A little heresy before bedtime

Maybe you're just a number two.

Another momentous Wimbledon has come and gone - a tale of heroism, endeavour, victory and defeat. Basically it's been like watching a writing tournament, only with tennis racquets. Hang on, I hear you shout, we don't have writing tournaments unless you mean competitions. No, I mean the whole experience of being a writer.

You train (just go with me on this), you perfect your skills and you try not to drop the ball. Some will triumph and some will fall, but sooner or later every writer - and I mean every one - will have a defining moment that gives them clarity about their approach and their ability.

It could be that short story competition where you failed to win a prize by just two judges' points. Perhaps it's that first novel rejection - in every sense - where you either cry into your beer and give up, or cry into your beer and vow to prove them wrong.*

I put it to you that it's our failures that define us. We can't all be Booker winners and from now on none of us will be Orange Fiction Pize winners. I think I can also say, with some confidence, that most of us won't get agents or bank-busting three-book deals.

So why go through the submissions mill? Why aim for the stars?

Think back, those of you who've had your work rejected in the past. If you're still writing, I'd be willing to wager that you learned important things from a good rejection - one where you learned something about your work. I guarantee that by the time you finished your next complete edit you cringed at the very idea you'd submitted the previous version. I know I have - several times!

One of my defining moments was when our writing group used to meet at Susie's. We were bemoaning the carousel of submissions, waiting and disappointment. The subject of revisions came up and Kath said that it was about producing the best work possible. That's when it came to me. I knew that I only wanted to do the minimum number of edits necessary. Not because I'm a lazy sod. Well, not exactly.

I want to enjoy the process of writing and I accept that it's a learning curve. But there comes a point where, after 'x' number of edits (and it varies according to each novel I've written), I would rather stop before I tear the heart out of the piece. I'd rather learn the lessons, set it aside and pour my passion into something new. I'm not entirely sure whether that's a victory or a failure.

What have your writing rejections and failures taught you?

* Let me say for the record that I don't much care for beer or crying. 

Book report

I try to read as many newly released books as I can, mainly those in the so-called literary genre, but as you know, it’s like taking on the role of a goalkeeper when a thousand balls are heading toward you. As much as I desperately want to read every book as soon as it's released, I fully appreciate that even the keenest (and fastest) of readers will only select from those newly released books that most interest them. I’ve only read a handful of books this year – the first half of the year was obliterated thanks to having severe hyperemesis. I’ve missed so many good books in recent months but I always try to add them to my Amazon wish list so they don’t slip through the net altogether.

I’ve just ordered this year’s entire Booker shortlist as a Christmas present for myself (!), not only because it looks like a fine combo, but also to see if I agree with the judges’ decision. I have a feeling I won’t though. I’m especially looking forward to reading The Sisters Brothers (shouldn’t there be an apostrophe there?) Then there’s Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan published by the highly respected Serpent’s Tail. My first inkling when I saw the cover was that this particular book had been written by a man. Just goes to show you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.

Talking about having missed many fine reads over the last year, I dug around Amazon and added quite a few ‘must have’ books to my list, not all of them literary though. I really want to read The Pink Hotel by Ana Stothard, but I may just keep it as my summer sunbathing read. I also added Submission by Amy Waldman, a September 11 novel, The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon, The Hare With Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal, Saraswati Park by Anjali Joseph, The Pleasure Seekers by Tishani Doshi (I love the cover), The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht, and The Privileges by Jonathan Dee. I could go on and on and tell you about the 319 books I have on the list. I hope I live long enough to get through the list which isn’t yet complete, and which grows each week, thanks to the Sunday Times Culture section among other supplements.

It’s nice to cosy up with a good book on a cold winter’s night, listening to the gentle patter of snow on the window pane. That, I suppose, is the only good thing about winter. And I'm looking forward to getting through this long list I have. Sadly though, even if I spent every minute of every day of every year for the next fifty years, would I be able to be goalkeeper to all these wonderful books?

Question Time

If you follow Strictly regularly, you'll have noticed that we occasionally ask writers a series of Quick-Fire Questions, designed to get in amongst the nitty-gritty details of their writing lives.

This morning I decided to choose five questions to ask myself, with the idea of asking you, should you choose this mission, to do the same. Here are the questions and my answers:

Where do you write?
Perched at a breakfast bar in my recently rented flat in Bristol. Squashed between a fridge-freezer and a full-length Georgian window with no curtain. At night I can see into my neighbours' hall. I watch their nocturnal comings-and-goings, which usually involve dogs. And they can watch me struggling to write. An edifying sight, I'm sure.

Plotter or Pantser?
In my fondest dreams, I'm a Pantser through and through. Flying by the seat of my pants, Letting It All Hang Out on the page. Keeping it loose. Scrawling freely in longhand in a notebook, all the way through to the end of a wonderfully Shitty First Draft. In reality I hunch like a constipated Scrooge over the keyboard (all the better for obsessing over every word), unable or unwilling to move on until the bit I've written is Absolutely Right.

Booker Prize or Hollywood Movie?
Hmm. Tricky. Though given the style of my writing, I think a Hollywood movie might be best (the money, of course, doesn't come into it): I'd rather connect with a multitude of people than with a critical few. Also, I don't have the right kind of intellect for the Booker interviews I'd have to do for Radio Four. I would crumble under John Humphrys' steely eye.

Favourite writing snack - sweet or savoury?
I'm not choosy, as long as it's within easy reach and not too messy (see - even my snacks have to be plotted).

