Novella.

Tut. What's Gav going on about down there? Paragraphing, is it? Gav has a thing about paragraphing. We find it best to nod politely and then find a less upsetting job for him that has nothing to do with paragraphing.

My thing is mostly comma splices.

The printer behind me is churning out envelopes with a soothing whirr, and my blue spinny chair makes me feel most wondrous like an emperor. And what a fine day it is to talk about novellas. Novellae. I was too late for Latin. Don't tell me it's Greek. Possibly French. Yes, I am fairly ashamed.

The novella in all its darling fewer-than-40,000-wordedness cropped up in our Monday morning meeting. We were having a thought. A devillishly fine one. How about, we were thinking, a novella competition? 'Cause we don't do novels. We do bite-sized morsicles like poetry and microfiction and the jolly old short story. But a novella encompasses petiteness like pretty much no other form. 'Cause it's like a novel, only knowingly diminutive. We love them anyway and we think they sit well with the whole Leaf ethos, especially the bit about publishing new and struggling but downright excellent types. We were reckoning, so we were, that folk with a novella to display to the world at large are probably not having a lot of luck with their mission.

And we rather want to know what you think about that. Unburden yourselves. Are you faintly in love with the whole juicy idea of the novella? Do you write 'em? And how are you faring when it comes to getting them accepted by a publisher? Would you be well up for the idea of a novella competition? Would you enter in your droves?

Please say yes. OH DO.

(Razzamatazz should be with us in the next couple of days, by the way. It's almost painfully splendid. Have a squint at the website and then have a bash at ordering a copy. £6.99 a go. It's a damnably fine book, ma'ams. Sirs. Damnably fine.)

Sam.

A New Convention

I've taken 20 or so Summer Short Story entries home to read this weekend. A task I rather enjoy, but I do have an observation and a question. Eight out of the twenty entries what I'll describe as having internet paragraphing: so each new paragraph is a block of text rather than being indented.

Now the reason that text on a web-page such as this one is done in blocks is down to the way a web-page is constructed and the language (html) it is coded in, though this is changing with the advent of a language called CSS that can replicate print conventions.

A separate paragraph should denote a scene-break or a significant change but if they are used continually then the flow is interrupted and the writing can feel stilted.

So I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts about why this new style of internet paragraphing is becoming so widely used in the real-world?

Gav.

Breaking things for fun.

Momentarily at a loss for something to do before the minor deluge that was the arrival of the post, I was pleasantly surprised when I inadvertantly scattered several hundred paper clips across the carpet and was obliged to dedicate a good ten minutes to their retrival. We have a very fine collection of paper clips. One of them's purple, one of them's industrial in size and significance and another is entirely round. Ceci was speculating as to whether we made a net loss or a net gain when it came to paper clips, but I'm fairly confident that we harvest from competition entries more paper clips than we subsequently commit to bundles of paper in need of shepherding.

Next, I might, for my own amusement, dismantle and remantle the photocopier.

Sam.

Minor hauntings.

Hello. Have you been neglected slightly? What were you wanting to know? We could tell you about the proofs of the poetry book (Razzamatazz & Other Poems: The Leaf Books Poetry Anthology 2006) that returned at the end of last week and were great and fine and approved. The book's looking ever so splendid and should be available for purchase in about a week's time. We'll let you know when this promise comes to fruition.

But the big news of the day is that one of the toilet cubicles is haunted, or plagued, or possibly beset by or with scorpions. I was occupying said cubicle and was not unnecessarily perturbed by anything I encountered therein until I emerged to learn that people had been lingering around outside talking about 'something scary within' and hoping to zap it, and when it was free they flooded in on a mission of sorts and they wouldn't tell us what was going on. I am faintly disturbed.

(Also we have a new telephone number, which we mentioned once before, but we meant to mention it again. It was the lack of telephone calls that reminded us. It's on the contact page of the website. Possibly putting telephone numbers on blogs leaves one open to telephonic spamming, and that would be somewhat miserable.)

Yes.

Sam.

A mostly polite note about free books.

Dear peoples,

Just to be letting you know, anyone who from this point onwards does not specify their free book or books when entering competitions online will not be contacted to discover which book they would actually like. They'll be sent a random one picked by ourselves. This is not because we wish to be mean and undemocratic but more because it makes things sadly confusing when we have to wait for people to get back to us with their selections, and then we forget who's been sent what and when and it's all a bit unhappy. So we're quite sorry about that.

Matt smells massively of Lockets.

Sam.

The wrong 650 words.

