What does it take to be a writer's other half?

Most of the column inches in this blog are taken up with me complaining about being a writer. The hours suck, it's poorly paid, and nobody ever says "well done". In fact, they are much more likely to say, "Would you please stop filling the house with scraps of paper, and get that bloody laptop off the kitchen table?"

It occurred to me lately that few of us would ever get anything done were it not for the support of our other halves. People of a creative mindset are wont to be flighty and inconsistent. Anything and everything interests us, and we can almost forget that the world is turning when we're absorbed in the act of creation. In my rush to get back to the writing desk, I'll often leave pans dirty and crumb-covered plates all over the worktop. Later on I'll come back downstairs and shout "WHO ON EARTH MADE ALL THIS DISGUSTING MESS", forgetting that in fact it is I who has the softest of hands from never bloody washing up.

Stability, that's important to us. The working life of any writer is filled end to end with discouragement. There is no steady ground beneath our feet. Every writer has her black periods. Quite apart from constantly doubting whether our work is really any good, we face discouragement from lots of other angles. A constantly growing pile of rejection letters or resounding silences, or sniping reviews can reinforce our belief that we're really not all that good at what we do. If we didn't have our other halves to support us when we're moping, or to remind us that we have to re-tax the car or break off to eat every now and again, we would probably be a bit depressed, as well as somewhat unproductive.

And the job of being a writer's other half is far from a rewarding one. You're attached to somebody who spends most of their free time staring moodily into a computer screen; and when they're not doing that, their thought processes are mainly taken up with the process of deciding What Happens Next. Your spouse's head is continually in an imaginary place - an imaginary place completely inaccessible to you until its creator has spent months of her life writing, rewriting, and editing it. On top of all that, what your scribbling beloved requires from you most of all is that you never, ever interrupt her while she is working.

So let's all give 'props' to our other halves - for putting up with our inconsistencies, for doing more than their share around the house, and for placing cups of tea unobtrusively just within reach of our hands when we are deep in the quagmire of a third or fourth edit. We would be nothing without them.

Currently reading

The Outsider Albert Camus
The Cossacks Leo Tolstoy

Precarious working...

Over the past couple of weeks a friend of mine, Grace Harrison, and her friend Rachel Cloughton, have been running an art project in a reclaimed arts space called Alternative Strategies. For two weeks there have been lively debates, discussions, screenings, and workshops around the subject of self-organised learning:

The project intends to expose the many alternative educational platforms active in the city, bringing together groups and individuals with art as its departure point.

Many local arts groups and organisations have been involved in the discussions and workshops, and the subject of how we can educate ourselves seems now more pertinent than ever in a month when many universities have announced that they will charge the maximum capped fee of £9,000 a year for their courses.

I went along one night this week for the discussion on 'precarious working'. Precarious working is usually defined as the kind of work that is by nature insecure (it comes without a permanent contract or rights), poorly paid, comes without benefits, gifts its labourers no rights, and cannot financially support a household. Examples of precarious working can include work under zero-hours contracts, fixed-term contracts, and enforced self-employment. I was interested in this because I define myself as a precarious worker: although I'm in employment, I don't have a permanent employment contract, and haven't had one for a few years.

Precarious working can benefit the worker, as it gives her greater autonomy. But it's more likely to benefit the employer, as it means their workers have few or no employment rights - for example, right to redundancy payouts or maternity or sickness benefits, and little protection from stress or harassment at work. The effect of precarious working upon the worker is to give her no security, no 'safety net' - many precarious workers will force themselves to go into work when they're really not fit to work, because they won't get sick pay and can't afford to take the day off - and to make her feel isolated and alone. It's cheaper and easier for employers to offer this kind of work; it means less responsibility for them, and - if you want to be a cynic - it often means they can treat their employees poorly, and minimise the risk of being sued under employment law.

It was an enlightening discussion, and the people who participated were a diverse bunch. Less did we discuss the benefits of 'precarious working' (I think we were all agreed that precarious working is generally pretty lame), than its existence being a symptom of a larger problem.

