Grace Dieu Writers’ Circle Short Story Comp

The Grace Dieu Writers’ Circle 2012 Short Story Competition is open for tales of up to 2,000 words on any topic. 

There are quite a few prizes up for grabs here.



Prizes:
1st - £500 
2nd - £200 
3rd -  £100 
4th - £75 
5th - £50

Entry fee is £5 for one story and £3 for each additition entry.

Closing date is 28 February 2012. 

Full entry details and a downloadable entry form on the website.
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Trevor Forest Book Giveaway

I’m kicking off the 2012 Author Interviews with a chat and book giveaway from Trevor Forest (known also as Trevor Belshaw to his friends and various Nottingham authorities).

Trevor has stepped forward with only the slightest of shoves in the back and is offering one lucky Writers’ Checklist reader the chance to get their hands on a signed copy of his latest children’s book Stanley Stickle Hates Homework.

To be in with a chance of winning Trevor’s book just leave a comment telling us your own best excuse for not handing in that homework and we'll pick the most inventive.

Competition is open until Sunday 15 January 2012

 

Trevor, tell us (in no more than 20 words!) what Stanley Stickle Hates Homework is all about.

Stanley doesn’t like homework and he’ll do anything to get out of it. Literally anything, even if it involves Girls.

Your previous children’s books have been aimed at girls. Was it a conscious decision to write one for boys this time around?

I think Stanley can be read by both boys and girls. In fact, the lovely feedback I’ve had so far has been mainly from girls. I did take a conscious decision to create a male lead character after the reading coordinator at a local school asked me if I had written anything that would attract boys, especially reluctant readers. She said the book would need to be quite short, and really funny. Well, it is short… and hopefully funny. That’s for others to decide.

Did you have the complete plot mapped out before you began writing?

Yes and no. I try to work out the main idea in my head before writing anything down. Once I do start, it takes on a life of its own and I just let it take me anywhere it wants to take me within reason. I do try to keep within certain parameters these days. I’m not one for forming character lists and back stories. In a new book I like the characters to be as fresh to me as they are to the reader. As the series goes on I will probably have to be a little more careful to keep them consistent, but with a new book I just like to let them speak to me.

The kissing scene wasn’t planned at all really. I think it popped into my head one evening when I was eating chili and rice. I burst out laughing, spat the mouthful I was eating over the dog and I had to run to the computer to get it down while it was fresh in my mind. The dog didn’t mind. She likes chili and got to have the rest of the bowl while I was out of the room.

How do you choose your character’s names and why hasn’t there been a super-heroine called Maureen?

I tend to go for older or quite obscure names for my characters so Maureen might appear as a super heroine one day. I have a favourite web page with lists of old-fashioned names on it. If I can’t find one there I’ll try one of the numerous baby names websites. I always end up with three or four possibilities. Peggy Larkin was the only one that sprang directly to mind when I was working out the initial plot. It just seemed to fit the time I was writing about.

Faylinn Frost was an amazing find. I was writing about a frozen fairy kingdom and happened to look at a Gaelic dictionary of girl’s names to try to find something that might fit. Fairies are big in Celtic legend. Faylinn was in there. The name means Fairy Kingdom. All I had to add was the word frost and I had a character’s name that translated to Cold Fairy Kingdom, which is exactly what the book is about. 

Stanley Stickle started out as Godfrey Good, but I was never really happy with it so I gave a few of my author friends a multiple choice question on Twitter and Stanley was the name that came out top. He was very nearly Stanley Stickley though.

Did you also hate homework and what was your most inventive excuse for not doing it?

I wasn’t a big fan. I once said I’d dropped my English composition book in the fish tank and I daren’t put my hand in to get it out in case I was electrocuted. That didn’t work. I got an extra dollop of English homework, a lecture on looking after school property, an hour’s detention and I had to pay for a new book out of my pocket money. 

After that excuse, I couldn’t really take a dog-eared, but perfectly dry book back to school. We didn’t have a fish tank anyway. We had a goldfish bowl with a miracle fish in it; a fairground prize that survived for more than a week.

The book is hugely funny – you must laugh a lot while you’re writing. Do your neighbours wonder what you’re getting up to?

My wife does sometimes. But she mostly just shakes her head and lets me get on with it. I do laugh a lot when I’m writing. I know it’s said that you shouldn’t laugh at your own jokes but I have never let that stop me. The more ridiculous the scene, the louder I laugh. I have to stop myself pushing the scene to the limit. I’d still laugh but it might be a bit over the top for readers.

You also write for adults. How difficult is it to switch from that to children’s writing?

