Seven (or eight) Stages of Writer's Grief...

I came back home from my holidays to receive some free books – more of which anon – and a couple of rejections. Such is a writer’s life. You’d think you’d get used to it, but NO, each one takes a day or two to convalesce. During that time it’s like recovering from being dumped. You know how it is, you drag your feet, your heart is like a stone in your chest and you think you’ll never be able to met anyone else (or write another word).

It’s fair to say that you go through the various stages of grief.

Denial – No, not again. No, not having it. This is not happening to me! Is that addressed to me? Is it even my book? They’ve sent it to the wrong person surely. It’s a mix up. They read mine and loved it. Read another and hated it and then they mixed up the responses. Simples. I’ll just send them a polite enquiry. Hey, fuckwit, did you mean to send this to me?

And this leads nicely on to...

Anger – What do these people know? Feckin’ numpties. Couldn’t spot a potential hit if it had BESTSELLER written all over it. Halfwits the lot of ‘em. Bet they were the ones that turned down Rowling. Don’t they recognise I have the readability of King, the lyricism of James Lee Burke, the pace of Dan Brown, the insight of Freud? Can’t they SEE that, or are their heads so far up their own arses they need a torch just so they can brush their teeth? I’ll show them. I’ll fucking show them...

Which brings us rather neatly to...

Bargaining – Right, I’ll send them a letter. No, I’ll phone them. That will show them that I’m serious about my craft. The bastards. Ooops, slipping back into ANGER there. Calm. Breathe. No, better not phone them, sitting there in their fucking ivory towers with their double-barrelled names and their trust funds from mummy and daddy. Oops, with the anger again. Calm. Breathe.

No. I’ll write and ask them what I should do to improve. Ask what needs working on. Plot? Character? Pace? Setting? What else should I do? Should I get myself on TV, would that help? What if I was on I’m A Celebrity Get Me A Brain Cell, I bet that would get me a book deal? What if I shag somebody famous? I know, I’ll get a penis extension and they can film it for a documentary. Nah, not liking that idea. You should never allow a scalpel anywhere near your man junk. I’ll get a boob job. A wee wax and a D cup should do it.

Depression – I bet they wouldn’t go for the boob job. They’ll think it’s a bit lame. They’ll complain that writers are supposed to be hiding behind their desks, not hogging the lime-light. We’re all blushing violets with the marketing skills of a plank of wood and we should speak only when phoned up by The Times. Like that’s ever going to happen.

Why do I bother? Just set myself up for disappointment every time. I should realise I’m a fraud, a fake, a failure and I have all the talent of a pus-filled boil on David Cameron’s arse. (He has got feck all to do with writing, I like to have a go at him every now and again.) I’ll just go and cower under my quilt. I might pop out now and again, wearing baggy shorts, socks up to my knees and a vest that is more holes than vest to eat cornflakes straight from the box with a second course of a bucket of Hagen-Daz ice cream.

Acceptance – Well...that last one was maybe not good enough YET, but I can learn from it, no? I got in a lot of practise and I can read through it and see where it could be improved upon. The feedback from the publisher was a bit vague and contradicted the feedback from the last publisher, which means that really most of them know fuck all and they’re as clueless as the rest of us. Oh for chrissake there I go slipping into anger again.

No, I’m calm.

I’m one more NO closer to a YES. I just have to learn more and practise more and be even better than the guys and gals who are currently being published. My middle name is Nike and I can do it.

That is the accepted seven stages of grief. For writers we should then add another item...

Outrageous Optimism - Actually now that I’ve roused myself sufficiently to begin the next book and after having set aside the 2000 words I wrote a fortnight ago to settle and having just read over them I realise that I’m nothing short of a fucking literary genius. How can they possibly say no? I’m willing to bet my mortgage that EVERYBODY who sees this is going to love it. There’s going to be a bidding war. Publishers will be queuing up to offer ridiculous sums. I’ll knock Katie Price off the gossip mags and I’ve only got tiny tits. I’ll be in all the papers. ITV2 will want to film me as I sit at my desk pretending to blush like a violet. BRING ON THE WORLD. Play the trumpets. Let the lions roar.

The next work of creative brilliance is on its way.

Once more, with feeling...

I just realised that I hadn’t blogged for almost a week...whatcha been doing, dude I hear you ask? Aren’t we your bloggy friends your main priority? Well yes of course you are – ish. I’ve been busy on the manuscript, is the main reason. And I’m happy to report that just the other day I typed those three little words. The goddamn End.

Yes, 140,000 words later and the first draft is done. And can I just publicly thank E at Cliff Cottage for the space, time and support (not to mention the delicious meals, multiple bags of maltesers and lashings of whisky) she has offered me over the last wee while. Without the writing weekends at CC I would be nowhere near the stage I am now. You’re a saint, E. Every writer should be blessed with a benefactor like you.

The stage I am at now is the re-write. See, you think you type those three little words and your job is done. You can crack open the seal on that bottle of whisky, neck a goodly portion of same, put your feet up and relax while dreaming of all the plaudits, adulation, kudos, female attention and cash that your work of undoubted genius is bound to bring in. But then you make the mistake of reading some of it and you realise that the hard work is yet to begin. The Re-write.

I sometimes listen to other writers talking about the process they go through and mentally tick them off as mendacious and self-deluded if they say they love the re-writing process. Who are they kidding? It’s a freakin’slog.

The main difficulty with me is honesty. Reading something I’ve written and giving it an honest appraisal is not easy. These rows of words are my children. Especially that beautifully crafted metaphor on page 11. And then there’s the issue of being caught up in the narrative...we all love a story, don’t we? I read over the text, forget I’m supposed to be editing and ten minutes later I realise I’ve lost my focus and been drawn in to the story. Which is nice ‘cos if I’ve caught myself doing that and I know the story intimately, that’s a good sign, innit? No, it isn’t, ‘cos I miss stuff. So then I need to go back and start all over again.

Anywho, the re-write can wait a few weeks. I need some distance from the work before I can edit it effectively. Besides I feel a bit drained. It takes a lot of mental energy to sustain that kind of effort over the months. Whatever emotions my characters are going through, I need to “experience” a little of that myself. So it’s time to chill, blog and catch up on my reviews for crimesquad.com.

That’s the plan. Except that I’m laid up injured. I went over on my ankle yesterday and did some ligament damage. It’s no funny, Miss W.


There was I, sharp as a new pin on a Sunday morning, bright as a silver button and as hungry as a hunter after a night out on the Saturday. To celebrate my non-hungover status – I was captain sensible – I know when to stop – I walked to the local shop and purchased a newspaper and some munchies that could be used to cook a fry-up. I left the shop swinging my wee bag, mind full of the stomach filling, artery clogging potential of the contents in said bag and suddenly found myself falling shoulder first into a wall. Somebody had made the ground uneven. The pain was awful. The swelling in my ankle was instant. Never a good sign. So while I’m hopping up and down on one leg groaning in a high pitch, fukfukfukfukfukfukfuk, an old man walked past me and said – that doesnae look good, son. No shit, Doctor Moriarty. While my indifferent fellow shopper ambled over to his Ford Focus and drove off, I hopped, stumbled and limped 300 yards to my house. The first 100 were nasty. Thought I was going to have to phone a taxi to take me the rest. The pain reduced to a dull roar and I managed. Wot a trooper.

