Catharsis for Stephanie Butland

The lovely Stephanie Butland (@bahtocancer on Twitter) put the call out a couple of weeks ago for someone to do a short piece on writing as catharsis.

Now, since my entire writing career (such as it is) came about from the search for catharsis, I readily agreed to bang out 500 words for her. And here it is, on her blog: please read and enjoy!

Comments welcome, as ever. :)

Horror in Fiction Land!

Inspired by question 7 (Is your book autobiographical?) on Lauren B. Davis' excellent blog post, Ten Questions Not to Ask Writers, I'd like to share with you all a little horror story connected to my first novel.

This novel (for which I'm currently seeking representation) is called "Growing Up. Again." Just to explain it briefly, here's my own tag line:

Most people grow up, figure out who they are, and leave home – once.

After the sudden death of her husband, thirty-five year old Emma Thomas has to do it all over again.

On her journey she battles her manipulative mother-in-law whose plans for Emma's future border on the incestuous; unearths a number of family skeletons; and encounters bullying of various forms.

She also finds a second chance at love – if she can forgive herself for taking it.

When I was close to finishing the first draft I asked two friends - lets called them Ann and Amy - to read it for me and give some honest feedback. That's when "it" happened.

Both of those early readers read the book, and decided - independently of each other - that the love interest in my work of fiction was based on a mutual friend: a happily married man with three children and the husband of another close friend, who we'll call Alice.

Their basis for this assumption? The fact that I had told them I had gained inspiration for my character's house from Alice's new house; and that his name had the same first initial. That's it.

What could I do? I laughed it off and reminded them that this was fiction.

And changed the character's name.

Two weeks ago I had a girls' night out with Ann, Amy and Alice. Foolishly I mentioned something about my progress on getting published, and Ann and Amy burst out laughing. Then they decided to tell Alice about my supposed lust for her husband.

Yep.

After I'd finished turning an incriminating shade of scarlet, and had failed to ooze through a crack in the floor, I tried to laugh it off again. Alice didn't seem terribly impressed, but I think she saw the funny side.

When we were leaving, she said she was going to tell her husband.

Oh God.

Every Friday a gang of us meet for breakfast and a natter; it's a date that's carved in stone. When Alice's husband turned up and sat down opposite me I didn't know where to look. It was like being back in primary school, when your friend has told his friend that you like him, but you don't know if his friend has told him yet, so you're trying to act cool...

Except we're not in primary school, and I really, really don't have a crush on my friend's husband.

It's fiction, people!

Jane IS obsessed with Jane

A good friend of mine - who didn't realise that I was predominantly blogging about Jane Austen - recently told me that she thought the title of my blog was profoundly narcissistic. "Jane Obsessed with Jane"? Oh, how I laughed. Before deleting her number from my phone.

But seriously, while the purpose of this blog is mainly to help me coordinate the research I'm doing on Jane Austen before writing my next novel, "According to Miss Austen", it is also to help me to chart my own progress while writing. You know, one has to "grow" as a writer, and that sort of thing. ;)

Anyway, I put a major growth spurt on today. The title of a blog post by @BubbleCow (read all the details on www.bubblecow.co.uk ) made me come over all peculiar. The post was on the subject of blogging every day if you want to really develop your "brand". As such, it is good advice, as is most of the advice from BubbleCow; but for me, it was the final straw.

I have, of late, missed much sleep and been plagued and vexed by a constant feeling that I've forgotten something - the feeling you get when you've left the iron on. It's been exhausting. Finally, today I realised where it was coming from - myself. I have been lapping up every piece of advice on writing I could find; when, where and what to write; when to blog, whether to tweet, how to network. The end result was guilt and inevitable failure and - you've guessed it - that "left the iron on" feeling.

Overnight, I have entered writing adolescence. F*** you, I won't do what you tell me - and all that. I have rebelled. No more will I slavishly attempt to follow every bit of advice out there, like a biddable eight-year-old. No, I have become that most loathsome of creatures, an adolescent writer! Sure, I'll make mistakes, but they'll be MY mistakes, Goddamnit.

Is this a stage every aspiring writer passes through? Oh boy, I hope so. Please don't let me be the only one - all teenagers might want to be rebels, but only if their friends are too...

With any luck this period of obnoxiousness will be brief, and will culminate in me turning into my mother, as it has in real life. Then I will counsel newbie writers with sage advice, and tut to myself when they don't follow it.