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Shortlisted…..?!

BookAngst 101: Misadventures in (Mis)representation: “PLATE OF SHRIMP [Courtesy Alex Cox’s REPO MAN, circa 1984]

‘A lot of people don’t realize what’s really going on. They view life as a bunch of unconnected incidences and things. They don’t realize that there’s this like lattice of coincidence that lays on top of everything. I’ll give you an example, show you what I mean. Suppose you’re thinking about a plate of shrimp. Suddenly somebody will say like ‘plate’ or ‘shrimp’ or ‘plate of shrimp’ out of the blue, no explanation. No point in looking for one either. It’s all part of a cosmic unconsciousness.’ ”

I arrived home from work on Thursday evening to find an answering machine message from the deputy editor of Writer’s Forum, tantalisingly advising me that it was with regard to a short story I had submitted to their January competition. I rang back immediately, but sadly I was too late as they had left for the day. How ansty do you think i was for the remainder of that evening?! Thing was, I myself had pretty much fallen out of love with that particular story: I had written it a considerable time beforehand, and had really only submitted it as the entry fee included a critique and I am actively garnering feedback at the moment in order to sharpen my skills. Maybe the call was of the “tough love” variety, advising me that my writing was so dreadful I should be better employed pursuing definate proof of the existence of Nessie? (Seriously, a part of me really believed that they were going to tell me off for insulting them with such rubbish! Boyfriend eventually talked some sense into me about this, but even so, I didn’t dare let myself get too excited, or even begin to imagine what the outcome might be).

And so, after a strange night of forgetting about it totally for, ooh at least five minutes at a time, before remembering with a sudden jolt of fizziness, I spoke to the lovely deputy editor on Firday morning (pacing up and down the hall, thinking, is 3 minutes past nine too soon to ring? Is four minutes past nine to soon to ring? I held out, miraculously, until 7 whole minutes past nine.) And the good news is that I have been shortlisted as a competition winner, potentially in the May issue. The bad news is that i have to compose a 50 word biog and send a photo in too ~ writing about yourself in the third person, and then selecting a photo of yourself which conveys the requisite balance of approachability, intellectualism, youth and authorly promise is quite an uncomfortable process.

Admittedly, whilst i am absolutely I am thrilled to ribbons about this, I am also feeling vaguely lost ~ at New Year I set myself a writing goal to have two pieces selected for publication or placed in a competition. I have now fulfilled this, and it is not even the end of March, so whilst I am really pleaseed with the acheivements I need to devise some new (attainable) goals in order to keep the momentum up. This is proving very helpful, especially as I have just embarked upon my first novel, which has recently changed subject matter as my original idea didn’t really have a plot (a minor shortcoming for a novel?!) whereas an idea I had planned to work on several years ago resurfaced from the murky depths of my subconscious and is, if I do say so myself, an absolute cracker.

Ghosts in the Machine

This is a fascinating article from this week’s Observer. I find it enough of a challenge to write my own imaginings in my own authentic voice. How difficult it must be to be the voicebox of someone else (someone you may, indeed, be struggling to like or tolerate *cough* Katie Price * cough*).

It seems a strange process, and one that reduces the writing experience to a mere financial transaction. Now I am not one of these people who believes that the only legitimate route to artistry is the “starving in a garrett” paradigm, but the ghostwriting relationship seems almost prostitutive: taking the money & going through the motions, although your heart lies elsewhere, and your “partner” gets all the bliss. Where is the creative element? Or does the creative element lie in making a string of garbled and inane reminisences into something vaguely readable, whilst simultaneously buffing the rough edges off a “personality” that may be partially formed, if not deformed? Does the ghost simply lie back, grit their teeth, hitch up their skirt and think of the artistic freedom they are buying themselves with this little pocket of financial security.

Also, Wayne Rooney getting £5million for his “autobiography”?! Wrong in more ways than I care to waste time enumerating. Although I suppose his spluttering incoherency when he gets to relating the details for the “caught shagging an OAP in a brothel” chapter might be worth a peek, if only for the schadenfreude of it all (look it up, Wayne).

This week I have been…..

