A New Challenge

My new project will be based on a travel-journal

An email landed in my inbox from WordPress last week, looking at the best daily and weekly blogs of 2012.

It got me thinking whether I could do something like that. I have struggled to even write a blog post every week since I started my WriterMummy blog back in March 2012. Maybe I need a challenge to keep me motivated next year. Something like NaNoWriMo, to force me to write and post daily.

Except I don’t blog unless I have something to say and some weeks nothing much happens, particularly when I’m writing a new novel. Then I thought, why not use a first draft of a novel for my blog?

I originally came up with the idea of 365-365 – writing a book in instalments with each daily entry being 365 words long. That would challenge my daily writing and my need to be more concise. But I suspect the second 365 might be more than I can manage so I’m going to stick with trying to post something every day, starting with a new project.

The story needs to lend itself to short episodes so I came up with the concept of travelling. Ten or twelve years ago I travelled around New Zealand and kept a diary. Recently I helped my sister self-publish her travel journals from America to New Zealand.

I don’t want to do New Zealand though, as that feels a bit close to home (and a bit like cheating, as I’d probably reuse chunks of my diary.) So then I thought what about someone travelling around the UK staying in hostels? The next thought was Why? And how would I integrate a story arc (or even a character arc)?

I came up with the idea of a main character who is a bit smug with her own life. Maybe she has a sister who is a single mother or a brother facing divorce and she’s happy with her middle-class existence, with her designer shoes and handbags and pristine flat. How would she cope staying in youth hostels? Then I had to figure why she would choose to visit youth hostels, which made me decide it would be part of her job. Maybe she’s an advertising executive and her client has asked her to visit the hostels to improve the advertising campaign. Maybe she will write some of her posts on Facebook and Twitter. I’m sure I’ll figure some more out before I write my first post tomorrow!

As you can see, I hope my posts will cover how my writing ideas develop (I’m a pantser mostly, so plot as I go) and how I go about research. As I haven’t visited many hostels in the UK I think the YHA site and Google Maps will be my friends.

Fingers crossed I’ll manage to keep up with my challenge, but if not at least I’ve given it a go! See you in 2013 for episode one.

Happy New Year!

The Long Silence Explained

It occurred to me after I posted my essay on guilt yesterday that I forgot entirely to explain the long silence, despite putting that in my title. Making it a separate post possibly gives it too much weight, as if anything more than normal life has been going on in the last four weeks. It hasn’t. That said, there has been a convergence of events since the beginning of November, creating something like a maelstrom in my life. Some I’ve mentioned already – my husband being made redundant for example – but others happened amidst the whirlwind of NaNoWriMo and beyond.

NaNoWriMo in itself was a struggle this year. I learned a lot about myself as a writer and about the life of a Writer (with the capital letter firmly in place.) I didn’t start NaNo until several days into November because my brain was frozen after weeks of editing. Ideas don’t exactly spill out from my tired mind on the best of days but I had truly exhausted my imagination writing and editing Dragon Wraiths in nine months (ready for the Mslexia competition – more on that later). So in the end I opted to write up a story idea I had for NaNo back in 2010 (abandoned for something easier due to having a tiny baby to care for).

The idea excited me because it combined my favourite things – love stories and Georgette Heyer. The basic concept is a girl auditions to be an extra in a Georgette Heyer movie (based on the book Sylvester) but ends up being cast as the lead role despite having no acting experience. Various plots and dramas ensue and it ends with a love story.

But oh the writing was hard. I know next to nothing about making movies – not something that would normally daunt me, that’s what Google is for. But researching during NaNo is difficult as it breaks the flow. Then I realised I had no story arc, only character arcs, so I was writing into the dark. Again not something that normally bothers me, but this time (whether due to sleep deprivation, mental depletion or just a rubbish story idea) I drove into the dark to find only more dark.

I managed to limp over the 50k mark with two hours to go, but it was the greatest struggle and I was happy to abandon my half-written novel for Christmas Shopping on 1st December. Will I pick it up again? Hopefully one day. I began to understand my characters and get interested in the intrigue, but it is a draft that requires a complete rewrite so it’s likely to languish for a while. What did I learn? That maybe I’m not a Pantser writer after all. Perhaps, now and then, I need a better idea of where my story is going, other than that it will end with a happy ever after. I learned, too, about sitting down and just getting the words out. I had a week of no writing towards the end, leaving myself a 20k target for the last couple of days. I know I can write that much, but only when the ideas are flowing. This time I dragged myself along, like someone finishing a marathon long after the wall has been hit. And it was good. Good to know that I can write even when the ideas aren’t flowing, when the sleeping isn’t coming, and when I’m praying every day for my last novel to fly. Maybe I could make a career out of writing if I ever find an agent.

