Fifteen Minutes

I haven’t written a word of fiction for six months. I’m not proud of it, not pleased about it, but there it is.

I’ve had the fairly pressing matter of my Tea and Chemo deadline to meet. 50,000 words of non-fiction are now with the publisher ready for its edit(s) and subsequent re-write(s) for publication in November - she says calmly, during a rare moment without checking her phone for the email from her editor together with its massacre of red pen, a hurricane of sighing and enough eyebrow raising to bring on a face-lift.

I’ve also been teaching, adding copious words of feedback to other people’s fiction and generally not sitting around waiting for the muse to strike. I’ve even read a tidy pile of novels, but no stories have left my own pen. I can’t remember any other period in the last fifteen years when I could say that I haven’t written any fiction for over a month, let alone six long ones.

This makes me sad. It also makes me feel a bit of a fraud: Try to write every day, I say to my classes. Exercise that writing muscle! Oil your writing brain with regular attention! It’s like the warm up before the event; means you’re ready to run a marathon as soon as you’ve tied your laces. Like anything, the more you write, the better you get. It’s like playing the piano, painting the skirting board, even doing the ironing – you weren’t born being able to do it.

Practise what you preach, my gremlins whisper.

As I watched my writing class put down their pens after their fifteen minute writing exercise today, something occurred to me. I already knew it, but seeing it played out so graphically in front of me was inspiring. I thought it might be useful to share this with you if you’re struggling to write, read, paint, phone a friend, apply for a job, complete course work, practise your serve or your music scales...

I noticed that when it comes to some things in life, fifteen minutes is quite a long time.

I’d explained the exercise to the six participants in the group. Pens and paper at the ready, I set the timer and off they scribbled. Meanwhile, I put on the kettle, gathered up the mugs from around the table, washed them up and set about making three coffees (one as it comes, one strong, one black), three teas (builders) and asked the abstainer once again if she was sure she wouldn’t partake in a beverage. Refusing a cuppa? Call herself a writer! I checked that my hand-outs were accessible for the next part of the session. They were. That took a good seventeen seconds. I handed out the drinks, rattled the biscuit box to remind participants of their whereabouts, answered a question or two on the exercise, returned the remaining clean mug of the abstainer to the cupboard, looked at the clock and told the frantic scribblers that they had two minutes left. Did I have time to use the facilities? Probably not.

My phone quacks very loudly when time is up which does tend to stop my scribes in their tracks, thus I can confidently say that fifteen minutes they were given to write and fifteen minutes they took.

How did they get on? Very well indeed. Even with a few moments at the beginning to gather their thoughts on how to approach the task, all had written more than a page of fiction. Some had written almost two. I have excessively large, illegible writing and even with my script, two pages means almost 500 words.

500 words!

There are only twice that amount in some short stories. There are only 40 times that amount in a short novella and only 160 times that in a short-ish novel. 160 lots of 15 minutes? That’s a novel in forty tiny hours.

It’s not true of course. Good novels, even first drafts of good novels, are certainly not written in forty hours, nor are the skills learned to paint a masterpiece or scales learned in one single working week. Chance would be a fine thing. We need to plan and think and practise and revise and totally change our mind and start again. But you see my point.

In fifteen minutes a day you could put on the kettle, wash a few cups, have a short conversation and make a few drinks. If you were a particularly succinct interlocutor, as was your opposite number, then you might slip in a brief visit to the toilet, too. But only that.

Or you could write two pages.

I’m not saying my washing up, tea making, snippets of conversation or even using the lavatory aren’t important to the very essence of being a happy, upstanding human being, but if we want it, really want it, there’s room in our life for both.

But, you cry, you fancy taking fifteen minutes out of your day to write a story like digging a hole and filling it in again? For writing read, two sessions of Seven A Day exercises, way too many press ups than are humanly possible, sketch a picture, do Sudoku, peel some veg, learn how to change a plug, how to use the sewing machine, read a couple of chapters, knit a few rows, mow the lawn, learn ten new words in a foreign language…

But here’s the deal: you have to be focused. Fifteen minutes is only productive if you devote it fully and unconditionally to the job in hand. Otherwise you won’t write two pages. Or sketch a picture. Or book your holiday. Otherwise you’ll just add your forgettable half-hearted attempts back onto your to-do list.

