Numbers in writing? Surely Not

 I missed out on celebrating my 50th Blog Post last week. Never mind, I'll be looking forward to a centenary post by the end of the year. That might be something to celebrate.

As usual, it's Thursday evening, and I'm thinking, "What shall I write about this week?"

The fifty-first post will be about my novel, Beasting Dartmoor (working title).

Numbers have dominated writing for the last couple of weeks. How many words can I get down today?

Is that what you normally think about as a writer? Numbers? Well, yes. 

I'm looking to complete my debut ( sorry if that seems pretentious) novel later this year.

To enable me to do this, I need to write about 250-300 words for at least four days a week. Happily, I am achieving that and, most days, exceeding it. I still have a lot of material to go into the project, and in the next week, I should be approaching the 20k word count.

The genre of the novel is a crime/murder thriller. Well, I hope it’s going to thrill the reader. 

As it currently stands, there have been four murders, the authorities are at a loss as to what is going on, and there is a figure in the shadows. It is principally based in the Dartmoor, Exeter and South Devon areas, although there are sojourns to London and a village in Somerset. 

I have a gap in the storyline at the halfway point of a chapter. I need a short story to lead into the next chapter. This may be the point to tease in the main antagonist. This person has just been a shadow to my protagonists, Greg Reid & Detective Sargent Marie Fliss. I have a description of the character I have in mind for this crucial role in the story.

Numbers again. I need roughly 800 to 900 words to complete the chapter, which is three days at the average word count, but it could be an hour's work if I'm on a roll. A bit of planning and we'll see what happens

As part of my 'Novel in a Year" workshops, I have an opportunity to have a piece of my work reviewed. I'm about ready to send off the first 5k words, which is both exciting and terrifying. I will also let a colleague at work read the first few chapters. She is a poet, and there is a reason I would like her to have a read. She might guess who my characters are,

There we are, then. Some exciting times for novel writing are coming up over the following months, and the motivation is at an all-time high.

Dark Skies and Street Lamps

I decided to take a Daily Kickstarter from last month's Writers Forum magazine for this week's Blog.

The sky at night - not the well-known programme, the dark sky above us each night. But how much of it are we seeing?

As Yorkshire's National parks and other wild places celebrate their Dark Skies, would you like to see fewer or no street lamps where you live?

Those that know me will remember that I have been a keen astronomer. My love of our Solar System and the Universe started in Primary School in the late 1960s. When Kathy and I moved out to Stoke Fleming in South Devon, I got my first telescope and started viewing the cosmos.

The rear garden of our bungalow faced south over Start Bay. It was and probably is still a

very dark sky. From Spring onwards, the Milky Way appeared from over Start Point in a beautiful display. We are looking at the third spiral arm of our galaxy, The Milky Way.

My first steps with a telescope brought an incredible view of the great planet Jupiter with its four main moons. When we lived in Stoke Fleming, I was fortunate to view nearly all of the planets in our Solar System, including Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn. I was lucky to view the blue planet Neptune. It is truly amazing to understand that by looking through a telescope, you are not only witnessing worlds many millions of light years distance but are looking back in time. My Maths teacher, Mr Simmons, always told us that travelling back in time would be easier than going forward.

We have Exmoor National Park in Devon, which has Dark Sky status. In Cornwall, Bodmin Moor and West Penwith have the same accolade.

When we moved to East Devon, we eventually settled for a few years in a lovely bungalow with huge gardens front and back. Unfortunately, the back garden was west facing, and the orange glow tainting the sky was Exeter. I was able to see a few sights. Kathy even bought me a star for Christmas which flirts around the western horizon. To see the southern sky, I had to use the front garden. The view was spoilt by…yes, you guessed it, street lamps.

Councils have been trying hard to lower light facing upwards by investing in LED, Light Emitting Diode, Smart Street and Intelligent Street lighting. However, in these days of ever-increasing costs, these have taken a step backwards.

Not too far from where you are, even in towns and cities, there is a little place that can be your own personal dark sky. Take a look upwards. You'll be amazed at what you can see.

