The Rights & Wrongs of Writing

April 24, 2017

A lovely way to edit

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A lovely way to edit

Over the holidays, I’ve been learning how to de-format and re-format text for uploading onto Kindle, because I’m going to publish Happiness Matters and Making Miracles myself (with a lot of help from my editor, cover designer and typesetters…).

One Saturday afternoon I decided to sit down and learn how to do formatting, as per instructions in Chris Longmuir’s book – see my previous blog post – and I finally got a handle on the process by about seven o’clock the same evening. Enough of a handle, at any rate, to be able to relax , want to keep learning and to marvel at the ingenuity and precision of the process.

As an added bonus, in the process of learning how to upload books in different file formats, I discover that uploading any of my work onto a kindle is a wonderful way to proof read it, the flat screen clearly exposing any typos, page glitches and blanks that I can then set my hand to sorting out.

I may have read a piece a thousand times, but it never ceases to amaze me what the eye does not see. E-book formats give us the chance to read a book as if for the first time, and to quickly highlight issues that we simply can’t see while at the keyboard: a superfluity of commas, for example, or an over-use of one phrase…. Amazingly, these jump of the virtual page, demanding to be noticed when read on a kindle.

If nothing else, I am grateful to have learned that this is an excellent way to review and crit work.

Having thought about it some more, I don’t think I will do all the formatting myself. I am now paying more attention to how other books are set out by professionals, and appreciating the value of detailed exactitude, and I would rather ask a professional to take that on, and continue learning about the process gradually without the added stress of deadlines and so on: it is invaluable to know how the process works, more or less, so that I can see where and how it fits in the overall process, and understand what I have to do in any particular case, but not so that I can feel I immediately have to become very good at it. Professional skills take years to acquire, so why not ask a professional?

Thanks for reading!

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April 20, 2017

The Joys of Self Publishing

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THE JOYS OF SELF PUBLISHING

As the season turns and I find myself looking forward to a warm Summer, I am also embarking on a new career as an indie publisher, contemplating all the joys of self publishing.

My second book, Happiness Matters is ready to go and all the pieces of the jigsaw are slowly coming together. I have spent the last few weeks learning about formatting – for kindle, Epub files – and setting up accounts on IngramSpark, CreateSpace and KDP. (For the moment, HTML eludes me, but if someone tells me it is a synch and this is how it works, I would be more than happy to give it a bash.)

So I thought now would be a good time to start a new series of articles about self-publishing. It is an  interesting enterprise, filled with tax implications, royalty puzzles, discounts and resellers, but – the learning has lots of advantages, not the least of which is that I can now ask semi-intelligent questions about subjects which until only months ago, were a total mystery to me. It is lovely to feel, at last, that I can contribute meaningfully to the indie publishing debate. And, I know roughly what questions to ask.

It becomes apparent that I cannot leave all this stuff I have to know, to other people. Yes, there are services available to those of us who simply can’t get our heads round any more information, but similarly, there are books available that are a joy to read, easily demystifying the jargon into something easy enough to understand, with a bit of practical application and repetition. Knowing what de-formatting and formatting involve, I can now, at least, decide whether I am confident enough to do that, or whether I would, after all, prefer to pass it to a professional. Knowing what it involves, I feel very confident to delegate.

If anyone would like to read an ARC of Happiness Matters please do contact me. I can let you have a recent version in mobi or as a word document.

Thanks for reading.

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March 27, 2017

Two books at once

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Two books at once

I am writing and re-writing my work. We all do this, and for me, it is an essential part of the process of proving: Allowing a work to lie fallow for a time, then going back to it, in a different mood, with new thoughts, and a more reader-like, objective view. And for most of last year, particularly because I’ve been busy with loads of other stuff, I’ve been writing one work, one book, to get it finished, I said to myself. Writing one book does, admittedly, help us to keep all our plot lines and timings internally consistent. And it is good to make a virtue of finishing a book.

But, remembering that enjoyment and motivation are what this writing is all about, I have to admit that singledom is not how I work best. Though I find it takes me quite a long time to feel that any piece of writing has reached its best – I suspect at eighteen months to two years – I don’t thrive when I’m writing only one book. Call me faithless, call me flirty…. but

Ideally – as I did when I was writing Trapped – I like to write two books at once; I need another work in the background, so that I have a kind of ‘double weave’ arrangement going on. For me, that adds flavour and depth to both works, in different ways.

