So... Why Are We Doing This Writing Thing Again?

If you're a writer, have you ever asked yourself "Why do I write?" Or does it seem like a redundant question?

I'll admit it's not one I've given much thought to in the past. Why do I write? Might as well ask 'why do I eat chocolate?' or 'why do I listen to music?' So perhaps it was rather ignorant of me to assume most other writers felt the same way. After all, the process is not always rainbows and fluffy kittens, so it's gotta be something pretty powerful that keeps you showing up at the page. Especially during those times when everything you write makes you feel like a dyslexic toddler trying to bang out War and Peace. With a crayon. On a pebble-dashed wall.

But then I saw two posts on a writing forum I frequent, from two different members, in the same week. And, on the surface at least, they seemed to be making two very different points about writing and writers.

The first was just a simple, one-line statement: "Everyone can write, but not everyone is a writer." That was it -  nothing more in actual words, but the added sentiment of "discuss" was certainly implied. And discussed it was. Of course it wasn't the first time I'd heard the view expressed - in fact, anyone who's been writing for longer than about ten minutes usually gets to hear it by at least the eleventh minute. Many people who responded to the post shared the view that the very act of writing is enough to make that person a writer, and objected to the implication that only those who were 'good at writing' had the 'right' to award themselves the title of Writer.

Because therein lies the problem. How do you quantify what 'good' writing is? E.L. James and Stephanie Meyer, to name but two, have been repeatedly mauled by both literary critics and 'discerning book lovers' (whoever they are) for their allegedly terrible prose and awful characters, but they've sold millions of copies of their books so they must be doing something right for a hell of a lot of people. While at the other end of the spectrum Hemingway is regularly lauded as a literary genius, but if you don't like his style (and I'll confess to being one of those who doesn't) you're not going to enjoy reading his books no matter how super-awesomely frickin' amazing he apparently is. So what if it had been up to me and people who shared my views to determine whether or not Hemingway was 'allowed' to call himself  a writer? What if all those publishers who initially rejected the Harry Potter stories also got carte-blanche to tell J.K. Rowling "Oh yeah, and, because we don't like these books we also don't think you should consider yourself a writer anymore. Sorry and all that, but' y'know - not everyone's got the X-Factor?"

So this post received quite a clear, majority answer; if you write, you're a writer, and any implication of there being some sort of 'standard' that must be met before you're allowed to think of yourself as a 'proper' writer is elitist and pretty much unenforceable anyway.

The second post, however, was a little more complex, and definitely harder to unpack. The Poster said he'd been writing for just over four years and had learned a lot about writing in that time - from books, courses and online websites and forums just like this one. He'd also recently been reading a lot of works by other authors - authors he'd always admired and were well-regarded. And he felt that, after all these four-plus years of learning and writing, his own work was as good - and in some cases, better - than works written by these other authors. In short, he felt he'd learned all he could possibly learn about writing and couldn't get any better at it than he currently was. So... should he quit writing altogether?

If your reaction to that was "whaaaaat?" don't worry - so was mine. Why in the holy heck would you quit doing something you thought you were - not just good at, but better at than people who were already successful in that field? That's not so much dropping the mic as whacking yourself between the eyes with it and then falling offstage because you can't see properly. As the thread progressed it seemed what he was really saying was that, after his four years of learning all he could possibly learn about writing and reaching a position where he felt he was at least as good as most of the authors he admired, he still wasn't published or anywhere near as successful as those authors. And with that in mind, if he really couldn't get any better at writing because he was as good as he could ever get... what was the point in carrying on? Why waste his time continuing with his writing if apparently no-one was noticing how talented he already was?

A lot of people pointed out the most obvious thing to him; four years is a ridiculously short time in the growth of a writer. In fact, in terms of human development it's comparable to reaching potty-training stage. You wouldn't expect a four-year-old to beat Roger Federer at Wimbledon - even a super-talented one - and it's the same for writers, because there's a lot more going on under the surface than what you see on a page of any author's work. Successful authors become so because they make what they do look easy - but they only get to that stage after years of hard slog. And none of them would ever say they've learned everything they could possibly learn about the craft - nope, not even Stephen King or J.K. Rowling.

But as I thought more deeply about these two posts, I realised that, even though they appeared to be offering different perspectives on writing, the sentiment behind them was actually the same: if you can't be among the elite of writers there's no point in even trying to be one. Forget about doing it for the love of writing, or because you feel you have things to say - commercial success and recognition is the only thing that legitimises your work.

If you really believe this - if this sounds like your reason for becoming a writer - you are, I'm afraid, setting yourself up for a lot of frustration and disappointment. At the very least in the early years of your journey as a writer - and, maybe, for the majority of it. Because success and recognition isn't guaranteed, for any writer - no matter how talented they are. For every famous writer like Stephen King and J.K. Rowling, who are able to make being a best-selling author their actual career, there are hundreds more who make so little from their book sales that they still have full-time, non-author jobs to pay their rent and bills (or a supportive spouse with a reasonably well-paid job.) These authors have no shortage of loyal fans who love their work... but in terms of money earned from that work there are probably part-time shop assistants who earn a higher wage than they can ever make in book royalties.

I can't help wondering if the two posters of those forum threads consider those kinds of authors fools. Would they tell them to give up? "Face it, you're obviously not good enough at what you do to make a proper career out of it, so stop wasting your time and find some other vocation you can make real money from." Thing is, if writing is in your blood, heart and soul it's not that simple. Because here's the point that those two posters are missing; those of us who love being writers don't write for the money or the fame. I'm not saying we don't want those things (most of us do, even if we don't admit it) but it's not what drives us to write. If we could look into a crystal ball and see our future, and that future showed us we were never going to make any money or get any fame for the stuff we write - well, we'd still write anyway. Because we'd have to. It's who we are and what we do.

I used to say that I would never, ever tell anyone they should quit writing. But after reading these two posts I've changed my mind. Now, if anyone comes to me and says "Should I quit writing?" I'm going to say the following:

"Yes. If you're asking yourself this question - and asking it honestly, rather than in that cringey fishing-for-compliments way people sometimes do - you should quit writing. If you're thinking "that £1.99 Kindle book I read said writing books was a quick and easy way to make money, but I'd have earned more working in McDonalds by now," then definitely quit. Quit it completely. And then see how that goes...

"If after a while you feel like a weight has been lifted, or you find some other hobby or creative outlet that fills you with more joy or brings greater rewards than writing ever did, you'll know you made the right decision. You were dead right to quit. Enjoy your new, writer-free life!

"But if you feel like a part of you is missing, like some of the colours have gone from your life, and that you keep finding yourself going back to your notebooks or computer and jotting stuff down 'just for fun'... you'll know you can't stop yourself from being a writer. It's who you are. You might never be a famous one, or a rich one - but you are a writer all the same."

If a writer is what you are, quitting is not an option for you, any more than breathing. So don't quit being a writer. Instead, quit building up a list of expectations for what a writer is 'supposed' to be. Contrary to what the media would have you believe - in this Tweeting, FaceBooking, selfie-posting, Strictly X-Factor's Got Talent-saturated society we live in - fame and fortune are not mandatory qualifications for being a proper, bona fide writer. Hell, you don't even have to wait until you've had work published before you can officially wear that Writers' Badge.

It's not about the money. It's not about the fame. So if that's all you want from writing... well, there are quicker and easier ways to get both of those these days. Being a writer aint a job, sweetie, it's a way of life. But a rich and rewarding one - even without the cash and the celebrity status - if it's what you're born to do.

When Are You Good Enough To Call Yourself A Writer?

I did a scary thing the other day. Scary because it felt foolhardy, in a burning-your-bridges, no-coming-back-from-this-one-chutney kind of way.

I told someone I was a writer. In the real, non-internet world so he was, like, a living breathing person right in front of me as opposed to a name and a photo on a web page. Just came right out and said it, like it was normal conversation.

And I didn't even say it in that wishy-washy, half-assed sense of "Oh y'know, in my spare time when I'm not watching Deadliest Catch or playing Gems of War, I do a bit of writing." Just proper put it out there and made it sound like... well y'know, my actual job - "Oh, I'm a writer."

Of course my brain immediately went into Panic Mode and inwardly-screamed "Shud-UP, fool! Why'd you go and say that? Now they're going to be looking at you and thinking you hang out with J.K. Rowling and Stephen King, you dummy - when the only Stephen King you've ever known was a boy in your class at school who just happened to have the same name and barely noticed your existence!" (True story. Especially the second part, sadly. Oh, the curse of the teenage crush...) I hope it didn't show on my face at the time, but I suspect there was a least a hint of the rabbit-caught-in-headlights in my eyes...

Because saying you're a writer - even if that's what you genuinely do - isn't like saying you're a doctor or a lawyer, for example. A doctor or a lawyer has no qualms about calling themselves what they are, because they've been to the appropriate school and earned the magic piece of paper that proclaims "Congratulations! You have now earned the right to call yourself what you've just spent the past bunch of years studying to be!" And then some hospital or law firm hires them and off they go to do their job - heck, they even get to dress the part. And when you watch them at work, they are genuinely doing the kind of doctor-y or lawyer-y things that only a person with the appropriate magic piece of paper is legally allowed to do.

