Voting is a privilege women have had in this country for less than a hundred years. We should still be talking about it.

But today one of the first articles I read was another argument in the mothers versus not-mothers war that the press seems intent on inflaming. Having read Dr Worsley’s words (originally in the Radio Times), I’m not sure she was being sneery when she said she’d been ‘educated out of the natural reproductive function’ (I have a masters degree – was that not enough? should I have got a PHD?), in as much as she anticipated the (obvious and tiresome) question and developed a riposte (poor choice of words though, Lucy). If she’d been a man, it wouldn’t even be in the article.

Danuta Keane’s response (with inflammatory Mail headline) asks us to consider how much more political becoming a mother can make us, which is true (though not for all), and that the changes that having a child bring can be welcome, even if you’ve resisted them, even if you are educated. Even if they do, inevitably, turn you into a different person.

The key word being different, not better.

I am clearly not who I’d be if I hadn’t had my son, but then the person I would be wouldn’t know that, and wouldn’t mind (probably). Indeed, who knows what might have happened to that person in the last three years, and what changes might have been wrought? Imagine if we could meet each other, my other self and me. Would we argue with each other, try to plead our case for or against? And if so, why? Who is making us feel as if we have to justify this most personal of choices (and sometimes it isn’t a choice) one way or the other? Other women? Our culture? Society at large?

Because this is what has happened: it’s everybody’s business, and anyone can probe a woman about her reproductive status. Women who choose not to have children feel they have to justify that or be labelled as selfish. Women who haven’t been able to have children have to justify it while hiding their private sadness behind a veil. Women who have only one have to justify that or be labelled as selfish. Women who have more than one are never allowed to complain about the difficulties of marshalling toddlers, keeping a house and possibly a career. Women who work have to justify that as well as fight for their right to work part-time, or full time or from home. Women who choose not to return to work have to justify that because otherwise what was feminism about. Women who have larger families have to justify that or be labelled a drain on the planet’s resources.

Why are we doing this to each other? When did we stop looking at everything else that was happening to women?

When I was growing up we still talked about whether you should say ‘chairperson’ rather than ‘chairman’, ‘ms’ instead of ‘miss’. Somewhere in the last twenty years, because things got a little bit better, we assumed the battle was won, and we stopped talking about it. We just assumed we could say anything we liked, be anything we liked, do anything we liked. And yes, it’s truer than it has ever been, but only for some of us.

Recently unemployment went up again, and it went up most sharply for women. Job losses in the public sector disproportionately affect women because they make up around 65% of the workforce (more in some sectors). Older women are losing their jobs at a time when they are running out of time to make pension contributions, ensuring their poverty will linger for decades more. The cuts to tax credits and benefit changes will adversely affect women more than men. Women are more likely to be in part-time and lower paid jobs, in part because they are trying to juggle with other responsibilities, like childcare, or caring for elderly parents, but also partly because women are still paid less than men. Here are some figures from the Fawcett Society:

• The full-time gender pay gap between women and men is 14.9 per cent
• The pay gap varies across sectors and regions, rising to up to 55% in the finance sector and up to 33.3% in the City of London
• 64% of the lowest paid workers are women, contributing not only to women’s poverty but to the poverty of their children
• There are almost four times as many women in part-time work as men.  Part-time workers are likely to receive lower hourly rates of pay than full-time workers.

Isn’t it time we stopped squabbling about whether wombs are good or not, and talked together about some of this other stuff?

For the last word on the kids debate, I leave you with Stella Duffy, who writes wisely and compassionately. Now go on and vote.

(Deep apologies for linking to the Daily Mail, by the way. It couldn’t be helped.)

This one is another observation exercise, to jog us out of our ordinary ways of seeing. I realised how much we automatically filter out when I started taking walks with my son – he sees everything. His brain hasn’t yet started to ignore things he has seen before, things that are commonplace, and therefore he is overloaded with information and excitement just walking down the road. Sometimes it’s not so interesting (how many motorbikes I can find interesting in no way correlates to the number my son finds interesting), but sometimes he points out a flower I wouldn’t have noticed, or a heron stock still on the island in the park, or the dragon nests in the clouds. Invigorating.

Ado? No more:

Exercise: The Unfamiliar Window

•  Describe the view in detail.

You can do this with a truly unfamiliar window, or one that is familiar, that you think you know inside out. The trick is to look with fresh eyes, and note every significant detail you can: the toys in a back garden, a window left open, people at the bus stop, the leaves (or otherwise) on the trees. Paint a true picture of what you see. Try and keep judgements out of the prose. 300 words.