When writing and editing Trapped I also had Happiness Matters on the go, which actually motivated me, adding ‘cross-fertilisation’ rewards, and helping me to take both tasks more seriously, and in the best spirit. It’s hard to explain, but two books make the whole adventure more real, and I’m less hung up – in all the wrong ways – on the one project that has all of my current attention.

It’s as if, with only one to focus on, the tone gets too serious and pedantic. Does anyone else find themselves needing two books to work on, or am I unusual in that way?

Double weave takes longer, but for me, it’s stronger.

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March 24, 2017

Rewriting again and again

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Rewriting again and again

If anyone was to ask me, ‘How many drafts did you write of Trapped before you were happy with it, before you knew it was finished?’ I might, borrowing a phrase of my grandfather’s, reply reflectively, ‘Thoosands and thoosands….’ Which, over the course of a three year period of trial, error and reconsideration, is not such an exaggeration. At least fifty drafts, then.

The lesson I can draw from this, is that for me, it takes time for the right tone, the right angles and the comfortable, conversational colour to emerge. It takes time to shed the reserve that at first, I hardly notice, and get down to a more immediate and conversational style that I really do prefer, and that I know helps me to enjoy what I write. Perhaps it is the writer’s equivalent of shyness, or a need to come closer gradually, but this process of casting and recasting simply cannot be rushed.

I’ve tried rushing, and this is what happens:-

  • The tone of my book flattens out into business-like precision, (which has its uses)
  • I start to worry about timing, timetables, word-counts, daily disciplines
  • My work flattens out even more
  • I assume this is the best I can do and become disheartened.

Now if I assume that I can always please myself, I can always write exactly what I want, whenever I want – and last night, that happened to be from eleven pm ‘til one am – if I assume that I am free to be me not just sometimes, but all times, in all places and in the midst of all my work, this is what happens:-

  • I smile and feel liberated again
  • A sense of fun and assertive joy invades my work
  • My characters are let loose and can speak to me in much fresher, clearer voices
  • My plots twist and turn nicely, because I am intrigued, instead of scared, or bored.
  • I enjoy my work, and my life

If it takes me three dozen drafts to get my books right, whether they are memoir, MBS or fiction, I better just accept that and start having fun. No more timetables, no more strategies for writing ‘a book a year’, no more ‘must get this finished today’ – because all these …anxieties…. result in work that is not my best.

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March 22, 2017

SAW Conference continued

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SAW Conference continued…

This is the second part of an introduction I gave to a seminar at the Scottish Association of Writers Annual Conference at Cumbernauald on Saturday, 18th March.

‘….The first 25 or 30 drafts of any memoir that we are writing can, and often will be as sentimental, overblown, subjective, unfair, emotionally exhausting and entirely self-obsessed as we need them to be. But as we write, and once we get to draft 35 or 40, as part of the process, we gain distance and a different perspective, and we have an amazing chance to learn real empathy with the story of others.

Despite the fact that readers may consider memoir writers self-obsessed, the real value of the process is that, though a process of self-reflection, we gain empathy with others, and with ourselves.

As part of the process of writing our memoir (which we hope to see published one day) we:-

  • approach the task with trepidation, on tiptoe.
  • Are subjective, emotional and sometimes very unfair when in the early stages of writing. But no-one else is going to read our first thirty-five drafts, so we can write what we want!
  • Get through all the emotional work and come out the other side feeling different, better and more aware.

If and when we finally reach our goal of publication – which can take ten years – as part of this process, we have to accept that:-

  • Our work is no longer ours. It becomes public property.
  • Other people will expect to have a view about what we have written, so it helps to let go of our darlings.
  • Having spent years getting to this point, what have we to show for it? Not a lot, on the face of it.

But we do come away from the process with more empathy; so empathy is our ultimate reward for a long, hard process of reflection.

Increased awareness may be all we get, but this in itself is extremely valuable and worthwhile. Empathy for others, and for ourselves; and a much clearer, and calmer appreciation of our value in the world.

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March 20, 2017

A Workshop at SAW Conference 2017

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Memoirs and Autobiographies – a workshop at SAW Conference 2017

Cumbernauld, 18th March 2017.

This is the first part of a talk I gave as part of a workshop at the Scottish Association of Writers Annual Conference in Cumbernauld on Saturday.

‘……Memoir is classed by publishers as narrative non-fiction, and sits, in a category all its own, between pure fiction which has characters, a plot, and is based (at least in theory) in our imaginations, (though we all know that fiction is based around what we know and have learned in our own lives) and non-fiction, a ‘How To’ book by an author who has to demonstrate his expertise and get their facts right.

