Notes From My Head – The Comeback – Week #7

Age. It’s just a number. Although the number does get bigger each year. And THIS (fucking) year I’m starting to feel like I am the number. Covid came and has lingered alongside the every present aches and pains. The year went from Covid directly into my first serious running injury since I turned my ankle into an ominously dark and bulbous monster with the help of a rabbit hole. Oh and then refusing to accept that it hurt for the final 40 odd miles of The Gower 50 ultra marathon (read all about that adventure HERE.)

When I went into the computer shop to change my last laptop, the 19-year-old kid behind the counter looked at my six-year-old model and described it as ‘vintage.’ ‘Vintage?’ I wanted to scream. ‘Son, I’ve got shirts older than you! I own underpants that have seen more of the world!’

John Niven – also feeling his age

All of which has got very little to do with writing.

Except that it has left me digging for answers to some existential questions deep down in my soul. And this has definitely allowed my mind to search for creative answers, mostly through words. The resignation that my foot injury probably spells the end of my big running ambitions has prompted me to spread my interest around and see what else this is on offer to challenge me in my leisure time.

I want to write without shame or pride or over-compensation in one direction or another. To write freely.

Zadie Smith

Swimming. I’m loving a bit of swimming and I reckon I can morph that into loving a lot of swimming. Cycling and strength training too, focussing on what I can do.

And, of course, writing (and reading).

For those that haven’t been following these blog posts, I’m writing a novel with the working title Dogs That Don’t Look Like Their Owners (or DTDLLTO) and I am using the blog to hold myself to account every week. This is week seven of the great writing comeback, you can read all about the previous 6 weeks HERE.

In numbers, this might look like a fallow week. A couple of thousand words of the first draft doesn’t quite hit my target of averaging 400 words a day. I need this number if I hope to have a rough first draft down by the end of the year.

That didn’t sound like much writing until I flick through my journal. I must have written about 30 pages in the last week. What on earth do I write about? Well, I am really into my my free writing. If I’m at work and 15 minutes ahead of schedule I might set an alarm on my phone for 15 minutes and then just write whatever comes into my head. I’ve read about something called ‘morning pages‘. A simple meditative tool – instead of reaching for Twitter as I make my morning coffee, I reach for my notebook and pen. Go me eh? Except…….

Embarrassed that I ever allowed a pack of sociopathic dweebs from Silicon Valley to manipulate my reality, to fuck with my dopamine levels, to monetise my personal information, replicating the details of my identity and selling them back to me.

Author Brad Listi on giving up Twitter

Except……. I know I’m a bloomin’ addict, and I know that addiction reveals its disgusting yet inviting head whenever Twitter saunters into sight. So keeping it out of sight is probably the way forward. From today (Monday) I will be writing in my journal exactly the amount of time I spend on Twitter, I’ve installed a brilliant app which counts this time for me. It is eye wateringly embarrassing just how much time on spend on the app, despite constantly declaring that I’m challenged for time.

Talking of time…..

We live by the clock.

I’d love to be so free spirited that time didn’t matter to me. We’ve set our lives up to happen in blocks of time. Some of this is of course essential – the dog needs feeding twice a day and never mind the dog, I NEED feeding at regular intervals. And in order to eat, I need to buy food. In order to buy food I need an income. In order to have an income I need to work. And work, like it or not, happens at VERY SPECIFIC TIMES. Not only that, once I’m at work, the customers expect their deliveries in the time windows they’ve booked. And on and on it goes.

We live by the clock.

Another phone gripe. Autocorrect. I’m writing this on the laptop. The WordPress app highlights in red the words which it doesn’t recognise or believes to be wrong. This is nannying to a certain extent but nowhere near as much as the feckin’ phone. The phone actually replaces words without asking me first. The thing completely rules us doesn’t it? Taking what we are trying to say and converting it into a sentence which pleases the algorithm.

I feel watched. But not in a morally superior way. I am aware that I too am watching.

There are five whole pages in my journal devoted to ‘wants and needs’. And this is the beauty of ‘morning pages’, the thoughts just pour on to the page before the challenges of the day have chance to distract me, to suck me in, to muddle my mind and leave me unable to concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time.

These blog posts fulfil the same purpose – they’re just me being me. I’m nothing special, there’s nothing remarkable, astonishing, inspiring about me. BUT, this is about ME. And it feels good to have a relationship with the truths of my existence.

What do I need? What do I want?

They should be quite different questions.

I definitely need the basics of life – food, water, shelter, security.

But what about love? Freedom? Privacy? Having a voice? Are these needs or wants? Or are they simply rights?

And what about opportunities to be creative, to express myself? I feel like I need this in my life, but maybe I’m just greedy.

Here’s my take – I exchange my labour and my time for the means to secure my basic needs. I’m one of the lucky ones, I also have the means to enrich my life with pleasures that might be classed as wants. I believe that those of us with excess of any size should pool a proportion of spare resources in order to secure the basic needs, and rights, of those less able to do so themselves.

