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...
Showing posts with label genre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label genre. Show all posts
Friday, 4 October 2013
Thursday, 23 May 2013
Fifty Shades of Fifty Shades (Or The E.L. James Effect)
Has there been a book in modern times that's caused quite the furore of the Fifty Shades trilogy?
It caused controversy for obvious reasons - mostly for being full of the sort of sexual shenanigans that would make Samantha Whatserface from Sex & The City come over all Sandra Dee. On the one hand, it gave legions of frustrated suburban women all over the world a kick in the mojo so powerful that their husbands and boyfriends wore either permanent grins or expressions of cross-eyed terror. On the other, it was denounced by many women's' groups (and even BDSM groups) as being degrading and reinforcing dangerous sexist stereotypes.
But the phenomenon of particular interest to writerly types like me was that it divided the world into two distinct camps regarding the quality of the prose. I'm paraphrasing here of course, but the general gist was that it was either a) spectacularly horny in a way no other book could ever make the reader horny, or b) atrociously written, woefully unrealistic and read like the work of a Emo Teen With Issues.
Now let me make my position clear here. I have no beef whatsoever with Ms. E.L. James; regardless of how much of any of the above is true or not, the plain fact is she gave a gazillion trillion people exactly what they wanted from a novel. She got something very, very right, and that's one, solid-gold fact you can't argue with.
What DID wind me up, however, was the angle the media chose to take with the story behind the books - and in particular the way Ms. James and her meteoric success was portrayed. She was touted as the 'shy housewife and mum,' who'd written what was essentially a piece of fanfiction that 'borrowed' heavily from Stephanie Meyer's Twilight novels. It was the very first novel she'd ever written in her life, so - being such a 'shy and prudish housewife' who just happened to have a taste for writing porn - she thought "Hey, what the heck, I'll self-publish it." And then - boom! Instant fame and fortune.
Except of course it's not entirely true, is it? When you picture a 'shy housewife and mum' do you picture someone in an executive position in a television production company? Nope, me neither. But that's what E.L. James was before she stormed into a novelist career. Obviously she would still have been a housewife and mum at the same time - so technically the media weren't lying there. The 'shy' part is pretty much open to interpretation as well. Does someone who's worked their way up to an executive position in a television company and then gone about self-publishing their debut novel - which is, incidentally, all about a BDSM relationship - strike you as the 'shy and prudish' type? Perhaps she said she didn't like dancing in nightclubs in some interview somewhere; that's one kind of 'shy' - albeit not that relevant to the image the media shoved down our throats..
It's all about dressing up the fairytale though, isn't it? Changing the slant on the mundane facts just a teeny bit makes the whole story a little more heart-warming; after all, the public are suckers for a good old-fashioned rags-to-riches story.
All well and good; I like a bit of the old Horatio Alger-ism as much as the next person. But turning someone who is clearly a very astute and business-savvy woman into some sort of literary Cinderella bothers me. I mean, what message does that send out? That writing a novel is easy-peasy, something that anyone who's ever loved a sci-fi or fantasy series can knock out on a fanfiction website and become the biggest-selling author on the planet. All you have to do is take something that's already been done, tweak it here and there, change the names and - voila! Jump on that bandwagon and count the money, baby!
The proof that this message was heard can be seen in any bookstore in the western world. Entire bookshelves are now needed to stock what could quite justifiably be called 'the Fifty Shades Rip-Off' genre. Some pay only the 'subtlest' of homages to the novel that spawned them (Sylvia Day's 'Bared To You' - which proudly screams "If you liked Fifty Shades of Grey' you'll love this!" on the front cover) while others were far less... um, 'covert.' (Seriously - 'Fifty Shades of Green?' That's not even trying!)
All of which just reinforces the idea that becoming a successful novelist is a simple as picking a winning formula and then banging out your own, slightly-adulterated version of it - crank 'em out like strings of sausages from that money-making sausage template. Sure, the chances are pretty high that most of the imitations are cataclysmically rubbish. But they're still sitting on the shelves in bookshops; some publishing company somewhere believed in them enough to take on the people that penned them. Rather than, say, novelists who've been writing for years and honed their skills accordingly... but, unfortunately for them, in genres that aren't the current flavour-of-the-moment...
No, this isn't a sour-grapes rant. It can't be; for starters, Whilst I've had some minor successes in other writing fields, The Renegades is the first novel I've ever got to Completed Draft One stage, so I can't even legitimately call myself a novelist yet. It's just worry, that's all. This is a virus that originated from outside the world of writing, but is now threatening to cross-breed and infect us too.
You've only got to look at programmes like Britain's Got Talent, when some excruciatingly un-talented individual does something godawful in an attempt to 'entertain' and looks utterly shocked and outraged when they're told they're terrible. And then marches offstage, snorting that the judges are idiots and they'll prove them wrong in the end, when they finally get the recognition they deserve and become the superstar they're just born to be..! And they believe it - they believe every word of their own hype. Why? Because they saw Susan Boyle do it. And Paul Potts do it. They saw them step onto that stage, with their bad hairdos and wonky teeth, and blow the world away, in the space of a three-minute audition. Because that's all it took - three minutes...
Except it didn't, of course. Both Paul Potts and Susan Boyle sung for years before their auditions. But telly doesn't show that part - only the three minutes that launched them to superstardom. And now, with this insistence of the media of applying the same, rose-tinted wash to the likes of E.L. James, there's a danger of the same thing happening in the writing world. The quality of published works will suffer for it (while the vanity publishers will make a killing.) Writers with genuine talent but without the abundance of self-confidence required to 'self-publish and be damned' may become disheartened and simply give up on the idea of ever being published altogether.
Veterans of the Performing Arts may laugh bitterly and say 'that's life, kiddo - welcome to the real world.' And I suppose no-one knows that better than them. But that doesn't make it any less sad to me.
If I never get anywhere with my novel-writing, I'd rather it was because I'm simply not quite good enough to make it, or the things I need to write about aren't interesting to anyone but me. Not because I just can't bring myself to sell my soul and crank out touch-up-and-tweak copies of whatever's selling at the time.
