The Book!

It's amazing to see an actual copy of 100 Stories for Haiti lying on the publisher's desk. It has all happened so quickly and it will be available from 4th March. Lots of publicity is being done up and down the country in various newspapers, magazines and on blogs. Can't wait to read the stories!
Order a copy here.

Guest Post from Greg McQueen

I’m delighted to welcome Greg McQueen here today. He is the inspirational force behind the fundraising book 100 Stories for Haiti. Welcome Greg. Over to Greg...


I am not going to rattle on today about how the book was made ... Well, maybe a bit.

Maureen Vincent-Northam refers to herself (mostly) as a non-fiction author. She co-wrote The Writer's ABC Checklist, and wrote The Greatest Genealogy Tips in the World. What follows is an extract from her award-winning children's story, Betsy Fudge & the Big Silence.

Like all the writers included in 100 Stories for Haiti, Maureen donated her story to the book for free. The paperback costs £11.99 + P&P. Like all books, it's a big clump of paper and glue, it costs money to make, costs P&P to send it in the mail. This one costs £3.80 to make. PayPal and banks take a cut for sending money back and forth, nothing we can do about that. So approximately £7.50 goes to charity if you order it directly on the website.

I say approximately because ... Bank fees change. PayPal fees change. The price of making a book can change. In our case, I hope for the better ... The more people who order the book, the less it costs to make. You're already familiar with that concept, right? Of course, it's called "bulk buying." More orders means Bridge House Publishing order more copies from the printers, which means they cost less.

If you buy the book on Amazon, or order it in a shop, there are more links in the chain, so to speak, more companies taking fees for selling the book. It's difficult to be exact, but it could be as little as £1.50 going to charity if you buy it from a retailer.

I don't want you to feel bad about that. Buy the book where you feel comfortable. I started this project with the aim of raising money. Somewhere along the way it also became about raising awareness. Haiti will need our help for a long time to come. Every time someone sees the book, whether it's on their shelf at home or online or in a shop or library, they'll be reminded of why 100 writers gave their stories for free to help one of the most poverty-stricken places on the planet.

Okay. Enough from me. Enjoy a bit of Betsy Fudge!

Betsy Fudge & the Big Silence

By Maureen Vincent-Northam

Well okay, so I talk a little.

Fact is, I totally have to tell all my friends everything about my life. There is SO much interesting stuff they absolutely need to know. For example, how I am an almost-mega-famous-actress and also how my little brother invented pizza-flavoured ice-cream (do NOT ask).

Oh, all right. I admit it. I do find it close to impossible to keep it totally zipped, even when Miss Wiley says: ‘HUSH! Betsy Fudge, this is QUIET time’.

But it’s not like I chatter non-stop.

So it is totally unfair when know-it-all Neville Nugent tells everyone I could win prizes for yakety-yakking. He also says I could never win a bean for keeping silent. I’ll bet you anything that is what put The Idea into Miss Wiley’s head.

‘We are having a Big Silence on Monday,’ she announced ever so casually. ‘The winner will be the pupil who can remain silent for the whole school day. The prize…’

(There had to be some good news).

‘…will be tickets to Amazing Mazes Mania.’

I could hardly believe it. Amazing Mazes Mania! Sweet!

I also could hardly believe this. Silent for a WHOLE DAY!

What was Miss Wiley thinking? She totally must have flipped her lid, gone bonkers and lost every single one of her marbles.

I mean, no talking. At all. How was I supposed to communicate? I would need to have a fool-proof plan because I absolutely had to win those Amazing Mazes Mania tickets.

Only a crazy person could waste a TOTAL weekend thinking about school. So okay, call me crazy. But getting my hands on that prize was going to be worth it.

I snuck a look at my brother’s Code Book for some inspiration (Toby is a secret agent in his spare time).

There was a chapter on Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. You know the sort of thing: 2 birds, a triangle, some squiggles and a goat = this pyramid is private – keep out.

The pharaohs and mummies were clever at reading little pictures (which was handy for them). But there is a total shortage of clever pharaohs and mummies in my class (which is not handy for me).

Then there were the secret tapping codes. Dot – blip – dash – dot – blop. But the blips and the blops all sounded the same and could easily get mixed up.

And not only that. Tapping codes can seriously damage your free time. For example, when Toby sent dot-dash messages through the bedroom wall Mum got totally spooked and thought his room was haunted. She refused go in there for ages, even to make his bed. Toby was NOT amused because making beds takes up a lot of valuable secret agent time.

