To learn more about our short story courses and to find out details of our upcoming courses in Manchester (Sold Out!) and London (Still some places!), visit the courses page on our website.
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This is the final blog of the series, and we all at Comma would like to say a massive thank you to Clay for his insightful, candid and funny blog posts. We’ve been looking forward to receiving them each month, and it is with bitter sweetness that we post this last one. Good luck with your writing Clay!
So that was it. Last class, course complete. Done and dusted.
Avril spoke about editing, micro, macro, the importance of perseverance if you want to get published. Knock em out, punt em off. (She mightn’t have put it quite like that.) Encouraged us to think about what we’ve taken from, should value most from the course. Recommended we each make a writing plan.
But mostly, we read again. This time, from the stories we’ll be submitting for the anthology. ’A celebration of the work achieved over our past six months together,’ is what Avril wanted. That’s what we got. It’s going to be a great anthology.
Which was by no means a given, of course. Comma Press didn’t invite any of us onboard on merit. None of our manuscripts caught an editor’s eye, as such. Ear. From that proverbial tower wedged between desk and ceiling, ‘Look at me. Aren’t I the best thing since The Shieling!’ But the variety of voices, range of style and subject, do make for a truly impressive small collection. There is not a single story amongst them that any discerning eye or ear mightn’t have picked out from the clamour of a slush pile.
And, yes, this speaks well of us. For our collective critical eye, I will pat us on the back. Our tact and generosity of spirit, not to mention receptiveness to that. No mean feat to accept even the most well intended criticism, let alone act on it and actually improve a story.
But Avril needs take credit, too. She blogged midway through the course that she’d got lucky and ‘struck gold’ with this group. She mined it.
Avril, we applaud you. Thank you.
We should thank Comma too, of course, for safely sinking that mine.
Thank you, Comma.
But we are not quite done and dusted. We may have circulated our anthology stories before last Tuesday. There is editing to be done yet, micro, macro, copy-. The business of ordering the stories satisfactorily. Naming the anthology, which seemed to stump everybody on the night. (We’re all to submit a suggestion. I have an idea or two.)
And, of course, there’s nothing to keep us from continuing to share our work with each other. At the end of any course that has gone well, promises to stay in touch resound. Promises are broken. That is the way of it. I hope life doesn’t get too much in the way on this occasion. These past six months have been really good.
Told you I had an idea or two. These Stories are all Really Good.
Or how’s about . . . These Stories are all Really Really Good.
Hmmm. Seeing them written now, nagging fear. When my son was born, I wanted to call him Warehouse. Warehouse Lister. The missus vetoed that one. Daughter wouldn’t have Keyhole for our kitten.
Any plans, Comma, to run a course specifically on naming stories, anthologies, no?
