I am a self-employed writer, which means I’m working for an idiot who doesn’t pay me enough – but the holidays are great.
I’m ex many occupations, from the respectable ‘career-ladder’ to disreputable “somebody’s- got-to-do-it”. All a good way of seeing someone else’s point-of-view. Best job, apart from writing, was dispatch-riding on a motorcycle in the 70s, though I’ve also enjoyed teaching, librarianship, counselling and helping to run a community-centre. Sometimes I’ve looked respectable in a suit, other times a bit more wild and woolly (though still stylish) as a biker. It’s strange how differently people treat you, depending on what you’re wearing. A suit means I’m sometimes addressed as ‘sir’, but in motorcycle leathers I’m always referred to as ‘mate.’
The worst job that I’ve done ? You really don’t want to know, but it was in a processed food manufacturer’s factory – put me off bacon, sausages and quiches for a long time, and made me look at pet food in a new way. I’m very glad that I don’t have any pictures.
I’ve been writing since I was eight, when I penned a story about a desert island and attempted to compile a dictionary – as Clarissa does in my short story ‘The Moon Is Out Tonight’. I’ve written for magazines under a variety of pen-names, ghost-written a couple of biographies and had a column in a local newspaper.
I used to concentrate on non-fiction of an informative, how-to instructional nature, as I’m a firm believer in the dissemination of knowledge to enable people to do things for themselves. Knowledge is power, and in these troubled times of economic downturn and increased intrusion into our lives by government agencies, its vital to know how to get through. My fictional stories also show people coping and finding ways to survive.
I’m based in a Celtic nation, the county of Cornwall or Kernow. I’ve been here for twenty years, and have lived all over the country, as well as abroad in France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and the U.S.A.
I took a break from creative writing over the festivities of 2018-2019, mulling over the progress of my Cornish Detective series, after completing the fifth story. Recharging my batteries seemed to help my enthusiasm, so I returned to querying in February, sending off 88 submissions. It’s as well to remember that what we do in creating stories isn’t a sprint, but more of a marathon with obstacle courses thrown in!
While reading about writing, I found this lovely lecture by Zadie Smithcalled That Crafty Feeling. It was originally given to the students of Columbia University’s writing programme in New York on Monday 24th March 2008. The brief: “to speak about some aspect of your craft.”
There’s an excerpt of her reading from her lecture here:
It’s worth a few minutes of your time to read. I recognised much of what she says about the relationship a writer has with their book. She uses the terms ‘Micro Planners’ and ‘Macro Planners’ to differentiate between the two main types of writers, more commonly known as ‘Pantsers’ and ‘Planners’. I’m definitely a Micro Planner or Pantser, though I do make vague plans on scraps of paper to guide my plotting.
I am at her ‘step away from the vehicle’ stage with my five novels, written over the last four years. It’s been a valuable period of reconsideration, and I’m glad that I didn’t rush to self-publish them.
I’ve read a few of his books, enjoying them, though I’m not sure how influenced I’d be if I saw his name on blurb praising an author unknown to me. Then again, if I saw a mystery-murder novel lauded by one of my literary heroes, such as James Lee Burke or Michael Connelly, I might give it a try.
Many of the practices in publishing are a racket, but then so is much of any business—dressing up lies to be acceptable. Having once witnessed a famous law lord, journalist and writer bullied by a publishing executive into scribbling a blurb for a book that he’d never heard of, let alone read, I have a jaundiced view of the truthfulness of the words of praise one sees on book covers.
Imagine the effect it would have on sales of your YA or mystery novel if J.K. Rowling endorsed your writing! I somehow doubt that I’ve got enough money to bribe her…
Just as cynics say “Great career move” when a fading musician dies unexpectedly, leading to a massive boost in the sales of their albums, so it takes having The Grim Reaper as your literary agent for some writers to get anywhere.
I’ve mentioned the sad tale of John Kennedy Toole in previous threads, and it would have been fascinating to know what else he would have created. At least he hasn’t been turned into a franchise operation with hired gun authors brought in to continue the series, as happened recently with Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander and the long-established James Bond and Sherlock Holmes stories.
The novelist’s subject matter is certainly controversial, and it set me thinking about some of the problems I faced in 2015, when writing my second novel, Who Kills A Nudist?
Briefly, the plot includes a murder victim found at the location of a nudist colony on a Cornish beach, used by mainly gay men. The likely suspect is also involved in drug smuggling and people trafficking. I have my own opinions on these subjects, but none of them are bigoted. My fictional characters, however, display hostility towards gays and illegal immigrants. People who are ill-educated or politically biased aren’t likely to use politically correct language.
I wrote a short sentence in the way that my right wing, hardline retired detective talks, having him say something about the gay nudists in a dismissive and inflammatory way, describing then as ‘deviants and shirt-lifters’. It’s certainly how he would speak, but it’s not how I think. It rings true, but has the potential to taint me—not that I’m that bothered, as after making 650 queries, I’m bulletproof!
All the same, it raises some interesting problems. We can’t make all of our characters politically correct, otherwise the narrative will be bland, safe and boring. An out-and-out baddy can go berserk, saying and doing what he likes, but what about more ordinary people who casually express opinions that might stray from what is acceptable?
Have any of you faced similar problems writing your stories?
As one familiar with long-term depression, the findings in this article don’t surprise me. Most of the artists I’ve known in my life have been troubled with some mental malady or other, and that includes writers, sculptors, painters, musicians, photographers, actors and craftspeople.
It’s good that famous people are being more open in talking about their personal struggles, as it helps to reduce the stigma of being diagnosed with depression, bipolarism, borderline personality disorder or schizophrenia.
