cate's blag blog

The Best Books about Writing

2007-06-23T13:43:00.000Z

Please send me titles of your favourite books about writing. Here's my provisional list for the workshops I'm starting this week which is more about freeing our inner voice, or unblocking rather than rules or how to write.

Creative Novel Writing by Roselle Angwin

Writing The Bright Moment by Roselle Angwin

Creative Pathways -Freeing the Writer's Inner Voice by Suzanne Ruthven

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

Writing For Self Discovery by Myra Schneider and John Killick

Anyone like to add to that?

Penny Alexander in her previous comment recommends the following:

Jane Wenham-Jones 'Wannabe a Writer?' and not just because I'm quoted, but because it made me giggle and spill my tea several times.

Stephen King's On Writing is supposed to be one of the best too, though I confess I haven't read it [yet].

David Isaak recommends:
Steven Pressfield's "The War of Art" is wonderful. Initially the format--little short chapters that look as though they verge on proverbs--is a little off-putting, but if you read it straight through it is one of the best things ever written on the writer's battle with all the naysayers in their own mind.

My favorite manual on how writing works is the unfortunately titled "Modern Library Writer's Workshop" by Stephen Koch (novelist, and also the head of Columbia University's Creative Writing Program for many years). Koch isn't one who hands down rules, but he discusses all aspects of the craft and art, and peppers the book with quotes from a joyously eclectic selection of writers

Conversations with Strange Men Part Six

2007-06-23T13:06:00.001Z

I was at Snape Maltings Concert Hall today to hear a string quartet. I arrive to find my seat sandwiched between two men. The man on my left is I think, rather posh and reticent, or maybe can't get a word in edgeways as the man on my right is from Suffolk and chatty.

Him: Hello.

Me: Hi.

Him: I love it here. This is a special place.

Me: Yes, I'm really looking forward to this.

Him: I love the starkness of it and the sound.. I've been coming here 25 years.

Me: Really? This is my first festival.

Him: I'll tell you something. I used to suffer from asthma. This place cured me.

Me : Wow! That's amazing!

Him: Yep, they wanted to pump me full of steroids and I didn't like the idea of what it might do to my bones, so I said forget it and I came here instead. Never had an attack since. I tell you this place... I expect you think I'm mad don't you?

Me: Not at all. I work in this field....in creative writing in health...

Him: Well Bach is my cure. And I tell you Shostakovich is the cure for cancer.... when that music get inside you.... and it's what's inside that make you ill, do you agree....?

Me: Oh yes. I often work in mental health and I see how all the arts help a lot.

The Zehetmair Quartet arrive onstage play and are pretty amazing. Afterwards our conversations continues as if it hadn't left off.

Him: Well there's more mental illness than ever before isn't there? There's too much of it about since they closed all the hospitals... it's everywhere and some have ended up in prisons and people don't know where to turn... there's no church and the politicians... no one can look up to them can they? And people are let out and they're murdering people...and no one knows which way to turn... but if people just came here they'd see.... they'd know.... I should be dead really you know... in fact I have been dead and come back and music saved me... and the Masons.... you know the Freemasons don't you? Well they've got it in for me....because I broke my wrist and couldn't work and they wanted £1000 off me and I couldn't pay it so they want me dead... and I climbed Ben Nevis for Cystic Fibrosis and I helped this girl and fell in love with her, but she didn't love me back because she had three children and I had no money, so that was that, but I loved her, so every year on the anniversary... you know the anniversary is special, so I climb Ben Nevis every year...I need to so I can break that demon... and if people would only come here, they'd realise, they'd forget everything... all your troubles just go... you agree with me don't you?

Me: I have to go now I'm afraid...

Find The Writer Within

2007-06-17T13:26:00.000Z

Anyone want to tell me their favourite books about writing? Find the Writer Within is what I've called my series of workshops I'll be holding in Aldeburgh fromThursday June 28th at Aldeburgh Music Room. I'm just planning what I'll do and also reading lots of writing books to compile a reading list of my favourites. This is how I've been plugging it on leaflets placed around the town: Tap Into Your Creativity... Find Your Unique Voice...Develop Your Ideas....

From Club Dancing to Morris Dancing

2007-06-14T09:15:00.000Z

Well I've certainly been strutting my stuff lately. Had a brill time in Ibiza with two old (very old) friends and a new one seen here with me in Pacha night club. I kind of made a joke to everyone about going to Ibiza and I didn't expect to like it. What a total snob I am because it was fab, kind of alternative and chilled and really beautiful and the music (which I love) was everywhere from bars to cars to the boat carrying us across the bay to Ibiza town even taxi drivers seemed in the chilled groove and believe me Spanish taxi drivers are some of the most miserable in the world. Or maybe it's a given for that particular job anywhere with the exception of Ibiza it seems. We were staying in lovely hotel in Talamanca and my favourite chill out bar restauarant just down the coast a little even has a bed in it! See photo. It was probably a great time because I spent it with such groovy people. I even went clubbing and didn't feel too old, well the dim light helps, not sure whether my eighties- auntie- style dancing is still the thing, but hey anything goes I think!

