After yet another long hiatus from writing (fiction and blog), I’ve finally finished my MA in Public Relations and am slowly getting back into the writing groove!

It’s not easy.  I definitely need to be more proactive and deliberate about blocking out writing time and setting goals.  But I did manage to start warming up my creative writing muscle again by entering a short story competition.  The Fortnum & Mason Chocolate Short Story competition no less!  I figured something fun might provide the motivation I needed, and the prizes – hampers and chocolate – may have helped too!!

F&M give all their chocolate bars fun/strange names.  You had to choose one of five, and then work with the story prompt (bit in italics at the start of the story) to write a story under 500 words.  I was partly inspired having received a F&M Christmas hamper last year!  I also looked at the packaging of the bar I chose, saw the pheasant on it and decided to incorporate that too.

I didn’t win, but that wasn’t a surprise.  Short stories are not really my niche (either writing or reading tbh) – they have a very particular feel and style that just isn’t me.  And I couldn’t have eaten most of the chocolate prize as I’m intolerant to dairy

But I did have a lot of fun writing “Beneath the Amber Moon” and I hope you enjoy reading it!

Beneath the Amber Moon

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When I first became serious about writing, I was given the same advice I think most writers get – read these books, go on this course and attend that conference if you want to succeed.  These things can end up costing a lot of money though.  But that’s okay – isn’t it? – because they’re an investment in my writing career that will pay off when I get published…

Seven years later, I’ve spent more money than I dare to add up on developing my writing, but haven’t as yet earned anything from it.  Thankfully, I’ve been able to afford it and have enjoyed every book, course and conference, but it definitely hasn’t been the “If…Then…” situation I was led to believe.

I guess I went along with this advice because subconsciously I thought that in amongst all the recommended books, courses and conferences, there must be at least one that could provide a secret step to success!  That essential book which would make my story click into perfect place and win the hearts of everyone who read it.  A key course that would catapult my prose to new levels of awesomeness.  That revelatory conference where I would meet “The Agent” and we’d all live happily ever after.

If those things exist then I haven’t found them yet.  I’m still trudging along with my writing, although recently that’s had to play second fiddle to the study required of my MA in Public Relations.  So, when I had to do a small research project for an assignment, I decided to combine these two areas and investigate the pre-publication experience of published children’s writers to find out if they had had any secret steps to success!

I sent an electronic questionnaire to 10 traditionally published children’s writers who I knew, nine of whom responded.  One of them offered to share the questionnaire with a Twitter group of about-to-be-published children’s writers that she was part of and, very kindly, ten of them also completed it.  19 responses – only a small sample (this was a small research project!) but were there any revelations to be found within those answers?

This is what I discovered…

The average age at publication was 44-years-old.  As I’m around this age myself that was hugely encouraging.  I haven’t missed the boat!!

Half of the respondents had been writing for 10+ years when they first had a book published.  Again, a relief because my seven years was starting to feel like a long time.  It really isn’t that long in the writing/publishing world though.

Seven writers had had their first story published; six their second; third time lucky for three authors; and for another three it was their fourth, fifth and gazillionth stories that finally secured a book deal. 

These were things I expected to find, based on writers I know and what I’ve observed in the publishing industry in general.  But then came some surprises…

While SCBWI and YALC were the most popular conferences mentioned, attendance at them by respondents was still low.  Also, about half the respondents hadn’t done any writing courses.  I was aghast.  Wasn’t completing some sort of writing course one of the essential criteria on the job spec for “published children’s writer”?!

Apparently not.

But then came more answers that blew my mind.  Despite asking for recommendations for three writing books, less than half the participants offered that full number, with three people saying “none”!  What?!  How had I been led to believe that the more books you read on improving your writing craft, the greater your chance of publication became? 

In reality, this idea had become shaky recently anyway, as I know some writers who study literally every writing book they can get their hands on, but still aren’t published.  Personally, I’ve also found that the more books I read about writing, the more confused I become about how to write!

Of the books that were named, unsurprisingly Stephen King’s “On Writing” and John Yorke’s “Into The Woods” were the most recommended, but still only by a third of respondents.

