Of abseiling and avoidance
Oh my fine fat furry friends, this time last week, I was stuck. The door to my Shed of Ideas was jammed and I couldn’t lay my hands on a crowbar, or even a flat-bladed screwdriver and a dab of oil.
And this week? The door has been flying open in the wind. There are ideas – dusty but beautiful – lying all over the floor, spilling off the shelves, getting tangled up in twine and squashing the seedlings.
There is enough stuff here that I already know what I want to tell you next week and maybe even the week after that.
But, for now, one little bit of housekeeping:
Because Covid is a pest and because lockdowns are boring
AND
Because we got lovely feedback on my live self-editing webinar a few weeks back (one that was open to JW members only)
AND
Because we love each and every one of you, not just the wise souls who pay us money,
AND
Because self-editing is the only sure and certain pathway to a book as beautiful as you want it to be,
WE THEREFORE DECIDED
To offer a live self-editing webinar to everyone.
*** For free ***
You just have to pitch up.
It is on 19 November at 19.00 GMT
What we’re going to do is take chunks of YOUR work (see the PSes for more about that) and edit it live on screen. I’ll show you exactly how I would change the text, if it were my own piece of work, and I’ll talk you through my thought process as I do it.
You lot, meanwhile, can use the live chat to pour scorn on everything I do, offer suggestions of your own and generally participate.
The webinar page is here. Remember that although the event is free, you do have to register, because otherwise the system doesn’t know who to admit. Registration is sweet and simple. You’ll get emails telling you exactly what to do. All you need is a computer and an internet connection. More details in the PSes if you need it.
Right-ho.
The Shed of Ideas.
Last week, I told you that you don’t have to be good at everything. That’s true if you only think about marketing. That’s true if you think about writing. It’s most certainly true if you consider yourself as an author in the round.
That was – to judge from the responses I got – a useful, bracing, encouraging message. It permits you to be a bit shit at certain things and still to feel OK about yourself. It matters more that you have genuine dazzle in one or two respects, than that you can handle every aspect of an author’s craft with real competence.
OK. Good. But even knowing this, it’s still easy for us to get stuck.
In my Life Before Kids, I used to do a bit of mountaineering, and I remember one time in the Alps where my buddy and I were descending a mountain. The ascent had been a bit more scary and painful than we’d expected and we were tired and very much wanting to get down to somewhere warm and with hot food.
We were following a ridge that we thought would take us all the way down to the valley, only then – our nice little ridge turned into a 250-foot cliff. There was no way we were going to down-climb that, so we had to abseil off, belaying halfway on a crappy little ledge that wasn’t built to Switzerland’s normal excellent standards.
I’m not scared of abseiling in general, but I do remember being afraid this time. I was cold and tired. I knew that cold, tired descents is where most climbing accidents occur. There was just something about that long, wet drop which I still don’t like to think about. I remember tying a knot at the bottom of the rope to make sure that I couldn’t just abseil accidentally off the end. That’s not something I normally do, but I was scared of my own dulled reflexes.
Anyway. It all turned out fine. The crappy little ledge halfway down already had a bit of climbing tat fixed to the rock, so we hadn’t been the only climbers to have chosen the wrong way down. We got down to the valley. Got warm. Got fed.
But – that fear.
That’s something we all know, isn’t it?
We’re 60,000 words into a manuscript. We know the start of the story, because it’s written. We sort of know the ending (because the thought of it has been keeping us going for that long middle-of-book slog.) Only then, we hit an unexpected plot obstacle. A wet 250-foot cliff that faces north and whose granite has a tendency to come away in your hands.
The fear halts us.
And, OK, your plot obstacle may come earlier in your book, or later. And the metaphor you might choose to describe it might be different from this one. But this I bet is true:
You avoid contact with the obstacle because you’re afraid of it.
Instead of tackling the problem directly, you engage in any kind of displacement activity. You re-edit the stuff you’ve already written. You follow idiots on Twitter. You walk the dog. You hoover the floor. You (ahem) waste your time reading this email.
