Identification, writing and empathy

Following on from my last post, and having emailed to and fro with a couple of wonderful writers who are either languishing or writhing in the throes of the issue of ‘am I writing like me, or am I writing like somebody else’ (and they know who they are and which of them is which) I had one of those revelatory moments.

I was driving back from Horsham, which is not usually a place to be visited with revelations, although I do get light-bulb moments quite often when I’m driving or running. Anyway, I was watching the road, as there are a couple of nasty places where crashes happen with worrying frequency, and listening to the radio, which is always tuned to Radio 4 when I’m driving and over the forty or so minutes of the journey I was taken through the short and truly tragic life of Ivor Gurney, poet and composer, survivor of the Great War and troubled genius who died in a mental asylum after years of incarceration and treatment that would seem monumentally inhumane to us today.

Anyway, the point was, I knew a little about Ivor from my dilatory PhD research into World War I and by about fifteen minutes into the broadcast I was utterly identifying with him. And that was odd. Odd because I really don’t like that kind of music, and because the experiences with which I was identifying were ones that would send me, as me, running for cover, such as his joy in barrack room life with his army mates (this, remember, is the woman who has a neurotic flap over having to spend a week with fourteen perfectly nice people on an Arvon course and she had her own bedroom, not a bunk in a barracks) and his sentimental love for a VAD nurse (I’m prejudiced a bit against the VAD because my abandoned PhD was about a different branch of volunteer nursing so I’m inclined to be partisan) and general bucolic happiness about his home county, Gloucester, a dismal place that has rained on me, and pretty well through me, every time I’ve been there.

So how was I so completely identifying with Gurney that when I heard he’d written to the American President to complain about being tortured with electricity (about the only thing he wasn’t tortured with was electricity: they injected him with malaria for what probably seemed good reasons to the asylum staff and pulled all his teeth) and begging to be sent back to Gloucester, I was almost in tears at the prospect of the poor creature never seeing the meadows of his home county again?

Well, because I’m a writer, obviously. Because almost any well-presented set of facts will move me, and most other writers, past understanding into a degree of empathy that is often painful and disorienting. And because I’m currently writing about a musician, so any reference to Gurney’s music chimed with an area that I’m immersed in to the point of mania.

So what? Well, a lot of the agonising we do about voice is an attempt to ensure that we’re managing to express what we’ve so easily managed to internalise – that we’re doing justice to the lives that live within us, whether they are completely imaginary like the protagonist in my current novel or wholly factual, like Gurney. And if we can move from thinking about voice as something we have to ‘master’ to thinking about it as an outgrowth of empathy, we are more likely to find the tools we need, and less likely to damage ourselves with doubt and anxiety during the search.

Who do you write like? Or even, like whom do you write?

When we start writing, we often do so in a more or less conscious imitation of a writer we admire. For some of us it’s because we’ve read everything that writer has written (and if they’ve died, everything that will be published by them) and we want more, so our only option is to try and produce a simulacrum of their work with our own imaginations. That’s what slash/fan fic came out of: the boiling desire to have more of something that had ended or migrated to a new place. Some Star Trek fans want only Spock and Kirk, no other captain and first officer will do, so they write (and act out, and film) their own episodes. Some Dickens fans must know what the Mystery was that Edwin Drood was to be the hero of, had Dickens not died after episode six of the eponymous twelve-part story, so they write the second half themselves.

And many of us move on. From slavish imitation we move to unconscious imitation. More of ‘us’ gets through, but more of other influences does too. Sometimes this looks like maturity, but it is still a stage of groping after our own voice, our own vision, even our own map of the world we want to write about. We’re grabbing at bits of other maps, fragments of other pictures, echoes of other voices because we admire them and want to take those directions ourselves.

The final stage comes when you leave all those other voices, visions and maps behind and move into a territory that is purely your own. What makes this part frustrating is that it becomes much more difficult to talk about, and less robust than either of the other two stages. If you’ve been channelling Reginald Hill or E M Forster, you have a sense of where to start and finish. When there’s only you to set the direction, work fades into a grey mist in the impossible future of ‘the end’ and you have no idea how to get there or even which way to start travelling.

That’s where a long-established writer’s group can be so useful. Even if they don’t know your territory, they know you, and that allows them to support, critique, observe and challenge your writing, even when you yourself can’t find the words to encapsulate your novel or describe your play in progress. And in holding you to account on a regular basis, they can stop you getting lost in uncharted territory.

It doesn't have to be a physical group, although that can be good. My online writing groups have been the greatest support I've had, and I still always run my work by one particular writer (she knows who she is) because she's my toughest critic and the person who most 'gets' my writing - sometimes she gets it even when I don't!

