THE UNSTOPPABLE AUTHOR SUBSTACK

I saw the above interview quote on Twitter last week, taken from a Guardian article featuring  the late Hilary Mantel.

It seemed to resonate with a lot of authors. Sometimes, this is exactly the kind of thing you need to hear. For those of us who have ‘pantsing’ in our process to even a small degree, this is cheering stuff. If this is how the mighty Mantel thought of it, with all of her brilliance and her exquisite historical research and detail, then we should surely try to do the same.

I’ve been thinking a lot these past few weeks about trusting the process of writing a first draft, which, for me anyway, means ignoring what I see on social media, ignoring what ideas I might have about the current market, and ignoring my own inner critic, which is always so keen to have things neatly polished and saleable before they’re even been written.

I try to plan my first drafts but it rarely works. Don’t get me wrong, as I tell my MS Report clients over and over again, a narrative does need a structure. It’s not just going to pour out of you perfectly formed. There are tools and techniques to storytelling, reasons stories work and reasons they fail to grip, and once you understand how and why story works, you can apply those lessons and make your material shine. And there’s no doubt that having a clear identity for your novel is pretty much required if you want to be trad published. 

But, even knowing all this, I still can’t start with a fixed plan. God, I wish I could! Knowing what I am going to write would save so much time. Because I know about story structure, some sort of natural story form will probably emerge as I write. If not, I’ll corral it all into shape in the redraft. But first of all, I have to do an unplanned draft to find out who and what I am writing about. For me, at its best, writing a draft feels like tracking an animal through a forest. I can’t decide the journey ahead of time, because what I’m following is alive and has its own will. If I plan the journey and then follow it, I’m just walking alone. 

Writer Lena Dunham said something similar in this quote below, which also touches on how too much input from the world can prevent a writer from tuning in to their muse, in an interview with the Guardian back in Sep 2022:

“Though my voice is loud, I’m actually a person who feels most comfortable alone in the world of thoughts and books. I had an instinct that taking some time away was going to be necessary to survive – there was a little while there when I wasn’t hearing my own voice.” To write, she says, you need to feel “like you’re a hound that’s smelled a fox and you just have to chase it all the way into its hole. My senses had been blunted by the experience of being in the world in that way.” By which she means: constantly scrutinised.
 
Mind you, as Mantal intimates, it’s not always easy to trust. To allow the book to be what it wants to be. To get out of our own way, to believe that our subconscious has a grander and more brilliant plan for our book than our wonderful but also slightly tense, control freak brains can summon up. 

I DO believe this. My creativity has always led me where I needed to go (notice I don’t say wanted!) I just struggle to remember that sometimes, as we all do. I find, mostly, that the times I struggle to trust the muse are the same times I have my eye set on something in the future – a way the book should be, how I want to appear to others, the sort of success I think I should have and the best way I can see to getting it. I know you can’t really compare books to children but there is a similarity there, I think, to those parents who insist on moulding their kids for their own ego (no doubt messing those kids up in the process) and the other ones who are secure enough to let their kids be what they want to be – even if that means they’re maybe a bit weird and unpopular for a while. Those parents can do that because they are sufficient mentally healthy enough to know that their children are not THEM. I think sometimes we forget that we are not our books.

Anyway, the point is, letting go of the outcome is useful, primarily because when you let go and follow the story, that tends to be where you chance upon the muse. My muse likes to hang out in the shower, and when i least expect it, it will leap out and tell me something I didn’t know about my work in progress  – “HEY, THE X is actually Y!”  I’ll stand there, lathering my hair, agog, marvelling at this fact, as though someone’s just filled me in on the latest twist in my favourite TV show. “No way!” I’ll say. “That makes loads of sense and I never saw that coming”. This is what i love the most about writing and this is reason number one to trust the process – because it will surprise and delight you like nothing else can.  It will also worry you and frustrate you and you will spend a good portion of the time wailing inwardly (or, you know, outwardly) “but where is this going? Does that even make sense? I mean, what the hell?”

