My New Shadow

I’ve always wanted to buy a black kitten and call him Poe. I first heard the story, The Black Cat when I was about ten years old. We listed to it in class, on a cassette player. Ever since then I’ve had this daft idea that if I ever get a black cat, I’d call it Poe.

We came very close to buying a kitten yesterday afternoon (at an extortionate price), but I couldn’t help feeling a little sad because although it was a very bonny little kitten, it was black and white, not just black – so the name wouldn’t really work.

So we came home without it. I went outside to read in the sun. Paula went upstairs on the computer. Five minutes later she was downstairs, saying she’d found a black cat for sale on the internet, and only half a mile away. Next thing I know, this tiny ball of charcoal fluff is padding about our front room, just waiting for a name.

So this was it! My moment. I’ve waited 29 years for this opportunity. I picked her up and in a clear, commanding voice to all in our house I announced my perfect choice of name.

‘Don’t be so stupid,’ came the reply. ‘The kids can name her.’

So she’s called Jasmine instead.

Pulling at the Reins

Despite what I said in that last post, saying that writing “is what I do”, I haven’t really done a lot of it in the past few days. Well, not really creative writing. I banged out 1,500 words of college work (defining Special Needs and support) this afternoon and I managed 500 words of utter drivel late on Saturday night.

But, on the positive side, I’ve got a fairly good idea of where I’m going from this point on. Rather than diving in, like I usually do, going hell for leather to get the words out, I’m letting this one steep in the back of mind for a month or so, hoping the not-so-good ideas drift away and the good stuff settles.

The more I think about it, the more I want to get started. It’s more of an effort not writing than it is just getting on with it.

The Problem with Carrots

What sort of title is that? Basically, it’s all about motivation. Think about the carrot and the stick – motivating people either by reward or punishment. The carrot is: “do it right and you’ll get this; do it wrong and you won’t” while the stick is: “do it right or else...”

In writing (for those who want to make it a career) there is no real “stick.” It’s very rare for an agent to receive a submission, consider the material below standard and pay you a visit with a baseball bat for wasting their time. So generally speaking, writers are motivated by the potential reward. There are four main rewards in writing:

• the glory of having your name in print
• seeing your book, on sale, in a shop
• a big pot of money
• fame

When I was younger, I think I spent more time dwelling on these things than I did writing. I’ve been writing for over twenty years and so far have had one short story published by a magazine – for which I didn’t get paid, and a selection included in a local anthology – for which I also didn’t get paid.

Of course, I live in hope, and in recent years have moved on from writing as a hobby to taking a more professional approach: writing with a target audience in mind, researching the competition, and finding an agent that I believe in and trust. However, it is only since I changed tactics that I realised that the last two rewards are not very likely (generally speaking, the advances and sales for new authors are quite small) and if a manuscript is accepted by a publisher, it could take a further eighteen months to it being printed. The problem with carrots, for the writer, is that the rewards are so far in the future that you might as well forget them. The hard work comes first, the rewards... well, I've got this idea that if I work hard enough, for long enough, I might see them some time.

So now things are little more in perspective, why do I still write? Why put in all of the work planning out a novel, spending months writing it, more months redrafting and rewriting, leaving it to mature for another three months, then redraft again when the rewards aren't definite, and may never compensate for the hours spent working.

Why?

Because I like it. That’s why. Take all the carrots away and I'll still write.