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.

The Society of Authors

As I've moved back to England I'm trying to meet some writers. I've never really known any writers before because of living in a non-English speaking country. As part of my socialability campaign I joined the Society of Authors and a couple of days ago I went to one of their events. I have to say that at first sight it didn't look promising. Anyone who thinks that authors are a glamorous bunch is sadly deceived ....... But then I finished up meeting all sorts of interesting people. I think that most of the people who turn up to the Society of Authors are second rate writers. The big name people don't need to be there. But what have I got to complain about? I'm a second rate writer myself - or that is how I would be classified by others, even if I don't accept that classification myself ..... Anyway, the point is that second rate writers are really some of the most welcoming and kindest people around. I think that their lives are generally so miserable (no pay, no reviews, being treated like dirt by agents and publishers) that all they can do is band together for comfort. But that's fine by me. I could do with some comfort too. And I think that I've found some!

Meeting my reader

Last week I went up to London and met the lady who reads for me. She is so, so good! I thought I'd talk to her for a couple of hours. Then I looked at my watch and four hours had passed without me even noticing. My reader sees a hundred things that most people just wouldn't see. I think she's a much better editor than most publishers and agents. I pay her for what she does but it is worth every penny. However, the strange thing is that the main things which she says are things which are very basic and which I know all about ..... But still (as I write my fourth novel) I need someone to say them to me. Basically she's making two points which are - dramatise, dramatise, dramatise. And cause and effect .... Because this, then this. Because that, then that. I know all that. I say it to my own students again and again. But still it takes someone astute, who is looking from the outside, to show me the ways in which I'm not following that advice. It is strange business, writing. But I'm now fired with enthusiasm about the book. I aim to get a new draft completed before Christmas. That will be difficult but I'm determined. Thanks those who have commented on this blog!

Not very interesting

The strange thing about writing is that it isn't very interesting. Or at least it isn't a spectator sport. I am writing properly again now and it is great to get back to it. But it's quite hard to describe what I'm actually doing. I just sit at a desk and ask myself questions - that's all it is really. And it is the same day in and day out. I don't go anywhere and I don't meet anyone. My publisher and agent don't contact me. Occasionally I switch the printer on and print out a section of the book so that I can read it through. That's about as interesting as it gets. And yet hundreds of people want to be writers - or at least they tell me that they do. I think they must have a misguided idea of what writing is about. I'm not really sure that it is a desirable thing to do at all.

Working under strange circumstances

At present I am working - or reading through my book to be more precise. There is no furniture in the house at all but there's a window seat I can sit in while I read. I'm continuing to find the book better than expected. (Not good, you understand, just better than I thought). I also really want to talk to someone about it now. I want to know how another reader would view it. Maybe next week I can talk to my reader or the week after. Then back down to the real work.

Reading through the book

I've finally found time to start reading through draft 4 of my new book. I need to do this in preparation for discussing it with the lady (a professional reader) who is currently looking at it for me. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. It reads better than I expected. I can really see how much the work I did earlier in the summer has improved it. Having said that, I've only read the beginning. The chaos doesn't start until later. But all the same, it made me feel quite good to read it. This week I'll have time to read some more of it - sitting in the new house which still has no furniture. At least, the heating is on which is definitely needs to be. The whole of our area of the country is threatening with flooding. Everyone has got water through their roof, if not actually in their house. It seems to have been raining since the beginning of time and there's no sign that it will stop soon.

Taking a break

It's strange. I've spent the last ten years writing continually. And then I start writing this blog and - due to a very complicated house move - I have to stop writing for a while. So suddenly I don't have much to say. Except that I'm planning a thousand writing projects in my head. And I've identified the room in our new house which is going to be my office. My son is going to be at school 8.30 to 3.30 so I'm going to get up early, make my lunch before he goes out of the house, switch off the phone and write for all that time. Or that's the plan .... Except it can't just be a plan. It has to be what actually happens.