Accident and Emergency is never my favourite place to while away the hours. Particularly when the sun is shining, I’m the one damaged and I have a bag full of fry-able foods wasting on the kitchen floor.

Long story short-ish, I waited a few hours to be assessed and x-rayed. Nothing broken, but I have suffered some ligament damage. After three. 1...2...3...awwwww.

Right. That was rubbish. Do it again, but this time with feeling.

I’ve to sit with my foot higher than my heart and wiggle my toes once an hour. Try doing that while working on a laptop. No easy. Another thing is that I’ve not to exercise for 6-8 weeks. Time to put back on that fat-suit. Well, I would if I had access to some food. The cupboards are bare and I can’t drive. Not enough flexibility in my ankle to do so safely. Hurrah for Tesco Direct. Problem is they have no delivery slots until tomorrow lunchtime. In the meantime, a quick inventory of my kitchen cupboards reveal that Old Mother Hubbard has been in on a raid. All I have left are 2 apples, 3 tangerines, two tins of tuna, an egg and some frozen chips. Oh, and a bottle of wine. There’s calories in wine, no?

pERSEVERANCE

When Sha’el over at "http://wardancingpixie.blogspot.com/ asked me to come up with a guest blog I was thrown. Yeah, me thrown. All that white space and nothing to say. At first. Then I thought about my usual style on May Contain Nuts...which is ok for me ‘cos this is my blog and I get to decide what goes – it’s good to be the king, as the wee lion once sang – and I worried if my house-style would suit Sha’el and her readers.

In any case I decided just to write and see what came up. And what came up kinda surprised me...and then again it didn’t. It’s something that is on my mind right now. Having been on the cusp of a publishing deal a coupla times I need to keep reminding myself to “keep on keeping on” and that’s what I rabbited, sorry blogged about.

I’ve posted it here as well with a few changes – I’ve allowed more of my MCN house-style to come through- but I’d urge you to go pay Sha’el a visit. Her blog is mostly a showcase for vintage photographs and well worth a visit. I don’t know where she finds her amazing images.

My blog for her starts here...
Do you have a dog? When there’s a knock at the door, who’s the first to reach it? The dog, right? If the door goes 100 times of an evening, the dog will run to it every time. And the thing is... it’s never for him.

That, my friends is a facile, but effective description of persistence. A quality that writers and artists, indeed anyone, working in a creative field or anyone with a goal has to master.

The creative world is full of stories of people who persisted until...One of my favourite writers, as frequent visitors to this blog will know is a fella called R.J. Ellory. Roger wrote 22 novels in 6 years. He amassed over 600 rejection letters and yet he kept going until...

Where would you have given up? When would you have decided that enough was enough? 20? 120? Would you have sold your computer to the Samaritans and jumped off the roof of the nearest library shouting – you’ll never know what you could have had! Would you have reached anywhere near 600? Or would you have like Roger, kept on going until...

When I asked him about being, in my view The Poster Boy for Persistence, he had this to say
“I am reminded of something that Paul Auster said. He said that becoming a writer was not a ‘career decision’ like becoming a doctor or a policeman. You don’t choose it so much as get chosen, and once you accepted the fact that you were not fit for anything else, you had to be prepared to walk a long, hard road for the rest of your days. I concur with his attitude. From an early age I knew that this was what I wanted to do, and I applied the old adage from Disraeli: ‘Success is entirely dependent upon constancy of purpose’. The twenty-third book I wrote was the first one I had published. I did amass all those rejection letters, and have kept a couple of hundred of my favourite ones. Now it doesn’t matter. Now it feels like that was my learning curve. And I wrote those first twenty-two novels in six years, the majority of them in longhand, so one thing it did teach me was to work and work and work, even when I didn’t feel like it. It gave me a strong work ethic, and made me feel like Picasso. When asked why he was always working and never rested, he said ‘When inspiration finds me, I want it to find me hard at work!’ That’s a good philosophy and one I still apply every day.'

A constancy of purpose. I love that. How does one achieve such a thing? Constant reminders? Keeping in touch with your goal? Giving yourself permission not to be distracted by television, housework, gardening, youtube, plucking your earlobes (honestly, the more I lose on my head the more it grows elsewhere)?

Surely in addition to claiming ownership of persistence, one has to learn how to deal with rejection? Roger counted over 600 rejection letters. An amazing number. Can you imagine them sitting on a pile on your desk? How high do you think they would reach? How hard would it be to pick yourself up again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again...don’t worry, I’m not going to type out 600 of them.

Thinking of my own journey thus far, their have been a fair few disappointments and a goodly number of rejections to deal with. Yet, taking my cue from Roger I persist...

My work ethic is not quite as focused as Roger’s. I’m part driven and part lazy bastard. Not the best combination. I wrote two novels in three years. I attracted an agent who was distracted by other clients and other ambitions and they got nowhere. This was a big learn for me. Attracting an agent may be A Big Step but it is no guarantee. Still I dealt with the disappointment – eventually - and moved on...to novel 3 and while I was submitting this novel I began work on novel 4.

I came close with novel 3. Very close. A major publisher was so serious they were talking to me about what pen name I might use. There is an American author called Michael Malone who beat me to it by a few years.

It fell through. I was crushed. I was like Man Under a Giant Boulder Crushed. I went into a huff with the world. I had a petted lip the size of the sticky-out part on a baseball cap. (Note to self. When coming up with a comparison at least do the research to find the right word) Pushing the boulder off with a few choice curses – bastards was the mot juste if memory serves me well - I carried on working on book 4 never losing sight of the overall goal. I will be a published writer. I will earn my living from writing. This became my mantra.

I attracted another agent. This one was prepared to work hard for me. And she did. Most of the big publishing houses in London have read my crime novels. Again, I have come very close. Some of the rejections were a basic “thanks, but no thanks” and in some ways this is easy to deal with. They didn’t “get” the books. Fine. It was the rejections that turned the books down in rave terms. “Had to stay up all night to finish...” “I LOVED the main character”, “Michael Malone is an accomplished writer who tells a satisfying tale”.

They say that and then they say NO? What the fuck is going on here? I’ve also been turned down because I have written a book set in Scotland. It appears some publishing houses have a quota of Scots. Who knew? And is this a form of marketing racism? Whatever, it is damn disappointing. I can move to Manchester, dude.

Each subsequent rejection has strangely become easier to take. The first few were difficult. I say difficult, in essence I wanted to crawl into a hole, suck on my thumb till it shrunk to the bone and never come out. A few walls were punched. More than a few curses were thrown into the air. I might have said the C word a few times and the F word. And maybe even the other B word. On each occasion it took a couple of days for the cloud of defeat to disperse and for me to regain my equilibrium. And a positive expectation.

