Blog Takeover Day

For the wonderful idea that was Sally Quilford's Blog takeover day, I thought I'd get a celebrity guest blogger for the day. In keeping with the theme of this blog, there was really no question over who to ask... so without further ado, I'll hand over to a woman who needs no introduction.


Hello there Womagwriter's blog readers! When Womag asked me to step in for the day and provide a guest blog post I nearly refused. She knows, well you all know don't you, darlings? just how busy I am. We're up to 1000 subs a day here at My Take A Weekly Fiction Special. I'm literally drowning in paper. But I said I'd do it, so here I am, pen in hand, scribbling furiously for you. Ha ha, I suppose it makes a change - usually you lot are all scribbling furiously for me!

Womag suggested I write about a typical day in the life of an overworked fiction editor. So that's what I'll write. Today I was up at 6am, but back in bed again at five past, and maybe that's too much detail. I was properly up and breakfasted by eleven which is good going. And then I began on the day's mound of stories. I work at home, dear writers. And I do all the reading myself, since we sacked all the out-readers in a cost-cutting exercise. So with just 347 stories to get through before lunch, I made a start.

Of the first batch, I could use none of them. 5 ended with it all being a dream, 27 were printed in pink ink, 19 were about alien spacecraft and 2 were written in Swahili. Oddly, no less than 158 stories featured a piano tuner. All of which I've seen before, so this batch were sent straight back with the 'well-worn theme' box firmly ticked.

I'm often asked what I look for in a short story. That's easy to answer. I know exactly what my readers like - cosy crime and relationship stories. So I look for cosy crime and relationship stories written in a way I've never seen before. Of course, having read 21,978,890 stories during the course of my career it must be hard to write something I've never read before, but that, dear writers, is your problem, not mine!

By 2.30pm I was becoming tired of reading. At this stage I tend to start fiddling with the manuscripts, taking staples out, putting them back in again. It's a nervous habit, I can't help myself. I decided to try to complete 2 piles of stories by 3pm, so I scrawled 15.00 - 2p? on the manuscript I was currently reading to remind myself of my goal. Oh dear, sometimes I wonder what you poor writers must think of these cryptic scrawls on your stories when they come back to you! I really should apologise... but I won't.

Happily I hit my target, and completed my reading by 4pm, with the help of a miniature bottle of gin. I only buy miniatures. Just in case I get carried away and read for too long. It can make one go quite cross-eyed. I'd decided to buy three stories, which is a good haul from 582.

By the time I'd posted the returns and emailed the acceptances, it was wine o'clock. Thankfully my dear husband Rupert had already cooked dinner - steak. Mine was rare, very rare, just how I like it. The way the blood oozes out as I bite into it - mmm.

So dear writers, I hope this has given you a teensy insight into my working life. Keep sending those stories, and maybe it'll be YOU one day gracing the pages of my magazine, or possibly my dinner plate. Really, I don't know how some fiction editors get such fearsome reputations. We're gentle as lambs, inside.

Signed, Iva Mina Streak, fiction editor.