Edinburgh Festival

I am in Edinburgh at the Fringe Festival. It's fantastic. My husband and I come most years for three days and we see six shows in a day. It's always freezing cold and raining and we eat bad food and get too tired. But it's fantastic! What I love about Edinburgh is that it is truly open. Anyone can put on a show here ...... And consequently there are shockingly bad shows going on. But the energy here is fantastic, the creativity, the sense of liberation. So many people in such a small space all thinking and talking and questioning. In my mind I've now got one hundred books and plays I want to write. Well, actually, I always have loads of ideas anyway but coming here has certainly increased my resolution to work harder and get more down on paper. We are taking the night train back to London tonight. I'm exhausted. But thank you Edinburgh Festival! You demonstrate that not everyone wants to sit and watch TV all the time!

The Women's Room

I am not writing at the moment because we're in the process of moving. However, I am reading a book called The Women's Room by Marilyn French. It is a famous book, a classic of the feminist movement. I have had it on my book shelf for years and never really fancied reading it. I imagined that it might be a rather tedious feminist rant. I couldn't have been more wrong. It's an amazing book. I don't think I've ever read anything so honest in all my life. It tells the stories of so many women and the reader recognises them all. And it absolutely refuses to offer any solutions to the questions it raises. It does ramble in bits and it is repetitive - but it is still an extra-ordinary good book and a gripping read. I haven't quite finished it but I'm nearly there. I wish I could write something that captures so completely the messy, difficult, compromised nature of life.

Hooray!

A few months ago I wrote my first play. It's actually an adaptation of a short story which I wrote a year ago and which was published in an anthology by Cinnamon Press. Recently I sent the play off to nine different theatres. I wasn't really expecting that anyone would put it on but I hoped that it might at least get a reading somewhere .... Anyway, I just had an e-mail from the Royal Court in London (one of the very best theatres in the UK) and, although they rejected the play, they did make some very positive comments about it. I needed that. It will supply me with the energy to write another play. In this business, even a few words of encouragement are rare so I'm making the best this!

Draft number 4

I'm desperately trying to get the fourth draft of my new book finished before I leave Belgium in four weeks time. I'm writing in the morning and packing in the afternoon. Once I've finished the draft I'm going to send it off to someone who reads for me. The book is not actually in good enough shape for anyone to read it but I do need some feed back even at this early stage. Mercifully the lady who reads for me (for a well deserved fee!) is someone whose view I trust absolutely. She is also someone who will be able to see through the mass of cliche and melo-dramatic rubbish which is currently on the page to the thoughtful novel which (I hope) is hidden away there somewhere. I am already looking forward to being able to talk to her about it. Writing a novel is so horribly lonely. It's also really bad for your mental health. I don't know why I do it really but I can't stop.

Teaching

I've just come back from a weekend teaching at Oxford University. It was a wonderful weekend. Except that there were so many starry-eyed, enthusiastic people all wanting to get an agent, get a publisher, write a best seller. That just makes me worried because I know how hard it is for anyone to get anything published right now. But then when I think about it I know that that doesn't matter at all ..... What does matter is that the weekend was warm, creative, supportive, thought-provoking, engaging, full of kindness and humour ..... Writing breeds all these things and they are far more important than whether anyone ever gets anything published.

Cutting

One of the odd things about writing a book is that you have to write numerous scenes which won't finish up in the final book. By the time I've finished writing a book I've probably written scenes which, in total, are three times the length of the final book. Sometimes even when I'm writing a scene I know that I'll cut it all out later. But some how it has to be written. A friend of mine who reads for me, and whose views on writing I respect entirely, has an interesting idea about this process. She says that one should never be frightened of cutting entire scenes, chapters or sections out of a book because, even after something has been cut, the shadow of it remains in the book. That's so true. It's impossible to explain how it can be true - but it definitely is - and understanding that makes the cutting process very much less difficult.

Elizabeth Taylor

I've just finished reading a book by Elizabeth Taylor. You probably haven't heard of her. She wrote during the 1940s and she was never very well known. But her books are wonderful. Small, slight, dreary, English - they are nevertheless extra-ordinary. The people she writes about are always trivial people and their lives are always directionless. In her world it's always evening and it always rains. The houses are always surrounded by dark and dripping laurels. Expectations are disappointed, people fail to rise to the occasion or are forced into making cheap little compromises. The style is so light but some how it pierces the heart. That is because - beyond anything else - the world she creates is acutely and poignantly real. She is writing about all of us, although we may not want to recognise that. The best one I've read so far is called Mrs Palfrey at the Clarement. The one I've just finished is called The Sleeping Beauty. Elizabeth Taylor should be famous but she isn't.

