Sometimes 'just opening the file' is all it takes...

‘The Archive Series’ aims to bring all the best ‘Writing Coach’ posts together in one place on the new website.  This post originally appeared on my very first blog ‘Stubborn World’.   It tackles the thorny issue of how to find time to write in a busy life, something that so many of us struggle with.  I do hope that you find some of these ideas inspiring.

1. Set aside a regular time each week for your writing and make it sacred. Even if you can only find a single time slot, for example Sunday evening, put it in the diary and make it A FIXTURE. Tell everybody you know that you’re busy and honour this time. It may seem a small step, but it’s a way to signal to yourself and others that you are committed.

2. Write only what you love. Nothing is going to make you write if you are not passionate about what you are doing. When considering a writing project, ensure it is something you really WANT to write about. If you can find the passion, you are halfway there. Your desk will draw you like a magnet.

3. Perfect your writing space. Make sure that the place where you write is conducive to your work. It’s difficult for anyone to work at a desk that’s strewn with bills or work-related reports. Think carefully about what kind of space you would like to create for your writing. Does it include a pin-board covered in inspirational post-cards? A vase of flowers? A perfectly clear space? Or, if you can’t manage a desk, might it involve an early night curled up in bed with a journal? Make this a space you long to return to. DON’T SKIP THIS STEP!

4. Just ‘open the file’. Every day. I learned this one from time management coach Mark Forster. The biggest excuse for not writing is that we ‘don’t have time’. We believe we must have huge swathes of uninterrupted time if we are to be truly inspired. Thus, we often don’t write at all. But what would happen if you made a true commitment to just ‘opening the file’ every day. You go to your computer or desk, you open the document you are working on and you commit to writing for five minutes. Try it. Five minutes can become ten, fifteen… suddenly an hour has passed. Trick yourself into working. Daily.

5. Simplify your life. This one is essential. And it goes deeper than you may think. What are you so busy with that you don’t have time to write? Is there any way in which you could simplify your life? What could you let go of in order to find time to write? What would happen if you decided to say no more often and set up stronger boundaries about yourself? Could you resign from a committee? Get your shopping delivered? Stop wasting time surfing the Internet? List ten ways now in which you are complicating your life. And commit to taking three actions to create more time to write.

6. Carry notebooks wherever you go. You know this, right? But do you do it? First, it’s about the notebooks being there, when you’re inspired. But it’s also a way of allowing a thought to develop over the course of a day or a week. Get down the initial inspiration and watch the idea twist and change. If you don’t record it, you may lose it. A notebook encourages you to ‘write when you’re not writing’; to be constantly musing on the development of your work.

7. Find a place you can escape to. Maybe it’s a nearby café or the reading room of an art gallery. Again, make this a regular date. When you are outside your normal environment, away from distractions, it is easier to focus on the task in hand. It doesn’t matter where you write, it just matters that you do it. Many of my clients write on the train, or in their lunch hour. One writes for the first hour after her toddler is dropped off at nursery. Don’t assume you must be at your desk. What matters most is momentum.

8. Make a game of it. Set yourself a weekly target in terms of word count and make yourself accountable to somebody else for reaching that target. Set up a reward for yourself, if you hit your weekly target. It’s amazing what you can do when you have an incentive. Remember, if you only write 500 words every day, you’ll have a draft of a book within 6 months.

9. Use the ‘mosaic’ method. It occurs to me that mosaics, like novels, are built from tiny fragments, that, taken alone, are not a work of art – yet when they are assembled, formed into patterns, they become something entirely different. Don’t make the mistake of believing you need to see the entire picture before you begin. Think of it as laying down single tiles (single words). Each day, you lay a few tiles; you’ll see your pattern build. You don’t have to have a template. You simply have faith that a pattern will emerge. But you have to put those tiles down, even if it’s just a few.

10. Don’t let the well get empty. If you find yourself lacking in inspiration, it’s possible you’re pushing yourself too hard. Working all hours? Sitting at your desk in the evening, staring at a blank screen? Too much pandering to screaming children? Not enough time to just stare at the sky? If you don’t make time for creative play, you’ll have nothing to write about. It’s SO important to fill that creative well. What small thing can you do today to ensure your creativity will flow? Visit an art gallery? Dig the garden? Read a fascinating book about the Russian Revolution? It doesn’t matter how you recharge your creativity, but if you don’t have ‘input’ you won’t have ‘output’. It’s that simple!

What tips can you pass on to other writers?  How do you fit writing into your schedule?

If you need regular inspiration and motivation, do consider joining our community which is open for new members until 15th February 2012 only.  The Completion Club is a hugely supportive community and will be running for the next six months, with regular accountability on our members’ forum.  

If you’d like to receive posts like this directly to your in-box, do sign up for the RSS feed (for the blog articles) and the newsletter (for separate exclusive articles) using the buttons to the right of this post.  

For a final opportunity to work directly with Jacqui Lofthouse, do take a look at the Ultimate Literary Coaching Package.

Gull captured on a summer photography course 2011

First of all, a very Happy New Year to you all and wishing all readers of this blog a happy, healthy, and creative 2012!

What is the Annual Review?

Last year, for the first time, I embarked on the ‘Annual Review’ process suggested by Chris Guillebeau here.  This worked really well for me and by the end of the year, I realised that I’d met nine of the goals I set for myself in January 2011, so naturally, I’m doing the same for 2012.  If you read Chris’s post, you’ll see that the review is quite a lengthy process, but for the purposes of this blog post, I’ll simply give a few edited highlights of my review.

The intention is not to brag about any of my own achievements (some of them might seem quite meagre and others will be irrelevant to the reader) but rather to look at what did work, what didn’t (where I failed) and to think about what I can learn from this and what is next.  I also hope that by blogging about the process I can inspire you to think clearly about what you want from 2012 – in relation to your writing work and indeed beyond.  I’ve been quite amazed by how well the goal-setting process has worked this year for me.  This is Part One (what went well – you have to come back for the next post to find out my failures…)

What went well in 2011?

The first question Guillebeau asks in the annual review process is ‘What went well?’.  He invites you to look at individual categories in your life, so here are a few from mine:

Creative:

Enjoying a quiet moment with 'The Paris Review'

This year, I completed the final edit on my fourth novel, a comedy about the literary world and sent it to my agent; it is currently under submission to publishers.  I’ve been working on this novel for a few years, so I was delighted to finally call it ‘complete’.  From a writing perspective, the second half of 2011 was a little more nebulous for me as I wanted to have time to experiment with new ideas and ways of writing.  I wrote 10,000 words of a memoir and began a Young Adult novel.  Recently I also began experimenting with poetry for the first time in years.

