Showing posts with label a writer's life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label a writer's life. Show all posts

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Is Success Dangerous for Writers? – Heather Dyer




Once published, writers often find themselves under pressure to produce a second book within a certain time frame. This creates conditions under which it can be difficult to be creative.

In the following interview by Julia Copus, I explain how publication led to a 5-year writing block, and reveal what needed to happen for my creativity to return: 







Heather Dyer, Royal Literary Fund Consultant Fellow



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How the Light Gets In - Liz Kessler

In the past couple of months, I've had kidney failure, liver failure, an unnamed tropical disease, another disease that is hard to diagnose because the symptoms are very much like a cold; I've cracked a rib from sneezing too much, my blood pressure has gone so high that I have spontaneously combusted, oh, and I've gone blind from glancing at the solar eclipse.

Have you guessed yet that I might not really (as in, actually, in real life) have had all (or any) of these diseases? Well, no, as far as I know, I have simply had a cold, a prickly heat rash, a bit of anxiety and a lovely walk along the coast path during the solar eclipse.

The main thing I suffer from is too much imagination.

A good writer buddy and I used to call this "Writer's Brain Tumour". The thinking is that when a writer gets a headache – which to normal people is described as a headache – we immediately fear the worst and think we have a brain tumour. Since my partner had a – benign, thank God – brain tumour a couple of years ago, I tend not to call it this any more. Nowadays I call it (cue dramatic 'dum dum derrrrrrrrer' music)....

The curse of the writer.

While you chew on that thought, let's take a quick commercial break. I was pretty much brought up on an album called You Don't Have to be Jewish, which I have had a soft spot for ever since. There is a sketch called The Diamond, and if I ever use the word 'curse', I can't help thinking of it. It has the best pronunciation of this word ever in the world. I've managed to track down a video of the sketch. Do yourself a favour and watch this before you go any further.



OK, now that's out of the way, let's get back to the issue in hand. And also, can I briefly apologise if I've talked about this before. I probably have. It doesn't go away.

You see, as writers it is our job to spend our days delving into our imaginations, exploring in the realms of 'What if this?' and 'What about that?' and 'How about?' and 'Could this possibly...?' So it's no wonder we do that with our own lives – and often our own bodies – too.

Our day jobs involve us thinking about the least likely scenarios, not the every day events. We deal in the dramatic and our fare is the furthest reaches of our imaginations. How many of us have been told by editors and agents to 'raise the stakes'?

I've spent fifteen years working as a writer. That's fifteen years training my mind to raise the stakes. Luckily, I love to do it in my books. The feeling I get from exploring a story, an idea, a character – and yes, a highly unlikely scenario – is possibly as good for me as the adrenaline rush of scoring a goal is for a footballer. The issue is, how do we switch it off?

When children ask me for my top writing tips, one that I nearly always tell them is to carry a notebook around with you because you never know when you'll get an idea. 

I tell them that ideas are like butterflies and your notebook is a big net in which you can catch them safely and take them home with you so you can work on them later when you have more time.



At the heart of this advice is the fact that our stories and our imaginations don't clock on and off between nine and five. And therein lies the problem. 

If we're not writing, the imagination doesn't instantly switch off. It's like one of those cartoon characters who keeps running, even though the top of the cliff is way behind them. It takes a moment for them to realise they are pumping their legs in mid air – before they fall to the ground. 


So how do we get our imaginations to notice that we are approaching the edge of a cliff and calmly come back from the precipice until it is time to go to work again tomorrow?

It simply doesn't work like that.

Maybe we just have to accept, like Mrs Plotnick (have you watched the sketch yet?) that along with our beautiful gift, there's a curse. We can't change it, we can't get rid of it. Perhaps we can try to wrap it up and put it in a nice box on our desks at the end of the day and hope it won't follow us out of the office when we close the door behind us and get on with the rest of our lives. But it will probably follow us down the stairs – because it isn't just part of our job, it is part of ourselves.

