17th – 22nd May
Obstacles to finishing a novel:
1) Irritating business trips to a different time zone.
2) The hard drive on your computer packing up, rendering the manuscript inaccessible.
3) Commercial jobs with real-life deadlines.
Sunday, 22 May 2011
Monday, 16 May 2011
16th May
Tomorrow morning, I’ll be whisked off in a limo to Heathrow before flying business class to New York. Trying to make this sound lovely and glamorous because I really don’t want to go. More to the point, all this jetting about, not to mention the attendant pesky work, is putting a bit of a crease in my writing regime.
Today’s output: forty five minutes of notes writing-up for the commercial job. And one packed suitcase.
Tomorrow morning, I’ll be whisked off in a limo to Heathrow before flying business class to New York. Trying to make this sound lovely and glamorous because I really don’t want to go. More to the point, all this jetting about, not to mention the attendant pesky work, is putting a bit of a crease in my writing regime.
Today’s output: forty five minutes of notes writing-up for the commercial job. And one packed suitcase.
Sunday, 15 May 2011
14th and 15th May
It’s Sunday night and I’ve had much of the weekend off. Social engagements, booze and childcare among the reasons (excuses) for this inactivity.
At the end of my first week, I reckon I’ve clocked up the fifteen hours of writing I committed to, particularly if you include this blog.
Back to the full-time job tomorrow. Rather inconveniently, I have a New York work trip from Tuesday to Thursday. Not only that but I also have a commercial writing job involving a number of phone interviews, some of which I’ll be conducting from my NY hotel room at 5am local time.
Interesting, busy times.
Now, I have the Sunday blues to contend with and Family Guy to watch.
It’s Sunday night and I’ve had much of the weekend off. Social engagements, booze and childcare among the reasons (excuses) for this inactivity.
At the end of my first week, I reckon I’ve clocked up the fifteen hours of writing I committed to, particularly if you include this blog.
Back to the full-time job tomorrow. Rather inconveniently, I have a New York work trip from Tuesday to Thursday. Not only that but I also have a commercial writing job involving a number of phone interviews, some of which I’ll be conducting from my NY hotel room at 5am local time.
Interesting, busy times.
Now, I have the Sunday blues to contend with and Family Guy to watch.
Saturday, 14 May 2011
13th May
Bloody computers. If all inanimate objects are put on this earth to obstruct and irritate (and they surely are), then computers are the generals of this vile army. Last night, when I opened the laptop in the loft and hit the ‘on’ button, I was faced with one of those technical messages consisting of heavy text on a black screen. Something along the lines of ‘This computer cannot boot due to a recent change in software or hardware. Please contact your IT support team or the manufacturer or the Samaritans’. It was only the sleeping baby the floor below and an in-built respect for material possessions that prevented me from hurling the thing against the wall.
Without access to my work-in-progress manuscript (no, of course I didn’t save a back-up copy!), and after allowing myself several minutes of screaming “fuck fuck fucking fuck!” into a pillow, I resolved to use my anger productively. And so it was that I introduced a brand new character to the novel. The villain. Power-crazed, sadistic, brutal, the architect of a gargantuan empire based on fear. A woman, too, red-headed in honour of my beautiful wife who might, I suspect, have been hoping for a tribute character without quite so many flaws.
The main thing for me is that I wrote at all yesterday. Life isn’t linear and plans have a habit of shifting like tidal sands. While it’s important to stick broadly to routines, timetables and schedules, it’s equally vital to find a way to create when things aren’t straightforward. Like doing press-ups in a tiny downstairs toilet.
My list of worries for next week is growing. How will I cope when I throw a full-time job back into the mix? Why am I not pushing my commercial writing CV to many potential employers? What if I’m unable to retrieve the manuscript from the knackered PC?
I think I’m going to ask my family to club together and buy me as a birthday gift a laptop that actually works. And a sledgehammer, in case of emergency.
--
PS I’ve just tried to upload this to the blog. Said blog is currently down due to a technical issue. The machines are winning, I tell you.
Bloody computers. If all inanimate objects are put on this earth to obstruct and irritate (and they surely are), then computers are the generals of this vile army. Last night, when I opened the laptop in the loft and hit the ‘on’ button, I was faced with one of those technical messages consisting of heavy text on a black screen. Something along the lines of ‘This computer cannot boot due to a recent change in software or hardware. Please contact your IT support team or the manufacturer or the Samaritans’. It was only the sleeping baby the floor below and an in-built respect for material possessions that prevented me from hurling the thing against the wall.
