Oh dear

I'm in trouble. Big trouble. Possibly even big trouble.

It's February 28^th, you see, which means (since it isn't a leap year) that I'm about to miss my deadline.

It was a mutual agreement, a promise made with negligent optimism and a hand waved airily in the vague direction of the future. Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy. Hardly anything left to do. Of course we can get it finished by the end of February.

Except here we are, 19.28 on the last day of the month, and all I have to show for my final chapter is this:

Paris, September 2010

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Inspiring stuff, I know, just wait till you see the rest of the chapter. It'll be done soon. End of March, I swear...

Excuses, excuses

So, how to explain the distinct lack of posts from me over the past couple of weeks...

1. I'm far too tired after work
2. I'll just check facebook before I start
3. I've got to concentrate on getting the blimmin' novel finished by the February 28^th deadline
4. I wonder if anyone's replied to that post I wrote on facebook?
5. I can't think of anything interesting to say
6. How can I follow Gary's last clever/funny/insightful (delete as appropriate) offering?
7. Damn, I forgot to spy on the kids' facebook pages earlier
8. It's not like we have hordes of readers hanging on our every post...
9. This book I've read before is so gripping I can't possibly stop reading now
10. Oh my god, look at those photos wotserface has put on facebook, unbelievable!
11. The tv I never switch on is on and there's a repeat of Location, Location, Location from 2009 that I haven't seen
12. Goodness, I haven't looked at my email since I last went on facebook, better just check in case
13. Maybe a blog about writer's block? Nah, what could I say? It's all a myth designed by writers to excuse their laziness anyway

The Happy Eater

We wrote a dialogue flashback scene on eating out yesterday. Ruth and Trip come up with their ten rules for a successful restaurant.

No, you'll have to wait for the book. Though I can share that Trip believes an essential ingredient is a fat chef.

It did, however, remind me of this poem.

The Happy Eater

Forget your cuckoo-spit foam, coulis, jus,
And hand-dipped chocolate afters;
In the seventies orange juice
Was deemed ample as a starter.
Then came the step-change:
Taramasalata.

Got it for a Song

We came up with a nice – silly – line in Bristol. We were walking around, thinking about the leading characters of our proposed detective series and wondering how they would be able to afford anywhere nice to live in Clifton. But then we remembered my new character was an eighties pop star, and we said, near simultaneously, “He picked it up for a song.”

This morning I was thinking it would make a good title. Not as it is. Amended. I was thinking “Got it for a Song”. It gives us the joke, the character set-up and a nice play on words in the direction we're heading.

It's also guaranteed to make any old English teachers from my Grammar school froth at the mouth. For, according to them, “got” is not a real word. It's common, or something. Their mission was to beat the word out of us. And imagination generally.

When I was 14, one of them actually gave me 0 for a short story. I'm not sure out of how many – but let's say 100. Nought, zero, nada. And he made the rest of the class read it, pour encourager les autres. I'd be surprised if that wasn't illegal these days.

The story was about a boy sitting on an old park bench and thinking of all the other people who may have sat on it in the past. Imagining their doings, channelling them. OK, Max Beerbohm it wasn't. But it was quite imaginative, for kids taught in straight lines. And it didn't stop The Beautiful South from pinching the words for one of their lyrics, “Just like that murder in '73/Just like that robbery in '62.”

So now I'm imagining a retired English teacher in Reigate, sat on my bench in the park, catching sight of the title on the cover of a book, and spontaneously combusting with rage. Got to love that.

How do we do it?

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So, how do you write a novel in collaboration with someone else?

Once people have checked out whether we've been published, that's the question I'm most asked when I mention what Gary and I are doing.

Easily, is the answer.

Well, maybe 'easily' doesn't quite describe the writing itself. That's still fraught with all the usual writerly difficulties and challenges. But the collaborative process has been remarkable in its ease.

Gary had an idea for a story. He tried putting it down on paper and decided he hadn't found two separate voices, so he asked me whether I wanted to have a go at writing the girly bits. (I thought he nailed the two voices actually, but I wasn't going to turn down the opportunity.)

The original plot was - well, I don't think he'll mind me saying that the original plot was a tad scanty. I just had a look back through my emails to see how he initially described the storyline but, unfortunately for posterity, I didn't keep it. However, it went something like this:

Long time married couple, husband dies leaving wife a few letters that describe their relationship as they send her off on an ash-splashing journey.

Well, that's no plot, not hardly. It's not even a blurb, but it was enough to set us off. To start with, writing was simple division of labour. Gary wrote Trip's letters and I wrote Ruth's narrative. By the second chapter (or location, as it worked out), we had pretty much found our rhythm. My style's a bit easy-listeninh – it doesn't leave a lot for the reader to infer and uses too many adjectives, ellipses, dashes, lists. Gary's very fond of two word sentences and takes liberties with tenses. We seem to balance each other out.

