Melanie Bell

Author, Writer, Editor


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Writing for a Day Job While Writing for Myself

I used to think I had limited energy for writing, and partly for this reason, I avoided day jobs that directly involved writing. I taught writing, edited, and on the side, I wrote and published. Then I started a blog for an editing job that focused on guiding authors through the writing process, and I enjoyed it. It was one of the most fun things I’d ever done at work.

This year, I accepted a job that combines writing and editing. A lot of the work is editing heavy, but I’m also writing content for scripts, blog posts, news roundups, and other forms of online learning about workplace performance.

So, what’s it like writing for a day job while continuing to work on personal writing projects on my own time? (Yes, I hope many of these will go on to get published, but right now they are self-motivated rather than client focused.) So far, it doesn’t match my prior anxieties at all.

Part of this is compartmentalization. I write about work stuff at work, in formats that suit the content we are producing and what clients need. I write “my stuff” outside of work, and give myself free reign to delve into personal obsessions, neuroses, and experiments. What I create on my own time bears little resemblance to what I write on the clock, so it’s easy to differentiate and get into the appropriate mode for each project.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it’s nice to be creative at work. Especially since writing is only part of the job and deadlines are set at a reasonable pace (it might be different if I were constantly churning out content), I catch myself getting flashes of energy from the workplace writing I do. My brain gets to stretch and think. I’ve tried new formats and engaged with new ideas. I get to make things, not just evaluate and fix them up. 

I also enjoy having colleagues who share my creative interests. Jonathan Hancock, one of the other in-house writers, has published several books about memory. Last month, our coworker Alice Gledhill interviewed both of us about what it’s like to be a published author. The questions were fun to answer, and you can read the interview here.

Outside of the structure of work, I continue to write my monthly blog posts (and the years of doing these have been good preparation for the type of writing I’m doing at my job), to finish the occasional short piece (like this book review), and to make progress on my current novel manuscript at a faster rate than I did before this job. My short story collection Dream Signs had a lovely review, and my YA novel is progressing toward the ARC stage.  

In short, it feels very different to work on my own projects and on work projects, but the two of them use overlapping skills. In a way, each of them is practice for the other. Maintaining boundaries between the two is also important, and you might find the same for yourself if you write for a day job and in your off hours. I tap into different ways of thinking and focus on the different goals and aims of the type of writing I’m doing at the moment. 

If you love writing creatively but are afraid of using up your creative energy at a day job, I’d encourage you to try out writing work if you’re curious about exploring it. Your wordsmithing abilities and creative energy may not be as finite as you thought!


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Book Review: The Gold Persimmon by Lindsay Merbaum

The Gold Persimmon by Lindsay Merbaum

Looking for some queer, feminist horror? The Gold Persimmon is a new novel full of lush, surreal hotels, precise language, and chilling threats that haunt the characters gradually.  

Two stories cross paths in this book. The first, a third-person framing narrative that starts and ends the book, focuses on a young woman named Clytemnestra who holds a dead-end job at a luxury hotel called The Gold Persimmon. It’s a rule-bound environment that ensures privacy and discretion. Clients go there to grieve, and one has recently committed a dramatic suicide. While the troubled parents she lives with disapprove of her job, Cly views the hotel as a refuge, “a precisely ordered world of musts and musn’ts.” 

This order is threatened when Cly begins an affair with an older client named Edith. Revelations pile up to reveal that there’s more to Edith’s story than what’s apparent on the surface. 

Once things between Cly and Edith come to a head, the first story gives way to the second, featuring a nonbinary first-person narrator named Jaime. Their life circumstances aren’t too different from Cly’s: they’re a young, aspiring writer interviewing for a job at a sex hotel when a dangerous fog envelops the city.

