RESPECT FOR MELVYN BRAGG

Current state of play is that I have a book coming out in six months which is just bursting with sensible advice for writers and wanna-be writers. Which is good, of course, and I am v. excited about it, though also nervous, as it's like one long feature which will be out there in the public domain for, ooh, decades, I should think. Which is sort of daunting. And there are autobiographical bits, which might a bit too autobiographical. But most of all, what is annoying me about my Writing Life a the moment is that there needs to be more of it. I'd like to move to a Scottish island, or rent a Cornish cottage on a rocky outcrop high above the sea, or a flat in Paris where all I had to look at was cats on rooftops. (French cats, with a special extra layer of attitude.) Instead, I have teenagers, and IKEA, and a man doing the kitchen floor, and the washing basket keeps overflowing, and I'm usually on a train, often one that has broken down and... so on.

So it's useful to remember that busy people are often Very Prolific Writers. Step forward Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot (Henry James once said she "did not suffer from cerebral lassitude"). And my own particular modern favourite, MelvynBragg, the man who does everything, including write loads and loads of big fat novels.

Happy juggling!

DOWN WITH GENRE SNOBS!

What should we look for in fiction? Are the "best" books those which are deemed to be "literary"? There seems to be an assumption about some critics - and readers - that genre fiction is always of a lower order, written cynically or obediently by lesser artists who lack the vision, originality or courage of the True Writer. Sara Sheridan (above) raises this issue in relation to the forthcoming Edinburgh Festival, and the BBC has been accused of similar snobbishness.

Writing in the Guardian, Sheridan says:

"I live in a City of Literature, but I worry about that title. I think I'd rather live in a City of Words. Literature, to me, isn't necessarily a good thing – it's exclusive, for a start. It doesn't sell to ordinary people in mass-market locations. It tells people what they ought to want to read, rather than simply grabbing readers by the imagination (which to me, has always been a writer's job, whether they are literary or not)."

Very true. This insistence on a literary pecking order is the result of muddled thinking. The divisions between literary and genre fiction have not been made by writers, but by publishers and booksellers. In fact, literary fiction is itself a genre, which came into being in the late 1960s when the Booker Prize was conceived to promote "serious" writing. What matters is that writers write good books, not where they are situated in Waterstones, or the minds of critics.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/edinburgh/2011/apr/21/writing-literary-commercial-sara-sheridan

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/21/bbc-genre-fiction

THOUGHT FOR THURSDAY

One of the wisest men in cinematic history is Danny the drug dealer from 'Withnail & I'. And yet, his advice is widely ignored. Perhaps because it is extremely hard to follow. But just for the record, here it is again....

'Find your neutral space.' If there is one thing that a writer MUST do, that's it. Oh, and write as well. 

SOLITARY SISTER

Now, the thing is, I have been vg in terms of setting up some kind of virtual identity, but my fear that this might prove to be another distraction (from writing) was well founded. I am drawn towards my Facebook page by some horrible cyber-gravity, irritated when people comment on each other's pages but not on mine, wrong-footed by the glamorous and famous and their seemingly effortless communication with the similarly blessed.

I am sitting here at my kitchen table, and quite frankly I would rather live inside my own head than peer queasily into other people's.... So what does that make me? Salinger? Emily Dickinson? I wish that was my problem - but it's the opposite. It's this corrosive desire to be relevant and likable and to be blended in. Sometimes, socialnetworkspace is not the right place for writers to be. Sorry, Zeitgeist.

BAD ENOUGH?

Motherhood is meant to be long one guilt trip. So much so that I feel guilty if I don't feel guilty - only slackers think they are just about getting it right. But if you want to do anything else apart from rant/agonise/spend/yell/micro-manage/spend/rant/agonise you have to give yourself a break sometimes. Having kids is not an excuse for not writing: it's just a mammoth day job.

Cheering thoughts from The Observer, who have come up with a brilliant roguess's gallery of dire fictional mums. Top of the list are meddling, foolish Mrs Bennett; the wonderfully dysfunctional Marge Simpson and dear old Norma Bates. Something for everyone, really...

And just think, if we were all perfect, where would we get our material? Good people are notoriously dull in fiction, so let's hear it for bad enough mums everywhere.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/gallery/2011/apr/03/ten-best-fictional-mums-in-pictures

The Glums

What I am thinking now is that there are times when everything just seems to drain away. No energy, no ideas, this horrible empty space. At which time, the white eye of the PC (I don't do lap top or smart phone) leeches onto mental space. Upstairs, my son is shouting at Call of Duty (enemy soldier failed to die despite his Big Gun); on the floor above my daughter is probably playing the disturbing truth game that appears to be a Facebook offshoot. Hell knows. Their dad is at yoga. At least someone is waving the flag for mind, body and spirit.

I'd be sitting in the bath listening to Radio Two if it was still Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie, but now it's gone all Jo Wiley, so I sit here, staring at the white eye, all flumped out.

SOMETHING IN THE AIR...

It being spring and everything I suddenly feel as if the Writing should recommence. Long train journey overland to Brunel University, during which I felt fluey and peculiar, imbibed industrial quantities of Vitamin C infused smoothies, and read James Shapiro's "Contested Will".  The first chapter is about the deification of Shakespeare. I was dimly wondering why we are so quick to assume that genius is more than human. Looked out of the SW Trains window at burgeoning back gardens, greenly tinged, mostly featuring standard issue trampolines.

