Mo Fanning - British writer and comic

Diary

Understanding war

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Support in the time of war

My mind is overwhelmed. I didn’t think it would happen. I was always proud of an ability to compartmentalise. But the news of war on Ukraine has me overwhelmed. Images of violence, refugees, death…

I try to focus on writing, but my thoughts keep straying. I should be working on my next novel, but all I can think about is the conflict. My mind won’t let me be.

My mind overflows with pictures. Torn-up earth, blood, children crying. My heart swells with anger. How could this happen? Why? I don’t understand. I want to do something. But what? I am powerless.

Information overload

I sit, head in my hands, trying to let torrents of new information sink in. All the time, trying, and failing, to make sense of it all. I just can’t seem to put it into any kind of context, because it’s too overwhelming, too big.

I don’t understand the war, and I don’t know if anyone does. Why did it really start? What is the cause? Why are so many young men fighting to support the greed of one despicable rich man? How did it get to this point? What will happen now? Why is it so hard to understand?

I have tried and tried to understand this war, but it is too big. It is all over the news, but I still don’t understand. I’m overloaded with stories trying to find a human angle or something with which I can identify.

When the simple fact is, I can’t identify with this war, because it makes no sense.

How you can help in this war

PEN Ukraine together with PEN Belarus, Polish PEN Club and Open Culture Foundation is organising a public fundraiser to support the creative community of Ukraine.

The funds will go to help Ukrainian writers, journalists, scholars, translators, and artists who have found themselves under threat as a result of the Russian war against Ukraine.

The funds will be used to alleviate the urgent needs of Ukrainian creatives, whose lives are now in direct danger:

Culture is one of the chief bastions of Ukrainian freedom and we must ensure that members of the Ukrainian cultural community can continue to speak out loudly and without hindrance.

Support now: https://penbelarus.org/en/2022…

Dialogue in the age of Covid

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Dialogue in COVID times

Have you ever heard of Freecycle? It’s a website where you post messages about stuff you no longer need but don’t want to just throw away … because they might be useful to someone else. It’s brilliant if – like me – you have the most awful habit of deciding you’ll have a crack at something for which you’re hopelessly under qualified – such as plastering a ceiling or rewiring a bedroom.

I mention the site because today I was getting rid of seven large sheets of plasterboard (slightly damaged) following an ill-thought-out way to disguise an artexed ceiling. I posted them online. Within hours they were snapped up, and the fellow who came to collect them was a chatty chap who was more than happy to spend awhile talking as I picked his brains on various home improvement projects. His advice on the whole was don’t bother, just paint it. It was only after he left that I realised I’d worked a flabby muscle. I’d been talking to someone I don’t already know for more than a minute. It was liberating, I tell you. Being able to talk about something with a stranger who has no skin in whatever mad game I have planned for 2022.

If you have anything cluttering up a room (or garage in this case), I highly recommend giving it away to a stranger. And maybe add you expect a decent conversation in exchange. Just to weed out time wasters.

Writing dialogue

Because I ought to bring all of this back to the subject of writing, it kind of makes sense that having these conversations matters. In days of yore, I sat on buses and trains, ears pricked for the type of chatter that could find its way into my pages. In each office I hotdesked, I tuned into people, hoping they’d share a story I could use. After all, I wrote a book about dialogue, and one big tip relates to listening in to those around you.

Sparkling dialogue

It worries me Covid is impeding conversation and communication. Sure, we can Zoom into anyone’s living room or home office, but the chats we have are often edited. The body language hidden. It’s hard to maintain eye contact when the eyes in question are three inches under your camera. I do wonder if the stories we write in the next few years will sound different because of this. I’m watching ‘Offspring’ on Netflix right now. I recommend it as total binge fodder. The dialogue sparkles and people are forever hugging, touching and being together. In a world where we’re lucky if we see families in the same room, will we lose that ability to write such believable words? And what are believable words, anyway?

