Judith Cranswick's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"
When Life Gets in the Way…
We’ve all experienced it – the novel progresses reasonably well then life gets in the way and things grind to a halt. It may be a holiday, an illness, a family crisis or a major upheaval such as a house move. It’s not just our time but our whole preoccupation that’s focussed elsewhere. It’s bad enough trying to get back into the writing routine after a relatively short break but when things stretch out into weeks and months the greater the effort needed to find the enthusiasm to get back to work. That’s what it is – work – hard work and suddenly we find more and more excuses to hold us back.
The situation is compounded if the break happens around the time of the ‘soggy middle’ – the mid-point crisis when our enthusiasm for the novel has already begun to waver. That point when you have great doubts about the whole enterprise. The characters lack depth, the plot is going nowhere, the spark has gone and the language laboured and uninspired. The daily word count drops dramatically. Writing is no longer a joy. It reaches the point at which, to quote George Orwell – ‘writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness.’
However much I enjoy the writing even when things are going well, I like many others, find getting started each day isn’t easy. Is it’s any wonder that I find good excuses to do other things?
I have to confess that it’s been well over two months since I’ve even looked at the novel in progress! First came the trip to Japan. Our holidays are always full-on affairs – no sitting by the pool for us. We’re on the go from morning till night. What with the preparations and the sorting out when we get back – washing and catching up on all the things that I would have done while I was away – this can easily stretch to an extra week. This time it took a few days to get back into the swing of things and I’ll admit I did manage a couple of weeks of half-hearted writing before my course. There was a bit of preparation before the training days but, combined with time out for the research and putting together the presentation for the final stage, it’s been just over two months during which the latest novel didn’t get a look-in! Still the course is now done and dusted and I can add Destinations and Port Lecturer to my Cruise Lecture Repertoire. As you may have read on some of my previous blogs, I enjoy talking about writing and the writer’s life on board ship and as travel is the inspiration for my novels, the opportunity to increase my scope and spend more time cruising was one I couldn’t turn down.
Just to throw another spanner in the works – we’re having our kitchen refitted! My study has now become the temporary kitchen! That’s a whole other saga – let’s just say there was a two and a half week delay. One thing after another.
However, I’ve now run out of excuses so it’s back to ‘Blood Hits the Wall’ – not with a great deal of enthusiasm, I might add.
Now the good news! I wrote the above three days ago and now I’ve started things have gone exceptionally well! The ideas are flowing, as are the words. Obviously, subconsciously my brain has been mulling over the plot and getting me out of all those little holes I’d written myself into. I can’t say there haven’t been problems – just when I get into full flow, the workman comes through and asks for the electricity to be switched off which means closing down all my PC files. I tend to work with several open for reference. I can’t write on my laptop.
The moral is – don’t despair. Yes, it’s good to write everyday, but the sky won’t fall in if you have a forced break. Sometimes it even helps to think about something else entirely for a while. Keep telling yourself, it’s happened to you before (if you are writing your first novel – believe me it will happen with the next, and the next and the next) and you still ended up with a good product. Have faith. You are a writer.
Please tell me, it’s not just me! What are your experiences?
www.judithcranswick.co.uk
The situation is compounded if the break happens around the time of the ‘soggy middle’ – the mid-point crisis when our enthusiasm for the novel has already begun to waver. That point when you have great doubts about the whole enterprise. The characters lack depth, the plot is going nowhere, the spark has gone and the language laboured and uninspired. The daily word count drops dramatically. Writing is no longer a joy. It reaches the point at which, to quote George Orwell – ‘writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness.’
However much I enjoy the writing even when things are going well, I like many others, find getting started each day isn’t easy. Is it’s any wonder that I find good excuses to do other things?
I have to confess that it’s been well over two months since I’ve even looked at the novel in progress! First came the trip to Japan. Our holidays are always full-on affairs – no sitting by the pool for us. We’re on the go from morning till night. What with the preparations and the sorting out when we get back – washing and catching up on all the things that I would have done while I was away – this can easily stretch to an extra week. This time it took a few days to get back into the swing of things and I’ll admit I did manage a couple of weeks of half-hearted writing before my course. There was a bit of preparation before the training days but, combined with time out for the research and putting together the presentation for the final stage, it’s been just over two months during which the latest novel didn’t get a look-in! Still the course is now done and dusted and I can add Destinations and Port Lecturer to my Cruise Lecture Repertoire. As you may have read on some of my previous blogs, I enjoy talking about writing and the writer’s life on board ship and as travel is the inspiration for my novels, the opportunity to increase my scope and spend more time cruising was one I couldn’t turn down.
