I came to writing late. At least, compared with you lot I did. When I was your age I wanted to be a pop star. I decided to become a writer at the age of twenty eight. I was in the bottom group for English, at school, perhaps I shouldn’t have been, I wasn’t in the bottom group for anything else, but my English teacher hated me, and the feeling was mutual. I don’t remember ever looking at poetry, at school and I left school knowing nothing about it.
At sixteen, I went to work at Rowntrees. I worked in the flavour department for Black Magic, which meant roasting coffee beans, filtering rum and boiling raspberries. After less than a year, I went to work for a lighting company, boxing up lampshades and wiring up bedside table lamps, I worked there for four years, but I didn’t want to do that for the rest of my life, I was still going to be a pop star, but in the meantime, I decided to go to college and study business studies. I also went to night school and studied psychology and English Literature. I had a wonderful English teacher. I found the writing really easy, and fun and I got A grades all the time. Having writing skills, I think really helped me over the next few years, as I left York and went to The University of Derby.
I still wanted to be in a band, and hadn’t I been writing all the song lyrics. From the age of fifteen to twenty three I had built up a book full of all these words to songs, all my future number ones! At this point, I sent some lyrics to a record company, and they made some demo tapes of some of my songs. At the time, I was a student in Derby, I spent a lot of time listening to night time radio. They started to have guest poets, Simon Armitage, Joolz, John Hegley, Ian MacMillan and Martin Wiley. It was my first exposure to poetry. I thought the way Joolz wrote about real life was terrific, the puns and jokes in MacMillans and Wiley’s poetry were hilarious. Most of all though there was something about this quiet intelligent Yorkshireman Armitage, I just fell for it. Looking back now, three Yorkshiremen and Joolz poetry from Bradford, they spoke to me about my life, and in some small irrevocable way, changed mine.
I finished my degree. I was twenty eight and it had dawned on me, that being unable to play any instruments and having no ability as a singer might hinder my prospects of being a pop star, plus being able to write, and not needing anyone to read out my poems for me, I started to write poems instead of songs. I had started to buy a few poetry books too. I liked William Butler Yeats and Patrick Kavanagh. I set aside every Monday night as my writing night. If I didn’t write anything new, I’d edit. I bought more poetry books, I loved Ian MacMillan, Armitage and Edwin Morgan. I had some early success, winning two poetry competitions. It spurred me on to write more, I kept editing, re-drafting. I was determined to improve and I started to send my poems to magazines. I joined a writers workshop, which was brilliant. It made my writing feel valid. I kept getting my poems posted back from the magazines, often with critical letters, although they hurt my feelings, I carried on writing, it’s often a compulsion.
Kettle of Fish and Cushty, those were the titles of the first two pamphlets I put out. I think I printed 30-50 copies and I sold them to friends and I organised my own readings to launch them. I went on an Arvon Course, a holiday for writers, where two poets teach you and a dozen others for a week. I joined a writing programme called The Opening Line. I did really well on the programme and a publisher called Route published a book Half a Pint of Tristram Shandy, three books in one, my contributory book was titled Tolstoy on Horse. At this point a couple of other lucky things happened to me, I was chosen as one of the top five young writers to have attended any Arvon course. I finished my manuscript for Cowboy Hat, my first proper, on my own collection. I sent it to Yorkshire Arts and it won a Yorkshire Arts Writers Award, which I was hopelessly pleased about, if I remember rightly, it was £1500. I cried when I received the letter informing me.
That’s my story. My book went to number one, knocking Harry Potter off the number one spot, in Hull, in one bookshop, for one week. I still write or edit, (I edit a magazine of the biggest boozers, rascals and crazy yahoos in the poetic underbelly, it’s called The Slab) one night a week, at least, I’ve won prizes in competitions and I’ve been on another writing programme, The Poetry School, in Huddersfield. Fingers crossed, I should have a new book out, this year. Unfortunately, I don’t earn enough from writing to stop working, which is the big downside for most writers. We don’t want to be chained to a job. All we want is a window, a typewriter and a couple of bottles of beer. Anyhow, that’s my turn done. Now it’s your turn. Send me your writing. I’d love to see it. Or if you’ve got any questions about poets, poetry, editing, getting published, working in a bookshop, (that’s my job, I work in a bookshop) e-mail them At This Very Moment…
Right Now, I’d love to hear from you.
Pete X
Try Peter's writing exercise..
OK. I’ve come up with this exercise just for you, my little guinea pigs. If I were to work with you for the whole year, I would initially concentrate on generating material and then move on to close editing. But, I only get one month, so I thought we would have a go at something expansive, by this, all I mean is free flowing, unrestricted, go anywhere writing. I’m hoping for energy and perhaps a little insanity.
Also though, I want you to build the poem or prose one step at a time, through notes and drafts. When I write a poem, it might easily go through fifty drafts, and I want you to develop drafting skills. This is how I want you to carry out the exercise;
Step one;
Choose four, five or six situations from the list (of situations) below. Take some notes. The idea of this exercise is to think about things that are happening right at this very moment, things that are similar, and different, opposites, contrasts and related situations, eg. a boy buying 2 oz of toffee bon-bons, a shopkeeper tipping 2oz of toffee bon-bons into the scales, a fireman cutting a piece of pork sausage – a scruffy youth tipping paraffin through a letter box.
