A Pet Rook and a Competition

Author, Jane Rusbridge

Jane Rusbridge is the author of two beautifully atmospheric novels, The Devil’s Music and Rook. I was lucky enough to meet Jane back when she was writing The Devil’s Music as we took part in a course in novel writing in the picturesque village of Heptonstall in West Yorkshire. Talented Jane won her place through the prestigious Ilkley Festival Short Story Competition which explains how she came to be so far from her home in Chichester on the Sussex coast.

We agreed to become writing buddies which means that I get to read various sections of her novels under the pretence of making suggestions for improvement. Really, I just wallow in her rich writing. Jane has the ability to propel you to the centre of a scene and focus in on minute details until you’re there, standing next to the characters. Even first drafts of Jane’s writing have brought me to tears.

With Jane’s second novel, Rook, just out, I thought it was time we had a proper chat for Chase, Rotherham Advertiser's Lifestyle Magazine, where I feel totally privileged to have a regular corner for book reviews and other articles.

Having a personal phobia of birds in confined places (I blame the family cat), I really wanted to know about the bird simply named, Rook. How did Jane come to choose a bird to be a central character in her novel and how on earth did she manage to convince the reader not only to imagine Rook as a pet but also to become so attached to it?

‘I actively disliked birds in cages before I wrote Rook,’ says Jane, ‘although I was quite in love with them in the air.’ She knew very little about rooks but happened to notice a lot of nest building on her way home and asked her husband if he knew where they’d come from. It transpired that his mother had kept a rook as a pet when he was growing up and, being a farmer, he also had a wealth of information on the species. After that, Jane couldn’t stop thinking about rooks and she knew an idea was forming.

When Jane was finishing passages of Rook in the garden last summer, a blackbird grew accustomed to her, perching ever closer. If Jane was indoors, the blackbird would hop along the terrace to be able to peer in the window of the room where she was seated. She’d notice how it would cock its head at an angle as if it was concentrating or listening. One day Jane was able to feed it a piece of cheese from her hand, an act later performed by central character, Nora, and described in intricate, touching detail.

Jane read Crow Country by Mark Cocker, a non-fiction book which features the great swarms of rooks and crows which roost at Buckingham Carr in Norfolk. Mark’s love for the beleaguered birds further cemented Jane’s and when he spoke of them as the most mis-understood of species because of their synonymy with death and superstition, Jane saw great scope for parallels with Nora’s complicated past.

Buckingham Carr became the location for daughter, Natalie Miller’s three day photo shoot which produced an array of stunning photos of rooks, one of which Bloomsbury’s Greg Heinimann used for the jacket design and shows a thoughtful figure staring upward at a sky festooned with rooks. One of Natalie’s rook photographs was shortlisted and exhibited in the Pallant House Open Competition. More of her striking photography can be seen here

Rook is part historical fiction touching on King Cnut and the mystery behind his illegitimate daughter. Like many of Jane’s ideas, this was a chance observation that started a tumble of ideas which grew into a theme. On a visit to local village, Bosham, for a pub lunch, Jane took a wander through the church and its grounds as she had done many times before. This time she noticed a memorial stone set into the slabs of the church floor above the coffin alleged to belong to the drowned daughter of King Cnut. The stone had a drawing of a raven on it which looked remarkably like a baby rook to Jane. She launched herself into the church records and what she found helped her form a brilliant link between Rook’s historical element with all its family secrets and Nora’s 21^st century world, a theme which results in a wonderfully climactic ending.

Much of the history and description of Bosham and the Sussex coastline today is described accurately in Rook - from the pub which sometimes get flooded and the dispute about Harold’s burial place to the concerned citizens of Bosham who feared for the village being overrun with tourists should such a documentary about the village’s historical mysteries ever be made. All the characters however are fictitious and, ‘great fun to write,’ adds Jane, who particularly enjoyed writing Ada, the not particularly pleasant mother of troubled Nora. She doesn’t conform to the stereotype of the ageing woman and although frustrating in her interpretations and dismissive attitude of her daughter, she’s certainly a ‘character’.

