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.
Mel McNulty
March in Time
Romantic Drama
She hadn’t explored in here yet; another dank space full of even more grimy things needing bucketed. If this had been back in Edinburgh, it would have been easy to fling the whole lot straight out and drive it to the nearest of a plethora of local tips in a couple of trips but no. Instead, we had to move to the middle of nowhere because he had this vision of some perfect countryside idyll. Laura had done her best to enlighten him. Several times.
She smoothed a finger over the dado rail separating wood panelling from wallpaper and held the thick dust bunnies up to the light. Christ, how long’s it been since anyone last threatened this place with a duster? The lump that rose in her throat caught her off guard. All these years spent just abandoned and lonely.
“God, you’re not getting sentimental, are you Laws?”
She spun on her heel towards the open doorway.
“What the hell was that?”
Was that music or… someone laughing?
“Who’s there?”
Nothing.
She pulled her grey woollen cardigan tighter about her shoulders and puffed the remaining air from her lungs. There’s no one there, Laura. And, oh, why are you on your own again? Exactly!
She stomped over to the double-aspect windows, thrusting open threadbare curtains to let the early Spring sunshine into the stale room. A group of school kids played in a nearby field. See, you’re not going mad.
In sunlight, a faded floral pattern poked out from the yellowed walls through the haze.
By a large desk was a stack of brittle newspapers. Laura lifted them one by one and brushed away layers of dirt. The ERA. Beneath those were a pair of posters. Drawings of London’s famous Gaiety Girls.
Name: Nick Fragel
Title: The Children of Excalibur
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy
‘Please, love, come here. Very slowly,’ Ted commands in a faltering voice. She looks at him, the ghost of a smile on her face, but doesn’t move. He hesitates, cattle prod held impotently in both hands as he repeats his command, this time more firmly. Again, she ignores him. Instead, she looks up to the lowering sky.
Caught between duty and fear, Ted watches with widening eyes as a cable emerges from the blanket of mist and descends into the girl’s waiting hands. She kneels by the panther and works quickly, attaching the cable to a … harness? Yes! The animal’s wearing a harness, the same colour as its scraggy fur. Must be why he didn’t spot it. Before he can react to this new revelation, the panther is elevated slowly skywards, long limbs dangling limply, like a sea-sodden survivor winched to safety from a sinking ship. In a moment it’s swallowed by the murk.
A spark triggers in Ted’s brain. ‘What? Now wait … wait! What the devil is going on?’ Caution abandoned, he begins to unlock the gate, not taking his eyes off the girl. ‘Stop! You bring that back.’
The words sound lame even to Ted and the girl is completely unperturbed. As the shouts of colleagues coming to his aid mingle with the siren, another cable drops from the sky. A moment later, the girl’s feet lift from the ground and she too rises into the mist. A spiky-haired Christmas angel, who bends towards him and blows him a kiss. And then she’s gone.
And Ted is left standing by the empty enclosure, the wailing of the alarm still loud in his ears, wondering how he’s going to explain this to his boss.
Katherine Blessan
Home Truths with Lady Grey
Women’s literary fiction
My world is narrowing, constricting down to the thin end of a funnel. There is a small hole at the bottom for a few grains of sand to trickle down, but that’s the extent of it. My bedroom walls are the playground for my mind. I allow my eyes to switch from the cream colour of the southern and eastern walls to the Chantilly lace of the northern and western walls (yes, I still remember the paint tones) and scenes from my life stream in technicolour. Sometimes I can’t work out whether the images are real or fantasy, then I wonder whether it really matters.
My cousin Amelia’s recent words about coming with her family to look after me one weekend keep playing through my mind, but I am averse to it. It wouldn’t be like before. I would see their loving eyes trained pityingly on me, and that would be worse than the dispassionate eyes of a professional. I refuse to return her voice messages, which have become increasingly agitated over the past few weeks.
As I’ve become weaker and more breathless, it has become impossible for me to continue with work. Since my first meeting with Nicole a few weeks ago, I managed two more weeks at the surgery, then had to admit defeat. I couldn’t bear to tell any of the GPs, Charis or Tina – even though they would have guessed – but made the fateful phone call on Thursday October 18th to Marge in the head office. When she heard my lispy voice on the phone, it must have been obvious who it was.
