Booktrust Guest Blog - Part 1

From post-its to pin-ups – a writer’s journey [1]

Posted on Booktrust blog - Monday August 17th 2009

Our Twitter page has put us in contact with diverse parts of the publishing industry, from publishers to writers to book bloggers to parents and carers who benefit from our bookgifting. One of the more interesting personalities on our Twitter feed has been aspiring author Rebecca Woodhead. Author of two books and unpublished, she has been using the internet to her advantage, to build up a loyal following of visitors to her blog and writings. Then she was nominated for Ms Twitter UK, a Twitter competition pitting her against celebrities like Lily Allen and Fearne Cotton and their extensive fanbases.

Mobilising her band of followers, cutely named the Word Nerd Army, and rallying publishers, agents and literary types alike (including Twitter god Stephen Fry), Rebecca won Ms Twitter UK, with the motto 'the pen is mightier than the pin-up', promising to help promote literature and reading and aspiring authors and libraries, all issues close to the heart of Booktrust.

Now with a land of opportunities awaiting her following her victory, Rebecca has written two blogs for us, this week on how she came to write her novel and use the internet to help promote it and in the next blog on how she won Ms Twitter UK and what it means and how other writers can follow in her example of using the internet to pursue their dream of being published.

From post-its to pin-ups – a writer’s journey [1]

Life is a giant mess of events and if you have a motto, it helps. Some people spend years analysing books and following gurus to find their life’s motto. I found mine on a block of novelty post-it notes in a gift shop in America in the late nineties- Today’s mighty oak is yesterday’s nut that held its ground.

The path that led me to post-it enlightenment was an exciting one. With a coma and a nasty run-in with ME/CFS behind me, I wangled a place at Southampton University by offering to conduct my interview in iambic pentameter.

Three wonderful years later, with a degree under my belt and an American under my skin, I set off for a year in the States. My relationship with The American was tumultuous but my relationship with Boston was beautiful. Something about the place pulled out the writer in me.

When I returned to England, the first thing I did was to write a book. It was a thriller. It was terrible: way too scary and way too complicated. By the middle of it I was terrified and decided to lock it away. Years passed. I fell out with The American and fell into a very dull job trying to convince the Public Sector to save money. It wasn’t me at all. Despite the high point of meeting and marrying my dream man, a bunch of ‘think you’ve hit rock bottom? Try this!’ events brought on ‘ME/CFS – The Sequel.’

After years of relative normality, I was knocked flat. My doctor advised me to stop work. The incapacity benefit people were happy for me to try to write a novel, however, so I wrote. Sometimes I wrote from my bed and sometimes from the cupboard-with-aspirations that became my writing space. No matter how ill I was I could always write. After a year, I had a first draft of Palaces and Calluses but our accommodation was intolerable and was making my health worse. We could afford nothing privately and with four thousand people after each place on the social housing list we had no chance. When we heard a landowner was offering to rent out a house at well below market value and was keen to fill it with struggling locals, we grabbed it.

The reality of living in a place without curtains or carpets scuffed the romance off the experience, but with help from a carpet-laying family member and my passable sewing skills, we finally made the place habitable. We found a computer desk by the side of the road, dusted it off, put a computer on it and a few months later, the next novel in the series: Muddles, Puddles and Pearls appeared.

A couple of months before I finished the first draft, I decided to blog my experience. The blog began a journey that would create a group of book enthusiasts called The Word Nerd Army and lead me to beat Lily Allen in Ms Twitter UK using the phrase ‘the pen is mightier than the pin-up’. A nut I may be, but I am holding my ground.

Rebecca Woodhead

Next we'll learn how Rebecca mobilised the Word Nerd Army to help her win Ms Twitter UK and promote literature.

The Village Alchemist - By Rebecca Woodhead

Molly Smithson had always been a tuning fork for gossip, with every newsworthy whisper that reached her environs tuned to the perfect pitch for the next recipient. Of late, Molly had refined this craft with such expertise that she had graduated from tuning fork to Gossip Alchemist.

