@helen
Active 6 months, 2 weeks ago-
Athelstone posted an update 7 years, 6 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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Philippa East posted an update in the group
December SloMo 7 years, 6 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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Athelstone replied to the topic Hull Paragon: The Million-to-One Chance in the forum Blogs 7 years, 6 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, 6 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, 6 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, 6 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, 6 months ago
Really enjoy these tales of the rails, thank you.
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Sandra posted an update 7 years, 6 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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Jules replied to the topic Monster Anthology opportunity in the forum Competitions, Open calls and Writing Opportunities 7 years, 6 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, 6 months ago
Sounds like my kind of writer and you’ve definitely sold him to me.
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Jules replied to the topic Monster Anthology opportunity in the forum Competitions, Open calls and Writing Opportunities 7 years, 6 months ago
Go for it, Stevie. I bet you can knock out more words in 5 months than you think. And worst case scenario, you’ll still have the makings of a story if you don’t hit the deadline.
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Philippa East replied to the topic My Publishing Nightmare – the story of a book deal gone bad (Part 1) in the forum Blogs 7 years, 6 months ago
Oh goodness, @daedalus. How awful. Please put Part 3 up soon! I can’t bear seeing you in this awful pickle!!
Thanks again for sharing. I really hope your own experience will serve successfully to protect other authors who may otherwise have gone down the same line.
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John S Alty replied to the topic Short Story Publication/Competition in the forum Podium 7 years, 6 months ago
I know I’m incredibly talented, Daeds, I’m just pretending to be modest.
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John S Alty replied to the topic Short Story Publication/Competition in the forum Podium 7 years, 6 months ago
Thanks Philippa, Thea. Not much prospect of me progressing but I’m sure Elle is in with a chance.
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Philippa East replied to the topic Short Story Publication/Competition in the forum Podium 7 years, 6 months ago
Amazing news, John and Elle! Fingers crossed for the shortlist…
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And I thought things couldn’t get more apposite after the year of the cock
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Happy New Year! I’m a fan of pigs. Having met wild boars, I have much respect (mild terror) for them, and much love for the stripyness of their babes.
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I like peccaries, with their tiny dainty feet
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Okay, a bit of porcine trivia. The meat of the wild boar is prized in some quarters in France, but the animal is a protected species (though that doesn’t stop it being sold under the counter occasionally). to get round this, pig breeders have crossed the wild boar (sanglier) with the farmyard pig (cochon). The resultant hybrid is known as a…[Read more]
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French is great. En anglais that would just be a Big
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😀 @daedalus that made me cackle!
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@raine I adore the baby humbugs. Utterly cute. They have escape ladders and platforms attached to trees in the Austrian woods to get away from angry Dad pigs, though.
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I wonder where the other replies went?
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It’s a bug that means the ‘show all replies’ button sometimes fails to appear, unfortunately. Has been annoyingly persistent
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@bellam those platforms are a genius idea! Could have done with them in Poland – although it was the very protective mummies who made me more nervous tbh, especially when gorgeous humbugs decided to check out my boots!!
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Jules started the topic Monster Anthology opportunity in the forum Competitions, Open calls and Writing Opportunities 7 years, 6 months ago
Absolutely huge word count on these – publisher is basically requesting a novella. But you might find that works for you. Plus monster stories from a LGBTQAIP+ angle.
Here’s the link in case anyone is interested.
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Oh yes: https://jerichowriters.com/ultimate-novel-writing-course/?inf_contact_key=d3612a622f9713aceaff49c6aa278679
Oh yes (part 2): just to show how bad I am at reading things – it’s £4,950 / €5,700 / $6,500
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
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]
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!
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
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!)
Who the hell is going to pay £5k for that? For £5k you could probably do one of the more prestigious creative writing MAs
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.
Interesting… almost feels like they’re trying to offer something similar to the Curtis Brown Creative course. That’s a massive amount to invest.
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]
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?
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.
And of course at the end of that you have a postgraduate qualification as well as having received first-class teaching and support
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)
Me too, Raine. And yeah if I had a soare 5k to spend on writing, that’s where my money would go too.
Same
Very much the same.
Tick. I’ve learned that money spent on courses, assessments, etc isn’t necessarily well-spent. I’ve already wasted too much.
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.
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]