It became obvious quite quickly, though, that something was missing. The letters and narrative batted back and forth with Ruth reacting to what Trip told her in his letters. Sometimes she agreed with his memories and sometimes she didn't. Who was right? With one character dead it's tough to stage a story so readers can draw a conclusion for themselves. We met one day to flesh out the plotline – there's a photo in an earlier post of the multi-coloured plan that came out of that session – and realised then what was missing. The truth. Ruth and Trip through the camera's eye, without interpretation from either of them.

I love the process of writing the flashback scenes most of all. Gary and I don't live anywhere near each other so getting together to write is an every now and again event. At the same time, neither of us wanted the other to write on their character's behalf. Our solution has been to use facebook chat to improvise the dialogue, then one of us does an edit job.

It's an amazingly satisfying experience. What's surprising (to me at least) is how fully formed is the dialogue that splurges out of us. It generally needs very little editing. Below, I've copied directly from facebook an extract of the flashback (typos, comments to each other and everything) to the student union bar from chapter 1:

Gary Twynam

What I don't have a nickname. Oh now I am disappointed.

Karin Dixon

trip.

Gary Twynam

Sorry?

Karin Dixon

trip, that's your nickname
because you did
once, i mean, we saw you and... never mind. (she is blushing now, aware that he now realises she has noticed him before)

Gary Twynam

(delete - because you did once - and that reads well).
Trip. Well Ruth Totty, my names Toby. Toby Trip Maguire. Pleased to meet you. (holds out his hand)

Karin Dixon

well. that's another thing. about public schoolboys. you shake hands

Gary Twynam

Of course. Traing for the corporate world. How was it? Nicely firm and manly, but with a hint of gentleness, trust and compassion?

Karin Dixon

(she can't help but laugh)
and only very slightly damp.
look, luara's coming back. she really doesn't look like she's got a broom stuck up her arse.

Gary Twynam

Looks like she wouldn't mind one though...Oops sorry. Besides not my type.

Karin Dixon

rubbish, laura's everyone's type.

Gary Twynam

Nah. Too scary. Self-possessed. I think you're a bit in awe of her. You shouldn't be. And don't think you have to copy her either.

Karin Dixon

who? me? i don't copy her! (she looks over at laura and blushes again. she knows she does)
i'm just... anyway, she is pretty and there's no need to be mean to her.
[we need to get in the born at 35 bit - just remembered it goes in here somewhere]

Gary Twynam

True. No need for rmeanness ever. You missed you cue, you know, back there...

Karin Dixon

what cue?

Gary Twynam

The bit where I said she's not my type.

Karin Dixon

oh... oh... well... who is your type?

Gary Twynam

(His eyes sparkle) Aaah, too late, Totty, too late.

And so, to Bristol...

Karin and I meet from time to time, to assess progress and plan onwards. Anne and I left Bristol for Tooting at least 18 years ago, so returning is always about how things have changed and how things have stayed the same. We went for lunch along North Street which used to be in Bedminster, but is now Lower Clifton Borders. Or something. These days it's all cafés and artisan bakers, though I was pleased to see Corals and the Ironmongers clinging on.

Anyway, a working lunch in the Tobacco Factory. Karin brought out her A4 hardback notebook. I came up with a good idea and said “oooh write that down” and this set the tone for the whole weekend, as did the bottle of fruity house red that disappeared soon afterwards.

We flirted with the cute girl with her own small florists in the entranceway to the restaurant. Karin won. We even directed her to this site and told her to leave a comment if she liked it. She hasn't. Self-promotion is hard work. And thirsty.

We headed off to both Shakespeare pubs. In Baldwin Street I reminisced about being an insurance clerk. In the one by the Arnolfini we tried to come up with names for our new detectives. Mark joined us for dinner and entertained us, and most the other diners upstairs in Mud Dock, with a jolly interesting Teds talk on Evolution (mutation/adaptability) versus Environment (obesity/in-breeding). No, I know, I don't either.

Anne joined us Saturday, and we sauntered off to Clifton Village to suss out possible locations for our next book. Sweet and chi chi it may be, but it's just too, well - posh – for me. When at similar locations in, say, Brussels or Paris, I walk around billing and cooing, but I'm just too attuned to every tiny seam of class in this country to ever feel fully comfortable in Clifton.

Back home for roast chicken, port and bullshit, sneaking Neil Diamond onto play when Mark's not paying attention. Sunday breakfast back in North Street. We watched an old, close friend walk by. Someone we hadn't seen for 20 years. It seemed as unimaginable as the fact that we were actually having breakfast in the Hen and Chicken. Back in the day this pub was the acme of working class toughness and I'd cross the street to avoid it. All that's remained is the name. And it seemed to me that North Street has grown as we have grown. Gone up in the world. But not too far. Matured into its own particular stratum of middle-class.