Give Me A Break

This post is likely to get me pillified, villoried and shot down in flames, but I want to talk about finding time not to write.

Writers talk incessantly about how to carve enough writing time out of each day. It’s our primary concern. I know a mother of two who gets up at 6am to type 300 words before breakfast. Another mate writes while he’s on the toilet. He says it’s the only time he’s not disturbed. One successful writer managed to create his historical epic, bit by bit, on the commuter train.

I work part-time, I’m child-free, I have an understanding partner and three dogs who don’t care if the house is a pit. I have loads of time to write.

So no, this is not another take on procrastination.

I want to talk about time out.

If I’m not teaching, walking the dogs or cooking, I’m writing.

By “writing”, I mean planning my novel structure, commenting on people’s blogs, reading Bookseller updates, critiquing colleagues’ synopses, fiddling about on Twitter, researching Rioja wines (both theoretically and practically), trawling Facebook, reorganising my To-Do list, trying to get interviews for the magazine, reading background material and occasionally, once in a while, actually writing.

I watch TV about once a week because of that low-level guilty murmur: Turn-It-Off-And-Write-Cos-This-Is-Utter-Shite.

I do Domestic Goddess once a week (hoover, dust and cook something quick and dirty). Because Quentin Crisp was wrong. The dust does get worse.

The rest of the time, I “write”.

It’s my passion, my calling, my hobby, my job – Monday to Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I’m never off duty.

 

Human Dynamo writer called me with bad news. RSI. All the writing and clicking and typing and Tweeting has caused her an injury. She must rest that forearm, hand and wrist until her muscles recover. NO WRITING. NO BROWSING. NO COMPUTER. This woman is bursting with ideas and creativity, so to be unable to write is beyond frustrating. I winced with her.

But.

A tiny secret part of me was envious. What if I couldn’t write? What if all I was allowed to do was read? Imagine not having to keep up with all the latest on publishers’ collusion over the agency model. Imagine being exempt from critting, commenting and keeping up with the Hockings. Imagine taking some time out.

 

Human Dynamo came over on Thursday and we made a video. Yes, it was about writing. And of course it involved editing and tinkering about on the screen. It also involved laughing. (Coming soon to a screen near you.)

But I spent an entire day not thinking about my book, my social profile, my blog or me, me, me and my writing. Crime Writer came back from her hols full of recommendations for books and scenery. Was I jealous? Yes! I need a break.

From now on, one day a week, I’m on holiday. I will not “write”. I will read classics in foreign languages, discover Norwegian music, observe woodpeckers, talk to non-writer friends, cycle into the forest to pick wild garlic, sew patchwork quilts, watch documentaries by Werner Herzog and cook stuff involving fennel.

And then, naturally, I’ll blog about it.

 

Writerhoods

I belong to three writers’ groups – one real, one virtual and one half-and-half.

The nationalities, genres, ages, genders and levels of experience range from 1 to z.

Input and presence varies but I get so much from each.  Reading something as practical as another writer’s critique, a sharp assessment of a synopsis, or an honest comment on a cover design makes me work harder at what I do. No one, not  a single one of my writerly cohorts, has ever said otherwise. Writers, contrary to stereotype, do not shiver bitterly under bridges, jealously guarding their genius and pouring scorn on their peers. (Trolls, on the other hand, have hairy feet.)

Writers meet, share, argue and help each other.

We enthuse and champion, support and encourage, but never blindly. We know, or should do, that if we align ourselves to something substandard, it reflects on us all. The writers I know kick me, whip me and force me to work harder. And my work is far better as a result of experienced eyes.

And I try to reciprocate. My knowledge of children’s fiction, steam-punk, or fantasy is uneducated, but even I can see where a sentence is clunky or a concept is muddled.

Every response is a precious jewel. These people are your readers and in this instance – and this will be the only time – you CAN look over their shoulders and say, ‘What did you think?’

Make the most of them – your peers are peerless.

This is how I see my writers’s groups

Pay attention to my own appearance – 0.25-0.28.

 

 

 

 

To err is human

I’m guest-blogging today over at Sue’s.

 

 

Proofing and Puddings

Proofreading

Plot taut, character deep, dialogue natural, theme pervasive, description evocative.

We’re ready to go! (Yay!)

But first to proofing. (Boo.)

Two of my writing groups are currently gnawing on the problem of proof-reading your own work. Also a subject on my mind as I’ve just finished reading two award-winning books. Both contained glaring typos. ‘Hang on a momnt’, and, ‘For two years, I made tea, photocopied minutes and acted as his gopher’.

