Twitter, how I’ve missed you!

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So, I did it ! A month without Twitter and I survived – just!  As many of my Twitter and blog followers will know, in July I made the momentous decision to stay off of Twitter for a month.  I’d been spending so much time interacting with other writers, reading interesting blog posts etc that I was struggling to find enough time to keep up with my own writing and reading.   
I recently met the lovely @isabelashdown at a book launch (Rook, by Jane Rusbridge – review coming soon) and Isabel told me that she always takes the whole of August away from Twitter. The sky didn’t fall in, she assured me, and what’s more, she got lots of reading and writing done.
I took the plunge and said TTFN to all my Twitter pals on July 31st. It was only when I woke up the following morning that I realised how ridiculously  hooked I’d become; I woke mentally composing a tweet about how odd it was going to be to not be able to share my thoughts on being off the Twitter scene for a while! Composing a tweet about it – you see where I was going wrong!
So, I reminded myself that it was possible to go about one’s daily business and not share every thought and observation with the Twitter community, and I started to use the extra time to get on with my second novel, and to catch up with my reading. I was lucky in that we had a week’s holiday in August, too, so that was even more lovely reading time.
I am happy to report that I have made some progress on my novel. Contrary to my own advice in Writing a First Draft  I didn’t actually get to the end of the first draft before starting to rewrite, because I decided that as I’d made so many changes, I couldn’t realistically write the final sections until I’d strengthened some of the earlier stuff. I have also done a lot of reading – see mini-blog post to come later.
In other news, halfway through August I managed to break my ankle while running up some stairs. I know, I know – the teachers were right when they told us to walk-don’t-run.  It was pretty hard to stay off Twitter at that point, I can tell you! I wanted to get straight on there and tell everyone how much it hurt, how I’d got a flashy purple cast, how frustrating it was not to be able to carry a cup of tea from the worktop to the kitchen table, and most of all, how sitting about with your feet up sounds quite nice, but is spoiled by the fact that it’s a killer for your back. And you get a numb bum, too. 
I’m still on crutches (which aggravates the RSI in my arms)but I’m getting about a little more easily now. I still have to keep my foot elevated much of the time, but at least I can sit at my desk for a few hours each day. I miss walking the dog, though, and dread to think what the lack of exercise will do to my figure!
Anyway, back to the main topic.  I’m really glad I took a month away from Twitter; I’ve definitely got more done, and it’s really made me think about  using social media a bit more sensibly in future. I’ve decided that from now on, I’m going to take a week off each month, just to catch up with work and keep things in perspective. I’m wondering about a daily time limit, too. Or is that too hard to measure?
Having said all that, I’m absolutely delighted to be back, because I’ve really missed my daily chats with this wonderfully supportive and endlessly interesting and entertaining community.  
Could you survive a month away from Twitter? Have you ever tried restricting your use of social media? How did it go? Did you just have some time off or have you made permanent changes? 
 For more about me and my work, visit www.susanelliotwright.co.uk

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Can I survive a month away from Twitter?

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Like many others, I was sceptical about Twitter. Wasn’t it all about celebrity gossip and the finer points of what Stephen Fry had for breakfast? And given the amount of time Twitter was bound to gobble up, how could it possible be ‘good for writers’?
Well, it’s almost a year since I joined Twitter, and I haven’t once learned what Stephen Fry has for breakfast (mind you, I don’t follow him, so his breakfast would have to be spectacular enough to warrant a retweet if I were ever to hear about it.)

And I have to admit that I do now see why Twitter is good for writers. I have gained so much from Twitter in the past year that it’s now quite hard to imagine life without it.  Not only is Twitter a virtual water cooler/coffee shop in terms of giving us solitary authors access to the daily banter that enhances the working day of those with ‘proper jobs’, but it has also provided me with a number of book recommendations I might not otherwise have discovered, it has opened the doors to such a wealth of interesting newspaper articles, blog posts, quotes and YouTube videos about writing and the writing process that I can never hope to read even a tenth of what’s available; it has provided real-time updates in the form of Tweets from writers’ conferences and events that that I haven’t been able to attend, and, most valuable of all, it has given me new friends.

