Words with JAM October 2012 by Words with JAM

Sticky, but not in a bad way

David Mitchell talks about characters, language, adaptation and Transferrable Reality Concreteness Let’s spot the Con in Concept with Derek Duggan

JD Smith and Gillian Hamer interview

author of ‘V’ is for Vengeance, Sue Grafton

Striptease with Emily Bronte Critical Reading with Sarah Bower

Marketing Books Lorraine Mace chats to Lija Kresowaty (marketing campaigns for Penguin) and Lexi Revellian (self-published author) for tips on marketing

RRP £5.50

October | November 2012

www.wordswithjam.co.uk

60 Second Interviews with A.D. Miller and Jojo Moyes

Scrivener

for Mac OS X and Windows

Windo w versions out no w!

Scrivener is an award-winning word processor and project management tool created specifically for writers of long texts such as novels and research papers. It won’t try to tell you how to write - it just makes all the tools you have scattered around your desk available in one application. Scrivener provides powerful utilities for getting your words onto the page and finding the structure that suits the needs of your project. Outline and organise, take notes, view research as you write; dynamically combine multiple scenes into a single text just to see how they fit. Scrivener has already been enthusiastically adopted by best-selling novelists and novices alike - whatever you write, grow your ideas in style.

“Finally a true word processor for authors has arrived.” - David Hewson, author of the best-selling Nic Costa series of novels

“As a writer’s application, Scrivener is near perfect.” - Neil Cross, best-selling author of Burial and screenwriter for Luther

“The biggest software advance for writers since the word processor.” - Michael Marshall Smith, best-selling author of Spares and The Straw Men

20% discount coupon code: ‘WORDSWITHJAM’ Free 30 day trial available for download on both Windows and Mac OS X

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php 2 | Random Stuff

Contents PRINT ISSUE EXCLUSIVES 26

Centrefold Poster: Writers can save themselves whole descriptions just by choosing the right words - David Mitchell, 2012

The Wave - a short story by Susan Oke

Random stuff 5

Editor’s Desk

Writing the Landscape by Catriona Troth

Let’s Spot the Con in Concept by Derek Duggan

British Literature - discuss ... by Anne Stormont

Book v Television: Sophie Hannah, reviewed by Gillian Hamer

Sue Grafton, author of ‘V’ IS FOR VENGEANCE, an interview by JD Smith and Gillian Hamer

15 David Mitchell, talks exclusively to JJ Marsh about the cinematic adaptation of Cloud Atlas, language significance, redeeming literature and his theory of Transferrable Reality Concreteness. 18

The M1 Gene by Judith Field

Library Campaigns: A View from the Crow’s Nest by Catriona Troth, The Library Cat

Lashings of Ginger Beer - Procrastinating with Perry Iles

60 Second Interviews with A.D. Miller and Jojo Moyes

Quite Short Stories 28

EXCLUSIVE PRINT ISSUE CONTENT:The Wave - a short story by Susan Oke

Words by Maureen Bowden

Competitions 33

WWJ BIGGER Short Story Competition details

Comp Corner - be in with a chance to win a copy of Hand-Knitted Electricity

Pencilbox 36

The Agent’s View with Andrew Lownie

Writing Social Media by Dan Holloway

Striptease with Emily Bronte: Critical Reading with Sarah Bower

Cornerstones Mini Masterclass, with Kathryn Price

Scripts: The Writer’s Journey - by Ola Zaltin

Marketing Books - Lorraine Mace chats to Lija Kresowaty, who works on media marketing campaigns for Penguin Books, and Lexi Revellian, successful selfpublished author, for some tips on marketing

Beers for Breakfast, Guns for Dinner by Ola Zaltin

Question Corner - Lorraine Mace answers your questions on writing

Some other stuff 46

What We Think of Some Books

The Rumour Mill - sorting the bags of truth from the bags of shite

Guess the Book

Crossword

Dear Ed - Letters of the satirical variety

Horoscopes - by Shameless Charlatan Druid Keith

The Team

Sarah Bower is the author of two historical novels, THE NEEDLE IN THE BLOOD and THE BOOK OF LOVE (published as SINS OF THE HOUSE OF BORGIA in the US). She has also published short stories in QWF, The Yellow Room, and Spiked among others. She has a creative writing MA from the University of East Anglia where she now teaches. She also teaches creative writing for the Open University. Sarah was born in Yorkshire and now lives in Suffolk. Sheila Bugler won a place on the 2008 Apprenticeships in Fiction programme. Whilst publishers debate her first novel, she is working on her second novel and spending way too much time indulging her unhealthy interest in synopsiswriting. Helen Corner founder of Cornerstones Literary Consultancy and co-author of Write a Blockbuster. Derek Duggan is a graduate of The Samuel Beckett Centre for Theatre Studies at Trinity College Dublin. He lives in Spain with his wife and children and is not a tobogganist. Danny Gillan’s award-winning Will You Love Me Tomorrow was described as one of the best debut novels of 2008. Now, for entirely cash related reasons, Danny’s novel Scratch is available for Kindle readers (‘users’ sounds a bit druggy). It’s so funny it’s made people accidentally wee, apparently. Really, actually wee in their pants. True story..www.dannygillan.co.uk Gillian Hamer is a full time company director and part time novelist. She divides her time between the industrial Midlands and the wilds of Anglesey, where she spends far too much time dreaming about becoming the next Agatha Christie. http://gillian.wordpress.com/ Dan Holloway’s thriller The Company of Fellows was voted Blackwell’s “favourite Oxford novel” and was one of their “best books of 2011”. He runs the spoken word event The New Libertines and is a regular performer across the UK, winning Literary Death Match in 2010, and was listed as one of social media bible mashable’s top 100 writers on twitter. Perry Iles is an old man from Scotland. If he was a dwarf, he’d be grumpy. He lives in a state of semi-permanent apoplectic biliousness, and hates children, puppies, kittens, and periods of unseemly emotion such as Christmas. He pours out vinegary invective via a small writing machine, and thinks it’s a bit like throwing liver at the wall. He tells anyone who’ll listen that this gives him a modicum of gratification. Andrew Lownie is a member of the Association of Authors’ Agents and Society of Authors and was until recently the literary agent to the international writers’ organisation PEN. In 1998 he founded The Biographers Club, a monthly dining society for biographers and those involved in promoting biography, and The Biographers’ Club Prize which supports first-time biographers. Lorraine Mace is a columnist with Writing Magazine and co-author, with Maureen Vincent-Northam, of The Writer’s ABC Checklist, has had her work published in five countries. Winner of the Petra Kenney International Poetry Award (comic verse category), she writes fiction for the women’s magazine market and is a writing competition judge. www.lorrainemace.com JJ Marsh - writer, teacher, newt. www.beatrice-stubbs.com Matt Shaw - author, cartoonist, photographer, hermit, Billy-No-Mates. www. mattshawpublications.co.uk Anne Stormont - as well as being a writer, is a wife, mother and teacher. She is also a hopeless romantic, who likes happy endings. Kat Troth grew up in two countries, uses two names, and has had two different careers. One career she has spent writing technical reports for a non-technical audience. In the other, she attempts to write fiction. She tries always to remember who she is at any one time, but usually finds she has at least two opinions about everything. Ola Zaltin is a Swedish screenwriter working out of Copenhagen, Denmark. He has written for both the big screen and the small, including episodes for the Swedish Wallander series. Together with Susanne O’Leary he is the co-author of the novel Virtual Strangers, (available as eBook).

Contents | 3

The Dreaming Spires Literary Consultancy www.inspiredwriters.co.uk We offer a full range of editorial services: proof reading, copy editing, manuscript assessment and help for any writer who wants their work to shine. Even the best writers need great editors and critical feedback – those who have the

job

refining

work

the

best

version

itself;

making

informed observations about the narrative, the characters, the pace, etc. – and looking at the strength or weakness of the smallest details. We are an Oxford based team comprised of experienced and talented people who provide a written report listing the positive features, alongside the constructive ideas; and they all help. Ah yes, the details … As Hemingway once wrote to John Dos Passos: “Remember to get the weather in your god damned book – weather is very important.”

Follow our Blog

Editor’s Desk Welcome to our eighteenth issue. I don’t normally count how many writing wonders Words with JAM has produced, but as the next issue will be our third anniversary, it was easy to multiply the six issues per year by three. So, yes, the run-up to our third anniversary, and to celebrate the approach, we have interviews with some hugely talented writers including: author of Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell; author of V is for Vengeance, Sue Grafton; a book v television slot with Sophie Hannah; and 60 Seconds with A.D. Miller and Jojo Moyes. Today I took my twin The Ed

boys – pictured here, currently enjoying what I am enduring: the terrible

JD Smith lives and works in the English Lake District. She uses her publishing house Quinn Publications as a source of procrastination to avoid actually writing.

twos – for a trip on boat on Lake Windermere. The wind howled, and the rain pelted down as promised. And still myself and a couple of other mum friends decided we would not be defeated. We would

stand in the pissing rain

and the children would

All opinions expressed in Words with JAM are the sole opinion of the contributor and not that of Quinn Publications or Words with JAM as a whole.

there repeating the same

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the individual contributor and/or Quinn Publications, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Distributed from the UK. Not to be resold. Editor: JD Smith editor@quinnpublications.co.uk

have fun (which to be fair they did). And as I sat words my mother used to say when taking us out for another rainy day (‘it’s brightening up’) I thought to myself: the schools are back, holidays have been taken, and the autumnal months are stealing away the light nights. It’s that time. To stop moaning about the lack of summer and embrace the winter! To lock the doors, light the fire and snuggle up with a glass of wine and enjoy a good book. Or, as the hardiest and most productive of you will obviously do, write! Which is why we have some brilliant articles on writing and marketing for you. Lorraine Mace chats to Lija Kresowaty, who works on media

Deputy Editors: Lorraine Mace lorraine@quinnpublications.co.uk Danny Gillan danny@quinnpublications.co.uk

marketing campaigns for Penguin Books, and Lexi Revellian, successful

Library and Podcast enquiries: Catriona Troth kat@wordswithjam.co.uk

instead of using it. Jill Marsh once more gets the agent view with Andrew

60 Second Interview enquiries: JJ Marsh jill@wordswithjam.co.uk

Cornerstones Mini Masterclass.

Book V Film Interview enquiries: Gillian Hamer gill@wordswithjam.co.uk

self-published author, for some tips on marketing, Sarah Bower, touches on critical reading, and Dan Holloway talks about writing social media Lownie, and Kathryn Price looks at the opening page in our regular

As always, enjoy!

Random Stuff | 5

Writing the Landscape by Catriona Troth

A few weeks ago, I wandered, more or less by chance, into the Writing Britain exhibition at the British Library. From their vast collection of books, manuscripts, audio and photographs, the Library had assembled a panoramic view of how writers from the Middle Ages to the present day have represented the British landscape. It began by evoking rural, agricultural landscapes - from ancient stories of the Green Man to a recording of Stella Gibbons’ talking about Cold Comfort Farm and a hand drawn map of the locations in Winifred Holtby’s South Riding. From there, you moved on to the section entitled ‘Dark Satanic Mills,’ the literature of factories and labour from Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, set in the early days of the industrial revolution to Ted Hughes’ collaboration with the photographer

and The Buddha of Suburbia. In the section on London, detailed street maps covered surfaces around the exhibits, and hung from baffles above your head. The most immersive experience of all was in ‘Waterlands’, where video screens showed images of coasts, rivers and lakes, and you were surrounded by the sound of lapping waves. All this made me think about books that evoke the British landscape for me. I was born in Scotland, but I grew up in Canada, so for many years my images of Britain were almost entirely drawn from what I read. It began, I suppose, with The Borrowers. I never really understood why I adored Mary Norton’s stories so completely, until as an adult I bought an omnibus edition with a foreword in the form of a letter she had once written to a young fan. In it she described growing up as the short-sighted sister of three long-sighted brothers, forever focused on the tiny details of the Leicestershire hedgerows as her brothers vainly tried to show her hawks wheeling in the sky. I had grown up as the short-sighted daughter of a long-sighted mother, and I knew

adventures of the Coot Club step by step on a map. My husband would have done well to have read about Tom’s narrow escape passing through Yarmouth as the tide was running out before he attempted the same with some friends from university. I have never been to the salt marshes around Harwich, but from Secret Water, I have a vivid image of the ‘Mastadon’ paddling over the soft mud flats wearing something like flat wooden snow shoes, and of Titty, Roger and Bridget almost trapped on the Wade as the tide sweeps back in. I live not that far from the Thames now, but before I ever set foot in them, I knew Marlow and Maidenhead, Cookham and Goring from the lyrical descriptions in Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (which he would immediately undermine with some piece of grumpy absurdity that would have me howling with laughter). We went through Maidenhead quickly, and then eased up, and took leisurely that grand reach beyond Boulter’s and Cookham

Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes - gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers... - Charles Dickens’ Bleak House Fay Godwin, charting the decay of the old mills and chimneys. The ‘Wild Places’ section of the exhibition was screened with panels of white fabric marked with steep contour lines. Here were manuscripts from the Romantic Poets, a copy Lorna Doone and a recording of Daphne du Maurier describing how she first stumbled on Jamaica Inn on her horse, seeking shelter from a storm. ‘Beyond the City’ celebrated suburbia in books such as The Rotters Club, Metroland

6 | Random Stuff

exactly what she meant. After The Borrowers came Swallows and Amazons. I fell in love with Ransome’s Wild Cat Island and Katchenjunga ten years before I ever set foot in the Lake District, and I still get a thrill when I catch a glimpse the steamer on Windermere that is recognisably Captain Flint’s Houseboat. Unlike his Lake District, which is a conflation of Lake Windermere and Coniston Water, Ransome’s portrayal of the Norfolk Broads is so accurate you can follow the

locks. Cliveden Woods still wore their dainty dress of spring, and rose up, from the water’s edge, in one long harmony of blended shades of fairy green. In its unbroken loveliness this is, perhaps, the sweetest stretch of all the river, and lingeringly we slowly drew our little boat away from its deep peace. Oxford was painted for me by Dorothy Sayers in Gaudy Night (in colours that were probably idealised even in 1935).

Mornings in Bodley, drowsing among the browns and tarnished gilding of Duke Humphrey, snuffing the faint, must odour of slowly perishing leather, hearing only the tippety-tap of Agag-feet along the padded floor; long afternoons, taking an outrigger up the Cher, feeling the kiss of the sculls on unaccostomed palms… I knew the mountains of Wales from my mother’s beloved Under Milk Wood. By Cader Idris, tempest-torn, Or Moel yr Wyddfa’s glory, Carnedd Llewelyn beauty born, Plinlimmon old in story, By mountains where King Arthur dreams, By Penmaenmawr defiant, Llaregyb Hill a molehill seems, A pygmy to a giant. There are places I have never been, or only passed through, that have been made real for me through the pages of a book. There can be no better evocation of Eastern Scotland than William Grassic Gibbons’ Sunset Song (which is surely impossible to read without hearing it in a soft, Aberdeenshire accent). But for days now the wind had been in the south, it shook and played in the moors and went dandering up the sleeping Grampians,

the rushes pecked and quivered about the loch when its hand was upon them, but it brought more heat than cold, and all the parks were fair parched, sucked dry, the red clay soil of Blawearie gaping open for the rain that seemed never-coming. The Clean Air Act came in a few years after I was born, so I never experienced the London Peasoupers that blighted my father’s childhood. But I’ve lived through them in the opening passages of Dickens’ Bleak House. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes - gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers... Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city…

Books shape the way we remember too. I was born in Edinburgh, but today the city for me is a joint creation of Ian Rankin and Alexander McCall Smith. My mother was transported back to Anglesey, the home she left more than sixty years ago, by the descriptions in Gillian Hamer’s Charter. And nothing, but nothing, has brought back what it felt like to arrive back in Britain from North America in the mid-seventies than the opening chapter of Bill Bryson’s Small Island. Surprisingly, a writer does not have to be a native or even long-term resident to be able to conjure a time and place to vivid life. The author of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society only ever spent one day stranded by fog on the island. Sarah Waters’ The Night Watch helped me to understand, as nothing else had, the realities of living through the London Blitz, though she was born in twenty years after the War ended. Michel Faber’s portayal of the seamier side of Victorian London in The Crimson Petal and the White is as beguiling as Dickens’. I guess the lesson for writers here is – write about the places you love, yes; make others love them too. But don’t be afraid to set your imagination free. The landscapes of the mind are the best ones of all.

Let’s Spot the Con in Concept By Derek Duggan

OK, so you’re brilliant at writing – you’ve been on all the forums honing your skills. You’ve written tons of short stories so that other people who write short stories can see how good you are at it. And now you’re finally ready to sit down and write your novel. But before you spend all that time actually working on it, you want to be sure that your book is going to grab the attention of agents and publishers. It’s no use you sitting there every night ignoring your family and developing a pasty yellow hue if the synopsis will just make it sound like all the other brilliantly written stuff that agents and publishers receive every single day but is not currently right for their catalogue. You have to make your book stand out. You could try sticking a photo of your wanger/boobs/foo-foo on the first page of your opus when you send it out, but I can tell you categorically that it won’t work and the Police aren’t all that understanding as it turns out. No, what you need is something so out of left field that it makes the agent immediately stop worrying about where the money is going to come from for little Johnny’s third level education. What you need is a concept. This might seem tricky at first and possibly even gimmicky. You may even be thinking that you don’t need one. Maybe you’re brilliant at writing characters and can paint the subtleties of interplay between them with a delicacy and precision that makes the reader weep with a newfound empathy for humankind and you’re counting on this to grab the attention of the agent. Maybe you can construct the most intricate plot full of well researched detail and this is what you’re pinning your hopes of worldwide Bestseller list domination on. Or maybe you’re so good you’re relying on your short stories and poems to make you your millions. But I can tell you now that none of

8 | Random Stuff

this stuff matters because you can’t condense all of your brilliant writing and research into a couple of lines. And it’s this ability to be condensed into a couple of lines that makes a good concept absolutely key because, like it or not, we live in the age of the synopsis. This means you have only one page to sell your story and you simply can’t get all the lovely detail about your characters and their interplay and the humour and the drama into that page. But you can sure as fuck fit a concept in. Often you won’t even need a page. For example – It’s the future. The world has been broken down into twelve districts. Every year two teenagers are picked at random from each of the districts and taken to an arena where they must battle to the death. In the arena one girl must fight for her life with one boy who loves her while the boy she loves can only watch from outside. See? Sounds good, doesn’t it? And there’s no mention of endless crying in closets or gaping plot holes or anything. It definitely doesn’t have the words ‘bag of shite’ anywhere. As you can see, having a concept is a whole lot easier than going through your entire book and trying to put each detail into the synopsis. The concept is mightier than the story. It is mightier than the characters. It is mightier than the prose. Initially it may seem daunting to have to come up with your own concept, but fear not. Let’s start from basics. First you have to have your romance. There are some notable exceptions, but it’s a handy place to start. So there’s no need to detail this; it just has to be there. Now, the concept has to either get in the way of this romance or enhance it. Sound hard? It’s not. It’s a piece of piss. For example – A young woman meets a young man. They fuck each other sideways in graphic detail. See? Piece. Of. Piss. (Literally so in this case). You might want to go with something that’s a little cleverer. Perhaps you have written a book about two people and how their relationship develops over a large number of years. There are already so many books like this out there that you need to come up with something really catchy. You might be worried that something gimmicky might detract from your fabulous work, but don’t worry, because here’s the real trick – you don’t have to actually use the concept with any level of consistency. For example, let’s take your two

characters and let’s say that you decide that you’ll tell their story by only writing about one day from each year – you could make it the same day and the reader could catch up with the characters like that. You might think this would be challenging because you’d have to be careful to infer what had gone on between the last chapter (last year) and this one from subtle details and that you’d have to rely on the reader to read carefully so as not to miss details, but you’d be wrong. There’s no need for cleverness at all. All you have to do is say – It’s now the next year - since last year she has been to a wedding and he has lost his job on the telly. Before you know it you’ll have sold the movie rights, and the girl out of Brokeback Mountain will be starring in it. You’ll be laughing all the way to the bank and all the way through the movie as you realise that she could give Dick Van Dyke a run for his money in the English accent department. So, you see how easy it is. What are you waiting for? Concept the fuck out of your next novel! Glad I could help.