Whether or not respondents had done an MA in Creative Writing didn’t make a huge difference to publication success (just under half had).  Neither did working with a critique group or partner – although the support of writing friends was highlighted by nearly all respondents as an important factor in not giving up when things were tough!  SCBWI rocks

Only one factor really jumped out from all the data I collected.  Of the seven respondents who’d had their first book published (rather than their second, third or gazillionth), SIX of them worked with children in some capacity.  Even with a small sample, that was a potentially significant finding (and one it’d be fascinating to investigate further)!

That would make a lot of sense.  If you work with children then you’ll have a better understanding of their perspectives, their concerns and their interests.  You can probably capture their voices better, especially if you hear them for several hours every day.  Although this is true for parents/carers as well, they probably only have contact with a handful of children (their own and their friends), while a teacher, for example, would experience hundreds of different children regularly – a deeply rich pool of potential writing material!

As the only potential “secret to success”, this was disheartening at first as I don’t work with children and have no desire to change my day job currently.  But then I remembered that I worked in further education and did teen youth work for many years.  My target audience and one of the reasons I chose to write YA – how could I have forgotten?!  I’m finally (yes, finally!) submitting my first story properly to agents, so I guess I’ll find out in the next few months if that experience has improved the odds in my favour!  I’d better keep working on my second story though, just in case…

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A couple of years ago I got an opportunity to take part in a fantastic project.

A group of young researchers with a range of (dis)abilities, involved in a Barnardo’s project, wanted to investigate and share the experiences of similar young people.  They were trained and supported by academics from the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN) to conduct interviews and collect stories of resilience and transformation from other children and young people who were also users of Barnardo’s services.  It was important to them that they recorded these experiences in the interviewees’ own words and recognised them as the experts of their own lives.

As this research paper* details, “the project began from the premise that narrative is an effective means of communication, and can convey information to people who may not access or accept a leaflet or more formal means of communication.”  The young people decided that the best way to tell their collected stories was through story.  But they didn’t feel that they had the skills to do that.

Enter me – and a couple of famous authors, plus several more members of my SCBWI North-West writing group!

I was sent a pack of transcripts on the subject of first journeys.  For many of the young people interviewed, making an independent journey is a huge undertaking.  I was at a stage of parenting where my teenage boys were just beginning to take their first independent journeys too and so I understood some of the hurdles faced, although not all the extra obstacles the interviewees had to negotiate.

There were several things that jumped out at me from the transcripts – the importance of preparation (breaking the journey down into its composite parts); practice (rehearsing the journey); maintaining contact with parent/carer (sometimes for the young person’s benefit, sometimes for the parent/carer’s!); and having several contingency plans.

There was a ton of material to work with, but a bigger problem emerged as I started to pinpoint what I thought was most interesting and important in the stories I was reading.  I’m not a contemporary writer.  I just can’t do it.  I find it boring.  There was no way in the world I was going to be able to produce an interesting story about someone’s first bus journey.

Something that had also struck me when reading through the transcripts though was that, for most of these young people, their first independent bus journey was as big a deal for them as for someone going to another planet.

Lightbulb moment!  I couldn’t write a contemporary bus journey story, but I COULD write a science fiction story about flying to another planet, that incorporated all the same issues and obstacles contained in the transcripts.

Thankfully, the project leader agreed that sci-fi was fine and off I went!!

I loved writing my 2,000 word short story.  It came out so easily, almost in its finished form immediately.  If only all my writing was like that!  I loved my protagonist, I loved their journey, I loved giving things cheesy names and making up cool mantras like “one head good, two heads bad, three heads best”!  It was not only great fun, but also a huge privilege to have the opportunity to capture the experiences of these young people in this way.

As the project moved towards completion, I knew several stories for younger readers had been animated and that others had been incorporated into phygital objects (read more about the project here), but wasn’t aware of the final outcome of my story until recently.  Although a 24-page printed booklet isn’t quite the same thing as a traditionally published full novel, it was still a great moment when I opened my post a couple of Saturdays ago and held a copy in my hand.  It definitely felt like a positive step towards my ultimate goal!

You can read “Journey to Independence” here.  Enjoy the journey!

