A Short Interlude …
Good, old fashioned work. Perfect pencil and proofs!
Today I managed to really upset another writer. Entirely accidentally. In fact, going through the twitter messages, I still don’t quite see where I managed to hit her somewhere painful, but there you go.
I guess that all writers can tend to have soft parts that bruise too easily – but if that’s going to get you angry, you shouldn’t be a writer. After all, writing as a process means setting out in detail intimate ideas, thoughts and feelings, and if you feel battered by seeing your work commented on, you’re really in the wrong business.
The discussion I (thought I) was having with the other writer was about how we work.
My correspondent commented that she always worked through each paragraph carefully. Well yes, so do we all. She went on to say that with her books, she always sent them out to friends and writers for their critiques.
I pointed out that with my books I tend to work on them for what seems like an eternity, and when I’m happy with them, I send them off to the editor and agent for their criticism. They are, after all, the professionals.
This got her goat – big time. I was told off for making comments on her work and her way of working (no. I was engaging with her in a discussion, I thought), and she then went thermo-nuclear with suggestions that if I wanted to discuss how long we’d been writing etc … well, you can see it all on Twitter, if your life is boring enough today.
The latest proofs done. Back to trying to write again!
What I would just like to say is, writing is not a precious art form. It’s work. I work one way: I plan and plot, I write, I edit (much of the time as I go along), and then edit again on full print outs. Only when I’m happy with the book do I send it off to the editor and agent.
Other people work differently. I know authors who came up, unlike me, from writing groups. They tend to circulate their work amongst friends and writers. One classic example is my friend Chris Samson, who always favours some of his friends with copies before he sends his work off to the publisher. That’s fine. It works for Chris. It wouldn’t for me, for several reasons. It doesn’t mean I look down on him.
I can’t. He’s a damn sight taller than me for a start.
However, the other thing is, I don’t think it is the job of my friends, family, or other writers, to read my work until it’s been edited and is almost ready to go to print. Why on earth would I push my work in front of someone before it’s been edited? That, to me, seems damn cheeky. I wouldn’t want other people to thrust uncopyedited manuscripts in front of me. I don’t have time to read for pleasure just now, let alone doing free editorial work for other writers.
That’s my view. And it is only my view.
The proofs so far this year. Is it any wonder my eyesight’s fading along with my brain?
All writers work in their own sweet way. In fact all of us, over time, will change how we work. I used to work from a strict plan and timeline. I would set out an entire plot on A4 sheets of paper sellotaped together to create a flow chart. Do I do that now? No, of course not. Now I scribble notes daily, consider themes and let ideas fester for a while. Then, when it’s all loosely sorted in my head, I start to write. Once or twice I’ve started from the last scene, and gone back and written the story after. Sometimes I’ve begun in the middle, mostly I start at the beginning. I think I have a pretty sequential approach to story-telling.
Is this right for everyone? No.
Does that mean someone can tell me I’m wrong to work this way? Of course not!
Creative people, and writers are all creative, have to figure out the best way for each of them to work. If you want to write, do it the way that suits you best. If you want to write paragraphs and put each in front of your wife, then do so (mine would pull her hair out); if you want to write the entire book and get it into the best form you can and then send it to an agent, do that!
No one can prescribe for you how to write any more than they can prescribe what you should write. Writers know instinctively what is good or bad, or they shouldn’t be writers.
And please, if another writer tells you how they work, don’t think it’s criticism. They may just be trying to engage you in conversation!
Tagged: authors, books, novelist, process, publishing, writing
