Lonesome Train

I’ve had a few acceptances for my writing lately, but Lonesome Train is the biggest accomplishment of them all! The reason for this is because it’s my first published prose poem. This is a massive deal for me because I studied Creative Writing at Bath Spa university for three years and while I received a lot of praise for my fiction writing, my poetry lecturer never once praised me. With my poetry, she either didn’t understand it or didn’t like it. She made it pretty clear many times that my poetry isn’t of publishable quality.

I believed her for years and I stopped writing poetry. But I had a big folder of poems that were just sat on my laptop and I didn’t want them to go to waste. An anthology popped up that was accepting stories and poetry based on trains and I had a prose poem called Creep that fit the theme perfectly. I sent it in without any high hopes, but I heard back within a couple of days that my poem had been accepted! Within one submission, I’d proved my lecturer wrong.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that just because one person doesn’t like your style of writing, it doesn’t make it bad. My lecturer didn’t take to my writing and made me feel like everything I put forward was terrible, but I now know that’s not the case and it just wasn’t for her. Don’t write yourself off based on the opinion of one person. You can never please everyone.

Lonesome Train: Do you hear that train a-comin’? Comin’ round the bend…? Our authors did! Step into an anthology filled with demonic trains and disastrous encounters. Ghosts, time travel, giant spiders, wagon trains, space-transport–whatever you are interested in, we’ve got you covered. Sit right back and enjoy the ride.

Through Death’s Door Submissions

Monnath books is thrilled to announce that after much deliberation we are officially going to be putting together our very first anthology!

“Through Death’s Door” is an anthology simply based on the concept of death and is not limited to any specific genre – so think about the paranormal, heaven, hell, resurrection, etc.

We are open to submissions from today and hope to close by July 1st 2019, although we may push this deadline forward or back based on how many submissions we receive and how fast the acceptances fill up.

There is no minimum word count, but the maximum is 5,000, and we are only open to ONE story per human. We are not currently accepting submissions for previously published works and will only consider edited stories; i.e., no first drafts! We will, however, fix minor details, such as typos, before publication.

If you are seeking an editor to look at your story prior to submitting, Lozzi Counsell, who is a part of the team, is a line editor. You can purchase one of her gigs, or contact her here: https://www.fiverr.com/…/be-your-line-editor-for-your-book-… (This is purely an unlinked, professional service that does not guarantee your acceptance in our anthology.)

All submissions & queries are to be sent to: contact@monnathbooks.co.uk

Subject Line Format: ANTHOLOGY TITLE – YOUR STORY TITLE – YOUR AUTHOR NAME

All submissions emails must include:
• Your legal name and pen name,
• Your story’s title,
• Your story’s word count,
• ONE social media account that you’d like us to include in the anthology if you are accepted.

We will email everyone back after the closing date to let you know the outcome of your submission. If accepted, you will receive compensation in the form of a contributor’s copy (eBook) following publication of the anthology. The anthology will, however, be available for sale in both digital and paper form. Please note, this is an unpaid submission.

Just to reiterate, the email address to send it to is: contact@monnathbooks.co.uk

Good luck and happy writing!

My First Big Upset

I wrote this a couple of months ago. I wasn’t sure whether to post it or not, but I’ve decided to go ahead:

I’ve been pretty lucky so far with my writing – I’ve submitted short stories to quite a few different places and have only received one rejection so far. I’ve made many author friends along the way who have been such a huge help to me. I’ve edited for many different people and only ever been met by huge thank yous and appreciation for my time and detail.

But for the first time today, I’ve actually been left in tears. I sent a short story over to someone, specified I didn’t want any proofreading/editing done, just purely wanted an opinion on whether I should keep or delete the epilogue.

I received a message from them pretty soon after, nothing about the epilogue at all, but a big paragraph on basically why they didn’t like my story.

Now, if I was asking for a critique, or an opinion, then fair enough. But my story has been edited to publishing standards over a period of time using more than one editor, the cover is finished and I’ve been working on a pre-order schedule ready for its release at the end of March/early April.

And all of a sudden I was sat here crying, questioning everything. I’ve been so excited about this release – the first time it’s my own book and not as part of an anthology. I’ve been putting everything in place and in the next moment, I was ready to delete my entire story.

It wasn’t what I asked for. It wasn’t what I expected. I wasn’t asking for a book review.

And the worst part? Everything is personal preference. He doesn’t agree that my character is so forgiving. He felt a sense of Stockholm syndrome in my story. Why can’t my character be forgiving just because he’s not that sort of person? Even if there is Stockholm syndrome in my story, what’s wrong with that? Stockholm syndrome is a very, very real thing! My mum compared it to me writing about a character breaking their leg and someone telling me that my character should have stubbed their toe instead.

As I said before, if this was a review and a reader posted this, that’s their right. But I wanted ONE question answered by him.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

I thought he had given up 15 minutes out of his day to be nice and helpful to a stranger, but I was wrong. In response to reading and tearing up my story of just under 10,000 words, he wants me to edit his entire novel of 200,000 words, and also hinted that if I have time, he wouldn’t mind me editing his 135,000 word one either…

Two questions…

If my story is that bad, why would you let me anywhere near your writing and trust my editing skills?

Is 15 minutes of your time, purely reading and not editing a short story, a fair exchange for expecting me to edit 335,000 words for you?

I think in the future I will be sticking to my close circle of author friends.

A Flash of Words

I submitted two stories to an anthology and received back this very exciting news! 1 stands for didn’t make it to the anthology, 2 stands for possibly make it to the anthology but currently unsure and 3 stands for definitely in the anthology!

I can’t wait to see my story in a proper published book!

