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What are your aspirations as a writer?

That is an interesting first question. My aspirations, as a writer, and my aspirations, in life, are really the same. Writing is the only thing that I feel right doing, so my aspirations in life are my aspirations in writing. I suppose it’s foolhardy to desire acclaim in and of itself, but I deeply wish to become respected in my field, by writers and readers alike. I think that, when I write, I want to provoke a thought or feeling, like any poet. A few times, I’ve been told that my work has made someone cry or smile, and that is the moment where I feel vindicated, I feel like I am being what I am meant to be. I long for a day when my work is in print, when my words are quoted by lovers, mourners and dreamers everywhere.

Tell us what you take inspiration from…

I have three ‘muses’, as it were. The three things that never fail to still my mind and induce a kind of poetic clarity are wolves, water and the moon. A lot of my work has an affinity with nature, a theme or an image of something serene and distant. Or, perhaps, something silently unnerving, some ‘underlying malignant force’ as a radio presenter once said. I draw a lot from nature, more so in my first two years of writing, and a lot of that is due to these three muses. Also, my own philosophical beliefs are often reflected in my work. And if those weren’t enough, I just have to think of my admiration for the music of Jeff Buckley. Trying to raise my work to a standard of emotion and poignancy to rival his work may take me a lifetime.

Where is your favourite place to write?

The boring answer is that I only ever write in my bedroom. I need things to be really peaceful, I need to be alone and have enough time to clear my head and deliberate over everything, whilst also having a computer handy. But I do have a favourite place to garner inspiration, which may provide a more interesting answer. The local reservoir is a rather beautiful place, in many respects. Partly because of very pretentious, poetic images that I could describe here, like the amber glow of evening rippling through the gentle waters… but also because of its distance from the city, its isolation. During the day it provides an arena for dog walkers, runners and people with a lot of spare time and nothing to do. At night, however, it becomes this canvas for the mind. I go there sometimes and just switch off, allow the sound of the water, the shadows dancing through the air, the lights flickering in the distance, to form a story of its own in my head. In fact, my poem ‘Where Spirits Coalesce’ is about this very place.

Through your work you appear to have nurtured quite a vocabulary, where do you feel this stems from?

My vocabulary is reasonable, I think, although I often feel shamed when I consider that of Russell Brand, for example. Someone who doesn’t necessarily need to be as eloquent as he is, given his career, and yet seems to have this veritable archive of expression freely accessible to him. I think I’ve just picked up bits and pieces along the way, really. I admire intelligence a great deal and it seems to me that intelligent people are, on the whole, more linguistically adept. It’s always irritated me when I hear a word and don’t know what it means. Surely it’s quite simple to expand one’s vocabulary, though, it’s simply a matter of paying attention. Although I will say that I’m no stranger to a thesaurus. Having a well reasoned argument is a must in any debate, but it always helps if you can perplex a person with a positive paradigm of phonetic poise.

Of which piece of work on eNovella are you most proud of?

Pride isn’t something that I know a great deal about, I’m afraid. My sonnets seem to be well loved by my readers, so perhaps they should provoke a sense of satisfaction. I’ve never really felt that ‘pride’ is necessary, or even deserved. However, I will say that I am fond of the works ‘Requiem’ and ‘To Find You In The Rain’ for their wide, vivid and varying images. There are also some lines in ‘The Heart Of Beauty’ that I am glad that I wrote, but I know that my best work is still in formation, somewhere. The future aside, My short stories truly have a place in my heart. I really gave everything I could when writing all three and, although I consider myself a poet, short stories are something that I must endeavour to create far more often. To pick one work, out of everything, and hold it up as more pure than any other, I would probably pick ‘The Living Flowers’. I’m a poet and it’s a short story, but it was the work that demanded the most from me, the work that really required so much belief in what I was doing, so much energy and so much love. I choose ‘The Living Flowers’.

Who are your favourite eNovellians?

