The Man of Trent

On a lazy summer evening in 2003, in a trendy bar called Indigo, a little known publishing company launched a book called Man of Trent. And so began my career in print. Snippets from the stories were projected on to the wall and we stood around drinking wine in the cool blue bar. The 90’s were only just over and the noughties hadn’t really decided yet what it wanted to be. But I finally knew that I was a writer.

My copy of Man of Trent is now dog-eared and covered in scribbled edits I’ve made since to the stories and poems. I was poetry editor which seems very odd to me these days but, back then, I wrote poetry. Badly. We’d struggled for a title then, perhaps a little lazily, named the book for the pub we went to after our writing workshops. It worked, though, as a title, because we’d chosen a theme of myths and legends and it fitted that. It doesn’t quite look like a book you’d see in Waterstone’s, it doesn’t quite have that professional sheen about it. But it was our names in print and, with that, a little bit of magic happened.

The book launched real writing careers. Two years later, I had an agent and book deal with Random House. Other students were finishing their novels and talking to agents. James K Walker was busy making Leftlion the phenomenal success it became. Richard Pilgrim, one of the editors, and later James as well, went on to be the chair of the Nottingham Writers’ Studio. Chris Killen’s critically acclaimed novel The Bird Room came out in 2009. Maria Allen published Before the Earthquake in 2010, which was shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and appeared on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Book at Bedtime’. The book’s cover artist Sophie Pilgrim is now New York correspondent for France 24. You can see the seeds of all of this success in Man of Trent. The potential bursting to lift itself from the pages.

Student anthologies are important. They teach aspiring writers real lessons about publishing, about editing and typesetting and creating e-books on Amazon. But, more importantly, these books get writers in print for the first time. There’s nothing like that first thrill of seeing your own story in a book. And I’m certain that for many of the writers in EnDearing Minds, this won’t be the last we hear from them. I’m looking forward to finding out what that means.

 

Written by Nicola Valentine

Performance Workshop

The launch event is fully booked, the book has arrived, and so there was only one thing left to do. We had to prep our performers for the event, we had to make sure they knew exactly how they were performing their poems and stories, and so we held a workshop.

Meet Georgina Wilding. Not only is she an excellent writer published in this year’s anthology, she’s also an experienced performance poet who has performed with Nottingham’s own Mouthy Poets. Georgina was great at running this performance workshop. We all learned so much about performance and about our own pieces, it was a great experience for all of the performers there.

Georgina Wilding

Kimberly Jamison, Elizabeth Cooper and Georgina Wilding discussing their entrances and exits for the performances.

Georgina Wilding watching a performance

Georgina Wilding and Kimberly Jamison discussing a poem

Kimberly Jamison, performing ‘How To Care For Your Pet Poet’Elizabeth Cooper performing ‘Sunday Service’

Georgina Wilding, Elizabeth Cooper, Eleanor Hemsley and Kimberly Jamison discussing performance techniques

5 Reasons To Join The Nottingham Writers’ Studio

Guest post by Eleanor Hemsley, from Oh My Word.

The People

Joining the Nottingham Writers’ Studio means joining a family of writers, editors and performers. And of course, each of these has their own story to tell, in their own way. Everyone is so lovely and welcoming, and all appreciate where you are and where you want to be. In fact, most of them were just like you 5 or 6 years ago and so are more than willing to give you advice on how they managed to get their books published, or how they managed to succeed at a freelance editing career. And to make them even better, they’re all so damn interesting! Never before have I met so many interesting people over the space of an hour or two.

 

The Socials

Yes, they have socials, and yes, they do always include wine. But that’s just the university student in me speaking. These socials aren’t piss ups, but instead are a chance to listen to successful people within the publishing and writing industry talk about their experiences. And of course after they’ve told you all they can think of you can ask them as many questions as you like. As an aspiring writer and editor I find this a great chance to find out more about where I’m heading and how to get there from friendly people who know how it’s done.

