garret – Deborah Makarios

Well, after Thursday’s dramatic line in the sand, reality turns out to be not so heroic.

After a few days (nights) of reduced sleep, I struggled on Friday morning. The weather forecast was unexpectedly nasty. I had to replan the multiple layers of my wardrobe for the day, and in the end I didn’t get any writing done at all.

But I did get up. I thought about piking out and sleeping in, but I didn’t.

It makes me wonder: how much of what I do is because that’s part of the narrative I have determined I will live? How much is that helping, and how much hindering?

Surely, I can’t be the only person who weaves narratives around themselves to ameliorate the mundanity of their life?
Anyone? Anyone at all?

Having cast myself as the dedicated but struggling writer, I can’t very well turn round and sleep in past seven. It ruins the story. And living the story helps me keep going.

Of course, this can turn against you (no, I mustn’t have the heater on! the starving garret-writer wouldn’t have that!) but for the most part, it helps.

Being true to the rôle is more fun than following the schedule or the regulations. It’s more creative. It’s more like play.

So, now that I’ve put my internal child quivering in the spotlight for playing make-believe at the age when other people are doing Serious Adult Things like having mortgages and career aspirations – who wants to join me?

We can be prisoners of war, plotting escape (thank you, Professor Tolkien); knights under siege (merci, Monsieur Buhet); or a misunderstood girl on a heroic quest (thank you Terry Jones).

Sometimes it even helps to pretend things are worse than they are. Sara Crewe may have pretended to be a princess to escape the drudgeries of domestic servitude, but how many people since have pretended to be Sara Crewe?

I don’t mean to suggest that I spend my days thinking I’m someone else – I have grown up a bit, after all. But when I find myself in adverse or tiresome circumstances, it can be enlivening to think: what characters (fictional or otherwise) have been this way before me? What would they do? What did they do? What if -? (And incidentally, would it not be very cool if I was a superhero?)

I can be efficiently domestic with Lucy Eyelesbarrow (this is more productive when at home), persist to the bitter end with Cazaril, or be quietly indomitable with Jane Eyre.

So what narrative eases the flow of your days? “Stories etch grooves deep enough for people to follow.” Or do you do it the hard way, scratching the beginnings of a new groove with each succeeding day?

Is it just me?

I have decided to put a license on my blog.

To be precise, a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 New Zealand licence.

This means that you can copy, reuse or even alter my works, providing that you give attribution and share yourself. (Sharing is good. Unless you have a cold.) You can even make money from them.

There are several reasons why I am doing this.

The first (at least chronologically) is that I have actually heard of CC licensing, thanks to the Caped Gooseberry.

Many people haven’t, particularly writers. Most advice for writers on the subject of licences is how to protect yourself from having your ideas ripped off.

Except the advice I received as a student in writing for theatre: don’t bother trying to protect your writing: theatre does not make enough money to be worth pirating.

Clearly, times have changed since actors made a handy side-income in reciting the latest Shakespeare to a printer. (Fascinatingly, you can actually tell which role they were playing – those lines are perfect, the other lines in their scenes are pretty accurate, and the scenes where they are offstage are complete rubbish.)

The biggest reason is that a lot of what writers do these days is publicity – book signings, library visits, blog tours and what have you. And these are the writers with publishing houses behind them.

Frankly, that isn’t my cup of tea, as much as I love the sound of my own voice. I’d rather be holed up in a rather cozy garret somewhere, writing.

A CC license allows me to allow others to spread my works far and wide (should they find it worth their while) while I stay curled up in afore-mentioned garret.

Ah, I hear you say, but what about the money?
There isn’t any.

Well, that’s not entirely true.
There are those who do quite well out of their writing – everyone knows about the fabulous wealth of J K Rowling, and as for no money in theatre, well, Yasmina Reza doesn’t do too badly.

But – and this is the point I would stress – there is not a lot of money in it either way. Unless you are JKR, you would, as one writer on writing I read said, be making a better living as a professional knitter.

Even if you can get a publishing contract – and they’re harder than ever to come by – there’s still a lot to be done for relatively little reward, considering the hours put in.

I remember meeting a bloke in a pub once who told of his best friend admitting how guilty he felt at not buying a copy of the bloke’s recently published book.
“That’s ok,” he said, “give me a dollar twenty and we’re even.”

Somewhat counter-intuitively, you can still make money by giving your work away. Exhibit A: Nina Paley.

But even if there isn’t any money in it, there’s still the joy of telling stories. And knowing that they won’t be restricted to those who can fork out forty bucks for a copy. Stories for everybody.

The world has changed. Reciting Shakespeare to a printer is no longer good money. Books don’t sell like they used to (although I would be the last to announce the death of the book).
As Curly says in Oklahoma, “Country a-changin’, got to change with it!”

Myself, I long for the old old days, when rich people would display their wealth and taste by having a writer on the payroll. Bed, board, mansion garret and possibly access to the library, in return for writing all day? Where do I apply?

So, if you see something you like, take it. Use it. Pass it on. Feel free.

The world is changing, and “the first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers”.

Tag: garret

Living the Story

Licentiousness