Laurie Graham's Blog, page 35

[image error]        Any day now I'm going to get an exasperated message on my screen telling me my document is so full of errors that Spelling & Grammar Check can't take it any more. I've taken one liberty too many and brought it to its knees. It happens every time I write a book.

 'Good,' I think to myself. 'Now bugger off and leave me to monkey around with language. It's what I'm paid for.'

Apparently there's now an Apple program called Pages which takes this kind of editing to new levels of impertinence. Pages flags incendiary words like man or black or wife and tells you what would be more appropriate in 2012. Give Pages its head you might be surprised to find you've written, 'Baa Baa outcast' sang the midspouse to the clergyperson.

I know it's ridiculous but I take Spell Check's interference particularly personally. I'm an excellent speller. Wierd is just about the only word I hesitate over, which is kind of wierd weird considering I can romp through diarrhoea. If you see what I mean. 

Novelists need to play with words, otherwise what are we? Report writers? The attitude spills over too. I always have to go off-piste with recipes, always want to try singing descant when I ought to stick to the melody. Many years ago I was accused of performing unauthorised hip flicks during a belly dance class and invited to leave.  I remain unrepentant. Flick free or die, say I.

James Joyce was born just round the corner from where I'm sitting. Imagine if he'd lived to see Spell Check. And it's old and old and it's sad and old it's sad and weary I go back to you my cold father, my cold mad father, my cold mad feary father, till the near sight of the mere sight of him, the moyles and moyles of it…  

Boom! Black smoke over Rathgar and the smell of burning plastic.

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Time was, you delivered a manuscript to your editor, corrected the galleys, and your work was done. At a later date you might possibly be required to do a 3am telephone interview with Radio Whernside or go and sit behind a pile of your books in a deserted bookshop and smile bravely.  But essentially you were free to go back inside your cubicle and write another book.

Today it's a different  story. Today the actual writing seems like the least of it. Because today we have global 24/7 silicon chip-enabled blethering and if you want to sell a book you'd better join the party. Or so I'm told.

I've welcomed technology into my working life, if not with open arms, certainly with a firm handshake. I'd never wish to go back to the days of sprinting across Christ's Pieces with a large envelope in my hand, desperate to get my copy into the 5pm letter collection. I imagine there are still writers who deliver their work by carrier pigeon but they are presumably just playing the eccentric card. There are certainly writers who don't have websites. Some jib at the cost. Some don't see the point. I suppose it's not so very long ago that I was one of them. But things have moved on apace since then.

First I was told I'd better get my sorry ass onto Twitter. I wriggled a bit over that but in the end I conceded. So far I've found myself with unusually little to say but apparently that passes. Before you know it you have a 10 Tweets a Day habit. Then they said, 'But Tweeting isn't enough on its own. You must also master the canny use of hashtags.' And I will. Some time.

Last week I brainstormed a little with my daughter-in-law who is a Queen Bee of buzz creation. If I could afford her I'd put her on the payroll. She said, 'And of course your publisher will be creating a Facebook Page for your new book.'

Now I may know zip about social media but I do know that the words 'of course' don't belong in any sentence about publishing.

I said, "I'll ask them.' Which I did. And so far answer came there none.

'Next,' she said, 'you should post the book jacket on Pinterest. And you should set up a virtual book tour for May or June. Get yourself some guest blogger slots. And you could offer Author Q&A by Skype.'

And while I'm jotting down all these excellent suggestions you know what I'm thinking? That I'm a shy, retiring novelist not a performing seal. I'm also tired. On which subject I leave the absolute final word to Lilly von Schtupp.

[image error] Stuff lands on my desk. Sometimes I can't bear even  to look at it. Being ever mindful of how much work it takes to write a book  -  okay, it's not like ploughing a field but it does require a certain amount of effort and application - I don't want to be the one to turn on the cold shower. I hope someone else will do the dirty deed for me.

