Umbrellas of Edinburgh

https://www.freightbooks.co.uk/product/umbrellas-of-edinburgh/

So, here's a neat idea: take a city that is almost universally loved and beautiful and full of life; get a bunch of writers to write about it - poetry and prose; then stick everything into a nice book with illustrations. That's 'Umbrellas of Edinburgh' and it makes a great gift for anyone in love with the city or belonging here, or visiting or intending to visit, or having visited and wanting to remember.

There are some great writers in this collection and it is such an eclectic mix that there's bound to be something for you, whoever you are. I am so so so pleased to be in here - not just because it's good company to be in, but because I love the city. It has my roots (such as they are) and it has my heart. I walk around the city like a tourist but also with a sense of belonging - I belong to the city and the city belongs to me - and I am always smiling there.

Here's a neat review of the book that appeared in The Scotsman Newspaper… and I get a wonderful mention here, which is truly surprising and such a lift.

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/culture/books/book-review-umbrellas-of-edinburgh-eds-russell-jones-and-claire-askew-1-4312221

Go buy a copy and visit Edinburgh every time you open the pages.

TWO YEARS IN A ROW WITH AESTHETICA!

Last year at this time I was whooping and hollering because I made the shortlist for Aesthetica's Creative Writing Award and was selected to be in their annual publication of the best creative writing entered into the competition. Inside the publication, Arifa Akbar described my story as 'breathless' and 'powerful'. I was walking on air.

Then, wow!

I have just been informed that the story I entered into this year's competition has also made the cut and will appear in this year's publication of the best of the competition. That's pretty special. They get a couple of thousand entries, so to get noticed twice is such a wonderful affirmation. I'm whooping and hollering again.

The anthology should be out in time for Christmas. I'll let you know.

BRIGHTON PRIZE and UNIVERSITY of SUNDERLAND SHORT STORY AWARD

Some late October news which I thought I should hang up here. First the Brighton Prize (Flash Fiction section) - the awards ceremony was on Friday October 28th - I was pleased to make the shortlist with 'That Song by Van Morrison' and totally delighted and surprised to discover that the story went on to win. The song in question is 'Brown Eyed Girl' - a song I sing a lot when I am on my own and which had to creep into a story at some point.

The second piece of news is that I won the University of Sunderland Short Story Competition with a piece that was birthed at an Arvon Course I attended 18 months ago… Emma Unsworth, hearing me read the story out loud, commented that I did not need quite so much swearing and that less is more sometimes. I took her advice and 'Lust for Life' is a winner… The award ceremony was on Thursday October 27th. Oh, and by the way, Lust for Life is a reference to a song by Manic Street Preachers… so, two songs give rise to two stories and they both end up winning competitions…

Congratualtions to all the other shortlistees and thanks to everyone connected with the organisation of these competitions… and thanks to Emma, too, and all the other nice people who attended Lumb Bank with me.

WRITING NEWS OCTOBER 2016

NORTHWORDS NOW - this is a really classy publication - look at the cover… so fabulous. And inside lots of very good writers and a wee space for me in there, too. I am so pleased to be here. It's a free publication and it's to be found in lots of places in Scotland. Go to http://northwordsnow.co.uk to find out if there's a place near you. 

You can also download it free online at the same site. 

In other news I just won The Doris Gooderson Short Story Competition and you can read my story, 'Mountains, Pebbles and Sand' here: https://wrekinwriters.wordpress.com/2016/09/30/2016-dg-1st-mountains-and-pebbles-and-sand-by-douglas-bruton/

I was longlisted for 'Over The Edge New Writer 2016'.

And I am currently shortlisted in a couple of others and longlisted in a couple, too. More news on these as and when the results are out.

Finally, I start a uni course in a couple of weeks that will be a spur to me getting one of my novels polished to a state where I feel I could send it out there. So looking forward to this. With so many nice people saying I should be published… well… I suppose I need to make more of an effort to do this.