 

The Workshops

As a new member I haven’t yet had the time to attend any of these, but I’ve heard there are a lot of really great workshops that go on within the studio where writers can develop their skills and also get feedback on their work. And what better way to know what works in your books than by asking your readers? These workshops are run by the best too, by the people out there who really know their stuff and know what publishers want. They’re invaluable to writers at all stages in their career.

 

The Premises

It’s amazing. It’s brand new, they’ve completely decked it out with sofas and desks and a kettle, it’s just amazing. And there’s a stage for performance practice and events, it’s a massive space and you get 24 hour access to it. You can either work in solitude or lounge on the sofas and talk to the other members there. You’ll often find one of the board members hanging about too, and they’re always great to talk to.

 

The Support

As writers we all have those moments of doubt where we think we’re just not good enough, and we all have those days where we receive 5+ rejection letters. It hurts, it really gets you down and makes you want to just give up, but being a member of the studio helps to keep up your moral. The other writers will comfort you with stories of their own rejections, and some will even be able to give you advice on how to make your work better for the next submissions. Believe it or not, it’s great knowing that other writers have failed just as epically as you have, and yet have still gone on to be successful.

The equation to a good story

 

I’ve always loved a good story, whatever form it’s in. The idea of following a character through the trials of their life, those which I can relate to, those which I’ve never experienced and maybe never shall, can only come from a good story. I can travel to a different world, fight nefarious creatures side by side with… a long lost sibling or possibly an elf. Characters can make friends and trust someone who’s actually working for the bad guys and betrays them dramatically in the final denouement. Or alternatively they can meet someone who they despise and then somehow realise that, actually, they’re not too bad and fall into a deep consuming romance. And on rare occasions, all of these in one book.

 

Any great reader will find that similar situations will re-occur in different stories as the same core aspects drive the characters. They crave things like power, knowledge, peace, objects or affection. These cause responses of greed, jealousy, anger, sadness, or death. In some cases a lot of death.

It’s the writer’s job to take what they know and relate that to situations, to create a storyline and character which the reader can really immerse themselves in. So how do writers do this to create that best-selling novel? They follow this secret formula…

 

(_Character (n) + _Character (n + a ) ) x  E _{Some great evil} – ( yn _{dramatic deaths}) +J _{journey of finding yourself}  = _(Conclusion) an _{remaining characters} + yn _{(the dead guys)} -E +J

 

Yes I know. You’ve been waiting for this all your writing career. You’re welcome. Problem solved right?

 

Ok so I lied, there’s no great formula for the best-selling novel. In the more likely case that it isn’t correct, you’re going have to create a plot line which works for your target audience. If you have run a blank do not be afraid to get inspired and influenced from reading other books. I’ve always been told that there’s never truly a new idea, if you don’t believe me look back a few years and you will see variations of any idea. Which makes your job as the writer the most important.

 

Think about the funniest joke you’ve ever heard. Got it? And now think about that person you know who just can not tell a joke. You know it could be brilliant, but they are fumbling over it, or laughing through it and you can’t quite hear what they’re saying. They are just telling it wrong. Before you know it, it is just not funny.

 

You are just like that poor person, trying to entertain a crowd. Except, unlike them, you have an advantage. You get to spend time writing it down, rewriting, looking for any mistakes. You get to test it out on people get them to critic it, take their thoughts on it and make edits. So when it comes to that moment, when you are about to deliver the world your work, you won’t have fumbled or stuttered through it. You’ll have told the world a story that they are bound to remember.

For the things you cannot change

I haven’t been a writer long enough to give any wisdom on the craft, and to repeat what others have said before me would be tedious. I do however hope that my experience as a writer might be helpful because my first admittance is that I’m an idiot. When I first begun to write I did so in secret. I was ashamed to admit that’s what I spent most of my time doing because other kids my age did what I thought of as cooler things. I was a complete dork. I was often down spoken and bullied. So I hid my writing behind books that I knew no one read in the bookshelf at home. No one could find it there.