Anthony Horowitz, speaking at The Book People event last month, said Orion “published The Mouse of Slick with no fewer than 35 proof-reading errors. Their proof-reader tried to kill herself. She shot herself with a gnu.”

So here are some top tips from both pros and amateurs to help us all edit our texts, before releasing them to a world of red pens.

Stand back.

By the time you feel your book/essay/short story is ready for a final proofing, you are too close. You’ve become immune to the errors. The text looks fine to you, because your brain is on auto-correct. Put it away. Read something else. Write something else. Rob’s advice? ‘When you come back to it, it should be as a reader, not a writer.’

On screen.

Make good use of the spellchecker. It’s not infallible, but can be handy. Once you’ve gone through it once for the obvious, use the Search facility for common errors such as then/than, from/form, you’re/your, advice/advise, their/there/they’re, Then do it again for your own personal quirks. Susie has a blind spot when it comes to allowed/aloud, so she always runs a check for those words. Changing font can also draw the eye to previously invisible slips.

On paper.

It’s harder to spot mistakes on screen. Print it out (on recycled paper, naturally) and pick up a pencil.

Read it aloud. (That’s aloud, Susie.)

If you stumble over speaking the words, that’s a likely indicator of an error or awkward phrasing. Not only that, but it helps spot blunders like alliterative overkill, excess adverbiage or use of cliché, such as the sentence I indicated in the review below.

Four attractively burly uniformed officers spoke briefly to Bailey, then two of them ran round to the back of the building while the other two brandished their lethal weapon flashlights and pounded on the door.

Alternatively, super-proofer Liza suggests using Text-to-Speech software and hearing your words read to you. ‘Amazing how different it sounds.’ Top tip.

Focus.

Proof in short bursts as it demands intense concentration. Decide what you’re proofing for – spelling, grammar or punctuation. It’s worth taking three runs at it for each area. Grammar checkers are less reliable than spellcheckers. Get a useful manual like The Writer’s ABC Checklist to help answer all those ‘Is it which or that?’ questions.

Janet reads hers backwards, whereas Max recommends turning it upside down. Nuria says change the font and Johnny torpedoes distorters. Whatever contortions you try, make sure they help you focus on your text.

 Get professional help.

I heard a story recently where someone refused to believe their text contained errors because it had been read by friends and family. Unless you’re lucky enough to have a circle of friends and relations who are skilled proofers, this won’t make much difference. (If they’re skilled roofers, mind, they could make a fortune.)

I just gave a competition entry to a pro copy editor, with a certain smugness. I’d hoovered that thing free of any little errant word mites, I was sure of it. The pages came back looking like a Post-It hedgehog.

Know the score.

Conventions differ between English-speaking nations, so you need to make a choice. I stubbornly stick to –ise as opposed to –ize, feeling like Joyce Grenfell on a small, eroding spit of sand. But be consistent, not only with your version of English, but in rendition of time, speech and foreign words, advises Daryl.

Finally, stick to your guns. Or gnus.

As George Orwell put it, “Break any of these rules sooner than say something outright barbarous.”

Unless of course, barbarous is what you aim for. Sometimes, you want to split that infinitive, refuse that colonic conformity and run amok with your adverbials hanging out.

But break those rules as a pioneer, not a pudding.

 

Christos Tsiolkas

… talked about The Slap on Friday night, at Kaufleuten, Zürich. This is an extract from that event.

 

What is The Slap about?

It’s about shining a light on that contemporary bourgeois voice of middle-class Australia. What it is, not what it thinks it is.

 

Where did the idea for The Slap come from?

A real event. We were having a party at my parents’ house and a little boy was in the kitchen, getting under my Mum’s feet, yanking pans out of cupboards. She turned him around, patted him on the bottom and told him to get on out into the garden. The kid, three or four years old, turned around and said, ‘No one touches my body without my permission!’. This whole concept of rights and respect gave me an idea.

 

How did you approach a book with so many characters?

I always knew I’d begin with Hector, as he represents the aspects that scare me the most. And I knew I’d end with Richie, but it took some deciding how dark to make that ending. I needed to find some empathy with all the characters and I worked hard at finding that. I resisted writing Rosie because she represents all I hate; self-help books and judgemental attitudes. But when I did begin writing her, I found a surprising tenderness.

 

What about the younger characters?

The kids are less self-righteous, there’s more gentleness than you find in my generation. We have a distinctive greed and feeling of self-entitlement. Yet I could never have written the character of Manolis in my twenties. I needed to grow up and understand the nature of compromise.

