Well that's Christmas over for another year then! The thing is, what to do in the middle between Christmas and the New Year? I always see this time as like a kind of dead space, but it isn't really. It's also a period of rehab! A chance to recover and recuperate after a hard and long year and to calm things down following all the excitement that Christmas brings before the New Year begins and we get to embark on all of that hard work all over again!
I already know where my my writing is heading in 2010 - mind you I said that the end of last year - and look what happened! I started off writing short stories but had more success with my articles - something I didn't think I'd ever do. I've worked out a plan but I have a feeling I shall be careering off road without my elbow and knee pads or helmet again in 2010.
Already, I can feel the tingling starting in my fingers when I get the urge to get going with some writing and I'm very excited about where I can take my writing next year. I am eager to get going again. I have a few articles that I know are due to be published in 2010 - when, I have no idea, but that's half the fun: the suspense;seeing my name in print; working out what to write about next, and hopefully some money to show for my efforts. I put money last as, for me, writing is not about the money, it's about the process and learning and improving the writing and then passing that knowledge from my experiences on to other writers who may find the information and advice helpful.
For 2010 I want to finish off my NaNo Novel Sawdust and I'm keen to get working on the short stories for women's mags again - using the research I did on Take A Break and The Weekly News. I am even more determined to look at that research and the stories and get into my brain just what it is about my own stories the editors don't like ,in the hope I can improve them and turn them into something the editors do like and will buy. Having sent out 39 short stories to the mags in 2009 and only having one published means I can do it but there's still something I'm missing and my stories are lacking and I wish I could work out what that is! Still I'm not shy of hard work and have plenty of ideas so it's back to the grindstone again.
I wish everyone in Blog Land lots of luck for the coming year for your lives and writing and I hope you all achieve your goals, whatever they may be. I'll be posting about stuff that I encounter and find useful as ,my quest continues in 2010 in the hope it may help other writers too.
Julie xx
Sunday, 27 December 2009
Friday, 25 December 2009
He does exist!
I know because I've seen his footprints!
Merry Xmas everyone!
Oh and if you were lucky enough to have Santa bring you Sue Moorcroft's new book 'Love Writing' - a book about how to write in the romance genre - then you may notice - as Keith Large emailed me this morning to point out - that my question and name is in there! Sue asked for questions she could put from budding romance writers to professional romance writers and I sent one in. That's another book on my New Year wish list!
Julie xx
The photos are of my daughter in full High School Musical mode and also of Santa's footprints. Then there is of my husband and daughter changing a rather stinky nappy from her new doll that wees and poos (oh joy!) And then there is the gingerbread house my daughter and her cousins made from a kit Xmas Eve.
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
I'm Not Writing
I know I wasn't going to blog over the festive period unless something drastic happened. Well, no. Nothing drastic has happened on the writing or home front so don't get excited! Apart from the fact that I have had a mini revelation. My name is Julie Phillips and I haven't written a bean since my last blog posting: no blogs, no notes, no NaNo, no story lines/plots, not a thing! Three days have passed and no pen or computer keyboard has had my writerly fingers on them. Oh unless you count me writing my Xmas food shopping list and Boxing Day menu!
It's been a revelation. I didn't think I could do it - or not do it - writing that is. Usually I have itchy fingers and that itch spreads until I have to write - it's the only cure! But I've had a lovely relaxing time making glittery pine cones and sparkly mince pie foil case pictures with my daughter. Today we are going over to my sister's house to make a Hansel and Gretel type house with sweets and icing and all things sugary and bad for you. We got a kit from Aldi and it's going to be so much sticky and gloopy fun.
Having a break from writing and engaging in normal, everyday life for a while can really sharpen up the senses, making your writing fresher and bolstering your enthusiasm. It can also help your subconscious to work on the pieces of work you have already started and help your imagination to conjure up new ideas for your future projects. So while you're enjoying the festivities, put your writing away, your notebook in the drawer and have a great time without worrying that your short story isn't working, your novel has lost its way, or your poem won't scan.
The run up to Christmas is always a hectic time and I did suggest that you you took some notes and jotted down any ideas that were sparked while you went about organising Christmas. But now is the time to just let it go and give yourself, you family and your writing a break - you deserve it. You've worked hard all year and so have a holiday now and when all the Christmas madness - I mean magic - has gone, you can return to your writing with a fresh eye and new outlook, rested and raring to go.