It caused controversy for obvious reasons - mostly for being full of the sort of sexual shenanigans that would make Samantha Whatserface from Sex & The City come over all Sandra Dee. On the one hand, it gave legions of frustrated suburban women all over the world a kick in the mojo so powerful that their husbands and boyfriends wore either permanent grins or expressions of cross-eyed terror. On the other, it was denounced by many women's' groups (and even BDSM groups) as being degrading and reinforcing dangerous sexist stereotypes.
But the phenomenon of particular interest to writerly types like me was that it divided the world into two distinct camps regarding the quality of the prose. I'm paraphrasing here of course, but the general gist was that it was either a) spectacularly horny in a way no other book could ever make the reader horny, or b) atrociously written, woefully unrealistic and read like the work of a Emo Teen With Issues.
Now let me make my position clear here. I have no beef whatsoever with Ms. E.L. James; regardless of how much of any of the above is true or not, the plain fact is she gave a gazillion trillion people exactly what they wanted from a novel. She got something very, very right, and that's one, solid-gold fact you can't argue with.
What DID wind me up, however, was the angle the media chose to take with the story behind the books - and in particular the way Ms. James and her meteoric success was portrayed. She was touted as the 'shy housewife and mum,' who'd written what was essentially a piece of fanfiction that 'borrowed' heavily from Stephanie Meyer's Twilight novels. It was the very first novel she'd ever written in her life, so - being such a 'shy and prudish housewife' who just happened to have a taste for writing porn - she thought "Hey, what the heck, I'll self-publish it." And then - boom! Instant fame and fortune.
Except of course it's not entirely true, is it? When you picture a 'shy housewife and mum' do you picture someone in an executive position in a television production company? Nope, me neither. But that's what E.L. James was before she stormed into a novelist career. Obviously she would still have been a housewife and mum at the same time - so technically the media weren't lying there. The 'shy' part is pretty much open to interpretation as well. Does someone who's worked their way up to an executive position in a television company and then gone about self-publishing their debut novel - which is, incidentally, all about a BDSM relationship - strike you as the 'shy and prudish' type? Perhaps she said she didn't like dancing in nightclubs in some interview somewhere; that's one kind of 'shy' - albeit not that relevant to the image the media shoved down our throats..
It's all about dressing up the fairytale though, isn't it? Changing the slant on the mundane facts just a teeny bit makes the whole story a little more heart-warming; after all, the public are suckers for a good old-fashioned rags-to-riches story.
All well and good; I like a bit of the old Horatio Alger-ism as much as the next person. But turning someone who is clearly a very astute and business-savvy woman into some sort of literary Cinderella bothers me. I mean, what message does that send out? That writing a novel is easy-peasy, something that anyone who's ever loved a sci-fi or fantasy series can knock out on a fanfiction website and become the biggest-selling author on the planet. All you have to do is take something that's already been done, tweak it here and there, change the names and - voila! Jump on that bandwagon and count the money, baby!
The proof that this message was heard can be seen in any bookstore in the western world. Entire bookshelves are now needed to stock what could quite justifiably be called 'the Fifty Shades Rip-Off' genre. Some pay only the 'subtlest' of homages to the novel that spawned them (Sylvia Day's 'Bared To You' - which proudly screams "If you liked Fifty Shades of Grey' you'll love this!" on the front cover) while others were far less... um, 'covert.' (Seriously - 'Fifty Shades of Green?' That's not even trying!)
All of which just reinforces the idea that becoming a successful novelist is a simple as picking a winning formula and then banging out your own, slightly-adulterated version of it - crank 'em out like strings of sausages from that money-making sausage template. Sure, the chances are pretty high that most of the imitations are cataclysmically rubbish. But they're still sitting on the shelves in bookshops; some publishing company somewhere believed in them enough to take on the people that penned them. Rather than, say, novelists who've been writing for years and honed their skills accordingly... but, unfortunately for them, in genres that aren't the current flavour-of-the-moment...
No, this isn't a sour-grapes rant. It can't be; for starters, Whilst I've had some minor successes in other writing fields, The Renegades is the first novel I've ever got to Completed Draft One stage, so I can't even legitimately call myself a novelist yet. It's just worry, that's all. This is a virus that originated from outside the world of writing, but is now threatening to cross-breed and infect us too.
You've only got to look at programmes like Britain's Got Talent, when some excruciatingly un-talented individual does something godawful in an attempt to 'entertain' and looks utterly shocked and outraged when they're told they're terrible. And then marches offstage, snorting that the judges are idiots and they'll prove them wrong in the end, when they finally get the recognition they deserve and become the superstar they're just born to be..! And they believe it - they believe every word of their own hype. Why? Because they saw Susan Boyle do it. And Paul Potts do it. They saw them step onto that stage, with their bad hairdos and wonky teeth, and blow the world away, in the space of a three-minute audition. Because that's all it took - three minutes...
Except it didn't, of course. Both Paul Potts and Susan Boyle sung for years before their auditions. But telly doesn't show that part - only the three minutes that launched them to superstardom. And now, with this insistence of the media of applying the same, rose-tinted wash to the likes of E.L. James, there's a danger of the same thing happening in the writing world. The quality of published works will suffer for it (while the vanity publishers will make a killing.) Writers with genuine talent but without the abundance of self-confidence required to 'self-publish and be damned' may become disheartened and simply give up on the idea of ever being published altogether.
Veterans of the Performing Arts may laugh bitterly and say 'that's life, kiddo - welcome to the real world.' And I suppose no-one knows that better than them. But that doesn't make it any less sad to me.
If I never get anywhere with my novel-writing, I'd rather it was because I'm simply not quite good enough to make it, or the things I need to write about aren't interesting to anyone but me. Not because I just can't bring myself to sell my soul and crank out touch-up-and-tweak copies of whatever's selling at the time.
Thursday, 7 March 2013
Pantsers: Dancers Not Sprinters
Oh lordy lordy lordy. Completing Draft 2 of 'The Renegades' is going to take a LOT longer than my laughably optimistic Schedule is still telling me it will.
It's said there are two types of writers; the Plotters and the Pantsers. If writing this novel has taught me anything, it's that I am pure, crack-cocaine-strength Pantser.