My first effort at Jupiter and its Moons

Links:

https://www.darksky.org/

An Early Start, Productivity, and a Lesson to be Learnt

 An early start to this week's blog, Monday. Unfortunately, last week's idea for a pitch is a non-starter. I have found a book recently written about the subject and advertised on Facebook. I wouldn't want to steal the authors' thunder and hard work. I could write the same story from a different angle, but I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that in a local publication.

It doesn't matter. I've still got plenty of research I can use for something similar.

To maintain my writing productivity today, I have written a letter to The Rugby Paper. I've been a devil's advocate about the furore about lowering the tackle height for grassroots rugby.

I have some time this week, so I will take my notebook with me, as I always do, and see if I can come up with an idea for a short story. I sat in a Costa on Saturday and jotted down a few notes, which may be working their way into a story. However, I must be careful this week as I have a hospital appointment and can't write too many notes while in the waiting room.

In the notebook already, I have an outline story about someone getting on the wrong ship after a run ashore the night before. I wonder if a story about a Matelot and two Leander class Frigates tied up alongside each other will be a thriller. I have an idea to transform it into another location and an entirely different type of ship. It doesn't need to be a ship, either! 

In exciting news, I have been accepted onto a Novel in a Year series of workshops starting in March. The aim is also to have at least 20k words of your novel critiqued. The objective for me, at this time, would be to complete my thriller novel and have it ready for either editing or being sent off to an editor for consideration. I have been aware of the workshops since early December last year and decided to park working on the novel for a couple of months. Then last night and this morning, I had a salutary lesson to learn.

I write mainly on Pages and Scrivener. Scrivener is an app where you can write your novel, do research, create your character and have different versions available if you wish to go back to them. It is also great for compiling the completed work in many other formats.

Scrivener backs up its file, and mine have been backing up to Microsoft OneDrive. As you might be aware, Microsoft 365 services had a problem with an update they uploaded on Tuesday. We have a problem at work early on Wednesday as the NHS mail runs their online service. I have a OneDrive app on my phone that opened ok, but when I got home and wanted to access my novel, I found that I now had a BIG problem. Scrivener couldn't find my book!

In the middle of the panic to reconnect to OneDrive, macOS Ventura wanted to start an update. I went to sleep with an updated MacBook but still no OneDrive.

This morning, Thursday, I updated the OneDrive app, and yippee, the novel is back. Phew. I have now backed it up to somewhere else and emailed it to myself. I shall also search out a
hard drive I have somewhere and put that to use.

That's a lesson learned, then. One, I know many writers have learned over the years. It's certainly one that I won't forget.

(C) All photographs copyright of the original owners.

It's Christmas Eve!

 It’s Christmas Eve, and in this country, everyone is getting excited and looking forward to family gatherings. After all, Christmas is all about family apart from the religious meanings.

We have been planning for next year already in this house. 2023 is going to be a busy year for us both. February, we're going to see Frankie Boyle in Exeter, followed by the Royal Albert Hall in March for the Mountbatten Festival of Music. Early Spring will be a shake-out of our new camping equipment before a week away in July on the beautiful Roseland Peninsular.

In September and October, we are lucky enough to have tickets for two of England's group matches and another at the Rugby World Cup in France. All arrangements and bookings are in place.

Over the last few days, I have considered where my writing activities to be in 2023.

I already have a piece of Flash Fiction ready for a competition. Entries have to be in by early February. I would also like to target some other short story competitions. The story writing bug has bitten me!

All being well, I have a few 'Novel in a Year" writing workshops to look forward to, throughout 2023 and into 2024. I hope the opportunity to join at least another one will become available as well as that one.

Ottery Writers are going to be publishing a short story anthology. I will aim to get at least one story into that publication.

We have just been up to East Hill here in Honiton for a Christmas Eve walk with

Murphy our little fur baby and now we are tracking Santa on the IPad!

There we are then, everything is prepared for the big day tomorrow. The only thing left to do now is to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a big thanks to you all for taking the time read my blog posts this year. The year ahead promises to be exciting.

VERDIGRIS , Drum Major, LOOK THERE VERDIGRIS!

Something unusual this week. But first this...

