Advice from Ian Fleming

You will be constantly depressed by the progress of the opus and feel it is all nonsense and that nobody will be interested. Those are the moments when you must all the more obstinately stick to your schedule and do your daily stint...Never mind about the brilliant phrase or the golden word; once the typescript is there you can fiddle, correct and embelish as much as you please. Don't be depressed if the first draft seems a bit raw, all first drafts do. Try and remember the weather and smells and sensations and pile in every kind of contemporary detail. Don't let anyone see the manuscript until you are very well on with it and above all, don't allow anything to interfere with your routine. Don't worry about what you put it, it can always be cut on re-reading; it's the total recall that matters.

So, get through the first draft to the end, trying to ignore your inner critic
Stick to a schedule (1,000 words a day, whatever)
Use the senses
Don't share early on

More on Bookmooch

Following on from my previous posting about the books most available to mooch, here are the books most people want.

Top of the list, a book I have just finished and really did not rate, A Thousand Splendid Suns. Emotionally manipulative, not terribly well written and slap on the misery with a trowel. Not my cup of chai. Though others love it. Very Book club material. I did love the bit about Titanic.

The one I really, really want to read is Joshua Ferris - Then We Came to the End because I have worked, still work, in an office and have never managed to capture the culture, the humour and the back stabbing that (can) goes on there.

Who is Stephanie Meyer?

Khaled Hosseini A Thousand Splendid Suns 473 0
Michael Pollan Omnivore's Dilemma 400 0
Frank Warren PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives 369 0
Elizabeth Gilbert Eat Pray Love 354 0
Barbara Kingsolver Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life 346 0
Alan Weisman The World Without Us 337 0
Michael Pollan In Defense Of Food 326 0
Stephenie Meyer Twilight (Twilight, Book 1) 315 0
Stephenie Meyer New Moon (Twilight, Book 2) 301 0
Stephen Colbert I Am America (And So Can You!) 295 0
Frank Warren The Secret Lives of Men and Women: A PostSecret Book 291 0
Christopher Hitchens God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything 286 0
Greg Mortenson Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time 282 0
Stephenie Meyer Eclipse (Twilight, Book 3) 280 0
Cormac McCarthy The Road (Oprah's Book Club) 280 0
Conn Iggulden The Dangerous Book for Boys 275 0
Frank Warren My Secret: A PostSecret Book 272 0
Amy Sedaris I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence 272 0
Michael Chabon The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel 268 0
Joshua Ferris Then We Came to the End: A Novel 263 0

Again, very US based I think.

5 books I'm afraid to re-read

Having read this interesting article, I was thinking about 5 books I'm afraid to re-read, because I loved them so much the first time through.

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.
I was convinced I was fated to marry a monied, older man. And do a better job of it than the somewhat wimpy heroine of this book.

The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles. Also The Magus. Convoluted, self-aware, lush writing.

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. I'm detecting an adolescent thing going on here. I loved the strangeness and warpedness of this book.

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. I'm scared to re-read this. I lapped up the romanticism but will Hemingway's writing and general misogeny get in the way of a good story now?

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa. I loved the interspersion of a more and more outlandish radio soap opera but maybe I wouldn't like it now.

Seán O Faoláin Short Story Prize

The annual Seán O Faoláin Short Story competition is open for business:

Prizes: 1,500 euros, 500 euros, 4x100 Euros and publication in Southword.
3,000 words or fewer
Fee: 10 euro or £10
Deadline: 31 July 2008
Send to: The Munster Literature Centre, Frank O'Connor House, 84 Douglas Street, Cork
or email and pay by Paypal as per the website.
Judge: Nuala Ní Chonchúir

and Nuala kindly tells us what she's looking for and what she doesn't want to read. She reads every entry too so keep her busy and send it EARLY

Poetry Workshops and how to survive them

Apparently I've been participating in poetry workshops and writing groups all wrong. Read it and buff up your critical skills!

More UK Literary Magazines #1

Here is a first selection of poetry magazines accepting submissions in the UK.

Generally submissions are by snail mail. Many magazines will respond by email. And all recommend you buy a copy of their magazine first, not only to get a feel for the type of poem they prefer, but also to support the poetry magazine industry.

Acumen Poetry publishes poetry. They chose about 50 from a submission of 3,000 or so. They look for poems which "says something which is not trivial, not obvious, doesn't use outworn images or diction, and which works at many levels simultaneously." Snail mail only.

