A Virtue I don’t currently have

Patience, that is. I’m in one of those frames of mind where I’ve many things ‘out there’ and no news about any of them and it’s frustrating me. And it’s making me not want to write. I don’t need the success to feel like a successful writer – think that ship sailed with my yoof – but I do need it to validate that I’m at least a tiny bit good at it. There’s a subtle difference.

So I wait and wait and wait. No novel news. No novella news. Not even any People’s Friend news – I’ve the maximum amount of stories I’m allowed to send sitting with them (5). Usually they get back to writers with a yes please or a no thanks or they suggest ways the story could be better and therefore acceptable, but not at the moment. One story was subbed about four years ago. I like writing for the Friend – undemanding and well paid – but not if I have to wait this long. It just makes me not want to bother.

The novel/novella – I’ll have to look elsewhere but I felt cautiously hopeful and optimistic this time, and if I just don’t hear anything it’s going to be hard to take. I’ll bounce back eventually, I always do, but I really really really just want one person to accept it and say you know what, this is all right….

Yes yes, I know there’s self publishing, but I’d like to be on somebody’s books. Pun intended. I’m not in it to make money (ship, yoof) but because I love it. I am just a bit done talking to the void. An old lady who pushed past me in the book signing queue last night – at Kate Rawles’ signing after her talk about cycling through the Andes – began speaking and I thought, oh here we go, she’s a bit dotty, but I smiled indulgently and she talked. And she made a heap of sense and told some lovely anecdotes about travel. One thing she said was how good it felt to have touched even one person’s life with your words or teachings and she told a lovely story about a student she met years later and far from home and how that student said he’d been affected by her wisdom, who crossed this river, not that, and lived a wholly different life because of it. She was a teacher and I totally get that feeling – I am in touch with quite a few former students who all say lovely things about how I helped them but that’s what I want to do as a writer. I know I have stuff to share, to bring us together. To fill in the gaps between us. I went to find the old lady afterwards, when I got my book signed by Kate, but she’d disappeared. Completely.

Other thoughts this week:

Artists and writers mining their experiences for their art.

I’ve had a lot of varied, weird and wonderful experiences during my life. It’s definitely not been ordinary, and it’s far less crazy than some, but I do feel as if I’d had several very very different chapters in my 51 years. Some days it feels like a lot more than 51 years’ worth of stories. A numbers of events have led to stories I ‘steal’ from myself to fictionalise.

Sometimes the writing is a form of therapy, and I find it very cathartic. I’ve had a very difficult relationship with my father and more recently my mother because of her husband (neither of them read this blog, doubt my father even knows I have one or that I write at all.) My stories with both of them have generated tons of Story and I’ve had some great emotional releases writing about them disguised as not them. I had a lovely time inventing a character called Richard Goodchild who was My Ideal Dad (Aha! That’s in the middle crap novel I was trying to remember a few blogs ago, it’s just come back to me. Still can’t remember its working title, mind) and I loved writing about him and describing situations I just didn’t have (basically any in which there was a dad who liked his daughter.) None of that is meant to sound woe is me, it just IS and I’ve and lots of lovely therapy and CBT and I’ve become very resilient etc etc, and this was the life I was clearly meant to live. The parental difficulties have generated loads of stories that I hope other people can relate to. Show me one person who doesn’t have a complicated relationship with parents…

I’ve travelled a lot and there are many stories there and I’ve lived in a few different countries and houses and had just a few relationships (ahem), many of which have appeared in a variety of stories. I’ve done some extremely stupid things I hope my kids never find out about and taken a fair few calculated and just plain crazy risks, and had a lot of fun along the way with the incredible friends I’ve met. Again, great to add in as anecdotes in character’s lives. It also frees you to invent lots of other situations because living a broad and varied life means you meet a large amount of people, all who share stories….

My coincidences in C&J seem fantastical yet if I told you some of the ones I’ve experienced they’d make my invented ones seem tame. It’s never been six degrees.

So if you’ve writer’s block, think about your own life, the lives of people you’ve met and go on a wander down the rabbit hole of possibility. How could those moments inspire your own work? How could they add emotion?

And always humour old women in queues, even if they barge in and seem bonkers at first. She is definitely already going to be in a story.

Oh. Looks like I’m about to write….

What clutters up your mind?

Is it physical clutter – do you live in a mess?

Is it mental clutter – do you live with a constant flow of jobs needing done running through your brain?

