You just gotta love it when...

I’m particularly glad I survived my previous post’s date stone attack as I’m having a very good week.

So, I’ve been asked to teach two day courses in creative writing at the school of adult education where I take an evening class. I love teaching and secretly hoped the evening class would lead to something like this.

This week, I’ve really launched into ‘Scrivener’ which is a piece of writing software personally designed for me, it would appear, to get the piles of half print, half-scribbled paper often extending out of the study and into the hall, off the floor and on to my virtual carpet on screen. Seriously, if you are a writer who is doing any planning or re-structuring, this software is heaven-sent. I have my stubby little fingers stuffed into so many delicious pies at the moment that I’ve had to be strict and commit myself to only two hours’ work per day on the novel this month. Scrivener means that even in this limited time frame, Glass Houses is still moving on a-pace. http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php 

Regular readers might be interested to know that my experiment into Larkism is firmly embedded in my daily routine now and my two hours of writing take place between 5 and 7am. It’s such a great feeling, often a relief, to have two hours of writing behind me before the rest of the family stirs.

And I had my biggest every month of page views of my blog in January – 1,800. Thank you!

I have one piece of vaguely bad news but even that is a good thing in disguise. I didn’t get the contract I wanted with the agent who was looking at my full manuscript. However, she was kind enough to send me detailed notes of suggestions on what I needed to do to make the story sing – it seems the plot and even the writing are on track but some of the characters are a bit of a tease – I hook the reader in and then leave them hanging. The agent phrased the problem in such a way that I had an instant light-bulb moment – hence the re-structuring which I’m really enjoying. It’s an exciting process because I know that whatever the fate of Glass Houses, this novel is certainly going to be a better read after the re-write.

And the other reason I’m particularly happy with life at my desk is because I’ve picked up a Versatile Blogger award from the multi-talented Karin Bachmann. Karin blogs about all things writing, being a tutor as well as a short story and novel writer, and I’m enjoying the behind the scenes posts she’s writing about her latest project,  Mord in Switzerland. This is an anthology of crime stories written with a handful of other writers with whom she appears to regularly meet for lunch. (Please can I have a job like that?) You can read Karin’s blog here: http://stories47277.blogspot.ch/2013/01/the-versatile-blogger-award.html

Now, you know what’s coming next. I have to write seven things about myself. As I had to dredge up old memories for the first time I was lucky enough to receive an award of this type and as I was really scraping the barrel for a similar award a little later, I thought I would do something slightly different this time. Because I’m feeling particularly upbeat at the moment, I thought I’d simply list seven things that I love. My disclaimer at this point, is that family and friends are a given, so I’m not going to wax lyrical about people you don’t know – wonderful as they all are.

In no particular order:

Running in the snow. There’s something so peaceful, almost ethereal, about being alone with the whiteness and the crunching under foot. I like to pull my hat down over my ears, feel the icy wind against my face and start to warm from inside out. I know it’s not for everyone but for me, this is when I feel most alive.

My first cup of tea of the day. Particularly if it’s brought to me by my lovely husband (ooops, broken my no family rule). The second cup isn’t bad either. By the eighth, I’m starting to get a bit of a fuzzy head.

Putting on my glasses. I know, this is such a dull one but not being able to read anymore without them has taken me quite by surprise and the instant transformation of the hieroglyphics on the page, washing label or side of a tin, to name but three, deserves my appreciation.

Cafes. With friends (there goes the rule again), chatting or with my hard-backed notebook, writing. Oh and hard-backed notebooks, I love those, too.

Learning Slovakian. I’d forgotten quite how much I enjoy learning languages – even though I sometimes curse the homework, even though I sometimes still throw my books across the room, even though I sometimes think I’ll never manage it.

Really cold dry white wine in a large glass. Or really warm, heavy red wine in a really large glass – and Lindt Lindor chocolates.

Singing. I’m not pretending to have any great ability but I belong to a small group and we have the most wonderfully talented and generous hearted teacher who brings out the best in us. When everyone’s singing and the harmonies are working, it’s simply, so uplifting.

