Fiction Writing: signs and symptoms

Fiction Writing:

Signs and Symptoms of the Condition, Possible Causes and Treatments

This particular condition has been known for many hundreds of years and indeed is not always confined to the penning of fiction, although that is the most common cause in this present time.  It is easy to pass it off as a condition not requiring too many resources or much time but, for the individuals concerned and their families and friends, it is indeed a severe problem.

Ø      Fiction writing is a fairly addictive affliction

Ø      Usually indulged in solitude 

Ø      Involving alternate worlds and people 

Symptoms include

v     Staring into space

v     Soundless muttering; in extreme cases this murmur has been known to erupt into full volume

v     Absented-mindedness

v     An obsessive need to collect notebooks and or pens of various patterns and hues; curiously often they will never be used, merely displayed

v     A tendency to believe imaginary characters are real, and many times the writer may be heard wondering what such and such a person would do/think/act in any particular moment

v     A chaotic lifestyle

v     Neglect, of self and those around them

v     Guilt is an overpowering effect often leading from the former

v     Fear of failure can be particularly paralysing often leading to

v     Despair and desolation.  This symptom also occurs when ‘rejection slips’ are delivered.

Causes are many and not fully understood as yet.  Reading voraciously has often been quoted and certainly an active imagination is involved.  Some experts would say curiosity that extends past childhood is a contributory cause. As with all disorders presenting numerous symptoms, it can be difficult to detect until fully raging, therefore being difficult to treat.

Treatment is difficult unless caught very early. As with all addictions the whole family have to be involved for it to work. Withdrawal symptoms can be intense and, unless monitored, catastrophic. 

Sometimes outright rejection of the writing produced will work but care must be taken to ensure dark depression does not then result.

Huge success of any particular piece of writing can alleviate the darker side of the addiction and, if managed well, can help the patient’s family in many ways.

Blocking does not seem to work for long, writers are ingenious in the schemes they can hatch to make time and/or opportunity to engage in this pastime.  

Containment is the best that can be hoped for in many cases.

A fairly new treatment with merit is the use of social networks.  It has been noted that networking with other sufferers of this condition helps lift the isolating effect, bringing cheer, encouragement and much-needed TLC in times of despair.  Although a recent treatment, results have been impressive and can be recommended for a trial period.

WARNING:  The  fiction writer, by the very nature of the condition, has an addictive personality and it has been noted that social network sites themselves are also addictive.  A close eye must therefore be kept on the writer during this period and time on the sites monitored. 

Happy writing everyone- keep smiling!

2nd Tuesday: No good. Why Bother?

 You are no good.  Why bother?  Get a life.  Get a grip, on reality!

How do we know if 'it’s' any good to continue?  How can we judge our own writing, the good and the bad of it.  When I started seriously to think about writing to publish, I was still in the middle of one of many dark periods of my life.  Indeed I had written Ellen’s Tale during the darkest. Rewritten and had it edited during the next phase.  I mention this only to say how much could I trust friend’s opinions of the writing?  In modern parlance they were there for me, they would not want to upset me then, maybe.  Tell me truthfully is what I asked but did they?  Such nice folk. 

My friend of ‘forever’ was, I know, honest because she didn’t like it and told me so.  That was okay, she and I go back over half a century, we can say it as it is, also she gave me many positive criticisms, and has done for all subsequent writing,  my best Beta reader. 

So why didn’t I trust the others.  Maybe it’s to do with confidence, or lack of it.  Or if one has always been a great reader and has read many great books it is the impossibility of imagining joining 'them'.  Them and us.  Who knows?  It cripples, this feeling of inadequacy.  Are we fools, self-indulgent, vainglorious, blind are we . . . oh the list grows long.

I spent many hours on Ellen’s Tale reading and re-reading, to myself out loud. Some pages were read in the local writers’ group.  Two friends offered to read the manuscript, promising truth.  They said they liked it.  

I thought to myself that maybe it was as good as many out there and not as bad as some.  But Ellen was my baby and could I judge?  Did I have the nerve to try?  Everyone knew I had written this book, many repetitions of ‘when are you going to publish’ then finally decided me – I would, so there!

Some large padded envelopes and research later I sent some sample 50 page copies out to agents.  NO. NO. NO then a MAYBE, please send the rest.  I was elated and, even though it wasn’t taken in the end, that one request had seemed to validate the writing. Ellen could hold its own. It was then I became really determined to get Ellen into the market place.

