Foyles & Curtis Brown present Discovery Day: Pitch your novel idea to leading literary agents Curtis Brown

This is on the 22nd of September and tickets are FREE.  For more info and ticket booking press HERE

A blog worth reading

I have started following Jeff Goins on Twitter and he has some brilliant tips and ideas. I thought I would share:

http://goinswriter.com/weak-words/

If you click on the link above have a look at the popular posts on the right. Some are quite interesting.

Breakthrough Moments

Breakthrough Moments - by Sue

I had a breakthrough tonight. I suddenly realised that I need to write a central chapter of my book in an entirely different way.

Probably anyone reading the story I’m writing could have told me that years ago (in fact, they probably did) but anyhow that moment was my personal triumph; the sort of discovery that I spend the rest of my time working towards, when the knotty problem I’ve been wrestling with for months, suddenly unravels and the path forward lies straight and untrammelled.

It won’t be assured of course; given a day or two, I’ll be back wondering whether to relegate the whole book to the trash. But that’s beside the point. For a moment today, I had the blissful illusion of clarity. 

Those moments are precisely why I write. They are all there is in my opinion - them and the rubbish bin.

The fact that most of the time I can’t even approach that place, drives me by turns to despair, then spurs me forward in the hope that one day I may.  I’m like David pitched against the Goliath of failure and in my neurotic struggle, Abingdon Writers Group shines like a fount of divine wisdom.

Here similarly afflicted individuals gather together to share their own investigations into the mysterious process of how to plot, structure, describe and make all the other decisions that are part of creating meaning and giving power to the written word.  Out of our collective turmoil and the murky routine of giving and receiving criticism, we each slowly progress, like a metaphor for the human condition.

If this sounds painful, let me reassure you that it is blissfully excruciating, like a confession after mea culpa. And if you don’t like it, you can always leave.

Most people stay however, possibly because they are snared by the same hook as me: to be better than I am.  Or maybe it’s the biscuits.

And if I can shut up long enough to listen to them, I learn as much by  reflecting on their work, as I do by reading out my own cobbled together pieces.  In fact my most recent Eureka! moment came when I was listening to the group reflect on someone else’s chapter. This had the added benefit (to me of course) of leaving my underbelly unexposed, although quite often it’s the other way round.

I’m slowly learning that we all make pretty much the same mistakes in writing. I used to be ashamed of mine, but now I try to treat them as stepping stones helping me to make the quantum leap beyond my own last best thought, into the next.

When that happens, it’s like flying or singing an aria without hitting a duff note; tiny progessions towards the realisation of my dream - to create something beautiful which reflects light and meaning no matter which way you look at it; something which makes order out of the unending muddle that is me.

Costa Short Story Competition

HI Guys,

Here's a new short story competition from COSTA. Looks quite interesting...

Cost Short Story Competition Link