Sensory comfort

It’s great when ideas just pop into your head – the free associations we make every day. The key is to figure out how they might work in a novel.

A co-worker gave me an idea this week. Well, he didn’t give voice to it, but rather, he sparked it in my head. Cologne. Smell. What if Heather, when Robin isn’t there watching her/stalking her, needs comfort? What if she has a panic attack and Robin isn’t there, over the road, and needs to feel comforted? What would she do?

Maybe Robin wears a particular kind of cologne, or perhaps his anti-perspirant is distinctive. Maybe Heather goes out in search of it, smelling everything in Boots. So that when she’s freaking out, she can have something – a cloth, handkerchief, whatever – that’s doused in something that reminds her of Robin.

Something to consider over the weekend when the writing gets done…

Carbunckle's Flight

There are average, bog-standard tutors, and then there are the kind of tutors that turn into proper mentors.

I had the good fortune to be mentored by Antanas Sileika. He’s a fantastic novelist with a dark sense of humour – the perfect person to have helped me with my first novel. Antanas was much more than a tutor – he challenged me, championed me and encouraged me at every turn.

Antanas worked with me on the first novel I wrote, Famous By September. In the intervening years, I’ve written a few more and the other day I asked him if he had enough time to take a look at Carbunckle’s Flight (or as I like to call it, my pigeons).

Here’s what he had to say:

Gillian Best’s Carbunckle’s Flight is dark, witty, dyspeptic, and hilarious. This preposterous novel posits a father whose love of pigeon racing trumps all family bonds, a mother seeking solace elsewhere, a son reaching for a film-making dream and a mechanic daughter living an overweight nightmare. There is nothing predictable about this zany novel, whose unlikely characters share a taste for cutting repartee, and a tendency to end up in the most unlikely situations.

Thanks Antanas. It means a lot.

Reading does help

For anyone who has ever studied creative writing, this will sound familiar: you have to read in order to be able to write. Blindingly obvious, isn’t it? But as with many of the old saws issuing forth from writing classes, I’ve always struggled with understanding exactly what it means, or rather, in the application.

I’m one of those people who gets told, at least once a year, that I should really read Flaubert. As if the professor can just take a Flaubert bandage and apply it to my literary aches and pains. I’ve read my Flaubert and it didn’t help.

But I felt that I’d been over-doing it with the non-fiction lately; something just wasn’t working out properly when I opened Heather’s document up. The sentences weren’t flowing, the words were small and uninteresting – a very base vocabulary was in play. And then I went to the library and forced myself to visit the fiction section. I decided I would like to read some Margaret Atwood. She is one of Canada’s finest; I felt she might help.

I used to have a strong dislike of Ms Atwood. I read The Handmaid’s Tale at the wrong time. It didn’t click for me, in fact, I found all the feminist talk in class (yes, it was for a class) incredibly off-putting. I wanted to talk about the story, how it worked, what was going on there, and everybody else wanted to draw grandiose conclusions about the world at large. Anyhow, this time around, I got Oryx and Crake. And it was quite funny. The language is also quite funny.

But the important thing is, I finally saw the proof for the whole read to improve your own writing thing.

Embarrassing my characters

Poor Winnie. I’ve been treating her quite poorly over the weekend. Things have progressed in such a way that, the day Heather arrives home from being sequestered in a horrible hotel, the rest of her family are in a queue for Winnie to try out for the next edition of Britain’s Got Talent.

One of the things that concerns me about letting Winnie go on a reality TV show is that the entire novel winds up being about reality TV, instead of Heather’s desperate desire to be famous, to be watched (which are possibly different things, but may also turn out to be two sides of the same coin). My hope is that I can play Winnie and Heather off each other.

And what I’m finding really interesting are all the little clues and tricks I’m unconsciously leaving for myself. For example, yesterday, Winnie finally took the stage in the first of several auditions. And her act? Well, she’s a magician. So there’s a little something extra to play with when Grant kidnaps her later. And since she’s not using a live rabbit (she’s allergic), the judges are reading her the riot act, talking about how they expect people with actual talent to come on the show.

Right now, Winnie is standing on stage, in a silver sequin body suit, and she’s fat, and 14 years of age, and awkward. She’s wearing a red jacket over top, and the rabbit she’s making disappear is an old stuffed doll she’s had since she was a baby. The judges won’t let her begin her magic trick, instead they’re berating her for wasting their time.

