This is how a clever photographer can make me look (Lorentz Gullachsen happens to be my cousin)

It’s sunny and the Thames is sparkling. My writing this morning isn’t.

On St Valentines Day I got no cards or flowers, so I went out and bought myself a blouse with flowers on it. And wrote a rather daft guest blog to advertise the free download of Oxtale Soup, the Kindle ebook.

Discovered by chance that Ether Books had published another of my stories without telling me. It is called Short Story Writer and is soppy, inspired by my meeting with a short story writer whom I tried in vain to impress by writing some of my own.

There are snowdrops and daffodils in our College garden. Shouldn’t they arrive at different times?

Handed in the last chapter of my novel to my writing class. Now to make  the middle fit for human consumption. There’s something calming and empowering about knowing how it will all end. Try it if yours is sticking, and tell me what you think.

I had meant to use this blog to share  the wisdom from my creative writing class, but there is  too much to tell. To sum it up, I’d say I am reading with a sharper and more appreciative eye and then turning to my own stuff and ripping out the clumsy, the unnecessary, and the less than sparkling bits of prose.

The effect on my embryo novel? Well, I write 500 more words and then cut another 500, so it stubbornly remains at 20 000 words. I hope it will one day reach the minimum of 80000 that they say is what’s needed, but I sometimes wonder. Meanwhile I’m fighting the occasional urge to write a short story, but I note down ideas. Couldn’t resist doing  a piece of flash fiction inspired by my nephew and a spider yesterday,  but am hoping to fit that into the novel somewhere. I’ll disguise the Canadian nephew as an Australian cousin – but the spider will have to remain a spider.

Today my photographer cousin Lorentz Gullachsen came to do a portrait of me for Ether Books. After two hours he announced that he had found my best side. I’m looking forward to seeing it.

Later this month: Group 2012  20 February, 7 p.m.  Friends Meeting House, St Giles, Oxford We will be reading bits of our work and getting feedback. Usual dilemma: take something good to show off with or take something you need  help with?

And Monday 25 February 8 pm  at the Turl Street Kitchen Sharkspark, our Storytelling Club. Theme: Language. Last month’s session, on Hope, was well attended and fun. The room can accommodate more audience and more story tellers, though.

More advertising. We are re-launching Sharkpark, the Oxford Storytelling Club on Monday 28 January 8pm. We invite people to tell a true story in 5 minutes, no notes. Or just come and listen and clap.  Nice meals and drinks beforehand. Venue: the Turl Street Kitchen. The theme is HOPE – suits me very well, given what I’ve said about Click to Click.

Today I added another interesting rejection letter to my collection. Bete Noire Magazine turned down the nastiest, naughtiest story I’ve ever written. Not dark enough for them, but they said they hoped I’d get it published elsewhere. Maybe they were just being kind. And where else can I submit  a story about a farmer’s wife and a Jersey bull?

Glad to say the nice Editor  of Scribble has accepted something from me. No sex, no violence, a bit of love and a bit of sadness – perhaps  that’s the genre I should stick with.

Next time I hope to tell more about the writing classes I’m attending and what I think may be happening to my writing as a result. So far a lot of deleting is taking place.

You can try it for free.

Homework for this week: writing a plot resulting from the ‘theme’ written  for the previous homework. This is for the Oxford class I’m taking.

The novel course at University of East Anglia  London buildings at Liverpool Street required us to pick a passage  from a favourite book. I chose Helen Dunmore’s Zennor in Darkness. Wish I could write like that.

This was our first session and my fellow students are impressive, the teaching is great and the pastries provided (e.g.almond croissants) are…can’t think of a suitable  superlative.

Our tutor Adam Foulds has warned us not to get  distracted by thoughts of publishing or sales. All the same, I have to tell you that Oxtale Soup ed Sara Banerji will be given away free this Saturday 12 January – this is A Promotion. It will be interesting to see whether sales increase as people rush to save their £1-93. Anyone want to  bet?

I’m looking out over the Thames which seems about to burst its banks (could that be a metaphor for something? What?)

My good news is that I got a windfall (the kind of thing you read about in bad novels: unknown distant relative dies intestate), and I’ve got accepted along with the whole of my windfall on to a University of East Anglia/Guardian two term course on How to Complete the First Draft of Your Novel. The tutors are Adam Foulds and James Scudamore. I loved Foulds’   ‘The Quickening Maze’ which was shortlisted for the Man Booker last year- it’s about the poet John Clare and his time at an asylum. Now I am reading and much enjoying Scudamore’s novel set in Ecuador, ‘The Amnesia Clinic’. Trying to be teachers’ pet, I suppose.

And I have been having another go at plotting my novel and improving what there is of it (about  20,000 words but every time I look I feel  compelled to delete some more of them).

The bad news – well, Arvon didn’t agree to any  refund or voucher in relation to the Totleigh Barton radio writing  course I missed because of flood warnings. They are perfectly within their rights. Be warned: take out insurance when you book on a course in a remote setting, even if it is in the UK.

Recent writing: a story about a sad old lady who wakes up dead and feels much better for it. If you ever see it in print, don’t bother to read it – you now know the twist in the tail.

One publication: a letter in Writers’ Forum extolling the use of internet dating as a source of ideas.

And another jolly evening at group 2012 – some very fine flash fiction was read out.

Next time I’ll try to share some of the wisdom I hope to  glean from Adam Fouds and James Scudamore.

So I must press on with the novel and try to do better on the short story front. Some little triumphs to report: I was short listed in the Yellow Room Flash Fiction Competition – didn’t win anything, though.  And Ether Books published two more of my stories: ‘Googling the Wife’ and ‘Out of the Sea: two Cornish love stories’ – the latter a romantic tale  set in Zennor, one of my favourite places in Cornwall.

Since returning to Oxford I have written a sad little story about a woman who wakes up dead and feels  much healthier and happier  and I’m putting the finishing touches to a rather upbeat story about someone changing sex.

In keeping with the West Country theme,  I’m re-reading bits of Lorna Doone. It’s rather good, though it probably wouldn’t find an agent or a publisher nowadays.

Feeling well pleased with self, I turned my attention to preparations for the Arvon course on writing for radio. One of the tutors (Kate Clancy) sent a message asking us to download a free bit of software and I couldn’t manage it. I blame the new computer. And she wants us to take a recording device of some sort  – I haven’t got a fancy phone and I’ve thrown away my old Walkman.  It seems that some computers record, but I can’t think how. So I am bound to be bottom of the class at Totleigh Barton in Devon, where I should arrive on Monday, floods permitting.

Fun and helpful exercises with  the author and creative writing teacher Dennis Hamley at the Writers’ Group 2012 this week.  I read out  a cliche-ridden little story featuring one of our leaders, Ilaria Meliconi,  but alas she wasn’t there to hear it. Group 2012 was the highlight of my month – sad, isn’t it?

Enjoying  for  a second time Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose (can that be her real name?). That and Stephen King’s On Writing are my  favourite two books on the craft.