Outline? Pffffttt! What's one of them? I've got a Beginning, a Middle and an End, what more do I need? My brain's filled up to the top with fuel, so I'll just pootle me little old way to each destination in me own sweet time. I might take a few wrong turnings - okay, a lot of wrong turnings - and it might take me a little longer to get to each checkpoint - okay, a flippin' eternity to get to each checkpoint - but hey! I'll be learning all the way! And I won't ever get downhearted, or doubt myself, or even get bored and frustrated that the whole thing's gonna take twice as long as I thought it would. Hell no - ha ha, how could anyone even think such a thing?
What a Grade One prat.
I'm on Chapter Four of Draft 2 now. Yep, Chapter Four. After nearly four months. That means I've done precisely one chapter a month of what I'd always imagined would be mere editing of existing writing.
Except of course I imagined wrong. This is because, even though I'm still telling the same story, the way I'm telling it has changed dramatically. The bare bones, skeleton-frame of the novel has barely changed at all; the themes, story arcs, character goals and motivations are still as they were in Draft 1. But the perspective has altered radically. Reading Draft 1 back, it seemed as if I were hovering above the action like some sort of all-seeing, all-hearing fly on the wall. For Draft 2, I've realised I have to get down to ground level - get right inside the heads of my two POV characters and experience everything through them. Which means there's lots of new stuff that isn't in there yet and badly needs to be - and lots of stuff that can't stay because it no longer belongs in my new, on-the-frontline view of events. This is beyond even rewriting - this is coming up with brand new events and discarding existing ones... in order to tell the story I've been intending to tell all along. Now I've reached the outlining stage; when I've finally realised what the flippin' heck I'm actually doing with this story. That's the way your cookie crumbles when you're a Pantser, I suppose.
How many of you Plotters are reading this now with that strange, warm glow of smugness-disguised-as-sympathy, nodding and saying "Ah yes, well - that's why it's always best to outline first, you see... I know it might seem tedious, but it saves sooo much time in the long run..."? Well, enjoy that warm, fuzzy feeling, guys. No seriously - pat yourselves on the back, have another cake, whatever. I could wish that I was as organised, as methodical and as forward-thinking as you are, and endeavour to adopt your mindset and outline to within an inch of my life before even typing the words 'Chapter One' - from now on and forever into the future...
Except that my little old brain simply doesn't work like that. Can't work like that. No, I'm not being stubborn, it's Mother Nature, goddammit. And so, rather than beat myself up for not having the kind of Writer's Brain that can predict imaginary futures with the precision of an Excel spreadsheet, I am instead going to accept my Pantser Brain for the undisciplined problem child that it is and try to love it like a proper parent.
I may probably never become one of those authors who can churn out two or three books a year, happily working on my outline for the next book whilst doing a final edit of the current one. Does that make my methods wrong? I don't know. All I do know is that they are the ones that work for me. I may take longer to reach the finish line - but hopefully the end product will be worth the wait.
And now - time to hoik up those pants and carry on with the writing...
It's said there are two types of writers; the Plotters and the Pantsers. If writing this novel has taught me anything, it's that I am pure, crack-cocaine-strength Pantser.
Outline? Pffffttt! What's one of them? I've got a Beginning, a Middle and an End, what more do I need? My brain's filled up to the top with fuel, so I'll just pootle me little old way to each destination in me own sweet time. I might take a few wrong turnings - okay, a lot of wrong turnings - and it might take me a little longer to get to each checkpoint - okay, a flippin' eternity to get to each checkpoint - but hey! I'll be learning all the way! And I won't ever get downhearted, or doubt myself, or even get bored and frustrated that the whole thing's gonna take twice as long as I thought it would. Hell no - ha ha, how could anyone even think such a thing?
What a Grade One prat.
I'm on Chapter Four of Draft 2 now. Yep, Chapter Four. After nearly four months. That means I've done precisely one chapter a month of what I'd always imagined would be mere editing of existing writing.
Except of course I imagined wrong. This is because, even though I'm still telling the same story, the way I'm telling it has changed dramatically. The bare bones, skeleton-frame of the novel has barely changed at all; the themes, story arcs, character goals and motivations are still as they were in Draft 1. But the perspective has altered radically. Reading Draft 1 back, it seemed as if I were hovering above the action like some sort of all-seeing, all-hearing fly on the wall. For Draft 2, I've realised I have to get down to ground level - get right inside the heads of my two POV characters and experience everything through them. Which means there's lots of new stuff that isn't in there yet and badly needs to be - and lots of stuff that can't stay because it no longer belongs in my new, on-the-frontline view of events. This is beyond even rewriting - this is coming up with brand new events and discarding existing ones... in order to tell the story I've been intending to tell all along. Now I've reached the outlining stage; when I've finally realised what the flippin' heck I'm actually doing with this story. That's the way your cookie crumbles when you're a Pantser, I suppose.
How many of you Plotters are reading this now with that strange, warm glow of smugness-disguised-as-sympathy, nodding and saying "Ah yes, well - that's why it's always best to outline first, you see... I know it might seem tedious, but it saves sooo much time in the long run..."? Well, enjoy that warm, fuzzy feeling, guys. No seriously - pat yourselves on the back, have another cake, whatever. I could wish that I was as organised, as methodical and as forward-thinking as you are, and endeavour to adopt your mindset and outline to within an inch of my life before even typing the words 'Chapter One' - from now on and forever into the future...
Except that my little old brain simply doesn't work like that. Can't work like that. No, I'm not being stubborn, it's Mother Nature, goddammit. And so, rather than beat myself up for not having the kind of Writer's Brain that can predict imaginary futures with the precision of an Excel spreadsheet, I am instead going to accept my Pantser Brain for the undisciplined problem child that it is and try to love it like a proper parent.
I may probably never become one of those authors who can churn out two or three books a year, happily working on my outline for the next book whilst doing a final edit of the current one. Does that make my methods wrong? I don't know. All I do know is that they are the ones that work for me. I may take longer to reach the finish line - but hopefully the end product will be worth the wait.
And now - time to hoik up those pants and carry on with the writing...
Tuesday, 1 January 2013
Even In A Pretend World, You Need A Map
I've been having a bit of trouble finding my way around lately.
My sense of direction is pretty rubbish at the best of times, but nothing brings out my navigational doofus tendencies like trying to get to various places in a building I've never actually, physically been inside. Partly because said building is located three thousand miles away, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. And partly because it only exists in my head.
