Author: ChanAtkins

How I Write A Book

~ ChanAtkins ~ 15 Comments

A few weeks ago I was chatting to someone and the subject of my writing came up. She asked what I had written and when I told her, she was politely impressed and asked me this question; ‘so, how do you even write a book anyway?’

It’s a great question, and one I have never really thought about before. To be honest I think I’ve always been a little bit scared to think about this question. In my head, my books just seem to happen, and yes, it feels a little bit like a lovely dose of magic. I like having magic in my life and I don’t want to ruin it. But seriously though, there must be a process, even if I am not always that aware of it. Recently I’ve also become more aware of how other people write books. This is fascinating! Spreadsheets and things! Now I have to admit, I am not really a spreadsheet kind of person. I exist in chaos and I quite like chaos. But this got me thinking about my process. How do I write a book? How does it compare to others? Do let me know in the comments at the bottom! But for now, here is how it works for me;

1) I never force anything. I never decide to write this, or that. I never decide to write Young Adult or Adult. I never decide anything. Which is good, because I don’t like making decisions. It all starts with a character. The ideas are there too floating about in the background, acting all shy. But the character is clearer. The sex and the age might come first. The character traits fade in and out. I don’t pay much attention to them to start with because I am always busy with other things. I’ll be writing or editing a book already. Or just living real life, and trying not to make too much of a mess of it all. So I try to ignore them at first. It’s not their turn yet, whoever they are. They will have to wait! Eventually they get braver though. They start chatting, they come out of the shadows and they become realer by the day. Soon I have a name for them, and a whole heap of issues.

2) At this point the notebook comes out. To start with it will be scraps of paper, or the back of a notebook I am using for something else. I will make note of their name and their character and some of their problems. Conversations will be quite frequent now, especially when I am out on dog walks. They all seem to start yakking then! I try to remember as much as I can, and when I get home I will jot things down. Before long, they need their own notebook.

3) The notebook should be a neat and organised thing, but it never is. It’s starts scrappy and it stays that way. There is the occasional stab at organisation. A time line here, a character bio there. But no, mostly it is a crazy mess of what would look like scribbled nonsense to anyone else. Luckily, it always makes sense to me. I will start writing the book when I have time and when the voices have become too loud to ignore. By this time the notebook will be quite full, with possibly the entire plot outlined somewhere amidst the scrawls and scribbles! Every now and again an idea will hit me, a character will suddenly develop, a dilemma will spring up, things will link up and a story with a beginning middle and end will weave itself together. Normally it’s pretty much all there before I start writing, but not always.

4) I start writing. With my notebook by my side I will dive into this story that has been niggling me for some months now. Maybe even longer. I can practically hear the main characters clapping their hands in glee. The notebook will now develop with the book as I write it. So if there is not a timeline, or character bio’s for everyone, then I add them to the notebook as I go. The first draft is always horrible but exciting. It feels like a massive relief to finally be writing it, and I can only hope that other voices remain quite while I try to concentrate on this one. If I haven’t got the whole plot figured out, I never worry. With two of my books, The Mess Of Me and The Tree Of Rebels I really had no clue how they would end, or what exactly would happen. I had the main gist of the story and I had the characters, and that was enough to get going. The complexities of the plots revealed themselves to be on the journey, and I never panic about this. I just wait for it to happen. With some of the other books I know before I start writing what is going to happen. This sort of makes it easier, I suppose! I can write a loose plot in the notebook and use this as a framework.

5) I never worry how good or bad the first draft is. It’s just for me. It’s just to shut them up. It’s just to get it all out of my head. It’s like pulling a plug, or picking a scab, or squeezing a spot! Relief. I don’t worry about how long it takes. I don’t worry about word count or page numbers. With every single book except for The Tree Of Rebels (which is aimed at my 11 and 12 year old daughters) I don’t even worry about who the audience is. I know this will shock some people. Surely I need to know who my target audience is before I start writing? Surely I need to research this group of people and find out what makes them tick? What to they look for? What do they expect? Then I will be half way there with the whole monstrous marketing and promotional thing, right? Well no, sorry, it doesn’t work that way for me. And to tell you the truth, knowing who the target audience was for The Tree Of Rebels made it the hardest book I have ever tried to write! It took away the fun. I’m not sure why. Maybe because writing has always been such a personal and private thing for me. I guess I’m doing it for me first, to quieten those voices, to reveal those characters and help them with their load. I’ll have so much fun doing this that I sometimes have to remind myself that I do want people to read the book as well!