Is it the monkey mind / short attention span – do your thoughts constantly wander?

Is it worry?

Is it self-doubt?

What clutters up your mind and gets in the way of writing?

I’m a self-confessed hoarder and I’m extremely messy. I learned to write around this whilst I was teaching at a school, or I’d simply never have got anything done. I’d ignore the horrors around me and get on with it. Since quitting my job and taking on tutoring and all of the work for my business I cannot work in a mess anymore so I’ve learnt to accept that I’m messy but be disciplined with myself about keeping on top of it. Unfortunately my husband and kids are also messy so whilst I take responsibility for shared areas they are fully responsible for their bits; I just close the doors. We have an open plan kitchen/dining area/lounge and these bits are kept clutter free. A few minutes a day is all it takes IF I do it every day. Lesson one, tick. Easy, unless you were born with a brain like mine – it’s been a steep learning curve.

I constantly battle the hoarding. It’s been a lifelong issue and whilst I can keep the three areas above clutter free, it’s a battle elsewhere. The stairs. Our bedroom. The dumping ground along the landing. The shed, which has hoardings from childhood, uni days, all my travels in many, many boxes. I struggle to say goodbye to things and the same boxes have been hauled from house to house to house (21 in all.) I now have the same issue with kids’ things, and I really really struggle to let go. Stacey Solomon’s fab programme about hoarders had me hooked and did help, but I’d really like to unlock the issues behind my hoarding. It clutters up my mind.

I battle the admin. Running a business means there’s a lot of extra admin and I detest it. The nly bit I like is contacting guests to send them personalised welcome messages. I LOVE Writing-based admin, blogging, emails with magazine editors, the odd bit of finance, but I cannot stand the day to day stuff – the letters from school which need answering, endless appointments for us or the animals, bills, tax stuff, car stuff, life stuff, etc etc… Accounts send me into shudders and need my husband’s help – fortunately he’s super patient AND can do Excel. I can’t. I’ve tried, we have a mutual dislike and it just doesn’t work for me and I start feeling like I used to do in every Maths lesson at school. So I read him numbers and he does the nasty-ass Excel bit. Admin makes me feel sick. How I’ve learned to deal with it is – if the job takes five mins or less DO NOT PUT IT OFF, just do it there and then. I still put things off, of course, so then I start an optimistic list on a Monday and slowly work through it all week, doing the bits I can stand. Today’s was set up some rate plans for the holiday let and speak to the channel manager for said holiday let to sort out some wrinkles in the system. I’ve also got VET – INSURANCE! in big letters which is a faffy job and involves printing forms and getting info from more than one place. Ugh. I know it’s going to be disappointing when I find out I’ll not be able to claim what I want to claim so this one’s been on my list for weeks. Some admin dissolves if you leave it long enough – I don’t know where it goes but it does go. And then there’s the filing. One day last year I blitzed it, created files for everything in an actual filing cabinet – easy, right, just file stuff accordingly thereafter – then began my old practice of putting things in piles on the stairs which then go to my room which then get shoved in a bag which then get moved to the filing cabinet which then involve endless pieces of vital paper getting lost and the whole damn thing starts all over again (I’ve been crushing the symptoms… etc etc).

So guess what this post is? Procrastination at its finest. Because today, folks, was going to be filing day. Filing day before my holiday let picks up for the year and I have endless cleaning and endless washing of sheets and towels to do. Before I get too many more students. Filing day to chase down all the missing bits of importance. Because I want to start my next novel, but I want to do it with a clear head, this time.

Managing the family has got easier the older the kids have got, especially when one of them is super organised and basically manages herself through me. I’ve got a family planner for the year and a weekly board up in the kitchen and I definitely forget things less and less. Digital calendars don’t work for me – I need to see it and the physical act of writing down helps.

I began this post thinking I’d share nuggets of wisdom about self-organising and I’m ending it realising I’ve sorted myself out a fair bit – the extra time of being lucky enough to work for myself helps massively (I literally used to run through my days trying not to drop things until I dropped myself) but I’m still learning. I still put things off, but perhaps less.

However, any tips that would help my hoarding tendencies to become easier to manage would be GREATLY appreciated…..

Yours in hoardiness, Emma.

Right, filing. Perhaps I’ll just make a coffee and have a quick snack, to help me….

On Dreams

(edit – just reread last post and realised this is really a follow on from that where I already mentioned Diana Nyad. Never mind! Busy brain again.)

