NOVEL MASTERCLASS WITH MIA GALLAGHER

Saturday 27^th May 10.30am-1.30pm

Follow up: Saturday 2^nd Sept – 10.30am-1.00pm

Are you writing a novel? Join Farmleigh’s Writer-in-Residence, internationally acclaimed author Mia Gallagher, for two intensive morning masterclasses on The Novel. In each session, Mia will address a range of common concerns and difficulties faced by many novelists, both emerging and established. Responding to each participant’s needs, she will share technical and inspirational tools to help you better understand your process, the type of work you are making and how to make it – including the key question of how to complete a first draft. The initial session (May) will identify a set of realisable writing aims for each participant over the summer. In the follow-up masterclass (September), you will be able to share any new challenges, questions and breakthroughs you’ve identified during that time.

Places are free of charge but limited to 12 people, and allocated through a submission process. Priority will be given to writers who are in the middle to late stages of a first draft, or who are already working on their second draft.  Writers who can attend both sessions (May and September) will also be given priority.

To apply: Please email 250 words to linda.moran@opw.ie by 5pm May 19th. As part of the 250 words, state what you think is the biggest problem you are facing with the novel, and what you would like the masterclass to help you with.

Mia Gallagher is a novelist and performer based in Dublin. She is the author of two acclaimed novels: HellFire (Penguin Ireland, 2006), winner of the Irish Tatler Literature Award (2007), and Beautiful Pictures of the Lost Homeland (New Island, 2016), longlisted for the inaugural Republic of Consciousness Award (UK, 2016) and chosen for the Irish Times Book Club in February 2017. Mia’s essays, reviews and award-winning short fiction have been widely published at home and abroad. She is an experienced editor, mentor and workshop facilitator and relishes working with emerging novelists who are committed to creating long form fiction.

CISS WORKSHOPS 2014

The Cork International Short Story Festival workshops are now open for booking here. I am teaching a 4-day session on novel writing; Rachel Trezise is giving a short story masterclass; Jon Boilard is doing a workshop for beginner writers, and Kristiina Ehin will teach a poetry workshop. Something for everyone :)

When: 17th - 20th September daily, 9.30am - 12.30pm

Where: Cork city, venues TBA

Cost: All workshops €180, with the exception of Short Stories for New Writers with Jon Boilard (€150).

Class descriptions and more here.

'DON'T PANIC - WORK DOGGEDLY ON'

Patchwork by Pippa Quilts

I like this one of Sarah Waters' Ten Rules for Writing Fiction from The Guardian in 2010:

'Don’t panic. Midway through writing a novel, I have regularly experienced moments of bowel-curdling terror, as I contemplate the drivel on the screen before me and see beyond it, in quick succession, the derisive reviews, the friends’ embarrassment, the failing career, the dwindling income, the repossessed house, the divorce . . . Working doggedly on through crises like these, however, has always got me there in the end. Leaving the desk for a while can help. Talking the problem through can help me recall what I was trying to achieve before I got stuck. Going for a long walk almost always gets me thinking about my manuscript in a slightly new way. And if all else fails, there’s prayer. Saint Francis de Sales, the patron saint of writers, has often helped me out in a crisis. If you want to spread your net more widely, you could try appealing to Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, too.'

Yes, 'working doggedly on' is the only thing. The novel I am working on (novel #3) has had some hair-raising moments (the writing of it) but I am near the finish line, thank Saint Francis de Sales. Actually, the last sentence is written, but there are some in-between sentences that still need to be done, so I am patchworking at the moment and it is slow, laborious work, much like real patchwork.

Tonight I go to hear Colum McCann read from Transatlantic at Galway Arts Festival with a dear writer friend and I look forward to him, and to her, and to immersing myself in other writers' worlds for a few hours. Leaving the desk for a while can help. Who knows, my patchwork may even be a bit neater by the time I get back to the book on Wednesday :)

THE BOAT DREAM

I dreamt last night that I was the skipper of a boat (this was my job). I had no training but I was doing OK, sailing along, with a full load of passengers. Until I went over a small waterfall and wondered, as the boat fell, if we would sink. We didn't. Then I was sailing around trying to find a pier or jetty, but it had been replaced by a dump, so I couldn't dock. The passengers were annoyed and I felt terrible. It was made clear to me that I would shortly be fired.

