Winchester Report

So, the Writers Conference at the University of Winchester is over for another year. I meet friends there on an annual basis and we can never believe (a) just how many years we've been attending and (b) that a whole year has rolled by since the last one.

This year's one went particularly well. My mini-course on Friday was totally enjoyable. I had a pretty large class of 22 but they were all lovely people and we had a happy positive, productive day together. When I set writing exercises I was so impressed by the quality of their offerings - and as an audience we found ourselves amused, chilled, thrilled by each other's stories, several of which, it seemed to me, had real potential. So thanks to the class for being people it was a joy to teach - and thanks also for the appreciative comments: it really matters to the teacher when there's positive feedback.

On Saturday I gave a lecture about how best to make the transition from short story writer to novelist - trying to squeeze that into an hour was the challenge!

The opening plenary Conference speech this year was given by Michael Morpurgo. He was an absolute joy - insightful, idealistic, acerbically critical of our educational system, anecdotal, wise and hilarious. I've been to see Philip Pullman several times in Oxford and there were similarities - not just that they're both excellent children's writers but that they have been teachers in the past. They both have a fantastic sense of timing and the ability to balance information and entertainment that a good teacher needs. They're both supremely confident and full of enthusiasm and verve.

The Conference as a whole was the usual frantic mix of beginner writers, experienced writers, speakers, agents, editors. Over the years I've seen its scope broaden enormously and the focus change: when I started, there was little emphasis on children's writing (it began to seem to me this year that everyone in the whole wide world wants to write a children's book!) and on the skills of editing and pitching your work - now these are given, quite rightly, enormous stress.

In addition, there are one-to-one appointments: fifteen minutes where you can pitch your work to an agent or editor (they're the ones with a haggard, persecuted look to them by the end of Saturday!). Your dream may come true: the agent may like your work, ask to see more, even take you on. At the Conference dinner on Saturday, the writer Lola Jaye, vibrantly full of enthusiasm and disarming verve, described how she was taken on by agent Judith Murdoch at the Conference - she is now published by HarperCollins and is as happy as a clam. Even if an agent or editor isn't blown away by your work, they will say why - and this is so helpful, if you are prepared to listen to advice and work on improving your writing. Most delegates are delighted to get any feedback - and indeed one of the major functions of the conference is to give writers a sense that they are not alone. There is camaraderie and mutual support available - along with a lot of laughs - and delegates value this very highly indeed.

As for me, I came home with a vile sore throat and spent Sunday afternoon and a fair chunk of yesterday lethargic and unable to engage with things - but now I have to rev up again, as my summer school here in Oxford will start on Saturday - and that also is very INTENSE!

Welcome, by the way, to any new readers who've come to Literascribe because of the Conference: I hope you enjoyed yourselves, I wish you luck with your writing - and I welcome comments on this blog!

Winchester Weekend

Just a quick post today because later I'm off to the Writers' Conference in Winchester, where tomorrow I'll be teaching a mini-course, 'Making Memorable Scenes', and giving a lecture on Saturday on making the transition from short story writing to tackling a novel. Of course, the weather has been blistering - which doesn't help at all when you're trying to get your thoughts in order! If any Literascribees are going to be at Winchester, do come and say hi!

Bittersweet

Poignant news this week - that Siobhan Dowd has been awarded the 2009 Carnegie Medal for 'Bog Child'. This is wonderful news, but also so very sad because Siobhan died of cancer in 2007. Royalties from the sale of her four books go to the Siobhan Dowd Trust, which helps disadvantaged children. Her publisher, David Fickling, says: 'Children need stories. Siobhan believed that stories help children to think and if they can think, then they are free.'

Siobhan delivered four books in three years before her premature death at the age of 47 (though I'm inclined to think all death is premature when there's so much to learn, love and do in life).

Remember what writer Lisa Ratcliffe, who died a few months ago and who was a wonderful, feisty, resilient non-self-pitying voice right to the end, said: 'Writers, write!' As the comparethemeerkats.com advert has it, 'Simples!'

On a much more cheerful note, my younger son is fourteen today. He and his brother are gorgeous, bright and loving - having them in my life has been a privilege and joy which I wouldn't have missed for the world. I've been looking at photos of his extreme adorableness over the years and can't believe he's the age he is. (What a trite thing to say - but the swiftness of these years takes me by surprise all the time.) So it's lashings of Coke and loads of chocolate cake later - yay!

Would you credit it?

If you scroll down this blog to the 10th and 15th April, you'll find a couple of posts I wrote about 'Carrion Jane' - that is, the successful 'mash-up' novel called 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies'. Yes, really. It does exist. It is a success, though daunting when you come across it in a bookshop, with a lovely Regency miss in an Empire-line muslin dress but with the whole of her lower jawbone, teeth, sinews and gunk on full display. Quite puts one off one's afternoon tea.