The friends I’ve made on Twitter are mostly, but not all, other authors, and this means they understand a lot about my life, and I understand a lot about theirs.  We empathise with the challenges we all face in our daily quest to ‘get some work done’; we sympathise with each other’s isolation; we commiserate over rejections and we celebrate successes.
But there is a downside. All this wonderful support comes from having a strong network of people that you frequently interact with, and interaction takes time.  Twitter is also the BEST vehicle for procrastination, and what’s more, when you confess to procrastinating, loads of other authors will jump to your defence, convincing you that it’s normal or even desirable to procrastinate. I’m guilty of this myself and even wrote a blog post encouraging others. *hangs head in shame* See 7-ways-to-justify-procrastination 
So, in the interests of the health of my second novel, and at the risk of returning to Twitter to find that no-one remembers me, I’ve decided to follow fellow author Isabel Ashdown’s  (@isabelashdown) example and have a month (ish) away from Twitter.  Gulp. I’m going away for a week in August anyway, and lots of other people will be away too, so I won’t miss much, right? Who am I kidding – I’ll miss loads.
But despite wondering how on earth I’m going to survive for a month without the support of my lovely Twitter mates, I’m going to take a deep breath, and I’m going to do it!  See you in September!
 For more about me and my work, visit www.susanelliotwright.co.uk

And to access a list of recipes and book reviews on this blog, go to:recipes and book reviews and scroll down the page (past the writing bits)

How much should you talk about your work in progress?

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In a recent piece for The Author (the Society of Author’s quarterly magazine) Terence Blacker asked ‘what makes an author?’ and then listed what he sees as the criteria for ‘authorliness’. While I agree  with a great deal of what he said  (it’s a great piece – read it here: Terenceblacker.com ) I wasn’t sure how I felt about this item in the list:
– You never, if you write fiction, talk about your work in progress. You learn quite early that, once the steam is let out of a story through talk, it can never be recovered. When a would-be writer tells you every turn of the novel they are planning, you know they will never write it.
Is this absolutely true, I wonder? Over the years, I have found talking about my work to be quite useful. In fact, I encourage my students to talk about their work, too, and one of the most popular sessions, both with undergrads and with community evening class students, is the one where everyone outlines their plot (it may be a short story or a novel) to the group and we brainstorm the possibilities for development.  This works particularly well with short stories where the student may have come up with a striking image or an interesting character but is unsure where to go next. The very act of talking through the ideas with other writers often sparks possibilities that person may not have thought of if s/he had been all alone with a blank screen or notebook.   
I have one friend in particular who I thrash out ideas with. She and I use each other as sounding boards and we both find it helps enormously to discuss any problems we encounter in our novels.  It’s not necessarily that either of us will come up with a solution – although that does sometimes happen – it’s more that by discussing the work in detail, we’re often able to help each other to pin down and develop the ghost of an idea that’s been swirling around in our heads along with hundreds of others.
We authors are often so close to our own work that we may not see a solution that’s staring us in the face, whereas another writer can spot it instantly.  Also, someone who is used to the exploring the world of fiction themselves may be able to help us to see aspects of our own stories that we’re too close to notice, and this can help us to see the whole thing in a different light. 
My friend and I recently said that instead of just phoning each other to talk through difficulties with our work as they arise, perhaps we should plan a regular fortnightly session where we can chat about our novels on a regular basis, a sort of therapy session in which we can pour out our frustrations as well as possibly finding new directions for our work.
What I’m not sure about, is whether it’s a good idea to discuss your work-in-progress with non-writing friends. This is not because I’m worried that by outlining the story I’m going to somehow ‘let the steam out’, but because non-writers are less likely to understand what you’re trying to do with a particular piece and may come up with suggestions that are so far removed from what you had in mind that you end up saying, ‘no, I don’t think that’ll work’ so many times that your friend gets upset and stalks off in a huff.
On further reflection, I suppose Terence Blacker’s comment: ‘When a would-be writer tells you every turn of the novel they are planning, you know they will never write it.’ May carry some weight. First, he’s talking about a ‘would-be writer’ rather than a writer, and as we all know, there are many would-be writers who never get around to actually writing anything at all. Also, maybe talking about ‘every turn’ of a novel is not such a good idea – maybe that wouldmake it lose its steam. Although I’m not sure it’s even possible to discuss ‘every turn’ of a novel.
So for me, discussing my work-in-progress is not a problem – I’ve never had that experience of losing steam, of having ‘talked it out’.  Showing it to anyone else when it’s still at an early stage can be a problem, but that’s a whole different blog post!
So I’m really interested to know what you think. Has it ever happened to you that you’ve talked about your story in such depth that you no longer felt able to write it? Or do you find discussing your work in progress a useful part of your writing life? 
 For more about me and my work, visit www.susanelliotwright.co.uk

