Hello, dear newsletter subscribers!
I hope the year is treating you well so far. I bring you a few workshop updates and then the latest instalment of Permission Corner. First, there are a couple of places left on my Zoom writing workshop this Saturday, Going Where No Writer Has Gone Before, where we’ll take inspiration from the cultural phenomenon that is Star Trek to create new writing. No need to have any interest in Star Trek at all - or even science fiction, for that matter - to join in, we’ll be getting playful and looking at ways to come at your stories/poems/hybrids from fresh and wondrous angles! Tickets just £10, the workshop will run from 11.30am-1.30pm UK time, book your place here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/retreatwest/1072130.
Talking of getting playful and coming at your writing from new angles, there are still a few places left on my upcoming 5-week Zoom hybrid writing course, Let’s Get Hybrid, which will run on Monday evenings from Feb 19th. What does “hybrid writing” mean? Here, “hybrid” means uncategorizable. Here, “hybrid” means possibility, potential, mixing it up, collision, combination. Perhaps you’ve written something and you’ve been wondering what it is. Is it a short story? A poem? Some sort of essay, perhaps? Give yourself permission to let go of needing to know. More details and booking info here: https://www.londonlitlab.co.uk/course/lets-get-hybrid-live-on-zoom/.
Permission Corner
Talking of permission, I had an interesting experience last week that I wanted to share. I decided that since the new novel I’ve just started writing is set in a magical library, this was a great excuse to join an actual magical library, the 217-year-old Portico Library in central Manchester. I became a member two weeks ago and last week went to sit and write in their Members Room for the first time - see the pic of me in there that I posted on Instagram! I posted that photo before I started working so didn’t talk about what happened next, which surprised me.
I had only up to that point written four pages of this new book and it’s the very first time I’ve started writing a book which will probably fit into the science-fiction-and-fantasy genre. (When I said “magical library” I really meant “magical”!). I wrote two more pages that day which included me inventing a new form of time travel and a new alien species. That was really fun! But as I was writing, I was assailed by a new voice in my head which was fairly aggressively telling me that what I was doing was stupid and I should just stop writing now and abandon the whole thing. Interestingly, this Inner Critic seemed to be telling me that it was idiotic to write anything that involved preposterous concepts like time travel and aliens, and also telling me I’d never do it well enough to be “proper” science fiction & fantasy. My Inner Critic covered all the bases there!
I probably shouldn’t have been surprised that this voice appeared. I banished my Short Story Inner Critic years ago, but when I started writing poetry, discovered a new one telling me that I was an idiot to think what I was writing might be a “Poem” and I should give up the whole thing. It’s taken me a good few years to banish that one too - and now here’s another! This time, having more experience with these creatures, I pretty quickly decided the voice was completely wrong, that I was having enormous fun writing what I was writing - who wouldn’t want to invent a new form of time travel AND an alien race?! - and I told it very forcefully that I didn’t care at all whether anyone else might think it was “proper” SF&F. I’m writing what I want to write in the way I want to write it, I said in my head. Hmm, said the Inner Critic, and quieted down a bit.
This IC might be back next time I sit down, and I know that in its misguided way, it’s trying to protect me - from some idea of “failure”, other people’s judgements etc… So I will politely say thank you, but no thanks, I don’t need that. I’m not interested in other people’s judgements, especially not while writing a first draft, and I happen to think that failure is a very interesting idea, I’d rather get playful and screw up interestingly than stay safe and aim for getting something “right” (who decides what’s right anyway?)
Do you have one or more Inner Critics? Do yours pop up when you try something new? Any tips for banishment? Please do share!
Until next time, happy writing!
Tania x