Emirates Airlines Literary Festival - Martin Amis and A Wonderful Prize plus Travel Troubles

As is always - these are just my notes and a totally flawed - please forgive the many mistakes

Martin Amis in Conversation with Paul Blezzard

Paul opened with – language was closest to Martin’s heart and when did it begin?

M- it began in adolescence and he hopes the ‘book’ will never disappear. He was very self aware and articulate and during adolescence is when you begin conversations with self in a notebook, diary…we commune with ourselves and the book is a perfect self companion.

Writers never really grow out of the phase – the process of self communing – all writers are adolescents to a certain extent.

His early works were hopeless.

PB – Writers and age?

M- he feels that the talent will die out before the body and he can’t find many exceptions to the rule. He pointed out the Shakespeare and Austin died young. There is the haunting spectacle where different things go wrong with age – Updike…his ear went. Nabokov …loses his moral compass with his signature joke of a 12 year old girl

Exquisite tragedies – to live with words and to be deserted by them yet he will go on as long as he can – not giving up

He quoted Cheever – everything I read is not short enough

500 page novel is very different from the shorter one – the mass is more difficult to master

P. Roth quoted – harder to keep the whole mass in your mind

Writing is connected to Eros

The tactic of writing the short he feels is fine

not to lose the musicality- the paragraph that comes out of nowhere – decreases with age but you gain craft – early book deficit in expertise.

PB - Craft is the greatest pleasure?

M- no, it’s more general than that.

Quoted Saul Bellow – see the universal in the particular

He said the rest of us work the other way. Life is dead –a huge dead novel – it is not faithful to our experience – artifice gives it life – mirror experiences don’t breathe life into a novel – real life…nothing happens

P Roth – write fiction about what didn’t happen or what might have happen

It is a very English book – very diffident

When in Italy he kept feeling like he was in an oil painting

Wring is mysterious – only a writer knows how mysterious

Decide is never a groping process

About is wrong

Around is better

Subconscious does a lot of work for you

There aren’t many sad things about being a novelist, but you have to spend time over dead things

Writer’s block is when the subconscious is switched off

PB – Can writing be taught?

Quoted Nabokov – there is only one school of writing and that is talent.. but then went on to say you can teach craft and habits. His 19 year old self would have loved to chat to his 60 year self

He has learned to walk away when he comes across the slightest impediment – he reads

Writing is a physical business not just the mind – the body and the mind combined in a way

He described a writers life –

-writing

-living – not very relevant but necessary but does provide inspiration – brith, death...

-reading – fuel – influence/stealing – his are Nabakov and S. Bellow

The pleasures of writing and reading are the same – solving difficulties – readers create as well as writers – writers invite the reader to create the character in their heads...osmotic ..guest/host

He was asked how many words a day? Some days none, but never a week without – 500 words of fiction takes a lot of thinking time.

..Darker aspects of human nature – is he an optimists or a pessimist? All writers are lovers of life and the urge to put it down is a loving one

How does he physically write? The mechanics of writing...ritualized...talisman...he writes in long hand however the computer is suited to writers as writers need to insert. He writes in long hand – a flow of ink like the flow of love.

Asked about rejection...the treadmill of rejection ...embittering...like having your child criticized and that’s why he doesn’t admit to a favourite...it’s like your child and their is nothing you can do about it

What’s he working on now? He’s just finishing one and knows the next...senility and dementia have not got him yet...

So today has been a bit up and down to say the least - the volcanic ash is causing some serious nail biting here and a possible melt down of my complex travel arrangements. I am due to fly to the UK with dd on Monday so that she can make her class French trip which leaves by coach and ferry early on Tuesday morning...as each housr clicks past this is looking less and less likely. It will also mean i will miss out on The London Book Fair and the subsequent tweetup....We also still have ds2 here and he is due to fly on Tuesday...

However today is not all bad news because the wonderful Caroline Smailes was running a competition on her blog which I won! So soon I will be or more correctly one of children will the proud owner of a signed copy of Jon Mayhew's new book Mortlock!(‘Mortlock’s’ dark and alternative Victorian world is unforgiving as it pulls you into its grasp, snagging hold and refusing to let go until it has disgorged its gruesome secrets.) So today is good and let's hope my luck continues to success with flights.