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Writing a first draft

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29 June 2012
18:50
Hemingway once said, ‘All first drafts are shit’.  Ernest, me old mate,  that is an understatement! I am referring, of course, to  my own current first-draft which at the moment is a steaming pile of merde if ever there was one.  I have to keep reminding myself that there were times when I felt the same about my first novel, but after a great deal of rewriting, I now think it’s rather good, and so do Simon & Schuster, who are publishing it in May 2013.
 
  
A novel has to start somewhere; it doesn’t just appear in the right order with the storylines perfectly developed, the characters rounded and convincing, the themes consistent, relevant and thought-provoking.   You have to craft and hone and polish.  And most writers agree that most of the crafting and honing and polishing comes later – after you’ve written the first draft.
But it ain’t easy, folks, so although I hope this post will encourage other authors who are currently wading through the mires of their own first drafts, it’s also a bit of a pep talk to myself, because at the moment, I’m going through a very sticky patch. I’m changing things  –  I’ve changed the  period  the novel is set in and the occupation of the main character, I’ve changed the age of a supporting character, and I’ve introduced a new viewpoint. No doubt there will be a lot more changes. I’m also plagued by doubts – is the plot too thin? Will it be believable? Are my characters convincing? Will the whole thing work? Will anybody give a flying feck?
The thing is, I know from past experience and from talking to other writers that it would be unusual not to be thinking like this at this stage. So I’m ploughing on and I hope to have a rough – very rough – first draft completed by mid-August. There! I’ve stated it publicly, so now I’ll have to do it! Some people write a first draft in a few weeks, and I envy them. I take considerably longer. I started working seriously on this idea in December, so if I hit my August deadline, it will have taken me eight to nine months – and at least the same again for rewriting.
 A couple of years ago, I attended a novel masterclass by award winning author Jill Dawson. Jill keeps a journal-type notebook for every novel, in which she records her thoughts about the novel and the writing process – she uses the notebook almost as a silent writing buddy, having ‘conversations ‘ with it about the work as it progresses.  With her most recent novel, she confided, she’d got to the 40,000 word point and had decided it wasn’t working, and what’s more, couldn’t be made to work. At the point of despair and on the verge of giving up, she decided to have a flick through notebooks from previous novels. She found that she had experienced the same excruciating doubts with every novel she’d ever written – including the orange-shortlisted ones – and very often at the 40,000 word point!
So what we need to do is to really get it into out heads that a first draft is little more than a rough sketch, and we fill in the colour and texture later. At this stage, even if you’ve done plenty of planning,  things will change along the way, so to a certain extent, you’re still telling yourself the story. There will be inconsistencies, plot threads that lead nowhere, one-dimensional characters, rubbish dialogue, important scenes that are skimmed over, lengthy scenes that will end up being cut completely. There will probably be superfluous back story,  lots of ‘telling’ and info-dumping, and no real sign of a decent theme. Stephen King tells us not to even think about themes in the first draft, and I think that’s good advice. The real themes may turn out to be different to what you expected, because your unconscious will have been working away on your behalf.
So no matter how dreadful your first draft seems now, just plough on.  Keep moving your story onwards, even if it feels mundane and clumsy, even if it goes off in directions you hadn’t planned. Remember that it isn’t set in stone  – a half-realised scene can be added to later; a digression that doesn’t work can be cut. Just keep putting the words down! Some writers like to check their word counts each day; others prefer to write for a timed period, or to write to a particular point in the story. I’m a word-count person, and I like to have some sort of visual encouragement, something that shows my progress. I reckon my first draft should be about 90,000 words, so I took two jars, and counted out 90 glass pebbles into one of them and stood them on my desk. For every thousand words I write, I move a pebble from the ‘to write’ jar to the ‘written’ jar.  
I’m happy to say that the jar on the right is the ‘written’ jar! It’s a little bit of nonsense, of course, because many of these words will end up being cut, but I find it helps to spur me on.
When you get to the end of a first draft, it’s time to celebrate – even if it’s pretty poor – because now you have something to work on. Rewriting and editing will turn a poor first draft into an okay one, and an okay draft into a good one. From there, you’re talking very good or even excellent. But if you don’t have a draft, you have nothing.
Do you struggle with your first drafts, or do you find that the easy part? Are you able to ignore the flaws and keep writing, or do you edit as you go along? How long do your first drafts take, or does it vary?  I’d love to hear your experiences – perhaps we could cheer each other on?   
For more about me and my work, visit www.susanelliotwright.co.uk

