My Writing Life - and then there were three

I got married soon after college. And then we had kids.

Well, one kid to start with I guess. He was very adorable, as first kids often are, and he was very demanding. I scarcely had time to think anymore, never mind write (oh, and I gave up the job--full-time motherhood is definitely just what it says--full-time). But I told my son stories all the time. I fell asleep reading books to him; woke up to his frantic cries of "That's not what it says!" And, when he announced that a story wasn't "real" unless it was written down, I wrote my Christmas tales with bright illustrations--borrowed his colored pens.

I wrote about a boy and his cat and my son took the book to school and it disappeared. Maybe someone really liked it. We had three kids to our name by then though, and I had school commitments, pre-school commitments, baby-sitting commitments, chess-club commitments, helping in class commitments... so I couldn't rewrite it. I still told stories (lots of stories that taught kids how to play chess) but I never wrote them down. Not that it mattered--all I need is to close my eyes; the memories and the tales still rattle in my head.

I took a writing course as well, and never finished it. The mathematician in me worked out that was how they could afford their guarantees. "We'll pay back your fees if you don't succeed," but if you fail to finish you're on your own. Still, I had a good excuse--we emigrated to the States, three kids and all!

My Writing Life - First Job

Of course, after graduating there's that awful task of getting a job. I put it off for another year and studied mathematical astronomy--there's beauty indeed! Then I took a job writing programs to simulate missile guidance systems. Okay, I admit, that really is odd. Then I took another job writing programs to help design cars which was much more peaceable.

I wrote stories on green striped paper that came out of noisy printing machines. I wrote them on scraps of white paper with worn-out calculations on the back. I wrote them on the backs of old envelopes, on cast-off pages from spiral-bound notebooks, and in my head. I would've written stories on table-napkins except they tore too easily.

I was a mathematician, earning my living with a thoroughly enjoyable job, and writing for joy in every spare moment I found. Then I sent a Christmas book to a publisher and he sent it back--too religious he said. I sent it somewhere else and they said it wasn't religious enough. I sent it into a box beneath my bed.

I was a mathematician. Don't give up the day-job!

I guess I could have been more persistent; I could have been more productive. I'm reading Sage Cohen's The Productive Writer and wishing I'd read it back then. But never mind. If you visit my blog today you'll meet her there and maybe learn to avoid my mistakes!

My Writing Life - beauty in numbers

It's not so strange though, really, studying math and wanting to write. Lots of mathematicians are great at music after all. Think of the shapes and interlocking patterns of a piece of music by Bach. Then imagine them in words. Imagine the arc of a story like a parabola; watch its equation; make sure there aren't any sudden twists and turns that don't belong. Then look at the characters and make sure the logic's secure in the ways they interact.

It's not so strange studying math when you can't add up either (I love calculators). Real math isn't numbers; it's shapes and interlocking patterns; it's music and myth and magic; it's beautiful! And that's how you know when the answers are right, when you're taking your finals and there's fifteen questions of which you've only done three. If the answer's beautiful you've got a high score, and you've won; you'll graduate with honors as a wrangler (because it's Cambridge, and wranglers rule!)

Is it strange being a writer when you can't spell? I love spell-check and dictionaries too, and words are fun to carve into beautiful sounds.

My Writing Life - a logical lapse

I had to do another set of entrance exams to get into Cambridge. There were papers in math, creative writing, general intelligence, etc. I wasn't quite sure why they wanted to test my writing to teach me math, but I wasn't too worried. I'd already convinced myself the real achievement was simply in trying; I knew I'd not get in.

After writing an essay entitled "the sound of one hand clapping" without ever recognizing the philosophical reference, and scarcely even realizing one hand doesn't sound the same as two, I was even more sure I'd never get accepted. But somehow I did.

I bounced with excitement in the principal's office the day the acceptance came. I phoned my Mum and Dad and talked to my Granddad. And I set my feet on rather strange path for someone who wanted to write, because that's still what I wanted; I just thought I'd be a mathematician too. For my day-job maybe...

My Writing Life - choosing to win

Picking math (and physics) for my A-levels really wasn't so hard after that. When I took my O-levels I liked to go back through all the questions on each paper in the final five minutes. I'd check my answers against how much I knew and work out a range for my probable score. (Strange child; yes, I know.) It was easy in math--you can tell something's right because you get the same answer whichever way you look. It was okay in science--if the answer makes sense you've probably got it right. It wasn't too bad in foreign languages--I either knew the words or made a good effort at choosing sensible replacements. But in English? In English, how could I ever know how my story would be scored? Will examiners like those imaginative arguments, or will they, like brothers, think I'm just a pain

In writing I never knew if I'd won or lost. When it came to planning what to study all the way through college... well, that was my future and I definitely wanted to win. So I chose math.

