Looking for a little something warm your cockles this month? Head to one of Edinburgh’s super duper literary events and find yourself wrapped in a warm wordy blanket.
Find out about the best lit events happening around the city…

Get yourself down to Blind Poetics, a cosy evening of spoken word hosted by Duality editor Alec Beattie. Feature performers this month include ; a line-up sure to brighten up a dreich Monday night.

Kicking off for another year is the lovely Westport Book Festival (13th-16th October), with a series of workshops, talks and piss ups coming at you from some cosy little venues around Edinburgh’s west end.

Later this month the literatti will be bidding a wordy cheerio to slam champion Young Dawkins as he moves to London. With performances from The Chemical Poets, Jenny Lindsay, Robin Cairns and Kevin Cadwallender, this is set to be a smashing Sunday evening.

October sees the return of Inky Fingers open mic. Following the untimely demise of the Forest Cafe, Inky Fingers part deux comes to you from new venue The Third Door, and promises to deliver another ecclectic slice of spoken word goodness.
For further listings of events happening in and around Edinburgh check out the UNESCO City of Literature site.

It isn’t easy being a writer; a pretend one, a real one, an aspiring one, a struggling one…none of those are easy. The writer’s path is a hazardous one, like some nightmarish yellow brick road littered with rejection, existential crises and strewn with the headless bodies of munchkins (did I say munchkins? I meant manuscripts).

As if heading down this path isn’t daunting enough, suddenly you find people who actually don’t-know-what-the-hell-they’re-talking-about offering you ‘advice’ and your own creeping self doubts loom ominously over you every time you open your laptop.
Stop.
Here are four things thoughts you should completely ignore when pursing the writing dream…

‘I need to create a masterpiece’
If one thing is going to have you paralysed with fear, it is the high expectations you set yourself. Telling yourself every word/sentence/paragraph you write needs to be perfect first time is setting yourself up for failure. Get over this fear by writing ten stories that no one else will ever see. Enjoy it. Then burn them (you probably shouldn’t set fire to your laptop though). Remember that writing is a craft, the more you practise the better you get.

‘So, you’re going to be the next JK Rowling/Stephen King/Stephanie Meyer’
Why thank you kind sir for placing the weight of the world’s bestsellers upon my shoulders, how kind. I can’t believe how many people have said this since I started writing. Nevermind that my fiction is nothing like any of those authors. Along similar lines I loved a story Rosie told me about her family friend asking ‘why don’t you just write a bestseller?’, to which she replied ‘why on earth didn’t I think of that?!’.

‘You need to write literary fiction to be taken seriously’
Seriously? Give me a break. Genre fiction may be frowned upon by snooty high literature types, but if you love sci-fi/horror/crime why not write that? Better to make a career of something you love, than spend a lifetime trying to be something you’re not.

‘People get published straight away’
Sure we’ve all heard those miracle success stories, a struggling author scooped from the abyss, shot to stardom, bestseller lists and fortune. But those stories are well known for a reason – they’re rare. Generally getting published is hard work. Network for contacts, write a kick ass covering letter, don’t slip up on grammar and most importantly make sure your manuscript is the best piece of work you have ever produced. Then surround yourself with horseshoes, four leaf clovers and rabbits feet and keep all your fingers and toes crossed. Forever.

What are the positive thoughts that keep you writing?

Well, let me explain…

What can I say? Life is busy. I landed a job as a media content intern at one of the biggest online digital marketing companies in the land (whoop), the old love life has taken a rather unexpected turn (also whoop), and my dissertation deadline is looming (not whoop, not whoop at all).
The good news is that I’ve made the word count for hand in – 19k words for my freak show story, 4k for the puppet one. However on my lunch break I am popping to the shops to purchase some printer ink and a very ominous red pen. Let the editing commence…

Some say editing is the most important part of writing. Like in a big creative rush you have created this beautiful blob of a thing that means well but really it doesn’t make a whole load of sense, so the editing part is where you sculpt it down into something manageable, something that people can actually understand. Editing has to be brutal.

