Are you a book snob?

In January I posted a blog piece entitled Literary Fiction V Genre Fiction which stimulated lively discussion in various book groups online, so I suspect it is a topic of interest to many writers and readers. 
There's also an interesting post on literary versus genre fiction over at Jane Friedman: http://janefriedman.com/2013/07/11/writing-on-the-ether-98/

So when I came across this post by Matt Haig at the Booktrust, I wanted to share it. Called 30 things to tell a book snob, this is a contentious subject, judging by all the comments on his blog post. What do you think?

http://www.booktrust.org.uk/writing/online-writer-in-residence/blog/558/

Along the same lines, I have just read the blurb for the University of Kent’s Creative Writing Centre and it made me growl!  For example:

“You won’t write mass-market thrillers or children’s fiction on our programmes.”  
Why not?  What’s wrong with children’s fiction?   Or thrillers?  Are they not worthy of study or creation?   

And,  “We don’t want our students to write inside genre and formula but outside, where real art is found.”  Really?  And a definition of real art? 

Click below to get annoyed. http://www.kent.ac.uk/english/research/centres/creative-writing.html

Rant over........for now......

Related posts: 

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/literary-fiction-versus-genre-fiction.html

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/on-books-and-reading-and-pony-books.html

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/on-ways-to-read-book.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/reading-bigger-books.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/readers-does-size-matter.html

Grief and the Writing Routine

Since my post called Wise Words, which explored issues around grief, I read this excellent piece called The Collapse of a Writing Routine and How it was Restored by Frances Kazan. at the wonderful Jane Friedman.  Deeply moving.  Do check it out.

Related posts:

http://janefriedman.com/2013/08/12/writing-routine/

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/wise-words.html

Writing the Characters We Like (to Read About?)

Writer E. A. Durden, in an article for Glimmer Train, says, “A gulf yawns between the stories I love to read and the stories I write. I see it every time I work on a draft. My fundamental problem: I want my fictional characters to be liked. I make them too nice. Decency is the scourge I must arm myself against.”

I think many writers would identify with this. I enjoy reading about characters who are complex, conflicted, flawed, and, sometimes, not especially nice!  We are fascinated about gaining insights about the human experience.  Life, loss, hope, dreams.  We all experience these.  Some of the writers I most admire explore dark subjects and amoral characters, tackling aspects of the human psyche that can be difficult to confront.  Yet I have an innate anxiety about writing in this way.  It scares me.   

I have done it a few times in several short stories for adults – but when I read back over them, sometimes I’m left feeling uncomfortable that such characters and plots came from my imagination. Like I am responsible for their actions. Which, since I created them, I am.  All very baffling.  Maybe I’m worried that the people I know will judge me negatively if I create monsters? If you can offer any insights I would be interested to hear them.

Anyway, thanks to the wonderful http://janefriedman.com/2013/07/02/the-problem-with-overly-nice-characters/ I recently read and enjoyed 2 excellent pieces that explored issues such as these. 

Is what you like to read different from what you write about?  Does this mean anything?  Can our understanding of this inform our work as writers?

Sources:

http://www.glimmertrain.com/b78durden.html

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/interviews/article/56848-an-unseemly-emotion-pw-talks-with-claire-messud.html

 Related posts: 

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/write-what-haunts-you.html

Losing your blogging mojo?

If you are new to blogging or have been a long term blogger, there will be times when you lose your blogging mojo.  Overwork, stress, not enough hours in the day, boredom, loss of confidence, change of focus, not sure what to say - there are so many reasons we might re-evaluate our purpose.  So here is an excellent blog from the wonderful Jane Friedman that you should read.
http://janefriedman.com/2013/04/22/reasons-to-keep-blogging/

And if that wasn't enough, this link lists 35 excellent blogs for writers.  Happy blogging!

http://www.yourwriterplatform.com/blogs-to-help-writers/

Related posts:
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/losing-your-writing-mojo.html

Blogging V Writing?

Like many writers, I often consider the relationship between writing and blogging.  I enjoy blogging, which is, after all, writing. Right now, I enjoy blogging more than writing novels.  So I spend more time on it than writing novels.  Then I feel guilty because I'm not working on my novel.

I just came across this thought-provoking post by L.L.Barkat which asks the question, "Is blogging a waste of time for writers?"over  at Jane Friedman's excellent blog.
http://janefriedman.com/2013/03/15/its-time-for-many-experienced-writers-to-stop-blogging/

I'd love to know what you think.

Related post:
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/a-sense-of-community.html

The Art of Time Management

My timekeeping and time management leaves a lot to be desired.  I try hard but it's a daily struggle.  When I started blogging just over a year ago, I sometimes thought I would never keep on top of everything that needed to be done, and now I am indie publishing my backlist, promoting, marketing, using social media such as Facebook and Linked In, there is more to manage.  It is on my list (and part of my marketing plan) to venture into the scary world of Twitter over the summer.  I enjoy all of this activity (although I don't seem to be working on the novel writing much recently!) but I am always open to ideas about how I can improve the way I structure my time.

