Covid19's silver lining: online writing masterclasses - by Rowena House

Life, family & other commitment ate the time I’d set aside to write my ABBA post this month, so instead of waffling on about the WIP (again) I thought I’d use this opportunity to extol the wonders of online writing masterclasses that have sprung up since this weird plague season began.

First up, the writing charity, Arvon. I’d urge anybody who’s feeling the slighted bit jaded about their craft to Google ‘Arvon at Home Masterclasses’ and take a look at what’s coming up, alternatively see if this link works:

https://www.arvon.org/arvon-at-home/

Their emailed info seems to be updated often, so it might be worth subscribing to that, too; it’s where I found all four of the super sessions I’ve attended. Highlights over the summer were Will Self on place, Hisham Matar on not letting pre-determined intentions get in the way of creativity, and Chris Cleaver on harnessing the psychology of transference and anxieties as part of one’s creative life.

This upcoming one on October 1, with Roger Robinson already caught my eye:

“Join Roger as he discusses the making of, and decisions behind his award winning book, A Portable Paradise. A workshop peppered with literary and aesthetic rationales behind the book from inception to print. The craft talk will also reference his personal writing practices and how you can replicate them within your own process with writing prompts. Poetry readers will leave with a greater appreciation of what goes into the making of a book of poems; writers will leave with tools to improve their craft.”

They last two hours, cost £35, and all you’ve got to do is settle in on the day at 1100 am via Zoom for advice, practical exercises, smart questions from fellow attendees, and a wonderful sense that the global writing community is a haven in our mad, mad world.

The Women’s Prize for Fiction's evenings with their short listed authors were brilliant, too. It was like having Maggie O’Farrell, Hilary Mantel and Bernadine Evaristo et al chatting with Kate Moss in your kitchen. Writers don’t seem to worry about faking a posh backdrop so it was all v homely and relaxed, and an absolute bargain at £10. I really, really hope they do it again next year. And maybe other prizes will imitate the Women’s Prize. Hint, hint Booker.

Infuriatingly, I’ve not managed to make a Words Away’s Zoom Salon yet but they look fab. The next one is on October 12, with author and poet, Caoilinn Hughes. Here’s a link and the blurb:

https://www.wordsaway.info/zalon-events

“Experimenting with character, voice and dialogue can open up your writing practice and lead to exciting possibilities. But what do we mean when we talk about ‘voice’? How can dialogue work to add vibrancy and colour to our writing? Caoilinn’s debut novel, Orchid & the Wasp (2018) won the Collyer Bristow Prize and was a finalist for four other prizes. Her second novel, The Wild Laughter, was published in June 2020.”

Lastly, The Guardian’s back-to-school masterclasses have proved too much of a temptation for the autumn, so September and October will find me propped up on the dog’s sofa (the best Wifi spot) with the cat trying to get onto my lap, a coffee going cold, and notebook & pen at the ready for neuroscience and creativity, the philosophy of identity and more!

Here’s their link, which sadly is cluttered with all sorts of stuff. As a subscriber, I find their emails way easier to use to track down the best bits. If you've found any similar gems, I'd love to hear about them. Happy Zooming!  

https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-masterclasses/series/back-to-school

Twitter: @HouseRowena

Website: rowenahouse.com

 

 

A small grey pigeon - John Dougherty

You may have read this ABBA piece by the most excellent CJ Busby of this parish. In case you’re the sort of reader who can’t be doing with clicking links, it’s the one with the open letter to the education secretary about the way that children are taught to consciously overcomplicate their writing, cramming it with superfluous adjectives and unwieldy subordinate clauses, in order to… er… well, I’m not quite sure, actually. I imagine it’s in order to show that Somebody is Doing Something.

The Guardian picked up on this, interviewing both CJ and me for this article. You’re going to have to click that link yourself, I’m afraid.

I mention this, because the very day that Guardian article appeared, my 14-year old son came home from school and told me that his English teacher had asked him to amend a description in a piece of writing because the vocabulary used wasn’t ‘advanced’ enough. The description was:

“A small, grey pigeon”.

My son spent several minutes trying to work out how to change the word ‘small’ and the word ‘grey’ to make them more “advanced”. “I could say it’s minuscule,” he said; “but it’s not minuscule. It’s just small.” I suggested he ask his mother, who appears to know more names for colours than Dulux and Farrow & Ball put together, for alternatives for grey, or try something like ‘marl’ or ‘slate’.

In the end, rather than change the description, he changed that whole section of the passage. He made the bird much more significant; it became a strutting monarch in an iridescent grey robe, demanding discarded chips from its subjects. It was quite a neat solution to a wholly unnecessary problem, I thought. 