I dream vividly, every night, usually such nonsensical stuff that it can't have been inspired by anything real, anything I have seen or heard. So, mostly I would see my dreams as being unanalysable. But this one - The Boat - well, it strikes me that this is me writing my NIP (Novel #3).

I am in charge of a boat/novel but I don't feel like I'm in charge. The boat/plot regularly takes unexpected nosedives but it recovers. The passengers/characters are disgruntled; I am not doing right by them. I am two thirds of the way into the journey, so I am now searching for a dock/ending. Luckily, the only person who can fire me is me, so that part won't be happening, but, I guess, the threat of it is always there. Because even when the novel is finished, who is to say it will float at all?

In less unsettling news I signed the contract for Novel #2 yesterday and it will be out spring 2014. Title TBC as neither I nor my editor at New Island are particulalry attached to Highland. Watch this space :)

And, now, I must get back to my little boat and hope that all goes well on today's sail.

THE NEXT BIG THING

The Highland fishing village where my novel is set, fictionalised as Kinlochbrack

You’ve probably heard of The Next Big Thing – I am inundated with requests to do it lately but had already accepted the request of my friend, the writer/blogger Shauna Gilligan. Basically it’s a network of bloggers reaching out to new readers and discussing their work. I get to introduce you to some writers, and also reveal a bit about my own next big thing.

Problem: I hate talking about what I am currently working on (a novel), so I am cheating a little and talking about something that is complete but unpublished as yet.

As I said, I was recruited by my friend, Shauna. Her début novel Happiness Comes from Nowhere was published this year by Ward Wood in the UK and was positively reviewed in Sunday's Indo. You can read her discussion of her work on her blog about the next big thing here.

Now, on to the questions:

What is the working title of your book?

Highland.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

 

I had written ten linked short stories about the main character, Lillis Yourell, but I wanted to write about her in a more linear way so I decided to write a novel. My novels all seem to feature wayward mothers – this one is no different.

What genre does your book fall under?

Literary fiction, but it is HUGELY commercial too and will appeal to so many readers ... (wouldn’t that be fun?!)

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I’d need two actresses because Lillis is 21 in Part One of the book and 41 in Part Two. Is Saoirse Ronan 21 yet? Catherine Walker could play the older Lillis. I need actresses with gravitas because Lillis is quite melancholic. As for Struan, her older lover, I would like the fabulous Robert Carlyle to play him.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

One sentence??!! Here are three short ones:

It’s 1991 and Lillis Yourell leaves Dublin for Kinlochbrack in the Scottish Highlands, where she falls in love with an older man and gets pregnant. Lillis wants Struan to love her but she discovers that that may be impossible. What will she do with her baby and, when she returns to Dublin, is she destined to turn into her own mother as she fears?

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Just over a year.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Erm, I don’t know, really. If you like Maggie O’Farrell’s books, or Edna O’Brien’s or Elizabeth Baines’s, you might enjoy it. If you like attention to language and books set in Dublin and tiny coastal fishing villages in Scotland...

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I lived in the Highlands of Scotland for a year after finishing my BA in Dublin. Things that happened to me there, and people I met, were life changing. The book explores much of that. I went back last year to do research and the place has barely changed. It was an emotional trip but also wonderful. The landscape up there is powerful – sea lochs, mountains, well-kept villages.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

There are paperweights, taxidermy, a gay sibling, the Northern lights and lovely descriptions of the sea. Who could resist?

When and how will it be published?

Well, now. That’s the $6,000,000 question. I’ve been attempting to get an agent for it for over a year now, which has proved frustrating. It’s out with one at the mo and if she doesn’t want it, I give up on that particular quest. Watch this space, I guess...I need to start writing about a one-legged Mongolian with a sixth sense who climbs Kilimanjaro, or something. There is not much interest (from agents) in the so-called ‘quiet’ literary story, it seems. Or at least no interest in ones by those who are not famous. (Do I sound narky? I feel a bit narky...) 

But now, it’s time for me to pass the baton on to my chosen writers whose own blogs about their ‘next big things’ will appear next Wednesday, 5^th December:

There’s Niamh Boyce, who will write about a novel with the working title transcripts from an interview with Margot and a poetry collection, the title of which (so far) is Casting Spells on Each Other. 