Perhaps the only way to get rid of the curse is to change our language and call it something different. We're good at words - we've already established that – so it could work. 

Yes, I can sometimes (OK, often) exaggerate my physical symptoms and worry about what they might mean. Yes I do feel my blood pressure go up and my anxiety levels rise when my imagination is getting more involved in my backache/headache/slight feeling of tiredness than it should be. But I don't spend my entire life doing this. In reality, it is a small portion of the time – and a small price to pay for the opportunity to spend my days staring into space making up stories about mermaids and fairies and time travel and pirate dogs (and teenagers coming out as gay - subliminal ad for Read Me Like A Book. In all good bookshops from next month.) 

In other words, the curse is in fact part of the gift, and the best way to deal with it is to stop fighting against it and accept it as the imperfection that makes the gift perfect.

Or as Leonard Cohen puts it so beautifully:

"Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in."

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On School Visits - part two - an author's perspective...

With World Book Day just behind us it is a time for authors to look back on the wonderful events that we've done to celebrate books, school libraries and librarians. I've had two brilliant events in the last week at schools where superbly talented and knowledgeable librarians had set up extraordinary days. These were the kind of days that make you realise exactly why you do it. Over the last two days everything just went so smoothly and the librarians made sure that everyone taking part - from author, to children, to parent helpers - was involved, engaged and valued.
This is just another tiny part of the essential contribution that school librarians make to the literary life of the school. I love school visits because they allow us to connect with the people who really matter - the young people who read our work, and the librarians who support it. I'm a needy soul I think, and there really is nothing quite like hearing how much they love your book and how much they love reading. I was chatting to a young student today and she looked aghast when I told her that not all schools are lucky enough to have a school librarian.
"But that's so wrong," she said, "it's not a library if it hasn't got a librarian in it."
Thirteen years old.
I'd vote for her.
The only Shades were ghostly....

However.....Not all visits are this perfect (not all of them have librarians!) and so, as a follow-upto my post last month about what school librarians are looking for in schoolvisits, here is a (light-hearted) piece about what authors are looking for. Of course I've never had any of these happen, and my last two days were the exact opposite. (If anyone is looking for some super-cool librarians to visit, just ask!)

So what is the author wish-list for a perfect school visit?

Someone who knows that we are coming
As wonderful as surprises are, authors are not particularly keen on arriving at schools to discover that they are the surprise. Travel does indeed broaden the mind, but nothing broadens the gap between enjoyment and frustration like travelling all the way to a school only to be greeted not with open arms, but with blank faces and total confusion.

Refreshments
We’re not talking about some kind of backstage bonanza here. No one is suggesting that schools provide a  hand-wrought chalice of only green M&Ms, or a marble sink filled with hand-peeled grapes, but a cup of tea is nice. Small point of advice; cans of fizzy drink are guaranteed to make an author wary - anyone could have shaken that one up, these are children after all. Refreshments are always appreciated, with biscuits being high on the list. It’s worth noting here that nothing crumbly or flaky should be provided. Some of us know all too well the horror of looking down on the train home and discovering a liberal coating of crumbly foodstuff on your clothing, and knowing that it was there through the whole presentation.
Aaargh - coconut in the cleavage!

A place to do the presentation
Now, I like a school tour as much as the next person, but touring a school in a muddled attempt to find a suitable room to do a presentation is not exactly a fun way to spend an afternoon. Whilst it can be interesting to peer into full classrooms and interrupt lessons in an apparently vague attempt to collect disgruntled frowns from teachers, it’s no way to make a living.

Prepared children who know our work
As children’s authors we thrive on the open enthusiasm of our young readers, however the blank expressions of children who have never heard of you can be more than a little disconcerting. We do our best to enthuse, but it is not easy with a susurration of “who is that?” rippling through the assembled group.

