Well, this is a bit scary.
I’m fairly new to the writing and seem to have fallen into a dysfunctional relationship with it. On the one hand, I love it. I love letting my (over-active) imagination run away with itself. I love letting it come up with characters and tales and weird little dark snippets of something. I love being at my writing desk. I love sitting in cafes with my laptop or, even better, a fresh, un-scribbled notebook. I love acquiring the notebooks and looking at them, all arranged in colour order on my shelf. I love pens. I love reading. And even when I’m not trying to write, my brain is plotting and constructing and editing. Everything that happens and everyone I meet is at risk of featuring in a story. I have concluded, after much soul-searching, that I am a writer. I just am. Were things as simple as that, I’d have no need for this blog. But they aren’t simple: they’re complex and muddled and dysfunctional and that’s what brings me here. Even the sentence ‘I am a writer’ is loaded with conflict. I have been dabbling for some time now, all behind closed doors, in secret, like a clandestine love-affair. I’ve been enjoying it (see above) whilst simultaneously over-come with the sense I’m a wannabe – someone playing at writing, perhaps without the requisite skills or credentials. For a long time, I believed you couldn’t honestly call yourself a writer if there wasn’t any fruit of your labour – if you weren’t published, you weren’t an author. I think I’ve just about talked myself around from this now. Surely it is actually the act of writing that makes you a writer? Discovering that other people’s brains don’t attempt to write novels at 4am, entirely unbidden, has helped too. Also, when I completed my first novel I planned to have a break for a few weeks – because surely I must need one and because I had to concentrate on the necessary but unpleasant task of submitting my work. However, my brain had other plans and decided to present me with a new novel idea which grew and expanded and developed itself, despite me trying to quash it. All evidence would suggest I am a writer and I need to accept it. In an attempt to do so, I have recently made the decision to bring my predilection out from the shadows. Trying to establish oneself in a new career is not a dirty little secret, even if it does feel like laying oneself bare, so why not tell people? Hence starting my Twitter account - @NicolaAWrites - and now this. The purpose of this blog is not self-promotion. It’s about me having somewhere to think aloud, organise my musings and vent my complex feelings on the next stage of the writing journey. Being a writer, it is - funnily enough - writing that has the most therapeutic benefit for me. I hope that by being honest about my experiences, I might connect with others going through similar and might give some reassurance to those not yet brave enough to come out of their shadows. I’m not going to commit to a weekly blog because I suspect it would quickly become repetitive. It would most likely go along the lines of: Waiting for a response from agents/publishers/editors. Still waiting. Still waiting. Got a rejection. Waiting. Rejection. Rejection. Waiting. People would get bored quickly. But I do need somewhere to offload as and when the above process gets too overwhelming – which it does, constantly. So that place is going to be here. The problem, or one of them, is that I’m not a patient person. I guess I can be patient with people but I cannot stand waiting. I like getting things done and making things happen. I’m acutely aware that life is short and waiting feels tantamount to wasting the time I have. Attempting to get published is not a speedy process. Obviously there are thousands of other people who also want to reach that glorious summit and publishers and agents must be inundated with submissions. Inevitably it takes time. Lots of it. Months of it. I am not handling the waiting well. I’m like a kitten who isn’t allowed out yet, physically clawing at the walls, resisting the urge to claw at myself. And it isn’t just the waiting. It’s the rejection. Wow, the rejection. My background is not in the arts. I have enjoyed a very different type of career in the NHS which had its own challenges, mainly relating to lack of funding and resources, but it was largely a kind and people-centred culture. Rejection never featured. I suppose I knew on an intellectual level that it would be an integral part of writing, but, like many difficult aspects of life, knowing it and experiencing it are different beasts. Over the past nine months or so, I have already hardened to it; you have to, but I can’t lie – trying to develop your confidence in your craft is definitely impeded by hearing ‘no’ all the time. How do you separate yourself from the piece? How you do hear ‘no, not for us’ without hearing a subtext of, ‘it just isn’t good enough?’ How do you stop yourself from automatically translating it as, ‘you aren’t good enough’? I battle with these questions on an almost daily basis. Sometimes I conclude I must try harder – read more, write better/sharper/more creatively. Sometimes I console myself that writing is subjective – one person might not like it, but another might – I should send it out again. But when do you make the call that the piece really isn’t good enough? When it’s been rejected twice? Five times? Ten times? It’s a constant hamster wheel of pedalling and pedalling but not getting anywhere fast. I find it exhausting. I suspect some of it is about perspective and goals. If your aim is mainstream publication, nothing will feel like success until you achieve it, if you ever do. Someone recently said to me that the way to survive is to aim for the best writing you can, not for publication. This way you can feel more like you are able to achieve your aims instead of reaching for a goal which a little imp is simultaneously moving further and further away. I think this is probably wise but I need to adjust towards it more. In my life before the NHS, I was a very dedicated student with high expectations of myself. I set myself target grades and I worked hard to get them. I could do it because I had control over my studying – I knew what the curriculum or the degree module required and I made sure I met it. This is different. The steps to the goal are far more arbitrary. I can’t control many aspects of it – such as current trends, what publishers are looking for, whether a particular person wants to put their money behind my project. I have a sense of dread that I could work harder and harder and do everything within my control and it might still not be enough. I might never get published because the stars just aren’t in alignment. Or because my writing is just not good enough. Or just because. How do you push on and on, getting up after every rejection, coming back for more of the same, all the while knowing you still might not make it? I don’t know the answer; I really don’t. But this sums up where I’m at. And why I need this blog. I’m realising why artists and writers have been portrayed throughout history as tortured souls. So, where I’m at is thus: I began writing my debut novel last August. I completed it in February. I’ve asked various people to read it and have given it a full edit. I got a bit over-excited/ impatient and sent it to a handful of agents who have either rejected it or have indicated rejection through their lack of response. In trying to be sensible, I have now sent it to an editor for a full manuscript appraisal. However, it has been twelve days and it has not yet been assigned to a reader so even paying for a service doesn’t speed things up, much to my impatience. Yes, people are busy, I know, I know. I have begun my second novel but am trying to chill my boots. I’m not sure that another self-imposed deadline is really what I need right now. I also dabble in flash – little stories of somewhere between 200 and 500 words – ish. Initially I found it really difficult to make a story happen in so few words but it has been great for my discipline as a writer. I’ve definitely got better at it, even if I’ve a way to go. At the moment I like taking inspiration from unusual words or phrases and using them as a starting point for a little tale. I’ve had some success – I woke up on New Year’s Day to my first long-listing - but it is very sporadic. Sometimes I think that I was lucky with the pieces that have made it, rather than them having been good enough. At other times, I can’t believe I got a longlisting so early on. I vacillate between thinking I might have this if I keep trying and despairing that I never will. That’s me at the moment: conflicted in every sense. I’d love to hear from others who have been here or are here with me at the moment. All words of wisdom gratefully received.
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AuthorNicola Ashbrook Archives
September 2023
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