Tarot and Writing

by Andrew | Leave a comment

I’m launching a new series of workshops on Zoom called Tarot For Writers that explores the potential of the tarot in creative writing as well as writing for personal growth. Starting with Magicians and Fools on 2 February 2025, we will talk about tarot and write and share resources, and writers who come along will take away plenty of ideas to explore at their own pace.

I’ve long been interested in tarot. My hippie auntie Marion is an astrologer, and she often used tarot. My old flatmate Mark from my first years in London had tarot cards, and he inspired me to acquire my own, a Rider Waite Smith deck I still have today. 

I delved into the cards, doing Celtic Cross readings and cribbing interpretations from The Complete Book of Tarot by Juliet Sharman-Burke. Later, as a freelance editor I copyedited books on tarot and numerology. When we lived in Boulder there were several new age shops I loved to visit, and I added a couple of other decks to what become a collection. I have over thirty today – see a few at the end of this post. 

When we moved back to London I took classes on tarot at Treadwell’s bookshop in Covent Garden with the late Sue Merlyn Farebrother. Sue was a brilliant teacher: intuitive, good-humoured, organised, attentive to detail, and rich in her knowledge. I’d later help her in developing a proposal for her first book on astrology, and introduced her to an editor at Rider, who published this book and her next. I’m sorry she never got to publish her book on tarot – I know it would have been excellent. Her teaching certainly was.

Sue’s classes were the place where I grew a deeper understanding of the powers of tarot. We did all sorts of exercises in class and at home. We did visualisations, we discussed the archetypes of the Major Arcana, we explored the representations of the court cards and the symbolic powers of numbers and elements. We looked at the different images of various decks. We drew one card every day for a month, and I remember being surprised – and eventually not so surprised – that I drew the same card (out of seventy-eight) seven times in thirty days: the Ten of Pentacles. 

Working with tarot in writing

Around that time I remember reading the manuscript of a very well-researched historical novel that felt pretty static. It read like a sequence of richly rendered tableaux, but not much more. And I realised: this book was all Earth. It lacked Fire and Water – energy and feeling. For that matter, it lacked Air too, in that it lacked the clarity of organisation and structure that could carry a story forward. Earth (tarot’s Pentacles), Fire (Wands), Water (cups), Air (Swords): suddenly the Four Elements of the suits of the Minor Arcana were giving me a framework for reading books and understanding the balance – or imbalance – of creative productions.

I continued to use this Four Elements framework, initially only in my own mind as I took stock of manuscripts I was reading, but later on developing writing workshops too. 

This Four Elements practice has become a cornerstone for much of my work, even when I’m not using it explicitly. It integrates my interest in contemplative education and holistic approaches towards creativity with my firm editorial grounding in the craft of writing as well as the practical matters of publishing.

I always explain that traces of the Four Elements that we see in the four suits of tarot can be found in other contexts, such as astrology, Jungian psychology, Myers-Briggs tests, and cognitive behavioural therapy. Someone at a workshop identified the Four Elements in the characters of The Wind in the Willows: Water for Rat, Earth for Mole, Fire for Mr Toad, and Air for Badger.

But the Four Elements always leads me back to the tarot. Once upon a time, the idea of memorising very specific interpretations for all seventy-eight cards daunted me, but then I realised I wasn’t approaching it in the right way, at least in the right way for me. I needed to establish my own interpretations and reference points. 

I occasionally take courses or trainings as refreshers, and as guides I also consult resources such as the ones listed below. That sort of bookish inquiry always takes me deeper and gives me fresh insights and plenty to think about. 

And most of all I’ve learned about the cards by using them, not least in areas where I have expertise, such as writing and editing.

The Major cards have, perhaps, more accessible or obvious meanings, but there’s always more to find in those archetypes, particularly when we pay attention to their meanings and manifestations in different contexts and cultures. Jungian approaches add valuable perspectives.

Something that once gave me pause in the number cards of the Minor Arcana was the great variations in imagery between different decks; some number cards, such as those of the Marseille decks, have few pictures at all beyond images of the Batons (Wands) or the Cups themselves. How do we make sense of that? Increasingly, I have come to give greater weight to the numbers themselves and their correspondence with specific energies and actions, in conjunction with the relevant elements, e.g., the Aces with beginnings, or the eights with organisation and order.

I’m also interested in the ways in which the court cards represent people or aspects of our personalities: venturing forth into the world (the traditional Knights), or embodying maturity and self-assurance (the Queens). I’m also intrigued by the ways in which various decks shift the genders of the court cards, or translate them into other forms: Princess instead of Page in the DruidCraft tarot, or the Place, Knower, Gift and Speaker in Rachel Pollack’s Shining Tribe tarot. 