“Jennifer?”
“I … can’t … work… any … more. I want … to … but can’t.”
“It’s ok, Jennifer. Don’t worry. Your health is more important than your job.”
Carolyn Fleming
Driven
literary suspense
This is the way the day ends: My little leather boots skidding up a hospital sidewalk that’s as white and slick from this sudden snow as the road will be when I leave again to take my husband home to die.
Thin soles slip along slick walkways, press against wide steps. I touch a glove to the heavy glass door and, closing my eyes, force my shoulders from the hunch they’ve rolled into. Please, I mouth. Don’t let this be hard.
The doors swing so easily open they toss me forward on my narrow-toed boots and I stumble into the lobby. Typical: I’d fumble a handshake with a clown. Two quick breaths realign me. No one is looking. Why would they? I glance at the receptionist. A slight woman, but with sharply stooped shoulders and such bitty eyes she looks like she’s scanning for carrion.
Great, the kind who’d eat me up—I’m a target for these women. I slip tentatively toward her, my soles slick and dodgy on the marbled floor. I don’t want to stumble before her again. She’s raptorous. I fasten my gloves to the counter’s edge.
She glances past me. Which I resent.
Speak up, I charge myself. Rolling my shoulder again, I pipe, “D. Brody?”
The receptionist freezes. Her eyes cease their darting. Creases fill the space between her brows.
“Mr. Brody?” I ask again. My voice is hollow now, and I think she might send me away. I clear my throat. “I’m visiting Dragan Brody?”
Her flat glare fixes through me. “You can’t bring that in here.” Her eyes are sharp and drilling. Her voice is too loud.
“I’m sorry?” I say. “Bring—?”
“You get that out of here. I won’t have it.”
I stumble backward as her arms cross the counter;
Name: Catherine Dj
Title: The Knitter’s House
Genre: Historical Fiction
So she waited. In the pause that followed, he made no attempt to disguise his thorough appraisal of her, eyes lingering as they took in every detail of her appearance. Jane knew he was playing with her and she fought against the twin temptations to either fill the uncomfortable silence with words, or to fiddle with her edge of her gown and show her unease. She carefully fixed her eyes on the grain of wood just above his left shoulder, and let him look. The pattern of the grain resembled a goose in flight, and that image held her in the waiting.
Your basket is empty. Didn’t you find what you wanted at the market?”
Jane flushed then. He knew. And she thought her following had been discreet. A shake of the head was her only answer. Her eyes were now following a procession of ants as they marched along the window sill.
“Look at me.”
Taken by surprise, Jane obeyed. She saw the amused half-smile had been replaced by a calculating look. The face of a merchant weighing up a potential purchase.
“Let me see your hands.” It was an order, not a request.
Jane hid the instinctive recoil she felt, shifted the empty basket up her arm and held out her hands for inspection. Though small for a man, his grasp was strong. The examination lasted longer than Jane thought possible, and she had to resist repeated urges to snatch back her hands from his, and to flee. Submitting herself to these power games was a small price to pay, she reminded herself.
With a final, deliberate stroke across the back of her hand, he let her go.
Name: Elizabeth Weir
Title: Travels of a Reluctant Lawyer
Genre: Travel/Memoir
Granada is Nicaragua scrubbed-up for the tourist or the retiring ex-pat. (And very beautifully it’s been scrubbed-up too.) That’s not necessarily a point against it; it’s just something to remember as you sit at a café supping your ice-cold Toña while the dying rays of the afternoon sun make the cathedral glow dazzlingly golden.
Because this Granada, the scrubbed-up version, isn’t the whole story – although it’s something of which Nicaragua is rightly proud. A local museum proclaims that “granada is nowadays the best conserved center of the country [sic]”.
