• Home
  • Blog
  • Only May
  • Wild Spinning Girls
  • Snow Sisters
  • Ghostbird
  • Contact

Making it up as I go along

Making it up as I go along

Tag Archives: Quotations

The spaces in between

25 Sunday Jun 2017

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Drafts, Island Life, Quotations, Writing

Island Life, Word Birds & Process

In that order, oh yes, it’s an Island Life morning & no mistake. The earlier mist has lifted a bit although it remains Avalonian & suitably mysterious. I can hear a bird too, see the swifts feeding on the wing. And there is always the process…

I suspect I may have used my title before: the spaces in between are familiar to writers. With one book finished (as in – being scrutinised by copy editors, proofreaders et al ) & the scent of launch day not as far away as I imagine, there is a temptation to tread water. Think about guest posts & the answers to questions I haven’t yet been asked. Faff a bit in pictorial procrastination. (Good eh?) I’m a collector of images & always on the look out for unusual ones. I don’t need much of an excuse to play…

“I’m restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.”

Thus spake the glorious Anaïs Nin.

anais nin

For stars, read words & you have it. (I’m guessing that’s what she meant.) I am being pulled by my words. But which story do I choose? For I do have choices: a completed (four drafts in) of one & the exciting draft zero of another. Perhaps I ought to toss a coin. Either way, the space must be filled. I’m restless & not writing isn’t an option.

The two-trick pony & the ghosts in her machine

28 Sunday May 2017

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Ghostbird, Quotations, RiverBook, Snow Sisters, Virginia Woolf, Writing

Island Life, Word Birds & Process

Although I like authors who reinvent themselves, I’m partial to familiarity too. Publishers, agents & editors tend to like ‘more of the same’ & in my experience, readers lap it up. This is not to say a writer shouldn’t stretch herself. ‘RiverBook’ – the story I thought was going to be a follow-up to Ghostbird – has no ghost. It has a much older main protagonist too. I first abandoned it to write Snow Sisters – which came out of left field insisting ghost stories (& sister stories) are what I write.

With this book accepted for publication, the one-hit wonder is on the road to becoming a two-trick pony. And what larks that evokes! I’m a book-writer now & no mistake. I need new shoes at the very least!

While Snow Sisters waits patiently in the copy-edit queue, I have to write something. It made sense to reacquaint myself with ‘River’ which I did, only to be ambushed yet again by another ghost. Once more, poor ‘River’ has been usurped (there’s no other word for it) by a sneaky interloper dragging a spook behind her…

If the cap fits we are told, wear it. And so I shall. Once again my cap is made from mist & secrets & stretches of endless Welsh sky. It’s decorated with raven feathers & when I set it aside, I swear it whispers fragments of words which can only be the voice of a ghost…

Currently, it’s a muddle; the usual random scribbles but as I place them on the page, something more solid begins to emerge.

Naturally, there is a level of apprehension attached to writing ‘more of the same’ but I comfort myself with the thought that it’s good enough for some of my literary sheroes. And I have no particular desire to take a different direction. I have no need to reinvent myself – at this stage I’m barely invented! I know my place if you like & it suits. In the end, it will be down to my reader. If Snow Sisters suits then why not write another ghost story? Why not set another book in my beloved Welsh hinterland among the bones of dragons, conjuring spells and listening for the voice of a ghost?

And who knows, perhaps ‘RiverBook’ will one day make it out of the shallows. She has four drafts to her name & the tenacity of a terrier.

NPG Ax142596; Virginia Woolf (nÈe Stephen) by Lady Ottoline Morrell

How are we to account for the strange human craving for the pleasure of feeling afraid which is so much involved in our love of ghost stories?
~ Virginia Woolf

“The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace…” *

08 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Birds, Crow, Editing, Island Life, Letter to America, Quotations, Word Birds

Island Life, Word Birds & Process

Earlier, writing my daily Letter to America, I mentioned the mist (it’s an Island Life this morning, dear reader & no mistake) & that only a small, solitary bird graced the highest branch of the birch tree. It never lasts, this daring do. Sooner or later, Crow arrives, evicts the interloper and claims her place. Today she came with friends, three dark shapes against a rain-drenched sky, elegant itinerants.

