A few years ago I was travelling back to Manchester by train. I couldn’t help overhearing the phone conversation of the person sitting opposite me. He was an aspiring actor, travelling back from an audition in London, and he was recounting the experience so loudly the whole carriage couldn’t help but overhear.
He was a interesting character; it quickly become obvious that every setback in his life was someone else’s fault, that the main thing holding him back was people’s inability to see his natural talent.
So I started to take notes: I’ve written elsewhere about how important I think it is to capture conversation live. In those days I used to write notes in the back of the paperback I was reading, and that’s what I did…
… until the aspiring actor noticed what I was doing, and took offence. He’d read my words upside down.
Which is a roundabout introduction to the real reason I learned shorthand: so I could quickly take notes without other people knowing what I was doing.
Perhaps it is. I don’t use shorthand as much as I used to, I now mainly capture notes straight to Evernote on my phone (although I wish there was an app that understood Teeline).
But I don’t regret learning shorthand. It still comes in useful occasionally, capturing conversations, getting ideas down fast, and giving me something to do in boring meetings.
This Christmas I took the plunge and began learning the button accordion. As I spent quite a frustrating time on the internet trying to find a suitable tutorial I thought I’d share my experience here in case other learners find it useful.
I should point out that I can already play the piano accordion, so my advice may not be suitable for a complete beginner to the instrument.
In the absence of a teacher, the quickest way to learn a new instrument is with a suitable tutorial. Looking around online two books were mentioned
Methode d’Accordeon Vol1 by Maugain Manu
and the HOHNER FERRERO MEDARD – METHODE D’ACCORDEON CHROMATIQUE COMPLETE Educational books Accordion
(Click on the images to be taken to Amazon)
Both books are only available in French. This shouldn’t be too much of a problem to someone who can already read music as the fingering is clear. If you can’t read music, you’ll need another book to explain note lengths and values.
I ordered both books. As the Methode d’Accordeon Vol1 by Maugain Manu was the first to arrive that’s the one I’ve mainly been learning from. It’s the more modern of the two books, and proceeds at a slower pace. If you can afford both books, buy them. Otherwise, If you’ve never played the accordion before the Maugain Manu is the one for you as it takes its time introducing the left hand. If you are already a confident piano accordion player and just want to learn the fingering of the right hand then the Ferrero Medard book may be more to your taste.
I’ve been learning for a week now and everything I’d read appears to be true… the button accordion does appear a more natural way to play. It’s not that great a step up from the piano keyboard, particularly given that my left hand is already used to using buttons, albeit in a stradella layout. I do have a tendency to get lost with the right hand still, and it’s difficult at the moment to play by ear, but that’s improving as I learn the scales (and there are only three fingerings to learn for the major scales… ).
Sadly, the button accordion is going to have to go back in its case for a few days whilst I practice for a gig on the piano accordion, but I’m already looking forward to getting it back out again…
How Writers Write launched in 2015. It was intended to be a series of guest posts where established writers invited you into their workspaces, revealed their work habits and shared their experience. It ended up taking on a life of its own, generating traffic and comments from around the world.
This year has seen contributions from
Keith Brooke
Neil Williamson
Ruth EJ Booth
Jaine Fenn
Stephen Palmer
Jacey Bedford
Ian Creasey
Alma Alexander
Juliet E McKenna
One thing that I think we’ve all learned is this: everyone writes in their own way. Saying that, there are number of things we have in common. Writers may have different ways of keeping notes, of planning out stories and redrafting, but they all do those things. Budding writers take note!
How Writers Write will continue next year featuring, amongst others, the following very talented writers: Mike Cobley, Tricia Sullivan, Martin Griffin, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Chris Beckett, Eric Brown and Ian Whates
I’ve already seen some of the new contributions: they are as varied and fascinating as those we’ve already had.
For the moment, though: thank you to all the writers who contributed, and thank you to everyone who has followed this blog this year.
I’m pretty sure the title of this post is the first time I’ve written the word Chutzpah. That last sentence was probably the second.
It’s not a word that I think I’ve ever used in everyday conversation, either. But I’m using it now because I’ve just experienced what I think is an excellent example of that quality.
