Eyes bigger than my Intellect

I am a collager. I write in fragments, sometimes only a scrap of conversation, sometimes a scene in my head that may or may not be relevant. I now have quite a lot of these bursts, many are completely incoherent; a few are polished standalones. I do have a diagram somewhere of how the story goes and several of my sections relate to the intended plot arc. But quite a lot I haven’t placed, and more dangerously, some are impossible and contradictory.

Novels have beginnings, middles and ends. Books are linear, lineyer than how I’ve been working. I am excited about playing with the possibility of less conventional narratives but I was beginning to panic at my expanding chaos.

Then, at Loose Muse last week Jeannie Waudby was speaking to us about her debut novel One of Us, saying how she wrote in exactly the same ‘bits and pieces’ way. I asked how she drew these together and slightly shyly she rustled in her bag and got out a concertina of old-fashioned printer paper with different coloured post-its stretched over it. ‘This is the beginning,’ she told us. Then she got out another piece, similarly decorated, ‘This is the end.’ Finally she got another sheet, twice as long, about three metres, ‘And this is my middle or muddle as people call it.’

It was a wonderful opposite extreme of an elevator pitch.

I spend my working life staring at a screen, I spend a lot of my writing life staring at a screen and I spend an embarrassing amount of my leisure time staring at a screen. So I don’t want to use novel-writing software. I know it works for some people, but for me it is oxymoronic. Training people how to use software has been my bread and butter in the past and however clever it can be I don’t want my creativity sullied with it. I want to be mad and free and when I do (and now I do) have to pin myself down I want to do it in the real tangible world, with handwritten fluorescent post-its that I can move around and draw pictures on and screw up and throw for the dog to chase.

Thank you Jeannie; I can’t find printer paper anywhere but I’m off to buy me a big roll of parcel paper.