Creative Writing Course: Lesson Three

Routine, Routine, Routine

By deliberately failing to follow-up on the promise made in my last lesson to write on this topic, I have illustrated the importance of the subject. (This declaration both encapsulates the proposition and its demonstration. How mathematically neat is that?)

A routine should not be confused with a rut.

Ruts are things you get stuck in that take you away from what you want to do. (I vaguely remember reading/hearing an account that on certain cross-country routes in South Africa - or was it East Anglia? I forget - the ruts in the road were so deep, drivers had to be cautious of the ones they selected or they would end up in Dar-es-Salaam when aiming for Johannesburg.) And it simply does not do to set out to write the Great Romantic Novel and end up writing endless lists of Things To Be Done none of which ever Get Done. For Getting Things Done is the objective of a helpful, healthy, low-fat routine.

Trollope, the elder, of the Borechester novels fame, who died exactly 64 years and 360 days before I was born, wrote religiously for two hours every morning before going to work. If he finished one novel with five minutes to go, he would set out a fresh sheet and begin the next. (He worked for the General Post Office, as did Henry Miller, though I am not sure if the Post Office in New York is of the same rank or lower, before he moved to Western Union during which time he wrote his first novel - Moloch or, This Gentile World. Miller had his own routine. He would adjourn to his local library to learn a new word each day that he would then employ in his current writing, opus, scribblings, composition.)

I discovered the awful truth about writing and routine when I interviewed Brighton author, Sebastian Beaumont, for a local rag. He insisted the only way to write was *gasp* to write *double gasp* regularly. I instantly dismissed this outrageous sentiment as I had seen a programme on Lord Archer of "Never Knowingly Told the Truth" infamy in which he advocated the same and, having read one of his books, the first, I assumed his inability to string two words together without creating a cliché was due to his unfortunate habit of writing at a set time each day with the same regularity that he sat on the pot. (Indeed, judging by the results, it would not surprise me to learn he completed both tasks simultaneously.)

Now, as implied earlier, a routine can appear as unappetising as a diet; a lot of chewing for little reward. And the truth is, to begin with, the unaccustomed exercise can cause severe cramp. But give it time. Even if you sit in front of your pad or screen itching to write Polish the Front Step, Beat the Carpets, Buy Flowers, Make a Window in Diary for Mother-in-Law, Make Father-in-Law a Widower, Book Cortège … and do nothing for the first few days you will be on the way to establishing a Routine.

Of course, it is helpful if you write something; however, if completely stuck as to whether the hero should be tall, dark and handsome, or short, fat and blonde, follow the advice of Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way, and scribble anything that comes into your head with the promise that you will never read it again. Ideally, scribble 500 words each day.

It is surprisingly cathartic for a number of reasons. First, lots of stuff you have carefully stored in the trunk in the attic marked Never To Be Opened will spill out. It will spill out because you know there is no audience for what you write – it is never to be read, not even by you – so it is safe. There is no need to concern yourself about style, grammar, spelling or any other mistress who peers over your shoulder when you engage in Proper Grown-up Writing. You are writing and gradually writing will not be so foreign an activity. Of greater importance, you will have established a routine. And for once a routine is like a rut, once set it is hard to crack.

(If you persist with Cameron’s exercise, you will read what you have written but some months later, not to critique the content but recognise your voice.)

The next lesson, An Economy of Words, will lift the lid on the short story to determine which engine most efficiently converts the fuel of the imagination into motivating prose without producing redundant and over-engineered metaphors and so save the planet.

[You will note I have discovered the Joy of Capitalising  Initial Letters for no apparent reason. Call me mad, but I'm just crazy that way.]

Come On, Girls, Let's Say it...

BRIGHTON PROMETTES

 

because you're worth it. But, let's face it, you're not half the value your grandmothers were.

Creative Writing Course: Lesson Two

Despair and Feelings of Total Uselessness

There is nothing more terrifying for a writer than to face the white expanse of a virgin page.

It brings home how alone you are. How terribly, terribly alone.

Which way to turn?  Whatever direction you choose is a desecration. Does it not feel a sin to mark the terrain with your pointless remarks? Who are you to record such stuff? Who will be interested in reading your trite observations?

In this bleak landscape, it is easy to mistake the whistle of the wind under the door for the sound distant laughter. (Ignore the fact that, frequently, it is the sound of distant laughter and not the wind under the door.)

The point is to be positive. You may feel completely useless; in truth, you may be completely useless, and, let's face it, most wannabe writers are completely useless. But don't let that get you down. Remember the top half of the best seller list is filled by celebs who find it difficult to articulate their glottal stops, let alone spell them.