* I’ve become a mahoosive research paper geek since starting my MA!

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It’s been 8 months since I last wrote on this blog!  That’s indicative of the fact that I’ve done very little writing in that time and none at all since starting my MA in Public Relations in September. 

Given that this is the second time I’ve taken a long hiatus, I’ve had to think seriously about the point of the blog.  Getting published was all I pursued for five years and this was born out of wanting to share that journey.  It’s not quite been the journey I was expecting or hoping for!!  Other writers share it better than me though and, as I’m not yet published, it’s debatable how much of it is even useful or interesting.

I realised that, thankfully, having named the site “Once Upon A Mel”, it hadn’t been exclusively set up as an author’s website.  Although the title has (deliberately) clear links to storytelling, it also just refers to this being a place where I share “life according to Mel”!

So, moving forward, that’s how this blog is going to look.  I’ll continue to share about writing – it’s still going to be part of my life – but I’ll also be talking about other issues like faith, human trafficking and anything else that comes to mind.  As happens constantly in our social media world, I will talk and if you want to listen then you are very welcome to do so

The reason for finally writing this post now is that I do have writing news I want to share in the next day or two – nothing big, just an interesting project that I got involved with a couple of years ago.  Back soon…

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The UK’s heatwave has finally broken (temporarily!) and as it’s a curl up on the sofa kinda day, I thought I’d give you a new blog post and a couple of quick reads! 

At the same time as working on my main projects, I also like to dabble with shorter bits of writing.  They’re fun, they keep me fresh and they exercise different writing skills.  They’re also often linked to competitions, which is a shame because I still hate competitions. 

The good thing about them is that they give you a focus and a deadline.

The bad thing about them is that they’re SO subjective.

I recently entered a Flash Fiction competition as part of a Festival where I’ve done pretty well previously (second and highly commended).  I was pleased with my 500 words, capturing what I thought was an emotional and powerful moment in a character’s life.  Stood a good chance of at least getting shortlisted I thought.

Cue the judge doing a Twitter discussion on a few of the entries the day after the deadline.  I know these are supposed to be helpful, but they’re actually highly stressful as entrants pour over the tweets, trying to work out if the judge is referring to their entry.

There was only one tweet that I thought could possibly refer to my entry and it went like this:

#WinFestFlashNotes 9. This story is perhaps 50% backstory, 50% forward motion. I think I need at least 75% forward motion in flash, maybe more. No amount of lovely memories will make me care about what’s happening ‘now’. And I need to care about what’s happening ‘now’.

— Claire Fuller (@ClaireFuller2) April 12, 2018

I was gutted.  How was I supposed to know that Claire liked at least 75% forward motion in flash fiction?  A different judge might LOVE more retrospective storytelling.  If I’d had that information beforehand then I could have tweaked the story to fit that criteria better

Hey ho!  I’ve realised recently that stories can be recycled so I’ve since edited it – hopefully giving it slightly more forward movement – and submitted it to another competition, one where I’ll get a few lines of feedback, which should be helpful!

I entered another competition at the beginning of the year, this one to write a 50 word story to go on a festival bookmark.  The challenge of capturing a story moment in just 50 words is seriously fun!

I didn’t win, but as I like my stories better than any of the ones chosen as winners (!) and as I’m not intending to recycle these, I thought I’d share them with you on here!!

One Minute

Believe Your Eyes

Enjoy…and let me know if you’d like them on a bookmark

The post Why I Still Hate Competitions But Keep On Entering Them Anyway appeared first on Once Upon A Mel.

My mental health is better when I’m writing.  But also I write more when I’m feeling mentally healthy.  It’s a chicken and egg situation and I definitely don’t know which comes first.  But the bottom line is that writing is a good sign!!

How is writing good for my mental health?

I’m generally happy when I’m writing.  Exploring amazing worlds, hanging out with fantastic characters, having incredible adventures.  What’s not to like?!

I can write about things I love.  Like space

I can visit fabulous interesting places in the name of research or writing retreats (yes, I’m looking at you, Gladstone’s Library!).

