How Writing Rules Can Sometimes do Bad Things to Good People

A week or so ago, I found a thread posted in the Writing Forum of an online writing community I've been a member of for a while. Its title was "Words You Hate/Won't Use."

It started off innocently enough. The Original Poster listed 'gingerly,' 'albeit' and 'fastly' among her no-no words. Others added 'righter,' '-ish' words (like 'tallish' and 'brownish') and the godawful 'moist' (I can totally get behind that one.) There were smatterings of debate as to the dictionary-defined validity of some of the words offered ('fastly' was contested for a good few pages of the thread.)

My own, personal 'oh-hell-no'-word is actually a phrase - and it's entirely my own fault that I hate it because I was the one who over-used and abused it in a novel I started about ten years ago, that limped to about Chapter Five before I shuffled it quietly into the Novel Graveyard on my hard drive. I had two male characters who appeared to have only one way to express troubling emotions, and that was to "rake his hands through his hair." They were both at it, every time things got a bit tense for them, and after seeing that action so many goddamn times in one of my read-back sessions I wanted give them both a buzz-cut and staple-gun their hands into their pockets. This has had a hangover effect on my writing ever since; I can't use it in any of my stories now without feeling a little bit sick in my mouth. (I think I may have one variation of it in Redemption at the moment - or I may have already replaced it with something else and then dissociated from the whole traumatic experience. If it is still there, trust me, it's living on borrowed time...)

So far so conversational. But then things started to get a bit hardcore. Words like 'suddenly' and 'very' came up, along with 'then,' 'got,' 'almost' and 'just.' Not just once, but several times, with many others agreeing with those who put them forward. And adverbs in general, of course - and while we're at it let's not forget the dysfunctional families of 'was' and 'to be' (beGONE, evil Passive Verbs!)

The same little add-on phrases starting creeping in too - you know the kind of thing I'm talking about. 'Using this word in your writing just screams 'amateur'...' 'It's an example of lazy writing on the author's part - there's always a better/stronger word you can use...' And of course the ever-so-humblebrag 'I've made a point of eliminating every instance of that word from my writing now, and if anything it makes my writing stronger.'

Reeeeeaaaalllly? You've eliminated every instance of words like 'very,' 'then' and 'got,' have you? Well, aren't you the Star Pupil of your Fiction Writing 101 Class?

I'm sorry if that sounds snarky... well no, perhaps 'sorry' is the wrong word. Perhaps what I really mean is "I have no wish to upset or offend you, but my brain is rejecting what you just said so hard that this response is projectile-vomiting from my speech-hole faster than anything more polite and less sincere." Yeah, that sounds more me, I'm going with that, thanks.

Pick up a book by any famous-to-insanely-famous author - go on, any book you like. Pick one by your favourite author if you like. It's okay, I'll wait for you until you get back.

Done it? Good.

Now, do you notice a total absence of adverbs, so-called 'passive verbs' and words like 'very,' 'got' and 'then' in their work? To the point where they clearly made it their mission to weed them out like the canker-sore Violations of Good Writing Rules they truly are? Nope, didn't think so. And yet those authors seem to have done okay for themselves - even garnered themselves a bit of respect, you might say.

Perhaps those Fiction Writing Rules hadn't been hewn in fire onto their stone tablets back then - or said authors simply never got around to engraving them on their souls. How lucky all us millennium-generation writers are then, living in a webby-connected world that guarantees we'll never miss the chance to hear them trumpeted loud and long - and as such, be saved from committing such a heinous crime as a wanton adverb to the page...

Yes, my brain is projectile-vomiting again - I should probably calm down now ... *deep breaths, thinking happy thoughts...*

But here's what's winding me up about the Writing Police; how must fledgling writers, new to the craft and eager to stretch their creative wings, feel when they read this kind of twaddle? When basic words like 'very' and 'then' - words we all grew up with and use in our speech every day of our lives - are suddenly signposts to the writing equivalent of a minus score on an IQ test? Veterans don't realise just how damn scary this zero-tolerance attitude can be to the padawan writers. No matter where we are on the road to getting our work in front of readers, we're all in this together, aren't we? We should be helping each other, not finding petty little ways to make it even harder for new members to join the Proper Authors' Club.

Of course when it comes to writing there are things that work and things that don't. Yes, a lot of the writing rules - even this one we're discussing now - were invented for a reason, and being at least aware of them and why they're worth knowing will help you become a better writer. And obviously the staples like spelling, punctuation and grammar are important, because readers need to understand what they're reading.

But these are the technical skills of writing, and there's more to a great story than making sure the i's are dotted and t's are crossed. Even Stephen King, in his book On Writing, follows up his lecture on shunning adverbs with the cheerful admission that he doesn't always follow that rule himself. Why? Because godammit, sometimes that dirty old adverb adds the right pinch of spice to your prose, to the point where it would be more wrong not to put it in.

Getting perfect tens for your technical skills in writing will not guarantee a great story because story is not just science; it's an art. And when you sacrifice your art on the altar of technical perfection, all you end up with is a dead chicken. We don't learn the rules of great writing to slavishly live by them; we learn them to understand when, why and how it's okay to break them.

Readers who aren't writers don't invest huge chunks of their time learning all the Rules of Great Writing, because most of them aren't bothered about such stuff. Unlike fellow writers, they don't read books to critique them; they read them to be entertained. And sometimes, seasoned writers forget that in their quest to define what 'quality fiction' really is.

So, to all you writers-in-training out there, don't let yourselves be intimidated by The Rules - or the folks who sigh and tut at you when you 'break' them. It doesn't mean you're a bad writer and there's no hope for you, and it definitely doesn't mean you should give up on your dreams. You don't have to ban every adverb, talk exclusively in Active Voice for every single sentence or slavishly follow any jackbooted clusterbag of Thou Shalt Nots. Yoda said "Do or do not. There is no try." For writing, I would amend that to "You learn much more by doing than you ever will trying not to do."

Just keep doing what you do, for as long as you love doing it. And trust that, the more you do it, the better you'll become at knowing when you can improve your work by following those pesky rules - or equally, by not following them. Your choice. Your story.

Your rules.

