Here's what shouldn't happen to a writer - or rather - here's what SHOULD happen - we should all have a small lottery win - enough to fund a year or so of creativity. What do you think guys? Here's what actually DID happen in my case - and sits as a pathetic excuse / reason for the lack of posts in recent months - I got a job!
I have an odd, comedy job really. I am a freelance Project Manager.
Being a Project Manager is a bit like being a parent. If you can co-ordinate schedules and get everyone where they need to be, on time, with the relevant packed lunches and equipment, provide food for a small army of people, all of whom have different dietary fads and requirements, manage the allocation and overspend of pocket money and household expenditure, sort out squabbles, and do your best to get everyone to play fair, all at the same time, then the chances are you could be a pretty successful Project Manager. For the non parents among you, think of herding a group of cats.
In order to be a Project Manager, you need a proper Project Management qualification. And common sense, an unending capacity for patience and understanding, even in the most adverse of circumstances, a bit of experience, a skin like rhinoceros hide, and a talent for the kind of plate spinning tricks that used to get regular air time on TV talent shows in the 1970s.
I work on a contract basis, which means that I get to do varied and interesting stuff across many sectors and industries. Otherwise known as the stuff that is too messy, difficult or unpopular for the regular workforce to deliver it.
The nature of being a contract Project Manager is that you are usually called in when the employing company realise that the impossible cannot be achieved within the original timescales and with the original budget, so they get somebody temporary in so that they can blame all of the delay and overspend on you when you’ve departed. Of course, in some circumstances ‘temporary’ can mean years and years - longer than the average prison sentence.
But I am lucky. I cannot tell you how lucky I am. All of the above gives me untold opportunities to meet new people, to travel, to experience the new, the difficult, the frustrating and the rewarding. I am currently spending much of my time in Sweden - working with interesting people, great culture, beautiful surroundings and fabulous knitwear. And of course, travel and observation is writer's gold. My trusty notebook accompanies me wherever I go.
Note to self - make more time for postings.
Since the first draft of my book has gone out on review, it has been a quiet, contemplative time, filled with editing and studying of the 'grammar rules', especially around dialogue. An enjoyable task, this involves a lot of reading and studying, and reading and re-reading of my own story, changing the odd word and texture of the tale to better suit (I hope!) my audience.
My mind has also wandered back to illustration. My original idea was to offer Lexi for publication complete with full colour illustrations, but as I research and further research, the trend seems to be for small, black and white illustrations, often by a well known illustrator such as Nick Sherrat or Quentin Blake. Does my 'pop art' style of schoolgirl scribblings belong in this kind of market?
Illustrations are also time consuming and take the focus of the mind away from the word-craft required. But they have been extremely useful in providing my own visuals for the story. I knew what Lexi looked like before I started writing her. I have a visual of the layout of the house she stays in, and the village, and of other main characters in the book. But this brings me back to technique. My drawings are rather cartoon-y. Think Jackie magazine, in it's heyday of colour illustrations to represent the clothes in fashion spreads. They are not quirky a la Mr. Sherrat or Mr. Blake. They are reminiscent of the girls on the Pippa Doll boxes (you are showing your age if you have the remotest idea on this one!). So perhaps a little time is in order to work on my technique and proportions. To my mind Lexi looks a little like a red haired, green eyed, freckled version of a young Jet Metal - the creation of Andy Sparrow - to my mind, artist of some of the most perfect illustration around today.
So hey ho - more learning to be done, more techniques to perfect - which leads me to wonder how writers and artists ever get anything published, as, if they are like me, they are on a constant cycle of revision, improvement and self-criticism.
And if you want to know, the little sketch above this post, is my daughter, Edie, sketched from her school photograph on the back of an envelope as an exercise in proportion. And it actually does look like her.
Here's the thing. I am trying to learn several bits of my craft at once. I am trying to learn how to write my story, what language to use, what speech tags to use and when, how to avoid cliches and all the while just tell my story - which I really do think has legs.
And then there are all these RULES to learn. How to present a manuscript, how to write a query letter etc.
One question has puzzled me - really puzzled me - how to get across to the reader or a prospective agent or publisher what the story is all about without having to cram in loads into the first three chapters. I have pondered over this, asked questions on Twitter and looked at the back covers of many many hundreds of books for the synopsis.
Except this isn't the synopsis - is it? All you writery types out there will be shaking your heads and tutting 'schoolgirl error', and all of you non writers will be scratching your heads and muttering 'eh H? what ARE you on about now?' Let me explain.
I made a very basic error. I, who have managed multi million pound complex projects, and in that arena research EVERYTHING and ask EVERY question to the point of being extremely annoying, made an assumption based on something I had read on the internet. I ASSUMED that the synopsis was the jacket blurb on the back of the book that tells you a bit about the story and makes you put your hand in your pocket to buy it. In other words, a teaser, something to make you want to read more.
Well of course it's not!
A synopsis is a precis of the story, introducing all of the plot twists and turns, the characters and answering all of the questions. In other words, it's the answer to the question I have been asking for the past two weeks. Unfortunately I discovered this on the day after I send my darling out for review with a short paragraph with the word 'SYNOPSIS' at the top. I do hope my young reviewers won't be too harsh about this. But it DOES make me wish that I had followed my instinct and made the chapters shorter - what I have put into three chapters should, I feel, be five or six shorter chapters. Never mind - it is all a learning curve and hopefully the story will stand alone and be enjoyable.
