Still here

Apologies for the lack of blog posts of late, for anybody who has been coming to check. Are there such people...? Hello, anyway!

Work on Another Life sadly ground to a halt towards the end of March, and April has seen me do almost no writing at all. I am determined to get back on the wagon soon, however, and I have at least managed to write a short story, which I may post here soon.

Yes, my grand plans of trying to write something every day this year have collapsed into ruins. But I haven't completely given up all hope for Another Life. I've come too far with it to abandon it, so I'll certainly finish a draft... As to whether that draft is any good or not, well...

I'm still around, anyway!

The Book Group

Not the Mod Mums Book Group!

(Image: German Federal Archives. I know, I know, but you try finding a copyright-free image of people reading that might sum up the idea of a book group...)

One of the most commonly-recurring pieces of advice you will come across about writing is this – get your work read by strangers.

Platitudes from friends, family and colleagues are all very well, and many of those close to you will have insights and criticisms that can be useful. But there is nothing that matches the honesty of people who don’t know you. They have no reason to be either unnecessarily harsh or unduly kind, and will simply say it as they see it.

This is why I was very pleased early last year when my old friend Amye asked whether it might be possible for the “Mod Mums Book Group”, of which she is a member, to have some copies of The Wicket in the Rec to read. I enthusiastically provided her with some copies of the manuscript, and she promised to pass on any feedback the book might get from the group.

Well, the verdicts have come in. And they are not good.

However, I was quick enough to crow a couple of months ago when I got a very nice review from a complete stranger. So it would be dishonest of me not to disclose the thoughts of other strangers, who were somewhat less enamoured with my work.

One of the main complaints seems to be a certain immaturity regarding how some of the themes of the novel are tackled. Says one commentator:

“It read, to me, like it was written by someone who is obsessed with sex and all things sexual. It displayed classic schoolboy trait of 'those who boast the biggest d!ck, in reality, have the smallest wiener'.”

It’s not a new criticism of my work that sexual themes may be unduly prominent – my colleague Steve once stopped reading one of my books because it had become, in his words “too porny” for his tastes. But it was something of a surprise to read the above, as there are no sex scenes in Wicket. Goodness knows what the reaction would have been if I’d given them Honey and Harvey to read...

The plot itself also came in for... not so much out-and-out criticism, more apathy, I suppose: “A little predictable at times... I found the general story line a little simplistic (a bit dum de dum de dum if you know what I mean)” being one such comment. And another: “I remember feeling quite a lot that I knew what was going to happen... I didn't really get grabbed by the storyline nor the characters.”

Probably the criticism I most expected – and the fault of which I was already most aware of in Wicket – was the fact that there are just too many characters, or at least too many introduced in too short a space of time, if nothing else. This is a weakness that’s simply inherent to the text as it stands, and was one definitely picked up on and repeated by the book group commentators.

Similarly, observations that “...I felt that some characters were pointless, and you do feel after a fairly full description that they should have some bearing on the plot, and this didn't always happen. I felt that sometimes a character was introduced as a 'writing to describe' exercise,” and “I found the introduction of characters too in depth, eg physical description down to tiniest detail and info about their past n personality of characters who barely featured in the story itself,” are probably well-taken. They confirm my decision to try and adopt a much simpler, more stripped-down style for my current project, Another Life – far fewer characters, sparser prose – and we’ll see how that goes.

But I think the comments that really caused my heart to sink the most and brought the greatest self-doubt were these:

“It did feel a little bit like the author had been given a checklist of things to remember about writing style when writing and book and had strived to achieve every point... Try not to follow conventions of a 'good short story' as learnt at school and go more with your own style and see where it goes.”

Ouch.

And, from another reader:

“I also feel that the author uses 'big words' unnecessarily which, unfortunately, rather than impress me it makes me feel like he is constantly referring to a thesaurus..”

I found these particularly grim reading because... Well, that’s not what I was doing in either case. Had I been consciously following some set list of conventions, or looking up big words to use, then these would be faults which I could fix.