That brings me on to another event – Mslexia. My novel didn’t get shortlisted for the Children’s Novel competition but I did receive a very encouraging (group) response to suggest why. I was told that there were many strong novels written in the first person (like mine), many covering contemporary issues such as climate change (like mine), many with strong individual voices (hopefully like mine) and where there were two books covering the same topics only one was shortlisted. So maybe mine was just nearly good enough, rather than way off mark. Either way I believe in it, which is a first, and happily started sending query letters to agents the next day. The month before Christmas is probably not the time to be querying but I shall start again in the new year after reading through my newly acquired Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook.

The other things that have been happening are that I have had some paintings accepted into the gallery Art in the Heart, despite my view that they would think them insufficiently arty (see earlier post). It was fun getting all my paintings out of the loft and choosing four to be displayed in January, alongside my miniatures and cards. It was nervewracking too, trying to narrow twenty paintings down to four, and writing an Artist’s Statement that was both interesting and honest. I still have much to do – getting new business cards and flyers and promoting the gallery through social media, as indicated in my contract, – but it was great to temper the disappointment of the Mslexia competition with a success.

I might have to expand my website – Author/Artist/Photographer/Mummy isn’t covering it all any more!

Finally I had a job interview last week for a Marketing Manager (although really a Marketing Director) role. I had to pull together a presentation with a day’s notice, and despite tears and tantrums (mine and the kids) I managed it. I was rather relieved not to get the job as it turned out I would be managing 8 staff – I find it hard enough managing two pre-schoolers – but it was wonderful to put my heels on again and remind myself that I used to be good once. It’s funny how, in this slash-slash generation, you can forget the lives you lived before. Funny, too, that Artist and Marketing Manager should both come back as Writer and Mummy were under pressure.

So, where next? I have decided I need to try harder to start my own business, to use those brain cells that have been long dormant. I rather-jokingly came up with 3AD Publishing when I prepared Pictures of Love for self-publishing, so that I would have a publisher’s logo on the spine.

My husband has started 3AD Solutions to promote some of his Product Management ideas. I think it might be time to combine forces.

The cover I designed for my sister’s book

I have enjoyed preparing texts to self-publish (I did one for my sister and her husband for Christmas, as well as several of my own) and I loved designing the front covers. There must be a market out there for those services!

Whatever happens, Writer/Mummy will continue, even if she morphs into Artist/Writer/Photographer/Mummy/Marketer/Designer/Editor.

Phew.

Bring on 2013!

The Long Silence and Giving up Guilt

Life, like Christmas, should be all about the children

I realised today that it’s been well over a month since my last blog post. That sounds a bit like “Father it’s been two months since my last confession”. Not that far wrong, really, as my blog often feels like the place where I confess my true self.

Well today I am going to confess to the crisis of Identity I had at 2am this morning, after my first night out in months. It wasn’t even a night out, just a meal with my baby group girls, who I’ve known for four years. They consist of a Paediatrician, two teachers, a psychiatric nurse and a self-employed business woman. That’s half the issue right there: Marketing Manager or Writer seems pretty weightless and meaningless next to those guys. I worry about not earning enough money while I fart around writing novels and they worry about whether one of their clients is going to kill themselves or if a child will die that week.

It’s always a humbling experience for me when we get together.

We always talk about parenting – we are a baby group after all, even if after four years our offspring aren’t really babies anymore. That leaves me feeling inadequate too. Two of the parents are from big families themselves and now have big families. They have parenting sussed. Their kids are gorgeous and lovely and polite and eat all their dinner and go to bed on time and their parents are fully in charge.

In our house we epitomise those t-shirts you see on babies, “Mum and Dad know that I’m in charge.” Hmmm

Needless to say I approach baby group dinners with a certain amount of trepidation, because I always come away feeling like I’m failing. I’m not funny enough (they all are), I’m not thin enough (they all are – or they’ve just had babies), I don’t work hard enough (they all do – long shifts, extra shifts, three hours marking homework every night. I fall asleep watching Strictly It Takes Two), I’m not a strong enough parent (my kids have no routine or consistent discipline) and most of all I’m a horrible parent (I shout at my kids way too much and tell them they’re being stupid or pathetic. I told myself I’d never use words like those. I know the power of words).