But I say, let us just trust. And then we can tidy it all up later.

Other places the muse likes to hang out. Long walks alone. That few minutes just before you properly go to sleep, when it’ll bellow in your ear – “HE should DIE!” And you’ll leap up, wide eyes and hair akimbo, to get a pen.

So, this is just to say, loosen up a bit. Trust the process a bit, even if you love planning and planning really works for you (Jealous, moi?) let your subconscious get involved. Find out where the muse hangs out. And let the unknown aspects of your story reveal themselves to you. 

Nicola x

PS. Where does your muse hang out? When were you last hit with an unexpected but wonderful idea? Leave a comment and let me know!

Those who know me will know that, as well as a lifelong love of literature and creativity, I also have a longstanding fascination with self-development. I’m intrigued by self-esteem and self-compassion. How we sabotage ourselves. How we go off path, and how we find our way back. Why we are here and whether there’s a purpose and, overall, how to best live a true, authentic life. You know, all that light-hearted stuff. (I’m a great laugh at parties.)

Trying to write a book, pitching out, getting published and what comes after – all of that is a wonderful boot camp for anyone who wants to test how healthy their self-esteem is. Another way of putting that is that writing is wonderful and also, it will pound your spirits to dust if you are not careful.

And at this time of year, our personal and professional goals get put under the microscope as we get dragged into that annual appraisal of what was achieved and how we’re doing. While it’s great to take stock of what we’ve done, many of us will be prone to looking at what didn’t happen, what we lack. There might be a critical voice in the head saying: ‘Hmmm, not so great. But you’ll do better next year.’

I am an ambitious person and I enjoy achieving. But I am also a person who is determined to value myself as I am now. Not conditionally upon me achieving XYZ.  This can be a tricky balancing act and I believe this will always be a work in progress. But it fascinates me, how to have both goals and peace. How does that work? 

There’s a book I love, with a title and central idea that I will often repeat to myself when my critical voice gets loud. It’s by Cheri Huber, and the title is, “There’s nothing wrong with you.”  (NB. Some people hate this book because it’s written in childish font and feels simplistic. Each to their own. To my mind, the simplest ideas need repeating ad infinitum because as soon as we’ve grasped them, we lose them again.)

Huber argues that our difficulties in life don’t come from the fact that there are things about ourselves that we need to fix, but that we are constantly trying to fix ourselves and, in the process, we are often just getting further away from the truth and our true selves.

How does this apply to writing? Very often, both published and unpublished writers are (quite naturally) trying to get away from where and who they are, and over to where and who they think they should be. If you haven’t finished (or even started) your novel, then you might berate yourself for being a person who can’t achieve their lifelong dream. If you have finished your novel, but you haven’t got an agent, then you might be telling yourself that you will be happier and just all round a more successful and impressive person when you have an agent and, on some level, you feel are deficient if you haven’t got one. If you’ve got an agent, but no book deal then you’re not where you want to be, and you might feel a lack of okayness until you reach that goal. If you’ve got a book deal but then your sales aren’t great then…well, you get the picture.

The general message here is that you are not okay right now, but you believe you’ll feel different, better, more okay, more successful, more accomplished, more together, more YOU when you have changed these things about yourself and/or your situation.

But the truth is, if you don’t feel all those things now, you’ll probably never feel them.

I know. It’s a bitch. Sorry about that.

The good news is all of this is under your control.  You are already a worthwhile, valuable person no matter how many books you have or haven’t written, no matter what stage of the game you are at. You are enough, exactly as you are.

More, I would argue that you are always at the point that is right for you. So struggling against where you are, and who you are, is pretty fruitless, since everything happens in its right time and for your best good.  You might find it hard to believe that, but I believe it enough for the both of us so don’t worry about it.

So, today, remind yourself, “there’s nothing wrong with me.” Keep an ear out for that negative voice that whispers in your ear – “oh, you haven’t done this, you didn’t do that, you need to have this, you shouldn’t have done that.”

Call bullshit on that poison.

You are a unique, wonderful, creative human exactly as you are, right now. You are exactly where you are supposed to be. 