Julie
It's been a revelation. I didn't think I could do it - or not do it - writing that is. Usually I have itchy fingers and that itch spreads until I have to write - it's the only cure! But I've had a lovely relaxing time making glittery pine cones and sparkly mince pie foil case pictures with my daughter. Today we are going over to my sister's house to make a Hansel and Gretel type house with sweets and icing and all things sugary and bad for you. We got a kit from Aldi and it's going to be so much sticky and gloopy fun.
Having a break from writing and engaging in normal, everyday life for a while can really sharpen up the senses, making your writing fresher and bolstering your enthusiasm. It can also help your subconscious to work on the pieces of work you have already started and help your imagination to conjure up new ideas for your future projects. So while you're enjoying the festivities, put your writing away, your notebook in the drawer and have a great time without worrying that your short story isn't working, your novel has lost its way, or your poem won't scan.
The run up to Christmas is always a hectic time and I did suggest that you you took some notes and jotted down any ideas that were sparked while you went about organising Christmas. But now is the time to just let it go and give yourself, you family and your writing a break - you deserve it. You've worked hard all year and so have a holiday now and when all the Christmas madness - I mean magic - has gone, you can return to your writing with a fresh eye and new outlook, rested and raring to go.
Julie
Saturday, 19 December 2009
Merry Xmas!
The Weekly News - Fiction research
This post follows a similar format to my Take A Break research post. I hope you find it useful - it's certainly thrown up a few surprising points for me. FOR DETAILS ON WHO AND WHERE TO SEND SUBMISSIONS FOR THE WEEKLY NEWS(AND ALL THE OTHER MAGS TAKING FICTION) AND SUBMISSION GUIDELINES SEE THE MARVELLOUS WOMAG'S BLOG.
The Weekly NewsI looked at 28 stories.
They have three stories in a week of variable lengths from 700 - 1500. Similar to take a break in feel - 'The magazine that thinks it's a newspaper.' It's packed full of celebrity news as well as some real-life stories of non-celebs. Uri Geller has his own column in there (I met him once at a science fiction conference in Birmingham. He was very nice but also very strange! We were chatting and he was drawing something in his note book and he told me my star sign was pisces and he'd drawn me a fish and signed it!) Anyway, back to the Weekly News.
All of the titles ranged from one worders to five worder - song titles seem popular - or well known phrases. Examples:
Health And Safety.
The Candle Burned Out Long Before. (By our very own Sally Quilford!!)
Storm In A Tea Cup.
Spotless.
The average word count for stories in The Weekly News are more variable than Take A Break and they have three stories in a week of different lengths. Word count as above 700 - 1500 words.
Subjects of stories:
Police investigating a sudden death at an Art Gallery.
A 14 yr old boy convinced that one of the elderly lady residents as the warden controlled bungalow complex his mum is warden at is a spy/up to something.
A taxi man who picks up a fare (a woman in labour) and it's not until near the end of the story you realise the woman is in fact the taxi driver's wife.
The tooth fairy - single mum who is getting grief from her young son because his school friend got a fiver when his tooth fell out and his mum can't afford to give him the same but she caves in and then she gets grief from her mother!
A beauty salon owner trying to find out which member of staff is pinching jars of expensive creams from her salon.
Characters:
Wide variety - it seems anything goes really.
Teenagers
Pensioners
children
middle aged
you name it - they're in there.
Point of view:
The majority of stories are told from the female character perspective (18/28)
but a fair few are male orientated (10/28).
As with Take A Break, all stories were told in the third person. I find this point very interesting as some of my stories are first person so I think if I switch them to third person they may have a better chance of acceptance - who knows?! ***** Postscript to blog - Lynne Hackles has very kindly pointed out that she spoke with the editor of The Weekly News and he said they don't accept first person stories - so there you go! *****Nine of the stories start with speech but the rest begin with action - something happens to the main character or they are watching something happening to someone else - description. Remember the character - conflict - resolution formula? Very much in evidence in the stories in The Weekly News. Or to quote Mr Dwight Swain's advice: Goal (The character wants to achieve something or get something) - Conflict (something/someone prevents the character from attaining their goal) - Disaster (The character tries out a solution to the problem but it fails) - Reaction (the character reacts to the failure and reassess the conflict) - dilemma (character has two or more possible actions to take to resolve his conflict) - Decision (character takes the decision, right or wrong in that the character may not get what he originally wanted, and conflict is resolved). Hurrah - a satisfying story that editors will want to buy - we hope!
