White Space Around Words, Metaphor and Poetry

I found a good general guide to writing poetry in "The Writers Way" by Sara Maitland, the following is an extract from her guide. On defining poetry she quotes T.S.Eliot when he suggested that poetry was "writing with a lot of white space around the words."


She goes on to say that" in poetry the words have a particular and heightened importance, poems are language constructions in a very direct way that prose is not. Sound, space, register and rhythm are foregrounded in poetry and above all the whole idea of metaphor is absolutely central to poetry. In poetry the idea that a word (phrase or sentence) can carry both it's own literal meaning, and when properly organised into a poem by the poet a whole set of other meanings as well, has a special primary importance.
Metaphor, at one level is simply one more rhetorical device. Metaphor compares two different things by speaking of one in terms of the other. Unlike a simile or an analogy which provides us with a way of saying that one thing is like another. "She looked like an Angel", a metaphor asserts that one thing is another thing. "You are an Angel", poetry impresses a particular rigour on the writer.
There is a craft discipline and a learning process that runs along tightly entwined in the other process of personal growth, experience and thought."

Book Review, Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children By Ransom Riggs

This book is featured on Waterstones Bestseller List and this is the synopsis that Waterstones has provided for it on their site.


...when I was fifteen, an extraordinary and terrible thing happened, and there was only a before and after. Jacob Portman thinks nothing extraordinary will ever happen to him, growing up in sleepy backwater Florida town.  The most interesting things in his life surround his beloved grandfather Abraham, an inveterate storyteller with all manner of unbelievable tales from his childhood.  The Abraham is violently killed and Jacob's life is plunged into grief and doubt.  He is left with his grandfather's unique collection of black and white photographs and the stories Abraham bequeathed to Jacob, stories that he can't seem to put out of his mind.
As Jacob's grief compels him towards an isolated Welsh Island, he finds himself confronted with an ever deepening mystery around the ruins of Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children, the place Abraham grew up.  As Jacob wanders the crumbling corridors and dust-soaked rooms, he realises that everything, including himself, may be slipping out of place. As he encounters the strange and wonderful children his grandfather was raised with, Jacob realises they all have extraordinary abilities( and spectacularly evocative names) and exist in a series of time loops, meaning that none of them I the age they seem.
Ransom Riggs grew up in Maryland and developed an early interest in collecting old, unusual photographs. His first novel, Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children, grew out of wanting to create a story combining theses photographs with a love of uncanny, macabre storytelling.

Editing, editing, editing

My pet hate is editing my own work, it seems such a chore to keep reading over the same thing over and over again.  You've spewed forth your imagination onto the page in a flurry of words and now it all has to be scrutinized and changed.  Editing is essential. A good tip I read a long time ago was to write the first draft of your work as quickly as possible without agonising over the content ie, grammar, sentence construction and punctuation etc. When you have finished it put it away for a week or even longer, after that time take it out and look at it with fresh eyes, as you do so apply the following.
. Read the manuscript and get an overall feel of it. Does it flow? Are there errors in the plot? (holes, that's happened to me before). Look at the strengths and weakness of  the writing, is it concise? Or too wordy? Look at the pace, writing style and language usage.


. Then go through the work for typos, grammar and spelling mistakes and look at sentence construction. Are your sentences too long or too short?


. Finally proof read your work, check the layout and all of the above.


. Rewrite as necessary

Self Publishing With the Big Boys Continued

If you want an actual printed copy of your book rather than just a Kindle version then you will have to use CreateSpace on Amazon. Once you have successfully uploaded your book onto Amazon then it is printed on demand to customer order. I found CreateSpace very easy to use and the best way that I work is to create the manuscript in either Word (if there are no illustrations) or Publisher (if there are illustrations) and then save a copy of your file into PDF format in the drop down menus when you click "save as".  Manuscripts in PDF format seem to upload easily onto Amazon. I have put two books onto Amazon as PDF files and then Amazon converts them into their own format.  When you have uploaded a book into CreateSpace you will be sent  a copy of it to review by email within twenty-four hours.( You can also request a printed version to edit). It will have had a preliminary editing by Amazon but there may still be errors that you have to correct yourself( ie, the text not fitting properly into the page size that you have chosen), I just choose another page size.
After using a Kindle Direct only account at first I was pleasantly surprised to find that if you actually create a print book in CreateSpace you are also given the option of converting the same book into Kindle Direct just by clicking a button. So it's probably less time consuming just to use CreateSpace if you want a Kindle and a print version of your book rather than opening two separate accounts.
In Createspace you can earn royalties of up to sixty percent and Amazon offsets the printing fees against your royalty shares, so you do not have to pay any upfront printing costs. You can publish quickly using their free tools or you can take advantage of their professional printing services, which you have to pay for. Your book is available to distribute globally through Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr, Amazon.es and Amazon.com and your book is always in stock and ready to ship with the print on demand service.  What I like about a print on demand service is that it is more environmentally friendly than printing large volumes of books that may not sell.
With both Kindle and CreateSpace you can track your sales and royalty payments through a dashboard which is found at the top of your account task bar that you made with Amazon.


