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Welcome

I started this blog in 2013 to share my reflections on reading, writing and psychology, along with my journey to become a published novelist.​  I soon graduated to about twenty book reviews a month and a weekly 99-word story. Ten years later, I've transferred my writing / publication updates to my new website but will continue here with occasional reviews and flash fiction pieces, and maybe the odd personal post.

ANNE GOODWIN'S WRITING NEWS

Assessing the harvest of words

16/8/2013

6 Comments

 
While I appreciated last month’s heat wave, especially after the long, drawn-out British winter, as a gardener with empty water butts, I was relieved when the weather broke.  I was saying as much to the woman on the supermarket checkout, who asked if I were self-sufficient in vegetables.  Not quite, I said, as I loaded a packet of tomatoes into my backpack, but I can always dream.

I left the shop cheered at having made an authentic connection, however banal, accompanied by that slight tinge of defensiveness I recognise from when I tell someone I’m a writer and they wonder why they haven’t seen my books in Waterstones’ window display.  The perceived requirement to be at the top of my game before I dare pick up my bat/spade/pen comes from both inside and out.  Didn’t I tell you
writing was like gardening? 
Picture
The sun and rain have delivered a magnificent harvest in the garden.  When I took this photo, it looked as if the self-seeded marigolds would be my most successful crop, yet now we’re overrun with home-grown lettuce, cucumber, beans, courgettes and mangetout peas.  Like the gardening fanatic in my story, I can eat potatoes fresh from the soil.  I’ve frozen tubs of spinach and baby  broad beans, roasted beetroot and cobs of sweetcorn and whizzed up my basil into a delicious pesto sauce.  True, the slugs have taken their share, and picking bucket-loads of red,
white, and black currants sometimes can feel like more trouble than it’s worth, but it’s deeply satisfying to reap the rewards of all that backbreaking planting and weeding and eat the food I’ve grown myself.

Over on The Creative Penn, it’s time for a mid-year writing review.  It’s good to be encouraged to take stock and I’m gratified to find I’m not the only one nerdy enough – or when someone else does it, sensible enough – to transfer that real-work objective-setting stuff into my writing.  As with the garden, I can sometimes be too focused on the jobs undone to  recognise what I’ve got.  The seeds that didn’t germinate are like my stories that didn’t get written.  The tedium of harvesting the soft fruit is like the sometimes Sisyphean task of sending them out into the world, but, if I don’t make the effort, my words, like the berries, will rot on the stem.  Looking back at where I was six months ago can help remind me how much I’ve achieved.

Yet we need to avoid being overzealous with our goals, remembering
that, like the weather, the outcomes of our writing are often beyond our
control. Aside from the whims of editors, at times even internal factors
like motivation and enthusiasm will elude us.  So we’ll always feel like failures if we let our drive for improvement obscure what we already have.  And even achievable goals require goalposts and one sure thing about metaphorical goalposts is they keep on moving and those writerly satisfactions of external recognition in whatever form will leave us craving a bigger dose.

I make no apologies for signing off with the much-quoted Kipling's If.  Sometimes words become clichés because they make such good sense.

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same
If I could cultivate such equanimity in relation to my writing, turning into a man (see last line of the poem) would be a small price to pay. 
How about you?
Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
6 Comments
Safia link
17/8/2013 01:22:45 pm

I really like your analogy - writing and gardening. A great blog and what a garden - well done, on the fruit and veggies - it's so satisfying to pick or dig them up and cook them immediately, isn't it? Something I can only dream about in my desert garden, but this winter I'll investigate what I might be able to grow in growbags and pots. I clicked on the link to The Creative Penn - this line made me laugh out loud (my goals being so modest by comparison): "I’m pretty happy with the progress so far, but I still want to write several more books before the end of the year, so I had better crack on." :-0

Reply
Clare O'Dea link
18/8/2013 07:48:26 am

Enjoyed the mouth-watering description of your garden produce. I'm afraid my gardening efforts are a little too sporadic to have anything like your harvest. But I do have some new potatoes that I'd almost forgotten about. Must dig them up!
I had a look at the opening chapters of Underneath at the youwriteon link from your welcome page. (I'll get around to the other book soon) What an amazing idea! I found the writing totally gripping and chilling, all very clever and creepy so far! I've sent you a tip of an agent to contact on Twitter @mushenka. She recently posted a wishlist of storylines she would like to publish and the general drift reminded me of the mood you create in Underneath. Not sure if you already have representation for this book - please ignore the tip if that's the case.
Not sure if I should look at The Creative Penn now. Already too much going on!!

Reply
Annecdotist
19/8/2013 04:14:52 am

Thanks, Safia. Yes, I think your garden must be more challenging than mine, although at least you have the sun, which was a very rare visitor here last year. How do you manage for vegetables over there?
I like the Creative Penn for its upbeat message about self publishing (although I’m not planning to go there yet myself) but I do think Joanna is a different kind of writer to me. I’d have to reverse the numbers for my productivity (instead of her four novels a year, or whatever, mine’s nearer a novel in four years).

Reply
Annecdotist
19/8/2013 04:17:30 am

Thanks so much, Clare.
I’m delighted you took the trouble to look at Underneath and grateful for your recommendation. thanks also for following it up on twitter.
Interesting as I saw Juliet in a workshop at the York conference last year, along with Shelley Harris, and she was lovely. She said then she was interested in psychological thrillers and I did think I’d send her Underneath, so it’s very supportive to find you’re thinking along the same lines. But I’m doing another draft at the moment and subbing Sugar and Snails. If you’re interested, the version on the website is an earlier draft, but not radically different in the structure and storyline.
Now get those potatoes dug up before the slugs get them!

Reply
Steff link
20/8/2013 01:26:09 pm

I read this entry to your blog last week and not it seems everyone has said what I was going to say. Being a keen gardener myself, I could really relate to your comments and it really took me to a lovely relaxing place. Well done to you, producing so much stuff - you'll need a stall in the local farmer's market next year!

We know how hard the novel writing role is...'sucess' will come.

Reply
Annecdotist
21/8/2013 10:22:06 am

Thanks for joining in, Steff.
My tomatoes have finally ripened, so can have a proper salad with all home-grown ingredients. Hurrah!
Hope your garden's blooming, too.

Reply



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