Gloom And Doom

Just back from South Africa. Suffering from ghastly bug (E.Coli? Malaria? Deadly airline virus??) but determined to get back to work, particularly as I may not be long for this world…

9.00 Professor Gloom despatched to continue life’s work of mystifying students. Note saying GO      AWAY UNLESS YOU ARE THE PLUMBER affixed to front door. Start typing Chapter 2 of  Magnum Opus. (Chapter 1 completed in hospital after nervous breakdown in 2009.)

9.05 Phone rings. It’s Citizen Sonia: I won’t keep you because I know this is your Writing Time (Subtext: How lucky you are to have any free time at all - some of us are too busy campaigning, saving the planet, doing proper jobs, etc…) Fifteen long minutes pass.

 9.20 Loud crash from depths of house. Clementina Gloom (the cat from Hell) has dislodged bowl of partially-thawed Chicken Korma onto kitchen floor and basket of clean laundry. Kick cat out of door while hurling imprecations (witnessed by passing neighbour who hurries inside to phone USPCA) and spend next 10 minutes cleaning up mess.

9.40 Abandon Chapter 2 and start light-hearted piece intended for discerning readers of upmarket women’s magazine.

9.50 Several pages of doodles later have brilliant opening sentence and nothing else. About to give in to urge to resume online Scrabble game when second brilliant sentence pops into mind…

9.51 Neighbour (neither upmarket nor discerning) ignores notice on front door and knocks insistently. She knows you are ‘being creative’ but she is looking for escaped hamster. (Known in neighbourhood as Houdini on account of frequency of escapes.) Growl and slam door - in hindsight a mistake as had been planning to ask her to feed cat next weekend.

9.55 Re-start light-hearted piece but can no longer remember second brilliant sentence...

10.00 Noise of industrial drill commences outside window, so decamp to bedroom on other side of house. Discover Professor Gloom has neglected to mention presence of foreign female who needed bed for the night and speaks no English other than ‘Go vay’.  Briefly contemplate possibility of writing crime novel featuring murder of foreign student.

10.20 Plumber arrives in unmarked van. Possibly axe-murderer but by this stage past caring. Plumber says job will take at least an hour and commences crashing noises. Flee downstairs to kitchen and encounter foreign female consuming last of coffee and sharing with undeserving cat 3 slices of ham intended for writer’s lunch if Chicken Korma had gone off. (A possibility as in freezer since 2003.)

10.35 Lock self into large cupboard with cup of tea, pen, pad and determination to stay calm.

10.37 Bitten by neighbour’s escaped hamster.

11.05 Police arrive, alerted by neighbour to screaming. Neighbour also wishes to report hamster seen flying out of window. Begin to laugh hysterically then weep uncontrollably. Bite own hand in order to overcome urge to bite policeman.

11.35 Police finally leave, followed by plumber who says he can’t be expected to finish the job in a madhouse like this. Neighbours go back indoors.

11.45 Would stick head in gas oven if available – instead take 2 Diazapam, lie down with cold compress on head and consider alternative career.

Never mind choosing your words, choose your partner...

My friend Colette sent me this Elmore Leonard link, and you’ll go a long way before you find better advice to writers. But I have a bit of advice too. I can’t remember who said that ‘a man at his desk is a man at work, a woman at her desk is available to everyone else in the house’ - but it still applies to an awful lot of people. I speak from experience: I was married for many years to an artist – a very good painter, and when it came to his work, he was entirely single-minded: nothing else mattered. His whole family could have been abducted by aliens and he wouldn’t have noticed. Professor Gloom, to whom I am currently married, is an astronomer. Astronomers are a pretty single-minded lot too. When you tell them the drain is blocked, or their beard is on fire, they just go “Mmm…’ because their minds are on higher things. They also come out at night, like bats, which makes them compatible partners for the sort of writer who prefers to work after midnight. What I’m trying to say is that your choice of partner is vital, because struggling to write while holding down a job, looking after children or parents, and doing all the dreary domestic stuff is tough. So my advice is, read Elmore Leonard if you want to know how to write, but choose your partner with care if you want time to write. Chefs are good (you won’t have to cook) and if you have or want children, try to fall in love with a child-minder, or teacher. Or just stick to dogs and cats. Even Clementina Gloom (the most evil-minded, over-indulged rescue cat in County Down - see below) is a doddle compared with a toddler. For one thing, you can shove her out the door without anyone ringing the NSPCC.

