Sweet sixteen

It is coming up to sixteen years since I received my first offer of publication (a book that has recently gone into a second edition). Since then I’ve had a number of other books published, put out work of my own (yes, folks, self-publishing), and published other people. Yet it still surprises me, on a daily basis, that people other than my mum buy my books. Complete strangers log on to online book retailers or go into bricks and mortar bookshops and hand over cash for things I’ve written. At the risk of giving voice to a clichéd response: “How cool is that?”

Joanna Russ

Mourning the loss of one of the great writers of the twentieth century.

Joanna Russ (22 February 1937 – 29 April 2011)

What is lost?

I am in the middle of writing a little book report. Literally. I have just broken off because this thought came to me whilst writing a sentence.

I am, of course, using a word processor. But I am old enough to remember when it was written by hand; revised by hand; typed up; corrected and, if needs be, literally cut up and pasted back together in the required order; then retyped; and checked. If you could afford it, you photocopied it. If not you typed a fair copy using carbon paper to create a second copy. And when you had a finished piece, you also had a record of all the changes you had made. If you had the space, you kept it for the day that some institute would bid for your papers so that students could study your technique.

Yet when I was writing my short report just now I was suddenly aware that I had changed a sentence a dozen times before I was happy with it. And all those changes are lost.

Now. I am not arrogant enough to believe anyone would ever want to see the various drafts of my work (and I do still print up and edit by hand with a fountain pen filled with red ink, but I don’t have the space to store old manuscripts). Ten or twelve drafts of a book would easily take up the drawer of filing cabinet. Be that as it may, I did wonder how much is being lost for future generations to consider.

This isn’t an important issue as world events go. Anyone coming upon this little musing in the future should look up the history of the early months of 2011 to see what I mean. But it is about re-inventing the wheel.

Writers know about their craft by reading. They read in the same fashion that locusts move from one side of a field to another. But they are also interested in what other writers think, about how they developed their style, how they tackled particular problems, why they abandoned certain approaches. All this provides a set of tools for writers, maps out pitfalls, and provides a huge resource to chuck in the cauldron and stir in the hope that what they cook up has a unique flavour.

So how much of that is lost now that we can sit at a machine and change a sentence a dozen times before moving one, can cut and paste with a couple of clicks of the mouse, can change a characters name through a 100,000 word script with a few more clicks.

What is lost?

Is anything gained?

Or is it just change and me finding something to be anxious about?

Dream on

A month rushes by and I slink back in here knowing blogging acquaintances who have racked up thirty or more entries since my last one. So what have I been doing? What excitement has kept me from the keyboard? What delights have distracted me?

Nothing. Not a sausage.

I’m drifting. True, I am working on a set of four shorts stories. True, I’m waiting on a submission. True, I have been busy packing up signed copies of Thin Reflections to send out to my adoring fans. (That sound you can hear, that’s Barbara rolling on the floor laughing after reading that last bit). But I have been sending out signed copies. And brushing up on my poker. And reading. And contemplating the silicone in the bathroom that needs stripping out and replacing with fresh. And reading.

It is a difficult state for a writer to be in. As hardships in the world go, it is, I am the first to admit, way down there at the minor end of the scale. But it is vexing, nonetheless. My head is full of images and voices (which makes me sound a candidate for those nice young in their clean white coats and their coming to take me away, ha ha). As yet they are formless, and I know with a bit of patience the two novels swirling in the chaos will begin to accrete. They will form a binary, twin novels one of which tells of Charlie’s next set of adventures whilst the other picks up the story of one of Charlie’s avatars – Jeniche of Antar.

I have to be patient and let these things take their course. Watch the debris form short stories. Enjoy the rest to be ready for the approaching ride.

So if I don’t turn up for another month, you’ll know I’ve got my feet up, headphones on, coffee and notebook close at hand… Working, in other words. Essential research. And wondering just how much fun it’s going to be when the Council finally turn up and install their anti-damp devices. Perhaps they can be persuaded to renew the silicone in the bathroom. Perhaps.

Dream on.

Thin Reflections

Well, here she is. Charlie's first full outing outing in all its glory. It will take a little while to feed through to retailers, but it is already listed at The Book Depository, Amazon, Waterstones, and Foyles. You can place your order now to be certain that as soon as they receive stocks, they'll pass a copy on to you.

On finishing...

…a book that is. Not reading the last page and wondering what to pick up next, but typing the equivalent of FIN at the end of whichever draft is the one you finally decide has to be the last.

It is a bitter-sweet experience. Especially after reading the bloody thing for the umpteenth time through various drafts and proofs (in which you still find typos, right up to the moment they have to pry the typescript out of your fevered hand). There is enormous relief that the task is done, that three years (in this case) of living with a character through situations, of their resigned stare when you put them through yet more horrors, is finished. That for better or worse it’s all gone to the printer. You can get your life back.

So you think.

Because the moment is gone, the sweats start. Cold Turkey (although being vegetarian, I’m not sure Cold Quorn has the same ring about it). You have no writing to fret over, dream about, wake up in the middle of the night and scribble about, worry at as you do the shopping. You have handed your tenderly nurtured child over to a harsh world where people have the choice to fork over hard cash for your masterpiece or for that heavily marketed, half-price, humungous bar of chocolate. And having foregone the joys of chocolate, said folk now have access to all sorts of online media where they can make or break you and the novel into which you have poured your soul.

All those worries last until the fidgets begin. You’ve cleaned away three years worth of dust in the study, mended the leaky tap in the bathroom, and reacquainted yourself with whatever members of your family still recognise the shambling wreck that has emerged from the back room. You’ve played games on the computer until your right hand has seized up (make of that what you will). You’ve watched all those box sets (and The Prisoner really is the bees’ knees – the original, that is). You’ve pretended there isn’t a notebook full of ideas. You’ve tried.

But just when you weren’t looking, you find a pencil in your hand and a few words on a piece of paper; you find a new file opened on the computer; you find yourself sorting out a new set of music to play as the soundtrack to the movie in your head.

All of which mad ramblings are to announce:

Thin Reflections has gone to the printer and will be available soon (watch this space for details).

And I will soon be starting work on something new (as well as getting some of my back catalogue into print).

A Life Less Auden-ary

A disappointing level of reading accomplished, largely because I have been spending all day proof-reading and indexing. Come the evening (when I read the most), I have for the most part been putting my feet up and watching DVDs.

I have managed to read a few short stories as a warm up to the main reading project of the year (Dubliners) and some lighter stuff, but I was struck today by how much and how little we retain of certain books. I know Joyce well because I have read and re-read his work (and yes, that includes Ulysses and Finnegans Wake). I don’t know how many copies of The Essential James Joyce I’ve been through (even my hardback is looking… well read). Yet much of the content of Dubliners seems to have slipped from my mind. This is good in a way, as I’m coming to it fresh.

This thought was sparked by the arrival of the volume of Auden’s poems I will be re-reading. There was a frisson in getting the book in the post as it is the exact same edition I had back in 1970. I carried my school books in a canvas horse’s nose bag and this, along with others was a constant companion for two years. I have flicked through the pages, but apart from a few titles that ring bells with flat batteries, there is nothing apart from that vague memory of finding little or no connection when I first read them.

Perhaps my other reading at the time coloured this. The works we studied were (and still are) part of the literary canon. I was very much into… non-canonical writing (I started to put experimental, but much of it wasn’t; perhaps exploratory would be better?). Having said that, Chaucer, Milton, and the others all made an impression.

It will be interesting to see what happens this time round (beyond a vague nostalgia for those sixth form days – all the lovely people and wondrous events).