Until the editor of the excellent Branta: the might of write asked if I'd like to contribute a post about my daily writing routine, I didn't think I had one. Then I pondered for a few weeks, observed myself, and discovered that I do! It's all here, and I am a little embarassed by it... I feel I come across as insane! Please go have a look and tell me that I'm not, I'm really not...! Please...

Today, for the first time, I hadn’t a clue what to write about when it came to this post. I’ve spent the last few weeks huddled in my garret editing book two, pretending I know what I’m doing. Result? I’m stuck in such a rigid ‘surgical’ mode where I wasn’t sure I could write anything freely. I sat down, completely clueless, idea-less, doodled away….Interestingly the doodles were puddles, hearts and flowers? Answers on a blog reply please?

So in the absence of divine inspiration, I moved away from the desk, sat on the sofa with a cup of tea, closed my eyes and allowed myself to think of my next book. I allowed the characters to have an informal meet and greet in my head. I allowed myself to allow them to be a big part of the process, maybe take the story where they want to – allowed them to live from the folds of my brain. I found myself transported into a world that five minutes before I’d only ever had rough notes on. I could see where they lived, who liked who and why and where the conflicts may arise. I rolled the title round and round in my head and felt a surge of excitement that’s been missing for months.


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This is a tough time for writers, no doubt about it. I know at least two published authors who are struggling with sales and new deals and with agents (not to mention editors and publishers and, yes, readers) whose expectations don't chime with their own. The industry is undoubtedly hauling in its horns. It depresses me whenever I see agents advising new writers to compare their writing to that of one or more published authors, as if only by slotting neatly into the marketing machine can a new writer hope to be published. I know there are agents who specifically state that they don't want such comparisons since they are seeking a New Voice, but these seem to be a shrinking minority; more and more we are being asked to Fit In, to Conform. I appreciate exactly why this happens. The marketing machine is a large and greedy piece of equipment, geared to make publishers less nervous about taking a punt on new names. But I wonder if it isn't partly to blame for the trouble (recently highlighted around the blogosphere) that some writers have in respecting the boundaries of our art. If publishers want the next Dan Brown (gawd help us) then an ambitious writer might be forgiven for doing his or her damnedest to produce such a thing. Whither originality, then?

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'Always listen to your muyu', says the Abbot with the long white beard. He's giving advice to the Shaolin temple's newest recruit, a boy of about eight. In case you were wondering, the muyu or 'wooden fish' is a gourd with a slit that produces a pleasant sound when struck with a small hammer. To get the audience in the mood, a youth in a saffron robe was striking one in the foyer of the Coliseum when I went on Monday. 'Already seen by 2 million in Beijing!' confided my Chinese ticket facilitator.


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Last week I read Nuala Ní Chonchúir’s Nude, and I really enjoyed it – more than I thought I would to be honest. It’s a collection of short stories about art, nakedness and, well, sex (of sorts), and not the thing I’d normally go for. But I loved it, loved that the stories are stories in their own right and very, very good at that. It’s great being exposed to new things and finding out that I really like them.



And it’s with great pleasure that I welcome Nude’s author, Nuala Ní Chonchúir, to my place to answer some questions...





Welcome to the blog, Nuala. Can you start by telling us a little about your latest collection of short stories, Nude?

Thanks Nik, I’m delighted to be here. Nude is so-called because each of the stories features an unclothed body, mostly in the world of art but sometimes as a lover. The stories are set in Ireland but also Paris, England, Austria, India, Spain...I like to travel as I write; writing about exotic locations keeps me interested.

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Fiction writer and stand-up comic A L Kennedy's blog posts on the Guardian are always a great read, but this time I found her words even more poignant and hitting-home (is that a phrase?) than usual. She's talking about reviews, apropos her new short story collection, What Becomes, which comes out on Aug 6th and which I am eagerly awaiting! She says:


[B]ook reviews are odd things. They emerge months, if not years after the book is done with, so they're not that much use to the author. If the book's a car crash, it's already happened and we've walked or crawled away long ago. They are usually written (and should really be written) for readers, but may on occasions wander off and end up being about the reviewer's idea of the author, or a literary theory, or even some kind of personal issue the reviewer is working through. (This seems to be quite common in US reviews.) Yes, I personally want feedback on my work, but I get that from my editor and my agent (who used to be an editor) and from readings of work in progress and (extremely) occasionally from people upon whom I inflict sections of whatever heaving mess I'm wrestling with at the time. I get opinions from people I trust whose judgement I know and understand.

I rather like the point she makes at the end, that she doesn't look to reviews to give her feedback on her own books, she has people who do that. She continues...

...

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I spent the day on the beach yesterday, building sandcastles, eating chips (with sand in) and trying to finish reading Let The Right One In. About fifty pages from the end of this 500 page novel, I mentioned to my wife, 'I think I've just realised, I don't like this book.'
She looked at me as though I was stupid. 'It's taken you that long?'
'It seemed okay at first.'

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Is it acceptable to tell another writer that you enjoyed their work when, quite frankly, you would rather be trapped in a lift with Barney the Dinosaur singing I Love You than ever have to read another sentence in your entire life?

The opinion frequently crops up on the web that undeserved praise is wrong, not only because it involves lying (which we would never do in any other situation), but more importantly because it doesn't help the other writer to improve. What's the use of family and friends falling at our feet and telling us we're the next Emily Brontë and they can't see a single flaw in the entire 250,000 words? And that the twist at the end, where the narrator turns out to be a cat, is pure genius!

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Find some air conditioning if you're in temperatures like mine (sorry to those of you in the southern hemisphere, don't mean to make you feel bad - stay warm) And then grab yourself a book. Want some reading ideas? The latest issue of The Short Review has plenty:

First, we have not only a review of Chris Beckett's Edge Hill Prize-winning short story collection, The Turing Test (written by me - I loved it!) and an interview with Chris about the book, but a special interview with Chris on The Short Review blog, where he talks about his 20 year relationship with UK science fiction magazine, Interzone, whose "constructive rejections" spurred him on - something all writers wish we had, eh?
.........

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It’s April 1968, and a stormy night in Memphis, as ‘Preacher’ King prepares an address to protesting workers the following day. He worries about his family back home and the possibly violent outcome of the march. Sassy maid Camae, with a cigarette pack in her garter, agrees to keep the insomniac leader company, for reasons of her own. As they review the self-doubting activist’s career, a shocking connection between the wildly different characters is revealed. More astute audience members no doubt guessed Camae’s identity long before I did.


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