Moving on

So, the love came back. Some chapters were re-jigged, some words went off to that sad land of The Deleted, the protagonist became more proactive and I was happier. The breakdown therapy worked - for a while. I was ready to face another round of submissions, but blimey - don’t they take time? That dreaded letter, that tortuous synopsis, the varying number of opening chapters or pages agents want. Twelve submissions down and I’m not sure if I can face anymore. The doubts have already come flooding back in with the first (next day) rejection. The rest of the disembodied chapters are still out there and while I’m waiting for them to come flying back in with their tails between their legs, it feels like a good time to move on, draw a line and run away with some new characters who’ve been flirting with me for a while. The promise of new, exciting locations and situations is too much to resist. I might return, but who knows? For now off I'm off on new adventures.

 Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

 

Driving away from home by Violet Kashi

Breakdown

I’ve had enough of this commitment lark. The old ball and chain is weighing me down. That nagging voice hovering in my head when I stay away too long is making my brain hurt. I just want to leave it all behind and succumb to the new stories and adventures tempting me away every time I come to a sentence I’ve read a million times already. I keep shouting 'I don't know what I ever saw in you! Why am I wasting my time here?' The spark that lit the fire for the story raged out of control for a while, but now it’s burnt itself out. A tiny ember tries to reel me back in with the promise of better behaviour. I agree to give it another go as long as we get some therapy, try a new approach.

This is therapy Admin-Queen style. A way to get to the nub of things, find out what’s important and what areas need work. But it’s not Relate I’m off to, it’s Excel. I love order and I especially love spreadsheets: All those neat headings and columns, all those cells just waiting to be moved around to places where they fit better. And of course my finger hovering over that delete button.

The therapy is a chapter by chapter breakdown with columns for Setting, Characters Present, the Purpose of the Scene and the Main Action (taken from one of Sarah Duncan’s blog posts). Sarah Duncan does this with index cards, but I don’t have any. I’ve also added a Cliff-hanger Rating column.

  

My novel of around 120,000 words, broken down into chapters as a colour-coded spreadsheet, looks like this:

It’s a good way to hone in what the purpose of a chapter is – what it boils down to in a couple of sentences. It’s also a great way to see when characters need a kick up the backside. You can see at a glance when someone is still belly-aching about the same problem three chapters along. It is especially good as a reference for checking what happens when and if it is logical.

As to whether I fall back in love with the story once the issues have been thrashed out remains to be seen. Here’s hoping.

 

My literary shame and glory

I’ll get to the glory bit shortly, but first to the shame and my confession. Once upon a time I was a Brownie. Being a Brownie is supposedly about doing your best and honouring the queen and all that stuff, but in reality it’s all about the badges – getting more badges than anyone else. Perhaps I did what I did because it came hard on the heels of failing my first-aid badge. Please understand; everyone else got theirs so my mortification went very deep.

Next up was the writer badge for which, amongst other things, I had to compose a poem. The judge was Brown Owl’s husband. I wrote some free-form poetry about our family chickens that lived at the bottom of my garden. He read it, judged it and rejected it. Unbelievable! What he knew about writing I have no idea. They lived in an executive mock Tudor new-build and he was a business man. I suspect his judging prowess was based purely on his proximity to Brown Owl.

In a fit of quiet pique I slunk away and rather than try and improve the poem or write something new, I consulted my book of children’s verse and copied out a poem. I would imagine this is much harder than doing a copy and paste job from an unsuspecting e-book (and using the find and replace command to change the names). I didn’t bother changing the pig to a sheep to cover my fraud, but I did actually have to write it out and I had to do it in my best hand writing. I’m sure that even business men in executive homes become suspicious when a shoddy effort is followed up with an actual published poem, but he passed it all the same. I was awarded the badge, but I wasn’t very proud of myself and the guilt has lived on.