And then there are decks with additional cards, such as the Shining Tribe’s Sphinx in Eden. And there are divination cards, such as the Wild Unknown Animal Spirit deck, whose gorgeous artwork by Kim Krans prompted me also to acquire her original Wild Unknown tarot deck.

All of these rich images and symbols and connections give us a powerful framework that is constantly refreshing itself. It offers food for the imagination, and it also allows reflection for personal growth and spiritual development. I often use tarot cards for daily reflection or as part of my regular meditation practice.

Approaches to tarot

My fundamental take on the seventy-eight cards is that they contain all that we are and all the questions that we have to ask – of ourselves, and in the context of writing of the stories we have to tell. When we encounter a tarot card we can ask: what does this mean for me right now? And in writing: what can this mean for my story? How is it present, or how might it be made present and brought forth in the work and in the world? What, importantly, what aspects of writing craft will help in this task?

That being said: I never fail to be amazed by the recurrence of certain cards and patterns. That’s just a fact. I recently did two three-card readings using two different decks, and two of the same cards appeared in both readings.

I am sometimes guarded around certain aspects of tarot, to the extent I was once scolded by someone attending a workshop for what they took as cautions or apologies for the use of esoterica. And she was right: no, we shouldn’t lean away from all those mysteries and wonders the tarot conjures up. We should not be defensive about using tarot, and I don’t want to give that impression.

I guess I have been put on the back foot a bit as I am aware that some people are fearful of tarot. A writer who was coming to a Four Elements workshop told me she couldn’t attend after I emailed in advance a handout using pictures of the four Aces from the Smith deck. Another friend won’t have tarot cards in the house. I discovered this only after my arrival, oops, but at least I kept them tucked away in my suitcase. 

In both cases, I suspect religious traditions have created fear and superstitions about tarot, and I wonder if some subscribers will unsubscribe after this post. I doubt cards representing the Devil and Death and the Hanged Man help either, particularly as they have been used in popular culture: remember Tales of the Unexpected and Live and Let Die?

I only recently found out that tarot cards were only freely printed and sold in England after the repeal of the Witchcraft Act in 1951! Now I am asking myself whether under consumer legislation I need to declare that my new workshops are ‘for entertainment purposes only’. Does writing count as entertainment?!

But I have observed a few too many boundaries getting crossed at the fringes of those worlds where we find tarot. I remember taking a tarot course where, unasked, someone started to tell me about specific messages that my dead grandmother was channelling to me through an angel. Those messages had a couple of details that seemed unnervingly accurate until I recalled a conversation with another student in the tea break the week before, and realised those details had been overheard – and misinterpreted. It was the misinterpretation that was the clue.

And a tarot illustrator once slid into my DM’s on Instagram offering me a psychic reading based on the energy in my profile picture, saying that afterwards ‘something good will happen in your life’. Suddenly I remembered why I’d previously unfollowed their account and stopped using their deck, as they’d done this before.

I have to call bullshit on that sort of thing. I think it’s patently unethical to make such approaches without being invited. People often come to tarot with vulnerabilities, or grasping for specific outcomes, and we must be sensitive to all that that presents. Life has many mysteries, and I want to remain curious and open about them, but fraudulence and inauthenticity shut things down for ourselves as well as for others. We need a welcoming and respectful approach. As in writing, as in life.

New workshops on tarot for writers

Back to the writing. I think tarot is a remarkable tool for writers. Its form gives us an invitation to the imagination, an instrument for creative focus, and windows into our unconscious drives. I really love how tarot blends structure and symbol with artistic expression, and helps us compose divine messages all of our very own.

I first taught a workshop devoted to tarot and writing at the Hastings Book Festival in 2023, and now I’m happy to be launching Tarot for Writers on Zoom. The class are designed to be stand-alone and will run on Zoom at 5-6pm London on Sundays: let’s bring some light into the long dark teatime of the soul! Please note that recordings will not be available right now, as I want us all to take part free of inhibition about joining in. 

The first four classes will survey the archetypes of the Major Arcana and investigate the elements, court cards, and number cards of the Minor Arcana for what they can bring to our writing. 

  • Magicians and Fools (2 February) – we’ll consider the Fool as a student and the Magician as a teacher to guide us through the archetypes and big themes of the Major Arcana 
  • Aces High (16 February) – we’ll take a closer look at the Four Elements through their purest and most powerful expression in the Aces, and particularly for the ways they strengthen voice, feeling, texture and focus in our writing
  • Courtiers and Coronets (2 March) – we’ll use the court cards as the basis for thinking about character and perspective 
  • Write By Numbers (16 March) – we’ll identify specific actions and gestures in the number cards that can be used in plotting and structuring our stories, paying special attention to odd vs even numbers

In each workshop we’ll discuss specific cards within the structure of tarot, and we’ll do some in-class writing experiments, and you’ll take away ideas to try at your own pace. I’ll also share a handy reference on tarot for writers, and I’m hoping that writers who come along will also share their own interpretations, as tarot is rich with associations and there are always new perspectives to gather. Throughout the emphasis will be on finding inspiration and points of departure to explore in writing. 