Doris Lessing

I just found this Doris Lessing quote. It made my day. I agree with her so entirely. The quote goes like this: "It does no harm to repeat, as often as you can, 'Without me the literary industry would not exist: the publishers, the agents, the sub-agents, the accountants, the libel lawyers, the departments of literature, the professors, the theses, the books of criticism, the reviewers, the book pages - all this vast and proliferating edifice is because of this small, patronised, put-down and underpaid person.'" Three cheers for you, Doris.

Elmore Leonard

I've actually never read an Elmore Leonard book and I'm not sure that I ever will but he said something which is particularly important. It goes like this: 'If it sound like writing, I re-write it.' We all need to read through our work and take out the bits which sound like writing. It's hard to do that because we love those bits, they sound so clever and stylish and witty. But it is exactly those sentences which draw attention to themselves which have to go.

Putting a rotisserie together

'What's really annoying about instructions of this sort is that they imply that there's only one way to put this rotisserie together - their way. And that presumption wipes out all creativity. Actually there are hundreds of ways to put the rotisserie together and, when they make you follow just one way, without showing you the overall problem, the instructions become hard to follow in such a way as not to make mistakes. You lose feeling for the work. And not only that, it's very unlikely that they've told you the best way.' This quote comes from Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig. I think that it's an important quote for writers. The key words are 'feeling for the work.' That's what every writer needs to have. We've all got our own way of writing and our own approach to our work. It's the process which is important not the product. Don't let anyone else tell you how to put your rotisserie together.

Adjusting the volume

I've been reading through draft 4 of my book. Overall I feel quite encouraged. It does fit together more or less. But it's all very loud, very obvious, very explicit. Early drafts of books have to be like that. You have to write it all very big at the beginning. You are in the process of finding out what the book is about so you have to shout the messages of the book out in order to test them out. You have to let the characters behave in extreme ways and say everything they want to say. Then slowly - draft by draft - you turn the volume down and down and down. You take more and more out. You make the book quieter and quieter. You discover the confidence to let the reader work it out for him / herself. You gradually remove yourself from your own book. I know that this is the process but still I find it painful to read what I'm writing at the moment because it is all so loud. I have to maintain faith in the fact that I will be able to make it quieter. That's a large part of what the writing process is about - turning the volume down.

Lost

I have got lost in my own book. I can't find the way forward because it has all become too confused. So I've had to stop writing draft 4 (which is what I'm currently doing) and print the book off from the beginning so that I can read it through. I know that books go through these very messy stages so I'm trying to keep my nerve. Hopefully it will all get clearer when I've read it through.

Plays and poetry

I have only ever written one play. I finished it earlier this year and sent it off to a competition. It came second and so now I'm thinking of sending it off to other places. I've just been doing some research as to where I can send it. I'm really not sure if it's any good or not. I would need to see if performed in order to know how to make it better. But I only want it performed by someone who knows that they are doing. It's a very bitter-sweet play but in my mind it's more bitter than sweet. I'd hate to see it played for laughs (which it could be). I also have to find something I can use for a reading which is scheduled for 15th May (in central Brussels). I usually like to write something new for a reading. It seems unfair on the audience not to make that effort. There's poetry I'm burning to write (having not written a poem in five years or more) but I don't think I'm going to get it done now for 15th May. But perhaps I should push myself to do it. It might help to take some time off from the novel. I don't know.

The Return of the Soldier

I suppose most people who are keen readers have their own idea of what makes a good book - I certainly do. For me a good book is one which makes a very serious point but does so with a lightness of touch. At present I am re-reading The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West which has long been one of my top ten books. I'm as impressed by it now as I ever was. It is apparently a very slight book but it asks all sorts of huge and difficult questions about life. Rebecca West was only 24 when she wrote it and it amazes me that someone so young could know so much. I'm re-reading it partly because I'm going to write something about it for a literary magazine called The Reader which is produced by Liverpool University. If you don't know The Reader I do recommend it to you. It often contains very thought-provoking writing about books, reading, life ......

