tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75295196925017544602024-02-19T01:15:49.486-08:00HOW TO BE A WRITERDo you fancy being a writer? Want to get a book deal? Planning that Booker speech? Be careful what you wish for....How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comBlogger150125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-52513491083675659742022-04-02T07:34:00.004-07:002022-04-02T07:38:15.507-07:00How should a climate writer be?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEge1tvrCFr0F2UOIFcd25Z5C1Z0TImel2HtIS9ToI1Mh45uCePvW-q7TSJ_nBPByKyuzXj-46dFjV0UZyAOwQimZCJ6LfkSkowvd64LsaAfslTrqp9QOe4M9ASYvyzpJ0EBj_PEZkZvP_BZpZ6jWl-InA_fjMnNLdtmTUGCy-P7dn2s1HBoxL-qgghF" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="321" data-original-width="500" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEge1tvrCFr0F2UOIFcd25Z5C1Z0TImel2HtIS9ToI1Mh45uCePvW-q7TSJ_nBPByKyuzXj-46dFjV0UZyAOwQimZCJ6LfkSkowvd64LsaAfslTrqp9QOe4M9ASYvyzpJ0EBj_PEZkZvP_BZpZ6jWl-InA_fjMnNLdtmTUGCy-P7dn2s1HBoxL-qgghF=w411-h264" width="411" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="color: #30272e; font-family: Inter, sans-serif; text-align: left;">"</span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/33247428@N08/10299056395" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="--tw-blur: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter: var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-grayscale: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-inset: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-saturate: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-sepia: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-text-opacity: 1; --tw-transform: translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border-color: currentcolor; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: Inter, sans-serif; text-align: left; text-decoration: inherit;" target="_blank">Deep-sea substrate</a><span style="color: #30272e; font-family: Inter, sans-serif; text-align: left;">"</span><span style="--tw-blur: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter: var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-grayscale: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-inset: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-saturate: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-sepia: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-transform: translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border-color: currentcolor; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #30272e; font-family: Inter, sans-serif; text-align: left;"> by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/33247428@N08" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="--tw-blur: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter: var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-grayscale: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-inset: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-saturate: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-sepia: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-text-opacity: 1; --tw-transform: translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border-color: currentcolor; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration: inherit;" target="_blank">Oregon State University</a></span><span style="color: #30272e; font-family: Inter, sans-serif; text-align: left;"> is marked with </span><a class="uppercase" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="--tw-blur: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter: var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-grayscale: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-inset: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-saturate: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-sepia: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-text-opacity: 1; --tw-transform: translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border-color: currentcolor; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: Inter, sans-serif; text-align: left; text-decoration: inherit; text-transform: uppercase;" target="_blank">CC BY-SA 2.0</a><span style="color: #30272e; font-family: Inter, sans-serif; text-align: left;">.</span></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I’ve joined two climate crisis writing workshops, as I’m not
sure how to address climate in my writing – should it be incorporated into fiction, should I draw on my background in nonfiction and journalism, or should I try
to find a hybrid of the two? Creative nonfiction encompasses a huge range of
story telling devices and ways to come at a subject. Maybe there's a space I
can fill somewhere there? Poetry seems the obvious, most elastic and thoughtful
way to write about what’s happening. But I am not a poet. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Who knows how to proceed? Writing seems very slow and
sometimes marginal, unless you are well known, and the climate crisis frighteningly
urgent, though we proceed as if it was an optional news item most of the time.
Maybe we need frivolity, distraction, Twitter wars, in order to preserve our mental
health? Those brave enough to confront the crisis head on, full time, risk emotional
burnout. An issue which dwarfs the horrors of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is
hard to live with, day after day, while the world blasts on, heating up and talking
about nothing.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So we did this exercise, which I found useful, and it
cheered me up to some extent. There is another issue here, about whether writers
write about climate for personal therapy or to communicate a message. As <a href="http://www.sheilaheti.com/how-should-a-person-be" target="_blank">Sheila Heti nearly said, how should a climate writer be</a>?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We were asked to consider five
questions about an aspect of the natural world that we love:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->What do you love about it?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Why and how is it under threat?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->How does that make you feel?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->What is the solution?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->What’s your vision for a better future, if this
solution could be found?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Caveat here – in trying to write anything directly about the
climate, it’s become apparent that I know nothing about it. There are piles of
books in my room which contain the information that is not inside my head.
Nature is outside my window, I walk in it sometimes but don’t know what anything
is called. I never garden. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Anyhow, here is my response, slightly edited.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What I love is the thought of the seabed, the deep sea
floor, completely mysterious and black, with creatures living there which we
haven’t even discovered yet, as well as those we have. Weird *monsters* with
crushed and flattened faces, eyeless, pale. They look nightmarish to us,
designed to withstand the vast weight of the water. I love the mystery of the
unexplored. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s under threat because of the threat of deep sea mining,
proposed in order to mine for the minerals that are needed for electric cars,
an alleged solution to the climate crisis and the end of oil.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I feel horror, a sense of dread, a childish kind of
superstition as well as a rational belief that we are risking everything for a
temporary fix. The wild places seem sacred, even though I am an atheist.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The solution is to leave the seabed alone, to leave the
minerals where they are. It’s brutally simple, but *everyone* will say it’s
unrealistic, we must switch to electric cars. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My vision of a better future is one in which the private car
is no longer seen as an essential, and the amount of investment in public
transport makes this feasible. People would use bicycles, buses, trains, trams,
they’d walk in safety. Community spaces would open up where once there were busy
roads. Lung disease and cancer rates would fall, so would obesity. Villages,
towns and cities would reclaim their outdoor spaces, now lost to endless
traffic. Places would be places, not just a passing scene beyond a windscreen.
Everywhere would be somewhere. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-81920878008504110602022-03-22T08:27:00.002-07:002022-03-22T08:28:57.094-07:00Saving Sheffield's trees - The Felling film review<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiz0F7I_JZl-Jnxy34XpyDabVkH7A4OaxFJRSl-VQZ-Tu5QgQiaJ69L8y0VKpcX6wQhGLtQVY9jUhr70BySBEasgJuDcJQnY0w3SLzT15V6QcAlw230D3LfTWuzfUsh4uAsiNFyNIt00MJwZJWeKHhd7ICXm1EJayH9qmfkIC8yorSfK7YJzdYvzADk" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiz0F7I_JZl-Jnxy34XpyDabVkH7A4OaxFJRSl-VQZ-Tu5QgQiaJ69L8y0VKpcX6wQhGLtQVY9jUhr70BySBEasgJuDcJQnY0w3SLzT15V6QcAlw230D3LfTWuzfUsh4uAsiNFyNIt00MJwZJWeKHhd7ICXm1EJayH9qmfkIC8yorSfK7YJzdYvzADk=w488-h274" width="488" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">‘</span>The Felling: An Epic Tale of People Power’ is a heartfelt record of the Sheffield tree protest. It’s also a classic David-and-Goliath story. A small group of Sheffield residents battled to save the trees in their city, taking on a powerful city council and a giant multinational company – and won. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Sheffield is one of Europe’s greenest cities</a>, which some might think was a cause for celebration, particularly as we fight the climate crisis. But in 2012 the council paid private contractor Amey £2.2 billion to maintain the city’s highways, and including in their contract the removal of thousands of trees, the majority of them healthy. <br /><br />Capturing a dogged, piece-meal protest that took place over four years was a challenging task for the film’s director Jacqui Bellamy and editor Eve Wood. Bellamy spent months filming footage at the height of the dispute, as dozens of police officers and private security guards were deployed to support Amey’s employees. <br /><br />If the film appears to be one-sided, that is because neither Sheffield Council nor Amey would agree to be interviewed. So this is the story of the protesters, a dramatic video diary. The film uses mobile phone footage gathered by the protesters, and Bellamy and Wood make a virtue of this, using texts as a form of running commentary, as the protestors tried to keep up with Amey’s operation, exchanging information about which roads were being targeted each day, and then charging over there to stand under the trees at risk. <br /><br />‘Standing under a tree’ was central to their modus operandi. When the council made it illegal for them to stand within the zones which had been closed off with barriers around a condemned tree, the protestors studied the court documents and found it was not illegal for them to stand close to threatened trees if they were outside the barrier. Dauntless, they then stood against house walls with the council barriers hemming them in. <br /><br />The protestors were well-organised, articulate, determined, and somehow retained their sense of humour throughout. And the sense of community is palpable in this film: the elderly couple who go out in the snow to pay their respects to the tree which has stood outside their house for all the decades they have lived there, the French poet/musician who pops up behind a barrier to declaim a newly-written ode, then becomes part of the team, usually twanging his guitar and singing, the brightly-dressed woman protestor arriving with a tray of hot drinks calling out ‘Coffee or hot chocolate anyone’? <br /><br />Most striking of all was the way the protestors supported each other when the situation intensified, when the contractors forcibly pulled them from the park fence they were clinging to, prising their fingers off. Disturbing scenes indeed, and reminiscent of another campaign which successfully captured public attention, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">the Greenham Common protest</a>, as well as the current tactics used by <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Extinction Rebellion</a>. <br /><br />But what sets this apart from other examples of civil disobedience is that these were people who felt they had to protest when the environment they lived in was at risk, and who saw their local issue as part of a larger whole. Trees became totemic, symbols of the natural world that we cannot afford to throw away. <br /><br />Drone footage of the city revealed a city that is green indeed, almost Edenic. The idea that cutting down so much of that unique natural beauty was deemed to be a necessary element of highway maintenance speaks volumes about the priorities which form the modern world. Reading the council’s <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">‘Streets Ahead Strategy’ for 2012-17</a>, it appears that 75% of the city’s street trees were assessed as being ‘mature or over mature’ and therefore in need of replacement. A bizarre decision and one which defied logical explanation. When one of the protestors asked a council official to explain the rationale for cutting down the healthy tree they were looking at, his response was: ‘Look at the council website’. <br /><br />Presumably the tree in question fulfilled one of the council’s ‘6D’ criteria: ‘Dangerous, Dead, Diseased, Dying, Damaging or Discriminatory’. (The concept of a ‘Discriminatory’ tree is Kafkaesque.) Supporters of the protest included Jarvis Cocker, who ridiculed the 6D mantra. He had another ‘D’ to add: ‘Daft. That is a Yorkshire word for “silly”’. <br /><br />Tree felling was suspended indefinitely in early 2018 when the terms of the contract between Sheffield Council and Amey was made public, revealing that there was an agreement to fell 200 trees a year. This made it possible that a felling licence may have been required, and the Forestry Commission began an assessment of alleged illegal felling. In October 2020, a report by the Local Government Ombudsman ruled the local authority had misled the public, misrepresented expert advice and acted with a ‘lack of honesty’ during the saga. <br /><br />It’s a film which is fundamentally heartening, showing how much can achieved by small communities of people united by shared passion. But the issues that led to the Sheffield tree-felling saga are still with us: where there is money to be made, the fact that the natural world is essential to us is overlooked. Witness the current calls to return to fracking and ramp up oil drilling following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The rights that the Sheffield tree protesters exercised are under threat: the film premiered in the week that the House of Lords was due to start debating the <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill </a>which will – unless there are substantial revisions – make nonviolent actions of this kind illegal. This should ring alarm bells for anyone who is concerned about free expression - and that must include writers. </p>How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-394162570507291302022-03-14T08:47:00.002-07:002022-03-14T09:00:10.502-07:00Top five how-to guides for stressed-out writers<span style="font-family: inherit;">We are living in terrifying times, and like many people, I sometimes wonder if it is really worth it, this writing thing? Should I be doing something more, well, useful? But then I remember a. I can’t actually do anything else, except basic house cleaning and breast stroke, and b. life has always been terrifying. As Gertrude Stein put it: ‘Considering how dangerous everything is, nothing is really frightening’. <br /><br />Writers have been producing work in adverse circumstances since whenever, whether personal or political or a mixture of the two. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Virginia Woolf</a> struggled with her mental health, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">George Orwell</a> with TB, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Chester Himes</a> started writing and publishing fiction while serving eight years in prison for armed robbery. <br /><br />So, it’s time to reboot, recharge the batteries and return to the Work in Progress. These are five books that have helped cheer me on, over the years, and I’d recommend them to anyone, at any stage of the writing process, and whatever the state of the world. <br /><br /><b>1. On Writing; A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King</b><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#" style="font-family: inherit;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhOsA6-t4QSLQRwR8vk14nU3Y1XKSnKU4QCyeiaPa6RgdVAkVn9171gYm7zY5rPzDoh5ikeeg_9cIwQljla10G898Byq1IgoYnl0AvNPfxvcChNLka6xrtzr0-OhKzdW4qTgiSB3a5ghfGZRvO9T10EFDufcQbEPRqWSptD4bhC8wvV83GfUlQMsvBq=w302-h302" /></a></div><br /><br />Wonderfully down to earth, filled with King’s own experiences of the highs and lows of writing, and pithy advice about getting started and keeping going. Busts the myth about alcohol fuelling great writing, too. The account of his near-fatal accident is as vivid and shocking as you would expect from this master story teller. A favourite with experienced writers as well as newcomers. <br /><br /><b>2. The Art of Fiction, David Lodge</b><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#" style="font-family: inherit;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg-Lg1gzJU_0b6LA3K1AOT2BS0ZhPLjD_sAdPv7p58qw_e2i58Li68mOTkKxeReSzyFl3sk1xEKSTGc4eHeWOHHTxY4biv62JrQb_7Bh5JRMrC3YfaXc2PJ_97W9gKrjzxpLX6jRtmVP5vdPOm-mlVMfgsrqgOvk26U1yHNf9-memN0BfDtqciUaVMe=w202-h311" /></a></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>Lodge gives a masterly overview of the elements of writing, from Beginning to Ending, and taking in Suspense, Interior Monologue, Defamiliarization, Weather, Fancy Prose and Magic Realism along the way. Elegantly written, and with a short extract at the start of each section which illustrates the point being made. A book to dip into again and again – my copy is bulging with Post-It notes.<br /><br /><b>3. Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew, Ursula le Guin</b><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#" style="font-family: inherit;"><img height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjqqDId3wonkI7MNSg86zMrEfEPlO7wHxzirRk8i0szN1YnrxMlALxu5jiG6euumc4FKuWz2hl9RUixEI1PDPmdPVija_lE8OaF09YKloHuh2jc5MIq8EjGGnyEyNtS20iebyww3RV6K2tsmVvQf2HgdPGQcF3sdqDX9eGd7gYnr336Z7Ny0_74rirg=w485-h282" width="485" /></a></div><br />Le Guin is a renowned science fiction writer, but this book is invaluable to writers in any genre. It’s just as useful to writers working alone as those in a creative writing class, and the playful tone makes it accessible and easy to refer to. I love the passion and commitment that informs this book. As Le Guin says: ‘To make something well is to give yourself to it, to seek wholeness, to follow spirit.'<br /><br /><b>4. Into the Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them, John Yorke<br /></b><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#" style="font-family: inherit;"><img height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEikmLzHzxuJT8DofT-TGt8wISgxDjwVS9faHgpfZCH_LSIIpedbfDKaFJd8JUNuVynWakHR9Wbkd7QIUjTXWd-5Hf8_l0flAOHAFjcVwU1R7T_DK4ouzaikbqOllPHgsfBNPJ97g0iDiVrj2SOxrDL1CUis25yc6kBm58AONg7BLEgWi9toKyESe21o=w549-h287" width="549" /></a></div><br />Yorke is a screenwriter and drama producer, and this book is filled with references to story and narrative on the screen. But his insights are extremely useful to fiction writers too. He looks at the fundamentals of storytelling and the reasons that there are so many common elements to a compelling story. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">Here is an example of York at work, speaking to employees at Google</a>.<br /><b><br />5. The Right to Write, Julia Cameron</b><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjYI78uU_sQhr1bpWbzrl-_qw6_4qsqt15oit1fZj9o4YxCQQ4OVtLf1l52aCBokeQ5N8DZ-tAkYL1EmRYSWxTD1tlyM4aCVJCOB9una2e68jeSv11YkLYEQzzGPIERicBgU9du5NEtkkKl-32brIBJlFKm8gXrZBWWAQoPax_uXHClwaZPYF7Ynvwe" style="font-family: inherit;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjYI78uU_sQhr1bpWbzrl-_qw6_4qsqt15oit1fZj9o4YxCQQ4OVtLf1l52aCBokeQ5N8DZ-tAkYL1EmRYSWxTD1tlyM4aCVJCOB9una2e68jeSv11YkLYEQzzGPIERicBgU9du5NEtkkKl-32brIBJlFKm8gXrZBWWAQoPax_uXHClwaZPYF7Ynvwe=w197-h307" /></a></div><div><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>Cameron is a passionate advocate of the writing process as a form of self-discovery. I find her approach slightly hippie at times, but it works. One of the approaches she advocates is writing morning pages when you wake up – this is not easy, particularly if like me you aren’t much of an early bird. (I am borderline dynamic after 8.30 am, pretty much slug-like any earlier than this. I can just about manage a masochistic bout of yoga, but thinking is out).<br /><br />Reading any of these books is a reminder that writing, while not necessarily fun, is a sustaining, grounding process if you approach it with patience and commitment. Top tip: try to avoid thinking about getting published, Twitter storms and The Voices while you are engaged in writing. See you writing space as a place apart, where you can think and write what you like. That works for me, and it may well work for you.