Goldie Hawn’s Great Book

So I lay in bed at 2am this morning, unable to sleep due to the thoughts whirling round my head. I picked up a book I bought months ago but lost (it was at the back of a drawer of clothes for some reason – one of my “tidy the room by chucking everything I a drawer” moments). It’s called Ten Mindful Minutes by Goldie Hawn and Wendy Holden. I bought it maybe even a year or two ago (tempus fugit) after hearing Goldie Hawn talking about her MindUP programme on the radio. I remember thinking at the time that it sounded like something I needed – reprogramming your brain so it doesn’t get hijacked by your emotions.

For some reason I stopped reading it after a couple of pages and that was the end of my attempt to be a better parent. Last night I started reading halfway through and got hooked. When I went back to the beginning I realised why I’d stopped reading. On the first or second page it says that British children are the unhappiest in the world. I didn’t want that guilt on top of all my exiting guilt so I obviously stuffed the book under the bed only to lose it in a the-family-are-coming drawer-stuffing tidy up.

It seems almost fate that I came across the book again yesterday in my rummage to find something -anything – that still fit that was suitable for a night out with the girls. After laying awake chastising myself about losing my temper with the kids so often and saying terrible things to them in my rage, it was wonderful to read that it’s possible to learn control. And learn it from a neutral person. I’ve been told it before but by some of the perfect parents I know, and so in the past I’ve been resistant. (Defensiveness = stubbornness).

After reading a chapter I got out of bed, went in to tell my daughter I love her and I’m sorry and then, when she came in twenty minutes later for a cuddle because I’d obviously woken her up, lay snuggled into my beautiful girl and thanked the universe for her and her brother and my general good fortune. Because despite my apparent failings as a parent I, too, have gorgeous and lovely and polite and caring children who go to bed when they’re told and 99% of the time are amazing (note I left out the eat-all-their-dinner bit: you can’t have everything).

I vowed to change.

I didn’t vow to be a better parent, or reading Goldie Hawn’s book cover to cover, or to lose weight, become organised, or anything that I’ve vowed and broken before.

I vowed to give up Guilt.

: Happy Smiley Children

Because during my hours of wakefulness I recalled something my husband said the other morning. “You could accomplish so much more if you stopped feeling guilty about everything.” I remember responding, “Great, one more thing to feel guilty about.”

Guilt is like that. It’s an addiction. It’s a habit. Feeling guilty for being a rubbish parent or a meaningless person or for eating too much cake is just a way to not have to do something about it. At dinner last night my psychiatric nurse friend was talking about someone with depression who wouldn’t get out of bed to talk to her. She said of her client, “She bloody well had to get up. If she isn’t trying to get better I’m not interested.”

It really got me thinking. By feeling guilty about everything, I’ve given myself the excuse not to get better. Every time I yell at the kids I feel guilty for being angry and aggressive like my Dad. Instead of thinking of all the great ways I’m like my Dad – how I’m creative and spontaneous and loving. I forget that Dad didn’t have the chance to be self-aware, so he didn’t have the chance to change. I am self-aware. So I have no excuse not to change. No excuse not to take a deep breath when my children have pushed me to the limit, to walk away, to swear at the plant in the kitchen rather than them, until I have my brain back under control.

When I feel guilty about writing novels instead of having a life-saving, world-saving job, I forget how many people’s lives are changed by reading books. Maybe not my books, maybe not yet. But one day one of my books might save a life. My own life has been saved or enriched or expanded by literature. I undersell myself and let the guilt box me in until I’m spending more time wringing my hands than I do writing my books.

When I feel guilty because my kids have had pasta shapes and toast for the third night in a row I let that guilt stop me from trying to give them something different. I feel guilty when they don’t like their dinner and don’t eat it, instead of being a proper parent and encouraging them to try new things and eat healthily.

So, although it’s a bit early, I’m making a New Year Resolution: No More Guilt.

What do you feel guilty about? Have you started thinking about New Year’s Resolutions yet?

Art, Literature and Authorial Intention

Do you see a donkey’s head (upside down) a gladiator (tilt head right) or a tiny ballerina?

