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The Writing Coach

Literary Consultancy and Coaching for Writers from Jacqui Lofthouse

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Archives for May 2012

A fresh direction for The Writing Coach

May 20, 2012 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Publishing, Self-publishing, The writing coach, The writing life 3 Comments

“Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy.” – W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge, 1943

As you may already know, The Writing Coach is about to enter a new phase of development. Having been running the business for seven years now, I have recently realised that a change was necessary.  I’ll be writing more in future posts about how that change came about for me (and lessons that I can draw from this process) but for the moment, suffice to say that from September 2012 I will be returning to full time education and embarking on a new stage of my career.  I will be studying for a PGCE in English with Drama at London’s Institute of Education with a view to teaching drama, literature and creative writing to teenagers, whilst continuing to pursue my own writing.  I am immensely excited about this new direction.  It does, however, mean that from the end of July this year, I will no longer be personally available as coach; indeed, I have already closed my books to new clients.

Will the Writing Coach website still be running?

Absolutely.  In order to fully focus on my new studies, I will no longer be running a literary consultancy here at the Writing Coach – at least for the time being (if that changes, readers of this blog will be the first to know). However, this is not the end of The Writing Coach website; instead it marks a fresh beginning.  The blog will be very much alive and I will continue to send out the newsletter so do sign up for regular updates and subscribe to the RSS feed or email updates on the blog.

In the coming months, it is my intention to publish both my latest novel and my backlist (previously published by Penguin and Bloomsbury) on Kindle and iPad and I’d like you to join me on this self-publishing journey.  I will continue to update this blog by publishing all archive articles and I will be writing fresh posts that I hope will be useful to new and established writers, whatever stage you are at and however you decide to publish.

In coming weeks I will streamline this website as the focus will increasingly be on the blog.  I have yet to take a final decision on the membership aspect of the site but I am not closed to the idea of a membership aspect/forum.  An announcement will follow in due course though I may wait until October before taking this decision.

What will be the focus of the blog in coming months?

As ever, my aim is to bring you inspiration and motivation relating to all aspects of your writing work and life.  I will continue to post on the subject of traditional publishing and how to approach agents and publishers.  I will also be documenting my own epublishing journey and sharing what I learn in the process as well as offering advice and guidance to those who are also considering this path.  My current interests in theatre and in education will doubtless impact on this blog.  I will share what I learn about how drama and writing interact, for example what I learn about character development and story structure as I study drama.  I will also be reflecting on the process of writing fiction for young adults (YA fiction) as I embark upon a YA novel and work with teenagers.  My hope is that I can bring my own continuing education into my writing here – with the intention of sharing, encouraging conversation and, I hope, continuing to inspire your writing in the months ahead.  I will also write about change: how we recognise the need for it and how we act upon that impulse.

How can I stay up to date with The Writing Coach?

Aside from signing up for the newsletter and RSS or email updates to the blog, you can also ‘like’ The Writing Coach on Facebook here or follow me on Twitter here and here. If you have any questions about the future of the site/the business, do feel free to ask them in the comments below and I will be posting a FAQ soon too.  I’m looking forward to all that lies ahead and to sharing it with you.

 

 

 

On ‘playing a ten’ (or what an acting class taught me about confidence for writers)

May 18, 2012 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Confidence, Motivation, Productivity, The writing life 5 Comments

Confidence for writers is such an elusive creature. Why’s that? Because we are working in a profession where rejection is often a part of the deal. We frequently work without a structure, sometimes without colleagues, relying on our wits and in many cases not getting enough feedback. I’ve worked with enough writers over the years to know that insecurity can go with the territory.  Even published writers experience this, as they go through the publication mill. ‘Will I get enough publicity? Will anyone notice my novel has even appeared? What are the reviews like? How are my sales?’

confidence for writers

If you’re a confident writer reading this and thinking ‘speak for yourself, I’m confident as hell’ then by all means, skip to another post on this site. But it seems to me that insecurity is a part of the human condition and in the many years I have spent working as a coach and mentor to writers, I’ve not met a writer who doesn’t experience it in one form or another.

