I’m delighted to be hanging out on Pamela’s blog this week as part of Foster an Author week. My thanks to Pamela and all the organisers for their work in putting this week together.
I thought it’d be fun to tell you a bit more about my second love: music.
This is me, aged 10.
I actually wanted to play the violin, but I was tall for my age at the time (I’m tiny now!) and my teacher told me the cello was just like the violin but a bit bigger. Which proves 1) don’t believe everything you’re told, and 2) if you get the chance to try something out, why not give it a go?
Growing up in Wales, which is officially the Land of Song, I almost had to love music. I played the piano and the cello, though I never thought I was much good at either.
Then, a couple of years ago, a friend appealed for storage space. For this:
After many years of barely touching a keyboard, of thinking I wasn’t very good at the piano, I started lessons again. I have learned so much since.
- You don’t have to be ‘good’ at something to enjoy doing it.
- Being ‘good’ at it isn’t necessarily the goal. Becoming better at it is.
- It’s all a matter of practice. 1% talent, 99% patience.
It’s not just how much you practise, either, but how you practise. When faced with a new and difficult piece, I used to dive in, try to play it, fail and give up. Thanks to my excellent piano teacher, I’ve learned how to play individual lines separately, one note at a time (I can manage one note at a time.) First the top line, then the bottom, then the middle parts. Then you put it together in small chunks, hammer it out as loud as you can, then play it really quietly, until you get a sense of what it should feel like to play.
I’ve had many people say to me “Oh, I’d love to write a book but I just can’t write.” It’s a bit like me and music. A lot of people look at a finished, published book and think they couldn’t write that and so they can’t write.
My answer is, I can’t write either, until about the fourteenth draft. My first drafts are utterly incompetent. I sketch out scenes, skip the difficult bits. Some characters are exaggerated to the point of nonsense, others barely have a personality.
From there, another three or four drafts will get the story right (sometimes it takes more), and then I start worrying about making the words sound good. It takes many drafts and much input from long-suffering friends, critique partners and my fabulous editors. If I ever tried to write the finished, polished draft from scratch, well, I’d still be trying.
I used to look at a piece of music and think “I can’t play that.”
Now I look for the notes I can play and start there.
You can do the same with writing. Look for the bits you can do, start there, then work on the rest. One word at a time (you can manage one word at a time.)
Don’t worry about it being good. Your first draft is the equivalent of a child pounding at a piano, enjoying the noise. The rest is a matter of practice, of not trying to do everything at once. 1% talent, 99% patience.
Good luck! And if you feel inspired to start writing, please drop by my website and let me know how you get on. www.clairefayers.com
No comments:
Post a Comment