Some of the great art and culture this country has every produced was created in the time afforded by having a society which supports and rewards such endeavours. And unless we want to move towards a soulless, methodically sound but culturally empty world, we surely need to champion our creatives, not punish them for operating outside a world which celebrates the worst of capitalism.

That’s what I think anyway.

The main character in DTDLLTO is wracked with guilt and shame about the state of the world. He sees inequality, discrimination, othering, terrorism and any amount of ‘bad news’ and feels guilty that he feels guilty. But he doesn’t know what he can DO if he wants to be part of any counter movement. In fact he grapples with his own prejudices, he is aware of them but they might be culturally written into the dna of his life, and he doesn’t come up with solutions.

I think there’s a bit of all of us in him and maybe I’m looking to write my way to a clearer mind for myself as well as for him.

Seven weeks in to my writing recovery and I’m having a ball with the pen and keyboard. There are so many ideas appearing in my journal and it feels liberating. My writing time and energy might be shared out rather thinly amongst my projects and ideas but that’s ok, because, well, that’s ok.

Whatever else people, keep on keeping on.

Why, Oh Why, Oh Why?

The very reason I write is so that I might not sleepwalk through my entire life

Zadie Smith

Why am I writing THIS novel? Why am I writing it NOW?

We need to get to the root of my story…..

Is this story actually my truth?

Does it successfully and eloquently articulate the struggles,? The questions? The confusions of life? Does it ask and try to answer the BIG quandries?

Life eh – There’s no weekly email newsletter we can subscribe to which might act as a handbook – no roadmap to steer us from young to old.

We have to work this shit out ourselves.

If we’re lucky enough to meet someone who gives us the courage to tackle the questions, then that makes for a golden life.

It took me 47 years. And 8 years later it is still getting more golden by the day.

We’ve been married for 7 of those years – I have whatever is the opposite of a 7 year itch.

May 16th 2015

7 Years today, if you’re reading this, er, TODAY! (May 16th)

Yes, we’re celebrating the best 7 years of my life. Nicky truly has asked me over and over, “why shouldn’t people like ‘us’ chase our dreams?”

And so I write.

I’m getting much better at writing a shit sentence. I am allowing myself simply get the thoughts out of my head. Releasing them it into the physical world makes them real. My story needs to be a presence – a sentence may be shit, and I might cringe as I write it, but once typed, it is there ready to be edited.

You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.

Jodi Picoult

So, my book.

What book? The one I affectionately nick name DTDLLTO (working title Dogs That Don’t Look Like Their Owners). My first book, my first novel, my first attempt to tell the truth and have the conviction to carry it through.

I was stuttering with it, but this year, particularly with my new gung ho draft zero approach, it has started to flow from me.

I needed the freedom, the freedom to choose to look inside myself, to find the truths of who I am.

I give myself permission to write it.

What are my truths? What are my stories? Who should be telling my truths and who has the authority to narrate my stories? Well, I’m finding out…..

You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.

Maya Angelou

Traps I’m trying to avoid – creating a character in the shadow of me. I started taking all of the parts of my life where I believe I am morally right and getting my character to ‘virtue signal’ through their behaviour.

As Brad Listi says, the reader will spot the puppet strings pretty quickly. It’s bullshit anyway, nobody is that morally pure!

Who am I writing the book for?

Does it even need readers? Am I the author and the reader? Are you the reader? One tip I’ve heard is to imagine how different the story would be if it was read allowed to my mum, or my boss, or my best friend, or YOU! It’s a great exercise in finding the right voice.

In the first draft, everything seems to be all too obvious. It is in no way elegant. Yet. Hopefully this draft will contain the truth though and I can add my wished for subtlety in future drafts. I don’t want to dictate to the reader, whoever that might be.

There weren’t many words last week, about a 1000. What I have achieved is the feeling of why I’m writing this story and I’ve given myself the go ahead to crack on.

Life is confusing. Our emotions are confusing. Our opinions can feel confusing. The challenge for me is to harness all that confusion and let my two main characters in DTDLLTO navigate the swirling waters of truth.

You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.

F Scott Fitzgerald

Social media has us by the balls!

I’m still a Twitter addict and as with every other addiction that I’m recovering from, moderation seems to be an impossible option. I need to find a solution though because I like Twitter for the communities I’m lucky enough to be part of. I’m not great at ‘real life’ socialising, and the running, writing and Coventry City supporting friends I’ve made on Twitter have become important to me.

I’ve installed an app to monitor my internet use and have set limits for the sites I use – It’s working so far I’m pleased to say. Let’s see if more efficient Twitter time translates into more productive writing time!

Come on, let’s hurl ourselves into the next creative week.

Onwards comrades.

A Word After A Word After A Word

The previous week’s update highlighted a patchy performance but I’d still managed a few words – find out more here.

So, how has week 5 gone of my writing comeback?

I guess for anybody except a full time writer, scribbling opportunities will be ‘patchy’ to say the least. Full time writers, I would imagine, have just the same interruptions and distractions as the rest of us, not least from themselves – we can all procrastinate the time away….

I’m an expert of procrastination – Rob Deering on the excellent Running Commentary Podcast joked about writers taking to Twitter and using the hashtag #AMWRITING as opposed to, you know, actually writing! I can be guilty of this, although I do tend to wait for those times when I’m chuffed with myself for the progress I’ve made.

