What I Loved: 'Artful' by Ali Smith

Monday night
It's been so long since I've sat up late, unable, or unwilling, to put down a book, but tonight I'm firmly in 'Artful' by Ali Smith.
I've got my reading lamp clipped to the back centimetre of pages - it's the one I bought in Readings, Malvern, after the manager and I inspected and compared the two brands they had available. We were two amateurs reading attributes on the back of boxes - they could have been 14 letter ingredients for drugs for all we knew - and I don't know why the decision took so long when they were both the same price ($19.95) but it was quiet in the shop and eventually I chose one brand over the other. And I chose pink - pink! and now, in the thoughts, quotes and fantasy of Ali Smith not only am I a Reader again, but while my lover, who wakes for work at 5.15am, snores lightly beside me - a sound I find comforting because I know how much he needs rest to get through the hours he spends on his feet - I'm slipping in and out of our bed, my LED light flicking shapes across the shoes and shorts that he's left on the floor. I'm a thief on her first mission, a nervous accomplice. I dropped a pencil on my desk and it rolled into a handbag, colliding with something hard - who knew a pencil could clash so loudly? My frustration at dropping a sharpened pencil in the dark, at having to take a break from 'Artful' because it seems that not only am I alert and keen for Smith's words, it seems that also for the first time in a long time I feel the urgent need to write. But my words these days are never my stories. They're ways to share others' writing, to promote the skills of others and yet there, there are the side page notes, those jots that make little sense until you pick through many filled notebooks and somehow find lines that can be related to each other and form the basis of a paragraph or an idea to explore. So there's some hope for me, Writer.
But for now it's 10.13pm on a Monday. It's time to put away this notebook and the blunt, second choice pencil and go to sleep. I've finished 'On time' and in the morning, if I'm awake early enough and have the time, I might bring a cup of coffee to bed and read the next section, 'On form,' before the day of writing for others begins.

Tuesday morning
After handwriting that note I kept reading. I finished 'On form' at 10.47pm and I liked turning off my pink light at that point because my alarm goes off at 6.27am and somehow after reading 92 pages in one sitting the idea of exactly 7.5 hours sleep seemed sound. Of course that required starting my slumber at that very minute.
I should have known that because I'd started reading something that is "part fiction, part essay" and "a revelation of what writing can do," there was no chance of falling asleep quickly. Or, as I felt at 2.07am, if at all.
At which point I tried listening to a podcast to put me to sleep, but Kevin Barry talking with Debra Treisman and reading 'The Saucer of Larks' by Brian Friel in noise cancellation headphones was a poor choice. Both the conversation and the story are entertaining - Irish accents and insight, the Atlantic coast of Ireland - and saw me through until 2.58am.
At some point I fell asleep, then woke with our first alarm at 5.15am and went back to sleep. I woke again at 7.33am (I had reset my own alarm) and made coffee. I kept the blinds closed, pretending I wasn't skiving when I should be working, and went back to bed with Ali Smith. I read the next section, 'On edge,' and have forced myself to put it down and get to my desk. But only so far as to think and write about the work by this author who is, as said by Alain de Botton

"a genius, genuinely modern in the heroic, glorious sense."

The final section is 'On offer and on reflection.' I can't wait to go to bed tonight.

Not quite Simon Hoggart's week (The Guardian)

If I run into someone today, or tomorrow, and they ask how my week's been, I'm going to have to warn them that they may not actually want me to respond. Because I won't be able to say, yeah not bad, or pretty good thanks. I won't even be able to stop at, you wouldn't believe how good my week's been. I'll have to give them this:

Tuesday:
Booked 3 night trip to meet my 18 year old nephew (and godson) in Belgium. He's part of an organised tour of battlefields with a group of his peers from Adelaide. It's the longest consecutive time I'll have spent with him since 2009, and I will try not to hold his hand and hug him any more than I can sneak in without him or his friends noticing.

Wednesday:
Went for a long lunchtime swim and came home to the best rejection letter I've ever had - Graham Connors (Number Eleven magazine) compared writing to a successful writer.
Watched the Swedish film, Play. It's 118 minutes of cinematography so beautiful you could cut and hang most shots as an exhibition. It's 118 minutes of creeping tension that reminded me of the 102 minutes of Martha Marcy May Marlene.

