Someone asked me the other day why I write.  Easy.  I write because I don’t know how not to.

I’ve been a storyteller all my life.  Since I could hold a pen, and make marks on paper that weren’t just copying something off the blackboard.  It’s as natural to me as breathing.

As time went on, the stories got longer, more complex.  I’d get an idea and just run with it, to see where it took me.  When I was 14, one of those ideas took me on a wild, 260-page adventure cranked out on an old Adler portable typewriter (forever remembered as the Tripewriter) in one-and-a-half linespacing.  I can still smell the carbon paper.

That was my first attempt at writing a book.  Of course, I didn’t tell anyone I was writing a book; that kind of admission, in high school, can have Consequences, and I was already in enough trouble with the cool kids because I wore glasses, didn’t smoke, and handed my homework in on time.  Talk about making it hard for yourself! How I got out alive is anyone’s guess.

Of course, like most first attempts at novels, it was a load of rubbish.  Derivative, cliche-ridden and agonisingly bad prose, but I enjoyed the process.  More than enjoyed it.  I was hooked.  I wrote more.  When my Dad brought home a BBC Model B computer (he was involved in the schools IT advisory service for the local education authority at the time) I taught myself to use the basic word-processing package that came with it and the words continued to flow.  Now I could write into the night without the Tripewriter keeping the rest of the household awake.  Bliss.

But I never thought I was writing for an audience.  I was writing for me, because I wanted to find out what happened next in each story.  Years passed, as they are wont to do, and “Songs” limped, in fits and starts, into something approaching novel length, though I still refused to call it a book anywhere but inside my head.  I had a subscription to Writer’s News & Writing Magazine, and I called myself a writer, but that was it.  I still only had an intended audience of one.  Me.

I can’t remember what prompted me to put an excerpt up on a writers’ website for some feedback.  Probably chivvied into it by my husband.  Even he hadn’t read anything I’d written up to this point, but I guess he saw some potential underneath all the self-doubt.  That was the first time I’d ever given house-room to the idea that actually, there might be people out there who would want to find out what happens next as much as I did.

Revelation.  It was a whole new world.  People said nice things about my writing; some of them even said they’d enjoyed it.  Whoa.  Headrush, even bigger than the one I got the first time I said, out loud, to another person, “I’m writing a book.”

This was just the confidence-boost I’d needed.  I joined another site, got more feedback, finished “Songs” and with some trepidation, submitted it to literary agents.  I was fully prepared for rejection, but I knew it wouldn’t stop me writing the rest of the books in the series.  Nothing could, short of ceasing to breathe, because I had to find out what happened next.

All the stories are in my head, you see.  Layers and layers of them, too big and too dense to see the whole thing at once.  Each time I write a scene, it’s like it makes a space through which I can see the next one.  So I write that, and there’s the next one, on and on like a conjurer’s gaudy handkerchiefs.  I have a pretty good idea where it will end, but it’s the getting there, the discovery, that’s the exciting part.

That’s why I don’t plan.  Scratch that, won’t plan.  Can’t.  I’ve tried, and it hammers almost all the creative magic out of the process for me.  If I try to nail the story down beyond a vague outline what I write feels, to me, flat.  Forced.  In some unquantifiable but deeply important way, wrong.

You see, it’s not about  knowing what happens next.  I already do, subconsciously, somewhere under all those layers.  No, what’s important is the Finding Out.

… or “Whose book is it anyway?” Part Two.

I was inspired to compose this post by a friend of mine, MM Bennetts, who feels not at all confident about writing female characters and was therefore somewhat stunned to find one had leapt, fully formed, like Athene from the brow of Zeus, onto the pages of her latest book.

This got me thinking.  I’ve never actually considered that I had any difficulty writing female characters.  I mean, I’m a girl.  It should be easy, n’est-ce pas?  I’ve got the inside track on how a woman thinks and feels, her motivations, her desires.  Surely it should be the Sons of Adam, rather than the Daughters of Eve, that I struggle with?