It’s a different mindset. When I write for children, I try to put myself in the middle of the action. I try to remember what it was like inside my ten-year-old head. It’s a strange place to be, believe me. From there it’s not too hard to come back. I just need to make a strong cup of coffee and shake my head a few times to clear the chaos of my juvenile thoughts. When I write for adults, I’m never part of the scene. I’m just directing it.

Did you have a clear picture in your mind of what Stanley looked like before your cover artist came up with the final design?

Not really. All my covers come directly from Marie’s imagination. (Marie Fullerton) I only give her basics like age, height, etc. She reads the book and comes up with the artwork. She’s brilliant. I did say I wanted thick curly hair for Magic Molly but that was the only time I’ve been that specific.

Apart from Stanley, who’s your favorite character in the book?

Soppy Sonia. She was so much fun to write. I laughed all the way through that chapter. (Once I’d finished choking on the mouthful of chili and rice.) She’ll be back in future books for sure.

So, there are going to be more Stanley Stickle adventures?

The next two are in my head, mapped out in general terms. The follow up will be called Stanley Stickle Does Not Have A Girlfriend. It will tell of Stanley’s struggles to rid himself of the limpet-like Soppy Sonia. It will be a huge struggle too and he’ll need a few more of his cunning plans to achieve his aim.

The third book will be called Stanley Stickle On Stage, or something like that. It will tell how Stanley gets roped into appearing in the school production of Oliver and his desperate attempts to be thrown off the project.

I’m not sure which one will be written first as I have more ideas for the third book than the second at the moment. But they’ll appear in order, hopefully this year.
 

Trevor Forest lives in Nottingham. 

A published author and poet, he writes articles and fiction as T. A. Belshaw and his hilarious book Tracy's Hot Mail is to be published later this month with Crooked {Cat} Publishing.

WEBSITE

Trevor's Amazon page HERE

Buy Trevor's books in print HERE

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Revisiting Characters - guest post from David Robinson

David Robinson is a popular author with several book series under his belt – though his wife insists the resultant bulge is due to an excess of pork pies and real ale.

How difficult is it to bring back characters from previous books? Today I’ve invited David to reveal all to the readers of Writers’ Checklist.

People say to me, “It must be easy working with the same characters in title after title. You don’t need to go into great detail describing them or fleshing out their history because you did it all in the first book.”

Not entirely true, but it’s a valid point. That’s the upside.

The downside is the propensity for making mistakes. I published the first Spookies title in 2007 with Virtual Tales. In The Haunting at Melmerby Manor, Sceptre was 27 years old. I self-published The Man In Black in 2009 and in it, Sceptre was 26 years old. When I finally put the two together in the Spookies Compendium, I corrected the error.

Usually, when I write a novel, I set up a spreadsheet containing all the information regarding the characters. Once the novel is published, the spreadsheet along with all the early drafts is sent to the recycle bin and in the natural course of events, it’s cleared out.

But I can’t do that with series. I have to maintain a master sheet, and the amount of information is much more detailed. If I have character X smoking his head off in Book 1, I can’t say he’s never touched a cigarette in Book 3. If she divorced her philandering husband in Book 2, I can’t have her weeping over his recent death after years of happy marriage in Book 4.

There are other things I need to note, too. One character in my novel, Voices, had a habit of pausing with the muttered “–ah–”. If he reappears in later tales, it’s vital that I include this little foible.

There’s also a level of frustration. You get to book 4 and think, “why couldn’t I have written Joe as a six foot hunk?” But it’s too late. He’s five feet six inches of skin and bone and that is what I have to work with.

This process has to be the author’s responsibility. Maureen does a marvellous job of editing and tidying up my crap typing, but I can’t expect her to maintain in-depth character profiles from every piece I write. 

And yet, having said that, it’s a tribute to Maureen’s skills that in the latest piece, she picked up on something I’d missed. When discussing Joe, I said that in his younger days, he wanted to be a cop but his father stopped him. Maureen pointed out that Joe could never have been a police officer. When he was a young man there was a height restriction (5’8” I believe) and Joe is only 5’6”.

Now that’s what I call attention to detail.

Working with the same characters is fun and there is a challenge in having them tackle different situations, but in many ways it’s more complex than producing stand alone stories.

It’s still early in the New Year, and it’s some time since I last guest posted on Maureen’s blog, so may I take this opportunity to thank her for allowing me the platform, and to wish Maureen and all her readers the very best for 2012. May all your dreams come to pass.

David's bio

David lives and works as a novelist on the northeast outskirts of Manchester, England. He is a prolific author, having produced works in cosy crime, psycho-horror, sci-fi and humour. 