I’m still unsure if the stories I write now ought to consider Covid. Should my characters wear masks? I’m opting for setting everything in 2018, but that limits some cultural references. The other option is to set them in the here and now and pretend it’s all normal, but then you lose the Zoom meetings or plastering your hands in alcoholic gel to enter Tesco.

I wonder how you’re all cooping with this?

Happy new year to all my readers.

My top five don’t read list for 2021

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No reading

While the world and his wife/partner/best friend with benefits is busy telling you which (non-romantic fiction) books you absolutely must read, I thought I’d look back on 2021 as the year I reduced my reading materials and write instead about things you might also like to consider no longer reading.

Emails

Reading spamWay back when, email was going to be the game changer. No longer would you need pen and paper, an envelope, a postage stamp and the services of the Post Office (other mail delivery services are available) to tell someone what you had for your lunch. Email was going to do it all for you. And faster. Often using fewer words. In 2021, I stopped reading almost every email sent my way. The only exception being my business email inbox, and even then, I stayed selective. 95% of emails addressed to me were deleted unread. We’ve got smart home security Every time it detects movement I get an email. Recently, I had sixty-seven emails about a spider.

In my (non-writing) day job, I’ve made it clear I regard emails as ‘for information only’ and if anyone needs me to do something, they should pick up the phone and call (or connect through one of the now many chat applications I’m forced to maintain). I suggest you do the same. Unsubscribe from any and every mailing list – there’s not one that ever matters (except for my lovely and increasingly rare newsletters), set up an auto-reply that lays down the law about how you won’t be doing a darn thing based on an email, so speak to me if it matters and delete every other message you get. It may help to know I have cultured the reputation of a crotchety so-and-so in the workplace, but it means I get to do actual work and make a difference.

Leaflets and junk mail

Each time I buy a magazine, I find an in-store bin and shake free all the inserts. It’s the same when one arrives through the post. 4 out of 5 dentists agree. What does the fifth one think? Brush your teeth with a lollipop. I have the most awful impulse buying habit and I realise I am the precise target of these special offers and dubious claims. It’s best I don’t see them. The same goes for any junk mail – and indeed any mail that isn’t a bill or statement or the offer to buy film rights to Rebuilding Alexandra Small. Rid yourself of the meaningless words and wasted paper. Recycle them. Save trees. And don’t get me started on petitions. They never work. I might start one: Rewrite Hamlet so his dad doesn’t die. And everyone gets two hours of their life back.

The news

Disaster headlineOne of my other dreadful habits is that I over-consume the news. I can’t sleep at night until I’ve checked at least three or four major news outlet websites. Twice. I have two settings: worried for the world and craving cheese. I realise this sort of reading means I’m setting myself up for a bad night with so much screen time exposure, but something inside me remains convinced that if I don’t keep an eye on the world, it’ll blow itself up. Putting Boris Johnson in charge of the country is a bit like employing Prince Andrew as a babysitter. Every few months, I’ve managed to swear myself off and take what I call a news blackout. I refuse to listen to, read or talk about the news for two whole weeks. These are the good weeks where writing happens, the house gets a spring clean and I sleep like an overfed baby. I also realise I should do this more often or ration my intake. I could give it up tomorrow. It’s no big deal. Honest.

Warning labels on medicines

I am a hypochondriac. There, I admitted it. I am the sort of person who’d take a broad spectrum antibiotic as his desert island disc luxury item. There’s little more beloved of my sort of people than reading those little folded up sheets of paper written by lawyers that come with every pill or potion you buy or collect from a pharmacy. It’s not the ‘may cause death’ thing that bothers me. So can eating pizza. It’s the rare side effects that I home in on and within days convince myself I have at least half. COVID-19 has been huge in my head. Even bigger than in the real world. With each new variant, there’s a list of revised symptoms and I get them all. I’ve worked my way through many a box of self tests. The inside of my nose must be squeaky clean from regular use of cotton buds. This needs to end. Now.

