The Secret of Writing

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a writer must put her bum on the seat and her hands on the key board if any writing is to get done.

Jane Austen famously described her writing as working on "two inches of ivory" but the main point is that she did her writing, regardless of scale. It may have taken time - First Impressions and Elinor and Marianne were written at least 10 years before they became Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility , but in the end the novels got written.

I wish it were true that there were magic writing pixies and wishing you'd written a story or novel would make it so, but the sad and sorry fact is that there aren't and wishing won't make any difference.

Bum. Seat. Connect.

Hands. Keyboard. Connect.

Hands. Pen. Paper. Connect.

However you do it, it has to be done. And that's all there is to say about it.

How To Intimidate A Writer

Alexander McCall Smith gets up at 5.00am every morning and writes 3,000 words until about 8.00am.  Stephen King writes 2,000 words every day without fail, Christmas and birthdays included.  John Mortimer wrote 1000 words a day before doing a full days work as a barrister.  Agatha Christie wrote two novels a year, every year.  So does Joyce Carol Oates, who also wonders what writers who struggle to complete one novel a year are doing with their lives. Georges Simenon once wrote a Maigret novel in eight days flat (admittedly, accompanied with plenty of Benzedrine).

Feeling intimidated yet?  Feeling guilty?  Unworthy?  Lazy?  Untalented?  

Yup.  Lots of writers work to a strict timetable.  Lots of writers have a daily target that they meet come hell or high water.  Lots of writers do it - but it doesn't mean that ALL writers have to do the same.  Nor does it mean that your work will be inferior if you only produce 200 words a day (that was Graham Greene's target BTW).  

Your circumstances may be different from, say Anthony Trollope who wrote 2000 words before going to his day job running the Post Office for the government.  He ordered his valet to wake him up and make sure he got up and started writing, regardless of what AT said at the time.  

Don't know about you, but I don't have a valet.  If there's getting up early to be done, it's going to happen by will power alone.  Sometimes it works - and sometimes it doesn't.  I try to get 1000 words done most days, and hope for nearer 2000.  When I'm on a writing retreat I can manage 3,500-4,000 words a day, because I've excluded everything else in my life.  

Word counts and targets are good, but they have to be your own, not ones you've taken from someone else.  Don't be intimidated because you know a prolific writer - maybe they will need to do a lot of re-writing to bring their splurge of words to the level you write at on your first draft.  You've got to remember you're not in competition with anyone else.  Just keep writing at a steady pace until you're done.  

What Border Collies have to do with Writing

I really miss my Border Collie, Tan.  Sometimes, when I'm leaving the sitting room, I think I hear his paws scrabbling on the wooden floors as he gets up to keep me company or hear the thump thump of his tail wagging in the mornings.  I miss him.  

I have mixed feelings about the daily long walk he needed though, which was an added commitment to an already full day.  However, it had to be done so I did it - and got fit in the process. 

Writing a novel is like having to walk the dog.  It should be done every day, for at least an hour, more if possible.  Some days, the dog has to make do with a quick scoot round the block, but you try to make it up with an extra long walk the following day.  

Novels don't have the same big brown eyed appeal that a dog has so it's easier to ignore them, but unless you do a bit every day - and the bit might only last 10 minutes - you lose touch with the work.  

Walk every day, and become fit.  Write every day, and get a novel written.  

Being a Flexible Writer

I like doing Sudoku, the harder the better. The trick is that when one part of the puzzle appears impossible, stop struggling and move on to another section. Be flexible.

Flexibility is a useful tool for novelists too. When you get stuck in one particular section, move on to another which looks more promising. When I was writing A Single to Rome it was ages before I knew what Natalie, the main character, did for a living. So I skipped through the work scenes and came back to them when I'd decided - more than half way through. Similarly the characters Teresa and Olivia were originally one person. And Bob kept changing sex throughout the book before I realised he really had to be a man.

For me, the really satisfying moments in writing are the ones where the difficult piece that didn't seem to fit anywhere at all suddenly slots in and the whole picture becomes clearer. So, once I knew what Natalie's job was, a lot of other scenes fitted into place, and a lot of future scenes became clearer. It takes faith, of course, to believe that if you leave a scene half written or sketched in it will resolve itself later. Apparently, when Mike Myers is gets stuck he simply writes 'And then something amazing happens', and carries on.

I think you have to be flexible and trust to the magic of writing that something amazing will happen. Because it will, it really will.

X is for XFactor - the Magic Ingredient

I listened to Adele in concert over Christmas.  Wow, what an amazing voice she has - and still so young.  It's sickening how talented she is.  

I was so inspired I went onto her website out of curiosity.  She's had to cancel some concerts recently due to vocal strain.  I checked out the list of venues - my word, practically every day she was scheduled to perform in a different city in the UK and USA.  Adele may be incredibly talented but she also works hard.  

