Casablanca

 I recently asked someone about the pictures behind her in a Zoom call, and heard a fascinating backstory.

As nobody has ever asked me why I have a Casablanca poster on my wall behind me, I thought I'd tell you anyway.

In the first place, it is, of course, because it is a fantastic film, and I find the actors, the look, and the moral of the story all very appealing.

However, there is a deeper reason. When I left the Pru in 1987, it was my ambition to write for a living. I thought I'd do some freelance training to support myself while I got established. I wrote several radio plays, all rejected by the BBC, and then a TV script which I submitted for the Radio Times drama awards.  I gotr a very warm letter back, saying I had been a near finalist, and that the BBC would be very interested to see any future work. And for some reason, that was the last script I submitted to the BBC.  In the meantime, the freelance work took off, and I have been doing that successfully ever since. 

Somewhere in that time I attended Bob McKee's Screenwriting Workshop.

It was excellent and I learned a great deal. And the final day of it was a screening of Casablanca, broken down scene-by-scene with a commentary by Bob.

So the poster is in part honouring that aspect of my identity as a writer.  You will of course be familiar with my Shifting Stories, and are currently reading my blog post, which is a major outlet of my writing talent; and I have written a number of things for clients, including a Teambuilding Manual and copious training materials and handouts, as well as a few articles for professional journals, such as Personnel Management.  I am even cited as a co-author of an academic paper (though in truth that is more a courtesy than an accurate designation). I believe I write well.

But beyond that, I still have an aspiration to write creatively, and it is that aspiration that my poster serves to remind me about.

Taking it literally...

One of the habits that Andrew Derrington is trying to break me of, in my writing, is issuing caveats and disclaimers, and writing tentatively and conditionally. As I have noted before, he likes an assert/justify style - and in broad terms, I agree. It makes for a clearer and more compelling text.

But I have been reminded of why I write like that as I read John Whitmore's famous and influential book Coaching for Performance.  Because he often writes as absolute statements things which I think are very debatable, and it puts me out of sympathy with his whole text.

It may be that I am just too literal and pedantic in my reading, but it does irritate me.

To give some examples: 

Real performance is going beyond what is expected; it is setting one's own highest standards, invariably standards that surpass what others demand or expect.

Whist I see what he means (and in many cases would agree), I have a real problem with it stated as a simple truth. From time to time, I work with people whose bosses set unreasonable standards - standards that require the individual to sacrifice leisure and domestic time, for example, in pursuit of organisational targets. If I were to see my job as a coach as encouraging them to set standards surpassing those demands, I would be contributing to their stress. Rather, I might help them to recognise that their own standards are different from their boss's, and help them to consider how to negotiate accordingly.

Or again:

 The underlying and ever-present goal of coaching is building the self-belief of others...

As before, one sees what he is getting at; but has he never met anyone so full of himself that a major goal of coaching is an appropriate dose of self-awareness leading to a modicum of humility?

Whitmore's book is riddled with such stuff, and with many assumptions and philosophical positions presented as truths, too, and it does detract from the many useful things he has to say. So just when Andrew was weaning me off the use of caveats and disclaimers, I am suddenly reminded of why I use them.  

Food for thought...

Learning to Write (cont...)

One of the things that Andrew Derrington has been coaching me about is the use of the assert-justify structure in my writing, rather than argue-conclude.

He found a classic example in one of my chapters he was reviewing the other week: 'You start here saying what's wrong, and then, where is it, four, five, six (!) paragraphs later you say what should be done instead! Don't do that!'

I think he is right about this, in the type of book I am writing. However, where I think he is wrong is in his (I suspect somewhat tongue-in-cheek) next comment. 'You're humanities, aren't you: I think humanities people write like that because they have nothing to say!'

I think I write like that because so much of what I read is written like that. After all, it is how novels and drama work. They set up the suspense precisely by delaying explanation and dénouement. It provides narrative drive. 

