"Writing outdoors 1"

As I wrote earlier this year, I love writing outdoors. But sometimes, the universe seems to decide that I should better write inside, at a desk, like any normal person, instead of sprawling in the grass... A gust of wind, and I'm running after the pages of my precious manuscript. But the next day, I'm outside again. Because I think that writing at a desk, like any normal person, is not fun at all!

Trying to find an idea...

Trying to find an idea for a piece of writing is like…

…going in an attic, full of dust and cobwebs. Looking through the boxes piled up there, opening chests and trunks, hoping to find a treasure, a jewel. Rummaging through old, torn, clothes, that can never be used again, but still have been kept, for one reason or another. Coming across, from time to time, an interesting piece of furniture, or a souvenir from a holiday, several years ago. And trying to decide, what can be recycled, what can be given a second life. What can become an idea.

…opening a cupboard, expecting to find a box of triple chocolate cookies. But only finding a solitary piece of very old, very green, very mouldy, very smelly Camembert cheese. And realising that somebody else has already eaten all the cookies.

…picking flowers in a meadow to create a bouquet. Finding, sometimes, tall sunflowers and fragrant roses. Purple foxgloves and cornflowers. Poppies and daisies and buttercups. Or finding nothing at all. Having enough to create a small posy. Adding ferns and longgrasses to make a more interesting arrangement. And there are days when the bouquet is wonderful and harmonious, and others when nothing fits together, nothing works.

…trying to come up with a new recipe. Using elements from tried and tested ones. Putting them together, experimenting. Hoping to come up with a bold and delicious new dish, but sometimes it is uneatable, and sometimes you realise it has already been done before and you have invented nothing. 

 …exploring a deep dark wood, in the middle of which, it is said, there is a lake, well worth the trouble of a long hike. But the path leading to it is not direct and there are many crossroads, many byways. And you risk losing yourself in this deep dark wood, going round and round in circles, until the night falls and you haven’t reached the lake.

…planting seeds in a garden, from a packet with no label. Will flowers grow? Or vegetables? An apple tree? A pear tree maybe? You water them, you watch over them. You wait for spring and warm sunshine. For rain to nourish the damp earth. Budding green leaves; but still you don’t know. What will you get?

…eating the last crumbs of a tasty cake. Wanting again to find the taste that you enjoyed so much. Again, again, until the dish is licked quite clean. And you find yourself with an empty plate.

Trying to find an idea for a piece of writing, an article, a short story, a novel, fiction or non fiction, is hard. Trying to find an idea for a piece of writing is staring at a blank page, trying to decide if your knowledge or your imagination will be enough. That’s what I did and found it was not so: trying to find an idea is sometimes realising you do not have any. So what do I write about? Trying to find an idea…

"This novel has so much potential..."

Writing by hand

 

Though all the editing and formatting of my novel As Winter Came and Went was, is and will be done on my computer, the first draft was written by hand, on actual, real paper. And the first draft of this novel’s sequel, which I’m currently writing, is also being done by hand. Why is that? 

I like writing. No, not being a writer (well, that too, but not just). I mean writing in the “physical” sense of the term. I like the feel of ink flowing onto the paper. I like holding a pen. I like my manuscript to have a physical incarnation. I like seeing it grow physically, the single page that started it becoming a dozen pages then a whole stack of them. I like to feel the weight of a nice, plump little manuscript. I like to have a tangible proof of my achievement. 

Another good thing with writing by hand is that there’s only one way you can go: forward. Unlike when you’re writing on a computer, you cannot go back and edit/delete/move a whole section. So, in a way, you have to think, to decide if those words you’re going to write are really worth anything, if you do want to waste a whole page and your time writing them. And at the same time I find that this tends to ward off the dreaded blank page syndrome: you go on writing, knowing that now is not the time to edit, that you’ll have all the opportunity to do that later. It prompts reflection, but also a definite sense of freedom. 

