Orla's Code Update

Imagine my excitement on hearing from a publisher who liked my synopsis and was interested in reading my manuscript! Well, you'd be wrong. I was not excited at all. I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, telling me all was not as it seemed. This is because I had heard back from them the day after my submission, congratulating me on "taking initiative" and promising to help with whatever my goal. You can see the stance they're taking here. And I only have one problem with it. If you're offering support to people who want to self-publish, then just say that. If you want to charge them $1000, as I subsequently learned, in order to "share the financial risk" then allude to it on your website, if you think it's such a great idea. A week after submitting my MS I received another email of congratulations and I knew the nature of the publishing contracts "tailored for me" before reading them. But there was one sentence I found more alarming than the email pick-pocketing that was going on. It was this: "In your case, we believe that what you have submitted to us shows promise specifically but only in terms of commercial sales potential. We do not critique submissions for any other opinion or determination." What in the world does that mean? In grappling to understand I interpret it to mean: "We do not stand over quality". And this alarms me because I then make the leap to shit-peddlers. Is this why self-publishing has a bad name? Because some companies will take your money and publish your work no matter what the standard? This gets me all riled up because it reminds me of the Dark Lords who bring us marketed pop music. Don't even get me started... Part of this deal was that if I made 1000 book sales I would get my money back. But where is the incentive for them to help with book sales? The answer is, there isn't any. They win either way. But self-publishing doesn't have to be like that. There do appear to be self-publishing houses that will work with you to improve the quality of your MS before publishing it. And there's always print-on-demand which gives you greater control and doesn't cost all your savings up front. Well, maybe, as an international company, their marketing clout would have provided essential support but it's the shady way they went about revealing their intentions, hidden beneath this motivational marketing speak that meant, no matter what they had to offer they were never going to be my type.

Other than that, in my quest to find an audience for Orla's Code, I fill out agency submission forms trying to figure out if I've written a novel or a novella. Depending on what website you visit, a novel can start at 40,000 words, 50,000 words or 70,000 words. If we take content rather than length as a measure, I would say a novel reveals itself completely; telling all the stories that contribute to the main story. A novella tells a self-contained story. So, in a way they are opposite things and I have written a novella. And then there's the genre. It's funny that in a lot of industries, thinking "outside the box" is a good thing. In writing - one of the most creative professions - we're encouraged to fit inside the box. Well, I'm a cirangle. Yes, I just made it up. There isn't a box for me. My story is through the eyes of a woman but most of the characters are men. It's about the emotional landslide that takes someone when they feel persecuted but it's set in a highly technical world. It's fiction but the roots of most things are real. Incidentally, doesn't this sound like the perfect pocket-read for your commute? It's understandable though that outside the box falls through the cracks. No publisher is looking to publish random work. They have a relationship with their readership. They build a name through consistency. Like Starbucks, you know what you're getting. This is how any business works. It's how sales work. Hell, even if you look up tips on blogging, you'll be told that's how blogging works - consistency. This is also why we have independent movies, alternative music, the word indie and Mr. Frothy. Which begs a question:

Why is it that indie-music/movies are cool but self-publishing has a bad name? It's like the former is considered a noble act and the latter is dismissed as vanity! My initial thought is it's because self-publishing is just so easy. But, it wasn't always as easy as it is now. And anyway, it's never easy to write a book! So, here are some multiple choice suggestions: (fun, right?)

A) Indie music/movies are usually a collaboration so it means a few people have to think it's great before it goes anywhere.

B) Indie music/movies actually cost quite a lot of money. Kevin Smith's Clerks cost $27,575. I think we'd all think twice about publishing our memoir for that.

C) Self-publishing is relatively new and we need a few more talented authors to make it through before it really starts to establish itself.

D) The aforementioned companies that are willing to publish anything.

E) None of the above. Suggestions please?

I'm also taking suggestions on genre...

Performance Poetry Night 2

If I have strange dreams over the next few days involving dark figures shouting 'Terrorism' or a Goth trying to cleanse me with an industrial vacuum cleaner or a man trying to unlock the secrets of a Cornish pasty, telepathically, possibly using the vibration of sound, I'll have to blame RichMix's avant-garde evening Maintenant Camarade Poetry.

Maybe I'm not equipped to comment on last night's performances. But I do have a question. Does avant-garde mean by definition these days, introspective art? Not art for the sake of art but art for the sake of the artist? And is what used to be avant-garde now considered alternative - in a more liberal age? I think experiment in sound/art is interesting if it is part of something, a progression that leads to a new form of expression. My personal preference is art that wants to say something rather than art that just wants to shock. But I enjoyed last night. It's fun not knowing what's going to happen next.

Before the performances there was an exhibition of visual poetry. I thought this one was cool. It's by Stephen Nelson. I've just found his website Afterlights with more of his work.

