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.
Name: Tony Lyttle
Title: A Lyttle Goes a Long Way
Genre: Biography
“A man of ability and indomitable perseverance” – the Belfast News-Letter;
“A brilliant and graceful writer, a true humourist and an accomplished poet” – on his tombstone;
“A warm and generous nature” – the Irish News;
“A troublesome intermeddler… wallowing in the gutter, raking up all the vile charges he can gather against respectable people… inventing malicious gossip” – the Newtownards Chronicle.
Wesley Greenhill Lyttle, or WG, as he is still often affectionately known a century on, provoked many and varied descriptions from contemporary sources.
Who was he, really – the true Wesley Lyttle? A man of indomitable perseverance – or a troublesome meddler? A brilliant writer – or one who raked-up vile charges? A warm and generous person – or a malicious gossip?
Over the decades we have been disappointingly short of information about this celebrated, late nineteenth century, Ulster writer, journalist, and acclaimed storyteller. Much of his life has lain hidden. Now, for the first time, “A Lyttle Goes a Long Way” unearths the background and discloses the man behind the public face. Public faces, in fact, for there was not one but many.
Multifaceted
WG Lyttle is best known today as the author of one of Ireland’s most popular and enduring novels – Betsy Gray or Hearts of Down, a Tale of Ninety-Eight. Set in his native North Down, it is a semi-documentary account of the 1798 rebellion. First published in 1887[i], it was, and has remained, so popular that it has gone through 14 editions over the years since then. The most recent, in 2015 on Amazon, is available today in print and e-book formats. He wrote other books, too, including a number of anthologies of humorous short stories. At the height of his career his books had already sold over 50,000 copies.
[i] Not 1888, as hitherto believed (see Chapter 23 – “First edition”)
Eek looks like I’m late to the game. Hopefully you’re not choosing chronologically!
Nicci Kadilak
The Boy Who Never Existed
YA Dystopian
—
“Farther,” I say.
“Ugh. Seriously?” says Iz. She’s gripping the guy at the elbows, and I carry his calves as we make our way through centuries’ worth of dead leaves and rotted-out tree trunks. Branches claw at my bare torso and then snap back as if I was never there.
“You want coyotes in the yard, pissing on your garden?” I ask. “We need to get them far enough away that the animals don’t know where they came from.”
“They’ll smell it.”
“I’ll take care of that.”
“Oh? What’re you gonna do, piss on our tracks?”
I contemplate Iz’s expression. Is she in awe of my cleverness or embarrassed by my ineptitude?
“That’s wolf piss, man,” she says. “Wolf piss keeps coyotes away. I don’t think people piss has the same effect.” My cheeks flush. Guess it was the latter.
“I still say the farther away, the better.”
Iz grumbles, but she doesn’t speak again until we finally stop at the edge of a woody marsh. It’s maybe a hundred yards past the back gate, but it seems at least twice that far having carried the body of a grown man out here.
“I think this’ll do,” I say. I realize my feet are soaked. The water’s warm, which is why I didn’t notice until now that we’re standing ankle-deep in it.
It creeps me out, though there’s no logical reason for it. We don’t have gators this far north, and most anything else we could encounter out here, I’ve seen before. Still, something about the standing water unnerves me, as if I could be sucked under at any moment.
Author: Karen Tucker
Title: Sandals in the Snow
Genre: Children’s chapter book – start of first chapter
6 April 1977
‘Dear Diary
‘Hello. My name is Lindy, and I’m 10 and a quarter.’ She stopped, scratched out ‘Lindy’ and wrote in ‘Linda Melanie Jones’. Then she crossed that out and wrote ‘Lindy’ again. Nanna said her diary would be her best friend, and her friends – if she had any – would call her Lindy.
‘I live with my Nanna, because my parents are dead. They are dead because my Dad was stupid.’ She stopped. Was taking Mummy on a cruise for their 10th anniversary actually stupid? Lindy sucked the end of her pencil, then scratched that bit out. He couldn’t have known what would happen.
‘This house is old and falling down, and Nanna can’t afford to repair it.’ That was because Daddy was stupid, but somehow, she didn’t want to write that. ‘She might have to sell it and buy somewhere cheaper, but I love this house. I don’t want to leave it.’
Lindy chewed the end of her plait. What else to say? She could talk about how her parents died when the cruise ship sank, but she was trying to forget about that. The nightmares were less frequent now. She could talk about how she was a tiny bit glad as well as very sad, because she didn’t have to look after Mummy any more, even though she missed her so badly her throat ached from not crying.
She could talk about how Mummy couldn’t walk, because an injection went wrong when Lindy was being born. But she knew all those things anyway. Why bother to write them down?
In fact, what was the point of writing a diary anyway? No-one else was supposed to read it, and it would only tell you things you already knew. She flung the diary across the room.
