A Writer's Week

 A Writer's Week

People seem to be quite interested in how writers and artists deal with their time - not least my family. (It is a proper job, I promise.)

Following on from Sarah McIntyre's post about the life of an illustrator, I thought I would post a fairly typical week from a writer's point of view.

The actual act of writing a book - of putting words on the page, whether by hand or by keyboard, (and I do both) - takes up, as you will see, a very small amount of time. 

Others will have their own routines: my days are always different, which makes setting aside composition time crucial. I don't have word limits, but I have something better: guilt.

Generally speaking, I try to leave some time for my own reading - I have six or seven books going at once, which currently include: Samuel Pepys (ongoing for five years); J G Ballard, Claire Messud, Robertson Davies's The Cornish Trilogy, James Davidson's book on Greek Love, and Paul Kingsnorth's The Wake, each in various states of perusal, each clamouring for attention like hungry fledglings.

The best time for reading is between 4:30 and 6:30 in the morning; then I can snooze again for an hour before getting up properly. Piano practice comes and goes; as does exercise. As for a social life... well, that somehow sneakily manages to find its way in, proffering cocktails with a glimmer in its eye.

Monday 18th May

My week began at 615 am, as I woke up with a dog's (admittedly very friendly) snout in my face. She's only a pup, and she wakes up earlier and earlier as spring shades into summer, sprinting out of the front door like a racehorse. I grabbed the time - quiet, dawnish time is the best for creation - to work on The King's Revenge, the final part in my Darkening Path trilogy, which is out next year. 

I did so, in a happy semi-daze, until 10, when I was teaching a Latin lesson over Skype. It never fails to fill me with joy that I can pass on the words that Ovid and Vergil spoke, to a child inhabiting a high rise flat on the opposite side of the world. I'm sure those poets would have loved it. Perhaps it would be no different for them than communicating with a spirit, or a god.

The rest of the day is taken up with making editorial notes on someone's manuscript, and reading for the children's book round up I do biannually for Literary Review. Out of fifty or so books, every six months, I have to choose a mere dozen or so. Each year (and I've been doing it for about ten years now) it becomes harder.

In the late afternoon, most days, you'll usually find me jumping onto the underground for a face-to-face (that is what we call them now) lesson. Today, it's in Chelsea, and a young pupil doing her Common Entrance Latin. I don't mind train time, as I usually read, or, more excitingly, think, or stare at the passengers and wonder what they're all doing. Which is, no doubt, making notes for their own novels.

Tuesday 19th May

Another early start: I managed about an hour's work on The King's Revenge, whilst simultaneously brushing my teeth, taking a phone call at 7:30 from a colleague about a project we are working on that is soon coming to fruition, and preventing my dog from eating my toothbrush. I hustled onto the overground for a meeting concerning said project, in Haggerston: we huddled around the computer, making notes, until 1pm, whilst our dogs barked around our feet.

I hightailed it back for a quick lunch before a pupil arrived and we became immersed in Catullus for two hours - the longer poems, which I have always loved.

Then it was back on the tube for another lesson - this time in South Kensington, and with a much younger boy for beginner's Latin - before meeting an editor at 8pm. We discussed a potential project over dinner, which is slowly becoming less like an inchoate idea and more like a book.

Leaving her building, I got myself locked in to the hallway. Rescue soon came, but not before I envisaged sleeping on the mat. I could have made quite a nice bunk in there. Private, too.

Wednesday 20th May

The website We Love This Book asked me to write a piece  about the state of fantasy in children's books, so the morning passed in its composition. I filed it smugly before lunch time, made some notes on someone else's manuscript, and spent the afternoon reading for the Literary Review round up, answering emails intermittently (as well as Twittering, blogging, and all the other social media ephemera we must contend with). A piece about writing fantasy, done for The Guardian, was published on their website today, so I dealt with  feedback from that, which can sometimes feel like pinging table tennis balls back and forth.

