Tag: writing

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Not Lost, But Hard to Find

A couple of weeks ago, I made an entry about keeping an archive of pieces and how I found one particular poem that wasn’t stored in OneDrive with the rest of them. A few days after writing that entry, my backup system was put to the test.

On Sunday 2 June, the town of Leven was finally reconnected by railway after 55 years. Along with a couple of pals, I was one of the first passengers on the revived service, and we decided to head for a coffee. One minute, I was using my phone to tell people about my day; the next, it went completely black and wouldn’t react to any button pushes nor attempts to charge it.

Fortunately, there were a lot of services I could still access, such as the aforementioned archive. However, some relied on two-factor authentication, which requires using a phone as verification, like I used to secure WordPress.

The short version of the story is that my old phone was beyond recovery, but I now have a new one, and I have full access to all my services again.

In all that excitement, I didn’t have much of a chance to think of a writing-related entry. But I do wish to reiterate the advice of backing up all your work, both locally and online, so you don’t fall victim to an unexpected loss.

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Writing a Character Backstory, But Enjoying It This Time

This entry is a spiritual sequel to a post from two years ago about a character from a game of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D).

When I mention D&D, there will likely be some readers who immediately switch off mentally. However, I promise this entry will not go too deeply into the game mechanics, and will instead focus on characters and storylines, so I invite you to stick with me.

I’ve been playing for the last few years in different groups. The most recent game has also been my longest, with sessions roughly every fortnight over the previous 18 months or so.

Every D&D game has a Dungeon Master (DM) who controls the general setting and what happens there, as well as acting as the voice of any secondary characters encountered.

When I began that game, I let the DM choose the attributes of my character. Many players consider this the most enjoyable part, but in my other games, I’d always found it a chore. My input was limited to giving my character a name – Max Wellhouse – and writing a placeholder backstory, with a view to expanding it in the future. D&D characters always work as a team, so the backstory typically explains how each character met the others.

Then I happened to watch this video from professional player Ginny Di, titled 5 backstory bad habits that drive your DM nuts. During the first section – Not having a catalyst – I began thinking about the placeholder backstory from months previously, and the pieces began to fall into place one by one. I’d written a background for Max Wellhouse, but not a backstory. It lacked a clear motivation for him to join the other characters.

You know how I said earlier that I’d found character creation a chore? Within two days of Ginny posting that video, I’d written paragraphs of backstory and motivation, comprising one main thread and two minor arcs, and what’s more, I enjoyed the process. I won’t reveal the content here, since it hasn’t yet been revealed to the other players.

Separately from this, I met up last weekend with one of my past D&D groups. The game halted a few months ago after we lost our former DM, and we’ve now decided to reform with an amended line-up. I was granted permission from the new DM to transplant my previous Captain Coconuts – from two previous games and rewrite his backstory from scratch. Again, I was inspired enough to write that up within 24 hours.

In the new backstory, Coconuts owned a ship and would seek out sea-based jobs and opportunities. On one job, he was accused of selling substandard copper to a powerful merchant. He sailed away as fast as he could with the merchant chasing him. Although Coconuts made his escape, it was at the cost of his ship smashing into rocks and sinking, leaving him on dry land with the few clothes and items he could salvage. Bonus points if you spotted the veiled reference to Ea-nāṣir in there.

Once again, I really enjoyed writing that, even if the character was pre-made with the assistance of the previous DM. I think that’s because I was doing it in the wrong direction.

Before this, I’d always tried to create a character, and then formed a backstory that would fit into the world. I think a better approach is to establish the world first of all, then have everything follow from there.

At the weekend, for example, the DM told me the world would be dark and serious. If I didn’t have Coconuts already made, I could then work on a backstory that might suit such a setting, then figure out what type of character might end up in that situation.

Unless something goes horribly wrong in either game, I expect it’ll be a while before I need to create another character, but I will make an effort to enjoy the process this time.

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Lost and Perhaps Found

When I started writing around 2010, I made a point of keeping an archive of my work.

Every story and poem has its own directory, and dated revisions are kept within each one. Plain text doesn’t take up much storage space, so there’s plenty of scope to keep doing this into the future.

About two or three years ago, I was looking for a particular poem I’d written; I knew its title, many of the words, and roughly when it was written. So when the archive showed no results after several attempts, I realised my system had broken down somewhere and wrote it off as a loss. I could have reconstructed it with a little effort, but I never did.