So now back in Aldeburgh and settling back into life here and to keep my feet in I ended up Morris dancing on Monday night outside the Ship Inn at Dunwich. It's a long story but it seems whenever Rosie (mentioned in an earlier post Feb 19th 2007 ) venture out things seem to happen. I blame her!

Madrid In Winter / Ghosts of Spain

2007-06-06T10:53:00.000Z

Two amazing books I´m reading in parallel. The former book by CJ Sansom (I´ll upload cover when I get back) was absolutely brilliant. Set in Spain just after the Civil War, it has everything: history, romance, gore, war, humour, spies and spivs, a page turning read in every sense of the word.
There are some books you read and think I can write better than this. Other books you think what I brilliant idea I wish I´d thought of that. And other books, like Madrid in Winter, seem to me just so skilful and amzingly complex, gripping but working on so many levels I know if I spent the rest of my life on it I couldn´t come up with anything like it! It was also really thrilling as the climax of the book is set in Cuenca which is my favourite place in Spain (part of Selfish Jean is set there too) and I just got to that bit of the book as I was staying in Cuenca again this time. It was so thrilling to be there and read it. I´m sure they´ll make a film of it there. Only thing isa it wil bring more people then and I like to keep it as my secret hide away.

Reading in tandem with it is a factual book by journalist, Giles Tremlett, who has lived in Madrid for years and it is about the Cicil War and what has happened to Spain in the post Franco years. A riveting and fascinating eye opener about modern Spain

Strange Conversations With Spanish Women

2007-06-06T10:42:00.000Z

We also has to hold role playing phone conversations for the spaniards to practise speaking on the phone. A couple of memorable ones were I had to act that part that I had just got married George Clooney and was to be interviewed by a Spanish journalist over the phone. She was doing it all so very seriously and sincerely that I just had to start being really naughty and began explaining how he liked me to wear a Nazi uniform in the bedroom. I think I rather lost her at that point.

Another bizarre phone conversation was with another female. I was supposed to be her partner and had to tell her I was working late but in actual fact was seeing someone else. I rang her, she said she was busy with work and put the phone down. I didn´t know if it was part of the act or not! She rang me back later and said she really had had an important call from work to deal with, but it was quite a good come back. I felt hoist with my own petard! Spanish women rock!

The role of women has changed very much in Spain and I think has the lowest birth rate of anywhere in Europe. It seems to be very much a choice of either career or kids and many choose career. The ones I met were great role models, funny, fascinating and smart in every sense of the word.

From a Contemporary Art Museum in Segovia

2007-06-06T10:39:00.000Z

Taste The Intrigue

Share A New Adventure

Go For The Magic

We´re Writing The Future

Save The Dream

From a video Art work called Slogans by Antoni Muntadas

Conversations with strange Men part Five

2007-06-03T16:27:00.000Z

Well I´ve spoken to lots of strange Spanish men at Vaughan town here´s a random selection of different ones.

1.
Me: Hi. So are you enjoying yourself?

Him: Yes. But I no more speak. My only neurone is full.

---------------------------------------------------------------
2. Each Spanish person had to do a presentation in English.

Me: Have you decided what your presentation will be about?

Him: Safety in Scuba Diving.

Me¨: Interesting. So you want to practise it?

Him: Pliz. You will hear me.

Me: Of course. Do you want me to just listen or correct you as you speak?

Him: Oh correct me pliz.

(He begins is doing great until......)

Him: In Scuba diving it is safer if you have a good body.

Me: A good body?

Him: You need a good body no?

Me: Probably, but do you need a good body?

Him: A goooood boooooody.

(We are both hysterical with laughter by this point)

Me: Oh you mean a good buddy?

Him: A good buddha?

Me: No buddy, buddy.... my accent is from the North.

HIm¨: Ok OK I got it a gooood baddie.

Me: OK that´ll do then.

Every time we passed each other after that he would laugh and say: " Do you think I have a gooood boooody?"

Volunteering to talk non-stop

2007-06-01T16:34:00.000Z

Hi I am still travelling in Spain and finished my week volunteering Vaughan Town and it´s taken me a week to get over it! A mixture of tiredness, picking up a cold, and really missing the people I met. It´s amazing how strong bonds between people can become in a week.

