Category: The Writing Life

Summer Hiatus: R&R (Reading and Refreshment)

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Summer is here. Ah! There’s nothing quite like the feel of warm sun on your face at last.

I’m unplugging a bit for the coming months. The writing experiments are on hiatus until the autumn. But over the summer you might like to do some active reading. Maybe put your writing to one side for now, and use this as the chance to explore your genre. Look out bestsellers in your field, and maybe read some of the classics too. Read far and wide too: read works in other genres, maybe finding examples of things you can bring across to your own work. Read like a writer (Reading Like A Writer by Francine Prose might be helpful for this), and understand what makes the writing tick. Soak up these books, and free yourself of thinking about your own work; you’ll return to it the stronger later on, and it’s likely that good ideas will emerge for you anyway.

Good writing can’t be rushed, but needs to percolate. Slow down. (If you are one of those restless types, just console yourself that summers are quiet in publishing anyway.) Okay, I’m lazy, but trying too hard can make writing feel as if it’s, um, trying too hard, and what’s probably more important is possessing ease: an ease of voice, a natural balance in the writing. Perhaps set a vague long-term goal, if you really have to, but meanwhile rest in the moment and let your sensibility grow through becoming a better reader, a reader more useful to your own writing.

Most of all, have fun. Don’t task yourself too hard: no To Do lists of books you must read, but simply a stack on the bedside table to dip into, or on standby on your ereader. (Yes, relaxing can be the hardest task of all for some people.)

And beyond that, take a break from some of the noise (as well as creating it?). A holiday from Facebook? A little less Twitter? Yes, you know it makes sense. (Do 24% of British women really check their pages at least ten times a day, as I read this morning? I think I used to be a British woman. Maybe two British women, even three.) We don’t need Likes this summer. Just licks of a nice ice lolly, time with friends and family, trips to magical places, and good food and good books.

My own summer reading recommendations include the novel The Round House, by Louise Erdrich. It’s one of those books that really makes me aware of how much I love great American writers writing great American stories. It has a brilliant first chapter that establishes everything we need to know about the characters, setting, and dramatic situation that will lead us into a compelling story. (When you’re ready to submit your own work to an agent or publisher, read that first chapter and ask yourself if you’re close to achieving what’s accomplished there; if you can say yes, you must be in with a chance.)

And if you’ve not yet read George R.R. Martin’s series A Song of Ice and Fire, it’s about time. Perfect summer reading.

Enjoy the summer.

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Ding, Dong! Right Speech

Enough has been said over the last week or so about Margaret Thatcher, and here is not the place for more opining on the subject of her legacy, not least as I’m just about bored with it and her now, and ready to move on. I’m still laying things to rest, I realise: the recognition of her achievements yet also the remembrance of her divisiveness. Perhaps only something like a fine novel can really make sense of the complexities this life and death presents, and perhaps that cannot be written quite yet (though with The Line of Beauty Alan Hollinghurst wrote a very fine one set during the prime years of Thatcher’s rule).

Much that was said and done this last week was hagiographic (the party political broadcast that was the funeral), or puerile (the ‘Ding, Dong! The Witch Is Dead’ campaign), or censoring (the BBC not playing that damned song in full during the chart rundown), and much else was simply stupid and pointless and rooted in attachments to old hatreds and battles of the ego (those street parties). But a few things were of particular interest to me for the way in which they seemed less reactive and more thoughtful, and a couple of pieces actually made me think more deeply about the things we choose to write about and how we choose our words.

Grace Dent and Tracey Thorn both talked about the misogyny of many things said about Thatcher, while Sir Ian McKellen addressed the fact that sympathetic obituaries were incomplete without mention of Section 28, which he says ‘was designed to slander homosexuality’.

Then Frank Cottrell Boyce talked about the lively antiestablishmentarianism (love that word) provoked in the arts in Britain during Thatcher’s rule, but paused to wonder why the many ‘searing indictments of Thatcher’s Britain’ failed really to undermine her; she was, after all, brought down by her own people. So what should an artist do, he asked?

A few years ago I was interviewing a young woman who had been a victim of ethnic cleansing. Abducted as a child, she’d been raised inside a cold, regulated, racially defined institution. But she’d grown up to be an articulate, engaging advocate for refugees. At the end of our meeting, I asked her how she had known – growing up in such an unloving environment – that life could be more. “I read a book,” she said. What book? A searing indictment of Thatcher’s Britain? “Heidi.”

There is nothing more subversive than a definition of happiness, a vision of how things could be better.

We can’t always be writing utopias. Sometimes only a dystopia will spur change, and we have to let rage have its way in our writing, and we must create violent or critical portraits and even say things that are scathing or wounding or angry. Like Morrissey did this week, for example. I guess it depends on how much you, as a writer, want your work to be defined by rage and indignation. (I’m currently reserving mine for the explanation of how Mark Thatcher became a Sir.) (If I were a knight, I’d be annoyed how my honour had been devalued.) (If I were a knight, I might have to challenge Sir Mark to a joust. Though I’d get someone from Game of Thrones to fight on my behalf. Arya. She’d win.)