However, we are the experts when it comes to writing our memoirs. So, do we have to write the truth or get our facts right? The tagline of my book, My Life with Cerebral Palsy is there to signal to a reader that s/he is not reading a narrative of pure fiction, but a story about real people.

But as a memoir writer, I do not have to tell ‘the truth’, nor can I. (Autobiography makes that attempt, usually starting with an anecdote about Great Grandpa Wilfred who treked across the Apallacian Mountains, but even autobiography is subjective.)

It is not possible for me to tell the truth. I can’t remember what happened when I was three; and in any case, everyone’s version of the truth is different. My mother tells me that my memoir is simply not what she remembers, and that is fine: her view of what happened will never be the same as mine.

So, when writing about our memories how do we protect ourselves from allegations that what we have written is unfair, untrue, unkind, just plain wrong? People are only too ready to tell us when then they think we have got it wrong.

It helps to remember four things.

  • Sincerity – be as authentic and sincere as you can. You may have to write a hundred thousand words – of anything – until you find your voice, but you will. Persist, until you find your voice, and be sincere. Avoid exaggeration, if you can, and be honest.
  • Even-handedness. Your final version must be even-handed. If you dish it out to or about other people, give yourself a hard time too. If anyone then suggests that I have been unkind to my parents or my colleagues, I can, in all sincerity, say I have been at least as hard on myself.
  • Walk your own path – Stick to your own story. Always. Only borrow the minimum of what you need, and resist the temptation to poach other people’s stories for your own purposes.  If you are writing your story and you find it boring, that is the challenge to go out and make your life more interesting.
  • Avoid naming or shaming anyone – malice. Do not be tempted.

Don’t use the occasion of publication – a public platform – to lambast or wound any named individual. Obviously, (A Child called ‘It’) there are times when that warning will have to be tempered by the need to tell as story, but it is an aim. We can lambast classes of person – When I was writing Trapped I have it in for doctors, lawyers…but no one single individual is singled out…..’

(To be continued)

Thanks to Jen Butler for inviting me to participate in the Conference, and to everyone who signed up on the day! It was lovely to meet you all and share our stories.

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March 16, 2017

Not going to the London Book Fair

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Not going to the London Book Fair

The best laid plans….

Meaning to go to the London Book Fair, the last day of which is today, I have put it off until – oh! Is it this week? – it has flown past me, books and all. I’m not going to the London Book Fair this year because I’ve been busy getting my priorities sorted out first: there’s very little point organising the whole thing, laying plans, if the bedrock of one’s purpose is not well set – so many people are ready, willing and keen to set one down, to make one see sense, be realistic and to work ever harder…it is all too easy to get caught up in the doing of it, without pausing to consider whether one wants to, needs to, or should, at a particular point in time.

Yes, and the last few years have not been devoid of other challenges, the sort that come winging out and slug one on the back of the head at a moment’s notice.

In learning to swing with the punches I have learned a great deal: that I don’t have to go anywhere unless I can see a good reason to do so; that home life is fun and precious to me; that life is about more than chasing the dream, although that comes in handy sometimes and chasing is good exercise; that my opinions are as good, as variable and as valid as anyone’s; that time will often tell me what to do, so that I don’t need to worry so much; that life will happen whether I want it to, so whether it is raining or sunny, I had best be happy. After all, who knows when the next test will come along?

All things being equal, is it not better to be as happy as possible? Daughter wants collected from school because it’s raining – yes, I know, I’ve been out, and done a huge shopping, and carted that and a sodden laundry which I’d had on the line, into the house to put away, spin and hang up, again. And now I have to have something to eat, get a bit of work done, and fetch daughter. I could find all that taxing, troubling, irritating, but I’m not going to.

Confidence is about more than knowing we can do something. It is about doing it, no matter what other people think, say or do. Just doing it, because.

On Saturday, I’m giving a short workshop  at the Scottish Association of Writers (SAW) Conference  in Cumbernauld on writing memoir and autobiography. I’m looking forward to that very much. Wish me luck!

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March 8, 2017

When my critics see me sitting

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Continuing my occasional series on the value of writing, I mention in passing – though this is a reason that I have argued with for decades – that I write in order to use my time for something constructive, and so that when my critics see me sitting, they will not call me lazy.

