Writer's Recess

Below is what an accomplished bio looks like. If you are an unpublished writer and you have never come into contact with a professional, it can be a lonely existence. No How-To book can rival advice and guidance from the horse’s mouth of someone ahead of you on your path. Coming into contact with other writers is an absolute must. So far, I can count my mentors on one hand. You need to ask questions if you hope to get answers. I recently asked the editor of a magazine if I could write an article for his magazine and he said yes. Simple as.

The route into writing is daunting. Mine was forged by winning a competition, but the bottom rung is fast losing its allure. Someone asked me recently why I didn’t have a book published, in the same way that you might ask someone why they didn’t bring an umbrella out. If only it was like any other job, with vacancies. Best-selling novelist wanted: flexible hours, royalty pension, book signings evenings and weekends....

Small steps though. There’s nothing bigger. Amass whatever credits you can and if you have none then try and get some. My next incentive, for example, is to perform another public reading.

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Terry Edge has been a street theatre performer, props maker for the Welsh Opera, sign writer, schools caretaker, soft toys salesman, professional palm-reader, trainer, grasscutter, and table soccer champion. For fourteen years he tutored experimental theatre groups, developing innovative techniques to help better release creativity.

Terry has published several children's/YA novels and non-fiction books. Writing as T D Edge he has also sold SF/Fantasy stories to various magazines, including Beneath Ceaseless Skies and Realms of Fantasy. In 2006, he attended the Odyssey Fantasy Writers' Workshop where his application story won a Gandalf Grant. Disappointed that this did not include a pointy hat and stick-on white beard, he nevertheless had a splendid time and, most importantly for an Englishman, learned how to hug. In 2008, he was happily knackered after attending the master class workshop in Oregon, taken by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

Terry has also been a professional freelance fiction editor for over twenty years. He has tutored creative writing with the Open College of the Arts and various local authorities. He has edited for publishers but nowadays prefers to work with his own clients, both published and unpublished authors.

(There it is. Notice the absolute necessity of having done interesting jobs if you wanna make it as a scribbler. And a sense of humour. And a thick skin. And….)

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Follow link below for interview with Terry.

http://www.writewords.org.uk/interviews/terry_edge.asp