Text Published on Flash Fiction World

My short story Sluggish is now published on Flash Fiction World, click here to read it. And submit your own pieces too, you writers out there!

As I've now started my Swenglish project, this blog might be quieter than usual, but please visit Swenglish to see what I'm up to!

Snapshots - Graphic Novel Inspired by Wedding Present Song Titles

 A Song Title became a Short Story became a Graphic Novel

It started with the band the Wedding Present and their excellent song writer David Gedge,
it continued with the writer Louise Hume (in collaboration with Tara Gould from Brighton's Short Fuse/Story Studio Live Lit event) who invited other writers to write stories based on the Wedding Present's song titles.

Some of these stories were read by the writers at the Edge of the Sea Festival in Brighton in 2010.
The stories were liked by the band and the fans.
Finally, illustrator Lee Thacker was invited to "do the drawings" for the stories ...

and the result is a graphic novel!

Apart from my story, I'm From Further North Than You, there are little gems like Mark Sheerin's Brassneck, Erika Szostak's Model, Actress, Whatever ... and Wendy Ann Greenhalgh's The Trouble with Men.

Snapshots is for sale here.

Poets Cornered are Meeting in New Venue

I'm having a prolific poetry period at the moment, preferring to capture my thoughts and feelings in short snappy poems instead of putting them into long stories or novel scenarios. (Probably because my every day life feels very bitty at the moment as I'm preparing myself for my Swenglish journey ...)

Last week I went back to Poets Cornered, the poetry group I used to go to a lot a few years back. They are now meeting in The Farm Tavern in Hove. 8pm every Tuesday. And it's free! Do come along and bring a poem, pen and paper. Or a laptop or whatever device you use.

Read one of my latest poems, "Disembodied" here.


PS. new post in my Swenglish blog about snow.

Staring out of the Window is also Work

Writers tend to spend a lot of time staring out of the window. What is not so widely known, is that this is part of the writing process and therefore it can be called work.

I find it very hard to write in rooms with no or very small windows. If I write in a cafe or a pub I usually choose a window seat.

Something is happening when you stare, I believe. Your thoughts reorganise themselves. One morning this week I spontaneously popped into the Medusa Bar in Preston Street for a cup of green tea (miraculously making it last for an hour and a half). In my bag I had a few sheets of poems in progress that I'd printed out. Staring at the street, staring at the sheets things started to happen, and I scribbled frenetically in the margins, making up new lines, crossing bad ones out and moving a few words around. I'd had an idea for a very long time, but didn't get anywhere with it - now I ended up with three different poems on the same theme (compliments).

I am in need of different views now and again, so it's good that Brighton & Hove have an abundance of bars, pubs and cafes. And when I do my Swenglish project I'll have a different view every week, unless someone puts me up in their basement or even worse wardrobe! (The view in the picture belongs to one of the people I'm going to stay with.)

Shake the Dust

This spring I'm happy to be involved in a project called Shake the Dust run by spoken word organisation Apples & Snakes.

Shake the Dust is a celebration of the spoken word and will get young people into writing and performing their own poetry. My role is to assist another poet (the brilliant Mike Parker) delivering workshops in schools. Well, funnily enough my job description is "Shadow Poetry Coach", so for me this year is all about being a shadow (because shadowing is also what I'm going to do for my Swenglish project)

Last week I went to the first training session with poet Jacob Sam-La Rose. He insists on trying all the writing exercises himself before he tries them on his students. A very sound idea! The Poetry Coaches and their Shadows had to use their heads and pens and come up with a group piece.

Jacob calls this method "row writing": you write for a couple of minutes on a given theme and then pass the paper on to the next person. Our group came up with a very funny piece on the theme of truce called "It's easy to forgive a pet". We then performed this poem, standing on a line, looking angry at first and then moving closer together. I'm now looking forward to see what the teenagers make of this exercise ...

Hurry up and Wait! - interview with author Isabel Ashdown

This week I'm delighted to present my interview with author Isabel Ashdown. Her latest novel, Hurry Up and Wait! kept me awake for a whole night as I couldn't put it down. I do love coming- of-age stories ...

