Hello and happy Friday to one and all. I've something a little different for you today. A guest post. For the first time in this blog's three year history (it turned three last month) I'm letting someone else take the wheel.

So a very warm welcome to Faye L Booth, whose second novel, Trades of The Flesh is published today and who will be talking about the Second Novel Experience. Over to you Faye...

Somehow, I'm just about to release my second novel. An interesting state of affairs, because I still don't think the reality of my debut coming out has hit me yet, and now I have two books out there in the world. Eeek.

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Recently I’ve read a lot about writers wondering if the time has finally come to give up on a project. You’ve sent it out a dozen times but the manuscript keeps on bouncing back. When you complain to fellow writers about your bad luck, the commiserations come thick and fast.

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The Short Review Sept 2009

Congratulations! To Petina Gappah, whose short story collection, An Elegy for Easterly, which we reviewed in the last issue, has been shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, the only short story collection on the list.

In this month's issue, we bring you false relations, damaged goods, repetition patterns, quick repair, stories like donut holes, stories named for rivers, things that are cold to the touch, people who always want something, the collected stories of the Armitage family, and our first review of an ebook which leaves the reader, Radiohead-style, to decide what they'd like to pay. And, as ever, author interviews with almost everyone we review.

Controversially, perhaps, we've added the Literary Fiction category to the Find Something to Read By Category page. Difficult one, this. Might cause trouble. Who is to say what is Lit Fic and what isn't? Hmm. Also: Surprise yourself! Check out our non-complete list of short story collections published in 2008 and so far this year (almost). More than you thought, eh?

Pop in and have a read.

Do people still throw ’come as you are’ parties? I rarely get invited to parties… for some reason… so I wouldn’t know, but I remember them being the cause of much contrived hilarity in vintage sitcoms.

An editing tip that occurred to me recently is to think of each sentence as a potential party guest. When the telephone call arrives from the hip ‘n’ happening hosts, is the sentence ready to step out of the door looking effortlessly glam, or is it sitting in its threadbare pyjamas in front of a Dallas re-run, eating Krispy Kreme doughnuts and examining its split ends?

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We dediced to have a family day out to Durham yesterday. The kids loved York Cathedral earlier in the year, but even though Durham is right on our doorstep, we’ve never been.

(read full post, with terrifying pictures, here)

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I’ve decided that I would like to be Sarah Waters. Damn the woman, she just gets it right every time! I’ve finished reading ‘The Little Stranger’ recently and although it doesn’t have the shocking plot twists so familiar to anybody who has read her ‘Fingersmith’ novel, it does have the usual heady combination of evocative scene-setting, warped and memorable characters and a subtle but hypnotic growing tension towards the climactic scene of the novel (yes, you can tell I’m a book reviewer, can’t you?). Best of all it’s just so damned readable – on the sofa, in bed at night, in the garden by day – it doesn’t matter where you pick it up, you’re bound to be sucked in and forget about your surroundings. This is the sort of writing that I out-and-out envy. There’s no point hiding it – I’m jealous as hell. And so few contemporary authors really have this knack of churning out brilliant novel after brilliant novel and never running the risk of doing the same thing or becoming boring. Waters has stayed quite near to the era she used in ‘The Night Watch’ in this new novel but that’s where the similarities end. It is also, as somebody pointed out, her first novel not to include lesbianism. I can’t say as I noticed. I was entirely caught up with her slightly obsessive and maybe even a little unreliable narrator and the crumbling aristocracy of ‘Hundreds Hall’ where most of the action takes place. So few authors can be entirely fresh and captivating with each new book.

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If it seems I've been blowing my own trumpet a bit loudly of late, please let me explain. This has nothing to do with ego and everything to do with attempting to boost my confidence, a writer's most fragile asset. Mine took a serious drubbing recently and if I've resorted to roll-calling every small success it's only because I need to feel I'm making progress, no matter how minor it might seem to the rest of the world. The real success story has been my new routine of rising at 6am to write for two hours every morning. This has meant the new novel climbed to 22,000 words in two weeks with the result that it now feels like a novel and not a series of randomly related words under a title I keep changing. I'm not saying this first draft is great or even good. I'm under no illusions about the hard graft which lies ahead. But I've turned a corner, got stuck into something new, started over. Alongside this, the small successes themselves count for much in terms of my confidence; they validate my decision to pursue this craft. Perhaps they shouldn't. Perhaps the craft ought to be enough in itself.

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Thank you to everyone who entered my mini-competition. A quick reminder of the theme:

What is the plural of synopsis?
Or, what is the collective noun for synopsis?

Not surprisingly, you all knew what the plural of synopsis is: synopses. So a point to everyone, and not a silly answer in sight!

More worryingly, the mere mention of the word sent everyone running for the gin bottle.

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This post is partly a response to Sam Tonge’s: Don’t tell me to write for fun.

Lots of people paint for pleasure. They have no expectation of ever selling a painting. Some of them are bashful to even show you their work. It’s nothing, really, just something I do to kill the time now that the kids are at school. They keep the canvases in the outhouse, next to their husband’s abandoned guitar, in the part of their property they never got around to redecorating. After many years completing level sixteen of the art classes at the local night school they might secretly take one of their canvases along to Prontoframe and then tack it up on the wall, but only if their supportive husband insists, and they only hang it in the abandoned, almost outside lavatory, the one that nobody ever visits. They don’t stick a price tag beneath.

Others learn to play the piano. They pay for lessons, but they don’t expect to be paid when they play. They might consent to perform for the family after a second glass of sherry-flavoured courage, when the tree is twinkling and carols are demanded. They have absolutely no anticipation of striding into the Royal Festival Hall to bow before the adoring throng of black polo necks.


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Special Birthday Post
A very warm welcome back to my very good friend, the super-talented Tania Hershman, who's here to talk about things one year on (and is also here to talk to us about a free book giveaway...).

Tania, September 1st is a bit of a special date, isn’t it? Can you tell us why?

It's the first anniversary of a dream come true, a dream I have had since I was 6 years old. It is the day, one year ago, when my book, The White Road and Other Stories, was published, the day no-one can ever take away from me, the day I became an author.





What’s happened over this last year?

It's been quite a rollercoaster year, the highs were very high, but they came with some pretty bad lows.


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