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Interview with Circ author, Simon Fairbanks
We at Pigeon Park Press are very excited about the upcoming novel, Circ, written by ten different authors as part of the Ten To One project. You can get your own tickets for the launch (and claim a free e-book on the night!) by going to http://www.birmingham-box.co.uk/event/circ-can-ten-people-write-one-novel/ Between now and the launch on 28th November,…
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Ten To One Author Interview – Simon Fairbanks
Iain is currently acting as editor and cat-herder-in-chief on a collaborative novel with TEN (count them, TEN) writers. A contemporary story set in a tacky British seaside resort, the Ten To One novel will follow ten characters whose lives intersect that of a mysterious old man… We thought we’d ask those ten writers…
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Index Card Games
I’ve used index cards (or file cards or postcards) as part of my fiction planning for at least the last ten years. They serve a number of really useful functions. Firstly, I can jot down on them ideas that I’ve no idea what to do with. I could be out and about and suddenly have…
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Feedback from Birmingham Writers’ Group
We had feedback this week on two of the chapters we’ve written for the Clovenhoof novel. To make life interesting, these were chapters three and six, as we decided it made more sense to start in the middle. We’re still happy with that decision, as Iain has just written the beginning, and felt it came…
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A Writer’s Year
Okay, it’s post-Christmas and I’m considering my accomplishments as a writer in 2011. In fact, as it’s the season for lists, I listed them. Now, this is not a bragging list. I’m actually going to make a point here. Here’s the list. Iain’s List Of Writery Things He Did In 2011 1. I began writing…
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Tell me what you think. Be honest. I can take it.
Consider… Scenario A: My wife comes into the house, fresh from the hairdressers and says, “What do you think?” Scenario B: My wife shows me a hairstyle in a magazine that she is thinking of getting herself and says, “What do you think?” Or perhaps consider… Scenario A: My six-year-old daughter brings me a page…
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When real people turn fictional
Inspiration comes from all manner of sources. This is an almost verbatim transcript of an e-mail conversation Heide and I have been having over the past week or so. Heide: I realised last night that for a couple of weeks or maybe more I have unconsciously been picturing Simon from BWG [Birmingham Writers’ Group] when…
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It’s not a Writing Group, it’s Therapy
I have a number of books on my shelf about the art of writing. Some of them are great reads, usually because they’re funny and enable me to laugh at negative writing traits I see in myself. ‘How not to write a novel’ was particularly entertaining in that regard. Some of the best aren’t intended…
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Planning in more detail
Sharpies at the ready In order to do some more detailed planning, we met up to have a chat in a pub. Most of the discussion so far has been by email, or in the company of the rest of Birmingham Writers Group. We met in a Wetherspoons , one of the cheerful chain of…