British Literature discuss ... by Anne Stormont

Regular readers will know that my contribution to WWJ tends to be based on my musings upon whatever the general theme is for the current issue. This approach has served me well. I’ve never been stumped by the theme. That is until now. British Literature is a massive subject and I found it very difficult to pin down what I mean – and what others might mean – by the term. There was also no handy wee subtitle, such as - Brit Lit is rubbish/ has no future/ rules OK/ is the best in the world/ doesn’t exist; - and no tag, such as ‘discuss’. So, when trying to find a way in to the subject and a hook on which to hang it, I kept coming back to the scary option – that of defining what is meant by the term. Even the word ‘British’ on its own is hard to pin down, let alone in combination with something as slippery as ‘Literature’. But I was determined not to be beaten. My contribution to the October 2012 of WWJ would be my personal working definition of the issue’s theme. I began my research on the internet at good old Wikipedia. Here I was informed that British Literature was anything written in the U.K., Isle of Man and the Channel Islands and included works in English, Scots, Welsh, Scots Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, Cornish, Manx, Jerriais, Guernesiais and Latin. So although no authors, works or genres were named, I was pleased that, here at least, the definition was linguistically comprehensive and inclusive. I also came across the British Council’s website. They have produced a list of (cheesy abbreviation alert) ‘Brit Lit’. Their list is for classroom use when teaching English. It includes Michael Morpurgo, Nick Hornby, Andrea Levy, Patience Agbabi, Jackie Kay and Benjamin Zephaniah. It’s modern. It’s fairly brief but wide-ranging. But it’s nowhere near definitive. Then despite trying to resist the increasingly insistent voice in my head that kept mentioning the (to me) nauseatingly pretentious term ‘literary canon’, I did eventually crack. Perhaps somewhere, at some point, some academics must have come up with a mighty and comprehensive British canon. I braced myself, suppressed my inner inverted snob and went in search.

Alas there is no single definitive canon. The term would appear to be mere subset of national literature. A website by the excellent name of wisegeek.com, helpfully provided this definition. ‘ A Literary canon is a classification of the most representative or central works in a period, place or genre. It [inclusion in a canon] bestows validity and authority.’ The search term ‘canon’ also took me to web-based reports of last October’s demand from the British government’s Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, that works from the English Literary canon be restored to the reading lists in English schools. On his list were the works of Dryden, Pope, Swift, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Dickens, Hardy and, oh yes – a token woman – Austen. A slim and exclusive canon indeed, but, to be fair, Gove didn’t seem to be suggesting that this covered British Literature. However, his list along with what I’d read on Wikipedia, wisegeek.com and the British Council’s site did help me to begin to clarify what I’d want included in the BL definition. Namely, it would include works from all constituents of the British Isles both geographically and linguistically. It would be inclusive in terms of gender, genre and ethnicity. And it would include work from the past and the present. It wouldn’t have to be literary but it would be a super-canon and I’d also want children’s literature included. And so I reckoned I’d nailed it – I’d defined British Literature – job done. But then, as I was completing this article, the Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference was taking place. And, as luck would have it, the main topic for debate was - ‘Is there such a thing as a national literature?’ The authors invited to speak at the conference opened my mind to the possibility that maybe the concept of a national literature is a bit outdated. In the twenty-first century, in a nation that is more diverse than ever before, perhaps the local and the regional need a higher profile. And, on the other hand, maybe a more internationalist view – a world view would be more appropriate. Irvine Welsh was the main speaker at the conference. He began by making the point that the question of what makes a national literature has changed little over the years, but that the context has changed immeasurably. The idea of nationality in Britain nowadays is much more complex. Indeed, several of the other Scots writers

present at the debate made the point that ‘strong regional voices are needed to challenge the upper-middle-class English hegemony’ in much that is commonly regarded as British literature. Scottish author, Alan Bissett, made the point that nationhood isn’t fixed, that is something that is constantly negotiated, and, he said, literature is a place where this negotiation can happen. He went so far as to ask, ‘if we don’t write about our own culture, who will?’ Welsh also addressed the question of internationalism, saying that our view of it is no longer utopian and he referred to the ‘homogenising steamroller of multinational capitalism.’ He seemed to suggest that an international/multinational view of literature could threaten the regional/national concept. However, there were writers at the conference from Abroadshire who reckoned that a more cosmopolitan view of literature was a healthier one. Danish author, Janne Teller, who has Austrian and German roots but lives in the U.S., argued against limiting, national labels - stating that when she wrote, she did so ‘as a human being’. Ben Okri, a Nigerian author living in London, said that it was the responsibility of authors to write as truthfully as they can, without regard to nationality. And British author, China Mieville, said that literature should not just reflect our experience, but should also surprise and astonish. So, perhaps, all things considered the concept of a national literature – British or otherwise – is redundant. While there may be nothing wrong with readers coming up with canons – personal, local, national, international – what really matters for writers is the originality, passion and truth of their writing. Writers must write from their own head and their own heart. Or as Irvine Welsh advised the assembled writers, ‘Don’t get obsessed with histories or legacies or markets or rules. Just hit the keys and let the magic happen.’

Random Stuff | 9

Book v Television:

Sophie Hannah In conversation with Gillian Hamer Sophie Hannah is the best-selling novelist behind the successful TV dramatisation ‘Case Sensitive’. Her current novel, Kind of Cruel, released in paperback in August this year, is the seventh of her psychological thrillers that have now sold in over twenty countries. Described as ‘cold, calculating and utterly chilling’ by the Observer, Sophie’s current writing style is a long way removed from her background as a poet who has published five collections of poetry (which is studied at GCSE, A-level and degree level across the UK) and children’s writer. Her writing style was once described as having ‘ the light verse of Wendy Cope and the surrealism of Lewis Carroll’ so it was a surprise to many when she made the move into the darker genre of crime thrillers. But it worked, Sophie’s books have gone from strength to strength, since the publication of Little Face in 2006 which sold over 100,000 copies in the UK alone – not bad for a debut crime writer! Having studied various genres, why did Sophie turn to crime (!) and how does it feel now, seeing her creations come to life on the small screen?

How were you first approached about the television adaptation of Point of Rescue (the first novel to be adapted as a two-part Case Sensitive drama in 2008) My TV agent passed copies of my first three crime novels on to a TV drama development executive who was working for Hat Trick Productions at the time - she was actively looking for new books with the potential to be a long-running TV series, and she loved my books, so that was how it started.

Did you ever have any concerns about how the plot and characters, and particularly the complex relationships, would come across on the small screen? Yes, I did have concerns, because I know a few writers who have had their books adapted for film or TV and really hated the result. But at a certain point, I began to be reassured that it was all going to go well. The scripts were well structured, the cast was great...so I took all that as a good omen!

How do you feel watching Olivia Williams and Darren Boyd (who play Charlie Zailer and Simon Waterhouse) on television? Are they as you created them in your head? Yes, I thought Olivia and Darren were excellent as Charlie and Simon - really ideal, in fact. They both absolutely played ‘my’ characters, and though they looked slightly different physically from how I’d imagined them, they were still somehow perfect for the roles - mainly because of the way they inhabited Charlie and Simon’s mindsets and behaved as ‘my’ Charlie and Simon would.

You handle some tough subjects with a very deft touch in your novels: prejudice, the decline of society, and

10 | Random Stuff

the issue of mental health. Were you concerned about taking on these topics in the TV series, and do you think it was handled successfully? I think, when you’re trying to pack a 450 page book into 2 hours of ITV time, it’s always going to be hard to put everything in, and I suppose some of the thematic stuff sometimes gets left behind a bit - but, broadly speaking, I think Hat Trick did as good a job as they could have done, given the time constraints.

Were there any changes made in the TV versions that you weren’t altogether happy with? Or alternatively, any you feel enhanced the story? I was happier with the first Case Sensitive (based on my novel The Point of Rescue) than with the second (The Other Half Lives) - probably because the first stuck more closely to the story in my book. In the second one, my plot from the book was simply too long and complex to fit into the two-hour slot, and so a new plot had to be substituted and it wasn’t quite as twisty as I’d have ideally liked - but, then, I love complex twisty plots and that’s why my books are long and complex!

There obviously have to be changes in bringing books to screen. How do you feel TV as a medium handles complex plots and storylines in crime fiction such as yours, and what do you consider the pluses and minuses in this regard? Well, given the twistiness and baroque nature of some of my plots, I would guess that I’m not the easiest writer to adapt for TV. My first crime novel, Little Face, has a relatively simple story, but my others are probably stories far better suited to the page - or rather, to do them justice on TV you’d need probably four episodes rather than two - and that’s very rarely available when you’re pitching for a British TV slot!

You’re such a prolific writer, poetry, short stories and children’s literature, before you turned to crime. What motivates you nowadays, and is there an additional spark when you write now, knowing your work could develop into much more than just the original novel? There is an additional spark - but it doesn’t come from the idea that my books might end up on TV. It comes from knowing that I have a much larger readership than I used to! Before I started writing crime fiction, I published three novels that didn’t really sell at all. I think they sold 5,000 copies, 7,000 copies and 2,000 copies respectively. Whereas my crime novels have sold more than 500,000 copies in the UK alone - so that’s a real buzz, knowing that many people will read what I write. Even more, when you think of how many people borrow the books from libraries and from friends. I also get a lot of lovely emails from readers, so I feel that what I write is really reaching people on a wide scale, so it seems to matter so much more.

Your psychological crime series is very far removed from your earlier writing, what made you turn to crime fiction with the publication of Little Face in 2006? I’d always wanted to write crime, as it’s always been what I preferred to read. Because it was my favourite thing, I naturally assumed I wasn’t worthy of it, and wouldn’t be able to do it! I’d tried twice before to write crime - and wrote two rather mediocre thrillers that didn’t get published. When I had the idea for Little Face, I thought, ‘Right - one last try, and if this doesn’t work, I’ll accept that I’m not destined to write crime fiction.’ Luckily, it did work!

Do you think a background in poetry has added anything to your ability to turn your hand to writing psychological thrillers? I am very precise in my use of language. My crime novels aren’t at all poetic, but I put a lot of effort into making sure the prose flows elegantly and unobtrusively, so that readers can really focus on the story. I think I have quite a sensitive ear for the rhythm of prose that is probably linked to my background in poetry.

Who are your heroes or heroines in crime fiction writing? Was anyone writer behind your decision to move into this genre? Enid Blyton, Agatha Christie, Ruth Rendell, Daphne Du Maurier, Val McDermid, Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, Nicci French - all these writers have inspired and influenced me.

Looking now to the huge success of the Case Sensitive series on ITV, how much involvement did you have in the film production? Would you have liked more or preferred less?

Are there any other books to television adaptations you particularly rate in the crime genre? And if so, why? The Dexter books by Jeff Lindsay have been turned into one of the best TV dramas ever: Dexter. Along with House MD, Dexter is probably my favourite TV series of all time.

As a literary magazine, we relish sage nuggets of advice from published authors, so what words of wisdom or encouragement would you offer to new upcoming writers hoping to follow in your footsteps? The most important thing is to have a really original and compelling story to tell, which will make readers desperate to know what happens next.

I think I was involved exactly the right amount - quite a bit, but not too much! My favourite part was visiting the set and watching them film certain scenes.

How close did you hope the TV adaptation would be to your novel – a mirror image or do you prefer some originality? A TV drama can never exactly replicate a book. All I wanted was for the TV versions to be brilliant TV dramas in their own right.

Do you feel your writing has changed at all since the experience of having your books move into television? Do you find you write with one eye on that format? No, not at all. I couldn’t do that. I write the books I want and need to write - and never even give a thought to ‘how would this work on TV?’

Random Stuff | 11

Sue Grafton

An interview by JD Smith and Gillian Hamer Another of our interviewees this issue (Sophie Hannah) listed you as a writer who inspired and influenced her. Who would you say inspired and influenced you? In the matter of inspiration, I’d have to credit my father first. His passion for the mystery genre and his passion for writing were woven into my early years, long before it occurred to me that I might write for a living. In terms of tone and voice, I admire James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, and Ross Macdonald. For ingenuity, Agatha Chistie and for sheer razzle dazzle, Elmore Leonard. I keep an eye on any writer with a long track record, hoping I can pick up some tips on longevity.

Your father was a popular crime writer (C.W Grafton), so what did you grow up reading and did he encourage you to read particular authors? I grew up reading anything and everything. My parents were eclectic readers and did more to encourage the reading of quality writing than particular writers.

You have a background in script writing, would you like to see any of your novels made into film or TV? I have been and will continue to be adamant on the subject of not selling the series to film or television. Having worked in ‘the business,’ I know better. Hollywood would make a sore botch of it, thus ruining the character of Kinsey Millhone for all of us. In support of this claim, I cite the following: When Lawrence Block sold his Bernie Rhodenbarr series to Hollywood, the producers thought long and hard about his protagonist, a white, male, Jewish burglar, and decided the perfect casting would be Whoopi Goldberg who is, at least, half-Jewish but otherwise bears no resemblance to Lawrence Block’s iconic anti-hero. Hollywood is full of good ideas like this and would doubtless love the chance to ‘help’ me with my series. No, thanks.

Most people reading this interview will have heard of the general reaction from self-publishers about your comments on indie publishing on the louisvilleky. com blog. What have you taken away from the experience and what advice would you give to other writers who find themselves in similar interview situations? Keep your big mouth shut.

A lot of writers seem divided between enjoying the initial writing stage or the later editing stages more. A common reaction is ‘editing is easier’. Which part

12 | Random Stuff

do you enjoy most and why?

About Sue

Editing is always easier. I struggle with writing every day of my life and most of what I strive for is to get out of my own way. The work gets harder with every book. I’ve learned a lot in my thirty years as a mystery writer and that’s only made the work more demanding. I hold myself to very high standards. No cheating, no faking, and no taking the easy way out. Not that I’ve ever found an easy way...

Sue Grafton is published in 28 countries and 26 languages— including Estonian, Bulgarian, and Indonesian. She’s an international bestseller with a readership in the millions. She’s a writer who believes in the form that she has chosen to mine: “The mystery novel offers a world in which justice is served. Maybe not in a court of law,” she has said, “but people do get their just desserts.” And like Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald, Robert Parker and the John D. MacDonald—the best of her breed—she has earned new respect for that form. Her readers appreciate her buoyant style, her eye for detail, her deft hand with character, her acute social observances, and her abundant storytelling talents.

Why did you decide to base the Alphabet novels in a fictional town rather than a real life location? So I won’t get sued.

If you weren’t writing crime fiction what other genre would you like to try and why? I didn’t know there was another genre.

And if you hadn’t become a writer, what other ambitions would you like to have fulfilled? I love to draw, but I am to the process of drawing what many are to writing. I need to study more, practice more, loosen up, devote as many hours to the task as I can. At the moment, I don’t draw at all because my inadequacies are so daunting that I can’t even work to overcome them. I don’t improve because I’m unwilling to risk failure. My fear is actually what stands in my way and I know I need a good coach to get past that. When I get to the end of the alphabet... assuming Ms. Millhone and I have no further adventures to share...I’ll find a drawing instructor and work on unlocking the secrets of pen and ink. Here’s what I’ve learned so far from the drawing I’ve done: Don’t draw what you know. Draw what you see. Commit to the line. Both apply to the writing as well. I’m not saying I would have become an artist. I don’t have the talent for that. It is a secret ambition of mine and one I hope to satisfy in due course.

What genres do you read other than crime? I read everything; fiction, non-fiction, history, biographies, autobiographies, humor, personal essays, cookbooks. What I’m looking for is the writer’s style and unique point of view. I look for expertise and authenticity and originality in all its forms. Who can resist a good book?

What are your views on the genre v literary fiction debate? I think those lines are being blurred as good writers enter

But who is the real Sue Grafton? Many of her readers think she is simply a version of her character and alter ego Kinsey Millhone. She has said that Kinsey is herself, only younger, smarter, and thinner. But are they an apt description of Kinsey’s creator? Well, she’s been married to Steve Humphrey for more than twenty years. She has three kids and four grandkids. She loves cats, gardens, and good cuisine—not quite the nature-hating, fast-food loving Millhone. So: readers and reviewers beware. Never assume the author is the character in the book. Sue, who has a home in Montecito, California (“Santa Theresa”) and another in Louisville, the city in which she was born and raised, is only in her imagination Kinsey Millhone—but what a splendid imagination it is. From www.suegrafton.com/suegrafton.php

every field. I have a prejudice with regard to ‘literary fiction’ which so often seems meandering and unfocused. What I love about a good mystery novel is a strong, clean storyline, complex characters, style, good craftsmanship, an old-fashioned beginning, middle, and end and most of all...a point. I will say, as unsuited as I was to working in Hollywood, I learned how to write dialogue, how to write action, how to get in and out of a scene, how to structure a story, and how to make every moment count.

‘V’ IS FOR VENGEANCE was published in November of 2011. Tell us a bit about your next project and where your inspirations came from? I’m currently writing ‘W’ IS FOR... I don’t talk about a work in progress except to bitch, whine, and complain about how hard it all is. I sit down at my desk every day for some three to five hours wherein I focus on the job at hand. I’m very analytical about what I do. I have elaborate charts detailing the books I’ve done in the series thus far so that I can keep track of the nature of each novel, the subject matter, the characters, the setting, the crime, the motive, the setup, the structure, and the climax. Since the character of Kinsey Millhone is a constant throughout, I work to keep her fresh and genuine. I work to keep the recurring characters complex and interesting. I work to stay in Shadow and out of Ego. I try not to take myself too seriously. Often, I say to myself, ‘the fate of the free world does not hang in the balance, dear.’ Some novels in the series have been so difficult that I’ve burst into tears. In the process, I’ve wondered if I’d collapse, go mad, faint, or quit. Occasionally, I’ve done all of the above. Overall I soldier on because that’s what I do. Writing is more challenging and more satisfying and more problematic and more aggravating and more exciting and more perplexing than any other job I’ve come across to this point. When I have a good day, there’s nothing better. When I have a bad day, it’s still better than laying bricks. These are the qualities I value: persistence, doggedness, cunning, and determination. I’m a perfectionist. I write every line again and again until it sounds right. I work at being quiet so I can stay tuned into that soft inner voice that tells me when I’m on track or off. Everything else is just chatter.

And when will it be released and can we see you over in the UK any time soon? ‘W’ IS FOR... should be published in the US in the fall of 2013. The books usually appear in the UK within months of US publication. I have a short story collection called KINSEY AND ME which will come out in the US mid-January 2013. There are eight Kinsey Millhone stories that have appeared in anthologies over the years. A ninth story I wrote for the Land’s End 40th Anniversary Catalogue. Shadow loved that request, which amused her for some reason. There are an additional thirteen stories I wrote in the decade following my mother’s death. Dark, dark, dark. I was in Bristol this past spring, May 24-27 for Crime Fest, which I thoroughly enjoyed. That was my first visit to Bristol and it was lovely. London is my favorite city and I’m there whenever I can manage it though not often enough to suit my taste. I love all of the UK which is probably in my bones. I’m sure I enjoyed many past lives on British soil.

Who would you love to bump into at a book award ceremony? I would have loved meeting Nora Ephron who died June 26 of this year. She is the writer I’ve most admired and I’m sorry she’s no longer with us. Her writing is candid, unflinching, fair-minded, decent, and funny. Hers was an incredible talent. She’s truly one of a kind and I’ll miss her.

What’s your favourite snack whilst writing? I don’t eat when I’m writing. I’m too worried about throwing up.

Random Stuff | 13

14 | Random Stuff

David Mitchell

An interview by JJ Marsh, with Perry Iles. Photography by Libby O’Loghlin David Mitchell came to Zürich as part of his promotional tour for the German translation of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Up a cobbled alleyway of the Old Town, in a discreet restaurant, he shared his thoughts on half-full glasses, John Lennon and Transferrable Reality Concreteness. How hard was it for you to find representation given the genre-defying nature and structural originality of Ghostwritten? How did you sell it to an agent? I was armed with pristine naïvete. I was living in Japan and just did what I heard you were supposed to do – send three chapters and a summary to an agent. I picked one, Mike Shaw at Curtis Brown, because he had the only nonposh name that a bog-standard, state comp-educated kid wasn’t intimidated by. He sounded like he could be a character off Eastenders. I sent him my first novel. Big sections of it were rubbish and I’m now profoundly grateful it wasn’t published. But on the back of that, Mike said, maybe not this time but if you want to send me the next thing you work on ... So I did and that was Ghostwritten. I got a very off-the-rack, unastronomical two-book deal, but it was amazing. This was in the days of fax machines and I still remember the excitement of that fax coming through. It was one of my best ever days. And it’s been like that ever since. Same agency, same publisher and my editor, Carole Welch has been with me since book two.

And Jonny Geller’s your agent now. I interviewed him last year and found his passion for his authors very impressive. Yes, after Mike retired, Jonny took over. And all of his authors have a hard time believing he represents anyone else. We really think he spends all day thinking about us. He’s a very hard-working man.

Two of my favourite books now have cinematic adaptations. Cloud Atlas and Midnight’s Children. Rushdie’s creative influence on the film was immense. What about your relationship with the Wachowskis and Tykwer? How much involvement did you have? Almost none. The desire for my approval for an early form of the script I do believe was genuine. We met in Cork, and that’s when they discussed foregrounding the reincarnational theme by having the same actor play

different ethnicities and genders at points in time. Which you can only do in film. You can’t have actors’ faces in books.

