A Life In Pyjamas

If you had to point to one thing as your greatest difficulty when it comes to writing, what would it be?  Do your beta-readers consistently have to remind you about anything?  What's your pet writing peeve?

For me it's point of view lapses.  When I started writing I always wrote in, what I thought, was third person omnipotent, but I was constantly told that I was writing third person close with numerous POV lapses. That used to make me crazy. I mean who the frack are they telling me what POV I was using?  I'm the writer right?  Don't I get to choose?  Apparently not.  I came in too close for it to be third person omnipotent and I was promised that third/close was the way to go. I found this so frustrating that I gave up and started a new novel using two separate POVs - one in first and the other third/close.  I found writing in first much easier but I hated the character's voice so much that I gave up and started a different novel - this time in first person.

I found writing in first easier in many respects and the POV lapses disappeared but then I had to cope with the structural difficulties of how to deal with the goings-on of the other characters when not with my MC.  The dialogue began to become unwieldy and forced as I tried to invent new ways the MC could uncover what was going on.

AAAAARRRRGGGH!

Is it any wonder that I walked away in frustration?  I just want to tell a story.  Who knew it was going to be so hard?

Then at a critique session when the inevitable question of POV came up on an old MS of mine one of my critique partners said, "To me this is very cinematic.  It feels like you're calling shots and setting up scenes. It reads more like a screenplay."  I think she meant it as an insult but it was like a lightbulb going on for me.

What if that's what I should be doing?  What if that's how I should tell my stories?

Yesterday afternoon my groceries were delivered by a very nice man. Well he was nice to my dog and my dog liked him so I had an immediate favourable impression of him.  When he offered to help me take all the bags inside he grew even further in my estimation.

"Yes, please that'd be lovely," I said and we chatted in a friendly way about bouncy dogs and how they don't really 'get' that not everyone likes to be licked.

 I was walking the driver back to the door, thanking him for all his help when my husband came in from the garden to help me put all the food away.

"Thanks for all your help," I was saying. "Enjoy the Bank Holiday." And then, remembering that this particular company advertised that they still delivered on bank holidays I added, "I hope you have it off!"

The man looked a bit funny and said quietly, "Er ...thanks." I closed the front door and as I turned, my husband looked at me and said, "Did you really just say that?"

"What?"

"I hope you have it off."

"No!" I immediately said. "There's a bank holiday on Monday and I said ... Oh my god ... I did say it!"

So there you have it.  The spirit of Carry On survives as the inadvertent double entendre sends yet another British delivery man running for the hills from a middle aged woman inexplicably wearing her night clothes in the afternoon.

Oh dear...

On a completely unrelated note - it's my half birthday today.  Happy Half Birthday to meeee!

AHA!

I found a draft of my first post that I wrote when I set up this blog - originally at the end of 2010 - but I never published it.  I obviously had commitment issues back then.  Perhaps I knew I just wasn't ready to step up and take this writer's lark seriously, no matter how much I wanted to.

Anyhoo.  I thought I'd share it.  I like the tone.  It's quite jolly and 'up'.

Come on in.  Pull up a pillow and duvet and make yourself at home.  After taking a good six months off from blogging I've decided to kick off 2011 in a brand new stylee.  First off, many people will have met me first in the blogshpere as JaneyV. Well JaneyV works in a school and dabbles in a bit of fiction between naps and walking her dog. I love JaneyV,  (well I would do - she's me), but she's never going to write a book or get on the road to being published.  How could she?  Her life is full up with being a Mum and part-time taxi-driver, a reluctant cook, a much-loved wife and ignorer of mess.  She's too much of a Jane-of-all-trades and quite frankly her real life is too chaotic to ever be focussed enough to be a writer.  So JaneyV is retiring into domesticated bedlam.  She's happier there. 

Enter J P Hannan. 

J P Hannan is a determined writer of Young Adult fiction.   This blog will be about JP's life. 

A writer's life. 

A life in pyjamas.

Today I decided that I'm going to write again.  I have three novels half finished, ideas for several more bubbling close to the surface, a screenplay begun and I've been busy, busy, busy not writing any of them.  I haven't even been bothered about looking for reasons why I haven't been writing because I know why.

I'm frightened that I'm crap at it.  Or  far worse ... that I'm mediocre.  Isn't that what those who feel compelled to follow some kind of creative career worry most about?  Just being a bit "meh".

In the film Amadeus that was the great struggle that Salieri had - knowing that his talent would never, even on its very best day, touch the hem of Mozart's.

I totally emapthise.

Not that I'm comparing myself to Antonio Salieri.  I just get why he was so pissed off.

The fear of being ordinary stops creative people fulfilling their potential every day.  In my case it was chasing me in the opposite direction.  I have been doing everything I could to avoid it - watching movies, eating (yup doing lots of eating - never a good idea),  a bit of reading (not much though as that tends to make me think about writing), worrying, working, traveling ... you get the picture.  Anything but writing.

So I thought I'd start again.  This is it - my first outing in a while.  I set up this blog over a year ago.  I created a new identity for myself.  JP Hannan.  It's not really a new identity - it's my maiden name - the name I hope that one day will grace the spine of a book or be known for writing a movie.  Who knows? That was the thought process.  I wanted to get serious. Make plans.  Take the road.  So of course I let it sit empty for a year.  It was just a bit too serious. I'm frequently spooked by my own plans.  To be honest I never thought I'd use it. But here I am. Putting words down. Tentatively allowing that connection to be made again and realising to my surprise that it feels good.

It feels good to swim in the word pool again.