Well, the first of the How to Write Documents is finished and available for free! If you click the title of this post, you'll be brought to the download page. I love it already!
The second set of interviews will go out in the near future. I must also remember to begin interviewing again, to ensure the continued survival of the project. Free information for writers! Woo!!
Wish me luck! The Campaign may suddenly get more interesting based on Channel 4's decision!! I'll keep you updated.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Campaigning...
Well, I've finally found what I can blog about! Campaigning!! The Literary Den is at last becoming a place to support writing fully. I started off the Campaign by announcing our goals in a nice little .pdf file! To access this file, click here!
I had written up those goals a couple of weeks ago, just as our Battlefront page appeared. Today, I typed them up on a jazzy template, and added them to my new 4shared.com page for the purpose of sharing them with everyone. It's a pretty easy way of doing things!
Now I'm getting ready to go hunting for the advice several writers gave me a few months ago!! Wish me luck, ficticious reader!
I had written up those goals a couple of weeks ago, just as our Battlefront page appeared. Today, I typed them up on a jazzy template, and added them to my new 4shared.com page for the purpose of sharing them with everyone. It's a pretty easy way of doing things!
Now I'm getting ready to go hunting for the advice several writers gave me a few months ago!! Wish me luck, ficticious reader!
Friday, March 27, 2009
It's been a while, etc...
Hello, valuable and non-existant readers!
I have been vanished for a good long while from this blog. I missed it a few minutes ago, and decided to give one massive update on it.... I've just checked my last post, and I discovered I used the term vanished then too.... righto!
Well, I completed NaNoWriMo. That was easy, and way back in November. I wrote a novel called Meet Sam, which I will get back to in a little while. I will tell you that it was super fun to write and came in at 50,074 words according to the NaNoWriMo drones. Following that, I was very lazy at writing, but managed to get Geneticide finished in January. Hurray for me! Since then, I've had Mocks (I did rather poorly in them), an oral Irish exam, and have had a huge number of writing related things happening. But let's do this properly - chronologically!
Meet Sam is a fantastic novel (for me) following a helplessly poor writer through one day of his otherwise dull life. He's single, and miserably so, and decides to invent a narrator for himself. Sam Richards is in fact a wee bit crazy. His narrator abuses him at every opportunity, but in the 24 hours that she exists, his life changes dramatically. The book is that story! As part of the deal for completing NaNoWriMo, I got to get a free proof copy of Meet Sam from a group of people called CreateSpace. They even covered the postage. That was nice of them. The book is a delightful addition to my collection, and has caught the attention of my mother's friends at work.
Geneticide finished with a much higher word count. I don't even know what it is, only that it's rather good. The story went exactly as planned, which I'm happy about. It took very long to write, but I think it'll do well if it ever goes anywhere.
In February, I turned 18. Normally, I don't celebrate my birthday with such excitedness, but this was the February midterm break too. This called for celebration. I threw a house party. It was a delightful gathering of my friends, during which there was a movie and a giant personality test. I'll expand on that now! The movie was in fact a home movie of sorts - Meet Sam, as done by my friends Karl, Andrew, Ciarán and Conor. They gave up a few afternoons to do it. Karl has since failed to upload it onto Youtube a dozen times, so I cannot share it with you. The personality test was the BBC one. It was rather fun, and had my friends bashing against each other in my kitchen. It was not built to hold 14 people in a tiny square.
Then came March, this month. I can tell you that things really changed this month. It's almost at an end too, so if there was nothing to report, there would be a problem. Now, I can't remember what happened first in all this, so I'll just ramble on about the various different things that have happened.
Let's start with dear old Patricia Scanlan! She did a book signing a couple of weeks ago to promote her new book Happily Ever After? at my shop. It was a great experience in itself to watch it and help out, btu then something really fun happened! She found out that I'm a writer, and told me to give her a call when my novel (Meet Sam) was editted, so that she could give it to her publishers! I was utterly gobsmacked!! Imagine me, a published author! With Transworld Ireland!!!