I can´t upload any photos here for you but you can check them out if you want to see if you can spot me.
It wasn´t so much a course for the spaniards as an English immersion prgramme which included lots of rain and english humour and talking. There are no classes just non stop conversational sessions, lots of Monthy Python (Montee Peeton in Spanish!) sketches and Karaoke. They get to talk with us, a variety of volunteers from the US, Oz and UK.
What amazing bunch of people the Spaniards are though. They spoke nothing but English for six days to a load of strangers. At first a little reserved, suspicious or both, of us possible football hooligans or costa-louts, they seemed like serious english speaking robots (not surprisingly) but after a couple of days their individual personalities started to come out to play. Their humour, their little quirks, eccentricities and sweetness and playfulness and we all began to bond like UHU.
I know how difficult they must have found it because I´ve been travelling around Spain since leaving there using my not bad, but fairly limited Spanish a la perdiz. It´s made me realise how difficult it is really conveying what sort of person you are in another language, or expressing what you really believe and think.
Massive respect hombres!
By the end of the week it really felt we were getting to know each other well, some new freindships made and I hope we keep in touch.
Conversations with Strange (Spanish) men to follow David. Patience!

Conversations With Strange Men Part Four

2007-05-18T13:40:00.000Z

I was contacted via a friend, by a man who has been a writing teacher in the US for years. He's a very interesting, deeply spiritual guy, we had coffee, then he read Selfish Jean and loved it, and wanted to meet with the idea of me being part of a sitcom writing team (on spec, no commission). We meet for lunch.
The talk turns to writing partners and goes something like this.

Me: I tried writing a sitcom with a really close friend once and we nearly came to blows over it. Like whose plot was best, best lines, anything. He died unfortunately.

Him: (a little horror struck) Really?

Me: Oh it's OK I didn't kill him. He'd been ill a long time.

Him: Mmmm. Whenever I feel myself getting angry about someone, not only do I try and analyze them, I always like to turn it round and analyze what it is in myself that's reacting to them.

Me: Right....

Him: Now I'm not a judgemental person or I try not to be as much as anyone can be non-judgemental.

Me: Uh-huh..

Him: But with one of the writers it was impossible. There were three things that made me angry. One (he puts out one finger to count on) just his cynicism about everything, and everyone and the whole of his life. I wondered in the end if it was just because he came from the North.

Me: I am from up North.

Him: Well if that's the way things are up there, being really negative, acting like everything is a waste of time anyway.so what's the point. ThHen again maybe it was the fact he had a lot of money that was making me angry. He has houses all over the place, in the US, the North, one in London and doesn't really need to work, so then I had to really try hard and turn it round, really look at myself and see what it is in me that was reacting in the way I did to this person...

Me: Don't be so hard on yourself, there are some people we just don't hit it off with...

Him: I haven't finished yet.

Me: Sorry.

Him: So on to reason two (he counts on his next finger) why this person gets my back up.

Me: I thought we'd done reason two.

Him: No, that was just a subclause of reason one... So reason two...

(I settle back onto the sofa cushions, make myself comfortable)

About 20 mins later....

Him: So all in all, I think what we need is some new input into the script, which is where you could come in. You could send me one of your scripts and I'll send you what we've written of the sitcom so far. It's still in very early stages.

Me: Well a sitcom needs really good dialogue, snappy you know? And of course it needs to be funny.

Him: (unsmiling) Funny?

Me: (smiling brightly) Yes!

It's not over till the fat lady writes

2007-05-18T09:42:00.000Z

I need to stop comfort eating.
I can't stop now! Blogging, eating or writing. Two of them will have to be cut down.
I just read the post below and thought bloody hell! I can't leave that post as the first one everyone sees if they happen to flick over to my blog. I decided to be honest about how having a book rejected makes your feel, as it's so much work and I think we put so much of ourselves into our work however fictional it is that it is hard not to take it personally.
Funnily enough I have been coming up with new ideas now the pressure is off to perform, and I hasten to add the only pressure was what I put on myself.

So I'm back, well I'm just off to Spain for three weeks actually but after that, it's upwards and onwards really to a new life. This is a picture of Madrid where I fly to tomorrow.

I have booked to run a writing retreat, funnily enough near the beach below at a very spiritual place called The Phoenix Centre and that will be three nights from 28th Sept to 1st October if anyone would like to come. I'll work out the fine detail when I get back from my trip.

Making it up as we go along.

2007-04-29T07:39:00.000Z

I spent most of yesterday on Dunwich beach walking, thinking, writing, jotting.

