Celebrating enthusiast, escapist, fictionist, idealist - The Romancer

The Romancer for 97p!

I am very excited this week because as I have already mentioned, on the 19th of July the whole of my back list from my publisher Headline is going live on Amazon Kindle and other eBook platforms!   Amazing, amazing!

This is virtually my life's work as a writer of fiction. This is is also reflected in my only  non-fiction book about the process of writing which I called 'The Romancer'. (The title does not refer to me being a writer of particularly romantic fiction, although relationships are important in my novels.) 

I did write about the source of the title on this blog when we launched the book:

 'There is this saying in County Durham. ‘Oh, him! He’s a proper romancer!’.meaning someone who lives on the borderline between truth, fantasy and lies. I wanted to call my novel about the (alleged) County Durham serial killer Mary Ann Cotton, ‘The Romancer’. My editor didn’t like it. (It became A Woman Scorned’ – see my sidebar)

The Romancer for 97p!

 

 I looked up the word ‘Romancer’ (see below*) and was moved to see what I came up with. So many of these words fit the way I think I am. I was called dreamer in my family from when I was very young… 

Essentially, as I wrote the book it dawned on me that events and emotions from my childhood and in my adult life have - whether I was conscious of it or not (usually not)  -  inspired and underpinned the fictional content of my novels. 

This was made possible - I feel certain now  - by the transformative, creative magic of  the writing process.  This is what 'The Romancer' is all about.

Since the book came out  I have found that many writers (and readers too...)   have enjoyed coming to know the novels in a different way. And writers among them have felt encouraged by the practical advice to strive on with the large project of writing their own novels.

So! To celebrate the wonderful event of all my backlist going into eBook form, on Amazon Kindle and all other platforms, I'm offering you a copy of 'the romancer' for the slim price of 97p as an introduction to all of may books.

I hope you enjoy them! Let me know

wx

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*Romancer’ :Don Quixote, Quixote, anecdotist, daydreamer, dreamer, dreamer of dreams, enthusiast, escapist, fableist, fabler, fabulist, fictionist, idealist, lotus-eater, mythmaker, mythopoet, narrator, novelettist, novelist, prophet, raconteur, reciter recounter, relator, rhapsodist, romancist, romantic, romanticist,sagaman, seer, short-story writer, spinner of yarns, storier, storyteller, taleteller, teller of tales, utopian, utopianist, ustopianizer, visionary, wishful thinker, word painter, yarn spinner reamer of dreams, enthusiast, escapist, fableist, fabler, fabulist, fictionist, idealist, lotus-eater, mythmaker, mythopoet,narrator, novelettist, novelist, prophet, raconteur, reciter,recounter, relator, rhapsodist, romancist, romantic, romanticist, sagaman, seer, short-story writer, spinner of yarns, storier,storyteller, taleteller, teller of tales, utopian, utopianist, topianizer, visionary, wishful thinker, word painter, yarn spinner

‘Romancer’ A mysterious or fascinating quality or appeal, as of something adventurous, heroic, or strangely beautiful: "These fine old guns often have a romance clinging to them" (Richard Jeffries).

Writing, Planning, and The Tentacled Monster

‘Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters; united with it she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels.’ Goya.

Writing novels is both a simple and a very complex process.

On the one hand I just sit down and write and write and write - and write - until the words on the page grow into the story that - in some ghostly pre-knowledge – I know it always was. This organic model is very attractive – it implies that we writers are extraordinary vessels for a pre-existing story, conduits that act to give form to random elements of our subconscious.

This makes great sense to me.

On the other hand my novel can become a wild creature. It can grow tentacles and flail about. It can grow wings and fly. It can spurt legs and go clumping down the road away from me. For a time this is exhilarating, exciting. Fantastic.

Again, this makes sense to me.

Then there comes a day my monstrous story gets wild, too wild to hold onto. I have to rein it in, to give it form, to shape it up. This process, done well, can have its own more intellectualised creative charge, profiting from the conscious rather than the unconscious mind.

Each time I ask myself how is it possible to pull this material into a readable state without losing the original organic energy?

One name for this process is planning. The very word sounds deadening, institutionalised doesn’t it? Like forcing the tentacled, winged, heavy footed creature into a rectangular box. But there comes a time that I must think of cause, consequence and shape, and make the novel do its work to transform the organic material into a coherent form. This is the other, necessary side of the creative coin that spins, eventually, into a publishable novel.

For me this more conscious planning happens in stages as the whole story evolves. Inside these stages there have to be open cycles of organic speculation, feeling, risk-taking. But it is the planning that takes the story forward.

But I’m becoming aware that when one has written quite a few novels, as I have, there’s the real danger that the planning itself may have become too embedded in the subconscious and can stifle the organic energy of the first writing. The creature’s wings are clipped and the tentacles not allowed to flail.

So I've made a decision to cultivate the wildness, the riskiness again, to let the creature rage, to grow tentacles and wings. And fly.

So far, so very exciting

w