One Million Gold Stars

Book cooking

Via Urban Writers I discovered Suzy Greaves of Big Leap and Storyville and this week I went to one of their events (at Adam St, a private members club - would love to be a member, if not at The Hospital.)

Jo Parfitt published her first book at twenty-two with a completely ulterior motive.  She was working in a small town in northern France and she was lonely: "I had no social life. So I asked the man at the bike shop and the teachers from the school, and anyone I could think of to invite me to dinner and I'd put them in my book." Literary immortality has secured more lucrative prizes than supper in the past; but it provided Parfitt not only with a diverse range of dining partners but also the content for French Tarts.   The title had come to her when she'd passed the local patisserie.  As she explained, a non-fiction book needs a great title as much as the frequently evoked great cover (besides that's what the talent in the art department does) and it should be catchy, memorable and short. The actual subject matter can be clarified with an explanatory subtitle.  Interestingly she couldn't remember her subtitle! 

Her French hosts provided her with their recipes which formed the main part of her book, a collection of tart recipes, and also conferred Authencity and Authority by using family recipes from Normandy, the home of that particular dish. Despite being a self-confessed non-cook, she was able to put together an Attention-grabbing collection which was bought by the first publisher she sent it to, which was subsequently translated into French and won an award. Quelle suprise? Well, yes and no. Although she doesn't believe it's the most important element of a successful book, I have a feeling that Parfitt wrote with flair even at an early age. She also did her research - she sat in front of bookshop shelves and pored over other books until she found the one that most resembled what she had in her mind - and as she fitted their list she had a much better chance of being accepted by that publishing house.  She did the work and it paid off.

She shared her list of "Eight A" characteristics which she recommends each non-fiction idea should have, some of which I've listed. What I found most impressive was her utter sense of self-belief: "I never once thought I couldn't do it.". That's a lesson most aspiring writers need to learn first before ever aproaching a keyboard or blank page.

She also gave us great constructive advice on how to request and give feedback.
- tell me what you liked
- tell me where you wanted to know more
- do you have any suggestions for areas I could improve

We immediately put that into practice with fellow attendees and it was really useful.

Parfitt and her Book Cooks provide a full range of editorial services, more details are available on her website.  She also shared much more information so go and check it out.  It was time well spent - though it didn't directly relate to my own writing, there were lots of points to remember which will be useful for my freelance work.  A different aspect of book cooking, but one I am doing more of!

The business of writing

For various reasons I'm been thinking lately about how writing is a business.  I mean that if you wish to pursue a career in writing (because let's face it, who really writes a screenplay/novel/poem only intending to rest within the pages of a Moleskine or on the screen of the Mac?  Liar.)  then you have to approach writing in a professional way. 

After meeting a diverse collection of interesting creative people lately, I realised that I should make more efforts at networking - to meet more of these people, to immerse myself in inspiring situations and honestly, to get out of my comfort zone slightly. I rejoined Women in Film and Television after a long hiatus and five hours later, found myself at one of their events, "Meet the Agents" at Waterstones Piccadilly.

The speakers were Maxine Hoffman, Julian Friedmann, Matthew Dench and Vivienne Clore who all come from slightly different angles in terms of the talent they represent and the markets and how they work. Maxine will answer every personal letter she gets though doesn't watch YouTube, but that where Vivienne often views new clients as her eclectic list has an 'alternative comedy' bent, though she was representing that sort of talent before that genre's name was coined.  Matthew estimates that for every hundred submissions he receives, he meets one person and of those he agrees to represent one in ten (yes, that's one in a thousand, folks.)  Julian's agency are proactive in matching talent and projects where appropriate and have a huge knowledge of the European market and I loved listening to his common sense yet incredibly industry-savvy responses.  Many moons ago I was an intern for his business partner and they were extremely generous with their knowledge then too and in fact indirectly helped me to get into publishing.

All the speakers offered specific advice to audience members about deals, options, getting a credit and how to get out of a contract and get your rights back.  Refreshingly candid about whether they were taking on new clients, mostly they said a flat-out "No". Their reasons are simple: they have to believe in the client's work, be prepared to put in a lot of work without being paid for it in order to market that client and they already have a long list of people for whom they're already working. At that point an audience member muttered 'So someone has to die then'.  Not necessarily, but perhaps you've got a better chance of being represented by a more junior agent who is looking to build their list.  As well as you showing an understanding of your market and business, you also have to want to be a professional writer. In it for the long haul.  Overall, what was the most important X factor?

Simple. They have to like you. As Vivienne said, "If I'm telling them that they can call me 24/7, which they can, then I have to like them. If they're going to sometimes have a tantrum or an off day, I have to like them the rest of the time'.  That sounds fair enough to me and when I was a commissioning editor, I used precisely the same rationale - I didn't take on an author unless I felt that, if necessary, I could be in a room with them for eight hours straight hammering out the final edits.  Also it's a reciprocal relationship, you need to believe in your agent as much as they believe in you.

I'd spent time talking to various people in the room and it turned out to be a most interesting evening: I'd spoken to another woman, a well-known presenter before the event started. We we were on the same fund-raising team for a recent charity event and I congratulated her on her efforts.  Later on an old contact, who I hadn't seen for perhaps four years said 'Oh - I've just been talking about you!'  It turns out that my fellow fund-raiser is working on a book proposal and now I'm going to give her a hand - so something else exciting to work on.  In July, natch, as June is already booked up...

