Getting Over the Wall with John Hudspith

John Hudspith is the creator of the wonderful Kimi's Secret, a book for children from 9 to 90 - and if you haven't encountered it yet, do yourself a favour and read it. I've been following John from one writing forum to another for years - or maybe he's been stalking me! Either way, I've come to love his unique take on life and writing and I'm proud (well, sort of) to have been the inspiration for this blog on writers' block. Here's Johnny:-

The Wall – getting over the block.

Scared of facing your dreaded MS?

Think it’s rubbish?

The weather outside is frightful, the fire delightful, the house silent, and your glowing monitor beckons you to open that doc…but you can’t.

Not yet.

Not until you’re ready.

So you work through the familiar list: Tea, toast, dither, dust, hoover up, tea, dither, clean kitchen, more tea, more dither. Now, are you ready?

No.

Walk. Fresh air. That’ll get you ready.

Now?

No.

More tea. Dither.

Four hours have passed and you still haven’t opened that awful, rubbish manuscript.

Call it writer’s block. Call it fear.

I call it The Wall.

It exists in my mind, old and worn red-brick, from the nape of my cerebellum to the tip of my cerebral cortex, an imaginary divide twixt myself and my muses.

On this side of the wall (where I do my dailies), lives my wonderful autopilot. He takes care of pretty much everything without me having to think about it. Idly pulling his levers, Joey (that’s his name), has an easy job. Years of practice, working at a machine forged by millennia and billions of replications, Joey can do it with his eyes closed. In fact the only time he needs to open them is for emergencies. You know, when that snarling dog comes bounding over, or there’s an accident of some sort, or some pretty lady smiles at me. Against the right wall of my frontal lobe is the meds cabinet. There’s allsorts in there: adrenaline (for those emergencies), a whole caboodle of hormones and pheromones and endorphins, and probably some other weird stuff I’ve never heard of; each `fix` housed in a big bottle with a plunger. And when that hooter goes off and Joey’s eyes snap open he knows exactly which plunger to press. He can fix me in almost an instant.

Joey may have it easy, but he does work long hours. My self, on the other side of the wall, does very little in comparison. I sit in the dark for the most part, only switching the light on when it’s time to open that doc.

But why is it often so difficult to pull the cord, to illuminate my muses in a radiant glow, slap high fives and tallyho down the road to writers’ paradise where the words dance and the rhythm sings and the heart soars with the enlightenment of it all? Why is it often so damn hard to light the light and slide down that gushing water tube into the theme park of writing delights where Mickey and Minnie eagerly await? They’re full of ideas. Full of ‘em. So why the feck am I mopping the bloody kitchen floor?

I’ll tell you why.

Joey.

I rely on him, see. Too much, probably. I sit there in the dark while my numskull plays the levers. In joey’s little room, Joey is unswerving, Joey will not rest until his chores are placated.

Bless him.

He’s even made some posters and pasted them on the wall:

~Your writing stinks~

~You call that a novel?~

~ Warning: crossing this wall is bad for your health~

~Joey’s room rocks – be there or be square~

He’s even gone and sawn up the ladders. For your own good, he says. Your MS stinks, keep away from it, stay here, let me do the work. Forget writing.

So you glare at him. You’re sick of Joey’s place, you want the theme park of words, want the golden place - so very badly it hurts.

Now scream (step one).

Push Joey out the way and yank on that horn. (the one labelled `vent`)

Go on. Do it. Doesn’t matter where. Let it out. Scream. Cry. Why oh why. Etc.

Feel better? Yes, Joey is now sulking, and looking at you warily. Rip down a poster, and then another. Hold up a finger to Joey. He’ll stay put. Trust me. Now show him how good you are, conjure up a new ladder, tell Joey he’s got the day off and hop yourself over that wall. Pull that cord and see the light.

I’m standing at the top of a very steep water slide. Below, my very own writerly theme park where anything can and will happen - a wondrous sight, and it’s bathed in sunshine.

I jump, ride that slide, right into the arms of my waiting muses. There’s Mickey with my laptop, holding it open like it’s a gameshow prize. His fat gloved thumb hovers over the `open` button. I tap his hand and the doc opens and in I fall to ride the ride once again.

Giving your Joey, your numskull, time out, works wonders for your writing.

Joey can keep his putdowns to himself for awhile, because that’s where they belong, with Joey, in the autopilot room.

Once you’re in your theme park of course there is no limit to what you can achieve. Every character you have ever created lives and works here, and so does your muse, or muses if you have more than one.

So what now? You’ve vented, you’ve put Joey to sleep, you’ve gotten over that wall, you’ve took the ride down the slide to paradise, everything feels warm and wonderful and all your characters from past and present are smiling and applauding, but what now?

Use them. Get them to read your latest. Listen to their critiques. Find your muse, pull him off the ghost train and ask nicely for some inspiration. Capitalise – make more muses – five is a good number. Ask each in turn as you ride the big wheel, as you charge around on the dodgems, ask them to point the way.

Have fun in your own personal Wonderland, and be safe in the knowledge that all the answers are there just waiting to be found.

End

No, wait!

I hear cries of derision, cries of `no that won’t work for me` - ah, that’s your Joey, see – whenever Joey is awake and functioning he will continue to hang those posters and saw up your ladders.

Put him to sleep, tie him to his chair if you have to, just get over that wall, pull that cord, and see the light!

Create your paradise theme park. Create your muses, give them flesh. Two characters from Kimi’s Secret are now fully embedded muses in my own personal aMUSEment park. Kimi herself, so young yet so wise, helps me a great deal with her ever-questioning attitude. You too can do this.

Make your muses work for you and the wall becomes easier to get over.

Create your own paradise and scaling the wall becomes a breeze.

Understand Joey and the wall becomes smaller.

Understand that pangs of self-doubt are really only your Joey keeping you on a leash.

Understand all that and your writing will come alive.

YOU can do this!

(disclaimer – technique won’t work for trolls – that’s another mindset)

**

In the northernmost spire of his black-brick chateau, John Hudspith edits novels by day and scrawls scary stories by night. Kimi’s Secret won a highly coveted youwriteon book of the year award and has had huge acclaim in every room in John’s home. John may look handsomely ancient but he’s really only 30. Five years to write a first novel takes it out of one’s mojo – that and the time-travel. But Kimi is alive now, waiting to suck you in and thrust you onwards. John is working on the sequel and hopes to see daylight before Christmas.

John's Links:

Kimi’s very own website:

Kimi on Facebook

John Hudspith also provides editing services:

Follow JH on Twitter:

Where to buy Kimi's Secret:  Kindle Edition  Paperback

ROUND UP OF 2011 GUEST BLOGGERS!

2011 saw the start of my writing blog followed swiftly by the start of my roping in guest bloggers to do the work for me.

It started in July with Sue Howe on putting together a short story anthology, Triclops
with two other writers.

In August we had Blood Dancers author Jo Reed on creative writing courses, and September brought us Gillian Hamer on literary failure. (As if she knows anything about that!)

October was a particularly good month. It started with Karen MacLeod on writing her romantic novel Garlands and Shadows, continued with Liza Perrat on Inspiration, and went out with a bang with JJ Marsh masquerading as Dr F.

November brought ABC Checklist writer Lorraine Mace on getting the most from a critique, while December gave us perigrinating-poet Kate Murray and award-winning writer AK Dawson on his novel MiG-23 Broke my Heart.

Thanks once again everyone for your generosity.

And a HAPPY NEW YEAR to all!

PS: I've no idea why those little boxes are there.

DON'T LOOK DOWN EXCERPT

‘Time to go, Pussycat.’ Sammy hauls her into a sitting position and she leans against him, limp and moaning. He slips the dress over her head, struggling to get her arms through the sleeves, tugging the neckline into place, fastening the tiny pearl buttons. Her nipples are erect; he can see them through the loose silk.

Picking up her boots he pushes her bare feet into them and zips them up. He pulls her upright and drapes her black woollen cape around her shoulders.

‘Don’t worry, Pussycat. Soon get you warm.’ He walks her to the door, her feet dragging along the boards, and gives a last glance around the room. Her shoulder-bag is already in the boot of the Lada with her underwear stuffed into it. The thought of her without her bra, without tights, excites him. But there is no time now. Later, when they are safe. When they have the money.

Easing the front door closed, he listens for sounds on the stairs. When he is sure there is no one around, he half drags, half carries her to the car.

THRILLER SET IN GERMANY

Mig-23 Broke my Heart: The Story Behind the Story

Award winning writer Andrew Dawson tells us how a novel sprang into being and wouldn't let go.

Mig-23 Broke my Heart: The Story Behind the Story

by Andrew Dawson

When I was nineteen, an idea for a story popped into my head and made itself at home. I won’t go into details about what it was about, but I will say that I sat down and spent about three weeks (a lifetime back then) typing out a novel that possibly violated a few rules of grammar and almost certainly made no sense. As soon as I was finished, I hit ‘print’ on the keyboard and then buried the manuscript in my bottom drawer. It was enough for me to know that I could do it, even if the result wasn’t all that great. I then went outside and got on with the rest of my life.

Fast-forward eight years and I enrolled on Northumbria University’s Creative Writing MA. By that time I had studied a couple of things, worked as an advertising copywriter and written a few short plays that had been produced. I was ready to tackle another novel.

MiG-23 Broke my Heart started out as a single sentence: ‘Thomas was bored.’ I didn’t know who Thomas was or why he was bored. I liked his name though, because it reminded me of the biblical doubter. So, I gave my Thomas a Bible. I also put him on the border between Angola and Namibia in 1988, because that was the worst situation I could imagine. From my background in writing for theatre, I knew that there was more satisfaction to be had from creating conflict than in describing days out at the beach.

I grew up in South Africa in the 1980s, with the shame of apartheid thick in the air and the spectre of military conscription hanging over my head. It was only natural that my subconscious would drag me back there.

In Britain, on my creative writing course, I wrote the first few pages of what would become my first ‘proper’ novel. I quickly realised that I wasn’t just drawing on my own experiences, but on tales told to me by older friends and cousins who had been called up to fight for the indefensible South African Defence Force. These memories weren’t enough though and I had to dig deeper. I scoured the internet and bought every book I could about the so-called ‘Border War’ between South Africa and its neighbours. Even though the story of Thomas is a kind of allegorical love story, I wanted to make sure that it fitted into its historical context. I wanted to do it properly.

Eventually, I finished the novel and submitted it to a few agents and publishers. The feedback was favourable, which I’ve heard is rare from a first approach (I now know that it’s rare to hear back at all), but there were no takers. No-one, apparently, wants to read about a forgotten war in an unfashionable part of the world.

I was furious. To spite them all, I went and wrote an even less accessible novel. After that, I wrote another book, without worrying who would read it, because I had got into the habit of writing prose. The habit became an addiction and I’ve now completed five novels in various genres.

Winning a Northern Promise Award from New Writing North in 2010 gave me the confidence to see myself as a kind of semi-professional (I approach my work professionally, but am only semi-successful). It also led me to reassess the manuscripts sitting in cold storage in my hard-drive.

MiG-23 Broke my Heart, I decided, would be perfect for Kindle. It wasn’t the kind of thing that would ever be picked up by a mainstream publisher, but that didn’t mean that it was a ‘bad’ book. Somewhere out there, it had an audience – at least, that’s what I told myself. I also thought that it would be creatively fulfilling to produce something tangible. And it has been.

After editing the text, hiring a professional to give it a once-over and asking a friend to help with the cover design, I uploaded the book to Amazon. There was no category for allegorical love stories set in obscure African conflicts, so I had to make do with filing it under the ‘War’ and ‘Adventure’ sections. Any writer will tell you what a nightmare it is describing their own book, and I think I fluffed the description bit. But, generally, I’m happy with how the whole thing turned out.

I don’t, however, have any plans for releasing the novel I wrote when I was nineteen. That one stays in the bottom drawer.

~

MiG-23 Broke my Heart is available for Kindle on amazon.co.uk and amazon.com; and for all formats at smashwords.com

Originally from South Africa, Andrew Dawson lives in Gateshead, in the North East of England. You can find links to some of his short stories at www.akdawson.co.uk

DON'T LOOK DOWN - Thriller

Set in a wintry Germany, DON'T LOOK DOWN is a fast-paced thriller that grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go until the icy denouement in a cave high in a hillside.

When Lauren Keane is kidnapped during a winter break in Germany, she doesn't take it personally. The kidnappers have, after all, mistaken her for her friend Katti. When she finds a dead Albanian cleaning woman in her shower, however, she figures it's time to fight back. Especially as she is now in the frame for the murder.

Along with Wolf, her ex, who's now engaged to the frigid Ingrid, and Gunther, an undercover-or-is-he?- policeman, Lauren sets about trying to find the vanished Katti, nail a bunch of sex-traffickers and discover why the cleaner was brutally murdered.

After fighting off dim-witted goons and a psychopathic gunman, getting lost in a forest in a snowstorm, and enlisting the help of the hypnotic Axel, Lauren pursues the kidnappers to a cave on a stolen Pizza delivery bike.

In the cave high in a hillside she discovers another body, comes face to face with the killer, and receives assistance from a giant icicle.

Not that she delights in putting herself in danger but, if she's ever going to get the chance to buy her presents at the Nuremberg Christmas market, she's going to have to get the mess sorted out somehow.

     DON'T LOOK DOWN  for USA

Sticky Catchfly and the Perigrinating Poet...

Kate Murray is a poet and novelist living in Edinburgh. This is the delightful story of how photographing a rare flower led to Kate becaming Writer in Residence - or Poet in Peregrination - at Holyrood Park.

My Poetry Pamphlet – From The Lang Rig

by Kate Murray

Sticky Catchfly

                                                   Poet in Peregrination

It all started with Sticky Catchfly – a gorgeous, pink-flowering, protected plant that I’d hunted down, photographed and versified in the summer of 2008 and which was then featured the following spring in a Historic Scotland Display Case at one of the Holyrood Park gates. How well my poem would fit alongside!

Buy From the Lang Rig

By October (format and cover design by my daughter, Anna!) I had my poems in pamphlet form. The opening poem was Holyrood Park A to Z and a few days later I saw in the Display Case not only photos illustrating this poem to perfection but, on the reverse, a flyer for ‘Art in the Park’ and three blank A4 sheets. Awaiting my poems?

With an unprecedented burst of entrepreneurial spirit I e-mailed Historic Scotland to see if there was any chance of my poems being displayed and told of my nine years/4,000 miles walking and waxing poetic in Holyrood Park.

Four days later they responded, speaking of: ‘an opportune moment …enhancing the public interpretation of the Park …potentially … etc. etc.’ and on February 3rd 2010 came the ‘All Clear’, followed by the poems’ display on 21st April. Whoopee!

From then on I became the 'Poet in Peregrination of the Park', poised to pounce on the unwary visitor.

From Toronto and Wisconsin came Bill and Kurt respectively, Continental Airlines pilots stranded by the ash cloud. Kurt tells me that after he’s read the poems my pamphlet will be placed on the bookshelf of his son, Parker Joseph, for his future delectation. Lovely! I’m up and running.

Next, Guy from Montreal, currently working at Moray House (Post-Grad Teacher-training) buys two pamphlets and asks if I will go there to read and speak of my poems. Well, of course I will!

Staying with North America, on the Radical Road I shake hands with Wendy & Chris from Idaho, congratulate honeymooners Jonathan and Betsy from Philadelphia and chat with two West Highland Way-walking women from Oregon. Then I sell to a second Guy – from Massachusetts, this one – and to sundry persons from New Hampshire, Virginia and Washington.

From the Southern Hemisphere are families from Melbourne and Sydney and an Australian/Canadian couple celebrating their 42nd Wedding Anniversary, following an ascent of their local Arthur’s Seat in Victoria, Australia.

On to Europe and Aurélien, a Parisian photographer/installations artist; Mary from Gdansk doing her M.Sc. here; delightful Maggie y Patricia from Valencia – ‘You write in for me, take picture, I buy’ – and sundry appreciative wanderers from Stuttgart, Munich, Wurzburg, Luxembourg, Norway, Slovenia and, not forgetting Demosthenes from Cyprus, who instigated a discussion on ‘enosis’.)

Endangered Species

There’s an engagement ascent (Nick and Joy from Leicester), another Wedding Anniversary couple ( Stoke-on-Trent) and newly-weds who smile and say, ‘We don’t read poetry – But we could’ and seem highly delighted with their purchase of a pamphlet.

A high point was an e-mail from an un-met admirer who’d contacted Historic Scotland after reading ‘Polyommatus Icarus’ (Common Blue butterfly) on the display board. I quote: ‘The poetry is brilliant …marvellous …reminded me of Christopher Logue’s style …shades of Kathleen Jamie …You are very talented … I’ll write a glowing review any day.’
Wow! Thank you!

And so, to my adopted homeland: the couple who’s just sailed around Shetland; the mother moving from Aberdeen to Edinburgh with her daughter whose job had just relocated from Edinburgh to Manchester; Elaine, who I found admiring ‘Polyommatus…’ in the Historic Scotland stand and many others.

Readings were done too: one – ‘From the Lang Rig' – by myself for a group of Scottish walkers high up, looking out over the penned landscape, one (Bird of Good Omen) by a teenage girl with her family, one by Bennett from the next street who did a flamboyant rendering of ‘Facing Down The Void’ for his partner, and, most stirring of all, the grandfather who read ‘Holyrood Park A-Z’ in a resonant Highland accent whilst looking over ‘sugar-cube Bass Rock’.

‘I shall bequeath this book to my grandson, Oscar,’ he declared and that latter (who’d been a tad embarrassed at first) looked most chuffed. Grandfather’s parting words were: ‘I met a witch coming up and an angel going down.’ (I should point out that he was going down when I encountered him!)

What a summer – two hundred people met, two hundred pamphlets sold.

KM


To purchase a copy of From The Lang Rig contact katmura1@yahoo.co.uk
£2.50

Seen from the Lang Rig

February sun.
Inchcolm becalmed
on a jade plateau;
sugar-cube Bass Rock
perched on a length
of bridesmaid-blue satin ribbon.

Due North by Burntisland
a reach of the Forth alchemised
to a golden crocodile
suns itself out of inertia,
glides westwards
through Mortimer’s Deep.

Pentalpha Publishing Edinburgh

Well, it's been a busy time for Pentalpha Publishing Edinburgh: Three new books to report and only one of them mine.

Firstly, there's COUNTERFEIT: Part II of the Warbeck Trilogy, by Karen MacLeod. This follows on from Doubtful Blood and features several of the same characters, now six years on and set at the time of the wedding of Mary Tudor to Philip of Spain.

Then there's THE IRON LADY OF THE WESTERN WORLD by J M Syngamy (a pseudonym if ever I heard one!). This is a delightful romp through the times of Margaret Thatcher but not in any way the Iron Lady would recognise!

And last, but hopefully not least, there's my own offering: DON'T LOOK DOWN, a thriller with a female protagonist, set in Nuremberg, Germany in the weeks before Christmas.





Bargains all!

Critically Speaking by Lorraine Mace

Today's guest blogger is the wonderful Lorraine Mace, a writer whose professionalism makes me feel like a lazy amateur. In addition to writing freelance articles and columns for magazines, Lorraine finds time to write novels for both adults and children. She also judges competitions and offers critiques to writers. Here she gives us some wise advice on responding to criticism and on resubmissions.

Many thanks to Lorraine for taking time out of her busy schedule to provide this blog.

Critically Speaking

by

Lorraine Mace

In the course of my work I get to see a lot of rewritten stories and novels and I’m always astounded at how quickly writers resubmit after receiving a critique.

Considering the writers are coughing up good money for the benefit of someone’s advice, it seems a bit odd not to take the time to at least digest the comments and suggestions. All too often, within a few days of a critique going out, the story reappears in my inbox (often with a note saying it has been rewritten following the advice given). Um, no, usually all that has happened is a few minor corrections have been made to tidy things up, but the major errors to do with plot, characterisation, dialogue and other important factors remain.

So, here’s some advice on how to get the most from a critique, whether it has been paid for, given freely on a peer review site, or is feedback from a writing buddy.

1. Do Nothing

That’s right. Do nothing. Don’t set to and rewrite immediately. Take a few days to read and reread the comments and suggestions. Only after absorbing the feedback and letting it run through your subconscious will you be able to decide which aspects of the criticism are valid and which would take your work in a direction you don’t want it to go.

2. Make Notes

Once you’ve absorbed the criticism, make notes on how to deal with it. How are you going to fix the plot holes? What layers can you add to give depth to the storyline? How are you going to flesh out the characters to make them less wooden? What can you do to improve the dialogue? How can you make transitions into and out of flashbacks smoother? What can you do to improve the settings? How can you balance telling and showing?

On this last point, don’t let anyone tell you that you should always show and not tell. A piece of advice given to me some time ago, which I felt summed up the balance perfectly, is to show (using dialogue and interaction to dramatise) what’s important and to tell (using narration to link dramatised scenes) what isn’t.

3. Rewrite

Okay, now you have your notes, it’s time to rewrite. If you’ve followed steps one and two above you should now be in a good position to make a really good job of the rewrite.

4. Be Patient

Put your rewritten story out of your mind for a few weeks. Don’t read it again until at least a week has gone by, but the longer you can leave it, the better it will be for you. It’s impossible to read something objectively too soon after you’ve been working on it. Take the time to write something new – or rewrite another story.

5. Read Critically

Get out the original critique and your notes and read your story with these in mind. Have you covered everything? If you stumble over a minor point, don’t tell yourself it’s nothing to worry about – make notes on how to fix it.

Finished? Nope, not even close. Repeat steps 1-5 until the story is the best it can possibly be. Then, and only then, resubmit it to the competition. However, by then it might be so good that you could submit it to a competition with even better prize money.

Lorraine Mace is a columnist with Writing Magazine and writing agony aunt for Words with JAM. She has had fiction published in various magazines including That’s Life, The Lady, My Weekly and Ireland’s Own. Lorraine, a tutor for Writers Bureau, is part of the Freelance Market News appraisal panel for both fiction and non-fiction. A writing competition judge and member of the short story critique team for Writers’ Forum, she also runs her own critique service for writers.


www.lorrainemace.com
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