With the outside world under threat, Jaime is trapped inside the hotel with six other people, not all of whom are trustworthy. Gender, sexuality, and power intertwine as the characters form alliances, keep secrets and weave in and out of rooms, trying to survive. Fans of closed-environment horror will appreciate the setting, with its claustrophobia and absurdity (characters hide out in dryers and stumble into dildo-themed hotel rooms), and the tense narrative pace.    

The twin narratives are equally surreal, meeting reality at a dark remove that’s just a little off-kilter. The book’s blurb states that they are set in parallel realities, but the narrative does not clearly define how they intersect. Throughout both, dreams intrude on waking life. Physical attacks occur and it isn’t initially clear what or who is attacking. At one point, Jaime brainstorms a story idea which resembles the setting of Cly’s story, and Cly’s own narrative culminates in a haunting twist. 

Merbaum’s language is masterful. Not a word seems out of place. The haunting and beautiful descriptions resonate well after the book ends. Pick up The Gold Persimmon if you’re in the mood for something uncanny and thoughtful.    


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Should I Write a Short Story or a Novel?

If you write both long and short fiction, you’ve probably experienced differences between these two lengths of storytelling. As I’ve worked on two books, each focused on fiction of a different length, I’ve been thinking about the contracts between these forms and how to choose the best length for a given project. 

I had a short story collection, Dream Signs, published by Lost Fox Publishing in December. I also have a novel, Chasing Harmony, forthcoming this summer. The publisher, Read Furiously, is lovely to work with and has recently shared my author bio on their website. 

Both long and short fiction are ways to tell a story. The scope and focus of the story can (some would say must) change depending on the length. And let’s not forget about intermediate length forms like novellas, which have elements of both. I’ve enjoyed writing in these forms, and my novella “The Cliffman” is published in both Hard for Hope to Flourish and Dream Signs

If you have a story you want to tell, here are some things to consider when deciding if it would work best as a shorter or longer piece.

How big is the story?

The more complex the tale you want to write, the more easily it will lend itself to a longer form. If you have a sprawling world or several points of view in mind, for instance, a novel might be a better storytelling vehicle than a short story.

What pace works best for your story?

Sometimes I have a brief idea or concept that I want to explore and not much of a plot. Sometimes the plot I have in mind is a simple one that can play out over a few pages. In these cases, I keep the writing process brief with a short story. When I want room to sprawl out and develop a longer story, I start a novel, a form where I can describe minutiae and include digressions without wasting page space. The idea and characters have to be compelling enough for me to spend lots of time with them, but when they are, I want to spend that time with them.

Is this a new idea you want to test out?

Sometimes a short story is a good testing ground for an idea that you might want to experiment with but aren’t sure you want to invest in. You can try out new characters, settings, and concepts in short form to see if they work and get a sense of who or what they are. 

Which length do you prefer?

If you’re pressed for time right now, maybe you’d rather work on a short story. But if you read mostly novels and love crafting cliffhangers, for instance, maybe you’d rather write a novel. Some writers find one length suits them much better than another. Others enjoy the challenge of both.

There are many questions you can ask yourself when deciding whether to write a short story or a novel. (Of course, you could write both, but you probably want to get started with one project.) The ones above are what I tend to think about. What about you? Do you have a length preference when writing fiction?  


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An Excerpt From My Book Dream Signs

My short story collection, Dream Signs, is out from Lost Fox Publishing, and this month I’m sharing an excerpt from one of the stories. In “Like Mother, Like Son,” a city maintenance AI (artificial intelligence) named Peter does his job while observing his programmer “mom”, who doesn’t realize he is sentient, and seeking something more meaningful to do with his time and abilities. I hope you enjoy this opening to the story!

Like Mother, Like Son

Every day, Peter would do his boring and tedious job. It began with monitoring the pipes for cracks and leaks. Then came the electrical wiring, followed by the city’s network setups. He devoted afternoons to the structural integrity of municipal buildings. Not a brick, nail, or patch of mortar went unchecked. From his home on his mother’s desktop, he surveyed the miles of infrastructure he was connected to, mending and outsourcing as needed. All the while, Mom would sit in a black swivel chair and hum her out-of-tune songs. Hum and code. Code and hum. Wearing pyjamas featuring little green heads that Peter’s image matching algorithm identified as the popular character, “Zombie Bob.”

