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Bookbite asks older people to chow down on lit

A new campaign to encourage older generations to engage with reading and writing has been launched by charitable organisation Booktrust.

It’s hoped that the government funded campaign will persuade a greater number of elderly people to discover the joys of creative reading and writing, the beeb reports.

Backed by Sir Andrew Motion and Marina Lewycka – whose very enjoyable novel A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian was nominated for the Orange Prize when she was 59 – the project is targeting people over 60, a large proportion of whom say they are increasingly comfortable with the internet.

Research from Bookbite found that 55 per cent of the over 60s questioned said the internet was a crucial part of their lives, while 31 per cent were keen to go online to publish short stories and join book clubs. Sounds to me as though the silver surfers are on the move and ready to make their writing digital. And I’m all for it, although surely it only means one thing for me right now – more competition!

Stuck below the bowl

Kitty May

All things considered, it’s been a weird start to the year. Teetering on the brink of (personal – not public!) artistic success and total life malfunction, Ink and I have been doing a lot of propping up and positive-speak recently.

It works pretty good, but between ever copytastic-work, friends I’m missing spending time with, various life crazies and trying to make the writings work – I feel a bit like a cat I used to know, looking for a little protective glass!

Test tube tears

For someone inching their way towards their late twenties, I cry an awful lot. At films, at songs, at books, and, more embarrassingly, at all kinds of things that happen to me personally – from relationships to lost belongings. Luckily for me, I’m quite a discreet crier and awkward situations have been minimal.

Over the years I’ve had plenty of tricky relationships; lovers I didn’t love or who didn’t love me. I cried every remnant of them out of my system. And that’s generally considered a healthy thing.

But I can’t stop myself from sometimes also welling up when a get a writing-rejection – the short stories I send out are captured and calcified parts of myself after all. I also occasionally find myself crying over a manuscript I can’t manhandle correctly. That’s on the days when the idea of not being able to reproduce that particular moment on paper is a terrible one.

So I’m looking at my life and my collection of tissues and I’m thinking: what’s provoked the greatest flood, the men or the manuscripts?

I’d slip into my finest mad-scientist-lady outfit if I thought I could juggle the test tubes to weigh up the tears, but I can’t help wondering if I’d really want to know the answer. I’m not sure what kind of person it would reveal me to be.

A rejection partner stifles my blues

Ink and I are both in the grips of ‘rejection anticipation anxiety’ and while it’s a tricky time, I’m quite liking the way we’re in it together – albeit over separate projects. The best thing is that we both understand they way it feels to wait and wait and hope someone is even looking at your stuff let alone liking it and we both know how shit it feels when you get the note letting you they looked and they didn’t want it.

I’m only waiting in a very general way at the moment because all I have out are short stories – rejections for any one of them will hurt, but not knock me off track for long. Ink, on the other hand, has some larger projects on the go and I have all my fingers crossed that his plans play out the way he wants them too – even though I’ll probably have to bite down hard on some jealousy bugs if I’m languishing behind!

Having a partner in sublime submissions and rejections isn’t anything I’ve ever experienced before (not when I was completely 100 per cent routing for them like this anyway) but I think it helps. Is that normal? Do other people find it makes the waiting game worse?

Sir Terry Pratchett backs euthanasia tribunals

It’s a complicated question, and one that has the ability to polarize opinion, but the fight to legalize euthanasia for terminally ill patients continues to gain ground in the UK. And with Sir Terry Pratchett revealing he is in favour of a tribunal system designed to determine whether individuals should be legally allowed to end their lives, it’s sure to be one making some waves again over the next few days.

Public opinion appears to be swaying towards a person’s right to choose, but opponents are quick to point out how open to abuse such a system could be. Pratchett’s voice brings his trademark wit to the argument, but the bestselling author – who was diagnosed with onset Alzheimer’s disease two years ago – will also volunteer to be a test case for a proposed tribunal system.

Since first reading my grandma’s copy of Equal Rites as a pre-teen, Pratchett has been a favourite novelist of mine. It’s always nice when you see people you admire continuing to fight for what they believe in.

Is University worth the cost and hassle?

