Tag: novel

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Nice NaNo-ing You

Long-time readers of this blog will know I’ve been involved with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) since 2010. This is a not-for-profit initiative that encourages members to draft a 50,000-word novel every November.

In 2015, I began to organise our local Dundee & Angus region. A local leader is known as a Municipal Liasion (ML). Each ML needs to sign an agreement every year promising to enforce the code of conduct, hold regular meetings, and so forth. In fact, we already go over and above the agreement by holding meetings every week, not just during November.

I always like having a second ML in charge to help me make difficult decisions. This turns out to have been a prudent move.

Late last year, a member of NaNoWriMo staff in California stood down after making a racist comment about a colleague. Separately, the organisation was slow to remove a forum moderator who was sending inappropriate material to minors.

As a reaction to this, a new Interim Executive Director was appointed without warning, who then released a draft ML agreement with several adverse clauses. These included requiring us to verify our identity with a US company that doesn’t comply with GDPR and preventing us from speaking to MLs in other regions. There has also been a general air of disrespect in replies from this Director, which I haven’t experienced in a decade and a half of involvement.

There are a lot of aspects to this story, but that’s a summary of the main points.

As the situation with NaNoWriMo worsened, the other ML and I started serious discussions about withdrawing our affiliation and becoming an independent group. Our format had slowly evolved over the years, adapting to what members wanted, and we felt we could retain this aspect without external oversight.

Around this time last week, we sent a long bulletin announcing our independence and offered the opportunity for members to ask questions.

The news seemed to go down well. By this time, the MLs from most of the other regions in Scotland had also decided to step down. If anything, the decimation of NaNoWriMo has brought us closer together.

The next discussions in our local area will be about what to do with this newfound freedom. We’ve already amended our terminology to distinguish ourselves from our former identity, registered a URL for future use and discussed holding a summer writing event instead of a November one.

Whatever happens, we remain convinced that withdrawing our NaNoWriMo affiliation is the right action to take and we look forward to the year ahead.

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Taking The Michael

This entry builds upon what was said in the last entry about the Michael Palin TV series Around the World in 80 Days. If you don’t want to know the major plot points, skip this one.

I’d previously managed around half an hour of the first episode before describing it as a posh boys’ club and switching it off. I’m pleased to be proved wrong – albeit only partially.

The third episode is devoted to a seven-day trip on a small boat from Dubai to Mumbai. Everyone on board is expected to muck in with the rigorous daily routines and Palin shows himself to be remarkably adaptable.

But two episodes later, after reaching Hong Kong, a chauffeur is waiting for him with a bottle of champagne. He’s then taken to luxury accommodation and meets several entrepreneurs. It’s clear this is where he feels most at home.

There are also occasions where he would be wise to keep his mouth shut. I found he often felt a need to provide a commentary on what was happening rather than being silently present in the moment. He also asks some questions to female train passengers that seem inappropriate to modern ears.

I’m willing to cut a little slack on that front. The series is around 35 years old now, when Mumbai was still Bombay, plus Hong Kong was yet to be handed back to the Chinese.

On balance, I’m glad I revisited this. By his later series Pole to Pole, he has become better at presenting the places rather than himself, and at handling unexpected situations.

But we can’t talk about Palin’s very real journey without referencing the fictional journey of Phileas Fogg from the source novel Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne.

I’m very much of a mind to read this sooner rather than later, especially as it’s in the public domain and widely available. In fact, Project Gutenberg has an audio version available free of charge, just like its text-based content.

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Helping Novelists Through November

National Novel Writing Month is a not-for-profit initiative that encourages people to draft a 50,000-word novel during the month of November. In 2023, NaNoWriMo – as it’s affectionately known – celebrates its 25th anniversary. 

As the organisation operates globally, it relies on hundreds of volunteer co-ordinators around the world to welcome members, arrange meet-ups and raise donations. After joining the Dundee & Angus region as a punter in 2010, I’ve been running it since 2015.

During my time in charge, we’ve started additional weekly meetings during the rest of the year. As such, I like to have a co-organiser to help with tasks such as sending out bulletins, reorganising our Discord server, and covering for each other if we’re busy on a given week.

Even with this, November still remains our busiest month ahead of the novel-writing. By tradition, we organise a launch party in October, a Thank Goodness It’s Over party in December, and an additional weekly meeting on each Saturdays in November.

From our members’ point of view, NaNoWriMo will start on Wednesday 1 November. For us, those conversations need to start right now, and that’s what we’ll be doing over the next four weeks.

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Notes of Note

Jack Kerouac wrote his novel On the Road in the era of the typewriter. The trouble was that had a story to tell and didn’t want to be interrupted every five minutes to replace the sheet of paper.

