Blagging your way into a writing residency

I've been writer-in-residence in a biochemistry lab... and I am now writer-in-residence in a cemetery. How did these things come about? I'm glad you asked, because I've written about it over at RLF Collected! Here's a snippet:

I used to be a journalist and the joy of that job was the access it gave me. You say, ‘Hello, I’d like to write an article about you/your company’, and, most of the time, the door is opened wide. I met fascinating people and learned about worlds hidden to everyone except those who work there. When I moved to writing fiction, it seemed as though my life would involve a lot of alone time, which was fine: I like solitude. But I have a science background, and after my first story collection was published – which contains stories inspired by science articles – and I moved to Bristol, I decided I wanted to spend time with the scientists themselves. I had an undergraduate degree in science but I had no idea what it was like to do science on a daily basis. I didn’t wait for an invitation, or for a position to be advertised. I approached the Dean of the Faculty of Science and said, ‘Can I be your writer-in-residence?’...

Read the rest of the article here >>

Why I write: A sense of wrongness

I'm over at the RLF's Vox audio podcasts today, with a piece I wrote and recorded for their "Why I Write" series. I had no idea what I was going to say before I started writing the piece - and thinking about it, I realised something I hadn't understood before, that I write out of a sense of wrongness: "For the first forty-four years of my life I’ve always felt in some way or other, myself, wrong. Wrong inside this body. Wrong inside my head. Not a strong wrongness, but a slight vague feeling." You can listen to the rest of my musings on wrongness, rightness and writing here!

My guest blog post: Noticing

Every Day Fiction's Flash Fiction Chronicles blog asked me for a guest blog post quite a while ago and I just couldn't think of anything to write about. And then a few weeks ago I had a strange experience and it struck me that this was the thing for FFC... My guest blog post on Noticing is now up on the FFC blog. A taster:

A few years ago, I was told off by a fellow short story writer  for not carrying a notebook around with me. I had foolishly assumed that when an idea came, if it was “good enough” I would remember it. I was already then at an age where memory is not as sharp as it was. And there is so much competing for our attention that ideas don’t stand much of a chance of being retained.

Read the full post here>>

On Being A Writer by John Siddique

My fellow Salt author, John Siddique, has just published his 4th collection of poetry, Full Blood, and is interviewed wonderfully over at Sue's blog today. As well as finding his answers about putting together his collection fascinating, I loved the poem from the book that Sue had included in the blog post and asked for permission to publish it here too. I think it fits so well with what we've been discussing here... and so beautifully written, too. Stunning! Can't wait to get my hands on the book, and hopefully also host John in person at a real (yes, non-virtual!) event in the summer.


On becoming a writer

Learn to sit and be invisible,
surround yourself with ordinary
things. Take no notes in public.

A glass of water with your coffee
will let you sit for longer.
Never appear interested in the talk.

Be plain on the outside. Inside
your mouth is a diamond; never
speak of it before you set its ways in ink.


© John Siddique 2011
Taken from Full Blood (Salt Publishing)
ISBN 9781844718245
Available at your Bookshop, Library & Online Store 

My writing process: what I'm learning

• I just looked at a story I hadn't looked at for 5 months - the editor of the anthology it was commissioned for made excellent suggestions - and tweaking it was so much easier than when I'd just wrote it. I could see where I'd overwritten, where I had put in "pretty" language just for show and not for the story. I was not attached to it anymore, it wasn't my latest "baby",  so I could strip all that away without regret. Let it lie, put it away, for at least a week
• I shouldn't show a first draft to anyone, I need to make sure I am happy with it, I'm not trying to please a group, or even any one other person. Write what I want to write
• I am not going to submit so many stories for publication, will hold stories back for my new collection. Don't worry about being published.
•  I wrote a new story yesterday in one sitting, while playing online scrabble, alternating between writing and playing my turn (see recent New Yorker article about possible benefits of distraction). Distraction helps me stay in the zone, don't feel guilty about needing that
• I am reading so much and it all inspires me to try new things, things that may not be what the market "wants", but which I love to write Don't worry about the market
• I am reading Collected Stories by a 90-year-old author and seeing how what she wrote changed over nearly 60 years. Give myself time and space to evolve 

So much for writing at night

This is the blog post where I take back everything I said a few weeks ago! No, actually, that's a complete lie, I don't take any of it back. I have been trying out the routine I described here on Jan 1st for the past few weeks, but the writing at night element of it just isn't working. I loved coming into my study at 10pm and writing until 2am, but then I was so hyped up I wasn't getting to sleep til 3am... and was waking J up in the process. I was feeling jet-lagged, and both us were sleeping badly, which really ruins everything. It just wasn't working.

