I won a poetry prize – no kidding!

The poetry competition was sponsored by Gorgie City Farm in Edinburgh, and I won the adult category with a poem about pygmy goats.

…no kidding!

*pause for big laffs*

Aaaaaaaanyway, it’s National Poetry Day, and I was going to post my favorite poem here, but I’ll do that another day. Here’s my award-winning poem about pygmy goats. Man, I am so not ever winning the Nobel Prize now, although I am told on the highest authority that Jacinto Benavente wrote a one-act farce about chickens.

Oh hey, speaking of which, Herta Müller won. Finally, someone I’ve not only heard of, but who I’ve read! (The Land of Green Plums, as I was reading everything I could find about Romania before going to live there for a year on a Fulbright.)

And here’s my little contribution to world literature:

Pygmy goats, pygmy goats,
climbing on their frame.
Dancing up so light and proud
then dancing down again.

Pygmy goats, silly goats,
scuffling in the mud.
Butting, wrestling, tossing horns
in gleeful kiddish fun.

Pygmy goats, lovely goats,
daft and rough and wee.
Lovliest of all when they’re both
nuzzling up to me!

Yeovil Prize – highly commended

I entered both the novel and poetry categories of the Yeovil Literary Prize, and last month when I was having a Very Bad Day I (for some reason) checked the online system and found that all four pieces I’d entered were categorized as ‘Was not Shortlisted’. Which just melded into the general grumpiness and I crossed them all off my list. (Well, removed them from ‘Submissions 2006+’ and moved them to ‘Dead submissions’. Which is not, I must say, as satisfying as scraping with a thick black marker.)

…except that either this was an error or I’d hit the online system at the wrong time, because my poem ‘Captain’s Colours’ has been highly commended.

By Carol Ann Duffy.

*shakes head*

*checks again*

My new contact lenses are going a bit blurry (must remember to keep blinking when I’m at the computer!) but I’m pretty sure I’m not hallucinating this.

*checks the online system*

Wow, that’s better:
Captain’s Colours
Poetry
Work Highly Commended

After the top three poems there are nine highly commended. Out of 416. WOW.

This is a good thing for me right now. And not just because I get to squee about it to Ken Macleod tonight, but that’s always a bonus.

Many many thanks to the judges and administrators.

Rewriting is boring for everyone else

Seriously, there is nothing going on here that I could be dramatic about. I restructured chapter 11! The protagonist gets more angry than before! The second half of the book is a soggy mess!

So have my last two days’ worth of search engine referrals:

better world books coupon
doctor who remembrance day
nathan bransford font
natalie goldberg, action verbs
they shall not grow old doctor who
ive league – writing skills books
jennifer jackson synopsis
stephenie meyer can’t “research”
tracey s. rosenberg
quotation on anomie

I’m not going to be the one to tell Stephenie Meyer she can’t “research” but if you’d like to, be my guest!

Did I mention I was in Japan? Fantastic. I now wish to return there, and spend my entire life savings on cute little things to put inside bento boxes.

Oh, and it looks as though I was longlisted for a short story prize, but I’m still waiting for the shortlist to come out. If I’m on it, I’ll say something. If not, well, won’t be the first shortlist I’m not on. Also waiting for word on the other short story competition, and the travel grant.

Thundercat is waiting for Rhys to hurry up and toss a piece of that fish please. Thundercat likes fish. I had a couple of pieces of sushi in Japan (sssh, don’t tell the Vegetarian Society) but I have to say I don’t miss it enough to go back to eating it. On the other hand, gefilte fish is vegetarian, along the same lines as pork being kosher if it’s in Chinese food, so I’m not entirely anti-fish.

The long and the short of it

It’s never a coincidence that I tend to work on very short stories (under 3000 words) and poems when I have very long projects (50-150K) on the go.  Right now, for instance, I’m working on DNP (85K) and editing a nineteenth-century three-volume novel (143K and 320 footnotes, not including introduction and appendices), and just submitted two short stories to competitions, with a third waiting until I can get around to putting it in an envelope.

At this point I’ll send you round to Sally Quilford’s Writing Competition Calendar if you’re interested in that sort of thing.  UK-based, but lots of competitions have no restrictions on entry.

