I came across two examples of creatve writing worth sharing today. One from the Halifax, who kindly wrote to inform me that they had 'adjusted' my rate on my ISA from 5% to 4.75% 'to bring it in line with market rates'. This on the day that I opened my 2006/7 ISA with National Savings and Investments with an interest rate of 5.05%. I presume (to steal a phrase from the the presumably rather shortsighted Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt) they 'do not recognise that figure' ( or indeed the other 5% ones shown on www.moneysupermarket.com. ).
Then our beleagured postlady knocked. She smiles rather bravely whenever I see her but as she is a shade over five foot and on occasions the pile of post she has just for our house is about four foot I suspect it is a smile of relief not friendship. Anyway she brought today eight or so back copies of a magazine called Slightly Foxed which I had never heard of but which Dennis has discovered and which bears the byline' The Real Reader's Quarterly'. I have not read anything except one article at random from the index which was about the following curse found by the editors in the college library at Peterhouse, Cambridge which originates from the Monastery of San Pedro in Barcelona:
"For him that stealeth a book from this Library let it change into a serpant in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with Palsy and all his Members blasted. Let him languish in Pain crying alound for mercy and let there be no Surcease to his Agony till he sink to Dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw his entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not and when at last he goeth to his final Punishment let the flames of hell consume him forever and aye."
And I thought that librarian at Eccleston library was a bit off hand when I asked her to process twelve out of area requests for quilting books all at the same time.......
Friday, April 28, 2006
Thursday, April 27, 2006
New skills
Just back from a run/walk ( one min on one min off) around the local playing fields. After yesterday's blog I decided to set some goals so I have entered the Walk for Life in Heaton Park Manchester (having missed more local dates). Please look at my sponsorship page at www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/helenconway
Why the photo of a pink and blue thing? Well - new skills. Uploading it was the first one ( easy peasy when you actually bother to try) but also its one of the new things I intend to blog about - the new obsession of my life: quilting.
The above quilt is not my first attempt because that is not actually finished: the patchwork is fine but a defective walking foot on my brand new machine chewed up all the backing when I attempted to machine quilt it so it is banished into a box until I can face the disappointing mess again. However, the above was my first finished attempt which has gone to my mother-in-law in Ballymena. For the uninititaled it is a log cabin design which traditionally has a red plain square for the center design. I though I'd be different and use stripes which was fine until I came to rotate the bocoks to make the secondary pattern of the crosses. I forgot that the stripes would also rotate and some be verticle and some horizontal. Doh! In the end a quick rethink made the alternating a design feature rather than fault - but lesson number one was swiftly learned!
Since then I have greedily absorbed much internet material on quilting but for those fancying a bit of surfing I will send you to just two links today, both from the same person:
www.serendipitypatchwork.com.au and http://www.serendipitypatchwork.blogspot.com/The sites belong to another exlawyer who deserves to be today's link becuase I emailed her today having found her in a magazine and got a reply in minutes despite being a stranger on the otherside of the world - don't you just love the internet?!
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Happy girl in trainers
Thank you to all those who requested that I get my finger out and return to the blog. I shall be making more effort in future.
However, the original idea for the blog was purely to write about writing as kind of motivation to me. In fact I don't always have anything to say on that topic and when I've had a good writing day (and the novel is almost almost at completed first draft but the finishing line keeps moving) the last thing I want to do is type anything else. So, blogging I might be in the future but I will be expanding content to other life obsessions and observations so I hope that you still want to read.
In fact I do have something to say on writng today: I read in the Times that a man, fed up with receiving rejection letters along the lines of 'I enjoyed reading it but....', and convinced that no -one was actually reading his stuff, decided to embark upon an experiment. He scanned in the instruction manual for his washing machine, divided it into chapters and sent it in. Lo and behold a rejection letter arrived. 'I enjoyed reading it but....'. I have decided that there is no point getting into a spin ( sorry) about the state of the publishing industry. Look on it as a positive thing. If an agent can enjoy reading a washing machine manual then how much better is my novel? Besides I bet many a reader is like me - stuck in a queue or a bathroom with nothing to read I will read the instructions on the back of a shampoo bottle rather than be bored. So perhaps it was quite an interesting manual.
As for the title. Well, last weekend was of course the London marathon. It has been a fixture in my diary for some years now and I am very committed to lying in bed watching it. One year I even got out of a hotel bed and went to the embankment to watch Paula Radcliffe. (Breifly - she is faster in real life than on TV!) And each year I think: I'd love to do that, the atmosphere is fantastic. Except that I am no runner. Running hurts my ankles and my shins before I can even get out of breath. (JJB sports guys in Bath tell me it is as a result of having high arches and tiny ankles). And it's really hard to get a place anyway...
But this year I watched Run for Glory- what I call a 'hotel TV programme', i.e. somthing i'd only watch when I'm all on my tod in a travel inn in Birmingham. In fact I got hooked and followed the progress of a group training for the marathon. Two had breast cancer, one was twenty four stone, one was blind and disabled from an accident, another was assessed at the start as having the fitness levels of someone in a coma. After training from Sally Gunnell and Steve Cram all of them finished and in quite respectable times. Which puts me moaning about high arches into some kind of perspective. Plus on the day I saw a guy being interviewed who started at midnight and walked the course backwards before running it again. ( He didn't walk backwards. I mean he did the course in reverse!) It took him seven and a half hours to walk it.
And I thought - I can do that it I put my mind to it. So I did what I do for everything and looked up on the internet to see if anyone else thought it was acceptable to intend to walk a marathon rather than start running and end up walking because it is a ridiculous distance, and it is - there is a whole community out there of walkers and lists of walker friendly marathons. So I am going to give it a go.
Only I'm not telling anyone because then I will look a right prat when I don't do it. So you must eat this blog when you have read it.
It turned out that I had already done the most important stage of the training without even realising: I had been the week before to M&S and bought a bag full of there amazingly cheap but very good quality T-shirts and jogging pants. Ok, with yoga in mind but hey, exercise is excercise. Then I commenced research. My Mum ( who has always walked everywhere) reckons she can walk from her house to Penrith in 50 mins which she says is 3 miles. Thus she can do 16 min miles. If she can I can ( with practice).
So after teaching yesterday I went for a walk around Salford Quays with pedometer clipped to my hip. the weather was gorgeous, the buildings interesting, the water calming. And I did 21 min miles. Not fantastic but hey, its my first day. I'm a beginner. I'm supposed to be slow. And besides, Dad reckons home to Penrith is only 2.6 miles. I have sent them out to measure it.
So this morning I set off around the neighbourhood for training walk number two. The website recommends building up from short distances and I decided it was sensible to know what my speed would be if I really really tried for speed over 1 mile. So I walked until my pedometer said half a mile - I had no idea that was so far!- then reversed my route. It took 28 mins to do one mile. That is abismal. I checked the website again, and no that's not acceptable for a reasonably fit person even a beginner. I was despondent. But motivated, because if that's my speed I really really do need to get fit just for health grounds. But then I thought - I really can't be that bad, can I? After all I do go to the gym from time to time. And if I'd walked any faster I would have broken into a jog. Which in fact I did from time to time just for a few yards at a time. And it did seem a long way.....
So I got in the car and drove the route. It's exactly 2 miles. YES!!! My pedometer must only be clocking every other step. Which gives me 14 min miles which is a very acceptable starting base. Hence happy girl in trainers.
Now, which aromatherapy oils do I mix for muscle aches again?
However, the original idea for the blog was purely to write about writing as kind of motivation to me. In fact I don't always have anything to say on that topic and when I've had a good writing day (and the novel is almost almost at completed first draft but the finishing line keeps moving) the last thing I want to do is type anything else. So, blogging I might be in the future but I will be expanding content to other life obsessions and observations so I hope that you still want to read.
In fact I do have something to say on writng today: I read in the Times that a man, fed up with receiving rejection letters along the lines of 'I enjoyed reading it but....', and convinced that no -one was actually reading his stuff, decided to embark upon an experiment. He scanned in the instruction manual for his washing machine, divided it into chapters and sent it in. Lo and behold a rejection letter arrived. 'I enjoyed reading it but....'. I have decided that there is no point getting into a spin ( sorry) about the state of the publishing industry. Look on it as a positive thing. If an agent can enjoy reading a washing machine manual then how much better is my novel? Besides I bet many a reader is like me - stuck in a queue or a bathroom with nothing to read I will read the instructions on the back of a shampoo bottle rather than be bored. So perhaps it was quite an interesting manual.
As for the title. Well, last weekend was of course the London marathon. It has been a fixture in my diary for some years now and I am very committed to lying in bed watching it. One year I even got out of a hotel bed and went to the embankment to watch Paula Radcliffe. (Breifly - she is faster in real life than on TV!) And each year I think: I'd love to do that, the atmosphere is fantastic. Except that I am no runner. Running hurts my ankles and my shins before I can even get out of breath. (JJB sports guys in Bath tell me it is as a result of having high arches and tiny ankles). And it's really hard to get a place anyway...
But this year I watched Run for Glory- what I call a 'hotel TV programme', i.e. somthing i'd only watch when I'm all on my tod in a travel inn in Birmingham. In fact I got hooked and followed the progress of a group training for the marathon. Two had breast cancer, one was twenty four stone, one was blind and disabled from an accident, another was assessed at the start as having the fitness levels of someone in a coma. After training from Sally Gunnell and Steve Cram all of them finished and in quite respectable times. Which puts me moaning about high arches into some kind of perspective. Plus on the day I saw a guy being interviewed who started at midnight and walked the course backwards before running it again. ( He didn't walk backwards. I mean he did the course in reverse!) It took him seven and a half hours to walk it.
And I thought - I can do that it I put my mind to it. So I did what I do for everything and looked up on the internet to see if anyone else thought it was acceptable to intend to walk a marathon rather than start running and end up walking because it is a ridiculous distance, and it is - there is a whole community out there of walkers and lists of walker friendly marathons. So I am going to give it a go.
Only I'm not telling anyone because then I will look a right prat when I don't do it. So you must eat this blog when you have read it.
It turned out that I had already done the most important stage of the training without even realising: I had been the week before to M&S and bought a bag full of there amazingly cheap but very good quality T-shirts and jogging pants. Ok, with yoga in mind but hey, exercise is excercise. Then I commenced research. My Mum ( who has always walked everywhere) reckons she can walk from her house to Penrith in 50 mins which she says is 3 miles. Thus she can do 16 min miles. If she can I can ( with practice).
So after teaching yesterday I went for a walk around Salford Quays with pedometer clipped to my hip. the weather was gorgeous, the buildings interesting, the water calming. And I did 21 min miles. Not fantastic but hey, its my first day. I'm a beginner. I'm supposed to be slow. And besides, Dad reckons home to Penrith is only 2.6 miles. I have sent them out to measure it.
So this morning I set off around the neighbourhood for training walk number two. The website recommends building up from short distances and I decided it was sensible to know what my speed would be if I really really tried for speed over 1 mile. So I walked until my pedometer said half a mile - I had no idea that was so far!- then reversed my route. It took 28 mins to do one mile. That is abismal. I checked the website again, and no that's not acceptable for a reasonably fit person even a beginner. I was despondent. But motivated, because if that's my speed I really really do need to get fit just for health grounds. But then I thought - I really can't be that bad, can I? After all I do go to the gym from time to time. And if I'd walked any faster I would have broken into a jog. Which in fact I did from time to time just for a few yards at a time. And it did seem a long way.....
So I got in the car and drove the route. It's exactly 2 miles. YES!!! My pedometer must only be clocking every other step. Which gives me 14 min miles which is a very acceptable starting base. Hence happy girl in trainers.
Now, which aromatherapy oils do I mix for muscle aches again?
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Jordanian trouble
My day is ruined and it is not even nine o'clock yet.