Now? I’ve gained enough experience to see that I am moving one “NO” closer to a “YES” with each knockback.

Currently, I am on the desk of two of the largest crime publishers in the UK and two independents. And I’m pressing on with book number 5. And wishing they would hurry the fuck up.

Perseverance. What is it? The ability to go through the fear of failure, the fear of success (yes, I know its crazy, but it’s real) the rejections, the frustrations, the defeats and come out the other side with your goal still alive and intact in your mind.

F.Scott Fitzgerald said you should never mistake any single defeat for a final defeat.

Winston Churchill said, ‘never, never, never, never give up.’

When I started out writing this post, I didn’t intend for it to turn out like a lecture, but I’m sorry I’m not going to apologise (see what I did there). It is what it is.

To be fair, it’s probably an epistle to me, but I hope you get some benefit from it.

I’d like to leave the final few words to Calvin Coolidge.

“Press on. Nothing can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; the world is full of unsuccessful people with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

Here’s to pressing on.

Impressions from Harrogate Crime Writing Festival 2009

...favourite sessions? George Pelecanos, David Simon. George was on his own Saturday morning in conversation with Simon Kernick. Not only is George a talented writer but he comes across as a good guy. His latest novel (which I reviewed for crimesquad.com) The Way Home, has fathers and sons at the heart of it. When he started to talk about his own father, he had to pause before his emotions got the better of him. Bless. Not a dry eye.


A surreal moment followed. I was in the bar at lunch time (drinking water, aye right) and reading one of George’s books. I looked up and there he was just in front of me with some mates.


After a half hour’s debate with myself I approached him for a signature and then did the whole flustered fan thing. Spot the numpty whose tongue has swollen in his mouth and all he can do is mumble “signature, please”. And here was me thinking I’d gotten over that kind of behaviour. Eventually I managed to string a sentence together and George told me how much he’d enjoyed visiting Glasgow (he recognised the accent) and the whisky gantry at Malmaison. Talented and with good taste, what can I say?

The session with George and David Simon was on the next day and was about their experiences on The Wire. Fascinating. I’m only on series 2 and they mentioned a character’s death in series 3. Someone I like. I’m gutted and trying not to show it. Here they talked about pleasing the viewer or being true to the story. A good lesson for wannabe screenwriters. In fact, the programme itself is. The attention to detail, the depth of the characterisation, the dialogue etc etc etc.

...Laura Lippman (Mrs David Simon) has an impressive ability to do press-ups while reciting the entire Marx Brothers’ movie list. The circumstances under which this became apparent are frankly, none of your beeswax.

....Chris at Crimesquad says he doesn’t watch The Wire. He pretended to be all offended at the language saying that nobody ever heard the word motherfucker on Miss Marple.

....Daniel Depp’s, Johnny’s brother is a crime writer. He was on stage talking about his new book. I’m betting he looks in the mirror every morning and shouts, “Bastard”. And I would only be a total bitch if I explained why. So this is me zipping my lips and throwing away the key. You had to be there.


...meeting up with the gang at Crimesquad.com was fantastic. Getting a press pass because of my work with them was also pretty cool. I enjoyed pulling it from my pocket and flashing it at, well everyone really.

...mingling and having blethers with the likes of Denise Mina and Caro Ramsay. Great writers and good people.

...the Saturday night quiz show was a laugh. The Crimesquad Squad came up with a respectable score. What let us down was the series of questions on pets in crime fiction, cos really, who gives a fuck?

...the session run by Simon Brett with a panel including Roger (RJ) Ellory and Christopher Brookmyre was another highlight. The panel were given an opporchancity to vent their collective spleen on issues that arose in crime fiction, like clichés etc. Simon was very naughty and tried to get the panel to mention those writers who annoyed them. To a man/ woman the panel refused to diss their fellow professionals. Good on ‘em, I say. There’s enough of that going on out there.

This brings me on to my Fanny of the Week Award which goes to David Cameron, Politician (ish) who noted to a reporter that he was going on holiday and taking a “really trashy novel”. Speculation was that said piece of “trash” was Patricia Cornwell’s latest. Cameron keeps a copy of Evelyn Waugh’s novels on his desk in Westminster apparently. Wot a fanny.


BTW, RJ Ellory is about to be launched in the States, so anyone reading this from that side of the pond, give yourself a treat and buy any of his books you can get your hands on.


Favourite stories/ comments from this session? Roger talking about a writer who’d been asked to provide a comment for the blurb on another writer’s new book. This new book writer had slagged off the other guy for years, but he was a big seller and his name on the cover of his first novel would help, so new book guy swallowed his pride and asked for a cover commendation. Revenge, however smells of violet and is as sweet as pie. The comment from slagged-off writer guy? “Of all the books I’ve read this year, this is one of them.”


Chris Brookmyre talking about the superior attitude of “literary” writers. He said that often when he is on a panel at a book event and one of these writers gets all precious about WRITING, he is filled with awe. As in - “Awefurfucksake, get your head out your arse.”

Love it.

...overhearing an English couple (just before a 9am session – what’s that all about?) talking about a Scottish crime writer they’d met who was a teetotal vegetarian. A teetotal Scotsman, questioned the wife in a shocked soprano. Have you ever met a teetotal Scotsman? We don’t all conform to the cliché, I slurred huffily while spraying a mouthful of Stella Artois all over her face. Well, it was 9 PM somewhere in the world, right?


...talking to an inebriated Irish writer (a Dubliner more than happy to conform to his own set of clichés) at the bar on Saturday night about Glasgow Celtic and the one and only time he took his wife to see the ‘tic. It was at Tynecastle in Edinburgh and behind him a group of fans had climbed on to the top of a wall and were pissing over the other side. Needless to say his missus was in no rush to get back. He looked right past me the next morning and had no clue he’d even been talking to me – and there was me thinking we’d bonded. Bastard.


BTW, please don’t be thinking we did nothing but booze all weekend. Two bar staff at any one time serving hundreds of thirsty crime readers and writers at the bar? Don’t think so.

...meeting a commissioning editor from one of the big publishing houses who has had my novels for a year now. She apologised for half an hour and then told me she was still very much interested in my work. She was very impressed and felt I was an accomplished writer. The compliments were welcome, but amount to less than a hill of beans until an answer is forthcoming. She was lovely though. Someone I could work with. Her issue is the amount of Scottish based fiction they are about to release over the coming year. Not the first time my nationality has led to a London publisher thinking twice. Whassat all about? Is Scottish Crime Fiction a genre into itself and nobody told me? Basically, the book is good enough, but I need to emigrate. Not going to happen. Still, there IS hope. Watch this space.

...meeting a commissioning editor from another large publishing house who Roger Ellory did a good job on of selling my virtues (as a writer, cheeky) at 3am. Happily, the next day at noon this editor still remembered me and is keen to read my stuff. Watch this space as well.

