Where to find me

This blog is no longer regularly updated, but I am still blogging, and writing, and now I'm learning to swim in the sea.

If you'd like to learn more about me and my writing, you can follow the blog on my website, or sign up to my newsletter (and get a free short ebook).

If you're a writer and would like links to free entry writing competitions, information about submitting fiction to magazines, other writing news and opportunities, plus that chance (via the comments) to chat with other writers, then visit the Womagwriter blog.

My little, free collection of short stories is available from Amazon and Apple here, and other retailers here.

I'm over there!

This blog has now been combined with the Womagwriter one.  It's all a bit experimental at the moment.

My plan is that I'll include free to enter writing competitions, Wednesday word of the week, Insecure Writers' Support Group, information about writing for women's magazines, my own writing news, guest posts, other random stuff I think writers and readers may find interesting or useful and lots of photos. I'll use the number of comments to gauge which of those elements to continue with, and which to drop.

If you'd like to, as well as visiting the blog, you could follow me on Twitter, or Facebook, sign up for my newsletter (you'll get a free story if you do) or take a look at my website. You could even buy my books!

Dressed

Dressed is the past tense of dress or dressing.  Most of these words are connected with putting things on – a person wearing clothes is dressed, as is a salad sprinkled with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Gardens can be dressed with compost or fertiliser, a Christmas tree with baubles, or a graze with a plaster.

We can get dressed up in our smartest clothes, or give a dressing down to those who didn't make the effort. If we really want to get things right, we may even have a dress rehearsal.

Stone and meat can both be dressed – in these cases it means trimmed to get them ready for cooking or building.

Lots of things can be dressed up in an attempt to make them seem better. Probably best not to try that with our writing though. Editors, publishers and competition judges will soon see through a dressy font, pretentious wording and fancy formatting. If you try either this monthly free short story competition, or this one, or even this one, put your efforts into what you write, not how it looks and you could win a cash prize.

My latest short story collection is called Dressed To Impress. Here's the blurb –

We choose our clothes to help us stand out, make a statement, or to hide inside. They may show who we really are or be our disguise. Perhaps they'll help us play a part, get the job done, or be a means for revenge.

Clothes can warm, comfort and reassure us. We might buy or borrow them, damage or repair, give them away or have them taken. The items in our wardrobe might bring back memories, express hope for the future, or offer a surprise.

From glasses to shoes, fancy dress to fancy dresses, designer wear to charity donations, the clothes we wear all have a story to tell. This book contains 24 of them.

What kind of dressing do you like best?

Industry

Industry is a type of trade or manufacture, it can refer to trade and manufacture collectively. Those things will often happen in an industrial environment. Industry may also mean great activity or diligence. Those who demonstrate this are industrious.









Publishing is an industry. We don't always like to think of it that way, but it is. In common with most other industries money is the main driving force. It's often not the only one, but it's very important. If (for example) a magazine doesn't sell enough copies to buy more paper, it can't print the next issue.

If a publisher doesn't think our book will sell, they can't risk paying for an editor, cover designer, print run etc, or they won't be able to pay the royalties earned by their existing authors – and that wouldn't be fair, would it?




This month's Insecure Writer's Support Group question is – There have been many industry changes in the last decade, so what are some changes you would like to see happen in the next decade?

I'd like to see things level out a bit more. Instead of a few authors making vast fortunes and the rest struggling to make any kind of profit, I'd like more of us to earn at least the minimum wage. But then I'd like that for those who work in all other industries too.

Things could be worse though. There are opportunities for 'ordinary' writers. Free to enter writing competitions are part of that. They offer the possibility of winning some money, improving your craft, building confidence, perhaps even getting noticed by someone in the industry. (Which is one reason I blog about them so frequently.)

This one from Nottingham Writers' Studio is for up to 5,000 words of fiction or non fiction to be included in an anthology titled Black Lives. The top prizes if £250. All published entries will earn at least £30.

For the Perito prize, you're asked to write between 1,000 and 2,000 words of fiction on the theme of accessibility and inclusivity. The top prize is £500. There's an anthology involved there too.

This competition from Southampton University is for children. They're asked to write books on sustainability, for which they could win £200. (It's the 3rd competition down – you'll find others on the site for adult writers.)

Wallpaper

Judging by the response to last week's post, in which I asked for your competition news and provided the usual three links to free writing competitions, that subject is no longer of interest to my readers, so I'm dropping it for now. Instead Wednesday word of the week is back!

