Chapter 1. First, I Have to Find Her
Sorry, for sending again. I did a major mistake in first send.
1. What I Want
I want to write a book.
Working title: 12-words & 8-stations.
A how-to-create book.
2. Strategy
Each chapter, I’m gonna tell you something personal about me. So, you trust me. I’m gonna tell you something about my career, craft, art, inspiration. So, you trust me. Then I’m gonna tell you to practise something for a week. So, you build muscle memory: wax on — wax off. Then I’m gonna tell you what I discover as I write the chapter. And I’m gonna ask you to tell me what you discover doing the exercise — in your notebook I hope you bought last week.
3. Personal
1976. I am 16, I am in love with a gambler who is also in love with another woman. Because I will not give him up, and the shame it brings my dad — I am the talk of the neighbourhood — my dad throws me out.
The other woman Pauline is crazy, literally. She even assaults my mum. But love is love. And my mum ran off with my dad for God's sake leaving her 4 kids behind. Besides, I am a rebel. Influenced by Germaine Greer. Jane Fonda. Brigitte Bardot looking after animals and not taking care of her skin. I’m not sure if she is doing this yet. Anyway, I am born into frilly apron housewifery but grow up in the 2nd wave, I think. My bra is well and truly burnt. I work in British Engine. Industrial Insurance. Everyone’s bras are truly in place. Except Bev. She is enraptured by 1950s starlets. She’s one of those people who can wear a bin liner and look good. I wonder what she looks like now — 12 years older than me — she will be 78. Everyone, including Bev, who of course is my friend, wears an engagement ring. It's a prerequisite. Bev's looks equivalent to the block of ice Richard Burton gives Liz. So, I take Ivan to the pawn shop to buy me an engagement ring. £21. Zircon. I pay. Cos he’s lost his money in the bookies yet again.
Insurance cheques arrive. We log them. We have a calculator. Large. We have a ledger. Large. We carry forward what is not accounted for — credit and debit. I inherit £200,000 debit outstanding. And around £200,000 credit unaccounted for. Though not obviously penny for penny aligned, I have a hunch that I can disentangle and align them. Just like I do now, I devise a meticulous grand plan to find out which unaccounted cheque belongs to which unpaid policy. Cos I want to be better than everyone in this massive account’s pool. All female. Sheila sits at the head, facing us, our overseer. She never looks up. Even when you go for help. Her freckled hand goes over your paperwork and finds your mistake in minutes. I do not want to be first cos I dislike any of them. I just have a compulsion all my life to do what I know can be done.
First, I need to find the original cheque in the files on the fifth floor. Not the actual cheque but the ledger it is logged in. So, I can trace the person who sent the cheque. Their name and address. In the lanes of name and address drawer cards. I detect the moment it isn’t logged properly. This frequently leads to an unpaid policy. Most, satisfyingly cancelling each other out. I also draft a polite, direct, one-page template, requesting payment for unpaid policies, explaining the danger the firm are in should anything go wrong. Overjoyed when Sheila gives it the go ahead with no changes. Proudly take my pile to Moira of the Scottish accent and the lacquered beehive. She is always pleased when I arrive. It gives her and her ladies plenty to do. They type my template, now with the name and amount inserted. Put them in envelopes. Type the name and address. Post them. I create a Rolodex of all my companies. Driving a colour coded reminder calendar. 1 month: first request. 2 weeks after : 2nd request. 1 week after: final request. Most usually pay in the first week. From £200,000, in 3 months I have only £673 outstanding on my account. Birmingham is truly under control. I immediately get promoted to Mr Smith's sidekick. I am equivalent to Shiela. But Ivan is dead. Stabbed through the chest by Pauline. I ask for the week off to have my 6 month abortion. I never go back.
4. Craft
1996. My DHSS weekly book for my daughter ends. She is 16. I have to go back to work. I can’t fucking stand it. Decide to be a writer. Cos my teachers use to rip my stories and poems out of my hand and stick them everywhere on black sugar-paper. I read 77 million how to write books. I fucking love craft. I love my barleycorn legged table covered in paper. I love there is a candle. I love to imagine myself as Newton or Freud or some clever fucker that investigates shit. When I say I read, I don’t just mean I read, I devour. Do the exercises. Go into the background. Experiment. Go to workshops all over the country. Try to follow the hero’s journey. Get lost. Try to follow it again. Find it really hard to imagine the next moment. Where do they go from there? Don’t give a fuck about my characters. Let’s just cut to the chase — I’m only fucking interested if I am writing about me or something pertaining to me. I’m not interested in fake shit. I’m interested in real shit. What the fuck happened? How did that come off like that? How has it come to this?
5. Eureka
2000. Then one night I go to bed. I’ve been thinking, there must be an easier way than this. If everything in the universe is made up of the 92 elements in the true Periodic Table, everything, not some things, everything: Jupiter, Mars, asteroids, supernovas, little yellow tree frogs, pencils, trees, the soil; and if the true meaning of free will is that these elements are free to combine to make all the atoms; there has to be a similar formula to writing. I go to sleep. I am able to sleep back then. I have a dream. I dream back then. There are 12 bottles, jars, like the BFG’s farts, on shelves. They are different colours. They are swirly. They are alchemistic. They are 12 energetic, kinetic words. Combined, using free-will, they can create the universe of my story.
6. Muscle Memory
In your notebook, that you bought last week, or you buy today, I want you write down the first object – you have to be able to touch it — the first object you see when I say muscle memory.
Beneath it, number 1 — 12.
Write 12 things you associate with your muscle memory object.
Example: I see the Karate Kid fence.
1. Karate Kid
2. The 80s
3. Big hair
4. Fatal Attraction
Your title is: What's My Version of Linda's £200,000 to £673. You have 15 minutes to write. You must use your title, your object, and your 12 associations. Strike them off the list when they are used. Type it up. Create a file. Date it. Log it there.
7. Discovery
Today, as I am generating my 8-stations mind-map to help me write this newsletter/chapter, I discover I do not go down into the underworld to rescue my subconscious, but to rescue traumatised 16-year-old me. First, I have to find her. That quest has taken 25 years, through 8 major art projects.
8. Your Discovery
· What have you discovered?
· Journal about it.
· Complete 3 pages — every day.
· Julia Cameron's Morning pages. In the author's words.
· Game changer for me.
· You have to get used to writing for no one, so you trust yourself.
· You can privately write 3 pages of shit.
· But, I guarantee, you will dredge one fragment of gold per 3 pages.