I’ll Make This Brief

Goodness gracious me, I thought writing a title was hard work.

You’ll recall me complaining about that last week no doubt. No? In that case, it’s over here (but come back soon).

Having (almost) come up with a working title that works, then changed it again, changed it back, gone back to the original title, then broken down sobbing and shaking uncontrollably, screaming “It’s only a few words!! How can it be so HARD??”, I asked Delightful Other Half for help. She came up with a stormer straight away.

So, one more trauma safely behind me, I launched straight into the synopsis.

Oh dear Lord, the synopsis. Is this some evil ruse by agents to weed out writers who don’t have what it takes to survive an SAS training regime followed by several months of being locked in a coal bunker?

I’ve already written the damn book and now you want me to write it again, only shorter? Shorter, but containing all the same information and emotion?? What kind of twisted sadists are you lot?

And if I don’t get it absolutely spot-on, you won’t even get as far as taking a teeny little peek-ette at the other 85,000 words I’ve toiled for four years over?

How about if I just stick a whole wodge of tenners to a sheet of A4 and we’ll call that your motivation to read the book?

Pretty please?

**Gratuitous over-use of question marks in this post should be excused on the grounds of synopsis psychosis**

Write Drunk, Edit Sober

A few days ago, this wonderful infographic popped into my Inbox (I do love a good infographic!)

While it’s ostensibly focused on copywriting, it contains some fabulous advice for writers of all kinds and some even more fabulous quotes from renowned authors.

Amongst them is the one and only definition which has ever clearly defined for me the old adage “show, don’t tell”:

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

That’s from none other than Anton Chekhov, so I’m taking it to be pretty authoritative!

It also contains a lovely section on Productive Tactics, dishing out some cracking advice to help the writer stride over the seemingly-insurmountable hurdles with which we all come face-to-face at one time or another. A particular favourite is:

Write drunk, edit sober.

I do this fairly often, which probably tells you a whole host of badness about me. But it really does work. The first few paragraphs are invariably dry and stilted as I struggle to chase my fleeing muse around the room. Just as invariably, the work slides gracefully into outlandish gibberish as my alcohol tolerance level is reached. But in the middle there, at the point where the inhibitions are loosened and the muse perches coquettishly upon my knee, there’s some really good, free-flowing writing which is not only good in itself, but raises ideas and concepts worthy of further development.

There are far too many other gems in here for writers of all ilks – if you’ve never written an ilk, give it a go – to be able to summarise with any justice, so you’ll just have to read it for yourself. It’s lengthy, but very worthwhile. Trust me, I’ve written a novel.

My parting shot for today is from the unspeakably wonderful Ray Bradbury, making a long-overdue repeat appearance on these pages:

Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you’re doomed.

Pass me a pen, several reams of paper and a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, it’s time to get to work!!

Loose as a Goose Daddy-O!

Whilst editing more of the never-ending manuscript last night, I became aware that some of my writing was tight. As tight as a publisher’s wallet in fact.

I can clearly discern which sections I wrote during free-wheeling, word-flowing time off when I spent a couple of hours jotting down stream-of-consciousness, vaguely-related meanderings, which eventually morphed into a further couple of hours of deftly-written, not-to-be-deleted, killer copy ending with sore fingers and a stone cold cup of coffee beside me.

Equally, and far more distressingly, clear are the passages penned in a snatched Tuesday-evening hour between putting the bins out and de-fleaing the cats. (Never let anyone tell you the life of an aspiring writer is anything less than a free-for-all of bohemian glamour!)

What to do is the question? How to untighten the screws and loosen up those stilted, laborious paragraphs? Whole chapters in some cases.

I have tried the Oscar Wilde approach of poring over them for hours, changing the occasional word for a more flowery word, only to replace the original word an hour later. All it did was give me a headache.

I have tried the approach of chopping these bits out like a gangrenous appendix for the overall health of their host. Do appendixes/appendices get gangrene? Don’t know, but it’s a good image huh? Yep, thought so.

No. That won’t do at all. I fear there is only one viable solution my dear friends. I am becoming convinced that I need to find some of that valuable free-wheeling time mentioned in the first paragraph (do keep up at the back…) and… *small gasp*… re-write these passages entirely.

