When is a writer not a writer? When he or she does not write.

But is this really true?

I have a day job that is very much writing related so I am very lucky and usually I can find time to do a couple of hours’ work. I prefer to do it first thing. It isn’t just a matter of time. It’s also a matter of brain space.

However, at the moment, it’s virtually impossible. At work we’re moving office, getting used to a new School, on a staff development week and getting groups ready for teaching at a time when we have lost several staff and although we have a few new ones and some temporary, hourly-paid ones, it isn’t quite the same as working with experienced colleagues who are very familiar with what we do.

I’m managing a little writing in the evening, but feel very tired and not all that inspired. Last night I managed twenty minutes at 8.40. But actually, it doesn’t matter how I feel. The writing still worked. I did manage one whole scene and I did find something new to add to the plot. The writing seemed fine even though it had been a strain.

Anyway, where do these sudden new ideas come from?     

I’m going to be very pragmatic and say they’re probably rolling around in the subconscious while our conscious mind is doing something else. It’s possible that it is even important to have that time. It’s a time when the mind can turn over the pebbles, looking for the one that is the best fit.   

What the Dickens? Some thoughts about the great man’s writing

My admiration

I love Boz. I really do. The proof? As a writer, sure, I want to be as well-known as him. But I also want to write stories that people love as much as they love his. For my sixtieth birthday I asked for the complete works of Dickens. I got them – all loaded onto a Kindle. I now make a point of rereading one - it is mainly rereading – every Christmas and every summer. This summer was The Old Curiosity Shop. Even though I couldn’t completely silence the hacking critical voice of the Creative Writing teacher I actually enjoyed this more than some modern novels I read.

I once read that when Dickens was established as a writer he would spend from eight until two writing. Then he would walk along the shore for three hours. He would spend a couple of hours in a pub from five to seven, chatting to the locals. Then he would dine, often at the homes of others or at his own, with invited guests. I could live with a routine like that. But these days is it rather the gym, Facebook and Twitter, and occasional dinners or other social gatherings with writing friends.     

Apparently also, he would act out the gestures and words of his characters in front of his mirror. I used to find that odd and a sign of his eccentricity. Now, though, I do it myself.

But. And the “but” or the “buts” are quite considerable.

A narrative problem

The Old Curiosity Shop starts off with a fictionalised author meeting Little Nell who is lost. This author-character also poses a mystery which is never quite solved. He likes to walk at night. Well so does Nell’s grandfather but we soon find out why: he is trying to win a fortune for Nell by gambling. We are not so sure about the stranger. The mystery is intriguing and this creates a good introduction to the main characters. But it isn’t going to work unless the narrator is a key figure too. He clearly isn’t. If Boz were a student in my creative writing group I would have advised against this. Possibly he realises his error; he decides to allow the characters to tell their own story and switches to a third person narrative. And maybe we need to remember that word processors were not available then.  

Characters large than life

The BBC’s The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff may seem to mock but I think it laughs with Dickens not at him. Monty Python, Mr Bean and Blackadder may appear to be inventions of the 20^th and the 21^st centuries but actually Dickens was way ahead of them. Look at all those characters whose names suit them so much: Noddy Boffin, Sally Brass, Bumble, Louisa Chick, Chuzzlewit, Bob Cratchit, Dedlock, Fezziwig, Flintwinch, Uriah Heep, Krook, Nubbles, Quilp,  Smallweed,  Snodgrass, Squeers, Steerforth, Dick Swiveller, Polly Toodle. Their names and their behaviours match. They amuse us and may even make Bean and co. seem rather tame. Dickens is most enjoyable when we understand his irony. That he also maintains the natural and rounded characters is genius.

Dei ex machinae and other dirty tricks

But here’s another problem. Come on, Boz. There are just too many lucky coincidences. Nell and her grandfather just happen to bump into the school master who had been so kind to him. There is a job vacancy for Nell just at the time she arrives at the village with the schoolmaster and her grandfather. Swiveller inherits a huge amount of money just in time.

I won’t tolerate this sort of plotting in my students’ work, I avoid it myself and I and several other creative writing academics condemn Dan Brown for doing it.

Yet here it seems to work. Dickens almost has the pantomime in his stories and a little of the fairy-tale. Is this even where his greatness lies? And perhaps precisely so because he combines it with giving the reader a sense of real life through his detailed descriptions and having key characters who are rounded and believable?

Dickens as popular fiction

Now English Literature students in higher education study his work. However, his novels were considered to be popular fiction at the time he wrote them. Indeed, Jo in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women admits to sneaking off to read a book that she thought wasn’t quite as good as some of the others a particular author had produced. She had to read in secret because this type of novel wasn’t quite approved of in her home. Which novel was it? Dombey and Son!

Despite all of this or maybe because of it, Dickens remains a very fine storyteller and a great creator of memorable characters.    

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.