There’s a common misconception about Snapchat that it deletes every picture you send. In fact, you can set it to keep a copy of every picture you add to the My Story feature.

Fortunately, I’d not only set this up, but I’d taken a clear picture of the original handwritten verse four years earlier – and I’m not in the habit of doing that. In February 2022, while looking for something else, I found that picture. The original verse had almost certainly been shredded along with other papers. I swiftly copied the words into a Word document and placed it in the archive.

Luckily this was only a 16-line poem. Other writers have suffered far greater losses. Jilly Cooper, for instance, lost the original manuscript of Riders on a London bus and it took her years to rewrite.

Not all losses are accidental. A significant quantity of drama has been wiped from BBC and ITV archives, including episodes of popular shows like Doctor Who and Dad’s Army. Before the advent of home video, there was little incentive to keep old programmes except to resell them overseas.

In some cases, collectors and members of the public have discovered recordings; some in great condition, others needing significant restoration. The BFI used to hold an annual screening called Missing Believed Wiped, featuring a selection of recovered footage, but I’m unable to find any recent events.

It remains a mystery whether I typed out the poem in 2018 then lost it, or whether it was never typed up in the first place. I’ve nonetheless started backing up my archive locally and online so no further mishaps should happen.

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Eight Weeks of Writing Group Independence

Every Tuesday, I run a writing group with a pal. Until eight weeks ago, the group was affiliated with National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo).

We broke away to form an independent group after we felt the organisation was not working in the best interests of its members. You can read a previous entry exploring the reasons for this.

In the weeks following the announcement, we fielded a few questions from members, largely to reinforce that the new group would feel as familiar as we could make it. Only a couple of people have left, but no more than would have happened anyway.

In short, it’s been something of a velvet divorce.

I’d been running the group for about nine years, while my pal came on board about two years ago. We feel we know what works with our members and what doesn’t, and this secession allows us to take our own actions without needing to toe the line of an umbrella organisation with their own differing priorities.

There are still aspects we need to work out. For instance, we have an outstanding question of how to attract new members without being overwhelmed by new recruits. This, however, is not an urgent problem and we’ll work it out in due course.

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The End of the Renga

Back in 2020, I was invited to take part in a collaborative project started by the poet W N Herbert, known to us all as Bill.

His idea was simple. He would create an email list containing a group of poets. Then each month, he would send out the first stanza of a new poem and incorporate suggestions from those poets for a second stanza, then a third, and so on. The complete poem would be posted publicly by the end of the month.

From the start, Bill introduced us to the renga form. We did play somewhat fast and loose with its complex rules and conventions, but we mostly stuck to the alternating stanza length: a three-line haiku followed by two lines of seven syllables each.

Here’s part of a recent renga. Depending on the contributor, some parts were written in standard English and some in Scots.

Then two days ago, he announced the project was at an end. It seems this always intended to run for four years, but in the initial excitement of being asked to contribute, I hadn’t read that part.

I haven’t always had the time and/or inspiration to contribute, but I always made a point of reading the constructed renga when it was sent out. The next stage is to think about publication; Bill has a lot of experience in this area, so it’ll probably happen.

Meanwhile, I look forward to hearing about whatever project he has planned next.

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Ideas Coming Out My Ears

Occasionally, I sit down to write this blog on a Tuesday only to find my tank of ideas is empty.

At the moment, I have a different problem. I have a list of subjects, but I can’t find a way to start on any of them. For example, today’s entry was meant to be about the problem of plagiarism among poets, but I couldn’t move past the first line.

Instead, let’s pick this up next week, once I’m able to articulate one or more of these ideas.

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Discussion Questions About Discussion Questions

On Sunday evening, I reached the end of the Richard Osman novel The Man Who Died Twice. I always like to read over the acknowledgements, and then I turned the page to find a section titled ‘Discussion Questions for Readers’.

Most of the questions give away plot points, so I won’t repeat those here, but there are a few only tangentially related to the story, such as ‘Have you ever been lonely in a new town?’ and ‘What is an acceptable name for a pet, and what is unacceptable?’

I’d never before seen this feature in a novel, so I asked around to see whether others had. While some pals were – like me – surprised to see this outside of an educational setting, others reported discussion questions appearing in other books, such as:

  • A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
  • The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones and the Six, both by Taylor Jenkins Reid

These titles were all published in or after 2012, and I’d be interested to find out whether any older novels also have this feature.

