Thoughts on writing
I dread every time someone asks me a question on my writing practice. It scares me and makes me feel inadequate – like there’s this ‘thing’ I’m meant to be and am not. I’ve written so little new material since completing edits on Truth Be Told that it feels almost dishonest to call myself a writer. Then again, I think I write in seasons and in bursts. Some writers talk about a ‘fallow’ time where you read, and reflect and muse. Maybe I’m there. Everyone’s circumstances are different, so I don’t think there’s a ‘one size fits all.’
When my son was younger, I used to write in the evenings when he was asleep. That doesn’t function now he’s older and I’m not sure I’ve found my ‘new normal’ yet. I recently switched to working 4 days a week instead of 5 in my ‘day job’. That has definitely helped to free up time to do the work ‘about writing’ but I’m still searching for focus on writing new material.
Initially in the Covid pandemic, so many people assumed writers would be hyper-productive – I found it hard to explain that the opposite was the case. There’s more awareness of that now. Covid killed my creativity and rocketed my stress levels. I say that with a huge caveat that there are things far worse than a loss of creative flow and so many people suffered horrendously through the pandemic. Anyone who thinks however that the pandemic must have been a wonderful time for all writers is badly wrong. Writers are diverse. So are their circumstances. I know many people who struggled to write through lockdown. I happen to be a working, single parent to a teenager with ASD. When schools closed and the workload with my day job hiked, as well as the stress and isolation of lockdown and home-schooling, space and time to write became virtually impossible. Family and mental health became the priority ahead of writing. If I hadn’t had a deadline for Truth Be Told, it wouldn’t have happened.
I still don’t feel I’ve managed to get back to a healthy balance and routine with writing – and I miss that badly, but equally, I’m not going to beat myself up about it, there are only so many hours in a day. If it takes a bit longer to get into a third novel, so be it. It’ll happen when it’s meant to. Until then, I’ll probably try and enjoy writing some shorter pieces. I’m a big fan of flash fiction and, though I think they’re an art I’ve a lot to learn about, I also enjoy writing short stories.
I’ve only written two novels so far, but I think my approach is a mixture of ‘planning’ and ‘pantsing’ (Ed: As in ‘flying by the seat of’). My début novel, Guard Your Heart, was the first fiction I’d written since school. Believe me – that’s a long time ago now. I’d no literary training when I started to write and it even took ages to own the word ‘writer’. Writing Guard Your Heart was a complete ‘pantsing’ job – not out of choice, just sheer ignorance. And maybe there was a beauty in that naivety. Maybe I’d never have started if I knew the odds on ever getting published. I didn’t know there was such a thing as ‘planning’ a novel – never mind any concepts of three or five act structures, character arcs, inciting incidents. The truth is, I’d never even heard of ‘YA’ until a friend asked me why I’d chosen to write that genre.
The flip side of ‘pantsing’ it on the first novel was that was that, learning as I went along, I had mountains of self-edits to wade through. It probably added a year into the process. Learning about formatting – and fixing it. Learning about voice – and fixing it. Learning about dips in the mid-section – and fixing it. Learning about word count – and removing 25,000 words line by line. The key thing though was learning to fix it myself – an upskilling that was worth the investment.
When it came to writing Truth Be Told, after 12,000 words I hit a crisis. I’d a sudden realisation that, having winged it on the first book, I actually didn’t know how to write a novel. In my head, I’d all the backstory, but none of the actual story. You think I’m joking? Honestly – serious. Cue research. Cue ‘Into the Woods’ and all that vital stuff. As a result, novel two ended up much more planned – it needed careful plotting. Not surprisingly, the first draft of Truth Be Told, started from a much better position than the first draft of Guard Your Heart. In the debate of planning versus pantsing then I’m a balance of both at this point.
I’ve also learned a lot about the process of publishing. I had no concept of how competitive it was. No concept of the amount of work in edits and promotions. Equally, I’d no concept of how much I would love it all and how life affirming it would feel. I really enjoy all the processes. Second time around, I’d a bit more of a sense of how things would play out, but it’s still amazing when you sign off stages of edits, see cover designs for the first time or hold an advance proof in your hand.