Author: Lara Kirby
Working Title: Broken Promises
Genre: Contemporary Romance
‘We stopped communicating, you stopped communicating with me, you wouldn’t let me touch you until last week, I felt shut out and lonely’ he wrung his hands nervously, his knuckles turning white to pink to white,
‘You’ve felt lonely? I told you I felt lonely, you didn’t listen, Stuart you’ve hardly spoken to me in months, you won’t open up to me, you never have, every time I’ve asked you how you are you tell me you’re fine, what was I supposed to do?’
‘I wanted to talk to you, you closed up you wouldn’t talk to me,’
‘I lost 2 babies Stuart, what did you expect? I wanted my husband to support me, I wanted you to support me and hold me, but you went back to work every single god dam time, buried your head in the sand, you left Mya to pick up the pieces,’ her voice rising
‘Oh yes Mya, good old Mya, thank god for her,’ he spat
‘Don’t you dare blame her, she was there for me when you weren’t!’ Sophie replied, she paced the room,
‘Fine, I’m sorry I wasn’t there, I’m sorry ok, I just couldn’t handle it, I wanted those babies just as much as you did,’ his voice wavering, his face lined and rigid.
‘You had a funny way of showing it Stuart,’ Sophie turned away from him,
‘For fucks sake Sophie, there’s something I need to tell you, he said suddenly, almost making Sophie jump. She stared at her husband,
‘Go on then, what is it?’ Stuart was almost crying by now, the anguish on his face
‘I….I’ve been seeing a woman from work’ he blurted out, his head in his hands.
Sarah Sceats, literary novel, Working Backwards:
After the accident there was confusion. She heard the ambulance and she could feel herself being lifted and bumped around. She was vaguely aware of being wheeled into a curtained cubicle. There she lay, eyes closed, while voices came and went outside. She might have been floating a few inches above the trolley.
She tried to remember what had happened. She had gone out to buy bread; she could see herself shutting the front door. After that it became hazy. She had no picture of events; nor could she put together a narrative to take her from home to hospital (for, floating or not, she was aware of her surroundings). There were just fragments – impressions, feelings, smells – and the struggle to remember hurt her head.
She had not lost her memory. She knew who she was and where she lived and she could tell you the year and month, though she was a little uncertain about the date. There was no actual amnesia, she thought; it was more like a developing photograph, with some things slowly coming into focus while others remained blurred. However hard she concentrated those areas would not sharpen up.
It was upsetting. She had nothing to hold onto, as though the ground kept melting away. Reaching for something, some kind of anchor, she let her thoughts travel back, not too far, just to recent events: re-reading Pride and Prejudice for the book group, going to the art exhibition, her trip to the seaside with Richard and Valerie. She had bought tickets for a revival of West Side Story. All that was perfectly clear.
Why, then, waiting in this cubicle, did she feel so odd?
She put her hand to her head and let her fingers explore. Her hair was sticky, matted at the hairline and behind her ears.
Brandon Keller, THE GAME, Financial Thriller
Prologue
March 20, 1861
The Willard Hotel
The City of Washington, Capital of the United States of America
“Tennessee belongs to the Confederacy.”
Jefferson Davis pushed the winning cards towards the middle of the table as the end of the sentence morphed into a yawn. He toyed with a few of the gold coins at the edge of the large pile in front of him.
Jonas Hayward glanced to his right with a grimace. He watched silently as Davis massaged his eyes. He watched silently as Davis reached for the tankard of ale in front of him, took a long draw, and smacked his lips together in enjoyment. He watched silently as Jefferson Davis put another nail in the coffin of the Union.
Jonas shifted his weight back and forth on the wooden stool, searching unsuccessfully for relief from the dull pain in his backside. The movement unsettled the knot in his stomach, and it started throbbing again.
“You and Elijah agree on the tally?” Davis was now looking directly at him, cigar smoke chasing the words from his mouth, adding to the haze inundating the hotel suite.
“Let’s see, Mr. Davis, you won Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and now Tennessee.” Jonas unfurled a sheet of paper and consulted his notes as he spoke. “And your opponent won Kentucky, Oklahoma, Delaware, and Missouri.”
“I agree,” Elijah James said, the other witness to the proceedings. “That leaves Maryland for the final round.”
“Mighty important one.” Jonas frowned, peeking to his left before continuing. “Given its proximity to Washington City and all.” He turned his head, now fully facing the man he was there supporting, trying to transmit just an ounce of the sense of urgency that coursed through him.
