Official: Fiction is good for you

Reading stories makes you a better person. Every reader knew it: now there's proof.

The results of a Canadian university research team led by  British psychologist Keith Oatley reveal that fiction readers   are better at relationships.

"Reading about Darcy and Elizabeth or Hamlet or Harry Potter and the progress of their relationships and dilemmas gets you, the reader, practising how to understand others and how they think and behave."

This is serious stuff. Not only should the research findings bring a glow to every bookworm's pale cheeks (we always knew we were nice people), it may also offer a formula for mending Cameron's Broken Society.
Imagine it. Novels could be on (free) prescription.
Three or four books a month perhaps, taken at will, and the patient could have a completely free choice from a wide selection. 
Oh wait, we have that already - the libraries that are under threat in every corner of the country.

Proffesor Oatley's research is published in Such Stuff as Dreams - The Psychology of Fiction. He also happens to be a novelist himself...what were the chances of that?

THE WRITER LETS GO

Sent off the 201 page manuscript of my second novel on Wednesday and this poem by Anne Bradshaw* sums up some of my feelings...

THE AUTHOR TO HER BOOK

THOU ill-form'd offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth did'st by my side remain,
Till snatcht from thence by friends, less wise than true
Who thee abroad, expos'd to publick view,
Made thee in raggs, halting to th' press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judg).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call,
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy Visage was so irksome in my sight;
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, of so I could:
I wash'd thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I stretcht thy joynts to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run'st more hobling then is meet;
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save home-spun Cloth, i'th' house I find.
In this array, 'mongst Vulgars mayst thou roam,
In Criticks hands, beware thou dost not come;
And take thy way where yet thou art not known,
If for thy Father askt, say, thou hadst none:
And for thy Mother, she alas is poor,
Which caus'd her thus to send thee out of door.

I especially like the line

rubbing off a spot, still make a flaw

Sometimes it is hard to know when to give up on the editing, sometimes a little distance** is needed before you can decide when to leave well alone or when major surgery is required.  It's in my agent's hands now and I know he will look at it with a critick's eyes.
I wait. I wait.
*  America's first published poet. Northampton born, she was part of 17th century Massachusetts aristocracy - the men in the family were state governors and founders of Harvard
** Aristotle recommended nine years I believe...

More about the Sussex Novel competition

I'm getting very excited about this competition because it seems so well thought out and I love the fact that you can enter even if you haven't completed the manuscript.

This is how the judging will be done.

As mentioned in my previous post, the closing date is December 1st. For that you need the best synopsis you've ever written and 1500 words taken from anywhere in the novel.

(My advice: do NOT wait until the last possible minute to enter. I know writers thrive on the pressure of deadlines but there is something to be said for giving judges time to appreciate the lasting qualities of your work).  The organisers plan to whittle entries down to 18 strong shortlist by about the 12th of December and their names will be published in the January edition of Sussex Life. They will then be invited to submit more of their novel. How much more is up to each short listed entrant - it can be the whole thing or just part.  I'm told that an entire novel has no greater chance of winning than a part manuscript.

John Parsons, ex M.D. of Harper Collins publishers, will head the judging panel, and has stressed that the judges are looking for potential...

Brilliant competition for would be novelists

...and you can enter even if you haven't finished. The judges are looking for potential, not perfection.

They want to see a synopsis and 1500 words which can come from any part of the novel.

The First Prize is a Trophy and a contract with top London literary agent. As the organisors make clear "...nothing in the real world of publishing is guaranteed" so they can't promise your masterpiece will ever be published but the winner will be getting a kind of first class ticket to the heart of the publishing industry and the kind of cache that money can't buy. 

The judges are prestigious: Kate Mosse of Labyrinth fame (she also helped set up The Orange Prize), Peter James, author of 23 best selling crime novels - many set in Brighton - and Louise Rennison, queen of teen fiction.  

The entry fee is a hefty £15 but every penny goes to a community adult education service and the closing date is December 1st so there's time to save up and polish those 1500 words.

I should mention one tiny drawback...you have to live under a big Sussex sky to enter. Or, as the rules specify, "entrants must reside within the county of Sussex or reside at a Sussex based university."

Could be worth moving.

Find out more by clicking on the title of this post

Why blog?

This is an experiment.  

It is said that there are only two ways to learn how to write: one is to write and the other is to read. So, I have decided to learn about blogging by blogging.
I have been playing around with group blogs since last summer as a way of sharing work with students but my own lack of confidence and technical ability has held the idea back.  So here I am diving in on the first day of a new decade to make my own mistakes, and learn from others...

My plan is that TWENTY TEN will run for 12 months - hence the title. However, as a novelist I am aware that the danger time is around chapter four. The initial burst of creativity fades in the face of the sheer hard slog ahead.  There are said to be more four-chapter-manuscripts gathering dust in desk drawers around the world than full length novels published.

So if TWENTY TEN lives beyond Easter 2010, I will be very pleased. Watch this space.