Write your way through 2020

This is that time of year where people reflect on what they've been up to in the past year, and resolve to achieve a particular goal in the new year. I know from conversation with some of my writing friends that we have a terrible tendency as creatives to beat ourselves up over not getting published, or not getting our particular pet project finished, or for not even dusting down the laptop or getting as far as sharpening the pencil.

Writing - if it's something you enjoy and you want to do - is like anything else in life. If for 2020 you want to get fit, buff your body or get yourself a trim beach butt, then you have to exercise. It won't happen any other way. And if you want to see your work in print and in bookshops, then you have to write.

But how can we do this, I hear the cry, I have no time, I need to learn, I don't know where to start....

Writers, or those who want to write successfully - which for many means mainstream publication, although I would say that if you write for pleasure then you're a writer anyway - have to simply get on with the act of writing. Whether it's opening up a notebook and jotting words and sentences down with your favourite biro, or tapping away on your iPad, you simply have to do it.

To write successfully, as with anything else you want to achieve, writing has to become a part of your life routine. And to do that, especially if you also have to work and have a family to care for, you need to find those spaces in your routine that allow you to do it. So, for example, in the same way someone who likes baking will make sure that they churn out the perfect scones for tea on a Saturday afternoon because that is when they have time to do it, the writer will sneak into a corner of their home (or the back of the car, or under a tree in the park, or in a corner table at the cafe) and spend an equivalent amount of time writing.

One of the wonderful things about writing is that you can do it anytime, anyplace, anywhere. I've managed to draft up a poem while walking the dog, thanks to the record function on my phone and not caring one hoot that passers by consider me an utter oddity for muttering away seemingly to myself.

One of the drawbacks of writing is that unlike the scones, the finished product may take days, weeks, months or even years to complete, so you can become pretty disheartened. I have been co-writing a non-fiction book with my daughter since 2015. We are both full time workers and mothers, the research has been intense, the subject matter complex. But we are getting there, a few hours most Sunday afternoons, a few paragraphs at a time. We still have two chapters, an introduction and conclusion to go plus all the revising, editing and rewriting, but it's steadily happening. It's taken the slow forming of a Sunday habit to get this far.

Other writers I know dedicate an hour per evening most evenings to their writing project once their kids have gone to bed. In fact, one of these sets an alarm so it is exactly one hour, which she claims to give her an intensely focused hour of writing. I can't contradict her because it seems to work perfectly well for her and she's in the throes of her third novel. Still others prefer the early hours and will do the same but before breakfast. You simply have to find that time of day that suits you best and that day of the week that suits you best.

And get selfish. Your time is so precious, so use it to fulfill that writing dream. There are people who go to their sports practice every week religiously and their families support them. You can be exactly the same about your writing. Okay you won't win Olympic gold but you will be the creative writer you want to be.

So back to New Year writing resolutions. The 20% or so of people who purportedly stick to their New Year Resolutions, whatever those may be, are those who:

-     set  one clear goal which can be broken down into small achievable steps
-     take small, steady steps towards that goal and don't try to overreach themselves in one go
-     enlist the support of family and friends
-     ask for support (if you need to get fit, you might hire the services of a personal trainer, or join a gym. It's the same with writing; join a creative writing class; or join a writer's group, or talk to writers you know and ask for help - most of us simply can't say no to helping aspiring writers do the writing that they love to do themselves)
-     cut themselves some slack; one slip up should not derail progress to achieving a goal

Here are some ideas for getting your writing on course in 2020:

Make writing a part of your everyday life

Even if you're not yet ready to start writing a book, experiment with finding that time and place that works for you and write. Even if it's just twenty minutes a day accompanied by your morning coffee and croissant before the kids get up. Twenty minutes is enough to write a short blog post, or a letter to a friend, or some draft lines of a poem, or some notes for a new chapter, or even the first paragraph of a novel. Once writing is part of your life, it will start to flow and by February you will have some material you have produced and can revise and work with.

Fall in love with writing

And I mean the process itself: savour the smell of a brand new notebook; feel the way your favourite pen lets the ink flow across the page; shape those words with a sense of pleasure; sit in comfort, in your favourite spot, where the view and the sounds around you don't distract but perhaps add to the enjoyment of the moment. Don't just focus on the end product - this could take years in the making and impatience will make you give up. Just enjoy the moment of writing, however brief those moments seem.

Read new material

Writers read. Good writers read a lot. Set off some sparks in your creativity by reading something new, in a new genre or form. If you read sci-fi, pick yourself up some poetry; if you like romance, try out a fantasy novel. Give your brain a holiday from the  usual and it will reward you with fresh ideas.