But I wasn’t. I was writing, as I always do, in my own style, without deliberately attempting to conform to or copy anybody else’s styles or guidance. I was just writing as me. And seeing where it went.

Not far, evidently.

So there isn’t any obvious fault I can fix there. Or rather, there is an obvious fault, but it’s not one I can easily fix – the very fact that my writing style, the way I naturally bolt words together, is one that results in such observations of poor quality from two separate readers.

And it’s hard to know what to do about that.

It was a fairly soul-destroying experience reading through some of these comments this morning, as you can probably imagine. I spent a reasonable amount of today wallowing in self-pity, but when I got home from work and re-read them, I felt slightly less bruised by the whole experience – after all, for all the criticisms, there were still some positive comments in there, such as: “I did enjoy the book in the end... it was better than some of the trash that I've made myself read!”

And it would in any case be silly to be upset by criticism, really – especially when it’s kindly given by people who’ve taken the time to read the novel when they had no need to – because I spend a lot of my time convinced my writing is crap, just within my own mind. So why should it feel worse to have someone else confirming what I already knew, or at least suspected?

Yet somehow, it did. Despite knowing how useful it is to have this feedback, and being genuinely grateful that these ladies took the time to read the book and to give me their thoughts, it still felt bad to know I was found wanting – and by quite some margin.

But what can I do? Nothing different to what I always do – keep on going, keep on writing, and keep on trying to create something better.

Admittedly, having read that lot you might think the most sensible course of action would be to give up. (I certainly suspect that would be the advice of the Mod Mums Book Group members!) But I could no more give up trying to be a writer than I could give up breathing. It’s who I am, and for better or worse I am stuck with it forever.

In slightly happier Wicket news, those behind the website of the village in which it is set, Clapham, have kindly put up a link to the book. Whether the members of the Mod Mums Book Group would consider it worthy of being brought to the attention of further readers is another matter...!

But thank you, ladies. I am flattered and grateful that you gave your time to read it. I only hope you enjoy it more in the, admittedly unlikely, event if you ever willingly reading another of my novels in the future!

Missed a day

My promise to myself to try and do some writing, even just a little bit, every day in 2013 has already come unstuck. I was crossing off today's date on the calendar this morning when I realised I'd forgotten to write anything yesterday. So that lasted all of twenty-four days.

Bugger.

Still, I blame The Reign of Terror coming out on DVD. I went to have a look for it yesterday afternoon, as there's a shop very near where I work which usually has the Doctor Who releases out as soon as they get them in stock, usually three or four days before the official release date. They did indeed have them on display, but it turned out their card machine was knackered, so I had to head off to the nearest cashpoint. This was after having thought to myself "I won't need a coat, it's literally just outside the door..."

This on a day when temperatures as low as minus ten had been recorded in some parts of Norfolk. Brrrr!

Anyway, I'll try and get back on track with Another Life, although as you can see from the above photo I'd literally only been doing tiny little fragments. I haven't sat down and done a sustained piece of work for a while now. Rachel's section is nearly done, although towards the end I have fragments of it rather than a whole linked section - I need to sit and go back through it, the news bits and the stuff I did on it last year, before I can have the first draft of her part settled, and then move onto work concertedly on Linda's section.

Elsewhere... I await a verdict on Wicket from the latest publisher to whom I have sent it. I was discussing this with someone at work the other day, explaining how I was very lucky to have been given the opportunity to submit to it to this particular publisher, as they don't usually look at any unsolicited material. This person asked how they would usually get new writing then, and I explained it would have come from contacts such as agents.

"Why don't you get an agent, then?" this person suggested, as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

I did explain that I have been trying to do that for quite some time, and it isn't really as simple as collecting ten crisp packets and sending off for one. And this was an intelligent person who has a responsible and and important position at work. Clearly, the process of becoming a writer looks a lot easier from the outside!

I've also this week submitted a short story to a new writing website called The Puffin Review, which is just in the process of being set up. No word back from them on that yet, but we'll see how we go.

Talking about writing

Copies of my first - and so far only! - published book, on sale in Norwich in October 2011.