Without access to my work-in-progress manuscript (no, of course I didn’t save a back-up copy!), and after allowing myself several minutes of screaming “fuck fuck fucking fuck!” into a pillow, I resolved to use my anger productively. And so it was that I introduced a brand new character to the novel. The villain. Power-crazed, sadistic, brutal, the architect of a gargantuan empire based on fear. A woman, too, red-headed in honour of my beautiful wife who might, I suspect, have been hoping for a tribute character without quite so many flaws.
The main thing for me is that I wrote at all yesterday. Life isn’t linear and plans have a habit of shifting like tidal sands. While it’s important to stick broadly to routines, timetables and schedules, it’s equally vital to find a way to create when things aren’t straightforward. Like doing press-ups in a tiny downstairs toilet.
My list of worries for next week is growing. How will I cope when I throw a full-time job back into the mix? Why am I not pushing my commercial writing CV to many potential employers? What if I’m unable to retrieve the manuscript from the knackered PC?
I think I’m going to ask my family to club together and buy me as a birthday gift a laptop that actually works. And a sledgehammer, in case of emergency.
--
PS I’ve just tried to upload this to the blog. Said blog is currently down due to a technical issue. The machines are winning, I tell you.
12th May
Sitting on my arse eating chocolate and watching evening racing from Ludlow is far easier than climbing the loft stairs and finishing my novel. That’s the thing about setting yourself tasks. No matter how enjoyable the activity in question, having to do it instantly makes it less appealing.
I had my first real angel/devil on the shoulder moment last night. I was about an hour into my three-hour stretch when I thought: “Maybe I’ll just turn it in for the night, watch a bit of telly.” Well, I’d proved to myself I could stick it out for two consecutive days. I’m happy to report, though, that shoulder angel won out.
When I was thirteen, I decided I was going to embark on a regime of press-ups every day. We were going on a family holiday a few months later and I wanted to make sure I looked good for the girls on the beach in Lanzarote. It was an exercise programme I was to follow for a decade. If I hadn’t done my press-ups I’d get antsy, and a day wasn’t a day unless and until I’d completed them. Once, we were at a Christmas bash at my parents’ friends’ house. I was fifteen and wearing a rather natty dinner jacket over a t-shirt and jeans – classy. After a couple of beers (well, it was Christmas and my folks were good like that), I realised with a degree of horror that I hadn’t done them. I went into the tiny downstairs toilet and, with toes perched uncomfortably on one side of the bowl and my head all but touching the door, cracked out fifty of the best. I can only imagine what the other party goers thought on seeing a sweaty, dishevelled teenager emerging from that room, panting like a Labrador on a hot day.
For me, writing is the new press-ups.
Sitting on my arse eating chocolate and watching evening racing from Ludlow is far easier than climbing the loft stairs and finishing my novel. That’s the thing about setting yourself tasks. No matter how enjoyable the activity in question, having to do it instantly makes it less appealing.
I had my first real angel/devil on the shoulder moment last night. I was about an hour into my three-hour stretch when I thought: “Maybe I’ll just turn it in for the night, watch a bit of telly.” Well, I’d proved to myself I could stick it out for two consecutive days. I’m happy to report, though, that shoulder angel won out.
When I was thirteen, I decided I was going to embark on a regime of press-ups every day. We were going on a family holiday a few months later and I wanted to make sure I looked good for the girls on the beach in Lanzarote. It was an exercise programme I was to follow for a decade. If I hadn’t done my press-ups I’d get antsy, and a day wasn’t a day unless and until I’d completed them. Once, we were at a Christmas bash at my parents’ friends’ house. I was fifteen and wearing a rather natty dinner jacket over a t-shirt and jeans – classy. After a couple of beers (well, it was Christmas and my folks were good like that), I realised with a degree of horror that I hadn’t done them. I went into the tiny downstairs toilet and, with toes perched uncomfortably on one side of the bowl and my head all but touching the door, cracked out fifty of the best. I can only imagine what the other party goers thought on seeing a sweaty, dishevelled teenager emerging from that room, panting like a Labrador on a hot day.
For me, writing is the new press-ups.
Wednesday, 11 May 2011
11th May 2011
Day two and I’ve kept up my three hours’ writing, one hour’s reading. Two days. That’s got to count as a routine.
