Author: Gavin Cameron

I've been writing fiction and poetry since 2010, and run two writers' groups. This is a blog to talk about that writing, and to speak to fellow authors.
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Back Into Short Story Writing

I’ve been unwell for the last five days or so. It’s been frustrating in many ways, having to stay in the house most of the time. On the other hand, it’s given me the impetus to work on some writing.

The work referenced in this entry was published under a pseudonym on a well-known website. For the avoidance of doubt, I’m still not at a stage where I wish to claim ownership of this, so the references to the plot will be vague.

A year ago this month, I finished writing a series that was supposed to be a one-off but ended up as 24 parts. I was partially spurred on by the positive reaction to the previous parts, plus I was able to take the existing characters to different locations where they met new characters, which generated new plot points.

In the intervening time, I’d had another promising central idea plus a few unused plot points that couldn’t be put into the first series. I then spent some time figuring out how to differentiate the two universes.

In April, the elements fell into place and I published a new story on the same website. I made it clear this was not related to the previous series, but I did believe there would be a second part, so I left the ending open enough to allow for that.

And that’s what I’ve been working on while I’ve been in the house. I think this series will be five parts long, so significantly shorter than the first series, but I don’t yet know where this will take me next.

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Last Call for Creative Scotland Open Fund

Over the last couple of days, Creative Scotland has announced the closure of its Open Fund for Individuals.

In short, the decision has been taken because the Scottish Government were unable to confirm the release of £6.6m in the Grant-in-Aid budget. There is a full statement about the closure on their website including the deadline for all applications: 2pm on Friday 30 August.

As the closure has only just been announced, the long-term effects have yet to be seen. The topic has dominated my recent conversations with other organisers. One possible outcome is that it will be more difficult for artists to host riskier solo events, and instead prompt them to join established companies who might be less willing to take risks.

I’ve been fortunate in my projects that I’ve never needed to apply for funding. Yet having this avenue cut off potentially limits the scale of my future endeavours. I hope next year’s budget brings a more favourable result.

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The Attraction of the One-Off Piece

I make a point of seeing at least one show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival every year. My first one was yesterday, titled The Greatest Literary Beef of the 21st Century, hosted by Ross McCleary and Stefan Mohamed.

While I’m only familiar with Stefan by association, I’ve known Ross for a couple of years now. He has a highly surreal sense of humour often centres around highlighting a concept and workshopping possible ways to make it funnier, with a lot of help from his online followers, many of whom were in the audience.

This show followed the surreal route. It took the form of the two poets exchanging paper letters to intentionally create a feud between them both. It benefitted from its brevity, with the show itself restricted to just one 40-minute performance rather than a multi-day run. There was also a donation bucket offered at the end, so the audience could choose how much to give, if at all.

I’ve always been particularly attracted to works that are a one-off rather than part of a series or serial. For instance, one of my favourite books is the standalone Wired Love by Ella Cheever Thayer, while I don’t think Spike Jonze is likely to direct a sequel to one of my favourite films, Being John Malkovich.

I’m going back to the Fringe over the coming days, so I hope to see more off-one bangers while I’m there.

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Submitting to Publishers Again

About a month ago, Speculative Books told me they would be publishing one of my poems in September, and I look forward to attending the launch. On the other hand, I subscribe to Writing Magazine, but there are a pile of unopened copies in my bedroom.

A couple of days ago, on a whim, I decided to open the latest one. I used to read the articles, but now I flip straight to the publishing opportunities, considering each one on its merits.

For starters, I discount any competitions or pay-to-publish schemes. This extends to those publishers that offer no payment nor even a copy of the book. Sometimes an opportunity seems legit on the surface, but the description on the website is unclear, self-contradictory or occasionally unhinged. One site was even blocked by my VPN as a threat, so that was soon dismissed.

From that magazine, I found a handful of possible publishers. In one case, I even had a story ready to go. In another case, I need to wait until the next submission window opens, but that’s clearly marked in my diary.

Now I need to find the time to go through the rest of the magazines and see who’s still accepting pieces after all these months.

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A Matter of Presentation

It’s probably no surprise to regular readers that I’m not a full-time writer. Rather, my main income is from an office job. More accurately, I’m expected to be in the office for two days, with the other three at home.

While I’m at home, I like to listen to YouTube videos, particularly factual and educational ones. Since I started doing this, I’ve become more choosy about the types of videos I like and dislike.

For a start, I need audible narration rather than music and captions. I’ll be looking mainly at my work laptop and it’s not practical to turn to another screen every few seconds to find what I’ve missed. I also find it difficult to listen to synthesised narration; it has to be done by a person if they want my attention.

I have two particular go-to channels that fit this criteria. Firstly, I’ve long been a fan of Tom Scott, who’s now moved on from educational videos to focus on a gameshow called Lateral. Secondly is The Rest is Entertainment, where Richard Osman and Marina Hyde discuss show business, both in front of the camera and behind.

Next, while I don’t travel much in real life, I do it vicariously through channels such as Emma Cruises and Tips for Travellers, who prefer budget and luxury cruises respectively. Conversely, Ruth Aisling and Tom the Taxi Driver like to drive around, albeit in very different places. Jago Hazzard and Geoff Marshall travel on trains, whereas Mentour Pilot – that’s Mentour, not Mentor – talks through aircraft accidents in a way that doesn’t make you want to give up flying.