6) Finish the first draft and send it to a friend. I am lucky I have someone I really trust who reads my work and helps me with editing and proofreading. She is not the only person I use, but she is the first to get her hands on anything. The draft comes back to me with comments and we’ll have a few conversations about the themes of the book, what works and what doesn’t. By now I will be more than ready to get my teeth into the second draft. I can’t tell you exactly how many drafts there will be. It really varies from book to book. I will tell you that The Boy With The Thorn In His Side has had the most, by far! So that’s kind of how it works for me. I use a notebook and a pen, and only use the laptop when it all gets to much to contain. I’ve never used a spreadsheet in my life. There is nothing organised or properly planned. My head just doesn’t work that way. But somehow, I hope, it all seems to come out ok!

So over to you, how do you write your books? 11124930_964965450189387_1781543778663520427_n11127478_964965093522756_6604301044566462222_n

Waiting

~ ChanAtkins ~ 1 Comment

I’m waiting to die. And so are you. It’s the truth we refuse to see. We don’t talk about it, or think about it. We believe the opposite is true. We say we are going too fast, rushing through time, unable to stop. But sometimes I feel like life is all about waiting. Filling in the gaps. Finding a reason. Using up the time. All ways to pretend you are not just waiting to die.

The only time you are not waiting is when you are first born, when you are tiny and new, and know no words or thoughts. Because like that, you exist in the moment and the moment is now, and does not move on, not in any way that you are able to fathom. As soon as you can talk, you know about time. Not now, later. Hurry up, move. In a minute, later on, tomorrow, next week, soon.

So you start waiting. When you are a child you are waiting to be an adult. Then when you are an adult you are waiting to retire and relax. Waiting to see the rewards of your labour. When you are a teenager you are waiting to be older, waiting to be in charge of your life, to be free.

We’re always waiting. Waiting to fall in love, to meet ‘the one’, to get married, to have kids, to buy a house and fill it with things, to go on holiday, to relax, to escape, to sleep, to wake up. Monday makes you wait for Friday. You wait for the working week to end…come on, come on, hurry up, come sooner. So it comes and you celebrate; Friday night and Saturday, but then already you are waiting for the new week to start, dreading, but waiting all the same.

You try to live in the moment, to appreciate now… but it’s hard when a moment is so small. How can you ignore time? Turn your back on it? Refuse to play the game? Sometimes I try. I close my eyes. Block out the time yet to come. There are small and glorious moments when I succeed. When I am just existing, not waiting, or dying. Simple things like a mug of coffee on the doorstep. The wind in my face, and just standing still somewhere, just motionless, barely breathing. I don’t want to be just dying, yet that is what life is. Like the leaves on the trees, fat and green one day, curling and drying the next. Their time is over. They lived, they waited patiently, they died.

It’s not that it’s boring. We don’t allow that. We try to fill it all up, don’t we? With noise and clutter and bright sparkling things. With work, and pleasure, and weekends, and Christmas, and children, and weariness, and walking, and driving in cars, and loving each other, and getting it all wrong and starting again. We stuff it all in, we pack so much in while we can. We dance through our lives, drinking fine wine and eating good food, and going abroad to become more cultured, and upgrading our phones, and upsizing our homes. We look forward, all of the time. We can’t wait to see what is around the corner. We are waiting for promises to come true and for dreams to be realised. We are waiting to prove ourselves to loved ones, for them to see us as we really are, for it all to be worth it.

No, we’re not stood still. But we are still waiting for it all to be over. We live in timid dread of it all being over. How much time do we spend waiting around? Standing in queues? Waiting for phone calls, for emails? For rejections? For answers? Waiting for things to get better, or for things to get worse. Waiting to be loved, waiting for pain to heal, waiting to be seen and heard and known. We say things will be better in the morning. We tell ourselves we will know the answers when we are older. We will understand things one day. One day, we will feel the one thing that constantly eludes us.

