Guest Blog: We are the New History

The Blog Tour Bus has been dusted off and is chugging back around the web.  First stop... Touching From a Distance. Click the bus to go:

Guest Blog: We are the New History

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Writers! Exercise your Bragging Rights. Final Booktrust Blog is all About You!

My Thanks to All. You have Bragging Rights!

Can't believe what they wrote about my guest blogs. Such an honour to be asked to blog by Booktrust and their comments were the icing on the twittery pudding. This post is my last for them and it'll only be up a few days so please take the chance to exercise your bragging rights. This one's for you if you even voted once for me in Ms Twitter or if you follow http://WordNerdArmy.blogspot.com or have supported me in any way through this. Get your comments up on their site and be seen. Say how you feel about the 11 issues you voted for (on the Word Nerd Army site). Let them know how much you care about books, literacy, libraries and words. Tell the world what you put into this campaign. It's not all about me. This is about you.

You've earned it.

Rebecca x

http://news1.rebeccawoodhead.com
(If you haven't read the 1st one yet, read the one beneath first when you reach Booktrust's blog)

Writers! Exercise your Bragging Rights. Final Booktrust Blog is all About You!

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Booktrust Guest Blog is Up!

Words about me from Booktrust...

Our Twitter page has put us in contact with diverse parts of the publishing industry, from publishers to writers to book bloggers to parents and carers who benefit from our bookgifting. One of the more interesting personalities on our Twitter feed has been aspiring author Rebecca Woodhead. Author of two books and unpublished, she has been using the internet to her advantage, to build up a loyal following of visitors to her blog and writings. Then she was nominated for Ms Twitter UK, a Twitter competition pitting her against celebrities like Lily Allen and Fearne Cotton and their extensive fanbases. Mobilising her band of followers, cutely named the Word Nerd Army, and rallying publishers, agents and literary types alike (including Twitter god Stephen Fry), Rebecca won Ms Twitter UK, with the motto 'the pen is mightier than the pin-up', promising to help promote literature and reading and aspiring authors and libraries, all issues close to the heart of Booktrust. Now with a land of opportunities awaiting her following her victory, Rebecca has written two blogs for us, this week on how she came to write her novel and use the internet to help promote it and in the next blog on how she won Ms Twitter UK and what it means and how other writers can follow in her example of using the internet to pursue their dream of being published....

To read my article, click the bus at the top or click here... http://news1.rebeccawoodhead.com

Booktrust Guest Blog is Up!

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Help for Fellow Writers

My Compromise

Right - since I'm still trying to get the old bod back to peak fitness, I'm trying not to get too involved with writing and take a bit of a break but... I can't help myself! I'm obsessed. Given that the writing addiction won't leave me, I've set myself a slightly easier restriction to stick to. For a few days/weeks ('weeks'?? who am I kidding?), I'm not going to guest blog or write any articles or even write any of my new novel (might edit my second one a bit though... no? Fine. No editing. Humph.) Instead, I'm going to help other writers out. I'm nice like that.

Jamie Ford - 'Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet'

Right, first things first. Followers of the blog will know that my new online chum is Jamie Ford. As he has been so sweet in shamelessly promoting my author blog - http://rebeccawoodhead.blogspot.com - it's only fair that I do some shameless promoting in return. Here it is. Buy his book.

The Tricky Scenario

Followers will be aware of the current minimalist appearance of my bank balance. Very Zen. Anyhow, with hubby's redundancy and what-not bringing down the income further, it is a sad fact that books have become a luxury. The local library is now my best chum. Put simply: if it ain't there, I can't read it. Here's the problem. Jamie's debut novel is not in my local library. Why? Not published in England yet.

This puts me in the tricky position of promoting a book I have yet to read.

The Cunning Plan

My following is almost exclusively American. YOU can read it and report back. What do you say? If you are English, buy it from Amazon and tell everyone you know about it so it gets published over here super-quick and I can get it out of the library and say:

'I was right - work of genius.'

