Down in the Dumps and Over the Moon…

Posted on 25/06/2024 by Mary Marken

…over and over again. I progress towards publication at the end of August and an autumn launch oscillating between these two moods. Thanks again to all of you who have supported me in small and big ways. I could not do this without your support.

So, since my last blog, I’ve signed off the manuscript and the cover with Troubador and these are in production as I write. There was a final twist with the cover.

At the very last moment, I had the notion to run it past my brother Mal at Imagine Media Productions. He has the equipment and the experienced eye to better assess what was being approved. He immediately got the ingenuity in Bill Allerton‘s design and could also see how it could be enhanced using the Photo Shop files Bill had sent to me. He started with an enlargement and a cut and crop of the base photograph. This photo of millworkers is on my website. And here is an image of the final cover.

BELFAST SONG COVER

I was also delighted to finally message Margaret Ward on Facebook. (You have to remember I’m very new to the possibilities on FB). In 1981, she gave a talk, The Irish Women’s Workers Union, to the Irish Labour History Society Annual Conference. Thirty or so years later, I took myself to Belfast for a week as part of the early stages of research into what was to become Belfast Song. Sitting in the central library in Royal Avenue, I read a paper by Margaret in which she mentioned that when James Connolly worked in Belfast as a trade union organiser, he was involved in helping women millworkers in a dispute with their employer. That reference inspired my imagination to create the opening chapters of my novel.

If you would like to read more about the women who helped shape Ireland, you might want to check out Margaret Ward’s book Unmanageable Revolutionaries: women and Irish Nationalism 1880-1890, an expanded and updated version of which has been published by Arlen House.

My final piece of big news is that I heard yesterday from Pauline Kersten, the Education Centre Manager at Conway Education Centre, that I could launch Belfast Song at the education centre from 1-3pm on 20/9/24.

I am dazed with delight to have as a venue such a supportive education centre located in the historic building of Conway Mill, which was a flax spinning mill like the one in which the women at the centre of Belfast Song worked.

And that would not have happened except that my sister-in-law, Siobhan Marken, volunteered to visit possible venues in and around the Falls Rd on my behalf, discovered that Conway Mill had appointed an Education Centre Manager, that they held book launches at the centre and provided all contact details. As I said at the beginning, I couldn’t do this without all the support I’ve been given.

Watch this space for the continuing story of publishing Belfast Song.

The First Wave is Over

Posted on 08/05/2024 by Mary Marken

Phew! The first wave of intense publishing activity has ebbed – and I’m still standing. Thanks to all of you for your support this far.

The big news is that we’ve got a book cover designed and agreed. I’ll post it on the website as soon as I have image to share. For now, I can tell you that it uses as its base the photograph of the millworkers that’s already on my website.

Thanks to Bill Allerton at Cybermouse for his ingenious design which he generously gifted to me and to the Troubador in-house designer who tweaked that and set it is as a book cover ready to go. The design is for front, spine and back and the cover will be in a matt laminate finish.

Can you get a sense of how delighted I am with it?

The other news is that I sent the the first proofread manuscript back to Troubador on Monday by special delivery to arrive midday Tuesday – and I’ve just been emailed the corrected version this morning. I know I mentioned it in last blog, but I want to say a big thanks to Jan Vallance and Denis Green for proofreading the manuscript in a tight space of time. I couldn’t have done it without you!

And I could not have done it if Denis hadn’t been willing to take the manuscript with us on a week’s holiday to Pembrokeshire to continue the proofread. The photographs above are of Bosherston Lakes and the water lilies growing underwater all set to bloom across the lakes in June. So we did have time for good outings as well as work.

There was a final little drama on Monday afternoon. Denis and I were double checking some of the pages on the kitchen table. I had just made and set down a mug of tea carefully at my corner. I reached over to take the page from Denis – and knocked over the mug. A flurry of activity ensued to whisk the pages off the table on to a dry worktop and mop and dry them using towels and then hairdryer. Thankfully, although stained at the edges, all proof marks were clear.

Embarrassed though I was to include a clump of such pages within the otherwise pristine manuscript, my overwhelming feeling was to get the blooming thing posted and out of my hair. Right then I just needed shot of it!

Why did I opt to self-publish?

Posted on 18/01/2024 by Mary Marken

Why did I opt to self-publish? A combination of head and heart.

I was sixty before I finally honoured my desire to write. That was in 2011 and coincided with a decision to reduce and re-orientate my work. For the first time, I felt I had space to choose what I wanted to do and prompted by seeing The Habit of Art by Alan Bennett at the National Theatre in 2009, I signed up for a 3 year part-time Certificate in Creative Writing at Sheffield University.

In my reflective commentary at the end of my first module, I wrote:

I want to develop the habit of writing…The realisation that one needs a habit seems so blindingly obvious and yet feels like a revelation. So I speculate that it reflects a deeper shift in my attitude towards myself as a writer – some level of belief that means I am now willing to make a consistent effort.

Some of us take a long time to develop that level of confidence.

I am now in my seventies. Belfast Song took five years to complete. At the most, I have one other book in me – a memoir. It isn’t rocket science to work out that my chances of being picked up by a traditional publisher are miniscule. And I know of published writers where the publisher did very little to promote the book. So the writer had to take on the promotion themselves. If I have to do that, then I’d rather do that on my own terms. So that’s my head talking.

And from the beginning, I’ve been motivated more with delighting the heart* and following where that leads. So, when I decided I wanted to share what I had been crafting over years, I thought of friends who are artists and craftspeople who exhibit their work in a range of ways. This includes formal galleries, exhibiting as part of initiatives such as Open Up Sheffield. They are also able to display their work at home where it can be appreciated by friends and family. They can make presents for friends – I’ve been given cushions in cross-stitch by one friend, for instance. Their approach is catholic rather than exclusive and there is an emphasis on bringing creator and lover of arts and crafts into a more intimate relationship. I want to be able to do the same. Poets may be able to send a poem in a card to friends – but as a novelist, in order to share your work, you have to have it published.

That’s the spirit in which I want to publish my novel.

* Delighting the Heart by Susan Sellers: an anthology of women writers talk with candour about how they write