You were happy with that? Absolutely. John le Carré, speaking about the film of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, said what I wanted to say. The biggest compliment you can pay is to take the book and interpret it your way. What’s the point in making an audiobook with moving pictures? I want it to be disassembled and reassembled. And they’ve altered some plot lines, to make the Tom Hanks/Halle Berry relationship evolve over time, and that’s fine. It has its own, pure internal logic. It was very hard for the Wachowskis and Tykwer, but my first Hollywood experience has been unusually lucky. They really are artists. With people like that, it’s an honour to be adapted. I wouldn’t be voluntarily praising the film as much as I do if I didn’t respect them and what they’ve done.

And you have a cameo role? Blink and you’ll miss it. I’m in two scenes, and people who think deeply will eventually work it out. When you get the logic, you can work out that I’m a kind of Svengali, a behind-the-scenes manipulator. It’s a sweetly placed cameo for an author.

About David David Mitchell is widely renowned as one of the greatest British novelists of his generation, garnering comparisons to Tolstoy, Twain, DeLillo and Pynchon among others. He has won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, the South Bank Show Literature Prize and the Richard and Judy Best read of the Year prize. He has also been nominated for the Guardian First Book Award, the Booker Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize and the Costa Book Award. He has also written the libretto for the opera Wake, which debuted at the Nationale Reisopera in 2010 to great acclaim. Born in 1969, David grew up in Worcestershire and, after several years teaching in Japan, he now lives in Ireland with his wife and their two children. His novel Cloud Atlas has been adapted into a film by Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski.

What sort of fiction do you read? Good fiction (laughs). Sometimes I read work written by friends, it’s getting socially awkward not to. I have a big list of classics to catch up with. And I read things I can use, such as James Meek’s We Are Now Beginning Our Descent. It’s about a war correspondent, and I’m thinking about a character who might overlap.

Characters from your previous pieces turn up regularly in your other books and short stories. Are these thematically representative, or are you just fond of these guys? I’m fond of them; it’s fun. And I like the idea of writing an über-novel and all of my books are chapters in it. And linked with that is my theory of Transferrable Reality Concreteness. If you’ve spent time with a character in work A, and you felt that was a very real place, then when they appear in work B, they bring with them the conviction that any world they appear in is real. Shakespeare did this in the history plays, and Falstaff appears in The Merry Wives of Windsor. There’s even a literary word for this: metalepsis. Sprinkle that one into conversation when you can, then make friends and influence people. So when I bring back characters, it’s like meeting someone you’ve known for years, you have history, you remember where you were when you met them.

Random Stuff | 15

Yes, that’s true. It was lovely to meet Jason Taylor again in your short story, Earth calling Taylor. Thank you very much. In my next book, I’ve got Hugo Lamb, who was Jason’s awful cousin, a kind of malign Ferris Bueller. He’s got quite a big part in the new book.

The references and motifs in your work are often musical; Paul Auster’s Music of Chance; Thomas Bernhard’s Der Untergeher; the title of Cloud Atlas itself as a piece by Toshi Ichiyanagi; and two references to Neil Young; the formality of composition and returning to chords, tones and melodic riffs – what’s your relationship with music and literature? Music is a big part of the world, and I want to put the world into my books. Musicality is a different thing. Language has a musicality, most audibly so when you don’t speak it and you’re undistracted by meaning. Two Turkish ladies talking this morning on the train here from Stuttgart – I don’t speak a word so I heard it more purely. There’s a musicality to individual words, which you do consider when choosing them. Because there’s a difference to when words are spoken and when they’re read.

Like me, you were an English teacher for many years. What did you learn? And how much did that feed your work? It’s so helpful. It gives you a practical working knowledge where a native speaker only has an unconscious knowledge. It also means you can write nonnative speakers a whole lot better, which for me is essential.

16 | Random Stuff

Can we talk about cultural influences? I’m especially intrigued by the subtle layers of cultural (mis) understandings and interpretations in The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Japanese, the most indirect of languages, as opposed to Dutch, one of the most direct. And you render all this in English. It’s a conjuring trick. It was a nightmare, to be honest. I had about eight different dialects to signify language, class and gender. Most languages have a passive voice, and I used that for the Japanese to eliminate the pronouns. We use that when we want to evade responsibility. I wrote a short grammatical constitution, for the Dutch, English, Japanese, educated, pleb and female Japanese. Each has three or four rules, for example, the Japanese don’t contract, or at least not in my book. The Dutch don’t use ‘will’, it’s always ‘shall’, which gives it an archaic patina. And all the time you’re writing under the confining umbrella of historical fiction, so neologisms are out. I discovered the hard way, by reading whole load of Smollett and applying his usages, that it sounds like Blackadder. If you get it right, it sounds patently absurd. You could do it for a few pages but then forget it. So you have to insinuate that they’re speaking as we would have done a hundred years ago. I call this the ‘lest/in case’ dilemma. ‘In case’ is pretty new, so I pushed the Dutch more in a ‘lest’ direction, as we spend more time with them and they’re foreigners to the Anglophone ear. Whereas the English tend to use ‘in case’. But it was a huge problem. Thumping great novel, huge cast and after a while, the reader’s going to think, ‘Hang on, they all have the same voice. Ah, it’s a novel, it’s not real’. Then pop goes the bubble and you’ve lost it.

One of your most astounding achievements is structure. Not just over one book, but your entire canon.

Do you choose to break from convention or is the choice of framework more visceral, organic? With the exception of Cloud Atlas which was there already, they emerge and evolve as the only possible way to get the damn book written.

When you say Cloud Atlas was there already, you’re referring to Italo Calvino’s If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller? Yes, exactly. With that mirror at the end of it so you go backwards. But you know, Calvino is now best loved for works like The Baron in the Trees. That’s a lovely idea, lovely story, no tricks. My work is relatively new, so time as the ultimate test has not yet been applied. I’m not sure how these clever postmodern experiments now look or will look in the future.

Are you wary of writers who call themselves postmodernists? I think there is a danger in buying into a way of writing as cleanly labelled and distinct as postmodernism was in the 80s. The danger is that you’ll age quicker. On the other hand, Midnight’s Children still reads really well. But is that really what we call postmodernist? It has flecks of magical realism and in other ways is quite Dickensian, which I mean as a huge compliment.

Half full or half empty? Pessimism seems to play a great part in your take on the human condition, but it appears to go hand-in-hand with some kind of spiritual redemption on a higher level. Where are we bound? No dark, no light; no light, no dark. Redemption is important. Over lunch, we talked about Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. I remember watching that as a twelve-

year old, expecting something like Close Encounters. I really enjoyed it but at the end, he’s strapped to a chair, he’s delusional and he’s having this awful screaming nightmare about what the film has been. I remember thinking ‘Thank you so much. Not.’ If a thick book, in which you invest many hours of your art-consuming life, ends up sledge-hammering your skull in with bleakness and a total lack of redemption and then expects you to admire the brutality of its honesty, I feel cheated and I want my money back. I know it’s grim up north, and it’s pretty grim down south too, but just gimme some hope. That’s a Lennon quote, again.

Ah, the Number 9 Dream connection. Yes, as you mentioned, Cloud Atlas is actually a piece by Yoko Ono’s second husband, Toshi Ichiyanagi. Not many people know Lennon’s Number 9 Dream, because it doesn’t feature on the Greatest Hits, but is on the Walls and Bridges album. It’s absolutely glorious, a very superior pop song.

Finally, what have you learned from writing? More about how to write. An infinite job. Did you read that piece by Julian Barnes, My Life as a Bibliophile? At the end, he talks about the symbiosis between reading and life. He talks about an aphorism; ‘Some people think that life is the thing, but I prefer reading’. He criticises it as slick and meretricious. The more you live, the more intense your reading experience becomes. And vice versa, the more you read about non-existent people, the better potential you have to understand existent people. As for reading, so for writing. To write a consistent character, you need to formulate the laws of consistency in real human beings. And if you can’t find them, at least you need to fumble in the right direction. So to get the writing right, I’ve had to think more deeply about people and what drives our miraculous, bonkers, paradoxical species.

Random Stuff | 17

The M1 Gene By Judith Field

Writing and driving. Driving and writing. Linked in my memory. My father started writing fiction in 1954. From the proceeds of his first book, he bought an Austin A30 and named it after his publisher. In 1960, the first of his books was filmed, and he upgraded to a Rover 90. We lived in Liverpool but spent a lot of time driving to London, so that he could meet his agent, his publisher, and actors interested in his upcoming film projects. The journey used to take the best part of a day, past the same landmarks: real places with fictional-sounding names. ‘No Man’s Heath’ and ‘The Devon Doorway’. Sandbach. Brownhills. Hinckley. Markyate. Past places with secret names we’d given them, like ‘Bird House On A Pole’, wherever and whatever that was. There’s nobody left to ask. But, on 2nd November 1959 at 9.30 am, when I was aged threeand-a-bit, everything changed. We were on our way back to Liverpool, heading up the A5. Horrid road, nowhere to stop and eat. After crawling through St Albans and Redbourn we were nearly at Luton. We reached Slip End (a name you wouldn’t put into fiction unless you were after a Bad Sex Award), when we arrived at the Friars Wash entrance to this new motorway thing. We went to see what it was all about, but met a roadblock. The Transport Minister, Ernest Marples, was about to cut the ribbon at the opening ceremony. We were first in the queue, next came a Jaguar and then a Bentley. Snip – the policemen let us through - my father floored the accelerator of our chunky Rover 105S (funded by more published novels) and, doing 80 mph, it was the first car to roar past Mr Marples. I was sitting in the front passenger seat (seatbelt? What seatbelt?). And so, writing was the reason I was the joint first person on the northbound M1 – the photo shows our car. I remember the crowds of people leaning over the bridges high above waving to us, as we zipped along the concrete-coloured road. There was no speed limit on the motorway in those days, or crash barriers, or lighting. As soon as my father had overtaken the traffic joining the M1 at Luton, he reduced speed to 70 mph. According to the faded newspaper clipping in the family archive, Mr Marples said he was appalled by how fast our car had gone. But my father got his name in print yet again, in a letter to the paper printed soon afterwards. He said that there was no reason for the Minister to have been appalled; if one could not maintain a car’s advertised cruising speed on a completely empty road, there was

18 | Random Stuff

little point in using the road. He apologised for frightening Mr Marples and reassured him that he had never exceeded 70mph on any subsequent journey on the motorway. This was fiction too – I remember doing the ton on the M1 more than once, over the coming years, when my mother, too became an author and joined him in the meetings. Today, I live near the M1, three junctions back from the place where I got my 15 minutes of fame in 1959. My father, driven down by dementia, no longer writes. I drive for an hour to see him. I show him a magazine, containing my first story. I tell him this was the fourth publisher I tried: how you have to keep on trying; how there’s nothing like the high I get when a story’s accepted. He looks at me and smiles. Writing is in our blood. Maybe driving is too. My younger daughter passed her test first time, after only five months provisionally licensed to terrify, with me as a Munch ‘Scream’ lookalike in the passenger seat stamping at a nonexistent brake pedal. So far none of the children has taken up writing. But maybe my grandchildren will. If not, I hope they’ll inherit the M1 gene, and give me lifts when I’m too old to drive. Driving and writing. Writing and driving. Driven to write. Judith lives in London with a husband, two grown up daughters, one teenage son and a cat. She’s got two grandchildren. She writes newspaper feature articles but she likes writing short stories most of all. Her work’s been published in the USA. Visit her online at www.millil.blogspot.com

International

Chamber Proof Proofreading novels, novellas, short stories, articles, academic papers and all things abstruse, recondite, arcane or obscure. No length limits – anything from haikus to Russian novels considered. For rates and general enquiries, call Perry on

01683 221200 or 07565 912750, or email chamberproof@yahoo.co.uk

Agent Submission Pack Offer Most writers have agent submission packs; introductory letter, synopsis, blurb, author biography, CV and the first three chapters or the first few thousand words. I’ll look at your agent submission pack for a flat fee of £29.95, checking it for typos, spelling, grammatical errors, content, layout and presentation. If this helps you get one of those magical “send me the rest” letters, I’ll be happy to look at the rest of your book on a priority basis at normal rates before you send it off. Chamber Proof Chambers House, High Street, Moffat DG10 9ED

Short Story Prize €3,000 Phillip O’Ceallaigh is the judge. He is the author of Notes From a Turkish Whorehouse and The Pleasant Light of Day. The best 10 stories will be published in the 2013 Fish Anthology. The second prize is a week at Anam Cara Writers Retreat in West Cork, Ireland, and €300, and the third prize is €300. There is a 5,000 word limit. Entry is €20. Closes 30 Nov. Submissions by post or online: they must not have been published previously. Read the full details on

www.fishpublishing.com Fish has an online course in Flash Fiction and one in Memoir, and a Mentoring Service for writers needing guidance and feedback with their work, and a critique service for poems, stories, and other short pieces. The best submissions from our Prizes in Poetry, Flash and Short Memoir will be published in the 2013 Fish Anthology. All the details are on the Fish website. Hon Patrons: Roddy Doyle, Colum McCann , Dermot Healy Fish Publishing, Durrus, Bantry, Co Cork, Ireland info@fishpublishing.com

Advertising in

Words with JAM is FREE to subscribers, and currently has over 12,000 readers. If you would like to advertise, please contact jane@wordswithjam.co.uk for an advertising pack.

Library Campaigns: A View from the Crow’s Nest by Catriona Troth, The Library Cat

also very willing to go for what could be seen as a gung-ho libertarian approach to public services. Volunteer libraries and efficiencies are not going to work in every authority and every locality. Some Labour councils are perhaps too keen to close libraries rather than look at the alternatives. However, every political party is closing or cutting branches and every party, when it is in opposition, is saying that they would not do if only they were the ones in power. We’re also seeing a lot more in the way of “co-location”. This is where libraries are not just libraries. They are One Stop Shops or merged with other services like tourist information, housing, register offices, shops, Ian, I’ve been following your blog for almost two years banks. This could be a good thing if done right as it will increase the footfall. However, there is also the danger that it is not being done now. How did you get into writing it? Has it grown because it will improve anything but simply that it saves on money. Ideally, no library user wants to have to fight his or her way through into something far bigger than you ever envisaged? other services in order to find a book. That last point, though, also raises My blog Public Libraries News was on the front page of the Independent another theme. The big over-riding theme. We’re not in ideal times. three weeks ago. It is fair Changes are being made to say that two years ago because of the decision to cut this would have come as funding, not because they are From the Camden Public Libraries User Group website: something of a surprise. I better for the library. Keeping started it as a way of keeping the library open, in any way http://www.cplug.btck.co.uk/#demon me up to date with what possible (by volunteer, by was going on and, on the In this very uncertain situation, it is easy to think of the private company, by non-profit way, learn how to do this organisation) is better than growing number of library volunteers as forming an evil “blogging” thing people closing it. were talking about. It army, which is about to set out on a destructive march quickly became apparent across the land. Of course, in reality, the volunteers are The highs (if there are that summarising what exactly the opposite to the orcs of this scenario. They was going on and listing any) and the lows? the cuts was something are the heroic pawns in a local government story of Each library saved is a high, that people really needed. indifference and mismanagement. They may not be able and there have been many Historically unprecedented of those as the sheer scale to save jobs, but they are going to do their best to save cuts and closures were being of the protests has shocked announced all around the libraries. Blame should be placed where it is deserved. politicians to change their country and the site quickly decisions. There have also became used as a way for been some notable legal everyone else, not just me, to victories. However, those victories are sometimes proving to be hollow see the full picture. Now, people - campaigners, journalists, politicians as councils simply change one or two minor details and withdraw from rely on it to a level that is almost scary. Someone told me a few months branches anyway. ago that I’d got the tiger by the tail with the blog and that’s true. It would When I first started writing about library cuts and closures across the UK, it didn’t take me long to figure out that the place to go for definitive information about the latest state of play was Ian Anstice’s Public Libraries News blog. Not only is it the most comprehensive site going for information on threats, closures and campaigns around the country, but Ian somehow manages to combine passionate and forthright views with an approach that is always balanced and fair-minded. I am delighted, therefore, to have the opportunity to interview him here.

be a hard thing to stop doing it now even though it takes me three hours a night. However, it’s great to do something that is obviously so worthwhile and making a difference.

Can you look back on the last year or so and tell us what you see as the main trends? Two years ago it was unclear what was going on. There were massive numbers of closure threats and no clear pattern other than panic (both on the part of councils and of users). Now, things have settled down a bit and some themes have emerged. For one thing, it’s not black and white any more. Politicians have done a wonderful job of muddying the waters and blaming everyone but themselves for what is going on. After having received a bloody nose in Oxfordshire and Somerset and some other places, Conservatives are keen to avoid closures but are

20 | Random Stuff

Where do you see the current ‘crisis areas’? Are there stories that need telling, maybe because they don’t have high profile supporters to make a noise for them? They’re not “crisis areas”. “Areas” suggest many places are not affected. This crisis is national. When faced with 28% cuts in budget and no attempt at defence from the Secretary of State, even though he has a statutory duty to do so, it could not be otherwise. Even where libraries are not being closed, services are being severely reduced. Hertfordshire, for example, cut its hours by a third but it made no headlines. But that’s a third gone. That’s huge. Elsewhere, we’re seeing paid, qualified and professional, staff disappearing. A big thing is made of the fact that this is often through voluntary redundancy, as if the level of service if not reduced even so.

Those areas outside of London are suffering from a lack of media exposure for simple reasons like most of the national media work in London. It’s also because celebrities are less likely to live outside of the capital as well ... and celebrities sell papers. For instance, Tameside could be losing 12 out of its 14 libraries: you’d never know it because all of the media attention has been on Brent. This is not to demean the heroic defenders of Kensal Rise and the other branches there - they have done a superb job and my heart goes out to them - but rather simply to point out that tragedies are happening all over the country.

Even where local libraries are not under threat of closure, budgets and hours of opening are being cut (a service ‘hollowed out’ as you have cited elsewhere). Can you tell us more about that? I’ve mentioned this a little in the previous question. It’s not black and white like a closure but it’s almost as bad in the long run. If your nephew is turned away without an answer to their question because the qualified member of staff has taken voluntary redundancy, if your husband cannot find the book he’s after because the bookfund has been cut by half, if your mother has lost her mobile library stop, if you cannot get into the library because it is no longer open on the one afternoon a week you have free ... well, that’s all serious stuff. It makes everyone a bit less keen on using the library next time. It reduces usage. It reduces support. So when the next cuts come (and we’re only two years in of what could be a decade of this) there will be less defenders. And libraries will close. And less will care. And we will have lost something of enormous benefit to our lives and to society.

What sort of developments do you see coming over the horizon? New areas at risk? New kinds of risks? Or maybe some good news? The big thing that has been chuntering along in the background has been what to do about e-books. This is a really difficult subject for public libraries, being building based as they are. It’s also a difficult thing for publishers, who point out that, unlike print books, library e-books are identical to the original and instantly available from home. There’s no clear answers to this but e-books are too big a subject to ignore. There are a couple of reports that I look forward to seeing in the near future. One is the much-delayed report from the CMS Select Committee on Library Closures. This is the one where MPs (including the recently resigned Louise Mensch) grilled people like Ed Vaizey and the boss of library-cutting Isle of Wight about what is happening. I’m not expecting anything of earth shattering importance (too many people on the Committee, like the one who is the son of the library-closing Mayor of Doncaster, could be seen as having an interest in keeping the results noncontroversial) from the group but it would great if it would provide clear guidance on what authorities need to before considering a closure. The other report is from Dan Jarvis MP, the shadow minister for libraries, who has shown himself to be active and interested in the subject. Both reports should hopefully help keep libraries in the news, if nothing else.

Coming as I do from Buckinghamshire, I have been in a position to see some of the positives with volunteerrun libraries (new dynamism and energy, freedom from tight central controls). But I know on the whole we’ve been lucky. What we have wouldn’t work everywhere (and indeed may not work everywhere in Bucks). Can you explain to our readers why we should worry about libraries being handed over to volunteers? I am not against volunteer-run libraries and I do see how wonderful the work they do is. However, very few library volunteers would say that

they should be doing the job of the Council. Almost all are having to volunteer because the Council has said that their branch would close otherwise. The short-term danger is that volunteer-run libraries present a great excuse to councils to cut their services. After all, councils point out, they’re not closing the branch, they’re simply passing it onto the community. There’s a lot less protest when it becomes clear the building won’t close and campaigners even become de facto co-opted supporters of the council’s cuts in some of the situations. The longer term danger is that the perceived value of paid and of qualified staff is dented. Many library staff (not all of course - there are bad apples in libraries in the same way that there is in every other field) are expert and dedicated to their communities. If councils feel volunteers are a valid alternative then that contributes to the loss of many library staff which will be missed when they’re gone.

