Starting at the beginning, the weather was absolutely disgusting and so I had to battle down Regent Street with my umbrella, yelling "oi!" at people who whacked me in the head with theirs. Holding an umbrella, carrying two bags (one of them a "Books Are My Bag" bag, the material not being the most rain proof...) and stuffing noodles in to my mouth (which turned out to have a shitload of coriander in it and was therefore inedible) is NOT the one!
Is it tourist season at the moment? There were so many of them all stopping in the middle of the street and you have to bite your tongue to avoid snapping, "This is NOT the way we do rush hour. Move!!!".
Anyway...
As some of you know, I won a coveted place on the Three-Month Novel-Writing course at Curtis Brown Creative and started this week. The first session was about 'getting to know you' and one of the first things we did was go around the table and introduce ourselves stating our name, age, profession, book title, a brief 'elevator synopsis' and how far through we are.
Being a total dumbass, I managed to get myself in to the position so that I went first. It was absolutely terrifying, but almost like ripping off a plaster so perhaps not such a bad thing. For those of you who aren't familiar, an 'elevator pitch' is briefing the others about your book in about sixty seconds. SIXTY SECONDS. My novel doesn't possess the most straightforward of story lines however I think I just about managed it. As one of our course tutors Erin remarked "Imagine pitching Cloud Atlas in sixty seconds!", so I didn't feel pressurised. It was just rather nerve-wracking.
What was also a total trip was being in the Curtis Brown offices! I snapped a picture before going inside to Tweet:
It was hard to believe I was standing outside these offices where so many amazing pieces of literature have been worked on, moulded and polished to become the bestsellers we know today.
In the foyer of CBC is a big bookshelf stacked with lots of new releases by authors represented by either Curtis Brown or Conville & Walsh (who have recently merged with CB). If you're a member of staff there, I don't imagine you'd be stuck for something to read very often. Though I'm certain the same could be said for every literary agency!
Going back to the boardroom, after everyone had pitched their books (which I have to say, sound so exciting!) we had a chat about the beginnings of a book coupled with exposition. We looked at an extract from Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty - funnily enough I finished this book two weeks ago and tweeted Louise to say how much I'd enjoyed it. If anyone is thinking about reading it, my advice to you would be DO IT. It's so exciting, but in an understated way that keeps the anticipation bubbling away inside you until that moment that makes you breath a sigh of what is either relief or horror and then makes you tumble head first in to the pages so that putting it down is not an option until your Kindle says you are 100% done.
The way the opening is written is so subtle and yet so exciting. We talked about any hints that were given about where the beginning is set, as in what is shown as opposed to told. This is certainly something I have a problem with so was brilliant to be able to see exactly what that meant right in front of me. I had an inkling before, sure, but now I know.
Before I knew it, the time was up. Gutted. Even more gutting was the fact that one of those evil headaches some of you know about was threatening to strike.
We were set some homework (homework!! If only the fourteen-year-old me had been as excited about homework, I may have obtained a decent number of GCSEs) which was to extract all the exposition from our opening chapters (background, history, basically anything that isn't happening in the here and now of that chapter). Then we were to do it with a novel we had read. Although not an inspiration for The Phone Box, the book I chose to work on - Unraveling Oliver - was a bit of an eye opener in turns of taking all the exposition out. Some of it is necessary, without a doubt, but it's amazing how much it changes the direction of the chapter and story in its entirety.
Lastly, we were given three extracts written by three different course mates. Our job is to constructively critique their work so that way they have fifteen peoples' feedback. I've never critiqued anything and feel funny about doing it to people who are relative strangers but hopefully it will be a help to everyone, as each week we will be receiving three extracts from each other. I think mine is due at the end of June *brings on frantic nail biting*!!
Well, that's all for now. I hope you enjoyed the first 'proper' blog post about the course.
I am so excited to see what will happen in the next three months - keep having to remind myself how lucky I am to be in this position.
Speak soon friends!
EG xxx
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