The power of words and writing

I used to have a recurring nightmare in which I was trying to catch a train, but various mishaps along the way preventing my reaching the station. First my suitcase would break as I was running down the road, spilling clothes all over the street. Then my shoe would fly off, or the heel would break and then I would be seized with a terrible need for the loo and the only one available was always in a shop without a cubicle around it. <shudders>

Ok, maybe I’m revealing too much about my psyche here, but I wanted to say that getting to sit down and write this post over the last few days have felt like that nightmare. 

I’ve been on holiday (which was gorgeous), I’ve been writing short stories (one for Chinese Whisperings and the latest one for the Short Story Club), and I’ve been doing lots of work, but I’m finally here. 

Firstly, a thousand soppy kisses to everyone who gave such gleeful congratulations at the announcement of my news. I can’t tell you how happy it made me feel, and the thought of celebratory coffee drinking in Spain, chocolate eating in America and tea drinking in the UK made me feel rather splendid. How wonderful that so many of you lovely people celebrate in such civilised and pleasurable ways! 

I promised there would be more, so here are the details of the deal. I have signed a contract with Dystopia Press, a new independent press based in America which specialises in post-apocalyptic and dystopian future fiction. 

I first heard about them back in May, when a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction began to follow me on Twitter. Dystopia Press was mentioned in a tweet, I started to follow them and we chatted over Twitter occasionally whilst their site was being set up. In August they opened the doors for submissions, I sent in the first fifty pages with a covering letter and then Mark (the publisher) requested the whole manuscript, and permission to let some teens read the sample too. 

Well, I’d been at that point before, so whilst I was excited, I couldn’t let myself go crazy, just in case it was rejected. I wrote about it, but nothing more. Mark told me more about himself and I have to confess that I researched him online to see if it checked out (sorry Mark!) as there was no other way to check; the press is too new to appear in the usual author protection places.

Obviously he was totally legitimate, and I already had a very good impression of him through our communications. He is a genuine, warm, professional man – and I would still say that even if he wasn’t my publisher!

A few weeks later I got the email that every unpublished author dreams of.

I wept.

Then I called my Dad, as my husband and little boy were out, and wept at him over Skype. Thanks Dad, you were ace! (Wow, this is such a 21^st century tale; Twitter, Skype, email…)

Once I’d calmed down, I realised that I had a contract on the way and no agent, no clever legal person to help me, so then there was a mad few days of asking people for advice (thanks Steve and Roo!) and eventually applying to the esteemed Society of Authors who came to the rescue with their free contract vetting service. Yes, free! Bless them.

So based on their legal advice and my own instincts, I negotiated the contract myself. The most important part for you guys is the fact that I negotiated a clause enabling me to continue releasing my chapter podcasts for free, here and eventually on Podiobooks. That was really important to me as I have made a commitment to you and didn’t want to let you down. And there you have it. Mark was great, adapted the contract to my wishes and here we are now. Hooray!

The commitment puts me in mind of the post I wrote on this blog’s six month anniversary. I made three promises in that post: that I would be podcasting every week, that I would start a short story club (which is now in its third month) and that by November 2009 Twenty Years Later would either have a home or be in pre-production for self-publishing.

Wow, there is power in writing, as the deeply fabulous Joanna Young talked about in a recent post about what writing makes possible. In fact number one in her list is:

1. Writing is a declaration of intent

Putting pen to paper makes a dream, a target, an imagined possibility start to seem more real.

The language you use makes it more tangible.  Sharing it with others – on Twitter, or a blog post – means blasting through the comfort zones and setting out where you really want to get to.

Oh yes. Yes, so true. I didn’t realise that six month post was so powerful, but every time I flagged since I wrote it, the memory of that intent kept me going.

So, in the spirit of being powerful, here are my next goals:

1. To earn a living as a fiction writer

This seems simply impossible to me now, but so did getting a publisher. Stranger things have happened at sea… or something like that. I want to devote all of my energy to entertaining people with words, to encouraging children and teens to read and write, to helping people escape into my worlds. Unfortunately that doesn’t pay the bills. Yet. (See that? That was positive thinking. I think.)

2. To have 100 members in the Short Story Club by Christmas.

Why 100? Because it is a nice round number. And attainable. No, what am I doing? I don’t want 100, I want 300! Like the Spartans, I want 300 people to be reading my stories every month. Now that’s a heroic goal!

 By Christmas? Heavens, that’s a bit steep isn’t it? I’ll need your help. Do you think we can do that together? After all, you helped me to get a publisher.

If we can do that together, we can do anything.

Tagged as: Chinese Whisperings, Dystopia Press, short story club