Tag Archives: Sherlock

The Wild Donkeys: A Strategy for Choosing a Creative Project

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donkey

‘So, how’s the writing going?’

This from a man who is one of the Blessed Few.  A writer whose work was picked up by an agent straight from the much garlanded MA in Creative Writing at the Unversity of East Anglia.  Alumni include Ian McEwan, Rose Tremain, Hanif Kureshi, Tracey Chevalier and, well, you get the picture.  He is in glittering company.

He is also a really lovely man and a dear friend who takes a genuine interest in my work, so I rein in the envy monster and give him the polite and honest answer.

‘Fine.  Well, actually, I’m a bit stuck.’

‘Creative block?’

‘No, too many ideas.  I don’t know where to start.’

‘You should be writing a novel, you know.  I read some of your Sherlock stuff the other day.  It’s really good.’

‘Thank you.  I’ve written seven novels so far.  Writing a novel isn’t the hard part.  Its choosing which one to write that’s difficult.’

‘Well, just pick one and start.’

I love men.  Everything seems so easy to them.  And they are so good at handing out really practical advice.  (You’ll also notice that I don’t ask him how his novel is going.  That’s because I know.  I recognise that pained look.  I’ve seen it in the mirror too many times.)

OK, I know its good advice.  The right advice.

As Leonie Dawson puts it, I need to choose a wild donkey and ride the shit out of it till its done.

Every writer has a place where they habitually get stuck.  A psychological Marianas Trench on the road to getting their work into the readers’ hands, one that they tumble into every time.  For some it is grinding the words out, which for them is like sweating blood.  For others, it is coming up with the idea in the first place.  Some worry when they get to the middle because that’s always where they get bogged down, and some will spend ten years writing the first page.  We all have our Achilles’ heel.

For me, its choosing which idea to stick with.

So I have decided to take September off.  Not from writing; quite the opposite, in fact.  No, I’m taking the month off from worrying which novel to concentrate on.  I’m in a physically stuck place right now, and I need to concentrate on my health, on getting my body moving again after a summer of boom and bust energy.  I’m looking to create a smooth, even flow in my life, in my health, and my art.  I have faith that if I can manage to attain a relative level of consistency in my body, the answer will come to me.  Yes, maybe that sounds mad, but its just how my creative process works.

And in the meantime, I’m refreshing my theory knowledge, reading, working on my notebooking, and bashing out some major fanfiction.  I’m easily distracted, and having short stories and novellas on the go is a great way to handle that.  But sooner or later, I want to create something major.  Something big.  Something that shows both me and you, dear Reader, what I can really do.

Happy creating,

EF

On Process: Too Many Ideas, Too Little Time

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Usually creative people complain about creative block.  I don’t.  For the most part, I have the opposite problem.  Too many ideas.  Not enough time to execute them.  I have this constant fear that I shall die suddenly without sharing all the pictures in my head.  That would be a great incentive to work if it weren’t for the fact that my poor health is a huge brake on my capacity to work.

And then there is the fact that I have the mind of a butterfly.

The Buddhist masters often refer to the concept of ‘Monkey Mind’.  This is what your mind does when you try to meditate, and your thoughts bounce around like gibbons, and feel impossible to control.

Welcome to my world.

Actually, that is not entirely true.  I can be deeply committed to one idea for a short period of time.  The most I can normally manage is about three months.  Then I bounce off to find another sparkly thing.  Most of the time, I come back.  Occasionally, I manage to actually finish something.  Occasionally it gets shelved for good, or the idea gets incorporated into something new, because its too good to waste.

I’ve been socialising a lot this summer, and people have repeatedly asked me the same questions:

‘How’s the writing going?  What are you working on at the moment?’

Below is the honest answer (i.e. the one I don’t give nice people at parties because its too complicated to explain, especially if they’ve never met me before.)

The things I am currently working on:

  • A series of short stories about John and Sherlock in a stable relationship
  • Finishing a work about Sherlock’s pursuit of public sexual humiliation because of his guilt about his faked suicide.
  • A novella about a Viking Princess
  • My novel about Victorian sexuality, currently titled ‘The Butler Did It’ (Please could somebody suggest a better title, I’m getting desperate!)
  • My journaling ebook

Other ideas I have churning about in my head include:

  •  A possible novella about a young man getting over the death of his male lover in a road accident
  • A short story based on a line from a deliciously naughty Johnlock fanfic I read the other day, The Red Box by Cleo2012
  • The third Evenlode novel (vampire gangsters ahoy!)
  • A Loki fanfic set after the end of Thor 1

(And this is before I have even begun to tell you about the paintings I want to make…)

I was explaining this smorgasbord to a friend, and she said ‘How on earth do you handle all that?’

