Room for Improvement
Always space to revise how you work
WRITING:
Firstly this week, a PSA for any readers who are also writers based in Norwich. The National Centre for Writing, based at Dragon Hall on King Street, has started making spaces available to writers who need somewhere to write in peace, free of distraction. I say started, I’ve only just become aware of it. I’m pretty sure it’s a new thing, but feel free to tell me I’m wrong.
Three hour slots on Thursdays and Fridays are currently bookable up until the end of August (and again, no idea if this is because it’s a summer venture, or if they’re only bookable so far in advance). The spaces are FREE, with Wifi, a water cooler and noise-cancelling headphones provided. Details available here.
I’ve never been a coffee-shop writer and I’m reasonably lucky, having a decent dining room space at home that suits me and is relatively distraction-free.
I also work Thursdays and Fridays, but I’ve a week off at the end of August so thought I’d try it out. A change of atmosphere will be refreshing and allow me to see whether there are benefits in writing in a different space. I also feel that if this something the NCW are trialling, by supporting it I’m doing my bit to show it’s something that’s wanted. Just wish it was on a Monday!
While Parallels still sits with other people, I’ve made good on my intention to return to Ray Adams VI. Reviewing the existing material at the moment, but pleasantly surprised at how satisfied I am with it so far. I’ve also found the time to enter a short story into a competition this week, which is sort of a new venture for me.
One thing I do need to address though. I’ve always been, in the parlance of our times, a pantser, as opposed to a plotter1. When I sit down to write, I may have a vague idea of where I’m going, but I’m largely making it up as I go along, reacting to the situations I create on the hoof. I’m okay with this. I’ve spoken many times about how I can’t be diving about all over a manuscript, how I have to start at the beginning and just write through to the end, and so far it’s worked out. However, with Ray Adams VI, I think I do need to have a more solid idea in my head of where I’m going than I currently do.
Interestingly, I think it’s as my books get longer that I’m seeing a shift towards needing a better idea of where I’m going. Which makes sense to me. Invariably, longer books point to denser stories, more characters, longer narratives, so keeping more balls in the air would naturally lean a little bit more on forward planning.
One of the most fascinating things about being a writer is the ongoing process of learning what you’re like as a writer. I won’t describe it as a ‘journey’2, but there’s an element of self-discovery involved. And I hope I never reach the point where there’s nothing left to learn.
Which I guess ties back to my trying out the NCW’s writing space. However much I might feel settled in my own writing space at home, for all I know I’m missing out on the opportunity to be even more creative/productive by not exploring other options.
So that’s the message for this week, it seems. No matter how much you think you’ve got your routine figured out and optimised, there’s always room for a little experimentation. There’s none of us, surely, who couldn’t still find a little room for improvement in how we got about our business.
I have enjoyed:
Antony Gormley - I’m a fan of Gormley’s work. His large-scale installations of nude statues of himself can transform an environment - I’ve enjoyed seeing them across London rooftops and the 100 statues on Crosby sands, just north of Liverpool, bring an air of magic to the beach. So there was no chance I was going to miss the chance to see Time Horizon at Houghton Hall, the stately home in Norfolk that’s made a name for itself for its big outdoor summer exhibitions. It didn’t disappoint. With some statues on plinths that towered over the viewer through to some buried with just their heads showing, it’s almost unfathomable that all of them were placed using lasers to ensure their heads were at exactly the same height, at sea-level. They’re there to admire until the end of October.
The one in the woods was may favourite - so evocative, so folk-horror. River - If I had to pick a subgenre of science fiction that really rocks my world, it'd be low-budget time-travel movies. There’s something about the playfulness involved that I really dig. 2020’s Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes, a Japanese film written by Makoto Ueda and directed by Junta Yamaguchi, was a head-scrambling piece about a café owner discovering that his computer monitor was showing what will happen in two minutes from the perspective of the tv in his café, which displayed what happened two minutes in the past. He puts the two together, creating a Droste effect, madness and hilarity ensues. Ueda and Yamaguchi teamed up again in 2023 for River, in which a hotel up in the mountains starts experiencing a weird phenomena whereby all the staff and residents kind of black-out and find themselves where they were two minutes ago, essentially becoming stuck in a time-loop. Hilariously, much of the film involves staff trying to placate irate guests as if the time-loop was an inconvenience on a par with the heating failing, or the wifi going down, as well as arguing about if they’ll get paid for the time they’re experiencing or just for the two minutes that’s actually passing, in between trying to work out what’s happened and how to stop it. It is a lot of fun.
The cast of River Wimbledon - Yes, I’m one of those really-into-tennis-for-two-weeks-out-of-fifty-two guys. Spending a fortnight talking about ground-strokes, volleys and slices before going merrily on my way and not giving a thought for the rest of the year. I’m writing this on the Wednesday, so currently two of the QFs have been played for both the Gentlemen’s and Ladies’ Singles. Looking like a repeat of last year’s final on the men’s side, but the female competition is wide open. I’ve taken some of the week off so I can luxuriate in the semis as well as the finals.
Sadly not Coco’s Wimbledon this year. 251 - In their worst showing since 1832, the Conservatives lost 251 seats at the General Election. While it’s impossible to feel too celebratory when there’s actual fascists now sitting in the House of Commons, we can at least take heart from the fact that it only took three of the worst Prime Ministers3 in modern history to make the public turn their back on the Tories. The Greens now having four MPs is good, but their vote share compared to Ref*rm wasn’t. And the lowest turnout in two decades is nothing to cheer about either. However, with a Housing Minister who’s actually lived in Council Housing, a Chancellor of the Exchequer with a Masters in Economics and a qualified barrister as Secretary of State for Justice, it’s almost as if there’s some kind of plan that doesn’t just involve handing out jobs on a whim to people who have the PM’s back.
Greyskin (Deixis Press) and Playtime’s Over (Propolis) are both available direct from their respective publishers, as well as from all the usual places, online and off. You can also support my work by buying Ray Adams’ self-published books, or by simply buying me a coffee.
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No shame in it. Stephen King and Margaret Atwood are, apparently, pantsers, and they do okay.
Yuck.
And I’m not saying Cameron and May were great…