As Molly strode to the village shop, down narrow streets that wound between the cottages of Uppish-On-The-Wold, she pounced with panther-like stealth on all her fellow villagers to devour the latest news. Although they all complained about her nosiness, the twinkly blue eyes that peered out from behind dark lashes had a way of pulling news out of them. Specks of gossip flew towards Molly like metal filings to a magnet and, in no time at all, she had smelted them down and turned them into pure gossip gold.

On a sunny morning in early June, Molly was in the queue at the shop counter. Her basket was packed with biscuits, milk, cake and other tea-related paraphernalia for a gossip she had planned with Hetty Barboury-Bassett from the next village. Molly could not be doing with loose leaves and teapots but she had made sure to pick up the Earl Grey and Darjeeling tea bags. She did not want ‘Posh Hetty’ to think she only drank ‘builder’s tea.' Just as she was counting out her pennies, ready to move to the front of the queue, she overheard two people near the Cornish Pasty and sausage roll fridge whispering. She pricked up her ears.

‘No Gerald,’ said a female voice, ‘she won’t be able to stop here long enough. William and Harry are at the Royal South West on Saturday. They’ll need to get home.’

Molly gasped. The Royal South West was a huge country show. She knew Zara, the cousin of the royal brothers, had competed there in the past and the two princes were known to attend almost every year. It couldn’t be true, but it must. Princes William and Harry were coming to the duck race on Saturday before they went to the show. Just as Molly thought she could not be more excited, she remembered another part of the conversation. There was a ‘she’ in the sentence that had been whispered with such reverence. Who could it be but...

‘The Queen!’ Molly blurted as she reached the counter.‘Pardon?’ asked the shopkeeper.Molly looked around. The two others had left.

‘You’ll never believe it Mr Stafford. Something amazing is happening this weekend.’

‘The duck race? Well, it’s nice and all but it happens every year Love.’

‘Yes it does. It does. That’s why she is honouring us with her presence no doubt. The duck race is important to the community. It is a symbol of all it means to be British.’

‘Well, now, you’re pushing it there. It’s some plastic ducks and a stream. It’s for the kiddies.’

‘Yes it is. It’s for the kiddies, as you say. It’s our way of sharing the village with the next generation and that’s why the village is now so important to the people at the top of the country.’

‘People at the top? What are you blathering about now Molly? You mean the politicians? Do you not watch the news? My Council Tax is a blooming scandal. Why would they care about a duck race?’

Molly sighed with impatience. Usually she had a bit of time to spin an elegant tale and she felt the gilt was wearing off her golden gossip.

‘Not the politicians Mr S. The Queen.’

‘What?’ Mr Stafford looked rattled. ‘This weekend?’

‘The very same.’ Molly smiled as her gossip hit the bullseye.

‘But why? Who said?’

‘It’s very hush-hush. I heard it from a reliable source. It is being whispered that both the princes will be here too: William and Harry!’

‘The young princes? In Uppish-on-the-Wold? Would they come into the shop do you think?’

‘They might. In fact, they will. We should have a big party. I’ll organise it.’

No sooner had Molly left the shop than Mr Stafford had the ‘back in five minutes’ sign up on the door as he searched through the old boxes in his storeroom for the strings of bunting he had saved from the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977. They’d enjoyed a brief dusting off for the village Millenium party but this time he planned to give the bunting a really good clean. The Queen was coming to Uppish-on-the-Wold.

Mr Stafford walked through to the shop and looked at the wall behind the counter. He would move the health and safety notice and the poster urging people to buy local sausages. That would make space for a huge photo of him, the Queen and a bunting-bedecked Uppish Stores.

By the time Molly had returned to her cottage, she had already told three more villagers about the imminent arrival of their monarch. Donna Warren had a friend who was a florist. She would almost certainly provide them with some flowers and Donna’s own garden was brimming full of roses and sweet peas she could pick and bring into the street to decorate the post box and lamp posts. Hannah Burlington had already offered to bake cakes for Duck Race Day – there was no harm in her baking a few more. Mr Finch offered to bring Humbug – his old black and white cob – down from the farm. He’d throw a harness on him and polish up the old trap.

