We present an extract from Writers Anonymous, the latest novel by William Wall.
Fighting off the boredom of lockdown, acclaimed author Jim Winter decides to share his skills by setting up an anonymous online writing workshop – but his generosity will cost him more than he knows...
In the May morning's dawning, idly staring out the window, laptop open at another blank page, the thought comes to me to set up a writers’ group. An online writers’ group. It seems like an uncomplicated idea, something to keep my head occupied because, as with many writers, nothing else is happening in there since the crisis began. The idea comes to me in the vacant space between one irrational thought and another. The place where ideas for books come from. Normally I see phrases, sentences, or the shapes of characters emerge from that primitive darkness to assume an earthly shape on the page. But this time it is a practical thought that will – or should – have consequences in the real world. An online writers’ group.
And to give it an extra twist, it will be entirely anonymous.
I’m pleased with that idea. An anonymous online writers’ group. For beginners.
A masterclass in prose composition.
I discuss it with my wife, Catherine, who is too well aware that I have been kicking my heels in frustration for two months and more, that the book I had begun in good spirits in January ran out of energy as the pandemic closed in, the numbers began to rise, international travel came to a stop and publishers and agents went into semi-hibernation. She thinks it is an excellent idea, though the idea of a 'master’ class in prose (air quote gesture plus cynical laughter) might be better left out. Musicians are giving free live concerts, she tells me, sopranos are singing ‘Un Bel Dì, Vedremo’ to their neighbours from their balconies whether the neighbours want it or not, impromptu jam sessions are happening on Facebook and elsewhere, people are phoning random strangers, librarians taking books to the housebound. The manifest of human kindness. The idea of doing something that might help others to survive the lockdown is in the air. The world has discovered solidarity.
An advertisement on social media. I set up anonymous accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, screenshot a piece of text and attach it as an advertisement, and the ad is picked up by book bloggers, influencers, other writers, agents and publishers – all of us sitting at home, desperately trying to avoid facing the blank page. Within twenty-four hours it has been retweeted over fifteen times on Twitter alone.
Writers Anonymous: Call for Unpublished Writers
An Irish author of five novels and a book of non-fiction who wishes to remain anonymous will give free workshops for five unpublished prose-writers (English language only). Application must be anonymous. Applicants will submit a sample of one thousand words. The selected five will remain strictly anonymous throughout the entire period of six months. Any information which might identify the applicant will incur immediate disqualification. Email applications to:
writers.anonymous2020@outlook.com. The sending email address must also be anonymous. Offer closes Tuesday May 5th.
The email address has been specifically set up for the group. I choose May the fifth, only three days away, because it was the date on which I was originally due to fly to Rome for a festival. Rome is my city of escape. Cancelling that, way back in early March when it was clear travel would grind to a halt, was particularly painful. But I also want to keep the applications to a minimum. Three days is enough. I don’t want it to become a full-time job.
By evening I have seven applications. On checking my emails the following morning I find that the number has risen to nineteen. I begin to panic. What if I receive a hundred applications? That would be a hundred thousand words. Would I have to read every one? If not, perhaps I would miss the one genius, the one true writer in the group. I watch as the applications come in over the next days. Catherine offers to help and we begin to read. By Tuesday we have a grand total of twenty-six applicants. We begin making longlists and then shortlists and eventually we narrow it down to ten anonymous writers. Most of the rest of it is utter junk, easily dismissed. (You forget how you started, Catherine admonishes me, you can be an arrogant prick you know.)
We argue for some time over how to reduce the number from ten. Each of us has our favourite. We agree on one (Tom). My favourite is from someone called Emily, a prose piece about Italy and the film Roman Holiday (Strolling on Via Margutta one is assailed by memories that are not memories because one has lived them only at second hand. The actual experiences belonged to Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck or Crown Princess Ann and Joe Bradley …) I spent two years studying for a master’s in the University of Rome, ‘La Sapienza’, two of the best years of my life, and I devour anything related to that country. Catherine’s choice is from someone calling herself Deirdre. I read it but there is something about it that unnerves me. It opens with a descriptive paragraph:
The trawlers are resting quietly against the pier. Detritus collects between the stone and the boat, both flotsam and jetsam. The sea breathes slowly in and out and the world hurtles through space like a cannon ball. Here on the stone pier the motion is imperceptible, but on the deck of a boat the world is full of uncertainty. The smell of diesel oil and sour nets and holds and salt and something chemical from the ice plant. Mattie walks out to the breakwater past the bags of nets, the net-boxes, the fish-boxes, the floats and shackles and chains and ropes and buoys, the otter boards like giant rusted razors, the lobster pots, the yellow-painted button-shaped bollards, the bowlines and springs and stern-lines. Someone has written a sum in felt pen on a net-bag. Mattie notices the numbers, 78, 78, 156, 174, 186. All even. Total 672. The appearance of order.
There is more in the same vein, a story that doesn’t much interest me, but I feel I know the location. I can almost walk the pier. I can hear the voices that she conjures, of the fishermen and the buyers and the harbour master. The thing is, it reminds me of home, the little fishing town of Rally where I grew up and which I fled with such haste and determination the moment the opportunity presented. Small-town Ireland where everybody knows everybody and their business, where nothing is private and everyone – including me – has secrets. In my case a secret I have never revealed to anybody, including my wife. The secret of why I ran away. The nasty virus of my past waiting to irrupt and contaminate everything.
Writers Anonymous is published by New Island