Attending drama classes at City Lit was a real highlight for me in 2011.  Acting was my original passion and it has been fantastic to return to classes and to begin to consider writing for theatre too.  In addition, my interest in photography continued. In the summer I attended Unshaken Photography’s ‘Introduction to Digital Photography’ and also started a photography blog here. In addition, I enjoyed learning about iphone photography via Bindu Wiles’ ‘The Photoessay Project’, the result of which is here.

Career:

Me performing Street Theatre on Covent Garden Piazza circa 1983

In 2011, I began to think seriously about career change. I have been running ‘The Writing Coach’ for six years now and whilst I really enjoy working with my clients, in recent months I have become aware of the need for a change, wanting to engage more in the outside world rather than working mainly from home and also seeking a new direction and fresh inspiration.

For some years I have been a School Governor and in mid 2011, I took a decision to consider a career teaching English and Drama in secondary schools (whilst continuing to write when I get a spare minute…)  In November, I applied for a PGCE in English with Drama at the Institute of Education in London and  I  learned yesterday that I have been accepted on the course, beginning in September 2012. (Getting that ‘yes’ was in fact my first goal for 2012!)  I’m really excited at the prospect of moving in this new direction.

Naturally many readers will have questions about how this affects my work at the Writing Coach and the answer is that I will continue to run the website, blog and newsletter but I will no longer be coaching (apart from a very few exceptions agreed in advance) after July 2012.  However, I will continue to offer products (ebooks, ecourses and possibly a membership option) via the site.  As yet I have not taken a decision on whether to employ a manager to run the services but as soon as that decision is taken, I will let you all know.  If anyone has any questions about this, please do get in touch with me via the Contact page.

In so many ways, I see this new direction as an extension of my work at The Writing Coach.  I’ll still be teaching writing and literature, simply in a new form and to a new audience and I’m immensely excited about the future.

Family and Friends:

My family may be publicity-shy but my cat is not...

My family and close friends are always my central priority and when I look back at the year, what I think of, most of all, is my relationships with those close to me and the many good times we’ve shared.  I’m a pretty private person at heart, so I won’t say much here beyond the fact that I’m immensely proud of all those close to me who have achieved some incredible things this year.  You know who you are – and thank-you.  (Of course, it goes without saying that David kept drawing great cartoons!)

Business:

This year saw the launch of the new Writing Coach website.  Goburo were fantastic to work with and I highly recommend Nick and Hayley’s work.  I so enjoyed launching the new-style Completion Club, our online club and a brilliant community for all writers looking to complete a work – and membership remains open until the end of January (allowing for sign-ups for a six month membership).  In addition I launched my ebook with a brand look:  ‘Get Black on White:  30 Days to Productivity and Confidence for Writers’.

Honor's Shadow by Voula Grand

I worked with around sixty-five clients in 2011 (including those working with other consultants and as part of Completion Club) I was also delighted to appear in the acknowledgements of Julia Crouch’s novel Cuckoo and Voula Grand’s novel Honor’s Shadow.  Several other clients and former students got agents and publication deals or self-published.  Huge congratulations to you all.

This year I also began fundraising for the charity African Revival and raised in the region of £700 for the charity (figure to be confirmed).

Goals:

At the beginning of this post I mentioned nine goals that I set at the beginning of 2011 and met.  In case you’re interested, they were:

1. Complete my fourth novel and have it accepted by my agent
2. Write the copy for the new Writing Coach website and launch it
3. Edit and revise ‘Get Black on White’ and launch the ebook.
4. Enrol in and attend a regular drama course
5. Take the children to Paris
6. Take a photography course
7. Raise my consultancy fees :)
8. Get our front garden and driveway professionally landscaped
9. Visit ten art exhibitions

If you’re wondering what goals I didn’t reach and where I failed miserably, please do subscribe to the blog to be sure you don’t miss the next post… And/or you can sign up to the newsletter here.

Question: What can a writer learn from an illustrator?

Answer: The fact that we don’t have to know the entire plot before we begin.  Indeed, we might know nothing at all about our story but if we have a strong ‘hunch’, it’s important that we follow it.

Earlier this month my daughter and I attended a talk at the Richmond literature festival with the author/illustrator Ian Beck.  Beck was there to talk about his new novel The Haunting of Charity Delafield.  I had expected the talk would be more interesting to my daughter than to me, but I was wrong because as Beck described his working process, I recognised it as the same process I use when I write novels myself, the same process that I recommend to clients time and again:  the organic method of development.

Beck was, in the first instance, an illustrator, having trained at Brighton College of Art in the sixties, where one of his tutors was Raymond Briggs.  After working as an illustrator for magazines and in the recording industry for several years (his work included the album cover for Sir Elton John’s ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’), he moved into children’s book illustration in the ’80s.  More recently, he has written novels for children and young adults.

A single image

Beck’s latest novel ‘The Haunting of Charity Delafield’ began life as a single image, similar to the one that now graces the book cover, seen here.  At first, he thought the girl in the red coat might be a character for an illustrated book – perhaps about a girl who had lost a puppy.  But that idea didn’t work and Beck put the image on a Christmas card and left it alone for a while.  Slowly, however, after a long break, Beck told us, the idea for a longer novel began to take shape.  He talked about visiting a garden, Levens Hall and realising that ‘her garden is a bit like that’.  He visits a particular house, full of mysterious objects and understands that Charity (at that time, in fact, he called her ‘Rose’ and her maid was ‘Charity’) lives in a big Victorian house full of peculiar things.  It is the perfect place for a haunting.  Soon Beck was writing a story about a girl raised alone, knowing little of the outside world, “confined to her overly-protective father’s Victorian mansion with its labyrinth of secret corridors and abandoned rooms.”

‘Stories can begin in all kinds of odd places,’ Beck said.  ’The important thing is knowing how to recognise it.’  It was three years from the time of that first illustration to the completion of the novel. It’s clear you can’t rush an organic project. Beck has a shed in his garden where he writes, but he’s equally comfortable scribbling for half an hour in a coffee shop.  He believes it is vital to be ‘open to imagination, allowing things to happen’.  His early influences were illustrations such as Pauline Baynes’ image of Mr Tumnus in Narnia, and books such as The Borrowers and Dr Dolittle.  He admires the work of Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac and Harold Jones in Lavender’s Blue: A book of Nursery Rhymes.

But what about the plot?

