How to Keep Writing During An Apocalypse

So we are still in the Upside Down. Hope everyone is doing okay, staying indoors, and staying safe. Also hope y'all have enough books to last you through this weird, weird time.

My 2020 reading challenge has well and truly stalled, because reading has become yet another casualty of this quarantine. My attention span is terrible, I can't seem to focus on anything for any length, and, on top of that all, I'm frozen with the panic that I should be making the most of this unique opportunity but instead I'm wasting all this time. I suspect I'm not alone in this.

One of the other things that's on hiatus is our writing group. I was supposed to be running a couple of workshops for them, so I've opted to video record them to post on facebook. This is the second I've done, on How to Keep Writing During An Apocalypse:

Announcing: THE FLOOD

Oh my gosh, I have been waiting to shout about this for so long. I am literally giddy with excitement to announce the impending publication of THE FLOOD, coming this September from Avon:

A gripping, atmospheric crime novel about a town on the edge of collapse, and a murder that shakes the community. Perfect for fans of THE DRY.

When Daniela Cain returns to her small hometown after seven years’ absence, she finds that flooding has left the village all but deserted. She’s there to collect something she left in her childhood home, then she plans to leave. But upon entering the old house she discovers her younger sister’s body half-submerged in the water.

As Daniela tries to work out what happened to Auryn, she uncovers dark secrets from her childhood as one of four sisters in the household, when the Cains and another local family begin to turn on each other with devastating results.

Anyone who knows me IRL may recognise this book under its working title, FOURTH TO THE DEVIL, aka That Sodding Book I've Been Working On For The Last Five Hundred Years. It's crazy to think it's actually going to be a real book and not just a jumble of files on my computer.

You can check it out on Goodreads or PRE-ORDER THE EBOOK FOR ONLY 99p at Amazon, or of course contact your local independent bookshop for more details of the paperback (which is due for release in November, I believe).

I am going to be shouting about this for days. Y'all may want earplugs.

IWD 2018

I was very kindly invited to speak at an International Women's Day event at Douglas Library this week, along with several other waaaay more qualified people. I figured I'd use the opportunity to blather about the history of horror and the women who've helped build it.

* * *

I was attracted to writing horror because I always loved the visceral, visual nature of it. The best horror has a kind of exuberance. And people love to be scared in a safe, controlled way. It’s reassuring that you can hide the book in the freezer if it all gets too much.

I also love how horror shines a light on human nature. It exposes our fears, our neuroses, the rotten interiors we'd rather people didn't see. It does this sometimes to highlight how awful the world is and why we should be scared or angry, but at other times it shows how these things can be confronted and overcome. Books show us the inevitable terror of the world, then invite us to believe that hope, bravery, and humanity can help us fight these things (even if we won’t always win).

Like the phrase goes, fairy stories are important not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.

Fairy stories are perhaps the original horror stories. How many people get eaten, beaten, mutilated, kidnapped or cursed in our favourite children's stories? The original tellings were terrifying. They used horrifying aspects to grab the attention, but also to reinforce the lessons they preached - bad things happen to bad people. Evil actions can be defeated by good deeds.

Back in the day, these stories were passed generation to generation by word of mouth, mothers telling children. So in a sense, the very roots of horror came from women telling stories. And it's interesting to see how that continued through the centuries. Early gothic horror, originating in the 18th Century, by pioneers like Ann Radcliffe and Clara Reeve, was written for a mostly female audience. It was considered frivolous; not proper literature. Jane Austen herself referenced this fact in Northanger Abbey - her main character is a young woman who’s filled her head with gothic fiction and subsequently developed an overactive imagination. She says:

“Such is the common cant. “And what are you reading, Miss — ?” “Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda” […] Now, had the same young lady been engaged with a volume of the Spectator, […] how proudly would she have produced the book, and told its name.”

Into the 19th Century we got Mary Shelley and Frankenstein, one of the cornerstones of our genre. However, it's worth noting that, even then people argued that women's writing shouldn't be taken seriously. Frankenstein was published anonymously for many years. And the theory persists that Mary Shelley didn't actually write the story - it was all the work of her husband, Percy. As recently as three days ago there was an article in the Guardian that suggested Mary Shelley couldn't possibly have come up with such a story, despite, y’know, having a fascination with science in general and galvanism in particular.

So the 20th Century brought a new wave of female horror writers. The perspective they brought, of domestic, psychological horror, resonated in particular with readers at this time: the sense of something terrifying at the heart of the ordinary and everyday. Authors like Shirley Jackson and Susan Hill set the bar here. Angela Carter used the oldest fairytales weaved with social and feminist issues, to teach us that external monsters are rarely scarier than what lurks in people’s souls. The worst wolves are indeed hairy on the inside.

So, for a time, horror was a more-or-less equal opportunities genre, written and consumed by both genders.

Something appears to have shifted in the latter half of the twentieth century. The idea’s come about that horror is something of a boys’ club, and the best writers are male. The other day, an acquaintance remarked - not to me, but to someone else in this room - that women cannot write horror unless it's about sparkly vampires. Obviously I beg to differ. So how have we come to this?

Personally, I blame the 80s. The market for horror movies exploded in the late 70s into 80s. A new kind of visceral horror, slasher movies, video nasties, the infamous banned list. Certain misogynistic tropes became standard - not in all movies, obviously (hastag not all movies), but enough to call a broad trend. If I say slasher movie, we all picture the same sort of trope. Now, there's a fair overlap between those of us who love horror movies and those who read horror novels. People who watched the gore-busters of the 80s looked for literature in the same vein, and found pulp horror.

The authors writing for the pulp market were predominately male. We'll name drop Guy N Smith, Shaun Hutson, James Herbert et al. And Stephen King, of course, but you can't really include Stephen King in any statistics, because he's such an outlier he drags all your arguments askew, like a super-dark star. Neil Gaiman's the same. Anyway, around about this time, male authors have adopted the frivolous gothic novel and turned it around so now people suggest women don't have the heart or stomach for such things.