Many writers are nicer than many other people

That may not be true – it may simply be that I meet writers, and as a result, know how nice they are, but – as a swingeing and ugly generalisation that I will not be able to defend in any sensible fashion – I find writers to be nicer, on the whole, than executives in charities, which was my last real job, or than people running ethical businesses, which was my last but one real job, and much nicer than academics, with whom I worked for years and who were generally funny, devious and not people to turn your back on.

And that was a sentence of horrible proportions. I shall try not to do it again.

The point being that Joanne Harris is a busy, accomplished and thoroughly famous writer, who had no reason on earth to drop into my blog and express her concerns about my concerns about a contest she’s judging. But she did. Isn’t that really very nice indeed? I am humbled.

And my good friends Bunny Goodjohn and Mary McCluskey have been keeping my spirits up by sharing, honestly, their own ups and downs as writers, which not only makes me feel better about my own ups and downs but also reminds me what a wonderful ocean of talent there is out there, how wonderful it is to be part of it, and how lucky I am to know such great people who make the world a better place, word by word.

And my rarely met, but often emailed, publication twin, Daniel Kaysen, has been emailing me back and forth about comics (okay, you can call them graphic novels if you’re feeling insecure about reading them) and reminded me of the joys of the bargain bin, where you get five comics in a plastic bag so you can’t see the middle three and they could be rubbish, but could also be gems. And not only does it turn out that we both love(d) Swamp Thing, but I’ve been on a real comic jag, discovering and rediscovering old favourites and realising that they are often my primal writing sources, and loving the reminder that deep inside my literary persona is a teenage Goth, chewing on black fingernails and planning mayhem.


PS The picture is a Hellboy cover, if you're not a comic reader, or even a reader of comics.

Promoting the literary life for all

Nik Perring tagged me with this and although I don’t usually do these, I’m sort of interested in the question here – from a different angle, I’m always wondering why people do the various literary things they do, and this is another way of exploring that question.

So I have to list at least five things I do to support and spread a love of the written word, then tag five people. (Apparently if you list something that touches youngsters, you get a bonus letter – that isn’t going to be the case for me).

Hmmm:

1. I write in three personae: Kay, Ren and Carmel who publish in literary fiction, science fiction and erotica respectively
2. I teach at workshops
3. I blog to try to share with people some of the business side of the literary world that doesn’t get talked about as much as I think it should (see below, University of Huddersfield)
4. I set up creative writing groups in libraries: shout-outs to Comedy of Errors and The Hatchery and looking forward to meeting the literary people of Crawley at the end of the month and being stunned by their collective talent!
5. Like Nik, I am a regular and almost compulsive library user. I borrow and order books through my local library, belong to a book club there, and even meet friends there for chats
6. I try to nurture other writers whom I meet in workshops and classes
7. I overcome my shyness enough to thank good writers whose works I’ve read, most recently Mark Slouka, whose novel The Visible World, had a profound effect on me and who sent me a very nice email in reply to my effusions. I shall always regret not having written to Michael Dibden while he was alive, but I was too shy to say how much I loved his work and then it was too late. Lesson learned
9. I subscribe to literary journals
10. I read slush for contest judges and for journals.

I’m tagging Bunny Goodjohn, Charles Lambert, Annie Kerr, Lisa McMann and Ann M Amodeo

The Grist Short Story Competition

You know, sometimes you want to spit.

We all know that writers are low down the food chain. Watch the BAFTAs and be convinced (the writers are the ones in the rented tuxedos, all the actors and directors and producers have bespoke ones) of our relative insignificance. But you expect people who are:
• Academic
• Taking money from you
to demonstrate a bit more nous, don’t you?

Well not in the case of the University of Huddersfield. Yesterday I got a letter from them. It didn’t tell me that I’d been shortlisted for their short story competition, judged by Joanne Harris. It didn’t tell me that I hadn’t been shortlisted. It didn’t tell me a bloody thing.

It said “Dear Grist Entrant, the fourth Huddersfield Literature Festival is set to return this March, boasting a host of writers, poets, musicians, comedians, actors and even a cabaret act, all promising to make this a festival with a difference. Yes, this year’s festival is the biggest and best yet …” and so on for another nine paragraphs.

Essentially then, the lovely people at Huddersfield don’t give a flying Fortress that I entered a competition and might like to know how I did. No. They’ve used my entry fee to send me a promotional flyer that doesn’t even MENTION the contest I entered. Lovely, sensitive behaviour that.