But - I am the kind of person that often needs to make a RADICAL change in order to knock me out of my rut, and this was that radical change. I have learned an enormous amount from what I have been doing, setting off for a walk first thing, and making sure I come back with something. I've learned to really observe the world around me, putting energy into seeing and hearing in a way that I have never done before. I've learned just how much inspiration this close observation can provide me for my writing, as I make notes on what I see and hear, sometimes things that I know no-one else is noticing.

It gives me enormous pleasure to be using my senses like this - when I am out and about, I watch how people interact, and when I sit in a cafe I don't have my head buried behind my laptop anymore or checking my mobile phone. I wonder if anyone has noticed me noticing - do they wonder at the single woman sitting there, with no book, no newspaper? Just a pen and notepad. Is anyone watching me?

Because of this, for the first time ever I have been writing fiction based on real life events, or how I saw them. This is really a revelation - first it takes the pressure off me to "make up" everything, all the time. It lets me give my imagination a kick-start, which I had been doing with prompts and the New Scientist articles in my book, but hadn't done in this way before.

My routine also severed my umbilical connection to the Internet. I do my best every day not to turn it on for the first few hours at least, but when I do, I also now feel freer to just turn it off again, pull out the cable, block the wifi. It's a great relief! If there is something I need to look up first thing in the morning because I hadn't got myself organised the night before, I feel in some way unclean!

So, the current plan is to shift everything back a few hours. I've managed to get to sleep earlier, it took a few days, and I am getting up earlier, but right now I am quite confused about when my writing time is. I love going out first thing, getting the blood moving. I often go out quite grumpy and come back totally exhilerated! I also like not starting to write straight after my walk but to let what I've observed percolate, while I get on with other stuff. So, maybe this should be my writing time right now? 6-9? Late dinner? Early dinner? I've started a new healthy eating regime too... the working at night had the effect of utterly throwing off my mealtimes so I kept skipping a meal, which didn't help.

To sum up: I need to sleep. I need to eat. I need to write. I need quality time with J. I need to let him sleep too. I haven't quite figured out all of those things, but it's only Jan 26th, there's still 11 months and 5 days to go!

Ah, so THIS is the writing life!

Decade revisited

In the spirit of it all, having only just realised that this is a new decade as well as a new year (bit slow, me), I thought about 1999. That was the year I wrote the first short story that was ever published, during my first visit to the sublime Anam Cara writing retreat which I have since revisited several times and where magic always always happens. Anyhow, I may really regret this, but that first story, Doing it in Eden, is still available online, in The Beat's second issue. Ok, yes, you can read it. Hmmm. Perhaps you shouldn't comment. No. Don't!

So, a momentous ten years, one that saw me starting to take writing seriously, attending two Arvon Courses, at the first of which I met J, my partner, and at the second was instructed by my writing idol Ali Smith to drop everything and write full time. An MA in creative writing, several workshops in the US, various publications and some lovely prizes, and then... my first book was born. What a decade!

Finally, I get it

After all that, it is fairly embarassing to admit this. But in the spirit of honesty I shall do it: only this week have I felt that I am really living The Writing Life. A few months ago I was asked to write about my daily writing routine for Branta and, perhaps stupidly, I wrote candidly about all the ridiculous things I do every day online. As someone commented somewhere, I should have been too ashamed to admit it all. Yes, I should have been. it wasn't so much a writing routine as Wordscraper tournaments and Amazon ranking checks with some writing slipping in there purely by chance every now and then.

Now, thanks in great part to the Twyla Tharp book, The Creative Habit, which I blogged about here,  as well as being castigated  by several far more efficient writers (thanks Adam M and David G!), I have made a radical change to my life, implementing it before Jan 1st to get a good start. And a good start it has been. I finally feel like a Writer. Let me elaborate:

• Simplify

The first thing I did was decide not to switch my mobile phone until 2pm or the Internet on til after 5pm . So, when I wake up, I don't run to check anything, don't feel like anyone can demand anything from me, that I have to reply to anything. No-one can need me to do anything. And I am not constantly multi-tasking and doing lots of things half-heartedly.

Tip: if you can get through the first hour after waking up without checking your email, it gets easier, believe me. I was really tired the other day (see later for why) and felt weak, felt like I needed email. But I fought it. Didn't give in. And the craving vanished.