And where is Heather during all of this? Heather’s at home, talking about herself to Grant (who must get tired and/or bored to tears of listening to her go on and on about herself), remembering the exquisite feeling of being important enough to be watched all the time. It’s a nice contrast going between Heather and Winnie, I think. It’s still superficial (one thrives on being watched, the other is currently squirming) but I think there’s potential there to go deeper.

In other news… If you enjoy reading ‘Full Nest’ but wish I’d post more and newer articles, then it’s your lucky day. The Mom and I have started a blog on Wordpress, called Hey Ma I’m Home. Check out our latest adventures!

First person

I normally avoid writing in first person because it’s hard. And I don’t like hard things. The biggest difficulty is the distance. Creating another person who is unlike myself and then figuring out how they talk and consistently writing the dialogue in a way that sounds right and normal for the character… it’s tricky. And I really admire authors who can do it.

Having said all that, it’s also sort of fun.

What I’m finding tricky just now is writing Heather in the first person. She’s American (which isn’t that tricky, as the accent’s close enough), she’s close to my age, and she lives in London, which is something I have done. But she craves attention in a way that terrifies me. Well, maybe terrifies is too strong, but… I look at the kind of attention Heather wants, the fame, the celebutante status and I have the same reaction I would if offered something like, oh, I dunno, heroin: sure, it might be the best thing ever. But kicking the habit looks miserable. It’s one of those things in life that, thankfully, make my brain scream: BAD CHOICE. Trying to feel the way she would, to be slighted by the things she would be, to be excited about the same things as Heather… it’s tricky to keep all that in your mind whilst you try and get the characters to where they need to be so that plot points can happen and the action can move on.

But, I suppose that’s the point of writing, and of being a writer, well, part of the point at least: putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes and trying to understand where they’re coming from. So I’m trying to understand where Heather’s coming from, and I think she’s lonely. I really think she is. And that’s what compels her to want to be a celebrity, because those people, with all their adoring fans, cannot possibly be lonely. But how does a lonely person talk? And also: I think loneliness is unique. What I mean is that for each of us, our loneliness manifests in different ways.

I was talking to one of the lifeguards at my pool today, and he was enthusing about wanting to find a cool job, to do something cool, and I was telling him about Heather and he was really excited, and all that reminded me how much I really love this writing business. Not that I needed reminding, but sometimes, the challenge becomes a struggle, and I forget that I do it because it’s fun. The hard work is the fun bit, the figuring out, the chewing my teeth until I figure out a little clue or key, the worrying over character and dialogue and all that. It’s really fun. And weirdly, first person is fun. Which causes me to be slightly alarmed (my motto is if it’s that fun, it’s probably not good, anything too fun is dubious).

But for now, I will try and put myself in Heather’s shoes. Which are a size 38; bigger than mine.

Start Over.

In and around other things, I’ve been working on Heather. But I’ve also consciously been avoiding her because something isn’t right about the story. I can’t tell what, exactly, but I know where: Page 125. Yup. That’s when I noticed things had taken a subtle but very bad turn.

I had wrestled my plot into submission, and felt good about starting. The words came fast enough, and I enjoyed seeing the page count go higher and higher. I felt an immense sense of accomplishment. And then, on page 125, I was detailing a surfing contest that Harvey (Heather’s step-son) was competing in. It was at that point I realized I wasn’t telling the story I wanted to tell.

So I ignored it, hoping it was just a passing mood. But each time I went back to the manuscript, it felt like not fun work to keep writing. You know, it didn’t feel like writing, it felt like typing.

You know, it felt like Michael Douglas’s character in The Wonder Boys when he sits down to work on his novel (that’s approaching 2,000 pages), and he starts going into the horse’s family tree.

This happens sometimes. It’s frustrating, for sure, but I’m glad I figured it out at page 125, instead of page 345.

I’ve started over. I’ve thrown the baby out with the bath water in terms of outlines and things already written. And I’ve started anew. Fresh. And in first person – which is very, very rare. But I don’t think the whole thing will be in first person. Who knows? I might change my mind again.

True to form, I had to write out a brief outline of where I wanted to go and how I wanted to get there. The plot is much less convoluted now. And, in another strange turn of events, it feels much less ‘story boarded’ than my previous novels.