But you need to tackle the problem directly. You need to take that rope off your back and throw it down that dirty, wet cliff and do what needs to be done.
In plainer language, you just need to write. Don’t know what the next chapter is going to be? You don’t have to know. Write the next sentence. Any sentence. Just get it down. Then write the next sentence.
The trick is to force your character into motion. Force yourself into motion. Yes, it’s possible that a chapter you write in this way is rubbish, but even the act of writing a rubbish chapter will show you the way need to go.
“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”
That’s a Picasso quote that one of you sent me a few weeks back.
And damn the man – he’s right. With plotting problems more than anything else, m’lady Muse will only solve your problems if you put a shift in.
Here’s another thing: it may not be fun.
Abseiling down that cliff was not fun. It did a job and delivered an outcome. (The blessed, blessed valley floor!)
We mostly think of inspiration as joyous, but that thought can be a blocking one in its own right. Sometimes, the right thing just isn’t going to be entertaining as well.
So, if you are facing a problem that you don’t know how to fix, just say to yourself:
- This isn’t going to be fun
- I don’t have an answer
- The chapter I write now may be rubbish and have to be deleted
- But in doing these awkward and unpleasant things, I get myself closer to the valley floor and the full joy and happiness of writing my lovely denouement.
- What’s more, the gifts of invention and understanding will only return to me if I get stuck in. If I move my character and story along.
- The best solutions are always specific, which means they mostly come when you are working at very specific issues. (Not, “where should the book go next?” but “What paragraph follows this one?”)
And heck. My self-editing style means I edit as I go. I hate leaving crappy chapters in my book and want to scrape them free of barnacles before I proceed. But that’s me.
If you want, just write your bad chapter – your wet, dark, dirty abseil chapter – and move on. Leave it. Finish the book.
When you come back to that place as you edit, you come to it from a place where you know everything else about your story. Exactly what happens and when and how and why. And if the chapter still feels wrong, it’ll be a hundred times easier to fix, because you know so much more and because that sense of fear will have left you. Worst case scenario? You have a couple of dodgy chapters in an otherwise good book.
And so what? We’ve all written a dodgy chapter or two.
We’re not perfect and don’t have to be.
Cherelle Leong
APOCALYPSE HOUSE AND THE VIRGIN BUILDERS
Comedy Drama
“I think the Guy upstairs got it wrong. When I said I wanted to sweep, that came with the proviso that I would be sweeping a beach in Mauritius. Not the puddles flooding the main bedroom of the yet-to-be-roofed house, in the rain! Did I mention sweeping puddles in the rain? It has to be the dumbest thing a person could do. It’s about as effective as trying to keep a hyped up Jack Russel with a heart condition, calm. Or herding squirrels. But its 8-20am on a Monday morning that’s exactly what I am doing, sweeping puddles in the pouring rain, perfect start to the week!”
Cassie wasn’t actually angry but it didn’t stop her from having her own private rant as she continued to try funnel the water in a direction where it wouldn’t flood downstairs – as much. Maybe it was the distinct lack of coffee that had her moderately grumpy or the fact that she had been awake since Danny woke up at 4-15am, demanding his mommy cuddle and then promptly going back to sleep while mommy lay awake listening to the storm unleashing it’s fury. It had started raining the previous evening around 6pm, just as Cassie was walking back from the supermarket to get milk. They always had to have milk. Of the few words that little Danny could speak, milk was one of them. Milk surpassed all other food groups too. Hence for the sake of sanity, there was always milk in the fridge. Cassie had learnt that the hard way. Just like she was learning the hard way that optimism was over-rated. Despite their attempts to flood proof the ground floor of the house, it was getting flooded.
Tala A
–
There’s Always Spring
Literary Fiction
–
Note: The story is told from the perspective of a man and a tree. The following excerpt is from the tree’s perspective.
–
Tree
It was one of those I-can-sense-something-amazing-is-going-to-happen type of days.