THE TWO BEST JOBS IN THE WORLD

Of course the absolute best has to be ‘Parent’. Ok, so the financial rewards are not there and the opportunity for promotion is missing and it won’t get you onto the Queen’s honours list; but what other job takes your whole heart and never ends and goes on giving for the rest of your life?

It changes you, being a parent, in ways you can only imagine and in ways you can’t imagine, too. It is not an easy thing, is as hard as hard can get some days. And it hurts sometimes, too, down to your soul, but it’s not a job you can ever walk away from (though some do).

It surprises you and when you least expect it, being a parent lifts you up and rewards you and it does it again and again. And you get to see a seed grow and you know that you’ve had a part in what the seed grows into – and I’m not talking DNA which is just chemistry beyond your control.

And they come good, your children, in ways you did not expect, and they deserve all the credit for that – but you, as the parent, deserve some, too.

And teaching is like being a parent and must be the second best job in the world. It’s a bit more financially rewarding than parenting, and there’s a career ladder you can climb up if you are so inclined, and people will sometimes tell you that you’re doing a good job.

Like parenting it is not easy and is as hard as hard can be and it can take your heart and a bit of your soul. If you do it right then you are invested in what your pupils become, just as a parent is. But unlike being a parent you don’t always see the seed grow into the mature plant. They leave you at the end of their time at school and they scatter to the four winds and that’s all just natural.

But every now and then… you are surprised. Someone comes back to see you, and they are changed and you look for the child in the grown person before you and it’s still there, but altered, too. And they say thank you and they tell you about their lives and what they have become, and you have had a small part in that. There’s no better honour than that.

Yesterday, one such pupil, and she is grown into someone confident and smart and with a good heart and she must take all of the credit for that and her parent, too; but she tells you that you have played a part also and she says thank you and makes a small gift to you.

I am a parent and a teacher and really, what can be better?  Thank you to my three grown boys who make me proud every day; and thank you to all my pupils, past and present and future. I am lucky to be doubly blessed in doing the two best jobs in the whole world.

WHAT'S NOT TO LIKE ABOUT 'FLASH 500'?

http://www.flash500.com

In fact there's lots to like.

Well, firstly it does what it says on the tin – and a little bit more!

Lorraine Mace and her team run their Flash 500 competition four times in a year – a quarterly competition for pieces that clock in under 500 words (under 501 actually). The prizes are very healthy and very balanced: £300 for first place, £200 for second and £100 for third. A highly commended writer also gets a prize – non-monetary.

They also run a short story competition once a year (3000 words) and a Novel Opening competition.

But what’s to love most about Mace and her team is that they keep to a rigid timeline. Good timekeeping gathers respect. They promise to deliver the results of each of their Flash 500 competitions within six weeks of the closing deadline. That’s a pretty swift turnaround… but even more impressive when examined in detail. They produce a longlist and a shortlist in there, too – 53 on the current longlist and 25 on the shortlist. The longlist appears somewhere around the 3 or 4 week mark and the shortlist a week or so after.

The judge is different for each competition and provides a report on the best of the stories – sometimes commenting on the entire shortlist or the top ten on the list.

All of that within the promised six weeks! Wow!

It’s a lovely competition for a writer to take part in – I think. Go take a look.

ED SHEERAN AGAIN!

So, see post below about Ed Sheeran's 'Photograph'.

And in the news now he's being sued for 'Thinking Out Loud' and its relationship to Marvin Gaye's 'Let's Get it on'. 

I listened to both songs separately. I am not musical and to me they sounded so different. Then I listened to a 'mash-up' of the two songs and could sort of see (or hear). This is the link if you want to listen, too: http://me.popsugar.com/celebrity/Ed-Sheeran-Sued-Marvin-Gaye-42197474

To be honest though, I am less interested in the copyright battle here than I am in what is going on in the creative minds of the writers of 'Thinking Out Loud'. Here are two musicians who will have spent their entire lives doing music and listening with a studied intensity that is deep and absorbing. My question is: how can they not write in the 'language' they have learned? 

I think neuro-science has to work on explaining creativity and how it operates, though common sense says that we 'speak' in the langauage we are brought up with and we repeat what we have learned and the rhythms of that language are built into us… and maybe we move it on a bit, too.

