Category Archives: fiction

The Clunky Stage

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writing notebookThe clunky stage.

If you write, you’ll know what I mean.

If you write on a daily basis, its those first ten minutes during which your brain feels like no one has oiled the cogs for ten years, and your pen feels like the nib is dragging through molasses.

If you haven’t written for a while, it feels like performing an appendectomy on yourself.

Hemingway was not kidding when he said:

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

Yesterday I sat down to write a new story.

I haven’t written in a while.  I don’t really get on with doing writing exercises much, although I know I SHOULD.  And at the moment I am experimenting with a new journalling practice called Deep Soul Writing, (of which more later) which is proving to be an interesting, but demanding, experience.  So my creative writing has been rather rare.

Nevertheless, I still have stories rattling around in my brain.  I always do.  So last night I thought I would start writing one down.  Free up some brain space.  Like you do.

Cue: wading through concrete.

How did this get so hard?

I’ve written seven novels, and dozens of fanfics.  How did I get this rusty this quick?

Nothing brings home the importance of daily practice, whether you are a pianist doing your scales, an artist doing your warm up sketches, or a writer doing – dare I say it – writing exercises, like coming back to your artform after a break and finding:

OH MY GODS THIS IS SO HARD!!!

My husband complains of feeling stiff and awkward if he misses even one of his twice-weekly body pump gym classes.  And now I know how he feels, because man! am I stiff!

But, as the old adage says, the only way out is through.

So I will suspend judgement on what I am scrawling because I know that while it may be as fluid as a fence post, at least I am on my way.  Sooner or later, things will loosen up, get more limber.  The adjectives will start replacing the cliches.  The dialogue will start to sound like it is coming out of real people’s mouths instead of cardboard cut-outs.  The metaphors will start to gang up on me.  The language will take on the richness of one of Queen Elizabeth I’s gowns.

Then, and only then, will I really get down to business.

But I have to write my way through the shit first.

So, like every marathon runner, I will set out in hope.  I will do my stretches, and thud through the first few miles until the muscles have warmed up and the movement starts to flow again.

Because even when its like bleeding into the keyboard, my soul is dancing, and I know, really know, that this is what I was meant for.

Happy Creating,

EF

Friday Quickfic: Juggling Knives

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Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox promo shot for ITV's 'Lewis' series.

Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox promo shot for ITV’s ‘Lewis’ series.

Last week, I gave you ‘Cooking Breakfast’, a little insight into the intimacy between Robbie Lewis and James Hathaway. This week, I have finished the companion piece to that – told from James’ point of view:

“I’m chopping mushrooms, dancing between hob and chopping board, cha-cha-cha. Paper white flesh of fungus. He says mushrooms have no place in a fry-up, but I haven’t noticed him complaining much these days when I put his plate in front of him. Just looks up at me with those twinkling eyes, and I melt. Bastard knows it, too. He can do anything, and then look at me like that, and I’m putty in his hands.

I’m not complaining.”

You can read it here at AO3.

Happy Creating, And a Happy Valentine’s Day to you all,

love,

EF

There’s Been a Paradigm Shift

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Exploring my soul, with the help of Danielle LaPorte's 'The Desire Map'

Exploring my soul, with the help of Danielle LaPorte’s ‘The Desire Map’

It’s one of Husband’s ‘I’m an academic’ jokes:

I’m sorry, Nigel, but while you were out, there was a paradigm shift, and (insert surreal Pythonesque situation or ironic or satirical statement here, e.g. … and now people are actually being paid for all the extra work they do.)

A paradigm, in case you aren’t an academic, which I’m not, is a theoretical structure that helps scholars understand a particular set of data. A paradigm shift is when that structure changes.

I’m sorry, Nigel, but while you were out, there was a paradigm shift, and now the planet revolves around the Sun, and not you.

Yeah, its not really that funny if you aren’t an academic.

But there has been a paradigm shift, at least in this house.

I was originally going to call this post ‘Why I’ve Shelved Writing For A While’.

