With the ability to earn millions, even as a nano influencer, it’s no wonder that many people are now turning to Instagram for a potential side hustle.
Interested in social media earnings, money.co.uk collected the average annual salary for each European country from Eurostat and used social salary calculator Lickd.co to find out how many sponsored posts* an average European worker would need a year to match their country’s average salary.
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In her second article Elaine Spires turns a novel into a stage play
In my previous article – Turning a Stage Play into a Novel – I shared my experiences of turning two of my plays into novels and of the relative ease with which this was done. Writing a play from a book (Singles’ Holiday) proved much harder.
Photo credit: Danann Breathnach
Originally I wanted to write a screenplay but knew the probabilities of getting it in front of anyone that mattered were slightly less than winning the Euromillions next Friday. And although I know lots of actors, writers and directors, I unfortunately don’t know anyone with the financial means to make such a film or TV series. Producing Singles’ Holiday for the stage, however, was much more feasible.
The book has a fairly large cast of characters, and I wanted them all to appear in the play. This was impossible. As interesting as their backstories were and of importance in explaining how this totally diverse group of people come to holiday together in Antigua, it couldn’t be told in two hours. So the culling of characters began. It felt like I was murdering my own children.
To start, I took a red pen to all the minor characters. Then I concentrated on those remaining to move the story along and produce my first draft. I’ve always preferred writing dialogue, but writing only dialogue proved a challenge resulting in lengthy stage directions.
The draft was four hundred and two pages: totally unrealistic as it would mean a six-hour show. Actor Nick Campbell who knew the book well, had encouraged me to write the script and wanted to produce the play sat down with me and after much foot-stamping on my part persuaded me to cut two more characters but this meant we lost a huge plot twist.
I feared this would diminish the story but I could see that he was right; it was better to concentrate on writing a play that worked rather than a faithful rehash of the book that didn’t. There’s nothing worse than theatre that doesn’t entertain.
It turned out to be sound advice. I realised that Singles’ Holidays is, in fact, almost three books in one and by carefully plotting the story arc and concentrating on a smaller cast it could work well.
Once the second draft was ready I got a group of actors together for a table read. This is a vital part of the playwriting process as it’s the first time a writer sees her characters come to life and hears them speak, outside her own head, of course. It also shows what works theatrically and what doesn’t. As this draft was over two hundred pages I already knew further editing would be necessary. I made copious notes and worked on the script again. Cutting out two further characters and their dialogue brought us to one hundred and sixty pages.
And it was time for another table read. A fabulous director friend Jane Gull came along and was brutally honest with me, asking,
“Whose story is it, Elaine?”
This one question (answer – Eve the tour manager’s) showed me what I needed to do: cut out anything superfluous to developing her story.
Finally, I had a one-hundred-and-thirty-page play script. Another table reading showed it worked!
And in October 2014, Singles’ Holiday had a hugely successful week’s run at the Brentwood Theatre, courtesy of Melabeau Productions.
Singles’ Holiday is now the first in the six-book Singles’ Series. The others are set in worldwide tourism destinations and continue Eve’s story. I still think they would make great TV. Does anyone know someone at Netflix?
www.elainespires.co.uk
In the first of two articles Elaine Spires shares the secrets of turning a stage play into a novel
My first novel, What’s Eating Me, started life as a stage play. It’s the story of Eileen Holloway, a struggling single parent of two teenage boys who’s holding down a demanding job while dealing with her difficult mother. Food is the drug of choice that gets her through the day until she is tricked into appearing on Barbara’s Beautiful Bodies, a reality TV show. She becomes a celebrity over night, albeit a reluctant one. Compulsive overeating is a grossly misunderstood condition and it was a story I was keen to tell.
Photo credit: Danann Breathnach
The play was a one-woman show, which I took to the Edinburgh Fringe. Although we played in a tiny venue, it had great reviews. Afterwards, though, I just couldn’t let Eileen go. So I decided to turn her story into my first book.