So this is me feeling cautiously optimistic. This is my year, right?

On Staycation

I’m having a “staycation” for the first week of my holiday this year. Like all words that become too popular this word annoys the feck out of me, but as a descriptive term it works.

And I had all these writing plans while I was off work. I was SO full of good intentions. As it happens, I am so full of shit. The weather was awesome for the main part of the week, so who could lock themselves on to their computer? And I had all those books to review for the website. And...and...and...

And this book isn’t going to write itself. Dammit.

So on week two of my vacation - the part that is not a staycation - when I head up to the Scottish Highlands, I have a plan. My son is not a morning person - frankly, he’s been a teenager in waiting since he was about 4. For the greater part of the day he is charm itself, but in the mornings ... Not So Good.

By the way, any prospective burglars out there. Don’t waste your time. Apart from having to tidy up before you find anything of value, I have a watchdog neighbour. She’s lovely but does “withering” very well and has the local police station on speed dial.

The plan for the awaycation is this...I set my alarm for 7 each morning. Write for a couple of hours by which my son will be stirring like some bear coming out of hibernation. I’ll feed him berries an’ shit like that and plank him in front of his Play Station for another few hours. Then lunch. Then we go out and take in the sights for a few hours.

In case you think I’m a crap parent, this suits him perfectly. He gets to sleep as long as he likes. He gets to play his games. He then gets to visit places on fast forward – just as he likes it. Everyone’s a winner.

Another part of this cunning plan is not to take any books with me. I know, I know, it will kill me. This is me gnawing on my knuckles at the very thought. No books. It’s like fish without chips; KFC without chicken; a romantic comedy without cheese.

I can do it.

Another distraction is of course, continued contributions to this blog. The plan here is to see how it goes, ‘cos the blogs don’t really take up that much of my time. Noooo, I hear you protest, they appear so carefully constructed and perfectly worded that they must take HOURS.

There maybe the odd post. So don’t stray too far. I don’t want to lose y’all. Sob. Missing you already.


Other questions have been pushing themselves round my head this morning. Like, where did the sun go? Who sent all this rain? (It’s like a freaking tropical storm.) And who has been wearing all my clothes and leaving them in the wash basket? Since I’ve been on my staycation (is it annoying you yet?) I’ve worn nothing but shorts, t-shirts and sandals. Yet I have a washing full of socks, shirts, jeans, jumpers etc etc. Frankly, I’m sick of it. Heretofore, from hereonin and going forward the plan is just to go about naked while I’m in the house. Think of the planet. I’m saving on water and on the soapy stuff. Besides the only people who ever come to my door are my son, the postman and door to door salesmen. My son has seen it all before, for the postie I’ll cover up with a towel and the salesmen deserve everything they get.

I have this trick I do. I call it The Lassoo.

Speak soon, Peeps.

Brown Balls

I have a head like a malteser. After four days of dragging the wee fella up and down the Ayrshire coast in the sunshine, my bald napper has gone a deep brown. The rest of me however, has only edged from enamel-white to vanilla. If you can think of a suitable simile for what this apparition might resemble let me know.

I digress, as is my wont I hear you say. Sue me, is my reply.

See. I can have a conversation all to myself. Any similes for that one?

Talking about having a conversation to yourself – yes we were, keep up - one of my American bloggy friends intrigued me the other day with one of her posts.
Marley talked about how one such version of this ongoing conversation can be quite harmful to a writer. How those internal voices inhibit our writing and stop us from getting on with the work.

We all know this isn’t particular just to writers, don’t we? How many time have you been on the verge of an action and that little voice has pipped in just at the right/ wrong time. The things your internal critic might say can range from...
- Man, that sucks. What are you thinking about?
- Go watch telly, you don’t have to expose yourself to the possibility of failure while doing that.
- Dude, you are basically just crap. Go find a cave and hide.

You can bet your sweet life any entrepreneurs out there don’t allow this voice to stop them getting on.

In this blog Marley opined that she doubted if her poet friend (moi) would allow this voice to interrupt his creative endeavours - I had to consider this for more than a moment. Do I? I certainly used to. What changed?

It’s how you train the internal voice to phrase the question.

I used to walk into Waterstones and think, Holy Book Covers, Batman look at the number of books in here. How the fuck am I going to get published when all of these writers are vying for publishers attentions?
Now I walk in Waterstones and think, Holy Crime Section, Batman, if these guys can get published so can I.

I used to send out poems for publication while thinking, who wants to hear what I have to say? Who’s going to be interested in my sad wee efforts at poetry?

Now I send it off, or read it at public events while thinking that my opinion; my work is as valid as anyone else’s.

I trained my brain to re-frame the question in a way that I would seek positive results. I didn’t arrive at this thought process overnight. It took some work. The first thing I had to work on was “the work”. If I’m going to be sending out work or reading it at public venues it has to be the best I can make it. So I worked on my craft, attended workshops/ conferences; read books on the subject and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. And then wrote some more.

What was key in this process was assessing where I was along the way. Were my poems being received well by the magazines I sent them to? BTW, I remember my first submission to a poetry mag as if it was yesterday. The poems came back with a comment that my subject matter bodes well for the future, but at times my choice of words were clichéd and too everyday. I was fecking furious. Who the feck was he to say this to me? A friend pointed out that most people just get their poems returned without comment. What did this mean, I asked myself? A Good Question. That somewhere there was merit, I just had to dig it out. It was only a while – a long while later I could see that this guy had given me excellent guidance.

The next part in the process was finding someone whose opinion I valued and who was willing to read and give constructive feedback on a regular basis. A First Reader. The crucial part in this process is listening to the feedback – I mean listening to, and considering the feedback while ignoring the whimpering little worm of your ego that is squirming on the skewer of your FR’s opinion - and that ain’t easy. The trick here is to separate the work from the ego. The feedback is ALL about the work. ONLY about the work. The ego should only be allowed access once the poem is accepted for publication and then it can do cartwheels in a tutu. But not in front of my neighbours. Again. And if you decide to ignore the feedback be sure that you’re doing so because you disagree, not because your little ego is hurt and you need to ignore the FR to make yourself feel better. As Stephen King says in On Writing if you hear yourself saying, “yes, but...” to such feedback then really you are trying to defend the indefensible. This is surely a time when you should STFU and take the feedback on the chin.

Next in the process is listening to this horrible little internal chatterbox and asking yourself if what it is saying is valid. If it is voicing a “belief” that is limiting then you should find a way to re-frame the question/ statement as I showed you earlier.
More examples...

Why am I such a failure? Could be changed to ...What will get me what I want?
Why aren’t I better at this? Could be changed to ...What can I do to improve?

Asking yourself the right questions will send the boys and girls in the boiler room (your sub-conscious) off looking for a solution, instead of focusing on the problem. Repeat those last few words a hundred times...looking for a solution, instead of focusing on the problem.

