Putting good words together well

We all want to write well, don’t we?  And by write I mean, of course, make up stories that are readable.  And by readable, not only do I mean ‘make sense’ I mean entertaining, thought-provoking, interesting.  You know the thing.  That’s why you’re here.  Why we’re all here.

That’s what I presume anybody who has their name on any book has done; wanted to do and has proven to the world that they have the capability to do.  They have a book in print.  On shelves.  In my home, in my hand (and destined for the Charity Bin should I see fit). They can write. And if they have a book published I assume they can write well.

The penultimate book I read, I positively ‘devoured’. In fact if I’d been passed the pre-proof copy and asked to pen a suitable one-liner to go on said book, I’d have said something like “bloody brilliant”.  Because it was.  It wasn’t perfect - there isn’t a book I’d ever call perfect - but it was pretty damn near.  And here’s a line that made me want to squeeze it to death in a readerly-writerly hug:

“….. I stand holding recyclable bin bags in the middle of Age UK.  The woman at the counter has grey hair in a bun and glasses round her neck on a string, like a wonderful granny from a Roald Dahl story who’d adopt you if your parents were wiped out in the first chapter in  some blackly comic manner.’

…..

I can’t tell you how delighted I felt when I read this.  And how many times I had to re-read it because of how tickly-with-joy it made me.  I mean, it just evokes such a spontaneous image and reading as a writer, it made me doff a cap and a half to the author. (Mhairi Mcfarlane: ‘You Had Me At Hello’ – bloody brilliant, I might have mentioned).

This book made me want to write and write and write… and that hasn’t happened to me since I read Marion Keyes’ ‘Watermelon’ debut decades ago.

Accessibility and personality leap from every page.  That’s both books.

And so to my next read.  And to a book which has just about as many  thousands of 5 star ratings as the above and I couldn’t wait to get my teeth into it.

But, dear writer, please, read this:

‘To go back to Gail, I must talk to her in person.  A letter just won’t do.  Oh look it started raining.  I hope Eilidh is not out on her bike.  She used to love cycling, we’d been everywhere on our bikes when she lived here.

I just burnt my hand.’

I’ve re-read this just as many times as I re-read the wonderful first example I gave you.  And it still makes me want to scream, tear something up and stamp on it (probably the book because it doesn’t get any better, let me tell you).

‘Oh look it started raining’? *ahem* tense?  Yep, just a tad.

So stunned by its awfulness, I showed people.  To make sure I hadn’t mis-read or misunderstood.  One person handed it back and said “It’s like something I’d have written in year 8 and been embarrassed to admit to.”

Well quite.

And this book (I read right to the bitter BITTER end just to make sure it was as bad as it started out. Guess what?) made me want to write and write and write as well, but for wildly different reasons.  I just couldn’t believe that this sort of thing got past a reader/editor/agent/whatever order they  come in and got published and was still getting SO MANY 5* reviews.   I mean wtf?

It gave me hope.

And it won't be going in the charity bin because whenever I feel like I can’t go on and everything I write is truly awful, I know that all I have to do is pick up this book, turn to ANY page… yes ANY… and it will make me feel better again.

Here, have another piece:

‘When I told Jamie, he didn’t say anything.  He said he had to go, he was meeting his friend John, they were going fishing. He avoided me for the next two weeks.’

Yep, I know.   Set in the land where, when people don’t say anything,  then proceed to SAY SOMETHING. (And even Word’ has green-squiggled the ‘they’ in this sentence.  Argh!).

Confessions of a notebook addict

I am a notebook obsessive. Anyone who knows me knows this: many of my notebooks are presents from friends who bring me them back from their travels, adding to my ever-growing collection. I love paper – there is something enticing about the blank page, the tactile joy of it, the scratching of pen over paper, that you simply can’t recreate with an empty screen. A blank screen is daunting: a blank page is exciting.