Of course, the other reason is I kind of thought math was easy--foolish thought.

My Writing Life - Studying math?

I wrote stories from the day I learned to write and told them as soon as I could talk (maybe even earlier). But somehow I ended up going to college to do math. Not only that, I ended up doing maths, physics and further math for my last two years of high school, and nothing else. So why math?

I think it all began when I was about ten. I had to do an entrance exam to get into my high school. One of the papers was on mathematics. It had strange-looking questions about x and y and xy. Since I'd never seen any algebra before, I deduced that xy meant 10x plus y and solved all mysteries accordingly. I was hugely embarrassed when my school-friends explained my mistake.

Years later, the teacher talked about imagination and math. He said how he'd once had a student do an entrance exam with lots of imagination but completely the wrong idea. Then he offered us the chance to do a page of exercises for homework, or write a "mathematical essay." I wrote about waves. Math and imagination--and beauty of course; I was hooked.

My Writing Life--trying to take writing seriously

With a real rejection letter to my name, I decided it was time to take my writing dreams seriously. My husband encouraged me to take one of those "writing courses" that were advertised through the mail--we didn't have a computer or internet back then. They charged what seemed like a pretty high fee, but guaranteed if you didn't make it back by the time you finished they'd refund it in full.

We set my "office" up in the spare bedroom, and even bought a "word-processor" for me to use--a sort of glorified type-writer. I'd hide up there in the evenings after I'd got the son to bed. Then we had another son... I'd hide up there in the evenings after I'd got two sons to bed. Then we had...

I tried. Really, I tried. I sent submissions all over the place--to magazines, to publishers, to agents... I did my homework and sent it to my "teacher." I took the kids to school. I helped in class. And I never finished the course, so we never got our money back, though by then I'd realized I was never going to earn it by getting published either. They probably ran the teaching business on fees from people like me.

Of course, I really wouldn't have given up--that's what I tell myself--except we left the country and moved to the States, but that's another story.

My Writing Life--the first book

I started telling stories to my kids long before they could listen or understand. Once their eyes could focus on books, I started reading to them too. I'd help my son point to pictures. I'd teach him to recognize colors and letters and words. The trouble was, our oldest son soon became such a creature of habit that stories weren't "real" unless he could turn the pages. My own little tales simply wouldn't do until I bought a blue notebook and wrote them down. Thus Oscar and Timmy were born, a boy and his cat, with hand-written words and hand-drawn pictures, and ideas that came from the life of a hand-raised son.

I was pretty proud of Oscar and Timmy. I suppose it was my first attempt at publishing, except there was only one copy and it lived in a toy-box. One day they set up a "Look what you can do with writing" display at our sons' elementary school. The little blue book took pride of place on a shelf then disappeared. Somewhere out there, maybe someone's still reading Oscar and Timmy to their kids, but I make do with a photocopy, made for my first ever book-submission, still proudly stored in its envelope with my first ever rejection.

My Writing Life--the first job

Did I mention, I majored in mathematics? It's not exactly the usual path for a writer I suppose, but for a shy writer? Well, maybe. Math has the advantage that answers are either right or wrong, so perhaps I just liked having one part of my life where criticism wasn't subjective. Of course, I was still writing.

I got a job writing computer programs, which is seriously, enormously different from writing stories. But it does encourage accuracy, consistency, logic, and other such things. And it was fun. Meanwhile I penned the next version of Nalya's Sunset on cast-off computer paper, lined in pale green with all those neat perforations between pages and holes along the side. The story was beginning to take a much better shape by then and I even had plans to make it a novel.

Instead, life made me a Mum.

My Writing Life--spare time at college

In high school I wrote my first serious novel. Unfortunately I hadn't heard of fan-fiction then, or maybe I'd've written something publishable--well, maybe not. Instead I wrote my own version of Star Trek, where earth isn't the center of the universe and the heroes don't all look like my brothers' best friends. I called it "The Day the World Died," and just to make sure earth didn't get to be excessively important, I destroyed it in the first hundred pages.

In college I wrote my first version of Nalya's Sunset--a story, much rewritten, that I'd really like to get published. I also became very active in the Christian Union, and my subtle symbolism left rather a lot to be desired. Still, it had its good points. And I wrote songs, but couldn't write music so I scribbled the tunes with jagged lines that looked more like used graph paper.