Equipment that works
Aged rock bands may well be keen on toning down their later lives with unplugged sessions, and we are certainly capable of unplugging when the need arrives. However if we've made plans to use certain pieces of equipment, we’d like them to work. Let’s leave the unplugged sessions to arty Hipster bands shall we?
"I think it's one of these...it worked yesterday....ummmm...."

Teachers who pay attention
Yes, teachers are busy and overworked and have very little time spare in the day, however it is hugely depressing to attempt to enthuse a crowd of young people whilst the room is flanked with the lowered heads of teachers doing their marking (or possibly praying, or sleeping, or quietly planning an escape tunnel - could be any of these). Authors who discover this should be encouraged to make teachers stand up with their hands on their heads, or give them after-school detention, or impromptu ballet lessons, or dress them up as Christian Grey - they love that.

Book sales
Believe it or not, authors need to do exotic things like pay bills and eat and we do this by selling things called “books” and therefore it is helpful if we can do this during school visits. We can't always, and we don't mind if there is a good reason, but it's handy. Sometimes schools even have someone to sell the books for the author. This allows the author to feel more like an author, and less like a shady street hawker with a suitcase full of saucy postcards and fake watches.

Someone to write the children’s names down
Children have such wonderful and creatively spelled names these days, and said children also have a gift for expressing surprise that you have never heard of the particular spelling of their name. If there is someone to write down the names for you when you are signing books then you can be absolutely sure that Aleksarnderr, Klowee, Bry-Anne and Kay-Tea go home with the rosy glow of a correctly spelled name in their book.

A thank you from the Head
Yeah, I admit it, this one might be a flight of fancy. It's worth a shot.
Okay, so we'll happily settle for lovely thank-yous and questions from the pupils. 

A short list of things that authors are looking for, and I'm sure that you can add your own to this list. Having said all of this, I've never met a touring author who didn't enjoy doing school visits, even when the going gets tough. Oh, actually, that’s not true...I can think of at least one who....oh, and there was the one I met who.... no...best save that for a much more private post!

Written by Dawn Finch - author of Brotherhood of Shades
www.dawnfinch.com
www.deefinch.wordpress.com
twitter @dawnafinch


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The Greatest Story Ever Told by Tess Berry-Hart


“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” - Phillip Pullman

“And what do you do?” asks the polite professional lawyer in the group of polite professional people at my polite professional neighbour’s Christmas party.

“Me?  Oh, I'm a writer,” I answer, equally politely.

“Oh, really?”  A wave of heads turn in my direction, polite smiles become suddenly more interested.  “What kind of writing?  Journalism?  Novels?”

“Well, I write stories for children and young adults,” I begin confidently, but oops, I'm losing them already.  Smiles have taken on a glazed quality and I'm starting to be relegated to the category in their minds that houses lolloping bunnies, plucky hobbits and talking lions.  I follow up quickly with a couple of my adult plays and novels but I can see in their eyes that my status has already been set.  Children’s stories! – how quaint.

“But we all tell stories, don’t we,” I begin jovially, in what my husband would term my instructively-speaking-to-a-three-year-old tone.  “Our reality, our economy, our social structures are all governed by stories, aren’t they?”

Deep nods and a strained kind of silence greet this; though a couple of people look a little as if they’re trying to work out if I'm insulting them in some covert fashion.

“And whether you subscribe to the idea that there’s only seven stories in the world or not, it’s amazing how these stories get replayed over and over in media and advertising isn't it?  The small company who fights back from the edge of extinction.  The underdog who wins through on the X Factor.”

Oh dear, the mention of X Factor – the professional version of Godwin’s Law after which any proponent can lose her credibility.  And I haven’t even watched it in years!

A chorus of agreement, though with no discernible words, follows this, and mercifully our hostess comes to our rescue with a tray of mince pies.  People break up into twos and turn to each other with noticeable relief.  “Have you heard about X?”

