Category Archives: The Writing Life

Right Speech

by Andrew | Leave a comment

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, utopian even. Yesterday, for example, this was my Heidi.

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.

Further reading
* Right Speech Reconsidered (from Tricycle Magazine)
* Raising The Tone (Writing Experiment No. 61)

* PS Just reread this in March 2020 – Arya, eh?! How prophetic was THAT?!

Michel Faber: On Writers As Public People

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(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

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gold quill pen

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

by Andrew | 2 Comments

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!

Larger-than-life

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I just read in the LRB an enjoyable review by James Wolcott of the selected letters of William Styron.

Sometimes, when I read pieces like this, which express strong opinions, I find myself getting carried along. Am I agreeing with what’s being said too easily, am I being too fickle, is there another view I’m ignoring? Or perhaps that doesn’t matter? What’s more to the point is the energy and the colour in the writing. We don’t have to agree/disagree with everything that’s put in front of us, and either way we can still enjoy the force in the writing.

Among various choice details in this review, one note that particularly resonated with me is a comment about a lost literary culture of ‘larger-than-life’ set against ‘the small-time pantomime we have today’.

Knock each other as they may in print, old-pro novelists harbour a crusty collegiality borne of the awareness of the attrition involved in pushing that cannon up the hill, enduring false starts, racking fatigue, spent livers, sunken eyeballs, crises of faith, year-round seasonal affective disorder and carpal tunnel syndrome, only to stagger into publication day and have Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times nail them in the neck with a poison blowdart.

I guess that larger-than-life had its own trappings, and we have to see through the veneer of glamour and celebrity in that literary mondo (I’m sure some of these figures would be frantically checking their Amazon rankings today). We can get too easily nostalgic. But it does bring to mind Norma Desmond: ‘It’s the books that got small!’ Good writing needs personality, and personality is probably helped by having some personalities write it in the first place. I can think of a few at work today, but perhaps not enough (and probably more poets than novelists).

I do remember reading Sophie’s Choice, too, and it being one of those first grown-up books to leave a strong impression on me. Styron does have a rich prose style, and perhaps for too long I carried with me the sense that grown-up writing needed to be so … flamboyant. Which it can, of course – if you can do it. And he could, and he told great stories, and filled them with characters we cared about.

Wolcott’s review is certainly worth a read, and I’m also going to have to remember to pop in on his blog every now and then. And I ought to get those letters, too.