I have to say at this point, I've never found the horror community to be anything other than delightful and welcoming. No one there has ever told me I shouldn't be here, shouldn't be writing this stuff, or should be writing something more suitable to girls. The only people who’ve ever suggested that were those who dismiss the horror genre in general – I was once accused of bringing down the institution of family and marriage by writing about such grisly subjects.

But when I was growing up, about 99 percent of the authors I read were male. It made me assume horror was a boy’s game. Which suited me fine, I was a tomboy, but it was only as I grew up and learned to read more widely that I realised how skewed my worldview was. I worry at how other young women would fare if they wanted to follow the same path. Wouldn’t it just be easier to write about sparkly vampires?

As to the present day, in my opinion some of the best horror writing out there is currently happening in Young Adult. Those authors have the visceral exuberance that made me fall in love with the genre in the first place. Blending genres is very en vogue at the moment, with horror seguing into sci-fi or thriller or dystopia, as in Naomi Alderman’s recent feminist novel The Power.

People do sometimes wrinkle their nose at horror – it’s viewed as commercial, unsophisticated; entertainment not art. You’ll rarely see a horror novel shortlisted for a major prize. The same critics often wrinkle noses at YA as well – it’s for kids, it has nothing to say, it’s not proper literature. Even fans will sometimes say, oh, it’s my guilty pleasure.

Let me stop the bus there for a moment. People feel guilty way too often about stuff they love. Oh, I love Eurovision, it’s my guilty pleasure. I love the Twilight books, it’s my guilty pleasure. Like you should feel bad for the things that bring you joy. You should only consume them under a blanket, in the dark, when no one’s watching. That’s what we’re taught. We feel like people will judge us.

If we can do one thing for each other and for the upcoming generation, it’s to learn to embrace the things we love. Never feel guilty about something that genuinely makes you happy. And never make others feel bad for the things they care about. We need to support and validate other people and their (questionable) tastes in literature.

I love reading horror books, and I love writing horror books. And I’m exceptionally proud of the women who’ve paved the way for me to do this thing I love.

Thank you, please buy my book.

things i've learned from a decade of NaNoWriMo

This is my tenth year of doing NaNoWriMo. (I need that gif from Grosse Point Blank of John Cusack's friend shouting "TEN YEARS!")

Now, I honestly didn't realise it'd been as much as ten years. I've just had my head down, typity-typing away, and when I look up from my monitor, blinking in the daylight, apparently a decade has passed. If I complete the Nano challenge this year, that'll be ten consecutive wins, and a total of half a million words written.

Looks kinda nice when it's set down like that. Excuse me while I bask for a moment.

So anyway, I guess maybe I can describe myself as a Nano veteran now? I've put in the time and I've put in the work, and I reckon I've got a handle on the event. I've participated in the November events and also several Camp NaNoWriMos and a couple of Script Frenzies, back when those were still a thing.

(I set all this out because I still feel like, hey, who the hell am I to offer advice? With so many other knowledgeable people out there on the web, why should I add my shouty opinions to the void?)

For what it's worth, here is what I've learned from a decade of Nanoing.

1. IT'S NOT FOR EVERYONE

Good Lord, is it not for everyone. Personally I love Nano. It suits me down to the ground. I love the microdeadline of writing 1,667 words a day, I love the freedom it gives me to write fast and loose, and I love the website with its updatable word count / bar graphs. I love the feeling of progress you get from watching your stats creep up. I love stats.

BUT it's not for everyone. Some people get the heebie-jeebies at the idea of writing like that. Who wants the stress of having to hit a word count every day? How can you cope without editing and fixing on the go? Who needs the peer pressure of your writing buddies judging you for your lack of progress? (They say they don't but I know the truth)

If your writing style doesn't fit the Nano model, that's fine. That's more than fine. You know who I'm jealous of? People who binge-write. Like, they sit down at the weekend and churn out five thousand words. How is that even possible? 1,667 words, arbitrary or not, seems to be my upper limit for productivity. If I try to blast through that and keep putting words down, my attention goes, my enthusiasm wanes, and my characters end up reading aloud from the dictionary just to keep the word count flowing.

My style is slow and steady. I'm happy with that. Nano fits me well. Other people have different styles, which Nano doesn't necessarily cater to. That's also fine. Don't try and force what doesn't work for you.

2. NANOWRIMO CAN MAKE YOU A BETTER WRITER

I am a better writer than I was ten years ago. I think that's fair to say. I'm more confident, I have a better working attitude, and I know how to use the word ameliorate.

Was this all down to Nano? Noooooo. Mostly I'd say it's thanks to ten years of more-or-less constant writing, a shedload of invaluable guidance from my various writing groups and beta readers, some professional intervention, and people hitting me with shoes to reinforce advice (I stand firm on certain points, like double-spacing after full stops, and no amount of shoes shall change my mind).

But Nano helped, for sure. It taught me I can write fast (when I need to), and I can write to a deadline (when I want to). It taught me that a paragraph of terrible writing is better than a paragraph that exists only in your head. It taught me, indirectly, the value of editing, because the nine first drafts I've churned out during past Novembers have been godawful. It taught me I am NOT a pantser, like I'd always thought... at least not a good one. And that leads me onto my next point:

3. IT'S OKAY TO QUIT

One of the most difficult things to admit is that a course of action isn't working for you. It could be that, like me, you consider yourself a hardcore pantser - planning is for the weak! Structure grows organically! And again, sure, if this works for you, more power to you.

Turns out, I can't structure for peanuts.

My Nano novels (and by extension the rest of my writing, because if the model works for November why not extend it to the rest of the year, right?) are horrible blobby messy lumps. They tend to start off alright, with two or three decent chapters, before descending into OH GOD WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. Without a plan, I would grab onto the first reasonable plot point that came to mind and write towards it. Nano happens so fast that there's no time to sit back and think. You're constantly scrabbling for plot. Or at least I am.

Also turns out, structure is hella-difficult to insert after the fact. It's like building a monster out of the squishy bits first then trying to cram a skeleton into it. Difficulty, frustrating, and unpleasant. Even if you succeed, chances are you're going to end up with something that looks, ehhhh, not quite like you'd hoped.

