Getting my book published

Reading Berlin

2009-04-22T03:22:00.000-07:00

Berlin, February and the wind gnaws at my skin. I finished The Reader by Bernhard Schlink on the flight and feel as confused by it as I do trying to read the map. The Berlinale Festival is present all around, posters, film reviews, and Der Vorleser is here too. I walk to the Tiergarten, wide avenues, ground silver and hard as the wrought iron lampposts. Despite the yellow taxis it is easy to imagine the city back then. Michael in the book was a child but the streets he walked and the trams he rode were so similar.

Standing off Unter der Linden, site of the 1933 book burning, it takes a moment for my eyes to register the monument of empty bookshelves. The compassion, the wisdom of those words lost in smoke and shouting. Criticism aimed at the book says Hanna’s illiteracy is no excuse for mass murder. But feeling sympathy for isolation and exclusion isn’t forgiving her crimes. Part of the tragedy and horror is that these were ordinary people. No different from the man in the grey suit who sat opposite me at breakfast and drank two cups of steaming coffee, no different from the face staring back from the icy puddles. Humanity at its darkest. The denial we pad ourselves warm with each day: the beggar ignored at the U-Bahn, the newspaper stand with red pictures of Bagdad.

At the Jewish Memorial I am struck how the concrete looks like books, stacks and stacks. The shadow and the light, trees sprouting green at the edges. Then back to Potsdamer Platz, once no-man’s land. I buy a ticket at the shining blue Cine Star. I will watch The Reader and I will judge for myself. As I wait in the queue I feel a little closer to the city. What would I have done?

Not a book or a journey of answers, but asking the questions is important.

Book Review

2009-03-31T05:27:00.000-07:00

We Need to Talk About Kevin

My first confession is that for the first one hundred pages I just couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about with this book. I found the narrator annoying and the story slow. But a friend urged me to press on and dutifully I did... can I just say that was the best advice I have ever received. This book is amazing!! (Notice the exclamation marks, I hate them myself but nothing else seems to show how good this book is.) I’m sure that in a hundred years time this book will still be heralded as a classic. Shriver takes that all too familiar story of an American High School shooting and does something brave and horrifying with it. I don’t want to give anything away but suffice it to say you think you know what happened on that day Kevin went to school but nothing will prepare you for Shriver’s revelations. I was left physically reeling.

Told in epistolary form Kevin’s mother Eva speaks of that tragic day and Kevin’s childhood. All the letters are addressed to her husband Franklin, and his absence is a haunting forewarning of what is to come. Although Eva will draw you in, and as a reader I was swept along by her narration, there are a few suitable moments when you can’t help thinking ‘is this the whole story?’ ‘Did it really happen that way?’ Shriver is a master of suspense, dropping in clues and hints about the past and the future. Kevin’s very presence shimmers off the page in all his nasty glory, but for all that he is still just a young boy. Is that any excuse? The genius of this book is that it leaves so many questions. Very rarely does a book stay with me as long as I feel this one will. In fact if I close my eyes and think about that day at the school I can see it all as if I was actually there. Horrifying but totally compelling.

Berlin Talent Campus

2009-02-17T09:17:00.000-08:00

Well after ten days of working in Berlin I have finally returned. Although I haven't quite defrosted yet. Not that the German reception was frosty but the wind sure does blow through that city. The campus was a great chance for filmmakers to meet and make connections. A similar idea would work great for writers, publishers and agents despite the less collaborative project of writing a book.

There is still too much of the loneliness of the long distance writer sometimes. I'm not a fan of the Nicci French style of writing but there is a lot to be said for sharing ideas and swapping information.

For any screenwriters out there the campus is a great place to find yourself: http://blog.berlinale-talentcampus.de/campus/

Now if I can just get warm again I'll be back to post more...