A few streets away from the well-swept Parque Central and the well-groomed horses awaiting tourists to fill their carriages, is the Other Version, the Other Granada. The one where real Granadans live and work and shop and play. The bustling Mercado Municipal, its crowds of Saturday lunchtime shoppers bringing traffic to a standstill. Young men playing basketball at one end of a Cruz Rojo court while a trio of boys shoot hoops at the other. The weekend’s baseball games fought on dusty pitches. A wedding party gathering for photographs outside the doors of Iglesia Guadalupe. The only-for-you focus of young love on the benches of the lakeside park. Although it’s called Centro Turístico, the vast majority of people here are local: it’s just perhaps a little scruffy, a little smelly, a little unkempt and with a few too many flies for the average well-heeled, subconsciously discerning tourist, happier in the bars and cafés of the very gringo-dominated Calle La Calzada. There you can find Hotel America, Irish Pub and a Beatles-tribute restaurant; pizzas and Tex-Mex on offer; a wide avenue with pretty lights down the middle and neat tables and chairs at the side. Cocktail, darling?
Name: Hazel Allbut
Title: Love Not Included
Genre: Women’s Commercial Fiction
The Halcyon Days Detective Agency (London Branch) was difficult to miss. It occupied all four floors of a modern red-brick office block, its name confidently displayed in metre-high letters on either side of an opened security gate. Ava was disappointed. Since she and Nick, having declared an uneasy truce, had agreed upon this next step, she’d secretly been hoping for an anonymous, run-down establishment – its entrance so discreet that only those in the know could hope to find it – occupied by a shabby, world-weary private detective in the Chandleresque mould. Having entered the premises and taken the lift to the third floor, as instructed, they were ushered by a young stiletto-ed receptionist into a large, soul-less, state-of-the-art office. The luxurious carpet rendered their footsteps eerily silent. Ava was forced to abandon her romantic notions once and for all.
In his perfectly fitting, grey and white pinstriped suit, the detective assigned to them was the antithesis of seedy. Disappointedly, he resembled someone very much at the epicentre of decent society rather than one lurking round its more disreputable edges. He stood to greet them, hand outstretched, smiling to show an improbable number of impossibly white teeth. Having long envisaged a Philip Marlowe clone Ava was somewhat surprised to come face to face with an Osmond brother. Perversely, she was inclined to hold his flawless appearance against him.
‘Come on in,’ he urged, as he stood, leaning across his bombsite of a desk (the disorder unexpectedly at odds with the well cut suit and general air of efficiency) and shaking each of their hands in turn.
‘Mike Hunter. Pleased to meet you.’ His voice was pleasant, with a hint of a west country burr. ‘Do sit down.’
He indicated two well-padded, black plastic, metal-framed chairs in front of his desk.
Hi I’m new here. How do I reply to Harry’s article. I wanted to submit my chapter for editing next week. Thanks,
Jahanara, just add your chapter at the end of these submissions.
Thank you
Helen May
The Dragon of Leaf
YA fantasy
‘You are the one we have looked for over the ages,’ she says. ‘You are the one being that could hold the half-stone, the Talisman, and with it find the dragon’s egg.’
‘But I didn’t do anything!’ I say. ‘It was simply there, and then I found the egg…’
‘I doubt you would have found the egg without the stone,’ she continues. ‘You see child, we have been waiting for the one person who would find the half-stone for many years, centuries. Now it seems the time has finally come, and the one who can wield it. No one else would have found these two objects, no one else could have. They are yours, it seems.’
There is a pause while I try to fit this in with what I already know.
‘But, Mistress, I am nobody, an orphan and a foundling. They can’t be mine!’
‘It is. Take the half-stone now and hold it in your hand.’
I do so, the fine chain glinting, suspended in an elegant loop around my neck.
Nothing happens.
‘Now give it to me.’
I take the chain over my head and drop the half-stone into her palm.
Immediately she winces. Her hand begins to shake, and drops of perspiration spring out on her skin. Her face becomes a network of creases. Then, with a gasp, she turns her hand and the stone falls to the floor. I retrieve it and tuck it away, under my clothes. The Brown Mage, chief mage of our Order, cradles her hand as if in pain. Tears flow down her cheeks as she nods.