There was going to be... an intention existed... this was the plan... that the blog post of the day... was going to be 650 words in length and planted amongst the blog posts at that 'History Matters day' collection of other blog posts with a view to elucidating the reading public of the year 2347 about the daily ongoings of a small and unfunded and strangely noble but not entirely hapless publishing company. But I just ambled over there and it turned out to be mostly schoolchildren talking about breakfast cereal, and I'm not entirely sure that's what the reading public of the year 2347 are going to be interested in reading. Or maybe the schoolchildren know better than me, but either way we're scuppered, because our working day simply did not involve breakfast cereal. A flapjack came into play at one point. A flapjack with seven unique e-numbers and a flapjack the consumption of which I would have no willing part in. But not breakfast cereal. Though I could, as it happens, seriously demolish some cornflakes.

Mostly we databased, in the new office to which we have recently repaired. I am still settling into the new office, personally, having spent a week at home coughing and inhaling lemsip. We live in a partitioned-off section at the end of a biggish suite. We are quite cut off. We can observe the enemy through cleverly positioned holes in the partition. Really there is no enemy, but pretending so makes the afternoons pass more swiftly. I mean the afternoons when we're databasing. Not when we're reading your delightful work. I'm not being sarcastic. I actually mean that. No, I mean that bit too. Everything looks so sarcastic without exclamation marks, and so cheap with them. What to do?

I wish I had a bassoon. I was thinking what fun it would be to sit behind the partition and randomly blow through a bassoon, and no-one on the other side would have the faintest idea what I'd done. They'd think I have magic lungs.

We get the proofs for the poetry book ('Razzamatazz and Other Poems') back tomorrow, with any luck. And we're currently in the process of sculpting the Short Short Story Competition Anthology (which is to be called 'The Final Theory and Other Short Short Stories'). I'm not sure if the two Others should be capitalised or not. Bear with me. And we databased like woah. We printed off envelopes, and sometimes we printed them the right way up. A special bonus prize to anyone who receives an upside down envelope from us will not actually be offered, because I don't think I have that kind of jurisdiction. But still, it's a nice idea.

And like I say, we didn't eat much in the way of cereal. Tomorrow I'm going to have crumpets for breakfast. Still nothing will be solved.

I hope posterity gets something out of it all the same.

Sam.

Staples.

From our submission guidelines...

4. Please number pages and staple them together. Do not put staples through cheques.

My thanks are this morning extended to whoever ignored that. There is now indeed a diminutive hole in my left forefinger and I've bled a little bit on my t-shirt which yes, is black, but probably isn't much to do with the point.

Matt.

All Change. Next Stop...

Without much fanfare or razzamatazz Leaf Books has moved offices this week. The only thing that's changed to the outside world is that we have a new phone number and we'll be able to get our post a little bit quicker.

Sam has a cold, which means she's missed the move. I think we've moved all her stuff. Yeah, I'm sure we did.

Leaf are off to coast tomorrow morning to say hello to the folks at the Welsh Books Council. I haven't been to Aberystwyth in years and I'm determined to have chips on the front. Though this will depend on the weather; nostagia is nice but not worth getting soaked for.

Speaking of Razzamatazz, the new format A5 Leaf Books Poetry Anthology (containing the winning entries to the short poetry competition) has just been sent on CD to the lovely people at the printers. So that should be on sale shortly.

Next stop... Christmas.

Gav.

I think the new books deserve two entirely similar blog posts.

This must be more or less how Amundsen and that lot felt after they did the equivalent of finally getting their books back from the printers. Do I mean Amundsen? Shall we assume I do?

There's really no means of adequately conveying how stunning these tree-derived beasts are. Mostly we're terrifically excited about the spines, and the colours and also the lack of staples.

I think you people should be buying them. Hugely. I did, and I work here, which is a bit like laughing at your own jokes. Oh they ARE so great.

Great like flying ponies.

Sam.

The New Books

THE NEW BOOKS ARE HERE

AS IN NOT THERE

OR ANYWHERE CLOSE TO THE WHEREABOUTS THEY OCCUPIED WHEN IN TRANSIT

IN FACT THEY ARE PRECISELY WHERE THEY WERE MEANT TO BE

AND

THEY

ARE

BRILLIANT

Matt.

Would that be a vanload of books?

OH the excitement. I think actually naming the excitement by name goes someway towards killing it mammoth-dead. And yet. The books are coming. Today. This very afternoon. Of course you believe me about as readily as you'd believe me had I claimed that Mr Charles Pooter c/o George & Weedon Grossmith, who mostly lives in my rucksack, had peeled himself off the printed page and taken up residence in the recycling bag. But you're WRONG, you see, to doubt me, you're wrong, and this time we win, because Ceci telephoned the printers and they confirmed that the books are en route to us right now, as I type.

They mentioned nothing about a delay-induced discount. On which point it is perhaps best to remain silent.

So currently I lie in wait, like a wolf, for the man to come with the van and the trolley and the clipboard. I hope Gav gets here soon, because there might be some heavy lifting involved, and I don't much fancy it.