The scene I wrote last night for the novel moves the story in a new direction. It’s thrilling but, like a rollercoaster whizzing into a tunnel, I have no idea where it’s going. I’m not worried, though. Right now, my priority is refamiliarising myself with the act, the physical act, of writing. Getting stuff down on paper is more important than trifling concerns like plot and believability.
That said, during the day, I find myself slipping into reverie at regular intervals. Plot lines, character motivations, the ‘stitching’ of my story. These are the topics that occupy my brain as I cruise supermarket aisles or play with my son in the park or line up a putt (I’m not back in the full-time job until next week). As a writer, I reckon you’ve got to give yourself the room to think. Thinking’s good. But writing’s better.
As for that physical aspect to writing that I mention above, I really must do something about our loft room. That’s my designated writing space and I set out on this quest without recce-ing it beforehand. Only when I sat up there for the first time the other night did I realise how hot and airless it is. There’s no desk, either, so I have the choice of resting the laptop on a low chest of drawers with both legs wedged together on one side (or one each side but that’s not pretty) or sprawling on the bed to write. Both positions would give ergonomics experts heart attacks. Last night, I finished the evening propped on one arm on the bed with a fan about twelve inches away. The cold air blew into my face with such force that my eyeballs dried out.
Not all glamour, this writing lark.
The scene I wrote last night for the novel moves the story in a new direction. It’s thrilling but, like a rollercoaster whizzing into a tunnel, I have no idea where it’s going. I’m not worried, though. Right now, my priority is refamiliarising myself with the act, the physical act, of writing. Getting stuff down on paper is more important than trifling concerns like plot and believability.
That said, during the day, I find myself slipping into reverie at regular intervals. Plot lines, character motivations, the ‘stitching’ of my story. These are the topics that occupy my brain as I cruise supermarket aisles or play with my son in the park or line up a putt (I’m not back in the full-time job until next week). As a writer, I reckon you’ve got to give yourself the room to think. Thinking’s good. But writing’s better.
As for that physical aspect to writing that I mention above, I really must do something about our loft room. That’s my designated writing space and I set out on this quest without recce-ing it beforehand. Only when I sat up there for the first time the other night did I realise how hot and airless it is. There’s no desk, either, so I have the choice of resting the laptop on a low chest of drawers with both legs wedged together on one side (or one each side but that’s not pretty) or sprawling on the bed to write. Both positions would give ergonomics experts heart attacks. Last night, I finished the evening propped on one arm on the bed with a fan about twelve inches away. The cold air blew into my face with such force that my eyeballs dried out.
Not all glamour, this writing lark.
Tuesday, 10 May 2011
Writer’s Blog
The diary of a quest to become an author
10th May 2011
My name’s Paul, I’m 39 next month and I want to be a writer.
This blog will chart my progress.
Like most diary keepers, I’m doing this for myself. The idea is that I can look back in a few years or months (let’s stay optimistic) as a hugely successful published author and be reminded of my humble beginnings. As I travel along the road – oh, God, I’m in danger of creating something that could be turned into a film with the byline ‘One Man’s Journey’ – I want this journal to keep me honest, to make me do the things I say I’m going to do. Believing, as I do, that the writer’s job is to tell the truth, I shall be doing that here. And because the diary is by its nature an intensely personal medium, I’ll be writing only for and to myself, even though it’s in a public forum. That said, if my other blog’s anything to go by, this may well retain its pure ‘by-me-for-me’ diary status.
Stephen King, a great hero of mine, wrote a book called On Writing. In it, he describes how he became the writer he is and offers practical, often brutal, guidance to wannabes like me. You know what it’s like when you’re given advice from someone you like and trust. You instinctively latch on to parts that chime with your own views (I was thrilled to learn that King, for the most part, holds little truck with the idea of plotting before writing his stories, as my own half-written novel has been created in this more organic fashion) and shrink from those that are more difficult to hear (King’s distaste for adverbs made me cringe as I recalled a flurry of them in my work and did I really need that ‘instinctively’ earlier in this sentence?). Reading King’s book has been one of the catalysts to get my arse into gear.
