Writing and the 10,000 Hours Theory

Last Thursday, appropriately on World Book Day, I met with the university’s other Royal Literary Fellow, Linda Cracknell to chat about my book- or lack of. My work in progress is not making much progress at all.

But there’s really no need to worry about the WIP as I must be an expert writer by now.  Expert? How can I dare to call myself an expert without having published anything or finished the MLitt course? You can blame my good friend Jill.

When Jill (who abandoned me to live in Michigan 10 years ago- I still can’t forgive her) came home to visit recently she told me about the 10,000 hours theory. I’d never heard of the book the Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and it claims that expertise is all about practice: You, too, can become Bill Gates (at least the talent part) or Tiger Woods if you spend 10,000 hours writing code or hitting a golf ball.

Basically, raw talent isn’t enough. You need to put in the time and effort as well. This was confirmed when I watched a short video clip made by one of my favourite writers, Kate Long in which she answers the question, “How did you get your first novel published?”

http://www.katelong.co.uk/news.htm

In the video, Kate tells wannabe writers that she had been writing for 10 years and completed three manuscripts before her best-selling novel-The Bad Mother’s Handbook was published. Kate describes her journey to publication as a decade long apprenticeship.

Unfortunately, I know that hard work by itself isn’t enough either. I believe that you need some degree of talent as well. Just by spending 10,000 hours writing, doesn’t mean I’m going to be an expert. I’ll probably be better at writing but that alone won't guarantee success. In the meantime, I'm off to clock up some writing hours...

Creative Writing = Creative Writhing

This week, creative writing was more like creative writhing! 

By Friday night, I had a pounding tension headache. What was the cause of such stress? My WIP! My literary agent had given me feedback that my current idea was “too small” and I needed to be more ambitious. I needed inspiration and I’m not too proud to ask for help. I went into uni for a one-to-one session with Eleanor Updale, an award winning writer and a Royal Literary Fellow. Eleanor is based at the uni one day a week on behalf of The Royal Literary Fund Fellowship scheme which places professional writers in higher education institutions to offer writing support to all students.

Eleanor Updale- the author of The Montmorency Series

My MLitt course is entirely self-funded and I plan to get my money’s worth and grab every opportunity for professional help that’s available on campus. So I made an appointment to meet with Eleanor to discuss my WIP in an effort to help me move forward. The session was great for sparking new ideas and making me take a fresh look at the entire structure and concept of my WIP. Eleanor gave me some very interesting ideas but as I headed home, I was still left with one key question, if there’s already more than enough books in the world, does anyone really need mine?

Glug, glug,glug. I poured a large vodka, I had a headache already so a hangover didn’t frighten me. I moaned at my long suffering hubby and my old pal, Pierre Smirnoff, that life would be sooo much easier if I just tried to get a ‘normal’ job and save myself (and my family and friends who have to put up with me) all the aggro?

Yes it probably would, but I’ve never been one to take the easy option (this explains a lot of my life choices, hence hubby no 2) so although I’m struggling, I’m not willing to give in (not yet anyway). And the reason I need to carry on writing is simple. I write because I have to, whether the world needs another book or not. And thankfully my hubby and Pierre still believe in me!

Writing and Best Beginnings

Starting something new is always exciting. That’s why I really like January, (apart from the dreich weather and hurricane winds that have caused major roof leaks in my house!) it’s the month of new beginnings.  The beginning of a new diet, an exercise routine, or even a novel.

One of my fellow students posted on Facebook that she wrote the first line of her novel at the stroke of midnight.  She’s kidding us on that it starts, “It was a dark and stormy night…” We’ll need to wait for her workshop submission to find out the real opening line.

But her FB post made me think of the best way to start a novel. I think every writer obsesses about making an impact with their first sentence. They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but that doesn’t apply to first lines. One of my favourite well known opening lines is,

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth” – The Catcher in the Rye by J.D.Salinger.

But the best beginning that I’ve read recently was from a brilliant book- Precious by Sapphire- “I was left back when I was twelve because I had a baby for my fahver.”  I was immediately plunged into the world of an illiterate black girl who has never been out of Harlem and is pregnant by her own father for the second time and kicked out of school.  The novel is a fantastic exploration of abuse and deprivation but also totally uplifting. Read it!  I dream about being able to write such a powerful story.

But what got me writing in the first place? It was another FB post that got me thinking. It was a post by a new literary magazine for students in Scotland called Octavius. They aim to bridge the gap between being an unpublished student and submitting to professional magazines and journals and accept work of any genre and looks for writing which is fresh, unique and exciting.

http://www.octaviusmagazine.com

Their FB post asked for a photo of your desk/laptop/outside of the library you work in, etc, and a brief description about what being a writer means to you and details about what made you start writing. This was my reply.