Settings and themes:
Everyday happenings, events, the ordinary stuff, relationship problems of all types: Mother/daughter, husband/wife, partners, father and son.
Beauty salon
Stately House
Clothes shop
Department store
hotel
The home
In a taxi
Office
Art museum
Victorian street (historical short story - very interesting)
Flat
Fortune teller's shop.
Characters:
Sales rep, pensioners, ghosts, estate agent, cleaner, taxi driver, dog owner, housewife, shopper, jogger, beauty therapist, zoo keeper, house keeper,policemen, mothers, spies (another historical short story - something I've not seen in Take A Break.)
The language of these stories is simple and to the point. It isn't flowery or 'literary'. Everyday language with everyday people and everyday situations. The Weekly News is aimed at around the 25-40 year olds so you're looking for stories they can relate to and will mean something to them and that demographic.
I hope you find these points helpful when you submit to The Weekly News next year. It's been an incredibly hard year for writers, from what I've seen and been told, and you have to remember that we are up against the thousands of other writers sending their short stories out there too. It is such a competitive field so it's not surprising that most of us get more rejections than acceptances. I'm not being pessimistic or the bringer of doom! Just being realistic. I have to admit that if I ponder too much on this fact it can stop me from writing. So it's probably best to batten down the hatches, read, learn and improve your stories and keep submitting them. As those of you who have followed my blog, and other writer's blogs over the past year will know, I have only managed to get one short story published and that was in an Australian magazine. But others have been more successful and that's inspiring and encouraging.
I can't give you a magic formula or advice to make your writing better or increase your chances of publication - if I knew that, I'd have had loads of stories published! I don't think the market is as predictable as that anyway. Who knows what might catch an editor's eye - they don't know what they want until they see it sometimes. But I can give you truck loads of enthusiasm and motivation and a sympathetic ear when it's not going as well as you or I would wish! I can also tell you things that I have found helpful in writing and submitting my own stories. So I hope together we can get there in 2010!
I've had a break from writing my short stories for three months now (sounds like an age doesn't it!) But having done my research and read the wonderful research that Olivia Ryan has done and posted about My Weekly, I'm raring to go in the New Year to start writing them again. I've had such a wonderful time with article writing and doing NaNoWriMo for the first time, that I feel better able to return to my short story writing. I think the break has done me good as, to be honest, I was getting hacked off with the constant rejections! And it did knock my confidence a lot. I was beginning to doubt my own ability to write good enough quality fiction to get published. But now I have a better idea and have picked up great advice this year, I'm going to have another stab at it in 2010. Anyone with me?!
I'm not going to blog over the next couple of weeks, unless I have something to report or get up with the Christmas telly! So have a lovely Xmas and New Year. I'll post my research on Take A Break Fiction Feast after the holidays. I am just going to post a quick video of my daughter singing for you as it's festive and fun!
Julie xx
The Weekly NewsI looked at 28 stories.
They have three stories in a week of variable lengths from 700 - 1500. Similar to take a break in feel - 'The magazine that thinks it's a newspaper.' It's packed full of celebrity news as well as some real-life stories of non-celebs. Uri Geller has his own column in there (I met him once at a science fiction conference in Birmingham. He was very nice but also very strange! We were chatting and he was drawing something in his note book and he told me my star sign was pisces and he'd drawn me a fish and signed it!) Anyway, back to the Weekly News.
All of the titles ranged from one worders to five worder - song titles seem popular - or well known phrases. Examples:
Health And Safety.
The Candle Burned Out Long Before. (By our very own Sally Quilford!!)
Storm In A Tea Cup.
Spotless.
The average word count for stories in The Weekly News are more variable than Take A Break and they have three stories in a week of different lengths. Word count as above 700 - 1500 words.
Subjects of stories:
Police investigating a sudden death at an Art Gallery.
A 14 yr old boy convinced that one of the elderly lady residents as the warden controlled bungalow complex his mum is warden at is a spy/up to something.