Wow, I have been terribly remiss with my blogging of late! Inexcusable I know, but I have had a very busy time recently, gorging myself on the cultural smorgasbord that is the following:

1) Went to see Walk the Line. If you haven’t seen it yet, then why not?! Phoenix was good, but bless the poor guy, however hard he tried he was always going to be eclipsed by the truly luminous Reese Witherspoon; she was breath-taking in both the quality of her acting & her beauty. I generally think that the Oscars are a load of self-aggrandizing artificial Hollywood onanism, but her award was most definately deserved. I was a little disappointed in the portrayal of Vivian, Cash’s first wife, as it seemed very slightly sketched, a little 2-dimensional, but I suppose the focus was the love story between June & Johnny, so she became little more than a plot device. It made me slightly uncomfortable though, given that her children are still alive. How would I feel watching a cinematised version of my father cheating on my mother? Uncomfortable stuff.

2) And I also went to see this. Now I can take or leave the Boosh ~ if I’m in the room I’ll watch it, and I’ll chuckle, but I won’t make a detour for it. But I purchased the tickets as a gift for my boyfriend, who is a big fan, and I have to say that I enjoyed it about twenty times more than I expected to (although I worry that I didn’t quite always get it all, not being sufficiently well-versed in the whole Boosh mythology). I was really smitten with the “parallel universiness” of it all, as I myself am still looking for that gateway to another world, in the backs of wardrobes, through a looking glass, at the top of a magical tree. I know there’s a doorway somewhere…..
However I was slightly perturbed by the VAST amount of saddoes who turned up dressed as Vince Noir. Sad, sad, sad. I’m sure that they think they are achingly hip and individual, but here’s a clue guys: when there’s one hundred and fifty other people in the same building dressed the same, you’re pretty much kissing the arse of conformity. Grow a personality. And some better hair.

3) And watched Team America last night, which was very very funny, if a little juvenile at times. If you haven’t seen it, then you need to see it, if only for the “Montage” montage….

4) And I received back my first assignment for this course, for which i scored a personal best of 90%! I feel extremely boffinesque!

5) And I’ve been looking at this writing site a lot, which is very interesting, informative and inspiring: Jacqui Lofthouse ~ writing coach.

6) And trying to get a bit more creative here.

Phew!

Word Cloud

With thanks to classicrockchick (http://classicrockchick.blog.co.uk/) for the link: http://www.snapshirts.com/custom.php

Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing

That crazy goat, Synchronicity, is in my face again, as every time I turn around I stumble across the following writing advice. This suggests two things to me:
1) I am being prompted, none too subtley, to take the advice therein to heart
2) I have a duty to help perpetuate it in winging its way around the net assisting other similarly scratty, clueless authors

And so on that note I give you

Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing (read it, love it, live it)

Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle
from the New York Times, Writers on Writing Series.

Being a good author is a disappearing act. By ELMORE LEONARD

These are rules I’ve picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I’m writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what’s taking place in the story. If you have a facility for language and imagery and the sound of your voice pleases you, invisibility is not what you are after, and you can skip the rules. Still, you might look them over.

1. Never open a book with weather.
If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.

2. Avoid prologues.
They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.
There is a prologue in John Steinbeck’s “Sweet Thursday”, but it’s O.K. because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: “I like a lot of talk in a book and I don’t like to have nobody tell me what the guy that’s talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. . . . figure out what the guy’s thinking from what he says. I like some description but not too much of that. . . . Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That’s nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don’t have to read it. I don’t want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.”

3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated”, and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.

4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said” . . .
. . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances “full of rape and adverbs”.

5. Keep your exclamation points under control.
You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.

6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose”.
This rule doesn’t require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use “suddenly” tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.

7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won’t be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavor of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories “Close Range”.

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
Which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” what do the “American and the girl with him” look like? “She had taken off her hat and put it on the table”. That’s the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.

9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
Unless you’re Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even if you’re good at it, you don’t want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.

And finally:

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he’s writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character’s head, and the reader either knows what the guy’s thinking or doesn’t care. I’ll bet you don’t skip dialogue.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10:
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can’t allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative. It’s my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing. (Joseph Conrad said something about words getting in the way of what you want to say.)

