Finding Time to Write that Novel

Featured ~ JacciGoodingAuthor ~ 3 Comments

At the end of last month I was at the Oxford Indie Book Fair as part of Banbury Writers’ Cafe, strutting our stuff and mixing and mingling. It was a fun day out and someone even bought my book which caused both merriment and delight. It’s been ages since A Collection of Unsettling Short Stories saw the light of day and the sale did give me slight surge of energy to get on with the sequel. However, as founder and Festival Director of the South Warwickshire Literary Festival there don’t seem to be enough minutes in a day to actually get round to it. So I thought I’d do a little blog instead. Well, y’know… displacement activity and all that…

My first collection of short stories I self-published yonks ago amidst teenagers’ driving lessons, daily taxi trips to college, walking my neighbour’s dog, writing a novel, working part-time, attending writing courses and a myriad of other activities now all lost in time. Six years later you’d think I’d have got round to A Collection of Unsettling Short Stories pt 2 wouldn’t you. Hmm. I have to agree. But no. The work’s all there, waiting for the Big E. Yep that’s right. The Big Edit. So, obviously daunted by the fact that this was a job I really needed to do I got on and did other things instead. Live Lit Evenings. Self-Publisher’s Showcase at the Stratford Literary Festival. Reviewing. Runner-up in writing competitions. My goodness what an impressive list of excuses!

Having chastised myself over a glass of red wine and an early advent calendar – what? don’t tell me you haven’t been tempted – I decided to send myself away…from myself…and am going to a writing weekend festival at Gladstone’s Library in February. This has given me tremendous focus to spend the weekend working on my current novel with the intention of actually finishing it. As in, ending it. As in, making it complete and done with. And I’m really looking forward to it. I have my story arc, my gang of characters, I have happy and sad, I have inciting incidents and unexpected What Ifs. I have it all ready to go and this time, I’m gonna do it. I must have known when I bought the 2024 Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook that I was up to something.

So as Christmas approaches I shall go with the flow of the season, meanwhile feeling the excitement of my novel writing weekend growing, like a little bird getting bigger and bigger until it’s ready to fly.

And how about you, dear reader? Where are your writing endeavours taking you in the coming months? Leave a comment if you will, I’d love to know.

We Did It!

September 29, 2022 ~ JacciGoodingAuthor ~ 2 Comments

We did it – our first south Warwickshire literary festival and what a brilliant turn out it was! The sun shone – which was just as well as we had to move our many authors outside to sell their books due to ticket sales.

Creating Characters with Terri and Jenefer

Our workshops were packed. Everyone seemed to have a great time and our workshop leaders delivered some fantastic content. All of them are to be commended – Hugo Kerr, Jenefer Heap and Terri Daneshyar, Cate West and last but not least Mslexia judge Audrey Niven. They were superb. From what our attendees told us it was an excellent day.

And our speakers in the main hall – well! The Young Poets certainly made an impact! We were blown away by their eloquence, observation and just damned talent! Award-winning young poet Emily Hunt drew much attention with her clever poems on nature, and Dan Wale, the Warwickshire Young Poet Laureate had us clapping almost out of our seats, and YPL runner-up Jolyon Summerfield also delighted us with his work.

‘The Fish’ author Jo Stubbs and poet Gwyneth Box

All our authors were wonderful and we owe a huge debt to them for agreeing to take part for nothing. A special thank you has to go to poet, author and translator Gwyneth Box who stepped in at the very last minute – Cinderella timing if ever there was any – when one of our speakers was unable to come – and delivered a great hour-long talk off the hoof. Superb stuff.

Oh, and cake? Did we mention that? Well, our lit fest attendees did. In droves! Apparently it was pretty good!

So – plans for next year? You bet!

Already drawing up the schedule…

How To Create A Literary Festival Part 2

August 18, 2022August 17, 2022 ~ JacciGoodingAuthor

For those who read my previous blog regarding starting a lit fest with just a will and a thought and a maybe, here’s part two to let all you lovely readers know what’s been going on since July. Lists, mainly. Over the weekend I constructed the most recent To Do list, put it aside on Saturday morning to scrape up something red and sticky one of the SWLF cats had gifted me, only to find said list had made it’s way through space and time, reappearing down the back of the sofa on Monday evening. Not far short of fantastical I’d say. Maybe a goblin had squirrelled it off the table when I wasn’t looking and got up to mischief with it, ramming it between the cushions and the soggy Christmas peanuts just for lols.

What? You don’t have goblins in your house?

In between writing the list, losing it and then finding it again, lots of things happened at SWLF HQ. Emails were sent and received. Freebie pens were designed and paid for. A dodgy looking map was created for the back of the festival programme. The merits of cooler weather were discussed with the postman. Twitter posts were written and discarded, then written again and scheduled to hit the twittersphere sometime this week. A surprised ewe was found wandering the village, questioned, cautioned and returned to the flock. Wednesday was spent gawping at the rain and wishing out loud ‘Go on, GO ON!’ as the lightning cracked the sky. And now here we are, Thursday, and back to the list.

Here are just some of things I’d written down:

Write Press release
Contact radio stations
Contact local newspapers
Update Instagram
Comfrey leaves
Finish copy for festival programme
Try for sponsorship again

Now…nothing very unexpected there apart from item 5. Comfrey leaves. Did I mean something else? Comfy sleeves perhaps? Between trying to write a press release and updating Instagram I am now confounded and sidetracked by my own very obvious comfrey leaves citation. Pick them? Boil them? Make them into a hat? You tell me. Perhaps it was a note that had slipped off my other list about compiling the guidelines for a writer’s group short story competition and somehow landed itself on the SWLF list.

What ever its meaning – which is now unknown to me – I hope I don’t get to the morning of September 24^th and hear myself say ‘Oh!!!!!! Comfrey Leaves!’