The March issue of Tuck Magazine has come but not gone

Nice to be a part of an arts magazine. Today I spent my lunch break looking at the latest work from artists, photographers and film makers among my poems Prime Time Guy and Sifting For Gold. A break from the 0's and 1's chit-chat we programmers usually engage in.

Loved Simon Crofts' photography. The unusual angles and composition are really arresting. And thought Gerard Stricher's art had something in common as they both create striking shapes.

I really liked the poems by Liam Bond. Loved the rhythm of The Music of Spheres by A.J. Huffman and The Eve Factor in a Bee's eye by Michael Kwaku Kesse Somuah made me smile.

Hope you're all enjoying Tuck March Issue too.

It was you who fell first

WordJar asked for a dedication to accompany the poems in their anthology My Love 2. I suppose this would normally be to the object of affection in the poem, but my poem is about a young woman who is letting go of an unobtainable man and the object of affection, in the end, is herself. So, instead, I dedicate the poem to my friend Gill. When I asked Gill what she thought of the emotional state of the woman in the poem (because I like to annoy my friends with such questions), Gill shrugged and said, She's just being a woman. We both nodded wisely.

Click here for My Love 2, including The Procrastinator

Making of The End

Note to self: Always write down wandering thoughts that seem vaguely poetic and always save your scraps. My poem The End sat in my scraps folder (that is, the folder on my laptop) for a year just as 2 separate images that I would whittle for a moment whenever I was working on a poem. Until, with the perspective that comes from memory loss, I realised the 2 images could relate to each other as end-of-life scenarios. They became verses 1 and 2 and I made up the 3rd verse to complete the idea. Then I whittled some more, now that the idea was clear in my head and it emerged a publishable poem.

I mention this because sometimes I hear writer friends saying you have to be disciplined and not stray off the path of your goal. But I only have one writing rule: If the juices are flowing, write it down. You never know what it will become.

If I may get a bit carried away, I love this saying: "You never know when something begins". I don't know who said it first but I'm quoting John Berger, incidentally, from a talk on his recent book Bento's Sketchbook, which I'm really enjoying. Anyway, not just a saying to be applied to writing, obviously but a really nice one for life, I think.

Pop-up Tokyo

Konichiwa is the Japanese for good morning and good afternoon but not good evening. Kampai is how you say cheers. It's good for any time of day except when you're with your client CEO because it actually means bottoms-up. But I'll get to that later.

I started writing a poem in my head called Pop-up Tokyo when I stepped off the plane in Japan. I was hit by the aesthetics of the city, its geometrical landscape, multi-coloured bicycles and glaring shopping blocks with vertical letters that I wanted to climb. But over a few days I began to see that the poem was missing something. Just like the occasional crescent-moon roof-top lying low next to designer stores, an older world persists in Tokyo, in the form of the Japanese culture. I was discovering that all social interaction has a rich set of rules. For example, people bow to each other, in the same way that westerners nod, wink or wave. The bow is slow and taken with care as a sign of respect. This respect is also demonstrated in the exchange of an object. Always presented and accepted with both hands. There's something quaint about a guy in grunge jeans tipping his head when he offers you his card. Then there are the aspirational rituals that have to be deserved. Like topping up your hosts drink over dinner. Well, we all have that one, in a way, when you think about it. But I learned this was not something you do casually. And it was by accident that I was included for dinner with our client CEO on the evening of our project launch. A matter of the right place at the right time when the interpreter invited my manager. ‘Bring five people,’ she instructed, leaving him to select quickly. My team were also making plans to go out and part of me wanted to go with them. Our working days were long and we were constantly on call. But every night, despite the jetlag we had to let off steam. There was the restaurant with the revolving tables and a little of everything served, but no pictures to tell you what you ordered. And later that night a strange basement bar with an American pool hustler and no business calling itself The Oasis. Then there was the noodle bar, tucked away off a side-street that, despite the smoky air, had the best noodle soup we'd ever tasted! - a haven, as we left work so late we thought we'd have to survive on a liquid dinner. Bars are a strong feature of Japanese eateries. Tucked away cubbyholes in shopping centres or tucked away on side-streets. It was in a narrow, disco-lit darts bar where I somehow became a darts hustler. There were a lot of high-fives with the locals that night. However, I had never actually had sushi before and we were being taken to a famous Sushi restaurant.