They say the second book is the hardest, but you’ve done such a good job, and I think Hurry Up and Wait is even better than your debut Glasshopper which I really loved. How was the writing process for you? Was it easier or harder to write the second one?

Thank you! I suppose the writing process was always going to be very different for my second novel; this time round I had a publishing contract – an audience – and, gulp, a well-received first novel to live up to. So in some ways, I felt a little more exposed. I’m a very private writer – with the exception of two close writer friends, I never reveal my work until I feel it’s ready. Even my husband doesn’t get to see a word of it until it’s at an advanced stage. Thankfully, my fiction editor at Myriad, Vicky Blunden, is very understanding, and she left me to get on with it until I was ready to share.

Where did you get the initial idea from?

The seed of it began with a five minute screenplay I wrote several years ago, in which a woman reluctantly attends her high school reunion. I thought, how would I feel about a school reunion; would I go? The thought of it filled me with horror. My writing always starts with the character, and the Sarah of my screenplay was so clear to me, that I suppose it was inevitable I would go back to explore her story further.

How much did you plot and how much did happen as you were writing?

I tend to free-write initially, while I discover the characters and sense of place. Then, once I have a strong feeling about my new world, I panic. I panic over the lack of structure, the hazy direction, the absence of strategy ... In life and in business, I’m one of life’s natural planners, so this way of working is alien to me – but if I’ve discovered one thing about my writing, it’s that it does me good to let myself go a bit, before I pull everything together with a rough plot outline. Of course, the final story never ends up looking very much like that initial plot outline!

Any thoughts on the structure? Did it help using a school year as a model?

It seemed right to locate this story within one full, final school year. So much can shift and alter in those last ten months, as girls teeter on the edge of womanhood, so desperate to be treated like adults, yet so inexperienced and vulnerable. The end of exams and the start of the summer holidays seem to me such poignant turning points in anyone’s history.

How come you decided to frame the novel with an event taking place twenty-four years later?

The story opens in present day, with 39-year-old Sarah preparing to attend the school reunion. Her 40^th year felt like a significant moment to take her back to a place and time that changed her forever.

Did you have all characters clear from the beginning or did extras pop us as you were writing?

There are always a couple of very strong characters who draw me along, and everyone else seems to appear as they’re needed. Often I’ll discover someone new, quite by chance, and it’s thrilling, like being handed an unexpected gift. Today, whilst working on my next novel, I discovered Gordon; he’s a brilliant, quirky character I hadn’t planned at all – but somehow he managed to sneak in and steal the scene.

Did you make detailed character sketches or did they happen more organically?

They just seem to develop naturally. I guess the writer’s job is to supply the situations, to set the scene, and to provoke those characters into showing themselves as they really are.

How much did you think of your own school time as you were writing?

Lots – although I was careful not to inadvertently include any real people! I purposely set the events in my own school year, which helped me to stay true to the atmosphere of the era.

Why did you decide to use the fictive names East and West Selton? (It’s clear you had East and West Wittering in mind, as you even mention that a Rolling Stone got a house there?)

Within the novel there are a number of anagrams of real places – for example Selton is Solent. I wanted a fictional town, to allow the story to go where I needed it to. But if pushed, I’d say Selton is a complex blend of coastal East Wittering, where I grew up, and inland Chichester, where I attended high school. Nice to see you got the Rolling Stones reference!

What role did the band Blondie play for the novel?

When I was fifteen, I was massively into Blondie, even though they weren’t all that current by the mid-eighties. I loved the punk influences; Debbie Harry’s stance was so sexy and cool, and above all, the music seemed to speak to me. In part, I was probably indulging my own nostalgic memories by drawing a favourite band into the story. But more importantly, a band like Blondie represented an exotic ‘otherness’ to a conventional girl like Sarah, growing up within the suffocating constraints of small town England in the 1980s.

Did you have to research the 80s stuff of did you remember most of it?

