Good writing advice

The internet is full of writing advice. Much of it is nonsensical, overly-opinionated, and overly-prescriptive bollocks, live, "always use active verbs" and "never begin a sentence with a gerund". So how about some writing advice from, you know, actual writers as opposed to some twat with a computer, an opinion, and an internet connection?

Thankyou, The Guardian, for bringing us Ten Rules for Writing Fiction, a collection of words of wisdom from people who actually write for a living.

Personal favourites:

"Don't sit down in the middle of the woods. If you're lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page." (Margaret Attwood)

"Finish the day's writing when you still want to continue." (Helen Dunmore)

"The way to write a book is to actually write a book. A pen is useful, typing is also good. Keep putting words on the page." (Anne Enright)

"Don't be one of those writers who sentence themselves to a lifetime of sucking up to Nabokov." (Geoff Dyer)

And, truest of all...

"Only bad writers think that their work is really good." (Anne Enright).

Reader, I should have married him!: The case of Marry Him! and the disgruntled ex-boyfriend

Dear Ex-Boyfriend,

Here's hoping you have the time to read this letter, because I really want chance to make things right with you. I realise it's been a while since we last spoke. Is it ten years now, or eleven? Funny how the time flies!

Well, you might have heard on the grapevine that I'm still unmarried, and yes, still childless. Those are facts I didn't really notice myself until the other night, hearing the closing theme of Eastenders, it hit me like a ton of bricks: I'm in my mid-thirties! Surely I ought to do something about this state of affairs!

When you knew me, I was still a young woman, still blooming and carefree (oh, so carefree!). I thought that life would be fun forever. I cared little for commitment, instead preferring to spend my time going deaf at gigs, and getting pissed up and drunk on booze. My life was my own to pursue as I wanted, and I thought I could keep it that way forever. I could learn a profession, I thought, and become independent. I could be financially stable in my own right, I could live in a nice house, I could go where I wanted, see who I wanted, and eat what I wanted. I assumed I would write a novel and get a lovely little kitten. These things, I thought in the foolishness of my youth, would make me happy: being independent, and having the wherewithal to make my own decisions.

But time will not relent in its inexorable march, and I am still without a set of wedding photos to show visitors and my puzzled grandmother. Most of my friends are married and I, a fact that became crushingly apparent to me as I last danced to Come on Eileen with a glass of champagne in my hand, am still a spinster: unwanted! Unloved! On the Shelf!

I tried not to let the others see my tears. By that time, they were all doing the conga anyway, and didn't notice when I darted out of the line into the corner of the room to have a little cry. A voice in my head was nagging: "Doing what you want does not make you happy. Financial stability, fulfilling work, a social life: these things will fade away into the yawning abyss of middle age." I don't want to be 45 years old, looking around appalled at the emptiness of my life, and in the state where I no longer have the option of snaring a man because my face looks like an old bin bag.

The next morning, regretful and hungover, I dashed into the nearest bookstore to find an answer to all my problems, and thank goodness I found Lori Gottlieb's book, Marry Him!: The Case For Settling. "I've got to get out of these disgusting habits," I said to myself, "of keeping nocturnal hours and eating ice-cream in the tub. Lori will tell me what to do." Thank goodness, she did. Through the medium of print, I mean: she didn't just suddenly show up and sort me out.

Anyway, turns out I was wrong to keep seeking a man who complements me perfectly, and whom I make happy. Really, what I ought to have done is to marry the first guy who'd have me - which brings us to you, dear ex-boyfriend.

You might remember that you asked me to marry you once and I, full with the arrogance of youth, snorted "No way! I don't want to be tied down!" [I had these stupid ideas about going to University and having a bit of fun. What was I thinking?] I am sorry for that, dear Ex. What I ought to have done is accept immediately, and unconditionally, because, as Gottlieb points out, it doesn't matter if your husband has halitosis, or a beard, or is rude to waiters. What you have to do is compromise. Marriage, after all, isn't about compatibility, or making one another happy: it's about never being lonely again.

On the face of it, I can see why a sceptic might think you and I shouldn't marry. I'm a social butterfly, you're introverted and pathologically jealous. You love listening to Radio 4, and I love watching The Hits! on cable TV. We have so little to talk about that when we were going out together, we literally spent hours sitting in the same room in silence, boring one another to tears. But this is the beauty of settling - you and I could quite easily sweep these minor niggles aside (and they are quite minor, right? What's a lifetime of awkward silences between friends?) and be together forever! That's the beauty of 'settling'. You don't even have to love each other, or even like each other very much. All you have to have in common is the fact that you don't want to be alone!

How about it?

Yours,

S J (Your loving Ex.)

I Don't Hate You, It's Just That I'm Writing A Novel

This post first appeared on my Red Room profile

Writers notoriously have a reputation for eccentricity and bizarre, anti-social behaviour. The late Harold Pinter was notoriously bad-tempered, and how many of us, whose hours are spent in quiet darkened rooms inventing imaginary people, imaginary places, can honestly say we feel completely comfortable when required to socialise with actual people? When I'm dragged out, against my will, of a weekend, I may stand at the party with a drink in my hand, but inside I'm glowering. All I can think is, "You bastards, you took me away from my project." Don't get me wrong, I love it when people desire my company, and I'd hate for my friends to stop inviting me to things. [Please, don't stop inviting me to things]. It's just that my mind is often on the Project: how soon can I decently make my getaway, and get back behind the laptop?

For those of us whose writing does not currently pay, weekends are inevitably the finest opportunity we get for hours of quiet, uninterrupted work. During the week, it's a couple of hours a night at best. At best, and often not that. For there are Crap Tasks to be done, and it is wrong to neglect the other half in favour of a bunch of imaginary people.