Then there's Battlefront. This is a Channel Four television show that encourages a whole set of campaigns from young people to help change the world. I submitted The Literary Den Campaign to them... and we're second in the voting stages. In a few days, voting stops and it goes to the "judges." If they pick my campaign, I may be on television!! That would be amazing!
The campaign is all about making reading and writing cool again. People seem to get bored with them ratehr easily these days. They abandon the thoughts of them for a TV show or a movie, or for mindless internet games. It's an awful shame, because they really are valuable skills for both work and life. Writing is a way of ridding oneself of the weird little ideas in their heads that can cause us troubles. I have not heard of any dangerous writers out there, so I must be right.
The campaign also sets out to start a mentoring system to help younger writers with their stuff. I'm one of the mentors, although we are without mentorees. I'm hoping to convince my good friend Sam to do it. He started writing a book way back in the summer and since stopped doing it. If I can spark his interest in writing again, and be his mentor to guide him along the way, then I'm doing something right. From there I'd like to see what the group can do. We may even be able to organise talks at schools! That would be sweet!
So, there's my campaign. Some of it, at least. If you wish to support us, you can vote at: http://battlefront.co.uk/campaign/the-literary-den-campaign Thanks a million in advance!!
Moving on now, I've subscribed to a magazine called The Stinging Fly. I've also submitted to them. By the end of the month, or in early April, I should hear from them to see how my submission of a short story and two poems went down. I imagine the story, called The Wounded Angel, stands a better chance than the poems, but who am I to judge? Fingers crossed anyway!
Now here's another big thing! The Literary Den Book of New Fiction 2009 is underway! We're putting the stories together as I type. Well, I mean people are writing them. If they're anywhere near as uncomfortable as I am right now, they might just be finishing them. This year, we're still supporting the Laura Crane Trust, but we have a few fresh faces! Brendan McLoughlan has joined our ranks from Howth, and Lisa Sills has returned to submit this year (she vanished just before it was announced last year, and arrived when the deadline passed). Jonathon Bell from Bermuda (living in Dublin) has submitted, and his wife, my good friend Liz, is due to submit too. It's a wonderful group of Irish writers joining the fray! I'm delighted with it.
The 08 Anthology is still on sale. I do hope you'll consider purchasing a copy. All the money goes to the charity. We're not greedy or anything. But we do like to bring it up a lot. For instance, today I had to tell a teacher in charge of my school's awards system about it for Charity and Public Service. If I win.... well I'll be well chuffed!! Purchase the book here: http://www.lulu.com/content/2619890
I may also be up for Best All-Round Student, but that's still in doubt. A teacher, the one in charge of the school magazine, said she'd nominate me for it. I've been a "one man army" in the computer room trying to get the 09 issue under wraps. Then I'm done with that establishment for good. That'll be weird! But I can't wait. Fingers crossed for the awards!
So, I think that's it for now. I've been extremely boring I bet, but I don't mind all that much. I've just needed to get all that out at once. Hopefully I'll be back. Whatever happens, always remember that the pen is mightier than the sword - violence is not the way forward. Books are!
I have been vanished for a good long while from this blog. I missed it a few minutes ago, and decided to give one massive update on it.... I've just checked my last post, and I discovered I used the term vanished then too.... righto!
Well, I completed NaNoWriMo. That was easy, and way back in November. I wrote a novel called Meet Sam, which I will get back to in a little while. I will tell you that it was super fun to write and came in at 50,074 words according to the NaNoWriMo drones. Following that, I was very lazy at writing, but managed to get Geneticide finished in January. Hurray for me! Since then, I've had Mocks (I did rather poorly in them), an oral Irish exam, and have had a huge number of writing related things happening. But let's do this properly - chronologically!
Meet Sam is a fantastic novel (for me) following a helplessly poor writer through one day of his otherwise dull life. He's single, and miserably so, and decides to invent a narrator for himself. Sam Richards is in fact a wee bit crazy. His narrator abuses him at every opportunity, but in the 24 hours that she exists, his life changes dramatically. The book is that story! As part of the deal for completing NaNoWriMo, I got to get a free proof copy of Meet Sam from a group of people called CreateSpace. They even covered the postage. That was nice of them. The book is a delightful addition to my collection, and has caught the attention of my mother's friends at work.
