Tracing the Source

The six year old tells me she doesn't like writing.  She pulls a face in the morning sometimes, and complains that it's 'big writing' today. Is it just laziness?


I was thinking about when I first wanted to write.  I remember my Super Mum taking my sisters and I to the library for an author event.  I was five or six;  there was a grown-up lady alone in a room, with a table and some sheets of paper and pencils.  She seemed pleased to see us.  We made up a story together, and she scribed it for us.  With the patience of a saint, she allowed us to choose Will-o'-the-Wisp, our favourite TV character of the time, as our main character. Evil Edna figured highly, too.  She framed a story with a beginning, middle and end, guided our suggestions into something that vaguely resembled a real story, and autographed it for us. It wasn't quite as exciting as going to a farm park.


My first independent efforts were in a tiny spiral-bound notebook.  I was about seven, and fairy-tales were the clear inspiration, with wolves, goats and other marvellous elements included, along with the complete lack of money-sense that meant the wolf in one memorable tale stole ONE POUND!!!!! (sic).


It makes me smile to think of those early, staggering steps.  I wonder how to ignite Bean's passion;  she loves reading, but I want her to enjoy writing.  I want her to have better numeracy skills than her Mummy, as well.


Looking back, I'm grateful for that lonely author at the library, making us welcome and creating magic for us with someone else's characters.  I expect she was hoping we'd buy books, but this was in the bad old days when there was no money, and a pound really did seem a fortune.  Mum took us to the library because we couldn't afford books, but she believed that we couldn't afford not to have them. I might feel sorry for that author -  she gave much more than she received! But if I ever succeed with the writing dream, I hope I can make a difference in someone's life one day.  Surely that's worth more than a booksale.

strolling through setting

Sunday mornings are all for me and the little one. But in my over-organised way, I have to spend the time achieving as many things as possible;  just being a mum isn't enough.  So we usually go for a walk, and then I can feel that I'm doing something towards my fitness level, and helping him to love the outdoors as well as being with him and chatting about anything and everything together.
(To be honest, that's quite one-sided anyway).

This Sunday I put him in the back carrier, and in between pulling my hair and patting my head, we did manage to talk about several things of interest including the cockerel which the baby seemed concerned I might have thought was him. ( 'Doodlerdoo not me, Mummy'.)  He has to call back my attention, because my mind wanders  - I take the breathtaking views for granted, having grown up with them, and my mind tends to wrestle with plotting, instead.  It's a shame, all that beauty wasted, but this, after all, is my setting.

It's my setting, and it's also the setting for my novel.  It made sense to me, to write about a place I know, especially for this first piece of work.  At the writing event I went to a couple of weeks ago, some writers suggested that rural writers had a tougher struggle to get published, and that some of the big name publishers were prejudiced against Northern novels. As if there weren't enough hurdles on the path to publication...but perhaps it's not true.

This Sunday I did something I'd never done before on one of these bimbles through the town and hills, and took my camera.  It seemed a bit odd, since I was alone (I can hardly count the baby on my back, as it was obvious I wasn't photographing him).  There are always so many things I want to remember, and it isn't feasible to keep stopping and pulling out a notebook, even though the chance to catch a breath might be welcome on some of these hills.  So, whenever  I saw an intriguing house name, or a striking building, I took a snap.  Certain details on the walk caught my attention, and I photographed those too.  I'm going to print these photos out, and use them to add realistic detail to my description of my setting. I think I know it like the back of my hand, but do I really know what's blooming in late March? Can I recall enough little details about the dessicated climbers clinging to house facades to bring a scene to life with just a few words? I think these photos will help - recapture the way the day felt, inspire new stories, enliven my settings.

I just need to convince the little one that multitasking our hour away is a good use of time...

Anti-conning Writers Day

It's one of those days when not much writing has been done, but lots of thinking and also the chance to read relevant things.  I picked up the new Writer's Forum, which will keep me motivated, and also caught up on some writers' blogs.  I followed a link to Sally Quilford's fascinating latest entry about the pitfalls of vanity publishing (amongst other things).  If you're an aspiring writer, read this blog! It might save you some heartache.

Waiting

Although I can't dare hope that anything comes of my competition entry or the piece I submitted to a magazine, it's funny how often in a day at home they cross my mind. I keep trying to remember how many weeks they've been gone now, and how long till I find out their fate.  And thinking of ways I could have improved them, and wondering if I made a fool of myself sending out something sickeningly substandard....I hate waiting.

Claustrophobia

I have done a particularly uninspired piece of editing this morning, in my child-free slot while the little one slept and the others were busy.  I don't think I'm going to be one of those writers who loves the editing process.  The original writing is the part I really enjoy.  And because I'm patching together new scenes with old scenes, I've lost the view of the 'big picture' that I had at first when I re-read my draft. But as a fabulous Southern flirt once said, Tomorrow is another day.


While I was writing, the four-year old was plumbing.  He was in the home corner at nursery and decided the sink needed some work, so he climbed into the play cupboard, and fiddled with imaginary pipes until he'd had enough....at which point he discovered he was stuck. He cried for help, and Mrs N, ever professional in the face of pre-schooler disaster, encouraged him to get out the way he got in.  Then she went to help, and found he really was stuck.  He thought he would never get out.  
'So did I, for a while,' said Mrs N.  


But the joy of a visit from hunky firemen was denied;  Mrs N, resourceful as well as professional, found her tool kit, and dismantled the cupboard, freeing my small boy.  