5 Things I Wish I Knew about Novel Writing Twenty Years Ago

"Non, je ne regrette rien," sang French chanteuse and all-round stoic Edith Piaf. And while she made a good point, I bet even she succumbed to the odd facepalm now and then. It's only human to look back over your life and think "If I knew then what I know now..."

But until the time machine gets invented (and they sort out some way to deal with that pesky Grandfather Paradox) you can't nip back to greet your younger and more naive self and give them the almanac from the future. So all that's left is the next best alternative; to put what you wish you'd learned twenty years ago Out There for others to see, hoping to prevent them from taking twenty years to learn it as well.

It's not stuff about style, or language, or story construction or any of the mechanics of writing a novel. It's not about how to dream up the perfect story or how to get it published and become rich and famous. But it is stuff that, once you know it, makes all of the previous stuff more achievable. And yet you won't find it in most books about writing, or taught in most creative writing classes. So here is my Top Five. Do with them what you will...

1. - Finish What You Start. No REALLY. FINISH. IT.
Are you one of those people who starts a novel with megaton-bomb's-worth of enthusiasm, steaming through the first two or three chapters, and then slowing down a bit... and a bit more.... and then, about a third of the way in, deciding to 'put it aside for a bit' and work on something else instead? And over time, have you acquired a collection of part-written novels that still languish like embarrassing mad relatives in some dark and lonely attic (either physical or virtual?)

Yeah, I did that too. For years. I always had 'good' reasons for switching to a newer, shinier project in favour of the current one, of course - and I was never 'giving up on' a novel, nooo, I was just 'taking a break from it.' I was going to come back to it again in the future, of course I was, but... mmmyeahno, I never did.

That was a mistake, and one I repeated time after time. I shouldn't have given up so easily - and yes, if I'm honest that's what I was really doing. I gave up whenever the initial excitement of creating something new wore off as it became less and less new in my own head. But here's the thing; you can't achieve success at creating a thing until that thing is finished. How far would Mr Harley-Davidson have got if he'd said "Hey everybody, look at this cool bike I'm making here! Admittedly I haven't put the wheels on yet - or brakes - and yeah, I'm still sort of deciding how the engine's gonna work... aw, but trust me, when this baby's finished she's gonna freakin' rock!" He got where he got by finishing that bike we know and love - and probably after he'd already finished a few ropey prototypes that tanked.

So if you start something, finish it. Try it with short stories first, if finishing anything you start is a real problem, and then work your way up to full-on novels. But finish it. Because...

2 - You'll never learn how to write a novel properly until you COMPLETE (at least) your first novel.
You can read all the books on writing that ever existed. You can take a million writing classes. You can read the wise words of every successful author on the planet who's already been there and done it. None of those things will teach you even a tenth of what actually getting out there in the trenches and doing it will teach you. Even just completing a first draft of a novel will be a massive learning experience that no amount of tutoring and sage advice can offer.

Why? Because until you've got that far, all the lessons and lectures are just words; the equivalent of the instruction manual for flat-pack furniture. Sure, they'll take you through every step of building that wardrobe, but they won't tell you all the stuff you can only learn by doing - like how if you don't hammer those wooden pegs in pixel-perfect straight you're screwed, trying to build the thing in a room with furniture already in it is just asking for trouble and the Allen Key is the most stupid and infuriating invention in the world. (Yeah, IKEA don't stick those little gems in their cartoon-men diagrams, do they?)

Most of us would prefer to think surgeons at least had a practice on something before they embarked on hacking and slashing real patients for a career, and the principle is the same with novel-writing (albeit with less chance of actual death.) Once you've completed your first novel, you'll have a brand new set of tools that you now know how to use when you write your next one. At which point you'll discover there are even more tools, and you can have a practice with them while getting more proficient with the tools you picked up previously. Learning by doing. It's the best way.

3 - Set goals for yourself. And stick to them.
But not just any old, floaty-cloud goals; make them specific, measurable and realistic. "I am going to finish this goddamn novel," for example, is a great goal in terms of passion and drive, but it's not specific or measurable enough, which renders it unrealistic by default. It's also flippin' huge in terms of ambition; like the iceberg that sank the Titanic, ninety percent of it is sitting under the water where you can't see it. If you're going to nail this project, you need to break it down into smaller chunks. You'll need a way of tracking your progress too; I use an Excel Spreadsheet I made for the purpose, but you could just as easily use an old invoice book or draw tables on some squared paper - whatever works for you.

First off, start with time. Look at your week and decide how much time - realistically - you can devote to writing. If you have a day job that isn't writing, or your time is taken up with caring for other people, you'll probably have to snatch hours when and where you can. That's okay; pinpoint those precious hours and own them. No ifs or buts, claim them as your writing time, tell everyone who needs to know that those are your writing hours - hell, mark them down on a calendar or weekly planner so you can see them too. Make them official, like a real, proper appointment that you must show up to. Add them up, and that'll give you your minimum target of hours per week. (You can split up those hours any way you like; the same amount of hours spread over each day or big chunks on some days and small or no chunks on other days - it's the weekly total that matters.)

Later on, when you've got yourself into a regular routine of showing up for your target hours each week (and that can take a while, especially if you haven't done that before with your writing) you can start tracking your weekly word count as well. But don't set concrete targets for that until you've tracked it for at least a couple of months, so you can see what your average weekly output is and come up with a target that doesn't shoot ridiculously beyond that (because setting goals that are impossible to achieve is way worse than setting no goals at all.)

That's when things like deadlines and completion dates can become more concrete; the average novel is 100,000 words long, so if you can write 10,000 words a month, for example (which is only 2,500 words a week, which in turn is less than 355 words a day...) well, that's a full draft of an entire novel in ten months. So you see, even the smallest efforts done regularly can amount to great things in less time than you might think. But it's only by seeing it happen, right in front of your own eyes, that you can motivate yourself to keep at it.


4 - Writing a novel isn't fun all the time. And that's totally okay.
You're a writer because you love to write. It's the only thing you can imagine yourself actually wanting to do for a career rather than just having to do for, like, money and stuff. And because you feel this way, if something you're writing starts to feel like a grind, a miserable chore that makes the ironing look like a thrilling diversion, something must be so wrong with it that you should probably give up and start something else, right? Because writing's supposed to be fun - it makes you feel good and happy and creative...