No one understood this more than big dawg George Orwell when he wrote his now famous six rules of writing…deep breaths…

1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.

These golden rules are invaluable for crafting the language of your story and giving thought to your choice of words. The surface of your story is equally as important as what the story is about. I remember at one of the recent publishing talks I attended one of the top cheeses mentioned that ‘style is narrative’, which resonated with me and makes a lot of sense when you consider this with Orwell’s rules.

Kurt Vonnegut also compiled a list of the elements in a story he believed to be most important. Whilst dealing with much broader themes than Orwell, these sentiments are equally as relevant when it comes to making your story as good as it can possibly be.

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

I particularly like number seven. Often as new writers we try to please everyone at once. If you read back your story and think ‘hey, I actually like this!’ then chances are other people will too. Unless you’re a total weirdo, in which case you probably don’t care what other people think anyway.

And so I go, equipped with Kurt and George’s rules bouncing around my brain and a hungry red pen, into the dark cave of editing and hope to emerge with something beautiful…or at least readable. Remember folks, if all else fails stick a few positive messages on your wall and you’ll get through.

Read more and find out how to make the most of your non-writing time…

Those are the days when I don’t procrastinate. Otherwise, like many aspiring writers, I find myself panicking as precious grains of time slip between my fingers never to be regained, yet find myself completely unable and unmotivated to put pen to paper. However. In such times it is important to consider what other uses we can make of our free time, particularly in terms of improving our writing once we get back in the zone. At the moment, my free time looks a little something like this…

But occasionally I actually do a few things which are useful for my writing too, which mean that I don’t beat myself up about it too much when lacking inspiration, and it helps me feel at least a little bit constructive. Here are some ideas…

1. Edit. The key to all good writing. Cut out those unnecessary words, scenes and characters, and your story will thank you for it.
2. Read. Learn from those who have gone before us and read fiction, or read about writing and learn your craft.
3. Go for a walk. Or meditate. Or sit by the sea. Sometimes it is important to just ‘be’, I find walking around the city gives me the best ideas or helps me form the partially formed ones.
4. Talk to other writers. Visit a local writers’ group, or attend a literary event. There is something about being around other writerly types that is very encouraging and reminds you of how cool we all are (and modest).
5. Research. Look up that thing you’ve been wondering about for ages. Last thing I looked up – ginger (the root, not the hair colour), ok so that didn’t lead to much. But a lot of facts lead to one little spark of inspiration.
6. Try something new. There is a lot to be said for doing something outside your comfort zone; it’s challenging, you grow a little bit and every so often you meet some really weird people.
7. Eavesdrop. On the bus, in a coffee shop, at work, all around you people are having fascinating/cryptic/highly personal conversations in public, there is a wealth of material out there for the writing!
8. Do your publishing research. Knowing how the industry works is something you will need to know eventually, so start now. Get yourself a copy of the Writers’ and Artists Yearbook and start studying, one day you will have that manuscript done and dusted and this way you will already know exactly where to send it. For short stories, find your local library that stocks literary and journals and start making lists of where you are going to direct submissions.
9. Alternative creative endeavours. Go to an art gallery or a gig and FEEL. You will feel more creative, not to mention cultured.
10. Write a blog entry. Yes, this is where everything gets a little bit meta. But seriously, keeping a blog can really help keep that little writey part (excuse my medical jargon) of your brain switched on, yet is fairly easy to work on randomly since each post is self-contained.

As I said, writing is hard work. Margaret Atwood once referred to the process as ‘labouring in the word mines’. Too right, Mags. I like to believe that hard work pays off. If you work on your writing every day, whether that is actual writing or not, you will still be one step closer to where you want to be.

Recently I have been struggling to get to grips with structure, that slightly dull but entirely necessary feature of any story that must at least be given a little consideration before you sit down to write.

Not to generalise, but I wouldn’t say planning is the forte of most creative types, most of the time we are far too busy with the fun stuff. Like procrastinating in the pub.

