You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August, 2007.
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This is the inspirational story of one mother and daughter - Rachel and Clemmy - who attended an Arvon writing course at the Hurst together, sharing a bedroom, contributing to the creative writing classes together, being inspired by and learning from each other. Rachel, the mother, writes…
Signing up for an Arvon course as mother and daughter felt both rather brave and pleasurably cosy. At least we would each know one other person, we said on the long and beautiful drive to The Hurst, and would be familiar with our room-mate’s bad habits before we arrived - and it would be a treat for us to spend a few days together without the other children. (Clemmy, 16, is the oldest of five.) In fact I think we had both given more thought to that perspective than to the one which struck our fellow participants, but as the week went on I felt increasingly conscious of how lucky I was that Clemmy had been prepared to come with me, to spend five days sharing not only a bedroom but her creative space as well.
I was very touched by the way the tutors, staff and other course members responded to Clemmy. Everyone treated her exactly like another writer, listening with respect to her contributions to discussion and including her in mealtime conversations and activities. I was also immensely proud of her for throwing herself into the course - she read a story she had written during the week on the last night, along with everyone else, and won joint first prize in the story slam we organised with her piece on the Seven Deadly Sins. I loved watching her blossom in the unique Arvon atmosphere of encouragement and stimulation, and seeing her through other people’s eyes - and it was great to have her there to try my own drafts and ideas out on, too.
We both got a huge amount out of the course, not least acquiring a network of new friends and fellow writers to share ideas, resources and frustrations with. One of our wonderful tutors told us the week was about fermenting our ideas, skills and talents, and Clemmy and I certainly came away bubbling over with excitement about our writing. On the drive home we plotted out a series of four children’s books which we plan to write together - though so far, while Clemmy has been hard at work on a project of her own (10,000 words and counting) I have been rather more subsumed by domestic life, as the younger children have reclaimed their share of me!
Having Clemmy there certainly enhanced my own pleasure and satisfaction in the course, and I, for one, will cherish the memory of a very special shared experience with my daughter.
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The Arvon Blog has been visiting some interesting web pages of late. We sat in on A N Wilson fuming about smoking and books. Then there’s the latest YouGov research that reveals we all want to become writers. Well, Arvon knew that forty years ago. There’s a couple of articles of interest on this topic: Visit Michelle Pauli at the Guardian for the facts (it turns out under-35s want to become sports personalities) and read John Crace for slightly more cynicism and regret. What are the 100 top books of all time? It’s old news, but in 2002 a list was compiled that told us just now. Do you know your Knut Hamsun from your Alfred Doblin? Check out how many you have read! Faces & Places is British Council’s new literature programme to introduce Polish readers to a range of British authors and artists - not only those well-known and established, but also emerging talents like Tash Aw or Gautam Malkani. Sounds good to us. The good people at The Book Depository have linked to us (well, we did ask them to) so it’s a big thank you from us to them. The Book Depository are interesting, and tantalising, the online book world - with their meaningful slogan, All Books Available To All, and new technologies to help find our books in the most speedy and cost-effective way. But let’s not always buy books, let’s use our libraries! How to use a library. Though it’s worrying where our libraries are going. Rachel Cooke sums up the latest political machinations. Tim Coates helped set up Waterstones, back in the day, and now writes a very impassioned blog about libraries. Please note: some people are reclaiming the bookshelves.
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This very excellent photo of a book held against sunlight was taken by Netherlands photographer Marc van Agteren. See more of his photos at www.shotsbyme.com. The photo sums up summer reading, so we asked Arvon staff what books they were reading this summer. Here’s what some of them said:
Cynthia Rogerson (Moniack Mhor) is reading Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Ariane Koek (Arvon London) is reading Young Hearts Crying by Richard Yates
Emma Johnson (Arvon London) is reading Alis by Naomi Rich
Rachel Humphries (Moniack Mhor) is reading Under the Skin by Michel Faber
Kerry Watson (the Hurst) is reading London Orbital by Iain Sinclair
Philip Cowell (Arvon London) is reading Land’s End by Michael Cunningham
Pauline Smith (Totleigh Barton) is reading The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
Julia Wheadon (Totleigh Barton) is reading Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna
Stephen May (Lumb Bank) is reading Marilyn and Me by Shanta Everington
Nick Murza (Arvon London) is reading Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome
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Baroque in Hackney (a blog written by a poet and siren) recently posted in her usual glamorous style about Elizabeth Bowen on writing. Writers on writing. Marianne Moore opened one poem, “Writing is exciting” (she was being momentarily very clear). Every week at Arvon we feed and house and listen to and work with and learn from writers, who write and read and talk and cook and eat and walk in our houses and gardens and landscapes. Every week - writers on writing.
Writing about writing. Here’s Elizabeth Bowen on plot:
“PLOT: (Essential. The Pre-essential.) Plot might seem to be a matter of choice. It is not. The particular plot for the particular novel is something the novelist is driven to. It is what is left after the whittling-away of alternatives. The novelist is confronted, at a moment (or at what appears to be the moment: actually its extension may be indefinite) by the impossibility of saying what is to be said in any other way. He is forced towards his plot. By what? By ‘what is to be said’. What is ‘what is to be said’? A mass of subjective matter that has accumulated - impressions received, feelings about experience, distorted results of ordinary observation, and something else - X. This matter is extra matter. It is superfluous to the non-writing life of the writer. It is luggage left in the hall between two journeys, as opposed to the perpetual furniture of rooms. It is destined to be elsewhere. It cannot move until its destination is known. Plot is the knowing of destination.”
