(A post about one of my writing roles – as Commissioning Editor of the Alliance of Independent Authors’ blog of Self-publishing Advice)
Moroccan hats n a Boulogne restaurant (fortunately, they didn’t have to eat them)
Writing my latest post this morning on the ALLi blog, it occurred to me that many people who read my Writing Life blog will have no idea of the double life I lead.
Well, much more than double, really – I am a classic example of a multi-tasker (and that’s probably why I’m permanently tired!)
What is ALLi anyway? I hear you cry. And what are you doing writing on its blog when you’ve got a perfectly decent one of your own?
A Brace of Blogs
Actually, I’ve got more than one blog of my own. Echoing those car stickers that you see in rear windscreens saying things like “My Other Car is a Porsche”, my other blog is about book promotion, offering tips to authors on how to sell more of their books. Which in itself echoes the title of the book I wrote for Silver Wood Books a couple of years ago called Sell Your Books!See what I mean about the multi-tasking? That second blog is called www.otsbp.com – which is short for Off The Shelf Book Promotions. But back to the ALLi blog…
ALLi for One, and One for ALLi
ALLi (pronounced to rhyme with “ally” rather than “alley”) is the acronym for the Alliance of Independent Authors. It’s the professional organisation for self-published writers and indie authors all over the world, launched by bestselling novelist Orna Ross just over two years ago.
As a self-published author interested in networking with other writers and in improving my writing craft and self-publishing skills, I joined ALLi not long after it was launched. ALLi members may write guest posts for its blog of self-publishing advice (www.selfpublishingadvice.org), and after I’d written a couple of guest posts, I was flattered to be invited by Orna Ross to join her small staff as the Commissioning Editor of the blog. It seemed too good an opportunity to pass up, and so about a year ago I assumed the role, working from home, at hours that fitted in well around my other work and responsibilities.
Commissioner Debbie
More hats – this time at Fontainebleau on our camper van tour in 2011
The job of Commissioning Editor is to, er, commission articles for the blog, adding to its extensive resource of advice and information for authors who self-publish their work. There are specific themes for each day of the week, and I’m responsible for filling four slots each week:
Opinion (Monday)
Writing (Thursday)
Publishing (Friday)
Reaching Readers aka book promotion or marketing (Saturday)
To fill these slots, I track down ALLi members who have relevant messages and advice to add, and I give them a broad brief on what I’d like their post to be about. I plan the schedule of posts to provide a good variety and range of topics to appeal to writers in all genres, wherever they are around the world. When I receive the copy, images and author bio for each post, I input it to the blog via WordPress and add the necessary metadata and other details.
Keeping Myself Posted
By definition, I have to read every post – so it is a great way of keeping myself up-to-date and well-informed about self-publishing trends and developments, which complements the other writing activities and ambitions in my life.
But it was only when I was looking through the site index that I realised just how many posts I’ve written for the blog myself – some of them composites of comments by other writers, some them exclusively my thoughts. And it occurred to me that they might interest readers of my Writing Life site. So here are links to a few of my favourite posts, for your convenience:
But for now, I’m heading off to slip on one of my many other writing hats – working on my new collection of flash fiction, Quick Change, due out next month. If you’d like me to let you know when it’s available, please feel free to sign up to the mailing list for this title.
PS In case you’re wondering, my other car is a Ford Ka – but more about my vehicles another day!
“Some of SilverWood’s many authors have come together to share a variety of articles and items of interest on their blogs for your enjoyment.
“There are some lovely giveaway prizes, and – to stay in keeping with the Spring and rebirth theme at this time of year – some colourful Easter eggs.
“Feel free to collect the eggs, and use them where you like. They were drawn by SilverWood author Peter St John who writes the ‘Gang’ series about a boy who was evacuated to a village near Ipswich during WWII. Meet Peter and his characters on the Blog Hop, along with a host of eggcellent SilverWood authors. 😉
My contribution to the blog hop is a light-hearted very short story that takes as its theme every woman’s love of chocolate. I’ve always loved chocolate, though my relationship with it hasn’t always been easy, especially since my daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at the age of 3.