Took me ten years to learn this.

So, my point is, it's okay to change your ways. If pantsing isn't working, stop and make a plan. If you're bogged down in planning, try pantsing for a while.

And if you're really, really not enjoying the process... stop.

No one's forcing you to Nano. No one will judge you if you don't make that 50K in a month (not even me). Like the gambling adverts say: When the fun stops, stop. Come back to it at your own pace. The last thing you want to do is ruin your work by carrying on long after you stop enjoying it.

4. TAKING PART IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WINNING

I've said this before, but we don't give enough kudos to participation. Everyone who signs up to Nano is awesome. Everyone who puts a handful of words onto paper (or screen) during November is awesome. Everyone who plugs on to the end and makes their fifty thousand is awesome. Everyone deserves cookies and praise.

So, if you're enjoying Nano, high five. If you're struggling bravely onwards through Nano, KEEP GOING, YOU GOT THIS BRAH. If you're seriously not enjoying it in the slightest and you think it might put you off writing forever... quit.

Whatever you're doing, however you're doing it, good luck to you all. Keep writing... at the pace that works for you.

this was all foretold

My current to-read list has steadily increased to the point where it's not so much a list as a teetering pile, threatening to topple and crush me at any moment. But having a physical, obvious pile is important (even if I trip over it at least once a day) because it lets me work my way steadily through it, from top to bottom. New stuff gets added at the top, natch, and if something's been in it for more than, say, a year, it's clear it's less of a must-read and more a vital piece of structure holding up the rest of the load.

Occasionally things get shuffled to the top and I remember why I put them in the pile to begin with.

Other things guilt me into reading them simply because they've been sitting there so damn long.

One book that's found itself nearing the top has reminded me of a trope I've seen once too often (and which, in fact, I'm guilty of using myself, more than once, because it's really convenient). Essentially, everything that happens - everything, from running a red light to being menaced by Bigfoot - happens because it's part of some huge, overarching purpose which the characters can only begin to fathom. Greater powers are controlling their fates. They are being guided for a reason.

I've a few problems with this. For starters, it allows all sorts of randomness and coincidence to be hand-waved through. The main character stumbles across a perfect weapon? She was meant to find it. The person she's just met knows the one path through the deadly, deadly swamp ahead? That person was destined to be at this place at this time, specifically to help our hero.

Not that I'm adverse to blatant coincidence, of course. Like I say, I've used it myself more times than I can conveniently count, as a way to dig myself out of a big stupid plot-hole. Or when I wanted aliens to suddenly appear. But:

It also allows the characters to make really bloody stupid decisions, and again it's hand-waved past because they're not responsible for their own choices. Ms Main Character has the option of either walking into the obvious spikey-death trap or carrying on blithely on her way, and decides on the spikey-death route because she senses there's something important hidden in there. And, turns out, there is indeed some unique artefact within, which she'll definitely need later on in her quest (although of course she doesn't know how or why it'll be useful) so it's a good thing she listened to that internal guiding voice of fate.

This is so, so handy as a writer, because it lets us excuse our characters when they're doing anything stupid or irrational. We need them to get hold of that artefact but there's no obvious or compelling reason why they would walk into almost certain doom to retrieve it. To be honest, there's no good reason why our character would be on this quest at all. She's got better things to do; things that don't involve doom and decapitation and so much angst. But if she stays at home and drinks wine, we've got no story, so we wheel out the hand of fate, the forces beyond our ken, and hope our character doesn't suddenly get wise and dig her heels in.

And then there's the question of motivations. Someone who wants to scale Mount Dreadful and defeat the Evil Lord Bumscratch will always be more interesting that someone who is led inescapably for some nebulous reason to do the same. There are always exceptions, of course, of course. Bilbo Baggins wasn't exactly a willing participant. But in general, people like a hero who does things for definite tangible reasons - it doesn't have to be a particularly noble reason (money, honour, revenge, boredom etc. are all understandable excuses) so long as it's more substantial than "there was a reason why I was doing these things, in this order, to this end, while these random occurrences randomly occurred, but I couldn't yet decipher the hidden meaning that fate blah blah blah."

It is, of course, an acceptable way of looking at life, since life is a horrid confusing tangle of events and interactions, and it's no wonder we try to impose some meaning over the top of it. But if it's in a story, the hand of fate better have a flipping good reason for acting like this, or we'll all find a reason to stop reading.

being bold for change

A few weeks ago I was kindly invited by Stacy Astill to speak at Henry Bloom Noble Library for International Women's Day, along with a fabulous collection of local authors, poets, and musicians that highlighted the huge variety of talent we've got on this island.

This year's International Women's Day was about being bold for change. So I said a few things on the subject of change, and I talked about it in terms of writing, because really I don't know much about anything else. But when I say 'writing', feel free to substitute any activity you care passionately about.

So, in terms of writing, a lot of stuff has changed over the years. The way we write, the physical process of it, has changed from pen and ink to keyboards, to mobile phones and writing software. It's never been easier, technologically speaking, for us to physically put words onto the screen.

How we're published has changed. There are more ways than ever before to get your work out there. Publishing is no longer a closed industry reliant on paper copies of books - now everyone has the option to publish their work in hardcopy, or print on demand, or ebook. You can post serialised novels on blogs. You can write interactive stories via Twitter polls. You can send your work around the world in an instant. You can ask for and receive immediate feedback from people throughout the globe. Never before have we had the chance to be read so widely.

What we write has changed. With the ability of everyone to self-publish, many old barriers have been taken down. You can write whatever you want and put it out there in the world. If you want to write a period romance with added dinosaurs - no one can tell you not to.

Who we write about is changing. Old stereotypes are being ditched (and some new ones are being created). With the upsurge in self-publishing, we've never had a better chance to create diverse characters - in terms of race, background, goals, motivations, lives, ability, everything. The world is changing and I want to believe literature is changing to reflect that.

How we read is changing. The electronic age has given us quick, immediate access to almost every book under the sun. You can buy and read the latest novels without having to leave your bed.