Share your writing more

Find a group of other writers willing to do the same and who you know will give you constructive, kind criticism and fresh insights into your work. Meet regularly and learn from them and with them. The support and confidence you will gain, and the motivation to write more is immeasurable.

Set out a specific goal

Whatever your goal is, don't be frightened of it. It can be as extravagant or as humble as you like. From 'I am going to write one short story I am proud of' to 'I am going to write a fantasy series to rival GOT'. Then this time next year, see how far you have got. With a bit of work, you will have exceeded your own expectations.

My goal in 2020 is to finish at least a good working draft of that non-fiction book. Get in touch and let me know what you've set for yourself!

Writers in the community or a writers' community?

Gibraltar is a close knit community. Whether we like it or not, our compact geography means we cannot escape the fact that we live closely together, work closely together and enjoy leisure time when we are barely able to avoid bumping into each other. This has huge benefits and some important drawbacks. 

For writers, the benefits should be the ability to reach out and work with other writers in an open, easy manner. The drawbacks are that we often need to be alone to concentrate and write and that we need to stand back from the world a little, observe it at a distance and then disappear into worlds that we create. Another disadvantage is that if we happen to write non-fiction, it is incredibly difficult to make any objective commentary without offending someone. And in a place that is so small with an element of crowd mentality that is sometimes disappointingly small alongside it, that can be disastrous for anyone trying to publish work.

So we seem to have an impasse - a community inhabited by numerous writers and yet no real writers' community to speak of. We have many writers in our community. Some are published locally and well-known: Hernandez, Durante, Caruana, Chiappe and Benady to name a few. Others are published abroad and known to some extent here: Sanchez, Cruz, Green (I think of her as Gibraltarian since she grew up here), Dignam, Moreno, to name a few of those. Sadly, Gibraltar has so much writing talent but such limited outlets and barely any support systems in place that while there are many writers in our community, we cannot lay claim to having a writers' community. I find that a sad reflection of how reading and writing - despite literary festival and a handful of book-related events such as World Book Day - are pushed into the margins of our cultural life.

The Writer Apart..............Image by Grae Dickason from Pixabay 

So what is it that I mean by a writers' community? I had to give that some thought - when I set out writing this post, I was not entirely clear what I meant. I had set out to vent some frustrations that there seems to be no proper platform for writers in Gibraltar. Not really. We have a couple of competitions which serve to put off more writers than these attract, a couple of attempts at writing groups which have never really built up to fruition, occasional poetry readings and workshops, but nothing concrete that an aspiring writer, of whatever age, can reach out to for support and encouragement and guidance. There is only one publisher, generally quite caught up with work, a government loan system to help to self-publish work and no form of filtering or editing. Worse than all that put together - no book shops to sell work in a focused way. There's a bit of this and a bit of that, but something essential is missing.

Writers, by nature of their calling, tend to be pretty solitary folk. And because we have to spend rather a lot of time in our own worlds, we can become introspective and full of self-doubt. Just as dangerous, we can also develop over-inflated ideas of how good our writing is only to have our egos smashed to smithereens when we don't win a competition or have our work rejected and described as mediocre. I expect most writers fall somewhere on a spectrum of mediocre that stretches from 'not too bad' along 'reasonable' to 'quite good, an enjoyable read'. There are very few in the world who are outstanding as writers. When writers are isolated from each other, they find it hard to develop their skills, or their confidence, or curb their over-confidence. Publication is a goal that can barely be aspired to in Gibraltar except through Amazon or if you have a good deal of cash available, and we are so out of touch with the international world of publication that the goal appears completely unrealistic.

A writer's community is a place, metaphorically speaking at least, where writers meet other writers and realise that there are other people out there that actually get it. Other writers get the sense of frustration, isolation, doubt, disconnection from the world of reality, the difficulties of research and the grappling day to day with the English language, or Spanish or Arabic or whatever language we are writing in (Llanito included - we really ought to write in our own language as much as we can). Some writers can successfully be part of an online writing community. Others prefer the face to face link. Either way, coming together physically or virtually can help a writer thrive and the creation of a literary environment can help a community's literature thrive. That is what I feel is missing in Gibraltar.