Anyhow, I’ll include an excerpt from both versions, so you can judge for yourselves. Keep in mind they’re both ROUGH drafts, thus there are errors, repetitions, and the usual detritus that one gets in a first draft.

This is the first, first draft (that got to 125 pages):

Heather Poole lies on the bed as the unstoppable news feed on BBC World News relentlessly repeats itself. She wishes she had a calendar so she could put an X over each day that passes. So far, she has been sequestered in this second-rate hotel for three weeks, four days and nearly 13 hours.

It’s not at all how she imagined things going. When she arrived at the beginning of things, she’d expected people to be tripping over themselves to ensure her happiness, but that wasn’t the case at all. She was forced to stand in a double line with the others, and was barked at by the AD, a horrible, balding, shell of a man if ever there was one. He wouldn’t tell us anything, not one thing, wouldn’t even take us to the house until we’d signed away our lives on the dotted line. So much paper work!

Non-disclosure agreements, confidentiality contracts, general contracts, permission for my image to be used in any promotional material whatsoever without prior written approval. And no way to control what I look like either. I mean, they could so easily decide to cut the tape so all the shots of me make me look like a bag lady, or worse. They could easily have got me in the morning, without my makeup on, looking haggard from lack of sleep because Susan snored, and I won’t be able to do anything about it. Forget signing a deal with the devil, signing this deal was worse.

Her feet brush against the beige carpeting and she wonders how long it might take to generate enough static electricity to see a spark or two in the dark. She relegates that bit of excitement to later on in the day, thus giving herself something to look forward to and something to fill the post-dinner blues.

She stares at the ceiling light and wonders how often it gets dusted. Once a week? After each guest checks out? She wants to latch on to this lie of thinking as it promises to be lengthly, but her heart’s not in it. Who really cares about the cleanliness of the inside of a hotel light fixture?

What she really wants to think about, but has done everything in her power to avoid thinking about, is how two disparate things, polar opposites really, like having one’s dreams come true and having one’s dreams crushed completely, often produce similar results. Both offer an ending, one positive and the other less so, obviously, but she finds it curious that two such different things arrive at the same place.

And this is the second first draft, now in first person:

When I auditioned for a spot on a new reality show, I expected to get it, but I didn’t expect to spend the majority of the filming days sharing a cell with a total stranger who snores as much as she passes wind. I really did not.

I’m not technically in jail, not a real jail with bars and shivs and guards, but I am being told what to do and when to do it. I’m really not meant to say anything, to anyone, honestly; I’ve signed a confidentiality clause and it looks serious: £2 million if I say anything about anything to anyone. But the language is so scary, so severe because they want you, well, me really, to know they’re serious. Here’s the thing, I’m not in jail, like I said, I’m in a hotel, somewhere in the ass end of London. And I’m only being held here half against my will, you understand. See, the thing is, I was chosen to be on a new reality TV show. I can’t tell you the name or anything, but suffice to say, when it’s broadcast, you’ll know it. It’s new, but I’ll be in the opening sequence. I’m not sure where or how exactly because they haven’t let us, the contestants, actually see any of the footage, but it’s reality TV, it’s a formula. A+B = C.

So, yeah, I was chosen to be on this show, which is actually the fulfilment of pretty much all my dreams, ever, in life, but I got kicked off. That’s right, I am not the winner, and to keep word from getting out, they keep all the contestants holed up, away from all media, in a hotel until the filming’s finished. That way, when people are sent home, it’s en masse and nobody can tell for sure who was the last one off. It makes perfect sense really, but it doesn’t change the fact that I am not the winner and now spend all day every day languishing in a lacklustre hotel.

Here’s what I don’t quite understand: why aren’t we being put up in a nicer hotel? How much money are the production company and the broadcaster making off this? Millions I’d assume, the slot I was told it’s being aired in is post-watershed on a Thursday night. Prime time. So it seems reasonable to have expected a higher standard of accommodations. My sheets are not changed every day. I’m lucky if the main comes every second day. She certainly doesn’t work weekends. I ran out of towels twice and had to ring the front desk to have more sent up. And what did the simpering idiot on the other end of the phone tell me? He said that I would have to come down and get the towels myself. It’s crazy.

