Watching My Hands At Work: Festschrift for Adrian Frazier

Ten years ago, I left my job in Galway and became a student of the inaugural MA in Writing programme headed by Adrian Frazier in NUI Galway. I have very fond memories of that time, and of the encouragement given to me by Adrian and by my tutors such as Mike McCormack and Louis de Paor, who happens to be a co-editor of the above named volume published in Adrian’s honour.

My story “Infinite Loop”, a tale of music, programming and tender, fragile love, which was published in the New Irish Writing section of the Independent in 2011, is featured in this volume which is available on order from Salmon. It will also be launched next week, Thursday 9 May in Charlie Byrne’s bookshop in Galway at 6.30pm.

When I started the Masters, I was in a rather unhappy and vulnerable place in my life. My confidence was not high at all. I have very happy memories about spending time writing and getting that confidence back, very slowly and gradually, and meeting wonderful people. So I am delighted to be featured in this book. And I’m grateful to Adrian, Mike, Louis and all the others who gave me the power to believe in myself.

Longlists and Shortlists

The people organising the Bath Short Story Award are having quite a bit of fun tweeting teasers about the content of their longlist, due up Saturday. Rachael Dunlop blogged about her opinion of longlists here – she is not impressed in general, though finds the Bath tweets entertaining – and Tracey Upchurch is also quite amused. Got me thinking, well, what do I think of longlists.

I think my answer is jaundiced by the fact that I’ve been on too many of them. Just recently I had a novella on a very short longlist and I didn’t make the shortlist of 6. Well, get over it, one might say, but dear reader, the prize money was HUMUNGUOUS. Lots of lolly and it broke my heart not getting on that shortlist. As Rachael says, I’d been allowed to hope and that raised my expectations.

I’ve been longlisted for the Sean Ó Faoláin Prize, the Bristol Prize, the Raymond Carver Prize, the Fish Prize (again and again – oh and then on a shortlist of 30! Argh!) the Aeon Award and possibly a few others. I’m kinda burnt out with longlists because for all that everyone says “oh they’re an achievement”, what can you do with a longlisting? You can’t convert it into dinner for two in a mid-price restaurant, or even one of those burgers which fall apart when you’re eating them at Eddie flippin’ Rockets. When I make up my writing CV, for example on the front page of this website, I don’t have a consistent record of my longlisting because, well, people are more interested in actual prizes.

But I’ll tell you the longlists I hate most. It’s the ones where the people in the know crow about how the shortlistees have already been chosen and informed – so those who haven’t are sitting cooling their heels and refreshing their screens all in futility.

I think if I summed up my thoughts on longlisting it would be: a miss is as good as a mile. Or, as Yeats says, too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. Or, as Coleridge says:

Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And Hope without an object cannot live.

That said, I think what the Bath Short Story Award are doing is pretty clever. It’s fun and gives them a lot of publicity; they seem to get the process and inject a bit of humour into it. So, what are your thoughts about longlisting?

Being Human Is My Crime

The title of this blog entry comes from a Kelis song entitled “Lil Star”. It’s the song of a tired, demoralised woman who “forgets herself when there’s so many others around”.

I certainly can’t be accused of that. As my immediates enjoy reminding me, I have nothing of the carer in my nature. But I can still identify with the singer when she tells of “barely getting over the bar”.

I am completing the final stages of a novel while working full time. This is a serious endeavour as I’ve got professionals waiting to look at this last bit and it requires meticulous work to point the plot and characters where I want to go. When I get a bit of time, I find I can rise to the challenge. I’m writing better, in my opinion, than I’ve ever written before because this work is demanding that I raise my standards just that bit higher.

When I get a bit of time.

I want to write this as a warning or message to people who are writing and working full-time. For the first and perhaps the second draft, it works fine. But when you get to the point where you are under time pressure and trying to produce your best work, it’s extremely tiring and very difficult to balance the two. I want to warn people reading this that energy is a finite resource. I have put a lot of things on the back burner for this, and could not have more interested and encouraging colleagues in my workplace – they are sweethearts – but am still feeling exhausted.

Many people scoff at the idea of writing full-time but there are times when doing it the other way consumes every spare resource you have. I have NO redundancy / padding at the moment and have to be rigorous that I am in good mental and physical shape as a result. This will continue until the end of the month. All I have to do is hang in there and keep writing. But make no mistake: it’s very hard. Very hard indeed.