L is for Learning

Can you learn creative writing? It sounds like a daft question since I'm on a creative writing MA (an experience which I really recommend). I don't, however, think you can learn everything you need to know on an MA or any other course. But you can learn some valuable lessons.

• How to benefit from criticism, even if you don't always take it
• How an experienced reader experiences your book
• How to pick out what's good and not good in your own writing
• How other writers do it

But the most valuable course I have ever done was an Open University course (A215) which was on creativity as well as the nuts and bolts of putting words down. How to come up with new ideas, how to identify what kind of writer you are, giving you permission to pursue your own style and genre while developing your inner editor. It was the closest to teaching me storytelling, as opposed to the craft of writing, which the MA helped me work on. I think storytelling is something you are partly born with, and it partly develops through reading extensively. I can also recommend the Open College of the Arts, which now offers a degree in Creative Writing for people wishing to extend and develop their skills.


But the most valuable lesson I learned was letting someone read my work with a critical and experienced eye. It isn't easy to listen to what someone else thinks isn't working, but when the smarting eases, you often find they are right. And sometimes, you see that you can stick to your guns, because you see that what you were trying to do wasn't fully realised, and you can extend it. Either way, the work gets better, and you internalise a few more hints about writing. Critiquing other people's work was also valuable, because very often you pick up in someone else's writing problems with your own. 

H is for Hope

I have friends and acquaintances who have declared that they have to get a book published. They are doggedly, energetically determined...a nice way of saying obsessed in a few cases. Of course, I hope I get published, but my stated goal is to write a book to publishable standard (in my own head) and the best way to test that is to actually put it out there. So, I hope I get published.

But I'm astonished at some comments I've heard from a few other writers - they seem to be saying they have to get published, it has to be a best seller and they have to get rich. Which is absurd. The average advance for a two book deal for new novelists, according to Kate Kellaway in the Guardian, was £12,000 five years ago. For two books. So, according to the usual idea that a two book deal pays out over three years in small chunks, minus the agents percentage that makes -  about £3,400 a year. Hardly riches, especially with today's financial climate. Yes, some people do better, maybe lots better, but on the MA we were warned that between £3k and £8k was reasonable for a first novel. Ouch. 

My hopes are smaller. I hope for someone to read my book and enjoy it (maybe lots of people). I hope to keep enjoying writing, and learning about writing as much as I do now. I hope that writing leads to other things I enjoy, like more success with my poetry and teaching in my own community. I hope to build a career from this early base. I would still like to be writing in twenty years time. So, yes, publication would be nice, but I'm not going to get sour over it.     

Fourteen thousand words! (850)

I'm chuffed to have logged fourteen thousand words on Borrowed Time since I got back from Winchester and it's a substantial chunk of the dissertation. Whether the words are any good remains to be seen! Daughter and betrothed are sanding and knotting the acre or so of tongue-and-groove panelling the previous owners covered up the hallway in (then didn't bother to use knotting solution so the whole thing is spotty). They took down the original Lincrusta...which people now pay to have restored...when they stripped out the fireplaces and modernised the ancient walls with cheap plasterboard and tacky skirting. At least the woodworm are original - and enjoying the old doors. We moved in here and immediately were hit by a driver, head on, and it soured our relationship with the place a bit, so it's good to reconnect and start decorating and improving it. We were measuring up for book cases yesterday, what a lovely bonding experience that always is. He's measuring up for a case for CD's so it's not just me and my insane book habit. In my defence, he does have a lot of guitars, drums, flutes and a violin.
As I write, I'm finding connections between different narrative strands. There has to be a reason to jump between time periods and I've made the account of Kelley written down in documents in the present day, although my character doesn't exactly sit down and read them, they are there. I think they might be archived and translated by the bad guys at the end of the book, come to think about it. Plot, just jumping out while I write, how cool and helpful is that?

Marcus Sedgwick

Last night the MA students and others enjoyed a visit by the children's writer, Marcus Sedgwick (I have raved about his books in the past). I took notes in case he said anything relevant or interesting to my own writing. Eight pages and writer's cramp later I can say I learned loads. He was a warm and engaging speaker, which helped, but his talk about his writing process, and a very candid and informed insight into the publishing business were incredibly helpful. He also read from his latest manuscript, an engaging story which has episodes going back in time.  

