This reading-writing-wordsmithing thing

As everyone reading this blog probably knows, it's next-to-impossible to earn a living solely by sitting down and writing the books you want to write, let alone the stories or the poems. There are probably only a handful or two of authors in the UK who can, and failing a higher-earning partner the rest of us have to keep the roof over the family's head with other work. Much of the time that's teaching of one sort or another: running workshops freelance, landing a part-time staff job in a college or university, doing editorial reports, one-to-one mentoring, and so on. Because it uses up the same kind of energy as one's own writing, as well as making life more complicated, sometimes I dream of not having to do it, or wonder if I'd be better off doing something completely unrelated.

But actually I've realised that even if I could, I don't think I'd want to give up this side of the writing life. My sister teaches singing, and used to teach A Level Chemistry. She pointed out that, at the risk of sounding unbearably smug, when you're teaching you know more than your students do, and you're dealing with ideas and practices that are familiar, that you can explain, combine, use and jump off from. Whereas in your own work, she said, you're always trying to do something that's at the far end of what you can do, a new thing you've only just thought of, the hardest thing you're capable of.

It's certainly true of my writing. So many of the ideas whizzing around in the back of my head are 'What if... How would it work if I... Could I make that work? Could I?...' So I've never begun a novel being at all sure that I'm going to be able to pull it off. Sometimes I discover it'll probably work by the end of the first draft, and sometimes I have to change my plans. But that uncertainty's what I need, that nervous excitement, because only that will keep the urge to write it burning hot enough: can I really plait and weave and stitch all these things together to make them one whole?

It takes too bloody long to write a novel, I often find myself thinking. Keeping my courage up for months and years, keeping alive my faith that I can pull it off, isn't easy. It helps when I get emails from people who've read TMoL and loved it, because it reminds me that once upon a time I did pull it off, so it's not impossible that I'll do it this time too. Which is just as well because it's a long haul. I research it. And write it. And re-write it. And revise it. And do all the new research I hoped I'd get away without doing. And revise it. And read it aloud. And edit it. And send it to my editor. And revise it again... As they almost say in the recipe books, repeat until you have used up all the ingredients, finishing with a layer of copy-editing.

Somewhere, round about the second editor-sees-it stage - which is the stage I'm at now with the new novel - I start to know that I have pulled it of. Sort of. I think. Maybe. But who knows? Will the rest of my publishers like it? Will they transmit that to Waterstones, Tesco (yes, they did buy TMoL), The Bookseller Preview, the magazines, the newspaper reviewers, the book groups, the festival artistic directors? Am I in the right job? Am I a fool to think people will listen when I speak or write? Look at it one way, after all, and it's a monstrous act of egotism to write a novel.

So to be asked by a student for advice on how to go about starting a short story; to have someone else's manuscript land on my desk and know what doesn't work, what does, and how to describe the difference; to read a set text and think 'Yes, I know what I want to say about this,' is wonderfully re-fuelling. This is something I can do. Yes, it takes work, it goes wrong, and I usually think I could have done it better. But still, I know this stuff. This is my work, this writing-reading-wordsmithing-communicating thing, whatever it is. I'm in the right job.

Comments

[Writer Girl]

Absolutely in the right job. And thanks for being so open about the process of writing the second book.

[Sophy]

(you probably know I would say this, but anyway...) It's a bit like when I was a maths grad student at UCLA. For several years I spent Monday, Wednesday and Friday struggling to understand things that were almost (or occasionally just) beyond me, and Tuesday and Thursday (when I taught as a teaching assistant) explaining things I found beautifully clear. It was a healthy regime for my self-esteem, I think. And there was one topic I gave up on when it was just for my own exam, but had to, and did, make sense of when it came up in my teaching...

[Emma]

Yes, and that in a way is even more directly linked than Carola's singing, (or, arguably, my writing) where on the whole you're trying to teach things which for your own work you've internalised to the point of using them without particularly being aware of it.

One of the useful things about being a Site Expert on WriteWords has been that forum threads make me think hard about the reasons for things that mostly I just do...

[Rachael King]

Thanks. I feel much better. I am currently assessing an MA in Creative Writing and you just reminded me how doing things like this helps my own writing.

[David I]

Your sister is very wise.

[Emma]

David, you may not realise that 'Sophy', a couple of comments above you, is also my sister! She's older, Carola's younger, but they're both wise, and have both been teaching much longer than I have. ;)

Writer Girl, meant ages ago to say, you're welcome!