Serendipity

I’ve just finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

OH.MY.GOD. The book is amazing. It’s brilliant and terrifying. Actually it’s turned into one of those ‘why am I trying to do this when there are writers out there doing THIS?’

It’s not remotely a book I would’ve picked up myself, but Julia Bell recommended it to me when I was in the UK. (I think we were talking about ‘truth’ in writing and this was an example.) She’d done a lecture on it recently and she said she’d thought about putting some notes up on her website about it.

So I went to have a look at her website (here) to see if I could find some more about the book. I couldn’t find any notes but I found this from her article ‘Dressing to Thrill’:

‘Sometimes I fear that some writers want to get published more than they want to write. Being a successful writer is a long apprenticeship. Writing a novel is a slow, frustrating process. It takes time and patience to get it right.’

And then I saw Jon’s post from yesterday, which is relevant too.

I remembered that for me it's never been about the publishing, but about the writing - the process - the thinking. That's why I started. Yes, my standards are high and so be it.

Back in Bangkok

Of today

Son is fourteen today; I’m not sure how this is possible.

Husband’s birthday is today too, but he is much older and yesterday he began to make grouchy noises about this fact. I am of the opinion that being older is much better than being … not any older.

Of elastic deadlines

My break has done me good. I am quite desperate to get writing again. My self-imposed deadline is nearly here and I haven’t done what I wanted to do. But. I can’t stop so there’ll be no more talk of quitting.

I am cheered too by an email from Julia Bell who told me that The Literary Consultancy is holding a writing holiday in Koh Chang in September. You can see the news here, and their website is here and will go live at the end of April. I am not making a new deadline but I do want to attend the course with some writing under my belt.

Of Monday

I AM FLYING TO ENGLAND ON MONDAY NIGHT AND CAN BARELY CONTAIN MY EXCITEMENT.

If you live there, what is the weather like? What clothes do I need to unearth and pack?

Planning and Planning

Thanks for the supportive comments.

I’m not feeling too bad about the writing thing. Now that I’ve got going on the index cards and have acknowledged Julia (Bell)’s comment at Christmas that I do have to make decisions in order to write a story, I am scribbling away on the little cards. The pile is growing, and I’m now stapling bits of paper with my original notes on to the back of some of them (so the reference is there).

It appears that I may be a writer who needs a fairly detailed plan. That’s okay with me; I’m delighted to discover anything about my process. I always sort of knew it, but couldn’t work out how … how.

Right I’m off. I’m not navel gazing today. I’m going to write index cards, staple bits of notes to them, and chuck them in piles of Act One, Two and Three.

See ya all.

PS Okay it’s Manchester. Sunday 27th April. Check out Lazy P’s comment on Novel Racers about booking two weeks in advance for £13 tickets to Manchester - I think you need to nominate which train you'll be on for this deal. Please confirm your attendance! More information to follow.

Today

I can’t decide what to blog about today so for want of anything else to say …

My toenails are painted a very bright and gorgeous Versace Orange. (After all the handbag talk, this blog is looking most unserious.) I have already dented my little finger on my left, (not orange) which shows I’m not nearly grown up enough to have nail polish on my hands. I’ve just taken a picture of the spectacular orange, but I can’t post it for fear of scaring you all with my trotters.

I have to do some free writing on my main character’s husband. I never write from his viewpoint, but it’s essential that writers feel they know enough about him. I don’t know enough about him, so I need to do some work.

It’s looking likely that some of us can meet in Manchester for the weekend of 26/27 April (when I’m coming to visit). If you haven’t seen the Novel Racers’ blog post about this – head on over there now.

I am reading Julia Bell’s Dirty Work. I love the voice of Hope, who is at that inbetweeny stage of adolescence; not quite grown up, but not a child either. I’ve just reached the stage where she’s going to grow up pretty damn quick though. For those of you writing YA novels, do think about reading them – I also loved Massive (so did my son not quite 14). Julia told me at Christmas that schools have picked up on her books because of the issues and they are perfect support to the PSHE curriculum. (I hope I’m not misquoting here.)

I am meant to be reading Bleak House for Book Club, but I have Bleak Expectations of that … no not really, I’m just not in the mood. It’s very large, not that that scares me, but I will have to get on with it after Dirty Work if I want to get it finished in time for the meeting.

Ho hum. I think that’s all for today. Got the whole day to myself for writing tomorrow. Yay.

Julia says ... Part II

I’d like to say Happy Holidays to everyone: not because I’m being politically correct but because I didn’t manage to get online to make it a timely Christmas wish to you all. I appear to have missed Christmas. I phoned home, blinked and it was gone.

I’ve now caught up with all my favourite blogs, but left very few messages – normal service will be resumed in the New Year.

Julia read the last of my manuscript (gulp). It was horrible to hand over something that I know was so rough and flawed (I’d stalled so often) but it was essential as she has pinpointed exactly why I keep stalling.

A couple of points:

• I’ve made Bangkok my main character … when it has to be in the background and the characters in the foreground.
• I still haven’t made decisions about plot … this is so pathetic because I’ve known this all along, but hoped the subconscious writing fairy would come and put it right. She won’t. The bitch hasn’t shown up, so now I’ve got to do it.
• It was too episodic – I wrote it in episodes because I had no idea where or how to decide where the plot was going.
• I need to think about containing it in time. Again, I knew I was confused about this. Months and months ago I’d printed out a grid to fill in a time plot, but guess what? With no decisions about plot, I couldn’t do it!

I felt a bit wobbly after all this, despite the fact that I knew lots of it. After our meeting, I went somewhat shakily on a trip to a mangrove forest. Lovely M kept asking me if I was okay. Yes I told him, yes, fine. I was wearing my sunglasses and staring out of the minibus window.

Of course, I didn’t think of any of the good things she said (there weren’t any in my mind at that time). I wondered about giving up – no wonder I found it so hard – I was crap and didn’t know what I was doing. I’d spent a year trying to write a book, and I still needed to start back at the beginning. I don’t know what I’m doing still …

I went off in a boat along the mangrove waterways. I’d wangled my way into the last boat with co-Skyros folk, but not those I’d become friends with, so I didn’t need to chat. I had a little think, and fought off some tears. I didn’t have any moment of clarity or anything but after the trip, I bought a diet coke and the group pottered about before getting back on our minibus. I sat back down in my seat in the rear by the window, and I suddenly felt okay again. I felt fairly cheerful; reasonably optimistic and ready to give it another go.

So the good things were: good, very naturalistic dialogue; lots of interesting BACKgrounds; fascinating subject matter because I’ve done something interesting; I can write; she likes my style; I write clearly without trying to be over clever.

And, bless the lovely Julia… she says I can email her my rewritten chapter one!!!

Second post in a day

I've just had an email from Skyros. Apparently Peter Guttridge cannot do the Writing Lab course due to personal circumstances. I am very sorry about these, whatever they may be...

BUT... rather excited ... that Julia Bell, of The Creative Writing Course Book, is going to do the course instead.

Oh my...