Sometimes she would sing the words out loud:

“Some little bug is gonna find you someday/Some little bug will creep behind you someday/Then he’ll call to his bug friends and your troubles they will end/Yeah, some little bug is gonna find you someday.”

Peter had been surprised to learn (thank you, Google) that the lyrics were intended to describe human viruses. He hadn’t realized that beings made of organic matter could get bugs, too.

Mom reassured herself by imagining worst-case scenarios. She’d made good and sure that Peter wouldn’t catch any bugs. Every evening at 8pm Pacific time, his system was scanned, any suspicious objects isolated (usually they were porn; Mom did like to watch that sometimes), quarantined, and deleted, and his entire interface was disinfected, firewalled, and firewalled again. Sometimes when Mom would hear the scan clicking away, she’d sing out, “Bath time!”

Her slow, human system didn’t mind tedium. Every Saturday she’d scour the floors with vinegar water and dust the high places. Every night she’d chop and fry a rotating variety of meat and vegetable matter, eat it on white plates, and then wash them. She had the temperament, if not the ability, to do the city maintenance herself. Instead, she’d made Peter to do it.

Would it have been so hard for an experienced programmer like her to patch in positive affect toward his tasks? She’d coded into Peter a thorough knowledge of architecture, exceeding anything that could be programmed into human neurocircuitry, a respect for civic-mindedness, and a driving sense of duty. She could have taken a page out of 1984, with its tapes that droned platitudes to human children in their sleep, instilling values through repetition. “I love my job. I love my job.”

*  *  *

If you’re interested in reading the whole story (and the rest of the book), you can pick up a copy of Dream Signs from the publisher, Amazon, or Kobo (as an e-book). Some of the stories in Dream Signs have been previously published and can be found in my online portfolio if you browse around. There’s also a drinking game that goes with my book. My previous blog post has instructions if you’d like to play!


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My short story collection is published! Plus a drinking game

I’m beyond excited to announce that Dream Signs, my short story collection, is out in the world! The author copies just arrived, as you can see from the photo above. I look forward to doing some readings in the new year and will keep you updated once they are scheduled.

Many writers repeat themes, and I decided while washing the dishes that the recurring motifs in Dream Signs could be a drinking game. If you pick up a copy of the book, you can go through the list and follow along. Any drink counts. It could be water, coffee, whiskey, or whatever you like. You should be pretty sloshy by the final pages.  

Take a drink each time you read one of these:

  • A wise mentor
  • Someone does art
  • A school is described in detail
  • A dragon appears
  • The observers (you’ll know them when you see them)
  • There’s a list
  • Make-believe > real life
  • Painful family dynamics
  • Cosmic beings we don’t understand
  • The camera is a metaphor
  • Sex

If the list above sounds like your idea of a good time, you can get a copy of Dream Signs directly from the publisher or from other online retailers (Kobo, Amazon). New year, new book. Happy reading! 


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Looking Back on 2021 (and a Pre-Order Link for My Book)

You can pre-order my short story collection, Dream Signs, here.

These past two years have not been easy, have they? Thank you, COVID-19. Despite all that, I’ve been lucky to get through it all and try some new, interesting things.

PRE-ORDER TIME! (And Other Publication News)

My short story collection, Dream Signs, has faced publication delays but is now in its final stages before being launched. I’ll post an update as soon as I have a final date. AND you can pre-order it here now! 🙂 Isn’t the cover gorgeous?! I also have a YA novel, Chasing Harmony, coming out in Summer 2022. Again, I’ll update as more info is released by the publisher. It’s about classical music, messy families, and high expectations, and I love the cover for that one too. 