So, with Rook now on sale, I wondered what Jane was doing now, writing number three? Jane laughs, ‘I’m gardening,’ she says, ‘and I’m enjoying my first grandchild.’ Yes, Jane is thinking about her third novel and says that it will certainly involve the Bayeux Tapestry. I ask her if she’d like to say anything else about her next project and she smiles and says, ‘No, I’d rather not.’ But then she adds, ‘Forests, I’m researching forests and the dawn chorus.’

I have a signed copy of Rook up for grabs. I've stolen the idea of a Top Tenuous from the legendary Chris Evans, I'm sure he won't mind, and I want to know your most well, tenuous connections to Jane, Sussex, rooks, Bosham or, indeed, King Cnut. My totally impartial better half will choose the winner. Answers by midnight October 5th, please.

And for a second chance to win a copy of Rook, pop over to this interview in Chase magazine and answer a simple question over there. Click here (pages 48-52) Good luck!

You can learn more about Jane and her work at http://www.janerusbridge.co.uk.

Rook (RRP £12.99) and The Devil’s Music (RRP £7.99), are published by Bloomsbury and available in all good book stores and as e-books. Rook is published with new literary imprint Bloomsbury Circus who aim to produce books as collectible objects. Learn more at http://www.bloomsburycircus.com.

The writing charity, Arvon, runs a wide range of writing courses to suit all levels of writing experience across four residential centres in the UK. Grants are available to help with course fees. For more information, please visit: http://www.arvonfoundation.org

What Would You Like?

It was my birthday last week. Regular readers will know that I have an acute case of ‘Hackaphobia’ which prevents me from stating the exact date but I can say that I love birthdays and those that fall in September are every bit as enjoyable as in any other month. I enjoy the fuss and the cake and feel the only place for being depressed about getting older is from the fluffy clouds above (God willing) even if the time spent in front of the mirror plucking out grey hairs is so significant these days, I’m going to have to promote it to the To-Do list.

If I’m asked what I would like for my birthday I tend to answer, ‘a publishing deal, please’ but whilst I am thoroughly spoilt by my wonderful friends and family, I’m afraid this particular item has eluded me thus far.

However, this had me thinking of other more abstract ideas for presents I’d be happy to accept and I came up with the following list. If you would be so kind, I’d like:

… the tidying fairies to sort out my study while I sleep. First of all, I need extra storage space, about twice the amount which would fit in the room should suffice. As a priority, I could do with extra shelving for my ToBeReads as hubbie is soon to notice that the book purchasing has exceeded the read of speeding over the past few months. My lapsed one book in, one out rule of foisting much loved missives on un-suspecting fellow readers, needs to be revisited.

Next, I’d like the four black bags of old clothes to be disseminated amongst parents of younger children. The fitness ball and hoola hoop should disappear from view, only to miraculously reappear should I ever decide to use them again. Could the old computer have its own desk please? It has to stay, it has three billion six hundred thousand photos stored on it but viewing is currently restricted as the path to it is strewn with un-hung pictures and large, children-generated (very good, actually, but we’re running out of wall space) pieces of artwork. That would be a good start.

… the government NOT to allow the selling off of school playing fields. Hello! Olympic legacy?

… a self-cleaning bathroom. Nay, a self-cleaning house. And car. And cases which unpack themselves. I’ll stop there.

… my children to be totally unmoved by all negative peer pressure. (Ok, I didn’t say my requests had to be feasible, nor, in the long term perhaps, desirable but for now, in my dreams, it would make parenting so much easier.)

... my children to eschew all trashy tv and replace it with literature. See also the addendum to the above.

… winter to be resplendent in crisp, white snow which has not a jot of impact on traffic or journey time and bi-passes the slushy stage before giving way to a snow-drop be-speckled, blue-skied  spring.

… the time difference to be banned so that I could ring my sister in America at 8am our time and she be happy to hear me.

Oh, and did I mention the publishing deal? Although, ever the optimist, I can say that I am a whole heap closer to getting one than I was this time last year so I shall accept that as an extremely acceptable birthday present, thank you.