‘Her Majesty could go for a ride down the street in the trap if she wanted. It’s no Cinderella carriage but it’s good for a laugh.’

‘Absolutely,’ Molly agreed. ‘Of course both William and Harry will be here and they might want to, even if the Queen decides not to. Bring Humbug along Mr Finch.’

Duck Race Day finally arrived. The bridge over the stream where the race was to take place was covered in beautiful flowers from Donna’s garden. Her florist friend had brought in boxes and boxes of flowers which decorated everything from the telephone box to Uppish Stores. Bunting flapped joyously between the lamp posts and all along the main street, trestle tables covered with paper tablecloths were laden with cakes, homemade jams and yellow marzipan ducks. She had even invited Hetty Barboury-Bassett and her friends. She was going to be the talk of the villages for months.

Molly liked to think that she had organised the whole thing but secretly she knew that the moment word got around that the Queen and Princes William and Harry were coming to the village nothing would have stopped them putting together the best party in the county.

Lady Amsptonford was due to open Duck Race Day at ten o’ clock. Molly was desperate to see whether the Queen would be with her or not. As the Bentley approached, Molly could see only one other passenger in the back seat. The princes were certainly not there and she could not make out whether the person in the back was the Queen as she was almost completely obscured from sight by a large box on her lap.

The village was poised for their royal guest and, despite appearances to the contrary as the car parked, Mr Finch stroked Humbug’s neck in anticipation of what could be the horse’s greatest moment. The local television and radio crews positioned themselves for the big news story. Molly had been certain they would want to capture the moment so she had called them. She nodded to the school band who began to play ‘God Save the Queen’ as the rear door opened. With all cameras pointing at her, the visitor emerged from the car. It was not the Queen.

Once Lady Amsptonford had made her speech on the bridge and complimented the villagers on the outstanding displays of food and flowers, she introduced her guest.

‘It is with great excitement that I introduce a surprise guest today. Mrs Highfield is, as some of you may know, a prize-winning breeder of Aylesbury ducks and we are very grateful to her for bringing with her two of her finest to compete today. They can’t stay for long as they need to get ready for their competition at the Royal South West this afternoon but I’m sure you’ll all give a warm welcome to... William and Harry!’

Molly wanted to disappear. She felt sure that the whole village would turn on her for her mistake but instead they just laughed. Hetty patted her on the back ‘daft old mare’ she said to her friend. ‘Come on, let’s race ducks’ and they threw their plastic ducks into the stream along with all the others.

In the end, Harry and William didn’t want to race. They were quite content bobbing around and quacking at the locals. Humbug was happy to ferry giggling children up and down the village, and the cakes and jams all sold out. Everyone agreed it was the best Duck Race Day ever.

When Molly next went into Uppish Stores, she couldn’t help but grin as she saw the photo behind the counter. Mr Stafford smiling proudly in front of his bunting-covered shop with William under one arm and Harry under the other.

How to Sharpen your Literary Senses

The expression, ‘show, don’t tell’ is missing four things. Your readers are not content merely to see your story; they want to hear, smell, touch and taste it as well. Here are some simple ways to make your stories tantalise the senses of your readers, and make the writing process even more enjoyable for you.

Sense Perception

Set a time limit – maybe an hour or a day – where you notice everything. Carry a notebook with you and whenever you have the chance, note down your experiences. For instance:

‘When I press my fingers down slowly on the keys, it feels like pushing into the foil top on an old milk bottle’ or

‘the heating has just switched on and it sounds like a distant steam train’ or

‘the table shines like a freshly opened conker.’

You’ll put down a few clichés and a few bizarre descriptions that you may never use but you’ll start off your literary senses collection and your brain will begin to think about the use of senses in a creative way. After you’ve done this a few times, it will look out for things for you and throw them at you while you write, or in your dreams.

