Editor's Endeavour: Lazy-itis

Our editor, Annabelle Carvell, has embarked on a new journey in her own writing. Be part of this journey with her, and follow her updates on the Synaesthesia Blog! @AnnabelleCsyn

#3 Lazy-itis

So. Well done you, Annabelle.

You've got yourself your arc. You've preached about where to start and what to do every day and what do you do? Not follow your own advice in the slightest.

Lazy-itis is a serious illness. It creeps up on you unawares and seeps into your pores. It's what keeps you sat on the couch watching Emmerdale, or glued to Facebook hoping for that little red '1' to pop up after you've updated a mindless status. It's fast (which is pretty ironic given its symptoms), and it'll catch any writer in its sticky claws.

How do we overcome it? 

Motivation. For everything we do in life we need motivation. And for motivation, we often need to set ourselves goals, because goals = growth. Whether this is for bigger life goals such as getting a new job, buying a house, saving for a new car, or our smaller personal goals such as sending a story into online literary magazines or competitions, or trying to eat more healthily, goals allow us to grow in some way or another.

I think what I need to get over this lazy-itis is a date. This doesn't work for everyone though, I understand that. I know some people feel put off by the pressure of having to have something done by a certain date, but for me, that's what keeps me focused. A date means a goal, and a goal means novella growth - how could this go wrong?

What we need to be careful of is the easy possibility of guilt tripping yourself - it's very easy to feel guilt ridden after you have missed a personal deadline. Here, I'd suggest a little trick - give yourself small deadlines, multiple deadlines, preliminary deadlines and final deadlines.

e.g:

This is my new timeline which takes me up to my goal for next year. It means that if I miss my first deadline, it's not the end of the world; if I miss my preliminary deadline, it's not great but I can still get a big bulk done; and my final deadline, if I don't hit that then I will probably wish I'd have stuck to my deadlines in the first place.

It's giving yourself a couple of chances before you're sent to the headteacher's office. But it's important to have goals in writing, else we have no growth. There comes a time for everyone I think where lazy-itis really can get the better of you, and it's so easy to suddenly not have written in months. But with the help of deadline dates, and motivation, we can beat this epidemic! 

Editor's Endeavour: The early stages

Our editor, Annabelle Carvell has embarked on a new journey in her own writing. Be part of this journey with her, and follow her updates on the Synaesthesia Blog! @AnnabelleCsyn

#2 The early stages

Discipline has not been my forte when it comes to writing. As I have mentioned previously, I have a very rigid writing style, and normally, if the time isn't right then it's not time to write.

Writing the novella has been a little different though. I've discovered that if I don't keep up my momentum, I could easily start to lose the direction of my story. 

I've found that recently to be honest - up until starting these blog posts, in fact. I had a good, strong stint of writing frequently, where I was making time to write, and was committed to my story. But, as we all know too well, life can get in the way - or so we tell ourselves... Often, I find that that is just my own excuse for being scared to be committed to my story. Before I knew it, my novella hadn't been updated in over a month. 

Writing the novella has been very different from writing a short story for me. With the short story, I have the whole nutshell encapsulated in my mind before I even have chance to blink, so when it comes to writing it, I can keep momentum. 

The novella is different. It isn't over in the space of a blink of an eye. It's drawn out. It teases memories out of the air as slowly as threading a needle. It takes time, and patience.

What helps is to exercise your mind weekly if you can - not necessarily on your novella itself - but by writing something every week, you'll find you'll stimulate your story and leave work desperate for the commute to hurry and pass so that you can get back at your keyboard.

Take a look at this nifty little inspirational diagram below:

There are some really important points to take on board here - these are what I am now trying to do daily:

• Write on your commute to work. Describe the people you see; the morning you've had; the breakfast you ate; the dream that woke you up; the mistake you made at work yesterday
• Record your memories. Write down your childhood memories. Memories are a goldmine. Writing what you know really does make your story more authentic. 
• Learn about something new. Wallpaper making; Aristotle; the history of the tudors. Learning not only stimulates your mind, but also really helps to add depth to your characters' interests, to places - little details that make your story so much more convincing. 

The main tip I'd stress is to write every week. It doesn't need to be everyday - sometimes life really does get in the way (I swear!) but keep your momentum. 

It'll help you in the early stages. It'll help you to maintain faith in your story. 

Editor's Endeavour: Where do you even start?

Our editor, Annabelle Carvell has embarked on a new journey in her own writing. Be part of this journey with her, and follow her updates on the Synaesthesia Blog! @AnnabelleCsyn

#1 Where do you even start?

I was lucky that I had an idea for a story before I had the idea of writing it as a novella. My advice for where to start is this; find your idea (it needn't be a fully fledged idea) and then work out the arc of your story.

