Let’s have a closer look at what practice is, or perhaps I should come at it from a different direction and say what practice isn’t.

It’s not journalling.

It’s not stream of consciousness writing.

It’s not morning pages.

All of these things are useful tools for a writer’s toolkit, and they have their purposes, but practicing is more than simply turning up to the page and writing whatever comes into your head.

Writing freeform and undirected is a great way of warming up, but it doesn’t necessarily make you better at description or dialogue. Once your mind has got rid of its everyday clutter and chatter, then you have the space to focus on aspects of writing you find difficult, or just practise something you find enjoyable.

Photo credit: Willster K

Other art forms give us a good insight into what directed practice can be: singers do scales, or go over difficult pieces of music. A ballet dancer practices the basic steps, plies, and arabesques before they try a new choreography. Painters often learn to paint by copying the old masters. They warm up, in other words, but in ways that strengthen the basic knowledge of their art, and give them solid foundations to stand on when they create something new.

It’s the same with writing fiction.

You might worry that using prompts and practices will lead you to write in a certain way, or like everyone else, but it’s simply not possible. You always bring yourself to your writing, and you are unique, so your practice will be too.

Think about when we learn to write, physically, with a pen: we practise the letter forms over and over again. Over time, our confidence and skill grows, and we develop our own style of handwriting.

Practice is only ever a starting point. You might notice that certain themes or characters keep popping their heads up when you practise. They might be new to you, or old friends, but if this does happen, don’t feel the pressure to try and keep them out. You never know what your mind might be trying to tell you.

And what should you do with your practices? Nothing if you don’t want to. But – keep them. Somewhere safe, where you don’t have to look at them. You might want to later, say in six months, to see if there are ideas worth mining, but if you can’t bear the thought, then just know you have done the work, and that is valuable enough.

Later this week I’ll be posting about creating your own source of practices, but for now sharpen your pencils and keep writing.

New Year. We all love the sound of a fresh leaf turning. Maybe you’ve already made a resolution to make more space and time for your writing. I know the feeling, because I’ve made that same resolution I don’t know how many times.

But you’ve got it wrong.

There is only one resolution you can make that will make you want to write more, and will help you be a better writer.

Read More.

Maybe you got a Kindle for Christmas, or a bundle of book tokens, or, if you’re really lucky, a stack of new books handpicked by someone who knows you really well. Don’t wait. Dive in and start reading.

If you didn’t get something new, or don’t have something unread on your shelves waiting for your attention, then pick up something you love and start reading it again.

Just read.

Read as a reader, and read as a writer.

Take pleasure in the way stories unfold, in the pace and heft of the prose. Take note of how much you already know ten pages in. That’s about 3000 words of writing: how much does your first 3000 say? Delight in great descriptions, and delight more in figuring out how you would have said something better.

Engage with the words, get lost in the rhythms. Remember why you love the written word.

If you’re stuck for something to read next, or want to try something new, go for a browse in a bookshop, check out Goodreads, or ask someone you trust. (Remember, trusting someone’s book reading habits is not exactly the same as liking them, but it is a pretty good indicator of whether you’ll get on.)

Take a couple from my bedside table, if you like:

Freedom
I wanted to read this when it first came out, because I adored the Corrections. I seem to have both a trade paperback and a kindle edition. I’ll probably read the Kindle because there are a lot of words.

The Penguin Book of Norse Myths: Gods of the Vikings
Likewise I have a paperback and the kindle edition. My husband bought me the paperback for Christmas without knowing I’d already bought it for Kindle. Smart fella.

If you’re writing, then reading is technically doing work. It’s legitimate, and absolutely not optional.

And remember, if you’re going to try writing something big, then the thing you enjoy reading the most is probably the kind of thing you should be writing. If you have shelves full of science fiction then chances are you’re not going to be able to sustain writing an historical romance. Writing a novel is a long business, and when your stamina fails, as it inevitably will on some days, you’ll need passion to carry you through to the next day.

Reading is the key. Whenever you feel blocked, and crazy, and want to give up, just read instead. You’ll find your way back, I promise.

What do you do when you feel utterly empty of words?

I read, and I daydream.

Daydreaming only happens if I get absorbed in a repetitive task like walking, or painting skirting boards (as I’ve been doing this week), something that requires very little high level thought from me, but produces something close to a kind of trance. Thoughts get the chance to rise up and roam around of their own accord, without too much input from me.

It’s a treat to have daydreaming back in my life. Modern life is so full of distractions (hello Twitter) that I’m finding it harder and harder to create the kind of dreamy state I seemed to live in almost permanently as a child.And as a grown up with a house to run and a child to raise, justifying time where you’re simply staring off into space is really hard.

On the plus side, having discovered that decorating is a great way to get a bit of thinking time, I now want to paint the whole house, since it means I’m technically doing chores.

Reading is much easier to justify, and this week I’ve been visiting a couple of very interesting blogs, and getting my fiction fix from a brilliant collection of short stories:

Do subscribe to The School of Life’s blog, which is run by a modern philosophy club of sorts. I was a philosophy major, so I know full well how the word philosophy can scare a person, but philosophy is only thinking about how we ought to live, why things are the way they are, and how we can make things better. Academic philosophy has become so specialised and (dare I say) insular that this essential truth gets lost in translation.

The School of Life has some very interesting classes, weekends, and ‘sermons’ to attend, just to get you thinking outside your usual tram lines, if you’re anywhere near central London. I’m completely excited by a sermon on Cosmic Connections, because I am blown away by the knowledge that we are made of stars every time I think about it.

