Madness Takes Its Toll

So, it’s halfway through National Novel Writing Month. Hey, here’s a completely trivial question, should Novel Writing be hyphenated? Since the novel itself isn’t actually doing any writing but is the object being talked about? Or am I misguided? Any grammar freaks who can put that niggle to rest, answers much appreciated.

Where was I? Oh yes. Halfway through NaNoWriMo (it’s quicker and it saves me from worrying about the hyphen thingy) and I’m not quite on track. I’m not horrendously behind…well, yes, actually I am, who’m I kidding? To be on target to complete the 50000 words doing 1667 words a day I should have written 25000-ish by now, and I’ve actually written just under 18000. To finish on time, according to my stats page, I need to write 2146 words a day. This is actually more than do-able, assuming I can focus and sit down every day, which is easier said than done.

So what does that mean for me? First of all, I’m not throwing in the towel. There are a few reasons for this: first, I want the GLORY, the satisfaction of saying that I did it. Does that make me a bad person? Probably. Tough. I also want the writing software Scrivener, which is being offered at a 50% discount to all NaNo winners. I’ve had this on demo and absolutely love it, so I’ll be getting it anyway, but I would rather get it half price! And third, the t-shirts the winners can buy are just so darn pretty. I want one. This definitely makes me a bad person. Of all the motivations I’ve heard for finishing a novel, “I want a t-shirt” has not been among them. The thing is, if I say, aloud, “I’m not going to make it, I’m giving up on NaNoNow but I’ll still write the novel” I probably won’t. I’ll probably go back to my pre-NaNo work in progress and both of them will creep along at the pace that I have the luxury of at the minute being an unpublished, uncontracted writer. If I say I still have a chance and I’m still in there, I’m more likely to push myself and get this written, even if I end up not ‘winning’.

Have I learned anything so far? Well, yes, actually. First of all, it’s good deal more difficult to turn off my inner editor than I thought. I’m constantly checking my research, rewriting my last sentence (because I CANNOT let typos go. I just can’t. Don’t make me.), thinking about what I’m writing. Not so much in plot terms but more like “Is this sentence even English?” This gives me confidence in a strange kind of way, more for the future than for this particular project, but also that this project has some potential in it. I may be deluded in thinking this, it may a leap of logic, but please don’t tell me until December 1st.

Second, it’s sort of a taster of what life as a Real Writer is like. Before you eat me, I mean a writer with a deadline, a contract, having to make time wherever possible, having to squeeze writing time in around family, having something other than the ‘muse’ making me write, and having to sit down and write nearly every day. It puts a little bit of extra pressure on myself to lift my writing from ‘something I do when I have time’ to ‘something I make time to do’, which was beginning to happen but NaNo has made me prioritise it more. And I like it. This also gives me confidence that I’m doing that which I was Born To Do. Not in that my writing is some great gift to the world, just that there’s nothing I can do better or enjoy more on a long-term sustained basis, and that gives me this kind of satisfaction. The satisfaction I get from my family and faith is entirely different; with writing, it’s just about me.

Finally, that writing is a) much harder than it looks (I know, I know, those of you who’ve ‘got’ that are going “well, dur”) and b) a thousand times more satisfying. I started this blog post feeling pretty down in the dumps because of a) but I’ve finished it feeling energised and motivated because of b).

So, madness is definitely taking its toll. But I’m loving it.

I Love to Laugh

Waaaay back in the mists of time (ok, a few months ago) I wrote a couple of posts about lessons learned from Mary Poppins, here and here. I’m coming to regard Mary Poppins as a kind of life guru, as here’s another post based on the wisdom found in one of the best kids’ films ever.

Remember the scene where Mary and the children go to visit Uncle Albert? And he’s doing cartwheels on the ceiling and they end up having a tea party in mid air? The song that goes with that is one of those where you can’t remember the words but it’s infectious. Rather like a good laugh, funnily enough.

I love to laugh, loud and long and clear

I love to laugh, so everybody can hear

The more I laugh, the more I fill with glee

And the more the glee, the more I’m a merrier me!

I love this. I’ve always enjoyed a good laugh but in recent months I’ve come to appreciate really good comedy more. Andrew and I have been watching the latest series of Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow and the gap between the acts who were ok and the ones who had us in stitches on the floor was remarkable, and makes me realise how hard it is to do comedy really well. But not just that, also how amazing it is when it is right. Michael McIntyre is one who gets it right every time, just by being himself as far as I can gather. I highly recommend his book, his voice just rings true on every page.