This subversive idea of happiness, probably in combination with a firm yet compassionate piece by Russell Brand, led me to thinking about the Buddhist concept of Right Speech.

Right speech, explained in negative terms, means avoiding four types of harmful speech: lies (words spoken with the intent of misrepresenting the truth); divisive speech (spoken with the intent of creating rifts between people); harsh speech (spoken with the intent of hurting another person’s feelings); and idle chatter (spoken with no purposeful intent at all).

Some of these aims might be quite challenging for those among us who like a bit of gossip or idle chatter (but of course gossip has purposeful intent!) …

But hey, even if voicing rages is what comes most naturally to us in our writing, there’s enough divisiveness in the world, and bombs and explosions and sadness, maybe from time to time we need to stop dwelling in fear and be utopian and spread the love a bit and invest in some of our own Heidis. Or at least try to.

There were other news stories on 17 April, and not all of them were looking backwards. Many were looking forward to ways of creating newness in the world, visions of ways things could be better. Yesterday, this was my Heidi. And today there was this.

I’m leaving the final words to my nan, who would’ve said of Maggie what she always said when someone died. Well, her arse is cold now, isn’t it?

And lo, the sun is shining again, between the rain showers, and maybe the long winter’s over.

Michel Faber: On Writers As Public People

(Or rather: On writing and himself as a public person.)

Michel Faber, author of not just one but two of my favourite novels (Under the Skin and The Crimson Petal and the White), quoted in a feature in Thresholds:

I’ve largely withdrawn from my career as a public person. I say no to almost all offers, don’t go to book festivals any more, etc. … I’ve resolved to avoid [these events], because you meet lots of people in the literary ‘industry’ and you smell their hunger for success or attention or status, and I hate to be reminded of all that.

 

Tips From Writers

A couple of fun/useful lists on writers and writing posted recently:

* Matt Haig’s What Being Published Has Taught Me (also reproduced in the Telegraph)

* 50 Things A Writer Shouldn’t Do, from Three Guys One Book

Plus in looking up these I also came across a wealth of other useful resources from Book Trust writers in residence:

* Featured Materials/Resources From Book Trust Writers In Residence

From the comments, I notice that some people seem to object to the idea of lists of tips and advice. In which case, either: lighten up (none of this is gospel, and as in all things creative some things will contradict themselves). Or: bugger off and write your own book then, and keep your damage to yourself.

From Matt Haig’s list, I particularly note several things: choosing agents wisely (should like to know the story there …); the need for editors (yes!); the idea there are now more gates for the gatekeepers to manage; and also:

Beauty breeds beauty, truth triggers truth. The cure for writer’s block is therefore to read.

The Three Guys One Book comments included one of my favourite points:

DO NOT BORE YOUR READER.

That assumes you want readers, of course.

 

Dedication

dedication

Last night I went to Treadwell’s for the launch of Astrology Decoded, by Sue Merlyn Farebrother. Sue was my tarot teacher, and quite a remarkable teacher at that: clear at communicating, in possession of great knowledge and authority, passionate about the subject, and always inviting us to dig deep into content that can be quite subtle.

Thinking as an editor, I was surprised she’d not written a book already, and before the course finished I ventured the question, ‘Sue, have you ever thought of writing a book on tarot?’ She replied that in fact her first idea was for a book on astrology … and here we are, a couple of years later, finished copies in our hands. I was very pleased to help out, first with putting together a proposal, and then with introducing her to my (other) friend Sue at Rider Books, which is an imprint of Random House. Another friend and former colleague, Helen, was the copyeditor.

I was flattered to be asked to launch the book at 8.40 p.m. yesterday (and to understand why that timing was so auspicious, I’ll be examining the book closely … my own studies are just at the beginning).

I was even prouder when I saw that the book had been dedicated to me!

Thanks, Sue.

But the other reason (as well as a bit of showing off) to title this post Dedication is that Sue’s own devotion to the task really made this book happen. She’s very well established in astrology circles (has a profile and platform, in publishingspeak). What’s more, she really knew the book that she wanted to write, and why: an introduction to the subject that goes beyond the crude generalisations of star sign columns in the newspaper, but presents the subject of astrology to the intelligent reader – someone who’s curious to know the meaning of signs, planets, houses and aspects, but not yet ready to dive into some of the more specialist technical works. It keeps that focus (so many books that do not get published are united only by their lack of focus). And, of course, Sue really knows her stuff; she is the right person to write a book such as this.

As such, this book fulfils what it set out to achieve. I hope it does really well – and in due course, I also hope to read that book on tarot as well, Sue!