I started off well, but I guess morning writing wasn’t my thing. Neither was afternoon writing, it turns out. (Neither was writing at night!) Go figure. Sitting in that chair is hard. Plus, its been 4 months of rejections for me; no one wants to publish my stuff. I don’t send out often, but last year I did have a lot more luck. It’s a numbers game, I know. But I find it hard to write without an audience. I can usually at least count on my sister to listen to a new poem or story over the phone, but last week I called to read her something and she sounded–distracted. Turns out Wrestlemania! was the focus for the day. How can I compete with Wrestlemania?

These things are even more true when they happen in the middle of the night. For then, if you forgot to bring the notebook to bed with you, you have to get out of bed, go downstairs, switch on the light, find the notebook and get whatever it was came to you into the notebook. OK, there’s a slim chance if you don’t do this you’ll still remember it in the morning, but do you want to take a chance like that?

This is from my notebook:

A teacher in the local arts college told me about asking her new intake of students what were the three best and worst things in the world. One of the young guys told her:

The best three things in the world: cakes, my girlfriend, and television.

And the worst three: death, sprouts, and opera.

You see? Without the notebook I could have lost that.

Last year I asked several bloggers a series of five questions and published their answers on this blog during the period I wasn’t here to make my own contributions. As I read through their replies a new question began to form for me, but this time the question was singular and would be addressed, not to bloggers, but to those involved in the craft of writing.

The question was this: What phases are involved in the creation of a text?

Over the past weeks I have been asking this question of a cross-section of writers. Some famous names. Others little-known. And still others, unknown outside of quite specialist circles.

The response to the question has been mixed. Most writers did respond in some way or other, though there were a few who didn’t bother to reply, usually, I suspect because they didn’t have the time, or because they were frightened of the question or regarded it as an imposition. These were a tiny minority.

Others responded immediately, seeming to drop whatever it was they were doing and going over to their computers to begin tapping out an answer. In the same vein, still others begged time to think or consider the question and the kind of answer they would like to formulate.

The answers, as might have been expected, are as varied as the individuals who have produced them. Some totally engaged, others distant, even wary, though all with their own special interest.

I’m going away now, for a little over a month, and the answers to the question will be posted here during that period. I’m sure you’ll find them as fascinating as I do.

What advice would you give to new writers?

Have the strength to (metaphorically) kill your babies: just because you spent a long time on something, that doesn’t make it any good.

*

The Independent has interviews with American troops in Iraq:

“I just remember thinking, ‘I just brought terror to someone under the American flag’.”

Sergeant Timothy John Westphal, 31, of Denver, 18th Infantry Brigade, 1st Infantry Division. In Tikrit on year-long tour beginning February 2004

“A lot of guys really supported that whole concept that if they don’t speak English and they have darker skin, they’re not as human as us, so we can do what we want.”

Specialist Josh Middleton, 23, of New York City, 2nd Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division. Four-month tour in Baghdad and Mosul beginning December 2004

*

Weaving Words is a delightfully interactive site about books and literature through the ages.

Against these so called, rational, western leaders, there are the Islamist fundamentalists condemning the Great Satan, again, playing to people’s fears and feelings and, like their western counterparts, refusing to acknowledge their own responsibility in what is happening in the world.

For the time being the politicians seem to be getting away with this nonsense, simply because the people who vote for them are also not demanding rational argument.

My job brings me into contact, mainly, with writers and readers, and it is unusual in those circles to come across many who subscribe to the fancy of evil or the will to evil.

Small children sometimes believe that they do bad things but more mature people act against society or other individuals because they are psychopathic, or greedy or frightened or poor. They may commit crimes from some ideological or chauvinistic conviction, perhaps convincing themselves that the ends justify the means. Vandalism is not brought about by evil, but by envy or boredom.

It is sometimes necessary to point out to beginning writers that discerning readers do not want to see a crowd of hooligans destroying property for the sake of it, because they are evil; but in place of that vision perceptive writers will construct a number of individuals, each with his or her own motivation.

It used to be all right to show the crowd of hooligans, but we have moved on. It used to be all right to particularize the villain of the piece by a physical disability or by the colour of his skin or his ethnic background, but we have moved on.

Apparently it isn’t the case with politicians, they haven’t moved on; but as a writer, if you don’t move on and present a rational argument for your villain’s motivation, you will remain unpublished.

