Fran’s School of Hard Knocks

February 5, 2017

Recently I was asked to contribute

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Recently I was asked to contribute.

Recently, I was asked to contribute to an anthology of memoir.

I thought this sounded great, so I readily agreed, knowing that the editor will be reading all the contributions she is sent and selecting those she thinks are most likely to appeal for publication.

And I’ve written the first page, the first of ten pages or three thousand words.  It is not a bad page.  It encapsulates, in words I have not assembled before in that order, some of the pain and awkwardness of feeling and being different.  It says something a little bit different too, about the nature of regret.

But – but – though every word is true, my daughter’s friends never ask about that.  With her, I doubt my impairments are a wise topic of conversation, or that it arises often.  My husband never mentions it either.  And now I feel a glissando of that old, familiar heaviness on my shoulders after writing, and I pause.

I have no real wish to rehearse all that again.  There will be times when I feel in the mood for it, and this is not one of them.  I don’t yearn to lift aloft that large plank of the past, to indulge in scrutiny of its unalterable underside.

Rather, I’d prefer to lay that plank firmly on the ground and tread confidently along it to the rest of – what is left of – my life.  Doing anything else feels like picking at a healing scab or breaking a fragile covering of winter ice on a freezing puddle to get my hands and sleeves soaked in the water below.  I’ve always hated getting my sleeves wet.  But I’m quite happy to swim in the ocean.  If I get a chance, I’d far rather it was the peaceful Pacific or the Caribbean….not the Arctic.

 

‘Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.’

Walt Whitman

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December 20, 2016

We write what we know

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We write what we know

We write what we know, of course.  What else could we ever do?  And when we don’t know, we have that wonderful excuse, ‘I’m doing research’ to justify our trips away, our experiments with the testers adorning the perfume counters at an expensive store, our trips around winter markets savouring the festive atmosphere….

Actually, the last Christmas market I went to in Glasgow city centre was replete with the cries of vendors selling sizzling burgers, shredded pork on a roll and barbequed chicken legs; and a pall of chokingly unpleasant blue smoke hung over the proceedings.  Not wanting, on this particular occasion, to end up smelling like a bacon butty, I beat a hasty retreat from the orgy of meat grilling, frying and sizzling.

But perhaps that is my point.  Research brings reality to fiction, taking it away from the festive clichés of delightful lights, the warm aroma of melted chocolate, the scent of pine-needles wafting in the chilly, snow-kissed wind.  It was mighty cold that day, and I risked skidding and ending up sitting on the pavement, but thankfully, I stayed upright…and I did relish the feel of icy wind in my hair.  It was a great day.

We write what we know, of course, but it evolves beyond the basics, to include a heightened version of the spice of life, a bit of adventure, and a few deliciously competent – or lovably incompetent – dream dudes / role models to give us heart for the next dose of real life.

Real life can be so chilly and relentless, that from my point of view, I don’t relish too much more reality piled on top of it.  Enough realism, perhaps, to make me feel grateful for that reality which I am currently enjoying, enlivened with the possibility that anything can happen, and that dreams are lurking just around the next corner.

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December 5, 2016

Would I do this all again

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Would I do this all again

One of my sisters and I have a polite disagreement pending, which I suspect will never be resolved.

Whereas I spent acres of my youth sitting still and reading books – in the process learning about life and other people, and how to write, but feeling as if I neither experienced nor did very much at first hand – my sister spent her youth gadding about, and she is still gadding.  She is very much a doing at first hand kind of girl.

Now, with the onset of late middle age, I begin to start moving around, timidly and uncertainly, but finally – YES! – I am finally moving around, and doing things, (because if I don’t start soon, it will be too late).  Whereas my sister, who is getting tired from all her gadding about, tells me she relishes sitting and reading a book very much.

My point being, I have a suspicion that for me, reading, as much as anything, can become an addictive reaction; whereas my sister, who is so active, sees nothing sinister at all in sitting still and enjoying the refreshment of a good book.

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Which brings me to what I wanted to say at the start.

In the last ten years, since I stopped reading quite so much and started writing, I suspect that Life has taken this glimmer of an opportunity, to throw at me all the lessons that I should have picked up earlier, and which I would have picked up, if I had hidden less in reading and had more of an active life.  (I know reading can be an addictive pastime, because I can still feel myself, occasionally, yearning to dive into a good book when I want to run and hide from life.)

I suspect I have learned more about Life in the last ten years, than I did in the previous forty years.  I daresay all the lessons, inspiration and hard work that I have got through to get to this point would have come to me, sooner or later, in different forms.

