Welcome to my new website.
If you are a reader of my work, a fellow writer, or you just came across this site by mistake, I hope you find something you enjoy, or inspires you to dig deeper into the world of short stories.
Creating a new space, where I could be more active in promoting the form, was one of my writing resolutions.
Over the past few years, I have achieved all of the writing targets I have set myself (perhaps that’s because I never put an exact number on my word count goals). This year, I have a number of objectives, which are, in no particular order.
- Engage with publishers, writers and readers to help promote short stories as a viable alternative to reading novel after novel
- Spread the word about Foreign Voices, my first collection
- Finish and prepare my second collection for submission to agents and publishers
- Realise success in short story competitions
- Reduce my huge reading list, then build it back up again
Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Well, when you factor in moving countries and starting a new business, I suppose it isn’t, but I’ll try.
One thing I often remark on, is how ‘writing time’ is divided. Many experts say that writers must spend as much time reading as writing. So that’s 50%.
Writing admin such as submissions, marketing and social media might take up half of your ‘writing time’, then factor in preparation, research, editing, formatting, and hours upon hours of procrastinating. And what about generating ideas, or mulling over plot holes and character development on those long brooding walks?
I guess that around 1-5% of the time I dedicate to creating stories, is spent actually typing words. If I could spend eight hours a day actually typing words, I would be on my twenty-ninth collection by now.
But, I wouldn’t change the time-stealing, maddeningly beautiful challenge that is writing, for anything.
Feel free to get in touch and tell me what your writing or reading goals are for the year.
Philip Charter 