By the way, if you’re a regular reader of my stuff, you may have realised that I like to protect people’s anonymity. For reasons that will very quickly become clear, I can’t do this in this post…
Yesterday I received a LinkedIn invitation from a Senior Project Manager called Tony Ballantyne. Now, I’ve made contact with another Tony Ballantyne in the past – the Historian Tony Ballantyne who I’m occasionally mistaken for – so I thought… why not?, and I accepted.
This morning I received an email from the other Tony Ballantyne explaining that he was moving to Australia, and asking if I’d like to buy his personalised car number plates. Maybe I should have been annoyed, but I had to admire his cheek. And thinking about it, isn’t that an inspired use of social networking? It’s not like he was trying this trick on just anyone.
Anyway, I’m not interested in personalised plates, so I wished him good luck on his move and that was that. If the other Tony is reading this blog post – think of it as more free advertising.
And if anyone else is thinking of contacting me in this way, don’t bother. It’s only amusing when it’s original.
How Writers Write is monthly series of guest posts where established writers invite you into their workspaces, reveal their work habits and share their experience.
I’ve been lucky enough to work with Juliet E McKenna in the past on Aethernet Magazine. I was delighted to get this chance to see how she goes about the process of writing…
What do you use to write?
When I’m starting out on a story, I make preliminary notes with paper and pencil. By the time an idea’s ready to become a book, I’ll be working in an A4 spiral bound notebook which will soon have separate plastic folders tucked inside it with roughly sketched maps and other background material. There’ll be character and plots notes and an overall outline and then I’ll roughly draft each chapter’s events and interactions over a couple of pages before I start typing.
I like the freedom of paper and pencil; I can add arrows to link things together and circle or scribble stars by particular thoughts that I know I’ll want to come back to. Yes, I’m sure there’s software that allows writers to do the same thing on a screen but I’ve worked this way for so long now – since I was writing essays at university – that it’s second nature. I don’t see the need to waste time learning how to do it some other way. And since almost no one but me can read my handwriting these days, I don’t have to worry about data security!
When I’m researching, I make notes in more spiral bound notebooks or on loose leaf pages which go into a ring binder. I use yet more notebooks for making notes when I’m reviewing a book. Other notebooks are for short fiction. Yes, they do add up, and yes, keeping them close to hand in the study is very useful, particularly when I need to check some background detail for a novel I wrote over a decade ago, or refresh my memory of a particular book.
Once the story’s laid out on paper and in my head, it’s time to open a fresh computer file and start typing. I’m a fast and fluent touch typist so I work straight onto the screen, amending and rephrasing as I go. I’ll quite often start a day’s work by looking over what I wrote the day before and tweaking it as necessary. I use MS Word; it’s what the computer comes with, the software does what I need it to do and publishers can read the files without any faffing around. I work on a desktop with two screens for ease of having multiple files open when I need to – each chapter gets its own file while I’m working on a first draft. If I find I really do need three screens, I’ll get my laptop involved, though that can get awkward when I forget which mouse or keyboard relates to which screen. Otherwise, my laptop’s used when I’m travelling or on holiday. It’s not my main working machine.
When do you write?
I write Monday to Friday and keep office hours, so I’m working from around 9 am to around 5 pm. Not all of that time’s spent writing fiction. Sometimes I’m reading books for research or to review them. I also record television documentaries on historical or literary topics and every so often, I’ll take a day to catch up on those. A writer’s always in search of fresh inspiration and that’s how I find a lot of new ideas for plots and characters. We spend a lot of time on holidays visiting historic towns, buildings and museums and I invariably find those stimulate my imagination.
Then there’s all the administration that comes with running a small business which is what a full time author must do these days. Every so often, I’ll have errands to run in Witney, the local town, or I’ll head into Oxford to use the libraries there. It’s good to get out of the house from time to time.
Where do you write?
I mostly work in my study, which is the smallest of the upstairs bedrooms. It’s even smaller now with a large desk, a filing cabinet and five crammed bookcases in it. Yes, the joists are resting on load-bearing walls downstairs. I like having my reference books and notes within easy reach, and when my sons were small, I needed a door which I could shut so they knew Daddy was the parent on duty. I don’t have music playing or the radio on or anything like that. When I’m writing, I’m totally focused.
