Of book piles and their potential.

If I ever disappear, look for me under the book pile. My feet will be protruding like the Wicked Witch of the West … but my shoes are going to be teal nubuck stomping boots instead of the hopeless gentility of red slippers. Let’s be honest, we could all predict that with the commitment to a 2 year Creative Writing Masters out there in the mix, the book piles weren’t likely to get smaller. With the (near) beginning of a new week dangling there, tantalising as an unspoilt notebook, which part of the pile am I going to destabilise in the name of creativity?

Book folk need no encouragement or excuse to build the pile, but just in case I needed help and motivation there’s the assignment I’m working on for next year focusing on a single influential author. I’m working on that by increasing my book pile. I think that’s a valid approach. Deciding which way to go with this has been like choosing your favourite offspring. There are so many authors out there who influence how I write … so, so many. Not all of them are ones I like. Sometimes I’m influenced by authors I cannot abide, perhaps even more so than those I love depending on my mood. I like to dissect exactly why I hate them so in a dispassionate and academically critical way (Translation: ‘I like to rant a lot about how awful I think they are and how I could possibly have spent time reading them when my book pile is so high and filled with so many gems … often to the cats as they are the only ones not wise enough to leave the room when I get what I like to refer to as my Dan-Brown-JoJo-Moyes look … or possibly they simply aren’t listening to me at any time and this is no departure from the status quo … hard to say when they’re always feigning sleep’). The thing is, my most hated authors are still loved by so many people so they must being doing something right (plus, they are actually rich and working in a career where their book purchases are tax deductible) so there’s a good reason to dissect their prose, even if I don’t want to replicate it. I can’t face using one of these for my extended piece though. This, I think, should be a labour of love. In that vein, I have chosen to increase my Ali Smith book stack as she is one of my most respected authors and the ease and fluidity with which she redefines genre and form is gracefully inspiring.

So, watch this space for some Ali Smith devotion, coming your way soon at a bargain price (free).

If you don’t hear from me again, send help … I will be under the pile.

Musings on 'Never Let Me Go' - Kasuo Ishiguro

I'm devouring the Summer Reading List for Part 2 of my masters course right now and this is one of the real gems on the list.  It's been on my shelf for ages and I kept meaning to pick it up but for some reason (life??) just didn't.  I'm so glad that I finally did though as this is a fantastic book.  I've read other Ishiguro books and, while in many ways this was different, it is also classic Ishiguro in the restraint of the prose and the beautiful pace of the novel, which gradually guides the reader through the story rather than dragging them forcefully ahead.

Reading this from the perspective of a writer, the narrative voice and the choice to write the narrator as if they are clearly recounting their life history to the reader was a very effective device that very quickly brought the characters alive and immersed the reader in their story.  Reliability and POV intertwined with the life story this character recounted and Ishiguro used them in a powerful way, with the narrator often acknowledging the bias or unreliability of their perception.  This helps the reader 'trust' the narrator which builds a strong relationship.  I read elsewhere in one of the 'craft' books that it can help to think about who your narrator is telling the story to as this can help you build both the voice and the narrative itself (I'll update this post with a reference once I find it again!).  This story clearly showed how effective almost-conversational narration can be.

I loved the subtle warping of the English world that we know.  This was certainly what I would describe as a literary novel but it subtly and gently intertwined the fantastic with this.  The narrator's assumption that the reader already knows and understands this world and exactly what the narrator is makes for a very effective tool to bring the reader into this warped world - it shows us the plausibility of the implausible.  It helps build tension as it's not until the end of the novel that it is clearly spelt out but it does so in a gentle way - the reader reaches the end and has their understanding confirmed but the novel isn't driven by suspense.  This creates a delightful pace to the work.

There are definitely a lot of lessons to take from this into some interesting creative work this year.

Writing on the road

Making good use of the downtime between Part 1 and Part 2 of my Creative Writing masters course by sorting out all sorts of things that I put off to write over the last academic year.  So far, I've set up a calendar of submissions and started working on some pieces for the imminent ones and I've got a head-start on putting together my website, including this blog.  It's a work in progress and I'm going to go back and fix the copy once the structure's up-and-running but definitely steps in the right direction.

I'm going to keep the main website for all of my writing content but I'll be posting my thoughts on some of the books I'm reading along the way here.  Along with any other notes and musings that occur to me.

I'm particularly enjoying writing on the road this month and I'm lucky to have the writing view below to keep me company.  Eventually, I'll have to return to the 9-5 but not yet, my friend, not yet.