You guessed it - I'm talking about a location in my Renegades novel. A large underground base hidden in the side of a quarry, to be precise.
In its real-life geographical location in New York state where the novel is set it doesn't actually exist, but some specific infrastructure is really there so that, at some point in the future, it plausibly could. (Yep, I did the research for it - God bless the internet!) So even though I've placed it in a real-world environment, the base itself is pure fantasy - mine to carve out of that hillside however I like.
So if it's just a pretend place, I don't need to know exactly where everything in it is in relation to everything else, do I? I mean, it's my secret base; I invented it, so I can tell the readers whatever I want about it, right?
Well... it turns out that no, I can't. Or, to put it more accurately, I can't tell them whatever I want about it whenever it suits me. If I say there's a gymnasium just down from the dining area in Chapter One, then that's where it always has to be - forever, for the entire life of the story. And I can't just blithely assume that, should I make a geographical slip-up at some point, 'no-one will notice a little detail like that.' Because that's like assuming everyone else possesses navigational skills as dire as mine (and that's a hell of a lot of people I'd be insulting.)
To put it bluntly, fans of science fiction novels are smart cookies who aren't easy to fool; some of these people have actually taught themselves to speak Klingon, for crying out loud. They're gonna pick up on every little detail - even those that seem trivial and insignificant to those of us with smaller brain capacity - and if it's wrong, it will jerk them out of the story and that's a bad thing.
I have a fairly flexible imagination, which enables me to create these places in the first place; unfortunately flexible imaginations tend to come with an equally flexible memory. This results in a brain that enjoys creating things on the fly so much, it rarely mentally files anything away so that it'll be the same every time. But, for the purpose of building a believable story, my world has to be the same every time; it can't change from scene to scene. The only way to ensure constancy then is to set it in stone from the start; design and plan it, the same way an architect designs and plans a real-life building.
So, after several hours of: searching through the text of the entire novel for all mentions of the various rooms in my base, cutting out, fiddling with and glueing bits of squared paper, and then faffing about trying to make Microsoft Excel work like a floor-plan-drawing tool (I'm pleased to report that it can, and the results look surprisingly good) I have now made myself a thoroughly detailed map of my fantasy underground location. I could even tell you where the toilets are - if you really wanted to know.
Boring? Yeah, sometimes. Headache-inducing? Oh, heck yeah! But unnecessarily nit-picky? Not on your life. Because now, not only will the map ensure my characters will always be able to take the right route to reach the places they want to get to - but I can make my descriptions of them more interesting. More real, because now I'm properly 'with' them, following them around like a little spy. I'll know, for example, that they can smell disinfectant as they're walking down a particular corridor, because my map tells me they're passing the medical room. And when you're mentally walking through the same environment as your characters, it makes it so much easier to get inside their heads and know what they're feeling and thinking.
Tolkien famously drew detailed maps of Middle-Earth and wrote vast, sprawling back-histories for all the races inhabiting his mythical lands. J.K Rowling did a lot of the same for her Harry Potter series. I can see now that their reasons for doing so went much deeper than mere nerdish pleasure in creating little extra nuggets of trivia for their fantasy worlds. I guess if I'm going to learn a valuable lesson from anyone, it might as well be from two of the greatest storytellers of them all.
Happy New Year, everybody! Let's make this the year that we Get Stuff Done!
My sense of direction is pretty rubbish at the best of times, but nothing brings out my navigational doofus tendencies like trying to get to various places in a building I've never actually, physically been inside. Partly because said building is located three thousand miles away, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. And partly because it only exists in my head.
You guessed it - I'm talking about a location in my Renegades novel. A large underground base hidden in the side of a quarry, to be precise.
In its real-life geographical location in New York state where the novel is set it doesn't actually exist, but some specific infrastructure is really there so that, at some point in the future, it plausibly could. (Yep, I did the research for it - God bless the internet!) So even though I've placed it in a real-world environment, the base itself is pure fantasy - mine to carve out of that hillside however I like.
So if it's just a pretend place, I don't need to know exactly where everything in it is in relation to everything else, do I? I mean, it's my secret base; I invented it, so I can tell the readers whatever I want about it, right?
Well... it turns out that no, I can't. Or, to put it more accurately, I can't tell them whatever I want about it whenever it suits me. If I say there's a gymnasium just down from the dining area in Chapter One, then that's where it always has to be - forever, for the entire life of the story. And I can't just blithely assume that, should I make a geographical slip-up at some point, 'no-one will notice a little detail like that.' Because that's like assuming everyone else possesses navigational skills as dire as mine (and that's a hell of a lot of people I'd be insulting.)
To put it bluntly, fans of science fiction novels are smart cookies who aren't easy to fool; some of these people have actually taught themselves to speak Klingon, for crying out loud. They're gonna pick up on every little detail - even those that seem trivial and insignificant to those of us with smaller brain capacity - and if it's wrong, it will jerk them out of the story and that's a bad thing.
I have a fairly flexible imagination, which enables me to create these places in the first place; unfortunately flexible imaginations tend to come with an equally flexible memory. This results in a brain that enjoys creating things on the fly so much, it rarely mentally files anything away so that it'll be the same every time. But, for the purpose of building a believable story, my world has to be the same every time; it can't change from scene to scene. The only way to ensure constancy then is to set it in stone from the start; design and plan it, the same way an architect designs and plans a real-life building.
So, after several hours of: searching through the text of the entire novel for all mentions of the various rooms in my base, cutting out, fiddling with and glueing bits of squared paper, and then faffing about trying to make Microsoft Excel work like a floor-plan-drawing tool (I'm pleased to report that it can, and the results look surprisingly good) I have now made myself a thoroughly detailed map of my fantasy underground location. I could even tell you where the toilets are - if you really wanted to know.
Boring? Yeah, sometimes. Headache-inducing? Oh, heck yeah! But unnecessarily nit-picky? Not on your life. Because now, not only will the map ensure my characters will always be able to take the right route to reach the places they want to get to - but I can make my descriptions of them more interesting. More real, because now I'm properly 'with' them, following them around like a little spy. I'll know, for example, that they can smell disinfectant as they're walking down a particular corridor, because my map tells me they're passing the medical room. And when you're mentally walking through the same environment as your characters, it makes it so much easier to get inside their heads and know what they're feeling and thinking.