You know, the type you wake up to feeling more than just fine. I remember the back yard—my home—looked particularly green that day; from the brick wall residing at the back, to the tiniest sprout in the soil.
The brick wall harbored the garden as it always had, glazed with moss and conventional shrubs in varied kinds. Despite their drunken appearance, the shrubs stood impressively tall, boasting layers of green, smoldering purples, and loud blooms. Not sitting by speakers kind of loud; carnival loud. Extra bright, like an impromptu family photo taken on a moving carousel. An inescapable aura, emanating from the likes of bougainvillea, daisies, “snowflake” hydrangeas with oak leaf shaped leaves, and multicolored hyacinths—I’m forever bewildered by their bell shape and dancing petals. They were all painted with a fragrance so vivid, you could practically see it. Some of these flowers traveled across the wall and into the far, if you were facing them, right corner of the garden, sprawling over an otherwise meager toolshed. The rest trickled down to the grass in orderly patches, covering a little less than half of the lawn; leading straight to where I stood, and to this day, stand. Not quite in the center of it all, but a little to the left. At least that’s the way I saw it.
Caroline Brennan
The Guardian Angels’ Handbook
Genre: Paranormal
The late-running 21.17 groaned across the bridge, catching flecks of snow in its dirty yellow headlamps. Down on the river banks, the ghostly shapes of disused factories, locked-up lock-ups and cut-price tyre fitters lurked. From out of the greasy blackness, a tall man with a loping stride was chasing a shorter, fatter one in the direction of the oncoming train.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Stay away from me.’
‘I can’t.’
‘I’m warning you, leave me alone.’
‘I can’t. It’s not allowed.’
‘You’re not helping!’
‘Wait – what are you doing? Please don’t do that…’
It’s always tease, tease, tease….
The short, fat man, his face shining with sweaty madness, approached the bridge and walked down the middle of the track with his arms outspread as the train lumbered towards him. Snowflakes stuck to his spidery hair and he looked exactly like a man who thinks he is about to meet God. ‘Come on, you big bastard!’
Albert147 – his tall, loping companion – moaned softly. His scabby leather overcoat, with its three missing buttons, was flapping in the wind and the snow burnt his face. This was not turning out as he had hoped. Again. He gripped the deck of cards in his pocket and flicked them with his thumb.
…You’re happy when I’m on my knees…
‘Please, Nick. Don’t do this.’ But his voice was buried under the one hundred and eighty-five tonnes of steel that was about to flatten the pair of them.
…Should I stay or should I go now?…
Albert banged his head with the flat of his hand to try and dislodge the tune but it wouldn’t shift.
Nick, meanwhile, was having the time of his life. He whooped and ranted into the wind as the train’s headlamps lit up the sweat on his beaming face. Albert, resigned, flattened himself against cold metal, out of the path of the impending catastrophe.
Name: Mark Walker
Title: The Real Tooth Fairy
Genre: Children (7-9)
Context: Lucinda meets “the tooth fairy”. This extract is the next day at school, when she is excited to tell her friends. This extract also introduces the antagonist.
Extract:
Having tried to blab to her parents, the next day at school, the first thing Lucinda did was blab to her friends. During class in the morning, she passed a note to Ajay and Bec. The note said:
I have big news about the tooth fairy! See you at breaktime!
As Bec read the note, she didn’t notice that, sitting behind her, Amanda Alderton was peering over her shoulder, straining to see the note. Amanda Alderton was a ghastly girl who seemed to spend her whole life practising being horrible, as if there was a world championship for being vile that she was in training for. She always hung around with two other girls, that Ajay referred to as Sheep 1 and Sheep 2, because they just brainlessly tagged along with her and helped her bully people. Of course, grown-ups thought she was lovely, because girls like that always seemed able to turn to sweetness and light whenever an adult was around.
“What you reading, Specs?” Amanda whispered.
“Specs? Because I wear glasses? Wow, that’s hilarious Amanda. You must have been up all night thinking that up,” said Bec, “and…it’s none of your business, so get lost.”