I’ve also been noodling around Brain Pickings, a collection of really cool, interesting things, encompassing everything from five creative manifestos, to a map of a woman’s heart. I love this site already, and we’ve only been friends for a week.

On the Kindle this week I’ve been ploughing through The Best British Short Stories 2011, from amazing indie publisher Salt (also available in paperback). I promise you, never will you spend 86 pence more wisely – it is an utter bargain for some of the most arresting fiction I’ve read this year.

What’s been filling your well lately?

If so I could really do with it, just to take the pressure off. I suspect I’m not alone.

Oh Money. Let’s not be all airy fairy and pretend that we don’t think about it. We have mortgages, and bills, and children who need shoes, and pets who need vaccinations, and relatives who live a weekend visit away because you had to move to get work.We could all do with a little bit more.

You don’t want to be defined by it, I know. Neither do I. But we are. “What do you do?” is one of the first things you get asked by a new acquaintance. You know you’re supposed to respond with what brings in the dosh, not the things that bring you joy, like old letterpress restoration or tap dancing.

Pity those of us, who, for whatever reason, have no definable monetary role, and therefore no easy way to answer the question. The mouth thickens, the tongue stumbles into teeth, the apologies for your existence begin to flow, because your questioner has already glazed over, having made a subtle calculation, unconsciously no doubt, that you can be of no use in their own career, and therefore cease to be of interest.

No, of course it’s not like that every time.

But enough of the time, it is.

I have my own in-house careers service in my best friend (not strictly in-house, but she’s like family, so good enough). In the summer we lay on the grass in St James’s Park, staring at the clouds, and she helped me work through my anxiety about saying that I’m a writer.

“It’s because I’ve never been paid to do it,” I confessed. “I feel fraudulent.”

“So the money would make you legitimate?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“How much would you have to earn to call yourself a writer?”

“I dunno. Twenty quid?”

We laughed. But it raises a serious point, in that many of us find it difficult to take our work as writers (or artists or photographers or whatever) seriously, until we’ve been paid. How much money something is worth is how our culture places value on things, and the corresponding creed we live by is that if you haven’t been paid for it then what you do has no value.

Galling.

And so we struggle on as artists, because we feel strongly, and rightly, that there’s more to this life than just making money, but until we’re published, or sell a picture, we have to keep afloat the idea that what we’re doing has value. It’s very tiring. It can also feel lonely and shameful, when there are so many other things you could be doing.

I’m not going to tell you that you ought to answer the question ‘what do you do?’ with ‘I’m a writer’. Everyone has to come to their own conclusion about when they’re ready to deal with the follow up of ‘oh really? I always thought I could write a novel if I had the time’.

What I am going to tell you is that it’s ok to call yourself a writer in your own head. It’s ok to push the dishes to one side and write, instead of clearing up. It’s ok to take walks through the woods while you mull over your plot. It’s ok to sacrifice haircuts and shoes and work part-time to get more space for writing, if that’s what you want.

It’s ok to live differently.

Which is not to say that you have to give up on the idea of being paid for doing something you love. Just accept that it might take a while, and it might not be as much as you’d like. Me? I’m trying hard to make space for writing anyway, but I’m still hanging out for that twenty quid. Wanna chip in a pound?

 *Obviously this is a hilarious visual joke, but you know, not really, because you can pay for the words if you like. The button really works. But just so you know, I don’t expect you to. Obviously.

As a hangover from our school system we all get that feeling of September being a fresh start – like a bonus ‘new-year-turn-over-a-new-leaf ‘event. Right on cue the Autumn winds arrived, to start whipping the leaves off the trees, and driving rain into my face. Yes, I felt giddy with possibilities as I pulled on my Wolfskin and headed out of the door yesterday.

Conkers.

Crumble.

New pencil case.

Since my other occupation (sewing) is currently impossible (sewing machine buried under stuff that ought to be on eBay) and we have a new table (Ikea) and some functioning dining chairs (new obsession – upholstery), lately I often find myself at the kitchen table, sitting on a slightly rickety chair, with my laptop open and the kettle on.

Surprisingly this is a good place to write for me. I’ve experimented around the house, in all the rooms and all the chairs, and it seems that the place that makes me most productive is the one place you’d think I’d get distracted by all the jobs I ought to be doing. Luckily I’m enough of a domestic slut that I have no trouble ignoring the things I ought to be doing, in favour of things I’d rather be doing.

I know that Virginia says we need a room of one’s own, and that’s all very well, but how many of us can really have that luxury? Better to amend the exhortation to a place of one’s own, because I think this is necessary. In conjunction with the notebook you like, and the special pen, sitting down in the place where you write best helps your brain take shortcuts to the bit you want to get to. And we are all creatures of habit, even if you think you’re not: we run in little grooves, and make routines for ourselves that let us function on autopilot to get things done – imagine the horror of having to think everything through from scratch every day! It would be like starting a new job all the time.

But this is a great time of year to forge a new routine, and breathe some life back into your writing habits. Experiment around the house, and out of the house, until it feels right, until you have a great writing session that makes you feel giddy, and by October, you’ll be back on autopilot again.

So rejoice in the season changing, in children going back to school, in new shoes, winter coats, and rib-sticking stews. More than anything the promise of the new pencil case is that we antisocial creatures are freed from the pressure to go outside and enjoy the sunshine, making terrible small talk at barbeques, and can hole up with books and pens and as much of our own company as we can stand. Bliss.