Apologies, this is a whopper-post about some stuff that’s been whirling in my brain!

This week I had the amazing opportunity to take some of my paintings into a new gallery that has opened in Peterborough, called Art in the Heart. The gallery is a grand eclectic mix of artwork produced by artists who live within a 20-mile radius (preferably within the city but thankfully the Director, Dawn, makes exceptions as I fall in the 20-mile bracket).

The lovely Dawn generously gave me half an hour of her time to look through my abstract paintings, desk art and cards, as well as the marketing literature I have produced since I left work four years ago to become a full-time artist. It is the first time I have had the chance to speak properly to a gallery owner (which probably explains why I gave up my dreams of being a full-time artist fairly quickly) and it was an enlightening experience.

It seems that Art is all about the artist’s intention.

Now I’m the first to confess I know very little about art. I’m more or less self-taught in acrylics and have only had a few classes in watercolours since I did GCSE art twenty years ago. For me there has never been much in the way of meaning. I paint because I love colour (my one solo exhibition was called It’s All About Colour).

It’s All About Colour – Exhibition Flyer

I choose my palette of two or three colours, squirt them on the canvas, and then let my subconscious, or the paintbrush, or the paint, or whatever, take over. I push and pull at the paint to create texture, I follow what seems to be needed and I keep going (usually past the point where it’s at its best!)

When the painting is dry I ask other people to have a look and see what they can see. Often there is something to be seen: a skeleton, a tiger’s eye, an emu, a dancing ballerina, a skull. These are all things that have appeared in my paintings. Not everyone can see them but, like those pictures of dots where you see the image if you go slightly cross-eyed, once you have seen something in my pictures it’s hard to see anything else. My husband’s favourite piece hangs in our dining room: a 4ft x 3ft dark red, black and gold painting that he stared at for weeks when he was really sick once. It is so personal to him now because he sees a gladiator fighting a lion.

Me, I see a donkey’s head.

It annoys me.

I daren’t show him where the darn donkey is or that’s all he’ll ever see, thus ruining his appreciation of the picture forever. (That’s partly why I don’t read book / film reviews. It’s too easily to be shown something that spoils your favourite book/film forever).

So for me there is no intention in my artwork, but I don’t think it makes it any less artistic. If anything, I think a picture is more profound, affects people more deeply, because they have decided what it means to them. They have invested their time and energy in interpreting it. I haven’t tried to push them in any given direction. Okay the pictures have titles, but usually they’re added afterwards.

Do you see a carnival mask?

I might be motivated by the colour of river weed in sunlight or the bark of a Tibetan cherry tree but that isn’t necessarily what I’ve painted. If someone else sees a carnival mask or a desert landscape, then that is what the picture is to them. In writing that would come under Reader Response Theory: the author and reader create the text between them and it is recreated new – and different – for every reader. Much nicer than being told what to think by the author, surely?

When I spoke to Dawn at Art in the Heart I got the impression that wasn’t enough. To be taken seriously in Art circles it seems I need to have profound thoughts before I began to paint. I need to want to say something, or to shock or question or promote thought. I like to think my paintings do that, if you give them enough time. But I can’t lie and say I’m trying to make people question their inner being or their religion or what it means to be a celebrity.

I just want to bring pleasure.

It’s hard to remember to keep the freedom of a child

Somebody bought one of the paintings at my exhibition because she said it was an exact representation of the inside of her head. It doesn’t get more personal than that! Yet some of the feedback I got when I had my exhibition was the usual ‘My two-year-old could do better.’ Actually, when I watch my two-year-old painting, I think that’s actually a compliment. We have a freedom when we’re young, a disregard for what others think, that allows us to be completely uninhibited. My artwork got safer, more boring, less exciting, as I started to care what people thought. I lost some of the freedom of just painting for me, because it made me high on adrenalin to take a blank canvas and turn it into something vibrant and alive.

I’m trying to avoid the same thing happening with my writing. As I read books and blogs on writing craft I sense a danger of trying to conform to expectations, of shoe-horning myself into a genre or a three-act structure or what I am told makes good literature. I’m forcing myself to accept that, through writing what I like to read, I might be writing something that will sell without being too safe.

At least when it comes to authorial intention it doesn’t seem to matter so much in literature as it apparently does in Art. It doesn’t seem unforgivable to start writing without an intention, to not know where the story is going when you tap out the first sentence. I am sure there are as many authors who set out to teach, shock, thrill, amaze, tease or terrify as there are authors who start merely hoping they’ll get to the end of 100,000 words and have a story that works.