Johanna C. Leahy will write about her WIP, her second novel, The Stolen Child. The story is set in two time periods – the 1960s and contemporary Ireland. It's about a young woman forced into a Mother & Baby Home to have her baby who is then taken against her will to be adopted in the US. Forty years later, her son, whom she has kept a secret, turns up on her doorstep. His appearance has far-reaching consequences for the two sisters who didn't know he existed and for their mother who has never recovered from losing him.

QUOTABLE QUOTES - JOHN BANVILLE

'You have to keep making yourself do things that you can’t do, or that you thought you couldn’t do. You can get lazy, you can get soft. You’ll write lazy, soft books.'

John Banville, on novel writing, from an interview in the latest Five Dials. A timely quote for me as I fudge, feel afraid and procrastinate about this new novel I want to write. It's scaring me and I also have an inkling that someone I know is writing something similar-ish. Thank you, Mr Banville. Methinks I need to feel the fear and do it anyway.

On a side - but related - note, I have a new poem called 'Procrastination' in the latest Windows Anthology. I didn't make last week's launch but I hear it was a great night. Can't wait to get my copy of the anthology and have a good read.

Onwards!

STINGING FLY NOVEL WORKSHOP

The Stinging Fly lit mag runs this annual workshop and, by all accounts, it's a cracker:

There are only 23 days left to submit applications for The Stinging Fly's innovative novel-writing workshop.

Led by novelist and short story writer, Sean O'Reilly, 'New Way To Fly' is the perfect solution for those in the early stages of writing a novel who feel they will benefit from a relationship with a group of others engaged in the same process.

Under Sean's expert direction, the group will meet once a week in a workshop setting over a six-month period. The ultimate aim is for each participant to complete (yes!) a strong first draft of his/her novel.

Alongside the workshops, there will be a series of specialist talks by guest speakers on several Saturdays over the period. Previous guest speakers have included Chris Binchy, Evelyn Conlon, Mia Gallagher, Michael Harding, Dermot Healy, Christine Dwyer Hickey, Declan Hughes, Emer Martin, Paul Murray, Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Mark O’Halloran, Kevin Power, Ed O’Loughlin and Peter Sheridan.

Participants will be selected on the basis of work submitted.

To apply for the workshop, please send 20-30 pages of your novel, along with a cover letter, to The Stinging Fly, PO Box 6016, Dublin 1.

We will take applications up to August 3rd 2012, though early entry is encouraged as places on the workshop will be offered on a rolling basis.

What past participants say about the workshop:

• "This is an excellent workshop – unique in fact and I have recommended it to other aspiring writers. Sean O’Reilly is an outstanding and unconventional teacher."

• “What is outstanding about this course is the generosity, both in terms of time and close attention, with which every submission was discussed by Sean and the rest of the group.”

• “It’s the best writing course I've done, and I've done a few, including a Masters. Without doubt everybody's work improved during the course – and the work was good to start with.”

• “The Saturday sessions were fascinating. To meet and discuss work with one published writer, let alone ten highly respected and interesting published writers, was a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

The details:

Workshop Starts: Monday, September 24th (introductory session)

Times: Twenty weekly workshops on Monday evenings from 6.30pm – 9.30pm at the Irish Writers’ Centre, Parnell Street, Dublin 1. Plus Saturday dates to be agreed.

Cost of workshop: €1500 (A €200 deposit will be payable once a place on the workshop has been offered and accepted. The balance is to be paid in two instalments in September 2012 and in January 2013. Where necessary, a monthly payment plan can be agreed.)

For further details, please email: stingingfly@gmail.com

STINGING FLY - NOVEL WORKSHOP

Seán O'Reilly - pic Faber & Faber

The Stinging Fly literary magazine is now accepting applications for the fourth year of its innovative novel-writing workshop.

Led by novelist and short story writer, Sean O'Reilly, 'New Way To Fly' is the perfect solution for those who are in the early stages of writing a novel and who feel they will benefit from a relationship with a group of others engaged in the same process.

 

Under Sean's expert direction, the group will meet once a week in a workshop setting over a six-month period. The ultimate aim is for each participant to complete (yes!) a strong first draft of his/her novel.

 

Alongside the workshops, there will be a series of specialist talks by guest speakers on several Saturdays over the period. Previous guest speakers have included Chris Binchy, Evelyn Conlon, Mia Gallagher, Michael Harding, Dermot Healy, Christine Dwyer Hickey, Declan Hughes, Emer Martin, Paul Murray, Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Mark O’Halloran, Kevin Power, Ed O’Loughlin and Peter Sheridan.