A taxi man who picks up a fare (a woman in labour) and it's not until near the end of the story you realise the woman is in fact the taxi driver's wife.
The tooth fairy - single mum who is getting grief from her young son because his school friend got a fiver when his tooth fell out and his mum can't afford to give him the same but she caves in and then she gets grief from her mother!
A beauty salon owner trying to find out which member of staff is pinching jars of expensive creams from her salon.
Characters:
Wide variety - it seems anything goes really.
Teenagers
Pensioners
children
middle aged
you name it - they're in there.
Point of view:
The majority of stories are told from the female character perspective (18/28)
but a fair few are male orientated (10/28).
As with Take A Break, all stories were told in the third person. I find this point very interesting as some of my stories are first person so I think if I switch them to third person they may have a better chance of acceptance - who knows?! ***** Postscript to blog - Lynne Hackles has very kindly pointed out that she spoke with the editor of The Weekly News and he said they don't accept first person stories - so there you go! *****Nine of the stories start with speech but the rest begin with action - something happens to the main character or they are watching something happening to someone else - description. Remember the character - conflict - resolution formula? Very much in evidence in the stories in The Weekly News. Or to quote Mr Dwight Swain's advice: Goal (The character wants to achieve something or get something) - Conflict (something/someone prevents the character from attaining their goal) - Disaster (The character tries out a solution to the problem but it fails) - Reaction (the character reacts to the failure and reassess the conflict) - dilemma (character has two or more possible actions to take to resolve his conflict) - Decision (character takes the decision, right or wrong in that the character may not get what he originally wanted, and conflict is resolved). Hurrah - a satisfying story that editors will want to buy - we hope!
Settings and themes:
Everyday happenings, events, the ordinary stuff, relationship problems of all types: Mother/daughter, husband/wife, partners, father and son.
Beauty salon
Stately House
Clothes shop
Department store
hotel
The home
In a taxi
Office
Art museum
Victorian street (historical short story - very interesting)
Flat
Fortune teller's shop.
Characters:
Sales rep, pensioners, ghosts, estate agent, cleaner, taxi driver, dog owner, housewife, shopper, jogger, beauty therapist, zoo keeper, house keeper,policemen, mothers, spies (another historical short story - something I've not seen in Take A Break.)
The language of these stories is simple and to the point. It isn't flowery or 'literary'. Everyday language with everyday people and everyday situations. The Weekly News is aimed at around the 25-40 year olds so you're looking for stories they can relate to and will mean something to them and that demographic.
I hope you find these points helpful when you submit to The Weekly News next year. It's been an incredibly hard year for writers, from what I've seen and been told, and you have to remember that we are up against the thousands of other writers sending their short stories out there too. It is such a competitive field so it's not surprising that most of us get more rejections than acceptances. I'm not being pessimistic or the bringer of doom! Just being realistic. I have to admit that if I ponder too much on this fact it can stop me from writing. So it's probably best to batten down the hatches, read, learn and improve your stories and keep submitting them. As those of you who have followed my blog, and other writer's blogs over the past year will know, I have only managed to get one short story published and that was in an Australian magazine. But others have been more successful and that's inspiring and encouraging.
I can't give you a magic formula or advice to make your writing better or increase your chances of publication - if I knew that, I'd have had loads of stories published! I don't think the market is as predictable as that anyway. Who knows what might catch an editor's eye - they don't know what they want until they see it sometimes. But I can give you truck loads of enthusiasm and motivation and a sympathetic ear when it's not going as well as you or I would wish! I can also tell you things that I have found helpful in writing and submitting my own stories. So I hope together we can get there in 2010!
I've had a break from writing my short stories for three months now (sounds like an age doesn't it!) But having done my research and read the wonderful research that Olivia Ryan has done and posted about My Weekly, I'm raring to go in the New Year to start writing them again. I've had such a wonderful time with article writing and doing NaNoWriMo for the first time, that I feel better able to return to my short story writing. I think the break has done me good as, to be honest, I was getting hacked off with the constant rejections! And it did knock my confidence a lot. I was beginning to doubt my own ability to write good enough quality fiction to get published. But now I have a better idea and have picked up great advice this year, I'm going to have another stab at it in 2010. Anyone with me?!