Has anyone watched the film Nyad?

I’m a keen swimmer/mostly-ex-diver, so I was drawn to it through my love of water. Very ashamed to say I’d not heard of Diana Nyad except in passing. This happens a lot after watching amazing biopics – you watch them and think, Wow, how did I not know of this amazing person in the world? The cynical side of me knows it’s partly because she’s a woman (humour me – think of ten famous people off the top of your head and it’s mostly men that immediately spring to mind, aside from the Queen) but we also walk around busying ourselves with the day to day stuff of life. It’s possible for amazing people to go unnoticed by a lot of the population. Anyway you don’t need to look far for amazing people, every community has them, working quietly away in the background. But there are far far more unsung women than unsung men….

(Wonderful set of books – Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls. Buy them for all of the young girls in your life. I loved reading them to my daughter. Amazing women you’ve heard of and never heard of. Inspiring.)

Back to Nyad, and Annette Benning’s incredible performance (not to mention Jodie Foster’s.) It’s about dreams. It’s about not quitting. It’s about being true to your Self at all costs. It’s about friendship. It’s about the amazing strength of women.

I’ve quit at loads of things. Playing a range of instruments (name one, I’ve quit it); countless new exercise regimes; garden projects, household projects, insane ideas like a Twitter feed in which I feed my kids a different meal every day for a year and put down the recipe…. But I have followed through on many personal things, community projects and I do run a business (Gowan Bank holiday let – wonderful for writers’ retreats! PLUG)

So I have been an occasional quitter. Except for writing. I’ve never quit, but I did have an epiphany whilst out walking the dog this morning. It’s one of those early-year days where you first start to feel warmth on your face from the sun again, when hope starts to wake up in you and you know it’s nearly time for green and birds and loads of garden projects…. I heard skylarks which will always remind me of long lockdown walks in the lanes around my house, no cars, just me and the skylarks. Anyway, I was walking the dog and feeling all lovely and I thought about the film ‘Nyad’ and I thought about dreams and I thought about all the things I think I should do – I should tutor more. I should advertise my business more. I should go back to supply teaching. These are all jobs I enjoy, jobs that help pay the bills. But. And here was my epiphany. I just want to be a writer. That hasn’t changed since I was 5 years old. And I’ve never REALLY given myself the space to do it because of all the shoulds, because of all the lack of belief that I’d ever be any good, because of finding jobs that must be done first, because because. So what I’ve done I think is sort of pay lip service to the idea – I’ve written a lot, I’ve had some success with short stories, but I’ve always held back a bit, just in case I’m not really any good, just in case I do finally give into that dream and give it everything and find out it was never really mine to fulfil. Imagine that – eggs, basket etc. I’ve held back and I’ve done the minimum, really, the minimum I could do to follow my dream whilst still following my dream but making sure I held back and put my shoulds first. If I’d known this in 1990 I’d perhaps have had the courage to do a university course in journalism, but I was afraid I’d be crap so took a much more general course which gave me several parachutes. When I did start cautiously aiming at my dream and had some success I STILL held back because of my shoulds and my fears and that voice that says, come on, be sensible, you’re not actually a writer. The voice that – although I do enjoy writing them – kept me writing short stories when novels are something I enjoy equally, if not more. In short, I’ve reined myself in, over and over and over, through a basic lack of belief that I can actually do it. In my last post I wrote that this is the year I will get published – it was more written in hope than certainty. Now I am certain – perhaps not that I will see my book on the shelves, but that the wheels will be in motion, freewheeling.

Yesterday I sent off my novella. At just over 46,000 words I kept trying to make it longer but it simply wasn’t a longer story, so I’ve been looking for a place to send it. Novellas are tricky to find homes for.

I’m not discounting self-publishing again, but being much stricter about self-editing. There are bits of ‘Dust’ that make me die inside from cringiness. What puts me off more than anything is my lack of IT ability with typesetting and bloody layout and tricksy little shites like tabs. Ugh. But I could easily find somebody to help. So perhaps I should make myself a promise here. Take the first part of the year to keep sending out C & J and AOTH, and if that doesn’t happen, put it out there anyway. Edit Dust properly and have three books under my name, ready to order. Believe in the words.

And in the meantime? Start my next novel. Lucky no 7.

Basically, be more Nyad.

This is the Year!

