I love having written. I hate fucking writing

Says writer Tony Jordan (Eastenders, Life on Mars) and I know exactly what he means. It’s different depending on the kind of writing. Been doing a lot of marking recently. I like coming up with a pertinent, helpful phrase that sheds light, or discovering a kind way of explaining why something doesn’t work, without really hurting the writer. I have to write at least a page where I engage with my students and make constructive remarks that help them to get better. So it’s useful and sometimes my students say that an idea has been triggered after something I suggested. I used to secretly worry that the more time I spent marking and teaching, the more resentful I might feel that ‘creative’ time (better known as surfing and staring out the window drinking tea) was being eaten away. I’ve learned, however, that teaching creative writing does feed into my own work. Not in a wafty romantic way, more that I'll read something I've written and mentally scribble: Could Do Better. Where's the structure? Where's the arc of the story? Go to the back of the class you useless twat. So yes the teaching is very constructive.


There’s an interesting piece in the Guardian where several writers discuss whether writing is a joy or a chore. I find it comforting that opinions vary wildly. Sometimes writing is like wading through concrete, or just boring. Other times though are magic; your brain flies open, you are unaware of hunger, thirst, or your chronically bad posture, your children’s huffy reminders that it’s Dinner Time are ignored. It’s just you in wondrous rapture as your fingers, brain and words fly along in perfect synchronicity. I think they call it being in The Zone. It doesn’t happen very often, or not with me, but when it does, it makes it all worth it.

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Lola, the Spayed Cat, has finally forgiven me for inflicting a shaved patch on her flank, and after two days of feline sulking and grossly overpriced gourmet cat food, she is snoozing in my in-tray. I daren't move her. The mortgage application will have to wait.

Writing Feedback

For a writer, constructive feedback helps you get better. Not the flattery, nor the bland approval, but the decently phrased expression of confusion or disapproval. It’s the literary equivalent of a pulled tooth; painful and a bit upsetting but in the long run, it will make you better. Anyway this is the stuff I tell my creative writing students and it’s aimed at the ones who shriek: You’re not getting what I’m trying to do! when I point out the lack of story, or info dump when back story gets shovelled into the narrative like snow on a street instead of gently dribbled in like oil into mayonnaise. And as I offer this criticism as gently as possible I find myself thinking that it’s feeding into my writing and hopefully making it better. I tell them the story of a fellow editor at Random House who read a book proposal and made notes in the margin. Unfortunately she forgot to rub them out when rejecting the proposal. The actual rejection letter was the usual blanditudes of the book not fitting into the lists, liked it but didn't love it etc. But the comments in the text were another story. They ranged from Shite to What the fuck is this? to the utterly crushing Can't Write.

So when I’m overrun with work from my students I sourly reflect on the massive gap between my carefully phrased positive criticisms and what I really think. It's not pretty. What if, instead of writing, Interesting idea to write an epic poem about an intellectual argument between Mars and Venus but not sure it’s sustainable, I was entirely honest with You show neither writing talent, nor the ability to listen to advice, and seem to think that utterly incomprehensible writing is a true mark of your maverick genius. If I have to mark your awful poem I swear I will kill myself.

Not funny enough said a dear, close friend whose work and word I trust utterly when looking at a very rough draft of a script I wrote. And yes, it’s a comedy. I sat wanting to cry and hit him while shouting: You’re not getting what I’m trying to do! Instead, far more maturely I sulked. Oh and I don’t get what’s happening in Scene Two he added, unaware that he’d just punched a hole in my heart. Or Scene Three.

I looked over the script again and realised he was right. It wasn’t funny enough. And it wasn’t clear enough either. I still hated him and wanted to hit him but he was right. So I am taking a large, stinky spoonful of my own medicine and rewriting.

Actually having someone who tells you the truth about your work is as important as writing itself, I think. It doesn’t mean that you should shrug off praise and plaudits, because writers get little enough of them. But being able to take a deep breath and rewrite to make it better is what sorts out the writers from the dabblers and the epic planet poeteers.

And here is a really good post on criticism from Jane Smith.