Philip Pullman's call to defend 'the republic of reading'

You're probably aware of the rising tide of bewildered rage and campaigning fury across England and certainly in my local region, Oxfordshire, at the prospect of the closing of library branches. In Oxford city alone, Summertown, Headington, Old Marston, Littlemore, Blackbird Leys and Kennington are due to close - and this is to say nothing of branches outside the city. The Council advocates that everybody makes their way to Oxford's Central Library, blithely ignoring those who are strapped for bus fares, strapped for time, struggle to find child care, or are physically disabled.

Or, maybe they won't close them: a poisoned chalice is offered us. Yes, you may keep your branch libraries, on the condition that you run them yourselves. All very well and good in nice bourgeois areas, perhaps less likely in deprived ones. So, er, what if you're struggling to find a book or a resource? Isn't it fairly important to be able to turn to a professional, someone who is fully trained and cognisant with sources, locations and connections? If I pop up to the John Radcliffe Hospital with heart palpitations, do I expect to be treated by somebody who likes reading medical books and once did a first aid course, but doesn't have any other qualification?

The council will of course bleat that they have to cut such services as libraries in order to preserve more necessary services - but this sort of excuse just makes my blood boil. We never seem short of money to send officials on junkets and fact-finding missions, to advertise non-jobs whose descriptions and pay-rates beggar belief. To say nothing of unimaginable expenditure on bank-bailouts and pointless wars.

When I was a child, it was an utter joy to go down to the local village library and work my way along the shelves, reading anything and everything that came my way. I expanded my imagination and my knowledge. I made serendipitous discoveries. One of my dearest friends has been a librarian all her working life - is all her experience, her dedication, her enthusiasm to be devalued in this way?

We all seem to be existing these days in a state of gasping indignation: What? They're planning what? They wouldn't! They mustn't! We sign petitions against selling publicly-owned forests (if you haven't as yet, please do!), and now to save a service which since the nineteenth century has been a source of national pride: check out The Bookseller's Fight For Libraries campaign - go to http://www.thebookseller.com/ or to the Fight for Libraries facebook page, or follow them on Twitter - @fight4libraries.

Finally, I urge you to read Philip Pullman's speech, given in Oxford last week, and posted at http://falseeconomy.org.uk/blog/save-oxfordshire-libraries-speech-philip-pullman : it's a wonderfully articulate explosion of indignation, which not only defends libraries but celebrates the power of reading itself. He witheringly condemns the council for its lack of respect: thinking 'the job of a librarian is so simple, so empty of content, that anyone can step up and do it for a thank-you and a cup of tea', he expresses hate of 'the bidding culture' where all sorts of good causes are forced to compete with one another for limited resources, he talks of his own relationship with libraries, celebrating what goes on 'in that wonderful space that opens up between the reader and the book', and he worries that government and publishers fail to see value in any other than financial terms: 'the only measure is profit'. He reminds us that libraries are a reminder that 'there are things above profit.'

I hope he won't mind my quoting from him: please do read the whole article. Find out what's happening in your locality: libraries are precious. Don't take this erosion of a vital service in our society lying down.

In Memoriam

Here it is again,  the darkest day, lurking at the dawn of the year.

George Johnston Fergusson
Elizabeth Hay Findlay

21.1.72

'There is a photo of the two of them at some shindig  before they are married. My father wears a suit but it looks saggy, bauchled - and under the jacket is a knitted waistcoat. I remember it: dark wine in colour, banded in beige. His lop-sided smile is part Frank Sinatra and his eyes sparkle. His arm is round my mother's waist. She's wearing a frothy creation, with a ruffled bodice that does her no favours and tiers of chiffon skirting, all very Fifties. Her skin is gorgeous: she glows. Her smile has a shyness to it: she looks happy to have his protective arm around her.

Later, in the black and white wedding photo, my Aunt Eunice sits in a froth of grey pastel, my cousin Dorothy is pixie-cute as the flower girl, and the best man, Ecky Mo, looks like a character from a comic-strip with his surprised stand-up hair and his square little face and button eyes. My Dad leans towards my Mum and he is in the full flowering of his handsomeness. My grandmother told me how, at the reception, he was taking a little too much to drink, but when she chided him for it he turned to her and said, 'Ae, Mam, I'm jist sae happy!' My heart clenches at that simple, pure outpouring of joy.'

Booking Opens for my Spring Courses!

I'm delighted to announce that I've now posted full details of my next fictionfire courses on my website, http://www.fictionfire.co.uk/ and booking is now open: there's a special Early Bird rate for bookings by 28th February. I do hope you'll join us!

Here are brief summaries:

7th May: Essential Story Construction

As a writer, you're a fabricator: you make things up but you also have to put your invented elements together in a way that will not only make sense to your readers but which will grip their attention. This day course will examine the components you need to build your story - with particular emphasis on plot.