I've written before on this blog about the publication of Treasure Quest: The Book back in the autumn of 2011. It's non-fiction, but still my only professionally-published book to date, and I remain rather proud of it. For what it was - a tie-in book to a local radio programme, to raise money for the BBC Children in Need Appeal - I think it was very well done, and we managed to sell all of the two thousand we had printed, so we must have been doing something right.

Soon after the book came out, my BBC Radio Norfolk colleagues David Clayton and Becky Betts asked me to come on-air as a guest on their show to talk about it. David and Becky are the presenters of Treasure Quest, which I produce on Sunday mornings, but in 2010 and 2011 they also had their own separate Friday morning show, full of fun and whimsy. They gave me a rather generous interview slot, and we branched out from talking about the Treasure Quest book in particular to writing in general.

There aren't many unpublished novelists who have been afforded the opportunity to talk about their work for fifteen minutes on the airwaves of the BBC, and we covered a lot of ground about what I write and why I do it. They seemed oddly fascinated by it all. I don't know of how much interest it was to the general listener, but I thought I'd put it up here on the blog for anybody who fancied a listen.

So here we are, a sixteen-minute chat about writing from the David and Becky show on BBC Radio Norfolk, originally broadcast on Friday the 14th of October 2011.

listen to ‘Writing interview on BBC Radio Norfolk, Fri 14 Oct 2011’ on Audioboo

Genesis of a novel

Nearly a year ago now, in February, I came up with the idea for a novel called Another Life. It drew on a character, a situation and indeed a title that had been in my head for a while, but which I could never think of a way of fashioning into an actual story.

Then, something occurred which rarely happens to me – I actually sat down and thought hard and tried to work out an interesting, hopefully original storyline... And it worked. I suddenly knew what Another Life was, how it fitted together, and how the story should be told. I was so excited that I couldn’t stop getting up and walking around the room, thrilled to have come up with what I thought was a pretty bloody great idea.

Alas, however, something occurred that often happens with my novels. The storyline idea was great, but the actual writing of it, the turning of this idea into words on the page, presented a problem.

Another Life is – or will be – a fairly short novel, told from the alternating perspectives of two women, Linda and Rachel. I won’t talk much about them here, because I don’t want to give much away. But I was pretty confident that I knew Linda well, I knew who she was and how to write her.

Rachel was more difficult. I felt much less certain that I could write well the type of character she needs to be, or that I even knew how to properly express some of the thoughts she has and the experiences she has been through. Because I knew she would be the more difficult of the two to get right, I decided to start with her. I felt if I could do a half-decent job on Rachel, then Linda would be easy.

My estimation was – and still is – that the two characters will get about 30,000 words or so each. Last spring I got about 23,000 words into Rachel, quite a way in, and had to surrender in despair sometime in April. I’d started off with great optimism and enthusiasm for the project, but as Rachel’s section went on I became incredibly glum about the quality of what I was writing.

It just wasn’t good enough. Not for the first time, I was burying a good story idea under poor quality prose.

So I abandoned Another Life, although even at the time I didn’t think it was forever. It was an idea I was too enthusiastic about for that. I just thought I’d have to give it some time, come back to it with  a clearer head at some point, and start again.

Later in 2012, I started writing little fragments of Linda’s section. If she was going to be the easier character to write, I reasoned, I may as well have a go at her before I went back to tackling Rachel. Nothing too intense, just tiny fragments here and there, a few hundred words every so often. But it was all right. It was okay. I didn’t hate myself for it as much as I ended up loathing myself for what I’d done to Rachel’s section.

So along comes 2013, and a promise to myself to get Another Life written. Late on New Year’s Eve, I came up with the idea that I’d try and write something every single day in 2013. Not necessarily a huge amount. Even just a couple of hundred words would do it. But at least something. Some effort being made.

And so far, it’s worked. I’ve done three thousand words this past week – no more than a thousand in one day, and usually just two or three hundred. But if I keep up even this slow rate, I’d still have three thousand words a week, 156,000 for the year. More than enough.

