I’ve dreamed of this, being in a tiny isolated place, with empty days full of freedom to just write and write – but as a wise woman once said, be careful what you dream of. Now I’m here, in a dear rellie’s Welsh cottage (think one up one down, without a working fireplace, just a closed-up slate inglenook with a one bar electric fire and day after day of stair-rodding rain) – in perfect weather for writing actually, with no tellie and this gorgeous view from the upstairs window, you’d think I’d be inspired, productive and pouring out novel chapters. Not so much as it turns out.
And that even though I’m seriously determined to get back into my lets-call-it-a novel after not doing much on it during my time as a carer. But as those caring days are over now, and as I entered my novel’s first chapter into Retreat West’s eponymous comp, I really feel I must get more writ. In summer, I won a place (curtesy of the Curae Prize) at the Chester Novel Prize summer school and rewrote my first chapter in the light of what I learnt – controlling the pace, making the opening seriously startling and ending at a moment that leaves readers itching to read on (hopefully). When it was proofed and polished I then entered it into said comp, to, as I have so often done with my flashes and short stories, get validation/see what someone else thinks. When it was longlisted I felt so validated I could have cried, and then when it made the shortlist I thought I must get my finger out. But writing long is so different from writing short (for me at least). One narrative thread of my novel is written in the first person, and when I write in her voice I find myself sinking into her character, like actors do I suppose. I become absorbed in who she is and how she talks, and when I’m writing as her, it’s like I’m inside the story. Being pulled, dragged, wrestled out of the story by everyday life feels almost painful, like when you’re sunk deep into an immersive book, living, breathing, existing the story, forgetting about time and what day of the week it is, and then when you finally-finally have to put it down to wee or eat or pick up the kids, it’s like being yanked out of one world into another. Thus being here, where life mostly won’t do that. But when I arrived I just couldn’t settle. I knew the first thing I needed to do to get back inside the story, was to re-read what I’ve already got on the page, but instead I read some flash. Then I wrote some flash. Then I rewrote that flash. Polished the flash. Proofed the flash. Subbed the flash. And then when that was out in the world and no longer an excuse, I started writing this. So I’m going to go now. Stop writing (and reading) something that’s not my novel, and summon the discipline to start doing what I should have done days ago. But before I do, here are some tabs and links to a few of the wonderful micros I read over the weekend.It’s not true that micros are quick to read, by the way, because brilliant ones make you read them again and again and again and again. The first one (just follow the link), I was privileged to be asked to critique before it was subbed, and it moves me more every time I read it. The last link is to one of my own micros that I read on BBC Download last Thursday night.It was a two-hour prog but you can move through it using the curser. I’m on at 1hr 6mins and 40 seconds.
Reet. I’m off. If you see me on socials in the next few days I’ll thank you forever if you either don’t make eye contact and/or tell me to get back to the novel. Thanks. xxx
https://heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/this-isnt-the-start-of-the-story-by-sumitra-singam
Jan Kaneen Creative and Other Writing 