Naomi Heartbreak

#ScribesAndMakers 27/3: What's a book that made you see the world differently? How?

I think all books do that. Like, every book is an opportunity to see the world how someone else sees it, which will affect how you see it. So any book I've read, but I'll pick William Wharton's Birdy because that book honestly knocked me over when I was about 16 because of its ideas about different types of conciousness - once seen, can't be unseen.

#ScribesAndMakers 28/3: Does your day job (past or present) influence your creativity?

My job requires me to be endlessly creative, and I guess it influences my creativity in that it draws creativity in specific directions. But really I can't help being creative and so it's lucky I am able to do a job requiring an endless supply. And I guess because my job is a lot of my life it inspires a lot of my artistic expression - how could it not?

#ScribesAndMakers 4/4: How do you answer if someone asks you what you do? Is your answer different in person than it is online?

Such an interesting question! I'm a teacher, so I tell people that regardless of whether it's in person or online. It's a really easy profession to talk about because everyone knows what it is. But I tend to exist online in writing communities, so I yarp on about being a writer online but don't bother to mention it irl. People don't seem to dig it generally.

#WritersCoffeeClub 27/3: If you had to pick one, would you say writing is a more exciting or cathartic process for you?

No.

#WritersCoffeeClub 10/4: What's something other writers swear by that you just don't get?

There are so many this might become a series.

Following an idea about story that someone else made up like it's rules (protagonist/antagonist, hero's journey, inciting incident at point x/etc). What if you hadn't read about that idea? What if nobody had made it up? There would still be plenty of stories running around the world all unrestricted. I don't need anyone to tell me what a story is.

#WritersCoffeeClub 24/3: Do you have a writerly "third place"?

Had to look that up. I wonder if social media counts. Being on mastodon feels a bit like being in a different place - certainly it has its own people and culture distinct from home and work. For music I have 4 days a year at a workshop in Denmark.

#ScribesAndMakers 26/3: Do you dance or move along to music when you listen?

Always. Sometimes when there's music I look around and most everyone else is all still and I just don't get it. I cannot keep still when there's music. That would be painful.

#WritersCoffeeClub 25/3: The vulnerability of sharing: what do you feel when a loved one reads your work?

Anyone who reads my book is a loved one. And when anyone reads my book I feel scared they will miss the point, but it's always worth it - kind of like an adventure. The rare feeling of connection with another human when they get the idea is worth all that trawling through the eternal desert of the misunderstood.

#PennedPossibilities⁩ 969 — Do your stories have happy endings?

In some ways. I kind of like life to be more challenging than that though. Usually it's happy for someone or in some way. The only book of mine that has a true happy ending is Dog, which is for young kids. Even my other children's book doesn't really have a 'happy ending' cos the mc and her little brother run away from home and basically set off into an unknown which might not even be real. They are happy about it tho.

#ScribesAndMakers 25/3: Do you use music as a storytelling tool? Give an example.

I'm not sure I understand the question. I write songs and sing them, and generally they have some kind of story going on? But I guess I have music in some of my books - like The Good Listener is set at two music festivals and at some points the music is part of the story, like when Kitten goes to see Gabriel's band and finds the music repellently awful - that emotional response is an important factor in the scene.

#WritersCoffeeClub 4/3. Have you studied writing? Did it prepare you, or did you learn more by doing?

I have a masters degree in literacy and language education. And I have looked up a lot of grammar stuff for work. But I never studied creative writing, not even at school. At my secondary school they just said 'write a story/essay' about *this*. Nobody ever said anything about HOW to write. I guess they presumed I already knew, and I did cos I read loads of books. That's how you learn to write.

#WritersCoffeeClub 28/3: Do you ever sacrifice blunt clarity for prose that flows well?

Nope. I hope that my books don't contain either of those. Blunt clarity sounds awful and prose that flows sounds like it has no purpose. The trick is thinking the story meant to be expressed and letting the words find themselves, then reading it over and over and adjusting till the story sings through, but goodness, not bluntly!