Don't remember dream details but they had an edge.

Thursday:
The text for this week's Reading To Write class was The Field Guide to Getting Lost, and the critique of my homework helped me to shape it into a story almost ready to submit.

Editing ideas meant I couldn't sleep properly.

Friday:
Walked through Wandsworth Common to the Earlsfield Cemetery for Hauntings: Ghost Stories at The Chapel and sat on heated pews for candlelit readings by Tania Hershman, Alex Preston, Adam Marek and Stella Duffy.

Creativity, and maybe a post-event drink, meant I didn't sleep well.

Saturday:
Joined 24 other writers for the Start Small: Think Big masterclass - Alexa Radcliffe-Hart has posted a great write-up of the weekend here - and (not in anyway detracting from the other sessions), I was introduced to and mesmerised by David Vann. When he began I feared it was going to be far too academic for my brain to absorb, but very quickly he worked incredible intelligence, knowledge and passion into a talk I could have sat listening to for another few hours. Whoever it was that suggested he do a TED talk, here here. Came home and ordered Legend of a Suicide.

Couldn't stop thinking, wrote "important ideas" down during the night, didn't sleep much.

Sunday:
7am coffee in bed, 8am coffee in local cafe writing and watching Clapham wake up with blue sky. Joined the group at Birkbeck College for more incredible hours with inspiring talents, and thanks to Carrie Kania and Deborah Levy, came home in the dark with an ambitious but do-able plan for the focus of my writing to finish up 2013, the year I 'came out'.

Couldn't sleep, excited about the plan.

Monday:
7am coffee with Evie Wyld. Well the last 70 pages of After The Fire, A Still Small Voice. Sat silent in my reading chair after finishing.

Wrote my list of targets for the week:
- 3 x short shorts to send to workshop partners for feedback
- 1 x short short to update following magazine editor's feedback
- 2 x longer short stories to do last couple of drafts and re-send to workshop partners for feedback
- Draft cover letter while I have the tips and notes from yesterday's session with Carrie Kania

Will I sleep? Don't really mind. Maybe I'll lie awake thinking about how lucky I am, thinking of how many people I've met and shared passion, laughs, coffee and beers with this week, and thanking the people who give their time to make all of these opportunities.

An Icelandic evening. In Chelsea.

I'd forgotten how aggressive lycra cyclists can be, so it was a relief to turn onto Fulham Road behind a woman in a red dress and high wedges. At Daunt Books I pulled up behind a woman with a crisp bob sitting very upright on a basket-front bike. I wasn't alone riding in a dress, but felt conspicuous wearing a helmet.

Beside the bike stands was a group of almost thirties smoking and comparing stories of their Trans-Siberian railway adventures.

Chelsea.

I'd spent the afternoon in my sunny courtyard (in a different seven letter suburb beginning with 'C') reading the last 100 pages of Burial Rites. Another strong contrast - last London summer heat and the last days of Agnes in northern Iceland's January dark.

The Icelandic evening was a discussion between debut author Hannah Kent and novelist, travel writer and academic, Sarah Moss. Both women went to Iceland at a young age, and it had left a powerful impression that clearly hasn't faded.

When she was 19, Sarah was awarded a scholarship to "contemplate natural beauty", and caught a ferry from Aberdeen to Iceland where she and a friend spent six weeks of summer travelling around. It was just a beginning for her, and always wanting to go back the opportunity came up for her and her family to spend 2009-10 in Reykjavik.


Hannah finished school knowing she wanted to be a writer, but unsure of what else she should pursue to supplement this tenuous career choice. She applied for a Rotary exchange, nominating Switzerland, Sweden and Iceland as her countries of choice.
At 17, she had never seen snow.

Though their Icelandic experiences were very different, there was obviously a challenging settling-in time. Sarah, with her husband and two sons, working in a city, depended on strangers to help with the simplest things, like buying a bus ticket. Hannah left Adelaide's 40 degree summer to arrive in a remote village in northern Iceland, trapped by snow and at the mercy of the weather. Where Sarah felt anonymous in a crowd, everyone knew who Hannah was, and the spectacle of being a stranger was disconcerting at first.