How we share our love of books has changed. Online sites like Amazon and Goodreads let us review our favourite books with a few simple clicks. Social media lets us connect with people who love the same novels as us - and gives us access to communicate directly with the authors we love.

But none of these are entirely positive things. There is greater diversity in books, yes, but we still have a long way to go. Look at your bookshelf and make a mental note how many main characters are non-white, or female, or differently able. Even if you believe you read diversely, you're likely to be surprised.

We may have immediate access to books via internet, but this is causing problems with piracy and the decline of the high-street bookshop. We are able to voice our opinions, but so can the vocal minority who will shout us down and tell us we're wrong to love the books we love, to defend the authors we care about, to want to see greater diversity and equality and change in what we read.

And while it might be easier to put words onto screen, the process of writing is as difficult as it's ever been. We are, and always will be, plagued with self-doubt and negativity. We question why we write, what we should write, whether we're any good, whether what we're doing will change anything. The obstacles are still the same - we all have other commitments, jobs and kids and families, and we never have enough time for the things we love doing. Some attitudes have changed, but some sadly have not, and there will always be those who'll ask, why are you writing? What's the point?

Here's what I think:

We write because we have a passion. Because we must. Because we persist.

We write to change things.

Maybe not to change the world, or opinions, or attitudes, or to make grand sweeping gestures that will benefit mankind, but because the smallest change is still a change. We can read and share diverse books. We can post reviews online. We can support our libraries and independent bookshops. Every time you buy a book, you're voting. You're telling the industry, this is what we want to read and how we want to buy. This is what we want more of. Every time you use your library card, you're telling the government, we need this resource.

Best and most of all, we can change ourselves through the positive act of creating something, or sharing something we love, or telling people about the things we care about. We can change our own opinions - the internal critic that says, how can I write when the world's such a mess? How can I write when no one will care what I say? How will this make a difference?

Change is difficult, we all know that. We're only one person. But everyone is just one person. Everyone can be bold and change something.

That's it, lecture over, please buy my books. :)

2016 - end o year stats

So. What've we been up to in 2016?

However you look at it, it's been a heck of a year, but I'm going to ignore all the important stuff for now and go with my usual yearly round-up of how much I've written in the past 12 months, because that's something I feel relatively positive about and because I have some nice solid statistics to fall back on, rather than my own shouty opinions.

(I'm not posting all this to boast, btw. I just like stats, and I like being able to take stock of what I've done in a year. Also I hope it'll show that everyone's output is different, we all work at different speeds, we all have different definitions of what is a fair amount of work, and no one should ever make themselves (or anyone else) feel bad for doing more or less than the next guy.)

In total, I wrote 414,204 words, which equates to approximately 1131 words a day average. To compare, in 2015, I wrote 359,224 words (about 984 words a day average).

These totals include everything - first drafts, rewriting, editing, blog posts, competition entries... anything I can claim with a straight face as creative writing. I also included drawing as writing (using the vague definition that a finished picture is worth a thousand words).

Breaking this down into positives:

I wrote the first drafts of two new stories, one of which is now my favourite thing I've written.
I edited two other novels to close-enough-to-finished level.
I polished TERROR ISLAND and released it as an ebook.
I filled up two notebooks with notes, ideas, and random crap.
I wrote every day, even if it was just a couple of sentences (although there were a couple of close calls).
I read 91 books.

And into negatives:

I didn't get as much drawing done as I wanted. Maybe only two or three days included any drawing.
I didn't blog very much.
I didn't crit as many stories for other people as I should've. In fact, I still have three crits outstanding, which is very poor behaviour on my part.
I still don't reply to my emails in a timely fashion.

But in general, I'm happy with my output for the year. I feel like I've done okay. I really hope everyone else feels they've done okay too, despite this horrid year, and achieved something they can be content with.

I'm going to do a separate post about the books I've read, because I'm sure you're anxious to see my stats about those too. :)

Happy 2017, peeps. Stay safe out there.

piling peas

A first draft is a pile of peas.

Stick with me on this.

If you've never shelled peas, you should try it. Befriend someone with an allotment, get a whole bunch of peas in pods, sit and shell them out. It's therapeutic. Also peas smell and taste amazing straight from the pods.

So you start shelling the peas, digging your nails into the pods and emptying the cute little peas into a bowl. At first you're delighted by your progress--look at the peas in this bowl that was formerly empty! Observe me creating! And gradually the pea pile begins to grow. Some pods pop open easily; some are resistant little bastards. Some pods are crammed with perfectly formed peas; some have only a couple of withered little things. They all go on the pile. And as you work, you notice that appearances are deceptive--sometimes the big, bright peas have that dry chalky texture, while the teeniest, most unassuming ones can have the sweetest flavour. They all go on the pile.

At some point you'll wonder why you ever started this stupid repetitive task. The pile doesn't look like it's growing. You still have half a tub of peas to shell. You have weird green stuff under your nails. There's a bag of frozen peas in the freezer you could easily have used instead.

Keep adding peas to the pile.

Eventually you'll reach the end. Now you have a pile of peas. Impressive, isn't it? Take a moment to appreciate it. You did that, you produced that whole pile of peas, with your own two hands.

But, as you're probably aware, a pile of peas is not a finished dish. You could eat them as they are, sure, but that's not necessarily the tastiest way to enjoy peas.

So you start refining your pile. You take out all the manky peas, plus the bits of pods and leaves and stems that always seem to sneak in. You cook the peas. How you cook them depends what you want to end up with--mushy peas are different to minted peas are different to that strange pea-foam they make on cooking shows, obviously. Plus everyone's cooking styles are different. One person boils, another blanches, another steams. There is no definitive way of cooking peas.

But every finished pea-based dish starts off with a pile of peas.

And, to round off this tortuous metaphor, a first draft is nothing more or less than a pile of words you've had to dig out of your head and dump onto paper.

Keep piling those peas.

writers (never) retreat

This weekend, ten of us got together to work on our respective projects for the first inaugural Manx Litfest Writing Retreat.