The latest book in his popular whodunit series starring the members of the Sanford 3rd Age Club is  A Murder for Christmas You can read free samples chapters of David’s books HERE.

David's website.

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My short story on CaféLit

 My story at:

 

The Creative Café Project 

  

A little while before Christmas, the good folk at CaféLit accepted a short story of mine. It's called Frozen in Time and I'm very pleased to have it featured on their website. 
 

For anyone who doesn't know, CaféLit is the ezine of the Creative Café Project and aims to promote writing by both up-and-coming and established authors. They look for thought-provoking stories that are just the right length to accompany a cup of coffee - so generally no longer than 3,000 words.

Further details and submission guidelines can be found HERE

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WRITELINKERS Christmas Magazine 2011

Packed with Yuletide fun and frolics, this will be the third year running I've been involved as a co-editor of this publication.

The content - stories, poems, nostalgia, recipes - is the work of Writelink members, a community of writers at every stage along the writers' path. And it's free for everyone to read!

My co-eds this year were David Robinson and Laurie Clayton - talented writers, both. At times it was hard work getting it all together, but, as always, it was huge fun. Thanks guys. And many thanks to all the Writelink members who entrusted us with their work.

Open publication - Free publishing - More articles

Or if you prefer, you can download it as a pdf by clicking HERE.

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Changes - a guest post from author David Robinson

Prolific author and good friend, David Robinson, has taken time out from his busy schedule to provide Writers’ Checklist with an astute guest post. Here he shares his views on the consequences of being a little too precious with our prose. 

Here’s one of my favourite old jokes. I received two emails. One from my publisher, the other from my wife.

Publisher: I need changes to page 210.

Wife: I’m leaving you for the bloke across the street. We’re going to live in Rotherham.

Here are my responses:

Publisher: That page is the crux of the tale. I’ll not change a single word. If you don’t like it, I’ll pull it and you can stick your advance where the sun doesn’t shine.

Wife: Rotherham?

That bit of nonsense hides a conundrum for the writer (as well as marriage guidance counsellors). When you’re asked to change something, do you or don’t you?

For my sins, along with Maureen and another friend, Laurie Clayton, I co-edit a magazine on a writer’s community, and we recently got into a bit of a spat with a writer who objected to changes we requested. I’m not going to go into great detail here. It was all a storm in a teacup and eventually it blew over. No one is suggesting the author was wrong, but is there anything we can learn from it?

Some authors are fearfully protective of their work, others, and amongst this number I include myself, are happy to go along with editorial suggestions, as long as they make sense. Copyright, as we all know, is vested in the writer. Any piece, even a 100-word filler, is the intellectual property of the author, and it cannot be reworded or changed without permission. If changes are suggested and the writer says, “No” then that is the end of the matter.

But hold on.

As a writer, how badly do you want to see your work in print? If you’re asked for changes and you refuse, you leave the editor with only one option. Rejection. If you don’t see the need for the change, you can, of course, negotiate, but if the editor sticks to his/her guns, then you will be rejected.

You have to ask yourself, why were you asked to change it? Does the change make more sense than your original? Does the change affect the underlying message? Does it make you appear more or less erudite, and if so, is that a reflection of the magazine’s/book’s potential audience.

The underlying theme here is, if you want to see your work in print, then don’t be too protective of it. Be prepared to give a little ground. Be ready to accept changes. By all means challenge them if you feel they’re unjustified, but even so, prepare to back down if you have to.

As an example, about 4 years ago, I published a paperback novel through a US imprint. We all know there are major differences between English in the USA and English in Great Britain, and it’s not just about spelling. Amongst the numerous changes the editor asked for was the phrase, “ticked off”. If you are ticked off in Great Britain, it means you’ve been scolded. If you are “ticked off” in the USA, it means you are mildly annoyed.

The character at the core of this passage was an English aristocrat, and “ticked off” would accurately describe matters from her point of view. Did I change it? You bet I did. Publishing that novel was more important to me than those two words.

Not all changes are so simple or clear cut, but ultimately, it’s up to you, the author, to decide how much you want to protect your prose.

And what about editors? My advice is simple. If you have a piece which is borderline and you really want it, ensure that the changes you want are valid and you can justify them. Don’t make changes for the sake of change or for the sake of wielding power.

David Robinson lives and works as a novelist on the northeast outskirts of Manchester, England. He is a prolific author, having produced works in cosy crime, psycho-horror, sci-fi and humour. 

The latest book in his popular whodunit series starring the members of the Sanford 3rd Age Club is A Murder for Christmas

You can read free samples chapters of David’s books HERE.

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