BTL

Daily Mail BTL typicalBelow-the-line comments. Often found on newspaper websites, but also the same sort of content makes up 99.9% of Twitter. It’s like glimpsing the soiled underwear of a nation. These are people who lost their teeth to Mountain Dew. The Daily Mail website is like someone put Mein Kampf on shuffle. It’s the home of the stupid.

Under recipes, you find gems like: “This was NOT GOOD. I didn’t have eggs, so I substituted jalepeños and the batter wouldn’t hold. Also, I was out of white sugar so I substituted anthrax. Hubby died! But so did my stepson, who I hated. 2 stars.”. Before memes there were bumper stickers. Before that was the renaissance or some shit. I posted, ‘Hey everyone what’s your favourite doughnut?‘ It took just under a minute for superwowgirl77 to reply ‘I can only dream of them as unfortunately I am a celiac.‘ People weighed in, some to argue she was missing out, some to call her a killjoy, then the tide turned I became the evil one. I was cancelled.

5 ways to be a greener writer

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Climate change

Little by little. Baby step by baby step. The world is catching on to the need to stop doing things that will probably end life on this planet within the next couple of hundred years.

Our eco-unfriendly actions continue to cause a gradual melting of Polar ice. This will create a much wetter stratosphere. That will mean the removal of vital gases that support not just human life, but crops and everything we need to survive. As this ice melts, we won’t simply see dystopian floods taking out New York and London. Instead, the difference between the equator and the two poles will disappear along with us.

As a writer, I believe I use very little of the world’s resources. But I know even in that part of my world, I can create a more sustainable, low waste lifestyle. It’s not as easy as just reducing how much meat I eat or recycling plastic bottles. I gradually noticed how I was needing to empty the trash bin on my office floor two or three times a week. Mostly because I have an insatiable Amazon habit (it’s my way of procrastinating). Everything they send comes wrapped in many layers of paper and plastic. I am making made a personal commitment to produce as little rubbish in my writing life as possible—by which I don’t mean cutting back the florid descriptions and infeasibly complex plot points.

Here are five tips to start you off.

Greener pencils and notepads

Recyled pencil is greenerPencils last longer than pens, are easier to work with (erasers work wonders) and when I’m short on ideas, somehow my doodles just look better. With an aluminium pencil sharper rather than a plastic one, a few pencils will keep me going for a year. I recently found recycled pencils: mine used to be a newspaper.

When I need to take notes, I open up an email, write my notes (or dictate them) and hit save as draft. BUT for when only paper will do, avoid plastic covers, aim for recycled notebooks. And use every page, back and front. Obviously there is a lunatic fringe that will use pencil and then erase the lot for second use. I’m not there yet. I do, however, use junk mail envelopes for notepaper. For my next book, Guide Dogs for the Blind have contributed almost every scene card.

Greener energy saving devices

LED light bulbs offer the same amount of light as regular ones, but use 40% less energy. And yes, they cost a bit more, but they last longer too. If you can, try setting up your desk in front of a window and make use of natural light. A smart power strip detects when you’re not using your plugged in electronics and automatically turns them off. When something is out of use, don’t leave it on standby. Pull the plugs on traditional power strips even if everything they connect to is turned off, the strip still consumes tiny bits of power. I always smugly set up screensavers in the past, but then someone pointed out how that’s still using unnecessary electricity and consuming energy that’s going to waste. I changed my settings so my machine automatically goes into hibernation or sleep mode when not active.

Ebooks

I totally get how there’s a cost to storing each bite of data online. I strongly support a digital-first policy for publishers. An ebook doesn’t eat up the same amount of physical resources as printed novel and there are lower costs of transmission.

Paper and e-readers produce different kinds of pollution and waste. With readers, the main pollutant is the manufacture of the battery and the screen. Paper pulp mills contribute to air, water and land pollution. Even paper recycling can be a source of pollution due to the sludge produced during de-inking. Our landfills are composed of about 26% paper, and the publishing industry consumes about 11% of freshwater consumed in industrial nations.

I decided to only buy ebooks from now on. My back catalogue will increasingly be only available in digital format—and bonus, that’s an ISBN number you don’t have to buy and register if you self publish.

