Newcastle Writing Conference 2015

Just over a week ago, I attended the Newcastle Writing Conference 2015. Organised by New Writing North and hosted by Northumbria University, it was a thoroughly informative and inspiring event - one I have thinking about ever since.

The day kicked off with a storming key notes address from YA author Meg Rosoff, which was a great ice-breaker for the conference, mainly because Meg is such an entertaining speaker. She brought a lot of laughter to the lecture hall as she told us exactly why she hated her former profession of advertising (it involved instant tea granules), her habit of getting fired from almost every job she’s ever had, and how her first novel – a pony book – was rejected for containing too much sex.

The talk concluded with Meg urging us to think of our brains as colanders: almost everything slips through, but once in a while something especially memorable or interesting gets stuck. When writing, she advised us to consider the contents of our own individual colanders: ‘None of it is the same as anyone else’s,’ she said, ‘and that is your strength and your weapon.’

After a panel event about social media, we split off into breakout sessions. I had chosen How to Pitch Your Work with Steve Chambers, mainly because the idea of talking about my novel-to-be terrifies me. In fact, what I really liked about Steve was that he didn’t deny that pitching was an unpleasant business, though as he reminded us, ‘You don’t really have a choice.’

A few pieces of advice from that session that really stood out for me:

• Build your pitch around the main character – people are interested in people.
• Pitch it like you’re talking to a mate at the pub.
•  It isn’t about the novel’s themes or issues - or why you’re writing it - it’s about telling the story.
• Focus on what is unique about your story. 
•  Not everyone will like your ideas, and that’s okay.
•  Don’t lose confidence, and keep pitching – you will improve.

I also found that Steve, who is the Programme Leader of the Creative Writing MA at Northumbria University, had a lot of writing wisdom to share, not all of it related to pitching. In fact, my notes are full of his offhand little gems, one of my favourites being, ‘You can’t help the kind of writer you are, because who you are keeps coming out of your work, in your voice.’

In the afternoon, I opted to attend Meet the Agent with Jo Unwin. Much like my attitude to pitching, I find the prospect of one day attempting to find an agent rather intimidating - they are, after all, the gatekeepers of the publishing world. Fortunately, Jo turned out to be very friendly, eager to explain what her job entailed, and full of advice on how to approach an agent. Of course, a lot of information about submitting work can be found online – and it varies from agent to agent – but I thought I’d record just a few of Jo’s many wonderful tips below:

• The biggest agents in the business might not have space for new authors, but it’s a good idea to approach their assistants, who will be looking to expand their client list.
• Mention a personal connection to the agent if you have one. This might be meeting them in person, but could just as easily be watching them talk at events on YouTube etc.
•  Have a good sense of the book you’ve written. Pitch the nugget of your story in your covering letter – and be specific, so it’s memorable. ‘Don’t tell me it’s about innocence and loss,’ Jo advised. ‘Tell me it’s about a mother whose daughter was lost at sea.’
•  Your covering letter should be serious, demonstrating that you’re a ‘career writer’ – i.e. someone who has been writing for a long time and is committed to a future in the profession. 

The conference concluded with a fantastic panel event called What’s Hot and What’s Not with Jo Unwin, Francesca Main (Picador), Rachael Kerr (Unbound) and Anna James (The Bookseller). It was great to hear about these women’s respective roles in the publishing industry and their current projects, not to mention the many, many book recommendations they had (my bank balance is about to take a serious hit).

As for the question posed by the name of the panel, although the speakers could identify current themes in publishing (nature writing is ‘having a moment’, women’s voices are popular) they cautioned us against chasing trends, because tastes inevitably will have changed by the time a book has been written and published. Instead, we were simply urged to write the best, most important book we could.

I found this point - which had been repeated one way or another throughout the conference - oddly reassuring. Obviously, writing a high-quality novel is no easy task, but given that the rapidly-evolving publishing industry can sometimes seem like a confusing sort of place, it’s a clear objective – something to get on with. 

In fact, Meg Rosoff summed it up nicely right at the beginning of the day, when she related what her agent had once said to her: ‘Forget about being a good girl and doing it the right way, and [write a book] as fiercely as you can.’

Collaborative Writing

When I was younger, I imagined writers to be Beatrix Potter figures, holed up in country cottages with animals crawling and hopping (though curiously never defecating) over their work. Throughout my teenage years, my ideal authorial figure became the café-bound JK Rowling (aside from my brief flirtation with Ewan McGregor’s absinthe-soaked scribbler from Moulin Rouge - be still my adolescent heart). But whether they reside in mansions or garden sheds, work with quills or Macs, most people’s image of a writer will have at least one thing in common: they are alone.

