Welcome, Glynis Scrivens

It’s a pleasure to welcome, Glynis on to my blog today, all the way from Australia. You’ve come a long way, Glynis, so take a seat, and I’ll pour the tea while you have a chat about your writing.

1. Do you remember the first short story you sold to a women’s magazine? Which one was it, and what was it about?

My first sale was to Australia’s Woman’s Day magazine. The story was called “A Red Rose”, a romantic twist. The setting is a wedding. When the bride walks down the aisle, she has to force herself to keep her eyes on the groom. She’s actually in love with the best man, her ex, and hadn’t known he’d be here. Then the director says, “Cut”. Between scenes being filmed, she and her ex sort things out.

2. Are there many markets in Australia for short stories, and how do they differ from U.K. ones?

That’s Life and Fast Fiction are our major magazine markets. They seem similar to Fiction Feast, but with fiction editors changing quite frequently, there’s always a chance to offer previously rejected stories. Take 5 Fiction Feast is a newcomer but essentially uses stories from the UK Fiction Feast, sourced directly. We also have magazines such as Cosmos which publish sci-fi. And a growing number of literary magazines such as Wet Ink and Positive Words. There are other magazines which use stories but have no dedicated fiction editor and approach writers rather than being open to general submissions. Family Circle is an example.

3. I enjoyed your story in Iain Patterson’s Quintessentially Quirky tales book. I may even start sewing dolls of certain people as well, but put them in the garden instead. How did the story in his collection come about? They’re all good stories in there by the way.

I was tired and irritable from lack of sleep when I wrote that story. We’d driven down into northern New South Wales and were staying in a small cottage on a farm. As soon as I went to bed, there was a huge storm. Windows rattled, the wind howled outside, and I ended up with only a few hours sleep. Probably nearly as disgruntled as my character, Connie.

I’d brought a beret I was knitting…

And I felt angry. A bus had hit the new Peugeot a friend had lent us, causing quite a bit of damage along one side. The powers that be denied there’d even been a bus in the street at the time, despite the fact we’d both seen it. My husband had actually been in the car at the time it was hit, and I’d written down the number.

So I needed somewhere to put my anger – and by coincidence one of Connie’s victims may have had the same name as one of those concerned…

4. Above my desk there’s a poster with the article in Writers’ Forum. There’s you, me, Della and Teresa. That was really exciting for me to be with three special writers. We spoke about e-publishing there. Is this something you’ll be doing more of as short story markets seem to be shrinking?

To be honest I can’t see me doing much of this. With short story markets shrinking, and fewer opportunities to resell stories to several magazines, my focus has started to shift to non-fiction. I’ve always enjoyed writing articles. It’s nice to have a certain sale when you write something that’s been commissioned. So in my spare time, I’m reading books like Simon Whaley’s The Complete Article Writer and Deborah Durbin’s So You Want To Be A Freelance Writer?

Having said that, I want to put together some books of my published stories, mainly for family and friends. I might as well put out eBook versions of them. My daughter’s come up with a wonderful cover for me too. I’m aiming to have the first one ready before Christmas.

5. Looking forward to reading Edit is a four letter word. Can you tell us about the new book? What or who inspired you to write it, and what will be next?

I suppose once the title popped into my head one night – as it did! – I wanted to use it. So my antennae were alert when there was something on the Compass Books Facebook page about wanting an editing book for writers. It was more coincidental timing than inspiration really.

Once I got the go-ahead, I kept the younger generation of my family in mind. We’re a family full of creatives – drawing, painting, dancing, music, woodworking, photography. Some already have unfinished manuscripts sitting in drawers.

I’m hoping my experiences might be of help. And I’ve tried to include as many other writers as was feasible. Editing is an individual thing and we each have to find our own way.
There are no plans for a next book. But if the right idea and opportunity come along again it’s something I’d enjoy doing.

Buy the book here

To pay a visit to Glynis’s website, click on this link

Thank you, Glynis for taking time to pop in today, and good luck with the new book. It’s on my list already.

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Escape to the Country.

I’d like to welcome Patsy to my blog to tell us about her debut novel – Escape to the Country.  If you’ve read Patsy’s short stories in Woman’s Weekly or The Weekly News, or My Weekly, then you will be, like me, looking forward to reading her first published novel.  Hoping it’s the first of many Patsy, and thank you for your blog where we all get lots of links to competitions.  I don’t think anyone will mind that you won this one….

Can you judge a book by its cover?

Publishers spend time, money and effort producing covers for books, although it would be quicker and easier to simply print the title, author name, ISBN and price onto a plain background. Doing that would be of some help to the reader. If we already knew the author’s work we could guess whether we might like to read something else by them. The title might give a few clues – ‘The Princess who Seduced a Bricklayer’ is likely to be rather a different story from ”Zombies on a Spaceship’. I don’t think that would be enough to tempt most people to read a book they hadn’t heard of by an author they hadn’t heard of.

How about printing the title onto a genre specific background colour? Pink for romance, I suppose and something the shade of putrefying flesh for zombie stories and blue for erotica. But I digress… This doesn’t happen; books have cover artwork on the front and writing on the back. Does any of this matter?

The blurb on the back is probably the most read part of any book. I’m sure it’s not just me who bases many of my reading decisions on those few paragraphs. While it’s true that decision might be not to read, in the long run I think it’s better for everyone if people don’t repeatedly buy books they don’t enjoy.

What about the cover artwork then. What can that tell us? I used to think the answer was ‘not much’ until the publishers of my book ‘Escape to the Country’ asked me for suggestions. It hadn’t occurred to me I’d get a say (I understand new authors often don’t) so I wasn’t prepared. There’s an important scene in the book that’s sort of repeated so I felt an illustration of that would be good – and said so.

Then I panicked. The scene I’d described was dark (black and brown, not suicide pact like) my book is light and romantic. People who liked the cover might not enjoy the story. I tried to think if there were any books I’d read just after glancing at the cover. There were – I first discovered JD Robb because there was an image of a snowdrop on the cover of one book so I picked it up (and then read the blurb on the back – but I’d not have got that far with a sci-fi book if it hadn’t been for the snowdrop). There were other examples, all of them involving something pretty. My cover wasn’t going to be pretty!

Fortunately Phillip Grizzell who actually designed the cover isn’t an idiot. He used my suggestion to create something that I feel sums up the book quite well. It’s fun, light and romantic – I hope readers will agree the story is too.

patsy-collins.blogspot.com

Thanks for that glimpse of what’s to come Patsy.  I must add that Patsy wrote in nice paragraphs, somehow it’s all closed up, never mind, I’m sure you get the picture.  Good luck with your lovely book Patsy that I can’t wait to read.  If it’s anywhere like your short stories, then we won’t be dissapointed.