Check out how knowing your writing style can increase your productivity…

Normally when I have an idea it comes to me in a blob (yes, a blob) of feelings, movement and dramatic moments, all rolled into one pulsing thing ready to burst. Fairly unworkable, to say the least, particularly since I am now working on the longest project I have ever attempted. So initially I tackled my story by thinking of it in three parts; beginning, middle and end. But what about the subplots? Or the mini climaxes? Or the experimental monologue? These didn’t fit in to this simplistic structure, and this is where my brain panic began. I couldn’t see the story for the hundreds of blank pages before me and the endless possibilities they held, not least of all writing my way into a dead end.

Then I stopped being so dramatic about the whole thing and remembered that I’m kinesthetic. Of course! I have never worked the same way as all those audio and visuals out there, I need to feel my way around what I am doing.
Let me explain a little. Everyone perceives the world in different ways…ok we know that. Everyone learns in different ways too. When I was younger my Mum trained to be a NLP coach (neuro-linguistic programming, a type of therapy that looks at how we view the world, and as a result the impact such positive or negative perceptions can have on our lives) and I would listen with great curiosity to her training CDs which, amongst other things, outlined the differences between audio, visual and kinesthetic learners. All people are a little bit of each, however there is always one dominant way in which we perceive and filter our experiences.

In my experience audio people look to the side when talking/listening and are really good at remembering what has been said, visual people love making lists and maintaining strong eye contact, and us kinesthetics can’t go into a museum/shop/someone’s house without touching everything we can get our grubby mitts on (yeah, sorry about that). Read a little more about it and maybe even find out which you are.

So what does all this have to do with writing? Well, the moment I stuck twenty sheets of A4 paper on my wall and started scribbling all over them was the moment my story started to take shape. Although the end product was undoubtedly visual, the process helped massively; finally I was literally feeling my way through the story and everything started to make sense. This method helped for me but you might want to consider collecting pictures that represent your story or writing a summary to refer back to if you are visual, or writing to music that suits the tone you are trying to convey or discussing your story with someone if you are audio. There are so many possibilities, use your imagination and don’t be afraid to take a new approach.

Whether we are predominantly audio, visual or kinesthetic, this also affects the language we use and is an interesting aspect to consider in terms of character. Not every character will perceive the world in the same way as the writer or indeed as the other characters in the story, so explore this. It may be a challenge, but it all helps in giving your characters a distinct voice. You feel me? Hear what I’m saying? See what I mean? You get the idea.

Rejection and being a writer go hand in hand, everyone knows this. But it doesn’t make it any easier.

Find out how failing could actually make your writing better…

A couple of weeks ago my writing took a bit of a blow; having had a spectacular start to the masters course with A+ grades and general good feelings about my work coming from most angles, I decided to take some risks with my subject matter and style. I thought I had stepped up my game, I felt my prose had taken on a poetic aspect and I was writing the strange, macabre tales I would love to read. But, without any prior notice, my grade dropped rather significantly. Perhaps the risks were a mistake, or perhaps the process of marking creative writing will always be a subjective practice no matter how greatly objectivity is pursued. Either way I didn’t take the criticism very well. I called my friends who met me immediately in the pub for five hours of Articulate (possibly the best board game ever) and copious amounts of cloudy cider. Hugging the toilet bowl the following morning, a promise I had made myself a few years ago not to turn to alcohol in times of rejection/massive self-pity resurfaced. A little too late maybe, but I reaffirmed it that day all the same.

The hangover went, but my confidence took a plunging nose dive. No longer writing everyday, absorbed in the thing I love to do more than anything, no longer sure I was good at anything at all. My tutors were great and tried to reassure me, but I couldn’t stop the niggling little voice in my head that told me I wasn’t good enough every time I opened my laptop to write. I lost the nerve to read at Inky Fingers and pulled out of the open mic slot, so sure I was that everyone would hate whatever I read out. Although this reaction was possibly a little over the top (drama queen, moi?) I realised just how fragile my belief in my own ability to write was.