They’re gone now. Crow has business elsewhere. If the mood suits her, mine tarries long enough to leave a few words, a line or two I may find a use for. Lately, I’ve sensed her shaking her black hoody head – Kraa – you are procrastinating, writer.

crow-2

She isn’t wrong. It is however procrastination thinly disguised as editing. When I set aside my current new story (was Book 2, now Book 3) to write The Snow Sisters (the usurper) it was a vague second draft. I knew it was chaotic, that parts of it were going to need serious attention. In the back of my mind, a confused muse wrestled with chunks of ubiquitous backstory (my nemesis) pronouncing it superfluous to anyone’s requirements.

Knowing I was about to embark on another draft, my first reader (the recipient of my Letter to America), put up her hand. Her eye is astute & she asks the right questions. Checking ahead, I spotted where the chaos began & faster than a rat up a drainpipe, scuttled back to Chapter One. I’ve spent the last week meticulously & very, very slowly, editing the first ten chapters: back & forth like an over-keen copy editor on Kalms. These chapters are so edited they are faint with exhaustion, begging to be left in peace.

And still, Chapter Eleven waits. Or as I like to call it, the place where it all goes pear-shaped, backstory crash-lands onto the page & I have no idea how to deal with it. I’ll work it out – it’s only words, yes? Kill a few (several hundred) off; tidy up the telling, dump the debris…?

If I ask nicely, maybe the words birds – my beautiful vagabonds – will take some of them back…

* John Burroughs

Begin at the beginning

01 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Drafts, Editing, Epigrams, First Lines, Ghostbird, Mise en Abîme, Quotations, Reviews, Writers, Writing

Island Life, Word Birds & Process

onceuponatime

Once upon a time is the place where most stories begin. The writer will rarely know for certain where her latest story came from, only that it did. The initial trace will have landed in the bit of her brain marked ‘story.’ From there, if the thing has wheels, in the excitement, that first spark may get forgotten; a once upon a moment lost in the thrill of the story taking shape. It doesn’t matter. It is what it was: a glimmer, a dream or possibly a first line – & even that’s likely to get side-lined.

My favourite first line was written by the immaculate Dodie Smith in I Capture the Castle – ‘I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.’ The image conjured is perfect & instantly the reader wants to know where, what, when & why.

i-capture-the-castle

Our original first lines rarely make it to the final cut – editors often see to that – it’s their job. In the event they don’t make us change it, we have almost always done so ourselves, many times.

First lines are the bane of a writer’s life because readers devour them & we have to get them right. Like a cover or a blurb, a memorable one can mean the difference between a sale and a rejection. I always imagine my first lines are pretty cool. I’m often wrong & have a good laugh/wry smile when the real one emerges.

The story I’m currently working on is in third draft. It began with some pretentious attempt as a series of mise en abîme which, by the second draft, were rejected in favour of a simple epigram. Although I liked it – I’m fond of epigrams – by the current draft I recognised these few lines worked better within the narrative. (What I now have is a secret.)

So far mind, the beginning of chapter one hasn’t changed. As first lines go it’s pretty ordinary – ten words, none of them startling or uppity. They do set the scene. I hope I get to keep them. And out of the blue, a few days ago the word birds dropped by with the first line of Book 4. It’s lush.

Onward & sideways!

Oh yes, while you’re here, I wish you a joyous 2017. If you read Ghostbird, thank you. If you reviewed it, I adore you. If you are writing your own story – may the New Year gift you a cooperative Muse, a fabulous first line & this little hackneyed, clichéd, perfect mantra.

just-write-best-apps-for-distraction-free-productive-writing_x960

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?’

virginia-w

‘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.

