I'm a Writer, but is that Enough?

Now I’ve finished my MA, I’ve spent a few calm days reflecting on all I’ve learnt and all I’ve achieved in the last two years. Somewhere on that journey, I became a writer. I can’t put my finger on the exact day, but it was around the same time I stopped being self-conscious about my abilities and just got on with it.

To put this in context, I was an indifferent student of both English language and literature at school; which were taught in such a way that I was left with no desire to read more classics and I perceived grammar as a form of slow torture. That my early creative instincts in writing were not encouraged, was entirely down to the tired and listless attitude of my secondary school teachers. Even after escaping from a career path of science for one in animation, it wasn’t until I began to write scripts, (both animation and live-action) that I wrote anything creative. These scripts were not to sell, but to satisfy my own urges to write narratives. At the same time I had also been steadily collating my chaotic notes for the fantasy role-playing system I had created, which, by the time I began my MA, had been distilled into two good sized, non-fiction books. And even then I didn’t think of myself as a writer.

The very reason I applied to do the Professional Writing MA at Falmouth was to earn that badge, to gain the confidence, skills, and understanding, of the written medium.Now I’m here at the point of completion, there is a temptation to think of it as some sort of big deal; certainly it’s a personal achievement, having got this far, but though I can now say I am a writer, there is more to aspire to. That I can string some words together to good effect is all very well, but the internet is full of writers: posters, bloggers, commentators, reviewers, critics, and tweeters who claim to do that. 

Even saying that I’m a writer, brings some negative baggage –’Is he actually earning a living at it, or is he just being pretentious?’ ‘It’s not really a proper job.’ ‘Anyone can be a writer these days with the aid of technology.’– Perhaps my aim should be something that implies a much greater mastery of the craft than merely being able tweet; I want to become an author. By definition the title of ‘author’ implies the creator of a piece work, it implies an omnipotence over the project that is more than simple technical fluency of the words that make it up, it cuts away all the baggage, it says I am established, successful, and published; it says I have ‘authority’ in my field.

When someone asks me what I do, and I am able to reply with simple conviction that ‘I’m an author’, is when I know I have achieved my objective.

The Inner workings of a writer's mind

I'm researching for a piece on writers' own experiences of how they use different parts of their minds for different writing tasks, and if they are aware of this process. From what I know already, there are several viewpoints on what might actually be going on in there. Freud saw it as levels of consciousness: subconscious, ego and superego, working almost like separate entities. Some neuroscientists claim that the brain is like a number of parallel processing units all functioning at once, sending the task back and forth until it pops onto the screen of awareness. Psychologists talk about lateralisation, in which the two halves of the brain take dominance for different functions, and many books have been written about right-brain creativity, and how to harness it.

For my own part, I could almost be two different writers; if I let myself write purely creatively, the words and story flow onto the page, but I can't spell, punctuate, or write prose. If I consciously analyse my writing, my prose is great and so is my grammar, but I get mired down with detail, losing any creative flow. I regard these two aspects as my internal artist, and internal editor.

I'm interested to know how other writers find their inner workings. Given that it is National Novel Writing Month, it would seem to be the ideal time to give writers an excuse to procrastinate for a few minutes, have a look inside themselves, and let me know what they find.

The Bridge

Photograph ©John Spivey

I've been hard at work writing my novel, with a set daily routine of writing in the morning, leaving the afternoons to continue my illustration work. It's easy to forget, in this head down cycle of industriousness, how important it can be to get out and watch people, or soak up the atmosphere of a place. To be somewhere and write what comes into my head, not worrying about work, or other pressures, but just taking pleasure in the expression of my immediate thoughts and ideas.

The following two paragraphs were written a couple of months ago, during a reflective walk down to the river near the place I had called home for the previous two years, and was shortly set to leave. I came across them, jotted down in my notebook, while searching for some notes I'd made. It doesn't sum up the village, but my first view of the place was across that bridge, and it will always be lodged in my memory.