Inspiration - Emirates Airlines Literary Festival

The Essence of Good Writing is Good Thinking

Bahaa Taher, Yann Martel and Imtiaz Dharker with Paul Blezzard

“‘Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration’ claimed the renowned American inventor Thomas Edison. But how does that apply to writers? And where does inspiration – that initial stimulus to creative thought – come from? Can it be ‘encouraged’ by leading a disciplined life in the writer’s study with designated hours dedicated to writing? Is the image of the starving writer in his garret waiting for inspiration to strike valid or do authors need to seek inspiration from the outside world? If inspiration is ‘the process of being mentally stimulated…to do something creative’ can it be taught or learned – and can an inspirational teacher encourage young writers?
Our panel trio of highly-acclaimed writers, each with a distinctive style and wildly differing subject matter, will be letting us into the secrets of how they write and what inspires them.”

(NOTE: I loved this session for its contrasts and how it shows how different minds and cultures work – this to me is what Emirates Airlines Literary Festival does best. By putting the different cultures on the same platform the dialogue is electric and eye opening as difference are revealed and similarities shown. I laughed out loud at the disparity at times – the world of creativity looks different through someone else’s eyes be they a poet or a novelist - Canadian, Egyptian or Pakistani/Scot. Link to biographies here.

It was also particularly tricky to take notes and keep up. I have used initials for the answers to the questions. Note: Bahaa’s answered in Arabic and I listened to the translation and took notes so I will have lost all the subtlety and possibly much of the meaning. As with all my notes - please forgive the many mistakes!)

Paul gave a brief introduction and then asked them to continue…

BT – all writers write – don’t know where their inspiration comes from. Creativity in itself has its own set of rules. The easiest form of inspiration is ideological. Good will triumph over evil.

Real inspiration comes from experiences a writer passes through – their own experience and other factors.

ID – read a poem to describe where inspiration comes from

Start with mud

Move it

Excavate with any tools you have

Clumsy earth

With daily labour

You set free

You call God

YM – there are two types of inspiration but normally it’s all hard work linked with a moment. The moment can be beauty which yields a moment of comprehension. It can be when things come together in a narrative.

Before writing the Life of Pi he was tired of being reasonable – it was getting him nowhere. On his trip to India religion was everywhere and he suddenly asked - what does it mean to me as it had never been a part of his life. He decided to look deeper.

-what would it be like to have religious faith

-no longer looking at the negative side of it

And that is when the story came to him – the Life of Pi is an explanation of what it means to have faith

SELF dealt with a boy who was a woman and then a man – gender and identity. He asked himself what it would mean to be a woman

He understands the question through the narrative.

ID – She experiences inspiration in a moment of stillness – balance and harmony

BT – magical touch – when you do this you write well. All routes are good – anything that brings good writing is good.

PB- Do you have a muse?

ID- peoples’ voices equal muses. She finds it at a busy airport or station…the moment in a busy place and where you find the stillness

- trigger outside (voices) but muse inside

- her muse is life

YM – it’s getting up early, it’s a daily affair, it’s business and you get on with it. It takes working every day to keep the tiger alive- to keep the story alive with writing. His muse is language. Finding the words keeps him going. Words are his muse.

BT - he doesn’t believe in muses as such, that inspire us but there are creative writers who take from their own imaginations and ability.

Muses are inside ourselves. We make the muse but really there is no place for muses in modern endeavour.

PB – What sustains you when inspiration leaves you?

ID – not optimism. She doesn’t write for others she writes because she has to. Poetry is a hopeless cause. She wrote her first poem when she was ten and in love with an older man, twelve. He was out of reach and the poem had to be written and it still does.

When she first read Gerard Manly Hopkins she learned that words can be playful, things themselves, beyond anything in the real world

BT – Surrender – stop at that stage. Refrain from work and pursue inspiration with great diligence. Some writers wait their whole life for inspiration and this right – it is feasible that optimism is possible.

He finds it strange when people find inspiration gone that they continue to write – the writing has no beauty. They would be happier if inspiration returned. God is merciful.

YM – writing is now commercial

PB – Inspiration and Optimism

YM – can remember when he was 19 and studying philosophy and couldn’t understand Kant. He went to the movie and saw REDS and in it he saw the playwright Eugene O’Neil played by Nicholson. It struck him to see a writer visualised – he wondered if he could write a play then he did. It was terrible but he controlled things – he was a little god which was incredibly pleasurable – in fact the whole act of writing was. However he couldn’t move a plot forward but could do dialogue.

When you are young you don’t think about money and you can do what you want to and can be poor but when you get to 40 it sucks.

There is a concentration of joy in the pure arts.

You and your creation when you are young is magic.

BT – This applies to all real writers not to superficial – the sense of joy. Do not write unless you add something new.

‘I will sleep comfortably while others will argue over the meaning of my poetry’ (note: I don’t have the author of the quote)

YM – There was a hole in him that needed filling – a point of intelligent curiosity – the joy of creating all represented a reality that can’t be represented in another way.

