Where do you get your ideas from?

Among the various pressures on writers,  there is the awful feeling that you ought to be Saying Something Original. In a crowded bookshop, full of novels and short story collections, and celeb memoirs and cookbooks and all the rest, it is hard not to feel that all the ideas have already been collected, and pinned down like Victorian butterflies, and polished and edited and packaged to death, and there is no room for what is in your head. So much so that you don't even know what is in there, apart from a fizzy, panicky belief that you ought to be Doing Something about your writing ambitions.

So when A Writer is asked questions by The Public at an event like the Hay Festival (now in progress) one of the questions that they will almost certainly be asked is 'Where do you get your ideas from?' And the fact that it is a frequently asked question doesn't make it easy to answer.

But I'm going to have a bash.

1. Observation.
I recently saw Mike Leigh's Another Year for the first time, and though it was a masterpiece. Themes, cinematography, performances, dialogue, everything. Essentially, like the best of Mike Leigh's work, it is based on observation, by both the director and the actors. Lesley Manville, in particular, was brilliant. She was playing the desperate, chaotic Mary, and made a potentially irritating and depressing character so believable and vulnerable that I was rooting for her, hoping she could conjure some kind of happiness out of her wilful neediness and 'inappropriate' drinking. This is the sort of idea that comes from noticing things, small things, the details of life, and ferreting them away somewhere, and thinking about them. Small things encapsulate larger things, supposed truths of life.

2. The unconscious.
The surrealists were keen on this, of course, and so are many fiction writers. Julia Cameron has written about the importance of keeping a dream diary, writing first thing in the morning and getting down the quickly forgotten details of our dreams. Mary Shelley said she dreamt of Frankenstein after trying to write a ghost story with Shelley and Lord Byron - you can be fairly confident that the conversation and the challenge generated the dream, but the dream was essential, nonetheless.

3. Other stories.
Margaret Atwood says that in writing we are Negotiating with the Dead. One of the paradoxes of originality is that it is not a unique outpouring, or the fruit of solitary genius, but an informed and enriched perspective on common experience. (The writer might work in solitude, but their mind does not operate in solitude. Language itself is a collective summation of agreed communication and patterns of expression.) Originality in science is about the small breakthrough, built on the research of other scientists (whose work is something overlooked). The exact same thing is true of artistic endeavour, which is one of the reasons that creative writing students and anyone who takes their writing seriously should read compulsively and across a wide range of genres. Not only does this increase our fluency and repertoire as writers, it also helps us tap into the traditions and the shared stories that make up the collective unconscious of the Zeitgeist.  

4. Your obsessions.
If you had what seemed like a great idea, but find it is beginning to bore you, then the reason could be that it isn't something that you care about enough.  In order to generate an idea, you need to find a subject or a theme that will never bore you, because it is one of those niggling things that you cannot escape from. I wrote a novel about Shakespeare's Dark Lady, but it is also about my own experience of trying to be a writer, and my own intense feelings about my children. I can't ever get bored with this. (The fact that I then developed another obsession, with Early Modern London and the lives of the people in it was an added bonus.)

5. Writing itself.
And finally - ideas aren't in there, waiting to be mined like oil reserves. They become what they are in the process of being written down. Writing is not solely a mental activity, which requires the mechanical activity of your hands to become real. It is the combination of the brain and the body - which is one of the reasons that I think it's useful to write with a pen from time to time.

The thing itself...

The thing about writing is that it is very easy to evade/avoid. Why do we DO this? Not everyone loves their job. Not everyone leaps out of bed on Monday mornings filled with joy at the prospect of being - for example - a dentist, or a car mechanic.

But broadly speaking, when called upon to do dentistry or fan belt fixing, these people probably get on with it. And yet the stories about writers not getting on with it are legion. Depression, booze and general lack of focus all have a part to play. Children can be an issue - Cyril Connolly wrote about 'the pram in the hall' which was meant to be the enemy of promise, though given the lack of interest men had in caring for babies and small children in the early part of the 20th century, I would have thought this was a bit of a feeble excuse. (Connolly was writing about male promise, in the main, primarily his own.)