In the back of my mind I had an undying belief that writing was stupid and I could never be a writer. Why would anyone want to read anything I had written? I buried my poetry and stories. I tried to conform to what I thought I had to be and what people expected of me. I focused on what I considered more academic subjects in school; as much as I loved writing and being an artist, I was fortunate enough to be good at maths and science. These would lead to career paths with stable jobs that paid well, that would give me a nice sized home, that I could support a family from if I ever chose to have one. I wasn’t stupid. But I wasn’t happy either.

I live a life of complete contradiction. I have never planned for the future but if you interrupt my daily routine or upset the plans I make with you for the weekend, I might just punch you in the face. So when it came to choosing a career path, I was clueless and wary of going to university as I often suffer from social anxiety. Anyone who knows me well enough will think this is utter nonsense but the mere thought of being in a social situation that I am unprepared for, or is new or unusual makes me feel sick. As ironic as it may be for a writer who is able with words, I am an appalling conversationalist (I apologise to anyone who has met me on a bad day or on an occasion I alcohol-abused to help me relax). There are days I can’t even answer the phone to my mother because I have no idea what I will say and overthink the matter so much I may as well have my tongue cut out.

But I had to try. Although I had always thought of being a writer as unrealistic career aspiration, it was ultimately the only thing that I could possibly see myself doing happily for the rest of life and university was the only way I could ever see myself progressing as person. If I was ever going to have a chance of being a writer, I needed to have guidance after so many years of hiding Post-it notes in the bookcase. I had to force myself out into the world, expose myself to intolerable-but-durable-situations so that I could grow up while having no idea what it meant.

The first year of university felt like the reflex test all new borns suffer; once I realised I wasn’t going to be dropped, it got better. After three years, I can honestly say I am happy with who I am and what I do. I am a writer and I’m not ashamed to admit that. It wasn’t easy either. It was only when I started the Creative and Professional Writing course that I shared my writing openly with people for the first time. It was painful for people to criticise what I had been waiting to share for so long, but in turn it made me a much more confident and better writer. I have met some incredibly talented people and made friends I’m sure I’ll keep for the rest of my life. I have done and achieved things that I never thought I could.

I realise that this may all sound a little sentimental and egocentric but the best advice that I can give to any aspiring author, or anyone for that matter, is to never be ashamed of who you are or what you do. Doubting yourself is natural and not all people have the stamina to face repeated rejection and carry on like writers. But there is no growth or personality in taking the safe choices. You will never have what you want if you are not relentless in getting it. If I hadn’t been busy trying to force myself to do what I thought was expected of me, I would be much further into a career now. But I wouldn’t be the person I am now either.

Being a writer is not a material asset. It’s not a steady income that pays the mortgage. It’s not a career path I recommend to anyone unless they’re passionate about it. Writing is tough but writing about what you care about should be all that matters. So yes, maybe I am still an idiot because I don’t choose to have an easier, stable life. But neither should you if you’re serious in being an artist. The struggle is what makes life interesting. So take the risk. Push yourself. Strive to be happy.

 

Written by Alexandra Adamson

‘For a man who no longer has a homeland, writing becomes a place to live’

It’s always the same.

“What are you studying at university?”

“Oh, I do creative writing.”

“Oh…. Creative writing, that… that’s cool.” When really they’re just wondering if that’s an actual degree.

I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. It started off as something my sister would do and I used to copy because that’s what I did – my sister would do something, so I’d have to do it too. My mum would make us hand-made books, pieces of paper stapled together and put in a box labelled Lauren and Charlie’s Stories. We’d write about Jemima the pirate and Flipper the dolphin and Soot the dog. And then when my sister grew out of it and moved on to other things, I stayed with the hand-made books. And then notebooks. And then a five-page Word document. And then a 39,000 word novel.

The longest I’ve ever stayed in one place is six years. I’ve been to four different schools and five different countries. I once told someone I’m more rehearsed with goodbyes than hello’s, and I’m an expert at packing boxes. I live the “expat-life”: the living proof of someone who panics when having to fill in the “permanent address” form. I have an accent that doesn’t correspond with my nationality and I find myself comparing the taste of drinking water because I’ve moved around so much. I’m what they call a “third-culture kid”, a term used to describe the kids who were raised in a culture different to their own.

Theodor Adorno’s quote says it all. Because I moved around so much it made it difficult to call one place home. Theodor said: “For a man who no longer has a homeland, writing becomes a place to live.”

As cliché as it sounds, I find it so much easier to write. It’s as if it makes more sense when it’s a medley of adjectives and verbs and nouns. Having the opportunity to travel so much has given me with a different insight to how I see things – I’ve met some incredible people over the years and seen some amazing things. And the only way I know how to express it all is through my writing.

When people ask me why I write I say I write because it’s the only thing I know how.

 

Written by Charlotte Porter

 

Do what you want to do

Does anyone else ever feel a schism between desire and obligation? Between what you want to do and what you feel you should do?

I don’t want to assume that this is the case, but, particularly in the last year, this is something that I have experienced and so I thought I’d offer some advice based on that experience.

Upon coming into the beginning of the third year of my Creative and Professional Writing Degree, having spent the previous two years writing poetry almost exclusively, it seemed sensible that I should make my final project one that focused on poetry. So that’s what I did.

Nevertheless, I wanted to do something big. Something whole. Not a collection of short pieces but one coherent project. I decided to write an epic poem. As a subject, I chose to write about Wollaton Hall and the Lenton Flats, comparing them as architectural structures. This was sensible. It was logical. It was applicable to Nottingham and might, I fleetingly thought, even have some commercial value in that. It used my love of poetry and satisfied my desire to do something big.

The problem was, in hindsight, it isn’t really what I wanted to do. My craving for something bigger had stemmed from a burgeoning desire to write in other forms. I’d written a play and wanted to do another. I had a germ of a novel that I had considered taking on for the project but was daunted by the task. It would be too big, too overwhelming – I’d never written a novel before, never really seriously attempted one. A year on, it is still bubbling and mewling for lack of consistent attention.

And so I stuck with poetry. And Wollaton Hall. And the Lenton Flats. It was very logical.

The upshot, however, was that I ended up writing in a way which I thought would be successful, rather than honing and improving my own voice. I was struggling against the desire to write more prosaically and was finding myself to be forcing a prosaic style into arbitrary poetic forms.

I did enjoy it at points and having completed it, I have been informed that it’s good. It scored well. Certain friends like it. University Radio of Nottingham liked it. My tutor liked it. If I approach it in a really good mood, sometimes, even I like bits of it. But on the whole, by the end, I was sick of it.

I’m still not entirely sure whether this is simply due to the fact that it was a project for university. As I mentioned at the beginning of this, I find that an obligation to do a thing lessens my love for the thing. Also, by the end, it was a project I had spent too much time with and needed to see the back of it. But the bottom line is, for most of it, my heart wasn’t in it.

My major mistake was in the way I viewed the opportunity of the final project. Rather than see it as a chance to work on something I really wanted to do, I treat it as a university assingment. I tried to decide what would be the most fitting and comfortable thing to do in the context of an assignment and I went with that, with one eye always on finding things that it’d be useful to write about in the accompanying essay later. Any other writing I wanted to do could be done alongside this project, which was, after all, just a uni thing.

I think there are wider social reasons for this attitude other than my own foolishness. In an age of rapidly growing commercialism and commodification of most things, I think it’s easy to become sucked into a feeling of need to please other people. What do other people want to see? What do other people want to read? How can I give this to them? Where’s the gap in the market? Having been on a Creative and Professional Writing Degree for three years, a degree that, as the name suggests, offers a professional view towards writing as much as it does a creative view, I have often felt the pressure to think of my writing as marketable, somewhat outside of myself, in a sense.

