The writing life Archives - The Writing Coach

An interview with Antony Johnston, author of ‘The Organised Writer’

October 2, 2020 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Authors, Books, Inspiration, Interviews, Motivation, Productivity, The writing life Leave a Comment

Our Founder Jacqui Lofthouse is delighted to interview Antony Johnston, author of The Organised Writer, published by Bloomsbury, 1st October. As one who’s fairly obsessed about productivity for writers herself, she was intrigued to find out more about Antony’s viewpoint.

1. What led you to write ‘The Organised Writer’?

My own life and career, first and foremost. When I became a full-time writer I assumed I could just bash out words, send an invoice every now and then, and never have to worry about anything else. How wrong could I have been?

After a few years I was drowning in unfiled paperwork, lost notes, and — the cardinal sin, to my mind — missed deadlines. I knew I had to get myself organised, and it wasn’t an easy journey. That’s what led me to start writing about productivity in the context of being an author, and eventually expanding it all into a book.

2. Tell me about your own writing life – I’d love to hear a little about the type of projects that you typically work on or are currently juggling?

My career has been one of accumulation, in a way — I started out writing magazine articles, moved onto fiction and web comics, then broke into graphic novels before also writing videogames, becoming a regular public speaker, getting into podcasting, and most recently focusing on screenplays and thriller novels. The thing is that whenever I pick up a new strand, I rarely leave the old ones behind!

So, what am I juggling right now? I recently completed the rough draft of a novel, and just this week outlined another. Last month I finished almost two years of working on a big videogame script, and I’m in talks to start on a new game. I have a screenplay doing the rounds in Hollywood, and I’m working with several producers to pitch other screen projects; a couple of movies, a TV show, an animated series. Earlier this year I wrote and directed a short film, and I continue to host and produce two podcasts. Then there’s my work with the Writers’ Guild and the Crime Writers’ Association, both of which I serve as a committee member.

3. Were you always organised?

I was, until I wasn’t, and then I was again! I spent ten years in graphic design, where I was very organised and on top of everything. But as I mentioned, when I became a full-time writer I thought I could leave all that behind, and so became very dis-organised. Realising that was a mistake is what led me to devise the Organised Writer system.

4. There’s a lot of material about productivity out there. How much have you utilised systems you’ve learned from others and how much have you invented systems to suit your own needs?

Learning from other systems, most notably David Allen’s Getting Things Done, is how I started. And there’s some great stuff in GTD, but one of the most valuable things it taught me is that traditional productivity systems don’t work for a writer, or in fact any creative worker.

So I returned to first principles, and challenged myself not to just tweak an existing solution, but to answer more fundamental questions of what I was trying to achieve, and what I as a writer needed from a productivity system.

5. Is this a book only for professional full time writers?

Not at all. That’s my perspective, of course, and it’s how I use the system myself. But it’s ‘modular’, to use a geeky phrase, so you can take different parts and slot them into your existing work practices.

All improvement requires making changes, but if you’re, say, a parent with young children, of course I understand that you can’t spare four hours every day to write. But using The Organised Writer’s principles ensures whatever time you can spare is spent focusing on writing, not worrying about everything else going on in your life.

6. What kind of difference might your systems make in the typical writer’s life? Can you give an example or two?

Two of the biggest problems busy writers face are scheduling and distraction.

Scheduling in the Organised Writer system is about planning ahead while remaining flexible. It helps you create ‘breathing room’ to deal with obstacles and unexpected problems while still hitting deadlines.

Distraction, meanwhile, is a problem in all walks of life but particularly so for writers. We rely on using our imagination to conjure words — but words are also what we use to remember tasks we have to carry out, and things we need to remember, that have nothing to do with writing. When these things clash in our minds, both sides lose. Part of the system is about helping you ‘offload’ non-writing things from your mind so you don’t have to worry about them while you’re working.

7. Tell me more about the concept of ‘clean mind’?

‘Clean mind theory’ is my term for what happens when we can clear our mind of all the non-writing tasks we have to do, enabling us to focus on writing and using our imagination to its fullest.

Sitting down to write with half a dozen tasks preying on our mind — things we need to remember, chores we need to carry out, and so on — is a huge distraction. One of the biggest benefits I myself get from the system is knowing I don’t have to worry about all that stuff when I’m writing. It’s liberating.

8. You write about ‘job sheets’ for projects – what are these and are they useful for writers at all stages of their careers?

I first came across job sheets working as a designer, and since bringing them back into my life as a writer they’ve been a godsend. They’re simply a printed form which you use to keep track of a project’s status; ticking off stages like research, notes, rough draft, revisions, and so on. They enable you to see at a glance exactly what stage all of your projects are at.

They’re useful no matter where you are in your career because it’s never too early to develop a good habit. Veteran writers juggling multiple projects will find them immediately valuable, of course. But even if you’re a beginning writer with only one or two projects, learning to use job sheets now will pay off later as you take on more work.

9. What suggestions do you have for writers who are reading this whilst sitting in an office surrounded by piles of unfiled papers and chaos, wondering how on earth they would begin to become organised?

Take heart, because I was once like you! As I say in The Organised Writer itself: read the book, take a weekend to sort out your workspace, then get back to work and follow the system.

I know that might sound easier said than done. But if you’re prepared to make the effort, and committed to getting organised, within weeks it’ll become second nature.

10. Does being organised affect the quality of the art in your view? For example, let’s imagine Francis Bacon’s painting studio – a supreme mess, yet still the working environment of a genius…

But was that mess inspirational to him? Or was it simply a byproduct of his lifestyle?

In a way this is an impossible question to answer, because we can’t make a direct comparison. I can say without a doubt that I’ve done my best work since using the system. But I acknowledge that I can’t know whether that might have still been the case even if I was disorganised.

What I do know, again without a doubt, is that since using the system I’ve done more work than I otherwise would have… while conversely being much less stressed.

11. Your book also covers aspects of productivity. If you could share one piece of advice here relating to the act of writing itself – what would that be?

