Information Scotland

The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland

June 2007 Volume 5(3)

Endpiece

The retreat

Colin Will relishes space to write, and ponders whether web postings are “publication”.

Writers’ retreats are supposed to be places writers go to recharge their inspirational batteries, to create new work, revise work in progress, or to find space to think. Do they work? Well, for me, they do. I’m just back from a Norman MacCaig themed retreat at Glencanisp Lodge near Lochinver, run by the Assynt Foundation. The Assynt community was able to buy four mountains, a hunting lodge, and 44,500 acres of Assynt, under the provisions of the Scottish Land Reform Act of 2003, one of the most enlightened measures passed by our Parliament. The six writers (plus one partner) on retreat were greatly impressed by the energy, commitment and drive of the community members we met.

The Lodge was completely cut-off from the outside world: no mobile signal, no TV, no easy access to the Internet and no radio. We were two poets, two novelists, one short-story writer and a crime fiction writer/playwright. Most days I woke up to a breathtaking view of Suilven from my bedroom. Every day I wrote in my room, every day I walked, either along the track towards Suilven or through the hills to the River Inver and to the village. Every evening we gathered for a splendid meal cooked by the lady who used to cook for the Vestey family in the self-same lodge. The talk, whether of our day’s activities and preoccupations or of MacCaig and his Assynt, was warm and friendly.

One day we had a walk round Achmelvich with the local Ranger. It was a joy to stand on a high rock overlooking Loch Roe reading aloud Norman’s poem about the loch, to see the thorn bush he wrote about outside Christy MacLeod’s house and the seabirds fishing off the beautiful beach. That evening we had a gathering with locals who had known Norman, and it was wonderful to meet Pollóchan’s daughter and A.K.’s son. On the last night we had a slot at the Ullapool Book Festival, chaired by Andrew Greig, to talk about MacCaig’s influence on us and to read his poetry and some of the work we had written.

What did I write? Astonishingly, one new poem every day, and a haiku (above). I had no preconceived ideas before I arrived, but it seemed entirely natural and right to write about Suilven. Six full-length poems about Suilven? Yes, but all very different, all having a whiff of malt and the sea about them, and all, I hope, reflecting the twinkle in the eye of my favourite poet, whose presence in this landscape is inescapable.

Web publication
Something which is exercising a lot of writers just now is the question, “Does posting a work on the Web constitute prior publication?”. Submission guidelines to nearly all competitions include a phrase like: “The work should not have been previously published.” The phrase isn’t usually qualified by any reference to the Web, although there are exceptions. The Bridport Prize rule states: “Entries... must never have been published, self-published, published on any website or broadcast.” That’s pretty clear, isn’t it? Well, to a point, but is an online forum necessarily a website? If you can Google it, it’s probably a website. But is putting a work up for c&c in a closed group legally an act of publication? I’d be interested in feedback on this. In my untested and non-legal view, if publication consists in making a work available to the public, posting in a group with restricted access isn’t publication. I hope this is true, because it’s often helpful for writers to be able to post drafts for comment. It would be unfortunate if good writers were disqualified from entering competitions or submitting to magazines as a result of posting drafts. Tyne & Esk Writers recently set up a closed group for just such a purpose, as well as for the exchange of informal news. We regard it, together with our website, as part of our aim to establish a virtual community of writers within Midlothian and East Lothian.

What about literary magazines? Checking my bookshelves I see that most of them just refer to submissions not having been previously published, so they leave the question of web publication open.

Speaking specifically about the world of literature there are several different types of site where work can appear. The loosest and most anarchic are perhaps the unmoderated Usenet newsgroups, such as rec.arts.poems, now sadly infested by trolls, flamers, bampots and second rate poets. At the other end of the scale there are well designed and well edited webzines, such as Snakeskin, Soft Blow, Umbrella and many others. Then there are the hobbyzine sites, produced badly and with limited editorial control. Their site builders realise that the more they ‘publish’ the more links they’ll generate, and the higher-ranked they will be by search engines. And did I mention writers’ personal websites? Almost as many as there are writers these days. And then there are the blogs. Let me confess it now: I am a blogaholic. I love writers’ blogs, but I’m not fussy. I feel impoverished if I don’t read Better Oot Than In, I am Bossy, and TheCatGirlspeaks on a regular basis.

Colin Will (Sunny Dunny) e: colin.will@zen.co.uk

http://colinwill.blogspot.com

Information Scotland Vol. 5(3) June 2007

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Last updated: 18-Jul-2007