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Planning takes a back seat, due to the flu bug sweeping Britain. One of my children succumbs and so we make a bed up in the lounge, light the fire and quietly read together.
I’ve always encouraged my children to believe that they are readers – whatever kind of reader they choose to be. It’s tempting if your kids read comics and nothing else to hassle them to read ‘proper’ books. But the danger is that parents are prone to choose different books for their children than children would choose for themselves, perhaps the titles they enjoyed themselves when they were young. If children read what appeals to them personally – not necessarily what their parents promote – then they will perceive reading as fun. They might even get hooked.
As for me – well reading is work! Phillip Pullman once said (and he borrowed it from Muhammad Ali), ‘Read like a butterfly and write like a bee.’ It’s so tempting to sit and do your own writing and forget that you can learn so much from reading other people’s books. I am training myself to read like a writer – with one eye and half my brain looking for just how this author made this character so believable, or that sentence so beautiful, or this story such a page-turner.
As the morning turns into afternoon, I am perfectly happy turning someone else’s pages. It’s the story – with all its complexities, with the emotional truths it uncovers, the experiences beyond the everyday that it gives – that’s the reason I read.
It’s why I write too.
But that will have to wait until Monday…
Thursday is writing group day! Hurrah! Since I joined my group ten years ago, it’s been invaluable to me. Writing is a lonely occupation and I really look forward to our meetings. The group is a place to talk, swap work and offer support and constructive criticism.
Today we look at someone’s work (it’s first draft, so there’s lots to say) and discuss NaNoWriMo.
This is an annual (November) writing challenge that brings together professional and amateur writers from all over the world. The aim is to write a minimum of 50,000 words and complete a novel in a month. Two women in my group did it in November 2010 and this is the first group meeting since then. Taking on the task of writing a novel by itself can be intimidating, but in a month? That’s what’s so great about NaNoWriMo they tell me: it helps you shed the fear, the internal editor, the doubts, and join with others in controlled craziness!
One woman used it to play with ideas and research character, but the other first drafted a whole novel. She’s on draft two now and she’s excited by it. I wish NaNo was on again in February 2011. I want to do it! What better way to get material together than to have a disciplined word count and a supportive communal environment to write in? The writer on her second draft suggests I do it anyway. She’ll do it with me, she says – just the two of us. We will send each other daily word counts and meet regularly to discuss how it’s going.
I agree. I’m excited. I will start planning tomorrow.
I carry a notebook everywhere. I use it to write down ideas, overheard conversations, random things that pop into my head. If I had any advice for an aspiring writer it would be: Do NOT leave the house without paper and a pen!!
Today, I’m going to write several stories away from the house. Sometimes the desk is a lonely place to sit and it’s important not to stagnate. I start with the café (may as well be warm) and give myself some rules: each story can be a few sentences or many pages, but has to be spurred by something I witness or overhear, and has to have a beginning, middle and end. Writing in public is a good trick, because it helps me watch the world for stories. It makes me listen attentively and imagine with energy.
I start by jotting down what I can see – the rain lashing the window, the two men whose heads touch as they lean close across the table, the old woman behind the counter folding paper napkins into shapes, the young guy talking animatedly into his mobile. ‘I might see you tomorrow,’ he says, ‘but don’t hold your breath.’
I write all day like this – from the cafe I move to the park, and later, sit at a bus stop. I throw words down, not planning anything in advance. Most of it will go in the bin, but the strongest themes and voices will keep returning.
Pinter once said that the writer’s job is to ‘arrange and listen,’ as if following clues. He believed that characters arrive at their destination through their own impulses, rather than being manipulated to suit a preordained plot.
When I wrote You Against Me, Mikey took over the narrative very quickly. In fact he ran with it. He was determined to avenge his sister and all I had to do was follow him. With this new book, I have to find a character who is similarly interesting enough to pursue.
It’s harder today though. Outside my window, the sky is grey and the air sullen with mist. Dead Christmas trees line the pavement awaiting collection and the newspapers are full of the recent VAT rise. It feels like anything but a happy new year.
Our minds are powerful things and if we start believing something is true, i.e., I will never write another word of any value, then it’s entirely possible that we can make it come true. I know that the only solution to the blank page is to fill it – one word at a time. Or, as my writing friend Jeremy says, ‘Bean by bean, the bag fills.’
I set the timer and begin.
The day is lightened by a chat with my UK publicist who tells me I have been invited to the Edinburgh Book Festival. She also passes on two requests for interviews. Later, my agent e-mails me to say that there has been a Hungarian offer for Before I Die (32 languages now!).
At the end of the day, I do a word count – almost 7k across two days.
That’s quite a lot of beans.
Christmas is over, my kids are back at school and there are really no more excuses to procrastinate – I have to get back to ‘being a writer,’ and this blog is going to help me!
I don’t know what this third novel will be about because I never plan in advance. The only ideas I have are abstract, theoretical, as if I know the tone of the piece, but nothing else. The nearest thing I have to character are some notes I made last month about a stranger who upsets the balance of a family when she comes to stay.
So, I turn the computer on, open a poetry book at random and land my finger on a word – ‘bitumen’. Mmm…. I set my kitchen timer for twenty minutes, and go…
I don’t worry about spelling or punctuation. I don’t edit or read what I’ve written. I write for several twenty-minute blocks, giving myself a different stimulus each time. The aim is to get rid of the critic and not to be afraid of writing with energy. When my hands start to ache, I press save, go and make a coffee and try not to eat too many biscuits.
Later, I dare to read the words through – utter rubbish, but that’s OK. The point of free-writing is to be alive in the present moment because first thoughts are very energized, and it’s important not to censor.
I spend the rest of the day generating material, reminding myself that I wrote the foundation of two novels this way and that it really will be all right. Hopefully, I’ll get some wonderful phrases and some surprising characters and action. Ultimately I’ll familiarise myself with my own story, see possibilities, get insights, resonances.
End of day one – turn the computer off and go and get the kids from school. More tomorrow…
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