There I was fired up with pride and motivation to attend to my neglected blog (and not quite- so -neglected-but-still-in-need-of-an-apology novel) by the fact that yesterday I made the official decision to work four days a week for the forseeable future so that I had some time to write. I had worked hard to overcome my (wholly unrealistic) fear of penury in retirement if I didn't work every day going. I had braved the (percieved but probably non-existent) stigma of not takng my career seriously. I had resisted the pull of the Trafford Centre (and the quilting shop I found at the weekend. The one at the end of the picturesque country drive. The one with the very nice craft farm and teashop down the road....)
And all this I had done because writing takes time, right? It takes working at and editing and revising and putting up with the neck pain from being hunched over a computer all day. It takes dedication and the willingness both to bear the risk of RSI and to pay the now exorbitant charges for the electricty gobbled up by your laptop while you sit there eating yet another chocolate biscuit and wondering: what happens next?
Apparently not. Whilst I was still munching my breakfast bagel ( cinnamon and raisin since you wonder) and happily contemplating a day culminating in me feeling extremely worthy for my application at the keyboard, I made the mistake of scanning the Times, which quotes Jordan being interviewed in US Vogue. Asked about the writing method that produced her best selling book she said,
"I talk. I'm not going to say I sit there with a pen and paper - I don't think anyone does that. I haven't got time for a typewriter or whatever."
I am clearly deluded. The problem is that in order to acheive dedicated writing time I have also chosen a day when I can clear the house of all distractions. That is to say, I have made my husband go out. So Solomon, our teddy bear, is in for a long day of listening. At least when I fail to knock Dan Brown and Sharon Osbourne off the charts I can blame his lack of editorial imput.
There I was fired up with pride and motivation to attend to my neglected blog (and not quite- so -neglected-but-still-in-need-of-an-apology novel) by the fact that yesterday I made the official decision to work four days a week for the forseeable future so that I had some time to write. I had worked hard to overcome my (wholly unrealistic) fear of penury in retirement if I didn't work every day going. I had braved the (percieved but probably non-existent) stigma of not takng my career seriously. I had resisted the pull of the Trafford Centre (and the quilting shop I found at the weekend. The one at the end of the picturesque country drive. The one with the very nice craft farm and teashop down the road....)
And all this I had done because writing takes time, right? It takes working at and editing and revising and putting up with the neck pain from being hunched over a computer all day. It takes dedication and the willingness both to bear the risk of RSI and to pay the now exorbitant charges for the electricty gobbled up by your laptop while you sit there eating yet another chocolate biscuit and wondering: what happens next?
Apparently not. Whilst I was still munching my breakfast bagel ( cinnamon and raisin since you wonder) and happily contemplating a day culminating in me feeling extremely worthy for my application at the keyboard, I made the mistake of scanning the Times, which quotes Jordan being interviewed in US Vogue. Asked about the writing method that produced her best selling book she said,
"I talk. I'm not going to say I sit there with a pen and paper - I don't think anyone does that. I haven't got time for a typewriter or whatever."
I am clearly deluded. The problem is that in order to acheive dedicated writing time I have also chosen a day when I can clear the house of all distractions. That is to say, I have made my husband go out. So Solomon, our teddy bear, is in for a long day of listening. At least when I fail to knock Dan Brown and Sharon Osbourne off the charts I can blame his lack of editorial imput.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
This and that
I have been blog lazy for a while recently but have been inspired to blog again by both a nag/request from a writing buddy and because I've just been reading Keris Stainton's website and my blog - even with regular entries - would look thin and anaemic in comparison. without regular entries it looks - well, worse!
But it is not that I have not been writing - to the contrary I am delighted that, having started working three days a week to accommodate it in January, I have so many sequential chapters done (28) - previously it was just a random collection of fragments. The pride at feeling like a real live novelist offsets the pain of dumping lots of the fragments which were probably necessary to get me where I am now but will not see the light of day again. What is intriguing is that having allocated two days a week to write I am now happy not to write the other days whereas before if I didn't get time to write it was 'another day wasted'. It's as if having elevated it to the status of 'proper work', I am now freed to fill my weekends with other activities rather than batting off the overspill of legal work to try to squeeze in some writing.
Which is where the quilting comes in. Basically, I have acquired another addiction which fits in beautifully with my other obsessions of Internet Reseach and book buying. It's all my husband's fault ( isn't it always?!). He needed buttons sewing on various items of clothing and had the sense to wait to ask me to do it ( yes he ought to be able to do it himself and no he can't!) until I was relaxed infront of the TV. I quite enjoyed the rythm of it and got to thinking that I understood why my Mum likes embroidery and tapestry so much. Only I don't really like the end product of those pastimes. Out of nowhere a little thought came into my head: but I like Amish quilts..... I wonder if I could make those.
Now put quilting into Google and you can be reading all week (and I was, almost) and within a day or two I was hooked. It has it all - the opportunity to play with colours and patterns, the sense of being almsot giddy with the choice of designs, and also the sense of being linked to generations of women who have quilted. Then there is the possiblity of travel ( did you know you can go on guided tours of Amish quilting shops and displays?!), shelves of books on the topic on Waterstones and of course - the on line shopping for everything from fabric to needles to beeswax to leather boxes to hold it all in. There is also the fact that you can enter competitions and even train as a quilting judge.
Of course, it is a little alarming that the latter two facts excited me as I am sure that it would do me good to learn just to enjoy doing something without always having to strive toward a goal. So I will rein in my competitiveness and make it only my ambition to be placed ( not even win) a competition by the time I am 65. Which is reasonable because I'm not actually very good at it. Yet. So I have to buy more books to learn about it and more fabric to try it all out ... and while I am trying to fathom out how it is humanly possible to handsew 14 stitches to the inch I can watch a bit of TV. Which is how I came to see a TV programme about a single disabled woman who was determined to have a baby, which set me off thinking about a novel plot, which I liked but not so much as one I've had rolling around in my mind about assisted suicide which I think will be the next book if I ever get the existing book out of the way. So perhaps I haven't been that lazy after all....
But it is not that I have not been writing - to the contrary I am delighted that, having started working three days a week to accommodate it in January, I have so many sequential chapters done (28) - previously it was just a random collection of fragments. The pride at feeling like a real live novelist offsets the pain of dumping lots of the fragments which were probably necessary to get me where I am now but will not see the light of day again. What is intriguing is that having allocated two days a week to write I am now happy not to write the other days whereas before if I didn't get time to write it was 'another day wasted'. It's as if having elevated it to the status of 'proper work', I am now freed to fill my weekends with other activities rather than batting off the overspill of legal work to try to squeeze in some writing.
Which is where the quilting comes in. Basically, I have acquired another addiction which fits in beautifully with my other obsessions of Internet Reseach and book buying. It's all my husband's fault ( isn't it always?!). He needed buttons sewing on various items of clothing and had the sense to wait to ask me to do it ( yes he ought to be able to do it himself and no he can't!) until I was relaxed infront of the TV. I quite enjoyed the rythm of it and got to thinking that I understood why my Mum likes embroidery and tapestry so much. Only I don't really like the end product of those pastimes. Out of nowhere a little thought came into my head: but I like Amish quilts..... I wonder if I could make those.
Now put quilting into Google and you can be reading all week (and I was, almost) and within a day or two I was hooked. It has it all - the opportunity to play with colours and patterns, the sense of being almsot giddy with the choice of designs, and also the sense of being linked to generations of women who have quilted. Then there is the possiblity of travel ( did you know you can go on guided tours of Amish quilting shops and displays?!), shelves of books on the topic on Waterstones and of course - the on line shopping for everything from fabric to needles to beeswax to leather boxes to hold it all in. There is also the fact that you can enter competitions and even train as a quilting judge.
Of course, it is a little alarming that the latter two facts excited me as I am sure that it would do me good to learn just to enjoy doing something without always having to strive toward a goal. So I will rein in my competitiveness and make it only my ambition to be placed ( not even win) a competition by the time I am 65. Which is reasonable because I'm not actually very good at it. Yet. So I have to buy more books to learn about it and more fabric to try it all out ... and while I am trying to fathom out how it is humanly possible to handsew 14 stitches to the inch I can watch a bit of TV. Which is how I came to see a TV programme about a single disabled woman who was determined to have a baby, which set me off thinking about a novel plot, which I liked but not so much as one I've had rolling around in my mind about assisted suicide which I think will be the next book if I ever get the existing book out of the way. So perhaps I haven't been that lazy after all....
Friday, January 27, 2006
Writing - career or hobby?
Last night I met up with a friend who in the past had been a great help to me in my legal career - a kind of mentor I suppose. He is fun to be with, capable of turning a casual comment in to an interesting debate and I usually wave goodbye to him with a smile on my face. However, since my decision to cut down on my legal career and spend two days a week for six months working on a novel he seems to have transmogrified into a grumpy old man and I came home last night miserable.
It seems that writing is not working, however much effort and time you put in. It cannot be tiring or demanding. Dedication to a new fiction project is not akin to starting a new business or training oneself for a new career alongisde the old one. It is my hobby. And thus I am having days off (and by implication being indulgent and not serious about my career) and at some point I must 'go back to normal'. And no, it is not akin to him being a lawyer three days a week and being a golf pro two days a week because you can't be a part time golf pro and anyway he'd be employed to do that and I don't have a commission for the fiction.
Writing it now It looks such a ridiculous argument and I knew it at the time. But I still came home deflated and discouraged because don't we all want our friends to at least encourage us in our dreams even if they don't share them?
But I'm not going to stand for it.
Its my life and I am going to live it the way that is right for me and if he has a problem with than then tough. It's him who is as I write is putting in just one more day until retirement struggling through rush hour traffic to work for someone else when he'd rather be on a golf course. I am sitting with my feet against my radiator about to jump into the pleasure of creating something unique, about to spend my day working on whatever fulfills me today. If I succeed in getting published at some time in my life, I will have proved it was the right thing to do. If I don't get published I will die knowing that no one could say it I didn't take the opportunities that were given to me, that I didn't even try. I will die happy and without regret.
I only have one life and I am not going to live it trying to fit into someone elses mould.
Besides, when I think about it, he might not actually have the capacity you understand what I am doing. It might not be the best idea to ask a workaholic who never reads a non-law book to be my suporter in an endeavour to achieve a work-life balance that allows for more creativity and fiction writing. After all this is the man who has just chosen a book for his wife for Christmas. She is a woman who reads fiction of all kinds voraciously. Faced with a choice from an entire bookshop he bought her Steve Wright's Complete Book of Factoids. I may have come off lightly with Sharon Osbourne's autobiography - bought, in his own words, 'because it was the kind of book I knew you would never buy'. I am still trying to decide whether that means he deleiberately chose somthing he knew I woudn't like or whether to be charitable and view it as him trying to be sure he didn't duplicate a book in my collection and giving me an opportunity to broaden my horizons. I'll read it and let you know if said horizons were stretched. Either way, it is somewhat ironic that he described her as 'having an interesting story - she's had about six careers, all created when she wasn't entitled to do so from the situation she was in.' Psychologists among you - am I right to detect perhaps some subconscious envy going on here?
Still, even after I have reclassified his complete lack of empathy with my dreams as a kind of emotional disabilty and have replaced his snide dismissal of my dreams with sympathy for his poverty of imagination... I'm still mad at him for raining on my parade. But of course that is where the writer will always win becuase all I need do is pop him in a book. Only I will know that he has become the Asian shopkeeper who bullies his brother, or the Bishop who dismisses all his curate's ideas. And only I will know about the pleasure that ensues when all kind of nasty things happen to him.
So. Time to go and enjoy my days being a Novelist ( with a capital letter today as the equivalent of thumbing my nose at him.) I think I will start with some words games as a warm up. Let me see....
A is for asphixiation, B is for boiling in a vat of hot oil, C is for cutting up into tiny pieces...
It seems that writing is not working, however much effort and time you put in. It cannot be tiring or demanding. Dedication to a new fiction project is not akin to starting a new business or training oneself for a new career alongisde the old one. It is my hobby. And thus I am having days off (and by implication being indulgent and not serious about my career) and at some point I must 'go back to normal'. And no, it is not akin to him being a lawyer three days a week and being a golf pro two days a week because you can't be a part time golf pro and anyway he'd be employed to do that and I don't have a commission for the fiction.