So I found this post by Jane Friedman both refreshing and instructive. I love the title:
http://writerunboxed.com/2011/12/23/the-secret-to-finding-the-time-to-write-market-promote-and-still-have-a-life/

The advice is beautifully simple and highly practical.  As a big advocate of To Do Lists, I like the idea of having a Stop Doing list!  There is also advice on dealing with guilt, obligation, limiting certain activities, even if you enjoy them (maybe especially if you enjoy them!), being self-disciplined and improving productivity.

Essential reading for writers!

Related post:
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/time-to-write.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/publishing-writers-vanity-and-hypocrisy.html

Literary Fiction versus Genre Fiction?

In a previous blog post (http://www.janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/how-do-you-deal-with-rejection.html ) I referred to work I recently had rejected and promised to develop this in a future post.  Today I am picking up the thread again, and will try very hard not to end up having a rant, because the topic I will write on has niggled me for a long time.

Literary (or serious) fiction versus genre writing (or commercial fiction).

When I started out as a writer in my teens, I won a few short story competitions at school and decided I wanted to be a journalist.  In fact, when I contacted some well-known writers, this was the career path they recommended to me if I wanted to see my work in print.  Interesting.  I wrote about what I was passionate about, which at the time was horses and riding, and, a bit later, I developed a fascination with the supernatural, often combining the two. I also enjoyed reading horror stories.  (Does anyone remember the Pan Book of Horror Series of short stories?  I used to read these avidly). In fact the first short story I had published in a national horse magazine was about a psychotic pony that goes unaccountably crazy at a horse show and kills another horse! 

After this, I wrote a large body of traditional pony stories and serials, which were all published in pony magazines and annuals, so I kind of pigeon holed myself in a way.  But I was doing what I loved and I felt like a proper writer.

In my twenties and thirties, I sent out a range of other short stories to a mixture of magazines, which included the women’s mags, and some of the small press (and bigger press) literary magazines.  I had limited success with both, faring better with small press.  

When your pony stories are usually accepted by the specialist publications but your non-horsey stuff is more frequently rejected, you tend to veer towards what experience shows you works, but I did persevere with my “other” writing for many years, winning a few more writing competitions and getting a fair bit of poetry (and lots of non-fiction articles) published.  On the whole, “literary” success eluded me, and I soon discovered that in the world of academia, there was far more respect for a writer who had achieved recognition in this field than one who had sold over 162,000 copies (translated into 7 languages) of their latest pony novel for teenage girls.  (This was Transitions, my best seller ever and which took me into the US market). I began to develop a bit of a chip on my shoulder and wondered if I would only be a proper writer if I won the Booker prize (or similar), because whenever I applied for an arts council bursary or RLF Fellowship Scheme, I never got a look in.  

So, back to the point, which was my recent rejection from a literary magazine.  I don’t often enter contests or send speculative work off these days but last year, I sent off 6 of my poems (all previously published) and a short story that I felt proud of, (which had won a literary short story award a few years back) to this magazine.  My work eventually came back to me in the familiar A4 white SAE (I used to spend a fortune on postage before emails were invented!).  It had been read “with interest and careful attention” but “the editors finally decided not to take (them) for publication.” 

Why did this sting so much?  Was it because it reminded me of those days in the past when this was a regular occurrence?  I am always telling other writers to develop a thick skin; rejections are a fact of life for a writer. Just keep going, there’s an element of subjectivity, someone’s opinion, wrong place, wrong time, etc.  But clearly this got to me or I wouldn’t be writing this long and rambling post.  I believed I wrote as well as many of those already published in the magazine.  Deep down, did I think my work simply wasn’t “literary” enough?  I suspected they did.  And does it really matter? 

As regards Treading Water, the short story in question, you can judge for yourself, because I put it on my blog a while back, before I (correction, it) got rejected. 

http://www.janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/p/short-stories.html

http://www.janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/thirty-three.html

My question is, am I being paranoid?  Do I still have a chip on my shoulder?  Does a kind of snobbery  exist in some circles about genre and commercial fiction, as opposed to literary?  And what the hell is the difference?  And does it matter?  Phew.  Ranting again.  Can anyone give a definitive definition of what makes something literary?  Who decides?

Footnote:

There’s an excellent (non-ranty!) post about over at Jane Friedman called “Commodity publishing, self-publishing and the future of fiction”, which explores the role of literary and commercial fiction in the world of indie publishing, and it has some great insights into what can be a controversial topic.

http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=f8b16374ec668e8d6004fcc38&id=d19ec23706&e=fb5467ce0f

Related post: http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/literary-v-genre-fiction-postscript.html

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/on-books-and-reading-and-pony-books.html

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/on-ways-to-read-book.html

Taking stock

There is currently a good deal of discussion about the idea of writers, especially those who self-publish, finding themselves pursuing a shadow career in developing their platforms at the expense of their writing.