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></o:p></p>How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-68230316075074042472020-11-12T06:51:00.021-08:002021-09-02T03:41:28.172-07:00Writing and walking in Sheffield<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">From Endcliffe Park to
Forge Dam</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">I moved to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheffield">Sheffield</a> around
a year ago, after living in Brighton for over 20 years. The first few months were
dominated by our house needing a huge amount of building work – we spent two weeks
in a hotel and then moved in just before Christmas. While the builders finished
their work, I doom scrolled, watching coronavirus sweep across the world, feeling
a growing sense of dread. And then of course it was lockdown. Huge global
events, and here I was, in a weird limbo in a new city, living at the edge of
the <a href="https://www.peakdistrict.gov.uk/">Peak District</a> but not allowed to go there.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">But walking was part of
my life even then. During the period when basically the builders owned our house
and we were interlopers, I walked into Sheffield city centre every day and
worked in the central library, sometimes doing my day job, which is working as
a senior lecturer for the Open University, sometimes writing my Difficult Fifth
Novel, which has a habit of morphing into various different novels as I go
along (all of them equally Difficult). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve
always walked to get to know a place, and can’t think how you would do it any
other way. So now that the second lockdown has commenced – lockdown lite, we might
call it – I am recording some of my walks in words and pictures, as is my
fellow newcomer, <a href="https://www.yvonnebattlefelton.com/">Yvonne Battle-Felton</a>. You can see Yvonne's first Sheffield walk <a href="https://www.yvonnebattlefelton.com/post/the-way-home-1">here</a> And if you would like to join us and share text, photos or a video of your walks in your area, Yvonne has <a href="https://www.yvonnebattlefelton.com/post/write-with-me-3">some suggestions</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVE00ll3EwAsUdPyqjNDkmiw9M2s9TY3JPbYftaUenhwrCmm9zzHd9kkJCfjscoluTj_Tl8vIrkXc3UuVYC30BwnKXlkeRLEYQsxVEDdJdx9fRBmmhmc-oXifxG1sQPJPn9I2g9Fd8i7k/s1280/Sign.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVE00ll3EwAsUdPyqjNDkmiw9M2s9TY3JPbYftaUenhwrCmm9zzHd9kkJCfjscoluTj_Tl8vIrkXc3UuVYC30BwnKXlkeRLEYQsxVEDdJdx9fRBmmhmc-oXifxG1sQPJPn9I2g9Fd8i7k/w400-h300/Sign.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">My first walk is the obvious
choice – the green chain from our front door (more or less) to <a href="https://www.fopv.org.uk/forge-dam">Forge Dam</a>. We
had no idea how beautiful this walk was when we bought the house, it was a massive
stroke of luck to find ourselves in this magical place. The danger seems to be
to do the walk too often, so that it loses some of its novelty and allure, but
the fact is that it changes all the time, not only with the seasons but also depending
on the time of day. During Lockdown One, it was busy pretty much all of the
time, full of children, dogs, bikes, joggers of every age, but notably a lot of
older joggers who looked incredibly fit, students hanging out, it was throbbing
with human activity. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Now, it’s quieter, you
can get to see it in a different way. Early morning might be good, but sadly I
am not an early morning person. Dusk is lovely, that weird liminal sense of darkness
bearing down, of shadows filling up the spaces between the trees, dogs and
humans suddenly looming out of nowhere. But I like the sense of being in nature
but yet part of a city. For a townie like me, it’s good to measure out the
route in coffee opportunities, the café in <a href="http://www.endcliffepark.co.uk/">Endcliffe Park</a> now equipped with a
gazebo opposite for rainproof social distancing, the van that parks at the entrance
to Whitely Woods at the weekends, and finally the café at Forge Dam itself, next
to a pond full of mallards and moorhens and where you can sometimes see a
heron. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDpSyUXrEXktNwHAjlDVtTQw5H_O6HFZBjqMueSG-uV_-p4-AvN0RoQkJhwI-XmeFixadIwH1CupTKRsxRwnsglPyuZcDafI3e7dXkpHfnDhtixIQn_VVjV8Bj4aQ8NBEf9eiIPC3NGHw/s1280/cafe.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDpSyUXrEXktNwHAjlDVtTQw5H_O6HFZBjqMueSG-uV_-p4-AvN0RoQkJhwI-XmeFixadIwH1CupTKRsxRwnsglPyuZcDafI3e7dXkpHfnDhtixIQn_VVjV8Bj4aQ8NBEf9eiIPC3NGHw/w400-h300/cafe.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The walk has zones, all
of them wooded with Porter Brook bubbling along beside the path, but getting wilder
and less populated as you go along. Once you get beyond Forge Dam, you can
smell damp earth, and hear the bleating of sheep – proper countryside, steep
pathways, trees outlined against an autumn sky.
Sometimes, at the Hunters Bar end, I start off feeling pent-up, irritable, caught
up in some admin issue, an email thread that’s tangled up my brain. As I go along,
the email threads unravel, the natural world closes in, green, soft, calm,
intersected by roads with cars speeding to somewhere as we walk slowly onwards,
looking at fungi we can’t identify, at other people’s dogs, listening to odds
and ends of passing conversations. ‘That’s just the point Craig, that’s exactly
what I said.’ ‘Dad, how long can I stand here?’ ‘Can you imagine <i>her</i>
doing this every day?’ <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhYnHtJ7GABjEYVnpZGllMOeq7OxR6DKTVo4c8WtoOpM0CBnO8s247u3dDExLwySZb4LDf4RFkllO6N4eePu6gLjAcC0x3Ccn8spxQ9Nfx6xh-JggCehkUt2KyvjghrgLhH05uT9n0tag/s1280/Fungus+2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhYnHtJ7GABjEYVnpZGllMOeq7OxR6DKTVo4c8WtoOpM0CBnO8s247u3dDExLwySZb4LDf4RFkllO6N4eePu6gLjAcC0x3Ccn8spxQ9Nfx6xh-JggCehkUt2KyvjghrgLhH05uT9n0tag/w400-h300/Fungus+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">I am not a nature-girl. I
went to guide camp once and resented the fact that we were meant to make
gadgets out of twigs, which seemed nonsensical. I have a fear of slugs and
earthworms, have no idea how to dig a garden. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkLBzJ1__bAvt-LqhtuJzEPQwpasIBAs5uTtQdshm2Q4HMP_-7Wy1_EEjiM0gfhbQ9HHNuz40WKixYYiW24R44z4c1V2MWq7twSLWH2373ArKSt4R8mzO8__qLlpr5rxasSyzK-iZj77k/s1280/Cloud.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="1280" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkLBzJ1__bAvt-LqhtuJzEPQwpasIBAs5uTtQdshm2Q4HMP_-7Wy1_EEjiM0gfhbQ9HHNuz40WKixYYiW24R44z4c1V2MWq7twSLWH2373ArKSt4R8mzO8__qLlpr5rxasSyzK-iZj77k/w400-h300/Cloud.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;">But this walk has drawn me back to my childhood love of all the smells and textures of the natural world, the cool sense of countryside, going on and on, of things continuing that don’t need human intervention. (Although, perhaps <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/reference/extinct-species/">we now need to intervene</a> to preserve this process, rather than taking it for granted.) The walk to Forge Dam doesn’t stop my brain from working overtime, but it shifts the gears, soothes the process, and sifts out the stuff you shouldn’t sweat. </span></p>How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-10700234660679302452020-07-30T04:04:00.008-07:002020-07-31T00:04:44.885-07:00How do you invent a character?<p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO1aYZWnGV_AubifnSkjfS0FziWqOURMow7-BMTaKvx8uRV9ub50PxZV16ddaCXk2QPRS_R1SkZ3e7l238SmdkVwoXsvrpJxHgn5DyKLPbtijGUpdKnwIpSGpPn0GW3fmN1yCSYUcRyvY/s550/The+Scarlet+Pimpernel+2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="361" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO1aYZWnGV_AubifnSkjfS0FziWqOURMow7-BMTaKvx8uRV9ub50PxZV16ddaCXk2QPRS_R1SkZ3e7l238SmdkVwoXsvrpJxHgn5DyKLPbtijGUpdKnwIpSGpPn0GW3fmN1yCSYUcRyvY/d/The+Scarlet+Pimpernel+2.jpg" /></a></div><span><br /></span><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal">On the one hand, I can tell you what I normally say about this,
and offer links to numerous writers and pundits who have offered their thoughts
on the subject, and I can tell what my creative writing teaching shtick is on
this, and perhaps that is fair enough. How you invent a character, right there.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">On the other hand, don’t look at me. I literally have no idea.