Writing it now It looks such a ridiculous argument and I knew it at the time. But I still came home deflated and discouraged because don't we all want our friends to at least encourage us in our dreams even if they don't share them?
But I'm not going to stand for it.
Its my life and I am going to live it the way that is right for me and if he has a problem with than then tough. It's him who is as I write is putting in just one more day until retirement struggling through rush hour traffic to work for someone else when he'd rather be on a golf course. I am sitting with my feet against my radiator about to jump into the pleasure of creating something unique, about to spend my day working on whatever fulfills me today. If I succeed in getting published at some time in my life, I will have proved it was the right thing to do. If I don't get published I will die knowing that no one could say it I didn't take the opportunities that were given to me, that I didn't even try. I will die happy and without regret.
I only have one life and I am not going to live it trying to fit into someone elses mould.
Besides, when I think about it, he might not actually have the capacity you understand what I am doing. It might not be the best idea to ask a workaholic who never reads a non-law book to be my suporter in an endeavour to achieve a work-life balance that allows for more creativity and fiction writing. After all this is the man who has just chosen a book for his wife for Christmas. She is a woman who reads fiction of all kinds voraciously. Faced with a choice from an entire bookshop he bought her Steve Wright's Complete Book of Factoids. I may have come off lightly with Sharon Osbourne's autobiography - bought, in his own words, 'because it was the kind of book I knew you would never buy'. I am still trying to decide whether that means he deleiberately chose somthing he knew I woudn't like or whether to be charitable and view it as him trying to be sure he didn't duplicate a book in my collection and giving me an opportunity to broaden my horizons. I'll read it and let you know if said horizons were stretched. Either way, it is somewhat ironic that he described her as 'having an interesting story - she's had about six careers, all created when she wasn't entitled to do so from the situation she was in.' Psychologists among you - am I right to detect perhaps some subconscious envy going on here?
Still, even after I have reclassified his complete lack of empathy with my dreams as a kind of emotional disabilty and have replaced his snide dismissal of my dreams with sympathy for his poverty of imagination... I'm still mad at him for raining on my parade. But of course that is where the writer will always win becuase all I need do is pop him in a book. Only I will know that he has become the Asian shopkeeper who bullies his brother, or the Bishop who dismisses all his curate's ideas. And only I will know about the pleasure that ensues when all kind of nasty things happen to him.
So. Time to go and enjoy my days being a Novelist ( with a capital letter today as the equivalent of thumbing my nose at him.) I think I will start with some words games as a warm up. Let me see....
A is for asphixiation, B is for boiling in a vat of hot oil, C is for cutting up into tiny pieces...
Monday, January 23, 2006
Patchwork thoughts
Patchwork thoughts because
(a) quilting is my new hobby and true to form I have gone wholesale for it and spent a lovely two hours today not writing but browsing a remnant and fabric warehouse and then a not so lovely twenty more minutes doing the same. The latter time not so lovely becuase I was over my pay and display time and anxious about those nasty people in flurecent orange and no hearts. You know how in Ireland how you get tax breaks if you are engaged 'in artistic endeavours. Don't you think we should get parking breaks for being creative?
and (b) because I only have itsy bits things to say today:
First talking of taxes. Why is it that if I rent a room to work from, as I do with my office in Chambers, I can tax deduct the cost of the office whether I use it for writing or legal work. However, if I chose (as I did this morning) not to go to the office and write but to go to the Starbucks round the corner and edit the first two chapters of my novel I cannot deduct the skinny blueberry muffin ( note the skinny!) and Zen tea. Is there any logic there? Its a kind of rent for using their comfy chair is it not? It was also a great way to start the day which should have been spent at home writing but had to be spent in court becuase one of my colleagues had a family emergency and needed cover. Another barrister congratulated me on the way in which my brief was carefully placed in a ring binder and tabulated into numbered sections with yellow stickies. I didn't let on that it was in fact the first 28 chapters of my novel which I was still sneakily working on whilst waiting to get called on into court ( don't believe all you see on Judge John Deed - there is a great deal less action -and sex- in most court rooms).
Also for any bloggers reading who don' t subscribe to Mslexia there was a good article about blogs in this issue and you can get it at the authors own blog which is at www.keris-stainton.com.
And to change the subject - ever go into a huge bookshop really fancying a great new book but have too little time and too much choice and find yourself dithering and not enjoying the experience as much as you should? I had ten minutes in Manchester's Waterstones last week before having to run for a train. ( I would not have had to run if I had not tried to squeeze in 10 minutes in Waterstones but hey, its there, it has a magnetic force, and what is a girl to do?) I decided at random to go three shelves to the right, three shelves down three books in and see what I got. And there I found the book I've just read in one day and had never previously heard tell of : New York Times Bestseller 'Little Children' by Tom Perotta. The blurb decsribes him as an American Chekhov and as an American Nick Hornby - two authors who seem quite far apart on the spectrum to me but that might be becuase I am an ignorant heathen who has never actually read any Chekhov. Anyway , its a simple plot, an easy but enjoyable read... but you can tell it is written by a man.
Is that a controversial thing to say? On the face of it is a novel about relationships, about the effect of a summer affair, about the moving into the neighbourhod of a child sex offender. It's just that everything seems to come down to sex and very little of the sex has any great emotional content. Not that it is gratuitously explicit - the most overt scenes ( one, very funny and involving a thong and Slutty Kay from a website but I'm not revealing more) are part of the plot and not undult graphic at all but its a matter of tone - hard to put into words but I feel that a woman would be softer, more anayltical about the reasons and the relationships whereas the scenes here are matter of fact, more focused on the action of the narative with side comments on the relationships.
Anyway the rule of three worked for me. I have to say I tried it again with the number four but got some weird sci-fi novel in translation from Japanese so perhaps there is no magic in the system but it did remind me to pick somthing up at random everynow and again to give it a try.
(a) quilting is my new hobby and true to form I have gone wholesale for it and spent a lovely two hours today not writing but browsing a remnant and fabric warehouse and then a not so lovely twenty more minutes doing the same. The latter time not so lovely becuase I was over my pay and display time and anxious about those nasty people in flurecent orange and no hearts. You know how in Ireland how you get tax breaks if you are engaged 'in artistic endeavours. Don't you think we should get parking breaks for being creative?
and (b) because I only have itsy bits things to say today:
First talking of taxes. Why is it that if I rent a room to work from, as I do with my office in Chambers, I can tax deduct the cost of the office whether I use it for writing or legal work. However, if I chose (as I did this morning) not to go to the office and write but to go to the Starbucks round the corner and edit the first two chapters of my novel I cannot deduct the skinny blueberry muffin ( note the skinny!) and Zen tea. Is there any logic there? Its a kind of rent for using their comfy chair is it not? It was also a great way to start the day which should have been spent at home writing but had to be spent in court becuase one of my colleagues had a family emergency and needed cover. Another barrister congratulated me on the way in which my brief was carefully placed in a ring binder and tabulated into numbered sections with yellow stickies. I didn't let on that it was in fact the first 28 chapters of my novel which I was still sneakily working on whilst waiting to get called on into court ( don't believe all you see on Judge John Deed - there is a great deal less action -and sex- in most court rooms).
Also for any bloggers reading who don' t subscribe to Mslexia there was a good article about blogs in this issue and you can get it at the authors own blog which is at www.keris-stainton.com.
And to change the subject - ever go into a huge bookshop really fancying a great new book but have too little time and too much choice and find yourself dithering and not enjoying the experience as much as you should? I had ten minutes in Manchester's Waterstones last week before having to run for a train. ( I would not have had to run if I had not tried to squeeze in 10 minutes in Waterstones but hey, its there, it has a magnetic force, and what is a girl to do?) I decided at random to go three shelves to the right, three shelves down three books in and see what I got. And there I found the book I've just read in one day and had never previously heard tell of : New York Times Bestseller 'Little Children' by Tom Perotta. The blurb decsribes him as an American Chekhov and as an American Nick Hornby - two authors who seem quite far apart on the spectrum to me but that might be becuase I am an ignorant heathen who has never actually read any Chekhov. Anyway , its a simple plot, an easy but enjoyable read... but you can tell it is written by a man.
Is that a controversial thing to say? On the face of it is a novel about relationships, about the effect of a summer affair, about the moving into the neighbourhod of a child sex offender. It's just that everything seems to come down to sex and very little of the sex has any great emotional content. Not that it is gratuitously explicit - the most overt scenes ( one, very funny and involving a thong and Slutty Kay from a website but I'm not revealing more) are part of the plot and not undult graphic at all but its a matter of tone - hard to put into words but I feel that a woman would be softer, more anayltical about the reasons and the relationships whereas the scenes here are matter of fact, more focused on the action of the narative with side comments on the relationships.
Anyway the rule of three worked for me. I have to say I tried it again with the number four but got some weird sci-fi novel in translation from Japanese so perhaps there is no magic in the system but it did remind me to pick somthing up at random everynow and again to give it a try.
Friday, January 13, 2006
Truth or dare
Lurgis, a kind man who lets me know from time to time that someone reads me by posting a comment via the facilty below ( hint hint the the rest of you - come on, communicate with me!) sent me a link to this article about how Oprah Winfrey and all her book reading followers have been taken in by a book that wasn't true. He sent it with sympathy pointing out that 'its a shame that someone who works so hard to become a writer has so many obstacles to overcome - then people like this who just make stuff up and pass it off as real wind up making millions. '
Well, yes, its unfair that many talented writers don't get the reconition some 'chosen few' get and, perhaps its just too like the material I have to read for work, but I can't see the fascination of the recent raft books along the lines of 'I was poor/ abused/ lived in Ireland/ a cellar/ a prison cell and my life was bad/ worse/ pretty like my brother who published his book first. However, I'm not sure I agree that its a shame. After all I make stuff up too. Which is harder, to make it up and make it believable but obviously fiction or make it up and be able to convince that it is true? And would we ever be able to distinguish if publishers did not label things fiction and non fiction? And why do we care?
I suspect it is the consent to being decieved that makes the difference. There is a theory that we read fiction because it allows us to grapple and resolve the problems and worries of the world we live in at a safe external difference. If we think something is true then it turns out not to be does it then threaten out psychological wellbeing in someway? If you accept the first theory then the blurring between fiction and non-fiction would hinder the externalisation readers of fiction are said to use. One can see that being able to trust would make life scarier not safer. On the otherhand, one would also think that it would be very comforting to find out that the tale of abuse and drug use and crime Oprah found so horryfying was not true, to find out that the word is not that bad after all. However, I found it interesting when she said in the report linked above that "After turning the last page...You want to meet the man who lived to tell this tale".
Why is that? Becuase she has the same curiosity that made people want to look at the Bearded Woman on Coney island? I doubt it. I beleive it is becuase if there is one mortal out there who really did survive such an dreadful life then a reader can tell themselves - whether conciously or subconsciously- that whatever life throws at us won't be so bad and thus we don't have to be half the hero we view this man as being and we will still survive despite all the weaknesses we view in ourselves.
All of which theorising takes me where exactly? Just to the thought that as I write my novel I should perhaps be considering - how do my characters survive? What are their weaknesses they have to overcome? What techniques do they use to sidestep or overcome the obstacles in their way? What are the obstacles they face?
So thanks Lurgis for the inspiration to make a few more convincing lies up.
PS I had tea with Prince Charles today and he said that he had accepted an invitation to go in the next series of I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here.
PPS Its harder than it looks, OK?
Well, yes, its unfair that many talented writers don't get the reconition some 'chosen few' get and, perhaps its just too like the material I have to read for work, but I can't see the fascination of the recent raft books along the lines of 'I was poor/ abused/ lived in Ireland/ a cellar/ a prison cell and my life was bad/ worse/ pretty like my brother who published his book first. However, I'm not sure I agree that its a shame. After all I make stuff up too. Which is harder, to make it up and make it believable but obviously fiction or make it up and be able to convince that it is true? And would we ever be able to distinguish if publishers did not label things fiction and non fiction? And why do we care?