It's not that I'm a completely ungenerous person, though one writer, of toe-curlingly bad fiction, did suggest as much when I declined to recommend her to my agent. It's just that… well, where shall I begin? I am astounded at how little groundwork people put in before they unveil their darling. For instance, it's a pretty good rule of thumb that fifty pages do not a novel make. Nor even a novella. More a pamphlet, really. And it's probably not a good idea to submit your manuscript bound in a jacket of your own design. It smacks of presumption. Ha ha, so you think we might actually publish this crock?

There are lots of things I might say about writing style and I do accept that there 's no accounting for taste, but something I'm rather alert to at the moment is the peril of trying to write in Olde Englishe. My first foray into historical fiction is set in the late 18th, early 19th century so I've had plenty of fine contemporary writers to study. Nevertheless I've proceeded with the utmost caution. Avoid anachronisms, yes. Freight a story with a load of clunking period indicators, uh-oh. And the further back you go in history the tougher all this gets.  The less we know about an era the greater the temptation to cover our ignorance with an arras. Richly woven, natch. 

In the self-published 16th century story I have before me there are way too many oaken doors creaking open and quills being dipped and… fingered. Yes folks, it's a gay romp. Not only that. Sir Francis Walsingham is described as a fat-ass.  Which prompted me to wonder if I was misreading the author's intention. Could it actually be a parody? If only. So can I give any guidance or advice to this writer? No. I already have several full-time jobs, thank you very much. Well can I at least avert this trainwreck before it goes public and people pay good money for it ? Nope. I imagine it will be available on Kindle any day now. Egad. And 'zounds

Also, have you ever noticed, the only place you find saucy wenches is in bad novels?

And now I'll hush up for a few days. I'm going to England for our Connie's first birthday.

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Late last evening an invitation plinked into my In Box. Well, kind of. The Cultural Institute at the Bulgarian Embassy in London is hosting a forum on Bulgaria and its image in Europe and the gist of the invitation was that they would have loved to ask me to speak but were unable to offer me a speaker's fee. Nor even expenses.

I explained in my reply that lack of funds, theirs or mine, has never prevented me from accepting speaking engagements  – though you'd think an embassy's Cultural Institute would be able to pony up a girl's bus fare from somewhere  – but I had a prior and non-negotiable committment.  Oh yes, and there would also have been the minor drawback that I have absolutely no expertise on the subject.

I believe Mr F just said, 'When did that ever stop you?' but he's getting rather clever at not moving his lips.

The flimsy basis of the invitation, just so you know how these things work, is that I once wrote a novel about the culture clash between post-Soviet Bulgaria and cutting edge 21st century America. It was published in Bulgaria and even warmly received. My fear that Bulgarians would be offended by it turned out to be groundless. If anything came out of Lubka looking really bad it was the music business.  Still, what I know about Bulgaria and its sense of nationhood could be written on the back of a season ticket to Levski Sofia. Writer, know thy limits.

Authors these days are expected to perform. It isn't enough to write the book. You must also submit to the dog and pony show. Crazy really because some writers, who are brilliant on the page, can barely string three words together on a platform. That isn't my problem and neither does a microphone hold any fears for me. People who come to hear authors are generally well-disposed before you even open your mouth. You're a real person, the face behind the name and you're gamely sitting up there in the hot seat. The audience are glad it's not them. And it beats staying in and watching the telly. 

But an ignoramus speaking at a Cultural Institute? Uh-oh. I picture stern faces. I imagine the impatient rustling of learned papers. And no taxi ticking over outside the front door, ready for the fast getaway. The stuff of nightmares.

[image error]   Almost without exception every novel I've ever written has caused some reader to get in touch with me and ask me how I know so much about their life. I try to assure them they're not being stalked by a crazy old scribbler. The fact is, there are only so many stories in the world. It's the little local details that makes us feel that a story is our own.

