Novelettes and travel expenses
It’s Sunday morning, and I am a bit all written out. Not in blog posts, obviously, as the last few have been on the short side, but I’ve just spent the week writing a long short story. (24,000 words, first draft.) This has been one of those things that just fell out, as it were. I am told by the machine that knows these things – a search engine – that this makes the story a novella; 17,500 to 39,999 words is a novella, apparently. Over 40k is a novel, between 7,500 and 17,499 is a novelette, and a short story is under 7,500. So, now you know.
Novelette sounds rather polite to me, the name of a minor member of a privileged household. ‘Have you met my daughter, Novelette? She is rather plain, I’m afraid, but she’ll scrub up decently after she’s been brought out next season.’ That kind of thing. So, I have written a novelette in a week, first draft. I have to say ‘first draft’ as it’s not ready for public consumption yet, not fit for reading. I will spend this week tidying it up and then have a couple of people read it. It’s a new ‘Miss P’ story, as I might have mentioned, and it’s called ‘Honestly.’ My idea is to bang out a few novelettes (the literary kind, not the debs) all concerning the character Miss P, and put them up on Kindle for a ridiculously low price as a way of publicising ‘Remotely.’ Watch out for future developments.
In my Sumi news, I intended to go for a walk today, to get some new photos if nothing else, but I’ve just seen that some friends are arriving for a holiday today so I will have to go and see them. I have a meeting with the writer of one of the more popular travel guide books to discuss film adaptations of her novel, and we had such a fabulous evening last night with friends up the lane that I really can’t move very far today. I have, though, been to Cyprus.
Well, not literally. You may have heard that our film, ‘The 13th’, has been selected for the Cyprus International Film Festival, so that’s another laurel wreath for the poster. They asked if the company was sending anyone to attend the screening and introduce the film. I’m the closest, physically (unless any of the backers happen to live there and I don’t know about it), but not the closest financially. I had a quick search around for ways to get from Symi to Cyprus as someone in the production office thought there were cheap flights from Rhodes; it’s not that far after all. Well, here’s an insight into Symi living, when it comes to travelling up the road, as it were:
First of all, there’s getting to Rhodes, which you can do quite cheaply if you take the Blue Star or the Panagia Skiedani. Then there’s the overnight at a hotel, and that’s possible to do for €30.00 at this time of year at hotels like the Savoy, and others. The flights I found were with Aegean (my favourite airline) and left at 05.50 in the morning, so that’s a taxi to the airport at around €25.00, and then the flights themselves. These go via Athens, which seems a bit of a long way round to me, but still shorter than some others that went via Frankfurt; I hope the pilots have a better sense of direction. Then there’s the hotel in Cyprus which the festival organisers have at a discount for those involved, so another €30.00 per night and I’d have to stay for at least two. Then you have to do the whole thing in reverse to get home, add on living expenses and then take into account any loss of earnings. I worked it out at at least €400.00 just for getting there and back, so that’s the end of that idea.
I’ve always said that when you arrive on Symi, you know you’ve travelled, and that’s one of its many attractions. I just looked out of the window and saw the Sunday morning catamaran coming in. It unloaded a [collective noun] of visitors, lots of them with cases, coming for their holidays. Excellent news, the season is starting to pick up, though there are still fewer Turkish gulets than in previous years… so far.