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Review of Tideline by Penny Hancock

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When I saw that Tideline by Penny Hancock was set in Greenwich in south east London, I knew I had to read it because it was set very near to where I grew up. I was not disappointed! The story follows Sonia, a woman in her 40s who invites Jez, her friend’s 15 year-old nephew, into her house to borrow a CD, then gets him so drunk that he has to stay the night. It soon becomes clear that she has no intention of letting him go, at least not for a while.
Sonia is clearly unhappy and lonely, but she is also psychologically damaged. The narrative flips back and forth between past and present. Sonia’s present day life involves a cantankerous elderly mother, widowed after Sonia’s father took his own life; a less than happy marriage to a frequently absent husband, and bittersweet memories of an intense and slightly masochistic adolescent relationship with the beautiful and exciting Seb, who Sonia loved and lost. As the narrative unfolds, we see the impact that the past has had on the present, and we begin to understand why Sonia finds it so difficult to give Jez up.
Sonia is the central character, but we also hear from her friend Helen, Jez’s aunt. Helen’s troubled marriage, her difficult and competitive relationship with her sister, and her increasing dependence on alcohol are well drawn and engaging. Jez is staying with Helen when he disappears, and it is his disappearance that exposes the many cracks in Helen’s life. Her relationship with her sister, Maria, is particularly well-drawn, with each sister criticising the other’s parenting, and each blaming the other for Jez’s disappearance.
Sonia lives in the River House, so close to the Thames that she can smell the river’s smells and hear its swirling waters beneath her windows. Penny Hancock creates a wonderful sense of place in this novel, and the river in particular is described vividly, especially in the flashback sections. I grew up not far from Greenwich, and spent quite a lot of time hanging around these areas as a teenager in the seventies – I can vouch for the accuracy of the descriptions of the filthy, chemical soup that was the Thames in those days, the brownish colour, the oiliness, the frothy yellow scum that floated on its surface, the rubbish it carried and deposited on its shores. The river is itself a beautifully evoked character in this novel, and its treachery and danger reflects the treachery and danger in the relationships of the characters.
This is a wonderfully dark and suspenseful novel with engaging characters, a page-turning plot and a couple of unexpected and satisfying twists at the end. One reviewer observed, ‘There are hints of a young Daphne du Maurier in Hancock’s cool, evocative prose’. I usually scoff at such claims, but for once I wholeheartedly agree. The writing is assured and the story atmospheric and haunting. I suspect Tideline will stay with me for a long time!

Newsflash! The cover for my debut novel, The Things We Never Said, is now on the Home and Fiction pages of my website

 For more about me and my work, visit www.susanelliotwright.co.uk 

 And to access a list of recipes and book reviews on this blog, go to: recipes and book reviews

Review of God’s Own Country, by Ross Raisin

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I’ve had Ross Raisin’s 2008 novel God’s Own Country on my shelves for some time, and it was only after hearing a little of a discussion about it on Radio 4’s Bookclub that I finally got around to reading it. I can’t think why it took me so long. This is an original, beautifully written and utterly compelling novel.
The story is told first person by Sam Marsdyke, a distinctly odd and lonely 19-year-old living in rural north Yorkshire with his farming parents.  Sam’s heavy dialect feels thoroughly authentic, even though some of the words, as Raisin admitted on Bookclub, are made up. I say, who cares?  When ‘the girl’ gazes across the moors with a ‘look of yonderment’, we know exactly what that means; and what better word for the clutter of ornamental bits and bobs adorning the walls of the village pub than ‘trunklements’?
The beauty of the area is skilfully evoked. The descriptions of the weather, the wildlife and the rolling moorland are remarkably vivid, and the wild landscape is as present and significant here as it was in Wuthering Heights. Sam spends his free time tramping the moors with his beloved dog, Sal, and initially, the way he torments the ‘towns’ – ramblers for whom he has utter contempt – by throwing a small stone at them from behind a wall, seems little more than mischievous, but soon, things take a much darker turn.

