July’s to-do’s 2013 (by sarah)

July is another of what I term a FiMo (Finishing Month) for me and I am attempting to move ahead with projects that have been sitting there started but not completed. Mainly I am trying to push ahead on all the books I have at almost publication stage starting with a flash fiction collection called A Flash of Magenta. This will be a collection of the stories I've written for Friday Flash a community of writers who share a piece of fiction with each other and the world every Friday.

Issue being that though I have always written a story for Friday not all of them have made it onto the blog due to internet down time etc... so I am trying to type all of them up and edit them etc... for inclusion.

It is also Camp Nano this month - this is like a summer version of the November write a novel in a month challenge. I really don't think I will have time to write 50K words but do plan to try and sort out and finish of other already started noveling efforts.

I also have two lots of festival workshops to organise, a wedding to attend, a photo comp to enter and so on.

Neil Gaiman at the Royal Society of Literature (by sarah)

After an amazing weekend of being a panda on a fire engine (don't ask but there will eventually be photos!) I was abandoned in London by Alaric and the girls but this was so I could stay an extra day and see Neil Gaiman at the Royal Society of Literature. He was being interviewed by Claire Armistead. As his new book was being launched here in the UK the next day he did a reading.

Neil is really good at captivating an audience when he reads so it was a pleasure to listen too. The crowd was quiet a mix as would be expected from the variety and wealth of works he has produced. I tried to tweet from the theatre but alas my new touch pad couldn't get the wifi!

He spoke about the book and the memories and ideas that had gone into it and abit about being a writer, then they opened the floor to questions. I put my hand up (I always put my hand up1) and some how the microphone found me and I got to ask my question 🙂

I asked (after saying hello and umming), 'Did you set out to become a cross genre author, with novels, comics, kids books etc... or was it a happy accident?'

Asking questions has always been something out of my comfort zone but I am getting better at it and when he responded with that's a good question and that he hadn't been asked that before I was chuffed 🙂 I'd been pondering the question since I read this year Artists and Writers Yearbook which has an article from Neil himself but also sees him mentioned by others in the book. The gist being that you can't aspire to be a gross genre multi-market writer/artist, I got a bit incensed about this at the time and wrote about it here.

And as Alaric has said to me everytime I worry that I am too 'broad' - it is like putting all your eggs in one basket and if you can do more than one thing it is almost gambling which is going to be noticed and be the most popular!

So I listened to Neil's response avidly although I think I ended up with a fixed grin during it (I get very nervous but hey I'm going to be doing journalistic things in the autumn so I'd better get used to it!). He said he started as a journalist and was interviewing writers and they all had stories about the piece they couldn't get published and he thought - no way is that going to be me (I'm paraphrasing as I don't have a photographic memory in case you hadn't guessed!), he didn't have a career plan he had a wish list that he has been ticking off. He didn't want to turn out books that were formulaic and turned down a publishing deal after American Gods as they wanted him to just do more of the same. He wanted the scope to do new things without it being seen as him diverging from his established path.

He had known he'd wanted to be a writer and had assumed he was going to be a fantasy writer - the sort with maps in 😉 This made me laugh - Dad brought down a note book of a story I started when I was thirteen or rather an epic series and there at the beginning of the note book was a map I had drawn. My dad still lives in hope that I will write this particular story - I used to dictate chunks of it too him and we would talk about naming schemes and stuff like that - there were even warrior monks.

He said a lot more inspiring stuff and funny stuff and it was an interesting and fun outing for me. Through it I have discovered the Royal Literature Society which I didn't know existed before to be honest! As we were all leaving I head people talking about how they were going to get back to writing that story that had stagnated on etc....

I bought a copy of the pre-signed book before the event started and started reading it on the way home to my parents house and then the rest on the way home the next morning to Gloucestershire. The book swept me in, being written from a small boys point of view though it is not for children it plunged me into memories of my own childhood (something Neil had mentioned people kept telling him the book did).

I have been in a bit of a reading a writing rut recently but the weekend (which was actually last weekend and not the one just gone!) has shaken me out of this - for a start I was beta reading my friends epic novel and then read Neil's book and then I wanted more - I am in a book club but this is our first month so I am still trying to get hold of the book to read our local library didn't have a copy - I like my book club it has Good Omens on the list 🙂 I still need to decided what book I'm setting in October!

Anyway so I am now ploughing through books again and got two books out of the library one fact and one fic and am enjoying it especially as I ended up writing a couple of short stories as well - I just wish my body could keep up with what the mind wants to do!

I found Art in London too between Holborn Station and the Peacock Theatre were the event was held (3 times the capacity they normally go for but the tickets sold out!).

The next morning on the way to Paddington I found more fun stuff too by Aldgate Station 🙂

Of course I went the wrong way out of Fenchurch Street Station but hey I had plenty of time and found fun things to photograph - it was a wooden skeleton of a house except it looks newish and had stuff painted on it!

I'm ending this post with perception and preconceptions. Now I turned up early to find the theatre and wonder around taking photos of the area - but I'm having a mild pain flare up at the mo so was quiet tired and found a pub to sit in.

There are two completely true ways of writing about my waiting time but they paint completely different pictures and this interests me as it is generally assumed that the truth is a corner stone but a truth isn't always the whole truth the way information is presented can be misleading but in this case it isn't even that it is peoples preconceptions of what it cultured and what is not.

I could say 'I was in the Shakespeares Head working on my friends epic novel whilst waiting for an event at the Royal Literature Society' - which sounds very high brow and you can imagine the cut glass and what not or...

