published author

Get Into the Groove

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I’ve been reading a dog training manual. I’ve been reading it as if it is the sole text on which I am to be examined for an life-changing certificate of achievement. It is 8 days until the puppy arrives and I am already starting to change my daily routines, to leave time for letting him out in the morning and for Andy to do the morning walk. I’m already planning to go to my office for two/three hours five times a week, rather than for six/eight hours twice a week.

Babies, whether human or canine, like routine. So does your writing.

When you set a regular writing time, something magical happens. All the ideas that come to you randomly (while in the middle of a busy supermarket, or just as you are about to pick up a friend to go out to dinner) begin to come to you during your writing time. It’s as if your muse learns when you will be available, and begins saving itself for when it has your full attention.

This means that your word count goes up; meaning that you have more to work with and to edit. You also begin to enjoy your writing time more;  because it’s not quite so painfully slow, it feels more like play. And all this means that you can finish earlier, and give yourself more time to, say, walk the dog, or go to the movies, or make something delicious to eat.  Your writing begins to work better in your life, then.

I’m not the first writer or writing coach to tell you this, I’ll bet. Flaubert advised being ‘regular and bourgeoise’ in your daily habits, Dorathea Brande talks about this extensively in her seminal 1930’s writing guide, and Stephen King, in his wonderful On Writing also encourages it. I think the reason we sometimes hold back is that we are culturally conditioned to think that regular writing is somehow of less value than spontaneous writing. If this is your fear, consider the words of Peter DeVries, ‘I only write when I’m inspired, and I make sure I’m inspired every morning at 9am.’

When’s the next time you’ll engage with your creative practice?

On The Road – AWP Chicago

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I”m in Chicago. AWP, the Association of Writing Programmes, is about to start and I’ll be presenting there and minding Bath Spa’s stall. We’ve got a fabulous new low residency PhD we want to tell everyone about.

I’ll also be meeting and greeting, and chatting up colleagues, editors, other writers, other academics and various other kinds of interesting humans. The idea is to get up early so that I can write a bit, too, but there’s an awful lot of parties to get through. I’ll do my best and I’ll sneak away sometimes, too.

Most of my colleagues are either single or male… In the first case, they don’t have all that many domestic responsibilities and in the second case, they don’t have all that many domestic responsibilities. None of the other people coming are primary care-givers for their children. For them, trying to write during AWP is an insane goal…like trying to stay sober during AWP. 

But I gave up alcohol for Lent and I give up writing time nearly every day. This is a chance for me to pull all nighters, not in the hotel bar, but at my desktop. So far, with the train journey and this morning, I’m 4,000 plus to the better, and have rewritten all my lost data.

I’ll let you know how the week goes. 

Getting Out There

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Well, it’s been an exciting week!

  1. My wonderful agent, Sophie Gorell-Barnes, is sending Hospital High  out to publishers,
  2. I met with my new writing group and it wasn’t nearly as scary as I feared, and
  3. I’m recording with BBC Radio Four this afternoon…something about writers and their love of stationery.

It feels like a proper writer’s week… Of course, I’m most comfortable in my dressing gown, typing away in my room. But that’s no way to run a whole career. Fine for a hobby, but not for a life…

I used to teach a class for my second years about how to get published. For a year, it was made compulsory, and as I was walking up the stairs I overheard one boy say to another, ‘I don’t want to learn this sh*t. I just want to write.’

When we got into class, I announced that I had overheard this conversation. The class was shocked and silent, rather fearful of my reaction. I said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you something. I don’t want to do this sh*t, either. I want to live in my room, write whatever I want and have money and food slid to me under the door. But that’s not going to happen for me and it’s not going to happen for you. So let’s get our pads and pencils out and learn how it really works.’

No matter what your creative endeavour, I urge you to get out and about a little this week. Go to a workshop or a fair. Talk to people about it a bit more. The rewards can be absolutely amazing, once you manage to get over the threshold of your room…

…even if it’s just to go over to someone else’s room!  (Thanks to Peter and his cat! For more about Peter’s wonderful nature and environmental writing, click on the photo.)

Why Write?

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Why do we do it?

No, I’m serious, here. Why write full length fiction?

The drawbacks are immense… Unless you are very fortunate you will be underpaid and have to balance your writing life with another professional life, so you are working two jobs. Your entire life revolves around making things with words…so when you sleep/what you eat/what you drink etc., are all governed by your writing time. Your family must either be trained or escaped, and it puts a strain on all relationships…it takes very understanding friends to know that when you disappear for months on end, you still care for them but are only on a roll.  And then, at the end of all that, two words from a publisher or reviewer can make you feel it’s all been a waste of time and effort.

Life is a whole lot easier if you don’t write books.

Last week, I ran my ‘big ideas’ workshop for the redoubtable Alex and Jude’s Writing Events Bath. And as we talked about what a novel actually was, I felt the whole room’s desire to make one themselves. That desire hasn’t gone away in me, either. If anything, it’s gotten stronger with all the years and ups and downs.

Why write? Because you have to. Because you can’t stop. Because it’s the whole point of life.

 

 

Working Out

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Well, today I went to the coffee shop to write. It went well. I’ve always been able to ignore people, so that was okay, and I soon lost myself in my story. And I must not have been pulling too many funny faces, because nobody pointed or laughed.

My book has so many layers…it’s very complex. There’s the letter my heroine is writing to the bishop. There’s the traumatic memories that intrude on her concentration. There’s her own thoughts and purposeful recollections. And then there are the day to day interactions she has with her people, while she is working on this very important letter.

