My friend and former colleague Caroline, now living in France, sent me a comment on last week’s post about the habit of writing. It’s good advice and anyone who’s been on one of my workshops will recognise it:
My new habit is the ‘read out loud edit’. I’ve resisted it for years thinking if I ‘heard’ it in my head it was just the same…which of course it’s not.
It’s partly to do with squeezing out long, convoluted, breathless sentences. It’s good as a punctuation guide too. But I increasingly believe it’s something more intangible: it’s about really owning your writing, taking responsibility for your words, developing confidence in your own tone of voice. And about listening to the rhythm of language.
Music helps too. I’ve been listening to a lot of songs lately. Three concerts I’ve been to in the last month – first Natalie Merchant then the Kate McGarrigle tribute then the Leisure Society – were extraordinary examples of the songwriter’s craft. The words and music belonged to each other.
But it’s been a week about listening for another reason too. Over the last year I’ve been writing a collection of stories that feature an angel. This is not me getting religion – think of it as a metaphor for a writer. The first of these stories came out of the dark angels programme, thanks to a suggestion by Neil Duffy. I then submitted the story to a storytelling website, and it was accepted. Which was very satisfying but I didn’t give it much thought over the following months.
So it was a complete surprise when I got an email last week to let me know that the story had now been recorded and could be listened to online. It’s read by an actor called Paul Jerricho, whom I’ve never met. It was a strange – and strangely exciting – experience to hear my words spoken by someone else. You wonder: did I really write that?
Anyway I recommend the website www.shortbreadstories.com . For those of you writing stories, it’s a good place to look and listen. There are stories to read and many of them have been turned into audio versions too. Try listening, it’s free. I hope you’ll listen to my story there – it’s called “Angel Wings” and it will take only five minutes of your time.
Next week I’m away, running a writers’ retreat in a chateau in the south of France. While there I’m planning to finish what has been growing into a book-length collection called “The Angel of the Stories”. The wonderful artist Anita Klein www.anitaklein.com will be illustrating the stories.
Wish me luck.
I absolutely hate giving presentations of all descriptions. They’re generally a cue for lots of stammering, voice-wobbling, blushing and ‘glowing’ (well, apparently women don’t sweat).
But I did actually rather enjoy reading my work out on our Dark Angels course. I’m not entirely sure what the difference was, to be honest – but it made me feel good.
Good luck with finalising the stories! I look forward to reading/listening to them.