I wish I was as naturally gifted as Adele is.  But I'm not, and there's no point in fretting about it.  What I can do is work as hard as she does.  Stephen King says he writes 2000 words a day, every day, including Christmas and birthdays.  I don't, and my output reflects that.  Regardless of how talented you may or may not be, if you don't put in the time, you won't get far. 

So my tips to getting the writing X factor would always start with putting the time in.  Then I'd add:

 

- learning about writing through reading.  

- matching your voice to the right form.

- being persistent.

- keeping the faith

- being patient.  

To be honest, even if you're as super-talented as Adele is, unless you have the other elements it won't make any difference how talented you are.  Becoming a writer is all about a package of factors, and not just one arbitrary element called talent. 

W is for Writing

To be a writer all you have to do is write.  

Sounds simple, doesn't it?  I know I'm not alone in that, while I love writing, I find it very hard to actually DO some.  Once I'm going it's not hard, but those first words on the page before I've settled down are grim.  

Writers write.  

If only that were so, there'd be a lot fewer angsty writers around.  I don't know a single writer who doesn't fret about their writing practice to some extent.  What we do is develop strategies to get us writing - planning ahead, setting word count targets, working in spaces without internet access.  Routine helps for most people, although that routine varies from writer to writer.  

The only secret formula in successful writing is summarised by one 5 letter word beginning with W...

You know it.  I know it.  You can spend a lot of good writing time fretting about how much you really ought to be writing.  You can spend a lot of good writing time reading blogs, following writers, agents and publishers on Twitter.  You can spend a lot of good writing time doing the ironing or watching TV...  

Writers write.  That's all there is to it.  I wish it wasn't like that, but there it is.  To be a writer you've got to write.  

Dammit.

Competing in the Writing Olympics

Several of the Olympic teams are training at the university sports centre here in Bath. I've been going for my lunchtime swim and marvelling at the speed of the swimmers in lanes 5-8 compared to those in 1-4 (especially 1 - the slow lane, where I pootle up and down for 30 minutes). They swim fast!

Yesterday I asked the life guard exactly which team it was in training. 'It's the swimming club' she said.
'Not the Olympic team? Not the British team? Not the county team, not even the university team?' I said, clinging to my hopes that I was sharing the same chlorine as an elite athlete.
She smiled at my ignorance. 'The elite athletes come in at 5am for training, then again in the evening. They do about 4-5 hours a day in the pool, and then land-based training on top.'

Which explains in part why I'll never be much of a swimmer. 30 minutes is one thing, 4-5 hours is quite another, especially at 5 in the morning.

On the other hand, it perhaps explains why I'm a writer. Make that 4-5 hours a day of writing, and reading on top, and I'm definitely at the Olympic writing level of training. I suspect that if you want to compete on a serious level at anything - local politics, cake decoration, dog breeding - you have to consistently put the hours in.

But if it's your passion, then you don't mind the hours spent on it. You find the time. You squeeze every minute you can to write in. When not able to write, you think about writing. When relaxing, you read a book and part of you works out what the author has done and why. If you want to write at a consistent publishable level then you have to put those hours in. Simple as that.

And the great thing about writing is that it's available at all levels. Paddling up and down the pool a couple of times a week won't win me any races, but writing a little every now and then might well produce a story that will win a competition or get published in a magazine. And it will be fun and interesting along the way. Going to a weekly writing class or critique group or even taking an MA won't guarantee a publishing contract, but it's a first step along the way.

Write a little, write a lot - the Writing Olympics are open to every one. The only thing it won't do is help you lose weight and get fit but then, you can't have everything.

Not Squished Yet

A funny thing happened to me on Saturday morning. From about 8.30am the phone in Cornwall rang, and kept ringing with calls for me. The same morning I also picked up quite a lot of emails via my website address. And there were unexpected DMs on Twitter. When I got back to Bath and retrieved my mobile (which I'd accidentally left behind) I'd had a string of missed calls and texts.

All were wanting to know the same thing: are you OK?

Thank you everyone who knew I usually travel between Bath and Cornwall at the weekends and got in touch about the motorway crash last Friday evening. Yes, I was on the M5 that evening, it was very dark and foggy, and fireworks were going off, but I didn't see any smoke. I was ahead of the crash by a short time, and on the southbound, not the northbound, carriageway, so oblivious that anything had happened until the first call on Saturday.

But it has made me think about how transient life is, and how vulnerable we are. Carpe diem! Seize the day! If we don't do it now, then when? Goethe wrote: 'What ever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace, and power in it.'

It made me ask myself why I was pussy footing around with this current novel, which has been in the making for so long. And yes, I've got a lot of demands on my time, but not much of it is top priority and certainly not compared to getting this novel written.