What to do when your confidence is low? I knew the remedy instantly. My mother is probably the wisest person I will ever meet, and her words do something outside your comfort zone rattled around my head like some medicine that would have to be swallowed sooner or later.

On Friday we had an entire day of talks from publishers and literary agents about ‘the business’ and in the evening the opportunity to read out our work. It had to be done. Terrified as I was, I knew this was the step I had to take to shake myself out of that negative place, to move on to the next phase and get over my first major ‘rejection’, of which there will undoubtedly be So Many More. Turns out I was first up; double daunting. In those moments before I went on stage I had what I suppose you could call a mini-epiphany. It doesn’t matter if they all hate what I am about to read, I told myself, even if every person in the room hates it, I like it and that’s what matters. That’s what matters. Suddenly I wasn’t nervous. I read out my piece, and enjoyed it. I moved from the poor me, I’m a reject phase into the this is me, like it or leave it phase, and what a liberating place that is to be.

The other thing I realised, is that when I’m feeling terrible about myself, my wonderful friends will always be there to take me to the pub to drink cloudy cider and play Articulate until I forget my worries, what a lucky girl I am.

Today I went in search of babies in jars, all in the name of research you understand. So what better place to look than the royal college of surgeons museum. The warnings received from my friends who had already visited to not go with a hangover came back to haunt me, as I began to feel a little queasy at the displays of gangrenous feet and pickled pancreases.

Check out what an awesome source of inspiration the Royal Surgeon’s Museum proved to be…

But I couldn’t faint in public in a wee dress, god knows there would have been worse on show than a couple of gammy extremities then. So a couple of deep breaths later I found myself actually enjoying browsing the shelves and shelves of the grotesque and the disgusting. Perhaps I even learned something, hey I could totally be a surgeon now. Turns out they had everything in a jar except babies, since apparently the babies are too upsetting for public display. Bring ‘em out! I said. No actually I said, oh ok thanks anyway. At risk of sounding like an absolute mentalist I should at this point indicate that this was research for my novel and not just a morbid fascination.

Although I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for, I did find some rather wonderful words. And so, having gathered up said words, I decided to take my maiden voyage into found poetry. Here goes…

steep or soften in water to remove remaining flesh

amputation could be carried out in a minute and a quarter

his whole expression an air of decision

the leg fell at last

a circular portion of bone was depressed

this man had no bad symptoms and did well

mandible necrosis carcinoma growling skulls

collector of skulls

several hundreds may be found in one person

‘I cut it out and found it flattened’

black bile

melancholia

would eventually extend over the face and head and kill the patient

rodent ulcer

shrunken eyes

causing a solid white mass in the posterior

of unknown cause

the iris remains within the eyeball

nerves of the region are painted white

the cornea has collapsed and the lens is absent

but plastic surgery hasn’t stifled the voice of my father

with special reference to violent effort and fatigue

I’m looking forward to stealing more words in the future.

The reason for my sloshy strongbow belly was my attendance at another smashing Blind Poetics open mic last night. The place was pretty packed with the literati of Edinburgh and the atmosphere was buzzing. My particular favourites were Young Dawkins, winner of Scottish poetry slam, who I hadn’t seen perform before but I loved his Tom Waits-esque storytelling accompanied by a sax, and of course Kevin Cadwallender whose daleks poem gets funnier every time I hear it.

On Sunday I attended a storytelling evening run by Illicit Ink, a group set up by the creative writing students at Napier University. Now, let me tell you, I was fighting off a plethora of grotty germs and had almost lost the ability to speak (which, as anyone who knows me would testify, was a particularly traumatic prospect for me) yet I had two major motivating factors. The first being pals: the second being my massively nosy nose. My two beautiful and talented classmates Roxanne DeRouen and Sindhu Rajasekaran were both doing readings, which I knew would be too good to miss. Also, since I did my undergrad degree at Napier, I was intrigued to see what type of thing their creative writing students were working on. So I manned up and dragged my snotty nosy nose along to cab vol for an evening in the Faerie Court.