There is such pressure to be seen to be useful in our timetabled lives that it is almost impossible – especially as a product of the tradition I grew up with which may be changing – to sit quietly and do nothing, without attracting comments, such as how about you read a book? Why don’t you do something useful…..? And to such critics, writing as a profession offers a wonderful way out. So, to that end, does reading, because of course we learn everything we need to know from reading, both books we adore, and those we detest: it becomes part of the discipline of writing to work out why I love or hate certain authors, and what I might do about it.

So, I plomp myself down at my work desk and at the end of a morning may have produced four or five pages of text, if I’m fortunate. Unless I am slavishly needy for praise, it would be unusual for me to print them off and wave them in the face of my returning spouse, ‘See what I did today??!” But then, very few of the tasks I get done are of the sort that produce tangible results: Look, no dishes! Look, no laundry! Look, no angry child, no bills, no broken lights…..

Life is a compromise, of course. But writing, producing stories, writing about characters who become more real with each day that passes, seems to me to be a blessed way both to escape the strictures of routine, and to have fun.

It was Terry Pratchett who said,

‘…If you don’t turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else’s story….’

 

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March 6, 2017

Teaching my daughter

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Teaching my daughter

Continuing my occasional series on the joys of writing, I continually find myself returned to one reason – teaching my daughter – that may often seem intangible, yet has a ripple effect that I may not often notice, but which is definitely happening.

I write to demonstrate the value of persistence, both to myself – I can’t count the times I’ve wanted to chuck it all aside and run away – and to my daughter. She will not really listen if I say to her, ‘Persist with your reading, it is worthwhile!’ but she will notice when I am reading, happy, or writing contentedly.

It is up to me, mostly, to set a good example every day, and to demonstrate that small acts to follow up decisions, do bring results. That is an ongoing demonstration of how we achieve ‘success’ – whatever that might mean for us.

I have to teach her that women, particularly, can and do succeed by working doggedly at something which inspires them. I need to teach her that persistence is rewarded, and to demonstrate the power that is unearthed in learning to work hard for long periods without apparent reward. In fact, persistence is its own reward, bringing the equivalent of an endorphin high when things work out, and teaching us that we need never be frightened of even the most intimidating prospects: there are ways to dismantle thorny problems, piece by piece, but only if we have self-belief, which we learn through persistence, and faith.

In fact I can demonstrate that already, as my daughter’s work attitude has improved.  I know she has to find her own way in life, and I know she will come to me or her dad if she has any questions or worries – I’m truly blessed to know that! – so I try not to nag.  But what I can do, is respect my own work and keep on with it, even when there are a hundred other things that I could be doing, and even when people take up this or that chunk of my precious days, and interruptions get in the way. I can and will achieve what I set out to, even if the time frame is unknown or uncertain. And I can best make that happen by steadily working, a day at a time.

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February 24, 2017

Writers do it for fun

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Writers do it for fun

At least, that is the best motivation I can discover for doing it.  Writing, I mean, floating on words, drifting, or pelting, towards worlds new and refreshing.  That must be why we do it, right?  Not for fame, fortune, or to make money, exactly.  This writing lark costs time – precious days that will not come again in this lifetime! – so fun must be the only and best reason for doing it.

Not because we have a routine.  Not because we call ourselves writers, or authors, or wordsmiths so writing is what we should do, right?  Not because that is what we have always done, or always do on a Thursday between 9 am and 4pm with an hour break for lunch.  Not because our editors are waiting, or our reading public expects…. In fact, expectation often killeth the word, shrivelling up creative pools and leaving behind a sludgy mess that maketh a mockery of art….and why would we want to work in that?

It takes courage to look past all the business of writing, to the simple joy that sparked off this whole odyssey.  It takes courage to divest oneself of all the nuts and bolts, the ropes of duty and obligation and reconnect with the spark of light and colour that we call inspiration.  But surely, without inspiration, we have nothing to power us forward….

So, when I feel discouraged or empty, I recall the reason for all of it, take a deep breath and smile at the memory, you are doing all this for love, for enjoyment.  Don’t forget.

Submitting proposals and the like, it is very easy to become discouraged.  But, since joy is the well-spring of all that authors do, no amount of criticism from professionals should derail our ambition if, ultimately, that is what makes us enthusiastic.  In fact, in the face of rejection and discouragement, it is a good idea to keep going, and keep hoping to find a way through.  By walking the path, we find a way.  There’s no other way to find out what our limits are.

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