Never mind the bollocks, just write!

I love writing: it soothes, invigorates and challenges me, and allows me to disappear into my ‘creative mind’, where I can magic words into whatever order I choose. It is the only way I can capture what life puts infront of me. How else could I honour the pure ecstasy of devouring a somerset cream tea, other than with words?

Writing is me. I have kept a diary since I was eleven, and many, many moons have passed since then. I have notebooks bursting with my poems: reams of A4 paper covered in hand-written or typed short stories: ideas for stories: discarded stories: a trail of letters dotted around the world with friends and family, and a hard-drive loaded with story-filled Word documents.  

I have written, and self-published, a novel, Spaghetti Head. The idea for the book flew into my mind and out onto a sheet of paper in 2006. Twelve years later I got around to self-publishing it. I wasn’t working on Spaghetti Head during those entire twelve years, as I’m not a full-time writer. Life took me on various other journeys, and it was only in 2015 that I re-visited my first draft. I read it through, and thought ‘what a load of rubbish, but, with some good bits here and there’. I highlighted the good bits, and started re-writing. 

They say Rome wasn’t built in a day – they should have tried writing a novel!

 The entire process of writing a novel is long. Fleshing out your initial idea and writing it in detail to form some sort of storyline or plot, can takes ages, and I love this creative stage. I love making time-lines and interlocking characters with Venn diagrams, drawing arrows and circles, using various coloured biros, post-it notes, highlighting pens, and scribbling across endless sheets of paper.  

Once that stage is over, it’s down to business, and by comparison, writing the first draft can take eons compared to fleshing out the plot. But finally, you have it – your first draft! However, before you rush out and buy a new trouser-suit for receiving the Booker Prize Award, there’s more work ahead:

Reading and re-reading. Editing. Re-writing. Chopping text out. Moving text around. Remembering what impact moving a chunk of text has on what comes after where it used to be. Printing your draft out. Crossing bits out – sometimes entire pages! Then there’s finding beta readers. Collecting, collating and incorporating their feedback. Re-reading. Re-writing. Re-editing. Creating a cover design. Writing the back-cover blurb. Writing a synopsis. Writing a cover letter. Writing to agents in the hope they may think it’s brilliant and want to publish it. Realising no-one wants to publish it, so entering the minefield of doing it yourself. And finally, and the part I have found most painful: figuring out how you’re going to market it once you have self-published.  

And that is where all pleasure for me ends, as then we move on to the endless posting on social media so that people will know a book called, Spaghetti Head, exists, and that they need to read it.  

So, I joined Twitter, and enjoyed it to begin with and made some good writing friends on there. I quickly acquired 1,500 followers and found it exciting. But I grew tired of it – after all, everyone was posting on there for the same purpose: promoting something. I found it false and didn’t feel comfortable with it. I created an Author Page on Facebook, and soon grew bored of posting writing-related info or witticisms on there. I created a website for which I had to write blogs, so I wrote some, but my heart just isn’t a blogging heart. I joined Instagram thinking it would be quicker than tweeting, but didn’t enjoy that either. Little by little I realised that the time I was spending on blogging and social media posts, was turning me away from ‘real writing’, and finally, putting me off opening up a blank Word document ever again. So, Spaghetti Head, bobs around in the amazon ether with no-one knowing it’s there, and it has now been a few years since I have felt even slightly enthusiastic about writing, which is tragic, because I miss it. But I have more motivation to go outside and turn over my compost heap using a teaspoon, than I do to write anything for social media. 

Am I purely suffering from a severe case of Writers Block?  

I don’t think so. I can best describe it as, ‘Can’t be Arsed’ syndrome. Like the momentous effort it would take to get up and manually change channel on the TV if the remote control broke, I can’t be arsed to write another novel, because of a) the time it will take, and, b) the dread of having to go back to meaningless social media postings. I ask friends how long they spend on social media to increase followers, and they say up to 2 hours a day. Two hours a day! My God! If I had 2 hours a day spare, I certainly wouldn’t want to spend it on Instagram! I cannot do it to myself. I will not do it to myself.

 These days when you write to an agent, you have to declare what kind of audience you have on the social media platforms. I hate that. So I don’t contact agents – which is actually a godsend because it means I don’t have to write either a synopsis or cover letter! I feel an agent would need to drag me feet-first through a bramble patch growing in quicksand before they’d get me back on the social media bandwagon.

 I cannot be arsed with any of that bollocks anymore.

 Yet the need to write has not left me. My inner-writing Gnome (I wish it could have been an angel, but no, I’ve got an inner-gnome), is constantly tapping on my shoulder, and feeding me good ideas. I am avoiding Gnome.

 And yet I love writing, I always have. Maybe the problem is that I have not yet found my writing medium? Maybe I should talk rather than write? That would be a lot quicker. Post it on YouTube. Job done.

 And that begs the question of why do I want to post anything anywhere? Why do I want anything I have to write or say to be heard? Why not write just for me? Because I want people to know that I have lived a life? Because I want to make money? Because I want acknowledgement? Because I believe I have stories worth telling? Or something worth saying? Because I’m sure there must be others feeling what I feel?

 And what will happen to all my writing once I am no more than a dust particle that settles on your glasses?