Mmmmyeah, not always. Even with a novel you love like your own baby-child, there will be days when you hate its plot-stall-ed, wooden-character-ed, nonsense-dialogue-d guts. When the mere thought of sitting down and opening up that document - again - will fill you with an urge to weep and watch marathon sessions of Keeping Up with The Kardashians instead. Suddenly this baby isn't a joy anymore, it's a wailing, demanding poo factory that takes up your valuable time and energy. And it's starting to look pretty ugly as well.

So surely, if you carry on trying to write it when you're this 'uninspired,' won't the effort suck every last drop of creative fire from your veins like a vampire, leaving you jaded and unable to face writing anything else ever again? You cannot let that happen! It would be Creative Death! Writing is your mission, your life - writing should only ever be Fun Times...

Ask any published author on the planet, and they'll tell you there were days when sitting down and writing the next chapter of their novel was the last thing on earth they felt like doing. But they still did it anyway. Inspiration doesn't fall from the sky like rain, it's the sweat that comes from exercising those writing muscles. You don't exercise, you don't sweat. And sometimes you have to do a lot of dull and miserable exercising before that sweat appears.

So if the urge to write that next scene from your w-i-p isn't there, get your arse in front of that manuscript and write anyway. Remember those targets I talked about previously? It doesn't matter if all you end up with is a steaming pile of donkey-poo. Even donkey-poo can be shaped and sculpted into something amazing - but you need the donkey-poo to be there in the first place.

Of course there's nothing wrong with only writing what you want to and when you want to... if writing is just a fun little hobby and you have no desire whatsoever for anyone else to ever read your work. But if you're hoping to be published someday, you can't afford to sit around waiting for creative lightning to strike. Gotta make them sparks yourself, Chutney.

5 - Not all writing advice is helpful or useful.
No, I didn't stick this one at the end just to mess with your head. Well maybe a little bit...

The point is, what works for some writers won't work at all for others, no matter what. However, this doesn't mean you should stop looking and listening to advice and feedback on how to improve your writing chops. In fact, the more advice you seek out and absorb, the better you'll continue to get at knowing what to hold on to and what to drop like a deep-fried Mars Bar (a great idea in fantasy, a Crime Against Chocolate in reality.)

For example, by now I must have read the equivalent of a small forest and a PC hard-drive's worth of books and eBooks about writing, writing fiction and writing novels - and that's before you even start to include the blogs of other authors I follow. That's more advice than one person's brain can hold or needs in a lifetime. In the course of gathering all that information, I have discovered that, although I do have some plotting and organisational tendencies, overall as a writer I am a natural, red-blooded Pantser.

Now there are some fabulous writing how-to books that are perfect for all the Plotters out there - but I've discovered the hard way that, for me at least, they are Kryptonite in literary form. Anything that involves measuring the progress of your plot by dividing your entire story up into small fractions and making sure you hit a certain 'beat' by a particular percentage of pages written.... jeez, even reading that back makes me want to head-desk. My brain don't work like that, Professor! So I've learned to stop reading them in the first place now, because they just make me feel like a thicko (and it's not like I need that in my writing life as well...)

On the other hand, anything about the craft of writing - creating great characters, settings and dialogue and what I suppose you'd call 'making better use of language in your writing' - well, those are the kind of books that get my blood pumping and me desperate to sit at my keyboard and write my stubby little fingers off. So those are the books I seek out when I feel the need for a little Writing Espresso.

Not all writing advice is supposed to fill your heart with glee, obviously. Much of it is meant to instil in you just how much hard graft is needed to write a good novel, and that's as it should be. However, if any advice you get - whether from books, websites or even other authors - makes you feel like you have no hope of ever succeeding as a writer, because you just can't think that way or buy into that concept, then it's probably the wrong advice for you. Don't sweat it. You won't have to look very hard to find an alternative viewpoint from someone else who's had just as much success doing things the opposite way. And don't ever - ever - let anyone else tell you you'll never make it as a writer unless you subscribe to [insert Success Blueprint of the Moment.] There is no magic one-blueprint-fits-all. You are your own blueprint, made of whatever components of advice work for you.

So... over to you. What do YOU wish you'd known about writing a long, long time ago? What stuff do you think all writers should be told when they're just starting out? Why not drop it in the comments below, and maybe we can pass some nuggets of real-world wisdom around!

An Experiment in Improving Creativity: The Results!

**Dun-dun-DURRRR!!!**

Yes, it's that time. Just over three weeks ago, as detailed in this previous blog post, I embarked on a self-hypnosis program designed to give my creativity a kick in the mojo, and I promised I would report back on my experience. This was in no way a promotional gig, nor was I getting any kind of kickback, favours or other form of backscratch-love for doing this; it was an experiment, pure and simple. And for that reason what you're about to read is a completely honest account of how successful (or not) that experiment has been.

As I stated previously, I have done hypnosis therapy before; I used it as a pain-relief method during labour when I had my son. It worked extremely well for that. However, I wasn't about to let that sway me in my assessment of this program, because a) it was for a completely different purpose and b) seven years have passed between the two, and both I and my brain have changed a lot during that time. This is why I've been extra cautious about providing a fair and balanced assessment. I'm well aware that my previous success with hypnosis might easily lead me into looking for more positives into this experiment than were actually there.

*Deep breath.* Not doing that. This is going to be 100% objective, clean slate stuff.

And so...

First off, let's start with the practicalities. In order for each session to be effective, you need to have between 35-45 minutes of your daily life all to yourself, alone, with no interruptions of any kind at all. People without children are the ones not laughing hysterically at this point  - and hell yeah, this was definitely Major Difficulty Number One for me. Weekdays during term-time were fine, but weekends and a perfectly-placed half-term holiday in the middle of the program did cause some headaches (yeah... well, that's why none of the jobs I've ever done in the past have had the word 'Planner' in the title, isn't it?) Fortunately on the Kindle the sessions can be adjusted, so that you can choose between ending them with a 'Wake,' 'Delayed Wake' or 'Sleep' setting. By setting it to the 'Sleep' session on those days when I was going to be shadowed all day by a rampaging seven-year-old, I could do my session at night, just before I went to bed. There's also a choice between 'Long Induction' and 'Short Induction,' which varies the length of the talky bit that sends you 'down' into the hypnosis session proper. After the first week I changed it briefly to the Short Induction, believing (particularly with my previous experience of hypnosis) that I no longer 'needed' the long one - but changed it back to the long one after only three days, because... well,  the short one just didn't feel as effective. Which brings me on to my next observation...