So I visit the website and it says this: This Grist competitions (sic) are now closed. Thanks to everyone who entered. The judges are now busy drawing up a shortlist. The winners will be announced at the launch of the 4th Huddersfield Literature Festival 2009 on Wednesday 11th March 2009 at 7.30pm. All shortlisted writers will be notified in advance of this date.

So I assume I wasn’t shortlisted. And I assume the University of Huddersfield views writers as being like goldfish, with seven second memories, who will have forgotten that the paid an entry fee and haven’t been told anything about the competition they entered. No, those dizzy little literary people will just squeal with pleasure and get on the phone to book their tickets for the Huddersfield Literature Festival (the biggest and best yet) won’t they?

Actually not.

Actually, Huddersfield, you stink.

Goldfish image courtesy of bucklava at Flickr under a creative commons license

These are better days …
Largely thanks to Montezuma’s chocolate (their dried banana and milk chocolate turtles appear to have a wonderful effect on my mood), good friends and running.

Okay, the good friends bit – thanks to everyone who emailed or posted comments. Knowing that all writers (or all creative types generally) have these wheel-spinning periods can be tremendously helpful in getting through. I’m making a list of everybody who offered to buy me a latte – you have been warned! But the best boost is when a mate gets a boost that they share with you, and so, from Publisher’s Marketplace: ‘Author of the NYT bestseller WAKE Lisa McMann's next paranormal stand-alone, again to Jennifer Klonsky at Simon Pulse, for publication in spring 2011, by Michael Bourret at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management (World).’

I’ve known Lisa McMann since I first started writing, more or less. I can attest to her talent and generosity of spirit, and her first YA – Wake – was an absolute blast. I loved it, and I’m not a natural YA reader – the series is getting better as it goes along, and Fade is hitting the bookshelves this week, so if you want to write for young adults, or enjoy young adult fiction, grab a copy and see how a truly gifted writer does it! Her tour dates are here if you’re in the USA – and she’s shipping signed copies too.

Running also helps. Like many writers I find that I write better if I exercise, but this weather can make it a bloody misery to run and leave me as a bloody misery if I don’t. The compromise position is to run at the gym, but I hate gyms. So I bought a treadmill. Not one of those electric gizmos, but just a big caterpillar track that rolls away under your feet so that you push it round yourself – it’s astonishingly hard work, but being able to run while watching Hot Fuzz or Blazing Saddles is great.

And writing is the best way to beat fannying around, of course ...

Later

Addendum - those great people I was talking about - add to their list Adam Lowe, nicest of editors and most generous of networkers. He's given me a grain of gold that I'm about to try and turn into a whole damn golden vista ... cheers, Adam!

Fannying Around on the Far Side*

This is how I think of times like this: fannying around on the Far Side – where nothing is quite real and conversations are utterly surreal and while nothing much happens, the not-happening seems fraught with portent and nasty things with lots of legs hiding in wardrobes and just waiting until I’m asleep …

You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?

It’s that time that comes around again and again for writers, when you’re waiting. Right now I’m waiting for:

1. A decision on a novel
2. A new date for a cancelled workshop (weather has a lot to answer for)
3. Another judgement, on a different novel
4. A response from an illustrator I’m keen to work with
5. Inspiration
6. Somebody to buy me a latte and tell me that I’m going to be okay.

Actually the last one I can manage. I shall go to town tomorrow and buy my own damn latte and tell myself I’m going to be okay, although it doesn’t feel like it.

And I’m fannying because I don’t know how much energy I need to set aside for 1 – 4. If 1 needs a rewrite, then it’s a lot of energy to find, 2 will work itself out, although once I get geared up to teach it’s tough to ungear (word-coining again, Sexton, that’s a bad habit**) again. 3 is probably okay, although I suspect I’m going to be advised to do a major rewrite to make it ‘commercial’ and that means I will probably shelve it in favour of getting on with something else and 4 is downright scary – suppose he says yes? I’ve never written a graphic novel before. Suppose he says no? I’ve never wanted to write anything as much as I’ve wanted to write a graphic novel. Suppose we find we can’t work together? Suppose we find we can – will anybody accept a forty-something female writer getting into the DMZ/Hellboy/Doktor Sleepless territory? Okay, I should be so lucky – but if you cut me open you’d find Swamp Thing written across my heart, I swear.

You still have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?

Fannying. That’s me.***

* Gary Larson, quite rightly, doesn't like his work being reproduced without a copyright agreement, so you'll have to put up with a rather bad digital photo of the cover of the one Larson book I could find on the shelf. The others have migrated to the teenager's room and I'm not going in there unless forced to.

**Webster says ungear exists, even if Word doesn’t recognise it – ha!

*** I seem to have caught footnoting this week - perhaps it'll help me write like Terry Pratchett - if so, hurrah!