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Category Archives: That writing thing

Some things (with links)

by clairehennessy

–> Recent interview with Sophie Kinsella, whose new book I’ve Got Your Number is just out. In which the interviewer is a tad condescending and Kinsella is mightily zen. (There’s a follow-up piece as well.)

–> On a related note, a piece about reader-shaming and genre fiction.

–> Over at DIY MFA, there’s a great post about what you promise the reader in the opening pages of a story or novel.

–> On the non-writerly, personal side of things, there is a super piece here about bad relationships. Aimed at teenagers, but worth reading at any age.

–> And on a happier TV junkie note, some fabulous bits of Cougar Town Season 3. (I may have mentioned my love of this show previously. It is very very funny, and has a super cast. YAY for season 3!)


How much do you write each day?

by clairehennessy

“But how much should you really be writing?” people in creative writing classes ask, looking for the set number, the goal to work towards, something that has been approved by Someone Else.

“It depends,” is what you say, because it’s all you can say. It depends on so many things.

  • Are you writing a first draft, or are you revising? (Writing 1000 words is not the same as revising them.)
  • Are you revising as you go, or just powering through?
  • Do you know exactly where the book/story is going, or do you need to factor in thinking time? Or research time?
  • How much time do you have per day? Per week? Per month?
  • How much can you reasonably write within that time?
  • What’s your limit for ‘workable’ words per day/week? (e.g. you can write 1000 words a day and know they’ll be okay, but going to 2000 words will mean that there’s unusable rubbish in there)
  • Can you write at the same pace throughout the week? When will you take breaks? (Taking breaks = good thing.)
  • Are you under contract for this book? When is it due and how much do you need to write per day/week/month to meet that deadline?

Would love to hear your answers on this one, everyone! How much do you write each day that you write – and is that every day, every weekday, every second day, or occasional days only?


Getting in touch with your inner teen (part 2)

by clairehennessy

Have been meaning to follow up Getting in touch with your inner teen for a while now.

This time: TV shows. Ah, yes – a legitimate excuse to watch television. Because it’s research.

I have two personal favourite recommendations, TV-wise. One is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, especially seasons one to three (though there is some good stuff later on). Teenage angst, but with monsters. Having a whole secret identity that teachers and parents don’t understand or respect, or a boyfriend who goes evil after you sleep with him… oh, it is so good. With super, if quirky, dialogue.

The other is Dawson’s Creek. As with Buffy, there is terrific dialogue. In this case, it’s terrific, over-thinking, over-analysing-everything dialogue. But there’s also that hovering between grown-up and kid, the sulk-fest one moment and adolescent sex-obsession the next. And there is Pacey Witter.

Both of these are from the late 90s/early 00s, during which time there were also things like Roswell (teen angst! With aliens!), Felicity (she cut her haaaaaaaair!), Popular (demented yet brilliant), Freaks and Geeks (tragically short-lived). I am fond of this post-My So-Called Life era of TV, I must say. The noughties went on to bring us Gilmore Girls (possibly more family drama than teen show, but shh. Rory! Paris! Lane!) and Veronica Mars (girl detective! Darkness! Epic amounts of angst and betrayal!), and then the glamour-heavy worlds of The O.C. and Gossip Girl. And of course the high-school-drama-meets-musical fest that is Glee.

The trouble with watching teen-centric TV as research is that you need to know how interpret it. Characters in books, like characters in TV shows, have lives that tend to be slightly more dramatic and polished and scripted than real-life people. But TV shows also tend towards characters acting and seeming much older than they are (in large part because the actors playing them tend to be older), in a way that happens much more in TV than in books. And everyone is good-looking, really really ridiculously good-looking – even the ‘plain’ kids are stunning. And almost always thin or muscular, depending on gender. And have many, many different outfits and spacious living quarters, even if these things are only shown and not discussed.