Ewan McGregor: making writers look
good since 2001

Obviously there are exceptions, especially in screenwriting, but I think it’s fair to say that most writers are solitary sorts. For many, this is one of the best aspects of the profession, and indeed I have often wondered whether I feel compelled to write because I am a huge control freak/megalomaniac, and it’s far easier to get made up people to do what you want than real ones. And of course, two people sitting in front of a computer/notebook/artfully-battered typewriter are always going to take about eight times longer to produce something because everything needs to be discussed (if I sound disparaging here, seriously - try it and get back to me).

So writing – and by that, I mean the actual typing out/inking down of the words - is mainly a solitary activity, agreed? But the thing is, everything around it - the writing process, if you will - really shouldn't be.

During my Creative Writing Masters in Edinburgh we had to attend a weekly workshop where we both presented our own work for feedback and provided feedback for others in the group. It seems strange to think back on it, two writers' groups down the line, but ahead of that first session back in 2007 I was terrified. Before then, although I hadn't been completely secretive about my work, I hadn't always been entirely willing to share it either. In fact, the whole idea of the workshop was so daunting, I even resubmitted the story I had used for my MSc application, figuring that if my tutors had let me on the course, it can't have been that bad.

Unsurprisingly, I quickly relaxed about it all and, over the course of the MSc, came to learn that giving and receiving feedback was not only very useful, it could even be enjoyable. Sharing the burden of a story is actually a huge relief, and trusted readers can offer a completely different perspective on a tale that has, until very recently, only existed in your head: This idea works, but needs expanding on. That minor character is really interesting - why not give her more to do? If you tone down the description here, it'll make the image more effective. And so on.

I'll save the debate on how useful doing a Masters in Creative Writing is for another day, but I don't think there's any doubt that the workshop experience was invaluable. It inspired me to start my Edinburgh writers' group, WOW (Writers on Wine), which threw booze into the mix, thus making the whole feedback process far easier - and more likely to descend into giggles. In turn, WOW's success prompted me to start my Geneva writers' group, which is currently in its fledgling stages...

So, in summary: writing alone in a garret without surfacing for company is all well and romantic (thanks, Ewan!) but I'm not sure how helpful it is, creatively. Perhaps it doesn't need to be through anything as official as a workshop, but I've found entrusting respected, writerly friends with my initial ideas, my first drafts, my eighth drafts (and having them trust me with their writing in return) is not only far more useful than doing it alone - it's far more fun too.

WOW: Lizzie, Cheryl, Hannah, Cat and me
(don't judge, it was our Christmas meeting)

A Roaming Writer

For the past few months, I have been volunteering with Scottish Book Trust. It’s rather difficult to summarise all the marvellous things SBT do, so perhaps I should leave it to them, as they describe themselves as ‘the leading agency for the promotion of literature, reading and writing in Scotland.’

Since moving to Edinburgh, I have found surfing SBT’s site for competitions, advice and general literature chatter incredibly useful, and when I realised there was a possible volunteer role up for grabs, I jumped at the chance to get involved.

‘Family Legends’ was a project that SBT ran across Scotland, whereby people were encouraged to pen a short story about a particularly ‘legendary’ family member. This resulted in thousands of entries, a brilliant book, and more than a few new writers.

My job in all of this was as one of the project’s Community Ambassadors. Although originally I was intended to be the Edinburgh spokesperson, my then job with the Science Festival was taking me up and down Scotland dressed as a Space Cadet (but that’s another story…) so I ended up as more of a ‘Roaming’ Ambassador.

It was a wonderful experience, encouraging people to tell their stories, and for me the most interesting part of the whole project was attending the North Edinburgh Writing Workshop, I wrote about the experience for the website here but I’m not sure I quite managed to convey exactly what went down. I suppose, with my MSc and lately my writers' group, I have become used to scribblers with a fair bit of experience and, more importantly, self-belief. Whereas many of the attendees of this workshop had barely done any creative writing before and had, for whatever reason, barely any confidence in their writing abilities. Which is crazy, because of course everyone has the ability to write - everyone. I truly believe that, and evidently so did the workshop leaders, who calmly guided the group through a couple of exercises, despite protestations. It might have been a struggle, but it was more than worth it for the end result: hearing people proudly read their work aloud.

Since then, I have been thinking quite seriously about – I don’t even know what you would call it - community creative writing work? Perhaps not yet, but one day, if I can ever get my own act together, it’s definitely something I would want to do more of. Watch this space, I guess.