There's a lot wrong with public sector cuts, and if I wanted to I could type about it all day; but I'll leave that for now, and come back to it another time.... needless to say, though, that one of the effects of the cuts has been to force millions out of work. Mass unemployment has a depressing impact on the labour market in any system. The effect of it is that those who want to work will gladly do it beneath their level of skill, experience and qualification, for less money than their skills demand, and sometimes for free. One of Tuesday's attendees summed it up well by saying: "What does an unemployed academic do? He just goes away and works harder somewhere else."

The drive to work isn't confined to academia, though. Lots of us will go on working regardless of the expectation to be paid for it. Writers, for example - yes, you lot, writers, I've seen your 39p royalty cheques - artists, musicians, and newly-graduated students who need experience. If we're not 'working', we're 'preparing for work' by training, studying, or doing an internship - and yet the points at which people are reimbursed for their efforts become rarer and rarer.

So what can we do? One of the conclusions of the discussion was that the concept of a union for precarious workers could be problematic. Many of the large unions that exist have histories in manufacturing, or in certain industries and sectors. If precarious workers are in a union at all - and many only join when they feel their job is in danger - it is in one aligned to their sector. It might be that there's little awareness amongst precarious workers that they have more in common with other precarious workers than more securely employed workers in their own sector; and there isn't an existing union specifically for precarious workers. Yet all were agreed that one of the effects of precarious working is to make the employee feel alone. We wondered whether precarious workers would feel able to band together in their places of work, to collectivise their resources and gain strength in unity. A lot of those attending were left with a lot of food for thought about how precarious workers could do this in their workplaces.

Someone told a heartening story about mill-workers during the industrial revolution. The term 'cottage industry' comes not from a person owning their own business and working for himself, but from people who were forced to work at home for the local millowner. Such workers had to pay to borrow looms from the factory owner, and often weren't paid for their work until it suited the factory owner. Angry homeworkers banded together with other angry homeworkers to hire many looms, and held them to ransom until the masters paid. Or, if they had hammers, they smashed them up.

I should state, by the way, that I do not agree that smashing machines with hammers is a good solution to the problem of precarious working. We are no longer in the 1800s, and I like machines, especially laptops. It is merely an illuminating tale about the possibility of strength through collectivisation.

Again, I should thank Grace for all the work she did at Alternative Strategies, and to Art In Unusual Spaces in Leeds. They have supported a lot of really interesting exhibitions in Leeds recently.


Currently reading

The Shadow of a Smile Kachi A. Ozumba
They Knew Mr Knight Dorothy Whipple

Being a writer sucks!

Whether you're an impoverished student driven by art and creativity, or a bestselling writer with a series of successful film adaptations living in a mansion in California, writing sucks. It sucks in a myriad of ways that never go away, regardless of how successful you are, or how many times you've been on the Richard & Judy book club. The hours are long, the pay and conditions are terrible, and your boss keeps muttering words of discouragement to you under his or her breath. If there were a union, we'd all be on the phone to it right now.

Last winter, I was complaining about the need to wear fingerless gloves to work. People who do normal jobs (hello Librarians, hello office workers) get to work in lovely warm offices. The heating is always on; not for them the indignity of working in a room where ice drips from the ceiling, nor the need to drink endless cups of tea to keep hands and fingers warm enough to stay mobile. Only the writer, working as romantic tradition has decreed she must, works in an upstairs garrett room with icicles forming on the end of her nose, and the wind whistling through her hair. Readers, for the writer, a harsh winter can be hell.

But I've discovered something worse than writing in winter, and do you know what it is? Yes, that's right: writing in summer.

Writing in summer is the grown-up equivalent of taking a GCSE on a balmy summer's day. As you sit at your desk, worry crowding your head and your pens lined up neatly on the wood before you, you gaze longingly out of the sports' hall window at the golden fields of wheat bending in the breeze, reflecting hot yellow in the sunlight. Children, playing joyously with hula hoops and paddling pools, taunt you with their carefree enjoyment of the beautiful day. And where are you? Indoors, trying to write a bloody novel.

