Nigel Featherstone
Kindling: after Mary Oliver
The only way to write a story is to put a word down on a page, then another word, then another, until a sentence appears.
A good sentence is clear and precise; it can also have hidden depths.
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It takes time and effort, and perhaps a little heartbreak, to make a sentence sit up and sing, or put a hand on your shoulder, or stare at you in the face.
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There is a difference between wanting to write a book and needing to tell a story: one is a product; the other is a great desire to explore, record, and communicate.
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The first draft can be like an archaeological dig: clear away the dirt until you find the evidence of story. If you find nothing that makes your blood pump faster, try digging somewhere else.
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Compare yourself to no one.
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Today there are 7.7 billion stories and 7.7 billion ways of telling them.
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As well as being an act of the mind, writing is an act of the body. Take note of your chest and heart, your gut, your arms and fingers, your legs, your crotch. When all of you is at work, your sentences will have more energy.
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If your writing is giving you a physical reaction—goosebumps say—it is possible that your readers will have the same or a similar response.
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When you put fingers to a keyboard, you type; when you write with a pen on a piece of paper, you compose.
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Prose is not poetry, though both are cousins of music.
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Allow life to rise from the page.
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Read more than you write.
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Put a moat around your writing time, pull up the drawbridge, and guard it with the biggest slingshot you can find. That also goes for your reading time. Average writing can become good writing after it has been put aside to ferment.
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Sometimes the best writing happens when your brain is switched off, for example when you’re walking your dog, or when dreaming.
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When something good happens with your writing practice, you have 24 hours to celebrate: drink champagne, eat French camembert, dance naked to terrible pop music in the lounge room—but then you have to keep going. When something bad happens with your writing practice, you have 24 hours to commiserate: drink whiskey, kick furniture, cry—but then you have to keep going.
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The writer at a dinner party who tells you all about his novel-in-progress will never write a novel.
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Confidence is a trickster.
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Doubt is a loyal friend and is more helpful than you may realise.
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There are no wrong steps. What feels like a wrong step now will reveal itself to be the right step further down the track.
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Listen to feedback but make your own decisions.
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Moving forward can come down to a brave choice and a safe choice. It is likely that the brave choice will be right.
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Whenever you don’t know how to proceed, play.
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A child telling a story is always a master of narrative technique.
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To edit a story, take it to an unfamiliar place—literally. It could be a library you don’t normally use, or a pub, or the coldest room you can find. Wherever you go, it should irritate you; watch as you slash your work with a red pen.
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Read your work aloud. If you find yourself wondering whether or not you should have a coffee or a green tea, you may have detected a weakness.
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If you are worried that a potential reader will think you are mad you’re potentially heading in an interesting direction.
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Give all yourself to the telling of your story: think about it day and night, week after week, month after month, year after year—care about the details.
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The story you are telling now may be your last.
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Finish all stories.
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Publication is the full stop at the end of the sentence.
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For the stories that find a home, it was always impossible to predict where that home was going to be.
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Accept invitations that make you feel as though you’re going to faint.
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It is better to make art that no one sees than to not have made the art.
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Success is 10% talent, 20% luck, 50% hard work. No one knows what makes up the remaining 20%.
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Financial reward for your writing should be non-negotiable.
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Help the writing community grow and it will grow around you: attend a book launch, send a congratulatory tweet—whatever is your way.
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If you love another writer’s story, share your thoughts.
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Be easy on yourself. Rest.
Nigel Featherstone is an Australian writer who has been published widely. His works include the story collection Joy (2000), his debut novel Remnants (2005), and The Beach Volcano (2014), which is the third in a series of novellas. He wrote the libretto for The Weight of Light, a contemporary song cycle that had its world premiere in 2018. He has held residencies at Varuna (Blue Mountains), Bundanon (Shoalhaven River), and UNSW Canberra at the Australian Defence Force Academy. Nigel Featherstone’s novel Bodies of Men is published by Hachette Australia.
This article first appeared in the 2019 issue of ACT Writers publication, BITE magazine, produced for members.
Portrait of Nigel Featherstone by Zhenshi van der Klooster
