Down to The Smoke last night for the writLOUD event and a bit of a gad about town with an old friend, a banker, my daughter and her lover. Had a blast – but the best ‘lit bit’ was a reading by John Lucas – an MA student on Birkbeck’s Creative Writing MA. He read his story – Becoming Marc Almond – and it did it for me. Have a read and see what you think.
Met some lovely people, including Jill McGivering, who also read a moving passage from her new novel The Last Kestrel (you can read a good chunk of it here). I started the book this morning and I’m halfway through (I got some reading time thanks to various train journeys) and so far it’s pretty compelling stuff.
I’ve been rather busy with work and writing over the last three months and have let the blogging slip. Sorry. But there have been some interesting developments re: new novel. About three months ago I sent the first 80,000 words to my agent. It’s a nail-biting experience sending such a wet baby off for scrutiny – and this novel – unlike the other two – has had a forceps delivery. So when my agent came back with some sound but gulp-worthy crits I had to get my head down and do some serious hard labour. So there you are – I’ve been off the map for weeks and weeks, but I’ll try and put some posts up very soon.
I can’t believe it’s been so long since I last posted here – work/family have been filling my time but I’ve also been hacking apart an almost complete novel and trying to put it back together again. This involves courage – and some writing. I’m determined to have a new #1 draft by the beginning of the summer so I can take a few weeks off before the rewriting process begins – so this post might be my lot for another few weeks.
In the last couple of months I have been accepted as a member of the Tindal Street Fiction Group (TSFG). The group meets once a fortnight and so far I’m enjoying the experience. The evening goes like this: reading, analysis, pub. An excellent format in my opinion. I’ve never belonged to a writing group before and although TSFG has been established for years it doesn’t feel cliquey.
I have just discovered – while writing this post and trying to find links to TSFG – that one of the members, Sybil Ruth, is the author of a poem that I have read and reread since I first came across it last year. The poem won the Mslexia Poetry Competition and is called A Song of Jean – and you can read it here.
I suddenly feel even more chuffed about being a member of TSFG.
Well – despite my cynical post about the People’s Book Prize in November I am pleased to announce that Among Thieves has WON the October vote. This means my novel goes through to the ‘finals’ and I get to wear a frock at an event in London next year – I think.
The thing is it’s not entirely clear what happens once a novel has passed the monthly vote hurdle. Will novelists have to gee the troops again and beg everyone who’s ever met them to vote ‘one more time’? And here’s the problem with literary prizes that depend on a public vote. The very nature of independent publishing means that most of the books submitted for the prize don’t have a print-run of more than 2,000. So the readership is tiny and every novelist entered (if they care) will have to coerce their friends, family and colleagues to go online/register/vote/comment – yawn.
This means that people who have more of an online presence (and this includes me) have a better chance of winning. Democratic it is not.
On the other hand does a ’struggling’ author pass up the chance to increase awareness of their novel? Of course not. I would love to leave all the ‘marketing and promotion’ bollocks to a PR person who actually enjoys generating column inches. For most authors, publicising their novel is simply something that distracts them from the thing they desperately want to be doing. Writing. But without a successful first outing who will publish the next one?
And so we must throw ourselves into the fray, try not to think about the whore-Factor and keep our eyes on the prize – which in reality is widening our audience.
Time – where does it go? Have had very little of it in the last few weeks and consequently the blog has become rather static. I do have an event coming up this weekend in Hillfields (see post below) but apart from that I’ve been working (teaching) or I’ve had my head down writing the new novel.
The excellent news is that one of my musical heroes is releasing a new album next year. Gil Scott-Heron has moved and inspired me since the 1980s and one of the chapters in Among Thieves is titled – The Revolution Will Not Be Televised as an homage to Gil. The track is also (and has been for some years) the ringtone on my mobile phone.
An interview with Gil on Newsnight shows that he is still a political animal as well as a musician and writer of extraordinary talent.
Rumours of Gil’s death have circulated in recent years he is very much alive and I am lucky enough to have received a hand written letter from him last year giving me permission to use the lyric from The Revolution Will Not Be Televised in my novel. I’m not prone to any kind of fandom but receiving that letter was a moment of intense pleasure. Enjoy TRWNBT – tis the truth.