I can use all my experiences, especially the bad ones.  It makes me feel like I’m doing something positive and beneficial with them.  I particularly enjoy naming my antagonists after people who have been toxic in my life (not very gracious, but very therapeutic, lol). 

When I suffered from a significant bout of depression a few years ago I made copious notes on how I felt – mentally and physically – and will be using that when Celeste goes through a similar situation in book 3 of my Space Opera.  When I feel low or hurt or confused, I often record those feelings for future use. 

A close relative has been diagnosed recently with cancer and part of my processing of that is a poem that’s currently brewing in my head.  It’ll probably be terrible coz I’m no poet, but that’s not the point.  Creative expression, no matter how “good” it is, can be super helpful in helping us to think things through and deal with difficult emotions.

Knowing you’re not alone.  Many many writers have suffered from mental health issues.  One of my favourite books, “The Humans” by Matt Haig, originated in the depths of his “personal hell”:

“I first had the idea of writing this story in 2000, when I was in the grip of panic disorder.  Back then, human life felt as strange for me as it does for the unnamed narrator.”

Despite (or perhaps because of) its origins, it’s a wonderful, funny, life-affirming story.  Writing about mental health issues doesn’t mean a story is depressing.  Often they’re about finding hope and a way through the difficulties and the darkness.

How is writing bad for my mental health?

“What-if?” thinking.  Writers have to think in these terms – it’s essential to extrapolate all potential options and outcomes from each point in a story.  Exploring the full range of those inevitably includes the worst case scenarios.  That thinking easily carries over into our everyday personal lives. 

Sad or traumatic parts of my story.  The emotions I create and feel when writing these sections can linger even when I’ve stopped writing for the day, keeping my mood low.

Rejections.  Even if you are toughening up or embracing them as part of #100Rejections (blog post to come!), they still hurt.  Sometimes just a pinprick, other times a knife to the heart.  As I mentioned in my last post, the publishing industry is tough and although you need talent and perseverance, there’s also a big pinch of luck involved in getting a book published.  That lack of control – no matter how great a story you write – can easily have a negative impact on mental health.

The inner critic.  It is vicious, vindictive and not ashamed to kick a writer when they’re down. If you’re already feeling low about your work or your ability, it seems to start shouting abuse all the louder.  It can leave you feeling like the biggest loser in the history of the world.

What can help?

Friends.  Plenty of people pay lip service to “here if you need me”, but the friends to value and hold on to are ones who say “what’s up?” or “let’s go for coffee/cake/cocktails”.  Just to be listened to by someone who cares enough to give you their time and attention is immensely powerful.  Words of wisdom are an additional bonus.  Distraction and laughs can also be more than enough.  Writing friends have the added bonus of understanding and sharing writing struggles – they are your cheerleaders and perfectly placed to counteract the inner critic’s accusations.

Walking.  Being out in nature full-stop is incredibly refreshing and perspective balancing, but for writers there’s a whole extra benefit.  It provides the time and space for the practice of attention restoration theory or unconscious thought theory (can you tell I’ve been reading about this recently?!).  Basically it means that walking in the woods can give you ideas and inspiration, as well as help your unconscious mind sort out plot problems, etc.

Reading!  The awesome thing about being a writer is that reading counts towards 10,000 Hours To Expert.  Reading is the best escape there is!  And if you choose the right book then, when you emerge from it, you might also feel better equipped to deal with the real world.

Keeping on writing!  We must love it, otherwise we wouldn’t keep doing it.  Forget the agent, forget the publisher, forget the reader even.  Write for yourself!  Write from your heart and enjoy every word as much as you possibly can.

The post Why Writing Can Be Good AND Bad for Mental Health appeared first on Once Upon A Mel.

You might have noticed that I haven’t blogged for a very long time.

Last year was a fight for my writing life!  In fact, the last two years have been a real writing struggle, as you can see from previous posts, and I got to the point where I didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

The more I learnt about the publishing industry, the more demoralised and disillusioned I became. 

