Guest post by womag soap writer Glenda Young

Today's guest is womag short story and soap writer Glenda Young.

I began writing fiction in 2015 and since then have had stories published in The People’s Friend, My Weekly and Take a Break’s Fiction Feast. I’m also in the rather wonderful and unique position of writing a weekly soap opera, Riverside, which has been published in The People’s Friend since October 2016. I love writing short fiction and away from the Womag world, enter much darker, quirkier stories into competitions. I’ve had some success in winning or being highly placed in national and regional story competitions too (and I’ve a lot of failures, but let’s gloss over those, ahem). 

On the strength of all of this I plucked up the courage to approach a literary agent and was signed up by Caroline Sheldon of the Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency in London. Caroline secured me a three-book deal with Headline in 2017 to write historical novels set in the northeast coalmining village of Ryhope, where I was born and bred. My debut novel Belle of the Back Streets had three publishers fighting over it and in 2019 I was offered a second three-book deal with Headline.

After a life-time spent working in University admin, I’m now working full-time as a writer. This might sound glamourous and yes, it’s true there are trips to London and lovely long lunches with my editor and my agent (I’ve always wanted to say that line ever since I was a little girl writing dotty poems in my pink glittery notepad). But the truth of it is, when you’re a full-time writer it means sitting down at home and Getting On With It, while wearing comfortable trousers and eating too many biscuits at home. I love writing, it’s what I have always wanted to do, ever since I was a child and I couldn’t be happier now. I’m in my mid-50s so novel writing has come fairly late to me in life, but it’s here and I’m making the most of every day.

Before writing fiction, I had written non-fiction books, TV tie-in books about Coronation Street for ITV. This all came about as I’m such a huge fan of the show and have watched it since before I can remember. The Coronation Street books were a passion for me and I was very honoured and proud to be asked to write the official tribute book to the character of Deirdre Barlow after the actress Anne Kirkbride who played Deirdre, passed away in 2015. I’ve also ‘written’ Coronation Street’s official colouring book in that I had to choose 45 iconic images from the show’s 60 years and write descriptions of each one for the book. I continue to run the Coronation Street Blog fan site and edit a team of 16 bloggers.

I continue to bring my love of TV soap and drama to Riverside, the weekly soap opera I write for The People’s Friend. Riverside is a great deal of fun to write and remains the highlight of my writing week. I can take a step back from my historical novels, return to the contemporary world and write funny scenes and poignant stories. I love it!  

Glenda has kindly agreed to answer some of our questions on writing short stories and longer works for the womags. Please leave any you have as comments to this blog, and she'll be back later this month with her replies. In the meantime you make like to visit her Twitter account or visit her website.

Happy New Year!

I hope 2020 brings you all much happiness and positive stuff.

And for me, I hope next year starts as this one is ending – I've just had an acceptance from Shirley for The Weekly News!

The bit in between

I hope you enjoyed Christmas and that 2020 will be a good year for all womag writers. Who knows, maybe the better events of 2019 will be repeated and another new market will open up, and another publication will drop the requirement for all rights?

Whatever happens, we can't get our stories published until we've written them. Personally I find this time of year is very productive, but if you need a little nudge to get you started, A Year Of Ideas: 365 sets of writing prompts and exercises might be helpful.


Or maybe it's that tricky part between starting to think up ideas and reaching your reader that you'd appreciate assistance with? In that case From Story Idea to Reader is the book you want – and it's currently half price!

What are your writing plans for the rest of the year?

Season's Greetings

I'll still be doing daily posts, featuring free to enter writing competitions over on my other blog, but this will be my last Womagwriter post until after Christmas. (Unless there's some really exciting news to report!)

I'd like to wish you all a happy winter solstice, merry Christmas and jolly nice anything else you may celebrate. For those born at this time of year – Happy birthday!

New fiction editor at My Weekly

The new My Weekly fiction editor has been appointed. She's Susan Watson (currently My Weekly's celebrity editor.) Congratulations to her.

No changes to the submission process have been announced – I'll let you know when/if that happens.

Your Go

This month's discussion topic – If you didn't write Womag fiction, what would you do with the time you currently devote to it?

