On Thursday of this week I am going into hospital to have an operation on my foot because the joint in one of my toes is completely trashed. I’ve been putting it off for ages but it’s finally become too painful to be avoided any longer. It’s not the operation that I dread, it’s the fact that I won’t be able to walk properly for weeks afterwards and that means, no dancing.
For the last two years I’ve been going to dancing classes once or twice a week. The dance I’ve been learning is called Lindy Hop and it’s very vigorous No doubt, this has a lot to do with the condition of my toe. But I don’t regret it because I enjoy the classes so much. Apart from the sheer physical fun and the pleasure of interacting with so many different people, it’s about the only time I forget all about writing.
The rest of the time, there’s a narrator and editor at work in my head arguing non-stop about plot lines and characters, voice and tone, phrasing and cadence and all the rest of the writer’s bag of tricks. But when I dance, they are forced to shut up and my head is filled with a kind of white stillness.
At least, that’s what happens when I dance well. I have to be honest and admit that frequently the editor and narrator are simply replaced by a movement coordinator who spends his time saying things like ‘Am I supposed to be turning clockwise or anti-clockwise?’ or ‘Which foot do I start with?’ Nevertheless, those moments when my body is perfectly in time to the music, when I stop worrying about what I should be doing next, or what I look like to other people, make it all worth while.
In that sense dancing it’s just like writing since there are wonderful moments in the writing process when you entirely lose your awareness of your self and the story seems to write itself. But it’s using a different part of the brain and it’s altogether more sociable. On Thursday, however, it all stops for at least two months and then there will be no escape from the blank page that I carry in my head
Sunday, 30 November 2008
Wednesday, 26 November 2008
Voices In The Dark
I have just heard that The Haunting Of Nathaniel Wolfe has been shortlisted for the Calderdale Children’s Book Of The Year Award, 2009. As you can imagine, I’m very pleased.
I don’t suppose any author writes in order to win awards. Most of us, I think, just do it because we’re driven to. We don’t have any choice in the matter. No doubt some people are more calculating than others. (That sounds like a criticism but it’s not meant to be. All art involves some element of calculation, after all.) But speaking personally, I never make up my mind to write a particular kind of book in advance, I just respond to whatever is obsessing me at the moment. It’s like scratching an itch.
Does that sound ridiculous, or pretentious? I hope not. The fact is that my books are all about myself – even if the hero of the story is a fourteen year old girl, even if it’s set in an imaginary word. It’s all been extrapolated from my own experience then encrytpted on my own personal Enigma Machine.
Nevertheless, it cheers one up enormously to hear that a book has been placed on the shortlist for an award. Because it means that I’ve found an area of experience that has meaning and resonance for other people. It’s like wandering about in a dark cave underground and then suddenly hearing voices.
Writing can be a very solitary business. During my working day I’m on my own for ten hours at a stretch.I’m not expecting anyone to feel sorry for me. I arranged it like that because I don’t really believe there’s any alternative.
What about writing groups, you may ask? Well, it’s true that they offer a degree of mutual support but they also present an enormous distraction. The process of writing requires that you download the contents of your mind onto a blank page, then arrange and rearrange the elements of that download to create the best and most satisfying order. I believe that’s best done in solitude.
But the intensity of that solitude makes it all the nicer when you come in from the cold every now and again, and stand there blinking in the unaccustomed light as people shake you by the hand and say, ‘Well done! Good piece of work.’
I don’t suppose any author writes in order to win awards. Most of us, I think, just do it because we’re driven to. We don’t have any choice in the matter. No doubt some people are more calculating than others. (That sounds like a criticism but it’s not meant to be. All art involves some element of calculation, after all.) But speaking personally, I never make up my mind to write a particular kind of book in advance, I just respond to whatever is obsessing me at the moment. It’s like scratching an itch.
Does that sound ridiculous, or pretentious? I hope not. The fact is that my books are all about myself – even if the hero of the story is a fourteen year old girl, even if it’s set in an imaginary word. It’s all been extrapolated from my own experience then encrytpted on my own personal Enigma Machine.
Nevertheless, it cheers one up enormously to hear that a book has been placed on the shortlist for an award. Because it means that I’ve found an area of experience that has meaning and resonance for other people. It’s like wandering about in a dark cave underground and then suddenly hearing voices.
Writing can be a very solitary business. During my working day I’m on my own for ten hours at a stretch.I’m not expecting anyone to feel sorry for me. I arranged it like that because I don’t really believe there’s any alternative.
What about writing groups, you may ask? Well, it’s true that they offer a degree of mutual support but they also present an enormous distraction. The process of writing requires that you download the contents of your mind onto a blank page, then arrange and rearrange the elements of that download to create the best and most satisfying order. I believe that’s best done in solitude.
But the intensity of that solitude makes it all the nicer when you come in from the cold every now and again, and stand there blinking in the unaccustomed light as people shake you by the hand and say, ‘Well done! Good piece of work.’