So, yes, I would do this all again, but I’m very glad I don’t have to.  I’m very pleased and relieved to have got to where I am today, alive, in one piece and with my love, optimism and determination still intact.

Thank you so much for reading.

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December 1, 2016

Almost Ten Years and Counting

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Almost ten years and counting

Welcome to December.  I can’t say I’m sorry, exactly, to see 2016 coming to a close….

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I started writing seriously in 2007, and, as may be a common experience with writers, Trapped was not my first attempt at book-length penmanship.  That honour belongs to my first book, Happiness Matters, which, if anyone is interested, is submission ready.  (It makes me laugh to read occasional reviews of Trapped commenting, ‘my God, she’s pessimistic, isn’t she?’ or words to that effect, because no, I’m not, though for a fairly long time, my life and my world were.)  Trapped is about a period of my life that is thankfully over, and which I look back on with a mixture of sadness and awe.

I’m very glad that I have arrived here, now, with so many apparent lessons behind me.  I can’t say what I’ve learned from them,  whether I have picked up what I was supposed to, or whether I have arrived where I am supposed to be.  But after a decade of what has felt a bit like drill school, I feel an overwhelming, almost paralysing relief, to have arrived here in one piece.  I don’t care about being ten years older, either.

In what feels like an accelerated learning course for people who have spent too long hiding in books and now need to cram a life’s worth of maturing lessons as quickly as possible I can say that yes, the effort has been worth it, but please don’t make me do it again.  Which is another way of saying, yes, I would do it all again if I had to, but I’m very glad that won’t be necessary.

People read Trapped  and, understandably, think they know me.  But although the book attempts to cover forty years of one life in under two hundred pages, readers only glimpse a partial point of view of that one life, a view has become fixed as at the time of writing, and that I trust and hope has grown.

I have changed and moved on – thankfully – and the lessons I have collected so painfully, I hope make me a kinder, more patient woman, willing and ready to deal with what comes next.  As we turn our attention away from the strange happenings of this year towards what is coming in 2017, let us hope that our optimism shines, and makes miracles for all of us.

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November 23, 2016

Fear of Failure

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Fear of Failure

On the long and winding road that is a writer’s career, one aspect that perhaps deserves a passing glance is fear of failure.

What is this thing that lurks unseen, this oddly shapen, unacknowledged and slightly shameful thing?  Fear of failure? Never heard of it….

Fear of Success, Fear of Failure, Fear of the Unknown…. Fear lurks in many guises, and stalks a lot of artistic people, a lot of business people.  Fear keeps us trapped in the things we know and have done a million times.  Fear is the loop that we know, that we often hate, and that we fear to escape from, because we have learned to be afraid of a bogeyman lurking outside, in the great, unknown.  The edge of the world beyond which there be dragons….

 

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I say, What?  Why should that space on the horizon be scary?  What did that figment of a briar bush ever do to you?  It’s just sitting there, harmlessly being a briar bush.  It ain’t going to suddenly get up and attack you, any more than you are likely to walk towards it and fall in head first.

Fear of failure reminds me of an anecdote I read in the wonderful book by Helen Fielding, ‘Cause Celeb’ which I like because it reminds me of hot places and the often weird dislocation of travel.

In it, a group of people is walking in the bush, and they come upon two Landrovers which have collided with each other, crashed in this otherwise wide-open landscape with no roads, no other people, nothing as far as the eye can see except sand, rocks and brush.  There was plenty of room for them, anywhere in the whole wide horizon, but they somehow magically, found each other and collided….

The universe is essentially a safe, fun place to be.  And we have to believe that, if we want to start, finish, edit, polish and start submitting our work.  It may take years, but it may also be the best fun, the most exciting challenge we have ever faced.

Thanks for reading.

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November 21, 2016

Self Imposed Stress

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Self Imposed Stress

 

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Self-imposed stress is one of these ‘working for ourselves, got to work’ bugbears that, I think, infects all of us creative people, at some time or other.

Just to be clear: a bit of self-imposed stress is A Good Thing.  We can all do with taking our work seriously, with planning and setting out our strategies, and taking the time to bother with the details.  And a few deadlines thrown in there to motivate us do no harm at all.  Sometimes, I wear a smart jacket to work in the lounge.  I find that working and being alone for long periods, this kind of device helps to convince me that what I am doing is good, pays well, and makes a difference.  But what if stress becomes paralysing and self-defeating?  What can we do about stress that becomes all consuming?