Slowing down, but in a good way

Normally when I write a book it comes out sounding (or reading) similar to a movie or an episodic television show. I like to cut back and forth between story lines because it feels right. When I write I’m usually watching the movie in my head, so it seems only natural that my books should feel quick filmic and be fast-paced.

But I wonder if it’s going to be that way with Heather. I feel, as I’m writing this first proper full draft, that the frenetic pace isn’t as natural as it should be. Thing is, I can’t tell if that means it’s a problem with the story itself, or if it’s more about the way the story is best told.

I like to give my characters a sidekick or foil because dialogue is my favourite thing to write, and it’s what I love reading. I’m not a fan of long passages of description just for its own sake. Anyhow, Heather has a sidekick/stalker, Grant, but since he’s stalking her, they can’t really talk. They’re texting now. But that feels weak. Which is odd in and of itself. We text all the time now, so why shouldn’t the characters in a piece of fiction? I suspect that texting, like ‘uh’ ‘well’ ‘umm’ and those ticks we have when actually speaking, works differently in fiction. I don’t let my characters waffle on (too much) or repeat themselves endlessly, or pepper their conversations with too many uh, erm, well, huh, I means. I think texting falls into the category of ‘Just because we actually say it/do it like that, doesn’t mean it’s right in fiction’.

It feels like the pace of this novel is different. And I’m going to explore that. I don’t know how it’ll come off… but it’s fiction. There’s room for experimentation.

Otherwise engaged.

It has been nearly three weeks since I’ve spoken to Heather. Which is a long time, I’m sure you’ll agree. I had some other work to do. Some non-Heather related writing.

In the section on this website called Full Nest you’ll see that my mother and I write little articles back and forth as a coping mechanism for the time that we live together. The Mom has been nagging me to get my end of things shored up and I had neglected it for too long. Since I live with her and pay nothing in the way of rent, I felt it behooved me to at least finish up my half-finished articles. Which I have now done. Yeah!

Though I’m quite pleased with the articles themselves, the timing of the whole thing couldn’t have been worse. I think. I had just started to get a handle on Heather and all things stalker when The Mom decided the articles needed to be finished Right Now. (You have a mother, you understand how it is actually impossible to say no to them, right? This isn’t just me, is it?)

To be honest, I finished writing them five days ago. So for the past five days I’ve been looking at what I’ve written (just looking at it, now reading it) and wondering about jumping back in. It’s kind of like standing on the edge of a pool, lake, other body of water: you want to jump in, you know it’s going to be so nice, so refreshing, but you also know that initially it’s going to be quite the shock to the system and you’re not entirely sure you want to put yourself through it. That’s what I’ve been doing: standing on the edge of the pool, wondering how cold the water is exactly.

I think though that having taken a few weeks off has been good. I’ve been thinking about Heather and why she’s so desperate for fame/celebrity. It’s because that’s how we measure success these days.

The other thing I’ve been thinking about is the way the novel’s being written. Well, not the way in which it’s being written exactly, but it’s form. The books I’ve written in the past have been very quick, and story-boarded. They function like soap operas or serial TV shows, the focus never stays with one person (on one scene) for too long. But I think that might be different in this one. I think it might be a bit more leisurely. It’s more of a sense than anything like a firm thought, though, and knowing myself, I think it’s best I don’t dwell on this idea.

The important thing is to power through. Press onwards. Keep writing.

It's not a fashion show

My mother used to always tell me that when I had a fit because I had nothing to wear to school. Her point was that I didn’t need to look like everyone else at school in order to learn. Learning is the point of school, not fashion.

I suppose the same thing applies to draft of a novel. The point is not for them to be pretty, the point is to get the story to take shape. The details are something to worry about another time.

I started typing and writing badly last week, which is very exciting. Very, very exciting. It’s good to have got going. The unfortunate thing is that the going is not always good.

I am not the type of writer who worries every word, every phrase, every sentence. I’m more of a ‘hindsight is 20/20’ type of writer. I write my drafts all the way though, and each time I go back and edit, I look for different things, depending on what stage I’m at.