Sam’s internal monologue provides little snippets of information about his past, which, when we put them together, paint a disturbing picture. We learn early on that he was kicked out of school because of an assault on another pupil, and that his mother cried a lot at the time and still needs reassurance that she shouldn’t blame herself, rather that he ‘must’ve come out backward’. Sam imagines that when people look at him, they see the word ‘rapist’ on his forehead, and he’s convinced that everyone hates or is afraid of him. But he’s comfortable with animals and often holds imaginary conversations with them, as well as with the sun and moon, and even with everyday objects. He takes a liking to the new neighbours’ 15-year-old daughter, but he can’t think what to say to her.  ‘Talk to her, you doylem,’ her hair slide tells him. ‘She’ll bugger off if you don’t’.
At first, he considers her feelings; when she wants to watch the lambing, he’s conscious of how she might be affected by a stillbirth and he guesses she’d be upset if she knew that the dead lamb would normally be skinned, so he buries it instead. But as he becomes more obsessed with ‘the girl’ as he refers to her, it becomes clear that this can’t end well. One day, as he’s watching a ram servicing the ewes, his thoughts become confused, giving us the most chilling glimpse yet of what he is capable of: ‘The ewe just let him, not a sound, not a sign she was liking it or not.  I knew she was, mind – no matter she was sore from his clobbers, or that he was bruising on top her neck. She’d have tried to move off if she didn’t like it, she’d have struggled at least –  she didn’t do anything, though, except one point she gave out a small noise, quiet, but enough, and I knew she was liking it because her hand tightened into a fist, not gripping anything, just closing tight on itself so as to flesh went white rounds the knuckles and there was a chain of half moons across her palm when he’d finished and the hand went limp.’ I had to read this twice because I thought I missed something – then I realised that in fact, the sight of the animals mating had dredged up a memory of the assault.
Although Sam is in many ways a frightening character – sinister, disturbed and disturbing, and clearly capable of cruel and violent behaviour – I found myself feeling increasingly sorry for him as the novel progressed.  He presents his upbringing as harsh and his father as something of a brute, but we must bear in mind that Sam is a far from reliable narrator, and though we see that his father is certainly gruff, we note that he still uses the mug that Sam bought him when he was little. But whether or not Sam misreads the people around him,  what is certain is that he is unable to connect with them and is desperately lonely.
In the final scenes, where, without giving too much away, the extent of Sam ‘s, shall we say, ‘antisocial’ tendencies are revealed, I still felt sorry for him, because apart from anything else, he seemed completely oblivious to the distress he was causing, and almost bewildered by how things turned out.
Sam is a complex and fascinating character; he does bad things, but he got so under my skin that I’ve found my thoughts returning to him and his world again and again since I finished the novel.  God’s Own Country is occasionally funny, but mostly it’s dark and disturbing; it’s also tragic and with a sort of rough, weathered beauty. This is a novel that I’m pretty sure I’ll read a second time.
 For more about me and my work, visit www.susanelliotwright.co.uk

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7 ways to justify procrastination