‘It’s easier to revise anything, even the worst writing in the world, than it is to write it in the first place.’

That’s a mantra I’ve both preached and practised for years. Again, it might sound easier said than done, but it’s absolutely true. So when in doubt, just write — because you can always come back and revise it later.

12. How can your book help writers who are working on multiple projects?

That’s the core of the first part of the book. Scheduling, task management, memory offloading, job sheets… it’s a holistic way to help you stay on top of your workload.

If you’re in control of your schedule, you know what to work on next; if you have an overview of every project’s status, you know what you need to do next; and if you’re not distracted by chores and tasks, the work you do will be better and allow you to finish each project sooner.

13. You write about organising money as a writer. What about those who are not yet making money from their writing – could your book help that move towards becoming professional?

Yes, absolutely. Talent may be the most important factor in a writing career, but hitting deadlines is a very close second. Whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, editors love knowing they can rely on a writer.

But besides that, getting a grip on your finances is another good habit worth developing as soon as you can. Start keeping accurate records now so that when you take on more work, and find yourself sending and chasing multiple invoices (and bills!) every month, those good habits will already be in place to help you stay on top of things.

14. What differences have you seen in the writing lives of others who have used your systems to date?

Mainly an increase in productivity and a decrease in stress. One novelist friend didn’t need help with her writing per se, but she took the calendar and scheduling system and adopted it completely to help her stay on track. Conversely, a comics writer friend was already good at juggling projects, but took clean mind theory to heart to help him write more every day.

The Organised Writer is a system that rewards good behaviour with the ultimate writer’s high — knowing you’ve done enough for the day, and can now relax. Every writer knows there’s no better feeling than that.

Thanks so much Antony – I really appreciate the time you’ve taken to explain your system and it’s been an absolute pleasure to read your fascinating book! I know many of my clients and blog readers will benefit from your ideas.

Readers of The Writing Coach blog can buy the book at a discount from Bloomsbury using the code ORGANISEDWRITER20, here: www.bloomsbury.com/theorganisedwriter (codes expires on 30th November)

The Silence of the Archives – A guest post by Pete Langman

February 24, 2020 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Authors, Books, Character, Guest post, Inspiration, Literary Consultancy, Reading, The writing coach, The writing life, Writers 4 Comments

Our former client Pete Langman, author of Killing Beauties, met his publisher John Mitchinson of Unbound at our Writing Coach ‘Google Academy’ event

Here he writes about how we transform archival material when writing historical fiction.

If it takes an historian to rediscover an exciting but little-known character’s life, the historical novelist can imagine them a new one. But how does this work, and what are the pitfalls? These questions were brought into sharp relief during the writing of Killing Beauties, a novel that follows the adventures of two female spies, Susan Hyde and Diana Jennings, in 1655/6, when England was a republic under the rule of Oliver Cromwell. These women dealt in information, and the novel begins the delivery of a message that will change their lives.

I was introduced to Susan and Diana by my partner, Dr Nadine Akkerman, as she was researching her (bloody splendid) book Invisible Agents: women and espionage in seventeenth-century Britain. She wasn’t that far into the task before it seemed as if Nadine was operating more as spycatcher than researcher, and it was only in the face of her relentless work that the she-intelligencers slowly gave up their secrets. As Nadine put ever more flesh on their archival bones, we began to realise that they were the perfect protagonists to star in a work of historical fiction. What was so promising about this pair was partially the fact that they were operating in the same circles at the same time, and yet don’t appear to have met, and partially the fact that their lack of excitement about the idea of being caught led to their tracks being pretty well covered over.

These women were slippery characters, and the archives would only give up so much information, making it difficult to work out an absolutely solid and continuous trajectory to their stories. This, of course, is not unusual, however, it’s just how history works. Archives rarely answer every question you put to them.

There are two approaches available to the historical novelist: to fictionalise history or historicise fiction. A fictionalised history is one in which a story is woven around actual events, while historicised fiction is one in which historical detail is inserted into a story. I would say I chose the former, but it would be more accurate to say that the former chose me.

Archives do not tell us everything. There are always gaps. Sometimes you can fill them in by using other sources (though this needs to be approached with care), but sometimes they simply insist on remaining as gaps. The primary site of divergence between the historian and the novelist is in the way they approach these gaps: for the former they are traps; the latter, portals. I could make the gaps work with me rather than against me.

The stories of Susan and Diana were very detailed in certain areas, and utterly obscure in others. Diana practically vanishes until the 1660s following her arrest in 1655, while Susan’s final few days on earth are recorded in a letter that also says her body was spirited away from prison by friends. Edward Hyde, her brother and the author of the History of the Rebellion fails to mention her death at the hands of Parliament. This omission, the reasons for which we can only speculate upon, gave me a great opportunity. I had a solid story of a woman risking all for king and country, and losing. The fact that she then vanishes from the records meant that I could do anything I wanted, within reason.

The opportunity that the archives presents to novelists

Where there is a lack of evidence, the historian must tread carefully, warily avoiding suppositions and remembering not to fall foul of the sin of repeating a ‘perhaps Shakespeare had seen X’ in the form of ‘having seen X, Shakespeare …’. The historian may speculate, but carefully, very, very carefully. Both historian and novelist chart the same territory, but the latter may draw the map that results however they wish.

People in the past appear more reliable, honest, predictable and knowable than we are for one reason – their stories are fixed in the history books. It is in that fixedness that we find the safety of truth. But truth, like the history presented in books, is in large part an illusion.

The stories of Susan and Diana were rich enough in information to show me the way, and yet it was the silence of the archives that allowed me the freedom to play.

Creativity and Leadership – A Guest Post by Trevor Waldock

July 15, 2019 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Authors, Books, Guest post, Inspiration, Interviews, Literary Consultancy, Self-publishing, The writing coach, The writing life, Uncategorized, Writers 1 Comment

We are delighted to share this guest post by Trevor Waldock. Trevor is one of the best-known, and best-respected, executive coaches in Europe and has worked at the most senior level in organisations across all sectors. The author of Doing the Right Thing – Getting Fit for Moral Leadership, he is also the founder of Emerging Leaders, a charity, which aims to bring the best of leadership development to the poorest of communities in sub-Saharan Africa.

