Three Steps Forward

At the risk of sounding like one of those ‘Review of the Year’ programmes (you know the sort: they splice together footage of mildly interesting events from the past twelve months and invite d-listers with nothing better to do to tell us how very fascinating/funny/tragic/unacceptable it all was) I’m going to try and summarise my year in writing. For I’ve neglected this blog for six months and, certainly writing-wise, rather a lot has happened.

I’ll start with my writer’s group, WOW (Writers on Wine). For the first half of the year, it was an enormously encouraging way to get stuck into the first big edit of my novel – and an opportunity to read some fabulous work by my contemporaries. Sadly, the WOW members are now somewhat scattered, with Lizzie and I having both moved away from Edinburgh, and I miss those evenings very much – both creatively and socially. However, I hope that one day we can share stories and drinkies once more, and until then I cannot thank my girls enough for giving my novel a good kick up the arse

Yes, I’ve moved from Edinburgh, which was a wrench - a huge wrench, in fact. I lived in Edinburgh for exactly four years, during which I made wonderful friends, had wonderful experiences and, for the first time, felt like a real writer. Yet when I was offered the Literary Consultant job in Geneva (a freelance version of which I have been doing for a year or so beforehand) it came at the perfect time. The UK seems to be full of doom and gloom at the moment, especially in employment terms, so it wasn’t too hard, deciding to escape to the land of Toblerones and cuckoo clocks to be paid to write.

As though I didn’t have enough on my proverbial plate with a new job, the move to a new country and trying to master a new(ish) language (how I can be so criminally bad at French after five years of it at school, I have no idea) I decided to do National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) again in November. As strange as it might sound, I don’t particularly like the writing part of constructing a story. I love the ideas stage, I enjoy tinkering around with a text once it’s on the screen, I adore scrolling through a lengthy document and marvelling over how many words I’ve written, but actually bashing out the first draft… meh. I can take it or leave it. The advantage of Nano, in which you have to do a ‘barf draft’ of 50,000 words in a month, is that the initial writing part is over nice and quickly. In a year of scribbling that has felt quite serious at times, with editing my novel and doing a Proper Grown Up Writing Job, Nano gave me the opportunity to pen a silly story about dancing, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

So there they are: three steps forward, no steps back. Never one to be completely satisfied, I would have liked to have done something a bit more substantial with my novel… But hey, there’s always next year.

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.  

New Projects

Autumn is a funny time. Yes, the leaves are pretty colours, we don’t have to worry about ugly men walking around topless anymore (in public!), and we have Halloween and fireworks soon – which are always jolly good fun. But none of this totally makes up for the fact that we’re simply too soon after the delights of summer and too far from the joys of Christmas for anything else to be truly delightful or joyous. These cold, darkening days render me decidedly fragile - and to think, I used to laugh at people who claimed they got Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) every winter. That was before I lived in Scotland.

I am trying to combat the autumnal blues, as well as my own wretchedness concerning my status as a useless unemployed person, with some writing projects. These are threefold:

1) Despite glaring continuity errors, erratic changes in plot/characterisation/time/logic, and whole sections missing where I have simply written ‘???’, I have decided that I have finished the first draft of my novel. Sort of. In lying to myself like this, I can move on and edit it, which I think is more productive than just hating its presence on my computer - and indeed, in my life.

2) I have set up a writers’ group. It is called WOW, which stands for Writers on Wine. I am proud of that acronym. The group is in its fledgling stages at the moment, but I am confident there will be much good writing and much good wine.

3) I have become a Literary Consultant.  

So the unemployment thing is not strictly true, although my bank balance would suggest otherwise. No, I have recently been appointed a Literary Consultant for a publishing company in Geneva.

This is not as grand as it sounds. It is actually a ghostwriting job. Back in May, I applied for a different role in a Geneva-based publishing company and - to cut a long story short - they offered me the Literary Consultant role instead. Getting the job was a rather long and ridiculous process, however the highlight of it all was being whisked off to Geneva for the day – the single most high-flying (no pun intended) moment in my laughably non-professional career.

Epic Fail

It’s July. It’s hot – even in Scotland. According to the Metro, that well-respected source of information, Britain could soon be facing a drought. A hosepipe-banning, bath-sharing drought. While I’m pretty sure that everyone’s favourite public transport rag is wildly exaggerating the matter, I can’t help but think that - in relation to my writing - some pathetic fallacy is going on here.