 

Your eye is sharp. Are your friends and family afraid?

I am a magpie, or maybe a vampire. I constantly observe and record. But when my friends or relatives think they recognise themselves in my books, I’m often surprised how wrong they can be. Sometimes the characters they hate are the closest to them. I also have ethics about how much I can steal and still call myself creative..

 

Who do you write for?

The reader. Literature is a gift, so I write for the most intelligent, sensitive, enquiring, open-minded reader there is.

 

 

Today, I interviewed Christos about continents, sex, criticism, theatre, coffee and the influence of cultural storytelling. Here’s an extract – the whole interview will appear in Words with JAM.

Let’s talk about the shift in style from Dead Europe to The Slap.

I became interested in writing different points of view. And I think I came from a student background and cultural generation which was very nervous about writing outside one’s own experience; gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity and cultural space. I think The Slap is my attempt to resist that. Not to say those considerations aren’t important, but if I can’t write as a woman, a black person, an old man or a teenage girl, what the hell am I doing writing at all?

 

A brave and challenging author, not to mention a fascinating, articulate and absorbing man.

I am a fan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Woman of Hats

Being a writer allows you to wear a variety of hats.

Today, I was Film Director and got two fantastic performances in the can. Helps when you have terrific actors, of course.

Tomorrow, I am Journalist, talking to the truly multi-talented Jane Goldman (left). Columnist, author, TV presenter, screenwriter (latest success, adapting Susan Hill’s The Woman In Black), she has a whole wardrobe of hats.

Wednesday, I am Researcher, seeking deep insights into Dalmatians, and how to preserve internal organs. (It’s for Book Four.)

Thursday, I am Storyteller at Orell Füssli, for International Women’s Day.

The theme is Oriental, so I’ll be reading from 1001 Nights and Banana Yoshimoto’s Lizard.

Friday, I am Reader, catching up with Christos Tsiolkas’s latest, Dead Europe, before attending his event that evening and hanging out with the Wordy Gang.

Saturday, I am Interviewer, as Mr Tsiolkas (left) has kindly granted me an exclusive for Words with JAM.

Sunday, I am Writer. Head down and plotting Book Four.

(Note: on none of these days am I Domestic Goddess.

Therefore, next Monday, I shall be multi-tasking – Cleaner, Ironer, Cook and Pug-walker.)

 

Guilt by Association by Marcia Clark

Rachel Knight has it all under control.

She‘s one of LA’s hardest-working deputy DAs, she’s on a permanent diet and she’s just about stopped cursing in court. Her best friends are her Special Trials colleagues; smart-mouthed, stylish dresser Toni, and gentle Jake, the other hardest worker on the team. Rachel has relationship issues, and thanks to her therapist, Carla, she knows why. Not that it helps.

When Jake’s body is recovered from a sleazy motel alongside that of a seventeen-year-old rent boy, Rachel’s world is rocked to its foundations.

Worst of all, she’s forbidden to investigate and given a politically sensitive case to handle instead. But she’s resourceful, not to mention persuasive.

Assisted by investigating officer Bailey Keller, Rachel sets out to find the truth about both cases, exploring everywhere from rundown high schools to elite estates. The cases grow increasingly complex and more closely intertwined than anyone could imagine. Turns out sleaze is everywhere.

Marcia Clark, herself an ex-attorney, was the lead prosecutor in the OJ Simpson trial. Her investigative experience shines a light on the Los Angeles police procedures and judicial system. Not only does she manage expert plotting and dynamic pace, but her dialogue and sense of location are whipsmart. Her broad cast of characters comes to life in her spare description and reflection in the eyes of others. Rachel Knight is a complicated, likeable and driven protagonist, with an undeniable determination to see justice done.

Clark’s writing is not entirely even. There’s the odd clanger;

Four attractively burly uniformed officers spoke briefly to Bailey, then two of them ran round to the back of the building while the other two brandished their lethal weapon flashlights and pounded on the door.

But more than counterbalanced by lines of insight and sensitivity:

No one knows how I feel and time doesn’t heal the wound. The wound just becomes part of you.

And:

“How come you haven’t asked?”

“Asked what?”

“Whether or not I knew Jake was gay.”

“Because if he was involved with Kit, he’s not gay. He’s a pedophile.”

Kevin nodded with a sad smile. “Thank you.”

 

Overall, Guilt by Association is a fast-paced, exhilarating and highly satisfying read, and I’ll be first in the queue for the next Rachel Knight.

 

 

Better writer, worse reader

Will Self got me thinking. Again.

