Carry On Writing

After spending three days in London recently, at the much-talked about London Book Fair, I’ve had several conversations trying to explain to friends and family what it was all about. ‘No, it’s not like a big bookshop.’ ‘No, it’s not like a wedding fair.’ So, I thought I would share the distilled version of these conversations with your good selves.

So, what is it?

In its own words, London Book Fair (or LBF as it is known to its friends) is ‘the global market place and leading business-2-business exhibition for rights negotiation and the sales and distribution of content across print, audio, TV, film and digital channels. With over 400 seminars and events, 1,500 international exhibiting companies and 24,500 publishing professionals, The London Book Fair encompasses the broad spectrum of the publishing industry.’

In my words, London Book Fair is a gigantic publishing industry event which takes up the whole of Earls Court Exhibition Centre. The venue is so huge you literally need a map and grid references to navigate your way around the place. Here is where the foreign rights deals are done; where agents meet with publishers and pitch their client’s books to secure those much sought-after publication deals in different territories. But it is also a conference, with a multitude of seminars and workshops taking place under the umbrella of ‘Love Learning’. These covered everything from self-publishing to translation to illustrating children’s books and cookery demonstrations in Cook Book Corner. There was also a particular focus on the Chinese publishing industry this year.

Who should go?

Essentially, anyone can go. Although the event is really geared around the 'industry professionals' and - unlike a literary festival - isn’t really designed for authors, there is certainly plenty of interest. The dedicated author lounge held a number of interesting and relevant workshops and the author of the day interviews, held at the English PEN Café, were also fascinating. I went along to the extremely popular Caitlin Moran interview on the second day (and came away laughing at the men who had turned scarlet at her no-holds-barred views on feminism!).

Who was there?

It was a complete mixture, and made for a fascinating few days.  Officially, the exhibitors included Publishers, Literary Agents, Content Providers, Digital Solutions, Wholesalers, Distributors, Online Service providers, Non-Book Product Suppliers, Services Providers for Publishers, Service Suppliers for Booksellers, Book Packagers and Remainder and Promotional Dealers. Phew! So, basically, everyone and anyone connected with books!

On a personal level, I found it lovely to meet a few Twitter friends in real life (there was an organised ‘tweet-up’ at the fair on the Tuesday evening) and to also meet other authors, both traditionally and self-published. I met with publicists who I work with on the book review side and was also invited along to the launch, at the fair, of a new novel ‘The Light Between Oceans’ by M.L.Stedman. Having had a sneak preview of the book, it was lovely – and incredibly inspiring - to meet the author herself and chat to her about the book. I will be writing a full feature about this next week. The Alliance of Independent Authors also had a very well-supported, and very interesting launch event at the Fair.

Was it worth it?

For the admission fee for the three days of around £30, yes, absolutely (plus, I also tied the trip into visiting friends and doing some research for my new book). As someone who loves books and everything book-related, it was quite something to see the sheer scale of this event with my own eyes. To see the client area with so many meetings taking place, to speak to other authors, and to simply feel the sheer buzz and vibrancy about the place, was well worth it. I came away full of inspiration and a renewed determination to, well, carry on writing. I will quite probably go again – particularly if I can integrate other meetings while in London. For anyone who wants to know what all the fuss is about, it’s certainly worth going once.

Maybe, one day, I will have a book of my own displayed on one of the publisher's, rather fancy stands. *sighs dreamily*

To read more about London Book Fair visit http://www.londonbookfair.co.uk/Home/

So, I did it. I finally took the plunge and self-published my novel, The Girl Who Came Home, on Kindle this week. It's an exciting, nerve-wracking, exciting, terrifying, exciting experience! So, why Titanic? Why Kindle? Why now?

With the onset of Lent, there is a lot of talk about giving something up - chocolate, wine, TV, housework - whatever it is, it will require a certain amount of commitment, discipline and steely resolve to stick with our pledge of abstinence. For most of us, there will probably be a dangling carrot to keep us going - a treat or reward we have promised ourself if we make it through the month.

.....‘That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’

Well, I suppose Mr Shakespeare has a point, but when it comes to the name of a book, perhaps not...

I saw a documentary a while ago (I can’t remember exactly what it was about - sorry), but it stayed with me because of a particular scene where novelist Jeffrey Archer was sitting at his desk, writing one of his blockbusters. I’ll describe the setting.

His desk was about 10ft long by 5ft wide (i.e. HUGE) and was placed within a spacious, calm uncluttered room. The desk faced a floor-to-ceiling panoramic window from which Mr Archer had the most breath-taking view of the ocean and dramatic, sweeping landscapes. On his desk were a few photographs of his family, a couple of tasteful trinkets, a notepad and a pen. Who couldn’t write a bestseller from there?

Having watched this, I had a little Pity Party for myself, complaining about how woeful and terrible my own writing place is. Why? Because, well, it’s just a little bit different to Jeffrey’s. I’ll try to describe it.