I watch the birds when they are busy in the morning. Unlike the leaves on the trees, they are not so patient. A busying whirlwind of activity and noise. What spurs them on? Simple instinct. The urge to survive. But they can’t look ahead, and they can’t know time. They dart across the lane, from one hedgerow to the next, sing-song spiralling, diving and chattering. They hop about on the grass. They swoop and surge up towards the sky. They know nothing of this afternoon, or tomorrow, or next time, or one day. They only know now. For a moment I watch them and forget to breathe. I focus on now, on being still, and I try to insist that I am not waiting for the day I die to arrive promptly and too soon upon me.

And then I walk on, down the lane, towards home, towards the things that chop up the time of my life into segments of making dinner, and helping with homework, and putting to bed, and rising again in the morning where the inevitable waiting is there, waiting for us.

To Be A Boy Of 7

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

Today, like all days, I looked at you and thought what a glorious thing it must be, to be you, a boy of seven. To be you, waking up in the morning with a bright smile upon your face. To go to bed the way you told me you always do; whispering things you are excited about. Counting them off in your fingers, one at a time. To be you, never lost or bored, but full of things to do, full of ideas, moving from one fun thing to the next. Nothing weighs on your shoulders. You heart is full and free.

Let’s play a game and pretend we are lost. Not yet. When we get there.

Okay, so who will we be?

I’ll just be me, and you’ll be you. But we’re lost in the woods.

I can’t stop smiling when you are around. The light in your big blue eyes, the gaps in your teeth, the smudge of dirt high up on one cheek. They used to be so fat and round, but not so much these days. You are growing up. Becoming a stick boy.

When we get there, you are still holding my hand, and you have forgotten about the game we were going to play. I hold on as long as I can. The dogs are off, and we walk across the two wooden pathways, talking about the summer holidays and how to fill them when they come. When I talk to you, when I tell you things, I feel like there is nothing that won’t excite or please you. It’s just easy.

The days are getting longer, the weather warming up, and the squidgy mud is drying out under our feet. You remember the game and you pretend we have to find things to eat. We can eat leaves and berries. Dandilions and daisies.

I like the way you look at me when you talk. I feel huge, tall, towering over you, this white haired stick boy with dirt on his cheek. Smiling a gap toothed smile as his hand tightens on mine. We follow the stony path while the sky is stretched and blue. Down the hill and still your hand is in mine. You play the game, pretending we know the way home now. We just follow the path back to the house. Then we can have an ice cream sat out on the doorstep. I look into your face and everything is beaming back at me. All the things promised for the summer, building up and swelling inside your chest, the game, our hands, the ice cream, today and tomorrow. You live in each moment with your blue eyes wide. You want to go up the steepest hill. You never stop smiling, not once.

I ask you questions and you say ‘yep!’ and ‘nope!’ At the top of the hill you want to go left while I go right. We’ll meet in the middle further down. Then you shout out ‘3,2,1’ and run down your side of the hill, arms pinwheeling, white hair streaming back from your forehead, ‘whoooooooo’ you go, and I am laughing. You dash down, turn right and come back to my side. It’s in you now. The urge to move. With the sand and stones under your feet, and the wind in your hair, the movement has set you off, set you free. I point out a secret way. That way. Through the trees, where the hills are small but steep. Down, up, down, up, then down. Covered in thick green moss, springy, inviting, this way I tell you, you’ll like this.

You go first. Running again. Your feet pounding, your knees pumping, your little stick arms out to each side. You make it to the end and then start running back. You do it! You do it now! Ahh but I can’t run like you, it’s not the same once you are older…or is it? I take your advice and run like a lunatic. Like a fool, I thunder down one side and up the next, and then I remember how addictive the movement of running is. I am laughing and you are laughing at me. For a tiny fragment of a moment I am like you, I am seven, I am small and strong and on fire with the desire to move and keep moving. I am moving through it all, through everything, leaping over logs and branches, hearing the crack and the rustle, my eyes down, then up, my legs powering me on, my feet wanting to keep it up…Enjoying a ride o nature’s own little rollercoaster. I think I could play here all day. I could play.