I could say 'I was chilling in a Weatherspoons pub (this is the chain of pubs I could be found in as a teen) reading about my friends space vampires whilst waiting to see the king of comic books' - I know people who would stare at me were I to say either of these to them but would find the other acceptable due to their own ideas of what is acceptable/fun.

Anyway I will stop wibblying now - basically I had a fantastic time.

National Flash Fiction Day 2013 (by sarah)

Sadly I am not performing this year and nor do I appear to have gotten anything into story collections so a bit of a let down on last year (boo hiss) but my friend Dan Holloway is performing in Bristol tonight and I have decided to do another day giver way of my Dooms Day Collection like I did in December. Just for today June 22nd!

So just click on the book below and you get a PDF 🙂 It's a collection of flash fiction, short stories, a novelette and poems with the theme of worlds ending or changing - enjoy p.s. it is not for kids this one - too scary in places!

Mars Curiosity and *the* Space Book for Kids (by sarah)

I spent last week working at the Times Cheltenham Science Festival and as part of it I got to go and see a few of the talks which was brilliant. The first one I selected was Mars Curiosity as I spotted it had my old personal tutor Sanjeev Gupta in it. I also got a ticket for Jeany even though at 7 I thought she might be a bit young but she would never have forgiven me if I had gone to see such a talk with out her!

Sanjeev taught one of my favourite subjects at uni Earth Surface Processes so I was very excited to see how Mars research was going especially after seeing the prototype with Jeany earlier in the week. He looked basically the same but has grey hair! He still moves around far too much for a decent photo but that is what energises his talks (of course he didn't recognise me when I said hello - boo hiss but it has been ten years).

The other talker was Lewis Dartnell who was very engaging and handled the childrens' questions brilliantly at the end including the sad, 'When is it coming home?' Jean has been going on about forever vacations on Mars ever since!

Jean did get a bit confused about the fact the robot is ingesting Mars and yet needed batteries! I explained in whispers that it was eating the rock to see what it was made off and not as food. I was impressed she knew what ingesting ment to be honest. They went through the grissly details of man missions and radiation sickness and stuff Jean is still determined to go to Mars if she can or failing that she asked me if she could build a robot to go and then worked out that the 2030 mission would be a good one for her (she'll be 24).

After the talk I had to head over for a meeting but took Jean to Alaric and Mum and Dad to get the book she wanted signed. My meeting ended really quickly and just as well as I received a phone call from Al saying they couldn't find the book! I asked and was told it had sold out but then I saw a copy on the signing table and ended up talking to a lady who turned out to be the authors wife! It was the last copy!

Jean went and got it signed and I felt an ache of sadness for my impact lithologies and endolithic organisms and a moment of doubt about science communication instead of trying to go back but I missed that boat a long time ago. Jean was instantly obsessed by the book and Alaric and Lewis had a conversation involving lots of hands about space ship design. We had to drag the still reading Jean away from the table so that he could go home!

Jean has had her noise in the book ever since, it is a good childrens' book, informative, fun and easy to read but also it is gamified - the kids get to choose where they go on a stella holiday - Jean has always loved books like You Choose so this is right up her street. The illustrations are lovely and colourful, some simple and some intricate giving it a wide appeal to kids as it has different levels you can appreciate it on. It is one of the best I have seen recently and Jean took it into show and tell at school this week along with her cave man stickers and her t-shirt saying Question Everything. She proudly showed the other kids that it was signed with her name in as well 🙂

Jeany was very excited that they had mentioned Liecester as we had spent the previous week going around the space centre there etc... with my friend Becca 🙂 (still need to process the photos and blog about all of that!)

Here is me and Jeany in our festival t-shirts - I'm hiding it at the end as it isn't that flattering of me! hee hee!

Going Back to School (by sarah)

I have been applying for and organising stuff so that I can go back and study - this morning I got a congratulations email from UWE so it looks like I am going 🙂 It is a Post Graduate Certificate in Practical Science Communication. The course itself I have been looking at for the last few years but wasn't really in a position to attempt it - I am nervous about my pervious attempt to go back but feel it is different this time. For a start it is not me going back it is me moving forward and combining the skill sets I have into one area - Science Communication.

I have craft, art, writing, stage skills and so on not too mention a certain degree in geology, I am desperate to show the world the wonder of science and after a week working at the science festival I am even more convinced that the world needs science communicators. The general public are still frightened of many aspects of science, child are still being told they are not the right gender/class/religion to become a scientist. Scientist who have spent their entire time in accademia often fail to realise that they are not portraying information in an easily accessible way even when they are trying to do out reach which doesn't help with it seeming a scary thing.

I am aware that scientists and academics in general tend to get annoyed with what they see as the masses being encouraged to think that science isn't hard that every body can do it - but that is the point a lot of people could do it if they had been caught early enough and in fact I know many people who have retrained into science later in life. People need to see that science is accessible but to become a 'scientist' takes hard work. Also there is still alot of 'science is boring' going around not too mention the confusion over memorising 'facts' and what what science actually is. It is still regarded by many as a dead subject with no room for thinking and innovation - those within science know that this couldn't be further from the truth which is one of the reasons I think this sort of work is important.

I loved doing Science Show Off last year and that raised another communication issue - scientists tend to be specialists these days but really they do need to have some idea of what is going on in different fields - something one day maybe relavent to what they are trying to work out. Not really sure I want to go down the government and policy route to be honest - I want to do public facing, activities for kids, stuff in museums etc... maybe even more festivals though they would have to get behind the general craft and writing workshops/performances I do.

The course should help me with the science journalism I've been wanting to do and just so much more.

The course is part time and done in intense blocks which works much better for me - so I am hopeful.

Excited/Scared 🙂