I have struggled for years with being a writer. Am I a writer? How do I know? How do I judge the answer to that question? I write. Yes. But do I write well and how do I make an honest assessment of myself? I recently published my sixth book on Amazon Kindle Doing The Right Thing, so you could say that makes me a writer. But do the four books published on Amazon Kindle carry the same weight as my books that were published by ‘real’ publishers on real paper? Is Amazon Kindle cheating? I’m sure that every writer has to wrestle with their own demons and these are just a few of mine. One of the great tensions that I have battled to resolve over the past years is the need, the desire, the urge to write, on one side and the fact that I run an international charity on the other side. In my book Jericho & Other Short Stories, I wrote a story called Poets & Engineers. It captured something of this tension. My job often demands me to be an engineer – issues of structure, details, processes, boundaries and delivery – yet by heart, I am a poet.

How to resolve such a tension? One way was to write about my work in developing leaders in both the first and third worlds, in The 18 Challenges of Leadership and To Plant A Walnut Tree. While I was writing about aspects of leadership – like my latest book Doing The Right Thing – then I could tell myself that my writing was part of my job. That way I could justify carrying on leading and carrying on writing. But that doesn’t explain my book about travelling around Rwanda with my son 11 years after the Genocide, or my short stories books, or the short book Am I Really Tired? which could be seen as work or maybe not.

The tension came to a head for me in a dream that I had a few years ago. I was trying to get back home and came to the High Street but a police line cordoned it off. As I tried to find out why I could not go down the normal route home, I discovered that someone had died there. A murder or death of some kind. So I had to find a different way home. The scene then cuts to me talking with my dad who was asking me about my writing and I was telling him how much I wanted to write. He was so overwhelmingly supportive and said he would do anything he could to support me financially and that I should just get on and write. (In real life my dad showed zero interest in my writing. I’m not sure I even told him of my aspirations). The dream was one of those shocking dreams that you know you have to listen to. The meaning of the dream, for me, is summed up by a scrap of paper that I wrote soon afterwards, which still sits on my desk. It simply says,

“Write or die”

So I made some tough changes in my daily routines. Firstly I decided that whatever the risks to my leadership role I had to write and so I set aside each morning to write and read things that would fertilise my writing. The next thing I did was talk through my ‘real’ job with a coach. What he helped me see was that I had segregated the idea of leader from that of creativity. It had become an either-or, in my mind. He came up with this idea that my strength was as a creative leader. Creativity can show itself in coming up with ideas, shaping strategy, forming new ideas and… writing about them. Reforming my identity in this way led me back to the definition of leadership that I love most and use across the world.

“Leadership is the ability to create a story that affects the thoughts, feelings and actions of others ” (‘Leading mind’ – Howard Gardner, 2011)

Leaders are authors. They create stories and they can do that with thoughts, with actions, with inventions, with innovations, with imagination and vision and with words.

So, armed with these liberating insights I am trying to be kinder to myself. To embrace the totality of who I am as a writer, rather than segment myself in someway. Writing has become like a thermometer or warning light. When I’m not writing and caught up in the operational realities of leading an organisation (the engineer) then I know that I am out of balance and very soon I will feel the ‘soul death’, as I call it, creeping upon me. So when I see that happening I stop and I write (the poet). This is no theory for me. I write this on the first afternoon of three days vacation that I’ve taken. Taking the vacation was a last minute decision, made only the night before, because I knew I was out of balance. So I stopped and I’m writing and I feel some new blood flowing through my veins today. I write because it’s who I am.

Teaching Writing: Editing vs. Coaching

February 8, 2019 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Editing, Guest post, Inspiration, Literary Consultancy, The writing coach, The writing life, Writers Leave a Comment

A Guest Post by writing coach consultant Delia Lloyd.

Delia Lloyd

There’s a scene in one of my all-time favourite films, All that Jazz, that addresses the perennial question about innate talent vs. learned ability. In the scene, the protagonist – a choreographer modelled on the legendary Bob Fosse – confronts a ballerina in his company who’s crying because she knows she’s not as good as the other dancers.

“I can’t make you a great dancer,” Fosse consoles her. “But I can make you a better dancer.”

That’s how I feel when I work with writers.

I don’t know if there’s such a thing as being a “natural talent” in writing. You can definitely see when a writer has a gift – David Foster Wallace, Amos Oz, and my new idol – Anna Burns – all come to mind. But, as we all know, years of half-written sentences and crumpled up drafts – not to mention gallons of self-doubt – lie behind any prose that looks effortless.

For most of us mere mortals, however, writing is mostly about putting your bum in the chair and being willing to write shitty first drafts. So then the question becomes: how do you help people become “better dancers?”

For a long time, I worked with writers primarily as an editor. Someone would give me a draft of a paper and I would fill it with red ink, altering word choice, verb tenses and sentence length. Invariably, I would also recommend that they completely rewrite their introductions so as to hint at the entire shape of things to come. I’m a firm believer that if you get the introduction right, the whole paper writes itself.

These days, I spend more time as a writing coach. My advice still boils down to some combination of exhorting them to work on both style and structure. But the process is quite different. For starters, I don’t “fix” anything. I mark up clients’ drafts to show them where they might improve their writing. Mostly, however, what we do is talk.

We talk through their arguments to clarify what they are trying to say. I try to show them that even if they feel confused, they actually know what they wish to say. They just need to move what’s in their heads onto the page.

Sometimes, we do exercises together to practice various aspects of good writing. We look at how to experiment with “strong starts,” how to identify one’s audience and meet its needs, and how to use mind maps to organise key points and supporting evidence.

Other times, we simply talk about why they feel under-confident in their writing. They tell me about a boss who told them that they weren’t any good at writing, so they should just avoid it. Or about a thesis adviser who abandoned them, interested only in seeing the final product, not guiding them through the process.

