Notes from the Writing Desk - a very good week

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Before we get to the humble brag about what’s happened in my writing world lately, I need to tell you about two things which are a little bit related. Firstly, I currently have 10% off an annual subscription to my writing community Notes from the Margin. It needs to be redeemed by 30th April, so don’t hang about.

The other thing I need to tell you about is my upcoming zoom course Telling Your Story.

This course will run on Friday afternoons in May 2-3.30pm UK time. It’s all about telling your story through poetry and/or creative non fiction and we’ll be looking at craft aspects alongside discussing and analysing published extracts and as if that wasn’t enough, there will be writing prompts to help you get down to writing your story. The course is five weeks, the first four weeks are workshop weeks and the final, fifth week is a group feedback session.

This course is £50 and you can book through eventbrite, but it is FREE to paid subscribers of Notes from the Margin and I have 10% off an annual subscription until April 30th. That makes it £45 for a year of courses, workshops an community. Come join me!

Oh, and if you want to join me over on instagram I’ll be posting some snappy little respond and create prompts throughout April for NaPoWriMo

Now, back to the brag…

The first thing that happened this week is a magical transformation of the manuscript for The Ghost Lake, which somehow became a book. Or rather, the bound proofs, the advanced reader copies of the Ghost Lake arrived. I always get a little thrill when a padded envelope arrives with the Harper Collins logo on it, so can you imagine the thrill of opening the envelope and pulling out the HC standard cover for the proof of the book? First, I put it down on the kitchen table and went back to what I was doing. I didn’t are open it. Then the fog of stunned - IT’S HAPPENING - dissociation passed and I went back downstairs, carefully picking it up and thumbing through it. I have read my own book probably around twelve times now, back to front and I know every single line of it and where those lines lead, but the book somehow it felt like someone else had written it. What I mean is, it is no longer something I’m working on, something that needs bits and pieces adding to it, all that structuring and tidying and rewriting and working, it made it into a book. It is a book now. It has transformed, it has un-niggled itself and somehow flows and reads beautifully. This is not a solo project, of course, I have my wonderful agent and my phenomenal editor and the team at The Borough Press to thank for getting it his far, but when I look at it, when I look at the cover (the real cover will be revealed in May, incidentally, this is just the proofs cover, but it’s a lovely green) it has my name on it. My Book. All that hard work. It was worth it.

And then the writer buses arrived. As they do, these sudden steps forward, like when you wait for a bus for an hour and then three turn up at once. As if the excitement for the book wasn’t enough, I was longlisted in the National Poetry Competition, from something like 18000 poems down to 165.

The winning poem, incidentally, is brilliant. It’s called ‘The Time I Was Mugged in New York City’ and it’s by Imogen Wade. I read it a few times before I settled into it, and each time it grew on me until I fell in love with it. Here it is: The Guardian

And then, as a cherry on the cake of a phenomenal week, I found out a sequence of poems I’d written has been shortlisted in the Alpine Fellowship prize.

I’ll find out if it gets any further in a few weeks. Wish me luck.

What I wanted to say about all this, apart from sharing my stunned excitement with you, is that sometimes, the writing life is like this. And it’s glorious, a high, a feeling of utter validation of your work. But most of the time it’s not. What you don’t see is a tsunami of rejections and self doubt, and wondering if you should in fact just give up. Every writer feels that way. And I can’t ell you what the magic ingredient is, apart from not giving up, being open to feedback, being open to advice, being open to yourself and your own story and allowing yourself to write it.

The Alpine Fellowship shortlisting felt particularly book-end ish as I’ve previously been shortlisted with an essay I wrote, which then went on to be the kernel from which The Ghost Lake grew. Funny how things work out isn’t it.

Until next time

x