The answer is, ‘I have no idea.’

I suppose I have a good memory, but the older I get, the more I am going to need to employ my writing notebooks to record all this.  The truth is that ideas are far easier to come by for me than the wherewithal to execute them.  And there just isn’t enough time in my day to get all this done, and execute my duties as wife, friend, aunt, guidemother, part-time carer to elderly, sick in-laws etc etc. and still protect my health.

Triage is necessary.

I just have to grab one sparkly thing and run with it for as long as I can.  I have to choose the most important thing to me at the time.

Most creative people complain about creative block, but the other side of the coin is equally disabling, and I know for a fact I am not the only one who experiences this problem.  Choosing which is the best idea to work on.

If you have any ideas on how best to deal with idea overspill, please let me know in the Replies section.  I’d love to know what you do.

Happy Creating,

EF

How to Take Criticism

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The idea for this post came to me last week when I got a pretty starchy comment on one of my stories.  It happens sometimes.  Actually, I have to say I can think of only two previous occasions when comments have upset me in three years of online publishing, so I suppose I am doing pretty well.  My pals were very supportive, as was my husband.  No sweat, right?

Hmmm.

It got me thinking about how as artists we approach taking criticism.  Art of whatever form is a subjective thing.  Whether we like it or not is a personal matter.  You can’t please all of the people all of the time, as they say.  It is just a fact of artistic life, and we can learn a great deal from it.

The problem with art in general, and writing in particular, is that it is the product of our soul.  That makes it very close to us, an expression of our feelings, of everything we believe in.  And that, in turn, makes it hard not to take criticism personally.  Which is why a negative review can feel like being emotionally disembowelled.  It can be crippling.  It can block us completely, so that we never creatively express ourselves again.  That is why it is so important to know how to deal with it.

It strikes me that there are two types of criticism.

  1. Constructive Criticism.  This is the kind that comes from readers who support your work, who appreciate what an emotional risk it is to put your work out there, and who want to help you to improve.  They give honest, caring feedback.
  2. Rants.  You know this kind of comment.  It is usually about content, not plot, pace, language or technique.  It is usually angry, often vindictive, and actually has nothing to do with your work, and everything to do with the commenter’s personal ‘stuff’.

Constructive criticism comes from a place of empathy and support.  Its aim is to help you along the road to expressing yourself better.  It may seem niggly (you missed a comma out, for instance, or left a typo in) but it is there with positive intent.

Rants are to do with issues that the critic has in their own life.  The first nasty experience I had with this was with my story, ‘Property Of:’.  A reviewer wrote a vicious snarl about how I had depicted the armed forces as being shagging frantically in trenches at every opportunity, and that it was disgusting that I should suggest this, or that Dr Watson could have been involved with a married person.  My (possibly misguided) response was to email the person in question and ask her to expand on her comments.  What I got back was a three page diatribe on the fact that Watson should be whiter-than-white and how dare I criticise the army.

Clearly she had issues surrounding infidelity and the armed forces.

I don’t write for Disney.  I deal with the real shit. Real life.   Real people.  And real people make mistakes and get scared and do weird, unexpected things under pressure.  She had her own reasons for not liking my story.  Fine.  I triggered them.  Okay.  But I am not going to change the whole tenor of what I write to please one person, however hurt they have been.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I love criticsm.  When it is constructive.

In the course of publishing daily episodes of ‘The Case of the Cuddle’, for example, I realised from comments being made that I had left out a whole area of the story between Lestrade and Mycroft.  Without it, their responses to later events made no sense.  If it had not been for those reviewers who were unafraid to ask awkward questions in a supportive way, I would not have noticed the gaping hole in my narrative.  I hacked together an extra two chapters to insert into the story, and fixed the problem.  Bravo critics.  I learnt something.  Thank you.

That is the point of contructive critisicm.  You learn something.  The way to approach any kind of criticism is to ask this question:

What can I learn from this?