Great quote from Diana Wynne Jones, who died this week, to the effect that we are all geniuses, but it can take a while to find out what we are geniuses at. Tragically, some of us never find out. My genius might be for whinging rather than writing. Only time will tell. It certainly isn't for knitting, dieting or moderate drinking, that's for sure.

http://www.therejectionist.com/2011/03/in-memoriam.html

LAST WORDS

It is exactly seventy years since Virginia Woolf's "death day" and I think we should morbidly celebrate that fact. Perhaps we should make more of the final days of great writers, even those who decided to end their own lives. We are too squeamishly polite about death, as if it was somewhere in between saying "pardon" instead of "excuse me" and fornicating with the vicar at the village fete.

And we also seem to assume that each day of a suicide's life must have been bathed in shadow, whereas in fact Woolf was a wry, sociable, practical person. There even are photos of her laughing in a swim suit (which I must admit is a bit disconcerting).

She wrote about walking in London, the smell of a spring day, the joys of polishing silver.  And her writing voice is eminently sane and sensible. She seems easily as cheery as - say - Beryl Bainbridge or Kingley Amis, and we don't see their departed selves as being particularly sombre. Her madness, as she called it, was one facet of her character, not her whole identity. Her industrious application to developing her craft strengthened her writing muscle, as she knew it would.

Am I the only person who loathed the N.Kidman portrayal in "The Hours", all grim prosthetic nose and drooping ciggie? I would rather have let Emma Thompson have a go, which is saying something.

THE ONE SECOND NOVELIST

That's me, the one second scribbler. That's why there has been a deep dark silence from me since my initial flurry. Little and often is the way, in blogging as in creating works of lasting genius. Sadly I am one of nature's splurgers, and just as I tend to down too much red wine on a Friday, I am a word binger as well.

News from the land of literature today? Good to hear that Nick Hornby has started a new creative writing school for kids, aided by Zadie Smith and other luminaries who are working for nothing. We need these people. Creative writing gets a bad name, as if it is media studies for shy people. But with the Lib-Cons slashing humanities funding (clue in the name, guys) we still need to learn what it means to be human. Medicine, Science and the Law may fill in some of the picture, but there is a soul-shaped gap in the middle. Sometimes I think that as we become technically ever more savvy, our emotional common sense gets more blunted.

Fiction Uncovered (finally)

Hurrah!  Good news at last for the much derided “mid-list” author. A new scheme – Fiction Uncovered – is being launched today to promote the work of these literary Cinderellas. 

The work of eight writers of novels, short stories and graphic novels will be publicized – and any writer is eligible as long as they "deserve recognition but have yet to receive a major literary prize or media attention, or be picked for retailer promotions".
Waterstone’s, Foyles and the Book Depository are all involved and Fiction Uncovered will also work with other organizations and independent bookshops. Reading groups will be encouraged to join in by The Reading Agency.
Let’s just hope that the publishers of the obscure yet deserving writers picked for this promotion are willing to cough up the £1,250 they will be charged.
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/132128-campaign-to-throw-spotlight-on-midlist-authors.html

WORTH WAITING FOR...

More on the virtue of patience in the world of words.

Mark Twain, author of “Hucklberry Finn” and one of most influential American writers of the nineteenth century, stipulated that his autobiography which he described himself as – “a complete and purposed jumble” must not be published until 100 years after his death.

He died in 1910, and in 2010 his book is flying off the shelves.  Would it have done such good business if it had come out four years before the start of World War I?  Who can say – but you have to admire his PR style. 

http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2010/1018/Mark-Twain-s-autobiography-after-a-century-s-delay-becomes-a-bestseller

The Long Game

One of the themes that will be a recurring feature of this blog is that while writing may not be a lucrative game, it IS a long one. Dreaming of overnight success is the mark of an amateur. Look more closely at almost any writer who came "out of nowhere" and you'll find they have been writing for years. They may not have been published, but they have been learning their craft.

At the extreme end of this spectrum is German resistance fighter Hans Keilson, who fought the Nazis with the Dutch resistance and wrote a novel about his experiences 63 years ago. The Guardian reports that, at the age of 101, he has lived to see his book published in the UK for the first time, and has won belated recognition in the US as one of the greatest writers in the world.

His book Comedy in a Minor Key, follows the best selling success of an earlier novel The Death of the Adversary, published in the US when he was 100. So, if you think you a bit old to get started in the writing game, take heart. And some vitamin supplements - you may need to stick around for some time...http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/17/german-hans-keilson-comedy-minor-key

SLOW BROWN SUNDAY

Sifting through the various feeds and newsletters that fill my inbox with information about The World of Publishing. Hmm.

Serial killer fiction still the staple of escapist thrillers. (Why is reading about women being tortured in cellars a primary form of relaxation in Equality Britain? Answers please!) Amazon have new digital platform for short stories. (Need to get my head round this, will be back to you on this when I understand it properly.) The Frankfurt Book fair has been and gone and was busier than expected. (Went to the London Book Fair last year and it was curiously similar to any other trade fair, with that curious non-atmosphere and a general mood of caffeine-fuelled claustrophobia.)

Here’s a news item for you: J.K. Rowling has been voted the most influential woman in Britain by National Magazines, publishers of Cosmo and similar fat glossies. (But then again, Forbes magazine says Michelle Obama is the most influential woman in the whole world, so marrying Barack trumps inventing Harry. Or perhaps her upper arms are just more toned.)

Deep breath….and relax. This is the stuff of migraine.  I have a writer friend in California who goes through a little ritual every time he sits down to write. He closes his eyes, then focuses on Famous Writer info, self-doubt, accumulated put-downs, unease about his lack of ability, self-doubt, EPA (Empty Page Anxiety) and general white noise. Then he imagines a black box, opens it, puts all this fizzing doubt inside and sends it into outer space.