My children are extremely large now - taller than me, short-ass Mum. But they still find ways - so many ways - to stop me from working. I lie awake till 3 am waiting for the sound of Daughter's drunken footsteps tottering home. I lie awake after 3 am wondering if Son might do some revision when he finally wakes up at 3pm.

And yet. One of the mistakes we can make as writers is thinking that the stuff we experience isn't Material. We think we are too banal, too boring. But all the stuff that is stopping you from writing is the very same stuff that could be your subject- as the great Raymond Carver found. Day jobs, life jobs, the daily grind - this is the Stuff. All we need is a pen, a pad and five minutes of our fragmented lives to get it down. There is no bathos in our lives, really, because everything that happens is worth writing about.

The power of Eeyore

There are many things wrong with the modern world. Fracking, snacking, 50 Shades of Grey, binge drinking, drones, abattoirs, nose jobs, the private car, Gardeners' Question time... I could go on. But in spite of this we are meant to conduct ourselves like a bunch of wilful, myopic Pollyannas. Thinking positive is - allegedly - a central requirement in the post-post modernist age.

Why? Is this a post-post modernist joke, referencing the appalling suffering in the last century, now hilariously summed up in faux WWII memorabilia telling us to Keep Calm and (insert joyless witticism here)? I dunno. All I can say, on a Tuesday, sipping my Earl Grey and feeling as far removed from Calm as it is possible to be, is that we are overlooking the power of negative thinking. The power, in short, of Eeyore.

It's almost exactly ten years since my dad died, and he was a loyal Eeyore fan. Not least because he saw a resemblance between Eeyore and me, his oldest, speccy daughter. As adolescence descended, like a black cloud of Knowingness, I began to look in the mirror more. But not in a good way. I would stare, eyeball-to-eyeball, at this unbelievably asymmetrical human which was housing my beautiful soul.

'Oh God,' I would groan. 'Oh God, it's horrible.' I would hog the hall mirror for hours on end, wallowing in negative narcissism.

And Eeyore, as all Winnie-the-Pooh fans will know, has a similar experience. He stares mournfully into the river, then crosses over with some difficulty, and then stares at his watery reflection again. 'As I thought,' he says eventually. 'No better on this side.' My dad enjoyed making this comparison. Eeyore, basically, c'est moi.

So far, so gloomy. But this is not the end of the story. Gloom is Good. Introspection is Cool. I am currently reading a brilliant book called Quiet in which the author, Susan Cain, sets out the case for introversion, and suggests that the modern world is run by reckless, optimistic extroverts.We are neglecting, suggests Cain, the valuable perspective of thoughtful introverts. What's more, according to a serious-sounding journal called Psychology and Aging, cautious, shy people live longer and have better health.

Writers are by nature pretty introspective, I would say. We might pretend otherwise, bouncing around like Tigger when this seems to be necessary. But there is an Eeyore inside most of us, staring sadly into the mirror, resigned to the awful truth.

Coping with success

Writers are better at being miserable than they are at being happy. Discuss.

Maybe this is not true. Maybe it is just me. They are - we are - generally well known for boozing and feuding with one another, rather than making cupcakes and being tactful. Writers stagger about with one layer of skin removed just so other people can carry on being thick-skinned. Writers are paranoid, negative, self-absorbed. On a good day.

And here is Truman Capote giving it all the depression he's got.

But maybe we need to lighten up. By which I mean, maybe I do. In a blog in which I have retained a cautious distance between my me and my actual feelings, The Work and Myself, I am suddenly confronted with one very nice thing which is definitely going to happen, and a second, almost equally nice thing which is also definitely going to happen but I'm not going to mention it till I have An Actual Letter.