One respondent reported debating with herself whether such questions encourage critical thinking or are merely there to spoon-feed reading groups. I’ve considered this question myself, but I have no conclusions so far.

It’s not clear whether the discussion section was the initiative of the author or the publisher, but I expect you’d want to test the waters first. My edition boasts ‘The multi-million-copy bestseller’ on the cover, so I expect Penguin Random House knew by this point that its readers would want to discuss the title.

Although I really enjoyed The Man Who Died Twice, perhaps I haven’t seen a discussion section before because I simply don’t normally lean towards crime fiction, cosy or otherwise. However, I will keep an eye out for this in the future.

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Sky Writing and Railway Reading

Yesterweek, I talked about going to Dublin for a few days and what I would bring to read and write on the three-day trip.

The flight there takes about an hour and five minutes from Edinburgh. I used the journey there to write six postcards, which I would then post on arrival, and tackled some other writing on my return. As predicted in that last entry, the cashier was indeed rather bemused as she handed over my stamps.

On the second day, my pal and I took a train to Belfast and back, taking around two hours each way, I split my time between writing in my notebook and reading my magazine.

It was helpful to have this time, but it would be more helpful if I were able to recreate this experience at home without the expense of travel. I’ve heard the suggestion of listening to ambient train noises as I write, but I also rationally know I can step outside my door at any time; not something you can do on a mainline railway.

If you’ve any suggestions on that front, I’m all ears.

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Sky Writing

If you’ve flown with Ryanair before, you’ll know the company doesn’t have a generous baggage allowance. So when I head off to Dublin for a few days tomorrow, I’ve had to be selective about what I bring for reading and writing for the journey.

I’m definitely bringing my laptop, which will sit alongside my plastic A4 document holder. This comfortably holds my A5 paper diary and a commercial-sized paperback. My current read is The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman, and it’s the first time in a long time I’ve wanted to read a whole series.

However, I’m going to visit a pal from university on her birthday weekend. We typically swap cards by post, so I’m taking the opportunity to hand it over in person and I’m including a book, which will take up the other half of that document holder. As such, I’ve decided to take my copy of Writing Magazine to read instead, as it’ll slot nicely into the holder.

This gives me just enough room left to slip in some postcards. I know these went out of fashion with the advent of the text message and they’ll likely arrive home long after I do, but I specifically wanted to send some. I’ve already stuck on the address labels, so it’s just a matter of writing the messages and taking them to a post office, no doubt to the bemusement of the cashier.

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Nice NaNo-ing You

Long-time readers of this blog will know I’ve been involved with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) since 2010. This is a not-for-profit initiative that encourages members to draft a 50,000-word novel every November.

In 2015, I began to organise our local Dundee & Angus region. A local leader is known as a Municipal Liasion (ML). Each ML needs to sign an agreement every year promising to enforce the code of conduct, hold regular meetings, and so forth. In fact, we already go over and above the agreement by holding meetings every week, not just during November.

I always like having a second ML in charge to help me make difficult decisions. This turns out to have been a prudent move.

Late last year, a member of NaNoWriMo staff in California stood down after making a racist comment about a colleague. Separately, the organisation was slow to remove a forum moderator who was sending inappropriate material to minors.

As a reaction to this, a new Interim Executive Director was appointed without warning, who then released a draft ML agreement with several adverse clauses. These included requiring us to verify our identity with a US company that doesn’t comply with GDPR and preventing us from speaking to MLs in other regions. There has also been a general air of disrespect in replies from this Director, which I haven’t experienced in a decade and a half of involvement.

There are a lot of aspects to this story, but that’s a summary of the main points.

As the situation with NaNoWriMo worsened, the other ML and I started serious discussions about withdrawing our affiliation and becoming an independent group. Our format had slowly evolved over the years, adapting to what members wanted, and we felt we could retain this aspect without external oversight.

Around this time last week, we sent a long bulletin announcing our independence and offered the opportunity for members to ask questions.

The news seemed to go down well. By this time, the MLs from most of the other regions in Scotland had also decided to step down. If anything, the decimation of NaNoWriMo has brought us closer together.

The next discussions in our local area will be about what to do with this newfound freedom. We’ve already amended our terminology to distinguish ourselves from our former identity, registered a URL for future use and discussed holding a summer writing event instead of a November one.

Whatever happens, we remain convinced that withdrawing our NaNoWriMo affiliation is the right action to take and we look forward to the year ahead.