• Feed the imagination

I have, over the last ten years, been both silly and, frankly, arrogant. I have never - I repeat this to shame myself further - never carried around a notebook and pen and taken notes. I never wrote done the great first lines that came into my head, never sat and watched people, recording observations, overheard snippets. I assume that if something was good enough, I would remember it. Well: You don't. It's GONE. Gone. I wonder now how much I have lost. Stories I've written in my head at night in bed and in the morning they've disappeared.

So, first thing in the morning, after breakfast, I go out and, following Twyla Tharp's example of what a writer she knows does,  I determine to come back with something. I take a notebook and pen, phone (for emergencies, switched off).

The first day I went for a wander around the neighborhood streets and while this was physically invigorating (damn cold) it didn't give me anything to take back. So on Day Two I headed the other way, to the shops, and went and sat in a cafe I'd never been in before. Because I didn't have my mobile on, I didn't sit there and check email obsessively every few mins. And I didn't look around for something to read or entertain me.

I just watched.

And I discovered how much I never normally see. The place was very busy, I watched everyone, and I wrote things down. And as I did this, I felt myself seeing in a whole new way, looking out for things no-one would see unless they paid careful attention. And, writing it down made me feel like a working writer. I was working. I sat for an hour and that day I definitely came back with something:  a character. She then provided the inspiration for not one but two stories, or beginnings of stories.

• Don't write yet

So, this is an interesting one, will see how this works, but when I get back from my walk, I go and spend several hours doing other work - with the Internet still off. This week it was finishing the gargantuan Arts Council grant application form, and working on a freelance project for the university's science faculty. And do you know what? Without email and Facebook I not only was more productive, I felt calmer.And all the while the stuff I had fed my imagination with earlier was whirling and percolating in the back of my mind.

• Make an appointment / Write at night

This is something I have been dying to try for a long, long time. A lot of well-known writers work at night, and I am a night-bird anyway, but normally we are watching telly or something. Not this week. This week, I had two hours or so of Internet time, 6-8, then spent time with J, dinner etc...But I had made an appointment with myself, so at 10pm each night I headed back to my study, the Internet off again, and stayed there til 2am, only writing and doing writing-related things.

Are you surprised to hear that I got a lot done? I wasn't sure what would happen. At first, I thought I might fall asleep. But I didn't. I love nighttime, the darkness, the different kinds of noises (city foxes squealing in our garden). I wrote several stories, the beginnings of stories, transcribed things I'd written, and in one hour on Wed night adapted another of my stories into a play.

I tried to simulate the conditions in which stories come into my head as I am dropping off to sleep by lying on some cushions on the floor and letting myself drift a bit. Hmm, sort of worked. Not great. Let's just say it might take some time. 

For me, as a short story writer, it makes so much sense to write at the end  of the day, when stuff has happened, when you have material, rather than first thing, when I am not very awake, when it's all a bit of a fuzzy blank. A novelist has what to work on, what to return to, so that's different, perhaps you need that clarity, that lack of stuff, in order to get back into it. But for me, this seems to work.

• Don't beat yourself up
  

My final point: I am not going to make myself crazy if one night I don't write much, I don't get much "done". As another well-known writer said, the main thing is to just turn up. And I turned up.

Not smooth sailing yet

Suffice it to say, the new routine has created some sleep problems for both of us, since I am creeping into bed at around 2.30am, and waking up at 11ish. We haven't got that one sorted yet. The other night I couldn't sleep til 4.30am. And, of course, I can't schedule anything for myself before 12 every day. Ok, that might be workable. I don't see why my writer-in-residence position at the Uni's Science Faculty should be morning-based? I bet a lot of the Faculty keep odd hours. Frankly - and I know I am not alone in this - this society is far too morning-based. New Scientist reported a while ago that, given the choice, the majority of us would go to be at around 1am and wake up at 9am. (Of course, if you have kids this is pretty impossible, I know. Sorry!)

So, there you have it. My first week truly feeling like a Working Writer. It is a relief to have got here. Because I didn't have a Creative Habit, because I didn't have a way of working, I was coming up with a load of bizarre scenarios - getting a job in a flower shop, for example - that might serve to force me to write. But now it all feels right, at last. I have a routine, I have time slots for different things, I have ritual activities to do, I have a way of generating inspiration.

It's all new and I know it will take time, will evolve. I am really excited to see how it goes, to incorporate days in the Nanoscience and Quantum Information Centre into my routine. I will write more as it happens - and wish you all a wonderful year in which you are able to do what you most want to do, calmly and without too much frustration, guilt and angst. Happy New Year!

