At last - Writing Talk!

This is supposed to be a writer’s blog so I think it’s about time I did some writing about writing. It’s a good time for this as I’ve finally got back to some concentrated work after the compulsory 3 weeks recuperation and pacing my recovery from the second cataract operation.

Thinking about writing makes me remember that I never mentioned anything about last weekend.

Last weekend I was in Norwich with the lovely Kate Hardy. The BM & I stayed with her and her family because the two Kates were giving a talk on writing romances with special reference to creating heroes in the Millenium Library there as part of their It’s A Love Thing celebration of love and romance. The talk went well – after hearing that only two people had actually booked ahead of time, it was a little nerve-wracking wondering if anyone would turn up. But plenty of people did and not only did they seems to enjoy the event, they stayed for an hour after the designated closing time talking and asking questions.

Talking about writing is always a fascinating experience for me. There’s always something new to learn, always a question that really makes you think. But for me the most interesting part of the weekend was seeing another writer in her ‘natural habitat’ – her office.

Kate H has just had a brand new, purpose built office added to her home. A physical sign of how well her career is going – for those that don’t know, Kate’s book Where the Heart Is, is nominated for the RNA’s Romance Prize this year – and a much needed ‘room of her own’ in a house that is busy with husband, 2 children and a lovely, if soppy, dog. This office has a wall lined with bookcases – shelves of which are devoted to Kate’s own publications . There is the obvious desk, computer screen, keyboard. All the necessary office equipment – printer, phone, fax, filing cabinet. So far, so much like my own office. There’s even a bed for Byron the springer spaniel where I have bed(s) for the felines.

But – and here’s the scary bit – it was tidy. And organised. Not like my office which is full of what the BM described, in his comment to my first blog, as ‘purposeful mess’ - and a lot of totally unpurposeful stuff that is just plain mess.

Kate H has ‘things to do’ lists printed out and on her walls. She plans her books in detail, submits proposals and maps out their progress on spreadsheets. She researches in detail (you need to do this in Medicals as you must get the facts right) and she sits down, gets on with it – and writes.

Me? I procrastinate. I get an idea in my head and I let it brew. It brews until it is so strong and powerful that if it was a pot of tea it would take the glaze off the china and scour its way down your throat if you tried to drink it. I let it steep into my subconscious until that’s soaked with it and then it has to rise to my conscious mind- saturating it until there’s no chance of avoiding it any more. I have to write. I have to get the thought down in words I have to tell the story of the two people who are driving my insane (well – okay – more insane than usual – by their constant presence in my thoughts, their demands that I tell their story and that I do it now.

And then I start. Sometimes I have a fairly detailed idea of where I’m going. Sometimes I have a vital scene in my head that sparks things off and that I know I have to start with, or work towards, or end with -and I set out hopefully into the mist, hoping and praying that my characters will take me by the hand and lead me on to the right path and take me with them to their happy ever after ending. They always have done up to now – but there’s always that edge of fear that maybe this time I’m going to lose them or they’ll lead me the wrong way and we’ll end up in some place that just doesn’t work at all and I’ll never be able to find a way out of. I don’t do proposals or synopses. If my editor asks what I’m working on, I mutter something about ‘A Sicilian’ or ‘A Spaniard’ and retreat back into my writing cave.

Because the truth is that more often that not, I don’t know what I’m writing about until – if I’m lucky – I’m halfway there – or even until I reach the end and look back and say ‘Oh so that’s what this story is about! How interesting!’

In the same way that my office is messy, undisciplined, chaotic, I’m a messy, undisciplined, chaotic writer. And that is probably reflected in the books I write – not that they are necessarily messy, undisciplined and chaotic. Once I actually start writing, I’m suddenly disciplined. I know who my characters are and I work with them to tell their story to the best of my ability. But the stories I write, the emotions that I deal in, the situations and conflicts that my characters get themselves into, they’re messy and complicated and chaotic. They’re the emotional problems that throw all sorts of spanners in the works and keep people who should be with one another apart until they can learn to see each other properly and end up where they should be – facing a future together, for life.

I have lots of friends who are writers and we all work in our own individual ways. Kate H plans and plots and organises (and she’s the sort of powerhouse of a writer that exhausts me just to watch her). My dear friend Anne McAllister studies psychology and spends time detailing her character’s’ pasts and family relationships and the way those affect them in the present. (When I first wrote this I wrote that she detailed her characters’ pastas – and she probably does that too). Another friend, Michelle Reid, works more like me – she ‘sees’ a scene that sets her imagination going and grabs at the characters, getting down words about them and learning about them as she puts those words on a page. Some writers work in 1000 words a day bursts – I just couldn’t leave my characters after 1000 words and I’ve been known to slam down 8 -10,000 words in a white-heat of glorious inspiration.

So what does this tell me? Horses for courses obviously,. We all write the way that suits us. I couldn’t write the way Kate H or Anne McA write – and they would shudder at the thought of winging it in the way I do. Which just goes to show that there’s no ‘right’ way to write – you just have to sit down and get on with it in the way that works for you.

Which is what I shall have to do from tomorrow morning – that tea bag of ideas that has been steeping away in my subconscious has reached saturation point and the characters are nagging at my conscious mind.

It’s time for those two terrifying words - CHAPTER ONE