Author Page

Hey everyone,

It’s taken me a long time, but I finally have my author page set up on Facebook! I genuinely thought that these pages were only for well established authors, but have since found out otherwise. I was told that you should set up your page as early as possible in order to gain a following etc.

So without further ado, here is the link to my author page: https://www.facebook.com/LozziAuthor/

Any likes would be much appreciated!

Thank you.

The Semicolon

My favourite piece of punctuation is the semicolon. When it comes to proofreading, I notice that a lot of the time I am adding in semicolons to pieces of writing which otherwise would not use a single one. It makes me wonder if people actually know when to use the semicolon.

I think that it’s potentially my favourite piece of punctuation for the mere fact that I actually know how to use it, just like apostrophes are my least favourite, because they confuse the hell out of me! If you are great at using apostrophes, then I seriously applaud you.

For those of you who are confused about when the semicolon should make an appearance in your writing, I use it when it seems like it’s too short of a pause to use a full stop, but too long of a pause to use a comma. Another time to use it is when you’re writing a list of detailed items.

Milk, bread, cookies – this small list would use just commas.

creamy, white milk; seeded, cheesy, crusty bread; chocolate chip, salted caramel cookies – this list with detailed items uses semicolons because otherwise the large use of commas would make it confusing to look at and separate the items.

Which piece of punctuation is your favourite?

Ears open, eyes peeled.

There are always story ideas around, you just have to be open to them. One really good way of finding a story is by taking a look at the people around you. Is there anyone who piques your interest? What are they wearing, doing, saying? What do they look like? Any features that stand out to you? Take notice of their body language. Then think about why they are where they are today, for example if they’re on a train where are they traveling from/to and why? (Obviously that part is purely your opinion.) You now have a character and maybe you even have a storyline too. They could be running away from home, or even an undercover MI5 agent.

Also make sure to listen to the conversations around you. You might hear something interesting. The last time I listened in to a conversation, it was between two old ladies and they were discussing how many bananas they’d bought and the amazing value of them. Obviously I didn’t manage a story out of that one!

I’ve never been too good at the people watching side of things, but my favourite way is observing any kind of commotion/altercation. Just the other night, my neighbour was having an argument outside with his girlfriend. I sat on the floor next to the door, listening through the letterbox. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to hear anything because my mum told me off for being ‘nosey.’ Yes, I guess I was being nosey, but it always feels better when there’s a reason for it. I was annoyed at her for the rest of the night for potentially preventing an amazing story idea.

Even if your mind feels blank now, just wait because your next idea may be just around the corner.

Be consistent

Full stops are pretty easy to work out, but commas? How often should you use them?

And the issue is that no one seems to agree. I used to put a comma before every connective word, before finding out that you don’t usually need to put a comma before the word ‘because.’ I’d been doing it for years.

And to make matters worse, I studied Creative Writing at Bath Spa for three years and was pulled up on my use of commas by THREE different lecturers:
-Lecturer #1 said I use way too many commas.
-Lecturer #2 said that I don’t use enough commas and that I should put a comma before the word ‘and’ which I hardly ever do (and still don’t.)
-Lecturer #3 was over the moon with my use of commas and awarded me with a first due to my perfect use of them and all other punctuation.

Confusing, right?

I don’t think I/we will ever know the perfect amount of commas to use in our writing, because there doesn’t seem to be a right or wrong answer. Even in books I read, I can see that some authors use lots, while others hardly use any at all.

So what happens if no matter what you do it’s never right?

I guess the only other option is to be consistent!

 

To plan or not to plan

Personally when it comes to writing, I am a planner.

When I first started writing I didn’t plan at all. I would have an idea, work out a beginning and ending, who the main character was and then just go for it. Although this works for some people, it really didn’t work for me. I realised that my story was going nowhere. I was just writing and writing and writing, but there was no structure, no conflict… it was just very lacking in what a story needs. I had no idea where it was going to go next and pretty soon into it, I realised I had no clue how I was going to reach the ending. It wasn’t even the same story anymore.

I haven’t made this mistake since and it is due to my planning. I don’t go overboard with my planning, but I still need some form of it there to keep my story structured and going in the right direction. Now once an idea comes to mind and I’m ready to write, I plan my story out from beginning to end as a list of bullet points. I have also found an amazing trick I now use, which is that I keep a grid of characters and every time I write something in my story about a character (for example someone has a Ford car, or they used to have a pet dog named Milo,) I make a note of it under that character’s name. It just helps me out in the long run to look back at what I know about each character. I add to this as I write the story, because for me character attributes become more apparent the further into the story you get.

So, to plan or not to plan, which is right for you?

Don’t compare yourself

Since beginning university I have been looking at the work of other future writers in my course and comparing myself to their writing. Often it’s a – damn why didn’t I think of that? or, I wish I could write like that? But when you really think about… You shouldn’t ever compare yourself. Take a look at this poem for example:

As Soon as Fred Gets Out of Bed by Jack Prelutsky

As soon as Fred gets out of bed,
his underwear goes on his head.
His mother laughs, “Don’t put it there,
a head’s no place for underwear!”
But near his ears, above his brains,
is where Fred’s underwear remains.

At night when Fred goes back to bed,
he deftly plucks it off his head.
His mother switches off the light
and softly croons, “Good night! Good night!”
And then, for reasons no one knows,
Fred’s underwear goes on his toes.

This is a children’s poem that has a lot of humour in it! I wish that I could be funny, but writing humour doesn’t come naturally to me. What does come naturally to me though is emotion and who’s to say that Jack can grab your heart in the same way that I can? So yes, Jack has strong points that I don’t have in my writing, but instead of comparing myself I need to look at what I’m good at!