Writers

2008-12-31T06:29:00.001-08:00

Thank heavens for other writers, and I don’t just mean the ones I have to dust off and take down from my bookshelf. I’m talking about real, living, breathing writers, people who still put fingers to keyboard whenever they can. More specifically I’m talking about Elizabeth Silver and Ann Morgan. I’m afraid to say I have probably overburdened these two good friends and writers with my doubts and concerns over the years and of course all issues relating to this project. But they haven’t cut the lines of communication so I can’t have overstepped the mark just yet (I am probably teetering on the edge).

It is all very well to talk about the lonely writer, isolated and draught bitten in their garret but I need people to write. I need to see them, hear them, and speak to them to help bring my characters to life. And although there isn’t anyone I know directly recreated on the page all those voices have informed my writing.

Elizabeth Silver, despite being stranded in Austen as we speak, has always been there to bounce ideas off and pick me up when I have hit the bottom of the literary floor. I hope I can say I have done the same for her. Ann’s book is coming out with the Youwriteon scheme as well and she has been a great source of all things marketing and publicity. I should perhaps add here you should get yourself onto Amazon to buy Ann’s book A Breathless Hush in the Close. After our book campaigns I am seriously considering joining her in a quest for world power – she doesn’t know it yet but I have a feeling she would do a fair and just job; literacy levels would definitely rise.

Perhaps I should start a campaign, writers aren’t just for Christmas they have feelings too. Living in isolation isn’t so fun. Long live writerly friendships.

Day Three

2008-12-22T02:13:00.000-08:00

As you might have guessed, these days were actually weeks apart but because I can't bear to keep people waiting I've condensed them. Waiting like queuing is an overrated British past time.

Your book is ready, are you brave enough to look.... That's not actually what the email said but that's all I thought when reading it. My book was out there, well on Amazon and Barnes and Nobel at least. The initial euphoria of buying my book with the click of the mouse was replaced by a deep seated sense of unease that the white box with the title and name wasn't actually some standard image booksellers use while they wait for the cover to be uploaded. That was my cover. You should have waited for that big three book deal, only settle for Penguin as your publisher, why an Indie publisher, why? Those words echoed in my head, as did the picture of my mum standing by the front door with a very dirty P.E. kit in her hands - but I think the memories were a little confused.

I was beginning to think it was all a mistake, Black and white as the cover. I would like to say that I was philosophical about it, or stiff-upper-lipped at least, only I wasn't. Several rants and a good night's sleep later my boyfriend's reassurances that 'at least it will stand out' were almost starting to feel like a reality.

Day Two

2008-12-18T02:11:00.001-08:00

The acceptance email arrived from Youwriteon.com with detailed instructions of how to submit my work. It was a little like following some MI5 initiation but I think I got there in the end. I might be a writer but that doesn't mean I'm capable of following instructions to the letter. I skimmed, skimmed again until I was happy I'd got the gist. Then I sent it off: the book, the blurb....

Then the panic set in, but like a chess game once you've lifted your finger from the piece there's no taking it back. The email, my work, my life was gone! I really wish I'd read that bit about checking for typos and page set up again. What if the book arrived like a manual for the dyslexic, what if the pages were all backwards? No expensive proof readers for this publisher. And yes you guessed it more waiting. It was like being stuck in the doctor's surgery from hell, my name was never going to be called. So I sat back with more cups of decaffeinated tea (I gave up the hard stuff after a particularly bad day of twenty tea breaks and a bad case of the shakes.) The computer screen blinked at me. Why do I only ever get emails from people wanting to sell me penis enlargement drugs? Apart for the emails for someone in Canada who shares my name, maybe I should take her life instead. I bet she's not waiting for her book to be published.

Day One

2008-12-17T07:56:00.000-08:00

Well, I was sick and tired of the whole publishing route proper so I sold my soul.... I decided to send my book off to a scheme by Youwriteon.com and the Arts Council in the UK to publish 5,000 books. Sounds too good to be true - maybe it was! But ever the optimist I'm not beaten yet.

After all the upheaval of sending off a finished draft (it had been sat apparently finished on my computer for months) I sat back to wait. And wait, and ..... you get the picture.

Finally one day, many days later there was a little message waiting for me in my inbox.