 Image courtesy of digidreamgrafix
 at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I say “wholly unnecessary” because to demand the original description be reframed in more ‘advanced’ vocabulary completely missed the point of the description, as far as I could see. The small, grey pigeon was a powerful image exactly because of its commonplace simplicity. To use more flowery language - to turn it, for instance, into a bijou, gunmetal pigeon, or a compact, cloud-coloured pigeon -  would have robbed it of its ordinariness, turned it into something remarkable. The vocabulary might have been more “advanced”, but the writing, frankly, would have been worse, and the description less accurate. As my son put it, in a burst of frustration before settling down to the task:

“It’s just a small, grey pigeon.”

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John's latest book, Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Bees of Stupidity, illustrated by David Tazzyman and published by OUP, will be published on July 2nd.















In the meantime, you can read these.

The picture books that made me

I've been overcome by waves of nostalgia.

The first whiff was sent floating under my nose by Daniel Hahn (editor of the Oxford Companion to Children's Literature) - whose recent top 10 of forgotten children's classics included the delightful Fattypuffs and Thinnifers by Andre Maurois with charming Fritz Wenger illustrations. This was a top favourite of mine as a child - I think I liked the pictures and the entirely logical but surreal scenario.

Fattypuffs and Thinifers marry (Fritz Wenger)

Then last weekend, the Guardian invited a selection of contemporary authors to list the children's books which made them, and I was nearly overcome by the rosy fumes (not in an unpleasurable way). It's always interesting to read these, because as we know, the books we read as children exercise some of the most formative influences on our imagination - if by no means conclusive ones. Golden classics from the canon dominated, from Andrew Laing's Fairy Tales (the late Ruth Rendell) to Arthur Ransom's Peter Duck (Tom Stoppard.) Of course, that almost renders the exercise irrelevant. If you're trying to divine the secret reading which has created a fine modern literary mind and only discover that they liked Alice in Wonderland, it's hardly a startling, distinctive or unique piece of bibliography.

The edition of Peter Duck I read

This is my problem with nostalgia. Often we rewrite things to suit modern tastes or what we think other readers will want to read, or identify with. I'm just as bad. In schools, when children ask, "What was your favourite book as a child?", I too often give them the answers they have probably heard before, were maybe even hoping for. The Narnia books, Stig of the Dump, The Hobbit, The Silver Sword - all great books, but chances are they are all titles so well known that they are bound to have crossed the paths of most keen young readers in the last fifty years.

Stig of the Dump (illustrated Edward Ardizzone)

I'm delighted to keep on reinforcing their appeal, they're great books.

But of course, there were so many other influences on my imagination. Namely, some books which all too rarely get chosen as favourites by Serious Living Writers, and that's picture books.  Yes, I loved the characters and adventures and drama and humour of those more canonical titles, but the books that blew my child mind and implanted haunting images there forever? The books that gave me a sense of the limitless, dream manufacturing capability of the subconscious?

Books like the German Ra Ta Ta Tam - The strange story of a little engine, by Peter Nickl, illustrated by Binette Schroder, the tale of a lonely train traversing Dali-esque landscapes filled with obscure symbolism and mystery.

Ra Ta Ta Tam

Or King Tree by Fiona French, a dark and unusual piece about the Sun King's courtiers dressed as trees, competing for favour. I had no idea what it meant or was about. The people looked weird, the costumes were freakish - but sumptuously and intensely illustrated by French:

The Orange Tree from King Tree

 Even It's A Dog's Life by Mark Stern, which uses simpler and more conventional cartoon style illustrations, still gripped me as a child with its big empty frames, more picture and space than dialogue and words - which left so much room for the imagination to invent and fill in the gaps.




In the end, these are just three of the many picture books that I happened to read and re-read and re-read when I was a boy. I mention them now because they are the ones that have survived various culls over the years. They don't have the canonical appeal of great stories such as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. They aren't as genre breaking as Alice in Wonderland once was. Their qualities are not charm and a classic English feel.

They are books which all freaked me out a little when I was younger. The intensity of the artwork, the inherent sadness behind so much of the images, the disquieting stillness and otherness. Like comics, they teach the basis of all storytelling - piquing the curiosity. But they also did something more for me. Words and longer books may have taught me so much about everything from empathy to how to build a treehouse, but picture books give most children their first glimpse of beauty. They may not inculcate  a writing style, but there is no better introduction to the developing mind of the power of art to astonish and disturb.

Piers Torday

@PiersTorday

www.pierstorday.co.uk

Fifty Shades of Safe - Anna Wilson

In The Guardian last weekend Matt Haig commented on the publishing industry's obsession with jumping on bandwagons. I am not going to repeat everything he said, but one phrase in particular sent a chill of recognition through me and so prompted me to write this post. He said that we are heading towards a situation where 'the once kaleidoscopic book world risks becoming fifty shades of safe'.