Only a lunatic would attempt writing outdoors. There are wasps out there. And you can't see, anyway; no matter where you sit, the sun is going to bounce off your laptop screen and BLIND YOU. And in any case, most writers, unfortunate owners of that occupational writing hazard the bad back, can't write without a desk. All those hours hunched over scribbling in notebooks or on napkins balanced on their knees have done for their back and shoulders. You cannot take your desk outside. It makes you look mad.

And yet we still all do it, and why? When we have a sneaking suspicion that nobody will ever love us, and when we worry that our books will end up crowding out the shelves of the local charity shops like so much Da Vinci Code? We do it because even though being a writer sucks and YOU, yes YOU will never be as rich or as successful as Dan Brown or Doris Lessing or even Julie Otsuka, we're compelled. We love it and we're driven and we can't stop ourselves.

Now stop looking longingly out of that window and get on with it.

This week, I have:

Finished planning for FICTIONS OF EVERY KIND: CUTS
Begun my first rewrites of a new draft
Worked on preparing a first chapter for a first chapter competition
Knitted a bit of a cardigan.

Hell is other people's music choices...

Lately, mainly because it is colder inside my house than it is outdoors (how can this be?), I've been doing a lot of writing in the local coffee shops. There are many advantages to working in a coffee shop, chief amongst which is that it is warm there, and there is no need to wear fingerless gloves while you type. There are fewer distractions in a coffee shop; your average writer is less likely to procrastinate by suddenly noticing that the skirting boards need ironing, or that there's a mucky teaspoon in the sink that needs washing up right away. In my nearest coffee shops, I can't even get an internet connection. Add to this the frequent availability of coffee and cake, and you have a recipe for excellent writer productivity. In the last week alone, I have finished six novels, eight short stories, and an hundred-line ballad written in iambic pentameter, just by dint of sitting in the nearest Costa. (Only joking.... I don't write poetry).

But srsly though coffee shops of West Yorkshire, what is UP with your music choice? A few days ago, I was rendered rampantly KILLY and ENRAGED by the abuse to which my ears were subject. Coffee shops of the world seemed to have turned to filling their stereos with CDs of pastel coloured, twinkly, no-cunt, irritatingly twee music, designed to offend nobody. There must be a special shop that sells this stuff; I imagine that only coffee shops buy it - for the love of God, I hope that nobody willingly listens to this stuff at home.

This kind of music is meant to promote a self-consciously cool, laid-back atmosphere within the environs. Recently, I've heard versions of 'Tainted Love' sung by a woman with a child's voice backed with what sounded like a music-box, 'Sweet Child O' Mine' gently tickled to death with a xylophone and an accordion, and a version of 'When Doves Cry' played in a jaunty rhythm on a Spanish guitar. I imagine the aim is to reassure your average coffee-shop customer with music with which he or she is familiar, presented in a way that promotes a kind of slow death by passivity: a sort of lift music for the post-modern ironist of the 21st Century, if you will. It's irritating and its twee, and every time I hear one of these dreadful, knowing cover versions, I am filled with an almost uncontrollable urge to punch a kitten to death. And I really like kittens.

Please, coffee shops of the local West Yorkshire area: I AM TRYING TO WRITE A NOVEL AND THIS CAR ADVERT MUSIC IS NOT HELPING.

Things that go by the wayside for writers

There are lots of things that writers are good at. Sitting still for long periods of time with only their own thoughts in their head for company. Inventing whole new worlds. Making pretend people come to life. Making a reader see a picture in their mind using only a collection of well-chosen words. Typing. Procrastinating. There are all sorts of things at which writers do regularly, and at which only a writer can excel.

But... there are also many things that writers are bad at. When you're busy trying to write novels / stories / terrible pulpy romance novels, there are so many things that necessarily have to go by the wayside. So few of us can make a living from our art that we instead spend our free time holed up in a semi-darkened room with only a laptop, a notebook, and a mug of tea for company: friends, what effect does that have on us? What, in other words, do we 'miss'?

Socialising. My friends still wonder why I glance around shiftily and make excuses when they invite me out. People never understand when you tell them, "I've got to write". "WRITE SCHMITE!" they shout. "YOU CAN ALWAYS WRITE TOMORROW BUT THIS INVITE TO COCKTAILS IS A ONE-TIME ONLY OFFER." Not that it matters, even if you do go out, because the next thing that goes by the wayside in the writer's life is...