Isn’t it better to have volunteer-run libraries than closed libraries? For a librarian who loves libraries (and any who don’t should leave the profession now) then this is a bit of a Hobson’s Choice question. I’m a professionally qualified librarian with twenty years experience and I know how hard the job can be. Of course I have a vested interest but that same interest ensures that I know what I’m talking about. It’s a

Mark Taylor, CILIP: Library staff are important to support the community with their information needs, provide a safe environment, give impartial access to services, and work in partnership with third parties such as health services and the police. The risk of replacing staff with volunteers is that what remains would be a library service unable to serve the community comprehensively, support people’s information needs or provide everyone with the opportunity for learning and development. challenging profession, antisocial hours, dealing with everyone on equal terms, dealing with undesirable things (do you have a spare twenty minutes while I talk about anti-social behaviour and what is found in the toilets?) and answering every question. Of course, I work in an “inner city” library (although it is in mid Cheshire) so it is not like many of those becoming volunteer-run. And that’s a danger too. It may be only in those areas like Buckinghamshire or Hampstead which do have a large reserve of retired and skilled people that unpaid libraries can really prosper. There’s a real possibility of a postcode lottery - where those in prosperous areas have libraries and those in less prosperous areas (who need them no less) may not be able to find the volunteers.

Is there really a choice? It doesn’t seem as if these councils are bluffing. There is always a choice. Local libraries are too important to go down without a fight. The less struggling and protesting that goes on, the more libraries will be closed or forced on those who value the service so much that they are willing to do the work unpaid. What the events of last year showed - in Oxfordshire, Somerset, Brent and a hundred other authorities - is you don’t mess with libraries if you want an easy life. They are such an important service that I think it is necessary that people don’t accept it with a “we’re all in it together” shrug of the shoulders. We also need to make clear to those politicians who are theoretically in

Random Stuff | 21

charge of ensuring a comprehensive and efficient service (Jeremy Hunt and Ed Vaizey at the time of writing) that they at least have to pretend to do their jobs properly. No council now thinks that it can close a library without a fight and possibly a legal challenge. This is a good thing. It means that they’re not an easy target. It means people who rely on libraries (and I have had one person say he’d commit suicide if he lost his local branch - it’s that important to people) won’t lose them quite as easily as may have appeared to be the case two years ago.

What can people do to support their library and to ensure the service is seen as valuable? It is not what you can do for your library but what the library can do for you. Go into your library and see the many great things it can give you. Libraries are not for everyone (if you’re adult, have lots of money and no time, for example) but they are for everybody in that they help keep society together, equal and literate. Defend them for, literally, goodness’s sake. And tell your councillors that you do so.

Finally, if you had five minutes locked in a room with (Libraries Minister) Ed Vaizey and (until recently, Culture Secretary) Jeremy Hunt, what would you tell them? Honestly? I’d probably be too angry to speak for a few seconds and then I’d start telling them what they’re doing wrong and have to be dragged out of the room. They both come from a point of view that libraries are fine and that they should be cut along with everything else and people should just shut up about it. Well, I’m a librarian and I won’t be quiet. And neither should you. Or anyone else. Otherwise you lose your voice, no-one hears you and you get things done to you. That’s rarely a good thing, as the users of 169 branches have discovered over the last year or so.

Ian Anstice has been using public libraries since he was a child and has been a professionally qualified public librarian since 1994. He is a branch manager for Cheshire West and Chester Council but all of his views expressed here, and on his blog Public Libraries News, are in a private capacity. IWR Information Professional of the Year 2011/12, Ian has recently won his town’s award for the best customer service and is also a member of the campaign group Voices for the Library.

Forgotten Campaigns? After the rush of court cases and high profile campaigns at the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012, the issue of library closures has faded a little from the public eye. Don’t let that fool you. As Ian mentioned, there are library groups across the country that are fighting for the survival of their libraries. There are those at the beginning of the process, protesting cuts or under pressure to form community groups to run their libraries. There are established community groups fighting for the right to run their libraries, and others who have already taken over who are now facing the challenge of trying to maintain a viable service. And now the first flush of interest has died down, most get scant media attention.

22 | Random Stuff

The 'Bantock cow' joins the campaign! (This is a sculpture which stands outside one of Wolverhampton’s local parks)

To tell all their stories, I’d have to take over the entire issue of Words with Jam, but here are a few snippets. It you want to find out what is going on in your area, visit Ian’s blog. In Wolverhampton, the Council plan to create ‘community hubs’ across the city which will involve co-locating youth, community and library services. All well and good, but local people believe that with the relocation of libraries to places inaccessible/inconvenient to many, plus the £600k cut to library staff budget and the £225k cut to the book budget that their plans will bring about the destruction of their branch library service. About nine months ago, one community group in the north of the city got wind of the plans and organised the first petition against them. Local press drew attention to this and it snowballed. There are currently 13 independent petitions running, plus one city-wide one. Pru Coleman, one of the campaigners, tells me, “None of us are in any way seasoned campaigners. We are ordinary people parents, jobseekers, students, retired professionals, housewives etc. Wolverhampton is a diverse city and we have representation from all walks of life, ages and backgrounds in our action group. We have no money and are financing costs of leaflets and so on from our own pockets.” As in many other areas, the city’s librarians have been told they face disciplinary action if they get involved in any way with campaigns to save libraries. “Many of our librarians have served specific communities for a great many years,” says Coleman. “They are loved and praised beyond any other council officers that I know. The most common metaphor you see in the local press regarding individual campaigns is ‘it will rip the heart out of the community’. And if our libraries are seen as the heart of our communities then the librarians are the heart of our libraries. “Wolverhampton Council does not seem to have any understanding of the added social value of libraries. The council officer leading this ‘vision’ for community hubs is quoted as describing a library as ‘3000 books, a machine and a member of staff ’ (NB not necessarily a librarian). If this is the vision for the future of Wolverhampton’s branch libraries then we are right to be spending our time fighting to protect them.”

I have written before in this column about Kensal Rise’s campaign to take over and run their library, but their sister library in Cricklewood is fighting an almost identical battle. Both libraries were stripped and boarded up by Brent Council in June, and the ownership of both buildings consequently reverted to All Souls College in Oxford, from whom it was covenanted. Both have been running pop-up libraries outside the boarded up buildings in an effort to serve their communities and keep their campaign in the public eye. Both communities have been striving to develop viable business plans that will allow them to take over the buildings again from All Souls and run the library service themselves. Sally Long, one of Cricklewood’s supporters, describes their campaign as Kensal Rise’s “softly spoken sister.” They were a little slower to get off the ground than Kensal Rise, and missed that initial blast of media attention. But they are equally determined to keep their library, which they see as Cricklewood’s only real community hub. “It’s a marvellous site, across the road from a park and at a junction of roads from neighbouring areas. We believe we can become a destination – not just somewhere people pass by.” Friday 7th September was the deadline for submitting business plans to All Souls College, who put both buildings on the market in July. The Cricklewood plan involves a number of partners, including a local café. They want to run English as a Second Language, Mother Tongue Language and Computer Literacy courses. And they are considering using the relatively inaccessible upper floor for recycling computers and providing youth training, after the model developed by Darren Taylor in Lewisham. Unlike Kensal Rise, they have not yet begun formally fundraising. (Kensal Rise had a target to raise £70k in pledges by 7th September and reached just shy of £78k.) But they are planning to use the crowdsourcing website, Buzzbnk to raise the money they will need. Architecture 00:/, who developed the Library Lab for Willesden Green Library (refurbishing a dark and underutilised area very quickly and at low cost) are interested in working with them. And they already have a pledge from a former user of their library to carry out any future maintenance for just the cost of the materials. It remains to be seen how All Souls College view the submissions from Cricklewood and Kensal Rise. They were on record as hoping Brent Council would continue to run the two libraries and they appear sympathetic to the communities’ desire to continue running the service. But the two buildings have nevertheless been put out to open tender. In Suffolk, all forty-four libraries have recently been handed over to an Industrial and Provident Society – a form of cooperative. With a requirement to cut almost £3M from their budget, the IPS have taken the unusual step of retaining their front line librarians and getting rid of the management. Other savings will come through the IPS’s charitable status. Each local library is pretty much free to run itself, supported by volunteers. Some campaigners at least believe that the IPS and individual library support groups can make a better job of running the service than a Council that is facing swingeing cuts. Others feel that the level of funding is ‘insubstantial’. At the very least, this is a model that is keeping every library open for now. But it is still very much an experiment and there is concern that other counties may jump on the bandwagon without fully understanding the implications. Someone who has had contact with just about every flavour of library campaign is Jim Brooks, Chairman of the Friends of Little Chalfont Community Library in Buckinghamshire. Little Chalfont Library was perhaps the first in the country to be taken over by a group of community volunteers, and this year reached its fifth anniversary. It has been highly successful – extending opening hours, maintaining an outstanding bookstock and running computer classes, film clubs and other activities. When Councils around the country began to consider cuts to the library budget as a way of saving money, Little Chalfont was held up

as a model for the future. Groups around the country beat a path to Brooks’ door, wanting to know how it had been done. He was invited by Ed Vaizey to address a conference of Local Authority leaders. At times he has been vilified by those who interpreted this to mean he was an advocate for community-run libraries. But he himself has always been crystal clear. Running a local library is like running a small business. If Little Chalfont has worked, it is because the local community has people with time, experience and deep enough pockets to support it. The same model cannot simply be foisted on other communities and expected to work. He has also been very clear on the support that is needed from Councils – in particular, the need for volunteer-run libraries to be linked to the library management service – the computer systems that manage the book stock .

Pop-up library at Crinklewood

“Without that, they’re not libraries; they’re just parochial book lending services.” The excuse that is often used is Data Protection. “That’s rubbish,” Brooks says. “All they need to do is register their own Data Protection policy. Then Councils can share data with them on the basis that they are also following Data Protection principles.” One Council that appears to have listened to his message is Buckinghamshire itself. Bucks is in the process of transferring a staggering 16 out of its remaining 25 libraries to community (volunteerrun) status. But unlike five years ago, when Little Chalfont was initially closed, they have been offering training and support for volunteers, providing grants, giving free access to books and computers, and employing a library development officer to work with all them all. Brooks suspects that some Councils may be setting community libraries up to fail. “They’ve worked out that closing libraries will lose them votes. So they set a bunch of volunteers up with a building that’s falling apart, starve them of key resources (denying them access to the Library Management system, and offering them a few rubbish books but no stock refresh) and then when the libraries fail, they will be able to say – well, we tried the volunteer route but it didn’t work.” So amidst all the gloom, where is the good news? Mark Taylor of CILIP tells me, “I think there’s a lot to be excited about. For example, the Library of Birmingham, Europe’s largest public library, will open in September 2013. “Projects funded by grants for the arts will go live. The extra £6 million funding is provided by Arts Council England to encourage libraries to work with arts organisations and artists to get communities involved in cultural activities. “I expect the revolution in reading habits will continue at pace as more and more people read and access knowledge digitally. This creates a set of unique challenges and opportunities for libraries, government and everyone with an interest in making sure we live in a literate, reading society.”

Random Stuff | 23

Lashings of Ginger Beer Procrastinating with Perry Iles

I’m probably not the best person in the world to indulge in one of my typical rants on the subject of British literature. I’ve gone on record many times saying that I prefer the modern Americans, and that the only British author who’d feature in my top ten would be David Mitchell. But we did actually have more of a hand in starting it, us Brits. Britlit dates back to a time when we weren’t even sure who we were. We were sort of Roman, then a bit Danish with a hint of Norway and after that we were some kind of outpost of France. Even now, our royal family is a bunch of third-generation Germans who changed their name

Trade Centre... But no, literature. Shaped by British language and culture ever since the Scots wrote Exit ad coitum, Romanes in woad on Hadrian’s Wall. Shaped through Norse legends to Tolkein, via Chaucer’s early characterisation to the sophistication of Shakespeare. Think of the English-speaking world’s literature as a kind of egg-timer, with the British at the pinchpoint. During the 19th century, we rummaged through the world’s story-box by virtue of empirical observation. Using empire in the sense of Empire, we found ourselves able to write about the world by hitting it over the head and then examining its corpse, much like the Americans are doing today. But with our Empire in decline and our literature becoming less global and swaggery, the American upstarts came along, and over the last fifty years they used us as a springboard to better things. In the post-war years, America has given us Kurt Vonnegut, Cormac McCarthy, Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon, Jack Kerouac, John Updike, Joseph Heller,

British giants? Perhaps we’re two countries divided by a common language, as George Bernard Shaw once said. We each have dictionaries, Webster’s or the OED. We each have experts who decide what to include in them, hermeneutical professionals pondering neologisms for fun and profit. However, James Nicoll once said: “The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious, and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary.” James Nicoll is Canadian, so I guess he’s forced at gunpoint to speak French now, and use words like le weekend, le snacque-barre and le rockstar, which goes to prove that if you spend your life sitting on the fence, you’ll fetch up using a piece of two-by-four as a suppository. Because all language borrows from others, not just English, and the greater your power and the bigger your empire, the more countries you’ll rule and the more languages you’ll have to choose from. We’re now living at the height

But is British literature beleaguered? Is it now confined to some oldfashioned backwater where it fights a losing battle against its eventual conquerors, mumping its gums about the corruption of language and looking back at the good old days when reading was supposed to be erudite and instructive, rather than fun? during World War One because Saxe-Coburg-von-Bismarck or whatever it was they were called wasn’t really a good name, what with the Somme and Passchendale and all this kind of thing. I mean, you wouldn’t want your country run by some sort of ginger Bin Laden, would you? Although a few whores in Vegas during this lifetime is probably better than the whole thousand-handmaidens-inparadise nonsense. A bird in the hand is worth two in the World

24 | Random Stuff

Harper Lee, Toni Morrison – even conscious weirdos like Richard Brautigan and William Burroughs. Have a game with your literary friends. For every British post-war novelist they can name, offer them two American ones. You’ll win. In popular fiction, if you want to see how sophisticated the American literary palate now is, compare James Herbert with Stephen King, compare any British crime writer you can think of with James Ellroy. The Americans are on a different planet using their own literary past (Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Melville) as a stylistic launch-pad that’s fired them out into some new universe using language that’s English, but not as we know it, Jim. Part expression, part style, all worldrogering confidence, the Americans have got us well and truly beaten at our own game. But are they standing on the shoulders of

of the American Empire, so we can expect all sorts of changes to flow down to their fifty-first state. Gangster is now Gangsta, anymore is now one word, disrespect is now a verb and we can boldly split infinitives safe in the knowledge that the guardians of our language have told us it’s OK to so do. And is now spelt ‘n’, which is just shorthand for the modern ampersand that we all use now & again. But we’re still holding out against textspeak, and even Bill Bryson has gone on record as saying that anyone who spells barbecue “BBQ” is ‘not yet ready for unsupervised employment.’ But is British literature beleaguered? Is it now confined to some old-fashioned backwater where it fights a losing battle against its eventual conquerors, mumping its gums about the corruption of language and looking back at

the good old days when reading was supposed to be erudite and instructive, rather than fun? Having put so much into the world – Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, the old Gothic poets who are probably cool again now, through to Orwell and DH Lawrence – are we now slowly disappearing up our perfectionist, snobbish fundaments? In the end, of course, it mostly comes down to taste, but there are degrees of sophistication that now appear to be present in American literature and its readership that are absent from ours. How else did DeLillo’s Underworld become a million-copy bestseller? It’s long, complex, dense and loosely plotted book, told pretty much backwards. It makes demands of the reader, yet a million Americans bought it, were able to relate to it and appreciate its subtleties. What have we got that’s as good as that, as challenging as that but could still sell by the bucketload? Until David Mitchell wrote Cloud Atlas, pretty much nothing, but Mitchell has spent many years in the far east, to the extent that his writing is more informed by eastern legend and mysticism than anything home-grown (until Black Swan Green, anyway, at which point he slapped British readers around the face with their country’s own recent past and produced a Cider-with-Attitude work of pubescent bucolic genius). Sure, we’ve got Will Self and various assorted Amisses. We have Ishiguro with his strictures on character, language and point-ofview, and we have Iain Banks and Ian McEwan, both of whose early promise subsided into a sort of cool professionalism that has them turning out perfectly literate reads every year or so without ever somehow living up to The Bridge, The Wasp Factory, The Cement Garden or The Child in Time. Sebastian Faulks’s beautifully imbalanced Birdsong was echoed by Ian McEwan’s Atonement, but Atonement relied on such a lumpen plot twist (oops! Delivered the wrong note! Sorry!) that if McEwan didn’t have anything to atone for before, he certainly does now. The urban mud-wallow of Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting reflected the kitchen sink novels and plays of the 1950s angry young men, but for inner-city reality nothing compares to Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree or the New York of DeLillo’s Underworld. The Americans have run so far with our ball that in some areas they seem to be expressing themselves in a language and with a style that’s subtly different and far advanced from our own. So what are we good at? What gaps have the Americans left for us? The answer lies in generations to come. Children’s

interests in America now appear to centre on the film industry or gaming. This leaves a pretty wide gap in the children’s fiction market, and opens the door to the good old British stalwarts. We’ve always been good at kidfic. From Alice, through Peter Pan to Narnia (religious allegory? Fuhgeddaboudit, just read the series, it’s great stuff). From Middle Earth to Hogwarts, Britain, like, totally rules! Maybe JK Rowling hasn’t ever met an adverb she didn’t like, and maybe Tolkein’s vision has congealed into tepid semolina with the passing of the years, but there isn’t an American author that could match our talent for children’s fiction, for inventing worlds, and there isn’t another country in the world that could summon such a diversity or such a population of sheer talent and ability as we can. And kids’ fiction is important. I don’t give a rat’s arse what Martin Amis thinks of it, the supercilious dick. And I don’t care which celebrity or piece of minor royalty turns their spurious talent to children’s stories because they’re “easy”. People start off reading kids’ books when they’re kids, then they rediscover them reading their own children to sleep, and most of the books they read in this genre are by British authors. Because for Britain, the fantasy still lives inside our heads. In America it’s out there, it’s real, they’re living everyone’s dream, with rides and burgers and 4D smell-o-vision, but compared to American technology everywhere else is Third World and we have to make do with words on paper. And for inspiration, we have the rags-to-riches Rowling, squeaky-clean child-friendly role model that everyone can look up to because there’s still a bit of woman-next-door about her, and she’s achieved her success by her own means, as opposed to by kissing a few toads. And for those who get overwhelmed by the whole adverb-overloaded doorstepproduction of wholesome young Mr Potter’s world in which even the ginger ones pull the fit birds, there’s Jacqueline Wilson, whose working-class heroines are troubled, come from broken homes or single-parent families and whose books are singularly well-written and imaginative. And even if neither of these ladies float your boat, try Michael Morpurgo, who tells odd stories like Born To Run, starring a greyhound who carries the narrative along with him via villainous animal thieves, cruelty and death, leaving ambiguous endings and breaking the rules of storytelling. Rowling may be about to move into adult fiction, but Wilson and Morpurgo are at the top of their

game, great writers producing great books for a willing and receptive audience, who will learn from their reading experience and go on to read other things. It’s reading, for God’s sake. It’s never going to hurt. British literature is at its strongest where it matters. Early readers. Hook ’em early, start ’em young. The first one’s always free, as the drug-dealers of my childhood used to tell me. British writers aren’t resting on their laurels, either. Tolkein’s a bit stodgy now, Blyton’s deeply unfashionable with her brownies and golliwogs. Harry Potter is beginning to date a little. But there’s more waiting in the wings, even as we revert to British staples to read to our kids. Whether your favourite Potter is Harry or Beatrix, there’s something for you, and like the Americans, it’s got a past to rely on. Look at the writing sites too, they’re bristling with kidfic, and most of it’s British. Play that game again with your fellow authors. Bet them you could name three British children’s writers for every American one they name. You’ll win again. The Americans (with the notable and brilliant exception of Daniel Handler, AKA Lemony Snicket) are concentrating on films and television. The preHollywood days of L Frank Baum and Dr Seuss have gone. So, we rule. And standing on the shoulders of our own kidfic giants has given us strength and confidence. And writing for kids is hard. Don’t let anyone try to tell you that kids are idiots. They’re the hardest audience you’ll find. Why is Harry Potter so successful? It’s because Rowling knows how to tell a story, how to create a world, how to make it real by bringing it to life in the heads of children. She’s done this by looking at the history of British children’s fiction, by either studying it or by an innate osmotic understanding of how to do it that’s come from having been immersed in it from childhood. Narnia, Middle Earth, Neverland, Wonderland, all brought to life perfectly. And let’s not forget Terry Pratchett’s Discworld too. He’s more for teens and adults, but he’s written enough for kids too to make him one of the best children’s writers Britain has ever produced. We’ve got a lot to build from. I’ll tell anyone who listens that American adult fiction writers are better. The reason for that is I’m all grown up now. But there’s a world full of people running along behind me, and those people need to be reading, and the writers live here at home, where they are gladly flourishing. The future’s bright. The future’s childish.

