Where have all the mile markers gone?

I’ve heard it said writing a novel is like running a marathon. Like hell is it. My first novel took a little over nine months to write. (I could have said 'gestate', but too many metaphors spoil the broth. It was in any case stillborn, at best a sloppy mess that I immediately set upon, working its twisted limbs to fashion a marginally improved version.) But at no point during its writing, or rewriting, did my novel ever lead me into that dark, despondent place that marathon runners must pass through in the middle of a race.

I quit running marathons because I realized I was never going to run a faster one. I started a novel partly because I suddenly had so much time on my hands.

I ran my first marathon in 2004, in New York City, finishing in a fairly respectable (and bitterly disappointing) 3:48. I failed to finish my second (Blackpool), and literally limped in after nearly five hours in my third (London). I had fractured my shin. After two long years of rehabilitation I finally finished the London Marathon in my best time: 3:40. Three years of pain and frustration to shave off eight precious minutes.

So when I compare writing to running a marathon, you can be sure I'm not basing my comparison on Wikipedia.

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People who haven't run a marathon seem to talk a lot about something called 'the wall'. I can only speculate about what that is, perhaps it's based on tales of athletes dropping out in the latter stages of the race because of some apparently catastrophic failure. Many physiological factors can lead to that. For example, depletion of glycogen, stress fractures, or plain old cramp. Been there, done that. But some runners keep going through those troubles, so I doubt they are the real causes of failure. That is something much, much worse.

And it's something that afflicts writers as much as marathon runners.

It's the aforementioned 'dark, despondent place' that occupies the space between mile markers thirteen and twenty. Between 'great, I'm half way there', and 'God, where have all the mile markers gone?' Runners give up the will to finish the race just seconds after they give up the will to live.

And writers? Where is this vale of despondency for them?

I only know where it came along my writer's journey. As I said, I finished the first draft of my masterpiece completely unafflicted by existential torment. (Deep breath.) I saw that it needed rewriting, so I rewrote it. I could still see room for improvement, so I wrote it again. And again, just for the sheer bloody-mindedness of it. And I beheld my masterpiece, and I loved it so much I could have written it a Sapphic ode.

And I bagged it up and sent it with a covering letter and a kiss for luck to, well, to literary agent Lucy Luck as it happens. It was too good an omen to ignore.

I was disappointed when Ms Luck did not sign me up by return post. But not deterred. Not yet.

I wasted no time getting started on my next novel, a work of such brilliance that it put even its illustrious predecessor in the shade. As before, I immersed myself in research and plotting and drafting, night after night, agonising page after agonising page.

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Press fast forward and witness me standing over my doormat staring fearfully at the ominous dead thing laying there. I knew what it contained. Just like all the others (and since I had long since lost count, let's accept for the fakery of precision that it was the thirtieth in its line) it would contain a standard letter, wishing me luck without the scantest sign that my beloved had even been read.

This was about the time I sank into that trough, when I was tested and found myself

wanting.

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I stopped working on my follow up novel. (There was nothing to follow up.) Suddenly the next novel seemed impossible to complete. Every conceivable excuse presented itself unbidden, in the same way that minor aches and tiredness make marathon runners reappraise the gentle uphill stretch ahead. 'No way! That must be one in ten and it goes on for over a mile!'

And like Paula Radcliffe at her nadir, I sat at the roadside with my head in my hands.

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But this is not a story about giving up. Nor is it about going on when all common sense says the way is blocked, your supplies depleted, the mission futile. If I'd quit back then, this story wouldn't be written at all.

And here I am, writing.