I suspect it is the consent to being decieved that makes the difference. There is a theory that we read fiction because it allows us to grapple and resolve the problems and worries of the world we live in at a safe external difference. If we think something is true then it turns out not to be does it then threaten out psychological wellbeing in someway? If you accept the first theory then the blurring between fiction and non-fiction would hinder the externalisation readers of fiction are said to use. One can see that being able to trust would make life scarier not safer. On the otherhand, one would also think that it would be very comforting to find out that the tale of abuse and drug use and crime Oprah found so horryfying was not true, to find out that the word is not that bad after all. However, I found it interesting when she said in the report linked above that "After turning the last page...You want to meet the man who lived to tell this tale".
Why is that? Becuase she has the same curiosity that made people want to look at the Bearded Woman on Coney island? I doubt it. I beleive it is becuase if there is one mortal out there who really did survive such an dreadful life then a reader can tell themselves - whether conciously or subconsciously- that whatever life throws at us won't be so bad and thus we don't have to be half the hero we view this man as being and we will still survive despite all the weaknesses we view in ourselves.
All of which theorising takes me where exactly? Just to the thought that as I write my novel I should perhaps be considering - how do my characters survive? What are their weaknesses they have to overcome? What techniques do they use to sidestep or overcome the obstacles in their way? What are the obstacles they face?
So thanks Lurgis for the inspiration to make a few more convincing lies up.
PS I had tea with Prince Charles today and he said that he had accepted an invitation to go in the next series of I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here.
PPS Its harder than it looks, OK?
Bookspend
It wasn't a resolution as such, more an acknowledgement of the appropriate way to behave in the new year. We had shelves of unread books in the house before Christmas and more than twenty arrived with Santa. This backlog did not result from lack of reading so much as lack of stopping buying. So perhaps there was no real reason to buy any new books until ,oh, February at least.
So, when by the 12th January we had between us accumulated 11 new books ( let's not count the 5 I took out from the library becuase we were not buying new ones) it occured to us that we might have a little addiction gong on here. A quick check with Collins ascertained that if we had, the word addiction ( via the definition of dependency) means little more than 'being devoted to' being 'influenced' by. Well how else should a cultured person relate to books I ask? It is true that the online dictionary Dictionary.com defines it as 'Compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit-forming substance' and involving an an 'abnormally strong craving'. We plead guilty to the craving. But is it abnormal? I decided to find out.
Sad people that we are we trawled back though credit card statements over a 2 year period and worked out that ( including Christmas/ Birthday etc. presents for each other) we spend in the region of 1.37% of our gross income on books. So is that 'normal' or what? Well, its hard to find comparators but, after a bit of internet research, I can tell you the following:
* The avereage Prospect reader spends £266 per year on books with 13% spending over £500.
* Korean Households spend on average 0.5% of monthly spend on books
* In the UK National Statistic state that the average UK household spent £59 per week in 'recreation and culture' but as well as books this included TV, computers, other leisure and package holidays, the latter alone comprising more than £12 per week.
* An Amazon.com survey found that stsudents in the UK planned to spend £311 million per annum on books when going to University but actually spent 43% of the sums they planned to spend on books on items like beer.
* 30% of people connected to the internet buy books online
* In Canada in 2001 only 48% of households spent anything at all on books and of the 5.7 million households who did 1.4 million spent over $200 per year
* The average San Fransiscan spends 1.1% of his income on books or $266 whilst a Los Angeleno spends only 0.7% at $148 per year.
So are we 'normal? Not really. Even in San Fransisco where the percentage rate is similar the actual spend in cash terms is much much lower.
Do we care? No.
Because (aside from the fact that our little habit drives us neither to debt or to crime) I also found out that the average US illegal drugs user spends $69 per day on his habit. Which makes us look like star graduates of the Betty Ford clinic. So if you will excuse me I'll just be going to have a browse through Amazon.........
So, when by the 12th January we had between us accumulated 11 new books ( let's not count the 5 I took out from the library becuase we were not buying new ones) it occured to us that we might have a little addiction gong on here. A quick check with Collins ascertained that if we had, the word addiction ( via the definition of dependency) means little more than 'being devoted to' being 'influenced' by. Well how else should a cultured person relate to books I ask? It is true that the online dictionary Dictionary.com defines it as 'Compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit-forming substance' and involving an an 'abnormally strong craving'. We plead guilty to the craving. But is it abnormal? I decided to find out.
Sad people that we are we trawled back though credit card statements over a 2 year period and worked out that ( including Christmas/ Birthday etc. presents for each other) we spend in the region of 1.37% of our gross income on books. So is that 'normal' or what? Well, its hard to find comparators but, after a bit of internet research, I can tell you the following:
* The avereage Prospect reader spends £266 per year on books with 13% spending over £500.
* Korean Households spend on average 0.5% of monthly spend on books
* In the UK National Statistic state that the average UK household spent £59 per week in 'recreation and culture' but as well as books this included TV, computers, other leisure and package holidays, the latter alone comprising more than £12 per week.
* An Amazon.com survey found that stsudents in the UK planned to spend £311 million per annum on books when going to University but actually spent 43% of the sums they planned to spend on books on items like beer.
* 30% of people connected to the internet buy books online
* In Canada in 2001 only 48% of households spent anything at all on books and of the 5.7 million households who did 1.4 million spent over $200 per year
* The average San Fransiscan spends 1.1% of his income on books or $266 whilst a Los Angeleno spends only 0.7% at $148 per year.
So are we 'normal? Not really. Even in San Fransisco where the percentage rate is similar the actual spend in cash terms is much much lower.
Do we care? No.
Because (aside from the fact that our little habit drives us neither to debt or to crime) I also found out that the average US illegal drugs user spends $69 per day on his habit. Which makes us look like star graduates of the Betty Ford clinic. So if you will excuse me I'll just be going to have a browse through Amazon.........
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Random thoughts
Iam not - according to the rules I have set myself - supposed to blog in the middle of the the day. The reason I have rules is that for the next six months I am allowing myself to work at my day job for a maximum of three days a week to enable me to dedicate more time to my fledgling novel. That has the effect of costng me a lot of money so I am determined not to waste my precious home days reading magazines and painting my toenails. So, I have given my days a set order. Journalling comes first. I go to it straight out of bed, touselhaired and blearyeyed. Twenty minutes freewriting straight down no shirking. It is supposed to stimulate creativity and mould you as a writer. I'm not sure about that yet, but one thing it does do is make writing the first priority in the day which I find does set me up with some kind of balance, even on days when I have to then go and do some legal work.
Then comes a walk around the block or 20 mins yoga to conteract the fact the the rest of the day will be spent hunched over a laptop stuffing biscuits down my throat. (Or possibly dried mango if I am being good, but I have found that writer's block is cured by chocolate brownies - both the making and the eating of them. Strange how the creative psychologists don't mention that in their books.).
Bt ten o'clock I must be at the desk. Having written fragmentary pieces of the novel over previous months, the plan for the next six is to write sequentially clipping together peices and reworking them to fit into the new work as I go, working towards a final first draft by July. So far I find that I can do five to five and half hours writing befroe I start to 'go off'. So late afternoon - time to peruse a writing manual or Mslexia magazine, then some cooking... and then the blog if I feel I have anything to say whch is not all the time.
But the great perk about self-employment is that I make the rules so I can adapt the rules and I am blogging now just to keep the fingers moving. I have come to a natural breakpoint in the novel today by finishing Part 0ne. I didn't know I had parts until I wrote the end of chapter fifteen but now I think I do. And so there was a great sense of achievment at this natural milestone but also the flow was broken. So I took a break to go to the library to get some books on quilting which I think might be the new skill I learn for 2006 ( aromatherapy was the new thing for 2005!). So now I just want to keep the fingers moving while I contemplate whether part 2 carries on after a little leap forward in time or whether in fact I can go back in time for a short part 2 and give some of the history of my characters' relationship.
But I have headed this 'Random thoughts' which is because originally I was not going to bore you with the structure of my writing days but to comment on two media pieces I saw recently. One, in the Times, complained that publishers only publish rubbish and that when chapters from two Booker Prize winning novels from 35 years ago were given to publishers they were rejected. This apparently shows that publishers do not recognise good writing. It occurs to me that publishers are not there to recognise the prize giver's definition of good writing. They are there to publish books that people want to read. The sales figures of current prize wining novels may well indiate that, if the definition of 'good' writing is 'enjoyed' writing, that the Booker Prize is being given to the wrong authors. Or it may be that tastes change over a generation. Would Dickens or George Elliot writing in the style he did get published today?
The second was a TV programme I only watched becuase my husband put it on when we were indulging in the bad habit of eating our tea from trays. It was a documentary following Rolf Harris painting the Queen. It was actually fascinating, not only to see the picture emerging but as a study of the psychology of creativity. Chocolate Brownies did not feature at all I am sad to say, but I was pleased to watch Rolf swabbing his canvas with any colourwash that came to mind because the blank white canvas frightened him. I liked the fact that he got up at 5am to paint it because thoughts about the painting were going round and round in his mind. I enjoyed seeing him frustrated becuase he was too busy to paint and then weary. At once point he declared that he was now' fussing and fiddling with it when I want to be bold and brave."
Why did I find this so pleasng? Becuase somehow it made me seem part of a community of creators all doing the same thing in their own spheres. It legitimated my own experiences and inspired me to continue. I hope this blog might do the same for at least one writer out there somewhere.
Then comes a walk around the block or 20 mins yoga to conteract the fact the the rest of the day will be spent hunched over a laptop stuffing biscuits down my throat. (Or possibly dried mango if I am being good, but I have found that writer's block is cured by chocolate brownies - both the making and the eating of them. Strange how the creative psychologists don't mention that in their books.).
Bt ten o'clock I must be at the desk. Having written fragmentary pieces of the novel over previous months, the plan for the next six is to write sequentially clipping together peices and reworking them to fit into the new work as I go, working towards a final first draft by July. So far I find that I can do five to five and half hours writing befroe I start to 'go off'. So late afternoon - time to peruse a writing manual or Mslexia magazine, then some cooking... and then the blog if I feel I have anything to say whch is not all the time.
But the great perk about self-employment is that I make the rules so I can adapt the rules and I am blogging now just to keep the fingers moving. I have come to a natural breakpoint in the novel today by finishing Part 0ne. I didn't know I had parts until I wrote the end of chapter fifteen but now I think I do. And so there was a great sense of achievment at this natural milestone but also the flow was broken. So I took a break to go to the library to get some books on quilting which I think might be the new skill I learn for 2006 ( aromatherapy was the new thing for 2005!). So now I just want to keep the fingers moving while I contemplate whether part 2 carries on after a little leap forward in time or whether in fact I can go back in time for a short part 2 and give some of the history of my characters' relationship.
But I have headed this 'Random thoughts' which is because originally I was not going to bore you with the structure of my writing days but to comment on two media pieces I saw recently. One, in the Times, complained that publishers only publish rubbish and that when chapters from two Booker Prize winning novels from 35 years ago were given to publishers they were rejected. This apparently shows that publishers do not recognise good writing. It occurs to me that publishers are not there to recognise the prize giver's definition of good writing. They are there to publish books that people want to read. The sales figures of current prize wining novels may well indiate that, if the definition of 'good' writing is 'enjoyed' writing, that the Booker Prize is being given to the wrong authors. Or it may be that tastes change over a generation. Would Dickens or George Elliot writing in the style he did get published today?
The second was a TV programme I only watched becuase my husband put it on when we were indulging in the bad habit of eating our tea from trays. It was a documentary following Rolf Harris painting the Queen. It was actually fascinating, not only to see the picture emerging but as a study of the psychology of creativity. Chocolate Brownies did not feature at all I am sad to say, but I was pleased to watch Rolf swabbing his canvas with any colourwash that came to mind because the blank white canvas frightened him. I liked the fact that he got up at 5am to paint it because thoughts about the painting were going round and round in his mind. I enjoyed seeing him frustrated becuase he was too busy to paint and then weary. At once point he declared that he was now' fussing and fiddling with it when I want to be bold and brave."
