One of the benefits of writing a book, and better still, of getting published, is the way it opens doors to lots of other writerly activities, such as giving talks, running workshops, and attending Literary Festivals as a performer, as well as being a member of the audience. Another enjoyable aspect of being a writer (with or without being published) is making friends with other writers.

Last Thursday I was able to combine a visit to my writing friend, Crysse Morrison, with an opportunity to be one of eight castaways in an event listed in the Frome Festival Programme as Desert Island Reads. Crysse herself had to step in at the last minute to take the place of a performer who was unable to attend. You can read more about the event on her blog.
I’d left my own camera in her house so thanks are due to Crysse’s camera and to Wendy, one of the festival organisers, who took this picture, which features, from left to right:
Me, Kevan Manwaring,Keely Beresford,
Sue Boyle,
Crysse, David Johnson, Philip de Glanville and Adrian Tinniswood
Desert Island Reads was described as “eight local celebrities share a favourite literary extract and tell us why they chose it.” I felt a bit of a fraud as I was neither “local”, not a “celebrity” but no one seemed to notice. When Crysse had first invited me to take part, I’d thought about including some real-life letters, because of the role that real-life letters had played in my novel Paper Lanterns, but it was proving quite difficult to find something that not only had inspired me in the past, but still lived up to the memories of it.

After searching my bookshelves I found an edition of the letters and poems of John Keats and was relieved to find that the he could still work his magic on me. I’ll quote some of the extracts that I read in a future post. Take a look at the on-line programme for the ten-day Festival and you’ll be amazed by the wide variety of all the events.

Crysse was heavily involved in the organisation of several events, but she’d booked tickets for us both so that she could relax with me for the evening at ‘Cabaret Sans Frontiers’, a totally surreal and highly entertaining event –

and here I quote from her own blog: “the eccentric energy of Cabaret sans Frontieres, this year offering its macabre and madcap medley from a ship bound for ‘the edge of the edge of possibilities, and beyond.’ “

Here are a few more photos of the music

and strange exhibits that we were encouraged to inspect during the interval, such as this ’spider’ appearing to rest on the top of a cabinet, to whom I offered a sip of my white wine spritzer.

The next morning, before I set off for Sussex to visit my mother for the weekend, Crysse insisted on taking me to an amazing exhibition featuring the intricate, imaginative, and brilliantly bizarre constructions and sketches of Ralph Steadman.

If you’re anywhere near Frome, make sure you take a look.

There were no signs anywhere asking people not to take photos of the exhibits, so I’m hoping that no one will object to these.

On my return from Sussex
I was greeted by the sight of multiple copies of The Birmingham Sunday Mercury that Gardening Husband had bought for me to use as marketing material for my novel, Paper Lanterns.

I’d been told that it would be published today, and I was delighted with the double page spread, giving the story of the cache of real life letters that inspired the middle section of the book.

Here’s a photo of the man on the receiving end of the love letters from two different women,

and here’s the young Chinese girl, with a small selection of the letters behind her. It’s fascinating stuff, and anyone who’s read the book is likely to enjoy seeing the originals of the letters that I have adapted for the novel.

I posted the fifth and final question of my Virtual Treasure Hunt last week, and copies of The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society have been sent to a winner in Italy and one in Scotland, while three copies of Paper Lanterns should now have arrived at their new homes in the Midlands and the South West.

Many congratulations to the winners (to be honest, there were only five people who managed to find all five answers, though several others came up with two or three. I’ve just had to go through these questions and their accompanying hints myself, and even I found some of the a bit tricky to track down!

For anyone who didn’t manage to find all five answers, here are the links to the relevant questions and these are the answers.
Question 1 ANSWER “So near, and yet …”
Q 2ANSWER “Sunday, 10 January 2010″Q 3 ANSWER “that was not there a little while ago”Q 4 ANSWER a mountain climbing Guinness drinker
Q5 ANSWER “The craft of writing a book can be learned” and “Jeffrey Archer”

I won’t ask you to detect the link between Hens and this picture. Yes, those small creatures on the bottom left of the picture do have feathers and wings and they also lay eggs, but have you ever seen hens swimming with their chicks paddling in their wake?
I don’t think this next picture will be much of a clue,

though astute followers of this blog might remember a post I’d made last August in which I’d mentioned that Kew Gardens was within walking distance of the house which my daughter and her boyfriend had just bought. This picture of Kew Pier was taken last Saturday afternoon from a pleasure boat trip that had been organised by my daughter’s friends as part of the celebrations for her Hen weekend.