It was extremely windy and the seaside is changing now particularly at weekends. The beautiful people have arrived: families, romantic weekenders, dogs and/or children in tow. I feel more the outsider now. On this long, long beach I was almost totally alone save for a group of young (to me!) people who walked by, so happy, so confident of who they were, what life was all about, and it was about having fun at weekends, to chill after the pressures of a busy week, in their cropped trousers, clothes with labels I've no inkling of. Such good looking men in mirror shades, their loose-hipped, soft-lipped, finger-licking-good girlfriends following close behind. A glance at me as I clung to the strip of sand right by the sea, a glance that seemed to say to me, what's she doing here all alone walking in such a desolate place? Probably more likely indifference, my own hang-ups got a chip on my shoulder this week.

Look this isn't what I meant to write today, not what I meant to write at all. It's just I've been thinking, a lot, and I woke up at three this morning with what I thought was insight into my situation, but I don't know. It may be just coincidence that it's a whole year since I started this blog, and somehow I feel it's time to end this one. It was supposed to be about Selfish Jean after all. I may start another one about something else, a new book or a new life, I've no idea, but I just don't know what to do next.

It's pre-sunrise now and I've just heard the cuckoo.

Had a bit of a Road to Damascus moment (or is that a Big Crosby/Bob Hope film?) and feel I'm on the verge of a whole new life, either that or I have to retrace my steps back to my old one somehow.

Last year was amazing, exciting, different in all sorts of ways from volunteering in an orphanage to all the book publicity events. However, it was all planned out and I'm not sure I got the mix right. I let the book thing take over too much, going along with this book lark, then trying a second novel lark, because well when you’re offered stuff like that on a plate, you go for it don’t you? Of course it was a dream come true, but maybe one book is enough really. I just feel I don't want to write anymore at the moment, not to the point of spending months on something for nothing. It was a crap book anyway, the second rejected one, I can see that now. It didn’t really come from my soul, bits of it did, but not much of it. It was phoney I think.

Except as I was walking on that beach I realised it was heading to Walberswick, in which part of my new novel was set, and I realised that the Mackintoshes would have walked this very beach many a time too, and it reminded me, the book opened with them walking on a beach. A big theme in the book was about failing, about them failing, but then realising they could move on and start in a new way, as they did several times in their lives. We all have to reinvent ourselves sometimes.

So unintentionally I was walking on their beach on a day I was contemplating my future, in a year that has no pre-plans whatsoever, and that feels a bit frightening, but also a bit exciting, a clean slate. What next?

Maybe that’s why I called this a blag blog, because I felt I’d blagged my way into this getting publishing lark, that it wasn’t really real and it wasn’t really me. A lucky fluke. It was fun, and I met some great people, but it just took up too much valuable time, I think. Books aren't that important. No, don’t all shout, I don’t mean that exactly, of course books are important, how else would we escape, or know how to live, or recognise our experience in another’s, or be transported somewhere else? I just mean mine won’t ever be those sorts of important books, (interesting how I went in the plural then though isn’t it?) Selfish Jean was written, in a way, for me… to let out some of the anger I felt about a situation I was in. To let out some of the stuff I felt I was having to hide, by being a good girl to get approval from those nice adoption people looking for a Stepford Mother type. The book was all fiction, but the emotion behind it was real. Now, I realise why the second book was no good, I just wasn’t angry enough or believed enough in what I was writing.

Maybe I’ll write another book when I live something I feel deeply enough to write about. And of course I will always write and help other people to do it, or rather I’ll help them write the stuff that is in their soul, the stuff they care about, feel about, their real true selves, disguised in fiction or fact the choice is up to them. But I have to do that myself too or I’m living a writing lie.

To me, what is much more important than writing about something is actually doing something, something that makes a difference, another cliché I know, but true.

Will there be more of this? Was this just one of those middle of the night maudlin moments we all get from time to time? I don't know.

Whatever thankyou for reading and good luck with your writing and life and try and get the balance right! Work out what's imporant, what's really important, not what you think is important...

I can see through my window that the sun has now risen over the sea. and a beautiful new day has begun.

Conversations with Strange Men Part Three

2007-04-25T17:23:00.000Z

I was introduced to an Indecisive Poet. Here's a summary of our esoteric conversation.

Him: You're quite quirky aren't you?
Me: Er... I suppose.
Him: Your teeth are nice, lips a bit thin though...
Me: Sorry?
Him: Breasts look good. What size are they? Shall I guess?
Me: Er... I don't think so...
Him: You're a bit chunky aren't you?
Me: Chunky!!!!!!
Him: But all in all, I find you not unattractive.
Me: Really? Funny you use the negative like that...
Him: I don't get you...
Me: No.... I guess not.