Dark Dates 2 - the first draft (and my feet)

An unused notebook jettisons me back to the ‘start of term’ feeling of my youth; it speaks of possibilities, of projects not yet started: but also of finiteness. A notebook runs out, you come to an ending – you get a sense of achievement and completion when you fill a notebook. On a computer, you can just keep typing: opening a notebook, you know that at some stage, you won’t be able to write anymore.

I write all of my fiction in longhand, a fact that continues to boggle many around me. In fact, it’s even more arduous than that first sounds, because for longer works, my progress goes like this: do ‘character notes’ and scenes in longhand (roughly: 7 notebooks’ worth). Pull all of those together into first draft, written in longhand (roughly: 10 notebooks), then do another longhand draft, tidying up and rewriting as I go (another 10 notebooks or so). Only then do I even consider starting to type: sometimes, not even then (I did 3 handwritten drafts of Dark Dates before I transferred it to a computer).

Unbelievably, this is only about half of my current stash

This is a project inherent with risk: I once had my bag stolen and the thing I was most upset about was I lost a notebook that included two weeks’ worth of work; work that, being handwritten, had no back up anywhere. But it’s also an incredibly rewarding way to work and, I think, ultimately benefits my writing. I write incredibly quickly (as anyone who attempts to read my unruly scrawl will attest), finding that nothing gets the ideas flowing faster than just sitting with a pen and letting go, but writing longhand forces me to edit slowly – a variant on Hemingway’s write drunk, edit sober theory (um, I do that too, I must admit). No matter how good I think the first draft is, I still have to type it up: it will inevitably be reread, edited and changed as I go. (I also only use one side of the paper, using the other to make notes and ask questions: as someone who struggles to maintain continuity in my plots, I need the space to go ‘why has this just happened? Where did X go?’ in the margins. )You can’t erase your mistakes, they are still there on the paper: and sometimes you come back to them and find they weren’t mistakes at all.

One of my ex-colleagues shared my love for stationery and always used to quote a teacher who said that ‘ink thinks’: that the very act of writing longhand changes the way you express yourself. I find I agree: writing on paper is a tactile pleasure in a way that using a computer, for all its marvels, never can. I love my laptop – and dear God I would hate to be back in the old days of Tipp-ex and typewriters – but there’s something about stationery that nourishes my soul.

(If you are a lover of all things stationery, let me direct you to my idea of heaven: Liberty of London's stationery hall. You may never leave.)

Welcome To ... (See Picture)

I’ve decided to call the last twenty one days – my ‘weird weeks’. Picasso had a blue phase so I think I’m allowed a weird one. Three weeks ago, I was happily sitting in the family home we’ve been in for sixteen years and now we’re selling it. All because I drove up a road and saw a ‘For Sale’ sign. All because my husband, whom I regularly show ‘For Sale’ signs to, didn’t give me a derisory grunt this time, but instead said ‘Let’s do it. Let’s move!’



This happening so quickly – and it needs to if we want the house we’re after - adds to the weirdness. And whilst I’ve been running around like a headless chicken wondering, worrying, if we are ‘doing the right thing’, I haven’t been writing at all, which has felt really odd. I’ve missed it, which has led me to realise the following things:

1. I love it. I LOVE my writing!
2. I am blessed to be able to write and not to have to go into some office I loathe every day.
3. Too often I forget number two.
4. Far too often I forget number one, leading me to obsess about things like publication and forget the craft and the actual joy of writing stories.
5. September is the month this is going to change because I am going to get back to being grateful for number one and two in my life. Any writing I do will be done because I enjoy it and am writing what I want to – not what I feel I should.

The weird phase has also led me to realise the following:

1. Only nutters move house on a whim.
2. Only nutters try to sell and buy a house in the space of six weeks.
3. Only nutters fit an entire ground floor of solid oak flooring in a house and then consider moving.
4. Only nutters leave a beautifully finished house with room for their books to move into a ‘project’ where books will have to be stored.
5. Only nutters think there will be any writing done at all in September...
6. Only nutters think there just might be a story in all that???