Authors Electric

  So, it’s marking time for the Creative Writing courses I teach ie peak chocolate eating time.  In many ways I think the feedback part of any course is the most useful: the moment when students show tutors what they can do and what they have learned, and tutors discover whether our words of wisdom have made any impact. I am not going to try to take credit for the work of those with natural talent who need no help from me, but I have come to realise that there are others whose writing ‘journey’ may be shortened or eased by the right comment at the right time. I just wish it were easier to find that right comment.   It is all too easy to forget the vulnerabilities of other people, to remember that even the most confident, gifted people still need to be treated with careful consideration, that no one takes criticism easily and that making it useful and palatable is a gift that is all too rare. I am not going to lie, I  have often got it wrong.   Like so many ...

I  am forced to acknowledge that I’ve never been brilliant about acknowledgements. I don’t much like admin (and everything that isn’t actually writing counts as admin.) I’m generally poor at detail and once a book is finished I want to forget all about it and get on with something new. For most of my books, I have missed 'acknowledgements' out altogether.  I have a pathological hatred of speech making. Speeches were banned at my wedding and, at any social event where they are de rigueur, I will generally slope off to the loos to hide until they are over. A fact referenced by my brother-in-law in his own wedding speech as I blushingly emerged from the loos a little early, just in time to hear him mentioning my predictable flight to the loos. Oh, the hilarity. This is relevant because, for me, acknowledgements can feel a bit like an Oscar speech, though as I’ve never watched one, I can’t be entirely sure. Where I remember to include acks, I, ...

 I have spent most of my writing life burying my inner critic, entombing him in concrete, and consigning him to a deep and inaccessible grave.  Too much analysis, too much self consciousness can strangle a nascent idea and kill it dead.  I would never have written a word had I not managed to fool my critic into believing I was doing nothing very serious, just pIaying, lulling him into a false sense of security before sneaking up behind him and disabling him with a sharp hatchet blow to the skull. You will note that he is male. I try not to analyse that fact too closely. All this psychological aggression is primarily defensive: at  the beginning of the creative process there is nothing, just a murky kind of potential, then gradually, if you are lucky, you may get a glimmering of something, a glimpse through thick fog of a ghost of  a story seed. The last thing you should do is expose these half formed, germinating almost-nothings to the harshness of a critic...

What a silly question.  New writers will never learn what a frustrating road they're embarking on because, if they're worth their salt, they won't care.  That's the attitude I take when another manuscript from a hopeful newbie appears in my inbox or thumps onto my desk. No, the pile is never as big as this I do a lot of this work.  I edit for The Oxford Editors (www.theoxfordeditors.co.uk) and also on my own account.  Cherry Mosteshar, the remarkable woman who runs The Oxford Editors, regularly sends me manuscripts.  Sometimes she asks me merely to write a report with advice to the author.  This can be as far as the process goes.  I estimate what I read as fairly as I can, state unambiguously what I think of it, point to the good things (because there always are) and look the weaknesses full in the face with advice on what I think can be done about them.  Sometimes that's the last I hear from them.  Have they given up or tried some...