5 Ways to Cope With a Creative Knockback

Sometimes a rejection can make you come back fighting. Sometimes it makes you stop, think, and change direction, in a way that is really positive. However, a knockback in your creative work can also be really painful. This blog post is about all of those things.

I had a tough time in January. I heard from my agent that some editors had passed on my YA novel. He was disappointed, but not as disappointed as me! It didn’t really help that they gave some positive feedback or that it was a ‘close call’. I just heard the resounding ‘No, thanks.’

If you’d asked me a few weeks ago if I’d be blogging about this, I’d have laughed in your face. However, now that I’ve scraped myself up off the floor and got back to writing the next novel, I thought I’d offer my best advice to anyone else in the same boat.

This is where I switch hats and bring in the positive techniques that I use in my coaching business. 

ONE: It’s OK to feel sad

Rejections hurt. They bloody do. Especially when it’s about work you’ve toiled over for months or years, work that you love.

So have a cry / scream / shout. Admit it.

TWO: Go do something that makes you feel good

See friends who make you laugh. Talk it out. Watch a good film. Hang out with your kids / partner/ dog.

This is the bit where it stops hurting so much and you remember you’re more than just one piece of work.

THREE: Pick yourself up and be brave again

No one gets it right first time. Seriously. If we all stopped there, the world would be a poorer place.

This is where I recommend you go read the brilliant Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly. This book is inspiring on the importance of resilience and perseverance, about nurturing ‘engaged, tenacious people who expect to have to try and try again to get it right – people who are much more willing to get innovative and creative in their efforts.’ *

Being courageous and open to change means looking directly at the knockback. Is there any part of the critique that could be useful right now? Could this be the constructive feedback you need to spur you on to the next stage?

Or perhaps it just needs taking on the chin. When you get a flat ‘no’ or a ‘not right now’ or ‘not this kind of thing’, sometimes you just need to move on.

But it’s worth spending a little time working out the difference. If you get that awful squirmy feeling of recognition, you’ll know you need to look more closely at the critique and see if you agree with it.

FOUR: The plan

There needs to be a plan. What three small steps can you take to move on from this?

Make the steps positive and measurable – something you can tick off when you’ve done it.

Make them time-framed: by next Thursday I will have re-written that scene.

Make them realistic: I will submit this manuscript to the next agent on my list by next weekend.

FIVE: Get support

Find a friend or a mentor or a writing buddy who understands what this means. Talk it over with them and let them know ‘The Plan’. Check in with them when you’ve ticked off each item on your list. Being accountable to someone else means you’re more likely to stick to your plan.

The other thing I’ve realised is that this process doesn’t happen neatly or chronologically – you can flick between all these stages for a while.

Now, I just need to get on with taking my own advice. Wish me luck?

*Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead, Gotham Books, Penguin New York 2012

Photo of baby crying from http://www.flickr.com/photos/rats and used with kind permission of the photographer

#mywritingprocess blog tour

My Writing Process

 Many thanks to the novelist and radio dramatist Rachel Connor for passing the baton to me in the blog tour for #mywritingprocess. You can read her post here.

I’m fascinated by other people’s processes, and how differently we writers work, so I’ve been reading the blog tour with huge interest.

Here are my responses to the blog tour questions, thanks for reading!

What are you working on?

I’m often working on a few projects at different stages.

Right now I’m working on a new novel for young adults – working title Eden Summer. It’s a story about an intense friendship between two teenage girls, but I’m working on a supernatural twist that I’m really excited about. I wanted to explore grief and depression in a way that was life affirming and hopeful. It’s also becoming a song in praise of my beautiful home town, Hebden Bridge.

I’m also still editing my next book for younger children with Barefoot Books: Dara’s Clever Trap. It’s a retelling of a Cambodian folktale about a brave princess who is also a brilliant engineer. The first colour artwork samples have just come in from Martina Peluso and they are absolutely stunning. You can see more from Martina’s portfolio here.

This is always a really wonderful moment for me: seeing the characters brought to beautiful life through the imagination of the illustrator.

I’ve so enjoyed the collaborative process of working with Barefoot Books that I have written a whole blog post about it on the Living Barefoot site, here.

How does your work differ from others of its genre?

