Creationism for writers...

It was the start of a universe... and we all got to be God. Or there was no God, depending on how you look at it.

The London Short Story Festival filled Waterstones Piccadilly with hundreds of tiny moments, explosions in the dark... for that is what a short story is, and that is what ideas are too. Each tiny moment shone bright, at times so bright the white light went to the back of my brain. It happened when I read my own work from Best British Short Stories at the launch event on Friday. And it kept on happening, over and over again, as authors far greater than I read from their work too, were interviewed, gave classes...

Constellations formed, solar systems established new orbits, fragments flew about, and in the whirl of running from one floor to another to catch each session, there was a sense of being part of something big. Enormous, in fact. Infinite even, because beyond the walls of Waterstones, ideas are infinite and the exchange of ideas stretches out in a way that is at once mindblowing and comforting. Being a writer at a festival is all about opening yourself up to what is out there, seeing that it is enormous, and being unafraid.

After an act of creation, or a Big Bang, depending on how you look at it, comes a certain settling into order. This can take some time. 

I watched as people hurtled around, creating a tremendous energy that ran from the basement to airy boardrooms on the sixth floor. I sat in audiences that absorbed panel discussions, readings, workshops and interviews and my mind turned to what would come later.

The feverish taking of notes, the capturing the ‘matter’ for ourselves, the taking it in, the turning it all over... it can be a while before it settles, before it all makes sense.

I filled two notebooks as I listened to Adam Marek, Dan Powell, Robert Shearman, Claire Keegan, Colin Barrett, Jacob Ross, Roshi Fernando, Mary Costello, Helen Simpson, Stuart Evers, Siân Melangell Dafydd, Chris Power, Alison Moore, AL Kennedy, MJ Hyland, and more, talk about the thing they love most, the thing we all love most. Writing.

And what has started to settle, the day after returning home from quite simply the best weekend ever, is this:

• All writers are beginners. We begin again and again.

• Exercise the muscle of your mind. Use the equipment. As AL Kennedy said: “It’s the only equipment we have.”

• Work hard at your writing. Craft it. Kennedy added: “You can write anything. The rewriting is what fires it.”

• Be careful not to over think. Get stuck in... “I’m not interested in analysing people. I’m interested in being them.” Claire Keegan “Get as close to the skin of your character as you can.” Colin Barrett

• See what emerges in the early stages, and allow it to form, to gather its own momentum before you pull it to pieces: “The first draft is the back brain in action, the unconscious. The editing process involves the front brain, the conscious plotting side. But the front brain can be the ‘idiot brain’ because it over worries, whereas the unconscious brain doesn’t worry about anything.” Adam Marek
• Listen to the voices in your head. Listen hard, then follow them wherever they go:“I have to have character first. If they’ve emerged and I have their voice, that’s what determines the emotion, the trackability of it.” Mary Costello
• Think about voice, point of view, first person, second person, third person... consider them all carefully, and how employing each will achieve different things: “First person is very seductive, it’s a good way to get into a character’s voice, particularly if it’s idiomatic or vernacular.” Colin Barrett
• Write from the heart: “It’s the truth of your emotion that makes your story sing.” Roshi Fernando. “Bypass the logical part of the brain in your reader and go for the senses, for feeling.” Colin Barrett
• Consider the connection with your reader, their experience, their investment in your work: “A good book stokes up a private life inside a reader, it brings it alive.” Claire Keegan
• Be in touch with your obsessions, your desires, and get in touch with the desires of your characters:  “To be human means to have every human desire contained in you, and only circumstance brings it to the surface. None of us knows what we are capable of... Learn the desire of the central character and your eye will follow it. The eye falls on desire. You want to touch it.” Claire Keegan
• Be disciplined: “With a short story, you have to keep it in the air. It has to be tightly wound, exacting. It has to arrest.” Mary Costello 
• Be challenging: “One of the things I try to do is challenge our moral compass.” Jacob Ross
• Be universal: “The topography of the human heart is the same everywhere, regardless of culture and place.” Jacob Ross

And more than anything, be alive. Live your life. And enjoy the fact that you can communicate what it is to be alive, by writing. As Colin Barrett said, with reference to Joyce (and other big, dead writers): “The one advantage I have is I’m alive, and he’s not.”

We’ll all be dead some day. Make it count. Grab that matter. Form it. Make it into something good. Write that story.

Writing away...

Nicholas Royle’s first words to me are 'That’s quite a handshake...' and I reply, without thinking 'Yours too. Ow!' I should have left it there, but no. First day nerves being what they are, I add 'My son’s PE teacher did that to me once. Ow!'
We are gathered in the lounge at Lumb Bank, one of several Arvon centres scattered across the UK where writers go on retreat to be taught by some of the biggest names in the industry. Nicholas Royle, successful novelist, editor (Alison Moore's 'The Lighthouse' made last year's Man Booker shortlist), senior lecturer and King of Short Stories is, without doubt, one of the biggest names in the industry. He looks at me, bemused. “Tea?” he asks. He pours the tea. Tutors and students all muck in together at Arvon.