Writing my first draft by hand means that when I edit it, I have to do it thoroughly: I do it at the same time as I type it on the computer. It is very time consuming, but it forces me to go through the manuscript, to see what works and what doesn’t. When I typed the different chapters of As Winter Came and Went, I deleted whole scenes that were present in the handwritten manuscript. And I was also able to correct incoherencies: because it had taken me so long to complete this manuscript, many things had changed, concerning the plot, concerning the characters, between the first page and the last. Since this round of edit was more like a rewrite of a story, I was able to tie loose ends and include those changes relatively smoothly. 

But my favourite aspect of writing by hand is that you can write anywhere. Outdoors, in a garden, by the sea... Sitting on the floor, sprawling on a sofa… All you need is a pen and a piece of paper. No need to worry about your laptop or your phone’s battery. No need to worry about saving your work on an USB disk, when it’s midnight and you’ve just finished writing a scene of your novel and all you want is to go to bed. No need to worry about Internet connection. It is a way of regaining a freedom that the electronic world took from us, at the same time as it gave us remarkable advantages.

I have to admit that when I first started to write the manuscript of As Winter…, I wrote by hand much, much quicker than I typed, which meant that I was able to write by hand as fast as I was thinking. Now I type much faster, but I still prefer writing my first draft by hand, for all the reasons named above. 

However, writing by hand does not only have advantages! If, like me, you like writing outdoors, rain can be a hazard (but it would be a problem even with a laptop…). Or the wind… There have been several occasions where I’ve had to run after pages from my manuscript which were flying away, all in different directions (a good thing I almost always number them!)… And inevitably, as your novel grows and your story develops, the number of pages does the same until the whole thing becomes rather…unwieldly. But isn’t it the proof you’re actually achieving something?

"Quality should prevail over quantity"

I tend to grumble about the fact that my novel is too long, that 160,000 words is too long, that I should really cut some scenes and so on... But I have to admit that part of me is actually proud of this achievement. I know I shouldn't be. I know that a long novel is not necessarily a better novel. Yeah, but it's still 160,000 words long. I wrote 160,000 words. And I feel smug. That is...until I have to edit those thousands of words for the hundredth time. Then I wish I'd written a short story!

Going on for too long

Do you sometimes think that there are book series that go on for too long? I do. I’ve been wanting to write a post about it for some time, and since I’ve realised that I’m a little behind schedule and need an article for my blog, I’ve decided this could be a good subject – and I’m short of ideas, and it’s 11 pm, and I’m writing this in bed, and I want to put the article on the blog tomorrow morning (which will be today for you, and no, I’m not going to reflect on this time distortion thing or I’ll get a headache – now I’m starting to write utter nonsense – I really need to be more focussed on what I was meaning to write... what was it?... ah, yes...), so...

I’ve also been reflecting on this recently, because I’ve just finished the fifth book in a very popular series (which will remain unnamed for now) and… Well, I found it so disappointing I’ll probably give up on this series: I had already noticed the quality of the books was irregular, but this one really was quite awful.

No, awful is too strong a word… It was well written and quite enjoyable. A bit on the long side (well over 1000 pages), but the author seems to have the knack to keep you reading, even when nothing happens… That, actually, was one of the biggest problems. Nothing happened. Now, if people who beta-read my own novel read this, they’ll probably shake their head and think: “what! She’s criticising someone for having written a book that’s too long and where nothing happens? When she’s done exactly the same thing?”

Yes, maybe, but the problem is that things were meant to happen in this series! It was meant to be about action and adventure and romance! That’s what the first books were about: love and war and fighting and... and I’ll say no more or you’ll guess which series I’m talking of, and that’s not my point. So I was expecting this volume to be in the same vein. About people being torn by love and war and the weight of time and history, not about people wandering aimlessly from one place to another and back, gathering herbs, and breastfeeding babies, and having babies poo on them, and wanting to have sex with each other. For...more...than...one...thousand...pages... Ugh...

So I finished the book thinking, this series has been going on for too long, and I’ve been reading it for too long. This volume lacked the freshness and originality of the first, which, in a way, is inevitable. Some of the interesting aspects, because they were repeated too many times, became formulaic and boring. New characters, introduced in the course of the series, did not necessarily excite my sympathy as much as the original cast had. And these original characters... Well, I have to admit I do not like them as much as I did before. Partly because, in spite of the series having gone on and on, they have not matured, they have not really evolved and they keep doing and thinking the same things all over again.

