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 :)

Whatever happened to the Strictly Writing Award Winner? Carys Bray returns to tell us all!

I wanted to be a writer when I was a little girl, but I married young, had several children in quick succession and the dream got buried somewhere - probably under a big pile of dirty nappies. I started writing again as soon as my children were at school. I did a writing module during my Literature degree with the Open University and then I decided to do a Creative Writing MA.

I entered one of my early MA stories in the Strictly Writing Award competition and I was tremendously excited when I won. I was just beginning to think that perhaps, one day, when I’d had a lot more practice, I might actually be able to call myself a writer.  

I kept writing stories after I’d finished my MA and I soon had enough to make a collection. I heard about Salt Publishing’s Scott Prize, the only international prize for debut collections of short stories written in English, and I decided to enter. I was delighted to be shortlisted and over the moon to win.

My collection, Sweet Home, is full of stories about family and the things that go right, and wrong, when people live together. Some of the stories are sad, some are funny and some are best described as fairy tales. 

Lancashire Writing Hub guest editor Sarah Schofield reviewed Carys Bray’s Salt Scott Prize winning short story collection Sweet Home here: she says "...The collection is titled after the third story in the book. This decision is well measured. ‘Sweet Home’ is an updated twist on Hansel and Gretel. Playing on the original narrative, it highlights discrimination, racism and small community gossip. Refering to the foreign woman’s gingerbread home, one zenophobic character states: “She should have used an English recipe… Victoria sponge… You can’t get more English than that.” It seems more than appropriate that the Hansel and Gretel narrative, so ingrained in family life and read to generations of children, should have a re-evaluation and hold an important place in this collection. Challenging established expectations of what ‘family’ looks like...."

I get inspiration from everyday things. A couple of the stories are set in shops; one in a surreal store where people can buy children, and another in a midnight supermarket during the rescue of a group of Chilean miners. I read a lot of parenting books when my children were small and, over time, I developed a hatred of them. The opening story in the collection deals with that hatred - it is interrupted by ‘helpful’ quotes from fictional parenting books. I really like fairy tales and I think they have fuelled my love for short stories where impossible things happen. In one of my stories an old lady builds a gingerbread house and in another a carpenter sculpts a baby out of ice.

I like to read stories that are funny and sad, probably because real life is often both of those things. I like beautiful language and I also like to be surprised. Some stories I have really enjoyed recently are ‘Sports Leader’ from Jane Rogers’ new collection Hitting Trees With Sticks, ‘Sometimes Gulls Kill Other Gulls’ from A.J. Ashworth’s debut collection Somewhere Else, Or Even Here and ‘Tamagotchi’ from Adam Marek’s new collection The Stone Thrower.

I’m still writing short stories, although at the moment I’m mostly concentrating on a PhD and novel. I’m nearly at the end of my first draft of the novel. It doesn’t have a name yet, but it’s about the sudden death of a small child and it’s full of fairy tales and misplaced faith in the miraculous. It’s sad, but I hope it’s funny too, just like real life. 

To find out more about Carys, you can find her blog here:  http://carysbray.co.uk

To win a signed copy of 'Sweet Home', simply tell us which traditional fairy story YOU'D like to give a modern twist and why.  Leave your idea in our comments box  and we'll announce the winner next week on Strictly Writing.

Many thanks to Carys for coming back and telling us all about her rise to publication fame - we're so proud that we were able to play such a meaningful role in her success story.

Those Who Can Do

I've talked in the past about my discomfort around the great beast that is The Creative Writing Industry.

My feelings over this are no doubt bound up in the fact that I have never attended a CW course, been mentored or paid for a book report. And it hasn't exactly held me back.

I'm also cynical that much of this stuff is simply an exercise designed to part the would-be writer from his hard earned dosh, with vague promises of publication.

It seems to me that every writer I know has a different method of working, so how can any of us really teach anyone what the best way is?