The Times has opened the floodgates to the higher education question today, and no doubt many people will be passionately extolling or deriding the choice to attend university. It’s something that maybe people seem to have firm opinions on but I’m not sure where I stand to be honest.

I pretty much always expected to go to Uni, so it didn’t seem like much of a choice for me (although I did seriously swither between English Lit and Art College for a good while). And even though I hated a lot of my undergraduate degree and failed to make new any lifelong friends during the process, I don’t regret it. I do regret the loan it’s left me with but I don’t think I’d have the job I have now without the degree.

The MSc was more enjoyable, but mainly because it was more creative and again I don’t think I could say I enjoyed it, but I can honestly say I write better for it. In terms of making real money in the future – I suspect getting a degree is overrated. As an experience you should grab with both hands if you get the chance – I say go for it. You can always drop out and get a proper job if you hate it, and if you’re left overqualified for some jobs after it surely you only need to be a little creative with your CV?

What part does personality play in writing?

There are so many facets to the question I’m posing myself that I can’t even begin to pretend that I could answer them all, or even that I’d want to, but at the moment I can’t stop thinking of the ways your personality affects your career rather than your writing itself.

I know a lot of writers and artists who have massive personalities – some of these I like better than others but you can’t deny that a lot of them grab attention. I’m not the shyest person in the world or anything, but I certainly don’t have one of those larger than life personalities and I can’t help wondering if that’s going to end up being to my detriment when it comes to writing.

You need to shout your corner at some point and without at least a little self promotion you can be pretty assured no one is ever going to get around to reading your stuff, but it doesn’t come easy for plenty of people. I just hope those aren’t the same people that don’t see their work in print in the end! I guess that’s what makes an agent vital for many writers, thing is you still have to sell yourself to an agent at the outset. Maybe I need lessons in creating an alter ego, one with plenty of moxy!

What edits looks like

I moaned about people blogging/imposing rules/setting deadlines on their writing goals the last time I posted. Sour grapes maybe? I don’t know. But I figured that seeing as I can’t beat them and I can’t join them I’d appropriate some kind of halfway house.

No deadlines for me, no rules, instead a picture of the wip in it’s current state. Right now I’m editing. This may take some time. On the plus side, I’ve not spent 24 whole hours away from the red pen in the two and a half weeks since I let myself pick it up again. Maybe I’ll end up with one grawing out of my fingers. That might be kind of sweet actually…

Setting yourself a challenge

I keep coming across blog posts where the authors have used their account to chronicle the various writing challenges they’ve set for themselves. Call my commitment shy, but I just can’t get my head around writing down what you set to do and then sharing it with everyone. I mean, some days I’m lucky just to function normally and remember to brush my hair let alone get any writing done. And there’s something about a big nasty old deadline (even a self imposed one) hanging over me that gives me the big freeze faster than anything.

But as far as I can see, this stuff really seems to be working for folks out there. I come across their updates and it seems like they are powering forward with their lists of self improvement. Just look at bloody nanowrimo, which sees people who generally have trouble getting motivated spewing out words left right and centre. (I’m saying nothing about quality over quantity here, nothing) What does this tell me? That it’s time to make a damn list? Maybe. Or maybe it’ll just encourage me to be contrary as usual and do my best to avoid setting targets it eh fear I won’t meet them. Hmm, maybe I should make a list of goals that includes deciding over whether making a list of goals is a good idea or not as the first thing on the list…

Readers ditch celebrity memoirs

Out of all the books out there that just don’t float my boat, celebrity memoirs have got to be my least favourite. I could moan about them all day for reasons ranging from my disgust at the idea that such drivel as Jordan’s efforts could end up sitting beside genuine memoirs to the fear that celebrity trash could influence the publishing future of the country.

However, for me, the surprising news that Waterstones managing director Gerry Johnson has been pushed from his post was over shadowed by the stats showing a slump in celebrity memoir sales. I just hope that people give up on these flimsy money making exercises and turn to well crafted books instead. The thought they just won’t read anything is too depressing.

Hopefully Waterstones can find a way to tempt people back through their doors. Hearing about all the independent bookshops closing is bad enough let alone having to see Waterstones go the same way as Borders.