Andrea Mann

Andrea Mann is a British screenwriter

An Attic Landing Of One’s Own

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Why painting walls is like writing drafts – and why it’s progress, not perfection, that matters

My husband Frank and I have bought a house together (for the very first time!) and been doing it up (also for the very first time!).

It’s a Victorian terrace which has needed a bit of love. In other words: we’ve* been stripping wallpaper, sanding and painting (and Zinssering – iykyk) walls, pulling up carpets and smashing open fireplaces. We’ve had the house fully rewired, our chimney newly flaunched, and we’ve learned what the word ‘flaunched’ means. We’ve put a log burner in one of the aforementioned smashed-open fireplaces, installed a new bathroom (during which our plumber discovered tiles upon tiles – literally), and created a new partition wall with pocket doors. Pocket doors!! I can tell you now that those long winter nights are going to fly by, mainly because I’ll just be standing by this archway, sliding doors in and out of it:

There’s gold in them there hills doors in them there walls!

In short: the summer has been filled with a fascinating, time-consuming, fulfilling and at times slightly stressful project, and I’ve never used so much hand cream in my life.

The whole experience has also been an excellent reminder of an adage I’ve told myself (and fellow writers, and fellow recovering people-pleasers) numerous times: that ‘perfect is the enemy of good’. Or indeed, the enemy of done.

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Finding your ‘voice’ in writing (and music, and life)

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Did you know that Hold Me Now by The Thompson Twins has a middle bridge section that’s very like Wichita Lineman? Nor did I until this week, when I sat down at my piano keyboard on a whim to see how possible-slash-satisfying one of my absolute favourite songs from the 80s would be to sing and play. (Turns out: very possible, and very satisfying.)

The reason I’ve been sitting down at my keyboard on a whim quite a lot lately – normally prompted by a favourite song from the 70s or 80s popping up on shuffle (I can testify that How Long by Ace is also incredibly satisfying) – is because, for the very first time in my life, in my 50s, I am busking. And in fact this month I took it one stage further – literally, it was at the Man Cave Stage – and sang and played at Ilkley Live, a brilliant free music festival that happens in my new hometown every year:

That’s me in the corner (that’s me in the sunshine, finding my religion)

I’ve sung with jazz musicians – ie vocals only – for many years now, although until recently I hadn’t actually done it for many years, if you see what I mean. But singing while also playing piano in public has been something I’ve only done occasionally – again, many years ago, and vitally: only ever as background music in a busy bar or restaurant. To sing and play while people are actually, erm, paying attention is a new, rather scary, step for me. And it’s got me thinking about the idea of being heard – about being public, and audible. About one’s voice.

The idea of your ‘voice’ is talked about a lot in the writing world. But how do you find it? And what even is it?

The latter question is, for me, the route into the former. One’s ‘voice’ is one’s personality on the page: your take on life and the world, your POV, your values and beliefs and tastes, all showing through how you write and what you write about. It’s your ‘brand’. All there, on a plate (or at least on a page). It’s you the writer being you the writer.

So how do you unearth it, develop it? For me, that process has been inextricably linked to finding my voice full stop. It’s been linked to me learning that a key route to happiness and fulfilment in all areas of life – in work, relationships, family – is trying, learning, to be the most YOU you can be. Learning to embrace who you are, how you feel, what you think – rather than denying it or hiding it. Learning to shed the layers that grow around all of us.

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I Set Up A Write-In In My Hometown. Here Are 5 Things It’s Taught Me

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If you build it, they will come (on the first and third Wednesdays of each month)

For just over a year now, twice a month, every month, I plonk myself down at a big table in a cafe in my hometown at 10am and stay there for two hours. The reason I always bagsy a big table – and why I always stay there for two hours – is that I go to this café with the specific purpose not just to write, but to write alongside others. I called it the Ilkley Write-In, and as well as being one of the biggest sources of caffeine in my life, it’s also proved to be one of the biggest sources of joy. Here are five reasons why that’s the case – or to put it another way: five things I’ve learned setting up and running it for a year.

1. If you create something inspired by a need or want in you, you will probably be fulfilling it in others too

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