Writing Desk #4: My wobbly path to writing
For those interested
In my last post, I said I’d share a few things about my writing journey so far, as I’d had a few questions about it. I’ll come back to this post and add to it as I think of anything new or useful:
Over the years, writing has crept up and pushed through and declared itself in a way that I’ve tried to take more seriously. Once, living in Zambia and running an education programme, I would spent spare moments writing words and ideas and dialogue I’d overheard, around the margins of project documents.
That idea of taking it more seriously is something I have to tell myself regularly. No one else will do that for me. Recently, at the London Book Fair, I heard a publisher say “take yourself seriously” in response to a question about getting published. Of course, you can still make space for joy and lightness and many other postures. But I am trying to take all those postures seriously too. To treat it — the curiosity, the words, the drive, the desire to look at the world and write about it — with seriousness. It comes from somewhere and I want to honour that.
Joan Didion said that she writes “entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” This is a large part of why I write, too. I’ll usually sit down with some half formed thoughts, or hunches, or interests, and the act of writing or typing words on a page works to weave these thoughts into something coherent which I can finally hold and explore and understand. Not always of course. But I’m trying to let go of ideas of planning and follow the words — I think my writing is always better when I do. (Which is why my book proposal has been a challenge! It’s basically one huge blueprint for my book which shows I have complete understanding and control of the whole thing, which I most definitely do not…)
Over a long time I’ve been close to writing and other writers in one way or another. I left a job with a charity to become an editorial assistant and then deputy editor at a magazine. This exposed me to so much writing, and so many approaches to writing. I ended up going back to international charity work after that, but kept writing for various platforms.
I was selected for the Rural Writing Institute summer writing school in 2018; that was the first ‘proper’ writing-related course I’d taken. It was helpful for an immersion into writing theory and practice, but also in connecting me to a community of thoughtful writers.
During the pandemic, I took a couple of online writing classes which I found very helpful: 1) there were people waiting to read my work each fortnight, which gave me the incentive to write because I did not want to let them down, 2) reading others’ work helped me see better how I do write, and didn’t want to write, and couldn’t write, 3) getting feedback on my work was uncomfortable at first, but ended up being one of the best bits of the experience. A writing community is a gift.
With encouragement, I started to submit my writing to publications. I had published online before this, but this felt… different.
I kept on with other things alongside all this - my charity work, and as a district councillor - so the writing happened around that whenever I could make it.
My daughter being born, combined with my experiences, combined with a sudden shift from feeling very connected to isolated, birthed an idea that developed into a first draft of a book proposal. I got that proposal as far as I felt I could alone.
I then worked with a brilliant editor and book coach for two hour-long sessions. She asked me questions that helped me see new things, challenge myself, and make revisions to the proposal.
I submitted a revised proposal to 12 literary agents (I had been slowly collating a list for a few years, noticing who represented the kind of books I liked). Some showed interest, and I met with and had offers from three. I did not expect to be in that position - I had lots more agents I was going to contact.
In the past few months I’ve been slowly revising the proposal again with my agent’s knowledge and experience - she knows what publishers are looking for.
And here we are! I’m excited for publishers to consider it, and nervous too. When there’s news I’ll share it here.
All this to say, it is a long journey, none of which was planned. And there are still no guarantees, and still so many steps to take. And yet it is a journey I have wanted to be on for a long time.
Something I am missing at the moment is regular writing community. I’d love this to be in-person - to meet and connect and feel and write alongside others. But failing this, I’ve been part of various stop/start online groups and I’m thinking of reigniting something.
Some things that I’ve found helpful:
🔗 The Marginalian, by Maria Popova, for its eclecticness and soaring possibilities with ideas and words
📖 On Writing, by Steven King
📖 The Science of Storytelling, by Will Storr
📖 Draft No.4, by John McPhee
📚 Too many general books and writers to mention — not least Wendell Berry, Gretel Ehrlich, Barry Lopez, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Rebecca Solnit…
🦋 Children’s' stories. They so often point me to the deep seen and unseen reality of things, and to hope.
📝 Keeping a running note in the ‘Notes’ app on my phone to catch ideas and words as they arise. I am a pen and paper kinda gal, but these days, quickly writing a note on my phone before I forget it just works for me (how to curate and track all those notes is another question… let me know if you use any systems that work for you!)
🖼️ Immersing whenever I can in art, history, museums, old places, travel — these things breathe ideas and life and curiosity into my writing, they give me threads to follow, but they also connect me to people through place and time who have also created and dreamed and lived lives so unlike mine (and sometimes more like mine than I’d expect).
Do you have any questions? Any experiences or wisdom to share?
Thanks for being here,
Elizabeth x