All change

Happy Day!

This week sees the beginning of October. The trees are beginning to change into a glorious cornucopia of gold and amber. And I feel like a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders.

What this means for me is time to write. I will have two whole days each week to work on two projects I have. One fiction and one non fiction. Both of which need to be written by 2015. Seems a long time away. I can assure you it is not! Or certainly not when you have to do so much research and the projects are so different.

Yes, part of me is feeling pretty daunted at the moment. I have been working on them both or rather dabbling for the last few months but now it is time to be focused and get those words on the page.

My world has changed so much in the last year and I am trying hard to embrace those changes and move forward. These projects are wonderful as they give me something to focus on. Last week was the first of the semester and it was a timely reminder of how much I enjoy lecturing. My students are enthusiastic and insightful and therefore a joy to work with. While at Golden Egg, with Imogen Cooper, Beverley Birch, Bella Pearson and Chrissie O'Brien, continues to grow and thrive. I have the privilege of working with and mentoring some fantastic aspiring writers through GE as well as developing some new and very exciting projects. Watch this space for news on those at some point.

I know I have mentioned this before but I will be using my blog to test out my research ideas for the academic book I am writing. Please bear with me if I got off at tangents at times but I hope you enjoy my thoughts as I bounce my ideas around.

This is a brief Sunday blog and I felt the need for a bit of Joni because sometimes clouds get in my way too.

Writing what you know...or not

We are often told as writers to write what we know but sometimes it is just as important to write what we don't know. J K Rowling had a great success doing precisely that as did Philip Pullman with The Dark Materials. JK can't have known Hogwarts or Diagon Alley as actual places but I bet they are based on things she had seen or read about elsewhere. What J K does do so successfully is to create a world we all believe in. As did Pullman, though obviously using Oxford he highlights the difference in the setting by spelling the country as Brytain. It is the same yet different. If I was going to go all academic on you I could relate it to Freud's uncanny or Bakhtin's carnivalesque. But today I am not.

Our writing cannot help but be based on some part of our autobiographical background. It might be something that we have read, seen or had life experience of. When you write you have a web of identities. For me, mine are as a writer, a mother, a woman and an academic. Each intricate layer informs my narrative and my understanding behind the decisions I make. They make me the writer I am. I write fiction for young adults yet it is a long time since I have been one. My children are no longer teenagers, they have moved on but my writing is still embedded within teenage-dom. For me the important thing is not to restrict myself to one cultural moment. Unless of course the aim is relevant to the story - thinking of Dave Massey's Torn for example. My writing needs to be contingent and fluid reflecting the ever moving world around me while I create a fictional world that is familiar and recognisable, particularly as I write realist novels.

The important thing is not to be afraid. Believe in the world you create and your readers will too. It doesn't matter whether you are creating a realist world, a dystopian one or fantasy world, you need to understand exactly how it works. This means undertaking world building exercises alongside your character building ones. You need to understand not just what your world looks like but how the culture works within it for example.

If we only wrote about what we knew a lot of books would not be written. If you have a story that you love that is a based in a world that you believe in then get down and write it. Just make sure you do all the pre-writing work. If your idea is in an area you have no experience of, research it. Also do not be concerned about using autobiographical instances as the starting point for a story. It is what writers do. (Just a word of caution make sure you are not going to offend anyone if it is going to be obvious it is a story based on a certain person).

Here's a bit of Joni for a Saturday afternoon when all the work and words are not falling right.

Voices and reading

Today is more about characterisation and voice. I was recently advised to read a certain book because it had a good example of the type of voice I was trying to create. I took the advice and read the book waiting for my epiphany. Unfortunately, it didn't come, or rather it did but not in a way I expected. This strong voice that was recommended to me I found to be weak and predictable. Admittedly they were not the main character but even so minor characters have got to be able to stand up for themselves. Make you aware they are there and why. My epiphany was more of a reminder of how much reading is actually subjective. Any reader, whether adult or child does not come to a story empty handed. They arrive full of their past experiences and knowledge ready to take away new knowledge and interpretation for dissemination when they share a good tale.

As reading is subjective I would suggest that as a writer sometimes you just need to follow your gut instinct. Be strong and believe in yourself. You will know if it is not working. Trust that inner voice. Just because one agent or publisher happens to like one style doesn't mean that your style is wrong. It may just not be right for them. Try others. You have to believe in what you are writing and stand by it. If you have doubts then the reader definitely will too.

Equally as important as listening to that inner voice is ensuring you read, and read copiously. Not just books that are within your comfort zone. Challenge yourself. As I mentioned above, about the reader, you will take away from all books you read a bit more knowledge about writing. It might be a style you don't like or a style you love. Words they may have used could inspire you. The more you read the more informed you become as a writer and therefore can have even more faith in that inner voice.

This song is because I love it and Joni plus maybe because  it is time to skate away ready for a new year