Right now, my novella has a shape. I know the beginning. I know the middle. I know the end.

I was sitting in a cafe in my home town with a friend from work fairly recently (she’s also a writer) for the first writing workshop I had done on my own writing in a very long time. I had sent her roughly three scenes of my story – these were the beginning, the middle, and a hint at the end... although, at this point, I didn’t know that this was the case.

We talked for hours (quite literally) about what I had written so far, and it was only through conversation with another writer that it clicked that I had the arc of my story right in front of me. It seems primitive, I know, to follow primary school teachings of how to write fiction, but really, finding your beginning, middle and end is what makes the process so much easier (at least it seems to be working for me so far).

I don’t want to get technical on you, but this diagram is literally how I envisaged my story once my friend and I had this revelation:

As soon as I realised I had a beginning, middle and end, my arc appeared instantly in my mind. Your arc will possibly look different from mine. Let me stress that this ‘middle’ is not the same as the climax for my arc. What is most interesting about this structure is that the ‘middle’ section instantly signified change. The rising action in my arc leads to the ‘middle’ where we reach the turning point, but not the climax. A diagram for climax in my tale would look much different, and probably not the smooth curve that you can see.

This arc shows me the pivotal moment where something changes in the tale to determine the direction of the rest of the story. For me, this is usually where the characters make a decision, or don’t make a decision – something that creates tension, that lets the reader know that something is going to happen, and has them tempted to flick through the pages to discover what that might be. My advice here would be to personalise the shape of your arc – it might be skewed to one side – but whatever it is, it has to make sense to you.

Most importantly, this arc signifies movement. That I have a story waiting to expand and develop. 

Editor's Endeavour: Writing the novella

Our editor, Annabelle Carvell has embarked on a new journey in her own writing. Be part of this journey with her, and follow her updates on the Synaesthesia Blog! @AnnabelleCsyn

I have taken on a new challenge: the novella. I'm not entirely sure whether or not it is one that I will conquer and complete, but for now I'm happy to see where it leads me.

The journey and evolving of my writing has been strange – I began as being more compelled to write poetry. In all honesty, I think it was partly through laziness and fear of writing anything longer than ten lines. I enjoyed the short space I was allowed on the page, and the crisp abstract images woven with hints of something bigger.

Throughout my degree, this slowly shifted – eventually I was ‘sold’ by the short story and how a world could be captivated in such a small space, with such little (but strikingly poignant) change. Whilst I was unemployed, all I could write (and wanted to write) were short stories – the odd poem popped up here and there, but my energy was fully thrust into a short story collection.

To explain a little about my rigid writing style, I very rarely write something that starts off as a poem or a short story, and then moulds itself into something different. Usually, if I set out to write a poem, it stays a poem. My focus doesn’t shift; my writer’s mind is fixated on that form and never wavers.

A while ago, I had begun to write another short story. A short story that burned with fiery marigolds and salty kisses. I had the whole story saved on my mind’s hard drive, but the space was the equivalent to the core of an apple. Its flesh was only just enough to encase the seeds, yet carried weighty backstory – exactly how I liked my short stories, scratching the surface just enough to reveal worlds beneath. 

However, something stalled me writing this particular short story. Generally, whenever I write in the short story form it flows freely; I tend to write short stories in either one go during the course of an intensive writing day, or in two or three chunks. Yet this particular story would not budge.

I don't know why, but it clicked that this tale needed more – the flesh around the seeds needed to grow into a full, ripe apple. So now, I have dedicated my time and efforts into something new, something daunting but incredibly exciting.

These blog posts, I hope, will help me to maintain my momentum, and shall follow my endeavours to write in an alien form; the novella.

SCIENCE AND NUMBERS

Deadline: 9 NOVEMBER 2013

We know, we know, you’re ‘not a numbers person’. That’s totally fine. Neither are we. We failed Maths (three times), so we really get it. But numbers don’t have to be scary. If you’re a poet or a songwriter or a lyricist or something equally wonderful, you’re thinking in numbers without even realising it. You’re working with beats – 1, 2, 3, 4.

We’ve put science and numbers together because we think it’s going to be beautiful and frightening and it’s going to send us stark raving mad. We’re going to use that other side of the brain that really, really scares us. It’s going to be a challenge, because most writers aren’t scientists or mathematicians. But we’re curious. We’re curious about how the world works, all its chemicals and colours and the way a person’s skin sometimes goes bumpy when you touch them. In fact, we’re science’s perfect outlet.

Note: You don't have to intertwine both science and numbers - either/or will do.