Though I’m not one of these authors who absolutely has to be in their special place or they’re unable to write. I can work anywhere else if I need to. I just prefer to be in my study when I’m writing. When I’m reading for research or review, I’ll head downstairs to the sofa in the lounge with the relevant book in hand and a notebook and pen. A change of pace is always refreshing – and it’s closer to the kitchen and the kettle.
Questions of Style
I’ve written in first person and third person, depending on how close to the characters I want the reader to get. That choice tends to be obvious to me from the first idea for a story. So far I’ve always written in the past tense and I’d need a really compelling reason to write in continuous present tense. It’s not a style I enjoy much as a reader and I find very, very few books where it contributes anything significant to the narrative beyond the author enjoying the stylistic flourish. Though there certainly are some books where it’s integral to the story and its effect, so I won’t say that’ll never change in my work – but don’t hold your breath.
How do you write?
I work from my outline and my notes, though not as rigidly as I used to when I was first writing novels. I’m much more open to changing my mind, particularly as a character develops through the writing process and the internal logic of a narrative acquires its own momentum. A decade ago, I’d stick much more closely to the plan I originally had for the first draft and end up doing a lot more rewriting to get to a final draft. These days, I’ll be more flexible in the first draft and the rewrite will focus far more on language and tone than on revising the structure.
When the first draft is done
I’ll do two drafts of a novel, first and final, because I’ve done so much of the thinking things through in my pencil and paper drafting stage. Ideally, a couple of trusted test readers will read the first draft and I’ll get some time away from the text before I come back for the second pass. When I first started out, the first draft was the bit I loved and the second pass was the hard work. I can’t tell exactly when that changed but these days, the first draft is the humdrum bit I just want to get done and it’s the rewriting and revising that I really enjoy. Honing and polishing.
Fresh eyes are always invaluable. It’s not praise you’re looking for from test readers (though that’s always nice), it’s nit-picking about the details that somehow don’t quite add up and challenges over whether or not a character, major or minor, would really have acted or reacted in the ways you need them to, in order for the plot to unfold. This is how you find out why and where you’ve not quite achieved your storytelling aims. There’s no point ignoring your test readers’ quibbles, no matter how crystal clear it all might be inside your own head,. It’s your job to sort their problems out. Then the story will make sense for any and every reader who picks up the book in a shop or a library and hasn’t got the opportunity to pick your brains about what you really meant – even in these days of Twitter and Facebook.
Wrapping up that final draft is when I’ll find myself working to midnight and through the weekends. I won’t let a book go until I’m satisfied that I’ve done the very best job I can. Once the text’s off to the publisher, for copyediting and proof-reading, that’s fine with me. That particular story’s off on its way into the wide world for readers to enjoy and I’m thinking about the next thing.
Lastly, self promotion:
What am I working on at the moment? Well, this past year, a staggering amount of my time has also been taken up with campaigning for reform of a particularly damaging piece of legislation as far as anyone selling digital products online are concerned. Authors these days need the choice of selling their own ebooks direct as well as through the likes of Amazon, Google and iTunes, so I’ve been working hard with the EU VAT Action Campaign to convince the Powers That Be in Westminster and Brussels that they’ve got this one badly wrong. We’ve got them to admit that now and to commit to changing the law. Now we just need them to sort out interim easements since legislators reviewing the regulations will still take a couple of years which small online businesses cannot afford to waste.
So I’m really looking forward to getting back to writing some extended fiction. 2015’s been all short stories for me, coupled with the work needed to turn The Aldabreshin Compass stories into ebooks. That’s been a major project for me and Wizard’s Tower Press, with the invaluable help of some dedicated fans. We’re just about there now, with Southern Fire released this month. The fabulous artwork by Ben Baldwin is the crowning, finishing touch as far as I am concerned.
I saw Chris Smither, one of my favourite singer songwriters, on Thursday night.
