Tag Archives: feedback

Transmitted

Posted on January 18, 2013 by Michael Clarke

I wrote in a post over three and a half months ago about the MMU MA Creative Writing ‘Transmission Project’. That’s the second largest piece of assessed work on the course, which was due to be submitted in September. As … Continue reading →

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There’s Nothing Quite Like A Flaming Pudding

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Michael Clarke

My novel has a lot of food in it — and probably one of the most consistent pieces of feedback that I’ve received from the many and varied people who’ve been kind enough to read parts of the manuscript (or … Continue reading →

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Voice

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Michael Clarke

There’s a lot of discussion in creative writing courses about how authors can find their voice. It’s quite a difficult concept to articulate — most simplistically it’s what defines the distinctiveness of an author’s style. This may, depending on the … Continue reading →

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Non-Instant Karma — We All Shine On

Posted on June 15, 2011 by Michael Clarke

I’ve recently been writing a very tricky chapter of The Angel in which Kim falls over and hurts herself and believes it might signify some sort of bad karma — which it may well be bearing in mind what she’s … Continue reading →

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Do It Like A Dude

Posted on February 23, 2011 by Michael Clarke

The Angel has an old-fashioned love triangle at its heart and, while I know the eventual outcome I want to write, I’ve been gripped by an internal debate about how much of this tension should be shown in the novel … Continue reading →

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On Misinterpretation

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Michael Clarke

If I ever get very rich (from writing or otherwise — though neither possibility is likely) one thing I may do is go to every bookshop I can find (possibly not that many if they keep closing at the rate … Continue reading →

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Co-Incidences Do Happen

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Michael Clarke

Yesterday, in an example of complete chance the first non-league team in the FA Cup 5th round for 17 years, Crawley Town, drew Manchester United away — for anyone who doesn’t know, Manchester United are unbeaten in the Premier League … Continue reading →

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Churning Through the Mud

Posted on September 14, 2010 by Michael Clarke

Autumn seems to have crept upon us — it’s grey, drizzly and windy outside — and I’m facing the realisation  that I’ve not written half as much as I hoped over the summer. I made some amends last week by … Continue reading →

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The Power of Dreams?

Posted on August 3, 2010 by Michael Clarke

I’m currently trying to write the part of the novel that follows on from what I submitted at the end of the City course. I’ve approached it in an odd way as I’ve written mainly dialogue for about six different … Continue reading →

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Positive Feedback from Agents and A Publisher

Posted on July 2, 2010 by Michael Clarke

I’ve been so busy preparing for Wednesday’s reading that I haven’t had time to blog about other events that may have more eventual significance. I went to the Winchester Writers’ Conference last Friday and had three appointments — two with … Continue reading →

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‘Is It Any Good?’

Posted on June 15, 2010 by Michael Clarke

I would guess anyone who doesn’t ask themselves this during the course of writing a novel is not going to produce a very good one. What’s probably not such a good idea is to include this angst in comments accompanying … Continue reading →

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‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser, Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie and the Bulgarian Carrot

Posted on May 15, 2010 by Michael Clarke

For various reasons I’ve been incredibly pushed for time over the last week — principally related to a suspected outbreak of an unpleasant type of virus in the household. While it didn’t affect me directly, it had quite a knock … Continue reading →

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Prologue?

Posted on May 9, 2010 by Michael Clarke

Rick from the course had a look at some of the first chapters of The Angel. He made quite an interesting suggestion regarding the selection for the reading event that’s had me thinking. At the moment I have an opening … Continue reading →

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Revising Chapter Three

Posted on May 3, 2010 by Michael Clarke

I’ve spent quite considerable time over the past week revising the chapter three that I read at last Monday’s workshop. As previously I’ve had lots of really useful comments written on my manuscripts by the other students. It’s also quite … Continue reading →

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My Penultimate Workshop Reading

Posted on April 27, 2010 by Michael Clarke

I read out my Chapter Three at our first evening workshop last night. I’d actually forgotten many of my misgivings about the piece and now I wish I’d ploughed ahead more over Easter and been able to submit the next … Continue reading →

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Looking for Inspiration

Posted on April 6, 2010 by Michael Clarke

I wrote quite a bit in a short time up until the last Saturday workshop — around 7,000 words of the beginning of ‘The Angel — two sizeable chapters or perhaps three or four shorter ones. I tend to like … Continue reading →

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Visit from Kirstan Hawkins

Posted on March 19, 2010 by Michael Clarke

On Wednesday evening we had a visit from an author who has just had her first novel published — Kirstan Hawkins whose book is ‘Doña Nicanora’s Hat Shop’. What was particularly special about this author visit is that Kirstan is … Continue reading →

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A Less Fraught Workshop?

Posted on March 14, 2010 by Michael Clarke

Yesterday was the fourth of our five Saturday ‘workshops’ (I rather agree with Alexei Sayle’s famous quotation about the word — that anyone who uses it ‘without referring to light engineering is a tw*t’). As things worked out it was … Continue reading →

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Crises of Confidence

Posted on March 10, 2010 by Michael Clarke

One of our course (see the links to Bren Gosling’s blog on the sidebar) prompted an interesting e-mail exchange between several of us when he asked if anyone else had crises of confidence, particularly once they’d read a passage from … Continue reading →

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Skewering the Adverb — Deconstructing My Text

Posted on February 24, 2010 by Michael Clarke

It seems that many of the writers who provided the Guardian’s Top Tens share the hatred of the poor old descriptive adverb that is also drilled into students on creative writing classes. (Looking at my Oxford A-Z of grammar I … Continue reading →

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