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Okay, we’ve all done it.  It may be that there’s a deadline looming; it may be that you’ve hit a problem with your work-in-progress, or it may simply be that you need to be getting on with your novel. You’ve spent days clearing outstanding work and emails and now you finally have some time. Do you go straight to your desk and make a start? No, you clean out the fridge, de-scale the kettle or de-flea the cat. In the spirit of understanding and support of my fellow writers, I’d like  to share my seven top displacement activities – in no particular order – and offer suggestions as to how you can turn them into justifiable writerly endeavor:
1.  Watching TV – the trick here is to be selective.  Watch things that can feed your storytelling skills or give you ideas for characters.  Watching films or TV dramas can not only give you ideas for stories, but can really help you learn how to show rather than tell.  Note how characters’ actions, dialogue, and facial expressions show the audience what the characters are feeling.  And some ‘reality’ shows –  the ones that show ‘real’ reality  rather than ‘Big Brother’ reality – are great for giving you character details.  I favour ‘come dine with me’ for this purpose.
2.  Looking on Rightmove – or is this just me?  I love looking at houses we might be able to afford, and some that we definitely can’t.  Or houses out in the country, or little tea shops, or B&Bs.  The way to make this a legitimate activity is to turn it into research.  Your characters live in houses, yes?  And now and again you need to put in a bit of description so the reader can picture your character at home.  Rightmove (www.rightmove.co.uk) is great because not only can you see the outside of the house, you can have a virtual poke around inside too, so simply find a photograph of a suitable room or garden and describe what you see.  You can even describe the street your character lives in – simply click on ‘street view’.
3.  Looking round the shops – use this to decide what sort of clothes your characters wear, what sort of food they buy, and maybe even what furniture or carpets they choose.  Or you can try mooching around the charity shops – sometimes a used handbag or a worn pair of shoes can suggest things about a character that you’d never have thought of on your own.  The bric-a-brac and books can be interesting too.
4.  Going to your favourite coffee shop – well this is an obvious one, isn’t it?  Take a notebook with you and people-watch!  Notice what’s unusual about the people around you; there may be one tiny detail that snags your interest and forms the basis for a whole new character.  I once developed a short story around a woman who wore slightly old fashioned clothes for her age, and whose child had a rather loud voice.  The story became Day Tripper, which was broadcast on radio four.
5.  Phoning a friend – I don’t mean just phone any old mate to catch up on the gossip; I mean phone a writing friend and use the call to discuss your work-in-progress.  It’s a great way to resolve sticky problems in your writing.  Sometimes, your friend may come up with a solution you hadn’t thought of, but often it’s simply that talking it through and bouncing ideas off another writer does the trick. You can then offer to be a sounding board for your writing friend, and once you’ve both got ideas about where to go next, then, and only then, you can catch up on the gossip.
6.  Going for a walk  – there’s something about the action of putting one foot in front of the other that seems to stimulate ideas. I often find that the solution to a problem with my work will just jump into my head while I’m walking, usually when I’m thinking about something completely different.  I read about one writer who said that when she hits a problem, she goes walking and will not allow herself to return home until she’s solved that problem; she’s made it home before dark on all but one occasion! Even if you don’t have a problem to solve, a walk can still be productive. Try noticing things you don’t normally notice; look up at the tops of trees and the upper stories of buildings; look at the ground, notice the puddles, the weeds, the debris in the gutter. If you’ve ever taken a very young child for a walk, you’ll know how things we take utterly for granted – a snail, a dandelion clock, a broken umbrella shoved into a public bin – can be sources of wonder. Try to see things with a child’s eye for a change – it could bring a whole new dimension to your writing.
7.  Flicking through a magazine – firstly, they’re good for stories, especially the ‘real life’ mags. Some people’s lives are absolutely packed with drama. The only downside is that some of these true stories are so bizarre that if you tried to fictionalise them, you ‘d struggle to make them believable! There are also great stories to be found in the letters pages, and especially the ‘problem page’. The other thing I sometimes use magazines for is to help me picture a character or a setting.. Having a picture in front of you can really help you describe someone’s hairstyle, tattoo or facial expression. Again ‘real’ people, rather than models or celebs are better for this, and I find the Sunday supplements particularly useful.

 For more about me and my work, visit www.susanelliotwright.co.uk

 And to access a list of recipes and book reviews on this blog, go to: recipes and book reviews

Lucky 7 – Seven Lines from New Works

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Interestingly enough, I’d already decided to write a blog post about how to justify displacement activities (coming soon)when lo and behold, I found myself tagged by Jane Rusbridge, author of the wonderful The Devil’s Music, and the forthcoming Rook, in the ‘Lucky 7 – Seven Lines from New Works’ thingy on Twitter. I couldn’t possible let a fellow author down (that’s the justification) so here goes.  The rules are:
Go to page 7 or 77 of your current manuscript
Go to line 7
Post the next 7 lines or sentences, exactly as they are – no cheating
Tag 7 other authors to do the same
What fun! We get a sneak preview of each other’s books and we get to justify some time away from what we’re writing now to go back to lines we’ve already written. Hoorah! So, here is my contribution. It’s from page 7 of The Things We Never Said, which is due to be published by Simon & Schuster in May 2013. 
After, they hold hands as they lie side by side, hip to hip, thigh to thigh, each enjoying the heat from the other’s skin, reluctant to break the connection by allowing air to move between them. For once, perhaps sated by food, wine and sex, Jonathan falls asleep quickly and sleeps peacefully for a good few hours before slipping into the recurring dream that has plagued him over the last few weeks. He is up to his knees, building a snowman. Dazzling sunlight glances off the whiteness and there are deep drifts all around. He can feel the snow under his fingers, but suddenly the cold is shockingly, unbearably intense. Then he is waist-high, trying to struggle free, and that’s when he sees the child, not much more than a baby, sinking down in the snow next to him. He tries and tries to pull her out, but it’s hopeless; the snow has claimed her.
Poor Jonathan. Apart from the dream, this is a brief happy moment in his troubled life, and he has no idea just how much more troubled it’s going to become.
So, now to tag my fellow authors.  I could tag a great many wonderful writers but am only allowed seven, so have picked seven lovely ladies who don’t seem to have been ‘got’ so far. I hope you’ll let us have a sneak peek at your Lucky 7!
Sally Quilford @quillers
Mel Sherratt @writermels
Abi Burlingham @abiburlingham
Judith Kinghorn @judithkinghorn
Nettie Thomson @nettiewriter
Janice Horton @janicehorton
Shelley Harris @shelleywriter