Just as we need a bit of grit in our lives to create friction, so we can get purchase and progress through being creative. Some of the best books, records, paintings, photographs, sculptures and films come from those who’ve been through the turmoil of mental tribulation.
I’m sure that we all have favourite silly words. Diphthongsounds a lot ruder than it is, while dongleis always good for a smirk – such as when innocently saying things such as “I recharged my dongle” or “I dropped my dongle down the back of the sofa.”
Scrumping is something that I did a lot of as a child, as there was an abandoned orchard nearby, and the word is pleasingly silly and naughty, inviting emphasis when said—and I wouldn’t feel a wazzock for doing so.
I like the word copacetic, which I came across in James Lee Burke’s novels, before living in Atlanta, Georgia for three years. I was delighted to hear people using it there. It’s definitely an Americanism, and I like throwing it into conversations as most Brits wonder what the hell I’m saying!
I’ve heard all sorts of sad stories about writers paying publicity agents, or taking out boxed advertisements themselves, in an attempt to catch the attention of fickle readers.
The worst tale of woe was a writer who’d gone down the vanity publishing rabbit hole, then laid out an additional $9,000 for banner ads, paid reviews and even a couple of billboards! This resulted in additional sales of 50 books, so I dread to think what her overall loss was.
It seems to me that the biggest hurdle to overcome is simply that of finding a way to get your name into readers’ heads, along with the type of story you write. This was partly why I chose the eccentric pen name of Augustus Devilheart when I started self-publishing six years ago. I reverted to my own name, for various reasons including honesty.
Lesia Daria chose to pay a marketing service for her first novel, and her experience is told in this article:
Going it alone is not without its drawbacks, however. I’ve compared self-publishing to emptying a bucket of water into an ocean—who’s going to notice it? To stand any chance of success as a debut writer self-publishing, readers have to know about you via social media…which is what I’m gearing up to do in 2019.
Well-established authors do well with epublishing, as they already have a name to trade on. Many aged writers are digging out the old novels and short stories that weren’t considered fit enough to be printed thirty years ago and sticking them on their own web sites for sale.
Lawrence Block, who is one of my favourite crime writers, does this. He, and several other well-known authors such as Donald Westlake, earned a living back in the ’50s and ’60s by writing soft-core porn and pulp fiction. They used pseudonyms back then, for discretion, but are now proudly churning out their backstock in these less judgmental times.
One of the trickiest problems when editing a manuscript is deciding which words need hyphens.
Editing my third novel in 2016, I realised that I’d committed a lazy (but common) typing error, as when I wanted to type an em dash to mark a break in a sentence or an en dash for dates I’d used the hyphen key. The conventional QWERTY keyboard is inadequate in many ways, when it comes to punctuation, requiring one to use the numeric keyboard for foreign accent marks and the en and em dash.
Having corrected that error, I moved onto tackling numbers. I was taught as a youngster, to write out all numbers up to one hundred, except for dates, but from 100 on it was OK to use the numerical form. Looking online, modern style guides offer conflicting advice. Some say to write numbers up to ten, but thereafter the numerical form is acceptable. This looks odd to me, as well as lazy, though I appreciate that it may make the reading process swifter.
Using a sentence from my first novel, the way that it now reads is:
There’d only been five constables who’d died in the county in the whole of the twentieth century, and now a Detective Inspector lay murdered fourteen years into the twenty-first.
But, if I followed the modern style guides it would be:
There’d only been five constables who’d died in the county in the whole of the 20th century, and now a Detective Inspector lay murdered 14 years into the 21st. The corrected version looks more like outline notes to me, rather than a sentence fit for printing.
I found this interesting article in the Daily Telegraph today. Matt Johnson is an ex-policeman, who suffered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and turned to writing violent crime thrillers as therapy to aid his recovery.
I’ve met several ex-soldiers with PTSD over the years, including a couple of Vietnam veterans who were still trying to cope with trauma forty years later. Knowing them, prompted me to write of a serial killer with PTSD in my first novel The Perfect Murderer.
Writing is undeniably therapeutic, and organisations such as Lapidus, the Writing for Wellbeing organisation do great work.
My fictional serial killer has PTSD, and knows that he does, using it as an edge to stay on the fringe of society. I link his shadowy world to the online homicidal activities of players of violent video games, young men who are often alienated from society. There have been several real-life examples of mass murderers using video games as training for their intended attack, including Anders Breivik in Norway.
I’m not suggesting for one moment that all PTSD sufferers are potential homicidal maniacs. Nonetheless, there’s always a huge increase in violent crime when conflicts end, as there’s inadequate therapy for traumatised veterans. It’s a sad fact that more Vietnam veterans died from violent acts after the war than were killed during the conflict—including by suicide.
Boy soldiers are commonly used in revolutionary warfare. The atrocities in Africa, the Middle East and Slovenia featured children as warriors—often kidnapped and brainwashed youngsters; it’s still going on. I once worked with a man who’d been snatched from his classroom by the army of the Ayatollah in Iran. He was 14 years old, and with minimum weapons training, he found himself in a firefight using a machine gun forty-eight hours later. He killed people and became the victim of chemical warfare. Twenty-five years later he was struggling to cope with the guilt of what he did. He tried to make amends by working with refugees in London.
He was one of the kindest men I’ve ever met. He had the wisdom to seek counselling, but hearing of his experiences made me wonder what would happen to a disaffected and traumatised warrior with no family or friends, someone who’d been turned into a killing machine—hence my novel, with a serial killer who’s been fighting since childhood.
One of the things that I’m most grateful of, is that I never had to fight in a war, and now I’m too old! It troubles me greatly that not enough is done to deprogramme veterans from violent ways, and to help those who are tormented by trauma. Any outreach project offering support is welcome.