21st May: Creating Narrative Perspective and Voice

One of the crucial choices you make as a storyteller is to choose who's telling the story. The effective creation of point of view will add colour and draw your reader into the world of your characters. In this course we'll use published examples and practical exercises to explore the options available to you when choosing narative perspective, how to convey attitude and voice and the importance of controlling just how much information the reader is given and how it is pitched. You're aiming to use your skills to intrigue your readers and keep them engaged.

New Year, New Beginnings

Well, that's Christmas over with - and it was a very good one down our neck of the woods. We're now standing on the threshold of the new year in a month named after the two-faced god of doorways. We look back - with some degree of nostalgia perhaps, although many of us seem to be glad to be putting 2010 behind us (my sister especially, who's had a bad year, health-wise) - and we look forward, perhaps with excitement at the prospect of a fresh start, perhaps with trepidation because the future is uncertain.

I wanted to share with you these brilliant lines from T.S. Eliot's Little Gidding, which Daisy Hickman posted on Facebook:

'For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice ...
And to make an end is to make a beginning.'

Many of us are reviewing what we did, what we read, what we learned, what we lost - and what we wrote, during the year that's gone. If you're writing, take the time to think about how much progress you made, look at what went well, what didn't go so well, the rejections you perhaps had to assimilate - do all that. Taking stock is important. And feeling proud of what you created - whether it was a whole novel or a four line poem - that too is important. But then ... move on. It's a new year: new beginnings come out of old experience. New words await for your brain to mint them.

I wish you all imaginable riches.

Get your metaphors in a twist!

Metaphors are incredibly powerful tools, when you get them right - but writers can give too free a rein to their imagination, letting the horse of figurative language have its head (see what I'm doing here?) and they can fall at the Becher's Brook of comprehensibility.

Only Shakespeare can get away with this sort of frantic coinage of the mind: famously, Hamlet talks of taking arms against a sea of troubles, for instance, and Bill makes it work precisely because of the Canute-like absurdity of military action against the ocean.

My favourite mixed metaphors are 'I smell a rat! Shall I nip it in the bud?' and one which one of my students heard in a meeting: 'The road-map is on track to take off.'

And here today is another corporate-speak nonsense: one of Bloomsbury's sales and marketing people, when interviewed about their new deal with Google e-books, describes the advantages (apparently. Hmnn...) to authors and indie booksellers: 'Anyone that has any platform with any legs moving forward is on cloud.'

I leave that vision with you.

Post-NaNo Post: How to Keep Writing!

So, 1st December, eh? All you weary NaNoers can down tools - and to those of you who reached the 50,000 word target I send my heartiest congratulations.

Last week, I posted about my NaNo with a Twist exercise, telling you that I'd deliberately set my target at 35,000 words. I'm happy to report that I passed that target two days ago and my grand total is 36,228 words, which is the largest  total I've ever reached in a single month!

On the 1st November, it really didn't look as if that would happen: I felt utterly dismal, to be honest, and didn't see how I could achieve a tenth of the output I'd promised myself. So, what turned things around for me? Well, first of all, lowering my sights to a more realistic target. Second, choosing the right project to work on, which for me was memoir.

Third, was the mind game. Mind games are hugely useful to writers: we wriggle and dodge and make excuses for ourselves all the time. (Remember, my nickname is Queen of Displacement Activity.) I had the right desk, the right project, time enough in which to be productive - but still I struggled. Then I came across this article by novelist Drew Smith, which began, utterly engagingly, with this statement: 'The easiest thng about being a writer is not writing. It's also the hardest thing about being a writer.' Absolutely spot on. He went on to advise would-be writers to find a buddy (and, on a larger scale, Nano has been just that, for so many thousands of people.) A buddy cheers you on from the sidelines - but a buddy is somebody who will make sure you toe the line. You need support and encouragement, you need somebody to show tough love if necessary. (I have, by the way, the most wonderful friend who's been reading and cheering all month long!)

Secondly, he referred to Jerry Seinfeld's practice of hanging a huge calendar on the wall and putting a big red cross on every day where he meets his writing target. What happens is that you see a lovely line of red crosses stretching out - a visual reminder of all you have achieved. You become unwilling to 'break the chain'.

Bingo! I got out a calendar, wrote 1700 words on 2nd November, used a fat red marker pen to mark the cross and propped it up beside my desk. Amazingly, given that it's such a simple ploy, it did the trick! I'm now looking at a whole page of crosses - for even last night, after passing my target on the 29th, I still wrote, because I wanted the pleasure of seeing every box on that calendar page sporting its red cross (apart from the box for the 1st, alone and palely loitering ...).

Now, I do know that if I return to fiction after finishing the memoir, things will be tougher because the memoir is like lowering a bucket into a well and seeing what is drawn up - whereas a novel is a piece of architecture and I'm in charge of constructing all the elements in such a way that the edifice doesn't collapse. I can find the words - it's finding the plot that's the challenge.

That's as may be. I'll worry about that later. Now it's December 1st and time to turn to a new page on the calendar. If I put a red cross in the box later today I know I'll have to keep doing it!

So, many thanks, Drew and Jerry!

