A Time to Write – Derbhile Dromey

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A few days ago, I read about a writer, quite well known, who said that she had given up because it was taking too much valuable time from her family life. She said she loved her new career in pottery, but I still thought it was a pity she wasn’t able to balance her time so that she could enjoy family life and writing life.

Time is one of the biggest stumbling blocks that aspiring writers encounter. ‘I don’t have enough time,’ they say. ‘I wish I could find the time.’

But the truth is, if you really want to write, you’ll find the time.

This might sound like a very arrogant thing to say from someone who doesn’t have a job outside writing, doesn’t have children and doesn’t have a husband (yet!). But time isn’t the real issue. The real issue is fear. That and the natural human tendency to take the easy route. It’s so much easier to channel surf or go on Facebook than face the blank page or computer screen.

Even in the busiest life, there are little pockets of time that you can use for your writing. Our creative writing tutor had us map out our time on a spreadsheet to help us figure out where those pockets were. And there are always more of them than you think.

Early Mornings

Are you a morning person? Why not take advantage of the stillness and peace in the house while everyone else is asleep. It’s an easy way to snatch time for yourself without interrupting the rhythm of your work and family life. Or you could swap a book for a notebook on your daily commute.

A Writing Lunch

Do you read while you’re eating your lunch at work? Why not swap the book for a notebook? It might mean that you need to escape to your car, but giving your mind a break from the cycle of work will energise it for the afternoon. If you enjoy socialising with your colleagues, you could still do it at the coffee break.

While You’re Waiting

We spend a good bit of our lives these days waiting, in a queue at the bank, in a doctor’s surgery, or on hold while you’re on the phone. Writing doesn’t have to take place in a sacred, silent space. You could be waiting a long time to find one. If your life is hectic, you write where and when you can. And at least you won’t have to silently fume at the time you’re wasting.

In the Evenings

Evenings are the time when we slump into a happy torpor in front of the telly, or curl up with a good book. Writing can be the last thing on our minds. But it’s also the longest stretch of time we have in a day. And for night people, it’s when they’re most alert. Besides, delving into another world can be a very relaxing way to spend time. Like a holiday for your brain. And you don’t even have to miss your favourite programmes – you can Sky Plus them.

The best news of all is that you don’t need to spend hours every day writing your masterpiece. All you need is 10 minutes.  In 10 minutes, if you write like fury, you could end up with 300 words. That’s 2,100 words per week. And more than 100,000 words in a  year. Even if you wrote nothing, you’d still be moving your writing forward by taking the time to think. Put in those terms, your writing goals will be a lot more attainable. And your fear barrier will melt away.

– Derbhile Dromey, author of The Pink Cage

Writing Through the Senses – Derbhile Dromey

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I always find it amusing to contrast the experience of going out for dinner with a group of visually impaired people and a group of people with full sight. The visually impaired people always have something to say about the background music in the restaurant. But if I were to comment on the music to a sighted group, they’d say, ‘What music?’ They’d be too busy checking out the fashions on the other side of the room.

The world is run on sight. But it’s as if sight creates a glare that blocks out the other senses. And if you’re going to succeed as a writer, you need to move beyond your sight and tap into your four other senses and use those senses to draw readers into your world. Stories that draw on all five senses have a rich texture and come alive in the readers’ minds.

As a writer, it’s vital to see the world using more than just your eyes. You need to experience it through your nose, your ears, your hands and your tongue, even through your skin. Thinking about the music your characters like, their favourite food and smells that transport them to their childhood will bring them to life, make them human.

There are exercises you can do to get your senses working.

1. Eat an Orange

Oranges are a feast for the senses, with their vivid colour and their bittersweet aroma and taste. They can also be very symbolic; in Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris, oranges are used in an act of betrayal. Just take an orange, eat it and describe the experience. It’s bound to provoke a strong reaction.

2. Soak Up the Sounds

If you’re alone in a cafe, instead of rubbernecking to see what everyone’s wearing, why not just listen instead and take note of five sounds and describe them. If you listen hard, you’ll even hear small, subtle sounds through the clatter of cups. It’s a way of training your ear.

3. Precious Object

The senses are strongly linked to the emotions. Hold an object that’s precious to you in your hand. Examine it from every angle, test it for its weight. Then describe it and use that description as a springboard to describe the emotions and memories associated with it.

Your senses are a gateway into your story. Close your eyes and let yourself be drawn into a world of wonders.

– Derbhile Dromey

Why Every Writer Needs to Know About Cover Design – Even if You are Not Self-Publishing

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‘Never judge a book by its cover.’

Does anyone think that’s true? Of course not. A good cover creates the sizzle that sells your book. It somehow, through a delightful alchemy of imagery and typography, tantalizes the right kind of readers and steers away the ones who won’t like what’s on the pages. And of course, a bad cover does just the opposite.

Capturing your book’s essential quality is an art. But it’s as much down to you as to the person who designs your cover. A designer will only do as good a job as the briefing they get — and no one understands your book’s spirit as well as you do.

Too often, writers don’t pay enough attention to this. The question of what the cover should be like sneaks up and takes us by surprise, rather like all those other tiresome tasks like writing synopses. But the longer you spend mulling over what you think would be right for your cover, the better your decisions about it will be.

And, folks, this applies whether you’re going indie or being published conventionally.

Why do you need to be involved in design if you’re conventionally published?

Read more>>>

Orange Prize: Shortlist Announced

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London, 9.30am, 12 April 2011: The Orange Prize for Fiction, the UK’s only annual book award for fiction written by a woman, today announces the 2011 shortlist. Celebrating its sixteenth anniversary this year, the Prize celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing from throughout the world.

Emma Donoghue (Irish) – Room; Picador; 7th Novel
Aminatta Forna (British/Sierra Leonean) – The Memory of Love; Bloomsbury; 2nd Novel
Emma Henderson (British) -Grace Williams Says it Loud; Sceptre; 1st Novel
Nicole Krauss (American) – Great House;Viking; 3rd Novel
Téa Obreht (Serbian/American) -The Tiger’s Wife; Weidenfeld & Nicolson; 1st Novel
Kathleen Winter (Canadian) – Annabel; Jonathan Cape; 1st Novel

The judges for the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction are:
Bettany Hughes, (Chair), Broadcaster, Historian and Author
Liz Calder, founder-director of Bloomsbury Publishing and Full Circle Editions
Tracy Chevalier, Novelist
Helen Lederer, Actress and Writer
Susanna Reid, Journalist and Broadcaster

This year’s shortlist honours both new and well-established writers featuring three first novels and one previously shortlisted author; Nicole Krauss (2006). Read more>>>