Tolkien famously drew detailed maps of Middle-Earth and wrote vast, sprawling back-histories for all the races inhabiting his mythical lands. J.K Rowling did a lot of the same for her Harry Potter series. I can see now that their reasons for doing so went much deeper than mere nerdish pleasure in creating little extra nuggets of trivia for their fantasy worlds. I guess if I'm going to learn a valuable lesson from anyone, it might as well be from two of the greatest storytellers of them all.
Happy New Year, everybody! Let's make this the year that we Get Stuff Done!
Friday, 28 December 2012
Pesky Life... You're Getting In The Way Of My Fantasy World!
Soooo... how long is it since I last blogged?
No, don't go and actually look, please, I'll just be embarrassed... Yes, that question was hypothetical. I know it's been a while, and there are many reasons for this.
Reason number one is discovering that, for Draft Two of The Renegades, I have to actually write a whole new chapter that fills in a lot of stuff currently missing from Draft One. Which means even when I've finished Draft Two, that chapter will still be a Draft One and suck more than the rest of the book, so I'll have to go back and do the whole stew-and-review process again for just that chapter. Assuming I don't find other moments in the story where I have to add in extra chapters of course... and they in turn don't mess up some structure/facts in any of the other Draft Two chapters...
And there I was thinking pregnancy and childbirth was a long and complicated process (although it has to be said my novel-writing process also seems to involve sitting down a lot and eating weird stuff.)
All of which is a rather weedy way of saying that it aint been flowing easily. Writer's Block? Well, I'm not sure if I should succumb to that kind of thinking (see here for my thoughts on that) so in order to not do precisely that I've been doing other kinds of writing instead, to stop my brain getting flabby and bored. But not a lot of Renegades writing, it has to be said. And because this blog is mainly about the progress made with Renegades, not a lot of blogging here either. (I am doing my ashamed face right now actually.)
Reason number two is a bit more universal; it's that thing called 'life.' That blimmin' thing that gets in the way of so many creative endeavours, because most of the time it just isn't as interesting. (Unless of course you are a fabulously wealthy and maybe even a bit famous person, in which case you could probably buy yourself things that would take the edge off the humdrum. But I'm not, so in my case that doesn't apply.) Christmas, for one thing. I realise I'm massively generalising here, but when you are a man, Christmas generally doesn't appear on your mental radar until... oooh, I don't know - maybe December? It certainly doesn't warrant much practical attention until you realise you've heard Wizzard's 'I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day' at least five times in various public places in the last two hours or so. But for the average woman - most especially one with kids - Christmas starts way earlier than that. Planning for it is on a par with organising a war. Presents, food, who's going to who's house on which day, costumes for the school play.... it's okay, I won't go on, because I can hear you all yawning from here. But it eats chunks out of potential writing time, there's no getting away from it.
So there you have it; two potential excuses to choose from for my recent tardiness on Renegade writing. But that's in the past now, I'm glad to say. I'm turning the corner, crossing that bridge now I've come to it (and hopefully not burning it as well) and The Renegades is BACK ON. Hurrah!
So I suppose I'd better get back to it then. As Dory from 'Finding Nemo' says - "Just keep swim-ming, swim-ming, swim-ming..."
No, don't go and actually look, please, I'll just be embarrassed... Yes, that question was hypothetical. I know it's been a while, and there are many reasons for this.
Reason number one is discovering that, for Draft Two of The Renegades, I have to actually write a whole new chapter that fills in a lot of stuff currently missing from Draft One. Which means even when I've finished Draft Two, that chapter will still be a Draft One and suck more than the rest of the book, so I'll have to go back and do the whole stew-and-review process again for just that chapter. Assuming I don't find other moments in the story where I have to add in extra chapters of course... and they in turn don't mess up some structure/facts in any of the other Draft Two chapters...
And there I was thinking pregnancy and childbirth was a long and complicated process (although it has to be said my novel-writing process also seems to involve sitting down a lot and eating weird stuff.)
All of which is a rather weedy way of saying that it aint been flowing easily. Writer's Block? Well, I'm not sure if I should succumb to that kind of thinking (see here for my thoughts on that) so in order to not do precisely that I've been doing other kinds of writing instead, to stop my brain getting flabby and bored. But not a lot of Renegades writing, it has to be said. And because this blog is mainly about the progress made with Renegades, not a lot of blogging here either. (I am doing my ashamed face right now actually.)
Reason number two is a bit more universal; it's that thing called 'life.' That blimmin' thing that gets in the way of so many creative endeavours, because most of the time it just isn't as interesting. (Unless of course you are a fabulously wealthy and maybe even a bit famous person, in which case you could probably buy yourself things that would take the edge off the humdrum. But I'm not, so in my case that doesn't apply.) Christmas, for one thing. I realise I'm massively generalising here, but when you are a man, Christmas generally doesn't appear on your mental radar until... oooh, I don't know - maybe December? It certainly doesn't warrant much practical attention until you realise you've heard Wizzard's 'I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day' at least five times in various public places in the last two hours or so. But for the average woman - most especially one with kids - Christmas starts way earlier than that. Planning for it is on a par with organising a war. Presents, food, who's going to who's house on which day, costumes for the school play.... it's okay, I won't go on, because I can hear you all yawning from here. But it eats chunks out of potential writing time, there's no getting away from it.
So there you have it; two potential excuses to choose from for my recent tardiness on Renegade writing. But that's in the past now, I'm glad to say. I'm turning the corner, crossing that bridge now I've come to it (and hopefully not burning it as well) and The Renegades is BACK ON. Hurrah!
So I suppose I'd better get back to it then. As Dory from 'Finding Nemo' says - "Just keep swim-ming, swim-ming, swim-ming..."
Saturday, 20 October 2012
Draft Two - Time To Get Real...
Well, my Date With Draft One of my novel The Renegades hit last Saturday, and I've spent the last seven days reading over it in preparation for the Draft Two process. And I have discovered two things:
1 - I'm not as bad a writer as I thought I was!
2 - I'm also not as good a writer as I thought I was.