I'm not going to blog over the next couple of weeks, unless I have something to report or get up with the Christmas telly! So have a lovely Xmas and New Year. I'll post my research on Take A Break Fiction Feast after the holidays. I am just going to post a quick video of my daughter singing for you as it's festive and fun!
Julie xx
Thursday, 17 December 2009
Well Done Phyllis

I was reading the local paper a minute ago and happened upon an article that caught my eye. The article was about one of our Wrekin Writer members who, at the age of 78, has had her first non-fiction book - Gentlemen Of The River. The Last Coracle Men of the Severn Gorge - published and the article said that her book was in the top ten best sellers at the local Waterstones book shop. Not only that, it was the ONLY local book to have made it into the top ten. The book is flying off the shelves!! I know it's an excellent book because I bought one and Phyllis signed it for me and my husband at the Wrekin Writer meeting last Saturday.
I've known Phyllis and her wonderful daughter and fellow writer Diane Perry since I became a member of Wrekin Writers 17 months ago and I often bump into Phyllis in the town center when we are doing our shopping. They are both such lovely women and so supportive of each other and other members of the group that I am so proud of Phyllis and so pleased that she is having such a great success. She truly deserves it and at the age of 78 too! I only hope that I'm still writing when I reach her age. She puts the rest of us to shame, she really does.
I had the pleasure of doing an interview by e-mail with her and chatting to her last Saturday about her book, her writing and her life for a couple of articles I'm doing - she's amazing! So well done Phyllis! And may your next book be as successful and the ones after that - there really is no stopping her.
She's got a book signing this Saturday 19th December at WH Smith in Wellington, nr Telford 11am-2pm and I shall be going so I hope a few more of us in the locality will go too.
If you want to buy a copy of Phyllis's book you can get it on Amazon. It's published by Stenlake Publishing Ltd and is priced £7.99. ISBN 9781840334739
Julie xx
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Stats, stats, and more stats! And a how to write book that has inspired me.
I only have a few figures to report for my end of year stats on the short story and poetry front! So this won't take too long!
Short stories sent out to women's mags:34
Rejected:33!!!
Accepted:1 (Wooh Hooh!)
Pending:9
Short stories sent to comps:5
Placed:0
Short stories sent to anthology 3
Pending: 3
Poems sent out:16
accepted:10
pending:1
rejected 5
Total short stories sent out all categories: 39.
So not a very successful year on the short story front at all. Am I disappointed? Yes! I am also very annoyed with myself at not getting more than one short story published. It seems that, despite my best efforts, I'm just not quite there with the short story writing. But I have gone back to basics from last week and will be continuing my women's mag fiction research to see if I can figure out just where I'm going wrong and whether I can do anything to rectify it.
But I still draw great comfort and inspiration from the writers out there who are getting their short stories published: Teresa Ashby, Geraldine Ryan, Lynne Hackles, Helen. M. Hunt, Olivia Ryan and Sheila Norton, Simon Whaley to name but a few who have done so well this year. May your success continue for many years to come. I hope to join in with your success in 2010. That's what I like about Blog Land, everyone is so supportive and encouraging and there is no one up man ship or silliness like that - we are here to help other writers and support them through the rejections, and to celebrate their successes.
2010 will be tough for writers with more competition and less space in less magazines that take fiction - but there are also some mags expanding their fiction slots and new mags appearing all of the time - so we mustn't give up hope or stop writing and submitting. We can and we will do it! It might take a while - but never say never.
I've been reading a couple of books that Children's Writer and fellow blogger and Wrekin Writer member Carole Anne Carr lent me following the interview and one of the books Techniques Of The Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain. University Of Oklahoma Press. 1973 ISBN 0-8061-1191-7 has struck a distinct chord with me and I had a light bulb moment while reading it!
The ideology that excited me was this: in the book Swain talks about this:
Goal-conflict-disaster (Scene) Reaction-dilemma-decision (sequal)
He also uses the terminology: FAS = Feeling-Action-Speech.
Also Motivation-reaction units.
The theme throughout the book is that feeling is what drives creative writing. Your main Character feels something. They have something they want to achieve or need. Something/someone is preventing them from reaching their goal so they try and overcome this. But then disaster strikes and their attempt at overcoming the obstacle
in their way is thwarted (this is known as the scene.) Then the character reacts to this, they have a choice between two or more solutions and they have to decide (true to their character) which solution to take to resolve the story - the sequel.
