OLD STRATEGIES FOR THE NEW YEAR by Penny Dolan.

Happy New Year to one and all, and good to have you here on An Awfully Big Blog Adventure! 

 

Yes, it’s January the First. New Resolution Day! Now you may well be one of those people who don’t make resolutions, don’t need to make them, or prefer to make your resolutions on the magical cusp of the midsummer moon. 

However, if you - like me – use these early January days to shift your life into a more orderly state, here are three small, possibly contradictory and even familiar suggestions.

ONE JAR.

The story goes like this:  

A Nobel prize-winner came to talk to a business conference about planning. She went up to the desk, took out a glass jar and some big stones. She put the stones into the jar, filling it right to the top.

Then, from a dish, she took a handful of tiny stones. She tipped those in too, and another handful, filling the jar to the top.  “Full, again,” she murmured.

Then, from a third dish, she took a handful of sand. As she tipped that into the jar, the sand slid down to fill in the gaps. Finally, she smiled, took a nearby tumbler of water and poured that in too. “Full again, again?” she asked.

Then she spoke to her audience. “Believe me, the only way you can get so much stuff into this one jar is by putting the big things in first. So, when you start planning your time, get those big things put into your day first. The rest of the stuff will fit around them.”

Maybe in 2014, the most important work needs to come first, and all the small stuff should be made to slip into the gaps between?

Or, as somebody else said, “The main thing is to make the main thing the main thing.”

Now for: 

THE TWO TIMERS

A while back, I heard about the “timer technique” as a way of edging yourself back into writing, especially when you are daunted  by the work. I know lots of writers regularly turn to this as a way of getting unstuck.

Method: Take a kitchen timer (the portable tick-along kind, not the whole oven, obvously!) to wherever you intend to write, along with your notebook/laptop/pc/ whatever. 

Focus your mind on the project for a moment, set the timer for a short time, such as twenty or thirty minutes, and just write what you can. Then re-set and start again. Then again. If you need to take a short break, do - but then sit back down with that timer again.

Somehow, coping with a shorter commitment is easier than coping with the voice in the head that screams “I’ve got to do three hours on this really difficult project and I’m scared to begin, even though I sort of know something about it but do I? Aaaagh!” You might even find you write right through the timer, going on longer than you thought you could manage.

I’d suggest that, even if you have a timer for the kitchen, you buy yourself your own personal timer. Choose one with a tick that doesn’t irritate  - and it doesn’t need to be kept next to your ear while you’re working, anyway. Just keep the Timer Two near your desk and grab it whenever the void starts to echo, echo, echo . . .

There is a whole trademarked-tomato-shaped-Pomodoro-management-and-life-style website as well as various apps that do the same thing, but for me the real-world physical act of setting the timer to just the right number of minutes is part of the process.

So on to:

THE THREE ANYTIME PAGES.

Julia Cameron “Artist’s Way” approach is well known. Her writing style – or is it her so-American life style? - can seem slightly annoying here in the damp UK, but, as a good friend told me, you have to read through the layers to find the ideas that will work for you. 

Julia's core practice insists on the writing of three pages, on waking, without shaping or editing the words in any way. The drowsy mind lets all the worries and anxieties and bad stuff rise to the surface, as well as the moments of good stuff and gratitude. It’s worth finding out more about this whole approach if you haven't already dipped into her many books 

However, Julia’s “mornings” rarely seemed to be my “mornings”, often full of rush and responsibility, even now. So often, for many reasons, those three contemplative morning pages have seemed impossible, have been an empty failure at the start of the day.

Well, during the busy days of December, and having some writing trouble (too boring to expand upon!) I decided to opt for a half-way practice:   The three “anytime” pages.  Yes, anytime, anywhere. I gave away the guilt.

If I can do my pages first thing, I do. If not, I don’t grieve. I plan for some other patch of the day to sit and think and write, and so far this has worked, with only one day – the visitor changeover of Boxing Day-skipped entirely. I feel positive, not negative.