Don’t upgrade your tech

Recycle technologyStick with your (working) tech Resist the upgrade. Until you really need it, does it matter if Scrivner is slow to open or you have to sip your coffee before Word is up and running?

Technowaste is a massive problem. Use your old tools until they drop—and then dispose of them responsibly—if that old tablet you bought the kids will run your editing software but not connect online, that’s even better. There’s less to distract you. And any new machine always comes with a learning curve as you get it to work how you want. That’s time you could be writing.

A faster laptop won’t make your books any better.

Don’t print

Don’t print unless you must: In the old carefree days, we thought nothing of meeting an agent request to print out 100,000 words double line-spaced one-sided and mail the resulting bulk. Thankfully, most agents and publishers saw sense. But as writers we need to do the same. Most of us hate printing, and the energy spent swearing at a printer that refuses to connect or snarls up sheet after sheet is avoidable if you don’t use it. I edit on screen or better on my Kindle app. As long as I get to see text in a different medium to one in which I wrote, it helps. Often if that’s just exporting it from Word into a PDF, or using the read aloud function on most computers. If you need to print, use an ‘eco’ font—one that uses less ink and downsize as far as possible to reduce paper use. You don’t need Size 12 Times New Roman, double spaced, printed one size for your own use.

Moving stress

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Curtain twitching neighbour

Moving house is supposedly one of the more stressful things we put ourselves through. Add in one of those awful weekends life likes to chuck your way from time to time, and you have the recipe for Xanax.

As weekends go, the one that just ended was rubbish – even by my low standards. My husband broke down in a torrential downpour on a major motorway with no hard shoulder. One of these new fangled smart motorways that killed 38 people in the few years. My dog picked up a skin infection that is now costing an arm and a leg in mature cheese to disguise the crushed up pound-coin-sized antibiotics a sadistic (and now extremely well-off) vet prescribed. I dropped and broke three highly pressurised glass bottles of traditional lemonade (living the high life). You wouldn’t believe just how much mess that causes. And just how far the shards of glass will travel. And just how sharp they are when you sit on one. And how hard it is to administer a plaster to your rear that stays put.

To top it all, our soon-to-be ex-neighbour from hell decided to have one last go at sending me over the edge.

Neighbour from hell

When people talk neighbours from hell, they usually mean some antisocial creep who plays loud music, smokes way-too-much weed and/or smears windows with excrement. Or variations on those basic three themes. My appalling neighbour does none of this. He’s of the ‘nice to your face, vile behind your back’ sort. The kind of person who used to dominate the 90s gay scene.

Over eight years, he’s policed a dim, barnacled, smelly area of no-man’s-land between each flat in our ancient under-maintained building. The kind of place you could keep a prisoner of conscience secure in the knowledge they’d crack within hours and spill every secret. Our neighbour spends each and every waking hour making sure nobody dare set foot in this precious scrap of hell.

We wanted to make sure the space didn’t put off flat buyers. We came to an agreement with the people who own it to clean it up and fill it with plants.

Neighbour wasn’t pleased.

Usually, I’d be able to tell such a man to shove his displeasure firmly up his hoop. Sadly, he gets to say whether we can extend the years on our lease as we sell and get moving. I have to lap it all up. And rather than tell me to my face, how did he choose to announce his irritation? That’s right. By email. Through his solicitor.

Moving shame

Dear reader, I’m ashamed to say I threw myself on his mercy. I rammed my tongue so far up his rear end it came out of his mouth.

So far, the matter looks to be resolved, and it’s only cost an extra £1700 in legal fees to send a letter to five or six different people. Still, if it means we get on with moving house and away from this awful man …

Why am I telling you this? Because I want to set down what life in Britain is like in 2021. The NIMBY (Not in my back yard) culture that expects everything should run only for the benefit of those in power slides down even to my lowly level on the ladder. That and I want to make sure I don’t forget the details and the rage so I can use it in my next book.

And use it I will.