Category Archives: Uncategorized

Integrity

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1. Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code

2 The state of being wholesome; unimpaired

3. The quality and condition of being complete; pure

 

What does integrity mean to a writer?

Social Networking

Well…writers are still people, even those who have been at it for a while. It is difficult in the high pressured world of social networking to keep a clear head and an unencumbered heart.

When is friendship a truth and not a stepping stone to success?

I think my own relationship with integrity hangs on the word “clarity”. I never attempt to disguise social networking as friendship. Advertising is advertising whether it is self promotion or script promotion. No one is going to fault you for advertising and promoting your work but people respect being treated truthfully and well.

 

 

How do you write?

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On my table I have a leather-bound journal, a kindle, and several yellow stripy Hb pencils. I write in longhand and in pencil. They are my old friends. I mastered the use of this technology at about the age of three and since then I haven’t looked back. They require no special consideration or concentration. They require no power outlet and in special circumstances they write upside-down whilst I’m watching TV.

This is my preferred method.

If I am sitting in my kitchen away from my desk then I have my laptop. It is bright and shiny. It is capricious. We eye each other with suspicion. Sometimes it pings grumpily at me and I mutter

” Pencils don’t ping! “

I don’t think this is making the relationship any stronger. You see the laptop will always be second in my affections. It is my second draft workhorse and not the playground of my imagination.

How do you write?

Dark Side

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” In the real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning.”

F.Scott Fitzgerald

 

Everybody has dark days. We all have times when we question ourselves and our world. We strive for more and we feel that life is holding out on the good stuff, keeping it tantalisingly out of reach; the bunch of grapes that grace an Aesop’s fable.

It is a cruel trick of life that in finding the darkness we feel alone. We are never alone. If we could muster the strength to reach out a hand into the night we would find that we are standing shoulder to shoulder like a pottery army, facing the same questions and the same fears. The darkness is a universal experience. So is the light.

Writers have a trick for dealing with the darkness. We pick the bones. We pick them clean. You see, nothing of our experience is ever lost. Everything is learning. Everything is growing. We take experience and in the darkness we form words, restless over the surface of the waters until one day…

Let there be Light.

So, if you are standing in the darkness be assured that you are surrounded by companions and in the darkness we grow.

Column is a Funny word

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image

If you are sitting in front of your computer screen and regardless of the reassuring absence of underline a word simply looks wrong then one of two things is happening to you.

1. You are finally really looking at a word you have taken horribly for granted since you were five.

2. Brain Freeze

The correct response to either of these situations is to do the dishes. This blog post may or may not be directed to my teenage offspring.

Dead White Males

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I assume that you read. Writers read right?

I have found a surprising reluctance in many of my friends and colleagues to visit the pen-smiths of the past. I agree that many of the works written in the 19th century are so far removed from modern journalistic style that they seem to represent a different species rather than a different time. The 20th century brings long descriptive passages and worthiness doesn’t it? Don’t ever assume that you know a writer’s work on reputation alone. Dickens!

If you make assumptions about literature then you run the risk of missing out on those writers and passages of prose that sing with you. Sometimes you find literary joy in the strangest of places.

My personal discovery this year was Proust. I’m not a literary snob, I read everything including shampoo bottles and cereal packets but I had assumed that Proust was probably not for me.

( Assumptions, pah!)

I approached the first tome of “La recherche du temps perdu ” in trepidation.

I found literary description that you could bathe in. Proust sings with me.

Now, not everyone you read will click with you. That isn’t a deficiency in their writing or in your understanding, that is just the joy of difference. Go out into the world and find those writers who   ” Sing with you “. and you will gain more than you ever thought possible.

Oh, and the occasional Dead White Male will be a Woman.

The Writing Life

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Being a writer is a strange and unusual compulsion.

On the other hand it makes life very interesting.

I don’t think there are many other occupations which begin the day with research into diving equipment, loiter around the methods of disposing of a body, and end with a copy piece about Madeira cake. 

The hours are often long and the pay is poor. I recommend that for the first few years of throwing words at the world you forget all about working out your hourly rate. On the other hand there is something to be said for beginning the day in joy and completing it in satisfaction. You might not be rich as a writer but if writing is your compulsion then as long as you are allowed to wallow in the words you stand a good chance of being happy.

 

The Illustrated Man

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I am currently re-reading The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury.
It’s a book that I recommend to every writer.
It is a collection of masterful short stories held together by an eerie overarching narrative. It’s by turns engaging and disturbing. Something for everyone.

” The sun was gone. Now the first stars were shining and the moon had brightened the fields of grass and wheat. Still the Illustrated man’s pictures glowed like charcoals in the half light, like scattered rubies and emeralds, with Rouault colours and Picasso colours and long pressed out El Greco bodies.
“So people fire me when my pictures move. They don’t like it when violent things happen in my illustrations…”

We don’t talk anymore

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No, not you and me.

I’m thinking about the writer and their subconscious.

The funny thing is that everyone has one and we pay it very little attention until it plays up. A little like the hazard warning light on the car.
Are you and your subconscious on speaking terms? If you aren’t then you will struggle to write and eventually grind to a page fearing halt.
Writer’s Block anyone?

So, how do I keep my subconscious happy?

(a) Read – Good stuff in, good stuff out.

(b) Resolve any emotional issues where possible. Forgive the guy next door for throwing the hedge clippings over the fence, forgive your mother for that awkward conversation with her best friend’s daughter, forgive yourself for Chocolate Tuesday.
I am not talking about the huge stuff that needs counselling and a 50 minute hour but life’s irritations. Just let them go. It’s not worth it.
The bird that pooped on your car is feeling better because it pooped and not worse because you are cross about it.

(c) Listen to yourself. If you are struggling to write then there may be an issue with what you are writing. Are you trying to make a character behave in a way that he/she wouldn’t.

(d) Sometimes the subconscious calls a time out because it has something else it wants to say. Leave the piece you are writing and work on a short story. Maybe write a poem or a song. When your subconscious has had its say it will let you work on your current piece.

(e) You are playing Deadline Chicken. Trust me, whichever of you blinks first it won’t be pretty.
Tell yourself that you are not writing the piece. This is not writing the piece, this is just making a list of things I would put into it if I was writing it…which I’m not.
Once you have a basic outline expand it until you have a framework. Then write a little piece for each element of the framework.
Look. Almost a piece of work but not a piece of work.
You should now be able to convince yourself that writing the copy is child’s play. It’s nearly done look.

(f) Problems pass. You won’t always struggle. Everyone struggles. Everyone has blank days and prolific days. People who succeed at writing work on the bad days and don’t sweat it.

Keep the Faith

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Writing can be an isolating experience. We throw ourselves into the worlds of our imagination. We lock horns with the intangible. We love and lose, talk of guile and greed. We engage with our internal inquisitor. It can seem a very narcissistic occupation. 

The truth is that the sheer effort of writing well tends to weed out the self important and the showboater. It leaves a honed core of truly dedicated observers. We watch the world. Does that make our opinions more important than those of anyone else? More important? No. Better informed? Perhaps.

Writers are no more important than anyone else in the world. Writers are also no less important than anyone else in the world. We are its voice. So keep ploughing through that draft. Keep papering the wall with your rejections. Keep learning to use the subjunctive. Keep editing. Keep growing.

This is who you are

and it’s good.