#WordWeavers 2/4: Do you use any special means to get to know your characters? E.g. character sheets etc.

No. I not only think it isn't necessary, but also believe it's detrimental to story writing (for me, obvs). A character is an element of story, everything they are/do is part of the story. If I were to make up answers to generic/hypothetical questions on their behalf I would be inventing story randomly/meaninglessly. I prefer to invent story deliberately/intuitively.

I think it's interesting that people are equating 'creativity' with what I would call 'art' or 'artistic expression'. I would never have thought of these things as the same. Creativity is the ability to think outside the box and make stuff up. It's essential for any problem solving and it goes hand in hand with critical thinking. Surely lots of jobs require creativity?

#ScribesAndMakers

#WordWeavers 10/4: Did your MC ever have a melody/tune stuck in their head?

Sure, doesn't everyone sometimes? When I get a tune stuck in my head it's generally pretty random and irrelevant to the plot of my life though, so I guess it's the same for Lucy.

#ScribesAndMakers 7/4: Would your current creative project make a good game?

No? I don't know anything about games.

#WritersCoffeeClub 4/4: Do you switch between past and present tense? How do you make it work?

I find tenses fascinating. I feel like they get kind of neglected as an opportunity for making choices that affect meaning. My current book is in present tense predominantly, but sometimes Lucy tells about something that happened *before* so that's past tense, and there's also present perfect. All narrative writing switches between tenses. It's part of how language works to communicate.

#WordWeavers 27/3: Which character would be the most fun to be around?

In the current book probably Grace, the horse (who is imaginary). Or maybe the kids at work, but I haven't really made them up yet. Or actually Lucy's friend Dinah (who is also imaginary and isn't really called Dinah). Basically there's something of a shortage of fun to hang out with people in this book which is partly why Lucy ends up hanging out by herself.

#PennedPossibilities⁩ 672 — What’s the current word count for your WIP?

I think it's about 6,000. Not very much.

#WritersCoffeeClub 26/3: How much of a break or hiatus do you take between works?

Not any. I always used to start a new one straight away, like I had to have a new idea ready to go or finishing was too scary. And some things overlapped (final stages of editing, publishing stuff). But then I took a 2-3 year break and now, who knows? Like, I used to be more or less obsessed with writing but now I do more other stuff too. Don't know.

#PennedPossibilities 967. What level of education do your characters have?

Varies. Lucy is a teacher, so she has a degree. Her (imaginary) husband is a university lecturer. But lots of the other characters are less formally educated. Some of them are kids (Lucy is a teacher).

#wordweavers 25/3: What do you feel thinking about the last scene you wrote?

Can't remember cos it was so long ago? Actually I kind of remember. I liked the way the scene expressed the idea I was going for - it was pretty good synergy of intuitive magic and purpose.

#WritersCoffeeClub 7/4: Do you combine poetic fragments and prose paragraphs in your work?

No? I don't really write poetry. I write songs though, which is similar. I kind of feel like songs can be stories, and language choice in narrative isn't much different from language choice in songs. Songs have a repetitive rhythmic structure but poems don't have to, long stories require cohesion and clarity to work and songs don't need that, but honestly I'd say the lines are blurred. Writing is writing.

#WordWeavers 3/4:: For which characters do you come up with a backstory?

I don't make up life stories for characters unless the life story of that/those character(s) IS the story. In my current book there is one main character and everyone else is seen from her point of view, so I am only giving the readers her idea of them. She knows a lot more of the life story of some characters (her son) than others (her new boss). I don't want to know more than she does for this book. That seems weird.

#WritersCoffeeClub 11/4: What's your most effective method for connecting with readers?

All I've got is 'write good stories'. I need to get with the 'tell people about them' part. The best I've done is writing communities on social media. I've tried a bit of advertising via marketing services but that didn't work cos my stuff doesn't genre particularly. My next move is real life promotion, if I can summon the required audacity. Thoughts and prayers would be gratefully received.

RE: @anderlandbooks@bookstodon.com

I got mine!