That is enough.

You are enough.

Earlier this week, I talked about the value of space and silence and how that can help your creativity communicate with you.

If you want to deepen your relationship with creativity and with yourself, then I would recommend adding in a journalling practice.

Some of you might already do this, regularly or sporadically. Some might never have tried. ‘But what do you write?’ people who have never journalled sometimes ask. And my answer to that is, ‘whatever is in my head at that moment in time.’

We don’t realise how much clutter we are holding in our minds until we articulate it on the page. I don’t mean eloquently. I mean a blurt of messy thoughts, complaints, worries and dreams, half-formed, perhaps nonsensical or contradictory, but all the better for being aired.

No one is every going to publish my journals. (And not only because I shred them once a notebook is filled.) They’re not art. They’re not impressive. They’re not meant for anyone else. They are a conversation with myself (or sometimes a conversation with creativity itself, I’m not above sending a complaint directly to the source!)

The words you get down in a journal are the daily, repetitive conversations you dream of having, that you need to have, but that no other person has the time to participate in. I mean, sure, your family and friends love you – but no-one has that much time or patience. No-one except you and creativity. 

(Those who have read The Artist’s Way will be familiar with the concept of Morning Pages. if you haven’t read this book, it’s a useful guide to getting back in touch with your creative self.)

Attention is one of the most precious (and rare) things in the world. Increasingly, we fight for attention from others, in person but especially online. Spend any time on social media and the plea is clear- notice me, listen to me, see me. But there are thousands of posts whooshing past every minute. It is very challenging to get noticed in any meaningful way. 

Actual real life (or Zoom) conversations with other creative types are incredibly valuable, of course. They can be a wonderful reality check and are another thing to add to your creative life where possible. 

But whatever your situation, you need never feel neglected or not listened to. Every day, you have the opportunity to give yourself half an hour of precious, golden attention, writing down your thoughts and hopes and fears in a journal. Telling yourself that you, and what is going on with you, matters.

After all, you can’t exactly resent no-one giving you attention if you can’t even be bothered to give it to yourself can you?

I use an A4 spiral bound notepad and a fountain pen. The same notepads, the same pen every time. For me, handwriting makes a connection that typing on a laptop doesn’t. But you can experiment and find your own way.

My journal entries often start with, ‘Okay, so…’ and then I will reel off what’s bugging me, where I am up to, what I am hoping for, what I am stuck on. Sometimes as I write I will untangle a knot or two – in life or creativity. Sometimes I won’t. But I always get the relief of having listened to myself. As writers, often we don’t understand what we want, or how we feel, until we have formed it into words. 

So, if you find yourself feeling neglected, or overlooked, or just in need of a listening ear but there seems to be no-one around you can talk to, then turn to the person who is always available to you, and who, deep down, knows what is best for you above all others.

You are the person whose attention you need the most.

Nicola x

How are you?

I hope you are well and that you and your creativity are thriving.

You may have noticed that I haven’t sent out a newsletter for a while. Then again, if your inbox is anything like mine, you probably haven’t noticed because there’s already so much stuff vying for your attention.

In my work – whatever that work is – I always gravitate towards doing what I know is of value to me. I am not some unique specimen of a human being so if I like something, or find it useful, the chances are another human will too.

So, every time I thought about writing a blog post or a newsletter or even a tweet, I would think – what would I need or want to hear? What can I provide that is helpful? And you know what the answer was?

Nothing.

I long to hear nothing. I long for silence. I long for great expanses of mental space in which ideas can arise, creative thoughts can form or where I can just simply give my mind a break from the chatter.

What I don’t long for are dozens of links to writing advice, seventeen podcasts on productivity or any more hacks or hussles or long, fractious, argumentative threads about how to do this writing thing, boss this writing life and finally WIN THE GAME OF CREATIVE LIVING!

That’s not to say that I am not addicted to all of this input. I am. I think we all are. There’s a reason I only visit social media on Sundays.