Geneticide finished with a much higher word count. I don't even know what it is, only that it's rather good. The story went exactly as planned, which I'm happy about. It took very long to write, but I think it'll do well if it ever goes anywhere.
In February, I turned 18. Normally, I don't celebrate my birthday with such excitedness, but this was the February midterm break too. This called for celebration. I threw a house party. It was a delightful gathering of my friends, during which there was a movie and a giant personality test. I'll expand on that now! The movie was in fact a home movie of sorts - Meet Sam, as done by my friends Karl, Andrew, Ciarán and Conor. They gave up a few afternoons to do it. Karl has since failed to upload it onto Youtube a dozen times, so I cannot share it with you. The personality test was the BBC one. It was rather fun, and had my friends bashing against each other in my kitchen. It was not built to hold 14 people in a tiny square.
Then came March, this month. I can tell you that things really changed this month. It's almost at an end too, so if there was nothing to report, there would be a problem. Now, I can't remember what happened first in all this, so I'll just ramble on about the various different things that have happened.
Let's start with dear old Patricia Scanlan! She did a book signing a couple of weeks ago to promote her new book Happily Ever After? at my shop. It was a great experience in itself to watch it and help out, btu then something really fun happened! She found out that I'm a writer, and told me to give her a call when my novel (Meet Sam) was editted, so that she could give it to her publishers! I was utterly gobsmacked!! Imagine me, a published author! With Transworld Ireland!!!
Then there's Battlefront. This is a Channel Four television show that encourages a whole set of campaigns from young people to help change the world. I submitted The Literary Den Campaign to them... and we're second in the voting stages. In a few days, voting stops and it goes to the "judges." If they pick my campaign, I may be on television!! That would be amazing!
The campaign is all about making reading and writing cool again. People seem to get bored with them ratehr easily these days. They abandon the thoughts of them for a TV show or a movie, or for mindless internet games. It's an awful shame, because they really are valuable skills for both work and life. Writing is a way of ridding oneself of the weird little ideas in their heads that can cause us troubles. I have not heard of any dangerous writers out there, so I must be right.
The campaign also sets out to start a mentoring system to help younger writers with their stuff. I'm one of the mentors, although we are without mentorees. I'm hoping to convince my good friend Sam to do it. He started writing a book way back in the summer and since stopped doing it. If I can spark his interest in writing again, and be his mentor to guide him along the way, then I'm doing something right. From there I'd like to see what the group can do. We may even be able to organise talks at schools! That would be sweet!
So, there's my campaign. Some of it, at least. If you wish to support us, you can vote at: http://battlefront.co.uk/campaign/the-literary-den-campaign Thanks a million in advance!!
Moving on now, I've subscribed to a magazine called The Stinging Fly. I've also submitted to them. By the end of the month, or in early April, I should hear from them to see how my submission of a short story and two poems went down. I imagine the story, called The Wounded Angel, stands a better chance than the poems, but who am I to judge? Fingers crossed anyway!
Now here's another big thing! The Literary Den Book of New Fiction 2009 is underway! We're putting the stories together as I type. Well, I mean people are writing them. If they're anywhere near as uncomfortable as I am right now, they might just be finishing them. This year, we're still supporting the Laura Crane Trust, but we have a few fresh faces! Brendan McLoughlan has joined our ranks from Howth, and Lisa Sills has returned to submit this year (she vanished just before it was announced last year, and arrived when the deadline passed). Jonathon Bell from Bermuda (living in Dublin) has submitted, and his wife, my good friend Liz, is due to submit too. It's a wonderful group of Irish writers joining the fray! I'm delighted with it.