On Saturday, at the Bedford Readers Day, a young author called Anna Stothard explained to the audience that she hardly plots at all. She lets her characters surprise her. Now this could not be more different to the way I work, yet who can say which one of us is right or wrong?

These are then the main reasons why I've always declined offers of teaching, mentoring etc. Plus of course I'm always on such bleddy tight deadlines that I hardly want more work do I?

So why then am I, for the first time, giving serious consideration to such an offer?

First, it can be no coincidence that at the same festival, another author who I greatly admire, Sophie Hannah, commented on how helpful she thought literary agencies were. How she wished they'd been around when she started out.

Second, I've just finished the copy edits on book five, Twenty Twelve, and although I should dive into book six, I'm desperate for a break. Or not so much a break as a change of scene and pace.

Third, as much as I love writing, there's no getting away from the fact that it's a fairly self indulgent way of spending my time. I make stuff up. I write it down. No lives are saved. And while I don't kid myself that mentoring is like vaccinating children in Africa it does seem like a helpful thing to do. Not selfless of course, but less selfish than writing.

I know of course that there are plenty of writers doing this for the cash and not the love, but I know quite a few who say they find this type of work both interesting and satisfying. Helping other writers get to where they want to be makes a tangible difference to their lives.

I dunno. The jury's still out. But I just wondered what any readers thought about it.

Have you guys been helped by someone in this way? Conversely,have you ever felt ripped off?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

A guide to writing course dwellers

As a connoisseur of courses, here’s a directory of the type of people you will meet if you sign up for a series of evenings, or an inspirational weekend.


The Bookwife
She writes now the children are at school, or ideally have buggered off to university. She fits writing between school runs, food shopping, house cleaning, cooking, and dutiful love-making. Her one aim is to validate her life by achieving something. She is galled at her husband’s expense account lifestyle and important sounding lunches, and longs for something to show what she’s worth. That means one thing – publication. Bookwife wants to learn as much about the craft of writing as she can, as quickly as possible, and then churn out something publishable.

Output: she’s on her third unpublished novel.

Spends most of the course: frowning, and the breaks phoning in to check that the kids are alright.


The Lit-chick
She’s a girl on the town complete with glossy shoes and glossy hair. Writing is what she always wanted to do; it’s why she read Eng Lit (at Oxford, of course). She’s doing a job that she calls “dullsville” as an assistant to some big knob in advertising. The job's not important, just a way to earn a little pocket money, but somehow that, and keeping up with hundreds of friends, leaves little time to write. The party last weekend was such a hoot, she could hardly miss it. Her output of text messages betters the word count of most authors.

Output: she hasn’t a novel on the go and might never finish one, but if she does it will be an instant best seller.

Spends most of the course: giggling with the other Lit-chick sitting next to her.


The Bookfly
Each day he wears the same pair of scuffed leather jeans and the black tee shirt. To acknowledge his late arrival on the second morning, he grunts in the direction of the course tutor and then explains how he drank a whole bottle of whisky last night in some dodgy club in Brixton. When he learns that you don’t worship Bukowski, he sneers. Whenever one of the other writers reads their work aloud for criticism you can see him scratching his stubble and raising his eyebrows in feedback. His own idea, still in concept form, is for a novel about an altered political state based on a cult of violent sex.

Output: he’s got too much of a hangover to write today.

Spends most of the course: eyeing the Lit-chick.


Gramps
He’s been writing, on and off, for sixty years. Now retired from his job as an Educational Realignment Counsellor and Coordinator with Brent Council, he’s free to do so full time. He generously offers willing advice based on his vast experience to all, including the course tutor. He also shares from his life experience without reserve, in detailed anecdotes for the benefit of the whole class.

Output: Over three hundred “poems”, some published in the Brent libraries annual. Collection upon collection of short stories including a volume he had printed himself in 1967 which he’d love you to take a look at, if it's not too much of an imposition. A novel he’s been working on for five years, set against the background of the Boer wars, now standing at two hundred thousand words.

Spends most of the course: comparing his own narrative style to the great English diarists.


