Writers' Block – Finding the Hidden Slipway of the Imagination

Am I suffering from writer's block just now? I don't think so. I hope not. It's just that I'm not entirely sure what story I want to tell and at the moment it feels as if the various component parts of my proposed novel are straining to get away from each other.

If that's a kind of writer's block, then this is my solution....

Before I start to write, I find it helps to put myself into something like a meditative state. You'd be forgiven for thinking that I was simply staring out of the window, but it's the beginning of a process of submersion which makes my pulse quicken with excitement and my thoughts flow. I don't breathe in a particular way, or chant, or focus on anything specific. I just allow myself to be. The only thing I need in order to achieve this is quietness.

If you are suffering from writer's block at the moment, here's a little exercise that you might like to try. I took the picture below when I was in Cornwall last week.

Think of it as the hidden slipway of the imagination. Picture yourself standing in the shade at the top of the steps, feel the grit of the concrete under your feet, imagine the salty, wiry grass and the scent of the ocean on the wind. Start to walk down, listening to the sound of your footsteps; perhaps you can hear a seagull wheeling overhead or the lumbering sound of a fishing boat's engine. When you move from the shade into the light, you can feel the warmth of the sun on your skin. You keep walking, down and down and down, beyond the steps, following the gentle incline into the sea. Spring hasn't reached here yet and the water is freezing. It laps your ankles, then your knees, your thighs and your waist. It is cold enough to deprive you of breath and for a moment you feel precarious, still earthbound, your feet scudding into rocks you cannot see, but then you take a deep breath and launch yourself and the cold stings your scalp and shocks your brain into action, but already you  have imagined all of this and as you start to float, to swim, you find that you are ready to write...

Now strike out from the shore and keep on going, until the tide turns and brings you home.

Free Range Writing

I'm having a break on the coast of Cornwall, so my posts (when I can manage them) are shorter than usual...

Here's a pic of some free range eggs, West Country style:

I like the chromatic echoes of brown and fawn and cream and palest blue, colours that are sympathetic yet subtly different. They share the same ( egg-like) spherical form although each one is distinct; they are pleasing in every way. The same qualities apply to good books, in which themes and plot lines should be harmoniously orchestrated, and characters well-realised and individual, yet at the same time inhabiting the same literary universe, or in this case, egg box.

However, unlike these irresistible eggs, your free range writing should be neither scrambled nor poached...

Here endeth the metaphor.

Normal Service Will Resume...

...but at the moment I'm hidden away in a remote spot without access to the internet - yes, such places still exist and the breathtakingly lovely Helford Estuary in southernmost Cornwall is one of them. It's an inspiring place in which to think and dream and I shall be back at my desk next week refreshed and inspired and ready to rock some thoughts about writing.

See you then.

Structural Editing Versus Copy Editing (Thank You Catherine Ryan Howard!)

I'm an avid fan of Catherine Ryan Howard's self publishing blog and read it regularly. I was intrigued by today's informative and thought-provoking post which was guest written by Robert Doran of Kazoo Independent Publishing Services and argues whether it is better to invest in a structural edit or a copy edit, when you are preparing to launch your book into the world.

His view, and that of many of the people who have left comments, seems to err on the side of paying for a copy edit on the grounds that you can learn how to address structural difficulties yourself, but my sense is that if the structure is all over the place, with the plot unravelling and the characters behaving inconsistently, readers aren't going to be seduced by the fact that all the commas are in the right places. The structure is the foundation on which your book is built and I think you need to be really sure that it is sound before you start tinkering with aspects of presentation, although of course it is important that grammar and punctuation are as good as you can make them.

It isn't necessary to spend a fortune buying these kind of services, you can always enlist the help of a critical friend. Reciprocal mentoring is a wonderful thing – you learn so much whether you are giving or receiving advice and it is illuminating (and cheap!) to do.

I've Just Killed My Darlings...

....because that's what they tell you to do when you are writing – cut the parts you like the best because you may be blind to their failings or including them for the wrong reasons.

The section I've eviscerated is the opening of my new novel:

The Watermill appeared to float in an inlet of green light, moored by a slender bridge to the canal embankment on one side, listing into the mill stream on the other. Minna propped the ladder against the wall of the house, steadying its base on the narrow walkway that ran from her front door to the tow path. The tangle of her little island garden seemed a long way below. She didn't look down, didn't make the slow plunge into the shade, into the twist and twine of the weeds, the woody creeper, the scuff of grass, into the greenness of it all. Instead, she shoved the secateurs into the pocket of her shorts, tested the lean of the ladder and climbed the first few rungs.

She blinked at the clarity of white and blue: white-rendered walls and the neglected, flaking, French blue of the shutters. The wisteria dripped down her window like rain and she fished the secateurs from her pocket and reached for the lowest bough, stretched beyond her reach, grasped the shoot, and then –

- there was a detonation: the soft shrapnel of feathers and talons, a grey whirring that sent her rearing back then snapping forward to save herself from falling. A bird exploded from the branches, the sheen of metal in its wings, and for a moment Minna's head was full of helicopter blades and sniper fire, the long lances of telegraph poles with their endless wires, the shattered apartments – she gripped the ladder – broken tarmac, the sound of boots running, a woman weeping, mortars reeling – she held the ladder till her fingers hurt – a woman screaming, a truck careering, the sound of running, of guns being primed.

She was panting, breathing for survival. The secateurs clattered to the ground. She rested her head against the rung, feeling the ridged coolness on her skin. This isn't me, she whispered, this frightened woman isn't me. She inched her way back down the ladder and stood on the narrow bridge, holding the iron hand rail, swallowing dry air.

I've sweated blood over it, tweaking and polishing endlessly, but my wise and insightful writing mentor thinks that I'm starting the book at the wrong point in the story and so these opening paragraphs (and quite a lot else besides) have to go. It's difficult medicine to take, bitter as aloes, but it would be far worse to continue steering my narrative in the wrong direction, so I'm going to do a handbrake turn and set to work again.

The moral of this little tale? When you're writing fiction, nothing is sacred except the story.

Lost in Translation # 5

I love the weird dissonance that can happen during  translation – the way in which two languages collide and send words glancing off in unexpected directions. Here's something I saw in Venice last autumn...

On the contrary, I think historical pasta might be very, very sexy – anything from the past kindles my imagination, but what intrigues and delights me about this notice are the questions that it poses – what was the writer trying to say? All the possibilities of nuance and interpretation are suddenly opened up and my reader's (and writer's) brain is flung into overdrive.

It reminds me of the subtleties and accidents of language – and it makes me laugh....

The Coffin and the Sharpened Stake - Accepting Criticism

I've just sent the first three chapters of my new novel to my writing friend and mentor, so I'm feeling a little unsettled and unstable. I want her to like it, but I don't necessarily want her to tell me that she does, as I don't think that would be helpful or constructive. I need her to find fault with it, to pick it apart forensically with her writer's clinical analysis rather than her friend's warm heart. I hope she'll tell me all the ways in which I can make it better and then, after this savaging, I want her to tell me that if I work really hard at it, she thinks it might have some potential.

I'm not sure that praise, when you're in the early stages of writing fiction, is particularly helpful, although sometimes you need a small amount of sugar to help the medicine go down. David Mitchell put it this way...

“If you show someone something you've written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, ‘When you’re ready’.”

If you've had a literary pasting yourself and are in need of balm, you could do worse than reading his excellent novel Black Swan Green  (which is where this quotation comes from) – not only will it divert you, it's an exemplary lesson in how to write.