But it is a complete myth that diabetics can’t eat chocolate – they can, they just need to give themselves enough insulin to offset it before they eat it. So if you know a diabetic and are wondering what to give them this Easter, don’t hesitate to give them a chocolate Easter egg – and not “diabetic chocolate” either, an evil concoction made with a sugar substitute that spoils the flavour and has no health benefit compared to normal chocolate. (Yes, there IS a health benefit – to dark chocolate, in moderation, and it’s a useful source of slow-release carbs, which is why Paula Radcliffe eats a couple of squares before running.)
This and other myths surrounding life with Type 1 diabetes will be dispelled in my new book, Coming To Terms With Type 1 Diabetes,which SilverWood will be publishing in paperback form for World Diabetes Day, 14 November 2014. The ebook edition, for which SilverWood provided this beautiful and appropriate cover (the blue circle being the international symbol of diabetes), was published for World Diabetes Day 2013 to raise awareness of the condition and funds for research into a cure. and has gathered many 5* reviews and has been called by a leading GP “one of the best things I’ve ever read about diabetes”. The paperback will have new bonus material added. To keep informed about the book’s progress, and for an invitation to the launch in Foyles’ Bristol Bookshop on Thursday 13th November, please click here to sign up for my mailing list.
Prize Time!
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy my chocolate-inspired short story below – and if you like it, please leave a comment. As an incentive, one commenter drawn at random on the day my book is launched will receive a free signed copy of the new paperback – plus a slim bar of chocolate to use as a bookmark!
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The Alchemy of Chocolate
If you dip a wafer biscuit into a chocolate fountain enough times, eventually it won’t fit in your mouth. Much the same had happened with Jennifer’s body. It was as if every bar of chocolate that she’d ever eaten had been melted down and painted onto her frame.
Oozing into hidden places, the fat encroached so slowly at first that Jennifer was slow to notice her transformation. Then, one summer’s day while sunbathing on her lawn, she realised that she’d no longer pass the fat test she and her friends had used at school: the ability to lay a ruler flat across her hipbones. (That was the best use they’d found for their geometry sets).
By the time she came to squeeze into an old pair of cords for Bonfire Night, Jennifer observed that where her stomach had once been concave, it now billowed out, like a ship in full sail. No wonder sleeping on her tummy had become uncomfortable.
Trying on a party dress for New Year, she spotted that her waistline only curved inwards when elasticated clothing constrainied her flesh.
By the Spring solstice, the fat had found new places to hide. Her eyelids were thicker, and when inserting an earring, she had to push harder before the post emerged on the other side of the lobe.
Jennifer was glad when spring sunshine came early, because it gave her licence to go bare-legged. Lately, tights had become irksome. Unless she aligned their waistband precisely with that of her knickers, skirt and petticoat, her silhouette resembled the scalloped edge of a doily on a plate of cakes.
At Easter, Jennifer was quick to remove the temptation of her Easter eggs – by eating them. But then, at last, she decided to take action about her surplus fat. Precisely what action, she was not sure. She was unwilling to relinquish chocolate, or indeed any kind of food. Nor did she fancy exercising her way into shape. Poring over a list of how to burn calories, she was horrified by the ridiculous distance she’d have to run to work off a single bar of Dairy Milk. There had to be an easier way. It was just a question of dispersing fat rather than storing it.
Then, lulled to sleep on Midsummer’s Eve by an exceptionally delicious hot chocolate, Jennifer had a remarkable dream. She dreamed of the perfect recipe for weight loss.
Next morning on waking, she knew exactly what to do. She rushed downstairs to her kitchen and assembled in a mixing bowl the ingredients dictated by her dream. Instead of stopping to wonder how this magical formula could require only store-cupboard staples, she got on with beating the mixture, her wooden spoon a biscuit-coloured blur.
Once the batter was blended, she tipped it into a saucepan and set it over a low heat, chanting the mantra that had also come to her in the dream. When the mixture was smooth and warm as the perfect waistline, she decanted it into a jug and popped it in the fridge. She knew instinctively that this was the correct next step.
When she arrived at her office for work, she was so impatient for nightfall – the witching hour, or so her dream had told her – that she could hardly concentrate on her job.
As soon as she arrived home, she slipped on her nightie, took the jug from the fridge and with a medicine spoon measured out the dose prescribed in her dream. She swallowed the quivering spoonful in a rush, before she could change her mind and retired to bed to await the results. The anxious fluttering in her tummy didn’t stop her from tumbling into solid, dreamless sleep.