Wallpaper is, of course, paper sold to stick on walls to make them look pretty, or cover cracks, or both. Oddly I haven't got a single photo of wallpaper. Here's some fancy panelling (at Bolsover castle). It's a wall covering and made from the same stuff as paper ...

Wallpaper can also mean an unobtrusive background, often background noise.

I don't recall every coming across wallpaper as a writing term until it appeared in a lovely review of Firestarter last week. (Ooops, I seem to have 'accidentally' included a more recent one too!)

In this context wallpaper means background, setting or location. It can form an important part of the story, or just be there to stop the reader feeling the action happening in a void.

What kind of wallpaper do you like?

Literary lady?

Literary means – of, constituting or occupied with books or written composition. Suppose that means I'm literary to some extent, as I'm often occupied with reading or writing.

To prove it, here are photos of me in libraries and bookshops.







You can also be described as literary if you're well informed about literature. Words or phrases which are used mainly in works of literature or other formal writing are considered literary.

I won't be doing another book signing for a while, but you can get your hands on my books here. (There are a couple of short free ones.)

This competition from Fitzcarraldo is for 'a book-length work of literary fiction written in English by published and unpublished writers around the world.' Entries close 1st July. The prize is publication and an avance of $10,000. 

There is no entry fee.












Even though I don't reckon it's what I write, I don't really know how to define 'literary fiction'? What does that phrase mean to you? What's the alternative?













Are you literary?

Tradition

A tradition is an ongoing custom, belief or opinion, often passed on for generations. 

Atristic and literary principles and methods which are based on experience and common practice are also considered traditions. It's traditional for romances to have happy endings.

A traditionalist is someone who has respect for traditions, perhaps to an excessive extent.

Which traditions do you follow and enjoy? A lot of my favourites involve food – I like to pour brandy on the Christmas pudding and set fire to it and try the traditional foods in places I visit, such as Welsh cakes, Cornish pasties and Scottish shortbread.

The first Wednesday of the month is traditionally Insecure Writer's Support Group day and March is no exception. As well as the monthly blog posts, the IWSG offers free support to insecure writers in lots of ways. If you think you might benefit, click on the link to take a look.

This month's optional question is –

Other than the obvious holiday traditions, have you ever included any personal or family traditions/customs in your stories?

I don't think I ever have, although it's possible I've done so not realising a custom isn't as universal as I'd supposed. How about you? 

As I do it in almost every post, and I've been blogging for years, does it count as tradition for me to mention free to enter writing competitions? 

The University of Southampton are offering a range of free competitions with good prizes. They all have a 'green' theme.

This one is for sci-fi, fantasy or horror. Top prize is $1,000.

Here's a free poetry competition.

Forging

For this short story competition from Parsec Ink, you're asked to write a story of up to 3,500 words on the theme of forging. Good word – I can think of several ways to interpet that!

The contest is free to enter and offers a $200 prize. It's only open to non-professional writers. The entry must be sci-fi, fantasy or horror.

Forging can mean creating something strong and enduring – to forge a career, legacy or relationship, for example. The encouragement of my granparents forged my love of gardening. If you forge ahead, you're taking the lead or making good progress.

Forging can be to make an object from metal by heating and shaping it. A forged banknote is a forgery (fake, fraudulent copy) created by a forger.

Art imitating art?

 Art is both human creative skill, and the results of that skill. The arts are different branches of creative activity. (Painting is an art, a painting is a piece of art, painting is one of the arts.)

The word can also be used to describe a skill or talent which doesn't produce a tangible result. For example the art of not being around when there's work to be done.

It's the first Wednesday of the month, so time for the Insecure Writer's Support Group post. You can sign up here if you're a an insecure writer, and/or would like to support those who are.

February's optional question is – Has a single photo or work of art ever inspired a story? What was it and did you finish it?

No – not a single one, but many. My grandma was a good amateur artist and my husband is a professional photographer, so naturally I have an interest in these two arts.

In my novel Paint Me A Picture, the main character learns to paint – which saves her life. She and I were both inspired by a trip to the National Gallery. (The cover artwork is by my husband.)

I've attended two writing workshops with a connection to modern art and sold the stories I started at each of them. One of my few historical works centres around a (fictitious) painting, several of my contemporary short stories involve paintings and painters.

I also use photos for, and in, my work. Leave Nothing But Footprints is a romance novel about photographers, and photographers appear in quite a few of my short stories. I also take photos when researching, to remind me of facts, views and feelings.