Monday, 17 November 2008
The Flickering Guide
When I am writing a story I imagine – no, it’s stronger than that – I see, a person in my mind whom I call my Guide, and I hear the story being told to me in the voice of that Guide. I’ve only recently realised that this is weird and that no-one else seems to work in this way.
In fact, I have two Guides. I call them the Solid Guide and the Flickering Guide. I have given them these names because that’s how I see them: the Solid Guide is literally solid, like a real person; the Flickering Guide, however, seems to come and go while I look at him, like a candle flame.
I trust the Solid Guide and I don’t trust the Flickering Guide. As a result, most of the time I listen to the Solid Guide's voice. And for a long time, I assumed that he was the one who knew what he was doing. Recently, however, I’ve begun to notice that it’s the writing that I do when I listen to the Flickering Guide that people seem to be most impressed by. It’s always his passages that people single out when they praise me.
The trouble is, I am by no means certain that the Flickering Guide has my best interests at heart. I don’t mean that he intends to do me harm, just that he is entirely uninterested in my welfare, one way or the other. The Solid Guide, on the other hand, is a friend. He won’t let me down. He won’t disappear half way through a novel and refuse to come back for months, for example. But that’s exactly the kind of trick the Flickering Guide loves to play.
Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that I need to take much more notice of the Flickering Guide. And he knows it. He looks at me sometimes with an expression that says, very plainly: you’ve only got so much time left, Brian. Do you want to keep messing about with that other loser, or do you want to get on with the serious business of writing something worthwhile?
In fact, I have two Guides. I call them the Solid Guide and the Flickering Guide. I have given them these names because that’s how I see them: the Solid Guide is literally solid, like a real person; the Flickering Guide, however, seems to come and go while I look at him, like a candle flame.
I trust the Solid Guide and I don’t trust the Flickering Guide. As a result, most of the time I listen to the Solid Guide's voice. And for a long time, I assumed that he was the one who knew what he was doing. Recently, however, I’ve begun to notice that it’s the writing that I do when I listen to the Flickering Guide that people seem to be most impressed by. It’s always his passages that people single out when they praise me.
The trouble is, I am by no means certain that the Flickering Guide has my best interests at heart. I don’t mean that he intends to do me harm, just that he is entirely uninterested in my welfare, one way or the other. The Solid Guide, on the other hand, is a friend. He won’t let me down. He won’t disappear half way through a novel and refuse to come back for months, for example. But that’s exactly the kind of trick the Flickering Guide loves to play.
Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that I need to take much more notice of the Flickering Guide. And he knows it. He looks at me sometimes with an expression that says, very plainly: you’ve only got so much time left, Brian. Do you want to keep messing about with that other loser, or do you want to get on with the serious business of writing something worthwhile?
Thursday, 6 November 2008
Haunting
I don’t expect that you believe in ghosts. I do, but I’m not interested in convincing anyone. However, you don’t have to believe in ghosts to believe in haunting. It’s something that has interested me for many years. I thought that by writing my book, The Haunting Of Nathaniel Wolfe, I might have put it out of my mind but apparently not.
A few years ago I went to see a friend of mine called Margaret who lives in County Mayo in Ireland. She was working as a home help for a number of old people who lived locally. On the day I visited her she had to make a call on one of her clients. ‘Why don’t you come with me?’ she suggested. ‘I think you’ll find him an interesting character.’
On the way there she told me that Dennis, her client, was in his seventies, that he had been a good-looking and popular man in his youth but that something had gone wrong with him when he was in his twenties. ‘Some sort of mental illness, though no one diagnosed it at the time.’
‘What form did his illness take?’ I asked.
‘Well maybe he’ll tell you about it himself,’ she suggested.
We arrived at Dennis’ house a few minutes later. It was an old stone cottage in very poor repair. When we knocked on the door there was a very long pause before it was opened. The man who appeared before us had obviously been tall and strong when he was younger. Now he was bent over, with white hair that stood up in all directions and very bloodshot eyes. My friend introduced me and he invited us in, shuffling across the room in front of us with the aid of a stick.
The first thing I noticed was how hot it was. There was a huge fire in the grate though it was a warm day outside. I sat down, as Dennis suggested, and immediately began peeling off my sweater.
‘Is it too hot for you?’ Dennis asked.
‘I’m afraid it is,’ I replied.
‘I’m frozen,’ Dennis told me.
‘You can’t be frozen,’ I said. ‘It’s like an oven in here.’
‘I haven’t been warm in fifty years,’ Dennis went on.
‘You haven’t been warm in fifty years! Why ever not?’
Dennis gave me an unreadable look. Then he said, ‘You know why.’
‘No I don’t,’ I told him. ‘Why haven’t you been warm in fifty years?’
‘Because of them,’ he said. Then he turned away from me and stared into the fire as if that was the end of the conversation.