I’m really looking forward to the Hillfields Readers Group Open Day
Where: Hope Centre, Sparkbrook Road, Hillfields, Coventry – view on a map When: 2pm Saturday 21st November 2009
I will be reading from Among Thieves and answering questions about how 1980s Coventry came to loom so large in my debut novel. I’ll also be milling around and enjoying all the other events on offer on the day which include Jo Roberts – Coventry’s Poet in Residence, and Martin Brown – a local Coventry poet who writes and reads humorous verse. There will also be music, dancing, a book fair, a book quiz, food and refreshments.
The day has been organised by Coventry Libraries Information Services where you can find all the information you need about readers and writers groups in your area. Hillfields Readers Group meets on alternative Fridays at 12.30pm . For further information and dates contact Colin Scott on 024 7683 2457 e-mail: colin.scott@coventry.gov.uk
I applied for an individual artist award (literature) from the Arts Council several months ago. It was a process – writing the proposal and gathering references and the rationale for my ‘project’. And it was tough trying to work out what I was ‘worth’ per day/per hour as a writer.
With two novels under my belt (one unpublished and one published) I have worked tirelessly for the last six years and so far earned around £1000. NO – I have not missed off a zero or two. Hard work, dedication, discipline and very little money are what characterise the life of the literary fiction writer.
So when I got the letter from the Arts Council yesterday saying ‘YES’ they would support the completion of my current novel over the next 12 months… I danced and sang and smiled a lot. I am utterly delighted and full of gratitude. Thank you Arts Council.
Google Alerts – what fun! Choose the keywords you want to monitor and Google will send you an email whenever something with those words gets posted on the web. It doesn’t catch everything – content from static web sites takes a while to come down the pipe. But anything from news sites or blogs – basically anything that uses RSS – arrives in the mailbox pretty quickly.
This is how I found a new review of Among Thieves last week. It’s from one of Salt Publishing’s literary magazine titles – Horizon Review. Reviewer Becci Fearnley says:
Jez’s memories of the shattered city in which he grew up, hiding unexploded World War II shells in a secret den, tattooing himself as part of an initiation ceremony into his boyhood gang, Das Bombers, and the way he is misunderstood by his father and brother make Jez the most intense of all the three voices. Although Pads’ sophistication and Mehmet’s family loyalty do make them interesting and readable voices, it is Jez with whom I fell in love.
With three voices so utterly distinctive from one another, and so honest and compelling in their narration, it is easy to lose yourself in Mez Packer’s novel. Three hundred and five pages make this a story deep enough to get your teeth into, yet compact enough to maintain a swift pace.
In 2006 Becci Fearnley won the Branford Boase Award for Young Writers and has had her poetry published in a Young Writer’s anthology. She is currently studying English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Warwick, and is working on an eighth novel – bloody hell! She’s only 20.
For my birthday, a couple of years ago, a friend bought me a subscription to Mslexia magazine. It’s a brilliant quarterly aimed specifically at women who write. I didn’t have a publisher, or an agent at the time and the magazine was an invaluable resource.
This month I’ve had my first feature published in Mslexia. I haven’t seen a copy of the magazine yet so I’m not sure what page it’s on or how it’s been edited but the piece is about the pitfalls of writing what you know – turning real life into fiction.
So grab a copy – Mslexia do a ‘try before you buy’ deal, so you can get this month’s magazine and if you like it then buy a subscription for the whole year. It’s worth it!
The Waterhall is part of the Birmingham Art Gallery and Museum
This Friday sees the start of Birmingham Artsfest – with a pretty cool line-up of music, dance, theatre and literature. On Sunday 13th I’m doing a short talk with fellow author, Jeff Phelps, and our gig is described as “literary beach novels far apart”. There’s not that much beach life in Among Thieves but I’m sure I can tailor a reading to fit the advertised theme.
Event details: Jeff Phelps and Mez Packer talk about their novels (Box of Tricks, Among Thieves) with an introduction from Alan Mahar, Tindal Street Press publishing director. Date: Sunday 13th September Start time: 1pm Venue: The Waterhall, Chamberlain Square, B3 3DH
There’s an online round-up of Artsfest events in the Birmingham Post, where I am once again referred to as Mex Packer – which makes me sound like a Texan warehouse assistant, or a gunslinger – yeah, Mex Packer – the meanest son-of-a bitch in the Midlands.