That’s hard to say! What I can say is that I’ve just started my third teenage novel, and although each one has belonged to a different genre – fantasy, thriller, contemporary YA – they all have a very strong and dynamic female lead character. This feels really important to me, to write about resourceful, likeable, complex girls and women who make decisions, speak and act for themselves.

Not that I’m the only one trying to do this, luckily! But neither is it as widespread as I’d like to see. I want my daughters – and everyone else’s – to read a huge variety of representations of girls and women, so their own lives and choices feel part of a vast continuum they can slot into wherever suits them.

Why do you write what you do?

Because I love young adult books! The best of YA fiction is the most exciting stuff around. It’s fearless. It’s genre-crossing and surprising. It has to be entertaining and passionate and honest, or it won’t be read.

Linked to that, teenage lives are so intense that they constantly throw out stories, like a fire sends out sparks. Young adults are grappling with the massive questions we all have to answer – who am I and what am I for? What do I really believe? Who do I love and do they love me? Chuck in real pressures: bullying, family conflict, self-image, depression, sex, drugs and alcohol – and surely there’s a narrative just begging to be told.

I’ve written another blog post about why I write children’s books, which you can read here.

How Does Your Writing Process Work?

My writing process gets clearer with every book and the thing I’ve just learnt is that it can’t be rushed.

I’m naturally a very impatient person who likes to get things done, ideally before the deadline. Novels don’t work like that.

The slow beginning of a new idea feels like trying to catch a butterfly in a teacup: the harder I try, the more impatient I get, and the more it dances out of reach.

I haven’t decided yet if the best solution is just to go get a life and keep busy with other things, or simply to keep writing - any old writing - to stay limbered up. Probably a bit of both!  

Gradually, the new idea gets clearer. Scenes or characters can be captured and scribbled down, but it might take months for the shape to become clear. This is very frustrating for me.

If I can manage to keep the faith and plod along with the process, one remarkable day suddenly things become clear. I have a hook. I start writing: messy, excited, full of momentum. This is when I need to commit, put the hours in, and just get a first draft down.

I find it useful to get up early and write longhand at this point, then type up scenes later in the day, adding detail and coherence.

Towards the end of a draft is the best part for me. I am drawn to my laptop. It feels like having an affair. I stay up late to write – and I am absolutely not an evening person. I go a bit crazy at this point: the book feels more real than my actual life and normal interaction gets a little disorienting, but I am very happy indeed.

Finishing a draft is hard. I take a break from it and do admin. I might be a bit snappy.  Then I start editing and get even snappier. I know some people love polishing and redrafting, but I find it rather hard work. Sheer effort without any of the excitement of discovery, rather a quieter satisfaction of pushing the piece to be the best it can be.

Sadly, I have to repeat this last stage at least three times more than I expect. Luckily, there are tools that can help.

My friend and colleague Bec Evans very helpfully introduced me to the concept of a ‘beat sheet’ when she read an early draft of my young adult thriller Maia. Adapted from a screenwriting technique, a beat sheet is an overview document of your work, scene by scene. Working backwards, you assess each scene for action, excitement and tension. This way, it’s much clearer to see if you have any saggy bits or plot holes or scenes that don’t pull their weight. I think this technique is probably similar to the ‘story-mapping’ that some writers do.

I found my beat sheet invaluable in redrafting and generally helping me manage the new material I wanted to add to the thriller. This time I’ve used one to map out the new idea I’ve just begun, and will adapt it to serve every draft I write.

Coming up next week:

Francesca Chessa lives in an old house in the centre of Turin with her husband.  Her studio is colourful, full of books and looks over a small courtyard garden.  She loves reading and watching movies. Francesca has illustrated more than thirty children's books, working with publishers in various parts of the world.

She now writes her own stories as well as illustrating those by others and likes to feature her family and friends in these. Francesca’s blog is: http://francescachessa.blogspot.it/

Anne Booth is married with four teenage children, two dogs and two hens. She’s done lots of different jobs, including teaching English in Italy, organising arts and crafts in a residential home, washing up in a restaurant, being a guide round a medieval building, lecturing in English Literature and working in bookshops. She has spent the last few years juggling caring for elderly parents with writing fiction and her first children's novel 'Girl with A White Dog' will be published by Catnip in March. Anne blogs at: bridgeanneartandwriting@wordpress.com 

Fleur Hitchcock is a writer for nine- to-twelve-year-olds, and is the author behind the Story Adventure, Dear Scarlett and SHRUNK! Fleur blogs at http://fleurhitchcock.wordpress.com.