Random Stuff | 25

PRINT ISSUE S

Lots of people have asked us for a p And we said, why not? So now, not o with jam and cream, but you print s EXCLUSIVE material. The digital ver also have a printed copy, available deadline in order to have a copy of a 14th of the month before: i.e. for a to subscribe before the 14th July. UK Subscription for 1 year (6 issue EU Subscription for 1 year (6 issues Rest of the World Subscription for 1 The easiest way to order is online a www.wordswithjam.co.uk/paperiss

SUBSCRIPTION

printed version of the magazine. only can you can have your cake subscribers also receive extra rsion will remain FREE, but you can worldwide. Please note that the a particular month's issue is the copy of the August issue you need

es) £33 including p&p s) £39 including p&p 1 year (6 issues) £46 including p&p at suesubscription

I hesitate. I squint upwards. I can be at the top of the cliff before the wave strikes. Time holds its breath; muscles tremble. I want to run.

An extract from The Wave by Susan Oke - a print issue exclusive

60 Second Interviews with JJ Marsh

Each month, we persuade, tempt and coerce (or bully, harass and blackmail) two writers into spilling the contents of their shelves. Twelve questions on books and writing. Plus the Joker – a wild thirteenth card which can reveal so much. Be honest, what do you put on YOUR chips? Your intrepid reporter, Jill

A.D. Miller Which was your favourite childhood book?

Are there any books you re-read?

Archy and mehitabel

You’ve written Booker shortlisted fiction, highly successful non-fiction and you are the Britain editor of The Economist – where are you most at home?

Where do you write? What objects are on your desk, and why? In a shed. A pile of papers that I intend to sort through but never will; and, for morale, a photo of my daughter and me shelling peas.

Which was the book that changed your life? Not sure there was one, exactly. Maybe Lolita. Or the Old Testament.

Only Shakespeare.

At Camden Town station, in the passage that connects the branches of the Northern line.

What are you working on at the moment? A novel about friendship, sex and money.

What’s the best filling for a jacket potato? Butter and hope.

Have your experiences as a travel writer made you particularly attuned to location? Perhaps. But you use it very differently in fiction. About A.D. Miller A.D. Miller was born in London in 1974. He studied literature at Cambridge and Princeton, where he began his journalistic career writing travel pieces about America. Returning to London, he worked as a television producer before joining The Economist to write about British politics and culture. In 2004 he became The Economist’s correspondent in Moscow, travelling widely across Russia and the former Soviet Union. He is currently the magazine’s Britain editor; he lives in London with his wife Emma, daughter Milly and son Jacob. He wrote a critically acclaimed non-fiction book, The Earl of Petticoat Lane, in 2006. His fiction debut, Snowdrops, was shortlisted for the 2011 Booker Prize. http://www.snowdropsthenovel. com/book/snowdrops/about

Which writer(s) do you most admire? Chekhov, WG Sebald, Melville, Dostoevsky, Isaac Babel.

Do you have a word or phrase that you most overuse? Adumbrate. Kip.

Is there a book you were supposed to love but didn’t? Lots.

Do people often assume that Nick, the narrator of Snowdrops is a thinly disguised version of you? Yes, often. One of the risks of first-person narration that I didn’t anticipate.

What have you learned from writing? Take risks. Take criticism. Keep going.

30 | Random Stuff

Jojo Moyes Which was your favourite childhood book? Friday’s Tunnel by John Verney

Where do you write? What objects are on your desk, and why? Either in the back room at home, or my little office in Saffron Walden. I am a desk slob, so usually 18 books I’ve promised to read, two empty coffee cups, admin, old contracts, receipts I haven’t yet sorted, biscuit crumbs, pens, notepads full of incomprehensible plot points and doodles. About Jojo Jojo Moyes was born in 1969 and grew up in London. After a varied career including stints as a minicab controller, typer of braille statements for blind people for NatWest, and brochure writer for Club 18-30 she did a degree at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, London University. In 1992 She won a bursary financed by The Independent newspaper to attend the postgraduate newspaper journalism course at City University, and apart from 1994 when she worked in Hong Kong for the Sunday Morning Post, she worked at The Independent for ten years, including stints as Assistant news editor and Arts and Media Correspondent. She has been a full time novelist since 2002, when her first book, Sheltering Rain was published. She lives on a farm in Essex with her husband, journalist Charles Arthur, and their three children. Her new book, Me Before You, is out now. http://www.jojomoyes.com/

Which was the book that changed your life? Behind The Scenes At The Museum. It made me realise that books could have an actual ‘voice’, and made me want to find my own.

Which writer(s) do you most admire? It changes month to month, but Kate Atkinson is probably a constant.

Are there any books you re-read? I re-read all the time. I don’t understand people who only read a book once. National Velvet is a favourite. To Kill A Mockingbird. Heartburn by Nora Ephron.

How do you feel about the expression ‘chick-lit’? I hate it. But I love many of the writers who write it.

What are you working on at the moment? I’m trying to get my new novel off the ground. It’s like feeling around in the dark, waiting for the shapes to take form. I feel like that answer is going to land me in Pseud’s Corner.

If you weren’t a writer, would you be a horsewoman? I’d love to, yes. My riding instructor would probably disagree.

Do you have a word or phrase that you most overuse? Absolutely.

Is there a book you were supposed to love but didn’t? The Lacuna

What have you learned from writing? Everything. As a child, I learned about the world. Now I learn about what’s inside people.

Which book do you wish you’d written? So many! Most recently, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.

Best read of the summer? Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.

Random Stuff | 31

Quite Small Stories

Words by Maureen Bowden ‘I thought you were visiting my grave today.’ Jane hitched up her long dress, revealing silk stockings and ankle boots, as she perched crosslegged on my coffee table. ‘I was,’ I said, but I had a Louisa Musgrove moment, tumbled down stairs and broke my ankle. The book club went without me. They’ve promised me a Winchester Cathedral postcard.’ ‘I’m not there anyway,’ she said. ‘It’s just my discarded bones. I’m here.’ ‘I know. You’re a result of my pain medication.’ ‘I fear your judgement may be clouding your powers of observation. May I remove my bonnet?’ ‘Please do. Remove whatever you like.’ She paused; frowning, and then she turned her large eyes upon me, delivering her challenge. ‘May I have your assurance that you are a gentleman?’ ‘I am, when in the presence of a lady.’ ‘Good. I should very much like to remove my corset. It is, in your modern vernacular, killing me.’ ‘But you’ve been dead since 1817.’ ‘Please do not be pedantic. I endured enough of that from my sister. It would not be seemly for me to appear in a state of undress. May I borrow a gown?’ ‘There’s a towelling robe hanging on the bathroom door. Help yourself.’ She drifted through the living room wall. I stretched out on the settee, wondering what the hell was in those pills. She returned: her ample figure swathed in blue and green striped towelling. She was not the first lady to take shelter within those stripes, and for a second, logic flew out the window and I found myself hoping she would find nothing in the pocket to offend her sensibilities. Her dark hair hung down her back and framed her face in tight kisscurls. With a lashing of mascara and a shirt with a turned-up collar she could have been mistaken for a mid-1950s Teddy-girl. She resumed her perch on the coffee table. ‘I must speak to you on a matter of some urgency.’ I felt uneasy. ‘Why me?’ ‘Because you are a reader and I am a writer. You say I am dead but I am not. I, and all those other writers whose books line your shelves, live on in our words. Our readers keep us alive. Now we are fearful.’ She didn’t look it. Her eyes flashed and she pursed her lips the way my grandmother did, when she told me I hadn’t washed behind my ears. ‘Your children are not being taught to cherish books; your schools do not encourage literacy; and there are no governesses to rectify the situation.’ She scowled at my mobile phone balanced on the arm of the settee. ‘Messages, inappropriately called texts, omit all vowels, and newly invented words are not committed to paper. They appear on a screen, a button is pressed and they vanish forever. Is this, ultimately, to be our fate?’ It’s called technology,’ I said, ‘but you needn’t worry. Your books are safe in libraries.’ She shook her head. ‘You misunderstand. We are alive only as long as our words are read, and your politicians are threatening to close the libraries.’ ‘What can I do? I’m only one man.’ ‘There are millions of you,’ she said. ‘One of us will speak to each of you. This is your world and if we are to have a place in it you must find a way to save us.’ The painkillers were wearing off and my ankle was throbbing. I hobbled to the kitchen and swallowed two more with a glass of water. When I returned she was gone. I lay back on the settee and slept. I was awakened some hours later by the call of nature. With the help of a walking stick and the banister rail I reached the bathroom. My towelling robe hung on its hook on the door. I ran my hand over the fabric, recalling Jane’s words, ‘You must find a way to save us.’

‘I will,’ I promised.

*** That evening I enlisted the help of Adrienne, a whiz-kid computer programmer, to help me set up an email petition to rescue the libraries. ‘It’s weird that you should ask me,’ she said. ‘I dreamed about Oscar Wilde last night. He told me he’s still alive as long as his words are read and he doesn’t want to die and go to Heaven because none of his friends are there.’ She shivered. ‘It was so real I could have sworn I was awake.’ We took a break to watch The News at Ten. We groaned and tutted about the Middle East, phone hacking journalists and bribe-taking police officers. Then Fiona Bruce interviewed Dame Judy Dench, who criticised the way Shakespeare is taught in schools. ‘The Bard is not happy, sorry, I mean would not be happy, that children generally do not enjoy the heritage he’s left.’ She revealed that she and Kenneth Branagh, and several lesser mortals, planned to spend their own time on a nationwide tour, performing the plays for GCSE students, in order to promote literary appreciation. The following night Jeremy Paxman interviewed Terry Pratchett on Newsnight. Sir Terry paid homage to G. K. Chesterton, who inspired him to write. He feared that his hero would soon be forgotten and people would find a use for his books only if they had very thin paper. A few days later, on The One Show, Charlotte Church sang the praises of the Bronte sisters, and revealed that she had been invited by Andrew Davies to play Cathy in his forthcoming TV production of Wuthering Heights. She expressed a wish that the good-looking vampire from Twilight be offered the role of Heathcliff. Ed Miliband appeared on Question Time and was bombarded by queries from the audience about his party’s policy on adolescent illiteracy. He pledged that if Labour were returned to power every school leaver would be required to demonstrate that they could read. If any failed the test, the competence of the Head Teacher at the school in question would be challenged, with severe career consequences. David Dimbleby interrupted. ‘Do you mean he or she will be sacked?’ Ed said ‘Yes.’ Our petition collected thirty thousand signatures in a week. By the end of the month we had a million. Protest marches converged on local council offices demanding a repeal for the libraries. Banksy painted a picture on the wall of the Palace of Westminster. It showed bowler-hatted bureaucrats knocking nails into the coffin of literature. When the police turned up with cans of paint thinner and attempted to remove it, a riot broke out. The rioters fought the law and the law lost. Nick Clegg announced that the Social Democrat members of the coalition regarded Mr Banksy as a national treasure and if they were given the opportunity at the next election to form their own government, they would ensure that the picture would be preserved for posterity. UKIP, Plaid Cymru, The Raving Loonies and The People’s Party for Home Rule in Ashton-on-Makerfield, each declared that saving the libraries was top priority in their manifestos. David Cameron rose to his feet in the House of Commons and asserted that the libraries were safe in his hands. He used one of those hands to thump his table, demonstrating that he was a force to be reckoned with and he would not be deterred from making this u-turn. ‘We have listened to the voice of the people,’ he said. I’d heard enough. I reached for the remote control and switched off the TV. *** ‘Thank you,’ said Jane. The bonnet and corset were back in place. ‘You’re welcome, Miss Austen,’ I raised her hand to my lips, ‘and any time you have the urge to slip into something more comfortable my towelling robe is at your disposal.’ ‘I believe you’re flirting with me, Mr Willoughby.’ For the first time in our acquaintance I heard her laugh. ‘I will decline your kind offer at present but do not under-estimate the power of words. There may be other opportunities. I intend to live for a very long time.’

BIGGER 2012

Overall Prize Pot £1500

1st prize in each category - £300 2nd prize in each category - £100 3rd prize in each category - £50 Our Annual Short Story Competition just got BIGGER. Not only do we have our usual 2500 word Short Story Category, but now we have a Shorter Story Category for stories up to 1000 words and a Shortest Story Category for stories up to 250 words. 5 runners up in each category will be published in the first volume of our Short Story Anthology (of which they will receive a copy), and awarded £10. Closing Date: 31st October 2012 Entry Fee: £6 and £4 per entry thereafter Results: All winning entries will be published in the February 2013 issue of Words with JAM.

Judges: Short Story Judge (up to 2500 words): Jane Fallon www.janefallon.co.uk

Shorter Story Judge (up to 1000 words): Benjamin Myers www.benmyers.com

Shortest Story Judge (max 250 words): Zoë Fairbairns www.zoefairbairns.co.uk

For more information visit: www.wordswithjam.co.uk/ shortstorycompetition2012

Fifteen Shades for Grey is a collection of short stories about animals, kindness and charity. Every penny goes to Wooffles Animal Shelter. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and most of all, you’ll be glad you spent your money on something that warms the cockles of your heart as opposed to … ahem … was that the doorbell?

Now Available for Amazon Kindle

Fifteen Shades for Grey

A collection of heart-warming storie s money for rescued anto raise imals

Comp Corner Corralled by Danny Gillan

Sometimes I despair, I really do. I mean, I thought we were friends by now; I thought we had an understanding. I tell you what to do and you do it – it’s not complicated.

Right, here come the instructions for our next competition. Are you reading carefully? Sure? Positive? Want me to use big letters?

And in they popped, loads of entries with almost 140 characters, or under 140 characters, or just over 140 characters. Even, in one case under 140 words! (I’m looking at you, Faulkner)

For your next trick, I want you to convey, in forty words or less (yes, I said or less, you’re okay this time) the difference between a believable character and an unbelievable one. What makes a protagonist or supporting player embed themself in your psyche and what traits leave you cold? Doddle.

Lots of you falling at the first hurdle there I’m afraid. I hope you’re ashamed – thoroughly ashamed. I know I won’t be able to look you in the eye again for quite some time.

Usual terms - get them in by 5th November in the body of an email to danny@wordswithjam.co.uk for your chance to win one of three copies of HandKnitted Electricity and other linguistic absurdities

Tell me, which part of the phrase ‘exactly 140 characters’ don’t you get? Christ, we even put ‘exactly’ in italics!

Fortunately it seems there are a few of you who can read and follow simple instructions so we do have three winners. In no particular order:

Day 1, account set up: @thenextbigthing. This is it. Thousands to hang on my every word. I wait... Day 42. No followers. Account terminated. Susan Smith

I hate Twitter because 140 characters is pitiful and doesn’t come anywhere near enough to say anything very useful, intelligent or interesti Keith Havers

Wht I hate about twitter? Wnkrs trying so hrd 2 fit their tiny thghts n2 such a smll space by doing away with lnguage. BUY A FCKING DKSHNRY! Van Demal

Congratulations to Susan, Keith and Van. You’ll soon have one of the most sought after objects in existence (a WWJ mug) winging it’s way to you via the mystical power of snail mail.

Competitions | 35

The Agent’s View with Andrew Lownie

Andrew answers YOUR questions ...

Andrew Lownie was born in 1961 and was educated in Britain and America. He read history at Magdalene College, Cambridge where he was President of the Union. He went on to gain an MSc at Edinburgh University and spend a year at the College of Law in London. After a period as a bookseller and journalist, he began his publishing career as the graduate trainee at Hodder & Stoughton. In 1985 became an agent at John Farquharson, now part of Curtis Brown, and the following year became the then youngest director in British publishing when he was appointed a director. Since 1984 he has written and reviewed for a range of newspapers and magazines, including The Times, Spectator and Guardian, which has given him good journalistic contacts. As an author himself, most notably of a biography of John Buchan and a literary companion to Edinburgh, he has an understanding of the issues and problems affecting writers. He is a member of the Association of Authors’ Agents and Society of Authors and was until recently the literary agent to the international writers’ organisation PEN. In 1998 he founded The Biographers Club, a monthly dining society for biographers and those involved in promoting biography, and The Biographers’ Club Prize which supports first-time biographers.

I started self-publishing in 2009, and now have four ebooks available. Earlier this year, I was talent spotted by an editor at a major publisher. He requested a full of two of my novels, and has now made an offer. The offer is this: They want to purchase the World Rights, excluding the UK. The advance for two books is under $2000. Their plan is to do an electronic book in the US as the first format, with a potential later paper version. The royalty rates they are offering (for electronic books) are 25% of net receipt. As I have yet to acquire an agent I am at a loss as to whether this is a good deal, a foot in the door, or a no-go zone. Any help with this dilemma would be appreciated. Mark, Redcar What a nice dilemma to be in and certainly worth bringing an agent in . Many successful self-published authors are being approached by publishers and the temptation to let a publisher take on all the work involved in publishing and publicising a book is tempting. It may be the publisher can find fresh readers in new markets and build you but one has to think very carefully that this is more than simply a lazy land grab. They appear to be offering only a third of what you are likely to earn through an Amazon programme, are offering a very modest advance and only seem interested in half your books and not committing to future ones. They need to be clear on what sort of marketing and promotion they are offering and what they are providing in ‘added value’ and worth checking the publisher’s track record. I personally think publishers are missing a trick by not offering limited licences of , say, five years, as happens in translation, to give authors an exit strategy, and at least 50% royalty. Anyway, good luck with whatever you decide.

I am looking for a definitive answer. I keep getting conflicting advice as to whether to mention I have written a series when pitching to an agent, or try to sell a standalone book. I have completed two in a series of five children’s books, with illustrations. The age range is 9-11 years. Yours sincerely, Gita Bhasin, Sheffield I’m not sure there is a definitive answer, and I don’t handle children’s books, but my experience is editors like the idea a book could become a series , so it should, if possible, be pitched as such, but they tend to proceed cautiously with a standalone book first rather like a pilot tv programme.

Sock puppet reviews. Agents and publishers have been strangely silent. Can you ask Andrew what his take is? DR

36 | Pencilbox

Thomas, Malvern I don’t think agents and publishers have been ‘strangely silent’. We are appalled by them. I’m all in favour of reader reviews on Amazon, social media such as Good Reads but there has to be honesty and transparency.

Dear Andrew With no less than three of my fantasy novels peaking in the Amazon charts, a huge readership and a steady income stream from my self-published work, where do you suggest I should start looking IRO film rights? Jason, Hamburg I’m sure film agents specialising in fantasy would be delighted to hear from you.

An agent wants to meet me and asked me to ‘pitch my work’ to her and the marketing representative. I have under half an hour but need to leave time for questions. What should I include? What should I leave out? What would you want to hear? (In my day job, I’d use slides, but is that appropriate in publishing circles?) (The book is non-fiction, an exploration of the British steel industry through my family’s own incredible history.) Ralph, (currently in Houston, Texas, originally from Consett) I’m suspicious of an agent with a marketing representative. Decisions on the book will be made on the quality of the writing and that’s the form – suggested proposal format can be found on my website at www.andrewlownie.co.uk - you should be pitching.

Hi Jill, I’d like to ask your agent if a writer can have different agents for different kinds of book. I write about handicrafts, with illustrations, and have an agent who can sell these books. But I think my romantic fiction will need a different kind of expertise. Is it acceptable to seek specialist agents for different kinds of books? Marina Szczepanski, Southampton Yes as long as you are open about having separate agents, the agents are happy to work on that basis, and everything is coordinated. I handle a ghost writer for non-fiction who has a different agent for her novels, a military writer whose MBS books are handled by a specialist MBS agent and have a suggested children’s agent for those of my authors who want to write children’s books. It’s all about ‘horses for courses’. What I don’t think works is an author giving only less commercial books to an agent. We will work on less commercial books if we also have the commercial books to balance them and so we can plan a long-term strategy. I know one author who uses several agents for similar books but it must be very confusing and I suspect he doesn’t inspire the same loyalty from them as their other authors.