This leads me to wonder: does the author of this series go on churning book after book because she actually has something to say about those characters? Or because the series is successful and she wants to make the most of it? Or because there is a demand for sequels on the part of devoted readers? Or is it a mix of all those reasons? Is there anything that justifies the story going on and on? Is the evolution of the characters meant to span decades? Does the story legitimately need a dozen books to unfold? Or can it stop earlier?

Good things have to come to an end. There is a moment when both the reader and the author have to say goodbye to the characters of a novel. Not necessarily because their story has come go an end, but because it has to stop being told. Because they have to live their lives beyond the pages of a book.

A satisfactory ending is important. A conclusion. A farewell to the world of a story. I sometimes feel that series that go on for ever cheat you out of that ending, out of those goodbyes, which can be sad, but are also necessary. You read on, book after book, longing for that conclusion, not wanting to give up, because you know something else has been written about those characters you love, defining their fate, making if real in a way. And you have to know.

And for an author, I guess it is easier to go on writing about those characters you know and love and are used, to rather than give them an ending. It’s easy to go on for too long, and the good thing, for me, about writing this article, is that it’ll remind me, when I pick up my pen to begin writing Book 187 in the As Winter Came and Went saga, how annoyed I am as reader when series go on for too long. And maybe I’ll think twice, or maybe I’ll just shrug and say: “who cares? I’m the author and I make the decisions!”

"Listen to your characters and let them shape your story"

This is a piece of advice I've heard a lot as a would-be novelist. And it certainly gives interesting results!

As Winter Came and Went - Extract 5

And it's time for another, this time rather short, extract of my novel!

This one directly follows extract 1, which was the incipit of the novel.

Please note that this is not necessarily the final version since I am still in the process of revising my manuscript.

Extract of chapter 1

They watch him as he falls, they watch him as he lies, unconscious on the deck, his face pale against the weathered planks, his hair tousled like that of a boy deep in sleep, and they gather round him, full of curiosity. 

“You, go and fetch the surgeon, quick!” a small, portly man tells the cabin-boy. 

“What happened, General?” the captain asks. 

“He fainted, I guess,” the portly man replies. “Give him some air.” He waves away the members of the crew who are bending over the young man.

“Do you think it’s sunstroke? Looks like it.”

The captain shakes his head. “All I hope is that it isn’t serious and that he reaches England alive. He has been too much trouble already. Not that I blame him but… As I was telling you, General, his is a strange story. It is all very tragic. And we do not know half of what happened. I tried to ask him but… He’s got a sharp temper. Ah, here you are.” The cabin-boy is back, accompanied by the surgeon. “What do you make of that?”

“He caught a fever in Africa, didn’t he? Such an unhealthy climate, Africa… He doesn’t look too well. You, get me some water.”

The cabin boy goes away, grumbling that he isn’t a slave and that he is fed up with doing everyone’s errands.

“What’s all this about?” a young midshipman asks him.

“It’s O’Connor. He fainted on the deck.”

“Is it serious?”

The cabin boy shrugs. “He’s doing it to get all the attention. Fainting’s for women, not men. It’s not me that’d be caught fainting because of a bit of sun.”

“You should be more charitable.”

“Why? I tell you, he’s craving for attention. And there’s nothing extraordinary about him.”

“Except that he crossed the Sahara alone.”

“He got lost in the desert, that’s what the captain said. And he wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place, he was supposed to have died from a fever a year ago.”

“You’ve been eavesdropping again…”

“What’s the harm? There’s nothing to do on this boat. Sometimes I think I should have stayed home.” He left his mother one night, without a word, without a backward glance, for the sake of adventure, to become a man. 

“What were you expecting? Pirates? Storms? A wreck? I’m sorry you’re disappointed. At least we’ve got a ghost.”

"Ideas battling for attention"

Having no ideas is very discouraging. But having too many can be quite daunting, especially as it is hard to tell which ones are actually any good!