It could be on almost any worthy river in continental Europe, but it is not, this is England, and it languishes in lazy arcs between Devon's red and green hills. The bridge leaps across the somnolent waters in a single, elegant span, yet is wide enough for two trucks to pass between the low, cream tinted walls that run between the ball topped decorative pillars at either end. It has a feeling of solidity. The first bridge to be built from concrete, or so I'm told. A plaque on one of the pillars reads 1908 in cast metal relief.
Traffic continues to cross with intermittent regularity, not pausing to notice the clear deep waters flowing beneath. Further downstream a gull paddles along the lip of a weir, dabbling for morsels of food, seeming to walk on the water's smooth mirror, that carries the inverted view of tall poplars that march in jaunty procession along the left bank. On the upstream side, on either bank, stand twin buttresses of broken stone, the slightest curve at the very top of each, a hint of their former purpose: a ghost from before 1908, the remnants of the old bridge, demolished a hundred years ago, a victim of progress. A dead tree now lies submerged in the waters between, it's sunken branches caught on the tumbled stone that remains on the bed beneath the loosely swirling surface.


I must remember to take the time, to give myself permission, to sit, relax, observe, and write. It is from this calm state that the best ideas will germinate.


For any further images of this place, It's all here on Google Maps.

UK Film Council to be Closed

There has been a surprise announcement that the UK Film Council is to be shut down as part of the government's austerity measures. In an article detailing the move on the BBC website the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has proposed that the UKFC be abolished and the establishment of "a direct and less bureaucratic relationship with the British Film Institute; this would support front-line services while ensuring greater value for money". The statement adds that "Government and Lottery support for film will continue". The BFI currently works to promote UK film and television, how that role might change in the wake of this announcement is anybody's guess. However, the Department for Culture Media and Sport has indicated that the £26m funding for film that the UKFC currently handles will, in future, be distributed through other bodies. Although, in a response by Tim Bevan CBE, Chairman of the UKFC, he indicates that this is not yet certain and that the Film Council's "Immediate priority now is to press the Government to confirm that the funding levels and core functions that are needed to underpin British film are locked-in".

As a former award recipient, I'm in two minds about the wisdom of this move. Yes, it has the possibility of stripping away a centralised layer of bureaucracy, and will undoubtedly get rid of a few of the closed-minded individuals that have blocked some of the more dynamic talent from receiving funding, in preference to established 'art' based filmmaking,–that is simply the way the establishment works, it resists change, hence the term establishment–but what will it be replaced by?

One of the great, and yet largely uncelebrated, remits of the UKFC is its emphasis on training. This was to try and make the up-and coming filmmakers who came through its doors have some awareness of the practical, business, and legal side of film production, as well as providing a huge emphasis on good script-writing practice. This side of things was always included in any film production awards that they offered, and sometimes the value of the training exceeded that of the production funding.

In the scramble by regional institutes for the Film Council funds, and the medium term confusion over who is going to support what, the losers will almost inevitably be the filmmakers, and as ever, animation will be remembered in all this as an afterthought.

The Author as a Performer

Do writers need to learn to sell themselves as much as their work?

As part of my MA course I have recently been engaged in creating a video pitch for my book proposal. Initially I felt it was a fun, if inconvenient diversion from the process of research and writing, but after agonising over scripts, market research and which section of my book to read out, I began to wonder why I was putting so much effort into it; surely a quick off-the-cuff 'Buy my book cos' it's going to be great!' slogan, along with half a chapter's reading, ought to hook anyone. The answer that occurred to me, as I went over the script once more, was a revelation; publishers aren't just looking for the next saleable novel, they are also looking for the next saleable author.

Look in the bookstores and you will see a pattern repeated over and again, the first book by an author shows the title in big letters, whilst the author's name appears in a more modest size. On subsequent books by that author their name is more likely to appear larger than the title, sometimes larger than anything else on the cover. Dan Brown, Iain Banks. Danielle Steel, Stephen King, it is the author that sells the books. That's what publishers want: to sell the writer as much as their work. It is not just about hiding behind a laptop and churning out masterpieces; it is also about interviews and readings, events and appearances. Of course, a publisher or agent should help in arranging these things, but in the end it is the author who must be the figure-head and the driving force behind their own marque. And they need to be convincing; people can spot a poor delivery a mile off. It is something a writer might find difficult to accept, but the actual words mean less, in these circumstances, than the way they are said. And it is never truer that nine tenths of communication is through body language than when you are in front of a camera.

Which is why I need to work on my presentation skills, learn to sound and look comfortable before an audience, and gain a politician's ease in chatting to people; it is not simply the skill of selling my thoughts I must develop, but the art of encouraging people to buy into the image of me as an author.