Speaking from Experience event tonight

We're off to London shortly, braving possible strong winds and the rain that has flooded parts of the country, for this:

Speaking from Experience is a new event aimed at encouraging unpublished Jewish writers. I've been invited to be the guest at the first event, which is a great honour, I am in favour of anything that inspires any writers to write. I'll let you know more afterwards, am taking some of my books, in case I might inspire anyone to purchase!

Strictly Writing: Nothing Beats Time

I owe this blog a proper post but it's probably a good sign that I've been too busy - with writing-related doings, of course! In the meantime, I have a guest blog post on the excellent Strictly Writing blog today, where I come clean about my failure to leave a new story long enough so that I could see what it needed doing.

Finally, I wrote a 1000-word story. I was excited to have something “long” (yes, you may snicker). I was so in love with the voice and the language, I thought it was great. I gave it to my writing group for critique, they spotted places where more information was needed but didn't give any “big picture” comments. So I thought, wow, that was quick: a finished story, and swiftly dispatched it to several competitions.

Read the rest of the blog post here. Does this happen to you too?

Giving up the day job, winning free books and chocolate

Yes, it may seem as though the title to this blog implies that if you give up your day job, many freebies will come your way, but that's deliberately designed to mislead, just so you'll come and read this post. Sorry! So: just a quick roundup:

I was asked by fellow writer and blogger Michelle Teasdale to talk about what it was like to give up my "day job" and become a full time writer, and I have tried to answer as honestly as possible over at her blog.

Now for the free books:

Tom Vowler's running a competition over at How To Write A Novel:

You have to write the best six-word story. Five words will be regarded as woefully short, seven as a rambling epic. And the prize? A signed copy of Lisa Glass’s debut novel, Prince Rupert’s Teardrop. Deadline Oct 31st.

Visit How To Write A Novel to win.


Canongate has very kindly given The Short Review five copies to give away of Rebecca Miller's short story collection, Personal Velocity. Visit the Competitions & Giveaways page and answer the pretty easy question for the chance to win one.

And the chocolate? Head over to Nicola Morgan's excellent blog, Help! I Need a Publisher, who has much Hotel Chocolat chocolate to give away. What to do?:

Flash fiction. A very short story, up to 100 words, which most gorgeously, elegantly, poignantly, creatively, wittily or movingly (or any combination thereof) includes three ingredients in any proportion or combination: chocolate, fear and the written word. Any genre, any age-range. 

Deadline: midday, British time, on October 21st. That's 21st, NOT 31st... 

If you want some inspiration for what to write and you're in or near London, I happened to know that there are a few spots still available on the workshop prize-winning writer Vicky Grut is running on Sat 17th Oct: "The Paper Clock: Handling Narrative Time". Visit London Writing Workshops for more info.

So, free books, chocolate and a workshop. All we need now is for someone to make the tea. Good luck to all!

My Writing Routine

Until the editor of the excellent Branta: the might of write asked if I'd like to contribute a post about my daily writing routine, I didn't think I had one. Then I pondered for a few weeks, observed myself, and discovered that I do! It's all here, and I am a little embarassed by it... I feel I come across as insane! Please go have a look and tell me that I'm not, I'm really not...! Please...

Ritual and Rules?

I have just written 600 words, and it's 11.27 am. For me, that's huge! A good day. And I am thinking about ritual, because on my last day here at Anam Cara I realised that I sort of set up a ritual: breakfast, walk down to the river, sit for a while thinking about what I might write, or thinking about something else and waiting for it to come, it arriving, and going back to my room to write it - and writing it while also playing at least one game of online Scrabble (Wordscraper on Facebook) which helps me not get stuck. (I did this except the day it rained so heavily I couldn't see the garden at all.)

Sounds easy, no? It made me realise that I haven't had a ritual until now. Since we are moving countries in August and I don't know where we will be living, can I come up with one that isn't place-specific? What are your rituals? I'd love to hear what other people do.

And rules, do you have any? Apparently, Rick Moody has 14 of them, as he detailed in a recent interview in Night Train:

1. Omit Needless Words
2. Sacrifice Your Modifiers
3. Consider the Rhythm
4. Replace "To Be" and "To Have"
5. Simplify Tenses
6. Avoid Alliteration
7. Rethink Abstraction
8. Spill Your Parentheses
9. Use Figurative Language Sparingly
10. Engage All Five Senses
11. Cut the Last Sentence*
12. Read the Passage Aloud
13. Put the Draft Away
14. Do The Above Fifteen to Thirty Times

I don't quite understand number 4 - does it mean you can't say "I used to be..." or "I used to have.."? Or that you can't say "I am going..." or "I have done so much"...? Not sure what number 8 means either! read the full and great interview here.