Since I’m at the beginning, the smaller to medium sized things are getting glossed over in a way. Right now, the thing I need to remember to focus on is getting a draft done. That’s all. That’s all I have to do; every morning when I get up, I know that what needs to get done is that draft. And nothing else. The words don’t need to be pretty, they can repeat as often as they want; it’s an anything-goes sort of situation at the minute. The Wild West of drafts.

Thing is, it’s tricky. Because I think all writers have this thing in them, sort of like a gag reflex that makes it incredibly hard for them to write in a way they think of as bad, sub-par, not up to scratch. But it needs to be done. It’s something you have to do to get to the other side. Traveling itself isn’t always fun, but arriving is great. I’m traveling right now.

Even though I don’t worry every word, I still find it hard to get through the first draft. As I’m writing it, I know each successive chapter is far better than the one before, which is possibly part of the problem. As I’m writing I’m still exploring characterization, figuring out who does what, what the physical ticks are, what their favourite phrases are.

You know, I suppose in many ways, I’m writing a pinata: This draft will be destroyed, thrown away, binned. It is built to be thrown away.

But, unlike a pinata, once this draft is done, and ready to be shown the door, another will emerge in it’s place, and so on and so forth, until it’s done and the whole thing starts over again. With possibly a six month break in the middle for resting.

The plot thickens

I write these following words with caution, but I think I may have settled on a plot. I think the time has come when I’ve organized it as well as I can and I have to stop worrying about it and get on with it.

I was talking to one of my best girlfriends this morning, Jena and she’s a poet who is considering writing short stories again. We were chatting and she said, in an off-hand way, that she might have some questions for me. And that got me to thinking about my own process.

I’ve been banging on about plots and outlines here, and it’s occurred to me that what I consider a plot/outline might be a draft in someone else’s eyes. The thing I’ve written that I’m calling a plot/outline isn’t written in point form, isn’t written on cards (that method never clicked with me, much as I tried to force it), and it’s not set in stone. It’s pretty long winded, there are a lot of sentences that start with my favourite over-used words: so, and, anyhow and but.

So many people are against plots and outlines. Either they seem a waste of time, or unnecessary, or restrictive, but people – in my experience – are loathe to write one. But if you’re going to write a novel, that’s a lot of information to remember and cover, and to organize it you really need a bird’s eye view. So I put all the key bits of information into my outlines and I’m wondering if they might be considered drafts by someone else.

I’ll give you an example. Here’s the plot/outline for the opening section/chapter:

Starts with Heather telling Robin, Harvey and Winnie about the reality show at a deflated celebratory party at home. She’s been gone one week in total. Kicked off ‘Welcome Home’ competition to see who’s the Best Housewife In Britain. Winnie’s trying to pump up Heather’s confidence, Harvey thinks the whole thing is stupid. Robin is happy to have her home – didn’t like the idea of her ‘playing house’ with another man/men. Heather goes over the comments from the cast – that she’s average, plain, unremarkable, satisfactory but no real pizzazz. She’s distraught and the party only makes her feel worse. She also tells the family about her post-show interview and how she really played up ‘her character’s’ strengths. She was going for ‘ingenue’ but comes off looking like she’s faking being a lot younger.

That’s how the entire outline is written. I’m beginning to agree with the children’s author Jean M. Auel who said:

There are two kinds of writers in the world: the organized ones and the organic ones. When you’re organized, you do an outline, you do character studies, you do all of this and all of that before you write. The other approach is the organic one. You know where you’re going and you kind of just let it take you there. The outline I’m working from now happens to be my first draft.

I think the outline I’m currently working from is a first draft of sorts too. You know, when I finish a First Draft my tutors, mentors and teachers have always looked at me sternly before reminding me that all writing is re-writing. And I’d always thought that meant starting from scratching and re-doing the entire thing. Like when you screw up the batter for a cake, you start from scratch. That’s not the way for novels, you can add the eggs you forgot (I seem incapable of remembering eggs when baking for reason’s that remain unclear) and the cake/novel’ll turn out just fine.

All this is to say that I might start thinking of my strange – slightly obsessive – habit of writing outlines/plots as really just a very rough first draft. Though, now that I feel like the plot/outline’s finished I don’t feel comfortable saying I’ve got a first draft done. That seems very premature.

Let’s just say that now I know where I want to go, and I’ve got some very good directions, and pit-stops are marked. The car’s gassed up, snacks have been packed, the weather looks good.

Off we go then.