Word Count 87: Writing prize for the 60+, pitfalls of NaNoWriMo
Plus Techbros gotta techbro, Aldrich Kemp, Sarah Perry on character, Harper Lee, and sabre-toothed tiger cub discovered
Hi there,
We took a five-day weekend over Thanksgiving, which we still celebrate despite living in the UK now, and I cannot tell you how lovely it was to so very, very little for a few days. I am looking forward to doing a lot more nothing over Christmas as well!
Opportunity: The Bridport 60+ prize
The Bridport Prize’s Never Too Late 60+ award is a competition for writers “aged 60+ across poetry, short story, novel or flash fiction”, and comes with a £500 prize.
Championed by best selling author Kit de Waal (aged 64) and London Literary Agent, AM Heath (in business for over a century), this award aims to recognise success over sixty and a ‘never give up’ resilience that is the mainstay of writers.
The deadline is 31 May 2025, so you have plenty of time to get your application ready!
Read this: NaNoWriMo train wreck
I’ve never done National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo, partly because it always clashes with my need to decompress after the stresses of Ada Lovelace Day in October, and partly because my brain doesn’t really work that way. In fact, I don’t think it’s even a good idea unless you’re at exactly the right point in your process. Writing isn’t just sitting down and tapping away at your keyboard, it also requires some degree of preparation.
This marvellous post from Elinor Florence describes in detail how it can go very wrong indeed, and how to avoid falling into those same traps yourself.
Read this, two: Techbros want to ‘disrupt’ publishing. Again
A start-up called Spine says it wants to publish 8,000 books in 2025 using AI to “proofread, produce, publish and distribute books”, at a cost of between $1,200 to $5,000 a pop. Lots of writers think this is a bad idea.
I mean, it’s obviously a bad idea. Writing is a human endeavour,and having your book read by another human who can help you shape and craft your work is invaluable. AI might be able to spot typos or even grammatical errors, but it can’t understand character, plot or the flow of information.
And it has to be said that if you have $1,200 for some crappy AI service, then you can hire an actual person to do the same thing, but better.
Stop, look, listen: Aldrich Kemp and the Rose of Pamir
Long-time readers will know I’m a big fan of Julian Simpson, and this latest Aldrich Kemp series, available now on BBC Sounds, is fabulous. It sees Clara Page once again forming an uneasy and sometime fractious alliance with Aldrich Kemp as she tries to uncover the secrets of the Rose of Pamir.
Clara Page has always broken the fourth wall, but this time round, she takes a wrecking ball to it, and then manages to find a fifth wall to destroy as well. More humorous than previous series, it’s really a joy to listen to.
Tip-top tip: Sarah Perry on character
I absolutely loved this short conversation with Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent and Melmoth, from four years ago where she talks about character development and the perniciously wrong idea that characters ‘talk’ to their authors.
I’ve always found it disquieting when authors say their characters talk to them, because I’m very sure that they do not. Confusing the normal workings of your own imagination for some sort of agency on the part of your characters is, well, it’s not good. It’s not good for you as an author, because it turns writing into some sort of supernatural act when it’s actually a craft, and it’s not good for new writers who are confused as to why they aren’t hearing voices in their heads.
Read this, three: The nicest Christmas present a writer could ever be given
Back in the mid-50s, author Harper Lee was struggling to find time to write. But her friends Michael and Joy Brown gave her a gift that I think any author would be delighted to receive:
[I]n 1956, the Browns’ gave Lee the best Christmas present of all: An entire year’s salary so she could take time to write whatever she wanted.
“There was an envelope on the tree, addressed to me. I opened it and read: 'You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas,'" she wrote in McCall’s magazine in 1961. “They assured me that it was not some sort of joke. They’d had a good year, they said. They’d saved some money and thought it was high time they did something about me.”
She used that time to write To Kill A Mockingbird.
I’m thinking a lot about basic income at the moment, and honestly, every creative person should be in favour. The evidence shows that it’s beneficial on so many fronts, but can you just imagine how amazing it would be to have time to write without worrying about money?
Obligatory cat picture
News recently broke that an incredibly rare sabre-toothed kitten had been discovered in the Siberian permafrost back in 2020. The Homotherium latidens cub was about three weeks old when it died, around 35,500 to 37,000 years ago. Its body is so well preserved it still has its claws and “short, thick, soft, dark brown fur with hair about 20–30 mm long”.
The find is incredibly important because it gives us some insights into how sabre-toothed cats looked, including information about “its soft tissue anatomy such as the shape of its ears, muzzle, muscles, and broad feet adapted to walking in deep snow”.
Unlike the popular depiction of sabre-toothed tigers with exposed canine fangs, most which are based on reconstructions of Smilodon fatalis, Homotherium’s lips covered its sabre teeth when its mouth was closed.
That’s it for this time!
Cheerio,
Suw