*pauses*

*Googles*

*confirms first and inaugural do mean the same thing*

Damn, I knew it. But, see, the difficulty is I promised myself I wouldn't edit during the Retreat. I would just write, splurge, obtain the vomit-draft, and worry about editing later. And there's the difficulty - it's hard to just write, without going back to fix things, even when (especially when) you can see there's something obviously wrong with what you've just typed.

And it's hard to find time to write, as well. I've complained before that we're all too busy. We have kids and jobs and social lives and pets and Fallout 4 and bottles of wine that won't drink themselves (delete as applicable) and a million other drains on our time. So this Retreat was designed as time set aside for just writing. No housework, no kids, no spouses, no interruptions (some wine).

I've started a new project, with no plan, only the most general idea ("write something in space," my husband says) and the determination to plough forward without looking back. And it was fun. Even during Nanowrimo I never set aside long periods of time to write. It's just never feasible. My Nano stats are (usually) a steady slope of approximately 1,666 words per day building up in increments. Sprints and all-nighters are not part of my usual repertoire.

I've no idea if what I wrote over the weekend is any good, because I've not read it back yet. I've got my momentum and I'm pushing forward with the draft... and I'm hoping we get to do another Retreat at some point in the future because it'd be super-helpful if I could write nearly ten thousand words every weekend...

action < reaction

Judith Beheading Holofernes, Caravaggio, probably my favourite ever painting.

I have a postcard of it pinned to the wall above my desk, partly because everyone needs decorative inspiration, and partly because I love what it says about storytelling.

The focus of the picture should be the throat-cutting. That's the most important thing going on at that precise moment. And yet whenever I look at it I can't help thinking the gout of blood doesn't look... right. Certainly not as good as Caravaggio's usual exemplary style. At times it looks almost cartoony, or tacked on as the end.

That's because the real focus is the reactions of the participants. Even if you know nothing of the legend of Holofernes (which I didn't, first time I saw this picture), you can see so much of the story just by the expressions of the three people. Without their reactions, this would just be a beautifully painted moment of violence.

What I always take away from this is: Action is important. It's the focus of the story. But more important is how the characters react to the action. Their emotional response is the heart of the story. It's what draws people in, and draws them back to look closer, again and again.

swearing at 11

You've all seen Glengarry Glen Ross, right? If not, don't worry, you probably already know that you're missing out on one of the best films of the last twenty years.

*counts*

Twenty-five years, sorry. Damn I'm old.

But anyway.

Glengarry Glen Ross, as well as being brilliant, is also full of swears. You likely already know that too. It's a film I'll never be able to show my dad, for example, because he'll spend the whole time tutting at the language.

Having said that, my absolute favourite bit is when Al Pacino breaks out the c-word.

You can probably guess I'm not a fan of the c-word, and 99.9% of the time I don't think it's warranted. However... when Pacino uses it here, you can tell he's saved it for a very special occasion. He spends the entire movie swearing at people, but keeps this one word in reserve for when he needs to turn things up to eleven. If there was a more liberal sprinkling of c-words throughout the movie, it would have diluted the effect, but here it raises eyebrows, despite the vast sweariness that preceded it.

The lesson, I guess, is that if everything is already at eleven, you've got nowhere to go when you need emphasis. Always keep something big in reserve for when you really need to hurl it at Kevin Spacey.

2015 - end of year writing stats

That's a boring heading, isn't it? Anyways, fresh from the Rakie-spreadsheet, some stats about my writing progress in 2015:

Total Word Count: 359,224
(Total for 2014: 295,670)

I'm happy with that. The main projects I worked on this year were:

Finishing The Extra (my Nano novel from November 2014 which I finally completed in March and have ignored since).
A small amount of work on YA superhero story Search & Destroy.
Rewriting and editing Fourth to the Devil (including dreaded synopsis and query letters).
Finally redrafting my YA time-travel, haunted house bonanza 2114, which was started for Nano 2013 and has now been renamed 2116 in honour of how unnecessarily long it's taken me to complete.
Notes on a supernatural crime story, White Death, that I really want to start work on.
Completed NaNoWriMo 2015 with Animal Bones, a rewrite of one of my earliest stories.
And the first draft of Floor 156, a dystopian thriller which I'm pretty sure no one will ever get to read, ever (some things are only written for our own funsies).

Oh, and the ebook of Home Ground came out. :)

One resolution for last year was to write every day, which I just about managed, although it was a close call on a few days and frequently I achieved only a few scribbled notes. Even so, I appear to have averaged approximately 980 words a day (allowing a margin for my shoddy maths), which is very respectable if true.

I also resolved that drawing counted as writing. This was to encourage me to devote more time to drawing, and I assigned an arbitrary word count to time spent (given a picture's worth a thousand words, and all that). I didn't finish anything major, aside from some wedding invites for my sister that turned out okay, but I'm happy that I spent a little more time than usual on a skill I've sadly neglected.

Soooo... projects for 2016...

First and last I need to finish the rebranded 2116. I'm at the horrible stage of editing where you read everything aloud and agonise for hours about word choice ("Do I mean bright or do I mean clear? Is spiderwebbing a real word? Is a culvert what I think it is?"). After that I need to redraft all the crap I wrote last year.

And then I have a stolen idea about dragons that I want to pursue...

In 2016 I will write. I will read. I will draw. I will blog. It's also likely I will drink too much wine and shout at cooking shows on TV. In my spare moments I might sleep. Also, Fallout 4.

Best wishes to you all for a shiny 2016. ("SHINY! That's the word I want!")

still doing that writing thing

This was something my friend said to me a while back. She'd come round to help me drink whiskey and shout at Disney movies, which we sadly don't do often enough these days. I've mentioned before that I don't have a set word count I try and hit each day--instead I write something each day, even if it's just a few notes or a funny line someone said. So, since this particular day was likely to be eaten up by whiskey and shouting, I snatched a few minutes while my friend was in the bathroom to write in my notebook.

It wasn't anything great, literally just: this is where the current WIP is going tomorrow, when hopefully you won't be too hungover to do anything and a few lines about the next scene.