The days when it really felt like a session had 'worked' (i.e. that I really had 'gone under' and hit that deep-trance state) were the days where I felt tired prior to that session. I am a very poor sleeper; I cannot seem to remain asleep for more than two hours at a time. This means that, for years, I haven't slept through a whole night without waking up  - and I mean fully waking up, for about half an hour - at least twice before I have to get up for the day.

At weekends and during the half-term, when I could get away with sleeping in a bit (some days as late as 7am - woohoo!) I was obviously less tired. Those were the days when I felt I wasn't really absorbing all the positive messages; I was just dutifully listening to everything that was being said - and actually getting a bit bored as the weeks went by, because by then I'd heard the same words so many times already... 

However, on school days, where I was having to get up at ridiculous o'clock to get everything sorted in time and then hitting that Wall of Knackered halfway through the day... well, let me tell you, those hypnosis sessions kicked ass. Hell, regardless of whether or not my creativity was being enhanced - and even though I wasn't actually falling asleep during those sessions - they were ten times better than a quick nap on the sofa. When they finished I felt as good as if I'd slept all the way through the previous night (I think I can still remember what that feels like...) So, as a quick daytime energy-topper-upper for the sleep-deprived I can definitely recommend this program.

(Ironically though, when I switched the ending of the session to the 'Sleep' setting so I could play it at night, it had the opposite of the desired effect. I was wide awake when the session finished, and my positively-hypnotised brain had no inclination whatsoever to go to sleep for a good hour or so afterwards. Maybe that's just me, but after a night-time session I just felt... I don't know, is there such a thing as 'benevolently wired?')

But now we get to the meat of the experiment... has it done what it said on the tin? Has it 'improved my creativity?'

Well, in terms of making me more committed to writing... I've got to be honest here, it scores a 'meh.' I track my writing hours each week with an Excel spreadsheet (my personal version of 'clocking in') and I haven't noticed myself doing much in the way of 'overtime' since I embarked on this program. Still hitting the targets... but no sign of striving to exceed it, judging from my timesheet.

But... within those hours at my keyboard, my word count appears to have gone up. for Draft One of The Renegades, I was hitting 400-450 words per two-hour session. In my Draft Two Phase (when my Demon-ass Internal Editor started showing up) that had dropped to about 200. In this last week or so, my word count has consistently hovered around the 500-600 mark. And... I'm liking what's coming out this time around - more so than I have since starting on Draft Two. To the point where I'm looking at what I've been rewriting over the past week and thinking "Hmmm... looks like I'm going to have to do another rewrite of all the previous chapters just to get it up to the standard of this one now." (Notwithstanding, naturally, the next stage of rewrites that will come after Draft Two is completed.)

(Of course even saying all of that has given me the heebee-jeebees, and I am touching everything wood-based and clutching rabbit's feet even as I lay the words down. But... if these are permanent changes, that's gotta be good.)

So, to conclude, it seems to have made a difference - for the moment, at least. And I can't deny it, when you get to the point where you've slipped into that cozy, shut-the-whole-world-out state of trance-y meditation it is the best feeling, ever. Better than being wrapped in a warm blanket, drinking hot chocolate, in front of a crackling log fire, with the rain beating down outside. That good.

I shall certainly be using it again, as a top-up measure for when Novel Constipation strikes in the future (as I'm sure it will.) And I shall definitely be using it in place of a quick daytime nap on the sofa to avert those times when my lack of sleep becomes so cumulative I start responding to everything and everyone like Kramer from 'Seinfeld.'

An Experiment in Improving Creativity

I am a writer, but I would love, love, love to be a better writer. And I can't see that desire ever going away - even if I were to somehow reach writing superhero status.

I think that's true of most other writers too. And there are certainly a ton of resources out there to help us in our quest for self-improvement; writing courses, forums and critique circles, blogs, videos and of course the obligatory and quite wonderful plethora of How-To books. All of which can be obtained both out there in the Real World and from the virtual online haven of our computers or whatever techie device takes our fancy.

But that's not all the cheese on the board. There are other options available too. Things that might be considered a little more 'out there' in terms of helping you improve your creativity. And I'm nothing if not open-minded about giving something a go... which is why I'm currently road-testing 'Creative and Inspired Writing: Erik Brown Hypnosis.' Yep, deal with it - I've gone all New Age on you!

I found it through my Kindle; it was a free-download app that promised to 'awaken and inspire my latent creativity' through the power of hypnosis. Here's the blurb: "Inspired and Creative Writing Hypnosis will speak to your Super Conscious Mind, clearing barriers that are blocking your creativity and creating a flow of inspiration. Powerful suggestions for deep relaxation and positive change will be received by your mind, opening your mind for inspiration, increasing your self-esteem, and helping you to nurture your writing instead of judging it."

Now normally I am more than a little sceptical about what you might call alternative therapies. I have never felt an urge to stick lighted candles in my ear, and anyone who wants to stab tiny needles into me needs to have a way better reason than "it'll balance your chi." Hypnosis, however, I am prepared to cut some slack. I already know from previous experience that I am one of those people who can be hypnotized; I used hypnosis as a pain-relief method when I gave birth to my son and it worked extremely well. (This is also why I am never ever going to a stage hypnotist's show; no-one's making me bark like a dog and snog random strangers for their own entertainment, thanks very much.) I read the afore-quoted blurb and, as someone who is currently slogging through Draft Two of a novel, thought "Hell yeah, I could use me some of that!" And - the chocolate sprinkles on the chocolate cake -  this was an entirely free, zero-pence opportunity... It seemed daft not to take it, so take it I did. I downloaded and installed it on Monday.

I then had my first 'session' - nothing complicated, just a matter of plugging some headphones into my Kindle and chilling out on the sofa for about half an hour (and it's nice to have an actual reason for doing it that doesn't include the word 'laziness.') In order for this programme to be effective, it seems I have to listen to it once a day for a minimum of twenty-one consecutive days. (It's official then; hypnosis is just a more spiritual version of nagging.) I must also not listen to each session while driving - which is great, because the last thing I wanted was to have to learn to drive before I started doing this. And then, once the trailers were done, came the Session Proper.

