@elle
Active 5 years, 10 months ago-
Sandra replied to the topic Short Story Publication/Competition in the forum Podium 7 years, 2 months ago
Oh, well done, Stevie, and deservedly so!
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Athelstone posted an update 7 years, 2 months ago
I expect many here know about Jericho Writers, the successor to the Writers’ Workshop that hosted the Word Cloud forum. It seems that they are about to offer a one-year Writing a Novel course to include a pass to the Festival of Writing and either the Getting Published or Self-Publishing day. It also includes a full MS assessment, one to one…[Read more]
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Oh yes (part 2): just to show how bad I am at reading things – it’s £4,950 / €5,700 / $6,500
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Well, that just answered my own question for me. At about half that price I might puzzle over whether I could stretch to it, but £5K is way out of reach
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Sounds to me like Harry’s got his head in the clouds again. Who on earth is going to commit that sort of money? Anyone who was confident enough of their abilities to make it seem worth it would be confident enough to think they didn’t need it, surely?
Incidentally, I see Retreat West, partners in this venture, is run by Amanda Saint, who was on…[Read more]
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At least 4 of the people in my self-edit group are publishing away, Richard. One of the our very own Bric. We definitely do not all move at the same pace along our paths!
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You’re as good a writer Richard. Anyway, people on each SE course are naturally at different stages when they come into it. Incidentally I still think that second novel of yours is cracking and would urge you to keep subbing it as well as working on AROS
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Agree with Daed and WB. We all take tge journey or mountain at what speed best serves us. And you should definitely keep going with AROS (as long as you want to!)
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Who the hell is going to pay £5k for that? For £5k you could probably do one of the more prestigious creative writing MAs
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Flippin heck. That is steep. With no guarantee at the end of it that you’d be published…
Amanda does seem to be getting on well – there are some other ex cloudies working with her now as well.
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Interesting… almost feels like they’re trying to offer something similar to the Curtis Brown Creative course. That’s a massive amount to invest.
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Ok that’s mad. For £84 you can join skillshare (having got the first 3 months free) and pretty much learn evetything being taught here from a choice of 100s of different teachers. With a bit of research and determination, you can find professional author groups to join that will give you a lot of the hand holding and help. Ok it includes the…[Read more]
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Yes, Jules, that’s just what I was getting at above. If you’re so near to the start of your writing journey as to need everything in this package it’s still basically a dream/hobby. And how many have that sort of money to blow on a dream?
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Chichester Uni’s creative writing MA costs £5,202, and features some fairly big names on the teaching roster. With all due respect to the people on the Jericho course, they ain’t Jim Crace or Kate Mosse.
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And of course at the end of that you have a postgraduate qualification as well as having received first-class teaching and support
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If I had 5k to spend, I’d spend it on an MA. YOu get the 1:1 tutoring from highly qualified teachers and writers, peer support, much more in depth writing tuition, and you end up with a degree that agents etc will sit up and pay attention to. No contest. (I wish I had 5k. I’d LOVE to study writing at MA level)
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Me too, Raine. And yeah if I had a soare 5k to spend on writing, that’s where my money would go too.
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Same
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Very much the same.
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Tick. I’ve learned that money spent on courses, assessments, etc isn’t necessarily well-spent. I’ve already wasted too much.
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Wow, Daeds, that comparison is a real eye opener. I wonder which will go best on a CV? He really has showed himself up for what he is IMHO.
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It is indeed a lot of money. It is rather aimed at complete beginners as far as I can tell, because somewhere (possibly in a blog about it) Harry has said that if you have completed a novel and are editing it then it probably isn’t for you (at least not for that novel) so it does seem like a write from scratch hand-holding affair. I’m sure that it…[Read more]
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Philippa East posted an update in the group
December SloMo 7 years, 2 months agoI am planning to start working in earnest on Book 2 from March onwards, after giving myself a break from writing / editing for all of February.
I hope you will help me my cheerleading / offering tea / kicking my butt, hard.
Hope you are all getting on well with your own writing tasks. xx-
Fine with the cheerleading and tea. Not a great one for kicking people I fear.
My own writing is slow, with moments of excitement, thank you for asking 🙂
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Go for it, @philippaeast.
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I have pom poms, kettle, and boots at the ready…
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Thanks guys! I like the sound of Pom poms….
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I also today have banana, pecan and white chocolate muffins if you want one. There were overripe bananas lurking in my fruit bowl that needed a home.
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Raine posted an update 7 years, 2 months ago
A note to those on submission or thinking of submitting – Agents etc are starting to gear up to the London Book Fair now, so March is a bad time to send stuff/expect responses. They’ll be totally preoccupied with prep, and then the week or so afterwards with finalising deals made there.
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Daedalus replied to the topic Hull Paragon: The Million-to-One Chance in the forum Blogs 7 years, 2 months ago
Castle class are lovely. My first Hornby train was a Castle class. Wish I could remember which one.
