Book of the Month

For some reason I posted this report in the other blog - but here's a link if you want to see the current state of reading (much better recently!)  http://schmoozyschlepp-quotidiana.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/book-of-month.html

Blogging for pleasure and profit

Well, One of the few topics (apparently) I do not spend much time soul-searching about is why I blog.  I know why, I was told to, I started it, and found it was a useful outlet for anything I wanted to mull over (not this blog of course - but the Quotidiana one).  But every now and again, I remember that a writer's blog is meant to be a fabulous outlet for one's writing and all sorts of things.

Today I came across an article called "Why do we blog" http://www.molly-greene.com/why-do-we-blog/ and I am putting the link here - because it is (a) the antithesis of why I blog, and (b) perhaps it is how I should be blogging.   (Note to self: make content more perky, relevant - less solipsistic).

Worst of all I see that I have chosen a style and layout that does not permit me to include lots of brightly coloured pictures of my book covers (to be announced).  I should be building up a mailing list apparently!  Oy-oy-oy!  Well, OK.  This is the way to go, since I am not that kind of writer, I think I can carry on regardless.  Should I find a publisher for those searing works of fiction The Romantic Feminist, the Conscience o Trilogy and Islanders (to say nothing of 17 Years) then it may be that a publisher will kindly offer the services of one of their underlings to assist me.

However, perhaps the final paragraph of the blog is the most helpful - the thing about confidence.  Curiously, despite my still mainly unpublished status, I do have a certain amount of confidence, but I suspect my natural modesty and experience of failure of one kind and another, prevent me from too much trumpeting... plus of course that crippling disease "being British" which makes one very unable to tell the world how fab one is in case one is accused of showing off.   But confidence must have an outlet, and mine comes through what could be interpreted as arrogance... but is actually a sort of sardonic/sarcastic humour which doesn't really look too much like showing off, but at the same time demonstrates a level of cleverness/superiority - hmmm.  I just hope it is leavened with some self-deprecating charm. 

Poetry

I used to write poetry, when I was a teenager - some of it was good, even my mother, usually my sternest critic, said so. I wrote it chiefly during the emotional Sturm und Drang that enveloped me from about 16 to 19.  When I got to university I wrote a little, but once I met James, my first husband, things settled down and the mood no longer came upon me.  It was about that time that some of it got published in the university literary mag... as always, at the first hint of success I down tools and go off and find something else to do.

Nowadays I live in terror of the question "Would you like to read some of my poetry?" - although I do know two excellent poets (Simon Darragh and Sue Rose) who I would read any time - because most amateur poetry is pretty dreadful and I find it hard to compose my face in a suitable expression when I have to read something which either rhymes like a greeting card, with sentiments to match, or doesn't rhyme, but has no discernible poetic qualities either.

Anyway - yesterday "by special request" I wrote my first poem for over 30 years - it's a haiku, an epitaph on a distant friend (a friend once removed?) who was an international environmentalist, supporter of communities and all round loveable, charismatic and inspiring person.  He died horribly "young" - i.e. about 57.  I thought it was good - the recipient thought it was "very good" so I shall put it here, to rest until someone needs it.

Roger Hammond

A good life, inspired
By nature, the whole world seen,
Loved and upheld, changed.

Perhaps there should be a book of haiku epitaphs.  Or maybe I should go and stick it on the memorial website.

Writing and real life

Having had a really interesting, blog-worthy evening last night, when I woke up this morning all I wanted to do was write something to add to TRF.  I suppose this is the classic thing - a night carousing in one's unconscious mind brings forth more interesting thoughts and connections than a great many conscious experiences... but I was making connections last night.  I wondered for example whether it would be permissible for a young Edwardian clergyman to sing Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes at a musical evening.  I think probably not - but might be acceptable for David to sing it privately to Kitty - to woo her a little?

For the last nearly four years - when I began to write most of the time - I've felt a strange disconnect between my conscious, planning brain, and  my unconscious which seems to have over flowed its normal boundaries, and to be rising up to the top of the seawall...I live far more than ever in the unconscious - and sometimes real life is a bit of a strain.   Last Friday for example, we went to Marine Studios for an exhibition and talk - it took a while before I could adjust - when asked how I was I replied "a bit weird actually" - and I really couldn't engage properly (needed 2 glasses of wine in fact), but when I told Mike, the potter this, he just gave me a great big hug and somehow that grounded me again... almost immediately we found a topic of conversation and normal service was resumed.

Does/can we rely on physical contact like that to jolt us out of where we are?  I think perhaps, as with hiccups, it has to be a surprise.  If M came over to me and tried to hug me to distract me from working I don't think the response would be so positive.  I hate the fuzziness that comes these days - I don't feel as if I am doing much new thinking - I over-rely on the intuitive side of the brain, the rational is under-exercised (I don't think Sudoku counts).

Now where?