This was my last class for the summer. I have other work to do but teaching is my biggest commitment. I started my Fifteen Minute Fiction regime this afternoon. I wrote some of a short story which came to me when I was ironing months ago. It’s currently two pages of nonsense but hey, if I carry on tomorrow and the next day and the next, who knows what it will become?

So here’s my Fifteen Minute Regime: I have to write at least fifteen minutes of fiction every day. Even at the weekend. Even in a foreign country. That’s the only rule. My hope is that this daily fifteen minutes of fiction will be so engrained by the time the madness of the new term is here, that dropping it from my day would be as ludicrous as shunning the time it takes to make a cup of tea.

And that’s never going to happen.

So, will you join me? 

De-junking

I don’t do New Year's Resolutions. I've spoken before about how September generally feels more like a fresh start to me; the time to make changes for the better. In January I'm Resolutely Not Making Resolutions, I'm usually exhausted and too full of Christmas cake to do little more than tidy up.

I start teaching creative writing again tomorrow after a year away. I admit, I'm nervous. I was a big sufferer of chemo brain. It's a recognised but misleading medical term as it makes the condition sound quite cuddly and appealing. It isn't. This lack of cognitive function made my pregnancy brain look like Einstein's and the inability to remember the next word in my sentence, or even the theme of the conversation, lost its novelty very quickly. Sadly, I've yet to completely banish chemo brain to the past. Of course, writers tend to be good with words and ask erudite questions. Will I stand in front of my students and wonder what the question was? It would be good to remember what I was doing there, standing in front of a group of adults in the library of a secondary school, otherwise the two hour class is going to seem a very long time for all of us.

My usual solution in this type of situation is to over-prepare. However, this is harder to do these days as I don't have as many hours to play with. My Larkism was a wonderful experiment which turned into a very manageable reality, providing ten extra hours a week. Alas, the cancer fighting world took a dim view of my elected insomnia which knocked that little idea on the head.

So, the only hours I now have are the pre-midnight, post sunrise ones and I could fill each of those twice over. Couldn't everybody?

I can't decide whether I'm not very good at time management or whether it's just tricky juggling lots of jobs, any one of which can mushroom at any time and edge the others out of the question. It's a bit of both, I imagine. Whatever the reason, I decided that to free up some time I had to de-junk. And that meant clearing my mind as well as the rooms in the house.

* I threw out everything to do with cancer. If I need it again, that will be the least of my worries. There were shopping bags full of it – leaflets, redundant letters I was supposed to drop off at the GP (Sssh!) and tips and tricks for dealing with treatments - much of it duplicated information. It was helpful at the time, comforting also, but an obstacle later.

* I had this great idea back in the new-born days of emailing that I would have separate email addresses so that when I was working on one job, I wouldn’t be distracted by an email pertaining to another. This evolved into a separate email address for editing, writing and submitting, teaching, my little business, PA work for my husband, public paranoia (for the likes of Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, an address which wasn't allowed to come within a mile of my bank account details) and life (shopping and friends). My phone, infuriatingly, even after several calls to helplines across the world, as well as visits to that fruit shop in various cities, wouldn't send emails from all those addresses and thus I'd be forced to send some emails from the wrong account. It was carnage. Understandably, not everybody could remember which email address was assigned to them and thus would send me a message in sevenlicate. Every day I would spend several trips to my phone and pc to delete the excess and I'm sure the amount of time spent in this futile pursuit added up to hours every week.

So, I moved all my work and personal emailing to one address. The shopping and paranoia ones remain but have been removed from my phone so I have to visit them specifically.

* I unsubscribed to every junk email provider. It took a little adjustment at first, not receiving ten emails every few minutes. But I reminded myself that the lovely people at Wiggle, although with the potential to add warmth and happiness, were not really my friends (or colleagues) and would still be there if I needed them.

