I first met literary fiction author Helen Taylor, at a writer’s conference in Manchester, UK in 2017. She has written a beautiful story about Caravaggio turning up in modern day Glasgow, Scotland.
At the conference Helen told me about how she found her publishing deal with Unbound, a crowdfunding publisher. She told me how hard she worked to sell her hardback book upfront, to cover the costs of publication. She learnt first hand the business of publishing!
I came away with the book, and a real sense of Helen’s artistry and doggedness. I was impressed with how, despite setbacks, she pursued her dream to be a writer and found a way to make it happen. I knew I had to interview her for this blog!
How did you start writing?
When I was a kid, I’d write stories. As a teenager, diaries, dodgy poetry and lots of letters. Writing fell by the wayside as I got older, but instinctively I’d turn to it in times of difficulty. I didn’t begin writing seriously until a few years ago.
Before you wrote full time, you worked the 9-5. How did you fit your writing in around your working hours?
Junior doctor’s hours and research science were quite a lot more than 9-5 and didn’t leave much time or headspace for creative writing. And to be honest, I thought the creative side was really far removed from what I was doing. It turns out though that research was good training for writing. Both of them demand technical skills and practice as well as the kind of left-field thinking that sparks ideas.
Now you write full time, what does your schedule look like?
Each day is different depending on what else I have on, but I make sure that I write at least every weekday for as many hours as are free. If I’m in the middle of a long writing day, I’ll often take a break in the afternoon to go for a run. But that is work time too. I don’t consciously think about my writing but I let my mind wander and often come back with a new idea or having solved a sticky plot point for example. In the evening I stop at 7 pm to take my brain out, give it a massage and sit it on the sofa beside me while I watch Home and Away (I’m in France, hence the time difference). Crap TV rules.
What are your objectives for each writing session?
I’ve learnt over time that word counts don’t work for me. If I don’t reach the target, I get demoralised. Some days I write loads of words, some days I delete more than I write. I’m really lucky because I have plenty of time, so I don’t worry about time goals, although I do set the timer on the computer sometimes to remind me to get up and move about. When I first started writing, I had terrible neck and shoulder pain from being hunched almost immobile over the computer for so long. Basically, I write for as long as I’m enjoying it (which is usually quite a while because I love it).
Do you plot or pant your stories?
Plot. But with wriggle room. If I didn’t know where I was going, I don’t think I’d be able to start. For The Backstreets of Purgatory, I plotted the overall story, the arcs in each chapter, the journey that each character went on. But the finished novel deviated a fair bit from the original idea as I learnt more about my characters and their motivations. However well I thought I knew them, they were still capable of surprising me. So I tend to plot and replot, just as I write and rewrite.
Have you taken part in nanowrimo. Was it helpful?
I’ve never done nanowrimo. I love the idea of getting a huge chunk of writing done in such a short time and the community spirit around it but it seems so different from the way I normally work that I’m not sure I’d manage.
Which writers inspire you?
So, so many. Some books I keep, reread and study to see how writers pull off their brilliant achievements. Like Eleanor Ferrante for example. From this year’s reading, Kerry Hudson and Alice Jolly for their memoirs. Beautiful, devastating, raw writing for both of them. Meena Kandasamy’s When I Hit You is an extraordinary book, dark and poetic, harrowing and uncomfortable, yet at times light hearted and gently self-mocking. One to reread for form and style. Stunning.
Are there any craft books you’d recommend to beginner writers?
Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer is one I go back to time and again. A guide for people who love books and those who want to write them, it shows the importance of learning by example. Robert McKee’s Story is worth a look too. It’s aimed at screenwriters but is useful to anyone writing longer form. Although it tends to concentrate on blockbuster style movies, it is still great for unpicking the essentials of a compelling story. Will Storr’s The Science of Storytelling is a brilliant summary of the science and psychology of reading and how novelists rise to the challenge of ‘grabbing and keeping attention of other people’s brains.’ It will change the way you read. It will change the way you write.
Have you ever taken part in a writing class, either online or offline?
Yes, I’ve done a few courses. Open College of Arts ‘Starting to Write’, Open University Diploma in Creative Writing, Lancaster University MA in Creative Writing. All of these were distance learning. For the OU and Lancaster courses, there were face to face workshops too.
