My Letter to You:

Dear Sir/Madam, what you are about to read is an insight into everything that I am and everything that I aspire to be...

No. That is not what writing is about. If you are writing to be published, yes it is for the benefit of the reader, but it is not fair for a reader to assume that what you are writing sums you up as a person. People go through life, using their mistakes and lessons to influence themselves to make informed choices. Often, writers use this for their writing, but I do not believe it is fair to suggest that a piece of published writing is specifically for a writer to open up about themselves to the public.

However, in this day and age everything is about marketing yourself as a writer. You have to be interesting for people to read your books. It’s not like you could do a Charlotte Bronte and write under a pseudonym and expect decent coverage, it’s all about who you are and why you write. Nowadays authors go on book tours to market both their work and themselves. Fan pages, twitter and Facebook are all used to create interest in the Author as well as their work. People sell so if you want a book to succeed you yourself need to be successful. I personally don’t like this way of thinking, I’m pretty old fashioned in the way I think: if your writing is good, it doesn’t matter who you are. However, even I can’t help but judge an author by their past and how it influenced their writing so it’s a lose-lose situation really.

Below: All successful authors who have succeeded in marketing themselves. Is this behind their success as writers?

Stephen King: Promoting his book 'Lisey's Story'

Phillip Pulman: Book Tour 

Stephenie Meyer posing for Paparazzi - pose based on her book 'Twilight'

Jodi Picoult: Book Tour

Aaand J.K. Rowling, also subjected to marketing.

What Inspires Me As a Writer?

Inspiration comes from such a variety of places; it’s hard to sum it up into 250 words without generalising. However, generalise I shall.

It is unfair to say that there is a specific thing that influences my work. Everything that I have ever experienced has and will continue to influence my writing. Life is a journey and you cannot help but allow that experience to be portrayed somehow into your writing because experience is what makes a piece of writing strong and authentic.

What I have been through in my life has had an effect on everything I do; including my writing. The good times and the difficult times have always inspired me to write a strong piece of writing, and I find that my most successful pieces have been based on my personal thoughts and feelings about a particular incident in my life. The people I meet influence characters I write about, and places I see, influence the settings I describe.

Published works will also obviously inspire me as a writer. I am an avid reader and I constantly look for new material; something to expand my knowledge and style of writing. Books are not the only things that influence me as a writer. Films, television programmes and stories told by other people all contribute to how I write and what I choose to write about. For me, experience is the main source of inspiration for me and that involves absolutely everything, no matter how small, or minute in detail. If I didn’t use this experience and knowledge that I am gaining every day, my writing would have no substance. 

A protagonist that embodies the flaws and weaknesses of the writer distracts the reader from the narrative itself. Agree/Disagree?

Of course I disagree. If the narrative is written well enough, then nothing should distract the reader!  However, it depends on the way the reader chooses to interpret the story. If a reader has background knowledge of the writer, and decides to look for the association between the protagonist and its creator, then yes, I would go as far to say that these connections would distract the reader from the narrative.

Unusually for Cheever, the narrative of The Swimmer was written so well, that I had the time to enjoy it without spending too much time analysing the links between Cheever’s alcoholism and (the protagonist) Ned’s compulsive swimming. Whilst I still made the connection between Ned and Cheever, it did not distract me from the narrative or disrupt my (rare) enjoyment of Cheever’s storyline. In fact, I can assure you that because these weaknesses were so prevalent in Ned’s character, the narrative felt more authentic and emotive. I could identify with Ned’s character much more than other stories (such as Goodbye, My Brother) where the characters themselves didn’t relate to Cheever’s personal weaknesses. I developed a dislike to the Narrator of Goodbye, My Brother because he seemed too perfect and idealistic rather than a character of interest and deserving of my attention like Ned.

When listening to music, one can argue that the knowledge of the artist’s background can enhance the appreciation of the song and the lyrics and relate to the content more readily. It gives the lyrics more meaning. This is the same for writing. One is more likely to identify with the content if there is a reality behind it.

Elton John Your Song – Has your knowledge of this man’s personal life and weaknesses not affected the way you interpret, and relate to, this song? Why is this song so successful?

John Cheever Style Short Fiction Piece

Okay, so I forgot to post this alongside the other post- but here is my (awful) attempt to write in the New-Yorker style.

Catherine McGrath was nervous. She always was when she ‘talked’ with John. She was worried that she wouldn’t be able to explain herself clearly and that yet again, their problems wouldn’t be solved. Catherine had managed to convince John to come for a walk but they’d stopped at a bench, not too far from the house so they could gather their thoughts. Catherine sat down whilst John leant forward on the bench – a dark look on his face.

Finally, he sighed, his shoulders sagging a little as he walked round the bench to join her. He shuffled closer and pulled her into a strained cuddle. Catherine broke down into tears.

“I will always love you” John murmured, making Catherine cry harder. She pulled away, shaking her head until her long wavy hair completely covered her face. Smiling slightly, as though amused by her attempt to hide her tears, he cupped her chin and whispered:

“I mean it” he wiped away the tears from her eyes and kissed the streaks they’d left on her face.

“Nothing you do will ever change the way I feel, but this is no longer me. It has to be goodbye.”

Catherine nodded, knowing there was nothing she could do to change his mind. Seeming satisfied, he nodded and stood up brusquely. He straightened his jacket, kissed her hard on her lips and walked towards the main road. He paused to look back at her before he stepped into the road and disappeared under a white van.

Why might a writer be considered to have a 'style' or 'formula'? Is this a good or bad thing? Do you, as a writer, have a recognisable 'style'?