Having normal things to talk about. People at work always want to talk about last night's telly, and I DIDN'T SEE ANY OF IT, because I was TRYING TO WRITE A NOVEL. But you can't tell people at work you were writing a novel: they won't understand, and anyway it only makes you look like a pretentious wanker. So instead you tell them, "Oh no, I must have missed it, I was painting the bathroom." And then your workmates think you are weird because you, apparently, have spent every evening for the past 3 years painting the bathroom. "How big is her bathroom?" they must think. "Does this woman live in the Golden Gate Bridge?"

Having normal social skills. You spend your evenings missing conversational telly, and having conversations with imaginary people who, by the way, most definitely did not exist until you made them up. It makes you a bit twitchy when people talk. For one thing, you find yourself mentally editing everything they say; and for another, you start obsessing over whether their character really would say that sort of thing, or is she just saying it to drive the plot forward at the expense of realistic characterisation? Viewing every human interaction as an extension of your plot quandary starts to make you look a bit strange. If you didn't already look strange enough.

Currently Reading

In Pursuit Of The English Doris Lessing
The Complete Maus Art Spiegelman
Twilight Stephenie Meyer (my friend lent me it, and I didn't want to be rude)
Soho Keith Waterhouse

Thoughts of the day...

I'm still in the enviable position of having plenty of writing time at the moment. I know it's enviable because I told a writer-friend how much I'm getting done at the moment, and his face turned green and he tried to scratch my eyes out, right there on the pavement, in front of the library. The ensuing injuries explain why I haven't had much time to update this blog lately.... sorry.

This week I have mostly been watching (on ghetto Sky+, also known as "Freeview Plus"; apparently kids these days call that "Pov TV", Pov being short for Povvo or Poverty rather than point of view), a show called In Their Own Words: British Novelists of the 20th Century. This is a series currently being shown on BBC4, about writers of the 20th century. It uses archive footage of interviews with the authors themselves, so you get an eclectic mix of writers from Barbara Cartland to Christopher Isherwood and from Jean Rhys to Robert Graves talking about their own work.

It's a fascinating show, partly in terms of the revelations about attitudes of the times in which writers lived (you see Evelyn Waugh being interviewed by a female journalist in the 60s, find out that he only agreed to do the interview on the specification that he was interviewed by 'a pretty gel', and that off-camera he asked the production crew "When is she going to take her clothes off?") but also about the writers themselves. There's much encouragement to be had in the knowledge that even EM Forster suffered from the writer's gremlin. Even after writing some of the finest novels of the early 20th century, books which were critically acclaimed and massively popular at the time, he didn't consider himself to be a great writer. Of his own capabilities, he said: "I don't consider myself to be a great writer because I have only really managed to get down onto paper 3 types of people: the person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I would like to be. When you get to the really great people, like Tolstoy, you'll find they can get hold of all types." It speaks volumes that even a great writer like EM Forster had crippling doubts about his own self-worth.

So I really recommend this series, even if just for the fact you get to find out Top Facts like that Robert Graves mainly wrote I, Claudius to pay off his mortgage.

Currently reading

One Big Damn Puzzler John Harding
The Language of Others Clare Morrall
Blankets Craig Thompson
Shortcomings Adrian Tomine (FIVE BLOODY STARS, although come on Adrian, stop being such a bastard to your girlfriend).

Get your pen and your tarpaulin: this patch of grass is now your office

The urge to write can bite any time, like a blood-hungry midge wreaking itchy havoc on a set of campers. For your average writer in the street there's nothing worse than being struck with an idea, and being desperate to realize it - but not having the time or paper to write it down. It's the curse that strikes all writers on a more or less weekly basis. It's part of the reason why all writers pockets are full of scraps of paper, scribbled-upon napkins, bus tickets crammed with microscopic writing, and notebooks. You never know when the ideas are going to hit you: that's the devil of it.

Just like that, the desperation to realize an idea can catch us scribbling away in the strangest of places. Anywhere that has room enough for a notebook and pen becomes the writer's office. I admit, I've done it myself, on occasions where that idea just couldn't float around my head a second longer...

