Category Archives: Writing

Anger, Hatred, Writing

I hate my novel!

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I’m not yet at a point where I hate my Cornish Detective series, but I’ve noticed a change in attitude to the stories. Starting out on Book 6, I’m still excited, loving how my thoughts are taken over by the plot and how my main character reacts. What I dislike about extending his character arc is caused by commercial considerations—will this be acceptable to readers? I’m bullheaded and outspoken at times but have moderated these traits to create what I hope will be popular stories. This means I’m starting to see Detective Chief Inspector Neil Kettle as a brand, making me feel trapped.

I’m fond of him, but I prefer other characters who appeared in short stories and novellas, such as Art Palmer, an American Civil War veteran travelling through the Deep South in the Reconstruction era. I’ll write his third story next spring.

I don’t hate my writing while in the process of creating an 80,000-word manuscript. If something doesn’t work, I don’t beat myself up, I change it. I’m less keen on the story when editing it, or perhaps less enamoured of myself when I see how many repetitions, excessive commas and typos I’ve included. :(

Querying literary agents is an exercise in being civil and enthusiastic while trying to describe my book as saleable. It’s not an enjoyable process being a supplicant, but I don’t doubt myself or hate my book.

It’s surprising how many famous novels were hated by their creators. Tolstoy with War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Peter Benchley with Jaws, Anthony Burgess with A Clockwork Orange and Annie Proulx with Brokeback Mountain. It’s not so much the story that they abhor, more how society reacted to it and how that affected their reputation as a writer. It’s a form of typecasting. Whatever genre J. K. Rowling may write in the future, she’ll remain famous for one character.

13 Writers Who Grew to Hate Their Own Books

How do you feel about your story?

Do you love it?

Feel ambivalent about it, as it’s impossible to be objective?

Wish you’d never started writing it, as it’s detestable, a pile of poo that won’t cooperate with your initial vision?

25 of Dorothy Parker’s Best Quotes

Empathy, Writing

How Empathic Are You?

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I came across this test in the Curiosity.com newsletter:

Empathy Quotient

Devised by psychologist and autism researcher Simon Baron-Cohen (cousin of actor and comedian Sacha), it has the weakness of such multiple-choice questionnaires, in that some questions are ambiguous. I found myself thinking “depends on” while contemplating an answer.

It surely helps a writer to be empathic, otherwise, how do you put yourself in someone else’s shoes? John Steinbeck stated:

You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.

I’ve been called empathic by several friends over the years. It’s true to a certain degree: I scored 63 out of 80 on the test.

Having empathy for my characters can be problematic, such as when I bond with the antagonist in a crime novel, worrying that he’s suffering from gout, but forgetting he’s murdered four people!

If your empathy score is low, you might want to check out an old thread:

https://paulpens.cloudaccess.host/wp-admin/post.php?post=43&action=edit

Self-Promotion, Writing

Piece of my Heart

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We’ve previously discussed You In Your Book, where you, the author, make a disguised appearance in your story, but what about channelling personal experiences?

It’s the best example of the advice to ‘Write what you know.’

I’ve written about bereavement, depression and a suicide attempt all drawing on personal experience. It’s also been my fate to have been poisoned, stabbed and shot, so I’ve used those extreme situations to add authenticity to stories.

I’ve had several confrontations with sharp weapons. Many stab victims report that they didn’t realise they’d been stabbed, until they saw the knife and escaping blood, as the blow feels like a punch. Which it does. I used that experience in my last Cornish Detective novel, in which my protagonist is run through from behind with a sword blade. He traps the blade with his elbow and hand (suffering more wounds), to prevent it being withdrawn for another attack.

It’s not just the intensity of life-changing events that personal experience adds colour to, but also how the aftermath affects behaviour as the victim recovers from trauma. My fictional detective is spiralling into depression in Book 1, having lost his wife in a traffic accident. By Book 2, he’s a functioning zombie dosed to the gills on antidepressants and suffering panic attacks, as he tracks down a serial killer. These are both feelings I’ve experienced, so it was good to put them to use.

