‘I’m Half Asleep but I Haven’t Lost my Umph!’

This is just one of the wonderful quotes that came out of the meeting at Tony’s house on 13^th August 2013. I’m sorry but I can’t remember who said it!

Rob did not attend as he was away on holiday.

News:

Tony has entered the Costa Short Story Competition with the story, ‘Weekend on Call’ which was a real favourite with the group. He also has a gig at the Little Pack Horse in Bewdley. His musical duo ‘Fracture Zone’ will be playing during Bewdley Festival week on the 10^th October. 

Jayne is busy completing her mini-e-book which will be out in September. She then plans a move into fiction.

 I (Annie) was encouraged by the feedback from the last meeting and intend to continue with my current project.

Linda entered, ‘Telling the Bees’ into the Costa Short Story Competition. She is planning to enter her novel into both the Marie Claire Debut Novel Competition and the Myslexia Novel Competition. She is still working on her manuscript and making improvements.

Chris’s book ‘Why Don’t You Fly?’ will be out in China shortly. He is working insane hours and is spending all his spare time working on, ‘Karl Marx and Careful Driving’.

Reading:

Chris read his extract from Karl Marx and Careful Driving entitled ‘Shift 8: Thursday 22^nd July.’ Linda thought the piece beautifully written but controversial. The camaraderie between the truckers was clearly apparent and she enjoyed the spoken interaction between Chris and the guard. The nickname ‘Scooter-boots’ was mentioned by Linda as it was so amusing.

 For me (Annie) the piece still contained sections that were difficult to follow but many sections were very accessible and enjoyable. Scooter-boots’ choice of literature: ‘A Sven Hassel paperback recounting the gruesome exploits of a German penal battalion on the Eastern Front,’ gave a great insight into this character. I still felt there was more room for the personal details of life on the road. Scooter-boots bemoaned the fact that during his work schedule there had been: ‘Not a single Italy.’ I can imagine why Italy would be good to drive through in a truck compared to other parts of Europe but I would love to hear why from Chris.

Jayne loved the piece. She too was instantly drawn to Scooter-boots and wanted an explanation of how he got his nickname. The spelling of Vladimir’s pronunciation was highly entertaining; ‘Kreess’ rather than Chris. A particular favourite of Jayne’s was the reference to fairies at the bottom of the garden. 

Tony felt that there was great balance between humour and philosophy and that the writing gave real insight into life on the road. The characters often spoke in short-hand to one another and this attention to detail in Chris’s recording adds real authenticity. Tony’s favourite quote was ‘Fuck Socrates,’ he felt this was a microcosm of the book.

Chris was pleased with the feedback that he received. He asked the group for some assistance with a particular sentence construction: ‘Possessed of a level of intelligence as many times greater than ours is higher than the intelligence of a mouse , they are neither benevolent or malevolent.’ We mused on this and made some suggestions but I am sure once Chris has had some sleep he will incisively edit the sentence.

As a final point Chris had brought along a clipping from The i. It was an article by Neil Norman covering Mark Ravenhill’s speech at the Edinburgh Festival about whether austerity could be good for the arts.

The article can be found by following this link:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/could-austerity-really-be-good-for-the-arts-of-course-8745340.html

A full transcript of Mark Ravenhill’s speech can be found below:

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/aug/03/mark-ravenhill-edinburgh-festival-speech-full-text

Finally, Tony showed us a delightful book by Ben Irvine entitled ‘Einstein and the Art of Mindful Cycling.’

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16621634-einstein-and-the-art-of-mindful-cycling-ben-irvine

The next meeting is at Jayne’s house on 27^th August. Linda will be reading and Rob will still be gallivanting. 

(Written by Annie; posted by Rob.) 

Searching for our flow in July

What to do when a bunch of writers are feeling generally run-down, jet-lagged, heat-exhausted, worn-out and battle-weary? Gather in Rob’s garden on a rare, warm July evening with Annie’s banoffee pie and drink –how decadent – Pimms, and discuss Linda’s novel and Tony’s trip to Nova Scotia and Annie’s recent illness and Chris’s struggles with combining work and writing and the fact that Izzie is in Marrakech (and resist singing Crosby, Stills and Nash) and Rob’s canoe and who’s going to have a go at the Costa Short Story Competition and when is a professional magazine actually an academic journal and does that give them the right to pay their contributors nothing and how would it be to have a novel within a novel, especially if it were an erotic novel inside a comic novel?   

