Manual landing

Yesterday, I was very good. I stopped myself buying a creative writing manual. My wife and I were browsing around the shops. We'd made up our argument. I felt jubilant. On top of the world. We were in a bookshop. Probably, unconsciously, I'd asked to look in there because I was determined to buy a book, any book, to celebrate the fact that we were talking again. And after a brief preamble amongst the self-help books, I decided that I was only putting off the ineveitable, and went over to the reference section (for some reason I've never worked out, bookshops always seem to place creative writing manuals next to books about making a wedding speech).


This item was actually a box set. Not just a book, but a pack of cards too. And the introduction to this book was by Natalie Goldberg, the author of Writing Down The Bones and other terrific books about writing ( http://www.nataliegoldberg.com/ ). A woman I trust. I sneaked a look at the introduction, and Natalie Goldberg praised this book to the skies. I was shaking, sweating. I wanted to buy this book. This book was going to change my life. This book was going to show me where I've been going wrong, and launch me onto the road to fame and success.

But then I heard a little voice in my head say : "You don't need another creative writing manual." Because the truth is, I've read hundreds over the years. More, in fact, than novels, which I'm ashamed about. I've borrowed some from public libraries, but too often I've bought them.

I know why. When I first decided I wanted to be a writer - this was at the age of 12 or 13 - I only had to read a creative writing manual and I would get an idea. Sometimes, in fact, I would finish a whole script before I'd reached the end. And I began to think that it was the book itself which had given me the idea.

It was the same with school teachers. For some reason, I would write reams and reams during term-time. Although you couldn't admit this to your classmates, I used to look forward to the English homework when we would be told to write a story with the title "A stitch in time". But during the school holidays, when I desperately wanted to write, and had plenty of time to do it, I had no ideas. Or so I thought.

When I was about 16, I joined a playwrights' workshop which was attached to a fringe theatre. It was led by a wonderful director, Richard Shannon, who also wrote plays himself. Same problem again : when the worshops were running, I had idea after idea. When it took a break, and I wasn't seeing Richard, my ideas dried up.

To this day, I tend to get a lot of ideas around September, and I wonder if it's some hangover from the beginning of the school term. Some people hate the end of summer, but I actually thrive at the beginning of winter.
After I first got married, I became desperate for story ideas. They were going to lead me to writing a bestseller, which was going to get me out of my dead-end job. Money was tight, the usual end-of-honeymoon snags started biting, and I became more and more desperate to find something. Writing manuals seemed the only solution.
So I read them, hundreds of them. I borrowed some from public libraries, but too many I bought from shops. And bought during moments of tension, moments when I was depressed. When a project was going well, I used to attribute it to the manual I was reading. It seemed to act as a pep-talk. And yet, if I read the manual when things weren't going well, I couldn't understand it. It worked last time, didn't it?
I even read Writing Down The Bones at this time, but gave it up in frustration. It wasn't working quickly enough. All that writing practice - that was for amateurs. Today, I think every writer can benefit from writing practice. It lays down seeds for future projects. But back then, I didn't want seeds, I wanted fully-grown plants grown in the hothouse. The pupil wasn't ready.
When my marriage started to get better, I relaxed more. And then the ideas came. Long overdue, long needed. During this time, I read some wonderful creative writing manuals. But most importantly, I discovered that they don't really work until after you get your idea. There is often, in these books, a chapter on establishing a good work rate, a minimum number of words you write every day. And that's good once you've got an idea (an idea which excites you, that is). But if you're still searching, then those manuals just demoralize you. You are not a factory.
What happened on Sunday, in the bookshop, was this : I told myself no. You don't need any more creative writing manuals. Everything about the craft, you know already. And I walked on, with a sense of triumph.
Although before I left (because I was dying to buy a book of some kind) I went back to Personal Development and picked up Susan Jeffers' Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway. Well, I'd worn out the other copy.