Waking next morning, she climbed out of bed, slipped off her nightdress and flung it distractedly on the bed. Reaching with her right hand behind the back of her neck, she grasped what the previous night’s dream had told her she would find just above the nubbly bone at the top of her spine: a trapezoidal zip-pull. She grasped the metal.
Bending her head forward to clear her long dark hair out of the way, Jennifer tugged the zip-pull between thumb and forefinger as far as she could. Then she stretched her left hand up behind her back to meet the right one, and continued pulling the zip down, slowly, slowly, till it reached the base of her backbone.
As the zip-pull stopped abruptly at her coccyx, the thick flesh covering Jennifer’s upper back and shoulders started to feel loose. Soon she was easing off the entire outer casing of flesh as instinctively as a snake sheds its skin. Wriggling her hips and thighs to dislodge this pudgy onesie, she sat down on the bed, peeled it off her calves and finally stepped out of it on to the bedside rug.
Only now did she have the courage to glance in the dressing table mirror. There, to her delight, in a flawless casing of fresh skin, was her slender teenage outline. It was like meeting a long-lost, much-missed friend.
Glancing down at the discarded, Jennifer-shaped fat that lay perfectly still on floor, she wondered what on earth to do with it.
But of course! It was recycling day. She could simply put it in the green wheelie bin. After all, it should compost down as readily as bacon rind. Better to throw it in the wheelie bin than put it out in the garden for the birds.
With a new lightness of tread, Jennifer took a few steps around the bedroom. She felt decidedly different. The top of her thighs no longer rubbed together, her arms lay straighter against her sides, and she no longer felt that her stomach had been lagged, like the insulating jacket wrapped round a hot water tank.
Beginning to enjoy the full effect, Jennifer turned this way and that. But it wasn’t the slim reflection in the dressing-table mirror that caused her to smile. It wasn’t the realisation that her low-cost recipe would fetch a fortune on the heaving market for diet products. Nor was it the recognition that she’d achieving every slimmer’s dream of alchemy, turning fat into gold. It was the thought that she could now eat as much chocolate as she liked, without ever having to worry about gaining weight. It was a dream come true.
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This story features in “Quick Change”, my first collection of flash fiction, which you can buy from Amazon here: Quick Change.
My post is just one of many interesting articles in the SilverWood Spring Blog Hop. To hop forward to read these, please click on the links below. You’ll also find more colourful Easter eggs to collect and some more giveaway prizes!
Flash Gordon saves the universe, with a little help from his bearded friend (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This time last year, I chanced upon a phenomenon completely new to me: Flash Fiction, known simply as “Flash” to its fans.
Previously, if anyone had asked what I thought of “Flash”, I’d have assumed they were talking about classic sci-fi hero Flash Gordon (perhaps because he shares a name with my husband, Flash Young – no, only kidding, it’s Gordon, of course!) Still, there are worse associations that might have sprung to mind.
Little did I know on this first encounter that it was something I’d quickly come to love. (Again, just like my husband.)
Flash What?
I love this tiny book! (Photo by me)
“So what is Flash Fiction?” I hear you cry. Well, it’s a very, VERY short story, usually under 1,000 words but often much shorter – 500, 100, 50. (For comparison, this article contains 285 words.) I even know of one writer, Bart van Goethem, who’s managed a story of no words, simply by using the title “Memoirs of An Uninteresting Man”, with nothing beneath it.
Flash is perfect for anyone who thinks they have no time to read. Just a few seconds on the page will nourish your imagination for hours. It’s a form of fiction that lends itself well to the modern age, being easy to download and read on a smartphone or tablet. But technophobes won’t miss out – there is plenty available in book form too. I hope to be publishing one of my own soon.
This month brings the perfect opportunity to find out more: the second National Flash Fiction Day on 22nd June. Last year there were lots of free downloads available on the day. Free samples on my blog all year round, too.
(Fades to “Flash Gordon” theme music…)
This article was originally written for the June 2013 edition of Hawkesbury Parish News.
(A new post about my discovery of the micro short story form commonly known as flash fiction – a challenge for every writer, whether you’re a short story writer, a blogger, a novelist, an advertisting copywriter or any other kind of author.)