Rituals? Rules? Tell us!

A Poet Too? Maybe.

I've had a lovely week (what day is it today?) travelling around with J, from London to Cambridge, cross country to Cornwall and the gorgeous and organic Bangors B&B which ticked every "perfect B&B" box, from the views to the food, the fabulously friendly proprietors to the 3-week old kittens (missing them terribly). We are now in the Brecon Beacons, which is absolutely stunning, and a surprise is planned for tonight, can't tell you anything about that yet.

Internet access has been sporadic and brief, snatches here and there, but to my delight when I logged on a few days ago, I have had a poem accepted by Contrary magazine, a (paying) online literary journal I greatly admire. This is an enormous thrill, mainly because I have only been writing poetry for a few months and frankly had no idea if I was being utterly presumptious in calling it "poetry" at all. An acceptance by a poetry editor tells me that maybe I am allowed to call it that!

So, a problem. On my website, my tagline is:

"Tania Hershman. I write. Stories."

Well, umm, I have also adapted two of my stories into short plays and one into a radio play. And now... poetry. So, what do I put?

"Tania Hershman. I write. Stories. Poems. Plays adapted from stories."

Not quite so snappy. And if I just put

"Tania Hershman. I write."

it's too general, the easily-distracted surfer visiting sites for a micro-second (yes, I mean me too) might not take the time to find out what it is that I write.

Suggestions please! It's lovely to have this kind of existential dilemma, I never imagined myself writing anything other than short stories. I am really enjoying poetry: I have stopped writing flash fiction in an attempt to wean myself off the instant gratification that comes from writing a complete story in 20 minutes and allowing me to work on longer pieces, but poetry is different, lovely, allowing for something odd to emerge, but not, it appears, interfering with my story-writing in the way that flash did. It's as if I have it in a different compartment, it is a seperate thing. Anyone else feel like this?

Immigrant Writer's Identity Crisis

I went to see the film Defiance last night, which is excellent, I found it very moving. I find most Holocaust-themed works moving, very personal. It's most definitely worth seeing. But before that I sat in the cinema's cafe, having something to eat, and was struck by a kind of revelation which is both quite upsetting and also makes so much sense. I will try and describe it:

I emigrated to Israel from England in 1994. I was 24, had just finished university (including two graduate degrees). I wasn't someone who had grown up in a Jewish family that was very attached to Israel; we were secular, not that interested. But I came here during the summer of 1993 and knew when I touched down that I wanted to move here. It felt like a kind of calling, a gut feeling.

Why? I couldn't have told you at the time, couldn't have explained it. But looking back, I was searching for something, a sense of community, a belonging that I didn't feel in London. And I found it here. For years I was thrilled every morning waking up in Jerusalem. I learned the language quickly, I found work as a science and technology journalist, and I loved my job. I went around the country and interviewed entrepreneurs who had set up little technology start-ups, amazing technologies, excited interviewees who were delighted to speak to me. It was fun! And I was good at it, I loved being freelance, I learned how to make contacts, to get my articles in magazines around the world.

But. But. After a few years that little nagging voice in my head: what about short stories? what about fiction? And slowly I started getting back to it, including a nine-month stint in England to do an MA in Creative Writing which turned me from wannabe writer into pretty-serious-about-this writer. For a long time I tried to do both: journalism and short stories. But then, a week-long Arvon short story course in England with one of my favourite writers, and she says what you always hope an idol will say: You can do this. You're a writer. Give up journalism and do this full time.

Scary. I was terrified. Stepping off into the abyss. It took a year, and then I did it. A few months later (very very quickly!) Salt offered to publish The White Road and Other Stories, and things have never been the same since.

What I realised yesterday was that when I stopped being a journalist, I started withdrawing from the society around me. There was no more reason professionally for me to be "out there", no-one to meet in order to write fiction. It is just me, in my little room. And as I withdrew from society, as this major shift occurred, my "absorption", the word Israelis use for the process a new immigrant goes through, has been slowly reversing. Until the point where I am sitting in a cafe, 15 years later, and I am unsure of my Hebrew. I was fluent. I was totally happy in the language. I felt Israeli. Now I sit here, surrounded by Hebrew-speakers and I feel different. I feel other. I don't feel like I fit in anymore.

