For the journey...

We writers need all the support we can get on what can be a lonely journey. No wonder we join writing communities and writing groups, sign up for writing classes and follow writer’s blogs. It helps to know that others like ourselves are out there, rooting for us, encouraging us, teaching us and supporting us. The tribe of writers is a vast one, spanning the globe and almost every age-group and circumstance.

So as we embark on this new year, I thought I’d write about the resources which have been most helpful on my own writer’s journey. Perhaps you’d like to add your own.

FOR EARLY INSPIRATION

The Artist’s Way – Julia Cameron
This is the most brilliant resource to really help you focus on your creativity. Especially good if you like a structure. Its combination of a 12-week plan, daily Morning Pages and walking and a weekly Artist’s Date are excellent for restoring your own confidence in yourself as a creative person.

Becoming A Writer – Dorothea Brande
Written many decades ago, this is still seen as a definitive guide to becoming a writer.

The Way We Write – Barbara Baker
A collection of fascinating essays by writers in many different genres about their writing practices.

WHILST WRITING

I love The Complete Book of Novel Writing (everything you need to know about creating and selling your work) - Writers Digest – a vast tome which is made up of essays by writers, each focussing on a different angle of the novel-writing process. Really good on the craft of writing.

Stein on Writing - Sol Stein is fabulous. Stein is both an editor and a successful novelist and he Talks Sense. His other book on growing a novel is also great.

EDITING

This one’s a bit controversial. Self-Editing For Fiction Writers - Browne and King is the Marmite of the editing guides. I found it helpful. Judge for yourself.

FOR THE LOWS: REJECTION, EXHAUSTION ETC.

The Resilient Writer (tales of rejection and triumph from 23 writers) – Catherine Wald
This cheered me up during the hard times.

The Writer’s Book of Hope – Ralph Keyes
Ditto

The Sound of Paper and The Right to Write – Julia Cameron
In these, Cameron is very open about her own writerly rocky patches and how she copes with the hard times.

SUBMITTING

From Pitch to Publication – Carole Blake
Written by the founder of literary agents Blake Friedmann. Gives a good overview of the process of submitting from an agent’s point of view. Not sure about her advice about long synopses, but if you’re subbing to her, you know what you need to do!

MARKETING AND PUBLICITY

Marketing Your Book – Alison Baverstock
Wanna Be A Writer We’ve Heard Of? – Jane Wenham-Jones

ONLINE COMMUNITY

WriteWords Writing Community
A great online resource where writers can get together, let off steam, learn, be critiqued and where several well-published authors are experts and are extremely generous with their time and advice. Free for a month’s trial, then £20/35 per year.
http://writewords.org.uk/

EDITORIAL REPORTS

The Hilary Johnson Author’s Advisory Service
I sent off my first three chapters, synopsis and cover letter and received a very helpful and encouraging report.
http://www.hilaryjohnson.demon.co.uk/

Cornerstones
Have heard good things about them. They also occasionally have competitions which are well worth entering.
http://www.cornerstones.co.uk/

The Writer’s Workshop
Again, heard good things. And they will look at your cover letter by email for free, or at least they used to.
http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/literary-agents.html

COURSES AND OPPORTUNITIES

NAWE (National Association of Writers in Education, aka The Writers Compass)
Used to be called Literature Training. An excellent, free guide to opportunities for writers – courses, classes, jobs etc. You only need to sign up with them and they’ll email you updates every couple of weeks.
http://www.nawe.co.uk/the-writers-compass/about-the-writers-compass.html

Arvon Foundation
I’ve never been on an Arvon course myself, but pretty much everyone I know who has has returned singing their praises. Expensive, yes, but they have the very best tutors and also offer bursaries.
http://www.arvonfoundation.org/p1.html

AND FINALLY...

A friend was kind enough to post me the Guardian Masterclass supplement on How To Write Fiction – a really, really excellent publication which is now available as an e-book for less than £3: definitely worth it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/info/2011/oct/14/how-to-write-fiction-ebook

So that’s my personal list of resources. Would love to hear yours.

And wishing you all a creative, productive and successful writing year from all of us at Strictly.

On Dishwashers And Writing Houses

Rachel Connor works for the Arvon Foundation at Lumb Bank, former home of the ex-Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes. Along with her colleagues, she hosts groups of writers who come to stay at the writing centre most weeks of the year. She never tires of the view. You can read more about Rachel, her work for Arvon and her forthcoming novel ‘Sisterwives’ on her website at http://www.rachelconnorwriter.com/

Monday morning; there’s the thrum of a lawnmower outside on the lower terrace, the hum of a vacuum cleaner from the landing above. The house is in waiting, being prepared for the sixteen writers and two tutors who will comprise this week’s participants. ‘Arvon has been running these courses for forty three years,’ we tell people in the welcome talk. ‘This week it’s your turn.’

What amazes me every week is how readily most groups grow into their ‘turn’ and claim ownership – not just the physical space of the house itself but a growing into the rhythm of the week. It’s that feeling of wanting to ‘make the most’ of the place, the time, the opportunity to write. Because, let’s face it, it can be a big thing to set aside a week to go away and write, to leave behind families, partners, work and the demands of everyday life. Some make new friends; all go away changed in some way. Some realise that they are writers, when they’ve grappled for years with what that means; others might learn something difficult, fundamental – even unwelcome - about their work. All of these things mean that the writer will grow.

The reason Arvon works is simple: the system works to create not just a writing course, but a place where people come together as a community of writers. It was there right from the beginning, forty three years ago, and is still a keystone of the way the courses run now. As well as attending workshops together, everyone eats around a big table; participants are put into groups for cooking and washing up. By the end of the first evening – the first meal and wash up, the ‘get to know you’ writing session – the bonding is already beginning to happen.

Of course, washing up (or even cooking, for that matter) isn’t to everyone’s liking; there are inevitable grumbles about the lack of dishwasher. But none of this is new. In Lumb Bank’s kitchen we have a framed poem, written in the 1990s, ‘On Lumb Bank Not Having a Dishwasher.’ By the end of the poem, the poet’s initial dismay has been dispelled. It’s deliberate, she realises, because it makes you stop, and look, and think.

And then there are the workshops. As a member of staff at the centre, working in the background, putting away shopping or preparing the lunch, it’s easy to feel like Cinderella. There are the gales of laughter from the dining room, where the group is writing. There are the tantalising snippets of work being read aloud, evidence – afterwards – of an exercise designed to generate and stimulate. Sometimes there are fragments of poems pinned to the walls. More than once I’ve found myself wondering if we might invest in a baby monitor, for the purposes of listening in while I’m making salad.

One of the remarkable things about my job is being witness to countless small but significant moments in people’s writing lives. It might be in the sitting room on a Monday, after everyone has arrived, when a participant realises – perhaps for the first time in their life - they don’t have to explain their motivation for writing. It might be seeing a nervous student waiting outside a closed door before their one to one tutorial with a tutor. They clutch notebooks to chest, faces almost white with anticipation. Then they emerge, butterfly-like, lighter, validated, understood.

For me, the most rewarding weeks are those we run with young people. We might have inner city kids – with little or no experience of the countryside – arriving into the space and green of the valley. They marvel at the ‘wildlife’ and the view. Within minutes they’ve found the piano. Their concentration is tested; they learn new kitchen skills, how to chop an onion. They eat food they never thought they’d try. And writing...with the guidance of two tutors who are chosen for their humour, compassion and sensitivity, these schoolchildren gently open up, petals turned towards light. ‘Miss,’ they say, coming into the kitchen during a coffee break. ‘I’ve wrote a poem, miss, do you want to hear it?’

How could there be any other answer than yes?