The truth is, we are all struggling a bit to get back into our flow – avoiding apathy and boredom and worry and anxiety and finding a path between control and excitement where writing becomes what it can be at best – a ‘flow’ activity, when the mind is completely engrossed in the task at hand, without our being conscious of it, and when we lose awareness of other things - time, external stimuli, the need to stop and eat. Annie thought I’d made up Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and his concept of flow but I promise I haven’t and, hopefully, between now and our next meeting we will all have had a few flow experiences (and I don’t mean that in any erotic or even comic sense.)

Summer Solstice Blues

Image from acctsheffield.org.uk

Well, what a depleted little band we are. Tony is in Novia Scotia, Annie is suffering with a chest infection and Chris is sleeping after a 13 hour truck-driving shift. Aware of their ghosts in the room we three encourage each other in our various efforts to make a dent in the literary scene: Linda and Rob both submitting their latest projects to agents, Linda entering the Bridport Prize and Izzie blogging for England and a prize in a humorous blog competition.

Judging from the humour in Izzie's critiqued work she will do well. Her short story A Normal Family  describes a day-trip to the seaside by four generations of one family whose main concern is the matriarchal figure of 'Grandma' who is prone to wandering off.  Inevitably she 'slips through the net' of relatives set out in a cordon around her.
Both Linda and Rob feel that with some tightening up it would make a promising entry to a competition with a 'family' theme or one of the magazines that uses warm-hearted, life-affirming short-stories.  As far as constructive criticism is concerned, the main focus is on injecting more emotion in terms of the relatives' reactions to the mini-crisis and taking a more leisurely approach to the back-half of the story which feels a little rushed.
The sun is still high in the sky as we break up following an abbreviated meeting.  We're all looking forward to all being together at the next one. We miss you guys.

Meeting at the Moles 

Another successful meeting of the Severn Valley Authors took place at the Moles’ (Chris and Linda) home yesterday evening. Rob couldn’t attend because he was sunning himself on a Spanish beach, Chris had to go to bed at 8.30 because of a very early start the next morning and Annie, looking extremely unwell, slept through most of the evening. We all hope she is feeling better now.

News

Jane: Jane was paid by Brit Mums for her holiday blogs and was featured as ‘blog of the day’. Well done Jane. She also told us about a blog called Rebel Mouse where she has volunteered to showcase SVA.

Annie: Annie reports that she has learned a lot about writing for children in her six week course at the Custard Factory. She has been inspired by her tutor’s picture book Don’t Panic Anneka.

Linda: Linda has entered her short story Telling the Bees for the Bridport prize and is awaiting feedback on her novel A Head Full of Budgerigars.

Chris: Chris has recently given two talks about his bicycle ride to China and has sold a record number of his book Why Don’t You Fly. William (Linda’s son) has filmed one of the talks with a view to posting it on YouTube. Progress on Karl Marx and Careful Driving is slow at the moment because of Chris’s heavy workload.

Tony: Tony has entered his short story The Idea of Marmalade for the Bridport Prize, so hopefully one of us will come somewhere. Tony also had the great news that he has been invited to Halifax, Nova Scotia to teach Family Therapy. No mother-in-law jokes, Tony – they don’t get it.

Eating the SVA cake

Reading: We were all excited to hear the first chapter of Tony’s novel – as yet unnamed. This was an experimental piece to gauge our reactions. As usual we were full of good advice! We were all a bit confused and Chris said it felt like solving a riddle. Annie said there were too many unexplained mysteries and rather too many characters introduced at one time. Jane felt the characters seemed rather naïve. Linda said that she was intrigued by the mystery and like everyone else wondered if it was set in the future. She also suggested there might be a sense of underlying menace, particularly with regard to the intelligencers.

Tony replied that it was all a mystery to him because the plot and characters were still undecided. However he did explain that the story wasn’t set in the future but in a parallel world where the Norman Conquest hadn’t happened and people were still Anglo-Saxon, under the rule of King Edgar IV, hence the Anglish language. He answered our questions about the intelligencers – they are government spies. This is a really original and interesting idea and we all look forward to reading more.

