Writing 'The Long and The Short of it'

The title of Annmarie Miles's book — 'The Long and The Short of it' — says it all, writes Brian Byrne. The debut collection from this Kilcullen-based writer comprises pieces which range in length from a hundred words to something approaching four and a half thousand. Some of the pieces show a fragment of a character, others reflect greater complexity and completeness. Just like all our daily lives.

Annmarie's stories are simply written. Her characters are all recognisable, as are their situations. As readers we can relate to each and every one of them, because we have known equivalents, or have been ourselves in their situations. In some cases, such as in the story about a widowed man and a suggested early stage of memory loss, we are maybe looking down our own road.

There's sadness, happiness, pain, joy, loss and gain. Stories have always been used to teach about life, sometimes to direct towards good, on other occasions to instill fear about bad. The oral bedtime story mythologies which were later transcribed into moral tales, plays, and even visual art, are the DNA of how we as human beings interact and conduct ourselves.

'The Long and The Short of it' was launched in Kilcullen recently by the highly respected Kildare town author Martin Malone, who spoke about the compassionate, funny and interesting aspects of Annmarie's writing. "As writers we try and weave magic through our words, and Annmarie has succeeded in doing that," he said. "She has woven touches of humanity and humour through her work."

That's a good start in a process which the author only began in earnest just over a year ago. Her previous writing had been mainly in musical and religious terms — she's a committed Christian — and she had added a blog to her outlets. "In September of last year I had already decided it was time to take writing more seriously, but I wasn't sure how to go about it."

At a County Dublin writers' centre, Carousel Creates, facilitator Catherine Brophy took participants through the process of taking a childhood memory and turning it into a fictional story. "You do it by redrafting, changing the point of view, embellishing details. It all actually came very naturally to me. I also read a book called 'You Are a Writer, Start Acting Like One', so I did."

Annmarie took part in a blog challenge which required writing a series of daily stories about a character. She did about a young girl called Lizzy and her brother. "The Lizzy character is very obviously me, but the stories are mostly fictional. However, I told one of my brothers that if he was ever looking for himself, he should read 'Lizzy', as her brother is very much modeled on him."

Maybe her brother is now reading 'Lizzy', which is now running as a weekly series in the Echo newspaper in Tallaght and south Dublin. But Annmarie claims that the stories in 'The Long & The Short of it' are not so obviously connected to anything. "I do a lot of what's called 'free writing', where you turn off the internal editor and write down whatever words are in your head. When it came to doing the short stories, I was using wider and less personal themes than 'Lizzy', mostly based on what raw material had come out of my free writing. But there are one or two which old school friends or family might recognise — at least scenarios like the scoliosis test in school, going to confession, annoying the old man who lives with his scraggy dog."

She works quickly, and when she gets an idea it has to be written down fast. If it flows, she keeps typing until she gets to the end. Which may partly account for the widely varying word counts in her stories. "If I hesitate or pause for too long, I don't wrestle with it. I move on and come back to it later. My concern is that if I think too long and hard about it, it will be — or will sound — contrived."

Annmarie's writing sounds good when read, is easy on the ear. She is a member of the Kilcullen Writing Group, and when she reads aloud a new piece it is always an entertainment. She was, as she puts it, 'raised on songs and stories' and from a young age all members of her family were encouraged to sing or say poems at family gatherings. She is in discussion with her publisher, Emu Ink, about doing an audio version of the book, which is already available in traditional and digital formats.

Emu Ink is a self-publishing company, founded by former Tallaght based journalist Emer Cleary. The publisher offers professional editing, book cover designs, e-publishing services — including the ability for readers to rent the book for a period online — and print on demand. "I paid for a suite of individual processes, which included editing, design, organising ISBN and more. But the important part was that I also got Emer's total commitment to the book, help with marketing, and the opportunity to be involved with fringe events like Dublin book festivals. And when I visit her office, there's very often nice cake with the coffee ..."

At the end of the process there was a physical book in her hand. An 'unbelievable' experience, Annmarie is not shy about admitting. "I'm not able to have children, so when I held the draft copy in my hand for 20 minutes and then had to give it back, I felt I'd had a little insight into how a mother feels when her new-born has to go into an incubator and she can't hold it. It was the nearest thing to a first-born I will ever hold."

Any writer, especially non-professional, knows the difficulty in finding time to do what they need to do. Many get up at the crack of dawn to write before the family wakes up and their day starts. "That's not me! Both myself and my husband work part time from home, so I'm always able to find a time that works. I was made redundant from my 'office job' in October, and that meant I could get stuck into National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). From that I got the very rough first draft of a novel, and in the new year I'll sit down with my publisher and we'll decide if it's a project worth pursuing. I do think the short story is my forte, though, so I'll keep writing them."

The Kilcullen launch of 'The Long and The Short of it' was facilitated by Kilcullen Community Library, for which Annmarie is very grateful, as she is to the members of the Kilcullen Writing Group who encouraged her to seek out a publishing platform. In the meantime, for anyone who didn't make it, they can access the book through emuink.ie, for buy or rent, or on Amazon. Or just get directly in touch with Annmarie herself at amowriting@gmail.com.

This article was originally published on the Kilcullen Page of the Kildare Nationalist.