But a writer? They don't get the magic piece of paper saying it's officially okay to call themselves that. Oh sure, there are things like MFAs and Creative Writing degrees and all that stuff... but let's face it, in terms of career legitimacy they're just icing, slathered on top of an already-existing cake, to make it look and taste better. The pieces of paper you get from one of those courses don't have the same legally-binding power as a medical or law degree - "Here is your certificate, bestowed only upon those we have deemed worthy of the title of Writer. You are hereby permitted to go forth and write." You don't need an MFA or a Creative Writing Degree to be a writer, and you're certainly not going to be arrested or slapped with a malpractice suit if you write without one. In short, any old Joe Public and his dog can sit in front of a computer, typewriter or notepad and pen and become a writer, right now and on the spur of the moment if the fancy takes them.

And therein lies the problem. There are no entry restrictions, no industry codes of practice and no quality control procedures, so it's basically an open-house free-for-all. This is even more true since self-publishing got a bomb up its arse with the advent of Smashwords, Amazon KDP and their ilk; suddenly people who were producing ten-page 'novels' consisting of fifty shades of badly-spelled, dinosaur porn could feasibly be classed as 'authors' because they'd managed to dupe ten relatives into buying their work for 99 pence a pop. Along with 'authors' of badly-spelled and grammatically incoherent ten-page manuals about how to make a fortune writing novels.

Of course there are also a lot of highly talented authors out there who produce incredible work that we might never have got to read without the freedom these new self-publishing options offer - but unfortunately they're floating around in a bloody big ocean, and as yet there's no way of filtering them out from the aforementioned garbage bobbing up and down with them. So how in the world is a struggling writer supposed to know if they're 'good enough' to wear their colours with conviction? Because surely, only if you are 'good enough' have you truly earned the right to call yourself a Writer with a capital W. But 'good enough' compared to who? To Stephen King and J.K. Rowling? To the purveyors of ten-page spelling-and-grammar-abominations? To whoever falls somewhere in the middle of those two extremes?

Well, I reckon if you're asking yourself "am I good enough?" that's already a good sign. The people who don't regularly ask themselves this question are the ones who don't feel a need, because they've already decided what the answer is - and that's fatal, because a question considered definitively answered is a question that never gets re-examined. If you're good enough already, why bother improving? Why go the extra mile of trying to become better?

A large part of the reason Stephen King still sells his stories in the gazillions is because even he still asks himself if he's 'good enough' every time he sits down to write (as opposed to just thinking "Hmm, think I'll just kick back and crank out some brain-candy while I contemplate my navel, 'cause let's face it, everything I write is gonna sell...") Which leads me to think that, if you wait until you're 'good enough' before you summon up the courage to wear the writer badge... well, you might end up waiting forever.

So when are you 'good enough' to call yourself a writer? There's no way of measuring, so don't wait for the moment to arrive. Haven't had anything published yet? You're still a writer. Haven't earned any money from anything you have published? Still a writer. The only qualification that matters for being a writer is that you write - simples. Don't worry about being 'good enough' or 'worthy' of owning the title, because, like the stuff you write, you're a constant work-in-progress in that sense. Writing is one of those jobs where you learn the most valuable lessons by just doing it; having a go and either succeeding or (more often) messing it up and trying an alternative strategy.

So go on, take a deep breath and say it - "I'm a Writer." Say it the next time someone asks you "So what do you do then?" It might be scary. You might feel a little bit like the kid in the playground who tells ridiculous lies to big themselves up amongst their mates. But once you've said it, you'll be that little bit more determined to live up to it. And, if writing really is your passion, that can only be a good thing.

Why The Perfect Writing Space Probably Isn't.

Imagine for a moment that you are a rich and famous author. That you've 'made it' already as a writer and you're making enough money from your work to live very comfortably indeed, thank you very much.

(And don't any of you writers out there dare tell me you've never done that, because, quite frankly, I will refuse to believe you. Every writer's done that at least once in their lives, no matter where they are on the ladder.)

Perhaps you’re fantasising about the beautiful big house you’re now living in – or maybe you swap-rent between a few swanky places to grab the best of the seasons (a pad in the Bahamas for summer, a chic beach house in Hawaii for the chilly winter months and a des res near Hollywood for the rest of the year…) Maybe you've got a flash car – heck, maybe a whole fleet of them that you've been collecting like kids collect Pokemons (are they still a ‘thing?’) Or maybe you've been out-Kardashian-ing Kim, with the plastic surgery (sorry I mean ‘all-natural’ beauty enhancements) and style choices that would’ve made Julia Roberts’ character in Pretty Woman go “hmmm, yeah, but it’s not very classy, is it?”

Whatever you’re imagining, at some point I'm willing to bet your attention turned to your Writing Space - that sacred temple where you go to Do Your Thing with the words and the pretend people and stuff. After all, this is the place that helped you get to where you (imaginarily) are right now, so giving that a major makeover as well can only send your success rate soaring even higher, yeah?

Right now, my current Writing Space can best be summed up as ‘small and cluttered.’ My desk area is just under 80cm x 80cm in size when my pull-out keyboard drawer is fully pulled out, and it’s between the doorway to the living room and the cupboard under the stairs, facing the dining room wall. Because said dining room is in the back of a house that is tiny, Victorian and terraced, it doesn't get much natural daylight even in summer; it literally has to be full-on sunshine outside before I can get away with not having some form of artificial lighting to support the glare from my computer monitor as the main source. And because the house has no internal doors on the ground floor except for the one to the downstairs bathroom, in the winter the wind whistles under the back door in the kitchen and chills my feet while I write. (On a good writing day, I only realise this when I finally get up from my desk to get lunch or something and wonder why it suddenly feels like my toes have snapped off.)

Put away those tiny violins please, this isn't my pitch for a Kickstarter appeal. My point is that, while I am perfectly able to do what I do in this space, when it comes to thinking of ways to improve it I'm not exactly short of options. Your writing space might be nicer and more comfortable than mine or it might be even less so, but either way I'm sure you also have plenty of ideas about what you could do to make yours better. Let’s look at some of the most popular fantasy must-haves:

-          Huge, stonking, mahoosive desk usually comes fairly high up the list – the kind you need a wheelie-chair for just to get from one end to the other. Preferably in some sort of posh, shiny wood for that added ‘yeah, I’m doing important shizzle here’-factor.

-          Talking of chairs… gotta look like it means business, which means it needs to be deliciously comfortable, with a good, high back and that all-important ‘twirl action.’ As a general guideline, if it’s good enough for Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise, it’s just about serviceable for the average writer, I would say.

-          Windows! No, not the eternally-Frankensteining Microsoft ones – actual ones you can look out of with your eyes. Biiiiiig windows naturally, with the most fabulous views on the other side, so that you can gave upon the loveliness of your environment and be inspired, dahling! (Of course the only snag with this is it may involve moving house to a place that actually has said fabulous views – or if you’re really rich, perhaps you just buy the places and have them relocated to ‘outside the house I’m already living in, please.’)

-          Catering facilities! No more of that ‘toddling to the kitchen for a cup of coffee/tea’ malarkey, the multitasking writer should be able to just lean across her desk-the-size-of-Canada and grab her beverage of choice from her every own tea-and-coffee-making-thingy, right there within easy reach. And why stop there? Why not have a designated ‘snack drawer’ too? Oooh, hey – how about dispensing with that long ol’ walk to the kitchen entirely and have a mini-fridge and a microwave on hand as well? Now you see why you need that mahoosive desk..!

(Just so you know, in the process of writing the above list my eyes went all misty and Louie Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World began playing on the jukebox inside my head.)

As fantasy ‘wants’ for a writer, these are pretty darn good, yeah? But what about in real life? What if, by some miracle, all of these things were achievable for even the most cash-deprived of writers? Well, let’s see…

A mahoosive desk would require a mahoosive house to put it in, for starters. Which would mean more housework, ‘cause bigger spaces to clean and all that. How many of you writers out there love housework? (And I mean, love it when you haven’t hit a writing rough patch?) Mmmm, yeah, me neither. So maybe just ‘big enough’ then. But how do you define ‘big enough?’ I don’t know about you, but give me a space and I’ll fill it, no matter what size it is. Okay, so maybe size isn’t everything (insert your own innuendo here.)

Big windows with a gorgeous view? Sounds amazing in theory… but in practice that would probably be a very bad idea. I’m the kind of person who can be fascinated for a good twenty minutes by the pattern left in the dregs of an empty coffee cup, so add in a glorious vista to gaze upon instead of my usual magnolia-coloured dining room wall… Far from beautiful scenery being ‘inspiring,’ I’ve a feeling most of us would spend more time staring out through those giant picture windows instead, slack-jawed and glassy-eyed – and that sort of nonsense would seriously eat into writing time.

The same could be said of a luxurious chair too. Of course anything cradling your writing bum for long periods of time should be comfortable and supportive – but if it makes spinning around feel like too much fun that’s a potential time-wormhole right there. (Especially if it also generates an irresistible urge to stroke an imaginary cat and say “Mister Bond, I've been expecting you,” in a dodgy accent.)

And while having food and drink within constant easy reach might seem like a massive time-saver in the grand scheme of things… for me at least, the flipside would be ending up the size of a house, with diabetes and fingers too pudgy for my keyboard. As people whose calling in life is to sit down and make stories, opportunities to inject a little non-sedentary activity into our lives – even if it is just walking to the kitchen and back - should be embraced, not minimised.