The intelligencers

Hive Been Waiting for You

The first meeting in May was held at Tony's. The group perplexed him slightly by all asking for different refreshments. By the time it came to making his own drink, Tony was exhausted and liberated coffee from Rob's Cafetiere of decaf! The chocolate covered brandy snaps were enthusiastically received, naturally everyone only ate one tucked in and polished the plate off.
In other news, Annie is about to embark on a writing course run by 'Writing West Midlands,' we hope that the traffic is kind and that she arrives on time. She is still waiting to hear from an agent and has a secret writing project in the pipelines. We are all sworn to secrecy!
Rob has submitted his book to an agent and is already contemplating a new project, possibly along a political theme.
Izzie has been writing blog content, is working on the PR/marketing side of blogging and plans to release an e-book sometime around July/August.
Tony has had an article published in Mental Health Practice and even more importantly is getting PAID for it!! He has also submitted an entry to the Bristol Short Story competition.
Chris has (sadly) been preoccupied with work. He has a talk planned in Ludlow and plans to film this with a view to adding content to his blog.
Linda handed out two copies of 'A Head Full Of Budgerigars' for appraisal by fellow members of the group.
Linda read a short story titled 'The Bee Lady.'
Chris thought it wonderfully descriptive and Tony described it as insightful and poetic. Both commented that the story should be submitted for The Bridport Prize ASAP - as the closing date is fast approaching. Izzie thought it was subtle and beautifully written. Rob loved the dialogue. Annie loved it and said it was relaxing and laid back. There was some discussion over the title, several suggestions were made - some more intelligent than others!!
During her right to reply Linda shared that the inspiration for the story was loosely based on a newspaper article. It is based on the theme of collective intelligence as a group, in that one bee has limited ability, but together as a swarm they are incredibly clever. Comparisons were made to fellow members of the group. Swiftly moving on...
Alternative titles for the story were suggested -

Droning On
Mourning Glory
Hive Been Waiting For You

Rob's magical SVA algorithm chart was consulted at the end of the meeting, according to it - the next meeting will be held at Chris and Linda's on 28th May. Tony is reading and Chris will hopefully be blogging if work commitments don't get in the way.

The Harriers or Us?

(Annie still being unable to grapple with the blog technology asked Rob to submit this for her.)

For our meeting on the 23^rd April, Rob had decided that the Harriers game was a more exciting option. He had abandoned the group, donned his scarf and spent the evening chanting and eating meat pies.

Well he missed an action packed evening. We kicked off with our news items.

Izzy had scored by getting a letter in Easy Living magazine. She is also keeping to her regime of writing 3 blogs a week.

It was in the back of the net for Tony who has had an article accepted for Mental Health Practice and although it has no title, Tony is making progress with his novel.

Linda is in the process of ridding her book of ticks (I think she means writerly ones!) and has developed a critical eye to remove any idiosyncrasies that will irritate the reader. She must be about to drag herself out of the final mire as she is starting to think about her next project. Away from writing, Linda was excited to tell us about her new craft studio where she will run spinning and dyeing courses.

Chris is still re-editing the re-editing of the previous round of editing for ‘Karl Marx and Careful Driving.’ He has had to return to work.  

I have enrolled on a Children’s Picture Book Course at the Custard Factory in Birmingham. There is also an idea for a joint venture with a friend.

We stopped at half-time, there were no oranges but cake was served. We swopped ends. 

Chris emerged from the tunnel and read an exerpt from ‘Karl Marx and Careful Driving.’ The calibre of Chris’s writing has never been in question but tonight we were able to give him the feedback that he so richly deserves. On other occasions we could see its brilliance but never before had its true lustre been revealed.

Linda told us that she had fallen in love with engines and that parts of the work were almost sexy. Here’s a taster: proceed with care! ‘The combustion chambers of the Volvo’s engine is being transmitted to the crankshaft via six dutiful pistons and their connecting rods, each downward thrust of a piston applying rotary force to the crankshaft.’ 

Another part of the text that elicited a different response was how truck drivers are plagued by a variety of people knocking on their cab doors during the night, be it a prostitute looking for business; a shady character making demands or a random person just knocking because he can.

Tony summed up how we all felt with the statement: ‘ it blends the sweep of human history and philosophy with the day to day struggles on the road.’ I can see that one on the book jacket, can’t you?

Izzy found it to be thought provoking and cleverly written. She is our newest member and has had few opportunities to read Chris’ work before but despite this fact she found it accessible.

While reading it at home I was overwhelmed by the journey the writing itself has made. This juggernaut of ideas has become sleek and accessible. Chris is a craftsman and it reminds me of watching a potter or a carpenter perhaps. The struggle and force of will is now complete and there is only the glaze to be applied or the sanding to do. Chris you just need play the stoppage time and lift the cup.          

The next match is on 14^th May, 7.30pm at the Beauchamp Stadium in Kidderminster. Tony to referee, Linda will be captain and as yet we are unsure about who will be commentating. 

2-1 to Wrexham – that must have hurt!