Somewhere along the way I outran that long, cold shadow, though I can't say precisely when. I think there was one key factor in my redemption, and that is that I kept going in whatever way I could. (That's how you finish a marathon; it isn't rocket science!) I decided to beef up my skills. I'd already read just about every self-help manual I knew about, so I went out looking for guidance, for someone to take me apart and reassemble me as a writer. I applied for MAs in creative writing, and got rejected. So I signed up for an undergrad course with the Open University. I got interested once again in poetry, and became the Slush Poet. I threw myself into a writers' group, joined the Poetry Society, started performing poetry, started tweeting, got out there.

~~~~~~

Yesterday I went to an open evening at City University in London, where Jonathan Myerson runs what is perhaps the best MA in the UK for novelists. We spoke about the prospect of my joining the course. Unlike the last time we met, I really felt that I belonged there, like I had earned a seat at the table. I even considered applying to be part of this year's intake, but I decided against it: there are things I want to finish first. My OU course, a year of Slush Poetry, my Spring reboot. I can do all this. I am beyond the dark, despondent place now. The wind is behind me, the finishing line in sight and it's all downhill from here.

And then a weird thing happened on the way home. I had an idea for a great new novel.

(c) 2012 Andy Hickmott

The making of a born writer

I'm a natural, me,
a born writer. No,
that's a lie. Let me, then,
atone with the truth...

I think I'm becoming a good writer within the bounds of my repertoire. That is, I am pleased with some of my writing when I later go back and read it afresh. This is an accomplishment.

It is, however, only a start. And it has come at the expense of much time and effort: the dozens of how-to books, books on viewpoint, on style, on characterization, on editing, on dramatization, on genre, on grammar; the prize-winning or short-listed novels, poems and short stories I have read and taken as my benchmark; the hundreds of pieces of writing I have reviewed on YouWriteOn in return for sometimes invaluable feedback from other writers and, occasionally, from editors (several of my works have made the coveted No 1 spot); the hours spent with fellow writers at Original Writers and with fellow members of the Poetry Society at Stanza Groups or in performance at the Poetry Cafe, and all the support and encouragement they have given me; the writing courses - Open University, Faber Academy, Arvon Foundation - that have brought me into contact with successful writers who have generously shared their insights and encouragement; the bale of rejection letters that has helped me keep everything in perspective.

And now I am chronicling the year - this year, 2012, the year of the London Olympics, of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, of global recession - in rhyme as the Slush Poet, a project that is stretching my abilities and keeping me safe from the 'Shiny New Idea Syndrome' (thanks to Ryan Graudin for the diagnosis!) that has previously afflicted me.

And taking up nearly all of my time.

Yet when the poet Katrina Naomi, who is my tutor at the OU, recently recommended to her students a couple of books that she said had inspired her early in her career, I didn't hesitate to buy a copy of both. 'Writing Down the Bones' by Natalie Goldberg is about letting go of the inner critic and just creating; 'The Artist's Way' by Julia Cameron is a twelve week course on inspiration. They sit before me now like fresh margaritas on a parched man's garden table.

But when the heck am I going to find to savour them properly with all my other commitments?

Aha, I have a plan. On 31 December 2012, when the Slush Poet posts his final poem, I will be free sip those margaritas, pick up some of those shiny new ideas and give them a jolly good rub. And here's what I'm going to do: the first three months of 2013 will be given over to reading them both, in parallel, all other work put on a back-burner while a relight my inner furnace. And to make sure it happens I am going to set up a new Twitter account called 'MyLyingSelf ... hold on a second ... there, done it. Now I'm going to tweet at myself (using Hootsuite to pre-schedule tweets en masse), so that my best-laid plan is actually impressed freshly upon me on the 1st of January - like a waiter appearing out of nowhere with those lovely salt-rimmed drinks on a silver platter.

In the vale of Slush poetry

I am almost three months into this project, writing as the Slush Poet to chronicle 2012 through the medium of poetry, so now would seem a suitable moment to pause, to set down my thesaurus, my rhyming dictionary and my fountain pen, and to take in the view. (That in itself is fanciful: I write almost exclusively on a computer using Google Docs, with frequent nods to Dictionary.com and B-Rhymes; but that's okay, we'll call it a metaphor.)

I am breathless. I keep falling behind; by the time I've wrung a poem out of my fickle muse, the world has moved on and there are new news events to versify. Today I am up to date, tomorrow I will begin once more to fall behind.

What can I see from my resting place? Poetry surrounds me, as does life itself; but what I'm most concerned about is the trail of poems I have left behind me. So far, I have written thirty-four poems, most of which I have published on the Slush Poet blog site. That's about one every two days. I've tried to vary the form, the timbre, the length, the voice. I want the poems to be enjoyable as a continuous sequence capturing the essence of, if not the year, at least my year, 2012 as I lived it and as it touched me.

But are the poems any good? I think some of them are. I've had a lot of encouragement from readers, not just from my friends but from people I previously didn't know. Some of the poems have had a better reception than others, but that doesn't mean the others should be omitted. Would you really want every day to be your birthday?

Who am I kidding? We all know it takes time to craft a good poem, a long time to craft a great one. It takes more than two days. So, why go on? Perhaps because the pressure to produce a poem every few days is what I need to make me grow. I'm realizing that deadlines (even self-imposed ones, maybe especially self-imposed ones) are a creative spur. Without that pressure to produce not just another poem but a different poem, would I really be so varied in what I write?

So where is the Slush Poet heading next? Like you, I'll have to open the papers tomorrow to find out.