Mundanity and the Business of Thinking

I get really pissed off about life sometimes. The repetition of all those chores and tasks we need to do to keep on living the way we do just blows, doesn’t it? In one way or another we’ve been doing it for thousands and thousands of years, and hurrah for that or none of us would be here, but some days I swear I could smash every dish in the cupboard just so I didn’t have to empty the dishwasher one more time.

And yet.

Today I was indeed emptying the dishwasher, and had a sudden coming to, the way you do from a daydream. I realised I’d been thinking about the way people begin to gravitate back to their homeland once they’re approaching forty, not about how to stack the stupid amount of bowls we own in our ridiculously tiny cupboards.

Key point: I already know how to stack the bowls.

I figure it out anew each time I go shopping for new bowls and have to cram them in somehow, because if I don’t the voice of my husband will win out over the clatter of crockery. So my hands were moving on automatic pilot, freeing up some corner of my brain to head off into reverie, letting it scrabble away at something that has been trying to get air for a while.

It’s not as if this is a new revelation – Steven Spielberg has been quoted as saying his best ideas came to him driving the freeway – but today it felt new to me. I could save up my chores and do them in one swoop, letting my brain have some rest time for an hour so things can ferment. I could turn off the radio when I do it, just to help things along. I could quit bitching about the things that need to be done just so we can eat from clean plates and put on clean underwear, and just factor it in.

Living creatively doesn’t just mean having hours spare to do the ‘art’. It means using all of your hours in the best way you can, even when you’re hanging laundry. Let’s face it, there’s always laundry. You may as well just learn to use laundry time better.

Women, Literature and Invisibility

The Orange Prize announced their longlist this week, to coincide with International Women’s Day. I saw on Twitter a few grumblings about these ‘women only’ events, sadly a lot of them from young women, who seem to think it’s better to talk about ‘people’, and not single women out for special treatment.

This would be fine, if men hadn’t been having all the special treatment for centuries. If sexism wasn’t still rife in the workplace, in pay packets, in casual pub conversation, on television, in magazines and newspapers. If sexism wasn’t still so institutionalised that it’s sometimes hard to spot it, especially now that no one talks about it out loud.

Last year Vida (Women in the Literary Arts) released their first Count, a tally of book reviews, totting up the gender of reviewer and author. The results showed a gender bias across most publications, weighted significantly towards men. The Guardian ran an article with responses from commissioning editors, where the TLS editor, Peter Stothard, said that he would be very surprised if the numbers of published books were split 50/50 between the genders (and if that’s true, shouldn’t we be concerned about that as well?). He seemed to think this excused the fact that around three quarters of the authors and reviewers of books in the TLS were male, but he revealed his real problem in his next sentence: “we know

[women] are heavy readers of the kind of fiction that is not likely to be reviewed in the pages of the TLS”.

In other words, “you ladies read fluffy books that aren’t important”.

The inference to be made is that the books we write aren’t important either. Or is it simply that anything that concerns women isn’t important?

I believe in positive discrimination because most people, myself included, don’t much like change. If it worked before, however imperfectly, you’re likely to stick with it. Without the catalyst of offering women and only women for a prize or election, say, the chances are that you will always see the men rise to the top. It’s far easier to stick with what you know – literary prizes are no exception.

Which is why it’s very important that women writers have to continue driving change in the publishing industry.

Sisters in Crime is an organisation founded by Sara Paretsky to specifically combat the gender bias in the mystery genre. When she began she found that “[crime] books by men were reviewed 7 times as often as books by women”. Not only that but books by male authors stayed in print far longer – women’s earning capacity was shrivelled by having not as many column inches and not enough time on the shelves. It’s the equivalent of getting half the pay for the same work. Fighting the imbalance is not a done deal either. As Sara says, everytime they take their eye off the ball, the discrimination creeps back in.

In a moment of serendipity, after I’d written most of this post my copy of Mslexia popped through the door (do you subscribe? If not, why not?), with an excellent article on this very subject. It also included some research into the effects of verbalising gender stereotyping – tell a woman she can’t reverse park and she’ll mess it up, in other words. Women have been told for centuries that not only can they not drive cars well, they aren’t deserving of education, equal pay and opportunities, or property ownership, to name a few small things. We are supposed to be there to nurture the dreams of others, not create our own. It’s no wonder that we are under-represented in the arts.

It is incredible how guilty and selfish a woman can feel for clutching at an hour of time to write, rather than do the laundry. And yes, women are far less likely to offer themselves up as professional writers or reviewers, never feeling good or experienced enough, since we seem to lack the sense of entitlement that some men seem to carry around with them. Yes, I have trouble with all of the above, but I’m working on it, because I know that I am more than a pile of paired socks.