Writing Social Media by Dan Holloway

I was completely blindsided a month ago by a request to write an opinion piece for the Guardian. I was asked to respond to a piece in which one of the Guardian’s staffers, Robert McCrum, in which he argued that contemporary literature has completely bypassed the digital revolution. Not in terms of marketing, or distribution, or “platforms.” But in terms of subject matter. He claimed that he couldn’t think of a single book, or even a scene, that was dependent upon social media and the way in which it has impinged upon our lives. Really, I thought. Nothing? Even ignoring the fact that he might have overlooked the two books I’ve written that take place largely on blogs and in internet chatrooms, was there nothing else? The comments soon made it clear there were books out there. Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story, Helene Hegemann’s Axolotl Roadkill, and a host of science fiction. And surely this will only increase. In a world where many of us tweet, update, like, post, reblog and pin more than we actually talk, our writing can’t rely completely on dialogue forever. Shortly after I’d e-mailed the article off, it occurred to me that I’ve been scribbling this column on writing and social media for three years now (three years!!) and not once have I touched on the question of writing about social media. Well, I’m late to the party but finally I’m here. So, should you include social media in your writing and, if you decide to do so, how should you go about it? Social media is like sex. OK, sociologists might say it’s taken the place of sex, but for writers it fits into that caveat author category of subjects that need to be approached with care because if you get it wrong you will lift the reader straight out of the piece. So unless you are sure you can get it right, it’s best to avoid long strings of texts and tweets. I’ve read some truly cringeworthy passages featuring text-speak, where a writer has inserted a lol or a smiley or the occasional gr8 2 c u and

considered it job done. That’s the literary equivalent of the embarrassing dad dance. On the other hand, social media is increasingly part of everyday life for all of us, and it impinges upon us as writers in two ways. First, our characters message and status and like and pin as readily as they talk, and whilst a book is a world one step removed from reality where disbelief is readily suspended, that disbelief can only be suspended so far – just imagine if The Blair Witch Project had been made five years later: the first half hour would have had to explain why they didn’t just call someone on their mobile phones, or fifteen years later and it would have been “where’s their GPS?” If we are writing for young adults, for example, we have to address this – I have a sneaking suspicion this is one reason why post-apocalyptic dystopias are so popular – the disappearance of the electronic infrastructure solves all those awkward problems in one sweep. Second, for those of us who write contemporary fiction, the virtual world is something we find ourselves confronting as one of the key issues of our time. Many psychologists believe the fragmentary, divergent way social media makes information processed is rewiring children’s brains. The green protests in Iran and the Arab Spring have shown that twitter is, literally, revolutionary. And the numbers of communities in which we participate and the ways in which we participate in them, are being changed forever. If we are interested in the contemporary human condition, this is something we have to grapple with. But if we grapple with it, it is very strange for actual social media interactions to be perennially the elephant in the room or the character forever offstage. Our literary Rebecca or Mrs Columbo. So, let’s assume you decide your book needs to include social media. How do you go about it? I’ll take a quick at some of the key things you need to think about and how to tackle them. And may well make this an introduction to an ongoing series.

Which social medium? Different people communicate through different social media, and use different combinations of media using different software and different hardware. It’s essential to get all the details right. What age group are you writing about? What are they using social

media for? Where do they live? Where is the interaction taking place? On the bus? In the office? Some people chat through MSN messenger, some on Facebook, others still do it in bulletin board forums whilst still others will chat on twitter and some are serial texters. Most important, your characters almost certainly do things differently from you!

Research All of which brings me to the key point. Do your research. Treat social media like any other aspect of your book and do the groundwork. What phone does your character use? What operating system does it have? Do they use a tablet? A laptop? If they tweet, for example, do they do so using an app or from the web? What does the screen look like? How much of the conversation do they see? What is the technical vocabulary for the medium they’re using? There’s nothing so sure to pull a reader up short as to confuse followers with likes, pages with groups, or pins and reblogs with shares.

Finding your character’s voice This is also an area where research is essential. We communicate as distinctly through social media as we do when we speak, and a person’s statuses and tweets and messages should be as distinct and instantly recognisable as their speech would be. There will be similarities to the way they speak in their dialogue, but the two will not be the same. It’s not just that we use abbreviations and emoticons. The rhythms are different. Dialogue tends to flow, it has cadence. We raise the pitch of our voice to ask a question, for example, and sentence structure reflects that. Our dialogue is also reasonably syntactically correct. These aren’t necessarily true of how we talk on social media. By and large on social media we communicate the essentials, a non-syntactic, often unpunctuated, and by and large sequentially ordered series of partial phrases to get a message across. And even when it comes to abbreviations, we have more than just LOL – we develop our private languages and shortcuts, and we even use emoticons differently – does your character smile with :) or :-) for example? And whilst writing dialect into dialogue is rare, misspellings and idioms are an essential part of the “voice” in which people communicate through social media.

Pencilbox | 37

How to present an interaction I had thought this would be the whole substance of this article. As it is, with none of the restrictions of 140 characters (top tip for writing tweets in a book – actually write the tweets in your twitter account where you have a character counter – somebody somewhere will pick up if you have a 141 character tweet and aren’t using twitlonger) I think it will be the whole of a future piece! For now I will say simply, the key decision you will have to make is a formatting one. You can take a number of approaches. For verisimilitude, you could format your interactions as screenshots, added in as cropped jpegs. There are several reasons why I wouldn’t do this. First, at a practical level, jpegs use memory and if you are self-publishing on Kindle this will result in an increased delivery charge that will eat into the money you make. Second, you will need to decide whether you present all your twitter feeds, say, in a uniform format that’s one none of your characters use, or whether you will use the actual software and screen size and so on for each character. This could get expensive and complicated. So you will probably choose to use some kind of shorthand representation. You could indent, or use a different font, or italics. What you use will decide how much

38 | Pencilbox

you want to bring attention to the different form of communication and how much you simply want to integrate it seamlessly. And there are practical issues – many messages contain links. Will you use real links? How will you make them up? Will you create sites for them to lead to? What link-shortening software would your character use?

Using tags This is something that belongs with the question of whether you want to integrate communications or have them stand out as discrete chunks of interaction. If you choose the former then there’s a whole new area of tagging to worry about. No longer is s/he said all you need. You will need to come up with a naturalistic way of describing things that fits with your character. You will be using tweet, status, like, message, text as verbs. Remember. If you really don’t feel happy including social media, it’s possible to avoid it, just as it’s possible to avoid sex. Reporting is the best way to do this. You can always say “he tweeted me that…” Or “she texted me she was coming over.”

To summarize • Only include social media if it’s essential to your story • On the other hand, don’t avoid writing about it if doing so makes your story unrealistic • Research just as you would for any other element of your novel • Break up chunks of text to create a rhythm • If you really aren’t happy tweeting or texting on the page, report what’s said, just like reported speech

Striptease with Emily Bronte Critical Reading with Sarah Bower

Before applying to the creative writing MA course at the University of East Anglia, I did a little research and went to talk to people who had applied successfully in the past to give myself some idea what was required. One comment stuck in my mind. The writer concerned praised many things about the course, but then looked a little wistful and said, ‘Of course, you’ll never read for pleasure again.’ While this is a somewhat bleak way of expressing what she meant, and I do still manage to enjoy reading, nevertheless, she had a good point. One of the key things you learn from a study of creative writing is how to become a good critical reader, of both your fellow students’ work and of the books that are important to you. Whether or not creativity can be taught is a subject of debate for some other forum, but there is no doubt that certain skills that enhance creativity can be taught. You cannot create a beautiful embroidery if you cannot sew, and you cannot build elegant furniture if you have no idea how to dovetail. Similarly, there are basic skills needed to write a novel, as I hope this series of features has shown, and one of them is the ability to read ‘properly’. This means reading with analytical care and precision, weighing a book, not just as a whole work, but sentence by sentence, word by word if need be, excavating its bones to find out precisely how it is put together. Why is this skill useful to the writer? I frequently meet students who, when asked about their reading, assert they never read at all. At best, they do not have time to read because they are too busy writing. Well, let us take a step back and ask what it is that makes us become writers. There must, of course, be some predisposition towards the use of words to express, not just facts and opinions, but the deeper and more ineffable emotions behind them. Words are for the writer what images are for the painter, a way of making sense of the world, of attempting to arrive at the essential truths that drive human behaviour. Or of discovering that there are none, but this is not the place to expand on a philosophy of nihilism. If, therefore, writers value words so highly and invest them with such power, it surely makes sense for the beginning writer to read other people’s words and see how they have gone about the task on which she is about to embark. I suspect some of those who do not read are driven by arrogance, by a sense that what they have to say is so original that no other writer’s work can have any relevance for them. Others, however, who are not only humbler but more conscientious and, in my view, more likely to succeed in their self-appointed task, fear that too much reading will inhibit their ability to develop an individual voice and style of their own. Of course you will be influenced by writing which evokes a strong response in you, whether you love it or hate it, whether you despair at ever being able to approach such brilliance yourself or vow to go out and shoot yourself if you end up writing like…insert your own bête noir here. But there is nothing wrong with influences. All artists acknowledge influences; it is a way of expressing gratitude to those who have inspired us and of locating our work in the canon. Perhaps, at the outset of your writing career, you might think locating yourself in the canon is hubristic, but it is, in fact, a practical thing to do. If, for example, your strength and preference lies in writing plot driven stories, with a lot of twists and turns, cliff hangers and shock endings, it will be useful for you to read other writers whose

work includes these features. Put that way, you can see immediately what a broad category this is, embracing everyone from Ian McEwan to James Patterson, Val McDiarmid to John Le Carre. Where are you on the spectrum? The best way to find this out is to read as widely as you can, within the broadest possible definition of the action novel, until you alight on the writer or writers whose work speaks most directly to you. This will help you, not only in developing your own style but also, further down the line, in thinking about how to market your work. ‘Thomas Harris meets J. K. Rowling in this gripping tale of cannibalism and magic in an English public school’ may not actually get you an agent or a publisher…well, it might, I suppose… Let us look at what good critical reading entails. With hindsight, I realise that, for me – and I am sure for many of you – it is a habit that began early. Family legend has it that I used to drive my parents to distraction by insisting they read me the same bedtime stories over and over again. If they tried to jump the odd page or paragraph in order to get to their evening gin and tonic more quickly I would pick them up because I knew the text by heart and could spot their subterfuge. The enjoyment of re-reading has stayed with me though, alas, I am nowadays afflicted by ‘so many books, so little time’ syndrome. I do, however, reread Wuthering Heights every year and still marvel at the passage (on page 81 of my edition) in which Heathcliff rails against the dead Cathy for leaving him behind. In my teens, I took this a stage further when I became so entranced by Virginia Woolf ’s The Waves I began transcribing whole passages of it in my journal. I have gone on doing this, intermittently, throughout my writing life, the last time being a passage about heartbreak from Vassily Grossman’s Life and Fate in the translation by Robert Chandler. Copying out extracts of novels, stories or poems helps you to engage with them in a much more intimate way than you do by merely reading them. It feels, to me, like a process of ‘undressing’ the text, or perhaps, even, of peeling away its skin to reveal its inner workings. But why would you want to do this, and what would make you choose one passage over another? As a writer, if you read a piece of another writer’s work which blows you away, you are instinctively inclined to wonder how they have achieved what they have. Copying out their words, which means reading them slowly, savouring them and analysing how they are strung together, can begin to reveal to you how they have created the effect that has moved you so powerfully, whether to tears or laughter or just plain awe and envy. Copying – as long as you do it in the privacy of your personal journal and avoid laying yourself open to charges of plagiarism – is a good way to begin to train yourself to become a good critical reader. It forces you to slow down; if you are copying, you cannot skim. It also helps in committing passages to memory, ready for you to dredge up when you need them to guide you. I do not agree with the writer who warned me that becoming a good critical reader would take the pleasure out of reading. What it does is intensify the reading experience, so that, like the little girl in the rhyme, when it is good, it is very, very good, but when it is bad, it is horrid. I must confess to having a tendency to savage poor writing mercilessly because my well-developed critical faculty means I find it painful. On the other hand, the experience of total immersion in marvellous writing is ecstatic – humbling, but also inspirational. It reminds me, not just of the difficulty of the task the novelist sets herself, but also of why it is worth continuing the struggle.

Pencilbox | 39

www.cornerstones.co.uk

A Mini Masterclass with Kathryn Price Mount Dajti, east of Tirana - 14th October 2016 By Abdu’Rashid Craig A sheet of lightning from somewhere over the Adriatic rippled across the sky, and for a dozen heartbeats night turned to day. Tha’s a-brewin up awright ‘bor. Every hair on Mick’s body was trying to stand to attention. The column of armoured troop carriers, still in desert camouflage, was scattered randomly along the mountain track below. The carelessness of it all upset him. They were sitting ducks. At least they would be in a proper war. A few pale faces peered out of open hatches. He recognised none of them. He knew the other Senior NCO’s of course, and a few old lags they’d swept up in Pompey on the out, but the rest were just boys, barely through basic training. Whose bright idea was it to bring back National Service? They hadn’t even had time to sew on their Y-For flashes. Y-For? What-the-Fuck-For more like. The Rupert in charge looked as though he’d hardly started shaving; 2nd Lieutenant Firkin or Merkin or something. Mick pictured the CO and the Adjutant, tucked up in their bunks on board a Hospital ship in Durres; and the nurses, all starch and tits and antiseptic. The thunder rolled on and on, a creeping barrage. Danny had one more go at raising HQ but the radio was still dead. Mick made his way carefully across the clearing to the Lieutenant, who for reasons of his own was sat on the ground with his back to a tree-stump. His hands were clasped round his knees, and he was all hunched up in his cape, a rivulet of rainwater running down his nose. ‘Anything to report Sergeant Major?’ ‘The Comms kit is fucked sir. We’ve been trying to contact HQ for the last hour or so and we ain’t getting a dickie bird.’ ‘What’s the time?’ ‘Dunno Sir. The watches is fucked as well. They all stopped at 23.07.’ The Rupert received this advice in silence. ‘Any orders sir?’ ‘What do you suggest Sarn’t Major?’ ‘Well, if you’ll excuse me sir, I think we ought to get back. And maybe we ought to swing by GHQ on the way, let them know what we’re up to, like. That’s Standard Procedure when we get cut off.’ ‘’Spose you’re right. Well, better turn the APC’s round.’ ‘The transport is all fucked, remember sir? That’s why we stopped. We’ll have to walk.’ The sodden Lieutenant didn’t seem to register. ‘It’s getting a bit stark now, sir. We’d best get moving.’ The Rupert managed to struggle to his feet. The rest of the Company was tumbled unwillingly out of the fug that had built up inside the stationary vehicles, and Mick had them form up. He gave the nod to Dermot, who set off with three of his blokes in tow in the general direction of the city. ‘Corporal Hardwicke. You and your section better stay behind and look after the APC’s. No one’s going to drive them off, but we don’t want to be encouraging souvenir hunters. I’ll send someone to pick you up in the morning.’ ‘Yessir’ ‘Corporal Wiggins. You’re the rearguard. Take your section up in those rocks up.

This is a vivid opening with a real sense of authenticity to the soldiers’

the weak verb plus adverb construction gives it a slightly stodgy feel. How,

banter and the setting. There’s a world-weariness and apathy to the

exactly, does Mick cross the clearing? Why is he being careful? (Again –

interactions that feels convincingly bleak, and the reader is immediately

where is the threat coming from?) Where is the clearing, exactly? From the

intrigued about the situation, which feels both familiar – from our reading

earlier descriptions – lightning over the Adriatic … mountain track below

of contemporary conflict literature – and yet somehow strange.

– the reader will be likely to picture an open hillside of sorts, whereas

These hints of strangeness present potential for developing the

a clearing implies a more enclosed setting. In addition to bringing the

opening, as well as some questions. The main hints that this isn’t war as

immediate action to life more vividly, this will all combine to build a clearer

we know it – At least they would be in a proper war … whose bright idea

picture of what these soldiers are doing, where, and why.

was it to bring back national service and the watches … all stopped at

Similarly, the dialogue with the Lieutenant would benefit from more

23.07 – pique the reader’s interest and curiosity and of course the date,

accompanying action, description and internal thought from Mick to

a few years in the future, gives us another sign that this is a world slightly

cushion it and make it work harder. The Rupert received this advice in

removed from our own.

silence and didn’t seem to register. But what does he do? (Does he wipe the

Without seeing a synopsis, it’s hard to know what the author’s

drip from the end of his nose unconsciously on his sleeve? Does he shiver,

intentions are regarding this set-up. Is it simply a device to introduce the

look up at Mick with watery eyes?) At the moment, we can’t quite tell

idea of compulsory national service (and, presumably, a few other fairly

whether he’s being cowardly, tired, sick, incompetent or just plain stupid;

minor social and political shifts that have led to the characters being where

and each of these would bring a different mood to the scene (as would

they are now) and create a purely fictional conflict? Or, will the near-future

Mick’s reaction to his passivity, which we don’t currently hear at all).

setting be used to introduce other, more outlandish concepts – imagined possibilities which would be unworkable in a present-day narrative. Either way, setting a novel in the future (or, indeed, the past) is almost a statement of intent in itself, and it might be good to be clearer in these opening pages about exactly what that intent is. It’s worth considering where the tension is coming from here. We’re immediately told, by implication, that this isn’t a ‘proper war’; that they’re not really sitting ducks as it stands. So, the taut sense of nerve-jangling limbo that’s established with the atmospheric setting, the rumbling thunder and the grounded troops under the leadership of the hapless Lieutenant seems like a missed opportunity, as well as being confusing. Where the reader could be on the edge of their seat, instead they’re trying to puzzle out what these boys, ‘barely through basic training’, are doing playing soldiers for no clear reason. Overall, there perhaps needs to be just a touch more clarity – or, at least, less ambiguity – about what these characters are doing here, and why. This would allow the reader to relax into the situation and immerse themselves in the atmosphere. Stylistically, this is a confident opening, with an immediate sense of whose story we’re hearing and a clearly established viewpoint. The use of clichés – night turned to day … stand to attention … sitting ducks – works fine, in the context, to give us a flavour of the soldier’s voice. That said, where the language becomes fresher – the thunder rolled on and on, a

Likewise, The rest of the Company was tumbled unwillingly out of the fug that had built up inside the stationary vehicles, and Mick had them form up. The ‘fug’ here is great – we can really picture the hot, humid, rain-soaked interior of the vehicles – but even more would be better. What are the men saying and doing? Unwillingly could cover a multitude of reactions and motivations. Are they angry to be there at all, or just irritated to be turfed out into the rain? And Mick’s already said that he recognised none of them (can this be possible? Again this raises more questions than it answers about the set-up) so how does he feel about ordering them to form up, and how do they respond to his leadership? There are one or two places where Mick’s voice doesn’t sound quite consistent. The first – and indeed only – bit of direct thought we hear (elsewhere, the free indirect mode is used very successfully) seems to be in another voice altogether, tha’s a-brewin up, which could sound either West Country or possibly Mid-West American; either way, so early on in the novel it’s probably better to solidify your character’s real voice before pastiching something different and potentially sending the reader off in the wrong direction. Similarly, ‘dickie bird’ sounds slightly anachronistic. Perhaps this is authentic soldier speak but, especially given that this is set in the future, it might be worth looking for something more modern and strident. A couple of very minor presentation and punctuation issues to flag

creeping barrage … the nurses, all starch and tits and antiseptic – the

up: the first paragraph should be left justified; the text should be double-

picture is sharper and more sensory, whilst still feeling in keeping with the

spaced, and we need to see the title somewhere on this first page. Keep an

lexicon of war.

eye on comma usage; the main thing to bear in mind is that in dialogue,

There a few ways in which it could be tightened up on a line-by-line

when one character addresses another, we need a comma before their

level. Keep an eye out for places where emotions, particularly, could be

name (for instance, Anything to report, Sergeant Major?) This may seem

shown rather than told (the carelessness of it all upset him) and resist the

like a pernickety point but it can make a big difference to how smoothly

temptation to commentate or editorialise when the characters’ actions

the dialogue flows and how naturalistic it feels. Finally, a couple of

already speak for them. For instance, for reasons of his own is a fraction

characters are introduced here without any preamble – Danny and Dermot

too heavy-handed in terms of telling us that the Lieutenant is away with the

– and it would be helpful to know who they are in relation to Mick, whether

fairies, whereas the description which follows this phrase - on the ground

he knows them, and what their roles are, so they’re more than just names.

with his back to a tree-stump. His hands were clasped round his knees, and

The overall impact of this opening at the moment is to create an

he was all hunched up in his cape, a rivulet of rainwater running down his

intriguing and authentic but slightly vague picture of an unnamed setting

nose – paint a beautiful picture without any need for interpretation.

and conflict. With sharper specifics and a clearer source of tension, the

In a couple of instances, the language could be sharper, more detailed, and more apposite. For instance, look at the sentence Mick made his way

scene should spring into focus and really grab the reader by the guts. Good luck with taking it to the next stage.

carefully across the clearing. This doesn’t work as hard as it could, and

If you would like to participate in the Cornerstones Opening Page Mini Masterclass, send your opening page to submissions@wordswithjam.co.uk with the subject ‘Cornerstones Masterclass’.