As for the windows themselves, you can sit in front of them, take a photo, do a quick sketch, or  take some quick notes (this will end up being more of a remembered/imagined version but still useful).

Extension exercise: focus on one detail and expand its story. Now is the time to bring judgements into the prose. 300 words.

In the end, all this meant was reminding ourselves to write the best story possible.

It was useful. It was gentle. Vanessa Gebbie reminded me of Anna Burns – compassionate and passionate, and well able to deal gently but firmly with the crazy writer in the room. (I don’t know why, but there’s always one in every workshop I’ve ever been on. Someone who is only half willing to learn, talks loudly and for too long on the wrong end of the stick. The blessing, as one tutor confided to me, is that if you can spot that person in the room it means it isn’t you.) We didn’t have to share work, but we did a couple of exercises, one of which she called word cricket, which had an Oulipian edge to it. I set it down here for you to enjoy too:

1. Start writing from a short phrase eg ‘The door opened…’
2. carry on writing until the facilitator throws another word at you
3. catch the word, and incorporate it into your writing
4. repeat steps 2&3 for around five minutes.

Obviously it helps if there is someone else throwing the words at you so you don’t know what’s coming next. It was playful, I made myself smile, and it didn’t feel difficult at all.

I wasn’t sure it could still feel like that.

I did have to navigate some internal complications – feeling rusty, out of the game, yadda yadda – but I’m glad I went. It was a step out of my comfort zone, required effort on a Saturday, the quelling of guilt at passing over the childcare, talking to people I’d never met. It was another rung on the ladder, another hop on the way back to writing as a living, breathing part of my existence. All good.

Recommended – Short Circuit, a guide to the art of the short story, edited by Vanessa Gebbie.

And yet.

Today I was indeed emptying the dishwasher, and had a sudden coming to, the way you do from a daydream. I realised I’d been thinking about the way people begin to gravitate back to their homeland once they’re approaching forty, not about how to stack the stupid amount of bowls we own in our ridiculously tiny cupboards.

Key point: I already know how to stack the bowls.

I figure it out anew each time I go shopping for new bowls and have to cram them in somehow, because if I don’t the voice of my husband will win out over the clatter of crockery. So my hands were moving on automatic pilot, freeing up some corner of my brain to head off into reverie, letting it scrabble away at something that has been trying to get air for a while.

It’s not as if this is a new revelation – Steven Spielberg has been quoted as saying his best ideas came to him driving the freeway – but today it felt new to me. I could save up my chores and do them in one swoop, letting my brain have some rest time for an hour so things can ferment. I could turn off the radio when I do it, just to help things along. I could quit bitching about the things that need to be done just so we can eat from clean plates and put on clean underwear, and just factor it in.

Living creatively doesn’t just mean having hours spare to do the ‘art’. It means using all of your hours in the best way you can, even when you’re hanging laundry. Let’s face it, there’s always laundry. You may as well just learn to use laundry time better.

This would be fine, if men hadn’t been having all the special treatment for centuries. If sexism wasn’t still rife in the workplace, in pay packets, in casual pub conversation, on television, in magazines and newspapers. If sexism wasn’t still so institutionalised that it’s sometimes hard to spot it, especially now that no one talks about it out loud.

Last year Vida (Women in the Literary Arts) released their first Count, a tally of book reviews, totting up the gender of reviewer and author. The results showed a gender bias across most publications, weighted significantly towards men. The Guardian ran an article with responses from commissioning editors, where the TLS editor, Peter Stothard, said that he would be very surprised if the numbers of published books were split 50/50 between the genders (and if that’s true, shouldn’t we be concerned about that as well?). He seemed to think this excused the fact that around three quarters of the authors and reviewers of books in the TLS were male, but he revealed his real problem in his next sentence: “we know [women] are heavy readers of the kind of fiction that is not likely to be reviewed in the pages of the TLS”.

In other words, “you ladies read fluffy books that aren’t important”.

The inference to be made is that the books we write aren’t important either. Or is it simply that anything that concerns women isn’t important?

I believe in positive discrimination because most people, myself included, don’t much like change. If it worked before, however imperfectly, you’re likely to stick with it. Without the catalyst of offering women and only women for a prize or election, say, the chances are that you will always see the men rise to the top. It’s far easier to stick with what you know – literary prizes are no exception.

Which is why it’s very important that women writers have to continue driving change in the publishing industry.