I feel like I have re-Britishized myself. After years of trying desperately to be as Israeli as I could - I'm English again. All that effort: gone. And this is a condition particular to someone in a situation like mine: writing in English in a non-English speaking country, without a community of fellow English-speaking authors around me. Hence: immigrant writer's identity crisis.

No wonder I have been anxious. When they say "crisis", it really can be a crisis. Realising what was happening makes me terribly sad. I so wanted to be here, to be part of this society. But something stronger was at work. And I can't write in Hebrew. That's not who I am.

I don't believe that this is the writer's lot wherever she or he is. If I was in an English-speaking country, I would be "out" as a writer as well as "in". I would be out at readings, out teaching fiction, out meeting other writers, others doing what I do.

How ironic that coming here in a search for community has led me, 15 years later, almost right back to where I started, culturally-speaking. I am certainly not going backwards, I am in an entirely different place personally, professionally, in all respects. But I feel as though I have passed through something and have come out the other end and I am not where I expected to be.

Getting sent a book

How great is it when a friend gives you a copy of a book they love and want you to read? This morning I was delighted to receive Welding with Children by Tim Gautreaux, sent by my friend Lisa in the US. I had sent her a signed copy of The White Road & Other Stories, and instead of payment asked if she'd send me a book she loves. This is what she chose. I'd read the title story a few years ago in a short story workshop and been blown away. I am so thrilled to have the book! I get sent review copies all the time, I occasionally buy short story collections myself, but to have a recommendation turn up in my mailbox is the ultimate pleasure.

I will savour it - I have a lot of reading time on my hands now, J has just gone away and I'll be alone for the better (or worse) part of two months. I am open to any other amusements... Of course, I could just get down to some serious writing (should writing be that serious)? There is always the fantasy that if I could be with my characters without mental interruption 24/7, I'd write the magum opus. Right now I am writing poetry, very very short poems, or what I think might be poems. The opposite of quantity. We will see what happens as the time ticks by.

Thinking about Paying Markets

I find as I grow into this writing life, things shift and change, and the latest shift is towards something I have been thinking about for a while: only submitting my stories to literary journals that pay.

Before I carry on, I want to stress that I certainly don't subscribe to the school of thought that submitting to non-paying journals is somehow "giving away your work for free". Not at all. Publication is a vital part of being a writer, especially a writer of short stories, and when you are beginning to send work out, being accepted for publication is extremely important. First, there is the sense that you are not just writing for yourself: one other person - the editor, who is not related to you, who doesn't know you, who isn't invested in your emotional wellbeing - has just told you that they respond to your work. You now have a reader. Then, there is the seeing of your work as part of something bigger, as part of the editor's vision for the journal. And, of course, there is the audience, the readership, others who are now being given the chance to see if they respond to your work. All of this also goes into building your reputation as a writer, getting "out there". To my mind, these things are just as important as monetary payment, if not more so.

Publication builds confidence, allows you to say to yourself "I am a writer", and that will spur you on to write more and submit more and grow more into your writing self. Having a book is one peak of this process, you can now say "I am a published author", and, as someone told me when The White Road & Other Stories came out, no-one can every take this away from you. You will die a published author.

The next stage is when your confidence is such that you don't need to be published to like what you are doing, to know that you are a writer, to know that you will keep on writing. The need here has changed. For me, what I now need is justification for the decision I made two years ago to write full time. I need to know that my writing is a career, is something I can do to support myself. For this, I need to be paid. Even if that payment is nowhere near a salary, whatever it is, I can say "I am being paid for my writing". It now replaces what I was doing before, journalism, as a source of income. I recently was asked to submit flash stories for a series of chapbooks by a new small press. When I heard that they could be previously published stories, and that I would be paid, I was amazed, delighted. Two flash stories were accepted, and I received $50. That may not sound like a lot, but that's real money. That pays part of some bill or other, puts some food on the table. It makes a difference.

Naturally, as for most writers, that source of income will need to be supplemented by others, and, as for many of us, that is teaching. That was another shift for me, another stage: I put myself into a position where I was asking a room full of people to see me as someone experienced, who knows something and has knowledge to impart. Some kind of authority. Doing that for the first time was scary: not only was I asking to be treated as if I had authority, I was getting paid for it. But, after the first session, I felt that I had not only asked and received this, but that I myself felt that it was actually true. I did have something to pass on, something to talk about, and now, four months later, I see how much it enriches my writing life.