On a train. We're not talking 40's style romanticism here. I was heading away for a rowdy weekend of karaoke and booze-facedness that absolutely wasn't conducive to the Big Project I was planning. Consequence: rattling along with my pen in my hand and the smell of catering-car Croque Monsieur in my nose, making strange marks on the page every time the car jumbled over "the wrong sort of leaves" on the track.

Sitting on a wall outside a community centre, in Hastings. Long-suffering boyfriend enticed me into coming away on one of his working trips. He thought I was going to make myself useful: I thought I was going to work on my novel. About halfway through the day, realizing I was holding his flash stand in a sulky and entirely unsatisfactory manner, LSB snapped: "You're no use at all! Go and get on with your writing and stop making my life a misery!" Result! With no way of getting to a lovely warm coffee shop, I instead plonked myself on the nearest wall, pulled my fleece warm around me, and got to work.

Under a tree. I'd read somewhere that CS Lewis used to do this, and so I thought if I did it it would be well literary. However, instead of producing a series of seven children's books that have endured through the ages, I got grass on my skirt and bird poo on my head. It didn't really work out the way I'd hoped.

I know I cannot be the only one parking my office wherever inspiration strikes....

Progress slow: cats to blame

Good post over on Le Rejectionist about how authors' cats impede the creative process. They are, after all, not interested in whether you get listed for The Booker Prize, or whether your work will end up on future 'A' Level Syllabuses (Syllabi?). All your cat is interested in is where the next can of tuna is coming from.

Currently reading

The Long Firm Jake Arnott

Lesson One: Not to become bitter

This post first appeared on my Red Room profile

Bitterness, much like eccentricity and corpulence, appears to be somewhat of an occupational hazard for writers. Just as sitting on your rump all day writing is guaranteed to make you fat, and spending whole days inside your own head sure to make you a bit weird, the challenges writers face are likely to make them bitter.

It often begins when writers try to find recognition for their work, only to find themselves competing against legions of other hopeful writers for the attention of agents and publishers. The journey from writing to publishing can be a long one, and in itself this can be a cause of great grudge-bearing even for the best of us. But bitterness does not end once writers publish, and not even when they win awards and become successful: even many of the greats were caught up in long running feuds and sniping that not even their success could ameliorate.

The British writer Anthony Burgess could not bring himself to write an obituary for his contemporary, the writer Graham Greene. Burgess had for years simmered with resentment that Greene was popularly, and critically, considered to be the better writer of the two. This ill-feeling apparently continued for Burgess even after Greene's death, so embittered had he become by virtue of his competitor's success.

And bitterness is not a trait uniquely British. The American writer Truman Capote famously bitched of Jack Kerouac, a contemporary of his with a high daily productivity rate: "He says he writes up to 2,000 words a day. That's not writing, that's typing."

Recently, a friend and I were discussing the tendency for writers to become self-occupied and bitchy. He had recently been on a train journey back from a literature festival, and been involved in a conversation with two other writers. The conversation had in content mainly been critical: of agents, of publishers, and of other writers and their process. He had been struck by how quickly writers become embittered by everything they face. Thankfully, my friend and I have both recently celebrated recent successes, and I hope there will be many more to come: but it seems that even success itself is not a bar to bitterness. My new ambition as a writer, other than producing great work, is to become more stoic...

In New News (obtained from the Tonto Books blog), the new news is that the Tonto Short Stories anthology will be available in shops from May 2010. In between now and then, it will be available in e-book format (What's best? Amazon Kindle or Borders E-Reader? I'm still very much in the Technologically Backward Granddad Category: "Is that the same as a Tamagotchi?"). It's currently being sold into bookstores, which is good news for readers an' writers alike. The book's more widely available, and it gets picked up by more readers on the strength of the cover. Everyone's a winner.

In my own personal news, I've been working hard on my current big project. I've been pullin' the typewriter up close and personal when I get home from work of an evening, the result of which being that I'm a long way into it. The first draft should be finished by the New Year. (Am I jinxing myself with those very words? - no, I don't think I am).