It’s very nice to FINISH something – even if ‘finishing’ often means ‘I come back a few months later and find it still needs work’ – and that is so rare with a long piece, I think I do need the short ones to give me some sense of forward momentum.

Which is why I feel for Brandon Sanderson, who’s finishing the umpteen-volume Wheel of Time series, and explains in this entry why the final volume is going to be three volumes, with an estimated word total of over 800K.

Wow.  Hats off to you, sir.

I feel the need to write some flash fiction right now….

Self-promotion with a twist

In This Day And Age ™, building a loyal fanbase is oh-so-important, and authors do their best to keep readers happy and involved. Usually it’s along the lines of offering signed bookplates, asking readers to post banners on websites, that sort of thing. Sometimes it’s…more.

Karin Slaughter, who writes gruesome murder mysteries, had a knitting competition.

You’re thinking Miss Marple, aren’t you.

Don’t.

The knitting items were original designs based around two serial killers. A bag and a hat, so at least they have practical use, but I don’t really want to know what response will follow the inevitable question ‘oh, did you make that yourself?’

I think I’ll stick to raspberry Fun Fur, thanks.

(But Karin Slaughter also sends signed bookplates.)

Rules lawyering, agent edition

Alas, I wasn’t one of the five finalists in the Nathan Bransford 250-words-of-dialogue competition. (I wasn’t even in the top seven, as he said the two runner-up entries were previous contest winners.) My entry wasn’t perfect; after I submitted it, I cringed when I realized that I made the speaker use the word ‘flat’ instead of ‘apartment’ even though she clearly didn’t know British terminology. But exercises on such a small scale are incredibly useful – and who knows, maybe next time I will win!

One of the contest rules caused some controversy – namely, the fact that the entries were supposed to be 250 words, but many entrants (and at least one finalist) exceeded that limit – and this got me thinking about rules in general, with regard to submitting to agents.

I want to make it clear that nothing I am about to say is a criticism of Mr. Bransford, his competition, or his decisions. He is undeniably awesome for being willing to spend more than a working day’s worth of time on this and to donate even more time to the finalists/winner. If he chooses to set or break rules for his own contest, that’s his decision. (Especially given that he pointed out that said rules ‘may be amended with zesty randomness and are subject to my own interpretations and opinions, which are known to be both feckless and strongly held.’ Hard to get more zesty than that.)

I mean, if you follow a religion, there are rules to follow, but it would be pretty weird to argue that God is mandated to follow his own sacraments.

(NB I am not comparing Nathan Bransford to God.)

(Although if doing so means he’ll represent me….)

Anyway, the point of this entry: rules, and should we follow them with regard to querying agents? (I need to keep it limited or else it will get into the ‘committing murder versus parking on yellow lines’ arguments.)

One side of the argument goes: yes, absolutely. Agents, as has been noted elsewhere in this blog, receive hundreds of query letters a month. Each agency has slightly different requirements, and it is your responsibility to know them. You don’t want to be treated as a generic writer, and the agents don’t like being treated that way any more than you do, so don’t send out the equivalent of ‘Dear Author’ letters. (Unless that’s what the agency wants! – say, if queries are going to be passed around and given to whichever agent seems the best fit. Although it’s best to be sure; the Donald Maass agency will do this but you should still address the letter to Mr. Maass.)

If you send an attachment to the SuperBob Literary Agency when they said ‘no attachments,’ you’ll be lucky to get an auto-reject from their system, because that’s likely to be your only indication that they spiked your letter. It’s your responsibility to know and follow the rules, and the agency has no responsibility to read your query if you can’t be bothered to take the time to double-check.

Why should they care? Well, for a start, if you submit a picture book query when they explicitly say they don’t represent those, you are wasting their time. Moreover, if you cannot follow the simple instructions on how to submit a query letter (including taking the 0.4 seconds to double-check that you spelled the agent’s name right), why should they expect you to follow any other directions? How can they be sure you’ll make changes to your manuscript? Submit the final version on time? (‘Oh, well, they said May 1, but I’m going to take until June 13 and that’s fine.’) Turn up for interviews and photocalls? They’re thinking ahead, even if you aren’t. They want a client who is dependable.