Eeesh, I’m coming over all Life Coach here and that wasn’t my intention with this blog. Still. Its’ relevant. And valid. Do with it what you will. Make the changes, or print this off and wipe your arse with it.

Did I say I had a head like a malteser?

The Answer is...

Got home from work tonight. Had a cup of coffee. Paid the cleaner. Yes, I have a cleaner. I’ve decided the world of books deserves my attention more than my manky house does, so employing a cleaner allows me to devote a little more time to my work while keeping the environmental health from my door.

Cooked a meal – well took stuff out of a package and warmed it in the oven. Took some other stuff out of another package and stuck it in a microwave. Presto. A delicious and nutritious meal containing all the food groups. Again, all time saving life choices are being examined. I am, am I not, a slave to my work? Phoned a friend. Exchanged blethers. Arranged to meet.

Everything done that I needed to, I decided I should write some more of my book. Managed about five hundred words. Which is quite frankly, crap.

I’m at a tricky part of the book. It needs some historical details added. I have the research and the trouble with research is using it to give context to a novel rather than allowing what you feel are “the fascinating facts” to take over. When it does that section of the story reads like a report and becomes one of those bits that your reader skips over. I try to avoid writing those bits. So I have to use the research in a way that gives context, engages the reader and moves the story along. It’s all about “showing and not telling”, innit?

When faced with these conundrums I find that the best tactic is procrastination. I go and do something else and let the boys in the boiler room, ie my sub-conscious, come up with a solution. No, really.

That is a long and convoluted explanation for this blog... needing a distraction I was looking through some old emails and found a list of exam answers where the students, having not bothered to read the syllabus went for invention rather than accuracy in their answers. This either takes a certain kind of intelligence or a level of idiocy that is beyond even the most obtuse, grass-chewing village idiot.

1) Classical StudiesQuestion: Name one of the early Romans' greatest achievements.Answer: Learning to speak Latin

2) BiologyQuestion: What is a fibula?Answer: A little lie

3) General StudiesQuestion: Jeff has been asked to collect data about the amount of television his friends watch. Think of an appropriate question he could ask them.Answer: How much TV do you watch?

4) Classical StudiesQuestion: What were the circumstances of Julius Caesar's death?Answer: Suspicious ones

5) BiologyQuestion: Give an example of a smoking-related diseaseAnswer: Early death

6) GeographyQuestion: What are the Pyramids?Answer: The Pyramids are a large mountain range which splits France and Spain

7) BiologyQuestion: What is a plasmid?Answer: A high definition television

8) EnglishQuestion: In Pride and Prejudice, at what moment does Elizabeth Bennet realise her true feelings for Mr Darcy?Answer: When she sees him coming out of the lake.

9) GeographyQuestion: What do we call a person forced to leave their home perhaps by a natural disaster or war, without having another home to go to.Answer: Homeless

10) Religious StudiesQuestion: Christians only have one spouse, what is this called?Answer: Monotony

11) BiologyQuestion: In the Hawaiian Islands, there are around 500 different species of fruit fly. Give a reason for thisAnswer: There are approximately 500 varieties of fruit

12) PhysicsQuestion: Name an environmental side effect of burning fossil fuelsAnswer: Fire

13) GeographyQuestion: Define the term "intensive farming".Answer: It is when a farmer never has a day off.

14) MathsQuestion: Change 7/8 to a decimalAnswer: 7.8

15) GeographyQuestion: What does the term "lava" mean?Answer: A pre-pubescent caterpillar

16) General StudiesQuestion: Redundancy is often an unpleasant and unexpected event in someone's life. Give two examples of unexpected life events.Answer: 1) death 2) Reincarnation

17) HistoryQuestion: What was introduced in the Children's Charter of 1908?Answer: Children

18) Business StudiesQuestion: Explain the word "wholesaler".Answer: Someone who sells you whole items - eg, a whole cake

19) GeographyQuestion: The race of people known as Malays come from which country?Answer: Malaria

20) GeographyQuestion:What artificial waterway runs between the Mediterranean and Red Seas?Answer: The Sewage Canal

21) GeographyQuestion: Name one famous Greek landmark. Answer: The most famous Greek landmark is the Apocalypse

Introducing...guest blogger, Sara Bain

I thought it might be fun to have a a different perspective now and again in the pages of May Contain Nuts. The first guest spot goes to Sara Bain, a talented writer and a wonderfully generous and supportive friend to other writers. Over to Sara...

Write Place, Write Time

When I first began writing my epic fantasy 14 years ago, I had no idea that the journey would take me to more unreachable shores than the map I had invented.

Many writers will affirm that, when those first lines are on the page, the story takes on a life of its own and the astounded author can only sit back and let it unfold beneath the finger tips. From the onset, my enthusiasm and passion for my story grew each day. Juggling jobs, kids, housework and dinner with one hand and a keyboard with the other, there was not a day that went by that I did not steal a few moments or hours to write.

I am the ultimate optimist: when the National Lottery first started, I bought a ticket in absolute certainty that I would win the jackpot. When the six numbers were called in the first televised show, I was sure that the announcers had made a mistake when none of my numbers came up — not one of them. I suppose this terrible disappointment should have taught me a lesson in realism but, even before my precious manuscript was finished, I sent it off to a publisher in New York, convinced that they would beg me into entering into a three-book deal by return of post. When the polite rejection came, I could hardly believe what I was reading.

Shrugging it off and trusting that perhaps New York was not quite ready for me, I telephoned a publisher of a London fantasy imprint and was horrified at what she told me. The editor, in her brutal description, enlightened me on the difference between the solicited and the unsolicited manuscript in the same way that a prosecution lawyer differentiates between an eminent judge and a low-down, good for nothing, psychopathic child murderer. It was then I learned about the dreaded slush pile — the pauper’s grave of aspiring authors — an unhallowed place where the filth of dirty little non-entities, ie the manuscripts of unpublished writers, takes up precious floor space.

Outraged and eager for a second opinion, I telephoned another publisher who re-affirmed the testimony of the first but encouraged me to find an agent. Agents, she said, were far more likely to get you a publishing deal than going it alone and only take a tiny 15 to 20 per cent of your tiny royalties which, in turn, amount to a tiny percentage of your tiny sales. She recommended that I purchase a copy of the current edition of the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook and choose an agent to represent me.

She said: “From your sample chapters, it looks as though you can certainly write, the characterisation’s great and I like the story. Get yourself an agent and I’ll consider the manuscript.”

Me (in tiny voice): “But why do I need an agent if you are already expressing an interest in it?”

Her: “All writers should have an agent. You need someone to negotiate on your behalf. Sorry.”

Perhaps, if I pretended that I was an agent, she wouldn’t have put the phone down so quickly.

I did as she told me and sent samples to three agents. One of them said no; another said lovely things about my book, how well it was written and how great the story was but that he was into stage-writing and couldn’t take me on; and the third didn’t bother to answer me at all.