So, how do you deal with criticism, nasty or kind?  Here are a few tips:

  • Take a deep breath.  Walk away.  Give yourself some space.  DO NOT immediately fire back a stroppy reply that will only provoke further attack.
  • Work out which kind of criticism is being offered.  Calmly.
  • If this person has been triggered by some issue in your work, accept their right to their emotions, however wrong they are in venting them on you.  Something horrible has clearly happened to them to provoke such an outburst.
  • You don’t necessarily have to email them, or reply at all.  If you are really upset, do not engage.
  • If you write about difficult stuff, things that are likely to trigger strong reactions in your readers, them you should expect rants a bit more often than if you only write fluff.  Be prepared, but DO NOT back off from writing about the tough stuff.  It is only if we talk about these things that we can address them in society and heal the suffering they cause.  You are doing good work.  Keep doing it.
  • If you find yourself reacting strongly to a challenging, or ranting comment, it is worth thinking about why.  Perhaps this review has triggered something for you?  My commenter from last week challenged me about a prejudice I had been kidding myself I didn’t have.  On reflection, I realised not that she had a point, because I stand by the artistic decision I made, but that there was an element of truth in her accusation.  From now on, I will think more carefully about my responses to certain situations and where they come from.  I have learnt from her, and not just in terms of my writing.
  • You do not have to rewrite your work just because someone negatively criticises it, nor should anyone expect you to do so.
  • Think about the reasons why you made the artistic or aesthetic choice you did.  If your choice is rationally defensible, ie there is a better argument than ‘because thats the way I want to do it!’ (accompanied with a stamping of the foot), then let it stand.  If, on reflection, you decide that it could have been done better had you made a different choice, then you can take the criticism on board, and maybe do it different next time.  Make the decision to learn from it.
  • Don’t sweat the small stuff.  I find myself getting very gnarly when someone is kind enough to point out where I left a typo in.  Gggggrrrrrrr!  But actually, they are doing me a favour.  Not only are they acting as a free proof reader, they are also helping tackle my Perfectionism, and giving Nigel a good kick in the teeth at the same time!
  • Allow yourself to absorb the helpful comments at your own pace.  Sometimes it can be very challenging to be told your sentence structure is a bit dense, or that your character’s motivation is shaky.  Are you ready, at this point in your development as a writer, to accept this criticism?  If you are, take it on board.  If not, put it aside, and keep doing your best.
  • Don’t trust your first defensive denial.  If the comment is offered sympathetically, with the earnest desire to help, then examine it.
  • As with all criticism, take what feels truthful to you, and leave the rest.  Just let it go.
  • NO ONE has the right to browbeat you, attack you, abuse you, or verbally savage you to the point where you give up writing.  Constructive comments on the work are helpful, personal attacks are not.  Report vicious repeat flamers where necessary.  Bullying is NOT ACCEPTABLE.
  • The internet gives you the opportunity to get free comments on your work in a way that never would have been possible twenty years ago.  It is a huge resource.  People take a great deal of time and effort to read your work.  Thank them for the time they take to respond to it, and choose to learn from what they say, as far as you can.
  • Relax.  No, really.  This is not personal.  Rejoice in the feedback you get.  Why?  because it means you are OUT THERE, being seen, and that, my friend is a HUGE blessing.

No doubt there is a great deal more that I could add.  Taking criticism constructively is something you learn by doing.  It really helps to join a writers group, where you can trust your fellows to offer you helpful feedback on a regular basis, so that you get used to it, and build up your ‘resistance’. (More on writers groups in a future post) In the meantime, I return to the following, which is the best advice I can offer:

Take what feels truthful to you, and leave the rest.

Next Wednesday, I will be writing another article about how to give constructive criticism, so stay tuned!

Happy writing,

EF

Outflow: New FanFiction!

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ginger catYou can now read daily portions of my new fanfic, ‘The Melted Man’, here at A03, or here at FF.net.

‘The Melted Man’ is my version of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story, ‘The Crooked Man’, updated to take account of the Iraq war.  Its a bit of a new departure for me, effectively adapting a story, and its more of a mystery than a romance, which is what I am used to writing.

And yes, I am copping out of writing today’s Journal Friday post, partly because I have a cold, and partly because I think presenting new writing is just as important, if not more so.  I’ve got half a dozen story ideas rattling around my brain at the moment, plus a new novel idea forming, which is a bit scary. since I’ve already got two in process at the moment.  I am being drawn towards writing something about grief, but I probably need to get something finished and under my belt first.  A bird in the hand and all that.  I’ll let you know how I am getting on.

In the meantime, here is a little excerpt from ‘The Melted Man’ to tempt your appetite:

“‘Well, difficult one, this one,’ Professor James-not-Bunsen-Honeydew said, grinding his palms together awkwardly.  ‘I’d definitely say he died because his heart stopped.  Beyond that, it gets a little problematic.’

‘Everybody dies because their heart stops,’ Sherlock snapped.  ‘Can’t you be more specific?’  He shot John his ‘what am I doing out here in this godforsaken rustic backwater – you’d better be bloody grateful is all I can say’ glare.