They couldn’t have dreamed up a better activity for a day when the temperature reached 30 degrees – the main point of it being its lack of any activity more strenuous than climbing a short flight of steps up into the bright sunshine or down into the shade. It was lucky that the original plan for a seven-mile circular walk from Box Hill had undergone a radical change. The bride-to-be (not to speak of her mother and future mother-in-law) might have collapsed with heat-stroke. As it was, we had the cooling breezes through wide open windows below deck where we unpacked a sumptuous feast and drank pink fizz.

We were heading for Hampton Court, but this was one of those occasions when the journey was more significant than the destination. We wouldn’t had had time to visit the flower show, so we strolled through the walled gardens and breathed in the scent of a thousand roses.

On the way back I was fascinated by the sight of two boys in their canoes, using a kneeling technique that looked incredibly unstable, but was obviously a powerful way of gaining speed. I suppose that the theme of Desert Island Reads can be loosely linked to this watery picture, but more to the point, it relates to an event I’ll be taking part in this Thursday as part of Frome Festival. Scroll down a bit when you reach this link and you’ll see what I’ll be up to.

I’m really looking forward to this, and have just about made up my mind about my own Desert Island Read. I’ll let you know more about the causes of my indecision later.

It’s been a good week for yet more book-related activities after the excitement at Winchester Writers Conference last weekend:

1)SOMETHING NICE, but not unexpected: I received an email from the Lamma-zine reviewer of Paper Lanterns, John Cairns, with a link to his own e-zine, Cairns Media. He’d previously asked if he could quote an excerpt from my novel there, and here it is, complete with some of his own pictures to illustrate the scene from Paper Lanterns when Ann arrives at the ferry pier on Lamma island.

If you’ve read it already, you might like to see the photos, and if you haven’t, you’ll get a flavour of the book and the accuracy of my descriptions when writing the novel.

2) SOMETHING NICE AND TOTALLY UNEXPECTED: I solved the mystery of how Tammy from Tennessee had come across a brief description of my novel, Paper Lanterns. You might not find anything extraordinary about this until you think of the thousands of novels published each year, many with the weight of a huge marketing machine behind them, and then consider the fact that Novel Press is a frail new-born, with Paper Lanterns as its only product so far, and nothing behind it at all except my efforts, and the good wishes of my small group of fellow writers.

The only way I could think of that might have led Tammy to my book, would have been the lovely review from the excellent Rhaposdy in Books, with its large following of readers, most of whom are also Americans.But no,Tammy had arrived there through sheer happenstance (as I’ll explain in a later post). Until this week, I was too involved in discussing the most convenient way of getting the ten copies safely to her home in Tennessee, and it was only when I heard that the package had arrived,(two days after being picked up by the carriers, DHL) and the copies distributed to the other members of her group, that I thought of asking her how she’d come across it in the first place.

3) SOMETHING NICE that had been planned a couple of months ago: an ‘author’s talk’ that I gave on Thursday morning at Erdington library. Last month I was talking to a writing group there. This time, it was a reading group. One member who had read and enjoyed Paper Lanterns, commented on her perception of the way that novels these days are presented to the reading public. She felt that the we, the readers are being manipulated by the needs of the publishing world to produce sure best-sellers, and that many of the books that are promoted in bookshops have been written with an eye on an imaginary camera, as if they were packaging their stories in a way that would easily convert to film scripts.

I was glad to hear her views, as they seem to accord to those of Jonathan Davidson of Writing West Midlands in his article ‘New Ways of Publishing’ in which he expresses the hope that “poor writing won’t be quite so often foisted upon us in an attempt to get a return on investment or to distort our reading tastes for purely commercial gain.”