So… the ideal writing space then? If the one you have now is kind of small, kind of basic and kind of boring… maybe it already is ideal. Maybe it shouldn't feel like a place of wonder and luxury - no matter how rich and famous you become. And maybe a ‘productive’ space is actually one that doesn't pamper you, keep you entertained or boost your ego.

What do you think?

Sometimes Kids Make Great Writing Teachers

This week (and pretty much all of next week) is going to be one of those times when my writing has to be downsized in priority (i.e. I'm gonna have to resign myself to probably not getting a lot of it done.) This is because on Wednesday my seven-year-old son will be making the leap into eight-year-old-dom, which he will celebrate with eleven of his friends, soft-play-party-stylee, on Saturday afternoon. And the organising of such things, as anyone with kids will know, can make a military operation look like an ad-hoc event.

Even though the party takes place at an indoor soft play area, I have opted to do all the food myself, so I'm... doing that. And the party bags for each child to take home at the end (it's like fashion shows at kid's parties these days; a take-home goodie-bag is practically mandatory, don'tcha know.) I'm also making the birthday cake myself, which, according to the terms and conditions set out by my soon-to-be-eight-year-old client, will be a Minecraft Island cake, complete with trees, little square animals and little TNT boxes. That's why this blog post is a day or so later than usual; today I have been mostly printing out, cutting out and then glueing together teeny-tiny Minecraft thingies to use as decorations for said cake. (And lemme tell you, activities like that are a way more effective method of making you face the fact your eyesight's going than any commercial eye test could ever be.)

But as I was doing all of that, my wee laddie was playing on the carpet nearby - and I found myself listening in to his games. While he does play Minecraft on the computer, he also has a collection of cardboard minifigures of Minecraft characters, animals and furniture items that he can use to make his own, live-action version of the computer game. Except his live-action games are not just games; they are epic, dramatic productions. Number One Son is the scriptwriter, producer and director and even provides all the sound effects for his cast of characters, who are really put through the mill in terms of what their roles require. (A directing team of Baz Luhrmann, James Cameron and Quentin Tarantino combined would probably give those guys an easier ride.)

When my kid makes his toys act out the stories pouring out of his brain, there are no limits. Anything goes. His plots will not be constrained by piddling little details like the laws of physics or what is considered morally acceptable; if he wants his Minecraft Chicken to blow up Minecraft Steve with a watermelon and then turn to his friend the Minecraft Cow and sing mournfully "Mamaaaaaa, just killed a maaaaannn..." then that's what goes down (and indeed did, although it was hard to see why Mummy was laughing at something so serious...) If a particular plot twist doesn't work, or ends up complicating the rest of the story, well that's no problem either - he just does a quick mental rewind back to an earlier plot point and replays from there as if nothing ever happened. No angst, no negative self-talk, no "Oh my god, all that time and effort wasted!" And - best of all - he does it all openly, enthusiastically and with no trace of self-consciousness, whether he's alone in the room or with a crowd of other people. He's not bothered if an audience thinks his games are weird or silly. He's in the moment. He's creating.

Kids, of course, are brilliant at that. It's a skill that many of us lose as adults - or at the very least it gets watered down by the burden of responsibilities and societal pressure to conform and compromise. And when us writers feel a pressure to take our writing 'seriously' there's a real risk of getting bogged down in the Rules of Good Writing, so intent on Doing It Right and making our prose tighter, leaner, smarter, stronger...

It's easy to fall into a trap of thinking that, as we get more experience with writing, we should be making fewer 'mistakes' less often. We should become 'quicker' and 'more efficient' at outlining new stories; less likely to create plot holes and more mindful of doing the proper research before we even start to write them, so we already know that what we're writing is at least plausible in theory. It's easy to feel like we're surrounded by competition from all sides and that, if we want to get anything published, we need to have a Professional Attitude and bring our A-game to the table every time we sit down to write. And, to a certain extent, all of this is true.

But I also think there's a lot to be said for thinking like a kid sometimes too. Sure, outlining is the sensible and grown-up approach to planning out a new story - and a plan is certainly what you want to end up with before you begin to write 'properly' -  but what's wrong with having a little fun beforehand? Maybe we could try shedding some of those adult inhibitions and allowing ourselves to 'play' our ideas out in our heads, in the same way a kid does. Suspend all adult disbelief about what's 'right' and 'plausible' and 'sensible' and just go nuts - all bets are off, the universe is your oyster. Create without boundaries - leave the 'sensible' stuff for later. That's the rewriting stage.

Can't envisage how a scene might play out between two key characters? When that happens in a kid's game, he grabs a couple of LEGO men and some bricks and acts it out. Why can't an adult writer do something similar with their fiction? No honestly, I'm serious. You don't have to do it in public - no-one need ever know. In fact... I DARE YOU. Pick a scene from any of your works-in-progress - preferably one you're having trouble with - and do precisely that. It doesn't have to be LEGO men; it could be action figures, soft toys - you could even cut out little paper people if you live in a child-free zone.

Yes, you will probably feel silly at first - even if you're on your own with all the doors and windows shut. But go with it. Embrace it. Dig deep and find that inner child that's still there inside you somewhere. And see what happens.

It'll be our little secret. I won't tell, I promise. And you never know - it might even help.

Can We All Be Precious Little Snowflakes?

How do you measure your talent as a writer? And by that, I mean in the sense of 'measuring and coming up with the right amount?' Two things happened in my life this week that made me think about this conundrum.

Thing Number One was a conversation I had with someone I met in my local library and, for various reasons involving backstory too dull to go into here, ended up having quite a discussion with about writers and writing.

When the lady in question found out I was a writer (I was brave for a change and actually called myself that - for real! But then again, she was a stranger so maybe not that brave really...) she proceeded to tell me about her cousin, who she said had also been "trying to be a writer for years." And yeah, she said it like that, complete with the statutory sighs and eye-rolling. "She's got no talent for it whatsoever" she added. "Everyone in the family's been forced to read her stuff at some point, and it really is dreadful. We've all tried to tell her - tactfully of course - that she should give up on the idea of ever getting anything published. But she just won't listen! She keeps on writing all this terrible dross and kidding herself she's got the talent - when anyone can see she just hasn't..."

I asked her if her cousin had actually tried to get anything published yet. "No, fortunately" she said. "Once any of us tell her what she's written is rubbish, she just hides it away somewhere and starts on something new instead. And then we all have to suffer that... for God's sake, how many books is the woman going to write before she gets the message that she just doesn't have any talent?"

I'll be perfectly honest here; that was enough information to make me pick a side - and I wasn't rooting for the lady I was talking to. In fact, I began to feel this elusive cousin was pretty damn awesome. To complete even one novel when you have the support and encouragement of loved ones to spur you on is an achievement in itself. To complete many novels with that same support and encouragement is inspiring. But when every novel you finish gets nothing but derision and negativity from your loved ones.. and your response, every single time, is to just pick yourself up and start on the next one? That's bordering on superhuman.

Obviously I don't know if she really is as talentless as the people around her are apparently telling her she is; without actually reading anything she's written there's no way of knowing. But as long as she keeps on doing it, in spite of the naysayers, she can only get better. Damn, if she ever finds a way to bottle that stick-at-it spirit I'd be first in line to get me some! In fact, I wish I could actually meet her - if only to suggest that maybe she gives her stuff to non-family members to read for a change. (Not saying there's any kind of unconscious agenda at work here or anything, but... well, sometimes the ones closest to you can want 'what's best for you' for the wrong reasons, if you catch my drift...)

And then, on what could be described as the flipside, is Thing Number Two.

Through a series of events - again too backstory-ish to be interesting here - I found myself clicking on a link to a self-published book for sale on Amazon. I'm not about to name and shame it here, but it was a 200-page fantasy novel and, like the majority of books on the Amazon site, there was a chance to "look inside!" So that's what I did...

And I have to confess, it was very badly written. By that I mean it was riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, words used in the wrong context and/or the wrong tense, random switches between present and past tense - often within the same sentence - and all sorts of other, glaringly obvious, bloopers. Now, this does not necessarily equate to the writer lacking ability. These are the sort of mistakes even the best writers make - in a draft one of their manuscript. Some of them even linger into the rewrite stage for a while, until some eagle-eyed beta reader or editor points them out. But that's the point. The writers that get success and respect for their work do so because they take pains to root out every single mistake - and enlist the help of others for finding those that elude their own eyes - before they will even think of publishing their work. This author clearly did not do this. This author pretty much went 'write it, upload it, hit Publish, baby!'

This is not an uncommon occurrence in the age of one-click-self-publishing, of course. This author is one of a legion who birth their Draft Ones onto Amazon and the like with nary a care in the world - happens all the time these days... But this one stood out for another reason. Because this particular work - a 200-page fantasy novel from a pretty much unknown self-pubbed author - could be yours for the princely sum of... thirty-five dollars.