For me, editing and coaching both constitute helping professions. The primary difference is that with coaching, you get more insight into the whole person who sits behind the written word. And you don’t so much “do something” to their writing as empower them to do it themselves.

I’m not sure if I am producing any prima ballerinas. But I certainly enjoy helping the writers I work with become better dancers.

Our Writers’ Community: Group outings

July 29, 2018 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Authors, Community, Events, Inspiration, Networking, The writing coach, The writing life, Writers 1 Comment

One of the most unique aspects of The Writing Coach is the strong sense of a writers’ community that we foster amongst all of our clients. We really pride ourselves on this and our community events are open to all our clients from those who enrol in our online course Get Black on White to those who enrol in one of our literary consultancy or coaching and mentoring programmes.

We’re also excited to announce an event which is open to all – our Routes to Publication event at Google Academy on 16th August – a panel event with novelist Louise Doughty, founder of Unbound Books John Mitchinson, Director of the Creative Writing MSt at Oxford University Clare Morgan and founder of Blackbird Digital Books Stephanie Zia. To find out more, click here.

Outing to The Charles Dickens Museum – May 2018

This year we had a truly wonderful day at The Dickens Museum. We also had a lovely Carluccio’s lunch prior to our visit where we shared many stories about our writing lives and our writing goals.

: In the courtyard garden cafe at The Dickens Museum

: Perusing manuscripts

Our writers’ community is also really deepened by our fantastic Facebook group – open to clients only – so that when we do meet our clients often feel as if they know each other already. The Facebook community is a fantastic place for asking questions of others and Jacqui – and also a place where we keep each other accountable to our writing goals.

Outing to The Tate Britain – January 2018

Members of The Writing Coach community at the Tate Britain

Outing to Kew Gardens – Summer 2017

A writers’ summer picnic at Kew Gardens

If you’d like to be a part of our community, you can sign up for our online course Get Black on White which gives you permanent instant access or enrol in any of our writing programmes. To find out more do contact us.

Or come along to our Routes to Publication event at Google Academy on 16th August – a panel event where Jacqui Lofthouse will interview novelist Louise Doughty, founder of Unbound Books John Mitchinson, Director of the Creative Writing MSt at Oxford University Clare Morgan and founder of Blackbird Digital Books Stephanie Zia. To find out more, click here. All attendees will also gain access to our community.

Jacqui says,

What I love about our community is how incredibly supportive the members are to each other. Many of our clients are published writers and our outings are attended by our consultants too, so you get to meet and network with experienced writers and to share your thoughts and discuss your ideas about writing with so many like-minded people. One of my aims here at The Writing Coach is to truly support our members in the deepest possible way and I hope these images give a real sense of how we do this. I attend all of the events personally and get to know everyone. There’s no charge for the events beyond your own expenses for the day – so this really is an invaluable resource for everyone who works with us. I’d love to meet you at a future event!

‘Isn’t it terrible about Chechnya’: Jane Austen – the wartime writer

January 11, 2018 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Authors, Books, Inspiration, Literary Consultancy, Reading, The writing life, Writers 5 Comments

A Guest Post on Jane Austen by former writing coach client Caroline Doherty de Novoa

Caroline’s book ‘Cocktails with Miss Austen’

At Jane Austen’s house, you certainly get what you came for. A tiny wooden writing desk… a view onto a rose garden… a quill. A dainty tea set… books with gold-lettered spines and peacocks emblazoned on the front… embroidery. A turquoise and gold ring… bonnets… dresses. A gold-handled, thirty-inch sword from the liberator of South America… letters… a pair of… Hang on, back up a minute. A gold-handled, thirty-inch sword? From who, again?

Wandering through the narrow rooms and creaking corridors of Jane’s home in Chawton, Hampshire—weaving between a coach group of retired American ladies on tour, a gaggle of bookish twenty-somethings on the tamest bachelorette weekend in history, and several Chinese tourists dressed in full regency outfits—one phrase was churning over and over in my mind, something a writing tutor once said to me.

‘It’s all rather domestic, isn’t it?’

That had been his reaction to a plot I’d come up with during an ideas generation exercise in class. He’d said “domestic” with clear disdain and then scrunched up his nose, like a baby eating a lemon for the first time, to really drive home his point.

At parties, when new acquaintances find out I’m a writer, they often ask what kind of books I write. There are five books on my shelf with my name on the cover—two novels and three anthologies with other writers. So you’d think, by now, I’d know how to answer the question. But I still get nervous, and I often start to mumble.

I usually wave my hand dismissively and say something like ‘just, you know, women’s commercial fiction, that’s all.’

For some, this isn’t really an answer, and they probe further. ‘Women’s fiction, what’s that? What are the books about?’

Caroline Doherty de Novoa

So I try again. ‘The first novel’s a love story, but it’s also about grief. The main characters both lost their mothers at a young age and they’ve dealt with it differently. It asks the question of how much we need to confront the past before we can move on from it. And the second is about motherhood—why some women don’t want kids and others want them so desperately they’ll go to any lengths to have them, and how much that decision affects your identity.’

Usually, at this stage, the person who has asked me about my work nods politely and changes the subject.

It’s all rather domestic, I think. Who can blame them for not wanting to hear more?

I am a writer at a time when the world is seeing one of the greatest migrations of people fleeing conflict since World War Two, when climate change is threatening our planet and millions go hungry every day. In recent years, girls have been systemically kidnapped in Nigeria and shot on their way to school in Pakistan. Women still make up only one fifth of the US House of Congress. I grew up in Northern Ireland and I’ve lived in Colombia, two countries that aren’t strangers to conflict. I studied political science at university. My dissertation was a feminist critique of the criminal justice system.

So why did I spend the past three years of my life writing a book with motherhood as its central theme? It’s all rather domestic, isn’t it? Shouldn’t I have been writing about something bigger, more serious, more political with a capital P?

When I sit down to write, I sometimes feel like one of the modern derivatives of a Jane Austen character… Bridget Jones. In the first film, as she gets ready for a party, Bridget reminds herself to “circulate, oozing intelligence” and to start conversations with sentences like “Isn’t it terrible about Chechnya.”

