Crisis!

I'm having a crisis of faith.

It feels indulgent and self-pitying, but it's a real feeling and being rational isn't helping. If you don't want to read a writer whingeing about writing, then move on, this is not for you.

Now, you may say, if you follow my exploits on Facebook, that in the last few  weeks I've appeared on Radio 4, I've had an article accepted for Writing in Education and a story accepted for Shoestring; I've started back to teaching a full timetable - mostly Creative Writing for the first time in years - and I've continued writing my daily flash-fictions. So, what's to be down about?

It's the things that aren't happening that are getting to me. In the same period as these successes I've had a number of stories rejected, I've had a number of stories - stories I consider to be among my best - not short-listed for competitions in which I felt sure I had a chance. I've had rejections for jobs and other opportunities, and I've had speculative emails disappear into the ether with no response.

Swings and roundabouts, you say? Good and bad? It's all part of the life you've chosen. I know all that, but it doesn't raise the spirits. Instead I find myself questioning what I'm doing. I know that some important people in the business are taking me seriously, and there are likely to be some big breaks just around the temporal corner, but it doesn't stop the feeling that I'm howling into the void.

When I started flash365 I envisaged a crowd of people eager to read my stories. Instead, as time goes on, it seems that people have simply become used to them as a wallpaper to their lives. If they are reading them, they don't tell me. If they like them, they smile to themselves and move on with their day. If they don't, they simply shrug and move on with their day. I'm not asking for adoration, I'm really not, but just the feeling that someone has noticed would be nice. I thought maybe my radio appearence would help, but it seems to have had no effect.

I have a really large project that I'm thinking of starting up, but I'm even starting to wonder if I have the right to do it. Am I suffering from delusions of grandeur? If I do it will anyone care, will anyone join in, or will they just say 'Oh, it's him again. Ignore him and he'll go away.' Rationally I don't think so, but rationality has a hard battle against such negative thoughts.

Am I whingeing? You bet I am. But this is how I'm feeling. Because, when this starts happening, you start to doubt yourself. Yes, I've had things published, but maybe I'm not as good as I think I am. Maybe, in fact, I'm pretty crap, pretty run of the mill, pretty ordinary. And in that case, the big break I'm working towards will never come and I will always be just bumbling along and making a fool of myself.

Being a writer requires dedication. This has been stated over and over again. But it also requires self-belief and confidence because you can never actually assess how good you are. When that gets knocked, it's easy to lose faith, lose hope, lose direction and start to believe that it's all pointless.

So, what am I going to do? Well, I'm going to carry on writing my daily flash-fictions. Are people reading them? Yes, some are. I don't have the huge following I'd hoped for, but I'm certainly not going to let down those people who are following. And, more importantly, I'm not going to let myself down by failing after 160 days of success.

Am I going to undertake my large new project? Yes, I'm going to try. I can fail and fall flat on my face, but that won't kill me. And, if I succeed....

Am I going to keep submitting and sending out stories even though only 1 in 10 make it? Of course, what else can I do. If I don't submit I won't be published and if I'm not published I'm just talking to myself.

So, forgive me for this whining blog entry. Its impossible, I think, to be guns-blazing and gung-ho all the time, and who knows, if you've read this far you might just identify a little.

All things post-Nano

I've been rather quiet for a while. The last stages of NaNoWriMo kept me busy, but, as you know, that finished nearly three weeks ago. So, what's the news? I hear you ask.

Well, I finished the 50,000 words required by NaNoWriMo on 28th November - 2 days before the deadline - but I have yet to actually finish the book. Without the external deadline pushing me on (plus the embarrassment of failure after all my going-on about it) it just hasn't been a priority. Plus, I already know in my head how it all ends, so the impetus to find out by writing has also dropped away. Add to that the burden of teaching and marking and it just hasn't been done. Which is not to say that nothing has been done with it. Thanks to pressure applied by my partner, Kath, I have completed all but the final chapter and the epilogue, and over the Christmas break I hope to write those too.

So what next for the Nano-book? Well, once it's finished I plan to do a quick clean-up on it, and then I'm going to send it off to anyone who wants to read it and give me feedback. If you think you might like a look, drop me a line and I'll add you to the list.

In other news, I've had more stories accepted - two in Flash and one in the delinquent - and have been doing some other writing of flash fictions.

I've also been doing some readings for the Bugged anthology, and one for the Bad Language anthology, all of which have been very rewarding. I even managed to end up on Radio Lancashire/Radio Manchester's Late Show last week, being interviewed about Bugged and writing in general for about 40 mins.

So, all in all, it's an exciting time in my writing life. When I get round to it I shall blog about all the things I learned from doing Nano - of which there are many - and about my plans for 2011. But that's for another day. Today, I shall just use the approaching end of the year to bask in the successes, and send out many thanks to all of you who have helped and supported me.

So, Kath, Elaine, Jo, Ness, Mike, Ian, Daniel, Angi, Liz, Carrie, Mignon and Becky, this blog's for you.

Stardom at last!

I haven't blogged for a little while - I've actually been getting on with some writing and rewriting - but was going to sit down yesterday and talk about the recent spate of submissions I have been sending. That post is still to come, but the day kinda got away from me. At midday I got a phone-call asking me if I would do a radio interview later in the afternoon.

The call came from my head of department at Edge Hill. They had been approached by Radio Lancashire who, prompted by the publication of Tony Blair's memoirs, wanted to talk to someone about Life Writing. Well, as that's the creative writing subject I teach for EH, they came to me. The idea was to give the listeners some ideas on the role of life writing - biographies and memoirs in particular - and also what they should think about if they were going to write their own.

I have never given a radio interview before and so was pretty nervous. It didn't help that it was going to be live rather than a pre-recorded interview, but I figured it was exactly the stuff that I know about, so I was happy to do it. The process was interesting.

First I spoke to the presenter of the programme, to introduce myself and he then proceeded to ask me what would be good questions for him to ask. We agreed them between us and I gave him some quick sketchy answers and that was that, I just had to wait for the radio station to ring me at about 5.15 to give the interview.

Butterflies took up residence in my stomach as the time approached, but the time was usefully spent refining what I was going to say. The flutters multiplied when the phone went and they asked me to wait another 20 mins. Finally, they called and I was patched through to the studio. I listened to about 5 minutes of the programme and then, with a rather over-the-top introduction, I was live.

It went pretty well. There were a few ums and ahs, and I changed tack at one point. I also managed to be really snobby at the end, but in the main I feel I got the information across in a concise and interesting way, answered all the questions as asked, and didn't sound too much of a prat. The interview finished, he thanked me, the line went dead, and that was that.

Thanks to the wonders of the web I was soon able to 'Listen Again' to the interview. I scrolled the slider through the programme to about the point where I thought I would be. A voice was talking and I presumed it was the item after me, but then I recognised some of the words and realised I was listening to myself. I didn't recognise my voice at all! Still, I listened back and was quite pleased with it. I sounded rather posh - a combination teaching/phone voice - and there was a trace of my father's tone in there, especially when he used to give interviews on radio or TV, but I sounded confident and like someone who knows what they're talking about. So that's not so bad, eh?

And that was that: my brush with fame. It was only 3 minutes, so if Andy Warhol's right then I still have another 12 minutes to have some other time. If it's like yesterday, I think I might just be looking forward to it.

The interview is available to listen to at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009lpqp until 7th Sept. I'm on at about the 1 hour 37 mark. Let me know what you think, either of my performance or what I had to say. All feedback welcome.