I’m calling it now – this IS the year I’ll get published. IF I can’t find a publisher I’ll self publish again, but I’m determined to work hard to make my writing good enough for a publisher to pick up. I reread Carly and Jim after a long hiatus and thought, this is actually pretty good. However, the opening needed work so I’ve spent a few days playing with it and today finished putting the right words in the right order. I’ve played with the structure one last time (this is the book one of my best friends and I printed out and physically moved around a room in chapters to find the right way to tell the story) and I am finally happy, it is finally ready, I think I’ve finally found the right publisher. Now I’ve got one of those bitter sweet periods of waiting time where you’ve got hope hanging in the air.

I’m not one for new year’s resolutions but I am determined to write something every day this year. A woman I met at a Scottish Book trust event is doing a daily random word challenge and I asked if I could join her. Basic idea is find a random word generator online and write about a different word every day, in whatever way you choose.

I’ve been away from short stories for a while to concentrate on AOTH, but I’d got a bit lost with the ending and needed to leave that for a while so am looking at competitions, my favourite destination for stories. There seem to be more than ever at the moment and Writing Magazine produces a complete competition list (more than you could possibly enter, complete in that way) every Jan for the coming year which is a fab resource. I did notice no less than four typos in last year’s winning grand prize story which I found a bit sad. I find typos in just about every book I read – my husband says I’d be a great proof reader but I know I’d no longer write my own stuff if I did that. But honestly – if a magazine dedicated to writing that is full of advice about proof reading everything, can publish a story so full of mistakes, maybe the rest of us should stop stressing when we send something off having proof read it 50 times only to find a typo the very next time we read it. I’ve found typos in my published work too, in anthologies, and I think this reflects badly on me when it’s not been me at all.

Back to this year’s ambition. It feels as if the stars have aligned. I’m ready to write full time. I feel I’ve improved enough as a writer to be confident when I send work away and my self-belief has got healthier. If you’re ever in doubt about following your dreams, watch Nyad, as I did last week. Extremely inspiring.

For now may you have a better 2024 than 2023, which for many was a pretty rough year. May your dreams become reality.

This year.

Yep.

Optimism

I’ve written another novel. No 6. Favourite yet.

They’ve gone in this order: ‘Moonbathing’ – really quite shite but fun to write. About a woman running off to Thailand. Stalled before the end.

‘The Courage to Lose Sight of the Shore’ – AWFUL title. Basically the plot of the film Leisure Seeker, only I wrote mine first. Again, pretty rubbish but possibly less rubbish. Definitely not fit to send anyone.

‘Down the Rabbit Hole’ – fairly mad and lots of fun to write and possibly has possibility.

I’ve forgotten no 4, it was that memorable. Several laptops ago. May not exist anymore. Will not be a loss to bookshops. It’ll no doubt come back to me at 3am one morning, like everything else that doesn’t need solving at that particular moment…

‘Carly and Jim’ – working title – I like this one. Sent it off to several places, didn’t get anywhere. 90k words. A love story. A story of fate and coincidence.

‘All of This Happened’ – WIP. Good (I hope) first draft complete. 60K words thus far. Best yet. Motivated every day to write, completed draft between end of August and now. One full edit done, currently writing the epilogue. Very happy with it. Would love it to get somewhere. Have sent it off to two comps and an agent….

I’ve learned by Doing. During the the first four I found it hard to get the words out and it was an effort. All of This Happened pretty much wrote itself, I just had to turn up and sit down. C and J was the same, during lockdown.

I’ll keep editing and keep editing and find the right words. And I’ll keep everything crossed that 6 is a magic number.

As Winter draws in I’ll try to stay motivated – I find it a tough time of year but we have a new family member – a new puppy – and he’s keeping me on my toes and he’s keeping me moving, getting fresh air and writing because I’m home more. (The cats and chickens and ducks are furious as he has a penchant for chasing them, all apart from my oldest and wisest cat who just sits and stares at him with disdain.) My holiday let goes sleepy during the winter so not so much work to do. The bees are in survival mode, the garden is in stasis and I have time during the weekdays when the family are at school and work. Writing days stretch out ahead. They may be bookended by too-late sunrises and too-early sunsets but the hours between are filled with words. I have a fire and peace and a good story to tell.

