Tag Archives: literature

The Words. A Fable

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Once there was a young man who wished with all his heart to be the King of Words. He wanted to write songs, and poems, and stories that would be famous throughout the land.

One day he heard that the Father of the Forest was able to grant the wishes of young men who wanted words, and so he travelled a long way, for a year and a day, to see the Father.

The Father was the tallest, and the oldest, and the wisest tree in all the world. His roots bound the land together and his branches supported the sky, and he was very kind. He listened to the young man, and when he had listened, he touched one gentle, gnarly finger to the young man’s chest and took out his heart.

It was a thing of amazing beauty, bright and shining like the largest diamond. The Father smiled and bending low over the heart he whispered,

“Live, Love, Learn.”

Then he gently replaced it and sent the young man out into the world to be a writer.

 

The years passed slowly and times were very hard for the young man. He always seemed to lose his luck or his love and there were days when he despaired of his life. He became very unhappy and decided to return to the Father, to ask why, when he had come to him with such a pure heart, the Father had not given him the words.

The Father was even taller and older and kinder. He welcomed the young man as a child, and he listened. Then he touched one gentle, gnarly finger to the young man’s chest and took out his heart. It was dark and chipped and broken, and held together by love and tears. The young man began to cry as he looked at his poor heart but the Father smiled a gentle smile. He held up the heart in the green warmth of the Summer afternoon, and he broke it clean in two.

Out poured words: red, green, amber and gold, the bluest blue of the ocean and the deepest black of the night sky. They poured unceasingly to the forest floor creating streams of life and love and laughter, swirling around the feet of the amazed young man.

“My Child,” said the Father with great love,

” Why would I give you words, when you have been growing your own? “

 

How to Write

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There are a  multitude of books available on the subject ‘How to write’ and a plethora of courses available, all promising to show you the secrets, give you an outline, throw you a rope when you are drowning in words. Many of these are well written, well thought out and helpful, but sometimes they seem to subtly miss the mark for us. We have a head full of theories, plans, guidelines and confusion.

You see, courses and books can give you a very clear idea about how other people write and have written, but what no teacher will admit off the bat is that they have no idea how you are going to do it. Writing is a journey, one we all take in a different direction. Before we set out we need to fill our backpack with three things

1) Words – dictionary, thesaurus, experience of reading a great deal

2) Grammar – an understanding of how the words fit together.

3) Punctuation – knowledge about how we signpost meaning.

These are the essentials. We all need these. Without these we are trekking the Himalayas in our swimwear. 

Next we need the useful items:

Map of the terrain – an idea of the structure of a novel, short story,  article, essay

Travel guide – a description of journeys by past explorers. How did other writers write?

And finally we need the things that make life more enjoyable:

Chocolate – or your treat of choice

Bug Spray – for the Fear bug, which swarms on a scale from nervous tension – sheer terror. If you have no spray then hit them with a slipper, newspaper, pop song.

All packed? Good. Now you are ready to explore. Some of us will be an Amundsen, Columbus or Magellan and some of us will be Dora, and that’s fine. The journey is our own. We make it ourselves and each discovery is as exciting regardless of who we are. Be yourself and forge your own path and before long you will have a page in the Travel guide.

Watch out for the Self-editing Tar-pits and

Happy Trails!

    

Procrastination

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Time is a limited resource.

I can hear you cry that you know, and anyway look how busy you are.

Well of course you are. You are very important; one of the cogs that turn the wheel that makes the wossname work. I am not suggesting lack of drive or effort, I am just pondering on those times when we get in our own way. 

I file. I like to file. I have binders and dividers and sticky notes and coloured highlighters. Filing is fun. I know how to do it. I’ve mastered the alphabet so ordering is a piece of cake. It’s all practical, useful, neat and I can find stuff, but

It isn’t Writing.

You see my Procrastination style is – Organiser

 

There are several Procrastination styles available and in a wide variety of colours, such as the

Socialiser – Unable to spend long periods of time alone, the socialiser will spend a couple of extra minutes on every phone call, answer every query and every doorbell and then complain that no-one leaves them alone to get anything done, while they book a dinner meeting because who wants to eat alone, right?

 Awareness will help you to overcome your procrastination style and be more time efficient. The insidious thing about procrastination is that we mostly choose things which look useful and in fact are even necessary in small doses,

Now excuse me while I file this Blog post…where are the P’s?

Tune-up

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The English language has built over time and has rules of construction; just as any other builder has to follow a code, the writer should be able to don their hard hat and survey their handiwork. Kick the foundations and see if it wobbles.

In order to do this effectively the writer needs a good and up to date understanding of the rules. I recommend a yearly tune-up with a good grammar.

Of course, there are times when the correct use of grammar is simply incorrect, such as when we represent everyday speech.
Speech follows a whole different set of social rules,

Ya get me blud?

No one said you have to follow the rules all the time but it’s more fun to break them what you know are there.

Word Nerd

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I suppose everybody has their quirks. We all have those things which set us apart. Some people love a good equation, others a new pair of shoes. I love words. I love the way that they are born, evolve, grow and naturally die. I love the way that you can trace their family trees back through generations to a particular place, time and experience. I love those that make it into common usage and those which fell by the wayside. Every word tells us something about the thoughts and feelings of the people who coined it and used it. Sound, explosiveness, mouth-feel, vowel pattern speak about the history of our language and ourselves. Language is vocalised thought. Words are the history of thought. I could go on. I won’t

I will go back to quietly collecting the new and the archaic to the befuddlement of onlookers, cherishing my map of morphology and polishing the odd verb, because I am an unashamed word nerd.

And the best bit is, I get to use all of them and any of them at any time.