 

Participants will be selected on the basis of work submitted. Applications up to August 3rd 2012, though early entry is encouraged as places on the workshop will be offered on a rolling basis.

 

What past participants say about the workshop:

• "This is an excellent workshop – unique in fact and I have recommended it to other aspiring writers. Sean O’Reilly is an outstanding and unconventional teacher."

• “What is outstanding about this course is the generosity, both in terms of time and close attention, with which every submission was discussed by Sean and the rest of the group.”

• “It’s the best writing course I've done, and I've done a few, including a Masters. Without doubt everybody's work improved during the course – and the work was good to start with.”

• “The Saturday sessions were fascinating. To meet and discuss work with one published writer, let alone ten highly respected and interesting published writers, was a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

The details:
Workshop Starts: Monday, September 24th (introductory session)

Times: Twenty weekly workshops on Monday evenings from 6.30pm – 9.30pm at the Irish Writers’ Centre, Parnell Street, Dublin 1. Plus Saturday dates to be agreed.

Cost of workshop: €1500 (A €200 deposit will be payable once a place on the workshop has been offered and accepted. The balance is to be paid in two instalments in September 2012 and in January 2013. Where necessary a monthly payment plan can be agreed.)

For further details, please email: stingingfly@gmail.com

After the Novel is Over

I have a new piece over at writing.ie on the blue feelings after finishing writing a novel.

A wee extract: 'For me, when the writing is going well, it makes me crazily happy; I get swallowed up in it and time flitters away like it never does when I am on kid duty. Having finished writing another novel this summer, I now realise that the long haul of novel writing suits me perfectly.' 

The rest of the article is here.

FOUR YEAR BLOGOVERSARY

I'm having a funny few weeks. Edna O'Brien wrote a novel called August is a Wicked Month. I could write one called August is a Boring Month. I am at a loss having finished writing my new novel; I feel all crabby and impatient with the world. I have no gigs this month, therefore very little travel, and that makes me narky too. I love getting away - I don't live in the most culturally stimulating place. Which is grand when you are immersed in a project but, when you surface, there is a bit of a lack.

The month is book-ended by nice literary things - my novel You being dramatised on RTÉ Radio One for the first week of August was surreal and lovely. And I am going to a day-long workshop run by two wonderful writers on the last day of the month, but I am not doing much myself as such.

Of course I am still working; I have a short story collection to complete and it is nearly there and the themes in the stories interest me: mothers and sons, the loneliness of men and women, and the consequences of love. And I continue writing my articles for the Indo's Saturday mag too and they are fairly time consuming.

But I miss the urgency of the novel. Yes, 'urgency', a word I would normally only use about the short story. Writing the novel made me happy and sane because it obsessed and possessed me. When I wasn't writing it, I was thinking about it. It kept me busy and committed to the page, and those are two things I shrivel without.

But there are things to celebrate and give hope: I am back reading (and loving) short fiction after a bit of a hiatus; my house is cleaner than it has been in a year (!); and this week - Thursday - sees my four year blogoversary. Four years of rambling away to myself but finding, to my constant surprise, that people tune in. Since Facebook and Twitter have taken over the virtual world, less and less people bother with blogs. Certainly less people comment. But there are still readers and I know this because I meet them out and about, and they can tell me what I've been writing about here. Half the time I feel like I am wittering away to myself.

Blogging has been good to me: it has made me friends, introduced me to new writers, and gotten me gigs. Will I still be blogging in four year's time? Who knows? In the meantime thanks to all of you who read and comment; it helps when I'm having a wicked month to know you are out there, listening in.

Irish Writers' Centre Novel Fair Competition

 

Here is an interesting - and possibly unique - competition for first-time novelists in Ireland.That is, novelists who are as yet unpublished. If you are chosen, you get to pitch your novel to agents and publishers at a 'novel fair'. It costs €35 to enter and entrants must have a finished novel ready by January 2012. Here is what the info says:

The inaugural Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair will take place on March 10th 2012. The Novel Fair aims to introduce up-and-coming writers to top Irish publishers and literary agents, giving novelists the opportunity to bypass the slush pile, pitch their ideas and place their synopsis and sample chapters directly into the hands of publishers and agents.