Making Magic Stories

I'm very excited to say that this blog post comes to you courtesy of the Living Barefoot Blog, motherblog of my publishers, Barefoot Books: http://blog.barefootbooks.com/2014/01/making-magic-stories/

Best Books of 2013

A slightly belated Happy New Year everyone! Inspired today by Caroline Clarke’s Best Books of 2013 blog post, here’s my list in response… my ‘Flanagan’s Eleven’ for 2013 in no particular order:

Susan Fletcher – The Silver Dark Sea

Barbara Kingsolver – Flight Behaviour

Ann Patchett – The Magician’s Assistant

Rupert Thomson – Secrecy

Meg Rosoff – Picture Me Gone

Marcus Sedgwick – She Is Not Invisible

Laini Taylor – Days of Blood and Starlight

Tanya Byrne – Follow Me Down

Elizabeth Wein – Code Name Verity

Katherine Rundell – Rooftoppers

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – The Complete Sherlock Holmes

My list roughly divides into two main categories: the first is formed of my must-read favourite authors, the ones whose books I pre-order and whose backlist I track down. I’ve loved Rupert Thomson’s writing half my life now, and his latest did not disappoint. Ditto Susan Fletcher, Barbara Kingsolver, Ann Patchett, Meg Rosoff and new member of favourites club, Laini Taylor. Whether new books or backlist, these were all read as slowly as I could bear, to savour every chapter. Sadly I never have these books on my shelf because I immediately foist them on friends and family, and buy multiple copies for birthday presents.

The other category is made up of 2013 YA and children’s fiction discoveries, memorable books by authors new to me. I was so shocked by Tanya Byrne’s sleight of hand in Follow Me Down that I had to re-read it immediately to see how she did it. I’ve read two of Elizabeth Wein’s WW2 novels this year and loved them both, but Code Name Verity moved me most, with its depiction of female friendship, courage and loss. Its pages are a bit tearstained. Katherine Rundell’s Rooftoppers is an absolute delight, one of those books I desperately want to put in a time machine and send back to myself aged ten.

Ok, so the last one is cheating, I admit it. It had to be included since The Complete Sherlock kept me sane during a brief hospital stay in August. I like to think that being on opiate-derived painkillers lent it a particularly appropriate atmosphere…

If I had more space, I’d also sing the praises of Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner, The Hit by Melvin Burgess, Burial Rites by Hannah Kent, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, NW by Zadie Smith, All the Birds, Singing, by Evie Wyld, All Fall Down by Sally Nicholls, Entangled by Cat Clarke, Harvest by Jim Crace, and anything by Joss Stirling and Cassandra Clare.

Why writers + dogs = good ideas

It took me years to admit I wanted another dog. As a working parent, I didn’t want more chores. But gradually I remembered how much I’d loved my childhood dog. I remembered her unbounded enthusiasm for whatever we were doing, how she made me laugh every single day. And in a chaotic house of growing girls, a little mute company and unquestioning adoration wouldn’t go amiss. As a friend said dryly to me, ‘Make sure you have a dog when your kids turn teenage – at least someone will be glad to see you in the morning.’

The good dog Tess

So, needless to say, when our daughters were four and seven, we got a dog. The kids love her, I love her, she is generally A Good Thing.

What I hadn’t realised was how good she would be for my writing.

Before Tess, I walked. I walked to work up at Lumb Bank. I walked at weekends, as long as the kids could stand. I walked with friends, and sometimes, rarely, I walked alone. But it wasn’t every day, and it wasn’t in the middle of a writing day.

Tess on summer walk

Sure, I knew the theory. I’d read Julia Cameron, bestselling author of The Artist’s Way. She prescribes certain tools for creativity, including the well-known Morning Pages, the Artist’s Date and the Weekly Walk. Of the walk, she writes ‘It allows us to find both perspective and comfort. As we stretch our legs, we stretch our minds and our souls.’ (1) She quotes St Augustine’s ‘“Solvitur ambulando” – “it is solved by walking”’.

