Jackie's blog is moving!

Please go to www.jackietrippierholt.co.uk to see the new one!

Found: one editor, refurbished and ready to use

I have a shady literary past. No, no, I don't mean the erotica. I mean Fan Fiction. You know some writers will go to any lengths not to write? Well, lots find their way into Fan Fiction and write stories using other people's characters. My taste was for the Harry Potter universe.

A-aaaanyway. This is where I met my editor, Raven, in about 2003, I think. She waded tirelessly through debates about Severus Snape and Sirius Black (let's not go there now, it's before the watershed).

She has an English degree. What I do with her comments is my own fault, and she can't be blamed for what I didn't listen to. She also insists she's just a proof reader, but she makes suggestions above and beyond this.

What would we do without the loved ones who donate their time and expertise to our ambitions?

Oh. Haha. That's what Dedications and Acknowledgements are for ...

Annie's Top 10 Soundtrack

In the absence of my Muse tonight - my failure to write anything coherent enough on the subject of "who we are when we write" - instead I offer the soundtrack to "Annie, the Doll, its Thief and Her Lover".

These are not the songs I would include in the soundtrack if I were to have any say on its serialisation on TV. Nope, these delights are what I was listening to when I wrote it.

It is a very diverse list.

10. Incubus "Love Hurts". Because duh.
9. Elvis "The Wonder of You". You know who you are.
8. Brenda Lee "Will You Love Me Tomorrow". Uh huh.
7. Levellers "15 Years". Oh yeah.
6. Alice in Chains "Man in the Box". Awesome.
5. Carol King "It's Too Late". Also, the Quartz version.
4. Lo Fidelity All Stars "Battleflag". Wide grin, hip jut, finger raises.
3. The Cure "A Night Like This" Perfect Smith.
2. Calexico "Black Heart". Because one man's righteousness is another man's
long haul.
1. Neil Diamond "Cracklin Rose". She's a store bought woman, and so f'n what?

Feel free to pimp your own writing playlists.

ETA: right click and Open in New Window ... then you can read "Annie" while you listen ...

What "Life gets in the way of Art" really means

One of my most recent Tweets whined about how Life was getting in the way of Writing.

In mitigation, I was hormonal and I've had a really horrible week, punctuated by other people's stupidity. Actually, for "week", read "month".

However, let's examine what my whine actually says and means. Why do I feel life gets in the way of art? Is my life not reflected in my art? Is that not what my words are all about?

I think part of the problem of getting on with the nitty gritty of my novel - ie, finishing that Aiming at Amazon book and consulting the editing notes that my lovely friend 'Raven' sent me for the first three chapters, and .. just bloody doing it.

I have had some fairly meaty Life Experience recently, and I am concerned it might cast light onto my novel that reveals it to be a shabby, shallow, immature or dishonest work.

Now, the questions are these:

1. are my feelings a way of avoiding the hard work? Is this another attempt by my fragile and lazy ego to scupper my success (see Jenny's Natural Write blogpost on the Mocca Latte)?

2. what should the extent of the editing process be, in this case? There are two options here - lengthy, in depth, breaking bones and resetting them kind of way; or a healthy exfoliation.

I think I know the answer to number one *grumbles*

The second one bothers me the most. A work of art is like a living thing while we are forming it. But then we complete it, perhaps reshape it a little, powder its nose, comb its hair, pat its bum and send it out into the world to be mauled and adored - is it then unable to grow further for us?

How far should we alter it, in the face of life experience? If we write from the heart, then suddenly our heart sees a different view, should we rewrite to reflect what we now know, or preserve the naivety, innocence and purity of the original?

I am thinking that I need to take a look at the work itself, especially as I now seem to have an editor (Raven); but I am thinking, the purity of the original story should be preserved, whatever I think I know now, in retrospect.

Maybe, like John Fowles' Magus, I will have the guts to rewrite it one day; for now I will have the guts to let it be what it was born as, and watch as it lives in the minds of those who read it, use it, love it, hate it.

When I have checked my spelling, grammar and other bits again, naturally.

Walk with my dog in the fog; or the glory of nature in her various moods

See what I did there? Aside from the crude rhyme. Personification. I gave nature a gender, made her female (as is usual) and made her instantaneously at the whim of her hormones. Three hits in such a short sentence. The fourth is that I am pagan, so naturally I do believe that these things can be personified.

This morning was utterly gorgeous, a gift. Those of you who like the outdoors will know its "various moods" and this month, as the tilt of the world dips our summer into the blazing hues of autumn, there's a lingering sense of seeing things for the last time, albeit for a while.