It's a fantastic book and has given me food for thought - so if you're struggling with your short stories like me, it would be a good investment. It isn't specifically for short stories and so would suit novelists and poets too. It's American, but it's appeal and advice is universal. And thanks, Carole, for lending it to me.
My next post will be about my research and findings for The Weekly News followed by Take A Break's Fiction Feast. Have a look over on Olivia Ryan's blog as she's done an excellent post on her findings about writing for My Weekly.I know this market is now closed for the time being for a lot of us, unless we've had a story accepted by them in the past. But they may change their policy later in the year - so it's still worth a read.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Xmas and New Year and can at least put their pens down and computers away for a few days - unless of course the muse strikes and you just have to get your next masterpiece down on paper! I also hope that we can all learn from our writing over the last year and improve our outcomes for 2010 and beyond!Here's to a successful 2010!
Julie xx
Short stories sent out to women's mags:34
Rejected:33!!!
Accepted:1 (Wooh Hooh!)
Pending:9
Short stories sent to comps:5
Placed:0
Short stories sent to anthology 3
Pending: 3
Poems sent out:16
accepted:10
pending:1
rejected 5
Total short stories sent out all categories: 39.
So not a very successful year on the short story front at all. Am I disappointed? Yes! I am also very annoyed with myself at not getting more than one short story published. It seems that, despite my best efforts, I'm just not quite there with the short story writing. But I have gone back to basics from last week and will be continuing my women's mag fiction research to see if I can figure out just where I'm going wrong and whether I can do anything to rectify it.
But I still draw great comfort and inspiration from the writers out there who are getting their short stories published: Teresa Ashby, Geraldine Ryan, Lynne Hackles, Helen. M. Hunt, Olivia Ryan and Sheila Norton, Simon Whaley to name but a few who have done so well this year. May your success continue for many years to come. I hope to join in with your success in 2010. That's what I like about Blog Land, everyone is so supportive and encouraging and there is no one up man ship or silliness like that - we are here to help other writers and support them through the rejections, and to celebrate their successes.
2010 will be tough for writers with more competition and less space in less magazines that take fiction - but there are also some mags expanding their fiction slots and new mags appearing all of the time - so we mustn't give up hope or stop writing and submitting. We can and we will do it! It might take a while - but never say never.
I've been reading a couple of books that Children's Writer and fellow blogger and Wrekin Writer member Carole Anne Carr lent me following the interview and one of the books Techniques Of The Selling Writer by Dwight V. Swain. University Of Oklahoma Press. 1973 ISBN 0-8061-1191-7 has struck a distinct chord with me and I had a light bulb moment while reading it!
The ideology that excited me was this: in the book Swain talks about this:
Goal-conflict-disaster (Scene) Reaction-dilemma-decision (sequal)
He also uses the terminology: FAS = Feeling-Action-Speech.
Also Motivation-reaction units.
The theme throughout the book is that feeling is what drives creative writing. Your main Character feels something. They have something they want to achieve or need. Something/someone is preventing them from reaching their goal so they try and overcome this. But then disaster strikes and their attempt at overcoming the obstacle
in their way is thwarted (this is known as the scene.) Then the character reacts to this, they have a choice between two or more solutions and they have to decide (true to their character) which solution to take to resolve the story - the sequel.
It's a fantastic book and has given me food for thought - so if you're struggling with your short stories like me, it would be a good investment. It isn't specifically for short stories and so would suit novelists and poets too. It's American, but it's appeal and advice is universal. And thanks, Carole, for lending it to me.
My next post will be about my research and findings for The Weekly News followed by Take A Break's Fiction Feast. Have a look over on Olivia Ryan's blog as she's done an excellent post on her findings about writing for My Weekly.I know this market is now closed for the time being for a lot of us, unless we've had a story accepted by them in the past. But they may change their policy later in the year - so it's still worth a read.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Xmas and New Year and can at least put their pens down and computers away for a few days - unless of course the muse strikes and you just have to get your next masterpiece down on paper! I also hope that we can all learn from our writing over the last year and improve our outcomes for 2010 and beyond!Here's to a successful 2010!
Julie xx
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