As I’ve been saying (probably ad nauseam) my word for 2015 is EASE. Part of EASE is caring for myself. Not putting pressure on myself. Letting go of all those SHOULDs and OUGHTs that I use to beat myself up because I’m so convinced I’m not enough. Not good enough. Not successful enough. Not ambitious enough. Not a good enough writer. Not a good enough housekeeper. Not a good enough person.

Over the holidays, I got to thinking about all the goals I’d set myself in the last few years. You know, all those deadlines that went whooshing by unheeded (Thank you, Douglas Adams, for that wonderful quote.)

They were all career goals.

Now let me add something important here. I reached puberty at a time when the women’s movement had reached its most rabid. Girls my age were expected to be able to ‘have it all’. We were given that expectation. We were reared to have dazzling careers. We still had the societal expectation that we must have a family too. We were on the rocket-ship to the top (no one had told us there would be a glass ceiling when we got there at this point, of course.) That is quite a lot of expectation to put on a kid when she’s 14 and doesn’t know what she wants to be today, let alone when she grows up. Plus I’d been told I would go to University from the age of 7. That’s even more weight to carry.

But because I’m a good girl, I set about fulfilling other people’s expectations.

I went to University and got a degree and then a Masters. I got a good job in academia. I talked about doing a PhD and had ambitions of being a professor one day. I met a lovely man and got married. I left my job and planned to go free-lance. When that didn’t happen, I took a job in the Not-For Profit sector, and decided that was going to be my big career: managing charities.

Then ME/CFS happened.

All around me, my peers were excelling, joining the professions, marrying gorgeous successful men, having families, building their own businesses and shining careers, earning lots of money and having lots of success.

Okay, I thought, I’ll be a writer. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do anyway, so I’ll be a success at that. Because I had to keep up. Because I’m a good girl. Because everyone expects me to excel.

Seventeen years later, the seven novels I have written have not been published by a conventional publisher, which means that by most of the population’s standards, I am not a real writer. I’ve published 54 stories online, many thousands of words, which have been well-received. But those don’t seem to count because they are fanfics, not proper fiction.

The paradigm of ‘have it all’ success is not working for me.

So I have decided to bin it, along with all those goal-setting handbooks that proliferate on the interweb at this time of year.

What would happen if I just concentrated on doing what made me feel happy?

(That sentence will put a lot of people’s backs up because for some reason we think you have to suffer to be happy/good/successful – thank you, organised religion.)

What would happen if I just concentrated on doing what made me feel well?

What would happen if I viewed myself as good enough?

So I am rethinking my writing. The way I write. What I write. I am trying to subtract what I perceive as other people’s expectations. I am asking myself:

What would I write if it was just for me and no one else?

Throwing out the expectations of others when they are the sole motivators for how you have lived your life and measured your ‘success’ for the last 47 years is not an easy or quick task. I have no idea of its even possible. But I certainly mean to try.

I’m in a time of deep contemplation. Exploration. Working out how I want to feel. What I want to be. What I want to do. What I want to stand up for. What I believe. What I love. What makes me happy. What I want to say. How I want to say it.

(Hang on, is this the adolescence/puberty thing I missed the first time around because I was being a good girl?)

Once I know, really know, I’m going to concentrate on those things. The things that make me happy. And if success by society’s definition happens, then so be it. If it doesn’t I’ll still be happy. Which sounds like success to me.

So watch this space. It will be interesting to see what new words and stories come out of it.

Happy Creating,

EF

 

 

 

 

Digging Up Jewels

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diamondIts all a bit pre-Christmas mental here, and its possible you are feeling the same way, so lets share a little time avoiding writing those cards, shall we?

Lately I’ve been collecting words.

I came across this word in a novel I was reading, and fell in love:

craquelure

Isn’t that just a marvellous way to describe an old man’s face?