‘BUT!’ I hear you wail. ‘It’s the quality of the writing that counts! I am a unique snowflake and my writing is brilliant. These pesky restrictions don’t REALLY matter. When the agent reads my brilliant writing she is hardly going to be hitting the word count button; she is going to be demanding a partial.’

I’m not going to deny that this happens occasionally. But when it doesn’t happen, you’ve just shot yourself in the partial. You’ve shut down the possibility of the agent accepting your work, because there are 400 other hopefuls clamoring in their inbox – and one of those 400 might have just as good a query AND be able to follow instructions.

Yes, there are people who succeed in spite – or because – of the fact that they color outside the lines. But how many people fail for those reasons? You never see them, do you, except as bitter anonymous commenters muttering in forums that the only way to make it in this business is to Know The Right People or Go To The Right MFA Program and how everyone is Against The Real Creative People And It’s A Conspiracy.

It isn’t a conspiracy. It’s you thinking you’re better than the rules and no one else believing it. Maybe you are – so prove you can jump through the hoops to get people to listen to you. THEN, when you are breaking the NYT bestseller list, you can do what you like, because you’ll have proved that you can bring in the money. (And given how some of the top authors seem to leave line editors by the wayside after book 5, I have no doubt that you will do what you like.)

Now, there are times when the rules are – by their very nature – a bit fluid. If you’re asked to paste the first five pages of the manuscript into our query letter, then that means five double-spaced pages. Not five single-spaced, not seven double-spaced. Obviously you have to use common sense – you shouldn’t cut off a sentence off mid-word simply because that where the five pages ends, and given that even standard 12-point fonts vary in spacing, no one is going to demand that you prove you didn’t include 5.3 pages. But they mean five pages for a reason.

(If you want to submit the last five pages of the chapter, say, because your first five pages aren’t compelling, you might need to revise them. That’s as much as any casual browser in a bookstore is going to give you, after all. Think of it as an exercise.)

Bottom line: following the agent’s rules means you can prove that you’re both a brilliant writer AND a solid professional. Isn’t that a reputation worth pursuing?

249 words of dialogue

Agent Nathan Bransford (man, that’s a cool title) is having a dialogue competition over at his blog, so I thought, hey, I can polish up 250 words and it will seem like actual work. Pulled out a couple of short stories and settled on the first bit of a finished-but-abandoned story titled ‘Still Life With Grapefruit’. Rewrote in the manner of Dorothy Parker, namely: ‘I cannot write five words but I must change seven.’ And here ya go:

“How can I sketch a bowl of fruit when my bowl has no fruit?”

“Blame Dr. Hopewell, the man who remembers Etruscan lineages but forgets to buy food. Have a cookie.” From my perch on the countertop, I waved the package at Doug. “Leave it to the English to describe chocolate cookies as ‘digestive.’ No wonder they all look so glum.”

“They’re called ‘biscuits’ here.” Doug swiped another line on his sketchpad.

“The English are called biscuits? They’re weirder than I thought.” I swung my legs, beating my heels against the kitchen cupboards. “Seriously, do you want one? I think it contains oats.”

Doug’s fingers clenched around his drawing pencil. “Why does Dr. Hopewell keep a lawn tennis ball in his fruit bowl? Do English people still play lawn tennis?”

“One, you’re the expert on the English; two, it’s a grapefruit; three, I’m about to eat the second-to-last cookie.”

“Grapefruits are pinky-yellowy,” he muttered, lightly sweeping his pencil to darken the shadows. The table top and its contents were clearly outlined: his keys to the flat, a tourist brochure from the Royal Academy of Arts, four straw mats, the wooden bowl. “Not shriveled and white.”

“Oh! It’s an English grapefruit, so when the sun comes out, it hides. Last cookie!” I crinkled the package at him.

“I need grapes, bananas, bursting strawberries and ripe mangos. Not biscuits and squishy pale lawn tennis balls. Hmm, still life with lawn tennis balls.”

“Anyway, isn’t drawing fruit in a bowl a bit…simple?”

I must say, there’s much more of an edge to it than ever before. I may keep going!

Why is it that the rejection means more than the acceptance?

Entry title says it all, really. ‘Yay! Poem accepted. WAAAAAAH REJECTION *sob* *is sulky*.’

