Just a thought…
Posted by bencooper | Filed under News
As I’m drawing near to the end of my degree I’ve been thinking a lot about where I go from here. With the current economic crisis predicted to get much worse before it gets any better (my sincerest thanks to all those city slickers) employment for graduates looks pretty poor.
I’ve applied for a PGCE (for further education meaning I’ll teach in colleges, not secondary school) and I’m waiting to get the date of my interview. I’ve done a bit of language teaching and enjoyed the experience, except for a few difficult students. I like the idea of earning your keep by helping others in some way. My mum said it’s interesting that all three of her children are in, or moving towards, jobs that support and nurture others. My older sister is a substance abuse councillor, my little brother (also at uni) works with autistic kids and wants to make this his career after finishing his degree, and I’ll hopefully be moving in to teaching. No surprise that my parents are both nurses…
But a good friend recently wondered if I might be selling myself short by opting for teaching. He seemed to choke on the phrase but he suggested “thinking outside the box”. Although he knows I’ll find teaching rewarding (if the workload doesn’t kill me) but he thought I should think about alternative employment: research for the BBC, working at an arts centre etc.
I could see his point. It seems that, often from an early age you’re led to believe that there are a few jobs open for you and that choices you make at 14 (GCSE), 16(A-level) and 18(degree) decide your fate FOREVER! Don’t pick sciences at GCSE, well no A-level for you so you can forget about working with animals. That was my dream and a “helpful” careers advisor at my minor public school ground it out of me because, although I was good at biology, I was mediocre at chemistry and piss poor at physics and maths.
So here I am about to finish an English Literature degree. English teacher then…God damn it! I’ve become a cliché. No actually the cliché for an arts grad now is several years of temping followed by a team leader position at a call centre. All while writing a novel/putting together an installation/making a short film.
But what else is open…oh well you could try a graduate scheme and slowly lose your soul as a manager trainee at Sainsbury’s. Don’t like that? How about admin? No? PR? No…oh well. Guess it’s call centres for you then.
But there are a million ways to make your money, we’re just driven down the route of teacher, manager, doctor, lawyer (if you went to a school like mine). Because, let’s face it you wouldn’t want a job that doesn’t swallow your life would you?
Of course I’m spewing a lot of bile here, and I don’t mean to denigrate those who do devote a lot of time to their careers. It’s their choice and I respect that. Thing is a lot of people don’t seem to have a choice. The government gives lip service to flexible working whilst simultaneously wanting to force new mothers back to work as soon as possible.
They should be raising their kids! Motherhood is the single most amazing thing in THE WORLD. It’s something I’ll never get to experience, except by proxy, but I recognise that the time a mother devotes to her child is instrumental in the rest of that tiny, new life. And if that new mum then wants to have flexible hours, well she can request it and get it. Hopefully it won’t damage her career but who knows, office politics are a strange thing.
If you’re not a parent…well you can try. Companies wouldn’t want relaxed, more productive staff who are absent less though (qualities proven to exist in much higher frequency with flexible workers). Instead they would rather force people to work five days a week, as many hours as possible (forget a cap on the working week like those lazy but much happier and more productive Europeans), take as little holiday as possible and refuse to pay the first few days of sickness…
I’ve digressed slightly…
I think the main argument I had, which got lost in my anger, is that there are many ways to earn a living- none of which should dominate your life UNLESS YOU MAKE THAT CHOICE FREELY.
They say time is money. Actually time is life. And you only get one.
Update
Posted by bencooper | Filed under News, Short Stories
Well I’ve just polished off another story and sent it out. So I’ve submitted four out so far. I think now I might wait and see what comes back from these before submitting much else. I’ve got a few that need working on in the meantime, plus the ever mounting university work…
If one of these four gets accepted I’ll be over the moon, however I’m keeping a realistic hat firmly on my head. When you read about famous books that went on to sell millions of copies but were rejected by a dozen publishers before being picked up, well, I guess you have to understand that getting stuff out there is a hard game.
Tags: short story, submission
Submission
Posted by bencooper | Filed under General, News
I finshed off another story yesterday. Some final polishing was done over a few days and then I flung it out in to the far reaches of t’interweb.