Those of you who have pored over manuscripts several dozen times will appreciate the dread with which I am filled at this notion. I have to re-read the whole thing. Then I have to re-read the offending sections. Then I have to free my mind like a lone seagull whirling in the wisp-blue skies of a seaside town and re-write those passages with the same freedom of flow and yet keep their original significance.

Or I could just burn it.

So dear readers (51of you and counting), what do you do at times like this? What’s your trick for loosening up the bits of your writing that are wound like a clock-spring?

Familiarity breeds… more familiarity?

I noticed a word last night.

To be precise, I noticed a lot of them and far too many were the same.

Edit Number 4 (I have a far less polite name for it than that in private) of the novel is progressing at the pace of a wounded snail. I’m busily typing up the edits I made long-hand whilst sitting on trains to and from work.

It is tedious in the extreme. Oh boy, oh boy is it tedious. BUT (capitals, ‘cos this is important) it has taught me something fascinating.

I have words and phrases I over-use.

Last night, I discovered 34 instances of the word “familiar”.

34?!

3 of them occurred within 3 consecutive paragraphs.

That’s more than familiar, that’s positively intimate.

This realisation subsequently led on to a Sherlock Holmes-style investigation of exactly how such a heinous bludgeoning of the English language could have occurred. I like to think I have a broad vocabulary and I know lots and lots and lots of words. Some of them quite good ones. So why this insistence on one single variant?

I came up with two answers:

1) I like things that are familiar. I’m not a big fan of change in general… yep, OK, whoa there! That’s true but this is not the place for psychoanalysis.

There’s a second, more writerly, solution:

2) The novel has been written and edited in chunks over a long period of time. Like a jigsaw, pieces which have been hiding at the outset have been slotted in over the course of its evolution.

“So what, you slovenly abuser of vocab?” I hear you ask.

I’ve never, until now, read the whole book through from end-to-end with no gaps, omissions or chopping-up of the timeline. So I’ve never had the opportunity to hear the repetition until now.

Which means that this agonising 4^th edit is actually one of the most important pieces of work I have ever done since I committed the opening sentence to paper all that time ago.

And that, boys and girls, is a massive relief that stops me heading off in search of a chocolate digestive and a duvet at this very moment. Onwards and upwards, to boldly hunt out other flagrant violations of my Mother tongue.

Do you have words or phrases that you find cropping up time and time again without you realising? And how do you write – are you structured or random?

Do tell…

Summoning the Muse when all hope seems lost

Just a quickie from me today as I beaver away behind the scenes to put together a series of posts on how you can best use digital marketing to publicise your writing.

In the meantime, I came across this splendid infographic which shows that the many-headed beast known as writer’s block attacks the great and good every bit as ferociously as those of us tackling the foothills of ambition. (Sorry for the tortured metaphor, it’s been a busy week!) It also has some great tips on how to conquer the monster.

Click the image for the full version.

I’m sure everyone has their own techniques. Personally, I love Maya Angelou’s:

What I try to do is write… And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.’

So my friends, how do you summon your muse and convince her that you mean business?

It’s About Time…

So. I was hoping to post the revised version of the Prologue today after working on it over the weekend. Then Life got in the way and sucked up all my time.

Which makes a very neat segue into a post I’d been planning to write anyway. As an aspiring/struggling writer, how in the name of kittens does one ever find the time to write?

Also interesting in that time is very much one of the central themes of the novel – *random book plug alert!*

I’ve read many, many books, articles and blog posts in which the same question is answered with either “develop a routine” or “if you love it, you’ll find time”. Ooooooo-kay… Whilst I understand the concept, putting this into practice can be far harder in reality.

I have a job. I need one to pay the bills which save me from living in a cardboard box. Unreasonably perhaps, my employers expect me to be doing work during the day, rather than writing novels. I also have an Other Half (and a very lovely one at that) who, although incredibly supportive of my writing, does like to see me from time to time. Therefore, spending all evening every evening locked away in a minuscule spare room perfecting the novel isn’t an option. In fairness, I do get the odd hour here or there, but that still has to fit in around:

Eating – essential to be able to continue writing… or anything else for that matter…;
An occasional night out;
Maintaining a relationship;
Re-assuring my family that I still exist;
My share of the housework – otherwise point 3 would rapidly become redundant;
Juggling Twitter, Facebook and this blog, so that someone someday outside of my immediate family may actually know I’ve written a novel;
Sleeping (far less than I would like)

I could simply ignore all the above, but becoming a penniless, hermetic sociopath has never really appealed.