Here's another monthly random photo for use as a story prompt. 

Please share success (or otherwise!) report any womag news, tips, advice you may have, make womag related comments or observations and ask questions – and answer them too if you can help.

 (If you have news or a question relating to a particular magazine, it's also fine to add it as a comment to the latest post for that magazine.)

Writing competitions

If you like writing competitions, take a look at my other blog. Every day from last Friday until the winter solstice (at least) I'm featuring a different free to enter writing competition (short stories, poetry, novels, non-fiction etc).

Do you like writing competitions?

Ever been placed in any?

A YEAR OF IDEAS – 365 sets of writing prompts and exercises

Do you like writing prompts and exercises? If so, you'll love my new book. There are lots in there. I know it says 365 sets of them on the cover, but it's a leap year next year, and I have a tendency to get carried away, so there are a few more than that.

A YEAR OF IDEAS – 365 sets of writing prompts and exercises

All writers need ideas. We need topics and themes, prompts to get started and a little encouragement to keep going. New writers may be wondering where to begin, daunted by a blank page and want help to transform thoughts into fiction. Even the most experienced have dry periods when ideas don't flow, or times when they appreciate a push to try something different.

Patsy Collins' methods are proven to work. She's employed them at workshops where she's never failed to get her attendees, from brand new and nervous to burnt out, not just writing but producing interesting scenes, snippets and stories.

Each of the daily sets of prompts in this book have been used in some way by Patsy, to create her own work. She needs a lot of ideas as she's completed five novels, co-written From Story Idea to Reader (an accessible guide to writing fiction) and produced nineteen collections of themed short stories, averaging two dozen per book. Hundreds and hundreds of her short stories have been published – mainly in women's magazines. She blogs, writes articles, wins competitions and is always working on something new.

Whether you're a new writer, or a more experienced one temporarily out of ideas, have hours to fill or just five free minutes, you'll find something in this book to help get you writing – every day of the year.

You can buy it here. The price is £2.50 ($3.22) for the ebook and £6 ($7.74) for the paperback.

ISSNs

Thanks to Chris Sutton who, via a comment, has supplied some ISSNs (Magazine International Standard Serial numbers, needed to claim ALCS). 

For Woman's Weekly the ISSN is 00437417 

For Woman's Weekly Fiction Specials it's 23997508 

For My Weekly, it's 0262026X 

For My Weekly Fiction Specials it's 14790475

And for The Weekly News it's 02623714 (This is now considered a newspaper and not eligible for ALCS.)

ISSNs are usually displayed somewhere in the magazine, although it's often hard to find them. If you can't and you have work in a particular mag, you could email the fiction editor and ask them for that magazine's ISSN. 

From Bernadette –

Take a Break Fiction Feast is 09530983

People's Friend is 02622382

Writing Magazine is 09649166

From Glenda Young

The People's Friend Fiction Special 14790467 


ISSNs are often found in the bar codes, if you know how to interpret them.

If anyone adds other ISSNs and mentions them in the comments, then I'll add them to this post, hopefully providing a useful resource for us all.

Btw, I was really pleased this morning to see 13 new comments on this blog – until I realised every single one was spam! The spam is a bit annoying. Genuine comments are really appreciated. Whether they're asking questions, providing answers, encouraging me or others, even just a bit of chat, I value them all.

From Sally Jenkins –

Just filling in a DACS claim. They recommend this website for finding ISSNs. Type in the magazine title and it comes up with a list of options from around the world - we would need to look for the UK magazine.
https://portal.issn.org/

You magazine closed for submissions

You magazine, in South Africa, have now closed for submissions until 1st June 2020.

Your Go

This month's discussion topic – What's your favourite thing about writing womag stories?

Here's another monthly random photo for use as a story prompt. 

Please share success (or otherwise!) report any womag news, tips, advice you may have, make womag related comments or observations and ask questions – and answer them too if you can help.

 (If you have news or a question relating to a particular magazine, it's also fine to add it as a comment to the latest post for that magazine.)

ALCS reminder

Just a reminder that the deadline to register work for ALCS payments is the end of this month.