If yes, what was the most valuable part of the learning?
The interaction with other writers, tutors and students. Having my work critiqued and critiquing that of others, and working out what to do with that critique. Which comments to act on, which ones not to act on. And learning to read my own work with the same rigour that other people read mine and which I applied to theirs.
How do you write your first drafts? Do you write long hand or straight onto the computer?
I scribble loads of notes, outlines and ideas in a big exercise book first. Pages and pages. There is something different about the way I think when I write longhand. The act of putting the words on paper triggers more ideas. I write heaps of junk but there are treasures in there that I end up keeping. If I wrote straight on to the computer, I don’t think the ideas would flow the same way and, anyway, I’d end up deleting loads of it and I’d lose valuable stuff. When I have a padded-out chapter plan in my notebook, I write for real on the computer. If I get stuck, I go back to pen and paper to work through the problem. At the editing stage, I often print out chapters to work on them. Words look different on paper than on the screen.
I’m slow. I have an annoying tendency to edit as I go along. I vowed I wouldn’t do that after the first book because pages and pages were cut in the main edits so all the polishing seemed like a waste of time. But I can’t help myself. There is a benefit in taking so long though. Ideas spring from my subconscious all the time so I’m constantly refining the project. And I keep all the cuts. You never know when they might come in handy.
A lot of beginner writers are scared of not being good enough. Is this something you worry about?
Oh gosh, all the time. Particularly the day after I’ve written something that I think is genius and I go back to it next day and see that it is actually pants. I’m not sure it is something that you ever completely overcome. It helps to have people you respect being positive about your work. But external validation will only take you so far. What helped me was rewriting, rewriting and rewriting until I could honestly say that I had finally written the book that I’d intended to write.
Tied in with the last question, beginner writers often feel the need for validation, either by an editor or trusted mentor. How have you moved past this?
At the beginning, I craved validation. That is partly why I did the creative writing courses. I was desperate for everyone to love my work. It took me a while and a few episodes of extreme nerves and that sick feeling from anxiety to realise that just isn’t possible. I was extremely lucky to have some amazing tutors (and a couple of terrible ones from whom I got some unwelcome but ultimately extremely valuable life lessons). It wasn’t about always being positive. The good tutors weren’t afraid to hold back. But their feedback came from a place of honesty and a desire to help me improve so I knew if I was doing well and I knew if it wasn’t good enough.
It doesn’t bother me as much now if my work doesn’t appeal to every single reader but I do still need validation that some people like it. There is nothing like reading a review from a stranger who has completely understood what I was trying to achieve. And I think having a trusted mentor is invaluable at any stage of your writing career. However hard you try, it is difficult to objectively assess your own work.
What advice do you have for beginner writers?
Read loads. Read some more. And practice, practice, practice. There aren’t any short cuts. Even if you are planning a longer project, start off small. Short things like character sketches, descriptions of settings, different points of view. If you don’t know where to start, there are loads of websites with daily writing prompts. Experiment with tone, style, pace. Gradually build it up. Nothing is wasted. The practice is valuable and the material might come in useful later. Don’t wait for the muse to strike. You have to show up.
I’m a strong believer that there’s an audience for every writer. Would you agree with that?
I think that is probably true but the difficulty is finding them. In the last year or so, I’ve had to learn about marketing and targeting your ideal audience is one of the central tenets. It isn’t always easy. It helps to have an ideal reader in mind when you are writing though.
Where do you get your story ideas?
Everywhere. Sparks from song lyrics, overheard conversations, real life characters whose stories I imagine, news stories, photographs or just from the clutter in the deepest recesses of my brain. For The Backstreets of Purgatory, the idea came from another book. I’d read a biography of Caravaggio and reckoned he considered himself a hard man. Made me wonder how he’d go down in Glasgow.
What are you working on now?
I wrote an essay for Boundless magazine about my experiences of being sectioned under the Mental Health Act and it had such a phenomenal response with loads of people asking to hear more of the story that I put aside my novel-in-progress to write the whole memoir. But I’m not sure if I’ll have the courage to publish it. We’ll see.
You can find out more about helen at https://helenmtaylor.com/
If this has inspired you, you’ll find more great stuff here with fantasy writer, Natalie Johanson.