* I splashed out. I bought myself a large desk calculator. It's purple, you'd love it. Now I don’t have to do the accounts on my phone. It saves time and an inordinate amount of stress not having to re-key in a multi-layered addition because my pointer finger was too large for the button and typed the ninth entry incorrectly. It's a small thing, not the calculator, that's large, but I do think that removing the little bug bears in life goes a great way to sorting out the grizzlies.

* This next item is a work in progress. I threw out all the plastic pots which had lost their lids. Now when I need a box with a lid, I can find it. I shredded three box files of tax returns and all the paperwork which goes with them from the early millennium. I decided that if the tax man visited and was disappointed not to find them, I'd probably get away with a slapped wrist rather than a prison sentence. And it means that the information which I do need more regularly than in a blue moon, is now much more accessible. I removed the half eaten bags of nuts and dried fruit from the kitchen cupboard and transferred them into neatly labelled, recycled jam jars. The order pleases me (I do like to be grown up sometimes) and now I don't waste time clearing up spilt food or arrive home from the supermarket to realise that the three bags of pine nuts were an unnecessary purchase. Once I'd sorted the dried food, I felt compelled to move on to the baking accessories and food colouring. I have learnt that opened packets of fondant icing do not survive from one birthday cake to the next, even when wrapped in foil and popped in a plastic bag. OK, I probably knew this before but pre the de-cluttering, I was ever hopeful. The bench seat in the kitchen filled with felt tipped pens, paints and tissue paper from a pre-Instagram age, is next.

Honestly? Forget the New Year diet, I've lost two stone.

I feel better about starting teaching again. I still worry that I'll stand up in front of the class and forget what I went there for. But now that my brain is less of a dustbin, I remember that when I have time off from any job, even for a mere two week holiday, I feel I've forgotten what I do until, oh at least two minutes back in the role.  It's interesting how over-loading on the preparation wasn't the key to feeling calmer, but de-cluttering my life – and my head – was.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Meanwhile, I'd love to hear your time-saving and de-cluttering tips – please share!

The Things We Never Said

Last month in Chase I had the absolute pleasure of meeting Susan Elliot Wright, author of The Things We Never Said – a tale of strength in the face of adversity which wouldn’t let me go to bed. This is Susan’s first novel and I was delighted to learn that her second is due out next summer. Susan was hardly sitting around waiting for her fiction deal and when the phone call came, it wasn't in the most salubrious of surroundings - but it didn't make the moment any less sweet. 

The Things We Never Said…

It’s 1964 and Maggie has woken up in a mental asylum. One distracted look, she’s advised by a sympathetic inmate, one choice word to a nurse and she’ll be whisked off for seizure inducing ECT with as little fuss as if she were going to the dentist. When Maggie realises that she’s had this treatment before, that the one thing she needs to get her out of this place is her memory but that’s being destroyed with every dose, she forces herself to remember what the combination of the ECT and a specific trauma have made her forget.

Meanwhile, Jonathan, a good-hearted but frustrated teacher, is struggling to maintain focus in a modern day secondary school where a teenage pupil is bullying him through a provocative show of her breasts and an infamous pupil is whipping his classmates into a frenzy at Jonathan’s expense. He doesn’t yet know that his response to this intolerable behaviour will spiral his life out of control. As Jonathan surmises later, the laws of teaching seem to be contrary to the rest of society and he’s guilty until proven innocent. Throw into the mix his angst about impending fatherhood and his regrets about his less than perfect relationship with his recently deceased father and you see why Jonathan’s finding life pretty tough at the moment. Perhaps this isn’t the best time to have the link between him and Maggie revealed but the connection is to prove valuable to both.

Un-put-down-able is easily used when describing great books but this is absolutely true of my response to The Things We Never Said. I read it in three sittings, emerging from each emotionally battered and sleep deprived. The circumstances bestowed upon Maggie and Jonathan are not for the faint-hearted and I found the dual narrative and inter-weaving of the plots very well-crafted. I was keen to learn about its author’s motivation and inspiration for the story so was delighted when I had the opportunity to chat with this Sheffield-based writer, Susan Elliot Wright.