I have three books which I have self published on Amazon, two illustrated children's books and one fiction book. My royalty payments within the last six months has been just over two pounds.
 So is it worth doing? Is Amazon a profitable site for independent authors? I will go into royalty figures, distribution and ISBN numbers next week.

Do You Need a Literary Agent?

Personally I didn't want to use an agent. I suppose I have an aversion to what I would deem a middle man making a profit off someone else's back. This is the reason, primarily, that I went down the self publishing route. However The Writers & Artists Yearbook and other sources on the internet strongly suggest that using an agent is beneficial to a budding author. I will list some of the reasons they have given.
. An agent will work on your behalf and send your manuscript to the most likely publishers because the agent has more knowledge about who's who in the publishing world and what genre particular publishers may be looking for.


. Publishers also work with certain agents as they know what genre a particular agent is dealing with, a two way street, so to speak.


. Agents have a better understanding of the publishing market.


.They know the best editors who work for publishers as well.


. Agents are fully conversant with the fast moving and expanding world of digital publishing.


. They are experienced in negotiating the best commercial deal and contracts on your behalf.


. They have knowledge of other opportunities for your work beyond publishing and can use it to your  advantage.


. You can build a good rapport and working relationship with an agent and they will do all the selling for you if this is not your strong point, leaving you to get on with the hard work of creating.

. A good agent will be the middle man between you and the publisher, ie getting extended deadlines,   better dates for your book tour and improved deals.

. They will have knowledge of high volume discounts, territorial rights and electronic rights.

After reading why it's beneficial to have an agent I am still not convinced that you need one. If you can write a book then you also have the ability to read and research the publishing market with all it's pitfalls. You can learn about topics such as high volume discounts, digital and territorial rights. You can also research and approach publishers directly,( those that accept unsolicited manuscripts directly from an author), and you can research which genre they deal with and what their submission criteria is. If you are lucky enough to be accepted by a publisher whom you have approached as an individual author I am sure that you will have enough sense to read through a contract with a fine tooth comb before signing anything.  Terms and conditions can be negotiated.

Personally I would not want to be in the "I scratch your back and you scratch mine" world of publisher and agent acting as a buffer.

 

Pennies for Poets

The Eric Gregory Trust Fund offers a number of substantial wards annually to encourage young poets who can show they are likely to benefit from an opportunity to give more time to writing.  An eligible candidate must be a British Subject by birth, but not a national Eire or any of the British dominions or colonies and be ordinarily resident in the UK or Northern Ireland.  They must be under thirty years of age on 31st march in the year of the award (ie following submission). You can download or send a S.A.E for an entry form and the closing date is the 31st October each year.
The award is the result of a bequest made in 1959 by Eric Craven Gregory(also known as Peter Gregory) chairman of the publishers Lund Humphries, from his estate to the Incorporated Society of Authors, Playwrights and composers.  Applications are made through the Society of Authors and wards are up to a sum value of £24,000 annually.
Contact the society to apply at info@societyofauthors.org

Creating Characters

All stories revolve around characters in scenes.  Good, well defined characters are essential for a good story.  People need to engage with your characters and care about what happens to them, whether it's a villain getting his just deserts or a golden hero rescuing a damsel in distress. You need to know your characters inside out, know what makes them tick and what is their motivating or driving force.
A good way to build on your characters is to create a character profile for each one. List their physical descriptions, dress sense/or lack of , horoscope sign, favourite food/drinks, hobbies/interests. Any past issues/baggage, work life, home life, marital status, general likes/dislikes, pet hates and idiosyncrasies. All of these things will help to define your character.
You will probably find as you begin to visualize your characters that you will draw on people that you know from real life as well. It's not wise to portray a caricature of someone you know if they are able to recognise themselves or even think it may be them as they could take offence. However without intending to you may find that your characters become an amalgamation of people that you have known, past and present.
People watching is another good way to inspire character development ideas. Keep a notebook to record observations and snippets of conversations that you overhear when out and about as they could become the inspiration for creating a character. When you have your character put him/her in different situations to see how they react. What type of temperament have they got?
List your character's traits, if they are good guys list two good traits for every one bad trait. Do the opposite for a bad guy, two bad traits for every good trait. Finally believe in your characters and if you have constructed them well, they may well write the story for you as they react true to form in the scenes that you place them in.