The Muse Came Back! Hurrah!

I'm back! Again!

I hadn't realised how much time had passed since I last blogged. SO much has happened, it's sort of tricky to know where to start...

On the personal side, all is well. Me and the husband have found a new apartment; we only had 3 months to stay in our lovely waterside yuppie box. The new place isn't waterfront, but it is rather fabulous. It's a little further out of Boston city centre than we had originally planned, but by London standards the journey is negligible. And it's got a bloody swimming pool! We couldn't resist, especially since the weather is getting hotter. The views are spectacular and I have had several moments of wondering what exactly we did to deserve this. We haven't entirely moved yet; I'm writing this from our 'old' waterfront pad. We don't get chucked out of this place until the end of the month and we thought we'd use our last days here to make the most of it.

We had to pretty much start from scratch with furniture. The shipping arrived a week ago and I realised how little we had packed. I guess we assumed we'd be living in a fully furnished place and thought we'd buy anything we needed cheaply over here. Well, we brought virtually nothing! Clothes, a few books and dvds, a Wii and some kitchen stuff. That was it. So we hit Ikea and experienced a strange mixture of heaven and hell buying everything new. Then the next weekend we put it all together. Ah, the joys of flat-pack...

On to the writing stuff. It's been a funny old few weeks. I got stuck, I had a few faltering starts at getting into a routine again. Now I think I'm back into my flow, but it's taken a while. I reckon I've been over stimulated! I'm sure I'd do better with a dull life and a darkened room, rather than a harbour view and all this excitement of being in a new country!

Something important happened which was instrumental for getting me back on the right path. I went to a writing conference that was organised by a fabulous writing community here in Boston called Grub Street. It was a weekend of talks, workshops and opportunity to quiz agents and editors and meet fellow writers. I found the whole thing inspiring and depressing in equal measures. It was a great event, so well organised, with some really worthwhile speakers - but after you've been to a couple of these kind of things it does begin to feel like you're going over old ground. Obviously this was my first US conference and I was eager to find out how the market is different over here, so that was worth the fee on its own. It's always worth it just to make a vague connection with an agent or editor too, just so you can write to them saying, 'We met/I heard you speak at the conference...'. They do look at that sort of stuff; sometimes it can get you to the top of the slush pile. However, I say it made me depressed because you hear the same thing, again and again, about the importance of having a unique voice and marketability and trends and how few books actually sell... I don't resent or dispute any of this, but it doesn't serve the creative spirit to get too bogged down with all of that stuff. Good to know, but not good to dwell on. We writers just have to write and write and keep writing and keep getting better.

There was a rather ball-busting session in the conference which they called 'Editor/Agent Idol'. The idea was that writers would anonymously submit the first page of their books which would be read by an actor to 3 'judges' who would raise their hand at the point where they would stop reading. When all 3 judges hands were raised, the actor stopped reading the piece and the judges discussed why they didn't like it. It was HARSH. In spite of the fact it was anonymous, it was extremely nerve-wracking. In the first session, the first page of my adult novel was read out. One judge raised a hand after the first line. The other 2 after about the first paragraph! They were so sniffy about it! It's chick-lit, broadly speaking, and the editors were all of a distinctly literary bent so I had really set myself up for a fall. Also, it's supposed to be a funny beginning, but one of them thought it was 'try-hard' and another thought it was distasteful. Well, it didn't bother me too much. I have to figure that they're not exactly my demographic (2 thirty-something blokes and a sixty year old academic female) and there's always the question of whether my UK humour translates to a US audience!

The second session was judged by agents, and I had the first page of my kid's book read out. Different story. They laughed lots and although they all admitted that they didn't handle children's literature, they liked it. I was somewhat starstruck during this session, as one of the agents was Janet Reid, who was rumoured to be the infamous Miss Snark. She's always denied it, I think - but I was pretty much blown away by her anyway. What a character. So funny, so New York, so terrifying.

So what did I learn? First pages are really important. Not quite important, REALLY important. And also - agents and editors are human. It's not fair, but they are. They have mood swings and irrational, unpredictable aversions to certain words/phrases/subject matters. There was one guy who said he cannot abide any mention of the weather on the first page, he finds it so irritating. Then he totally contradicted himself when he said he loved a first page that was practically all description of a hard winter. This was pointed out to him and he admitted that actually he doesn't mind snow, but hates reading about sunshine. I mean, COME ON! What's a writer to do?

The conference got me to thinking (excuse the Carrie Bradshaw-esque turn of phrase) about what literary pretensions or aspirations I have, if any. It was a very literary, rather than commercial conference. In the UK I hear people bang on about the importance of being commercial, where as at this conference the emphasis was very much on writing literary fiction. In fact there was a session devoted to discussing the two. Can commercial fiction also be literary and vice versa? In a room of about 50 people, one of the panel who were discussing the subject asked us to raise our hands if we were writing commercial fiction. I did. One other person did, also. Everyone else considered themselves literary. There was no doubt that the people on the panel were a little snotty about being commercial. It got me thinking quite a lot; I've always aspired to entertain, and have people enjoy my work. It's not my main impulse, I write because I feel I have to write, I've got this stuff inside me that needs to get out. Apart from that, I aim to write things that will be escapist, diverting - but not require some huge intellectual and emotional commitment from the reader. Should I be more clever in my writing? Can I write literary books? Do I want to? I don't read a lot of what I would consider literary books. I like books with action, intrigue - yes, emotional journeys but nothing too introspective or pondering. Sometimes I think I'm a lazy reader. I like something a little disposable because I need escape from my life and my own head. And I like to write this way as well; I'm not sure I could cope with writing heavier material. Am I selling myself short?

I do believe commercial books can be great books, perhaps life altering books. But they don't need to be. Just as you can have a really great, memorable, enjoyable burger, I think you can have an great, memorable, enjoyable book which is ultimately light-weight. It's about accessibility.

I think I'll be writing more on this subject!

So, I came away from the conference determined to finish my chick-lit novel. I'd been a bit conflicted, as I have had interest from an agent in London who is eager to read more of my kids' stuff. I had one particular kids' book on the go, but I'd got stuck with it because I felt my chick-lit book was unfinished business that I had to get out of the way before I tackled something else. The conference made me think that I should just write what the hell I felt I needed to write, and the agent could just wait. It was a tough decision, because it's someone that I would love to represent me, but I feel the geographical distance is actually giving me some perspective on my career. I shouldn't rush into anything. I need to do what I need to do.

I started back with the chick-lit book, wrote a few pages, got a bit stuck. Went out for a walk (best way BY FAR for getting unstuck) and my new kids' book started to jump around in my head. I couldn't stop it. There I was trying to think of a way round my problems in finishing my chick-lit book, which I was dying to do, and the bloody kids' book which was thus far so damn elusive, won't go away!

The upshot is I'm writing the kids' book. It was a faltering start, but I'm in the zone now. It's very much first draft stuff; I'm abandoning all that I had written so far and starting anew. It's the same plot, just different voice and slightly different format. Watch this space for a word count! My aim is to get about 7-10 chapters in, then polish the first 3 chaps and the synopsis and send to the agent. I'm not going to wait until the whole thing is done, the agent knows it's a work in progress and they've already seen my first completed book, so hopefully they do know I am a finisher!

Ok, I have to stop now. This post has been uber-long and I haven't even written everything, but it's enough for now! On with the kids' book.