Sunday 31 January 2016

York Pub Meet Review by Jo Johnson-Smith


Well the wind was definitely howling outside the Brigantes pub last night, but the crowd inside made up for the cold outside.



We had several newbies who for their part found out just how much fun a bunch of writers and published authors can be, Alex did his usual wonderful job of comparing and with a lovely addition of name stickers so the usual dance of 'do I know you?' was stopped dead. 



Mark Turner was our first reader who treated us with the prologue to his second book, I'm not going to spoil it for you but if the prologue is anything to go by you'll have a wonderful time following the strings back to the centre. And that's all I'm going to say.



Allison Littlewood was next, and we were treated to a world of strangeness and wonder where the smallest thing can be of the greatest importance. Again I'm not going to do the spoiler thing but we got treated to a great story and a in depth question and answer session too about the process of writing too.



And last but not least the raffle where the new and old books come to find new homes and spread the best writing around, we came home with a few more and enjoyed the natter on the way home thankfully without the weather this time.



If you get the chance to go to either the York Meet or the Sheffield Meet, you'll be in for some fun and a chance to get the next best seller.

Wednesday 27 January 2016

5th York Pubmeet

The 5th York Pubmeet happens this Saturday at Brigantes Bar & Brasserie - 114 Micklegate York, North York (YO1 6JX).

There is a 4.30pm start and the special guests are Alison Littlewood and Marc Turner.

More details can be found here.

Sunday 24 January 2016

Breaking News - Yorkshire Writers Are Closing: See full email in post


Yorkshire Writers' Newsletter

2016


 


Writing Yorkshire


Hello and Goodbye


A message to you all from Geoff Briggs.
Writing Yorkshire Office & Information Manager

Hello, and what a way to start a New Year - by saying “Goodbye!”
We’re so sorry to have to break the news but, due to circumstances way beyond our control, Writing Yorkshire is no more.

We're now in the process of closing the organisation down, stories are being stored away, paragraphs have been packed into boxes, sentences have been sentenced to the sidelines and the brush is sweeping out the odd words that, over the years, slipped behind the cupboard or got pushed to the back of the drawer. Among the paperclips, buttons and pen tops there’s quite a pile of lost words really and probably enough for a short story, such tales they could tell if only we had the time, but we don’t so I’ll have to save those until we meet, I’m sure we will at some point. For now I’m going to pick out just a couple of words at random from the pile, I’ll shut my eyes to make it totally unbiased ......

And the first word is “well” - Well, indeed, what a journey. At our start we bubbled in the crucible of Furnival House where, thanks to the feedback from the writers of South Yorkshire, we were slowly moulded and fettled into Signposts Writing Development Project and, after ten years, we emerged, quite polished and shining brightly (albeit with a few dents and scratches). From there we did five annual rings around The Circle under the kind and guiding hands of all at Voluntary Action Sheffield until we finally flitted to Bank Street Arts, that fine old building full of stories and the many wandering ghosts of past inhabitants, each one still trying to complete their "unfinished" story. Three years of twisting and turning as Writing Yorkshire and we find ourselves at the end of the journey, grateful to that deep deep “well” full of supporters that we’ve been able to reach into for help and advice whenever we’ve needed it.

And the second word is..... part of an old torn vinyl record cover by the “Fun Boy Three”, not sure who that belonged to. So, we have three words to choose from.... Of course I’m going to choose “fun”, how could I not? I could also choose inspiring, scary, exciting, puzzling, heartening, educating, frustrating, energizing, rewarding and gratifying to describe what it’s been like to work with Writing Yorkshire and the writers of Yorkshire but overall it had to be fun, and it has been, thanks to the many who we met along the way and who made it so.

I think I will delve into the word pile just once more. And this time it’s .... “always” - Hmm, well, I think as an organisation we’ve come to realise that there’s always an alternative, always another way to do something and that’s what we’re all thinking now. Writing Yorkshire has gone now but new opportunities always appear and new paths always emerge from the mist, keep your pens poised and good luck in seeking them out.

A few more words from me at the end of the newsletter but now some messages, along with a few pointers to the future, from my Writing Yorkshire colleagues.
 