A trick I find very useful in dealing with the mocking behaviour of a blank piece of paper is to put it firmly in its place by scribbling my acceptance speech for the Man Booker Prize all over it.

It is never too early to write your acceptance speech. Indeed, I believe it portrays a healthy attitude to write it well before you have written the book.  Nothing is more embarrassing than arriving at the plinth ill-prepared – ask Gwyneth Paltrow.

Having written several acceptance speeches in my time - in truth, it is all I have ever written - allow me to pass on the lessons learnt.

Humour: do not confuse accepting an award with being a stand-up comic. It is best to confine your wit to a few self-deprecatory remarks. (Do avoid making any such comments about your ability to write in case the audience agrees with you.)

Erudition: it helps; however, it would be a brave individual to follow in the footsteps of John Berger who, on winning in 1972, questioned the whole notion of the Booker Prize. To quote: “Since you have awarded me this prize, you may like to know, briefly, what it means to me. The competitiveness of prizes I find distasteful.” Disingenuous of him, I say.

Modesty: don't overdo it. Only politicians sincerely believe in modesty in much the same way they most sincerely believe they are mere representatives of their constituents, and genuinely sincerely believe they have been appointed by Divine Right.

On the other hand, it is unseemly to blow raspberries at your competitors as you weave your way through to the podium.

Finally we come to the issue of thanks. Who to thank? There are the obvious candidates – your agent, your publisher, your partner, your children (if applicable), your parents, your grandparents, your grandchildren (if applicable), your pets, your best friend, the partner of your best friend, Microsoft, Apple (choose manufacturer of your computer), all your friends on FaceBook, everyone who follows you on Twitter – you can see how rapidly the list grows out of control.

The solution is surprisingly simple. Just prepare a group message of thanks to everyone relevant and text them once you arrive at that point in your speech. If nothing else, it will prove entertaining as twenty mobile phones go off simultaneously in the room.

Lesson Three is entitled Routine, Routine, Routine. It will demonstrate how easy it is to get to handle the boring bits involved in writing a bestseller, namely the writing bit.

Creative Writing Course: Lesson One

Right, pay attention in the back. Now, as my dedicated readers will know, I have mooted I would be running a creative writing course. And, despite the confusion posed by the absence of tobacco and alcohol, I have managed to put together my first lesson plan.

Lesson One: Getting Started

It is most important for the wannabe writer to settle somewhere quiet, free from all distractions.

If, as you settle yourself, you have a nagging feeling there is something you have forgotten to do, start by making a list of all the chores you have avoided over the last six months.

Now is as good a time as any to get them done.

I find polishing silver very conducive to the creative process. You may find black-leading the fireplace, polishing the doorstep, or washing the skylight equally as stimulating.

After such strenuous efforts a light meal is necessary. After the light meal, forty winks.

This process may take time. Two to three weeks is not unusual. The trick is to try and complete your tasks within the month or you will find the silver needs polishing again, the fireplace re-leading, the doorstep polishing, et cetera.

So finally, you are at your desk without a care in the world. Turn on your computer and spend a few minutes getting yourself in the mood by checking the blogs of all those fellow writers you follow.

The Readers Digest is so right; it does pay to increase your word power. Today, for instance, I discovered the word 'conniption' thanks to this post from Scott. According to Chambers, it is 'a fit of hysterical excitement or rage. [Origin unknown]'.

Don't you love 'origin unknown' in definitions. It's a challenge. The Online Etymology Dictionary posits a couple of thoughts for conniption's ancestry: '1833, Amer.Eng., origin uncertain; perhaps related to corruption, which was used in a sense of "anger" from 1799, or from Eng. dialectal canapshus "ill-tempered, captious," probably a corruption of captious'.

The Podictionary points to the first person on record to having a conniption fit as being one Aunt Keziah:

'The reason Aunt Keziah had a conniption fit was that back in the early 1800s the entire population of the town of Downingville in New England had prepared for a visit by President Andrew Jackson.'

[If President George W. Bush had claimed to be suffering from conniption, meaning he was constipated, would we have been surprised? Doubtlessly, we would all have been hysterical, but he had that effect on most of us, most of the time.]

It is now probably too late to think of writing, so make yourself a warm, milky drink, turn down the bedspread, place a notepad and pencil by the alarm and go to sleep.

Lesson Two will concentrate on the next stage of the creative process: Despair and Feelings of Total Uselessness.