So the first very nice thing is that my book, Dark Aemilia, is going to be published by the wonderful Myriad Editions. Proper people will read it, and Aemilia Bassano Lanyer, who is sort of my secret best friend, will be Out There, in the 21st century, being her intense and wayward self.  Yay!

 No less a writer than Neil Gaiman has said that writers should take a moment to experience the highs, and the successes, and I have this on the authority of the brilliant Liesel Schwarz who you can find more about here.  But this blog is not going to be about praise and publication from now on. Never fear. Success won't spoil it. It will still be about the daily business of being a paranoid writer. Just with some added optimism.

The Everyday

The Everyday is not very exciting. Almost by definition, the Everyday is dull.  New Year resolutions founder because we secretly want to be Cinderella, transformed by the wave of a magic wand into a perfect version of ourselves. Failing that, we settle for the Rubbish Self that deals with crap Mondays, eating chocolate or swigging caffeine to get by. (Or is that just me?)

In writing terms, this means that it's exciting to be writing a novel for about twenty minutes. For that period of time, you can be a Novelist. Your Novel, unwritten, is a work of genius. Your ideas, while they are in your head, are blindingly original. You might even feel slightly sorry for the people who aren't writing your novel, who don't have your brilliant mind.

After twenty minutes, the rot sets in. Writing becomes a chore. You have to earn the feeling of excitement, the giddy arrogance, the thrill. And it takes hours and hours and hours. Every day.

So my New Year's Resolution, in spite of having a massive hangover on January 1st, wasn't to stop drinking, or lose a stone or take up zumba dancing. It was just that I would write for at least 20 minutes, in my journal, every day. And on day 21, I have managed to do this. Every day. Still completely imperfect in every other way, of course, and the stuff I've written isn't literature or genius, but it's really helped. So that's pretty good.

Happy Midmas!

I don't often mention members of my family in this blog, partly for reasons of taste, decency, privacy etc and partly because none of them are famous. (A forgivable oversight on their part, but an unfortunate one, given that Celebrity Begets Celebrity.) But here is a tiny glimpse into the mindset of my Life Partner: he is a complete Scrooge. He was too miserable even to wear his black "Bah Humbug!" hat this year, and his current catchphrase is "Christmas is Over!" This means that no one is allowed to play the "Christmas at King's College Cambridge" CD and we have to listen to Steve Earle instead. Festiveness is a scant resource in our house.

Anyway. The point of this post is to say It is So Not. As in, over. I really love this hidden time, between the last mince pie and the social embarrassment of not knowing who to kiss at midnight on New Year's eve. All year long, I wish there were twenty five hours in a day or eight days in a week, and now, as the year staggers to a close, there are five unlabelled days to write in. It's a shame that some of this valuable time will have to be spent marking, but there you go. At least there are no presents to buy/wrap/deliver, the hangovers have receded and the obligation to turn in to a born-again gym bunny is yet to come.



In a way, Midmas is a good time to get into training for the really important resolution, the only resolution that counts, which is to Write More. I will be Writing More in the New Year, and no matter what the distractions - surviving my PhD viva/being published/not being published/torpid teenagers/everything else you can think of - I will also be trying to focus on Process.

My great discovery as a writer has been that starting with the end in mind is not desirable. It is far better to start with the middle in mind, and stay there. The happiest place for me is the Zone, where writing happens, and nothing else matters. See you there in 2013, I hope!

The Next Big Thing

Have been absurdly busy recently, not in a good way, more like a hamster which has accidentally nibbled some speed before jumping into its wheel. So I have been a tad hopeless about being part of a wonderful project called The Next Big Thing,  which brings together writers to answer questions about their books. I was invited to take part by my lovely writer friend Susanna Jones.

