Motivation and Spiders

Motivation and Spiders This morning I was up a ladder with a sweeping brush, attacking age-old cobwebs that have happily lived on our wooden ceiling for years. But today it bothered me. OK, that’s a lie. Today I was looking for something to do that didn’t involve sitting down at my desk.

It hasn’t been a great week writing-wise. I squeezed out 500 words on Monday; Tuesday was bit more successful, but yesterday I gave up altogether and spent the day doing other things.

And I had a great time – chatted to Ryan Tubridy on his radio show live from the Dead Zoo (opening again today – hurrah!), read the new Patrick Ness (best yet – Monsters of Men – amazingly fab book) in bed in the afternoon, met some book friends in the evening for an early dinner.

And then. AND THEN – went to see Rufus Wainwright in the Grand Canal Theatre. Quite the showman. Very strange first half – Rufus in a theatrical coat with feather ruff and 17 foot train, very jaunty and touching second half, complete with lots of stories and asides. What a sweet, funny, talented man he is.

Anyway, today I have my writing mojo back and after this quick blog I will get straight to it.

But here’s the thing - sometimes you can’t force the writing. If you’re exhausted, if your spirits are low, if there’s too much going on in your life to concentrate you just have to take some time out and replenish your writing soul. But take too much time off and it’s hard to get back in the writing saddle.

So if you haven’t been writing in a while, stop chasing spiders up ladders and get to it.

Back to your desks, people.

Yours in writing,

SarahX

PS Jodi Picoult gets up at 5.30 every morning, walks for 3 miles, sends her kids off to school and then writes until they get home. But I bet she has off days just like the rest of us!

A Writer's Manifesto

According to my Oxford Concise a manifesto is ‘a public declaration of a policy and aims’. I’m currently planning a tour in October for 3 teen/tween writers – 3 days, 3 cities, 3 remarkable writers – title yet to be decided, but we have some pretty nifty names already. The writers involved are Judi Curtin, writer of the fab Alice and Megan series, Sophia Bennett, writer of the equally fab Threads series set in the London fashion world, and moi!

And I came up with a tongue in cheek manifesto:

No vampires No werewolves No boys that go bump in the night

Real girls Real drama Really amazing stories straight from the heart Prepare to be pinked!

We all write books for age 9/10+ with characters who are in their early teens. We all deal with real life issues – family drama, friendship problems, bullying – hence the no vampires, no werewolves bit.

So it got me thinking – maybe I should have my own writing manifesto, a Sarah Webb Manifesto. A ‘public declaration’ of my writing intentions.

So here goes:

I guess my most important aim is to entertain.

First commandment of popular fiction of any kind is (as the lovely Claudia Carroll once said): Thou shalt not bore. Quite right too.

Second aim – to say something.

I know this sounds a little vague but sometimes I read books that don’t actually say anything. They just potter along, telling a nice story, but not really going anywhere. I think books should have something solid rooted at the heart of them – a theme if you like. Sometimes that theme doesn’t make itself fully known until you finish the 1st or 2nd or even the 3rd draft, but it’s often bubbling away under the surface of your words, slowly rising to the surface. For example in the first Amy Green book I wanted to tell readers it’s OK to be yourself. In fact it’s pretty darn cool to be yourself. It’s a theme that runs through all the Amy Green books.

My third aim is to write with passion and with confidence.

I’ve been writing for many years now and I’ve started to understand what both these things really mean and how important they are. Write without passion and you’re doomed. The confidence bit – that can be learned over time. But if you write with both passion and confidence – then you might just have a pretty good book on your hands.

So there you have it – three aims for my own personal manifesto.

What are your aims when you write?

Do you have a writing manifesto?

Yours in writing,

Sarah XXX

Another Word on Editing

A Word on Editing

Humble apologies for the lack of posts recently. What with Easter and friends visiting, it’s been pretty hectic the last few weeks. At the moment I’m working away on the edits of the third Amy Green book – Bridesmaid Blitz (out in Oct). I had an email from my editor today and I’d like to share it with you as it’s lovely.

Writers work away in this funny vacuum, not knowing if what they are producing is hitting the mark. I am very lucky to have two editors in Walker Books, both of whom really know their stuff. After a pretty stiff and thorough rewrite – after a very frank editorial meeting in London with both of them – I submitted Amy Green 3 mark 2 nervously, hoping they would like what I’d done.

I’d hacked the middle out of the book. It was veering away from Amy’s story and I had to bring it back and the only way I could do this was to rewrite a good chunk of the main plot. So I got rid of about 1/3 of the book (about 17,000 words) and created lots of new scenes.

There were a lot of different subplots in the original draft and I got rid of several of these – including a school production of Grease that I was rather fond of – but by tearing them out, gave the main story (Amy’s story) room to breathe.

Luckily my editors liked what I’d done. However there are still three reasonably big plot problems/blips that I now have to iron out.

In the editorial letter (I didn’t get one for the 1st rewrite as there was so much to do!), my editor has broken it down into sections – bless – to make things easy for me.

I have to 1/ build up the Seth/Polly subplot – which I’ve just done. 2/ Work on a particular agony aunt letter that doesn’t quite click. And 3/ work on Amy’s relationship with – look away if you’re an Amy Green fan, plot spoiler coming up – relationship with her new baby sister, Grace.

I spent this week working on the Seth/Polly subplot – researching breast cancer, treatment, drugs and clinical trials. Then I wrote new scenes using the research. But here’s the thing: I had no idea whether I’d overwritten the scenes (they are pretty sad – but cancer in all its forms is hardly a walk in the park!), used too much or not enough technical information; whether they held the reader’s attention or if they were too slow moving. I’m always aware that young readers have a hell of a lot of other demands on their time and, above all, I aim to hold their interest.

So I sent the new chapters to my editor for some feedback – and here’s a snippet of the email she sent me:

Wow! These new chapters are absolutely brilliant! I love them. There is so much emotion in there, and all the facts about the cancer/drug trial etc are really interesting – you’ve gone into just the right level of detail. It all feels so much more real now. Never mind Amy, I feel like Niagara Falls! (Amy cries a lot in the chapters)

Right, I’m off to mop up my mascara!

It made my week!

I’m lucky to have editors who care about my writing and who really get what I’m trying to do. I’m truly blessed. To the gods of writing up there, I thank you for bringing us together.

I wish you all such kind and thoughtful editors.

Yours in writing,

SarahX