Sight

Colour is a marvellous place to start. Your heroine has brown hair and it is summertime. You could say that she has brown hair with highlights from the sun and that would work fine but a more interesting way to put it would be that it is ‘mocha with buttermilk streaks.’ Think about the exact colour. Maybe the streaks are buttermilk but the main colour is actually ‘latte’ or even ‘espresso.’ Be specific. A good tip to help you become more creative with colour is to keep some paint colour charts on your writing desk. Make sure you don’t use trade marked colours directly but you can take your inspiration from the names of the paints and play around with variations on their ideas.

Go free range and use your notepad to make sensory observations. Leave your desk, go to a coffee shop and observe people in their natural habitat. Watch people who pass in the street. Try to describe them fast in your notebook. Be specific. Do they have a thin and tired face or is it ‘drawn,’ ‘haggard,’ or ‘pinched?’ Their walk may be fast or it may be ‘hurried,’ ‘panicked,’ ‘desperate.’ You may even use this five second portrait to develop a character. Give your character a name, a reason for the tiredness and the speed of their walk. By the time they’ve gone out of view, I’ve usually worked out a whole back story. I pick people in the street and imagine they know each other and are just ignoring each other. Why are they doing that? What happened that their friends don’t know about? You may have a short story, poem or novel right there. If not, it is a handy character sketch for a secondary character or simply a bit more practice at using your literary senses. Just don’t let anyone see you or they’ll ask to see your notes and that could get embarrassing!

Sound

Think yourself into a sound. The clock might tick like a mother’s heart, for example. What is the sound really like? Feeling your way inside a sound, or any other sense, is not only a descriptive exercise, it can also help you with the tone of your piece. If the clock doesn’t sound like a mother’s heart to you but the rapid second-hand sounds like the tiny feet of a child running from their mother then you have a different story entirely.

The other tip with sound is to make use of it while you write. I put lots of different types of music on my MP3 player and play sets of tunes depending on the mood of the scene I am writing. I also give my characters ‘theme tunes’ – like in the movies! When a romantic scene is about to go right for a particular character, or they are feeling nostalgic, or they are feeling super confident, there is a specific tune I play. This really works for me and helps me ensure consistent development of the characters as I feel a set of emotions specific to the character when I play those tunes, so even if I haven’t written that particular character for a while, I snap right back into their head. When I am editing, I switch it off to make sure I am not relying on the music to create the mood and that helps me to know that it has worked.

Smell

This is so important to me. I measure out my novels in Yankee Candles. I use their jar candles because you can reuse the jars and they are safer than normal candles. I use them in the same way as the music. I have different smells for different moods and I have general fall-back candles which immediately get me into the mood for novel-writing – anything with coffee in it. If I drink coffee, I’m too jittery to write well but the smell of it really does the trick.

The same rules apply when describing smells. Be specific. Do research. Does a rose really smell sweet? Find one and work out the smell for yourself. Maybe it did to Shakespeare but your nose might pick out words like ‘dense,’ or ‘heady,’ ‘musky’ or ‘cloying’ or even something totally unexpected. I mixed a very expensive oil blend once, with rose oil in it, and when I let my brother smell it he said:

‘Yum, hot cross buns.’ When I sniffed it again, that was all I could smell.

Touch

This is where your notebook comes in most useful because we don’t spend an awful lot of time thinking about touch. For instance, you might look for the blue pen but when you pick it up, you won’t spare a thought for the way it feels in your hand. It is easier for you to call to mind ‘the blue pen’ than it is to locate ‘the pen that feels medium weight in comparison to the heavy pen.’ Sight is a short cut. You don’t go around the room feeling things to identify them if you are able to see them, so drawing your attention towards the sense of touch deliberately is a good exercise. It seemed improbable to me just now that my keys felt like pressing on a milk bottle top but, if I do it slowly enough, that is exactly what it feels like.

Another ‘touch’ exercise is to remember an experience you have had in the past – pick something nice like a first kiss or the first time you went from polycotton mix sheets to Egyptian cotton and talk yourself through every part of it, making notes on all the feelings you had at the time and the memories sparked off by those feelings.

