Tag Archives: process

Notes about place

As a writer, think today about the outside world – the weather, the view, the ground beneath. Maybe you’re in your bedroom, take a moment to open the window. What does the sky look like? What can you hear? What can you see? Describe it. But don’t describe what you think is there, describe what’s actually there. I try and do this often, making short notes, some of which I can use in later stories. Some are terrible and useless. But that’s okay – normally I don’t show them to anyone so it doesn’t matter!

Here are a couple of notes I’ve written over the last two days:

The sky a watercolour wash….The cherry blossom light as the clouds behind…The evening the sun came out, illuminating the opposite hill, scrub skin like a fallen dragon’s…The sky almost as dark as the charred moorland beneath, the yellow of the gorse is the transition between earth and sky…daffodils tiny suns

Now it’s your turn.

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Zadie Smith’s Rules For Writers

This is from The Guardian and it gives me lots to think about as I work on the edits of my next book.  Zadie Smith is a writer I admire – I have her essays ready to read with my coffee in the morning (if I could only get the baby to let me!)

What do you think of her golden rules?  Number 7 strikes me as pretty smart:

1 When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.

2 When an adult, try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would.

3 Don’t romanticise your “vocation”. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no “writer’s lifestyle”. All that matters is what you leave on the page.

4 Avoid your weaknesses. But do this without telling yourself that the things you can’t do aren’t worth doing. Don’t mask self-doubt with contempt.

5 Leave a decent space of time between writing something and editing it.

6 Avoid cliques, gangs, groups. The presence of a crowd won’t make your writing any better than it is.

7 Work on a computer that is disconnected from the ­internet.

8 Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.

9 Don’t confuse honours with achievement.

10 Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand – but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never ­being satisfied.

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Time off

Being really sick makes you stop for a moment.  Sure, it’s not the way I’d recommend getting your imagination working, but it did get me thinking as I lay there the last couple of days with flu.  See, I had my phone off, I didn’t check email, and I wasn’t watching TV.  I think sometimes it’s a good idea to just let your imagination have some time to itself – maybe give yourself an hour without phone/internet/TV/anything that distracts you.  Lie around.  Listen to music.  Stare at the ceiling.  Whatever.  Just let yourself be and see what travels through your mind.  Reacquaint yourself with your imagination.  I had to get sick to remind myself to slow down and take time off.  But, wow, did I get a great new idea for a book out of it…

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A whole new design

I’m enjoying writing this blog so much that I’ve decided to get a web designer to help me put it all together so it works really well.  I want to have a section on how to get published, another quickstart set of tips, links to more writers and more thoughts about writing.  Plus, I’d like to do author interviews and photo prompts, alongside all the writer tips for you.

Today, I’m staying in a hotel in the centre of London.  London is my home town, so it’s the first time I’ve ever done this – looked at the city as a tourist might.  It’s been making me think about looking at stories from a new angle.  London is filled with tiny quirky streets, cobbled corners, busy cafes, packed galleries, and loads of pigeons.  As a tourist here, I’m noticing the details – details I often just take for granted as I rush about visiting one friend or the other, or trying to get work done.

How can you look at what you’re writing from a whole new angle?  You don’t have to stay in a fancy hotel in Soho (although, I admit, it’s pretty nice!) but perhaps you can try your story from a different character’s perspective.  Today, I’m looking at London as a tourist, perhaps I could look at London in my imagination through the eyes of one of those gallery goers, or even through the eyes of a pigeon! 

So, take one of you characters and rewrite a scene through their eyes.  What do you learn???

I’ll keep you posted on the new web design.

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Time to move on from jetlag

After a couple of sleepless nights and some very sleepy days, it’s time to get back to work.  A new novel to edit, a story to rethink, some ideas kicking about in my head.  How do we as writers know where to start and how to get back into what we’re doing?  Well, the way I do it is I listen to music.  The same song over and over again.  And again.  Each piece of writing has a piece of music attached.  Some writers write at a particular time of day, others only work on one project at a time.  But for me music helps me focus.  After the first rendition of the tune, I don’t hear it anymore because I’m back where I left off…

At least, that’s the idea.  Try it!

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