New Dogs, Old Tricks and Right Times

Writing ‘credentials’ fascinate me.  If I’m reading a book I’m enjoying  (and this is where paper is preferable over screen I think) I’ll flip to the Author page and see what they’re all about  - unless it’s a writer I’m already familiar with, or am friends with already (oh yes I rub shoulders with some good ‘uns) .  And if I see that they have a Degree in Drama or English Literature then I nod sagely; ‘ah…so this is why it’s written well’, and if I read that they have worked in Theatre or at the BBC or anywhere else remotely creative and Arty then I think the same; they have the experience, the education, the knowledge to produce something of this calibre.  But show me a page where the author says they’ve got an MA in  Creative Writing or spent years under the mentorship of JK Rowling* and that’s when I’ll show you some scratched off skin (mine).

These are the itches that I can’t leave alone.  And oftentimes I wonder if the itching is purely because I’m cross and jealous that MAs in  Creative Writing didn’t exist in ‘my day’ – heck, forget the Bath College of Fine Art, I’d have sold my parents and  brother and thrown the gerbils in for a place on a Creative Writing degree course in the 80’s. (I’d have kept the dog of course).

Similarly I would have been/would be very pleased to be considered a suitable candidate for Mentoring at any stage of this Writing Career I have chosen for myself.  Well, wouldn’t I?

Because in my head (you’d better bring a cagoule – it can get messy in there), a Creative Writing degree would help me hone my craft, polish my phrasing, enhance my metaphors and sharpen my shynopshishes. Maybe.

And wouldn’t having a Mentor be the next best thing to having an agent on-side all the time? A staunch and loyal supporter who encourages, rallies, cheerleads and hands out shoulders to cry on at the drop of a cliché? Isn’t that what they do?

Another part of my internal tussle the n invites my Art Teacher, the very arty farty Mrs Black, godlove’er, who used to peer over at my latest ‘piece’, point and suggest slight alterations.  Which she’d then go and suggest to the next art student, and the next and the next, until we were all basically producing pieces of art a la Mrs Black.  Which frankly even back then I couldn’t see the point of and made me want to slap her.  I did tell her once to leave me alone, this was how I wanted to do it and I loved the result.  I even got a commission  from the Head  to produce a print for his office.  Glory days.

I bet nobody poked their nose over Van Gogh’s shoulder and told him to make his sunflowers a bit more realistic. Can you imagine Mrs Black telling Picasso he should really make his nose stay in the middle of the face and not stick an ear on the nice lady’s neck?

I mean, where would it all end?

So is there a Right Way and a Wrong Way when it comes to creativity?  Did Jane Austen get her work scrutinized by a Master or a Mentor before publication (I don’t know actually… she might have done for all I know). 

Lately I’ve been seriously considering getting myself a Mentor.  I did enter a competition earlier in the year when a successful author was offering her services as a Mentor over the course of a year which included meet ups, skype/phone calls, e-mails, help with editing, revisions, introductions to agents and publishers and I very nearly internally combusted with excitement because I thought surely, at this stage in my writing journey I must be ripe for Mentoring.  Surely there can’t be much more left I need to learn… surely….. “… (stop calling me Shirley”).

I poured my bleeding heart out into that competition application.  I told her how long I’d been writing; how close I’d come to getting an agent; how many books I’d written, how I’d give an arm and a leg (the parents are long gone and the brother’s got a family now so I don’t think he’d appreciate being a bartering tool these days) for the opportunity she was offering. I emailed the covering letter, the application and a sample of the book I was working on  at the time. And waited.

I was so certain.

And I’m the least certain person I know.

Added to the fact there were 6 winning places on ‘offer’ and a further 8 ‘runners-up’ who would receive some special assistance in their creative endeavours, I imagined it was only a matter of waiting for the deadline to arrive.

This...THIS is why I should have the miniscule Bone of Belief amputated from my stupid body.

Not only did I not gain any of the 6 winning places –which had been upped to 12, I also didn't qualify as a runner up either – of which there were now 15 (or something like that).

I was rubbish.

If proof were ever needed as to how positively sh*te I truly was, then here it was in black and white.  Or rather it wasn’t. Anywhere.

I can’t tell you the number of times I read the names on that l-o-n-g list of successful applicants and I can’t tell you how many of them I Googled – just  to make everything hurt even more.

But today, after months of wound-licking, I have finally realised and rediscovered the hole in my shell where my head is supposed to poke through, and I stand before you and ask: do you think Mentorship is a good idea? Or should this experience just be sucked up and got on with in preparation  for the Right Time?

Oh, and if anybody has a watch capable, can they please tell me where the Right Time is?!

 * Other stupidly successful authors are also available :)

The Joy of Incompetence

At the end of 2010 I made some resolutions. I planned to write in longhand more often, to listen to audiobooks, and to use ‘dead time’ more productively (by which I mean writing or reading in all those valuable moments that drain away while I’m waiting for other people to get their act together.)


I was successful at longhand, a failure at audiobooks (I tend to zone out the voice within a couple of minutes) and the dead time has mostly been filled by the engrossing narratives of the Mumsnet relationships forum. But there was one resolution that really made a difference to my life. I took up Lindy Hop dancing.

