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.

Back pain is not the best poetic inspiration

I arrived promptly at Faber & Faber's offices at 9:45am yesterday morning for day two of a three-day poetry workshop, keen as a whippet to draw inspiration from mere proximity to Jo Shapcott and Roger McGough. (Does that sound totally sycophantic? I do hope so.) I placed my books and pen on the table. I turned to place my satchel on a spare chair and - swore unpoetically as my lower back went into spasm.

I spent the rest of the day in a state somewhere between agony and what seemed like eternal damnation. I grimaced throughout Jo and Roger's sessions and left at the end of the day unsure whether I could make it as far as the Tube station, let alone whether I could make it back the next day.

Last night I barely slept. I deferred the terror of retiring to bed as long as I dared by playing a long session of online poker with a pillow stuffed behind my spine. I finally tumbled into the sack in the early hours for a night of wakeful tossing, yelping and unrepeatable cussing. By 6am I was back on the computer typing random characters which refused to coalesce into a meaningful poetic constellation. A good friend (you know who you are, Katia) pointed out that all the best poets live pained lives. However I can attest that back pain is not conducive to poetic inspiration.

At 9 o'clock I packed my pillow and a day's provision of ibuprofen into a rucksack and headed out nervously for day three of the workshop.

Oh, that Roger McGough

After lunch on Saturday our poetry workshop was led by Mr Roger McGough. There were several reasons why I should have been excited, perhaps even slightly awed, at this prospect. For one, Roger is the current president of the Poetry Society of which I am a member. (I should know this.) He is also the co-author of The Mersey Sound, the best (ever) selling poetry paperback in the UK. He presents Poetry Please on BBC Radio 4. (Where have I been?) He wrote big chunks of the dialogue for the Beatles' cartoon film Yellow Submarine. He was in the pop group The Scaffold which scored a number one UK chart hit in 1968 with Lily the Pink. He's a regular on Stephen Fry's QI television quiz show. He's got an effing CBE, for Christ's sake!

Oh, that Roger McGough.

Roger read to us several of his most celebrated (and some notorious) poems, including the stunningly satirical The Lesson about a schoolteacher who massacres his class, and the dark and disturbing Jogger's Song, as well as many of the playful and humourous poems for which he is best known. What a charming man, and what an honour to have sat at the same table.

What Jo Shapcott taught me

It's impossible not to learn from Jo Shapcott (On Mutability Costa Book of the Year 2010). Our workshop group at the offices of Faber & Faber in London worked through a series of exercises during Friday afternoon. These built on the work we had done with Daljit Nagra during the morning and continued to focus on specificity and concreteness, or as Jo put it, describing 'the cuppiness of this cup.' One consequence of this was that I wrote a poem, polished later in the evening and shared on my Poetrivia blog as 'In the mix,' that I could never otherwise have been conceived. A second poem, a sonnet called 'Getting into your pantry,' further stretched my poetic range; I had been challenged by Jo to write a poem about the 'Larder of ecstasy!' Job done.

The inspiration continued on Saturday morning (despite my acute backache which is a separate story) as Jo shared a couple of tips to get the poetic motor humming. The first tip is simply to assemble a group of unrelated words to be included in a poem. They might be chosen randomly from, say, a dictionary, or you could use Wikipedia's subject of the day as a theme to mix with a subject you already having mind - the odder the better. This forces you to look for unusual and often completely novel links. The seeded words can always be edited out later (after they have done their work). Jo's second tip is a way of expanding a poem that you feel ends too soon or fails to fully mine the seam of material available. She suggests putting the poem away overnight and taking it out the next day, covering all but the last line and then using that as the first line of a new poem. Again, the result can be edited later and might result in a longer, richer poem, in a sequence, or in two entirely separate poems. Go Jo!

What's to eat at Faber & Faber?

Plenty, that's what! It's half time on day one of this three-day poetry workshop and while we await the arrival of the poetry goddess that is Jo Shapcott (Of Mutability, Costa Book of the Year 2011), those nice people at Faber & Faber bring out lunch. At these workshop prices you'd expect more than cheese and pickle sandwiches. Surely there should be a mustard-cress garnish at the least.

But what is this I see? Could that really be a quiche the size of hat box? Sure is. And look, its packed with mushrooms and vegetables. And there's a green salad, a rice salad, a pasta salad, a potato salad, a salad salad. And how many chickens have given their limbs in the name of poetry? Okay, cancel tonight's dinner; I'm going in...

Hobnobbing with Daljit Nagra

As if taking a time off the day job isn't reward enough for a life well spent, I spent this morning at the London offices of Faber & Faber (T.S. Eliot's desk is downstairs!) rubbing up against the awesome Daljit Nagra (Look We Have Coming To Dover!) trying to get a faint smear of his success, if not his abundant talent, to rub off on me. Only time will tell whether that worked. My head is buzzing. I think that's probably good.

Daljit is a kind and generous teacher (even though I'm paying Faber a small fortune for this three-day workshop), but it is hard to imagine a poet further removed from the personae who narrate his poems. This is such a relief since I have no desire to write in Punglish.