Each morning I say goodbye to the small beauties I see: the red and orange berries, the green-to-golden leaves, the mists that hug the valley's dips and nooks and scars.

I stood in the centre of the playing fields this morning with my dog and laughed at the way she frowned at the dawn fog. She couldn't understand why her vision was restricted, but she got over it.

She was another glory of my morning - watching her dark, athletic form take the pearlescent field with the grace and poise of a six-foot-stride. She abandoned her toy to snuffle the badger scents across the dewy grass and as she raised her head to scan the blind horizon again, her jowls dripped diamonds.

On our way back she took me on a detour and make the muscles in my legs work harder through the uneven undergrowth as I went to retrieve the again-abandoned toy.

When I looked down into the grass I thought I was seeing miniature pockets of fog - but actually there were hundreds, thousands, of grass-spider webs, nestled in the hollows of the wet grass.

Nature had played a little trick, breathed on them and made a secret visible, just for this morning. I may not see a sight like that again until next year, and even then it would have to be the right morning, at the right time of year, even the right hour of the day.

The dog ran on, I stumbled after her, a little overwhelmed and slightly giddy at what I had seen. Suddenly they were everywhere, too: hanging from the fence, captured in the dry stone wall, laced across my neighbour's hedge.

Just, wow.

Looking back to the tale about spiders that I blogged last month, I am now considering the notion that nature, too, with her beauty and her changing moods, has
breathed on me too. And if this story isn't evidence enough of that, then I need to let her breathe on me some more.

Aiming for Amazon: a change of heart

So, the self-published friend, Charles Sheehan-Miles, recommended the book "Aiming at Amazon" by Aaron Shephard.

I have bought it. I am tapping my foot, waiting for delivery, and I will no doubt use it to fuel some debate here.

The change of heart was that I had thought to publish on Lulu, for those who haven't been keeping up. Shame on you.

Readings: Nothing to fear but ... jiggling journalists?

Ben Myers posted a funny article about authors and self-publicity in the Guardian today. The subject is the public readings of one's work.

"I would genuinely rather jiggle my bare genitals at an audience than do that."

*peers at the small photo of Ben Myers beside his article and smirks a little, a twinkle in her eye*

H'okay. I'm a secret show-off. Is that an oxymoron? I don't mean that I pretend not to like public speaking, I wouldn't go around saying "Oh noooooooo I couldn't!" while all the time knowing that I damn well could and wanted to.

But if you met me, you might not realise that I love public speaking, I like to hold an audience, I like to be the centre of (positive) attention. Ninja-like, I sneak my enthusiasm in there at the right moment. I just don't run around announcing it.

Aside from mention of the Myers' Family Jewels, the best thing about this article was the debate around the question of if it was fair to demand that authors should read their work in public.

Fair, when did fair come into it? I remember reading a recent article on Harper Lee and wondered how she has managed to remain such a recluse. Is it genius, that can afford to live above the hard graft of the rest of us?

I still plan to do readings. It will be nerve-wracking, underwear-changing stuff, I know. I might try and hire Ben Myers as my fluffer, if he'll jiggle.

My name is Jackie and I'm a typing perv

The BBC exploited the alleged reasons why we type using QWERTY. It's all quite interesting, my brain and imagination likes these kinds of "this is the amazing history of how XYZ developed" exposés.

What peturbed - nay, made me practically scoff at one of the closing paragraphs was the mere suggestion that we might "do away with" typing because voice recognition was advancing.

Uh. No. She's missing something here.

Call me a pervert (many will, in fact, and not only because I like to hang out in stationers' and finger the reams of A4 and fist the pretty notebooks) - but I like typing.

I began typing on my mum's old Remington Portable. I remember the 'n' key was slightly knackered, offset, twisted. I played with the carriage release, all those
pretty clicks. The bell was pleasing. Some sounds are just .... too yummy.

I graduated onto a modern typewriter, which did not have the same impact upon me as I can't remember what kind it was though I do recall it was grey plastic rather than smart black and silver metal with a leather-like covering on the plywood base. It was an 18th birthday present, practical but without soul. The 'n' key worked, for a start.

University saw me learning what a computer was - a Mac, as it happens. These were the 1980s, after all, and still the only significant computer time I had ever had, thus far, had been on a ZX81.

I have a PC now, and plastic QWERTY is my friend. I need to keep my nails fairly short - in fact, the process of typing is more pleasing to me with shorter nails.

