Laurie Lee

Last night I met Laurie Lee's widow. I'm ashamed to say that I didn't even know that he had a widow. But I was weak at the knees meeting her. For me, that's something I'll be telling my grandchildren. I felt some how that I was within touching distance of genius. Because Laurie Lee was really one of the great writers of the last century. Also one just knows from his poems that he was also a wonderfully kind and gentle man. Having met his widow, I'm now going to start reading some of his books again. I know I'll be inspired. I need that at that moment.

The two year crisis

I'm having a crisis about my novel. I've been writing it for two years and I suddenly realise that large parts of what I've written are entirely off the point and need to be scrapped. I don't feel good about this. Except that I've been through this with three novels before. It always seems to happen. When I'm two years in I always realise that the book isn't about what I thought it was about. It's depressing but perhaps it is just part of the process - or my process, at least. And the main thing I've learnt about writing is - DON'T ARGUE WITH THE PROCESS. Arguing with the process wastes time and gets you nowhere. So I'll just keep going and hope that it comes right. I think that it will do but I get bored of waiting.

Slog - and inspiration

I'm writing pretty regularly at the moment but it's a slog. I do find myself wondering whether it is worth it. I'm still so far from finishing my book and I don't know whether it will get published. I've had two published but that isn't necessarily a help in getting a third book published. But then something happened which helped. My mother turned up with some DVDs she got from some charity shop. Amongst them was the Jeremy Irons / Anthony Andrews TV adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. I watched it and I just loved it. I've seen it many times before but it doesn't get less engaging. It includes Jeremy Irons reading quite a few sections from the book. The language is so luscious, the sense of love and loss so strong. It sent me right back to my desk. If there is any chance I could ever write like that then I that is enough reason to keep going .....

Website

I am finally about to have a web site and this blog is going to be attached to it. Or at least I hope that it is. It has taken me about three years to get someone to set up a web site for me. It could have taken about a week. I also think that no-one will look at my web site but maybe I'm wrong. I hoped that this blog might put me in touch with other writers and it hasn't really done that but I've enjoyed it anyway. Probably the web site won't do that either. Ah well ..... writing is a solitary profession, I suppose. I'm looking forward to getting back to my book after Christmas.

Busy

I haven't written much on this blog for a very good reason. I'm writing very intensely right now. Actually, that's not true. What I'm really doing is planning. And that is what I need to be doing. I'm the kind of person who can always cover sheets and sheets of paper with writing. That's both a blessing and a curse. The reason why it is curse is because I spend too much time writing and not enough time thinking. It can be good to write without thinking but at some point you have to stop doing that ..... and think. So that's what I'm doing now. Re-writing the plan for my book again and again and again. It feels like nothing is being produced. But actually something is happening. I'm getting to know the world of the book much better. And I'm really hoping that I'll reap the benefits when I start writing again. We'll see. Maybe this book will still take about fourteen drafts .... as the others have done.

Rant

As a writer and a teacher of creative writing, I'm constantly following friends and ex students through the process of trying to get their work published. And I get angry, very angry. These people are treated so badly by agents and publishers. The truth is that agents and publishers generally know very little about writing - after all, they haven't written anything themselves, have they? Frequently they don't actually read the work which is sent to them. But this doesn't seem to stop them handing out advice which is frequently just plain, old fashioned Wrong. Sorry, but I have to say, there are a lot of cheap and ignorant people working in the agent / publisher world. I say all this now because I've just seen someone being treated particularly badly. She's got herself an agent but this agent has a) failed to read the whole book b) advised her to change the title from the very good title she had chosen to an appalling trite title and c) advised her to take out of the book those parts of it which are 'difficult' (but which are in fact the best bits of the book). Frankly, I want to ring this agent up and shout at her. Aspiring writers are really in a bad position right now. There is more or less nowhere they can go to get good advice. So instead they fall into the hands of unscrupulous agents and publishers .... and they believe what those people say .... which they shouldn't but how can they know that? I hate having to watch this happening.

Frustration

I've just realised that it is two years since I started on this novel. I've worked hard on it during cerain periods. But overall I haven't done enough. I'm not being sufficiently focused and I'm allowing far too many distractions to creep in. My husband and I are going away to Italy over next weekend and after that, I've decided, I'm getting down to work in earnest. The only thing that really matters in my life is writing. It is the only thing I want to do. And I'm not doing that. I feel so frustrated. So I need to get on with it .... soon.