Douglas Jackson - History in the Making

Doug Jackson, author of Caligula and Claudius, talks about what inspired him to write about ancient Rome, and getting a six figure deal with Transworld:

I suppose you could say my new career as a writer began thirty-odd years ago in a large hole in the ground.

I’d left school in Jedburgh a few weeks before my sixteenth birthday, and, like a lot of kids that age I had no idea where my future lay and no immediate prospects. Luckily a friend worked in the local employment office and found me a place on a Youth Opportunities Scheme.

It was just pure luck it turned out to be restoring a Roman marching camp vandalised by the Forestry Commission, who then had a remit to tear up any part of Scotland they liked - a bit like the people who build wind farms today, but with evergreens.

Along with a bunch of hard-bitten labourers, I was transported each morning out into the bleak but beautiful Cheviot Hills, given a large shovel and put to work replacing the long avenues of peat the commission ploughs had churned up. It didn’t take me too long to work out that I was more or less doing what the Roman legionaries had done 2,000 years earlier, but in reverse ...

Full article in the first issue of Words with JAM.

What Not to Tweet

An article by Dan Holloway

Becoming a self-publishing pariah, virtual or otherwise, is very simple if you remember the prime directive, and let everything you do flow from it. Self-publishing is about writing a book and selling as many copies of it as you can. The poor deluded fools who tell you it’s about engaging with your readers, about a long-term strategy, about building a base of loyal fans over several years, and selling progressively more copies of each of several books, are just that. Poor deluded fools. It’s about this book. The one on your hard drive. The “book you had in you”. And flogging it. To as many people as you can persuade to part with their cash. After all, tomorrow takes care of itself. Right?

Social Media and the self-publisher

We’re in the heart of a technological revolution. We have more gadgets and widgets at our disposal for Flogging Our Book (fobing) than ever before. The key to becoming a virtual pariah is to use them all. As much as possible. After all, you want to fob as many people as possible, so you’d better use as many tools as possible, and spend as much time as possible doing so, because that way you will have the widest audience possible and the most people possible will buy your book ...

Full article in the first issue of Words with JAM!

Flash Fiction Competition

Writelink's Tinsel Tales is calling for flash fiction stories of no more than 250 words (including the title!)

Christmas blessings, Christmas nightmares or just Christmas Grumbles, the theme is wide open, but you must set your story against a Yule tide backdrop.

Tinsel Tales is open to ALL WRITERS irrespective of where they live!

You can register on the website now and then submit your entry before the closing date, 31st December.

A Father Worries

A Quite Small Story by Derek Duggan

Joseph swept the floor. It didn’t need to be swept but he was trying to delay going home. The workshop was as clean as it could be. The table and chairs for Julius sat by the door ready for delivery the following morning, and they had turned out very well, even if he did think so himself. Things had been good lately, in general. He had just finished a big fencing job that had paid a tidy sum and once the Roman had paid the balance on the furniture he would be set up for the next six months or so.

But none of this could take the edge off. None of this changed the fact that his son, his only son, had decided to leave the family business ...

To read the rest of the story, sign up to the to the first issue of Words with JAM, due out on the 28th November 2009.

FREE Christmas Prize Draw - 10 days left!

Quinn Publications' first venture into the world of literature, was to produce a collection of work, compiled from writers all over the world, to be given to their loved ones this Christmas. Whatever that indefinable something is that makes Christmas special, you’ll find within Bits, Bobs and Baubles. From an unforgettable chilli experience to recipes of times gone by, from grannies getting revenge to heart-warming traditional tales, from daft odes to moving poems, from grown-up stories to those created especially for children, there is something for every member of the family.

Words with JAM are pleased to announce they've got their hands on a copy of the book (which is pretty good going, considering only 125 copies are being produced).

To celebrate the first issue being out for December, we are going to get the compiler to autograph, gift wrap, and stick a bow on it, and post it out to one lucky subscriber in time for Christmas. The winner will be announced in the first issue, and contacted by email for their postal address.

To be eligible, you simply need to subscribe to Words with JAM.

Closing date: Saturday 21st November.

Feeble Excuses, Procrastination and Displacement Activities

(Things I do when I should be writing.)

An article by Perry Iles

This autumn I will be mostly thinking about Cheryl Cole. Not with any sense of prurience – a man has to know his limitations, as Clint Eastwood once said, and I’m reliably informed that I’m hung like a hummingbird and have the sexual imagination of a fencepost, without any trace of its attendant rigidity. But dear little Cheryl has achieved a kind of asexual, robotic perfection, which was aptly, if unconsciously, parodied on last week’s X-Factor when she did that military dance routine as she mimed to her appalling new song. What I mean is, is she actually human any more? Time was, long ago, when the combination of attractive womanhood and a Geordie accent used to flick my lust-nipple for some totally inexplicable reason, but it now no longer does, and it’s all her fault. Soon you’ll be able to buy your own Cheryl Cole on the internet, and she’ll be everywhere, and familiarity will breed contempt so you’ll need a puncture repair kit so you can make her better every time you batter her senseless for not getting your dinner on the table by five o’clock.

The X-Factor, which I’m watching every week instead of writing ...

Read the full article in the first issue of Words with JAM, due out 28th November 2009

UPPERCASE Nightmare!

I have, for many years, sworn ferociously as time and again people have sent me documents typed with the caps lock on. IT'S VERY ANNOYING WHEN YOU NEED TO USE IT ON SOMETHING IN LOWERCASE - PLUS IT'S QUITE DIFFICULT TO READ!

Anyway, I came across this a while ago and thought I'd share: http://www.convertcase.net/

It's a lifesaver!

JD Smith