A note from Matt Black, who started Writing Yorkshire (a.k.a. Signposts)



I just want to offer an oversized, indeed a Mad Hatters', mad hatful of thanks. For rich, scary, rewarding and jubilant journeying over 18 years. What feasts, furies and flights have flown, during the Nineties and Noughties, from wielded and wordifying biros, laptops, and pencils. Across South Yorkshire there has been quiet buzzing, with our nudging, when we have been able to, in pubs, arts centres, on the streets, and in communities and pockets of brave resistance, craft and creativity. Writing, sharing, learning and laughter. Plays, poems, novels, rants, complaints, letters, confessions and scribbled ideas on the backs of bus tickets. People on journeys from tentative scratchings through to the dizzying world of publication, M.A.'s, Poetry Business pleasures, Off the Shelf odysseys and much more besides. Thanks are to all for bearing with us on the dodgems, the roller-coaster and the big wheel that is part of any small arts organisation's funfair. Far too many projects and people to name but those who have been involved will all know. We hold you in our memories, and I'm sure in our futures too. Thanks are to the fabulous team, and all the wonderful freelancers, particularly stalwart and inspiring long-termers Ray Hearne, Vicky Morris, Sue Shaw, and Bev Ward. A particularly big thanks to the person who has really been the mainstay of the organisation, the generous with time, wise, caring, and hugely considerate Geoff Briggs. Thanks to all who have been on the Board, and again to the enduring and beyond the call of duty long-termers Jim Caruth, Jon Maiden, Susi Miller, Maria de Souza and Jo Carr. Thanks to the Arts Council, and to 3 fabulous Arts Council officers, Steve Dearden, Jane Stubbs and Stephen May, for continuous support, encouragement and funding. But thanks most of all to words, and to writing, for being such an amazing art-form, so inspiring, fundamental, powerful, and life-changing. All power to our biros carries on. In the end is the beginning, as someone once said. Take care, Matt
Matt Black (Director 1997-2011, Board member 2011-2015)



Sue Shaw – Creative Development Officer

Sailing with Signposts/Writing Yorkshire…


I came on-board in 2007, working with the already-established Sheffield Young Writers’ group alongside Vicky Morris. We decided to create and develop opportunities for young writers across South Yorkshire and so, in 2009, I sailed away to Barnsley and began working with a large and lively group. By 2010, I also had an enthusiastic group of young writers on the island of Doncaster. Vicky, meanwhile, cast off for Rotherham; but also continued to work with the Sheffield crew. There have been hundreds of sessions and many projects, artists and writers over the 8 years since then and participants have joined, moved on and been replaced with new young people, in a rolling, challenging and supportive group sort of a programme. Underpinned by a process of fortnightly sessions, several finished products spring to mind:

‘The Cromford Weekend’ for Sheffield Young Writers, which was a great adventure, but probably best illustrated how not to carry out a residential! Memories of young people cooking Sunday dinner and eating chips around a bonfire in the snow are, however, hard to beat. Arvon Residentials have now replaced our early attempt.

‘Reflections’ project. Having produced a poetry pamphlet book, Barnsley Young Writers were offered POD2 (a disused shop in the town centre) and the opportunity to create an installation of huge text and painted/photographic portraits. For 2 weeks, they supported the space as a writing and reading drop in centre and exhibition space for the shoppers and half-termers of Barnsley, with an evening of performance as finale.

‘O pen’ book of stories for children. Written and illustrated by the first DYW group (10 young women). This was a long, committed process, involving analysis of fairy stories, character and plot development, world creation, storyboarding, writing, drawing, redrafting, editing and designing until (fanfare of trumpets) PUBLICATION!

 ‘Our Personal Landscapes’ – a Youth International Project in collaboration with German artist Susanne Palazer. Doncaster young writers explored writing, photography and audio to create individual maps and make social and creative links with other young people in Europe.

Just a few of the many projects that we worked on with the young writers of South Yorkshire.
******
In 2013 I set sail for Barnsley once again and began working with a new group - ‘Onwords and Upwords’ - for adults with health issues who are interested in writing. This is now a supportive, creative, enthusiastic and welcoming group. Members have entered into all sorts of writing challenges and explorations, with an emphasis upon starting points and short stories, but also including poems, monologues, life chapters, flights of fantasy, borrowed plots, recycled text and the pilot episode of a potential radio drama series.

