Orange Monster

So yesterday I did the village craft fayre all profits were for charity and yet it was the worst one I have ever done. It was slow – all of them are being slow at the moment but something else was going on, people were still buying the odd bit from the other stalls. Now I had Little Books of Poetry and art prints for sale rather than my normal stuff (which I’d given up as it wasn’t selling) but it was not that change that was the issue, others were selling prints.

I watched the girl across from me sell pretty much all of her hare prints. They were lovely and she was lovely but I find that sort of thing boring especially since moving here to the Cotswolds as there are hare pictures EVERYWHERE. But people bought those. (And I bought some of her buttons as I loved the style she had done on them but the ones I liked were the ones that were left on her stall at the end).

People bought chutneys that I would never buy as I make my own and they bought ceramics and they bought fluffy hedgehogs from the hedgehog hospital stall but I sold one little book and that was to somebody who already had one. My science-art prints were looked on in horror by some with comments about them being creepy or scary. And then when asked what the actual pictures were done in I got sneers over ‘fine liner’ and as for my felt tip pictures such as Creativity and The Little Book illustrations… people kept asking if they were Jean’s work.

And yes I have imitated children’s drawings for the The Little Books but not drawn them childishly. The cat in the christmas tree was harder to draw than my space montage. I didn’t think I really cared about what people thought of my art anymore but having it thought of as something a child could do upset me – this is in contrast with the reaction I had at the Tate Modern to a book that entitled Why Your Five Year Old Could Not Have Done That. My objection to it was that it felt children could not think the deep thoughts behind the art and yet I know Jean can and she had already won prizes for art works by the time she was five – the issue is that she does not yet have the dexterity and refinement for the finished piece but the ideas, the concepts are there.

To be fair it was said by people who know Jean but still…

I would feel completely crushed except two things came out of this a) I came to the conclusion that I am not mainstream, I can do fine art I choose not to I have my own style and yes it is not most peoples thing, b) Kids picked up the Little Book and read them avidly – the target audience loves them but unfortunately they do not have the ability to buy things themselves it is the parents who need to do that. So now the problem is how to get them to buy rather than the style of the book being wrong. I also ended up letting kids colour in my trilobite prints that went wrong at the printers – these are just line art and it was a keep my kids occupied thing but Jean’s friends kept coming and joining and in the end I ran out of them! This has given me the want to produce a colouring book.

I also met some amazing artists, only one of which had a website but I think they live next do to each other.

I loved her camera man!

The other issue is that I need to make sure that people know the business cards are for taken as I had a number of people try to buy them! Go Moo.com.

Yesterday I went to my first ever writers retreat, a one day affair run by Writing Space Stroud. It was held at the Stroud Valley Artspace which is a little tucked away set of studios and performance space. I arrive about 10 minutes early in the fear of not being able to locate it but it turned out to be the place I had performed poetry for the Stroud Site Festival.

The lady who was running it was setting out books in a smallish room set out with tables including the lovely refreshments in the photos. There were home baked cookies and cakes as well including a dairy and gluten free one which made me very happy.

After being made welcome I made a bee line for a purple table and set up my laptop. Others began arriving and we had a brief bout of introductions and hot drink pouring before we settled down to write. Before hand we had been sent forms to fill in, what we were looking to get out of the retreat and goal setting etc… as I am doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) my goals were simply to boost my word count and maybe to start planning the third novel of The Godex Trilogy. Now I broke the 50, 000 word barrier a while ago but am looking to do 90, 000 words before the end of November so I set myself a minimum of 5000 words and maybe a good stab at getting 10, 000 which is what I think is actually my physical limit for day.

I managed 8627 words at the retreat, got to chat to other local writers and had constant tea and coffee. There was impromptu stretching during the lunch hour which was very relaxing. I got to look at lots of different books on writing styles and methods. There was no reading out of work or anything like that we all just got on with our projects without the distractions of children and the internet. I even put my phone in the special phone box so that I wouldn’t be tempted. I was so energised by the friendly atmosphere that when I got home Alaric cooked me dinner, put a film on for the kids and banned them from talking to me so that I could finish off the 10, 000 before I eat.

A really good thing is that there is a section on the forms to help keep the momentum up after the retreat which I shall be attempting 🙂

The retreat cost £20 which was basically cost price. I thought it was great and am hoping to do another one or send Al on one for his novel – people were writing a complete mix from poetry to PhD proposals. I personally am now on over 70, 000 words for my novel and am excited at the prospect of being this close to a target I thought pretty much impossible at the beginning of the month with all the other things I had booked to do!

