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.