My anytime pages are written by hand, so there's no chance of the words being "work" - or even legible. I use a beloved green fountain pen, filled with green ink, and scribble away on yellow pages, which brings a touch of playfulness to the process. 

The quiet, slow, steady dropping down into the three anytime pages may not be Perfect Julia, but as December passed, I began looking forward to showing up at the page, started finding a little faith in my words and work again.

 Now, with the clear and empty days of the New Year ahead, who knows what might happen? Maybe it's not so big a step to get back into writing now the festivities are over, after all? And maybe old suggestions can still be good suggestions?

 Wishing you good writing and reading in 2014.

Penny Dolan

Six things that must happen to reverse this headlong rush to an illiterate British generation

Halfway through 2011 came a horrifying National Literacy Trust survey of more than 18,000 children.

It listed the following staggering statistics:

• one in four children is unable to read or write properly when they leave London's primary schools
• three in ten live in households that do not contain a single book
• one in six people in the UK have the literacy level expected of an eleven year old
• in 2005, 1 in 10 of the children and young people surveyed said they did not have a book of their own at home; but by 2011 this figure had increased to an incredible 1 child in 3.

Why is this not seen as a national scandal?

I believe it's because we have two cultures in this country. Those of us who are educated and read all know other people like ourselves who encourage their own children to read.

For these statistics to be true, we must be outnumbered by those for whom reading books is virtually an unknown pasttime.

All my life, newspapers have been wringing their hands about the levels of childhood and adult literacy.

Successive education ministers of every political hue have experimented with different teaching methods.

And all this time the problem has been getting worse and worse.

I believe that it's a root problem of our British culture; a culture that is leading to the closing of so many libraries.

Library closures

I learned my love of books from my local library.

But the latest figures on closures are that 415 libraries (323 buildings and 92 mobiles) are currently under threat or closed/have left council control since the beginning of this financial year out of around 4612 in the whole country.

Librarian professional body CILIP forecasts are even worse: it says that 600 libraries are under threat (inc. 20% of English libraries).

This does not include school libraries. Here, as this article from the Guardian reveals:

• school libraries are facing drastic funding reductions
• many school librarians are being downgraded or even made redundant
• School Library Services are closing
• some children’s book awards have folded
• book gifting schemes have had their funding reduced
• some schools have postponed author visits.

Every month brings bad news: in December we learnt that Hertfordshire Schools Library Services, one of England’s largest and most respected Schools Library Services, is set to close in the New Year.

The latest library visitor figures, covering the year to March 2011, showed overall library visitor numbers down 2.3% to 314.5 million and book issues down 2.9% to 300.2 million.

Although this is a reduction, it is less than what you might expect given these closures.

In November, Alan Gibbons called for a moratorium on the closure of libraries.

Tackling illiteracy and library closures was also the subject of Patrick Ness's Carnegie Medal acceptance speech, which he won with Monsters of Men, the third of his Chaos Walking series.

Too often, writers are told by publishers (I was told myself this year) that teenage boys don't read books and so we can't publish your book.

What can we do?

As writers, we must join with Ness and Gibbons. We can no longer be complacent. Our livelihood is at stake.

Yes, we have to keep writing compelling books. But we also have to act.

Here are six things that need to happen:

1. We must be prepared to occupy libraries faced with closure, just like the occupy movement.
2. The government must stop closing libraries and encourage more children to read in every way possible; even if it comes to giving away books. This happens in developing countries where the level of literacy is higher than ours, for God's sake!
3. Publishers must reconsider the pricing of books. Books are expensive compared to other media which children enjoy, much of which is free, like television, the Internet, radio, music and video games. There needs to be a range of cheap books aimed at less literate children to get them reading so they can later migrate to more difficult books for their age group.
4. The pricing of e-books needs to be much, much cheaper (for the iPad etc.), with all kinds of promotional tools like the vouchers used by iTunes, which would be the modern equivalent of book vouchers.
5. Reading books must be made more cool. Celebrities rated by children need to come out and encourage children to read.
6. You should get involved in CILIP's advocacy work on school libraries and schools' library services, if you aren't already.