Didn’t win or place in the Fylde Brighter Writers Writing Write Circle competition; have withdrawn the story from their proposed anthology as I want to keep it in circulation. (It’s currently with a place that records stories, but as they’ve barely updated in months, I’m not sanguine.) ETA a few hours later: turns out the information on the website wasn’t clear, and only the winning stories are being published, which is fine. Apparently I came close to winning a prize. That takes the sting out of it!

Did get a poem accepted – more cheerful than ‘Rats,’ which should make my mom happy, at any rate – so I’ll get info up about that when it’s all public. What pleases me particularly is that I submitted four poems – two written eons ago (one of them completely overhauled) and two written last year – and the accepted one was one of the latter. So I’m not just dragging my old stuff around.

I’m guessing I’m not a Freedom in Fiction finalist, though technically their notification date is Monday, so I’ll save the sulking until then. I haven’t done much, if anything, with the two submitted chapters, and that’s always a tough moment, going back to rejected material and cringing at it. Sally Q has a good entry about the moment you kick yourself for having taken your eye off the ball.

Science fiction round-up

One of the big cliches in modern science fiction – probably right up there with ‘a spaceship with two people arrive on a planet, and their names turn out to be Adam and Eve’ – is a time traveler going back in time to kill Adolf Hitler. That in and of itself has become a cliche, but here are two funny takes on it:

1. a Subnormality comic strip: The home of Adolf Hitler, 1933: Doubt sets in

2. a very short story: Wikihistory

The latter, though, is completely unbelievable. Not because of the time travel, but because everyone on that forum uses correct grammar and punctuation. I can suspend disbelief, but some things go beyond that. *grin*

Also in the realm of the unbelievable: Arthur C. Clarke died. Night has fallen.

I’ve never been a Discworld fan. I know, I KNOW, but I just never got into the books. Hang on, let me check which ones I’ve read. I know I ditched Hogfather partway through, but I completed The Light Fantastic, Guards! Guards!, Equal Rites – huh, I could have sworn I read The Color of Magic, but it isn’t on my list. Anyway, feel free to shriek ‘but you need to read [x]!’. I’m going to have to ignore you, though, because I have yards if not miles of unread books.

However, my opinion of his novels aside, it is a shame that Mr. Pratchett has Alzheimer’s. He recently donated a lot of money for research, and fans are trying to match his donations. Over at the Donald Maass Literary Agency, agent Jennifer Jackson (who I’m guessing has a license to kill your e-mail if you send an attachment without permission) is making a very nice offer:

To the person reading this blog that makes the highest donation by midnight on Saturday, the 22nd (and sends me some verification thereof), I will read and review your synopsis plus 50 (or so) pages of a work-in-progress (limited to novel-length fiction in the adult/YAgenre categories I actually represent). Go to the entry to get logistical details.

Alas, I don’t think I can donate nearly enough to be in the running, but if any of you do, please let me know!

I caught this morning writers writing

I don’t have many short stories suitable for submitting to little contests, simply because the word limit tends to be 2,000-3,000 words and it’s not a length I’ve recently worked with. (The other competition ceiling is 5,000 words. That was the really nice thing about the Willesden Herald prize – no word limit. Though I sent one of the 4,500 ones, as it’s my best work to date.)

Anyway, I was pleased to check the website for a competition I entered back in December and find that I’m on the shortlist. Said list is here but the page has been overwritten at least once. (For reference – mainly my own – the competition guidelines can be found on Sally’s blog.) I presume the shortlist will vanish when the winners are announced, so what it says right now is:

Thanks again to everyone who took the trouble to enter our competition. With great difficulty we’ve narrowed the entries down to our short list of twenty. As writing club members ourselves, we know the disappointment of not getting this far. It’s been a difficult but democratic process and many individual’s favourite stories have not made this cut so please don’t give up if you’ve not made it this time in our competition.

And my story title is one of twenty on the list. Woot!

The group awarding the prize is the Brighter Writers Writing Circle, which name always sets me off reciting Gerard Manley Hopkins (specifically, ‘I caught this morning morning’s minion’).

Anyway, fingers crossed! It’s a nice little story, if I do say so myself.