Writing...and monkeys
This is a post about writing, and that
mystical art of “process”. Essentially it's a bunch of blog posts
from various writers – known and unknown – about why they do what
they do, and how it is they go about doing it. It's not a book of
hints on “how to be a writer” or a set of tricks to get you
motivated, so far as I can tell, but a glimpse inside the private
lives of the freaks and geeks amongst us, those people who sit on
their lonesome and scribble down what the voices in their heads tell
them to say...
I received this calling to write a post
on “the writing process” from Pippa Goldschmidt, and as the
tradition dictates I shall now tell you a little about her:
Pippa is a professional astronomer,
which to me makes her incredibly cool before she's even opened her
mouth or put pen to paper. She is also the author of The Falling Sky, a novel which has received
great acclaim and which I ignorantly still need to read. But I do
know this: it's about a female astronomer whose discovery could
unravel current understandings of The Big Bang. She is also a fine
poet and I included her work in Where Rockets Burn Through:Contemporary Science Fiction Poems from the UK.
If you've an interest in science and fiction then she's a definite
go-to contemporary writer. Go, go check out her work and ramblings,
go now! You can check out her site here, which includes her own post about the way she goes about getting the good words down and chucking
the bad ones out.
And so
the nebula has been passed on to me. The task is to answer four
questions, so here we go...
Question
1: What am I working on?
Back
in January I was rowing in Ha Long Bay, in northern Vietnam. A guide
told me that on occasion, if you were lucky, monkeys could be seen climbing and chatting among the rocks. Now, I love monkeys. I love them a degree further
than is probably sane. I've visited a monkey temple in India, fed a
baby monkey in Thailand, I even have a t-shirt proclaiming my monkey
love. And yet no monkeys appeared on those rocks. Imagine, if you
can, my despair. I longed for those monkeys to voyage down, if only I
could call to them in a voice they could understand, they would
surely not deny me the pleasure of their company...
That's
the long route to saying this: I'm writing a novel about families who
can communicate with animals.
I'm
also still writing poetry and will shortly be editing my upcoming
collection The Green Dress Whose Girl is Sleeping
(due for publication with Freight Books in 2015) with editor Andrew Philip.
Question
2: How does my work differ from others of its genre?
I'm
perhaps most well known for my work in the sub-genre of Science
Fiction Poetry, having published two pamphlets of my own (“The Last Refuge” from Forest Publications in 2009, and “Spaces of Their Own” from Stewed Rhubarb Press in 2013) and edited a book of
contemporary sci-fi poems from the UK (“Where Rockets Burn Through”
from Penned in the Margins, 2013). The science fictional element
seems to have the ability to draw in new audiences, primarily fans of
SF, which I am very happy about because it gets non-poetry-readers a
bit more interested in poetry, as well as breaking apart some of the
snobbishness of poetry and genre.
So far
as the novel goes, it's a young adult book (of which there be many)
but aside from the story line I've been trying to challenge notions of
gender, race and class by inverting them. It's also a book about
politics and power, which are subjects I think we tend to –
incorrectly – shy away from when giving books to young people. It
will include lots of monkeys.
Question
3: Why do I write what I do?
This
is a question my mum would ask me. In terms of poetry, I write to
distill my thoughts and to see what language can do, how it can change
my perception. I think there's something almost scientific about
poetry, it's a process of discovery, of experimentation, of refining
and refracting, and re-examining the results. What comes out isn't
necessarily what went in, the conclusion isn't necessarily the aim.
And that's good because it bends the box and slaps you around the
face a bit.
My
novel feels more like an escape, a world I'd like to visit (although
probably not live in). It's a chance to explore my characters and see
who they become, as arsey and artsy as that sounds. Perhaps they're
imaginary friends; I want to help them out, to lead them down
uncertain paths and see what's on the other side.
In all
honesty there's a financial element to novel writing too. Poetry is a
labour of love, I know I'll never make my fortune from it. More
people are willing to pick up a novel and to pay for it.
Question
4: How does your writing process work?
I have
two rules when writing: don't do it when drunk, and don't do it when
overly emotional. I break them both.
A poem
starts as a line in my head, I hear it first like a piece of music from a broken
record that wants me to place the needle back on the groove. The poem
grows from that line, I don't know what it is when I start it and it's not always clear by the end. Sometimes I am interested in the poem as
an experiment. Hey what would happen if I wrote a bunch of
one word poems, or a sequence of sonnets about sexbots?
Sometimes it feels like more of an expulsion, to sweat something out
and jar it. A nice jar of sweat. I try not to force out or overwork a
poem, rather I just let them come as they will, sometimes a dozen in
a day, other times nothing for months. I almost always work on a
laptop: the appearance of the poem is very important to me and if I
need to scratch things out with pen and paper its messiness would
disturb me and throw me off the scent. Editing can take anywhere from
minutes to months. In 2008 I started a poem that is just 25 words
long, and I'm still not happy with it. That said, once I feel a poem
is finished I don't like to touch it after about 5 years. That feels
like I'm editing my old self, trying to pretend they didn't exist or
that somehow the person I am now is a “better” poet, with more
worthwhile things to say. And that seems very rude to Old-Me.
Writing
a novel feels more planned out. Probably because I use a
somewhat extensive plan. I know where things start, their potential
endings, but not necessarily the finer details in between. The
characters react and change, they think things over and respond. I
can't plan that part of things because I don't know the characters
well enough until they're faced with the dilemma, the romance, the
massive murderous bear with platinum claws that chases after them.
Redrafting prose is currently an enigma to me, although I imagine it
will be copious.
If
you've managed to get this far then well done! All that's left is to
introduce the next writer, Colin McGuire. Colin has published a pamphlet of poems about sleep, "Everybody Lie Down and No One Gets Hurt" with Red Squirrel Press, and is well known around the Scottish spoken word scene. He has reached the finals of the BBC Poetry Slam and runs a regular poetry night in Edinburgh, called Talking Heids. He can be followed on his blog, here! A full length collection of Colin's work is due out this year.
Peace
and monkeys be with you.