Susan explains that she has always been fascinated by the question of nature versus nurture and how people behave when the control over their life it taken away from them. Although Susan only had the bare bones of the plot before she started writing, she always knew that these themes would be at the centre of her story. 

Susan is also fascinated by the environment and its effect on our actions. It’s no accident that weather plays such a strong role in the novel, indeed, one of its pivotal moments takes place during the famous Sheffield Storm of 1962.

“I heard fantastic stories about the storm,” Susan says. “I describe Maggie seeing a garage flying through the streets of Sheffield in the novel and this is something which actually happened in Sheffield that night.”

Susan really enjoys research and as well as the weather and local history, studied the story of mental asylums. Attitudes and treatments were becoming more humane in the early sixties but nonetheless, people could still find themselves in a mental asylum for situations where today they’d receive sympathy and therapy. Electro-convulsive Therapy (ECT) was being carried out all too regularly to ‘calm’ depressed women but it often suppressed their memory, a truth which Susan uses to good effect in the novel.

For Jonathan’s story, Susan’s many teaching friends gave her such a great insight into the education system that readers have assumed she was a teacher herself, “That’s a huge compliment,” says Susan.

When I ask Susan if she’s always written, she smiles. Her CV is certainly eclectic. She’s enjoyed being a civil servant, cleaner, bar maid and washer-up before working as a chef’s assistant - something she adored until RSI recently forced her to give it up. Susan currently tutors creative writing but has also worked as a journalist and features editor and, most tantalisingly, a cake decorator.

With several promising ‘near misses’ and re-writes along the way, Susan’s route to publication of The Things We Never Said, took her from the gem of an idea in 2005 to her launch date in May this year. Even though she can put her name to hundreds of articles and a non-fiction book, fiction has always been her ambition.

“I’m loving it,” Susan says when I ask if she’s enjoying being a first time novelist. Her novel’s launch day was one of torrential rain which seems quite fitting for an author with a passionate interest in the weather, even if Susan was convinced everybody other than her family, her agent and the loyal friend from Waterstones would stay at home that evening.  She didn’t need to worry, extra chairs had to be put out for all the guests and the 50 books allocated to the launch weren’t enough. Even the pen used for her book signings ran out.

The day Susan found out she was going to be published was not quite so grand, she recalls.

There was a missed call from her agent. ‘I have news,’ a message said, ‘good news.’ Later, as Susan was leaning over to scoop up her dog’s deposits into a poop bag, she chuckled to herself, wouldn’t this be the worst time for her agent to call back? The phone rang. It was her agent. As she tied together the ends of the poop bag, Susan learnt that Simon & Schuster UK were to publish The Things We Never Said.

Susan has already submitted the first draft of her second novel to her publishers who’d like to launch it next summer. The book is loosely based around motherhood, guilt and adoration and again takes place across two eras – the present day and that very hot summer of 1976. Personally, I can’t wait. 

Susan has two signed copies of The Things We Never Said to give away. Click Chase Magazine, page 73 to enter the competition. Hurry! The closing date is 15th August.

You just gotta love it when...

I’m particularly glad I survived my previous post’s date stone attack as I’m having a very good week.

So, I’ve been asked to teach two day courses in creative writing at the school of adult education where I take an evening class. I love teaching and secretly hoped the evening class would lead to something like this.

This week, I’ve really launched into ‘Scrivener’ which is a piece of writing software personally designed for me, it would appear, to get the piles of half print, half-scribbled paper often extending out of the study and into the hall, off the floor and on to my virtual carpet on screen. Seriously, if you are a writer who is doing any planning or re-structuring, this software is heaven-sent. I have my stubby little fingers stuffed into so many delicious pies at the moment that I’ve had to be strict and commit myself to only two hours’ work per day on the novel this month. Scrivener means that even in this limited time frame, Glass Houses is still moving on a-pace. http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php 

Regular readers might be interested to know that my experiment into Larkism is firmly embedded in my daily routine now and my two hours of writing take place between 5 and 7am. It’s such a great feeling, often a relief, to have two hours of writing behind me before the rest of the family stirs.

And I had my biggest every month of page views of my blog in January – 1,800. Thank you!