A moment of disquiet is the start of art then joy takes over

BT – Inspiration springs from experience – any writing without inspiration is futile and useless

PB – Inspiration and Being Edited

YM – You have to compromise to be published. He thankfully has good editors – writing is social. Some writers don’t require editing but he doesn’t know them. He is not good enough not to be edited.

The great thing about a novel is that it hauls you up to the greatness of it. Make the changes you need to but don’t lose your soul.

ID – a poem is very different – you lose a poem you don’t change one. It is uncompromising

BT – I fought against changes and didn’t make them

YM – when edits come in he thinks ….she has completely misunderstood my book…a week later – well she gets it a bit….two weeks later – she’s completely right

Sometimes the book that you have written is hidden….

The Opening - Emirates Airlines Literary Festival

I slipped into the opening ceremony trying to find short listed author Rachel Hore and i had no idea what delight I had in store. After the short welcoming speeches from Maurice Flanagan and Isobel Abulhoul, came some Arabic poetry and I will confess here to being a bit concerned that not having had that second cup of coffee that I would gently nod off – not a chance. Despite having the headphones for instant translation, I was spellbound with the sheer magic of the ‘melody’ of the language that Khaled Al Budoor read. I was entranced and enchanted. Next the poem was read in English and I expected disappointment to settle on me very quickly but no – Fadhil Al Awazzvi’s delivery was entirely different and completely compelling. Towards the end of the poem he was amazingly animated and his delivery reminded me of a moving plain sung mass.
I was feeling that nothing could top this and wondered why I had left the joys of poetry back with my university days. I was unprepared for the delights of crime writer Jeffrey Deaver’s poem ‘The Death of Reading’. Each stanza contained a surprise a twist and turn which I suppose would be expected from a crime writer, but in prose not in verse which owed much to Dr. Suess. It was brilliantly light.
I hope he won’t mind if i print the first stanza:
I’ve got what I think is the very best job.
I have no commute; I can dress like a slob
I get paid to make up things-isn’t that neat?—
Just like at the White House and 10 Downing StreetNext Paul Blezard and Fadhil Al Awazzi read out their chosen favourite opening lines – English and Arabic. It was a lesson definitive in how to begin a book.

Unfortunately I slipped away before the final and I am reliably told I truly missed out on one of the highlights of the day – and I find that hard to believe as yesterday was so full of highlights.

The atmosphere this at the festival so far is buzzy yet calm – the organization is going so well. Authors seemed relaxed and are to be spotted wandering about enjoying the scenery and attending the sessions as I was delighted to discover. The children’s author Michelle Paver was seated beside me for the first session of the festival – Reading the Future: Emerging Emirati Children’s Writers. More about this later.

Have just had the most fabulous morning introducing Michelle Paver and Garth Nix and I was able to watch the magic that Roger McGough wove about the children with poetry– more about these later.

EAILF Censorship Debate

First let me apologize for the long delay in continuing my posts on the festival. After weekend rugby break I have found it hard to put my head back into a more intense place. No surprise there really. I have also struggled with writing up the censorship debate. There are many reasons but the key one is that in a way there is no point as those truly interested can watch it all on video here. So rather than giving you my rather detailed notes please watch the the video. It is well worth it but not if you wanted more info on the whole banned or not banned book fiasco. The highlights me were:

- Andrei Kurkov's almost cheeky hit at the thing that no one was speaking about - banning a book these days was a surefire way to receive publicity

-Margaret Atwood's comment that lie was not freedom of expression

- Nelofer Pariza's commented that writers write to engage in dialogue

- the general gist of the western writers was that in the west the biggest censorship was that of self censorship and this was mainly due to political correctness

-Rajaa Al Sanea spoke about portraying humans as humans not being forced to a postive or negative stereotype. She didn't feel she had to portray women one way or other but to portry life as it is - not sugar coated; then it can cross boundaries and this is positive

-Margaret Atwood asked what is our relationship with our audience; you write by yourself then it is published; you are not there then but separated by time and space; sometimes that feel gives you a sense of safety; it was key to remember that in today's world your audience can be anyone; it is like a message in a bottle throw into the sea - sometimes it is a life line and some will be affronted. You can't control how people will react so just make it the best book possible. Your responsibility is to the work - make it the best it can be

-Rachel Billington commented the west was seriously threatened by political correctness, the pressure to be saleable, commercial pressures; writers have to be strong about what they need to write

Finally it was Rachel Billington who gave me greatest gift as a person who at times struggles with my faith and its part in my writing. She was responding to a comment on the Catholic Church and censorship which she felt was justified. She said if you are a novelist you have to feel completely free and able to create characters; that doesn't mean you don't start somewhere with your beliefs and values...in fact that is what gives the tension most writing is looking for - you gather the complications of your own beliefs with the way you are allowing your characters to behave and do dreadful things which provides great tension.

