaps and you kind of have to fill in those gaps yourself ... Or perhaps I just got confused because I was reading in a feverish state, being confined to my bed by a nasty flu ...

Anyway. I did manage to write a synopsis, but my playwright friend thought it sounded more like a travel itinerary! Synopsises are hard, and sometimes don't do the novel justice, but I'm happy with what I managed to write anyway. As for the sample chapter ... It was hard to find a chapter without Swedish slang or other typical Swedish references, but in the end I settled for a neutral chapter where the main character is in her bedroom, not knowing what to do with the sample condoms she got from a Youth Clinic person visiting her college. There's also a short dialogue with her Dad. I do hope this chapter is enough to give the agent a flavour of the novel ... The flavour is punk industrial hard rock with attitude!

Toxic Womb - New Flash Fiction Piece

CLICK HERE TO READ

grateful for any feedback ...


And I do feel a bit intoxicated after four days in Barcelona
where I went to celebrate my 29th birthday
at La Marsella - an absinthe bar where Hemingway used to drink (and write?)

What is a perfomer?

Noun

performer (plural performers)

1. One who performs for, or entertains, an audience.

Last week I was invited to perform at Floetics as the main poetry act. I felt very honoured as I decided to take a step back from poetry last year and instead focus on short stories. (The novel writing has always felt like my job whilst performing poetry has been a hobby, and the short stories are somewhere in between.)

Floetics happens about once a month at the Red Roaster in Kemp Town. It's a very friendly and welcoming event, hosted by poet Jasmine Cooray. Yet I felt nervous, as if I was part of the audience, observing myself. I started to question myself, asking myself who the hell is this person on stage and what does she have to say? Luckily I managed to shut my inner critic up and do a good performance anyway, and I felt that I had the audience with me. But next morning I woke up with the same question: who is this person and what does she have to say?

She is Lou Ice, performance poet. And she has this need to express herself, talk about her obsessions, fears and other grievances ...

My stage persona Lou Ice was born in 2006, and I feel like a different person now, but I'm not yet prepared to just perform as Louise Halvardsson. I prefer to keep my performance identity and my novel writing/short story identity separated. Even though my poems are heavily autobiographical, I also make a lot of things up; I feel I can hide in Lou Ice.

I've never studied performance or had any official training, am one of those people who romanticise self-taught people, but I think I have a lot to learn. Saturday I watched the play Masterclass, about opera singer Maria Callas life and teaching. Time after time she told her students that they had to feel and see what they were singing about, and totally engage with their story. That's what I'm trying to do with my poetry, but it's very easy to get distracted by the audience and things happening in the room ...

Am reading a book at the moment called Find your voice by Joanna Crosse, and she recommends that you should look at the audience as one single person, so that every person listening feels as if you are talking to them alone.

Watch this space. Lou Ice is not dead yet!


Photo: Kristen Healy

Attracting Lips

According to the law of attraction
you are likely to get more of what you think about and focus on. This week I've been thinking a lot about lips. Mainly because I need a new title for my novel. Below are a few ideas:

UNDER THE LIP
UNDER MY LIP
STUFF IT UP YOUR LIP
LIP SYNC
ONE FOR THE LIP

On Friday night I fell over on the pavement and hurt my lip. I wonder if I would have ended up with a black eye if I'd been thinking a lot about eyes ...

Me & My Book Baby

Nowadays some parents-to-be send pictures of their foetus as Christmas cards. So here's a Valentine's greeting to you all: me & my book baby ready to go to the doctor aka as literary agent.

I met the agent last week in his office, and he said my book foetus is mostly fine. It just needs some minor medical attention. This involves making the letters from one character to another more subtle, and yes ... I still have to cut out some of my Nick Cave references ...

I'm almost there, ready for the next health check-up, the one where every chromosomic line will be scrutinized.

And I have to think of a new name for my book baby. Replacing Angel has to go. What do you think of Under My Lip or Stuff it up your lip!? I know it's a girl, but the name can be androgynous ...

