Illustrate my stories & WIN!

"Most people think there are only seven Canarian Islands,” says the old fisherman, “but they are wrong. There are eight.”

That's how The Ghost Island starts, one of the stories I wrote for Fly Thomas Cook Kids Club. I'm well chuffed about being published by Thomas Cook, and guess what - they're running a drawing competition to promote them!

Let one of my travel stories inspire you, upload your artwork onto your own blog and post a link to it on Red Ted's Art Blog and who knows, your illustration might be published alongside my story!

Apart from world fame, you can also win a Kid’s Travel Kit including a VTech Kidizoom Plus Multimedia Digital Camera, a Trunki Tiger suitcase, Kidz Gear Wired Headphones for Kids, a quality doodle book, Crayola shark fin case, sunscreen and goggles!

Here's my attempt to draw one of the crucial scenes from The Magic Mirror. Don't worry - I won't quit my day job ;)

Terms & Conditions

1) Open to UK entrants only

2) All entrants must link to their post on http://www.redtedart.com/2011/07/11/get-crafty-and-win/ by Thursday 28th July, 8pm British Summer Time

3) All blog posts must include information about the Thomas Cook site and the competition, as well as a craft relating to one of the Thomas Cook Stories

4) The reserves the right to select a winner and their decision is final

5) Thomas Cook reserves to right to use any images of your crafts or drawings in their promotional materials (even if you did not win)- should your craft or drawing be selected your child’s name and age will be credited.

GOOD LUCK!

Hip Hip Hurrah!

My birthdays tend to coincide with special events.

On my 21^st birthday I won €250 worth in book vouchers in the short story competition Write Now; on my 23^rd birthday I received a beautiful bouquet with the message that I was chosen for the Dutch National Think Tank, and today, on my 25^th birthday, I got a letter congratulating me with the fact that Toby Turd and The Pile of Poo was short listed for the competition of the Academy of Children's Writers (over 2,000 entries). I'm not a winner, but it's a start!

To celebrate my birthday, I went to The Book Club Boutique with Cara last night, where we discovered the wonderful creature called Salena Godden. She's a singer, a poet and a writer; she's got an amazing voice and an even better sense of humour; she's beautiful and very macho... she's the type of woman that makes me think: oh yes, I almost forgot, life is fun!

I hear y'all asking: what do I want as a birthday present? From you, dear blog-readers, I want book tips! Tell me what books I should definitely read this year!

To give you an impression of my taste, I've answered the Book Quiz for Bookies.

Feel free to scroll straight ahead to the comments-section, though. Much fun as I had recollecting the books I read this year, I can imagine it's quite boring to read.

1) What author do you own the most books by?
Plato, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Dostojevski, Terry Pratchett and Ronald Giphart...

2) What book do you own the most copies of?
I own two copies of Also Sprach Zarathustra (Nietzsche), Echte Filosofie (Oudemans) and Embers (Sandor Marai), and several of copies of Voortplanting en Waarheidsverloochening (Sex and Lies, my dissertation on Schopenhauer).

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
Should it?

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Jonathan Strange. But don't tell anyone!

5) What book have you read the most times in your life?
Een onaangename geschiedenis (an unfortunate history) by Dostojevski. I read it about 18 times.

6) What was your favourite book when you were ten years old?
Anything by R.L. Stine I could lay my eyes on.

7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
In the last three weeks alone I hated Belle de Jour,The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl and Een Tafel Vol Vlinders, by Tim Krabbé equally, and I couldn't appreciate Dot in The Universe by Lucy Ellman either. I don't even want to think back further.

8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?
I just finished Piercing, by Ryu Murakami, and I loved it. I fondly think back of rereading George's Marvellous Medicine (Roald Dahl) a couple of months ago. But actually, I think Hunger by Knut Hamsun was the best book I read this year.

9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
The Raw Shark Texts, by Steven Hall

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
I can't say

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Love of Seven Dolls by Paul Gallico

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
The Writers' and Artists' yearbook. Or actually, I would like to see that!

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
I remember I dreamt about 'a famous writer' a couple of weeks ago. Even in the dream, the identity of the writer was not further specified than that he was famous, and I looked up to him. It was quite a pervy dream, a nightmare, but I don't remember what happened.