Over the weeks we’ll also look at various resources on tarot and investigate different styles of tarot decks and divination cards. Feel free to bring your own cards to class to share with us too.

And yes – the class titles indulge my fondness for puns and alliteration. There may be more.

I’m planning these classes as we pass through the rites and thresholds of late winter and early spring: Imbolc, St Brigid’s Day, Candlemas, Valentine’s, Lent, St David’s Day, the Spring Equinox. The crocuses and daffodils and the early tulips will be arriving as the sun gets higher in the sky and the days get longer: perhaps there’s no better time to stretch ourselves into new creative endeavours with such powerful inspirations.

Resources

During the classes I’ll also introduce various resources, including:

  • Rachel Pollack, the classic Seventy-eight Degrees of Wisdom and also the magical inquiries of A Walk Through the Forest of Souls: A Tarot Journey to Spiritual Awakening
  • Joan Bunning, Learning the Tarot – this is my go-to reference when I want to refresh my memory on card descriptions and keywords, and it’s based on an free online course that is most generously shared here: www.learntarot.com
  • Jessica Doré, Tarot for Change – I love this book’s thoughtful takes, which often question the usual interpretations and find something new in the cards – you can also find her on Instagram
  • Other social media accounts illuminate and inform. Try Laetitia Barber, Amanda Barokh, Biddy Tarot, Noah Rogers
  • Margaret Atwood, Three Tarot Cards
  • Tarot For Writers at my page on Bookshop.org

Apps

Nothing beats shuffling and cutting the cards, but it can be a good idea to carry tarot resources on your phone, if only as a reference.

Maybe I’ll review some of these apps as well as decks and other resources in more detail in the future. If you have recommendations of your own, do suggest in a comment below.

A few favourite decks

My first deck was the classic Rider Waite deck. Now that I know more about its history I try to remember to call it the Smith deck, because illustrator Pamela Colman Smith’s colourful and whimsical illustrations are what captivated me then and what still captivate me now. It’s the one I always go back to. 

Thank goddess that’s over, and the Sun is coming up! But yes, first I must plant some tulip bulbs. The Smith deck.

My current fave is the Morgan-Greer deck, whose full-bleed colour-saturated hippie imagery is close to my heart. Artist Bill Greer studied at the University of Colorado, where I once taught, so it also has that Boulder connection. Does anyone know anything more about him?

With these Morgan-Greer cards some decisive Big Emperor Energy is needed to cut through all these words (you should see my desk).

I’ve not always favoured very culturally specific decks, but someone gave me a gift of the DruidCraft Tarot and I’ve been consistently impressed. Its guidebook always gives me something to think about. 

Variations in the DruidCraft Tarot: Princess for Page, Fferyllt for Temperance, High Priest for Hierophant.

I also love the artwork of the Wild Unknown tarot and the Wild Unknown Animal Spirit deck, which uses the Four Elements and also adds a number of Spirit cards. 

Fire, Water, Earth and Air are joined by Spirit in the Wild Unknown Animal Spirit cards.

The two most recent additions to my own collection are Rachel Pollack’s Shining Tribe tarot, recently back into print, and Chris Riddell’s Cloud Tower tarot. 

Rachel Pollack’s Shining Tribe Tarot.
Chris Riddell’s new Cloud Tower Tarot.

The Tarot For Writers workshops begin with Magicians and Fools on 2 February – I hope to see some of you there.

(Posted on my blog as well as Substack. I’m trying both places out for now.)

Reader’s Report 2024

by Andrew | Leave a comment

These books either consumed me or captured my curiosity in some way in 2024:

* Yael van der Wouden, The Safekeep
* Benjamin Moser, The Upside-Down World: Meetings with the Dutch Masters
* Patrick Grant, Less: Stop Buying So Much Rubbish
* Emil Ferris, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters
* Barbra Streisand, My Name Is Barbra
* Fiona Erskine, Phosphate Rocks
* Samantha Harvey, Orbital
* Joel Lane, Where Furnaces Burn

The Safekeep was my novel of the year. I found it gripping. Plot, setting, character, little details, big picture, unexpectedly relevant in a very important way. I also liked that I knew nothing about it. It gave surprises – so I’ll say no more.

The Upside-Down World: Meetings With the Dutch Masters is a thoughtful and reflective set of essays about painters and paintings of the Dutch Golden Age, interwoven with the author’s personal experiences and insights. I found it beguiling and took my time reading it. In this vein I also enjoyed Thunderclap by Laura Cumming. We made a trip to Amsterdam this year and maybe I’m impressionable enough to let that guide my reading. Maybe more field trips are required.

