New year, new writing, and a new competition from me.
You are invited to write up to 300 words (not including title) inspired by the photograph below. Send your entry in the body of an e-mail (no attachments please) by midnight (UK time) next Wednesday, 15th January, to cath.barton@talktalk.net. No bios, but include your Twitter handle/link to your Facebook page. Subject line of your e-mail should be: Friday story submission + story title.
I will post the story I like best here as next week’s Friday story, with a big shout out to you and your writing.
Tip: Discard your first idea. Discard your second idea. Go with your third idea.
I’m not keen on counting, but it’s good to review the year and consider some very lovely times.
Month by month, here are my writing highlights and a celebratory photo for each.
January
Delighted to have a rare poem published in Visual Verse
Saw Emma Rice’s company in the brilliant ‘Wise Children’ here
February
Had three flashes published this month. Particularly proud of The Man I Am Not Marrying, published in Spelk
Miri, one of the cats at Ty Mawr convent where I went on retreat
March
After a nail-biting time, signed a book deal with Louise Walters Books for my second novella, In the Sweep of the Bay, due to be published on 17th September 2020.
Walking in our lovely hills on the first day of Spring
April
Took part in both the Abergavenny Writing Festival and the Llandeilo Litfest.
Abergavenny welcomed friends from our twin town in France, Beaupréau, for an Easter weekend of sunshine and music
May
A wonderful week at Palazzo Forani in the village of Casperia in the Sabine Hills, north of Rome, led by ace flash fiction writers Kathy Fish and Nancy Stohlman. New writing, new friends, new food!
Learning to make pasta, Italian-style, with Gianna and Carla
June
Spent a day at the Flash Fiction Festival in Bristol. More great writing experiences – and lovely to meet so many writers I knew from internet connections.
Dear Feely, enjoying a lazy June day
July
Spoke at another LitFest, this time in Caerleon.
Visited a lovely garden on my birthday
August
Structural and line edits of In the Sweep of the Bay completed.
In training for September’s big walk!
September
Copy editing time for the novella. Challenged myself to write a (long) short story of which of which I was given paragraphs 1 and 20. Could be the bones of a new novella…
Trekking on Hadrian’s Wall with Elizabeth, Eileen and Jane to raise money for the charity PSPA
October
Busy weekend at the beginning of the month: up to Leicester for the launch of this anthology one day and at the Crickhowell LitFest talking about novellas the next.
Wonderful kippers for breakfast on a little trip to Whitby
November
Finally started writing the story of my Auntie Phyllis, internationally famous circus artiste!
Having a drink at our local vineyard with OB and the Three Amigos, visiting us on their world tour
December
Five flashes published this month, after a lean time.
Origami Christmas star – and a lucky stone with a hole!
There are so many writing websites out there. I’m listing three of my favourites – not just because they’ve published my work, but also because they have a lot of excellent stories by other writers too, and the people who run and edit them are responsive and generous.
The Lonely Crowd invited me to contribute to their Books of the Year feature. Here’s what I wrote:
I’ve very much enjoyed some of this year’s Big books: Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks, Newburyport demonstrates how the full stop might actually be getting in the way of the energy of many a story, Ali Smith’s Spring examines frankly the awfulness of our times and conjures heart-rending tenderness in spite of it, while Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Othercelebrates Black British women with a vitality and rhythm that is all her own.
But the book which stands out for me in what I’ve read in 2019, over and above these giants of the literary world, is Adèle by the French-Moroccan author Leïla Slimani, the 2019 English translation of her first novel, originally published in French in 2014 as Dans le jardin de l’ogre. I devoured this one afternoon back in March and it locked onto something in me. As an exploration of a woman’s search for meaning in her life this is – in my opinion – peerless. If once or twice Sam Taylor’s translation juddered, for the most part it was crystalline. Do not think this novel is about a sex addiction; it is about a quest for authentic feeling. Adèle is a 21st century Emma Bovary, and Leïla Slimani’s book deserves to be read as widely and remembered as long as Gustave Flaubert’s.