What makes your inner writer happy?
The magic of writing: the joy when a combination of words and phrases comes together feeling real and true and right; creating something or someone who wasn't there before and who never will exist unless I sit down and write them; the way the writing knows where it's going, even if I don't.

So, over to you. Any or all of them.

- Where do you write?
- Plotter or Pantser?
- Booker Prize or Hollywood Movie?
- Favourite writing snack?
- What makes your writer happy?

The weird and the wonderful

While chatting recently to fellow Strictly blogger, Rod, I mentioned the Cambridgeshire-born author Nicola Barker and went on to praise her quirkiness. I first stumbled upon her in 2008 after seeing one of the rather attractive covers of Darkmans – the one which features a court jester. And I ordered the book from Amazon because it looked cool and original. Despite being 838 pages long, I was engrossed from the beginning, partly due to the unusual use of language. We are introduced to oddball characters Beede and Kane, a father and son who work in a hospital laundry and deal in prescription drugs respectively and who, despite living in the same apartment block, are estranged from each other. Set in Ashford, Kent, it's a book populated with characters who are quite simply, bizarre. I'm not even going to attempt to cobble together a brief synopsis, but the weird and wonderful characters, who are so 3D they leap off the page, include Kane's ex-girlfriend, Kelly, Gaffar, a Kurdish refugee who works for Kane and is terrified of salad leaves, Elen, Beede's chiropodist, Isadore, her husband, and their son, Fleet, who is constructing a model cathedral from matchsticks.

The book was shortlisted for the 2007 Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the 2008 Ondaatje Prize - and quite rightly so!

My interest in Ms Barker's books doesn't end there. To whet your appetite, her previous novels include Wide Open, which is set on a nudist beach, a wild boar farm and a nature reserve on the Isle of Sheppey, and which feature her array of idiosyncratic characters. There's also Behindlings with central character Wesley who is stalked by a bunch of weird outlandish people including Josephine, a nurse and environmental campaigner, the scandalous Katherine Turpin, and Ted, the island's estate agent, all of whom have their own reasons for following Wesley.

Or there's Clear, narrated by a young man who is drawn to watch David Blaine suspended in a Perspex box above the Thames.

I've just started The Burley Cross Postbox Theft, a book which is comprised of a series of letters. I recently read an interview with Ms Barker in the Guardian in which she talked about the origins of this comically absurd book.

Apparently a few years ago friends of hers applied for planning permission to make amendments to their house and Ms Barker wrote a letter penned by 'the planning office', requesting them to put up a partition in their living-room. She said in the interview that she thought nothing more about it until sometime later when her friends phoned after realising she had faked the letter. Apparently they were furious. She tried to make amends when she heard about their problem with people hanging plastic bags filled with dog poo on their hedge, so she decided to write something about dog waste and legislation, in a form of letters.

And so the epistolary Burley Cross Postbox Theft was born. In the book, the village postbox is broken into and its contents, including 26 letters, 22 Christmas cards and nine applications for a remedy designed to cure erectile dysfunction, were placed in a bin bag and dumped in the backyard of the hairdresser. And now, PC Topping must sort through the letters. It seems everyone is objecting to everything, no matter how mundane - from dog poo to speed limits, planning rules and who gets to be Jesus in the Christmas play. It's all a bizarre mix and over time, the reader realises the incidents are in some way connected. It's all good fun and if you enjoy a quirky read which raises a wry smile, then Ms Barker's books should be on your list.

Her novels make compelling reading, given that the characters really come alive. They even stay with you for some time well after you've closed the books. In each story you'll find the common theme of sympathy for the underdog or oddball. Having lauded her brilliance, Ms Barker is not what I would call a commercially successful novelist. But she has that x-factor that not a great many contemporary writers have.

There's no place like home

A book which has burrowed its way into my innermost thoughts recently is The Glass Room by Simon Mawer, an intelligent tale set in the former Czechoslovakia focusing on the themes of art, loss, love, fear and betrayal.

And architecture too! Yes, that particular theme is one of the most prevalent running through this novel, and an unusual one too. In the book, wealthy Jew Viktor Landauer and his wife Liesel have been given a gift of land by Liesel's parents to build their own home. Not wanting something traditional, Viktor seeks out the modern and goes ahead with plans to build a glass room - Der Glasraum. The architect employed by Viktor is Rainer von Abt, a man whom the couple met on their honeymoon and one who is deeply moved by innovation and progress.

The Glass Room is not merely a room per se in the novel: it forms the structure of the book – think of a roof under which all the characters interact. The storylines develop under this roof and the glass room becomes the focal point of all manner of activity.

However, as the story progresses, the Glass Room is removed from the Landauers and taken over by the Nazis for scientific experiments, and then claimed by the communists, before becoming a museum, and the site for a final scene of redemption.

The fact that it's made of glass allows the reader to see into the lives with ease, the character are exposed, laid out before us...naked. It's voyeuristic and the many encounters between different couples threaten to throw the plot off course. The historical events too are drawn to the house, taking place within its walls, rather than in the great wide open.

A surprisingly easy read, I was engaged from start to finish. The fluency of the language, the ideas and Mawer's characters all combine to make a flawless novel.

This is Simon Mawer's eighth novel and he's an author I want to know more about. I've got my hands on a copy of The Gospel of Judas and I'm reading it once I finish We Need To Talk About Kevin. I remember reading a review of this book shortly after it was released and the reviewer said that once a film is made of this book, the story will be completely spoiled. It was shortlisted for last year's Booker Prize and quite rightly so. I want to know why it didn't win.