Creative Writing Week 6: Publishing

Ensure the work you want to submit is at its best.

Research where to send your work:

Buy the Artists and Writers Year Book, or get it from the library. This tells you everything you need to know plus it is full of good advice about writing in general. 

Research the publishing houses you feel suit you. Do they publish similar work? What are their submission guidelines?

Try getting your work in magazines first, to build a publishing CV. 

Try to subscribe to, and read the magazines you are interested in being published in. 

Publishing Short Stories

Always read some of the stories published in the magazine.
Check the guidelines: word count, form, genre etc
See here for a very good site for fiction writers:  

Short Stops: This is a really valuable resource for writers of short stories: competitions, lit mags, workshops and lots more.

Publishing Poetry

Here are a few helpful pieces about publishing poetry from editors of various presses and magazines:

Bloodaxe Books

Shearsman Books

Culture Llama (Short story collections here too)

YouTube: Some poets have gained a reputation using YouTube as a tool to share work:

Hollie McNish

Poems on Ezines:

Hera Lindsay Bird: The Spinoff

Patricia Lockwood: The Awl 

Amaryllis: A Swindon Ezine edited by Stephen Daniels 


Self-Publishing

If you would like to self-publish your work make sure it looks as professional as possible, and free from mistakes. Look at sample books from reputable publishers to get an idea of style and content. Keep things plain: times font, no borders and poor pictures. 

Think about how you might market your book and gain reviews. 

You might try print on demand publishing. It is easy to use and you only need to print one copy at a time so it is easy to get a sample of the work. 

Lulu Publishing

Blurb 

"I am not afraid of Art" - Understanding Literary Cubism

I've been reading the poetry of Max Jacob, given to me by fellow poet and friend Carrie Etter - 'I know you.' she said. She was right, I loved the book. I read in the introduction he was a friend of Picasso and explored cubism in poetry. This prompted me to find out more about 'Literary Cubism.' Although I have long loved the poems and writings of Apollinaire, I had not considered cubism until I started this research. Here's some finds from this essay by Pamela A. Genova: The Poetics of Visual Cubism: Guilaume Apollinaire on Pablo Picasso

"Apollinaire counselled his fellow poets and artists to seize and translate the turbulent atmosphere of the new, to accept nothing at face value and to always seek out the unlikely and the unusual.

Apollinaire believed that life was an inherently artistic adventure, and art a primary element in the experience of life, the two elements indivisible

Literary cubism: the exploration in language of the principles of unlikely juxtaposition, immediate spontaneity,  and the reconsideration of the dynamics of the material world.' In this vein, he fashioned unusual linguistic and structural systems." 

Pamela A.Genova, University of Oklahoma.   

The rainbow is bent, the seasons quiver, the crowds push on to death, science undoes and remakes what already exists, while worlds disappear forever from our understanding, our mobile images repeat themselves, or revive their vagueness, and the colours, the odours, and the sounds to which we are sensitive astonish us, then disappear from nature-all to no purpose. 

Guillaume Apollinaire

How do we write cubist poems? 

I'll try and summarise:

Reorganise space, both on the page and in the mind's eye

Be spontaneous and impetuous

Be prepared to be misunderstood, underestimated, and disregarded

Reject fallen idols and cliched forms

Speak in the present the words of the future

Use imagist language

Speak with spontaneity, simultaneity, and the vibrant nature of the concrete world

Cubist poems have a 'fourth dimension', a spiritual quality of the imagination, directly related to the creative process, a subtle perceptual faculty both esoteric and methodical

Perceive in all directions at once, both spatial and temporal, endowing objects with a renewed sense of presence and utility

Play with shape and sound, word and image

"float in the azure of our memories, and partake of divinity, in order to damn the metaphysicians" 

Dance around the incandescent fires of passion, fear, and desire

Surprise: the greatest source of what is new - "Surprise laughs savagely in the purity of light"

The three plastic virtues: Purity, Unity, and Truth

Purity: forget after study

Unity: the relation between a newly created thing and a new creator

Truth: search for it - especially in that of the imagination 


Finally, be multidimensional: imagery, sound, shapes, repetition and colours

Some cubist poets:

MINA LOY - Human Cylinders

PIERRE REVERDY - Clock 

GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE - The Lady 

RENÉ MAGRITTE - The Legs of the Sky

MAX JACOB - Rainbow

GERTRUDE STEIN - A Carafe, that is a Blind Glass

Creative Writing Week 5: Editing

Writers' Workshop

Bringing your work for criticism, especially for the first time, can be daunting. Remember, good writers' groups are there to support your work at all stages of development and will take a positive approach to helping you improve. Here are some guidelines I like to set in the groups I facilitate. 

• We are here to help and support each other, and encourage writers at all levels to improve, please do so with kindness and respect. 
• Express what you liked about a piece first and then find specific details that might help improve the piece. End with saying something positive. 
• Be polite: try not to say, "it 's boring" or "I don't understand it." - think about ways to phrase your concerns that will help the writer, "The piece was a bit slow here. It may help to take out some of the adjectives ..."
• Don't get personal, stick to the text.
• The writer makes the final decision on whether to accept or reject any criticism. Respect their wishes and don't push it. 
• Be respectful  Even if you dislike the piece, the writer has invested time and effort on the work. Try to use the kind of language you would like used for yourself.
• Try not to take it personally: suggestions to improve your work are not criticism of you as a person. Try not to be defensive - listen carefully, write everything down and make. considered decision later - perhaps even two weeks later. 

Some editing tips:

• Read your piece out loud several times. 
• Make note of the story structure. You might use the 8 point story arc to help you. How can the structure be improved? You may also think about The Story Grid to help you edit plot structure. 
• Think about genre and content. See Story Grid 2
• See more about editing developed by editor Shawn Coyne
• Also, Writers Digest has some helpful tips. 
• Here are some simple tips for editing your own work: The Write Life
• Here's Magma Magazine's 25 Rules for Editing Poems
• The Purdue Owl Writing Lab has many resources to help you with mechanics: spelling, sentence structure and grammar. 
• Clichés can weaken a story, poem or play. Try to avoid them and find a new way, in your own voice. Here's what Writer's Digest have to say about avoiding clichés in writing.

Creative Writing Week 4: An Introduction to Writing Plays

I love writing plays. My pen just goes off with a mind of its own and blah blah blah ... I have lots of dialogue. I often wonder where it all comes from. I usually have an idea, and some characters to play out the idea.


The best resource for playwriting is the BBC Writers Room. You can listen to plays, download plays, learn about plays.


Other resources:

Take a tiny idea and transform it into a full blown farce: How to Write A Play by Alan Ayckbourn 1973

Here's 12 tips for aspiring playwrights by Maxie Szalwinska

Some Scripts:

NOT I Script by Samuel Becket and the drama on YouTube: Not I


The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter 1957 (You can buy the book for this script)


Man with Travel Hairdryer by Katie Hims and the script for download is HERE