Seven Failure Principles from Elizabeth Day's How to Fail Live with Reni Eddo-Lodge

https://www.elizabethdayonline.co.uk/

 Seven Failure Principles from Elizabeth Day's How to Fail Live with Reni Eddo-Lodge

1. Failure is a fact but you are not defined by it 
"Just because you fail does not make you a failure"

2. You are not your anxious brain
The brain tells us something is a danger when it isn't 
We are not defined by our thoughts

3. Almost everyone feels they have failed in their 20s

4. Break ups are not a tragedy - your ex-partner has taught you something

5. Failure is data acquisition

6. There is no such thing as a future you

7. When we choose to share our vulnerabilities is when we feel most satisfaction


A couple more nuggets of wisdom that Day shared include

When times get too tough and you feel like giving up, cling on because the biggest failure may be not finding out what will happen

Anxiety doesn't want you to enjoy life

Some notes from How to be a public author with Cash Carraway, Paul Ewen and Carmen Marcus

Say the unsaid and taboo

Share the things that you are scared of

When procrastinating, "just write the shit version" - Dennis Kelly

A useful exercise is to distill the work to a single line

Fine the core of the book before offering it up for feedback so you can retain the core

Read your work out loud and sense the reaction

All writers need to be readers

Treat your story like it is a house - where are the public /private places?

Stick to your own voice

Don't wait for inspiration to hit

Writing is reading, walking, researching etc - try something new with your writing 

Cash Carraway: Skint Estate - Cash Carraway in conversation with Tina Gharavi

Type 'Cash Carraway: Skint Estate' into google and this is what Goodreads will show

Cash Carraway is a single mum living in temporary accommodation. She’s been moved around the system since she left home at sixteen. She’s also been called a stain on society. And she’s caught in a poverty trap.

Skint Estate is the hard-hitting debut memoir about impoverishment, loneliness and violence – set against a grim landscape of sink estates, police cells, refuges and peepshows.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/41955385

It is clear from the moment that Cash Carraway opens her mouth that sitting in front of me is a woman with an enormous amount of determination and passion for sharing what it is to live in a working class community, and highlighting the challenges that face such communities on a daily basis. I'm reminded of what Bernardine Evaristo spoke about last night, and believe that Carraway has chosen to manage her anger and frustration at the situation by channelling it into her creativity. 

Carraway speaks with a knowing rather than self-pitying voice.

"In general, the working class are not allowed to create art, they are only allowed to capitalise on their bleak situation."

Her transgressive writing is not therapy. 

Therapeutic writing is not creative writing.

Her book, Skint Estate, does not solve a problem.

She doesn't want to write stories of victims.

She does want to write stories of power.

The power of her spoken word is evidenced when she reads aloud a passage from Skint Estate. Talk about giving me goosebumps. This is an example of when the sound of the human voice can elevate words off the page and into another realm. 

She ends with a plea to the audience:

"Go and buy the book and please read the pages out loud and preferably to someone who didn't want to listen."

Bernardine Evaristo and David Olusoga in conversation

The synopsis of Bernardine Evaristo's Booker Prize winning novel reads

Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives and struggles of twelve very different people. Aged 19 to 93, they span a variety of ages, cultural backgrounds, sexualities, classes and occupations as they tell the stories of themselves, their families, friends and lovers, across the country and through the years. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly given it's recent Booker Prize Award, the majority of the conversation is spent discussing this particular publication. I found it fascinating to hear about the structure of the book and how she has constructed it so that each chapter focuses on one character, and links form between the chapters. 

Discussion regarding the politics around the Booker Prize, the judging panel and the source of funding for the Prize highlighted the sheer importance and level of achievement reached by Evaristo at becoming the first black woman to win the award.

Evaristo explained how she felt like she needed to represent a group of people whose stories had not been told. When asked to discuss her thoughts on writing a non-binary character when she does not identify as non-binary, she recognises that she was very careful in doing so, and conducts and uses her research so as to try to limit any misrepresentation or offence caused. She acknowledges that she never tries to pretend to be non-binary, and as the novel is a work of fiction, feels as though she has the right to be creative and include things that are not necessarily true. In a recent newspaper article she was quoted as saying 

"This whole idea of cultural appropriation, which is where you are not supposed to write beyond your own culture and so on, is ridiculous. Because that would mean that I could never write white characters or white writers can never write black characters."

Following another question about how she manages her anger, Evaristo clearly stated that she did not think it was at all healthy or beneficial to carry anger around with her and therefore any anger she does feel is turned into energy. She then tries to channel this energy into something positive that can make a difference and force change. She recognises that there are things that one has to leave to others to deal with. She knows that her talent is for writing and her passion is to change the way that black women are represented.

I found it refreshing to hear her talk about her life as an author. She has no set routine, and emphasised the importance of fitting in her writing in and amongst her usual daily activities. She cycles, watches daytime TV, socialises with friends, but her main focus remains her writing.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

My introduction to Words Weekend at The Sage

I spent a large proportion of the weekend at The Sage, Gateshead enjoying the inaugural Words Weekend. 

Fane Productions is behind this brand new festival;

"Words Weekend celebrates the power of words and stories with a packed programme of talks, workshops, panel discussions, music and spoken word. 40% of the 60+ events are free, and all are fully accessible and BSL interpreted. Through the power of words and stories, Words Weekend aims to unite communities and ignite imaginations."

Although I am (ashamedly) not particularly well-read (I am dyslexic and reading takes a lot of energy and time and requires specific conditions), I have (and always have) a great love for stories, both written and spoken, read or heard. In the last five years I have become increasingly interested in writing and spoken word, and I've begun to share some of my creative writing and audio work.

It was when I first read Mark Haddon's 'The Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time' that I realised that it was possible to write in a manner that echoes the way one thinks. I found it incredibly refreshing and liberating to read. At last I had found a book that was written in a way that I found pleasurable. I could easily, and relatively quickly, digest it. It did not conform to what I believed to be 'the norm' and the 'proper way'. By this I mean that I realised that stories did not have to be in prose.

This experience encouraged me to explore my own style of writing, and I have since created a couple of publications namely A lot can happen in fifteen minutes (2016) a risograph publication made in collaboration with Unstapled Press and Portion Control (2017) made for an exhibition titled REALITY CHECK at The NewBridge Project, Gateshead.

Over the course of the next few blog posts I will be posting about the various events that I went to. 

Bernardine Evaristo & David Olusoga in Conversation

Cash Carraway: SKINT ESTATE

Roisin Crowley Linton: Teenage Kicks

How To Be A Public Author: Cash Carraway, Paul Ewen, Carmen Marcus

Spotlight on Indie Publishers: Galley Beggar

Elizabeth Day's How to Fail Live with Reni Eddo-Lodge