No, blips, blops and dots were not a good idea. So I scrapped that one, too.

I liked the semaphore flags. In fact I like flags, full stop. We got to wave a Union Flag on a stick last year when the Queen visited our town. She waved back. But she didn’t have a flag on a stick. Maybe Her Majesty looks in a mirror and waves a Union Flag at herself in private.

Yes, semaphore flags might be a good way to communicate. But would Miss Wiley understand that I was signalling ‘the answer is 27’ and NOT ‘I am dying to go to the toilet’.

Then it dawned on me. The absolutely perfect answer. And it was totally brilliant. I would no longer be just an almost-mega-famous-actress; I would become the greatest mime artist in the history of the universe.

Know-it-all Neville had brought the hugest writing pad ever.

He wrote: I am going to win.

I mimed: On your bike!

He wrote: The Amazing Mazes Mania tickets are mine.

I mimed: In your dreams!

He wrote: You don’t stand a chance, blabbermouth.

I mimed a pig.

All day long he wrote messages. He posted them everywhere. For example, on my locker. And in my book bag. And inside my lunchbox.

Neville Nugent had totally taken a wrong turning on the road to maturity.

On the other hand, Jessica Dooley is the politest girl in our class. She was also the first one to break the silence. Sometimes being polite isn’t the cleverest thing to be, especially when Miss Wiley is handing out the reading books. Saying ‘Thank you’ was Jessica’s BIG mistake.

No, this keeping silent lark was NOT going to be easy.

-----

Ah, don't you hate it when that happens?! Well, click here, do some good, and you'll get to read the end of this story very, very soon.

Next stop: Teresa Ashby's blog, A Likely Story

And you can find out more about Maureen Vincent-Northam on her site.
Thanks for allowing me on your site, Rosemary. I am enjoying this blog tour a whole-heck-of-a-bunch!

Thanks very much, Greg. Look forward to reading the rest of the story and all the others.

Writing Short Stories for Radio

I've just read a great article on Writing Short Stories for Radio by Sue Moorcroft, which gives a good run down on the kind of stories suitable for broadcast.

You can read the article on Sue's blog here.

Good luck,
Rosemary

Writing Magazines - Writers' Forum

I'm going to highlight a few writing magazines now and then, as I think it benefits all writers to have access to a good magazine which keeps us up to date and provides advice and opportunities.

The first one I would recommend is the monthly Writers’ Forum Magazine. Full of interesting articles on the craft of writing and the experiences of published writers, it also offers a monthly short story and poetry competition.

From the March 2010 issue, Sue Moorcroft takes over as head judge for the story competitions, with Jan Jones. To mark the change, subscribers to the magazine can have FREE entry to the story competition by email for a trial period, with the option of a personal critique for £5. Non-subscribers may enter for £6. There is good payment for 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize winners!

The poetry competition entry is £5, with a monthly first prize of £100. There is also the fun ‘First Draft’ section on the letters’ page, where readers have the chance to receive £25 for ruining a passage from a famous novel - an exercise in proof reading. Every published letter on the page receives a lovely Moleskin notebook.

Full details of Writers’ Forum here. You can also buy it in most large newspaper shops.

Happy writing,
Rosemary

Preorder 100 Stories for Haiti

The brilliant cover is now ready for 100 Stories for Haiti and the book can be preordered from the official website.

All the authors' names are printed over the whole cover, from front to back and spine. The book should be a good read! Even better to know that all the money is going to the Red Cross for the relief work in Haiti.

It would be great if as many people as possible could support the project by buying a copy.

No More Mulberries by Mary Smith

I am so glad I read this book. Knowing little about Afghanistan, whether before or after the Taliban, mention of the country usually means war and repression as portrayed by the media.

No More Mulberries, however, is an exceptional novel. Set during 1995, this is a story of some of the ordinary people living in the rural areas of Afghanistan. It is also the story of Scottish health worker, Miriam, who adopts the country as her own after marriage.

Miriam’s story begins, as any good novel should, at a moment of crisis, when her second marriage, to Dr Iqbal, is put under increasing strain, while Miriam has yet to confront the ghosts of her past and the death of her beloved first husband. In the midst of her personal concerns is the struggle to bring modern health practises and teaching to the remote mountain villages. Dr Iqbal has his own ghosts to confront if he and Miriam are to stay together.