Reading A Lot Into Things

2007-04-25T17:11:00.000Z

This is what I'm currently reading, which is the book about Suffolk and recommended to me by the Indecisive Poet. You can't search inside by the way if you're thinking of trying.
But here's some stuff about writing from inside it that spoke to me. As in not out loud. I mean I know I'm feeling a bit mad this week, but not actually hearing voices, I just mean, you know...
anyway...

"For days and weeks on end one racks one's brain to no avail, and, if asked, one could not say whether one goes on writing purely out of habit, or a craving for admiration, or because one knows not how to do anything other, or out of sheer wonderment, despair or outrage, anymore than one could say whether writing renders one more perceptive or more insane. Perhaps we all lose our sense of reality to the precise degree to which we are all engrossed in our own work, and perhaps that is why we see in the increasing complexity of our mental constructs a means for greater understanding, even while intuitively we know that we shall never be able to fathom the imponderables that govern our course through life."

Conversations with Strange Men Part Two

2007-04-23T16:31:00.000Z

This took place in The Brudenell Hotel when I sat on an opposing sofa and ended up chatting to a a rather nice chick-lit reading builder! After some pleasantries about the shoddy service and the beautiful weather, here's how it went.

Him: So you're working now then? (nodding at my lap top)
Me: No, not really. I'm just doing emails, updating my blog.
Him: What is a blog exactly?
Me: A web log. Kind of a diary.
Him: What for?
Me: Well mine was to publicize my book, but...
Him: Oh you're a writer!
Me: Er.. kind of...maybe...
Him: What sort of books?
Me: Book. A novel. But I've just heard the second one has been rejected so...
Him: Never mind it must be such an amazing feeling having a book published. Knowing that you wrote that and it's out there and people are buying it.
Me: Well yes... I had kind of forgotten how exciting it was at the time... Thanks you've reminded me, it is pretty cool and funky.
Him: I'd love to write a book. I do write but never finish anything.... I did inspire a famous story once however.
Me: Really?
Him: I'm a builder and I went to see this customer and she told me the problem and asked: Can you fix it? I said, yes we can! She was the author of Bob The Builder.
Me: You're kidding!
Him: No.
Me: So you're kind of a guru builder. You inspire writers. Maybe I should hire you!
Him: Er... have to go now. Got a call to make.
Me: Oh OK. Nice meeting you. What's your name?
Him: Bob. Bob the Builder.

Conversations with Strange Men Part One.

2007-04-22T18:09:00.000Z

Why do drunk men always seem to talk to me? This happened earlier at a tea dance. Yes that's right, a tea dance! No alcohol available apparently.

Him: Do you know your eyes are the most amazing colour?
Me: Er...
Him: The most amazing blue. Are they real?
Me: No, both glass.
Him: I'm really drunk you know?
Me: Really? And it's only 11 in the morning...?
Him: Haven't stopped since last night. Your eyes....I expect people tell you that all the time.
Me: Occasionally, but thankyou.
Him: They look like my Dad's when he was on morphine.
Me: Right. And is he OK now?
Him: Yeah recovered and got his dream job couting newts at some nature sanctuary.
Me: Great! So why do you have one finger nail painted red?
Him: (laugh) I was taken advantage of by a young lady last night, but I can't quite remember.
Me: So she like paints one finger nail before she leaves, like a Mark of Zorro?
Him: You're so funny. Has anyone ever said your eyes are so...
Me: I think you're a louche character.
Him: I'm not loose.
Me: No... louche.
Him: What's that mean?

Maybe I'm no good at sex.

2007-04-22T17:36:00.000Z

If this entry was to be written by Selfish Jean here's what she'd say:
So what was the fucking point of them trying to discover new writers only to reject them in the end? I know business is tight for publishers (so you hear) but the whole point of getting writers this way was to discover new talent. So that must mean I was talented for the first novel, had a strong original voice, full of irreverant humour, which apparently the second novel has too, but suddenly I can't write anymore. No fucking way!

No, I think it was the sex that did it. It's just too much! I mean did I really think I could get away with describing a blow job from a man's point of view? I didn't did I? Yes I did. Aaaaggggh! I've totally humilated myself. I'll never show my face again. I just had to outdo Selfish Jean and the scene most people comment on (if they dare) is the masturbation scene in a nun's cell. I mean I had to try and top that for the next book and what else was there? I'm glad it wasn't accepted for publication really then, because what the fuck would I do for the third book?