‘You see? No one but you may hold or keep it.’
With teeth clenched she extends her hand. There, in the middle of the palm is a blackened mark, the same size and shape as the half-stone. From it comes an odour of singed flesh. All I can do is stare as she returns it to the shelter of its twin.
Name: Jahanara Ali
Title: Far From a Mogul Princess
Genre: Womens (Literary) Fiction
The lady in the white coat turned around. She was wearing a mask and holding the large needle.
“This is going to hurt,” she said as she stepped closer toward the girl.
Mumtaz sat cowering in her chair, her eyes almost popping out.
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.
Mumtaz had never had such a fuss made over her. 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. A prospective groom, was coming to see Mumtaz for an arranged marriage, so she had to look her best. It was the first time this was happening and Mumtaz wasn’t looking forward to the event. Even though she wasn’t against arranged marriages, she found the whole process a little contrived and superficial. She didn’t know much about the man. All her parents told her was that his name is Rubel and he had only been in this country a few months. He was still looking for work. He lived with his older brother who owned a restaurant in town.
Name: Paul Rand
Title: Joe with an E
Genre: Dystopian
For clarity, the skipper is of neutral sex, hence the use of ‘them/they/their’.
Staggering, he wheeled around and continued to heave the lifeboat towards the edge of the trawler, splinters digging into his soft hands. Too quickly, the skipper was back on their feet. Angry eyes now fixed on him, no longer refusing to look.
Straining all the muscles in his arms, he thrust the bow upwards and ducked underneath, allowing its rough insides to slam down onto his back. Then, forcing himself and the boat up again, he lurched, blinkered, towards the trawler’s edge and dropped the bow with a thud onto the gunwale.
Free of the weight of the boat, he crawled back into the upturned stern. A grasping hand reached in from the outside world. Without a second thought, the boy stomped hard on the fingertips and then sprang up fast, hands flat against the floor of the lifeboat. Crunch! The back of the hull glanced off something solid. The boy squinted into the brightness of daylight as his opponent staggered backwards once more, hand on bleeding chin.
He was almost knocked to the deck himself, ducking just in time, as the rear of the lifeboat broke free from his hands and accelerated towards him before toppling over the gunwale and crashing nose first into the sea.
He should have dived straight in after it. Strong, tattoo covered arms coiled around him, pinning his arms to his sides. He struggled and kicked backwards, but the grip was too strong for his kicks to do any harm. The intricately inked dragon leered at him, teeth bared, and gave him his inspiration. He sank his teeth into the dragon’s hide. The skipper yelped in pain. The constriction relaxed. With a decisive kick back, the boy freed himself, took a flying leap, and plunged into the sea.
Name: Chris Twigger
Title: Good morning Chamonix
Genre: Commercial fiction
Pete, Marcie, Charlie and Jack were on a chairlift, faces inclined to catch the warmth of the early morning sun. The birdsong from the pine trees was the only sound that broke the silence. An empty piste glistened invitingly below, with just a couple of tracks from skiers that had somehow managed to beat the first official lift of the day to break the uniform ridges created by the overnight efforts of the piste-bashers.
Pete loved his skiing but realised that it was not just the activity itself. He relished the opportunity to race down a mountain, on the edge of being out of control. Though he had slowed down a little in recent years, more conscious of the consequences of a fall, he still liked to push himself. It was his annual injection of adrenalin in a life that was otherwise pretty sedentary. Creating the band had been an attempt to have another source of adventure and the feeling he’d had fronting Old School at Marcie’s party had been a huge rush.
In skiing he got a similar feeling of being alive, of being ‘in the moment’ – a version of the world’s current preoccupation with mindfulness that was far removed from the adult colouring books that he had eschewed when Marcie had suggested them as a possible option when he retired. But it was more than just the skiing. The adrenalin surge from the act itself was made all the more intense by starkly contrasting moments such as this. At home, quiet was never truly quiet. Even in the relative peace of his back garden, there was always an underlying thrum of traffic, a bark from his neighbour’s dog, an angry blast from a car horn as a commuter was cut up on his daily crawl into the office