That Was January That Was

January has been a strange month. It appears my ability to concentrate has taken a holiday. Focus is a better word. My ability to concentrate is dissipated across a spectrum of associated subjects every time I attempt to focus on the one. Even writing this, I am thinking whether anyone is really interested in a diary entry; if so how to deliver it; to what extent that consideration, the awareness that what I write here will be read by others qualifies the text as a diary entry; whether life is 'the luminous envelope' as described by Virginia Woolf, 'surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end' and how I could translate that idea here in a style both contemporary and relevant.

(If you wonder why such thoughts should trespass, there are reasons. Indeed, my head is full of philosophy at the moment.)

January has been an empty month filled with intent drained off action. I overflow with promise. My conversations are filled with plans and all have received cross-party support.  Despite that, I have failed to submit even an outline proposal to the planning sub-committee. And time is limited. Deadlines draw close. Elections loom.

I know I am being cryptic but superstition catches my tongue – I do not want to talk of my ambitions for fear they will be extinguished faster than a fireman's illicit fag.

For all its snow, January was not the cruellest of months. I was prepared for the blizzards. As I last posted. I knew I would be negotiating foreign terrain and with each day it becomes more familiar. Moreover, I have not stumbled. The absence of tobacco has not been missed. (A tremulous boast whispered through crossed fingers.) My strategies seem to be working.

The absence of alcohol has displayed different characteristics.

There is so much theatre, such ceremony, so many words involved in the pouring and downing of a glass of wine or pint of beer, its absence leaves a real gap. Not only are you, the novice teetotaller, unsure how to behave at the moment the sun crosses the yardarm, neither are your friends. It is like attending a mass where the celebrant has forgotten the order of service.

This is the social issue for which I have yet to devise the means to make all comfortable.

Postscript 

Lane has just written of the difficulties of concentration for the new non-smoker here, so I am not the only… what was I talking about?

On Becoming a Non-Smoker

Stuart, the permaculturalist, phoned over the weekend and noted I hadn't posted recently, I explained it had much to do with my resolutions.

For those who have never smoked, and those who wish to stop, quitting the habit requires you having to play subtle psychological tricks with yourself, the first of which is never to admit the fact you have quit.

If you regard yourself as someone who has given up smoking, then life becomes a constant battle against starting again. You are someone who is sacrificing something. Instead it is necessary to think  of yourself as someone who does not smoke. Someone who does not smoke does not associate feelings of agitation with the lack of a cigarette between their fingers. They deal with the problem differently.

So, if you know someone who has stopped, never ever ask how it's going. Do not remind them they have quit smoking, that they are ex-smokers. Allow them, in their own time and if they so wish, to talk to you from a place that they define.

If they confess they have had a relapse, make no comment. Any comment, whether encouraging or consoling, is a form of judgment and is not needed unless actively sought. Nicotine is a serious drug, more addictive than any other according to a government advisor on drug misuse with whom I worked back in the eighties.

For those trying to kick the habit, you will know when the time comes to stop. It is a question of boxing yourself into a place where it becomes inevitable. And when you find that spot, you will find it simple to quit. Indeed, as Rebecca, who has also stopped [YEAH!], mentioned, the danger is you begin to believe, if it is that easy to stop, having the occasional cigarette won't matter. Believe me it will. Just remember the years it took you to reach the frame of mind where it became easy to stop.

I started smoking after a year free of the habit at four o'clock in the morning during an end-of-finals party here in Brighton. One fag wouldn't matter, I thought. It will only be the one. Ten years later I have finally managed to get back to where I was. At four o'clock in the morning I forgot I was a non-smoker and became someone who had stopped smoking.

Let me talk you through the process of what happens when you stop.

The first day is actually quite pleasant; least I found it so. You float around slightly abstracted like you have been administered a pre-op. Most of the physical effects you experience are as a result of your blood being cleared of carbon monoxide, which results in the capillaries opening up. So your fingers and toes feel warm, your eyes like they are letting in too much light, your appetite increases, and your chest feels as if it is over-dosing on oxygen - the reason why you give out great sighs every so often. [This may not be a correct medical analysis, but it is my explanation for the symptoms.]

Nicotine, one of the most poisonous and addictive of substances, causes cerebral changes - and not all for the bad.

According to the abstract of a report produced by  the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center:

'Nicotine acts on a novel nicotinic receptor complex, identified by the Columbia group, that is strategically located at the sites of communication between neurons in the brain. At very low concentrations, nicotine activates the receptor and causes the neuron to release more neurotransmitter. The result is a much stronger signal. The researchers believe that nicotine's ability to strengthen signals between neurons may account for the complex behavioral effects of nicotine such as increased alertness and improved short-term memory.' *

So sudden withdrawal of nicotine causes a certain amount of confusion, to put it mildly, with one's emotions and brain patterns.