I don’t have a proper desk, so I escape to my boudoir bedroom to write at my dressing table. But don’t be fooled by the pink laptop and flowery décor, my writing can be dark and gritty.

I started writing when my best friend gave me a lovely notebook in 2006 for my birthday. The message inside read, “I would love to buy a novel by you. I’m sure you have the talent and wit and ‘experience’ to make it a great read. Thought you could keep some notes here. Have fun. Love Veronica x”

I love a challenge and her encouragement was the trigger to write my first novel. Almost six years later, I’m now working on novel number three and have finished the first semester of a MLitt in Creative Writing.

Turns out my pal gave me the best present ever-belief in me that I could write something worth reading and who knows, maybe one day I’ll be able to give her a special mention in my published novel…

Creative Writing is my Guilty Pleasure

This weekend, I was asked (again!) what kind of job will I be able to get once I’d finished the Mlitt course? Deep breath and a silent scream later I replied that I had no idea. I’ve only just finished the first semester and already I’m being forced to look to the future. Is it so wrong to live in the moment?

When wind and rain battered my bedroom window this week, I got up and looked out at the bleak weather. Then I slipped on my cheetah print fleecy dressing gown and snuggled back down to read a brilliant book (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz- if you must know) as part of my day’s “work”.

This time last year, I would have been driving to work in the dark and coming home in the dark with frizzy hair, fed up and frustrated. 

So if I’m 10 times happier, why am I suffering from a weird side effect called guilt?

 I often feel guilty for doing something I really enjoy. I’m convinced that this Calvinist attitude is an unfortunate default setting for Scottish folk. If you don’t believe me, read Scot’s Crisis of Confidence by Carol Craig where she examines Scots’ attitudes and tendency for negativity. She explores how the self-deprecating joke of “getting above ourselves” is a destructive national trait and how Scotland’s Calvinist heritage includes a highly developed work ethic with a deep sense of duty and social responsibility.

So how does this relate to me?

My friends are busy doing REAL jobs- like social worker and teacher whilst I’m faffing about at uni sweating about whether the latest chapter of my novel works. I applaud their career choice and admire the fact that they’re doing a job that’s important. Good on them! But can I please have one year out of my whole life to indulge my need to have a serious attempt at being a writer without feeling guilty?

I’m not out there battling the elements or saving lives.  I’m staying cosy in my jammies and making up wee stories in my head. But I’m not going to beat myself up about it. I’m determined to shake off John Knox’s legacy (aka Knoxplex) and any hint of guilt to enjoy every minute of the course while it lasts.

"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, 

concentrate the mind on the present moment"

Buddha 

Writing and Giving Yourself the Freedom to Fail

It was a big deal for me to sign up for the MLitt course and I was full of self-doubt before I arrived at my first class. The fear quickly faded by being amongst a group of supportive fellow students and enjoying every week of a well-structured meaningful course. I’d made the right decision BUT…

What if my work isn’t good enough? What if my submission is ripped apart in the workshop? What if I don’t do well in my assignments? What if my family and friends think my writing is rubbish? What if I can’t make it as a writer? What if? What if?

There’s no end to the list of insecurities! I don’t think a writer is ever free of self-doubt. It seems to come as part of the job.

But if ever I needed a boost, the visit to uni this week from the award winning writer DBC Pierre was inspirational. In 2003, Pierre won the Man Booker Prize for his debut novel, Vernon God Little. Wow! But how did he manage to win the world's most important literary award?

A contemporary The Catcher in the Rye

    

Anyone who’s ever heard of him will know that his juicy life story is as interesting as any of his novels. But for Pierre, the positive side to hitting rock bottom meant that no one had high expectations of him and he was free to fail.

No one likes to fail and it’s hard not to be your own harshest critic. My internal editor is always sitting on my shoulder and instead of just getting the words down on paper, I constantly go over my work getting hung up on every sentence. And then there’s the expectation of others.

When I told my mum I’d finished my first attempt at a novel. She told her friend. And a week later her pal phoned my mum to ask why she couldn’t find it in Waterstone's!!

No pressure then…

Pierre’s key message was to give yourself the freedom to fail. He wrote the first draft of Vernon God Little in a stream of consciousness in five frenzied weeks. But it took several drafts and many months of sifting through the original material and reconstructing the writing to create a phenomenal novel.  Everyone needs TIME to experience failure before they can achieve success.  No artist uses watercolours for the first time and has the painting hung in the National Gallery.  It takes years of hard slog to achieve such glory- just ask Jack Vettriano! I know now that I need to give myself permission to produce crap and then keep writing in order to get better.

