Week 6 - Writing Is Hard

One of my university lecturers used to make the whole group chant this at the beginning of every creative writing seminar. He would circle the class, like a cross between Malcolm Bradbury and some crazed hyena on heat and look for any member of the pack who was falling behind. "What is writing," he would cackle hysterically (OK - I may be getting slightly carried away, but you get the point) and some poor soul would have to stand up and intone his mantra: "Writing is hard!"

This would then be followed by two hours grappling with different forms of poetry: iambic pentameters, Elizabethan and Petrarchan sonnets and so on. Not the happiest memories, but in the best traditions of morality tales they did teach me a lesson. I was a terrible poet. True, the total output of my published works amounts to one poem (easily my best - but still not that good) so there was the most modest form of success. But much more importantly, it taught me to really love words. Not just like them in a "thanks for the date, I'll call you" way; but to love them in a "every waking moment is a torment unmatched in the annals of hell when I'm not with you" manner.

While I may never trouble the short list for the next poet laureate (or for that matter, the poetry corner in the local church newsletter), trying to write poetry has significantly helped my prose writing. The point here is that you don't need to write for publication - and you certainly don't need to write for some trochee-obsessed academic - but if you write poetry for yourself, it will provide a strong foundation on which your words of prose may live.

If you feel like dipping a toe into the babbling brook of poetry, then I heartily recommend Stephen Fry's That Ode Less Travelled. It is an inspiring book in all the best ways and will give anyone even remotely interested in poetry the tools of the trade without having Stephen circle you cackling like a failed witch from Macbeth. Here's the link: http://www.stephenfry.com/shop.html.

Poetry has certainly helped me develop a rhythm to my writing as well as find my own voice. As I got to the end of this week and my self-imposed deadline was approaching a day earlier than usual (in order that I could queue up to be one of the first people to buy Apple's new operating system...I know, sounds a little sad. But if you own a Mac, I know you'll understand (note to self - try not to aleienate the 99% of the population that use that Windows thing).

Anyway...as I headed towards the deadline quicker than a Leopard chasing its pray, the value of developing your own voice became apparent. As can happen sometimes (but not often enough) when writing, the characters took over. My rather poor typing skills were no match for their actions; but finally, I got to the end of the week's chapter and I even managed to introduce a new twist that I hadn't seen coming.

Yes, writing is hard; but it can also be the most rewarding experience. As long as there's no one chanting at you at the same time.

Week 5 - A Capital Week

I have spent this week in London - a city that seems both to be full of writers and creative types while at the same time providing thousands of distractions from actually writing.

This week was always planned as a "rest week" as I knew I would be away and that as a result, my novel would not progress much. I have to say that I needed a break - especially as I am about to enter the next stage of writing where my aim will be to write a full chapter a week between now and Christmas.

Of course, taking a break from writing is a bit like looking forward to catching up on sleep on a Sunday. However tired I am by Sunday, I am invariably wide awake at some ungodly hour. Then come Monday, I am shattered.

Writing is the same. When I should have been hanging around trendy (i.e. over-priced) bars and cafes waiting to be chatted up by some supermodel type and introduced to her publisher husband, what actually happened is I kept getting ideas, or snippets of dialogue would pop into my head. This would see me scribbling furiously on anything close to hand (usually my left hand) and being the subject of pitying looks from laptop tapping fellow customers.

I could have explained that I had left my laptop in the hotel as I was here to relax, but as I probably resembled a demented green ink wielding madman, I thought better of it.

Still, I managed to come away from the capital with some nice character sketches (London is nothing if it's not full of mad, bad and just plain weird people).

I have the weekend to recover from taking a week off and then it's back to the slog for the next eight weeks.

Next week's tip is Find Your Voice. This is something that can be really hard for a writer. It's not just that we find ourselves writing with other people's voices, but sometimes we have too many voices going around in our heads (like Dickens, who dreamed of conversations with his own characters).

I am hoping that my week in London will have helped strengthen my own characters' voices - and that none of then suddenly develops a Cockney twang.

Week 4 or 28 Days Later

28 days later.

I am pleased to report that four weeks into my 12 month novel plan, I still have a wife and friends, I have avoided the temptation to sign up to Facebook and most incredibly of all, when I look out of my window I am pretty sure there are no virus infected zombies roaming London's streets. And if that's not enough, I have written quite a nice scene set in a cafe.

Despite a family funeral and an irate incident with an incandescent news agent (don't ask), I have completed the next chapter of my novel. A full chapter in a week - actually a two-day session that almost wore the letters from my keyboard - has got me more or less in tact to the end of month 1.

There have been some surprises already. The first was that the writing software that I have been using for two years was no longer up to the job.

It was a bit like when you look in the mirror and that favourite shirt that you thought made you look like George Clooney, is now giving off a decidedly George Formby vibe. My previous piece of writing software had become as appealing as a piece of chewing gum left on a lamppost overnight (note to self: stop watching old movies in the afternoon when you should be working).

Drastic action was called for. So I trawled the net, read some reviews and downloaded some trial software. 20 minutes later I was up and running with Scrivener - a piece of writing software that actually manages not to get in between the writer and the writing. I highly recommend it: here's the link where you can download a free trial and practice using its many features http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.html

Speaking of practice, week three's tip - culled from Kate Mosse's 52 Tips for writers http://www.mosselabyrinth.co.uk/advice/02.asp was Practice (be sure to visit Kate's site - there's even a link to the best blog on the net!).

Kate suggests taking a paragraph and then re-writing it without using any of the original words. Instead of trying this as a quasi-academic exercise, I applied it to the last paragraph of the chapter I had just finished.

When I re-wrote it using Kate's idea, it suddenly fell into place. It reminded me of the old joke: a man stops a passer by in New York and asks the best way to get to Carnegie Hall. "Practice my friend, practice", comes the reply.

Next week will see me spending more time than I would like on our railways so I'm going to have less time to keep my novel on track. Luckily, the next tip of the week is "Reasonable Objectives".

Now there's timing Virgin Trains can only dream of.

Week 3 and the Curious Incident of the Notebook at the Bus Stop

OK, so it's time to let you know what kind of book I am writing.

It's a crime novel with all the elements you would expect (but to paraphrase the great Eric Morecambe, not necessarily in the order you would expect them). It's set in a coastal town in the north of England and the main characters are a policeman and a journalist. Not exactly a marriage made in heaven, but neither was Ozzy & Sharon Osbourne's, but that seems to work.

Basically, it's a modern detective story with more twists than Chubby Checker's back catalogue (note to self: might be an idea to update pop culture references).

I had given myself two weeks to write the next chapter - and this has turned out to be a good idea. It is already becoming apparent that I am unable to write from A to B. Instead of an ordered A-Z narrative, my desk looks like an explosion at a alphabet spaghetti factory.

I blame the notebook. Following Kate Mosse's tip no.2 (see last week's blog), I have carried a note book all week. On Tuesday, I suddenly had an idea for something that would happen in the last quarter of the book. Now normally, I would have jotted the idea down on anything that came to hand (the morning's paper, the back of my hand, the woman in front of me...); but as I had the notebook with me, I used that.

I'm not sure what happened next, but the next thing I knew I had got on the bus, travelled for half an hour, passed my stop and ended up in an area of the city that is so run down, the muggers go around in pairs.

I had written two whole scenes - around 1000 words of something that is due to happen a good dozen chapters from where I am now.

What I need now is some software for my novel that helps me bring these various strands together. And what do you know? I found it. I'll tell you about my recommendation for writing software next week when I'll also be reporting back on Kate's tip 3: Practice.

I will start by practicing getting off the bus in the right place.