About a month and a half ago, I promised myself I would complete the first draft of my novel by 1st July. Considering that the thing is still mouldering away, neglected and unloved, on my hard drive, I would say that was a fail.

I could make excuses. I could cite all the hours I have worked recently (at the Edinburgh Book Festival Box Office, for just one more afternoon now). I could offer my crazed to-do lists for my forthcoming teaching stint in New York as proof of my industry (although however I dress that one up, going to New York always just sounds jammy). I could wring my hands about all the social, familial, televisual commitments I have had of late. But really, enough. There are no excuses.

Let us review the recent pledges I have made and their glorious outcomes:

I will finish the first draft of my novel by July – fail.

I will enter the Bridport Prize, as previously mentioned on this blog, this year – fail.

I will enter other short story competitions – fail.
 
In short - one epic fail.

How to pull myself from this rut? I enjoy writing. I enjoy telling stories. I sometimes think that I don’t even hate my novel that much, although those unsettling feelings usually pass. Perhaps New York will help. Maybe time away, when I’m not supposed to write will, perversely, make me want to start scribbling again. Or maybe I should take time off after the summer, lock myself in the flat, and not come out until I’ve finished the damn thing, even if it means being so poor and wretched that I’ll eat nothing but Riveta and talk to nobody but the woodlouse that has taken up in the bathroom.

There is also always the rain dance option. I could choreograph some sort of inspiration-seeking jig. However, considering the quality of my bog-standard boozy party dancing, this idea should be filed under ‘Last Resort.’

“We’re off to see the Wizard…”

I am currently experiencing something of an Oz obsession. Not for all things Australian, you understand, but for somewhere even further away: the fantasy land of Frank L Baum’s imagination.

I have always rather sniffed at The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Perhaps, having been brought up on a strict diet of Barrie, Carroll, Tolkein et al, I was snobby about the American Baum and his land of Oz. Indeed, I am still of the opinion that the plot – more the book’s than the film’s – is rather holey and not entirely deserving of its literary status. However, on revisiting both book and (superior) film, I have come to the conclusion that there are many aspects to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz that are, well, wonderful.

Wonderful, and useful. A few months ago, I decided that there were rather a lot of nice parallels between Baum’s story and my own burgeoning novel: the importance of home versus whatever’s over the rainbow, a black and white world versus a technicolour one, plus storms and dreams and – most importantly – the idea of a seemingly great man who is not as quite as he appears. It all fits rather well into (the currently titled) Meeting in the Middle. So imagine my joy, on re-watching the film, of finding this little gem:

“The Great Oz has spoken. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”

This is currently the new epitaph to my novel. This and some quotations from Hawthorne’s retelling of the Midas myth – Midas being another famously flawed man. Coming up with potential epitaphs is much more exciting than writing the thing.

(I have also recently seen Wicked in the West End and was very impressed. Aside from a fantastic production, I was very taken by/jealous of the story – what a fantastic idea Maguire had, to put a spin on the Wicked Witch of the West, who – as the musical so rightly points out – didn’t really do anything that wicked, apart from demand back the shoes of her dead squashed sister.)

A Busy Bee

These are strange times. Partly, because my current job at the Edinburgh International Science Festival is, well, strange: every day, I drive around Scotland with another Amanda and we perform a science show to primary school children over and over again. It’s called Little Giants. It’s about bees. I’m the beekeeper, the other Amanda’s the bee.

But that’s not even the really strange part. The oddest thing is that, after getting up at stupid o’clock in the morning to drive to these schools – an experience I find akin to  pulling teeth – and after doing this show three times with the energy of a couple of CBeebies presenters who have broken into a Red Bull factory, I have been getting home and writing.

Seriously, why is this? Why am I not able to write a thing after a week of languishing about in pyjamas, but when I’ve spent the day yelling at the lady inside the tomtom and jumping around singing the praises of pollination, suddenly I can get home and bash out 2,000 words of novel.

Why?

The Bridport Prize

Due to a drunken episode in which my name was googled (not by me), I have discovered that my small victory in the Bridport Prize 2009 Short Story Competition is now public knowledge. As you can see, I am one of many, many shortlisted writers, nevertheless it makes me feel rather warm and fuzzy inside.

Next year, I will try to enter this competition with sparkly new fiction (as opposed to just picking a tired old story at random) and hope I do even better. For now though, I am content just to gaze at my name on the website of this very prestigious prize.

Bridport Prize 2009