I didn’t ask the question ‘but how did you work out the plot?’  Why?  Because as an organic writer myself, I understand that when we begin with character, setting, relationships, questions – the plot emerges as part of the process.  Of course, different writers have different methods of developing plot and I do not underestimate the importance of a good structure in a book.  One of the reasons I always advocate organic growth is because I believe that when characters are fully realised, they end up doing things that we don’t expect them to do.  The more we write about them, the more we understand them and all of our best-laid plans can go awry.  I will write about ‘good plot structure’ in a subsequent post. But I highlight Beck’s method of starting with an image or a hunch, even if you don’t know where that will lead you, because I am deeply aware of how many authors are held back by a sense of ‘not knowing’ where a novel is going.  Whereas ‘not knowing’ can be the powerful thing. ‘Not knowing’ is, so often, what the creative process is all about. We have to be brave and we have to face the blank page and we have to recognise that there is mystery in the creative process. If we are to produce our best work, we must remain open to uncertainty.

You can find out more about Ian Beck and his earlier ‘Tom Trueheart’ novels on his website here.

If you’re interested in the organic method of writing, my ebook Get Black on White offers a simple introduction.  Or do sign up for the newsletter on this website for regular fortnightly advice and motivation on the writing process in your in-box.

Could you and should you write a novel in a month?

Today marks the first day of NaNoWriMo, otherwise known as National Novel Writing Month, when thousands of writers worldwide join together with the common aim of writing a novel in a month. But if you’re new to the idea of NaNoWrimo and wondering whether the idea is totally crazy or actually has some purpose, I’d like to explore the pros and cons of freewriting and what you can gain from this approach.

First of all what is NaNoWrimo?

I’ll let the organisers answer that one:

“National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing on November 1. The goal is to write a 50,000 word, (approximately 175 page) novel by 11:59:59, November 30.Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality.”

But does this apparently crazy approach to novel-writing actually work? What is the purpose of writing so feverishly as this?

NaNoWriMo is effectively a month-long freewriting programme, where participants are encouraged to freewrite an entire novel.  Most participants spend no longer than around an hour per day writing, so this really is a case of writing the first thing that comes into one’s head.  You don’t go backwards and edit, you don’t worry about whether your character hangs together or whether the plot makes any sense whatsoever.  Some NaNoWriMoers do in fact ‘plan’ in the month before, so they have a rough outline before they start, but most just plunge in with a germ of something that fascinates them.  The idea is that you get something down and you learn to overcome writer’s block once and for all.  At the end of it, if you complete the marathon, you will have 50,000 words of very rough writing which you can then re-read and unravel and edit into something fresh. This year, I will be fascinated to watch the progress made by some of my clients as several members of The Completion Club here at The Writing Coach have opted to join in with NaNoWriMo and I’ll be excited to see what they produce.

Surely no-one who writes a novel this way ever gets published?

Julia Crouch's novel 'Cuckoo' began life as a NaNoWriMo novel

Not so.  Here’s a list of published NaNoWrimo authors:

Julia Crouch, for example, a former client of mine, came to work with me with a rough NaNoWriMo novel under her belt and she talks here about how she went on to polish it into a finished novel and get a three book deal with Headline UK on the back of it.  I’m immensely proud to have been part of the process that led to the publication of Cuckoo.

It’s important to remember that what NaNoWriMo provides is a framework that can enable you to get beyond any blocks and get words on a page.  But it’s what you do with those words afterwards that really matters.  Freewriting enables you to get past your own self-consciousness: your fears of ‘getting it wrong’ and not being sure if you have a story within you.  Once you have that very rough draft, then you can spend as much time as you want shaping it, editing it, taking out the bits that totally don’t work, adding new characters and depth, a better plot and improving the language.

Would you work that way yourself?

In truth, I think that every writer has to find his or her own best way to write a novel (or a book of any kind) and I don’t think that any of us have a right to prescribe that method to others.  NaNoWriMo is one way of working that has been successful for many authors.  Around 200,000 people sign up for NaNoWriMo each year (and around 30,000 complete the marathon).  So if you look at the list of published authors in that light, it doesn’t look so good.  That’s not the point.  The point is – if an author is going to be good enough to finish writing a wonderful, polished novel, they will probably do it with or without NaNoWriMo.

My personal view is that freewriting has an important role in the development of any creative writer – it is a tool in the box and one which we can all use to find out about ourselves as writers.  I remember first reading Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer within by Natalie Goldberg and being struck by her phrase:  ”The aim is to burn through to first thoughts, to the place where energy is unobstructed by social politeness or the internal censor, to the place where you are writing what you mind actually sees and feels, not what it thinks it should see or feel.”  Despite already having a degree in creative writing at that point, I’d never really played much with totally free writing.  It wasn’t the kind of thing that our tutor Malcolm Bradbury particularly advocated and I’m probably still too firmly entrenched in the way I wrote at that time, (the way I’ve written all of my novels) to ever really feel comfortable with the idea of freewriting an entire book.  At the same time, I do understand that it is often only through freeing the subconscious thoughts that we get to the grit of what we want to say.  For me, however, there’s another way of doing that.

What’s the other way?

"Get Black on White: Thirty Days to Productivity and Confidence for Writers"

When I wrote my own ebook Get Black on White: Thirty Days to Productivity and Confidence for Writers I did in fact write 30,000 words (the ‘Get Black on White’ programme itself) in 30 days in the form of a blog, although the material was later extensively edited for the ebook edition. The book does, in fact, serve as an ideal companion for NaNoWrimo writers.  As I wrote the ebook, it  was fascinating for me to see how much I had to share and how easily it flowed. But in the current edition of the programme, I no longer suggest that clients use it to ‘write a thousand words a day’ but rather to help them establish a routine of daily touching base with their writing.

For me, what matters most, is that we have a connection with our writing. I believe that the most effective way of writing lies somewhere between the two extremes of freewriting and writers’ block. I think it is vital that we do have a clear sense of roughly what we are going to write in any particular writing session (at least to have a germ of an idea or a sense of the direction of the scene we are about to write) yet we don’t necessarily have to know the detail of how that will be expressed – in other words, we allow for the insights that our subconscious mind will reveal to us.

If I were to describe my ideal writing state, it would be that of a kind of hypnosis.  Most likely I’ll have Bach’s Cello Suite playing (the Pablo Casals version) as I’m so used to writing to that music that it instantly sends me into a trance and it doesn’t interrupt my flow.  I’ll be immersed in the scene in my imagination, seeing it vividly before my eyes.  I’m not writing so fast that I’m writing gibberish but neither am I getting so worried about the perfection of the words that I fear writing anything down at all. I’m literally ‘there’ in my imagination, pausing when I need to tune in to the scene in more detail yet never for so long that I’m agonising over the words.

I enjoy the feeling of knowing that I am choosing my words carefully and I am, without doubt, a perfectionist.  I could absolutely write a novel in a month but it is not, I feel, my own personal style to do so.

So you don’t recommend NaNoWriMo?