I’ve got a good memory for that kind of detail, so the story sprang out of that. But as I wrote, I was constantly researching information to check my memories were accurate, particularly for historical detail like news footage of the Chernobyl disaster, or for release dates of albums or films I might mention.

Finally, what’s the theme of your next novel?

I’m busy at work on my next novel, which takes place on a British island one summer in the 1970s. It’s a family drama centred on a scandal in a small community, set against the shifting Seventies backdrop of political unrest, social change and vibrant cultural development. The research part of the process is endlessly fascinating, and as well as exploring the historical details of the era I like to immerse myself in the music, which is no hardship as far as that decade is concerned. In fact, I’m just cueing up Bowie’s Young Americans as we speak ...

There’s still a lot of work to do, but it’s gradually coming together. Having done this a couple of times now, I know there’ll be moments of fear and uncertainty along the way, but with any luck, moments of enlightenment and joy will visit me in equal measure!

Thanks for asking me along to chat, Louise – and I’ll let you know when the next book is due to hit the shelves.

Thank you too, Issie for your inspiring answers!

If you want to find out more about Isabel Ashdown and her books visit her website here.

Hurry up and Wait! is available here. What are you waiting for?

Introducing Swenglish

I've created a new blog for my 2012 Swenglish-project.

Please check it out here: http://swenglish2012.blogspot.com/

(I'll still use this blog, Living Lou, to write about other topics.)

2012

2012 doesn't have a face yet
I don't know which face to show
but I am facing this year in my own way

2012 is the Swenglish year
the year I'm going to work out
where I want to live and what I want to do

who I want to be even.

(more info about Swenglish to follow)

2011 A-Z

A is for

Ace Stories (Brighton's best live lit event)

Agent (this year I signed the contract with my literary agent!)

Alexander Technique Lessons

Are you sitting comfortably? (live lit event)

B is for

Bath (where I went with my family)

Bang Said the Gun (the poetry slam I won in London in September)

Barcelona (where I celebrated my 29th birthday)

Beat (poetry gig)

Beer (too much)

Bombanes (poetry gig)

Breathing

Brighton Festival and Brighton Fringe Festival

C is for

Camping in Hassocks

Chatterbooks (my book group for kids at the library)

Cocktails at Hotel Pelirocco, and Tara’s Cocktails party

Cooking (I’ve cooked for people at 7 different occasions which is 7 more times than last year!)

D is for

Drop-in Drama at New Venture Theatre

Duke of York’s Cinema

E is for

Elly-Mae (the working title of my new novel project)

Events (that I organised/compared at Hove Library)

F is for

4thirtythree (the band I did improvised spoken word/music gigs with)

5rhythms dance

Floetics (poetry gig)

G is for

Game Girl

Grit Lit (short story night)

H is for

Hammer & Tongue (Brighton’s one & only poetry slam, this year I made it to the final!)

Hippie dreams

Horseplay (poetry gig)

I is for

Idea (the big Swenglish idea that I’ll embark on in 2012)

Ice as in Lou Ice

J is for

Jogging

John Cage (part of tribute performance)

John Cale (Brighton festival)

K is for

Kay Sexton (who launched her book Minding My Peas & Cucumbers in a Windmill)

L is for

Laurie Anderson (Brighton Festival)

Lecturing at Loxdale Centre

Letters

Library Blues (no comment!)

LOST (Sky and I watched the last episode ever of the only TV series that I’ve ever followed. Well, at least since Beverly Hills 90210)

M is for

Marching f(or Public Services in London and for Pensions in Brighton)

Marwood’s Cafe

Midlife Crisis (an early one!)

Midsummer Camp Festival in Norfolk

Mindfulness

Modern Art

N is for

Natalie (the main character in REPLACING ANGEL/UNDER THE LIP)

Nick Cave

Not for the Faint-Hearted (writing workshops)

Nässjö (my hometown where I spent some time in the summer)

O is for

OMG (and other modern age abbreviations)

Orange juice with bits

P is for

Photography (the picture is from the forest where I spent the last day of the year)

Planet India Restaurant

Poetry (got back into writing & performing poetry this year)

Pizza (Swedish style with bananas!)