Only someone with intimate knowledge of the area and the people could write with such honesty and authority. Mary Smith worked for many years in Afghanistan and has evoked the sights, smells and culture of the country so well that I was living every moment of the novel in that fascinating and ruggedly beautiful land.

The author is a professional journalist and the story is very well written and carefully structured, allowing the reader glimpses into Miriam’s Scottish past, while exploring her two Afghan marriages and the cultural differences she now faces as a woman. Smith explains part of her motivation for the novel: “I particularly wanted to counteract the western media's portrayal of life for Afghan women. I don't deny there are huge problems there, but to give the impression that all Afghan women are hapless, downtrodden victims does them a disservice - they deserve more.”

The novel ends as the Taliban are becoming a real threat to the country, and it is testament to the author’s storytelling ability that I was fearful for all the people I had met through the pages of the novel.

This book deserves to be read widely, if for no other reason than to enjoy a good story. But it also brings the ordinary people of a war-torn country to life and perhaps offers some understanding of their plight.

Mary Smith is also author of the non-fiction book Before the Taliban: Living with War, Hoping for Peace. Visit her website for more details of the author and her writing.

Rosemary

Writing a People's Friend Pocket Novel

For those writers who are more used to short stories, but want to write the longer fiction of a novel, a People’s Friend Pocket Novel might be a useful ‘go-between’. At 50,000 words, it is shorter than the normal 80,000 to 100,000 words of most mainstream novels.

But, given that short stories usually range from around 800 to 3,000 words, how easy is it to write a novel of this length? And is it any easier to be published in this way?

To find out some of the answers and learn from someone else’s experience, I put some questions to Gill Stewart, writing as Gillian Villiers, who has published two novellas with People’s Friend, Rachel’s Coming Home and Tomorrow’s Promise.

Gill’s novellas are a very good read with some excellent characterisation, and they are as multi-layered as any novel.

Why did you choose to write the novella length?

I started writing full length novels but after hearing someone from PF speak at a SAW conference I thought I'd like to have a try at writing for them. My first novella was written specifically for them, to their length, but the second one was a longer novel that I shortened. That was actually harder work!

Did you have to submit the whole story at once?

The first time I submitted the first 7,000 words. I had a very helpful reply suggesting some minor changes and encouraging me to finish the novella, but with no guarantee of accepting it. The second one I sent in complete, after I'd finished the changes.

Does the word count have to be exact?

People's Friend pocket novels are 50,000 which is nearly a full length novel! I think they will probably accept up to 1000 words over the limit. My Weekly Story Collection pocket novels are around 30,000 (maximum 32,000).

Can it be set in any period?

My Weekly SC do a mixture of contemporary and historical (mostly Regency I think) but People's Friend seem to be mostly contemporary.

Any other tips for writers wanting to try this route?

Read a few of the current publications. PF have a very specific style and they have some very particular 'NOs' including: NO serious illness, NO marital break up happening currently, NO sex, NO swearing. Stories must have warm, likeable characters, preferably be multi-generational, have a strong romance element and have a happy ending. Any 'bad' characters must be redeemed during the course of the story.

Thanks a lot, Gill, for this great insight into writing a People’s Friend Pocket Book. Perhaps some of us will be inspired to aim for this market.

I've found the following information given out at the RNA Conference in July. Send a synopsis and the first couple of chapters to: People's Friend Pocket Novels, DC Thomson & Co. Ltd, 80 Kingsway East, Dundee DD4 8SL.
Rosemary

100 Stories for Haiti

Delighted to announce that this fundraising effort for Haiti is almost ready for sale. The short story book will be available as an e-book and in print during February. All proceeds will go to the Red Cross for their work in devastated Haiti.

I'm so pleased that one of my own stories, 'Reshaping the Past', is to be included.

For a full list of stories and authors, and up to date news, check out the 100 Stories for Haiti website.

Hope they raise thousands!
Rosemary

Websites for the Freelance Writer

One of my Suite101 writing colleagues has posted a valuable list of 100 Best Websites for the Freelance Writer.

If you are considering expanding your writing to cover the online market, then have a look at her article here as she provides a very good outline of the possibilities available.

As I mentioned in the previous blog post about Suite101, online writing for the web is certainly one of the most popular growing outlets for writers these days, particularly in the US.

Worth a look!
Rosemary