How can I not recommend something which has enabled so many people to break through the barriers that affect their ability to write?  Anything that enables us to approach our writing in a different way, anything that enables writers to discover what it latent within them has to be a good thing. Simply, the helter-skelter approach is not the right one for me, but it might be perfect for you!   And who’s to say that one day I may not eat my words…

I am personally ‘between books’ at the moment.  I’ve been experimenting a lot with other art forms, with an acting class and photography classes (if you are on Instagram or Tumblr or Posterous, do connect with me via the links in these parentheses – I’ve been having great fun with iphone photography lately!)  But I have decided to use the momentum that NaNoWriMo has brought to our experience at The Completion Club to good use to make a commitment to myself to move one particular book idea on.  Instead of committing to 1600 words a day, I am committing to touching base each day on a new Young Adult novel idea.  That’s it – to ‘open the file’ in the words of Mark Forster.

Meanwhile, several of the club members are all buddying up with each other via the Nanowrimo forum as well as via our own forum, forming a kind of mini community within a community and I know they will produce some wonderful work.  Indeed, I am just a little tempted.

A Competition:

To mark the beginning of NaNoWriMo and the launch of my new-style Newsletter on 24th November, I’ve decided to hold a competition. If you’d like to win a free constructive appraisal of 25 pages (double spaced, 12 pt) of your writing in a one-hour telephone call (and via an annotated text) and a copy of my ebook Get Black on White:  A Guide to Productivity and Confidence for Writers, simply tweet the link to the ebook page or this blog post or share a link on Facebook to the same between 1st November and 15th November and let me know via Twitter (@jacquilofthouse) that you’ve done so and I’ll put all of the names in a hat and announce the winner here on 16th November.  Good luck!

Even if you don't have a local canyon, choose somewhere inspirational to work...

Writing a first draft of a novel or any book is, you might say, the easy part.  But it’s at the editing stage that we craft our work into something special.  We aim to transform our material into work that will compel a reader.

If you’ve recently finished a draft of a novel – or indeed, if you are mid-draft but aware that you need to edit before you continue – the methods that I share here break down the process and make it much more manageable.

When I edit my own novels, I always work through several stages so I thought it might be useful to share a checklist of the things I’m looking for when I edit my own work. This article focuses on fiction primarily, but a parallel process can be used for non-fiction.

Take Time Out:

Once you have completed your manuscript, take time away from the work prior to editing. Have a break for a couple of weeks and consider getting feedback on the work from a trusted writing colleague. Think carefully before sharing your work however and choose somebody who you know will be constructive. Opinions can be subjective and if you are not getting professional feedback, it is worth choosing a number of readers, so you can get a balanced opinion on the work. You might like to prepare a list of specific questions for your reader.  Alternatively, if you prefer to keep your work private, just taking time out alone will be enough.  You need to gain distance from what you have written before you can edit it.  Do something fun whilst you’re waiting!

Consider the feedback carefully:

The best part about receiving feedback is that you are free to use it or discard it.  Nobody will give you some ‘ultimate truth’ on your novel. Some feedback will be valuable.  Some you can discard.  Go with your gut feeling.   It might take a few days for the feedback to sink in and for you to sift what is useful. Sometimes we experience a sense of disappointment that the work is not perfect already. It’s a natural response. But learning to accept feedback and use it well is a vital part of our work.  The fun part here is the freedom you have to accept what you’ve been told -if it is insightful – and use it well.  Take your reader’s notes to an inspirational place and journal on the areas of your work that you now sense need work.

Go for the full read-through:

Take a deep breath and don’t put it off any longer. Just take time out, pick up the entire work-to-date and a pen to scribble with, get comfortable in an armchair (or on a cliff-top, wherever you feel at ease…) and read.  Read it as if you had never read it before, as if you were an outsider, a professional editor.  Read the whole document – if necessary over several longish sessions – and annotate your text with any comments that occur to you in relation to changes you want to make, including small line-edits. Just get everything down on that manuscript as this will be your working document.  Whatever comes into your head as you read – get that on the page.

Look at the big picture:

As you read, have a separate notebook where you make notes on what I call ‘the big picture’.  This is where you can scribble more lengthy thoughts on the over-arching shape of the work.  Is the structure effective?  If not, why not?  What would you like to change?  How might you adjust it?  Are there any missing pieces of the puzzle?  Get it all down in your journal as you read.  You’ll use these notes later.

Use a simple check-list:

As you read your manuscript, look out for the following in particular.  Make notes in the margins and your notebook.  Keep scribbling freely and don’t let any thought go:

• Structural issues – where does it not hold together? Are there plot holes? Does it go off at a tangent? Is the plot too clichéd? In non-fiction, does the ordering of the material work?
• Voice issues – is the tone right? Is it consistent? Is it written from the right perspective? Do I need to make changes to the narrative voice?
• Character issues. Are the characters believable? Do they take actions that seem real? Do I believe that they are flesh and blood? Is their dialogue naturalistic? Can the reader empathise? Do the characters develop and change in the course of the book? What do they learn?
• Dialogue – Is it a good, condensed version of natural dialogue? Is it too focused on telling a story via dialogue and not realistic enough? Would the characters SAY this? Is the dialogue there for a purpose – to deepen characterisation or to advance the story?
• Telling not showing – Am I telling the reader too much, when I should be revealing the truth through action? Remember, dialogue doesn’t equal “showing”. Good “showing” is when a scene is dramatised and we are immersed in what is happening, unaware of the narrator’s presence. We don’t say ‘he is sad’, his sadness is revealed to us.
• Pace – is the action always moving forwards? Am I certain that each scene is propelling the character towards their goal, even if they are frustrated in that process? Am I wasting time, waffling? Every scene must be there for a purpose and advance the plot in some way.
• Scene structure – Is there movement in the scene? Do the characters shift? Does perspective change? Is there drama and conflict and change and development?
• Sentence construction. Is this working on a line by line basis? Am I overusing adjectives? Am I using adverbs? (They rarely work!) Do I repeat myself? Are there phrases I overuse? Does it flow? How’s my grammar?

Condense your actions down to a short list:

Once you’ve completed the read-through, take a separate session to look through your annotated notes. Then, choose a notebook – or a document if you prefer to work electronically – that relates specifically to your editing process and begin by making a list of all the major ‘big picture’ changes you want to make. Then ask yourself –  can you condense this list to five key areas? Examples of such areas could be:

• The character of Isabelle is too passive; I need to change her actions and responses to make her more feisty and thus engage the reader.
• The pace in the first third of the book is too slow – cut down on extraneous scene-setting and cut to the chase. Keep the scenes more focused on action.
• Work on my tendency to over-describe and lay-on the adjectives. Remember that less is more
• Get clearer on Simon’s motivation in the novel. That needs to be built at an earlier stage if the book is to have drive.
• Find a different resolution to the love affair. At present it is too clichéd and the end of the book doesn’t have impact as a result.