However, it was foolishness, and with this attitude, I set myself up for an unpleasant year. The project consumed me. I had committed myself to it and needed to do it well. And because I was never sure of what I was trying to do with it, there never seemed to be an end point. Time for other writing, and other people, began to dissappear.

I bring this all up for reasons other than to seek absolution via a confessional to the internet. I’d like to offer advice to anyone on the course who will find it useful or applicable.

Faced with the task of deciding what to take on as your final project, find something that you want to do anyway, something that you’re going to love, and use the project as an opportunity to do that. Don’t be scared of it. It’s a chance for you to explore. Part of the reason I was put off taking on the idea of writing a novel was that I didn’t feel capable of completing a project so large in a year. If you’re having similar feelings, squash them. At the end of the project, you’re asked for an extract, not necessarily a complete product and many students end the project with half-completed novels or other pieces of work. The important thing is to find something that you’ll be willing to dedicate yourself to. And faced with a range of options, choose the one that scares you the most. I don’t think writing should ever be a comfortable exercise.

Don’t be sensible.

Don’t ever be safe.

Do what you want to do.

 

Written by Matt Mller

The Ingredients for a Dissertation

As the term comes to an end and a stretch of summer holiday almost as long as the academic year itself looms ahead it is time to think about dissertations. Already it feels like only yesterday I was throwing up into the toilet in my new flat and chanting about why people from my hall were better in bed. But apparently the completion of my second year leaves only one last daunting task and before I know it I’ll be ‘a graduate’ a whole new species of human.

I had recently made the somewhat reckless decision that I was going to write a cookbook for my dissertation project. This idea came from when I began writing a blog on the perils of cooking as a vegetarian student. I am not particularly good at cooking, or perhaps ‘unpredictable,’ is a more accurate description. However I have come to find that I love writing about food. It may be because I find cooking and writing fun creative outlets and combining them both is akin to combining my other two loves, watching ‘friends’ and drinking wine. But I also find that the process of cooking is therapeutic to write about because it provides its own narrative. A recipe is a plot. When I write about my mishaps in the kitchen I need no prompts, no snow flake method, no extensive planning or sticky note maps. All I need is a picture taken on my mobile of the completed meal and from that I can see all the ingredients and I remember how they became the meal that I see before me. So I can write “first I stripped the beans of their stringy pods and  chucked them into a bowl as they dropped in, hammering on the plastic like miniature tennis balls.” And this flows naturally, in the same way that every story must have a beginning middle and end, so must every recipe.

I found that the circumstances in which I cooked were as much a part of the experience as the ingredients, and in terms of blogging about student cooking the environment was crucial to the context. The mug used to improvise a rolling pin was detrimental to painting the picture of cooking as a student. I enjoyed writing these details. They made me laugh even if they didn’t make anybody else. These additions seemed to be too important to me, perhaps the writer in me is too intent on ‘painting the picture’ and ‘setting the scene,’ but because of this need to write more than just ‘add 5oz of flour and beat in two eggs,’. I began researching ‘food writing’, the exciting section I found beside ‘travel writing’ in Waterstones. Did I want to be a food writer? The first obvious problem is that I didn’t have any real experience other than an eye for bargains and the odd meal that works out better than expected. This is all part of the process of planning a dissertation surely? Luckily I have about eleven months to complete this project and hopefully when I hand in my manuscript and my essay I’ll have begun writing the recipe for my success.

 

To read some of Kaya’s great student vegetarian recipes, visit her blog here.

An Honest Skeleton

I feel my writing can’t lie, even when I make it up.

In general, every poem we read is a part of the author and, well, a part of their past whether they mean for it to be or not.

Both of my poems are a part of my past, but in different ways. Meant To Be is a poem written from my experience in love except the scene I’m describing never happened, only the emotions are real.