But I stop at the end and wait and watch and laugh at you, and here you come, my white haired stick boy, yelling and hooting. Running so fast I am sure you will trip and fall into my arms. But you don’t, you stay up, laughter hitching in your small chest. And after that you keep running.

I have to count the seconds, as you try to get faster and faster. And now you are running ahead of me, always ahead and out of my reach. Little stick boy, white head bobbing quickly away from me. I watch you getting smaller. I think about how much more hand holding there is to come, and a little bit of me breaks open and what leaks out can’t be scratched back. I want to keep you and hold you, but parenthood is always letting go. I want to be you and join you, but your growing is too fast, your moments too brief. I am left behind.

Little stick boy running down the track, zig-zagging past the daffodils, legs brushing the new nettles, hair bouncing, running faster and faster and further from me. Do you like being seven? Yep, but I can’t wait to be eight.10750337_880996085252991_634165168261834774_o

SOUNDTRACK!! The Boy With The Thorn In His Side

~ ChanAtkins ~ 2 Comments

I am about to relaunch my novel The Boy With The Thorn In His Side, which is a book about two complex characters and their attempts to control and escape each other. But it is also a book about music. About how songs can become the soundtrack to your life, filling your head and your heart through times of joy and darkness. I’m sure you all have your own soundtrack. Here is Danny’s;

The Stone Roses – Made of Stone

Guns ‘N’ Roses – November Rain

Guns ‘N’ Roses – Breakdown

The Stone Roses – I Wanna Be Adored

The Stone Roses – She Bangs The Drums

The Clash – Lost In The Supermarket

The Stone Roses – I Am The Resurrection

Nirvana – Breed

Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit

The Smiths – How Soon Is Now

The Doors – Strange Days

The Doors – Riders On The Storm

The Smiths – Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now

Neil Young – Only Love Can Break Your Heart

Tom Waits – I Don’t Wanna’ Grow Up

The Doors – Break On Through

The Clash – Guns Of Brixton

The Manic Street Preachers – Masses Against The Classes

Radiohead – Bones

Soul Asylum – Runaway Train

The Smiths – There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

Radiohead – Creep

Nirvana – About A Girl

Nirvana – Negative Creep

Primal Scream – Loaded

Primal Scream – Come Together

Nirvana – Lithium

Donovan – Catch The Wind

Bob Dylan – A Hard Rain’s A Gonna’ Fall

The Smiths – Please Let me Get What I Want

Nirvana – Radio Friendly Unit Shifter

Nirvana – All Apologies

Nirvana – Love Buzz

Nirvana – Pennyroyal Tea

Nirvana – Dumb

Beck – Loser

Oasis – Supersonic

Nirvana – Something In The Way

The Smiths – The Boy With The Thorn In His Side

The Stone Roses – Shoot You Down

The Doors – When The Music’s Over

Oasis – Cigarettes and Alcohol

Oasis – Rock And Roll Star

Oasis – Slide Away

The Smiths – That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore

The Doors – Break On Through

Oasis – Up In The Sky

Sonic Youth – Sugar Cane

Blur – For Tomorrow

Nirvana – Come As You Are

Suede – Animal Nitrate

The Clash – Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Primal Scream – Movin’ On Up

The Smiths – Panic

Primal Scream – Cry Myself Blind

The Rolling Stones – Ruby Tuesday

Radiohead – Planet Telex

Ash – Girl From Mars

The Stone Roses – Breaking Into Heaven

The Charlatans – The Only One I Know

Radiohead – Bulletproof

Massive Attack – Safe From Harm

Leftfield – Original

The Stone Roses – Ten Storey Love Song

Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On

The Clash – The Call Up

Oasis – Live Forever

Oasis – Wonderwall

Oasis – Champagne Supernova

Oasis – Roll With It

Johnny Cash – Walk The Line

The Smiths – I Know It’s Over

The Stone Roses – Good Times

Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain