It was all so simple last year. Whenever I had time to spare I would whip out the laptop and write a bit more of my novel. I was able to use my writing slots so productively. It was just like mowing the lawn, keep going until you get to the end.
Now I’m out the other side of that process and can see what a rush I was in to get to the finish line. The words that I flung onto the page now have to stand up to scrutiny and carry the story.
These days when I sit down to revise the manuscript, more often than not I stray into other writing tasks. Revising is not a straightforward process. The grass is cut but now I have to finish the garden. I need to pull up bushes that are not thriving, plant new trees, create flower beds, trim the hedge, put in a patio and weed, weed, weed.
Where to start? It’s so much easier to procrastinate. In my case this involves dabbling a little in flash fiction, teasing out new book ideas or bashing out a post for this blog. Could I really be writing about writing as a way to avoid actually writing?
All is not lost. I have my writing course coming up in the Irish Writers’ Centre and in the meantime I will read up on revising so that I can tackle this job with the right tools.
If you have any good revising tips that have worked for you, please share!
What does a writer want? To be read. Since I started this blog I’ve written several short stories, some of which are short enough to qualify as flash fiction. My submission strategy is a bit haphazard, something I need to work on but it is based on the sound if-at-first-you-don’t-succeed principle. So I’m delighted to say that this weekend I saw my first story published online as part of National Flash Fiction Day UK. The link to June Sailing is here http://bit.ly/11XiU9g and there are lots of other stories to browse through if you’re curious. But if you only have time for my 500 words, read on!
June Sailing by Clare O’Dea
Nancy stuffed the ferry timetable under the tea towels when she heard the key in the door. Careless of her to be looking at it so late in the afternoon. Not that she needed to check this month, there was a sailing every day, sixteen down, fourteen to go. Quick as a cat, she sprang into the kitchen. It was important to be doing something when he arrived. She opened the fridge and started checking expiry dates. Bill appeared in the doorway, filling the space.
“Tea in ten minutes,” she said, gripping a milk carton. A welcome calm settled over the kitchen as the three men fell on the food. You could call them three men now; the boys had lost any echoes of childhood grace. Almost overnight they had changed into gruff creatures with hard arms and hard hearts. The spit of their father, people liked to say. Nancy leaned against the sink as usual, watching for a moment before she turned to start on the washing up. Bill spoke with his mouth full.
“Cut out the pot-walloping Nance.” She turned off the water immediately. Sometimes the noise bothered him, other times not. A minute passed, the men chomping, Nancy trying to gauge the tension. Hunching her shoulders slightly, she approached the table to pour the tea. No reaction. She melted back to her place at the sink. Her hands crept into her apron pocket where she started to pick furiously at the skin around her nails.
Nancy felt the first dull tug of period pain and her heart skipped. This little monthly victory was always welcome. Twelve years ago she was told she would never bear children again. ‘Can I have that in writing?’ she asked the doctor.
“Good grub,” Bill said, pushing his plate away. Nancy risked eye contact. He was smiling. In fact he only lost his temper once a week at most, and one of the things that set him off was her being timid. A more intelligent woman would know how to handle him better.
“You do a shopping today?” Nancy’s cheeks flared red, her terrified blood started to run for cover. This was his way of saying he knew. Bill took another slug of tea.
“Did you get the shaving foam?” False alarm, he hadn’t noticed her panic.
“It’s in the bathroom,” Nancy said, standing back to let her sons leave the room. The television went on in the lounge but Bill stayed, watching as she cleared the table.
“Here, you should get some new clothes,” he said, holding out a fifty. Nancy looked at the money as if it were something unfamiliar before reaching for it. Bill grabbed her wrist gently.
“Am I going to get a thank you?” She let him pull her in and sat on his lap for a kiss. That fifty brought her to her target. It would pay for the taxi to the ferry in the morning. Our last kiss, she thought and wrapped her arms around him.
If you’ve ever had your heart broken, felt crushed, used and discarded, Swiss poet Angelia Maria Schwaller has something to say to you. I recently interviewed the award-winning poet for swissinfo.ch – my first introduction to Swiss-German poetry.
Angelia writes in her unusual Freiburg dialect, which is not taught as a written language in Switzerland. Her first collection of poetry dachbettzyt was published last year. If you’ve never heard the Swiss German language, it’s worth listening to the clip of Angelia reading her poem crumbs (‘verbroosme’ in Swiss German) below. The desolation in the sparse lines written by this 25 year old reminds us that everybody hurts sometimes.
crumbs (unofficial translation) by Angelia Maria Schwaller
I am dry and old bread
lie enclosed in your hand
being crushed by you
afterwards
when it’s all over
you throw me
in crumbs
on the stone floor
as fodder
Like to know more ? Read the full interview with Angelia published last week. It’s interesting that Angelia is a self-taught poet who picked up most of what she knows online, starting at the age of 12! Shows what a great resource the internet is for writers.
As an Irish person, I sometimes find myself in awe of how articulate the English are. I’m talking about the really clever ones, usually with cut-glass accents, deftly crafting arguments in flawless phrasing on television – my main point of contact with the English. It’s not only the ideas they are expressing, it’s their absolute mastery of the language. Well it’s almost as if they owned it.
You do hear affectionate remarks about the original use of English by the Irish, shaped as it is by the ghost of the old language underneath, but people in a position of security can afford to give generous praise. Part of me suspects most of this positive spin comes from Irish writers who have taken the compliment and run with it.
Now there could be a post-colonial, 800-years-of-oppression explanation for this respect, after all generations of my ancestors variously feared, loathed, mimicked and looked up to the English – but how would that explain the very similar reaction I observe with some Swiss Germans towards “real” Germans.
When it comes to live debate, Germans, with their natural command of the language, outshine their Swiss-German counterparts. Pit the Swiss finance minister against the German one and it’s like watching the receptionist take on the CEO. Swiss Germans only speak German when they have to, the rest of the time the cling to the comfort of their dialect.
Or maybe this is nothing to do with linguistic superiority and everything to do with superiority of numbers. Yes the Swiss can beat the Germans at football in theory, just as the Irish can beat the English but it takes a very lucky day. In the same way, the teams of leaders and thinkers from more populous countries have the advantage of being drawn from a much bigger pool.
Do the French-speaking Belgians feel the same about their big showy neighbour? Do they look at the French and sigh, giving up all hope of ever competing with their confidence and academies, their glorious language?
My best guess is that small neighbour complex is one phenomenon found all over the world, borrowed language syndrome is another and one should do everything possible to avoid having both together.
These days when I want to make an arrangement with someone they take out their phone and start finger skating on the screen. Meanwhile I’m leafing through my little appointments diary, pen poised, looking terribly 20th century.
But this lady is not for modernising. The scribbled notes of today are my memory bank for the future. Unlike the data entered into a device, one day I will be able to find that diary at the back of a drawer and step into my everyday life in a given year. It will all come back to me – the old car that kept breaking down, my brief flirtation with jogging, a friendship that has since lapsed. In among the mundane details I might find a little gem like the day the baby took her first steps.
For me a small appointments diary is sufficient to keep a basic narrative and it helps me feel things are not slipping away from me – funny things my kids say, what I planted in the garden, friends invited for dinner. Space is limited but the fact of keeping a record is important. There’s also the memorabilia hiding between the pages, ticket stubs and to do lists that are treasure for a nostalgia nut like me.
At the moment my diary is punctuated with notes on writing submissions and rejections. For the past year or so, I’ve always had at least one piece of work out there, keeping the thread of optimism unbroken. When a response comes with the word ‘unfortunately’ in the first line, I sigh a few times and then make a note of it. This little action allows me to claim the result and draw a line under it – or through it if I’m feeling peevish.
Not to worry, there’s another open submission in the diary somewhere, and anything is possible.
After reading Five Days by Douglas Kennedy I now know what it’s like to be inside a toxic marriage. The miracle is how many people stay in failed relationships and it’s an interesting human weakness to examine.
The question could have been more compelling though if the main character Laura wasn’t so saintly and her husband Dan so despicable from beginning to end. Most husbands have some redeeming features!
This is a book of the economic downturn with a compelling portrayal of the financial struggle of the American middle class. For this reason it will resonate with a lot of readers in the United States and elsewhere. Another major point many readers will identify with is the disappointments of middle age – the sense of missed opportunities and time running out.
After the more exotic settings of his previous novels in places like Berlin, Paris and Hollywood, I like that Kennedy has set this story in such a low-key environment. Most of the action takes place in small-town Maine and a cheap hotel on the outskirts of Boston.
The book is a page-turner but unfortunately the strong plot is not always matched by great writing. The interaction between the Laura and her love interest Richard gets a little too sickly sweet for me. OK, the two of them are literature and language buffs and delight in finally meeting someone they can flirt with on an intellectual level but the constant synonym sparring and literary references get tiresome.
The fact that husband Dan is totally unsympathetic takes away some of the tension when Laura is faced with the choice of having an affair or not. Richard also has a horrible wife at home by his own account (or could this be what everyone says about their spouse when they are about to cheat?) so you feel no sense of protectiveness towards either of their spouses.
Kennedy squeezes the action inside five days, although they are not all consecutive so we do get to jump forward and view the outcome of the characters’ choices. There is quite a lot about Laura’s relationship with her children but as you don’t get to know the kids outside their mother’s adoring gaze, they don’t become very interesting as characters.
The best thing about this book is its depiction of the limitations people place on their lives. Kennedy actually says “don’t lock yourself into an existence that you don’t want”. Hopefully it will inspire some people to seize the moment. (On a side note I find it cruel that Americans get so little annual leave.)
Although Five Days fell a little short for me I remain a serious Kennedy fan – I’ve read everything of his so far and State of the Union is one of my favourite novels. I pushed really hard for my book club to choose this novel at our last meeting but it was voted down (we’re reading Téa Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife instead). Looking back now I think it was for the best.
Memory lane: Other twin parents have an inbuilt twin radar that never goes away. Seven years on I still stop in my tracks every time I see twin babies. Where once I was on the receiving end, now I’m the one who has to grin foolishly and stare, carried back in an instant to those golden days of babyhood, times two.
If there’s an opportunity I strike up conversation. ‘Congratulations, how old are they? I have twins myself.’ Some of these conversations are short. Others get long and involved. The oldest twin mother I ever chatted to had sons in their fifties. Another time I remember talking to a security guard in an art gallery about his twin girls, as if we’d known each other for years. The best stories older twin parents will tell is the surprise they had at the birth when a second head appeared.
Hands full: A standard comment you will hear as a twin parent is some version of “you’ve got your hands full there”. There’s some truth in that but it’s tempting to point out that, more importantly, your heart is full. If your babies are premature, you might want to lie about their age to keep the reactions down. If you happen to have different sized twins, this will also be a talking point.
There will be shop assistants who confess they always wanted twins and you are bound to come across the occasional person curious about the conception details. This conversation begins with the question – “are they natural?”
Sad stories: Twin pregnancy is by definition high risk and was more often seen as a burden than a blessing in the past. One thing I didn’t expect was the number of sad stories people told me about twins. A woman we once rented a holiday home from told the story of her twins’ birth 40 years before. They were too small to live and were left in a room in the hospital to die.
Another woman who stopped me in the street one day in Fribourg started out by saying she too was a twin but then revealed she didn’t grow up with her siblings. She was given away to a children’s home because her mother couldn’t manage. She never understood why they chose her, and the rejection hurt her still. Another lady at a garage told me her mother had given birth to three sets of twins but only one child had survived.
Kindness of strangers: One of the lovelier sides of having twins is the kindness it brings out in people – from the people who reach out to take a baby onto their laps in the bus, to the other Mums at the playground who will run to pick up your fallen toddler, when you are struck trying to get the other one down from the climbing frame.
One incident stands out for me. There was an old lady I used to see around town, always dressed in the same shabby coat and old shoes. One day, waiting at the lights to cross the road, she pressed a ten-franc note into my hand and urged me to buy something for the twins. Before I could protest she was gone.
If your twins are brand new and you’re getting up the courage to take them out into the world for the first time, don’t be afraid. There is a big welcome waiting for you.
It’s been a distressing week for Irish parents, shocked by television footage of neglect and mistreatment of small children at three crèches, exposed in an undercover RTE investigation. The private childcare sector has mushroomed in Ireland over the past two decades and the inspection system is inadequate to say the least. So not only are Irish parents paying the highest fees for day care in Europe, they are now faced with the horrible fear that their children may not be safe.
The truth is that the vast majority of children cared for outside the home are well-treated and thriving in a familiar environment, just as most children cared for one-to-one in a home setting are loved and cherished. We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that good childcare is good for the child, regardless of the category, but unfortunately bad situations exist across the board.
The model of the mother at home all day to care for her children should not for a moment be idealised. Mothers lose their temper and their patience, many still hit their children. Some are isolated, depressed, or bored at home. There is no footage of their interaction with their children behind closed doors.
Parents automatically question the important decisions they make for their children and need no encouragement to feel guilty. We want desperately to get it right. There is nothing more important than the well-being of our children, which is why the last thing working parents need is a blanket condemnation of day care.
This morning we heard from an übermother on Irish radio sneering at “shiny corporate crèches” and telling us that children under the age of three should not be cared for in a group setting – full stop. If this is where the debate is heading then let’s call off the hounds. Such a simplistic and unfair pronouncement does nothing to help parents trying to make choices from realistic options, the thousands of families who put their trust in good people and come back to happy children at the end of the day.
No one way of looking after children trumps all others. Mothers, fathers, grandparents, neighbours, crèche workers and childminders are all fallible and can give children the very best and worst of themselves. It’s a cheap shot to question the whole validity of day care on the basis of some bad cases. That is a test no category of childcare will pass.
Oliver amazed at Dodger’s mode of ‘going to work’ – George Cruickshank
The first draft of a story is just the raw material, right? It will need to be revised, reworked, perhaps even radically overhauled, word by word, plot hole by plot hole. This is the fall back that makes writing a slightly less daunting endeavour. Thankfully everything you put down can later be improved, reordered or deleted.
That is the stage I am at now, trying to enhance my novel to the best of my abilities – and there’s a lot more work to do. But once in a while, a writer of genius come along who breaks all the rules, someone like the giant of 19th century English fiction Charles Dickens.
Last year being the bicentenary of Dickens’ birth there was a lot of Dickens talk and I happened to hear a radio discussion about the great writer in which one of the experts named Our Mutual Friend as the author’s best book. It had been years since I’d picked up a Dickens novel but he’s always been close to my heart. My grandmother, who shared my childhood home, was a lifelong Dickens fan and was always willing to read to us.
So I got my hands on a copy and tackled the near 800-page opus. At the back I was delighted to discover Dickens’ plot plans and notes included. It’s a fascinating insight into his working method and brain. He had worked out (monthly) number by number how the action would unfold, weaving all the storylines together and leading his characters on a merry dance through to conclusion.
Courtesy of Claire Tomalin’s suberb biography – Charles Dickens A Life – which I’m currently reading, I have discovered a lot more about Dickens. From the very beginning Dickens did not have the luxury of letting his stories evolve organically as they were serialised in monthly or weekly issues. Tomlin quotes Dickens as saying: “My friends told me it was a low cheap form of publication, by which I should ruin all my rising hopes”. He triumphantly proved them wrong.
For ten months in 1837 two of his serial stories, The Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist, ran simultaneously. Dickens was producing the chapters for two different publishers and coordinating with two illustrators – an incredible juggling act, on top of which he was also editing and contributing to a monthly magazine Bentley’s Miscellany.
“Managing this double feat was an unprecedented and amazing achievement. Everything had to be planned in his head in advance. Pickwick had started as a series of loosely rambling episodes, but he was now introducing plot … and Oliver was tightly plotted and shaped from the start. There was no going back to change or adjust once a number was printed; everything had to be right the first time. … Each number of Pickwick and Oliver consisted of about 7,500 words, and in theory he simply divided every month, allotting a fortnight to each new section of each book. In practice this did not always work out as well as he hoped, and although he sometimes got ahead, there were many months when he only just managed to get his copy to the printer in time.”
Just four years earlier, aged 21, his first piece of non-journalistic writing was published – a ‘sketch’ or short story, published anonymously and for no fee in a very small circulation magazine called the Monthly. He remembered dropped in his offering “stealthily one evening at twilight” after the place had closed. The sketch was followed by many more and led to fame within months and a 30-year stellar career.
We cannot watch fly-on-the-wall documentaries about life in Victorian England but we do have Dickens, who transposed so many of the characters and everyday scenes around him into his work. The people loved him for his crusade against the appalling social injustice of the day and we still have the privilege of learning from the great master of storytelling.
In the author description of Douglas Kennedy’s latest book Five Days, we are told that the writer divides his time between London, Paris, Berlin, Maine and Montreal. Is he serious? You have to wonder what kind of lifestyle that involves. A lot of fridges to clear and restock.
Most of us are confined to one geographical base at a time but that doesn’t mean we don’t dream of other possibilities. Last year I met an Eritrean refugee who risked his life crossing the Sahara and the Mediterranean, mournfully reconciled to living in Switzerland, while longing to go back home.
A lucky few have holiday homes and can shuttle between two different lifestyles and even climates. Wealthy Northern Europeans love to buy up properties in Spain, France and Italy. You can only admire their good sense.
This year I will be ‘dividing my time’ between Switzerland and Ireland, leaving Switzerland in August, ten years to the day since I arrived here to live, and staying on in Dublin until Christmas. The germ for this idea came around a year ago and the trip has come together thanks to a little serendipity and perseverance.
Last summer I had a conversation with my sister about my wish to live in Ireland again someday. Working out when my youngest child would be independent, I reckoned I could possibly arrange something around the age of sixty. This reflection shocked me to the core and started me thinking.
A short time before that on a flight from Dublin to Geneva I met an Irish woman who had lived in France for 20 years. She was married to a Frenchman and they had four daughters together. She told me she had twice moved with the children to Ireland for a school year, staying in her old family home. She was able to keep up her small travel business from Dublin and her husband, a teacher, used all his holiday time to visit them.
Moving forward to the end of last summer, one of my colleagues went to Florence for six weeks to do an Italian course, thanks to a creativity fund in work. I found out more about the fund that supports employees wishing to pursue various projects.
Now it just so happened that I had a very active creative project in progress – writing my first novel. I looked at courses in the Irish Writers’ Centre and found one that would be ideal for me. Everything was telling me to seize the moment.
My funding application was finally approved last week and I went ahead and booked the flights. What I have gained is the most precious thing of all – time. Time to write, time to spend with friends and family, time for my children to get to know their origins and time off from being a foreigner.
Clare O'Dea 