Well hopefully that was a bit of good publicity, as anyone searching for masturbation or blow-jobs on the internet will have brought up my blog; Selfish Jean will suddenly become a best seller and publishers will be clamouring for the rejected tome! That'll show 'em.

OK, so maybe my male "I" wasn't totally convincing, but the whole fucking point of the book, or a major theme at least, was that I don't actually believe men and women are that different, deep down, underneath I mean, or rather that the differences are less than the similarities. Also I got quite into the Yin Yang thing in theme, in that everything always turns into its opposite eventually and back again and so....Oh that's bollocks isn't it? I am wrong. Men are different. Obviously. What was I thinking of? I don't understand them and they certainly don't understand me. I need to study them a bit more.

Actually (this is me again now!) I'm not that angry. Not sure what to next, but not angry. Not really. I always tend to blame myself and I shouldn't have rushed it, took more time, developed the themes more, but I don't really believe it would have made a huge difference if I'd sent it in six months later as far as MNW goes anyhow, they just don't have enough slots. If they publish 20 new novels in the last year in this imprint and plan to continue publishing one per month and each of those writers can send in a second, the maths just don't add up for publishing second novels. Most are bound to be rejected whatever they're like. It's like a cascade effect. Second novels are always tricky, it's a well-known fact, but in "normal" publishing deals there's a bit of a cushion, a bit of an allowance made, for us there isn't. Maybe that's how it should be? I don't know.

Enough!

This from Conor Corderoy who also had his second MNW novel rejected. He sent me the following by email.

Here is something I have on my study wall. It's by Hugh Leonard.

'Writing is neither profession nor vocation, but an incurable illness. Those who give up are not writers and never were. Those who persevere do so not from pluck or determination but because they can't help it. They are sick, and advice is impudence.'

What a difference a day makes

2007-04-20T20:37:00.000Z

Of course I'm bloody well not giving up writing!
I think what I meant by my maudlin meanderings yesterday was the idea of giving up trying to write what I think will do the trick i.e. be acceptable. I can't quite decide with the rejected work whether I tried too hard or didn't try hard enough, both I think, in different bits of it.

Matt you are so wise (for one so young and lovely!) I think you've hit the nail on the head. I just feel so relieved today that it's over. I've had the thought of what to write for a second book hanging over me for over a year, thinking of different ideas and rejecting many of them and this idea was actually based on a play I wrote and I elaborated on it, so maybe it was meant to be a play all along. Funnily enough, I knew Selfish Jean had to be a novel, so maybe I was writing the new one in the wrong genre.

Lucy, you're a gem (for one so middle-aged and lovely!) and one of the great things to come out of MNW has been our friendship, so thanks. I also think that though you planned your second alongside the first, we were still different to many of the other writers that we didn't have a collection of "old" novels hidden under the bed or in the archives or an old PC, so in a way we are still learning on the job. I've always said the worst sort of failure is never having tried at all, but always wanting to have.

So thanks Lucy and Matt for your fulsome, interesting (and beautifully written) replies. I think I just meant I'm taking stock at the moment, what next? And considering lots (I'm lying, a few) options. And what next is a bloody big glass of wine and having a fun summer! Last summer was far too busy for very little reward.

I'll continue as planned, I think, with arranging my writing workshops for helping people discover their "voice" as it might help me too! I was thinking today how the work I do in this field, often with ill people or those who have very little confidence in their own creativity and imagination is what is important to me. It is a paradox though, as I encourage them to write to make them feel better, build their confidence, change their mood, express themselves, however when you get to the professional level, the opposite happens, it's hard work, fraught with anxiety and filled with rejection. Professional actors have a similar problem I feel. Maybe the lesson is keep it amateur! It's a very, very competitive market.

I'll continue to blog the thoughts as I go here rather than writing up my diary, which would probably have more swear words, and ramblings about strange men, but hey fuck it, why be reticent here?

The Man From Del Monte He Say.....

2007-04-19T19:19:00.000Z

No! My second MNW novel has been rejected.

Oh well it was fun while it lasted. I feel disappointed obviously, but also oddly relieved it's over. I've decided to blog my immediate reactions and see how I adjust . Blogging will be more diary like for a bit. Random thoughts and feelings.

The main reason for rejection seems to be the fact I had a dual first person narrative, one of which was male and I didn't really convince with it. I knew it would be a challenege, but I didn't want to play safe. As in tennis I thought it worth trying to work the line, at the risk of losing more points.

I knew it needed leaving in a drawer for a few months to look at again, rewrite again, but again I took the risk. Writing a novel is such a lot of work when you aren't really convinced they'll want it at the end of it anyway.