Erik Brown has a nice American voice that sounds a little bit sleepy and sometimes kind of echo-ey, which is either because he's had those things SFX-ed onto his normal voice as part of the whole Hypnosis Vibe, or I was just hearing it that way because he had already Taken Control Of My Brain. Either way, it's a little bit freaky until you get used to it. As is the moment in the Long Induction version where he tells you to 'relax your genitals' (I'm not used to obeying instructions like that from a man I've never even met.)

The middle bit... well, that's where it all gets a bit hazy. Erik Brown says that if your mind wanders during the session, you fall asleep or you simply don't remember anything he's said once the session's over, it's all good; you're still absorbing everything he's saying in your subconscious mind. For me, it didn't feel like I fell asleep, it was more like that thing that happens when you're on a long drive and then you suddenly realise you've reached your destination but you can't remember the journey. I've done four sessions so far, and I've 'tuned out' in this manner every time - but weirdly, not at the same point every time, so I'm still not sure how many fragments of sessions I'll need to hear before I've pieced enough together to actually know everything that's said.

The session ends with him telling me that I every time I see the colour red I will associate it with releasing my creativity, so I've now put up some pictures directly above my computer screen; a person in a red suit writing, a hand writing with a red pencil in a red book and a diagram showing the (red) Writer's Toolbox and its contents. If I want to get my writing mojo on, it seems smart to have it kickstarted at the place where I'll be doing the writing, so I'll see if they have any added effect.

It's too early to make any judgments after only four sessions, so I shall keep this experiment going for the full twenty-one day extravaganza and see what happens. And I shall of course keep you posted on my progress.

And now if you'll excuse me, I need to lie down on a sofa and deal with an American stranger telling me to 'relax my genitals.' Again. Well, no-one said the path to enlightenment was easy...

Fiction Writers: A Special Kind of Crazy People

I hope that title didn't make you nervous. If you've only just started walking along the road to Being a Writer (or you're close to someone who has) it might sound like some kind of ominous warning. "Beware! Becoming a writer will turn you into a lunatic!" Relax. You don't have to wait for that to happen - that's pretty much how you qualified for the club, bwah ha haaaah...

Of course fiction writers are a bit bonkers; they have to be, to do what they do. "Come and play with me in my completely-made-up world, and meet all these people who don't actually exist, but have become my imaginary friends over the past... oooh, months now! Do you know how long it's taken me to invent all this stuff in my head - at the expense of doing so many other things in the actual, real world?"

Let's face facts here, that's not how grown-ups are encouraged to behave. It may go some way to explain why anyone who chooses to be a writer often gets The Look whenever they reveal this information to others. You know The Look I'm talking about. It implies certain words are popping into The Lookers head, like some kind of secret word-association game; words like 'deluded,' 'too lazy to get a proper job,' 'pretentious'... you get the idea. The only way to not get this Look is to be a very famous writer who's made squillions from selling their books and has legions of devoted fans across the globe - in this power and fame-obsessed world we live in, it seems you can be as deluded/lazy/pretentious as you like as long as you're all of those things and loaded. But not many writers get to sit at that highly exclusive table, so the rest of us spend much of our careers - if we're lucky - standing around the edges of the room catching the crumbs that might occasionally get tossed our way. And through it all, getting The Look.

And yet still we keep on walking down that road, which must mean we want to be there very, very much. And not just for the crumbs that fly off the famous writers' table either; if all we were after was food we could get that elsewhere with much less effort. So, if living in a world where not taking the easiest option to rake in the cash and glory is considered crazy... I guess us writers had better order our straitjackets now. Writing is meant to be hard... but secretly, that's obviously how we like it.

And yeah, sometimes we're... not easy to live with. I'll grant you that one.

At least with non-writer people, if you've spent the past half-hour talking to them about something important only to realise they were tuned out and didn't hear a damn word you were saying, it'll be because they were thinking about their more worrying, real-world problems instead. With us writer-types, it's far more likely that we're stewing over people that don't exist in a land we've completely made-up. Non-writers may, for some bizarre reason, believe that such things are not of equal importance to real-world issues - and unfortunately can't be educated to the contrary (don't try, trust me - it rarely ends well.)

Sometimes we can also be inexplicably sad or grumpy - but not because of something the person actually with us in the real world has said or done. No, it's because of something an imaginary person has just pretend-said or done whilst we were skipping through its made-up world! And whilst we accept it's probably a bit irrational... that doesn't help while we're so damn choked up about it, okay? We'll be fine in a bit, don't worry - just pass us another cookie and let us work through this...

And of course there's that most notorious one; the one where we bark at anyone who comes within five feet of us while we're Working "Do NOT disturb me while I'm writing! How am I supposed to get anything done when PEOPLE KEEP INTERRUPTING ME??!" When it's blatantly obvious that we've spent the last two-and-a-half hours alternating between whimpering at a completely blank screen and forlornly checking our emails. And no, in such a situation as this, don't - just don't - ask us "how's it coming along then?" Not a good plan.

But apart from that, I'd say we're pretty low-maintenance on the whole. And, because we embrace our own craziness, we're generally more tolerant of the vast pick'n'mix of craziness exhibited by everyone else. Heck, we're even interested in it. (Admittedly because we could potentially stick it in our next book, but hey -  we're still feeling the compassion - and we'd change the names and everything...)

Writers need to be crazy, so they can travel to the places everyone else is to afraid to go. Embrace your inner crazy - let it take you to your weird and wonderful places that don't exist. Because you are the tour guide for people who'd never get to those Disneylands any other way.

Writing For Respect: A Mission of Crushing Disappointment

Well, there's a depressing title for you. "Thanks a lot, Wendy Christopher! I thought you were all for being encouraging and supportive to your fellow writers - and here you are, peeing all over their dreams. You turncoat, you!"

Relax, and put that blunt instrument down, please. I am very much on the side of my fellow writers - be they seasoned veterans or fledgling newbies. Which is precisely why I'm raising this rather thorny topic in the first place.