Yes, you read that right. Thirty-five dollars.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think even a Stephen King novel has ever had a price like that. And he's - oooh, fairly famous now. So I am utterly intrigued as to the thought process behind the author of this thirty-five-dollar-book deciding "Heck yeah, people will totally pay that for my work." Lordy, there's confidence for you! If only she could siphon just a little bit of that off and send it to that lady in the library's cousin... I can't help feeling it would go some small way to restoring the balance of the writing universe somehow.

So that's the conundrum for me this week; is there a magic formula for determining whether a writer's confidence in their ability is justified or misplaced? How do you apply it if there is? And what makes some give up without ever being bold enough to test those icy waters, while others are happy to jump in without even learning the Rules of the Pool first?

The Wall of Self-Doubt

It's official; Simon Cowell has come to visit my brain - and he's brought a bloody great pile of suitcases with him. For the purpose of progressing with my writing, this is Bad News.

This week I finally trundled over the hill that is 50,000 words of Draft Two of The Renegades (now at 54,500 actually.) While I realise that, for the 'professional' novel writer, this ranks in terms of achievement roughly equivalent to getting up in the morning, for me this is a big deal. It's the furthest down the novel-writing road that I've ever travelled. So right now I should be doing The Carlton Dance while simultaneously trying to high-five myself, right?

Mmmmm... yeah, not so much, as it turns out.

I've seen all those talent shows Mr. Cowell has created. The ones where some people - not all, but definitely some - strut in front of him, brimming with the confidence of their own awesomeness, and then indulge in the most godawful spectacle of self-delusion a human could inflict on three minutes of other humans' lives. And when Simon systematically (and some might say, for the sake of humanity) tears their performance to pieces, they stand there wide-eyed and uncomprehending, as if they're not quite sure if they're dreaming all of this.

"He surely can't be serious, can he? He can't possibly be saying that about what I just did - it's obvious I am the most freakin' amazing bucketful of sheer, raw talent he's ever seen... "

Whatever they're hearing when they open their mouths and make sounds come out, it sure as hell can't be what everyone else hears. And they believe in their own hype too; like conspiracy theorists, there is no logical argument you can present to them to sway them from their conviction that they are fabulous and all the naysayers are just insanely jealous...

By the same logic, I could well be the writerly equivalent of those people. And, like them, I wouldn't even know it either.

Since I passed the 50,000 words mark of The Renegades Draft Two, more and more often I've found myself thinking "what if this really is just a gigantic pile of suck? I might think it's coming together okay, and that it makes sense and I've come a long way as a writer because of it - but what if I'm deluding myself? What if, when I've finally finished this thing, it becomes the solid, cast-iron proof that I'm actually a terrible writer who'll never get any of her novels published ever because every novel she writes is a steaming mound of horse-poo?" And then the Simon Cowell currently squatting in my brain does That Face at me, which really doesn't help.

Apparently this is what's known as A Typical Thing among writers. Apparently Number Two: I'm even  having this Typical Thing at a Typical Stage of the Writing Process. The Fear of Being Judged is tiptoeing away from the cozy sanctuary of fantasy and edging ever closer to becoming kick-in-the-guts reality. And yeah, it's blimmin' scary. After all, just because I've gone through large portions of my life expecting to be told I suck doesn't mean I learned to like it at any point...

But other writers have got past this. They've admitted that they too hit the wall of self-doubt - but they just kept on going anyway, until they got published... and then they kept on writing more stuff after that. If I'm not willing to let my novels be judged, I'm never going to finish writing one; I already know that's true from the stacks of half-finished and just-begun attempts languishing in W-I-P Hell on my hard drive. My personal Brain Simon may be right; in the end, even after a metric tonne of rewrites and polishes, The Renegades might turn out to be a legless donkey. And I'm sure, if that's the case, it'll hurt when I actually hear people tell me so.

But... it's a bit of a First-World Problem really, isn't it? There are worse things that could happen. The Fear of Being Crap is a powerful thing, but many of my fellow writers (god bless 'em) have assured me that not only can it be beaten, it must be. I've got through it with writing lyrics, and I've got through it with writing short stories - now I have to suck it up and deal with it when it comes to writing novels.

Does it end? Is this just a phase every writer goes through at a certain stage in a novel's lifecycle, until they come out the other side and say "Hell yeah, let's start submitting/self-publishing this puppy?" Or is it one of those things that pops up on a regular basis to mess with your head - like PMS, but with less chocolate consumption? (Ohh.... alright then, in my case, roughly the same amount of chocolate consumption...)

Perhaps I should just get myself a t-shirt with "I'm having a Mid-Write Crisis!" printed on it.

The Writer's Life As An Online RPG

Yep, you read that title right. I have just outed myself as a geek - which probably comes as a huge surprise to precisely no-one.

But it's an idea that came to me a couple of days ago, and the more I thought about it the more I couldn't let it go. Because the similarities are definitely there, and it got me wondering if it wasn't actually quite a good way of charting the progress of an average writer's endeavours (and I count myself as being within that category.) Having been a writer for a long time - and also an online RPG-er for... not quite as long, but I know the drill - I am willing to offer myself as a guinea pig for the purpose of this experiment. So come join me as we play... World of WriterCraft!

*cue dramatic music and login screen*

Creating a character
Right, we're starting from scratch, so the first thing we need to do is create our writer avatar. We can pick any race and gender we like because, as we all know, they make no difference to our character's abilities... okay, done that. Now, do we want to pick a premade Character Class? Let's see, we've got Journalist, Screenwriter, Playwright, Lyricist, Novelist, Short Story Writer, Poet.... or shall we pick a Multi-Class character? Yeah, let's do that, give ourselves more options. Right... this hairdo, that eye-colour... jeez, do I really want a piercing there..? Okay, done. Right! Into the game - here we GO!

Starting Out
Right, here we are in the newbie area. Oooh, there's a lot of people running around here... they all look the same as our character.Oh hang on, a popup window's just come up. "Welcome to World of WriterCraft! Let's walk you through the basics of Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling." There's a button underneath that says "Skip tutorial" - do we want to do that? Well, we could do that and just get on with playing the game - those things are usually deadly dull, after all... but we all know that'll come back and bite us on the bum later, don't we? Oh heck, let's do the tutorial. You never know, we might learn something we didn't know - and we might even get some freebies at the end. (We can always sell them to a vendor if they're crap.)

*goes through tutorial*

Well that wasn't so bad. And look - we got a Pen of Scribing as a reward! And a rather nice pair of writer's gloves. And - oh yay - Ding! We just levelled up! An extra stamina point and now we're Level 2. Bring it ON!

Doing Some Basic NPC Quests
Right, now we need to do some questing; get some experience and maybe earn a bit of dough as well. Jeez, who are all these people shouting all these adverts repeatedly in the Chat Channels, over and over again? Must be the self-pub spammers... *sigh* will they ever learn? People buy from self-pubbed authors who behave professionally, not the ones who stand in public places shouting their heads off and making a nuisance of themselves.... Anyway, where are these Quest NPCs? Ah, here's one; he's got a glowing exclamation mark over his head, that's useful. Mr... sorry, Lord Genre. What's your quest then, mate? Ah - "Venture into the libraries and bookstores of this fair land and read twenty Booker Prize-winning books, then return to me for your reward." Aw, seriously? That's gonna take ages.. oh, alright then...

...Right - I'm baaack! And I've read your twenty books, as requested. What do I get?

"Well done, young writer! Have 50xp! And now.... I would like to you venture further into the dark and dangerous corners of this fair town's bookstores... and read twenty Penguin Classic books! Return to me once more when you have completed this dangerous task!"

You are kidding me, right? I've just been.... I already went.... Another twenty things to..? Well you could've said that when I was... oh, never mind. Okay, off I go again then...

...Right! I'm back. And I've done your sodding quest. Now where's my reward?

"You are indeed a worthy student, young writer! Here - take this Cap of the Well-Read and five gold pieces. Now I would like you to travel to the Big Library on the edge of town - and read twenty..."

*punches Lord Genre in the face* Y'know what... I'm gonna see if there are any other NPC questgivers around here.

Finally - Crafting!
Aha! This looks more promising - the Crafter! Okay... "So, you wish to learn Fiction, do you? Well, read the book I've just magically smuggled into your inventory, and then speak to me again." Oh, okay then.... right, done that! "Well done - you have now earned your own Crafting Station! Your Fiction Writing skills will improve with each new item you craft, and as your skill goes up you will acquire new recipes and techniques."

Cool! My own Desk and Crafting Computer! So... I just keep writing lots of beginner-level stuff then, until my skills level up and I can start writing more complicated stuff? And I can sell all the stuff I've written on the Auction House as well? Ooh, maybe I'll make some money! And if no-one wants it on the Auction House I suppose I could just flog it to the vendors...

Joining A Guild
Wow - check out those guys over there! Look at their armour and weapons - they're much cooler than mine! I wanna be in their gang....

Hi guys - loving your look, are you looking for new members? What's my what? My Gearscore? What's that? Oh, I see... well actually I'm fairly new to this at the mo... no, I haven't got any higher-level alts to kit me out with Epic Gear, I'm afraid... um, no I haven't done any Instance Raids yet.... *sigh* no, I'm not after some power-levelling.. Fine, I'll come back when I've got 'more xp' then...

