The Writing Coach

Thoughts (and objects) to pack in my Barcelona suitcase this year

Tomorrow, early, I head off to Barcelona, my fifth trip to the Catalonian capital, my favourite city, London-excepted. 

I first celebrated this city in words when I made my first ever entry on this blog here in 2005.  Then again, I wrote about an incident in the Picasso Museum here.  As the city has always been such a huge source of inspiration to me, I'm excited to visit again, to see what it will uncover within me this time.  Though it's true, the Picasso book that I wrote of in the latter blog post has not yet materialised, I know there is still something there, waiting to be uncovered.  I've been toying with the idea of studying art history for some time, indeed I've recently been looking into the idea of an MA in the philosophy of art, though given my current commitments, I'm dreaming a couple of years into the future I feel...  All the same, I know that art will play a large role in my future life.  I hope to make art and to write about it and have made a small start this year by taking art classes with the wonderful artist Stephanie Wilkinson.   My current novel, in the final stages of development, also has an art -history sub-plot involving Modigliani's last mistress Jeanne Hebuterne.  So, given all this, what thoughts (and objects) am I packing in my suitcase this year?

10 Insights from a Writing Life

A couple of nights back, I was rifling through the filing cabinet, looking for the Anne Tyler essay mentioned in the previous post, when I came across this sketch.  I was thrilled to discover it as it brought back great memories of the time when I appeared on-stage at the Dartington Festival alongside my former teacher, Sir Malcolm Bradbury and my friend, the novelist Louise Doughty.  We were debating that thorny old subject - 'Can creative writing be taught?'

Well, I certainly believe that good writing can be facilitated.  Indeed, a few weeks ago, I was standing in for Sara at her 'Novel in a Month' writing course, a course linked to the Nanowrimo idea that if one freewrites, it is possible to write an entire draft of a novel in 30 days.  There are some links here to the idea that I propose in my eBook so it's a subject that I'm familiar with, even as in general I take my time over novels, having produced, on average, a novel every 4 years for the past 20 years (yikes, is that how long I have been writing...) 

I began the class by asking if there were any areas in particular that the students would like to cover and one person asked if I might give a list of '10 insights into the writing life' that I have garnered during the course of my writing career.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, I was unable to come up with a list of 10 off the top of my head.  But I promised I would think on it, so here, for the 'Novel in a Month' people and for everyone else, is my list of 10...

Still just writing

Over a year ago, I took the decision to stop writing this blog and to put my writing focus back on my fourth novel.  Now I have completed a (near-final) draft of that novel, I'm back and I'd like to take a moment to fill you in on what's been going for me in the intervening year. 

When I asked myself that question 'what have I been doing?', Anne Tyler's phrase 'Still Just Writing' immediately came to mind.  This phrase is taken from an essay she wrote, one of my favourite essays that I share with many of my clients.  In the essay, she writes of the many tasks that get in the way of writing, the daily, repetitive things that prevent one from reaching the blank page.  Tyler writes so eloquently about 'interruption' and what has always inspired me most about this essay is the fact that, though she has clearly led a life full of interruption, she has also, somehow along the way, produced many wonderful works of fiction.  What strikes me most, whenever I read her words, is that it's actually ok to be interrupted, just so long as we always return to the work.  So long as we lead a 'writing life', so long as our writing continues to be a pull for us, we will, in the end, produce many works.  To be honest, given the many interruptions that have come between me and my writing over the years, I'm still astonished that I have produced five novels:  the first, unpublished and stacked in the attic somewhere; the second and third published in the UK and abroad; the fourth, not published in the UK, but having been translated into Dutch and enjoyed in the Netherlands and the fifth - the manuscript of which sits on my desk, awaiting revisions.

From 'Small Stones' to a three-book deal

An interview with poet and novelist Fiona Robyn

Today the Writing Coach blog relaunches with a new interview with Fiona Robyn, who is one of our new consultants at the Writing Coach. 