 “By the time you have perfected any style of writing, you have always outgrown it.” George Orwell: Why I Write.

We, as humans seem to take pleasure in singling out a particular style in everything we do. Be it writing, art, music or even fashion, we have this urge to categorise everything into labelled boxes just so we can understand them better. It is impossible to associate a writer with one particular style, because style changes. Why are we still labelling our writing when we are trying so hard to make our work stand out?

I agree with George Orwell that a writer grows with their writing; therefore the ‘style’ of the writing will grow too. Yes, it is possible to identify specific features in a person’s writing, but it is unfair to characterise a writer with a particular ‘style' for our own clarification.  Not only does the style of a piece depend on the character of the writer, it depends on the form and content. For example the style of a piece of journalism would be completely different to a piece of prose-fiction. Therefore if a writer changes form or content, the ‘style’ would be considered different.

Imagine a group of writers were told to look at the ‘style’ of a piece of writing and try to emulate it. Whilst there would be ways of discerning the features of a particular style, not everyone would share the same perspective. Therefore there would be various similarities in each piece submitted; but each ‘style’ will be different regardless of the level of the reproductions because everyone has a different perception of the world. 

What part does gender play in your writing?

“Every child is born, not only to specific parents, within a specific language and climate and political situation, but into a pre-existing matrix of opinions about children.” (M. Atwood Negotiating With the Dead).  Everyone is brought up either in a matriarchal environment or a patriarchal environment (unless you are very lucky and it is balanced). Whether we like it or not, our upbringing affects us personally and therefore it affects us as a writer. Writing is always personal, no matter the style or the content so how can your gender-affected environment not affect your writing?

Similar to John Cheever, I have grown up in a matriarchal environment, where the only person fully involved in my upbringing was my mother; men barely played a part in my growing up. Of course, this has affected my writing in a big way. My understanding of relationships, men and family has always been different from those around me, and shows in my character portrayal in my writing. It doesn’t matter how hard I try, my writing will always give me away. There will always be that one character that relates to one of the grown men in my life; the character that reveals the prejudice that I learned at an early age. I am aware of this as a writer, and I do try to test myself and try a piece from a male point of view, give them a voice not only in my stories, but in my mind. Yes, gender does play a part in my writing, but I try to make sure it is a positive one!   

No writer emerges from childhood into a pristine environment free from other people’s biases about writers.

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. I didn’t ever set out to become a writer, it was something I’d enjoyed at school and found I was actually good at. (Supposedly - I’m a little judgemental/sceptical about what constitutes being ‘good’ but that’s another story!) I always wanted to be a performer/actor/actress (whichever) and so writing always took a back seat once I’d taken to the stage. I’d always thought that I’d never be able to combine the two as even though I’m female, multitasking is SO not one of my strengths! I did find however, when I was devising a piece of performance in drama, writing was always involved. The creation of an idea had to be written down, and mastered - just like when writing a piece of prose. It was then that I decided, ‘hey, I can be a writer and a performer’. In case you’re interested, so far, I seem to be doing pretty well; it’s a bit difficult to do two major pieces from both, but I’m coping... just!  A lot of the skills involved in the devising process of drama correspond to the process of creativity we all loved so much in year one! 

Anyway, that was just a bit of background into how I decided to be a writer. The reason that I completely agree with this statement is because at the moment I decided I wanted to take writing further, adults lost interest in my future. I’d impressed people saying I’d wanted to go to university, but as soon as I mentioned creative writing, I’d get an ‘oh, how lovely’ or ‘that’s different’ and people would try to move on from the subject as quickly as possible.  This made me try and explain my actions; why I took creative writing, how it’s going to help me. It still didn’t work. In general, adults just couldn’t see why I was doing a three-year course, learning how to write stories. Well, what do they know? Have they ever tried to write a story? A piece of poetry? Okay, they might have, fair point, but are any of them published? No. Well there you go. Have any of them tried to get themselves published? No. They’re not good enough (their words not mine). So if they feel that ‘anyone can be a writer’, or ‘writing’s easy’ why try and put down my course? The problem is, because anyone reads and writes, the art of writing is always going to be put down in the back of the mind. Whether someone reads a piece of writing in awe or not, there’s always going to be a part of the human brain that says - ‘hey! I can write too - no biggie’.  However, you talk to children about learning to write poems and stories and other forms, they look up to you in awe and exclaim: ‘I want to do that!’ There you go Ian, a few more students for you in the years to come. J

How is it that I became a writer?

It is my opinion that anybody can be a writer, I am not exactly sure that I just ‘became’ a writer just like that, but I have always enjoyed writing from a young age. There is a quote from Alice Munro in Margaret Atwood’s book; Negotiating With The Dead, where she believes that in order to be a reader, one must be a writer as well. For me, this is an apt summarisation of how I became a writer; as soon as I learned to read, I learned to write and put ideas down onto a blank page. Does this mean I became a writer the first time I wrote a coherent sentence? Or did I become a writer when I actually completed a full piece of writing that a reader could understand?  Having been asked to consider ‘how’ I actually became a writer, it has occurred to me that perhaps writing is not as exceptional a skill as I’d hoped. Being at university has fully challenged my ideas about the rules of writing and commencing this blog has made me doubt my capabilities of standing out as a writer. Anybody can have a blog about anything. What makes us think that we can make a difference with our writing? That is the key to becoming a writer; setting out to make a difference. And that is why I believe I became a writer: because I finally decided to write for others as well as for myself.