All of which reminded me of a wonderful speech in Tom Stoppard's play Hapgood (Stoppard, of course, is a master-craftsman as a writer). The speaker, Kerner, is a Russian physicist, who has defected, and got tangled up in the spy world (incidentally, part of the play is based on Heisenberg: the act of looking determines whether an agent is a double or not...).  Anyway, here is what Kerner has to say:

“Safe house, sleeper, cover, joe… I love it. When I have learned the language, I will write my own book. The traitor will be the one you don’t like very much, it will be a scandal. Also I will reveal him at the beginning. I don’t understand this mania for surprises. If the author knows, it’s rude not to tell. In science this is understood: what is interesting is to know what is happening. When I write an experiment, I do not wish you to be surprised, it is not a joke. This is why a science paper is a beautiful thing: first, here is what we will find; now here is how we will find it; here is the first puzzle, here is the answer, now we can move on. This is polite. We don’t save up all the puzzles to make a triumph for the author - that is the dictatorship of the intelligentsia.”

So what I have to remember is that my book is more in the line of a Haynes Manual than an Agatha Christie whodunnit.
My job is to help the reader to understand and to be able to do certain things that I believe will be helpful in order to accomplish specific desired outcomes; not to provide a thrill-a-minute or a gradual build up of suspense and a cathartic resolution.

Weather, Dog-walking and Progress

I have just sent the revised drafts of the final chapters of my book to Andrew Derrington, who is kindly acting as my coach/editor and external conscience.

That feels like a very positive achievement, although there are a couple of caveats.  The first is that I thought I had a complete draft of the book last January: when I sent it to Andrew at that stage, his comment was that it was not so much a draft as some notes for a book... Alas, he was right. Thanks to his help and support, it is very much better now than it was then.

The second caveat is that although I have practically finished the last chapters, I have still got a lot of work to do on the first.  That is deliberate: we agreed that it made sense to edit the introductory part of the book once I was clear how the rest was turning out.


That proved wise, as I have recently removed four chapters that were essentially digressions. They are interesting (to me, at any rate) but detracted from the focus and clarity of the book. I will post them as blog posts on the new, dedicated blog I plan to launch when the book comes out. As I put it to one friend and colleague recently: 'Generally, I’ve decided the book is for my half-formed thoughts. Quarter-formed ones will go on the blog!'

It is perhaps no coincidence that the work rate on the book has accelerated recently: the very cold weather here has meant that it has been less tempting to skive off and walk the dog, and more inviting to stay by the stove and write. 

I should make it clear that the dog is still getting plenty of exercise, just not quite as much (on writing days) as she used to.

So I now have the early chapters to revise, and then there is some work to be done on graphics, illustrations and so on, and then... well don't hold your breath, but I am hoping for an announcement later this year...

Learning to Write (ii)

I blogged recently about the positive effect that writing a glossary had had on my writing, and my understanding of the writing process.

This week's assignment, which I have just reviewed with my writing coach, Andrew Derrington,  was equally powerful. Andrew had introduced me to the art (or science?) of reverse outlining.

The technique is simple: take your text, number the paragraphs, and for each numbered paragraph answer a few key questions, including 'What is the topic of this paragraph?' and 'Is there a topic sentence?'

Answering those questions enables you to check that each paragraph has a purpose, and then assess how well it accomplishes that purpose. It also enables you to look at the flow of the whole body of text (in my case a chapter) and see how well that accomplishes its purpose.

It is also invaluable in writing (or in my case, re-writing) an introduction and a summary.

I found, for example, that some of my paragraphs had no real purpose; some had two topics (so needed to be split into two paragraphs); there were some gaps in the logical flow of the chapter (so new paragraphs are needed); and some were underdeveloped, and needed clarifying or expanding. I also learned (again) that although I believe I write well, there is a lot more to learn; which is both humbling and exciting.

Moreover, it prompted me to look at the overall structure of the book in the same way, with the result that I am making some significant changes to that: cutting quite a lot that is peripheral or tangential, and clarifying the flow of ideas throughout the whole text.

It is very laborious, but I think re-pays the time and effort. So I am committed to do three things before my next conversation with Andrew in a couple of weeks: re-write the chapter I have just analysed, in the light of my analysis; undertake the same process with another chapter already drafted; and revise the chapter list to get a final structure for the book.

So finalising the text is some way off, but I am increasingly confident that it will be a good text when I eventually get there.

