Tag Archives: voice

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.

Voice Notes

by Andrew | Leave a comment

I am currently taking The Way of Writing, Natalie Goldberg’s new online class with Shambhala Publications. It was truly exciting on Saturday evening to sit among a body of 2,181 students beaming in from all over the world via Zoom. Natalie makes it work – her teaching and her spontaneity and her big heart make for a powerful transmission.

When it comes to writing practice, Natalie tasks writers on writing using prompts in, e.g., ten-minute sprints, and then we read our work out aloud to other people, in this case via Zoom breakout groups. This weekend I read and listened to writers from British Columbia, Connecticut, and Florida. It was thrilling: raw, confessional, direct. Some of the best writing I’ve ever heard has been in such contexts.

One of the things that is so special, I think, is that we just listen without giving feedback. In fact, feedback is not allowed, though we usually smile or offer a hands-together bow of thanks.

I have blogged about this before: Express Yourself Without Feedback: feedback has a time and place. It can sometimes bolster your confidence or direct your attention to ways to improve technique, but maybe that comes later; sometimes it pumps up your ego or derails you with criticism or in some other way waylays you. As Natalie said on Saturday, you have to build your spine as a writer, and voicing your own work is one of the best ways of achieving this. There is great strength in the simple act of expression.

Sometimes this listening is combined with a ‘recall’, where the listener simply tells you afterwards what they remember at the end of listening to your piece. Even their misrememberings can be interesting, valuable. Recalls can help focus the practice of listening too. It’s an act of receiving, which is one to cultivate.

So: several friends are also taking this class, and because we are writing every day we thought we’d share some of this work too. Organising another Zoom is a bit like, well, organising another Zoom – maybe we can organise that later?! So for now I have been exchanging WhatsApp voice notes with some of my fellow writers. They are short – just two or three minutes. What a treat! The things I’ve heard. And shared!

And I also found myself playing my own voice notes back to myself. Just once to start with, then more frequently.

Now, I have a thing about my voice. I hate listening to my own voice: I think I sound too nasal, too whiny, too Midlands, too gay. All of that tripe from the monkey mind.

But, actually, this time, in playing back, I liked what I heard. It’s still nasal, whiny, Midlands, and gay – but hey, that’s me. And it felt authentic, and the writing felt true. And somehow what I am hearing in these voice notes is feeding what I am writing day by day too. At some deep preverbal level I feel my awareness of what I am writing and how I am writing it, and it’s coming out on the page. It feels natural, strong.

One of the classic tips for revising your writing is reading it aloud: see where you stumble, catch your mistakes, note where you get bored, or where the sap rises. I also know of writers who ask other people to read their work back to them. That to my mind sounds as good a use of a writing group as any. It’s also useful to record yourself reading your writing and to listen to those recordings.

I remember my teacher-friend Bobbie Louise Hawkins getting excited about some recording accessory you could attach to an iPod for overheard dialogue exercises; this was about 2004, and she’d been getting by for decades with Dictaphones and those miniature tape cassettes. We were thrilled when Sony came out with some pen-sized recording device.

Now digital technology and smartphones make this all so easy.

As a writing experiment: Write for ten-minutes without stopping, using a prompt.* Use a notebook and a pen that writes easily, and (as Natalie says) keep the hand moving – follow your thoughts.

Then, using an app on your phone or computer, record what you wrote and send it as a voice note to a friend or writing partner, e.g., on WhatsApp, or send Voice Memos via a messaging app. If you wish, ask them to do a short recall of what they remember at the end, without playing it again.

Then: listen to this too. Perhaps you can also listen to and acknowledge some writing of a writing partner too.

Give yourself fifteen minutes to do this every day, if you can: ten to write, and five to share and/or to listen. You might also want to make arrangements for sharing with a writing partner for a fixed span, e.g., of a week or a month. (And make sure you choose a writing buddy you trust!)