As the play was a three-act soliloquy – Eileen sharing her thoughts with the audience – it seemed to me logical that the book should be written in the first person (I) as this would tell Eileen’s story in her own voice, giving it an intimacy that would have been missing in the third person (she).
A huge advantage for a writer turning a play into a novel is that the characters have already been brought to life and their voices have been heard. A great tip for writing novels, especially dialogue, is to read your words out loud to hear the characters’ voices and when converting a play this part has already been done for you. Your characters are already 3-dimensional and alive; you’ve seen and heard them. The audience feedback i.e. where they reacted by laughing, gasping, clapping, stunned silences or – hopefully not – bored indifference is also a great indicator of what’s working and what isn’t, not just re dialogue but also plot twists and story arc. I would recommend watching your play performed as many times as possible. You’ll be surprised that you see something different every time. Actor input also plays a helpful, vital role.
Regardless of when events and back stories appeared in the play my first step was to put them into chronological order thus giving me a time line of scenes. Then I worked on each scene, developing character/personality traits, adding or expanding on backstory thus giving not only deeper insights to the individual characters but explaining, in this case, Eileen’s reactions to them. This I call sprinkling the glitter – where the creative process really gets to work. It’s the part where ideas often appear from nowhere that move the plot along or take it in a different direction. This, in turn, helped demonstrate the Why behind Eileen’s self-destructive behaviour. In the end, although the main events of the story occur in diary form in the novel, backstory events are revealed as and when the plot demands it, thus producing twists. And everyone loves a twist, don’t they? Perhaps this sounds complicated but with detailed A3 sheets on the wall covered in post-it notes, it worked for me.
I thoroughly enjoyed this way of writing and so another play – Sweet Lady – became my second novel. And this book, too, is written in first person, although quite different from What’s Eating Me. The rest of my novels haven’t been plays but I always visualise them as such, making notes and envisaging scenes of dialogue, which I perform aloud – fortunately I live alone – before I start the proper writing of the book.
Readers often remark that my books would make great TV series. I think that’s the result of the way I plan.
www.elainespires.co.uk
At the end of June Jane Cable was poised to start writing The Lost Heir. Did it happen? Not a bit of it…
There were several reasons for my lack of progress, most of which I can share. We had a week or so’s holiday planned early in the month, and publication of The Missing Pieces of Us, my first title writing as Eva Glyn, was scheduled for the 21st. What I wasn’t anticipating were the scale of the structural edits for The Olive Grove, Eva’s second book.
Let me explain a little about this process. As an author you submit a final draft manuscript to the publisher, and your editor reviews it with the objective of making it better. My editor at Sapere Books does most of the work for me, so basically my input is to read, negotiate, and perhaps add a few extra tweaks. Eva is signed to a bigger publishing house (0ne More Chapter is a division of Harper Collins) and the system is entirely different.
So I received an editorial letter telling me in some detail what they would like me to do to improve the book. At this point people often ask questions along the lines of ‘don’t you mind?’. Of course I don’t mind – it is absolutely fantastic to have detailed feedback that will make the book a real joy for readers and a story that will stay with them long after they have finished it.
You lose perspective on your own book – or at least I do. Just before the submission deadline it seems common amongst authors to loath your manuscript, but even once you are over that you still need to accept that you probably can’t see the wood for the trees.
The problem was that I needed to juggle the edits not only with a full on holiday – a historical tour of Hadrian’s Wall – but also with our nephew coming to stay. This meant everything else had to be swept to one side, but my husband was magnificent, taking over all the domestic duties (he does most of them anyway as I am so useless!). And I suspect he enjoyed some ‘boy time’ with our nephew too.
So in the main I have spent a large chunk of July editing The Olive Grove and I absolutely know I have a better book, which I can’t wait for you to be able to read in September. And the last few days I’ve been running around like a headless chicken on social media, what with the launch of The Missing Pieces of Us, and The Forgotten Maid being on Netgalley ready for publication next month.