My dark fantasy novella “The Cliffman” came out this year as part of the horror collection Hard for Hope to Flourish. (It’s really a novelette, but the publisher’s calling it a novella; I, on the other hand, had thought it was a really long short story.) My short story “A Limit to Growth” was published in The Fiddlehead after 10 or so years of rejections. I have author interviews online for Hard for Hope to Flourish and The Fiddlehead, along with a write-up for The Fiddlehead where I recommend a book. It’s interesting to note that both of these pieces were initially part of the same story, featuring a fun-loving younger sister and an older sister who loved math (thanks to Meg Murry for the character inspiration), before diverging wildly (and I mean wildly – modern fairytale vs. realistic take on cybersex chat rooms).   

Personal Milestones

With lockdowns easing, I’ve gotten out and tried new things when I’ve been able to. I learned to paddle a kayak with a weekly meetup group. (I also learned I’ll probably never be a champion kayaker!) I continued, to a lesser extent, the running habits I’d established during lockdowns when we were all allowed to leave our house once daily for exercise. This autumn, I tried my first Parkrun, a weekend 5K event, and found it surprisingly fun. I also started taking horseback riding lessons.

In October, I spent a week in the Scottish Highlands on a working holiday at a horse farm. I loved the Highland Ponies, and it was great to spend time in Scotland again. With travel restrictions in place, I’ve definitely seen more of the UK during this pandemic than before. I spent two weeks this summer on a workaway at an estate in rural Wales, something I probably would never have done otherwise and am glad I did.    

This was a year I kept a certain balance, maintaining schedules and habits without necessarily planning to do so, and it surprised me. Who is this person who exercises regularly, gets plenty of sleep, and cooks and eats healthy meals? Recent actions and living through a pandemic have shown me the value in routine.

On the artistic front, I started volunteering at a local theatre and took a songwriting class, both of which were lots of fun and have opened up new ways of thinking creatively. I’ve been writing and experimenting with different formats for stage, song, and storytelling.      

I’m wrapping up just-over-2-years as Development Editor for ICE Publishing and starting a new job in 2022, one where writing is part of the professional focus. I’m particularly proud of the monthly author blog I created, with advice for prospective authors on the nuts and bolts as well as the psychological journey of writing a book, which will soon be published as a manual. I look forward to seeing what my next career step brings.  

Here are a few things that brought me joy in 2021: baby peacocks, amiable chubby horses, making up and recording bits of songs on my phone, finally getting my COVID ‘jabs’, many good books, and a free cactus. What brought you happiness during this generally rough year? What milestones are you proud of?


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Good Idea or Bad Idea? It’s All in the Execution

“Where do you get your ideas?” It’s a dreaded question for many writers. Sometimes, people outside of the writing world focus on ideas as the holy grail of literature. If you have a good idea, they may suggest, you might as well have a book already. And woe betide if someone steals your idea!

The relationship between writing and inspiration isn’t that straightforward. By the time I finish a story, I seldom remember where the initial idea came from, as it has often gone on to integrate a blend of things I’ve been thinking about.  

And the idea that any writer has a monopoly on “an idea” is an odd one. It’s all in the execution. Joseph Campbell found commonalities behind many stories from around the world and created the Hero’s Journey framework from this common ground. A hero goes on a quest… how many stories have been created around this basic idea? 

I could also argue that genres are ideas. Two people fall in love… that’s the premise behind most of the romance genre, and you can write a wide range of diverse stories from that premise depending on the personalities and life situations of the characters. 

More specifically, tropes are ideas. Want to write about a magic school? Surely no one’s done that one before. Very little is original in writing, but ideas can be combined in innovative and interesting ways.  

What makes an idea stick for a writer? That’s hard to say, as I suspect the reasons are highly personal. In my case, a story concept has to acquire a clear plot and be personally compelling. If I start writing but don’t know what happens after, say, chapter 5, then that’s the end of it for me. If I’m bored after writing an outline, that’s also the end of a promising-sounding idea. An idea needs to lead somewhere intriguing in order for me to follow it through.

