Severe Jam Damage

So yeah, woot and all that.
It was an extremely hard one this month. In the end I killed off all my characters I hated them that much.
I’m off now to bathe my wrists in ice.

For those who don’t know - or haven’t figured it out from the waffling I do on this blog – I tend to keep a notebook with me all of the time. This is why I can be seen scribbling nonsensical rubbish while waiting in the pub, on the bus, sitting in the park, etc. (Of course it gets cleaned up and ordered before I post it here… yeah.)

At the moment I’m on the last few pages of a small black A6 size notebook. I look through it and it’s full of snippets of thoughts, opening lines, overheard conversations and tail-ends of dreams that I can vaguely remember. Some of those snippets will become entries here, some may form the basis for a short story or three and others won’t inspire anything at all.

My little notebook is the perfect size to throw in my handbag. It’s as the same length as a biro which means I can clip my pen inside without worrying about it leaking all over my bag, wallet or hands – the notebook will soak up all the drips (I always manage to lose the lids.) But as I mentioned I’m on the last few pages of my current one, which means that I’ll soon be using my new notebook. The Gin Lady and the Gurrier picked it up somewhere in Sweden (or maybe Norway) for me and it’s got a pretty funky cover and this cool marker that has a couple of magnets inside and clips on whatever page I’ve finished up on. The notebook has lots of lovely clean pages. I have a bit of a thing about stationery, I can spend hours wandering around looking for the perfect pen, or the perfect notebook. I’m not as bad as C-Bear though who has a positive fetish about such things, but I do have the ability to while away some time in the basement of Easons.

Ok, I realise the marker is probably of more use as a bookmark, but for the moment it’ll do for use in my fab new notebook.

I’ve been spending some of my spare time working on the second draft of (one of) my novels. I took a look at both of them and decided that at the moment there’s a lot of work needed on the other one so I’m editing the hell out of one and letting the other simmer until I have a lot more time to go at it with a red pen.

I think it was Stephen King who said in ‘On Writing’ that writing the first draft is 30% of the job, and editing is the last 70%. Now that I think about I may have gotten the percentages wrong, but I know it’s some ridiculous difference like that. (It may be 20 / 80.) Anyway I’ve started and have the first five chapters in a folder I like to call ’second draft’ (funnily enough.) Of course there are 27 chapters in the book, not to mention the plot holes that litter the story like something Wile E Coyote bought from the Acme company and didn’t bother to use. So basically still a lot of work to go. I’m hoping that by the time I get this draft finished I’ll be happy enough with it to ‘write with the door open’ and get some feedback from readers.

Now readers are hard to come by. Good readers I mean. People who I can trust to actually read the stuff I send them and give me back proper, honest criticism. People who can spot the plot holes I haven’t plugged properly, or question the motivation of a character. NOT people who send me back 20 pages of incorrect punctuation and mispellings. Proofing will be done as I go along and then one final proof before it goes out to any possible publisher. There is nothing worse than sending out a 300 page manuscript to a ‘reader’ who returns it with comments like

‘This is really good! Wow! But on page 20 you misspelled ’severence’, hope this helps!

Well no, actually that doesn’t tell me anything. What it does tell me is that you are either
a.) too scared to tell me what you really think
b.) you didn’t read it except to glance over it
or c.) you don’t actually know what you are doing

Recently I submitted a piece to a magazine and before I sent it out asked someone to read it for me. They had professed interest in reading some of my stuff and promised faithfully to provide feedback and criticism. Three weeks later and there was still no response. (It was only a short piece, about a thousand words.) Eventually I had to tell the person not to bother and had someone else read it for me and provide feedback. Needless to say this person is now off my ‘readers’ list.

It sounds harsh looking at it written now, but yes there is a certain amount of responsiblity on the part of the reader. A lot of people think it’s just a bit of fun and sure ‘I’ll have a quick read of it before I meet Eli.’ When in actual fact I’m expecting you to sit down with a red pen and use it flagrantly. I don’t mind, I’m precious about my words, but not that precious.

Anyway, that’s enough waffle for today. Next task: figure out how the hell I got from a first person narrative to a storyline 20 years in the past.

Everyone is a fucking writer. Have you noticed that? Lately everyone is either a writer or they ‘have always wanted to turn their hand to writing’. I don’t know what it is these people are imagining… Some sort of bohemian lifestyle in a lonely attic room; bottles of red wine, ink-daubed pages and a string of lovers perhaps.
They certainly aren’t thinking of sleepless nights sitting in front of a computer, or having to go to work the next day on 2 hours sleep. They can’t be thinking how it feels to receive rejection after rejection after rejection. They haven’t a clue what it means to sit for hours staring at a blank screen, trying to speak with their characters and having nothing to say. They are certainly not thinking about the world these individuals will live in or what is inspiring them to do what needs to be done because they are too busy listening to the sound of their own voice telling me they want to be a writer. They don’t have notebooks filled with scribbled thoughts and ideas for use later. They don’t understand that every time they get 5 minutes to themselves they should be thinking about the who, the what, the when or the why. For them writing is as simple as sitting down with a pen and ‘being creative.’
And if you ask these people how much work they’ve done so far you receive blank looks.
‘Well I’m researching at the moment you see.’
‘Oh I have this great idea, it’s just getting the time to sit down and write it.’
That is all bollox. If you are going to write then you either do it or you shut the fuck up. You don’t bore me with tales of how you are going to get a publishing contract (never having written a word.) You don’t tell me how your story is really good, but it’s all in your head at the moment. And you certainly don’t tell me that it’s ‘so original… no-one has ever thought of this for a story’ because Honey, I hate to tell ya, but it has all been done before. Writing is hard and lonely and painful. It’s ripping experiences out of your life, and vomiting up things you’d hoped never to remember. Its heartache and loss and everything you’ve ever suffered. It’s slashing open your guts and laying them out where anyone can see. It’s death and it’s life and it’s going to hurt. Anyone who tells you anything less is lying.