Image by StartupStockPhotos from Pixabay 

I am not going to lay down blame or recriminations. I, alongside some other writers,  have tried to set up groups and workshops. And I have found it hard to sustain momentum or gain support. If writers in the community feel the need to be part of a writers' community in order to thrive and develop their writing, then they also need to put some time and effort into helping to create that community, that literary environment. There are writers' groups all over the world, and it is rare that any two groups are the same. Not everyone enjoys the experience, but where there are a number of different groups that help different groups of writers in different ways (a bit like there are so many different dance groups in Gib and every dancer will gravitate towards the one that they feel most comfortable with and benefit the most from) then literature of different types and styles will really begin to thrive.

A writers' community is a sounding board, it provides mutual support and encouragement,  it shares learning and helps develop skills, it can create collaborations and projects, it can help overcome fear and doubt, provide constructive criticism, prompt ideas, motivate and help each other through inevitable moments of doubt. They can embolden creativity, challenge the status quo and encourage subversive commentary on our society - what is creativity if not a subversion of what already exists? 

Writers' communities or groups don't have to be formal. They don't have to be formal associations with elected officers, or 'cultural entities' (a horrible expression that associates to paranormal activities in cheap blood and gore movies and is probably largely to blame - purely by its unpleasant aesthetic because writers are so sensitive to words and their connotations - for the lack of organised writers' groups in Gibraltar). Communities can be organic, amorphous, informal but with sufficient regularity of structure and shared values and goals so as to function well. They can be large or small, they can be temporary subsets of larger groupings working on a specific project. They can meet in a house, a bar, a park, in the middle of a street or under a bus shelter. At its most basic, writing only needs ideas, paper and pencil. And shelter - no-one enjoys writing anything in the rain!

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay 

I'm not sure why this doesn't happen in Gibraltar. There seems to be a degree of willingness to meet up until you organise a meet up and then no-one turns up. The Independent Writers' and Artists' Project may well blossom into something positive for writers and other artists and there are other groupings that seem to be emerging. It would, of course, help if our culture support systems took literature seriously. We have a new Minister now and a cultural services agency that has recently announced - finally - that culture is more than events. Perhaps an overdue change will happen. Sometimes writers, as part of the artistic community, just need the right foundation, the right support from government to develop.

Of all the artistic disciplines, it is in writing that the memories of our community are held. The stories of our diverse community are gathered through writing. Our common memories are turned into personal observations, into stories and tales that resound with local colour and characters that should always be preserved. It is through the writing of stories that films are made, that blogs are produced, that social media posts are created, all of which also hold our community's stories. Gibraltar, as I have said over and over, needs to tell its stories in the voices of its writers - even (and cultural services agencies please note) where those voices are not coming from the throat of 'born' llanitos, even if those voices have only 'just got off the plane'. Observations and stories told through the voices of those outside are just as valid as those from the inside. I think we need a writers' community. Do you?

Image by phillipbanks from Pixabay 

Writing and literature - is there a class issue? Discuss

Is there? Here are my thoughts.

There was a time when only the rich or people wealthy enough could read. They would receive education and only a very small number of the poor might be fortunate enough to be taught to read, through charities or religious groups. And, of course, the working classes would often be far too busy earning a living to have time to read, and they would not be able to afford books.

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw the start of the education of the masses, and suddenly books became readily available, lending libraries proliferated and most importantly, working people were able to access schools, and eventually universities. Literature for the many blossomed. The joy of reading became a part of everyday life for all people. The learning that literature brings, the opening of minds became an unstoppable force.

But there are barriers. Books cost money, even online versions - as do the devices needed for reading these. With most countries experiencing an increasing divide between rich and poor, affecting access to education as much as anything else, the love and development of literature may be wavering for the poorer in our society. And writing, as with many other artistic disciplines suffers when fewer people have the time and space to be creative.

If you have to work to live, then the time you have available to write is so limited. There are of course, many stories of successful authors overcoming difficult circumstances and publishing great works. But they are few and far between. To write successfully, some basic ingredients are physical space, mental space and time. For many, especially working parents - or working single parents in particular - finding the time to write when you are not so tired that you can't think, is a luxury that many of us simply cannot afford. There must be many wonderful works of literature that we are missing out on for the sake of so many writers not having enough money to live on to write.

Of course, it's not just about the sitting down and writing part of it. There's the isolation unless you happen to be in some kind of support group. There's learning the skills - we never imagine that an artist will simply start to plop paint on canvas without first learning some basic techniques, nor do we expect the pianist to start playing a concerto without first having a few lessons and learning the scales. But lessons for writers - at least in Gibraltar - are non-existent. Students - young people who go away to university - can take creative writing degrees. There are some who don't go away to study because while they might be great writers, they might not be equipped with three A levels. Nor might their families be able to supplement the maintenance grant to help them live abroad while they study.