For more about me and my work, visit www.susanelliotwright.co.uk
And to access a list of recipes and book reviews on this blog, go to: recipes and book reviews

A real Character (or in this case, me!)

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This week’s post is in response to, and pays homage to a wonderful blog  by fellow writer Isabel Costello http://isabelcostello.wordpress.com/2012/03/25/a-real-character-or-in-this-case-me/  In the post, Isabel makes the point that characters develop as a result of a combination of different factors, and that just like real people, they are influenced by their genes, environment, experiences, friends, personality, likes and dislikes, and so on.  When we learn a little about those influences, we learn more about the person, too. 
Isabel has generously shared a few scraps of information about herself under the title Real Character, and although I have never met her, I now feel I know a lot more about her.  She has indeed “come to life” as  a real person (which of course, she is!) Like most writers, I am exceptionally nosey about, and fascinated by people and their lives, so I thought it would be a great idea to encourage other writers/bloggers to do the same – to write a Real Character piece, then publicise it on Twitter using the hashtag #realcharacter.
As Isabel says, fictional characters have to be that little bit more interesting than real people; but we often take little details from people we’ve met and exaggerate them to flesh out our characters. If lots of writers join in with this project and write their own #realcharacter piece, not only will it make fascinating reading, but we’ll all know each other a little better and we’ll have a marvellous resource – a treasure trove of character details.
To get us started, here’s mine:
Genes/inheritance
I’m short and dark, not particularly overweight but with a tendency to gain weight easily.  In that respect, I take after my mother, whereas my sister is tall and lean like our father.  My great great grandmother was  Spanish, and apparently I look just like her, although the photograph that suggests this is sadly lost.
Environment
I was born in London, grew up there and raised my children there.  For years the idea of living in the country horrified me – all that mud!  But as I get older, I find I am more and more drawn to trees, fields, country lanes and fresh air.  We currently live in Sheffield, a 20-minute drive from the beautiful Peak District, and a 20-minute walk from the city centre.  I love Sheffield, except that we’re a  long way from the sea;  I dream of one day living by the sea.
Habits
Mainly bad.  I love drinking wine, and really struggle to take the recommended two days off each week. Wine is just so nice.  I adore food and if I didn’t restrain myself, I’d be the size of the house.  I smoked for a long time, but haven’t now for more than ten years, thank goodness. I also like to swear. Not in anger, or for no reason, but I think ‘colourful language’ (as my grandma used to call it) can be very funny and is great when used for adding emphasis. 
I do have a few good habits: I read a great deal and always have a book on the go. I start every morning with two pieces of fruit and I walk the dog every day, rain or shine.
Personality
I’m fairly outgoing and friendly. I love people but am equally happy in my own company and sometimes even prefer to spend time alone. Or with the dog – I’m more of a dog person than a cat person, but I like all animals.  I talk to the dog – he thinks I’m wise, witty, and erudite.
I wear a lot of black. I’m too old to be a goth, but would have enjoyed wearing a black tutu and DMs.
Humour and laughter are important to me, and like Isabel, I’m drawn to funny people. I particularly enjoy verbal wit.  My favourite sitcom ever is Frasier, a wonderful mix of wit, farce, and pathos.
I love life and I’m hugely motivated by the quest for self-fulfilment. I like to achieve things and to be striving for something, and as soon as one project is complete I’m looking for a new one. 
My favourite time of year is autumn, and I like dramatic weather, especially heavy rain, thunderstorms and high winds.
Sometimes, I can be a bit of a know-all, and I like to be right – but I’m working on this! 
Skills (or otherwise)
I’m a good cook, and can even make and decorate a wedding cake – I used to do this for a living.  I’m also quite good at home decorating and transforming grotty houses. But I’m a rubbish gardener and can kill plants that are supposed to be un-killable. My attempts at growing vegetables – well, don’t ask!
I’m not musical, although I would dearly love to be.  I always fancied myself as a rock guitarist, but my attempts to learn the guitar all failed dismally.  I am quoted as saying, (with no sense of irony) ‘I’d give my right arm to be able to play the guitar.’  Hmm…
And one more thing…
If you’ve read Isabel’s blogpost, this really is going to appear spooky, but I too believe in love at first  sight.  I met my husband in October 1994, and within a couple of weeks we’d decided to marry.  We initially set the date for21st December – my birthday. But although I’d recently gone through a divorce, I realised I hadn’t actually applied for my Decree Absolute – I was never going to marry again, you see.  We didn’t get around to the wedding until 1997, but have now been together happily for over 17 years.
So, if you’d like to take part, simply write your Real Character piece, post it on your blog and publicise it with the Twitter hashtag #realcharacter. I look forward to reading them!
For more about me and my work, visit www.susanelliotwright.co.uk