Sisters in Crime is an organisation founded by Sara Paretsky to specifically combat the gender bias in the mystery genre. When she began she found that “[crime] books by men were reviewed 7 times as often as books by women”. Not only that but books by male authors stayed in print far longer – women’s earning capacity was shrivelled by having not as many column inches and not enough time on the shelves. It’s the equivalent of getting half the pay for the same work. Fighting the imbalance is not a done deal either. As Sara says, everytime they take their eye off the ball, the discrimination creeps back in.

In a moment of serendipity, after I’d written most of this post my copy of Mslexia popped through the door (do you subscribe? If not, why not?), with an excellent article on this very subject. It also included some research into the effects of verbalising gender stereotyping – tell a woman she can’t reverse park and she’ll mess it up, in other words. Women have been told for centuries that not only can they not drive cars well, they aren’t deserving of education, equal pay and opportunities, or property ownership, to name a few small things. We are supposed to be there to nurture the dreams of others, not create our own. It’s no wonder that we are under-represented in the arts.

It is incredible how guilty and selfish a woman can feel for clutching at an hour of time to write, rather than do the laundry. And yes, women are far less likely to offer themselves up as professional writers or reviewers, never feeling good or experienced enough, since we seem to lack the sense of entitlement that some men seem to carry around with them. Yes, I have trouble with all of the above, but I’m working on it, because I know that I am more than a pile of paired socks.

Vida repeated their count this year. Nothing much has changed. We ought to keep shouting about it until it does.

That led to another address, out of town, which led to a trip for both of them. Sarah happily agreed to look after Bixby’s dog, unaware that there was anything untoward in Benjamin’s sudden interest in Bixby’s radio controlled helicopter hobby, and the necessity of heading out to the country to fly it.

“I think it’s nice,” she said, caressing the velvet ears of Bixby’s greyhound, both of them watching Bixby head back to the car.

“Nice?” Benjamin faked an interest in the contents of his overnight bag.

“You and Bixby, getting out of town. Buddies.” She teased him with the word he hated. “You’ve been working so hard lately.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Sometimes it gets all -“ He jumbled his hands around in front of his face.

Sarah put out a hand to stop his. “It’s ok. I know. We don’t talk about the future.” She was smiling. They made that joke all the time: theirs was a relationship without a future.

Only now it was true.

1. Location. This depends more on your stage of life. If you are settled and have a family then you’re much less likely to be able to up sticks and moved to another town. However, even if you come to it straight from your first degree you might be so heavily laden with debt that moving to a new town or staying in your old student town just isn’t viable.

So, could you travel instead?

One of my classmates lived at home in Glasgow but got a cheap flight once a week to London. Cheaper than upping sticks and moving to the capital. Could you afford the time and cash to travel to your preferred course even if you can’t move there on a more permanent basis?

Check the teaching hours: if they’re condensed into one or two consecutive days this might work for you. Call or email the department and ask to talk to someone about the practicalities of studying and balancing work. They are very aware that people do have to earn money to do things like eat.

Similarly, if the course closest to you isn’t your first choice that doesn’t mean it won’t be the right one for you, which leads me to…

2. Tutors. The best piece of advice I got was from another creative writing tutor who said “be taught by someone whose work you admire”. It’s obvious really – if you admire their writing, then perhaps they write in a similar way or genre to you, and you will learn tons. However, you can only afford to be this picky if location isn’t an issue.

I had to pay this advice no attention and I really lucked out. I learned two things:

1. Fiction writers can learn a lot from poets
2. If someone has been published and is employed by a reputable course director to teach, they will probably know what they’re talking about.

My only regret is that in the years since I graduated the teaching staff for my course has expanded, and I’d really like to work with some if the new faculty.

Don’t be dazzled by a big name in other words. But if you can, read the tutors’ work before the course starts. It’s polite for one, and you learn by reading anything, for two. It’s a win whichever way you look at it. (Yes, even if you don’t like it.)

3. Going back into Education. My only advice is don’t worry about it. You will not be the only one. You will be able to get help and advice from your tutors. You will have access to amazing libraries and other resources. You will rise to the challenge.

I had one meeting with a tutor when I was close to tears. I can barely remember why, but I was feeling lost and confused, and regretting ever doing the MA in the first place. We had a great chat, she drew me a diagram that really helped, and she didn’t even mention how teary I clearly was. I went away feeling slightly foolish, but bolstered.

See, the thing is that when you’re on the course you are a writer among writers, and that includes the people teaching you. Your tutors know exactly how you feel, because they have been in your position – unpublished, uncertain. But what I do know is that the good writers are always generous with their craft, their time and their wallet in the pub. Ok, so maybe more often than not you’ll want to buy them a drink, but the other two are definitely true.

