Word count so far this week = not much at all: I'm getting married soon, and myself and the fiancé have spent most available evenings and weekends on wedding stuff which never seems to end. It’s all very exciting, but very time consuming too.
On the plus side my new laptop EVENTUALLY arrived, so as soon as I have a few free evenings (which won't be until towards the end of the week as there are 120 invitations to be written over the next couple of evenings and my mum is running it like a military exercise) I can get on with the task of transcribing my reams and reams of handwritten stuff.
I am ruthlessly keeping the laptop internet free, as I have realised that I do not have the willpower to avoid trawling cyberspace for total crap in the name of "research". And despite the word count being low the words that did make in onto paper were written in a couple of early morning, pre breakfast sessions, and as a staunch non-morning person that’s some pretty impressive behaviour for me. I have come the realisation that if I am to commit many words to paper/screen over the next few months I am going to have to cultivate a fairly unshakeable daybreak attitude to my writing. It’s the only way in light of the tidal wave of bridal matters which will be slapping me full in the face between now and the wedding.
In fact, I am so resigned to the diminishing hours available for doing my two favorite things (running and writing, in case you’re wondering. Eating, sleeping and the other are going to have to go onto the back burner for a while!) That I even bopped out of bed at an ungodly hour this morning and attempted a quick three mile run. PRE-EIGHT A.M.!! My body hated it, and hated me for forcing it to do such an unspeakable thing at such an unspeakable hour. The rebellion took the form of a total refusal to co-operate, rather like a toddler that won't put its anorak on: legs and brain put up a fairly impressive protest, which I gamely ignored, so much so that the attack advanced and I developed a sort of temporary hysterical blindness in one eye. Nice. Anyway, I lived to tell the tale, and am feeling undeniably smug now (cos, you know, I ran three miles before 8 o’ clock this morning. I’ll shut up about it now….)
Hope you other racers are all speeding ahead ~ I have theatre tickets for tonight, so I see another early start for the writing tomorrow. Yawn.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Would I lie to you baby ?
(The Eurythmics one, not Charles & Eddy, you philistines!)
This is an interesting piece from the Guardian, about lying and the possible root causes. Like most people I had naively divided untruths into "white" lies designed to protect other people's feelings ("We would love to come to your civil war re-enactment meeting but sadly the boiler has packed in & the the plumber can only come this saturday ~ drat!") and the blacker, darker variety which have a more self-serving and destructive intention.
However the guardian piece raises an interesting point: "it became clear to me for the first time: the brutal cruelty of your mouth acting against you, of wanting so much to communicate and not being able to use the words you choose". This bit leapt out at me, as I am planning to play around with the reliability of my narrative voices in the novel, with the seemingly most reliable protagonist ultimately being the least dependable in terms of truthfulness. This isn't intended to be a malicious character trait, more along the lines of him being a "head in the clouds" musical type who rarely touches ground level (by contrast the polar opposite character is someone with an almost autistic inclination to always be honest, regardless of how painful that truth might be). Maybe I'll alter his make-up a wee bit now, with him being entirely authentic and honest when communicating through music, but a rather tongue-tied and inelegant communicator in everyday discourse.
I love it when the connections all start sparking!
This is an interesting piece from the Guardian, about lying and the possible root causes. Like most people I had naively divided untruths into "white" lies designed to protect other people's feelings ("We would love to come to your civil war re-enactment meeting but sadly the boiler has packed in & the the plumber can only come this saturday ~ drat!") and the blacker, darker variety which have a more self-serving and destructive intention.
However the guardian piece raises an interesting point: "it became clear to me for the first time: the brutal cruelty of your mouth acting against you, of wanting so much to communicate and not being able to use the words you choose". This bit leapt out at me, as I am planning to play around with the reliability of my narrative voices in the novel, with the seemingly most reliable protagonist ultimately being the least dependable in terms of truthfulness. This isn't intended to be a malicious character trait, more along the lines of him being a "head in the clouds" musical type who rarely touches ground level (by contrast the polar opposite character is someone with an almost autistic inclination to always be honest, regardless of how painful that truth might be). Maybe I'll alter his make-up a wee bit now, with him being entirely authentic and honest when communicating through music, but a rather tongue-tied and inelegant communicator in everyday discourse.
I love it when the connections all start sparking!
Monday, March 19, 2007
Next step, or running before I can walk?
Righty, having bitten the bullet and abused my poor Mastercard to the tune of a new laptop I am finally in a position to start typing my reams of handwritten material into some semblance of order.
But, I'm in two minds about how to proceed: should I submit a couple of chapters and a synopsis to a publisher/agent whilst I'm still in the process of writing? Or am I better off waiting until I've finished the majority of the writing so that I have a more complete product to offer?