I spend a lot of time writing, reading other people’s work with a view to a constructive critique, editing, rewriting and examining the mechanics of the thing. All the time, there’s a question in my head – how can this be better?

Thus when reading for pleasure, my hand is still reaching for the red pen/glowing mouse to delete the ten unnecessary uses of the word ‘that’ on page five.

Books I sped through and loved, when younger, seem hackneyed and clumsy with the jaded eye of the relentless writer. From various conversations with people-who-write, I know I’m not alone in this.

Suspension of disbelief.

I’m reading three different books at the moment – Lizard by Banana Yoshimoto, The Donor by Helen FitzGerald, and Guilt by Association by Marcia Clarke. As much as I’m absorbed by the spare language, the dark wit, and expert detail respectively, half of my mind is taking notes on structure, dialogue, plot or use of adverbs.

I’m thinking back over last year’s reading and wondering which book made me switch off the inner analyst and just roll with the story. Was there one? Possibly A Visit From The Goon Squad.

For me, it comes down to voice. Certain writers drag you so far into a character’s head, you tune everything else out and follow that voice wherever it leads you. Yann Martell, Toni Morrison, Colm Tóibín, Ali Smith, JW Hicks and those two masters of switching stories while sustaining total absorption; David Mitchell and Jennifer Egan.

Will Self, interviewed by Clive James, claims he has the same problem with film. Strange. Film is a medium in which I can completely suspend all judgement and get carried away. Sometimes twice. Analysis comes later, often days later, unless I start ranting as soon as the credits roll.

Clive James and Will Self: it’s an interesting short video but the bit about creators of fiction comes around 2.30.

http://www.clivejames.com/video/lib6/willself

 

Bret Lott on Detail

Bret Lott is the best-selling author of 13 books (Jewel was an Oprah’s Book Club selection, numerous essays and stories. He has been a Fulbright Senior American Scholar and writer-in-residence at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, and is a member of the National Council of the Arts. Her teaches at the College of Charleston, South Carolina. His latest book is Dead Low Tide.

Here’s what I took away from his seminar at the Geneva Writers’ Workshop.

He begins with a quote from Walker Evans:

Stare. It is the way to educate

Your eye, and more.

Stare, pry, listen eavesdrop.

Die knowing something.

You are not here long.

Fiction is an accumulation of detail which yields meaning. Life is a series of details and is born of who you are. Get out there, get out of yourself. Bret advises his students in Charleston to learn how dialogue works by going to Waffle House after midnight and writing down whatever they hear. A cornerstone of writing is empathy.

Every writer faces the same problem – there’s nothing new. How do you take the familiar and look at it afresh?

Bret draws our attention to an example – Richard Brautigan’s short story 1/3, 1/3, 1/3. He asks us to read and identify any lines that strike us – he has two favourites.

I find four;

• The novelist was in his late forties, tall, reddish, and looked as if life had given him an endless stream of two-timing girlfriends, five-day drunks and cars with bad transmissions.
• One day I was standing in front of my shack, eating an apple and staring at a black ragged toothache sky that was about to rain.
• … she was standing in front of her evil dentist house, twelve years old, and approximately two miles from the Welfare office.
• The place was small and muddy and smelled like stale rain and had a large unmade bed which looked like it had been a partner to some of the saddest lovemaking this side of The Cross.

Bret points to the first two as examples of how the writer pierces the mundane and avoids cliché. But warns you can’t have this in every sentence or you’re in danger of overwriting.

He goes on to examine the opening of John Gardner’s Redemption. One day in April – a clear blue day when there were crocuses in bloom – Jack Hawthorne ran over and killed his brother, David. The detail provides immediate conflict and upsets reader expectation. Later, John Gardner revealed that the story was born of truth. As a child, he had accidentally killed his brother in almost identical circumstances. He said “A psychological wound, if kept in check, is helpful to keep a writer driven.” That one got me thinking.

We spend some time discussing the work of Flannery O’Connor, one of my favourites as much for her caustic observations as her writing.

Examples:

• “Do universities stifle writers? In my opinion, they don’t stifle enough of them.”
• “If you can write just badly enough, you can make a lot of money.”

O’Connor tries out news ways of description, she’s brave in her juxtapositioning of imagery to avoid lazy phrasing. We look at A Good Man Is Hard to Find.

… she wheeled around then and faced the children’s mother, a young woman in slacks, whose face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage and was tied around with a green head-kerchief that had two points on the top like a rabbit’s ears. No judgement passed, but the reader has already got the picture.

