Highly Irregular Newsletter No 19 July 2024
Upcoming workshops and some recent writing-related revelations...
Hello my fellow irregulars (that’s a compliment),
and a particular welcome to all the new subscribers! I hope you find something in here that is useful for you. It’s been a month of several major writing revelations for me, and I’ll tell you a bit about that in Permission Corner down below.
First, I wanted to let you know there are still places on the two Zoom workshops I’m running this week – tonight’s Arvon Marvellous and Impossible Things masterclass (https://www.arvon.org/writing-courses/courses-retreats/masterclass-marvellous-and-impossible-things/) which I’m teaching jointly with the excellent Sean Lusk - as a taster for our residential Arvon magical-realism-themed fiction & hybrid writing course in Oct, and to raise funds to offer a free place on that course (details on the course here https://www.arvon.org/writing-courses/courses-retreats/residential-writing-week-fiction-25/), and Sunday’s Magic of Collisions workshop for Retreat West in which we’ll be creating sparks by colliding in all manner of ways and directions (details here https://www.tickettailor.com/events/retreatwest/1177665). A reminder that if you can’t make the workshops live, if you book a spot you’ll get sent the recording afterwards – and I have it on good authority that it’s almost as much fun as being there!
I might only be teaching one more Zoom workshop this year as I take some time to firm up my plans for my new Unbox Your Words – Permission to Play venture, which kicks off in September! As well as getting two emails a month, one with a writing provocation/prompt/exercise and one with some reading inspiration, I’m planning to run dedicated workshops for subscribers, who will also get discounts on any other workshops I teach, as well as on my two new books scheduled for publication in 2025/26. All this for the monthly price of a fancy coffee, £3.50, and all you need to do is upgrade from a free to a paid subscription! For more info, see last month’s newsletter. And please know that if £3.50/month is a struggle for you, message me, I have several gift subscriptions, no questions asked.
In real life, I am delighted to be the guest writer on another of my wonderful publisher, Nine Arches Press’ Poetry Spas – on Sat Sept 21st at Nuneaton Art Gallery. The excellent Roz Goddard will lead a morning session of mindful reading, and after lunch I’ll run a vigorous writing workshop themed around Mashups and Collisions, and then chat to Roz about my second poetry collection, Still Life With Octopus, which each participant receives a copy of as part of the ticket price. Not just for poets, or for experienced writers, come join us for what is going to be a fun day! https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/poetry-spa-an-immersive-day-of-reading-writing-saturday-21-sept-2024-tickets-940819896637?aff=oddtdtcreator
Permission Corner
Call it serendipity, or the universe sending me a message, but this month I happened to have two events within the space of five days – one online and one in person – that led me to my two major writing revelations. At the first event, an academic conference on Zoom on the subject of Singlehood Studies (no, I didn’t know such a thing existed either) I was planning to read the first two pages of the novel I had thought I’d finished last year. The second event was a live reading at Manchester’s amazing Portico Library, at which I decided to do something very brave and read the first two pages of the brand new novel I only started writing a few months ago. This book is not only set in a magical library, but I’ve been writing it in the Portico itself, so it was an opportunity I couldn’t resist!
In preparation, I printed out both novels’ first few pages and read them both out loud to practice and to time myself. Due to a combination of circumstances, I hadn’t taken a look at the older novel for almost a year, and when I read out the opening, I said to myself, Hmm, something’s not quite working here. I couldn’t put my finger on it, I started making some edits. But then when I read out the beginning of the new novel, it felt so much more, well, like me. What it took me a few days to realise is that it’s not that last year’s novel is “bad” or “wrong” and the newer one is “right”. It’s that I write the books I want to read, I am always my first reader, the person I am trying to engage and entertain, and this version of last year’s novel just wasn’t “my” kind of book, the kind of book I wanted to read.
This was quite the revelation. And it came about because I did two things I am always advising other writers to do and had, of course, forgotten to do myself. The first is to let a piece of writing lie. Put it away and don’t look at it, ideally for at least a month. Then you can come back to it with fresh eyes, it is no longer your Most Precious. Leaving this novel for a year – and having started writing two other books in the meantime - my eyes were extremely fresh and I’d lost all my preciousness and protectiveness. The second thing is: Read everything out loud. I couldn’t see the novel on the page any more, I’d read it over and over so many times last year, but the minute I started reading it out, I could feel that I was having trouble getting through the sentences, it didn’t feel smooth. It felt clunky. To me, that’s always a sign that something needs to be done.
What I have now done is be kind to myself, and not for a moment think I have “wasted” time by spending two years on that first version. I needed to write it, I was setting my story in an alternative version of our society which I needed to get to know. I don’t plan anything in advance, no plotting, and this, clearly, was part of my process for this particular book. I read a wonderful quote somewhere by someone (sorry, no idea who, does anyone know?) that said that each book you write teaches you how to write it. Next, I can clearly see, after leaving it for a year, that not only is the book not written like “my” kind of book, my main main character wasn’t the person who the most interesting things were happening to, but someone slightly further removed. And now that didn’t make sense to me. I would have spotted this in someone else’s work – but it’s harder in your own writing, isn’t it?
So, last week I gave myself permission to start again, completely fresh, after reading through the whole of the old version. I extracted some of the sections from the previous draft and began this new draft in a different place, bringing forward two of the characters that I hadn’t been so strongly focusing on. And doing that has led me to see other more minor characters as possibly being more important, as well as new storylines emerging. And I have to tell you, it feels GOOD! I am having fun. So much fun. I’ve been reading it out to myself as I go along, and this time I’m not having an issues getting through each sentence. Perhaps the brand new novel (the one set in the fantastical library) is reminding me how I love to write.
This novel is my eleventh book (my tenth is coming out next year, a hybrid creative non fiction book, more details soon), and I am working on the 12th and 13th at the same time, each in their own unique ways, so I hope that, although we all do it differently, sharing my experiences might give you permission to be kind to yourself, and allow yourself however many drafts, and however long it takes you, to write the book you want to write in the way you want to write it!
There is no one-size-fits-all, or even one-size-fits-one-writer when it comes to writing. Which, for me, is where the joy lies. I wouldn’t be doing it if every book came out the same as the one before, if I didn’t have to wrangle a bit (a lot) and try new things. This is what I love!
Happy writing!
Tania xx