Why did I find this so pleasng? Becuase somehow it made me seem part of a community of creators all doing the same thing in their own spheres. It legitimated my own experiences and inspired me to continue. I hope this blog might do the same for at least one writer out there somewhere.
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Cooking up a novel
Having spent the last few days eating sugar I decided today to fill us with some nutrients and searched the net for a recipe for vegetable stew, hoping to imitate a dish I had recently tried at Greystone Farm shop tea rooms. The Internet being what it is the search threw up a myriad of variants (I settled on the African version from a site specialising in fat free recipes, a fact that allowed me to also make the tangy lemon squares for desert without guilt). However, among the google results was a rather surprising but equally nourishing one - a poem fron Myra Schneider entitled Root Vegetable Stew complete with interview with the author.
Now, I'd like to say that I was inspired and that I sat down and wrote my own poem entitled 'Ode to Australian Women's Baking Book', or some such, but I didn't. Not that I am ruling it out for the future. It's just that I had a few slips and had my kitchen experiences tonight produced any actual writing, it would have been more like 'Ode to the egg that cracked in the carton and made the cardboard all soggy' or a haiku on the feel of lemon juice on Italian floor tiles. So as yet, no poem. But, as I was tipping sweet potato peelings into the bin and licking mashed butter and icing sugar from the whisks ( come on, don't tell me you don't do the same) I did manage to think about first drafts.
When I determined to take some days off work to concentrate on my novel (the first of which is tomorrow) I also decided to set myself up with some inspirational books on writing to keep me focused and learning as I wrote. So, earlier today I was reading an excerpt from Annie Dillard's Bird by Bird found in a chapter on getting started in Janet Burroway's Writing Fiction. She expresses her point eloquently but if I can paraprhase her: she reccomends forcing yourself to write 'shitty first drafts' and sees them as an essential first stage to producing wonderful work after several edits. As an example she tells how she went through drwan out processes writing restauarnt reviews, starting with utterly unpublishable words, agonising in case she was run over by a bus before she could improve on them and anyone saw what kind of writer she really was.
It's starkly obvious when you read it in a text book on writing: its utterly unrealistic to think that a first draft can be perfect. In fact, many writers would get little or no pleasure from producing perfect work first off because much of the pleasure of writing is in the crafting, the polishing and creating. The making something rather than the recieving of something. Yet at the same time we paralyse oursleves with the belief that we cannot spoil a blank page with first draft twaddle. We demand the 'right environment', a dedicated and uninterrupted writing time, before we will start.
Cooking for me is another form of creativity, especally baking. Yet I never stare at the empty cake pan worrying that it may turn out sunken or burned. I do not take out the utensils and then spend the next five hours avoiding starting. I do not even agonise about which cake to bake - I just lucky dip into a cook book, or more likley, work out what I can make from that limited ingredients in the cupboard. I can cook in the spare minutes around other activities - a tray of raspberry muffins is in the oven ten minutes after I start and who cares if I had to push aside the tins waiting for recycling and the unwashed liquidiser jug to find room for my mixing bowl? I think nothing of checking on the lasagne and throwing in the garlic slices between the beating and the folding stages. I happily make a messy batter of broken eggs and clouds of flour, confident that a bowl of slop is a necessary pre-requisite for a marble cake or a dozen squares of fudge brownies. And if they go wrong? I'll scrape them into the bin and make another batch.
So why should my attitude to writing be any different? I can't think of any reason why. So tomorrow, I am going to bake me a novel. And if it looks sloppy and half-baked? Well, then I shall set it aside to cook for a while and meantime, I shall enjoy licking my bowl clean of churned up ingredients. After all, that's still the best part of baking isn't it?
Now, I'd like to say that I was inspired and that I sat down and wrote my own poem entitled 'Ode to Australian Women's Baking Book', or some such, but I didn't. Not that I am ruling it out for the future. It's just that I had a few slips and had my kitchen experiences tonight produced any actual writing, it would have been more like 'Ode to the egg that cracked in the carton and made the cardboard all soggy' or a haiku on the feel of lemon juice on Italian floor tiles. So as yet, no poem. But, as I was tipping sweet potato peelings into the bin and licking mashed butter and icing sugar from the whisks ( come on, don't tell me you don't do the same) I did manage to think about first drafts.
When I determined to take some days off work to concentrate on my novel (the first of which is tomorrow) I also decided to set myself up with some inspirational books on writing to keep me focused and learning as I wrote. So, earlier today I was reading an excerpt from Annie Dillard's Bird by Bird found in a chapter on getting started in Janet Burroway's Writing Fiction. She expresses her point eloquently but if I can paraprhase her: she reccomends forcing yourself to write 'shitty first drafts' and sees them as an essential first stage to producing wonderful work after several edits. As an example she tells how she went through drwan out processes writing restauarnt reviews, starting with utterly unpublishable words, agonising in case she was run over by a bus before she could improve on them and anyone saw what kind of writer she really was.
It's starkly obvious when you read it in a text book on writing: its utterly unrealistic to think that a first draft can be perfect. In fact, many writers would get little or no pleasure from producing perfect work first off because much of the pleasure of writing is in the crafting, the polishing and creating. The making something rather than the recieving of something. Yet at the same time we paralyse oursleves with the belief that we cannot spoil a blank page with first draft twaddle. We demand the 'right environment', a dedicated and uninterrupted writing time, before we will start.
Cooking for me is another form of creativity, especally baking. Yet I never stare at the empty cake pan worrying that it may turn out sunken or burned. I do not take out the utensils and then spend the next five hours avoiding starting. I do not even agonise about which cake to bake - I just lucky dip into a cook book, or more likley, work out what I can make from that limited ingredients in the cupboard. I can cook in the spare minutes around other activities - a tray of raspberry muffins is in the oven ten minutes after I start and who cares if I had to push aside the tins waiting for recycling and the unwashed liquidiser jug to find room for my mixing bowl? I think nothing of checking on the lasagne and throwing in the garlic slices between the beating and the folding stages. I happily make a messy batter of broken eggs and clouds of flour, confident that a bowl of slop is a necessary pre-requisite for a marble cake or a dozen squares of fudge brownies. And if they go wrong? I'll scrape them into the bin and make another batch.
So why should my attitude to writing be any different? I can't think of any reason why. So tomorrow, I am going to bake me a novel. And if it looks sloppy and half-baked? Well, then I shall set it aside to cook for a while and meantime, I shall enjoy licking my bowl clean of churned up ingredients. After all, that's still the best part of baking isn't it?
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Christmas crisis
It is Christmas Eve and all is not well in the Conway household. LouLou has gone missing. She was in my parent's back garden in a village just outside of Penrith. The last time she was seen she was by the pond and now she is missing and naturally my mother is very upset. The natural assumption is that she has fallen into the pond so it has been dredged. The first attempt to do so was a bit unpleasant as the resident frog was disgruntled and made his slimy presence felt but eventually Dad did manage to get to the bottom of the pond. He found his missing garden fork and a large twig -come- small branch. But no Loulou, so we are having to resort to an internet appeal in case anyone has seen her.
Loulou does have abit of a wanderlust. She has fallen into the pond once before and was rescued, she also vanished completely one night but was found misplaced down the bottom of the garden near the stone wall which keeps the neighbour's cows out of my Dad's rockery. A fox was blamed on that occasion. So it might be that this time she has gained courage from her previous escapades and has taken off for further afield. So if any one finds her could they please return her?
She is a petite duck of light grey stone who quacks in a Welsh accent (having been originally purchased on Cardiff's Christmas market). Her real name is Toilet (her partner, who now sits dejected and lonely by the pond is Crispin, also known as Crispy). Please report all sightings via the comments facility below.
Loulou does have abit of a wanderlust. She has fallen into the pond once before and was rescued, she also vanished completely one night but was found misplaced down the bottom of the garden near the stone wall which keeps the neighbour's cows out of my Dad's rockery. A fox was blamed on that occasion. So it might be that this time she has gained courage from her previous escapades and has taken off for further afield. So if any one finds her could they please return her?
She is a petite duck of light grey stone who quacks in a Welsh accent (having been originally purchased on Cardiff's Christmas market). Her real name is Toilet (her partner, who now sits dejected and lonely by the pond is Crispin, also known as Crispy). Please report all sightings via the comments facility below.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Fireworks
A kind friend who is the bodily incarnation of the good angel that sits on my shoulder and eggs me on to the things that are good for my life, enquired recently what had happened to my blog. The answer was a simple, I haven't had time. Or at least, becuase she is also the good psychologist who gave up her time to teach me some stress management techniques, I hope it came across as a simple answer. If she would now take up - just for a few lines - the role of the good friend who is willing to skip a few lines - I will reveal to the rest of you that the real answer was actually a more frenzied rant along the lines of I HAVEN'T GOT TIME BECAUSE WORK INSISTS ON SWAMPING THE WHOLE OF MY LIFE AND THE HARDER I TRY TO KEEP IT AT BAY THE MORE IT CALLS ME CANUTE ..... So, as I really cannot expect her to skip anymore lines, I am now going to have to come up with some meaningful content for today's blog.
Which is where that inspiring event of last Saturday comes in. No, not Shane Ward winning the X factor ( although desperate as I am, I will in fact take anyone who achieves what they want as a role model at present). I am talking about the moment I got my third autograph in my current journal. The first belongs to Alexander MCall Smith and was obtained at the Theakstons Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate. He is a lawyer too and should be admired in my view simply for the whimsy of the fact that he has written the only existing textbook on Botswanan Criminal Law, quite apart from the beautiful simplicty of his Ladies No 1 Detective Agency books. ( I know that my embodied angel disagrees with my opinion of those books but she is allowed to be fallen just once). Moreover, he is a lovely man with perfect manners - I had a story I wanted to tell him and waited, at his invitation, while he signed books. For every person in the in the not inconsiderable queue, he stood up to shake hands with them, then sat down and wrote personal dedications for them all.
He liked my story too: My mother does not read fiction. Ever. Its not true so why waste her time, is her logic? On one visit to my house she ran out of reading material and, as the latest strategy in my quest to educate her as the foolishness of her thought processes, I loaned her 'No 1. '. She handed it back commenting that it was a lovely book. ' So, I finally got you reading a novel!' I gloated, only to see her face fall in disappointment. 'You've spoiled it now!' she said. 'I thought it was true!' Doesn't that have to be the best compliment any fiction writer could get?
But I digress. The second signature is Kathy Reichs, obtained at a signing session in Waterstones, admired for her abilty to write about the technical details of her job and still make it accessible and entertaining to lay people and for combining a prolific writing career with a demanding professional life.
But perhaps the most inspring to me is the third. It should really have been Michael Connoley, also seen at Waterstones, but his signature is little more than a scribble and I was hungry and tired and couldn't be bothered to queue. So the third turned out to be a new, prize winning poet called Neil Woodcock. Not only do I have his signature but I have his latest poem written out for me in my journal, in his handwriting, signed and dated and I am betting on it being a good investment for the future.
OK. It might be a little early to gamble that he will be the next poet Laureate, because Neil is 9. (just). And I might be a little biased becuase he is my nephew. But I still think his poem is great, and, more to the point he made time to sit down and write it, whch is more than I have been doing lately. So for me he is just as inspiring as the Sandy's and Kathy's of this world. Here is his work for you all to enjoy:
Fireworks
Squibs and starburst
sparks in the sky spectacular sights
to delight the eyes
with cracks and bangs
and earth shattering boom
from powerful rockets launched towards the moon
its really important not to forget
the danger of fireworks to children
and pets
By Neil Woodock
Which is where that inspiring event of last Saturday comes in. No, not Shane Ward winning the X factor ( although desperate as I am, I will in fact take anyone who achieves what they want as a role model at present). I am talking about the moment I got my third autograph in my current journal. The first belongs to Alexander MCall Smith and was obtained at the Theakstons Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate. He is a lawyer too and should be admired in my view simply for the whimsy of the fact that he has written the only existing textbook on Botswanan Criminal Law, quite apart from the beautiful simplicty of his Ladies No 1 Detective Agency books. ( I know that my embodied angel disagrees with my opinion of those books but she is allowed to be fallen just once). Moreover, he is a lovely man with perfect manners - I had a story I wanted to tell him and waited, at his invitation, while he signed books. For every person in the in the not inconsiderable queue, he stood up to shake hands with them, then sat down and wrote personal dedications for them all.