I have one piece of vaguely bad news but even that is a good thing in disguise. I didn’t get the contract I wanted with the agent who was looking at my full manuscript. However, she was kind enough to send me detailed notes of suggestions on what I needed to do to make the story sing – it seems the plot and even the writing are on track but some of the characters are a bit of a tease – I hook the reader in and then leave them hanging. The agent phrased the problem in such a way that I had an instant light-bulb moment – hence the re-structuring which I’m really enjoying. It’s an exciting process because I know that whatever the fate of Glass Houses, this novel is certainly going to be a better read after the re-write.

And the other reason I’m particularly happy with life at my desk is because I’ve picked up a Versatile Blogger award from the multi-talented Karin Bachmann. Karin blogs about all things writing, being a tutor as well as a short story and novel writer, and I’m enjoying the behind the scenes posts she’s writing about her latest project,  Mord in Switzerland. This is an anthology of crime stories written with a handful of other writers with whom she appears to regularly meet for lunch. (Please can I have a job like that?) You can read Karin’s blog here: http://stories47277.blogspot.ch/2013/01/the-versatile-blogger-award.html

Now, you know what’s coming next. I have to write seven things about myself. As I had to dredge up old memories for the first time I was lucky enough to receive an award of this type and as I was really scraping the barrel for a similar award a little later, I thought I would do something slightly different this time. Because I’m feeling particularly upbeat at the moment, I thought I’d simply list seven things that I love. My disclaimer at this point, is that family and friends are a given, so I’m not going to wax lyrical about people you don’t know – wonderful as they all are.

In no particular order:

Running in the snow. There’s something so peaceful, almost ethereal, about being alone with the whiteness and the crunching under foot. I like to pull my hat down over my ears, feel the icy wind against my face and start to warm from inside out. I know it’s not for everyone but for me, this is when I feel most alive.

My first cup of tea of the day. Particularly if it’s brought to me by my lovely husband (ooops, broken my no family rule). The second cup isn’t bad either. By the eighth, I’m starting to get a bit of a fuzzy head.

Putting on my glasses. I know, this is such a dull one but not being able to read anymore without them has taken me quite by surprise and the instant transformation of the hieroglyphics on the page, washing label or side of a tin, to name but three, deserves my appreciation.

Cafes. With friends (there goes the rule again), chatting or with my hard-backed notebook, writing. Oh and hard-backed notebooks, I love those, too.

Learning Slovakian. I’d forgotten quite how much I enjoy learning languages – even though I sometimes curse the homework, even though I sometimes still throw my books across the room, even though I sometimes think I’ll never manage it.

Really cold dry white wine in a large glass. Or really warm, heavy red wine in a really large glass – and Lindt Lindor chocolates.

Singing. I’m not pretending to have any great ability but I belong to a small group and we have the most wonderfully talented and generous hearted teacher who brings out the best in us. When everyone’s singing and the harmonies are working, it’s simply, so uplifting.

Now it’s my turn to propose fifteen bloggers whom I think are particularly deserving of this award. I’ve chosen a couple of old favourites but also some recently discovered gems. Please do go along and see what they’re up to:

http://www.standingnakedatabusstop.com by Lesley Richardson

http://theperfectplot.blogspot.co.uk by Jill Paterson

http://excusemewhileinotethatdown.blogspot.co.uk by Linda C

http://alisonpercival.wordpress.com by Alison Percival

http://sarsm.wordpress.com by Sarah

http://strictlywriting.blogspot.co.uk by a group of nine bloggers whose posts always make me smile.

http://www.janerusbridge.co.uk by Jane Rusbridge

http://www.heatherwebb.net by Heather Webb

http://saintlywriter.blogspot.co.uk by Amanda Saint

OK, I’ve only listed nine but if you add in the nine at Strictlywriting, then I’m actually way over my quota ;)

These are the rules of the Versatile Blogger Award:

• Display the award certificate on your website
• Announce your win with a post and link to whoever presented your award
• Present 15 awards to deserving bloggers (Versatile Blogger)
• Drop them a comment to tip them off after you’ve linked them in the post
• Post 7 interesting things about yourself

I look forward to reading your posts!