On Saturday afternoon I had a twenty minute chunk of free time before we were supposed to be going out in the afternoon. The Saturday before I would have read the paper, but instead I decided to snatch even that little bit of writing time. The twenty minutes stretched to over an hour, and I got a decent amount of writing done. Yesterday I wrote more than I have done for ages, and I loved it.

I don't know why it takes a 34 car pile up to shake me into thinking about what I really want to do, but there it is: it has. I'm a writer. That's all there is to it.

Driving in the Darkness

It's dark when I drive home from the university. I use the motorway for some of the way, then drop down through twisting country lanes on the back way to my house. The headlights may be on full but they only show a short distance ahead, so I have to trust that I'm going the right direction - I can't tell on these winding roads and there are no signposts or other markers, just hedges to either side.

It seemed like a good metaphor for writing a novel. However much we may plan the book before hand, we're still writing into the darkness, only able to see a short distance in front of us at any one moment. We write, and we write, trusting that we will make it to our destination even though we can't see clearly where we are going.

Alan Bennett wrote in his diaries, "We don't know what we're writing until we've written it." We just have to follow the lights and carry on writing until we're home.

Frustration!

What's the point of having a blog if you can't have a little rant from time to time? I ban computer discussion from my classes as I find them terminally dull. Computers, like cars, are functional bits of kit that should get you from A to B without fuss.

And then they stop functioning.

So, right now at this moment, I am using a library computer, half an hour access at a time. It's not conducive to inspiration. And yet...

When I first got excited by writing - which is not the same time as when I first started writing - nothing would stop me. I wrote when builders dust surrounded me, I wrote sitting on a camp stool hunched over the laptop burning my thighs (I soon acquired one of those TV dinner trays which solved that problem), I wrote on the kitchen table tapping away with one hand while passing the ketchup with the other. Basically, I wrote regardless of my circumstances.

People do. They write in prisons, they write while holding down three jobs. They write when they are exhausted from dealing with the emotional demands of their friends and family. They get up an hour early and write.

If you are a writer, you write. No circumstances, certainly no computer problems, will stop you. You are a writer, you write. That's all there is to it.

The Mathematics of Novel Writing

People often tell me that they'd like to write a novel but they don't have the time. Actually you don't need much time to write a novel, you just need a little basic maths. Ten to twenty minutes a day is about how long it takes most people to write 250 words*. Multiply 250 words by 365 days and you get 91,250 words. That's a reasonable length for a first draft. Now, all you need is ten or so minutes a day...

1. Do your novel thinking outside your writing time so when you get the chance you know roughly what you're going to write.

2. If you say something like, "I just want to do some writing, could you keep an eye on the children", you're in effect asking for permission. Sneak off without telling anyone and I bet it'll be ten minutes at least before anyone notices you've gone.

3. Leave your writing with a few notes about where you're going next. When you next get the chance they'll refresh your memory quickly so you use the time effectively.

4. If you get stuck on one section jump to the next bit you fancy writing; you can always go back later and fill in the gaps.

5. Give up watching television. Or Sudoku, the crossword, emails, Twitter - there are thousands of things that gulp down novel writing time. And if all else fails...

6. Cultivate a reputation for IBS. Why not? Who will ever question, other than sympathetically (or possibly cautiously), the time you're spending in the loo?

If you really, really want to write a novel you'll find those ten minutes. It's just about the maths. A x B = C. That's all you need to know.

* As a guideline, this post is 300 words.

My next event will be speaking at Corsham Library, Wiltshire with fellow New Romantics Lucy Diamond and Veronica Henry 3rd June at 7.30pm. Come and join us!

What the Wastepaper Bin said to Me

This morning, rather bleary eyed as I was going about my daily ablutions, I reached down to drop a cottonwool ball into the wastepaper bin. There was nothing there. I checked. No, still not there. Slightly more awake, I remembered that everything had come out of the bathroom for when it was being re-painted, and the bin had gone back on the wrong side. And there it was.

It was habit that made me reach down with my left hand. Habit that told me I would find the bin there. I did it without thinking, as I do many tasks from brushing my teeth onwards. Writing is like a habit too. The more we write the easier it gets. I don't mean that the words are any better, but it becomes easier to get them down on the page.

The first story I ever wrote outside school was 400 words long and oh, how I struggled over it. Now, 400 words is nothing. I've got the writing habit, and it's easy for me to slip into the writing headspace. I write daily because I write daily. And because I write daily, it's easier for me to write daily. When (not if) I'm interrupted, it's easier for me to get back into my writing that it ever used to be.

Not all of my daily writing is novel writing. It's journalism and blogging and email and stuff like that. But the habit is there and it's all become easier. The more you write, the more you write. It's as simple as that.