My guess is that it's a great book because:

1. It's on the New York Times Best Seller List
2. Everyone else says it's a great book

Don't forget; this is Jamie's debut novel so he's effectively almost still one of us. He is just opening the glittery door into the world of fame and ushering one foot out, but his other foot is still in the gutter with the rest of us. It is our job to assist him in freeing that foot from its ordinary status and promoting it to greatness so that we can stare at it - all glittery and star-like and say 'we knew that foot when it was ordinary.'

I've officially dropped into the realms of mentalism. Forgive me. He's probably got it all sewn up anyhow but it's nice to help isn't it?

Help for Following Fellows

Since the majority of my followers are authors or authors-to-be, here are a couple of places you may find useful in your quest to further your writing and meet other writer-people.

The first came to me from 'Moolisa.'

Authonomy

Basically, this is the HarperCollins slush pile in Brechtian format - the mechanics all laid open for you to see. From what I can gather, your work is assessed by your peers and once HarperCollins see there's a market for it, they snap you up. That's the theory anyway. In practice, depending on the writer you speak to, it is either the best thing in the known universe or a giant time and energy-sapping nightmare. I've dunked my toes into the water but not jumped yet. The water seems warm and I'm intrigued. If anyone wants to leap in and tell me to grab my swimming cozzie go ahead, I'm all ears.

goodreads.com

Thanks to Brian for this one. I only went on there for the first time today and I'm already a fan. Essentially it's social networking for readers/writers. You put up books you've read/are reading and rate them; other people comment on your ratings; you put up lists of books you hope to read; readers recommend books to each other... You get the idea. You can also upload your own stories and have them reviewed. Think that might be of interest to some of the writers on here.

Incidentally, Jamie Ford's on there. If nothing else, click 'fan' when you find him. :)

I like the privacy policy. The main reason I have nothing to do with Facebook is that their privacy policy is the work of some evil troll but goodreads' reads good. Give it a go.

Rebecca

Help for Fellow Writers

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Blog Tour Advanced Booking

Roll up for the Mystery Tour!

Ready to book your seats on the Blog Tour bus? Tomorrow - or later tonight if Hubby finishes the graphic in time - I'm going to put up a link to the next stop on the Blog Tour. Make sure you come back then so you don't miss the bus to the next mystery location...

:)

Blog Tour Advanced Booking

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Guest Blog 1: Recession Expression - A Guide to Writing Through the Fear by Rebecca Woodhead

We’re in it Together

We’re all in the same boat: it’s sinking, but we’re all in it. This is the time to give thanks to your chosen deity that you are not a banker. You were born creative and with creativity comes inventiveness and resilience.

Your laptop is your life raft. As a writer, your job is not to stand on the sinking ship complaining that the brochure said it was ‘unsinkable.’ As a writer, your job is to chart the progress of the journey. The vessel may not be heading towards its intended shoreline – it may, in fact, be going down – but it is still on an historic journey and your fingers are the ones that can tap that journey out.


Why Write in a Recession?

Why not? This is a decisive moment in history and anything you write now will be valuable. Does that mean it will make you a millionaire? Probably not but it will certainly make you more wealthy. In a recession lots of bad things happen. People lose their jobs; creditors call in debts; houses are repossessed… none of this is good news. These external factors can affect you badly and make you feel trapped and fearful but none of them should stop you writing.

The things that trap us and make us feel truly hopeless are what William Blake called “mind forg’d manacles” and these, not the external factors, will have an effect on your ability to write. If you decide to write no matter what is thrown at you then, while other people are able merely to complain about what they have lost, you will be able to create new things: books; articles; blogs... Creation in the midst of destruction: that is true wealth.


Releasing the Mind Forg’d Manacles

Well, now we’re all fired up to write, and feeling great about our creativity and place in the scheme of things, it might be time to throw in a few practical tips.

The theory’s sound but if the manacles are clamping down or the raft has sprung a leak what then?