Let's try this lot instead... Hi guys, are you looking for new members? You're always happy to accept new members? I can be any level to join? Cool! Where do I sign? Oh, there's a fee - okay, fair enough, how much? How much? *chokes, splutters.* Erm.... okay, maybe I'll think about that later then... yeah, thanks...

Maybe I'll start my own guild then...

The First Big Boss Fight!
Right, I know this one's an important quest, because I got the loading screen when I started it... Stage one, create the Plot Outline.... pppffft, lots of traipsing all over the place and looking in dark corners then.... right, I've collected all the pieces for that, what's next? Find the Great Opening and use it to navigate the Beginning Section.... okay, done that... oh, now I have to navigate through the treacherous Sagging Middle... well, that was tough but - I made it! Now I cross this bridge to the Great Ending... and inside this room is the Final Boss... the Tough Critic! Okay, I'm armed with my Completed Draft... here goes...

Aaaarrgghh! He's flippin' huge! And he's got big claws and pointy teeth.... I am sooo gonna die..! Oh no - he hit me with Adverb Contempt! That's a big chunk of health gone right there... let me just swig a Spellcheck potion.... well that's helped a bit, but - aaarrgghh! Not the Passive Voice Attack! I'll have to put my Good Grammar Aura on... okay, that's mitigated some of the damage.... crap, now he's going to hit me with a massive Plot Hole! There's only one thing for it... I'll have to use my Rewrite Spell!

Yaaayyy, I did it! The Rewrite Spell finished him! I defeated the Big Boss Critic! Now let's go raid his loot chest to see what I get.... oooh, Armour of Thick Skin+1.... nice!

The PVP Arena!
Okay... normally I stay away from PVP, 'cause I'm not the type who goes looking for a fight, but apparently the rewards are awesome, so here goes... here's the venue - "Writers' Conference" - let's do this!

Oooh help! There are tons of people here and I don't know anyone and I don't know what to do! Okay, calm down. Just follow the big groups and do what they do. Don't take on a big Boss Fight on your own - join a big gang who are already taking him on... safety in numbers and all that... Might as well face it, I'm probably not gonna get any of the epic stuff on my first time; there are loads of people here who've done this loads more times than me and know all the tricks for that. I'll just watch them and pick up tips, I think. Ooh, that person over there looks like a fellow newbie... Hi, I'm new here too. Yeah, good idea - let's stick together...

Hmmm... this might not be as scary as I thought it was gonna be...

*******************************************************************************

Well that was fun! I think I've got up to about level 5 - which is still a long way from being a 'Leet' player (that means high-level, for any non-nerdy people who didn't run away from this post long ago - thanks for sticking around, by the way.) But that's not a bad start - and it's not like I'll be banging my head on the Level Cap any time soon.

This is one RPG I'm going to be playing for a long, long time yet...

Writers' Snake Pits Part II

Last week I talked about Writers' Snake Pits, and how they can stall or even just distract a writer from getting on down and getting stuff written. I've come back for a second forage in the jungle, because there are more of them out there and Indy doesn't want us falling into them either. (At least, I'm pretty sure he doesn't - after all, he's played by Harrison Ford and he's a nice enough guy, isn't he? I mean, he's never punched a journalist or anything..?)

1 - "I wish I knew how to quit you!"
This was actually pointed out to me in the last post's comments section by Patrick Ross (who writes the excellent blog theartistsroad) so credit goes to Patrick for this one. It's sort of a contradiction to the first Snake Pit of Never Finishing What You Start (and as such is important to note, because the last thing we want to do is fall into a pit we weren't expecting because we were too busy avoiding the one we were.)

Sometimes we work on one thing for a long, long time because we love it - like that irresistible, bad-seed lover your mother and all your friends disapprove of because they're unreliable and don't respect you. We blind ourselves to their faults, thinking we can change them with enough love and attention. We turn a deaf ear to the warnings of our friends and loved ones, saying our Beloved is just misunderstood. But sometimes we need to face the truth; this romance is just never gonna work out. It's about knowing when to walk away from a work-in-progress that'll never progress - and that in itself is a whole other skill writers can only acquire through practice. So yeah, the postscript to 'finish what you start' is 'But know when to call it quits.' (And also 'hide all the cheesy photos in the attic, but don't burn them.')

2 - "So... I don't fit in with your club, huh?  Well, maybe YOU'RE the misfits around here - ha yeah, I'll show you!"
I'm going to tell you a true story now which doesn't paint me in a particularly good light (well there's a shocking change, but hey ho...)

I once joined a writers' group after seeing a poster in my local library. It proclaimed it would be run by an 'internationally famous author,' but other than that there were no other details except for venue, meeting dates and times. No matter; it was a chance to hang out with other writers, and I was well up for that. Within the first couple of meetings there was a brief 'tell us about yourself' session for everyone, to get an idea of educational backgrounds and writing experience - and it very quickly became apparent there was - well, let's call it a dominant dynamic in the group. Everyone in the group - the 'internationally famous author' presiding included - had struggled at school, either dropping out before getting any formal qualifications, or not achieving any they could really use to get ahead. Everyone that is, except for me and one other person.

I had no problem with this whatsoever. I've never believed that a person's level of education should be a permanent barrier to writing success. But as these introductions went on - accompanied by much fist-pumping and "yeah you go, mate, sticking it to all those educated snobs!" from other members - I started to feel a bit uncomfortable about getting to my turn. I'm no academic wunderkind, but I went to college and university, which, if the current vibe was anything to go by, was going to make me about as popular as a stripper at a mother and toddler group. I wasn't wrong; for both me and the other guy there - who was an ex-university lecturer - you could actually feel the atmosphere in the room change after we spoke. It was as if we'd told them we drowned kittens as a hobby.

Things got a bit frosty for the two of us from then on. If we made any comments or expressed any opinions we were met with a loaded silence followed by a sharp change of subject. When it came to the round robin of members talking about things they'd written, we were both told that the genres we were writing in were "dead" and  "not the sort of thing normal people want to read." Loud comments were regularly made along the lines of "all these snobs who've been to college thinking they're better than us." And at one point the author/group leader himself made a long speech with the theme of 'don't let all those pretentious educated people tell you that spelling and grammar and all that crap is important if you want to become as famous as I am; they're just trying to stop you achieving because they're jealous you've got raw, natural talent without all the schooling they had!' And stared at me and the ex-lecturer throughout, as if daring us to respond. (We didn't. We both just sat there in meek silence, occasionally swapping uncomfortable glances.)

Now I can obviously only speak from my own perspective. I don't know; maybe when I did voice an opinion in the meetings, I used  the odd long, fancy word when a shorter one would've done the job. I and my ex-lecturer friend wouldn't have noticed that so much, but perhaps the others did and it wound them up. Perhaps, in our efforts to show we didn't think any less of them just because they hadn't taken the same paths we had, we overcompensated and unknowingly came across as patronising or smug instead. We'll never know, because nothing was ever openly articulated like that - it was all snarky asides and dirty looks. All of which came to a head when it was announced that the group would be producing an anthology of members works, to be published and sold in local bookshops. It was, as the author/group leader put it "our chance to show the world that real writing talent isn't all about getting a fancy education and knowing how to spell properly."

I'm afraid it brought out the petty side in me. By this time my ex-lecturer friend had quit the group, sick of being sidelined and snarked about, so I was the only Enemy Within left. I probably should have done the dignified thing and followed his example. But something about the battle cry for that anthology irked me. I resented the implication that being educated somehow automatically meant I grossly over-estimated my writing ability. So I made up my mind that I was going to submit to that anthology - and I was going to make it the best quality I could. I was going to use correct grammar and punctuation and I was going to spell every damn word right - and it was still going to be good enough to get included. I was going to show them that - well, y'know guys, maybe sometimes a person with an education is allowed to be a talented writer after all...

It was a petulant motivation from an immature place in my soul, and I'm not proud of it. It was the first time in my life I ever wrote anything purely with the goal of 'sticking it to the haters' - and I will make sure it's also the last. In the end I got one short story included in that anthology, while almost all of the other members had at least three. My work doesn't stand out as the shining beacon of correct writing style - in fact, it barely registers a ripple within the book as a whole. That's exactly as it should be. I left the group shortly after - and I doubt they were sorry to see me go. I was never going to fit in there - I just wish I'd had the maturity to see that earlier.

But it did teach me something important; writing isn't a giant battleground, where opposing sides flail their swords of technical skill and shields of style. There's room for everyone - and just because there's a ton of writers rampaging around the field, it doesn't mean they're all waiting to stove your head in with a mace so they can be 'the winner' and not you. So just write, and try to be the best writer you can be. Forget about being 'better than [insert random category of writers here.]'

Avoiding The Snake Pits on The Writer's Road

Writers are a bit like Indiana Jones; at random times in our lives, we choose to abandon our stuffy day-jobs and set out on perilous adventures in unexplored worlds, to hunt down and claim the golden thingamajig as our very own before some rival gets there first and grabs all the glory.

Well, alright - that's what's going on in our heads rather than our everyday lives, but... the adrenaline rush is the same. (Hey, there are people out there who put prosthetic pasties on their heads and speak Klingon for fun, so don't judge us, okay?) And, like Indy, we have to negotiate ingenious and deadly traps along the way. Writers' traps, designed to stop us reaching our goal and remove us from the movie before we even get a chance to have our name listed in the credits. Snake pits. And of course Indy hates snakes...