The most important thing for an aspiring writer is to read a lot and write a lot. I’ve been guilty of not practising either of these life-blood activities enough. Why? One word: fear. Fear that I’m not as good a writer as I think I am. Fear that I can’t sell my work to agents, publishers, film makers, publications. Fear that it could all be a waste of time. Fear that I’ll have to make sacrifices to a lifestyle that I love. All the rest – the full-time job, the time demands of modern life, the wife and child – well, they’re just excuses for not writing. No, the only genuine reason is the fear.
As King says: ‘The scariest part is right before you start.”
So I have started. Or, rather, restarted. Yesterday, I had a session with a careers consultant and, with her, outlined the basis of a new regime that will culminate in my being published. I’ve committed to 15 hours of writing and at least 5 hours of reading per week (I do have that full-time job, remember). Of course, there’s so much else I’ll need to do: entering competitions, finding agents, approaching publishers, prioritising my work, getting myself out there and selling myself as well as the writing. But let’s start with these fundaments. Writing and reading.
Today’s news. I looked at my poor neglected novel last night for the first time in two and a half years. And I wrote. Yes, it was clunky. Yes, it was awkward, like getting back into bed with an ex lover after years apart. But do you know what? It felt bloody marvellous. I didn’t know where to start so, in an act of deliberate perversity, I went straight to the end. Wrote the epilogue that will close the story, complete with tantalising opportunity for the sequel (why go for a one-off when you could have a franchise on your hands?). Oh, and I made a start on removing so many pesky adverbs. How did I do this? Gleefully and willingly.
The diary of a quest to become an author
10th May 2011
My name’s Paul, I’m 39 next month and I want to be a writer.
This blog will chart my progress.
Like most diary keepers, I’m doing this for myself. The idea is that I can look back in a few years or months (let’s stay optimistic) as a hugely successful published author and be reminded of my humble beginnings. As I travel along the road – oh, God, I’m in danger of creating something that could be turned into a film with the byline ‘One Man’s Journey’ – I want this journal to keep me honest, to make me do the things I say I’m going to do. Believing, as I do, that the writer’s job is to tell the truth, I shall be doing that here. And because the diary is by its nature an intensely personal medium, I’ll be writing only for and to myself, even though it’s in a public forum. That said, if my other blog’s anything to go by, this may well retain its pure ‘by-me-for-me’ diary status.
Stephen King, a great hero of mine, wrote a book called On Writing. In it, he describes how he became the writer he is and offers practical, often brutal, guidance to wannabes like me. You know what it’s like when you’re given advice from someone you like and trust. You instinctively latch on to parts that chime with your own views (I was thrilled to learn that King, for the most part, holds little truck with the idea of plotting before writing his stories, as my own half-written novel has been created in this more organic fashion) and shrink from those that are more difficult to hear (King’s distaste for adverbs made me cringe as I recalled a flurry of them in my work and did I really need that ‘instinctively’ earlier in this sentence?). Reading King’s book has been one of the catalysts to get my arse into gear.
The most important thing for an aspiring writer is to read a lot and write a lot. I’ve been guilty of not practising either of these life-blood activities enough. Why? One word: fear. Fear that I’m not as good a writer as I think I am. Fear that I can’t sell my work to agents, publishers, film makers, publications. Fear that it could all be a waste of time. Fear that I’ll have to make sacrifices to a lifestyle that I love. All the rest – the full-time job, the time demands of modern life, the wife and child – well, they’re just excuses for not writing. No, the only genuine reason is the fear.
As King says: ‘The scariest part is right before you start.”
So I have started. Or, rather, restarted. Yesterday, I had a session with a careers consultant and, with her, outlined the basis of a new regime that will culminate in my being published. I’ve committed to 15 hours of writing and at least 5 hours of reading per week (I do have that full-time job, remember). Of course, there’s so much else I’ll need to do: entering competitions, finding agents, approaching publishers, prioritising my work, getting myself out there and selling myself as well as the writing. But let’s start with these fundaments. Writing and reading.
Today’s news. I looked at my poor neglected novel last night for the first time in two and a half years. And I wrote. Yes, it was clunky. Yes, it was awkward, like getting back into bed with an ex lover after years apart. But do you know what? It felt bloody marvellous. I didn’t know where to start so, in an act of deliberate perversity, I went straight to the end. Wrote the epilogue that will close the story, complete with tantalising opportunity for the sequel (why go for a one-off when you could have a franchise on your hands?). Oh, and I made a start on removing so many pesky adverbs. How did I do this? Gleefully and willingly.
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