That is the definition of a writer

Word Herd

Confidence

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Writing can be a very lonely profession. I am not for one moment suggesting that writers are friendless or that we live a hermit-like existence on coffee and cheese sandwiches, but much of our working day is of necessity spent inside our own heads. The trouble with spending a great deal of time with ourselves is that we think. We are our nation’s thinkers after all.

What happens if you give a world class thinker nothing but themselves to think about? Self-reflection, insecurity, and boozy Monday mornings, that’s what!

So, how do we avoid the negativity trap? Well, it has a great deal to do with the difference between Egotism and Confidence. Egotism can be defined as the drive to maintain and enhance favourable views of oneself, and generally features an inflated sense of self importance. Confidence on the other hand is the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; firm trust.

Egotism is emotional toddlerhood – Confidence is emotional adulthood

Egotism always seeks the I and the me. Confidence is always certain of the I and the me and is looking out for the you. We all walk this emotional tightrope. Some days the toddler wins but it helps if you are aware that it is there throwing the mother of all tantrums and you learn not to listen to the ‘I can’t’, ‘They didn’t’, ‘I don’t want to’.

Confidence comes with knowing what you can do for other people. Perhaps you excel at magazine articles, technical papers or short stories. Perhaps you write copy for a website or advertising. Every small success working for the pleasure of other  people will bring you increased confidence.

No amount of success working solely for your own benefit will silence the toddler. You need to learn to grow up and walk away.

And so do I.

 

 

 

Pointless

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The first two rules of writing are

1) Have a point

2) Make it

It really doesn’t matter what you are writing and the writing style can be high literary or journalistic but a reader should always leave your words knowing what you meant to say. 

A short piece such as a blog post might only have one main point or “argument “.

A longer piece of writing, an essay or a review might have several but each should be clear, complete and come together in a final paragraph or conclusion. 

You see, people need to be able to follow your train of thought in order to decide whether they agree with you or not and that requires clarity. So part of every edit should be a review of your argument. What are you trying to say? Did you say it?

Don’t let people ever decide that you are pointless.

When All is Said and Done

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Why do I write?

It’s a question that I’ve been giving a lot of thought over the last few days. People write for different reasons. For some it’s catharsis. For others it’s communication. Some people have a clear audience in mind and others have no audience in mind, they simply have words which need to be said. Some writers want to explore complex ideas and emotions and some have no idea what they are going to explore when they sit down. I don’t think there is a right way or a wrong way to approach a writing project with the possible proviso that finishing is always better than not.

I have come to the conclusion that I write because I love it. I write because there are stories. When all is said and done and on the page, I am finished and I move on. I don’t hunt readers because it isn’t about the readers. In a sense it’s a very selfish joy. I try to put each story on the page to the best of my ability. I consciously try to improve with each one I write. I complete it and I check it and then I let it out into the world to sink or swim on its own merits.

The joy is all in the writing, and it’s this joy that keeps me coming back time and time again to put more words on the page. Even in the difficult times, the wordless days. The moments when I have to pull my ideas kicking and screaming from my imagination or seek them out in the darkest corners of my mind.

It isn’t an easy job and it isn’t often a well paid job. It’s mostly a very heavily criticised job where everyone you meet feels qualified to give you a performance review, but it’s my job and I love it.

And Readers, before you leave feeling unappreciated, you should know that even after all this time I am still amazed, surprised and gratified by every single reader who takes the time and the trouble to read my work. It’s a gift I don’t demand and I never expect.

Thank you

 

 

Fear

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Exactly what is it that holds you back from pursuing your dreams?

If it’s your moral compass then, good! 

If however like many writers you’re worried that people will hate what you do then I can make you a promise right here and now. Yes, yes they will. It doesn’t matter what you write or how you write it people will hate what you do, and you are not alone in this. Consider the company you keep:

Salmaan Rushdie – Perhaps the most extreme example 

JK Rowling – Not everyone loves a wizard

Anne Rice – Every time she writes someone tells her she can’t write

Ray Bradbury – Too colourful for some

Stephen King – Is told than he can write but shouldn’t

 Terry Pratchett – Doesn’t he know how to make chapters?

Dickens – Too descriptive

All of these writers have been told that they shouldn’t have bothered, their work is not good. All of them suffered multiple, multiple, multiple rejections.

Should they have let that stop them?

Should you?

I can promise you that every piece of work you write will be disliked by someone, but if you like it and it’s well written then out there in the world there are people who think, feel and believe the same as you who will LOVE it.

Write for yourself and write for them.

Keep putting work out there until they find you.

Social Media

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Today I have been pondering the vagaries of Twitter, Facebook and social media in general.

I have come to the conclusion that targeted advertising can be a very good thing if it is targeted well. We receive so much information on a daily basis. I for one receive a huge number of requests and suggestions about what to read. I would love to read everything but I have to be honest here and say that I am very unlikely to read most of it. Heck, I’m a writer. I haven’t even managed to read all my own work.

So, why do we writers advertise to other writers? Why do we collect them?

 The answer to that question is that “Bird’s of a feather flock together” we really do. We like to see how things are going in the writing world. We like to glean ideas and to be able to judge ourselves against some imagined chart of success. We are nosy. We also want to feel part of a gang. That is a perfectly normal and wonderful thing and balm to the soul when you are sitting in a darkened room with your fifth coffee and another first draft. We simply need to remember that these are our people and not our audience. Of course we are all pretty happy to bump up each others Twitter “followship” that goes without saying.

Successful PR is targeted PR. Every so often we should check our strategy to see whether we are putting our work in front of the right people; the people before you who will buy and not just the people behind you, who will back you all the way.