A judging panel of experienced industry professionals will select a shortlist of successful entries, presented to them anonymously. There is no limitation on style, genre, or target market, the only requirement being that the writer has not published a novel before.

Publishers and agents will come along on the day to the Irish Writers’ Centre and meet these writers in person. Each writer in attendance will have a stand at the Fair with copies of the synopsis of their novel, the finished novel itself and biographical material.

Representatives from Penguin Ireland, Transworld, O’Brien Press, Lilliput Press, Hachette Books, Liberties Press, Little Island and Arlen House will be present on the day. Literary agents such as Marianne Gunn O’Connor, Yvonne Kinsella, Emma Walsh, Ger Nichol and Paul Feldstein will also be present.

For details and how to enter see the website - www.writerscentre.ie/novelfair.html

For more information or queries e-mail: novelfair@writerscentre.ie

Deadline for submissions: November 11th 2011

QUOTABLE QUOTES - Hilary Mantel

I'm finding, writing this current novel, that  although the work generally goes well, in that I enjoy it, I am always on the look-out for reassurance from other novel writers. Step in Hilary Mantel, with a quote that comforts me, as I grope my way through this thing called plot:

"When you stand on the verge of a new narrative, when you have picked your character, you stretch out your hand in the dark and you don't know who or what will take it." Hilary Mantel

If that's how Hilary sees it, then it's good enough for me. Onward!

CLAIRE KILROY ON WRITING A NOVEL

I am obsessing about other writers' thoughts on novel-writing. What I really need is a good old chin wag with a fellow novelist. I've had one offer and I must take it up asap. Being insanely busy has its drawbacks - where or when can I fit in meet-ups with other writers?!?

I admire Claire Kilroy's writing  very much and I found an interview with her on Amazon where she offers the insights below. I especially like No. 3 as it is the way I construct a novel. It comforts me when I learn that other writers do it that way too.

What would be your top three tips for anyone who is looking to write a book and get published?

1. Start saving now. It's going to take a lot longer than you think to finish the book, and your savings will buy you freedom.

2. Don't be dissuaded by those statistics regarding the amount of novels that are rejected - those figures are somewhat misleading because a lot of people who serially submit novels to publishers and agents have no love or understanding of the form. If you can write a strong novel, there's every chance it will be published.

3. Make extensive notes. Working from notes enables me to construct a narrative that is more fluid and roaming than if I wrote the novel in a linear manner. This approach has helped me access nebulous fleeting emotions.

ON WRITING NOVELS - BARBARA KINGSOLVER

On writing novels, by Barbara Kingsolver, recent winner of the Orange Prize for The Lacuna, which I am reading (along with about five other books).Well, phew, is all I can say, to this:

"I struggle with confidence, every time. I’m never completely sure I can write another book...A novel is like a cathedral, it knocks you down to size when you enter into it. I falter and fidget and worry it won’t be good enough, and then the day comes when I give myself permission: just write, I tell myself. No one has to see it, you can throw everything away if it’s terrible, we’ll keep it a secret unless or until it becomes wonderful. And then I get to work."

OF PAPERWEIGHTS AND SYNCHRONICITY

There is often a strange synchronicity that can happen when you are writing a book - 'relevant' things occur and minor coincidences seem to crop up all the time in the world around you. I did a workshop recently with John MacKenna and he talked about this very thing - how elements from your life appear in your books and vice versa, as you are writing them.

I had one of those synchronised moments today and it made me extraordinarily happy. One of the main characters in my NIP collects glass paperweights of a particular brand. These things are stunning works of art that can cost up to €500. The narrator in the novel says that her favourite of these paperweights is a blue and white egg-shaped one "that seems to suspend the sea in its core".

This afternoon I dropped four big bags of spring cleaned clothes and toys to my favourite charity shop. I had a quick goo around to see if there was anything nice when I spied a paperweight in the window. Yes, you know it, it was a blue and white egg-shaped one that seemed to "suspend the sea in its core". For €3. I'm not saying it's an example of the posh brand collected by my character but, God, it was weird and wonderful to find it. It somehow makes me feel that I am on the right path with the novel; it's like an injection of confidence, or a small 'yes' from the universe.

The paperweight sits on my desk in front of me, making me extraordinarilyhappy still :)