Meaning, I am half-way through my fifth
novel at the moment and omigod. I find myself, on page 180 or wherever, looking
at my joint protagonists (for some reason, novel five has ended up with two
protagonists aged eight and fortyish, don’t even ask), and I have No Idea
whether they conform to want v. need, or the change, flat, negative or open ended
character arc. Worse, or is it worse, I can’t even make distinctions, I don’t
know what their hobbies are, their birth signs, favourite food, or where they
normally go on holiday. When I’m writing, they feel real, and they are doing
stuff, and I have made various discoveries about them. When I not writing, I
return to the various gurus I’ve consulted in the past, and panic. Are they
driving the action? How much agency do they have? What is their Lie? What is
putting this Lie under pressure? <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I tried to learn ballet when I was small, between the ages of six
and nine, I think. I was very, very bad at ballet. Not only uncoordinated, but
fundamentally psychologically and emotionally unsuited to the task. My motivation was the lure of appearing in the
yearly dance display at the Mitchell Memorial Theatre wearing a lovely, flowy
costume, this being the closest to being a fairy princess that a bookish speccy
was going to get. But between me and
that glittering goal were endless rehearsals, mostly not even wearing the
proper costume but just my boring leotard and the shoes that weren’t even
proper ballet shoes with blocks. Finally, for my very last performance, I tried
to focus. I practised, I twirled, I plied, I ran in graceful diagonals, looking
surprised (you were supposed to be see an imaginary puppy), I raised my arms
above my head in the exact shape that the ballet master modelled for us. My father, with his usual wry detachment,
observed that I was a ‘slave to technique’. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">We need technique, writers, dancers, artists of all kinds, but do
we need to be enslaved to it? That is the question. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Which brings me back to this: how do you invent a character? The
most helpful response I can give is that there isn’t one way. Sometimes, a
character appears almost fully formed before you even have a story – Baroness
Orczy claimed that she ‘saw’ her most famous character Sir Percy Blakeney, the
Scarlet Pimpernel, on an Underground station platform, like a sort of
conjuration. Sarah Waters said the two main characters in her novel <i>The
Paying Guests</i> needed to be capable of murder, and everything else about
them followed from that. Vikram Seth based the matriarch <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/writersroom/entries/e276de0f-c2a7-4a7e-8924-919ae6f2729d">Mrs Rupa Mehra in <i>A Suitable Boy</i></a> on his grandmother. David Copperfield is a proxy Dickens, and many writers
have taken a similar autobiographical approach, from Francois Sagan in <i>Bonjour,
Tristesse</i> to Sally Rooney in <i>Normal People</i>. In my first book, I
thought I would bypass autobiographical writing completely and wrote the
story from a man’s point of view, but actually, he was just the male equivalent
of me. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-outline-level: 2;">There is a huge amount of
advice out there, so if you do want some proper advice check out Linda Seger’s <i>Creating
Unforgettable Characters</i>, K.M. Weiland’s <i>Creating Character Arcs</i> or
the relevant chapters in James Wood’s <i>How Fiction Works</i>, John Mullan’s <i>How
Novels Work</i> or <i>Creative Writing: A Workbook with Readings</i>, published
by Routledge and The Open University. For some YouTube thoughts I recommend
Tyler Mowery’s Creating Characters <a href="https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Tyler+Mowery+creating+characters&cvid=8983429fe233401181de736a4931d789&PC=U531&ru=%2fsearch%3fq%3dTyler%2bMowery%2bcreating%2bcharacters%26cvid%3d8983429fe233401181de736a4931d789%26FORM%3dANNTA1%26PC%3dU531&view=detail&mmscn=vwrc&mid=6423DB39639A1FC9CB266423DB39639A1FC9CB26&FORM=WRVORC">Part one</a> and <a href="https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Tyler+Mowery+creating+characters&cvid=8983429fe233401181de736a4931d789&PC=U531&ru=%2fsearch%3fq%3dTyler%2bMowery%2bcreating%2bcharacters%26cvid%3d8983429fe233401181de736a4931d789%26FORM%3dANNTA1%26PC%3dU531&view=detail&mmscn=vwrc&mid=6423DB39639A1FC9CB266423DB39639A1FC9CB26&FORM=WRVORC">two</a><b><o:p></o:p></b></p><p class="MsoNormal">Another piece of advice would be to read as many different sorts
of novels and stories as possible, and let your mind fill up with them, rather
than consciously looking at how each writer tackles this great challenge. Feed
your intuition that way, and feel your way towards these people. I am reading
stories by Alice Munro at the moment, and you <i>experience</i> the characters
and their engagement with their world, rather than being able to say exactly
what they are like, or being able to summarize their character traits. Or
that’s how it seems to me. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">
</p><p class="MsoNormal">And with that, I sign off and go back to the half-written book,
and all those nuanced, nebulous, brain-twisting questions. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><br />How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-31661786400572865262020-07-15T13:54:00.007-07:002020-07-16T00:54:36.420-07:00Buddy movies and the writer's journey<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOTBoUmUNVZeAIwEgIiggm4JIBVvnOxQxVpkbbePrJ-2V3WZpDNFmGELPG2J6aoJ2ayAoXpxve9JNbqMQazOcp6qb-B3wK0_JnnvcqGkFvJhRpwr83S6jksmhGyWXg9ozhrzIZfMFQ0w0/s600/Thelma+2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="600" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOTBoUmUNVZeAIwEgIiggm4JIBVvnOxQxVpkbbePrJ-2V3WZpDNFmGELPG2J6aoJ2ayAoXpxve9JNbqMQazOcp6qb-B3wK0_JnnvcqGkFvJhRpwr83S6jksmhGyWXg9ozhrzIZfMFQ0w0/w400-h210/Thelma+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal">In a way, writing a novel is like being one half of a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_film">buddy movie</a>. At the start there is the sheer incompatibility/unfeasibility factor. You,
with your crowded, aching, gadfly brain, half-remembered micro-inspirations and
unfulfilled desires. The book, currently a void, not even a pile of paper yet,
as there is nothing to print out, not even some electronic symbols on a white
electric background because you actually have no idea what the hell it is even about.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a relationship that is never going
to work. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As you progress, it actually gets slightly worse. After any amount of time, but certainly after producing
30,000 of words, your self-belief undergoes a necessary
adjustment. You hit a wall. You nosedive. The words are shit. The idea might be
shit, but as yet, you are not even sure it is one. Innocence has been lost, and
you and the draft – a mean, truncated, ugly thing – stare at each other balefully.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Maybe you stop at this point and the buddy movie reaches a premature
end. <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/thelma_and_louise">Thelma and Louise</a> get a puncture when they are barely out of town, Louise
hasn’t shot anyone, Thelma hasn’t had the benefit of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000093/">Brad Pitt</a>, everything just
fizzles. The two women think ‘oh fuck it’ and go home, stuck in their frustrating lives. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Or maybe you carry on. The novel and you patch it up, decide
to make a go of things on the basis that neither of you are much good, certainly
nothing special, probably a lot worse than the other unwritten novels and their
disappointing authors. You grind away, tapping out the terrible stuff. The
novel looks on, sceptical. Sometimes you hack bits off the novel, the intolerably
irrelevant, the magisterially over-written. The novel shrinks and winces. But you
carry on. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This, sometimes, is when it starts to go quite well. You haven’t
finished yet, there are a thousand problems still to overcome, but you have reached
the part where Thelma and Louise are in their shades, and have just blown up an
oil tanker. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Emotional self-management doesn’t come naturally to most of
us. I grew up with the idea – based on Hollywood movies - that writing itself
was photogenic and intense, the demented author swigging bourbon while sitting at
the sweaty <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Remington_and_Sons#:~:text=Remington%20started%20production%20of%20their%20first%20typewriter%20on,to%20the%20popularity%20of%20the%20QWERTY%20layout.%20%5B7%5D">Remington</a>, writing into the small hours. By dawn, the novel would be
born, a work of genius, a book to change the world. One would expect no less
after such a harrowing engagement with the muse. </p><p class="MsoNormal">But actually, over the years, I
have come to accept that not only is writing itself a long game; the production
of each individual book or story is itself a multifaceted, time-hungry challenge,
and that one of the most difficult aspects of this is staying sane during the peculiar
period during which something that does not exist takes shape. Moods swing between
mania and zombie-like dejection. Wine tempts. Cake beckons. Twitter
glitters. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Self-control is essential at such times,</span> tedious strategies must be adopted: eating your greens, getting fresh air, not reading rave reviews of
recently published authors. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My most effective mental strategy is treating the novel like
my wrong buddy, the person I am least likely to get on with, my irritating flatmate.
Each day we take our places and we carry on. There are goodish days, there are
bad days, and eventually, there is a thing. The novel exists. What was once a tiny shimmer of possibility is something else now, usually much less pure and perfect in execution
than in imagination, but actually a thing. By managing expectations and checking
in each day, it is possible to reach this extraordinary place. If you
are lucky, it is the edge of the Grand Canyon and you have found the ending that is
the perfect exit for you and your now beloved buddy, your newly finished book. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p><br />How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-23731180175421489212020-06-24T09:56:00.020-07:002022-03-18T08:25:01.016-07:00Writing your lockdown novel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjxUtTSNtOL03_qTNRvVXRPRahHX8JaYf9dPXgM0ZN13g-EX5ZWxkHj_5-uG1VIb12_sCvpp3iPwOhWhhn0nNc5Ah7_hzetBBw2Z7pKm97Ia8Lr3GsYQBz5RX8fk2w5lCBjV70Jg0xE1qwekbrw_IViEhqLpOSxeQ5k6OCXU2J4wC_UjM3W8-wBY2nk=s1024" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="690" data-original-width="1024" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjxUtTSNtOL03_qTNRvVXRPRahHX8JaYf9dPXgM0ZN13g-EX5ZWxkHj_5-uG1VIb12_sCvpp3iPwOhWhhn0nNc5Ah7_hzetBBw2Z7pKm97Ia8Lr3GsYQBz5RX8fk2w5lCBjV70Jg0xE1qwekbrw_IViEhqLpOSxeQ5k6OCXU2J4wC_UjM3W8-wBY2nk=w400-h270" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Inter, sans-serif; text-align: start;">"</span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/23586209@N03/25462888680" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="--tw-blur: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter: var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-grayscale: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-inset: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-saturate: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-sepia: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-text-opacity: 1; --tw-transform: translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border-color: currentcolor; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: Inter, sans-serif; text-align: start; text-decoration: inherit;" target="_blank">Detail - Woman Writing a Letter, Gerard ter Borch, c.1655</a><span style="font-family: Inter, sans-serif; text-align: start;">" </span><span style="--tw-blur: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter: var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-grayscale: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-inset: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-saturate: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-sepia: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-transform: translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border-color: currentcolor; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #444444; font-family: Inter, sans-serif; text-align: start;">by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/23586209@N03" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="--tw-blur: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter: var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-grayscale: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-inset: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-saturate: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-sepia: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-text-opacity: 1; --tw-transform: translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border-color: currentcolor; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration: inherit;" target="_blank">Kotomi_</a></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Inter, sans-serif; text-align: start;"> is marked with </span><a class="uppercase" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/?ref=openverse" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="--tw-blur: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter: var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); --tw-grayscale: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-inset: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-saturate: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-sepia: var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-text-opacity: 1; --tw-transform: translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; border-color: currentcolor; border-style: solid; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #444444; font-family: Inter, sans-serif; text-align: start; text-decoration: inherit; text-transform: uppercase;" target="_blank">CC BY-NC 2.0</a><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Inter, sans-serif; text-align: start;">.</span></span></div><p class="MsoNormal">I am one of thousands of people who are writing a novel
draft during lockdown. (Let’s hope it’s not millions, but who knows?) The peace
and quiet, the sense of a global pause, the endless home-based hours – for those
without onerous family responsibilities, this seemed like a golden opportunity.
Still seems like it, as ‘lockdown’ segues into ‘period of confusion’. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With a partner better at cooking than I am, a furloughed
adult son and a newly part-time job, it certainly seemed like a good time to
me. And still does, even though I have no idea how far to stand away
from other humans outside my current bubble, or whether I should mask-up to go
to Waitrose. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So what is the story now? I teach creative writing, this is
my fifth novel, I am half-way through the first draft. I hesitate to call myself an expert, because
writing is so peculiar, and each book so different from the last. By the end of
any novel, you are generally an expert on that novel, but not necessarily on any
other novels you might write. And I’m also the kind of writer who – foolishly,
perhaps – writes novels that are dissimilar. I don’t even stay in the same
historical period. (That is definitely not a smart move, so my future books may
well be set in the Victorian age, like my current Work In Progress.) But I am
past the ingenue stage. I know what doesn’t work, for me, at least. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Writing blind</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is the approach in which you just slam the words down, in
the spirit of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kerouac">Jack Kerouac.</a> You don’t look back, you don’t read your draft before
starting work each day, you just get the darn words down. The file on your computer
grows, there are lots of words there. Therefore, you are a writer. There is
something to be said for this, because all writing has its use, and this may
help you establish a writing habit. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But the reason I know it doesn’t work for me is that I end up with a lot of pages and no story. And the germ of the idea – what the tarot calls
‘the scent of the undertaking’ seems to have been drowned in the wrong words, it’s
in there somewhere, but I don’t know how to find it. Both <a href="https://www.gavingillespie.co.uk/">D.H. Lawrence</a> and <a href="http://hgwellssociety.com/">H.G.Wells</a> used to write a new draft from scratch, rather than editing the existing
one, and I wonder if this is because they had that feeling, that they had to have
a blank sheet to imagine the story freshly. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Working to a plot outline</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’ve tried this too, bruised from the experience of churning
out words. But the problem with this, for me, is that I don’t want to know too
much more than my characters do. I have to experience their problems and issues
from their point of view, and see how they resolve things. If I already know, and
have just put the problem there so I can fill some pages, then the energy goes
out of it. The well-balanced approach is to have a rough plot outline, or plot
ideas that you think will work, provisionally, but which are subject to adjustment.