Flash fiction – taking the world by storm
Today I did something I’ve never done before: I flashed. Don’t be alarmed – that’s a shorthand that I think I’ve just invented for writing flash fiction.
What’s flash fiction? Think of it as the Pound Shop of story writing. (To my American readers: that’s the British equivalent of the Five and Dime Store.)
I don’t mean that disrespectfully – I LOVE pound shops, where you can track down all kinds of intriguing and useful items for the tiniest investment. The standard length of a short story is usually 2,000-3,000 words, but flash fiction applies the incredibly economical limit of around 100 words. Sometimes a few more, sometimes a few less (there are 99p shops too, after all). But you get the idea: in flash fiction, less is more.
As anyone who has commercial copywriting experience knows, writing the short version of a text can take much more time than the long version. Condensed thoughts don’t start out condensed. So don’t assume you can dash off a 100 word story in a moment. If you do, it won’t be much good. It takes hard work to craft an effective flast fiction story, complete with conflict and resolution, all within just a few sentences. Every word has to work hard and earn its keep, each one an essential brick in the structure of the story. When it’s done well, it has the lyrical quality of the perfect poem, the emotional punch of a novel and the beauty of a sculpture. Don’t underestimate this format just because it’s small. There’s no room for sizeism in short form fiction.
I discovered Flash Fiction on 16th May. I can be that precise about it because it was National Flash Fiction Day.
National Days on specific themes usually bring out the cynic in me. They are often transparent pitches to make you buy more of a particular commercial product. National Eat More Porridge Day, National Buy More Hairspray Day – I made those two up, but you get my drift: I don’t like days that exist to sell you stuff. (I’ll make an exception for National Wear A Tea Cosy On Your Head Day, which was apparently last Friday – I’m sorry I missed that one. I’m happy to comply with National Continence Week also.)
But Flash Fiction Day was quite the opposite. The organisers generously offered free, no-obligation downloads of flash fiction e-books. I got my Kindle on the case and imported a selection, thinking flash fiction would make the perfect speedy bedtime reading for people like me who always end up going to bed much later than they should do. A story a night for the next two and a half months – excellent.
That night I got stuck into 75×75 = Flash Fraction by Helena Mallett. This volume does what it says on the cover, offering 75 stories each honed from just 75 words. I was up till 2 in the morning, reading all 4125 words. I laughed, I cried, I admired. The book was masterful.
Ever since, I’ve been waiting for the inspiration to try it myself, though in awe that I could produce such perfect pieces. Then, flicking through Twitter earlier today, I came across 99Fiction, a flash fiction website with a free online competition for stories of 99 words or less. Its deadline is midnight tonight. Earlier in the day, I’d had an intriguing encounter with a stranger that I couldn’t stop thinking about. Those two bits of serendipity combined to trigger my pen. Numerous drafts and ponderous word-counts later, I emailed off my flash fiction story.
No, I can’t reproduce it here – yet – because if you read it in the next fortnight, I’d have to kill you. (Entries close at midnight, British time, but in the two weeks before they announce the winner, you’re not allowed to publish it elsewhere.) But I will in due course.
In the meantime, if you like writing, I’d encourage you to have a go. Whether you’re a blogger, a novelist, a commercial copywriter, a business report writer, or even just Angry of Tunbridge Wells who likes to fire off a punchy letter to The Times every so often, it’s a great exercise in the effective use of words. It will also remind you what a rich language we English-speakers are privileged to have.
By my reckoning, you’ve got just an hour and a quarter to harness your 99 words and send them off to fictioncomp@yahoo.com. That’s almost a minute per word. What are you waiting for?
Porridge oats (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
P.S I was wrong about Eat More Porridge Day. There is apparently a World Porridge Day. Scotsmen of the world, unite – you have nothing to lose but your constipation. It’s on 10th October. You have been warned.
P.P.S. Since first writing this post, I’ve penned another Flash Fiction story, which I’m using to launch the new Fiction section of this website. Click here to jump straight to it.
But for now, I’m heading off to slip on one of my many other writing hats – working on my new collection of flash fiction, Quick Change, due out next month. If you’d like me to let you know when it’s available, please feel free to sign up to the mailing list for this title.