So in view of that, I would like to publicly apologise for my behaviour, and explain myself to everybody. I've been acting a bit weird lately, and I think it's only fair that I explain myself, and apologise to everybody affected. I don't doubt that there a lot of people in my life wondering what the hell is going on. Why I've developed all these strange tics, why I barely speak, and why I never go out any more. Wonder no more, friends, for I do not hate you: it's just that I'm writing a novel.

Housemate: I am sorry I disappear upstairs with the laptop every time you want to watch TV in the living room. It's not that I can't bear your company, or that I despair of your choice of TV programme. It's just that I'm writing a novel.

Friend: I am sorry that I didn't come to your gig last night. I know there were bands playing that I won't get chance to watch again in a hurry, and I know it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. And I'm sorry that we haven't had chance to talk in months. It's not that I hate you, it's just that I'm writing a novel.

Long-suffering boyfriend: I'm sorry that I get all twitchy when I go for too many days without writing, and that I act a bit weird when we spent the evening on the sofa together watching TV. I'm sorry that I've annexed your computer for my own use. I'm sorry for refusing to talk back to you when I'm working. I'm sorry that sometimes I go a bit quiet when I'm in the supermarket sometimes. I'm sorry that sometimes, I go into these long protracted silences when my eyes glaze over, and I appear to be in another world. It's not that I hate you.... it's just that I'm writing a novel.

JULIAN BARNES.

New Julian Barnes short story, "Sleeping with John Updike", on The Guardian website.

YES!

Huddersfield Literature Festival

Fact fans, the Huddersfield Literature Festival is 5 days long and starts on the 10th March. You're going to want to go to this because it features Simon Armitage, flat of vowel and tasty of words, Jeremy Dyson of The League Of Gentlemen fame, and many others. It is also fully endorsed by Patrick Stewart off Star Trek, who is honorary patron of Huddersfield University. The festival features, among other things, "poetry karaoke" and a "Manga masterclass". I do not know what either of these things are. I'll tell you one thing for sure, though: those bods at Huddersfield University sure know how to run a world-beating festival. Last time I went to the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, I heard so much fascinating new music, I almost went home and threw my entire CD collection away, so tarnished did it appear by comparison. True story.

The Grist Anthology, the result of last year's short story competition, will be launched at the festival. Winners of the currently-running short story & poetry competition on the website could also be included in this book! The closing date is February 12th, and you need to be succinct (upper word limit, prose, 1000 words; poetry, 10 lines). So be quick and be sharp, and good luck to everyone who enters.

Currently reading

White Teeth Zadie Smith
Broken Glass Alain Mabanckou
The Kid Dan Savage
Boy Roald Dahl
After The Fireworks Aldous Huxley
Kafka on the Shore Haruki Murakami

Let's start a revolution!

, originally uploaded by lakash.

So yesterday, I was complaining about the lack of breadth in beauty ideals, and how images of women in the popular media conform to a ridiculously narrow ideal. And then today, I was "browsing" the internet, and I found this flickr group, Revolution of Real Women! How do you like that?

Why are you hitting yourself?

A couple o' months ago, I wrote a piece about unrealistic beauty ideals and what they do to women's self-esteem, called Hands Up If You Feel Ugly. I did it because the current prevailing definition of sexy is too thin, too young, too inoffensive, and quite frankly, too super-bloody-lame.

There's a uniformity to the look. It's unattainably thin, but it's also - somehow, inexplicably - got knockers. It's got clear, glowing skin, and a perfect, cute little button nose! And most "how do they do that?!", it's got no scars, no floppy bits of skin, and no bruises. It's like the most popular girl from your secondary school all over again. She's better looking and has a better life than you, and she's taunting you everywhere you look, and selling everything from chocolate to cars.

There's only a certain amount we can do if we want to be free of these images. You can stop buying magazines, and if you really wanted, you could stop watching telly. But for God's sake, what sort of a society would we be living in if we were only allowed to enjoy entertainment if we were willing to pay the price of feeling dreadful about ourselves?! Come on, people. Wouldn't it be better if the general rule were to populate the worlds of advertising and television with people who looked like real human beings? Real human beings are great. They come in all shapes and sizes. Lots of them are sexy and beautiful in unexpected ways, they have personality and vigour, and they don't look like they just stepped out of some bizarre heavily airbrushed nether-world.

Unattainable beauty ideals have shocking knock-on effects for your average woman in the street. Looking at them every day - which you could only not do if you wore a blindfold everywhere you went - makes us feel fat and ugly by comparison. We come to hate our own bodies, and we don't feel sexy. That, friends, puts us off getting naked in front of our husbands and lovers. Who in their right mind wants to live in a world like that? DOWN WITH THIS SORT OF THING!

In an interesting twist upon Big Corporations Doing Evil Things That Are No Good, [past examples include killing third world babies with formula milk, and shooting anyone who joins a trade union], Dove have set up the Susie Orbach-instigated campaign for real beauty. Part of this campaign involves using a wider range of body types and beauty ideals in their advertising, and education work in schools to improve body image in little girls. There's a short film on their website about how girls and women develop skewed ideas about beauty on their website here.

In other good news, the Liberal Democrats called last year for a ban on heavily airbrushed images, arguing that they are bad for women's mental health, and that they put pressure upon women to live up to unrealistic beauty ideals. [The libs would also make it easier for small venues to get a license for live music, and abolish Council Tax, so vote for them. DO IT!].

Wouldn't it be great to see loads of sexy girls and boys of all shapes and sizes in the public eye? For every Eva Longoria Parker, a Nigella Lawson; let's have more pictures of big girls eating cake, and more images of older women looking pleased with themselves. Let's have everybody feeling good about themselves, and a chocolate fountain on every corner. Let's make sexy older, let's make it more interesting, and best of all, let's make it bigger.