Less by Patrick Grant is a serious and well-informed investigation of what we buy and what we throw away. It has much to say about the pseudoscience of economics and the drug of consumerism, and it made me want to shop better and shop less and learn how to sew and repair. He’s also my author crush of the year.

I really enjoyed how both Orbital and Phosphate Rocks were doing something different with the form of the novel – in different ways each felt like hybrid forms of creative nonfiction, and though I read both of them early in the year they stuck with me. Lots of good science to digest in accessible ways, plus important political dimensions. I also enjoyed Fiona Erskine’s procedural thriller Losing Control too.

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is a graphic novel that I got lost in. I love good hatching, and I love monsters. I have to read Book 2. And wow – what a story for author Emil Ferris too. After all the delicately observed nature writing and haiku that I’ve read in recent years, where I perhaps got distracted ‘finding beauty in the everyday’, it reminded me also to look out for the monstrous and the grotesque and relish them for what they are.

Keeping that strand of the ugly alive, Where Furnaces Burn just pipped in during the last week of the year. Like a cult literary X Files, it’s the Black Country weird noir that was written just for me. I also appreciated its structure as connected stories that are linked in some deeper way. I can’t believe it’s taken so long for me to read Joel Lane – look forward to reading more next year. All credit to Influx for bringing him back into print.

I listened to My Name Is Barbra, asides and all, and it was a feat. I only grew impatient when the namedropping of world leaders grew too too, and then when she started day trading tech stock so she and Donna Karan could rent yachts. Otherwise it’s a remarkable insight into the lives and works of a multitalented genius – singer, actor, director, producer and especially, I discovered, an editor in her capacity to feel her way into the bigger vision for a story as well as pay attention to all those important details.

(Btw are we *still* having the conversation about audio counting as reading? Everyone who naysays sounds like the most mimsy of commenters on the Guardian books page.)

There were other books I liked, but not so many that I really loved. I love to love a good book, so the absence of a few more books to be passionate about perhaps made 2024 slightly disappointing as a year of reading. So I just chose eight this year. I mean, we can add twenty pictures to an instagram carousel now, but it doesn’t mean we have to.

I also read a number of this year’s hyped and widely reviewed novels. They had their moments, but most felt predictable. I’m still waiting to read someone’s book about sisters and mothers, which I suspect could really strike home; instead I grew just a bit bored (again) of ramblings on the mating habits of heterosexuals, and was more interested in what became of the whippet, who turned out just to be a plot point. No! That’s not how we treat whippets – or draw them either: the one on the cover looks more like a greyhound or a lurcher. Then after a very good start I grew just a little bored of another writer’s furtive perving to the gallery of heterosexuals, and wondered if writing about lesbians might in fact be that writer’s forte, as that part was really well done and enjoyed a degree of inquiry and empathy. I found another blockbuster state of the nation novel bloated and cartoony. I did not enjoy Jane Austen’s Emma – I just wasn’t in the mood for it and will come back another time, or maybe it really is reactionary twaddle.

It has to be said that disliking books does give me a lot of pleasure. I try to be careful where I do it, and it’s always for books that are published and could have been edited or were just overmarketed. Manuscripts: you are safe. You still show promise and prospects. Perhaps there is no greater and more exciting reading than a manuscript that’s yet to be pinned down.

I reread The Grapes of Wrath for book club, and wondered where are the books writing about today so urgently. I am sure they’re there. Maybe they need to come to me, or I need to look harder.

Perhaps related to that, for some reason I didn’t read much in translation this year. I did resume Duolingo and am on day 38 of a streak.

I continue to do well with Twickenham library. I began reading most of the above titles as library loans, and also borrowed and enjoyed and appreciated many more: James, Stoneyard Devotional, Creation Lake. I read all of the Booker shortlist for the first time – thanks to the library.

Library books have loan periods, and I have developed a practice of skimming. At a certain point, if a book’s not biting I skim to the end. I might, for example, read the first lines of every paragraph or every page, and go further if something grabs me. Sometimes that’s enough, isn’t it?

I also buy books, especially to support indie bookshops and publishers. I think it’s important to support the indies, though some could be more helpful in supporting the customer, e.g., when the book you ordered six weeks ago finally comes in. Just saying.

I thought this Bookseller article rating editors on the basis of the prizes and bestsellers accrued by authors was a sign of much that’s clumsy and disappointing about the industry. Why measure the immeasurable?