Don’t forget the line edits:

These are simply examples of the kind of points you might make, but there’s something very powerful in having key focus areas. It means that as we go through the book, we know where our main attention should lie. In addition to these larger points, you will also have a list of smaller points. However, you can work directly from the manuscript in relation to the smaller points rather than noting them separately.

Keep excellent records – be organised:

When you are editing, work on your main document but draw from all of your sources. Have the annotated manuscript(s) at your side and your list of key points. Editing can be an organic process, as when you make changes to a book, other aspects of that book can shift and change. Keep your editing notebook open as an ongoing document. From time to time, print up your newly edited work and read it through. It’s so satisfying to read a new draft and to feel how much smoother and more believable it is becoming. When working with clients, I’m often amazed at how swiftly work can improve with good editing. It is always a pleasure to see how work can be transformed in this way.  Don’t let your filing get disorganised at this time. You need to know where everything is so that you can draw everything together with ease.  Generally I save a copy of the old full manuscript, then take a fresh copy of it and ‘over-write’ the new version on the word processor.  You can start a whole new document if you prefer, but I generally find over-writing works best.

Be a perfectionist:

Once you’ve edited the document – if you are preparing for submission – you need to read the final manuscript through at least twice more. This might seem like the least fun part but if you approach it in the right way, you can gain a lot from this stage.  No literary agent or publisher wants to receive a manuscript full of typos and often-repeated words (we all do it!)  When I was finishing my last book, I did the final read-through on a Kindle.  (You can forward the ms to your freekindle.com address).  There’s something empowering about this, as it enable you to see the manuscript as if it were a finished book.  But also – when you read it like that, all the little errors leap out at you.  The final read-through is the most fun of all because (if you’ve done your job!) you can really enjoy the pleasure of reading your work in a fully polished form and you can take huge pride in this.

Remain true to your own vision:

Finally, remember that if we don’t edit, we don’t learn. Even when we think a book is finished, it will then go to an agent or a publisher who will notice aspects of the work that will improve with further editing. As a result, the book generally gets stronger and stronger. At the same time, remember that it is important to hold tight to your own vision of the book. Stand your ground if you need to. We do learn so much in this process and it strengthens our abilities as a writer.

Essentially, aim above all for the best possible work you can do and for a vision that is uniquely yours.  Then your own pleasure in the work and your skill will shine through to the reader, agent or editor.  Don’t forget – you don’t have to do all of this at once.  Just make that commitment to the read-through, pick up the manuscript and a pencil to scribble with and before you know it, you’re engaged in the process.

Why not try beginning today and let me know how it goes? You can break the process down into simple thirty minute chunks if you’re busy.

What would you add to these recommendations? Do please share in the comments.

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White goose at Winkworth Arboretum

Most readers of this blog will be familiar with the concept of the ‘Artist’s Date’, the phrase coined by the author of The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron. In Cameron’s words, “The Artist Date is a once-weekly, festive, solo expedition to explore something that interests you. The Artist Date need not be overtly “artistic”- think mischief more than mastery.”

Whilst I can’t claim to keeping that once weekly date solo, I do take my ‘down-time’ seriously and believe that it’s vital for all creative artists to have time away from the writing desk.  This ‘filling the well’ is so important to all artists – it’s a way of refreshing the spirit, engaging with new inspiration and having that all-important ‘thinking-time’ that is necessary if we’re to develop as artists.  This is something that I encourage in my children too.

One of my own favourite ways of filling the well is walking in nature.  These days, I’m getting mildly addicted to photographing plants and wildlife, so I generally carry my camera with me and use this time as an opportunity to really look at what is around me.  I find that taking photographs makes me pay attention to what I’m seeing – I look for detail that I might otherwise miss; when I have my camera with me, I’m focused on the external rather than the internal world.

I’m really enjoying this new creative outlet and I believe that it brings me back to my writing work refreshed and more ready to engage.  Today we visited Winkworth Arboretum for the second time and I share my photographs of the visit on my new photography blog including some more shots of this beautiful white goose who allowed me to get close-up and personal.  I intend to use the new blog to share quotations and insights in future, and I’d love it if you had time to take a look and if you feel so inclined, to comment and subscribe to my feed. (If you want this blog delivered to your in-box, you can subscribe by RSS or email by pushing the buttons to the right).  I’m a total beginner as a photographer, so if you’re a professional taking a look at the new blog, please be gentle with me!  I’m learning all the time and looking forward to getting some professional tuition soon.  But in the meantime, I find that nothing inspires my writing more than this time out.  So even this evening, on my return from Winkworth, my head began to buzz with ideas relating to my new writing project and I immediately took out my new iPad (yes, I succumbed) and began taking notes.  As it happens, the iPad also proved hugely useful tonight as I downloaded the 19th century books British Library app.  It’s incredible!  Almost immediately I stumbled upon several books that will be immediately relevant to my current project – like having my own private Victorian library at home.

Does this goose that I photographed today have any direct bearing on my evening writing inspiration?  Perhaps not.  But by going outside, taking myself away from my work, enjoying time with my family and engaging with the natural world, I was able to return to my writing work with a new excitement.  It’s so easy for us to feel that we need to be tied to the desk if we’re to create our best work.  But it’s simply not true.  We need to return to the desk regularly but we also need to engage with the world.  Else what will there be to write about?

Do share your thoughts on artist’s dates here.  What do you do when you need fresh inspiration?

One of the main questions that I get asked in my work as a writing coach is “how can I become more productive as a writer?” Modern life is full of distractions and most of us are juggling many roles at one time.  It is hard sometimes to set aside our other commitments and take time out to do work which is important and yet – if we’re not on an external deadline -  not urgent.

It is easy to put our writing off until “tomorrow” yet the problem with tomorrow is that it never comes.  It’s worth noting that if we decide to write only when we have a decent three hour slot, say once a fortnight, then we might produce, for example, 1500 words in that slot, which equates to 39,000 words a year.  If however, we decide to find a single hour, five days a week, for writing and produce 500 words in that hour, then we will produce 130,000 words in a year.  That’s quite a difference.

I am not saying that productivity is the most important yardstick by which to measure our writing.  Of course it is not.  Personally, I’d far rather produce an excellent novel over three years than a shoddy one in a year.  The point I’m making however is that if we work regularly, our work grows faster.  Regular work is also likely to deepen a book because if you engage with your subject matter more frequently, it is more likely to occupy your subconscious and your conscious mind during the rest of the day, and thus you will be doing what I call (in my very scientific lingo)  “working when you’re not working”.  In other words, you’re not likely to engage subconsciously with the problem you’re having with your plot if you only pause to consider your novel once a fortnight.  But if you just touch base with it every day, even for a short period, your mind will get working on the problem, even when you’re walking to work or doing the washing up.