How to do it

Every writer has a different approach to writing a book. This is mine. I spend some time planning, writing notes on characters, developing a vague idea of what will happen in each chapter. I plan on twenty chapter of about 5,000 words each. I know that I won't stick to that but it helps to have an overall idea of the shape of the book. Then I start writing and I write very fast and I don't allow myself to stop. The first 80,000 word draft of the book I'm currently working on took me two months to write and I wasn't even working very hard - only about four hours a day. Of course, that first draft was awful, really awful. It didn't even make sense. But I find that it helps to put it all down. Once I've done that I can see the shape of the book. After that I start re-writing, going through from beginning to end again and again and again. The last book took fourteen complete and thorough re-writes. Hopefully this one might be slightly less. The whole process will probably take about four years. I wish that it didn't take so long and the publishers would prefer that too. But one thing I've learnt in all this is that it isn't helpful to argue with the process. Every writer has their own individual process and you've just got to live with your process. Writing a book is so very hard that it doesn't matter at all how you do it. Just do whatever way you can. And if it takes you twenty years then that's how long it takes.

Awful day

Today I've done half an hours writing. That's pathetic. I've some how lost my nerve. The novel is so all over the place that even I can't understand it. Deep down I know that it will come right but I haven't the courage today. The situation is aggravated by one hundred petty interruptions. A few weeks ago I moved from my own desk downstairs to my husband's computer. I did this because I've got bad back and shoulder problems (even more time wasted trailing back and forth to chiropractor). Anyway, a few days ago the sun came out so I opened the window in my husband's office - and now it won't shut. So I'm trying to write in a howling gale with a rapidly stiffening shoulder. It doesn't sound like a big deal. It isn't a big deal ..... But in the mood I'm in it's too much. I just want some peace and quiet so I can get on with my writing. Let's hope it will be better next week.

Unpacking the bags

A writer is like someone who arrives in a room with a lot of luggage. In the first few chapters the writer needs to make sure that the luggage looks interesting. The bags need to bulge in an enticing way. A few objects need to stick out of the top of a basket or trail from an open bag so that the reader thinks - I want to know what's in those bags. And then slowly, over the following chapters, the writer begins to unpack the bags. The problem is - in which order should they be unpacked? That's what I'm battling with at the moment. I know everything that's in the bags but I need to unpack it in a way that makes sense. This means re-writing and re-writing and re-writing. Writing a book is often a process of working out what is really important, and then bringing it forward into the earliest chapters. It takes a lot of time to do that. There are moments when one loses one's nerve altogether. Today I thought - this book simply can't hold together. There are two many stories, too many people, too many time frames. But I'll press on. These worries don't help. All you have to do is to keep turning up at the page every day and one day you will have a book.

Creepy

As a writer I'm very frequently asked - are your books based on your own life? I actually rather object to that question - and I've learnt that one should never really answer it honestly. I never, never ask my students where their writing comes from because I feel the question is too sensitive. But I understand, of course, why people are interested. And if I was to answer it truthfully what would I say? That's where it gets worrying. I don't think that I do often write about my own life - but I do know that if I write about something then it might start happening to me. Of course, partly that's just me being neurotic and morbid. But I can cite one occasion on which this has definitely happened. I wrote a first novel which was never published (although actually it's rather good and all the publishers it was sent to were lavish in their praise). The novel takes place in a house and that house is almost a character in the book. Then, more than five years after the book was finished, my husband and I were house hunting in England and we went to the house that I had written about. It was the same in all its details. Some how I created that house in my mind and then it turned out that it really existed. And now we've bought that house and we're going to live there. Isn't that strange? I like to write about that because it's a happy example of how writers create the future. Sadly there are less happy and more worrying examples of things which I've written about and which have subsequently come to pass. But perhaps I won't go into that because if I write it down I might start to really worry ....... And you might start thinking I'm really odd.

On not writing

Yesterday I didn't write at all and today I wrote for about two hours - which isn't nearly enough. I want to write more than that. There's always some distraction. The problem at the moment is that I've got a bad problem with my neck and shoulders. I'm in pain all the time and I trail back and forwards to doctors trying to find out what can be done. No doubt part of the problem is to do with spending too long at the computer. But I need to write and I hate it when I'm not writing. Now I'm off to Venice for four days, which is wonderful, but I want to write as well. I actually find it hard to take time off from writing - although the truth is that I might write better if I did less of it.

