Pride and Persistence

I usually start classes with a word count. In turn, everybody has to say how many words they've written since the last class. No one checks on the accuracy or otherwise of the word count, so in theory you can lie, claim to have written 11,567 words over the past week and then bask in the collective oohs and ahhs from the rest of the class, as if a firework has just exploded overhead in a shimmer of light.

But I don't think people do lie. People state their word count and if it's zero they blush, and twist their hair and contort their bodies and pull faces, just like toddlers being caught out. And the excuses! Sob stories, tales of woe, the occasional barefaced 'I didn't have time'. The rest of the class boos and throws cabbages at them. (But only metaphorically.)

But even though the boos are unheard and the cabbages are invisible, just the pressure of having to admit a zero word count to our peer group is enough to push people to write. There are quite a lot of confessions to the writing having been done the evening before, or even the morning of class - and I've even had a notebook waved filled with scribbles written as the student walked along the corridor, but hey - who cares? It's writing.

And writing is what it's about. Being proud of being a writer, and persisting with it until you get something written. You can always go back and edit later, but you need the raw material to start with. Set yourself a daily word target, proudly announce when you've achieved it and give yourself a reward. (Chocolate biscuits work for me which is why my bottom is the shape it is.)

So...how many words have you written this weekend?

Objects of Desire

Writing about Jilly Cooper and my longing for a dog made me think about an exercise I used to do with my students from the Bristol Uni Diploma class, so here it is for the weekend.

Write about an object of desire you had as a child. It could be something tangible - in my case, a dog - it could be something more abstract, but write about something you really, really wanted. Why did you want it? Did you ever get it? What happened?

These were some of my favourite pieces when it came to reading them out and I noticed the rest of the students listened attentively. There was something so simple, so effective, so specific when we wrote about what we wanted and the frustrations or successes that came with those desires.

Shakespeare wrote: "We are such stuff as dreams are made on" so when we're writing about imaginary characters, we need to be clear about what it is they want and be as specific as we can. If it's good enough for Shakespeare....

I was Jilly Cooper's Dogwalker

When I was a child I wanted a dog but although we had the usual run of cats, hamsters, mice and one rogue rabbit, my parents flatly refused to countenance a dog. By my early teens I'd given up nagging them, but it didn't stop my secret longing. In particular, I wanted the dog across the road, a handsome English Setter. I didn't know much about his owners - he was something in publishing and she was a journalist for the Sunday Times but my parents read the Observer so that was that - but they had this gorgeous lovely lollopy dog.

One summer I bumped into her and the dog and, in a moment of courage, offered to take him for a walk. I took him for a million walks across Barnes Common, basking in the glory of temporary ownership. I played Crufts, solemnly putting him through his paces around an imaginary showing ring, and rescue dogs, and spy dogs, and tracker dogs. I loved that dog, and spent hours on a painting of him against a background of autumn leaves as I'd run out of green paint. A few years on and I swapped dogs for boys - though dog walking was a useful ploy to spend time alone on a park bench with the object of my affection.

A few more years, and I was babysitting for the couple across the road. I now knew that she was also a writer. It was very hard work. I knew that because the room she used as her office was directly opposite my bedroom. If stuck on my homework I would stare across at her typing away. She was never stuck on her homework, always typing, always working. When it was sunny she'd take her typewriter into the garden and write in a bikini and a floppy hat, but the words still flowed. When I went round to babysit I'd be asked to supply a good name for a cat or dog in one of her books, or give information about what young people were reading or listening to. She was successful, but she worked for her success.

She wrote six novels in that office across the road, the ones called by girls names: Octavia, Prudence, Emily and so on. Then came Riders, and they left our street for a big house in the country. Now I'm a writer myself, working from a similar room, trying to put the hours in that Jilly Cooper had when I was a teenager. And as for Jilly Cooper, she's still got that painting of that daft English Setter up in her office. I like to think it brought her luck, but I suspect all that hard work had something to do with it.

Writing and the Partnered Down Dog

Yesterday evening at Pilates we finished with a Partnered Down Dog. This sounds pretty raunchy and indeed there were quite a lot of giggles and joking about it turning into a bondage session. Of course in practice we were all very serious and stretched our hamstrings out in turn, our partners providing a counter balance so the stretch increased. Walking home afterwards I realised I'd pushed my body further than I would have done on my own, and it felt good.