14) What is the most lowbrow book you've read as an adult?
Teena Thyme, by Jennifer Jane Pope

15) What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
The Fragments of Parmenides (I read them in Coxon's collection), and Heidegger's lingering around these fragments.

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?
I don't think King Lear is very obscure...

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
Russians

18) Roth or Updike? 19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers? 20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer? 21) Austen or Eliot? 22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
Emphasised by question 18 to 21

23) What is your favourite novel?
Perhaps A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. Or The Coma by Alex Garland. Or La Nausee by Sartre.

24) Play?
Bakchai by Euripides

25) Poem?
Haelfte des Lebens by Hölderlin

26) Essay?
Der Erzähler by Walter Benjamin

27) Short Story?
Taste by Roald Dahl

28) Work of nonfiction?
I couldn't move to London without Die Technik und die Kehre, by Heidegger.

29) Who is your favourite author?
Dostojevski.

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
How about Martin Amis?

31) What is your desert island book?
Nietzsche's Nachlass. When can I go?

32) And... what are you reading right now?
Stephen King, The Green Mile (Cara's birthday present!).

How to win short story competitions

“The submission should not be obscene, racist, boring or present ideas in the fields of Political or Religious Correctness.”
-Paul Amphlett, editor of Peer Poetry International

1. Don't write especially for the contest, write when you think of a story, so that you've got a nicely filled portfolio to chose from.

2. Come up with a clever, original and relevant title.

3. Keep to the maximum length (preferably 30 words less).

4. When rereading your story, think of the Greek unities: time, place and theme.

5. There has to be a conflict and it has to be clear from the outset.

6. Entertain. The jury has to read a lot of stories. In order to keep their attention, your story should be more action driven than revolving around description and characterization.

7. Make a logical, satisfying ending and don't rely on surprise endings. If your story is good enough, they'll read it several times and the surprise effect will wear off.

8. Handing it in by snail mail is less likely to go wrong then on-line submission.

9. If there is a set theme, stick to it and make it the main thing in your story, not background, and be imaginative in doing so. If you can't come up with a story about the theme, don't submit to that contest.

10. If there is no set theme, research the jury's preferences. Read their own work, hobbies, previous jury reports, etc. and adapt your submission to it. Rules of thumb:

    1. Your theme must appeal to the judge (even think of gender);

    2. Steer well clear of X-rated language and Adults Only themes;

    3. Be careful with political or religious themes;

    4. Avoid drug abuse, accounts of college or student activities, adolescents coming to grips with peer pressure, vengeful wives who get back at an unfaithful or abusive husband and eagerly anticipated excursions that went terribly wrong;

    5. Avoid being too topical, news items will soon be forgotten;

    6. Don't plagiarise or copy the style of your idol;

    7. Don't re-work famous stories, plays and folk tales.

11. Be C L E A R !!

Notting Hill is great, but Uxbridge is Greater London!

Friday night, I was planning on going to Central London. Go dancing at Fabric with Frederick, stay in Notting Hill over the weekend, and have lunch on Sunday with Cara in China Town. But after I finished writing a Dutch story, Het Konijn van Troje, I got overwhelmed by such serious knee aches that I could hardly get back to my halls from the library. So I was stuck in Fucking Uxbridge…

That night, I ended up leafing through the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook, and noticed that 14 February was the deadline of their short story competition. (It's postponed to 20 February, by the way.) Not that I stand any chance, but as a student Creative Writing I feel that I should at least try to hand something in. Since I’m still mourning over the sudden death of my dear netbook, I had to drag myself to the computer facilities at the John Crank Building. I reread some of my stories and decided my coursework for David Fulton was the bloody best thing I’ve ever written. Unfortunately for you, my dear reader, I haven’t posted it on this blog, because I’m not certain whether I’m allowed to. So I altered Thicker than Blood slightly and submitted it. And now I don't even dare to say my night has gone to waste anymore!
I will not let this dodgy knee stop me from doing what I’m here for! After all: Notting Hill is great, but Uxbridge is Greater London!