My Writing Life - spare-time scribbling

I went to a high school that was right on the other side of Manchester from where we lived--two whole bus-rides away. Being slightly neurotic, as well as disorganized, I became very quickly very concerned about how awful it would be to be late to school. As a result I was soon catching a bus so early I could get to school before anyone else even set off--so early I would follow the caretaker around till he unlocked the door to my classroom. Of course, I also set off so early I would sometimes get caught up in bus route diversions due to accidents long since cleared by the time school began. "Why are you late Sheila?" "The bus had to take a different route." "Nobody else's bus did."

And what did I do when I got to school in the cold pre-heated dawn? I switched on a light, huddled into my coat, and I wrote.

This Writer's Life - The English Teacher

We grew older and moved into a higher class. Our new English teacher had a bit of a reputation as one the strictest teachers in school. She was small and thin and wore glasses. Her feet didn't quite touch the floor when she sat behind her desk. And we were all in awe of her.

I loved to have English homework by now. I loved to tell stories of dead lovers, dying worlds, bombs falling, destruction, dismay. I delighted in making people cry. Till our teacher called me aside one day and demanded I try to make them laugh.

"Why?"

"Because anyone can make people sad. It takes a real writer to make them laugh."

I wrote a school bus flying over a canyon and filled it with caricatures of the teachers we knew. Even the English teacher laughed. Then I decided I'd like to be a real writer.

Thie Writers' Life - the Kid in the Jungle

The pen ran out of ink eventually, and the various boxes scattered round the house ran out of scraps of paper. I went to secondary school and hated "the Hobbit" (don't know why, except that maybe I wanted to read at my own speed instead of being read to). And I learned to do homework.

Have I mentioned, I tend to be slightly disorganized? I forgot to bring home my English homework book once, and we had a special assignment to continue the story of a boy lost in the jungle. The teacher had read the first chapter to us and we were supposed to be inspired. We were also supposed to have the right books with us in order to pursue our inspiration.

Dad found a whole empty notebook--50 pages long! It wasn't a school homework book though so I cried because it wouldn't be right. But Dad, wise man that he was, said better get in trouble for writing on the wrong paper than for not writing at all.

I filled all fifty pages with my second mini-novel, and I've never seen it since. But I did hear it read to the class over several days. They listened just as closely and kept just as quiet as if it were "the Hobbit." But probably that just meant they were scared of the teacher.

This Writer's Life - My First Critic

I kept my "novel" secret for quite a while, hiding notes under my desk and pretending I wasn't really using my pen. But one day a friend stole some pages from me and began to read.

Sadly, these were the pages where my heroine delightedly gave birth. The fact that she'd only met her husband six weeks before, and he was definitely the father, gave me no cause for concern. My friend however, proud of her greater understanding of biology pronounced me--well, I'd better not say. Naive and innocent perhaps, but she didn't use quite such nice words.

I decided my writing had better remain "my eyes only," unseen and unheard.

This Writer's Life - The First Novel

A magical pen had to be used for something magical, so my first novel was born. I called it "Simone and her People" and wrote about the end of the world, a group of schoolgirls rescued from certain death by handsome strangers who lived under the sea. Each chapter was written in a different color, on a different type of paper. There were leftover pages from half-used exercise books, torn-out scraps, unused diaries (I never could keep a journal), Granddad's old record-keeping book... The whole was "bound" if I remember rightly in the medium blue cardboard cover from some scrapped school work-book, and tied with string. It still lives in the bottom of my writing box, tucked under the bed.

I remember my human-alien crossbred children developed the ability to live on land and sea. When they returned to England's forests and shores they found human beings were going to war again. Kind of sad, my first novel. But the good guys won.

This Writing Life - The Magic Pen

One Christmas, amongst all my myriad fancy presents, there was a pen. This wasn't just an ordinary pen. This was a powerfully magical writing implement, thick as my wrist and long as half my arm. Its clear plastic sheathe surrounded a wealth of different colors of ink. The cap was equipped with delicate levers which pushed corresponding colors down through the hole so they could write. And there must have been ten, twenty, thirty, maybe fifty different inks in all--every possible shade from sunrise pink, to blush, to rose, to red, then on through violet, purple, indigo, navy and clear blue sky. I think that's where I got my addiction to laying out colors in rows, trying to create a steady pattern of change to remind me of my pen.