Not that readers would necessarily appreciate such verisimilitude. Also, I’d be unlikely to talk about my experiences in blogs or interviews. As science fiction author Stephen Leigh said:

‘That’s the essential goal of the writer: you slice out a piece of yourself and slap it down on the desk in front of you. You try to put it on paper, try to describe it in a way that the reader can see and feel and touch. You paste all your nerve endings into it and then give it out to strangers who don’t know you or understand you. And you will feel everything that happens to that story — if they like it, if they hate it. Because no matter how you try to distance yourself from it, to some degree you feel that if they hate it, they hate you. Which isn’t the truth, you understand. At least you understand that in your head…but not always in your heart.’

Stephen Leigh | Penguin Random House

Before publishing a story and being criticised, we might mangle our hearts as we edit our carefully created writing. I’ve posted this poem before on Paul Pens but it’s worth reposting, especially for anyone lost in the ignominy of editing:

In The Desert

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter — bitter,” he answered;
“But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart.”

Stephen Crane

How personal are your stories?

Writing can be therapeutic. Has it helped you?

The moment that you feel that, just possibly ...

Author bio, Humour, Self-Promotion, Writing

Protagonist email account

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While researching marketing and self-promotion, I saw a novel idea about how to deal with newsletters and comments to and from adoring fans (who dey?), which is to give your protagonist their own email account.

Sounds weird, but I’ve already got a Gmail account in my discarded pen name of Augustus Devilheart, to take messages, newsletters and subscription updates from anyone to do with writing and publishing. Google being Google, this led to the strange situation where I received a message from them, asking “Paul Whybrow do you know Augustus Devilheart?”

Not content with haunting myself in this way, I’m waiting to hear from my main character Detective Chief Inspector Neil Kettle—perhaps asking me why I haven’t begun writing his latest investigation—I left him in a coma at the end of Book 5 The Dead Need Nobody, completed at the end of 2018.

While writing my books, I’ve had my eye on creating a tourist trail based on the locations of my Cornish stories, though it’s hard to think of merchandising opportunities…mugs, calendars, tea towels? Having an email address might make people think my literary hero is a living person.

It’s weird to think that readers might one-day email Neil Kettle, but who knows?

Have any of you made your protagonist real in some way?

Drawings?

A social media account?

A knitted figure?

Creativity, Dreams, Inspiration, Morale, Writing

Gauging Progress

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We’ve looked at what constitutes success in a few old threads, including these:

https://paulpens.cloudaccess.host/wp-admin/post.php?post=788&action=edit

https://paulpens.cloudaccess.host/wp-admin/post.php?post=124&action=edit

But, I was recently reading an article by writing guru Jane Friedman, where she said that “The only true measure of a book’s success is sales”.

Strictly speaking, she’s correct, for any artist creating a piece of work to be sold to the public is entering commerce. Films are judged by their box office receipts, paintings become treasures by reaching stratospheric auction prices, a musician’s sales are proof of their talent (or their publicist’s marketing skills), so why shouldn’t a writer’s progress as a writer be measured by sales?

But, that ignores the writer’s relationship with their stories, the struggle they went through to get the ideas onto the page. It’s an achievement to write a book. Many say that they want to, but do nothing about it. We work alone, though the support of friends, family and writing group members is a comfort. But, we’re still alone, unsure of where we’re going, so how do we gauge our progress?

Looking at my efforts since I returned to creative writing in 2013, I’ve typed about 2,000,000 words, some of which worked as story-telling. I’ve self-published 48 titles of short stories, novellas, poetry and song lyrics, arousing little interest in readers. I’ve completed five novels in my Cornish Detective series, querying agents 750 times, which has increased the depth of my hide. I may finally have piqued the interest of a publisher, who asked for a full manuscript this summer. I’m waiting on them. I’m ready to self-publish on Amazon’s KDP Select should they say ‘No’.

I’ve also started this writing blog and a website devoted to my Cornish Detective. Somehow, that didn’t feel like progress, more like putting scaffolding into place for a house of stories that few may visit.

