Fragile discipline

“I don’t get writer’s block. Ever. It’s a complete myth.”

I have to bite my tongue every time I go to say that.  There are a few others, too:

“Writers write every day.”

“If you’re a writer, you write.”

“If you write you are a writer.”

Oh, yes, I really believe in all of that. And then there are all the exceptions.

My own routine

I try to write for the first two hours of every working day and at some point on weekends and during holidays. Sometimes it’s not possible. Then, I’ll try and write as soon as I can.  Sometimes, like today, I can only manage about forty minutes because my day job demands that I go off and do something else. The problem then is that by the time I get to my laptop my mind is so cluttered with other thoughts that I can’t find the creative energy to write. Having a break helps usually: maybe the drive home from the office or stopping to have supper.

Some days it’s easier, some days it’s harder

I’m now confident that no matter how empty-headed I feel once I start writing the words and the ideas will come. I’m mainly right but not always. Sometimes it’s a real struggle and everything I write seems very poor and I’m dying for the two hours to go by. Interestingly, I’ve found that on these occasions I’m often actually writing better. Okay, it’s that inner critic chuntering but actually he has a point.

Some notable exceptions

Some writers I respect a lot have recently suffered from what we might call “writer’s block”. One is a well-established author who in recent years had a group of “break-though” novels.  How do you follow that? That was his problem.

A friend obtained the coveted PhD, and having gone to his personal limit on that, couldn’t work out for several months how to go on forward.

Another friend is also a brilliant administrator and organiser and full of an energy that is extremely creative leaving little creative space for anything else. He admits to not writing every day.

Again interestingly, as these three got back to work their writing was even richer and even more fine-tuned. They seem to have gone through some sort of incubation period.  

The fragile discipline

Yes we have to be disciplined. Much of the time this seems easy enough. Yet we fear losing that control. A couple of bad days and a few rejections and we might lose our will to go on. Then we must get back up, brush ourselves down and get on with it. It might be worth remembering though that the occasional fallow period can also be ultimately quite productive.     

   

  

Writers write and create worlds – as shown by the Inkheart trilogy

The Inkheart theory

I’ve just finished reading the third of the Inkheart trilogy and it’s given me some food for thought. Whilst I didn’t enjoy it as much as the other two – the fantasy has become a little convoluted, the point of view changes too often, and there are some strange interjections by the author – Cornelia Funke certainly poses a few questions about the role of the writer.

In this third book two writers compete to finish the story and the characters also express their wishes for an outcome. Fengolio, the original author, is getting old and losing his craft. Orpheus wants full control of the world he has partly stolen from Fengolio and partly created himself. 

The Perpetual Story-finders

We can’t help ourselves, can we? We see them everywhere: stories. How long has this man been driving this boat? What if we set out today and don’t come back? What do those dolphins and whales think as they watch us watching them?

Review of a Gallery for Nick

Quote from The Review of Disability Studies:

"This is an excellent book to explore feelings about death and disability. James does a good job in exploring the feelings of someone whose friend is deteriorating quickly. I would especially recommend this book for high school students."

Steven E. Brown Assistant Professor at the Center of Disability Studies at the University of Hawai'i. Editor at Review of Disability Studies.   

Tidying Up, Letting Go, Moving On, Getting There

Why I’ve tided up my office

I’ve taken a week off from my day-job and used quite a bit of it to give my study a thorough sort-out. I’m probably going to be moving into a shared office at work shortly. There’ll be less space for books so I’m making space here so that I can bring back all of my books form the office.

I find quite often that anyway if I’m in the office the books I want are at home and if I’m at home the books I want are in the office. So this is a good strategy anyway. Besides, we’re going to have more contact hours with students so that the office becomes a space that we use for small snatches of time between lectures. We’ll all be located quite closely together so some of that spare time will be used for meetings, both formal and informal. There’ll only be time and brain space for quick bursts of admin work. The studious desk-work will be completed in my study at home.

Can writers live without the internet?

Well, I’m pretty taken with it but others seem even more attached. I’m not one of those people that are forever checking the phone for Tweets, emails and Facebook messages. If I’m out and about or teaching, the world can wait. However, at my desk or alone in a hotel or on a journey I’ll look at it all at regular intervals and both my mobile and my laptop alert me when a new email comes in – and my emails tell me if I have new Tweets or Facebook messages.

New demographic? The New Adult

Thinking about this may have actually started four or five years ago. When I met my final year student for the first time then one of my students declared “I want to write for people our age. No one seems to write specifically for us.” She meant people in their early twenties. She managed it, in fact.

This particular student had been on my Writing Novels for Young People course. She’d actually done very well and I had rather hoped she would carry on with it. But no, she wanted to start on this new venture. She did very well with this as well.

What might be the features of this new genre and what is a “new adult”?

I would say “new adults” are more comfortable with their adult status than the “young adults”. All of the shenanigans in the brain are over. They would be living away from home in their first jobs or nearing the end of higher education.

In stories written for them there may be a little less about identity but much about further progression in the world. There may be more outward –looking scenes. There will still be much about sex and relationships. What will be the main types of stories told here? Perhaps amongst others there will be stories of early career development. I watch the emergence of this new genre with interest.