I have bought myself a couple of reference books for my writing exercises. One of them is a book of 5000 writing prompts. I have already used one for a flash fiction piece. I'm not 100% how long and which competition it will be in just yet. I have a competition for 500-word flash fiction that is closing on 31st December. I want to get a couple of entries written to take advantage of the entry price and because it is New Year's Eve. Not that I will be drinking, though. I'm working that weekend.

Ok, let's get on to the unusual part of this blog. Well, I say unusual. Many of my former and still serving Royal Marine Band Service colleagues will recognise and have experienced 'challenging' outcomes of this word.

Verdigris - A noun meaning the green patina that forms on copper, bronze, and brass. It can also refer to the shade of green ( which is blueish).

The Royal Marines No.1 Ceremonials consist of a tunic and trousers, a White Pith Helmet (Helmet WP), a Cross Strap and Music Pouch and a White Belt. All consist of Brass elements.

Those who haven’t experienced an inspection in Full No.1 Ceremonials will probably not have experienced the wrath of the inspecting officer and Drum Major when verdigris is detected on your brasses. Extra parades…urgh!

There were and most likely still are many different ways to clean said brasses. My preferred routine was to use Brasso first, then, using an old toothbrush, scrub off the Brasso with Goddard's Silver Foam. Any copyrights and trademarks are fully acknowledged. All was finished off by drying with a towel and a quick buff-up with one of the famous yellow cloths ( also used as a spit and polish cloth for boots) from the NAAFI shop.

The benefit I found with cleaning brasses was that if we had multiple gigs in a short time, it was easy enough to buff them back up to standard, even if it had rained. 

I tell you this on the big proviso that no Drum Major is ever informed!

Successes, no failures and getting busy once more

 

This week, a former Royal Marine colleague and fellow Blogger inspired me. I received an email from James Pilates with his latest blog, apologising that he hadn't blogged for nearly three years! He has been a very busy chap during that time, and at least my blog is only three months adrift!

These last three months have been a less productive time for my writing, but the tiny bit I have done has been at least successful. My Flash Fiction story 'Trapped' received Highly Commended in the Ottery Literary Festival, which was very pleasing.

During the festival, I attended a workshop, Introduction to Short Story Writing. Our lead was author Jenny Kane. Jenny passed on her knowledge wonderfully and was a true inspiration to us all. I've joined her mailing list for future online courses. In the meantime, I have been searching for more short story competitions.

Having found a few competitions, I have been fervently writing and editing a few more stories. I started one at the workshop, which has since turned into a rather good story with a twist. Having edited it over the last couple of evenings, I had a colleague at work have a read, and it went down quite well. I will leave it again for a few weeks before a final edit.

Another story that I am working on comes from the opening of my novel. When I first came up with this opening many years ago, I did wonder if it was a short story. I am doubtful at the moment. 

The question being is, it is a story or a scene from a bigger story. I want to get it to work in 300 words. Other than that, I might look at it working it up into a longer story of 1000 to 2000 words.

With all these stories potentially written, It got me thinking about what to do with them. If one were to win a competition, it would appear in a competition anthology; however, I have thought about compiling a collection of my own. It's a thought.

Writing work does come in fits and starts for me, and at the moment, I've again got a few things that will keep me busy for the rest of this month. I will keep updating this blog, and there is another project that I must briefly mention.

You may realise that this blog is on the Microsofts Blogger platform. With the greatest respect, Blogger has been an excellent platform for many years, but now it's time to move on to a newer platform. Blogger is proving to be rather difficult with formatting. I should be able to do much more on a unique platform. I've got my eye on one, so it is up to me to find the time to set it up.

There we are, then, the latest update. I have thought about posting my 'Trapped' short story. I must be careful as I might use it in another competition sometimes, and I would like it to be protected.

I'll blog again in a couple of weeks. I won't let it be three months this time!

Ottery Literary Festival - 20th-23rd October - It's getting closer and there is much to do

 WOW, doesn't time fly by! It's already September; before I know it, October will be here, and I will be dashing around for the first Ottery Literary Festival.

I trust that many of you will have seen my posts shared on the Festival Facebook page, but if you haven't, I'll tell you about the exciting events the Ottery Writers Team is planning.