I like firm handshakes, even bone-crushing ones. I like the feeling that a person wants to connect, to make a bond. It’s why I myself give firm handshakes. I form a positive first impression of Nicholas Royle and his fellow tutor Claire Massey, and try not to worry about what they think of me. Later, outside, Royle observes that there’s usually ‘one nutter’ on a creative writing course and looks at me in a slightly expectant way. I reassure him that it won’t be me. I later worry that on finding there are no nutters on the short story course, it must be me.

No, I’m the scatty one. The one who locks herself out of her room five minutes after arriving, wandering barefoot on the landing as other students arrive. They look at my feet and smile politely. I really don’t want to start my Arvon experience by drifting around the house like a loon looking for one of the ladies of Lumb to let me back into my attic (“Ah, so Virginia Woolf!” I exclaim on being shown it, then wish I hadn’t because I sound like a nutter). There I am, shoeless and clueless. Will I become known as the ‘barefoot writer’ I wonder? No. Just the part-time piano tinkler probably. There are three pianos at Arvon. I play each of them in turn, and decide I like the one in the barn best. I am sure everyone else likes the fact I like that one too. It is furthest away from the main house.

The first night dinner is a convivial affair. My fellow students are lovely. I am seated next to a Mslexia prize winner. That’s exciting. I blogged about Tamsin Cottis only weeks ago. One writer, Pam, has travelled all the way from Australia. Another, Simi, a fellow journalist, has come from Bahrain solely for Arvon. She is jetlagged and her leg cramps up during the round of introductions. I admire her dedication to the short story form and as the week progresses I admire her writing too.

Having signed up to make fish pie on Friday (students cook for each other...it’s cosy like that) I wander around the gardens for a bit. I am hit by the beauty of the wooded hill opposite Lumb Bank, and hit the next instant by a great sadness. The poet Ted Hughes lived here for a time, and as I look out over the valley I feel moved, ridiculous though it sounds. Sylvia Plath is buried in Heptonstall churchyard, half an hour’s walk away.  I take my new Australian friend to Heptonstall later in the week. Neither of us is particularly into the Cult of Plath, though I do have a deep admiration for some of her poetry. There's a pot of pens at her graveside. We resolve not to look at the folded up notes tucked here and there. Back at the house, I take a look at Hughes’s handwritten poems, which line a wall of the dining room. I love his later wife Carol’s generosity to the Arvon cause. They helped start everything, in a way, leasing Lumb Bank to the foundation.

And Arvon is everything everyone tells you it is. It is secluded, tranquil, beautiful, inspiring. The short story course leads to some really great work being produced, and the people are without exception kind and funny and clever. Nick (by now we are calling him Nick) and Claire are fabulous tutors. They engage us in exercises that free up our minds and allow writing to emerge in an exhilarating whirl. They confirm there are no nutters on the course. I am relieved, though only because I know, in secret, that I am the nutter really. I just hide it well.  M John Harrison pays us a visit one evening, and reads us his latest short story. It’s out in the autumn. It blows me away. I return to my room and write something straight out at one in the morning. Inspiration is an incredible force. The next morning we discuss the poached egg vortex over breakfast. M John Harrison can be a bit like that.

I leave Lumb Bank with a sense that something has clicked. I feel excited about my writing and about the prospect of being published. I hope to be published. I believe I will be published. Then, on arriving home, all the doubts set in again, and I realise it is only the daily discipline of writing that will keep that particular wolf from the door. I can hear Nicholas Royle, Claire Massey and M John Harrison saying, 'Just get on with it, for God’s sake.' They are right.

Arvon offers people the chance to really connect with their creativity. It has been helping writers and reaching out to young people through the medium of creative writing for 45 years. And for a week in May it helped me too, more than I could ever have expected.

Now I understand...