If you’re hesitating, just stop. Get your application in, and see where it takes you.

(For the curious, I did my MA with Andrew Motion, Jo Shapcott and Susanna Jones here: MA Creative Writing at Royal Holloway (taught in central London). I’m still processing some of the things I was taught.)

And it’s about this time of year that you glance up and realise you’ve forgotten what you intended to change from last year to this.

I’m not necessarily talking about writing, although in a roundabout way it is about writing. Everything is, one way or another. But whatever it was you meant to do and haven’t, don’t throw yourself down a well of despair.

All you need to do is dust off the intentions and resolutions you forgot about and seeing if there’s new life in them. It’s easy for me. I just have to have a look at some old blog posts and see if I managed to fulfil any of the rash promises I might have made.

Remember that intention I had to get a new habit of daily writing for at least 66 days? No, I didn’t either, until a comment on the writer’s playground* made me think of it again.

Perhaps it’s because I hadn’t made it visible to myself. It’s ok for practices to languish in the computer until I want to read them again, because they don’t need the light of day to make them breathe. That happens when I read them. But if I want to keep that commitment to daily writing, then it helps to have something staring me in the face.

Something I can’t ignore or forget about.

Like a calendar on the wall.

The wall I see from my bed, perhaps. I get into and out of bed every day after all. I can’t ignore that wall.

And that’s what I’ve done. Trying again has a lot going for it.

So the motto of the post would be? Oh we don’t need mottos. We’re fallible. Just fail better next time, as Samuel Beckett would say.

*Members only, I’m afraid. But you could join, you know. We’re all very nice.

What has this got to do with writing?

Ever wondered how it is you’re going to sit down for the better part of a year, write a book, and not get backache and/or fat?

Yeah. That’s what it’s got to do with writing. I’m not the world’s biggest exercise fan. ‘Cross Country Run’ was about my most hated phrase at school (along with ‘what you lookin’ at?’) and all of my attempts at fitness in my adult life have culminated in me sitting on the sofa with a packet of ready salted and the tv remote.

Haruki Murakami wrote a book called ‘What I talk about when I talk about Running‘. He runs marathons, does Murakami San. He claims that it helps build up the stamina necessary for sustained novel writing, as well as keeping him fit. I think he’s right: there has to be a benefit of training the body  to run long distances that translates to training the mind to concentrate for long periods of time.

Since having a child, my concentration is truly shot, which I put down to having to be available at a moment’s notice. I am constantly interruptable and interrupted and sustaining one thought for longer than three minutes is almost impossible. Since I’m clearly unfit too, I realised there was no harm at all in taking up running.

Yes, the thing that I profess to hate.

Here’s the thing: I only hate it because I think I can’t do it. I have dodgy knees (get the right shoes), mahoosive betties (get the right bra), and a fear of running outside where ‘people’ can see me (join the leisure centre and run on a treadmill). So I did all three, and started doing my couch to 5k runs.

The local leisure centre is a revelation. You have the bonus of being able to watch everyone else in there and make up stories about them. You can disappear into your own head and mull over nothing or something. You can take your time and learn to run at your own pace. I also think that getting off the sofa in order to do one thing, means you’re more likely to get off the sofa to do another.

Of course, running may not be your thing. The other sport I tried recently that I was terrifically keen on was archery. Not so much about stamina and fitness as putting arrows through things, which is, let’s face it, hugely satisfying. So if you wouldn’t run, what would you do?

• Benefits of Running
• Couch to 5K app for apple devices

It’s not the first time his life has been swiped out from under him. The first time was in ’89, when the stock markets went down and swirled his life around the plughole at the same time. Only just over forty, and slung out onto Gracechurch Street with all the other clueless suits. He didn’t have time to worry about what people would think, with a mortgage over his head, interest rates at fifteen per cent, and Barbara on diazepan. He saw the ad in the Standard on the train home, and thought ‘fuck it’. Applied, got the job, was out of his training before most of his former colleagues had realised their jobs really weren’t coming back and they’d have to find something else to do. Did he miss it? Of course he did. There were holidays in Florida, his Audi, the crisp collar of a hundred quid shirt against his neck, his heart racing in his chest when he made a good trade. The only way he got anywhere near that thrill these days was throwing a cocky, drunk trader off his bus on Cheapside on a Friday night, which, some might say, he did with more regularity than even they deserved.