At the book signing, Pierre wrote on my copy of Vernon God Little,

“Be free to fail- only by staring into that abyss can we write!"

No excuses left now…

Write About What You Know

As Oor Wullie would say, "Jings crivens help ma boab!"

It’s been a busy and intense first few weeks and I can’t believe that it’s mid semester already. My head is jammed with new information and ideas!

The MLitt course has made me accept the sad realisation that there are so many books and so little time. No matter how many years I have left on the planet, I won’t live long enough to get through all the books I want to read and all the books I should read. Not a class has concluded without several recommended texts. Please no more! Have mercy on my groaning bedside table and my Amazon account. But being a reader of quality novels is vital to making me a better writer.

Apart from a time issue, reading books is the easy part. The difficulty is then deciding what I should write about? I’ve often heard the advice that you should write about what you know. 

Hmmm...It’s an interesting statement in the week that the film, 'Anonymous' was released claiming that Shakespeare didn’t actually write his plays. The bard is portrayed as an uneducated drunken idiot and suggests that the Earl of Oxford, Edward De Vere actually penned the great works.  The conspiracy is based on the idea that there is no way a working class man could write brilliant literature and so these must have been the masterpieces of a well-travelled aristocrat.  If you should write about what you know then surely Shakespeare was incapable of writing distinctively Italian plays when he never actually left England?

For over 150 years, the question has been did he or didn’t he? So was Shakespeare a fraud? We’ll never know. And does it really matter anyway? I haven’t seen the film yet but it does make me consider the idea of writing about what you know.

If a writer is only to write about what they know there would be no science fiction or fantasy novels (not that I’d be upset) as they couldn’t possibly have travelled aboard a Time Machine. And what about the crime fiction genre?  Do we expect a writer to commit a murder before she can effectively write about one?

Who wants to read about ordinary people living ordinary lives?  That’s why I don’t plan to take the phrase literally in my writing.  If I want to write a historical piece (although that sounds like really hard work to me) then I don’t need to have lived in those times (that’s what the internet is for).  But I do need to know about human emotions such as fear, love, anger so that readers can relate to the story and empathise with the characters.

This week I hate to admit that I got a tiny bit excited at the thought of using my new Dyson (well to be fair it is a DC24 Ultra-Lightweight Dyson Animal Ball Upright Vacuum Cleaner for pet owners!) but it’s hardly going to inspire a great work of literary genius. If I stuck to just writing about what I know it would make a very dull read. That’s why I’m off to hoover the bedrooms while I plan out how I can write about a drug dealing gangster…

Never Too Late to Start to Write

What aspiring writer doesn't day-dream about leaving the 9-5 to give their writing 100% commitment? But every bit of advice insists, "Don't give up the day job!" 


But I ignored the screaming voices of reason and made a very very late application to university to do a Masters in Creative Writing. A week before the course started, I got the news that I'd been accepted. It felt scary and exciting in equal measures.


This week I received my last ever pay slip. The reality of what I'd done set in as I filed away the little scrap of paper. But instead of worrying, I felt liberated and thought, "What's the worst that can happen?" 


And I knew I'd made the right decision when I returned from my 'Welcome Meeting' at uni. For the first time in years my brain was buzzing with the challenges that the course was sure to throw at me. 


At forty three years of age, I was way out of my comfort zone when I wandered around the Freshers' Week stalls. It was weird. There was never any pole dancing clubs when I did my first degree! I wanted to stop to admire the skill and fitness of the girl demonstrating. But the look of terror on the acne ridden faces of the teenagers when I paused briefly at the stall made me keep on walking. Of course it was tempting to wind them up by pretending to want to join their club but I didn't have the heart to cause such stress. One glance at me made it obvious that I was only able to polish the pole with Mr Sheen rather than my inner thighs.

At least my MLitt class was a safe haven from giggling girls planning what to wear to Dance Night at the Union. Almost everyone in class is mature in years or in attitude. It felt great to be surrounded with like minded people and it was clear that everyone had made a sacrifice on one level or another to be there.


As a former Training Officer, I was for once on the other side of the desk. No longer the ring master and all I had to worry about was could I perform? Would I be able to cope with the workload, the reading,assignments, the creative writing exercises and the ordeal of having my work critiqued?


But I instantly started to calm down when the lecturer reassured the class that it's sometimes too early to embark on creative writing but it's never too late.


And as they say, it's better to regret what you did instead of what you didn't! But I'll stay away from the pole dancing club...