He liked my story too: My mother does not read fiction. Ever. Its not true so why waste her time, is her logic? On one visit to my house she ran out of reading material and, as the latest strategy in my quest to educate her as the foolishness of her thought processes, I loaned her 'No 1. '. She handed it back commenting that it was a lovely book. ' So, I finally got you reading a novel!' I gloated, only to see her face fall in disappointment. 'You've spoiled it now!' she said. 'I thought it was true!' Doesn't that have to be the best compliment any fiction writer could get?
But I digress. The second signature is Kathy Reichs, obtained at a signing session in Waterstones, admired for her abilty to write about the technical details of her job and still make it accessible and entertaining to lay people and for combining a prolific writing career with a demanding professional life.
But perhaps the most inspring to me is the third. It should really have been Michael Connoley, also seen at Waterstones, but his signature is little more than a scribble and I was hungry and tired and couldn't be bothered to queue. So the third turned out to be a new, prize winning poet called Neil Woodcock. Not only do I have his signature but I have his latest poem written out for me in my journal, in his handwriting, signed and dated and I am betting on it being a good investment for the future.
OK. It might be a little early to gamble that he will be the next poet Laureate, because Neil is 9. (just). And I might be a little biased becuase he is my nephew. But I still think his poem is great, and, more to the point he made time to sit down and write it, whch is more than I have been doing lately. So for me he is just as inspiring as the Sandy's and Kathy's of this world. Here is his work for you all to enjoy:
Fireworks
Squibs and starburst
sparks in the sky spectacular sights
to delight the eyes
with cracks and bangs
and earth shattering boom
from powerful rockets launched towards the moon
its really important not to forget
the danger of fireworks to children
and pets
By Neil Woodock
Monday, December 05, 2005
Travelling books
Having just recovered from Birmingham I am now teaching in London for a week and musing on the fact that whoever set luggage allowances for airlines could not have been a reader. Even the books I have carted down here to keep me company in the evenings are challenging that weight limit. So why are airport editions always big trade paperback versions of the books? Don't travellers need versions printed on tissue paper if we are not to continue to suffer injury by checking in 20k then trying to walk upright onto the plane with another 20k of books stuffed into our handbag/ coatpockets/other hiding places I'm not giving away ?
Anyway, I have learned in the last 24 hours that there are in fact other ways to let books travel. I stumbled today on a site called Bookcrossing. Not in fact a site for people who like to put chicklit dust covers onto ferrari manuals but a site encouraging to deface - sorry lable- your book with a cataloge number and then to 'release it' for other people to stumble on and 'catch'. I'm really not sure about this one - my books are not in captivity to be released - they are loved and treasured. Plus they reckon that only 20-25% of releases are caught - so what happens to those other poor lonely books, left homeless in a cruel cold world?
A much better idea seem to me to be Book Aid International, which I found referred to in my free Observer provided on the BA flight to Heathrow: it is their Christmas charity this year. Book Aid works in 18 Sub Saharan African countries to provide books to communities with little other source of reading matter. They run literacy supprt groups and camel mobile libraries for example. The books are often educational - from stories about how children deal with floods to Internet or technical drawing manuals. They run a book club - for £5 per month you don't receive 4 books - but someone else does. Have a look.
I like the quote from their website:
"If education is the road out of poverty, books are the wheels needed for the journey" Richard Crabbe, Chairman, African Publishers Network, 1997-2002
Now talking about wheels and journeys, time to catch a bus to Piccadily to go and browse in Hatchards and Waterstones.....
Anyway, I have learned in the last 24 hours that there are in fact other ways to let books travel. I stumbled today on a site called Bookcrossing. Not in fact a site for people who like to put chicklit dust covers onto ferrari manuals but a site encouraging to deface - sorry lable- your book with a cataloge number and then to 'release it' for other people to stumble on and 'catch'. I'm really not sure about this one - my books are not in captivity to be released - they are loved and treasured. Plus they reckon that only 20-25% of releases are caught - so what happens to those other poor lonely books, left homeless in a cruel cold world?
A much better idea seem to me to be Book Aid International, which I found referred to in my free Observer provided on the BA flight to Heathrow: it is their Christmas charity this year. Book Aid works in 18 Sub Saharan African countries to provide books to communities with little other source of reading matter. They run literacy supprt groups and camel mobile libraries for example. The books are often educational - from stories about how children deal with floods to Internet or technical drawing manuals. They run a book club - for £5 per month you don't receive 4 books - but someone else does. Have a look.
I like the quote from their website:
"If education is the road out of poverty, books are the wheels needed for the journey" Richard Crabbe, Chairman, African Publishers Network, 1997-2002
Now talking about wheels and journeys, time to catch a bus to Piccadily to go and browse in Hatchards and Waterstones.....
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Amazon morality question
When I started this blog I promised myself that I would be crafting beautifully put together daily pieces, pithy and worthy of a hard-back collection later when my cardboard box of novel fragments transmogrifies into a shelf of published novels. Or at least, I thought I'd aim for that and at the very least I'd be fulfilling the 'write everyday' dictum. ( Which in my house translates into the ' if-you-think-about-writing-every-day-well-with-your-day-job-thats-pretty-good-going-all-by-itself-have-a-day-off-to-reward-yourself' dictum). You will see from the dates of the entries that I failed the daily test. (I'll leave you to post a comment in relation to beauty and pithiness, but bear in mind that my fridge is bear of all comfort food save for a half bar of emergency cooking chocolate. ).
In my defence, I do have an excuse. I spent most of the evenings last week sitting on the bed in a Premier Travel Inn room in Birmingham, with no internet access and only a donated coffee cake and dire TV for company and a blizzard going on outside. During the day I was teaching trainee solictors how to survive being a family lawyer. In the evenings... well actually, I was writing. It seems that boredom, lonliness and a surfeit of espresso flavoured butter cream might actually be quite creatively stimulating. Especially when writing a scene about a woman who is an unhappy comfort eater. ( I am looking forward to writing the scene where she wins the lottery). So, I have the first four chapters of my novel knocked into a state I am happy with for now as a first draft and having written every day for three days... well, a girl deserves a treat. So I walked fifty yards up Broad Street in the snow and went to an early showing of In Her Shoes, chosen over a couple of other possiblities because I recently discovered Jennifer Wiener's blog - she wrote the novel on which the film is based.
So now I want to buy all her novels. The good news is that I can do so without bankrupting myself because, remember when Amazon sent me an email saying that they duplicated an order and here was a gift certificate for the inconvenience of posting it back? Well they duplicated the gift certificate email too. Now I can tell you that the Consumer Protection Distance Selling Regulations) 2000 Reg 24 ( No I am not making this up) allows me legally to deal with the 'goods' as if they were an absolute gift to me if they were sent with the intention of me acquiring them. But is that the same as an apology being sent twice? But actually that is only the first morality question of the title. The morality question refers to my previous mass purchase of books because I liked an author's personality.
In 'Swallowing words' I said I was going to go and buy One Marian Keyes book. I lied. I bought five. At once. Even thought I know I will not read them before my Christmas books arrive and I already have a shelf of unread books. Which glutonous behaviour is the equivalent of eating a whole box of chocolates at once. Which is why I only have cooking chocolate left. But anyway. I scoured Amazon marketplace and filled my basket with the cheapest copies available in good condition. Then I had a morality moment. If I was buying these books because I liked the author was it the equivalent of a Glasgow kiss to indicate my affection for her work by paying a penny to a second hand dealer for her books? Should I not be buying them new and giving her royalties? So I opened a new browser window and logged onto Amazon again in my husband's name and filled his basket with new copies to see the price difference. And there was a bit of a difference. Not one the size of our EU rebate but one that would buy quite a lot of Cadbury's Flakes. So I dithered for an unreasonably long time then pressed the checkout button to order the second hand ones.
And then I went to Birmingham and felt guilty. I had defrauded my new found friend. ( Note to self: Only stalkers really think that someone is their friend becuase they sounded so nice on their audio book recording). Scrap that: I had defrauded a fellow author of her hard earned royalties, which were all the more due to her becuase of her clever marketing plot of sounding so nice on her audio book. And that's when - sitting amongst the coffee cake crumbs on my budget hotel duvet, that I thought that perhaps I had crossed the line from being a reader who wanted to write to a writer who reads. I had not yet crossed the line from writer to crusader which is why I was still able to put the question of the morality of Amazon discounts and the destruction of the world of small booksellers as we know it to the back of my mind, but still, I felt terribly guilty. So I had another slice of cake and vowed to post good reviews for the books. But I still felt guilty. So I had another piece of cake and scattered some more crumbs ( Premier Travel Inns do not come with plates) and vowed never to behave in this scurrilous way again.
Then my husband rang.
He wanted to to know why he had just received an email indicating that a large pile of chick-lit novels were about to be charged to his credit card. Ooops.I promised to pay him back and then I didn't feel so guilty anymore, so I had a piece of coffee cake to celebrate. And then I was so sugared up that I decided that I would buy her next collection of journalism pieces 'Further under the Duvet' full price. From a bookshop. After all, If I am going to be writing these pithy well rounded pieces, I need to learn the craft. Which may well make the book a teaching manual. Which, could possiibly, just, make it tax deductable and in effect the same price as a second hand one anyway. So Marian Keyes should be happy with me, my bank manager should be happy with me and I should have saved the cost of the dry cleaning needed to remove these coffee cake crumbs from the seat of my jeans.
In my defence, I do have an excuse. I spent most of the evenings last week sitting on the bed in a Premier Travel Inn room in Birmingham, with no internet access and only a donated coffee cake and dire TV for company and a blizzard going on outside. During the day I was teaching trainee solictors how to survive being a family lawyer. In the evenings... well actually, I was writing. It seems that boredom, lonliness and a surfeit of espresso flavoured butter cream might actually be quite creatively stimulating. Especially when writing a scene about a woman who is an unhappy comfort eater. ( I am looking forward to writing the scene where she wins the lottery). So, I have the first four chapters of my novel knocked into a state I am happy with for now as a first draft and having written every day for three days... well, a girl deserves a treat. So I walked fifty yards up Broad Street in the snow and went to an early showing of In Her Shoes, chosen over a couple of other possiblities because I recently discovered Jennifer Wiener's blog - she wrote the novel on which the film is based.
So now I want to buy all her novels. The good news is that I can do so without bankrupting myself because, remember when Amazon sent me an email saying that they duplicated an order and here was a gift certificate for the inconvenience of posting it back? Well they duplicated the gift certificate email too. Now I can tell you that the Consumer Protection Distance Selling Regulations) 2000 Reg 24 ( No I am not making this up) allows me legally to deal with the 'goods' as if they were an absolute gift to me if they were sent with the intention of me acquiring them. But is that the same as an apology being sent twice? But actually that is only the first morality question of the title. The morality question refers to my previous mass purchase of books because I liked an author's personality.
In 'Swallowing words' I said I was going to go and buy One Marian Keyes book. I lied. I bought five. At once. Even thought I know I will not read them before my Christmas books arrive and I already have a shelf of unread books. Which glutonous behaviour is the equivalent of eating a whole box of chocolates at once. Which is why I only have cooking chocolate left. But anyway. I scoured Amazon marketplace and filled my basket with the cheapest copies available in good condition. Then I had a morality moment. If I was buying these books because I liked the author was it the equivalent of a Glasgow kiss to indicate my affection for her work by paying a penny to a second hand dealer for her books? Should I not be buying them new and giving her royalties? So I opened a new browser window and logged onto Amazon again in my husband's name and filled his basket with new copies to see the price difference. And there was a bit of a difference. Not one the size of our EU rebate but one that would buy quite a lot of Cadbury's Flakes. So I dithered for an unreasonably long time then pressed the checkout button to order the second hand ones.
