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Only three days until NaNoWriMo, and I need to decide what to do this year.

1. Write a shiny new novel which will sit in a drawer for the next year.

2. Write 50,000 more words on last year's NaNo novel.

3. Focus on the time rather than the word count - spend a solid two hours a night working on my collection of stories.

VOTE VOTE VOTE.

I've just won a New Writers Award!

I'm going to use the £2,000 prize to complete 'Slacker Love Songs', a collection of city-set stories using mythical and fairytale tropes. The prize also includes mentoring and networking with agents and publishers - Canongate, here I come!

In selecting work for my portfolio, I had to read a lot of my own writing. There's an awkward, self-conscious, masturbatory pleasure in doing this, so I tried to read it in a critical way, as if someone else had written it. This led to me noticing a lot of repetition.

( Kirsty Tropes )

Just got my MLitt grades back - Pass with Distinction, woop woop!

Writers! Don't forget to submit to the Hint Fiction anthology.

P.S. It's the one I mentioned here.

Best version of I Kissed A Girl ever!

I have a very short story in the Novelette contest - please feel free to vote for it.

Stolen Stories @ Glasgow Uni

From October I will be teaching an evening class at Glasgow University on writing original fiction from myths, legends, fairytales, history and classic literature The class is called "Stolen stories" (a title which I, appropriately enough, stole) and will run on Thursday nights from 7pm to 9pm. More info here, or you ( Read more... )

New story up at Moondance: circuses, joyriding, a tall man with stretched earlobes... and all on the Isle of Skye. Even if you've read the story before, you should visit to see the gorgeous trapeze artwork.