If I had to pick one thing that really surprised me, I’d say that before my début novel, I was clueless about the role of editing. I think my head figured that a writer wrote their book (AKA first draft) and that an editor fixed it all up on their behalf and it got published. I’d no sense of how you work with an editor and that their role is often more to highlight issues and make suggestions, but that ultimately, it’s the writer that does the work to ‘fix’ things.
Some of the things I’ve loved most about having a book out there is hearing from readers how they react to the story. That can be as straightforward as seeing reviews that people have taken the time to write on Goodreads or Amazon; chatting to someone at an event, or random contacts I receive from time to time. I’d a lovely approach from a 16-year-old in Northern Ireland who runs her own podcast on social issues, had read the book and wanted to do an interview. Another time, an elderly couple in New Zealand contacted me after reading the book to say how much of their own lives they felt were reflected in Guard Your Heart only from a previous generation. Stuff like that blows me away. Or hearing that students in Philadelphia are reading the book as a way in to understanding conflict and peace-building issues. Those kinds of reactions make me so glad I write.
On character, I’m always drawn to the wilder, edgier characters first. Their voices come much easier. In Guard Your Heart, that was Aidan. In Truth Be Told, it was Tara. I just love the rough diamonds. Once I find their voice, they just run off onto the page and take on a life of their own. Sometimes when I’m still trying to ‘find’ a unique voice for them, I experiment with their characters in flash fiction or short stories.
Probably the most difficult thing about having two narrators in Truth Be Told is that they’re both sixteen-year-old girls from Northern Ireland, yet they needed to sound different on the page so that they were instantly recognisable. For me, it was about delving into their characters to really feel who they were as individuals and trying to permeate that through everything they narrated.
Often, I have specific music that transports me more quickly into characters. I’d love to know if other writers do this. Aidan was Cedarwood Road by U2 and several tracks from Kongos – Repeat After Me, Come With Me Now. Iona was more broadly an Ed Sheerin/Singer Songwriter type of character. In Truth Be Told, Tara and Jack came alive with the track Champions by James Blunt. There was also a track on that album called The Truth which connected for Tara. This doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the music the characters themselves would listen to – it’s simply a tool that works for me. In both my novels, my subsidiary characters are vital for showing more of the diversity of Northern Ireland and for challenging stereotypes. Long walks and swimming also clear my mind to help put me into a writing headspace. I often find it really difficult to discipline myself to prioritise writing new material – there are so many other things competing to be priority. When I do eventually ‘give myself permission’ to write, it’s often in an ancient tatty recliner armchair in my living room with the laptop on a cushion.
In terms of setting, as a writer, real places often trigger stories in my head. My first drafts are also often invoked by writing in a particular place – or having been somewhere and scribbled copious notes and observations in words about the vibe I get from it. Sometimes, I’ll do this simply because I have a sense that it’ll be of use down the line for a story or scene without knowing the specifics. For example, it was either by luck or providence that in autumn 2019 I’d packed my notebook with scribbles from the huge Hallowe’en carnival in Derry and also the Roaring Meg bike show round the city walls. Both of those ended up being key scenes in Truth Be Told – and all of those events were cancelled in 2020 due to Covid, so I don’t think I could have written them the same way but for that premonition.
Bearing in mind that I was writing most of Truth Be Told during strict lockdowns, there really only were two places that I could access for significant amounts of time – the city I live in, Derry, and Armagh, where I grew up and my mother still lives. In Armagh, most of the setting were places I could walk my mum’s dog! I’d wanted to move at least part of the story out of Derry anyway so that it would give me a rural dynamic and be different to Guard Your Heart. In brief though, why I set my scenes in specific places is pretty straightforward – I live in a part of the world that is stunningly beautiful. Why wouldn’t I set my scenes in all my favourite local places?