Frances Lynn: Blog May 2007

May 31, 2007

Meet The Agents

A film director friend once paid me bucks to write a screenplay. But it ultimately didn't get made after I was forced to churn out 'several' new drafts in an exhausting short period of time. After that 'disappointing' experience, I decided screenwriting was too competitive and decided to stick to writing novels!

I currently have a TV writing partner though, so I thought it would be interesting to check out the 'Meet the Agents' evening at the Writers' Guild's headquarters in Kings Cross. The agents were screenwriting/TV/Radio and theatre ones: Julian Friedmann of Blake Friedmann chaired the Question and Answer session. His fellow agents were Meg Davis of MBA (she also represents fiction writers), Howard Gooding of Judy Daish Associates and Matthew Dench of The Dench Arnold Agency. It was fascinating to hear the writers' publicly air their grievances, but it was frightening that so many writers at the meeting with lengthy script credits don't have agents. What was more frightening, all the agents present said that they each take on one new client a year - if that. But, one of the agents came up with an 'ingenious' solution: 'become agents in order to submit your own work.'

One desperate writer said her radio play had been finally submitted to the BBC Head of Drama after it had languished in the BBC's Writer's Room for months. Unfortunately for her, he turned it down. It was her last chance.

'Do you write Murder Mysteries?' Julian asked her. 'Get rid of the Head of Drama,' he then quipped which raised a few laughs. But the rest of the agents' offerings weren't funny at all.

'There are more writers trying to write than agents,' Julian proclaimed. 'Writers have got to stand up for themselves,' he added.

'You've got to network for yourself,' all the agents agreed.

Is that why the scheduled half an hour after the question and answer session was euphemistically described as 'Networking'? I made an effort and cornered Meg Davis, resisting the compulsion to throttle her. It wasn't her fault, but another agent at her agency turned down my first novel centuries ago.

Posted by frances on May 31, 2007

May 25, 2007

David Hockney's Largest Painting ever

I bumped into David Graves, David Hockney's London assistant in Piccadilly this morning. He promptly invited me to pop into the Royal Academy: Hockney was giving press interviews about his painting, 'Bigger Trees near Warter', which is part of the Summer exhibition (opens June 11). It's the largest painting that the Royal Academy has ever hung in the exhibition. And, it's also the biggest painting that Hockney has ever done (he painted it outdoors in Yorkshire). It hangs in the Academy's largest gallery.

I pity the artists (poor buggers) who have to share a room with the massive work. Nobody is going to look at their stuff as the painting swamps/hogs the room. And, it only took David one month to paint. He also used digital photography so that he could see the progress of the picture on his computer during its work-in-progress stage.

The 'world's greatest living artist' was being interviewed by Andrew Marr, the journalist and political commentator, who was once painted by Hockney. The room was otherwise empty and it was such a treat to view his colossal work without a sea of heads bobbing in front of me. I'm no art critic, but I preferred viewing the painting from further away, as close up, the 'joins' of the fifty separate canvasses which make up the painting distracted me from getting into the picture.

'Did you get the Guardian, luv?' David asked me.

After I had finished my luxurious private view, I ran out and invested 70p in the rag. A photograph of his painting had a centre spread. Let's face it, the pic was too gigantic for one page!

Posted by frances on May 25, 2007

May 24, 2007

Diana Hammond

Had an inspirational lunch with Diana Hammond, the writer today. (She used to live in Hollywood making a 'fortune', writing screenplays). She lives in Paris but popped over to London to check out all five floors of Waterstones in the morning. I adored her novel, The Impersonator so much, I put it on one of my Amazon Listomania lists.

Diana is currently writing a new novel (I can't wait to read it) and says she never shows her project to anyone until after she's finished it. She's wise. In the past, whenever I showed my work during its work-in-progress stage, I've had disastrous results. I had to abort my last novel as I actually allowed an unpublished 'friend' with editorial aspirations to give me notes after I showed him each chapter. When I finished the novel, I realised it was predominately his input not mine. Luckily, I was able to salvage my contributions for my new book.

Posted by frances on May 24, 2007

May 17, 2007

MySpace

If you click on a writer's site on MySpace, you get to view the trailer of their latest book. One advantage of clicking on a favourite Musician's site is hearing samples of their music. I just clicked on Austin de Lone's's new site and was rewarded with hearing downloadable tracks from his new SOUL BLUES album (out in June).

