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Making it up as I go along

Making it up as I go along

Monthly Archives: November 2016

The private face of the public writer

20 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Feminism, Ghostbird, Quotations, Social Media, Virginia Woolf, Writing

Island Life, Word Birds & Process #26

‘If one is to deal with people on a large scale,’ Virginia Woolf said, ‘and say what one thinks, how can one avoid melancholy?’

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‘Melancholy’ is laying it on a bit thick although I take her point. If I had a pound for every time I’ve held my fire on social media, I’d be that proverbially rich woman. And never mind melancholic, I’d be in state of permanent fury. Since I’ve been published, not saying what I think had become an unexpected thing for me.

It’s a conflict of interests, frankly.

Promoting oneself as a writer via social media is a good way to get noticed. I appreciate my responsibility to my book and to my wonderful publisher, and do the best I can. It’s a fine line though – however small your platform, it’s too easy to allow yourself to be enticed into controversy, which may possibly do your book no good at all.

In days of yore I was vocally political and a committed activist. (Feminism has a great deal to thank the second wave for. You’re welcome.) It’s a different world now and online I’m choosing to take a back seat. It doesn’t mean my heart isn’t still on raging fire.

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Where social media is concerned I keep my distance from controvosy and avoid saying what I really think a lot. Not that it matters – I may have had a book published, I’m not JK Rowling – who cares what I think anyway? Well, that’s the point – people do (often they’re weird people) and it’s easy to get caught up in all sorts of scary malarkey.

Forty-eight people subscribe to this blog. Small-fry in the big old blogosphere scheme of things, but in my world, that’s a lot of people reading what I have to say – about anything. I’m not far off nine hundred Twitter followers too. I like Twitter; it’s been good to me in terms of promoting Ghostbird even though I know I don’t use it to its fullest capacity. I can’t; I don’t have time. And to be honest, if I was on it like a leech, day after day, I’d get no work done and have nothing to promote anyway. Facebook is fun and most of the time I like it too. Thus far I’ve avoided anything contentious, and managed to extricate myself from the odd contretemps by being polite.

For a woman who likes the sound of her own voice, I’m a very private person. I keep 99% of my personal life to myself. And this is the nub of the thing. I don’t know if there’s a line, and if there is, where it is. I think we draw our own and as a writer, I choose to walk a relatively gentle one. I stick to posts about writing and swimming and the view from my aerie. Don’t be fooled though – my private face often has its eyes narrowed and its lips pursed in case a snarky, radical, barbed comment is required.

toni-morrison-if-you-surrender-to-the-wind-you-can-ride-it

‘If you surrender to the wind, you can ride it.’
~Toni Morrison

First drafts, learning by experience & writing to keep up

13 Sunday Nov 2016

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Drafts, RiverBook, Word Birds, Writing

Island Life, Word Birds & Process #25

I fear I have confused the word birds. Having cwtched down for the past however many months, the ones making up the first draft of my next story have had time to bed in – feel secure and imagine their contributions safe from any mucking about on my part. Yesterday they were rudely awakened. Having opened the document, sadly (for the word birds) inevitably for me, mucking about is what I must now do.

The story was written before book two (which I have recently completed), when I still had a good deal to learn. I’ve known for a while now that a major aspect of it would have to go, that the entire thing is in need of paring down and simplifying. The reason I know is because of the process I’ve recently been through with book two. The structural edits and the rewrite were done far more quickly than I expected, largely because I’m getting better at it. Once I knew what I needed to do, the doing of it came relatively easily.

This next story is a departure – I’m writing an older central character for one thing. Still meddling in the magic but trying my hand at a more immediate story, something rooted in the present and only vaguely referencing the past. It isn’t easy for me. I adore backstory. I love writing it – I like the way the past informs the present and I’m rarely put off by books that make a feature of backstory. I do know there’s a trick to writing it. It’s something I’m absolutely learning and it’s a revelation.

Damn, I love this writing lark – I have a head full of stories, each one more easily conjured than its predecessor. There’s no help for it – I have to keep at it, keep up and live to be a hundred.

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My novels

Wild Spinning Girls
Wild Spinning Girls
Snow Sisters
Snow Sisters
Ghostbird
Ghostbird
Only May
Only May
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