The Friendly Friend

Having been published in a few women’s magazines in the past I can tell you not all editors are friendly and encouraging. One of the reasons I love writing for The People’s Friend is that my contact there, Lucy Crichton, the Fiction Editor IS warm and friendly and encouraging. I had had only three stories published by 2019 and there was a 150th birthday party for the magazine – they invited all contributors, even fledging ones such as myself. I met Lucy – back then not yet fiction editor but my contact on the fiction team – and we got on well. Every time I send in a story now I receive a kind and chatty email – lovely, considering she must have hundreds of emails a day. It makes me want to send in more and more work, as well. The turnaround time for the Friend is quite slow, but I’m happy to say there’s a story in this week’s Special, one I had fun writing. There really is nothing quite like the buzz of seeing your work on a newsagent’s shelves. The Friend is a gentle mag, one full of positivity and I enjoy being in it. Plus I get paid. What’s not to like?

Fiction Preview: Special 240

…And then there are some rejections, and life gets in the way…

Sometimes it’s just not possible to write much. There’s always a way to find a BIT of time but sometimes life takes over and there just isn’t the room in your day for more room than a tiny little bit. A few hundred hastily scribbled words. And that’s OK, because these are the times to make a stash of ideas and let nothing escape – write it all down, anywhere, and save it for the time when life gives you a space again.

I subbed my novel again at the start of the year, to the Northern Lit Agency, and again I’ve heard nothing back, not even a rejection. This again is OK because I still know deep down that one day it will appear as a real live book, self published or otherwise. I still have places to go with it. There is a note on their site saying that if you’ve not heard within four weeks it’s a No – no bother. I have a lot of resilience in this area and it simply means I’ve got to work on it some more. A couple of recent stories that haven’t found a home in their first attempt will duly be sent off somewhere else until they find a home. I’m not in it for big wins, I just like being published so a shortlist works fine if I end up in print! It’s not a vanity thing, I don’t know exactly WHAT it is, beyond a burning ambition I’ve always had to be a published writer.

This week the Hammond House anthology ‘Changes’ arrived, which I’m published in after being shortlisted in their competition. It’s a gorgeous book, big and heavy and professional-looking, and I feel honoured to be nestled in there amongst some wonderful writing.

37%

I’m pretty chuffed. Between February and December last year I kept track of my submissions which I’ve always done, usually on pieces of paper blutacked to my wall or old diaries. In Feb last year I wrote them instead in a Gorgeous Notebook (you can never have too many Gorgeous Notebooks) in this format – name of piece — name of comp/magazine – closing date – date submitted – results. I submitted 30 stories (sometimes the same story once I received a rejection.) There are a lot of crosses, but 11 pieces – 37% of the subs went on to do SOMETHING. Some were published, some longlisted, some shortlisted, some got an honourable mention or were featured on a website. Six of the 11 successes were published online or in print.

I’m really chuffed with that. In a year that was incredibly busy, in which I was ill for a fair while, twice, in which I lived a lot of life, I had a 37% success rate.

This year has begun well. Last year ended in a weird way so the only way was up, bay-bee. I’m writing every day and I’ve subbed three times already. Once a week would be great but I’m aiming higher – I will sub when the ideas come and my fingers move fast. I’ve subbed my (tweaked again, like I tweaked last yeyah) novel to yetanotheragent, a short story to a website, a short story to a comp and I’m working on a new linked collection of stories and a story about a treadmill, obsession and long lost love.

Happy writing, happy new year.

Birdwatching with a cold while BT engineers try to find my landline in the snow

I’ve been sitting here watching the starlings squabbling over the bird feeders. They’re the impatient teenager football crowd of the bird world. Of the nine species I’ve seen this morning, they’re the most entertaining. I’m trying not to sit on the sofa, because if I do I doubt I’ll get up and the BT engineers are bound to have a question the second my feet go, ahhhhhh.

The landline blew up a few years ago in a summer storm. It was fixed briefly then the builders dug it up while the big renovations were going on (as opposed to the small renovations, which never stop). And that was the third time I’ve been a direct lightning hit in a building so I should do the lottery.

The front garden has been a miniature mountain range since the big renovations began so the landline never got properly dug in and I’ve decided on a whim that it needs to be done, now, as I’m still paying for the thing and this week I found myself phoneless and poorly, after accidentally driving over my mobile. That’s the short version. Also I bought an old 70s digitalised dial phone and I want to use it.

The guys just knocked on the door to say there’s a problem – of course there is, with even the smallest job there’s a problem, Luv, but they’re going to help me fix it. I’ve got to do some digging and then call them again. Nice blokes. One of them has a partner who’s a brand new teacher. I’m an old teacher and I’ve just resigned. Which is an incredibly long story and it’s not been an easy few months BUT I’m coming out the other side. Should I tell her to quit now? Save herself the grey hairs and the stress nosebleed (oh yes) and the unravelling once you hit menopause? Fun fact: teachers stay on HRT the longest. I’m NOT here to talk about recent psychological storms, I’m here to talk about writing. And I can’t take HRT.

There has been some success. The day before my last official day at work I sold a story, which felt like a good omen. A few days after that I found out I’d been shortlisted for the Hammond House short story comp. Along with the honourable mention from Globe Soup I am feeling pretty good, and as if I might be getting better – my ratio of hits to misses has risen. Additionally during Scottish Book Trust’s book week I managed to secure a zoom support sesh with a literary agent – the lovely Jenny Brown, who didn’t want to represent me but said lovely and encouraging things. I loved the whole thing. She had lots of valuable advice and we discussed the opening of my novel – and why it didn’t grab people enough. I agreed.

I’ve been too crazy to write much- self esteem was at its lowest ever ebb and everything I typed was shite, so I just didn’t bother. But I started thinking – if, in the tiny amount of time I had, I have managed this tiny bit of success from stories finished in a rush on a Sunday night, imagine what MAY happen when I get my head together enough to write and use that time well, like a real writer, doing a real job. Maybe, just maybe, the stars have aligned and I should trust this process. Maybe going a bit nuts will end well. It has felt like failure for a lot of weeks. But like everything difficult, there are lessons to be found within, wrapped up like parcels.

Recently I pushed the naysaying voice away and started work on a shiny new thing, in contemporary women’s fiction. It features (surprise!) a menopausal woman and here is an excerpt, taken from the moment Jen, our menopausal woman, finds herself on a plane, having run away from her family:

***

‘…God, I can’t even string a sentence together properly. What the hell am I doing? I’m on a sodding plane. I might be a bit pissed.’ She feels the tears start. Oh well. That was a couple of hours she’d managed not to cry.

‘Here,’ Sasha says, passing a packet of tissues. ‘You mentioned cancer?’

‘Thanks,’ Jen sniffs, puts a wad of tissue onto each eye and sobs for a few seconds. Then she sniffs, wipes her eyes and smiles. ‘Breast. Caught early. Always terrified of it coming back. There you go. The tears. Menopause. The mental pause. I cry literally six times a day. Maybe more. I cry at TV ads. I cry at songs which are in any way shape or form about being sad. I cry if the kids at school are rude. I cry at the end of the day. I cry if my own children are arsey. I cry when I look in the mirror…’

‘That’s a lot of crying.’

‘I honestly don’t know how your body produces it all. Maybe this is what you get instead of periods. As women we’re condemned always to be leaking some kind of bodily fluid. Speaking of which, I need a pee.’

Sasha gets up whilst Jen struggles out of her seat.

‘And everything aches all the time. And your fitness goes…’ Jen stumbles up the aisle, pees, avoids the mirror and its awful lights, and walks back, lurching a bit. She looks for Sasha because she can’t remember what seat number she’s in.

For a second she can’t see her and she feels her stomach dip and twist. If she’s hallucinating people again… but she pushes that thought away as Sasha gives her a small wave.

‘Thank God,’ Jen says. ‘That’s another thing, memory.’

‘I think I’ll stay young,’ smiles the girl and Jen looks at her.

‘There are some benefits,’ she says.

There’s a pause.

‘Such as?’ prompts Sasha.

….

‘Yeah,’ says Jen.

***

The BT man just called me to say my cat is in the back of his van. Back in a mo…

Close call. He drove back, opened the door and she clambered out from a pile of wires and tools. I wonder if she knows she moved a few miles? Have to watch that because with any luck there will be more people here to do more jobs once the ground thaws a bit. I can be an eccentric writer who meets them at the door, wafting around in a kaftan, offering coffee. An eccentric PUBLISHED writer.

Now the guys have gone I can go and fall onto the sofa with the fire and the weighted blanket. I’ve not had a cold since pre covid (don’t whatever you do, look at Dan Walker’s thread about bad colds on twitter at the moment. It’s a bit scary. Seems half the country is sick, and not with covid, and it’s mostly the great vaccinated. I am NOT an anti-vaxxer, but there is some convincing anecdotal evidence on there, or at least a lot of stories.) and this one is not nice – day five of feeling rubbish.