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Daedalus replied to the topic Hull Paragon: The Million-to-One Chance in the forum Blogs 7 years, 2 months ago
…In fact one of my few relatively clear memories of my grandfather are holding his hand while we stood on the (very crowded) footplate of the Oliver Cromwell, a BR Standard 7 Class locomotive, for a short run up and down the rails at Bressingham in the early 1980s. All I remember is a glimpse of the fire in the furnace, being closed in on all…[Read more]
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Daedalus replied to the topic Hull Paragon: The Million-to-One Chance in the forum Blogs 7 years, 2 months ago
This is fascinating.
My grandfather, on my mother’s side, worked on the railways but I know virtually nothing of what he did, to my embarrassment. I gather he was responsible for maintenance of a section of track, and when he started, had something to do with using horses to shunt rolling stock into and out of sidings, this being before that…[Read more]
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Athelstone replied to the topic Hull Paragon: The Million-to-One Chance in the forum Blogs 7 years, 2 months ago
I can definitely see the attraction in steam locomotives, and I have fond memories of holidays as a child, waiting on Newbury station for the express to arrive and whisk me away. I always prayed that it would be one of those wonderful swept-front, streamlined marvels, and was overjoyed if it was. Looking over the tracks to the Newbury marshalling…[Read more]
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Athelstone replied to the topic Hull Paragon: The Million-to-One Chance in the forum Blogs 7 years, 2 months ago
Richard, it may be something I missed over the time that you’ve been writing these (excellent) blogs: I know where you used to work, but do you have a connection to the railway yourself?
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John S Alty replied to the topic Hull Paragon: The Million-to-One Chance in the forum Blogs 7 years, 2 months ago
Richard,
My late father would tell of a train crash in Diggle, then in Yorkshire, in 1923 or 1924. He was four and witnessed the accident whilst out walking with his granddad. He was interviewed by the local newspaper and is reported to have said “It were a grand smash” or similar. I see from google that four people died, so it probably wasn’t so…[Read more] -
Philippa East posted an update 7 years, 2 months ago
For those of you on the agent hunt, here’s a JW blog about what agents are currently looking for.
https://jerichowriters.com/new-year-wish-list-from-literary-agents/
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Ah, I see that Sandra Sawicka of Marjacq Scripts is looking for ‘a ghost story with a good modern spin.’ Hmm…
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I met Sandra Sawicka at York last year. Sad to say, but she was dismissive to the point of bluntness. Not pleasant. And I wouldn’t recognise her from that photo.
Thanks, Philippa, for the link.-
Alan, I had the same experience of SW – she spent 5 of my 10 minutes saying how she hated my title (which my next 1-1 liked!) and was dismissive and unpleasant. I would never recommend her.
… but thanks for the link, Philippa.-
That’s interesting. I thought it might just have been me. And my other 1-1 was fine. It could suggest the real problem is with SS, but it’s not for me to speculate.
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Slightly hesitant to pile on as I have not met her personally, but she was on a Jericho Writers slush pile live webinar and was on the whole negative.
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Thing is, a bad attitude towards a newbie writer from a ‘serious’ agent could shatter confidence. I don’t know if anyone from Jericho writers reads these comments, but I do feel they should be aware of the perils of employing such a negative person.
I shrugged it off as meaningless, because my feeling as I approached her at the 1-1 table was that…[Read more]
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John S Alty replied to the topic Hull Paragon: The Million-to-One Chance in the forum Blogs 7 years, 2 months ago
Really enjoy these tales of the rails, thank you.
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Daedalus replied to the topic Hull Paragon: The Million-to-One Chance in the forum Blogs 7 years, 2 months ago
Another fascinating blog Richard. And unlike so many of them, where there were obvious risks being taken or safety features omitted, with this one it’s so unlikely as to surely have been unforseeable. Do you think the signalmen were reassured by all the built-in the safety features that nothing like that could have happened, freeing them to run t…[Read more]
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Sandra posted an update 7 years, 3 months ago
Excellent writing advice here: https://lithub.com/what-being-an-editor-taught-me-about-writing/?fbclid=IwAR2PZYarO1Zfrw5jm_eK4nAuKHsj1GHgvdDvAvUqn_KXENvBeQbQoJkqomY
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Ooh yes. Excellent. Thanks Sandra!
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Thanks Sandra. Interesting stuff.
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Very helpful. Thanks for posting, Sandra.
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Raine posted an update 7 years, 3 months ago
How’re your mondays? I am procrastinating between projects…
Tea?-
Coffee if you have it, please. Monday OK so far. Trying to edit. Present rate about one line per hour.
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Busy. Pilates, meeting with the new vicar, mending an altar cloth, cooking dinner. Tonight…finishing off the Fifth Elephant and maybe some knitting. 😉
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Work, work, work… of the non-writing kind.
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I decided to do beta edit replotting, but have RUN OUT OF POST IT NOTES! Disaster. :-O
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Jules replied to the topic Monster Anthology opportunity in the forum Competitions, Open calls and Writing Opportunities 7 years, 3 months ago
Sounds like my kind of novella, Stevie 😁
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Athelstone replied to the topic Richard's Literary Byways: Robert Aickman's Bad Dreams in the forum Blogs 7 years, 3 months ago
Sounds like my kind of writer and you’ve definitely sold him to me.
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