Let me nail the ‘Long-Distance’ bit of the title as I don’t imagine that the ‘Loneliness’ part needs any explanation. It’s purely a function of time, not miles.
In the time-honoured cliché, I’d always felt a book lay within me, albeit invisibly deeply. Being made redundant and deciding to go freelance created the space and time in which to contemplate the possibility. I didn’t set out to write something that might be published. It was much more that I needed to know that I could do it; ‘it’ being create something from thin air that worked. ‘Worked’ meaning that it had integrity, a sense of purpose and being.
If you’d told me then it would take eighteen years from first contemplation to final realisation, I may well have taken up some other life challenge, perhaps crocheting or self-waxing.
But then again ...
Who, once they’ve written, would ever really want to be without the joy of sculpting a phrase that captures all you wanted – or relish that moment when a character leaps from the page in all its three-dimensional glory? I think it was Paul Auster who said that there is only one thing worse than writing, and that is ... not writing.
Of course, each of our books will differ dramatically: one of the reasons this is not a ‘How to write’ blog but an experience-sharing outreach project! It will over the coming weeks declaim as loudly as the written word can: YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
So, when I sat down in front of the dreaded blank screen, what did I have before me? Just the skimpiest outline of a core idea.
I had a long-held ambition to share my passion for classical music generally, and the late string quartets of Beethoven specifically. There was my main character - a great violinist. And I had been wrestling with a Very Big Question: how to find meaning in the teeth of catastrophe? That gave me the stirrings of a philosophical purpose and narrative line.
Now all I had to do is write the thing ... oh, and earn a living at the same time.
Ian Phillips is a freelance writer for businesses whose first novel, Grosse Fugue, will be published by Alliance Publishing Press on April 3rd. He’s tweeting developments @Ian_at_theWord.
Ian,
The other novel is not doing anything and I thought I might as well try and re-jig it a bit to see what happens. Maybe this one will be better than the first one, although the first one was a learning curve all the way and I thank it for that if nothing else.
It didn't seem like 18 years at the time! It kind of crept up on me.
There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that writing not merely gave me structure as I tried to build my freelance business. It also instilled confidence that I could authentically seek writing work, even though it bore no relation to the creative output.
I do hope you find something soon, Louise, and that, in the meantime, writing brings you both solace and optimism.
Delighted you're enjoying the journey.
Ian
Hi Sarah.
Well, of course, I am a new writer, too. Just one who has made a little more progress than others! This is all a completely different experience for me, one that I hope by sharing will interest, and even help, others.
To be honest, I haven't visited any forums. I'm a bit of a misanthrope, so they never really appealed. Writing is such a personal process, a fact eloquently witnessed by the other posters to this blog and its predecessor. It's good to get insights but, in the end, we have to lay our shoulder to the farrow and plough our own path, hoping our abilities are sufficient to make it good and true.
Thanks for the support very much appreciated.
Ian