Any ideas?

This has appeared in the fields over the last couple of weeks. The bank forms a sort of elongated C and there appears to be a hard flat area within the C with two grassy islands left in it.

The bank itself has what looks like concrete blocks set into it at regular intervals.

I know that they plan to dig out the fields in the background and breach the sea wall to create a new salt marsh in that area and I think it’s the beginning of a new dyke to go round the new marsh. It’s something I’m not happy about but I’m determined not to start spouting about it today!

My other half reckons it isn’t. So far he’s come up with a trout farm, a shooting range . . . or a visit from Tony Robinson.

I’m hoping someone out there will look at it and say “Oh, I’ve seen one of those – it’s a . . .”

And a Bit of the Other

Not that sort of other! Tuh what are you like?

Went to vote today. My 4 year old grandson, Lachlan, asked me why I was voting and what it was for. I was having difficulty explaining so Grandad said it for me, “We are choosing who we want to steal all our money!”

For the first time in my life I didn’t know who I was going to vote for until I was in the booth – and I came away feeling I hadn’t used my X wisely. That was a first too.

There weren't many people there. The man who gave me my voting forms helped me poke mine in the box (it was rather full by the time I got round there) then he looked embarrassed and got a stick and used that to push it in. And a lady sitting at the table opposite (for roads from H to Z) asked what a judge's hammer is called . . . for her crossword.

I still felt a certain sense of satisfaction that I'd had the opportunity to have my say, even if it was just a cross in a box.

This and That

I always said I wouldn’t blog. It didn’t appeal to me at all. Now I’m addicted to it. I’m thinking up subjects for blogs when I should be thinking up stories (and finding it just as difficult).

And it’s not just thinking up subjects – what about all those terrific blogs out there waiting to be read?

Womag’s blog http://womagwriter.blogspot.com/ is a fantastic resource. I find myself going back there again and again checking on things which got me thinking . . .

When I first started to target magazines – don’t laugh – I used to sit with a magazine and having read all the stories in it, I would then count the words in each story and make a mark at each 100. This was the kind of research I could do with a sleeping baby slung over my shoulder!

I’d make note of how many characters and scenes and the settings. My magazines would end up with notes written all over them. When I wrote a story, I knew roughly how many handwritten words would fill a page in my notebook, but when the story was finished, I’d have to count them just to be sure.

I wrote everything longhand to start with, then I’d type a draft which I’d tweak and twiddle before typing up the final copy.

Thank goodness for guidelines that most if not all magazines produce these days. And Word with its word count and spell check. And thank goodness for Womag who does such a lot of the hard work for the rest of us!

Mind Tricks

I was going over an old published story yesterday with a view to sending it out abroad. I read through it once. Went through it again, altering a bit here and a bit there so it would fit in with the overseas market. I was about 50 words short so I went through it again and it was only when I decided I’d found a sentence that could be lengthened that I really read it.

I had referred to a car with cream yellow upholstery. Cream yellow? What the hell is that? I remember writing the story. I remember seeing the car in my mind. It had cream leather upholstery. For some reason my mind had sent the word yellow to my typing fingers and they had obeyed. And what was worse, every time I reread the story I saw yellow and read leather because I think I was seeing the car and not the words.

I’ve just checked the magazine version and the line had been published as “cream-leather upholstery.” Now there’s a fiction editor who knows what I mean even if I don’t say it!

I often write “the” instead of “and”, so a sentence will read, “The fox the the butterly . . .” but fortunately Word will pick that one out and wave it under my nose.

Anyone else do things like that? Please say you do!

From Here to Acceptance

I seem to have gone on rather a lot about rejections and how horrible they are and waiting and how horrible it is. But what about the good stuff?

The Acceptance! I wish I could put that word in bright twinkly letters so it sparkles.

I’ve had a very lucky week with three acceptances. The first was a ghost story to Bridge House for an anthology due out in October. Second was a story to Woman’s Weekly, third was to Fiction Feast.

I particularly enjoyed writing those three stories and it has taken the sting out of the recent rejections.

So for those who are still trying to break in to the magazine market, what should you expect? A letter? A phone call? An email?