I talked about how this success seems to be breeding more horror-lit mash-ups, and put forward a few spoof versions of my own, including 'Prince Albert, Royal Werewolf', tee hee. Well, hush my mouth, somebody must have been listening. In this week's 'Bookseller' Hodder and Stoughton announce that they've acquired 'Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter'! This worthy tome has been 'proactively' sought out because this is a 'growing area' (I better get back to my own list and get writing, then!) It was bought for a 'good five figure sum' through agent Antony Topping, who, by the way, is the agent who represents C.J. Sansom, a writer I much admire. Hmn. In the novel Queen Vic is a demon hunter who protects the empire from werewolves and demons. So now you know why she was none-too-amused. Maybe it was the empire on which the sun never set because if it did, all these nasty beasties would come creeping out of the woodwork. And maybe that's why Prince Albert (see above) had to die ...

If you're in any need of further ghoulish humour, how's this: Father's Day is nearly upon us and Tesco and W.H. Smith have both been taken to task for displaying 'The Crimes of Josef Frizl' as a book you might like to give to your dear old pa. Granted, it was only in a couple of stores, but really. The Lewisham branch of W.H. Smith had in it their 'Top 50 Books for Dad' display.

Stick to the slippers, the Simpsons tankard, the table snooker or the Old Spice gift set, I'd say.

Beanstalks and Movie Magic

Well, phew, elder son has now finished his AS levels. I'll draw a veil over the process, but my grey hair count is definitely up. I just have to see my students through their A levels, then there's the Winchester Writers' Conference, then my summer school at Oxford University's Department of Continuing Education, then ... HOLIDAY!

I'm sending Get Well wishes to Sally Zigmond, whose blog 'The Elephant in the Writing Room' is listed on my blog roll to the right. She's had a fall and broken her leg and has just come home from hospital. Her article on how to accept and act on criticism as a writer has just appeared in this month's 'Writing Magazine' - in it she quotes the lovely Jo Derrick, who edits the Yellow Room Magazine, and my good self (although the editor has spelt my name wrong. Sigh. It's a double 's', you know). Thanks for the mention, Sally, and all the best for your recovery.

Also on my blog roll is the wonderful Tess Gerritsen, who is currently debating the usefulness of online promotion for writers. Her feeling is that traditional methods have worked for her, but then she is an already-established writer (and she is astute enough to be using online methods as well.) The problem is that it is very hard to gauge exactly how much effect on sales there is. She does feel, and I agree, that online presence is a wonderful thing for the new or 'mid-list' author, as you can make contact with so many people at such little expense.

Here is a quote from her post of 27th May: 'But the most important thing you can do as a writer is to write. Write the next book. And the next ... If you write two books a year, that's twice a year readers and booksellers will encounter your name. But these books must be good books. That's the given in all this promotional talk. The books must make a reader want to pick up your next book.'

'Two books a year!' I hear you squeak. Bloody hell!

And they've got to be 'good books' too? Have mercy!

I've talked about this conundrum before - to be a success, you need to be churning out the words at a stunning rate. You need to be full of mental energy, commitment and industry, you need to be your own publicist and marketeer - and to top it all, you need to be hitting your literary peak at all times. Yet, when you read articles, how-to books and interviews, you come across the view that a good work of fiction needs time to brew, time to mature, time for plot-lines to develop, characters to grow, themes and notions to coalesce: writing a novel is not like Jack chucking the magic beans out of the window and next morning finding a fully-grown beanstalk leading up to the clouds, the castle, the riches. Your book needs time - but the industry dictates that you work to a timetable. How to resolve this?

While you ponder these deep and worrying issues, perhaps you'd like a little light relief: but I warn you, this is yet another cunning scheme Karen of 'Get On With It' and Lane of 'Lane's Write' have come up with in their plan to stop all the rest of us ever getting on with our work - leaving the field clear for them. Yes, ladies, I'm onto you! If you are not inclined to heed my warnings, head over to their blogs, also on the blogroll and enjoy some movie magic.

Normal service will be ...

... resumed soon, I hope. Students with coursework deadlines, elder son with AS levels, younger son sitting pseudo-SATS tests to stream him in classes for next year's GCSEs. Need I say more?

One other thing, though: boo to ITV for getting rid of the South Bank Show at the end of this season. What are they thinking of? It can be sycophantic and oily, precious and self-satisfied at times - but it's a national institution and it's a chance to see and hear some wonderful people, some wonderful works. For instance, an interview with William Goldman a couple of weeks ago.

Philistine Nation strikes again.

Inspiration, mainly

First of all, many congratulations to Carol Ann Duffy on becoming the new Poet Laureate. If you haven't read her work before, check out 'The World's Wife' where the poems are written from the perspective of the consorts of famous characters from history and mythology. Try 'Mrs Icarus', 'Mrs Darwin', 'Mrs Aesop', 'Euridice', 'The Kray Sisters'. And the choice of Carol Ann for Laureate is one in the eye for Mrs Schofield, who, you may remember, complained about the inclusion of 'Education for Leisure' on the GSCE English syllabus, whereupon the craven exam board removed it. (See my post on this at http://literascribe.blogspot.com/2008/09/aqas-unkindest-cut.html )Whereupon Ms Duffy replied with a poem called 'Mrs Schofield's GCSE': Google it and have a chortle.