This means, then, that writing and literature continues to some extent to hold a place of greater value in households of more affluent economic means. There's a whole raft of social and economic theories about this including nurture, habit, role modelling and so on. But essentially, there are more barriers to entering the literary world if you are working class or poor than if you are middle class or rich. That's not to say that working class people can't overcome these, but barriers that limit entry to one of our essential arts empoverish our culture.

Take our celebrated annual literary festival. A littering of Gibraltarian writers - thank goodness, positive role modelling for youngsters (if they can take time off school or work to attend the talks) if they can afford the ticket prices. I've totted up that if I, as an adult, want to see all of the  Gibraltarian writers, it will cost me around £84 if I include those talking about Gibraltar or other Gibraltarian writers. I'd like to see more well-known writers too so if I attended several more, then I would need to fork out over £100. Ouch. No can do.

So as a Gibraltarian who loves literature, I already feel a bit excluded from this event. Attending it in previous years, with great circumspection and counting of coins, I have been astounded at the plummy English accents, the twinsets and pearls, the way that the scruffier classes shuffle about uncomfortably in venues that perhaps give off a false grandeur - the University, the Garrison Library, the Convent - and the chatter on having lunch in Soto the next day. Well removed from the rookeries of our Upper Town where wildly intelligent and creative writers may well be lurking but with a sense of exclusion from the upper crust ambience of the Gib Lit Fest. 

There are some good things in our literary festival if you can access it and feel at ease. But it is growing increasingly exclusive, an occasion for all the wealthy ex pats from the Costa trying to keep a finger in the English (it's largely about the English) intellectual frame, or their families, a chance to 'do' the former colony and still circulate among their own. And while in reality it may not be quite as extreme a picture as I'm painting, if you attend this year, please take note. I know I'm not the only one who has observed this because of the many conversations I have had with others attending. Even the Brits notice. This year, there's a couple of Lords (both Tories) - figures of politics if not of literature at its most sublime - appearing, along with a chef, the Green Goddess (a true icon of get your butt moving literature) a couple of professors, historians, journalists, a poet or two and some novelists. 

Gibunco Gibraltar International Literary Festival 2019

The benefits of the festival being several, including filling some hotel rooms and restaurant tables, I would not dream of it not taking place. But it looks to me like Gibraltar is just another venue in a circuit of similar events. I really am not sure what value it has culturally at all, what it does to develop our own literary talent. Do our books sell to the visitors that attend? The festival bookshop, after all, is the only physical book shop stocking new titles in Gibraltar.

In Gibraltar, we cannot expect to generate a body of our own literature - and I'm just talking about written works worth reading, let alone great or superior works which last well beyond a single generation - if we do not ensure that writing and reading is accessible to everyone in our society, that being an author is something realistic that anyone can aspire to become. We are a nation of story tellers - that much is clear if you happen to wander to Casemates for a late breakfast and tune in to the many conversations held over coffee and churros. So where are the stories? And the poems? There are some authors: Mary Chiappe and Sam Benady, Mark Sanchez, Humbert Hernandez, Giordano Durante, Rebecca Faller, Gabriel Moreno among a few others. But are these household names? And are they recognisable outside of Gibraltar? I know Mark Sanchez is making inroads in the world of academia outside of Gibraltar, and Gabriel Moreno and Jonathan Teuma are known in at least UK and Spain, but unless Gibraltar really fosters literary talent at home - and that means opening up writing as an art form and nurturing it far more than we do, then we will always lie in the shadows of our former colonial masters, masters of a class system devised to keep the natives in their place and away from those of 'better breeding': the class system at its worst.

So is writing and literature a class issue? This is by no means a top-grade essay; I would need to try much harder to achieve that. But I have made my point: yes it is, and in Gibraltar with the way we continue to lap at overseas talent and avoid growing our own, literature is as much a class issue as anywhere else.

Notebook or Not?

I love my notebooks. I have a few different notebooks, some for work and my day to day writing, and some for my fiction writing,short stories, poems etc. I have a small notebook that I carry about in my handbag, along with numerous pens. Not that carrying a notebook around makes me a better writer. What it does is help me remember ideas that I might have while walking the dog or waiting for a bus, sitting it out in a waiting room or standing in the queue at the supermarket. 