Psychogeography (thank you James!)

Q is for

Queer & Quirky Brightonians

R is for

Rattle Tales (short story event)

REPLACING ANGEL (my English novel that changed name to UNDER THE LIP, see U)

Rock 'N' Roll

S is for

Sandy Dillon (the best music artist I’ve discovered this year)

Short Stories (not that many written, but quite a few published)

Sister’s Circle

Something Wholly Inappropriate (poetry gig)

Spilling Ink Review

Stockholm (stayed with my brother and visited one of my best friends)

Story Scavenging

Story Studio (short story event)

Sue (our “creative coaching” meetings are great!)

Sweat Lodge in Stanmer Park

Sweden (three trips this year: surprising my Dad on his birthday in June, summer bliss in August, and Xmas/New Year)

Swimming in the sea

T is for

Tax Return

Tea (Green)

U is for

UNDER THE LIP (my English novel that is under consideration for publication in both Sweden and the UK)

V is for

Visitors (Laura, my aunt, my family, Pernilla, Sara)

Voice Work

W is for

Waiting (for news about my book)

Walking

Whale Writing (a project with my writing colleague Lotus)

Writing

X is for

Xmas tree (dancing round the tree at work and with all relatives on Xmas day!)

Y is for

YLG (Youth Library Group) conference in London

Z is for

Zzzz …

A Risk Worth Taking

Five minutes before boarding the plane to Sweden I opened my Christmas present (see previous post) There was no return, no more book shops, no more magazines even. Luckily, I immeditately took a liking to Sarah Salway's novel Something beginning with ...

I love so-called concept novels. This one is based on the alphabet. Every chapter has a few paragraphs on a letter in the alphabet, e.g. L is for Lesbians, Letters, Liqueur Chocolates, Love Calculators and Lust. At first it seemed pretty much like a stream of concsiousness on different topics, but Sarah Salway actuallly manages to tell a whole story with beginning, middle and end between A and Z.

Take a Risk on a Book

My friend James gave me a Christmas present the other day and said "It's a book!". Well, it was kind of obvious anyway judging from the shape and form of the packaging. What's not obvious though is what book it is.

I'm going to take a risk. I'm going to Sweden on Friday and want something to read on the plane and train. Usually I plan ahead what book to read for my travels so I know that I've got something good to digest. This time I'm going to bring the wrapped book and not unwrap it until I'm in the air and it's too late to pick another book ... Whatever book it is I have to read it! (I do hope it's not a Mills & Boon!)

Brighton - well, Hove actually - in December

I love living by the sea, but am looking forward to some snowy forest when I go to Sweden for Christmas.

I've been busy LIVING in December, but am trying to make sense of the fragmented poems that I've collected in my journal ...

Am in a funny manic mood. I feel creative, and find inspiration all around me, but am too restless to actually work. Time to dance round the Christmas tree.

A Perfect Storm at Ace Stories

When I look back at this year, thinking of things I've enjoyed the most, Ace Stories, at Hotel Pelirocco in Brighton, is high on my list. It was a true honour to be invited to read at such a well-organised event, and a good occasion for me to try out UNDER THE LIP on an audience for the very first time.

It felt a bit like introducing a new boyfriend/girlfriend to your friends, anxiously hoping that everyone will like him/her. Luckily my novel extracts went down well. The theme for the evening was sea-faring and I had picked three scenes from UNDER THE LIP where the sea features: main character Natalie arriving in Brighton, then hanging out on the beach with a punk girl, and finally escaping into the sea after an argument with her parents.


Next up was Courttia Newland, writer-in-residence at Kingston Writing School, who read a short story set by the seaside in Africa.


Actor Brendan Wyer read an extract from Jack London's classic The Sea Wolf.


And Dr Sue Currell, Senior Lecturer in American Literature, discussed The Sea Wolf with Ace Stories director Jay Clifton. I haven't read The Sea Wolf, but Sue was very engaging and told us that even though some of London's writing can come across us anti-feminist he was a great supporter of the suffragette moment.