It's going to take a lot of effort to turn this devastating trend around. But for the sake of the next generation, we have to do it.

The Paradox of Reading - Joan Lennon

Isn't it amazing that anything so outwardly solitary can be so densely populated, anything that we do so quietly can resound with so many voices, anything that we do in such stillness can fling us quite so far?

Here's to reading, then, as the year turns towards spring and blessings get counted. First page of the list, for sure, and not far from the top.

Visit Joan's website.

Visit Joan's blog.

In Memory: N M Browne

Today would have been my father’s birthday - a once forgettable date, lost between Christmas and New Year which led to rather a meagre birthday present haul. I never forget it now. He died twenty years ago, a few months before his 58th birthday and I still miss him desperately.
He was a painter who gave up painting for twenty years - from my early childhood until his early (and too brief) retirement. He gave up because it was impossible to combine painting with earning enough to support us. He was good at what he did and exhibited widely before I was born. Would he have ‘ made it’ if he’d carried on? Maybe. Did he regret the sacrifice ? I don't think so.
Anyway, the struggle to find time to teach, paint, and be a family man was too much. I still have a portrait of me he began when I was about four. I outgrew the dress I was wearing before he was able to finish it, which says it all. Consequently, I grew up with the knowledge that doing what you love is a privilege not everyone can afford.
My father always fostered my ambitions, even my mad decision to give up teaching, study for an MBA and become a business woman. He thought I was bonkers, but supported me none the less. He died before I discovered what he had always known - that I wasn’t really that kind of person.
I began writing only after his death, when suddenly life seemed short, precarious and altogether too precious to waste on work I hated. I had always wanted to write ‘one day,’ but dying days are certain and ‘one days’ aren’t.
He never saw me published and never met three of my four children.
Whenever things go badly with my writing, which if I’m honest is often, I wonder what his advice would be. Would he tell me to stick with what I love, to seize the day, or to face up to economic realities as he had to do?
I have no answer to this particular conundrum: I only wish I could ask him for his.

New Year, New Publisher Catherine Johnson

How's your year been? I think I have had the pre-requisite number of ups and downs. I don't think I would be still writing if I weren't a glass half full sort of person, one who thinks something good is just around the corner and it will all work out in the end, even if my tax bill is looming and there's now sign of a holiday this year...
Anyway here they are...


Ups.
1. New publisher! Thanks to Frances Lincoln for taking me on and thinking Brave New Girl is 'funny and warm'. Out in September which, I know, is aaagges away!
2. Jo De Giuia at Victoria Park Books. A woman who works so hard for books and writers and whose shop must rank as the best specialist children's bookshop in London and it's on my doorstep. Thanks to her and Dylan Calder for StarLit and for a new London wide chldren's festival coming next year called Pop-Up.
3. Lovely books! This year I enjoyed Gillian Philips; Firebrand, Let's Get Lost by Sarra Manning, The Long Song by Andrea Levy and Ottoline at Sea by Chris Riddell, Slightly Invisible by Lauren Child and There are Cats in This Book by Viviane Schwarz.
4. I am still writing. I have not had to get a proper job for ages. I feel totally blessed.
5. Meeting lovely writer friends. This could be a lonely job, but it isn't because we get to chat. How lucky am I!

Downs
1. No book out this year. The Barrington Stoke has been pushed back, and due to being dropped by Random House I have had a gap....
2. Not finishing the book I was supposed to finish....well I sort of finished it once and am dragging my feet a bit *sigh*
3. Still no Pony. When I was around eight I read a story about a girl who opened her bedroom window on Christmas morning and saw a pony waiting for her outside. This has never happened to me.
4. Katie Price selling more books than me. Ho hum.
5. Don't get me started on the new government!

HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all, my all the words flow and may you never get stuck!
xxx Catherine

FRESH STARTS and SECOND DRAFTS - DIANNE HOFMEYR

The period between Christmas and New Year is probably a time when most writers take a break. Right now I’m sitting on my deck with my feet up on this African Senufo bed with a view over the sea and a cup of coffee in hand contemplating 2012. Like Rosalie in her Taking Stock blog yesterday, I’m taking stock.