I see continuing evidence of checklist publishing. ‘We’ve already got our gay book for the year’ – insert other identity categories to understand something of how both publishers and reviewers often operate. Publishers and reviewers need to do better. So could book influencers, who at times sound like deranged AI. I’ve come to realise a lot of BookTok and Bookstagram people don’t actually read the books. I’m so naive.

However, there are many good reviewers whose judgement I trust in both traditional outlets and especially social media. I’m not always sure about the ecosystem of Substack, but I read plenty of good criticism there, and I value the judgement of a lot of people on Instagram.

Many of the books that interest me most are published by indies, of course. I’m also thinking self-publishing looks increasingly attractive relative to the way some books get published without trace by the big houses.

I was lucky enough to see my goddess Robin Wall Kimmerer not once but twice. The Serviceberry is out now too. And though I haven’t finished the books yet one of the other great events this year was attending a British Library talk for Some Men In London edited by Peter Parker – it was sponsored by Gay’s The Word, and it was good to be in such a large space with my people, a space where we can enjoy different gay books plural every day of the year.

I was also pleased to attend good events for Ian Russell-Hsieh’s I’m New Here and Edward Carey’s new novel Edith Holler, both at Waterstones Trafalgar Square, where the staff seemed clued in and friendly.

I am most glad that Ursula K. Le Guin’s Steering the Craft finally has a UK publisher and is available easily for British readers. It’s the craft book I recommend most.

Next year I’m going to try to remember to keep a record of the most interesting short stories and essays that I read, because they are so often the best writing. A few from this end of 2024:

* What Alice Munro Knew by Giles Harvey
* Between the Shadow and the Soul by Lauren Groff
* The Kidnapping I Can’t Escape by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
* For Isabella Rossellini, Acting Goes Beyond Words by Michael Schulman – because Isabella Rossellini
* Stories I Can’t Tell Anyone I Know by Bhanu Kapil in Best British Stories 2024

Telly provided some good fiction: Somebody Somewhere, Ripley, Girls, Shōgun, Interview With the Vampire, Slow Horses, English Teacher, probably others I should have noted down. Drag Race continues to be my soap opera. I can’t remember all the films I saw but right now La Chimera and Dune 2 stood out.

Books that are coming in 2025 that I am excited about:

* Jo McMillan’s The Accidental Immigrants – a most timely tale for right now (23 January)
* Eleanor Anstruther’s In Judgement of Others – finally coming in print, this darkly comic novel outdoes other treatments of its subject matter with wit and depth (28 January)
* Fiona Melrose’s Even Beyond Death – epic and funny and heartbreaking (6 February)
* Essie Fox’s Dangerous– an historical thriller about Byron in Venice (24 April)
* Antonia Hodgson’s The Raven Scholar– the first in a most promising fantasy series from the historical novelist (24 April)

The above are all pals. I’ve read the first three and can vouch for them enthusiastically, and I’m looking forward very much to the other two. I’m also very keen to read the new novel The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong and Is A River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane, both coming in May.

I go back to the fact that my favourite book of 2024 was written by someone I’d never heard of. At a time when so much is marketed and prepared for us, I feel that process of discovery has become a rare thing. More curiosity and imagination in 2025, please.

(Books mentioned here are also linked at Bookshop.org: Andrew Wille’s Reader’s Report 2024.)

Overplatforming and the Theft of Time

by Andrew | 4 Comments

Last month my phone was snatched out of my hands outside Holborn tube station. Yes, I was texting. I was returning from a leaving party at the publisher I myself left 26 years ago, and I was messaging my friend Alex in Pittsburgh – something about writing, in fact – and then my phone was whipped away by a thief on an e-bike. There – then gone. So smooth, so quick, and most disorientating.

This story does have a happy ending, but before that eventuality came about I was telling myself this theft was a sign. There’s always a lesson. It was the cosmos seizing distraction right from in front of my face. I know I spend too much time on my phone, and I know I should reduce my digital habits for something with greater purpose and clarity, even if it’s just reading a library book. And although the real moral of the tale is that someone else should not have been thieving, I should not have been texting on the street.

I use so many platforms – some for specific purposes, some for reasons yet to be known. I use MailChimp, I use Substack, and I use WordPress for this blog, which my EVP of operations, communication and puns slash husband is helping me make over. To be unveiled in January.

I use Instagram times two, one personal and one for work, and it’s a fave – laffs and dogs and garden porn. I mean, what beats Sylvanian Drama? This year gay memes probably provided more entertainment than most of the high-concept novels I read, and even better are the salty comments. I do feel guilty spending far too much time screwing around on social media, but let’s tell ourselves I’ve been indoctrinated by productivity culture – a sentiment I found in one of my leftie follows, of course.