And a last word about the Women Aloud event which so happily surprised me: one of the participants came up to me afterwards and asked if I remembered her. She had been at school with my son twenty years ago - and when I tell you we lived in a sleepy rural area of Zimbabwe (a bit like Cullybackey, but without regular electricity) you will understand how amazed and delighted I was to find her in No Alibis in Belfast. So another vote of thanks to everyone who helped to organise the evening.

Good Advice

I’m worried about writers struggling to get their work published who might read this blog in the hope of being encouraged – because I wouldn’t want to put anyone off, but unless you’re made of stern stuff, the best advice I can give you is that next time you get the urge to write, you should lie down, put a cold compress on your head and wait for the madness to pass. Tidy your underwear drawer. Or take up something useful, like knitting – or, as previously recommended, plumbing.

But if you persevere, and finally give birth to your precious manuscript (written over ten years, in tea-breaks, on the bus, or locked in the bathroom) you need to know that composing a covering letter and synopsis that will catch the eye of some jaded publisher or agent will give you almost as much grief as the original work. And even if you’re very lucky and someone eventually responds (after 276 submissions and several crates of gin) don’t be fooled by the initial overtures, because, as night follows day, this is what will happen…

AGENT  I really love this book…

WRITER  Incoherent grateful weeping noises..

AGENT  But I do think it needs a few small changes…

WRITER  Yes, yes, of course! What do you suggest?

AGENT  Well, I think it could work so much better if you cut the first four chapters, and changed the setting from Portadown to somewhere a little more edgy – Pyongyang? – and have you thought about making the kindly old doctor a vampire?

WRITER  Faint choking sounds…

AGENT  Also, I’m not sure about the historic background…and the love story between Judith and Gerald - why not make that Judith and Geraldine? Or maybe Gerald could be Trans?...Hello? Hello? Are you still there...?

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Women Aloud

A long time ago, when I was living in the middle of Africa, I had a children’s book published. It was called The Animal Bus, and like a lot of buses, it led an uneventful life, trundling along and earning the sort of royalties that wouldn’t keep you in ballpoint pens. 19 years later, living in Northern Ireland, I finally had a second book published: The Traveller’s Guide to Love (Blackstaff Press, 2015). In between I did a lot of travelling, writing, and bookshop-running, but I avoided other writers, on the grounds that they were nearly always mad, self-absorbed, bitter and twisted (understandable – it’s a hard, lonely, badly-paid job) and/or drunk. And I won’t even tell you what I thought about poets…So why am I writing this? Because I have an apology to make.

A few nights ago, at the wonderful No Alibis bookshop in Belfast, I attended the Women Aloud event organised by Jane Talbot for International Women’s Day. When I was asked if I would read - and got the first blast of the Talbot energy - I decided she was mad, but against my better judgment, I agreed. Then I heard there would be 27 women reading in 2 hours (she’s a lunatic) and that the final minute would have us all reading together (oh god why did I agree to do this?) And what do you know, it ran like clockwork, the writers were funny, thoughtful, dramatic, unassuming, welcoming, reasonably sober, and NICE to each other!

So I take back everything I said. Well, maybe not quite everything…there are still writers out there who, I’m sorry to tell you, will go into Waterstones and hide your book behind theirs - or worse, move yours to Plumbing.

(Actually, plumbing would be a much more sensible career choice: well-paid, regular hours, and people are always glad to see you. Take up plumbing.)

Anyway, thank you Jane Talbot and everyone who took part – I’m glad I went.

NB My own book, The Traveller’s Guide to Love, is Fiction, even if someone in Waterstones keeps putting it in Travel. If not there, try Plumbing.