Literature Festivals time again.

Yes, spring is springing, and the festival season has begun. I'm off to Oxford on Saturday, to hang about in colleges and listen to wonderful writers talk about wonderful books. And I'll probably buy more than I intend - but what the hell, that's what literature festivals are for, isn't it?

Wait a minute. That's not what the organisers tell us they're for. They want booky people and booky writers to mingle, enjoy time together, celebrate being generally bookish. There are even parties and dinners to celebrate their bookishness.

Wait a minute. That's not what the marketing people tell us they're for. It's all very well for writers to be charming, to mingle with the hoi polloi, to blush and be graciously grateful for all the accolades heaped on them. Accolades - pah! The marketing men want sales. How else can they measure success?

Wait a minute. Those, like me, who pour over programmes and wrestle with decisions over who to see, who not to see, can I really afford to go to all these events - what do we want? Here I can only speak for myself. I want to learn, but I also want to be entertained. I've invested, not in a hard sell, but in an hour in which to get to know the writer and his or her work better. Of all the people I've seen at festivals, two stand out: AL Kennedy and Anne Enright. I bought books I'd not planned on buying, not because they spent an hour telling me how wonderful their books were, but because they came across as real people who were as interested in the audience as we were in them. And I figured that if they could do that, then they'd write great characters that would also interest me.

And the writers - what do they want? Sales, of course. Seeing someone walk down the street with My Book tucked under an arm is enough to send me reaching for the champagne. (Well, the prosecco, if you want to be picky). And maybe time away from the computer, time to mingle with people and talk about words rather than fight with them (the words, not the people). But it's more complicated than that. Literature festivals are not really time off, for the writer cannot arrive in his or her slippers. There are protocols, a dress code, trappings of respectability to be observed if anyone is to take you seriously. All of which is enough to send some writers hiding under the duvet. Who can blame them, with so many different expectations sitting on their shoulders.

And you - what takes you to literature festivals? And how can you tell if it's met your expectations?

All fall down ...

We know the children's rhyme - Ring-a-ring-a-roses, and at the end a pile of children collapse on the floor giggling, and then bounce up again.

I believe it's derived from the time of The Plague, when one sneeze was enough for sufferers to begin digging their own graves. Not much giggling there.

Well, in all the wind and rain, my fence fell down taking a shrub with it, and the tree from next door fell on the other fence. The result - debris scattered all over the garden, broken shrubs and roses and general muddy miserableness.

But nobody was hurt. No houses were damaged. We were warm and dry and had enough to eat. This is not a post about those who still find themselves under water - but let's pause for a minute to think how that must be, weeks down the line, and your carpets still stinking of mud (and worse).

No, the point is that, bit by bit, the mayhem in my garden is receding. The tree has gone from my lawn. One fence is back up. One little tree - an ornamental hazel - has somehow escaped damage and stands bravely in a rather bald flower bed. My neighbour and I have promised ourselves a trip to a Garden Centre once the other fence is up, to buy plants to replace those that were buried under the mud. The garden is getting used to its new shape. Before long it will be hard to recall the shadows of that lovely apple tree; only the birds will miss the red berries on the pyracantha. We'll sit in it next summer, with wine, and savour the surprises of new plants and flowers.

What has all this got to do with anything? Well, I think my writing-head feels like that garden muddle at times. All bits and twigs and muddiness. What begins as a good idea somehow collapses and become misshapen, trampled, its core buried under the wreckage.

It takes time, dragging each titbit into the daylight and wondering if it is any use or to dump it in the 'delete file'. Sometimes there's a temptation to dump the lot, to begin again, to find a new idea. But that core - the one that fired me in the first place - is generally still there. It takes time to find it. And it might need new narrative contexts in which to flourish. But ideas are precious, and should be cherished. They'll come out to play eventually, if we can give them space to breathe. And clear the rubbish that threatens to overwhelm them.

My last post about voices (last, as in I won't write about it again).

I have so many thoughtful comments to my last post about writers' voices that I've come back to it - I've obviously stuck a chord.

I hadn't realised that the concept of 'voice' is used across the arts - so sculptors, photographers, knitters, are all encouraged to think about what makes them distinctive - to look at the way their work reflects them and what they are trying to say. (Thank you, Mark - I never knew that.) I'd not thought of it in terms of 'voice' but I can recognise a Henry Moore or a Barbara Hepworth, a Modigliani or an Ansell Adams, and will go out of my way to see them. They have a distinctive way of expressing themselves that speaks to me - and I'm not sure I can put that into words except to say that they make me feel good; they are satisfying on a deep level (if that makes any sense).