My friend returned before I'd finished and I explained my "write something every day" policy. Her response was, "Oh, are you still doing that writing thing?"

This surprised me, because... well, what else would I be doing? I've never for one moment considered it was something I would stop. But why not? People quit hobbies all the time. I never progressed with playing the violin, or painting, or bread-making. There are things I really enjoy that I never have time for these days, like video games or sewing or Warhammer. So why was the idea of stopping writing so strange?

Just think about it... I could quit. I'd have extra time on my hands. I wouldn't forever be zoning out while thinking about characters or plots. I could rejoin the real world and not have to fret about stupid self-imposed deadlines or how many days are left in NaNoWriMo.

Oh yes, we're in NaNo month again. That's a whole separate post by itself.

But, obviously, I'm not going to quit writing. Not just because I'm stubborn, or because I want to be a proper, full-time writer, or because I'm pretty sure I won't find anything else I can do competently. It's just... I can't really imagine not doing it.

And that's the best thing about finally developing a good writing habit, I've realised. It feels odd when I'm not writing. I'd miss it. And for that reason, I can't see myself quitting that writing thing anytime soon.

born to runner-up

Practice makes perfect.

We can probably agree, in general, that the above statement is correct. You start off rubbish, you practice for untold squillions of hours, you eventually get good. You're very unlikely to get good if you skip the boring, repetative middle part (anyone who instantly became brilliant at anything is free to ignore this blog post).

The more I stop to think about it however, the more I'm convinced it's not completely accurate, and the problem lies with the word 'perfect'. Can you really obtain perfection just through diligent practice?

An example: I can't sing. Well, I can sing privately in the car or over-enthusiastically at karaoke, but no one is ever going to pay to hear the sound of my voice. Now, if I practiced every single day; if I took lessons and learned techniques and really focused my mind... in a few years I could probably be competent. BUT... competent is a long way from perfect, isn't it? No matter how much time and effort I put into singing, I'm never going to star in Les Mis or get to the final round of X-Factor.

See, this is an issue I'm having about my writing. I would classify myself as a competent writer. I've completed about twenty novels, some of which are readable. I write every day. I take every available (affordable) course I can. I ask advice from anyone who'll tolerate my questions. I understand the basics of structure and plotting and why my characters shouldn't be so bloody passive all the time. I know how to use the word 'ameliorate'. I'm fairly sure I know what a gerund is.

BUT... competent is a long way from perfect.

If writing is a scale from 1 to 10, where 10 is Neil Gaiman and 1 is a drunk horse hitting the keys with its face, I'm probably... ehhhhh... realistically about a 6. Maybe a 7 on the best day of my life.

I'm definitely better than I was when I first started writing, at age 14, with a screenplay about killer mutated gorse bushes (it was called A Real Mutated One and was an unhealthy blend of The Thing and Reservoir Dogs, as far as I recall). I'm also pretty sure I'm a better writer than I was five years ago. A year ago? That I'm not so sure about.

I'm not convinced I'm still improving as a writer. I think I may have reached a plateau. And that's irksome, because I would quite like to be brilliant.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing intrinsically bad about competence. I'm a competent cook and that's fine--I have no ambitions above feeding my family every day. There is no aspiration for me to become a professional cook or bake a meringue on live television or learn what the hell a bain marie is. A decent level of competence is both admirable and worth working hard for.

But to upgrade from a 6 to a 10... is that even possible? Or does every perfect-10 writer in the world have some spark of genius that simply can't be replicated by wishing really-really hard? Not everyone who learns the guitar has the potential to be Jimi Hendrix. By their very nature, perfect-10s are a rare, singular event, because if everyone was special then no one would be.

This is what I'm currently fretting about. Am I happy to be competent in my writing? And if not, is there anything I can do about it? Hard work is a significant part of the process, sure, but I suspect the perfect-10s also have a blending of genius, luck, and good timing. Maybe lazy geniuses never reach their full potential, but equally, hard-working competents without that indefinable flair may never become geniuses. Is that true?

I think I have to decide what I want to aim for, what I can realistically achieve, and how I intend to get there. Hmm.

here hair here

My hair has suffered its share of abuses over the years. There's been a lot of bleaching, dying, DIY styling, and ill-advised home haircuts. It's a wonder the whole lot hasn't fallen out in disgust years ago. It also means, once my hair reaches any real length, it's lousy with split ends.

To call them the bane of my life is a bit melodramatic. They're irksome is all. And I've gotten into a habit, in procrastinating moments, of taking the scissors and sorting through the strands of hair until I find one that's frayed, and clipping it off.

This is a slow and pointless process that makes no tangible difference to the state of my hair. Eventually I'll conceed that the proper fix is to lop an inch off everywhere. Or pay a hairdresser to do it. Or shave off the whole damn mess and start over.

And, coincidentally, this is how my current writing is progressing as well.

office space

For a long while, I never had a designated workspace at home, particularly after our desktop computer exploded and we all gravitated to laptops instead. My preferred workspace became the sofa, under a blanket, with wine and movies readily to hand. Which is all well and good, but there's something to be said for having a place that's set aside exclusively for work.

With that in mind, about a year ago I bought a desk. It's an old writing desk, with sticky drawers and baize on the fold-down top that's so covered with ring marks it could double as a crop-circle blueprint. I've become very fond of it.

Because I'm a hoarder at heart, it's also covered in crap:

Just about everything there has some daft significance to me. Our engagement photo, two dolls my grandma left me, a plaster bust of Vlad Tepes given to me in Romania, several dinosaurs, a piece of glass I found in a glass-blowing factory when I was six, a bear made of blue-tack. I could tell you a boring story about every random item, if you stood still long enough.

This is a pretty tidy version of my desk, btw. There've been times when I can't get near it because it's covered in bills or books or socks. Look, there's even room for my coffee today.

In comparison, this is my husband's work desk:

He's in his second year of his nursing degree, and this is fairly indicative of how he thinks it's going, the poor lamb. His desk is pretty functional - it's covered in work, or work-related items (and also the baby monitor). His is an area for working; mine is to distract me from working.