I first met Fiona through the internet, as I admired the authenticity of the writing on her blog and we met soon afterwards and became firm friends.  I am thrilled today to relaunch this blog with an interview with Fiona to celebrate two-fold.  Firstly to celebrate the publication of her poetry book 'Small Stones' based on her blog of the same name.  But secondly to celebrate that only last week she landed a three-book deal with the wonderful Snowbooks.  Her three hitherto unpublished but complete manuscripts will be published in 2009 in March, May and July respectively.  The first novel will be 'The Blue Handbag', followed by 'The Letters' and then 'Thaw'.  You can find out more about Fiona's book deal here.

'Small Stones' is a wonderful concept and I so admire the way that Fiona finds a 'small stone' each day, a small poetic moment that she shares with her readers.  In my interview with her (the first in a series of interviews with authors) I asked her about that book and also about her experience of publishing and the wonderful three-book-deal.

JL:  Fiona, how did the ‘small stone’ concept come about?

FR:  I was driving home from the seaside trying to think of a name for a new blog I wanted to create, and the phrase ‘a small stone’ just appeared.  I don’t think I even know what it meant to start with, and I definitely didn’t think it was a very exciting name.  I tried to think of something else but it was insistent!

Hiatus

Thank you for reading 'The Writing Coach' blog.  This blog is currently 'sleeping' whilst I complete my fourth novel to a deadline.  Please check back in August for an update.  If you'd like a further dose of 'The Writing Coach' materials, please sign up for my newsletter on my main website where you will receive a free copy of the first five days of 'The Writing Coach' programme that will enable you to overcome procrastination and fears that relate to your writing.  Whether or not you wish to take on the '30 day' challenge, you'll find that the eBook is packed with information about the process of writing a novel, from building characters to my 'organic' methods of plotting.  It also includes many techniques that will be useful to writers of non-fiction and daily writing exercises for all writers.  I do hope that in my absence on the blog, you'll be able to enjoy the book and benefit from the materials.  As a subscriber to the newsletter, you'll be the first to be updated on my plans from September too.  Till then, wishing you much inspiration and a productive summer...

On visiting Derek Jarman's Garden

There are times, I think, in every writer's life, when inspiration feels in short supply, when everyday events take over and fresh input is needed if we're going to thrive creatively. I hit this point a week or so ago and we took a decision to get away. We are now staying in Rye, on the South Coast of England, a town I last visited as a child of eight years old, a place that held strong personal memories. My family is sleeping as I write.

I knew, when we set off, that I wanted to visit Derek Jarman's garden at Dungerness, a pilgrimage I've desired to make for some years (yet have always somehow put off). So it was a thrill, today, to finally visit the landscape that I'd first read about eight years ago when researching my novel 'Bluethroat Morning'.

I've long admired Howard Sooley's photos of Jarman's garden. For those not familiar with the garden, the British filmmaker Jarman called his garden 'Paradise' yet it was planted in a landscape that some might consider more of a hell than a heaven - in the 'flat, bleak, often desolate expanse of shingle that faces the Nuclear Power Station in Dungeness, Kent'. Spurred on by a true personal vision, his painterly eye and strong ecological conviction, Jarman tended the garden from 1986 until his death.

It is difficult to begin to express the intensity of my experience today, on visiting the garden. Suffice for the moment to say that it has strengthened my conviction in the necessity and power of art, of beauty and the individual vision of each human being. I am, I admit, in pensive mode right now. How could I not be? I've begun each day of the school Easter holidays by remaining in bed with Louis Fischer's 'Life of Mahatma Gandhi'. It is difficult not to question one's own motives, the values of one's own actions, when considering a life as meaningful as Gandhi's. The effect of Jarman's garden on me, however, has been to remind me that one does not have to change the world in huge ways to make an important impact. Jarman's faith in nature, in beauty, in the power of the human spirit, in love, in poetry - all these have a huge impact on anyone who visits this garden or simply reads Jarman's words and views Sooley's photographs in the book 'Derek Jarman's Garden'.