And now for the fifth and final question in my Virtual Treasure Hunt. Congratulations to everyone who’s already emailed me the correct answers to the first four questions (It’s still not too late to find the answers – you can start here, and then find the links back to the earlier questions)

QUESTION 5
(a)What is the fourth statement about Writing a Book that I won’t immediately want to contradict?
AND,(HINT) if you’ve found the right page, you’ll also be able to tell me the answer to this, linked, question
(b)Which author re-wrote one of his novels 30 years after its publication?

The first five people to ‘contact me’ with the correct five answers will win a copy of either The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society, or my latest novel, Paper Lanterns:

GOOD LUCK!

Before I launch into my brief visit to the Winchester Writers Conference last weekend,

I have to tell you about my excitement when I opened my email just now, to find that Google Alert had spotted an enthusiastic review of my first published novel, The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society.
As you can see here it’s the responses of ‘my’ readers that helps to keep me going when the going gets tough.

Any opportunity for mixing with other writers gives me a boost, whether I’m leading a workshop for aspiring writers, or joining in as a participant myself, or listening to talks and readings from other authors, I always find some new understanding to add to my store of knowledge and skills. One of the most stimulating of these events in the UK has to be the annual Winchester Writers Festival that takes place at the end of June.

I’d heard about it several years earlier, and was thinking of signing up for the 2005 Conference, when I received that phone call from Transita, saying that they wanted to publish my novel. I’d reached my goal of publication, and foolishly imagined that I’d learned everything I needed about writing a book and getting it published. How could I have foreseen the sad demise of Transita, and my return to square one in a search for a publisher for my next novel, Paper Lanterns? I won’t go into details now, but you can read about some of the resulting difficulties here.

Eventually, I realised that although I’d learned a huge amount about marketing and the difficulties of getting published, I still had more to learn, so I signed up for the 2008 Winchester Writers Conference. That turned out to be an extremely useful decision. No, I didn’t find an agent or publisher to take me on, though, as usual, there were plenty of them milling around the University campus, giving pre-booked one-to-one advice, or delivering lectures. However, I did learn more about how to bring what I’d thought was a finished product to a properly publishable state. (I’ll write more about this in future posts).

When I’d implemented all the necessary chopping and changing, I sent it out again. And again. And again…until I came to the dead-end of every possible path. I knew that Paper Lanterns would be appreciated by many of my previous readers, and many new ones too, and if it was ever going to appear in print, I would have to do it myself. And here’s how I did it.

I was so delighted with the Novel Press’s first product that I sent a copy to Barbara Large, MBE, the amazingly energetic, enthusiastic, supportive and perceptive Director of the conference, and she very kindly invited me to attend the plenary address on the Saturday morning, and say a few words about Novel Press and Paper Lanterns.

If I hadn’t already committed myself to a family event at my mother’s house in Sussex, I’d have signed up for the whole weekend.

It was lovely to be back there, even for a short while, meeting up with writing friends, Adrienne Dines, and Crysse Morrison, as well as talking to strangers. (Though when a writer gets talking to other writers at such an event, they don’t remain strangers for more than a minute or two).

The plenary address was delivered by the indomitable Sir Terry Pratchett – what a fantastic(al) story he tells about his own experience of getting published. No one would imagine in their wildest dreams (that is, no one who knows anything of the current state of publishing) of being taken on so casually by agent with their first book, and some time later receiving a publisher’s cheque and a commission for a second book. ‘Oh, so that’s how it happens,’ thought the young Terry P, ‘You send off your manuscript, and back comes a cheque.’ He spent it on a greenhouse!’

Among the numerous amusing anecdotes and fascinating insights into his own writing practice, was what he described as ‘The valley of clouds’. Once he’d unravelled the analogy, I was delighted to find that his approach to plotting a novel accords with mine. As he explained, he can see the distant peak across the valley, and knows where/what he’s heading for, but the details of how the story will unfold is shrouded in the mist. He discovers these as he writes.

But there the similarity with this hugely talented and successful author ends. According to Wikipedia, as of December 2007 he had sold more than 55 million books worldwide, while I was happy with my sales of (nearly) 3,000 copies of the Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society.