I have not used Facebook since 2016, and I stopped using Twitter this year, both of them (1) because of politics and (2) because people I know and really like in person magicked themselves into whiners or showoffs. Or maybe it was because I didn’t need to be told how brilliant Succession and The White Lotus were, because they weren’t. Some mean-spirited and scornful people have started to use Instagram like Twitter, and I’ve unfollowed, removed and blocked them. Tedious. I don’t use TikTok, mostly because I’m determined not to allow another distraction in front of my face. Maybe I’m stronger than I think.

I now use Bluesky and I now use Threads, though the evangelism can be a bit much, and there’s already plenty of that performative whining and showing off in both places. I’m already dreading reactions to the third season of The White Lotus. I should be patient and more forgiving, but too often the attention-seeking draws my attention to the innate loneliness and alienation of the modern condition, and that makes me feel a bit sad. Plus I don’t think I’m pithy or witty enough for the cool hot takes these short forms seem to demand. Plus: more noise.

I use email, though maybe not as much as when I corresponded with friends on other continents in epic missives at the dawn of a new millennium.

I now also use another email for work, and to send Zoom invitations.

I use iMessage, mostly with family, and I use WhatsApp, where I gossip and laugh and am very rude in private and hope that one day our messages will never be sequestered and read like those in the Blake Lively court case (delete delete delete). Some of my best times are had on WhatsApp. Sometimes I also use it for spontaneous video calls, and those hours fly by.

Substack. Back to Substack. I’ve been using Substack this year. I have enjoyed reading many writers there, and I’m often discovering new ones. I particularly enjoyed George Saunders introducing thousands of new readers in his Story Club to Bobbie Louise Hawkins through her story The Child. That’s very powerful literary outreach. There are a lot of committed readers on Substack.

But there’s a LOT of content, a lot of it overlapping, and a lot of keeping up. A lot of noise, and that’s before my part in it. What’s left for me to say?

And a lot of those lots of people on Substack seem to be talking to themselves or about themselves, and doing a lot of it. I’m good at both of these things already, and do I need to do more?

And also: what is Substack? How should I join in? I had thought about Substack as a platform for teaching, and never say never but right now I’m not sure. And how do I even use Substack? Lots of knobs and dials. Newsletters. Posts. Notes. There are things I go to use, and every time I can’t find them. Someone could explain all of this to me but as it’s not coming intuitively I think there is a problem. Maybe it’s because it all looks and sounds the same and gets whirled into a big blur of words and ego.

As a reader maybe I’d like Substack more if it were user-friendly, and I could select a handful to receive as email, but right now it’s all or nothing, so all email is turned off. It’s clunky. Plus I still have my New Yorker subscription, and those New Yorker editors edit (Substackers: take note, and this includes myself too).

Someone recently compared Substack to LinkedIn, and I can’t unthink that. Some of those professional Substackers really are too much – a lot of coaches coaching, a lot of tech bros broing, a lot of grifters grifting. Should I become one too? And then there’s the smattering of cranks and white nationalists that have been shoved in my feed. I’m sure they think their arguments are clever and well proportioned, but No. Brandon Taylor recently described how Notes made him peevish. I know the feeling.

I once had hopes for finding community on Substack, but so far nearly all of my engagement has been with people I know, and there’s not as much reciprocation or sharing as I expected. Maybe it’s the algorithm. Maybe I need to spend more time there or make more effort or grift more. I enjoyed sharing some of my old stories on Substack this summer, but the people who read them seem to have been these people I know already. Some of them even emailed me about them! I hadn’t realised how much I’d enjoy fan mail. I have an ego too.

I don’t currently pay for any Substack subscriptions. I sometimes feel guilty about that, but then I support writers in plenty other ways. And I do have that New Yorker subscription and my library card.

I use LinkedIn too – let’s forget that. Though I do forget it and usually only remember when someone’s account pops up in Google search results.

And then I use Mailchimp, mostly to promote new classes, because I do grift too, though I try not to hustle too hard and I usually also share what I’m reading (The Great When by Alan Moore) or watching (Somebody, Somewhere and Girls).

I also use Linktree, which is especially useful now we can organise our posts under headings.

And I use Zoom, where I meet for classes and mentoring and talk to writers about their works-in-progress. In many ways that is the best platform of all.

It’s a lot, isn’t it. And we all know that each of these platforms will have its day. They’ll get bought by some corporation or some vandal, or something will wane, and then we’ll all move again. Impermanence is very real on the digital landscape. This does make the ability to return to my own site more attractive. Writer Ellis Eden recently commented on a post here: ‘Sometimes it’s lovely not to wade into substack, medium, etc, to read away from the boiling pot.’

For now I too am writing about writing, and a whining tone is creeping in. But at least I’m not doing it on Substack, unless I decide to copy this there too. Though complaining about Substack is a subgenre on Substack, and sometimes we do have to follow the market.