And I’ve been writing Rachel. I didn’t intend to, I just kept having ideas for bits for her section – new parts, or improvements to parts I wrote last year. I even started reading back over some of the earlier chapters I wrote for her first time around, and do you know what? The first couple in particular are... fine. Even quite good, in parts.

So Another Life may not be a complete disaster. It may yet almost be able to capture a little of the notion I have in my head for what it is. I am very confident that it will, at least, get finished.

And then...? Well, we’ll see.

Ding Dong, Ding Dong

2012 is fading away, and 2013 approaches... Has it been a good year?

Yes, personally I'd say so. At work things continued to go well, and this year I got to make a lot of documentaries and feature programmes, which are always fun as they allow me to write narration scripts, and to employ some of the same creative and editing skills you use in writing, to piece the programmes together from their disparate elements. Making a documentary is much easier and more enjoyable than writing a novel, though!

I made a lot of these programmes, but my favourite would have to be Radio in a Roundabout Way, because it was mine through and through - from conception, to recording the interviews, writing and editing it, and I even put my voice on it as narrator too. Plus it got me a lot of very flattering e-mails from colleagues and strangers, and was even the subject of a professionally-published review (in The Lady magazine, of all places...).

But writing-wise...

I did write one short novel this year, but that was a purely private project as a gift for a close friend. I did a lot of work editing and refining The Wicket in the Rec, and in 2013 I will once again have a go at submitting that to agents and publishers.

It is time, though, to think seriously about the next novel or novels. So, a public declaration that...

By the 31st of December 2013 I plan to have written the first drafts of two novels. One a 'serious', contemporary fiction piece called Another Life, probably about sixty to seventy thousand words long. The other a science-fiction action/adventure story called Time Engine, probably about eighty to a hundred thousand words.

That's the challenge I'm setting myself for 2013 - two first drafts.

So we'll see how that goes. Happy New Year, everyone. Take care of yourselves, and look after your ambitions.

My Novels: Forget Me Not

Title:

Forget Me Not

Word count:

65,116

Written:

February to July 2006

Story:

Here’s what I wrote in submission letters to agents and publishers at the time...

Forget Me Not takes place in a world a little way removed from our own but still very recognisably originating in modern Britain as we know it. It tells the story of a regime where the ruling classes have decided that those who do the dull, ordinary, menial tasks of the world would be far better off and happier with life if they were not bothered with such soul-destroying handicaps as love, ambition, hopes and dreams. To this end they have conditioned the majority of the populace to forget all the personal details of their lives – they wake up each morning with their memories wiped clean, a blank slate with only the basic knowledge needed to perform their allocated jobs being maintained. Then, one day, a young woman who is a part of this class – labelled ‘the Saved’, as the ruling elite believes they have been salvaged from a life of depressed drudgery – begins to remember the details of her life from day to day, and the novel follows her story from her first remembrance to her tragic conclusion.

Opening:

It was a day just like any other day.

She opened her eyes and looked up at the plain grey ceiling. Instinctively, she knew it was time to get up, but she did not want it to be. She wanted to remain where she was, warm and safe under the white bed sheets. One quick glance to her right, at the chronometer mounted next to the window, told her that this was impossible. Seven o’clock. Time to get up.

Why she had to get up at this time she did not know. She was though aware that there would be terrible, dreadful consequences if she did not. So with a last, savouring moment’s snugness and warmth under the covers, she braced herself, flung them aside and exposed her naked and trembling form to the harsh realities of the cold morning.

The cold and the dawning realisation of a day at work ahead gave her the urge to throw herself back into bed at once, but her instinct to save herself from harm was stronger, and groggily she stood. Aside from the bed, the only other furniture in the small, square room was a plain brown wardrobe. Just along from the wardrobe, in the far corner, a doorway with no door led to whatever lay beyond. She had a hazy, vague impression of what that might be, but no concrete images came to mind.

