I just logged on to tell you all some rather incredible news and read my last blog. 24th Feb - two days after the earthquake. I see I was wondering how I could help, and somehow the universe sent me a way ...
The day before that, just after the quake, I'd sent back an assessment to someone. That Saturday she got back to me to thank me for the assessment, and told me she's get round to revising it sometime soon, maybe when she was back in her house. Yes, she was in Christchurch, and I hadn't realised.
We started chatting, and Emma said how much she'd like to get another of her picture books published as a fundraiser for Christchurch.
Well, somehow, 3 weeks later, and four weeks to the hour from the earthquake itself, the published book is sitting here on my desk. Press release about to go out. And the publisher is, well, me!
Check out www.curlyfromshirley.com and buy up big-time.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Christchurch
It's a tough time to be a Kiwi, even if you're not in Christchurch (and how tough it is for those people just isn't imagineable). I'm spending half the day in tears watching the news, wishing there was more I could to help ... ANYTHING I could do in a practical sense to help, while wondering why I didn't do something sensible like train as a nurse instead of becoming a writer.
All I've been able to do so far is check on the couple of people I know in Christchurch (they're okay), donate to the Red Cross, and list a couple of bedrooms on TradeMe should anyone need or want to get out of Christchurch for a few days or weeks. It's not enough, and yet we know that more direct 'assistance' only causes more problems for everyone.
But boy oh boy, just how much is being done to solve all those problems - as many problems as possible, at once, in circumstances beyond the most horrific of our nightmares. And the half-a-day I'm not glued to the screen, sobbing, I am spending feeling incredibly, enormously proud of this wonderful nation, and so honoured and humbled to be able to count myself as a New Zealander (oh man, I'm crying again).
There are so many people doing so many wonderful things, it's hard to single anyone out, but my special hero awards would go to:
Bob Parker, Christchurch's mayor. He's been a tower of strength, a true leader, an eloquent, persuasive and reassuring communicator. Bob Parker for PM. Bob Parker for President. Bob Parker for head of the UN, and if in the meantime he could adopt me I'd be very grateful.
Joy Reid. This young reporter (and I was amazed how young she was when I saw rather than heard her reports) was on the spot in the minutes after the quake had struck. With her own home in dubious condition, not knowing about her own family and friends' safety, she poured forth a continuous stream of incredible description, filling in details as she went along without pause, showing the world what was happening to her home town. Brilliant.
The Rangiora Earthquake Express - neighbouring towns amassing water and sausages and comfort in their public carparks and then ferrying it through the buckled Cantabrian landscape to press it into the hands of people in the Christchurch suburbs, even drafting in chopper pilots to get to those who are unreachable by other means. I guess they're doing what we'd all like to be doing - making a difference, being human, bringing what's needed. But they're not just talking about it; they're doing it.
The Student Army. 12000, no, 135000, no - 15000 students who have used Facebook to great, to the best effect and gathered themselves into a massive, youthful, able and willing volunteer labour force. And they're not hanging around waiting to be organised - they're out there with buckets and wheelbarrows, digging up silt from the roads and, I'm sure, just improving the spirits of everyone around with their vigour and big open hearts. We have a lot to say about students and youths, not much of it good, but these are great, great people.
So these are people doing stuff. Doing amazing stuff, alongside Search and Rescue and the armed forces and the Red Cross and the police/fire/ambulance and the medical teams and the people manning the welfare centres. Doing what they can. Doing it brilliantly.
So if all we can give is money, then we have to do it. It might just mean that one of these wonderful, wonderful people can go that bit further, and we will be making a difference. Go to www.redcross.org.nz/donate.
All I've been able to do so far is check on the couple of people I know in Christchurch (they're okay), donate to the Red Cross, and list a couple of bedrooms on TradeMe should anyone need or want to get out of Christchurch for a few days or weeks. It's not enough, and yet we know that more direct 'assistance' only causes more problems for everyone.
But boy oh boy, just how much is being done to solve all those problems - as many problems as possible, at once, in circumstances beyond the most horrific of our nightmares. And the half-a-day I'm not glued to the screen, sobbing, I am spending feeling incredibly, enormously proud of this wonderful nation, and so honoured and humbled to be able to count myself as a New Zealander (oh man, I'm crying again).
There are so many people doing so many wonderful things, it's hard to single anyone out, but my special hero awards would go to:
Bob Parker, Christchurch's mayor. He's been a tower of strength, a true leader, an eloquent, persuasive and reassuring communicator. Bob Parker for PM. Bob Parker for President. Bob Parker for head of the UN, and if in the meantime he could adopt me I'd be very grateful.
Joy Reid. This young reporter (and I was amazed how young she was when I saw rather than heard her reports) was on the spot in the minutes after the quake had struck. With her own home in dubious condition, not knowing about her own family and friends' safety, she poured forth a continuous stream of incredible description, filling in details as she went along without pause, showing the world what was happening to her home town. Brilliant.
The Rangiora Earthquake Express - neighbouring towns amassing water and sausages and comfort in their public carparks and then ferrying it through the buckled Cantabrian landscape to press it into the hands of people in the Christchurch suburbs, even drafting in chopper pilots to get to those who are unreachable by other means. I guess they're doing what we'd all like to be doing - making a difference, being human, bringing what's needed. But they're not just talking about it; they're doing it.
The Student Army. 12000, no, 135000, no - 15000 students who have used Facebook to great, to the best effect and gathered themselves into a massive, youthful, able and willing volunteer labour force. And they're not hanging around waiting to be organised - they're out there with buckets and wheelbarrows, digging up silt from the roads and, I'm sure, just improving the spirits of everyone around with their vigour and big open hearts. We have a lot to say about students and youths, not much of it good, but these are great, great people.