I've fallen into many of them in the years I've been a writer, and lots of my writer friends have too. In fact, if you haven't, you aint no Indy yet. And during that time, I've realised that half the battle of getting out of a Writer's Snake Pit is knowing you've fallen into one - because it isn't always obvious. Sometimes you can mistake it for a Hole in the Road of Destiny, a Sign that your work-in-progress/writing career just Isn't Meant To Be. Or sometimes it just doesn't feel like a bad hole to be in at all - heck, you could sit in here for a while quite happily while you carry on diddling about... But either way, you're trapped; treading water (or snakes)  instead of moving forwards.

I don't claim to have The Answers. If I did, I'd be doing this blog from my beachfront property in Hawaii, sipping on a strawberry daiquiri and wearing a tropical-flowered kaftan that doesn't care how much chocolate I've eaten. And I'm definitely not doing that right now. But I figured that, by listing snake pits I've become aware of, others who've fallen into them might be reassured to know they're not alone or going crazy. And hey - maybe we can swap hints on how to get out of them too.

1 - This One Aint Working - Oooh, Let's Try This One Instead!
In the case of novel-writing, I've spent years doing this. My cupboards, hard drives and data sticks are filled with so many draft one novels that never made it past chapter five I could probably fill the shelves of The Crappiest Library in the World with them. Maybe even if I had finished any of them, they would still have been monumentally shite (in fact, I deeply suspect that would be the case for just about all of them.) But at least I would have learned why.

By never finishing any novel I started, I never allowed myself to know where I failed with them. I also never allowed myself to experience writing a novel when it was hard work, or 'not fun' - or just plain felt like kicking my own poo into my own face. As soon it stopped being enjoyable, I dropped it like a hot brick and moved on to the next idea to excite me. It's only now, with The Renegades, that I'm finally learning the truth; writing novels aint fun all the time, and it's not meant to be. Like... pretty much anything worth doing well. It's like a relationship; you want it to be the best it can be? You gotta stick with it and work at it, even when the going gets tough.

Finish stuff. Even the crappy stuff. It's the only way to make the next stuff less crappy.

2 - Oh my god, this author's already written a story about [insert theme or subject here] - and it's brilliant! My story's going to seem like a sub-standard rip-off by comparison... I'll have to give up on it right now!
Yes, it's definitely true - there are story ideas that seem to have been popping up, over and over again, for eternity. And bandwagons that haven't so much been jumped on as are starting to buckle under the weight of people hanging off the sides and other people hanging on to those people. From lovelorn, non-murder-y vampires, to naive nice girls hooking up with kinky-but-damaged rich guys, from brave adventurers of different races banding together on a quest for the magical doodad, to a group of brave young kids with special powers fighting the ultimate big bad guy...

Here's the bad news: no story idea in the world is completely original. Somebody somewhere will have thought of it and written or told it already. Even the great classics, written by those we consider literary giants, used ideas that someone else had used before them. Many people have said that Star Wars is Lord of the Rings in space, and even that the Harry Potter Series is Lord of the Rings at boarding school. The world would be a poorer place if J.K Rowling and George Lucas had never written their works based on that assessment (although I won't get into a debate about the Star Wars prequels here, thanks very much...) The point is, there's still plenty of room for variations on classic storytelling themes. The difference is - you.

Even if your story treads a well-worn theme or idea, it can still be original - because you are original. And the way you choose to tell that story doesn't have to be anything like the way it's been told before. You can change up so many things; setting, era, worlds, characters... There's no limit to your imagination, so if anything does start to feel like a straight imitation of something already done at any point.... well, that's when you can stop and think "how can I tweak this to make it my own?"

Sure, there have been stories written that are terrible rip-offs of existing stories - but those are the ones that, in many ways, were trying to copy the originals. That's because there are people out there who believe writing a novel is like building a LEGO model; follow the step-by-step instructions, using exactly the same bricks in exactly the same order every single time and - ta-dah! There's your little car. Those people are not writers in the true sense. They are people who, above everything else, want to make money and have got it into their heads that applying the same tactics they would use for any other get-rich-quick scheme, like pyramid selling or 'shipping a mass-produced product,' will work for producing a novel as well. But y'know what? Even they will sell copies of their novels. There are people out there who will buy them and read them - and even love them - nonetheless.

So don't be overly afraid of 'borrowing.' After all, as a writer you are also a Word Artist. By all means take a template - just be prepared to cover it with your own crayons, paints and glues. Get messy!

3 - When people ask how my novel's coming along, they do it with 'That Look' on their face. They 'know' they're indulging me, being oh-so-kind to me by 'letting' me write this thing and 'allowing me to chase my dream.' But I can see they secretly believe I'm wasting my time and I'll never get anywhere as a writer. And they're probably right.
People who aren't writers don't 'get' how it feels to be one. To them, it's the same as the little kid who says they want to be an astronaut or the Prime Minister when they grow up; kind of cute while they're still little - as long as they eventually grow out of it and start thinking about what they really want to do. But most of us don't 'grow out of' wanting to be a writer. For us, it isn't like we just decided to pick the job we thought sounded the coolest until maturity and cynicism gives us a reality check - it's a need, an inbuilt passion that won't go away just because now we've got the right to vote and a mortgage. But, to non-writers, it's not a grown-up passion to have. And as such, there will always be this little part of them that sees you as that lovely person who still has that funny little childlike side... who just hasn't quite grown up yet...

That, my dears, is a fact of life. Even if you have proved yourself as someone with writing talent in the past. Until you are The Next Stephen King/J.K Rowling/George R.R. Martin, you will be regarded at best as nice but deluded, and at worst as arrogant and pretentious. And nothing you do can or will change that.

But... that doesn't mean you have to buy into that too. You want the truth? You probably were a slightly rubbish writer to begin with. There is a possibility you might... *deep breath*... actually-be-a-slightly-rubbish-writer-at-the-moment. But that's not a static status you're doomed to remain in forever - the more you do it, the better you'll get. Especially if doing it is what you love to do. Your writing is NEVER a waste of time or effort if that's what you want to do.

Smile politely at the disbelievers, the patronisers, the eye-rollers and the constipated grinners who give you that subtle feeling they think you should quit writing and do something more sensible instead. But don't let them crush your passion. You are the one in charge of your writing destiny, not them. They have no power at all over that. And if, by the time you're on your deathbed gasping your last gasp, it turns out they were 'right' all along, and you didn't get to be the published author you dreamed of being...

Well, so chuffin' what? At least you stayed true to yourself and never gave up on your passion. And you'll have had a much better life for it.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Life: Too Short for Regrets, But Long Enough To Be A Writer

I had another birthday last week (and no, you're not getting a number out of me.) I'm reasonably sure I'm still only having the requisite one a year, but sometimes it feels like more; I know there's a sad part of my brain that's still clinging to the fantasy of being thirty, and reality is starting to seriously mess with that now.

I was a writer before I could actually write; by the time I was three I was apparently filling sheets of paper with rows of  meaningless squiggly lines and telling anyone who'd listen that I was "whiting a storwee." At the age of seven I made my first, proper book, with sheets of paper folded in half and stapled through the middle, that had not only a story with real, readable words in but pictures as well. I don't remember much about it, except that it was a shamelessly plagiarized hybrid of Louisa M.Alcott's 'Little Women' and whatever random Famous Five book I'd recently read (and yeah, it probably was as dreadful as it sounds.) Over the next few years I won some storywriting competitions and a playwriting competition twice in a row. It looked very much like writing was going to be My Thing when I grew up.

When I first read Stephen King's book 'On Writing,' it struck me that, even though I'm almost twenty years younger than him, I caught the writing bug at a much earlier age than he did. He's since done pretty darn well for himself, selling gazillions of novels all over the world and acquiring a devoted fanbase the size of a small planet. Whereas I... well, I won't compare my achievements to his, if it's all the same to you - I don't need that kind of kick in the self-esteem nuts, thanks.

Now I'm not begrudging Mr King one ounce of his success; it's very clear from his book that he worked his ass off to get where he's got, and everything he's achieved is down to putting in the graft and never giving up. But, aside from also being ridiculously talented with a healthy amount of self-belief, this is precisely why he's achieved everything he has and... I haven't.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not so arrogant as to think that's all it would take for me to be as successful and revered as him - I'm highly unlikely to reach those heights no matter how much graft I put in. But I do know that now I'd be further along the path to my own level of success if I'd followed his example. He applied bum to chair and churned out those words every single day - even when it was hard, even when it was the last thing he felt like doing - and never letting anything in his life stand in the way or distract him from his goal.

And I didn't. I let everything get in the way; work, relationships, mental dipshittery... you name it. I only wrote when I wanted to write, when I was 'in the mood' to write - when writing was an exciting, considerate lover that got my mojo revving and made me feel good. Which was nowhere near often enough. Writing when it's fun is easy; it's writing when it's hell on earth that sorts the Michelin-starred from the McDonalds Happy Meals. I wish I'd learned that some twenty years earlier.

And it became obvious to me this week, after speaking to several 'older' writer friends, that I'm not the only one feeling this way. All of us mourn our lost opportunities; so many wasted years, missed chances, if only if only, what have I done with my life..? And now, with the free-for-all that is digital self-publishing, it's hard not to look at all these self-pub authors half our age churning out books by the bucketload - and feel like hopeless slackers by comparison. We've already lost the race... and now maybe we're too old and knackered to ever shamble across that finish line?