Just: be listened to. Be heard. Listen to yourself, hear yourself. Build a spine. There is perhaps no greater practice for growing your intuition as a writer.

*If you need a prompt, use one of the following:

  • A year ago …
  • The wind
  • What’s on my bookshelf
  • Flags
  • The clock
  • Prayers
  • Something for your work-in-progress – maybe take a random line and write off it

Spring 2019 Masterclasses: Character & Setting, Prose Style

by Andrew | 1 Comment

After a successful masterclass on the Craft of Voice at the end of November, Kellie Jackson of Words Away and I are continuing this series, which began with Plotting in September, with two more masterclasses for the spring term:

Crafting Character & Setting

Crafting Your Prose

Character and setting are the foundations of our narrative content, and on 26 January we shall be exploring ways in which they can be brought to life in ways that propel our stories forward. And the masterclass devoted to prose style on 30 March will look not only at important aspects of grammar and usage (verbs! nouns! the evils of fronted adverbials!), but also explore ways to refine and adapt our voices in writing for a variety of purposes and effects.

More info including booking details at the links above. I have listed provisional schedules for the day as well as some suggestions of readings we might use to bring to life our discussions about craft; we usually email delegates a few weeks in advance with further reading recommendations as well as any other preparations for the class. We shall make time for some short writing exercises in class too, and you’ll also be given handouts and resources so that you can continue your lessons and explorations in craft at home afterwards.

And each day will close with an informal Q&A with an industry professional. This is designed to demystify the publishing industry, and offer practical insights into the business, giving you chance to ask your own questions. Our guest speaker on 26 January is Christina Macphail of Agatha Christie Limited, who has a great range and depth of experience in selling books and rights in both adult and children’s publishing – intellectual properties she has sold include many much-loved characters, so it will be interesting to place our creative conversations about character and world-building into this wider commercial context.

The last masterclass filled up in about ten days, and we had a long waiting list, so if you are interested I suggest you book in advance. We hope to continue with a couple of other classes in the summer term, and should there be interest to repeat this sequence in 2019/2020 too.

The Craft of Voice: Coming Soon

by Andrew | Leave a comment

Kellie Jackson has posted a Q&A on her blog for our 24 November masterclass The Craft of Voice.

It’s voice that matters most in writing for me. It’s voice that draws us into a story at the start, and it’s voice that keeps the pages turning. When I was an editor working in-house, it was voice that usually convinced me that I wanted to take on a new writer.

I think of the opening of one of my favourite novels, The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber: ‘Watch your step. Keep your wits about you; you will need them …’

I recently read All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews, and, among its many strengths, what stands out is the way in which its voice brings a gritty humour to content that at times is pretty grim. It’s also very well paced – it’s natural, it’s easy, it brings us along. This class will devote some time to learning to trust the natural speaking voice, and also extending its range – varying the tone, shifting into other voices.

Related to voice, we’ll also be talking about narrators and narrating. I’m currently listening to the audiobook of Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott’s Swan Song, which is fantastically done; a strong narrative voice that brings to life the gossipy world of Truman Capote and his ‘swans’ is well served by the audiobook’s narrator. The voice of the text and the voice of the narrator are beautifully fused. Truman can be somewhat unbearable! But that’s the point, and because the voice is compelling this is a joy to listen to.

A recent article in the Guardian on the rising popularity of audiobooks says:

The new medium beckons a change in writing styles. The omniscient narrators of 19th-century novels, whose godlike qualities were unpalatable to the realistic writers of the 20th, are more suited to the audioboomers of the 21st.

I like that idea very much – I love a good narrator, whether omniscient or involved in the action or unreliable, and whether it’s read on the page or listened to in an audiobook. Who’s telling the story, and how? There’s a real art to good narration.