“Plot is diction. Action of language, language of action.”
“Plot is story. It is also ‘a story’ in the nursery sense - lie. The novel lies, in saying that something happened that did not. It must, therefore, contain uncontradictable truth, to warrant the original lie.”
“Plot, story, is itself un-poetic. At best it can only be not anti-poetic. It cannot claim a single poetic licence. It must be reasoned - only from the moment when its non-otherness, its only-possibleness has become apparent. Novelist must always have one foot, sheer circumstantiality, to stand on, whatever the other foot may be doing.”
“Plot must not cease to move forward. The actual speed of movement must be even. Apparent variations in speed are good, necessary, but there must be no actual variations in speed.”
We share Baroque in Hackney’s delight in thinking about writing about writing, or writing about thinking about writing. Here’s some signposts if you’re plotting to plot.
How I Write: The Secret Lives of Writers
Reading Like A Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and Those Who Want to Write Them
Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing
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In an earlier post called Your Starter for Ten we set (er..) twenty questions for all writers. Here, author and Arvon tutor Louise Tondeur (The Water’s Edge and The Haven Home for Delinquent Girls - both Headline Review) tells us how she edits in her pyjamas…
1. Do you outline?
I tried to this time (book 3) but I’ve deviated from it wildly.
2. Do you write straight through a book, or do you sometimes tackle the scenes out of order?
Always out of order. Then I patch it together. I usually write by character. Nothing much about me is straight. Though I have just learnt about some planning techniques from Leone Ross and they have helped me with structure.
3. Do you prefer writing with a pen or using a computer?
Computer. But I like taking a notebook on long train journeys or to the beach. There’s something different about pen and paper - more tactile.
4. Do you prefer writing in first person or third?
Depends what’s nec. 1st person feels closer sometimes but 3rd has more tricks. 2nd is good too.
5. Do you listen to music while you write?
Yes. My second book has its own sound track! Unfortunately the tape never made it past my publisher’s desk.
6. How do you come up with the perfect names for your characters?
I get to know them a bit first and then the right name occurs to me. In my new book, I met someone by chance and am using his name. Sometimes I use a pattern for it. There’s a pattern to the surnames in The Water’s Edge, for instance.
7. When you’re writing, do you ever imagine your book as a television show or movie?
When I’m writing, I see it in front of me: so yes, a bit like it’s a film in my head. When I’m not writing of course I have fantasies about my books as films - doesn’t everyone!? Or BBC mini dramas at least!
8. Have you ever had a character insist on doing something you really didn’t want him/her to do?
No. Characters do things but they don’t insist because I don’t argue. They’re really another part of me aren’t they? And I tend to give in to it.
9. Do you know how a book is going to end when you start it?
No no no no. Sometimes I wish. But no.
10. Where do you write?
In the spare room. On trains. Sometimes in open spaces. The beach. A park. Kew Gardens. The British Library.
11. What do you do when you get writer’s block?
I don’t think there is such a thing. It normally happens when LIFE is getting in the way and causing stress. So you need to destress and remove the blocks from your life, then it’ll happen. Also, it’s important to warm up. Try just writing, no editing, keep going for an hour. Meditate.
12. What size increments do you write in (either in terms of wordcount, or as a percentage of the book as a whole)?
As little as 1000 words a time, sometimes. On an Arvon retreat (!) I can manage 6000 a day. I don’t edit as I go which helps. When I’m editing, I can work on just a few pages for hours and hours and I don’t notice the time go.
13. How many different drafts did you write for your last project?
I’ve lost count! The Haven Home for Delinquent Girls probably had five final drafts - that was after three years work on it - so I don’t know 100 maybe!? Depends what you mean by a draft.
14. Have you ever changed a character’s name midway through a draft?
Yep.
15. Do you let anyone read your book while you’re working on it, or do you wait until you’ve completed a draft before letting someone else see it?
I’m working on this one. With book three: my partner is the only person I trust to read bits of it before I’ve completed a 2nd or 3rd draft
16. What do you do to celebrate when you finish a draft?
It’s usually an anticlimax. I don’t finish a draft. I go back and work on it again. And again. I try to celebrate ordinary things anyway and take my wife out for a meal.
17. One project at a time, or multiple projects at once?
Only one writing project at a time, but life means I’m constantly juggling other stuff just because I need the money!
18. Do your books grow or shrink in revision?
I usually write twice as much as ends up in the final book.
19. Do you have any writing or critique partners?
No.
20. Do you prefer drafting or revising?
Once I’ve got some words down in the first instance, I don’t really feel the difference. I think editing IS writing so I’m not sure what revising is. Yes, I prefer editing something to writing it for the first time - it’s fun to play with words. I could do it in my PJs for hours and forget to eat.
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Mark Haddon (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, A Spot of Bother) has written a very lovely piece about Arvon on his blog. Mark has been an Arvon student and tutor and even says that a great deal of the structure of Curious Incident is indebted to Kathryn Heyman, with whom he tutored an Arvon course:
“She was talking to the students about story structure, the way narrative tension is built up and released by turning points that speed you towards your destination then whisk you off in another direction altogether. As she was speaking I saw the clouds open, a shaft of heavenly light fell into the room, angels sang and I had to slip out to the kitchen to scribble down some very important notes about the placing of Christopher’s mother’s letter.”
Thanks to Mark Haddon for your support - you’re an Angel!