And now there was a small four-legged creature that needed several outings each day, I found myself putting this theory to the test.

spring woods 

I usually do a stretch of writing at my desk, then, around late morning, when I hit a block or my concentration wavers, I take the dog for a walk.

We have a favourite route up the hill from my house. It takes half an hour. We walk up a track through established oak and beech wood. Then we turn off down a footpath through a newer, sparser silver birch grove. The grass is tall and green here, and in the spring there’s a carpet of bluebells. Next we skirt a heather field – where the dog disappears after rabbits - pausing on a steep rocky hillside overlooking Hebden Bridge, with uplifting views east and west. The return path brings us through a dense, dark holly tunnel and back to the track.

Tess walk in snow

There is something about the circular route and the familiar but changing terrain that always produces a result. Sometimes I mull on an idea. Sometimes I just walk. Sometimes I’m acutely aware of my surroundings, all the tiny signs of the deepening seasons, sometimes I’m oblivious, lost in my head. We’ve done that walk in all weathers: in hot summer sun; through a peaceful spring twilight; and, rather stupidly, in a vicious blizzard.

And almost without fail, the rhythm of my footsteps loosens the blockage in my thinking. Or it takes my thinking somewhere else entirely. It’s rare that the answer hasn’t emerged by the time I’m on the final strait. This probably isn’t very hard to explain. I’m guessing my doctor could give me an excellent scientific rationale involving oxygen and increased circulation.

All I know is that it works. My writing is better for being broken up with walks.

I go back to my desk with fresh answers, finding new connections and directions in my work. The dog goes back to her bed happier, waiting for my working day to end. Thanks, Tess!

(1) Cameron, Julia, Walking in This World. New York, Penguin Putnam Inc, 2002. 

‘Mum, how old were you when you read Harry Potter for the first time?’ Parents Reading Children’s Books and Vice Versa

'Mum, how old were you when you read Harry Potter?' 

This sweetly naive question from my ten-year-old makes me stop for a minute. My kids think that I read all the same books as them when I was their age. They can’t imagine a world without Harry Potter. They swim through a rich sea of children’s literature, full of life and variety and colour. Between school, home and library, they have so much more choice than I did as a ten-year-old reader, and I love that they do!

Even so, they still read some of my old favourite books. I can’t help being delighted that they pick up my battered beloved copies and get lost in them like I used to. Recently I’ve caught one daughter or other reading The Ordinary Princess by MM Kaye; The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge; The Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder; Little Women by Louisa M Alcott. And it takes me right back there. I loved those books so deeply once. I loved their characters and their particular magic, and their language formed mine, I’m sure of it.

View fullsize

Some of my old books...

So while it’s great that they humour me and we can talk about these familiar favourites, my daughters soon move on, distracted by dozens of other delights.

And sometimes we just disagree. Our tastes can diverge drastically. No matter how obviously I lure my children towards a certain author, leaving books temptingly in their way, they are stubbornly independent. And so they should be too.

Just because I want to go back in time and read Philip Pullman when I was ten, doesn’t mean they have to like his books.

And just because my eldest has re-read all the Harry Potter books multiple times, doesn’t mean I have to.

She despairs of my grasp of the plot when we watch the films together, ‘I thought you said you’d read this one, Mum!’

‘Once, when I was twenty-seven! Sorry!’

Having a parent who likes reading children’s books must be a right pain. They have to carve out their own space and rebel against me somehow. I think they’ve identified the series I will never wish to borrow. And even though I tried to hide it, they know which ones I don’t really want to read aloud to them either.

When we agree it’s lovely. They introduce me to some fabulous books and I bring a few home too. Recently we’ve agreed on David Almond, Adrienne Kress, Cressida Cowell, Sally Gardner, Sita Brahmachari, Eva Ibbotson, Cornelia Funke and RJ Palacio, among others.

This brings certain pitfalls.

View fullsize

Borrowing books...

The other week I treated myself to some hotly desired YA fiction to enjoy during the half term holiday. It was sitting in a pristine pile on my bedside table. When I finally had a free evening, I turned to the pile – and it had vanished.

Still, a little light pilfering seems a small price to pay for keeping them hooked on books – I just pray it continues.