Now it’s my turn to propose fifteen bloggers whom I think are particularly deserving of this award. I’ve chosen a couple of old favourites but also some recently discovered gems. Please do go along and see what they’re up to:

http://www.standingnakedatabusstop.com by Lesley Richardson

http://theperfectplot.blogspot.co.uk by Jill Paterson

http://excusemewhileinotethatdown.blogspot.co.uk by Linda C

http://alisonpercival.wordpress.com by Alison Percival

http://sarsm.wordpress.com by Sarah

http://strictlywriting.blogspot.co.uk by a group of nine bloggers whose posts always make me smile.

http://www.janerusbridge.co.uk by Jane Rusbridge

http://www.heatherwebb.net by Heather Webb

http://saintlywriter.blogspot.co.uk by Amanda Saint

OK, I’ve only listed nine but if you add in the nine at Strictlywriting, then I’m actually way over my quota ;)

These are the rules of the Versatile Blogger Award:

• Display the award certificate on your website
• Announce your win with a post and link to whoever presented your award
• Present 15 awards to deserving bloggers (Versatile Blogger)
• Drop them a comment to tip them off after you’ve linked them in the post
• Post 7 interesting things about yourself

I look forward to reading your posts!

Just imagine if...

Sometimes my imagination is a little over-exuberant. I’m not complaining, I quite like the world of fairies and ‘what if’s?’ I frequent, even if it does mean that I bang my head sometimes (or put my arm in a fully-functioning spin drier or break my knee falling over a plant pot.)

Take the date stone incident this morning.

Unsurprisingly, when I placed the said date in my mouth, I wasn’t giving the task my undivided attention. I do believe I was looking for the phone number to cancel my daughter’s dentist’s appointment while straightening out the pile of washing-up. I stopped. Checked. Then I checked my mouth again. Flesh of the fruit, yes; date stone, no. I’d swallowed a date stone! I reflected for a moment. I seemed to be OK. It did appear that I was still breathing and, duly tested, I could still speak.

I wondered if I should cough. But what if the stone was lying safely at the top of my oesophagus and a cough disrupted its angle, turned it squarely across the width of my windpipe and all breathing ceased? Just like that, with nobody aware, save for next door’s cat which would remain un-fed while its owners were in Australia.

I thought about my children at school, my friends at work and my husband on a train, no doubt in a tunnel without mobile reception, and felt panic rise up of proportions last felt six years ago at the top of the Eagle’s Claw at the local theme park. I’d have given myself a slap but uppermost in my mind was any ill-fated jolt to my insides. I took a few breaths in through my nose – was the air getting stuck somewhere between my throat and lungs? I couldn’t be sure but there was definitely a stone-shaped lump there, I could feel the ache. I shuffled over to the tap and poured myself a pint of water (in an unwashed glass, that’s how serious this was), hoping it would smooth the passage for the date stone and we could put the whole, sorry incident down to a blog post.

Should I call an ambulance? To tell them I was fine? No, I’d try my husband. I’m not sure what I thought he would be able to do, now an estimated ten miles away, but as he is always the consummate hero, and well-practiced, in a crisis, it seemed the only logical step to take. He said he thought I’d have already died if it was going to happen but that he’d leave his phone on just in case. 

Maybe NHS Direct was the answer but I couldn’t risk them suggesting I take myself to hospital, just to be sure, only for me to be sent home with a clean pair of heels and a stomach full of guilt for taking the staff’s time away from a proper patient.

You see, I was starting to think I might have had a lucky escape from a premature death without witness but still, I wasn’t taking any chances. The stone could move at any moment. I took both the landline and the mobile with me to feed the neighbour’s cat, happy to see me alive, I noted, from its tail swish against my calf, and thankfully made it back into my house. Could I risk a shower? First things first. I left the door on the latch in case the paramedics needed quick access and I couldn’t wrench myself from the heap I’d become on the floor. Having worked at Crime Concern, I know all the statistics about opportunist crime so was pleased that in my impromptu test, I unequivocally valued my life over my possessions – even the photos. I stood one phone against the bathroom wall and the other just outside (in case the steam should render the first one useless) and took with me the largest towel in the house and a plan to grab it if I fell, to cover my modesty.

When I emerged from the shower, although the date stone was still making its presence felt, I was still breathing. Three further glasses of water later and I decided that the initial danger had well and truly passed. Wikipedia told me that the greatest threat now would be a blockage in my intestines but that was of little concern. It meant I’d still have time to prepare my evening class before the problems started. Time itself right and I could have a gaggle of people around me willing to offer me up to the hospital in which all responsibility for my own survival would happily be taken from me.

Then the plot lines kicked in. Without the threat of imminent death, I sprinted down stairs to lock the door. Was that, I asked of my barely functioning hearing, a single foot step in the kitchen? I threw myself against the wall, braced myself and peered around the door frame, à la 50th anniversary of James Bond. Nothing there, it would appear. I tiptoed further into the kitchen. There was just a pile of half-washed dishes, a discarded phone, the business card of the orthodontist and a half-full packet of dates. But what if the noise hadn’t come from the kitchen at all but was, instead, behind me? I spun round. Clear. But I would still check every room in the house.