My highlight of the evening was blues singer and musician Sandy Dillon who performed songs from the forthcoming album Shipwreck'd with guitarist Ray Majors. As well as being a good singer and player Sandy is also a fantastic lyricist. The 'shipwrecked' songs are all based on true stories.

I bought one of Sandy's CD and was lucky enough to get a chat with both her and Ray! I'm totally in love with their music. Lovely people too!

I also love the Hotel Pelirocco*, and last night I felt like a real star having "Perfect Storm" - Kraken Rum cocktails, chatting to artists and other random people. A big thank you to everyone involved in Ace Stories for putting such a great night together. As usual I took photos of the night and all pics are by me apart from the first which is taken by Sam Collins, and the last couple of pics are by Solera Russell.


*Dear Santa, please give me a night in the "Pretty Vacant" room ...

"What must it be like to be a paedophile who lives near a kid’s playground?" - Interview with Starlings Author Erinna Mettler

Starlings is a daisy-chain novel set in Brighton; I finished reading it about a month ago, but the characters won’t leave me alone. Every time I walk around Brighton someone from the book pops up in my mind, it could be anyone from a paedophile to a mod from the 60s. As I was very curious about the way Starlings was written, the author Erinna Metttler kindly agreed to be interviewed. Enjoy her inspiring answers!

How did you go about writing Starlings? Were they all separate stories to begin with, when did you decide to link them and how did you do it?

I was lucky enough to take a creative writing course at Sussex University. It was a workshop based course which involved writing short pieces and getting feedback on them in class. The first chapter of Starlings was one of the stories I wrote for that. It’s based on an urban myth, I had heard the story about the paedophile living next to a children’s playground many times, but every time it had something different about it, a different playground, a different outcome. I think people can’t help exaggerating stories but they are equally quick to believe something that they’re told is true. I wanted to explore the way myths are created in a city through assumptions and word of mouth. I wrote Roses and Birdsong next and had the idea of linking it somehow to Andy (the paedophile in the first chapter) so I made a minor character in it his father. After that everything in the book seemed to link together. It’s the way people communicate, it’s not even gossip, it’s more like passing around stories. Brighton is a characterful city and you keep seeing those characters around, it’s also small enough to bump into people you know, or know of, just walking around town. We’re all closely connected to each other and that’s what I was trying to show in Starlings.

When it was all finished it was a nightmare to get into order. I had a spread-sheet with who was who, how they linked, their dates of birth and death and when they met each other. There are some very complex connections and some very simple ones. The first and last chapter were always that, but the others moved around in sequence, they still could, you don’t have to read them in a particular order. I don’t think people should stress about making the connections, just read the stories and if they connect then fine. If you like the book it is better to read it twice because then you pick up on a lot more. I must admit, I like books that ask you to work at understanding them. I think the reader should be actively involved and not just treat every book like fast food.

Where did the initial inspiration come from?

I was sitting at the West Pier Playground on a cold sunny day while my kids were playing. I always have a note book and I just wrote what I saw, describing everything as if I was filming it, but didn’t have a camera and had to do it with words. That’s how I always get started, and then I fill in the story, and the senses you can’t film, like touch and smell and taste. With Andy I thought it would be interesting to tell the story from the point of view of the person who never gets to be heard. I mean, what must it be like to be a paedophile who lives near a kid’s playground? Then I wanted to balance that by showing what a mother who loses her children goes through, that was much easier because every mother has lost sight of their child once in a while and imagined the worst.

The other stories came from walking around Brighton with a notepad and picking up ideas from what I saw and overheard. I’m a terrible magpie – don’t sit near me on the bus.

Did you plot each individual story or did you “just write them”?

I always just write. I usually write the beginning first, then the end and then fill in the middle, but sometimes a story will just naturally flow from the first line to the last. More often than not I’ll think I’ve finished something and then go back to it a few days later and write twice as much again. With Starlings I didn’t plot until I’d finished, and then I went back over everything and tightened up both individual and overall plots. I’m not that hung up on plot, I think it can work against natural creative energy, for me it’s much better to just see where the story takes me. Often the stories in Starlings intertwined without me having to think about it too much.