Those words could so easily apply to the majority of books bearing my name, I thought. After all, I am the woman who has 'churned out' (as some would see it) fourteen animal books, and my publisher now wants more of the same. Or, failing that, the Next Big Thing, which frankly is rather an Unknown Unknown, so what I am supposed to do about that?

Thing is, I am not sure I want to try and second-guess the market; a fickle thing at the best of times. I am also clear I do not want to write more of the same, just as I am not convinced that readers necessarily want to read more of the same.

I know I am not alone as a writer in feeling that the industry seems to have changed in the blink of an eye. So much has happened so fast in the way that books are sold in to retailers and sold on to the public that it was bound to affect writers and the way that publishers deal with us. However, I suppose I was not prepared for the current approach which seems very much to be along the lines of 'books as product'. I am naive, I guess. The minute that supermarkets were in on the game it was unlikely that books would be perceived to be anything other than 'product'. If you are Mr Tesco and you are looking at what books to stock, you are only interested in how the last title from a particular author performed. In other words, no matter how much blood, sweat and tears went into your new novel, no matter how good it is, how exciting, how fresh, no matter how you have performed over a number of years in the market, if your last title did not shift a respectable number of units, you will not find your name on the shelves next time around. And you will certainly not have room to develop as a writer because the market views books much as it views tins of beans - if they taste good and sell well as they are, why change them?

Except that books are not tins of beans - we all know that.

It probably sounds as though I don't understand the publishers' point of view. I do. Things have changed for them, too, obviously. Faced with the demands of the Mr Tescos of this world, 'building an author' is sadly a luxury most publishers cannot now afford, so I can hardly blame them for wanting to make money out of 'fifty shades of safe'.

However, I wanted to write this post to see how others feel. Are you expected to come up with 'the next you', i.e. more of the same, reliable writing that conveniently places you where marketing and sales people are confident of how to pitch you in their publishing plan? Or are you throwing caution to the wind and using this climate to your advantage, to write what you really want to write, oblivious to the increasingly bland demands of the marketeers, and sending it out with all fingers and toes crossed? Is this the way forward: to write what we really want and hope it gets into the hands of readers? Or is this professional suicide?

I have decided to take the risk: to write a couple of books that have been swilling around in the back of my mind for a while, but which I have not had the confidence to develop. It may all end in a damp squib of disappointment and rejection. But I cannot sit around waiting for the crystal ball of the market place to make up its mind which tin of beans is going to be the next big thing. And I certainly do not want to be stocked on the shelves with 'fifty shades of safe'.

(with apologies to Matt Haig for nicking his excellent phrase)

Anna Wilson
www.annawilson.co.uk
www.acwilsonwriter.wordpress.com

In Praise of the Pram in the Hall – Anna Wilson

Last Thursday, a fellow Bath author, Clare Furniss, launched her first novel for teens, The Year of the Rat, at Mr B’s. The little shop was heaving with friends, family and well-wishers as Clare talked about how she had come to write the book, before reading a tantalizing extract, which now has me itching to read my copy.

There was a lot of buzz surrounding the novel as it has already received high praise, and was also announced as one of Radio 2’s Book Club choices the very day of the launch.

Almost more remarkable, some might comment, is the fact that Clare wrote this book whilst looking after two pre-school children. Almost as if to illustrate the enormity of this task, her two young sons were at Mr B’s with her, clambering over her while she spoke, evidently keen to share the limelight. Clare did a fantastic job in delivering a speech while encumbered in this way, and it led her to make a passing comment on ‘the pram in the hall’; a phrase which, more often than not, is used negatively as a metaphor for how motherhood can prevent women from reaching their full potential in their careers. However, as Clare said, for her, ‘the pram in the hall’ actively helped her to achieve her dream of writing a novel, as it meant she had to concentrate her efforts into the small amount of free time she had available.

‘I worked while the boys were sleeping, or while my parents took them off me for short periods; I wrote late into the night – I took any and every opportunity I could to sit and write,’ she said.

This resonated strongly with me, for I share Clare’s conviction that if it were not for that pram in the hall, I too would not have found the drive necessary to get on with it and become a writer.

When my son was born and my daughter was just two years old, my husband’s career took us to France. I had been working in London and had to give up my job to go with him. I found myself thinking I should use my enforced career break to finally do something about being the writer I knew, deep down, I had always wanted to be.

It was tough. I was exhausted a lot of the time and had no friends or family to call on. My husband worked long hours and often travelled, leaving me with the kids for days and nights at a time. Although my daughter went to a little garderie des enfants a couple of times a week, I still had a newborn baby to look after. 