I have to say that Adam Jay and Dick Sardon are my favourite eNovellians. That’s not to say that there aren’t others who are eminently worthy of my respect, but these two writers are very willing to break ground. Adam is very real and can produce a kind of empathy in his readers, even when that empathy seems unlikely. He makes people connect with his work, the sign of a good writer. As for Dick Sardon, he has tackled some controversial or simply difficult subject matter, as have I in my earlier days. I recall one poem about a particularly unsavoury topic that, when I read it, I couldn’t move on and continue with my day, it just stuck with me and kept stealing my attention. Dick Sardon, for sheer variety, and Adam Jay, for the honesty of his work, are ‘ones to watch’.

What is your favourite flavour of crisps?

Ah, the toughest question of all. I see now that all your trawling of my mind, of my aspirations and of my heart, that was all a mere precursor to the true maelstrom that was brewing on the horizon. Well, prepare for things to get a bit controversial. In fact, doubly so. There was a time when I would have claimed that Lime flavour doritos were my favourite crisps…. I’ll allow you a moment to digest that profound statement. Alright? Good. But I had too much of a good thing and got quite tired of them after a while. Of course, chilli heatwave, tangy cheese and cool original flavour doritos should never, ever, be counted out by a true crisp connoisseur. They may be simple, but they are damn tasty. So, the truth of the matter, the poignant moment that these seven questions have let to the apotheosis, the denouement, the spark which will (inevitably) light the fires of contention around the globe… my favourite flavour of crisps. Is…. Sour Cream & Chive.

We’ve been hard at work on a number of new features which we are going to detail in our new development blog. In brief, here are the latest updates:

1. An all-new awards system. We’re introducing a number of these over the next week for milestones that users have achieved in popularity, comments received and much more.
2. Revised and improved interface on groups, discussions, forms, and writer profiles.
3. Improved record-keeping for ‘What’s hot?’ and groups. You now get a much more accurate idea of what’s popular at the moment on the site.
4. All-new email notifications which can be managed by the new ‘My Settings’ page (find this by clicking the link in the top-right next to your profile picture when logged in).

We have even more exciting updates on the way including a whole new arm to eNovella that will mean a lot more people are reading the work that is published on the site. We’ll keep you posted!

Each week we will be challenging each and every one of our wonderful eNovellians to produce a piece of creative writing related to a chosen subject.

The best work picked out by the eNovella team will then be featured pride of place on our fabled home page for one week.

So what are you waiting for? Be inspired and take part today!

The first eNovella challenge: Describe the colour red to a blind person in less than 800 words…

Entering your work for the challenge is very easy – you just need to create a work on the site and mark it under the new category – ‘Red challenge’.

Here are the details of the most recent set of updates:

1. Home page update – the ‘Most popular’ list has had a makeover – It has been noted by many users that the ‘Most popular’ list had grown to become quite flawed in that it was almost entirely static and very hard to penetrate. We have therefore changed this list to ‘What’s hot?’ – this simply shows the most popular works from the last month. As the site gets more users and more activity, we may refine this further to the most popular works from the last week.
   N.B. Fear not if you are one of eNovella’s all-time favourites – we will be spotlighting you in a new ‘Read’ overview page that we’re working on.
   
2. Major group reform – We have carried out a lot of work on the site’s group system. Submitting your work to a group is a lot easier and you can now do it on the group’s profile page. Your user home page now also shows the latest works that have been submitted to the groups of which you are a member.
3. Major discussion reform – The big discussion board has gone! You can now easily create discussions within the groups which makes it easier for users to get together and talk about writing (or anything else they feel like discussing!).
4. Follow writers – You can now follow your favourite writers on the site and have their updates automatically fed into your homepage. We’re still working on this feature but feel free to start following the writers that you like and you will begin to notice their work feeding into your stream.

On top of all this we have been cleaning up and polishing a lot the existing features so that they are hopefully more intuitive and easier to use.

In accordance with Contact Publishing’s mission to find and nurture fresh writing talent, the competition invites all budding authors, published or otherwise, to submit a 40,000 word suspense novella. This could be mystery, crime, adventure or even kitchen-sink drama – anything with a cliff-hanger that leaves the reader eager for more. Horror and fantasy are the only styles excluded.

The winning writer will be offered a publishing contract for a series of three novellas, based on his/her winning submission, with an advance payment of £1,000 and 10% royalties on net sales. The first will be published in summer 2011, both as an e-book and in print.