A change of tactics was drastically needed, so I sent one sample page, a synopsis and covering letter to a big London publishing house and squealed with delight when the editor asked me to send the full manuscript. On hindsight, I really should have finished the book before sending it off and should have at least revised it once, but enthusiasm extinguished all good sense and, of course, she ended up rejecting it.

Many chapters later, I batted off the moths and sent it out to a few choice publishers or agents and received varying degrees of refusal in return. One told me that no one was buying new fantasy these days; one used the excuse that they were “a bit full up with fantasy at the moment”; one even told me that, although my manuscript exactly fitted the bill of their publishing ethos, their offices had been hit by a hurricane and they were too busy relocating to take on any more manuscripts — now that’s what I call an excuse!

My latest effort, about three years ago, was to walk about 20 blocks of New York’s Fifth Avenue (which is about a thousand miles in three-inch heels) and hand over my first three chapters and synopsis to one of the editors of a fantasy publishing house. She was polite in a non-committal kind of way and didn’t appear at all impressed that I had come all the way from Scotland just to present her the manuscript in person (which wasn’t exactly true, but how could she have known that?) A spectacular delivery via Fed Ex made me feel quite important, even though it carried with it a covering letter saying "thanks, but no thanks".

A few more sequels down the line and I have learned that many authors, like artists, find a publisher purely by being in the right place at the right time. Even if the stars did converge to cause such a fortuitous turn of fate, your sample chapters must then land on the right desk, ie an editor or underling who can empathise with your work. Should your proposal get this far (and this is only half way to the moon on a Honda 50 by comparison), then your full manuscript must run the gauntlet of an external reader who must also be someone who likes your work. Say the reader loves it: the editor will then need to speak with the editorial department, the marketing department, accounts, circulation, the shop keeper down the road and their next door neighbours, as well as take a look at the future lists which are fully-packed with spurious biographies from Z-list celebrities up to the year 3001.

There’s a moral to this tale: enthusiasm is a curable psychosis, the treatment for which is the bitter pill of rejection. I, however, refuse to swallow my medication. I have taken the time to reflect, re-write and get things perfect before I dare to tackle the great wall of publishing again. It might take another year or so, but another editor once told me to keep trying and don’t ever give up: “a good book will always find itself on the shelves” he said — that’s if it ever finds its way out of the slush pile, the odds of which still remain lower than winning it big on the lottery. I suppose you have to be in it to win it.



Sara Bain is a journalist, writer and photographer based in south west Scotland. Her evocative, intelligent and witty blog is called Life’s An Idiom. Do yourself a favour and have a wee peep. The address is - http://lifesanidiom.blogspot.com

The Brown Stuff

Do you like the new look of the blog? I was thinking I needed to get rid of the brown stuff and I was too scared to do anything about it. I worried if I changed something everything would vanish. But it didn’t. Go me. (And thanks to Marley for the prompt.)

Talking about the brown stuff, Gordon Ramsay’s up to his gonads in it, isn’t he. Personally I don’t hold with all this bad language. It shows a lack of breeding, poor vocabulary and is just fucking disgusting.

Actually, as a writer this whole issue fascinates me. These are just words, aren’t they? And words are our tools. If it creates an affect we should use it, right?

Over the years of being a member of and running creative writing classes there are a number of subjects that regularly come up for debate. We’ve already looked at one of these earlier on in this blog – what’s wrong with writing poetry in rhyme - other issues that arise with metronomic regularity (eesh, a four syllable word, I’m going to have to sleep that one off) include; Should We Use Swear Words in our Writing, and Who’s Making the Tea?

The answer to the question of the tea is normally whoever feels an overriding need to please everyone else.

The answer to the swearing question? It depends.

Emotive little syllables “fuck” and “cunt”, aren’t they? Particularly the latter. As you read them just now, you would have had some sort of response. Were you shocked? Horrified? Did you laugh? Did you feel like giving me a lecture to desist, refrain, gonnae no?

Being a writer, a User of Words, should we not harness that effect?

Stephen King in his excellent book “On Writing” (if you want to publish in popular fiction you should read this) argues that there is a contract between the writer and the reader and if the writer doesn’t write in a way that is true to their character they are breaking said contract. This means that if Jimmy the joiner hits his thumb with a hammer, he exclaims in a manner suitable to his character. Already you have a mental image of who Jimmy the joiner is, don’t you? Would he say, ‘damn and blast, that jolly well hurt?’ Or would he give out a yell along the lines of ‘Ya fuckin’ basturt!’

Some writers I know manage to go through whole careers while avoiding the F word. Me? I can’t help myself. While speaking I rarely use expletives. When I do it’s either for a laugh, or when I’m furious – and in that situation nothing quite cuts it like a good swearie word. However, get me writing and the F words flow like champagne in a UK Member of Parliament’s second home.

I recently sent one of my brothers an email in which I was lamenting various publishers who’ve recently shown incredibly bad taste to turn my novels down. In this email to my younger brother I used the F word. Just one solitary, itsy-bitsy “fuck” escaped the internal editor. My brother replied saying that my use of this one word had quite an impact. He has hardly ever heard me swear, while every other (male) member of my family uses “fuck” like it’s the only qualifier that works. In effect, when they swear it’s like verbal wallpaper. But when I do, my brother says, it has power. (I’m liking that. MM the power swearer)

The first time I met my agent was in the restaurant in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow. She’d come over from Amsterdam and this was one place in Glasgow she could find her way to without getting lost. By way of setting the scene...she’s a real lady, my agent. Classy. We were discussing my crime novels and potential publishers, but first she had gone through both books very carefully and wanted to edit certain things. She moved from discussing one scene she felt needed to be cut to saying, ‘...and here, there’s too much fucking.’

Dear reader, I nearly choked on my Earl Grey (what can I say, I was pretending to have some class). We decided that it worked to give my main character such a verbal tic, but everyone else should leave it the fuck alone.

As a wee sidebar, while I was typing this my son (aged 11 and newly fascinated with all things to do with bodily functions/ bad language/ boobs) was looking over by shoulder. He pointed at a line and said – you spelled that wrong, dad. Bastard isn’t spelled like that. His hand shot to cover his mouth as if I was going to throw soap in it. Now, I would have been quite the hypocrite if I had given him a row, wouldn’t I? (But we are, aren’t we – parents - and that’s a whole other blog.) Then followed yet another debate about how kids shouldn’t use bad language we think they are better than that and if adults wanted to use it then that was up to them and stop asking me that same bloody question every day I’m tired of this debate gotoyourbedrightnowyoungman.

To swear or not to swear? What I’ve taken a long time to say is that less is more...more or less.

Who Me?

Apparently, and this must be gospel because it was on the internet, there are 184 people in the UK going by the name of Michael Malone. In the U.S. there are 1134. Go me.