The 08 Anthology is still on sale. I do hope you'll consider purchasing a copy. All the money goes to the charity. We're not greedy or anything. But we do like to bring it up a lot. For instance, today I had to tell a teacher in charge of my school's awards system about it for Charity and Public Service. If I win.... well I'll be well chuffed!! Purchase the book here: http://www.lulu.com/content/2619890
I may also be up for Best All-Round Student, but that's still in doubt. A teacher, the one in charge of the school magazine, said she'd nominate me for it. I've been a "one man army" in the computer room trying to get the 09 issue under wraps. Then I'm done with that establishment for good. That'll be weird! But I can't wait. Fingers crossed for the awards!
So, I think that's it for now. I've been extremely boring I bet, but I don't mind all that much. I've just needed to get all that out at once. Hopefully I'll be back. Whatever happens, always remember that the pen is mightier than the sword - violence is not the way forward. Books are!
Monday, October 27, 2008
NaNoWriMo
Hello All! I've been vanished for a while (incorrect grammar - so what?). However, I have been writing, which is good. And I've also entered a challenge to write a novel in November. NaNoWriMo is an annual event that takes place to encourage people to write a novel of 50,000 words in 30 days. That's an average of 1666.6666 (etc) words per day. Sound difficult? Yes, yes it does. But I can't wait!
I'm writing a story called Meet Sam for the month of November. Sam Emily Richards is a failing writer with an abusive imagination. Namely, the narrator is a product of his imaginatin. Her name is Emily - she's an upper class Englishwoman who teases and taunts Sam and the other characters, though only Sam is aware she is speaking. Emily and Sam can interact on occassion, though she ignores his questions and makes him out to be insane. She has no off switch, making Sam's experiment a little bit of a failure.
The novel will take place in one day of Sam's life, beginning early in the morning where we find Sam on Grafton Street in Dublin, moving to the LUAS, to Dundrum shopping centre, back home and to Temple Bar. The narrator will be driving him slowly crazier throughout the novel, while he attempts to finally make something of himself and turn everything around.
The opening extract of Meet Sam will be available to read on Saturday on my NaNoWriMo profile when the competiton starts. Give it some time, as I'm only allowed to start on Midnight on Friday/Saturday, but I'll be sleeping then so... yeah... you have to wait until I have something written and uploaded.
Wish me luck!!!
I'm writing a story called Meet Sam for the month of November. Sam Emily Richards is a failing writer with an abusive imagination. Namely, the narrator is a product of his imaginatin. Her name is Emily - she's an upper class Englishwoman who teases and taunts Sam and the other characters, though only Sam is aware she is speaking. Emily and Sam can interact on occassion, though she ignores his questions and makes him out to be insane. She has no off switch, making Sam's experiment a little bit of a failure.
The novel will take place in one day of Sam's life, beginning early in the morning where we find Sam on Grafton Street in Dublin, moving to the LUAS, to Dundrum shopping centre, back home and to Temple Bar. The narrator will be driving him slowly crazier throughout the novel, while he attempts to finally make something of himself and turn everything around.
The opening extract of Meet Sam will be available to read on Saturday on my NaNoWriMo profile when the competiton starts. Give it some time, as I'm only allowed to start on Midnight on Friday/Saturday, but I'll be sleeping then so... yeah... you have to wait until I have something written and uploaded.
Wish me luck!!!
Monday, September 1, 2008
New Website, New Campaign, New Future
The Literary Den website looks brilliant now! It no longer freezes up, it has a new template, new info - it's just amazing! A big well done to Christopher for his hard work (and a thanks to his web designer who made the template for him!!) If you click on the heading of his post you'll be brought to our homepage. You'll see what I mean when you do. And while you're there, check out the forum and all the other stuff we have up there!
Now, onto that New Campaign jazz. We have new goals (Our basic concept is to Education, Encourage and Enjoy) and we're hoping to reach out to schools across the UK and Ireland (myself and Christopher are hoping to get in touch with the individual Ministers for Education - him the UK one, me the Irish... obviously.) With that, we hope to get more members, and help more people. Also, with the Anthology out, it'd be nice for the extra press coverage.