All stories are set in and around Brighton where you live, despite knowing the environment did you have to do any research?

I talked at a book group the other day and one of the members said they would have put money on me being Brighton born and bred, that made me very happy. I’ve lived here for seven years but it was only four when I wrote the book. My knowledge of the city grew as I wrote the book and I think sometimes an outsider’s eye is invaluable in picking up things people take for granted. Apart from just wandering around and writing what I experienced, I had to go deeper into some spaces than others. I got a tour of behind the scenes at the Booth’s Museum – which was utterly fascinating – and of The Old Police Cell’s under the Town Hall. You can go into the cells and see the graffiti on the walls written by the mods and rockers who were arrested in the May Day riots. I watched footage of inside The West Pier just before it burned down, and anything about the incident on Youtube. I did a lot of newspaper research on the city’s history, the war, the 1950s and 60s, what shops and cinemas and cafes there were then. With the stories that explore the nastier elements, drugs, wife beating, child abuse, I was very careful to do as much research as I could, articles, testimony, academic journals, people working in those areas. You need to get it right, otherwise you are doing those involved a disservice.

In one of the stories, The Wife Of Joshua Bones, you have a character writing a fictive story. What was the thought behind that?

I think that might be my favourite story. Originally, it was much longer and alternated between Dia’s fictional imaginings and her real life, which was much more mundane, school runs, washing up etc. But I’d really already gone into that in other stories, so I thought I’d just present her writing, and see if people got it. The chapter is about the creative processes, about imagination and reality and identity, about how as a writer you can’t help but delve into your past, or things that might have been if your life had turned out differently. My favourite author, Paul Auster, once said that his books are often about what his life could have been. Dia’s story is supposed to be inspired by the newspaper article at the beginning, by the death of her lover from twenty years before, and how that fires her creativity. I didn’t go into the rooms at the Pelirocco Hotel (where some of it is set) until after I’d written it, because I wanted it to be in her imagination. I wanted it to be dreamy and fleeting and full of other influences, I read romantic poetry and gothic novels and listened to melancholy love songs. I really enjoyed wallowing and I am immensely proud of what it produced.

How did you find a publisher?

Bizarrely, through an ad in Latest Homes! I didn’t try to get an agent first, which is what everyone says you should do (I still don’t have one). I sent the manuscript simultaneously to about 25 agents and publishers who accepted unsolicited manuscripts. I got a lot of positive feedback, even when the answer was no, and that spurred me on. One other publisher wanted it but it didn’t work out, it didn’t feel right, I felt they wanted me to change it too much. Revenge Ink got what I was doing immediately and the changes they suggested weren’t fundamental and only made it better. All in all, it took two years from submitting to them to the book hitting the shttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhelves, which is incredibly quick. They are a gutsy independent and they go for modern, challenging writing without relying on celebrity or formulas and, in my humble opinion, the publishing industry needs more like them and less people commissioning ‘party books’ (you know who I’m talking about).

Thank you very much, Erinna. I wish you all the best with your next writing project. And I hope everyone will buy a copy of Starlings as a Christmas present!

You can also catch Erinna reading at Grit Lit tomorrow, Friday.

Sneaky Novel Peak at Ace Stories this Sunday

Now is your chance. For the first time ever I'm going to read a few short extracts from my English novel, UNDER THE LIP (aka Replacing Angel). At the moment my novel is under consideration for publication in both Sweden and the UK. It's just a matter of waiting, waiting and some more waiting.

So get your ass down to Hotel Pelirocco in Brighton this Sunday, 6pm.

Another good reason for coming along to Ace Stories is ... Sandy Dillon. And there's a chance of winning an electric guitar!

Hammer & Tongue, Poetry Slam Final, Brighton 2011

Very happpy to get through to the 2nd round, worthy winner was Spliff Richard!

My Novel in November

No, I'm not taking part in NaNoWriMo. But I do have about 50 000 words on my new novel project. If you've read my previous posts here and here you know that each month I'm aiming for 10 000 words that move the story forward and aren't just general rambling.