Just to throw another spanner in the works – we’re having our kitchen refitted! My study has now become the temporary kitchen! That’s a whole other saga – let’s just say there was a two and a half week delay. One thing after another.
However, I’ve now run out of excuses so it’s back to ‘Blood Hits the Wall’ – not with a great deal of enthusiasm, I might add.
Now the good news! I wrote the above three days ago and now I’ve started things have gone exceptionally well! The ideas are flowing, as are the words. Obviously, subconsciously my brain has been mulling over the plot and getting me out of all those little holes I’d written myself into. I can’t say there haven’t been problems – just when I get into full flow, the workman comes through and asks for the electricity to be switched off which means closing down all my PC files. I tend to work with several open for reference. I can’t write on my laptop.
The moral is – don’t despair. Yes, it’s good to write everyday, but the sky won’t fall in if you have a forced break. Sometimes it even helps to think about something else entirely for a while. Keep telling yourself, it’s happened to you before (if you are writing your first novel – believe me it will happen with the next, and the next and the next) and you still ended up with a good product. Have faith. You are a writer.
Please tell me, it’s not just me! What are your experiences?
www.judithcranswick.co.uk
What Does Your Fiction Say About You?
Readers often identify the main protagonist in a novel with the author, especially if it is a series character.
I’m guilty of that myself. One of my favourite writers is Zoe Sharp. Her main character, ex-Special Forces Charlie Fox appears in the first novel Killer Instinct teaching self-defence but in the later novels she works as a bodyguard. Ever since I first met Zoe, as I read the novels I can’t help picturing Charlie as Zoe. The two have much in common. Charlie is a gun-toting maverick always jumping on her powerful motor bike. Amongst her hobbies Zoe cites “fast cars (and faster motorbikes) and target shooting.” I’m not sure about the maverick bit, but she and her husband did build their own house in the Lake District. At one of her talks, she mentioned that in the process she managed she cut off the top of her finger. When her husband rushed over she put out a hand to stop him with the command, ‘Let me see how the blood drips.’ The things people do for their art! If you’ve never read a Zoe Sharp novel try Roadkill and you’ll see what I mean about bikes!
It’s a well-known claim that the first novel of a great many writers is autobiographical. Up to a point, it’s easy to see why. The protagonist tends to react to situations in the same way that the author would. The character tends to have the same interests, to share similar experiences and use the same vocabulary. It’s inevitable. We write what we know.
Thinking about the main character in my novels, Sarah, in my first published novel All in the Mind and I, undoubtedly share a great deal; our strong faith for one. The things that are important to her are to me and although I was not a college principal, I was a head teacher with first-hand experience of difficult faculty and governor meetings. To a much lesser extent than Sarah, I too know the struggle of trying to make my mark in a male dominated environment. The problem that I faced was that my readers assumed it was considerably more autobiographical than it was. I was constantly having to explain that Nathan was nothing like my husband and that I was very happily married, I get on very well with my two brothers and that my parents had nothing in common with Sarah’s.
To a greater or lesser extent, all writers pepper their novels with things they have experienced. As you might expect, I have spent a holiday, more often than not as a coach tour, covering the same territory as in each of my Fiona Mason Mysteries. It’s impossible to write convincingly about areas I’ve never visited. The same goes for the Galapagos Islands and the Amazon Eco lodge in A Death too Far. However, it’s the little things that happen on those holidays that find their way into the novels that help to add a touch of realism. For example on our coach trip to the Rhine Valley that forms the setting for Blood in the Wine, like one of my characters, I did slip down the last two steps of the fire escape stairs and rick my ankle. As I was writing the book, I realised that the incident would be an excellent way of achieving something that I needed to happen later in the plot. Those of you who have read the book will know what I’m talking about. There is a danger of attempting to include all sorts of minor if interesting occurrences but, as all writers know, nothing can be included that is not relevant to the plot.
Writers are often castigated for the views held by their characters particularly those of the protagonist as though they express the views of the author her- or himself. However illogical, the instinct of the reader is marry the two. In these days of social media when there are pictures of the writer on their Facebook page, website and blog etc, one can see why. If a main character is the same sex and similar age, the reader tends to picture the author as they read. I do it myself.