Like in my post below, I cannot believe that two creative artists deliberately ripped off Marvin Gaye and then put it out there on the biggest public stage for all to see (hear) and scrutinise. That doesn't make sense. It just doesn't make sense. 

What do you think?

ANOTHER PLAGIARISM DEBACLE!

So, another plagiarism debacle – and it’s big. Has Ed Sheeran and Johnny McDaid (writers of the Ed Sheeran hit ‘Photograph’) plagiarized another song called ‘Amazing’?

If you listen to the two songs then there is a similarity in the chorus and the similarity is extremely strong. But the songs are different and ‘Photograph’ is the better and the more memorable.

If you go to the link below you can read some thoughts about the matter. (I quote from this site below)

http://thetylt.com/entertainment/ed-sheeran-s-photograph-original-or-stolen

“The similarity between the two songs is undeniable.

However, the lawsuit highlights a growing concern in the music industry. Artists have been building on, remixing, and sampling one another for well… always. The basis for creativity is stealing ideas and transforming them into something new. Sheeran’s Photograph, while similar, is an entirely different song and creation. If we go around suing every artist who builds on another’s work, we undermine art as we know it.

But creativity and the law are two separate things entirely. It is still possible to be creative without ripping off another artist’s work completely. And to add insult to injury, Photograph was a wild success and Sheeran made a huge profit from it. It’s only fair that the original artists are able to benefit from their own creation.” (Tylt)

What is missing from any debate about this subject is a full understanding of how the creative process works and how the brain works. If you had never heard any 20^th century music, and you were left in a room, would you at some point be capable of writing a ‘rock and roll’ song? No. Writing such a song is reliant on having experienced a whole ‘history’ of popular music.

Creativity does not occur in a vacuum, but builds on and is a response to, what is ‘put’ into the person – the experiences of the creative person. That person cannot ignore the input and has a whole lifetime of influences to contend with.

I cannot believe there was malice in what Ed Sheeran and Johnny McDaid did in the creative working out of their song. I can only believe that there was a creative process, and that process took place not in a vacuum but was influenced by everything these two artists had heard or experienced.

So what is going on here? What is at the root of all of this litigation? Money is at the root. The argument is that the writers of ‘Amazing’ deserve to have a slice of the huge pie that is ‘Photograph’ (and can they be accused of waiting two years until it was a big enough pie before they took legal action?). And if we look at all that influenced their song ‘Amazing’, would that then entitle others to have a slice of their pie? And is it only obvious and provable influence that can be argued in such litigation?

I do not pretend to have the answers here, but I do feel that if we do not understand fully how creativity works in the brain, the process and the mechanisms, then calling something theft is jumping the gun.

What do you think?

COMPETITIONS - NEWS

So I entered a competition recently and neglected to read all of the small print – and that can come back and bite you! I happened to look again at the competition details after submitting two stories and I noted that the competition judge was named. It was Alex Keegan.

In case you don’t know, Alex doesn’t muck about when it comes to judging fiction. He has very high standards, exacting even, and if he doesn’t think he can award a prize because there are no stories entered that are any good, then he’ll say so. It’s happened like that.

See me quaking then, because I hadn’t really subbed my best work. Indeed, I had subbed a romantic piece and another quite airy piece. I was just looking to see if they were ok and maybe one of them might make the longlist… I don't always enter to win… that's not the point for me. But it was Alex Keegan judging! Alex Keegan, and so I did not expect to do well and with Alex I wanted to have done well. Oh well, I thought, that would just serve me right - read the small print always!

Imagine my surprise then when the results were published and I was there. Alex picked three stories to be commended and I had one there; he chose three to be highly commended and I had one there, too – the romantic one, which Alex commented on and said was a bit of a coup getting it past him. He said ‘well done’. So, not on the podium, but this recognition feels surprisingly good.

The competition was Sentinel’s Annual Short Story Competition.

Also did well in Exeter's annual writing competition (3rd) and in Flash 500 (2nd).