For anyone who doesn't know, the Authors' Licensing Collection and Collecting Society (ALCS) is an organisation which collects and distributes money which is owed to authors when their work is published in magazines. This applies to fiction, non-fiction and visual work. You must state that you own the copyright in order to claim. Newspapers don't qualify, so there's nothing due from stories published in The Weekly News.

You're not obliged to make a claim if you'd rather not, but not doing so means you miss out on money which is due to you.

More info on ALCS can be found in this guest post by Carol Bevitt and from their website.

You're in the right place!

I have a couple of womag related snippets in Writer's Forum this month and the editor added this comment.
->


Talking of editors ... Isn't it great that Katharine Wootton of Yours listened to and acted on the concerns raised by myself and others about the all rights issue? (See previous posts if you missed the two bits of good news from Yours and Yours Fiction.)

And isn't the support we get from the entire editorial team at The People's Friend brilliant? They must be swamped with submissions, yet we always receive a reply. Often there's a helpful comment or word of encouragement too, sometimes more comprehensive feedback will be supplied – and Shirley Blair takes the time to update her blog to keep us informed of the fiction requirements and other news.

Of course these are by no means the only helpful, friendly and supportive editors. Who do you feel deserves our thanks?

As part of my efforts to maintain this blog, and write occasional news pieces for Writer's Forum and Writing Magazine, I quite often contact editors. Almost always I get a reply.  Sometimes they even contact me with information to pass on to womag writers. These people are busy, and my requests for information take them away from the mountain of submissions and other tasks they have to deal with, so thank you to everyone who has ever replied – even when the answer wasn't what I wanted to hear.

Great news from Yours magazine

I've been away and came back to this email from the editor of Yours magazine ...

"Hi Patsy,

Just wanted to update you on something in case you’re able to add anything onto your blog post.

Following your mention about the fact many writers aren’t happy with all-rights and a few other conversations we’ve had about it, we’re now going to be accepting stories on a limited licence agreement rather than all rights. 

Basically this means we have a non-exclusive, irrevocable, perpetual and unconditional worldwide licence to use the works in any and all media whether now known or invented in the future and continue to have the right to edit, retouch or amend any of the works. However unlike with an all-right agreement we are not asking you to perpetually hand over all present and future copyright on the work. So we hold a licence to use your work where we’d like to within Bauer media but we do not own outright the copyright to your work.

Just thought you and some of your readers might like to know about the change

Warm wishes

Katharine."

Update – I asked for confirmation that the new terms will apply to all new stories and that all writers, whether they've previously sold to Yours or not, will get new contracts. Katharine's reply is– 

"Our new policy applies from this month and not historically so any stories already bought by Yours up to this point on an all-rights basis is still contracted on an all-rights basis meaning we won’t be contacting writers to update the contract and all the terms of the all-rights policy signed for for that particular story still apply. From this month, though, the writers of all new stories accepted for either for Yours or Yours Fiction will be asked to sign the new limited licence agreement." 

Karen Byrom is leaving My Weekly

Another fiction editor will shortly be retiring from a D C Thomson magazine. In addition to Shirley Blair leaving The People's Friend (as reported in my last post) Karen Byrom is to leave her position as fiction editor at My Weekly. These two things happening close together are just a coincidence.

Karen's message for readers of this Womagwriter blog is ...

"After nearly 40 years of working at DC Thomson, I have decided to retire as fiction editor of My Weekly. I'll really miss working on the magazine, but I'm  looking forward to the next exciting phase of my life. I shall especially miss regular contact with all the lovely writers I've had the fortune to work with over the last few years - I couldn't have done my job so well without all your great contributions. I may not have been able to buy them all, but I've read and appreciated every single one.

I won't completely disappear from the radar, as I'll still be writing short stories and my Wadhams series. So I'll be dropping in on Womag regularly (if you'll have me) and am looking forward to hearing and contributing to the news and views from your side of the fence.

Fiction will continue to be a key feature of My Weekly - they're already actively recruiting for a new fiction editor. But I'll be around for the next two months, so do drop me a line anytime."

Thank you, Karen and best wishes for the future. I will, of course, be delighted to see you on the blog any time.