It's all right for the likes of Edith Piaf, singing "non, je ne regrette rien" - at least she got a hit record out of it. For the rest of us though, it's hard not to count up all those 'wasted' years and think of ourselves as failing somehow. But we're forgetting something; during all those 'wasted' years we may not have been banging out literary masterpieces... but we were doing something equally valuable in the quest to become better writers...

We were living our lives. Filling them with the richness of experiences - of other people, places, professions, cultures, lifestyles - everything. All manner of things that can't be learned from a How-To book or any number of creative writing courses. And all things that add depth and meaning to whatever we choose to write now, when we've looked back over them and turned them around in our more mature minds and made new sense of them.

If you wanted to be an Olympic athlete or a glamour model... well yeah, those are career choices that have a limited age span. But writing isn't. Many of our best-loved authors didn't achieve success until they were well into their forties and fifties - and 'The Camomile Lawn' novelist Mary Wesley was 71 by the time she was first published. You're never 'too old' to be a writer! As long as you can still hold a pen, bash a keyboard or talk to someone else who can (Barbara Cartland dictated all her novels to her PA in the latter years of her career) you can still produce the goods. Time hasn't run out for you - time's only just beginning!

So, if you only started 'taking your writing seriously' at a later stage in your life, maybe there's a very good reason. Maybe you just needed to come to it when you were ready. And there's no shame in how long it takes to do that; some writers are minute steaks, others are pot roasts. Both are equally delicious - but only if they're cooked in the right way, for the right amount of time. Be proud to be a pot roast if that's what you are, because even the best minute steak in the world can never taste like you.

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...

When Your Middle-Aged Novel Has a Mid-Life Crisis

I am now officially (well, okay then, mathematically if I maintain the illusion that I can see into the future) halfway through Draft Two of The Renegades. Yep, fifty percent done. Who'd a thunk it?

It's okay, I'm not asking anyone to hang up the balloons or book the band. I realise, in the grand scheme of everything, that this news is basically some writer you've never heard of getting halfway to achieving something most writers you have heard of have already done, several times over. Unlike the gazillions (it sometimes seems) of self-publishing authors who are banging out novels and novellas with the regularity of a person on the Stewed Prune Diet, I am taking a ridiculously long time to push out even just this one (is two years already a ridiculously long time?)

This is the paragraph where my excuses would normally go, but I'm not going to bother this time, because I'm pretty sure they're all Pollock-spattered through many of my previous posts and I'm even starting to bore myself with them now, so there's no reason to bore everyone else as well. If I want this novel to be as good as I can make it, it'll take as long as it takes and that's the way it is. There. Defiant Battle Retort over.

However, what the aforementioned milestone actually means is that I am now ears-deep in that sticky quagmire of the novel they call The Middle Zone. The bit where the whole thing is in danger of sagging, dragging and just generally going horribly tits-up, according to accepted wisdom.

Theoretically, since I'm on Daft Two, I've already done this bit before so it shouldn't be a problem. And it wouldn't be... if my Draft Two looked anything like my Draft One. I'm still telling the same story in both... but the two drafts are only alike in the way that Sally the Sensible Office Clerk is still Sally the Sensible Office Clerk after ten Jager Bombs and a 2am kebab. So yeah, this is a second-time-around Middle Zone - and it's harder this time because it's not the glorious, just-get-it-all-down brain fart that is the typical first draft.

Like a middle-aged person, my middle-aged novel is in danger of acquiring flabby bits that head south at the slightest hint of gravity. Of getting tired and cranky more quickly. Of marching into a room full of purpose - and then promptly forgetting why it was going there in the first place. I'll admit I've even started to see signs of a developing mid-life crisis; it's trying to hang out with novels half its age to prove it's still 'got it' (i.e. I've wondered more than once if  it could fit into the YA genre; some of the subject matter and a quick tally-up of f-bombs dropped by my characters answered that with a resounding 'no.')

I suppose it's to be expected. Again, like a middle-aged person, the middle bit of a novel can end up feeling like the under-appreciated workhorse of society; the one who does the lion's share of the hard work and gets very little of the glory. In the great 'How-To's of novel-writing, everyone talks about how important it is to have a brilliant beginning and a stonkingly great end, and those are the bits people often cite when talking about what elevates a story from 'good' to great.' The middle bit is just expected to be well-written enough to guide the reader between the two; if it is everyone takes it for granted, but if it isn't... ooh, that's the reason the entire book fails. The Middle Bit is too old to be considered sexy and exciting like the Beginning, and too young to be revered for its wisdom like the End. No wonder it often has a massive sulk and dreams about driving around in a two-seater sports car listening to that rappity-hop music the youths like these days...

So perhaps the answer is for me to treat the middle of my novel like a middle-aged person having a mid-life crisis - or at least try and empathize with its confusion and cut it a little slack sometimes. Remind it on regular occasions that yes, it really is an important part of the whole story and yes, I will devote as much love and attention to it as I give to my hot young beginning and wise old ending. And accept that, because of its moods and occasional hot flushes, I'm going to have to work to its schedule, rather than trying to bully it to march to mine. Writing, rewriting, then rewriting some more. It'll be done when it's done.

Yes, it will baffle me, drive me up the wall and embarrass the bum off me at regular intervals. It's already started doing that.  But, like a husband or a relative, I still love it and I know it'll get over itself eventually, given enough time to work through all its issues.

Although if it starts copping off with other novels, it will get its ass kicked...

Pieces of a Writer

Writers think differently. Not just differently, but on a deeper level, about pretty much everything.

That probably sounds very smug to non-writers, but it's the truth. How else do you think all that stuff that comes out of our collective heads gets in there in the first place? Of course it also has its downsides; writers tend to be more prone to depression too (probably because thinking on a deeper level about terrible stuff makes you feel a deeper level of terrible.)

Most writers know all this already, not least because they talk, write, blog and maybe even tweet about it. Tell a fellow writer you know the misery of depression, and the response will usually be sympathetic rather than the long sigh and eye-rolling of many who've never been In The Sad Club. All of which means that it's become okay - at least among writers - to talk about it openly. And we do.

But how many of us are willing to talk about the Crazy Stuff?

What 'crazy stuff?' Well, y'know that first sentence up there - "Writers think differently?" I mean that Crazy Stuff. The stuff that makes us write, the stuff that makes us judge everything we write (and, by association, ourselves) way more harshly than even Simon Cowell in a bad mood, and the stuff that makes us carry on writing anyway. What's going on under the bonnet, in that kooky engine-brain? Not many people talk about that.

Maybe we kid ourselves that 'all' writers have this crazy stuff going on in their heads, and because it's so universal there's 'no need' to actually come out and say it. Or maybe the opposite is true... maybe we're all so scared this stuff is genuine crazy that we're afraid to say it, in case what we get in response is a sea of uncomprehending looks and people backing away slowly with nervous laughs. Maybe more of us should 'fess up to our Inner Crazy...

Allow me to step forward as a guinea pig then. Not a real one obviously - I'm not quite that crazy - but I'm in the mood to start the ball rolling, so let's do this. Allow me to take you on a tour of... the Inside of My Head!

Okay, let's start with the biggie. From a writing point of view, I am not one person. I am three people - three very different people. Yes, you did read that right. I will now introduce you to them...

I'll start with Miss Narcissist. You probably won't like her very much - and that's okay, because she can be hard to like a lot of the time. The clue is in the name, as I'm sure you already guessed. Miss Narcissist doesn't do any of my writing - because in her head she's already been there, done that, got the Booker Prize. Miss Narcissist is me on some kind of fast-forwarded alternate-reality; as far as she's concerned she's already a world-famous and fantastic writer, admired and read by everyone. Oh sure, there's probably stuff she could still learn about writing... but most of it, she already knows. This novel she's currently writing might be the first she's even got to Draft Two stage, but it's an undiscovered bloody masterpiece that the whole world has been crying out for, and it's going to sell so many copies she'll be able to buy a tropical island and still have change for a private jet...

Miss Narcissist is a raving idiot, and an arrogant one at that. If I ever decided to wear her skin for my public persona, I'm pretty sure there'd soon be a long queue of people wanting to punch me in the face - which is precisely why I keep her on permanent house arrest inside my head. And also why I need someone to balance her out, so meet...

Grinch. If you thought Miss Narcissist was obnoxious, you aint seen nothing yet. Grinch is in a permanent bad mood, witheringly sarcastic and damn near impossible to impress because he hates everything about me (which, by definition, also includes him... well, I never said he was a genius, did I?) Grinch's favourite pastime is metaphorically grabbing Miss Narcissist by her knicker elastic and giving her the wedgie of her life at regular intervals - and after he's finished with her, he comes for me.

He places me in a different alternate reality - one that keeps looping like Groundhog Day. In that, I am the crappiest, suckiest writer on the planet, who's always going to be terrible and never going to get any better no matter how hard I try because I had no talent to start with, and I'm just deluding myself that I ever had any... He's like an abusive writer-parent who wishes his offspring came with a receipt, so he could take her back to the shop and exchange her for something better. Or at least get his money back.