A week without writing - not very good.  Actually I began to read TRF again, because I am trying to steel myself to send it out again.  It seemed good to me!  Oh dear, but the intensive self-criticism and corrections all took place during the first two or three years, I can't keep updating it.   I had a whole load of ideas that I wrote down and now can't find the document - probably didn't save it.  I wondered whether to tweak the structure again - but I felt that small tweaks were more in order.  I am still waiting for T to come back with her critique, I am sure she has been busy, but I wish she would, I want to feel I have a version that has dealt with the JM criticisms and then rejection/acceptance becomes simply a matter of taste.

So, next week, I should probably work on Vol 1 while I wait for T to ponder... then think about submitting TRF again...  Oh.  It's all too damn complicated, but while all the published writers I know say airily "Don't worry - find another agent!" as an unpublished novelist I feel slightly less sanguine - then again, I've only had 8 rejections so far - at least 5 of them rave rejections!  So, sooner or later I must find someone.

One continues...

Still revising Vol 1 - and on the whole it isn't bad... I've been tweaking a bit, but the narrative is as it is - and now that I'm about 2/3 of the way through, I can see I have turning points in all the right places... I worry that (a) it is too ordinary MOR writing - or (b) that it is too over the top - religion, conscience, unconsumated marriage... not popular subjects.  At supper Ned said "if it's completely different from everything else then it great - it's original...." is that really what "the Market" wants?  Or maybe it's original in the wrong way?

I like it - I just can't see it as others see it.  But then again, a romantic novel from a man's POV - that's a bit different?  Still worrying about too much narrator... I'm not too worried about the final chapters, think they will be broadly all right - since I wrote them slowly - but the last 4,500 words were taken at a bit of a gallop - so I expect to have to do a fair amount of work and expansion on those.

As for submissions, I did one, but am saving the rest until I've finished the re-write.  I would like some movement, but I would rather finish the re-write before anyone asks me for the rest of it.

So the plan is: finish re-write, do submissions, get feedback on TRF and then give it a final prune...and resubmit.  I still haven't worked out the logistics of re-submitting TRF while Vol 1 is still doing the rounds, I think the fantasy is that Vol 1 will be taken in, and I can then push TRF at the putative agent... but we'll see.  After that, I think a solid 3-6 months of research on life at the front, story lines etc. to enable me to write Vol 2.  That pretty much takes care of the year up to the summer hols - barring the unforeseen.

Normal service will be resumed...

It is very painful when things go wrong, I had thought for a while that I had finally developed the confidence and saurian epidermis necessary to pursue my writing career.  However, the Agent's comments when she gracefully declined to take me on were curiously unhelpful.  Yes, yes, I'm a wonderful writer... but she didn't like the plot (the one she suggested) or rather she didn't think I was good at plotting and I had left lots of the teenage stuff in it (that's the stuff everyone likes silly).  She thought I ought to go on a Faber Writing School course (only £400 - a snip!).

This left me in a quandry - I think I'm rather good at plotting actually, and if I'm not, can you say in what way? I would genuinely like to know, so I can improve it, but I can't afford to go on an expensive creative writing course to find out.  On the whole people liked the twists "didn't see that coming" was one remark - Denise kindly lent me her Syd Field workbook - and I found that in terms of a movie scenario TRF didn't need much tweaking - it already had the first adult kiss on the mid-point - almost to the page - and their first sexual experience was just about where the Act II plot point should come.  It is true that there aren't many sub-plots - but there are still interesting little characters and bits, like Benji and Paula and so on. Denise mentioned that at times one needed a break from the main character, and I think that's true - although I'm not sure how I am going to do that, without making it even longer, but it's one of the things on my "to do list".

So, my first response to JM was to send a wailing email to writing chums - and got some helpful feedback.  I also immediately sent it out to an agent - who said "NO" within a few days.  Then it was Christmas.  

This week, I decided I would start submitting the Conscience book instead.  I wrote my first submission yesterday, I intend to do about 5 and then wait.  In November I was so knocked back by JM's response that I thought "what's the point in trying to revise Conscience (which I'd just finished) if I don't know how to plot - I won't be able to correct it or anything.... I won't be able to see what's wrong with the plot etc. etc."

I've just done things to the first 3 chapters - and still I can find sentences where I've lost the thread, or given up half way through.  V.v. irritating.  I don't quite know what to do with the rest of the book.   My feeling is that the story is pretty much there - it's a fairly straightforward narrative, I don't think I need to change much. Probably I just need to tighten up the POVs a  bit, and perhaps provide more insight into Kitty's behaviour... or make it a little more mysterious, give a stronger feeling of the attraction between them...,a bit more detail.  I don't think I know how to do anything else, but they do need to be really strong engaging characters, perhaps Kitty needs to be more sympathetic to the reader somehow.  More conversations between them perhaps?

Anyway, it looks like revising Conscience is going to be the task for the next few weeks.  I know that the last chapter ended at a great rate - maybe we need more incident in there.  It has been hard work getting back to it, but at least I now have a reasonably sensible synopsis ready and plenty of covering letter text..