I take refuge in a mince pie, and think.  Why should we be afraid of confronting our stories?  We adults absorb stories as voraciously as if we were children.  The middle-aged lawyer creates a story to the judge and jury about why they should believe his client’s version of events.  The saleswoman on my left creates stories that we will look better, feel happier and be more successful if we buy her product.  And don’t even get me started on the advertising director opposite.

Stories are all around us, shaping our world and our outlook – and let’s face it, stories are not all capitalist cynicism.  Good stories are centuries old, and they’re around for a reason.  We NEED the story that we can succeed in whatever we do against insurmountable odds.  We NEED the story that the bad guys will get punished and the good guys triumph.

Stories are acutely important for learning.  They are the models by which children see the world and learn from it.  Telling my son a story to deliver a message is ten times more effective that merely telling him the message.  When I see him playing, I can see that games are stories in action.  He’s already channelling the “rescuing hero” story, the “quest” story and the “overcoming the monster” stories all by himself.

Where does the power of story come from?  As psychologists Melanie C Green and Timothy C. Brock note in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, the mechanism of “transport” – using detail and emotional affect to involve the reader – is essential for a narrative.  Highly transported readers find fewer false notes in a story than less transported readers, they evaluate protagonists favourably and show many other similar story-consistent beliefs.  Interestingly, corresponding beliefs tend to be generally unaffected whether the reader knows a story is fact or fiction.  I can know that a cream will not make me look younger, but I’ll buy it anyway.

And we’re at a Christmas party after all.  Christmas is a great story.  Though I'm an avowed atheist, I love Christmas!  The human story of birth in humble adversity; the strong baddie that searches to kill the saviour of mankind, the call to adventure, the exiled and returning hero, the love that lays itself down for another; the elements are all there.  And beyond the advent of Christianity, I feel the pagan solstice of Yule as instinctively as one born in the Northern Hemisphere can; the affirmation of life in the midst of snow, the fire lit against the cold and darkness, the shadows on the wall of the cave that mystics interpret, making sense of the sun and the stars, winter and summer, life and death.

Along with other wonderful stories passed down from times immemorial –The Flood, the Apocalypse, the Exodus – the story means something to us because in a sense (whether you are a believer or not) stories ARE real.  Stories hold a deep psychological purpose, about our relationship to the universe and to Time. Stories give us hope, they give us meaning.  In my book, the greatest story ever told is that of life; that we exist, and we do.

Around me the conversation has moved on, and now they’re talking about the recovery. (Belief in the market’s one of the best stories around at the moment!)  I don’t have much to add to this so I gather my things together and start to slide unobtrusively towards the exit, when I feel a tap on my shoulder. It’s the polite lawyer.

“I thought it was interesting,” he says breathlessly, “what you said about stories back there. It really made me think.”

My heart warms to him.  “Why thank you,” I say.

“I've got to get my niece a Christmas present, and your book sounds ideal.  Would I be able to get a signed copy?”

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Don’t Get It Right, Get It Written! - Tess Berry-Hart

“So how’s the writing going?” my well-meaning friend asks me cheerily over an all-too-rare cup of coffee. “Are you still working on your book? And how’s that play doing?”

I feel my stomach plummet. “Um, yeah!” I grope for words. “The writing’s going well. Yes, really well. And ... uh ... how about you?”

The truth is, I haven’t written a word in days. I can go weeks, months – though admittedly not quite years – without writing a single sentence.

My astute friend sees the panic in my eyes. ““Ah, but you’re probably busy with the little ones, aren’t you?”

She’s throwing me a lifeline here. I could grab it and agree the obvious; with two young children under three, I have no time; what mother does? My day is segmented into bottles, breakfasts and nappies, nursery pick-ups and drop offs, the intricate calculations of naps and lunches.

And yet it’s amazing how I do make time to do non-essential rubbish. I manage to fill up the chinks of precious me-space with the garbage of social media discussions or watching YouTube videos. I make time to send indignant tweets on Twitter, text my friends or run out for yet another coffee.