It's a strange thing, to reach both conclusions at the same time, but then this isn't maths we're dealing with here, where every question only has one right answer (which probably also explains why I'm hopeless at maths. I'm a rubbish conformist.)
I suppose the best way to explain it is to say that the bits of Draft One that were good were... well, actually good, like a real, proper writer wrote them. While the bits that were bad... well, apart from the fact that I found myself guilty of some of the very things I'd been picking at in the writing of other authors, I also found myself at one point thinking "Jeez, this is note 163 - and I haven't even got three-quarters through the book yet!" (And my numbered notes are just the ones detailing changes too big to write as a one-liner on the manuscript... )
So I've learned something new from this exercise - something that, had I been taught it in a writing class or told it by an experienced author, I probably wouldn't have believed it. It's something I've had to learn the hard way - by actually going through the process for real.
Before now, I always thought Draft One was where I'd be doing the bulk of the donkey work. That the long, hard slog of actually getting the story down, from beginning to end, for the very first time, would be the most time-consuming part of the whole project. Everything after that would just be tweaking and polishing all the stuff I've already got down - editing what already exists. That won't take nearly as long to do - it'll be much quicker and easier than Draft One was. Wouldn't it?
I can see now how wrong that idea is. The real, sleeves-up graft is only just beginning.
Draft Two is not just a matter of dusting off Draft One and making it better; it's about upping the game considerably. It's about putting in all the parts of the story that are still missing (and my god, there's a lot more of that than I thought there'd be.) It's about finding and correcting every single plot, character and world mistake (and it pains me to confess there are a lot more of those than I thought there'd be too.) But most of all, it's about making every single part of the whole book better - even the bits that are already pretty good. It's not just an editing exercise - almost every chapter will have to be pretty much completely rewritten.
And that's what I've learned; Draft One is not, as I'd previously thought, the block of marble from which you carve and polish your literary David - it is merely the wireframe on which the whole thing is built. That means it won't look like anything much until I start slapping the clay on top - and that, clearly, doesn't happen until Draft Two, the real donkey work of the novelwriting process.
So... if Draft One was the conception stage, it looks like Draft Two is the pregnancy. I wonder if it causes weird cravings, backache and swollen feet too?
But I'm not downhearted - far from it. It's actually quite exciting, and I'm up for the challenge. Well let's face it - if I'm going to fall at this hurdle I don't have much chance of making it as a bona fide novelist in the future, do I? So bring it on, Renegades Draft Two! Meet me at the computer in ten minutes time - 'cause you and me have an appointment, and I don't like tardiness...
1 - I'm not as bad a writer as I thought I was!
2 - I'm also not as good a writer as I thought I was.
It's a strange thing, to reach both conclusions at the same time, but then this isn't maths we're dealing with here, where every question only has one right answer (which probably also explains why I'm hopeless at maths. I'm a rubbish conformist.)
I suppose the best way to explain it is to say that the bits of Draft One that were good were... well, actually good, like a real, proper writer wrote them. While the bits that were bad... well, apart from the fact that I found myself guilty of some of the very things I'd been picking at in the writing of other authors, I also found myself at one point thinking "Jeez, this is note 163 - and I haven't even got three-quarters through the book yet!" (And my numbered notes are just the ones detailing changes too big to write as a one-liner on the manuscript... )
So I've learned something new from this exercise - something that, had I been taught it in a writing class or told it by an experienced author, I probably wouldn't have believed it. It's something I've had to learn the hard way - by actually going through the process for real.
Before now, I always thought Draft One was where I'd be doing the bulk of the donkey work. That the long, hard slog of actually getting the story down, from beginning to end, for the very first time, would be the most time-consuming part of the whole project. Everything after that would just be tweaking and polishing all the stuff I've already got down - editing what already exists. That won't take nearly as long to do - it'll be much quicker and easier than Draft One was. Wouldn't it?
I can see now how wrong that idea is. The real, sleeves-up graft is only just beginning.
Draft Two is not just a matter of dusting off Draft One and making it better; it's about upping the game considerably. It's about putting in all the parts of the story that are still missing (and my god, there's a lot more of that than I thought there'd be.) It's about finding and correcting every single plot, character and world mistake (and it pains me to confess there are a lot more of those than I thought there'd be too.) But most of all, it's about making every single part of the whole book better - even the bits that are already pretty good. It's not just an editing exercise - almost every chapter will have to be pretty much completely rewritten.
And that's what I've learned; Draft One is not, as I'd previously thought, the block of marble from which you carve and polish your literary David - it is merely the wireframe on which the whole thing is built. That means it won't look like anything much until I start slapping the clay on top - and that, clearly, doesn't happen until Draft Two, the real donkey work of the novelwriting process.
So... if Draft One was the conception stage, it looks like Draft Two is the pregnancy. I wonder if it causes weird cravings, backache and swollen feet too?
But I'm not downhearted - far from it. It's actually quite exciting, and I'm up for the challenge. Well let's face it - if I'm going to fall at this hurdle I don't have much chance of making it as a bona fide novelist in the future, do I? So bring it on, Renegades Draft Two! Meet me at the computer in ten minutes time - 'cause you and me have an appointment, and I don't like tardiness...
Thursday, 13 September 2012
Six Weeks Is Longer Than I Thought
OMG (as I believe people under thirty years old say these days) have I really got three-and-a-half more weeks to go before I can start on 'Renegades' Draft 2? I'm sure weeks weren't this long when I were a little girl...!
I've given up on the kid's comedy novel, by the way. Well no - not given up exactly, just pushed it aside for a future project. Mothballed it, I suppose you could say. Instead I am now working on - another sci-fi novel. Yep, it seems I just can't leave the genre alone, no matter how hard I try, so I decided not to fight it and just go with it. Although I suppose I'd better not get to like this one too much, since I'll have to put it aside again when I start 'Renegades' Draft 2 - and even when that book's fully complete, it's just Part I in a trilogy, so I'm going to have to write the other two before I can go back this new one... Tsk! Get me, with my 'Oooh, I'm writing a trilogy" line - without even knowing if Draft 1 of Book 1 will make the cut yet. Me and my ridiculously lofty future plans!
