Time Will Tell

What a week it's been. I remember promising myself that 2010 would be less full on, that I would take more time for myself and Do Less. Who was I kidding? Ah well, it's all good fun - and certainly was on Wednesday evening. I was lucky enough to attend the launch party for Undiscovered Voices 2010, the anthology that I blogged about here. The party took place on the top floor of Foyles and was a festival of excitement and buzz as agents and editors formally met the twelve writers whose lives they are to transform. The two Saras had everything organised with regimental precision, down to name badges, a Who's Who crib sheet and even the official anthology photograph. Here everyone is, having their picture taken by hordes of ... Well, not paparazzi exactly. Friends and well wishers are much nicer. It was a great evening and felt like the mark of something special happening. It was lovely to meet some of the writers, and their partners - or 'plus ones' as their name badges labelled them. Melvyn Burgess gave a speech, wine was quaffed, nibbles nibbled, faces become redder, and then it was time to go home. A typical publishing evening!

In quieter moments, I've been reading Keren David's novel, When I Was Joe. I sat on the tube one morning, my spine rigidly straight as I read chapter 24. Fast-moving and highly dramatic, I couldn't stop turning the pages, eyes darting quickly from left to right, left to right, jerking my head up occasionally (if I remembered) to make sure I hadn't missed my stop. When I reached the end of the chapter I turned back to try to analyse the craft behind this oh-so-exciting sequence. It's all in the narrative voice, darlings. Joe, our main character, breathlessly narrates the fast-moving events. It's the type of excited monologue that almost any teenager must indulge in on a Monday morning at school when reciting a weekend's adventures. 'And then this happened, and then that happened, and I said this and she said that.' Hardly a pause for breath. There are a lot of paragraphs in this chapter that begin with 'And'. The sentences dart between short and sharp and long and crammed. Keren writes as a teenager would speak. We are, by sheer force of the narrative, caught up in the excitement. Dramatic stuff and compelling craft. I have 47 pages to go.

On Saturday I spent the afternoon reading someone else's manuscript to feed back. And today, I took advantage of a birthday present to spend my time with the Urban Writers Retreat. Battling - and I mean battling - through the wind and the rain, I joined other writers in Spitalfields for a day's solid work. Amongst our group was a stand-up comedian writing new material, the owner of a classical music website, a creative writing student, several novelists and Charlie, the organiser, who was working on some non-fiction. What a mixed bag we were! I found my spot, pulled out my notebook, my netbook, my wireless mouse - and I was off. Well, perhaps not quite that energetically. I started slowly, tweaking a word here, a sentence there. Easing myself into the fourth draft. By the end of the day I'd also done about 3000 words of new writing and felt as though my vision for this draft was falling into place. The voice has changed slightly. I don't know why. More anger, more attitude, fewer languid descriptions. Or perhaps that was just the theme for today's writing. Time, as they say, will tell.