But, thing is, whilst I care about Chechnya—right now, I care very much about the abhorrent persecution of the LGBT community there—I’ve never been drawn to write fiction about Chechnya or any “big issues” like that.

I wonder if Jane ever felt the same way.

So back to that sword. It was my hawk-eyed husband who noticed its provenance first. He’s Colombian, and so it came as a surprise to see the name of Simón Bolívar—El Libertador, the man who helped secure Colombia’s independence from Spain—on the wall in Jane Austen’s Hampshire home.

It’s an impressive piece of craftsmanship, with a finely carved hawk and cannon for a handle. It’s just a shame Jane never got to see it. Bolívar presented the sword to her brother, Charles John Austen, in March 1827, ten years after Jane’s death. Even so, it’s an interesting reminder of what others were doing, and what was happening in the world, whilst Jane sat at her desk writing.

Jane was born the same year the American War of Independence broke out. When Jane was eighteen, her cousin Eliza’s husband was guillotined during the French revolution. Her brothers, Francis and Charles, fought in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, both of which raged throughout most of Jane’s adult life, keeping them away from the family for long periods.

Virginia Woolf, writing about Austen and her contemporary, Walter Scott, noted that “neither of them in all their novels mentioned the Napoleonic wars.” Woolf goes on to claim that this shows “their model, their vision of human life, was not disturbed or agitated or changed by war. Nor were they themselves… Wars were then remote…”

Winston Churchill seemed to have the same opinion. Of Jane’s characters he remarked, “What calm lives they had… No worries about the French Revolution, or the crushing struggles of the Napoleonic wars.”

I personally don’t believe for a second Jane lived such a tranquil life or that she was oblivious to the suffering and dangers faced by those off at war. I am sure she spent plenty of tense afternoons in the drawing room with the other ladies of the house trying to occupy themselves with reading and embroidery and tea—all the while silently watching the door, wondering if the men they loved would ever return.

It’s true, as Woolf notes, Austen never heard the cannon’s roar for herself. But there are references to the military and military men throughout Austen’s novels. Of course, Austen never takes us to the battlefield in her writing. Instead, her stories are played out in the rooms and gardens of country houses, on a stage that is all rather domestic.

And yet her stories endure. It is these stories of everyday human emotion and social interaction that the British, including Woolf and Churchill, returned to during the chaos of the First and Second World Wars. It is these domestic stories that millions still turn to today.

After we left Jane Austen’s home, we walked up the country lane to Chawton House, the “Great House” where Jane socialised with her brother Edward and his friends. I imagined Jane making that same short journey following a day of writing. And I imagined her walking along the lane, steeling herself for the inevitable question, ‘So what are you writing about?’

Perhaps in such moments she prepared herself for the party in the same way Bridget did, by having an intelligent comment with which to quickly change the subject. Perhaps something like: ‘Isn’t it terrible about France?’

Caroline Doherty de Novoa is the author of the novels The Belfast Girl and Dancing with Statues and the essay collections Was Gabo an Irishman? Tales from Gabriel García Márquez’s Colombia and Cocktails with Miss Austen – Conversations on the world’s most beloved author.

An interview with novelist Stuart Warner

September 21, 2017 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Authors, Books, Guest post, Inspiration, Interviews, Motivation, Self-publishing, The writing coach, The writing life, Writers 2 Comments

In this post, our Founder Jacqui Lofthouse interviews her former client, the novelist Stuart Warner, author of The Sound of Everything. They discuss his transition from poet to novelist.

Novelist and Poet Stuart Warner

When we first met, in your writing life you were primarily a poet. What made you want to transition to novel-writing?

I recall telling friends how much I admired people who’d shown sufficient determination to write a novel. I’d written hundreds of articles, as well as the poetry, so I knew I could write fluid prose. I set out on the first draft as an adventure to see whether I could produce a story of 80,000 words or so – whether I had the persistence to do so. That was my initial goal: simply to produce a first draft.

Did you have an initial impulse that prompted you to write the story that you chose? Did you begin with a story premise or just an image or an idea for a character…?

My decision to write a novel came first. I then had to decide what to write about. Having read Stephen King’s On Writing, I’d decided not to make a detailed plan. I took a few days off work and, on day one, I sat down at my desk, fountain pen in hand, and wrote a single page of notes. It was about 300 words. Rereading it now, I’d call it a rough synopsis. It contained several ideas, which carried through to what became The Sound Of Everything. Mostly, it was about the protagonist: the pickle he’s in and what he wants instead. After writing those 300 words, I turned to a fresh page and started chapter one. Interestingly, the first sentence I wrote had nothing to do with my initial notes, yet it drew on an image I’d been carrying round in my head for a while, a location which plays a major part in the novel.

It’s interesting to me that an image was central to your beginning – as I too, often work from images and strong hunches. I’ve noticed the importance of landscape too in your novel… what role do you think a sense of place plays in your writing?

Place is very important in the novel and it has been in my poetry, too. The Sound Of Everything is set mainly in a small town on the Welsh border, though there are also a couple of hill-top scenes. Certain locations – or types of location – seem to resonate with what’s going on inside us. For example, someone might feel the freedom of the wide-open spaces on a beach or a mountain, or a sense of being trapped by their daily routine in an urban environment. For someone else, I guess the opposite could be true. For me, there’s some sort of interplay between what one might think of as the magic and the mundane: what we see with our eyes, what we feel inside and, perhaps, what we experience beyond the five senses. Writing about different landscapes helps me access that interplay.

Beyond the five senses – you’ve sometimes described this, I know, as ‘spiritual fiction’?