Fast forward a few years (okay, decades) to the glory. I recently entered a few writing competitions to provide a distraction from slashing and editing The Big One. Someone tweeted the other day about being long-listed for the Fish flash fiction competition and I went straight to the Fish Publishing website to see if I was on the list, my heart already sinking with the inevitability of more disappointment (and that Brownie shame weighing me down). I couldn’t find any mention of a long-list and I couldn’t work out how the tweeter knew. The penny dropped a few days later - you can log in to your author page and see your mark: A = shortlisted, B = longlisted, C = unsuccessful. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the A beside my entry. I had to get my other half to verify it for me.

The shortlist may turn out to be very, very long but, out of 1200 entries, frankly I don’t care. It was all my own work and I worked hard on it. It’s entirely possible that being shortlisted for this will be the only writing accolade I ever achieve, but it is a badge I will wear with pride. If a mistake has been made or I’ve misinterpreted the mark, then it will serve me right for wearing that Brownie badge and claiming someone else’s work as mine.

Best not talk about the sewing badge.

Upwards and onwards



Trespassing into the lofty heights of the University Library is a new adventure for me.  After climbing the steps in the shadow of this industrial behemoth, the revolving doors do not welcome me. Trapped in my little glass segment I push hard on the brass bar and slowly force myself through this portal to another world.

It’s taken several hundred years to give university assistant staff the same borrowing rights as academics, so here I am, making the most of my newfound privileges. But I’m just borrowing time and space and peace and quiet to think, write, edit, re-read and tweak. I’m replacing the noise and distractions of home with young whippersnappers half my age but with twice my IQ. I’m feeling older by the minute.

The map the kind librarian has given me of this vast building and its treasures is useless to me; as a maplexic it just adds to my sense of disorientation as I take random turns and find myself amongst darkened book-stacks and come across pale, earnest students surrounded by ancient tomes. I skulk around, hoping no-one will ask what I am researching or what I am ‘reading’ or, more likely at my age, ask me what I’m lecturing. It’s all so far from the truth. It wouldn’t be so bad if mine were a literary pursuit, but trash fiction? I’m blushing already. A story perhaps more suited to the library’s fondly named ‘tower of porn’ where no visitors are allowed. The tower that stands tall and proud and makes its presence known in many views across this University City.

Eventually I find the reading room, its high windows offering glimpses of the sky, and that tower.  It takes a while to find my perfect place, to settle in and to stop bristling when people come within sight of my Work in Progress.  But, after the fidgeting and settling, my mind is finally free to relax and focus on the job in hand. The odd sniffle, the shrugging off of a coat, the movement of a chair, the rustle of paper and the gentle tap-tapping of keyboards become companionable sounds of endeavour.

It is my first visit, but strangely this is where my story began to take shape several years ago. It is where my research first led me to a book called Nothing, Nobody: The Voices of the Mexican Earthquake[1]. My partner, who has borrowing rights for life as an MPhil, was dispatched to get the book out on loan for me. It was its first ever outing. It is a book which left its mark on me and which has hopefully filtered subtly through to my protagonist’s elusive father whose life was derailed when he was caught up in the 1985 earthquake.

120,000 words later, this is where I have come to finish what I started. Or maybe it will never be finished. THE END has been written but that was many edits ago. Maybe I’ll still be here in thirty years time; that mad old woman with the tangled mass of curly grey hair, always sitting in the same corner, scowling at anyone who comes near, muttering under my breath about f**ing agents who don’t know talent when they see it.

---

[1] Poniatowska, Elena, 1995, Nothing, Nobody: The Voices of the Mexican Earthquake, Temple University Press

Photo of University Library by Nick-in-exsilio

 @BettyMcFab

A room with a view

Feeling the need to return for another autumnal retreat at the fabulous Lumb Bank, far removed from the usual distractions.

In a room with a view to make your heart leap.

And well deserved dinners after a good day's work, with a lovely mishmash of writers.

Maybe next year? I live in hope.