Then there’s When I Grow Up which was based on my trip to Wollaton Park with a few old friends. One was technically a lie but all the emotions and messages were true and particular to me.

This is the wonderful thing, though- I’m sure the moments I’ve written down are a part of many others’ lives. Anyone can relate to anything, no matter how big or small. One person might be like-

“No idea what love is, but totally understand what she means about clouds being pretty” Whereas another could relate to the entire situation and could have even experienced the poem more than I have. I mean, who hasn’t been jealous or had a crush on someone that doesn’t like them back? I wanted this bittersweet feeling of yeah it’s heartbreaking but as long as he’s happy then so should she. I wanted a hopeful ending that maybe she’ll find someone as perfect for her as he has.

We’ve all had the “I’ll never love again” feeling but then, whilst we’re wallowing about how Orlando Bloom might never return our love, this guy you’ve never seen before with thick wavy black hair and blue eyes that still watches Pokemon and can quote South Park walks past and it’s like:

“Wait, what? I can like him? I don’t have to crush on him from afar? There are other guys that are probably more suited to me and return my feelings? Wait wasn’t I supposed to be heartbroken about something?”

I was thinking as the clouds passed so will her feelings. Clear the sky for something even more beautiful, maybe. It’s a sad poem, but it’s filled with hope.

And in regards to When I Grow Up who hasn’t felt old prematurely, especially at university?

It’s hardly like we’ve joined the knitting club and can remember the Great War, but we still feel the impending doom of being old and serious. We’ll have to have a mortgage for goodness sake.

At this point in my life I had felt like I’m making the same decision just with more serious consequences and I wasn’t grasping the balance between adulthood and still being young. This time at the park we were just allowed to let go and live in the present instead of constantly worrying about the future which was what I needed at that point in time.

I wanted a sense of childhood always in the past, always doing things to create memories, and our young adult lives being the present, where our decisions truly count, and then to the adult couples of what the expected future for all of us is. I wanted the calm urgency to do whatever we could whilst we were able to do it.

I can remember feeling the time I spent there turning into a memory but feeling so happy I didn’t even care.

I feel like when it comes to poetry there isn’t a lying bone in my body. The truth always manages to find its way out somehow.

 

Post by Natasha Keates. Natasha’s poetry will be available in EnDearing Minds, available from the 12th June.

The 10 Stages of Writing Something

Written by Leigh Campbell.

Stage 1: Lightbulb Moments

BOOM! It hits you. This is quite possibly the best idea you’ve had in your entire life and you must write it down immediately lest the tiniest detail slip your mind. Chances are you’re in the shower, or in the middle of an exam, or mere seconds away from falling asleep. You vow to yourself that you will remember every single speck of detail when you have the chance to write it down, and you continue about your business.

Stage 2: The Mourning Period

You didn’t remember every single speck of detail. Of course you didn’t, you idiot. You never remember anything. You are now a tragic member of the Mourning Period, where all writers end up at one point or another to grieve the loss of their One Great Idea, the one that so cruelly slipped away. Will you ever bounce back? Will you ever recuperate from this catastrophic loss? I doubt it.

Stage 3: Remember Me?

Wait a second – stop, stop, stop, shut up, stop speaking, wait… for a few glorious moments you are frozen in time, hands raised in front of you to silence everyone around you as you try desperately to cling to the one thought that just zipped through your mind. Was that…? It was! You’ve remembered a glimmer, a mere fragment, but it’s enough, the rest will come! There’s no time to lose! You must immediately write this down, whether it be a note on your phone, on the back of a receipt or on the inside of your friends arm. (You make them promise to not shower until they’ve relayed this information back to you later on.) You are an unstoppable force.