Susanna is a brilliant author and her most recent novel 'When Nights Were Cold' is the gripping and atmospheric story of a group of women mountaineers in the early 20th century. Her writing is taut and spare, and full of tension. Susanna's work has already won a number of awards, including the CWA John Creasey Dagger, the Betty Trask Award and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, and her novels have been translated into more than twenty languages. You can find out about Susanna and her work here.

Any road. This is my response to the Next Big Thing questions - and do watch this space for news about four fellow writers and their new books.

1. What is the working title of your next book? 

It has two titles: 'Dark Aemilia' and  . I'm a bit of a title junkie.

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?

I was writing a historical novel for my MA at Brunel University, and it was actually meant to b be about Lady Macbeth. I had the vague idea that either she or Macbeth himself might be the Fourth Witch, so that was the title of that book. Then I started researching Shakespeare's play-world in sixteenth century London, and then I came across a necromancer called Simon Forman who wrote the first known review of Macbeth, and through him I found out about a woman called Aemilia Bassano (later Lanier).

It was basically love at first sight with Aemilia. She was Jewish, illegitimate and orphaned at 17, when she became the Lord Chamberlain's mistress. When she got pregnant he married her off to her feckless, recorder-playing cousin - but she still ended up being one of the first women in England to be a published poet.  And she was - possibly - Shakespeare's mysterious and unfaithful lover, the notorious Dark Lady. I mean, what is not to like here? All my notes about eleventh century Scotland went into the bin.

3. What genre does your book fall under?

It's historical, but not a. bodice ripping or b. National Trust.

4. What actors would you choose to play the characters in a movie rendition?

This is very easy for me. Rachel Weisz is Aemilia, and Daniel Craig is Shakespeare. I'd avoid Dames Judy or Helen for Queen Elizabeth, and would go for something more unusual. Maybe Rupert Everett or Gary Oldman. Kathy Burke IS Moll Cutpurse. (Please pass this on if you happen to see any of these people.)

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Lady Macbeth stalks the streets of sixteenth-century London, searching for the story that will unleash her warped, demonic power.

6. Is your book represented by an agency?

I'm represented by Greene & Heaton.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

Two years.

8. What other books would you compare this to within your genre?

I'm not sure about 'genre' exactly, but the historical writers I most admire are Rose Tremain and (of course) Hilary Mantel. But Angela Carter, Virginia Woolf and Jeanette Winterson have also influenced me. There is a bit of magic in the book. It's sort of realist magicalism.  

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Aemilia Bassano.

10. What else about this book might pique the reader’s interest?

It's women's-eye Shakespeare, the play-world from the perspective of the mistress/mother/whore.

 Now... off to find those four other writers.

'Tis the season

I am approaching Christmas with what I suppose I must call Mixed Emotions. First, I'm relieved. I have pretty much worked my butt off for the last three months, and I like the idea of rising late, drinking wine, and reading by a large festive fire.  Second, I am chastened. The world probably won't end on December 21st, but from my perspective at least it has been a noticeably sad and horrible year. One that I will be glad to see the back of. And thirdly  - for as all writers know, three is a powerful number - I am determined.

Yuletide may not seem like the season for determination, it's more about Bailey's Irish Cream and just one more layer of Milk Tray. Determination is a New Year thing, designed to offload sudden-onset cellulite and shot-putter arms. But I like to feel determined at inappropriate times. It takes the pressure off, vis a vis trying to relax and enjoy yourself.  My determination is focused on Writing. There has to be a new book in 2013. The old book - much as I love it and always will -  has had a enough airplay. It's like a spoiled and over-watched last child, and is still living at home when really it ought to be out in the world, fending for itself.  2013 is going to be The Year of the Dark Thriller. With a dash of humour. And this is my cue for a suitable photograph.

There is only one fail-safe cure for the affliction of wanting to write, and that is writing. It can cure all the attendant ills, the uncertainty, the waiting, the unworthy jealousy of other authors, the mad staring at rival writers' launch events at Waterstones in Taunton on Facebook et cetera. (Writers sometimes admit to being on Facebook too much, but they don't often say what they are feeling.)