His solution was to buy a roll of teletype paper, giving 120 feet of paper in a continuous scroll. That’s the equivalent length of approximately 123 sheets of A4. The novel was reportedly written in three weeks while his wife supplied him with coffee and Benzedrine.

The entire scroll was displayed at the British Museum in 2012. Had it been written today, he likely would have used a computer, robbing popular culture of this artefact.

I’m reminded of this stream-of-consciousness approach as I look at a Simplenote entry I’ve had for the past two weeks or so. Coming home from a poetry gig, I thought of a few lines of verse, adding a few more lines shortly afterwards. Then yesternight, I added a lot more lines, with only minimal editing.

In terms of plot structure, it’s very disjointed and I don’t intend to resolve this. I’m also satisfied with the opening lines and the closing lines, yet I feel it needs something more in the middle to bulk it up from the 23 lines it currently contains and I can’t tell yet what its final form is likely to be.

While it’s unlikely this short note will end up like On the Road, I do have one precedent for a project that grew out of all recognition. I started off writing a one-line gag about how we fictionally used to order YouTube videos by post. By the time I’d finished editing, it had ended up as a short story with more than 1,700 words.

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How to Collect Secondary Royalties

Even in the writing community, it’s not widely known that published writers might be entitled to secondary royalties. These are generated when a work is lent, copied, rebroadcast, &c. Not only that, it’s simple to register for collection.

Firstly, you’ll need the ISBN and/or other details of the publications where your work appears. Then sign up for the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) and follow the instructions. Lifetime membership is £36, which is deducted from your first royalties payment so you pay nothing upfront.

There are two payouts per year: in March and September. Writers might be paid in one or both of these, depending on what types of payments have been received. The amounts you receive are never a fortune, but just enough to acknowledge the use of your work.

When I received my payment last week, it was £93.88, with most of that coming from UK fees, but some from EU and non-EU sources. I currently have six works registered, dating back to 2016.

I can’t find a breakdown of the exact amount contributed by each work, but judging by the pattern of payments, it’s a safe bet to assume the more recent ones are higher earners, and I’m quite happy about that.

That latest work was an anthology that took more than two years from the first meeting to the final publication, featuring a number of local poets and photographers. We knew from the start there would be no payment because it was for charity, but we had been promised a complimentary contributor’s copy.

It then emerged that the committee had decided not to offer this. I still have the chain of angry and disappointed emails. Some of the writers offered potential compromises or solutions, but the issue was never resolved and most of us refused to buy a copy.

So although the amount isn’t great, I’ve earned enough from my contribution to buy several copies, even though I still wouldn’t.

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‘Those expressions are omitted…’

The major literary news story of the week was an announcement that Puffin Books would revise selected passages in new editions of books by Roald Dahl. The Telegraph provides a decent background of the reaction this has provoked.

One word that keeps cropping up is bowdlerising, a reference to Thomas Bowdler. Beginning in 1807, he produced a series of books titled The Family Shakspeare [sic] that removed what he considered to be improper language. The title page claimed: ‘Nothing is added to the original text; but those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family.’

It is also known that his sister Henrietta started the project and contributed to the subsequent volumes, although it’s not clear how evenly the work was split.

While the public largely agreed with the changes during its first hundred years, attitudes had changed by the early 20th century. This is when the verb to bowdlerise gained its modern meaning of making overzealous edits.

In the case of Dahl, I think the situation could have been approached differently. Perhaps a newly-written foreword to explain the historical context would have been more appropriate to help young readers understand the language choices.

However, it’s clear that Puffin is banking on solid sales, as hundreds of hours and thousands of pounds must have been spent on the changes. It remains to be seen in the long run whether the readers of the future agree that the text has been bowdlerised.

At the time

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Preparing for November

For the last eight years, I’ve had the privilege of running the Dundee & Angus region of National Novel Writing Month. The name is usually shortened to NaNoWriMo.

My official title is Municipal Liaison (ML) and I’m just one of an army of volunteers around the world who run local regions of differing sizes. Dublin, for instance, is one region. By contrast, the entirety of Italy is also its own region for NaNoWriMo purposes, although that’s not uncommon outside the Anglosphere.

The poster child of NaNo is the challenge to draft a 50,000-word novel over the 30 days of November. Regions are not required to meet year-round, but ours does every Tuesday. November sees an increase in membership, so we’ve learnt to plan accordingly.

In addition to our Tuesday meetings, we have an additional one each Saturday in November. Traditionally, this is at a different location. I always like to have a co-ML as a backup, and she organised that alternative venue.

But why meet year-round in the first place?

It’s less well-known that the organisation also runs standalone challenges during April and July where you choose your own goal.