Wouldn't it be great if we had a writing partner who made us go that little bit further with our writing? Who said, go on, you can write a little bit more today. Or nudged us into completing the story we were struggling with. Who encouraged us to persist with that extra round of letters to agents. I think most of us could do with a writing friend like that.

If we're lucky we can find a writing partner in class, through a writing group or an on-line forum, but they can't be there for us all the time. If you seriously want to write you have to develop your own inner writing partner, a little voice that will send you to write when turning on the television would be easier, the one that never lets you get away with sending out work you deep down know isn't finished. Call it your Muse if you must, but learn to be your own best writing friend.

Making First Page Promises

The first page of a novel (or a short story for that matter) should be a promise.  You are going to read this sort of book, with these sort of characters.  The problems they face are going to be about this.  The writing style is this, the tone is that.  If you read the first page, and like it, you'll like the rest of the book.  I promise.

As authors we can't control the cover, nor the blurb on the back (although one hopes to have input into them).  What we can control is the promise we make to the reader on that first page.  So it is absolutely essential that the right promise is on the first page, that if it's a racy thriller, either something racy happens, or we're explicitly promised that it's going to happen pretty soon.  Similarly a relationship novel should ideally start with the relationship problem being clearly stated.  

I must admit I only formulated this idea a few years ago after I'd done classes workshopping first pages with students.  The ones that got the most positive responses were the ones where the author's promise to the reader was clear.  When I went back to my first novel, Adultery for Beginners, I saw that, without realising it, I'd made the promise there.  The opening paragraph starts with the single word: Drat. Isabel and her husband have just made love, but all Isabel can think about is that she's going to have to change the sheets - and she only changed them yesterday. It summed up their stale relationship. 

So when you're writing your opening page, think about what promises you're making to the reader, and know that you're going to be able to keep them.  

Why Blanche, while Beautiful, is obviously a Baddie

Rules for Heroes: 3 : Never kick the dog

You can always spot a hero from the way they behave to those who are beneath them socially, be they animal or human, because heroes are always kind to underdogs of every species.  We can spot the hero in, for example, Georgette Heyer novels, because he is invariably good with dogs.  Dogs that are frightened of strangers accept his attention, often positively fawning with delight as the hero finds exactly the right spot behind the ear to scratch.  

Okay, so it's become a cliche, but compare with a character such as Blanche Ingram in Jane Eyre.  She may be beautiful, but we know she's a baddie because she's so unpleasant and condescending to the staff (including, of course, Jane Eyre herself). Mr Rochester can be careless of other's feelings, but makes amends when he realises.  (And Pilot the dog loves him so under that brusque exterior he's obviously okay.)

Contemporary heroes may not have servants but there are waitresses and shop assistants to be considerate to.  Hannibal Lecter may be a cannibalistic monster who'd eat your liver as soon as look at you, but he is polite to Clarice Starling even as he toys with her emotions and fears.  Scarlett O'Hara, for all her many faults, is devoted to her Mammy. As readers we sympathise with underdogs, and we loathe those who are mean or nasty to them.  Make sure your main characters never kick the dog.

Turn Up

Woody Allen was asked how to become a success, and his answer was: 'Turn up.'  It's the answer if we want to succeed in writing too.  We need to turn up.  First, and above everything else, we need to turn up at the page and do the actual writing. I spent my twenties wishing I had written a novel before it dawned on me that to be a novelist I actually had to write the wretched thing.  And you can't write a novel without turning up at the page on a consistent basis - 100,000 words is a lot of typing.

But as well as turning up at the page, we need to turn up to the world of writing.  We need to get involved. Go to conferences, subscribe to magazines like Mslexia or Writers Forum, join writing groups, follow writers on Twitter and Facebook, read writing blogs, join writing societies, attend writing classes, subscribe to daily publishing news digests like book2book.com or The Bookseller so you're up to date with the world of publishing.  

After a while you'll become recognised, then accepted as part of the writing world yourself. Perhaps there are some people who don't need to get involved to get published, who can loll around in some ivory tower and magically land a wonderful publishing deal.  Personally, I've yet to meet them, although I have met depressing numbers of people who seem to think it's enough for them to have written a novel, they don't need to bother with getting involved with the publishing world.  Then they get bitter when they don't get published, claiming publishing is clique.  

In my experience publishing is anything but a clique.  It's open to anyone and everyone, but no one is going to push the door open for you.  You have to do it yourself.  Turn up, and get published.