And this is Jacob's desk:

Which is cute and teenage. The bonsai tree is called Odin.

These desks are all in the same room, btw, one in each corner, so we have the illusion of working together even though we're facing in different directions.

They also suit us as individuals. I couldn't work at Jacob's desk. For one thing, he wouldn't let me; for another I can't get out of the broken saggy office chair he insists on using. John's desk has too few distractions for my limited attention span. And I don't think anyone could work at my desk, because there's a system to be learned as to which piles can be moved and which are load-bearing to the upper layers of crap (also everyone hates my ergonomic chair).

Anyway, it's very comforting that we've got our own personal spaces. And if the work gets done, that's what matters, doesn't it?

It's 2015, Where's My Hoverboard?

Starting 2015 on an obvious and already well-worn question there, but never mind...

Anyways, how was your 2014? Did it feel kinda short? Like if you blinked too much you would've missed the whole damn year? Certainly did to me. Time is definitely speeding up, isn't it? I'm sure science has proved that.

Now here we are in 2015 and I still haven't found a cohesive and consistent format for this blog, so for the moment it will continue to be sporadically updated about nothing in particular. And for now, here's a run-down of what I think I achieved in 2014:

My main resolution was to write every day. Previously, I've set myself the target of one thousand words per day... which sometimes I hit and sometimes I didn't. The problem was, on days when I wasn't hitting my target then I'd feel bad, and there were conspicuous weeks when I didn't write anything at all.

So I set a new goal: write every day. Doesn't matter if it's a thousand words, two thousand, fifty, or just a few scrawled words in my notebook. On one day I wrote two hundred illegible scribbles (I may have been drinking). On another, the only thing I wrote down was, "he'd been dead so long that when they picked him up his face stayed on the carpet (true story)", which I found written in biro on my leg when I came home from a hard day at the pub.

I also kept a spreadsheet of my daily-weekly-monthly totals, because I'm sad like that. In 2014, I wrote a total of 295,670 words (not all new stuff - some was editing or rewriting, which got an approximate word-count assigned to it). My most productive month was November, unsurprisingly, when I clocked 54,562 words for NaNoWriMo. Least productive was February with 10,177. Most words in one day was 3,039. On average I wrote 24,639 words per month, 5,685 words per week, 810 words per day.

That last stat was a pleasant surprise. Apparently, once I gave up my determination to set down 1,000 words every day and instead concentrated on writing however much I felt like, I actually became more productive, and in the end didn't fall too far short of that arbitrary 1,000 wpd target.

I finished one novel in 2014 (a crime story I didn't really intend to write until I started), completed two-thirds of another (women's fiction, another genre I'm currently blundering into), I blogged and posted crits for my writer's group, I wrote synopses and outlines and a few poems, and scripted half a graphic novel about gangster-flowers. I also read 42 books (not as many as I'd hoped).

So there we go, a bit of bragging and a small ego-boost, and now at least I know where all those moments in 2014 went.

This year... well, this year I intend to keep trying to write every day, since it seems to be working for me. My new resolution is that drawing counts as writing, and any time I spend drawing can be given a word-count-equivalency, because I need to get back to drawing.

Happy 2015 to you all. :)

10 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Do NaNoWriMo

Because, let's face it, there are plenty of reasons why you should. The Official Website has approximately one bajillion pep talks covering every possible reason why you should sacrifice your November for the sake of a first draft. So here, as a counterpoint, are ten reasons why you* shouldn't do NaNoWriMo this year.

(* of course, as The Vandals say, when I say "you", I mean "me")

1. You don't have the time
I've made this point before. No one has the time to write 50k words in thirty days. We all have day-jobs and demanding families and housework and social lives and three kids and Alien Isolation. Carving out writing time from this schedule is crushing.
Writing takes time. I have a certificate that says I can type an average of 34 words per minute (apparently), so even if I type at flat-out, no-time-to-think-or-plot speed, the daily total of 1667 words will take me about fifty minutes. If I had fifty minutes to spare each day, I'd have a nap.

2. You don't know what to write about
Ideas are difficult. Putting ideas into a coherent and entertaining form is seventeen times as difficult. And even if you have the best idea in the world:

3. You haven't done enough prep
Preparing a full character sheet can eat up hours of your life. World-building has stolen more of my time than Fallout 3. Even if you're a pantser like me, you need at least an outline, right? Or a chapter-by-chapter breakdown. So, not only do you not have time to write, you don't have time to properly plan the extravagant plot, characters, theme etc. that your story deserves.

4. No one wants to read what you've written
This one can be deceptive, because if you say to someone, hey, I'm writing a book, there's about a ninety percent chance they'll ask to read it. DO NOT BE FOOLED BY THIS. Paranoia is your friend--if you never write it, you never need risk someone guffawing at your prose.

5. The first draft will suck
I refuse to believe that any writer, no matter how successful, loses the desperate hope that somehow, against all odds, this first draft will turn out perfect and you won't have to change so much as a misplaced comma. And then you read back what you've written, and you cry.

6. It's difficult
Writing is difficult, Princess. Anyone who tells you different is selling something. You will put in long hours, you will fight with your laptop, you will shout STUPID STORY BE MORE FINISHED, and you will probably get RSI, especially if you're having to balance your laptop at a silly angle because there's a cat on your knee, like what I'm doing.

7. Your inner critic won't like it
As much as I love NaNo, it's a bit harsh on the "inner editor" - the sensible voice in your head that corrects your syntax and tells you when your main character is being an unnecessary doofus. NaNo's point is that for November you should put the editing part of your brain aside and concentrate on words on paper, but I think this is a bit mean, since the best work should be a collaboration between all the voices in your head. So I tend to use "inner critic" instead.
Regardless, whatever you call him/her, your inner bumgardner won't like being ignored, and will undermine your confidence at every opportunity, like in that episode of Red Dwarf. Can you put up with internal nagging for a whole month?