<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Being a perfectionist<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">People sometimes think that perfectionism is a desirable quality,
because it means that someone has high standards. But there are no standards which
can deliver perfection – there is no such thing as perfection in human life. No
perfect novel has ever been written, not even <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-great-gatsby/f-scott-fitzgerald/tony-tanner/9780141182636">The Great Gatsby</a>, which sometimes
attracts that kind of praise. And even if your finished novel is going to be a
work of genius, it has to be allowed to be rubbish at first go. (As Ernest
Hemingway famously put it: ‘The first draft of anything is shit.’) So your novel-in-progress
will often feel as if it is no good. That is its prerogative. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Talking too much</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I once heard <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/edna-o-brien-i-ll-be-90-this-year-i-d-like-to-write-one-more-book-1.4265953">Edna O’Brien</a> describing the way young Irish writers
sometimes go to the pub and talk their books into oblivion, carried away by the Guinness
and the craic. I am a talker myself, if I get excited I want to share
what I am working on. Currently, I am keen to bore the partner and adult son with
highlights from the life and times of H.G Wells, and they are quite keen not to
listen. That kind of stuff is fine, as is sharing drafts with other writers if that
works for you – the quid pro quo element helps, you feed back on
their work and they feed back on yours and it all feels like part of a process. But
talking endlessly about your characters and plot can kill an idea, make it seem
almost not worth writing. I try and keep quiet if I can, and jot notes down rather
than talking. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Impatience</b><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This relates to the over-talking issue, because sometimes I want
to talk because I want the story to be out there, and I know it will be months,
if not years, before that happens. Novels are like lives or relationships, they
have phases, seasons, moods, good and bad days, periods when they seem to be spinning
down the vortex of your self-destruction (or maybe that is just me), periods of
euphoria and hope. What I try to do, at the point I am at now, with 40,000
words down and 40,000 very much to go, is focus on the provisional nature of
the writing. I try and keep a balance between clarity and wild imagination, focusing
on that first glimmer that made me want to write it in the first place, but
also thinking clearly about how that can best be dramatized and live. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’ve just had the first half printed out (at our local,
newly reopened print shop), read it through in hard copy, covered it in notes
and corrections, and am ready to move on to the second half. I find that doing it
this way stops me from becoming anally obsessed with editing paragraphs and polishing
sentences. The editing that happens at that point is about story, more than
style. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Does it work? Is this how you write a novel? I’ll let you
know. I think it’s probably how I will write this one. For now, it’s onwards and sideways,
following this weird thing where it needs to go. <o:p></o:p></p><br />How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-47013065360896477892020-06-15T09:44:00.027-07:002020-06-16T02:18:33.522-07:00My top five writing guides<br />It’s week 13 of lockdown in the UK and my energy levels are definitely beginning to flag. What seemed like a welcome pause in frenetic 21st century living - for those of us lucky enough to be in work and in reasonable accommodation - now feels like a prolonged period of uncertainty tinged with paranoia. Not the best situation for writing, perhaps, and I know many people are struggling to get words on the screen or page. <br /><br />But it’s also true that writers have been producing work in adverse circumstances since whenever, whether personal or political or a mixture of the two. Virginia Woolf struggled with her mental health, George Orwell with TB, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Himes">Chester Himes </a>(author of <i>A Rage in Harlem</i>) started writing and publishing fiction while serving eight years in prison for armed robbery. <br /><br />So, it’s time to reboot, recharge the batteries and return to the Work in Progress. These are five books that have helped cheer me on, over the years, and I’d recommend them to anyone, at any stage of the writing process. <div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFrIsQ3-mool3v9-iDzytBz59zOzvP7pdtABUJuzK0N4q_nmDQFdmlQ4gTAoal3bc4oHndsEUBf9wLWS-aqBc4Fud-gZiQKLzZg2lTigmZenuqzhxsGpwsEDtHLZPYM0VWYrqJMG2Ki0s/s1024/Geneva+dawn.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFrIsQ3-mool3v9-iDzytBz59zOzvP7pdtABUJuzK0N4q_nmDQFdmlQ4gTAoal3bc4oHndsEUBf9wLWS-aqBc4Fud-gZiQKLzZg2lTigmZenuqzhxsGpwsEDtHLZPYM0VWYrqJMG2Ki0s/w400-h300/Geneva+dawn.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></span></i></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif;"><font size="2">Geneva Dawn </font></span><font size="2"><span data-v-106f2c17="" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif;">by Nouhailler</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "source sans pro", sans-serif;"> is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0</span></font></i></div><br /><br />1. <i>On Writing; A Memoir of the Craft</i>, Stephen King <br /><br />Wonderfully down to earth, filled with King’s own experiences of the highs and lows of writing, and pithy advice about getting started and keeping going. Busts the myth about alcohol fuelling great writing, too. The account of his near-fatal accident is as vivid and shocking as you would expect from this master story teller. A favourite with experienced writers as well as newcomers. <br /><br />2. <i>The Art of Fiction</i>, David Lodge <br /><br />Lodge gives a clear overview of the elements of writing, from Beginning to Ending, and taking in Suspense, Interior Monologue, Defamiliarization, Weather, Fancy Prose and Magic Realism along the way. Elegantly written, and with a short extract at the start of each section which illustrates the point being made. A book to dip into again and again – my copy is bulging with Post-It notes. <br /><br />3. <i>Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew</i>, Ursula le Guin <br /><br />Le Guin is best known as a science fiction writer, but this book is invaluable to writers in any genre. It’s just as useful to writers working alone as those in a creative writing class, and the playful tone makes it accessible and easy to refer to. I love the passion and commitment that informs this book. As Le Guin says: ‘To make something well is to give yourself to it, to seek wholeness, to follow spirit.’ <br /><br />4<i>. <a href="https://www.johnyorkestory.com/thebook/#:~:text=In%20his%20bestselling%20book%20Into,make%20sense%20of%20the%20world.">Into the Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them</a></i><a href="https://www.johnyorkestory.com/thebook/#:~:text=In%20his%20bestselling%20book%20Into,make%20sense%20of%20the%20world.">, John Yorke</a><a href="" name="https://www.johnyorkestory.com/thebook/"> </a><br /><br />Yorke is a screenwriter and drama producer, and this book is filled with references to story and narrative on the screen. But his insights are extremely useful to fiction writers too. Here he looks at the fundamentals of storytelling and the reasons that there are so many common elements to a compelling story.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0UZHUnB5pQ"> Here is an example of York at work, speaking to employees at Google </a><a href="" id="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/184825.The_Right_to_Write" name="https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=john+yorke+at+google&docid=608016366511194563&mid=4DD8A1FB25637F4B72BC4DD8A1FB25637F4B72BC&view=detail&FORM=VIRE"><br /></a><br />5. <i>The Right to Write</i>, Julia Cameron <br /><br />Cameron is a passionate advocate of the writing process as a form of self-discovery. I find her approach borderline hippie at times, but it works. One of the approaches she advocates is writing morning pages when you wake up – this is not easy, particularly if like me you aren’t much of an early bird. (I am borderline dynamic after 8.30 am, pretty much slug-like any earlier than this. I can just about manage a masochistic bout of yoga, but thinking is out). <br /><br />Reading any of these books is a reminder that writing, while not necessarily fun, is a sustaining, grounding process if you approach it with patience and commitment. Top tip: try to avoid thinking about agents, publishers, Twitter storms and The Voices while you are engaged in writing. See you writing space as a place apart, where you can think and write what you like. That works for me, and it may well work for you.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div>How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-42369312437366854422020-05-13T07:04:00.001-07:002020-05-13T07:04:33.472-07:00How to be a great writer<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colette">Colette</a></div>
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<br />This website is dedicated to helping writers write, avoiding the how-to-actually-write in favour of the how-to-actually-be. Today, inspired, frustrated, maddened, whatever, by lockdown, I have branched out into how to be not just a writer, but a great one. Because, let’s face it, none of us want to mess about. <br /><br />1. Ignore all fashions, facts and the <a href="https://twitter.com/sallyoreilly">Twitter</a> zeitgeist.<br /><br />2. Read everything possible – good, bad, current, classic, in every genre. <br /><br />3. Become a word-nerd, read poetry aloud, peruse the dictionary, memorize brilliant sentences.<br /><br />4. Have an unhappy childhood.<br /><br />5. Either a. give up drinking alcohol or b. become an alcoholic. Moderation is the enemy of genius.<br /><br />6. Write first thing in the morning, for at least half an hour. Don’t stop to brush your teeth.<br /><br />7. Fall in love unrequitedly. Take notes.<br /><div>
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8. Fall in love requitedly, then fall out of love, by very gradual degrees. Take copious notes.</div>
<br />9. Be extremely selfish and sacrifice your family and friends to Art when necessary, or if you feel like it.<br /><br />10. Ignore all lists: they are for mediocrities.
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-5850946596955803742020-05-08T08:38:00.000-07:002020-05-08T08:41:34.843-07:00Living la vida lockdown<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Tense, moi? Apparently not. All my life I have been a hypochondriac,
a worrier, awfulizer and general unease generator, and now here I am, locked
down in a pandemic. I seemed to be the only person to get into a serious
anxiety state about the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/02/09/bird.flu.timeline/">bird flu outbreak in 2004</a>, eventually only able to sleep
at night when I bought some Tamiflu from a Canadian website for £400, which I
could not actually afford. I kept it under the stairs, mindful of the fact that
when it All Kicked Off, my neighbours might murder me to get their hands on it
if I revealed its whereabouts. (It was for <i>my </i>kids<i>,</i> not theirs, I had
totally embraced the whole<a href="https://screenrant.com/terminator-sarah-connor-facts/"> Sarah Connor/Terminator mindse</a>t.) I threw it out two
years later when we moved house. By then I was panicking about something else.
And yet, weirdly, here we are in an actual dystopian movie styled by Waitrose
food magazine, and I am completely calm.<br />
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Perhaps this is because I feel my constant fearfulness has
now been vindicated. Things really were going to get this bad, and the well-adjusted
optimists were wrong. Or perhaps because I have the perfect lock-down
personality – unsociable, introverted and bookish. This time last year, I was on a train to Manchester,
off to run a historical fiction conference, busy, busy, busy. Now I’ve started
working part time at a point when the entire planet feels as if it has taken
the same decision. There is stillness with the worry. There is birdsong outside
the window, I’ve even heard owls hooting.<br />
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And yes, I do find I can focus on writing. I don’t write for hours, I do about two or three hours on my non-work days. My strategies, such as they are: limiting doom-scrolling; drinking one small glass of wine a day; walking in the evening (as seen in the photo - wonderful <a href="http://www.endcliffepark.co.uk/">Endcliffe Park in Sheffield</a>) and postponing a self-improving assault on Massive Novels in favour of short stories and poetry. (Still don’t really know <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/20/how-to-read-poetry-like-a-professor-thomas-foster">how to read poetry</a>, still staring at the words the way I used to look at pictures in galleries or art movies where nothing happens, waiting for someone to give me the explanation.) </div>
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Also, I don't understand the urge to read <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/nov/04/featuresreviews.guardianreview4">The Road</a> or <a href="https://lithub.com/what-we-can-learn-and-should-unlearn-from-albert-camuss-the-plague/">La Peste</a> at this point in time; I am definitely in the <a href="https://barbara-pym.org/">Barbara Pym</a> comfort reading camp, although usually I don't *get* her novels. Vicars, quietly chic heroines, teashops in the 1950s - her books are the literary equivalent of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_British_Bake_Off">Bake Off</a>, but with a tincture of astringency. Just the job, unfettered feel-good makes me uneasy.</div>
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This is not advice - what works for me may be hell for other people - but I feel strangely functional. Lockdown might be scary, but for those of us who aren't on the frontline it is a chance to let
things settle somehow, and that can't be bad. <br />
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-26008165260505618112019-04-23T03:55:00.000-07:002020-05-07T02:52:10.656-07:00Who was Shakespeare’s Dark Lady?<br />
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William Shakespeare is 455 today – cause for national celebration. Except, we don’t actually know if he was born on April 23 1564, only that his birth was registered on April 26 1564, and it is reasonable to suppose he was born three or four days previously.<br /><br />Assembling <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/william-shakespeare/william-shakespeare-biography/">Shakespeare’s biography</a> is an inexact science, based on a few surviving written records, and the content of his plays. We are lucky that most of his works have survived, and arguably this is more important that the identity and actions of one man in the late 16th and early 17th century. Yet there is an enduring obsession with who he was and why he wrote what he did. For example, were the sonnets inspired by real love affairs? If so, who were the lovers in question? Was the Fair Youth – to whom his most romantic sonnets were addressed – the Earl of Southampton? And who was the Dark Lady, the alleged inspiration for his darker, more overtly sexual love poetry (sonnets 127- 152). The object of his passion is a woman with black, wiry hair, and dark, dun coloured skin. This was not the conventional description of a beautiful woman at the time, when the ideal was pale skin and golden hair. Was she a real person, or a poetic convention? <div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
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William Shakespeare, Chandos portrait</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">(Wikipedia, Creative Commons)</span></div>
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<br />The sonnets dedicated to this mysterious woman are anguished and passionate, and suggest that the poet is in the grip of a painful sexual obsession. Who might have inspired such writing? There is a long list of potential candidates, and new possibilities are still coming to light. For example, in 2013 Aubrey Burl, a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, suggested that <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/william-shakespeare/9758184/Has-Shakespeares-dark-lady-finally-been-revealed.html">the Dark Lady wasAline Florio, the wife of an Italian translator</a>. <br /><br />Other candidates include Marie Mountjoy, the wife of Christopher Mountjoy, a costume maker and Shakespeare’s landlord in Silver Street; Jane Davenant, wife to Oxford tavern keeper John Davenant, whose son William claimed to be Shakespeare’s son and Jacqueline Field, the wife of Stratford-born Richard Field who printed Shakespeare’s poetry. Very little is known about any of these women beyond the fact they would have come into contact with Shakespeare. Another possibility is <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2194176/Dark-Lady-Shakespeares-sonnets-finally-revealed-London-prostitute-called-Lucy-Negro.html">Lucy Morgan</a>, who is thought to have been one of Queen Elizabeth I’s ladies-in-waiting, and may also have been ‘Lucy Negra’, a prostitute. The name ‘Negra’ suggests that she was of African descent. (How and why she lost status so dramatically is not known.) In his 1977 novel <a href="https://www.anthonyburgess.org/anthony-burgess-and-shakespeare/nothing-like-the-sun-a-story-of-shakespeares-love-life/">‘Nothing Like the Sun’</a> Antony Burgess suggests that Lucy Negra is Shakespeare’s muse, but her role is anything but decorous – both she and Shakespeare are infected with syphilis and the affair has tragic consequences for them both.<br /><br />More conventionally, scholars have suggested that the Dark Lady must have been a female aristocrat, a woman with wealth and status. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/editor/The-Editors-of-Encyclopaedia-Britannica/4419">Mary Fitton</a> (1578 – 1647) was a well-known lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth. She had affairs several men including with William Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke. George Bernard Shaw makes Fitton the Dark Lady in his play ‘The Dark Lady of the Sonnets’ (1910). The most privileged of all possible Dark Ladies is<a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lady-Penelope-Rich"> Penelope Devereux</a> (1563- 1607), who married Robert Rich, but had a notorious affair with Charles Blount, Baron Mountjoy, and eventually divorced Rich and married Blount in an unlicensed ceremony. Devereux had blonde hair, a point against her perhaps, but dark eyes, and was certainly an inspiration for other poets.<br /><br /><br />Only one candidate for role of Dark Lady was herself a writer: <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/aemilia-lanyer">Aemilia Lanyer</a>, one of the first women to be published professionally as a poet in England. Her poetry collection ‘Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum’ includes a justification of Eve and a retelling of the Crucifixion from the point of view of the women in the New Testament. Published in 1611, it is dedicated to a number of aristocratic women, including Queen Anne, the wife of James I. This is the way in which a professional male poet would introduce his work, and Lanyer’s volume is the only surviving example of a woman writing in this way at such an early date.<br /><br /><br /><div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Portrait of lady who may be Aemilia Lanyer, Nicholas Hilliard</span></div>
