More than Writers

  Back in September I wrote a piece for MTW on Word Blending using the image of making wine and blending grapes.   It so happens that I am back in South Africa currently and have just had a relaxing holiday in the Robertson wine valley, two hours out of Cape Town.   Below the equator,  t he start of the year marks the harvest season for grapes.   Wine makers begin the challenging task of selecting the best grapes, choosing how to ferment them (oak barrels – first, second or third fill? – French for ‘oakiness’ or American for vanilla; stainless steel tanks; cement ‘eggs’) and how, or whether, to blend them and in what proportions for maximum flavour etc. As I walked through some of the vineyards here, I noticed that many of the vine rows have been wrapped in netting.   There are a number of reasons for this: To protect them from birds.   The closer to harvest, the more sunshine the vines have had which increases the sugar content of the grapes and there...

  The local writing group I set up comprises of; some complete beginners who know nothing about writing, a lady who has written many long novels but not yet published, a poet, a writer who can’t place herself but has written great drama in our meetings, those hoping to become memoir writers, and some who used to write and are finding their way back. At present, I am the leader of the group of twelve ladies. Most come to each monthly meeting. The preferred format is for each person to read out their ‘homework’, everyone to comment on it and then turn to the next subject, which is whatever I have prepared to talk about and discuss. Everybody reads and everybody discusses, the comments are encouraging and I am the only one who has missed a homework task. And the writing from everyone is thoughtful and of good quality. I can hardly keep up with their enthusiasm and it’s great fun. For the last session our previous homework had been on dialogue and this led quite neatly to talking...

  Let me start at the very beginning. You will often hear people say - everyone has a book in them … This is not true. Others will tell you – I’m going to write a book when I retire … Most of them don’t. This is because writing a book is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes months of creativity, weeks of editing, time to work through the comments of beta readers and the editor and ends with continual marketing. So, if you have completed writing a novel and whatever state it is in or stage it is at, congratulations. You should be very proud of yourself. Let us now assume you have written a novel. You have self-edited it to the best of your ability (always a fraught process). You have asked some members of your writing group, or book group to read it (always a terrifying process). You have worked through the manuscript editing again to take account of the useful comments of those beta readers and now you decide how to get your book into the world (always a daunting process). There ...

“The human heart is so delicate and sensitive that it always needs some tangible encouragement to prevent it from faltering in its labour. The human heart is so robust, so tough, that once encouraged it beats its rhythm with a loud unswerving insistency.” Maya Angelou  The late Maya Angelou’s wise words offer a rich starting point for reflection. My focus today is on the theme of encouragement — something we all need, in our work, our family life, and, of course, in our creative efforts. I am convinced that encouragement engenders far better results than criticism, perhaps especially in writing. None of us enjoys being told that we are not very good at something. Most of us are already our own harshest critics, and we would do well to be far more bullish when it comes to self-worth — again, particularly in creative work.  The word encouragement itself is revealing. It comes from Old French, dating back to the mid-fourteenth century, and can be traced to the verb encoragi...

  In this blog I am going to explore some more about my quest to write a children’s book. New readers are advised to look back at earlier blogs for context. My first draft of the story was very raw and had little editing. However, I am learning from writing these MTW blogs that one has to prepared to ditch the ‘darlings’ – one’s favourite words and lines. The problem is, there are often many darlings and knowing which to keep and which to ditch is hard! People who read the work and comment however, can be wonderfully objective about them, not having the same degree of attachment.  Having ruthlessly weeded the darlings, I was directed to focus on clarity and continuity which was sometimes lacking. As a writer I have a tendency to make all kinds of subconscious connections in my mind, both within the story and in terms of wider context. But my readers often cannot always follow my internalised narrative.  In my story this meant that my readers could not understand who t...

  Each New Year I plan to write every day. Each January, I fail. I struggle to write much at all that month or in February. Is it just me? Or does it affect other writers as well? Research on the internet, suggests I’m not alone and the reasons given make sense to me. Here’s what’s usually going on: Our brains are tired after Christmas. Adrenaline keeps us going in December, but the Christmas holiday breaks that routine. Our brains are tired and we feel stodged up and lazy. January 1 st is the wrong time to make resolutions as we’re still in recovery mode and creativity hates being rushed out of convalescence. There’s also the problem with short days and low light levels. I always feel much more motivated to write on a summer evening than I do on a cold dark winter evening. I don’t have SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), but I still lack motivation. Apparently, many writers have a natural creative cycle and output peaks in certain seasons, while other seasons are for re...