…but the new Kate Bush single was revealed today — released properly tomorrow. At least it’s only five and a half years after the last one, as opposed to thirteen, although it’s a remix of a tune released twenty three years ago. It was on Kenn Bruce’s show (the spelling is deliberate, see previous post), which I missed, but thanks to Graeme A. Thomson’s tweets, I’ve found it on YouTube.
Not sure what I think after the first listen. The original wasn’t one of my favourites and this version has some very nice sounds in it — but also some very weird vocals.
who is ..ckingwriter? Who are they refering to? I hope its not me. I write by longhand and then dictate what Ive written and get it typed up profesionally as I am hopeless at typing. I would rather preserve my energy to create. I edit the typed draft I then have and this is criitiqued by my mentor and is discussed in tutorials. This is called “workshopping”( in case the commentator needed clarification) My mentor does NOT “polish it up”. I may be getting feedback that I am producing very polished -line by line – writing in these early drafts which requires little correction BUT THIS IS BECAUSE I slave away with my writing routine and put the hours in every week. Practice, as they say, makes perfect.
I hope that this Tweet is not making reference to me because I find it offensive. Mike, maybe you’d be good enough to clarify who this person is who made the comment and whom it is they are referring to.
Thanks
Bren Gosling
?and now those Tweets have miraculously dissappeared…?
Bren,
ckingwriter is someone who posts a blog and who also tweets quite prolifically. She blogged about a service that was set up by an agency which puts people who send in unsolictited manuscripts with editors who will then give feedback — for a fee.
Those tweets were a result of me tweeting directly to her to ask how much this service costs. In the course of the exchange of tweets she stated a principle about ‘money flows to the writer, not away’.
The tweet that you picked up on was a response I made to one of her points and it wasn’t aimed at you or anyone I know but about someone whose writing methods I’d come across over the internet on a blog (and who should remain anonymous — I think the original tweet said ‘know of’ rather than ‘know’). This person operates much more in the method of using a mentor as a ghost writer — ‘polishing’ being something of a euphemism. Anyone who reads your blog will know that is not the way you work.
I guess that there’s a wide spectrum of attitudes to writing. There’s a lot of hostility and even contempt towards people who pay to do creative writing courses at all (see the BBC2 programme on the best 12 new novelists where creative writing courses got blamed every 5 minutes for things the judges didn’t like). Some people think that writers shouldn’t pay for any assistance, even teaching. Then there are the large number of commercially successful writers who organise themselves like a business — the likes of John Grisham employs teams of people to assist in the process. I would say we should all find the best way that works for us.
I haven’t had time until now to write a reply so I modified the number of tweets at the top of the blog after I read your original comment so it wouldn’t display the one you picked up on. If they’re in ‘conversations’ these tweets can look misleading out of context.
Hi Mike Apologies for my paranoia. Thanks for taking time to respond. What you say is very interesting. Didnt even the likes of Mozart have lessons to begin with?The Grisham approach is extreme but also , if you think about it , legitimate.If you are on a role in his kind of genre novel then why not employ researchers etc to assist – I suppose. Personally I love the research element to fiction writing- even though its a disstraction it affords greater depth to me – the writer’s – understanding of my characters and their behaviours. What I cant abide are these celebrity or pseudocelebrities(I include politicians like Mssers Blair and Campbell in this category) who feel they are entitled to write a book because of their fame/infamy, when they either have no talent for it or employ ghost writers to do a GCE” O” level job for them.
The rest of the vitriole from some of the writing establishment is , in my humble opinion, pure, unadulterated snobbery.
Bren Gosling
Hello Mike and Bren,
Bren, I’m that ckingwriter person, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t referring to you in any of my tweets. I do try and keep things civil and not personal at all times 😉
Best wishes,
Claire
Claire, I think we sorted out this misunderstanding. It’s a very interesting point though — when you have people like the Brit Writers getting into trying to front agents then they might branch into trying to tell people what and how to write (with no guarantee of any success).