On the plus side, though, teen-centric TV does a lot of the same thing that teen-centric books do. It takes various situations teen characters might find themselves in, ranging from probable to implausible, and mines them for all the drama (and romance, and comedy) they’re worth. And if it does it right, it persuades viewers to care deeply about what happens with the teen characters and the choices they make, to take them seriously or to empathise somehow. Teen-centric things aren’t the only things that ask us to do this, of course, but books and TV aimed at adults often has teen characters acting in a way that invites exasperation or amusement rather than identification. The ‘oh to be young and know everything!’ sort of vibe.

So, legitimate research? Absolutely. And not just a reason to gaze adoringly at Joshua Jackson or David Boreanaz in their 20something primes. Nope. Certainly not.


History and Writers

by clairehennessy

Occasionally I am asked questions relating to what people ‘should’ study at college, especially if they want to be a writer. (Sometimes it comes in the form of ‘do I have to study English?’)

Well. I have discussed English degrees here previously, and the importance of studying what you love. But now I want to talk about… history.

Because if I had to pick one subject that I think helps or suits writers, it’s that. And no one seems to ever talk about it.

I did not anticipate studying history at college, but then because of the way the joint honors degree programme was structured at Trinity, and because I wanted to do English without having to do Old English, I ended up in history. It seemed like a subject I could do with English that wouldn’t destroy my soul.

Now, I suspect this is the case for most third-level subjects that also appear on second-level curricula, but people have a terrible tendency of thinking they know what you do in history. They seem to be under the impression it’s about memorising dates. About learning off what happened.

Oh, the history student will say, shaking their head, if only we could be sure about what had happened!

Or if people could agree about what had happened. Or why it had happened. Or the significance of it happening. Or about the impact of it happening on people at the time.

So much of history is about people. Every university and department and lecturer will have their own preferences in terms of what they focus on, of course – do we care about ‘the ordinary people’ or ‘the women’ or do we even have the available sources to say much about them? Do we focus on what the parliamentary records say, what the newspapers reported, what someone scribbled in their diary, what a novel of the time implies? Do we focus on the economy or the architecture, on education, music, medicine, shopping? Or do we look at military tactics and who won which battle? It’s possible to avoid people, but it gets less likely the more you look at a particular topic.

History invites us to empathise with the people of the past. To understand them. It asks: how did they see the world? It can be tempting sometimes to see the people of the past as simpletons – rather than people who had a different conceptualisation of things we may take for granted. History asks us to consider how a particular culture shapes people and shapes how they view things – how we view things. Our idea of what’s ‘normal’ is very much a culturally specific thing rather an ahistorical unchanging ‘truth’. History reminds us of that.*

An ability to empathise, to understand, and to speculate where necessary… a writer needs these skills, and studying history invites you to exercise and develop them.

Also… history is fun.


(any excuse…)

*As you may notice, I’m not advocating the study of history as a ‘if we don’t study the past how can we learn from it?’ thing. I think it is patently obvious that what we learn from the past is that we don’t learn from the past…


Links of interest from that world wide web yoke

by clairehennessy

–> Anna Carey writes about why adults are watching kids’ comedy series, and why they are brilliant. My beloved Horrible Histories is mentioned. This pleases me immensely.

–> Gemma Malley, author of The Declaration trilogy, has a new YA dystopian trilogy kicking off in March 2012.

–> In other dystopian-YA news, follow Caragh O’Brien on her blog tour for her new book, Prized. (Loved it.)

–> Need something to counteract the bile of that dreadfully homophobic Indo article last weekend? Have a read of what Jennifer O’Connell or Ross Golden-Bannon have to say about homophobia in Ireland and beyond.

–> Megan Crane, author of smart chick-lit and swoony romance novels, writes about finding her voice for both these things.

–> YA author Aimée Carter talks about what it takes to write – courage.

–> For anyone who’s read Veronica Roth’s Divergent, her post about what changed from the first to final draft is very interesting, particularly for people who wonder what kind of changes ‘revising’ or ‘editing’ entails.

–> YA author Geraldine Meade talks about writing YA fiction over at writing.ie.