I’m not sure if I’m sanguine or cynical about the business of publishing. I do know that it’s best not to take myself too seriously when receiving rejections.

I love writing stories. It’s joyful for me. In the last six years, I’ve learned a lot about technique and punctuation, which is progress, but for me, it’s the reactions of readers that show how I’ve improved.

Three of my friends offered to be beta readers of a novella about assisted suicide, and all cried at the same point (Yes!), which made me tear-up too and I knew what was going to happen!

I wrote humorous poetry for infants, which made the daughters of a friend laugh and start writing their own poems. Blimey, I’m influential! A short story I wrote was satisfying to one reader, as it ended exactly as she hoped, which was my intention. It’s great to surprise readers, but there are times when they crave the predictable.

Not to forget, that writing stories creates a fresh identity for you, which is real progress keeping you interested in who you are and arousing curiosity in others. Anyone who produces a book is infinitely more intelligent and sexier than they were before!

Huge sales of your books would be fantastic, but it’s the human reactions that really matter. Isn’t it?

How do you gauge your progress as a writer?

By blogging or communicating on social media?

By contributing to a writing group?

By typing 5,000 words daily?

By getting a response from readers?

Reading, Writing

I didn’t expect to like this book, but….

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It’s irritating to contemplate a book, especially one that’s become a best-seller, despite an unlikely plot and think “I don’t think I’d enjoy it,” then you try to read it and it’s just as bad as you thought! You kick yourself, promising to avoid that author.

Sometimes, though, a book title will keep nudging your consciousness, gently enticing you to read. I have a tendency to avoid reading bestsellers immediately, leaving a couple of years until the fuss has died down. I keep a record of books to request from the local library, but one of them was sitting on the shelf waiting for me last week.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman was a breakout debut in 2017, winning the Costa First Novel Award. Reese Witherspoon is adapting it into a film.

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – Wikipedia

I loved it! It’s one the most skillful character portrayals I’ve read, for Honeyman slowly releases information about Eleanor’s history helping the reader understand why she is so strange. I admit, I guessed a plot twist, but that’s one of the drawbacks of being a writer. That the author resisted a traditional happy ending is all to the good, adding to the power of the story. It’s one of those tales where you bond with the character, wondering what they’re up to now.

Even this version of the book cover is fitting:

A couple of freinds mentioned The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I’d put off reading it because I rarely read anything about Nazis following exposure to their atrocities when I was a child after reading details of the Nuremberg war trials. I was captivated by The Book Thief.

The Book Thief – Wikipedia

It’s good to be wrong sometimes.

Other books I enjoyed, without expecting to, include Brady Udall’s The Lonely Polygamist, which is moving in its twists and turns, tragic one moment, then comedic.

The Lonely Polygamist – Wikipedia

Another book I didn’t expect to like was Good Time Coming by C.S. Harris whose title is as misleading as the book cover design. Reading it partly as research for the second novella in my series about a traumatised American Civil War cavalry officer rebuilding his life in the post-war Reconstruction era, I was gripped by the dilemma faced by townspeople suddenly swept into the conflict by an invading army. Well-researched and surprisingly violent, I cared for the characters.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-7278-8649-1

Which books have you enjoyed, that you didn’t think you would?

Computers, Writing

Ergonomic Mouse

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I sometimes worry about repetitive strain injury to my right wrist, when I feel the muscles tensing after twelve hours of manipulating the mouse. I once knew a woman who had to have an operation on her wrists to correct carpal tunnel syndrome. This is a painful medical condition in which the median nerve, which travels through a passageway in the wrist called the carpal tunnel, is compressed. Her job was thought to have caused the condition – sorting eggs into trays and egg boxes at a chicken factory farm. She was a keen web surfer, and the combined strain of repetitive use of small muscles with her arms extended made them seize up.

As I’ve just bought a new laptop, I wondered about getting an ergonomic mouse. For the last few years, I’ve been using a wired optical mouse. A small travel-sized mouse came with my old laptop, and I was pleased that it caused less cramping than a conventional mouse. Made in China, they don’t last long, about two years of clicking, scrolling and sliding.