It was never my intention to paint a skeleton (right hand side) it just appeared!

Thinking about it reminded me of a section of my English Masters course about Authorial Intention. At the time I hadn’t written anything creative since GCSE English, ten years earlier. So, when I read that an author’s work could (should) be separated from the author’s intention, I thought What rubbish. Surely an author is always in control of their own writing? You can’t read into a character’s depth without accepting that the author meant for them to be like that. You can’t debate whether Hamlet is mad without accepting that Shakespeare knew very well whether he was or not. He must have had an intention.

Now, as an author with five novels and dozens of unruly characters under my belt I understand what baloney my old opinion was. Characters are sneaky: they do things we don’t expect or intend them to do. Their motivations can turn out to be nasty when we meant them to be good. They go off at tangents and fall for the wrong man. Somewhere in our subconscious we probably know why, but I don’t think it’s always a result of our intention.

I’ve found myself analysing my characters after I’ve finished a book, looking for their motivations, their flaws and strengths. To begin with that felt as fraudulent as adding words to my paintings after they’re finished, saying they’re about death or anger or whatever. The difference I guess is that people are easy to analyse by their thoughts and actions, presented there on the page. Paintings aren’t. And it isn’t fraudulent to look at Leah at the end of Dragon Wraiths and say she has suffered from growing up without a father figure. It’s there in the text, if you look for it. And it’s something I’ve been told is true about me. So I’ve written it into my character subconsciously because I understand it as a concept and because it fitted with my character and story. It wasn’t my intention but it’s still there.

One of the texts I studied on Literary Criticism during my MA is the one quoted below (borrowed from Wikipedia)

W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley wrote in their essay The Intentional Fallacy: “the design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a work of literary art.”^[1] The author, they argue, cannot be reconstructed from a writing – the text is the only source of meaning, and any details of the author’s desires or life are purely extraneous.

I can’t remember how I viewed this during my MA – those years are thankfully a blur – but I know how I view it now. True and not true (actually that’s exactly what I would have said then. My academic answers were always neatly balanced, me being a Libran and all.) I believe my books can be judged separate from me – as my paintings can – but you could use details of my life to help understand them better. My own relationship with my father, for example. Fathers, living or dead, feature quite often in my work. (In my NaNoWriMo this year the father has just had a heart-attack). Whether you could use that information to better understand my characters I’m not sure. My characters are not me. They draw on my experiences, they live lives I might have lived, or would want to live, or am glad I never lived. They often have red hair and green eyes (which I have always wanted!) or grey eyes (like a Georgette Heyer heroine) but they’re not me.

Wikipedia do a lovely summary of the different approaches to authorial intent in literary criticism (which made me quite nostalgic!) here. It was fascinating to remind myself of it all having now written some novels. It makes me want to go back and review my course through new eyes. Maybe it should be a requirement that every literary critic has written at least one novel (preferably a deadline-driven NaNoWriMo one, when your characters are most likely to wander off by themselves.)

Anyway, if you’ve read this far, thank you so much! Having scanned back through my post it isn’t always lucidly written. My academic days are long gone I’m afraid. But it’s been fun revisiting all those ideas and it was good to have your company. I would love to hear what you think!

NaNoCreature Interview

This week I have been fortunate enough to appear on the fab blog Finding my Creature, courtesy of the lovely Anushka Dhanapala. This is my interview.

In a couple of weeks I will also be appearing on her blog with a guest post. Be sure to check out her other posts, this is a great blog: http://findingmycreature.wordpress.com/

Finding My Creature

Finding My Creature presents to you NaNoCreature # 2! You’ll be seeing this creature again so stay turned.

> CREATURE PROFILE:

Name: Amanda Martin / Writer Mummy

Species/Sex: I’ve forgotten since having kids. I’m just mummy.

Occupation: Mummy / Writer / Artist / Unemployed Marketing Consultant

Location: Northamptonshire, England

Plotter/Pantser: Pantser definitely, though beginning to see the merit of plotting

NaNo username: amanda-martin

Genre: Romance probably, haven’t decided (see above under Plotter/Pantser)

Muse status: Praying for inspiration/sleep

> CREATURE INTERVIEW

1. Welcome NaNoCreature where is it that you lurk?

I can mostly be found at writermummy.wordpress.com and occasionally, like a rare breed, I can be spotted tweeting @WriterMummy

2. Is this your first time doing NaNoWriMo?

No, I think it’s my fifth

3. How did you prepare for NaNo?

I didn’t! Up until the last minute I wasn’t going to do it, but it’s rather addictive. I thought I’d see…

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Tarot Cards, Dragons, Babies and Georgette Heyer

My novel Finding Lucy is all about Tarot

Tarot Cards, Dragons, Babies and Georgette Heyer: What do these things all have in common? They’re the main themes of my last four novels. Just as I have an eclectic taste in books and music (Metallica and Einaudi currently my car-CDs of choice) I appear also to have a varied set of themes and genres for my writing.

I’ve heard it’s wise to settle on one genre and writing style that represents your voice and stick to it. But when in your writing career do you do that? I’ve enjoyed writing Young-Adult-first-person-paranormal as much as writing third-person-contemporary-woman’s-fiction and now (hopefully) a romantic comedy. Who is to say which one is really my style?

Except they’re all romances. Gotta have a love story.

I guess maybe the market decides, by what you manage to get accepted by an agent or what sells online. Georgette Heyer, the subject of my NaNoWriMo this year, wrote forty odd Regency romances and something like a dozen detective stories, together with a historical novel or three. By all accounts she despised her romances and the people who read them and her best book is considered to be one of her historical novels. Yet her witty and well-researched historical romances still bring pleasure to millions. Even Stephen Fry counts her as one of his guilty pleasures.

I guess the thing to accept is that unpublished fledgling authors like me won’t know what their voice, their style, their genre is until it’s validated externally. If I’m extremely lucky I might get one of my styles published. I’m not fussy which one!

Until then, in my best Strictly Come Dancing Bruce Forsyth voice, “Keep writing!”

Always get a second opinion

I love a printed manuscript: it LOOKS like 7 months’ work

This week my Young Adult novel, Dragon Wraiths, got long-listed for the Mslexia Children’s Novel Competition. I would like to say I was thrilled when I received the email, but I’d be lying. It came only hours after I had typed up the last second-draft-edit amends and vowed to put the darn novel in the bin/cupboard/big pit in the garden because, seven months after starting it, I still had no idea what it was about.

Instead my overwhelming emotion was fear. How could I send my manuscript off, all 112,500 words of it, with my name on the front (though thankfully the competition is judged anonymously) when I KNEW it was a pile of crap? But I had come so far, invested 7 months of my life, not to say thousands of pounds of nursery fees, plus the competition entry fee. I wasn’t giving up.

So I called in the troops. Sent the novel to my mother and pleaded with her to read it and tell me the most awful plot-hole-disaster bits so I could focus on fixing them before sending the manuscript off a week later.

That was Thursday night. On Friday, when I took the kids over to see her as usual she had to tear herself away from reading the book. My book. Friday night she sent a copy over to my step-dad’s iPad and Saturday morning (early) I got a text to say he was so engrossed she couldn’t get a word out of him. That of course spurred my husband to start reading it again, the edited version this time. I have learned an important lesson about waiting to give out the edited version because he soon couldn’t put it down. (He sat in the car while I took the kids to an indoor play centre on Sunday on the excuse that he had a cold and it was too hot and noisy, when really he wanted to keep reading.)

By Sunday night everyone had finished it.

My step-dad (who isn’t an avid reader, but loved the Twilight series) said “Book 2 Please”.

“What about the plot holes?” I asked, perplexed.

“Well, apart from saying she’s never been camping in part 2 when part 1 pretty much opens with her camping on a hillside, we didn’t find any plot holes.”

“What about the ending? Doesn’t it all feel a bit forced?” It took weeks of agonizing to try to make sense of it all, with me cursing my Pantser habits all the while.

“Ending was great, it all made sense.”

I sat and stared, open mouthed.

So instead of spending this week desperately re-writing huge chunks of my novel I have been calmly tweaking the one or two weak scenes my husband highlighted. Today I printed out all 462 pages and posted it.

Dear manuscript, all my blessings go with you

Leaving me free to start NaNoWriMo tomorrow.

Of course, that’s a different ball game entirely. I was going to rework one of my romances for Nano this year, but now I’m thinking about starting a sequel to Dragon Wraiths. Who knows, unlikely as it seems to me, it might actually go somewhere.