In December I'm going to take a break from the novel though and focus on poetry and performing. Mainly because the words need to rest. I have written the beginning and the middle, but I kind of wrote the middle first and am not sure how to link the beginning and the middle, if I should actually start with the middle or not. I do have an end in mind, but it's very sketchy and there are several ways to write the story.

I haven't yet decided how much back-story/back-flashes I'm going to use and if there's going to be more than one narrative. It could be quite a straightforward or quite an experimental story depending on which route I take, and I suspect that like my previous two novels this one will also fall somewhere between the Adult and Young Adult genre.

The voice is also something I need to think about. I know whose story it is, but am not sure to whom she's telling it and why.

I live 3 Miles from Love

Yesterday I went to the Catalyst Club at the Latest Bar in Brighton. One of the speakers was James Burt who did a brilliant talk on psychogeography and his experience of strange occurrences in Brighton.

Not far from where I live in Hove, about 3 miles from Brighton, I spotted this painted sign.

Starlings - A Star Read

A few weeks ago I went to the launch party for Erinna Mettler's debut novel Starlings. I started reading the book on the bus on my way home and missed two stops!

The writing is brilliant, full of quirky detail and a dark sense of humour (read the Snip-chapter and you'll see).

Starlings is quite an unusual novel as it is a novel made up of short stories where the same characters appear, disappear and reappear. Some of the chapters work as short stories in themselves while other chapters are dependent on the stories previously told.

A very good read and as a bonus the book is set in Brighton taking in the seedy seaside atmosphere.

I won the Hammer & Tongue Poetry Slam in Brighton!

It's been a potty autumn for me ... A potty poetry autumn!
Last night I won my second poetry slam: Hammer & Tongue at Komedia in Brighton,
hosted by Rosy Carrick and Mike Parker.

I wasn't going to go out due to November Rain, but I changed my mind
and jumped on my bike to town to do a poem about trains which you can read here.

Winning the slam means that I'll be in the grand slam final on the 1st of December
battling against all the slam winners of 2011.

(if you need the toilet the potty can be found in Queens Park)

The Wheel is Spinning

I've posted a lot of letters

I've set something in motion

The world is spinning and I'm spinning with it

I'm about to embark on a creative non-fiction project

(There's now a wheel on Brighton seafront. I'm not desperate to go on it, but it seems to fit with the changes I'm making. The wheel also steals the attention from the pier.)

Counting Words & Drafting Shit

When I tell people that I'm aiming to write 10 000 words a month on my new novel they think that's a lot. I don't. It's only 2500 words a week, 500 words a day if you work 5 days a week.

It's mid October and so far this month I've managed to write 8500 words. So in total I've got 28500 words as I started in August. (I've written more words than that, but half of what I write is just random ramblings to find out what it is I'm trying to say, making notes etc.) I never used to obsess about word counts, but at the moment it does help me to move forward.

What inspires me is to hear how other writers work. I read a really good article about Jeffrey Eugenides in the free We Love This Book magazine. He has only written 3 novels with an interval of 9 years in between each novel. It doesn't mean that he's lazy - he's writing all the time, but it's just a matter of getting it right, without being a perfectionist. In the interview he said that his current novel, The Marriage Plot, grew out of the backstory he wrote for a character in an abandoned novel.

The novel I'm working on at the moment sort of started back in 2007 when I spent 5 months in Thailand, but at the time I was too close to the environment I was writing about, so now 4 years later I'm ready. However I'm still struggling with the voice and the structure and I have 2 different ideas of how to tell the story ... At the moment I'm just trying to get the story down, by writing it in a quite traditional way of first person, past tense, but it's very likely to change in the second draft.

Recently I heard Meg Rosoff speak at the YLG (Youth Library Group) Conference and she mentioned that her first drafts are so bad you want to commit suicide when reading them ... I feel the same about my first drafts. As mentioned in a previous blog post, I'm aiming for 10 000 words a month, and after 9 months I'm hoping to have a first draft, but not necessarily a good first draft. But keeping it down to 10 000 words a month will hopefully make the first draft better than if I was taking part in NaNoWriMo churning out 50 000 words a month just for the sake of it. By keeping it down to 10 000 words I'm hoping to keep more focus, to actually think about what I'm writing. (Many writers only write in November and then abandon their VERY shitty first drafts forever.)

