About the only thing I write that doesn’t get edited is my shopping list. So let me introduce you to my much-loved and trusted team of beady-eyed editors who find themselves roped in to knock my prose into shape.
Yvonne Klein, my co-editor in crime over at RTE, is charged with the task of toning down my more sarcastic comments in book reviews, and also curing me of my life-long addiction to ellipses and exclamation marks …!
Mafalda Stasi and Wayne Gunn look over my academic writings. Wayne’s a retired Eng Lit professor from Texas. Maf is Italian, lives in Paris and speaks at least three languages fluently. Both of them immediately see the wood from the trees.
Fortunately for the unsuspecting world, I don’t write fiction very often. But when I do, it’s shovelled in the direction of my friends Linda and Fiona. Linda can spot a plot hole and character glitch at 20 paces. Fiona is the cheerleader every writer wants. But no discrepancies or vague phrases sneak past her.
You don’t acquire trusted editors and mentors overnight. You learn early on that some friends can’t bring themselves to criticise what you’ve written, so instead give you the written version of a pat on the hand. Thank them prettily and don’t push them – it’s not worth losing a friendship over if you force them outside of their comfort zone.
If I edit for people as a favour, I ask them at the outset how honest they want me to be. Some want you to read and then gush over every word. Others genuinely want you to go through with the finest of toothcombs and are quite happy for you to murder their darling. Sometimes you just know that it won’t end well, so best to discover an urgent deadline which precludes you from helping out.
All this is by way of remembering the two best mentors and editors I’ve had. Joan Martin, a retired Californian schoolteacher, died in 2006. She oozed calm and quiet competence and would say with a twinkle in her eye: “I’m just a sweet little old lady.”
People seemed to know instinctively that she wouldn’t take crap off anybody. And she could fillet leaden prose quicker than anyone. I didn’t get to know Joan until she was over 70, and we met up three times – I went to California twice and she stayed with me in the UK once – but we spoke on the phone several times a month and emailed constantly.
I dedicated my Feature Writing for Journalists to Joan – and will be dedicating the next book to Professor Peter Widdowson, who died last week. Peter was a much-loved colleague in the English department at the University of Gloucestershire, and was the man responsible for kick-starting my research.
When I got the job at UoG, several colleagues in other universities said reverentially: “Oh, Peter Widdowson’s there!” So I was fully expecting some god-like figure who didn’t consort with the hoi polloi. After all, Peter’s publication record stretched halfway to the moon.
In fact, I found a sparky, witty man with an unbounded enthusiasm which he passed on to colleagues and students. I remember my first years enthusing over a grammar and punctuation session he’d done with them. I tried not to gawp with amazement at an academic with Peter’s reputation taking such a basic study skills class – but he made those essential rules fun and accessible.
I hadn’t been at UoG long when he sat me down and asked me about my research record. I muttered that I’d come from a teaching university and anyway, I was a journalist and kept busy with that, thank you very much. He looked at me over his glasses and said that we’d see about that. I then admitted that I’d been toting round a book proposal which three publishers had politely declined, and would he mind taking a look at it and telling me what was wrong with it.
“How honest do you want me to be?” asked Peter. “Totally,” I said. And he was – the proposal came back to me coated liberally with red pen, and I could soon see why none of the publishers had mown me down in the rush. From then on, he looked over my book proposals, jabbed me in the ribs to do research seminars, and provided advice whenever it was needed. And my academic publishing went from nil to one book, a co-edited book and chapters in two other books within five years.
Me and my historian colleague Penny agreed that Peter would be the one man we’d take to a desert island. Never mind all these young hunks with nothing between the ears – Peter had a brain the size of a planet, a cheeky schoolboy sense of humour and could discourse fluently on seemingly any subject. You’d never be bored in his company and would come away realising you’d learned something new each time.
I shall miss Peter’s sense of fun, his enthusiasm and his ‘you can do it’ motivation. And most of all I shall remember the hilarious emails (we had a bizarre double act going which stemmed from both the Carry On films and that well-known quote: "I have in my hand a piece of paper …") As he himself used to sign off: Yours ‘til hell freezes over.