How on earth do the professonal novelists deal with this? How do they resist the burning temptation to take 'just a little peek' at their simmering Draft One for six whole weeks? Some of them wait even longer. I haven't taken any sneaky peeks yet - but most of my writing thoughts have been consumed with what I remember of it, already debating in my head what I'll probably need to change, cut, add in... Am I allowed to do that? Is that breaking the rules? Ah, Stephen King et al - you give us these rules about 'setting your manuscript aside for a time,' but when we have questions WHERE ARE YOU, eh? EH?
I've given up on the kid's comedy novel, by the way. Well no - not given up exactly, just pushed it aside for a future project. Mothballed it, I suppose you could say. Instead I am now working on - another sci-fi novel. Yep, it seems I just can't leave the genre alone, no matter how hard I try, so I decided not to fight it and just go with it. Although I suppose I'd better not get to like this one too much, since I'll have to put it aside again when I start 'Renegades' Draft 2 - and even when that book's fully complete, it's just Part I in a trilogy, so I'm going to have to write the other two before I can go back this new one... Tsk! Get me, with my 'Oooh, I'm writing a trilogy" line - without even knowing if Draft 1 of Book 1 will make the cut yet. Me and my ridiculously lofty future plans!
How on earth do the professonal novelists deal with this? How do they resist the burning temptation to take 'just a little peek' at their simmering Draft One for six whole weeks? Some of them wait even longer. I haven't taken any sneaky peeks yet - but most of my writing thoughts have been consumed with what I remember of it, already debating in my head what I'll probably need to change, cut, add in... Am I allowed to do that? Is that breaking the rules? Ah, Stephen King et al - you give us these rules about 'setting your manuscript aside for a time,' but when we have questions WHERE ARE YOU, eh? EH?
Sunday, 2 September 2012
This Week I Have Mostly Been... Procrastinating
Well... it's Confession Time, I guess.
During the writing of 'The Renegades: Redemption' I was cracking out a steady pace of about 10-15 hours a week of work on it. Yeah, alright, I'm not asking you to faint with admiration, don't worry. I'm well aware that's not many hours compared to, like, a full-time job or anything. But when you're a mum and housewife you don't get many hours that you're 'allowed' to call your own for 'indulging' your 'little hobby.'
( I HATE that word - 'housewife,' by the way. Makes me feel like a mindless drone. 'Domestic Engineer?' Makes me sound like a plumber or something. Not that I've anything against plumbers... it's just not a very accurate description to apply to running a house and bringing up a kid, that's all. We need something more dynamic that doesn't sound like a patronising mickey-take. Future project, perhaps? Anyway, I'm digressing...)
The point I was making, just before my brain randomly took a wander away from it, is that I had myself a nice little writing schedule whilst writing Renegades and - more importantly - I stuck to it. Now I've had to put it aside to stew for a while, and work on something else that's about as different from that as it's possible to get, my schedule's gone... a little wonky, it's fair to say. To the point where this week, for the first time in about six months, I am unlikely to achieve my minimum 10 hours of writing.
Okay, as Crimes of the Century go, it's hardly up there with Grand Larceny. But it's made me feel twitchy. Does it mean I'm Failing As A Writer? Aren't writers supposed to bounce out of bed every morning going "I want to write today, I was born to write, let me write right now, damn it!" ...Or something like that.
I've got to be honest, I haven't felt like that any day of this past week. Now that I'm working on this other project, it's been more like "Oh god, I suppose I'd better do some work on this again... nothing's coming... aw jeez, I'm not sure I can even do this..." It's not because it's not a 'fun' thing to write; it's a comedy, after all, so it should be ten times the fun of the predominantly giggle-free Renegades. And, if I'm completely honest with myself, it's also not because my six-year-old son is still off school, and doesn't go back until Wednesday next week. Sure, he has the energy of a Tasmanian Devil, and I've long run out of ways to get him out of the house that don't cost tons of money, don't need a car to get to and don't - JUST DON'T, MUMMY - involve going anywhere near shops to buy ANY things that aren't new toys or games. But that in itself is not what's slowed my momentum down. So what is the cause then?
Perhaps I'm 'missing' Renegades. After all, I devoted six months and some 200-plus hours of writing to it - and once I start on Draft 2 it'll be at least another 200 more before it's completed, I'll wager. Perhaps I'm just having trouble adjusting to the shift in perspective, from dark, gritty sci-fi to children's comedy in the space of a week. Or perhaps I'm just subconsciously trying to 'take a week off work' and feeling too guilty about that to let it properly happen. I can't imagine that, if I did, my Writing Brain would really shrivel to the size of a pickled walnut and I'd just be sitting there drooling and grunting the next time I tried to write. But it's there, in the back of my head, nagging away like an exasperated parent. The Fear.
Is that the Writer's Ultimate Nightmare, I wonder? That you somehow 'lose the muse' forever if you stop, for even a couple of days? Or have I just become as nerdy about my 'schedule' as I am about many other aspects of my life? Maybe I should join a support group or something.
Or maybe I should kick myself up the bum and get back to my writing, like a good little writer. *Sigh*... okay, ta-ta for now then...
During the writing of 'The Renegades: Redemption' I was cracking out a steady pace of about 10-15 hours a week of work on it. Yeah, alright, I'm not asking you to faint with admiration, don't worry. I'm well aware that's not many hours compared to, like, a full-time job or anything. But when you're a mum and housewife you don't get many hours that you're 'allowed' to call your own for 'indulging' your 'little hobby.'
( I HATE that word - 'housewife,' by the way. Makes me feel like a mindless drone. 'Domestic Engineer?' Makes me sound like a plumber or something. Not that I've anything against plumbers... it's just not a very accurate description to apply to running a house and bringing up a kid, that's all. We need something more dynamic that doesn't sound like a patronising mickey-take. Future project, perhaps? Anyway, I'm digressing...)
The point I was making, just before my brain randomly took a wander away from it, is that I had myself a nice little writing schedule whilst writing Renegades and - more importantly - I stuck to it. Now I've had to put it aside to stew for a while, and work on something else that's about as different from that as it's possible to get, my schedule's gone... a little wonky, it's fair to say. To the point where this week, for the first time in about six months, I am unlikely to achieve my minimum 10 hours of writing.