JuneBiam!

It doesn't really roll off the tongue. While at the Urban Writers Retreat at the Make Lounge yesterday (Jennifer probably thinks I'm stalking her as I'm there so often) I came up with a plan.  Oh god, another plan rather than doing any writing.  Bear with me.

I like this plan.  It involves me writing a BIAM - Book In A Month. A 30 day program that shouted JUNE loudly at me. After a day of prep and with almost a week to clear non-writing tasks off my plate, I think this might work. Yes, it's a little like NaNoWriMo.  However my gripe - with myself - after NaNo was that while I'd churned out the requisite 50k word count, it was distinctly lacking in structure and with hindsight it would have been more productive to have a completed piece of work.  That's the goal this time around. Beginning, middle, end. Of the same story.

As always I met great people at the UWR. It's a wonderful space for inspiration as well as concentration.  The surge of productivity, accompanied by the 'you are not alone' sense that fills the air as others, with heads down, hammer laptop keys is intoxicating. Most people were writing fiction which is common at these retreats, apart from the Creative Maverick, aka John, who was amongst the small group that sneaked out to the local square to soak up some lunchtime sunshine and got to discussing Twitter. I said that my username there derives from this blog and then wondered how long it was since I'd updated it - ahem. The subsequent conversation about John's 'Screw Work, let's play' book was fascinating and led me to this site and this particular post:  food for thought.  Life is indeed too short. Roll on June and the rest of the adventures in Londonland with other creative folks.

Sore fingers. Big smile.

Barely over the winning line, 50,010.  The last one hundred words were the hardest. What matters is that I got there. 

December - tearing it apart. Hurrah!

Six hours...

...and 3000 words to go.  Is it possible?

It better be.

Hello mojo?

Hey mojo, where did you go?  Haven't written anything since last Sunday.  Big target for today then. Have got caught up in the fact that what I've already written is rambling; and wondering how to finish within 50k and make it even vaguely coherent. 

That's just an excuse really though, as I need to push on especially today or I've no chance of finishing anything, coherent or not.

But just to digress a little longer - have you seen this? Fits in quite well with the Nano time table of:

Nov: bang out first draft

Dec: write first draft

Jan: Edit first draft

Feb: Submit to Amazon

But who's barking enough to submit to a timetable like that?

Make it whole

I'm only concentrating on adding words to Nano, at the expense of structure.  I may reconsider:

For those of you who are on track with your word counts, Week Three is when you should start thinking about how you're going to get a complete arc written in November. If the end of your book still feels light years away, think about abbreviating scenes, omitting chapters, and jumping ahead to the middle-end and end-end of your story. It's much, much easier to go back in December and flesh out the connecting bits you skipped than it is to write an entire ending.

It strikes me that it's better to prepare an entire skeleton and give it wordy flesh later.  Is there time...?

From Chris Baty's last Nano pep talk

The way I see it...

My word count over there reflects the real word count in the Nano total.  About 12.5k are a different story, the one I stated out with but they will be trashed out of the first draft that this Nano should eventually become.  It would be lovely but deluded to think that I might finish another 30 to make the draft 'win' by itself, so I'm not deleting the superfluous 12.5k yet.

It's going ok at the moment.  I wrote on the coach while travelling both to and from Cardiff.  Tomorrow I'm back at the corporate day job. It will be interesting to see how I fit it all in.  At least there are another couple of weekends to help on that score.  I've jotted down a lot of scene ideas to try and write chunks together and then I'll glue them together later.  Either way I'd sooner be working on the novel than at my other desk.

I'll never see 29 again

Unless I come back as someone's door.  An old friend of mine used to say that and it doesn't make any more sense to me now than it did twenty years ago.

I broke 29k today and also nailed a lot of the housework that has been ignored recently.  I'd like to say that it was just for the duration of nano but - ahem, moving on!

I'm conveniently quite keen on the MC in version 2.  I’m mainly using the Write or Die approach still and there is no let up, you just have to keep writing. This means not fussing over spelling (though my typing is improving even more as we go, I’d say I’m at about 80wpm by now) or the fact that there are supernova holes in the plot. I keep thinking of twists or character traits and just stick them in, regardless.  It will take some untangling later.  That's ok.  After all, if I don’t just churn stuff out now, there will be nothing to edit later, right?

Always good to hear great stories like this to keep you inspired to continue…

Week Two blues

BAD:  I can't believe that we are almost half way through Nano and I have written so little.  My RSI has flared horribly and I seem to be coming down with a cold.  Plus I decided that what I had written was meandering, tragically semi-autobiographical, and at least three novel ideas in one.

BETTER:  All of those novel descriptions are probably true. However if I jettison what I have already done, there will be nothing so little to salvage that I'll never win. So I'm keeping all the storylines in there, a la Dallas it-was-all-a-dream sequences and maybe some of them will be incorporated later.

GOOD:  The other more exciting news is that I've found a premise that excites me; is not too kooky but potentially funny and feels like I'm writing in my voice.  Perhaps I just needed to write those other 12.5k words as a warm up.

BETTER:  Back to the grindstone!