How did other writers approach this issue?
But, I'm in two minds about how to proceed: should I submit a couple of chapters and a synopsis to a publisher/agent whilst I'm still in the process of writing? Or am I better off waiting until I've finished the majority of the writing so that I have a more complete product to offer?
How did other writers approach this issue?
Monday, March 12, 2007
Pulped fiction
This is a rather disheartening article, from the Independent this weekend:
The average author earns about £16,000, a third less than the national average wage, it is revealed. So what? They're doing what they love. But hidden behind that figure released by the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) is a grimmer truth: when you take away the superstars who are earning shedloads, the actual figure for the rest is closer to £4,000.
That's less than it was last time anyone looked, seven years ago, and far less than the distant days when the Net Book Agreement kept prices high. Forget living on baked beans in a garrett; this is barely enough to buy stale bread and a tarpaulin for shelter.
And it is only for the lucky ones: fewer authors are being signed up unless they're famous, advances are shrinking, and those who sell only moderately well are dropped, ending careers early.
It's the sort of thing that makes hearing about the £million advances paid to the likes of Wayne Rooney (for an "autobiography" he is unlikely to ever read, let alone write, a single word of!) even harder to stomach.
[Incidentally, an university comtemporary of mine, Lucie Cave, ghost-wrote Jade Goody's "autobiography". I'm guessing that she did it for the cash, and fair play to her, but I've often wondered if she was ever tempted to slip a few veiled references to the Bakhtinian carnival or the odd bit of feminist theory in there, subliminally cloaked within a gripping pasage about being falsely accused of having a verucca whilst in the BB house. In fairness she may have done, I haven't actually read it....]
But, back to my original point, it doesn't take a Mensa candidiate to make the connection between dwindling author incoming and the internet/supermarket phenomenon of selling books at less than half their cover price. Apparently even the niche bargain bookstores are struggling. The current trend for "cheaper, cheaper, cheapest" worries me, and not just in relation to book selling. We've become a society that sees it as our basic right to acquire as much as possible as cheaply as possible, and yet the obvious conclusion is that when prices are cut back to the bone then someone, somewhere, is losing out. I'm thinking specifically of the likes of Primark and the other cut-price fashion outlets ~ I shudder to think what the foreign manufacturers/employees are being paid, so that we can exercise our god-given right to buy a t-shirt for £2.00.......
Monday morning rant over. And on a lighter note, this just in from the "You couldn't make it up (and if you did you couldn't use it in a work of fiction as no-one would believe you)" corner: Man cleared of murder by Curb Your Enthusiasm wins damages.
The average author earns about £16,000, a third less than the national average wage, it is revealed. So what? They're doing what they love. But hidden behind that figure released by the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) is a grimmer truth: when you take away the superstars who are earning shedloads, the actual figure for the rest is closer to £4,000.
That's less than it was last time anyone looked, seven years ago, and far less than the distant days when the Net Book Agreement kept prices high. Forget living on baked beans in a garrett; this is barely enough to buy stale bread and a tarpaulin for shelter.
And it is only for the lucky ones: fewer authors are being signed up unless they're famous, advances are shrinking, and those who sell only moderately well are dropped, ending careers early.
It's the sort of thing that makes hearing about the £million advances paid to the likes of Wayne Rooney (for an "autobiography" he is unlikely to ever read, let alone write, a single word of!) even harder to stomach.
[Incidentally, an university comtemporary of mine, Lucie Cave, ghost-wrote Jade Goody's "autobiography". I'm guessing that she did it for the cash, and fair play to her, but I've often wondered if she was ever tempted to slip a few veiled references to the Bakhtinian carnival or the odd bit of feminist theory in there, subliminally cloaked within a gripping pasage about being falsely accused of having a verucca whilst in the BB house. In fairness she may have done, I haven't actually read it....]
But, back to my original point, it doesn't take a Mensa candidiate to make the connection between dwindling author incoming and the internet/supermarket phenomenon of selling books at less than half their cover price. Apparently even the niche bargain bookstores are struggling. The current trend for "cheaper, cheaper, cheapest" worries me, and not just in relation to book selling. We've become a society that sees it as our basic right to acquire as much as possible as cheaply as possible, and yet the obvious conclusion is that when prices are cut back to the bone then someone, somewhere, is losing out. I'm thinking specifically of the likes of Primark and the other cut-price fashion outlets ~ I shudder to think what the foreign manufacturers/employees are being paid, so that we can exercise our god-given right to buy a t-shirt for £2.00.......
Monday morning rant over. And on a lighter note, this just in from the "You couldn't make it up (and if you did you couldn't use it in a work of fiction as no-one would believe you)" corner: Man cleared of murder by Curb Your Enthusiasm wins damages.