ENTRANTS IN MY VIRTUAL TREASURE HUNT, WILL FIND THE FIFTH AND FINAL QUESTION IN MY NEXT POST.

I’m pleased to say that there are several Treasure Hunters out there who are on the way to winning one of the free five books on offer. You’ll find the fourth question below. The fifth and final one will be posted next week.

Each of the posts with a Treasure Hunt question will take you back to the previous one, so for number 3, click here (or just scroll down). This will make it easier for newcomers to join in, and have the same chance of winning, as answers can be sent in one by one, or all at once with the correct answer to question 5

QUESTION 4
What were the words that Dave Reeves used to introduce me on his radio show?

(HINT) This group give great PERFORMANCES. Once you’ve found them, you’re just one click away from the post that holds the answer.

And now for a few totally irrelevant photos –Well, they are relevant to my life at the moment, but not to my writing activities.

I’ve mentioned Gardening Husband in some previous posts, and one of those links him with poetry though he’s as much of a poet as I am a gardener – in other words, not at all!

However, he has made a significant contribution to the content of Paper Lanterns, my latest novel, as you can see here and here.

These pictures show where he spends a great deal of his time.

In the last few weeks
we’ve been devouring:
baby broad beans,
spinach,
peas,
strawberries
and, just recently
some of the new crop
POTATOES.

Eaten within a couple of hours from being wrenched from the earth, they are the best you could possibly ask for.

The taste of them is as near to the irradiated, several-months-old spuds from supermarkets
as our Earth is from the moon!These are the first digging of Jersey Royals.

The sight of these is a poem in itself!

Is it ever acceptable to read other people’s personal letters? ( This isn’t Question Three in my Virtual Treasure Hunt, you’ll find that further down the page.) I’ll get back to those letters in a minute or two.

Meanwhile, I want to mention that more correct answers to my Virtual Treasure Hunt are still arriving in my in-box, and it’s not too late to join in. For those of you who haven’t yet entered the TREASURE HUNT, you’ll find Question Two here

You’ll find the THIRD QUESTION below, and I’ll be posting a few more over the next couple of weeks. The first five people to contact me with all the correct answers will receive a free copy of either Paper Lanterns or The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society.

It’s exactly a year since I posted this picture of a Greek Island – If you didn’t read that post, you’d probably wonder what possible connection there could be between a course on Novel Writing in that idyllic setting and the terrible Foot and Mouth outbreak of 2001. (There’s more than one HINT in this paragraph that will lead you to the answer to this question – via a link to another post)

QUESTION THREE:
What was the last line of the poem which won me a cheque for £100?

As for other people’s letters, I wouldn’t dream of reading something personal that wasn’t meant for me. However, when the letters were written nearly one hundred years ago, it’s a different matter. Though, as I explained in an earlier post, it is still a very strange and moving experience.

Here is one that was written in 1916 by a young Chinese woman. You’ll need to read Paper Lanterns to see how I’ve woven this into the novel, which is set mainly in Hong Kong.

“Dear Sir

Shing Mui”

Congratulations to the six readers who have already contacted me with the correct answer to the first of my questions in the Virtual Treasure Hunt.

If you get this one right, and the others that I’ll posting over the next couple of weeks, the first five people to contact me with all the correct answers will receive a free copy of either Paper Lanterns or The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society.

For those of you who haven’t yet entered the TREASURE HUNT, you’ll find Question One here

I’ll give plenty of notice when I’m about to post the final question, and will let you know the latest date for submitting your answers.

One of the things I’ve enjoyed about writing this blog is the opportunity to use some of my own snapshots – I make no pretence to be a photographer – all I do is point the camera and press the button. I’m always amazed when I see the picture on my monitor with details that I hadn’t noticed at the time. Hurray for digital cameras!

My TREASURE HUNT is giving me an excuse to display photos a second time – This is one that I’m quite proud of!.

Here’s PART TWO: with just one question. This will involve scrolling down through some previous posts – and the Peacock is the first HINT.

Once you’ve landed on the correct post, you’ll need to follow ANOTHER LINK to find the answer to this question:

QUESTION 2:
What was the date of Nicola Morgan’s ‘Party’ for her blog’s first Birthday?