Secondly, two of my fellow bloggers, Karen at http://writewritingwritten.blogspot.com and Denise at http:writinghumbug.blogspot.com, have been talking about setting themselves wordcounts in order to get novels well underway or completed as soon as possible. This is a technique that's worked well for me in the past, especially, I find, if you set yourself a daily or weekly target which is just a bit below what you can reasonably achieve. If you set the target too high and fall short, demoralisation kicks in, just as if you start a really rigid diet, two fingers of Kit-Kat make you jack the whole thing in and binge on a whole box of Lindors (I'm speaking hypothetically, of course. Ahem.) If you set the target at, say 500 words, and find you've written 732, then high glee results and you start to believe in yourself as a proper writer. Then you find yourself wanting to break that barrier every time you write, so you might raise the stakes to 750 words and blow me if you don't come close to 1,000! Try this out: if you're new or lacking in confidence, start with 200 or so - you may surprise yourself.

Finally, here are the two sides of the coin, composition-wise. So many of us exist in a love-hate relationship with our writing. You feel pressurised, dissatisfied, you want to break it off because it's not perfect - but you can't. There's the constant presence of your writing self at your shoulder, in your brain, your heart, your gut. You dream stories, you practise phrases, you think think think like a writer all the time. It's a burden. It's a source of despair. It's also a joy, a revelation, a triumph. Here are two examples of the Janus-headed nature of writing as a calling: a few weeks ago Colm Toibin, in The Guardian, talked of the wretchedness of his craft: see http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/mar/02/colm-toibin-writing-pleasure I tell you, it makes grim reading. He says writing is 'never fun or anything' and that what he likes best is 'The money'. 'I write with a sort of grim determination to deal with things that are hidden and difficult and this means, I think, that pleasure is out of the question. I would associate this with narcissism anyway and I would disapprove of it.'

Now, God knows, writing can be a complete bugger sometimes: plots need to be wrestled with, descriptions morph into cliche, self-belief is elusive, publishing deals even more so - but his is just such a cheerless, humourless, Eeyorish view! Writing can be rewarding in far more than the financial sense (just as well, eh?): it can make you feel proud and fulfilled, it can lead to friendships, it challenges and frustrates and delights. There's so much to be said for coming across a passage you wrote some time ago and feeling a glow of pride in knowing you wrote that, in that way, at that time, and it worked! In answer to Colm Toibin, A.L. Kennedy said 'The joy of writing for a living is that you get to do it all the time. The misery is that you have to, whether you're in the mood or not. ... Then again, making something out of nothing, overturning the laws of time and space, building something for strangers just because you think they might like it and hours of absence from self - that's fantastic.' Hari Kunzru and John Banville both point out that as a writer you can never, except fleetingly, get it totally right. All you can do is, as Beckett says, 'Fail better'.

In the midst of the angst and the daily struggle and the words that won't come out right, remember this: there will be occasions when, miraculously, it all does come together. Where you're in the flow, in the zone, when your pen can't keep up with your brain, where there's sureness and confidence, utter joy in the words you produce, a rhythm and flow to the sequences of thought, when you - for a few minutes or half an hour - totally believe in yourself as a writer. You revel. You're inspired. You even believe you can come back to the desk the next day and recapture that fine rapture. Probably you won't: but keep coming back to the desk and one morning or one midnight, you'll be inspired again. It's moments like those that make it all worthwhile.

One of my favourite passages about the process of writing - and it even makes it successfully and movingly to the silver screen - is the episode in 'Doctor Zhivago' where Yury writes his poems to Lara, poems which will be famous. He writes them in the severe stillness of a Russian winter and the process is a holy one to him. Under political threat, with wolves congregating out on the midnight snow, he seizes preciousness and encapsulates it: 'his work took possession of him and he experienced the approach of what is called inspiration. At such moments the correlation of the forces controlling the artist is, as it were, stood on its head. The ascendancy is no longer with the artist or the state of mind which he is trying to express, but with language, his instrument of expression. Language, the home and dwelling of beauty and meaning, itself begins to think and speak for man and turns wholly into music, not in the sense of outward, audible sounds but by virtue of the power and momentum of its inward flow. Then, like the current of a mighty river polishing stones and turning wheels by its very movement, the flow of speech creates in passing, by the force of its own laws, rhyme and rhythm and countless other forms and formations, still more important and until now undiscovered, unconsidered and unnamed. At such moments Yury felt that the main part of his work was not being done by him but by something which was above him and controlling him: the thought and the poetry of the world as it was at that moment and as it would be in the future. ... This feeling relieved him for a time of self-reproach, of dissatisfaction with himself, of the sense of his own nothingness.'

When Yury pauses, the wolves have gathered on the edge of the snowfield. Lara, soon to be lost forever, sleeps. Worries encroach: he 'was no longer in the mood to write.'

The moment of grace is gone. But it was there and it cannot be lost. He reached out and seized it. So can you.