When The Dress Circle was published and I did the rounds of  daytime TV shows I got nobbled in the Green Room by one transvestite and his wife who insisted, in the friendliest way possible, that I had told their story and theirs alone. They forced upon me a kind of gratitude I'd done nothing to deserve.

Similarly, after The Future Homemakers of America was published I met an USAF wife whose story was identical to the one I'd invented for the widow of First Lieutenant Okey Jackson. This experience spooked me slightly, but it was also encouraging because she said I had the military details exactly right. So, phew.  

Last week I heard from a reader who just finished At Sea. Why had I chosen Morecambe Bay as one of the book's locations, she wondered? And why were two of my characters breeders of Dandie Dinmont terriers? These features were strangely close to her own story. Well, I think I chose Morecambe Bay because no-one else did. You know? Enough with the novels set  in Paris or New York. Let's hear it for Carnforth for a change. And if people don't know where Morecambe Bay is, let them go forth and consult an atlas.

Similarly for the Dandie Dinmont. It's not a fashionable breed, though I know it has its devotees. As I recall it, when I was sketching out the characters of Mumsie and her Special Friend, Bobbie, pursuit of perfection in the pedigree of the Dandie seemed a suitable obsession for a pair of crusty old ladies. Was I right, was I wrong? Darned if I know. This whole writing business is a mystery to me.

[image error]Time is a strange thing for a writer. Sometimes it passes at a luxuriously leisurely pace and you can spend a whole morning deciding whether to name a character Desmond or Donald. What do you mean, does it matter? Are you crazy?

Then, often without warning, time scrunches up into a log jam of tasks that must be addressed immediately. Like this week. Suddenly page proofs were ready for checking and could they please have them done and delivered by next Tuesday, bearing in mind England and its postal service is in the middle of a Siberian winter. Plus there was an interview for an American newspaper, a bunch of emails to answer and the gas engineer to call, again. 

I was able to deal with the Pittsburgh Examiner while dressed in my pyjamas, so thank heavens for email interviews. By 7 am this morning I achieved warp speed, cracked on with the proofs between mouthfuls of porridge, delivered them electronically by early afternoon and yes, feel like I got shot through a particle accelerator and met myself coming back. But I predict that next week I'll be able to spend several slow-moving aeons tinkering with one pesky paragraph that's been giving me trouble. It's all to do with light and gravity and stuff.

So there you have it. The Laurie Graham Theory of Time. Next week, Black Holes and Creative Writing Workshops.

[image error]    When people find out I'm a novelist they ask, quite reasonably, what kind of books I write. That's the moment when I long to be able to say 'Mills & Boon,' or 'thrillers'. Then they'll know exactly what they're dealing with. As it is, the most helpful thing I can do is to murmur 'social comedy' and pray they don't follow through with a supplementary.

The word 'comedy' raises certain expectations. More than once in my life the supplementary has turned out to be more an accusation than a question. Something along the lines of, 'Really? You don't seem like a funny person.'

In fact even my husband, most avid reader of and chuckler at my books, has been known to say, 'How come you're so funny on the page? Do you have a ghost writer?'

What can I say? It's true I have a serious demeanour and a short fuse. I guess something happens to me when I sit down to work. I rattle away at the keyboard and sometimes what comes out makes even me laugh. How weird is that? But be the life and soul of the party? Tell jokes? Never. Actually I don't very much like jokes though I have two friends who deliver the most excruciating ones so superbly that just picturing them makes me smile.

So what I do remains inexplicable to me. My sense of humour is like the soap in the bath tub. I know it's there and sometimes I think I've got a handle on it, then it slips out of my grasp again. I believe people pay good money for courses in writing comedy. How does that work, I wonder? First you do A, then you do B, add a smattering of C and voila, a perfectly formed laugh, good to go. The Ikea School of Humour.

It's a mystery, I tell you. A goshdarned mystery. Just don't judge a book by its prune-faced author, that's all I'm saying.