Pencilbox | 41

Scripts: The Writer’s Journey by Ola Zaltin

I recently sent in a proposal for a TV-series to a Swedish production company. I’d spent most of spring thinking, writing and honing the story. Developing the characters, describing the universe. Elaborating upon how the story would unfold, the tone with which it should be told. In the end it became a twelve page dossier with three chapters: Synopsis, Characters and Backstory. I felt pretty darn good about it. I sent it off to said production company. After two months I got an email reply from the head of development: “Love the crazy characters. Hate writers as main characters. Nazi-crime backstories bore me. Sincerely, Anna Something-son”. And that’s all she wrote, literally. I wrote her back: “Thanks for a short, concise and clear answer. Yours, etc” thinking: what extreme economy of verbage. What down to earth and simple communication. Slam, bam, thankee m’am. Straight and true answer. Lovely. Then I broke out the Jönsson & Bengtsson (known in Angloland as J&B) and broke down ... Nah. Not really. Broke out and broke down just sounded good, to be honest. Through the years I’ve developed a pretty thick skin. The main job description of a head of development is, after all, to say no. She or he is the gate keeper, the guardian keeping the barbarians outside, and the successes rolling in. Not an easy job. In screenwriting, the main assignment is to give your main character a goal (find the killer; get the girl; save the world; get rid of his genital warts; whatever) and then throw a ton of obstacles in his way to achieving this end. As it happens, the same applies to the screenwriter trying to get his story out there. In fact, they both share the Hero’s Journey. In The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, (and later on refined for the movies by Christopher Vogler), the Hero must go through a series of life altering steps on his journey to Herodom. For the Writer, they are as follows: Call to Adventure: crawling home from the pub one night, an idea for the greatest story ever told swims into the Writer’s head. In a voddy-fuelled state of ecstasy he scribbles it down and passes out in bed. . Refusal of the call: The following morning Writer reads the gamechanging pitch: “Boy meets girl. They fall in love.” Meeting the Mentor/Supernatural Aid: However, after fortifying himself with the magic potion (also known as Carlsberg Specials), he keeps elaborating upon that initial stroke of genius. The turd to be turned golden. Writer sends the synopsis off to an agent/ producer/director (choose your poison). Crossing the threshold: Someone out there (see below) likes the idea. The Writer enters a new, strange and unfamiliar world; filled with fine wine, table-cloths, warm food - served on plates - and people that actually shave and brush their teeth. Tests, Allies, Enemies: The people out there, (agent, producer, director) ask the Writer questions like “Who is your main character?”, “What is his goal?”, “What is his inner journey?” as well as “Can we make him Emma Thompson with a penis and a

42 | Pencilbox

machine-gun?” Approach to the inner-most cave: The Writer and his gang of supporters (allies, enemies?) meet, talk, drink, talk, drink in a series of expensive restaurants. The Writer now knows how to use a knife and fork (and to burp into the napkin). Writer is sent off to write up all the nonsense written on table-cloths and strippers’ g-strings: the Pitch. The Ordeal: The Writer and his band of brothers sit down with the all-mighty Film Commissioner. The Writer sweats, stammers and stutters through his pitch - it’s the moment of do or die, but Andean amounts of Columbian marching powder and the very real threat of being actually killed by the Producer if he doesn’t pull it off makes Writer perform. The Reward: Film Commissioner awards Writer with 20,000 Euro to go home and write the First Draft. Writer jets away to Jamaica (“Jamaica? No I dinnae. She wanna”) to find “writing solitude” and get “inspiration”. He finds food poisoning, Jamaican rum, and very angry pimps. He gets Gonorrhoea. The Road Back: Writer arrives back home via air-ambulance, chased by a posse of very irate producers, agents, debtors, bounty hunters and Jamaican pimps. The Resurrection: the Writer finishes his First Draft hiding out in the cellar at the VD clinic. In a last sacrifice he has to print the script in his own blood when the ink-jet cartridges run out - they always do at this stage in the writing-process - of ink. He delivers it on time at the film institute, after a long chase (him in a wheel-chair, antagonists in apache gunships). Return with the Elixir: The Writer returns home, only to find his script taken over, altered, changed, destroyed and winning an Oscar with another writer’s name attached to it. But he has the elixir: Jamaican Rum. If the above sounds like a bit of a joke - it is. But as with all good jokes, it contains a kernel of hard truth. Writing is a blood sport. You submit, get your nose bloodied, get down, get up and put the mouth guard back in and start ducking and weaving again. I have about a five to one success rate of getting funding - but that doesn’t mean the project in question has the legs to go all the way to the screen. It merely means I get monies to develop a bit further on my fantasy du jour. Then they shut me down. And then I get up again and submit a new one. And so on, and so on. All things being told, it beats working. The journey is the goal, not your destination. Bollocks. At least in screenwriting. With screenwriting, the journey is a prolonged highvoltage cattle-prodding up your arse and the only goal is getting your shit up on the screen. As best as you can, together with a team of two others: producer and director. And if you are all sailing the same course, (north-by-north-best) you’ll sooner or later hit that magic land, the spot called G, for Goal. And then you can truly break out the Justerini & Brooks.

Marketing Books by Lorraine Mace

For all authors, whether self or traditionally published, marketing is now an essential aspect of their writing lives. Like it or hate it, selling books is part of the author’s job. No longer are novelists able to concentrate on writing and leave the promotional side of things to others. Authors now have to do everything they can to ensure that their books are the ones readers get to hear about and buy. For many, this is unknown and pretty scary territory, so we here at Words with JAM have asked Lija Kresowaty, who works on media marketing campaigns for Penguin Books, and Lexi Revellian, successful self-published author, for some tips. Starting with Lija Kresowaty, we put some general questions to her about running a marketing campaign.

How do you apportion your time and budget between your different authors (the bestsellers, the debut, the midlist)? While the bestsellers do require more time and budget, usually, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the debuts and midlist won’t get any love from us! Sometimes if we don’t have the budget it may mean we have to put in a little more time (with creative online ideas, for example). Also, if one of us really loves a book, regardless of the sales expectations, that’s when we might go above and beyond the usual amount of time we’d spend on a campaign.

What do you expect in terms of promotion and marketing input from your authors, and how has that changed in the last ten years? The main thing that’s changed is that we expect them to have some kind of online presence, or at least be willing to cultivate one with our guidance. We know that not every social media tool is right for everyone (twitter, for example), but it really helps if the author is open to using something, whether it’s a personal blog, facebook page, tumblr or twitter feed.

What, in your opinion, really sells books? Personal recommendations. “Word-of-mouth” power is pretty much the holy grail of publicity and we spend a lot of our time trying to figure out how to create it!

What marketing strategy would you take if you were employed to promote a self-published author? (Assuming this is a possibility.) I would focus on an online campaign, as the internet has proven to be more welcoming to self-publishing.

Have you ever worked with a self-published author? No.

Next we turned the spotlight on Lexi Revellian and asked her

to tell us about her marketing strategies – what works and what doesn’t. What do you consider the most important marketing tools? The most important marketing tool is a book people want to read. I’m sure it’s possible to market a dull book, but you’re pushing water uphill with your bare hands. The second most important marketing tool for the self-publisher is Amazon. Jeff Bezos is extremely clever, and wants to sell books as much as we do. Amazon constantly comes up with new ideas and tweaks its algorithms to improve buyers’ experience – no other website comes close. KDP Select has proved very successful for many indies, including myself, and currently pays over $2.00 each time a book is borrowed by an Amazon Prime member. Other marketing tools are: • A well-designed cover that suggests what the book is about • An enticing blurb • A price readers are willing to pay • Offering a book free or at a reduced price • Putting a bit about your other books at the end of each book, with links. I believe in pushing every button you can in the hope that some of them will make something happen. When you have a book to sell, everyone you come across can either help or hinder you in that endeavour, so it’s important to be nice to people. (There are all sorts of better reasons to be nice to people, but here we are talking about selling books.) If a reader or fellow writer emails me, he/she will get a response.

Print media reviews/interviews My books have never been reviewed in print, though I’ve had many reviews and interviews on book blogs. Peter White interviewed me on Radio 4’s You and Yours after I left a comment on a Daily Mail article which depicted Amazon as a predator. I disagreed. My comment was voted least popular (I was quite taken aback by that) so the BBC invited me to speak about my experience as an indie author. The interview caused a bump in sales, and I got lots of emails from writers asking for advice.

Website/blog/twitterfeed I have a website for readers, with the opening chapters of my novels, short stories and a bit about me. I’ve blogged for years about writing and publishing, mainly items of interest to other writers, so I doubt I get any book sales from it. I’m on Twitter (@LexiRevellian) but tweet mostly links to interesting articles on publishing. I seldom mention my books, and don’t follow any writer who is always banging on about his/her books, because it’s really boring.

Advertising campaigns I’ve never advertised. I believe in keeping my overheads low.

Pencil Box | 43

Blog tours I’ve never done a blog tour. I feel they have lost their novelty, plus when I visit blogs it’s to read the views of the blogger, not some random author flogging her book.

What tools do you use to measure the success of your various strategies? That’s difficult; usually one is guessing and making assumptions about cause and effect. I keep daily records of book sales, and look at my Amazon stats more than is rational. Google Alerts, though not perfect, sometimes lets me know I’ve been mentioned online.

How can you tell what’s working? If a strategy works then I sell more books. Or it could be something else entirely…

How much time do you spend each day/week/month on marketing? That depends how busy I am with the day job etc. and your definition of marketing. I do keep up daily with Writers’ Café on Kindleboards, Passive Guy’s blog and various other blogs that are essential for anyone who wants to know what is happening in publishing and self-publishing. If I had more time I’d do more.

Do you have an activity plan for each day/week/ month? No. I have lists. A lot of lists.

Word of mouth obviously sells books, how did you create the buzz around your books? When I published Remix August 2010, I used to chat on the UK Amazon Forums with a link to Remix below my signature. People often clicked on the link and bought a copy. Desperate authors spammed the forums so much Amazon confined writers to a ghetto, and I no longer go there. I approached dozens of book blogs in the UK and the US and received some nice reviews. Don’t know how much they helped, though; I suspect there are very few blogs that have a big enough readership to make a significant difference.

Are your books stocked in physical stores? After I’d got impressive sales figures, I visited three local Waterstones with samples and printed details. At the time I offered 55% discount and returnability. One store ordered six copies of Remix. I worked out that sales trip earned me about £2 per hour, so haven’t made one since. It’s on my list of things to do when I have time, though, with independent stores. Lexi’s books are available on Amazon in both e-book and print editions.

Beers for Breakfast, Guns for Dinner By Ola Zaltin

Good morning. I’m on my first can of Carlsberg Special here (cheers) and starting to breathe, think and write again. Some of you might know this feeling. If not, bless. Drinking and writing. Toking and creating. Snorting and typing away into the night. From Cicero to Baudelaire via Hemingway, Dylan Thomas and Hunter Thompson to Kurt and Amy; the stories of self destructive behaviour coupled with stuff that make things go bump in the night are legend. And we forgive them. For lookit: what came out of that craziness, right? Amazing texts, songs and lyrics of ache, alienation, longing and love. Artists have described to us in no uncertain terms what we know to be true: how it is so amazing - and so incredibly painful at times - to be human. When we hear and read them, we feel an affinity with the work and the author. Because we instantly know in our heart of hearts: Yes, this is love. Yes, this is pain. Yes, this is life. They are able to distill the human experience into a condensed cluster of words, be it Shakespeare or Bono. They help us make it all comprehensible, understandable: survivable. Perhaps most importantly they make us realize this: we are not alone with these feelings, the highs and the lows. This, to me, is what great art is. The artist as a pained human being, writing into the night with a cigg in his mouth and a bottle by his side - in his craft or sullen art - is forever imprinted in the popular mind. Writers, artists, designers, painters and other such rabble has for millennia used the odd tipple as a way to loosen the shoulders, let the fingers do the walking and put the innate bullshit detector on standby, if but for a few hours of uninhibited bliss in the sheer pleasure of creating, in that sacred place known as the Here and the Now. Because this is what drugs give us: an escape. And what is fiction, if not just that - escape? In this age of don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t do carbs, don’t

44 | Pencilbox

sit, don’t wait, don’t think, don’t breathe - the art of being a delinquent is a threatened species. (One of the reasons Mad Men is such a mad success is - if you ask me - that people in that retro universe drink, smoke and fuck with abandon: we miss it). My literary heroes when I grew up where, in this order: Sherlock Holmes, Ernest Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson. (Worry not: I am well aware of the fact that Mr. Holmes is a fictional character.) But Sherlock did cocaine when he was bored (Conan Doyle described him as “laying about” or “in a stupor” when taking this drug, which only proves that Mr. Doyle had no first-hand experience with the substance described, at all.) Ernest’s characters drank ice-cool Chablis by the roadside outside of Paris. And Hunter, well, he did it all. And then some. To a young and curious mind, naturally, these male role-models proved a temptation too good to resist. What did a really cold Chablis taste like on the outskirts of Paris in the company of a pretty young woman? How do you take cocaine and what does it do to you? How do all the rest of the a-class drugs fuck you up in a 101 different ways? Thank you: Sherlock, Ernest and Hunter. Now I know. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, been to rehab. (It didn’t take.) Many started out their trajectories as young, brilliant and reckless, then died in misery. Faulkner, Steinbeck, Plath, on and on goes the list. Vis-á-vis me and my literary heroes, well, Holmes went down the Reichenbach falls, Hemingway put a shotgun to his head, and Thompson blew off his skull off with a .45. Careful what you want. It’s been said that Keith Richards is responsible for hundreds of wanna-be rock’n roller’s deaths: because they thought they could do what he did and survive. They couldn’t. Most of us can’t. I don’t know how the greats were built, perhaps it was another era, another discipline, another ethos. Christopher Hitchens recently passed away. I think he was one of the last of the few who really could. So does smoking, toking, drinking and cavorting in general make you a better writer? No. Does it make for failed relationships, repo men turning up in the dead of night and neighbours crossing to the other side of the street when you approach? Yes. I don’t own a gun or a gas oven. But then again, I’m only 43 and no genius. Bless.

Question Corner Co-author of The Writer’s ABC Checklist, Lorraine Mace, answers your questions ...

A reader sent in an interesting question, but asked me not to use her name: I belong to an online writing group and they often talk about themes in stories. I can never work out what the difference is between plot and theme and don’t want to look like an idiot by asking someone in the group to explain. Aren’t plot and theme the same thing? No, they are two elements dependent on each other to create a good story. Think of it this way: the theme is the main idea being dealt with and the plot outlines everything required to carry that idea and make it into a story. Both are needed in order for the story to work. Let’s say you come up with an idea for a story. To convert that idea into something others would want to read you would need a plot covering who, what, where and when. The theme would tell the reader why. In simple terms, the theme is the message the author wants to get across to readers and the plot is the vehicle used to deliver that message in an entertaining way.

Charlotte from Arbroath wants to write humour: Hi Lorraine, I read your column in Writing Magazine each month and you make it seem really easy to write humour, but whenever I try I can’t seem to get to the point quick enough. I read back what I’ve written and it bores even me, so I can’t see it making anyone else laugh, even though the event I’m writing about was funny. Can you give me some advice? In my column I write about everyday things that other writers can relate to – basically how to survive as a writer while trying to earn a living. I want my readers to laugh, but I also want them to identify with me. I get many emails from readers who say they, too, have experienced some of the things I’ve written about. This tells me I’m hitting the right spot. When you come to write about your experiences you need to have a focal point in mind, a target audience, which will help you to keep to the point. But don’t worry if you initially ramble on for page after page. It’s important to get all the facts down. You can (and should) rewrite them in a different order to get the best possible effect. You might find that moving the final paragraph (or part of it) to the first paragraph gives a great opening hook. Writing humour is no different to any other genre when it comes to one basic fact: perfection is in the editing. It doesn’t matter if your first draft is long enough to paper a room, because that isn’t (or shouldn’t be) the draft that you

are going to show to anyone else. So, my advice to you is this: if the event you’ve written about was funny but your account of it isn’t, you need to edit, edit, edit until you’ve got rid of the all the bits that detract from the humour. Then put it away for a week or so and read it again. If it still isn’t funny, edit some more.

Sharon from East Lothian sent in a punctuation question: I have noticed that the long dash is being used more and more instead of a colon or semi-colon. Can you advise if this is good practice and if so, when exactly should it be used? Although my answer is going to be based on grammatically accepted rules, I feel rules are there to be broken (as long as you know what they are before doing so). So, from my point of view as a writer, if it looks right in context and feels right, I believe in going with gut instinct. However, as I said, in order to break rules for effect, you first have to understand them. If the first part of the sentence is complete (an independent clause) and is followed by a list, quotation, explanation or text to illustrate what has gone before, then a colon should be used to indicate to the reader that a list of some kind follows. Examples: Margaret hated so many things about John: his arrogance, his cruelty and his inability to listen to anyone else’s point of view. I have such a lot to get through today: doctor’s appointment, shopping and getting the car serviced. A long dash, on the other hand, doesn’t need a complete sentence to precede it and is used to show a summing up, extension, or even a reversal of what has gone before. Examples: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Who – these are all great groups from the sixties. Whenever James frowned she spoke without thinking – making her look stupid. She’d always thought of herself as bright – until James undermined her confidence. A semicolon is used to connect two complete clauses into one sentence. Probably the most famous example would be from Dickens. Each of the two clauses below could be written as a complete sentence. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.

Do you have layout issues, problematic characters, or struggle to get to grips with your grammar? Email lorraine@wordswithjam.co.uk

There is advice on every possible question you might ask. --Writing Magazine Regardless of the writer's level or ability, there is something extremely daunting about putting together a submission. It doesn't matter if it is for an article for a magazine, or short story for a competition, a humorous anecdote, a play or TV script, a novel or non-fiction book, "The Writer's ABC Checklist" will provide answers to questions you didn't even know you should ask. With its A-Z format, references can be found quickly and effortlessly. Unfamiliar terms are explained and bullet points at the end of most sections provide a quick reminder of the main items covered. This unique book is packed with writing tips and is something no aspiring writer can afford to be without. Available from Amazon

Pencil Box | 45

What we think of some books Floccinaucinihilipilification: the estimation of something as valueless Tacenda: things better left unsaid 5’9”: The average height of a British adult male Deipnosophist: someone skilled in making dinner-table conversation Logodaedalus: one who is cunning in the use of words

Perfect People By Peter James Review by Gillian Hamer Rating: 5’8” At the beginning I was really excited by this book. A creepy cover, a strong opening with lots of suspense, and intelligent, interesting characters who posed lots of questions about the hidden depths of the plot. I was in my element and was discussing it with everyone as a new find. Then the plot began to develop onto one of my favourite topics in fiction – the intriguing world of DNA. We were transported into the shady world of designer babies and human cloning, although for the most part I kept my sympathies with the central characters. A couple who were left childless after a debilitating genetic disease robbed them of their only child – and left them fearing the life of any future offspring. As they became more immersed in the procedure of ‘designing a child’ their morals tightened and they found themselves asking questions we would all be faced with. Why was it okay to chose the height of a child as adult – but not decide on his emotional stability. And was it okay to place an order for a little boy to replace the son they so desperately missed. I really felt empathy with the situation and the dodgy Dr Dettore was a good character too. I was delighted in the early twists and turns of the plot that kept me guessing right up to the latter stages of the pregnancy. I liked the fact we were never allowed to rest on our laurels as the poor prospective parents were catapulted from one discovery to the next. We had the pregnancy

46 | Reviews

shocks, the birth trauma – and the horror of the realisation of what their children actually were. I thought the writing was excellent when the parents were struggling to communicate with toddlers who had the mindset of stubborn teens. It was refreshing and unique to see how the other side of the coin was handled when thinking about the impact of DNA modification and the writing here really gripped me. But then, for some reason, things changed. The book seemed to swivel on its axis and with the onset of a ‘child abduction’ it became a police procedural rather than a high-octane thriller. I’d never read Peter James previously, so I don’t know the style of his DI Roy Grace novels, but the pace in this book dropped off to the point I was consciously skipping large chunks because I knew what was coming and the writing became dull and clichéd. And the ending too, I’m afraid, left me dissatisfied – it was easy to see what was coming from a mile off (although the very final denouement did surprise me a little) The forced kidnap/blackmail journey the parents found themselves taken on lacked any real drama, and by the end of it I found myself as bored and disillusioned as the characters. And to what end? When they arrived at the HQ of the dastardly doctor, what happened? Nothing. A temper tantrum involving a brick and a long talk with their ‘children’ that resulted in failure. I found these scenes hugely disappointing. As I said, this started with all the gusto and intelligence of Michael Connelly or Stephen King and I was really looking forward to the read. I even started looking at my friend’s two little toddlers a bit differently on a recent picnic! But somewhere in the middle of the story I began to lose interest and I’m afraid for me the plot never really recovered. If I tried another of Peter James books I think I’d stick to the detective series and hope to find that a more enjoyable read.

Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller Reviewed by Catriona Troth Rating: Logodaedalus Sometimes you have a conversation that is particularly well-timed. I was having lunch the other day with a Russian friend who used to live

in London and we were both reminiscing about the various culture shocks we experienced when arriving in England in the late 1970s. Aly said something that would never have occurred to me. “In Russia, we value friendship above romantic love. And it was quite a shock to me to find in the West it was the other way around – if not in reality, then at least in books and in the movies.” The Greeks too are said to have held philia, the love between two friends, to be the most precious form of love. I had just finished reading Madeline Miller’s Orange Prize winning The Song of Achilles. In Miller’s retelling of Achilles’ tale from The Iliad, this love is interpreted as homoerotic. I suspect that my Russian friend might find this, if not sacreligious, at least incomprehensible. But for a modern Western reader, it may just make the story more accessible. Miller has not done this frivolously or for the purposes of titillation. She herself is a serious classical scholar who probably knows the original text as well as anyone alive today. In the acknowledgements at the back of the book, she says she has been plaguing her brother with stories of Achilles his entire life. The narrator of the story is Patroclus, Achilles’ boyhood friend, whose death at the hands of Hector prompts Achilles to rejoin the battle after his quarrel with Agamemnon. In this version of the story, Patroclus is more poet and healer than warrior. And he is also Achilles’ lover. Briseis, the Trojan woman taken as a prize by Achilles, is held in great affection by Patroclus but is of no interest to either of them sexually. Miller’s use of language is beautiful. She recreates the look, the feel, the smell of an ancient world, the complex hierarchies of small kingdoms locked together in alliances and feuds. Gods and centaurs exist at the fringes of this world, sometimes helpful, sometimes threatening, never entirely to be trusted. She also makes the bond between Patroclus and Achilles something visceral

What we think of some books and real that can survive even death. Miller’s take on the plot of The Iliad may be modern, possibly even anachronistic, but it is powerful, convincing and thoroughly enjoyable. One of the most engaging characters in the book is that of Odysseus – older than either Achilles or Patroclus, a seasoned warrior, a trickster who fell in love with his wife Penelope because she was cleverer than Helen, whose beauty triggered the Trojan War. Apparently Miller’s next project is a retelling of The Odyssey, when he will become the central character. I’m looking forward to it. But I might have a while to wait – The Song of Achilles was apparently ten years in the writing. The Song of Achilles was the winner of the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction.

The White Goddess: An Encounter by Simon Gough Review by JJ Marsh Rating: Logodaedalus Our 17-year-old narrator is swimming in the sea with his grand-uncle (note: grand, not great), when a boatload of literary tourists discover them. The older man is genial and welcoming, accepting their admiring attentions, much to the contempt of his younger relative. The tourists appreciate it, explaining that Lawrence Durrell gave them short shrift in Provence. The Durrell reference is apt. The grand-uncle in question is Robert Graves, celebrated poet, friend and contemporary of Siegfried Sasson and Wilfred Owen, whose character and force of personality dominate the book long after his departure. The White Goddess: An Encounter is a difficult book to define. Even the author calls it an ‘autobifantasy’. Simon Gough is indeed the greatnephew of Robert Graves and relates his memories of three periods of his life which were affected by the great poet. 1953, aged eleven; 1960, aged an agonising seventeen; and 1989, after Graves’s death. His recollections and records are extrapolated into a perfectly woven story; a balance of emotion, tension, growth and change. The first section, when the child Simon arrives on the island of Majorca after his parents’ divorce, is described with such brilliance and intensity at ground-level detail. I could not help but be reminded of Gerald Durrell’s observations on nature and eccentric relatives. Humour bubbles up with childlike spontaneity, yet Gough adds a darker level of insecurity. The unfamiliar is fascinating, but also fearsome. That insecurity is only exacerbated by intensity as the seventeen-year-old Simon returns in 1960. This second trip to the village of Deya is entirely derailed by Margot, Graves’s Muse. Enthralled from the outset, Simon suffers agonies and delights, in a mirror image of his grand-uncle. Again, Durrell springs to mind, but this time, Lawrence. The evocation of the place, period and atmosphere; the precise description, the adoration for a particular geographical arrangement and its peculiar

ambience. All this against the threatening backdrop of the Franco regime. Certain passages I could read again and again. Gough makes us fall in love, as much with Deya as with Margot. Finally, twenty-nine years later, he returns. Once again his memories, opinions and judgements are forced to shift, by the undeniable presence and tangible absence of Graves. A beautiful, thoughtful and intelligently constructed book, which makes me want to re-read Graves. And to visit Deya. But I suspect the Deya of This Encounter with The White Goddess no longer exists. A difficult book to define, but an easy book to love.

with Anna Frith, young widow and narrator of the story. Anna works as a maid for the rector, Michael Mompellion and his wife, Elinor, who has taught her to read. As the villagers die, one by one, those who remain face a choice: do they flee Eyam in the hope of escaping the plague, or do they stay? The rector suggests the village quarantine itself, so as to protect its neighbours from the plague. Obeying the rector’s command, the villagers voluntarily seal themselves off from the rest of the world. Cocooned from the outside world, the plague deaths mount, and grief and superstition lead to mob violence, accusations of witchcraft and devil worship. Ravaged by the disease, the people of Eyam struggle to retain their humanity in the face of this disaster. Anna Frith is a sympathetic heroine as, with Mompellion and Elinor, she tends the dying and battles to prevent her fellow villagers from descending into drink, violence and superstition. She must also struggle with the intense, inexplicable feelings she develops for both the rector and his wife. With an observant eye, impeccable period detail and poetic prose, the author skillfully portrays this moment in history; this story of ordinary people struggling to cope with extraordinary circumstances. Because I found this story so well written, I was just a little disappointed in the ending, which seemed a bit rushed and contrived. However, despite this small reservation, I would highly recommend Year of Wonders as a spellbinding and unforgettable tale of love, loss, and learning, throughout this tragic historical era.

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks Review by Liza Perrat Rating: Deipnosophist As I enjoyed and reviewed Geraldine Brooks’ People of the Book for the previous issue of WWJ, I decided to try her debut novel this time – Year of Wonders. Year of Wonders is inspired from the author’s visit to the village of Eyam over twenty years ago. Whilst out walking in the English countryside, she came upon a finger post pointing the way to the PLAGUE VILLAGE, and there she found the true story of the Eyam villagers’ ordeal, and their extraordinary decision, set out in display in the parish church of Saint Lawrence. It is 1665 when an itinerant tailor brings the plague from London to the small Derbyshire village of Eyam by means of a flea-infested bolt of cloth. The tailor, who is the first to succumb to the plague, boards

Reviews | 47

The Rumour Mill

sorting the bags of truth from the bags of shite

Heard a rumour but you’re not sure if it’s a bag of truth or just a big bag of shite? Send it to us and we’ll get our top investigative journalist Kris Dangle to look into it for you. I heard from a guy I know who has eyes and several teeth that the reason David Cameron, Jeremy Clarkson and Hitler never appear in

Guess the Book

See of you can guess the bestselling books from these onestar reviews. 1.

Don’t waste your money on this book. 5 million Americans might have bought it, but...well, they’re American.

I’m sure the only reason it’s on the bestseller list in this country is that it’s on a 3-for-2 offer at Waterstone’s (just because a book’s been sold doesn’t mean it’s been enjoyed!).

We’ve donated the book to our local charity shop but feel slightly guilty that someone else will now be duped when getting his book.

This book makes an excellent coaster! It is not particularly aerodynamic, but could at a push be used as a clay pigeon. The only thing I enjoyed about this book was imagining its other uses.

The book is easy to read - the characters charming and adorable. its about friendship love life growing up - all good. I was liking it until the end. I wont give it away but just beware, I bought this and enjoyed it because it was cheering me up, it was funny, light hearted, sweet romantic, hopefull. Then somehow it changes. I wish I had not read it to be honest.

I have never heard someone moan so much about being wealthy and having to travel to almost every destination in the world. It gets annoying after a while.

photographs together is because they are, in fact, the same person. Is this truly true? This is a new one on me so the whole investigative team here at WWJ Towers have spent the day researching this by looking at Google images and you’re right in that they don’t appear in any photos together. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean they are one and the same person despite what common sense predicts. But it might be right.

I’ve been told that it is preferable to be punched in the bollox repeatedly for an hour and a half by a professional bollox puncher than it is to watch the film Next with Nicolas Cage. That couldn’t be right, could it? Yes. Yes it is. Other films in the Nicolas Cage better-to-be-punchedrepeatedly-in-the-bollox-than-watch series include Knowing, National Treasure and the remake of The Wicker Man.

A man from the pub told us that because of the geometric patterns in crop circles, there is no way that most of them could be reproduced by people and so they must really be made by aliens. Under the weight of this astonishing evidence is there any way to say that this is not true? Of course it’s true, because that’s what aliens capable of interstellar travel would do after crossing the infinite reaches of our Galaxy – they’d draw some pictures in corn fields and then just turn around and go home. I’d do the same myself.

A bloke I know who is very good at looking up things on the internet says that he has found out that Shell have recently bought the wind so they can charge us for it when the oil runs out. How much truth is there in that? I’ve looked into this and it’s only partly true. The part that is incontrovertibly correct is that there is indeed a company called Shell. The rest of it is bollox. And before you ask, they haven’t bought the sun either. For fuck sake.

A lady in the doctor’s waiting room told me that the Duchess of Cambridge has breasts like fifty per cent of the world’s population and that Prince Harry has a penis like the other fifty per cent. That couldn’t

Yes it’s true.

48 | Other Stuff

Answers: 1 - The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, 2 - Jamie’s 30-Minute Meals by Jamie Oliver, 3 - Deception Point by Dan Brown, 4 - One Day by David Nicholls, 5 - The World According to Clarkson by Jeremy Clarkson

be right, could it?

Crossword by Xylona

Across 2.

Poet ringing a round or two (6,5)

What evacuee says as he snuggles down in billet (9,2,3)

Cocktail hour with this master? (8)

Writer of ‘Something wicked’, much missed (3,8)

10. McEwan making up for it (9) 15. Big cat’s spouse (3,6,4) 19. Housekeeper who has burning ambition? (3,7) 20. Earth Calling Taylor revisits a character from which David Mitchell book? (5,4,5) 21. In which novel does Belinda Nield fall for Tony Lamb? (8) 22. Monster created by poet’s sister (12)

Down 1.

Small monarch, illustrated (3,6,6)

She made God into a furry creature (5,6)

Did he think 100 years was a long time to be on your own? (7,6,7)

Black and white, not quite binary (7,3,7)

Author who imprisoned edifices (5,5)

Wherein Atwood’s Snowman struggles to survive (5,3,5)

August 2012 Answers

11. Pullman’s Oxford daemon (11) 12. She remembered Sierra Leone (8,5) 13. A book within a book aids civil rights (3,4) 14. She’s happy, not normal (8,9) 16. Whose poem includes the line ‘Mellow as the glory roses’? (1,1,8) 17. What’s the relationship between Honeymoon in Paris and The Girl You Left Behind? (7) 18. Who wrote The Earl of Petticoat Lane? (1,1,6)

Random Stuff | 49

Dear Ed Letters of the satirical variety

Dear Editor, I am sorry to write to you on a negative note, but I am getting sick to my eye teeth with people thinking they are all superior by slagging off popular books. The equation is simple – if something is popular then it must be good, and the more popular a book then the better it must be. It’s as simple as that. And by the same reasoning, things that aren’t popular are rubbish. While it is conceivable that a few people might be able to get something so basic as whether a novel is good or bad wrong, when something is selling in great numbers then it clearly must be brilliant because the general public is not made up of idiots. Good day to you sir, Mrs N O’Taste

Sent from blackberry on the M4

Thanks for that, Mrs Taste. Anyone else have a view on this? Ed

Dear E, Erm, OK. Ed

Dear Words People, I am writing to wholeheartedly agree with a letter you printed recently (this issue) from a Mrs Taste about the general public not being stupid. For example, I am not an idiot and neither is my husband. Just think, if the people at large were all fools then that dog wouldn’t have won Britain’s Got Talent. The fact that it won through the popular vote means that it is the most talented person in Britain. I hope it runs in the next general election. My husband and I would definitely vote for it again. Yours sincerely, Mrs M Uhhhh Dear WWJ, I recently read some letters printed in your normally fine magazine (on this page, this issue) that were so annoying it made me do a little bit of sick in my mouth. I am, of course, referring to the nonsense that is the letter from Mrs Taste and the following one from Mrs Uhhhh. Just because something is popular doesn’t mean it’s good. Sex before marriage is popular, but we all know that you go straight to hell where the devil will bum you for all eternity if you do it. I think that makes the point adequately. Yours very sincerely, H O’Lee Dear Words with Jam, I am appalled at the lack of literacy in this country. Why isn’t anyone doing anything about it? I was out in my motor car the other day and it became obvious to me that no one had read the fucking rules of the road. For fuck sake. Yours truly, Mr Ian Dicate

50 | Some Other Stuff

Dear Editor, I was about to write to you asking for advice on a bad case of gonorrhoea I picked up from a sailor while on holidays which has made my vagina practically fall off, but luckily I realised this was the wrong magazine for such a question before I put pen to paper. Imagine how embarrassed I would have felt if I hadn’t spotted my mistake before sending it off. LOL smiley face! That was a narrow squeak! Yours truly, E Zee

Dear the Words with Jam free online magazine editor, I’m just writing to agree with Mr Dicate who pointed out that literacy levels are low because no one seems to have read the rules of the road. Every single day I see the most incredible things while I’m drivi – arrrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! G O’Now Sent from my iphone on the M4 Dear Mr Now, Erm, what? Ed Dear Words with Jam, I was just writing to thank you for publishing the letter I sent in (this issue) and to the thoughtful response to it from Mr Now when this complete prick swerved into me on the road. Would you believe it but it turned out to be Mr Now who was actually writing the reply at the time. Imagine the laugh we’ll have about all this when he wakes up from his coma. Isn’t it a small world? Yours chortlingly, Mr Ian Dicate Sent from blackberry on the M4 Dear Ian, Ooohhhhhhh-kay. Ed

Horoscopes by Shameless Charlatan Druid Keith There are many other brilliant things to complement your belief in the stars and all of them are just as real and worth spending time, effort and, above all, money on. But you have to be careful because there are some things that are not suitable and that unscrupulous people may tell you in an attempt to hoodwink you. This month I’ll be guiding you through the tricky business of finding the right complimentary superstitions for your sign and none of it will be bollox.

LEO The main other thing for you Leonianists to look out for is the rare event of the Blue Moon. This is not merely an accident of the arbitrary calendar system but is, in fact, a truly paranormal event that works particularly well with your gullible countenance. When such an event occurs write down all your hopes and dreams on a piece of A4 foolscap that has been lightly sprinkled with rose water. Place the finished paper on an oak board making sure it is oriented with the top of the sheet facing North by North West. Rub the document of hope firmly three times with a quartz crystal and carefully fold the paper eight times. Kiss it gently and then shove it up your arse. Once you can keep it there until the next Blue Moon everything you hoped for will come to pass.

VIRGO The superstition that brings the most dividends to you Virgonianists is the old staple - Knock On Wood. It’s very important that every time you say something like – I’ve never been set on fire by a barbeque – you immediately knock on wood and announce to all and sundry that you’re doing it. If you don’t, you’ll probably be horrifically burned at your next outdoor meal and maybe even be killed. That’s what happens when you ignore perfectly good superstitions.

LIBRA The great thing about being a Libraianist is the fabulous ability to cure warts through the medium of superstition. Remember, doctors and scientists don’t have a clue what they are talking about and always make up research so as they can make money out of people with their so called medicine. All you need to do when presented with a wart is bless it with some straw, say a prayer, and then

bury that piece of straw on the grave of a witch at midnight and before you know it the wart will shrivel and die. If you coincidentally happen to be a Libraianist who is also the seventh daughter of the seventh daughter and you have seven kids yourself then you’ll be naturally able to give advice on all medical questions. Except contraception.

SCORPIO You can save family and friends a fortune on scans because the awesome superstitious power that Scorpioianists possess is the incredible ability to predict the sex of unborn babies with just a wedding band and a bit of thread. Suspend the ring from the thread and hold it above the palm of the pregnant girl and through the power of superstition it will begin to swing all by itself. If its trajectory describes an oval or circle then the baby will be a girl; but if it swings in a square the baby will be the devil. Very handy, I think you’ll agree.

ability. So don’t piss away your wishes on crap – win the lottery every week (and don’t forget it was your old pal Druid Keith who gave you the tip).

PISCES A yawn is a sign that danger is near for all Piscesianists, especially if it’s late at night and you’re in bed. However, you can repel the peril simply by getting up, going out, and mowing the lawn. Don’t worry about waking the neighbours – they’ll soon thank you when they realise you were keeping danger at bay.

ARIES You are the most valuable of all the Star Children as you have the ability to counteract any bad thing that happens to anyone else because of a superstition (unless they’re dead). You are

SAGITARIUS

superstition Kryptonite. You can leave your shoes

Beware of ambulances, Sagitarianists, as it is incredibly unlucky for you to see one. If you do catch sight of one make sure you pinch your nose and hold your breath until you see a black dog with three legs having a wee on the bonnet of a green car. If you don’t do this then someone you know will get a terrible disease. Now that you know what to do, though, everything will be fine. It’s a superstition, so it must be true.

on the table and open umbrellas in a house to your

CAPRICORN Capricornianists are the envy of all the other children of the stars when it comes to superstitious gifts as you have a truly enviable ability. When you feel your cheeks (upper) or your ears getting hot it means that someone is talking about you, or that your head is on fire. However, if your cheeks (lower) are the ones experiencing the heat, then it is probably just a minging bout of thrush. A note of caution, though – with great power comes great responsibility.

AQUARIUS One thing Aquarianists are brilliant at is wishing for things while throwing money into wells/fountains/ property deals. Whatever you wish always comes true as long as you don’t tell anybody who could independently corroborate the veracity of your

heart’s content and nothing will happen to you.

TAURUS You Taurusianists would make brilliant bird wranglers because you’re blessed with the superstitious ability to be affected by the number of magpies you see. The most important number is seven which is ‘for a secret never to be told,’ or as it’s more commonly known – genital warts.

GEMINI Geminianists – you are the crack meisters! You have the superstitious ability to break backs if you step on cracks. The downside to this is that it only works on your mothers, so maybe you’d better avoid cracks altogether.

CANCER It’s one of the more obscure superstitions that Cancerianists have dominion over – if you see a child riding on a bear’s back it will be protected from whooping-cough. Unfortunately it will not be protected from the bear. Sorry, them’s the breaks.

Some Other Stuff | 51

HAND-KNITTED ELECTRICITY Enjoy is the wrong word for this book, but the editor hopes you take something from it, even if it’s only a whole bunch of new things to be prejudiced about. The bastard offspring of Roger’s Profanosaurus and The Meaning of Liff (although endorsed by neither of those esteemed publications, which would no doubt distance themselves from it faster than Usain Bolt on banned substances), Hand-Knitted Electricity is a ghastly little piece of unpleasantness brought to you by an academic research team which would just as soon burn it in front of a grateful and relieved populace. The public, however, has a right to know, as the News of the World once said, and look what happened to them.

Kniddle (n): A miniature generator turbine, usually sold in pairs and attached to the knitting needles of little old ladies and then plugged into the national grid via a domestic plug socket, enabling grandmothers to provide the nation with a source of renewable power when knitting horrid sweaters in a snowflake pattern with arms of unequal length. Prime Minister David Cameron welcomed the new initiative with a public speech extolling the productivity of Britain’s little old ladies - adding that the production of electricity will henceforth be classified as “work”, removing thousands of senior citizens from benefit entitlement and allowing them to “feel better about themselves”. The Green Party is “cautiously optimistic” about the idea, as the kniddles can be passed on to other family members when the time comes, and the energy comes from an environmentally sound source. Scientists say that each little old lady will be monitored and shocks of increasing severity can be passed back down the current to them if their productivity begins to flag. The cost of the shocks will be reflected in the family electricity bill, and should the shock prove fatal, the kniddles can be collected and passed on quite rapidly. Speaking today, the Prime Minister said he was only sorry that the older members of his own family were unable to take part due to their status as overseas residents in his second house in Tuscany, but Mr Cameron promised that the elderly members of Nick Clegg’s family would be put to work with immediate effect.The new “hand-knitted electricity” project will be promted by free kniddles, given away with the Sunday Mail from now and for evermore.

Paperback and ebook coming soon ...