But deep down in my soul and my gut I know that the most useful thing we can do to strengthen and grow is to have more time connected to ourselves, so that we can listen to our inner creativity (a persistent voice but a quiet one, hard to hear in the noise of social media and 24:7 news). While general writing advice absolutely has its place – I’ve given plenty of it and will again – none of us who have an internet connection are lacking other people’s opinions and guidance.

What many of us ARE badly lacking is our own sense of how to live this creative life. 

Which is why I haven’t send a newsletter for a while. I have been thinking of you, Dear Unstoppables, but I have been giving you the gift of space.

Now take some more. Take it whenever and wherever you can. Leave your phone outside the room for an hour. Take a half-day off social media. Go for a walk. Tell your creativity that this time is just for it to tell you how it’s doing and what it needs.

In the silence and space, your creativity will speak. 

Nicola x

Why is this novel not written already!? 

This occurs whether I am on chapter two or chapter fifty two so I think we can safely assume this is a me problem. (Though I’m pretty sure I am not the only one who does this.)

Writing a novel is the product of a thousand tiny steps, many small actions that culminate in a large and complex creation. The issue is when we come to the next small step and expect to feel the pride and success of that big magnificent piece of work. We won’t. We are the architect-house-builder staring at the next brick. We can’t really see how far we have come – and we despair when we think about how far we have to go. We know that this one brick we lay today won’t get that mansion built tomorrow and so we might begin to wonder – what is the point in laying this brick at all?

But of course, if we don’t lay the brick we will never have the house.

I believe that, to stay sane and happy as writers, we have to learn to love the bricks. We have to reward ourselves for every brick laid. We have to attach our celebrations, our sense of achievement, to the bricks laid, and not the house and however celebrated and beautiful and life changing we hope the house will be. We have to remember to enjoy the process because this is writing. This is what you want to do!

I’ll go further. When I say brick, I don’t mean a chapter, or 1500 words, or even necessarily any amount of words. A brick is whatever you have decided a brick is.

According to the rules I have made for myself and which you are welcome to use, they can be anything, but they MUST also be the following –

Controllable – As in, it is something that can be achieved and is within your power.  So, I will sit with my story for 1 hour today with no distractions. NOT, I will write a brilliant chapter today. Sometimes your writing will be terrible, sometimes and despite your best intentions, it simply won’t happen at all. Pretty much all you can control is that you sat there and spent time with your story. That’s a brick.

Realistic – So often what I see in aspiring writers is absolutely unrealistic goals that are dependent on them living a totally different life to the one they have. Be completely transparent with yourself about who you are, and what your life demands of you. Don’t aim for a morning writing session before work when you struggle to get up on time as it is. Don’t think you’ll get weekend time if that time is regularly co-opted by your spouse or kids or your intensive kayaking course. In essence, do not set yourself up for failure or a built in excuse. Be honest and realistic with your creative self. Find a time that will work – the time slot and frequency is entirely up to you – and then commit to it. That’s a brick.

Quantifiable – We need to know when we have finished because otherwise how will we celebrate our brick? So, I will sit with my story for 1 hour is better than I will work on my story today. Because – for how long? How will you know when you are done? As writers we long to feel that we have achieved something. Put a limit on it. Make it something that you can tick a box say say, DONE! That’s a brick. 

Easy to achieve – We are all different when it comes to how much we can write. But after years of experimenting, I can say that, for myself, shorter time span is better. I can write for maybe two hours max before I’ve drained the good stuff. What happens after that is I start to undo the good work and begin to feel negative about the story I was so excited about when I started that morning. My energy has gone and writing in low, bad energy doesn’t help me or the work.  Set a goal that is easy to achieve even on the worst day so you don’t get disheartened. And perhaps give yourself the room do to more, but ONLY if you are in the zone. So, “I will write 500 words a day”. You may be thinking, Pah, 500 words, what good is that? But 500 words every day for a year will get you further than 2000 words a day for two weeks until you have a bad day, skip your writing practice completely and then months go by and you haven’t got back to it. A small achievable goal is a kind and compassionate way of creating. It’s gentle, it’s sustainable and, like the tortoise and the hare, it’ll get you past the finish line in a slower but more steady fashion. Plodding, essentially. That’s a brick.

