We have the brilliant Alex Gutteridge here today with an amazing post... Enjoy!! :D
I
CAN’T DO THAT!
‘There’s no such word as can’t.’ This was
one of my father’s favourite sayings when I was small. I was a cautious child
and he said these words to me often as I faltered over some task. He ensured,
for the most part, that I didn’t give up on things which were within my grasp,
if only I’d tried a little bit harder. Of course those words used to irritate
me at the time and of course I’ve failed at many things, many times, but it’s
not been for want of trying. And where my father’s words have been particularly
useful is in my writing life.
I think that I always knew deep down that I
wanted to write but didn’t actually know if I could do it, if I would have the
right amount of persistence, resilience and imagination to see me through to
the end of a book. But the time comes when the only way to find out if you have
what it takes is to give it a try. And sometimes you really do think to
yourself, if I am going to do this, it has to be now. This is what happened to
me after my daughter was born. Suddenly the time seemed right. I enrolled at
what was then Leicester Adult Education College and for one morning a week
learned about writing in various forms. At the time writing for children was
very much under the radar and we actually only had one brief session which
covered it. But that didn’t matter. I learned about plotting, a sense of place,
mixed with other people who loved writing and probably most importantly of all,
I learned about the importance of studying your market. I still didn’t know if
I could write a story that would be published but I knew that I had been given
the grounding I needed to give it a go.
Actually I was very lucky and my first
book, Ghost Riders, was accepted by
A&C Black/Puffin as part of their Chillers series. When I look back at that
initial manuscript it looks very amateurish but the publishers obviously saw
something in the story and I will be forever grateful to them for that. Of
course getting a book accepted for publication is a huge thrill and gives you a
certain degree of confidence. With each book you write, whether published or
sitting in a drawer waiting for its time to shine, you learn something about
yourself and about the process of writing. However, what never leaves me when I
begin a new project is that initial thought ‘I’m not sure that I can do this’. This is probably partly to do
with the fact that I’m not a plotter or a planner. When starting out, I know
the beginning of the story and usually the ending, but the swathe of chapters
in the middle remains a complete mystery, until I begin to write. It’s a scary
way to work but also an enlightening one too because sometimes a scene just
pops into your head and you think ‘oh I
had no idea that was going to happen’.
Basically it all boils down to trust, trust
in yourself and in the process of writing. It is about believing, despite the
doubts and that nasty little critic sitting on your shoulder, that you CAN do
this, that the right words will reveal themselves and that the plot will unfold
in the direction it is meant to take. If you love your story and your
characters it is about having the faith that they will find their rightful
place in the world. This can take time and a good degree of patience. It may
eventually result in publishing your book yourself rather than using a
mainstream publisher but if you do not honour your commitment to whatever
project it is you have undertaken you may forever wonder ‘what if?’
My
latest book, Last Chance Angel, was
the most technically difficult book I’ve had to write and there were times when
I thought that I’d never get it right.
But again I was lucky. I had people around
me who believed in my ability as a writer, my friends and family and of course
subsequently Templar, my publishers. But ultimately I had to believe in myself
in order to do justice to the story I wanted to tell. And of course I had my
father’s voice, imprinted in my psyche, whispering to me through my own
negativity. Of all of the gifts he gave me, those six little words, ‘there’s no such word as can’t’, have
been some of the most valuable. On the
whole we are capable of more than we realise.
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Alex Gutteridge was born in Leicestershire and has lived there ever since, earning her the rather dubious title of 'woolly back'!
Alex attended local primary schools, followed by boarding school and 6th form college. She is now married with 3 children and surrounded by pets that include several stick insects and lots of fish.
Alex has a real fear of spiders, Maths and hermetically sealed packages but cannot get enough of raspberries, the colour Blue and swinging as high as she can go on her daughter's swing!
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