Plus I recently developed tinnitus. Which may or may not have an obvious cause, but is yet another ringing in my ear. All this noise, and here I am adding to it.

However: there are serious points here – about which platforms to use on social media as both creator and observer/participant, about where to spend my/your time and energy. And for what reason? Is it just for the Likes? To be seen, to be read. Yes – that is some of it, though too I know my reach isn’t wide. I’m not wily enough for a social media strategy, and I probably rattle on too much for most readers of blogs or Substack.

Like. Monetise. Commodify. Grift. I realise I’m not very entrepreneurial either. I worry that if I send too many Mailchimps, people might unsubscribe, but I realised I don’t want my mailing list cluttered with people who don’t want to be there, so feel free to go. Someone I know unsubscribed from my very first Mailchimp within five minutes of it being mailed out, and I don’t think they know that I know, but I do. I did feel hurt by this at the time, but I decided it’s a sign of their character and not mine, and I have plenty of other generous mates online and off. It’s best to stop chasing the Likes, and let them come to me. Another lesson.

I do miss community, such as gathering in person for the monthly salons of Kellie Jackson’s Words Away or for classes in physical classrooms. Online I think a problem lies in the fact that there are so many communities plural, and we spread ourselves thinly, so everything feels atomised. (Also: the showing off, and the peevishness.)

Write it down! says my pal Elaine. Writing all this down helps me understand that my most rewarding platforms are Instagram, Zoom, and my blog. I should probably ration my time consuming the memes and the clips from Golden Girls, but these are the places where I probably express my true self or maybe I should say one of my best selves. Maybe the online self I’m happiest with and the online self I have most fun with.

My SVP of puns, who in tidying up my site has gone back more than a decade to my very first posts, tells me my own voice is most authentic here on my blog, and it’s true: I feel my voice here more than anywhere else. I’m all about voice in writing, and when we feel our voices we’re feeling something essential about ourselves.

I might use Substack for monthly craft posts, as there does seem to be serious dialogue on such topics there, but do I need to get some Substack guide to tell me how to optimise my footprint, to monetise, commodify, etc.? As I often say to another pal on WhatsApp, it’s a LOT. For now, I’ll just post it there and see what happens.

And there are also notebooks and yellow pads. And then there’s writing letters and postcards. By hand. I do have lovely handwriting, and nothing really beats the erotics of putting pen to paper and ink on the page. I write letters to friends, and some of them like Angela and Bhanu send me epics in reply, often composed on Basildon Bond or the back of water bills and over the course of many months before finally getting popped in the post with a stamp showing a beaver or a whippet.

All our electronic communications do scatter the attention. When I started working in publishing, we were still using the typewriter and the fax – and the telex! A few years in we got a computer in each department, and then one on every desk.

My chum Nann the rights director always told us editors to ‘get electronic rights’ when bidding for books. We had no idea what electronic rights were back then. For a while they were CD-ROM’s, but then that hard-shelled moment passed. We had no idea what was coming. Just as we have no idea what AI will mean or what else is coming down the road to reshape or enlighten or fray our attentions.

So for now I’m just looking forward to making changes to my site – a refresh and some housekeeping and reorganising. Also booking links for the 2025 round of masterclasses and workshops, because I have to commodify myself too and especially because I love teaching. Beginnings is on 13 January at 7pm.

I could ask what you use, what you prefer – genuine curiosity, genuine engagement – and some of you could reply in comments below. I don’t like, however, how even that starts to feel like a hustle or a cry for attention, and now I’m asking if writing and blogging are just self-indulgence.

But maybe all writing is ultimately for the self. I loved this on post from Heather Havrilesky on Substack earlier today: ‘I Published A Novel And No One Cares’.

That happy ending: I got my phone back! I was one of the lucky ones. The thief was nicked minutes after my phone was snatched. He had numerous other phones in his possession – along with a machete, apparently. I found this out later in the Daily Mail.

The following afternoon in a West End police station was an education. The police btw were GREAT. Many dedicated public servants are doing a good job with scant resources. Defunding the police sounds like a great idea in a world without crime, but until that happy day justice needs its advocates and practitioners and also its enforcers. (And let’s not forget the white-collar and political thugs and criminals too.)

Meanwhile: I am a teacher, and there are lessons in the story of my phone snatch. For a start, carry emergency phone numbers in places other than your phone. Also: record somewhere safe the 15-digit IMEI model number of your phone, set up security, have backup in the Cloud, know how to deactivate your phone, and know how to use Find My Phone.

And also: don’t use your phone. Like, really. They are handy devices, but they don’t own us. Maybe it’s time we mostly returned to our desks to write and work and communicate. To the library, and to the purest platform of the page.

Autumn 2024 Updates

by Andrew | Leave a comment

A few updates.