Woops!! I missed my first blog birthday!

I only realised that after what should have been an occasion for celebration on 10th May this year, so now I’m drawing attention to my ONE HUNDREDTH BLOG POST. This seems like a good time to launch my VIRTUAL TREASURE HUNT.
ALL the ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS can be found somewhere on this blogsite.

THE TREASURE HUNT will have at least THREE PARTS, and some of these will contain more than one question. The first FIVE READERS who come up with the correct answers to ALL THE QUESTIONS will receive a FREE copy of either Paper Lanterns OR The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society

PLEASE USE the ‘Contact Me’ page to give me your answers. In this way, I’ll be the only person to see your answers .

PART ONE: A single question to start with.

1) What is the title of the post in which this picture appears, and what is the name of the cat? (HINT: Notice the archives on the right: June is the month for strawberies!)

Look out for PART TWO of the TREASURE HUNT in my next post

Meanwhile, I want to tell you what I was doing this afternoon. One thing I enjoy (almost) as much as hearing other writers talk about their work, is giving talks and readings to groups of other writers myself. There’s nothing that develops a taste for self-promotion quite as much as having a novel published. I won’t go as far as saying I was a shrinking violet before The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society was published in October 2005, but I’ve definitely acquired a taste for it since then. (you might guess that from this photo of my first book launch!)

So there I was in the new community room in Erdington library, being introduced to a lovely group of local writers, led by Jan Watts. I’d already met some of these writers at a talk I gave last year, in a cramped corner behind the bookshelves in the library itself. What a wonderful resource this room is!

Although I also enjoy talking to reading groups (or, to be honest, to anyone who’ll listen to me) there’s a particular stimulation in the questions asked by fellow writers. Just as I learn from listening to what more experienced authors have to say, I know that many aspiring writers may be looking for some practical tips and encouragement from me. I have to take extra care with my answers because I want to be honest about my own experiences, both good and bad, without saying something that might leave people feeling disheartened about their own endeavours.

I can’t deny that it’s a tough old world out there for writers (look at my post on rejection letters!)but we all need something to aim at, and there’s more than one way of getting your work into print.

The most important thing for me, is the satisfaction I get from the writing itself - playing around with the words until they are conveying exactly what I want them to do. (This doesn’t happen every time, but when it does, it’s definitely its own reward.)

I have to admit that I experienced a twinge of annoyance and a dollop of disappointment last Saturday morning at the Spring Thing Literature event, organised by the Birmingham Book Festival. But before I tell you why I felt like that, I have to make it clear that those feelings were quickly replaced by enjoyment and I was grateful that the organisers had kept some last-minute information close to their chest.

I’d been looking forward to hearing Helen Dunmore giving a talk about her latest novel and prize-winning poetry, and it wasn’t until I’d seated myself in the large auditorium of the Birmingham Conservatoire that I found out that she was unable to attend, and two other novelists would be taking her place. I had a lot on my plate that weekend (a long drive down to South Wales that evening, followed by an even longer drive to East Sussex the next day) and if I’d been informed beforehand, I’d have chosen to miss that first session – so I’m now grateful to the organisers, because I’d have missed hearing Judith Allnatt (The Poet’s Wife) and Clare Clark Savage Lands) in Conversation with each other, expertly led by Jonathan Davidson of Writing West Midlands .

It was fascinating to hear both authors explain what had inspired them to write their historical novels and compare the particular logistical problems they encountered and how they resolved them. They make a very good combination for a session like this.

When they were talking about their research methods, I particularly enjoyed Judith’s description of the process of accumulating information almost randomly, following whatever paths presented themselves, immersing herself in her chosen period almost randomly until she ‘knew’ it so thoroughly she didn’t need to think about it – it had become a part of her. The analogy of growing a crystal in her school lab was something I understood at the time, but couldn’t explain it clearly now!

The next session was also excellent: a Panel Discussion, again chaired by Jonathan, with three more novelists, Aifric Campbell ,(The Loss Adjustor) Samantha Harvey (The Wilderness), and Amanda Smyth (Black Rock).

The only difficulty for me was to resist the temptation of buying all three of those novels to add to my To-be-Read mountain.