Indulge me for a moment, if you please, by thinking of that moment in your head when you first decided you wanted to be a real, 'proper' writer. As in, one who wrote stuff lots of people would actually read someday - and like! This moment may have happened years ago for you, it may have been a fairly recent desire or you may have only just had it now because I mentioned it; no matter, any way you shake it out it's completely relevant to where I'm heading with this. What did you imagine were the carrots on offer?

We can start with the obvious one of getting to spend regular portions of your life doing something you love - that is kind of a necessary bonus if you want to really make a go of it, after all. Well, the good news is, you can have that one for free. Comes with the territory, you might say. Maybe you hope to make some money out of it - even earn an actual living out of your writing. We-ell... it may happen and it may not. Work hard enough at it for long enough and who knows? Or perhaps you even fantasised just a little about fame skipping hand-in-hand with the fortune - you, the next J.K. Rowling/E.L. James/George R.R. Martin! No shame in that; dreams are, after all, what keep us walking down the road to our goals. (Although it's probably better to at least acknowledge that having this one come true is a bit more of an ask from the fickle Hand of Fate.)

But here's the one I'm interested in; how many of you thought "Once I make it as a writer, all those people who doubted me or dismissed my writing ambitions as a waste of time or pointless dreaming will finally respect me - and my writing! They'll have to - because I'll have proved all my hard work was worth it in the end!"

This is not an unreasonable thing to hope for, not at all. If you started out as a mail clerk in an office and slowly worked your way up to manager level, people would acknowledge that you'd gone up in the world and you done good, go you, etc. It's simple logic; you went from the bottom to higher up the tree, and that's something that will impress even the most hardened cynic...

In any ordinary, non-creative field, that is. The painful truth is, in the fields of writing, performing or art of any kind, it doesn't seem to work that way.

The average lay person does not assume that the job of, say, a brain surgeon, is easy-peasy and that anyone can do it (and if you also look really hot that helps you enormously to be a much better brain surgeon - far more than any, y'know, actual talent for it... ) They also don't assume that, if you're not a really famous brain surgeon and hardly anybody's heard of you (because they've never seen you on telly on in 'Heat' magazine) then you must also be a totally shite brain surgeon who's just deluding themselves that doing all those operations without killing anyone makes them good at brain surgery. And yet writers and artists are judged this way all the time - by those who are not writers and artists themselves (and - it pains me to say - even by some who are.)

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying for a second that, in terms of services to mankind, an artist or writer can compare with a brain surgeon; if I had something wrong with my cranium, I know who I'd prefer to have scrubbing up for my op. But it's no exaggeration to say that, when it comes to gaining respect as a creative person, the bar is raised way higher, right from the start.

'So, you're a writer, are you? What have you written? Never heard of that. So, are you, like, really rich? Oh, you still have an ordinary job as well, do you? Not actually a successful writer then? Bzzzz! Sorry, but it's a 'no' from me - come back when you're J.K. Rowling and then maybe we'll talk...'

And here's the hardest piece of gristle to chew on; the odds are depressingly high that anyone and everyone you know who started out with that mindset when you first told them (or they found out) you wanted to be a writer... will continue to feel that same way forever. Or until you do actually become J.K. Rowling and could buy them a Porsche with the loose change in your wallet. Just being happy, doing what you love and creating all this stuff out of thin air and imagination, will remain as worthless a pursuit in their minds as it ever was. And they will never, ever change their opinion about that. Only fame and fortune of the most ridiculous proportions is likely to impress. Maybe. But don't put money on it. If you're hoping that having success as a writer will finally make your unsupportive friends and family see you in a whole new light and respect your creativity... you're pouring a lot of energy into one big black hole.

I promise I'm not telling you that to make you cry, or make you throw down your writing tools and give up on your writing (god no - never do that.) I'm telling you so that - I hope - you can feel okay about letting go of any need/desire to 'prove yourself.' Do what you do - for you, not for their approval. You don't need to prove a damn thing to anyone, and you certainly don't have to 'justify' your choice to be a writer or artist of any flavour.

If you want to push yourself, to stretch yourself to the very limits of your creativity or pour your whole life and soul into your craft, then go right ahead - and enjoy the ride. But don't make yourself miserable leaping through hoops of fire in a nylon tutu that doesn't fit properly, hoping to finally get a round of applause from an audience who aren't interested in the show anyway.

Forget about them - save your best shows for the people that 'get it.' Do what you want to do and do it your way - because when you love what you do, it shows. And that's what makes other people love it too.

Writers and Depression

...Writers and Depression, go together like a horse and carriage. Apparently. Even if they don't rhyme very well.

Agatha Christie had it. Charles Dickens had it. So did Mark Twain, Will Self, David Foster Wallace and Evelyn Waugh. Sylvia Plath quite obviously had it. And that's just a few random names, off the top of my head.

And, if we're 'outing' members of The Sad Writers' Club here, I may as well add my own name to this list (even if that does make me look like I'm doing the literary equivalent of photobombing the Actually Properly Famous Writers' portrait session.) All of which is pretty compelling evidence that this a Real Thing.

But... does that make it a Necessary Thing?

Like the popular myth that famously drunk writers like Hemingway could not have been the writers they were without also being drunk (something I touched on in this previous post ) there is another popular mode of thinking that, for famously depressed writers, their depression was the source of their creativity - like some magical misery fountain that poured brilliance on some of their greatest works. Some even go so far as to claim that, had these writers been happy little rays of sunshine instead, many of their best works simply could not have been created.

Now, the myth of the drunk writer is pretty easy to disprove (as anyone who's ever sent a 2am text after ten Flaming Sambuca's will tell you - writer or non-writer.)  There are certain practical obstacles to writing when you're utterly wazzered, i.e. trying to hit the right keys on your keyboard when your dribbling face is in the way, for starters.

But the theories about writers with depression? Much harder to dismiss. Because, unlike drunkenness, many writers with depression are not only still able to physically write as competently while depressed as when they're not, but some even become more productive than usual while the Black Cloud is raining on their heads. Which is handy for them - albeit in a way that's less than ideal, obviously - but where does that leave those of us who aren't yet famous but often have to do battle with depression and other mental health issues? It leaves us with a big question, that's what: 'Will recovering from those mental health issues (and subsequently spending more of our lives that bit happier) also kill our creativity stone dead and leave us unable to write anything decent?'