At 6pm I sped off to the bright lights of Soho, for the launch of Elizabeth Day's new book, Paradise City, which was in the Ham Yard Hotel. There were actual proper canapés, and gallons of wine, and I'm sure I saw Sebastian Faulks. There's nothing writers like more than parties, particularly with actual proper canapés and wine. It means you don't have to have any dinner. (And the mini-burgers were a delight.)

Thursday 21st May

My first full day at home for about a month, as one of my pupils cancelled her lesson in the evening. The King's Revenge occupied the morning; in the afternoon, I began to go through the edits of my book The Double Axe, coming out in Spring next year. It's a re-telling of the Minotaur story. I also started to compose a synopsis of it that the publishers need. In breaks I answered emails about a host of other things: forthcoming events; Tweeting a competition; arranging lessons.

In the evening I read - for my own pleasure: J G Ballard's Hello America, a trippy, steam-punky fantasy, which I am halfway through, and one of Claire Messud's novels, When the World Was Easy, about a pair of sisters on either side of the world. I am rather an admirer of Messud: she has a lucid, calm intelligence that is deeply poignant and precise.

Friday 22nd May

I am in the last third of The King's Revenge. Battles are forming; positioning my characters is becoming more crucial then ever; working out how they've developed over the course of two books, placing them into the final configurations that should - I repeat, should - put them into an explosive finale. 

Having woken up with glee, and eaten a whole duck egg for breakfast, disappointingly I only managed about 750 words with pen and paper, but I felt that they were good words. Perhaps I should try a bigger egg.

Another lesson took up the rest of the morning - Greek translation for two hours - and in the afternoon I turned back to The Double Axe, and my editor's marginal comments. Some are easy to deal with, others less so; but it's all part of a long process of shaping, forming and massaging, to get the script into shape. 

And so Friday afternoon comes. Although I have written TAXES in my diary, as I do most Fridays, that little green folder mysteriously fails to move itself to my desk.  I begin each tax year with a song in my heart and a new system; by about now, that system has reverted to my tried and tested one: otherwise known as Bernard's from Black Books: 

"This is March to... boobelyboo
[takes out more receipts]
Bernard: this is err... misc
[takes out more receipts]
Bernard: and this is... other."

And each time, I do it all in three days of spreadsheets, receipts, bank statements, random screaming, and scribbled notes. But just not today. Now, I feel, it might be time to have a glass of wine. Writers do get weekends too. Sometimes...

Launch of the First Story St Augustine's Kilburn anthology, The Gods Amongst Us

We recently launched my First Story Group's anthology, The Gods Amongst Us, at St Augustine's, Kilburn, where I've been writer in residence for a year. Carnegie winner Sally Gardner was there to cheer us on, and the afternoon was both moving and special. And involved lots of fizzy pop. Seeing all my students reading out their work to a large audience was wonderful. The launch has made it onto the Kilburn Times website - have a look here.

I've reproduced here the text of my introduction to the anthology. You can buy it, via the school website here, or even via Waterstones, here.

INTRODUCTION
 

Did you know that the gods are amongst us? Some of them are out of sorts: nobody prays to them any more. They sit in their cloudy palaces, filing their nails and twiddling their thumbs. Some, like Bacchus and Diana, are still very much with us: they look at us from out of the frames of paintings, but watch out – they might turn you into a star, or a stag, if you cross them.

Did you know you could meet Revenge in Starbucks? Or that you can write a letter to a comb? That King Arthur is burdened by memories, that death is a device that tells the time, or that not remembering can be more effective than remembering?

Over the past year I have made the journey to St Augustine’s, on a Monday – traditionally a day associated with the blues – but for me (and, I hope, for my students) it became the most exciting day of the week. My First Story group have been keen, intelligent, challenging; they’ve delighted me, surprised me, frustrated me; they’ve made me laugh more than I can remember (I refer, specifically, to an exercise called ‘Ten Ways to Lend Your Wheelbarrow’.) We’ve eaten more sweets than my diet usually allows.