Overall, this is just a reminder that we can learn to love, cherish and enjoy the bricks. These are, after all, what your novel, and your writing life, are built from. 

Because writing takes a lot of self discipline, it is sometimes easy to get stuck on a track of “I have to.” I have to write this chapter, I have to finish my novel this year, or, when you’ve got a book deal, I have to deliver X, Y, Z to whoever might be expecting it.

Discipline is good. Deadlines are good. Having other people holding you accountable is also good. But, as with anything to do with creativity, it’s not black and white. Often when we are creating, we can get to a point where we are working so hard on our goals and our dreams that we forget that we have a choice. We forget this is all our free will.

And that can take the joy – and so the motivation – right out of a writing project.

When I was writing The Gods of Love, and I found myself inwardly (and, full disclosure, outwardly) complaining about how hard it was to write a book, paradoxically the thing that kept me going was not me telling myself, “Nicola, the world is waiting for this novel! You must finish it!” It was when I reminded myself, “Nicola, nobody gives a shit if you write this novel or not, so what are you complaining about? You have chosen this. Stop acting like there’s some boss over your head making you do something you don’t want to do!”

The reason this helped, I think, is twofold. One, it reminded me that expressing my creativity was a choice (and indeed a privilege) and that I didn’t need to bring a load of suffering to it. Writing is graft, for sure. But it is joyful graft. Not suffering.

Two, it reminded me I had another option, which was not to do it at all.

If you are a writer, most of the time doing the writing is the thing you will choose over not doing the writing. Writers don’t feel like themselves when they are not writing. I’m reminded of something Seinfeld said in “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.”

Norm MacDonald asked him, “Is there anything you still want to accomplish?”

Seinfeld said, “My entire adult life is just making comedy stuff.  For some reason, it’s important to me to make as much of it as I can.  I imagine a woodchuck has a similar mindset: ‘I’ve got to chuck wood, as much as I can, because that’s my thing.’”

Writers, in my experience write because it feels better than not writing. Because it’s what we feel we were put here to do.

But still – you are not actually a Woodchuck. Which is to say, you don’t HAVE to.

There are times when writing is NOT the right thing to do, and reminding ourselves that we have a choice opens up that door where as, if we continue to act as though we HAVE to write, then that door remains wedged shut. I believe this remains true, even if there’s an editor breathing down your neck, waiting for your draft. The stakes are higher, yes. You’ll piss a whole host of people off if you don’t deliver. And anyway, you’re probably gonna do the thing you said you’d do BUT the fact remains – you don’t HAVE to. You have agency in this. It is still a choice.

Remembering this can make all the difference.

When I first wrote a novel, more than ten years ago now, and got my first agent, it wasn’t the right time. I didn’t have a clear enough idea of what I was trying to do and so, although my ambition and my discipline wanted me to carry on redrafting this novel that was increasingly getting worse and worse, further and further away from what I intended, my creativity was telling me (begging me!) to stop writing. And after a mentally torturous time a little chink of light got in and reminded me that, despite my agent’s hopes and expectations, despite the eager gazes of my friends and family who were excited for me, despite my own huge ambitions and dreams, I didn’t actually HAVE TO write this novel. I had a choice. I could stop.

So that’s what I did.

And when the time was right, a few years later, I wrote The Gods of Love, got my brilliant agent, got a two book deal with Piatkus, was nominated for a Writers’ Guild award, and wrote my follow up, The Love Delusion, creating the duology I had always dreamed of. I only got there because I remembered I had a choice

In writing and in life, the most powerful changes for me have happened when I realised that I have a choice. When we take responsibility for our actions, it adds more magic to them, more energy, more purpose.

I HAVE TO is passive and puts you in a victim mode. I WANT TO is active and powerful and reminds you that you are creating.

So. You don’t HAVE to write that novel.

But maybe you want to?