Technology

Thinking in numbers also lends itself beautifully to art and photography. There are all sorts of tricks and mechanisms in a camera that are alien to most but to photographers, it’s as natural as, well… 1, 2, 3. It brings in a whole other element to the theme – technology. That’s a huge word, but as writers and artists, we’re obsessed. What’ll the world look like in 70 years? What is this thing that we're writing on with fast fingers that can show a million people all across the world our thoughts in less than a second? We've become so used to fast technology we don't stop to think about how quickly we can have almost anything we want at the touch of a fingertip. Technology is magic. Technology is a monster.

Synaesthesia and science

And then there’s synaesthesia. The neurological condition that involuntarily compels a person to muddle their senses has barely been touched upon by scientists. We can only go so far deep into the mind before coming out onto a misty road and not having a clue where to go next. Do as synaesthetes do: observe. Have a read of our interview with synaesthete and writer Rachael Spellman in our CITIES issue on pages 18-19 to understand the way colours and sounds can influence the way she writes, and turn your own senses on their head. Colours are science. Science in colours.

Numbers

Numbers have structure. Poetry has structure. Stories are bound by beginnings, middles and ends. We’re not going to separate words and numbers anymore. We’re going to let them exist side by side so they can fight it out and hug for a bit and just be friends. 9’ll hug its cousin nine and metaphors will lie across atoms and molecules and they’ll talk about what colour they see the world in.

And if your maths brain needs a little goading, have a read of David Tammet’s Thinking in Numbers. We’ll leave this passage here, just to get you started:

“Like colors, the commonest numbers give character, form, and dimension to our world. Of the most frequent — zero and one — we might say that they are like black and white, with the other primary colors — red, blue, and yellow — akin to two, three, and four. Nine, then, might be a sort of cobalt or indigo: in a painting it would contribute shading, rather than shape. We expect to come across samples of nine as we might samples of a color like indigo—only occasionally, and in small and subtle ways. Thus a family of nine children surprises as much as a man or woman with cobalt-colored hair.”

Atoms of inspiration

• Riddles. Lewis Carroll was a genius when it came to writing riddles and poetry with a beat, with a sway. Think mathematical sums, think x = y. Hey, look! Now we've got letters. We're good with letters.
  
• Breaking Bad may be over, but, cor, didn't it give us some beautiful words? Magnesium. Methamphetamine. Endling: a word used for the last living representative of a species. Ununoctium. Ununoctium has the highest atomic number, so it's very unstable. Imagine Unu as a high-flying CEO with quiveringly poor social skills. Uh oh, he's fallen for Magnesium (Maggie) - popular, slightly materialistic, sour Magnesium.
  
• There's poetry in the periodic table, you know. You just have to look for it.
•  Space. Space is huge. Space is terrifying. No-one in their right mind would fly out to space but people do and it's mad. Why do people do it? What if something sent you on the brink of insanity and you just wanted a holiday somewhere that wasn't on this earth? What if.
• It's really very hard to rhyme/The right sorta beat should do it/It's like/Da-dum da-dum da-dum da-dum/Like one and two and three and four/What if, you say, you mess it up?/Yeah, er, then you've really screwed it.
• Artists: think skeletons. Think the skeleton of a phone, or a radio. Think sound waves. Step inside a television. 
• Photographers: think in colours. Think in graphs. Think about the mathematical structure of a building.
• Time travel – go full science fiction if you like, or take a step back and look at it quietly. What makes us want to travel through time?
• Give numbers personalities.
• Give colours sound. Mute the world; what if sound didn't exist?
• Play with the months of the year, the days of the week or the numbers on the clock.

Most importantly, don't forget the deadline: 9 NOVEMBER

Have a read of our NEW submission guidelines, and email all submissions to synaesthesiamagazine@gmail.com

What's in a name?

by Harry Harris

 @CmonHarris 

Set yourself a challenge – think of your favourite novel, one you know like the back of your hand, one that maybe you’ve read a couple of times, have picked apart and put back together. One that you would give to someone important and go: “Read this.” Got one? Okay, try and imagine it with a different title. A nigh-on impossible task, but fascinating nonetheless. How does a title of a piece of writing impact how you interpret that piece of writing?

Titles seem rather innocuous at first. As a writer, they’re often the launch pad, a match to a keg of gunpowder that explodes into devilish prose and immersive dialogue. For the longest time I carried an idea with me, a song loosely based on an old Welsh bloke I used to work with who told me stories of when he worked at Graceland and owned Elvis bars all over the world. That was the germ of an idea that took many forms, but it wasn’t until I came up with the title 'The Day I Met The King' that the story of the song began to take shape. Conversely I wrote a song not too long ago that I think is okay, and I think is finished, but the only title I can think of at the moment is 'Letters', which just kinda blows. It won’t see the light of day until that’s remedied.