So, now it’s your turn. You’re not allowed to ask for World Peace because that’s a given. But other than that, sock it to me, what would be your perfect birthday ‘present’ this year?

The Dark Side

Frightened of my own cyber shadow, I go to great pains not to reveal publicly when I’m away, just in case the ‘dark side’ visits my home when we’re not there. I know, I know, chance would be a fine thing that my missives had gone viral but, well, with the need to tell stories comes a slightly warped imagination and you wouldn’t believe the control room of villains I see plotting to pounce.



my new writing buddies from Swanwick

But, now I’m back so it’s safe to safe to admit that the silence is due to an inspirational week at the Swanwick Writers’ Conference where stimulus, loveliness and laughter were rife, where I wrote 10,000 words and where I found myself an agent who’d like to see the rest of Glass Houses. So yes, thank you Swanwick, it was wonderful. Click here for more information Swanwick Writers' School. This was followed by a fabulous family holiday in Croatia where we all fell in love with the country and its people. If I ever truly go missing, please look for me there first.

The great news is that none of my party broke anything other than a glass, although, in reality, it was actually three.

We’ve had some momentous holidays where we’ve become acquainted with the workings of a few European hospitals. When other people equip themselves with their foreign abode’s word for ‘thank you’, first on my list is ‘hospital’. It’s ‘bolnica’, in Croatian, if you’re wondering. There was the dislocated-elbow-screaming on the French camp site, not to mention the infamous arm smashing incident, already well-documented in this blog. But I say, if you’re going to break too many bones to count, do it on the final night of an amazing action packed two week holiday in the Swiss Alps and bag yourself the best room in the hospital at the foot of the Eiger, dosed up with morphine, contemplating the blue sky and snowy peaks through the almost picture window of your own ward.

I only remember one holiday being so bad that we almost came home early. It was 2006 and, somewhat unbelievably, a heat-wave of a summer. We’d taken ourselves off to North Wales in a borrowed six man tent, a luxurious upgrade to our usual 3-berth.

The weather broke. When I say ‘broke’, imagine trying to keep a hot air balloon anchored in a typhoon and you get an idea of how much the wind had picked up; tip a bucket of cold water over your head every time you exit the house and you are some way to understanding the inundation we were confronted with if we ever dared to leave the canvas. One by one, all the tents disappeared from the site. It was us and the caravans. At least the tents left of their own accord, I was so convinced ours would up and leave us in the night, despite guy ropes tied to the car, and I would be found next morning snoring in my sleeping bag, the rest of my possessions and family strewn across the field, that I slept in my clothes to protect my modesty. Worse! As it was my friend’s tent, I was petrified about returning empty-handed so any sleep was fitful at best. My friend laughed when I told her. ‘You’re joking,’ she said, ‘I’d have been so happy to be shot of the thing.’

That particular camping trip is probably the closest I’ve come to not enjoying a holiday. Cold feet, a punctured mattress held together with the contents of the first-aid kit, wet clothes slapping you in the face as you walk through the doorway, mud in the showers and soggy boxes of cereal aren’t top of my list of prerequisites for a great getaway. But I do have pleasant memories of being forced to do different things - such as going to the pictures three times in one week, learning card tricks from our equally marooned neighbours and eating two cream teas in one day. Suffice it to say, our youngest has lusted after camping ever since so it can’t have been that bad.

How was your summer? Dare I ask, did you stay dry?

Ps If you like watersports and fancy Croatia, I can't recommend these people highly enough (and no, I'm not on commission ;)) Raftrek Travel, Croatia

Definitely recommended...

Packing my 15 holiday kilos recently, playing see-saw with my ToBeRead pile, as I begrudgingly acknowledged  that there could be a place in my life for a Kindle, I decided that whatever doom and gloom we hear about the publishing industry, the quality of accessible writing is just as good as it ever was. I packed:
* A Cupboard full of Coats by Yvvette Edwards - lovely writing style, this one’s to finish
* A Parachute in the Lime Tree by Annemarie Neary - I liked the look of this under the guise of research into the war period for a novel I might write
* The Sacrificial Man by Ruth Dugdall - because I’m a big fan of The Woman Before Me (see below)
* Love Gudrun Ensslin by Simon Corbin - no, I don’t really understand the title either but my respected writer-friend wrote it and he’s waited long enough for my thoughts.