Then I started noticing other words when they popped up:

nurture

topaz

Words I hadn’t really thought about in years, though I knew the meanings.

plangent

planish

Words that are nice to roll around on your tongue.  Words that pop like red roses in your paragraphs.

scrum

rhomboid

As you voyage through the festive season, why not make a list of the interesting words you come across.  Its not a hard or time-consuming thing to do – I scribble mine on the scrappy little pad of paper I keep by my bed for the purposes of writing to do lists and things I have to remember in the morning.

maroon

fecund

Then I transfer them to the back page of my writing notebook when I have a moment to spare.  Easily done.

flaunt

flaxen

I’ve got a bit of a passion for F words at the moment, as you can see!

They don’t have to be on a theme or for a reason.  I collect them only because they appeal to me.  They sing out from the page.

Now I’ve got a growing resource for making my writing interesting and alluring – I’ve written a little about this before, and I’m coming back to it.  I’m thinking about creating a kind of utilitarian type prose, a la Hemingway, but studded with jewels of unusual and seductive words.

So, why not see what little jewels you can dig up?

Happy Creating,

EF

The Book List

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Some books here are waiting to be read.

Some books here are waiting to be read.

The other day, a friend challenged me on Facebook to name the top ten books that had most influenced me in life. It was one of those things where you give your list, and then challenge your other friends.

So far so good.

But how the hell do you choose, especially as the challenge specifies you do it off the top of the head, without thinking too hard, as fast as possible. How do you choose only ten books out of all the great novels and stories you have read over a lifetime?

My list was visceral, and based largely on what I read when I was younger. I thought about the books that had made me happiest, that I have gone back to over and over again in the course of my life. And it was interesting just to reflect on my criteria for choosing, as much as anything.

So here is my list (verbatim):

“1. Finn Family Moomintroll by Tove Jansson
2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
3. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
4. Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor
5. Virginia Woolf by Hermione Lee
(gosh this is hard)
5. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (kept me sane in the run-up to my wedding)
7. Antrobus Complete by Laurence Durrell
8. Persuasion by Jane Austen
9. Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman
10. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (obvious)”

I ended up with about 15 that didn’t quite make the grade, and if I think too hard about it, I would definitely shift a few from one list to the other.  I mean, how do you choose which Terry Pratchett?  The above was my original choice, and I think I’ll stand by it.

And then I challenged other friends. And like Japanese knotweed, lists of novels and non-fiction books blossomed out all over. Everyone had a fascinating new combination of books they raved about. Many, like Sebastian Faulkes’ ‘Birdsong’ and Camus’s ‘The Plague’, were held in common. Lots of lists were biased towards ‘we did that one at school’ books. I marvelled at the wide range of stories that had influenced my friends.

And I felt like I had barely read anything worth reading since I left college.

I suppose this is understandable. When you see a list of books, you always look for the familiar ones. And if the ones you have read are in the minority, you feel like a fool for not having read the others. Especially the significant ones. On the other hand, who the hell has read the whole of Proust’s ‘Remembrance of Things Past’, or ‘War and Peace’? (I have to say I was impressed by the number of people who had read Dostoyevsky’s ‘Crime and Punishment’. Kudos!

There are woeful gaps in my reading, despite what friends who always see me with a book might think. This is especially true these days, when I am so addicted to the quick highs offered by every morning’s new crop of fanfics. I have not read many European novels, or the Russians. I don’t know Kazuo Ishiguro or Graham Greene, Iris Murdoch or GK Chesterton. Or Kerouac, despite having a degree in American Studies. I read one book from last year’s Man Booker shortlist (Ruth Ozeki, ‘A Tale for the Time Being’), and that was because it looked like the easiest. (It was fantastic.)

Writers must read.

It is one of the basic pillars of the Craft. And you have to read the good stuff as well as the commercial, otherwise you never improve. Making this list made me realise how little decent fiction I have read in recent months. Time to get back to it.

“I mean to read myself blue in the nose.”

Virginia Woolf.

When I began my Diploma in Creative writing, we were given a list of novels and volumes of short stories to plough through as precedents, much as art students must analyse the works of the Masters, sitting in galleries for hours on end, studying Goya or Rembrandt. I found an old bookmark from those days, a list of novels scrawled on it, each title with a line scored through it as I completed it. (A couple of loose ones at the end remained unread.)

