It's All in the Title

It's quite critical isn't it, having a good title that lures the reader in. I'm not sure that I'll be reading this one although it did make me giggle. Having decided last week that I would publish a selection of short stories and flash fiction through Lulu, I've spent some part of the week mapping out the book. I've selected stories of all kinds of genre, from crime to historical to humour and  some more contemporary stories. My dilemma for this weekend is to think up a suitable title.

There are two things that attract me to a book, one is the cover and the other an engaging or intriguing title. I used to read the last page of a book before I made my mind up, my reasoning being that if the ending was good then I'd be more likely to want to read the book! This horrified my Man Friday and I've since been able to kick the habit. If I like the cover and title I will then go to the 'blurb' on the back cover but I never take any notice of reviews - it's such a personal thing. I found this out when I had a go at writing a couple of book reviews  and was honest in that Northern fashion that has so often got me into trouble. It was okay if I liked a book, but the comments that came spitting back at me if I didn't made me realise that opinions are fine but best kept to myself.

So, back to my title. I found a couple of fun sites which generated titles but none of them were relevant. I even found one that generated names for bands which was... different - The Aromatic Bumheads? Do you think you'd buy some music written by this band? As you can see, I've gone way of course and apart from 'Louise Charles' Anthology of Short Stories' which is hardly inspiring, I've come to a brick wall. Perhaps it's the heat, or lack of grey brain cells, but I'll mull things over with a glass of wine in hand, it usually helps.
Got any ideas?
Until Later....

PUBLISH AND BE DAMNED?

As some of you may know, I've been meeting the challenge (yes another one, aren't I brave?) set by Write1Sub1. Since January I've written - or edited- and subbed four stories. These can be anything from 250 - 5000 words. Some of them have now been around the block and then some. A few of them have made longlists and even shortlists and a tiny weeney number have been placed. I'm getting a bit bored with the re-cycling now, especially those which I'm submitting maybe for the fifth or sixth time, so I've been considering - voice drops to a whisper - Self Publishing.


Now, self publishing is not new to me but neither do I have a wealth of experience. Through my connections with Writers Abroad, I was responsible for pulling together and publishing, via Lulu, our first anthology. We made a small sum which we donated to charity and we're doing the same thing this year, but with a more robust marketing strategy.
Why did I chose Lulu? Well, I did look around and it seemed to be the most straight forward, had the option of a reasonably priced ISBN and we also had a member who had used it and could be my mentor - thanks Marit! And to my surprise I really enjoyed the process. It was not without its stresses and strains mind you, the deadline for publication fell slapbang in the middle of a family crisis when I had to return to the UK but hey, Self Publishing will travel.
So I was thinking of picking some of the more 'well thumbed' stories and compiling a book in the same way. I'm not after a shed load of money if you've started thinking along those lines, I'm a writer remember! But all of these stories (I think) have been critiqued, polished and carefully edited under the auspices of my WA crew and I'm pretty confident that they are not 'bad' stories. Just not winning competitions. And the markets for placing short stories are getting less and less, so why not just publish my own book, even if it may only be family (and the odd friend) who might purchase it out of purely charitable purposes (remember, the poor writer bit?).

My weekend dilemma then will be to publish or the stories damned to a bottom drawer.
Until later...

HALF WAY TARGET

Well, it's day forty one of the MYWYN (or 80 thousand words in 80 days). As you can see from my progress meter, I'm slightly ahead of myself. Not a usual position for me to be in, I'm usually chasing my tail to keep up, but this week I've found it difficult to keep my characters quiet. And who am I to complain?  It feels good to have reached the top of the mountain but from now on it could be all downhill. Let's hope not.
The story is set in Medieval times, and is about a Viking warrior and a girl (well, what did you expect?). Of course there's a lot in between but I'm not about to spill it all here, after all I want you all to read it when it's published - yeah right, I can dream big.

This week I had to write a fight scene and like many of you I would imagine, I've never been in battle so I wasn't sure how to go about it. And I'm a girl. We don't do any of the pretend fighting stuff with wooden swords and plastic guns. We practice singing in the mirror with a hairbrush mike and play at 'shops'... don't we? Anyway I digress.
One thing I am sure about is that it will need lots of work when I come to edit the finished draft. But what struck me is how I'd be lost without the internet and without Google.
As I live in Italy I don't have access to the libraries like I used to in the UK. Even if I didn't live in the sticks and had access to one here, my Italian isn't good enough (no way near) to utilise any reference section they might have. So I have to rely on what is available in the deep, dark chasm of the World Wide Web . It's amazing. I just typed in 'how to write a fight scene' and came across thousands of links to blogs, articles, pictures and books depicting fights and fight strategies.
The power of access to information has also been evident in my quest to write in the Fantasy genre, another challenge I've set myself.  I have spent many a delirious hour - and more - looking at world-building, naming characters, developing a language and weaving in animal heroes and villains. It's just never ending.

Trouble is I could spend many more hours happily being distracted, but that won't get the story written, so I'm going to have to put a curfew on my surfing activities.

Until Later...

SHORT OR LONG STORIES

Or maybe somewhere in the middle?
Like many writers, especially amateur ones like me, I've been honing my authoring skills by writing short stories. I chose to do this for many reasons:

• On the face it of it short stories seemed to be an 'easier' option. In reality this is so not true!
• I wanted to develop my characterisation and dialogue skills and I think short stories allow you to do this
• There are many different markets to target including competitions, anthologies not to mention the on-line opportunities. However, recently I get the feeling that this market, particularly for womag writing, is reducing
• I had the vague notion that if I could write a short story, I could apply those skills to writing a chapter of a larger piece of work. To date, the jury is still out on that one

I find writing short stories quite hard. By short story I mean up to 3000 words, which seems to be the average figure given though there are some guidelines which specify longer. For me a short story should be one that can be enjoyed in one sitting, whilst waiting for an appointment or a fairly short train/bus journey. 

I find it hard because I either overwrite, which means that by the time the word count is reached I've only just got into the tale, or I underwrite. The second is much easier to manage because it can usually be formed into a  piece of flash, with more opportunities to place.

Having said that I've actually had quite a good week in terms of short story success, not only did I discover one of my short stores had been shortlisted but I had an email from the Creative Cafe Project to say they would be publishing my submission 'no edits required' and a rather nice 'no' from an editor but inviting me to submit other pieces of work for her to see.

So I'm in a bit of a dilemma in terms of my planning, which I so wish I could just be cool about. Should I continue to struggle with developing complete short stories or spend more effort in letting the stories develop into longer pieces and be happy with the bits of flash in between? 

Decisions, Decisions....

MAY MARIONETTE

As we approach mid year, I'm rather chuffed to say I'm still meeting the challenge of Write1Sub1 which I signed up to at the beginning of the year. I have this peculiar habit of signing up to challenges, some of which I know that I shall never rise to in a million years. But this one, for now, is proving to be successful.
So this month I've submitted four short stories to the following markets

• Yeovil Literary Prize (not a hope in hell but one has to try)
• Writing Magazine (750 word competition
• Pill Hill Press Anthology
• My Weekly News

And I'm still meeting the challenge of 80 thousand words in eighty days , though I'm still on catch up and I've finished the second edit of The Promise.  My last challenge for this month was to submit three stories from the Penny and George series to WA - I've managed one but had some great feedback and shall pick this up again in June...lets hope the flames are flying across the page!

Until Later...