This fear can be so real it even prevents some writers from getting help for their condition; medication might 'block my creative thoughts,' numbing the mental pain might 'stop me feeling anything anymore.' If you do happen to be one of those people who seems to churn out a ton of stuff when you're in the depths of depression compared to when you're not, that fear will seem even more justified. But, speaking as a writer who's also battled some pretty major mental health issues in the past, I'd like to offer some alternative theories.

My reasons for doing so are simple; I know how rotten depression feels, and I hate to think of other writers out there shunning help and continuing to endure that godawful rottenness just because they're worried it's the only way to hold onto their creativity.

If I look at my own past, and the minor successes I've had, it's tempting to believe that being mentally messed up seems to work a strange magic on my own creative mojo. For instance, I wrote the lyrics for a musical that was performed in Washington, Virginia - and received very good reviews - while I was an outpatient in a psychiatric hospital, recovering from a nervous breakdown.

But then I wrote the lyrics to another one which was also performed - and equally well-received - about a year after I'd recovered from that. Apart from the states of mind I was in when I wrote each of them, the other main difference between the two musicals was the weight of the subject matter - the 'mood' if you like. The one written while I was recovering from the breakdown was a retelling of the Cinderella story; it was a light, frothy comedy fairy tale. The second one, written when I'd recovered, told the story of the Russian tsar Peter The Great - a much darker, grittier tale altogether.

When I also took into consideration some of the short stories and plays I'd written that had been published or performed, I noticed a distinct pattern emerging. In the periods when I'd had mental health problems, the works that had done well were all light, whimsical comedy stuff - while all the works that had done well whilst I was well were much more serious and hard-hitting. It's pretty logical when I think about it; writing dark, heavy stuff when feeling emotionally shitty wouldn't do me any favours at all - I'd need to be able to pull myself out of it afterwards, and I could only do that if I wasn't ill. On the other hand, when I'm in the doldrums of depression, it makes sense that I'd prefer to write things to make people laugh and cheer them up (me included.)

So may be that's a more encouraging answer to the conundrum; it's not how much writers who battle depression write, but rather what they write about depending on whether they're currently on the Light or the Dark Side.

If you too are one of those writers, it may be worth looking at your own work to see if there are patterns depending on your own moods - so that you can work with them and keep your writing flowing no matter how low (or high) you feel. It's got to be better than beating yourself up for being 'unproductive' or 'only productive when you're miserable.'

And if things are really bad, and you know in your heart that taking medication or having some kind of therapy would make your life more bearable - happier, even - then for god's sake go and get it. A writer's life is one of suffering, yes - just ripping those words out of your brain and smooshing them onto the page can be torture in itself sometimes - but that's not the whole of your life. And for the parts of your life that aren't to do with writing - i.e. the rest of it - you deserve to be happy. Yes you do.

You can't write if just simply living is hard for you. In fact, if you are emotionally dragging yourself along the floor on your face day after day right now then screw writing - screw it until you fix that shit.

Live first, write second. You deserve it, and so do all the people who care about you.

Wherefore Art My Writing Mojo?

Writing is flippin' hard sometimes.

Admittedly it's not 'hard' in the same way as, say, going to war or working in an A&E department is hard...

(I see you amazing people there... what's that you're holding? Oh - the world's smallest violin. Okay, well, that's fair enough...)

No - writing-flavoured 'hard' is a different kind of challenge altogether. Not least because, when it is hard, it has this magical ability to make you feel like you have suddenly become the most stupid person in the universe.

I started learning to talk from about... ooh, fourteen months old, according to my mum. I've been doing it ever since - maybe not as much as more extrovert people, but even when I was shrinking against the wall trying to be invisible I was still practicing in my head. I started learning to write at about five, when I first started school - and I've been doing that ever since as well. With both of these abilities under my belt, that's a lot of years of using words and stuff to get my point across.

So you'd think, after all that time, I'd have got the hang of it by now. And, for most of the time I believe I function quite ably. But, in those dark periods when Writing Gets Hard, it seems as if something freaky happens to my brain.

I know what I want to say. The movie scene playing in my head is very clear; I can see every detail of the action and hear every word of the dialogue. All I have to do is take what's unfolding in my brain and put it down on the page in front of me, right? Simples.

Except, for some reason, it isn't.

It takes me ten solid minutes of word-wrangling to convert one teeny-tiny aspect of the scene in my head into one sentence - and when it's done that sentence reads like someone whose native tongue is Chinese and they only just started learning English half an hour ago. When I read it back, even I think "What the heck does that mean?" I started writing 'The Renegades' because I thought I actually had the ability to do it - what the gubbins happened to my brain between believing that and now?

I can state with conviction that I didn't have this problem with Draft One. Draft One poured out of my brain in a crazy, uninhibited gush and I just spilled it all over the pages like a kid let loose with the nursery paints. That's because Draft One was my happy-fun-go-nuts-and-CREATE! time, when there were no limits and no 'wrong' way to do anything.

But now I'm about a third of the way through Draft Two - and  Draft Two is the time to put on the Serious Pants and say "Right - let's sort this shit out then." This is the stage where I'm supposed to be rebuilding the story foundations so they'll actually take the weight of the unfolding events, making sure all the pieces fit together and that it doesn't look so bloody awful it'll bring down story property prices for the whole neighbourhood. In Draft Two, it seems, there's a wrong way to do everything - and I seem to be pretty damn good at finding them all.

Everything I write looks messy and repulsive at the moment. I almost wish I could just pull out all the story-stuff dancing around in my brain and squish it onto the pages and say "There you are - ta-dah! Screw words and sentences and all that crap -  that's how it's supposed to look." But I suspect that would just look messy and repulsive in an entirely different way.

I have been assured by many writers that this is normal - indeed, some have even gone so far as to say that it's a necessary part of the Draft Two process. (Oh. Hooray then.) But it's not a fun part, no it surely isn't. Writing like a drunk idiot without the actual fun of first getting drunk and then behaving like an idiot is not good for the self-esteem, it has to be said.

