Diary of a Slushpiler: Project 200 Words

By Jo Wyton

On Thursday evening, I go to bed (at eight thirty, half an hour after I started to fail on the whole consciousness front) having written some words. They are not good words. They are, in fact, great words. Because they exist on a screen, which is an enormous step in the direction of Existing On The Page Of A Book. There are 221 of them. (I deleted four for not meeting my high standard of 'making any sense to anybody at all even after two glasses of Sauvignon Blanc'.)

I celebrated. Internally, of course, because quite frankly I had just put Baby in bed at the time, and fat bloody chance I was going to risk ten rounds of 'Hush, Little Baby' because of 221 words. 

As I wrote those 221 words, I had a glimpse of a reflection of myself, a vague recollection of someone I had intended to become, and viewed as it had been through sleepy eyes and what is, by now, a fairly feisty temperament brought on by a cabin fever-inducing routine, it was lovely. 

The next morning, in the shower, I ponder Project 200 Words. After all, I need something to replace the gaping chasm left in my life by the quiet exit of Project Goat (funnily enough, not the title of The Novel, though probably should be), and this seems to fit the bill. Every evening, once Baby is in bed and a sufficient volume of alcohol has been consumed, I will refrain from turning on the tv to watch reruns of Gilmore Girls (peace out, sisters) and will instead write 200 words of The Novel, and will celebrate finishing them by raising my laptop over my head and running in slow motion around the living room to the Chariots of Fire theme tune. I come downstairs to find the world's creepiest doll in the living room and my imagined celebrations are replaced with thoughts of being murdered in my sleep by this thing coming to life.

Friday comes and goes.

Then Saturday. Sunday happens in there somewhere, too, though it seems blissfully devoid of things that require a place in my permanent memory.

Of course instead of writing, other delights fill my time happens. I find myself cleaning all manner of bodily fluids from the depths of the carpet, scrubbing Weetabix from the radiator and wiping snot from the tv (always amazing how high up the screen it can get). None of which is entirely conducive to the imaginings of a Proper Writer. And the time that doesn't involve pretending I'm not high from the smell of carpet cleaner is so filled with all the best things in life, that I forget that there is a part of me not quite being embraced. 

'Just keep swimming' is the advice offered to me on Facebook, which would be great advice if I could only find my snorkel and flippers. Most likely they're languishing in the bottom of the wardrobe having been chewed on by the cat. 

Still, there is a deadline. A writing retreat in May. Surely it would be deemed improper to spend the first day and a half trying to remember where I saved the manuscript and where the charger cable plugs in to the laptop. It has occurred to me many time since I started with this writing malarky that one requires honest and somewhat ridiculous friends in life, and I am fortunate to have many who fit into both categories quite happily. One of them booked me onto this retreat as a surprise. Am sure I have fallen into an unspoken contract to provide alcohol and cake, but am embracing the imposition of a date in my diary as a signal to retrain my fingers in how to type. 

Of course, just as I finish typing this, Significant Other walks into the living room and says 'Are we going to put carpet cleaner on this sick or just leave it?'

Living in the Past

By Nick Cross



I've always been suspicious of nostalgia - that intense yearning for the past that often seems to be an excuse for not engaging with the present. As a result, all of my five novels to date have had a contemporary setting. Writing in the now just felt right - I was engaging with the issues that directly affected child readers, I was keeping up with popular culture and also avoiding doing much in the way of research (which I found tedious).

Yet I seem to have spent the last six months living in and writing about the past. What happened there?

A Room of One's Own

by Teri Terry

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

Virginia Woolf

I didn’t have either of those things when I wrote Slated so I don’t think they are a prerequisite – but I’ve recently considered renting my own writing space. Trying to make the decision got me thinking:

What do I need to write? What do I need to be happy? What is in the sweet spot on the Venn diagram where both co-exist, and why does it seem to keep getting smaller?

Can I say hand-on-heart that I need a room of my own in order to write? No.

To write, all I actually need are pen/notebook/laptop/time. For years I wrote early in the morning in bed before work; for the last five years or so I've been a full time writer who worked from home and often did the same. 