–> The web comic Hyperbole and a Half talks about depression. Quote:

“…trying to use willpower to overcome the apathetic sort of sadness that accompanies depression is like a person with no arms trying to punch themselves until their hands grow back. A fundamental component of the plan is missing and it isn’t going to work.”


Some Nano-ish and deadline-ish thoughts

by clairehennessy

Nanowrimo kicks off shortly. For the uninitiated (if there are any left out there), the idea is that you write 50,000 words in a month. In November. It’s a short novel, but it’s doable in the 30 days that you have.

The idea is to stop being a ‘one-day novelist’ – as in, ‘one day, I’ll write a novel’ and just do it.

Writers, both published and aiming-for-publication types, also use it as a way of structuring their writing time – it can be easier to keep motivated with a project when you know lots of other people are doing the same thing. (And the forums can be very useful for quick research questions.)

This post – the 25 things you should know about Nanowrimo – is well worth reading, though I don’t necessarily agree with all of it. But I do like the idea of tweaking the Nano opportunity to get whatever you need to get out of it.

For me, there are definitely times when taking longer to write a first version of a novel results in a better first version. There’s time to reread, and ponder, and consider, and revise earlier bits as you go along. But there’s also time to get distracted, to shift the focus slightly, to become less passionately interested in the story and the characters. Sometimes the intensity of writing quickly and often can really help. The challenging part of Nano isn’t writing 1,666 words in a day – for most writers it’s a reasonable amount – but writing 1,666 words every day for a month (or however you’re structuring your writing time) so that they add up to 50,000 by the end of it.

The ever-wise Alison Wells has written about finding the time for Nanowrimo. And Ellen Brickley, a ML for the Dublin region and Nano enthusiast, talks about reasons to do it.

November can be a busy month for some of us. I can write 50k in 30 days, but usually not in November. At the same time, the question is always are things genuinely busier-than-normal at the moment, or is my life always busier-than-normal? Because there are always so many stories you could tell – more than you can ever get down on the page – and you have to start somewhere. I think the great thing about anything like Nanowrimo is that it slaps down a starting point and a deadline and says, Right. Come on. Let’s do this thing. Let’s get it out of your head, and onto the page – let’s stop dreaming and thinking and start doing – let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.


Links from around the internets

by clairehennessy

–> There’s a Guinness World Record attempt taking place next Wednesday (October 26th) in Dublin. The record in question is ‘most people to write a story’ – they need 900+ – and the organisation is See Change, who are aiming to reduce the stigma and silence around mental health in Ireland.

–> More on mental health: what the Irish presidential candidates would do about it.

–> Elizabeth Rose Murray did a write-up of the Irish PEN event for people writing for kids and teens over at writing.ie. Well worth reading.

–> The Phantom Tollbooth turns 50 this year – and there’s a very nifty documentary to mark the fact.

–> Over at Inis magazine, there’s the question of should writers review books – and is it their ‘duty’ to?

–> William Shatner continues to be Shatneresque.

–> YA author Hannah Moskowitz talks about creating playlists for writing projects.

–> Over at The Plath Diaries, Maeve reflects on working in the Plath archives at Smith College. (Highly recommend her blog to anyone interested in academia, the agonies and ecstasies of postgraduate study, and Sylvia Plath.)

–> Sarah Rees Brennan talks about the internet and being a writer on the internet – things to think about.


Writing Is Rewriting

by clairehennessy

Two small things, from other, wiser people, on writing/rewriting/revising:

“I can fix a bad page. I can’t fix a blank page.”
― Nora Roberts

And this (from this marvellous blog):

So, so true.

And everything is better with pie charts.


Dos and Don’ts for Teens Who Write

by clairehennessy

Recently I’ve seen an awful lot of authors giving advice to teens who write, and want to get published, along the lines of ‘don’t try to get published yet. Just don’t.’ In some ways, I completely understand where they’re coming from. One of the big tendencies of all writers, not just teenagers, is to ask, “How do I write a book and get it published?” in one breath.

They are two very different questions. And there is an awful lot to be said for advising people to focus on the book first, publication second. I completely encourage it. Don’t think about The Market just yet – think about what you want to write, what you care about, and about making this book the best it can be.