It takes a couple of weeks of dithering, of not being able to sit still or concentrate on anything for longer then 3.472 seconds, before life calms down again. If you want to quit, be prepared for this and accept it - not as a consequence of giving up smoking, otherwise the only cure is to resort to smoking again - but in the same way you accept different cultural norms when abroad because you are, indeed, in another country.

In Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking, which I haven't read but Rebecca has, he talks of being clean of nicotine in a matter of days but of being sullied by custom and associated habit for weeks.

I offer a personal instance; at work we have a fifteen-minute break mid-way through each shift, during which I would join the smokers outside. As I have posted elsewhere, I enjoyed those moments of polluting the fresh air with smoke as smokers are a garrulous lot.

Now I find myself stuck.

I don't want to join the smokers a) because I am a non-smoker, and b) because, though most smokers want to quit, they dislike it when someone breaks ranks as it highlights their failure. As a result, albeit unconsciously, they will undermine the individual's resolution in the hopes he or she will return to the fold and so confirm their belief that quitting is impossible.

"Never mind, chum, you gave it a good go. Have a cigarette."

If you are a non-smoker it is better to avoid former mates who smoke, at least for a good period. It does mean you have to create new routines of behaviour, and new reward systems. I find peanuts work. Peanuts and chocolate. I am now a 100 grams-a-day peanut man rounded off with a bar of Toblerone. (And I am becoming rounded too.)

One of the most noticeable symptons for those around a former smoker is their apparent grumpiness.

As I understand this, it is because nicotine dampens portals to the oldest parts of the brain that govern elemental emotions; when suddenly free of this control your emotions pop like firecrackers. You recognise you are behaving like a child, getting wildly over-excited by the most trivial events or discussions, but there is little you can do to manage it. It takes time.

It takes exercise. Endorphin rushes are a good replacement therapy, as well as a less-fattening reward system than peanuts and chocolate. (Though not as tasty.)

*http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/archives/vol21/vol21_iss4/record2104.14.html

Things Change. Get Over It.

A New Year, not a new decade as so many mistakenly believe - that don't start until next year. [For the mathematically challenged, you don't start counting to ten with a zero but a one: the zero marks the ten.]

So, after the pedagogical interlude, it is a time for reflection of what has past and will come.

I have achieved a number of things I can be reasonably pleased with over the last few months.

I have finished my first novel; it has been compared to the works of Haruki Murakami of Norwegian Wood and Kafka on the Shore fame by my ex-editor. I'll take that as a yes then.

(This image is by Nick Kahn & Richard Selesnick, the former being a cousin of my daughters on their mother's side. If the birds were gulls, it would make a wholly appropriate image for the front cover of my book.)

I have yet to find an agent or publisher but blame myself for lack of effort. I sent it to three agents and received a standard rejection from the first, an encouraging refusal from the second and a dunno from the third.

Resolution number one is to end the year with the book published, or on the way to being published.

I have put the book one behind me and being getting on with book two. I am not sure of its merits but it means I have been writing. Indeed, over Christmas, in between the Duck à l'Orange and ducking to avoid the food flying from young Katie's plate, I finished a short story, The Waiting Room, which has received critical acclaim from those who have read it. (What does one do with short stories these days? I have been accumulating them and know not what to do with them.)

Resolution number two is to write regularly every day with a target of 1,000 words, though I will not beat myself up if I fall short occasionally.

Alcohol still haunts my glass; however, in this past year I made the effort to see my doctor to discuss the problem. That in itself is a small triumph. She is a wonderful woman, non-judgmental, patient, and happy to take the time to listen to me without lecturing me on the dangers, of which I am all too well aware.

Resolution number three is abstinence.

Day by day. It will not be easy but the positives are I will more likely achieve my target of 1,000 words a day; [Question: what is snot? Answer: one of a child's five-a-day, courtesy of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.] I will feel less useless, a contributing factor, I'm sure, to my bouts of depression; I will have more energy, the danger of which is I will become manic, not in a homicidal way, but enough to annoy all around me more than they have grown accustomed to. (Watch out, Emily, Rebecca, Sue & Sue.)

Resolution number four is to quit smoking.

As after this packet of cigarettes lying on the desk beside me. Rebecca and Danny, Emily's partner, have also resolved to quit the habit, so between us we should manage. I have done it before and can do it again. Besides, smoking encourages drink, drink encourages smoking.


Resolution number five is to get out of the mind numbing, expletive, expletive job I am doing.

I have a plan. It WILL work.

To all who are kind enough to read my posts, Happy New Year xxx.

At some point during the year, I mean to re-vamp this site and switch to WordPress to make it cleaner and less time-consuming to open.