50 years in the business, he played to a crowd of around 80 in Manchester’s Band on the Wall, but I suppose there are many whose talent have gone unrecognised.
In some ways it was like meeting an old friend: I’ve watched him perform all over the country for the past twenty five years or so.
I spoke to Chris at the end, and we both remembered the gigs he uses to do at the Half Moon in Putney. I think there’s something storylike in the way we both live completely different lives and yet we connect infrequently in different venues, far from both our homes.
One of the many reasons I like him is he’s that he writes lyrics for grown ups. Yes, I like rock and pop music, but the stuff that I listened to when I was younger doesn’t have much to say to me now that I’m married with two kids.
Someone requested that he play Hold on. He began the song, but had to stop half way. It was his own song, his own arrangement, and it wasn’t working. As he explained, it had been a while since he’d performed it, and if you don’t practice them every day, you quickly forget them. This from an expert musician who performs live to an audience most nights.
How Writers Write is monthly series of guest posts where established writers invite you into their workspaces, reveal their work habits and share their experience.
I was delighted when Alma Alexander got in touch and asked to be part of How Writers Write. Read on to see why…
What do you use to write?
I began with a pencil and a hardcover notebook. In fact my oldest surviving novel dates back to when I was 14 years of age… writen in pencil… in FOUR consecutive hardcover notebooks… over 200,000 words’ worth of story. And it’s a decent story. Someday I might go back and pick its bones clean of the fluff put there by the inexperienced 14-year-old and put it back together as something that a now-seasoned professional wouldn’t be ashamed to put one’s name to. But those days… are long gone. Once I discovered a keyboard and a screen… there was no looking back. I can type faster than I write, I can type as fast as I think, and that is gold. I have a basic desktop computer which is God Central and holds all my material – but I have a laptop I take on outings and it has seen some memorable prose being pounded out on its keys.
Planning stages… well… that could be interesting. I have notebooks full of scribbled notes I take when reading research books (when the novel in progress warrants such research), I have scraps of paper which I scribbled stuff on when it occurred to me in the middle of having dinner out somewhere, for instance, and which needed putting down on something immediately before good ideas got forgotten. I’ve even nutted out the basics of a book while driving with my husband as a sounding board in the passenger seat (and used HIM as a memory aid). In this context, anything goes, really. And yes, in defiance of everyone who swears it’s stupid or “difficult”, I’ve used Word for YEARS. I’m sure Scrivener is everything some people say it is but my mind rebels against that kind of thing, it has its own boxes and pigeonholes and doesn’t like being shoehorned into those somebody else designed. My mind is my best planning tool. I have an eclectic and often eidetic memory and this is where stories get planned and pre-written. Most people write a terrible first draft – with me, that stays inside me, mostly, and what I first put down on the page is literally draft #2 at least. And I very rarely have to do major overhauls. My subconscious seems to know what it is doing
When do you write?
There are days I can do ten hours at a stretch, when something is in the middle of exploding and I cannot let go until the dust settles. There are times that days will go by without my having put down a word of the actual story in progress – but that doesn’t mean that I am not working on it on the down-low, inside my head. There are times that I am on a research reading kick and I don’t WRITE, but every word of everything I read in support of the story is being sorted and catalogued by that weird inner computer that I have in my brain. But on the whole the answer to that question is WHENEVER IT IS NECESSARY and the explanation of that statement is simply IT IS NECESSARY ALL THE TIME. So whatever I am actually doing in any given moment… I am probably, on some level, writing.
Where do you write?
I can write anywhere, really – and I have. I’ve written on planes and trains, in hotel lobbies, in quiet corners of other people’s houses, in the kitchen at parties, in restaurants waiting for meals, with a notebook on the back of a purring cat. Words come, and don’t ask where I am when they get there…
How do you write?