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Lanyer was the illegitimate child of Jewish immigrant musicians who played at the Tudor court; her father died when she was seven. At seventeen she became the mistress of the Lord Chamberlain, Henry Carey; six years later she was pregnant and married off to a cousin, Alfonso Lanyer. A gambler and spendthrift, her husband spent her dowry in a year. Lanyer was a client of the astrologer and physician Simon Forman, who recorded her enquiries about summoning demons in his journal. Her life has inspired a number of novels, including my own <a href="https://myriadeditions.com/books/dark-aemilia/">‘Dark Aemilia’</a> (2014) and the stage play <a href="https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/whats-on/emilia-2019/">‘Emilia’</a> by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, showing at the Vaudeville Theatre, London (8 March – 15 June 2019) .<br /><br />It's unlikely that we will ever know the true identity of the Dark Lady. But we can be sure of one thing: as long as Shakespeare’s plays are staged and his poetry is read, the speculation will continue.</div>
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-71086032525487801862019-01-16T10:35:00.000-08:002020-05-07T02:54:34.079-07:00Talking on the page<a href="https://pixabay.com/en/britain-cab-car-city-classic-england-gro-19228/" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #0a88d3; cursor: pointer; font-family: &quot; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; orphans: 2; outline-color: invert; outline-style: none; outline-width: 0px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><img alt="Britain Cab Car City Classic England Group" data-lazy-srcset="https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2012/02/29/15/54/britain-19228__340.jpg 1x, https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2012/02/29/15/54/britain-19228__480.jpg 2x" data-lazy="https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2012/02/29/15/54/britain-19228__340.jpg" height="266" src="https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2012/02/29/15/54/britain-19228__340.jpg" style="border: 0px rgb(10, 136, 211); display: block; height: 265.69px; margin: 0px; width: 472px;" width="472" /></a><br />
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Stoke is one of those spread-out sort of places the Midlands specialises in, pedestrians aren't well catered for. And I don't drive. So when I go up there, I am often in a taxi. There is no half way house with the taxi drivers, they are either wildly cheerful or utterly lugubrious. Here is a recent conversation between a taxi driver and me. I'd just spend the weekend at my Mum's and called a taxi firm called Sid's to take me to the station. It was a Monday morning, average in every way, not overdoing the weather.<br />
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Taxi arrives.<br />
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Driver says traffic terrible and sticks ‘Sids’ stickers to side of car (?)<br />
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I ask him to help me take off my backpack and put it in the boot with my wheelie suitcase. He does this, not happy to be asked.<br />
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We get in the taxi.<br />
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I say something about the traffic, ask if many people are going to the station<br />
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Driver - You are my first station job this morning.<br />
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Me - Oh, weird, wonder why it’s so busy on a Monday then? I thought it might be people going off to London or something. <br />
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Driver - I’ve been doing my own jobs up till now.<br />
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Me - Oh?<br />
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Driver - The day is already ruined.<br />
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Me - Why is that?</div>
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Driver - I’ve been trying to sort out an M & S suit for my daughter’s wedding. And I had these tests at the GP surgery. They phoned me up today, said it was nothing to worry about, got to come in in a couple of weeks and have some other tests, and the wife is there, asking me questions, so I can’t hear what they are saying. Then when I ring off, she’s like, why didn’t you ask this and that? So I lost it completely, and I said, well next time I’ll get them to speak to you and not bother speaking to me, and threw the phone at her.</div>
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Me - Oh dear.<br />
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Driver - So that’s it. The thing is, it’s my wife’s birthday and we were going to go for a nice meal after we’d collected the suit. And now that’s all off, she’s deep in cleaning now, not going anywhere. There’s no going back now. </div>
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Me - When women do the cleaning instead of going out for lunch it’s normally a sign of protest.<br />
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Driver - It’s all ruined. She’s not speaking to me.<br />
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Me - Can’t you unruin it somehow?<br />
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Driver - There’s no going back. <br />
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-132913136834999762018-09-03T11:46:00.002-07:002018-09-03T12:20:20.694-07:00The Mindful Writer<div style="text-align: left;">
So you want to be a writer? According to popular mythology, all you need to do is hole up for a weekend or three, drink copious amounts of coffee and/or smoke a lot of cigarettes and put pen to paper. Words of genius will instantly pour out of you. After that comes The Auction, which will make you rich, and The Film Deal, which will make you famous. For impatient binge writers, there is plenty of advice out there, from writing a novel in a month (<a href="https://nanowrimo.org/">NaNoWriMo</a>) to producing a book in a weekend.<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Published under the Creative Commons licence.<br />Site: Rubin Museum of Art, Date 22 October 2017, Author FMdesign (Frank Murray)</span><br />
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But what about the pain and pleasure of writing itself? Or the pure love of invention? And the way that writing, like meditation, can help you find your personal equilibrium? Writing is in many ways the ultimate mindful occupation and recording your thoughts regularly can help transform your life. You don’t have to be a Buddhist to reap the rewards. The essential point is that each day you check in with your work, and each day you learn something from it. Writers have been talking about this for decades, and yet somehow the idea of the lone author instantaneously producing work of undiluted genius is an enduring fantasy. Such outpourings do happen, but only after years of apprenticeship to the craft and discipline of writing. </div>
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As <a href="http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/a-writers-diary.html">Virginia Woolf</a> wrote in her diary: ‘What one wants for writing is habit...It loosens the ligaments. Never mind the misses and the stumbles. Going at such a pace as I do must make the most direct and instant shots at my object, and thus have to lay hands on words, choose them and shoot them with no more pause than is needed to put my pen in the ink. I believe that during the past year I can trace some increase of ease in my professional writing which I attribute to my casual half hours after tea.’ The trouble with our own ‘casual half hours after tea’ is that such practice can seem more like limbering up for a marathon we will never be asked to run than an activity which is valuable for its own sake. The besetting issue for most writers is that their work is only validated by publication – or so it seems. Until then, writing is a mere hobby, and we are struggling amateurs. </div>
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But there is so much to enjoy. Each stage has its own rewards, even the supposedly preparatory and relatively uncreative period of research, as the novelist <a href="http://www.bbk.ac.uk/english/our-staff/full-time-academic-staff/marina-warner">Marina Warner</a> has observed – she finds the smell of book dust inspiring and libraries give her a sense of escape. In fact, it’s my experience that research is essential to the creative process, allowing ideas to connect with our imagination and find their own strange logic. We don’t have great canvases to splatter with oil paint, or the thrill of mixing colours, but we do have the tactile reality of paper, books and pens, the fascination of field trips and research interviews and the excitement of serendipitous discovery: the way that a single object can invoke a whole world. Writing is a physical activity as well as a mental one, and every day can be a discovery.<br />
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<img border="0" height="400" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a2/Virunga_National_Park_Landscape.jpg/1024px-Virunga_National_Park_Landscape.jpg" width="394" /><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Published under the Creative Commons licence User: (WT-shared) Cai at wts wikivoyage - Own work, <br />Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23279837</span><br />
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There is also something restorative and exciting about tapping into your unconscious, developing ideas that are rooted in your obsessions or memories. All artists work with both the external world and their internal consciousness, and this is one of elements of the creative process that is difficult to describe – my view is that each writer will find their own way of combining these elements to a lesser or greater degree, and they will find these solutions via a process of trial and error and experimentation. No agent or editor can tell you how this works, and it’s an innately private and personal matter in the first instance. Notebooks and daily writing help the process along. Author and writing guru <a href="https://juliacameronlive.com/">Julia Cameron</a> advocates writing ‘morning pages’ first thing each day, and many writers make this part of their practice. One such writer is <a href="http://hilary-mantel.com/">Hilary Mantel</a>: ‘At this hour one writes easily, without strain or effort,’ she writes. ‘There is no sense of the words being graven in stone, or that sense of making a commitment that can be so paralysing. Sometimes what is written at this hour isn’t used, but is invariably free from constraint.’ (The Agony and the Ego, Clare Boylan, 1993).</div>
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This communing with you inner self isn’t necessarily spiritual, but has some similarity with yoga practice or morning prayer – it’s a way of getting beyond ‘dailyness’ and finding patterns and symbols that have meaning. And this meaning may be personal in the first instance, but can ultimately be communicated to other people. Creative writers often undervalue this part of the process, and there can be a sense of pressure to rush towards completion. But this is short sighted – and prevents us from working to our fullest potential. We can learn from the process of visual artists, who see process as an integral part of their daily life as well as a component of each finished work. <a href="https://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/grayson_perry.htm">GraysonPerry</a> describes his creative process as his ‘mental shed’ which gives him a sense of security and a safe place from which to look out of a window ‘onto the world’. </div>
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My favourite writing space is a moving train, looking out at a passing world. This makes me feel as if my writing is moving too, and what I write is delible and malleable, like Hilary Mantel’s dawn drafts. This creative sketching is a way of finding a pattern without imposing one, of evolving a loose logic that determines its own shapes and connections. Raw experience, random impressions, childhood memory, all of this can be forgotten and revisited, twisted and repurposed. At its best, this process can take us into the ‘zone’ in which we transcend the limitations of self and find an equilibrium that allows our creative imagination to flourish, disappearing into our own ideas. Rather than rushing this period of our writing process, surely we should cherish it, and learn how to nurture our developing ideas. Not only does this benefit our finished work, it is a life enhancing process in itself. </div>
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(Based on an article I first published in Bookanista http://bookanista.com/mindful-writer/)</div>
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How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-80852657871592928092018-08-12T09:42:00.002-07:002018-08-12T14:29:55.545-07:00Three books that inspire meI don't know how many books I've read in my life, but I do know that I was an avid reader from the age of five. The books I first loved were about magic and adventure, and I developed a passion for Roman warfare as a result of reading <a href="https://rosemarysutcliff.com/">Rosemary Sutcliff.</a> I still love historical fiction, though I can't remember much about shield deployment in a battlefield context. <br />
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<b>Childhood favourite</b><br />
My common law step-grandfather gave me a boxed set of all the Narnia books when I was seven. I loved and re-reread them all, but the one that blew me away was <i>The Magician’s Nephew</i>, by <a href="http://www.cslewis.com/uk/">C.S. Lewis</a>, the tale of two Victorian children who travel back to the Genesis of Narnia. (I had yet to make the discovery that all of these books were Christian allegories, though very little seems to be under the radar when I look back on them now.)<br />
<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjVhav37-fcAhXpyYUKHTzdDcUQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2FMagicians-Nephew-Chronicles-Narnia-Book%2Fdp%2F0006716830&psig=AOvVaw21wN_Y7TJjJeVq5cN-ZpsW&ust=1534175682385458"><br /></a><a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjVhav37-fcAhXpyYUKHTzdDcUQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2FMagicians-Nephew-Chronicles-Narnia-Book%2Fdp%2F0006716830&psig=AOvVaw21wN_Y7TJjJeVq5cN-ZpsW&ust=1534175682385458"><img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51X89BGQCJL._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" /></a><br />
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What I liked best was the evocation of lost London, in particular the attics that connected a row of tall houses, and the way in which Lewis boldly describes Creation, with Aslan breathing the new Narnia into being. It seemed that anything was possible, anything could be described in a book, and I found that so exciting.</div>
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<b>All-time recommendation</b><br />
It’s impossible to be accurate about this, as these things do shift around as you find new things, but I keep coming back to <a href="https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/10-things-you-didn-t-know-about-emily-brontë/">Emily Bronte</a>’s <i>Wuthering Heights</i>, which recently took a bit of a drubbing among some of my Facebook friends for its poor plot structure. There is a danger in teaching creative writing that you might suggest that there are absolutes in writing, when I would say there are just two – read a lot and write a lot – and this book is proof of that.<br />
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This is what I wrote on Facebook in its defence: ‘It's not a sensible book at all, but so mad and intense that it creates its own weird magic space, unlike anything. CB's books, crazed as they are, are positively Austen-like in their restraint compared to this one.’ What stays with me from this book is its character, the moor, the intensity of teenage passion, something bleak and mysterious that doesn’t make any sense. It’s my ultimate recommendation (today) because of this – few writers can communicate the essence of obsession and contrariness as Emily Bronte does in this book. And I also actually love the Russian doll structure, tales within tales, the enjoyment in a story told by a fireside with the wind howling outside.<br />
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<b>What I'm reading now</b><br />