But in writing - does this familiarity extend to writing? I take Carol's point about Dickens (thank you, Carol) - his work is instantly recognisable. But modern writers - Bring Up the Bodies and Wolf Hall could only have been written by Hilary Mantel. But Beyond Black - that's a completely different book, written in a different style and with a different use of language, with no hint of drowning in wonderful historical detail, and also written by Hilary Mantel. Crime writers have their pet detectives - but they, too, spread their writing wings from time to time. I've not read Kate Atkinson's Life after Life but understand that the contrast with her crime novels couldn't be stronger.

I'm probably thinking round in circles - I'm not sure I'm any closer to a definition than I was three weeks ago, when I decided 'voice' is something to do with the dialogue between what we are trying to say and the medium (whether that is words or paint or plaster) we use to tell it.

And then I wonder - and this might be a heretical idea so please, those of you who know better, do shout me down - maybe the concept of 'voice' is an academic construct, used to promote discussion among students and give them headaches when they have essays to write, but of limited use to anyone with a blank screen in front of them, or paintbrush in hand. What do you think?

(It's hard work, all this thinking - I think it's time to go and burn soup!)

We can't all be 'best-selling writers'

Next time you're in a bookshop, scan the shelves and count just how many 'best selling authors' or 'Number one best sellers' or 'prizewinning writers' there are.

Some are genuine - we can all check books in line for major prizes. But I wonder about the book claiming to be longlisted in a competition held by an obscure seaside town. And as for 'New York Times Bestseller' - how can we check that? Or did someone buy 100 copies of his or her own book in a day and earned it that way?

If you're a twitterer, or dip into Facebook from time to time - have a look at a profile or ten. Every second author is 'prizewinning' or 'best-selling' ...

It's impossible. For every book that is a 'best-seller' there has to be thousands (or more) that do fairly well but don't rock the boat. For every 'prizewinner' are all the writers who are also-rans. I don't blame anyone not including 'submitted to the Outer Mongolian prize for genre fiction but didn't get anywhere' in gold letters above the title. Or leaving off 'made it into the top 100 on Amazon for half an hour.'

How do you react to this? I respond by not believing anyone who claims any status or award (unless it's one of the big ones). It smacks of self-aggrandisement and I want to sit these writers down and remind them that they eat and sleep like the rest of us. They've written the best book they could - it's enough to be proud of that.

Or maybe they are being disingenuous - they are the best-selling writer in their family? Or their town? Or have won a prize in the short-stories-about-a-slug contest?

Pah, they write and hope and are elated one minute and disappointed the next, just like the rest of us.

(Though you might like to know that I'm the best-selling travel writer in the street where I live ...)

Writing groups - in their diversity and wonderfulness!

This post has grown out of a twitter-chat: Emma Pass and I were wittering about our writing groups and it was clear that we both value them, but they are organised differently. So we decided to write this together, post it on both our blogs at the same time, and see what happened!

Which got me wondering whether it's the structure of a group that matters, or the fact that it is an opportunity to work collectively with people we trust.

I go to a group that used to call itself a Life Writing Group. It is organised by a woman who also teaches with the OU; she brings an exercise or two, gives us homework, and generally keeps us in order. A year or so ago we spent a lot of time talking about memory and how to reframe that into something literate. We laughed (and wept a little) and wrote some wonderful pieces.

We've grown, over the year. While the structure of the group is the same, and some of us are still working almost entirely on memoir, others have branched out into fiction - both short stories and novels - and others into poetry. We've been submitting work all over the place, and even the sniff of success is celebrated with cake.

It is the writing highlight of my week (yes, every week, during term time.)

Emma, meanwhile, has a very different experience - and here is her bit:

As well as being an author, I have a day job in a library, where I’ve been supporting and coordinating an adult writing group for around 3 years now. The group started out as a wellbeing group, run by another writer, and I took it over when her sessions finished.

We meet monthly, and there is a wide range of ages and interests. So often, people don’t have a space in their lives where they can be creative, so this group aims to give them that. Our main focus is on having fun and trying out new things. The sessions usually consist of short exercises which members can interpret however they want, but there is no pressure to take part if a particular exercise doesn’t inspire, and you don’t have to share your work if you don’t want to.

Alongside the adult group, I run a group for 9-14 year-olds which has been going for around a year now. It follows basically the same format as the adult group, and it’s amazing how well many of the exercises we do suit both groups! And of course, we always have chocolate – it’s essential writing fuel!

Two very different experiences. So, what is yours?