Hello blog, I am sorry for ignoring you. I’ve been busy with a combination of Tightlaced stuff, end of winter craziness and freelancing. I’ve had an unusually long run of people paying me for writing, which is of course lovely and makes my bank account a happier place – but I’ve been noticing how it affects me in other ways.
I use a couple of websites to find my freelance gigs. Clients post jobs, freelancers put in proposals for them, clients make their selection. Once you’ve been selected you get full details and are often asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement (which is why I won’t be talking about the specific details of the jobs I’ve done).
Most of my jobs have been ghostwriting fiction. There’s an element to ghostwriting that I love and fear in equal measure, and that’s the fact that This Is Not Mine. Some briefs are very specific and lay out exactly when and where the story should be set, perhaps a couple of key events, what you’re not allowed to do with the characters, whether they’re allowed to swear. Some are much looser, in which case I prefer to submit sample chapters as soon as I can just to reassure myself that I’m not completely misjudging the client’s requirements and that the story I am writing remains Not Mine.
There’s a certain freedom in writing things that won’t appear under my own name. Of course the work still has to be done to my usual high standards – it must be grammatically correct, properly spelled, neatly formatted, narratively cohesive and internally consistent. Characters must still be properly developed and the plot must make sense (for which I draw heavily on the things I learned on David S. Freeman’s screenwriting masterclass, Beyond Structure, which is well worth taking no matter what medium you write in). I find my freedom in the subject matter and the aspects of characters that I can explore when they are Not Mine.
Writing with the aim of being published or produced under your own name is exposing. Even if your work isn’t heavily autobiographical, the fact remains that it comes from you and that your work is a statement about what captures your interest and imagination. It is a statement about how your mind works and how you see the world. Your friends and family will see/read it and speculate about what it’s based on and how you get your ideas. (This is where dead parents actually become quite useful. I am somewhat relieved that I will never have to explain to my mother about the play featuring the accidental threesome or justify why some of my work has to feature the word “fuck” quite so heavily.)
Writing work that will be signed over to someone else and published under their name, on the other hand… That feels like being given the keys to the parts of my imagination that I don’t visit often. Suddenly I have permission to play in the dormant bits of my psyche. My usual approach is to write characters who are either aware that they’re characters, or through whom I can explore what it is to be a character and construct an identity. Being paid to write straightforward fiction means I have an outlet for characters who simply are. I can plot without having to deconstruct the genre. Until I started taking on these jobs, I hadn’t realised how long it had been since I’d done that. It’s not only good fun and liberating, it’s also useful – I sometimes wonder if I get so caught up in picking characters apart and focusing in on detailed studies of tiny elements that I forget to enjoy the broad sweep. It’s nice to reconnect with that and to start thinking about why I work the way I do and my reasons for delving into or kicking against particular elements of storytelling. It’s also raising some interesting questions about how to balance the writing I do for money with the writing I do for art.
I’m sure I’ll be exploring this further, but right now I have deadlines to meet. Lots of deadlines. One novel, 23 short rhymes and a 60 minute script – it’ll be a doddle, right? See you on the other side…
(Oh yes, and come and see one of my short pieces, One Missed Call, at the Speakeasy next Tuesday. Unless it’s already sold out, which is quite likely because Speakeasy’s brilliant. But if it’s not sold out yet, come and see it!)
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