Recently, in my regular drama class at City Lit we were playing a character-based ‘status game’ that got me thinking about confidence in a new way.  I’d like to share my insights, but first, a simple question:

Confidence for writers? Shouldn’t we be thinking about talent first?

In truth, I think the two go hand in hand. In order to develop talent, we need to work hard at our art. If we wish to develop as a writer, for example, it’s necessary to spend many hours reading: to absorb the skills and the technique of those who have gone before us.  We need to work hard at our writing desks too, developing our ideas and our style – and we need to get feedback from others, to get a sense of how readers perceive our work. We need to read other writers on their processes (the Paris Review interviews are fantastic for this), perhaps attend writing classes or meet with fellow writers to learn more about our craft.  All of this takes time and dedication. But where are we to find this time and dedication if we do not first have confidence that we can DO THIS? And if we produce our masterpiece, how are we going to ensure that we maintain our confidence for long enough to persist through possible rounds of rejections? (JK Rowling had twelve before Bloomsbury accepted the first Harry Potter book; George Orwell endured “It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA” for Animal Farm and why not take a look at the blog “One hundred famous rejections” for more.)  It seems to me that writers need confidence to inspire their talent and confidence to match their talent as they take their work out into the world.

I have written in the past about “creativity and despair” in my post on the life and work of Sarah Kane “4.48 Psychosis: creativity and despair”.  I also wrote about this theme in my novel Bluethroat Morning.  Creative despair is the flip side of creative brilliance and my work here at the writing coach centres on how we can use our creativity to inspire positive growth and how we can avoid the creative tendency for harsh self-judgement, especially in a success-driven world.  (See my newsletter post on ‘success’ too)

So what’s this ‘playing a ten’ business?

In an improvisation class, our tutor suggested that we play with the idea of status.  If every character had a ‘status’ from 1-10, she suggested (where 1 was extremely timid and 10 was super-confident), how would that affect our playing of that character?  We were asked to pick random numbers from a hat and to walk into the room and say ‘hello’, demonstrating that number via our stance and attitude.  If there wasn’t a strong consensus about what number we were, we had to adjust our playing accordingly and try again until people ‘got’ our status.  What was interesting to me is that sometimes we had really differing views of what a ‘4’ or a ‘8’ might look like.

This is, of course, interesting from the point of view of characterisation too. Our teacher pointed out the fact that ‘status’ in this respect has nothing to do with job.  ‘My cleaner is a ’10’,’ she said.  ‘If he’s cleaning the communal hallway, he takes over the place and I find myself saying a quiet ‘excuse me’ if I want to get past.’  This exercise reminded me of another drama exercise I’d undertaken in a previous term where a teacher asked us to focus on different parts of our body as we walked.  We discovered through that exercise that ‘confidence is in the chest’.  When you walk with your chest thrust forward, you inevitably feel more confident.  (If it’s useful for character development profiles, we also discovered that age is in the hips and gender is in the knees, in terms of the way one walks…)

In the class on status, we then played various improvisation games where characters interacted with each other in different status positions.  (I was a gallery attendant meeting a gallery-goer who had a higher status than me.)  We discussed how our status can change, depending on different circumstances and relationships (one might be a ‘9’ at work and a ‘3’ at home for example).  And at the end of the class, we discussed the way in which anyone who is feeling like a ’10’ on a particular day can walk along the pavement in such a style that almost everyone will get out of their way.  We were asked to leave the class walking ‘like a ’10’ to see if this is true.  (It is. Try it!)

But does ‘playing a ten’ actually make you more confident?

When taking part in this exercise, I was reminded of how the physical body affects our mental state.  I once heard the coach Aboodi Shabi talk about how the body affects the self and his ideas remained with me.  When we walk with a focus on our chest, for example (our teacher suggested walking as if there was a small glowing golden ball in your chest), then something in our physical self shifts – and this can result in a mental shift too.  As we begin to walk more confidently, so we feel more confident and happier even.  It struck me that if we can simply ‘decide’ to shift our confidence physically, then a mental shift is also more likely to occur.