What have I learned?

I’ve always been too scared to relinquish my work to a critique group for fear of being told to give up writing and go back to the day job. I know family members are biased, but my parents don’t give up their weekends lightly. If they read my book non-stop to the end it was because they wanted to. That must count for something. Maybe I need to have more faith in myself.

Writing is a solitary business and editing is worse because you don’t even really have your characters for company. It’s easy to forget what’s good about your novel. You get too close, you lose the ability to feel the suspense, to be swept up in the drama.

My advice? When you have torn your novel apart and rebuilt it from the ground up, and you still think it stinks, remember – ask for a fresh opinion. You might just be pleasantly surprised.

Revision blues

I have revision blues. I was so excited about starting to revise my WIP but I still have no real understanding of how to go about it, and when I can’t do something it makes me sad. Not very helpful or grown up, I know. If my daughter said such a thing to me I’d tell her it just takes practice and it’s okay to ask for help. She’s three. It’s okay not to know how to do something when you’re three!

I like to think it’s the impossible deadline (combined with a killer cold) that has sucked my motivation, but that’s just an excuse. I’m good at excuses. If I’m honest (in a way you can only really be with yourself at 1am) the difficulty with revision is that it exposes how little I truly know about writing.

I hate being a novice.

I nearly sobbed in rowing today because the coach was telling me I was doing it all wrong. It was only my fourth lesson but I’d done so well the week before it was crushing to be told I was rubbish. No one is more critical of me than me and I get extremely frustrated at myself if I can’t do something. To the point that – like my stroppy three-year-old – I stomp my foot, yell “Can’t do it!” and chuck whatever item I’m holding across the room. (Did I mention I’m more of a child than she is sometimes?)

I read another instructive blog by Kristen Lamb this week, this one was about structure and how it separates the beginners from the professional writers. I confess I didn’t completely understand the blog which probably puts me firmly in the not about to be published anytime soon camp! I do at least own the Plot and Structure book she quotes from: I just need to read it.

So, as well as trying to polish a first draft in an impossible six weeks, just in case I’m shortlisted for the Mslexia award, I’m trying to learn how to write and how to revise all at the same time. It’s no wonder I’ve picked up Garth Nix’s Keys to the Kingdom again. I’m already on Drowned Wednesday. I may not know much about scene and sequel or Goal – Conflict – Disaster but when it comes to displacement activity I’m a master.

The one positive I’ve had so far is discovering a useful revision summary by KittyB78. It doesn’t tell me how to revise but it does give some things to look for, such as scene flow and characterisation. I like the idea of highlighting different parts, like dialogue, internal thought, characterisation, in different colours. There are also some other great revision tips in the comments.

My biggest challenge this year might be resisting the urge to do NaNoWriMo again. I love it and several of my (unfinished) novels were born in November. However the last thing I need right now is another first draft to nag at me and distract me from actually finalising one of my existing manuscripts. Kristen Lamb is always talking about writers being distracted by the next new shiny.

That’s me!

Writing first drafts is so easy compared with revision and yet seems more like Writer work, so I don’t feel guilty for being unemployed as I do most days. If only they could do a revision equivalent of NaNoWriMo, to help and motivate you to beat a Nano first draft into shape. Now that I’d sign up to!

Anyway I think my darling son is finally asleep, despite the tap-taping of my mobile phone and the eerie sight of me up-lit in the darkness, so it’s back to bed for me. I haven’t revised more than a page in a week so must get a good day in tomorrow.

May the muse be ever in your favour.

Learning to row and little ones growing up

Turns out rowing is in my family’s blood!

I must apologise for my prolonged silence. When my babies were born a childminder I met said, “As a parent of very young children your world will shrink to a tiny point where the only things that matter are whether they eat and sleep and are happy. As they grow older you will begin to remember that there’s a whole other world out there.”

As my son’s second birthday approaches (this Friday – I can’t believe it) that prophecy has become true. All of a sudden I have re-joined the human race. As a result, some things – like my writing and this blog – have been forced into the background, despite my best intentions that that wouldn’t happen. I’m particularly concerned that I have entered my young-adult novel Dragon Wraiths into the Mslexia competition without the final draft being completely finished. I’m taking a gamble that I’ll be able to at least fix any continuity errors before I might have to submit the full manuscript, which they estimate as being in November for the short list. To be honest I don’t really expect to make the short list so it will be a nice dilemma to have.