Learning to Write

I have blogged a few times about the (slow) progress of my book. However, what is really clear to me is how much I am learning from the process.

There is the obvious stuff, which anyone who writes seriously will know about: the ease with which one can fill time with not writing, or with writing related activities (but not writing) for example.

But this week I had a very specific task to do, and I did it: that was to write a glossary. There are two main reasons for this.  The first is to make sure that I am quite clear (both in my own mind and in my writing) precisely what I mean when I use a particular key word or phrase.  

The second is to help with editing: that is, to make sure that every time I use the word or phrase, I mean the same thing; and also every time I mean that thing, I use the same word or phrase.

That may sound obvious, but in fact it is not how I have tended to write. And that has been an interesting thing to learn. For example, I use the word 'story' a lot in the book. But I also use the word 'narrative'. And I switch between them quite freely. 

On reflection, the reason I do that is to avoid repetition; to make the text more interesting to read. But in fact it makes the text confusing. The reader may wonder if I use 'narrative' to mean something different from 'story.' It introduces a distraction.

I blame my education: I studied lots of literature along the way; and when one is writing in that environment, one tends to look for the novel and interesting way to express something, and either to consult a thesaurus or construct a mental one in order to avoid using the same word twice in quick succession. But writing for literary effect and writing for quick and easy comprehension are not the same, as my excellent writing coach, Andrew Derrington, has patiently helped me to learn.

The other interesting thing about compiling the glossary is that it has really made me re-think where I am up to with my ideas. Listing the fifteen or so key concepts and defining them has produced a very concise summary of my ideas, and helps me to see how they have developed over the years. In fact, in some cases, I am abandoning words or phrases that I have used throughout the book, as they don't clearly express what I now think.

So whilst publication still feels some way off, I can confidently assert that I am making progress.

Happy New Year

I always enjoy the Christmas and New Year break, and return to work full of good intentions.  However, like many, I have to work quite hard to ensure those intentions are translated into reality.  All of us will have our own strategies for that: for me what works best is often recruiting an external conscience to hold me to my resolutions, so I am lucky to have an excellent coach and coaching supervisor in Ann Bowen-Jones.

This year looks to be an exciting one: in addition to current work under my own brand with a number of universities and commercial clients, there are several collaborative projects in the pipeline which, if they materialise, will be very interesting indeed.

And I really must get that book finished...

Walking writing...

I blogged a while back about walking coaching and how valuable that can be.

Yesterday I was stuck on a chapter on coaching in the book I'm writing, and instead of sitting industriously, virtuously, diligently at my Mac, I put on some waterproofs and took Lulu for a walk.

To assuage my (rather weak) pangs of guilt, I slipped my voice recorder in my pocket to record any inspirations.

By the end of plodding through muddy fields, doubled up against the gales and rain, I had recorded a few good insights and in particular had found a new way into the chapter: starting it from a quite different perspective than I had originally intended.

So the risk now is that I spend tons of time walking the dog in my carefully preserved 'writing' slots in the diary.  Will have to monitor that, but if yesterday is anything to go by, that could be very productive.

Staying busy...

Had a fascinating interview with Marina Taylor at Akzo Nobel today: she told me a recent true story which will make a great case study for the book (suitably anonymised of course).  And before that I was talking with Peter Block in the US (one of my favourite writers) and Chene Swart of South Africa, who offered a lot of valuable insights and encouragement.

Off to London tomorrow for three more interviews, then to Colchester for the next Essex Futures event, followed by another interview, then to Cambridge on Friday for a couple more interviews.

I am learning so much, meeting so many fascinating people, and generally enjoying the process so much that there's a real risk I'll prolong the interview stage for ever and never write the thing - except I have also promised so many people I will, as an insurance policy against that temptation!

The Book

As half term arrives, and I'm taking the weekend to spend some time with my family, I am also determined to find some good thinking time (probably in part  in conversation with my wife and children as we stride the fells) to get my ideas about my new book sorted.

It's going to be about Story - the items tagged Multistory Development give some clues...

Further news will follow as it devlops - I'm aiming to get it out by next summer.