Anthony Millson
From Spite
Literary Fiction
Anonymous Notation:
The writer of this little memoir will admit, without remorse, that the entire endeavor was written under a time constraint, purely for financial gain. The sole intention: to receive publication and make money remained truthfully consistent throughout, regardless of any contradictory suggestions. As such, bequeath upon him your judgments for being so selfishly motivated and mercilessly shame him for sacrificing on the altar of artistic integrity. Mock him as an amateur in the literary world, scorn him on social media, hurl derisive words and loudly sneer should you see him on the streets of Ottawa, Canada. Quite frankly, being subjected to rabid humiliation makes no difference to him if the balance of his chequing account rapidly grows. He would offer no apologies for said greed, given that his current life circumstance has left him with few other options to generate an income. However, there is nothing to suggest that the writer utterly betrayed his principles while exploiting potential agents by falsely characterizing a bitter fictional narrative as a memoir. He seems to believe that a true story invoking thematic elements of rage-fuelled alienation, becoming of an angst-ridden outsider, is pure gold in the literary world. In contrast, he thinks the market for an equally vulgar but made-up fable full of seething hostility appropriate to a lost soul might not be as lucrative. But the writer does realize that surrendering his dignity for cold hard cash would implicitly sully his reputation amongst erudite elitists. It must be a bona fide legit, albeit a desperate piece of reality, then? Admittedly, to avoid a libel suit: specific names, distinctive characters and certain events needed alteration. Otherwise, he will insist his story is unabashedly truthful
Natalie Valishvili – Believe Me Not – psychological suspense
She had always thought of hospitals as being white. White walls, starched white bedsheets, white coats on serious-faced doctors.
This one seemed to be blue, a calming cornflower shade, nothing like the warming comfort of her favourite duck-egg.
Because of this, it took longer than it should have to realise she was in hospital. No drip or heart monitor, no plaster casts protecting limbs, just a pulse oximeter clipped to her index finger and an aching head made worse by the harsh fluorescent lighting.
She supposed she had woken up but it had been different, more like becoming alert to her senses, her surroundings. As if a cloud had lifted or she had returned to her body from somewhere far beyond it, a place that had seemed safe. A coma, maybe? That didn’t feel the correct answer. She had no experience of the condition but TV dramas never showed this sudden surge of awareness, ice-cold like the shock of a plunge into deep water.
Her attention was momentarily caught by a panic button attached to the wall but she was immediately distracted: something was missing. She could sense a physical loss, something of vital importance, but it was beyond her grasp for that moment.
“Mrs Newman? Megan? Hello.” A voice, soft enough not to startle, disturbed her thoughts before she could analyse any further.
“Hello,” Megan replied politely, making a quick study of the stranger in the doorway, as if introductions were being made at a cocktail party. Manners were important.
The woman relaxed against the doorframe. Neat ponytail, reassuring smile, wearing medical scrubs of the now-familiar blue and navy Nikes that appeared to be used for hard exercise as much as work comfort.
“My name’s Gemma. I’ve been your nurse since you were admitted.”
“Was I in an accident?”
* * *
Thank you, Harry, if you do choose this excerpt. Looking forward to the webinar!
Elisabeth – The Prodigal Wife – Woman’s Fiction
I hear the muffled whir of the garage door sliding on its hinges, the drone of the car inching its way into the garage, my back to the door, hands under streaming water shaking and dropping leaves of bib lettuce onto a colander. He is the first to say hello, and at the edge of consciousness the soft fullness of that hello settles everything into a place of safety and trust. It must have been quite the usual hello for I feel no compunction to face him, to ask about his day. Instead, and not necessarily so as to pay attention to him, for it is all so uneventful, he coming home at the six o’clock hour, I turn off the faucet and wait for words and phrases to trickle. They would be inconsequential words, speaking of small things stitching the weave of togetherness in our lives.
But Kantor just stands there by the door. And when I turn to face him, I see in the way he is attentive mostly to himself, not really seeing me in the ordinary way; I know the day has come for the play to end, and end badly, with a reshuffling of the deck.
My reason knows only of control. Outside of it, I am practiced in abdication, in hoisting an iron curtain for anything that stands beyond the pale of my control.
Yes, there is that little treasure and I do not know exactly where to find it; yet a dim consciousness senses that by its loss my own soul has been hallowed out of meaning. But there is no inclination to go there, to search for what was lost. What’s real now is a career, a beautiful home.
What he would have to say I do not want to hear. I want out. I judge it offensive that he would fail to protect me from adversity.
Terence Waeland
The Name in Shadow
Action/psychological thriller
I try to take in our surroundings as we pick our way across the fractured paving stones. What is this place? More a complex than a single building, it seems to be empty. The structure’s about ten storeys high; from the centre, its wings spread out on either side, ready to envelop me, to welcome me within their monstrous embrace. A giant angel of death.
No one will ever find me here. I wonder how many other victims Sergei has had disposed of in this awful place?
We walk through the entrance, the last of the evening light already failing to illuminate the interior. Constantly pushed from behind, I blunder along what appears to have once been a foyer. The ground is uneven. My shoes are kicking stones and scraping against odd lumps of concrete while we make our slow progress. Between the shadows there are patches of wall lit by the feeble glow from outside, through gaps which once were windows, or through ragged holes torn out of the disintegrating fabric of the building. Parts of the ceiling have collapsed; poking down from above are rusting steel rods, dangling like elongated fingers trying to grab and lift us into the air. Graffiti covers the walls. In a space clear of the garish mess of spray paint, someone has simply written, in poor English, the words Welcome to the hell.
We’re staying at ground level. I guess climbing up higher would be too difficult in this dimness. Besides, witnesses aren’t going to be a problem. Andrei grabs my shoulder, making me stop.
Is this it?