54bf34caf792ec66a6435815ae4f48e8

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

A draft is a half-formed thing

16 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Books, Drafts, Editing, Editor, Ghostbird, Honno, Ideas, Quotations, Reading, Snow Sisters, Writers, Writing, Writing Group

Island Life, Word Birds & Process #24

Earlier in the week my writing group sister & I were discussing a quotation she’d come across. Anyone who knows me knows my take on these things. The more ‘inspirational’ they are the less likely I am to be enamoured. This one is different. It’s less inspirational & more common sense. We were in agreement.

“Hard writing makes easy reading. Easy writing makes hard reading.”

Although the quote has been officially credited to William Knowlton Zinsser, an American writer, literary critic, editor & teacher, it’s also been attributed to Ernest Hemingway. It hardly matters. For the purposes of making my point, I’m happy to have Hemingway on my side too. Neither writer meant ‘easy’ as in ‘peasy’ – they meant that when a book is easy to read the words flow, the eye is mesmerised; the pages turn as if by remote control because the whole is the the result of dedicated hard work, often  written in metaphorical blood.

My first book, Ghostbird, was published in March this year. It took me years to write, rewrite & eventually submit. It got rejected; I rewrote it, resubmitted & so forth. It was hard, hard work & eventually it paid off. I got a publishing deal with Honno, the Welsh Women’s Press. I think I can safely say, even if it isn’t your cup of tea, my book is easy to read.

I’m currently editing my second. I began writing it approximately eighteen months ago. The first draft was completed in roughly ten months which seemed ridiculously fast until I recognised I must have learned a few tricks on the way. (And there’s nothing like being published to make you want to write another book!) After I’d written the second draft (& edited the hell out of it) I submitted it to my editor, the gracious & scarily perceptive Janet Thomas. Her input was, as it always is, positive with added ‘buts.’

‘Buts’ are what a great editor excels at. ‘Buts’ are what they say after, ‘I love this part…’ It’s when the light bulbs go on, the boxes get ticked & the writer realises she still has work to do. It doesn’t matter because the solutions to the ‘buts’ make her heart sing.

This is my third draft – a deeply focused edit involving a good deal of rewriting based on Janet’s wise advice. I have excavated the layers beneath, accessed my authentic story; I’m doing the best I can for my characters. I hope to have this version finished by the end of the month. It will still be scrutinised again & possibly taken apart.

And here’s my point. The initial idea for our stories often comes out of somewhere unexpected. They take us by surprise, fire us up & it’s incredibly exciting. (I had the idea, characters & most of the story outlined for this current book in two days!) It’s the filling that takes the time. Writing a book is hard graft. There is more to it than a great idea. And a padded outline isn’t a story, a single draft isn’t enough. Neither is a second proofread, friend-read one. Until it’s been picked apart by someone with no agenda other than to make the story the best it can possibly be it remains a half-formed thing.

Unless one is Margaret Atwood – or someone of that calibre – an easy, quickly written story is a draft. Unedited, it grates on the eye, has the reader reaching for her metaphorical black pen. If we love our characters, have faith in our story why would we opt for easy? In my view, easy is lazy. Nothing worth doing comes without effort; least of all writing a book. It takes time, dedication & resolve.

anne-sexton

The title of this piece references the debut novel by Eimear McBride – A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing. It’s an extraordinary book, innovative & challenging, written in a mind- bending style that’s demands every iota of your attention. Once you give it, fall into the flow & joy of the prose, you realise this is a book that can only have taken the writer on the hardest of paths.

Writing never stops being hard but I reckon it’s the closest thing to bliss I’ve experienced. I’ve just finished reading a book that made me cry (in a good way), shake my head at the perfection of it. It wasn’t written & published in a few months. It has excellence, faultless research & attention to detail on every page. As I read, the pages turned by themselves, the words conjured spells & this morning when I came to the end, I stroked the cover & seriously considered going back to the beginning.

The book? It’s by Louise Beech & called The Mountain in My Shoe. I’ll be reviewing it soon, if I can resist reading it again.