So that’s three out and three more that need polishing, plus a new story, plus looming uni deadlines for essays! And here I am fiddling with my blog…that damned procrastination again!
Tags: News, stories, submissions
The Last Reef
Posted by admin | Filed under Reviews
The Last Reef by Gareth L. Powell
Gareth L. Powell is one of the emerging talents in British SF. I found his website when searching for British SF authors. He’s based in the West Country.
I think he can be taken as a great example of the success of free online publications. Powell’s early stories found a market on ‘zines like Aphelion and earned some good feedback. From there he has become a regular contributor to Interzone, winning their reader’s poll in 2007 for best story. He also started up the Friday Flash Fiction craze that involved several writers publishing short fiction on their blogs for free. Something I’ve been inspired to do as well.
Having read a few of Powell’s stories on line, as well as his flash fiction, I ordered a copy of his collection The Last Reef from Elastic Press. I wasn’t disappointed.
Powell’s prose is clean and fast paced but he still manages to evoke believable characters and interesting worlds. He lets the details sneak in and you do have to work as a reader, he’s not going to spoon feed you. However his writing is never oblique or pretentious, it just requires a little more than open eyes to get the most from it.
Particular highlights for me are ‘The Redoubt’, dealing with life, love and artificial reality, the space opera Six Lights off Green Scar, the surreal and humorous ‘Ack-Ack Macaque’ (for which Powell won the Interzone readers’ poll 2007), the grim flash fiction ‘The Long Walk Aft’ and ‘Sunsets and Hamburgers’ a story about a resurrected Omega man and woman.
To be honest there really isn’t a duff story in here. They are all entertaining and tightly written. I’m looking forward to Gareth’s first novel Silversands, and reading more of his short fiction. I’ve placed a link to his page on my links page.
Do yourself a favour and get this book now. It is available on Amazon.
Tags: Gareth L. Powell, Reviews, The Last Reef
New fiction and review!
Posted by bencooper | Filed under News, Reviews, Short Stories
Hi,
I’ve just posted a piece of flash fiction on the fiction page. Hope you enjoy it.
I’ve also written a review of Gareth L. Powell’s short story collection The Last Reef and added a link to his site on the web links page.
Enjoy!
What’s New?
Posted by bencooper | Filed under News
Well I’m just finishing off another story and will be sending it out into the battlefield in the next few days. I’ll let you know how that goes…
I’ve finished the first draft of three other stories and I’m hoping to get those polished off over the next couple of weeks and get them out of the door. One is a space opera of sorts dealing with mutants and family loyalty and weighs in at over 5000 words at the moment. The second one is a short adventure story and the third is about human relationships with machines.
I’m also starting work on a new story that I’m intending to submit for publication in an upcoming anthology. The closing date is the end of May so I’m confident I can get it done in time. I don’t want to reveal too much at the moment as the idea is still maturing in my head. It’s a near future, post-apocalyptic story and that’s all I’m saying for now.
Online Publication
Posted by bencooper | Filed under General
As I’ve been scouring the web looking for publications to submit my work to I’ve hit upon an interesting debate about online publications.
Many people, writers and readers, seem to view online publication with disdain. I suppose because the ease with which a webzine could be knocked up, and the fact that they are done simply for love, signifies to these people that the quality of stories will be low.
I can see their point.
However as the print market for speculative short fiction, especially here in the UK, is very small it seems that online webzines are emerging as a market, much like the print fanzines which were much more prevalent in days of yore.
Not only that but some of them are of particularly high quality and include some great fiction as well as interesting interviews and reviews. Personally I admire the creators of these online ‘zines as they do it mainly for their love of the genre and to provide much needed space to new writers.
I’m hoping to get some of my stories published on these webzines and I’ll also put up links to the good ones on my links page.
Submissions
Posted by bencooper | Filed under News
Well I’ve finally taken the big leap and submitted a couple of stories for publication. One has gone to a print magazine, the other to an online webzine.
So now it’s just a case of waiting to hear back from them and carrying on writing some more material.
I’ll let you know how it goes as soon as I hear back from them. Apparently their turnaround time is 4 weeks plus, pretty standard for most publications as far as I can tell. Hopefully by then I’ll have a new batch done and dusted.