A Writer Walking

A long walk.  There’s nothing like it on a summery day, with the barest of breezes.  Along the beach, and around the breath-taking scenery of the Great Orme, a limestone headland jutting off Llandudno into the Irish Sea.  The gulls riding on thermals.  Strange insects scurrying over stone, sand-spiders hurrying over undulating dunes.  Sitting on grass, looking out over Anglesey and Puffin Island, watching kayakers in the sparkling water below, but otherwise alone.  Bliss.

A walk to a writer is about more than just getting exercise (though that is a key factor, as we do spend too many hours sitting at desks, tapping words into computers or running pens over paper that any excuse to get up and move around is welcome, even if it is just dancing along to a Scissor Sisters song and hoping nobody catches you!).  A walk to a writer is about allowing the creative juices to flow.  There is something strangely conducive and seductive about putting one foot in front of another for miles on end, and the way it seems to unlock inner potential. 

I find, as I knock back the miles, that I begin to craft sentences, and redraft them, find the rhythm in them.  My footfalls become a metronome to which to time the music of my words. I find solutions to problems that have been bugging me, sometimes for weeks.   If I’m struggling how to get Character A to Point B in the best way possible, I go for a walk.  As is often the case, I’m working on multiple projects at once, and getting a little stuck – todays walk was to try and find the solution to one problem – I solved it, but not until mile 14 of a 16 mile stroll… but I solved it, and that’s what mattered.  And that solution made the walk I’d just undertaken all the more sweeter.

Taking such long walks might not be conducive in the same manner for all writers but I know it works for me.  It worked for Charles Dickens too, so at least I’m in august company.  And I’m getting exercise, both mental and physical contemporaneously.  As Dickens once said, “The sum of the whole is this: Walk and be happy, walk and be healthy.  The best way to lengthen our days is to walk steadily and with a purpose.”

So next time you’re stuck in your writing, and it’s a not bad day outside, maybe go walk for a few miles.  You might just find the solution to your problem and length your life in the process.  See you out there.

A Blogging Return

I haven’t forgotten about you, dear blog. I’ve just been very busy.

So, updates. The Story Engine in Newcastle went swimmingly – very interesting Q&A sessions with David Peace, Denise Mina, Tony Grisoni and the wonderfully self-deprecating Mike Hodges (who signed his novel for me and lamented the state of modern British publishing, agreeing with so much I have already said – can’t break in unless you’re Oxbridge, they won’t market you when you do, and they won’t pay for a proof reader). I met a few lovely people up there whom I spent the conference sitting with – students both, but who knows, they could be the next big things – and then had a far too long coach ride back home. I did read Little Dorrit though, which has jumped to the top of my Dickens’s best of list (with Nicholas Nickleby and Dombey and Son.)

The script writing then: The Story Engine left me with a few ideas for a crime series that I came back to Oxfordshire with buzzing around my head. I started writing one of them up but discovered something quite interesting in my writing: I can’t write formulaic material. Writing a straight forward police procedural I wanted to shake it up, find something new to do with it. I came up with something exciting: and then, day two into the writing of it, discovered an even better twist on an old idea. So I started writing that. Then the next morning I woke up with a rock solid idea for a radio play and that consumed me. Then my brother came to visit and I couldn’t work for two days, then Mum got sick, so more days. She’s still sick now, nothing serious though, and I should be writing: but look outside, it’s glorious. Not a day to be stuck inside. Which is exactly why I should be writing. I might, in a bit.

I’ve also wasted much time lately ploughing through three seasons of Being Human. I’m in love with this show. I admit it. I’d been avoiding it – the premise, though clever, sounded like a one trick pony to me, but what Toby Whitehouse has done with it is nothing sort of exceptional. He’s mined deep into the darkness of these three figures and found real depth and heart. I’ve found myself thrilled, scared and moved. Who knew werewolves, vampires and ghosts could be so. I’ve watched it all in pretty much one week (I gorged on three episodes alone last night). It is shows like this that remind you that when TV works, it works really well.

Daily Writing

Today has been a productive day – and it’s still not even five pm. I’ve pretty much finished drafting the pilot of my science-fiction children’s show that is heading to the BBC Writer’s Room at the end of the week. It’s sharp, bright, funny, dangerous and sometimes a little bit mad. The dialogue zings along, and the twists and turns of its narrative will enthral kids and make their parents a little nostalgic. It’s the pilot: and I have the first season mapped out. If the BBC pass I might just turn it into a kids book. But I’d rather the BBC didn’t pass, and it opens the doors I hope it does. I hope it even makes it to series, and is shown later next year as it is set in 2012! More on this series, though, I cannot give right now.

I’ve also been typing up the new 1,000 odd words I wrote by hand for my literary novel. Writing by hand? What is this, the 1800s? Well, it’s the way I like to write my fiction, long hand, in ring bound books. That’s my first draft. As I type it up, I redraft it. Then I print it all out, redraft it again, and then, hopefully, have a finished novel. But there might just be another redraft first. I tend to work on the novel in the evening, when I have peace and quiet. I try and do 2,000 or more words every day, but if you read last night’s post, you’ll know I was rather engrossed in the new Patrick Rothfuss. Haven’t finished it yet, because I had to finish Dickens’s Hard Times first. And even without the Dickens, I doubt I’d have finished it: The Wise Man’s Fear is over 1,000 pages long!

Mini-review of Hard Times: I liked it. It struck me that Dickens had one novel in mind at the opening, but quickly changed his mind for a better story – and a chance to attack the Utilitarian movement. The conflict between Bounderby, Gradgrind and the fortunes (or lack thereof) of Coketown highlighted a number of problems facing Britain’s poor in the nineteenth century. The final mine rescue and the attempt to flee Britain by the bank robber dramatically enhanced what is essentially a minor novel in Dickens oeuvre that he wrote to help sell copies of the magazine Household Works. Over the last year and a half I’ve been reading the complete works of Dickens, and thoroughly enjoying a novelist I’d previously found – can I really say this? – dull. He’s not dull. He might just be the greatest novelist of all time. I simply did not get him for the longest time. Thankfully I now do.

Well, must return to the typing up of last night’s work, then a little supper, and then lights dimmed, feet up, read some more, then write some more, then bed. And repeat tomorrow. The recipe for a perfect day.