Is it the rhythm? Is it the clunk of the keys - and we all know, each keyboards has its own personality, its unique sound and the way the keys depress.

Is it the slide of skin across the shiny faux-cubes? Is it the sexiness of the process itself - thought to finger to key to screen to audience? Is it that I'm a pervert? Who knows. Who cares?

Incidentally, my phone also has QWERTY but I don't get the same .. y'know.

*would light a post-coital cigarette now, if she still smoked*

I Write Like ...?

*gigglesmirk*

The Guardian recently published an article on the I Write Like website. You can paste some of your writing into the system and it assesses your style against writers included in its database and says who you most write like.

I put in two sections from Annie, the Doll, its Thief and Her Lover - one for Kate, one for Simon.

When I wrote from Kate's point of view, I write like Vladimir Nabokov.

When I write from Simon's point of view, I write like James Joyce.

I think both characters would be pleased: Kate with her high-brow pretensions and Simon with his very earthy perspective.

The website congratulates you, then asks if you would 'like to write better'.

Um.

Writers walk the extra mile alone

It came to the point this week where I faced the challenge of preparing my novel for print.

The process made me twitch a bit. On two levels.

First, the technical process. Lulu, the self-publishing service I have decided to go with, has the pixel equivelant of reams and reams of advice, of how to, of what to, of when to.

Honestly, it's a bit of a headf*ck. I'm the kind of person who learns from doing and from being told, I like to have someone to show me how to do these things. Yeah, quite a challenge for the part of me that still dreams of an editor/publisher organising all this for me.

Secondly, I'm aware that I am the only proper critic for my novel. I'm not sure why this is. My friends have busy lives. My husband said in March, when I completed it, how he couldn't wait to read it. He's busy too.

It's more than tempting to spend time in a funk, convincing myself they haven't got the time because they think it won't be worth their time. Maybe they do think that. At the end, I suppose, we're on our own in this. Are we strong enough to take the next steps without aid and support?

My brief sojourn into HarperCollins' Authonomy was ... interesting, I did get some useful feedback on my first 10,000 words but it's a massive time-waster - what do you mean, it's polite to reciprocate reviews? I haven't got all day to sit reading other people's stuff when I should be looking at my own.

So, I am seeking to publish a story that nobody else had read from start to finish. Meeps. I am relying upon my own judgement, my own skills. What are these skills and how did I get them? Well, as a journalist I understand ruthless editing, for a start. That's a professional skill: HURRAH!

Nothing remains that should be culled, I'm fairly sure not much has sneaked through in that respect. But what about my characters, my pace, my resolution?

Prepping my manuscript for print was an exercise in self-belief. And again, I can't stress how the process of creating the file for my A5 paperback gave me that sense of making my dream real. I had done everything I knew, and everything on the Lulu checklist and it still didn't look right. I compared it to a paperback copy of The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck, which is roughly the same size. Then I realised - margins! Once I had adjusted these, it resembled ... a book!

I've stopped twitching, for now.

Scoffing, with mixed metaphor sprinkles

I have been scoffing the rich advice of other writers on writing like someone who's been on a lettuce diet for the last six months.

I'm not so much anticipating indigestion, on the contrary: there is so much sustenance out there for the newbie author. I am indebted.

However, after reading Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen's Fear of Success - Signs of Self-sabotage in the Writing Life, I realise I need to take a few moments for self-assessment. Or, proper digestion, if I'm not going to mix my metaphors.

Don't get me wrong - read further down my blog and you'll see the reference to the state of my house. As I write, tiny tumble-weeds of animal fur are rolling across the laminate flooring in the slight breeze caused by my husband's journey from the sitting room to the kitchen. Domesticity is not an issue here, as far as diversions go.

(Actually, not-so-tiny, and one appears to have its own eco-system. Ew.)

There is no doubt I need to research self-publication, to occasionally nibble the nutritious goodies, but I also need to retain a sense of what I am trying to achieve and not lose myself in what others are saying. I have dined, I am full, I can stop eating for a few hours.

The irony is that a theme of my novel is this very thing: forgotten dreams, the forgotten magic, lives diverted and some so thoroughly derailed that those who live them can't get back on track.

Now, I used a railway symbolically in my book, so that's not such a clumsy introduction of imagery as it first appears. However, to continue the food metaphor, let's say some of my characters ordered the wrong main meal at a restaurant, others accepted the wrong dish, and not all of them have the gumption to change their minds or complain to the manager.