Fuelled by pots of tea and bananas, I’m negotiating how all of these will be signalled and formed so that the reader passes effortlessly from one to the other and can tell the difference between them all.

It’s terribly difficult to write – which is, of course, why I’m interested in writing it. And I don’t know if it was all the caffeine, or the fact that it seems to be working that made me rather dance out of the cafe in a feeling of heady excitement.

I bought an amazing dress right out of a second-hand shop’s window on the way home. It’s a bit short, but I decided I didn’t care. I’ll wear silver tights. I’ll dance in it all night. I’ll be able to write this book.

I will. I will.

Beauty and the Writing Beast

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I teach here on Wednesdays.

I teach here on Tuesdays.

And in between, my commute looks a bit like this:

I’m a down-to-earth girl, but I do love beauty…in fact, I think I need it. When I think about the places I’ve lived and how much I’ve written while I was there, there is definitely  a correlation between how gorgeous a place was and how much good writing I did while I was in that place.  For me, that means countryside where I can observe wildlife within a short walk, and lovely drives. But for other writers that stimulation is wholly urban, and their aesthetic of what is beautiful and worthwhile to observe might not be so limited by prettiness as my own.

I also know that when the  house is a complete tip I find it difficult to write. Not because I want to jump up and clean it (I never have such an impulse), but because it jangles my writing nerves. But other writers might need to escape the suburban neatness of their homes for a shed or an office, where the disorder gets their writing nerves jangling.

Writing’s relationship with order is complex.

The first need humans satisfy; after food and drink and shelter is story. The need for narrative is so basic within us that it often comes before sex. Why are we so addicted to narrative? Well, because we don’t forget as quickly as other species, and we are very efficient at picking up stimuli. If we don’t have a way to make sense of our world, we quickly become unable to function. Narrative is our way of imposing…or perhaps revealing…order in a chaotic world. It’s not just a way of remembering things, it’s also a way of forgetting; of deciding what we will not record and notice, out of the vast amount of phenomena that comes to our brains.

I hate housework. But I hate trying to write in chaos even more. So guess what I’m going to do…right after I finish this chapter…

For more information on narrative’s function in human psychology, you might want to start here, with Lewis Mehi-Madrona’s wonderful article.

Tiles, Rings, Sheds and Other Distractions

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You may notice, from this week’s photo, that I am back at my other work; teaching at university. All this signs are there; hair is styled (this is as good as it gets), I’m dressed properly, and makeup has been applied. No dark circles under the eyes yet, but wait until Christmas – I’ll look like I’ve been sparring with Wladimir Klitschko.

And because my life gets complicated and stupidly busy as the academic year rolls out, I am trying to tie up loose ends.

I got the chimney swept but the tape that the sweep used pulled up some broken tiles. I’m tracking down some 1930s replacements. My shed is too small and leaks  –  we’ve got tarp-covered stuff all over the garden and the bad weather is coming. The ring that I bought to replace my engagement ring (stolen in France) got caught in a child’s pullover this summer and I lost the stone. The insurance company have just sent a cheque, saying it’s a write-off. I feel weird without a ring on that finger…

And so my writing time shrinks. It seems more important to do all the other things. I’m sitting here, looking at the broken fireplace tiles as I type and…it bothers me. Typing without a ring…bothers me. Hearing the rain start on my torn shed roofing…bothers me.

And when I’m sufficiently bothered about things, I find it hard to concentrate on my writing.

My husband understands. He’s promised to lay a new shed base. I am using my insurance payout for a modest ring and a new shed, and although he thinks its odd that I’d rather have a shed than diamonds, he wants to help get it sorted as soon as possible.

We talked about it just this morning. And then he looked at the old shed. He said, ‘If we move it, can I have it, for my winemaking?’

‘No.’ I had surprised both of us. ‘No,’ I heard myself say again, decisively. ‘I’m going to put it at the bottom of the garden, for my writing.’

I’ll paint it white with green trim. I’ll insulate it and put in a tiny woodstove, a chair, a desk and some shelves.

And I won’t be distracted anymore, by anything.

A new book

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I’ve just checked my email and my agent hasn’t responded yet. (I’m hoping to meet her next week to discuss the book she’s about to start submitting to editors.) I emailed her another manuscript yesterday, which she won’t have time to read for a few weeks. She’s not so keen on it, but she’s only read the first 30 pages. I know she’ll love it when she’s done.

Husband is back at work, child is back at school and my university teaching hasn’t started yet. I have a few errands to run and our house is a total mess, but I am supposed to be starting a book today.

I’ve already written this book once, and I’ve been messing about thinking about how to rewrite it for nearly a year. I’ve studied medieval women’s writing, I’ve played around with quills and handmade paper, I’ve worried about it all summer as I’ve walked up big hills and bobbed up and down in the sea.  And I know now, how I’m going to go about it. I know the story – and I love the story – and now I know how I’ll tell it. I am completely ready to write it.

And I was going to start at 9 am today. Now it’s 11:30ish. I’ve had a big breakfast, a cup of tea and two Alpen light bars. I’ve watched Homes Under the Hammer (it’s educative) and checked up on all my friends and family with Facebook. And I’m really, truly going to start. Any second now.

Wish me luck.

Although I’m a working writer, I haven’t yet published that big, breakthrough book. I’m hoping this will be the one. I need a new kitchen. I need a new shed. I need to pay off my credit card. And I’m trying to save the world by doing the only thing I’m any good at – writing stories. So I’m going to take a big breath now and open the Word file. See you soon…