So I am taking along copies of The Little Book of Festive Poetry to the Cranham Craft Fayre tomorrow! I will sign them if asked and profit goes to buy the school new books for their library. Its on from 10 – 4 and I will also have copies of Running to Stand Still an audio play by Barnaby Eaton-Jones to raise money for ME research and awareness.

I have the PDF, I have the printed physical article, but I still need to do a lot of stuff for this book. For a start I need to record a little trailer thing for it like I did for The Spoogy Book, I also want to record the poems for audio book but there is more involved with that so I think that will not be coming out until next year though I want to get alot of it sorted now.

I’ve noticed that some over zealost editing has resulted in some of the ‘bad grammar’ being taken out of one of the poems unfortunately it was there for a reason and that is the flow of the poem itself, so that needs to be altered for future editions and one of the poems I would prefer to be slightly higher on the page but it is such a minor thing and it seems to only bug me, that I am leaving it for now.

I really should organise some sort launch for it as well.

I’m still trying to sort out POD (print on demand stuff) and ebook stuff as well.

I have two readings in December to promote it and need to make a webshop thing for it and to place it on my blogs etc… promote on twitter and linkedIn, facebook and all the rest of it.

Audio book wise I need to decided which story I am including and which song to sing. I will have slay bells as the gaps between sections. Story wise I am torn between my Advent Story and Santa Mouse both of which still need alot of work done on them.

I have made some christmas cards as well but forgot to get my order in early enough so they will be for next year along hopefully with some other merchandise.

And this doesn’t even take in what I want to do with textiles and hand binding and things for special editions. So there is still alot to do.

I am aiming to change my blog banner for one I’ve made from the illustrations as I did with The Spoogy and to also make little things people can use as web badges and avatars.

Ok so like last year I am printing out Little Books of Festive as I just did not have the capital to get them printed, especially as I am not getting the money from the sales so I didn’t want to pay out a lot of money when the idea is to raise money for the school library fund.

It costs me just under 20p a sheet making each book one pound to produce if we do not take into account my time. But to get the same sort of thing from printers I need to spend hundreds of pounds which I do not have at the moment. My hope is that I can sell the books for 3 pounds give one pound to the school, one pound is cost and the other pound I can save up and get a load batch printed after I’ve paid for the ISBNs. I will also be making it with POD (print on demand) places such as Lulu but to be honest I just wont get any money to give to school that way 🙁

The POD books may well be better for larger collections but for these little leaflet, pamphlet type books I just can’t get it down to reasonable price and still be able to donate money to the school 🙁 (Nor make any money for me if that were the aim – there is little scope for mark up in other words).

Also until I sort out the ISBNs I can’t sell on Amazon or anything like that – this is where the POD books come in really. I can have one of their ISBNs and have the book listed which this early on maybe the way to go to just get my books noticed for now.

Indeed you can now sponsor me and my family on our nutty mouth of writing. I am attempting 90, 000 words for National Novel Writing Month which I have dragged my husband Alaric into, he had managed about 15, 000 words so far, and our 7 yr old Jean is writing and drawing away about castles and witches and cats and mushrooms and that is turning out to be much better than my own story!

The money donated goes to help NaNoWriMo keep going for another year and to help schools and communities globally. This is no trivial thing as literacy helps people pull themselves out of poverty.

We are doing a family page rather than individual ones as we think that is best.

I am half way through the month and am on 12 hours of hard graft on my childrens/picture books, this is below where I should be but the reason for this is that I have been focusing on the writing challenge for #nanowrimo which is going fantastically well.

But what I have done is organise myself so that I can go to poetry events in December to promote The Little Book of Festive Poetry. I am also going to be at a craft fayre with it at the end of the month too.

I’m still trying to sort out The Little Book of Spoogy Poetry so that it can be bought, I took it down at the beginning of the month after the whole giving it away during the last part of the October. And thinking wow I had over 100 downloads and everyone I know keeps showing it too me on their electronic devices I didn’t think anybody else would really be interested until I did a drive with the physical book next year. However that is not the case!

I have had people contacting me asking to be able to buy it!

This is amazing so I plan to have it there for people as soon as possible but obviously TLBFP has to come first.