Details are what Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is all about. A collection of short stories about a platoon of American soldiers in the Vietnam war, the objects they hold dear and their behaviour towards these items.

Extract: In the late afternoon, after a day’s march, he would dig his foxhole, wash his hands under a canteen, unwrap the letters, hold them with the tips of his fingers, and spend the last hour of light pretending.

The careful selection of just the right details stands out in a passage of David Rhodes’s Rock Island Line.

The old people remember Della and Wilson Montgomery as clearly as if just last Sunday after the church pot-luck dinner they had climbed into their gray Chevorlet and driven back out to their country home, Della waving from the window and Wilson leaning over the wheel, steering with both hands. They can remember as if just yesterday they had driven past the Montgomerys’ brownstone house and seen them sitting on their porch swing, Wilson rocking it conscientiously back and forth, Della smiling, her small feet only touching the floor on the back swing, both of them looking like careful, quiet children.

In one hundred words, we know so much about this couple and already feel an affection and sense of loss.

Someone asks a question about how to balance momentum and description. Bret suggests going on instinct for the first draft and overdoing description, which can be winnowed out on rewriting.

He asks us to think about how themes can be rooted in detail and gives us two minutes to write down a list of what’s on our dresser at home. After some debate as to the US/European definition of dresser, we get started.

Now we swap and use another person’s list as the basis for the beginning of a short story in which the objects belong to the spouse of the narrator. And he gives us a choice. It’s either the day after the spouse’s funeral, or the day before s/he is going to ask the spouse for a divorce.

The results are surprising – some funny, especially the one about the vibrator and the earplugs, some poignant and a couple particularly vicious. But one thing they share is a vivid level of detail, which adds depth and dimension to every one of these hastily scribbled openings.

Bret advises us to carry a notebook and observe, note and prowl for details. He rounds the session off with a quote by Joseph Conrad:

“My job is to make you see and that is all.”

 

Ten Things I learned about Publishing …

… at the Geneva Writers’ Conference

Some quotes, insights and advice I gleaned from attending various panel discussions and Q&A events from the following experts:

Colin Harrison; vice-president and senior editor at Scribner, an imprint of Simon and Schuster, New York

David Applefield; guerilla publisher, media specialist and online publisher at Creating Bestsellers

Dinah Lee Küng; Orange Prize nominee, long-term reporter on China and e-book convert

John Zimmer; lawyer, writer and public speaker, expert on use of writers’ platforms

CH: Be realistic. A writer can rarely write a book in a year. If they say they can, and even if their agents say they can, I negotiate a contract which allows them to deliver in eighteen months. But I’d prefer two years.

DLK: Write good books. When readers find your work and like it, they will seek out more. Have it ready for them.

DA: Give something to your potential readers first. Be useful. On your website or better still, your blog. Grow your tribe and when you have a following, you can expect to sell something.

JZ: Build your platform and interact with people. Use Facebook strategically. You can have an author page on which only you can post. You can keep the content focused on you and your work. Online writing communities can be helpful, but beware yet another time suck.

CH: While writers’ platforms are essential, “protect the instrument”. Make a conscious choice to switch off and use your writing mind. You are a writer. Spend three days away from the internet. Protect yourself from that intrusiveness and the anxiety it creates.

DLK: Be focused with your time and with your readership. I write for two very different markets and so use two names. A pen name is very useful. It allows you to cross genres and appeal to various markets. It’s also very liberating if your mother is still alive.

CH: Agents and publishers are part colleagues, part adversaries. If I take on an author, it’s going to get up close and personal because we’ll be refining their work. I never talk to authors about money; that would be unethical. The agent is a vital practical link who provides more support for the writer, whereas my focus is on the book.

JZ: There’s no inherent contradiction between e-readers and paper books. Books are objects of veneration and hold a different attraction. Apparently, e-book readers buy 21% more paperbacks. Although an e-reader doesn’t show anyone the cover, so no one knows what’s making you laugh, cry or nod.

Kids are now reading Victorian novels such as The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins on e-readers, because they’re not put off by a huge great hardback.

DLK: Maximise your readership by using sites where readers go. Goodreads, or Shelfari, or Librarything. Use these sites as a reader and a writer. Be active and get your book in front of more people than you can ever hope to reach on your own.

DA: There’s confusion between literary merit and saleability. You may be rejected because your agent/publisher can’t see how to sell your work. Define your bottom line as a writer. Do you want your book to find an audience? That’s always possible. The old models are no longer working, so it’s time to create ones. For most books, there is a readership. You just need to find it.