Writer
He wrote with all the inventive precision of a young Vladimir Nabokov. Every piece he submitted was thrilling to read. As his tutors, we discussed our most promising student over after-work drinks; wondered if we might be named in his acknowledgements, looked forward to being invited to his book launch.
Shift to the present tense. Six years after he completed the University’s Creative Writing programme as one of our ‘tipped for the top’ authors, I bump into Martin.
On April 14th I’m talking about writing style at Senate House in London, as part of the Open University’s Contemporary Cultures of Writing series. I’m hoping to attend at least one of the other events in the series, too. I’ll be talking about the difference between academic and creative writing styles.
I switch between the two all the time; I’ve just finished writing a 10,000 word article on Shakespeare and Warwickshire dialect, for example, in the same week that I was proofing my forthcoming novel, Devotion. Writing style is an interesting beast. I’m curious to know how similar (and how different) people will find the prose of Devotion from the poetry of The Marlowe Papers, for example. I know that years of poetic compression have affected my prose, and my love of imagery is impossible to bury. Creative style isn’t (for me, at least) conscious. It is just how I have come to write, after thousands of hours of practice and thousands more hours of reading. It’s what pleases my inner ear. My academic style was learned far more recently; (what I consider to be) good academic writing styles have a lot more in common with each other than creative writing styles. Academic style is a uniform I put on: practical, sober, persuasive. My creative style I’m not even sure I could categorise, but it involves changes of clothes (within a recognisable palette of cut and colour) and occasional flashes of nudity.
How does creative writing style develop? What does one’s writing style say about you as a person? How much is it about being the best (edited, revised, perfected) version of yourself? These are things worth pondering.
Come and spend a week with me in the Dordogne this summer on a fully-catered writing retreat. Each morning there will be workshops focusing on some of the key elements of good fiction. Then we break for lunch, usually by the pool if the weather is good. The afternoons are all yours: see me for an in-depth discussion of your works, take the chance to do some writing, swim in the private pool, go for a walk in the extensive grounds (with woodland and lakes), explore local villages, or a combination of all of the above. No need to do any cooking; just kick back, relax, and get inspired. A real chance to focus on you and your writing for the week.
Every participant will get two one-to-one tutorials, with in-depth feedback on a short story, or a chapter of your novel-in-progress, or any other piece of writing you’d like to share. Plus of course there’s a chance to chat over lunch and dinner, about writing, getting published, or anything else you’d like to talk to me about!
Like many writers, I have used my family as material more often than they probably would have liked. For me, poetry began as a way to find out who I was, and why I was who I was, and to process difficult experiences. Through our families we discover and construct who we are, both in opposition and through osmosis. Thus, in learning who I was, I wrote repeatedly about my family.
During that process – which now feels complete – I avoided, on the whole, subjecting my children to the writer’s lens. My family of origin felt like fair game, although I recognise that on a logical level this is nonsense. But my offspring? Quite frankly it is suffering enough to be born to a writer without becoming the focus of your parent’s pen. All the time you are growing up, a writing parent is obsessively interested in something other than you. They have these other text-based offspring growing in their heads and hearts, taking up spaces that are rightfully yours. A writing parent has no right to embarrass their child publicly, beyond the standard parental actions of singing loudly, dancing badly and the like.
The last few night I’ve slept badly; blessed with a nuisance daughter, a nuisance cat, and a time-pressured commission that keeps me gnawing at it in my head when I should be sleeping. At 3am I found myself on Twitter – and there was the kicker. The news that Robin Williams has killed himself. For the second time in a week I find myself crying because a brilliant, funny, and much-loved man who brought light and joy into the world has killed himself after losing a battle with depression.
The first, a few days ago, was the much less well known Ian Smith. He was one of the founders – and undoubtedly the face – of Brighton’s original Zap Club (when it was a quirky all-comers cabaret venue, not yet another dull thumping seafront nightclub). We were on the same bill for a couple of weeks in the mid-1980s, when I was singing/strumming in the two piece Honey Guide with Pete Sinden, and he was banging six-inch nails up his nose. I didn’t really know him, but he affected me. He was brilliantly being himself and inspiring others to be so. He was funny, and startling, and weird, when I was afraid to be. He moved to Glasgow and carried on doing the kind of performance art that makes you wonder, and laugh, and think. He made a lot of friends. He had a wife who loved him and two kids he adored. But he also had depression. And last week, aged 55, he killed himself.
First Fictions is a bi-annual boutique literary festival designed to celebrate and champion new writing and innovation in fiction, organised by Myriad Editions and the University of Sussex.
I’ll be resident all weekend at the First Fictions Festival at West Dean College Chichester, and taking part in two events.
Sat 12th April 9.30-10.45am
NEW FORMS OF WRITING
Ros Barber, Nina de la Mer, Natasha Soobramanien, Nye Wright
Chaired by Peter Boxall
Sunday 13th April
REINVENTING HISTORICAL FICTION
Ros Barber, Philippa Gregory, Alison MacLeod, Sally O’Reilly
Chaired by Professor Andrew Hadfield
For the full programme and detail of how to book for the full weekend, or just part of the programme, see the website: http://www.firstfictions.com/first-fictions-home
No question about it, I had an extraordinary year.
On my birthday in January I was given one of the best presents I have ever had: I was asked to step in and teach a week at Arvon Lumb Bank, Yorkshire, at short notice. Coincidentally I was just setting off that morning to spend my birthday weekend in York, so I grabbed a few extra jumpers and some teaching materials, and drove Northwards in the snow. The week was amazing, and I could not have asked for a kinder or more-experienced co-tutor than Chris Wakling, who (with more than fifty Arvons under his belt) rapidly brought me up to speed. The week held some interesting challenges but I loved pretty much every minute of it and returned on a high…
Only to fracture my coccyx the very next day in a seesaw accident. There are reasons for such an accident, and I won’t go into them except to say I obviously needed my husband to bring me down to earth with a bump. One thing I won’t miss about 2013 has been twelve months of sore sitting. It still gives me gyp now. And for a while there, it was real pain in the arse.
In celebration of the Desmond Elliott Prize 2013, we welcome Ros Barber to share her prizewinning verse novel The Marlowe Papers. Joining her is historian and author of The Reckoning Charles Nicholl, to discuss the treachery, conspiracies and real-life intrigue surrounding literary figures such as playwright Christopher Marlowe.
8.45pm
£6
For details and to book tickets:
www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/literature/whats-on/2013/ros-barber-and-charles-nicholl/
http://beyondwordspoetrylondon.co.uk
Ros Barber reading from The Marlowe Papers.
Gypsy Hill mainline station is 25 mins rail journey from Victoria or London Bridge and just 15 mins from Clapham Junction. The Gipsy Hill Tavern is literally 100yds from the station entrance, and trains run back up to Clapham Junction and Victoria every 15 mins.
7.15pm doors 7.30pm start
£4/£3 concession
Wednesday 15th May 2013
Foyles, Charing Cross Road
All the shortlisted authors of the Author’s Club First Novel Award (including me) will be reading from their books, and answering questions.
Chaired by Suzy Feay.
http://www.foyles.co.uk/Public/Events/Detail.aspx?eventId=1933
FREE