Vida repeated their count this year. Nothing much has changed. We ought to keep shouting about it until it does.

Thinking of doing a Creative Writing MA?

I’ll be upfront: I didn’t think of any of these things when I applied for mine, but hindsight is terrific, isn’t it? If you’re thinking of making a last minute application, as I did, here are a couple things that might be confounding you.

1. Location. This depends more on your stage of life. If you are settled and have a family then you’re much less likely to be able to up sticks and moved to another town. However, even if you come to it straight from your first degree you might be so heavily laden with debt that moving to a new town or staying in your old student town just isn’t viable.

So, could you travel instead?

One of my classmates lived at home in Glasgow but got a cheap flight once a week to London. Cheaper than upping sticks and moving to the capital. Could you afford the time and cash to travel to your preferred course even if you can’t move there on a more permanent basis?

Check the teaching hours: if they’re condensed into one or two consecutive days this might work for you. Call or email the department and ask to talk to someone about the practicalities of studying and balancing work. They are very aware that people do have to earn money to do things like eat.

Similarly, if the course closest to you isn’t your first choice that doesn’t mean it won’t be the right one for you, which leads me to…

2. Tutors. The best piece of advice I got was from another creative writing tutor who said “be taught by someone whose work you admire”. It’s obvious really – if you admire their writing, then perhaps they write in a similar way or genre to you, and you will learn tons. However, you can only afford to be this picky if location isn’t an issue.

I had to pay this advice no attention and I really lucked out. I learned two things:

  1. Fiction writers can learn a lot from poets
  2. If someone has been published and is employed by a reputable course director to teach, they will probably know what they’re talking about.

My only regret is that in the years since I graduated the teaching staff for my course has expanded, and I’d really like to work with some if the new faculty.

Don’t be dazzled by a big name in other words. But if you can, read the tutors’ work before the course starts. It’s polite for one, and you learn by reading anything, for two. It’s a win whichever way you look at it. (Yes, even if you don’t like it.)

3. Going back into Education. My only advice is don’t worry about it. You will not be the only one. You will be able to get help and advice from your tutors. You will have access to amazing libraries and other resources. You will rise to the challenge.

I had one meeting with a tutor when I was close to tears. I can barely remember why, but I was feeling lost and confused, and regretting ever doing the MA in the first place. We had a great chat, she drew me a diagram that really helped, and she didn’t even mention how teary I clearly was. I went away feeling slightly foolish, but bolstered.

See, the thing is that when you’re on the course you are a writer among writers, and that includes the people teaching you. Your tutors know exactly how you feel, because they have been in your position – unpublished, uncertain. But what I do know is that the good writers are always generous with their craft, their time and their wallet in the pub. Ok, so maybe more often than not you’ll want to buy them a drink, but the other two are definitely true.

If you’re hesitating, just stop. Get your application in, and see where it takes you.

(For the curious, I did my MA with Andrew Motion, Jo Shapcott and Susanna Jones here: MA Creative Writing at Royal Holloway (taught in central London). I’m still processing some of the things I was taught.)

 

What Happened to your New Year Resolutions?

Somehow it’s almost March. Where, what, how etc etc… They were right, time does fly when you’re older.

And it’s about this time of year that you glance up and realise you’ve forgotten what you intended to change from last year to this.

I’m not necessarily talking about writing, although in a roundabout way it is about writing. Everything is, one way or another. But whatever it was you meant to do and haven’t, don’t throw yourself down a well of despair.

All you need to do is dust off the intentions and resolutions you forgot about and seeing if there’s new life in them. It’s easy for me. I just have to have a look at some old blog posts and see if I managed to fulfil any of the rash promises I might have made.

Remember that intention I had to get a new habit of daily writing for at least 66 days? No, I didn’t either, until a comment on the writer’s playground* made me think of it again.

Perhaps it’s because I hadn’t made it visible to myself. It’s ok for practices to languish in the computer until I want to read them again, because they don’t need the light of day to make them breathe. That happens when I read them. But if I want to keep that commitment to daily writing, then it helps to have something staring me in the face.

Something I can’t ignore or forget about.

Like a calendar on the wall.

The wall I see from my bed, perhaps. I get into and out of bed every day after all. I can’t ignore that wall.

And that’s what I’ve done. Trying again has a lot going for it.

So the motto of the post would be? Oh we don’t need mottos. We’re fallible. Just fail better next time, as Samuel Beckett would say.

