Loving Life in the Rain

Giles Coren’s first and so far only novel, Winkler, was published in 2005. He got a £30k advance, it was slated in reviews, it won a Bad Sex Award, and combined hardback and paperback sales barely nudged the 1000 mark. He retired hurt, not to mention baffled, and stuck to non-fiction.

Ten years later he felt brave enough to make a documentary about it. Links have changed since I first saw it, but search “Giles Coren my failed novel” and you’ll find it. It’s really quite touching as you see the penny begin to drop. He speaks to the reviewers who had slated it. He listens in on a book club tearing it apart. He takes the first chapters to a creative writing course workshop. He tries rereading it himself and finds it unbearable. (He can’t get through the Bad Sex Award-winning passage without breaking down into laughter.) He…

Picture Prompt 1

Contributors: Jim Anderson, Jacey Bedford, Karen Brenchley, Dave Gullen, Jackie Hatton, Terry Jackman, Ben Jeapes, Sue Thomason. (All picture prompt images (c) Jacey Bedford.)

Readers often ask writers where they get their ideas from. Most writers have more ideas than they can ever use, therefore not all of them are developed. The writers credited above contributed random story ideas for your edification and delight.

Give the same prompt to ten different writers and you’ll end up with ten completely different stories. You can even use the same prompt more than once.

Picture prompt:

1. “Space travel has a very high energy cost and very high levels of emissions. Surely it is against any commitment to sustainability for this to be permitted ‘for fun’.” (quote from recent newspaper)
2. Too busy for a real holiday I book a VR holiday. I’m sitting in the VR aeroplane and somebody hijacks it.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love a spooky story. I’ve written about ghosts, monsters, dimensions of time and space, aliens, mythical creatures and all manner of weird stuff. You could say that I peddle my wares on the weirder side of life. So why would I want to give you a rational explanation for the mystery behind the inexplicable? Sorry… did I say rational? Rational maybe, if you happen to be a quantum physicist.

In this engaging Ted talk, Jim Al-Khalili explains the strange world of quantum biology and uses quantum physics to answer some of life’s bigger questions like, ‘how does a robin know to fly south?’.

Quantum entanglement was famously described by Einstein as ‘Spooky action at a distance’. Entangled particles behave in such a way that when something happens to one, the other is affected, even when separated by distance. Entanglement happens when two particles meet…

FUNDED PLACES FOR TWO SF WRITERS OF COLOUR (BME) AT THE 2017 MILFORD SF WRITERS’ CONFERENCE

9th to 16th September 2017

Applications remain open until the end of February 2017
Successful applicants will be notified in March 2017
Download information and an application form
Word / RTF

Due to the generosity of the committee of the 8Squared Eastercon, and an anonymous (writer) donor, Milford SF Writers’ Conference is able to offer two funded places for self-identifying science fiction/fantasy writers of colour, i.e. of black or minority ethnicity, to attend the 2017 Milford SF Writers’ Conference in the UK from 9th – 16th September. Writers from all over the world (far and near) are invited to apply as long as they write in English. Applicants must be ‘Milford qualified’ (i.e have at least one SF story sale to a recognised market).

The bursary will cover the cost of the conference fee…

Here are ten quick tips for writers (not necessarily in order of usefulness and not necessarily complete). Feel free to ignore what doesn’t work for you. Remember: ‘Follow no rule off a cliff.’ – C.J. Cherryh. Besides these are not rules – they’re more like guidelines.

1. Finish what you write. If you can finish a novel you’ll be ahead of more than 90% of wannabe novelists.
2. Don’t mix up editing and revision. When you’ve finished your first draft, put it away for a few weeks (or a few months if you have the luxury of time and you’re not chasing a deadline – though write something else in the interim). When you come back to it, the distance will give you perspective. Your first revision shouldn’t be merely tickling words to find a better way of saying something, but it should be structural: fixing plot holes, deepening characters, backtracking to…

Writing advice is great – when it works for you. When it doesn’t, find another way of doing things.

“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” —W. Somerset Maugham:

“Follow no rule off a cliff”—CJ Cherryh

Accepted Wisdom says: Write every day.

I say: Except when you can’t. It’s all about balance. Come on, guys, life sometimes gets in the way. Some days just have your name on the shit-list from the get-go. You have a dentist’s appointment and come home feeling like you’ve been kicked in the chops by a donkey. Your kid is sick and clingy, so you have to do the mum/dad thing because that’s what being a mum/dad is all about. The washing machine repair man is due at 9.00 a.m., the central heating’s on the fritz and you have a dinner party for fourteen people to prepare…