Welcome to my website and especially welcome if you've arrived here via the www.miltonstreetwriters.co.uk website which is under development. Registered with the NAWG (National Association of Writing Groups - www.nawg.co.uk), our group was featured (centrefold!) in the December 2009 issue of their 'Link' magazine!
I started Milton Street Writers in March 2008; a group of 20+ members (usually c. 8-9 attending the fortnight critique workshops and c. 6 to the writing workshops) with a mixture of poets, short storyists (I like making up words), scripters and autobiographers. The critique group usually overruns the 2-hour sessions so we are unfortunately at capacity as a 'bums-in-seats' group but I will be putting more info on here (hints and tips etc) or you can contact me (via the 'What I do' page) if you have any specific writing-related queries.
About me - I am a fledgling writer (of just over 5 years) who is passionate about the craft, and wanted to share with you my knowledge and experience gleaned to-date. My apologies for the occasional font inconsistency - the software I use is somewhat unstable but its benefits still outweigh the odd quirk.
I write fiction, mainly short stories and poetry, and have been published in Woman's Weekly. I also submit to competitions and won Ripping Pages (see 'Links' page) competition January 2008 with a poem 'Fight for life' and was shortlisted in the Veralum Writers' Circle 'Get Writing' Competition Feb 2010 with 'Feeding the Father', a based-on-a-true-story monologue. In late 2008 I started submitting short stories to other women's magazines and online site Bound Off (see 'Links'), the latter of which were my first two rejections (which was to be expected as they only accept one or two stories a month).
Totals now: 1 acceptance (yeah!), 17 rejections with short story competitions 'out there' so I need to get my BICHOK (bum in chair, hands on keyboard!) and get some submissions in circulation. I've been busy though as I've written three novels (two for NaNoWriMo - www.nanowrimo.org - in Novembers 2008 and 2009). I finished both with a few hours to spare with 53,000 in 2008 and a staggering 117,540 words - a figure etched on my brain! - in 2009.
I loved doing the NaNoWriMos so much that I wrote a novel in between and there may well be a fourth before November 2010...
I wrote my first-ever script for NaNo's sister site Script Frenzy www.scriptfrenzy.org which was a challenge to say the least. The target was 100 pages rather than 50,000 words but the layout so different that it was a much slower process. Although I'm glad I did it it didn't make me want to be a script writer (although I've written a 5-minute play for Northampton Literature Group's July task) so am sticking with the novels and short stories.
I've also recently offered my services as a volunteer at the Chorleywood Literary Festival (mid-Nov) - see www.cwlitfest.org.
I'm also on Twitter! Check out http://twitter.com/morgenwriteruk (unfortunately morgenbailey was already taken) and http://twitter.com/sentencestarts. Sentence Starts is a regular tweet of at least half a dozen (as I have around 3,000!) sentence beginnings.
I hope you enjoy looking through this site (and even more so when it's complete...I hope to add fairly regularly) and if you learn one thing, I've achieved something.
Feel free to click on the Contact me page (currently in the 'What I do' section) and fill the form in. Thank you for visiting and do pop by every once in a while as the website will be updated with new hints & tips.
The content of, and information given on, this website is either personal opinion or details taken from the internet and therefore in the public domain. All fictional content contained within the 'What I do' section is copyrighted to the author and permission must be sought before its use.
Copyright © Morgen Bailey - updated 5th July 2010