But I made myself a promise with this book; I was going to FINISH IT. Come what may. Even if, at the end of all the hard work and effort, it turns out to be monumentally crap. And I intend to honour that promise. Because, even though I don't like how hard it is to get this thing written at the moment, I still like writing it. Crazy-ass writer-type that I am.

So I'm going to keep turning up, keep on truckin' through it and keep on working through the pain. Apparently (according to my writing friends) by doing that I can eventually come out the other side of this Tunnel Of Crapness and into the light of Yay, I Might Be A Writer After All-ness.

Until then, I may have to get emergency supplies of chocolate shipped in. Dig for Victory, and all that...

The Sound of (Multimedia) Silence

Aaah... TV. The internet. Newspapers and magazines. Books. Computer games. Where would we be without them all, eh?

Ever tried finding out for yourself?

There is a fabulous selection of books by Julia Cameron called 'The Artists' Way'; each one is basically a course-in-a-book that... well, I suppose the best way to describe them is to say they change your attitude to exploring your creativity. (If you're someone who dreams of getting into a creative field but has guilt/confidence issues about investing your heart and soul into it, you need to read at least one of these books. You will be forever glad you did.*)

Anyway, one of the exercises given to you as part of that course is to take what amounts to an 'information vacation.' For one week, you must abstain from: watching TV, surfing the web, listening to the radio and reading. Yep, that's one whole week - the whole seven days, baby.

The reasoning behind it is that all these forms of multimedia fill up your creative brain passively, with stuff you didn't necessarily ask for - like junk mail or spam in your Inbox. After a while your brain gets so used to being bombarded in this way it gets lazy and stops thinking up ideas for itself - and that's when your creativity gets stale and unoriginal. So what you need is a purge - a Media Detox Diet, to give your creative brain some quiet time to fill itself up with its own, new thoughts and ideas.

I first attempted this exercise several years ago, with a group of online writer friends. And I think we were all perturbed and sceptical in equal measure. A group of writers, not being allowed to read? How was that even humanly possible? And if anything, I think we were all fully expecting to be less inspired at the end of the seven-day period, not more - after all, without our daily diet of news and entertainment, where would all those creative sparks come from? Thin air?

The next step of course was clarifying The Rules. Being creative types, there were a lot of things we thought of that "maybe didn't really come under the remit of 'media' as such..?" *hopeful face.* So here's what we came up with regarding what was banned and what wasn't:

# TV - No dice; non-negotiable. That big flashing box stays OFF, 24/7, for the whole seven days. (And yes, DVDs and videos do count as 'TV!')

# RADIO - As for TV. It is, after all, basically TV without pictures.

# MUSIC - Anything instrumental is fine. Anything with lyrics - sorry, banned.

# COMPUTER - Internet is banned completely - and yes, that does include FaceBook, Twitter, Tumblr et al. You can write a blog entry, but you can't read any - same goes for emails. Computer games: puzzle games like Tetris and Jewel Quest - yes, okay then, but no cheating and reading the game rules/credits/options menu! Any games with characters/quests/storylines/dialogue - no way. Banned.

# READING MATERIAL - All books, magazines and newspapers are banned. And yes, so is anything on Kindle or other eBook gizmos (we didn't have them then, but they would have been nixed if we had.) Recipe instructions ('cos you've suddenly, inexplicably, taken a massive interest in cooking...) - you big cheater! No!  You can read the backs of packets if you desperately need to be sure you're reconstituting those instant noodles just right - but save your Great British Bake-Off ambitions until the end of the seven days.

Oh okay then... you can read road and street signs - but for safety and navigational purposes only, y'hear?

# SUPPLEMENTARY RULE - Regarding engaging in conversations with friends, family and colleagues about any of the above (i.e. "Soooooo..... anyone catch what happened on Downton Abbey last night then? 'Cos I missed it...") Obviously it would be next to impossible to prevent other people discussing all the things you're currently banned from indulging in - but if you are encouraging them this WILL be considered cheating.

How harsh all of the above sounds depends very much on your own lifestyle. For me, the TV part was pretty easy; I don't watch much telly anyway, and I've never really been one of those people whose entire week is ruined if they miss an episode of a programme they like. Same with radio - and even the music ban wasn't hard while I could still listen to instrumental stuff. Computer games - little bit harder, since I'm partial to the odd RPG or two, but doable. The biggest killer BY FAR was the reading part; swearing off magazines, newspapers and books for seven days was cold turkey of the highest order. And although the internet ban wasn't tough for me back then, I reckon if I did the exercise again it definitely would be now.

But I guess the million-dollar question is... how did it go?

Well, the first day was fine - "yeah, no probs, I can do this..." Day Three and I was beginning to wonder if reading the nutritional information on tins of beans really counted as cheating, because - oh! that stuff was fascinating..! By the time I got to Day Five I had rediscovered several crafting hobbies and was stringing beads and weaving scoubidous with a slightly manic expression on my face. And trust me, I was starting to effin' hate Jewel Quest.

But by the time I completed Day Seven I was actually sad the exercise was over. The multimedia vacation truly had felt like... a vacation. I realised just how much time there really was in the average day - without multimedia, there's loads more of it. I really did have the time to write a novel if I wanted to; it had always been there, I'd just never known how to look for it before. And, far from my Information Detox Diet leaving me with a head full of nothing, my brain was practically bursting with new ideas and scenarios. It had filled the void, all on its own. My friends all reported similar results, and many of us resolved to repeat the exercise again in future, whenever we felt blocked or stale as writers.

So... if you're worried you've become a slave to multimedia I'd say give this a go. Alternatively, if you're pretty sure you're not a slave to multimedia I'd say give this a go, because - ooh boy - you might just get a surprise. You'll find out just how big your life - and your creativity - can be. At the very least, you'll discover you have much more 'spare time' than you ever imagined.

If you feel like picking up the gauntlet, let me know how you get on...

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*Embarking on an Artist's Way course is a totally worth-it exercise in improving your writing - or indeed any other creative endeavour - provided you are able (and willing) to make the time for it. If you're living a completely manic life where you don't even have time to drive over the flowers on your way to Somewhere Important, never mind stop and smell them, attempting the steps of this course will just make you depressed and frustrated with that life. (This may be a great thing if you were secretly looking for a reason to ditch your max-stressful routine for something more spiritual - not so great if it's the only way to get your bills paid.)