Another fun exercise, is to put your Egyptian/polycotton sheets to good use; spend some ‘research’ time with your partner and make notes – but make sure they’re nice comments or you could end up with a very stroppy other half!

Taste

Buy some chocolate. (Any tip that starts ‘buy some chocolate’ has to be good, doesn’t it?) Eat the chocolate really consciously, focusing on everything about it. You can actually use this to help you with the other senses too. Write in your notebook: what it looks like; the sound of the chocolate snapping as you break it; the smell as you bring it closer to your lips; the feel of biting into it for the first time; the way it melts in your mouth, and every little nuance of the taste. Repeat until full.

Use these tips and, not only will your readers experience your books more fully but you will too. Have fun!

©Rebecca Woodhead

Published work http://rebeccawoodhead.blogspot.com
Journey to Publication http://frombrain2bookshelf.blogspot.com

First published in 'Today's Woman'

‘Bees on Earth’

‘They are dying,’ they said. As the words left television-mouths and buzzed towards my ears, they moved my eyes towards the window and through the window to my little garden. Unknowingly, its end loomed. No more bees.

At once, I knew our salvation lay in books and bulbs and seeds. The garden centre would bring us – the garden and myself - new, better, stronger bees and our future would be secure. If, whilst in this seductive retail Eden, I should happen upon some essence-drenched candles or succulent, hand finished chocolate treats that would be a fortunate happenstance but my quest was to recreate the perfect bee-friendly haven to usher in a new generation of fluffy, Gloucestershire bees.

Bombs are falling. The news is full of ‘if only’s and terror. A perfumed candle flickers hopefully on the table. The weather may turn against us. Guns may end us. Chocolate melts the sharpest edges from the pictures. A new, unseen foe may be pushing up through our society like an angry spot… but I have a garden. I have a little patch of rented earth and in that earth I can plant a new world. I cannot save the people dying alone in foreign lands. I cannot mend a society full of individuals each of whom has their own demons, their own pains, their own secret resentments but I can help a bee. I can make a little, safe society whose border control is hedge and Cotswold wall. There will be no vehicle pollution – I can cross the whole land in two strides – but whole communities will live there in harmony. A rainbow of bees will call it home and I will let them. I cannot fix the world but I surrender my garden to buzz and fuzz and pollen toes.

My husband was informed that we were at the brink of a New Garden Order. He listened.

‘So we’re making it a bee garden?’ he asked.

I saw the pictures in his mind. He was playing through the morning walk from door to car – buzzing borders on each side. He was calling to mind my bee allergy. He was weighing anaphylaxis against apocalypse. He was imagining Cotswold honey melting onto buttered toast.

‘OK,’ he said.

A year has passed: the new country has been built and handed over, by mutual agreement, to its democratically elected government. An alliance of bees maintains absolute harmony over roses, snapdragons, jasmine and geraniums. Huge bumble bees levitate over a lawn which is now home for many months of the year to little blue bees. They have no queen but live in their own little homes in the ground and happily share space with their golden honey bee friends in the borders. When my husband mows over their roofs, they glide out of the way of the blades without a cross word.

Peace on Earth may be a long way off but until it comes, in this little corner of Gloucestershire we are giving bees a chance.

©Rebecca Woodhead
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‘Bees on Earth’ by Rebecca Woodhead was first published in the anthology 'Write Around Gloucestershire' - in celebration of the county's 1000th birthday

Recession Expression - A Guide to Writing Through the Fear

We’re in it Together

We’re all in the same boat: it’s sinking, but we’re all in it. This is the time to give thanks to your chosen deity that you are not a banker. You were born creative and with creativity comes inventiveness and resilience.

Your laptop is your life raft. As a writer, your job is not to stand on the sinking ship complaining that the brochure said it was ‘unsinkable.’ As a writer, your job is to chart the progress of the journey. The vessel may not be heading towards its intended shoreline – it may, in fact, be going down – but it is still on an historic journey and your fingers are the ones that can tap that journey out.

Why Write in a Recession?