Then I was ill and suddenly faced with my own mortality.  When home after the operation I decided I was too old for long waits to find an agent.  I wanted someone else to enjoy Ellen’s Tale as I did.  It was in the self-publishing that I found, maybe, the answer to the rejections.  I found there was still more to be done on the manuscript before it could be sent to the printers.  Note: Make sure it is ready before showing the agents!!!

My friend ‘from forever’ and I burned endless amounts of midnight oil struggling to get it licked into shape.  Thank goodness for e-mails!

I have had good comments, mainly from friends, and I am still not sure of those but the first good comments from strangers were what finally convinced me that maybe I could write a book worthy of being on a bookshelf. 

Of course the fact that Ellen was enjoyable didn’t prove I could write.  The same doubts descended as I started the sequel.  A second book?  People would ask when it was coming.  Nervous that I couldn’t pull it off a second time it was self-doubt all the way.  Nights of almost throwing it all away, resting on my laurels. But, the bug had bitten hard and the writing infection swirled around the brain; it seemed impossible now to stop. 

The third book was a collection of short stories which my friend of ‘forever’ had always preferred and, which would never have seen the light of day without her encouragement.  They seem to be garnering fairly good comment.  They are a little odd in places but on the whole the book seems to be well received.  I did worry more about them than my Sefuty Chronicles because I thoroughly indulged the weirder parts of my brain in the writing of them.

I think the self-doubts will always be there.  I have read so many established authors who have started well and then their work trails off and becomes formulaic or tame.  Will that happen?  Hopefully not.

Let's Hear It For The Archives

The day I pruned the Buddleia and decided to make Archives the framework and the reason for the Sefuty Chronicles, to place ‘Ellen’s Tale’ firmly in recorded memories, it was but a step from one of my soapbox passions.  The archives – wondrous places of excitement, adventure, exploration and revelation.  They are places of puzzles and answers.

I first fell in love  with archives and archival material when I took myself, in my early 40s, to Oxford Brookes University to try my hand at gaining a degree.  The first degree obviously involved libraries (I already loved those from early childhood) but then I moved to Sussex University to do a Masters and, while there, did an extra course on Oral History.  Sussex holds the Mass Observation Archives.  Part of our course involved this Archive – what treasures – I had never realised there were resources so interesting.  A few years later my friend – who by then was into Family History – stirred my interest in this also.  The archives are an essential part of this form of research.

Later still, after retirement, I began a Living History Group at our local U3A branch, it was hard work to interest people, they would insist they had lived such dull lives that no one would be interested in them.  I had to use a lot of persuasion to make them realise they were wrong.  Four years on and they have  produced their own book of memories. Maybe all these memories will only be passed down through family members but, as long as memories of lives lived are remembered history is enriched, and now the memories have been written down they can be archived and are a resource for the future.

I would like to enter a plea for everyone to record in some way some part of their life for future generations.  In the group that I run we have handwritten, typed, Braille and taped memories to show for our months together.  Some are ‘in depth’ life histories, some just isolated aspects of a life. 

Just by chance, on a web search (doing family history in fact), I discovered my father had recorded some interviews back in the early 1960’s.  These interviews of my father had been included in a book.   The reel to reel tapes had been lodged in the archives in Wales and only released a couple of years ago to public access.  His interviews were some of the over one hundred collected in that particular study.  

Primary source material, the glory of all students and researchers, novelists and family history buffs.  Every one of us is an original source of some aspect of life through the 20^th century and beyond.  Archives all over the country will keep our memories safe and, who knows, anyone of us could turn up in a piece of historical research, a biography or an historical novel.    

How many of us bemoan the fact we did not ask our parents / grandparents about their lives before it was too late.  Most of us are not interested when we are younger but there comes a time when we wish we had known more.  So a plea from me, please think of recording something in some format to leave to the generations that follow.  For your families or the archives or both. 

PS. The Archives sent me a CD of my father’s interviews. Now how cool is that, getting to listen to him again, nearly 20 years after his death! 

http://www.albertaross.co.uk/ for details of my books

http://www.didyoueverkissafrog.typepad.com/ for blogs on various non writing topics

http://sefuty.livejournal.com/ for reading and books

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