10 Tips for Submitting Stories to Publishers

Karen Tyrell has posted a great, quick article about how to submit your story to publishers. It's basically a very helpful 10 point plan. Here's the link...

10 Sizzling Secrets in Submitting your Manuscript to Publishers

Tips for Young Writers 30: Get Small

It's easy to get carried away with your storytelling sometimes, so that things get bigger and bigger, and more and more unwieldy for you as the writer. You'd think big ideas would make for a great story, but that's not always the case. In fact, HUGE stories can be kind of boring. So ...

Don't be afraid to start with a small idea and make it even smaller.

A poemy thing for you

The problem with self-help

I am a good person I am a good person 

I am a good person I am a good person 

I am a good person I am a good person 

I am a good person I am a good person 

I am a good person I am a good person 

I am a good person I am a good person 

I am a good person I am a good person 

I am a good person I am a good person 

I am a good person I am a good person 

I am a good person I am a good person 

I am a good person I am a good person 

I am a good person am I a good person

And this from someone who's read a millions self-help books!!

Writing Gold

There's a moment I've achieved sometimes while working that I regard as 'writing gold'. It comes when the characters and locations become so vivid in my imagination that they actually spring to life and begin doing all the 'writing' for me.

When it happens, I find myself sitting back (metaphorically, truth is I'm slaving over the keyboard desperate not to miss a thing) and 'watching' the characters as they speak and act for themselves.

It's as if, in that moment, they're no longer a cast of actors performing my directorial instructions, but they're a case of actors who've taken over the play! It's amazing.

Sometimes I feel a little twinge of guilt about it, because the writing becomes so effortless - it's like I really should be doing something rather than just listening and transcribing. But the end results are almost always the most surprising, delightful and beautiful moments in my stories. 

And when I say surprising, I mean it. What the characters say often takes me completely by surprise. Then turns out to be pretty much perfect.

It takes me weeks, or even months, to strengthen the characters in my imagination to that point, but it's well worth it. Maybe you could get there quicker?

My Latest Balancing Act

So this has been pretty much my working life for the past year …

Not that I’ve been balancing on crocodiles, but I have been working on getting the balance right for my new book, Ted Goes Wild (illustrated by Tom Jellett).


Like most things in life, a well told story is a delicate balancing act. In my stories, I'm trying to strike a balance between having
1) enough action for the adventure to skip along effortlessly
2) enough touches of humour to keep it entertaining
3) enough surprises to keep you wondering what will happen next, and,
4) enough pathos to engage the reader emotionally.

I felt my original draft of Ted was pacey enough, had enough humour, and enough unpredictability, but it was lacking in pathos (or what's sometimes call ‘heart’). So to get that right, my wonderful editor and publisher at Penguin, asked me to write an emotionally engaging backstory.

In response, I came up with the tale of Ted’s fraught early life which almost ended tragically, before he was rescued and nursed back to life by two kind, elderly teddy bears. And how, in his gratitude for getting a second chance at life, he’s made a personal pledge to spend the rest of his life in the service of others.

It’s a backstory aimed at adding pathos and heart to Ted Goes Wild, and giving it the balance it needed. If we’ve got it right we’ll have balanced action with humour, surprise and heart. We don’t know yet if we’ve got it right, but now that it’s in the bookshops, we’ll soon find out.

Fingers crossed!
Cheers,
Michael

FROM THE BLURB

‘Life’s no picnic for this teddy bear’

Fully equipped, superbly trained and afraid of nothing (well, almost), Ted has dedicated his life to saving and serving others.

But will his rescue mission to the Wild Forest knock the stuffing out of him once and for all?  And will he ever return to his loving owner, Oliver?

Warm-hearted, thrilling and delightfully silly, this magical-adventure series will captivate young readers.

But I digress

Okay, this hasn't got a lot to do with stories and books, but it is kind of about writing ... well, song writing.

My band (yep, I have a band), The Grownups, has just released its debut album: The Light Filled Corner. It looks like this ...



I'm the lead singer (and the writer of most of the lyrics. If you'd like to hear what I sound like, you can play the album all the way through here

http://thegrownups.bandcamp.com/

It really isn't terrible. I promise. :^)

MW

Tips for Young Writers 29: A strategy for getting unstuck

When you don't know what to do next with your story, try this ...

Silently ask yourself for the solution, then just relax and listen to your thoughts. When something comes to mind, write it down no matter how silly or irrelevant it seems. Don't question, just write. This may be all it takes to find your solution, but if not ...

Leave your writing area and do something menial for a few minutes - tidying, check the letterbox, a little gardening, just go outside for a moment. When you return you might find the solution is suddenly obvious.