It was the night before the deadline for the Mslexia short story competition.
I thought I'd grown tired of entering stories for awards (a month or so in...). Then I got some encouraging news, but more of that later.
So I sat up late, going over some scribblings, making those all-important final adjustments.
I always seem to leave it until the last minute. It's the way I work. I get a perverse pleasure from seeing the clock reach almost midnight before pressing send. I used to be a journalist, and we are known for liking our deadlines. Competitions tend to close at midnight, I'm finding, and there's definitely a Cinderella element to it all.
I do indeed have a ball when I'm polishing my final draft...and then there's the sudden bump back to reality once it's all over.
I return to my normal, drab self. I pour myself a glass of port and have a long bath. Final revisions where competitions are concerned can be quite exhausting, but I enjoy the discipline. This week I cut a 1,500 word story down to under 1,000 words just to see if it would still work. I think it's better. So I sent it off to The Word Hut.
And then my attention turned to Mslexia and Start Flash Fiction.
It's always a good idea to see what you are up against. Reading widely is, of course, a prerequisite for good writing. But knowing what works for a particular judging panel or the publication attached to it perhaps involves a little fine tuning. You can't always second-guess what people are looking for, but often you can assess whether your style is a good fit for a particular award.
So, having recently got into Mslexia (they produce a great magazine for women writers) I looked at last year's winning short story at their site. It's called 'What Goes Around' and it's by Tamsin Cottis. It made me cry, if truth be told...
And now I understand.
I understand what I am up against. Tamsin captures a seldom heard voice and offers a searing and vivid glimpse into a hidden away world. Her story is hauntingly beautiful and disturbing in equal measure and she wrenches your heart with her depiction of Pauline, a woman with learning difficulties who cannot speak.
I read that story and understood what it is to pack a punch, to sock it to the reader, to write with passion and conviction about your subject, and to inhabit the world of your character.
Pauline is complete. She is perfectly realised. And so is the world she lives in, right down to the sensory impressions that leave their mark on your mind.
So yes, duly impressed and full of admiration I had a good long soak, and a good long think about what I want my short stories to achieve.
What do I want to write about and why? These questions are being answered the more stories I produce. I feel I know what I want to achieve on that front. But it's only when you read something as good as Tamsin's work that you realise how you'd potentially like to connect with your readers. To leave people thinking, to write something profound that communicates human experience in a way that resonates far beyond the first reading...well it doesn't get much better than that, surely?
Do read Tamsin's story.
Not all short stories have to make us cry of course. But they do need to provoke a strong response and leave the reader with a sense of having experienced a brief immersion in another world.

Give It Time...

One of the main differences I have found in making the transition from writing journalism to writing fiction is the importance of the 'slow cook' approach.
Knocking out a double page spread on deadline is a valuable skill, and one that ensures fear of the blank page will never be a problem.
But stepping away from copy is a luxury few reporters can afford. Putting a story on hold for a while, turning down the heat, walking away... all of these are unthinkable in a newsroom, just as 'knocking out' a short story should be unthinkable to the writer of fiction. It is the act of coming back to a piece of writing afresh that enables the polishing process to begin, and the time that has elapsed will give the necessary objectivity on your return.
Basil Bunting wrote seven key points for young poets on the back of a postcard, so often was he asked for advice. The final two points are pertinent here:

Put your poem away till you forget it, then:
6. Cut out every word you dare.
7. Do it again a week later, and again.

I have found this to be sound advice where writing poetry is concerned, but also more recently in my short story endeavours. I actually prefer to leave a poem for a good month. Striking out words comes more easily when you are returning to something with fresh eyes. And so it goes for short stories, although I tend to leave these for a couple of weeks or so.
The editing process can only begin in earnest when you have divorced your mind from the preoccupations of the first draft. In a sense, you are returning to a piece of writing (or a poem) with the editor's hat firmly on. Every story or feature in a newspaper will have been looked over by at least two other people. Writers should seek to establish a similar workflow. The views of a respected peer are of great value once the first draft is on paper. Join a writers' group or get networking to find the best people you possibly can to offer critiques. Always allow some time to elapse before returning to your writing, especially when working alone as you will more easily be able to adopt the editor's role. Some writers find editing their work very difficult. I have been surprised, as someone who used to check over other people's words on a daily basis, at how hard editing your own writing can be. Objectivity is key, and leaving well alone for a bit helps enormously. When you return to your work you will notice how phrases you were originally unsure about will leap off the page, clamouring to be changed. Little details you never noticed whilst you were wrapped up in writing the thing will also emerge, and mistakes will be easier to spot too.
You may find you need to extend dialogue or ramp up description in places, but with short stories generally less is more, and the editing process, as for poetry, should involve a large amount of paring down.
You may find you have to rework the beginning, or indeed the end. Feedback from a fellow writer is especially useful here.
Bunting also advised young poets to 'fear adjectives; they bleed nouns' and to 'jettison ornament gaily but keep shape'...again, because of the economy involved, these are sound observations where the writing of short stories and flash fiction is concerned.
So, whilst my mission remains to crack on with my short story writing and put the best ones forward for publication or as entries to competitions, I am aware that nothing should go off in a rush. Nothing, in fact, should go off before it is at least a month old. And for a former journalist, that's really quite something.

Writing about writing...

when I should be writing. Yes, I know. But having done my head in compiling a shiny new Twitter feed comprising several hundred literary bods, publishing houses, organisations, prizes, festivals and so forth, I decided well, to hell with it, why not start my own blog?

I am building a short story collection with a view to getting myself an agent and hopefully getting published. I am attending an Arvon short story course in May. I'd like to get on the Arvon mentoring scheme. Short stories are my passion. So this blog will be about my own progression as a writer, and I will share thoughts on my favourite authors too.

I'll also be keeping an eye on literary events, including PowWow Litfest 2013, which I am proud to be helping to organise again this year. Here's a recent blogpost at the PowWow site on entering competitions...

I love books. I love writing. I hope to share the love!