A Femal Author Neglecting her Home and Child  by Honore Daumier

What’s The Story last Thursday evening featured a panel consisting of writers, Eilis Ni Dhuibhne and Martina Devlin, and Stinging Fly editor, Declan Meade, and as is usual with these events, I came home full of the short story and how it works, and how I can improve the chances of my submissions to magazines and competitions (by making sure it achieves what it sets out to achieve, if Declan Meade is the judge).

Next day, however, found me far from my short stories, instead delving deep into Self-editing for Fiction Writers, How Novels Work, and Imaginative Writing to find inspiration for a course I’m designing on revising and editing, which has found itself on the long finger for various reasons (see last post). It’s coming, slowly.

Meantime, I’m soldiering on with the appropriately named Writing Against Time by Michael Clune, for review for Puffin Reviews, ‘soldiering’ not because it’s not interesting – it is – but because it requires blocks of time which occur too rarely. (That my review copy is electronic doesn’t help.) And the post just brought Entertaining Strangers by Jonathan Taylor for review for Necessary Fiction, which I’m eagerly looking forward to reading while simultaneously worrying about finding the time to write the review.

Also today, I got great feedback from Molly McCloskey on three of my stories, which provided plenty of ideas and the urge to get cracking on them right away, while the story I should be working on for my linked story collection, or novel(la)-in-stories as I’m starting to think of it, languishes, awaiting completion. My novel, Michaelangelos, will soon (hopefully) need to be edited. Then there’s another novel, crouching in the starting blocks, awaiting the firing of the gun.

There’s teaching too. And marking – and on one’s first time in a university setting this is not a trivial matter.

And not a child in the house washed…

I’ve been writing for… let’s just say a long time. Somewhere on the way I purchased my Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook  and read that the first and most essential writer’s accessory was the Literary Agent. It made sense. Literary Agents had access to publishers, and I did not. So, I prettied up the novels, sent them out to a few agents with names mostly in the A-Cs, and waited for the offers; celebrations would involve bubbles.

Rejections poured in, or worse, nothing at all. First and second novels beat a hasty retreat to the back of the drawer; I regrouped.

I bought more books, this time on the craft of writing. I read literature I loved with a different kind of attention. I enrolled in workshops and classes, and the next novel, Peter Peter, was one I was proud of. Again I sent it out. This time responses were more positive, sometimes falling into the ‘rave rejection’ category, but the consensus was that its unconventional, somewhat episodic structure, and its (relatively) quiet plot, made for a difficult sell. [Don’t worry, Peter, I’m still keeping the faith.] But I was working on my next novel, Michaelangelos, too busy to be too disappointed. I finished it and sent it out to the 3 or 4 agents and publishers who were kind enough to offer to read it having rejected Peter Peter. And yesterday, I received ‘the phone-call’ from Ger Nichol; I have finally acquired an agent.

It is a wonderful feeling to receive recognition for one’s writing, especially when it comes from a professional who is prepared to promote and defend it. I am looking forward to working on the manuscript with her; already I like her suggestions and her presentation of them.

But is it the holy grail I expected? It is one less not-actually-writing, writing-related activity to worry about, and one more step on the path to publication which, in my head, represents the justification for the time I spend not doing housework, not being the yummiest mummy on the block, not out earning an honest crust. More than anything, it’s a relief.

I’m very proud to announce that my sister is the winner of the Writing West Midlands Short Fiction Competition! Visit her blog and read the story here: RAZAMATAZZ

As threatened… My Question and Answer session with Mel Ulm at The Reading Life is up for your delectation!

I was delighted to be asked to participate in Irish Short Story Month over at The Reading Life, Mel Ulm’s incredibly prolific, and wide-ranging blog. It’s my first experience as reviewee, and you can read it here auslanders-by-paula-mcgrath. And as if that was not enough excitement for one day, it will be followed up soon by a Question and Answer session, which I’ve been agonising over. Watch this space…

My memoir piece Trying To Get Myself Raped And Murdered was selected by Rachel Cusk for ‘New Writing’ in the current issue of mslexia (Issue 57), and you can read her thoughtful and insightful Judge’s Essay here. But then, I’m biased by her nice words about my piece:

‘A young woman’s discovery that men are predators rather than protectors is brilliantly evoked in ‘Trying to get myself raped and murdered’ by Paula McGrath, an account of her experience tending bar in an oil field worked by Samoan labourers.’

Unfortunately it’s not online; you’ll have to purchase a copy if you’re dying to read it…

Coming soon in Necessary Fiction, my review of Lane Ashfeldt’s short story collection, SaltWater.  All thanks to my posting this photo of Clontarf at high tide on twitter. I suppose that’s what makes it an international computer network…

For their 21st edition, ROPES Galway 2013 is themed Coming of Age, and they’re including my story Angel-headed Hipsters. All proceeds of the magazine will go to the charity Jigsaw, a support service for young people in Galway. The (other) best bit is, it will be launched at the Cúirt International Festival of Literature in April.

My fondest memories of Galway involve this pin-up, the Naomh Éanna, who delivered generations of pubescents, myself included, across to Inisheer and into the hands of our Bean an Tís (apologies to gaelgóirs; my Irish is as rusty as the old lady herself). Dour fishermen lifted us and our rucksacks into currachs for the last stretch of the journey, then retrieved us, newly fluent (ahem…), three weeks later, and brought us back to Galway.

A couple of years ago, I needed a used wet-suit, and the address led me to a surf shop housed in none other than the lovely Naomh Éanna, where she is now docked in Ringsend, Dublin. I think I can feel a story coming on…

I haven’t been back often enough since. Thanks ROPES for an excuse for a road-trip!

Lucien Freud’s Benefits Supervisor Sleeping

What are prompts, and why should you use them?

When the muse is working and inspiration strikes, prompts need not apply. But the rest of the time, better to take from the gift horse when he’s offering. ‘Discovering a secret in a relationship’ is this week’s prompt from the short story course I’m attending. On Monday I had a story called Yehudit ticking over slowly, one I could have made last for a month – and I may do so yet – but by Thursday I had a story, and by Thursday midday it had a title, Birmingham Blues, in which the protagonist, Dee, discovers a secret in her relationship. If I may say so, it’s not a bad story. The other one has not advanced much, but it hasn’t retreated either, and any lessons learned in the writing of Birmingham Blues will be applied to Yehudit. It’s win-win, as far as I’m concerned.

Sometimes an idea comes from some interstice of heart, mind and soul, and sometimes, when there’s no idea at all there are prompts (see any number of creative writing books and websites). Something interesting happens with a prompt. It’s as if, because it did not come from deep within, there is less personal investment at stake, and therefore less of the internal critic’s input, or simply less of the artistic angst. With a prompt, one is making the best of a restricted situation. (The implication is that without the restriction, Great Art would be in progress, that one is only making do.)

I’m a fan of prompts – in the absence of muses, of course. As to Lucien Freud’s muse (above), I can only aspire.