I’d say it’s a small-town mystery with a spiritual aspect – spiritual in the sense of questions we might sometimes ask ourselves, such as ‘Who am I?’, ‘What am I doing here?’ or ‘What’s the meaning of life?’ Going back to your previous question on place, while my initial 300-word outline related to the external plot, the image that came through in the first line I wrote – sentence one, paragraph one – was concerned with the protagonist’s internal exploration. It was only when I came to working with you on the second draft that I delved down deeply into that exploration – the feelings the protagonist experiences when he starts to open to that side of himself. It was difficult to decide what Amazon genre the finished novel fitted into, but I plumped for visionary and metaphysical. Spiritual seemed to me to be too much associated with Christian fiction, whereas the novel resonates more with Eastern ways of thinking – yoga, for example.

That’s fascinating, that the mentoring process allowed you to delve deeper into the protagonist’s inner exploration. Is that what you expected?

When I found your website, I wrote an email to you to enquire about your one year mentorship programme. Here’s what I said: ‘I’ve just finished the first draft of my debut novel and so I’m a beginner as far as novels are concerned… Completing the first draft, regardless of its merit, has given me a huge confidence boost. I now feel ready to commit to learning the skills that I will need to become a published novelist. ’ I had no idea what to expect from working with you, but I figured it made sense to learn from someone who’d already achieved what I was setting out to do, particularly as I’d never studied creative writing.

One of the key points you made in our first meeting, having read chapter one, was that I needed to show why my protagonist acted as he did, by describing what he was experiencing from his point of view. I’d done that in a few places but, generally, the point of view I’d used was too distant. I know now that you were teaching me a technique to improve my writing, but you also opened a door for me, one which helped to strengthen the bridge between my writing of the novel and the way I’d approached my poetry.

I’m so glad that the new closeness in point of view has revealed a link between your fiction and your poetry. For those who might be considering working with a mentor, what in your view, have been the main benefits of the work we’ve done together?

Just to explain how it worked, I’d send you an extract – 6,000 words or so – about a week before our meeting date. You’d then read and mark up the extract before we met. In meetings, which were on the phone as we live 250 miles apart, you’d give me feedback. We’d discuss what you said and we always ended the meeting with an action plan for the next month. Three or four weeks later, I’d send you a new extract ready for our next meeting. Meanwhile, you’d post the marked-up extract back to me. This went on for a year.

The regular schedule was superb because it enabled me to put in a renewed burst of activity every four or five weeks, trying to put into practice what we’d discussed. I’d have to work hard to produce the next 6,000-word extract – sometimes, the same extract as the previous time but substantially rewritten. Then, I’d send it to you and receive almost instant feedback on how well I’d achieved my goals. Rather than slaving over a whole manuscript for a year and then sending it to a beta reader or agent, I’d get ‘mini-reviews’ of my work every month. I believe that accelerated my learning process.

While you were always very positive in your feedback, you always encouraged me to go further. I would usually feel that I’d made huge strides forward each time and you always liked what I’d done. But, after every meeting, I felt I could delve even deeper, because that’s what you asked me to do. That was the bridge with the poetry. When I wrote my poems, I was expressing my truth, as best I could, in a few short words. With the novel, your mentoring helped me to dig down to that same depth in a much longer written work. Of course, I also learnt much in the way of technique. Probably the most important point was the need for the protagonist and other main characters to act in a way consistent with what would be going on in their head: psychological realism you called it, I believe. Why would they act that way after what happened in the previous scene? What was their motivation?

What has changed for you in your writing life in the last year?

The biggest change is that I’m now working on my second novel rather than my first. This time last year – June 2016 – you were mentoring me on revisions to what would become The Sound Of Everything. A few months later, in August, I sent the manuscript to a couple of professional beta readers, followed by further edits and more beta readers in October. Then came the publishing process and a few months brainstorming ideas for the next book. Eventually, I started to write again at the end of April and now I’m 30,000 words in.

Back in summer 2015, when I’d just completed the first draft of The Sound Of Everything, I wondered whether I’d be better to ditch that project and start a different story from scratch. Then I read somewhere that you learn a lot more, about writing a novel, by editing rather than starting afresh. I think that was great advice. My whole experience with that first novel has given me a lot more confidence this time round – that my rough first draft will evolve in a way I’m happy with.

You decided to self-publish ‘The Sound of Everything’ – what was behind that decision?

When I started to read about the importance of genre, I figured I might find it difficult to find an agent. Also, I’d already been down the self-publishing route with my poetry. When I raised the idea with you, you suggested several websites I could look at. One of these was Joanna Penn’s. I found her advice very useful, and I started to realise that many writers now self-publish from choice, particularly if they plan to write several books. It’s a long-term strategy, with less emphasis on the initial book launch and more on building a following.

Can you describe ‘The Sound of Everything’? Tell us about the book…

The book involves two quests: one internal, the other external. I wanted to write a story, which was a bit of a page-turner but also had depth to it – the spiritual aspect we discussed earlier. It’s told from a single viewpoint and includes quite a bit of internal dialogue. It starts with Jack, the protagonist, dashing into an Indian gift shop. What happens to him there, changes the course of his life. Below, I’ve copied extracts from two kind reviews I received on Amazon. I’m sure the book isn’t for everyone, but the extracts are in line with the feedback I’ve received from most readers I’ve heard from.

‘You are drawn into the story from the first page. You gradually learn more about Jack, the main character – why he has moved back to Drimpton, the town where he lived as a young child, and how he adjusts to working there and dealing with the many different characters he soon meets. There are surprises and twists, warmth and touches of humour and wisdom – it is thought-provoking, you don’t want to reach the end, and when you do, you find your mind returning to explore the unfolding themes.’

‘It is beautifully woven from a number of threads relating to the current and past of a town and some of its people as they are discovered by the main protagonist over a few days where he is trying to work out the answers to a number of different (and interesting) issues. It also covers the growth of that lead character as he tries to work out how to move forward from a position in life that he has arrived in because that is where he thought that he would like to be, and then isn’t 100% happy with now he’s got there.’

To find out more about Stuart Warner’s work, visit his website here.

Writing in the Dark – by Miranda Gold

September 19, 2017 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Authors, Books, Events, Guest post, Inspiration, Markets for your work, The writing coach, The writing life, Writers Leave a Comment

We are delighted to introduce a guest blog by Miranda Gold, novelist and author of ‘Starlings‘ – ‘Writing in the Dark’ explores her experience of working with a writing coach: our Founder Jacqui Lofthouse.