This is where I tried the Kampai ice-breaker. Her first time in Japan, was the explanation for my charm. Never even had Sushi. At this I was forgiven. 'You, eat' the CEO demanded with delight pointing at the little rectangles of fish. 'You know, he told the waitress to bring the weird stuff out for you' my Tokyo team-lead helpfully interpreted as small dishes were placed around me. I felt like the future relationship of our companies depended on my keeping seaweed down. It's not that I didn't like it. I found the tastes so strange in my mouth I couldn't really tell if I liked it. After a few speed swallows, afraid to think about what I was eating, my stomach was definitely unsettled. It probably won't be considered polite if I vomit on the table, I told myself with surreptitious deep breaths. This is when my team-leader suggested the magical ginger and sachi combo to settle the stomach. He had my back. But I still doubted him when he said, 'His glass is empty. If you top it up, it's a sign of respect.' He was apparently not a man to miss an opportunity. 'Are you sure?' I asked, lifting the fat jug of Sachi. 'You're not setting me up?' (I mean, we had only met a few days earlier and he seemed to have a pretty developed sense of humor). But I had already sailed my arm over the sushi tray so there was no going back. 'Go for it.' he encouraged as the table paused and heads turned, seeing what I was doing. The CEO had to scramble for his glass, in surprise at my forwardness. I managed not to spill. 'He says thank you for fulfilling his need when no one else saw his need,' the interpreter said, making everyone laugh with relief. 'Respect,' one of my managers nodded and I realised the weight given the gesture meant the kudos wasn't limited to the Japanese! Wonder if it will count towards a pay rise?

Outside the restaurant we said our goodbyes and cards were exchanged with the promise of future business opportunities. I asked the interpreter to convey to our host that I would always remember my first sushi experience. She replied he hoped I would not remember him because young Japanese men were very good and he would like me to come back to find one. Well, as it happens there may be opportunities in the Tokyo office and the trip has given me something to think about. I might be back, I bowed and we shook hands, western style.

The poem needs a little work...

Performance Poetry Night

So, Saturday night I fancied checking out some performance poetry. I was thinking of an open mic venue staging beginners alongside professionals. It’s a skill I admire and love to watch but I don't think I'd ever have the nerve. Performance is just not my forte. Then again, if I found a venue with an easy atmosphere and I went along regularly, who knows, maybe one day I would have the courage to stand behind the mic... Well, I never made the open mic. Here’s what happened instead:

Googling ‘Performance Poetry London’ took me to TimeOut. TimeOut took me to WriteOutLoud. WriteOutLoud took me to Remi Kanazi & Guests: An Evening of Political Performance Poetry. Remi Kanazi is a poet, writer and activist for the Middle East. Great, I thought. I’m fascinated by the poetry of different cultures.

I got to The Tabernacle, w11 just before the gig started. So, with a glass of wine in hand, I headed straight upstairs. The room was small and intimate and as I weaved my way through the tables to find a seat I began to feel self-conscious about being on my own. Is that weird – that I went out by myself on a Saturday night? I just don’t know anyone who’d be interested in performance poetry and I didn’t want to drag someone along just to accompany me. I found a table at the back on a higher tier. I’ll just blend in here, I thought, setting up camp. But as soon as I settled in some people arrived, friends of the table next to me. I can move over, I offered, as they tried to cram chairs around the one table. Thanks so much, that’s very kind of you. No problem. I shifted to the far side of my table, feeling better now really as I was sharing, I wouldn’t stick out. Then more of the party arrived. Is it just the two of you? Would you mind moving over? It’s just the one of me. No, I don’t mind. It was like one of those movies when the insecurity gets exposed. What were the chances I’d pre-emptively crash a large group? Then more of them arrived. This time I folded my leaflet slowly before looking up. Ugh. I hate it when people tilt their head and smile no matter what they’re saying. I didn’t really mind moving again though. What difference would it make to me? Well, my forth seat was next to the camera and there was a wire hanging down from a balcony above, obscuring my view. After a few minutes of internal tutting about the whole thing I spotted individual seats along the side. There was still space in the front row. Once settled with a perfect view, a low bar in front of me for my drink and plenty of foot room, I willed the performance to start, cause people were chatting around me and I was reading the hell out of this leaflet.

And then it began. For two hours I sat in awe watching great poets race through their material to get as much of it in to their timeslot as possible. Every word straight from the belly. So intense and in-your-face that by the end I felt high, as if I had been on stage too. There was music intermingled with the poems. A little rap. A little reggae. A little audience participation. Every performance was so polished and smart and entertaining and shocking, it blew me away.

Remi Kanazi delivers anger and a desire for clear thinking with standup humour. And as a Palestinian-American he does a great impression of the Liberal attempt to intellectualise the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. He darts about the stage ad-libing in between poems and it’s all raw and funny and poignant at the same time.

Earlier we had Zita Holbourne, a poet, artist and activist from East London. With an easy yet uncompromising delivery, to me, she's an inspiring woman who demonstrates the power of poetry. Here’s a video of her performing Multiculturalism - a response to David Cameron.

Towards the start of the evening we had Poetic Pilgrimage. I LOVE when women break stereotypes. It gives us all more air to breath.

We were rushed for time at the end, running over 10:30. It’s a shame. I would have loved to have heard more. Filtering out slowly, on the way to the bar and merchandise, the artists mingled with the audience. People swarmed around them with questions and a bit about themselves. As I stood in the queue to have Poetic Injustice signed by Remi, I heard the woman ahead of me say, ‘That was the best night out I've had in a long time.’ Inspired, humbled and exhilarated, I had to agree.