I'm not going to put labels and links into this post, though I know I really should. I am going to light the fire and uncork the bottle. But tomorrow. Tomorrow there will be some Attitude.

Here's one that didn't win....

Apparently, George Orwell often mistook rejection for failure. He kept going just the same, in a state of gloomy optimism with which I am pretty familiar.



I entered this story in the Bridport micro fiction competition, and it didn't win. So...it was rejected. But that wasn't a failure on my part: I successfully wrote it, entered it, and am now posting it. In the spirit of success. Or something. 

This is based on an actual theatre which was part of the Brighton Festival this year, and I really didn't go there, and there really was a Balkan band playing when I walked past, too busy to join the happy throng inside...

The Hurly Burly Café Theatre

I have never been to the Hurly Burly Café Theatre. I have never seen the oompah Balkan quartet with the gypsy in dreads from Dubrovnik. I didn’t buy black vodka from the pop-up bar, or sit on the bleached grass on Leonard’s raincoat with the wind in my hair. No one kissed me smoky when I scrounged a gold Soubrane. And when our lips didn’t meet, it wasn’t the real thing.

The song escaped over the addled roof-tops, the slates and chimneys and minarets. The curtains were cloud-drapes, moonlit and sun-dappled. Children ran among the giant legs. There were gryphons and unicorns and fluttering pennants. There was a pianola and roast chestnuts and a talking fish.

You were there, I expect, leaning over the table. Paying in florins and sixpences, counting the coins with rings on your fingers.

WRITING FOR YOUR LIFE

I'm preoccupied with death at the moment, the sudden and premature deaths of two people I knew, the fact my mother has a serious illness. I have just come back from a very beautiful funeral, which captured the everyday wonders of a supposedly 'ordinary' life.

One thing which came up over and over again was the fact that the person whose life we were celebrating loved stories - Discworld, the Narnia books, the Lord of the Rings. In recent weeks, I've felt as if my own concerns - with writing, and story telling and publishing what I write - are somehow trivial and self indulgent, as if I should Grow Up and get on with something else.

But I don't know how to do anything else. I can teach people, but what I teach is that writing is a way of finding meaning in life, if not the meaning of life. When someone dies, we sing songs, and read poems and the people who loved them tell stories about them, the memories and moments that live on. The music and poetry help us to survive, collectively, they keep the light burning.

And stories can do the same thing too. So that is why I write. Not to be published or famous or noticed. (Though every writer wants other people to be part of what they do.) But because I need to.

On the way back from the funeral, I got on a bus, weighed down with everything, the sadness and sorrow of it all. After a while, I saw the sun was out, shining through the mist of condensation that blurred the windows. We were passing the Brighton Pavilion, and I wiped the mist off the glass. I could see the pop-up skating rink they have set up for Christmas, empty chairs and tables waiting for the evening, a tiny glimpse of the ice through an open door. All in bright sunshine.

Plot number seven: Rebirth

And finally. We go to stories - and therefore plots - for things we can't find in Life. We are looking for patterns, for an explanation of some sort, a conclusion that can be drawn. We want the story to give us something back, a feeling of reassurance, the belief that while life ends, it also teaches. New beginnings emerge from bleak endings. There may or may not be rebirth in the hereafter, but there is certainly rebirth in the now. Or so the Hollywood screenwriters would have us believe.

I don't know what Christopher Booker says about this, because frankly I have looked at his book enough to feel pretty well informed about his point of view. His is the compendium approach to creativity, in which an assemblage of narratives, a great story pile, must surely offer something to those in search of narrative enlightenment.

Life is not neat or reassuring. Virginia Woolf thought sanity was a lie. Thing have happened in my life recently which don't suggest that life is a pattern of any kind. Experience tears holes in our reality, and there isn't much to mend them with. And yet. There is still the story of Pandora's box to keep the flame alive.