As we write, we see the situation through the eyes of our character – that’s what makes good writing – but how much do we as writers identify with our creations? Are we conscious of it as we write? To what extent does it affect us as writers? It was while I was writing Watcher in the Shadows that one day when I was walking down the High Street in Old Town, I caught sight of myself in the plate-glass window of a shop I was passing. I was walking like my psychopathic Watcher! I glanced guiltily around but I don’t think anyone else had noticed!
If not like us, are our characters people we would like to be? Do they achieve things, have experiences we aspire to? More importantly, do we ever let our protagonist do something we would never do not because we haven’t the courage but because it would go against the things we hold dear?
If I’m honest, in my case, the answer is probably, no.
For an illustrated version of this post, see my website - www.judithcranswick.co.uk
I’m guilty of that myself. One of my favourite writers is Zoe Sharp. Her main character, ex-Special Forces Charlie Fox appears in the first novel Killer Instinct teaching self-defence but in the later novels she works as a bodyguard. Ever since I first met Zoe, as I read the novels I can’t help picturing Charlie as Zoe. The two have much in common. Charlie is a gun-toting maverick always jumping on her powerful motor bike. Amongst her hobbies Zoe cites “fast cars (and faster motorbikes) and target shooting.” I’m not sure about the maverick bit, but she and her husband did build their own house in the Lake District. At one of her talks, she mentioned that in the process she managed she cut off the top of her finger. When her husband rushed over she put out a hand to stop him with the command, ‘Let me see how the blood drips.’ The things people do for their art! If you’ve never read a Zoe Sharp novel try Roadkill and you’ll see what I mean about bikes!
It’s a well-known claim that the first novel of a great many writers is autobiographical. Up to a point, it’s easy to see why. The protagonist tends to react to situations in the same way that the author would. The character tends to have the same interests, to share similar experiences and use the same vocabulary. It’s inevitable. We write what we know.
Thinking about the main character in my novels, Sarah, in my first published novel All in the Mind and I, undoubtedly share a great deal; our strong faith for one. The things that are important to her are to me and although I was not a college principal, I was a head teacher with first-hand experience of difficult faculty and governor meetings. To a much lesser extent than Sarah, I too know the struggle of trying to make my mark in a male dominated environment. The problem that I faced was that my readers assumed it was considerably more autobiographical than it was. I was constantly having to explain that Nathan was nothing like my husband and that I was very happily married, I get on very well with my two brothers and that my parents had nothing in common with Sarah’s.
To a greater or lesser extent, all writers pepper their novels with things they have experienced. As you might expect, I have spent a holiday, more often than not as a coach tour, covering the same territory as in each of my Fiona Mason Mysteries. It’s impossible to write convincingly about areas I’ve never visited. The same goes for the Galapagos Islands and the Amazon Eco lodge in A Death too Far. However, it’s the little things that happen on those holidays that find their way into the novels that help to add a touch of realism. For example on our coach trip to the Rhine Valley that forms the setting for Blood in the Wine, like one of my characters, I did slip down the last two steps of the fire escape stairs and rick my ankle. As I was writing the book, I realised that the incident would be an excellent way of achieving something that I needed to happen later in the plot. Those of you who have read the book will know what I’m talking about. There is a danger of attempting to include all sorts of minor if interesting occurrences but, as all writers know, nothing can be included that is not relevant to the plot.
Writers are often castigated for the views held by their characters particularly those of the protagonist as though they express the views of the author her- or himself. However illogical, the instinct of the reader is marry the two. In these days of social media when there are pictures of the writer on their Facebook page, website and blog etc, one can see why. If a main character is the same sex and similar age, the reader tends to picture the author as they read. I do it myself.
As we write, we see the situation through the eyes of our character – that’s what makes good writing – but how much do we as writers identify with our creations? Are we conscious of it as we write? To what extent does it affect us as writers? It was while I was writing Watcher in the Shadows that one day when I was walking down the High Street in Old Town, I caught sight of myself in the plate-glass window of a shop I was passing. I was walking like my psychopathic Watcher! I glanced guiltily around but I don’t think anyone else had noticed!
If not like us, are our characters people we would like to be? Do they achieve things, have experiences we aspire to? More importantly, do we ever let our protagonist do something we would never do not because we haven’t the courage but because it would go against the things we hold dear?
If I’m honest, in my case, the answer is probably, no.
For an illustrated version of this post, see my website - www.judithcranswick.co.uk