This morning both my children were at nursery for a couple of hours, and instead of catching up on some much-needed research or throwing a couple of experimental paragraphs onto a blank computer screen, I spent the valuable time pottering. I washed up a bit and portioned up some food in the freezer! I did the stuff I HATE ... but didn’t prioritise what I wanted: write.

Why?

Because I didn’t have the “perfect setting.” A setting in which I would be simultaneously invigorated yet calm, in a tidy house with no chores to do, having bathed, dressed, eaten and washedup, with a strong latte and an unbroken length of time stretching before me.

AIN’T NEVER GONNA HAPPEN!

All the while, writing seems like a huge mountain, looming reproachfully over me, a vast task too complicated to be attempted.

And yet –time spent writing makes me feel refreshed in a way that the Internet never can. It makes me feel like me again, not a lumbering food-stained, milk-encrusted mammoth, veering from domestic crisis to domestic crisis.

So why do I avoid it so much?

There’s lots of reasons why we procrastinate and these differ from person to person: lack of confidence, interest or motivation; rebellion or resistance against expectations; fear of failure or equally fear of success. But the kicker for me – and absolutely the most devastating – is that I fear that it won’t be good enough, so often I sabotage myself. In the words of David Burns, cognitive therapist and writer of “Feeling Good”:

“The payoff for procrastinating is protecting ourselves from the possibility of perceived "real" failure ... You may often fill your schedule with busy-work so that you have a "legitimate" reason for not getting around to more important tasks.”

Well that’s Tess to a T!

I’m not a perfectionist in the way some people might understand the term. I don’t colour-code my wardrobe or alphabetise my DVDs. Yet I am a perfectionist in terms of writing, which is hilarious because no single piece of writing can ever be deemed “perfect.” Quite simply, I fear I will never live up to my own standards.

This lovely article on Why Being A Perfectionist May Not Be So Perfect outlines my particular dilemma;

Our desire to “perfect” everything makes us overcomplicate a project. What’s actually a simple task may get blown out of proportion, to the extent it becomes subconsciously intimidating. This makes us procrastinate on it, waiting for the ever “perfect” moment before we get to it. This “perfect” moment never strikes until it is too late.

OK doctor, diagnosis delivered.

But what do I do about it? The most valuable piece of advice I ever had was from a tutor on my playwriting course at the Royal Court Theatre, who used James Thurber’s quote: “Don’t get it right, get it written” as a constant mantra. We were encouraged just to turn in the first draft. It didn’t MATTER if it was absolute rubbish. It didn’t MATTER if it veered off topic or was inconsistent or had typos or was badly formatted. The point was that we faced our fears and DID it and once it had been done, we could work on it. And very often, it wasn’t too bad at all.

But as fellow sufferers will attest; procrastination is a constant; you might beat it once, but it will always be there at your elbow. So this week I’m using a number of strategies to overcome it.

By far the most effective to get me started is the 5 minute rule. No matter HOW uninspired I am, if I sit down and work on my book or play for five minutes, very often I find that five minutes stretching into ten, and the ten into fifteen. Life coaches use this strategy to inspire people into a habit of exercise. Flexing that muscle builds muscle memory, and the good habit of plunging right in.

The second most effective is NOT CHECKING EMAIL before I’ve done my writing for the morning. Or Twitter, or Faceb

Thirdly, setting a time limit. Parkinson’s Law tells us that work expands to fit the time available. I can do some really good stuff in half an hour, and making it three hours won’t necessarily increase its quality.

Lastly, breaking down the task into small steps – useful if it’s something like planning and doing the publicity for a show or a book launch. All perfectionists enjoy the feeling of ticking something off a list. You just have to make it the right list.

So by employing a mix of the above strategies, this blog post is now finally finished and I’m off to reward myself with a coffee and five minutes on Twitter!

But how about all you other procrastinators and perfectionists out there? What strategies do you use to get things done?

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