In other news, the poetry book that the chaps were wrangling about yesterday (see previous post) is now fairly well corrected and more than moderately wonderful and will be send to the printers - not the same printers - on the morrow. You can see a picture of it on the front page of the website. And the time, I think, has come to introduce you to Leaf's new format. We are branching out somewhat into A5 books, mostly because we can. Our material will remain essentially pert and bite-sized, being poetry and micro-fiction and jolly old short stories. Razzamatazz & Other Poems: The Leaf Books Poetry Anthology 2006 is to be the first in a hopefully significantly longer line of A5 Leaf books. We do love our dinky little A6 pocket-sized booklings, and we do intend to make more in the future (the upcoming flip-book for starters), but the good old A5 format does have many advantages that it would be undeniably shirkworthy not to recognise and celebrate in a solid and papery form. First off, they go better on shelves and in shops, having height and bulk and legible spines and all those things that booksellers seem to value. Second off, they have more in the way of stature and import and properness and good old legitimate reality about them. And thirdly, and perhaps most significantly, you can fit more authors into them. We rather like publishing as many new and established and essentially perfectly spiffing authors as is humanly possible, so really we feel that Leaf and A5 are destined to be fairly happy together. That's what we think anyway.

Of course, we're always fantastically keen to know what you think as well. So tell us. Comment. Talk to us, sometimes. I THEE IMPLORE.

That'll do. Don't want to sound desperate.

(We might take photos of the books tomorrow. We shan't be able to express our joy in mere words. Well, no. Obviously we shall. Words are our trade. We simply choose... not to.)

Sam.

On Having Started An Office War: The Four-Point Plan Concerning Premeditated Nuisance

1) When typesetting new Poetry book, upset delicate aesthetic balance of previous designs by using different fonts to what (according to Matt at least) used to be house-style.
2) When making new Poetry book covers, use and forthrightly argue relentlessly and without mirth for a cover n0-one else wants.
3) When succumbing to group consensus, sulk.
4) Having got over oneself, use new cover, decide it's in fact much better, send it to everyone, have everyone say, 'Yes Matt, it's better,' and crawl back into small space between chair and monitor.

I banged my head four times yesterday, on various consistencies of metal or wood, and though this isn't necessarily as important as your caravan or your pesto recipes or the Chateauneuf du Pape you're saving to throw at someone prominent in the publishing industry, it is deserving of the utmost sympathy.

Sympathy is best addressed to 'F.A.O Matt, Leaf,' and is indeed helpful if in cheque or bung form.

I'm not at all keen on the word 'bung' I might add.

Today's super-smashing word is:

Pogonotrophy

which is quite frankly the cultivation or growing of a beard.

This word is derived not only in Greek but in Anatomy. Pogon is beard, whereas pogonion is the foremost point of the midline of the chin.

Discuss.

Matt.

The Next Thrilling Instalment.

Scene setting. Slightly parched rose petals being wafted in a tepid breeze. Children sing Ring-a-Ring-o'-Roses with a creepily off-key harmony. A lone sheep bleats plaintively on a distant hillside. Patrick Stewart reclines in a patch of purple heather, playing 'The Skye Boat Song' on a battered tin-whistle.

The books didn't come. The 'phone-call was not returned. VERY LITTLE is as it should be. And I'm waiting, honestly I am. I'm waiting as hard as I can. What more can I do? I cannot engage in warfare on the printers lest the books succumb to the ensuing rampant fires. I can't 'phone the printers because I'm scared of the telephone. Well, moreso because they don't really answer. I can only wait. I fear I may have to wait through lunch, because the office is currently manned by myself and myself alone.

Send sandwiches to the postal address on the website. Except they won't come in time. Can you send sandwiches by telegram?

Sam.

The Books (part the first)

Today started not altogether well. En route from the station to my place of work, a person of sorts drove past me (the narrator) at full pelt, through a fairly hefty puddle of very cold and very stagnant water, and soaked me quite publicly from head to foot. The general public maintained a decent and unlaughing silence. I had an umbrella, but because the BBC told me it wouldn't rain and because I didn't actually expect to assaulted horizontally by monsoons, I had no coat. I was quite drenched. And I had to spend the remainder of the working day quite drenched with my shoes and socks and jumper having an exciting and not entirely fruitful excursion on the radiator. I downloaded the final few entries to the Summer Short Story competition in a not altogether bouyant and merrisome spirit, but I downloaded them none the less, and now they are databased, and all is fairly well on that score.

And as for the new books?I don't know! I went home before the designated deadline for their arrival, because I needed to change my socks. They may have come. They may not have come. Only Gavin knows the answer.

TUNE IN TOMORROW FOR THE NEXT THRILLING... ooh, QI on UKG2. Acronym heaven. Later.

PS. Ceci. Tomorrow. BBC Radio Wales. 7.20am. I know, but I thought I might as well tell you all the same.

Sam.