There was only me. I had survived a potential chocking fit and my house was free of vagabonds. 

Six hours later, I still find my hand intermittently reaching to my wind pipe and my ears prickling at the slightest rustle. I can see the opened packet of dates goading me from the work surface as I write but there they will remain. I will never eat a date again - which is a shame as we still have three punnets of them left over from Christmas. Quality Street, anyone? Soft centre, just to be sure…

Immobility

I had a surreal experience in the run up to Christmas. Cursing the fact that it generally took so long to drive the short distance into town to do my present buying due to the long trail of cars of, err, present buyers, I decided a single minute before its departure that I should catch the train instead.

The station, on a good day, in indifferent weather, without traffic on the only road I have to cross and with a clean pair of heels, I can reach in two-and-a-half minutes. And so it was, sliding over the black ice, dodging the plentiful, albeit driving very gingerly, stream of vehicles, that I saw the train pull in. I gave one last sprint up the hill. As my toe hit the platform, the doors slowly, but defiantly, closed. However the conductor, with Christmas spirit a-plenty, laughed and re-opened the doors. I say, ‘doors’, more accurate would be, ‘his’ door, the one at the far end of the train and thus forcing me to run the entire length, passing every single waiting passenger en route, now fully cognisant as to the exact reason for their delay.

No matter, it was my lucky day.

Oh dear. In the rush I’d forgotten my phone. Once I’d chided myself for the inconvenience, settled down the panic that one of my perfectly well children may be taken seriously ill at school without her mother being contactable and once I'd surmised that the texts and e-mails I’d usually answer seated on Northern Rail would be waiting for me once I got home, I realised I had no watch. Its new battery had been on my to-do list for weeks but there had never been any hurry, my phone chooses to flash the time at me at every available opportunity.

And so I arrived. With no phone or ready access to the time, I sped off towards the shops with one foot firmly trailing in my youth.

Slightly stunned to have ticked off the remaining items on the Christmas list with my stomach barely grumbling for lunch, I sat myself down for a sandwich and began to write. With no alerts, notifications, texts or invitations to get ahead of the game with a seven-egg-white-a-day diet commencing January 1^st, I wrote two chapters.

I asked a lady on the next table if she had the time. She looked at her watch. She never remembered her phone, she said, much to the annoyance of her friends and family. I remembered a text from a friend who said she’d tried umpteen times to ring – I’d been driving and only for ten minutes – and the reason for her call wasn't pressing. I don’t blame my friend for her frustration but do ask myself whether it’s a superior world we’ve built where people are irritated if we can’t be reached at every moment of every day - even though we’re so much more contactable than I was in my youth with my 2p coin and a red phone box.

I caught the train home, timing it so that I only had a five minute wait for its departure, don’t ask me how. My children had survived their day at school without a line to their errant mother and while I boiled the kettle, I answered my messages.

Did I enjoy my step back into a pre-nineties world? Yes, I truly did. I was calmer and my memory was better; I didn’t once have to retrace my steps into the shop to remind myself of the purpose of my visit, for instance. Was my day more productive? Yes. Was I more efficient, more satisfied? Yes, definitely yes! And it was so pleasant to chat with a stranger, as I always used to do when I caught a train or stood in a queue. Would I do it every day? Probably not, unless everybody went with me on this, I think I’d find it quite lonely on a regular basis. But as a brief reminder that the world doesn’t stop when we’re not contactable by at least three methods at any one time, and of the time it really takes to perform everyday tasks when they are constantly punctuated by a glance at the phone or a response to a text, wouldn’t do any harm.

Happy new year everyone! May the year be filled with fun and happy times and here’s to technology working for us all.

The Next Big Thing

I met Karin Bachmann at the Swanwick Writers’ Festival last summer where she taught a meticulously planned and engaging course in editing – in English, her second language. I know, I know! Some of the examples she gave of published texts in need of a good comb were eye-opening to say the least – she says, checking particularly carefully for her own typos and howlers.

Karin recently blogged about her latest Work In Progress in contribution to The Next Big Thing, a blogfest currently whizzing its way around the world in which writers from different countries and writing backgrounds answer the same ten questions about a work in progress.