My first acceptance (Secrets) was by letter. I still have that letter somewhere, but don’t ask me to find it. It’s in the garage with loads of other paperwork and only a brave soul would venture in there. You should see the size of the spiders – they have webs like funnels and they just have two legs poking out . . .

Where was I?

A letter/email might begin something like “We enjoyed your short story . . .” It may even go on to tell you why they liked it (take note, comments like that can be just as useful as rejection comments).

Or you may get a phone call from the fiction editor – and you will find yourself speaking to a friendly person who is genuinely delighted to be giving you the news that they want to use one of your stories.

Your acceptance letter may even arrive in one of your big brown envelopes. It will feel very slim . . . deliciously so.

That very first acceptance is always going to be extra special simply because it’s a first, but you never take an acceptance for granted, every one is special which is why you keep on going even when the rejections have been flooding in. (Oops I really wanted to write a blog without the R word but now I’ve done it about four times!)

And just a few words here about fiction editors. I have known quite a few over the past twenty-mumble-mumble years and the vast majority have been – and are – the nicest people you could wish to meet (not that I’ve met many, but you know what I mean). They aren’t in the business to hurt feelings or upset people and they would much rather accept a story than reject one.

Waiting and Worrying

Something that we all worry about – waiting times. How long does it take from posting your story off to getting a verdict?

Well I thought I’d list out the magazines and try to give some idea of how long the wait is – generally - but when I started to count days, weeks, months – years . . . it’s impossible to say! I may as well tell you how long a piece of string is. It’s about . . . well this long . . . see?

It’s handy having friends who write for the same magazines.
“Have you heard anything recently?”
“No, how about you?”
“Not a thing, but so-and-so had one accepted last week and I heard someone else had one taken the week before so they’re obviously still buying . . .”

Cue avalanche of doubt and despair, often followed by avalanche of big brown envelopes through the letterbox (speaking of which I had two more this morning).

In the case of the People’s Friend, no news is quite likely to be good news, but it isn’t set in stone. They do tend to turn rejections round pretty fast though so if you haven’t heard anything don’t despair!

Not so with the other mags. I’ve had stories rejected and accepted within a week of sending them in. I’ve had stories rejected after a year of waiting and others accepted after six months.

They have to be read by more than one person – several in some cases. If you’ve sent two in and one comes winging its way back, you know the other one has probably gone on for a further reading and is in with a chance.

It would be nice wouldn’t it, to follow a story on its journey, to see what happens when it arrives, who reads it and what the process is? Or maybe it’s better left as a bit of a mystery!

What about chasing them up? I’d give it six months – at least! I’ve chased up stories in the past only to have them arrive with rejection slips days later. Would they have held on to them for future consideration if I’d left it? Or were they rejections that had simply been forgotten? Who knows? I don’t.

And just to illustrate why you should never give up, a friend of mine recently sold a story she’d written in 2001. It was entered for two or three competitions, but wasn’t suitable for any of the magazines. However, there was something she liked about the story and she rewrote it and sent it off to five different magazines in turn – the fifth one bought it.

The same friend had a rejection from The Lady after two years – her story had fallen down the back of somewhere and they’d only just found it. Best magazine found one of hers in a filing cabinet after eight months – and rejected it.

There are stories of mine that have been out there for years. I assume they’ve been lost or forgotten (maybe they’ve fallen down the back of somewhere) and one of these days I’ll get round to resubmitting them – maybe.

I wish I could have been more helpful! But it may help to know we are all crammed into the same little boat – waiting . . .

A Busy Week

Well it was not difficult to do as Womag suggested and not allow myself to write until a specific day. That day was Wednesday and it has come and gone and I haven’t written a word although I have sorted out the seven rejections I had this week. Five for the shredder - gone forever (they were of the “What was I thinking?” variety) - and two off on their adventures again. I sent them off with clean underwear, a packed lunch and a newly sharpened pencil and wished them luck.

So I really ought to knuckle down and do something today. But the weather is so glorious and the sun is shining – I really want to be outside, but I’ve already taken the dogs for their walk and I’ve no excuse to go out.

I rather like this picture that I took yesterday on the beach at Walton on the Naze. We’d been to the park, had a picnic and then a stroll along the beach before heading for the park again for one last play before home. It was a lovely day – quiet too, very few people about.

Whatever you are doing this holiday weekend, I hope the sun is shining on you!