I've not got too much else to say on that. Although the magazine is expanding nicely. Five people interested in working on it so far - Christopher, Rachel, Andrew (AKA Eggy), Claire and I. Together we should be able to do a lot. Rachel has experience with an online magazine, I'm editor of my school's magazine, Christopher is the tech genius (and needs to update the website with new issues anyway), Eggy is predominantly an essay writer anyway, and Claire is starting Journalism. So we should be able to do a good bit of work.
We want to interview authors (published ones, sorry) to help get more attention and bring the group into the limelight (and the authors won't mind the publicity!!) We're also going to have a poetry column, articles on current affairs in the literary world, news, reviews, On the Bedside Table, Short Stories and Letters! Lots of stuff we hope to keep people entertained with while we churn out more and continue to live our own lives!!
With that, I close. Thanks for reading! (tell your friends)
Now, onto that New Campaign jazz. We have new goals (Our basic concept is to Education, Encourage and Enjoy) and we're hoping to reach out to schools across the UK and Ireland (myself and Christopher are hoping to get in touch with the individual Ministers for Education - him the UK one, me the Irish... obviously.) With that, we hope to get more members, and help more people. Also, with the Anthology out, it'd be nice for the extra press coverage.
I've not got too much else to say on that. Although the magazine is expanding nicely. Five people interested in working on it so far - Christopher, Rachel, Andrew (AKA Eggy), Claire and I. Together we should be able to do a lot. Rachel has experience with an online magazine, I'm editor of my school's magazine, Christopher is the tech genius (and needs to update the website with new issues anyway), Eggy is predominantly an essay writer anyway, and Claire is starting Journalism. So we should be able to do a good bit of work.
We want to interview authors (published ones, sorry) to help get more attention and bring the group into the limelight (and the authors won't mind the publicity!!) We're also going to have a poetry column, articles on current affairs in the literary world, news, reviews, On the Bedside Table, Short Stories and Letters! Lots of stuff we hope to keep people entertained with while we churn out more and continue to live our own lives!!
With that, I close. Thanks for reading! (tell your friends)
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Literary Den Book of New Fiction - The Present, and the Future!
So you've seen me delighted to have my copy of the book. And now it's time for opinions!! First off, I'll just say it was a delight to get to read the works of the people who have, since it all started, become my friends. Each story was different, thankfully, and gave me a great read.
The Anthology was compiled by Andy Walker, cover designed by Claire Hack, and the poster will be done by Chris Stewart. We wish to continue the Anthology as an annual tradition in the Den, although there is no telling what might happen.
An idea has been suggested for a Literary Den Magazine to give other members a chance at publication. A quarterly magazine, it is suggested, would contain poetry, songs and other such things (including essays of the journalistic sort), as well as news from the Den, and perhaps reviews. Nothing is certain as of yet, except that myself and Rachel Phipps have experience in magazines. It may end up that we be the editors. Then again, maybe not.
So far one person has responded. He's not happy with the idea of poetry. However, if Rachel and I can find a way to persuade him, then it'll go ahead as planned. Hurrah!
The Anthology was compiled by Andy Walker, cover designed by Claire Hack, and the poster will be done by Chris Stewart. We wish to continue the Anthology as an annual tradition in the Den, although there is no telling what might happen.
An idea has been suggested for a Literary Den Magazine to give other members a chance at publication. A quarterly magazine, it is suggested, would contain poetry, songs and other such things (including essays of the journalistic sort), as well as news from the Den, and perhaps reviews. Nothing is certain as of yet, except that myself and Rachel Phipps have experience in magazines. It may end up that we be the editors. Then again, maybe not.
So far one person has responded. He's not happy with the idea of poetry. However, if Rachel and I can find a way to persuade him, then it'll go ahead as planned. Hurrah!
Friday, August 29, 2008
Lit Den Book - Here!!
I got the book today! It took nine days! Longest nine days of my life. But it's worth it. Now I can put pictures like the one below on the internet.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a book to read!
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