I have also booked myself in for my first ever writers retreat – a day for £20 which is in my budget this year. I want to see how this helps my production levels as my main issue is finishing things.

I dislike advice as such from other writers – I believe that each artists has their own path to tread. But by advice in this context I mean ‘You have to do it this way, you are doing it wrong, that is never going to work’. This may have been true for them, may even still be true but I have always learnt best by doing and altering the mix to change the outcome – I am by nature a scientist.

However I LOVE advice from other writers. I seek it out, I read how to write books – most of the annoy me but I tend to still get something from them. A different way of starting a story, ways to find ideas, processes for growing those ideas. And then there are those books that are about the authors own story – how they made it, what they did, why it worked and why it will, wont, might work in todays flux of markets. These are the advice gold!

I often find via friends or youtube or both interviews with writers whos works I like and I will listen and learn and discover that hey these people aren’t very different from me. Often they didn’t do things the ‘right way’ but they had determination and stuck at it and carried on even when money was tight and life was hard.

My favourites are Success and How To Avoid It by Mat Coward and Stephen Kings On Writing.

I also tend to follow authors on Twitter, Facebook is not so interesting for authors as alot of them just have their page managed and for fans to talk about stuff and learn of new releases. However Anne Rice does interact which is great as do those involved in various writing challenges like PiBoIdMo. this creates for me a sense of not being on my own with the writing and art. It also leads me to forget that people are famous and I tweet at them like they are at the same point in their careers as me, obviously they often don’t respond but sometimes they do and this is great, sometimes they join in the chat. And sometimes I find the person that I thought was ‘just’ a writer friend of a friend is someone who wrote the stories that were turned into films I love (Neil Gaimon) but I only found that out by seeing a video of him giving advice and being inspired and watching more videos of his to gain more ‘advice’.

Authors blogs can be great too and sometime they are boring as…

So my advice on advice from other authors or writers or communicators or artists etc… is listen and learn but listen to the most valuable voice in the cacophany – your own. Only you know where you want to go with the writing, what path will suite – and be aware that the easiest isn’t always the best, the well word ruts of an established industry maybe slippery with polish from all those who have gone before. If you are stuck climb, dig or scrabble your way out – you may need help to do so – ask for it and ask others if you are not given the help initially but be prepared that the help maybe instructions on how to build yourself a ladder and that you will have to do the hard graft.

What I have gleaned from other authors:

1. Write about what interests you
2. Be true to your own voice don’t try and copy a voice or style
3. Don’t be discouraged when you get a rejection or things go wrong – learn from it and move on
4. Be-aware of the sting of success when you can end up over worked and under paid and have no scope to escape the cycle
5. Live your life, engage with the world
6. Be flexible
7. People will look down on you, hate your work or worse love your work without seeing it for what it is.
8. Keep writing!
9. Don’t be afraid to write a story idea that you think has been done to death – it has not been done by you with your style and your insights.
10. Finish projects!

This list counters many points I found in How-To write books such as only write what you know and practice writing in voice, stick to genre and so on… I am not saying they are invalid just that they were not piece of advice I could use.

I have been researching more and more on this at the moment I am thinking Amazons one looks good but then it also feels slightly traitorous to the idea of Indie Publishing.

Also there is an issue over weather I do my own ISBN’s or just get theirs, do I do marketing packages.

I’m still working out the later bits of this – but I prefer to do stuff myself to be honest.

With fireworks night tonight I found that I wanted to start the illustrations and stuff for The Little Book of Sparky Poetry but I am so desperate to finish the nearly finished projects I don’t really want to start the quarter started projects!

So I am making a pact with myself that it will be the priority for next years PiBoIdMo. I should have The Little Book of Festive Poetry and The Little Book of Spoogy Poetry all wrapped up by then (yes I know I’ve been saying this for years now!).

Stuff I need to do with LBSpP is:

1. find the note book the poems are written in
2. type them up
3. edit them
4. illustrate them
5. go back and check editing
6. scan pictures and clean them up digitally
7. combine pictures and text
8. refine page set up
9. turn into ebook
10. print as physical booklet
11. edit the Dragon in the Compost Heap
12. write appropriate song/find song to sing
13. record audio book
14. make audio book avaliable electronically
15. and physically
16. make up premium packages of audio books and physical books

This is actually quiet a bit of work! But it is going to be the main focus next year I think.