I am in a good mood today. This has nothing to do with post-election euphoria, that's certainly not it - the politics here right now are rather too closely resembling Israel's political system for my liking and the results were not what I would want. But that aside, it's been a great week - I've come up with a Big Idea, as I mentioned in the previous post, and - while a little nervous about how to do it, and worried that maybe someone else has already done it - I seem to have found no evidence that it's been done. And, as several lovely Twitter pals assured me, I'll do it in my own unique way so not to worry. I also mentioned it to the researchers in the lab and they didn't think it was lame - and then I spent a fascinating afternoon watching a scanning electron microscope in use, just amazing!
I am also in a good mood because yesterday we had one of our 24-hour flash writing "blastettes" on the online writing group I belong to. Someone compiles 24 sets of prompts and posts one set every hour. Whenever you have time, you open a set of prompts, write for 20 minutes or so, then post up your first draft anonymously. I hadn't written anything for weeks. (Well, I did write together with the students I did a reading for at Bath Spa University last week - nearly scuppered by a sore throat but thankfully all was well - but that was it.) I wrote 5 stories yesterday. Or 5 somethings. And I felt - as I have said here before - much, much better. Healthier. Saner. More energetic. I had been having very colourful dreams, and I think perhaps that was because I hadn't been giving my imagination its regular outlet, in fiction!
I went in to the Nanoscience and Quantum Information Centre, my base of operations for my writer-in-residence, and for the first time I used my desk and wrote there. It was great. No infiltration of nanoscience into what I wrote, but it is nice to have somewhere else to go. And... on my way out I noticed a poster advertising an upcoming event, in July, with a visiting speaker from Harvard, which is directly related to my Big Idea. Made me feel, once again, that something mystical is happening, that this is definitely the right thing to be doing.
This morning was thrilling too, despite having to get up at - gasp! - 7.30am. I went to an induction day for the
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) Ambassadors scheme, which sends scientists into schools to get students excited about science. I was the only writer there and I hope I might be able to do something combining English class with science! Many, many ideas whirring around my mind...
Ok, now on to the second part of the blog post. We had our first Bristol Short Story Prize judges'** meeting a week ago, it was lovely to meet
the other judges. And we are now in possession of the longlisted stories. All is strictly anonymous, I am not going to say anything at all about specific stories, of course. I am enjoying quite a number of them, some have even made me laugh out loud, which is a rare thing for me. But.
But. Since I am judging another comp, the
Sean O'Faolain, which is still open to submissions, then it might be worth your while to take heed of this next bit. I am sure all those in the same position as me would stress this.
CHECK YOUR SPELLING AND PUNCTUATION!
I am going to repeat this just to hammer it home.
CHECK YOUR SPELLING AND PUNCTUATION!
If you don't know what this means -
ASK SOMEONE ELSE TO READ YOUR STORY AND CHECK FOR YOU.
There is nothing, nothing, that puts me off more than a spelling mistake in the first line of a story. And if there are then mistakes all the way through:
YOUR instead of YOU'RE
THERE instead of THEIR
do you think I will be focussing on how imaginative your plot is, how compelling your characters? No, I will be gnashing my teeth. Pulling my hair out. Shouting at the cat.
The odd missing comma, I can forgive that. A paragraph not indented bugs me a little but if I am swept away by everything else, I can get past that too. But when it is constant - commas not where they should be, and many of them in places they don't belong, spelling mistakes far too often - then you've missed your chance with me, I'm afraid. A literary magazine editor would not be so patient either, I imagine. A good editor will spot a few typos, glitches. But anything more than that and this is just sloppy, this gives the impression that you didn't care enough to check.
I have just realised that I sound like the worst kind of English teacher. I'm sorry, but I don't care. I pick up every story and what I say as I begin is: "Wow me." You cannot go wrong by asking several friends to read your story, checking and re-checking. Don't lose the chance of your otherwise fabulous story not even being read just because you didn't bother. I am waiting to be wowed. Don't let me down.
**ADDENDUM: I just want to make it clear that this is in no way a comment on those fabulous folk who read and compiled the Bristol Short Story Prize longlist. This is just me venting about something that has struck me from all the reading of short stories I've been doing over the last few months, for Southword and others. I am one of those very picky punctuation people, an "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" kind of nerd, and this is what gets in the way of my particular reading experience!