First and foremost, I must tell you or hopefully remind you of the short story competition. It's a competition for both young and old, or politely referred to as Under 18's and Over 18's. A short story of no more than 500 words using the theme Trapped. Why not have a go? Five hundred words are only about half an hour's work, and I'm sure most of us have a story going around our heads. The first prize is £50, and there will be prizes for second and third places.

My story is very nearly ready to submit, and no, I'm not on the judging panel either! You can find full details on the Ottery Writers webpage. You will need to get on with it as the entry deadline is midnight on 30th September.

Visit https://otterywriters.wordpress.com/2022/08/10/writing-competition/ to find out more.

Another competition is the Photographic Competition. Photographs on the theme We Love Ottery give a great scope for interpretation. The age groups and deadline are the same for the short story competition.

For more information, visit  https://otterywriters.wordpress.com/2022/07/22/ottery-literary-festival-2022/.

On the first day of the Festival, on Thursday 20th October, we have two workshops, An Introduction to Short Story Writing and An Introduction to Writing Poetry. They will be led by two excellent writers, Jenny Kane (Short Stories) and Sally Flint (Poetry). These will be held in the Ottery Library, where space is limited, so you will need to book. I'm hoping to book a place for Short Story writing.

For full details, visit https://otterywriters.wordpress.com/2022/07/22/ottery-literary-festival-2022-2/  to find out more.

There will be a Quiz Bingo Night at Ottery Football Ground 7 in the evening from 7.30 until 9 pm.

The morning of Friday, 21st October, will be dedicated to the anniversary of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The Coleridge Memorial Trust will unveil a statue at 1100, followed by a church service for invited guests at 1200.

In the evening, there will be a Night at Knightstone Manor, an exhibition of photographs from the photographic competition and an awards ceremony for both writing and photographic competitions, presented by Vicky Johns, the Mayor of Ottery St Mary.

Otter Writers' very own John Hall will launch his latest book 'Modern Trooper", an updated take on Coleridge's 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. All this will take place at Knightstone Manor from 7 pm.

Why not blow the Saturday morning cobwebs away with a guided Coleridge Heritage Walk led by Angela Harvey of Ottery Walkers? Visit places and walk in the footsteps of Coleridge and see the sights that influenced his writings and thoughts for the years to come.

On Saturday afternoon, we are delighted to be able to present an Author Talks and Book Launch event. We will have three authors joining us.

Bryan Mountford

Bethany Askew

Karen Maitland

Bryan Mountford - Bryan is the Acting Chaplain of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. His autobiography, Church Going Gone, is a colourful memoir from the 1950s to the COVID crisis, in which Bryan describes his life as a priest.

Bethany Askew - Bethany is the author of eight novels. Bethany likes to write about women's lives, their position as wife and mother and the impact of marriage, children and the impact of divorce on family dynamics. Two further women's fiction novels will be launched this year and in 2023. http://www.bethanyaskew.co.uk/

Karen Maitland - Karen has written two new books of her Jacobean crime thriller series. The Drowned City is set against the background of the Bristol Channel Tsunami of 1607, which devastated Devon and Somerset's coastal villages and towns. The second in the series, Traitor in the Ice' is set in Battle Abbey, near Hastings. 

As you can see, there are three very different authors, and it will be fascinating to hear from them, and I'm I know that they are equally excited to be joining us. Please come along and listen to what they have to say. I'm sure they will be able to take all your burning questions.

Saturday evening concludes with a Coleridge Illustrated Talk by Tom Maybury of South West Heritage Trust.

Sunday 23rd October concludes the Festival at 1030 am service in the parish church led by The Rector Lydia Cook and John Hall, Coleridge, His Spiritual Life. In the afternoon, there will be an Ottery Writers Festival Finale social event at Higher Holcombe Farm.

Otter Writers have been working hard to produce this first literary Festival for Ottery St Mary. We acknowledge the wide support we have received around the town and beyond. We value the incredible support that Otter Writers, the Festival and the writers, in general, receive from Adrian and Pete at the Curious Otter Bookshop. 