But I also had a holiday. We had intended to do a long distance walk but instead found ourselves drawn to a historical tour led by a university professor, where we would learn so much about the Romans who built and defended Hadrian’s Wall. It was a fascinating week when we went from one end of the wall to the other – and beyond it to outposts in the north. We visited all the famous sites; Vindolanda, Housesteads, and were shown around Birdoswald by Tony Wilmot, the archaeologist responsible for digging most of the fort over the years. It wasn’t only fabulous, but a break I needed to return refreshed and hit the ground running.
And as for The Lost Heir? This month I’m going to wise up and make no promises in that respect at all!
Let’s admit it; no one could have truly predicted what the world is currently dealing with due to the effects of COVID-19. The pandemic struck fast and hard and caught all of us off-guard.
For tech companies and most other businesses, that meant one thing; it was time to adapt (and do so quickly) or die. While remote work (or working from home) is not a completely new thing, it wasn’t a big trend yet pre-COVID.
Today, big tech companies such as Twitter and Facebook have embraced it, with many more like Blueground, a provider of furnished apartments in San Francisco, joining the bandwagon daily.
In this post, we look at how this new trend is rapidly changing how tech companies operate for the better.
It is impossible to talk about the shift to remote work and not mention the positive impact it has on finances for both employers and employees.
With COVID-19 negatively impacting revenues, finding effective ways of cutting costs is a necessity. That’s why employers are offering workers the chance to work remotely at the expense of significantly reducing their salaries.
In addition to cutting operating costs, remote work is opening other avenues for employers. For example, it’s now possible to hire employees from different geographical locations, including offshore countries where labor is cheaper. Again, the net effect of this is reduced costs of doing business, which is key during times like these when companies are dealing with unprecedented economic challenges.
According to a study by the Harvard Business Review, remote work can motivate employees to be more productive and yield higher results.
By working from home, workers are able to cut down the time it takes to commute to their workplaces. The truth is, commuting to work takes up a considerable amount of employees’ daily schedules. This not only increases fatigue but also raises their stress levels, especially if the commutes are hectic.
Remote work makes it possible for employees to earn a living without having to deal with such stressors. Ultimately, they become more productive and this shows in more sales and improved relations with other team members.
When tech companies require employees to work in the office, they are oftentimes limiting their talent pool to just those who can work at their location. As a result, most end up missing out on sharper and more qualified candidates from other regions.
For example, living in Silicon Valley is expensive, which means candidates who don’t have enough money to live there will be unavailable for selection.
By embracing remote work, companies can comfortably widen their talent pool as they can recruit workers from any geographical region.
As with anything, it’s not all rosy when it comes to remote work. The increasing popularity of the trend means a lot of information is coming up on the negative side of it.
For starters, reports show that remote work has taken a toll on some workers since most were used to collaborating with a team in an office setting. As a result, some have found it difficult to self-motivate when working at home without any physical supervision. On the upside, the self-driven ones have benefited immensely from a lack of physical supervision.
Another problem that is arising is a lack of proper work-life balance. Some employees are finding it harder to separate work from their social life, thus eating into their personal time. This has led to issues such as increased divorce rates and gender-based violence cases. The premise behind it is that parents and partners no longer spend as much quality time with their loved ones as before.
However, all these hiccups are slowly getting smoothed out and soon, remote work will become the norm—especially in the tech sector.
When remote work first started to pick up speed, employers doubted they could manage their staffs, and that it would lead to a dip in productivity. However, this has been proven wrong, with most workers and supervisors now working smoothly via virtual platforms like Zoom.
This continues to work well for both companies and employees, as the former cuts down on operating costs, while employees benefited from the reduced hassle and cost of commuting to and from work.
Overall, shifting to remote work has enabled many tech companies to remain competitive and profitable. Whether it will be a future trend or just a temporary way to survive the disruption caused by COVID-19, it is easily the best thing that has happened to the tech industry in a long while!
