Highly Irregular Newsletter #8
Hello, dear TinyLetterers,
I hope this missive finds you well! I thought this month we’d start of with a little Permission Corner: I mentioned in my last Highly Irregular newsletter that I was off on a week’s writing retreat to, I had hoped, finish my novel. Well, I didn’t finish it then (but I did finish it a week ago and it is now with my agent, so please mention me in your literary prayers), but I did learn a huge amount about my own writing processes – and that word is plural for a good reason, which will become clear. I thought I’d share some thoughts in case it gives you permission to try new things in yours. I have been writing for my whole adult life, over 30 years, and the fact that I am still finding new ways that work for me really shoots down the idea that there is one way to write – since there isn’t even one way for this one writer!
What did I learn? Well, first, I had thought of myself as someone who doesn’t write in the morning. I have never taken to the idea of morning pages or that sort of writing first thing, although I know many writers who love doing that. Being away on retreat where there was nothing I had to get out of bed for, not even to feed the cat, one morning I thought I’d reach for my laptop before getting up, before even taking my earplugs out (I’m a habitual ear plug wearer). And guess what? I found I could write. And not only that: writing a little bit of my work-in-progress first thing in the morning, even if just one or two sentences, planted a seed of it in my head that I could then carry around with me all day. I’ve done this since coming home, too (despite the cat waiting desperately to be fed) and it really works for me.
The other myth I had about my own writing was that I need either absolute silence at home or the white noise of a cafe to write in. Well, on retreat I decided to take a break from writing and listen to some music on my laptop. Because there were other people in rooms around me, I used my headphones – and while I was listening to the music, I got an idea for the next line of my WIP, and so I started writing with the music on. Another myth exploded!
A third thing is that I had also thought that I could only write a certain amount and then I needed to stop until I knew what happened next (which is how it’s always been for me with the writing of short stories too). What I discovered on retreat is that I do need to stop writing one scene til I know what happens next – but I can start another scene and then switch between them. That worked really well!
I wanted to also mention someone a friend said to me this week. They are writing something in a form that is new to them, it is a Long Thing, and they said to me: “How do I hold my nerve?” I understood exactly what they meant. I don’t plot anything in advance, I’m the kind of writer who writes as if – as someone once beautifully said – I am driving in the dark: I can only see as far as my headlights, and just have to keep moving to illuminate the next paragraph, the next scene. I had no idea at all how the novel I have just finished would end, but as I felt I was getting closer to the end, I started seeing a kind of blurry scene, which then slowly came into focus.
I also really had no idea whenever I sat down to write what might happen – I had no idea with each sentence, how it might end. And the thing is: I love this. I love writing like this. Maybe because I’ve been doing it for about twenty years, I am really comfortable with uncertainty, and I have learned how to “hold my nerve”. What I told my friend is something I’d read in American short story writer Ron Carlson’s book, “Ron Carlson Writers A Story”. “A writer,” Carlson says, “is the person who stays in the room”. We all need to find our own ways to “stay in the room” for a little bit longer. For me, it’s often playing online scrabble with random strangers or with myself. That’s my trick to deal with the antsiness that often comes when I’ve written one line, one para, the feeling that I just want to get up and do something else. Playing a go in one of my online games keeps me there, in the room, helps me hold my nerve.
There are no rules, no shoulds. Maybe something here speaks to you, or maybe it gives you permission to keep doing something that keeps you in the room but that you’d thought was somehow “wrong” because it’s not in any of the How To Write books and articles. It doesn’t matter what we do during the writing process, we never have to tell anyone, as long as we write what we need and want to write, right! What works for you?
Okay, on with some announcements:
Competitions & Awards
The FUEL flash fiction anthology has now been shortlisted for the Saboteur Award for Best Anthology – thank you to all those who nomimated it! If you’d like to vote for it, voting is open until June 21st here: http://sabotagereviews.com/2023/05/31/saboteur-awards-round-2-of-voting-now-open/ And if you don’t yet have your copy of FUEL, or you’d like to buy one for a friend, you can grab one here: https://www.fuelflash.net/
Flash Fiction Competition: I’m honoured to be the judge for this year’s Mslexia flash fiction competition – please send me your wonderful, odd flash stories of 300 words or shorter, surprise & delight me, I'm open to all forms, shapes, styles, weirdnesses! Send me the odd & tiny stories you think no-one else will love! Details here, deadling 18th September: https://mslexia.co.uk/competitions/flash-fiction/womens-fiction-competition-flash-fiction/
Courses and workshops
*STILL SOME PLACES LEFT * ONLINE Sat July 1st 11am-1pm UK Time: I am teaching a workshop on using science in your stories (or poems/hybrids/uncategorisables) as part of Retreat West’s series of low-cost Zoom workshops. Tickets are £10, more info and booking here, no experience of science or writing necessary. See you there! https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/using-science-in-stories-tickets-615729823477
IN PERSON 14-16 July Flash Fiction Festival, Bristol I will be hosting readings on the Fri evening from the FUEL flash anthology and running a workshop on “Giving Yourself Permission to Play” on the Sat afternoon. More details and booking for the whole festival here.
Coming soon: Flash fiction for poets online masterclass & in-person science-inspired writing workshops…!
A reminder of your subscriber discount – you can use the coupon code “tinyletter10” in the shop on my website to get 10% off signed copies of my new books and a few others I still have some copies of. You can also pick up a copy of the FUEL anthology but that won’t be discounted because it’s raising money for fuel poverty charities.
Happy reading and writing!
Tania x