Publishing and Donkeys

Last weekend I went to a publishing seminar run by Jill Marshall of Pear Jam Books.  The day was chocka-block full of information about mainstream publishing, eBook publishing, audio books, printing and illustration.  Jill was honest about the ups and downs of the process she'd gone through with mainstream publishers and her personal experience of eBook publishing. 

The right gang will smooth the road
 to publishing success

Publishing a book is no easy journey, no matter what method you choose.  It's a bumpy ride on a stubborn donkey, round corners and up hills and sometimes you just have to get off and throw a wobbly or two.

But if you surround yourself with other travellers, who've taken the road before, who will cheer you on and give the donkey a good whack on the backside every now and again, maybe you won't fall off.

At the end of the course someone asked Jill what she thought about writing groups.  She said, if you choose the right one, they can be a great.

Definitely!  I belong to three!  I'm not even that much of a social butterfly and relish a good six hour stretch of writing all by myself as much as the next aspiring author, but these groups offer a sanity check.  There's personal experience, expert knowledge and industry know how to be had over a cuppa and bickies.  Get amongst it!

Stray Thoughts and Chance Meetings

It’s funny how stray thoughts and serendipitous meetings can inspire creative ideas.

Recently I bumped in to an acquaintance of mine and had a brief chat. He is a quietly spoken American man with one of those faces that just ask to be photographed in black and white.

Everything about the lines in his forehead and the concern in his eyes makes you want to freeze frame his features so you can take a better look and wonder at the meaning behind it.

The depth of my reaction to this isolated, brief moment inspired me to write a short story, which I have been working on all this week.

Although the original inspiration has been abandoned by the story in favour of a character and plot far beyond that brief encounter, the essence of the man I met is still there.

If at any time I lose the thread of what I am trying to communicate, I can bring to mind the man’s face to keep me on track.

Experiences like this argue in favour of writers getting out from behind their lap tops. How can you write about this world, or any world, if you don’t have a reservoir of interesting situations to draw upon?

Meet new people, get to know people who you wouldn’t ordinarily have anything in common with. Observe the way they react, respond and hold back.

Who knows what tiny details or strange thoughts were the starting point for many a great work of art, but they had to originate somewhere.