Ideas seem to strike me at the most awkward moment. I clearly remember driving my kids to school some years ago and seeing the daffodils poking their heads out from a crust of snow and suddenly a storyline arrived in my head. At that point in time the internal monologue was going something like this:

"Mirror, signal and move into the outside lane to turn right at the roundabout....a hand, fingers frozen in death, in among the daffodil stems...thump down on the hooter - bloody white van driver cut me up again...she pulls over and walks back along the verge - did she really see that?...why can't my daughter stop winding her brother up in the back seat?...it's freezing, early in the morning, fields swathed in freezing mist and she's not sure she ought to be doing this, she needs to get to work...another red traffic light, we're going to be late...then she sees the body and she knows who it is...must pick up some milk and drop it off to Mum on the way to the office..."

By the time I had parked up, the thrust of the idea had dwindles and even the kernel of it was largely forgotten and I've never bothered trying to pick it back up again. It might have been my breakthrough novel for all I know!

Still, not everyone would agree. And when the writer who doesn't agree is none other than Stephen King, you sit up and listen.

Stephen King on writing and notebooks

Powerful stuff. But the, Stephen King is a writing phenomenon all to himself and maybe his brain is not wired in the same way as your average writer's brain, and most of us are pretty well average. I, for one, need to rely on notebooks, or their electronic equivalent simply to trigger off the recollection of a detail. I jotted down a quick note when on the No.2 bus back from Europa Point on a journey home from work a couple of years ago, and a couple of months later, wrote it into a prize winning story. I've added it below - please read it and let me know what you think.

Meanwhile, with all due respect to one of the masters of storytelling, I love my notebooks, the blue one with beadwork on the front, my Star Trek one, my Flower Fairies one, my one that looks like a witch's grimoire, my grey one from Morrison - love them all!

Trouble for Tea

by Jackie Anderson

I only have to take one look at his face as he goes to step onto the bus and I know there will be trouble.  The deep frown on that smooth brow is a giveaway.  Then there’s that pout, pink and petulant, as he’s guided into the seats in the space where prams are normally parked.  The trouble will get far worse if someone with a buggy comes in. Just like the old days, when my boy was young.

The boy flings his bag on the floor at his father’s feet.  I can see the similarity, except the father’s face is dark with stubble like all young men seem to have these days.  Lazy fashion, if you ask me, can’t get up in time to smarten up before leaving the house.  Then again, with a kid like that, it can’t be easy, I should know, and the poor man has those sunken, red-rimmed eyes that tell of sleepless nights and exhaustion.

The bus lurches away from the kerb and I keep my eyes firmly on the view outside the window.  It’s what I do every day at tea time.  I get on the bus and ride to the lighthouse and back, a pretty route, each turn of the narrow road opening up to the magnificent blue of sea and sky. There I get a cup of tea and return on the next bus.  It distracts me from the emptiness of the house now the kids have left home.  

“Come on Harry, pick it up please.”

I’m going to find this all very hard to ignore.  

“No.”

“You can’t leave it there, someone will trip over it.”

“I don’t want to!” the boy shrieks.  I glance at some of the other passengers.  They’re all disturbed, trying not to look.  I remember all this very well.

The man rubs his chin.  Beads of sweat are glistening on his brow. Maybe I should say something, but it’s been a long time since anyone wanted my help.  The man picks the bag up and settles in a seat with Harry.  I look away, not wanting to intrude in his difficult moment.

The boy is screeching, ignoring his father’s attempts to calm him down. The other passengers shift in their seats and I can hear their disapproval rumbling along with the engine.

“Stop that, Harry, you know you like to go to Club,” the man says.  His voice is calm.  I watch him.  His face is flushed, eyes bright with an embarrassment he refuses to admit.  I know his chest feels tight, his throat is constricting because really he wants to weep, to shed a lifetime of tears for the son he loves more than he can say but whom he can’t seem to help.  But he won’t let himself weep because he knows he has to be strong, he has to be that special someone who can love that child, despite his tears and snot and his taking swipes with clawed fingers at his own father’s face.

“I hate it!” He punches and kicks, his screams turning into grunts, like a wild animal fighting the cage.

I’m squirming inside.  It’s all too familiar.  The red-faced father, the screeching kid spitting and scratching, the others, the rest of the world frowning and making you feel small, inadequate, breathless, as if drowning in disapproval.  A woman at the back is making loud tutting noises.  I hope she chokes on her own spittle.  I’m angry now.  “No upbringing,” says another.

That’s it.  I’ve spent far too long moping, missing my family, keeping myself to myself. I know what to do, and if the man minds, well, I can always get off at the next bus stop and walk the rest of the way.  