1. Forget everything. Forget the money you hope to make from your writing; forget the collapse of the global economy; forget the endless to-do lists. Simply find a space to write and commit to doing so.
2. Understand that the space doesn’t have to be a location, it can be a time. Give yourself a set period of time when you will not allow yourself to be disturbed. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a room on your own or a busy coffee shop. You have to decide that this moment is your writing space and it will not be disturbed. Once you’ve done that, write. Don’t edit it or criticise it. Let it flow. Let yourself write unutterable garbage. The point is to keep the pen moving or the fingers tapping. You can edit it later.
3. Know that you are doing something important. I have read many letters from writers saying that they lack support. They frequently express a lack of confidence in their work because their friends or family members mock them for thinking they can be a writer. Tune it out. You know you are a writer. That is enough. If you act as though your work is important, your mind will pick up on it and make the time and space for you to write.

And Finally…

Even with the best intentions, it can be hard to focus on writing when you haven’t enough money for food or heating. You need to know that this is no excuse. It is perfectly possible to be living in subsistence level poverty, scraping by on benefits and still be creative. I have had two brushes with hypothermia over this winter and we can’t afford to go food shopping more often than once every two weeks, so I’m not writing from an ivory tower myself, but I’m in a far better position than many writers and I’m sure the same is true of most of us. Anne Frank was creative. What do we have to complain about? That said, here are a few tips to make the process easier.


Writing on a Budget – Tips

1. Keep your food costs down by buying in bulk. If you buy unbranded sacks of rice and pasta and store them in airtight containers, you’ll save a fortune. They keep for ages so, if you find yourself with some spare pennies one week, stock up. Also, stock up on vitamin pills for the weeks when a food group or two goes astray.
2. If you’re an omnivore, buy chicken but don’t buy chicken breasts. When you buy chicken breasts, you’re paying processing and packing costs you don’t pay when buying a whole chicken. You can get 16 meals out of a chicken (see my blog for more info on this obsession of mine!) Let none of it go to waste. Make stock from scratch and you’ll have soups, stews, pasta sauces etc for the week. I don’t choose to be a vegetarian, but I strongly believe in being an ethical omnivore. I don’t buy ‘battery’ chickens or eggs however poor we get. If I can’t afford free range, I don’t buy the chicken. If you scrape together the money to buy a free range chicken and you can get 16 meals out of it (or 20 as my husband managed the other week – don’t think I’ll beat that) then the food is way cheaper than the price of some breast meat from a battery-farmed animal.
3. Make friends with your freezer. If you’re on a real budget, freeze everything you can. If you make meals from the chicken as soon as you get it home and freeze them, you can live on the food from the fridge in week 1 and the food from the freezer in week 2.

Now you’re equipped to thrive through the recession as a writer. If you have a shaky moment when The Fear grabs you, ask yourself one question:

‘If Shakespeare were alive today, would he complain because his television had been repossessed or his games console had been sold or his electricity had been switched off?’ Would he? Or would he pick up his pages, sit at his table, light up a candle and write?

To follow my writing journey and for more tips on writing through the recession, go to my blog:

http://frombrain2bookshelf.blogspot.com


Rebecca Woodhead
www.rebeccawoodhead.com 

Guest Blog 1: Recession Expression - A Guide to Writing Through the Fear by Rebecca Woodhead

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The Blog Tour Continues and Moss from The IT Crowd Says Something Funny about Ears

Blog Gig
Got another blog gig :) I'll let you know more when I know which day it's going up. Writing-wise I'm editing, putting together post ideas for the blog tour and deciding whether or not to enter any writing competitions this month. They don't cost much but neither do they fall into the basket marked 'vital for existence' so I can't really justify the entry fees. There's a brochure downstairs for a writing course I really want to do but... *tone of resignation*...ah well.

Course de Force
So I can't afford the course? *Tone of righteous indignation* So what? If I can't afford the bloody course, I'll make my own. I'm sure if I put my mind to it and scour the library shelves enough I can find out all I need to put my own course together. I can even print out a certificate for myself at the end. Ha! Take that recession! *Blows raspberry at recession*.

