1) I can change genres without having to change my name.

2) I revel in comments such as “Good for you for following your dream”, instead of “I haven’t heard of your book”, “How much then do you earn?” or the classic, “Ooh, would you take a look at my work?”

3) Tax forms? Not for me – I’m an artist, not an accountant.

4) My self-esteem is not dependent on sales figures or reviews on Amazon. It relies solely on my own view of my work until the submission process and even then I can dismiss an agent who’s rejected me as a narrow-minded jerk.



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I’ve just had a nice advance review for Kill-Grief. It’s on my website here:

http://www.carolinerance.co.uk/reviews.html



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In Under the bugle-beaded bonnet I said, as something of an afterthought, that because what I most notice in excellent writing is the things I couldn't do myself and ideas which I must work to apprehend, I associate excellent writing with ideas and things I don't do and only sort-of understand. In which case my writing - which by definition is ideas and things which I do do and do understand - is not excellent.

It's not just me, is it? At any rate, this phenomenon's a funny mixture: part of the necessary schizophrenia of the writer. On the one hand, humility becomes writers, since none of us are Shakespeare. And it's only the truly awful (or very, very beginnery) writers who have so little sense of what's good writing (because they have yet to learn to be bad), that they think they're terrific. On the other hand it takes a thick streak of confidence that you have something to say and some craft with which to say it, or none of us would ever show our first poem to a friend, or fight for years to get published.

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'Next!'
The Great Careers Officer in the Sky pushes her horn-rimmed spectacles up her nose, adjusts her beard, and sighs. It's been a long day. She shifts the damp, wriggling bundle onto her knee and hopes for a swift dispatch down the Tunnel To The World.
'So.' She eyes the fidgeting one without enthusiasm. 'What do you want to Be?'
The infant hiccups and fixes her with a watery, yet penetrating stare.
'Well?' The Great Careers Officer in the Sky manoevres the child into launch mode, thinking of Ovaltine and Jeremy Paxman.
A thought-bubble pulses around the child's head. 'I think...' it whispers, 'I need to...'
'Spit it out, do -' snaps The Great Careers Officer in the Sky, then wishes she hadn't as a gobbet of undigested ambrosia further dampens her knee.

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The 'virtues' represented: Truth, Faith, Hope, Fortitude and Justice, had me thinking about the how they'd be represented in today's financial institutions : Spin, No Accountability, Government Bail-outs, Directors Bonuses and Pension Cuts - not virtues at all, really.



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Ah, text messages. Little packets of electronic wisdom delivered directly to your pocket at random. Bite-sized chunks of news or gossip, events or invitations, trials, tribulations and wild speculation – and all in 160 characters or fewer. A bit like having your own personal postman on duty 24 hours a day, except without the need for a letter box or worry about your big hairy dog getting all over excited.


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What can you say in six sentences?
To see what I said:

Read DING! on 6S Express [link]

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A little while ago I agreed to do an event on World Book Day. This particular event's in aid of Book Aid, an excellent cause. And during the conversation I had with the head librarian about how we could raise any extra money I said I'd speak to some author friends and see if they'd donate a signed copy of a book that we could raffle or auction or something.

I sent an email to 19 author friends on Friday.

Today I've already had 13 responses, all of them only too happy to help. Which is just fantastic.

So a very large Thank You to you all for being so generous and speedy.

Hurrah!

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Does the act of reading help make you a better writer?
There’s no question that familiarity with a genre is vital if you want to write within it. For me, it’s a no-brainer that to write books, you must read books. But I’m talking about reading a novel by a top author and seeing it a sort of one-to-one tutorial. Analysing how the nuts and bolts fit together in a way that helps you to build your own story. (Enough engineering metaphors, Ed).

The reason I’m blethering on about this is that I’ve been thinking about my complete inability to read a novel as a writer, rather than as a reader. I’ve heard lots of other writers say that their reading pleasure has been tarnished by learning about some of the techniques involved and a feeling of ‘knowing how it’s done’. Although I’m very glad that I never feel this way, I’m slightly envious that they’re able to stand back from the page and analyse a novel as they read it. As soon as I start to be interested in a story, I’m largely blind to how it’s done. I just get sucked in.


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As I've grumbled before, I think that where in a writer's life fiction comes from is in many ways beside the point. And yet it seems to be the backbone of much of what people - readers, journalists, editors considering whether your deep-sea-diving chick lit is saleable - ask about your work. I do understand the curiosity, and as long as it doesn't shade into thinking that 'I lived through it' means your work is more valuable than 'I made it up', it's fine. But when I came across an obituary, the other day, I couldn't help having an autobiographical twinge.

I think I must have been about eight, and we were in Oxford, going to have tea with my mother's godmother: one of those things that as a child you just get taken along to, and have to mind your manners and say what you like doing best at school.

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