A lot of unbearable and unhelpful stress comes from the divide between what we tell ourselves we should be doing – with our logical, bullying minds, as often as not – and what we want to do, which is to rest, relax, take it easy and go with the flow.  We consult our diaries and lament that we only have two days left this week to write seven thousand words.  We decided on our strategy ages ago, so we must do it, by golly, or the rest of our plans will be in shreds.  And our failure to adhere to our own plans can then feel like the ultimate betrayal, which just makes us too stressed to work at all!

Here are my top tips to avoid stress:

  • I try to take the weekends away from my work.  Thus, I have time to re-engage with normal, gentler routines and expectations, and enjoy conversations which are not punctuated by the clack of the PC keyboard.
  • To help demarcate my work / life boundaries, if I need extra motivation, I wear a jacket and my smart clothes to work and change out of them after work is finished for the day.
  • As I work from home, I accept that if I worked in any other office, I would be out of the house until at least 5.30 in the evening.  So, I don’t worry if I have to work a little after my daughter is back from school.  That’s okay.  I am here for her.
  • I vary my routines.  I don’t always write every morning or afternoon, but keep myself moving through the day. This helps to keep my focus strong.
  • I keep lists of stuff to do, and a pad by my bed for collecting ideas, so I don’t have to pad around the house at midnight to pin down a brilliant idea.

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November 9, 2016

Being Self Conscious

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Being self conscious

Continuing my occasional series about the dangers and pitfalls that lurk waiting to derail of a writer’s career, here I give a passing mention to writerly self-consciousness, an aspect of creative endeavour that we often overlook.  (I don’t want to make it self-conscious by making too much of it, but it deserves a passing glance, because its effects can be far-reaching.)

Being self-conscious as a writer is absolutely fatal to the process of creation.  Like a pianist who plays all the right notes in all the right order but plays them mechanically – without a shred of emotion – the resulting material can be disappointing.  Sorry, but it’s true.

Perhaps more than most, I have reason to want to hide away from the wide world, to hide from the glare of public scrutiny the stack of apparent disappointments (okay then, ‘learning opportunities’) that, until relatively recently, appeared to make up most of my life.  Certainly, if I were overly self-conscious about my failings, I would still be sitting, stuck in that window seat over there, having writing nothing, trapped in a dark world clouded by fear and almost crippling silence.

Writing about life, happiness, progress, what it means to be happy and how to manage the tricksier aspects of sexual intimacy leaves no place to hide, and if even for a moment I gave in to embarrassment, I would probably pack everything in and take up a job as a desk clerk.  I’ve been very tempted.  But gradually, the pain and fear of exposure to ridicule dissipates and I learn to stand my ground.  As we must all do, if we have any hope of writing well.

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Writing anything, we best follow the advice of Margaret Atwood,

“The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand…”

Which feels, occasionally, a bit bizarre.  There’s me, the social person called Fran who eats, sleeps and relates to others.  There’s Fran the writer who invents characters and gives them life and things to say to each other.  And here’s Fran who has to assume she has never read, seen or created anything – a process of learned ignorance which is useful when it comes to re-reading our work, but which also helps us to be clear, honest and authentic.  It’s not a guarantee – there are none! – but it helps me to write.

Thanks for reading.

 

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November 7, 2016

Is it CP or is it me

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Is it CP or is it me.

In the throes of unhappiness and pondering the lot I have been given, in my youth and for a long time after, I made the classic, youngster error of assuming that all my problems were the result of being disabled.  Not so very disabled, I asserted with a prickly self-righteousness, as to be unable to do the things they do, but enough for it to be a total, permanent pain in the ass.  That was my reasoning, and because I was such a prickly pain, no-one felt like challenging me on it.  Which gave me a perfect, permanent reason to be a bit of a grumpy-mouthed twit.

 

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But then, challenging all my assumptions, I have met and continue to meet people who are disabled, yes, and who manage – gasp! – to be pleasant, funny, helpful, amusing and stoic.  So, I reasoned, being remarkably slow to connect the dots, it can’t be disability that’s entirely the problem, here.

So is it just me?

(Please don’t all rush as one to say, ‘It’s you, it’s you, it’s all you.”)

I face the dreadful realisation, about twenty years too late (twenty? Try forty!) that if I had been a kinder and more confident individual, my life might have been a lot easier.  Of course.

This year has thrown challenges in my path, literally chucking them down.  But hey, we all have challenges to face, we all have times when we wish it would all just go away and we could float away on a peaceful boat to a sunny, warm, peaceful place and rest for a while.

Everyone faces challenges, hardship, sorrow and pain, and none of these circumstances needs to equate with suffering.  We can simply observe, allow, and accept.  When circumstances hurt, or life feels heavy, we really don’t have to become hurtful or heavy ourselves.