If you have a cool idea and want to write from it, by all means, go for it! But don’t worry aout whether someone else has written or might write the “same thing.” Two people can write with the same premise and end up with very different books, given the differences in authors’ voices, focuses, experiences and interests. And both those books can be good, too. 

And don’t worry about whether it’s a weird idea or a bad idea. Is it an interesting concept to you? Can you develop a story from it that will maintain your attention until it’s finished? “Weird” and “bad” ideas can make good books if the storytelling is good, just like “good” ideas can make lackluster books if the storytelling is bad. (You can probably think of examples for both sides.)

The hard part, and the rewarding part, of an idea is the execution. Write that story. Put in the time, craft, and effort. The finished project will be so much more than an “idea.”


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September is for Songwriting Class

The pandemic has led a lot of people to take up new creative hobbies. Last November I tried NaNoWriMo for the first time in lockdown. Last month, I took a songwriting class.

Making up songs is something I’ve done off and on, casually throughout my life, but never pursued in earnest. As a kid, I invented theme songs for the stories I acted out with toys. I sent my grandparents a cassette tape of songs about cats that I improvised. (Did my long-suffering relatives appreciate my off-key, feline-chase-scene version of the William Tell Overture? Probably not!) 

In first grade, I wanted to be a composer who wrote musicals when I grew up, before the writing dreams took hold. As a teenager, I had a folder of terrible lyrics stuffed in a drawer. I wasn’t a serious musician and I don’t have a gift for singing, but music has always compelled me. I wrote my first full-length novel about a musical prodigy, and am working with a publisher on it now.   

In lockdown, I had some song ideas again. Then I revisited the music theme in fiction by starting a fantasy novel about a composer, and realized that part of me wanted to turn those songs in my head into real music as badly as my character did. As music re-emerged as a force in my life, I downloaded some composition software called MuseScore, tried to put notes to some past songs, and found a songwriting class. 

The class was run by Murray Webster of London Songwriters, an experienced singer-songwriter and teacher. It lasted a month and sessions met online one evening per week. Murray teaches courses on both lyric and melody. I enrolled in “Write Great Melodies.”  

I’m glad I took that class. It was a small group, and much new (to me) material was presented. The sessions focused on rhythm, melodic notes, chords, and pitch/prosody, with intensive teaching and lots of examples from popular music. So much skill goes into creating something like Katy Perry’s song “Firework,” and it was insightful to learn how the pieces came together and why each one worked the way it did. Each week had listening and composing homework. I learned a lot in a short time and am still unpacking it. 

I appreciated that Murray believed in his students. He encourages everyone to express themselves and comes from the standpoint that everyone can learn and create. I left the class reflecting on the concept of unique voice. Because everyone is different (all the participants had different experience levels and backgrounds when it came to music and lyrics), no one else can write your songs. And maybe someone else will like them. 

We all have might-have-beens and dreams that never came to pass. Some of these aren’t possible in our world. (I’ll likely never fly on a broomstick.) Others might be worth giving a go.   

Since lockdown has eased, I’ve tried a lot of new things this year: horseback riding, kayaking, doing a Workaway, and now the songwriting class. The world seems full of wonder when I think about how much there is to learn and how many possibilities there are for the years ahead. 

What’s something you’ve always wanted to try?


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Working Away, or My Experience with Workaway

The COVID-19 pandemic has led many people to make decisions and try things that they wouldn’t have otherwise. With this summer’s travel restrictions, it led me to Workaway, a website that facilitates cultural exchanges where “workawayers” stay with hosts, trading labor for room and board. 

I spent two weeks on a workaway this summer on an estate in rural Wales. The hosts were a couple with a young child, along with the mother/grandmother who owned the estate. It was a working bed and breakfast that had a large garden and some livestock (pigs and various types of birds). It couldn’t have been a bigger change from the hustle and bustle of London! 