“Come on Harry, you’ll enjoy it once you’re there.”  He is incredible, this man with pain and sadness in his eyes, the calm voice and the big hands fending off the blows.  I rummage around in my handbag.  I always carry the puppet around with me.  It reminds me of my own little bit of trouble.  He lives away now, a grown man with a job of sorts and enjoying life.

“Hello, Harry,” my voice scratches at my throat.  The man’s blue eyes widen but he nods at me in approval. My hand in the puppet, I give a little bark.  Harry glances round and his arms stop in mid-air.

“I’m Dotty the Dog,” I hurry on.  Harry looks suspicious but listens.

“You have a huge voice for a little boy,” Dotty says.

Harry grins and wipes snot and tears onto his sleeve.  

“And I’ve a really loud bark for a little dog,” I’m warming into my old routine. 

“Shall we play a game?” Dotty suggests.  Harry nods and before long we’re playing word games and he is sitting on his father’s knee.  “We’re nearly at our stop,” says Dad.  Harry’s smile vanishes.

“It looks like it’s my stop too,” I say and Dotty glares at me. Harry giggles.

“I’m Joss,” says the man, “and thank you, Dotty is wonderful, inspired.”

“My son, well, he’s grown up now, but Harry reminds me of him.  Dotty used to help him settle too.”

“Is Dotty coming to Club, Dad?” says Harry, once we’re on the pavement.

“Perhaps you can join us for a cup of tea” suggests Joss.

“Oh, you don’t want an old dear in the way…” I begin.

“Can we get Dotty some cake?” interrupts Harry. I giggle.  That’s the thing with kids.  They’re so natural.

“Dotty prefers biscuits, but I will happily have tea and cake with you, so long as it’s no trouble.”

“No, I’m the one that’s trouble,” laughs Harry and he takes my hand.

“He’s a bit over the top sometimes,” breathes Joss, a fluster of bag and coats.

“Well there’s nothing better than a bit of trouble for tea,” I say. The boy in my right hand and Dotty in my left.  Like the old days.   

From broad brush strokes to minute detail

View across Gibraltar Harbour at sunset

I guess I'm lucky to live in a place where landscape - or seascape, to be more accurate - is spectacular. Gibraltar is small - roughly three miles square rising to 630m above sea level, it juts out to sea, the Bay of Gibraltar to the west, the Strait of Gibraltar and the mountains of North Africa to the south, the Mediterranean Sea stretching out to the east and the Sierras of Spain to the North. We are regularly treated to the most intense, colourful sunsets - the majesty of which inspired the broad brush strokes in which I described them at the start of my poem To the Harbour:

"We used to walk to the harbour,                            

You and I,

On summer evenings,

And watch the sky drown in flames

Into a sea ablaze with the fires of sunset.

And we would gaze in childish wonder

At the purple silhouettes 

Of the Spanish hills, their grandeur

Distant forms of closer shadows."

(from my poem, To the Harbour)

Broad brushstrokes are as helpful to the writer as to the artist: they instantly create an image, an impression, set a mood, form the backdrop to the next piece of action in a story. Visualise the quivering heat of Van Gogh's Starry Night and the way that those thick globs of perfectly placed paints stir something in the soul that instantly conveys the heat of the night and the intensity of an emotion we can barely put into words but can feel simply by looking on the picture, and you will understand what I am trying to get at. When the landscape is vast and you need to somehow bring it to life for the reader in words, broad brushstrokes are as useful to the writer as to the reader:

"A surging swell, a screaming horde, this sea                         

Charges to the shore and thrashes at the

Stone of ancient cliff that groans against the

Pounding beat of winter drums and bugles."

(from my poem, Samhain Storm)

In Gibraltar, the Old Town stretches higgeldy piggeldy up the mountain side towards the medieval Tower of Homage left by the Moors, the iconic lighthouse stands proud to the south close by the Gorham Cave complex where Neanderthal remains were found, and the bustle of an international business centre, luxury marinas, thriving port and busy airport in the north and west clamours day and sometimes into the night. You can write reams about this place and there's still more to say.

From the new marina up to ancient Rock

But I think that if you look with a writer's eyes (the inner eyes as well as those on your face), there is much to be written about pretty much anywhere. And this is where funnelling down from those scene setting brushstrokes into those intimate details that bring a place truly to life works so well. Detail are what bring a place alive to the reader, make a setting real. I was not around when the remains of the victorious British fleet limped back to Gibraltar after the Battle of Trafalgar, the body of the dead Lord Nelson no board, but it was the detail that I imagined that helped me add realism to the poem:

"Rounded bellies slowly heaving, 

As the waves through Straits come creeping,

Gentlemen with top-hats nodding, 

Gather round to mutter warnings

That English blood will flow,

While in and out, skipping, darting,

Schoolboys after treats go scrambling,

Small boats full of fish come hailing

Brine-burnt girls that watch them, wishing

The winds of change would blow."