I like loads of different aspects of entertainment. I like a gripping storyline, a good historical with beautiful costumes, a good romance, musical shows, I’m easy to please. But I think the thing, certainly at the minute, that really gets my attention and makes me hungry for more is outstanding comedy. ‘Clever’ comedy, I think – more verbal wit and sparring than slapstick. David Mitchell and Lee Mack on Would I Lie To You have me in stitches every time because they parry each other and pick up on the tiniest details to beat each other with.

That, for me, is the killer. The detail. It’s a skill I’ll never have, although I appreciate it very much in those who do. Being able to take an ordinary story and find the one or two details in it that make it hilarious. And nine times out of ten, it’s a detail we’re painfully familiar with; I think this is at least half of Michael McIntyre’s skill. For example, he gives a few examples of his experience of parenthood, which resonate perfectly with us. Or a situation that most of us have been in, but he manages to make it go horribly wrong. The highlights of his autobiography were those sorts of situations. Or, for example, Fawlty Towers. I know it’s grossly exaggerated, but it pushes the buttons that we can identify with. A example – being interrupted several times while in the middle of a job to be reminded to do the job we’re being interrupted from. The details that fit in horribly well later on, like the out-of-date kippers in The Kipper and the Corpse.

We’re also discovering new (to us, anyway) stand-up. I have been ill laughing at Adam Hills and Craig Campbell. They don’t just do a reel of jokes or poking fun at the audience. They observe what’s going on around them, and then let us in on their observations. And because they pick up a few killer details, it’s suddenly more real and therefore funnier. Here’s a treat: try watching this video of Adam Hills (disclaimer: it does contain swearing).

It’s not just tv or books either. When I’m on Twitter, the conversations I tend to pick up on and the ones that hook me and keep me on Twitter for far longer than I should be are the funny ones. Sharing a joke, a funny hashtag. I love it. If I’m in a group (a Real Life group) I have so little self-confidence and assertiveness that I tend to stay back and listen, and generally wish I wasn’t there, but when someone makes a really good joke or I find the courage to say something and the people around me find it funny, I shed a little of that self-consciousness.

I think comedy should be a part of everyone’s life. I’ve had a fair bit of time over the past year or so where we’ve felt really low, floundering. And watching or reading some comedy has lifted me, almost tangibly, every time. Our best times as a family are when we’re laughing together. I love to laugh, and I hope I keep on laughing for a long, long time.

*NB No copyright infringement intended. Words and music by Richard M Sherman and Robert B Sherman

This Is NOT a NaNoWriMo Post

Ok, I lied. But did I get your attention?

This is the first year I’ve done NaNoWriMo, so I’m probably as unqualified to talk about this as anyone can be. Just bear with me, then you can throw the rotten tomatoes at the end.

I know for a fact that some lucky people have got book deals out of their NaNo manuscripts. And there is a big part of me that is hoping for that too. Of course I want to have something publishable – that’s why I’m writing. NaNo is good for discipline, silencing the inner editor, yadda, yadda, yadda. I want to have a novel out of the end of it too.

But I’m not entirely dim or deluded. I don’t think that the first 50000 words of any draft are a finished novel, let alone one written in 30 days. Here’s a list of things I will NOT be doing as a result of NaNoWriMo, despite what some detractors (of NaNo, not me. I hope.) may think.

  • Pressing ‘Submit’ on my file on December 1st to as many agents as I can find in Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook
  • Ditto for publishers
  • Sitting back and relaxing on my complete manuscript
  • Thinking that I HAVE a complete manuscript
  • Telling all my friends and acquaintances and total strangers that I am a novelist
  • Assuming that I’ve cracked ‘it’
  • Sitting up until 3am on Nov 29th to finish target word count
  • Practising my Booker acceptance speech

I am fully aware that if I finish 50K by the end of the month, I will still almost certainly need to finish writing the story as it’s highly unlikely that 50000 words will do it. I will then have to step back and reread a million times, decide if it’s worth editing, editing with ruthlessness and a red pen, begging as many people as I can bribe to read it, taking unfavourable opinions with a large glass of wine and somewhere at the end of a very very long road I may think about submitting to somewhere that I’ve researched. I’m sure there are those people who do genuinely believe that the end of November is the end of the process, and I feel as sorry for them as I do for the agents and publishers who are already stocking up on tranquilisers ready for December 1st. But going off my writerly type people on Twitter, the majority of people doing NaNo are doing it in the right spirit, looking to get the right things out of it.