Now try it for yourself. Here's your mantra: don't break the chain!

NaNo with a Twist

Everybody in the literary blogosphere seems to be aware that November is NaNoWriMo month - and many are slogging and swearing and cursing and despairing and celebrating as they write their daily quotas, heading for the goal of 50,000 words in 30 days. That's 1667 per day, for those of you not in the know.

I blogged about it recently and encouraged you to take part. What about me? Well, on the last day of October, pretty much at the last minute, I had a rush of blood to the head and signed myself up as a NaNoWriMoer.

The first of November, therefore, was hellish. What had I done? What was I thinking of? How could I write so much in so short a time when my life is so busy and my mental energy so low?

As the day headed towards midnight, with nary a word scratched on the vellum, the biggest conundrum I faced was this: what was I going to write? For quite a while now, I've found myself unable to make proper progress on projects because I cannot choose one in particular, onto which and into which I can settle. I have a butterfly mind. I am subject to fierce enthusiasms and sudden burn-outs. So all of that Monday was spent in an agony of indecision blended with a complete lack of faith in my ability to rise to the challenge.

Tuesday morning. NaNoWriMo wordcount a big fat 0. All day Tuesday the pain went on - and my only comfort was that I hadn't really told anybody that I'd signed up (although you're supposed to, as the moral support of others and the Shame Factor of letting them and yourself down are powerful triggers to composition). Nobody knew that I had Failed. Nobody could jeer at my humiliation.

Nobody, that is, but me.

Dear reader, I expect you're hoping there was some sort of breakthrough, some sort of revelation, to turn around the sorry direction this account is heading in. Reader, there was not one revelation, but two.

First, late on the night of Tuesday 2nd November, I chose my project. I chose it because I remembered one of my favourite couplets, from Philip Sidney's sonnet about inspiration: where his Muse rather irritably says to the struggling poet who is 'biting' his 'truant pen, beating [himself] for spite', 'Fool, ... look in thy heart and write.' In my heart and mind, for many years, has been the plan to write a memoir.  I've put it off time and again, always thinking there would be a 'later' better suited to its composition. I knew that to tackle it would be difficult, that to engage with certain memories might be traumatic, to find a structure for it a challenge. But I also knew that if I never do this, I will have failed in a much more significant way than in not writing 50,000 words in a certain month in 2010.

Without thinking too much about where it would lead or what the structure would be, I opened a new document and started typing. And it's been a revelation, in many ways. I start each session with the panicky thought that I'm not up to the job, that my mind's a blank, that I don't know how to write the first sentence - but then I do write that first sentence and I'm away. A flood of memory surges through me and is channelled onto the page - some of it will be moved or excised later but that doesn't matter just now. Now is about release and momentum. I had no idea it could be this easy or this fulfilling. NaNo's philosophy is that you should just write, without the internal editor switched on, and this is what I try to follow. What is also liberating is that this is a project for me, without the draining second-guessing of what the 'market' wants - the checking of agent requirements and of book-deals recently done - I am in a bubble of spontaneous creation, ignoring the idea of mainstream publication.

I'm not saying that the thought of publication doesn't cross my mind (what is a writer without a reader?), but what I am saying is that by not making it the be-all and end-all, my writing has been able to stretch its limbs, untrammelled.

The second revelation is to do with productivity. 50,000 words is all very well and good and there are many writers out there who can produce several thousand words a day without, it seems, breaking sweat. That's not me. When I write, I write in a short, fast burst - but if I stop, I lose momentum and the fire cools. So I've come to an accommodation here: I choose not to write 50,000 words. I would have ground out sheer nonsense or clunky uninspired pedestrian prose, in service of that goal. There's a balance to be struck between writing spontaneously and non-judgementally and sweating under the burden of an unachievable word-count. I chose a target of 35,000 words: this seemed to me to be challenge enough and a satisfying quantity to have achieved by the end of the month. Each day, I set my quota as 1,000 words - knowing that once I get going, I'm likely to go over it, and the going over it makes me feel delightfully smug. I do my little running sums: in the first stage of the quota, things are often agonised. Tap tap tap goes the calculator: 361 words. Oh God! How am I going to get to 1,000? Tap, tap, tap. 749 - nearly three-quarters ... then, in the final stage, 'flow' tends to kick in, and I lose all sense of time, of effort, of wordcount. I draw breath at the end to discover I've written 1100, 1200, 1300 ... Bliss!

So, I've broken the rules. I'm writing memoir - and NaNo is about writing novels (although I see other NaNO rebels do too). I'm writing something that even my nearest and dearest may never see. I'm writing 15,000 fewer words than I should - but, at the same time, 35,000 words more than I might have done.

If you're a fellow NaNo-er, good luck! We're on the home straight now! I know I won't get my completion certificate, but, with just over 5,000 words to go, what I have is intense satisfaction and a renewal of faith in my ability to string one damned word after another, page after page, to build something that didn't exist before, to express something which only I can express in this particular way, to leave something, not just of myself but of those I've loved and have lost.