8. Your idea sucks
Sure, it seems great now, but is it good enough to maintain your interest for 30 days? Bear in mind all the other things you could be doing. Is it seriously worth sacrificing your time for? Be honest now.

9. You can't find your muse
S/he's probably gone off drinking with your inner editor. I told you it was a bad idea to start excluding people.

10. Reason 10, because there's always a tenth reason
Even if it's not specifically mentioned on a list like this, you can always find a reason not to write. A novel is a big investment of time and effort, and if you don't really REALLY want to do it, you'll find a reason not to. It's easy to let a day slip past, and you tell yourself you'll catch up at the weekend, but then it's midweek again and you're so far behind there's really no point even trying to reach your goal, and hey have you guys been watching Intruders on BBC? It's great.

So there you go, ten reasons not to NaNo, go ahead and pick the one(s) you like best. Or, ignore me, and ignore all the other niggling doubts your inner scuzzbucket throws at you, and go write. Oh, and friend me. Ta.

The Work-In-Progress Blog Tour

Late to the party as usual, but I've been invited to participate in a blog tour by the lovely and talented Elizabeth Brooks... I just hope all the other participants haven't gotten bored and gone home. :)

The rules of the WIP blog tour are as follows: provide the link back to the post by the person who nominated you, write a little about and give the first sentences of the first three chapters of your current WIP, then nominate four other writers to do the same. Piece o cake, right?

I hit a snag straight away, in that I'm not at all happy with any of the first lines of my initial chapters. In point of fact, I'm currently at that wondrous stage of the writing process where I'm unhappy with pretty much every damn line, and am two glasses of wine away from binning the whole thing.

But, since temper tantrums are only advisable and/or tolerated when you're a proper artist, here's some bumf about my current Work In Progress.

Okay, so, I love crime novels. Apart from Horror, Crime is my favourite genre to read in. I have a long and illustrious history of stalking crime authors and fan-girling at them until they sign something so I'll go away (in fact I did it just today with the fabulous Alan Bradley, who was launching his new book, The Dead In Their Vaulted Arches... but I digress).

So I figured I'd have a go at writing a crime novel. In typing that last sentence, btw, I can feel a thousand crime writers wince, because it must be infuriating for someone to blithely announce they're "having a go" at the thing you do for a living. ("Oh yes, I'm taking a swing at being a nurse, how hard can it really be?")

And I've also discovered, crime novels are flipping difficult. I'm not cut out for suspense. For a start, I have a lousy memory, so there's no real point in peppering chapters with carefully laid clues, because by halfway through I will have forgotten their existence, or at least their purpose. The second problem is, I get overexcited when I write (enthusiastic is the term I like) and am terrible at keeping secrets, so I keep trying to tell people who the murderer is every ten pages or so.

Then there's the issue that the first draft of my carefully plotted novel came in at 45,000 words, which even for me is a bit skimpy. So I had to go back and add a whole second strand, resulting in the story now being told partially in the present day, and partially in a (very extended) flashback.

The plot (tch, it says something about my writing that I've only got to the plot after four paragraphs, doesn't it?) concerns Daniel, who returns to his home village after a seven year absence. Naturally, when he left he did so under a cloud, and no one is happy to see him back, least of all his family. His timing is lousy as well - he arrives in the middle of the spring floods, when a major river has burst its banks and the whole village is washed out, so the only people remaining are the very determined or those with a substantial collection of sandbags.

Things get worse for Daniel because, on returning to the family home, he finds his brother murdered. Dun dun DUN. Concealed around the house, he also uncovers an unexplainably large amount of cash. He's anxious to find out what the hell happened, but finds himself implicated in the murder.

With the village cut off by the floods, there's no way for Daniel to escape from either his wrathful family or the true murderer... and no way for the police to come save him.

Okay, it sounds fairly passable when it's set out like that. :) The novel is called Fourth To The Devil, and these are the first lines of the first chapters:

CHAPTER ONE:
To return to Stonecrop, Daniel was forced to sprint across the closed road bridge while the police officer wasn't watching. In another few hours the bridge would be impassable even on foot. The river was still rising.

CHAPTER TWO:
The Crossed Swords public house benefited from its location at the junction between the high street and the road out to Westbridge Farm.  The land there was slightly higher than the rest of the town, and the pub now sat on a tiny island some fifty feet wide.

CHAPTER THREE:
Samual eyed the cup of coffee on the table.  His need for a warming drink was apparently less pressing than his wish to stay out of obligation to his younger brother, and he pushed the cup away untouched.

As I say, I am unhappy with these lines, and they will hopefully be prettified to some significant degree at some point. :) They do, however, hit on several important parts of the novel - floodwater, pubs, coffee, and the two main characters. So I guess it could be worse. :)

Ok, that's enough from me. I nominate:

Sonja Perrin
Matthew Baugh
Charles Phipps

declaration

In approximately two thousand days, I will quit my day job and become a full time writer.

This number isn't pulled entirely out of thin air. Two thousand days, more or less (and I'll admit I've not added it up with any huge degree of accuracy), will bring us to my fortieth birthday. As a special present to myself, I intend to get off the treadmill of the nine-to-five day job and instead hop aboard the from-coffee-a.m.-to-why-am-I-still-awake-p.m. rollercoaster of freelancery.

I've given myself this long-date deadline for several reasons. One: I ain't ready to do it now. With two kids and a student husband, it is completely the wrong time to abandon a nice stable job. Two: I like deadlines. I work well to them. Giving myself some tangible date to aim for will make me more likely to stick to it. And three: by making a public declaration, like so, I hope my friends and family will spend the run-up to my fortieth birthday asking me pointed questions about how my quest for job-independence is going.

As prosaic as it is, I also need time to save up a monetary cushion. I'm under no illusions about my ability to pay the bills by my writing talent alone. I'm hoping that in +/- five-and-a-half years I'll be in a position of relative stability (touch wood) where it wouldn't cripple my family if I became a penniless hack.

So there it is--my public declaration. By the end of 2019, I will have quit my day job and become a full time writer. Anyone reading this: I'm relying on you to remind me of this, in case I attempt to wuss out nearer the time. :)