The first hurdle for any writer is getting an agent, and then a publisher.  I know great writers who have struggled for years to get an agent (by comparison I really haven’t tried very hard).  I also know great writers who have an agent but even then have been struggling for years, writing a number of different stories to try and get a book deal.  That can, unsurprisingly, lead to huge disappointment.  “Anonymous” published a short piece in the Guardian last year about this.  She received a lot of criticism and advice to toughen up and keep going, but I salute her for her openness and honesty.  Most writers have felt the same way, even if they haven’t quit as a consequence.  I thought very seriously about quitting myself.

“If you can quit, then quit.  If you can’t quit, you’re a writer.” R.A. Salvatore

Even if you do realise your dream and get a book published, it can still all turn sour – check out this article (excuse the language!).  Publishing is a tough industry and as publishers struggle to keep afloat they have to make difficult decisions.  Sometimes things just don’t work out.

I’ve known for a long time that breaking through the “debut author” door is a huge challenge, closely followed by the notoriously difficult second book syndrome (made even more difficult if the first book has been successful!).  BUT I thought that once you’d done that and had a measure of success then you’d be free to write what you want.  Not so.  This post from Non Pratt (who’s had 5 books published) makes it clear that publishers often want you to stick within your “brand” – presumably because it’s easier to market.  Basically that means that if you’ve had contemporary middle-grade published then you might not be “allowed” to write sci-fi/fantasy Young Adult.

I realised that writing a great book isn’t enough to get published anymore.  And even if I got published, it probably wasn’t going to turn out how I imagined.  I had to regroup and rediscover my reason for writing again, as well as my love for it.

Time also became a challenge last year with going back to work part-time (I’m aware that full-timers manage to write, but I am a lightweight!).  A few months ago I finally got into the habit of having one writing day a week, which I treat as sacrosanct and guard fiercely – it’s my favourite day of the week

Last year wasn’t a complete write-off.  One highlight was getting involved in a project with UCLAN (The University of Central Lancashire) which I hope to be able to share with you soon.  I also kept moving forward with both my writing projects – the Space Opera (have given up on titles for it!) and Controllers – albeit at a very slow pace. 

Thankfully I’ve finally found my writing groove again!  And I am LOVING it!!

via GIPHY

I’ve put aside my Space Opera series for now.  An agent (feedback I won as a raffle prize, I haven’t submitted for a year now) recently confirmed what I already pretty much knew – there’s no market in the UK for YA SFF (most of it is American).  Also, even if there was, a SFF trilogy wouldn’t be something a publisher would happily take on from a debut author.  As it stands, book 1 has been edited a million times; book 2 is fully first drafted; and book 3 has a few thousand words in it already.  It WILL be published one day – there are lots of different ways to bring a book to market.  It’s the book of my heart and I want to wait until the time is right for it.

My main work-in-progress now is Controllers.  You’ll hear more about that this year!  However, I’ve also just had the most amazing idea for a middle-grade story, that I really really want to jump straight into.  You’ll probably hear more about that this year too

I’m also taking time to write short stories and flash fiction.  They keep me fresh, giving me the opportunity to try out different ideas and points of view.  Mostly they’re for competitions – which as regular blog readers will know, I HATE – but are a necessary evil (!) as I’m also working on “100 Rejections” this year (which I’ll explain in a future blog).

So… the last couple of years have been one hell of a journey, but a more realistic and experienced Mel is now back on track and buzzing with the joy of writing again!  Bring it on!

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A few years ago I bought some Fink family discussion cards (which are just brilliant and I totally recommend).  They contain allsorts of questions that not only promote discussion, but enable you to discover a different and deeper side to people!

My favourite question in the whole pack was “What would be your superpower of choice?”

I didn’t have to think hard at all to answer that.  It’s mind reading.  Always has been, always will be.

I’m constantly curious about and intrigued by what people think and why (I should have studied psychology, but that’s a whole other story).  I’m also incredibly nosey.  And perhaps I have slight megalomania and rather fancy the idea of omniscience!

I asked this question on Facebook recently and was amazed by the craziness creativity of my friends’ answers.  Some were things you might expect, e.g.:

– invisibility

– swimming underwater without breathing apparatus

– manipulation of time

– teleportation

– and flight (x lots of people)! 