Why not? This is a decisive moment in history and anything you write now will be valuable. Does that mean it will make you a millionaire? Probably not but it will certainly make you more wealthy. In a recession lots of bad things happen. People lose their jobs; creditors call in debts; houses are repossessed… none of this is good news. These external factors can affect you badly and make you feel trapped and fearful but none of them should stop you writing.

The things that trap us and make us feel truly hopeless are what William Blake called “mind forg’d manacles” and these, not the external factors, will have an effect on your ability to write. If you decide to write no matter what is thrown at you then, while other people are able merely to complain about what they have lost, you will be able to create new things: books; articles; blogs... Creation in the midst of destruction: that is true wealth.

Releasing the Mind Forg’d Manacles

Well, now we’re all fired up to write, and feeling great about our creativity and place in the scheme of things, it might be time to throw in a few practical tips.The theory’s sound but if the manacles are clamping down or the raft has sprung a leak what then?
Forget everything. Forget the money you hope to make from your writing; forget the collapse of the global economy; forget the endless to-do lists. Simply find a space to write and commit to doing so.

Understand that the space doesn’t have to be a location, it can be a time. Give yourself a set period of time when you will not allow yourself to be disturbed. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a room on your own or a busy coffee shop. You have to decide that this moment is your writing space and it will not be disturbed. Once you’ve done that, write. Don’t edit it or criticise it. Let it flow. Let yourself write unutterable garbage. The point is to keep the pen moving or the fingers tapping. You can edit it later.

Know that you are doing something important. I have read many letters from writers saying that they lack support. They frequently express a lack of confidence in their work because their friends or family members mock them for thinking they can be a writer. Tune it out. You know you are a writer. That is enough. If you act as though your work is important, your mind will pick up on it and make the time and space for you to write.

And Finally…

Even with the best intentions, it can be hard to focus on writing when you haven’t enough money for food or heating. You need to know that this is no excuse. It is perfectly possible to be living in subsistence level poverty, scraping by on benefits and still be creative. I have had two brushes with hypothermia over this winter and we can’t afford to go food shopping more often than once every two weeks, so I’m not writing from an ivory tower myself, but I’m in a far better position than many writers and I’m sure the same is true of most of us. Anne Frank was creative. What do we have to complain about? That said, here are a few tips to make the process easier.

Writing on a Budget – Tips

Keep your food costs down by buying in bulk. If you buy unbranded sacks of rice and pasta and store them in airtight containers, you’ll save a fortune. They keep for ages so, if you find yourself with some spare pennies one week, stock up. Also, stock up on vitamin pills for the weeks when a food group or two goes astray.

If you’re an omnivore, buy chicken but don’t buy chicken breasts. When you buy chicken breasts, you’re paying processing and packing costs you don’t pay when buying a whole chicken. You can get 16 meals out of a chicken (see my blog for more info on this obsession of mine!) Let none of it go to waste. Make stock from scratch and you’ll have soups, stews, pasta sauces etc for the week.

I don’t choose to be a vegetarian, but I strongly believe in being an ethical omnivore. I don’t buy ‘battery’ chickens or eggs however poor we get. If I can’t afford free range, I don’t buy the chicken. If you scrape together the money to buy a free range chicken and you can get 16 meals out of it (or 20 as my husband managed the other week – don’t think I’ll beat that) then the food is way cheaper than the price of some breast meat from a battery-farmed animal.

Make friends with your freezer. If you’re on a real budget, freeze everything you can. If you make meals from the chicken as soon as you get it home and freeze them, you can live on the food from the fridge in week 1 and the food from the freezer in week 2.

Now you’re equipped to thrive through the recession as a writer. If you have a shaky moment when The Fear grabs you, ask yourself one question:

‘If Shakespeare were alive today, would he complain because his television had been repossessed or his games console had been sold or his electricity had been switched off?’ Would he? Or would he pick up his pages, sit at his table, light up a candle and write?

To follow my writing journey and for more tips on writing through the recession, go to my blog:
http://frombrain2bookshelf.blogspot.com/

©Rebecca Woodhead

This piece was first published in The New Author