‘First off, there are no marks on the body, no sign of disease, puncture wounds or congenital heart defects,’ James went on.  ‘I’ve run the standard tox screens, which have all come back negative.  I’ve sent off a second panel, more specific to poison indicators, but to be frank, I don’t expect any positive hits on those either.  Colonel Cornforth was as fit as a fiddle.  Possibly fitter.  And then, well, there’s this-‘

He pulled back the sheet, revealing the late Colonel Cornforth’s head and shoulders.

John had to look away.  He had seen far too many corpses that looked like that.  Frankly, even one was too many.

Jeffries gasped, ‘Jesus!’ under his breath.”

Happy reading,

EF

The Habit of Art, or How Benedict Cumberbatch Taught Me to Write

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Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch in BBC TV's 'Sherlock'

Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch in BBC TV’s ‘Sherlock’


Once upon a time, I did a Diploma in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.  It was the first proper writing course I had ever taken.  One of the first things we were told as students was that in order to get better, we must write every day.

Writing for me has always been a very instinctive thing.  It comes in bursts. (I’ll talk about your creative rhythm in a future post.)  So I didn’t think much of this ‘show up at the page every day’ theory.  I believed that inspiration dropped from the sky and you did it, whatever it was, to manifest the story or the picture or the dance, or whatever your particular art form was.

Years later, in the midst of a story drought, the BBC TV series ‘Sherlock’ happened to me.  (I say ‘it happened to me’ because it was almost against my will that I eventually watched the reruns, having heard all the fuss people were making about how good it was the first time around.)  And what intrigued me about this version of the stories with which I was so familiar was not the modern setting, but the relationship between the two men, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson.

What would happen if two such men were devoted to one another?  What would happen if they fell in love?

The idea had not occurred to me before with any characters I had created, or anyone else’s for that matter.  And possible scenarios started to blossom inside my skull.  In the end, there were so many of them that I had to write them down, just to make room for things like ‘remember to buy light bulbs’, and other such modern survival thoughts.

Before I knew it, I was writing something new every day.  Paragraphs became pages became short stories became novellas became books.  Every day.  Thousands of words.

This is a practise.  It is similar to an opera singer or concert pianist doing scales, an artist doing studio sketches, a ballerina doing barre work.  They say it takes 10,000 hours of practise to truly master a skill.

I have worked daily.

Yes, I have written fanfiction, which some literary writers sneer at.  But I have done my 10,000 hours and more.  Fanfiction has caused me to write daily.  Through it, I have learnt more about crafting stories than I could ever have done with my hit-and-miss, inspiration method.  I have learnt the lesson that my tutors on the Diploma sought to impress upon me, and failed.

To get good, you have to practise. Daily.

You have to try things out, stretch yourself, sometimes do the same exercises over and over again from different points of view and in different styles.  But you have to practise.

In my experience, yes, discipline has a lot to do with it.  You have to show up at the page, as they say.  You have to sit at your desk.  But it is important to have some motivation too, some enthusiasm that drives you.  I’m useless at self-discipline, believe me, and I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t had Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman circling each other like dogs on heat inside my skull.

So my advice to you is this:  yes, show up at the page.  Every day.  Practise, practise, practise.  Write the same scenes over and over again from different angles, different perspectives, different times of day, or life.  But practise.  Enthuse, rave, drool, froth at the mouth over gorgous characters or actors if you have to, but practise.

Get the Habit of Art.  Get creative every day.

Writing Exercise:

Get out your writers notebook. (You haven’t got one yet?  See my post about why you should.)  Think of a scene from a favourite movie that really grabs you, preferably with more than one character involved.  It might be a talky scene, something emotional, or some action.  Now put pen to paper and describe it from the point of view of one of the characters in the scene who is not the hero or heroine.  Someone periferal.  Or a secondary character.

For example, Star Trek’s Captain Kirk and Mr Spock are facing off about whether to transport to a dangerous planet when the transporter machine is on the blink and they might not be able to get out quickly, but you could write it from inside the head of the security man standing on the door, watching.  How does it feel to him to have the two men in charge of his future well-being fighting over something he maybe doesn’t understand?

You might choose to write Mary Bennett’s experience of her sister Elizabeth’s first meeting with Mr Darcy, from ‘Pride and Prejudice’, or housekeeper Mrs Fairfax’s dim view of Jane Eyre’s carrying on with Mr Rochester in ‘Jane Eyre’ (Jean Rhys wrote the entire novel ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ in this way, from the point of view of Rochester’s wife, Bertha.)  Or you could write from the mind of one of James Bond’s jilted girlfriends!

Choose a story you are attracted to and try a few scenes from an alternative angle.  See where it takes you.  And if you find yourself with something that intrigues you, stuck with it, and see where it takes you.  Every day.

(More on writing every day, and writing exercises soon.)

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