Boyfriend commented recently, "You're very disciplined". [Also commented, "Do you really need more notebooks?" when I stocked up on travel-journal notebooks in the Paperchase / Borders closing down sale. I will always need more notebooks. Please, send notebooks. Always send notebooks]. "Of course," I answered, primly. "Do you know that Murakami wrote his first novel in the early hours of the morning after coming home from work every night?" Actually, if I'm honest, this was not my first answer. My first answer was, "No talking while I'm busy."

So, the Christmas chunk of time off will be spent with my head anti-socially buried in my laptop (but don't worry, I'll be wearing a seasonal party hat while I do it), knocking off the last 15,000 words before I get to the editing and rewriting part, which I'm am slightly embarrassed to admit, is my favourite part of the process. I'm embarrassingly nerdy about rewriting and editing. It's one of the great joys of my sheltered little life. Other people get drunk, take drugs, and indulge in high-octane, adrenaline junkie life-threatening extreme sports. Me... I rewrite.

In the course of writing this novel, I have so far drunk 137 cups of tea, lost one pair of fingerless gloves (where can they go in a 2-bedroom terraced house?!), used one notebook, worked about 300 hours, invented a whole fictional world of people, surreptitiously asked my friends about their day-jobs in the way of research, and given my boyfriend at least 52 dirty looks for trying to converse with me while I am working. I don't deserve him, really. (somebody is in line for a really smashing new pair of slippers when this is finished).

Assistant Wanted....

In recent weeks I've been vocal (or should I say, 'writey'?) about the advantages of winter for writers. It's cold, it's dark - perfect weather for staying in, and what better to do with your enforced time indoors than getting stuck into the latest project? I've got me a pair of fingerless gloves and a whole bag of mulled wine spices - so I'm all equipped for it.

At last, I've got a perfect routine going. Work is such that I get home early enough, and emotionally equipped and energetic enough to get a bit of work done most evenings. But you know what really grebs away at the time? Things. Stuff. Crap tasks, like going to the post office, and putting the washing in. It's not just that I resent housework for being an instrument of oppression to women (Emmeline Pankhurst didn't chain herself to the railings so I could waste my time vacuuming the stairs, that's what I always say), but also as a drudge, an idiotic waste of time, and worst of all, it keeps me away from writing. And do you know what the worst swizz of it all is? That you have to do it all again a few days later.

I dream of having a maid. Or even better than having a maid, having an assistant: somebody to pay my National Insurance Contributions at the Post Office. Somebody to go to Wilkinson's to buy cat litter. Somebody to cook my dinner! It's days like these when I exist entirely on pasta and noodles - not because I like either food, but because they take under ten minutes to cook. Alright, so it wouldn't be a very fulfilling job, but it'd free up my time to get more done. You ever wish there were 26 hours in a day? That's me.

You'll already know about Borders' financial troubles. They went into administration recently - a friend who works there told me that the branch he works in is staying open day by day on the basis of how much stock they sell each day. They don't know for certain when the store will close for good - could be any day.

Any way you look at it, Borders' closure is bad news for readers and writers alike. Most book fans are first attracted to books by their covers, and decide to buy on the basis of flicking through them in store. Yes, the prices are cheaper on Amazon, but who buys a book without first holding it in their hands and reading sections of the book to check they like the authors' style? Without bricks and mortar stores for people to wander into, to browse the titles, or to be tempted to buy more books than they intended to through 3 for 2 promotions, I can't see how book sales won't be impacted. The scary thing is, if a bit store like Borders can't survive in this climate, what hope is there for independent & locally owned bookstores?

But... onto the Good News. Mslexia's 2010 Short Story Competition is now open! Submissions of short stories by women authors are invited for the competition, closing in January 2010. The top prize is a day with an editor from Virago. This is a prize really worth winning - so good luck, those of you who enter it! There are more details in this quarter's issue of Mslexia.

Also, independent publishers Wild Wolf Publishing are accepting submissions of full length novels. Specialising in dark, brutal and edgy fiction, they accept submissions of any genre, so long as it's dark! [You can't miss their website. It has pictures of wolves all over it].

Until next time.... I'm putting the fingerless gloves back on and heading back up to my study.... x