And then I went to Birmingham and felt guilty. I had defrauded my new found friend. ( Note to self: Only stalkers really think that someone is their friend becuase they sounded so nice on their audio book recording). Scrap that: I had defrauded a fellow author of her hard earned royalties, which were all the more due to her becuase of her clever marketing plot of sounding so nice on her audio book. And that's when - sitting amongst the coffee cake crumbs on my budget hotel duvet, that I thought that perhaps I had crossed the line from being a reader who wanted to write to a writer who reads. I had not yet crossed the line from writer to crusader which is why I was still able to put the question of the morality of Amazon discounts and the destruction of the world of small booksellers as we know it to the back of my mind, but still, I felt terribly guilty. So I had another slice of cake and vowed to post good reviews for the books. But I still felt guilty. So I had another piece of cake and scattered some more crumbs ( Premier Travel Inns do not come with plates) and vowed never to behave in this scurrilous way again.
Then my husband rang.
He wanted to to know why he had just received an email indicating that a large pile of chick-lit novels were about to be charged to his credit card. Ooops.I promised to pay him back and then I didn't feel so guilty anymore, so I had a piece of coffee cake to celebrate. And then I was so sugared up that I decided that I would buy her next collection of journalism pieces 'Further under the Duvet' full price. From a bookshop. After all, If I am going to be writing these pithy well rounded pieces, I need to learn the craft. Which may well make the book a teaching manual. Which, could possiibly, just, make it tax deductable and in effect the same price as a second hand one anyway. So Marian Keyes should be happy with me, my bank manager should be happy with me and I should have saved the cost of the dry cleaning needed to remove these coffee cake crumbs from the seat of my jeans.
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Swallowing words
I take it back. Marian Keyes is not fluffy. Well, actually she is, but she is less fluffy like a pair of Barbie Fairytopia Bibble doll (look it up if you don't believe me) and more fluffy like a £500 angora sweater. I'm on chapter 34 and going for more very soon.
This morning an Amazon parcel arrived. Hardly an unusual occurrence in this house but my husband eyed it greedily and asked if it contained one of his Christmas presents. ( It was a small parcel and he knows me well enought to know it couldn't contain all his presents.) I said it was but in fact when I opened it it was a second copy of a book I'd ordered for work 'Insolvency Personal and Corporate'. ( I am not even going to contemplate making that title a hyperlink for you to check it out!) With sinking heart, thinking I'd mistakenly duplicated the order I logged on to the website intending to find an address to return it to and berating myself for incurring unecessary postage. In fact before I got past the home page my email bleeped and there was a nice message telling me it was all their fault and could please send it back to the Freepost address and they were so sorry for the inconvenience they were attaching a £5 book voucher!
So, I'm off to order a free angora sweater substitute. See you later!
This morning an Amazon parcel arrived. Hardly an unusual occurrence in this house but my husband eyed it greedily and asked if it contained one of his Christmas presents. ( It was a small parcel and he knows me well enought to know it couldn't contain all his presents.) I said it was but in fact when I opened it it was a second copy of a book I'd ordered for work 'Insolvency Personal and Corporate'. ( I am not even going to contemplate making that title a hyperlink for you to check it out!) With sinking heart, thinking I'd mistakenly duplicated the order I logged on to the website intending to find an address to return it to and berating myself for incurring unecessary postage. In fact before I got past the home page my email bleeped and there was a nice message telling me it was all their fault and could please send it back to the Freepost address and they were so sorry for the inconvenience they were attaching a £5 book voucher!
So, I'm off to order a free angora sweater substitute. See you later!
Friday, November 25, 2005
Biblio-addiction
Here's a thing. I went on Google today and searched for unusual jobs. I don't want one. I have enough jobs as it is. But I wanted a character to be thinking about one and the advantage of broadband is that when I blank for a fact whilst writing, I can just keep typing as if I am writing and those kind Google men give me the answer without me ever having to break flow. So as I say, I search for jobs and there is a site with a list by type. It turns out being a writer is an unusual job. It is on the list of 'Ten jobs for people who want to keep learning'. It did not appear on the list of 'Ten jobs for people who want to pay their student loans off straight away'. For that you need to be a carpeter. Apparently.(Note these lists are for real). I ought to write something thoughtful about how interesting it is that writers are considered to be on a lifelong journey to knowledge and fulfillment but its weekend so I won't. Instead I'll tell you another thing.
My name is Helen and I am a .... well, that's the thing. I don't know the word for what I am, which is a person addicted to buying books. I am not a bibliophile because that is a person who loves books, which obviously I do but its not what I am getting at. I am getting at the fact that I buy books even when I have so many unread ones I have to spread them out over the floor because the piles were threatening to topple and kill me. Plus I am sugestible and I like to be nice to other writers. All of which is not a good combination. Take today.
The bad news was I had to drive 1 hr 40 mins to Kendal. so, In a fitof inspiration I went via the library and borrowed a CD version Marian Keyes' collection of journalism pieces 'Under the Duvet'. As I had just minutes before read a brief artcile about her in Mslexia ( on the loo wearing my coat in that pre-motorway if-I-don't-go-now-i'll-need- to-the-moment-I-get-on-the-M58 visit!) it seemed apt. So off I set being ably entertained by her Irish tones reading her own pieces. She is not an author I have ever read, havng rather snottly dimissed her as 'fluffy' but she does know how to make a crawl through roadworks pass easily.
The good news is that when I get there it takes all of fifteen minutes to convince the Magistrates to do the blindingly obvious, and after such a long journey, a spot of Christmas shopping seemed a good idea and could be easily justified by the need to avoid the DVT I'd be risking if I turned right around and drove home again. Kendal, I thought would have lots of individual shops, great for thoughtful and original gifts. This may be true. I wouldn't know because the first interesting shop on the way out of the car park is Ottakars.
And in there is a Marian Keyes Novel. I don't need it. I have a life threatening collection at home and a Christmas list of more has already been submitted to my supplier, sorry, husband. But she sounds like such a nice person and she even tells a story about seeing someone buying one of her books and how happy it made her and ...... OK. Time to admit my addiction and implement my 12 point plan.
1. Acknowledge the soverignty of your Higher Power and the fact that you need his/her assistance with your weaknesses.
2. Conclude that your Higher Power chose to communcate his own message to the world in a book and thus books cannot be equated with wraps of brown powder and thus need not be resisted.
3. Moderation however, is still a virtue.
4. Decide to read one chapter in the shop rather than purchasing it. Read three.
5. Avoidance of temptation is a useful strategy.
6. Put book back and go to look for other shops bearing in mind you only paid one hour of pay and display.
7. Exercise increases self-esteem and effects the release of endorphins so often found in addictive susbtances
8. Power walk to WHSmiths and read another two chapters.
9. Failure is human. Divert your attention from your own sorrows and consider those who are worse off than you.
10. Go to both Oxfam and British Red Cross shop and search for second hand copy of Marian Keyes books. Conclude that their absence means they are so good no-one will part with them.
11. If your addiction is so serious you are at risk of committing crime to feed it, seek help.
12. Hear the town clock strike half past the hour and realise you are now in at-risk-of-parking ticket-zone. Attempt abstinence. Get to car park door and jog back to Ottakars and confess (in now slightly wheezing tones) addiction. Accept £1 off cover price.
OK, so the plan needs work. But I got 648 pages for £5.99 which is 0.09pence per page which means i can afford the BUPA subscription for when the to-read pile fractures my scull. And I can learn how to write chick lit. And after all, learning is what being a writer is all about.
My name is Helen and I am a .... well, that's the thing. I don't know the word for what I am, which is a person addicted to buying books. I am not a bibliophile because that is a person who loves books, which obviously I do but its not what I am getting at. I am getting at the fact that I buy books even when I have so many unread ones I have to spread them out over the floor because the piles were threatening to topple and kill me. Plus I am sugestible and I like to be nice to other writers. All of which is not a good combination. Take today.
The bad news was I had to drive 1 hr 40 mins to Kendal. so, In a fitof inspiration I went via the library and borrowed a CD version Marian Keyes' collection of journalism pieces 'Under the Duvet'. As I had just minutes before read a brief artcile about her in Mslexia ( on the loo wearing my coat in that pre-motorway if-I-don't-go-now-i'll-need- to-the-moment-I-get-on-the-M58 visit!) it seemed apt. So off I set being ably entertained by her Irish tones reading her own pieces. She is not an author I have ever read, havng rather snottly dimissed her as 'fluffy' but she does know how to make a crawl through roadworks pass easily.
The good news is that when I get there it takes all of fifteen minutes to convince the Magistrates to do the blindingly obvious, and after such a long journey, a spot of Christmas shopping seemed a good idea and could be easily justified by the need to avoid the DVT I'd be risking if I turned right around and drove home again. Kendal, I thought would have lots of individual shops, great for thoughtful and original gifts. This may be true. I wouldn't know because the first interesting shop on the way out of the car park is Ottakars.
And in there is a Marian Keyes Novel. I don't need it. I have a life threatening collection at home and a Christmas list of more has already been submitted to my supplier, sorry, husband. But she sounds like such a nice person and she even tells a story about seeing someone buying one of her books and how happy it made her and ...... OK. Time to admit my addiction and implement my 12 point plan.
1. Acknowledge the soverignty of your Higher Power and the fact that you need his/her assistance with your weaknesses.
2. Conclude that your Higher Power chose to communcate his own message to the world in a book and thus books cannot be equated with wraps of brown powder and thus need not be resisted.
3. Moderation however, is still a virtue.
4. Decide to read one chapter in the shop rather than purchasing it. Read three.
5. Avoidance of temptation is a useful strategy.
6. Put book back and go to look for other shops bearing in mind you only paid one hour of pay and display.
7. Exercise increases self-esteem and effects the release of endorphins so often found in addictive susbtances
8. Power walk to WHSmiths and read another two chapters.
9. Failure is human. Divert your attention from your own sorrows and consider those who are worse off than you.
10. Go to both Oxfam and British Red Cross shop and search for second hand copy of Marian Keyes books. Conclude that their absence means they are so good no-one will part with them.
11. If your addiction is so serious you are at risk of committing crime to feed it, seek help.
12. Hear the town clock strike half past the hour and realise you are now in at-risk-of-parking ticket-zone. Attempt abstinence. Get to car park door and jog back to Ottakars and confess (in now slightly wheezing tones) addiction. Accept £1 off cover price.
OK, so the plan needs work. But I got 648 pages for £5.99 which is 0.09pence per page which means i can afford the BUPA subscription for when the to-read pile fractures my scull. And I can learn how to write chick lit. And after all, learning is what being a writer is all about.
Thursday, November 24, 2005
What if?
The trouble with training yourself to play the 'What if' game as a writer is that is begins to take up permanent residence in your brain and springs into operation when perhaps it would be better just to stick to the facts.
Early this morning our phone woke us up. Or to be more precise it woke my husband up. I continued with a dream in which Zadie Smith and Michael Douglas was in a post office, there was a big problem about the precise milage to Lancaster and everyone was so worried about it no one would answer the phone. (Don't get all Freudian - I'm reading On Beauty, I need to put in a mileage claim and I forgot to post a pile of letters yesterday. I'm not commenting on the presence of Michael Douglas.) When I twigged that it was a real phone and that Zadie was in fact between two brown covers on the floor, I suddenly woke up and found myself instantly in the 'What if game', encouraged by hearing Dennis say "Why, what's wrong?"
What if my Brother-in-law has split up from his girlfriend again? Or no, what if he is ringing to to say one of my elderly parents in law is ill? Or worse what if one has died? What if I have to get on a plane and go over.... I had proceeded impressively far down the route of forming a contingency plan to deal with my work in my absence by the time Dennis shambled back into the room to explain that my sister needed a favour.
She is a paediatric nurse and was convinced that she was working a late today - until the hospital rang and woke her up too to explain that she was now a quarter of an hour late for her early shift. Her husband had taken her car to his job at the airport and could I please get up quick smart and drive her to work in the next town?