Last year in the run-up to Christmas when everything ground to a halt in snow-bound Britain and Heathrow had more iced-up aeroplanes on its runways than a flock of flamingos on a salt pan, I spent hours forced to slow down. My suitcase was packed, the desk cleared (as far as I’m able to clear it) and I waited. In one of those incredible long periods of more than 12 hours at a time over three days in the halls of Heathrow, I started a new novel. It was set on the coast of the place I was about to fly to, and started with a shipwreck. Perhaps I was metaphorically shipwrecked.

Now a year later I’m physically back on that coast having just flown out yesterday but this time with a completed first draft in my suitcase. It’s taken a year. (Am I the only writer who needs a year for a story to formulate?) Now begins the task of strengthening that tentative and fragile text. Time to assess.

In no particular order, I’ve come up with the following actions we can take to turn first drafts into second drafts.

Cutting out the Flack

Measuring Inner Change

Strengthening Point of View

Bridging Conflict

Freezing Moments in Time

Raising the Stakes

Developing the Protagonist

Developing the Antagonist

Discovering the True Theme

Writing the story to its Fullest Potential.

Making the story more Robust.

Deepen the Dilemma

I’m sure you can all add to this list. But with my coffee hitting the adrenalin spot, it's suddenly struck me how many of the things we do with a first draft, are things we can apply to our lives… especially when a New Year is fast approaching. This could get very psycho-analytical. I might start feeling very flawed!

And first drafts often feel flawed… particularly if you write intuitively rather than with blow by blow planning. The bundle of newly printed-out pages waiting in my unpacked suitcase, is fragile. Over-exposure to too many friends or family or even an agent, while a story has just moved from something inchoate to a more fully fledged shape with a beginning, a middle and an end, can leave any writer feeling undermined.

At the start of the New Year, I’m not going to put myself through the rigours of analytical appraisal (even though my family might think it a good idea) nor am I going to be too harsh on my first draft. I’m going to take it for what it is… a first draft… slightly flawed but with great potential!!! That list can be put on hold for a while. I'm drinking my coffee and enjoying the view hoping for a few dolphins in the Bay.

PS. Have just thought of another one for the list... Cutting a lot out!

www.diannehofmeyr.com

What bookish delights did you get, or give for Christmas? - Linda Strachan

Christmas is a time for giving and what better gift to a lover of words than   a good book, or two, to curl up with.








I received a variety of different book gifts -



I love cookery books and I was delighted by the gift of Mums Recipes Two,
a cookbook with some interesting recipes which helps raise funds for MUMs.


The main focus of MUMs is to help reduce maternal and infant deaths in Malawi. The first volume raised £100,000 and there are now three volumes.  You can find out more about them and the project http://www.mumsrecipes.org/









Michelle Lovric's The  Undrowned Child was another present, and I am looking forward to this trip to Venice




.

 Mark Z Danieleweski's  House of Leaves -  a large tome that is dauntingly heavy and on initial inspection it has a very strange layout.

I'm not at all sure what it is about or if it is something I can engage with, especially at the moment when I am trying to keep my head clear until my current work in progress is completed.

So it may have to wait on the shelf for a bit,. On the other hand I am curious to find out about all this strange layout. I feel as if it is a challenge..... so watch this space!






 I also gave some books as gifts and among those were
             
Gillian Philip's Firebrand                                                 

Lob by Linda Newbery

 and  Cathy MacPhail's Grass  









 



So, what bookish gift did you give or receive this Christmas?



Dead Boy Talking (Strident Publishing)  'will knock you off your feet with the speed of its delivery and the raw, tough realism..'  The Bookette
Writing for Children (A & C Black) ideal reading for all aspiring and newly published writers
For younger children the Hamish McHaggis series (GW Publishing)
Follow Linda's blog  - Bookwords - writingthebookwords.blogspot.com
Visit her website -www.lindastrachan.com