Uncategorized

The Benefits of Writing

philippahawley

An International Women’s Day talk.

I was delighted to be invited to speak on the subject the benefits of writing at an International Women’s Day event in Brightlingsea on March 8th 2024 – a successful day with multiple and varied speakers. This is a précis of my talk:

My reading in early adulthood at university mostly consisted of textbooks and scientific journals and my writing was simply that of medical notes ( with decent handwriting for a medical doctor!). I’m beginning with the subject of reading because it’s difficult to be a writer if one doesn’t read. Reading is wonderful in its own right and also teaches us about life, as well as allowing us to explore writing techniques. After relatively early retirement from GP practice, I found it great to have more time to expand the range of my reading.

Before I left the surgery, patients would ask me what I’d do with myself in retirement and I would reply I’d enjoy spending more time in my own house and garden, and of course reading. Somehow, and almost out of nowhere, I then found myself saying, ‘I might start writing’. I think they were terrified I’d use their identities, habits and health issues in my writing. On the whole I’ve avoided that, but I often slip in a little bit of illness in for my characters.

I signed up for a ‘Start Writing Fiction’ module with the Open University and loved it. The course gave me confidence to join two local writing groups, mostly made up of women writers. Over 10 years later, I am still an active member of these groups with the original team of women and just two male writers joining us. Now that has been a benefit of writing – a group of friends, prompting and sharing ideas, helping each other with writing challenges and also being there in times of personal difficulties. As well as friendship I find the groups keep me grounded and discipline me to write regularly. Writing is a good focus – a distraction in difficult times, and a joy on more positive days. Despite all the good things, writing can also be demanding and frustrating; I’ll come on to the ‘Ups and Downs of writing’ later.

Many of you might already be writers, perhaps keeping diaries and journals, or maybe writing letters to friends. Others might be quietly playing around with short stories or poems. (I find train journeys with a notebook in hand can be a good place to write poetry – perhaps it’s the rhythm of the train). The brave ones of you might be thinking of writing memoirs or a novel. Whatever your aim, I say keep at it and remember the old adage, ‘keep exercising your writing muscles’.

I looked up some statistics for my talk and found that in the UK, 72,000 people identify as authors , writers and translators and 48,000 of those are female. According to a recent study from the Office for National Statistics, it shows 60% of writers are women. The best-selling author of all time is a woman – Agatha Christie. I also discovered that men still read more male author’s books than books written by women. There wasn’t much mentioned on these sites about non-published writers, who I guess are hard to pin down, but I imagine much writing is done simply for personal satisfaction, behind close doors.

To summarise my benefits of writing:

I) A feeling of satisfaction when a piece comes together nicely, even if no one ever reads it.

2)A sense of achievement when a piece, however small, is appreciated by friends or are published in any way ( eg. magazines or websites of which there are many).

3) The thrill of a book launch, and the joy of being able call yourself an author.

4) Last but not least., writing is something great to do on a quiet, lonely day when it’s raining outside.

Let’s look at the possible downsides:

1)There’s never enough time – writing swallows up time ridiculously easily

2) Frustration when you run out of ideas or get writers block

3) The flat feeling of members of your writing group don’t get what you’re trying to convey

4) Your family never getting round to reading your work, not even your latest novel

5) Dark clouds appearing overhead with every rejection from an agent or a publisher, or even a competition in a local newspaper

6) Absolutely deep and lasting depression when a professional editor picks terrible holes in the manuscript of your treasured novel – you need tough skin, and must be prepared to adapt and rework your manuscript until it’s right.

One last positive to end now:- writing gives you a chance to talk books with lovely interested people. I did mention other things, like NaNoWriMo, and the journey to publishing a novel. I also mentioned my four published novels in my talk in Brightlingsea, but did not have space to repeat all that here. Information about my four novels remains visible elsewhere on my website. Thanks for reading, or listening, Philippa .

Travelling, Uncategorized

Recycling

philippahawley

Recycling a story is not unusual, it can be very satisfying revisiting a story written years ago, picking it apart, revamping it, even polishing it up to submit for a current writing competition. You might marvel as you go through your files and acknowledge how much you’ve actually written over the years. You might see how your writing has developed or changed with time.

One story I keep returning to was inspired by a journey I took in 2011 with three good friends. the four of us had recently retired from demanding jobs and decided to team up for an adventure. Leaving our partners at home, we flew to Los Angeles, hired an SUV and drove up the West Coast of California, exploring as we went. We called the first part four trip ‘On The Road’ and on reaching San Francisco we visited the fabulous Beat Museum to learn more about Jack Kerouac and his friends.

From San Francisco we took an Amtrak train across America to Chicago, before moving on to meet a friend in New York. We were due to take the California Zephyr but as I recall, it was rerouted due to floods and we ended up on the Southwest Chief to Chicago. We called this part of our adventure ‘Girl Guides on a Train’, as it felt like camping. On the Chicago to New York train we found ourselves travelling alongside survivors and relatives affected by the awful Twin Towers attack of September 2001. They were on their way to memorial events, marking the 10 year anniversary in New York, and we stayed up all night listening to their harrowing tales.

The ‘On the Road’ section of our adventure has however been at the heart of various pieces of writing ever since. The journey crops up in my novel ‘How They Met Themselves’ when two young men travel to California after graduation. They take the Pacific Coast Highway and meet some extraordinary young women along the way. Both men later make an appearance in ‘Lawn House Blues’ and one of them even plays a small part in ‘To Be Frank’. I obviously became so fond of my characters, I couldn’t leave them behind.

I couldn’t let go on my California journey either, so as well as writing a travel journal for myself, I wrote a short story for one of my writing groups. It’s been adapted and edited a number of times since, and submitted to various writing competitions. In its fourth submission, the story, by then called ‘Crossings’ was finally accepted for Robert Fear’s 2023 Anthology ’15 Fascinating Fictional Tales’, which is now available for purchase from Amazon www.fd81.net . Perseverance paid off in the end.

I suspect my memories of travelling through America have had their day now and it’s time I pulled another old story apart, or maybe take some new journeys.