Miranda Gold – Author of ‘Starlings’

I arrived at the British Library for my session with Jacqui on three hours’ sleep, carrying an embryonic first draft and unsure how this could bring any coherence to my life or my writing.

Jacqui was unperturbed. ‘I have a hunch,’ she said, ‘we might need to focus on the coaching side of things.’ It wasn’t what I wanted to hear of course and Jacqui was intuitive enough not to press the point. Instead she brought out the manuscript I’d sent her and, between offering her responses, began helping me to find way ways I could make writing part of the fabric of my life – I didn’t realise it then, but by shifting between the two she was translating her suggestion with the same precision she would bring to her reading of my work: the writing and the life can be interwoven into a seamless whole.

This has very little to do with writing from life and very much to do with writing in and with life. The impact of this may have been delayed (almost everything is with me) but it has been enduring. Since then writing has been my anchor and it seems it’s impossible to underestimate just how many influences, however apparently fleeting, have laid the foundation for my writing.

The process has been different with each new piece and the blank page becomes more terrifying, not less, but the fabric becomes stronger and more intricate; the sense of urgency to build worlds out of words supersedes the fear. It’s something of a cliché to speak of how a writer will be carried by the momentum of the story once they have breathed life into it, but it holds true. Yes there may be countless returns and revisions but at least it is alive on the page, here is a world that a reader can meet.

Jacqui also recognised that how I pieced together the novel that would become ‘Starlings’ would be inextricable from the story itself, she could read the modernist influences and see that much was being communicated by the rhythm itself, aware that this would be next to impossible to sell or fit neatly into a box but encouraging me regardless.

Starlings by Miranda Gold

The point is she didn’t try to push me in any direction other than for what clarity would look and sound like for this particular novel. It would have been all too easy for her to urge me to cut away ambiguity, insist on linearity, create something that could be swallowed whole. Instead she listened to it and read it on its own terms and took me – in my blurry-eyed state – on my own terms too. Sometimes what a writer needs most is to be given license to find a the shape for a story even if it isn’t immediately comparable to whatever else might be flying (or not) off the shelves. So I stood by the risks I’d taken because the story of ‘Starlings’ might have been told any number of ways but the way it has now been told is the most honest communication of an experience of living a legacy of half-told stories that couldn’t be easily tidied up into a single meaning.

I would be several drafts into my second novel before I found a publisher for ‘Starlings’ but it now has a home and has found readers who have brought out meanings I wasn’t aware of, reminding me again that a book doesn’t end on the page. Writing is necessarily solitary but making connections is at the heart of it – not only within the book itself but with the books it may be in conversation with and the readers who engage with it.

I’m now working with the pioneering Unbound to publish my second novel, ‘A Small Dark Quiet.’ Though it may be easier to classify, I knew it was likely it might fall through the cracks. That was why Unbound appealed to me – they’re passionate about opening the door to ideas that might not fit easily on a traditional publisher’s list. They’re the first traditional publisher to work through crowd funding and I really feel they are helping to make significant changes in the literary landscape – maybe the reader can help shape the market after all. It’s going to be a challenge but there is a lot of support. I don’t know that any route to publication is easy but I’ll keep taking up the challenge as long as I have a story to tell.

Miranda Gold’s new novel ‘A Small Dark Quiet’ will be published by Unbound – you can support the novel here.

Miranda Gold will be reading from her new book ‘A Small Dark Quiet’ at Hornsey Library on Saturday 23rd September from 3pm-5pm. She will be joined by fellow Unbound author Caitlin Davis and the event will include a short Unbound screening. More details of the event are here.

Words Away Salon: ‘Be Your Own Writing Coach’

June 25, 2017 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Authors, Community, Confidence, Events, Interviews, Motivation, Networking, Productivity, The writing coach, The writing life, Writers Leave a Comment

The Words Away salon is on Monday, July 3, 2017
7:30pm – 9:30pm at The Tea House Theatre, Vauxhall

Do you need some inspiration and motivation tips to get going and keep going this summer? What’s stopping you from finishing that book? Do you start but never quite finish? Would you like to be more confident in your approach to writing?

The Words Away Salon

This month, our Founder Jacqui Lofthouse is delighted to be the July guest at the Words Away Salon – the topic for July is ‘Be Your Own Writing Coach’.

The Tea House Theatre, Vauxhall

Words Away creative writing salons concentrate on the writing process. Run by writers Kellie Jackson and Emma Darwin, who every month invite a guest author to join you, the audience, in discussing a particular topic in writing, a genre, or a question of craft.

Emma and Kellie say:

Over tea, cake and a glass of wine, we’ll explore the challenges and opportunities, the difficulties and joys of writing, and the reality of being a writer. We hope you’ll come and join us. The Salons are held once a month on a Monday evening, 7.30pm at the Tea House Theatre, 139 Vauxhall Walk, London, SE11 5HL.

The Be your Own Writing Coach event is on Monday July 3rd and the guest is Jacqui Lofthouse, our Founder, a novelist, writing coach and literary consultant who has a wealth of experience and ideas for making the most of your writing time. The July literary salon is the last before the summer break and should equip you with some new ways to a more productive writing life.

What is Words Away?

Words Away aims to bring writers together in a creative environment to explore the writing process. They hold monthly salons at the Tea House Theatre Cafe, in London and host creative writing retreats at Rathfinny Wine Estate, East Sussex. Through their Salons they offer a focused exploration on a particular topic with a chance to exchange ideas and ask questions in a friendly setting.

Jacqui Lofthouse, this month’s guest at Words Away

Be inspired. Develop and nurture your craft. Meet other writers. Please join us, all welcome.

If you’re looking for other literary events in London, do take a look at our event at Waterstones, Gower Street on Wednesday 12th July: Literary Fiction, a panel discussion where Jacqui Lofthouse will be interviewing authors Roopa Farooki, Miranda Gold, Alice Jolly, Clare Morgan and Charles Palliser.