Now, I don’t really like fairies. They’re just a bit…soft. But these were not your average Tinkerbell. There was the terrifying and the far fetched, the funny and the ridiculous, the sad and poignant, evil princes with mechanical hearts, malevolent spirits and the filthiest take on Pinocchio I have ever heard (splinters there, really? ouch). Everyone was very friendly and smiley, and the intimate, red lit venue was a perfect setting. I’m looking forward to the next event by these guys already.

You may be wondering what fairies have to do with fingers…well last Tuesday saw yet another smashing Inky Fingers open mic, and you can read all about it here. This month I am running the Inky Fingers writers’ group, which should be lots of fun and a great place to get some anonymous feedback on your work. There is also a wonderful workshop coming up by Eliza Langland, a lady who knows a thing or two about performance. Info on both here.

And finally, a little fairytale of my own. This one is about a Kelpie who lives in Leith…

Horse
In the pit of the stomach of a city drenched in rain, a hovel lies buried beneath barbed wire and broken glass. Many are lured inside but few ever leave. A young girl turned old in a year, curled in a ball listens to the septic weeping walls dripping on concrete. Her lungs are full of rot, from the damp air she breathes. In the corner, something moves, too blurred to define. It circles her, stays in the shadows. She can feel the eye that led her here, feel its hunger to feed.
She came with a friend, whose name now she cannot remember, into the bowels of the neighbourhood, where the streets reek with danger. An adventure, her friend had promised, somewhere they had never been before. Claimed to know this man, who walked with a hood and a stoop. Peered at them sideways with an eye like a fish. His dry, unblinking eye, followed them until they reached the hovel, where he disappeared inside. Come on, she said, now intrigued, her friend not so keen. But halfway in she became stuck, suddenly changing her mind, wire cutting her skin, damp hands from the depths pulling her in. Her friend held her for as long as she could, but it was too late, she had to cut herself loose. And run. That was the last thing this young girl saw, that is her fading memory of the world of light, her friend’s trainers pounding away on the pavement that night.
Was it years? Or days? Or minutes ago? Time passing here is marked only by drips and drops. From the shadows it moves closer, she can taste the moist breath of it on her lips. Closer. Licks her wet hair. Then a spark and a light, a thick hand holds out a pipe. For a moment she sees the hand, dripping in gold, thick horse hair, looks up to the slime of his slicked back mane.
Wait, don’t I….?
But before she can finish, the black waters rise around her and drown her all over again.

Ok, so I am omitting several ‘classics’ here;, I recognise that. The Shinning, Psycho, Dawn of the Dead etc. are all films I love, yet didn’t stay with me in quite the same way. I can’t wait to see Insidious, the new film by the makers of Saw and Paranormal Activity, looks mighty promising, let’s just hope it has me checking under the bed for years to come…I just heard a strange noise…no really…

Monday 11th April – New open mic at the Blind Poet. With those lovely chaps Harlequinade and Gavin Inglis doing their thing, it’s going to be a blinder.

Tuesday 12th April – My chums Harry Giles and Russell Jones tell us about their favourite Desert Island poems from 630pm at the Central Library.

Wednesday 13th April – It’s writers’ night at the quirky little Boda’s Bar.

Wednesday 20th April – The wonderful Golden Hour returns for another night of words and music.

Tuesday 26th April – Inky Fingers open mic, I’m looking forward to it already and will no doubt be reading out some stuff I have written recently.

Also, Edinburgh Uni are about to embark on their next season of creative writing evening classes, which, having taken a class in flash fiction before my Msc, I highly recommend as a way to dip your toe in the water of ‘learning to write’. The acclaimed Jenny Lindsay is running a class in performance poetry which has a few spaces left and I have heard is sure to be amazing.

And next month…1st May, a spoken word night run by the Napier Uni creative writers at Cabaret Voltaire.

So get out there and get wordy!