I’m currently reading <i>Reality Hunger</i> by <a href="https://davidshields.com/">David Shields</a>, which is opening my eyes to the extent to which my own genre of writing, historical fiction, overlaps with creative nonfiction as well as fiction. I’d describe this book as an opinion-starter, and it’s a bit ‘novel is dead’ (or at least in intensive care) for my taste. <br />
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<a href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj3gOel8efcAhXQyYUKHWdZDigQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2FReality-Hunger-Manifesto-David-Shields%2Fdp%2F0141049073&psig=AOvVaw3n8GmdeFr5CorlU9jH8DXy&ust=1534176006366496"><img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51svJreH3QL._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" /></a><br />
I think the novel, literary or generic, will absorb all comers – the success of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/11/karl-ove-knausgaard-interview-spring-my-struggle">Karl Ove Knausgaard</a>’s maximalist <i>My Struggle</i> series is an example of fiction that encompasses many of the tropes and conventions of nonfiction.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">A version of this post originally appeared on the English and Creative Writing Department's blog at the Open University. http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/english/category/reading-pleasures/ </span></i>How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-9636361061170485652018-07-31T00:57:00.001-07:002020-05-14T10:24:54.876-07:00Five women forgotten by historyI'm attracted by the stories of lesser-known people in history, left out of the established historical record because of their race, their social status or their gender. Here are five examples of women marginalised by history whose lives were fascinating, and whose achievements were astonishing. One of them, Aemilia Lanyer, is the inspiration for my novel <i>Dark Aemilia</i>.<br />
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<b>Trota of Salerno</b> was a 12th century Italian medical practitioner and writer. She was famous in her own time, but her work was forgotten until the late 20th century. Her treatise <i>On Treatments for Women</i> was incorporated into the <a href="http://blog.wellcomelibrary.org/2015/08/speaking-of-trotula/">Trotula</a>, which was a compendium of three different works about women’s medicine by three different writers. There are only a handful of copies of her authentic work. No other information about her life has survived, but we know she wrote the<i> Practica secundum Trotam</i> ('Practical Medicine According to Trota'), which covers a variety of different medical topics, from infertility and menstrual disorders to snakebite and cosmetics.<br />
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<b>Aemilia Bassano Lanyer,</b> the first woman to be published professionally as a poet in England, was born to a family of Jewish Venetian musicians who played at the court of Henry VIII in the sixteenth century. She was the mistress of Lord Hunsden, the Lord Chamberlain, for six years. After that, she was married off to a cousin, and lived in Westminster. In 1611, she published her proto feminist poetry collection <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/emilia-laniers-salve-deus-rex-judaeorum-1611">‘Salve Jesu, Rex Judaeorum’</a>. She is thought by some academics to be the mysterious ‘Dark Lady’ to whom William Shakespeare addressed his later sonnets.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiier0QTz4Do782UhVTIfRs-V8quAz_3iPaJPFk_MjNpNOczmMyY4IsOZZQJwqJ2q9FYpYtpYu0-WDMjj6xzxEHtF16zoSjIpIEv4pOY7LCoDBAIqdodCK5Lb2bjiBMAC5QGn3V3dpn3gU/s1600/Nicholas_Hilliard+Aemilia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiier0QTz4Do782UhVTIfRs-V8quAz_3iPaJPFk_MjNpNOczmMyY4IsOZZQJwqJ2q9FYpYtpYu0-WDMjj6xzxEHtF16zoSjIpIEv4pOY7LCoDBAIqdodCK5Lb2bjiBMAC5QGn3V3dpn3gU/s320/Nicholas_Hilliard+Aemilia.jpg" width="271" /></a></div>
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Excerpt of a miniature portrait of Aemilia Lanyer</div>
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Painted by Nicholas Hilliard (d. 1619) (<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nicholas_Hilliard_010.jpg">Source Wikimedia</a>) </div>
<br /><br /><b>Maria Anna Mozart</b> was the sister of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/artists/b972f589-fb0e-474e-b64a-803b0364fa75">Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart</a>. When she was seven years old, her father Leopold started teaching her to play the harpsichord. He took her and Wolfgang to cities like Vienna and Paris where they performed at court. In the early days, Maria sometimes received top billing, and she was noted as an excellent harpsichord player and forte pianist. But when she grew older and was of marriageable age, she was excluded from these performances. There is evidence that Marianne wrote musical compositions, as there are letters from Wolfgang praising her work, but none has survived. <b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br />
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Maria Anna Mozart, Anonymous, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Anna_Mozart </div>
<br /><b>Mary Elizabeth Bowser</b> was an an American <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedman">freed slave</a> who worked as a Union spy during he Civil War. Bowser was highly intelligent and had a photographic memory, and posed as 'Ellen Bond', a slow-thinking servant. She worked at functions held by Varina Davis, the wife of the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis. Bowser eventually worked in the Davis household. She memorised all the paperwork she saw and the conversations she overheard, relaying this back to the Union side. Bowser was eventually found out, but before she fled she attempted to burn down the Confederate White House. After the war ended, the federal government destroyed any records of evidence of espionage in order to protect those involved. Bowser did keep a journal about her life, but was lost in 1952. There is no record of her later life, or her death. <br /><br /><b>Irena Sendler </b>was a Polish nurse and social worker who served in the Polish Underground during World War II. As head of the children's section of the resistance organisation Zegota in German occupied Warsaw, she helped smuggle some 2,500 Jewish children out of the <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005069">Warsaw Ghetto,</a> providing them with false identity documents and housing outside the Ghetto. She was eventually caught by the Nazis and sentenced to death, but managed to escape execution and survive the war. In 1965 she was recognised by the State of Israel as Righteous among Nations and honoured by the Polish government for her humanitarian work.<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br />
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How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-9976277884686347782018-07-26T00:49:00.000-07:002020-05-07T03:22:16.817-07:00Keeping a notebookHow does an idea become a story? It’s hard to define or describe the process. The relationship between creativity and physicality is one that we sometimes overlook. But the physical process of writing is essential to the development of fiction. The brain/hand connection is as important to a writer as it is to a tennis player. <br />
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What exists in our imagination is usually formless and confused until it has become in some way physically real – at which point we may find that other ideas attach to it. Some writers carry ideas round in their heads for months – but I can’t be the only person who thought they were doing this, only to discover that the idea had disappeared. Obviously there are different ways of keeping track of our thoughts. A note on an iPhone may be all that’s needed to record the passing moment, or pin down a sudden inspiration. But perhaps we are losing something if we turn our thoughts into instant electronic data. The notebook, tried and tested for centuries, is an invaluable tool. Not only is it a repository of ideas and experience, it can also help generate lateral connections.<br />
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Essentially, a notebook helps us to focus on our immediate responses to the world. Writing in the preface to A Writer’s Notebook (Heinemann, 1951) novelist and short story writer <a href="http://www.online-literature.com/maugham/">W. Somerset Maugham</a> says: ‘When you know you are going to make a note of something, you look at it more attentively than you otherwise would, and in the process of doing so the words are borne in upon you that will give it its private place in reality.’ (Maugham 1951: x)<br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Kafka's notebook with words in German and Hebrew</span><br style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Times New Roman; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">Vessel to Vessel, The National Library of Israel Collection</span></span><br />
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Habit is also important according to <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/who-was-virginia-woolf">Virginia Woolf</a>. In A Writer’s Diary (Hogarth Press, 1953) she says: 'But what is more to the point is my belief that the habit of writing thus for my own eye only is good practice. It loosens the ligaments. Never mind the misses and the stumbles. Going at such a pace as I do I must make the most direct and instant shots at my object, and thus have to lay hands on words, choose them and shoot them with no more pause than is needed to put my pen in the ink.' (Woolf 1987: 22)<br />
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For most writers, a notebook is the closest thing we have to an artist’s sketch book, and the equivalent of a studio. Instead of an atelier of half-finished canvases, splashed with paint, we have jottings and scrawled sentences which catch at our vision of life, and can sometimes contain passing flashes of inspiration that would otherwise have gone forever. Unlike sketchbooks, they are rarely beautiful in themselves, although there may be beautiful things in them.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDY8diFZITKB9T3bVLx362wx9kzzRyFOp0TQ1gssDBois5Jjop2PXSah0BV_XIHgmGtJ-P2FBvzGLLcZXXxwyK3ef_PwZX5z1mwF6YKkMDErDHKlDNNe1dhDYM2YT6LGgVNJXLJYO1DBQ/s1600/Bruce_Chatwin%252C_July_1982.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="317" data-original-width="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDY8diFZITKB9T3bVLx362wx9kzzRyFOp0TQ1gssDBois5Jjop2PXSah0BV_XIHgmGtJ-P2FBvzGLLcZXXxwyK3ef_PwZX5z1mwF6YKkMDErDHKlDNNe1dhDYM2YT6LGgVNJXLJYO1DBQ/s1600/Bruce_Chatwin%252C_July_1982.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="mw-mmv-title" original-title="" style="color: #202122; display: inline-block; font-family: sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Bruce Chatwin, photographed by Lord Snowdon, 28 July 1982, Wikicomms, Fair Use</span></span></td></tr>
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Does the quality of such notebooks matter? At worst, an expensive notebook can tempt us to write self-consciously, or pretentiously. I used to think the travel writer <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/bruce-chatwin/1022330/">Bruce Chatwin</a> was guilty of notebook narcissism. In his memoir The Songlines (Penguin 1987) he writes: ‘I made three neat stacks of my “Paris” notebooks. In France, these notebooks are known as carnets moleskines: 'moleskine', in this case, being its black oilcloth binding. Each time I went to Paris, I would buy a fresh supply from a papeterie in the Rue de l'Ancienne-Comédie.’ (Chatwin 1987: 160) These notebooks went out of production in 1986, but a Milanese publisher brought them back into production in 1997 using Chatwin’s term ‘Moleskine’ to give credibility to the brand. They are now ‘design classics’ which potentially adds to their dubiousness as the tools of a writer’s trade. But – confession time - I now write in a Moleskine notebook myself.) <br />
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The writer <a href="https://www.edgehill.ac.uk/creativewriting/staff/ailsa-cox/">Ailsa Cox</a> stresses that the notebook should help us connect with the energy of lived experience Writers like Katherine Mansfield fuelled their intensely observed short fiction by making bright, immediate word sketches, using sensory observation to record the minutiae of the ‘ordinary’ world. In Writing Short Stories: A Routledge Writer’s Guide (Routledge 2005) Cox explains: ‘Notebook-writing doesn’t have to prove anything or be shown to anyone. Mine’s indecipherable anyway.’ (Cox 2005: 49)</div>
<br />
Although habit is important, writing in your notebook shouldn’t be an oppressive duty. The spontaneity essential to the best short story writing is best fostered if you write in your notebook regularly, but not slavishly, Cox believes. ‘The idea is to liberate your creativity, not r<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"></a>estrict your own freedom. Write whenever you find an opportunity. I have to confess I have sometimes started scribbling during an especially mind-numbing meeting.’ (Cox 2005:50)<br />
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Perhaps the most important function of a notebook is that it is portable, and you can almost write in it off-guard, without worrying about the quality or quantity of what you produce. So the notebook is my ally in the struggle to improve as a writer, and to feed my imagination with fresh ideas. I write on trains, in cafes, parks, at the seaside, in the kitchen, anywhere. There is always something there when I close the book that didn’t exist when I opened it. <br />
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(A longer version of this article was published on the Thresholds website, University of Chichester http://thresholds.chi.ac.uk/do-you-need-to-keep-a-notebook/)<br />
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-83162581453040037482018-07-25T01:46:00.000-07:002018-07-25T01:46:40.850-07:00Six top tips for summer writing
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a class="preview" data-toggle="lightbox" href="https://images.freeimages.com/images/large-previews/f62/yorkshire-moors-bronte-country-1223364.jpg" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background: 0px; border-image: none; border: 0px rgb(54, 63, 72); box-sizing: border-box; color: #363f48; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px auto; orphans: 2; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-shadow: none; text-transform: none; transition: 0.25s; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><img alt="Yorkshire moors - Bronte country" height="424" src="https://images.freeimages.com/images/large-previews/f62/yorkshire-moors-bronte-country-1223364.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border-image: none; border-radius: 2px; border: 0px rgb(54, 63, 72); box-sizing: border-box; color: #363f48; margin: 0px; max-width: 933.2px; padding: 0px; text-shadow: none;" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #6a6f75; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: "Open Sans",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; list-style-image: none; list-style-position: outside; list-style-type: circle; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-shadow: none; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">FreeImages.com/Jenny Rollo</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br /></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">1.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span>Start early – beat the summer heat. Set your
alarm for no later than 8 am and postpone all your household or admin jobs
until the afternoon. Keep your mind as free as possible before starting work,
and get down to it as soon as possible after you get up. The author Monique
Roffey writes as soon as she wakes up when she is working on a novel; the
mighty J.K. Rowling works in bed first thing.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">2.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span>Set yourself achievable goals. Be specific and
realistic. Can you really take the <a href="https://nanowrimo.org/">NaNoWriMo</a> approach and write a entire novel
in August? Seems unlikely – and their word goal is 50, 000 whereas you will
have to craft at least 70,000 to reach conventional novel length. It might be
better to work on one short story, or two produce two or three good chapters,
or to resolve an issue that you haven’t had head space to address before. </span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">3.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span>Choose the right place to work. It may be that
you have a quiet office in the house (we currently have builders next door so I
am feeling the pain here). Or it may that you have a café or library where you
can work well. Wherever it is, make sure that you spend at least three hours a
day in that place, writing, and only writing.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">4.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span>Say ‘no’. I very rarely tell anyone I am not
meeting them/taking something on because I’m writing – it somehow has the same
effect as saying that you are staying in to wash your hair. People feel
snubbed, weirdly, because the convention is that writing should be your lowest
priority in the modern, speed-driven world.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>But I have a range of substitute excuses, usually to do with my
(admittedly demanding) day job, or family stuff (and there is admittedly also
plenty of that). Whatever reason you give, just say ‘no’. Don’t feel
pressurized to fit in barbecues or building a new extension on your house. This
is your summer of words.</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 48px; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">5.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span>Be active. This may sound contradictory, but do
also make time to move about. A writer is not a brain on a stick, and getting
your blood circulating helps your brain to work. There is also a weird
connection between creativity and walking. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b066wqyv">Virginia Woolf </a>was a great fan.