“Rebecca!” shouted the piercing voice of the teacher, Mrs Tumbleweed. “Do you have something to share with the class?”
“No, sorry miss. I was trying to listen but Amanda kept breaking wind, so I asked her if she needed to visit the toilet.”
Giggles erupted across the class.
“Quiet!” shouted Mrs Tumbleweed. “Everyone, settle down. And Amanda, dear, do you need to visit the little girls’ room to let out some windy-pops?”
Laughter broke out again across the class. Amanda Alderton looked absolutely furious.
Name: Dom Nicholls
Title: Mile One Point Six
Genre: Thriller
Extract (start of Chapter 1):
The biggest untruth ever said about lies is that they are ambitious. They are nothing of the sort. A lie is halfway around the world before the truth has got its boots on? Total rubbish. Most lies are fat and lazy and perfectly content to stay right where they are born. The truth is the majority have no intention of going anywhere, let alone halfway around the world. They linger in their hosts, often growing like a cancer. Occasionally they shrink. But it is a remission that will not last. Lies never die; they are too powerful. They are survivors. That’s why we love them.
Most lies are born in daylight of course, when their owners are awake. But the truth is just as vulnerable once the sun goes down. Take any slumbering city and there will be lies aplenty down there. Beds with heads that should be elsewhere. Newspapers screaming half-truths with still-damp ink.
The dark street in east London had a bit of both. The man in the car was fretting again over his on-off relationship with the truth.
‘If you keep lying my wife and kids could die,’ the man said. ‘What kind of a monster are you?’
Bob Wandle sat alone in his car. His mind had drifted into melodrama. Midnight stakeouts did that to him.
He still hadn’t fixed the bonnet catch, which was held together by string. It was no whopper, but you don’t lie to loved ones. It was sort of a golden rule.
Name: Jahanara Ali
Title: Far From a Moghul Princess
Genre: Contemporary Women’s Fiction
Extract:
The lady in the white coat stood there wearing a mask and gloves, holding the longest needle that Mumtaz had ever seen.
“This is going to hurt,” she said, taking a step closer toward the girl who sat there looking petrified and cowering in her seat. Mumtaz wanted to get up and run out of the room, but she was too polite to do so.
Seeing the fear and horror in the poor girl’s eyes Jill removed her mask and put down the needle. She sat down in the chair next to Mumtaz and asked if she knew what electrolysis was. Mumtaz shook her head.
“I thought I was geting a makeover.” She replied, feeling nervous and embarrassed.
The friendly beautician smiled. She explained the procedure and other options for facial hair removal. They both agreed on waxing and even though it wasn’t the least painful option it was the fastest.
Her stepmother, Kolpona and sister, Henna, had arranged the appointment at the beauty parlour to get her make-up done. It was a treat since she had never been allowed to wear makeup.
Sitting back in the big reclining chair, while the beautician worked on her face, Mumtaz thought about how she had never really had a fuss made over her. Normally her stepmother and father were always complimenting her siblings. How beautiful and intelligent Henna is. How clever and smart her brother Asim is. No matter how much she tried to show them by getting good grades at school and college, by always doing her chores and whatever her stepmother wanted, Mumtaz always seemed to fall short. Nothing was ever good enough. Her heart started feeling heavy when she stopped herself, I’m not going to feel sad! I will find reasons to feel happy
Name: Farrokh
Title: The People We Know
Genre: Literary Fiction
Extract – the beginning of the first chapter
The end is near. Yet she finds herself distracted by the signs of life around her. Day-trippers cluster near the shacks selling drinks and snacks. A monkey bounds along the parapet skirting the precipice, brushing past a young couple. The girl shrieks, clutching the man’s side.
“It’s only a monkey, you stchoop-pid,” Sheela hears him laugh. “Now come on – much louder if you want the sound to come back. See, like this.” Turning towards the Krishna Valley, he cups his mouth and lets out a yell.
Echoes of the man’s cry ebb away into the hollow of the mountain range.
