Ray Robinson is the author of electrifying debut novel Electricity. We talk to him about his experiences as a writer:
When did you decide that you wanted to be a writer?
I started writing poetry when I was about six, and had it in my head that being ‘a writer’ was something that I wanted to do. My school years weren’t particularly instructive (I’m being polite) and weirdly enough I wrote my first book when I was sixteen, though I didn’t read a novel until I was eighteen. I suppose I’m a bit like Posh Spice in that respect. So I wrote this an awful mess-of-a-thing that I ended up chopping into tiny pieces and spreading around the bins in my town. There weren’t any books in my house; no fireside-father reading Jack London; no bedside-mother reading fairytales. But I come from family of inveterate bullshitters, so I guess you can say I was immersed in a strong oral tradition of storytelling from an early age. It wasn’t until my late twenties, after I’d finished travelling, that I decided to do something about it, and secured a place at Lancaster University doing an M.A. in Creative Writing.
Before I did the M.A., I knew very little about writing; it was simply something that I did without really understanding the whys or whats or hows of what I was doing. My background was in visual culture and concepts like ‘third person limited-omniscience’ or media res or the difference between character and characterisation were completely alien to me. The M.A. was invaluable in that it introduced me to the craft and gave me a year to test my dreams, to see whether I had what it takes to write full-time. I found that I did, and that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. That may sound ridiculously earnest, but it’s true.
What starts the creative process for you – is it a storyline, a character or a particular situation?
Most of my writing is a distillation of experience. At worst my writing is a compulsion to recount and to heal; at best, it’s an urge to create something new and exciting upon the page. To make the ordinary extraordinary, if you like. So I guess for me the creative process bridges the gap between lived experience and imaginative response.
Do you find the process easy or do you have to devise a strict working routine?
I have a very blue-collar approach to my work. Writing isn’t some esoteric art; I don’t sit poised, quill in hand every morning, waiting for my monkey muse to throw some peanuts of inspiration at me. Writers block is a lazy-arse middle-class excuse to read the papers or watch Tricia. Writing, like every other art form, is a craft, and all novelists are apprentices because there’s no such thing as the perfect novel. You have to write your balls (or tits) off, all of your life, and you still might be shit at it. But that’s the thing I love about novel writing, as opposed to short stories or poems; it’s that their size, the sheer amount of words they contain, permits imperfection. I can think of a handful poems and short stories that ache with near-perfection (and by perfect I mean that if you removed a single word they would collapse; think Paul Farley; think Raymond Carver), but this simply isn’t the case with a novel – it can carry exiguous or bad writing if the bulk of the narrative is strong enough.
I try to do a nine-to-five, five days a week, and I find it helps if I leave the flat. I like working at the British Library; I find the diligent atmosphere refreshing. This is always difficult because usually I wake up (mentally, creatively) about 10 p.m. I’m preternaturally nocturnal and I rarely switch off. I find everything inspiring, and like some sick, sad pervert, I have to write for life to mean anything. So no, it’s no easy process. It’s a distorted and voyeuristic way of life with no OFF button.
Do you structure your work before you even start writing or does the storyline evolve & develop as you progress?
My first novel, The Boy With the Thorn In His Side, took shape across the walls of the house I then lived in. I redecorated two rooms with lining paper. As a creative writing M.A. student, I scuffled with form, and I felt my tutors were keeping secrets from me. Then I discovered Story by Robert McKee and felt I’d found the Holy Grail. So I went to work. I read that pathetic book three times, diligently making notes on arch-plots, act design, false endings, principles of antagonism, positioning of the Obligatory Scene. I drew diagrams, mathematically plotted scales, demarcating the Inciting Incident, First Turning Point, Second Turning Point, right the way through to the Last Act Climax and Resolution.
My ‘novel’ was taking shape across these two rooms. The first room, the small spare bedroom, was where the first act was designed; the second room was where the second and third act would take shape. Then I pared each section right down into the subsequent beats, just like Mr McKee said you should.
Oh dear.
There was something highly fictive in my first novel’s form; the characters were, in a way, tethered to a schema in which they weren’t allowed to grow, to develop. They were not allowed to defy the rigours of the formula. But when I took the scaffolding away, there was very little substance. With Electricity I was a lot more circumspect of design; I was determined never to repeat the over-kill of over-plot.
In Electricity, all I knew was where Lily was coming from and where she had to get to, both physically and emotionally. The rest, I decided, would grow organically within these structural bookends. Lily’s world wasn’t going to be defined by a straight line towards her goal; there would be transformation, turmoil, and regeneration of character – yielding to the vicissitudes of everyday life. Once I’d accepted and embraced this idea, Lily, and all the other characters in the book, began to take on a life of their own. The fact that this terrified me was liberating.
How long did it take you to write Electricity?
Electricity began life as a short story submitted as part of my M.A., working its way into the novel with just a slight re-working of the original form. Certain aspects of the novel are established in this short story: the physical setting; Lily’s childhood memories of Don and her mother; her job in the arcade; the general dreariness of her everyday life. I guess this is the story I’ve always been trying to write. In all, the novel took me about 18 months to complete, during which time I was writing up to seventy hours a week.
Who was the inspiration for your main character Lily, and what made you decide to make the lead character female?
I’d like to say I did it purely for the challenge, but to be honest, I can’t imagine Electricity being written from a man’s point of view, can you? My first experiences of epilepsy were as a child; I witnessed my cousin Lisa’s seizures every day, both her terrifying hallucinations and her full blown tonic-clonics. This had a profound impact on me back then. It was terrifying, but, perversely perhaps, intriguing. Watching her thrashing about on the floor, I’d wonder what it felt like to be inside her, and those early experiences are something that I’ve always tried to write about. Lisa became Lily and Lily became a vehicle for me to explore our shared biography.
Of course any male ‘empathy’ in literature is still seen as spurious. Male writing: you think laddish, tough, stark, humorous, a tad misogynistic. Maybe Electricity will be seen as voyeuristic? How dare this Northern oik appropriate genuine female emotions and trick us into being moved by Lily’s plight? It all comes down to the illusion of authenticity. Lily is authentic because she’s real to me and her experiences are peppered with genuine female experiences – I’ve stolen the codes and gestures of the feminine voice, if you like. But don’t forget, most of it comes from inside my head. Does this devalue its merit, or enhance it? This war between the public and the private – the public’s perception and my intention. I say rubbish: all art is illusion, and if when you’re reading Electricity you hear a woman’s voice, if you hear Lily’s voice and are moved by her story, then I’ve achieved my goal.
Do you think that your upbringing has affected you as a person and influenced your writing?
I suppose the psychosocial aspects of any writer’s childhood will find its way into their work, especially debut novels. Much of what I write has its genesis in my early experiences of family life and rural poverty, and not only are most of my fictional characters based on real people that have populated my life, but also similar tropes, images, and settings recur.
Recently, this has been a revelation to me, and has made me question why my writing takes on such energy when revisiting these old themes. By exaggerating and embellishing my childhood memories and the truths and emotions they expose, I guess I’m exploring my own territory. Lily’s story carries real importance for me, because I too felt betrayed, abused, and lonely as a child. Viewed in this light, Electricity is nothing more than an act of dissociative ventriloquism. So yes, as much as I hate the fact, my upbringing is still having an impact on my creative work.