Most of all, we have looked at language and stories, and seen how they can be found everywhere: on a walk, in a picture, in an object. We’ve seen how the most striking images can come from unlikely conjunctions. We’ve marvelled at the strange ways of the ancient gods, and made something new from their tales. And each week, my group produced witty, charming and insightful pieces. This anthology is called ‘The Gods Amongst Us’ for a reason – not only have our best pieces come out of interaction with those ancient myths; but we have also discovered that the divine, the numinous, the powerful, can be found in our everyday lives.

I would like to give my special thanks to Chris Rhodes and James Casey of St Augustine’s, for their sterling support over the year; and to all at First Story for making this stellar anthology happen. Take note of the names of this group: I’ve no doubt we’ll be seeing them again.

So here is a selection of some of their work. We haven’t been able to fit all of it in. Take a look, read, indulge, think (as our final poem urges you to do) – and next time you’re on the bus, be careful – you might be sitting next to a god.

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Fountain pens, and Philip Hensher's The Missing Ink

A while ago I was asked to write a piece by a newspaper which never made it into print: it was about fountain pens. So when I was recently asked to review Philip Hensher's book about handwriting, The Missing Ink, for The Telegraph, I thought I might dig it out again. Here it is.
___________________________________________________________________________________
 

I still have my first fountain pen. At my prep school everyone used them: Shaeffers were considered the top of the tree. Mine, given when I was eleven years old, was an elegant grey Parker, with a gold nib and an arrow clip. It marked a move into the exciting adult world. My headmaster at the time carried a beautiful fountain pen which used a striking shade of turquoise ink: it represented sophistication and a little of the eccentric artiness to which I aspired.

Fountain pens are talismanic. They remind you of everything you’ve written with them, taking on deep layers of significance. They are used at moments of international importance – the treaty of Versailles was signed with a gold fountain pen. Though instruments of supreme taste (Waterman fountain pens were a favourite of the Emperor of China) they are also democratic, freely available to everyone the world over.

Writing with a fountain pen when I was child was in itself inspiring. There’s something organic about it. No more the unattractive shapes made by a ballpoint; now my stories were formed with luscious curves.

A fountain pen becomes an extension of your body. It was always impressed on us that you should never lend your fountain pen to someone else, because the nib ‘learns’ your grip, reflecting your idiosyncracies and style. 

This is in stark contrast to writing on a computer. I have the sense of another, distracting presence, that little cursor blinking snarkily. I’d lend my laptop to anyone. A computer never becomes part of you. In my experience they provide more heartache than pleasure. When you’re typing, both sides of your brain are employed. Writing means you’re only using one side, leaving the other to generate those all important ideas. With a blank page and a pen there’s nothing in between you and your story: the words and ideas flow, uninterrupted, the only, natural break coming when the pen runs out of ink. I still draft my novels by pen, typing them up every so often and editing as I go.

Writer Liza Campbell, whose memoir about growing up in Cawdor Castle was recently published, uses a silver italic Lamy. ‘I went to a prep school where fountain pens were compulsory’, leading to ‘an ever-evolving Rorschach Test of splots and the telltale blue tongue from sucking ink into the nib from a recalcitrant cartridge.’ Since she was left-handed, her teachers said there was no hope for her script, but, ‘with the arrival of an italic nib,’ she ‘became determined to conquer calligraphy. It took about a decade, but fountain pens allowed me to do this.’ The fountain pen as symbol of beauty and patience is here writ large; Campbell highlights, too, the necessity of precision and reliability.

We’ve come a long way since we first scratched letters into wax. For centuries, people wrote with quill pens, which required constant dipping, giving rise to a lovely eighteenth century slang term for writers: ‘inkslingers’. Romantic and messy, yes; but not so good on control and precision. Attempts were made at producing fountain pens: as far back as the tenth century, one was apparently constructed for Ma-ad al Mu-izz, the caliph of the Maghreb; however it can’t have been very good, as the technology was soon forgotten. In the nineteenth century, slightly more successful attempts were made, but not very much more so, as Lewis Waterman found out in 1883 in New York, when he tried to sign an important business contract with one and it failed to work; he rushed back to his office to get another contract, but by the time he’d returned, someone else had pipped him to the post.