Anyway.

I will quickly post this to my blog, forget about it until tomorrow, and get on with the process of learning how to actually prepare my novel for ebook and print. Perhaps even jump right in and do it.

The manuscript is ready, you see. It's as ready as it's ever going to be without the input of an agent. It's been pored over, spell-checked, ruthlessly has anything remotely purple edited out.

So I need to have faith in my judgement at this time, and go ahead, push forward, and not sit here writing about it any more!

Until tomorrow.

Why manuscripts get rejected

A list of 17 reasons.

Frank Sidebottom & me

I've been reading the obituaries and memorials to Frank Sidebottom. Aside from the fact that since I turned 40 earlier this year, I have become obsessed somewhat with my own mortality, I have a personal interest: I think I once kissed him.

Now, anyone who has 'lived' can claim to have kissed or shagged a celebrity, I know this. And the event itself was unremarkable enough for me to forget it, until now.

It happened half a lifetime ago, in the Sugarmine, the Bournemouth University student venue. Picture a dark, smoky dancefloor, a buxom goth with lots of hair and a little unsteady on her feet after Happy Hour, and a proposition from a man who whispered in her ear that he was Frank Sidebottom.

In retrospect it is a WTF moment; but I accepted his proposition and snogged him. Not because he was allegedly Frank Sidebottom, trust me when I say papier mache is not my kink. Partly it was the kindred Northern accent, also it was the alcohol, and the fact I like snogging, and he'd been bold enough to ask.

His obituaries are poignant, human, touching, as they should be. As a reporter I have loved writing obits, speaking to families about their loved ones, gently touching and trying to portray the connections between people that last beyond death, what else remains when ashes are the only visible remains.

Obituaries are also a tool by which we can examine our lives: what trace do we leave, who will miss us, what did we contribute, what did we achieve, and did we achieve our dreams?

The last is a question rarely asked by a reporter to a grieving family. At least, I never asked it. It's an uncomfortable concept: did your husband die happy, or was he unfulfilled? Were there times in your wife's life that she expressed a keen desire to do something, but didn't manage it? How did they feel about that? How do you feel about that?

Frank's death and ensuing trip down memory lane reminds me of my younger self, the one with ambitions that middle-age and the fear of mortality delivered a kick to. He's a fine example of someone who made something unique and lived his dream, too. Presumably.

Writing, and the Perfect Day

After-dinner. Go back to the study, turn on the music and write like a bastard, because I'm awake now

This is AL Kennedy writing in the Guardian about her perfect day for writing. As I read it, laughing, I was aware - as AL pointed out - that there are so few writers I can imagine experiencing this.

AL's ideal of a perfect day is to pamper body and mind, waking up from idyllic slumber and easing herself into creativity over a period of hours.

Inspiration creeps upon her ninja-style so she ends up within an almost orgasmic whirl of creativity before it vanishes. Hence the 'write like a bastard'. That's the same as 'make hay while the sun shines', though how frenzied and passionate farmers become when they're bailing, I don't know.

Anyone who has ever worked for an employer, in what we might call a 'normal job', knows that productivity needs deadlines. As a former journalist, who sometimes had up to six deadlines an hour, I can manage my time very-well-thank-you.

I catch myself in a guilty eyeshift. But my procrastination isn't all my fault, honest.

My ideal workday would involve being in a quiet house, a clean one too, actually. But it's not just external clutter that gets in the way of creation.

These are my notes to myself about my workday:

1. Ignore the general filthy and untidy state of the house. The others you live with make the mess, so they must like it, even if you don't.
2. Don't worry about the teenager and all his woes. Be a supportive, good enough mother. If he's clean and fed and on time for school, by 14 the rest is up to him. The same basic rules apply to the husband.
3. If the cats bring home the rodents and birds to play with in front of the patio window, that's just nature - and they're sharing their success with you. Close the door to the noises though, unless you're writing about torture, murder and decapitation.
4. The dog is a princess and pouts at everything. She's not lonely/dying of a broken heart/bored.
5. Do not open any email pertaining to roleplaying. You can look at the title of it if you must, but know that the game will not combust without you.

However. The washing up, the laundry, the shopping, these still all need to be factored in. Just NEVER AT THE EXPENSE OF A GOOD PARAGRAPH.

Still, I long for a study, like AL has. To fester in my own tidiness, to listen to my own music, to not be asked a zillion questions a minute when everyone gets home ... I'm quite sure I'd have something close to a perfect day every day.