He certainly seemed fine when I took him swimming.  And, in the true nature of boys who never learn, he thought it would be fun to hide from me in a locker, and pull the door shut behind him...

Park Life

Today has been an outdoor kind of day - in other words, so bright that if we'd stayed in, I'd have had to notice the film of dust on everything, and ended up wasting the day in housework.

The children can't get in the garden because of the extension in progress.  It's going to become more and more of a nuisance as Spring finds a toe-hold, I think.  Certainly it's not so much fun having the boys clambering all over the sofas and wrestling on the front room rug. We need more room......oh, that's right, that's what the extension is for. Hope it's done soon!

We ended up at the park on bikes, with my Super-Mum and Super-Dad.  We're working on getting the six-year old weaned off stabilisers, quite a bit later than most of the children in her class.  The four-year old, having slightly better balance already, is having a go, too.

By a series of slightly mis-timed bike purchases, we have two bikes;  a tiny pink one for 2-4 year olds, and then the four-year old boy had a real boys' bike for his fourth birthday.  He is still fighting the pull of gravity, though, and is shorter than average, so it's a touch big for him yet.  It's perfect for the six-year old though.  So we usually swap; neither of them minds, and they swap backwards and forwards quite happily.

Until today, that is.  By the time we made it to the park, Bean was in tears, then subsided into a brooding sulk, because she wanted to be on the pink bike.  The whinges are a highly contagious condition, and the four year old began the second I took the stabilisers off the tiny bike for him to have a ride.  He whined and grumbled and wobbled.

 "He did better than this on Wednesday," Mum said, perplexed, "He rode for an hour and he was getting pretty good."
 "But I want MY bike!" he said.

 I put the stabilisers back on, and retrieved Bean from where she was glowering behind a tree. Then we had to find where she had abandoned the boys' bike, and strip it of its stabilisers.  Luckily, her bad mood lifted;  she really tried to ride the bike.  She kept leaning towards me though; I may be permanently hunch-backed now.  She wobbled this way and that, and clipped my ankles several times.  I hung grimly onto her shoulders, which someone assured me is the best way to steady them while they learn. At first, she was utterly hopeless, though I didn't tell her so.

"I can't do it! I can't!" she said.  You could hear the frustration in her voice.  She was so annoyed with herself.
"It doesn't matter," I said, "That's what practise is for.  We'll get there, and I'm here to help."
"I'm trying!" she said, "I keep trying to sit up, but it still wobbles! And I can't steer when I'm trying to balance. I can't do everything at once."
Then, suddenly, she did, just for a few seconds. On the way back, she got some speed up; I had to jog alongside her, and she balanced for longer.  She started to laugh.
"I'm doing it! I'm doing it!"
"You are!" (It was hard to be enthusiastic, jogging while bent in half at the waist. I'm sure there should be some health and safety rule against it. But I was proud, too).

I could tell she was tired; we left it at that, a small taste of success, an inkling of what riding a bike will be like, one day.  Soon.

I thought of the parallels with my writing; the support you need till you build confidence; the frustration that you can't achieve what you want; how easy it would be to give up; the difficulty in juggling plot, pace, characters, good writing....there are lessons everywhere, if you look for them.

We put the stabilisers back on the boys' bike.
"Right," I said, "You can swap now. Have your pink one, Bean, and let your brother have his."

They climbed on their respective bikes, Bean hunched like a chimp over the handlebars, the four-year old looking as though he were astride a penny-farthing, cycling through the sky.   They went round a corner, stopped and put their heads together.  They slid off their bikes and climbed on each other's.
"What's going on?"
"My bike's a bit too small for me," Bean said, "So we thought we'd swap."

Important reminder:  you learn best through experience, not by having things explained to you...

Diving in and driving on

Have managed two writing sessions this week.  It was surprisingly hard to get started on the first day, like getting ready to dive into a cold swimming pool, but once I was in, I wondered what I'd been reluctant for. It was like coming home.

The problem now is that the enforced break has given me too much thinking time.  I've read reams of valuable advice over the past year, and one thing that's just filtering through is how I need to put my protagonist through the mill.  I've got to make her life as miserable as I can, and refuse to rescue her too soon.  This is hard when I like her (she is my creation, after all), and it makes me uncomfortable to imagine such difficulties on her.  It almost feels cruel, fictional though she is.  But I'm going to do my best;  I'm going to improve my writing and strengthen my story.  So I drove home tonight (forty minutes) planning what evil I could visit on the poor innocent.  Of course, to plague her with everything I thought of would be poor writing too.  But I can see that I need to add at least some of the extra conflict to my story...which means that my current rewrite is going to be an even greater task than I have been experiencing and anticipating.  My woolly self-imposed deadline is already being postponed;  I'm trying to convince myself that a half hour a day has a merit all of its own, and I'm wondering if the children would really miss me that much if I locked myself in the study for the next month or two.

Thank goodness the break gave me time to remotivate, and to find enthusiasm for a project that I've already put so much into.  I have the energy and determination to tackle this, and to do my best, where two weeks ago, I might have felt I'd already given the novel my all, and it would have to stand or fall in its present incarnation.   I'm going to see it through, so I'm going to have to push myself when my drive fades.  But in the meantime, it's getting late, so I'm going to go to bed with a good book, and call it 'researching the craft'.  There's so much to love about this work.