My turn to say a few words on the blog. I did enjoy reading
Liz’s entry about the Yeovil Literary Festival – coming up on September 19th. I’ve let the side down badly by not being around
for it – in fact I’ll be in Portugal, sight-seeing with a friend who has a
great taste for port, so you can guess what we’ll be drinking. We’re going to
the north, Douro, region which neither of us knows well (vague memories of
Peninsular War lessons for A Level history). Should be fun – but I’m very sorry
to be missing the shenanigans in Yeovil. I promise to be around next year!
A few
weeks ago I spent a week (I don’t know how I’ve managed two holidays this year,
it seems that there’s just something about retiring from the salaried job which
makes you want to wander off and - enjoy) on the Greek island of Skyros, on
one of the writing courses which some of you may have seen advertised. I was a
bit sceptical about this but I’d been feeling that the contemporary crime novel
I’d been trying to write was going nowhere and when I heard that Sophie Hannah
was running a course on crime fiction I just couldn’t resist. Well, I had a
ball. The island is fabulous – too difficult to get to for most tourists,
stunningly beautiful and the people are really friendly. The beaches are sandy and safe and what more could one want? Yes - a good writing course.
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Did the
course help? Yes. Even though it meant I ditched the main character in my novel,
because I realised I had the wrong viewpoint, and began to work on a much
darker version of the same story. I also learned far more about plotting than
I’d expected – Sophie never tells you that there’s only one way to do things,
but she has ideas that get your own brain working. I used to begin a novel
knowing how things started and ended with a vague idea of the ups and downs of
the journey, now I’m considerably more organised (I have a Plan!) without
feeling as though I’m in a straightjacket or that I know everything. The book’s progressing steadily, and I’m
finding some nice surprises along the way. If you’re stuck, my experience is
that it can help to get right away from your desk (or wherever you write) and talk
to strangers . If you can’t afford Greece, there are plenty of weekend options
in this country, or think about the Winchester Writers' Conference.
Writing’s
a solitary occupation. We could probably all write a book about the ways in
which we can delay getting down to it – if we weren’t too busy cleaning the
cooker with a toothbrush or walking the neighbour’s dog (I don’t have one of my
own). Displacement activities can be
great fun (or not, but when else would I clean my cooker so thoroughly?) but if
you don’t want to write, it’s much better to do something more relevant and
constructive and mingle with other writers. They might even stimulate you to
scurry back to the laptop/PC/Mac/notebook and pen/pencil/stylus/quill. So why
not find your nearest literary festival, or give yourself a short break at a
writers’ workshop? You never know just what you’ll find out about your own
writing.
Margaret Graham has also kindly (rashly?) asked me to offer some
tips about poetry writing. First
admission: I am not a poet. I have, however, taught both the study of poetry
and its writing. It’s funny that someone like me who does not have the true
gift of poetry has sometimes been able to help students find their own voice
and really sing. My advice is therefore taken from their experience as well as
my own.
·
Following on from what I was saying about
sharing your problems with sympathetic strangers: I am sure several of you
belong to poetry groups. Have you ever tried open mic readings? They are public
poetry readings and, if they are well run, you should get a knowledgeable
audience and some interesting feedback.
Go along as audience at first, to test the waters, but don’t be afraid
to give it a try.
·
You always carry a notebook and pencil (or pen)
with you, don’t you? Of course you do. Inspiration might strike at any time.
But why wait for inspiration? Help your brain get into the habit of poetry. Set
yourself a daily exercise. It helps if it’s themed. Get one of those thin
notebooks and title it with your theme. Journeys,
perhaps. Daily, over coffee or before breakfast, take ten or twenty minutes
to write something – it may just be an image, it may be a sonnet, it may be a
list of details that might mark a journey (physical or emotional). Choose your
words with care but avoid thinking ‘this is a poem’. Give yourself a limit of
perhaps a month on this single topic and don’t reread anything until that month
is up. Go back to it after thirty days – you will be surprised what jewels lie
in the dust of that journey.
·
Whether you write free verse or more formal poetry is, of course, your choice. It is
useful, however to know about the formal styles. You should know about couplets
and sonnets and ballads and blank verse and rondeaus. A good exercise is to try
to put an idea into a more formal version if you normally write in free verse,
and into free verse if you usually choose something more formal. This can be
surprisingly liberating although most people initially expect it to be
constricting. Poets like Carol Ann Duffy move between forms to suit what she is
saying.
·
Try removing all punctuation (including capital
letters), take out the line and stanza breaks if you dare. Now go back to the poem after you’ve had a
day or two to have forgotten exactly what you originally did. Read what you
have written and see where you think the punctuation falls. Compare your two
versions and see which you prefer and why. You might try this with another
poet’s work – when you’ve done it, try to see why the poet might have made the
choices he or she did.
These are all exercises to keep
the mind limber. A bit like doing your stretches before you go for a run (and,
no, I seldom go for runs – but I know a man who does). I hope you find at least
one that you find enjoyable. Unlike stretches.
Enjoy your writing!