And then there's me in the middle - the actual writer. Kind of like Boxer the horse in 'Animal Farm,' just keeping my head down and hoping that working harder is the solution to it all. Most of the time I let the other two duke it out on either side of my brain while I just carry on writing - but occasionally they get me down. Miss Narcissist never talks directly to me, but just hearing her prattle on is embarrassing enough. Grinch, on the other hand, likes nothing better than to tell me personally what's on his mind...

MISS NARCISSIST: Hmmm... I'll probably have to renew my passport ready for interviews on American TV when my book comes out...
GRINCH: Why are you even bothering? This sucks! A five-year-old could write better stuff than this!
ME: Well then I'm going to keep on writing it until I can make it better...
GRINCH: You'll never get better - some people got it and some people haven't. You haven't, you've never had it and you're never gonna get it!
MISS NARCISSIST: Yeah, they said that to J.K. Rowling too... and Tolkien...
ME: Miss Narcissist thinks I'm getting better...
GRINCH: She's an idiot! You're both idiots! And you both suck!

Yeah... a visit inside my brain can be like the worst dinner party in the history of forever sometimes.

But even though they both drive me mad... I also need them. Miss Narcissist's ridiculous fantasy life keeps me going when writing is a struggle and I lose the will to stick with a project, while Grinch stops me getting complacent and phoning it in when it's all flowing just a little too easily to be true. It'd be nice if they weren't such godawful people, of course... but like they say, you can choose your friends but you can't choose your family - and the demons in your head choose you.

Maybe you've read all of this and thought "Yeah, I get it - this is just how it is for me too!" In which case you now know you're not alone. That's got to be good, hasn't it? Alternatively, if all of this has left you baffled and thinking I'm a grade one nutcase... well, at least you can show it to your loved ones and say "There, see - you could be living with THAT instead! Never complain about me again!"

Which is also good - admittedly not so much for me, but hey - I don't mind spreading a little sunshine while I contemplate my fractured mental state...

Little Bits of Happy a Writer 'Needs'

Writers can be a funny bunch.

 They love their vocation with a passion when it's working well, to the point of wanting to do it to the exclusion of... pretty much everything else, really. However, when it's not working at all, every second of doing the thing they once loved so much becomes a kind of slow, cruel torture - an exercise in futility that brings nothing but self-loathing and despair. So they... keep on doing it anyway, because not doing it is, somehow, even worse...

But there's another side to many writers that perhaps only the loved ones of writers are aware of. Because many writers have what might be described as 'quirks.' 'Fetishes,' if you like. No - not those kind of fetishes.... well okay, maybe, but that's not my business and I'm not planning to 'out' anyone here, so deep breaths, relax, etc. No, I'm talking about seemingly innocuous, everyday things that writers like. I mean, really like. A lot. Things that probably promote little more than a 'meh' from non-writers, but fill a writer's heart with sweet, fizzy joy.

I used to think it was just me being a bit geeky - but after discussions with other writers it soon became clear that these little sources of happy were shared by many of us. So here, without further ado and all that, are just a few of the Writer's Secret Little Fetishes. How many can you put a tick next to?

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* - Pens!
Pens are things of beauty. That slender shape, their weight in your hand, the pretty rainbow of colours and designs they come in... a writer can never - NEVER - have 'too many pens.' The concept simply doesn't exist. This applies even if you hardly ever use pens anymore. These days, around 95% of my 'writing' is actually typing; tapping away at some keyboard or other. Typing is faster - and, if I make a mistake, correcting it is easy, takes mere seconds and leaves no trace of the original error behind.

But that doesn't mean I don't love pens. I do. Love. Pens. Desire pens. Covet pens like a miser covets his secret stash of gold bullion... to the point where I can be... *squirms*... slightly possessive of the ones I call 'mine.' I have a husband I love dearly, but he 'borrows' pens and then treats them as if they're just... things to write with, goddammit! As in, once 'borrowed,' he not only doesn't return them but (and I advise you to sit down at this point if you're of a delicate disposition) he doesn't retract the nib/put the cap back on when he's finished writing with them. So they dry up. And DIE!!!

When the pen in question is one of a pack of five from Poundland ('cos even cheap pens are lovely) this is annoying. But when it's a Special Pen - one you picked out individually from a sea of pens in a proper pen shop because you just saw it and liked it... well, every writer knows a small puppy cries every time a Special Pen dries up.

So yeah, if I see my poor husband hovering around my pen tub with a certain look on his face I do have this tendency to get my Gollum on now. "Nooooo.... you can't have the preciousssss! I bought you some pens last week - use your owwwwnnnn!!" And many of my writer friends have assured me they feel the same way. Which makes it not crazy at all.

* - Notepads and notebooks!
That's as in the old-fashioned, paper-filled ones - not the computer-y things.

As with pens, the same rules apply; it is utterly beyond the concept of reality to have 'too many' notebooks and notepads. The reason is simple. Sometimes even writers who write mostly on computers like to go places where computers aren't and scribble down ideas and brain dumps, and the good old notebook and pen is still the idea combo for that. But 'story ideas' are completely different from 'notes on a current work-in-progress,' and both of those are nowhere near the same as a 'writing journal' - which is not to be confused with 'morning pages'... So of course you can't just stick all those things in one book, together - no, that's just insanity! You need separate books, for each separate type of scribbling... preferably with nice patterns or soothing pictures on the cover, that reflect the different natures of the writing inside.. Oh yes, the endless variety of pretty covers - some so special and beautiful they deserve to have you devise a new type of writing altogether, just for them...

This is why I have shelves full of pretty notebooks; my local fire station could justifiably class my house as a hazard zone. Most of those notebooks have no more than the first three pages filled - some are still as blank as the day I bought them (possibly years ago now - hell, I don't even remember.) But they're there, looking gorgeous and waiting for their moment in the sun. It may come for them, one day. But if it doesn't... it's no biggie. They don't have to prove themselves to me - they had me at "that'll be four pounds ninety-nine, please..."

* - Writing 'how-to' books!
Here's a social experiment; leave a random book about the craft of writing on a table somewhere and see how many writers can resist picking it up and looking through it. The answer is highly likely to be none. It doesn't even need to cover a writing genre they're interested in - chances are they'll still, at the very least, read the blurb on the back. I personally have never had any desire to write romance novels and probably never will. So if I saw a book called 'How to Write Romance Novels' would I give it a go? Hell yeah! A writer wrote this book - and I'm a writer too! That practically makes us siblings!

Besides, if the first best thing in the world for a writer to be doing is writing, the second-best thing is reading about writing. We're insatiably curious about how others do it, especially if they've done it well enough to gain a ton of respect - okay, and/or money - in the process. Writing is lonely sometimes. We need the odd reminder we're not the only nutcases doing this crazy thing.

* - Specifically 'Writing-Friendly' Sustenance!
Everyone - even non-writer types - has their little foodie/drinkie vices; the special treats they indulge in when they need a little emotional TLC. But many writers have at least one special type of comfort sustenance that they will swear, with hand on their heart, helps them to write. Some regard it as an essential requirement for the process, insisting that without it they cannot write at all; others will turn to it when they feel blocked or that their work has become stale, like a tried-and-trusted home remedy. Coffee seems to be a popular one (specifically good-quality, 'proper' coffee - none of that instant muck, apparently.) Hemingway would probably have said 'alcohol.' Mine is chocolate.

It's all in our minds of course; as far as I know there is no scientific evidence that favourite treats have any specific effect - chemical or otherwise - on the creative synapses in our brains. Whatever. Science Schmience - pass me those Magic Stars, I've got a cranky chapter of my work-in-progress to write...

* - Their Special 'Writing Place!'
I left this one 'til last because it's the most important. Virginia Woolfe famously talked of having 'a room of one's own' for writing. Which is lovely if you've got a spare room going begging... but not all of us are lucky enough to have that. What almost every writer who's serious about their work does have though, is some kind of designated space where they always go to do their writing; be it a permanent fixture like a desk wedged in a corner of a room, a specific comfy chair that's universally acknowledged by the whole household to be 'the writing chair,' or a kitchen table that's commandeered part-time whenever it's... not being a kitchen table. It's the Special Writing Place we call our own. And boy, do we call it our own...

Like cats, writers can be territorial. Even with a part-time writing space like a kitchen table. We have no problem with it being a kitchen table when we're doing things other than writing... but when we are in residence - it is NO LONGER A KITCHEN TABLE, y'hear?  Seriously. So here's the deal - and listen up, because this is important. All the time our Special Writing Place is being our Special Writing Place, you DO NOT put your stuff in or on it. Not even temporarily. You don't take or even move any of the stuff we've placed in our Special Writing Place - not even if it's on fire, just call us. And you definitely, definitely do not hover over us doing that face that means "when are you going to be finished here?" Take it as read that The Hovering Thing will never be welcome in our Special Writing Place. Remember these simple tips and we will have no need to snarl at your approach like a feral animal anymore. You're welcome.

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These endearing little quirks of ours were never intended to be a thorn in the side of our loved ones, and we like to think most of them aren't that troublesome. But living with a writer is never going to be a run-of-the-mill experience... and at least we're not out robbing banks or something, hey?

Well - not in real life, anyway...