this writing life – Page 16

Five Ways In Which Writing A Novel Is Like Making A Quilt

1. When you first start making quilts (or writing novels), it’s probably best to keep the structure simple and use only a couple of colours. That way, you won’t get overwhelmed, and it won’t take you years and years to finish. Simple things can still be interesting.

Double nine patch quilt

2. Even if you follow a pattern, you’ll use your own materials and probably change the size, so you’ll end up with something that only you could have produced. (This can be a good or bad thing, depending on your skills.)

3. When you’re piecing a quilt together, you need to consider how the elements will look when placed next to each other. It’s more interesting if there are various shades of light and dark beside each other.

Milky Way quilt

For some reason, everything I produce is tinged with blue.

4. You will start off with a lot of enthusiasm and energy, but halfway through, you will wonder why you ever began this project. You will make lots of mistakes. Things may begin to unravel.

Unravelling quilt

But problems can usually be fixed with a bit of effort and skill.

They can even be fixed years later. If, for example, you sit your malfunctioning printer on your bed and it leaks ink over your quilt. Ha ha ha, as if anyone would be so silly as to do that!

Repaired quilt

5. In the end, you will be glad you persisted, because you will have created something that is warm and beautiful and comforting. Wait, that only applies to quilt-making. Probably. Depends what sort of novels you write.

Miscellaneous Memoranda

Otherwise known as, A List Of Things I Bookmarked Months Ago But Didn’t Ever Get Around To Posting On My Blog.

– In January, the American Library Association announced the 2013 Rainbow List of LGBTQ¹ books for children & teenagers. At the end of last year, YALSA also blogged about LGBTQ books appearing on lists of the year’s best Young Adult literature and mentioned “several books with secondary or tertiary characters who are LGBTQ and aren’t necessarily struggling with their sexuality . . . It’s wonderful to have books about teens dealing with issues of sexuality and gender, but to me, it says more about the status of LGBTQ characters in YA fiction that there are so many books where the sexuality of gay, bisexual, transgendered, or otherwise queer characters isn’t an issue.” Hear, hear!²

– Remember the kerfuffle a couple of years ago when the Booker Prize judges decided to shortlist books based on ‘readability’ rather than ‘literary quality’? Even though I don’t agree with all of Jeanette Winterson’s criteria for determining whether a novel is Literature, I laughed out loud at this: “The most unreadable books I have read recently were Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series.”

– I was also interested in this article by Lionel Shriver about how women authors behave when shortlisted for literary awards, compared to men: “Any victory that translates into beating someone else makes women feel guilty.” Ms Shriver is impatient with such ‘girly’ attitudes. When asked whether she was surprised that her novel We Need To Talk About Kevin had won the Orange Prize, this was her response:

“No,” I said. And then I made a wrong answer worse by adding, “It’s a good book.”

I wonder if her overt self-confidence, and the reactions of others to this, have more to do with her being a self-confident American living in self-deprecating Britain than her being an ‘ungirly’ woman novelist. I’m also surprised that she believes that literary awards inevitably go to a ‘good book’.³

– There’s been a lot of discussion about New Adult books lately, although I’m still trying to figure out what constitutes Young Adult.

– Courtesy of The Hairpin via Bookshelves of Doom, here are some text messages written by the characters of Little Women. For example, Jo and Meg:

Jo, Father still isn’t dead
really?
I saw him not four hours ago
could have sworn he died at sea

International ‘Please Don’t Pirate My Book’ Day

Apparently, today is International ‘Please Don’t Pirate My Book’ Day. Or maybe it was yesterday? Anyway, you already know what I think about people who illegally download copies of my books instead of buying the books or borrowing them from a library (and, for that matter, what I think of the term ‘piracy’ to describe this behaviour), but Seanan McGuire has just written a very good blog post about the issue, which you might find interesting.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to say a big ‘thank you’ to those of you who do buy books. You’re awesome.

Five Books, Five Songs: Through The Large Four-Chambered Heart

I had difficulties coming up with a song for my work-in-progress, so I asked the two main characters, Rosy and Jaz, for their opinions. Rosy immediately nominated Vincent by Don McLean, because Vincent van Gogh is her favourite artist and he makes an appearance in the book.

“It’s a very brief appearance, though, isn’t it?” I said. “I was hoping for a song that’s about the entire book.”

“Oh, right,” Rosy said. “You want something science-y, then. Never fear, I will use my amazing research skills to find a song for you.” She flipped open her laptop. “What about Weird Science by Oingo Boingo? Or She Blinded Me With Science by Thomas Dolby? Or Science Friction by XTC? Ooh, here’s a good one – Science Genius Girl by Freezepop! Or how about Biology by Girls Aloud? If only that song was a lot smaller. They could have called it Microbiology …”

I went off to find Jaz, who said she didn’t know anything about music but wanted to see what Rosy had discovered. When we returned, Rosy was still at it.

“Did you know that there’s a band called Placebo? And there’s a song called Bad Medicine. But I think you should go with a song from They Might Be Giants – they have loads of science songs. This one’s my favourite.”

“Is this song funny?” I asked. “Because the last song I chose for Five Books, Five Songs was really sad, so I need something cheerful.”

“It’s funny,” Rosy assured me. “Also, there’s a giant squid on the album cover.”

“But the lyrics say ‘koala bear’,” said Jaz, peering over my shoulder at the computer screen. “Koalas aren’t bears, they’re marsupials.”

“Well, They Might Be Giants aren’t Australian,” said Rosy. “Or scientists. You can’t expect them to know very much. They were probably getting koalas confused with drop bears.”

“At least they understand how the blood circulation system works,” said Jaz.

“William Harvey would love this song,” said Rosy, nodding.

“Right, then,” I said. “It’s decided. Mammal by They Might Be Giants. Okay?”

“Okay,” said Rosy.

“Okay,” said Jaz. “But, Michelle?”

“What?”

“You should stop messing about on the internet and get back to writing our book now.”

So I did.

_____

Five Books, Five Songs: We’ll Meet Again

“We’ll meet again,
Don’t know where,
Don’t know when …”

The FitzOsbornes at War is about saying goodbye, so the song I’ve chosen today is Vera Lynn singing one of the most famous (and saddest) songs of the Second World War, We’ll Meet Again.

A girl standing in the ruins of Battersea in January, 1945, after a V2 raid. Photograph taken by Toni Frissell, US Women's Army Corps. — A girl standing in the ruins of Battersea in January, 1945, after a V2 raid. Photograph taken by Toni Frissell, US Women’s Army Corps.