Collaborative post with our brand partner.
“Great Women, Great Writing, Great Stories”
Honno Press was set up in 1986 with four core aims: to provide a feminist perspective, to give Welsh women writers an opportunity to see their work published, to get earlier important, but neglected, writing by Welsh women back into print and to provide employment in publishing for women in Wales.
At the time, none of the publishing houses in Wales were particularly interested in promoting Women’s literature or writers, especially not in English. There was a practice of publishing Welsh-language material by winners of competitions in the National Eisteddfod by the traditional presses, who would then pursue those particular authors. But the thought of going out to look for new female talent and female voices was not a priority
The establishment of Honno, their active search for women writers in both languages in Wales widened opportunities for women and saw all the Welsh publishers take women’s writing and the subjects women write about more seriously.
When asked why there is such a great variety in the books published by Honno, Janet Thomas, former editor of Honno and now on the committee, says, “I think a key reason for the vitality of Honno’s list that we are run as a group, with a variety of tastes, enthusiasms and expertise. Honno tries to be open to all the broad range of writing that Welsh women want to write, looking for talent as widely as possible, Welsh and English, in all different kinds of fiction and non-fiction. As long as the skill is there, whatever the genre, style or subject matter, Honno will consider publishing their work.”
The commitment to provide opportunities for women in Wales in the publishing world is still at the heart of Honno. As well as the experienced staff, who appreciate the chance to work in publishing in mid-Wales, over the years there have been many volunteers in the Honno office, allowing them to gain practical experience and an insight into how publishing works. Volunteers generally take part in marketing activities, read manuscripts, help with general office procedure, and work on other projects as required. Gaining experience at Honno has helped many to go on to work in various areas of publishing. (Of course, at the time of writing, due to the pandemic, this is on hold.)
Throughout the years the Press and its titles have garnered many awards including Wales Book of the Year. Even so, as Caroline Oakley, Editor for Honno says, “For independent presses to survive and compete against the big publishers they need strong customer support and to build a community of enthusiastic readers – a lot of which recent tech advances enable. Social media is vital to creating a groundswell of interest in any new title from a small press with ‘word of mouth’ (or more likely ‘tweet’) becoming an essential viral marketing tool.”
Finally, when asked to sum up what Honno have done, Janet says, “It’s hard not to see all we haven’t done – the writers we want to find, the histories we want to tell. I have a note my late father once wrote out for me, a quote from Ecclesiastes: ‘And of the making of books there is no end.’ I think he gave it to me as a comfort when I was feeling overwhelmed by one project or another, but it’s also optimistic. We keep going. Books matter. They last. The books we haven’t published yet are, with luck, the books we will publish next year. For Honno to have survived thirty-five years is a great achievement and a testimony to all the women who’ve been part of it. It’s also, hopefully, just the beginning.”
For many people, working from home has become a normal part of everyday life. Whereas the initial transition into home working typically meant sitting at the kitchen table or typing from the sofa, we’ve all been working from home for so long now that whole spare rooms or corners of bedrooms have necessarily become makeshift offices.
If your workstation could use a little more thoughtful direction with regards to your setup, keep reading to find out how to turn your available space into a passable office environment.
Lighting is key
One of the first considerations that employers make over working environments is adequate lighting (buy E27 LED bulb – ideal for the home). Too much lighting has the same effect as too little. Your eyes will squint and the muscle will strain. It’s a one-way ticket to a headache and, as a result, a much slower output.
Even if your home office is already up and running, and even if you think you have nailed the details, any concerns with regards to strained eyes, headaches, and noticeably poorer results in your work could be directly related to lighting. Take the time to ensure you research and implement adequate lighting levels for the space in which your work.
Top tip: you will typically require around 20 lumens per sq ft for lower level bedroom lighting, and you will need around 80 lumens per sq ft for more clinical kitchen and bathroom lighting. Use those figures as a guide and find what works best for you.