In June 20015 Onwords and Upwords celebrated a second birthday with an evening of poetry and performance at Sara’s Flowers Café, with the support and piano playing of our good friends at ‘Creative Recovery’. Not to mention a chocolate birthday cake too! Now there’s talk of working towards an anthology, not only by reviewing writing so far, but also sparking up new stories and poems.
******
2015 sadly saw Writing Yorkshire sail through stormy waters and eventually the ship went down. Fortunately, some of us made it to the lifeboats and are looking at future funding and projects; so this isn’t necessarily the end of the voyage.
Sue Shaw, January 2016


Ray Hearne - Creative Development Officer

Writing in Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham

So what remains after something like three years’ worth of writing development in the post-mining communities of Barnsley, Donny and Rotherham?
A tidy bunch of people writing better quality stuff, on a more regular basis, with a sustained determination to improve. That's a significant claim. Given that the rug was pulled out so suddenly from under the work, allowing for no formal evaluation, it will have to be borne out by the body of achieved writing itself, published, performed, broadcast, or simply read aloud to fellow group members.

Writing in South Yorkshire is healthier, more challenging and robust, and has become more meaningful to more people as a result of relationships forged with Signposts/Writing Yorkshire in that short period. And of course it continues.

For instance. Two seasons of well-attended workshops at Experience Barnsley brought together a vibrant gathering of poets in the main, the majority being women. It was a great privilege to be able to fund writers as highly regarded as Charlotte Ansell and Suzannah Evans to augment the confidence and extend the accomplishments and imaginative ranges of participants. Writing Yorkshire’s physical legacy in Barnsley is embodied in the form of the Tom Treddlehoyle Open Mic night, run on the last Tuesday of the month. This is entirely down to the energies and dedication of Sam Morgan, poet and stand up star of the South Yorkshire Open Mic circuit.

Writing Yorkshire’s Doncaster group still meets monthly on a Tuesday evening, 6.00 – 8.00. A couple of its founder members went on to devise and bring to life the sensational and widely acclaimed Doncopolitan magazine. (Look it up if you haven’t come across it!) Others have helped to initiate and to sustain the increasingly popular ‘Well Spoken’ Open Mic evening on a monthly basis at the Brewery Tap, on Young Street. Children’s writing, poetry, short story, script- and song-writing are all the healthier and more broadly developed in Donny thanks to many of those individual group members.

Rotherham Riverside Group meets on a monthly basis on Friday afternoons at 2.00 pm. Group members’ work covers the whole gamut of writing forms; poem, short story and song most particularly. In addition, some expertise in crime fiction and writing for performance is available.

Every group’s development has been facilitated sumptuously by the regular dissemination of this very newsletter. Newcomers come along all the time as a result of information gleaned from these columns. Another palpable success for Writing Yorkshire.

Whatever South Yorkshire folk want to write, opportunities in company that is both welcoming, encouraging and supportive, still exist. Get in touch.

Information about any of the above is available from Ray Hearne: ray@nomasters.co.uk or 07903241947
 


Beverley Ward -
Professional Development Manager


It is very sad to see Writing Yorkshire go as I know from personal experience and from talking to others how much the organisation of Signposts and latterly Writing Yorkshire has meant to local writers. So many of the published or nearly published writers of my acquaintance can remember the first time they spoke to Geoff in the library, or came to a workshop or discovered the newsletter and how this set them on a writing journey. The organisation has done some fantastic work over a lot of years, and a lot of it invisible to you, our newsletter subscribers.

Unfortunately,  it seems that, owing to circumstances beyond our control, Writing Yorkshire is one of those good things that must come to an end but, in other cliches, as one door closes........

It falls to me to offer a small ray of hope and to let you know that we're not entirely letting go of all of the aspects of our work. There are plans for potential funding bids to continue some of our community writing projects and young writers' groups and I have decided to try to develop what was the Professional Development side of the organisation, albeit a scaled-down, currently rather vague version. I don't know yet what form it will take or what it will be called but the membership and studio will remain for those who have taken out  membership and I hope to get some masterclasses back off the ground in the near future. I'll also be continuing to organise coaching, mentoring and manuscript feedback. It is also possible that we'll keep some form of the newsletter. It is all a bit unclear at the moment and will take a few more conversations with partners and members to refine the new vision. What is certain is that it will be some kind of new venture which won't replicate or entirely replace Writing Yorkshire and, at the moment, there's no funding other than membership fees to keep something going.

