And another post on that whole writing psyche thang…

Following up on Michael’s posting of the downsides of being published (and there was Grumpy Old Bookman believing there are no lows…!!), Aliya Whitely of Three Things About Me and the forthcoming Light Reading has written a great post over on the MNW blog on what happens when she stops writing.

It’s something I more than sympathise with.

For me, not writing is like having an itch so aggravating yet utterly inaccessible that it drives me to complete distraction. I go to bed thinking I’ve done fuck-all with my day (which is sometimes true – for example, one day over Christmas I spent four hours playing on a video game which only served to remind why I don’t play video games more often – life is far too short). Other times I lie in bed and dream about another writing project, one that will surpass the previous one until I feel the need to slide out from under the covers and make notes on what could be my “defining work” (which of course never happens – I don’t think a writer ever writes a “defining work” - it’s the readers and critics who make that happen).

I simply can’t switch off. My imagination never takes a holiday – it doesn’t metaphorically lie back on a deck-chair, sipping cold beers whilst watching scantily-clad thoughts walk past. It is this hyperactivity that causes sleepless nights - more so when that imaginative muscle hasn’t worked out during the day.
I’ve made that writer’s pledge to Sarah many times - you know the one? That I “won’t do any writing today, I promise…” And yet during walks through the peak district, meals at fancy restaurants or nights out at the local pub, my mind is formulating plots, then scenes, and finally prose to the extent my hands get twitchy and sweaty in anticipation of writing it all down.

And then there’s the drafting-breaks, those weeks (or in my case days, because I can’t bear a longer pause) between each draft where a writer is meant to wind-down and take a vacation. I can’t do that. My imagination won’t let me, so I end up writing a short story, or a novella or the plot for another book to add to the other story-lines that are mounting up quicker than I am able to write each novel.

Yet while it’s exhausting having an imagination that pretty much feeds on itself and everything around me, I’m not sure I’d have it any other way. As an author, my writing energy feels boundless, but I have no doubt that one day it’ll catch up with age and come to a juddering halt, usually preceded by bouts of writers-block (something I have yet to experience). I know of other authors who find the whole writing process painful - it is something I find quite alien, and for that I’m extremely grateful.

Like Aliya, who I suspect has a similar problem to me, that back-handed gift of being naturally obsessed with writing is something neither of us would willingly discard. My only hope is those closest to me continue to understand why I spend so much time locked away in my imagination and my study – and that I’m really not that fanatical.

Much.

Tumbleweed at Christmas

Both this blog and the Macmillan New Writers blog have been quite quiet over the last week or so, as we all get involved in family/festive things (where the mere mention of “checking one’s blog” receives immediate chastisement). So I’ll be brief as I stand in the middle of this silent meeting place with naught but the metaphorical tumbleweed gathering at my feet (and yes, I think somewhere in the distance I hear a dog bark…)

Just before we went away, David posted a rather good link to Michael Stephen Fuch’s website where he delivered a rather heart-felt and unapologetic piece on being published. A few of us have posted a few comments on the entry over on the MNW blog - a bit of wake-up call for any who wish to be published and be damned.

As Michael has said, and I completely agree with him, being published is not the route to happiness, unless someone has promised you a million pounds for publication, a fancy house (mortgage free of course), a nice car and lovely partner to share it all with. In fact, being published can cause additional problems such as the pressure of writing the second book, less time to spend with loved ones, the skewing of priorities and the danger that reality will not meet expectation.

For a career which has us immersed in worlds of fiction and sometimes fantasy, the first time novelist really does need to hold on to the buoyancy-aid of reality. There are plenty of ghosts down there at the bottom of the Sea of Publishing who simply let go and sank – sometimes without a trace.

What’s been happening…

Okay, I’ve been a little quiet on the blogging front for the last two months. Sure, I’ve published the odd blog entry here, and the even odder one on the Macmillan New Writer’s blog, but they’ve been short (not necessarily sweet).

With this round (and hopefully the last round) of edits now completed for The Horde of Mhorrer, I can relax for a bit and take account of the last 6 weeks, which have been “interesting”. Apart from writing my socks off all hours of the day, I’ve been collating research material for the project in the new year, making amendments to the MNW blog-settings, and doing promotional things, including a few impromptu signings on request. For instance, I’ve now signed two copies of Wachter der Schatten, and unless there are some counterfeiters out there, these are the only two signed copies of the German translation of The Secret War in existence.
As far as I know, paperback edition-Deutsche is doing well and selling a fair few copies (especially on Amazon.de). And it’s being stocked pretty much everywhere over in Germany and Austria. During our recent travels to Vienna, the first bookshop we went into – whilst searching for a decent book on Salvador Dali (yes, I can’t speak German, but I can always look at the pictures) - there were a couple of copies of Wachter der Schatten between the Terry Brook-es and Trudi Canavan-es in a shop called Fricks. Another bookshop, just off the high street, had a few copies stacked up with the other bestsellers, and it did cross my mind to offer signing them, but I get all shy when I go to a country with a foreign language.

Also The Secret War has seen a renaissance – which isn’t bad for a hardback book that’s almost 12 months old and with a comparatively limited run compared to a bestseller. But copies have pretty much sold out everywhere. With the paperback of The Secret War coming out in Spring 2009, I think hardback copies will become rarer – and as for those first few hundred that were printed with the bookmark-ribbons and the different binding… these are like gold-dust now (I guess that must make them limited editions or something). I understand Goldsboro still has a handful of signed copies, but Amazon UK is on the second batch sans ribbon as are most of the bookstores across the country.

Over the past three weeks I’ve also put things in motion that will give me an opportunity to write part-time in 2008, depending on how much interest The Horde of Mhorrer generates and The Secret War too. It also means I can concentrate on The Black Hours which someone described to me as “a Victorian James Bond for the steam-punk generation” - which was nice, though if James Bond was an anti-hero, this quote would be more appropriate.

All in all, I’ve done enough this year to take a contented breather at Christmas (I didn’t have a Christmas last year due to preparation for The Secret War’s publication in January).
But most of all, I have more time to witter on here as well as the Macmillan New Writers blog, about things of relevance, and irreverence…

ENTER STAGE RIGHT: (huffing and puffing)…

We’ve just returned from a week-long jaunt to Prague and Vienna – cities that are both remarkable and quite beautiful, and in the case of Vienna, a revelation (but more of that in a later blog entry…).
So, I’m back in wet ‘n’ windy Sheffield now and creatively reinvigorated for a further stab at The Horde of Mhorrer edits which were put on hold due to untimely “man-flu” and the trip away. And during our travels I wrote a fair few pages of notes on The Black Hours, and have a fist-full of short story and a non-genre-novel ideas inspired by Wien, too.

So while I won’t be starting The Black Hours until March, over the next three months I’ll be far from idle.

In fact it’s quite possible that I won’t even notice Christmas passing by the window in a flurry of snow and the short-sharp ringing of bells…