I’ve been on a lot of convention panels which discuss the “pantser vs outliner” question – and all I can say, again, like I’ve said many times on those panels, that I cannot outline anything and then still want to write it when I’m done. My back brain sees a detailed outline and goes, oh, you’ve written that story now, go on to something new. No, I am a true “pantser” in that I tend to find out what happens next in my story… by WRITING IT. Even when I am forced into a synopsis – like when one of my YA series got sold on a sample chapter and a sales synopsis – the books that finally emerged at the end of it all had very very little to do with the sales synopsis I originally submitted. I rebel against being boxed in, in any way at all, and I need to follow the wind when it changes if my story is to have any kind of life to it at all. I dream on the fly. And yet, somehow, it all comes together in the end. It’s like I let loose a cloud of butterflies, and they scatter every which way, but in the end they will settle in their proper place and I will be able to follow my story to where it needs to go, butterfly by butterfly.
Questions of style
I am an instinctive writer, and I am the kind of writer who all too often writes by taking dictation from my characters, so stylistic choices are not something I pre-plan. If I start a story in the “wrong” voice, I”ll soon know it, and it’ll go back to the drawing board for a proper perspective. I don’t really enjoy present tense narrative all that much – I can see where it might be useful but very few people can get away with using it effectively, and for most of the rest it’s just a mess. So I tend to stick in past tense. Voice, though first or third or omniscient POV – that is decided on a book by book basis, and I don’t set out to do any book a certain way. if it needs to be told in first person, it will be. If not, it won’t. I’ll find out when I start writing. In terms of writing style, I’ve been reliably informed that I will never be a Hemingway – that my style is lush and poetic and rich and complex and also that I must have swallowed a dictionary when I was five years old. What can I say? I am in love with language and it shows…
When the first draft is done
I’ve often said that what I love about writing is the WRITING, not the (admittedly essential) rewriting and editing and polishing that comes after. The original act of writing is what makes it alive for me, the creation of the faw story; that is the joy, that is the dream. Everything else, it’s, well, WORK. My first hard-copy draft is read by my husband, an editor with many years of experience under his belt, and the first really “finished” draft is born after I go through the thing that he has read and incorporated his edits and suggestions. Then it goes out to at least one trusted beta reader who hasn’t seen the story before and cold-reads it for context and for flow and for continuity. Only then does it go out to a professional (editor, agent, what have you). But, like I said, my Draft #1 is really Draft #3, because I fiddle and self-edit in my head before I write, and it’s usually pretty clean. “Secrets of Jin Shei” needed ONE pass on the original MS before it went out to the agent, and sold. And that book was written at white heat, 200,000 words in less than 3 months. Letting go… well, it’s a little like taking your child to the first day of school and releasing that clinging little hand and gently pushing this precious thing you’ve created out there into the world, to find new friends, to grow, to live its life. And yes, it’s JUST as hard to let go as you would expect. And you never quite stop worrying about it, afterwards. Whether it’s being bullied, or whether it’s getting enough sleep…
Lastly, self promotion:
I’ve always got several projects on the boil, but currently I am in full research mode in what is going to be a GLORIOUSLY American fantasy – involving the building of the transcontinental railroad across the continent, the carnie culture, the goldrush(es)… and the fae. I’m hip-deep in history and anecdote and piles of pictorial evidence. It’s going to take a while. But I have hopes that this thing will be magnificent if I can put together on paper what I am seeing in my mind. Over and above that, I”m working on a short story collection, and possibly the next three books in my on-going Were Chronicles (starting where “Shifter”, the third book in the current Chronicles set which is due out in November, leaves off). Over and above THAT, there’s this other historical fantasy that I’m thinking about…
There’s always something going on.
I’m a novelist and a short story writer and an anthologist; I mostly walk in worlds of fantasy but I recently branched into two unexpected directions at once – humor AND science fiction – and produced this thing called “AbductiCon”, a novel of fandom and a love letter to that world, to the con circuit and the family that I have accumulated there. I took the recently-released book to Worldcon in Spokane in August of 2015 and it got every bit of a delighted reception that I hoped for – people recognise this thing, and their eyes light up when they pick it up. I couldn’t be more pleased.
Look for more about me and my stories on my website (www.AlmaAlexander.org) where you can also find more information on where else on the Web you can find me (Facebook, Twitter, all that jazz). You can also subscribe to my blog, and/or to my peripatetic newsletter, if you so choose. Hope to see you there!
Tony Ballantyne 