If I write in scenes and always from the point of view of a particular character – the one whose view best brings the scene to life – I’m able to concentrate on the voices of the characters telling you who they are and how they feel about what they see and what’s going on, and I’m nowhere in sight.

What Steinbeck did in “Sweet Thursday” was title his chapters as an indication, though obscure, of what they cover. “Whom the Gods Love They Drive Nuts” is one, “Lousy Wednesday” another. The third chapter is titled “Hooptedoodle 1” and the 38th chapter “Hooptedoodle 2” as warnings to the reader, as if Steinbeck is saying: “Here’s where you’ll see me taking flights of fancy with my writing, and it won’t get in the way of the story. Skip them if you want.”
“Sweet Thursday” came out in 1954, when I was just beginning to be published, and I’ve never forgotten that prologue.

Did I read the hooptedoodle chapters? Every word.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So, hands up who breaks at least five or more of those rules on a regular basis? 3, 4, 8 & 9 are my sticky points. Must try harder, as was never written on my school report as i was a swotty geek.

*************************************

I have started my first novel. Writing one, that is, not reading one. For a long time I claimed my chosen genres as plays and short stories. That’s because I genuinely did not think I had the ability to write a novel. And then one day last week it struck me that not only do I potentially have the ability (although I’ll be the first to admit that there is a hell of a lot about the craft that i need to learn) , but I possibly have more ability than some of the people who have inflicted their tripey writing on the masses. However, as with all good theories it can only be proven once rigourously tested , and so I put my fingers to the keyboard and got started. I am very very excited about it, although I really don’t have a plan as such ~ I do have a lot of interesting ideas and thoughts which seem to have a commmon thread running through them, and although I don’t quite know exactly how (or indeed if) they will all link up. but I feel inspired and motivated, and I’m hoping to surf on this crest for long enough to get enough words down to make make it a viable pursuit. Wish me luck, i’ll post regular progress updates.

*************************************

This has made my day! I spent much of my adolescence dressed as Betty Boo, and am thrilled to see her making a comeback. Bit disconcerting that she spent her wilderness years writing for the Tweenies, though….Am also slightly surprised to discover, whilst googling for images of the Boo-tastic one, quite how many people have named their pets “Betty Boo”.

Ivor Cutler

Hard on the heels of the sad passing of Linda Smith, I noticed this in the Guardian today: http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/obituary/0,,1725309,00.html

I was only recently introduced to Ivor’s work by my partner; a genuine one-off, his work was was surreal, humourous, disturbing and magical.

How sad that we have lost yet another of our authentic & original voices. The front line against the reality TV army of clones is diminishing rapidly…..

Ivor Cutler
January 15 1923 – March 3 2006

” Poet, singer, writer, composer, humourist and painter, Mr Cutler, as he liked to be known by those he didn’t know him well, touched and changed the lives of many people and elicited great affection from his audiences and pupils. He will be remembered with great fondness.”

(Biography by Martin Pople at Serious)

Linda Smith

Just a brief post to express my sadness at the passing of comedian Linda Smith, who died of cancer on Monday at the age of 48.

Whenever I happened to catch her on radio or TV I would vow to seek her out more often (which, regrettably, I rarely got around to), as she was never less than elegantly sharp, observant and amusing.

A favourite quote, with apologies for the paraphrasing as this is from memory:

(Speaking about Jeffrey Archer) ” I am loathe to grant him the oxygen of publicity. I’m not that keen on him having the oxygen of oxygen”.

A sad loss indeed.

One small step…..

Yesterday I received an email stating the following:

“I’m pleased to inform you that a poem you entered in firstwriter.com’s Fourth International Poetry Competition has been selected as one of ten Special Commendations. You can see the winners and a list of the Special Commendations (including your selected poem) at http://www.firstwriter.com/competitions
/poetry_competition/previous_winners/4thpoetry.shtml.

Your poem will be published in a future issue of firstwriter.magazine. At that time, you will receive a firstwriter.com voucher worth £20 / $30.”