You see, is it just me, but you know what? I'll admit this. I always felt a bit phoney as a "writer". It felt a lucky fluke Selfish Jean was picked out at all. Maybe it's enough to have one book published. I've always been more interested in theatre really, but when the novel was published I thought, maybe I got it wrong, maybe I'm a novelist really. It's all writing of course.
Why do we write?
Why do I write?
I used to write when younger I think because I I felt I had something to say, but really it was about success and being noticed. Now I think it's about trying to connect something about the way I see the world...people... if it isn't doing that, then why? For me it's not enough really.

A big theme in the book was about moving on, trying something new when one option fails despite repeated goes at it... I really feel I want to move on now. Is it possible to give up being a writer you might ask? Well giving up expecting to get anywhere major after years of almosts ... I have some talent I think, just not enough really. I think it's grown-up to admit it and move on. Maybe I'll think differently in days /weeks to come. You see this hasn't affected my sense of who I am, or my own self worth. I'm not being self-pitying, I'm just not sure I'm a writer....but if not what?

Not sold as Many books as I First Thought!

2007-04-11T12:23:00.000Z

Oh dear!
On the one hand Macmillan have paid me money for unsold books which thankfully I don't think I have to pay back. On the other hand I thought I'd actually sold all books they paid me for. I've just received my latest royalty statement and there have been a lot of returns, which means I've sold about a third less than I thought, so in theory owe them money!

The good news is, according to a recent article in The Observer (which a friend sent me and I've now misplaced so can't quote exactly) that I've still sold around twice what would be expected from an unknown, first time novelist in hard back.
Disappointing not to get any money though! So it's in their interest to publish my next one isn't it? To try and get all their money back!

However, there's also the problem of what sort of books are selling to publishers at the moment and there seems to be a general impression that it's not so many women and maybe why Lucy is having a problem with very charmingly worded, but ultimately same answer rejections. Check out what she has to say.
Maybe that's why we are pooling resources and styles to write a detective novel. Just on my way over to hers in a mo, the ideas get better the more wine we drink... I think...

Some Ideas About Writing from Ian McEwan

2007-04-11T12:12:00.000Z

I thought his Saturday was a bit of a bore quite frankly, and I love Ian McEwan normally. I haven't read the new one yet, but I also love Chesil and shingle beaches as I live near one.

This is more to do with an article in The Independent April 6th. Interesting stuff about writing and use of metaphor and underplaying it.

"This particular beach offered so many metaphorical possibilities, they could kill the novel! So I really had to row back quite hard on that... it was so rich, that I had to keep the volume down."

Very interesting. Does that knowledge come with experience? Also makes me wonder if I'm someone who hammers my metaphors home in the fear that a reader won't get them if I don't. Here's what McEwan has to say:

" Readers will rebel when they spot an overriding, determining metaphor."

I suppose it depends what market you're in perhaps?

Owning or Being Owned?

2007-04-11T11:54:00.000Z

I promised you a little bit of The Tao of Leadership and here it is! I just opened the book at random.

Are you doing this work to facilitate growth or to become famous?
Which is more important: acquiring more possessions or becoming more conscious?
Which works better: getting or letting go?

There is a problem with owning a lot. There is a problem with getting more and more.
The more you have and the more you get, the more you have to look after. The more you might lose. Is that owning or being owned?
But if you give up things, you can give up spending your life looking after things.

Try being still in order to discover your inner security. If you have inner security, you will have what you want anyway. Also you will be less harried, and you will last longer.

There you go. What do you think?

So what are tenterhooks exactly?

2007-04-04T15:23:00.000Z

Whatever I'm on them. Should be hearing about book yeah or nay soon and finding it difficult to settle to much.

Wandering paths by the reed beds and reading in bed.

Roger Morris's A Gentle Axe and enjoying it very much, though I'm getting lost with all the Russian names and who is who. I always have this trouble from Chekhov to Dr Zhivago. Roger does have a lovely way with words though and it's his descriptions that are often very haunting. How about this for example: "The music of a barrel organ clashed with the songs or woodworkers at their lathes and the cries of the itinerant vendors and the stallholders. Overhead pigeons swopped with cluttering wings and settled next to placid, mice-intent cats."

You're there aren't you?

Supposedly writing a crime novel with Lucy which should be great fun as my smack-in-the-gob writing somehow goes very well with her flowing, smooth style, surprisingly! (check out the details on her blog)

Reading a book called The Tao Of Leadership for a course about group dynamics which I'm doing and really enjoying (the course and the book) and had a great workshop presentation with the group the other day about opening doors. The reason I mention this is I should just learn to chill and be able to let go of anything whatever the outcome. It's the old Yin/Yang theory, everything turns into it's opposite eventually, so why worry? Success? Riches? Love? Learn to do without them and more will come your way. Mmmmmm, it is a wonderful read, but really hard to live! I do really want to believe it though, it makes sense in a bit of a mad world. Anyone else into it?