But today I have celebrated a little success, written my blog, and continued the story about Jen. If nothing else, it will be cathartic. It’s going to end up as a series of short stories, all connected. FINALLY short story collections are gaining popularity.

Happy pre-Christmas week and I hope you are surviving the various crises/strikes. That’s all I’m going to say or I’ll get despondent and there is much to be joyful about. If you’re here on the earth, there is possibility. The birds know this – as they fight over the food I notice they’re also working together – as the starlings argue a lot of food is dropped and the smarter birds hand around underneath just waiting. Always possibility, even when it’s freezing cold and all is white.

The lesson of winter – and THIS winter especially – has to be endurance. Endure, work together, look for possibility.

Deadlines and Methods

I like a deadline. I work better to one. Taken to an extreme this is a tiny writing window, during which you have a specified amount of time to create. A few years ago I found ‘Hour of Writes’ which gives you a three word prompt and a few days to think. The trick is though that once you start writing, you only have an hour, start to finish, and a 2000 word limit. It IS possible to hit the limit, as I’ve done it a few times. I spend a couple of days thinking about the prompt, but more often than not an idea only comes when I actually start writing and then the game is to try and finish, find an ending and edit, all in 60 minutes. Undoubtedly this has made me a better writer because when there IS time to think, I think faster, find the right words more often and often surprise myself with what comes out. I type with four fingers which is a bit of a handicap, however I can still knock out 2000 mostly edited words. It’s a trip.

This month I also tried the Globe Soup seven day challenge. Similar idea, except you get given a genre and theme, and seven days to work on it as much as you like.

You might think what a waste, or what a gimmick, but as a writing exercise it’s useful as it teaches you to write and think quickly. As my life is a bit hectic and writing time is limited, it’s useful to be able to make the most of the stolen hours. The given themes/prompts are also completely open to interpretation. I cannot write historical fiction as I discovered recently, but then I rarely read it. I need to write what excites me – magical realism and a bit of sci-fi, combined with a satisfying ending, always in the present or in the future. I’ve gone back to 1972 in my novel, as I had to but I found that hard. Short sharp challenges teach you to just let it go and some of the things that have come out were a total surprise. Occasionally I write myself into a corner, but this happens less and less. It’s as if I am learning to trust my subconscious and if a line doesn’t feel quite right or that it’s heading in the right direction, it gets deleted. Increasingly often there is a gem in there – even if I feel like deleting it – that can be revisited when there’s more time. Letting your subconscious just go for it brings out some treasures.

A game I play in the classroom is called Once Upon a Time. I begin by drawing a character or two and the students have to write ‘Once upon a time there was a boy/girl/monster/man…’ etc etc. I then draw random pictures which have to be woven into a story. No two stories are ever remotely identical and the students can either just use it as a bit of fun or use the ideas generated to write a more thought-out story. You can do this as a writer using magazine pictures, just pull them out in a certain order. Doing this helps you to find out what you enjoy/dislike and helps you hone in on what really gets you stuck to the keyboard. Learning to trust your instincts as a writer is so important – when I discovered I didn’t enjoy/wasn’t great at historical fiction I took it as a writerly failure at first, before I realised it just wasn’t me. Going back to what I loved writing brought back my confidence.

I have no idea where my ideas come from. Something vague at the start of an Hour of Writes challenge will turn into something completely different, and is always exciting. If I begin with a germ of an idea, I rarely know where it will end, until I get there. I’m definitely a pantser, not a planner. I’ve also learnt that I need total freedom – being asked to write a certain story is very hard and I’m very respectful of those brave souls who take a well-known story and rewrite it in a new way.

Sometimes finding out HOW you work best is as important as knowing what you want to write. I doubt I’ll ever get into a routine, even with all the time in the world, so it would not work with me and probably make me hate the process. I like a challenge, a tight time schedule and I need to be excited by what I write. That’s what I’ve learnt, so far. I never struggle to get started; in fact my only issue is my days are full. I’ve learnt I get great ideas in the shower, just when I’m dropping off to sleep or out walking. I’ve learnt I can work best at any time of day and that alcohol kills my creativity. There are other lessons too. If you’re not producing what you think you ought to be, find out HOW you work best.

And if your issue is you’re struggling to get started, try Hour of Writes or Globe Soup, or any of the other short challenges. They might just get you going again.

(see an earlier post from Feb 2016, ‘On Speed Writing’)