My writing place is one end of the kitchen table. I sit with my back to the patio doors which let in a horrible draught in the winter and cause me to tense my shoulders until I resemble an old hag. In front of me is a stunning vista of abandoned breakfast dishes, toast crumbs, crayons, some wilting tulips and an incomplete jigsaw. The washing machine clunks away in one corner; the dishwasher in the other. I leap from incomplete sentence to incomplete sentence to rescue a pie which is being cremated in the oven or to stir the bolognaise sauce. I abandon my characters in a scene which has just reached the height of dramatic tension because an incident is occurring outside between my kids and the neighbour’s kids. The doorbell rings constantly with people trying to sell me Sky Plus or to read the gas meter. The cat miaows incessantly to go out and miaows incessantly to come back in again ten seconds later. Most of the time I actually sit sideways on my chair in a ‘ready to bolt at any second’ position which does nothing to help my tense shoulders or my posture in general, let alone my creative genius.

When everyone is in bed and all the machines have stopped washing stuff, I retreat to the comfort of the sofa, laptop precariously balanced on a cushion, ready for some brilliance to leap forth from my cluttered mind. Generally, it doesn’t because by then I’m too knackered to produce anything creative so I just write down sentences, ideas and anecdotes which I plan to develop the next day at aforementioned kitchen table.

Sound familiar?

Of course we would all love the perfect, idyllic writing space – both mentally and physically - but in the real world (and not the one inhabited by Jeffrey Archer and People Like Him) the perfect writing space is the privilege of a very lucky few.  

For us mere writing mortals, we could use this as an excuse. We could use it as a reason not to write. ‘But I have nowhere to write, NOWHERE, I tell you.’ Or, ‘I would write but how on earth am I supposed to concentrate with all THAT noise going on around me?’ We could use these excuses to procrastinate, but we shouldn’t. Because the harsh reality is that there is no perfect time or perfect place to start writing (well, there might be, but by the time you find it somebody else may very well have written that novel you’ve been planning for years), so we should probably just get on with it, wherever we are.

I like to think that in my latter years, when I have several international bestsellers to my name (see, I’m being positive again), I will sit in a beautiful room which is flooded with natural light, surrounded by fragrant lavender and rose bushes with the sunlight warming my frantically typing fingers and a pot of freshly brewed coffee always on hand (made by my domestic help). But until those far-off, halcyon days, I will stumble onwards, turn a blind eye to the domestic chaos unravelling around me and ‘Carry on Writing’ because how on earth is this novel ever going to get written otherwise?

There comes an inevitable point during the writing of a novel when you really have to show your work to someone. It’s all very well tapping away at your laptop with the cat curled up perfectly on your lap, a mug of freshly brewed ‘Christmas Blend’ coffee sending heady, plot-producing smells your way. ‘Check me out,’ you think smugly to yourself. ‘Check me out – writing! Being a writer. An actual, proper writer.’ Lovely, romantic, Hemingway-esque writing. Ahhhhh.

But, that’s not going to get you very far is it.

Nope.

Because, what a writer really needs (in addition to the perfect, elusive scenario in which to do some actual writing) is feedback. Good, old-fashioned, honest, teeth-grinding, spine-chilling feedback. As daunting a prospect as it may be to let someone else see your carefully crafted words, it is this, and only this, which will help you achieve your publishing dream. Without it, you might as well put down your laptop, pick up some embroidery and pretend you’re Jane Eyre.

So, taking my own advice, I bravely put my writer’s head above the parapet recently and forwarded the fabulous, award-winning, opening chapters of my new masterpiece (self-belief is important – right?) onto my sister. My sister lives in a different country so I figure she’s a great person to bounce ideas off – simply because if I hate her for what she says about it all, it’s going to cost me at least a RyanAir flight to Newcastle to have it out with her face to face. Anyway, she’s an English Literature teacher dahhhling, so what better person to correct my grammar and berate me for the incorrect use of the word ‘weaved’.

And that’s precisely what she did.

Of course, she was perfectly pleasant about it and provided everything in a lovely feedback sandwich (the good followed by the not so good followed by a bit more good). Her feedback was honest. It wasn’t, unfortunately, the resounding, ‘OMG – you are an absolute GENIUS. Give Richard and Judy a call immediately’.

No.

It was more along the lines of, ‘Well, I like the idea and I really liked this bit and that bit, but……’

And do you know what, tough though it is to hear the ‘but….’, she was absolutely right. Having looked at the chapters again, replaced the ‘weaved’ with ‘woven’ and thought about it all with a little more perspective and a little less stubborn delusion that I am writing the next Wuthering Heights, I understand her comments. So much so that I have rewritten my opening chapters and re-considered some of the premise of the plot and, hallelujah, it’s much, much better. I think so anyway and so does she. ‘This is REALLY good,’ she said – honestly and unequivocally.

So, the moral of the story is….don’t write in isolation. Talk about your writing. Share you plot, your ideas and your words with people who will really listen and who will take the time to read and give you their thoughts.

As for the cat and the coffee and the perfect writing scenario, well, I made that all up. The truth is that I write in absolute, total, chaos, shouting at the kids and rushing to stir the bolognaise sauce between semicolons and gripping dialogue. But more about that next time.

Hazel Gaynor considers the importance and motivation of coincidences 

Hazel Gaynor launches her new guest blog with some soothing words; Keep Calm and Carry on Writing.