Step Two
More notes; Look through the questions and instructions, choose as many as you want to do, about ten, I’d suggest. Jot down your thoughts and ideas. Bear in mind, you are thinking about things that are happening right now, the question could be answered on its own, or in relation to a situation, eg. what can you smell, ‘The marmite tang wallops his nose, just as the post clatters through the door’ (You may benefit by doing step one a day before, or a week before starting step two, most poems go through an incubation period and you could experiment with this)
Step Three
Begin a comprehensive draft, don’t be scared to drastically edit, juggle the pieces, move them around, don’t worry about rhyme, don’t worry if it’s crazy. In fact you could purposefully make it mad and nonsensical. Just have a wild, fun time getting it all down.
Step Four
Again, think about having an incubation period between step three and four. You want to be jettisoning any boring bits, lose any redundant words. I lose the words said, walking and because, because there are always better ones (unless you’re being boring on purpose). Is it spizzerinktum-fuelled? Is it on? Does this piece of writing maintain the idea that all of these things are happening – at this very second? Find the best line, make that your opening line, then try and make every line after just as good.
let me leave you with these words from my good friend Roddy Lumsden, ‘When it comes down to it, good writing is only trying to describe something as well as you can.
Situation One
Think of someone trying to break a strange world record, for example, I believe the world record for walking with a milk bottle on your head, is forty nine miles. There are others, like lifting a washing machine on your chin or the number of live wasps you can fit in your cake hole.
Situation Two
Think about something a person might do to make them squirm with toe curling embarrassment. Begin this section with the words, Right now
Situation Three
Imagine someone selling something on e-bay, it could be something sensible or something ridiculous, like a ten year old size eleven black boot, for the left foot.
Make some notes, imagine him/her looking at the object, pricing it up.
Situation Four
Do you have a rule about something that you should never do, not ever? Make some notes, begin this section… If there is one thing you should never do it’s… and at this very second someone is..
Situation Five
Think of something brilliant, a fantasy perhaps of something that might occur in sport or music, you could go to town with this, eg. Ryan Giggs is just putting the eleventh goal past Arsenal, at this point just jot down your ideas.
Situation Six
Do you know something 100% true?
Situation Seven
Imagine receiving something in the post.
Situation eight
Imagine something terrible happening right now, it could be a fire, or a car crash, note down a few details.
Situation Nine
Think of a nickname, the funnier the better, then think about what this person is doing, eg, Banana Dave is stirring his risotto.
Situation Ten
Think of something, mundane, something that stays the same, perhaps something you walk past and see everyday, maybe some odd graffiti, or a closed down fruit shop. Try to pin down the idea of it not changing to contrast with the speed of movement in other areas, use this idea of it remaining the same.
Situation Eleven
Think of something to do with music, listening to a band, being at a gig, think about the musicians, is it a terrific guitarist or trumpeter? Try to really build the enthusiasm in a positive way, get across the idea that this band are not to be missed.
Situation Twelve
Re-visit one of these situations, but be at a different point in the process, eg some one posting a letter, some one receiving a letter, someone reading a letter. Someone selling on e-bay, someone bidding for the item, someone buying. A winger running into the box, a defender tackling/missing the tackle, a scorer running away from the goal in elation, a defender staring at the grass with disappointment. Although I’ve written this as situation twelve, you could come back to the situation earlier, in between two other situations. Make notes on three or four variations, some of them could be really short, also they could be purposefully repetitive.
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Questions/Instructions;
One; Think of three things, in this situation, that you can see, write them down, in one sentence, in clearly focussed detail.
Two; Contrast outside with inside.
Three; Include the word slubberdegullion, (lazy person).
Four; What can you or the person in the situation smell?
Five; Think of something you (or the person in the situation) used to believe was true.
Six; Think of an object or person, what are they not? eg; I am not a lorry driver who has just delivered a carpet to Phil Neville.
Seven; Make up the name of a band and write something about them eg; That atrocious American Rock band, Snowblind Buzzard, the whirling guitars of The God Delusion or the thrash metal clatter of German rockers Farenheit.
Eight; Think of something you walk past everyday.
Nine; Include a word that you have never seen in a poem before.
Ten; In the next line, at some point, use a magic word; eg abracadabra or Hey Presto!
Eleven; What can you/they hear?
Twelve; What is on your/their shoulder?
Thirteen; What is Buddha thinking?
Fourteen; What time is it?
Fifteen; Make something impossible happen.
Sixteen; Think of something extremely cold or hot. Really try to focus on the temperature and build a sensual image.
Seventeen; What is the smallest thing you can see?
Eighteen; What is animal-like about the situation?
Nineteen; What do they wish they were doing?
Twenty; Focus on a colour. try to use the colour like an image eg; purple like Ribena, Smartie red.
Twenty One; Think of a texture. Describe it.
Twenty two; Put something in that could only happen in a cartoon.
Twenty Three; Think of a proverb or saying and distort it.
Twenty Four; Think of an aroma, describe it without using the word smell.
Twenty Five; Make something weird happen.
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