Short stories

I have taken a few days off from the novel in order to dust up some stories which I wrote a while ago and now want to send out. I have never written many short stories because I'm not very interested in them. I hardly ever read short stories. For me they are simply too short. I love novels - the longer the better - precisely because they create complete and continuous fictional worlds. I want to lose myself in those worlds and stay in them forever. With a short story you're just beginning to understand the world of the story when it all evaporates. I've noticed that people don't like me expressing my dissatisfaction with the short story form. But that's just the way that it is. It's also nearly impossible, it seems, to get a short story published. I have several short stories which have been short listed for prizes but can I get them published? No, certainly not. But having said that, I've enjoyed working on one of my stories today. It is now much better than it was. It certainly should be. It's a story which has been re-drafted about fifty times over the last six years. But it's only now that I really feel that I'm beginning to understand what it's about. Isn't it dreadful, really, to have put so many hours work into something which will never be read? Or perhaps it's wonderful really? To work and work and work at something just for the sake of doing it. Yes, I think that I better decide that it's wonderful otherwise I'll be too depressed to carry on.

Baggy monsters

The book is a huge and baggy monster. It is 110,000 words. That isn't really much too long. The usually length for a novel is 80,00 - 100,000 words. So length isn't really the problem. It's lack of shape and structure which is worrying. I write very tightly crafted and careful books. My last novel was re-written fourteen times. This one will probably be the same. But maybe my idea of what a novel should be is changing. When I wrote my first novel it was described by the publishers Little Brown as being 'quietly intelligent.' I was just thrilled by that desciption of it (not that they published it, mind you). I wanted my books to be quietly intelligent. But now I'm beginning to wonder. I find myself a little bored of all these tight lipped and sparse English novels that I read. What's wrong with being garrulous and extravagant? At the moment I'm in love with the language of Dylan Thomas - extreme, gushing, lyrical, passionate, only half intelligible, not at all English. Why not write like that? Perhaps I will do. But I suspect that the awful truth is that even those big, rangy, extreme, wind-bag type novels are actually very carefully put together. They look like baggy monsters but underneath that baggy exterior there's a frame-work which has been tightly bolted and braced into place. But still I'm glad to have admitted to being bored with being understated. Bring on the ranting, the anger, the overly insistent voice, the wasteful use of words.

The Essence

For me, writing ressembles making a sauce - a tomato sauce. You begin by putting in all the ingredients but then, when you taste the sauce, it's bland and watery. So you have to boil off a lot of the liquid. That's what you have to do with the writing as well. You have to boil it down again and again. What you're trying to do is to get down to the essence of the thing. You want to finish up with something viscous and full of flavour. You want to lose everything that isn't absolutely necessary to the taste of the sauce. It can take a long time to make this kind of sauce.

Doughnuts

Today I finished the third draft of my new book. That might sound like good news but, since it tends to take me about fourteen drafts to write a book, I've still got a long way to go. I'm about to sit down and read through the book to see what's working and what isn't. I already know what the main problem is. I've done what I always fail to do - and what I regularly see my student failing to do. I've neglected to actually tell the main story. I've told everything else. The book has endless sub plots and back story. Pages of accurate description. But the main story is shadowy and imprecise. I call this the doughnut effect. The book with a gaping hole in the middle of it. There are even some published novels, and memoirs, out there which are doughnut books. Either they lack a central story or a central character. But why does this happen? Why do we all write everything else except the real story?
I think the answer is that we're frightened of the real story - and with good reason. We chose a particular story because it has some resonance for us. We may feel sure at the beginning that it doesn't have that personal resonance but actually it does. But then, as we write, we don't push too far into that story because in order to write it properly it will take us to places where we don't want to go. And so we prevaricate and evade and bluster and write anything else except the real story. Some of us even lay down our pens and give up.
But the book will not work until we have the courage to tell that story. The book is offering us the chance to understand something new about ourselves and we have to find the courage to take that chance. We have to peel back layer after layer of ourselves until we can see what it is that we didn't want to see.
Maybe this sounds like therapy. It isn't. I don't write for reasons of therapy. I write because I like to tell a story. But what I do know is that as I write a book I'm always completely and absolutely sure that the book has nothing to do with me. Then three months after the book has gone off to the publishers I suddenly open my eyes and see how the book relates to me.
It's a mysterious process. Don't be frightened of the doughnuts. You've got to write the outside before you fill the middle in. But push yourself inwards. You won't understand it all until long after you've finished the book.