So, from now on, it's paid markets only and writing-related paying work. If, as has happened a few times recently, I am asked to submit to a journal that doesn't pay, I will definitely submit, because this is also a shift, being "solicited", and it means something to me. But in a way, it's a relief not to "have" to submit to the many many excellent non-paying journals out there. Keeping track of submissions was driving me a little crazy! Now, my pool is limited. Probably a very good thing. Maybe I will actually get more writing done.

A Room of My Own!

Yay, I finally have a place to write in, a room with a door I can (almost) shut! Yup, I'm in our cellar. (The shed idea didn't pan out, many boring reasons why not. Mainly because Israel ain't really a shed culture.)

Here is the illustrious entrance to my domain:


Bend your head a little, it's a low space...


We've cleared out enough for me to sit in here, but am testing it out before we do the final blitz and really get rid of those old suitcases, boxes of who-the-hell-knows-why-we-need-this and someone else's microphone stand.


I have created a teeny oasis in the midst of all this. I've run a power cord out of the kitchen window and down, not the ideal solution, just temporary.

The one window, which looks out onto the side of the house, just above ground level. The white thing is an oil burner, diffusing rose scent to try and mask the slighty-damp-and-musty fragrance, and doing a great job.


Ok, I'm here now. Guess I should write something. Yup. No more excuses. Ok.

On Blogs, Lemons, Lemonade and Other Things

(Listening to Bring it On by Gomez, perfect blogging soundtrack. Also: all links open new windows, as usual, so feel free to click away!)

I was absolutely delighted to discover last week that I've been awarded a "making lemonade out of life's lemons" blog award by the wonderful poet and writer Carolyn Jess-Cooke who blogs at the Risktaker's Guide to Endorphins. She says of the ten blogs she chose for the award that: "these blogs make me see life with new eyes. They make me laugh, cry, and want to sing/be a better photographer/bake more." Is this not another example of what I talked about in my blog below, the constantly-astonishing kindness of other people who are under no obligation to be this nice? It makes me very happy to know that my blog posts don't make anyone want to tear their hair out but rather might just inspire at least one person to bake more. Thank you Carolyn! I am looking forward to visiting the other nine blogs on her list, eight of which are new to me.

Talking of new blogs, Carolyn has commanded us to share the love by passing on the award to blogs which show a great attitude or gratitude. I want to do something a little different and welcome several new blogs to the blogsphere instead, with the potential to do something very interesting with lemons!

• Annie Clarkson, a long time MySpace blog veteran, has finally arrived in the outside blog world with Forgetting the Time, thankfully enabling us to follow her blog posts without all that complicated MySpace sign-in and stuff. The purpose of Forgetting the Time, says Annie, a poet and short story writer (whose beautiful collection, Winter Hands, I reviewed on The Short Review) is " notes and reviews on writing, inspiration and how to get lost in words". Her latest blog post talks about the film The Lives of Others, and in particular how it explored the situation for artists and writers in Communist Europe.

• Writer Tom Vowler has just received an Arts Council grant to write his second novel, and has set up the How to Write a Novel blog to document his process (0 words out of 90,000 so far!). He says of the blog: "Come see the novel writing process stripped bare. From flashing cursor on a blank page to pitch and publication. Follow the highs, the lows; the twists and turns; the agony and (occasional) ecstasy. Read extracts. Offer feedback. 'Write a bad short story and you've wasted two weeks; write a bad novel, you've wasted two years.' I've no idea who said this but it's worth dwelling on. Book reviews, interviews and other literary topics too." His latest blog post describes, with beautiful photo, how his research took him into the woods in Dartmoor. And a nearby pub. For research. Hmm.

• My good friend Devorah Blachor, writer and mother of toddler Cai, has always been a great cook. The Eco-Baby Cookbook is an ever-growing collection of her recipes using every ingredient including leftovers. She says: "On this page, I'll share ideas about how to cook for babies and adults in one go. Using every ingredient so that nothing gets wasted, this blog minimizes time in the kitchen while maximizing your menu."Let's just say that Fettucine with Caper and Chicken Ragu ain't just for small mouths. Her latest post is a recipe for Caprese Rice with Canneloni Beans. And there are pictures. Mmmmmmm.