I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I studied English and European Thought and Literature at university but it wasn’t until years later, when my children were adults and I was running my own business that I found the time to write creatively again. This led to my gaining a place on a Creative Writing Master’s degree at Sheffield Hallam University where the seeds of my Singapore based novel began, and ultimately landed me a two-book deal with Arrow. 

Like most published authors, I started out writing poetry, short stories, even constructing the first 30,000 words of a couple of novels.  It was tough, though, and I kept hitting a wall. I joined a few writing courses and even had mentoring. My writing seemed to be going really well, so I applied for the master’s degree at Sheffield Hallam – celebrations all round when I got on the course.  However, not everything went as swimmingly as I thought it would, and there were times when I really struggled – I couldn’t get into my stride and I had so many false starts and felt so confused about how to write, which voice to use etc., and I really experienced lots of self-doubt.

I’m not one to give up easily, though. I belonged to a group of writers from my course who met regularly to support and to critique each other’s work. The most important thing that I learnt from the group was how crucial it is to edit and how important it is to listen to the opinions of those you value.  Although this was really hard at times, I learnt a lot about the craft of writing, how to share my work with my peers and how to receive feedback.  I discovered that it is only through planning, critiquing, rewriting and polishing, all fuelled by sheer determination, that anything gets written at all. I can’t tell you how many times I felt like giving up, that I thought my writing was rubbish and why was I even trying when the chances of getting published were zero? Without this support of other like-minded writers I would most certainly have given up.

However, I finished my master’s with a completed novel, and I was rather taken aback by the encouraging comments I’d received by my assessor. ‘Put it out there’ was the comment that stuck the most ‘see what happens.’   So, I did. I approached about 15 agents in total, some who were not interested at all, and a couple who were. Approaching agents is in itself another dispiriting process – how do you deal with all those rejections? Yet, my dreams did come true when my wonderful agent took me on. The message here is, don’t give up, listen to criticism, polish, hone your craft, even if you think it’s the best it can be, your writing still has room for improvement. Read as much as you can in your genre and see how others have mastered their craft. Ask as many people as possible for their opinions and don’t be hurt by what they say. Writers need readers – listen to them. If one person doesn’t agree with something you’ve written, you don’t need to change it, if three do, perhaps you should consider it.  Go on courses, join writing groups for feedback, but most of all you need to write, every day if you can. It’s an uphill struggle, but you will get there even though the climb seems impossible at times. Set a goal, and write, then rewrite and polish it all again.

I’m proud of what I’ve achieved. It’s taken about 10 years from my first ideas forming to my novel being published.  At times, I really didn’t think I’d make it, but by taking a step back, mulling over the advice or criticism I’d been given, taking a deep breath and diving back in again, that’s how my final best-as-it-can-be highly polished novel emerged.

Paula Greenlees is an author of historical fiction based in Warwickshire. Her debut novel, Journey to Paradise, will be published as a paperback on 30th December 2021 by Arrow, (an imprint of Penguin Random House) .Paula is well- travelled, having lived in Singapore and America. She has had a varied career including stints as a teacher, running her own businesses and finally pursuing her dream of being a full-time writer. She enjoys walking, good food, chocolate and settling down at the end of the day with a large gin and tonic, preferably with a good book and with her dog at her feet. For more information about Paula and her novels, please visit her website www.paulagreenlees.com, or connect with her over social media. Linktree Facebook Twitter Instagram

Journey To Paradise is set in 1949 in post-colonial Singapore. It follows the story of Miranda, a bereaved young mother who is hoping for a fresh start in Singapore. Set against the backdrop of political and social unrest, she feels like an outsider and becomes increasingly distant from her husband. When doctor Nick Wythenshaw encourages her to work within the local community, she finds new purpose away from her protected world that opens her eyes to a new way of life. But as riots erupt across the region and danger draws close to home, Miranda must make an impossible choice – will she sacrifice everything she holds dear to find happiness?

Journey to Paradise is available to order from Amazon, Waterstones, W H Smiths, Foyles and many other good bookstores.