It was this that inspired him to create what would become Waterman pens. He developed a new feed for the ink that relied on a capillary process, with air entering through the nib to create a consistent pressure on the reservoir. Which means a continuous, satisyfying flow, and cheers from writers all over the world. His company was soon leading the charge, making pens that were objects of art as well as practical. Parker, too, were constructing fabulous pens. Dave Ruderman, who looks after the Parker archive quotes founder George Parker, ‘the good thing about Parker pens is that they write in any language.’

So what’s the future for the noble fountain pen? These instruments are not dying out. Their style and adaptability ensure a following even now. Even Facebook has pages dedicated to fountain pens, with over 5,000 ‘likes’. In this digital age, it's pleasing to note that ink still rules.

First Story: Holland Park and Woodside

A chipmunk: source of inspiration

A brace of First Story sessions this week. First off, in the autumnal heat I headed to Holland Park, where I had a crowded classroom. We worked on the theme of restriction, the idea being that if you impose limitations on your writing, you often come up with interesting things, so we did a few exercises that brought up a lively poem about a curry house and a supermarket scene from the point of view of a chipmunk on a sweet wrapper.

Later on in the week, and still in the skin-warming sunshine, it was back to North London, to Woodside, where we looked at how memory can be used and transformed to make a story. This again resulted in some vivid pieces – the fear of a first swimming lesson, or going on a rollercoaster ride for the first time. Writing comes as much from the self as it does from external factors: that is one of the ways you become a better writer.

First Story: Woodside session, No. 1

To North London, and a visit to Woodside School for a First Story workshop. First Story, in case you didn't know, is the organisation set up by William Fiennes which promotes literacy and a love of writing in schools. The aim is to have a writer go in and do weekly workshops, with the result being a published anthology. It's a great idea, and it's come up with some marvellous things, and I'm very proud to be working for them.

The session I worked on was intended to show that the ordinary can be made extraordinary: I asked each student what animal they would be, and then asked them to imagine finding that animal in their house; then they had to write from the animal's point of view. It was an exercise that drew forth both some rather moving images - hunted lions, hungry hawks, lost monkeys – and some amusing situations as well, with a vengeful snake and a haughty hawk being the most memorable. It was a great session, with a lot of energy, and I look forward to the next ones. The students were motivated and showed real talent and commitment. Now I must go as I think a llama has just wondered into my sitting room... Hey! That's my manuscript! You can't eat that! Sorry, excuse me. I'll be back soon...

A Writer's Dream

My study

 I have recently come to the conclusion that really the only solution for a serious writer is to spend one's life on a plane. It's marvellous. You are in a confined space, unable to move away from your notebook or computer. Should you wish, you can stretch your legs every so often, but there is nowhere else to go. There is no internet, so you cannot get distracted by checking your Amazon ranking / looking at your weblog stats (or is that just me) / the DREADED social network sites. You do not have to update your weblog with articles about why you are not writing your novel because you're writing articles about dreaming about places where you can write your novel. You cannot check your phone, and therefore can't play any silly games on it. You are not constantly reminded of things that need to be done (bills to be paid, flats to tidy, files to organise, tax returns to file, letters to write; oh, and why don't I alphabetise my magazine collection whilst I'm at it?). You can put earplugs in your ears and headphones over your earplugs so that people know you don't want to be disturbed (have you noticed that even if you're wearing headphones people will still try to talk to you, like when you're reading and people say, 'what are you reading?'). The only time you are disturbed is when a nice lady or gentleman brings you drinks and food, which is exactly as things ought to be, and you can pretend that you are in a restaurant on the riviera (we are writers, after all. We have imagination).

So my plan, therefore, is to get on connecting flights for the rest of my life. No luggage, no destination, no plan. Just a life in transit, in the air, above the clouds: a perfect life for a writer, soaring endlessly above the globe. There we can see things in perspective; there we can be the omniscient narrator; there we can contemplate the passions and troubles of the world at a safe distance. And best of all: there is no escape.