So these are people doing stuff. Doing amazing stuff, alongside Search and Rescue and the armed forces and the Red Cross and the police/fire/ambulance and the medical teams and the people manning the welfare centres. Doing what they can. Doing it brilliantly.
So if all we can give is money, then we have to do it. It might just mean that one of these wonderful, wonderful people can go that bit further, and we will be making a difference. Go to www.redcross.org.nz/donate.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Great stories, well written
Publishers have always claimed that all they're looking for is a 'great story, well written.' This is what they plough through their slush piles for; this is what they live in hope of finding. That's all - just a great story, well written. Supply one of those, and you have a good chance of publication.
Easy, yes? Well, without wishing to come across all Carrie Bradshaw, the other day I found myself wondering this:
Is it still true that all you need to get published these days is a great story that's well written?
More and more regularly I see such offerings turned down, over and over and over until the author has no faith left in either their story-telling or their writing.
What they often don't realise (and which I have learned over the last year at some considerable cost) is that publishing seems to have been turned on its head. It's not the publisher looking for something wonderful that consumes them entirely, it's the bookseller looking for something to rival Dan Brown before considering giving you shelf space. It's the marketeers who look for titles and covers and concepts that might garner a little of that shelf space, and then it's the editors trying to shape whatever great-story-well-written they might have up their sleeve to fit market forces. The publishing pyramid seems to have been completely subverted, and dangling off the dangerous pointy bits are the two sets of people that seem to be most ignored - the reader, and the author.
A case in point is this response from a publisher to the submission of one of my books - and I quote: thank you so much for sending me this lively and entertaining book, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I think Jill has a wonderfully engaging and distinctive narrative voice and I wish I could take this further. However, we are publishing into such a difficult market at the moment that we can only really take on authors with a strong library track record in both the UK and US, whose hardcover success we can then build on.
Bear in mind that this is a book that's already publshed elsewhere, so it's not an unknown quantity, and I have many books in the libraries, just not in hardback. Just how do you compete with that? And I'm not a new author; how does someone with no track record at all manage to get published?
It's all rather sad. It feels hopeless, somehow.
On the other hand, it does drive one back to basics. When I first started writing - in fact, for the first several books - I wasn't thinking about territories and libraries and hardback covers versus paperbacks. I was just enjoying the writing. The fact that anyone else in the world wanted to share these stories with me was succour to me, and the relationship between author and reader was the most important element to it all.
So now, that's me again. Back to basics. Writing because I love it; writing perhaps because I do know my readers love it and I have hope that I'll still be able to reach them somehow, someday; writing because I can't stop myself.
And I still have some pride in my work. I'm sure that for the most part, they're great stories, well written, and perhaps one day in the near future that will once more be enough.
For the record, if the 'great stories, well written' tag does still lead to publication, then here are my hot tips for some new fiction authors who deserve to be published very soon: Stina Kornfeld, Geoff Vause, Anaru Bickford, Glenn Wood, Phillip Simpson, Julie Scott ... I know there are many more, but I haven't seen all their work. Good luck, you guys.
Easy, yes? Well, without wishing to come across all Carrie Bradshaw, the other day I found myself wondering this:
Is it still true that all you need to get published these days is a great story that's well written?
More and more regularly I see such offerings turned down, over and over and over until the author has no faith left in either their story-telling or their writing.
What they often don't realise (and which I have learned over the last year at some considerable cost) is that publishing seems to have been turned on its head. It's not the publisher looking for something wonderful that consumes them entirely, it's the bookseller looking for something to rival Dan Brown before considering giving you shelf space. It's the marketeers who look for titles and covers and concepts that might garner a little of that shelf space, and then it's the editors trying to shape whatever great-story-well-written they might have up their sleeve to fit market forces. The publishing pyramid seems to have been completely subverted, and dangling off the dangerous pointy bits are the two sets of people that seem to be most ignored - the reader, and the author.
A case in point is this response from a publisher to the submission of one of my books - and I quote: thank you so much for sending me this lively and entertaining book, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I think Jill has a wonderfully engaging and distinctive narrative voice and I wish I could take this further. However, we are publishing into such a difficult market at the moment that we can only really take on authors with a strong library track record in both the UK and US, whose hardcover success we can then build on.
Bear in mind that this is a book that's already publshed elsewhere, so it's not an unknown quantity, and I have many books in the libraries, just not in hardback. Just how do you compete with that? And I'm not a new author; how does someone with no track record at all manage to get published?
It's all rather sad. It feels hopeless, somehow.
On the other hand, it does drive one back to basics. When I first started writing - in fact, for the first several books - I wasn't thinking about territories and libraries and hardback covers versus paperbacks. I was just enjoying the writing. The fact that anyone else in the world wanted to share these stories with me was succour to me, and the relationship between author and reader was the most important element to it all.
So now, that's me again. Back to basics. Writing because I love it; writing perhaps because I do know my readers love it and I have hope that I'll still be able to reach them somehow, someday; writing because I can't stop myself.
And I still have some pride in my work. I'm sure that for the most part, they're great stories, well written, and perhaps one day in the near future that will once more be enough.
For the record, if the 'great stories, well written' tag does still lead to publication, then here are my hot tips for some new fiction authors who deserve to be published very soon: Stina Kornfeld, Geoff Vause, Anaru Bickford, Glenn Wood, Phillip Simpson, Julie Scott ... I know there are many more, but I haven't seen all their work. Good luck, you guys.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