Agenda Poetry is a long established poetry magazine. They look for "Poems that are deeply felt and well-crafted." Send up to 6 poems. Snail mail only.

What kind of work the Editor looks for:

Poems that are deeply felt and well-crafted

What kind of work the Editor would like to see less of:

Oversentimental, cliché-ridden poetry; poetry with dumdidum rhymes that boss the poet into using particular words just for the sake of the pat rhymes; poetry that is badly crafted and too prosaic, and poetry that does not come from the heart.

Ambit is looking for poetry and short stories that provoke. Snail Mail only. 3-4 months for a response.

HERE ARE A FEW CLASSIC POEMS THAT DON’T GET ACCEPTED
Parochial, I’ve-got-no-money ‘bed-sitter’ poems; self-consciously poetic this-is-a-poem poems; poems by people who really want to be Keats or Wordsworth; poems about what it is to write a poem, or worse, what it is NOT to be able to write one; that-man-or-woman-done-me-over poems; sweeping generalization poems - life, death and why we are here, what’s- it-all-about? poems; the use of clichés like ‘sweeping generalizations’… oh and avoid 'shards', 'abysses' and 'iridescence'.

(Makes me want to write a poem using shards, abyss and iridesence!)

Poems submitted to Anon are reviewed anonymously. Response time is up to three months. Submit up to 3 poems. Snailmail only.

90% of submissions are free verse, so we would like to see more formal verse submissions, and more submissions of the interesting stuff that lies in-between free verse and formal verse. But since all types of poetry can be the vehicle for good work and poor work, perhaps it would be more fruitful to think about content. We would like to see more poems with original content, and more poems that treat classic subject matter innovatively. We are interested in finding poems that have reasons to exist: substantial content, explored in memorable language that is handled with skill and originality, structured in poems that have a beginning, a middle and an end. A twist somewhere along the way wouldn't go amiss.

Brittle Star accept poetry and short stories up to 1,200 words. Response within 6 weeks of submissino deadline. Prefer submissions by post.

Cadenza looks for short stories via their competition only and Poetry submissions in April/May and October/November. They look for "crackling, vibrant work and who aren't afraid to take risks. Inventive use of language is important, as are original, arresting characters." Email submissions.

Chapman has a focus on Scotland. They accept short stories and poetry. Send between 4 and 10 poems. Fiction any length. Pay around £8 per page. Snail mail only.

The New Welsh Review focuses on writing in Wales (funnily enough.) They pay for short stories and poems. Response within 3 months. Snail Mail only.

The New Writer Magazine accepts short stories from prize winners and subscribers only and poetry that "provide a good use of language, offering challenging imagery." Snail Mail only.

Scribble publishes short stories no more than 3,000 words. Fee for non-subscribers. Snail Mail only.

Stand Magazine is a long established literary magazine accepting poetry and short stories. Pays on publication. Snail Mail only.

BookMooch

Anyone else use bookmooch? Perfect for people who cannot bear to throw books out, give them away and receive other ones in their place. It's like a present through the post from strangers. You put up a list of books you're never going to read again (you know you have them) at least 10. And a wishlist of books you would like. And see if you get any matches.

The list of most mooched books is interesting.

Kim Edwards The Memory Keeper's Daughter 857 1
Khaled Hosseini The Kite Runner 641 0
Sue Monk Kidd The Secret Life of Bees 477 10
Mark Haddon The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Vintage Contemporaries) 474 1
Gregory Maguire Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West 423 0
Yann Martel Life of Pi 418 0
Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper: A Novel 380 0
Azar Nafisi Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books 321 1
David Sedaris Me Talk Pretty One Day 320 0
James Frey A Million Little Pieces 311 96
Jeffrey Eugenides Middlesex: A Novel 303 0
Anita Diamant The Red Tent: A Novel (Bestselling Backlist) 292 0
Philippa Gregory The Other Boleyn Girl 274 0
Erik Larson The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (Vintage) 264 0
Elizabeth Gilbert Eat Pray Love 260 0
Dave Eggers A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Vintage) 249 0
Barbara Ehrenreich Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America 248 0
George Orwell 1984 229 0
Lisa See Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel 223 0
John Grogan Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog 208 0

I think the numbers are biased towards US mooches. I wonder what it would look like for Europe/UK/Ireland?