(from my poem, Home from Trafalgar)

HMS Victory

I described a scene from imagination: portly gentlemen in top hats muttering about the war (Gibraltar's older generation like to gather at a place affectionately known here as El Martillo - long story on how that name came about - and better known as John Mackintosh Square, and spend mornings gossiping about current affairs); and the fishing boats putting in to harbour, their crew calling out at the local girls who are desperate for social change to bring about improvement to their lot. I think it added a realism to the poem that otherwise would just have spoken about the end of the Battle of Trafalgar, a well-worn theme, and which I had based on Gibraltar as a place, the port to which the fleet sailed after the battle.

So what about somewhere that doesn't have the reputation for glorious summer days and a vast, stretching landscape around it? Can we still bring it to life as poets? Of course we can: broad brushstrokes to set the scene and detail to highlight the uniqueness of that place. Take the River Medway at Gillingham for example. You're not going to readily find it in travel brochures but yet it is a place of immense beauty. Have you ever watched the sun rise across the Medway from the bottom of Copperhouse Lane, from Sharp's Green or from Horrid Hill?Or the sunset in the same place? I have, and it is breathtakingly beautiful. 

From Riverside County Park, Gillingham looking towards Kingsnorth, winter, late afternoon

Even the silhouettes of the industrial buildings at Kingsnorth across the river stand majestic. Have you seen the way that small boats squat in the mud behind the outdoor pool at The Strand, waiting for the tide to wake them and slap them into action again? It's charming - look out to the wide open horizon of the estuary where the colours reflect the ever-changing light, then bring your eyes to focus on the detail of the little boats, or do the reverse:

"They bob, a row of coloured corks,     

Dipping first their prows

Then raising them again

To sniff at morning air, 

Restless now the tide creeps in,

Tugging at their tethers 

Like frothing colts

Eager to race out to sea,

To join the shoals,

To ride the streaming currents

That pluck at them now,

Hither, thither and thereabout."

(from my poem, Boats at Bay)

And what if you are trying to write about an old town, maybe run down with slum areas? Old English seaside towns, for example, lost some of their holiday charms in recent decades. Can we use broad brushstrokes and fine detail to bring it to life? I tried this out the other way around, starting with the detail, this time writing about an imaginary seaside town but inspired by trips to Herne Bay, Hythe and Dymchurch in Kent:

She sits on a fabric chair                                   

at the door to a timber hut,

perched on a shingle shoreline.

Her fingers work swiftly

occasionally tripping over

their own swollen knuckles,

working at wool,

needles dipping in and out

in relentless rhythm,

like the feeding beaks of oystercatchers

out on the sands at low tide.

She feels the spray on her face

each time the sea returns,

its winter waves thrashing

just yards from her toes

and scented with snow and far-off ice.

In summer, its froth

Plays in the rock pools

Spreading the smell of sunshine.

(from my poem, By the Beach Hut)

Perhaps I am lucky to be in Gibraltar at the moment and have my eyes filled with visual treats daily, but a writer could and should be able to write about any place, real or imaginary, far or near, about a place present or how it was in the past. Setting the scene with broad brushstrokes and drilling down to small detail helps me. Try it.

In a Flash

Last week I entered a story into a competition. As I've said in a previous post, writing to competition rules is good discipline and a great (and you never know, possibly profitable) way of practicing the craft of writing.

With a 1000 word limit, this particular competition qualified as flash fiction and, my word, that was tough! I am naturally verbose and this spills over into my writing, but the risk I take with rambling on is that I bore my readers and they put down my writing, never bothering to finish reading the story. So writing to a tight word count is my way of training myself to cut the crap out of my writing. And as a proofreader for several publications, I know just how much of what people write and think is essential, can be cut out, the effect of which is often to tighten a piece of writing until it right to convey the message with maximum impact. Less is more, so they say and in this respect, "they" are right. 

So  here are some of my thoughts on how to write a concise story. This can be applied to other types of writing: features, letters, reports, monologues, scripts, blog posts...

• Write your first draft freely, then work on it - this lets you freely explore your ideas and lets the creativity flow
• Then rework the piece taking all unnecessary words out - these are words that don't add anything to the meaning of the sentence. Like "very" or "really".
• Use strong nouns and verbs and you can get rid of adjectives that don't add to the sense of what you are writing. Try it out, it works.