Karin is one of a group of writers working on an anthology of short stories under the title, ‘Mord (murder) in Switzerland’. Her story is about a young photographer whose pictures cause a whole heap of trouble. You can read more about it here: 

http://stories47277.blogspot.co.uk/

 

I was delighted that Karin chose me as one of her five to take the Next Big Thing baton from her but must admit to cheating a little. My Work In Progress is a book called Misguidance and I’m a third of the way through the first draft. Like many before me, however, I am a little superstitious about discussing a story that’s still in my head so I’m going to concentrate, instead, on the completed manuscript of Glass Houses.

Here we go…

- What is the working title of your book?
It’s Glass Houses but I’m afraid I’ve gone off it. I fear it’s too twee, too safe, even if it does do what it says on the tin. I’m told not to worry about it though, that the worst a writer can do is be precious about a title because a publisher will always change it. So, really, my dissatisfaction is a good thing.

- Where did the idea for your book come from?
When an amazingly charismatic lady spoke of her forgiveness for her son's killers in the 7/7 London bombings, I was struck by how much more powerful this was than the, nonetheless, very human reaction of anger.
I also remember noticing the utter devastation in the face of the driver who caused several deaths in the Selby train crash, by falling asleep at the wheel. The press demonised him but I couldn’t help thinking that this wasn't the face of a cold blooded killer, rather of someone who'd made a dreadful mistake. He'd punish himself for the rest of his life - maybe he didn't need us to do it too? 

I decided I wanted to write a – what happened next – type story but this time with the perpetrator of an incident at the helm.

- What genre does your book fall under?
General fiction with a contemporary smudge.

Brenda Blethyn

- Which actors would you choose to play characters in a movie rendition?
Please can I have Brenda Blethyn for Tori, my main character? Tori is a killer, albeit unintentionally, she is also feisty, caring and a survivor with a great sense of humour when she gets the chance to use it. She has wild curly hair which doesn’t need washing and a face which tells the tale of a horrendous car crash followed by weeks in a coma – this isn’t true of Ms Blethyn’s face, I hasten to add, but she can contort it masterfully into a whole gamut of ages and expressions.

Imelda Staunton would have to play Tori’s mother, Rose. Imelda (I’m particularly picturing her in Vera Drake) would be masterful at the troubled, but sensitive, role of a mother who has to care for a daughter with whom she hasn’t had the best of relationships over the preceding few years.

Damian Lewis

If Damian Lewis hadn’t made it so big in Homeland, I’d snatch him up for Doug, Tori’s mild-mannered husband, whose patience is being tested to the hilt and who also happens to have ginger hair. However, Doug despises the limelight given to him by Tori’s fall from grace and it would seem fitting that he be played by a scarcely known, quality actor. 

Unfortunately, ask anybody who’s had the misfortune to have me on their quiz team, names of all but the biggest stars are not my forte so I will stick with Mr Lewis for now.

Rachel Weisz

Etta, caught up in Tori’s ‘moment of madness’ and haunted by demons from her past, would have to be played by Rachel Weisz. Etta is quietly determined and fiercely principled but her life is crashing around her ears. À la Rachel Weisz, she remains resolutely demure throughout.

- What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
Glass Houses is the story of one woman’s moment of madness and its massive repercussions.

- Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I’m waiting to hear back from one agent who has the full manuscript of Glass Houses and have also recently applied to a small press who are taking an innovative approach to the new publishing world – theirs is a middle ground with no author advance but no financial outlay for the author either.

- How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
It took me about 18 months as I kept stopping to carry out more research - and it took me almost as long to edit it. I love every aspect of writing, from the research to the story writing to the editing and even the proof reading, so I’m never really in a hurry.

- What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Glass Houses is reminiscent of novels where fate plays a great part but it’s the film, Sliding Doors, written and directed by Peter Howitt, which always springs first to mind.

I recently read A Cupboard Full of Coats by Yvette Edwards and it struck me that it tackles similar themes. This is also a book about redemption and taking responsibility for our actions. A daughter killed her mother (or so she believes) and the guilt has strangled her life ever since. One of my main characters, Etta, didn’t kill anyone but had Tori not intervened, her guilt would have stifled her life; her marriage, at the very least, would have paid the price. I like the way Edwards takes a dark, serious theme and gives it a light touch through her appealingly flippant writing style. Right at the beginning she slips in, ‘… and the fourteen years since he’d last stood there, the fourteen years since the night I’d killed my mother, hadn’t really happened at all,’ for our very first introduction to the main character’s secret past. It would make me very happy to think that Glass Houses had achieved a similar light touch with the ability to shock the reader as well.