It's also where I got the sudden need to write my first novel, at age, maybe, ten. After all, a magical pen like that? It needed a magical task to make it complete.

This Writing Life - Writing with Chopsticks

So there I was. I'd finally learned to write. My wrists ached constantly and my hair fell in curtains over my face, making the words lie hid in their own secret cave. But I could write. That's what I thought, at least, till my Mum, wise lady that she is, decided to intervene just before I moved on to senior school. It seems, by learning to write so late, I'd missed all those nice instructions on how to hold a pencil. I'd learned to make my letters okay, but I held the implement in fiercely clenched fist, twisted at a crazy angle to the page. Now Mum said I had to do it right. She even sent a note into school saying, "Please excuse Sheila's writing; I'm teaching her to hold a pen."

Have you ever thought about the muscles you use to keep that pen from sliding over the page and onto the floor? Okay, have you ever used chopsticks? If you didn't use them from childhood (I didn't), then imagine, if you will, growing up using a spoon and fork and being told suddenly the only implement allowed would be a long stick of wood. Maneuvering chopsticks really wasn't so bad when I grew up because it felt just like learning at age ten to use a pencil.

Luckily the words still stayed in my head, even though they were so reluctant to land on the page. Maybe that's why I never learned keep a notebook of ideas; I store them in memory. And maybe that's why I'm so bad at remembering, 'cause I've used all the space up on story-lines.

This Writing Life - The Pen is Mightier than the Microphone

One day the headmistress came into our class with a large black box and lots of wires and wheels. She put the contraption down on the desk and called me to the front of the class. Then she plugged in something that hummed and whirred, and set two big discs turning. "I want you to tell a story," she said. So I asked what the machine was for. "It's going to record you. If you won't learn to write we'll just have to get your stories onto tape." She placed a black ice-cream cone on the desk where it skulked like a frog that had failed to turn into a prince. Then she told me to speak.

The story started off okay. Sunbeams still carried their magic to me and wove their threads round my head. But my eyes kept drifting to those whirring wheels, while the plot tumbled flat on the ground. All the sounds came out dead. Afterwards, the machine played back my voice and I heard the story meandering lazily round, dull and boring like parcel-string. The box and wheels and blackened cone had stolen the magic from me, so I agreed with the headmistress that perhaps it was time I took up the pen.

Written letters had always danced and swirled on the page, like sunbeams, like magic. But now I learned to tie them down, shape them in pencil, and fix them firmly in space. It wasn't so different really from tying chalk-dust into stories into words. It just took more work. And at least it didn't hurt the story's flow. The magic grew much better through a pencil than a microphone.

This Writing Life - The Teacher's Desk

One of my earliest memories of school is of sitting in front of a class and telling a story. Sometimes it was my class; sometimes somebody else's. "Big kids" would come down the corridor and ask my teacher if theirs could "borrow" me. Then I'd walk behind them, feeling tiny and lost--so many doors with matching windows, so many long corridors. At least they knew the way.

Their teacher was probably going to a meeting with a parent or the headmistress. She'd smile at me and invite me to sit at her desk, then say "I won't be long." I'd gulp, always feeling slightly scared as I climbed on her chair--there's just something about the teacher's desk. It's tall. It's forbidden. It's sacred ground. But I'd sit and peer over the top at expectant faces. Just before I started to speak I'd be looking round the room, eyes wandering, mouth gathering air for words, and wondering if the threads of a story would really be hiding there.

Of course, once I started talking I always knew it was all okay. The thoughts were like blackberries falling in my hand, and thorns were just the occasional frog in my throat. Stories were spun from sunlight and chalk-dust and air. They poured out of me like breathing, and I couldn't quite understand why people thought it strange. Doesn't everybody dream?

This Writing Life - Bedtime Stories

My brothers and I shared a bedroom on vacation when we were small. We'd crawl into our bunks and Mum and Dad would pop in to say goodnight. Then... it was storytime. I remember telling endless adventures with Stingray and Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet, a bit of Supercar thrown in for good measure, and of course, my secret ingredient--those unknown heroines who always came to the rescue when the world was falling down. I don't recall what mystical name I gave them, but I know they were powerful women, even more secret, even more clever than International Rescue, and they always won.

I remember feeling nervous sometimes, because my stories gave me a power I didn't deserve. That awesome threat: "You do as I say or I shan't tell you the next bit of the story when we go to bed." I really hated it when I had to go through with my threat. All those words spinning busily round in my head and I couldn't let them out. Much better when the brothers gave in. Then I would just feel guilty instead of guilty and sad.