Daily, weekly, monthly? How often should you blog?

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When I first started this blog back in September 2011, I planned to write three sections each week: the writing bit, the reading bit, and the food bit.  I was so enthusiastic and excited about the project that I could have written hundreds of words on each subject, every time.  But I soon realised that, given that I also have a number of teaching commitments, a house to clean, a dog to walk and a husband to talk to, not to mention a Difficult Second Novel to write,  I simply don’t have time to write what is essentially three posts a week. Most writers seem to blog anything from daily to occasionally.  Personally, I think weekly is good, although I have to admit that recently, I have failed dismally to even keep to that.
Sadly, I don’t even have time to read as many blogs as I’d like, but now and again I have a ‘blog fest’  where I spend a whole morning catching up. In doing this recently, I took note of how frequently the blogs appeared, and I discovered that many of the daily blogs are very short, and skim the surface of the subject, whereas the longer blogs were usually more in-depth with more to get your teeth into. 
Some frequent bloggers post on the same subject over several posts, e.g.  Plotting: part one, part two, part three.  And I think this works really well. But some short blogs promise more than they can really deliver, and it’s disappointing to find that something that suggestsan in-depth discussion about, say, point-of-view, character, or plotting, in reality only touches on the subject.
Could this be because the blogger has recognized how difficult it is to blog on a daily basis and still have time for writing a novel, short stories or whatever?  How anyone, especially a writer, finds time to blog every day is beyond me.  Fine, if you can come up with a riveting, pithy nugget of genius in 20 minutes flat, but the chances are that blogging every day means you’re likely to sacrifice quality in favour of brevity.  Unless you can give your blog the time and attention it deserves, your reader is likely to be disappointed.
Having said that, there are some daily – or almost daily – blogs that really do seem to do the trick, as in, they do actually deliver. So how come there are so many brilliant brief bloggers out there?  Shall I tell you my sneaking suspicion? –  and I only say this because I know I’ve done the same thing myself – I’m wondering if the good daily bloggers are using their blogs as a legitimate form of procrastination.  I mean, it’s writing isn’t it?  Its creative, you’re practicing your skills, honing your craft; it counts, right?
Well, it does, sort of.  It’s certainly better than not writing anything, and it helps to get you known, but unless you’re sure that you can deliver posts of a reasonable quality without seriously impinging on the writing time you have available, might it not be better to blog less frequently so that you can spend  time on each post and still have time left to devote to your work-in-progress?  The important thing, so I’m told, is that your readers know what to expect and when to expect it.  To that end, I have changed the heading on this blog to reflect the fact that it will appear less frequently than it did at the start.
I like to spend a fair bit of time on each post, writing a first draft one day, leaving it overnight, then  editing, tweaking and polishing the next day.  Having said that, I’m sure that many of my posts contain typos, repeated words or inelegant sentences, but if I were to blog several times a week, I fear the quality would be even poorer.
Or is this whole post a transparent attempt to justify my own low output?
How about you?  Do you now blog less frequently than you did at first?  Or have you become even more prolific because of the regular practice?
To find out more about me and what I do, visit: www.susanelliotwright.co.uk