Background:

I don’t recall specifically what prompted the idea of Forget Me Not, other than the idea for the basis of the story coming randomly into my head at some point, and deciding it would be an interesting idea to pursue. I wouldn’t say I am a particular fan of dystopias as a literary genre, but being a great fan of George Orwell I was, of course, already very familiar with Nineteen Eighty-Four, and I think that not long before I wrote Forget Me Not I had read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, so that would undoubtedly have been an influence. The lead character in Forget Me Not is called April, a very definite nod to Nineteen Eighty-Four (which takes place in that month, and I had a theory at the time that the month crops up more often than others in Orwell’s work).

I actually started writing Forget Me Not before I had even finished Lone Britannia, which probably shows you how much faith I had in how that other novel was going. Throughout 2006, I was employed in a very dull job at Norfolk County Council, as an administration assistant (i.e. a paper pusher) in the adult social services department. Part of my role involved spending hours at a time working in a windowless room in the centre of the sixth floor which was, effectively, a large stationery cupboard. This dull work gave me a lot of time to think, and as I was usually on my own, I must confess that I took to writing out sections of Forget Me Not in longhand.

After I’d finished Lone Britannia in the spring, I began typing up and fleshing out Forget Me Not, and the writing continued into the summer, battling against a laptop which was on its last legs and needed to be turned over and repeatedly whacked on the bottom to get it to boot up. It also had a propensity to freeze while writing, making almost constant control-Ses between sentences an absolute necessity!

Looking back:

It’s a short novel, which almost invariably means better when it comes to my work – tighter and more focused. It has a definite beginning, middle and end, and the protagonist, April, undergoes one of the better examples of character development I’d come up with to this point. I think it’s a nice central idea, too, and in better or more experienced hands something might have resulted from it.

Once again, though – and thankfully, I think, for the final time in my novel-writing efforts to date – it suffered from my impatience with the process. I still had a naive belief that the first draft was pretty much it, and hadn’t yet learned to take notice of all the very clever and successful writers who said in interviews and articles that the rewriting and redrafting was the important part of the process. I regarded a first draft as the best I could do – foolishly, given how much you can improve a piece of writing with hard work and care.

It actually turned out to be the last novel I would write for three years. I did start some projects in 2007 and 2008, and got tens of thousands of words into a couple of them, but everything eventually ground to a halt, novel-wise. This was partly due to apathy on my part; partly due to developments in my personal life; but mainly I think because I suddenly had something very new and exciting happening in my life. In the summer of 2006 I began getting one day a week of voluntary phone-answering work at BBC Radio Norfolk. This gradually developed into regular part-time and fill-in paid work in 2007, and a full-time job there in the spring of 2008. As I climbed my way into the spectacular good luck of a job at the BBC, writing took a bit of a back seat.

It’s wrong to ever let your work get in the way of your passion, and I would always throughout this period have said that writing was the most important thing to me, if anyone had asked. But on the other hand, escaping from Norfolk County Council was pretty important, too – it was a morale-sapping place to be.

Submissions:

Forget Me Not was the first ever novel of mine to have had its full manuscript read by an agent, so that was progress of a sort. I’d submitted it first to Laura Morris, the agent who’d entered into correspondence with me over 1963. It took her a few months to reply, and when she did get back to me it was a personal, kind and entirely reasonable “no thank you”.

In late 2006 and early 2007 I sent it to another 38 agents and publishers – as with 1963, I actually kept a spreadsheet tracking them all! One of these was the agency Gillon Aitken Associates Ltd. A lady called Billie Hope wrote me an e-mail that contained one of the most exciting lines of prose I have ever seen – I still get a little burst of adrenaline now looking back at it:

“I read with interest your letter of introduction dated the 5^th of January and would very much like to see the manuscript of ‘Forget Me Not’.”

She didn’t even ask for sample chapters – the whole manuscript, straight away! I duly sent it off and of course the result was a rejection, but she was good enough to exchange a few e-mails with me telling me what she thought was wrong with it, and why she didn’t want to take it any further. One of the major flaws was the simple fact that it was so much like a first draft – still so full of clumsy writing and typographical errors, etc. She advised me in future to take more time over the re-drafting, although it would take another novel and another lady to drum that message more forcefully into my head.