The Exotic
Her parents escaped from some war-torn hell-hole ten years ago. She reads from her work with a bowed head in a voice barely audible. Her words seep onto the walls and are splattered on the ceiling in a way that changes the whole atmosphere in the room. When she finishes, silence grips every throat as we absorb the horrors that have just been related. Finally, the tutor calls for a break. In the break, Gramps and The Bookfly can be heard agreeing that she can’t write.

Output: the book is nearly finished and she has an offer from a publisher.

Spends most of the course: taking feverish notes, staring at the page, avoiding eye contact.


The Gossamer Strand (can be male or female, or some combination of the two).
As thin as a sheet of paper. When Gossamer reads there is silence too: an awed appreciation of the poetic nature of the work. There’s a wispy translucent quality to the prose as she reads in a stumbling voice. In the breaks, when Lit-chick or Bookwife try to befriend him, he shies away, says he'll stay in the room, finish the exercise the tutor set. He doesn’t turn up on the last day of the course.

Output: carries a binder stuffed with manuscript pages, but it’s nothing worth mentioning, ‘Just an early draft’.

Spends most of the course: saying that she’s no good.



All of the above characters are entirely fictional and any resemblance to members of my writing circle is entirely accidental.

Learning the Hard Way

Yesterday I was surfing the net, as you do when, frankly, you ought to be writing book four.
In fact I’m addicted to the internet with all the ardour of a junky, or one of those saddos that spend twenty three and a half hours a day watching porn.
But I digress.

I have, of late, been having a crisis of confidence and so I did what I always do ( instead of the obvious which is to write the next book!) and began looking for a creative writing course.

This annoys my husband who points out, not unreasonably, that this is like bolting the stable door etc...
What popped up was astonishing. There are courses at colleges across the land. There are internet courses. There are even, for the full writerly experience, residential courses in misty, remote Shetland Islands.
Now, I’m always honest about the fact that before I wrote my first book I had never attended a creative writing course. To be fair, I was working as a lawyer at the time and had baby twins. Where was I going to fit in a few hours a week to discuss the misuse of adverbs?
But once Damaged Goods was sold and I was under contract to produce book two sharpish, the worry worm appeared. What if DG had been a fluke? What if those 90,000 words had simply fallen into a random, yet coincidentally, pleasing order? More importantly, how could I ensure that the next 90,000 wouldn’t disappoint even my Mum.
So I booked myself onto a course. I swallowed my doubts that the simple act of paying over a few hundred, hard earned quid could magically turn my work into art, and signed on the dotted line.
I won’t say where I went, but suffice it to say it is an establishment that is well thought of in the trade and the course was a sell out. I was excited.
Day one and I arrived wearing a rather fetching baker boy hat and carrying my WIP under my arm.
When I saw my fellow students my hopes for literary alchemy lessened. For a start there were thirty of us. How can you learn anything in a class that size? – are you listening Ed Balls - ?
A quick fire round of Q&A confirmed that no-one was a writer. Now I’m not one of those that thinks you have to be published to ‘be’ a writer, but you do have to take it seriously. You do have to think like a writer. At the very least you have to actually be writing something. This particular group of charming retired accountants, tax inspectors and civil servants were happy to chat and drink tea. But write? No, nothing at the moment.
Enter a nervous lady in muddy boots ( this was central London) who announced herself to be the teacher. Later she divulged she was a poet who had been suffering from writers’ block for five years. Hmmm. We spent the first session discussing font size.
Though it galls me to give up on anything, especially when I have paid up front, I didn’t go back. I simply couldn’t afford the time.
Now I'm at that point again. Perhaps a different course, a different teacher? I know folk who swear by them, adamant that their writing has evolved tenfold as a result. I’m tempted.

And yet something stops me. A niggle. These are businesses, set up alongside the publishing industry. They tap into the zeitgeist where everyone wants to be a writer. Now there’s nothing wrong with that. I totally get it. I want to be a writer. But is the way forward to pay someone to teach me? Or is it just to get on with the writing?