‘Because of who?’ I said.
He cleared his throat and spat into the fire. ‘You know who,’ he insisted.
‘I don’t know who,’ I told him. ‘Is it because of your neighbours?’
‘Neighbours be damned!’ he said. ‘It’s because of them that shouldn’t be here.’
‘Them that shouldn’t be here?’ I said. ‘Who are they, then?’
He leaned towards me and in a hoarse whisper said, ‘the dead.’
That took me by surprise. ‘The dead?’ I said. ‘Are you talking about ghosts?
‘If that’s what you want to call them.’
‘Tell me,’ I said, after thinking about this for a little while, ‘what are they like, these ghosts?’
‘You don’t want to know,’ he replied.
‘But I do. I’m curious.’
Dennis thumped on the ground with his stick. ‘Don’t be curious!’ he said angrily. ‘Isn’t that what has me the way I am. It's just the same as inviting them in! And if you do that, you’ll never see the back of them.’
He wouldn’t say any more after that and it took a great deal of sweet-talking from Margaret before he calmed down enough for us to leave him.
In the car on the way back, Margaret said she shouldn’t have brought me. ‘He doesn’t normally get worked up like that,’ she said. ‘I just thought he might enjoy having a visitor.’
‘I think he has enough visitors as it is,’ I said.
‘Poor Dennis!’ she agreed. ‘The trouble is he won’t let a doctor near him. It’s an awful pity he didn’t get the proper treatment when he was young.’
‘Isn’t it?’ I replied but all the way back to Margaret’s house I kept thinking, what if he wasn’t ill?
A few years ago I went to see a friend of mine called Margaret who lives in County Mayo in Ireland. She was working as a home help for a number of old people who lived locally. On the day I visited her she had to make a call on one of her clients. ‘Why don’t you come with me?’ she suggested. ‘I think you’ll find him an interesting character.’
On the way there she told me that Dennis, her client, was in his seventies, that he had been a good-looking and popular man in his youth but that something had gone wrong with him when he was in his twenties. ‘Some sort of mental illness, though no one diagnosed it at the time.’
‘What form did his illness take?’ I asked.
‘Well maybe he’ll tell you about it himself,’ she suggested.
We arrived at Dennis’ house a few minutes later. It was an old stone cottage in very poor repair. When we knocked on the door there was a very long pause before it was opened. The man who appeared before us had obviously been tall and strong when he was younger. Now he was bent over, with white hair that stood up in all directions and very bloodshot eyes. My friend introduced me and he invited us in, shuffling across the room in front of us with the aid of a stick.
The first thing I noticed was how hot it was. There was a huge fire in the grate though it was a warm day outside. I sat down, as Dennis suggested, and immediately began peeling off my sweater.
‘Is it too hot for you?’ Dennis asked.
‘I’m afraid it is,’ I replied.
‘I’m frozen,’ Dennis told me.
‘You can’t be frozen,’ I said. ‘It’s like an oven in here.’
‘I haven’t been warm in fifty years,’ Dennis went on.
‘You haven’t been warm in fifty years! Why ever not?’
Dennis gave me an unreadable look. Then he said, ‘You know why.’
‘No I don’t,’ I told him. ‘Why haven’t you been warm in fifty years?’
‘Because of them,’ he said. Then he turned away from me and stared into the fire as if that was the end of the conversation.
‘Because of who?’ I said.
He cleared his throat and spat into the fire. ‘You know who,’ he insisted.
‘I don’t know who,’ I told him. ‘Is it because of your neighbours?’
‘Neighbours be damned!’ he said. ‘It’s because of them that shouldn’t be here.’
‘Them that shouldn’t be here?’ I said. ‘Who are they, then?’
He leaned towards me and in a hoarse whisper said, ‘the dead.’
That took me by surprise. ‘The dead?’ I said. ‘Are you talking about ghosts?
‘If that’s what you want to call them.’
‘Tell me,’ I said, after thinking about this for a little while, ‘what are they like, these ghosts?’
‘You don’t want to know,’ he replied.
‘But I do. I’m curious.’
Dennis thumped on the ground with his stick. ‘Don’t be curious!’ he said angrily. ‘Isn’t that what has me the way I am. It's just the same as inviting them in! And if you do that, you’ll never see the back of them.’
He wouldn’t say any more after that and it took a great deal of sweet-talking from Margaret before he calmed down enough for us to leave him.
In the car on the way back, Margaret said she shouldn’t have brought me. ‘He doesn’t normally get worked up like that,’ she said. ‘I just thought he might enjoy having a visitor.’
‘I think he has enough visitors as it is,’ I said.
‘Poor Dennis!’ she agreed. ‘The trouble is he won’t let a doctor near him. It’s an awful pity he didn’t get the proper treatment when he was young.’
‘Isn’t it?’ I replied but all the way back to Margaret’s house I kept thinking, what if he wasn’t ill?
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