If you would like to be more productive as a writer, here are my key tips:

1. Decide how much time you can realistically give to your writing each week. For example, two hours, twice a week.  In those four hours, you might produce around 2000 words which equates to 104,000 words a year.  Even the busiest person can generally find four hours if they try hard enough.  Can you commit to this?  If so, do post a comment below as a mark of your own commitment.
2. I highly recommend time-management guru Mark Forster’s idea. He says that you should “just open the file”.  You can kid yourself into writing by telling yourself that each day you will simply “open the file”.  You’ll be pulled into the work and do more than you’d intended.
3. Find someone or a group of people to be accountable to. In our online club, The Completion Club, we have a regular Monday morning accountability post and I know that this little trick alone has made an enormous difference to the writers who are members.  You could join us or else find your own group of writers and keep accountable to one another as a group.
4. When you plan your daily work, keep it simple and focus on your three most important tasks. I learnt this from Leo Babauta at Zen Habits.  Every day I still write my main three tasks in a small Moleskine journal.  It helps to keep me really focussed on what is important on any particular day.
5. When you plan your time, where possible always put the writing first. If you have a choice between writing and answering your email (and you’re not at work with your boss looking over your shoulder), then just write.  Do important tasks first and you’ll move ahead with all of your goals more quickly.
6. What can you give up in order to find more time to write? Is there a committee that you sit on that you only attend out of a vague sense of duty?  Do you really get pleasure out of your book club or does it simply mean that you have to read books you wouldn’t choose to read (which also takes up time)?  I’m not saying that book clubs are a bad thing – I love mine and wouldn’t be without it.  I’m simply saying that whatever takes up your time potentially takes time away from writing.  Consider your priorities carefully.
7. Be aware of your own rhythms. Remember, the only way NOT to be productive is not to write at all! Find the best time of day for you and work then. One person who attended a teleclass on productivity I ran said, “While I have been angsting about not being as productive as some of the more macho, gung-ho writers of my acquaintance, I have been ignoring my own work rhythms and ways to get things done.  I do have a tip to pass on which it only occurred to me the next morning when I woke up, inspired by the conversation.  I have become more productive this week since I “limited” the amount of time I write every week.  Instead of setting “Sunday afternoon ” aside as writing time, I have limited myself to 60 minutes every morning, over coffee, and 60 minutes in the evening, with a glass of wine.  But 60 minutes, and nothing else – no reading, no revising, no email.  The rest of the day is free for work, family, reading, or mucking about.  I’m doing about twice as much work now as I was a week ago.”
8. Another person attending that class said: “I still keep paper and pencil available wherever I go.  I have now included keeping my hand-held recorder with me wherever I am. When I go to bed, I make sure it is on the nightstand. I have even carried it with me when I am out walking around my property, I try to remember to put it in my pocket and if I have forgotten and words start flowing, I head to the house to get it. I live and breathe my book(s) and am constantly thinking of what needs to be included to put in them and how to word them. Using the small recorder is invaluable when I need to include much more than just a few “tickler” words. I speak into it in paragraphs instead of those few short words.”  Yesterday I had a meeting with a client and we talked about how useful she is finding the iPad in this respect, as you can write longhand on the tablet and change it into typescript.  I’m not an iPad owner yet but I can feel that purchase looming…
9. Do remember that it is more important to get the words down than it is to “get it right”.  At the inception stage of a work, we should ideally get into a more diffuse “right-brained” mode of working, allowing ourselves to free-write, to dream, to journal.   In the words of Hemingway, “every first draft is shit”.  Don’t let the inner-critic get in the way at this stage.  Only later, once the voice has formed, once you know your characters and main story thrust should you allow your “left-brained” mode more sway.  At that stage more planning becomes important.
10. For me, the most important productivity tip of all is to only write what you are passionate about. If you have a genuine fascination in your material, you will be drawn back to it all the time; you won’t be able to leave it alone.

I’m sure I’ve only scratched the surface here, but I hope some of these ideas have inspired you to find more time for writing in your everyday life.   I would love to hear your ideas for productive writing – please do share in the comments.  I’m looking forward to your thoughts.

There are times, for all writers, when the idea of completion seems like an impossible dream.  A book-length writing project is no small undertaking and completion takes determination, guts, persistence, passion, inspiration and simple hard work.

We can’t underestimate the importance of completion.  If we don’t complete our writing projects, we can’t expect publishers to show interest in what we do.  Especially in the world of fiction-writing (where it’s highly unusual for an incomplete book to be commissioned), an idea is just that – an idea.  We need to prove to publishers – and to our ourselves – that we are finishers.

Of course, completion doesn’t just mean reaching the end of a first draft.  That is a real achievement in itself – but it’s not the finish line.  It is something to be celebrated.  But it’s also a milestone, not the final destination.  When we talk about completion, what we really mean is a revised, polished manuscript which has been through at least a couple of drafts and a proofread.  Sometimes it means more than that.  My most recent novel has reached what I thought was ‘final draft’ stage on three occasions!  Only on the third ‘final draft’ – after I’d made extensive revisions based on the feedback of my agent and a novelist friend, did my agent and I agree that it really was publisher-ready.

As my own fourth novel goes out into the world – and as The Writing Coach’s new membership group The Completion Club launches on 1st June, it’s time for me to reflect on what it took to reach completion – and what I have learnt along the way – which is a lot!  Indeed, I think I’ve had a steeper learning curve with this novel than any other and I’d like to think that I can use what I’ve learnt as I move into book number five and as I work with our members as they too work towards completion.

So here are a few points I’d like to share about completion – I do hope you find some of them useful as you work on your own writing projects.

1. If you are at the beginning of a writing project – ask yourself whether this is something that you feel deeply passionate about and committed to. Are you writing this because the story fascinates you?  Because you find the subject matter deeply intriguing?  Because you are obsessed by a particular character?  Because you have a structural idea that demands to be explored?  Or are you writing this for reasons that aren’t entirely authentic?  If you have doubts, stop and consider them thoroughly before continuing.  It’s often best to shelve a project that you aren’t deeply engaged with, rather than forcing it through to completion.  If you have doubts or lack passion, it’s going to take you a lot longer and it’s going to be difficult to keep returning to the work. When you are passionate, the blank page will draw you.
2. Why not use the ‘Pomodoro Technique’ whereby you work with a 25-minute timer, just to get you going… You may argue that such ‘tricks’ are not conducive to serious writing, but for those who are procrastinating, they are simply triggers to get you into the work, to overcome creative block and to force you to create.  If you’re not blocked and not having trouble committing to regular writing, you’re free to skip this advice.  But if you’re not working at all, I’d say 25 minutes on your project is better than nothing at all… and often leads to a longer, more engaged writing stint.  Regular work is the only thing that will, in the end, guarantee completion.