A nice way to imagine titles are as frames – in that, they instruct you how to look at something. Herman Melville named the greatest novel in the English Language Moby Dick; or, The Whale, and yet the titular character is very much present by his absence in the novel itself, the narrative instead focusing on the narrator Ishmael, the psychotic Captain Ahab, the deliriously entertaining Queequeg. Yet, despite the whale never appearing until deep into the book, the title literally hangs over every page, mirroring the struggle within the narrative. Similarly, the balance of the title is directly reflective of the way Melville will occasionally move away from the narrative entirely to just describe the behaviour of whales – some of the most beautiful passages of prose in the book. So, with that title, Melville is pointing us in two different directions, setting the course for the novel without us even opening the page.

Then there are the titles that are perhaps more elusive, more puzzling, ones that don’t seem to directly reference anything in the novel, the ones that make you keep your eyes peeled for something hiding between the lines. Carson McCullers is wonderful in this regard – I’m currently reading her short novel Reflections In A Golden Eye, which so far is a typically melancholy, intimate story of the goings on within an army barracks. There’s a beautiful passage in which McCullers talks of a man falling asleep imagining a great bird coming to land on his chest, the golden eye of the title being the eye of the bird, so, the title line is never said, but in that moment the reader gains a new sense of clarity, and it informs the way in which we view that character and indeed the rest of the story.

Without getting all “death of the author” on you, what a good title can really do is empower the reader to interpret the story in his or her own way, which is the most wonderful thing about writing any kind of story. Nothing belongs to you. Once it’s out there, it’s out there, and you’ve got to let it do its own thing, sometimes it comes back to you in a way that you never expected. But that doesn’t mean you can’t point people in the direction you want them to go in. Next time you finish a story, or a poem, or a song, think about what you want people to get out of the story, the character you think is most interesting or the tone you want to strike. Give it three titles. Give those three stories to three different people and see how their reactions differ. Which reaction most chimes with what you wanted? Call it that.

The Art of Storytelling

by Victoria Galvin

@v_ff_g

I’ve always loved a good story. But then, that’s hardly unusual. Everybody does; from the story your best friend is telling you about their latest disastrous dating experience, to the best-selling story that famous author wrote, which that famous director brought to film, with an inspired soundtrack written by that famous singer/songwriter. Society is built on the way we interact with one another – and one of the most basic ways of doing that is through the telling of stories.

But where did it all start? 

My enduring fascination with this question was a big part of my decision to study Classical Studies at university, because it took me right back to the beginning of things – to the origins of Western culture. What’s stuck with me the most is the aetiology of literature. The basic genres and storylines we all know and love today were already being created by a civilisation that goes so far back into the mists of time, it hadn’t even discovered writing yet.

At this point I realise I’m starting to sound a bit like the beardy guy from Jurassic Park, but a little context never hurt anybody. Incidentally, if Romeo had been given a little more context concerning Juliet’s “death”, then their love story probably wouldn’t have ended up a tragedy. Then again, Shakespeare might never have found the inspiration for Romeo and Juliet if it hadn’t been for the influence of Greek tragedy (and comedy) from the 5^th Century BC.

Anyway, back to the slightly more recent past. After graduating last year, I went on to study a Masters in Radio. I’d had a great time being involved in student radio during my undergrad degree, and, harbouring an irrational fear of “The Real World” (reinforced by the comparatively sheltered university lifestyle), I decided I’d like the chance to focus my career path a little more before surrendering myself to the cold dark of Unemployment (that one’s inspired by Gandalf).

And I’m so glad I did. Radio is, of course, at one of its most basic levels, just another medium for storytelling; and that is exactly why I love it. It’s the sheer pervasiveness of storytelling – through societies, through generations, through time – that I find amazing. And it’s something to which I have attempted to do justice in my own radio work.

For our final creative radio production this year, we were given the task of making a fifteen minute feature on absolutely anything we wanted. We were of course strongly advised to keep a few ideas floating about in our minds, just in case plan A didn’t work out – we might not have been able to get all the interviews we wanted, or it might turn out that the idea just wouldn’t translate well for a radio piece. That’s exactly what had happened to me for one of my previous creative pieces (a word of advice – just because somebody has fantastic facial hair does not mean they have a story to tell). But this time I had no plan B, because this time I was going to do a feature on storytelling – and what could possibly go wrong with that?

The truth is, a lot could have gone wrong. Luck plays a big part and, well, luckily I was lucky. What I wanted to do was convey the beauty of storytelling in all its different forms. I interviewed four very talented storytellers, all of whom tell their stories in very different ways. The feature is by no means an all-encompassing expression of every single type of storytelling there is; I’d need closer to fifteen hours rather than fifteen minutes for that – but it’s a start. Storytelling is all about inspiration, influence, imagination. I myself was inspired by these four artists to make this feature – my own sort of story, about storytelling.

I hope that, in some way, it inspires you too.