Posted by frances on May 17, 2007

May 12, 2007

Pimlico Children's Library

Pimlico Children's Library is teamed with Chelsea FC in the Premier League Reading Stars (PLRS). The programme is a partnership between the National Literacy Trust, the Football Foundation and the Premier League and is supported by the Arts Council and Waterstones. The scheme is also linked with Reading is Fundemental.

The scheme encourages children aged 7 to 11 years to read books by using football and a football player icon as an inspiration. Each premier league football club is teamed with two or three libraries and a professional football player icon is chosen from the team to represent the club. The footballer then chooses a book to recommend. The combined 20 player's choices makes up the PLRS reading list.

The Football Foundation will supply a selection of books from the reading list, fund one author visit and the football club will arrange a visit to the stadium for a tour. If children complete the scheme, they are given a PLRS certificate and fifteen pounds worth of books to begin their personal collection. A good incentive to start reading.

This morning, I did my little bit about trying to encourage kids to read. I gave a talk about Crushed, my illustrated Young Adult novel at the Pimlico Children's Library. The library had tried to borrow a copy of my book from another Westminster library before the talk, but they were all out, being borrowed. I was hoping to inspire the kids to start reading voraciously, by recommending favourite children's books (Frances Hodgson Burnet's "The Secret Garden" was one example) and droning on about my highs and lows as a writer.

I was a bit worried that Crushed had nothing to do with football, but it didn't seem to matter. Although some of the kids were lacking in literary skills - one ten year old boy confessed he had never read a book - they were all bright and curious. Apparently, they're not used to meeting authors, so I hastened to tell them that anyone can be a writer. I stressed it's not necessary to pass an exam in order to write. I didn't disillusion my young audience that writing can be the hardest job in the world. Let them find out for themselves I thought, as I cajoled them into starting writing for fun.

Posted by frances on May 12, 2007

May 10, 2007

University Of The Arts London

Dug out my Celia Birtwell blouse from TopShop. Went to the Banqueting House in Whitehall tonight for the University of Arts London Conferments Ceremony. The Honorary Doctors' gong recipients were mostly in the fashion and designer fields. Georgio Armani and Jonathan Ive CBE RDI (his official title is Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple Inc) weren't at the ceremony, which was a shame. I would love to have molested Ive, who deigned my old Sunflower Mac. Recipients who did attend the ceremony included Celia Birtwell, who was made an honorary doctor for being 'Britain's most valued and influential textile designer,' Joan Burstein (CBE), who owns Browns, Tom Dixon (OBE) Head of international design at Habitat, Joshua Galvin, a hairdresser and Mona Hatoum who does installations (I had to Google Search the last three to see who they were). The robed recipients' 'I am so honoured' speeches' were short and sweet, but Mona Hatoum, who was gonged last recited her entire C.V. which was a shame, as by this time our seats were incredibly uncomfortable.

Throughout the ceremony, I looked at the ceiling painted by Rubens, and wondered why more writers weren't made honorary doctors of University of Arts London. Admittedly, past Honorary Fellows include (Dame) AS Byatt, but maybe the absence of 'honoured' writers in their droves is due to the fact that University of Arts London consists of a conglomerate of art colleges: Cambwerwell College of Arts, Central St Martins, Chelsea College of Art and Design, London College of Communication, London College of Fashion and Wilbledon College of Art.

Posted by frances on May 10, 2007

May 4, 2007

Promoting on Amazon

I'm trying to beef up my Profile Page on Amazon.com. I haven't got round to blogging or 'plogging' on my Profile Page yet, so I decided to post a brief 'So, You'd Like To' (give a talk about a Young Adult novel) article instead. Initially, I carefully followed Amazon.com's instructions for the simple coding on how to insert my ISBN number for Crushed, my YA novel in my article. Amazon instructs you to key-tap 'ASIN' instead of ISBN if you have an ISBN number. At the time, I didn't realise that an Amazon ASIN is the same as an ISBN-10 number. So each time I tried inserting my ISBN-13 number into my copy, the link didn't work.

I was just about to pull all my hair out, when in desperation, I e-mailed/queried Publishing and Promoting about my dilemma. The site, which deals with the 'final stages of book production and pre- and post-release marketing' gives useful tips for book promotion and publicity. A group member immediately replied, advising me to type my obsolete ISBN 10 number instead of the new ISBN 13 one. Thankfully, It worked!

Posted by frances on May 4, 2007