Stuck in a writer’s world

Writing is often a solitary activity. Even if you are sharing excerpts from your work, when you write your novel you are alone. It’s just you and the numbing effect of the keyboard as your fingers pluck and press, trying to create the image in your head into a lyrical masterpiece on the screen. 

I find myself stuck in that world sometimes. But I love it. The characters seem to sing to me to pull me back to the keyboard as they are eager to tell me their stories. I go about my day when I’m not at the keyboard and little things remind me of a scene I’ve just penned or a scene that I’ve still got to create. It’s like being in love, but the first flushed stages of love: when you can’t get something out of your head. 

Perhaps writing is falling in love with the self. 

Writing What I Love

If you know anything about me,  you’ll know three things – well, the top three things usually right off the bat:

1. I’m a writer.

2. I can’t sing to save my life, but chances are you’ve seen me do it.

3. I love – I mean obsessively, crazily love – Oscar Wilde.

I got the chance to write about this love and how Oscar has inspired me (both as a person and a writer) for a cool Oscar Wilde fan site. I realized as I was writing my guest blog how difficult it can be to write about what you love.

People always advise writers to write what they love but sometimes I think this can be the much more difficult route because we do not always know how to express our innermost feelings. Whether you’re a writer or not, this is the case. It’s the human condition.

Still, I tried to formulate my obsessive and love-curdled musings into something that was more than, ‘Oh my God, how I Loooooove Oscar so much!’ So here is my guest blog if you’d like to read it. The thing I learnt about writing about what you love is that there could be some point to it, after all. It certainly does make the result so much more satisfying.

Link to my guest blog is here: Oscar Wilde Fan Club.

Inspiration is Sometimes Like Love

You know that moment you realize that you’re in love with someone? It whacks you out of the blue, making you stumble. Perhaps other people knew it was a’coming. They could see the way your eyes glowed whenever your object of affection entered the room or they noticed that lately it seemed all you could do was fall ill with a case of Mentionitis – that person’s name was always on your lips. You’re shocked, however, and stick to your guns that you can’t believe how Love just hit you, in the same way someone crashes into your car when you least expected they would. 

Writing inspiration is similar, I find. Sometimes the more you chase it down and ready yourself for its beauty, it doesn’t arrive. It stands you up for a date. When you’re not even thinking about it, ideas start pouring in, much like those feelings of love that don’t give you a five minute head-start before arriving unannounced. 

Writing inspiration often has bad timing, just like love. Remember that song, ‘You can’t hurry, love, no, you just have to wait?’ Well, they should have added a few more lyrics, such as, ‘It’s gonna come when you’re looking for other things, when you’re not wearing lip gloss and you haven’t styled your hair…’ Writing is the same. When you least expect it, you’ll get the most amazing ideas flow your way. Usually when you’re doing anything BUT writing. Other people know you’re going to get struck by an amazing lightning bolt of writing genius, but you just don’t see it. 

The moral is: we’ve got to have faith! (Another great song.) We’ve got to let our writing energy run its course, even if sometimes we don’t understand its methods. Much like when it comes to love that can be disheartening or scary, that writing energy seems to have a life of its own but it’s important to let it take control every now and then. Much like with love, you can’t force it. You sometimes just have to go with it. But the rewards can be amazing.

‘Am I in your book?’ and Other Awkward Questions You Shouldn’t Ask an Author

As a writer, it’s par for the course that people will ask you awkward things. Actually, I think anyone who is in a creative, exciting field will be asked things that will make the artist unsure of what to say. If you thought, ‘Why are you single?’ questions were bad, then you’re in for a treat.

Here are some questions authors would like you NOT to ask:

1. ‘Am I in Your Book?’

This is usually asked by one’s romantic partners – or ex-partner. It’s usually asked in a mix of thrill and anxiety (the latter stems from fears that nitty-gritty, confidential information has been exposed). Personally, I never put people I know in my books. Yes, people inspire me but my imagination creates unique characters that I don’t know other than in the world of my head. Asking the author in your life if you’re in their book makes them feel a bit uncomfortable. If they say no, then you might feel rejected; if they say yes you might feel like you’ve been exposed. Rather don’t ask.

2. ‘I Have an Awesome Idea For Your Next Book. Hear Me Out, Okay?’

Oh dear. This one gets me eyeing out the exit every time. Just because your author friend or colleague writes, it doesn’t mean that you can ship all your author dreams on him/her. Chances are, the author in your life would like to write something he/she wants to. It’s the one place we have where we can be in control and let our imaginations run unbridled! There’s nothing wrong with suggesting a cool idea, of course. But just bear in mind we’ve got so many thrashing around in our heads already!

3. ‘Can I Be in Your Next Book?’

Oh, gosh, here we go again… So you just found out you’re not the cool, chic and stylish protagonist in your friend’s book that you are sure is going to be a best-seller. Bummer. So you think that maybe, just maybe, you’ll make a starry-eyed appearance in her next one. And why shouldn’t you? You’re awesome. But trying to edge your way into the book might put your author friend into a bit of a tight spot. See, as authors we don’t want to feel that people are only vying to get into our pages. We also don’t always know how to say ‘no’. We don’t want you to feel that we’re mean-spirited or that you wouldn’t make an interesting hero/heroine; but you just might not fall into the ideas we have for our book.

4. ‘Isn’t Writing So Much Better Than a Real Job?’

Now, this sort of stuff is sure to get under an author’s skin. I blame Carrie Bradshaw for making people believe that writing is about lying on your stomach, strumming a few keys and then heading out to do a bit of shoe-shopping. (Okay, look, sometimes it is, but generally we work so much harder!) Writing is not an easy career at all and it is no less demanding just because we get to do it in our pajamas if we want. (Hey, we deserve to be comfortable when we can’t find the right word!) I once heard a cool quote from Red Smith:  ’There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.’

5. ‘Have You Done Your Research?’

You’ve just told your friend about the amazing book set in the 1800s that you’ve been writing and then he asks, ‘Ooh that seems tricky. Have you done your research correctly?’ When you go to your mechanic, do you ask, ‘Hey, you do know what you’re doing, right?’ Or when you visit a surgeon who has operated on you, do you ask to make sure that he didn’t leave a scalpel in there? No. It’s a common misconception that authors just sit and type (see Carrie Bradshaw reference above) and the words just flow out of us. Sometimes they do but usually we do a lot of planning and research to make our stories as believable as possible. We try to enter the minds of our characters and understand where they’re coming from and what they’re about. In fact, writing is sometimes a bit of a smaller activity than doing research. Maybe it’s a good idea to do some research into writing before posing such a question. :)

What are some questions you as an author don’t like having to ask?

xx