Lindy Hop is a 1930s/40s swing dance that has enjoyed a revival over the past 30 years or so. I didn’t realise when I started, but it turns out that Lindy Hop is actually quite cool. At least, it’s a way for uncool people to find a niche of coolness. It’s a way of having a big night out in London while wearing sensible shoes and drinking nothing but water because the dancing is more important than boozing. It's a way of socialising with friendly, well-dressed, intelligent people. It's a way of going to an event called 'Saturday Night Swing Club' without the merest hint of anything dodgy going on.

Another advantage of Lindy Hop is that it's like exercise, only fun. I’ve been dancing once a week (often twice, sometimes three times) since January 2011 – I lost a stone in the first couple of months and have actually kept some of it off. This stopped me looking quite so much like a hamster and inspired me to get a proper haircut and smarten myself up a bit, which is probably a good thing.

There’s only one potential problem with my new hobby. I am, not to put too fine a point on things, absolutely shite at dancing.

Strictly Writing now has its very own Ann Widdecombe. Lindy Hop is admittedly complicated to learn, but after more than a year of lessons I ought to be a bit less, well… shite… than I am. Other people who started learning at the same time now look to me like something out of Hellzapoppin’, while I’m still just trying not to fall over. Added to which, I'm no spring chicken compared with many London Lindy Hoppers – so on the social dance floor I'm the inept old saddo with whom only the most kind-hearted or equally inept people will dance.

But the heartening thing is that this doesn't matter. I find dancing fun and worth doing for its own sake. My new motto is: feel the incompetence and do it anyway. As someone whose writing life has been characterised by the thought ‘I’ll never be any good at this. I might as well just GIVE UP NOW’, it's so refreshing to revel in doing something badly. It's made me realise that uselessness is not a good reason for giving up.

Whether you caterwaul 'I Will Survive' at the local pub's karaoke night, or whether you decorate cupcakes that look like someone took a pink dump on Jabba the Hutt’s head, there’s really a lot of fun to be had in doing things badly.

With my dancing, there are no publishers to impress, no rejection letters, no agents turning me away while trying to flog their own book. I will never enter some Bridport dancing competition; never appear on Strictly Come Dancing; never hope for a six-figure advance for my awkward attempts at the Charleston. But I'll enjoy myself, that's for sure, and I'll keep in mind that maybe writing, too, is worth doing regardless of success.

What is it that you like doing... badly?

Failure + Singing Out Loud = Successful Journey

Wednesday last was dedicated to clearing the boxes in the small bedroom/office after our house move. Order was the order of the day – I hated the fact that things weren’t in their ‘right’ place yet.

Anyway, in amongst the boring tax and banking stuff and a huge pile of paper for shredding , I came across some cds with songs I’d co-written some years ago. So I started to tidy the mess with my lyrics playing in the background.

I knew when I wrote them that I wasn’t the best lyricist (most of the work being an excuse to write something more akin to poetry than commercial lyrics) and listening to them years later I still felt that though the end result songs were ‘good’ – they weren’t amazing. Simon Cowell was not going to call in his search for the Christmas 2011 number one... And the song I'd written with Kelly Clarkson in mind, well...maybe not.

But then a strange thing happened. I looked at the pile of demo cds, next to a shoe box that holds my two unpublished novel manuscripts and rather than think of failure, of the fact that none of that work was ‘good enough’, I found myself beaming with pride. Hey! I made that music happen! And I wrote two books – all of that in three years! I turned the music up, went downstairs and made a cup of tea, sang along at full belt to my non amazing songs (in the style of Kelly Clarkson naturally) then went back upstairs and read the first halves of both manuscripts in the shoe box.

Hours later, I beamed some more... They may not have been perfect but they weren’t half bad. In fact, yes, I’ll say it out loud –they are a little bit amazing.

Okay, book one definitely has a couple of plot holes and book two, a plot twist that simply doesn’t work in the story but both of these are fixable problems. I know how to fix them, if I choose to. And the thing is - it wasn’t the writing that made them imperfect. I guess that’s why I beamed. I just enjoyed the feeling of knowing I can write, and that all this past work is, to coin a cheesy phrase, ‘all part of the journey’.

I’ve decided not to fix the problems, at least not now, as I’m working on book three. I’ve learnt such a lot from writing all those songs and two novels and I’d prefer to concentrate on correcting areas I fell down in before. I realise that I’ve naturally become more of a plotter, less flying by the seat of my pants (Although ‘pantsing’ still remains important!)

And I’ve also realised I hate tidying paper just a little bit more than I hate things not being in the ‘right’ place. The filing is still not done, the papers still not shredded, but my cds have been framed and the old manuscripts placed in a shiny, new, hard to ignore, neon pink box. There to constantly remind me of what I’ve done and how far I’ve come.

And since last Wednesday I'm singing more. Out loud! I've missed singing! My new neighbours may not be grateful but I'm enjoying myself immensely. I've come up with a new song called 'Lucky Misfortune'. Strange title I know but Kelly had a hit with 'Beautiful Disaster' so you see where I'm coming from? And 'When We Collide' (which could mean ANYTHING) has been massive for Matt Cardle?

So if Orion don't call, come on Simon - you know you want me...