Jennifer Egan says:

"I haven’t had trouble with writer’s block. I think it’s because my process involves writing very badly. My first drafts are filled with lurching, clichéd writing, outright flailing around. Writing that doesn’t have a good voice or any voice. But then there will be good moments. It seems writer’s block is often a dislike of writing badly and waiting for writing better to happen."

(I think I first found this quote on the A Salted blog, thanks! And the post-it note saying "shitty first drafts are allowed" probably comes from Julia Cameron but am not sure.)

Early Midlife Crisis

I'm worried that I'm "only" going to be 60 years old as I'm going through a mid-life crisis, but in Swedish there's no word for midlife crisis, instead there are two different concepts: "the 30-year-old crisis" and "the 40-year-old crisis".

My crisis started last summer when I was 28. For the first time I had no desire to live and it frightened me. It felt like a burden having another 50 years to fill, fill with what?

My three biggest dreams had already come true:

*writing a novel and getting it published (my award-winning Swedish novel "Punk industrial hard rocker with attitude")

*experiencing requited love (my 5 year long relationship with Sky)

*travelling to New Zealand to track down a long lost relative (my gran's cousin)

It felt like nothing could ever match those amazing experiences and that life had become pretty dull. No career (as I'd changed my writing career to England and to writing in English, and was starting from scratch again), no place to live (just renting rooms in other people's houses) and no meaningful relationships.

So for two years I've been walking about in some kind of mist, but the other night under the full moon I had an actual light bulb moment. All of a sudden it became clear to me: I came up with a plan for what I'm going to do with my life. At least for a year, staring on my 30th birthday on the 26th of February. This project involves at least 30 people and I do hope that you're out there! More info later ...

Swedish Glory on National Poetry Day

Swedish poet Tomas Transtömmer won the Nobel Prize of literature!!!

And here I am, performing as Lou Ice, one of the guests
at Hammer & Tongue at Komedia in Brighton,
warming up for another great Swede ...

Henry Bowers aka Kung Henry who told us a few things about darkness

As usual it was a great night hosted by Rosy Carrick and Mike Parker. Both me and Henry did a poem each in Swedish which went down well as there were a few Swedish people in the audience. I had recruited them when I did a performance/talk at Loxdale Language Centre last week ...

The open slam was won by a guy called Ed who did an angry poem, defending people who are wrongly accused of being paedophiles. It seemed like the slam was more intense than usual as a lot of people went over the allocated time of three minutes, caring more about the poetry than the points!

The other guest of the evening was the brilliant story-teller Wilf Merttens.

And thanks to performing I got invited to do two more gigs this autumn. Check it out here!

Upcoming Gigs

I'm performing at the following events:

Story Studio, Sunday 2 Oct, 8pm at Komedia, Brighton
Am one of the guest for the Feast & Fetish Theme, and will be reading my flash fiction story "Common Fetish"

Hammer & Tongue, Thursday 6 Oct, 7.30pm at Komedia, Brighton
I'm the local guest poet, warming the stage for Wilf Merttens - and fellow Swede Henry Bowen!

Tuesday 18 Oct, 8pm at Bombanes, Kemp Town, Brighton
An evening of music & poetry featuring Lou Ice, Jane Bom-Bane & Rosie Brown

Horseplay, Thursday 27 Oct, 8pm at the Black Dove, Kemp Town, Brighton
An evening of spoken word, music and random fun!

Something Wholly Inappropriate, Monday 7th Nov, 8pm at the Earth & Stars, Brighton
Hosted by Alice Shaw. I'll do a 20 minutes poetry est.

Ace Stories, Sunday 11 Dec, 6pm at Hotel Pelirocco, Brighton
More info TBC

Library's got talent, Saturday 18 Dec, Jubilee Library, Brighton
More info TBC