My laptop is on an over-chair table, my right hand and forearm resting flat on the mouse mat. I haven’t developed carpal tunnel syndrome yet, but pressing the median nerve against the edge of the table for 16 hours daily sometimes makes my fingers tingle; I give up then.

The best-known makers of ergonomic mouses are Logitech and Kensington and they’re pricey, but no-name vertical designs that are supposedly better for the hand start at £5.50: I bought one and it’s brilliant! No more aches and pains.

On eBay, Kensington Orbit Elite models are available from £20 – £50

Microsoft sells a similar trackball model for about £100:

Then there are various designs of finger-mounted mouse!

Finger-Mounted Mouse for Conducting Computers in Mid-Air

Many sellers fib, calling their mouse ergonomic, simply because it has a swoopy design, even though the controls are conventionally located.

Do any of you use an ergonomic mouse?

Morale, Querying, Writing

Resilience from Rejection

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This article in The Guardian is worth a read:

Rejection is the norm for authors. So why do we hide it? | Sophie Mackintosh

Sophie Mackintosh mentions “steadily getting rejected from every creative writing MFA (master of fine arts) I applied to, and then by dozens of agents,” but doesn’t specify how many times.

Her one published novel is The Water Cure:

The Water Cure

I was rejected (or ignored) 750 times from 2013-2019, before attracting the interest of Hodder & Stoughton’s The Future Bookshelf submission scheme in July. I’m still waiting to hear back from them. I have a feeling that I won’t!

I’ll be slightly disappointed if they reject me, but not destroyed, for after so many rejections, I’m as resilient as a rhinoceros wearing Kevlar armour! I’m ready to self-publish on KDP Select, which will at least offer immediate feedback on the worth of my Cornish Detective series.

There’s more than one way to climb the publishing mountain, so don’t be discouraged.

Writing

Boo!

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What scares you?

It may well scare your readers too. We’ve discussed dread and being scared before.

I’ve returned to fear, as I’m about to begin writing my sixth Cornish Detective novel Kissing & Killing which will hinge on fear and insecurity. My protagonist Detective Chief Inspector Neil Kettle is a laid-back farmer’s son with a team of detectives who are better trained at violent confrontations than him. One is a judo black belt, another officer is as big as a wardrobe and a Cornish wrestler, while Neil’s deputy is of the Indian Rajput clan and is trained in their scimitar-based martial art of pari-khanda, using dummy swords and shields for lessons. Neil has police force martial arts training, but up to now has preferred to out-talk suspects, rather than overpower them.

He had no choice at the end of Book 5 The Dead Need Nobody, where he was stabbed with a sword, fighting for his and a hostage’s life. He beat his assailant to death, using an extendable baton. Owing to blood loss he was placed in a medically-induced coma to protect his brain. He comes out of it facing an official enquiry into the death of the murderer who attacked him.

Neil seems to be OK, but he’s soon aware that his personality has changed. He’s more combative, relishing violence. He becomes afraid of himself.

The people who wake up from comas with different personalities

He’s also feeling insecure, from falling in love for only the second time in his life, with a woman who may be concealing a criminal past from him.

I’ve known people afraid of the dark, crowds, dogs, cats, snakes, spiders, fish and toadstools. For my part, I’m irrationally intimidated by bears (none of those in Cornwall) and dislike petty officials with too much power—and they’re everywhere!

Some fears are rational. I don’t like great heights or depths, as falling or getting trapped can kill me! I know a man who explores abandoned Cornish mines, going underground without special equipment and not telling anyone where he’s going, which is crazy.

Writing frightening scenes is tricky. I’ve read several crime novels this year which failed to scare me at all, even though awful violence occurred. The main characters weren’t emotionally affected, which left things feeling flat as if the author was relying on his readers having moral outrage.

What scares you?

What scares your characters?

What to do if Your Computer Is Overheating(A common fear of writers!)