Others were a bit more “out there”:

– ability to create food from nothing, ready cooked, on a plate and delicious

– ability to be a monkey, as long as there were other monkeys around too and trees

– extraordinary key finding skills

– ability to redesign one’s home at a thought

– to see other dimensions

– a prehensile moustache

A couple of people were more altruistic and chose wisdom and the ability to cure all disease!

Only one other person wanted mind reading…

But then a couple of people made my desire for omniscience seem modest, declaring that they’d like the ability to grant superpowers to those who please them with gifts and servitude, and the power to crush entire worlds

Recently while researching how to write a great pitch, it was suggested that a good place to start is where YOU started with the story, i.e. what led you to write it in the first place.  It’s likely to be something you’re super passionate about and that’s important because the ultimate aim of a pitch is to evoke an emotional response in the listener/reader and make them think “I want to read that”.

One of the key times I’ve wished for the ability to mind-read is when I’ve been attracted to someone and wanted to know what they thought about me and how they responded to things I did or said.  Allegedly actions speak louder than words – and I think I’m pretty good at reading people – but actions can also be easily misinterpreted.  Mind reading would cut through all that confusion and uncertainty.

And that made me think – wouldn’t it be great to see a couple’s story from both sides?

Cue the inspiration for “You, Me and the Universe” and why it had to be written in dual narrative.  How things seem on the outside are rarely indicative of how they really are on the inside.  Celeste and Will (my protagonists) misinterpret each other continually and I wanted to show what was going on behind the scenes, so to speak, with each of them.  There is a major “space between” (original story title!) between what they think each other thinks and what they really think.

I won’t ever be able to mind read, but at least as a writer I have to get fully inside my characters’ heads in order to make them authentic and realistic.  That’ll have to do!

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Words are powerful.  Music is powerful.  When the two come together they can create magic!

Music can not only elevate good lyrics to greatness though; it can also, unfortunately, elevate crap lyrics through catchy (read: irritating) melodies.  You know what I mean – that song you hear in the morning that gets stuck in your head and you find yourself singing it throughout day even though you hate it!

It can also mean that, because of a song, you can unconsciously let thoughts and values into your head that you wouldn’t necessarily want there.  I can sometimes find myself singing along to a song that expresses a belief about love or an outlook on life that I just don’t agree with.

Music is a powerful memory jogger.  I heard Madonna’s “Crazy For You” on the radio last week and was instantly transported back to slow dances at the end of teen discos :-/  In fact, whenever I hear 80s music I realise why my memory is so bad nowadays.  It’s nothing to do with age.  It’s because my brain is completely full of 80s song lyrics and there’s minimal room left in it for anything new!!

Songs have had a big influence on the writing of my teen space opera, “You, Me and The Universe” (yes, another title change – I’ll explain another time!).  I can’t listen to music while I’m writing – I need complete quiet – but I often listen to songs from the soundtrack I’ve put together on Spotify in between writing stints or as a warm-up.  If I’ve been away from the story for a few weeks, it’s also incredibly useful at helping me to reconnect and fall in love with it all over again.

Sometimes the lyrics or part of them reflect part of the story, other times it’s the emotion of the song that resounds with the emotional landscape of a scene, a character or a relationship.

I’ve wanted to write this post for a long time because I’ve been really looking forward to sharing some of the songs that have inspired “You, Me and the Universe”.  I have over 70 songs on my playlist currently – some fit the whole series, some this first book, others later books.  I was gonna share a whole month’s worth – one a day – but have realised that might be overkill so, for now, it’s the Top 10!  Coming to a social media outlet near you very soon 

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I LOVE space.  Exploring it would be the ultimate adventure.  What we do know is awesome and beautiful, and there’s so much more that we have virtually no idea about.  In fact, I find it so mind-boggling that I can never find adequate adjectives to help me communicate the feeling it gives me!!

NASA’s Juno probe survived another close sweep of Jupiter recently, sending back the most incredible pictures (definitely take a minute to check them out here).  In honour of this I wanted to share an extract from my teen space fiction story that’s inspired by the stunning power and beauty and wonder of Jupiter.

I wish I could go exploring in space like Juno, but because I can’t, I get my characters to do it instead!

Check it out here – The Truth Beyond (Jupiter extract)

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