Life imitating Art: The People’s Book Prize

May 19, 2017 by Jacqui Lofthouse Filed Under: Books, Events, Inspiration, Marketing, Modiglini, Motivation, Publishing, The writing coach, The writing life, Writers Leave a Comment

Lately I feel as if I’m living in a hall of mirrors. All around me are reflections of my own imaginings – layer upon layer of slightly distorted repetitions – and I’m still trying very hard to get my head around it. The thing is: my life is imitating my art – in a very peculiar way.

Jeanne Hébuterne by Amedeo Modigliani

On Tuesday 23rd May, I’ll be heading to Stationer’s Hall, London as a finalist in the Fiction category of The People’s Book Prize for my novel The Modigliani Girl .

A satire about the vagaries of the literary world

But here’s the thing: the novel is a satire about the vagaries of the literary world. The heroine of the novel is writing a novel called The Modigliani Girl and she takes part in a televised literary competition. The prize in the novel is awarded solely on the basis of viewer votes. So here I am, about to take part in a mainstream literary competition The People’s Book Prize (last year it was filmed for Sky News) where, wait for it, the prize is awarded solely on the basis of public votes (readers have until Sunday 21st May to vote here.)

As I head to Stationer’s Hall for The People’s Book Prize ceremony on Tuesday evening, I’ll doubtless be wearing a rather posh frock. Here’s how such a prize-giving scene is imagined in my novel:

I must smile, only smile, get through it. Make sense of it later. Nobody out there can see quite how much I despise myself for being here. You’ve sold out, Anna Bright. Very soon you’ll be a public commodity with the artistic integrity of an ant. I can see the VT running, on the other side of the podium revealing highlights of the show to come. It’s showing all the usual images of me, at the many parties I’ve recently attended, leaning towards various publishing types, apparently engrossed in conversation. Again that sound: applause. But for what? How many of those who logged onto the website actually got past the pictures, soundbites and logos plastered everywhere and actually read our work? I think they are just voting for the dresses.

The heart of the story

I urge you, of course, not to vote only for the frock (I haven’t bought it yet, that’s tomorrow’s job). I hope, if you’ve read and enjoyed the novel, you will know how it explores the contrast between genuine artistic intent and the modern world of self-improvement, self-marketing and mainstream publishing. At the heart of the book is the story of Modigliani’s muse and mother of his child, Jeanne Hébuterne. Hébuterne, aged 21 and pregnant with Modigliani’s child, committed suicide after his death by jumping from a high window.

Jeanne Hébuterne

Here’s an extract from the novel where Anna imagines Hébuterne’s reaction to her appearance in the literary competition.

This is it, Anna Bright. Sadly I don’t believe my own PR. It’s your time. What does it matter how you got here and what you feel inside? When you put on that dress, you can do exactly what she says: walk onto the stage and work the audience. You can become Fahy and Brown’s next big thing.

But even as I say these words, I am thinking of a girl standing before a high window in Paris. I can’t get her out of my mind. She has lost the only thing that matters to her and she is gazing down at the pavement far beneath, wondering if she will do it, whether the act she is about to commit is one of bravery or one of cowardice. And what would she make of me, that girl? You ar a liar and a thief.

Beryl Bainbridge in the mirror: Founding Patron

One of the things that I love about The People’s Book Prize is the fact that the Founding Patron was Beryl Bainbridge. A long time ago, when my novel Bluethroat Morning was published, I was invited to speak on stage with Beryl Bainbridge at a reading for Amnesty International. I met Ms Bainbridge in the cafe beforehand and of course, as a young writer, I was so in awe of her, but she put me at my ease and we shared a cigarette . On stage, I read an extract from my novel and afterwards, Beryl whispered in my ear ‘very good’. I have never forgotten that early encouragement and that incident appears in fictionalised form in The Modigliani Girl.

James Loftus and Jacqui Lofthouse – reflection on the coaching world

I’m a great fan of Paul Auster and a couple of the things I admire about his books are his insistence on the power of coincidence and also the self-referential nature of his work. So it was that with a nod to Auster (who uses his own name in his fiction) I created James Loftus, the slippery literary guru of my novel. At the time when I wrote The Modigliani Girl, I was struggling with the idea of myself as a coach and feared the idea of the persona created by this very website, the idea that I might be setting myself up as some kind of guru – the last thing I would ever want. So what did I do? I sent myself up in the persona of the ghastly Loftus – a man whose only artistic creation is a book about how to write called How to be a Literary Genius, a man who runs writing retreats in Greece solely for profit, a trickster and a fraud. Perhaps it was only by creating Loftus that I was able to declare to myself what I never wanted to become.

The People’s Book Prize

So how do I feel now that I am asking readers of my novel to vote for The Modigliani Girl? Now that I face the mirror and it reflects my own world back at me? Does my reflection mock me? Do I feel as my heroine Anna Bright did? I was discussing the prize with writer friends this week and one of them said ‘all prizes are like this; the winners are chosen by others; any judging process is fraught with difficulty.’ And I remember too that my heroine Anna Bright is full of ambiguity about the process. I take part, as she does, because in the end, I want people to read my books, I want to say something about the literary world, I want to write about the nature of art – and I want to entertain the reader and make people laugh.

So what better prize, in the end, than The People’s Book Prize. Yes, there is irony here in the layers of repetitions, in the way I prefigured this in the competition in my novel The Lit Factor . But I remember too the spirit in which the prize was founded and Beryl Bainbridge’s words at the launch of the prize:

Something like this, this idea – which is absolutely amazing – once it takes off, it will be of enormous importance to writers. I look forward to the time when we mention this particular prize as the greatest – and look back – and remember I was at the meeting at the London Book Fair and think where it has gone! So I wish it tremendously good luck.

You can read more about the evolution of The Modigliani Girl in my post about writing the novel here.

Good luck to all the shortlisted writers, especially my fellow Blackbird author S E Lynes with Valentina. We will be supporting one another on the night. What matters, in the end, is always the work itself.