Creative Integrity - Last Stand or Last Breath?

Good grief, what a week we've had here in London.  On the one hand, the final section of the last ever Harry Potter film premiered to riotous but peaceful success in theatre land. Fans young and not so young swarmed into the 'West End' of the city. They dressed up, they sat on the lions in Trafalgar Square and generally made no trouble at all.

On the other, Wapping Station stands deserted in the wake of the 'News of the World' phone hacking scandal which grew daily. The senior staff were declared to be the 'No. 1 Priority', while 200 or so clerical  and portering staff in the paper's offices in Wapping lost their employment. Wapping's not a rich part of London - at one time it was the site of the great London shipping trade. Fortunes were made from trade and export then, but not by the local people. They're not likely to prosper out of the demise of a newspaper empire either.

That's before we even start to consider the victims of this alleged atrocity - the families of murdered children, bereaved parents of serving soldiers, the Royal family - how the list grows and grows. Well, the truth pf it all will come out sooner or later.

It is, of course, easy to be sanctimonious after the event, and perhaps this is the moment to take stock, and ask if there's anything I am currently doing, or paying lip service to, 'because everyone else does.'

One thing I do remember is that J. K. Rowling, a decade or so ago, was ridiculed by some of the very journalists who now have time on their hands.  Rowling's crime? She stuck to her guns about what she would, and would not, put in her books. She was choosy about sponsors, about merchandising, caring more about the content of young minds than about money.  Yet what riches it brought her, in the end.

Jennifer Pittam is a winner of Coast to Coast Writing Competition and is working on her second novel.

Decided to Write a Novel

Decided to start writing my first novel after years of thinking that 'I would, if I had time.' I want to write the story of my great-grandfather, reputedly a gypsy barenuckle boxer. I've got a new computer of my own - a little laptop from Currys. Couldn't even work the computer, never mind produce any writing on it. I use a mouse on the computer at work but on this laptop you have to get used to a weird little square that shoots the mouse all over the screen. Anyway, I did get a page done. It was awful prose. Just like something one did at school, when Mr. Jacobs wrote 'good effort, Jennifer, but you need to research the early nineteenth century more thoroughly.' Went to bed, rather depressed. No wonder so many people say 'I would, if I had time.'

The Lost Art Graveyard

'I'd like you to write a 2,500 word autobiography,' says Eric Maisel. The wind howls outside and the rain lashes down. 'I can't,' I think. 'I won't,' my mind shouts. I can't penetrate that whirling bundle of protective noise - the one that every artist uses to hide the creative centre of the soul. Tentatively, I put down a note about my first creative experiences, with my wax crayons in the back garden at Woodford Green. I remember a picture on the wall of our little Victorian School, and my astonishment when I noticed it was mine. I remember a week in the Scottish Highlands, painting for dear life. I remember sadness, the years when my art seemed like a love lost forever. I remember when I caught a glimpse of it again, a brief flash in the graveyard. I stand in the graveyard. It's not so scary. People picnic here in the summer. They bring their babies, their weddings and their loved ones at the last.The rain has stopped, the wind pauses. I beckon to Lost Art. I have plenty of time.

Jennifer Pittam is a winner of Coast-to-Coast Writing competition and is currently working on her first novel, 'Face The Champion'.

With Anne in the Lucas Arms

Today I attended a writing class with Anne Aylor in the Lucas Arms, an old pub not far from Kings Cross Station. The class was a precious 'time in' with the artist soul. We wrote upstairs, lulled by the creaking pub sign and the smell of burning sage. Anne, a gifted novelist, has a talent for nurturing the embryo writer in others. For a precious day I found myself once more with Thomas Tarling, his charming and courageous woman Mary and the enigmatic leader of the fair, Zackariah Scarrott. 'One's religion,' said J.M. Barrie, is 'whatever one is most interested in'. Today, the religion of the practising writer was extended by a few more hours, in a London pub with the rain beating down on the streets outside.

Out on the Common with Wild Mind

Remembrance Sunday has gone and now we are deep into Autumn. The trees in London’s forests and parks have turned red and the air is crisp as I trot across the Common to the gym. I am deep in thought as I struggle across frost-encrusted grass and prickly gorse, for I am struggling with my novel at present. Everything in me wants to stay at home and sit by the laptop, battling. Yet, this is the worst thing I could do. Sometimes you have to walk away from your writing to walk deep into the heart of what you’re trying to say. As I come out from behind a tree I startle a deer – a magnificent stag. Because I am thinking about my hero Thomas and his battle to find himself, I’m not really looking where I’m going. I just blundered into his territory, a great, flat-footed human, not looking, not thinking. I must have come between the stag and his ladies, for he stands his ground and barks at me. This is dangerous stuff, potentially, but I don’t even notice because I am deep in the untamed, the wild mind. We look at each other. I see something in him, something that can never be broken. He bounds away. I run the last ten minutes to the gym.

Jennifer Pittam is a guest blogger on Eric Maisel's 'Living Creatively'website. Follow her column, 'London Calling': http://ericmaisel.blogspot.com/

I Remember Very Well...

Well! I've come first in the Coast to Coast writing competition, October 2008. My short story, 'I Remember Very Well' was written for Armistice Day, and it was a real boost to have this little bit of success. It's true that success in anything is a series of tiny little efforts, one after the other. Some of them aren't easy. In fact, some of them aren't welcome. The Remembrance Day events were beautifully done this year - the lines of soldiers straight, the brass on the uniforms sparkling in the sun and entire new generations marching or mourning in silence. Some came to remember loved ones who died in Iraq, and some to honour a grandfather or great-uncle lost in one of the world wars. Rows of men and women, people who had to take one little step after the other, mourning a loved one. In bereavement as in writing, in sadness as in joy, it's one step at a time.

Housman's Bookshop

This week I joined a new writers' circle, which meets in the bowels of Housman's Bookshop in Central London. The place is unheated and unbelievably cold even in this rather mild winter. As we huddled around a single bar electric fire I was, I admit, re-connected to the pre-centrally heated days of my childhood. Yet, there is something very focussing about sitting in semi darkness, coat pulled around your shoulders, munching custard creams and reading a chapter from your novel. When I listed to the others' stories, focussing a hundred percent because after all, what else can you do in semi darkness, I found myself utterly captivated by the different worlds they led me into. Call me old fashioned, but I wondered whether we've lost something precious, sitting here in the 21st century, enjoying luxuries our ancestors would have associated with the idle rich. Maybe I've turned into my mother after all.