But the idea that teenagers are by default not yet ready to submit to agents and publishers bothers me. Because writers of all ages are by default not ready to submit. There’s a nifty post over at Hannah Moskowitz’s blog about her road to getting published as a teenager, which emphasises the fact that it’s about experience, rather than age. I can relate – the first book of mine that was published was not, by any means, the first thing I’d ever written. Not by a long shot. And, yep, I was a teenager when it was published. And when I see things like John Scalzi’s why teenage writers suck post (not the actual title but sort of sums it up), I can see some of his points, but not all of them.

So. Here’s my own list of Dos and Don’ts for teenagers who are interested in writing, who are writing, who are writing things long enough to be novels, and are looking into getting published.

Do write in the first person, and write about characters close to your own age. Your voice is one of the strongest selling points you have. Every writer has their strengths and this is one of yours.

Don’t write about people you know. Use details and traits to give a feeling of authenticity, but remember that the most important thing is that characters work on the page.

Do try to empathise with your characters. All of them. Even the horrible ones. Make sure that their motivations make sense. In real life, people can be horrible for seemingly no reason, but this doesn’t work on the page.

Don’t send your work off straight away. Once you’ve finished a first draft (even if you’ve been tweaking it as you go along), leave it alone for six weeks or so, then return to it and get revising.

Do use this time to do the publishing/marketing research or to start a new project or to take a break. Use it consciously as a break from writing, the kind that will make you want to get back to your novel with new energy after the six weeks has passed.

Don’t despair when you revisit your novel. If it seems to need a lot of work – that’s normal. Get to it. Always remember that there’s a gap between the first version of something, and the published book, rather than comparing your first draft to one of your favourite books.

Do ask friends or family to read your work, but choose them very carefully. What you want are people who’ll be honest but also specific. “It’s good” or “it’s bad” are equally unhelpful. You want to know what works and what doesn’t. This quote is worth keeping in mind:

”Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.” – Neil Gaiman

Don’t confuse writing for school with writing for publication. They’re not the same thing. English teachers vary from the Made-of-Awesome variety to the Why-Oh-Why-Did-I-Do-An-Arts-Degree breed, but most of them are pretty darn good at teaching you the syllabus – this is their job. The Made-of-Awesome variety may also have wisdom about writing beyond the confines of the syllabus, but don’t worry too much if they don’t. (Similarly, don’t worry too much about trying to apply writers’ advice to English essays.)

Do ask for advice – from teachers, librarians, your parents, authors you admire. Go to events where writers and editors and other publishing types are speaking. Ask questions. Do your research.

Don’t send the author(s) you admire your work. Many won’t read what you’ve written because they’re worried that if they’re working on something similar (which is often quite likely – we tend to admire authors who write about similar topics/themes to us) it’ll create a tricky situation for them. Many more won’t read what you’ve written simply because they do not have the time and/or energy to offer detailed critiques of the work of everyone who’s approached them. Reading with a critical eye takes a lot more work than reading for fun. Occasionally they might offer, especially if you’ve been corresponding for a while or you’ve met them in person, but do be aware that it is work and it is not part of their job as an author. (It’s always worth checking if they teach any writing classes, though – this is a separate but related job.)

Do ask the author(s) you admire specific questions – not just things they’ve answered on FAQ pages or elsewhere on their website, or ‘how to get published’. It helps as well if you’re giving an indication why you’re asking their opinion – not just as ‘a writer’. For example you might want to ask someone who writes for both young children and teens about that experience, or someone who writes in multiple genres about that, or someone who writes a series about that…

Don’t ask them if they can introduce you to/put in a good word for you with their agent or editor. (If this is something they feel comfortable doing, they’ll offer – it’s not something you ask of someone unless you’ve built up a relationship and they’ve seen your work.)

Do pay attention to the guidelines that agents and publishers have on their websites. If they say they only want the first three chapters, then… send them the first three chapters. If they’re not interested in fantasy, then… don’t send them fantasy. Simple as that. They want to see your creative brilliance and imagination in your writing, not in your approach.