For those paying attention to my on-going ramblings about my young adult book I have had to forgo entering the Chicken House competition, as the final first draft came in a third over their word count limit of 80,000. I’m not an enthusiastic (or experienced) enough editor to lop off thirty-five thousand words in a month.

So what have I been doing in the real world?

Learning to row

I married into a family of rowers and always vowed I would learn one day. I vowed I’d learn Italian too (my husband is half-Italian) but that’s proving more tricky. My husband planned to teach me to row after our second child was born, but a premature baby and postnatal depression put paid to that idea.

Then this summer our local Adult Education brochure arrived and I read it cover to cover, as I always do. I’m an academic junkie as well as always being on the lookout for local Italian classes. No joy on that front but there was a five-week Ladies Only Learn to Row course. Fate.

I changed the kids’ nursery days, swore my husband to secrecy, and signed up. Three weeks in and I’m loving it: Now I can actually propel the boat without facing the prospect of a cold bath that is. The first two weeks were HARD. My brain wasn’t used to concentrating for two hours at a time and I got very cross with my lack of coordination. The lady from British Rowing seemed to think I was the antithesis of a natural.

Today, though, the boat flew. It was amazing. I rowed with my eyes closed. Literally. To start out rubbish and get better – to feel myself improve and to get instant feedback (if I sense I’m about to join the ducks I’m doing it wrong) – is exhilarating.

If only writing was like that. Or parenting.

After nearly four years of feeling like a failure it was fantastic to be proud of myself for once.

Little ones growing up

The other thing we’ve been doing this week is looking at primary schools for my daughter. Scary stuff. I’ve thought about where I would like my children to go to school pretty much since my daughter was born. Several of my friends are teachers and my sister moved her family to America partly because of a school she wants them to attend. Education is important.

I think back to the various schools I went to as a child and I can see the different shifts in my personality that came with each one. To make that decision now, when my daughter is not even four and my son (who will hopefully go to the same school) is not quite two, seems madness. Thankfully we are blessed with an array of great state schools around us so the choice is more small village school versus larger town school, and whether to take current friendships into account. No decisions yet. I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime I am trying to get my head back into writing, to plod on with editing Dragon Wraiths (harder than I hoped it would be) and writing query letters for Pictures of Love (which I still intend to self-publish but, as I haven’t got time to do the final proof-read at the moment, I may as well rack up a few more rejection letters!)

Have any of you recently sent your first child to school or started a new hobby? What keeps you away from editing and blog writing?

To be the best we can be

Listening to the radio today I heard a former Olympic Athlete say that being an Olympian in training is much easier than living a normal life. Unfortunately I don’t know the exact quote or even who said it, because both kids were yelling at the time. His point though was not to belittle the effort put in by the athletes but to say that a life consumed by training is straightforward compared to what the rest of us have to deal with. You get up, you train, you compete. You have a goal, targets, schedules.

It got me thinking.

Firstly, we shouldn’t underestimate how much effort we put into our own lives, even if we aren’t winning medals. Spending 14 hours a day reasoning with toddlers may be just as gruelling in its own way as spending that time on a bike, but without the ultimate recognition, (or a cool uniform or sponsorship freebies!)

The second thing I decided was actually we do have it easier, because our life doesn’t come down to tiny moments. Kristian Thomas missed a bronze medal because he made a tiny mistake on the vault. Four years of effort came down to four minutes of brilliance and a heartbreak of a tumble. How many of us, faced with that, would bring out our best?

As a result of my musings I decided that two things are essential:

We should strive, every day, to be the best we can be at that moment. Not the best there is, but the best we can be at that time, on that day. When I’m about ready to put both kids in nursery and go back to work full time just to be able to pee on my own, I try to find something to make it better. Choosing to giggle instead of shout. It doesn’t always happen, but if there is one more laugh and one less bellow in a day that’s a success I should be proud of.

The other thing I think, to do with writing, is that targets are important. Whether it’s Nanowrimo, the WFMAD (Write Fifteen Minutes a Day) challenge or a self-imposed publishing deadline. The human race often performs its best under extreme pressure. You don’t have to be a sixteen-year-old Chinese girl to find that out.

I watch the Olympics and I know I could never train that hard or be that good at rowing or swimming or gymnastics. But if I strive each day to inspire and be inspired in my own areas of influence, then maybe I, too, can be a champion.