I need to do the same again.

This morning I found myself in a bookshop, gazing longingly at table after table of lovely crisp new novels. (It’s the time of year that provokes me – September draws me into bookshops still, an echo of student days of joyful bookbuying with a free conscience!) But I was good. I left the books uncaressed. I have piles of unread novels at home, you see, amongst them ‘Birdsong’, along with Tim O’Brien’s ‘The Things They Carried’, Jonothan Franzen’s ‘The Corrections’, and dozens of others, all highly recommended as quality fiction for the budding writer, and all gathering dust on the shelf. No point in buying new ones until I have ploughed through the old ones.

So I will cut a strip of paper and write a list of the books in my pile on it. And then I will begin. And each time I close the back cover a book and sigh with completion, I shall draw a careful line through the title and pick up the next.

Happy Creating,

EF

 

Friday Quickfic: Locked In

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Kevin Whately as Robbie Lewis and Laurence Fox as James Hathaway in ITV's 'Lewis'.

Kevin Whately as Robbie Lewis and Laurence Fox as James Hathaway in ITV’s ‘Lewis’.

I’m off on the annual summer tour of the family over the next week, and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to post as often as usual – you’ll no doubt still find me on Instagram, though!

In the meantime, here’s a little Lewis schmaltz to make you smile.  Get it here on AO3 or here on FF.net.  Virtual cookies for anyone who can pick out all the movie references.

Here’s a little taster:

‘Right, you two. This-‘ She held up a key. ‘-is the key to my office door. And I am going to walk out and lock it behind me. And you two are going to stay in here until you’ve sorted this out. One way or another. Because I cannot stand another bloody minute of it, do you hear? Oh, and Hathaway?

‘Yes, Ma’am?’ James’s head snapped up.

‘Try not to make too much of a mess of my desk, please?’

Happy Creating everyone,

EF

The Power of Acceptance

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Lilac Phone Box found in the garden of a pub in Dersingham, Norfolk. Doesn't that warm your heart?

Lilac Phone Box found in the garden of a pub in Dersingham, Norfolk. Doesn’t that warm your heart?

Life is, at the moment, a constant exercise in the power of acceptance.

Right now, its hot.

I’m not very good at extremes of weather, and heat just makes me want to sleep continually.  Plus my eyes are bleary and swollen as a result of hayfever, such that my sight is affected.  Frankly, I might as well have a pair of apples glued to the front of my head – I’d probably see better!  Because of the hot nights, I’m nto sleeping either, which makes the eyes and the heat all the more difficult to handle.

So I am not.

(Handling it, I mean.)

I am hiding away from the heat in my cool Victorian brick home, which retains the cold of the night all day, thank goodness, meaning it is miserable to heat in winter, but bliss in summer.

I am accepting that I can’t cope with the heat like I used to.  No more lying on beaches in the Greek Islands, sweltering in 38 degrees for me, thank you very much.

I am accepting that my capacity for doing anything much is greatly reduced.

I am accepting that my body needs to be nurtured through this extreme weather, so I am giving it lots of water, and light but nourishing foods.  A raw vegan diet is easy to eat in this weather because I just don’t want to eat much anyway.

I am sitting in front of my electric fan with my feet up, and honestly, I am loving it.  Its so nice not to have to feel I SHOULD be productive.

And as a result, I have written two stories this week.

Yes, two.

Taking the SHOULDS out of the equation is a recipe for creative freedom.  Moral of the story is:

Stop trying to force it.

Let it flow.

Be who you are.

What can you do to help yourself practise the art of acceptance this week?

Happy creating,

EF

Friday QuickFic: Seeing in the Dark

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Laurence Fox as James Hathaway and Kevin Whately as Robbie Lewis in ITV's 'Lewis'.

Laurence Fox as James Hathaway and Kevin Whately as Robbie Lewis in ITV’s ‘Lewis’.