I also, so I would be prepared, read one of his 'Raven Mysteries' series, and laughed all the way through. I had never thought of writing for younger children (I only considered writing adult books six months ago!) but I have always loved books by Philip Ardagh, for example, very tongue in cheek stories that are fun to read aloud. The protagonist, Edgar, is a magical raven whose point of view flies us all over the castle and the eccentric occupants. I loved it. I also got the connection between the illustrations and the words in a way I hadn't considered before. 

Marcus has a wealth of experience of the publishing industry and shared his knowledge and ideas freely. The impact of electronic distribution of books in digital format remains an unknown factor, but he sounded positive. He was less positive about the parlous state of bookselling in this country - with Waterstones, W H Smith and Amazon holding almost all of the market, and independent chains already squeezed out, there is little competition. Supermarkets demand massive discounts, writers are earning less and less from their writing. Public speaking events, school visits etc. take up so much of his time he hardly has time to write. 

He did pose a question that I found painful to answer. Talking about marketing, he suggested if you have a personal connection to your book that might be an angle for the publishers to promote it. So why do I write the books I write? The truth is Borrowed Time is about second chances and sidestepping death. It's also about living with a disability, living with death dogging your footsteps. My eldest daughter Léonie lived with death, and beat it back for eight years with such joie de vivre, such enthusiasm for life, that it was hard to believe when she finally died. The topic came up on the poetry workshop the other day, the final minutes of  Léonie's life as she slowed down and stopped. Sadie is a grown up version of  Léonie, making the best of a bad job and eventually flying with the few feathers she has left. Does that make me Jack? There's an element of a younger me there, maybe. Do we write ourselves and our loved ones into all our stories? It's hardly an angle I am going to exploit as a marketing ploy. A part of me will always be sitting in a hot room, listening to Léonie breathing. The rest of me may have grown up (and grown old) and moved on into a new life, but it's always there, in the back of my writing.

Sent off examples of work to University of Southampton

OK, that was yesterday, picking over a few bits of work (in a hurry) to send to Southampton for the MA application. I just want them to see some potential, something that can be nurtured and moulded into better writing. It's not the best material, I'm still working on my newest stuff, but I hope it will be well received.

At 67,300 on the book, flagging a bit as I'm not writing the big stuff, just some backstory and a few loose ends to tie up, then hopefully I can put it away for a few months to ferment or set or dry or whatever it does. Then I will be able to look at it as if it were written by someone else, and can hack away at it with impunity. I do want to play with it now, really, but I am taking Stephen King as an example and will get on with Borrowed Time instead.

Oh, and I need to put my final assignment for the OCA together - an extract from a novel with a commentary and a short synopsis. I was thinking about rewriting the beginning of the last novel (Silent Obsession) but think that actually, something based on this novel might be better. I shall miss the support and help I get from my tutor there, she is brilliant. If anyone's looking for an excellent course in writing, consider the Open College of the Arts. they have CATS pointed courses, you can study for a degree if you want to, and the OU allows some transferred credit.

I've just started the editing section with A215 and it's brilliant, making me look at my work from different angles. I think there's a really big difference between editing the whole story and looking at the language. In the past I have tried to do both at the same time, but it's a bit like trying to thin saplings in a forest leaf by leaf, you can't see the forest, the bigger picture. When I've done this section I'll be ready to play with the book again. I have learned loads from thrashing out a novel in so few weeks, it's kept its momentum and pace, and it's an outline on which to write a proper book, I think. I now know and understand the characters much better, and can write Emma's story with more conviction. Now I need to look at it from a reader's perspective, have I given them enough information to get into the story, draw them in?

I've been reading people's comments of Facebook and realised I have been really lucky with my tutor, and hope she does other courses! She draws ideas out of me, and is uncompromising on her criticism, constructive though it is. Although I'm getting good marks, I still get lots of ideas and the same level of advice as someone with less experience. But I don't think my marks will shine in the lifewriting, which will be a shame as I'm getting distinction grades up until now. But I'm very happy with the TMA05 piece and the ECA piece, so I'm not going to worry too much about it, just polish it up with section 5, and send it in. Enough distractions - I have to do my words!

53,000 words and running out of plot

Well, I can't be live I've written anything this week, it's been so difficult. On Tuesday my mother-in-law was rushed into hospital with general decrepitude and possible pancreatitis and we hurtled down there, a five hour drive, to sort her out, on Thursday. She's making ground, but at eighty and very unsure of herself, it's difficult to be sure she's going to be able to go back home. So for two days, I couldn't write the book. I did manage to do a little lifewriting, though. And it did occur to me that having to do lifewriting for the next TMA at least I could write about this that's going on, intense and painful and powerful, as it happens.