Apparently not.

Someone commented that “Songs” was lacking in strong female characters.  I did point out to the (female) reviewer that she’d only read the opening chapters which are set in a monastic military order, wherein women are, ipso facto, somewhat thin on the ground, but I did another read-through of the script and noted that the dramatis personae had a definite XY bias.

Hmm.

Now I’m not going to start stuffing strong, empowered women into the narrative left, right and centre to satisfy some artificial notion of gender equality.  If the story doesn’t call for these characters, I’m not going to write them.   It depends on the book.  “Trinity Moon” is chock-full of strong women, for instance, whereas in “Songs” they’re few but memorable.  But it did make me wonder whether I subconsciously find it easer to write about blokes.

I certainly couldn’t write chick-lit, not if my life depended on it.  I don’t understand the heroines, and can’t relate to them, their lives or problems.  I have zero interest in shoes except as devices to keep my feet warm and dry.  Handbags are what I use to carry my purse, a biro and some lip balm around in–I’d be just as happy with a carrier bag.  Boyfriends?  I’ve been with the hero of my own particular romance for almost 13 years; I’m happy with the one I’ve got.  Freya, Lisa, you can relax.  I have no intention of poaching on your turf.

But I couldn’t write bloke-lit either.  Will Self, Nick Hornby and their ilk have the field to themselves; I don’t have the mental toolkit.  I don’t have (to borrow from Terry Pratchett’s “Monstrous Regiment”) the socks.

The truth is, I don’t actually think about whether a character is male or female.  They’re just people.  Whether they pee standing up or sitting down is irrelevant to me, to the reader (except those with a feminist agenda–why can’t they just enjoy the story for the story’s sake, without looking for politically-correct points to check off?), even irrelevant to the story, unless a particular plot-point hinges on what Character A keeps in his trousers, or the contents of Character B’s shirt.  Or the desires of A to get into said B’s shirt.

It just so happens that when the characters start speaking to me, they tend to be at the bass end of the vocal register.  I don’t know why this is.  Could some of them be rewritten as women?  Sure.  They’d still be just as brave, resourceful, stubborn or foolish, but you can’t just swap gender roles like that for the sake of “equality”.

Take a bunch of male characters and introduce a couple of women into the mix.  Now, if you’ve written them even half-way credibly, they’ll behave just like real blokes would in that situation, and there’ll be awkward attempts at gallantry, stolen kisses or a sexual harassment lawsuit by the end of the week.  I haven’t got room in the narrative for all that.  It gets in the way of the story–at least, my story, which is epic fantasy; if you’re writing contemporary women’s fiction it could very well *be* the story, in which case you’re on the wrong shelf and want the next aisle over.

So *am* I secretly a bloke?  I was once asked that question, by a man, because he was surprised at how well I got into Gair’s head.  I will freely admit that I am not the girliest of girls.  I don’t wear makeup or nail polish.  I like motorbikes and rugby and tequila.  But I can assure you, having just checked down the front of my t-shirt, I am not a bloke.

Or if I am, I need to complain to the manufacturer because there seem to be some bits missing.  Specifically, the socks.

…for I have sinned.

I’ve never read George RR Martin.

Don’t ask me why, because I really couldn’t say.  I adore the title of the series “A Song of Ice and Fire”.  I’ve just never found myself motivated to pick up one of his books.  Actually, tell a lie, I did pick up a copy of  “A Game of Thrones” in Waterstone’s once but put it down again before I got to the till.

Before the fantasy establishment mob besieges Cooper Towers with pitchforks and blazing torches, ready to burn the heretic,  let me just say that I am remedying this right this instant.  Since HBO has green-lighted a mini-series based on A Game of Thrones, starring the scrummy Sean Bean, no less, my interest has been piqued.

Piqued enough to go and buy the book.  Gawd knows when I’ll find time to read it, since I’m supposed to be writing one of my own here, but I’ll try.  Really I will.  Now put those pitchforks down before someone gets hurt.