Runners up will also be in with a chance of winning a publishing deal. The top ten novellas will be critiqued by the judges, who include established authors, Alex Wheatle, Kelvin I. Jones and Anne Mortensen. Winners will also receive a copy of Writers in Black and White, Contact Publishing’s new photo-book, which features interviews and tips on writing and getting published by 30 well-known authors.

Competition rules:

In the first stage contestants must submit:

• An outline, theme and story-line of the proposed mini-series (maximum of 500 words)
• A synopsis (maximum 1000 words) of the first novella of the series, explaining the plot and character development
• Two sample chapters, to be used mainly to judge the writing style and writer’s ability to develop the story.
• Based on these submissions a short-list will be drawn-up and the successful contestants asked to submit the full novella within 60 days of being selected.

Prizes will be awarded for the submission of the first novella, but the publishing contract will be for a series of three. Judging will be based purely on the strength of the piece submitted, not on previous work or reputation. Entries may be submitted from any country in the world.

Entry costs £10 and can be made online at: www.pageturnerprize.com. The deadline for first submissions is 1st November 2010.

The book has come about as the result of a collaboration between two journalists who are also budding authors. It contains detailed written profiles of 30 writers who are each presented with high quality black and white portrait photographs.

It is very pleasing to see such a diverse group of writers presented in one work. The mix is definitely eclectic, ranging from financial journalist Edmund Conway of 50 Economic Ideas You Really Need To Know fame, to Joanne Harris, author of the 1999 novel Chocolat (the 2000 film adaptation of which received five Oscar nominations). These figures are by no means small fry and the book certainly reads as a sort of brief Who’s Who in the contemporary literary world.

If you’re interested in authors’ lives and methods, you’d certainly be foolish not to pick up this book this autumn. It is a relaxing and entertaining read and the perfect item to accompany you on the sofa on a wintry Sunday afternoon.

Writers In Black and White will be available from 1st November 2010.

Click here to pre-order it on Amazon today.

SW11 Literary Festival
If you want to head along and see us, we’re going to be at the following events:

16th September, 7pm – Bobbie Darbyshire and Nicholas Royle – So you want to be a writer? Making the pages turn – two fiction writers spill the beans on how it’s done. Come and talk to them about writing and pitching your book.

19th September, 2pm & 4:30pm – Creative Writing Workshop: Structuring a story for fiction. Alex Wheatle.

21st September, 7pm – Isabel Losada – How to get published

All of these events are being held in Waterstones, 70 St John’s Road, Clapham, London SW11 1PT.

For more information on the event, please go to the SW11 Literary Festival website.

As ever, we thank you deeply for using the site and hope that you will continue to enjoy it and make use of it.

Group reform
The groups have been reworked and are now much more easy to locate. You can also now see from the writing panel which groups your works are in. Remember, a work will only appear in a group if you have chosen to share it with other users of the site.

Modifications to back end and performance tweaks
A lot of work has been carried out on the back end of the site and a lot more work will be going on over the coming months. Much of this work will hopefully be noticeable in the site becoming easier to use and more intuitive.

Weekly newsletter
We are now committed to sending out a newsletter every week. It will be sent every Sunday, normally before noon, and will be our main way of communicating with the community on the site. The newsletter will be used for all sorts of things from featuring key writers to letting everyone know about regional events that they may be interested in.

As ever, we thank you deeply for using the site and hope that you will continue to enjoy it and make use of it.

New groups
All users are welcome to start creating and joining groups. Once you have joined a group, you can submit work to it from the ‘Write’ panel using the new drop-down menu beneath each work.

As always, we’re very eager to get any feedback so please don’t hesitate to contact us using the contact form.

Comments
After receiving a lot of feedback about comments and the commenting system, we have now made it possible for authors to delete comments left on their work in an effort to prevent trolling and unfair criticism.

New Blog
We have a new blogger, Vikki Weston, who will be blogging about various things in the literary world over the coming months. View her first entry here.

Thanks again to everyone for using the site. We really appreciate all of the feedback and insights that we have been getting from everyone. More updates coming sooner than last time!