I wanted to say 'What if I don't? What will happen?" but at that time my brain works faster than my mouth so I just mumbled "Onmway" and tumbled into a pair of jeans and the car.
Which brings me onto the question of routines ... or for anyone with confused sisters the lack of them. I'm playing about with the best daily routine for days when I have the whole day free to write. I seem to have a huge afternoon slump and have decided that the best way to deal with it is to go with natural rythms and use it to read instead... worthy novels, books which will serve as role models, works of art that will last all time... or on days when I have been dragged out of bed into fog without even so much as a cup of tea, a copy of Oprah magazine.
Inside the November issue is an advert for VW Beetles. It is a perforated sheet of card comprising nine tear out cards, the middle one of which directs you to the VW site. On one side of the others are photos of eight happy looking people and one ugly and vicious looking cat. On the reverse side there is a potted biog of each person giving their name, job, what they keep in a bud vase, (ranging from Sunflowers to a glittery doll's head) their 'special powers' and their good deeds. The scary cat turns out to be called Armand and have a job as a therapy pet. Instant characters...who said reading O Mag was skiving?
Now, I have to go and figure out what would happen if a 2000 Reflex Silver New Beetle Convertible ran that skinny feline over....?
Early this morning our phone woke us up. Or to be more precise it woke my husband up. I continued with a dream in which Zadie Smith and Michael Douglas was in a post office, there was a big problem about the precise milage to Lancaster and everyone was so worried about it no one would answer the phone. (Don't get all Freudian - I'm reading On Beauty, I need to put in a mileage claim and I forgot to post a pile of letters yesterday. I'm not commenting on the presence of Michael Douglas.) When I twigged that it was a real phone and that Zadie was in fact between two brown covers on the floor, I suddenly woke up and found myself instantly in the 'What if game', encouraged by hearing Dennis say "Why, what's wrong?"
What if my Brother-in-law has split up from his girlfriend again? Or no, what if he is ringing to to say one of my elderly parents in law is ill? Or worse what if one has died? What if I have to get on a plane and go over.... I had proceeded impressively far down the route of forming a contingency plan to deal with my work in my absence by the time Dennis shambled back into the room to explain that my sister needed a favour.
She is a paediatric nurse and was convinced that she was working a late today - until the hospital rang and woke her up too to explain that she was now a quarter of an hour late for her early shift. Her husband had taken her car to his job at the airport and could I please get up quick smart and drive her to work in the next town?
I wanted to say 'What if I don't? What will happen?" but at that time my brain works faster than my mouth so I just mumbled "Onmway" and tumbled into a pair of jeans and the car.
Which brings me onto the question of routines ... or for anyone with confused sisters the lack of them. I'm playing about with the best daily routine for days when I have the whole day free to write. I seem to have a huge afternoon slump and have decided that the best way to deal with it is to go with natural rythms and use it to read instead... worthy novels, books which will serve as role models, works of art that will last all time... or on days when I have been dragged out of bed into fog without even so much as a cup of tea, a copy of Oprah magazine.
Inside the November issue is an advert for VW Beetles. It is a perforated sheet of card comprising nine tear out cards, the middle one of which directs you to the VW site. On one side of the others are photos of eight happy looking people and one ugly and vicious looking cat. On the reverse side there is a potted biog of each person giving their name, job, what they keep in a bud vase, (ranging from Sunflowers to a glittery doll's head) their 'special powers' and their good deeds. The scary cat turns out to be called Armand and have a job as a therapy pet. Instant characters...who said reading O Mag was skiving?
Now, I have to go and figure out what would happen if a 2000 Reflex Silver New Beetle Convertible ran that skinny feline over....?
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Reactions
This week I acted for a father in a contact dispute. His own father was also making an application to the court and both came out with identical orders. The grandfather was grateful and appreciative. He was of the view that past grievances with the child's mother had to be be laid aside and that there was a long future to look forward to. He thought the five hour round trip they had to do to collect the children was nothing for the pleasure of their company. He was gentle and forgiving in his attitude. The father, reacting to the exact same outcome, gave me a constant tirade about the unfairness of the system, his intention to make complaints and to go to the European Court of Human Rights. He was disgusted with the outcome, angry with the mother, fixated on the wrongs he percieved she had perpetrated against him and unable at all to talk about his plans for his time with the children.
Also this week, I have begun a self-imposed study programme for my 'writing sabbatical' which includes rereading some of the novels which are close to mine in genre and which I raced though out of pure enyoyment first time around. I want to take time to go back and read more closely to learn from the author's techniques. I have started with Jodi Picoult's book My Sisters's Keeper and it just so happened that today's chapter was the one where the family recieved the news that their four year old daughter has cancer. At that stage we know little about the characters but each is distinct in their reaction. It is noticable that we do not need to know the character to understand their reaction, rather we learn the character by observing their reaction. Thus a rolling programme starts - the plot provides the event, the reaction tells us about the character, his reaction sets off another chain of events, to which the character reacts....
Try taking the exercise from yesterday - your character does not get his prefered food from the chiller cabinet. Is he angry, does she think that it is just typical of her miserable life? Does he take action by going elsewhere, does she eat something she dislikes instead not to offend her lunch companion? Then, how does the shopkeeper react to an angry customer? Does the lunch comanion depise the woman for her inabilty to assert her preferences or does he love her for it? Make it a suprising reaction, make then regret their reaction, make the two different reactions a source of conflict between characters ('How could he not cry? Why is she always so emotional?)... do whatever you like, it's your book, just keep on writing! I fell down the well for a full two and a half hours today and it feels great! Mind you even if I had fallen down a cliff instead I'd probably rather be at the bottom with a broken leg than in a car for five hours with that father!
Also this week, I have begun a self-imposed study programme for my 'writing sabbatical' which includes rereading some of the novels which are close to mine in genre and which I raced though out of pure enyoyment first time around. I want to take time to go back and read more closely to learn from the author's techniques. I have started with Jodi Picoult's book My Sisters's Keeper and it just so happened that today's chapter was the one where the family recieved the news that their four year old daughter has cancer. At that stage we know little about the characters but each is distinct in their reaction. It is noticable that we do not need to know the character to understand their reaction, rather we learn the character by observing their reaction. Thus a rolling programme starts - the plot provides the event, the reaction tells us about the character, his reaction sets off another chain of events, to which the character reacts....
Try taking the exercise from yesterday - your character does not get his prefered food from the chiller cabinet. Is he angry, does she think that it is just typical of her miserable life? Does he take action by going elsewhere, does she eat something she dislikes instead not to offend her lunch companion? Then, how does the shopkeeper react to an angry customer? Does the lunch comanion depise the woman for her inabilty to assert her preferences or does he love her for it? Make it a suprising reaction, make then regret their reaction, make the two different reactions a source of conflict between characters ('How could he not cry? Why is she always so emotional?)... do whatever you like, it's your book, just keep on writing! I fell down the well for a full two and a half hours today and it feels great! Mind you even if I had fallen down a cliff instead I'd probably rather be at the bottom with a broken leg than in a car for five hours with that father!
Monday, November 21, 2005
Cafe inspiration - a home baked writing exercise
Earlier this week, The Times published an account of a research programme costing in the region of £140,000. The study examined cafes such as Starbucks and Cafe Nero and came up with such conclusions as:
* cafes are a convivial place to meet friends
* people stop going to a particular cafe if the coffee is no good
* a request to borrow a newspaper is either met with a cold shoulder or a welcoming smile.
Apart from the fact that a lot of writers could have benefitted greatly from that cash - to attend an Arvon course maybe, or just to have a couple of days off work to imerse themselves in writing, the researchers seem to have missed one of the vital points about cafes: their value as safe havens for writers.
We all know of the famous authors ( need I say the JKR words?) who scribble their way to fame and fortune over a mocha-decaff- soy milk-cappucino. (Or perhaps just a black coffee in a chipped mug until that publishing contact is actually signed). How many others (should I admit to this online?) have conducted some very effective and cheap research by stacking a basket of books and retreating to the inhouse coffee shop to make notes in their journal ... and then 'rewarded' themselves for their hard work by choosing a novel from the pile. ( Shame on the bookshops - Foyles in London and Waterstones in Bath, for example, who refuse to presume that a book lover will not dribble their latte on the pages and ban books in their coffee shops. You deserve the sale of the reward book to go to Amazon).
And what about the people who use cafes to carve out precious writing time? A day like mine today- court case in the morning ( no I'm not a criminal I'm a barrister - read my profile) lecture to give in the afternoon, a drive in hideous fog from Liverpool to Manchester for dinner with a very supportve writer friend ( check out her website) , back home to prepare tomorrow's case - does not lend itself to a daily writing practice. But skip breakfast and you travel out of rush hour ( just) which saves you time, which gives you longer for breakfast, which means you can sit in a cafe and think and write before work.
Plus, the environment stimulates the imagination. Try this - it worked for me this morning. Look at the chiller cabinet through the eyes of one of your characters. What would she like to eat in there? ( In my case, Anna, who actually works in a cafe, would like the fromage frais topped with organic mango). Then create conflict - why can't they have it? (In Anna' s Liverpool greasy spoon it might be too expensive for her and the customer's like her to buy). Then go with that - take it to the next step and the next step. (It's the ingredients which are too expensive. Why? Becuase Izzy her employer is in debt. If Izzy is in debt he might have to lay Anna off.) Bingo - new chapter ending, new challenge for Anna who is struggling to set up a new life after fleeing domestic violence, new storyline as she makes plans to help him out of the debt. All because of a chiller cabinet of yoghurts.
Now if only I could have some of that £140,000 to take tomorrow off to write that chapter up!
* cafes are a convivial place to meet friends
* people stop going to a particular cafe if the coffee is no good
* a request to borrow a newspaper is either met with a cold shoulder or a welcoming smile.
Apart from the fact that a lot of writers could have benefitted greatly from that cash - to attend an Arvon course maybe, or just to have a couple of days off work to imerse themselves in writing, the researchers seem to have missed one of the vital points about cafes: their value as safe havens for writers.
We all know of the famous authors ( need I say the JKR words?) who scribble their way to fame and fortune over a mocha-decaff- soy milk-cappucino. (Or perhaps just a black coffee in a chipped mug until that publishing contact is actually signed). How many others (should I admit to this online?) have conducted some very effective and cheap research by stacking a basket of books and retreating to the inhouse coffee shop to make notes in their journal ... and then 'rewarded' themselves for their hard work by choosing a novel from the pile. ( Shame on the bookshops - Foyles in London and Waterstones in Bath, for example, who refuse to presume that a book lover will not dribble their latte on the pages and ban books in their coffee shops. You deserve the sale of the reward book to go to Amazon).
And what about the people who use cafes to carve out precious writing time? A day like mine today- court case in the morning ( no I'm not a criminal I'm a barrister - read my profile) lecture to give in the afternoon, a drive in hideous fog from Liverpool to Manchester for dinner with a very supportve writer friend ( check out her website) , back home to prepare tomorrow's case - does not lend itself to a daily writing practice. But skip breakfast and you travel out of rush hour ( just) which saves you time, which gives you longer for breakfast, which means you can sit in a cafe and think and write before work.
Plus, the environment stimulates the imagination. Try this - it worked for me this morning. Look at the chiller cabinet through the eyes of one of your characters. What would she like to eat in there? ( In my case, Anna, who actually works in a cafe, would like the fromage frais topped with organic mango). Then create conflict - why can't they have it? (In Anna' s Liverpool greasy spoon it might be too expensive for her and the customer's like her to buy). Then go with that - take it to the next step and the next step. (It's the ingredients which are too expensive. Why? Becuase Izzy her employer is in debt. If Izzy is in debt he might have to lay Anna off.) Bingo - new chapter ending, new challenge for Anna who is struggling to set up a new life after fleeing domestic violence, new storyline as she makes plans to help him out of the debt. All because of a chiller cabinet of yoghurts.
Now if only I could have some of that £140,000 to take tomorrow off to write that chapter up!
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