Teacher and satirical columnist Fran Hill tells us how school holidays offer the perfect writing time
Fran Hill
Fran Hill is an English teacher and writer who produces satirical columns for the Comment page of the Times Educational Supplement. She also writes a blog called ‘Being Miss’ at www.beingmiss.blogspot.com. Fran tells us how being an English teacher is rather like being paid to read great novels for a living.
What made you become a writer?
When I moved to live with foster parents at the age of 14, I was an awkward cuss. Sometimes when things weren’t going too well, I refused to speak to them, and the only way I would communicate was by writing them poems (usually full of angst and complaint) and leaving them pinned on my bedroom’s noticeboard. My foster mother used to write poems back to me.
Also, in school, I would earn extra pudding by making up poems for the dinner ladies. And that’s how it’s been ever since.
If I see an opportunity where writing something will get me something (extra chocolate cake, a competition prize, a cheque, a round of applause, someone’s laughter) I’ll do it.
How do you balance your time between being an English teacher and writing?
I don’t. If I spend an evening writing a column, it generally means I’m up early in the morning planning lessons. My blog and any other writing I do suffers during term-time.
The school holidays are when I have more time to write and this is usually when I’ll send off a few article ideas, enter a couple of writing competitions, send my novel off to yet another agent or publisher or write a funny poem.
How did you find yourself writing a satirical column for the Times Educational Supplement?
The TES used to have a regular column called ‘Thank God it’s Friday’ and I submitted to that successfully for a while. I also had a few general opinion articles published in the paper. Then I pitched to the Comment page editor and now write most months for that page.
The column normally deals with some area of education about which I have an opinion. It ends up being satirical because I just can’t help it. I think it’s just the way I look at the world.
How did you end up specialising in satirical writing?
I don’t, really. The novel I’ve written is fairly serious. But I guess I find humour writing comes naturally because I just see the funny side in everything, no doubt to some people’s irritation.
I love performing, too, and have taken part in poetry slams and performed at various events, either reading from a humorous book I’ve written about the teaching life or my own poems about apostrophes or colons (yes, really…).
What inspired you to launch www.beingmiss.blogspot.com?
One day in August 2008, I fell asleep while listening to a radio programme and only woke up just as it was finishing with the words ‘And that was a documentary made by Wide Awake Productions’.
I thought it was very funny, and I realised that things like that happened to me most days. I decided to start the blog, charting those ‘life moments’, many of which happen to me at school, but not all.
Most of my posts end up having some kind of reference to my job as an English teacher, however, just because I can’t keep them out.
What do you enjoy most about being a writer?
I love the way I can start writing and find my first two or three paragraphs not working at all, and then, when I stick at it, I gradually warm up and I reach that ‘yes, yes, now it’s working’ moment.
That’s great, when you feel it all going right, although it takes time to learn to put up with the rubbish while you get into your stride. It’s probably one of the best lessons I’ve taught myself, though: just to keep at it until that happens.
I also love getting reactions from people, either from my blog readers, from my editor at the TES, from people in an audience, or even from my kids when I write about them and they then demand £2.50 per word.
What do you find most challenging about it?
What’s hard is that every single time I come to write something, I always think I can’t do it again. I read something back that I know people liked, and I think, ‘how did I do that?’ and ‘where did that come from?’
Writing is a dynamic thing and I guess it’s the same with any art. Each time you do it, you’re starting all over and have to grit your teeth to believe in yourself enough to keep tapping that keyboard.
I just tell myself, ‘it’s in there somewhere - just keep typing, keep typing, keep typing, no, DON’T go and check your emails, you coward…’
What inspires you?
I read and read and read. It’s one reason I became an English teacher in my early 40s - I get paid for reading. Okay, I then have to teach the books and attend meetings and write reports, but at the heart of it is reading Austen and Steinbeck and Plath and Wharton and talking about them. And the more I read, the more I know I want to write.
What advice would you offer an aspiring writer?
1. The beginning of a story is often an attempt to ‘ease the reader in’ with introductory information. Don’t bother. Cross it out and drag them straight into the action.
2. Type ‘ly’ into the Find and Replace tool on Word. You will find all the adverbs you used and didn’t need.
3. Don’t necessarily get other budding writers to read your work. Find people who love reading. And not your Mum.
4. Don’t be precious about your writing. If someone says, ‘I don’t get this bit’, then rewrite.
5. Always read your work aloud. You’ll notice complicated sentences, repeated words, and the fact that Bill in the first chapter is now Fred.
What are you working on at the moment?
I’m beginning to think I should write another novel while the first one does the rounds of agents and publishers. I also would like to do more comic poetry performances and am trying to pluck up the courage to approach local venues.
And I’m attempting to persuade someone to publish my book of fairy tales which end very suddenly after line five with an unexpected hitch, which I think will be very useful for people who would really rather watch the soaps than read bedtime stories to their kids.
To find out more visit www.beingmiss.blogspot.com
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