So. it's au revoir, rather than goodbye from me and no doubt you will be hearing from me once plans are more clearly in place. In the meantime, you can get in touch with me on beverleywardwriter@gmail.com

I'd like to say a personal thank you to Signposts and especially to Matt and Geoff for all of their wonderful work and to the other colleagues and writers who have been part of the journey.  We'll all stay in touch, I'm sure.

Happy writing, folks.

Beverley



The final fling ......


The mailing list that we have used for the newsletter will be held safely and, if a new version rises from the ashes, then you will all be the first to hear of it. You can always "Unsubscribe" by clicking on the link at the bottom of this newsletter if you prefer to.

Our Writing Yorkshire contact email address - info@writingyorkshire.org will be kept open and running up to the end of February for anyone who requires last minute information, wants putting in touch with anyone or just wants to say goodbye, all will be welcomed and I'll reply to everyone as quickly as possible.

Good wishes and thanks a-plenty for the dance from me to Matt, Beverley, Sue and Ray and the Writing Yorkshire board members.
Special thanks to Jon Maiden for his support, guidance and vision, to Iain Broom for making the "tech" side of things work smoothly for us and to Ellen McLeod, a particularly bright light during our transition from Signposts to Writing Yorkshire.

Thank you also to all of the lovely people that I've met over the last eighteen years - good wishes to everyone of you.


Geoff Briggs
Writing Yorkshire
Email:    info@writingyorkshire.org

Wednesday 20 January 2016

Alternative Reality Submissions




There are new submissions open for two anthologies at Alternative Reality. The two anthologies are called Summer’s End (wanting fantasy stories) and Broken Bones & Ten Dollar Bills (looking for science fiction stories).

The deadline is the 30th April and stories should be between 2000 and 5000 word. More details can be found here.

Sunday 17 January 2016

Just Sit Down and Write - Motivation and Distraction


So often I hear the words, sit down on write. If you want to finish a book, short story or whatever it is, it takes hard work and sometimes there are just many shinny distractions available to take up that time and effort that it takes to write. Many of those distractions that am thinking of now, why because those distractions are so much easier (and fun) than writing this blog post.

Now distractions can take a number of forms – the internet, social media (facebook and youtube – you are very guilty of this), television, computer games make up the less ‘noble’ (for lack of a better term) forms of distractions. When you are taking part in these activities then at least you know that you are being distracted – you can’t play minecraft or watch the TV. And as well as this being the most recognisable distractions, you can walk away from these – you can turn off the TV, the broadband or even go out to the café or the distraction free library to get those words out. And the other good thing about these distractions is that they can be used as rewards after you have done your writing.

That brings us onto the more noble types of distractions – the things that have to be done e.g. cleaning the house and the things that help you write. Background noise can be a big one here. Peacefully on, it can help you to write but let that music get too loud or too interesting and it quickly becomes a distraction. And then we come quickly onto the topic of research. We all need to do research to write, especially those of us that write genre fiction to help us build our worlds. The trick is judging when you have done the right amount of research and when to start writing. If anyone can actually fully do this, well then I’ll take my hat off to you.

Then there are the emotional distractions – as one member of our group described it this the crippling self-doubt; an unconscious aversion to sticking my head up above a non-existent herd, that even if it did exist, wouldn't actually give a crap what I was doing. The comparison to others and the belief you just aren’t that good. I find personally that this distraction often comes midway through first draft and the only way that I get rid of this is reminding myself that no one other than me has to see the first draft. By the time others see, well it will have been through several more drafts, so it didn’t matter that the first draft pretty much sucked.

The worse type of distraction are the ones that pop around from one too another. What do they say about the grass being greener?

Incidentally, no one listed, reading as common distraction too, probably because that’s not an easy lay on the sofa activity either.

So if it is this hard and there are so many distractions in the way, then why do we do it. Well, for me, it’s because for lack of better words then – I’m a storyteller. My brain jumps from creative idea to creative idea and I need to share them, so why not write, so I can make room for more little gems. But what got me going originally was travel and bad books. I was backpacking around south east Asia – Penh Penn in Siem Reap to be exact, and there was no English language TV in the evenings, so I was stuck with books. And I read this book, which shall remain nameless, and it was dreadful – I didn’t even finish it, which given the lack of alternatives is saying something. Instead my head created this new world, I gathered all the basic details of the story and when I finished travelling it was fully formed and I needed to start writing it. I still need to write it, to tell that story and that is a key motivator for me.