(see the excellent  http://janefriedman.com/2012/07/31/extra-ether-shadowy-platforms/). 

Shadow career.  I like this term, which is apt in many ways.  In the 1980s-90s my goal was to have what was called a portfolio career – and at one point I was juggling 4 different jobs in order to write.  Recently, I heard another writer who self publishes refer to a mosaic career, which I rather like too.  A more splintered, myriad, maybe chaotic career.  This really did get me thinking. 

I’m relatively new to the blogosphere, having set up my blog in December 2011 with a certain amount of trepidation and after a good deal of research.  (Although, bizarrely, I published five posts on the same day.) I’ve also spent the last six months researching self-publishing, especially digital, with the help of some wonderful sites, http://www.thebookdesigner.com/ being a prime example.

I called my blog The Beautiful Room; a place for me to go to express my thoughts, ideas and concerns.  A creative space.  Eight months down the line, I decided to take stock.  What has it become?  I considered first the mixture of reasons I set up the blog:

·         To maintain a regular writing habit, i.e. most days, which I have always struggled with, despite being told by successful authors how important this is.  (I tend to write in chunks consisting of 3-4 day blocks of time whenever I can get fit them in round my job)

·         To express a viewpoint

·         To provide useful information for other writers

·         To raise my profile.  Although I’ve been published for many years, my work is mostly translated into other languages and comparatively little published in the English language

·         To provide a shop window – for Jane Ayres the brand and for my soon-to-be-published-on-kindle-by-myself backlist of titles that have long been out of print and deserve another airing. (the writer Kate Pullinger makes some interesting points  about the backlist and spreadable media on her blog http://www.katepullinger.com/blog/comments/spreadable-media/)

Phew!  Time to assess how successful I have been.  And how do I measure success? I looked at the following factors:

·         The time my blog has consumed

·         How much fun and enjoyment it has given me

·         Did it instil a daily writing habit?

·         Has it raised my profile and how would I know?

·         Finally, the acid test.  The stats.

Starting with the first on the list, the blog has consumed several hours a week.  Is this time that could have been spent writing my next book?  Yes and no.  I can blog while I have the TV on and I can’t always write my novel with too many distractions.  I now have a much more regular writing habit, although I don’t blog as often as I feel I should.  I do enjoy it and I have rediscovered the joy of writing opinion pieces, features and essays, which has resulted in me being a guest blogger for the creative website called Creatabot http://creatabot.co.uk/2012/07/10/tick-tock-by-jane-ayres/.  I enjoy reading other people’s essays as well as fiction.  You can think that your thoughts and ideas are totally original until you interact and find (via the internet) that probably millions of others are saying similar things.  And far more eloquently.  Self-doubt can set in.  Before the internet, you might have felt safe in your little cocoon.  It is both reassuring and challenging to make this discovery.

Has the blog raised my profile?  Probably not.  Why do I think this? Ah, the stats.

Sold more books?  I will have a better idea of that by the end of the year, when I hope my entire backlist is out there on the kindle (launching later this month).

Back to the stats.  Here’s the thing.  When I started the blog I was delighted to find there had been 3 views (most likely my friends!).  When I had 20, I shrieked with excitement.  As the numbers built, I was stunned to see that many came from as far afield as Russia and China (until my brother told me that’s where most of the phishing comes from.  Oh.  So these viewers weren’t necessarily interested in my actual content.)  As of today, I’ve had 1028 page views.

And this is the revealing bit, psychologically.  Those stats have an addictive quality, stimulating a need to boost those figures.  I want to be read.  Ouch!  I didn’t think it would matter to me but it does.  Maybe that’s because I’m a writer – or have a massive ego?  Is it better to blog and be little read than not to blog at all?   

What should your stats be? Or rather, what figure would make you happy?  A bit like chalking up Facebook “friends”.  Is it territorial pride or merely self-indulgence? 

I’ve given myself till the end of the year to make a decision about keeping my blog.  Is it worthwhile?  If I enjoy it, yes.  Is my enjoyment affected by the stats and the thought I may be writing in a vacuum?  I hate to admit it, but yes.  Does it matter?

All I know for sure is that since I started I have got a bit more confident with IT, learned a great deal about writing, a bit about myself and, with the help of all the wonderful writer bloggers already doing it well, I will continue to learn. 

Related posts:
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/adapt-and-survive.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/validation.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/backtracking-lessons-in-indie.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/e-books-and-writing-for-children.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/breathe-indie-publishing-from-experts.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/backtracking-lessons-in-indie.html