Then I got back to the book, for relaxation really, and wrote what I think is the final paragraph of the book. No good to me really, since I have so many loose ends to tie up. One thing that 2 days away really gave me was perspective on the rewrite. I've written about this co-dependant relationship between two twins, yet I located it so far away from the death of one of them, I haven't really explored that relationship enough to show how spooky it is. I think chapters exist that grow out of Emma's adjustment to her father's death when she has to cope with either extreme loneliness or the madness of keeping the connection with her sister going.

So the final encounter between Emma and her friend is written and good and is the end point of the book. Now I just have to get from a to b. One way would be to cut between the past and the present, but I hate it when that happens in books in a very disjointed way. Hmm. More thinking. I'll probably have to go to Hampshire again (lots) so more thinking time.

Meanwhile, I have applied to 3 universities to do writing MA's. I must be mad. The application forms are so fiendishly difficult that, honestly, I began to worry that I just wouldn't be clever enough to apply. I have less doubts about the course, fortunately. Or rather, I did before I thought that I now have a sick old lady to keep an eye on. And the Open University are pulling the diploma I'm working towards, so if I want to do it, I have to complete it next year... alongside the MA. Hmm. I suppose I can do the course work after A215, I do already have the coursebook so I could make a start. And of course, two kids at Uni and two at college and Rosie's only 11... 2012 may well be the year when I lay down and have my breakdown, learn to make balloon animals, learn to sleep again.

Novelling again!

It's a new year so I have to start a new novel. I hesitated mostly because I thought doing A215 was enough with the OCA course, but I've realised that the more I write, the more I can write, so I've pledged myself to write 1000 words a day for 100 days and put a first draft together (even if I have to get up in the night to do it). Interestingly, I have a beginning, middle and an end, for a change, up front. I've noticed a difference already in my writing, my first drafts are better, and I'm more confident doing massive edits, sweeping the story around, sorting it out.

My story is set in a bed and breakfast establishment, run by the last of a family living in an old house (a bit like our house), trying to make a living. The owner of the house is slowly revealed by the people who stay there, whose stories wind through the book. That's the present story anyway, but knowing how much the last one changed it may not be anything like the final draft!

I've also been wrestling with whether to do an MA. I know someone who did one, and frankly, although her work is polished and cleverly written, I couldn't imagine it going further. So I found an old copy of her MA groups anthology, which is wonderful, very varied. Even her piece in it is rich and warm and full of promise. I would like to end up writing at that standard, which, objectively I know is better than mine but not unreachably so. I want to push my writing, not because I must be published, but because I want to take it as far as it will go. Ultimately, an MA will help me teach - I enjoy building people's confidence and skills almost as much as I enjoy honing mine.

One thing I have realised in the last few weeks. It's impossible to have a written voice amongst the noisy voices of my children. Taking time away from them has been incredibly helpful. Going away for a few months would let me concentrate. It's not as if they need me to listen to them 24/7, just that their words become a blanket of sound over my head. With kids away at college and university and work, I can start to find the silence I need to work.

Oh, and we bought a new printer, and a lovely hifi for the study! Investing in the time I spend in there, in the work that I do. I feel like a grown up writer now.

Motivation returned!

Well, after a week of crying into my beer (metaphorically - I hate beer) I am back writing again. That's the longest dry spell I've had in several months. partly I have had to look at writing for the Chaucer project (see my home grown Chaucer blog). One of the kids has a story about a fish she wants to tell in a puppet play form, so I'm writing words even in simple ones. Then I wrote the beginning of a short story which I feel would become a novel if I let it. the theme is really about how babies transform our lives. Not a literary theme maybe, but I was transformed by pregnancy and grew up very smartly when Léonie was born. I think we evolved from self-centred people, who were learning to make ourselves happy, to people who were focused on making Léonie, and each other, happy. Anyway, it's fun writing about people who are somewhat like the ones I actually know.