Blogs, To do Lists, Journalling and Procrastination - There's an awful lot to think about this week!

I'm terribly sorry I haven't posted for a couple of weeks. I have been busy writing for the forthcoming Ottery Literary Festival in October. That doesn't mean I have a genuine excuse not to update the blog. I need to organise myself better. After all, I do want things to get much busier writing-wise!

You may have seen on Facebook that I attended a writing workshop on Monday evening. Running the workshop was my fast-becoming writing mentor William Gallagher. There was just the correct number of attendees on the Zoom call, and William was able to make the whole two hours feel very personal. He started by discussing the use and value of using dialogue in our writing. He tried out a couple of exercises on us. How would you write a conversation about going for ice cream without mentioning the words Ice and Cream? Some funny lines from the other attendees included people from as far afield as Seattle and Nashville.

After the first half an hour, William set an hour clock counting down on the screen, and we all went off and did our own writing. I started and very nearly finished a chapter in my book. William laughed as I explained that I was beginning to get the investigations underway after four murders in two locations. My book had taken quite a gruesome turn of events, something I didn't think it would do when I first imagined it all those years ago. My 1000 words were about the most significant amount, not that it was a competition, and I was a little chuffed at my writing speed. William, meanwhile, had written nine pages of a script!

The workshop aims to get everybody writing. We all procrastinate and let things get in the way of settling down and writing. So many distractions take our concentration away from what we are doing. I'm reading Williams's book about productivity in writing, and he advocates To-do lists and outlining apps. Being Apple Mac users, numerous apps are available to help you, even ones built into the Mac OS. 

In his book, William takes a different view of To Do lists. He views them more as things that I can do list. Reading it, it makes perfect sense. Why have a thing to do that you can't do right now? Something that has to rely on something else for you to be able to do it, or something that is so far in the future that it will sit on your list for weeks. A long and unwieldy To Do list is disheartening and downright depressing. It has to be a better start to the day if you can start by clearing many items off your list because you can do them.

It's worth reading Williams's book to see how he handles the email inbox. I've not finished the book yet, but it certainly is an eye-opener and makes you think in different ways. I haven't cleared my inbox in the same manner yet, though!

A little more on the Ottery Literary Festival. The plans are forging ahead. Apart from my Devon Life feature, I have a little piece in the Ottery Gazette for August, and I have submitted an article to the Sidmouth Herald. I have also written a small piece that hopefully will be published in a writing magazine in time. There are a couple of competitions that are running for the festival. A 500-word Short Story competition using the title, Trapped, and a photography competition entitled "We Love Ottery". Search Ottery Writers or use the link on this blog for further information. I will post a longer Blog piece about the festival in a few weeks.

Another writer's blog I subscribe to has an interesting piece about journaling. I did quite a bit of that during the 2020 and 2021 lockdowns. I have quite a few handwritten books to look back on. From what I can remember, I was moaning a lot about Boris and his government. Nothing changes there, then? However, there is a challenge on the blog to write 'Morning Pages' each day. At the end of the week, to analyse them. Although it seems immaterial at the time, you might find there is something that may well lead to an idea for an article or appear in a book. I think that is a challenge worth taking up. It will be interesting to see what happens.

The Iron Age Forts of East Devon - A little taster my current project

Bluebells at Blackbury Camp, East Devon.

I have a project in the early stages of research about the Iron Age Forts and Barrows here in East Devon. It is another piece of work that I first had a look at for my writing course (which I desperately need to get back in touch with).

One of these forts will be well known to all serving Royal Marines, General Duties and Musicians, Woodbury Castle. They often mention it on navigation exercises up on Woodbury Common as Castle Feature. Seen from almost anywhere on the Common day at night and aids navigation, so say the Platoons Weapons Instructors!

I have to admit, during my times on the common during Band Service Military Training or when on Command courses did I ever know, confidently, the whereabouts of ‘castle feature’.

It was nice, then, in a quiet spell during the pandemic in 2020, that my wife Kathy and our little boy Murphy, our Westiepoo, took advantage of a sunny Sunday afternoon to take a trip up to Woodbury Castle. Much restoration work has been undertaken up there, and it is very much a place to learn of the Iron Age past in East Devon. I can no longer imagine recruits digging trenches or forming harbour positions there. When the restoration was done, I wondered how many brass cases were found.