In medias res: Island Life #4

08 Sunday May 2016

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Editing, In Medias Res, Quotations, Writers, Writing

I’m no Latin scholar – far from it; I studied at St Trinians. I remember this particular snippet because I spotted it in The Children’s Book the first time I read it. Dame Antonia’s* central character – a writer – says she always leaves her writing in medias res, which translates as ‘into the middle of things.’ In the context of the scene, the character has been interrupted but is happy to leave her work in mid-air. She likes it that way.

This has never appealed to me. In the same way I prefer to mark a book I’m reading at the end of a chapter or page break, when I finish writing for the day I try to leave my work at the end of a scene with the prospect of a ‘new’ beginning to get me going when I return.

Yet, until it’s done, I’m always in the middle of things. I drop in and out, tap-dance on the tightrope, follow the word birds and try to keep up with my characters.

In respect of my current story, the more literal meaning of in medias res has a certain if not actual resonance. The book has its fair share of backstory, three time-frames and a non-linear narrative. And I’m not a linear writer; I regularly find myself diving in, uncertain where I’m meant to be going.

Part of me questions why I’m using a lost, ironic language to make a fairly small point. Latin is simple to pronounce and often needs only common-sense to work out the meaning. At the same time it’s full of obscurities and contradictions. It’s also fun – not least when you don’t really know what you’re talking about but enjoy playing with motifs and devices.

A bit like writing.

*A S Byatt

girl with bird

‘And then, not expecting it…

10 Sunday Apr 2016

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Age, Ghostbird, Quotations, Reviews, Writing

… you become middle-aged and anonymous.
No one notices you.
You achieve
a wonderful freedom.’

This is a quote from Doris Lessing. A literary icon.

Doris Lessing

Her words have, for many years, resonated with me. I’ve liked the idea of being middle-aged and relatively anonymous – free to do as I like; invisible because I choose to be rather than because patriarchy insists. I don’t care for patriarchy and tend to ignore it. Not least when it tells me I’m now old therefore I don’t count. I am not, I tell it, old. I am older.

And at the age I am, I find myself a published author and unexpectedly in the limelight. Not the brilliance of the literati limelight – mine is of a lower wattage and tastefully shaded. But more visible I most certainly am. People I don’t know tell me they love my book and write wonderful reviews of it. (I have ten 5* Amazon ones now. And more besides, elsewhere.) For The Golden Notebook – Doris Lessing’s 1960s landmark masterpiece of literature – there are 75. This tells you more about Amazon than it does about Doris Lessing.

The point is, I am becoming known, albeit in a small way. My innate desire to remain anonymous is having to suck it up. New, young Ghostbird is flying high and having the time of both our lives, regardless of the difference in our ages. Being published was a moment of affirmation and cannot be adequately quantified or even described. I’ve tried and failed. I grin and tell people, ‘It’s amazing!’ Because it is and I am delighted by my little book and the responses to it.

The other night I went outside looking for stars. It was a perfect night and I found streams of them stretched across the sky, tracing starwords I could translate into anything I wanted. I decided a trail of them said, ‘Ghostbird’ and smiled. Yes, why not – it was my sky and my magic and I could make the starwords into anything I chose.

I came in from under the stars and found they were still there. Lying on my bed with my eyes tight closed I could see them, attached like a green, glowing constellation to my bedroom ceiling, and I was a child again.

 

‘The author is the name on the books. I’m the other one.’ *

22 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Author vs Writer, Quotations, Storyteller, Writing

Some kind person called me an author the other day and it felt decidedly odd. I’m a writer although more often than not I call myself a storyteller.

Writing is what I do, not ‘authoring.’ (Which must however be a thing otherwise spellcheck would have told me off.) Author is a construct, a passing conceit which I’m not altogether sure I understand. Writer is authentic. It describes a physical act made of pencil shavings and the tapping of a keyboard.