I haven't read Names for the Sea, but was interested that she used the form of a novel to get away from  the rigour of thorough truth to fact. She enjoyed the freedom of fiction.

Hannah's "subjective non-fiction" novel is the product of extensive research and the desire to reflect the story of the last executions in Iceland with respect for the people and place.

The synergy between these women's stories is the power of the landscape. Both take on a sort of reverence describing walks in the unending summer light, the bizarreness of volcanic gullies, the mountains, the isolation of an island where weather dictates what you can do each day.

It's as moving listening to the writers speak as it is to read the story of Agnes Magnusdottir.

The May release of Burial Rites was so highly anticipated in Melbourne when I was there in February, that I was desperate to get my hands on it when it was released in the UK. And in the spate of fabulous books I've read lately - I mean it had to follow Stoner - it easily gets 5 stars from me.

And Hannah's next book? Well I didn't get much time to talk to her about that as there was a long queue for signings, but it's set in Ireland, based on a story she's heard about superstition. I'd get ready for another evocative tale.

And if you're looking for a review of Burial Rites, rather than a response to it, Isabelle Costello has literally just posted a wonderful one here.

Since getting serious - coming out of the closet

My job finished earlier this year and I decided to give this hobby of mine a proper go for a few months. I spent 4 nights at Retreats For You and as well as writing set up a plan of attack.

Since then I've been writing and editing every day and submitting work, but mostly I really wanted to immerse myself in the word world.

I'm dipping my toe in some social media spaces, which has been an inspiring introduction to writers, successes, skills, reviews, opportunities, and plain old random thoughts at times. The people and groups who put so much time into promoting these, you are greatly appreciated.

No doubt one of the most exciting moves has been to get along to events. 

In the last couple of months I've heard Ros Barber, Andrew Blackman, Gavin Extence, Jenni Fagan, Roshi Fernando, Ben Fountain, Gabriel Gbadamosi, Colin Grant, Sam Mills, Helen Simpson, Anna Stothard. 

We've sat on stools in Clapham Books, in a room in a Herne Hill pub (where curious punters wandered through to get to the mens'), at a long communal table in The Society Club, Soho and a gallery room in Foyles at Charing Cross.  

Hearing writers read their work really influences how I then read their books. I can hear their distinct voice - like Gabriel's metered pace and Jenni's accent - and it makes reading their printed work like a one-on-one audio reading experience. 

And what I love about London is there's always something exciting to go to.

My few months of 'giving it a proper go' is almost up, and I've just reconnected with a recruitment agency to start the 'real work' hunt. But this time has been so valuable to firmly establish writing in my life, and whilst I won't have as much time to dedicate to it, I'll never retreat from this world.

I am a writer.

In terms of publications, I was very lucky to get out of the gates early with a paid acceptance from the second Overland audio journal. 

The strike rate has bottomed out since, but with some honest editorial services (thanks Amanda Saint at Retreat West, James at The Word Hut) and really useful general reports from competition judges, I'm continually seeing how to improve my work and who to target.  And Shaun Levin's daily exercises are great for when I look at a story and have no idea where to take it next.

Reading reviews from a much wider range of people has not only added to my 'Must Read' list, it's made me explore work I might never have thought of trying. And rather than feel overwhelmed by how  talented other people are, I'm embracing it as valuable, rich, thought-provoking: a world I cherish being a part of.

I have a colour-coded spreadsheet, due dates, word counts, and some talented writing friends to work with. And a dream (as I said to the guy in the bike shop last week after an accident where my only concern was the survival of my laptop).

After a recent week of rejections and a budgetary wobble, a good friend of mine said to me - 'Man up. Grow some balls.'

So I've got all the infrastructure in place. (Then she sent me this recipe which is tasty, and goes a long way - Indian dal).

Thanks to friends for support, and the writing community for letting me in. I hope to hear from and meet more of you soon.

Oh and here are the spoils from the author events I've been to since getting serious.