Photo: Barnaby Marriott

Two announcements:

ON WEDNESDAY 16 FEB, 8 PM, I'M DOING A POETRY GIG AT FLOETICS, RED ROASTER, ST JAMES STREET,KEMP TOWN, BRIGHTON

ON TUESDAY 22 FEB, 8 PM, A SHORT STORY OF MINE ON A SEXUAL THEME WILL BE READ OUT BY AN ACTOR AT ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY?, THE BASEMENT, KENSINGTON ST, BRIGHTON

A Slammy Poem

For the first time since September I entered a poetry slam (Hammer & Tongue at Komedia) and for the first time I got really high scores, and almost won.

I came second, performing a poem called Making-over my Landlord.

Also for the first time I deliberately used rhymes which always go down well. CLICK HERE TO READ THE POEM.

Glasshopper: Growing up in Fiction

On Thursday Isabel Ashdown guested Hove Library to talk about her debut novel Glasshopper at an event called "Growing Up in Fiction". I first heard Isabel speak at the Chichester Writing Festival and was intrigued by how her novel came to be a novel. It all started with a short story competition for the Mail on Sunday. Isabel submitted her story, and forgot all about it. A year later she gets a phone call and is told that she's the winner of the competition! It's the kind of phone call all writers are waiting for ...

Isabel, who discussed her writing process with literary agent Adrian Weston, told the audience that Glasshopper in fact contains several chapters that were orginally written as short stories. Perhaps that's why the novel is so good, because when you write short stories you have to be more precise in your writing. The novel follows Jake who grows up in Portsmouth in the 80s, and parallell to his story the novel follow his mum Mary growing up in Hove in the 60s. Interestingly enough Jake first started off as a girl and Mary started off as a dad instead of a mum ...

What I love best about Glasshopper are the family secrets bubbling under the suface, and the ending is brilliant. To me it's the perfect twist, both believable and shocking. Isabel revealed that she didn't have much of a plan when she started off, the ending came as a surprise to herself about half-way into the writing.

Tom Connolly, author of The Spider Truces, was also supposed to be at the event, but sadly had to cancel at the last minute. Instead Adrian Weston read an extract from The Spider Truces, another novel that deals with growing up in the 80s. Both Tom Connolly and Isabel Ashdown are published by Myriad Editions, and Isabel has a second novel secured with them, to be published this summer. It's called Hurry up and Wait. I can't wait!

Story Accepted for Publication ... in 2013

Better late than never ... My short story, A Day in Her Honour, is going to be published in Stand Magazine in 2013.

I was inspired to write the story after my grandma died. I was on special discretionary leave, and tried to spend my day in her honour, but it didn't quite work out that way. Especially not in the story I wrote. It became a story in the honour of a fictional mum instead ... I'm very pleased that it's going to be published!

How many drafts must a woman write ... before she throws herself off the pier?

I read an interview view Susan Hill in the latest issue of Mslexia. She only ever does one draft of a novel. She goes back to correct, check and edit, but she never rewrites.

I'm totally the opposite, at least when it comes to REPLACING ANGEL, the novel I've been working on since October 2007. My first draft was just a mess of words, me spewing out what I wanted to say. In the second draft I tried to make sense of what I wanted to say, in the third draft I tried to find some kind of plot ... The fourth and fifth drafts were about defining the characters and their motivations. And the sixth draft which I completed a couple of days ago was all about ...

Cutting. 104 000 words became 84 000 words. So you might think that I've spent two intense week in Novelland just deleting words ... but it's not that easy. Cutting also means restructuring, and even adding scenes to make sense of the story. I'm happy with it now, and I'm hoping that I won't have to make more than 8 drafts! There's some interest from an agent, and he was the one who pointed out that the first third of the novel was too slow, hence the cutting ...

What I'm working on right now is the title. REPLACING ANGEL has too many associations to fantasy, Buffy the Vampire etc. As it's more of a gritty realism book I need to find something more appropriate.

Intentions for 2011

I had a good start to the year. I spent a week writing in my parents basement, only leaving the house once a day for my daily walk in the forest. The only people I spoke to were my family at meal times. I created time and space to immerse myself in the revision of REPLACING ANGEL.

Once I started the words fell into place. The hardest thing is always to start; I felt very anxious over Christmas, worrying that I would never be able to write again ... But it really helped to follow the Kaizen-method that I blogged about earlier. Just using five minutes a day to brain-storm around my novel, set me up for a good start.