• I stumbled upon Pippa Goldschmidt's blog The Write Reality when I followed a link to a short story competition being run by the Genomics Forum. Pippa began a stint as writer-in-residence at the forum a few months ago, and says of her blog: "I'm interested in musing on the relationship between fiction and science." What can I say, a woman after my own heart! Her latest blog post muses on the concept of time in science and in fiction. Thought-provoking stuff.

All these blogs and more are in my blogroll to the left. I know, I know, so much to read and so little time!

Quick me time: Thanks to Lee Rourke over at his Scarecrow Comment blog for this:

This is a pic of a Waterstone's branch and their featured short story section: Lee's new collection, Everyday, (which we will be reviewing shortly on The Short Review) is on the right hand side, third row from the bottom. And it is accompanied by not one but two copies of The White Road and Other Stories (temporarily out of stock again in the UK, which is why the Amazon widget to the right is offering it for £40 (!!!) - next print run underway).

I can also spot Vanessa's fabulous Words from a Glass Bubble, Clare Wigfall's excellent The Loudest Sound and Nothing, Ali Smith's The First Person and Other Stories (review coming soon), the Bristol Short Story Prize anthology, Alison MacLoed's amazing Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction, Neil Smith's Bang Crunch (on my to-read shelf) and collections by William Trevor and Katherine Mansfield. A Waterstone's with great taste!

Routine inquiries: what goes into a writing 'process'?

A very timely blog on the Guardian today made me laugh and added to my sense that a writing routine, especially for a short story writer, doesn't really work. Now this is a great idea:

The best thing I discovered was the fake commute, recommended by a (non-famous) writer friend: aping one of his own heroes, he gets up every morning, gets dressed, walks around the block several times, and goes home to work. I have adapted this practice by riding my bicycle in a circuitous route through rush-hour traffic, which makes me feel much more serious when I return to write at the table where I've just had breakfast.

Routine inquiries: what goes into a writing 'process'? | Books | guardian.co.uk

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Ok, can't wait any more, I have to blog about this

This blog is about all things writerly, and it's the way I deal with the things that happen to me as part of the writing life. So I have to write about this, even though there are things I can't talk about yet, because this is definitely part of the writing life and definitely something I didn't find so easy to deal with. Alrighty, here goes:

Over a 24-hour period at the beginning of this week, I won three prizes in three short story competitions.

Crazy.

Unbelievable.

I won third prize in the Momaya comp, 2nd prize in the Vignette Press short story comp, which they haven't announced yet, and 1st prize in a comp whose details I am not allowed to share until November.

I got the email about Vignette Press on Monday morning and I was delighted. That and Momaya are for the same story - Drinking Vodka in the Afternoon, which was broadcast on Radio 4 last year. Funnily enough, just the day before (honest, this isn't poetic license) when i discovered that Drinking Vodka hadn't got anywhere in this other comp, I said to myself, Well, it's a nice story, it's gentle, no fireworks, it's just not a winning story.

The universe said something else.

When I popped to the Momaya site later that day just to see if they had announced - and assuming that had i got anywhere they would have let me know - my heart almost stopped when I saw my name. I was stunned. I couldn't believe it. All in one day. Amazing.

Then, the next morning, when I got the email about the 1st prize for a 600-word story that I wrote a few months ago in my writing group, I was literally blown away. I think my body went into shock. I couldn't do anything, had to watch crap TV and eat chocolate. I wasn't elated, I was confused. I kept thinking, But that story... how could it have...? How could they...?

I have told a few people and they say I should be delighted, I have to celebrate, but I am at a loss for how to celebrate. I don't know how to celebrate - I don't drink, what should I do? I think if it had all been spaced out a little more, I could have taken it in, slowly. But it has thrown me - am I becoming one of those "prize-winning" writers that you hear about? But... but..

Stop whinging. It's ridiculous to whinge about this. I am totally ashamed at my reaction. But if I can't do it here, where can I do it? I wasn't expecting this, I didn't think I needed it - the universe whacking me on the head with a frying pan and saying, Girl, you are on the right track. I thought I was doing ok. Ok, is good. Ok is safe. Now I have to shift my thinking, shift gears or something.

I will close on the ecstatic note I should be hitting - it's GREAT in terms of publicity for my book, GREAT in terms of the money which will pay for my travel to the La Muse retreat GREAT because Drinking Vodka is the first Mary Margaret story and part of my project for the writing retreat is to keep writing about her and this gives me a fabulous push, GREAT because the 600-word story will be in the flash collection I am working on so that gives that a push too.

Great. It really is great. There's obviously something wrong with me because I am not jumping up and down. Jump. Jump!