Arvon Calling 3 (for parts 1 & 2 see below)

Following on from the sheer relief of arriving after a long train journey on a particularly hot day, my very first impression was dangerously close to disenchantment and I puzzled why. I liked the tutors. They were supportive, witty and as kindly as they were specific in their criticism. I certainly expected and could have handled a much tougher approach. My fellow Arvonites turned out to be a cheerful friendly bunch, as frank and open as any I could wish to meet, but by the end of the first main day I was confused.

Maybe it was me. Had I expected something more rigorous and academic? I’ve always tended to feel isolated in a group. Was the gossip more than I was prepared to handle, the air of candid self revelation too unsettling? It took me a while to relax and accept I was there to write positive women’s fiction, about love and relationships, the cheerful entertainment often labeled ‘Chick Lit’ or more pompously ‘Popular women’s fiction’, so why not just loosen up and have a good time?

O.K. so sometimes it felt like I was on holiday with a group of friends, a hen party where we’d temporarily mislaid the bride. When emotions got too heavy maybe it wobbled into women’s encounter group territory, but so what? I needed to let go and enjoy myself and I did.

Katie and Judy were hugely generous in their support

The group may have been driven to write but we also brought our pasts with us, bound up as we were in the minor and profound, comical and weighty ins and outs of our everyday lives,. A few didn’t make it to the end of the week. Some women were so driven they confessed to getting up at five am to write before their kids woke up. Others admitted a significant birthday had left them clamoring for change. All seemed far hungrier than me. I love to write, it’s fun, but I can’t say I’m driven. It is as simple as that.

I finished the week encouraged and inspired. No longer were we a disparate group of learners and tutors but a bunch of friends; we’d cooked and eaten together, shared the wine, the laughter and the tears. After one particularly late evening carousing on the terrace, when wine and secrets were liberally shared, the tutors appeared as bright as ever the next morning, no one would have ever guessed it had been party time the night before, except Judy had forsaken her chic high heels for a pair of very comfy flatties and Katie, as elegant, well made up and cheerful as ever, somehow managed to put her cardie on inside out.

I leant many new things on the Arvon course and not all of them on the published curriculum.
There is such a thing as Obscrab (An obscene version of scrabble),
On a wild night out, a true friend will always carry a scrunchie in her pocket to tie your hair back when you are sick.
A slag bag is what you take with you on the off chance you may meet someone and want to stay out all night (contains clean knickers and a toothbrush apparently.)
Women of maturity are just as able to write ‘fluffy chick lit,' as those of twenty five.


But most important of all I learnt I’ve written a novel that, with luck and perseverance, stood a chance of being published.
My overall impression of the course? It wasn’t as intellectually tough and demanding as I expected, but emotionally it was much harder. I actually got far less real criticism than I deserved and I certainly was less critical of other writers than I anticipated, probably because they were all so very talented. Finally, all I need to do now is a spot of serious rewriting and find a high-quality Literary Agent who’s keen to take on a new author? A doddle!

Arvon Calling, part 2 (See below for part 1)

Task 1
Do only gifted writers head off for Arvon? It certainly seemed like that on my recent Commercial Fiction course; everyone else was so darn talented. Now I have no qualms about reading my work to an audience, any old rubbish, if approached with the right voice and intonation, can be squeezed by as entertainment and I trusted my theatrical skills, honed by years of reading bedtime stories, would get me through the first task. When I finished reading out loud and looked about me, I felt a rush of relief, a few of my fellow students had been taken in, some even nodded appreciatively. Well I may have fooled a small number of my peers, but not those talented and charming assassins, Katie and Judy.

Following my first feedback I hung my head, the worst sort of failure, a female fiction writer unable to get a grip on her viewpoint. A woman who head-hops, constitutionally unable to imprint her reader on the main character, a heinous crime in popular fiction. I went into the next day with ‘Could do Better,’ weighing down my shoulders.

Judy in full flow.

Task 2.
Write about someone who is stuck in a lift for 6 hours with a person they don’t like. This time, despite severe misgivings at my stereotypical depiction of a teenage hoodie, a nice lady from the church and the perils of drinking too much tea, quite a few laughed and I perked up a bit for the next task.

Task 3.
Write a bad sex scene. A frisson of anxiety ran round the assembled novices.( Is frisson an o.k. word, I'm no longer sure) Our lone male, the alleged S&M pornographer from Edinburgh seemed calm enough, but I watched with interest as my female companions, almost to a woman, folded their arms and crossed their legs in the type of unison that would have done credit to a troupe of chorus girls. Arvon being an Internet free establishment, no one had been able to find out exactly what he dabbled in, but rumors are rife.

“Hmm! Pardon, You want us to write a sex scene badly?” I gawped. ‘Pulsating piston’ alliterating into mind.
Katie raised her eyes a little higher to heaven than strictly necessary, then Judy read out a scene I already knew, from ‘Blowing it.’ It’s good.

“Now, all you have to do is write a scene about bad sex, either funny or sad, but try to keep off the clichés.” The last part was said with unnecessary emphasis in my direction, but it could have been me being touchy.

I completed my piece of writing that afternoon, keeping it serious and brief,

"A one night stand with a resulting pregnancy should do the trick.Get it all finished in a couple of paragraphs and a bit of dialogue. Best to get it over and done with quickly." Next day I maneuvered into a position where I’d be among the first to read and it passed off reasonably well. One or two other writers were serious, the rest hilarious. If you ever come across a timeless love scene involving intimate massage oil, passion in the sand dunes and something I won't mention, having the appearance of breaded haddock, I heard it first at Arvon, far too rude for a family friendly blog, probably not very funny the way I’m retelling, but hysterical at the time.

As for our man from Edinburgh, left till last he was surprisingly tame. Young lovers and a tryst in the heather and a nasty encounter with midges just outside Oban, so there were sighs of relief all round.

(I'll tell the final truth tomorrow)