Novel 2 comes online

This year's Novel 2 class as part of their session this morning have looked at F Scott Fitzgerald's quote: "All good swimming is swimming under water and holding your breath". Here are their thoughts on what this might mean:

You need to be in a state of supsended animation -- holding your breath underwater -- to write well, somehow apart from the rest of the world, but with your eyes wide open, examining it with intense interest.
-- Annie Taylor

Without a struggle to achieve the best you can, you could end up with mediocrity.

Not reworking your chapters is lazy, and you could be missing out on that great novel you always wished you could write.

Start now, reread your chapters as if you were the reader who has bought your book: is it worth the price?

If in any doubt, start rewriting to get out of the mediocrity of just another novel landing on the publisher's returns desk.
-- Marlene Gorman

This could mean that you have to struggle a lot to produce a good piece of writing.
-- Jerry

Writing is always going to be judged; therefore, it is always going to be a challenge, a risk. The difference betweeen what is good and poor is up to the reviewer; therefore, you have no power in how it is interpreted. All you can do is hold your breath -- wait patiently for judgment day and hope for the best.
-- Tom Pinchen-Hogg

If F Scott Fitzgerald was referring to writing as a struggle, then I'm all for believing his words. But there's a subjectiveness to it that makes me wonder, for some people love swimming; it comes naturally for them. But everyone can't hold their breath forever, so, whether it is a struggle or something that comes with ease, writing is something that requires you to "be there" in the water and to know when to let go and breathe before you get back into it.
-- Andrew Roberts

Good writing sucks you into the world of your characters and isolates you -- just like holding your breath under water.
-- Brianna Lund

Writing well is a struggle. And it should be. It is something achieved through practice and perserverance. You hold your breath and push through the pain in the hope that the end result will be greatness. Then you do it again. And again. Great writing is born from the knowledge that you are continually learning new things about your craft.
-- Hayley Ashman

My understanding of this quote is that good writing pulls you away from the real world to your own little world. Sometimes you can feel the rush of excitement. At times the journey can be difficult, but practice makes perfect.
-- Kayla

Writing is like swimming underwater as you often do it in isolation, and you are distanced from the real world, with water blocking your ears, and the only sound being that of your heart beating. You have to get in touch with your memories, dreams and imagination, and this is best done alone and in touch with your senses.

You have to hold your breath waiting for outside approval of your work. You surface, gasping for breath, hoping that your classmates, teachers and others take to your work kindly, and your writing can live in the bright light of day.
-- Donna

Because you don't always produce "good writing". Eventually, you need to surface and have some "bad writing" before you submerge and continue with the "good writing". How long you last just simply comes down to how often you train.
-- Amanda J Wickham

For me, swimming underwater is a precious escape from the real world; it's a chance to immerse myself in "otherness" for as long as I can before I run out of breath and burst back out onto the surface, a new perspective in hand.

This is what writing does for me.
-- Fiona L Browning

An amazing idea.

And yes. So accurate.

To write and write well, one must be fully immersed in the characters and situations. One's normal life must not touch upon skin and eyes, but the place of the pages must totally consume the writer.

But there, above the surface is normality and reality.

And fear.

Oh,yes, fear.

But we must dive under it, refuse to breathe it.

Push through under, away, through.
-- Jennifer

So, what do I think? I think it's about taking risks, about sucking up your courage and taking that plunge into the unknown and exploring; writing is a journey of discovery, but you'll get the most out of it if you are willing to push the boundaries. Others have talked about the struggle, the fear, and these things are there, for sure. These are real things that I, and many other writers, wrestle with at times. But at other times, there are also wonder and intense joy. Writing is a solitary thing, and yet paradoxically, when I do it, I am never alone. And as well of the joy of sometimes getting something right, there's the joy, as Hayley mentions, of learning more along the way, but only if you are open to it -- only if you are out there in that roiling sea, ready to take risks.

Tracey Rolfe