- Who or what inspired you to write this book (story)?
No one person or event particularly inspired me, however, I couldn’t shake the images of the two people I mentioned earlier. During a week-long Arvon writing course, the first scene flew into my head and I felt compelled to down tools on the project on which I had been working and hurl myself headlong into Glass Houses.

- What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?
Glass Houses is about the fragility of life and how, through our own mistakes combined with those of others, our existence can be shattered in an instant. Even if we try to rebuild our life, the new model will never look the same as the original. However, Glass Houses is also a tragic love story where external forces subject three couples’ relationships to grave pressure. The lengths these people will go to in order to protect their relationships is, I hope, uplifting. 

Now it’s my turn to choose five writers for the next stage in the Next Big Thing’s journey. Some took part in NaNoWriMo, writing 50,000 words in one, tiny month. I’d really like to know what they came up with. The others are blogs I’ve fairly recently stumbled upon and have piqued my interest. I should add the proviso that if they’d rather cheat and talk about a different piece of writing to their Work In Progress, then I am in no position to stop them.

Charlie Wade: http://spiesliesandpies.blogspot.co.uk

Jacqueline Pye: http://jacpye.blogspot.co.uk/

Jo: http://gapyearsthebook.blogspot.co.uk

Alison: http://alisonpercival.wordpress.com

Gillian: http://skybluepinkish.wordpress.com/

NOTNaNoWriMo

Many brave souls I know are currently involved in the hugely impressive NaNoWriMo – national novel writing month. These diligent writers commit to scribbling 50,000 words of a novel in one tiny month. Not only that, it’s November, national present buying month if my bank account is anything to be believed, where cosy fires and Christmas to-do lists flutter their procrastination-inducing eyelashes and before you know it, you’re wondering where you stashed the Advent Calendar and mild panic sets in that you may, in fact, have forgotten to buy one.

The brilliance of Nano is in its time frame. There is nothing like a deadline to get those fingers typing, those characters inventing a story for you while you sit, almost as a by-stander, and watch your tale appear on screen. At the last count, Nano writers had written over two billion words and we’re only three quarters of the way through the month! www.nanowrimo.org/

Another year and I could be tempted. This November, however, I needed the opposite of NaNoWriMo. 

I had a wonderfully indulgent autumn of total immersion in my novel, following interest from an agent with whom I’d dearly love to be associated. (Yes please! All wafts of fairy dust always gratefully received.) The rest of my novel and an alternative ending, or three, submitted, I finally raised my head from the keyboard and could hardly bare to look at the carnage that the total immersion had left in its wake. The light fittings belonged to a disused stately home, spiders weaving works of art which almost stretched the length of a room; a battered cupboard sat hopelessly in the middle of the study despairing that anybody would ever bother to take it to a better place and it would take three bags to cart off the reams of post I’d saved for unnecessary filing.

Thus, I embarked on my own NOTNaNoWri month whereby I banned myself from any writing of book two until Advent descends. I am still writing short stories, book reviews and teaching but the rest of the time I’m … tidying up. 

It isn’t without some trepidation that I set about my NOTNaNoWriMo. There’s a loud voice in my head which normally prevents excessive expenditure of time on such frivolous past-times as domesticity, by instilling fear. It’s the fear that if I do not keep writing my current novel, I will simply forget. I will forget what I’m writing, I will forget where it’s going and I will forget how to write. 

This isn’t helped by the anti-dorphins, those pesky little destructors which have the opposite effect of the endorphin rush I get from story writing and which need to be firmly quashed by constant busy-ness.

Look! Nothing on the floor.

But it’s going well so far. Three times last week I went shopping. From a mere spot on the post-total-immersion to-do list, my Christmas presents are almost all bought. I’ve had coffee with friends, been out to supper, met with my Mum and my sister, the latter lives five hours away, and even indulged in a full week of illness. Then, I scrubbed the entire house from top to bottom – pictured room above, clearly excepted. This is in preparation for the journey to the Floor Of The Office. 

It may be that I’m blogging now because I’m left with the study project and no decent plan of where to start. But start I will. Today. I have ten days left of NOTNaNoWriMo and, as mentioned earlier, there’s nothing like a deadline for complete strangulation of inertia. If I can make it through to the carpet, I’ve been promised a new desk. I’ll let you know how I get on. 

And to the thousands of NaNoWriMo writers, I wish you the very best of luck - not that you’ll be reading this, of course, as you type feverishly at your desks, in total writing immersion. But I hope we can meet for a cyber mince pie or two together in December?