Signing 'Moving On' for a lovely lady at Alresford Library

One of my favourite poems

Vinegar

sometimes

I feel like a priest

in a fish&chip queue

quietly thinking

as the vinegar runs through

how nice it would be

to buy supper for two.

Roger McGough

Love it!! 

How I write

As I have said, I have been asked several times how one goes about writing a novel. Well, the internet is full of people with far better credentials than I all offering advice. There is no one simple recipe which, if it is rigorously followed through, will turn out a coherent and satisfying 375 page novel at the end,  so I will just talk about  how I approach it.
 To start, I have to have an idea, something that gives me a buzz of excitement and I hold onto that. I believe that if I have a good beginning and a firm grasp of the characters, the story will tell itself as I work on. When I start writing a book I know the beginning and what probably happens in the end, but I have only a vague picture of something going on in the middle,  unless my story is based on a detailed real-life event. By not planning it, I allow for things happening that I never would have thought of, just because the story wants them to happen. The danger, of course, is rambling. Having a ready-prepared plan might make you feel safe, like having a really good map when you are going cross-country. The problem is that characters have an impish way of doing their own thing and changing direction half way through the writing of a story or a book so that you could find yourself – metaphorically speaking - in a clanging, clamouring, built-up inner city area instead of in the scenic country road you had planned to be driving along! Actually, those people who plan in advance like this are rather thin on the ground.  I’m told that even the writers of detective stories often only have jotted notes about the order in which they need to reveal the clues.
 I type quite fast using my two middle fingers, but I hand-write much faster. The downside of this – and the reason I don’t do it all the time – is that I seem to go into a sort of elated trance when scribbling away, thinking as I do it that this is so good; this is going really well – then I am brought down to earth with a bump when I read through it. It usually seems that I just got carried away and that much of what I wrote is going to be of absolutely no use at all. It is really profitable to keep a notebook handy for jotting down odd notes, which often seem to pop into my mind whilst doing mundane tasks like  cooking or ironing and which pop out again very quickly if they don’t get written down. I can be mowing the lawn or peeling the potatoes or waiting for the bus when just the right phrase pops into my mind or I have a ‘Eureka’ moment about how to solve a tricky plotting problem, or suddenly I know exactly what x said to y when previously it wouldn’t come to me. Some people write down phrases or paragraphs in their notebook, or even write whole chapters and file them away until they find a use for them or until they have a need for inspiration. Sometimes, of course, there never is a use for them – it’s reported that Joyce Carey had a whole chest of drawers filled with chapters out of books that he never got round to using!
 

I accumulated a lot of facts in my notebook, but discarded a great deal of them. The reader needs to be involved with and driven along by the pace of the story, so one can’t allow detailed description to weigh too heavily or to slow things down. Having worked on it, I have developed a great admiration for writers like the wonderful Hilary Mantell, Philippa Gregory, and Alison Weir who produce historical novels packed with period detail and atmosphere. Often but not always, I tend to write and then research and check the detail afterwards.  Having a general familiarity with the decades covered in ‘Someday, Maybe’, I was confident to start with, but realized as I went on that my long-term memory is very far from faultless! Mistakes were inevitable and quite a few details had to be checked. What music was popular at just that moment in time? What was being broadcast on the radio at such and such a time on such and such a day? What kind of radio might it have been? What film might Cathy and Fred have gone to see? Was the treatment of Mary and the medical information correct? The writer of a historical novel wants the reader to be wholly ‘in’ the period that he or she is writing about. That period detail must be accurate. There was a long list of details that needed to be checked, homework to be done; experts, the library, Google and internet pages must be consulted. Visits had to be made.

Then, if one wants to write, on must – well, write! I try to do at least a few paragraphs every day, even if I discard them the next. As time has passed, I have accumulated a wobbly array of shoe boxes on my office shelf, each one containing a screenplay or a novel, finished or unfinished, as the case might be. Sometimes, of course, they don’t go anywhere. Sometimes they end up in one of several half-empty boxes. I don’t want you to think that each time I sit at my desk I confidently set down another thousand or three words with a flourish. I don’t. It’s amazing how many things suddenly acquire importance when you are faced with some writing to be done: those clothes that just won’t wash themselves; the roses crying out for pruning; that letter that simply must get to the post… Now the children are long gone, but the husband needs attention. Time passes.

A big thank you to all involved at The Cafe on The Green, Cheriton and to all those lovely people who came along and who bought a copy of one of my books. If you couldn't make it, my  next book signing will be between 10 a.m. and 12 at the Alresford Library, Broad Street, Alresford  on Saturday morning, the 20th September. See you  there! 

Several people asked, 'How do you go about writing a novel?' I promised to give it a bit of thought so stand by for a little bit on the subject in my next.

... at The Cafe On The Green,Cheriton, Hampshire this Thursday morning, the 4th September.

  Don't forget!