1. I’m preparing masterclasses for the autumn, which include:

Perspective & Style, 16 September

Showing & Telling, 14 October

Genres & Readers, 11 November

Endings, 9 December 2024

You can find more information via the links above or at Masterclasses. Classes earlier this year paid attention to the narrative content that makes up our stories: character, setting, plot. In these autumn classes we’ll think about ways to enhance how we tell those stories and bring them to rewarding conclusions. We’ll also talk about practical matters and real-world contexts: readers, feedback, revision, knowing when to be done. All classes are stand-alone and run live on Zoom from 6-7.30 pm London time.

2. As a taster for Perspective & Style later this month, I made a post on Substack about literary style: A Case of Style. I used Kent Haruf’s Our Souls At Night as a case study, and also talked about classic prose style, minimalism, maximalism, and what I call blockbuster style. (Ah! How I miss blockbuster style.)

3. Over the summer I also posted a few of my older stories and essays on Substack: Fiction & Essays. I’m not sure I got many new followers – I’m not sure I’m very good at that part of social media, and you do wonder if you’re just adding to the noise. (I never want to hear the word coach outside of the context of public transport again – and it’s part of my job!) But sharing my stories was more satisfying than I expected – it was good to connect my writing with various friends, colleagues and other people who, e.g., don’t have access to literary journals gathering dust on bookshelves in libraries in Colorado.

4. I’m no longer using Twitter. You can find me on Instagram for work and play (which currently is mostly gardening, even if that too feels a bit too much like work at the mo). And Substack too, of course. I guess Substack might replace some of what I’ve done here on my blog, but for now I’m keeping this going with occasional updates, and there’s an extensive archive of resources here too.

5. A quiet summer. I visited Kew Gardens frequently. Enjoy a couple of pics below of the Palm House and inside the Water Lily House. Also enjoy this lovely profile of Kew botanist and water lily specialist Carlos Magdalena from the New York Times: Risking His Own Extinction To Rescue The Rarest Of Flowers.

Have a good start to September, wherever you are!

Palm House at Kew Gardens
Water Lily House at Kew Gardens

Masterclasses for Autumn 2024

by Andrew | 2 Comments

I’ve now posted details for my writing masterclasses for Autumn 2024 – see links below:

16 September, 6pm-7.30pm London, Zoom
Perspective & Style
Techniques to power your storytelling
Elevate your writing with this masterclass investigating the craft of perspective. We’ll discover how persona, point of view, tense and narrative distance can make your storytelling brighter and bolder, and sample a range of literary styles to help you develop a distinctive voice.

14 October, 6pm-7.30pm London, Zoom
Showing & Telling
Weaving scene and narration into stories
Find the balance of dramatic scene and narrative summary that’s required for any story. We’ll grasp the fundamentals of creating memorable scenes through action, dialogue, description and subtext, and understand the pitfalls that are best avoided. Using examples, we’ll also analyse ways to forge a strong voice for narrating your stories and captivating your readers from start to finish.

11 November, 6pm-7.30pm London, Zoom
Genres & Readers
What’s your genre and who are your readers?
Explore the conventions of writing genres for the ways they help in shaping and pitching our stories.  We’ll probe the intersection of taste and technique in various categories of writing, from page-turning commercial genres and upmarket fiction to literary works and experimental prose. We’ll also navigate feedback, survey the querying process with agents and editors, and discuss writers’ relationships with publishers and the book trade.

9 December 2024, 6pm-7.30pm London, Zoom
Endings
Resolutions, revising, and knowing when to stop
Identify ways to give a story a memorable conclusion. We’ll review the strengths of open, closed and ambiguous endings, and inspect plot twists, grand finales and other means of creating emotional impact for the resolutions of our stories. We’ll also survey some practical strategies in revising and drafting, and discuss how to know when your story is truly done.

The masterclasses carry on from those held earlier this year – Beginnings, Voice, Character, Setting & Situation, Story & Plot, and Form & Structure – but they are designed to be stand-alone, so that writers can drop in for a refresher on specific topics. You’ll also be sent reading suggestions and writing exercises to try in advance, and after the class you’ll receive a workbook packed with craft notes, recommended resources, and writing experiments to try at your own pace. You can click the links above to book your space.

I’m planning to repeat these classes next year, along with new offerings. There are a number of regulars from all over the world, both experienced and beginning writers, and the spirit of the classes is convivial, good-humoured and energetic.

I’m no longer blogging so actively here, but you can find me on Instagram and I am starting to use Substack – among other things, I’m going to start sharing some of my short stories there, and in due course I’ll post about the craft of writing and publishing too. You can also sign up for my mailing list here.

Have a good summer! (Or winter if you’re dialling in from the southern hemisphere.) After a wet spring the garden is finally blooming and livening up.