WOW did I love working from home to start with! Not having to go to work, not having to work to any schedule but my own (apart from the occasional pesky deadline), working in my PJs and talking to myself more than is good in public – total bliss.

But ... there are no boundaries:
Much like it did in the pre-published stages, it still felt hard sometimes to justify taking time and space from family/duck polishing/hanging out on Facebook. Working from home makes it hard to switch off the me that does all the other stuff.

It can be even harder sometimes to take time and space away from my writing to give it to the people who are most important. I think a lot of the reason is the amorphous nature of writing. It tends to take over your thoughts and attention when it shouldn’t, and nothing is ever completely finished. I could edit forever if I didn’t have to hit send on a deadline. So working from home also makes it hard to switch off the me that does the writing.

Over time how I felt about writing full time at home gradually changed for the worse:
I wasn’t even completely sure why. Changing the hobby you love to a job is always going to change how you feel about it, and that was part of it, but it wasn’t just that. 

I was looking for The Reason, and I blamed it on lack of space.

I do have the Writing Shack - a garden summer house that I can write in warm weather – but no dedicated writing space inside: not even a desk that was all mine. Stuff always had to be put away – I’m champion at losing things if they’re not left in sight. This was more of a problem on the business side of things than the writing side, though there was the one nightmare morning spent looking for ‘the’ notebook for one of my novels – convinced I’d lost it forever … it turned out the Man was tidying up and put it in the loft. I forgave him (eventually).

Solution: could I rent an office? Should I?
Well, reader: I did

Me! at my table! in my writing studio!
(Photo by Debra Hurford Brown)

The whole time I was considering getting an office, I focused on the practical: my need for dedicated space, quiet. This was my focus and there are huge pluses here with your work being able to be left spread out how you like it. I lose stuff less. I have a filing cabinet! And shelves for my notebooks. Also a work address is handy.

To get over the rent-is-dead-money issue, I convinced myself I’d be more organized and productive. And if that means more work done and hence more money in to pay the rent? Sorted.

But nearly two months on I’ve found it gives me so much more – for reasons that are perhaps even more important:

1. Separation of work and home: BOUNDARIES
I work at work and I don’t work at home. I wasn’t sure at first if that would happen – even though I ‘officially’ wrote during the day at home and not often in evenings/weekends, I always found myself doing bits and pieces then, too. But I’ve stopped doing that pretty much completely (confession: I’ve been writing this blog on a Sunday afternoon at home, but that’s a different sort of work!).
And what I’ve also found is that I’ve started to love coming home and being at home again, and if the man is out (generally at tennis!) and I’ve got an evening at home on my own I’m happy with my own company; when I was writing at home during the day I hated being on my own in the evening.

AND I got a red chair!

2. Getting dressed, going somewhere and talking to actual people!
I've rented an office inside a building with shared common areas. Now I chat for a few minutes with lovely office manager Caroline on my way in and out and whoever else is about of a half dozen or so engineers; there’s often chat by the kettle or at others times of day. They seem pretty tolerant of me babbling (so far!). And then I go to my space, and close the door.

Maybe I understand more now why many writers leave the house and go to write in coffee shops etc? If I didn’t live in a quiet village where the main not-at-home options are pubs (not a habit I need to get into) I might have tried that more, but I’ve never been good at working in places with people around me. It’s kind of like I want people there but not too close; I want to control my own space & sound also. Not a coffee shop option.

3. How I feel about what I’m doing has changed.
It’s kind of like me renting writing space is saying, I take this seriously – it’s my career – and I’m planning for it to continue. I’ve got faith in myself and what I do. It may sound weird to say this, but I feel more like a grown up (in a good way).

Conclusions on the practical stuff?

Am I more organised? OMG, YES.

Will I be more productive? 
I think so, I need more time to know for sure. Maybe not, because it may be that a book takes how long it takes to write and it may not work to try to speed that up. But I’ve decided I’m actually OK with that: I’m happier. The sweet spot has got bigger.

Me! at my table! in my writing studio!
It's so big I even have some giant sized notebooks, like this one!
(Photo by Debra Hurford Brown)