Book Fairs and Writing Retreats by Allison Symes

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Image Credits:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Many thanks to Julia Pattison for taking the photo of me at my editing workshop. Also thanks to Janet Williams for taking the image of me at a recent Book Fair.

It was lovely taking part in a Book Fair in July. The last one I took part in was before the pandemic. It’s hard to imagine just how much that changed so much for so many so quickly. What was great was there was a good turn out for the fair (over 100 people). Like the authors present, everyone seemed pleased events like this are back. 

In my part of the world, the nearest bookshops are miles away. I spread the word about the event as much as possible and my slogan for my marketing of the event was “bringing the books to you”. That is one of the great joys of a book fair. 

 
 
Another is seeing a good range of books covering a wide range of ages and tastes. The organisers of the event also kept the writers well supplied with tea, coffee, and cake all afternoon. They hope to make the event an annual one. The writers hope they will too!
 

I was off on my travels again in August for my big writing treat of the year, The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick which is held at The Hayes Conference Centre. I have a few days of being fully immersed in the writing world and get to catch up with friends and make new ones. The range of courses and workshops is great. 
 

I was privileged to lead a workshop - Editing - The View from Both Sides of the Fence. Back in 2020 I was being edited on my second book (Tripping the Flash Fantastic) at the same time as I was editing someone else for a small publisher. It was an interesting time. I could see where my editor was coming from and I hoped my author could see what I was coming from as I edited their work.


It meant for this workshop I could share tips on editing from an author viewpoint, an editor’s viewpoint, and, for good measure, from the viewpoint of a competition judge. I’ve done that too and hope to do so again at some point.

Can a judge tell how well something has or  has not been edited? Oh yes! I was glad to share tips here and people found the workshop useful. What I hope happens is people at the workshop with drafts will have another good look at their scripts based on the tips I shared and then polish their work further, and then get it out there.


You can over-edit. I set myself a deadline by which time I will get something submitted including for blogs like this. Beats the Procrastination Monster, doesn’t it? It also puts the Imposter Syndrome fiend firmly in its place as no imposter writer would keep submitting work, would they? 

The practice of writing, editing, submitting, recognising you will get rejections as well as acceptances - all of these things are attributes from a writer learning and developing their craft. Imposters don’t do that, do they?

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