If I ‘win’ I will have a good start on a first draft (and it will almost certainly need masses of revising, what first draft doesn’t?), a good idea of where my plot is going, hopefully a strong idea on which parts really need the most work, the motivation of knowing I can write at a sustained pace, the support of people also taking part and a lot of fun along the way. If I finish, yey me, now get to work. If I don’t, yey me anyway. Because I say so.

And I promise to talk about other things during November than NaNo. Probably.

Firebrand: An Interview With Seth MacGregor

I was over the moon to recently receive a copy of Firebrand, the first book in the Rebel Angels series by Gillian Philip. If you haven’t read this book, I can’t recommend it strongly enough. It’s an action-packed fantasy adventure that really had me gripped start to finish, and its fabulous anti-hero, Seth MacGregor, has kindly agreed to be interviewed here today! Eeek! Yes, you heard me. Seth (not Gillian – I’m hoping she’s busy getting the next books in the series ready for release as I can’t wait to read them), the bad boy faerie who fights too much, drinks too much and tweets about BBC dramas that just don’t get it right.

I don’t want to give too much away, but to give you a taste, the book starts with Seth about to shoot an arrow into his half-brother’s heart. He and Conal (his half-brother) are exiled from the land of Sithe behind the Veil to our own land – except it’s the sixteenth century, and witch-hunting is getting too popular for comfort. Firebrand gives one shocking turn after another in Seth’s story; but I have to say that although the story itself is high-paced, the plot gripping and the detail incredible, for me it’s the characters that make the book so memorable.

Gillian obviously knows her characters inside-out as they jump off the page into real, full-blooded life. In fact, I have heard that she was writing a different book entirely, set in our own time, when one of its characters demanded his own story be told instead, and I can certainly believe that of Seth. Even though he’s a brat on more than one occasion, my heart was bleeding for him right from the start and by the end of the first chapter I was completely in love with him. His relationships with his family and friends are complex and totally believable and add so much to the book’s impact and drive.

But enough of my waffle, let’s hear from the man, er, Sithe, himself.

Hi Seth! Welcome to My Little Notepad.

I love the relationship between you and Conal. But what would you really change about your brother if you could?

Good question. Apart from him being such a bossy git? Let me see. Make him second-born? That would have saved a lot of hassle… well, maybe not. He’s good at the older-brother thing, I’ve got to admit. Just one thing, then: he does have a hell of a temper.  One of those slow-burn, explosive tempers. It’ll get him in trouble one of these days. And let’s face it, trouble’s my department.

Is there anything from our world that you would take back to your dun? I mean, there was a distinct lack of chocolate as far as I could see…

Just between you and me, I do take stuff back (including chocolate. There’s a guy called Sulaire who’s crazy for it). And your whisky’s got an awful lot better over the centuries; I take that back with me now and again. Your clothes – they’re great, really beat the old days. The Boss shops for me; she picks out some nice things. Ah… and bits and pieces of technology. Sionnach’s addicted to his iPod Touch.

What’s the one activity you would really have liked to have done with your father?

What? Not bothered. I don’t think about it. Not ever. Why would I bother pining over that? Doesn’t concern me. Not one bit.

Bet you’re really glad we don’t burn witches anymore. Tell me one other thing about our world you would change.

You ask good questions, you know. I think your world is great. I prefer mine, but really there’s a lot to like about your world. I don’t hate it the way I used to. Things have got better in a lot of ways.

Tell you what: I’d switch off all the lights at night. Every single one. Then you could see the stars. And if everybody had to look at the stars every night, you’d realise what a big universe it is and what an amazing stroke of luck it is that you live on this gorgeous habitable planet in the middle of all that space dust, and you’d stop trying to wipe each other out. Mostly over superstition, I might add.

I mean, I know the Sithe do love a fight, but we’re not trying to achieve our own mass extinction in the shortest time, y’know? Well, except for one of us. But we won’t talk about her.

How do full-mortal girls compare to Sithe girls?

You’re all gorgeous. I love full-mortal girls. You’re different but you’re great, you know? Obviously, you don’t live nearly so long, but… look, how can I put this tactfully? You don’t involve so much commitment.

Wolves or water-horses?

That’s like asking me to choose between my children. (Though obviously that’s not a bad thing where I come from.) Let me put it this way: wolves for companionship. Water horses when you’re in a really tight corner with a Lammyr after you.

I’m very intrigued by the idea that Gillian was going to write a different book but you took over and demanded that this story came first. Were you this demanding while she was writing? And do you keep shouting at her when she’s writing other books?