Others have similar motivations to this. Writing keep you sane, helps you figure out ideas in your head, continues and develops on something that you love, in short writing is what you love doing.

And there are the smaller motivators, encouraging words from friends, word count goals, getting into the flow of a story, catching a new idea (quite often when you wake up with it at 3am), reading, fresh air and that feeling of achievement when you have done.

So in conclusion, if you are a writer, then you write and you tend not to get caught up in those distracts for too long. Now all, think about why you started writing and go write – you’ll feel better after you get those words down.

Wednesday 13 January 2016

Save the Date: 20th February – Next SFSF Social Booked


The 5th SFSF Social event will be taking place at the Eten Café, 4-8pm on Saturday 20th February. The guests this time will be Author David Tallerman and Adele Wearing of Fox Spirit. For full details you can visit the Sheffield Fantasy and Science Fiction Social Club website.

For those who have not attended a SFSF Social before you can expect excellent readings, a chance to ask publishing questions, a fantastic raffle and chance to geek out on all that science fiction and fantasy goodness.

So put the date in your diary and we will see you there.

Sunday 10 January 2016

Monitoring Your Writing


So I spent the last year monitoring my writing, carefully recording each day, the number of words I had written and what I had written it on. Now, I did this for a number of reasons. The first one was mainly to track my word count for the year. The second was to keep myself accountable – and that worked I only missed writing 18 days all of last year. The third reason and what I am planning to focus this blog post on was to monitor my writing.



Writing down my writing meant that I was able to go back, evaluate when I write best and what type of writing is timed at different times in the week. See the table below.



Day
Total
Average
Monday
42426
848.52
Tuesday
46492
948.82
Wednesday
25975
530.10
Thursday
40335
806.70
Friday
36601
732.02
Saturday
61011
1220.22
Sunday
82640
1652.80
335480
962.74



So looking at this table –

You can straight away see that Wednesday is my worst writing day. This is most likely due to the fact that it is the middle of the working week, and to a certain extent feeling tired has an impact. Also by Wednesday, I have usually been ahead of my word count goal for the week with my efforts not to fall behind on Monday or Tuesday, so I felt that it was okay (for lack of a better term) to slack off with my writing a bit.

Another lower word count day was Friday and that was almost to be expected. Friday night were made for chilling quite simply put and writing does not always fit with chilling.

The final thing of note, Sunday also out preformed Saturday’s word count. I put this down to the football factor and not writing while I am listening to the football, which takes away a lot of time on a Saturday.

The important thing with understand the table and the day’s output (which I have briefly explained above), I have been able to use it to inform my targets for this year’s word count.  Namely, I have upped my work evening word count goals to 600 word, which given last year’s average, I hit everyday but Wednesday; keep my Saturday goal at 1000 words and up my Sunday goal to 1500. And since I know I was above the average last year for these goals, I have no fear in doing this.

In terms of what I wrote on days, I found that I was better off when I started a new chapter on a weekend and added details to that chapter on week nights or did editing. I guess this is also down to work fatigue getting in the way of new ideas.

For those that are interested, I also monitored my monthly word counts – see table below and found that while I struggled to write the nanowrimo goal on all but one month, I was perfectly capable of writing over 25,000 each month that adds up to a hell of a lot more than just doing nanowrimo for one month a year.

Words Estimated
Words Written
Words Over/Under
Word Average Per Day
Word Average Per Week
Writing Days
Janurary
20500
22123
1623
713.65
4916.22
31
February
18000
21740
3740
776.43
5435.00
28
March
20000
25223
5223
813.65
5605.11
31
April
19000
27533
8533
917.77
6403.02
30
May
50000
53355
3355
1721.13
11856.67
31
June
22500
39616
17116
1320.53
9213.02
30
July
19500
25105
5605
809.84
5578.89
31
August
20500
20759
259
669.65
4613.11
28
September
21000
22964
1964
765.47
5340.47
27
October
20000
26979
6979
870.29
5995.33
31
November
50000
39070
-10930
1302.33
9086.05
30
December
20500
11013
-9487
355.26
2447.33
19
301500
335480
33980
919.67
6374.19
347



And guess all that needs saying to finish this post, is that I encourage you all to monitor your words and revaluate them as for me it has given me my most productive writing year, ever!