I feel that understanding how to use and develop your voice is the most important lesson in writing. I’m continually bemused by the reliance on screenwriting guides for prose fiction in creative writing, as there are real limits to what we can gain from studying film when writing novels and short stories. Don’t get me wrong – certain ideas about, for example, structure and dialogue are invaluable. But good prose cannot draw on the grammar of visual storytelling. Prose relies on words placed on a page in a book, one after the other, just as speech amounts to a linear sequence of words: a voice. Words and sentences are all we have – so we have to learn how to craft them in ways that are natural and persuasive and a pleasure to read or listen to.

This masterclass on voice is designed as part of an ongoing sequence of classes and workshops that could be incorporated into an ongoing DIY MA in Creative Writing. We’ve already covered revising, and plotting come next week, and future topics might include: prose style; character and setting; and creating scenes. As with earlier masterclasses, which featured guest speakers Lennie Goodings (chair of Virago), Nick Ross (production director at Little, Brown) and Jenny Savill (agent at ANA), we’d again hope to invite publishing professionals for Q&A sessions to help demystify the industry. Contact us if you interested in a particular topic or would like to be added to our mailing lists.

More information on the 24 November voice masterclass can be found in the Q&A on Kellie’s blog, and further details about the schedule for that day can be found on the Words Away site.

Words Away Salon, 19 September 2016

by Andrew | 2 Comments

wasalon19september2016

Last night I was very happy to take part in the inaugural Words Away literary salon run by Kellie Jackson and Emma Darwin. It was a super evening: a great turnout, with a lovely, engaged crowd of writers, and the Teahouse Theatre is a wonderful venue for this sort of event too. Also, Vauxhall is so easy to get to from so many places, and we were a very short walk from the tube.

The subject under discussion was self-editing, which as Emma pointed out is a useful term (and something of a recent coinage) that brings clarity to this idea that to edit ourselves we need to put ourselves in a special frame of mind.

I emphasised the idea of working free from attachment. I mentioned that super quote that I believe comes from Terry Pratchett (and I paraphrase): writing the first draft is just the writer telling herself the story. It’s good to give yourself room to step back (and especially away from the computer) to ask yourself what this book can be. Has your intention shifted? I suggested practical ideas such as printing off your manuscript in different formats in order to defamiliarise your own words. It’s also helpful to do exercises outside of the book itself, or using some of your content knowing that this writing is not going into your baby (and in fact sometimes it will end up in the book after all). Be free in your writing at this stage.

I often describe these early stages of editing developmental editing, and I discuss this in more detail in this post on structural editing. Sometimes input from other readers or agents or editors can lead to doubts, and it makes sense to be reflective: this post on working with feedback might give you some pointers.

In practical terms, the natural speaking voice is, I believe, the greatest asset to any piece of writing, so learn to trust it. Here is a link describing a workshop on voice I led in the past (it includes links to further exercises on voice too). And I heartily recommend I Remember exercises as very easy and accessible ways to work with voice in your own writing.

I do like some narration in my storytelling, and here is a link to a subtle bit of narrating to be sampled at the start of My Name Is Leon by Kit De Waal. Tweaks for the art and craft of narrating are often essential during revising,

This salon was titled ‘Make Your Novel Shine’, and I do think there is a great value to decluttering our minds of words and letting symbolic thinking (or maybe I should say symbolic feeling?) guide us through revising. For example, think about the idea of a light shining its way through your book like a torch, or maybe be guided by the image of a prism reflecting light in and off its many facets. Something else I suggested was thinking about writing as giving, and the gift you give your readers on every page. Such ways of working can force us to go a little deeper, and perhaps discover unexpected treasures that belong in the writing in some way or other.

In addition, here are the pages from this site for craft and revising and tips on self-editing (used for the booklet we gave our yesterday). And Emma Darwin’s Itch of Writing blog has TONS of resources for writers too (pay special attention to psychic distance). In addition, a special mention for the excellent and very successful online course on self-editing your novel run by Debi Alper and Emma Darwin.

Thanks again to Kellie and Emma for having me along. Forthcoming salons will have speakers talking about character (17 October), plot and story (14 November), and historical fiction (5 December). Hope to see you there.