Don’t use overly-fancy words or overly-complicated sentences in your approach to them. Keep it simple.

Do try to keep enjoying your writing, even if you’re beginning to take it seriously and think about publication. You need to love it at least most of the time.

(Anything else I should add? Let me know…)


Inspiring morning…

by clairehennessy

Inspiring morning at Mountains to Sea, listening to Padraic Whyte (Children’s Lit professor at TCD) speaking to Meg Rosoff and Patrick Ness. (I love events that make you want to go home and start writing/get back to writing.)

It was mostly school groups (secondary schools) and then a handful of adults who could justify being there on a mid-week morning (hi there). The questions from the audience were really good – not just the standard ‘how do you get your ideas’ stuff that you often get at writers’ events (for whatever age group), but the next-step questions about writing and developing and editing a project. It was brilliant to see – there’s so much of an emphasis on writing-for-exams in school, understandably, but attending an event like this every so often is just so necessary.

Some favourite bits :

  • PN dislikes thinking about a book you’re working on as an “adjective novel”, crime novel, YA novel, whatever, because then “your allegiance is to the adjective, not to the story.”
  • “They expect you to be apologetic.” – PN on telling people you write for a young audience
  • MR noted importance of asking for advice when stuck, and talked about writing as coal-mining.
  • PN on writer’s block, noted need to do something else every so often, “Writing can’t be your whole life.”
  • MR gave up writing picture books because they were “too hard”.
  • MR notes that she doesn’t write too explicitly about sex in her books because she doesn’t want to be up for the Bad Sex Award.
  • PN on ideas: “If you have a good idea for a novel, wait.” And wait for more ideas to come along and join them and pile up.
  • MR on ideas: one big idea sometimes happens (as with There is no Dog), and sometimes no idea happens at first.
  • PN on writing a novel: “Starting is really easy, finishing is almost impossible.”

Now back to the rest of the day…


Writing prompts from the Madwoman in the Forest

by clairehennessy

Laurie Halse Anderson is a fabulous, fabulous writer for teens and children. In August, her blog plays host to her Write Fifteen Minutes a Day Challenge – further details at this year’s first post.

Whether you’re participating or not, whether you started at August 1st or not, it’s worth checking out the posts and writing prompts, all of which have useful things to say about writing and creativity and finding/making the time for it.

“Most of the time you can’t do everything that you want. So you have to be really clear on what your true priorities are.”


How’s the book coming along?

by clairehennessy

Very nifty post over this way about irritating/silly questions writers are asked, and how to deal with them.

Some of the silly/bothersome questions include:

“What do you do?”
“What do you write?” (Sometimes followed by: “You write that?”)
“Is there any money in that?”
“Where have you been published?” (Often followed by, “Where?”)
“How’s the book coming?” (Alt: “When will you be done with that thing?”)
“Why don’t you just sit down over a weekend and just finish it?” Or, “Why don’t you just go on [popular TV show]?” (Or other “useful” advice.)
“When are you going to get a real job?” And,
“Did you hear about XYZ? She just sold her novel for a million dollars!”

To that I’d add any questions that demand specifics relating to money, the delightful “when are you going to write a real book?” once you mention you write for young people, and the all-time favourite “Would I have heard of anything you’ve written?” How on earth should anyone know what you’ve heard of, oh question-asker-person?

There’s some good advice about how to respond to these kinds of questions – it’s worth checking out.

I think most of these questions come from a place of ‘not really getting it’ – for example, people who ask how long it takes to write a book, thinking it’s a matter of sitting down and writing one draft and that’s it, off it goes to the editor. There are the questions about all the stuff that’s out of an author’s control, things for publishers and agents and bookshops and external forces to determine. Writing seems easy enough. We use words every day. But, y’know. We also move our bodies every day, but most of us aren’t professional dancers or athletes. Having read an article or interview or two doesn’t make us experts on any field. (Alas. It’d make research so much easier!)


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