Now, I’ve read pieces that state heroically, “I get up an hour earlier to write every day”. Seriously? That would mean stumbling blearily out of bed at 5am. You’ve clearly never seen me in the mornings. And you most definitely wouldn’t want to read the diatribe of furious cynicism that would result from such an ascetic pursuit.

At this point, I should re-affirm that I DO love writing; it’s immensely important in my life. Sounds all a bit New Age, but you know what I mean. It’s just that there are a whole host of other things that are essential for survival, which trumps immensely important.

It’s also a case of balancing priorities. This very blog post, for example, is being written in a spare meeting room with a bowl of (very oily) pasta salad before I have to get back to the day job. That decision in itself was a toss-up between editing the novel and ensuring that you, dear readers (all 2 of you), are kept up-to-date with these thrilling adventures.

That, in effect, means I only really get to write for 20 minutes on the train to work and 20 minutes on the train back. It’s admittedly a great release from normal life, but not always the most conducive of environments for creativity. And for an impatient little puppy like me, it means a novel takes frustratingly longer to produce than I would like. 3-and-a-half years and counting so far.

So what’s my point boys and girls? This new Golden Age of Self-Publishing opens up immense freedoms to aspiring writers and avid readers alike. Books undoubtedly get published and read which otherwise wouldn’t have seen the light of day due to the whims of the mighty publishing machine. Yet, there was a different sort of freedom in the days when a publisher would liberally bestow advances decent enough to allow a wannabe to give up work for at least a few months, on the off-chance of hitting a winner. Those days are now long gone and, while we writers have the freedom and the technology to build our own audiences, it necessarily takes time away from doing what we set out to do.

For my part, I suspect it’s going to have to remain a very complex juggling act, with plates spinning in every direction and requiring a great deal of dedication to keep focus on writing, marketing, publicity, life and everything.

What are your thoughts my fellow scribes? How do you manage this life/art balance? Any handy hints that may safeguard my sanity?

A Lesson From Narnia

Thanks everyone, there was some great feedback on the first look at Dark Energies. And by “great”, I don’t mean everyone told me how amazing it is and what a genius I am. Although to those of you who did say just that, I love you more than cake. And boy, do I love cake.

No, by “great” I mean comments that have genuinely, within the space of 24 hours, helped shape the way the next edit of the first draft is going to go. As I’m right at the start of that process, the timing couldn’t have been better; it’s saved me a massive amount of re-work later.

Two key points were made a number of times and they bring me to the real point of today’s post. Make sure you can always see the wood for the trees.

As an “indie” author (yes, it’s National Quote Mark Day) there’s no input from an agent, editor or publisher to tell you where you’re going wrong. You write away day in, day out and it can be all too easy to get on a roll and stick with it. Sometimes that works, other times it leads you off on a dangerous tangent. One thing I’m learning is to always maintain a level of objectivity. To step back and see your work through the eyes of your readers.

Of course when you’re actually putting words down on paper (I write longhand most of the time and type it up later) you need the subjective immersion in what you’re writing. You have to be there, right in the scene, hearing it, smelling it, tasting it. Living it. Otherwise it won’t live for your readers.

But.

When you hit the editing stage, pull yourself away from the world and imagine you’ve just spent money on a book. A prime example from yesterday is the over-use of adjectives. Clearly, when I wrote the prologue, I was in a descriptive frame of mind. Very likely influenced by whatever I’d most recently been reading. I obviously thought “Wow, I don’t use enough description. Better throw some more adjectives at it!” Either that or I was just in a wordy frame of mind, which isn’t uncommon for me.

Hence, everything got described in minute detail, which had the knock-on effect of slowing down the pace of what should be a driving scene. It took peer reviews to point that out. Even re-reading my own work, I was pulled back to the place, time, situation, emotion, whatever, of when I wrote it. Objectivity took a back seat and the writing suffered as a result.

Which, I guess, is a long way of saying, immerse yourself in writing but make sure you’re towelled off, changed out of your trunks and sipping a hot cappuccino before you start editing.

All of which was encapsulated far more succinctly by C.S. Lewis in this letter: C. S. Lewis on Writing

Jumping From Cliffs

One Man's Adventures in Writerland

On Writing