An inconsequential fizz of static (i)

A recent American study has shown that the state in which citizens are most likely to waste time is Missouri. Here, workers admitted to spending 3.2 hours a day in a distracted state in which nothing was accomplished. For those of you without a calculator handy that’s 22.4 hours a week, amounting to a mighty 48.5 days a year – full 24-hour days, mind – of staring into space.

I’m trying living at the other end of the spectrum; the end where there’s maybe 15 or 20 minutes a day in which nothing’s actually happening. The rest is either sprinting... (metaphorically speaking of course, though sometimes literally) ...or sleeping (meaning, er - sleeping.)

As a result, I’m on track to finish the re-writes of Sleepwell and Fly/Poisonboy by the end of September. I’m churning out 4,000 words a week outside of the punishing day job.

If you want a taste of this thrilling lifestyle - and boy-oh-boy, who wouldn’t – I recommend two things. One of them at least is really useful.

Firstly, don’t watch any TV. I can’t claim to have managed zero TV exactly, but I’m pretty damn close.  Total minutes of footy watched during the Euros? About 40 minutes across the competition. (Incidentally – number of goals I saw scored? 1. Draw whatever conclusions suit you.) Total minutes of tennis watched during the two weeks of Wimbledon? 30. What else… there’s been two episodes of Buffy – season five if you must know – and one movie, three times. (Kiki’s Delivery Service; the little one loves it.) And that’s it. I even gave Wallander a miss, dedicated soul that I am.

Secondly; here’s something with a bit more heft. Does 10,000 words a week sound like a pleasingly prodigious output? Hell, yes I hear you cry. I really enjoyed this blog post. It’s friendly and calm and supportive and most of all, impressive. Check it out.

Finally, I want you to know I’m not utterly masochistically stupid. I included a week off in the schedule I gave those good people at Chicken House, during which I will shelter from the rain in a barn in Norfolk. Probably watching Kiki.

Whatever. Enjoy this humdrum and sunless summer, wherever it takes you.

Radio Silence

So far, in the two years it’s been up and running, I’ve committed just under 20,000 words to this blog, and enjoyed every damn one of them. But there’s a situation. Between now and the end of the summer, I have somewhere in the region of 50,000 words of re-writes to do; plus a hefty work-life-balance-threatening day job. Something, as they say in the song, has got to give.

So I’ll be bidding the regular readers of this fine internet institution – both of them – a fond and temporary farewell. Who knows; I might get the chance for a cheeky post, but I doubt it. I may not even get out of this with my sanity intact.

Whenever you’re kicking back; levering the cap off a chilly beer or catching up with a movie – spare me a thought. I’ll be hunched over a second-hand laptop in the spare room, goggle-eyed and feverish.

See you in the Autumn, good people.

Learning Curves

A strange and wonderful thing happened. I won The Times/Chicken House Children’s Book Competition. I know – it’s bizarre. Bizarre and brilliant. So anyway, that’s how I came to be speaking to a journalist about writing stories. During the course of this discussion, an interesting idea emerged. It concerned learning curves. I was sharing my literary disasters, talking through the mistakes that had got me to this point – and I suddenly remembered a graphic I’d used with students before. Here it is:

 

The neat upward progress that the word ‘curve’ suggests is misleading. This jagged, unpredictable sequence of triumphs and disasters is a more accurate assessment of the learning process, I reckon. There are months in which we write and write without any discernable development in style or progress with plot and characterisation. We plateau; we feel stale. Then there are those moments – and I’ve had plenty – when we might look back at old or abandoned projects and marvel at the quality of some of the writing. Christ, we think to ourselves. I’m actually getting worse. But then there are those points of extreme and accelerated learning, where suddenly, everything comes together and we gallop forwards.

I’ve had a few of these too thankfully, and it’s no coincidence they’ve all occurred when I’ve asked someone else to read the manuscript. This is worth bearing in mind. Don’t hide it away. Hand it over and wait for the moment of learning. Here’s one example; the first Sleepwell and Fly book. It was about 80,000 words long and in epistolary form. I'd finished it, I'd polished it, I'd sent it to agents. It was Spring. The blossom was out and the holidays were coming.

It got a right kicking. I was devastated.

But I got a splendid two paragraph brush-off which drew my attention to a massive flaw in my thinking. “Why the epistolary form?” wrote this helpful, insightful agent. “You’re writing for a generation of readers who don’t write letters, send letters, or communicate in any mode that requires more than 140 characters.”

I stared at the letter. The world went quiet. Dammit, I thought. She’s right. And that was the end of Sleepwell and Fly version 1. I spent that summer re-writing it as a regular first person narrative, but I was beginning to flag a bit – my heart wasn’t in it and I was getting new and better ideas. The whole thing went in the bin and I started again.

But here’s the key, good people. I began my next project at a much higher point on the curve. If you add together all these accelerated points of learning; imagine them queuing up in a neat line from your first ever attempt at writing; and you can appreciate how you might end up a significant distance further forward.  

So, find your critical friend and hand over that manuscript. You never know what lesson you might learn. Me? I’m writing my next novel in emails.