I did have a dream last night that I bumped into my publisher and he said he was in the middle of reading my book and enjoying it, he had a crooked, silly grin on his face and said he liked my quips, (men always tell me that!) but couldn't make a decision till he'd got to the end. A good omen? We'll see.

I want to write more, but my battery runneth low, and the Tao doesn't seem to be recharging it at them moment, what is empty will be come full (when I get to a plug!) I shall update quotes and links shortly.

Have a good Easter!

There's something about Irish funerals

2007-03-21T10:19:00.000Z

We were all stood by the grave side whilst the coffin was lowered. A cousin stumbled across mud to me and squeezed my arm: "Saw you on Ready Steady Cook." I smiled flatly and muttered: "This is Auntie Mary's funeral!" Then worried I was being too stroppy.
I moved away to give another other cousin a hug (it was her mother who had died) and then went to check on Uncle Lol, who had been buried a few spaces down a only a few weeks before and I hadn't been able to make the funeral. I then decided to check out my parents' grave which was quite a bit further along, up a hillside and heard someone calling after me: "Catherine!" deciding to have a moment's contemplation alone.

I'm not a regular grave attender, so thought I'd better do a bit of catching up. It's a huge old Catholic cemetery, that actually made the national newspapers a few years ago, as they had to retire the ancient woman who'd always managed it and there were no records of who was buried where as she'd kept it all in her head! Make a great play sometime. Anyway, it's also getting very full, as not many Catholics like cremations, and so all the newer graves seem to be on a steep hillside, which gets very muddy in winter and it's hard to get your footing without walking all over other people's graves. I'd just managed to find Mum and Dad's when I heard someone calling "Catherine" again and looked up to see a whole army of Sweeney cousins, staggering through mud and graves (most of them dead relatives or friends of one kind or another, so I'm sure they didn't mind) towards me. So my cousins and I all ended up gathered round Mum and Dad's grave, all chatting and laughing and talking and pointing out various grave stones: there's Uncle Austin, where's Auntie Norah's again? And I just thought, ridiculously, this is fun! Mum and Dad would have liked it I think! All it needed was for us to have started a good old sing song and we'd have been well away.

And it didn't stop there. Because then we went back to the church hall for a bit of a wake. Not too boozy thankfully, as we've all had enough of those days. Every time I spoke to someone they squeezed my arm: "Saw you on Ready Steady Cook." Like it was the best thing I've ever done in my life! I'd never even told anyone in the family about it, so goodness knows how it got round, though perhaps was something to do with my brother. But then, yet another cousin (I have about 50 of them) decided to introduce me to the priest.
"She's an authoress you know!" she said to him.
"Oh really, what's your book about?" the priest said in his lovely Irish accent.
My cousin leaned into his ear. "It's rather sexual actually Father."
"Oh then I'll have five copies," he replied.
Cousin then wandered off and left me to it. God's judgement on me I guess. He kept asking what the title was, I wouldn't say of course, but muttered something about it being a bit cheeky about nuns, (understatement of the year!) He seemed to think that was fair play, then proceeded to tell me about the book he wanted to write, so I was saved, though not forgiven, I guess.

Oh and another strange thing, when they shake holy water over the coffin in the grave now they use a sports cap, plastic Highland Spring bottle, rather than a silver shaker thing.

And quote of the day was at my cousin's, which we all went back to after. She is nervous of outdoor dirt and germs getting in the house, so it was very sweet of her to ask us back. However, when she saw an aged relative staggering through her hall she said: "Oh we normally Dettox walking sticks, but seeing as it's you."

Sad news

2007-03-21T09:59:00.000Z

I wasn't sure if I should report this on my blog or not, but it seems fitting somehow as it's connected with Macmillan New Writing. The sad news is that Mike Barnard's wife Jayne has died. Mike, of course, is the father of MNW and as Jayne has been very much part of that, helping him edit and not least type-setting many of our books, it seems right to mention it here. I didn't know her too well, but on the few occasions we met, she seemed a warm, open, confident woman, who in other circumstances, I'd probably have been able to have a right laff with, as we say up North as she hails from Sheffield too. I was in Sheffield yesterday for the funeral of an Aunt and a few weeks before that an uncle died in Sheffield too. So this blog is in memory of all three. A moments silence please for Uncle Lol, Auntie Mary and Jayne Barnard.

This painting called Procession is by an artist acquaintance David Gleeson.