3. Take yourself seriously as a writer.  If you don’t take yourself seriously as a writer, no-one else will.  If you are going to complete, you need to move from being someone who would like to be a writer to someone who is deeply engaged in a writing project.  Consider yourself a professional from the beginning. What does this mean?  It means that if you need to research, you book in a time to go to the library and really focus on getting that work done.  At the same time, it is important that you don’t start to use research as a procrastination tool. Separate your writing and your research times and make sure you put time in the diary for both.  Taking yourself seriously may also mean that you think about developing a web presence.  You can build an audience, even as you work on your book.  It is also vital to read widely and analytically.  Consider reading Francine Prose’s book Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them. If you establish serious habits – both in your writing and your reading – then you will not only be more confident in what you will produce, but you can be more certain that the work you produce will be of a higher standard and that you will finish it.
4. Remember that if you just keep putting one word in front of another you will finish.  There is nothing ‘magical’ about finishing.  But there is something powerful in learning that you are the kind of person who can commit to a longer work and keep going.  I remember when I worked on my first novel, I began with a short story.  I realised that the work was too complex for a short story however; it needed to be a novel and once I realised that and kept writing, I began to be empowered by the number of printed pages in my file. First it was twenty, then thirty, then one day it was fifty and I said to myself, ‘wow, if I keep going like this, I really am going to write a novel.’  In the end, that novel – though it was never published – secured me a place on the MA programme at UEA and got me my first agent.  There is a very real argument for printing up your work and keeping it together in a single file.  It looks much more impressive than a computer file and watching your work grow can encourage you to keep at it in the long run.

5. 

   Jacqui with members of 'The Completion Club' at our recent May 2011 meeting.

   Seek support and community.  Over the years, I have found the support of fellow writers invaluable in helping me to commit to the writing life and to finish projects.  First, I had my co-students at UEA.  Then, in later years, I joined a local writing group which still meets today on a fortnightly basis, a group of six women who meet regularly to discuss our writing work.  When we began, only two of us had published fiction.  In the ten years since we have been meeting, every member of the group has gone on to publish their work in book form.  I think that says something about the doom-and-gloom statistics that are often quoted to us about the odds of getting published.  Last year, I was privileged to witness the mutual supportiveness of members of The Completion Club, an online group which I created here at The Writing Coach.  Each week, via our online accountability post, members encouraged one another to keep at it, producing regular work.  Three members of that group went on to get literary agents during the course of the year and three had definite interest from publishers.  As this year’s new Completion Club launches on 1st June, I’m really excited to think about the level of support that the group will give to one another and I’m getting my Completion Club Shelf ready for the books that the club members will produce!  The club is open to new members at any time of the year, you can just jump in whenever you find us!  Whether you choose to join our club or to seek support from a local creative writing group or a couple of writers that you already know, I do encourage you to find a writing community who will encourage you to grow and to be productive as a writer.

Most importantly of all, if you want to be one who finishes books, do think very seriously about committing to the writing process rather than concerning yourself too much with the marketplace at this early stage of your career.  Whilst it is vital that you do keep an eye on what is being published and what publishers want, it is also key to develop your own voice as a writer.  As Philip Pullman said at last year’s ‘Shakespeare and Co Literary Festival’ – “Before Harry Potter, nobody was saying ‘We’re looking for ‘the next Harry Potter’”.  At the same time, JK Rowling knew what audience she was writing for – she understood her reader.  It’s all about balance in the end – balancing originality with market-awareness and your own passionate interest.  If you can do all this and put words on the page, day after day, Black on White, then you’re half way there…

Have you ever completed a writing project and if so, what can you share about what you have learnt? And if you want to complete but haven’t yet, what are the biggest challenges you face? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section.

The staircase at Shakespeare and Co. bookshop, Paris

There is nothing quite like an independent bookshop. I know I’m not alone in bemoaning the homogenisation of bookshops these days.  I often feel deflated when I walk into Waterstones and see the “3 for 2″ table before me. When I see that, I know I’m being spoon-fed my choice of reading whereas I’d prefer to see a visit to a bookshop as an adventure: a delicious experience that I can enter into, with no idea of my destination.

On my recent visit to Paris, I had such an adventure. I was excited to return to Shakespeare and Co. bookshop and to introduce my children to the delights of this wonderful place. I first visited Shakespeare and Co. in 2010 when I attended Festival and Co. where my husband David was lucky enough to be employed as a graphic facilitator – to officially illustrate the literary festival. The memories of that festival still linger, but this visit was special in an entirely different way.

My daughter, aged 9, is already a Shakespeare fan (she took part in a local Youth Theatre production of The Comedy of Errors) and was particularly keen to visit the shop that she had heard so much about. She was not disappointed. Whilst she tucked herself in a corner of the children’s department, curled up on a cosy seat surrounded by notes left by other children and whilst my son explored the politics shelves, David and I were free to explore the shop and soak up the atmosphere.

The inscription above the doorway in Shakespeare and Co.

Shakespeare and Co. has an illustrious history of course. The original shop was set up by Sylvia Beach in 1919 but the current store, set up by George Whitman in 1951 in a building that served as a monastery in the 16th century, took the name after Beach’s death. An English language bookshop on Paris’s left bank, the shop was a base for many writers of the Beat Generation. The bookstore has become known as a place where writers are invited to sleep and work and writers such as Henry Miller, Anais Nin and Lawrence Durrell have rested their heads there. A prominent inscription above a doorway reads:  ”Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise”. (That’s my son caught in the rays of light!)

In Shakespeare and Co. second-hand books and new books nestle alongside one another on the many shelves – almost, as David put it, like “a conversation” between authors over generations. The shop is full of what might be termed “forgotten” books. I was particularly struck by one shelf which had rows and rows of back copies of The London Magazine: not just last year’s issues but copies that went back to the seventies. Why did that make a particular impression on me? I began to read the London Magazine in the late eighties when I was starting to write short stories. In 1989 I wrote a short story I was particularly proud of called The Second Line and I sent it to the London Magazine, in a spirit of vague hopefulness. They did not accept the story for publication (I had not really expected them to), but the editor Alan Ross did send me a hugely encouraging letter which made me believe that I might, at least one day, be taken seriously by the literary establishment. It was a turning point.