Woodbury is well worth a visit if you haven’t been before or it’s been a while since you were last up there.

Another rather picturesque Iron age fort in East Devon is Blackbury Camp. It is situated not too far from the A3052 Sidmouth Road, near Colyton, managed by English Heritage. We went there for the first time earlier this year, just as the Bluebells covering the site started to flower. It is truly a sight to behold, and the fragrance of the flowers is magical. Sadly, I don’t get the full fragrance effect due to Covid-19 damaging my sense of smell. Thankfully, English Heritage has placed signs around the camp asking people not to walk over the Bluebells as they can be severely damaged for future years if we are not careful walking around this ancient part of our local history.

Lastly, in this little taster of a piece I am working on is Hembury Fort. It took us a while to find it. Ironically, I worked at Dunkerswell Airfield for a short period in 2019, and the quickest route to work took me past it.

Hembury Fort is near Payhembury on the A373 from Honiton towards Cullompton. It’s high on a hill and commands a 360-degree view of East Devon and the Blackdown Hills towards Exmoor and Somerset. Not as prolific as Blackbury Camp, it has its own beauty. It is pretty easy to imagine a large structure as a significant place of habitation for living and buying and selling local produce.

I have eight iron age forts in East Devon to research for the article pitch. I intend to come up with a few different ideas on how to use it. I will offer it to several publications or websites to maximise possibilities. I hope they will be taken up and may be able to retire!

Ottery Gazette and Ottery Writers Group Literary Festival October 2022

 I’ve been a member of Ottery Writers for a few years now. We have a regular spot in the Ottery Gazette. I had written a couple of pieces before and was only too happy to volunteer to write this month’s article at our last meeting.

The Gazette is currently the baby of Adrian at The Curious Otter Bookshop in the town. Adrian is a great supporter of Ottery Writers and has hosted 

book launches for several of its members

Ottery Writers are currently in the throes of organising their first literary festival in October this year. First mentioned at a group meeting back in 2019, the initial aim was to have a festival in the autumn of 2020. We all know what happened next!

Like many organisations and families in 2020, Zoom meetings saved the day. As writers in the 21st Century, most members are computer literate, so these online meetings took off quite quickly.

 The group took advantage of the eagerness for a literary festival and organised a creative writing competition, which was a resounding success.

As the country made its way out of the various lockdowns during 2021, the writing group felt it had to change its location from the Silver Street Tea Rooms, where they had met since inception in 2012, to the Ottery Hub at the Old Station.

My next task for the group is to write a feature about the literary festival for Devon Life. I have started, and I’m waiting for the events and guest authors to be confirmed, and then I will request some publicity photos. Fortunately, I seem to have the start of a good writer’s relationship with Devon Lifes editor Andy Cooper. Andy was very receptive to my pitch and approach email for the article, and I now have a copy date in August for the October publication.

The literary festival is also tying up with the Coleridge Memorial Trust, unveiling a statue of Ottery St Mary’s most famous son, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Coleridge’s birthday is October 21st, the same as my wife, Kathy. 

I know the group is looking forward to hosting the festival and planning plenty of events. If you like writing or not and fancy a few days in East Devon, why not join us in October?

Meanwhile, I have several pieces of research to work up into a decent pitch. I hope to pitch at least one of them toward a national publication. I also intend to keep up posting on this blog regularly and of course, my novel is always going on in the background. 

Being a Writer

Being a Writer

I am a writer.

There, I’ve said it and it was a bit scary, but yes, I am a writer.

Therefore, what makes me a writer?

I am 57 years old; I have been writing for probably for 55 of those years. In my later years at school, I was fortunate, and it is with grateful thanks to my mother and two school teachers, who were also unsung World War Two heroes and published authors, that I managed to leave school with  GCE ‘O‘ Levels in English language and literature.

To be honest 2019 hasn’t been the best and I’m on my third job of the year (don’t ask); my wife’s father passed away after a brief illness and to top it all she has been made redundant as well.  However, five months ago I embarked on a comprehensive creative writing course. A long-held dream is starting to come to fruition.