This is my first real success, and I’m not sure how to react to it. I can’t quite shake the feeling that there may only have been 13 entries to the competition in total, and I came 13th! But it looks like things are on an upward swing, and I’m feeling very excited, positive and motivated. I am starting to believe that I can actually do this….

(PS: I write under a pseudonym, so you won’t recognise my name on the list of commendations. I’m so very very shy, you see……)

114079031228240342

I have just discovered, and am now hooked on, this website, by author Kate Harrison (gotta love a woman called Kate!). It was recommended in an article in Mslexia magazine (http://www.mslexia.co.uk/v2/ ~ a source of invaluable information to me) in an article on blogging which appeared just about the time I was setting up my blog. This is one of the things I love about writing and creative processes, the synchronicity that pops up out of nowhere and convinces you that you’re on the right creative path. There’s been a tonne of these recently, and yes I am digressing, but its all very circular, so I’ll end up back where I started by the end of this post…

…Anyway, I happened upon the Mslexia blogging article in synchrony with my decision to start blogging as a route to developing a degree of writing rigidity, and since I’ve started my blog I’ve been looking at other to see what sort of things other people are doing. Now, I compulsively check Stephanie Klein’s blog (Greek Tragedy: http://stephanieklein.blogs.com/) , partly because she’s become one of the most successful bloggers, with a huge following and a book deal in the bag, but partly also because I am intrigued by the emotional nudity of it. I know it’s probably a transatlantic culture gap, but I am amazed that someone would lay themselves so publicly bare. Sometimes I have to look away. But that’s by the by. I noted recently that Stephanie was writing about the many unfinished creative projects she has started, and moves on to say that “I have more books on how to write than books written by actual proper authors. Though this has changed lately. I read more now, not about writing, but actual writing.” (http://stephanieklein.blogs.com/greek_tragedy/2006/02/obsession.html). That stopped me dead in my tracks. Read it again: she has MORE books about writing than not about writing!

I don’t believe that for one moment, by the way ~ I’m sure its another example of her self-serving hyperbole, but it did make me think about how many books I own about writing. At a rough estimate I’d say I have about 20 of them. I have never finished a single one of them, and a fair few of them have never been opened. So why do I keep buying them? I buy them because I remain convinced that somewhere, in one of these books lies the Holy Grail of authorly success, the secret that will catalyse the creation of my magnum opus and catapult me into the literary stratosphere. Obviously as I never read past page 12 of these books this secret will need to be absorbable via a process of osmosis, but my faith in finding this sneaky little short cut has soldiered on unabated. Clearly all published and successful writers have unpicked the lock and gorged themselves on this feast of a secret [mixing my metaphors much?!], and they are jealously guarding it from us “little people”.

Since I caught the blogging bug I have been obsessively reading other writer’s blogs, thinking this may be an alternative route route to unearthing the big, bad writing secret. So I was relieved to read that Kate Harrison also “spent almost as much time surfing the web reading other authors’ success stories, as I did writing the book. It was an addiction – I felt that it might somehow show me some secret strategy to find an agent and a publisher!” http://www.kate-harrison.com/

And actually, I have discovered the secret to writing success.

But, before I let you in on this tricky little enigma, can i just get you to think of those magazine headlines that scream out dirty promises such as “Weight loss secrets of the stars”, “Revealed: the new diet that REALLY works”, “Get into that dress! Fool proof slimming tips that blah blah blah blah!”? So you buy the magazine, rush home and tear it open and find that….. that it’s your old friend, the “eat less, exercise more” equation? Well, the reason for that is that using up more calories than you take in is the only realistic way to lose weight. sad but true.

Ah yes, the writing secret. It goes like this (drum roll, please):

Write, read, edit. Repeat as necessary.

That’s it. Get words onto the page. WRITE! You will never be a writer if you do not write. For what would they publish? Your grocery list? Write! It will be crap to start with. All first drafts are. And that’s OK because no-one need ever see it. It is difficult, and embarrassing, but writing is words on a page and they ain’t going to get there by themselves.

Lesson over. Now go and do something to make yourself proud.