Writing doesn’t need to be complicated, in fact, it being something I do with my precious leisure time, it really should be a joy. And 90% of that time it is.

In the other 10% of the time, I try and remind myself how Margaret Attword tries to make the process of writing a little simpler:

A word after a word after a word is power.

I’m still not running (I know, I’m feeling a little bit sorry for myself!) due to this annoying foot injury, but I did have a run at DTDLLTO (Dogs That Don’t Look Like Their Owners – the working title of my first novel) last week. I found a state of flow several times in the short windows of opportunity I’ve had available, and have written about 2000 words. My first draft, or draft zero, or whatever you want to call it is now sitting at about 11,000 words.

I’m drafting away on my opening scenes, working across the first three chapters. I’m really happy with my two main characters, the setting and what we see them getting up to. When I come back, in however many months time, I’ll be looking to find a less clunky way for them to move to the next phase of the book, the meat of it. My story has quite a powerful and ever present back story which steers and, quite deliberately, hangs a shadow over the present day. I’ll be checking myself that I’m not shoe horning that back story into the narrative, rather letting the reader gradually piece it together for themselves.

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

W. Somerset Maugham

It really is sinking in now, the message that I’ve just got to get the story out of my head and on to paper – creating this draft zero – and then I can zone in and edit it in to shape. So many writers echo the sentiment: “You can’t edit a blank page.”

I’m also getting better at realising that it’s about the story, the thing that is in my head. As writer Steve Almond said recently on The Other PPL Podcast, the point is to create a body of work which reveals the truths behind my writing, not to try and impress with the size of my vocabulary!

AND – I’ve read some cracking flash fiction this week, not least in The Smokelong Quarterly Journal. They also often interview authors about how the pieces came about. I particulalry enjoyed the piece from Corey Farrenkopf recently and the follow up interview. Check it out, if that’s your thing.

Smoke & Mirrors with Corey Farrenkopf

So another week goes by.

It’s good, my journal has had plenty of use this week, I’ve listened to and read plenty of writing craft advice, I’m still reading the beautifully written To Paradise and whenever I get the chance, doing the one thing which will keep my projects moving forward, I’m turning up!

Onwards my friends, onwards.

Week IV – The Scribbler’s Return

Following on from a very productive week of being Mr WriterMcWriteyFace, where the words flowed like a burst water main (don’t believe me eh? Have a peek HERE), last week was more of a dripping tap in comparison.

But there have been words. Some of them thrown together to make sentences. Some of which make sense. Others will be edited over and over until they no longer exist, then rewritten before starting the process all over again. It’s all writing though, it all counts.

Seriously though, after getting so much momentum the previous week, this has been a case of ‘After The Lord Mayors Show‘.

A bit like with my fitness goals, it is at these times when I need to pull up my mojo socks and focus. Just keep turning up Kevin, keep on turning up.

James Baldwin knew.

There isn’t a ‘cheat’.

Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance.

James Baldwin

There’s no Monday to Sunday updates this week – just a list of positives:

• I wrote about 1000 words of DTDLLTO, my novel in draft.
• There’s a blog post coming, my reminder to myself to be positive.
• My journal has been very busy – ideas, poem drafts, diary entries.
• I’ve listened to some brilliant writerly podcasts and other audio.
• Dreams and half awake thoughts have been committed to paper for inspiration.

Write. No amount of self-inflicted misery, altered states, black pullovers or being publicly obnoxious will ever add up to your being a writer. Writers write. On you go.

A.L. Kennedy

The host of my favourite writerly podcast, OtherPPL, has a book coming out. On the pod this week was a free sample of the audio book, read by the author himself, Brad Listi. Check it out HERE. I do harp on about OtherPPL, but that is because it really is a fine creation. Brad’s podcasts never fail to stoke my creative fires and I reckon his book will be a writerly tonic too.

Also in my ears this week has been Nikesh Shukla’s new writing craft offering, Your Story Matters, which has a fresh and pacy feel to it. Another book which is narrated by the author himself, it is a thoroughly engaging listen.

Shukla reminds us that the word count is only one measure of writing success:

Some days you get those words down quickly, other days you pad it out cos you’re tired or stressed or uninspired or it’s a hard sequence. Don’t write 1000 bad words down just to hit a word count. Think about it in terms of time rather than word count.

I’m also reminding myself that it isn’t just writing that counts as writing: thinking counts as writing, walking and imagining my characters in different surrounding counts as writing. Journaling counts as writing, listening to audiobooks counts as writing. Reading of course, without reading there would be no writing. Reading definitely counts as writing. Browsing, or better still, engaging with Writers HQ, yup that counts as writing. Blogging, diarising, taking about my writing, even tweeting my writerly chums, it all counts as writing. There’s even a tongue in cheek Counts As Writing Twitter account.

So I’m not beating myself over last week’s wordcount, in fact the process of tapping these few words has reinvigorated my get-up-and-sit-down-and-fucking-write-y-ness.

Yup, I’m all over it now.

On on for another week.