 You know: I think writing this has helped. I think maybe I have a plan. I shall ponder these questions, and once I can be arsed, I’ll write my answers down: in a brand-new notebook, in different coloured biros with circles and arrows and bright yellow highlighting pen. And at the top of every page, in massive writing, in, I think, red ink, I will write FORGET ABOUT THE BOLLOCKS, AND JUST DO THE BITS YOU LOVE. And stuck to the wall behind my laptop, so I’ll read it every time I sit at my desk, will be a pale-pink post-it note, saying FORGET ABOUT THE BOLLOCKS AND JUST WRITE: written in, I think, dark green ink.

 I must never forget that I write because I love it: it challenges me: it inspires me: it energizes me, and I must not let social media disconnect that spark. I will not do it to myself. I will write for me. So, Sarah, forget about the bollocks, and just get on with it!

 Now. Should I post this?

Ways to sell your paperback.

Bonnes, a beautiful french village that runs along the banks of the river Dronne, held an 'Art au jardins' weekend on the 21st and 22nd July. 

Thirteen years ago when I came to France for 6 months armed with my diaries, my bike, a pair of wellies and my computer, I rented a studio in one of the houses in Bonnes.  For those 6 months I went through all of my diaries from the age of 11 and typed them into my computer.  It was incredibly therapeutic - I was re-united with people and places that I had completely forgotten.  I walked Charlotte's (the studio owner) two dogs every day for two hours and had a productive and fantastic time.  I decided to buy a small house in a neighbouring village, pack up my life in the UK and come out here to write.

So it was fitting that thirteen years later I should set up a stand in Charlotte's garden for the art weekend selling Spaghetti Head.  I felt as if I had come full circle.

We had a steady stream of people enjoying the open-gardens and I chatted to most of them.  I was bowled over by how interested and friendly people were and how easily they bought a copy of S Head.  I sold 20 in all - which I thought was amazing.  And it was an invaluable exercise for me because I realised that the creative side of setting up the stand, chatting to people, smiling, laughing, is what I really enjoy doing, and so at every opportunity I will attempt to keep Spaghetti Head out there on a road-tour. 

If you have a paperback to sell I can recommend getting out amongst your readers and saying hello.

It's okay to feel the fear...

Every writer faces barriers along their way: not having enough time: not having the right space for writing: not receiving support from those around you.  However, for many, internal barriers are the biggest blocker. It’s our internal dialogue that often holds us back.  Spaghetti Head is all about internal dialogue and how to try to turn it into a positive influence in your life. 

Helen Cross, tutor for a Getting Started workshop I'm co-hosting in September, is also very aware of the internal battle that many writers face, and she gives this advice:  ‘Personal confidence is a big barrier for many writers: why on earth would anyone be interested in your thoughts or opinions even if you did manage to craft them into a work of fiction?  Why would anyone care about someone you have made up, within a sequence of events you have invented, when there is so much real drama in the world?   There are no easy answers to this and the solution comes with writing, writing, writing.  As you fall under the spell of your own fictional world and become deeply intrigued by your characters and their problems, your book becomes a story that just has to be told and you begin to enjoy writing it. As your ideas are tested on the page, as you wrestle with the truth and pin it down, you grow in confidence about your place in the world.  You start to wonder if someone else might also enjoy reading your writing.  Then you realise not everyone has to like it, just some people.’

Helen has written four novels, many short stories, radio dramas and screenplays, so her advice to just write, write and then write some more definitely works.  Write your way through the fear is the message that I am taking from her words above.  She has more wise words on her website also: https://www.helencross.net

Personally, it took years before I shared Spaghetti Head’s manuscript with anyone – and when I did finally hand it over I felt sick with nerves.  Why?  I was afraid of being told that it was grammatically awful and the story was rubbish – in short, that I was no good.  But as I waited for my reader’s feedback I started to change my thinking to ‘hang on a minute – I’ve just handed out the second draft of my novel – which I wrote, all by myself.  So stuff what they think – I’m flipping brilliant for having got that far! 

When the feedback arrived, it was very constructive and motivated me to continue re-writing.  I had broken through that initial fear barrier.  Three years later and I’ve just self-published. 

How do I feel now with all my friends and family being able to access it?  I feel proud that I have achieved something that so many people would love to do.  How many times have you heard people say they’d love to write a book?  Well I wrote one!  And that’s what over-rides my fear button.  As Dr Susan Jeffers says, ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway.’  

Sarah

Future Writing Plans

I realise that all my efforts have gone into realeasing Spaghetti Head into the world, and I have somewhat neglected future planning!  I think this is because for years I have had two book titles swimming around my mind, and it's just that Spaghetti Head shouted the loudest and so was written first.  Now that it's been published, and all I have to do is fifteen hours of self-promotion and social media every day (!) I feel it's time for the second title to come to life.  To bring it to life I am going to go and sit under an Oak tree in South Somerset with my notepad and pen and see what happens.  Three trees will definitely play an important role in the book.  This poem is getting my creative juices flowing - I wrote it in Mali in 1997:

In a village in the middle of nowhere
sit twenty-five African men and me.
Surrounded by chickens and sand,
we discuss what their women's future will be.
But there's no women around -
they've no choice,
and they've no voice
in what passes in the shade of this tree.