Stuart Maconie’s books sounded amusing informative and I felt that his latest, Adventures on the High Teas, (wandering through Middle England) would make an ideal present but at that time my mind couldn’t come up with the exact person to give it to.

The day itself was a satisfying feast, with just enough down-time between each of the five sessions and plenty of opportunity to chat to other readers and writers over coffee and lunch. I was sorry that I had to leave early, missing Carol-Ann Duffy’s session at the end, and only allowing myself a brief taste of Jo Bell
and another last-minute stand-in, Nick Walter, stepping in to the gap left by Jenn Ashworth. (That was another disappointment, as I’d been looking forward to Jo and Jenn’s ‘Too Much Information’ . Maybe I’ll be able to catch that show somewhere else on its journey.

Oh! and I mustn’t forget to do my share of eavesdropping on July 1st!

No, I haven’t really got the recipe, but right now there are three subjects in my head that in a strange way seem to link up.
1: Getting published.
2: A novel for young adults called Wasted
3: An inspiring poetry Workshop
If you’ve visited this blog before, you’ll know that it’s mainly about my writing life as a poet and novelist, and that this can be split into two stages: before and after publication. The ‘before’ part is a good deal longer – I‘m an expert in the art of dealing with rejection: : it took me twenty years from completing my first novel to finding a publisher for my fourth.

You can find out here about Novel oneand Novel two. I nearly made it with Novel three, when I won a competition to receive a free read from The Literary Consultancy. Several amendments later, the novel was recommended as ‘deserving to be published’ . That was where the luck ran out: although I now had the backing of T.L.C., the agents on their list of contacts turned it down. They loved it, but not enough to take me on.

After at least forty more rejections, Novel Four was recommended for a free read from… The Literacy Consultancy! This didn’t feel like good luck to me. I’d been editing this novel, The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society, for over a year, and I knew that it had reached its final form. I wasn’t going to attempt yet another re-write.

I sent it anyway. Was that luck, or chance or sheer doggedness? All I know is that if I hadn’t grasped that opportunity, I wouldn’t have heard of “the new publisher, Transita about to bring out its first novel in a few months’ time”, and I wouldn’t have become the published author of The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society in October 2005. You’ll find a mention about the demise of Transita here ,and there’ll soon be more about my second way of being published.

2: A novel for young adults called Wasted by Nicola Morgan which I finished last night, made me think about the role of luck or chance in our lives, and for me, specifically, the chance that led to publication at last. Nicola has an inspiring blog, ‘Help I need a Publisher’ and has set up another for her new novel, Wasted: which, in spite of my reluctance to buy yet another novel for my t.b.a. pile, I bought.

Although when I taught English in secondary schools, I used to enjoy reading fiction for teenagers, I haven’t done so since my own children were in their teens. I’m not going to say much about Wasted here – apart from saying ‘BUY IT!’ and quoting from an email I sent her after I’d read the first six chapters: “ I love the way you kind of dance through the words on the page with such energy and sensitivity. You’re ridiculously, arrogantly original and you’re making me want to write for teenagers. (not that I could)”

Last night I couldn’t sleep until I’d finished Wasted. This morning I visited the Wasted blog and came across this review.. It expresses my thoughts and feelings exactly.On another blog, where Nicola was responding to questions about Wasted, I find her voicing my own sentiments:
“As Jack says in Wasted, “Luck is just what we call it.” I think we very largely make our own luck. Terrible things happen to people through no fault of their own, and sometimes good things happen to those who don’t deserve it, but I believe that there are lots of ways of maximising our chances in all aspects of life. With trying to be published, there are right things to do and wrong things. The more right things you do, the more likely you are to be “lucky”…”

3: Yesterday afternoon I was at an inspiring poetry Workshop in the beautiful Shakespeare Memorial Room in Birmingham, led by Mario Petrucci and organised by Jaqui Rowe of Poetry Bites. I came away feeling grounded again, and with a few notes that might become a poem. I’ve been reminded of what I need to do and, more importantly, not do. I’ll write more about this soon, but meanwhile I shall follow Mario’s advice and do - what might look like to anyone who might see me – nothing!