Acknowledgements

When someone asked me once how I decided whether to buy a book, I said I look at the acknowledgements. He didn't know what I meant, which is no surprise - he, like most people, only reads novels.

Yes, poetry books and short story collections can contain thankyous to family, teachers and friends, but they also have a list of places where the works were previously published. A glance gives me a fair idea of the writer's standing.

Some authors seem to have focussed on competitions, mentioning appearances in short/long lists. For example, in "Sightings", Elisabeth Sennitt Clough lists 14 prizes and commendations that the poems won.

Others are in some themed/regional anthologies, a market I've never looked at.

Some authors have an extensive list, showing that most if not all of the works have been published before. I view with suspicion books where the list is short - if the pieces haven't gone through the periodical filtering process, I wonder if they're good enough for a book.

Some story writers thank by name the magazine editors who accepted their pieces - not something I've ever done. These editors sometimes suggest revisions so I suppose it makes sense.

The books I'm most likely to buy are those whose acknowledgements page mentions several magazines I've been in, and some I've tried but failed to be accepted in. I'm also tempted by mentions of Bridport and National Poetry Competition shortlistings.

Signed books

Buying second hand books means you sometimes get a bonus. Here are a few I've found.

From "Games Authors Play" by Peter Hutchinson (Methuen, 1983)

About the puzzles that authors set for readers. Here are a few quotes as a reminder that fashions change.

• "the detective story proper only begins with Edgar Allan Poe and his Chevalier Dupin" (p.24)
• "The nature of allegory has changed over the centuries, developing from its medieval and Renaissance mode (in which correspondences between certain abstraction or generalisations and the figures of the new plot were straightforward and rather naive) to a more 'subversive' kind after the end of the seventeenth century. It then became a more satirical form, in which a political aim was often apparent" (p.54)
• "Social games would seem to have preceded sporting ones as a popular form of parallel in literature, but the emphasis now seems to fall rather on sport" (p.68)
• Updike's "The Centaur" ends with a "Mythological Index", "a long list of mythological figures who may be seen to feature in the novel, together with the page number(s) on which they supposedly appear" (p.75)
• "Historical periods of intense intellectual activity and self-discovery seem to have provided the best moments for paradox to flourish. As a self-conscious, overtly intellectual, often ingenuous exercise of the mental faculties, it requires a responsive audience as much as a brilliant exponent" (p.87)
• "The Elizabethans readily employed puns in such serious contexts; our own age prefers them as jokes" (p.104)

Genre

I've been looking at genre and have begun to make notes. Here are snippets.

Romance

From "Romance: Find your pigeonhole" Jess Morency, Writing Magazine" (March 2022) -

• "Regency romance is a complete genre in its own right ... and there's now comedy Regency too" - Linda Hill
• "I think [chick lit] died in the 1990s" - Anne Williams. Others say it's contemporary romance with fewer characters and themes
• "All romance is women's fiction" - Jess Morency
• "all rom-coms are chick lit; not all chick lit has romance" - Lisa Firth
• In the 1990s, "publishers were asking authors to transcribe books from first to third person as the former was seen as 'too chick lit'" - Jenny Bent

Historical

"The historical novel flourished in the mid-20th century but it went completely out of fashion", Alison Weir, "Writing Magazine (June 2018)"

"it's easier than any other genre. The research gives you so much. Place, time, events. You have to move your characters on the stage you've already built" - Isabel Allende

Myth, Legend, Fairy Tale

Myths have gods and deal with cosmic Good/Evil. Legends have superheroes and deal with culture/society. Fairy Tales deal with personal happiness at different stages of life – defeating evil parents (i.e. Kings/Queens), finding a partner (a Prince/Princess), or preserving family life.

fan-fic

• NSFW - not safe for work
• PWP - porn without plot
• #Drarry - Draco and Harry Potter relationship
• #crossover

Derby

There's a lot about Florence Nightingale in Derby (her family had a house there) but she's not the only famous female with a Derby connection.

This is Amen Alley, one of the narrowest roads I've seen in a city centre. Further out of town there's Brian Clough Way, running between Derby and Nottingham.

The only historical Derby author I've heard of is Samuel Richardson ("Pamela"). Apparently he tried to hide his humble origins. In contrast, I take every opportunity to photograph my name in lights, even if the lights aren't on. These letters were outside a cotton mill.

Narrative or pattern?

It happens to me most obtrusively when writing Flash. It starts when I add call-backs - allusions to earlier in the story. Then I notice emerging themes - old vs young, here vs there, etc - and accentuate them. Before long I have a net of connections and intersecting leit-motifs. Even if the narrative survives the re-writes, the readers' attention is bound to be distracted, bouncing back and forwards through the text.

Not all the connections are psychologically significant. Some are irrelevant to the plot, working independently of it - gratuitous coincidences, one might say.

Maybe a film equivalent is Peter Greenaway's Drowning by Numbers where, amongst many other patterns and allusions, the integers from 1 to 100 are shown (on the backs of sports shirts, etc) or spoken.

Pointing out to detractors that these come as a bonus doesn't often help, which is why during rewrites I sometimes remove the patterns that I've so carefully constructed. I've even deformalized poetry to suit current tastes. But fashions come and go, so I keep old versions.

Flash fiction festival, 2022

I took the plunge and attended the Flash Fiction Festival - a packed 2 days where I went to talks by Ingrid Jendrzejewski, Venessa Gebbie, Stephanie Carty, Carrie Etter, Nancy Stohlman, and KB Carle, ably organised by Jude Higgins, Diane Simmons et al who kept the atmosphere friendly. People from several countries were there. It was structured like an academic conference, with parallel sessions of talks and workshops. It was at a theological college in Bristol - with a bar and karioke. Not much accommodation available, so I camped on their lawn (telling the kids I was festival camping). About 100 delegates all told. I'd met a few of them already and knew a few others by name, so I networked without trouble for a change.

While I was waiting for the first session to begin and the presenter was trying to get projection working, she said "give me a command line and I'm fine". She mentioned emacs. It made me feel at home.

Flash has emerged over the last few years. It's still finding a place for itself (though of course it's been around since Kafka, the Bible etc). It's interesting watching a new "genre" in the process of carving its niche - some people come to it from the poetry world, and some from short stories. People say that the quality has shot up over the last decade. There are quite a few Flash books out now. I've also seen books that are explicit poetry/Flash and short-story/Flash combinations.

A term that I heard in 3 sessions which I hadn't heard before was "hermit crab" where content slips inside a (perhaps unrelated, perhaps ironic) form. A piece called "Recipe for War" can be set out as a recipe. There are many standardised templates that can be used as forms - instructions for games, adverts, letters, shopping list, school reports, horoscope, crosswords, etc. Pieces like this used to appear in poetry magazines, but that always seemed a miscategorisation to me.