<a href="http://www.openculture.com/2013/02/seven_tips_from_ernest_hemingway_on_how_to_write_fiction.html">Ernest Hemingway</a> used to go hunting after putting in a morning’s writing. There
is no need for that. </span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px 48px; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;">6.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
</span></span></span>Read. There is also a lovely connection between reading
and writing. The voice and created world of another writer is inspiring and curiously
restful. Choose the right author – you may not want to immerse yourself in the
work of the prize-winning writer whose book was published this year to wild
acclaim and is writing in your chosen genre. You’re only human. Read nonfiction,
poetry, an established classic. Read like a writer, seeing how they have
addressed the problems and challenges you are facing in your own draft. And
read like a reader, paying close attention and letting the writers take you where
they want you to go. <span style="margin: 0px;"> </span><span style="margin: 0px;"> </span></span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-45330012767517380892018-07-24T08:04:00.000-07:002018-07-24T09:44:37.645-07:00How to write a novel inspired by Shakespeare<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";">My novel <span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"><i><a href="http://myriadeditions.com/books/dark-aemilia/">Dark Aemilia</a> </i>is based on the life of Aemilia Lanyer, the first
woman to be published professionally as a poet in England. </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">Aemilia is one of the women who may have been the
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Lady_(Shakespeare)">Dark Lady </a>to whom Shakespeare dedicated his most passionate but troubled
sonnets. In my story, I assume that not only is she <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>Shakespeare’s
muse, but also the true author of one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Tragedie of Macbeth</i>. </span><br />
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/95/G%C3%BCnther-Hofmann-Macbeth-1972.jpg/800px-G%C3%BCnther-Hofmann-Macbeth-1972.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" class="mw-mmv-final-image jpg mw-mmv-dialog-is-open" crossorigin="anonymous" height="400" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/95/G%C3%BCnther-Hofmann-Macbeth-1972.jpg/800px-G%C3%BCnther-Hofmann-Macbeth-1972.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border-image: none; border: 0px rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; display: block; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; vertical-align: middle; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" width="300" /></a></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnther_Hofmann" title="de:Günther Hofmann"><span style="color: windowtext; margin: 0px;">Günther Hofmann, Verd</span></a><a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Verdi" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-origin: padding-box; background-position-x: 0%; background-position-y: 0%; background-size: auto; orphans: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" title="de:Giuseppe Verdi"><span style="color: windowtext; margin: 0px;">i's</span></a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"> <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth_(Oper)" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-origin: padding-box; background-position-x: 0%; background-position-y: 0%; background-size: auto; orphans: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" title="de:Macbeth (Oper)"></a></span><a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth_(Oper)" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-origin: padding-box; background-position-x: 0%; background-position-y: 0%; background-size: auto; orphans: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" title="de:Macbeth (Oper)"><span style="color: windowtext; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Macbeth</span></a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; float: none; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">,
1972</span>, <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meininger_Museen" title="de:Meininger Museen"><span style="color: windowtext; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Meininger Museen/</span></a></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meininger_Museen" title="de:Meininger Museen"><span style="color: windowtext; margin: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Theatermuseum</span></a>,</span></span><span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Hinghaus" title="de:Walter Hinghaus"><span style="color: windowtext; margin: 0px;">Walter
Hinghaus</span></a></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin: 0px;">There are several ways in which Macbeth inspired the story:</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px 0px 13.33px;">
<b>Theme:</b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"> the destructive
power of ruthless ambition; violence begetting violence; the drive to subvert
established hierarchies.</span></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Plot:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"> the smooth
efficiency of a plot in which temptation is followed by wrong-doing which
causes alienation and retribution. A perfect balance between freedom of choice
and tragic inevitability.</span><br />
<br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Atmosphere:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"> the sense of
evil that haunts ‘the Scottish play’; the dark power of witchcraft; violence
and murder; the bleakest aspects of the natural world.</span><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></b>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Language:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"> the use of
imagery and stark, vivid language to convey the fearful, deranged perspective
of the protagonist.</span><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></b>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Gender:</span></b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"> the fact that,
in spite of being excluded from positions of influence, women are a potent
force in the power play between men.</span><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSggCK85dcGYhz0fQ9s-j4kJGp8rTR6_Rv7ZWuZHENKySaMnxYPYxMN6IiTDQsCLAJ8_3_H7PhqW1MeOvosb2Jozg4Ys7VlXNU0kNDCijyKm6BiKDeMrRJSuHaRqMD0hOWOAvmfdINGJ0/s1600/100124_william_shakespeare.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #0066cc; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; orphans: 2; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="304" data-original-width="405" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSggCK85dcGYhz0fQ9s-j4kJGp8rTR6_Rv7ZWuZHENKySaMnxYPYxMN6IiTDQsCLAJ8_3_H7PhqW1MeOvosb2Jozg4Ys7VlXNU0kNDCijyKm6BiKDeMrRJSuHaRqMD0hOWOAvmfdINGJ0/s400/100124_william_shakespeare.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div>
<span style="color: black;">William Shakespeare, The Chandos Portrait </span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: black;"><a class="external text" href="http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait.php?search=ss&sText=shakespeare&LinkID=mp04051&rNo=0&role=sit" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: border-box; background-color: transparent; background-origin: padding-box; background-position: right; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: auto; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.53px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; padding-right: 13px; text-align: left; text-decoration: underline; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">National Portrait Gallery – Portrait NPG 1; William Shakespeare </a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; display: inline; float: none; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12.53px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: black;">.</span> </span></div>
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<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">And I'm not the only author to be inspired by the work of Shakespeare:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">Ambition is the
driving theme in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/13/100-best-novels-observer-moby-dick">Moby Dick</a></i>, by Herman
Melville (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Macbeth/King Lear</i>) Melville’s
Great American Novel draws on both Biblical and Shakespearean myths. Captain
Ahab is ‘a grand, ungodly, god-like man…above the common’ whose pursuit of the
great white whale Moby Dick is a fable about obsession and over-reaching. Just
as Macbeth and Lear subvert the natural order of things, Ahab takes on Nature
in his determination to kill his prey - and his hubristic quest is doomed from
the start.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt "Times New Roman"; margin: 0px;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-of-a-lifetime-a-thousand-acres-by-jane-smiley-8568638.html">A Thousand Acres</a></i>, by Jane Smiley (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">King Lear</i>) Smiley retells the story of
King Lear in modern day Iowa in her Pulitzer prizewinning novel. The novel is
set on a thousand acre farm which is owned by a father and his three daughters,
and told from the point of view of the oldest, Ginny. Instead of dismissing the
two older daughters as wicked and grasping, as Shakespeare does, in her novel
Smiley explores the family secrets that underpin the drama, and shows the
significance of the land itself. </span></li>
<li><span style="margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif";"><i><a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/20/specials/murdoch-prince.html">The Black Prince</a></i>, by Iris Murdoch (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hamlet</i>) This is a brilliant depiction of
obsessive love, though its plot is a typically convoluted Murdochian creation
which is inspired by Freud and Plato as well as Shakespeare’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hamlet</i>. It tells the story of a twisted
friendship between two writers, and features some cheekily cross-dressed sex
scenes in which Julian (a young woman) dresses up as the gloomy Dane. Murdoch
is strongest on the unpredictability of love, and the black comedy that can
result. </span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/13/100-best-novels-brave-new-world-aldous-huxley">Brave New World</a></i>, by Aldous Huxley (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Tempest</i>) Huxley makes numerous
references to the work of Shakespeare in this dystopian novel, and the title <span style="background: white; margin: 0px;">is taken from the Tempest: ‘O brave new world, / That
has such people in 't!’ Like Caliban, John ‘The Savage’ is an outcast, despised
for his appearance, and Huxley is exploring ideas about the power of art and
the nature of humanity as Shakespeare does in this haunting and, possibly,
final play.</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/jan/11/wise-children-angela-carter-a-book-to-share">Wise Children</a></i>, by Angela Carter (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Taming of the Shrew</i> et al) Twins,
doubles and paradoxes abound in Carter’s last novel, as they do in the works of
Shakespeare. The story of twins Dora and Nora Chance explores ideas about
paternity and incest, and the novel is written in five chapters like the five
Acts in a Shakespeare play. One of the themes is ‘high art’ versus ‘low art’
and Carter jokily refers to Shakespeare via <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kiss
Me Kate</i>, a populist adaptation of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Taming of the Shrew.</i> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-detective-novel-that-convinced-a-generation-richard-iii-wasnt-evil">The Daughter of Time</a></i>, by Josephine Tey (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Richard III</i>) Richard III gets a
sympathetic makeover in Josephine Tey’s 1951 whodunnit, which reads like a
cross between <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rear Window</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Time Team</i>. Detective Alan Grant,
confined to bed after an accident, begins to take in interest in the much
maligned king after studying his portrait.<span style="margin: 0px;">
</span>Although clearly Richard III was a real person, the false picture we
have of him was originally created by Shakespeare, Tey argues. He created a
pantomime villain and child murderer in order to curry favour with his Tudor
patron, Elizabeth I.</span></li>
</ul>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike>How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-44797492290910943442016-06-12T13:35:00.001-07:002016-06-15T14:13:53.448-07:00How to write a novel when you literally have no timeI just Googled this sentence 'How to write a novel when you literally have no time'. <br />
<br />
And I couldn't find anything - so here are some thoughts in case you have just Googled the self-same thing. <br />
<br />
All too often, my time frazzles away, consumed by the day job. You probably know all about this.<br />
<br />
If you aren't writing enough, is it because you don't have time, because you don't think you have time, or because you can't think? <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/The_Thinker%2C_Rodin.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="File:The Thinker, Rodin.jpg" data-file-height="2560" data-file-width="1920" height="400" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/The_Thinker%2C_Rodin.jpg/900px-The_Thinker%2C_Rodin.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Thinker https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Thinker,_Rodin.jpg</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
The modern age is full of manufactured distractions, the aim seeming to be to not-think, and to sustain the habit of not-thinking for a lifetime.<br />
<br />
Often, the advice to new writers is to write, but what is the point of writing if your mind is a snarl-pit of the small stuff?<br />
<br />
But then again, if you write, honestly, without inhibition, for long enough, thinking will follow.<br />
<br />
So.<br />
<br />
Stop starting at the internet. <br />
<br />
Turn off the computer. (When you have finished reading this blog post, I mean.)<br />
<br />
Look out of the window. <br />
<br />
Or stare at the ceiling. <br />
<br />
Do this for five minutes.<br />
<br />
Then write for five minutes. <br />
<br />
By hand, with a pen, like some ancient scribe.<br />
<br />
Do it for a week. <br />
<br />
Then see how you feel. <br />
<br />
I will do the same and report back in seven days. (This is my very busiest time at work so an excellent time for such a challenge.)<br />
<br />
<br />How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-22024398676163350832016-05-29T05:45:00.001-07:002016-05-30T02:13:11.178-07:00Five reasons to enter the BridportThe deadline is looming for the <a href="https://www.bridportprize.org.uk/">Bridport Prize</a>. So stop whatever you are doing right now, find a short story, polish it up and enter it. Because you might win if you enter, and definitely won't win if you don't. <br />
<br />
Of course it's true that any competition is a lottery to some degree. And how can you judge one story against another when each one is unique? But this can work both for you and against you. Two of my frankly not-all-that short stories were shortlisted for major prizes early in my writing career (for the Ian St James and the Cosmopolitan prizes) and frankly far better ones have done nothing since. The boost - both emotional and professional - when you win or are placed in a major competition far outweighs the mild disappointment of being overlooked.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a class="irc_mil i3597 iHQX0WJ1bah0-zixyDjKkw5M" data-noload="" data-ved="0ahUKEwjk_eSfpP_MAhXrAMAKHe7uCt4QjRwIBw" href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjk_eSfpP_MAhXrAMAKHe7uCt4QjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.archivehunter.com%2Fabout%2F&psig=AFQjCNHlSYel2tpVIawR7E0fjPRSvDL8nQ&ust=1464611256711511" jsaction="mousedown:irc.rl;keydown:irc.rlk" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" tabindex="0" target="_blank"><img alt="" class="irc_mi iHQX0WJ1bah0-pQOPx8XEepE" src="http://www.archivehunter.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/typewriter.jpg" style="margin-top: 10px;" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo by </span><span class="irc_su" dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo by rahego, via Flickr Creative Commons</span></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> /http://www.archivehunter.com/about-2/</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<dd><br /></dd>Here are five reasons for entering:<br />
<br />
1. If you don't enter you won't win. (Recycling the content from above for reasons of emphasis and thrift.)<br />
<br />
2. Even getting shortlisted for a big prize can get you noticed. I got my first agent from being short-listed for the Cosmo prize - although the actual story never got published.<br />
<br />
3. It's a deadline. Writers need deadlines, otherwise we sink into the Slough of Despond wearing faded pyjamas.<br />
<br />
4. Entering competitions forces you to think about the current market for short fiction - at least, it should do. (Or current context, if you think the word 'market' is a little harsh and vulgar and you are producing Art.)<br />
<br />
5. Professional writers are Submitting Machines. Everything that you have written that is halfway decent should be submitted somewhere. If it gets turned down for one outlet or competition, enter another, submit again. Don't be emotional about it, don't feel let down if nothing happens - submit, submit and submit again. <br />
<br />
So get those words sorted now. And if you want more information about other competitions, here is <a href="http://paulmcveigh.blogspot.co.uk/">Paul McVeigh's excellent blog</a> which lists upcoming opportunities.<br />
<br />
And here is another useful list from <a href="http://www.christopherfielden.com/short-story-tips-and-writing-advice/short-story-competitions.php">Christopher Fielden</a>. How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-61458675897623431842015-09-12T05:48:00.000-07:002015-09-12T05:48:15.331-07:00Breaking the rules - use that adverbPoor adverbs! The consensus in some quarters is that anyone who is not paring their work down to post-Carveresque minimalism just doesn't have a clue. Verbs must stand alone. Adverbs must be shunned at all costs. If there are any adverbs lurking in your draft, you should get the Adverb Exorcist round to seek them out and sent them into the outer darkness, where everything is spinning ceaselessly, timelessly, eternally in a terrible miasma of adverbial overwriting.<br />
<br />
There ARE 'rules' in writing, as in all artistic disciplines, many of them based on conventions. (Stories are about change, dialogue shouldn't be expositional, main character should drive the plot, for example.) And there are always writers who set out to break the rules and subvert expectations. All good so far. But there is another difficulty, which is that some 'rules' turn into an orthodoxy.<br />
<br />
Some agents take a dim view of adverbs, which is bad news if you have submitted a script which breaks this particular 'rule'. Recently, I heard that one agent say they would bin any submission that had an adverb on the first page.<br />
<br />
So I'm posting three openings that this agent would presumably have had to jettison, were they to come her way. All three novels are seminal works which have been praised for their literary merits as well as being best sellers. One of them has been awarded the Pulitzer prize.<br />
<br />
<br />