I decided that the only way to get anything done was to use the children’s rest times to my advantage. Luckily my son was a good sleeper, so while his sister was out, I would feed him, put him in his car seat and rock it gently with my foot while I sat at my computer. He would eventually drop off to sleep while I tapped away at the keyboard.

Recently Maggie O’Farrell wrote an article in the Guardian on how she combines motherhood with her working day:

‘How to write looking after a very young baby: get a sling . . . Walk to your desk, averting your eyes from the heaps of laundry on the stairs, the drifts of cat hair on the carpets, the flotsam of toys in every doorway . . . Do not check your email, do not click on your favourites . . . do not be tempted to see how your eBay auctions are faring: go to work, go directly to work . . . Write. The clickety-clackety of the keyboard will soothe [the baby] and you. Write without looking back, write without rereading . . . Write until you feel her twisting her head from side to side, until you lift her out and into your arms. You might be in the middle of a sentence, but no matter. Type “HERE” in capitals and then push yourself away from the desk, carrying her out of the room, shutting the door until next time.’

I am sure many mothers will recognize this description of making the most of the free time they can grab for themselves. O’Farrell’s experience mirrors my own: this is pretty much how I wrote my first picture book, my first short stories and it is how I began to see myself as a writer rather than a mother taking a break from work. The added bonus of motherhood was that it actively contributed to my writing life: I was seeing the world through my children’s eyes on a daily basis, and realizing that was how I wanted to write it.

The kids are teens now, so I have a lot more time to myself than I did when they were babies. The demands are different and sometimes writing time is still broken up, particularly in the school holidays when I am asked to drive them here and there and everywhere. And of course I still have to walk past the laundry, the drifts of cat hair, the piles of washing up . . .

It hasn’t always been an easy ride, mixing writing with motherhood, and I am certain I would not want to go back to those sleep-deprived days, those snatched half hours of writing time interspersed with breast-feeding, nappy-changing and Lego-building. Yet there is no doubt that having only tiny amounts of time to write did focus the mind and keep me keen, not to mention giving me valuable material. I agree with Clare Furniss: in the end, it was the pram in the hall that set me on the road to being the writer I had always wanted to be.

So if you want to write, but think, ‘I haven't got the time’, draw strength from the fact that it can be done, how ever little time you have. I have learnt that one concentrated hour (or even thirty minutes) is a golden opportunity, not to be wasted; and all thanks to the pram in the hall.

Anna Wilson

www.annawilson.co.uk
www.acwilsonwriter.wordpress.com

The Right to Copy - John Dougherty

I really shouldn't look at the comments on the Guardian website. Too many of them seem to be written by clever people being wilfully stupid.

Take some of the comments on this article, for instance. If you can't be bothered to click the link: Philip Pullman, currently president of the Society of Authors, is cross about internet piracy.

I have no doubt that there is a debate to be had about copyright legislation and whether in this digital age we need to take another look at it. But what annoys me about many of the arguments below the article is that they appear to be made from a position of either ignorance or selfishness. Let's take a quick look at a few:

• Why should I worry about ripping off rich people? Leaving aside the questionable ethical standpoint that it's okay to rip off people if they have more than you (though I do wonder if those who put forward this argument are okay with being ripped off themselves by others even less well off) - most authors aren't rich
• There's no difference between illegally downloading something and borrowing it from the library. Actually, there is. When you borrow it from the library, the author is recompensed
• Authors should write for love of their art, not for money. My personal view, actually, is that in an ideal world nobody would work solely for money*. But I wouldn't be so pompous as to tell anyone else that they should work for free, whatever other joys their work brought them, and I object to anyone telling me the same
• If I'm not going to buy it, but I download it and read it, the author hasn't lost anything/It's not like stealing; the author still has his work, I've just got it as well. I think these two arguments are really the same, and for some reason this is the argument that winds me up most of all. If you download it for any reason - even curiosity - then it has value to you. If it has value to you, pay for it - and you don't get to decide how much to pay**. If I've made something, it belongs to me and I get to decide under what conditions I share it with you

Writing's a job. If I do it well enough that other people want to read what I've written, I should get paid for it. So if you want to read my work, please don't tell me that you should get it for free and I should be grateful for your time. The world, as one of the wiser Guardian commentators put it, doesn't owe you free entertainment. And neither do I.

*I'd love to unpick this further, but I'd wear out your patience before the end of the post
**unless that's the model the seller has chosen
___________________________________________________________________________

John's next book:  

 Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Badness of Badgers, illustrated by David Tazzyman & published by OUP in January 2014