You have to understand (which she doesn’t, by the way) that when I call her the Boss, it’s with a massive dose of sarcasm. Why wouldn’t she want to write my story? She should have started there in the first place. So me taking over, it was for her own good.

As for her other books – oh please. It does my head in. She insists on writing books that don’t involve me, but believe me, I bug her the whole time. Some guy called Nick Geddes tried to punch me, once. That was a great scrap. I think we called it a draw in the end.

Who do you think should play you in a movie of Firebrand? (ask Gillian what that is…)

I’ve asked her this. She says she was watching a movie called Stage Beauty when she first saw me clearly. The guy was called Billy Crudup. I find it really disturbing and annoying that he was wearing a frock at the time.

I don’t think you’re how most people would picture a faerie. Do you ever see yourself in sparkly tights and wings? Why do you think we got it so wrong?

See my answer above about the frock. Good grief. I don’t know why you got it wrong – maybe because we’re hard to see? So you reckoned we must have wings, be very small, yada yada… Maybe it was just too much Buckfast.

I do know that the Boss’s daughter had those wee gossamer things all over her room when she was smaller and it drove me nuts. Too bad she never woke up and saw the real tooth fairy when I was putting the pound coin under her pillow. Ha ha. That would have been fab.

I know Gillian has a book shortlisted for the Royal Mail Awards for Scottish Children’s Books (good luck with that, everything’s crossed!). What would you do to treat Gillian to celebrate Firebrand winning an award?

In that unlikely event, I think she should be treating me. But that aside, she’d probably be happy with a good movie and a fish supper down on the seafront. She’s very easily pleased, you know.

And she says to say thank you for the good wishes, by the way. And for keeping me out of trouble for an hour.

***

(Note from Gillian: Gods, he’s a bighead, Rebecca. I do apologise. I hope this is OK.)

I hope you all have a read of Firebrand. The Times recently called it the “best children’s fantasy novel of 2010” – I think I would call it one of the best fantasy novels I’ve ever read.

Follow Seth on Twitter at @sethmacgregor

Gillian’s website is at www.gillianphilip.com.She blogs with other children’s writers at http://awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com , at www.trappedbymonsters.com, and at http://crimereading.blogspot.com. She’s also on Twitter as @Gillian_Philip.

NB There should have been a picture of the book but I’m having trouble with WordPress. I’ll get one posted asap!

Writing Hats & Other Oddities

So, NaNoWriMo is just about here. If you don’t know what that is, I’m not going to explain again. You can see my blog post about it here or visit the official site here.

I’ve finally decided on the plot, after three or four have been duly considered – I should be fine as long no alien abductions or teenage vampires creep in. They would not fit very well into 1909 North East England. I’ve got together a little kit, including a brand spanking new pencil case. For more ideas on a tool kit, have a read of Catherine Ryan Howard’s post here. I’ve read advice blogs, the best by far of which is here, and gathered my favourite writing advice books together.

What I’ve noticed as other writerly friends limber up for a month of madness, mania and mental agility is our tendency to accumulate Things to help or inspire us. I don’t mean the copy of Stephen King’s On Writing growing steadily more dog-eared or music ranging from soothing classical to raging metallic, although these things are important. I mean actual THINGS. If you follow @mruku on Twitter you will have noticed many references to his writing hat, and the considerable anguish involved. Catherine’s post, above, mentions a clicky pen – not to write with but to click incessantly to keep her fingers busy as well as her mind. I am only glad I’m not working in the same room, or I would have to throw her out of the window – sorry Catherine! (or force her to make me coffee constantly…)

I have a necklace. That’s it, in the picture. I tend to wear it when I want to feel inspired – not because I think it brings me luck or anything, but because one day I’m fairly sure I’m going to write a story featuring the necklace. It just looks like it should have a story. Like it has magical properties or something. Again, it’s not that I DO think it has magical properties, just that it looks like it should. I look at it, I start imagining a story, and the bit of my brain that fools me into thinking I can tell a story kicks in.

I always think writers should have a little quirk. Like a ritual or an possession or some little oddity like a writing hat. Something we can tell the interviewer from The Times when we are on the bestseller’s list for the fourth Christmas running. Something where we can tell our grandkids, “And Grandma always had to have her special necklace/pen/hat/coffee stirred three times anti-clockwise, four times clockwise then blessed with holy water, before she wrote a masterpiece.” And if I’m not on the bestseller’s list four Christmases in a row? I can blame the necklace. Obviously, it just wasn’t magical enough.

Anyone else got any oddities they’d like to own up to?