But that's not the thing, THE THING, that shouldn't happen to a writer - I suspect, embarrassing as that is, it is the sort of thing that has happened to many a new writer. No, here is THE THING...
In order to tell you this THING, I have to give a little away about my protagonist, young Lexi. When she was a little girl her favourite rhyme was 'Little Rabbit Foo Foo' you know the one? If not, look it up, it's very funny. Anyway, because she loved it so much her Dad used to call her 'Little Rabbit Foo Foo.' Which evolved through the years into 'Foof' and is a subject of gentle teasing between Lexi and her Dad. Well, last night, I received my first bit of feedback on the story...
'Foof' in our house, refers to, ahem, a girl's, ahem, you know...
Of all the feedback I might have been expecting, I have to say that this is not something I considered! I mean, How was I to know THAT? Note to self, check character terminology and slang against general slang.
I feel another re-write coming on. Whether or not the nickname remains, I've learned that following your gut instinct is usually write and that there is an answer to every question, and if you don't know the answer, well, you're just not looking hard enough. As with everything, it's knowing WHERE to look.
I have just sent my baby out into the world, by herself, for the first time. I feel tearful, anxious and protective all at the same time. My emotions are all over the place. I need a cup of tea.
No, it's not my daughter, Edie, who is now happily settled into her second week of pre-school and forging many happy friendships amid the half eaten sandwiches she returns home with every day, it's my other baby, Lexi.
Lexi Dexter is the protagonist in my series of novels aimed at 8-12 year olds. For the past two years I have been forging and nurturing the idea of her, and her world, and scribbling down ideas, plots, timelines and writing her story, usually in snatched lunch hours in coffee shops, or late at night when Edie is in bed fast asleep.
I drafted the first two novels before I did anything else - just to prove that I could do it, I had enough of her in me, and, since taking the brave step out of paid work (I promise not to mention that brave thing again - it just feels a bit scary sometimes) to write full time, I have been editing, polishing, correcting and fine tuning the first three chapters to send out for review. I'm not sure I've got it right - my gut feeling is that the chapters are too long, so that I can get the three 'points' that set up the story out - so that when it is put in front of an agent or publisher, they 'get it'. Of course, I realise that, points made or not, they will 'get it' if the writing is good enough, and in my extensive research - i.e. reading massess of children's books both old and modern, not all of the points are revealed in the first three chapters. However they do move fast. Faster than adult novels. But I do want my young reviewers to get a good chunk of what the story is about.
So off she goes. Bye bye Lexi - I will be waiting anxiously for the feedback, good, bad or indifferent, that my young reviewers will provide and I encourage them to be honest - I am sure that they will be, maybe brutally so.
So now the dilemma is what to do next? Do I carry on with the remainder of the story right now or write something else? I feel like I need a tiny break in order to let Lexi become herself again and not some forced creation of mine, but not for very long, perhaps a couple of days. Maybe in the meantime it's time to tackle that second Writer's Bureau assignment and make my mind up whether or not to switch to the fiction module now.
Or perhaps just make that enormous cup of tea?
When I was a little girl, I used to write. A lot.
I would sit down at my Mum's old typewriter, bashing and clattering away at the keys for hours on end, producing all manner of screenplays - most notably 'Ken and Mabel in the Kitchen.', short stories, poems and lurid tales, usually with my brother or friends in starring roles - with horrible fates befalling them, naturally. Correction fluid and carbon paper were my friends, and preservation was a must - I still have some of those crumpled old manuscripts and bits of paper. There was no 'just printing off another copy'.
Now, in 2011, I have a whole set of shiny new tools, most of which have a little 'apple' symbol on the front, but I still prefer to write by hand, albeit in Moleskine notebooks rather than ink blobbed school jotters with torn corners and declarations of 'Helen loves Simon forever. IDT INTDT' scribbled on the front. I write from the back of the notebook to the front - the front of the books is for character planning and plotting only. Oh, and random items that I have to remember to pick up from the Supermarket. I have resigned myself to the fact that I will always have to type up my own notes - who else in the world would put up with copying from a back to front notebook?
So, for the first time in, ooh, a very long time, ever, actually, I have taken the brave step of some time out (and by that I mean I DO NOT HAVE A PAID JOB AT ALL) of my proper grown up profession of Project Management (AKA 'Bossing People About') to work on my writing, and Lo! I do not wish to work alone, and so I have procured the finest of modern writers tools - a blog. A proper one. For writing, and being followed by writerly folk. And you are reading it right now. Fancy that eh? And this is my very first, rather hurried thanks to the school run, post!
I hope that you enjoy reading my modern shiny posts - share them with your friends. Share them with strangers. Follow me. Make me feel popular... I might even share 'Ken and Mabel in the Kitchen' with you. What a treat that would be!
Oh - and in case you are wondering - the photo is of my actual typewriter. It's up in my writing gallery. I type on the laptop but I kind of like it there, clattery keys and all.
Here's what shouldn't happen to a writer - or rather - here's what SHOULD happen - we should all have a small lottery win - enough to fund a year or so of creativity. What do you think guys? Here's what actually DID happen in my case - and sits as a pathetic excuse / reason for the lack of posts in recent months - I got a job!