Equally importantly, I was reminded of the work of Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander, via their book The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life.  Benjamin Zander is the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and in the book he talks about how he improves the outcomes for his students via the practice of ‘Giving an A’.  He starts the term by telling his students that he will give all of them an ‘A’ if they will simply write him a letter, as if from themselves at the end of term, telling him what they did to deserve their ‘A’.  In Zander’s words, ‘This A is not an expectation to live up to, but a possibility to live into.’

Zander’s students excel because they are not therefore constrained by self-doubt.  One of the reasons that I’m interested in this theme is the fact that I have worked with writers who are effectively ‘getting in their own way’: not writing at their full capacity because a lack of confidence is stifling their creative potential and growth.

I want to be clear about this.  I am not saying that increased confidence will turn you into a genius.  I am saying however that if you learn to allow your creative potential to flow (via a state of confident experimentation) then you have a chance of writing something good and inherently true to you (and maybe even amazing).  I have witnessed many times how increased confidence leads to better work.  Confident writers are more open to creative accident, are more likely to access moments of creative brilliance, are more productive and have greater verve in their work.

How does one play this elusive ‘ten’?

To be honest, an eight or a nine would do! The best advice I can give is to approach your work with a sense of curiosity and openness.  When you are writing, don’t ask yourself what the ‘right’ way of doing this is. Rather, aim to get honest words down, focus on expression rather than on your self. Too many writers approach their desks with self-consciousness. You need to get past this if you are going to write well. Some people find meditation helps. I like to play Bach’s Cello Suites (the Pablo Casals version is my favourite) to get past myself and into a more relaxed state.  You can also try simple breathing and postural work:  close your eyes, breathe slowly and deeply, relax your knees a little, stand upright, as if a thread is pulling up the back of your head, draw your breath in deep and focus on the present moment.  You might like to look at the book ‘Presence’ by Patsy Rodenburg (Director of Voice at the National Theatre) if you want to do the physical work that will lead to greater confidence.  What would happen if you approached your writing desk with a real sense of presence?

For ‘confidence’ you could even substitute ‘truth’.  Tell yourself ‘I’m going to focus on writing something which I believe to be true or something which seems real and true to me’.  Confidence is about openness to process and about the messages you give yourself.  An unconfident writer would approach his or her writing desk thinking ‘how the hell am I going to write anything good? Who am I to think I can write a decent sentence let alone a novel?’  A confident writer, by contrast, would go to the writing desk in a spirit of enquiry.  ‘What am I going to find out today? I wonder what my character is going to reveal to me. I want to try to write about my childhood home in precise sensual detail and I have no idea where that will take me, but let’s play with it…’

We live in a world where too many people play small and stifle their creativity.  Each one of us is unique and we only have one life in which to express our personal truth.

I would love to hear what happens when you experiment with the idea of ‘playing a ten’.  Why not ask yourself the following question:

What makes me feel confident?  What can I do to increase this feeling?  How would my writing improve if I allowed myself to believe that what I write will have real value?

Do share how you get on in the comments below – or if you have any ideas on how to increase the feeling of confidence, I’d love to hear them.

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Bluethroat Morning – New Edition

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About The Writing Coach

Jacqui Lofthouse

The Writing Coach was founded in 2005 by the novelist Jacqui Lofthouse. An international mentoring and development organisation for writers, it is also an online home for writers, somewhere you can find advice, information, motivation and most of all encouragement for your writing work ... read more

The Modigliani Girl

Anna Bright never wanted to write a novel. At least, that’s what she tells herself. But a chance encounter with a famous novelist and a surprise gift of an art book cut a chink in Anna’s resolve. The short, tragic life of Modigliani’s mistress, Jeanne Hébuterne, becomes an obsession and before she knows it, she has enrolled on a creative writing course, is writing about a fictional Jeanne and mixing with the literati.

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Recent Posts

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