I’ve been struggling all week to recover from my looking after the wrinklies last weekend, so you can imagine my amazement when this little number boiled out of my head yesterday afternoon!  A little Lewis angst for a Friday afternoon.  I seem to be big on cuddles these days again.  Maybe that augers well for other works.  But don’t quote me on that.

A taster:

“Suddenly its dark. Not the kind of dark you get in his flat at night, that eerie apricot glow from the street lamps filtering through the curtains. Not even the kind of dark you get on dark nights, shadows catching at the edges of your vision. No, this is the utter absence of light. Blackness in all its soul-crushing emptiness.

He hears James cry out.

‘No!’

And then some metallic thumping. Angry fists on a rusty blast door.

‘Bloody hell!’ There is real fury in that shout. And something else Lewis can’t put a name to yet, something hovering in the tone. No, can’t be. He dismisses it.”

You can find it here on A03, and here at FF.net.

Happy reading,

EF

The White Princess Problem

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the white princessI’m undergoing quite a lot of shifts in my creative work these days, and as a result, I’ve been reflecting on my reading habits.

Bit not good, as Sherlock would say.

I read woefully little fiction. My bad.

If you want to be writer, you need to read. And read lots. And I do read lots. Its just that most of what I read could be loosely classed as ‘self help’ and history. Let me explain:

A little while back, everyone was raving about Philippa Gregory’s Cousins War novels, which tells the stories of the women involved in the Wars of the Roses, during the late Medieval period. I’d read Gregory’s ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ when it first came out, because I’d read something similar by Jean Plaidy as a girl, and liked it well enough. I tried the first book in the series, The White Queen, but couldn’t get on with it. So, on the basis (again) that I had read something similar by Jean Plaidy, I decided when The White Princess came out, with its plot about Elizabeth of York, mother of Henry VIII and wife of Henry VII, that it was for me. I bought the book and settled down for a good read.

What a miserable book.

I have clawed my way wretchedly through it. I’ve only got a few chapters left, but every time I pick it up, I am seized with a bout of miserable gloom and depression that can go on for days. I just can’t stand it. I’m determined to finish the beastly thing, just on the basis that I refuse to let it beat me, but dammit if it isn’t the most spirit-crushing book I have ever read. And I’ve read ‘Middlemarch’! Now everyone is telling me that I must read Hilary Mantel’s ‘Wolf Hall’, and I just know that’s going to have the same effect on me.

Is it any wonder that I return repeatedly to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books?

I want a book to entertain me, and leave me panting for more. I want to be riveted by every turn of the page. Its not that I don’t want conflict. I love conflict. Conflict is what makes a plot irresistible. Without it, fiction is just a mushy mess.

But why does every book that gains acclaim have to be so bloody depressing?

Is it so much to ask for something to be a bit witty? Is it so hard to make a book hopeful in some way?

Maybe it is that I read mostly first thing in the morning, to help me wake up and while I wait for the day’s medication to kick in, and last thing at night before I sleep. What you read first thing can set the tone for your day, which is why I try to choose something uplifting. And late at night, you want to read something that will help you sleep, not leave you lying awake worrying about death and betrayal and being hung, drawn and quartered.

I have a heap of novels that friends have lent me. They seem to be mostly about the Second World War and the Holocaust, which doesn’t bode well. I tried reading Kate Mosse’s ‘Labyrinth’, but it felt too cheesy, and worryingly like Dan Brown’s ‘Da Vinci Code’, which is the only book I’ve ever actually physically thrown at the wall in disgust because it was so badly written. (How that man has the gall to teach creative writing beats me!) I love historical fiction, but I want to read good work that is recently published. And I’m fine reading contemporary set books. Why is it so hard to find something that isn’t going to make me want to slash my wrists?

Maybe I’ll just see if I can get the latest Alice Hoffman from the library. I used to read her. She was good. But if you have any recommendations that fit the ‘positive’ bill, please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear about your favourites.

In desperation,

EF

UPDATE: went to the library and found Andrew Miller’s ‘Pure’. First few chapters are beautifully written, even if it’s a dark story. I’ll let you know if I’m inclined to slash my wrists at any point.