Via Twitter I encountered this new publishing company, Victorian Secrets, which is to print critical editions of the forgotten gems of the 19th century.

Due out in September is The Dead Man’s Message by Florence Marryat. Catherine Pope of Victorian Secrets and Victorian Geek has recently set up a new website devoted to this very interesting but neglected writer. Marryat wrote around 90 novels, split up with two husbands, became an actress and a journalist and developed an interest in spiritualism that influenced her later work. Two years before her death, she published The Blood of the Vampire, which came out around the same time as Dracula and was largely overshadowed.

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The novel I have just finished writing is narrated exclusively from one point of view. It’s not in first person, it’s in third, but I tell the story entirely via the perspective of my main character, Catherine. This is the first time I’ve tried this approach, having always previously narrated events from a variety of viewpoints.

Catherine and I have been together for nine months now and we have come to know each other pretty well. So well, in fact, that we are now almost inseparable: she’s there in my head when I’m walking the dog, when I’m chopping vegetables for the kids’ tea and even (see how intimate we are!) when I’m lying in the bath.


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There's an interesting discussion over at The Rumpus, where a blog post entitled "More Crappy News for Short Story Writers" brings us more of those quotes we short story lovers and writers have become used to hearing, from an agent writing in response to being sent a short story collection:

"Publishers don’t like to publish short story collections in general unless they are VERY high concept or by someone very strange or very famous or Indian. In the current climate, it is harder to publish even those. Some of the authors I represent have story collections I have not been able to talk their loyal publishers into publishing. I can’t in good conscience encourage you to send them to me. It will just make both of us feel bad."

What is "VERY high concept"? And... he actually said "Indian"???!!
..........

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A six tonne, 40-foot predator roared at me the other day. I could smell its meaty breath as it bore down on me, its razor-sharp teeth the size of bananas ready to slash me to pieces. OK, I may be exaggerating about the breath and the bad intentions – but I really was that close to it, even if it was just an animatronic T Rex made of steel and latex. It was part of the stunning show Walking with Dinosaurs at the O2 centre in London. Having dinosaur mad children is not essential and I urge anyone who’s been hesitating to buy a ticket straight away.
But watching these huge, realistic beasts close up got me thinking about the nature of monsters. Namely, how easy it is to start thinking they’re waiting behind corners in real life.

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This afternoon I suddenly hit a winning streak, and wrote just over 4000 first-draft words in eight hours, when I normally reckon to write 1300 in four, and then lie down in a darkened room. Or go out and conquer the world. I think it helped that it was the end of the chapter and took me to exactly half-way through the novel, and that I knew exactly what needed to happen - well, almost. Having spent much of the last five chapters making two people who shouldn't be falling in love do so, and manoeuvring them into a situation where they might get it together, I suddenly wasn't sure if they actually did. I made a decision on the fly, instinctively, and I hope my instinct led me true.

My first drafts are sometimes very first draft indeed, mind you. The facing page of the notebook is full of scribbled notes:"add choreography", "sounds drippy", "would he say this?", "add sensory detail", '"awk" (awkward phrasing), "NQR" (not quite right), "PL?" (is this period language?), or "sort out", when I've made too much muddle of a sentence, in all its crossings out and reversals, to get it right now.

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Time for a chat with an author of historical fiction I reckon. Welcome, Caroline Rance, author of Kill Grief.

Hello and welcome, Caroline. Would you like to tell us a bit about the book?

Hi Nik, thanks for inviting me onto your blog. My book is called Kill-Grief and is set in the hard-drinking world of a 1750s hospital. It's about a woman who reluctantly becomes a nurse in an attempt to carve an independent future for herself, but she soon finds her past catching up with her. It's quite dark and a bit gruesome in places, but it also has positive themes of determination and survival.



‘Kill-Grief’s’ one heck of a title. Can you tell us how it came about?

'Kill-Grief' is one of many 18th-century slang words for gin, and in the book the main character, Mary, has a constant battle with drink. She uses it as a means of escaping from the horrors of hospital life and trying to blot out the secrets she carries, but it increasingly puts her in danger.

When I started writing the book, gin was only going to have a minor role, but it ended up almost becoming a character in its own right. For a while I thought about using another of its nicknames – Sky Blue – as the title, because there's also a piece of blue silk that crops up in the story, but I decided it was too wishy-washy. Kill-Grief is darker and more atmospheric, and hopefully warns the reader to expect a bit of blood!




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On Monday 3 August, Josa Young joined us to talk about her new novel, One Apple Tasted. We have two copies to give away, and the lucky winners are....

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The liveliest scenes had Emanuelle Devros as Coco's wordly lesbian admirer and purveyor of hat-hungry ladies. They seem to have had the some role as shoes today. Emanuelle's scenes as star of luridly-lit farces made Coco's earlier cabaret act look like a Sunday school recital.



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A quickish round-up, this. For those of you waiting for news of the Commonwealth Short Story Contest, they've notified all winners and will be posting the lucky names on their website in September along with details of the 2010 contest. If you ain't heard, in other words, you (like me) didn't make it this time. Luckily those lovely people at PANK leapt in to make me feel better by snapping up two of my stories, including My Camel Spits in the Sand (which was shortlisted for the Fish One-Page Prize under a different title). The editors wrote: "These stories are awesome. I'm so excited you sent them our way. We would be thrilled to include them in a forthcoming issue of PANK online, most likely November or December." That was a 24 hour acceptance - another reason to say Thanks PANK!

Given the huge number of US run writing contests out there, I was very happy to discover some new (to me) UK biased ones. Including the Cheshire Literature Prize, exclusively for those of us with a connection to Cheshire. Huzzah! Nik, you'll be entering this one, yes? Who else is eligible?

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This post is in picture format, so click through to view.

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