Paul Blezard blogs about the festival here .

Tomorrow - Margaret Atwood

EAILF Kate Mosse

The next session I attended was Kate Mosse in conversation with Paul Blezard.

The discussion began with Kate saying you can’t be a writer unless you are a good reader and her reading began with her father reading to her at night. He read Jules Verne and R Haggard and many other old fashioned adventure stories. When she began to choose her own reading she moved to Agatha Christie and she remembers the first one being – Murder at the Vicarage.

Although Kate had always been scribbling away in her words she felt she didn’t become a writer until she was 43. She moved from music through theatre onto publishing and literary prizes.

Paul pointed out that Labyrinth was not her first novel but Kate says in a way it was as it was the book where she found her voice as a writer. She found her inspiration in the landscape and from that the characters grew. From this she found her sense of place and her sense of her voice. She found that her voice compelled her to write ‘old fashioned’ adventure stories with a clear moral landscape with a female heroine. That she was interested in the ways that men and women can be themselves and how they chose to be.

She said that it was key turning point that she realized “the person you are as a reader is not who you as a writer.”

She quoted Picasso when asked about inspiration and working practice –
When inspiration arrives I want it to find me working.
For her some days it was a case of sentence following sentence and paragraph following paragraph. This she described in the words of Margaret Atwood – labouring at the word mines.

She was asked how she worked in all her different roles – wife, mother, publisher and so on. She replied she ‘puts’ different hats on and the writing one was the grubbiest. She closes herself in and only lets her family near.

Her travelling as a writer has brought knew learning. It has taught her about herself as a writer because the question asked of her are different which reflect the place from which her work has been read.

She went onto say that anyone who has finished a book has achieved something. She then said she continually asks is this chapter good? Will my readers care about the character? She tries not to think about the finished product when writing first draft but focuses on character and page turning qualities.

She said it was important to ask yourself why are these readers giving you their time? If you don’t care then why would a reader carry on. Stories can only work if the characters carry it.

When beginning she has a sense of who the characters are and who they’ll turn out to be but if she rushes it – it will be too quick and they will turn to dust. She can’t just put her hand out and grab the character but must be pacient and let them come to her and they will reveal themselves. The character’s lives are their own.

She said that you don’t have to like your characters.

Once published the book exist out there for the writer and the readers. For the writer it stops there but for the reader it lives on. The readers have a more enduring relationship with the book and characters.

Paul asked her about the ‘time slip’ (Two separate time periods but both happen ‘live’) aspect of the Labyrinth and Sepulchre. She said she found both were real and didn’t work in flashback which felt to her if it showed less respect for one part of the story.

Her next book coming out is a novella –Hungry Ghost. This is not time slip but seen through the prism of 1928.

She went back to her inspiration – the landscape of South West France. She spoke of the frozen emotion that she sense. It’s bleakness. She could see stories in the images. For her place image, words and music work together.

She is working on another book based in SW France which will be a love story at its heart. She is a sprinter when she actually sits down to write. First she reads, researches, sketches then she writes straight through for it is an adventure story and if she doesn’t then it will lose pace. When she is writing she works eight hours a day seven days a week. The only interruptions are family – nothing else. During the first draft momentum is so important.

The work is never at the place you want it is to be. You need to be kind to yourself. For Labyrinth she worked through four drafts which took a total of seven years. Sepulchre needed three drafts and only four years. First she writes ¾ of the historic part of the story then she writes all the modern then finishes the historic. This is done partially to ensure that both heroines have different voices. The second drafting is when she puts the two stories together creating a work of 300,000 words. Then she can see the story properly and tighten it.

She was asked how she knew she was at the end of the story. Desperation strikes – it’s like being pregnant. You are so bored you look forward to the end and it gives the needed burst of energy. She said you mustn’t lose energy at this point. You have to respect the reader. The end must be as strong as the beginning.

No one is ever finished with a book – it just gets published.

Try to write every day. This way you have something work with. Think of like a musical instrument – practice, practice, practice.

She was asked how much research she did and she replied that she does much more than is ever needed. It is for her reassurance. She feels the reader will trust her more.

Does she see herself in her characters? Actually, no. Readers always assume that writers write themselves. There are tiny bits of her in all her characters but she feels she is in the landscape. If she writing herself all the time how would she write a man? She does get rid of bad bits into her villains.

Tomorrow Rachel Billington and Anne Fine with Liz Smith.