Stage 4: Gold Rush

In a hysterical rush to make up for lost time, you take the remembered fragment and you run with it, fingers practically burning as they try to keep up with the pace of your brain. There’s no time to stop and flex your digits now, friends, there is writing to be done. Maybe you end up with one page or maybe you end up with 3000 words and a scribbled drawing looking half like the map of a village and half like a drunk child has been unleashed on the paper with a crayon and an intent to destroy, but you’re done. You’ve petered out. You’ve written all that you possibly can. Give yourself a pat on the back and go and have a Kit Kat.

Stage 5: Visiting Hours are from 4-6

After your initial drive has worn you down, you feel satisfied enough to have a little break. You don’t know where it’s going next and so it’s best to just let it air for a while. However, you still care a lot about your idea, you know you want to get it started, you just need some planning and some time. The Visiting Period exists for you to dip back into your initial splurge and check that everything is still what you want to go ahead with. It’s a time to realise that in your hysteria of writing you skipped over a few major details, but you’ve seen clarity in the space you’ve given yourself, and you can get to work. This leads us to…

Stage 6: “We need a plan of attack!” “I have a plan: attack.”

Planning is for the organised among us, those of us who want to know at least the direction their path is going to take them. Some planners will sketch out the vaguest of outlines and get to work. Some will painstaking graph every twist and turn, every conflict, coincidence and moment of revelation. Some will have their characters down to a T and let them see where those characters take them. Planners take all forms and, to be honest, fare a lot better in the long run than the Jumpers.

Jumpers plunge headfirst into their story with no idea of what’s going to happen after they run out of their initial steam. All thoughts of theme, plot, characterisation or running motif are but background noise to them as they forge forward, writing whatever it is that occurs to them first.

Stage 7: Round One (ding ding ding)

It is at this point that some Jumpers may choose to backtrack and begin to form a plan in order to carry on in a coherent manner. Planners, on the other hand, stroll ahead, confident in the knowledge that their planning skills will land them exactly where they need to be (while feeling free to change, add and subtract anything that they please along the way).

It is during the Initial Draft that the wrath of Writer’s Block may descend upon you. You love this project! You love the plot, the characters, the overall moral, so why can’t you write anything?! Just give up! Your inner-pessimist will cry. This is going nowhere, it’s not worth it! But you mustn’t listen to them. You must find your initial inspiration, you must construct playlists that relate to your characters and listen to them endlessly, you must put on the coffee shop sound simulator and imagine that you are working to a deadline, goddamn, and a helluva lot of people are going to be majorly inconvenienced by you slouching about in your pyjamas. Do whatever needs be, whatever it is that gets your creativity kicking, and then get on!

Stage 8: “I Just Need Some Space”

It’s not them, it’s you, you’ve spent so much time together and now you just need some space. Your first draft is messy and it is probably riddled with inconsistencies and grammatical errors, but that isn’t what’s important right now. What’s important is that you are done. Save it (for the love of god, save it, save it eighteen times, send it to four email addresses and put it onto eleven memory sticks) and put your pen down/shut your laptop lid/step away from the typewriter/lay down your quill and pot of ink. Not unlike the visiting period, take a step back. Relax. Leave what you have written for however long it takes you to be able to come back and look at it with brand new eyes.

Stage 9: Don’t You Forget About Me

Whatever you do, don’t shove what you’ve written out of sight and let it gather dust. It’s good to keep your distance for a while, but don’t let yourself lose sight of the initial spark that made writing it so important to you. With your writing glasses off and your editing monocle firmly in place, it’s time for the overhaul. Maybe you want to read the whole thing through to catch any obvious plot holes or maybe you want to factor through chapter by chapter, but whatever you do, you’re going to edit the hell out of it until finally, finally finally finally, you’re done.

Stage 10: “I Think We Should See Other People.”

It’s over. It’s time to move on. You had an idea, a blazing, brilliant idea, and you powered through all of the struggles and the moments of absolute despair to get here: finished. What now? You may be asking yourself. The glorious future of new ideas and an endless pool of things to write, that’s what’s now.

Like Flynn told Rapunzel, now you get to go find a new dream.

 

To see more from Leigh click here.