Equally, all of us at some time encounter prejudice, unkindness, lack of comprehension, which may well arise because of an impairment: a choice selection of insults around impairment that featured a lot in my youth, spring to mind.  But equally we can be discriminated against or bullied because we are guileless, don’t know how to play the game, because we wear the wrong brand shoes or read obscure literature …. None of these forms of discrimination is actionable, or easy to prove.

So, it must have been me, then.  If so, – and I suspect the jury will be out on this for a while yet – I hope henceforward to be resolutely cheerful.

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October 27, 2016

Crashing Frankfurt Buchmesse Party

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Crashing Frankfurt Buchmesse Party

As an author, the chances are, if you approach an industry professional out of the blue at a trade fair, they will say, ‘What are you doing here, and no, I don’t accept submissions / I’m not looking for any new clients.’  One I approached at the Frankfurt Buchmesse told me this three times, though I knew the state of play before I ventured to locate their particular stall, deep in the bowels of hall 6.  It pays to do research, and I had already gleaned the information that the soonest they might accept submissions would be 2018.  Expect brusqueness, and don’t take it personally.

I don’t blame the professionals.  Each publisher handles literally thousands of queries each year, from aspiring authors all hoping to gain recognition for their hard work.  But authors are the life-blood of all publishing efforts and – unless publishers are saying they can write as well as they publish – will be needed to feed the industry for as long as the industry aspires to exist.

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The mainstream is looking for one thing, or maybe several things which all add up to one thing: success, big bucks and the next phenomenon in authorship.  The next Booker Prize winner.  But authors get the short straw at such events as these, relegated, for the most part either to public nuisance, or at best, to milking cow or strong ox that will make us lots of money.  Strangely, this does not depress or annoy me.  On the contrary, I came away from Germany inspired and totally determined to write, to hope for the best, and, having seen how it works on the ground, to keep writing and roll with the punches.  When shit happens, roll with it, not in it.

From the evidence I could glean, self-publishing remains a minute fraction of the publishing effort in Germany, occupying a mere two small desks on one level on one floor of the Buchmesse.  Compared to Britain and America, the inroads of KPD and CreateSpace to the German mainstream are negligible.  Whereas at the London Book Fair there were events and whole sections of floor devoted to self-publishing, to authors, to Kindle and to hybrid publishing options, in Germany, that particular option appears just to be waking up.

If the organisers would like to know how to expand their fields of interest and attract more visitors, they can learn from the London Book Fair, which offered extensive and interesting author participation events, brainstorming and a creative look at going it alone.  If the mainstream finds that uncomfortable, they might at least invite wider participation from authors, who so often find themselves uncomfortably stuck between stools: not an industry insider, nor a member of the public welcomed at the weekend opening.

 

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October 25, 2016

Visiting Frankfurt Book Fair

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Visiting Frankfurt Book Fair

In the midst of everything else that has been happening, I haven’t forgotten my intention to visit the Frankfurt Book Fair, and finally decided to commit, and make a holiday of it, two weeks beforehand.  Our daughter has been on half-term break until today, and Daddy welcomed the chance of a breather, so I booked the fare, the accommodation and the Bookfair ticket, and we set off last Tuesday, arriving at Frankfurt mid-afternoon.  Here we are in Germany, I thought, at last.  Unfulfilled ambition – sorted.

The Frankfurt Buchmesse is the world’s largest event of its type in the publishing industry, attracting two hundred and eighty thousand insiders and professionals from across the globe.  I was set at liberty to get my bearings in the enormous complex of buildings that are the Messe Halle.  Six halls were used for the Fair, plus a central area outside, though there are eleven halls in total, with a twelfth under construction.  But though the space can get a bit noisy, the halls are so huge, there is never any sense of claustrophobia.

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A typical conversation with anyone you randomly meet or bump into there – sharing a table, queuing for drinks – will start in German, quickly segue to English, and if that produces no reaction, into Italian or French. The locals are very patient, and enjoy practising an array of different languages.  After listening to my faltering attempts to converse in German – introductory phrases are fine, but conversations are another matter – daughter offered the sage advice to start in English and keep to that, or others would become confused.  She was correct.  Here are some other pointers, for any aspiring authors hoping to make the trip to Frankfurt next year.

  • Start saving.  With the euro hovering at around parity with Sterling, travelling, dining out and having fun are more costly that we might imagine.
  • If you really mean business, try to have a formal interview or two lined up before you go – with publishers or agents, perhaps – but not on the first day, which will probably be spent getting lost.
  • Reconcile yourself to walking at least ten kilometers every day. Wear comfortable shoes and take a bottle of water.

 

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