*Members only, I’m afraid. But you could join, you know. We’re all very nice.

Healthy Writer, Healthy novel.

I recently decided enough was enough and I needed to get healthy. There’s an app for it (Couch to 5K). There’s an app for everything, these days, but not all of them are as useful.

What has this got to do with writing?

Ever wondered how it is you’re going to sit down for the better part of a year, write a book, and not get backache and/or fat?

Yeah. That’s what it’s got to do with writing. I’m not the world’s biggest exercise fan. ‘Cross Country Run’ was about my most hated phrase at school (along with ‘what you lookin’ at?’) and all of my attempts at fitness in my adult life have culminated in me sitting on the sofa with a packet of ready salted and the tv remote.

Haruki Murakami wrote a book called ‘What I talk about when I talk about Running‘. He runs marathons, does Murakami San. He claims that it helps build up the stamina necessary for sustained novel writing, as well as keeping him fit. I think he’s right: there has to be a benefit of training the body  to run long distances that translates to training the mind to concentrate for long periods of time.

Since having a child, my concentration is truly shot, which I put down to having to be available at a moment’s notice. I am constantly interruptable and interrupted and sustaining one thought for longer than three minutes is almost impossible. Since I’m clearly unfit too, I realised there was no harm at all in taking up running.

Yes, the thing that I profess to hate.

Here’s the thing: I only hate it because I think I can’t do it. I have dodgy knees (get the right shoes), mahoosive betties (get the right bra), and a fear of running outside where ‘people’ can see me (join the leisure centre and run on a treadmill). So I did all three, and started doing my couch to 5k runs.

The local leisure centre is a revelation. You have the bonus of being able to watch everyone else in there and make up stories about them. You can disappear into your own head and mull over nothing or something. You can take your time and learn to run at your own pace. I also think that getting off the sofa in order to do one thing, means you’re more likely to get off the sofa to do another.

Of course, running may not be your thing. The other sport I tried recently that I was terrifically keen on was archery. Not so much about stamina and fitness as putting arrows through things, which is, let’s face it, hugely satisfying. So if you wouldn’t run, what would you do?

 

Creating your own practice

A common worry with practice is that it involves too many prompts and nudges from outside, and is therefore not legitimate Writing (see that capital W? Makes all the difference).

Firstly, it’s all legitimate. No one else is doing the writing, the idea generating, the sentence  construction. It’s all you.

Secondly, you can learn a lot from being pushed by something external to your own mind.

But, thirdly, if you generate your own ideas for practice you’ll quickly understand what interests you and where your preoccupations lie as a writer. It’s a shortcut to your unconscious.

So how do you go about it?

Well, the tutor who gave me the title for this blogsimply noted down things that interested her in a little notebook she carried around. Her practice was so advanced that she only needed a sentence or two to recreate a whole story about the trials of trying on clothes in a Marks & Spencer (a clothing store, for you non UK folk).

Image credit: Gary Hayes

But it could be anything – a building you like the look of. A person with luggage of unusual size. A row between serving staff in a restaurant. Anything that sets your writerly brain off with a train of questions – where is she going with that enormous case? To dispose of a body? Perhaps she’s stolen a grandmother clock that had been willed away from her by a vicious relative and she doesn’t have a car so she has to drag it across town, dismantled and crammed into a huge case which will obviously damage the clock beyond repair? But why does the clock mean so much to her?

Image Credit: cwgoodroe

You see, the best writing is simply paying really close attention and putting down into words what we all see, hear and feel, but let wash past us most of the time. This applies no matter what kind of writing you’re doing.

(Did you notice the bird? I didn’t at first.)

If you are always looking for things to note down for your practice, then you are always open to ideas, and you are always paying attention.

After you’ve started writing you might find that the mundane questions get replaced with something far more interesting. Or they might not. It doesn’t matter either way – you’ve paid attention. You’ve tried out the idea. Sometimes they have legs and sometimes they don’t.

Buy yourself a tiny notebook, or make notes on your electronic device of choice, and try this exercise next time you’re out:

Come Back with a Face

This is one of my own, and one I do most frequently. My preoccupation is people, obviously.

While you are out, make brief notes about the appearance of someone you find interesting.

For your practice, invent the life behind the face. This can be quite surprising, and lead you  a long way from where you started. Just remember not to tie the face to the place you see it, or you’ll be in too tight a corner.

(Indoor variation: search Flickr for ‘interesting face’.)

Image Credit: JakeBrewer

Happy Practicing!