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I had been trying to come up with an idea for the WA blog for days. Alas, to no avail. This morning panic started to set in which only made the thinking process more difficult. My creative writing state has been comatose for weeks and I had hoped the adrenalin would flow under the pressure of being this week’s author of the blog.
At four p.m. the other half decided a stroll to El Castillo would be a good idea. The Castle, easily reached by car, requires a more complicated walk. Said castle is actually a modern bar, built overlooking the dry Rio Almanzora. As I wasn’t coming up with any good ideas, I stemmed the frantic feeling that I was running out of time and wouldn’t get anything posted and set out.
We walked off road and onto the rough path that would take us across the dry river bed, through both wild growth and cultivated orchards. As we rambled, the wild flowers, or often weeds, spangled the ground with pinks and purples, reds and yellows. I gazed around me and it hit me that it is ridiculous to have a shortage of ideas when I have such glorious scenery everywhere I look.
Here I was, wandering through groves of oranges, pears, olives and almonds. A variety of birds were flying overhead, some swooping low enough for me to see their markings, before one again darting upward into the blue sky. They were performing an aerial ballet.
Ahead, El Castillo loomed, built high on huge yellow boulders.
Once seated on the terrace, I could see for miles, along and across the Almanzora Valley. The mountains were like cardboard cut-outs against the backdrop of gathering clouds. Old cortijos and new villas nestled in the valley, at peace with one another. I heard children’s voices, the clip-clop as a white stallion came into view, and the slow chug of a tractor as a local farmer wended his way home.
An elderly Spanish man passed the time of day with us, leaning on his gnarled walking stick. His two small dogs gently nuzzled our hands. It’s strange - the older Spanish people are generally small and their canine friends are the same - you seldom see a large dog.
And suddenly, I had my topic. I would recount my experience - the realisation that there is, literally, everything to write about. I feel as if I’ve been in limbo for so long and that simple trek was an awakening.
I’m sorry this blog is not about a specific area of writing or skill development in any way but I genuinely feel alive and ready to write again. No bad thing, eh?
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I read an interesting article this week by author, Maureen Johnson, about cover and gender, she reckons women authors get covers that make it clear that the books are by well…women authors.
“And the simple fact of the matter is, if you are a female author, you are much more likely to get the package that suggests the book is of a lower perceived quality. Because it’s “girly,” which is somehow inherently different and easier on the palate. A man and a woman can write books about the same subject matter, at the same level of quality and that woman is more likely to get the soft-cell cover with the warm glow..."
It made me consider what we perceive from a book cover and how much information it gives us about the book. And is the information always honest or does it sometimes lead us astray?
As a reader, I actually think it’s impossible not to judge a book by its cover to some extent. I do it all the time—I usually avoid anything in pastel colours as I presume it’s going to be chick-lit which I don’t like. Anything so tasteful that it screams ‘literary’ to me is also usually a turn-off. I love intricate fantasy covers especially if they have dragons, and I’m quite partial to half-naked men with tattoos (but obviously only on book covers). For me, a good cover should intrigue and draw me in, but also tell me what to expect, give some hint of what the book is about and make me want to find out more.
As a writer, I always get a little scared when a new cover arrives in my inbox. What if I hate it? What if I think it gives a totally wrong idea of what the book is about? At Entangled publishing, we do get some say in what goes on the cover. After signing the contract, we get sent an art cover form to fill in for each book, which includes descriptions of the hero and heroine, examples of covers you love in the same genre, any particular objects that have significance, anything you really don’t want on your cover, any suggestions/ideas… So for my latest cover The Descartes Legacy – this is what I suggested:
·Either a couple (but not in a clinch) against a background of London with something exploding
·Or something to do with a strand of DNA against a background of space and a beautiful blond
·Or maybe the couple against a background of DNA
I’ve also self-published a couple of books and one of the things I enjoyed most about that process was having far more say in the final covers. The cover at the top is my next self-publishing project – can you guess the genre from the cover?
So do you judge books by their covers? Have you ever bought a book just because you loved the cover? If so what was it and did it live up to expectations?
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Perhaps a gloomy subject for a lovely spring day but it appears that writers are far more likely to suffer from depression than the rest of the population. This was the conclusion reached by Mslexia magazine after analysing the results of a survey completed by women writers. Thirty per cent of the writers, who completed the survey, had suffered from clinical depression at some time, compared with between eight and 12 per cent of the general population. The experiences of writers such as; Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf and J.K. Rowling suggest that the depressive experience is closely connected to that of creativity.
While I’m absolutely not suggesting that I rank amongst these writers, you may have noticed my lowered level of activity on the WA site since January and this has been due to severe clinical depression with which I was diagnosed in March. Since then, with the right treatment (after knocking at many wrong doors) I have been making a good recovery and am slowly returning to my old self. It is my first major depressive illness and I dearly hope it is my last. Before this experience I thought depression was just feeling a bit sad, having no idea how it is to feel one’s life spiral out of control, lose the ability to function and wake up (if one manages to sleep at all) to the torment of each new day.
During this black period I managed to keep up my blog and before I hit my lowest ebb, wrote two pieces of short fiction. Quite a downturn in productivity compared with last year. Sitting down to write a story is a profoundly positive act in my opinion so it amazes me how J.K. Rowling worked through depression while writing the first Harry Potter book. For Rowling, writing was a means of escapism from poverty and suicidal feelings.
It has been suggested that the introversion and strong inner life of creative writers might be the qualities that make them more susceptible to mental health problems. That and many hours spent alone honing their craft. ‘Chic-lit’ pioneer, Marian Keyes, has written very openly about her depression which lasted a year and a half. Usually a prolific writer, she bargained with herself that she would do one hour of writing a day, even if it meant simply sitting in front of a blank screen. Unsurprisingly, the blank screen was far too confrontational and didn’t help lift her mood at all. Keyes’ salvation came in the form of a good therapist and baking cakes. Baking inspired her to write a charity book called, ‘Saved by Cake.’ Of course this solution might not work for everyone and is not without side-effects. Keyes put on a lot of weight during her cake-based cure!
I lost a stone during my illness so perhaps every cloud has a silver lining. That being said, I would gladly gain an extra stone again in exchange for not having gone through this nightmarish experience. The self-belief to write fiction has yet to return but I’m hoping that as I climb the hill to full recovery my inspiration to write will come back as well.
Do you write better in a low or positive mood? Is writing a mood-improver or do you need to feel upbeat before sitting down to write? Do you believe writers are more susceptible to depression or is it just a myth, perpetuating the stereotype of the lonely artist in an ivory tower?
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