When Pandora opened the box, and all the bad things came out, all the evil and suffering and pain and horror, it seemed there was no hope. But Hope was exactly what there was, the tiny spirit trapped in the bottom of box who came fluttering out last of all. Ibsen said that human beings can't take all that much reality. Maybe he was being too harsh. Maybe all they need is a little bit of hope, enough to sustain the insanity of optimism which keeps us believing in the magic of story, and of being alive.

Make 'em wait.

There may or may not be seven basic plots, I have no idea. Christopher Booker says there are and he seems a knowledgeable sort of chap, though we may disagree about the reasons that Greenland's ice cover is melting and various other matters. (Him being a climate change sceptic and me being a non-driving near vegan and all that.)

And it's also true that there is a very great deal that I don't know about Plot, not to mention Theme, Characterisation, Pace, Dialogue and all the rest. I have written two published novels and one unpublished one (the best of the three, of course) and a number of short stories. The Unwritten far exceeds the Written, at this stage of my life.

But I do know one thing. The best writers know how to make the reader wait. Literary novelists may do this via the medium of endless description, or a general vagueness suggestive of profundity. (You may find, in the end, that you waited in vain.) Thriller writers approach this by deploying corpses and unexpected twists, with or without referencing Poe and The Gothic. Old school novelists Tell a Good Tale, in the manner of Stephen King or the mighty Mr Dickens. Anticipation is all. Delayed gratification is one of the greatest pleasures we can experience.

So is this the reason that I haven't yet revealed the mysteries of the Seventh Plot? Not really. I've been studying and on holiday:

Observe the reckless enjoyment and dedication to the moment demonstrated here as my son and I wait for a meal to arrive in Rhodes. Perhaps I am wondering how the holiday will end, what the twist will be, or what to write in my blog once I have covered The Seven Basic Plots. Who knows? I may or may not reveal this among other facets of a writer's craft in my next post. Now that's what I call a cliff-hanger.

Plot number six: Tragedy

In a tragedy, things end badly. Christopher Booker says that, crudely put, a story will end either with the union of lovers or with death. In tragedy, death is usually violent and premature. But tragedy isn't necessarily depressing. One friend of mine prefers sad endings: happy endings make them feel excluded and inadequate.

There is no simple formula for tragedy, it takes innumerable forms and some of the other story types: such as the dark Quest - might also be tragedies. However, C. Booker cites five examples which illustrate the most simple and enduring tragic story structure. These are: the story of Icarus; 'Faust': 'Macbeth'; 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' and 'Lolita'.

The basic outline is this: the hero/heroine embarks on a course of action which is dangerous or forbidden: they go over to the dark side. This works for a while, and there is a brief halcyon period. But then they realise they can't find satisfaction. The protagonist becomes more and more frustrated and unhappy. Attempts to make his/her position stronger or safer fail. The dream goes sour; they are trapped in a nightmare. Violent destruction follows.


Tragedy can be split into different sub-categories: the hero divided against himself (like Faust) or the hero as monster (like Humbert Humbert in 'Lolita'.) But  in spite of the infinite variety within this story structure, there is a template which is useful when developing or planning any storyline. Essentially, a good plot is dynamic and there is a sense of movement and pace within the story; a sense of the dread inevitability of events.

This is the template:

1. Anticipation Stage. An unsatisfied or curious hero is tempted or attracted by something new.
2. Dream Stage. The hero commits himself to this course of action, and it all seems to be working.
3. Frustration Stage. Gradually, the situation unravels: he cannot find satisfaction or rest.
4. Nightmare Stage. This was a very bad idea. Everything spirals out of control; darkness beckons.
5. Destruction or Death Wish. It all comes crashing down. The hero meets a bad end.

Tragedies also tap into something fundamental in our psychology. Watch King Lear mourning the loss of Cordelia and you might feel a connection with the rest of humanity, and experience a flash of understanding about the universality of loss.