*

Psychiatrists wooed by Drug Companies, reports the New York times:

The more psychiatrists have earned from drug makers, the more they have prescribed a new class of powerful medicines known as atypical antipsychotics to children, for whom the drugs are especially risky and mostly unapproved.

Vermont officials disclosed Tuesday that drug company payments to psychiatrists in the state more than doubled last year, to an average of $45,692 each from $20,835 in 2005. Antipsychotic medicines are among the largest expenses for the state’s Medicaid program.

Over all last year, drug makers spent $2.25 million on marketing payments, fees and travel expenses to Vermont doctors, hospitals and universities, a 2.3 percent increase over the prior year, the state said.

How does that look in your State, er, Country?

*

Amy Tan, recovering from illness and researching a new novel, spoke to Reuters:

I never talk about what a new book is about as it will leave me. There is a story in Chinese where a man goes to a magical place and is overwhelmed by the beauty and the peace. He has to leave and they tell him that if he tells anyone where this place is he will never find it again. That is the metaphor for writing. You are in a secret place and discovering it but once you tell people it is gone.

A character doesn’t earn his or her keep when they do nothing interesting with or in opposition to the leading characters in your narrative. If they are your leading characters you need to stop writing and return to the stage of thinking about your novel. At some point in the future you will have to start again.

Usually, the subsidiary characters who aren’t making the grade fail in the ‘memorability test’. You don’t remember their names immediately, or when you come across their names you have to stop and think where you met them last. They are one-dimensional; in their company you are a little edgy on their behalf, wishing they would display one or two contradictions or character flaws.

If one of these characters has a secret, you know it won’t be worth much and you hope they manage to keep it under wraps. They probably will, too; because wall-flowers don’t have much to say for themselves.

Dull people in life may pay off after a while. Sometimes you have to be patient for a long time, waiting for them to prove you right. In fiction they never will. If they bore you, don’t inflict them on your readers. Write them out.

The high entrance fee also begged the question of who would turn up. The rich, perhaps? Though they didn’t look rich. Maybe they were the festival insomniacs, the starting time being 8.30 in the morning? Yes, you heard it right . . . before breakfast.

The three tutors introduced themselves as writers. We were assured that between them they had read hundreds – perhaps thousands – of manuscripts by first-time writers. A straw poll suggested that a handful of the hopeful students had been published before, most had begun a narrative but not yet managed to get to the end of it.

The day began with a short discussion among the tutors; more or less an introduction to each of them. One of the questions from the floor was about how many pages one should write for a novel?

Our subject for this session was character. As an introduction we learned that character is plot and that there is no real line between fiction and lived experience. Then we were introduced to the concept of trigger exercises.

We each jotted down six objects associated with our childhood; four smells; four tastes; and a sentence which evoked a memory. Then we eliminated three of the objects, two of the smells, and two of the tastes. And with what remained we were encouraged to take a few minutes to write some paragraphs of prose.

We then did another, similar exercise, divided ourselves into three groups and individuals were randomly chosen to read what they had written. Because we were divided into groups this meant three people reading at the same time, and in the echoing space of the drill hall, it was no easy task to concentrate on the contributions of your own group alone.

When a student read his or her contribution, the others were asked if they wanted to say something about it. The tutor leading each group then gave a brief summation of the piece. There was time for perhaps a third of the students to read part of what they had written.

In my group the tutor seemed to have forgotten that we were studying character and his remarks were invariably about making an impact with the first sentence, first paragraph, first page, of a manuscript.

I don’t think anyone learned anything; not really, apart from not being too keen to dispose of their hard-earned cash. Perhaps there is some comfort to be taken from finding yourself in the company of people who profess to know the way and insist that they can take you there.

The teaching of creative writing has now become something of an industry; and it can, no doubt, be quite a lucrative one. But the standard of teaching and the dubious value of much of what is taught does little to raise the general craft for those seeking to hone their talent. The even more recent practice of calling these sessions masterclasses seems to do little to improve their usefulness.

The session at Hay-on-Wye was no different to the usual fodder offered at various locations throughout the country; based on the erroneous principle that someone who can write can also teach; it was under-researched, offered no real insights into the creative process, over-hyped and vastly over-priced.