The idea that anyone would refer to me as an ‘author’ is genuinely bewildering. But maybe all writers have an alter-ego and once they get a publishing deal, that’s who it is. The Author – all fancy frock and no knickers vying for her place alongside the writer in her PJs.

I’m writing another book now. Back to the beginning, slightly more visible but nevertheless, on draft zero with only an idea and a hunger to do it all again. There can be no expectation, which makes it slightly scary. Maybe I do need a bit of  ‘author me’ if only to buoy my confidence.

And there’s a nice paradox here, which the discerning amongst you will have spotted. Who wrote this – the author or the writer?

I’m the storyteller.

Are you sitting comfortably?

*Margaret Atwood

In which the itch to write returns & I guiltily mourn the decline of the servant class

29 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Books, Editing, Ghostbird, Muse, Not Writing, Quotations, Virginia Woolf, Writers, Writing

It is a fact universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a completed novel has either a wife or a maid. I have neither. I am a woman who lives alone (by choice – I’m not sad or anything.) And in any case, even if I could afford one, my socialist inclinations make me feel slightly guilty at the idea of employing another woman to do my housework.

I am also a woman who has a love-hate relationship with procrastination.

Recent events have kept me from my writing. The timing was interesting. I’m waiting for my Editorial Notes (please forgive caps – still excited and can hardly believe I’m even due any.) With draft zero Book 2 tucked away for the duration I was at a bit of a loose end anyway. I had my notes for Book 3 to play with and an unexpected trip to Cornwall to visit my family fitted very nicely thank you.

I’ve been back for two weeks now and once again, the Muse nags. The other day I dipped into The Hours by Michael Cunningham and a scene near the beginning where Mrs Woolf (for it is she) takes herself downstairs in the early, seductive writing hour, helps herself to coffee and proceeds in the direction of her study via the printing room. Leonard (already at his proofs) waylays her.

“Have you had breakfast?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Liar.”
“I’m having coffee with cream for breakfast. It’s enough.”
“It’s far from enough. I’m going to have Nelly bring you a bun and some fruit.”
“If you send Nelly in to interrupt me I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

And this, dear reader, is where Mrs Woolf and I part company. I long for a ‘Nelly’ to interrupt me with a bun and some fruit: blessed Nelly, who would then disappear and attend to the chores leaving me free to create deathless prose. Or, at the very least, get to grips with the latest notes for Book 3. My scribbles are accumulating and I need to get them organised while I wait for my EN’s.

I can feel a return to work coming on. In the absence of a Nelly, I must make an effort.

← Older posts
Newer posts →

My novels

Wild Spinning Girls
Wild Spinning Girls
Snow Sisters
Snow Sisters
Ghostbird
Ghostbird
Only May
Only May
Follow Making it up as I go along on WordPress.com

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 166 other followers

© Carol Lovekin and Making It Up As I Go Along, 2018. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Carol Lovekin and Making It Up As I Go Along with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Archives

Blogroll

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Facebook

Facebook

Tags

#NotTheBooker Authors Ballet Beach Birds Blodeuwedd Bloggers Blog Tour Book 3 Book 4 Book Fair Book Review Books Countdown Crow Drafts Dylan Thomas Editing Editor Edna O'Brien Extract Family Feminism First Lines Friends Genre Ghostbird Ghosts Ghost Story Glittering Prizes Guest Post Honno Interview Island Life IWD Janet Janey Judith Barrow Letter to America Llandeilo Lockdown Magic Mist Muse Mythology New story Not Writing Only May Photographs Process Public speaking Publishing Quotations Readers Reading Review Reviews RiverBook SisterBook Sky Snow Sisters Social Media Storyteller Structural Edits Titles Traditional Publishing Virginia Woolf Wild Spinning Girls Word Birds Workshops Writers Writing Writing Advice Writing Group Writing rituals

Archives

  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • September 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • April 2021
  • February 2021
  • November 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
“The vote means nothing to women. We should be armed" ~ Edna O'Brien

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Making it up as I go along
    • Join 166 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Making it up as I go along
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...