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</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_5tXG2TjfZyIGP_8zYMpnzjdrb7DuOrN5T6hp9vgRp3CHrg82xIrJ-glZzs6H0ZNzJAzqQdQifrko8bme2fHPkVa1rLB1qGzJzgAFSKx-ctfees4Xpt-pxzulDZaxpH4uK0QuRAa3VeQ/s1600/DSC_0144.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_5tXG2TjfZyIGP_8zYMpnzjdrb7DuOrN5T6hp9vgRp3CHrg82xIrJ-glZzs6H0ZNzJAzqQdQifrko8bme2fHPkVa1rLB1qGzJzgAFSKx-ctfees4Xpt-pxzulDZaxpH4uK0QuRAa3VeQ/s400/DSC_0144.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The author contemplating the plight of adverbs</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
1. 'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in a possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.' (Movie adaptation clue: Keira Knightly.)<br />
<br />
<br />
2. '<span style="background-color: white; font-family: museo_sans; font-size: 16px;">When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world. His hand rose and fell softly with each precious breath. He pushed away the plastic tarpaulin and raised himself in the stinking robes and blankets and looked toward the east for any light but there was none. In the dream from which he'd wakened he had wandered in a cave where the child led him by the hand. Their light playing over the wet flowstone walls. Like pilgrims in a fable swallowed up and lost among the inward parts of some granitic beast. Deep stone flues where the water dripped and sang. Tolling in the silence the minutes of the earth and the hours and the days of it and the years without cease. Until they stood in a great stone room where lay a black and ancient lake. And on the far shore a creature that raised its dripping mouth from the rimstone pool and stared into the light with eyes dead white and sightless as the eggs of spiders. It swung its head low over the water as if to take the scent of what it could not see. Crouching there pale and naked and translucent, its alabaster bones cast up in shadow on the rocks behind it. Its bowels, its beating heart. The brain that pulsed in a dull glass bell. It swung its head from side to side and then gave out a low moan and turned and lurched away and loped soundlessly into the dark.' (Movie adaptation clue: Viggo Mortensen.) </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: museo_sans; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: museo_sans; font-size: 16px;">3. 'I see...' said the vampire, thoughtfully, and slowly he walked across the room towards the window. For a long time he stood there against the dim light from </span>Divisadero<span style="background-color: white; font-family: museo_sans; font-size: 16px;"> Street and the passing beams of traffic. The boy could see the furnishings of the room more clearly now, the round oak table, the chairs. A wash basin hung on one wall with a mirror. He set his briefcase on the table and waited.' (Movie adaptation clue: Tom Cruise.)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: museo_sans; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: museo_sans; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Three extracts, three questions:</span><br />
<br />
1. Can you name the three novels?<br />
2. Can you name the three authors?<br />
3. What are the offending words?<br />
<br />
<br />
Photo pause:<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1qDYXfrzk8cxs6vN5F7iw4v6m2iuC24-ZejLfP7Xp39E5QySL2Mv1bopGUnVq9ASPG0mGnmda9AGqc5epp9c-2iXfKu5-x70xwec5ojIyyyQowsibthQVId4HT4BkJV70-tX5NUklWSI/s1600/Georgia%2527s+Album+056.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: white; font-family: museo_sans; font-size: 16px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1qDYXfrzk8cxs6vN5F7iw4v6m2iuC24-ZejLfP7Xp39E5QySL2Mv1bopGUnVq9ASPG0mGnmda9AGqc5epp9c-2iXfKu5-x70xwec5ojIyyyQowsibthQVId4HT4BkJV70-tX5NUklWSI/s640/Georgia%2527s+Album+056.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Light dawns, courtesy of Georgia O'Reilly</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Okay, so the novels are <i>Pride and Prejudice,</i> <i>The Road </i>and <i>Interview with the Vampire</i>, and the authors are Jane Austen, Cormac McCarthy and Anne Rice. </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 12.8px;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And the words in question? In running order: 'universally', 'soundlessly' and (two for the price of one from Anne Rice) 'thoughtfully' and 'slowly'. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<br />
<div style="font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Worth bearing in mind. My own rule is that if you are using a word in your writing, it should be working hard enough to earn its place. But that may be too prescriptive in itself. </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 12.8px;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The adverbs that fall foul of the pared-down prose police are only one kind of adverb, too. Here is an overview from <a href="http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/grammar/british-grammar/adverbs-and-adverb-phrases-position">Cambridge Dictionaries online</a>, just so you know.</span></div>
<br />How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-81080235540235584412015-09-03T02:36:00.000-07:002015-09-03T02:36:27.452-07:00Five tips for autumn writing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
My day job is teaching creative writing at the Open University. So like many teachers and academics I am a tiny bit like a child, in that I measure out my life in terms and school holidays. (Possibly in other ways as well, such as being institutionalized and inclined to stare out of the window...)</div>
<div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
Also, my allegedly adult children are now at uni, so this is a time of persuading them to register for their course, paying accommodation fees, and driving them to the far corners of England (Nottingham and Liverpool) so they can be institutionalized there and stare out of their own new windows, killing time.</div>
<div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
As a writer, it's good to feel that there are new beginnings, and as the Life of the Mind is pretty formless, left to itself, the whole Back to School thing can be quite therapeutic. Here are five autumnal tips for this annual rebooting:</div>
<div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
1. Declutter. You may not have a school uniform to put on, but it's useful to clear the decks, make sure your filing system isn't collapsing on your desk or crowding out your brain.</div>
<div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
2. Organise Check out any writerly deadlines that are coming up, such as competitions, calls for submissions or open mic events. (BBC Short Story Alert! Check out <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0079gw3">this link </a>for more information.)</div>
<div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
3. Take some exercise. Being a writer needn't mind living a life that is sedentary to a toxic degree. Ernest Hemingway wrote standing up, clearly ahead of his time. Go for a walk, run, swim, waddle - anything to get out of the house and get moving. Take a notebook or your phone and make notes as you go. If walking as an aid to writing was good enough for <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b064yjm6">Virginia Woolf</a>, it is good enough for me.</div>
<div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
4. Do it. Yesterday I wrote 800 words entirely by accident. Just doing it frees up loads of time that is wasted in procrastination, and leaves more space for the day job. Joking about the tasks you get done while not Doing It is futile. No one needs the backs of their radiators to be dust-free.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
5. READ. Find the best book you can, and lose yourself in it. I am re-reading '<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/jul/15/book-beach-wide-sargasso-sea-jean-rhys">Wide Sargasso Sea</a>' by Jean Rhys and it is totally inspiring.</div>
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<a href="http://usercontent2.hubimg.com/5972677_f520.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://usercontent2.hubimg.com/5972677_f520.jpg" width="421" /></a></div>
How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-13972621273152992342015-03-05T10:07:00.000-08:002015-03-05T10:07:43.768-08:00World Book Day 2015What is <a href="http://worldbookday.com/">World Book Day</a> for? Why do we need it? What difference does it make to promote the idea of books in a world throbbing with electronic communication? Are paper books really better than Kindles and e-readers?<br />
<br />
These are just some of the questions I was asked by the 19 radio journalists I spoke to today.The idea was to promote the work of the <a href="http://www.open.ac.uk/">Open University</a> (where I work as a creative writing lecturer) and alert people to the fact that reading breeds writing, and writers need to read. (A concept that doesn't convince some creative writing students, though in my experience the more talented the student, the happier they are to read Other People's Books.)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
So here are some edited highlights from today:<br />
<br />
World Book Day celebrates books - and reminds people that they exist. It's aimed at children,and was set up by UNESCO eighteen years ago, but it's just as vital for adults to lose themselves in a good book. (And the expression 'lose yourself' is telling - total immersion in someone else's story to the exclusion of everything else is an experience no one should miss.)<br />
<br />
But there is so much to distract us in our 24/7 world, and reading demands more of us than slumping in front of the TV. (Unless you are watching <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02gfy02">Wolf Hall,</a> of which more later.) So it's sometimes a matter of delayed gratification, or staged gratification - effort is needed to get a return.<br />
<br />
Children are more likely to develop the reading habit - and keep it for life - if the adults in their house are readers too.<br />
<br />
It's not just a case of reading Dickens or some fat tome - though personally I love Dickens - but finding a book that suits your mood and your interests. Crime, romance, historical fiction, non-fiction - there is so much to choose from. And you can learn, yes, but book are also there to entertain.<br />
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<img src="http://i1.tribune.com.pk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/375059-BooksPHOTOSCREATIVECOMMONS-1336339168-934-640x480.jpg" /><br />
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<br />
And are paper books better than e-readers and Kindles? No, but they are special. There is something about reading a tactile book, being able to smell the pages and sit with it propped in front of you in a cafe, or fill it with post it notes, or (shock horror) write (in pencil) in the margins, that connects you with millions of readers over hundreds of years.<br />
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Finally - we live in an age of wonders and horrors, but I am still not sure we have achieved anything more astonishing than being able to communicate an imaginary world to someone else by making marks on paper.<br />
<br />How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-18322119674968057062015-02-19T10:39:00.000-08:002018-08-12T15:06:34.173-07:00Career tips for writers <div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 53.5pt; text-indent: -18pt;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a class="js-photo-link" data-initialized="true" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-holding-black-and-orange-typewriter-891674/" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: -apple-system,BlinkMacSystemFont,segoe ui,roboto,oxygen,cantarell,open sans,helvetica neue,ubuntu,sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: underline; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" title="Person Holding Black and Orange Typewriter"><img alt="Person Holding Black and Orange Typewriter" class="photo-item__img" data-big-src="https://images.pexels.com/photos/891674/pexels-photo-891674.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&h=750&w=1260" data-large-src="https://images.pexels.com/photos/891674/pexels-photo-891674.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&h=650&w=940" data-pin-media="https://images.pexels.com/photos/891674/pexels-photo-891674.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&fit=crop&h=1200&w=800" height="548" src="https://images.pexels.com/photos/891674/pexels-photo-891674.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&h=350" style="background: rgb(185, 173, 168); border-image: none; border: 0px rgb(51, 51, 51); box-sizing: border-box; display: block; height: 343px; max-width: 474px;" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">If you want
to make it as a writer, you need to forget about getting </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">rich</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">quick,
being the new J K Rowling (or E L James, put the fluffy </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">handcuffs</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">away), winning the Man Booker or being on Desert </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Island Discs.
The</span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">surest way to succeed is to set achievable goals, </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">work towards
them every </span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm; text-align: left; text-indent: -18pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">day and start right now. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">Here are my top </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">ten smart
moves for writers who want to get published</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">and stay </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">published:</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13.5pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">1. Write as well as you can - and
aim to get better. Develop your 'practice' as a writer and write at least
500 words a day. </span><span style="line-height: 150%;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">2. Be proactive and network, both online
and face to face.</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">3. Keep up to date with new developments
in literary agencies and publishing houses. Get free emails from<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="color: windowtext;"><a href="http://www.thebookseller.com/user/register">The
Bookseller</a></span></span><span style="line-height: 150%;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">4.<span style="font-stretch: normal;">
Set up your own blog and author page on Facebook, and set up Twitter
and Tumblr accounts.</span></span><span style="line-height: 150%;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-stretch: normal;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">5.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span>Go
to conferences and festivals and find out what is going on Example: <a href="http://writersfestival.co.uk/">The Winchester Writers' Festival<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></a>is particularly useful for new
writers.</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">6.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="line-height: 150%;">Read your work out at open mic events and at
festivals.</span></span><span style="line-height: 150%;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">7.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span>Enter
short story completions, first novel awards etc. Submit work to the literary
press, both online and in paper format.</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">8.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span>Find
a day job that is compatible with writing, not too horrible and which you
can use as a source of material.</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">9.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"> </span>Learn
to manage your time and energy effectively.</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">10.<span style="font-stretch: normal;"><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span>Enjoy your writing – you
are an artist</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">!</span></span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"></span></div>
How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7529519692501754460.post-59564409909215551192015-02-17T11:20:00.000-08:002015-02-17T11:20:07.870-08:00Dealing with rejection<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.6000003814697px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">
I have been rejected many, many times in my career as a writer - it's all part of the territory<span style="line-height: 19.6000003814697px;">. (I know that's a cliche, but that is sort of my point.) And there never comes a stage when you are immune to it. Two years ago I couldn't even get agents to </span><i style="line-height: 19.6000003814697px;">read</i><span style="line-height: 19.6000003814697px;"> my third novel, even though my first two novels had been published by Penguin Books. </span><br />
<span style="line-height: 19.6000003814697px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 19.6000003814697px;">I can't say it gets easier, but the longer I go on, the more confidence I have in the fact that my writing is worth something, and that I know what I am doing. Each rejection is a learning experience, and as you go on you take from each knock back what you need. My very first agent told me my very first book draft - 100 pages of a novel - wasn't up to scratch. (It wasn't, and my next effort, though also unfinished, was a considerable improvement.) </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh10nQ7XyTXvUcPjUuBEAshAHAjbQjU1gsePhaXTjLUrzcyvRGCQ53j-xTE6BRBYk-zrLRmR2r1fhYCFEd3jFpIffl29UV1VLddes6oKueO3TTCI-cR8-qQLQYO9R_2OHFAVetpqHQVPDA/s1600/12727046074_0c93cca348_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh10nQ7XyTXvUcPjUuBEAshAHAjbQjU1gsePhaXTjLUrzcyvRGCQ53j-xTE6BRBYk-zrLRmR2r1fhYCFEd3jFpIffl29UV1VLddes6oKueO3TTCI-cR8-qQLQYO9R_2OHFAVetpqHQVPDA/s1600/12727046074_0c93cca348_n.jpg" height="400" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo courtesy of Steve Baker https://www.flickr.com/photos/littlebiglens<br />
Creative Comms </td></tr>
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<span style="line-height: 19.6000003814697px;">Rejections I have had since have taught me about publishing. It's a business, and a pretty challenging one at that. Publishers want books they can sell. They aren't sure how to get hold of these. The books that sold well last year must have got something right, so they would like you to write a book similar to one of those. (But not too similar - a touch of originality is allowed.) They are in the business of trying to second guess what cannot be second guessed, the whims and fads of readers. If I was a publisher, I would probably ask for the same thing. </span><br />
<span style="line-height: 19.6000003814697px;"><span style="line-height: 19.6000003814697px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="line-height: 19.6000003814697px;"><span style="line-height: 19.6000003814697px;">I used to value my writing only on the basis of what other people thought of it. I didn't really know what I thought of it myself, and was fuelled by desperate hysteria. But the harder you work, the more you assert your own value, your own set of judgements. Some agents and professionals will give you advice that is gold dust. Some will give you advice that is worthless. Be prepared to rewrite and revise work that needs it. Be prepared to defend the artistic integrity of work that doesn't.</span></span></div>
How to be a Writerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05223880990617707702noreply@blogger.com