Then further signs of merriment: the couple, like the rest of the crowd, have come for an evening’s outing to sample the thrills of Echo Point.
At least they are having fun.
Clutching her belly against the twisting in her gut, Sheela turns away and gazes for one last time at the valley spreading down from Kate’s Point, Echo’s bigger twin.
Barely fifteen minutes ago the sun had lain almost motionless, a blur of lemon smeared in the sky, its light casting an evening glow on the patchwork of jungle cascading below her.
She had felt naked then, anxious that she would be caught in the act.
But as the sun approached the hilltops its course acquired a slippery urgency, as if it had decided to capitulate to her wishes. Its lower brim, now a pale coral, spread elastic as it melted against the contours of the mountains. Then in the blink of an eye it disappeared, swallowed up by unseen valleys lurking on the other side of the range.
Now all she can see ahead of her is a wash of blue-greys and murky browns: the clumps of forest, the smoke of distant wood fires and the hills beyond, all merged in a mist of ancient desolation.
Name: Zuzi Pope
Title: The Foxglove Sisters
Genre: Fantasy
Extract:
The scent of rain falling on the forest ground merged with the odour of blood and pine needles. Mossy, misty and metallic. Bruq inhaled it greedily, all his senses gorging on it. Simple perfection.
‘Everyone stays out here. I want to do this alone,’ he barked to his men in the forecourt.
His coterie bowed their heads silently, their swords dripping blood. They had their own work to do in the meantime, while he was inside. They had encountered only a few guards that morning, which Bruq found rather unusual. But their bodies still needed to be appropriately disposed of. After all, he honoured the Quell rites.
As Bruq entered the biggest of the wooden houses on the glade, the day dawned bright and the cold morning wind streamed through the open arches of the wide porch. His steps resonated on the polished floorboards as he proceeded through the house towards the Master Hall. Where else would he find her than in the heart of the Foxglove?
The Foxglove, abode of one of the oldest changeling families. Home to one of the Elders. Despite the importance of its owner, the Foxglove lacked the expected display of power or wealth. Bruq liked its simple beauty. The ancient woodwork was delicate. Intertwined tree branches, ivy and flowers carved into intricate patterns along the walls of the winding corridor. They felt smooth when he let his fingers touch them.
The oak double door leading to the Meester Hall was ajar. Guarding it was a large, muscular wildcat with a tabby patterning. It lifted its broad, flat head towards Bruq, fixing fern-green eyes on him.
Name: Wendy Wilson
Title: Magnus the Moody Mallard
Genre: Children‘s educational. Easy reader incorporating all the Year 1 Common Exception Words.
Extract:
Name: Lou Merlin
Title: The Sisters of Nekhebet
Genre: Historical Fiction for first time Young Adults
Extract:
The night sky is lightening. Today has nearly shown its face. Aunt Miriam is keeping her promise to take me back to Thebes on my fourteenth birthday. I’m delighted to be legally an adult from sunrise. That’s where our roads go their very different ways. She is looking forward to introducing me the heights of Theban society. I’m set on finding out our family secrets, which she has strictly forbidden. She’ll be upset when I go against her wishes but as she has reminded me many times, the way to the truth never follows a straight path.
I glanced up to see the early morning glow attempting to break through the morning mist. Khan moved easily beneath me giving no sign of fatigue from our overnight journey. I looked across at Aunt Miriam, she had at last fallen silent, her constant tales of Theban festivities and finery had finally been exhausted.
We arrived at the undulating edge of the vast River Nile and dismounted. Assuring our mounts, we led them on to the flat-bottomed barge, which would be navigated across the mighty expanse of water. As we cast off, I held on tightly to Khan’s bridle. I whispered a steady stream of comforting words to my skittish pony as he stamped his front hooves on the rough wooden deck beneath him.
I looked again at Aunt Miriam standing alongside her chestnut mare. They both seemed to have their gaze fixed on the east bank of the river. My aunt’s cheerful countenance had fallen away to reveal a sadness coming from within her. It was clear to me that ten years of exile hadn’t completed the healing.