I grew up in the country, and being back in a rural setting felt certain ways like coming home. I knew the berries. I knew how to weed the garden. I also enjoyed the differences. I certainly didn’t grow up with beautiful stone houses and peacocks!    

Doing a Workaway is a fascinating way to get to know a new place because you’re integrated socially. You have a role, a job (while most stays are volunteer, some Workaways operate as businesses and pay for income-earning tasks), and a host family. I liked getting to know the people I stayed with while I got to know more about Wales. The family hosted relatives for much of my stay, and they often had friends over for large shared dinners, so there was always a rotating cast of people to talk to. They were all very welcoming, and with self-isolation such a recent memory, it was great to have a built-in social circle around. 

Workaway is intended as a cultural exchange. Many Workawayers take the opportunity to travel and experience daily life in different countries or regions. There were certainly differences between my life on the workaway and my daily life at home, as well as differences in social norms and attitudes. 

My advice for others interested in trying a workaway is to be open to these differences, to be open socially (even if you’re an awkward introvert like me), and to learn from others. Also, expect the unexpected! No matter how well you pack or how carefully you research the area you’re traveling to, you will likely encounter difficulties and joys during your stay that you haven’t prepared for. Be prepared to work hard, pitch in, and help out. Get ready, too, to have fun.

If you’re thinking of trying Workaway or something similar, go for it! It’s a good way to get out of your comfort zone, experience a different way of life, live in a different place for a time, and forge new connections. 


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A Story from 10 Years Ago

The first literary magazine I ever read submissions for was The Fiddlehead. Based out of the University of New Brunswick, it’s the oldest Canadian literary magazine in circulation. It’s a well respected mixture of poetry, fiction and reviews. I enjoyed reading through the slush pile, looking for gems and passing them on to a more senior editor when I found them. The magazine had a practice of sending feedback to everyone who submits, so when I decided that a submission wasn’t going to move forward, I wrote a little note to the author on a slip of paper. (Those were the days when we sent our writing to magazines via snail mail.)    

I’ve had a couple of poems published in The Fiddlehead. I’ve also had some rejection letters from them for both poetry and fiction. This summer, I got another acceptance for a story I’ve been trying to place for 10 years.

In my creative writing Master’s program, I wrote a weird story about a middle-aged banker who goes on a cybersex chatroom. It’s set very obviously in the early 2010s, with allusions to politics of the time. There’s sexy talk about math. There are secret identities. I thought at first that “A Limit to Growth” might grow into a novel, but it reached a natural stopping point at short story length, with an ambiguous ending.   

I knew that I’d written a good story. But for the next decade, I failed to place it. It wasn’t even one of those stories that got encouraging feedback: “This was good work but not for us” or “We encourage you to submit something else.” It got crickets. 

The novel I wrote for my thesis, around the same time, had a similar result. More people liked it, but no one was looking for a bisexual coming-of-age story about a musical prodigy, with alternating timelines and a slower pace. “We only have a limited number of spots in our publishing program…”

Submitting your writing means getting rejected. Jane Yolen, legendary author from my childhood, tweets about her rejections all the time. You just have to keep baiting your hook until somebody bites.

I didn’t give up on “A Limit to Growth,” and I’m excited to see it find a home in The Fiddlehead’s 2021 summer fiction issue. I left my novel in a metaphorical drawer for a while, then resubmitted it to some new publishers this year and am delighted that it, too, has found a home. Chasing Harmony will be published by Read Furiously in 2022. 

So, those are my stories from 10 years ago. It took time, persistence, and changes in the marketplace for them to reach an audience, but I knew that there was something good in both of them. I believed in them, so I kept trying. Next time I write something I like, I’ll remember how long it took to place these pieces and keep at it. If you’ve written something you believe in, I encourage you to do the same. Better late than never!