The London Magazine Shelf in Shakespeare and Co. bookshop

Seeing those magazines brought that memory vividly back to me. But it also reminded me that nothing that is ever published is entirely forgotten. So long as we have independent bookshops that stock old books and magazines, then ideas and literary works that one might otherwise assume are “lost” are in fact not lost at all. They are there, nestling amongst new creations, waiting to be rediscovered. In such an environment, we have a full picture of the literary world.  We are entering an entirely different space. In this space, the cult of the new is not king. A work is not only valued because of it’s “marketability” nor are we only looking at authors who have been bought by publishers because they seem like a potential fresh hot property. Authors who only wrote short works and only published occasionally are not devalued. Authors who went out of print mid-career because they failed to sell enough books have not vanished from the shelves. Rather, all writers who have ever been valued by an editor or publishing house have the potential of being present. And so, a reader entering into such a shop is walking into a kind of bookish paradise, with the kind of choice that is simply not possible in a large commercial book-chain.

I lingered for around an hour. I could have stayed for weeks. The little bed was extremely inviting. Whilst I was there, I enjoyed the sound of music from the shop piano, as several customers paused to play. (Last time I was there, a cellist was practising in the shop.) I had a conversation with a German man about the unique atmosphere of the shop (how often do I converse with strangers in Waterstones?) and he paused to photograph my daughter there. I took in a photography exhibition and browsed the many literary workshops on the noticeboard. I chose two books to take home with me, as did my daughter. The boys were more disciplined and claimed they had “books enough” already.

It was a wrench to leave...

At the checkout, the cashier stamped my books with the Shakespeare and Co. logo. I chose the Winter 2010 edition of The Paris Review which contains interviews with Jonathan Franzen and Louise Erdrich and Book Business: Publishing, Past, Present and Future by Jason Epstein.  (The collected The Paris Review Interviews are a brilliant resource for any writer.) I left the shop even more in love with literature than I was when I entered (if that is possible) and though I confess that I might never entirely quit the Amazon habit, I remain determined to do my in-person book shopping in small stores, especially those that stock a mixture of old and new titles.

I would be delighted to hear your experience of special independent bookshops and if you have any particular recommendations, please do share in the comments section below – wherever you are in the world – so that this post might serve as a small directory of stores worth visiting.

View of the London Book Fair from the International Rights Centre

My first visit to the London Book Fair has been a lively and exhilarating day. I have found it fascinating to meet so many people working in so many different areas of the publishing industry.

The day began early, rising at 5.15am to make it to  The Sloane Club for an 8.15am breakfast hosted by Firsty Books who have just launched their excellent Firsty Authors epublishing package. I attended with author friends Shelley Weiner and Jennifer Potter and found myself quickly drawn into the discussion.

It was interesting to hear how the forthcoming new EPub3 files will allow “enhanced ebooks” to become even more interactive. Firsty CEO Darin Brockman suggested that publishers will need to begin thinking about producing content across multiple platforms. I raised the example of one of my clients who is currently developing a multimedia novel which will have embedded video and audio as part of the package.

The new ebooks will be more interactive. For example, they will allow children to colour in pictures and email them to their grandparents. I was particularly curious to hear how ebooks will be used in the developing world, reaching audiences who might otherwise not have access to books. Indeed, a representative of Oxfam was at my table. He surprised me when he told me how difficult it is for Oxfam to place free books in libraries!

At 10.30am I headed over to Earls Court for the Fair. I met Stephanie Zia of blackbirdebooks at the Author’s Lounge and we went to the Literary Cafe to hear the bestselling Russian author Boris Akunin in interview with Tibor Fischer. Tibor opened with the words: “Boris, you have sold tens of millions of books – how did you do that?” The answer, apparently (and doubtless ironically) is “in the stars”. Akunin, originally a literary translator said that in fact, when he began writing, he had “a five year plan… I plan big.”

I was delighted to discover that Akunin recommends the organic method of writing. He begins with “a spark or a trick if it’s a detective novel” and then he begins to dream up his characters, each of which have their own story. His plot is then influenced by the “force-fields” that arise between the characters. Interestingly Akunin maintains a blog, despite his success. He said that he blogs at 5pm (at 7pm he goes out with his friends or plays video games!) and he doesn’t think of blogging as work: it uses a different part of his brain; he is enjoying himself.

Kazuo Ishguro took to the stage after Akunin. In the short interview, he focused first on the current need for ‘an alliance’ between media that will enable serious work to survive. He believes that the “serious novel” by which he means all “good novels” (not meaning a specific genre) may need to be protected in this age when a “huge tide” of “celebrity culture and sequels” threatens to overwhelm us. He touched on an adverse effect of the ebook revolution: “I don’t know how we will persuade people to pay for our writing”. He wondered if a system of patronage might have to make a come-back; he commented that he had been offered £10,000 by a diamond manufacturer to write a short story that included product placement! Needless to say, he turned it down.

Ishguro’s own current work is, he suggested, an “intimate epic”. He talked about the challenge of keeping the work intimate when writing against a huge historical canvas. The theme of his current work is memory. He asks the question: “When is it better to forget the painful things a society has been through?” and likened it to the dilemma surrounding therapy – should one “stop repressing” or ‘”just move on…”?

Jacqui Lofthouse and Stephanie Zia celebrate their first visit to the London Book Fair

After a breath of fresh air and lunch, Stephanie and I went up to the International Rights Centre where we were able to connect with several literary agents. It was exciting to share the work of my clients with these agents and I also had a chance to speak with my own agent. Then it was time for a glass of champagne!

Next, after a brief tour of the Digital area of the Fair, Stephanie and I returned to the Firsty Books stand to meet with Firsty’s publishing director. It was an ideal opportunity for us to explore what is now possible in book Apps and for us to pool our knowledge and resources in this area.

Finally, to round off the day, I joined the London Book Fair ‘Tweetup’ (a gathering of those who Tweet), organised by Jon Reed of Publishing Talk which began in the bar at Earls Court and continued in the pub…

It was fantastic to meet Jon after following him for a couple of years on Twitter. I was also lucky enough to bump into a colleague, Judith Watts who teaches on the MA Creative Writing at Kingston University. Judith introduced me to Anna Faherty, lecturer on the publishing MA, and by chance I met Susan Greenberg, lecturer in Creative Writing from Roehampton University. If anyone still thinks that Twitter doesn’t help one forge real relationships, I think we all proved them wrong in the Prince of Teck pub at Earls Court tonight.

I rounded off my day by reading the Bookseller on the tube home. Funnily enough it contained an excellent article about the importance of Twitter for publishers today. If you’re looking to get started on Twitter, Jon shares Publishing Talk’s “Twitter Cheat Sheet” here.

Thanks to all those I met today for making it a memorable occasion. I am, shall we say, a little sleepy but oh, it was worth it!