Supportive chair
This one sort of speaks for itself. As grandma used to say, always make sure you have comfy sheets and comfy shoes, because if you’re not in one you’re in the other. Wise words. But grandma didn’t foresee the pandemic and endless months of working from home. What she should have said was, “… and in the event of a lockdown, invest in a chair with adequate back support”. But that’s nowhere near as catchy. But how do you choose a chair?
There’s a reason some chairs are taller than others. The higher the back, the more support the chair offers. For short stay seating, such as in a waiting room, a lower back is sufficient to support your lumbar. But for the nine to five grind, try to make sure you have access to seating that at least meets shoulder height when seated.
How’s your internet connection?
If there’s one thing many people discovered as a result of the almost global lockdown, it’s that internet speeds are averages intended to reflect average use. Or to put it another way, the advertised internet speeds were brought down a peg or two when everyone was forced to work from home and servers began to buckle under the strain of the increased traffic.
If your internet speed regularly causes issues, look into an upgrade. Don’t fall into the trap of being lazy and sticking to what you know just because your direct debits are all set up. Make the change and reap the benefits of a smoother connection.
I was born and brought up in the tiny mid-Wales village of Newbridge-on-Wye and moved to nearby Llandrindod Wells when I was fourteen. Fortunate to have had a very free and happy childhood, growing up in such beautiful rural surroundings has always stayed with me. Although I have now spent more years living in the south of Wales, first in Swansea and then for the most part in Cardiff, I still call Llandrindod ‘home’. For as long as I can remember, apart from a very brief spell of wanting to be a glamourous model or an airhostess, I always wanted to become a teacher, my two main loves being English and Art. Having studied in Cardiff, I have taught in a wide range of settings – from opening and running my own nursery, teaching all year groups in primary school, secondary school English and Art and Pottery up to A level, and teaching art, crafts and pottery in adult evening classes when my three children were small. For the last six years of my career in education, I became a Teacher Adviser for English.
You will notice that I have not yet mentioned writing. I was extremely late to the party and it wasn’t until I joined a writing group at a local library when I retired that I wrote my first piece of fiction. In my job, I was passionate about children’s writing but this was for me, for my enjoyment… and I loved it. I was hooked! Soon, I went on to take a writing class at Cardiff university and began to submit short stories for publication. In October 2019, my first collection of shorts was published. My pieces started getting longer and longer so that, following a novel writing course, I wrote my first full-length novel. My debut novel, Her Mother’s Secret was published in April 2020, followed by Her Sister’s Secret, a few months later, by Ruby Fiction. The third novel in the three-book deal is due out in the summer.
So, what do I write about? My dual-narrative novels are about families and their secrets. The strapline for my publisher is ‘Stories that Inspire Emotions!” and I hope that my books do just that. They are character driven. I have always been fascinated by long-held family secrets and skeletons lurking in cupboards and these form the germs of ideas to develop into a novel.
Fascinated by the ever-present link between past and present, I try to explore how actions and decisions made in one era have an impact on subsequent generations. In all my novels, I want to tell two stories showing a special bond between mothers and daughters. The daughters’ stories are written in first person and I’ve tried to get inside their heads, feel their emotions and show the reader why they act in the way they do. In each novel, setting plays an important role, too. There is always a journey to a contrasting setting vastly different from the area in mid-Wales where my characters are from. I hope I manage to transport the reader not only to the heart of Wales but also to Greece, Sicily or France. I’ve also tried to capture the different times during which my characters lived.
Having a lot of catching up to do, I take every opportunity I can to learn more about the craft of writing by attending workshops, talks and conferences. Joining that small writing group in Whitchurch library was the best decision I could have made to start me on my writing journey.
You can link up with Jan on Twitter – @JanBaynham https://twitter.com/JanBaynham or Facebook – Jan Baynham Writer https://www.facebook.com/JanBayLit or you can follow her blog – Jan’s Journey into Writing https://janbaynham.blogspot.com/