Going back to Chapter 5 with much more understanding I am creating characters for stories that are starting to speak to me. The O'Connor reading spoke to me (from chapter 11) so clearly I wish I had read it first. I realised this is how I write fiction - I start with a character and a ghost of a story and as the character coalesces in my mind, so the plot starts to form. This main character is clear as day to me, I can see her in black wool jacket, blue jeans, dark, short hair, blue eyes. She's standing in the doorway of the bookshop, bag wrapped around her purchase, waiting for the downpour to easy so she can head to the cafe. She's got the resilience of youth but the first lines of age and responsibility beginning to crease the skin around her eyes. I like her, but she wouldn't have much patience with me, not someone her mother's generation. Anyway, she's driving and living this story and I get to type it. She's eyeing up this older man, at the moment, I didn't expect that. I think her life is so routine, so tiring and public, that she craves a secret of her own, even if just a fantasy about a married man.

I'm playing with the prospectuses again. I have looked at Winchester but to be honest, this divide between writing led and story led fiction is starting to seem bigger than I thought. I know there are a few fantastic stories that do both, but I don't always choose them. I am a complete story junkie. I think that's what draws me to writing, all these tales running in my head all the time. Portsmouth seems slightly more story driven and the emphasis is on producing a book at the end rather than lots of literary reviews or poetry. I'll contact them and see where it goes.

OCA assignment 3 away!

Thank whoever's listening, assignment 3 for the OCA is winging its way to my tutor. I had to write a 1000 word character sketch, which ended up more as a storyish scene. The fiction piece I had to write was 1500 words, and while I had a first draft easily, getting it to where it is now took ages! On the plus side, I'm using both courses to improve my writing. The really difficult bit was the 1000 word commentary I'm supposed to write. Having wrestled with only 300 words and a strict format for A215, I found it really difficult to reflect for 1000 words even though I had more material. My OCA tutor had previously commented on my addiction to adjectives, so I'm trying to show more than tell, but even in the final read through I found several I couldn't account for. I'm finally very happy with the short stories I'm writing though, which is good news as I have to do one for A215 in a couple of months. Now I'm just waiting for inspiration for a plot to hit me. I'm reading Karen Maitland at the moment I really enjoyed the Owl Killers, and she used many first person accounts but a linear approach to the time, so you see the whole story in fragments, from many points of view, some quite alien, like the views of religious people in a community, like nuns. I've just started Company of Liars, again set in the same time frame as the Chaucer project that the kids are doing. I've always been a bit cautious of first person, but it can be so intense, especially where your narrator has an unusual perspective (or is barking mad). Great stuff.

For other news, apart from having seventeen pots of sloppy jam that just won't set, chickens that won't stop laying and moult even though they are going bald, and two courses on the go, I am looking at next year. There is a masters in creative and critical writing in Winchester that looks right for me, although I like the Portsmouth MA in creative writing as well. The downside is, I live in Devon ... Two of the boys are looking at studying at Sparsholt college near Winchester next year, so if I can go down with them and all rent somewhere for a few months maybe we can all study together. It would be really good to spend more time with my brothers, my mother-in-law is ill and old and could do with more visits, and I can concentrate on writing for 9 months. Maybe even rewrite the novel, which got positive feedback from the publisher even though the ending was weak (their words, mine was crap!) I have a BSc and MSc, but in psychology, so they might want time to do the A363 first - but then I miss the window of opportunity of going down with the boys. And I think they do need me there, especially Isaac! That would leave the first mate at the helm though - maybe the jam will set and the chickens moult for him. It would be a big, fun adventure after the gloom of the accident, anyway. Possibilities, possibilities.

A215 dayschool

Saturday was time for the first of two day workshops for A215. The focus was on releasing creativity and the first chapters of the BRB (Big Red Book). It was a rollercoaster, with a wide range of experiences and approaches from the students. The tutor was excellent, very supportive and full of enthusiasm for writing and creativity itself. I'm inspired to work harder, and it's been good reviewing my TMA draft after the workshop. I'm working on replacing adjectives with verbs, looking at original uses of words. We briefly looked at commentaries, enough to get me going anyway! The downside is, it's two hours plus each way. We now have to work on doing critiques of each other's work, though I'm not sure exactly what piece of work we are supposed to critique, the freewrites or the 200 words about it. I think of freewrites as the raw material, rather than any kind of finished work. I don't think I can afford to have it critiqued, but maybe the commentary will be very useful to work on.

Meanwhile, my plan to take a year off from family life to do an MA is starting to seem more feasible. Now all I have to do is go to Winchester and check out the course!