Okay, as Crimes of the Century go, it's hardly up there with Grand Larceny. But it's made me feel twitchy. Does it mean I'm Failing As A Writer? Aren't writers supposed to bounce out of bed every morning going "I want to write today, I was born to write, let me write right now, damn it!" ...Or something like that.
I've got to be honest, I haven't felt like that any day of this past week. Now that I'm working on this other project, it's been more like "Oh god, I suppose I'd better do some work on this again... nothing's coming... aw jeez, I'm not sure I can even do this..." It's not because it's not a 'fun' thing to write; it's a comedy, after all, so it should be ten times the fun of the predominantly giggle-free Renegades. And, if I'm completely honest with myself, it's also not because my six-year-old son is still off school, and doesn't go back until Wednesday next week. Sure, he has the energy of a Tasmanian Devil, and I've long run out of ways to get him out of the house that don't cost tons of money, don't need a car to get to and don't - JUST DON'T, MUMMY - involve going anywhere near shops to buy ANY things that aren't new toys or games. But that in itself is not what's slowed my momentum down. So what is the cause then?
Perhaps I'm 'missing' Renegades. After all, I devoted six months and some 200-plus hours of writing to it - and once I start on Draft 2 it'll be at least another 200 more before it's completed, I'll wager. Perhaps I'm just having trouble adjusting to the shift in perspective, from dark, gritty sci-fi to children's comedy in the space of a week. Or perhaps I'm just subconsciously trying to 'take a week off work' and feeling too guilty about that to let it properly happen. I can't imagine that, if I did, my Writing Brain would really shrivel to the size of a pickled walnut and I'd just be sitting there drooling and grunting the next time I tried to write. But it's there, in the back of my head, nagging away like an exasperated parent. The Fear.
Is that the Writer's Ultimate Nightmare, I wonder? That you somehow 'lose the muse' forever if you stop, for even a couple of days? Or have I just become as nerdy about my 'schedule' as I am about many other aspects of my life? Maybe I should join a support group or something.
Or maybe I should kick myself up the bum and get back to my writing, like a good little writer. *Sigh*... okay, ta-ta for now then...
Monday, 27 August 2012
New Novel... New Identity Crisis
Okay... while Draft One of my sci-fi novel, 'The Renegades: Redemption' sits and stews for a while, I've started another one. Well, it keeps me off the streets, doesn't it..? Anyway, this one is a childrens' fantasy novel, and is completely different from Renegades in the same way that Joyce Grenfell's humour is completely different from Frankie Boyle's. Which has got me thinking, for the first time, about the thorny issue of Pen Names.
Y'see, my sci-fi novel is very 'adult.' No, NOT in the 'Fifty Shades of Grey' sense - but certainly not the sort of thing they'd consider televising on CBBC any time soon, if you catch my drift. If, in the magical world of Dreams Come True, it gets published with one name attached, I'm going to have to think about using an alternative name for any kid's books I write - purely to avoid the scenario of some innocent mum going into a bookshop and thinking "Ooh look, a Wendy Christopher novel. She wrote that jolly tale about the king of Avalaff that my little Tyler liked so much - I think I'll buy this 'Renegades' one for his seventh birthday..." You know what I mean. Don't want to be accused of corrupting the nation's youth.
So... how do I want to play this? Which genre would I want my real name on, and which one the pen name?
And no, before you ask, I would not do that thing where an author has "Jenny Bloggs writing as Matilda Saucebucket" or whatever. I've never understood that. I mean, I understand a writer wanting to write novels in different genres under different names, so as not to be pigeonholed... but surely announcing the fact on the front of your books just makes you seem like you have sort of multiple personality disorder? Isn't it a bit like an undercover policeman turning up to his 'case' in full disguise - and then lifting up his fake beard in front of the crims and going "Woo-hoo! It's me all along - did you guess? Oh whoops - sorry, just pretend you never saw that..!"
So no - if I'm going to use more than one name, I won't be listing them all on the front of my books like some sort of Pick Your Own Alt-Fest. I will be using them purely for the altogether higher purposes of deception and subterfuge.
This is of course, assuming that ANY of my novels get published. I have to have the attitude that they will, because otherwise my confidence will crumble like a sandcastle and I will just give up on my writing dreams and - in all probability - go completely insane, which is not something people approve of in suburban Maidstone.
So I'm bigging up my own ego for entirely altruistic reasons. I'm glad we got that cleared up.
Y'see, my sci-fi novel is very 'adult.' No, NOT in the 'Fifty Shades of Grey' sense - but certainly not the sort of thing they'd consider televising on CBBC any time soon, if you catch my drift. If, in the magical world of Dreams Come True, it gets published with one name attached, I'm going to have to think about using an alternative name for any kid's books I write - purely to avoid the scenario of some innocent mum going into a bookshop and thinking "Ooh look, a Wendy Christopher novel. She wrote that jolly tale about the king of Avalaff that my little Tyler liked so much - I think I'll buy this 'Renegades' one for his seventh birthday..." You know what I mean. Don't want to be accused of corrupting the nation's youth.
So... how do I want to play this? Which genre would I want my real name on, and which one the pen name?
And no, before you ask, I would not do that thing where an author has "Jenny Bloggs writing as Matilda Saucebucket" or whatever. I've never understood that. I mean, I understand a writer wanting to write novels in different genres under different names, so as not to be pigeonholed... but surely announcing the fact on the front of your books just makes you seem like you have sort of multiple personality disorder? Isn't it a bit like an undercover policeman turning up to his 'case' in full disguise - and then lifting up his fake beard in front of the crims and going "Woo-hoo! It's me all along - did you guess? Oh whoops - sorry, just pretend you never saw that..!"
So no - if I'm going to use more than one name, I won't be listing them all on the front of my books like some sort of Pick Your Own Alt-Fest. I will be using them purely for the altogether higher purposes of deception and subterfuge.
This is of course, assuming that ANY of my novels get published. I have to have the attitude that they will, because otherwise my confidence will crumble like a sandcastle and I will just give up on my writing dreams and - in all probability - go completely insane, which is not something people approve of in suburban Maidstone.
So I'm bigging up my own ego for entirely altruistic reasons. I'm glad we got that cleared up.
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