• Do you need to elaborate on how someone was talking when using dialogue? Readers can become distracted when faced with a variety of ways of speaking. Have them focus on what is being said rather than on whether they whispered softly (how else would you whisper?), or shouted loudly (ouch, too much!). "Said" is often all you need.
• Pick a key emotion on which to hang your story.
• Limit your images: one or two strong images make a more lasting impact than many crammed into a tight word limit.
• Pick a key theme and stick to that one - there is no room in 1000 or fewer words to elaborate or complicate.
• Limit the number of scenes since world building and context setting can take up much of your word count.
• Limit to just one or two characters - make it personal and make it focused and the reader will be swiftly hooked, engaged and rewarded.
• Use a small idea for a small story and reserve big ideas for longer pieces of writing.
• Limit the viewpoints - one character, one viewpoint tends to work best.

Final tip? Just write and enjoy the process. Work hard enough and you may be rewarded for it in a competition win or publication.

Writing for Competitions

A quick browse on the Internet will soon trawl up writing competition after writing competition - short stories, poems, novels, flash fiction, one act plays, and more. Some offer huge prizes and some more modest. Some only go as far as to offer publication in an anthology for the winners and this alone is enough to tempt the writer who yearns for publication. Some come accompanied by fees, some are free to enter. Is it worth while entering work in a competition, was a question recently asked of me by a fellow writer.

That gave me food for thought. I have occasionally entered writing competitions. I've won some, came runner up or highly commended for some, never even heard of the results of numerous others. But I do believe there is value in submitting pieces of writing to competitions that go beyond the obvious one of possibly winning a prize (hopefully a rather chunky cheque, maybe a residential writing retreat and publication to boot).

Firstly there's the discipline of writing to a theme, where there is one, or searching for a theme that inspires you to write and then voicing the story or poem that the theme sparks off. There's the word count to be aware of, the rules that must be followed (every rule needs to be followed, from the layout and font size to submission details and total number of words, otherwise you run the risk of having your entry disqualified before it is even read). You may  have to write to a particular genre or style and this requires focus and discipline so you don't wonder off the track that is laid out for it. And then there's the time element: the dreaded deadline. They are usually set in stone, and cannot be changed, as is the case in most parts of life. 

For the writer who works alone, from home, without a boss or manager to answer to, the regular application of the discipline of meeting a deadline and set requirements that come from entering writing competitions helps to hone your skills as a writing professional. Just because you want to practise your art and perhaps sell it, doesn't mean to say you can get away with shoddy presentation, ignoring important details and not working to precisely what your editor wants - in the case of competitions, it is what the judges and organisers want that you work to meet.

The other benefit of entering writing competitions is to work the creative muscle. It isn't hard, when working on a long project, to get bogged down and stale. Taking a break and writing in a different style or genre is almost like taking a holiday and works to refocus and energise your creativity. You also experience the satisfaction of challenging yourself, writing to completion and submitting your work to be read.

Okay, so that last bit, having your work read, can feel a bit intimidating. But if we're not writing for our words to be read, understood, thought about, reacted to - why are we writing at all? For writers who are still working on developing their craft, or who have never had the courage to submit work to a publisher or magazine editor, it is a way of gaining confidence. When entering competitions, especially if you are sending your work out online to another town or country, you can feel a degree of anonymity. You have never met the judges, you are never  likely to meet them, so what they think of your work doesn't really matter. 

At which point, it's worth remembering that judges of writing competitions are evaluating the writing. Many competitions do not have the work identified by name when it is passed to the judges - they judge the writing in front of them, and a jolly laborious task it must be to pick out a winner from perhaps hundreds or thousands of entries. It is not you as a person or writer that is being judged, it is the piece that you have entered. If you don't win, it is not always because it was not a good piece of work - often it is because on that particular occasion, someone entered a piece of work that was a bit better.

The lessons that can be taken from entering competitions, even if you don't win are various, and they can help you increase in confidence. The more you write, the better a writer you become, so entering is a way of helping to focus your writing even while you work on your magnum opus. If you get feedback on your entry - which some but not all competitions offer - use it to make a better attempt at the next one. If not, read the winners and see what it is they did that made their work rise above yours, and then apply it to your work.

I think there is tremendous value in entering competitions when you can. I say that as a writer who has recently had one of those polite emails of the type: 'thanks for sending us your entry; better luck next time'. But at least I can go back to the keyboard with a dose of reality swallowed: there were 13,000 entries to that particular competition and I can now work on a way to make my next stab at it stand out above that crowd.