There are also a few of us who write. Most notably the American, Michael Malone who wrote First Lady, Uncivil Seasons and Time’s Witness (to name but three). Thing is, I like my name. It’s quite a cool name for a writer, innit? As far as the poetry is concerned I’m happy to publish under this name, but when I publish my novels I may need to consider a pseudonym. (See, that’s me thinking positively)

I first came across Michael (U.S) Malone in the eighties with Dingley Falls. Kinda forgot about him until about four/ five years ago when I picked up First Lady in a bookshop. I saw the author’s name and picked it up. Well you would, wouldn’t you? Seeing your name on the spine of a novel is a moment to cherish. Even if the moment is vicarious. I can pretend, can't I?

Now for a little piece of backstory.

At this point I was writing the first of my crime novels. I was at the stage where I had established my main character and I now had to consider how my victims were going to die. (I know, gruesome eh?) Just what would my killer’s M.O. be? The book has religious undertones, set partly in a Catholic orphanage – me and my past, we have issues – so I thought that the killer should have a religious theme. This of course has been done in the past, so I wanted something a little different. The idea that came to me was that the killer should stage the dead bodies and in doing so replicate the death of a different saint each time.

Researching this was problematic. Any books or websites I came across were happy to mention the saints and their lives, but their deaths were glossed over or totally ignored.

Anywho, at this point I picked up the Michael U.S. Malone’s First Lady. His picture was on the inside cover. Not only do we share a name and a writing genre but we share a hairstyle (bald) and a beard (goatee). He was an older me!

I read the first page. Well-written, atmospheric, characters I wanted to know more about. I buy the book. Take it home. Curl up on the settee while my son watches cartoons. For the next six hours. Don’t worry, he’s used to it. And he has the American accent to prove it.
Forget the other coincidences I mentioned earlier, I find something that is truly spooky. Michael U.S. Malone has a religious theme in this novel. His killer stages the dead bodies. He replicates the death of a different saint each time.

Cue spooky music.

A week later (more spooky music) I receive an email from a bookshop in Wisconsin. Never been. Wouldn’t know how to get there. The bookshop manager loves my books; especially the latest, First Lady and she would love it if I would attend the shop and give a reading. My expenses would be met of course. For a moment, dear reader I was tempted. My solitary visit to the States so far is a weekend in New York. How cool would that be? We even kinda looked alike, give or take a decade. Return flights from Glasgow to Wisconsin; a few days/ a week even in a quality hotel? It would have been rude to refuse, yes? Then my conscience pitched in... at what point would you tell her you were not the Michael Malone she thought you were, the grovelling little shit asked. Before, during, after the reading or on the way back to the airport?

Back to the name. When my agent contracts THAT deal, what will I go with? Any ideas?

ps. Michael Malone (U.S.) if you haven't read him is excellent. Well done, Mikey boy. Keeping the standards going.

Hurdling Mondays

It’s always a bit sore for those of us who are wage slaves, innit? Going back to work on a Monday. What got me up and at’em this morning and what kept me going through the day? (Apart from the opportunity to do a good days work for my employers, obviously.)
Thoughts of the weekend. Sunday was an interesting day joining in the Pitch Party at How Publishing Really Works. (http://howpublishingreallyworks.blogspot.com/)I was a guest blogger and received a few hits from it. People arrived at May Contain Nuts from all over the globe yesterday; Brazil, Tel Aviv and Kilwinning. There were a number of folks from North America too. Welcome. Bem-vindo. ברוך הבא. Howzitgaun, doll.
I also got a chance to check out some excellent blogs that I will mos-def (I am so down with the kids) be keeping up with.
I was sooooo well organised this morning – and I think for the first time in my adult life, I hung a washing out before going to work. Go me. Regulars here will know I am no great shakes in the housework front. It’s fair to say if I ever had a break-in the burglars would have to do a tidy-up first. As for the washing, it provided a bit of a mystery (cue spooky music). You know how people complain that they lose socks? Well my washing machine ...wait for it...breeds vests. Small white ones. For fear of shredding whatever miniscule amount of street-cred I possess let me add that I haven’t worn one since I was 11. (Vests, short trousers AND wellington boots – what were they thinking?)
Driving up a country road to work my eyes were drawn to a scene in a field. A farmer was strolling along a field in his jaunty blue overalls. He was being followed by a group of young cows – a gaggle? They were so not a herd. Anyway, they were like ten feet behind the farmer in a tight wee group, keeping the exact same distance from him for the full two or three minutes they were in my sight. In my mind the farmer stopped suddenly and so did the cows. Then he started up again. So did the cows. He stopped. So did the cows. Well, it made my journey to work a wee bit more interesting.
The day passes fairly quickly. I do stuff. I talk to people about stuff. Go home.
On the way home from work, I was held up by a group of bikers. Two learners and an instructor. Nothing, let me repeat that NOTHING, would get me on the back of a motorbike, short of a six-book deal from a major publishers and a movie tie-in. In fact it’s fair to say I’d rather trim my pubes with a blow-torch.
Had a look at the work in progress tonight. A quick word count and I realised that I’d written 6,000 words since coming home from Cliff Cottage. That’s not too shabby. If I was writing full-time that could be done in day, but I’m giving myself a break – I have a mortgage to pay and at the moment my writing doesn’t do that. (I just wish it would FECKING hurry up.) I’m not bitter. Anywho, I had a read through and it actually reads better than I expected. Sometimes I write stuff, look at it and think – what bastard stole in to my house and wrote utter crap on my computer? Othertimes I’m like – whoa, am I a genius or what? Publishers,publishers wherefore art thou, publishers? (Cos they all speak pseudo-shakespearean.) Today was closer to the latter. This is me feeling smug. A wee sidebar for those of you just launching into your magnum opus – accept the credit, but don’t take the blame.
I’m now off to the gym to work off some fatness – and an eight pack of twirls. Cheerio. Adeus. להתראות. See ya.

Happy Birthday, Margaret

It’s the birthday of one of my favourite people on the planet, Margaret Thomson Davis. For anyone out there who doesn’t know Margaret she is the author of (forgive me if I get this wrong) 41 novels.

It’s common knowledge that Margaret had a difficult time as a child (detailed in her biography, Write From the Heart) but she refused to play the part of a victim and at the age of 83 she continues to inspire and delight her fans with a new novel every year. Before she achieved publication she had 10 finished novels in her cupboards. She refused to give up on her dream and carried on sending out her novels to publishers and amazingly had 5 out of the 10 accepted at the same time.

Margaret goes to amazing lengths to research her novels and I’m certain if they were included in the national history curriculum history lessons at school would be a good deal more palatable.

I first met Margaret at a writers’ conference at Swanwick in 1996. She was one of the main speakers that year and I was blown away with the breadth of her knowledge about her craft, her ordinariness (if that’s even a word) and her wonderful sense of humour. When she heard that I was driving home and was willing to go via Glasgow, she cadged a lift. How could I say no? And from that moment on we’ve been firm friends. Every year after that I gave Margaret a lift and in the confessional of the car we got to know each other’s stories very well indeed. This was not always a good thing. Following one journey where the discussion turned to IBS (if familiarity doesn’t breed contempt, it certainly makes you put down your guard), Margaret was again giving a talk. From the stage she mentioned how I was kind enough to give her a lift and how we had compared farts on the way down.