A Life of Two Halves
Well, how is everyone? Life is split between bloody awful things happening in the real world and super-sparkly things happening on-line. The old brain is struggling: should it be freaking out about the super-bad things or celebrating the super-happy things? Celebrating the super-happy things feels better so I think, of the two, I'll pick that one.

IT Came to me Last Night
I watched the 'IT Crowd' last night (very funny English show about an I.T. Department buried in the basement of a large company. The noodly appendages so beloved by Pastafarians adorn the walls etc - typical of every I.T. department I've ever known.) Anyway, there was one line that cracked me up. Not sure why I found it so funny but I was giggling for ages.

Moss has a brilliant idea about showing up their 'boss' who is about to make a speech about computers - of which she knows nothing - and he is so excited about how brilliant this idea is that he warns his work mate:

"You'd best put seatbelts on your ears Roy, because I'm going to take them for the ride of their lives!" (for more go to The IT Crowd .)

Toodle pip,

Rebecca

The Blog Tour Continues and Moss from The IT Crowd Says Something Funny about Ears

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Big Day for the Blog

Well, this may be my most exciting blog-related day yet! Not only did my guest blog go up on The New Author but I've just found out that my blog is the 'Editor's Choice' on BloggerTalk! Click on the link and scroll down until you get to 'BloggerTalk Featured Blog' and... that's me! BloggerTalk

I need a cup of tea and a sit down.

Rebecca

Big Day for the Blog

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The Guest Blog's Up!

Exciting development newsflash: My first guest blog has gone up. Recession Expression: A Guide to Writing Through the Fear Hope you like it.

Rebecca

P.S. For those of you looking for the source of the previous post's madness it is http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7911645.stm

The Guest Blog's Up!

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Is There Something in the Grass?

The Cotswolds

I live in 'The Cotswolds' in England and I'm feeling rather inadequate about it to be honest. It's the writing capital of the world, you see, so it's tricky to feel good about my own scribblings unless I tune that information out - but it's a fiendishly tough one to tune out.

The Writers' Triangle

The Cotswolds area is a kind of wonky triangle with the corner points being marked out by Stratford-Upon-Avon, Bath and Oxford. There are loads of places in between sufficiently steeped in writing history to give me The Fear but, even looking just at these three points I nearly faint with 'I'm not worthy'ness.

Shakespeare was from the first place, Jane Austen from the second and Oxford University with all its many genius writers - from John Donne to Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carroll, Graham Greene, Iris Murdoch, William Golding, T.S. Eliot, Richard Curtis, Helen Fielding (Bridget Jones's Diary)... and so on and so on - is in the third. J K Rowling was born here and it's teeming with best-selling writers to this day and, just in case I think 'never mind, I can just blog my way to greatness' I am reminded that Oxford Uni also churned out Tim Berners-Lee (a.k.a. 'that English chap who invented the World Wide Web'.)

All this gives me a bit of 'calm down, you're not that great' perspective when I'm congratulating myself on my latest draft and makes the editing process even more painful. My inferiority complex can't even be fixed by moving away. I grew up here. I am tainted by everyone else's greatness.

Right, I'm off out into the freezing night to roll around in a field. All those literary giants breathed here and whilst they were breathing, they will have facilitated the growth of plants and these plants begat other plants and so on and so on. In short - there may be something in the grass. If there is and I roll in it... what the heck am I on about now? Note to self. Seek professional help.

Guest Blog!

Fortunately, my mood and sense of utter inadequacy has been lifted by an invitation to write a guest blog. I am jolly excited by this and hope to pull together some kind of 'blog tour' in the near future which will give me a sense of real authory-ness and prepare me for the greatness which, temporarily, eludes me. I'll keep you posted. Meanwhile, make sure you come back here on Thursday and I'll post the link to my guest blog.

Loving all the comments by the way. Keep them coming. :)

Rebecca

Is There Something in the Grass?

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