At the winter solstice I asked a friend to randomly pull a card (similar to angel/oracle cards) for me, and the word I got was introvertedness. It felt very appropriate at the time as I had a very extroverted autumn, going out a lot, avoiding myself and my writing. I've been complaining that I haven't had time and space to write as much as I want to, but it's all about making time.

My intentions for 2011 is to spend more quality time with myself and stay in more. Relax. Eat slowly. Drink slowly. Take care of myself. Then I'll go out and have some fun.

My Writing Year 2010

2010 is coming to an end. It hasn't been one of my best years. It has been a difficult year on an emotional and personal level, but when I look back I've had a great deal of success with my writing.

2010 was the year I completed my first novel in English, REPLACING ANGEL, and got an agent interested. In January I treated myself to a writing retreat in Lingfield. In February I sent the MS off. In December things started to happen.

2010 was the year I focused on short stories.

I've had two stories published:
*Lovers of the Planet in the Spilling Ink Review Anthology
*The Butter Dish in Scribble
*Next of Kin was shortlisted for the Ilkey Festival of Literature competition

I also submitted stories to the Bridport Prize, The Asham Award and the Fish Prize.
All in all I wrote about twenty-five short stories, including a few flash fiction pieces. What I haven't done enough of is submitting ...

However I've had loads of stories selected for readings at live literature events in Brighton:

*Foxy Lady and Relax Johnny-Boy have some fun for Are you sitting comfortably?
*Steal from the rich and give to the poor for SPARKS
*Ex Love for Short Fuse Story Salon
*I'm from further North than you for the Short Fuse appearance at The Edge of the Sea festival (the story will also be illustrated and published in an anthology to be sold as The Wedding Present Merchandise)
*Clowntown for New Venture Theatre's Into the Dark story event
*Party is over for the Ace Stories event
*Suicidal Girlfriends for Grit Lit

To make time for the short story events I decided to cut down on poetry (both writing it and performing it.) Yet I got a poem published called His depression in an anthology called Book of Dreams.

These are a few of the poetry performances I did in Brighton (and I said that I'd cut down!):

*The Hanover Poetry Festival
*Everybody's got to be somewhere at Prince Albert
*Black History Month at Red Roaster
*We Love Mondays & Thursdays (study support sessions at Jubilee & Hove libraries)
*New Writing South's Christmas party
*Waterloo Press Christmas party
*a couple of Hammer & Tongue slams

2011 was the year of workshops:

*Brighton Creative Writing Sessions & Not for the faint hearted with James Burt and Ellen de Vries
*Voice and singing workshop with Alexander Technique teacher Alan Mars
*Improvised spoken word and music with Safehouse Collective and Tom Cunliffe

And I also had time for some very professional things:

*lecturing at the Literature week in Gothenburg
*talks and book signings at opening of new cultural centre in my hometown, Nassjo
*lectures at Loxdale Language Centre in Portslade
*writing workshop for young adults at Hove Library
*attending Chichester Writing Festival
*organising author events and poetry nights at Hove library

2011 was the year I got a permanent part-time job at Hove library.
I'm lucky to be able to combine my writing with a job that involves literature
and organising events and performing poetry ...

All these good things wouldn't be possible without my wonderful writing mates ...
I meet up regularly to do some writing exercises with Morgan & Bernadette, and I also have "creative coaching" sessions with Sue. My coffee dates/drinks/meet-ups with Kay, James, Robert, Saskia, Kristen, Laura are invaluable. And I'm also very, very grateful for the support and feedback I get online. Tim, Brian, Sanna, Solera, Chris, James, Ed ... I hope I haven't forgotten anyone. Sara of course. Anna Liv. Lotus. You know who you are.

I'll celebrate New Year's Eve with my "sister" Johanna in the middle of the forest in the south of Sweden. Then I'll spend a week writing, i.e. revising my novel as the first third drags ... To help me stay focused and not distracted I won't use internet for a week. So if you make a comment on this post it won't show for a while as I have to log in to accept it ... Same with emails and facebook. Don't despair: I'm not dead - I'm writing.

My new year resolution is ...

to keep believing in myself and my writing.

Keep on dreaming, cause when you stop dreamin' it's time to die. - Blind Melon