She supports other writers as much as she possibly can and in The Clydesiders, and the more recent Red Alert, she made one of her main characters a poet so she could feature some of my poems.

One of my favourite stories about Margaret concerned a time when we went together to the Royal Concert Hall to attend a “Lunchtime Lecture”. The speaker was Sir Jeremy Isaacs, the guy who started Channel 4 and who was at that time in charge of the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. He was a fascinating speaker and afterword there was a queue in the lobby to buy his book, which of course he would sign. In the queue with Margaret, she spent the whole time wondering if she should introduce herself to Sir Jeremy. She was a great admirer of his and she had once been on a speaker’s panel with him. Should she speak to him? Should she even wait in the queue or just go home? He wouldn’t want to be pestered. I told her not to be daft and advised her to stay and speak to him; he was bound to remember her.
At this point I spotted a middle-aged couple who weren’t part of the queue, but who were facing us. I heard the woman say to her husband, there’s Margaret Thomson Davis. Should I speak to her? She won’t want to be pestered. I could just give her my book to sign. The husband persuaded her to say hello and the woman tentatively approached Margaret, who was of course delighted to speak to one of her readers.

When it came to Sir Jeremy, he stood up from the table as soon as he saw her approach and gave her a big hug.

Happy Birthday, Margaret. You’re nothing short of a national treasure.

The last book to make me cry...

When a book wins a literary prize it tends to put me off reading it. Being granted the title of “literature” by the so-called experts is not in my experience a guarantee of a good read. Ever since mankind stumbled blinking from the cave and squatted round the first fire a good story has been one of the ways we have sought entertainment. Let me repeat those words...a good story. List the elements of a good story and one of them you will find is plot and in their quest to concentrate on having the character lead the books the exponents of modern “literature” view the presence of plot as welcome as an untended backpack in an airport concourse.

There are books I’ve tried to read in this category where the prose adorns the page like a beautiful piece of lace; the minutae of the characters’ lives laid bare with all the precision of an X-ray...and yet... and yet... I couldn’t give a toss whether or not they found the family secret, the girl or indeed, their sanity. And bottom line - if your reader doesn’t care about your characters then you’ve lost.

This is long introduction to a prizewinner – the Pulitzer no less, that had quite the opposite effect on me. I absolutely loved The Road by Cormac McCarthy from the first word to the last. This book has had the Hollywood treatment and is about to appear at your local cinema, do yourself a favour and read the book first.

A father and son (we never learn their names) are alone in a post-apocalyptic world. They want to get to the sea, towards (possibly) survivable winters. “Then they set out along the blacktop in the gunmetal light, shuffling through the ash, each the other’s world entire.” Ash falls like snow. The father is coughing blood, which forces him and his son, "in their rags like mendicant friars sent forth to find their keep", on to the treacherous road southward. They push their salvage in a shopping cart, fitted with a motorcycle mirror to keep watch on the road behind. Society has crumbled. There is no economy; no goods for barter. No food. Bands of cannibals patrol the road. The father has a pistol, with two bullets only: his wife, the boy's mother, has already committed suicide. If caught by others they will obviously rape his son, then slaughter and eat them both. He plans to shoot his son - though he questions his ability to do so - if they are caught.
The relationship between the father and son is central to the novel and acts as the engine to drive the story along in counterpoint to the scenes of utter desolation that surrounds them. As the boy and the father interact we live moments of beauty, despair and hope. I was so caught up in the text it felt as if I was observing real people on a quest towards safety. From time to time my worry became so great that I had to put the book down and go do something else.

Terrifying. Heartrending. Haunting.

And at the end I sobbed like a teenage girl at a David Cassidy concert.

Go on spill...what was the last book that made you cry?

Starting Off

I think ever since I first held a book in my hand I wanted to produce one of my own. I didn’t know what kind of book it should be – just that it should be a book. I first had a go when I was around 10 years old. I wrote my version of Tarka the Otter and made a couple of my pals read it. The bribe as I remember was half a crunchie between them and my best marble. Mercifully I have forgotten their reactions and the actual story is somewhere in the cemetery of lost jotters.

When I was a teenager there were lots of movies about people falling in love and on the brink of death. All of these people were unfeasibly attractive and only days after the wedding ceremony one of the lovebirds would be run over and killed/ fall off a cliff and killed/ or suffer a dread disease and die a horrible but cinematically attractive death. This got me thinking. So aged 14 I wrote two chapters of a novel where somebody was diagnosed with leukaemia, fought it bravely, fell in love and while out walking with their lover fell off a cliff. And died. How pale and beautiful they would be in their death scene…

And then there were the early poems where everybody was in love or dying. Sometimes they managed both simultaneously. Having very little experience of the love side of things (for very little read none whatsoever) these poems were usually based on the lyrics of whatever pop group I was into at the time (mainly Earth, Wind and Fire). I console myself at the thought of my lack of originality by the idea that we learn best by imitating others. Perhaps my career might have had a better start if I had chosen to copy somebody like Bob Dylan or Lennon and McCartney.

Time, wearing great big hobnail boots and taking gigantic strides, moved on and I found myself in my early thirties remembering my early passion for the written word. “When I retire…” became a mantra for me, as in when I retire I’ll write a novel. Daydreaming was a favourite past time of mine around this time. Oh the novels and poems I penned in my head. And how publishers would fall over themselves for my books. When I retired. Then it occurred to me that I was wishing my life away. If I wanted to do it, I should just do it. See me and Nike? Where do you think they got their logo? I should sue someone.

Anyway, I did. I got on with it. The novels, of course. Litigation is such hard work and anyway, who would have believed me?

Then I spotted a poster for Ayr Writers’ Club and armed with the total output of 10,000 words of a novel and half a dozen poems I joined the club in 1996. That first night I was terrified. I expected everybody to be way too intelligent for me, so erudite that they’d have huge foreheads and they’d all be wearing cravats or bow ties. Even the women.

How refreshing it was to realise that they were all just ordinary folks like me, with the same artistic insecurities but armed with a world of experience that they were only too happy to share. Oh and I’ll always remember the time I met my first honesttogod published writer. I swear I was drooling.

So, I attended courses, workshops, read how to books, read lots of novels and poems – basically studied and learned as much as I possibly could about the craft of writing – a process that I hope never ends.

I’d like to take this opportunity to share some of the best pieces of advice I have received/ read over the years with you.

- Take yourself seriously as a writer, if you don’t no-one else will – Catherine Czerkawska.

- Read a lot, write a lot – Stephen King.

- Don’t give up your job and take a crap job thinking that you’ll have more time and energy to write, cos you’ll just end up skint and terminally worried about your finances – Sally Evans.

- Establish a regular work pattern and space – and stick to it – Hugh C Rae (Jessica Stirling).

- Just do it – Michael Nike Malone.