The idea came about after the 2015 November challenge, when there was an enthusiasm to keep meeting up into December. A previous co-ML and I decided to extend it on a trial basis each month, and we eventually met up every week until April 2016.

At that point, it was clear the weekly meetings were a winner. These allowed our members to come along during the off-season to work on other projects or prepare for the next challenge.

When the pubs were closed during the pandemic, we already used Discord as a meeting place, and this was stepped up. Our meetings now take a hybrid form, where members have the alternative to engage in our private server.

The in-person element, however, will always remain central for as long as I’m in charge of the Dundee & Angus NaNoWriMo region.

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Acting as Gallery Assistant and Finding the Time to Read

I’m a regular visitor to the Dundee Contemporary Arts building, which holds around three major exhibitions per year. No matter what’s on display, I’m forever fascinated by the job of the gallery assistants. Aside from opening nights and special events, the pace is normally relaxed enough that some of them read novels while on shift.

Last week, I had the chance to experience this for myself on a smaller scale. First, a little background.

On Thursday, I visited an art exhibition called Funeral For My Deadname at Saltspace in Glasgow. This was run by an artist pal, and the highlight of the opening night was him completing and signing a document to legally change his name to Luke ‘Luca’ Cockayne in front of a crowd of visitors.

Luca also displayed a selection of his artworks in the gallery, some dating back more than a decade. These were available for viewing until Sunday, and some are featured below.

Close-up wall of paintings and drawings, laid out in a salon style.
Wide view of paintings and drawings, plus two freestanding pieces.
Exhibition viewed over the top of The Thursday Murder Club book.

As I hadn’t originally planned to be there on the opening night, I’d already booked my travel for Saturday. I didn’t intend to waste it, so I visited again and spent the day at Saltspace. In contrast with the busy opening night, there was a mere trickle of visitors during the day.

I’d brought with me the Richard Osman bestseller The Thursday Murder Club. It had been sitting in my bag for a long time, and by last week, I’d reached the halfway stage. With a combination of a long bus journey and quiet conditions at Saltspace, I was down to the last few pages by Saturday evening, then I finished it on Sunday.

I also promised my pal I’d dash off a quick clerihew in honour of the event:

Funeral for My Deadname.
I hereby proclaim,
announce and swear
that a change is in the air.
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Remembering Where You Read It

More than ten years ago, I read the Herman Melville novel Moby-Dick, which is a hefty 500 pages. At the time, I volunteered every week at a hospital radio station and I used the bus journey to tackle much of my reading. Over time, I began to associate the route with the narrative of the story, even though the two were very different.

I recalled this recently as I read the Richard Osman novel The Thursday Murder Club on a bus, and I realised I have a few of these associations.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a book I’ll always associate with a bar where I currently hold a writing group, while A Room With a View reminds me of another bar not far away. Catch-22 is a particularly memorable case, as the association covers both the physical place, namely the school library, and the backdrop of the emerging War on Terror.

This phenomenon isn’t restricted to novels either. On a poetry front, I reviewed a Michael Pederson book in a park, and finished a Lorraine Mariner collection by candlelight one Christmas Eve.

In some cases, it must be stated that the reading locations were more memorable than the books, but I won’t single out any of them – at least not today.

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The Importance of Structure and Conflict

This entry gives away the storyline of the novel The Bricks That Built the Houses by Kae Tempest. If you don’t want to know, it’s a good idea to skip this entry.

Every six months or so, one of my writing group members runs a 12-hour read-a-thon, where members can encourage each other to engage with a book they want to start or finish. We had the last one on Sunday just past, and I finished reading the aforementioned novel.

As a long-time fan of Kae Tempest’s other work, including poetry readings and music-backed albums, I really wanted to enjoy this, but what a letdown.

We’re led into the slightly seedy, slightly grimy world of the characters. But when the characters’ backgrounds are spelt out one after the other, it quickly becomes directionless.

Around two-thirds of the way in, there’s a scene where some chancer is beaten up after trying to charge a drug dealer double the previous price. This would have made a fantastic opener, from which we could have seen the tensions rise. Instead, any conflict is almost immediately resolved in the following chapters.

The book also suffers from some hallmarks of the first-time novelist. Firstly, Harry is a thinly-veiled version of Tempest. Secondly, the other characters all talk in a similar manner to each other, and not much conflict is built up between them for most of the time.

All the elements of a great story are there, but the final product feels like a collection of notes than a cohesive whole. The only element that made me push on through is the poetic prose throughout.

Having reached the abrupt ending, I recalled hearing about the first edit of Star Wars. It didn’t impress test audiences very much.

There is a standard story structure underpinning almost every major film, so an editor carefully went through the footage and shuffled it into an order closely resembling that structure. Here is the video of how it was done:

Had someone done the same with this novel, I might have been giving it a far better review.