The connection between this list is that these creators know their subjects inside-out and present them clearly and factually. On the back of these, I’ve reasonably been shown suggestions for other similar channels, with mixed results.

Tom Scott indirectly led me to Wendover Productions who make 20-minute educational videos about all sorts of subjects, plus five-minute versions for smaller topics. On the other hand, watching Mentour Pilot routinely brings up 74 Gear. Both creators are equally qualified aviators, but 74 Gear tends to comment and respond to viral videos in an aggressive manner that I don’t relate to.

There is, however, one exception in the commentary genre, and that’s Gabi Belle, who does it with a lot of humour and insight. She also appears to be madly in love with Gordon Ramsay’s projects. It also took me a while to warm up to Pierogi and Kitboga who go after phone scammers, but I’ve learnt that both have had elderly relatives lose money this way and they don’t want anyone else to fall victim.

This is only a representative sample of my taste, but they all help the working day pass that little more enjoyably.

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A Look Inside the Writing Boxes

When you’re a writer, people sometimes think stationery would make a great gift. In general, this is a thoughtful gesture. However, I now have too much of it.

My stationery lives in two plastic boxes on my bookshelf. Put together, they have roughly the total volume of a medium-sized cabin bag.

The upper box contains mainly pens, pencils, erasers, Tipp-Ex, glue sticks and similar items, plus my Dymo label-maker. The lower box is a store for paper, notepads and envelopes.

Despite most of my work beginning as pencil on paper, I find I don’t use very much of it at any one time, so it largely sits there untouched. I’m also not one of those writers who doesn’t want to spoil a new notebook by writing in it. If it’s in the box, it’s there to be used. Envelopes are especially a problem. I sometimes find I need just one in a particular size, but I can only find multi-packs, so there are spares left over.

I have given away bits and pieces to pals over time, but the amount I have never seems to diminish. However, I don’t want to give away the whole lot because it’s handy to have around when I do need it.

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What You Can Do in Five Minutes

A few months ago, my co-host and I reluctantly reduced the length of slots at our Hotchpotch open-mic event to five minutes. This was a combination of the sheer popularity of the night and because we now need to finish our events by 9pm. We previously had seven-minute slots, which were themselves introduced after ten-minute slots became too long.

After a three-month trial, we’ve decided to keep the five-minute slots. However, if we can find a way to restore more time in the future, we’ll do it.

During those three months, and entirely by coincidence, a writer posted a message in a discussion group asking where fellow prose writers could be found. The previous evening, she’d been to another open-mic where every other participant had read out poetry.

Thinking back on Hotchpotch, we did once have more short story writers than poets. I can see a strong correlation between the time available and the type of work being heard at these events. Ten minutes is long enough to read 1,000 to 1,500 words, which is the typical lower bound of a commercial short story.

Shorter prose does exist – it’s called flash fiction – but that tends to be less commercial because there isn’t much space to develop a plot. By contrast, poetry tends to be concise by its nature and doesn’t necessarily need a plot.

I included the above points in my reply to this writer, and then I considered there might be a ‘market’ for prose-based events. Perhaps each reader could be given up to 15 minutes each or enough time for one story, whichever limit is reached first. The trade-off is that fewer readers could potentially appear.

I probably won’t be the one to run said event any time soon, but I’ll tuck away that idea for the future.

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A Piece of Good News

In response to an open call, I sent a couple of poems to Speculative Books in Glasgow at the end of December. I then forgot I’d done this until I received an email to say one of them had been selected for an upcoming anthology.

I don’t submit work to publishers nearly as often as I once did. These days, I’m more focussed on organising writing groups and other projects. In fact, the submitted piece was written for my monthly poetry circle and probably wouldn’t have existed otherwise.

I’ll be receiving two contributor’s copies in due course, ahead of its official launch in September, which I will no doubt publicise again nearer the time.

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Fringe Previews

Although a digital version is available, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe still diligently prints a paper catalogue of events. This year, it runs to a total of 384 pages, with six to 12 events per page.

Since the festival doesn’t take place until 2 to 26 August, there is still plenty of time to pick shows, so I’m working out which ones are showing when I’m available.

As I do this, I’m reminded that comedy – and especially stand-up – is the dominant form. It takes up almost a third of the catalogue, and you can find it from tiny attic venues to 1,000-seat theatres.

It strikes me there must be some crossover with certain productions. Comedy and spoken word have elements in common. And then the line between spoken word and theatre isn’t always clear, while the catalogue groups together physical theatre with dance and circus. And at what point do dance and circus become cabaret or variety?

Even experienced promoters must have to make tough decisions about which category where a given show should be placed. Should a humourous theatre piece go in Comedy and potentially be crowded out by other events, or be included in Theatre where readers may be expecting a more serious production?

In any case, the popularity of the festival might be starting to ease off. It’s notorious for causing performers to make a loss, largely because of accommodation costs. Even the well-known Jason Manford and Gail Porter say they’ve been priced out.

But that’s a matter for the future. For 2024, it’s business as usual, and I look forward to going once again.