I have been published several times over the years; letters in national daily papers, cricket reports in local papers and articles for in-house journals. Earlier this year The Rugby Paper published one of my letters and I had very pleasing personal triumph when Writing Magazine, this country’s biggest selling monthly writing publication, published a letter from one of my assignments.

The Comprehensive Creative Writing Course which I have embarked on covers all aspects of writing. It has been divided into Fiction and Non-Fiction. I have chosen to start with Non-Fiction. As recommended by the bureau and also because my interest is in writing articles for magazines. The early modules are aimed at getting into that market. Writing letters is the first and possibly the easiest way to see yourself in print, with the added bonus that there are lots of publications which offer prizes to the star letter. Getting into the habit of writing a letter to a publication 3 or 4 times a week can prove quite profitable. Filler articles are another way to get into print and they are exactly what they sound like. They are small pieces that an editor uses to fill any gaps they may have after the articles and advertisements are added to the page. Identifying those opportunities is an important first lesson to be learnt and as the modules continue, this early lesson is further evolved into a detailed analysis of magazines. I now have a spreadsheet with which I can input information gleaned from magazines to compare it with others, easily identifying freelance opportunities, size and types of articles, apparent readership and more importantly the correct editor to send the pitch to. On another, I have set up a formula to calculate word counts of articles without having to laboriously count each word. Alongside this is my submissions and financial workbook where I track my submissions by date sent, to which editor and whether I have had an answer back or not.

My smartphone has proved a useful tool for me as a writer as well. I have a very useful app from which I can view and research magazines from markets all across the globe and I can access the writing folder on my laptop through cloud services. I have a couple of apps where I can collate notes, another where I can ‘mind map’ any ideas and one that will capture any clip from any websites I visit. There are not many articles that don’t contain photographs and with nearly every phone having a powerful camera fitted, high-resolution photographs can be easily edited and uploaded to cloud services for use later.  Cloud services are essential for any writer. Who knows when you may drop your cup of tea or pot noodle all over your laptop and it breathes its last. Using the cloud you can log on from anywhere and from any computer and then be able to see all your files to work on.

My latest piece of work is an article entitled ‘Dog Toys and Why They Play’ aimed at the leading dog magazine in this country. After consideration by my tutor and on her recommendation, I have sent this off to the contributing editor. Time will tell if the Editor will use my work.

It cannot be stressed enough that all writers will receive rejections throughout their writing careers.  A rejection doesn’t always mean that your work is not good enough; it may be that your work just doesn’t fit the editors’ requirements at that time. If an editor has any suggestions to improve your work they may well give you those in the rejection letter and this can be a piece of valuable advice for future articles or pitches.

My next assignment is to write two pitches and articles for two different publications. Realistically with lead times etc., I am now looking at articles that will be published in the New Year, the research goes on.

In and around this course work I have also found time to write short stories, one of which I even entered into a competition in The Writers Forum magazine. This was the first time I had written a story since my school exams in 1978!

Being a writer has really energised me as a person and joining Ottery Writers has given me so much inspiration. Never in a million years did I think that I would be reading out my writings to a group.  This inspiration had led me to write more short stories; I have ideas for a couple of books in my notes now and even an idea for a possible comedy play.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading a bit about my life as a writer. Living in East Devon and Hardy’s Wessex, you cannot help but be inspired by the works of Thomas Hardy and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Indeed Coleridge’s famous poem Kubla Khan is carved into the entrance of the park in Ottery St Mary, his birthplace.   At Ottery Writers we have members with varying interests in the writing world; poets, novelists, fantasy writings and children’s stories are just a few. The field of opportunities for writers is vast. These talented people continue to inspire me every week to challenge myself further.  I do have several ideas for stories and who knows one day and hopefully not too far in the future, I too can proudly present my newly published novel.

Referring back to the beginning; yes I am a writer. I wouldn’t call myself a professional just yet but that is certainly going to change soon.

I’m on a wonderful journey and loving every minute of it! I hope you can join me for the ride.