I shall let you know what I think of this little collection, but for now, here are just some of the books which have blown me away over the years.

The Devil’s Music by Jane Rusbridge
Oh dear. How destructive family secrets can be. Andrew's had a difficult life at the hands of his angry father and grieving and absent mother. He isn't the easiest of characters himself but the peek into his life shows that he deserves some happiness. Will he achieve the closure needed to affect this?
One word springs to mind: lyrical. This tale is so beautifully descriptive and emotional, the characters incredibly complex and believable. I read this twice which is unheard of for me.

Room by Emma Donoghue
So much has been written about this Man Booker and Orange, amongst many other awards, nominated novel that I only really need to say that I feel its adulation is absolutely justified. Seeing five year old Jack’s captivity through his eyes is not as distressing as it may seem because his young and equally damaged mother has done such a good job of trying to give her child an acceptable existence in the most disturbing of circumstances. I’m not generally a fan of sequels but I would love to know how Jack and his mother got on in the ‘real’ world.

Simon’s Choice by Charlotte Castle
I read the first part of Simon's Choice on the writer's site, Authonomy, and once I could get my hot little hands on it, read the book in two nights. The premise is so clever. It's such a ridiculously illogical answer to give a child, particularly when you think that most parents will try not to lie, just give answers as tactfully as possible. But how on earth would you answer a dying child's desperate and scared plea for a hand to hold in the unknown world to which they're headed? Simon said what so many of us would have said and then he had to fathom out how to deal with his promise.
This is a gripping read with an ending I found very satisfying.

Alphabet by Kathy Page
A wonderful psychological drama. In-mate Simon is terrifyingly pleasant some of the time, the rest he's just terrifying. He admits he committed the crime and he's trying so hard to find redemption but he, and those trying to help him, are struggling to get into his mind. I was blown away by this book and when I learnt that author Kathy Page was a writer in residence in a men's prison it wasn't a surprise. Her attention to detail is brilliant, the picture she draws of prison life in the 80s in Britain is enlightening.

Glasshopper by Isabel Ashdown
Talk to anybody who’s read Glasshopper and they will pout and remember wistfully how adorable 13 year old Jake is, and how they wish they could give him a hug. Told expertly through Jake’s voice and that of his troubled mother, Mary, Glasshopper is the story of her descent into alcoholism. Jake tries his best to care for her while coping with the fact that his father and older brother have left home.
If you are someone known to weep at novels, you will not escape wet eyes with this one. However, the way most characters deal with, and accept, their own and each other's demons and failings makes this a strangely upbeat kind of read.

Also great in this genre: Hide and Seek by Clare Sambrook.

The Woman Before Me by Ruth Dugdall
Cate, newly returned to work as a single mum after a period of depression, is the ultimate decision maker in whether convicted murderer, Rose Wilks, will be let out of prison early. Cate must decide if Rose shows remorse for her crime but this requires Rose to take responsibility for a crime she claims she did not commit. Fragile Cate’s few unsatisfactory meetings with Rose and the people from her past form the basis of a terrifyingly subjective decision process. Will she make the right choice? Rose is pivotal in her getting it right but she’s playing games.
This is a page-turner with heaps of character observation to chew over. Wait for the twist at the end before you decide if justice has been done.

Another favourite psychological drama is, Chosen by Lesley Glaister.

Flying Under Bridges by Sandi Toksvig
I’ve sneaked this one in as one of my all-time favourites, I just checked to see that it’s still in print, which it is, and Amazon tells me that I bought it in May 2003. As you might expect, it’s absolutely riddled with dry humour and wry observation – even though the central character is talking to us from Holloway. It’s satirical writing at its best.

Tea With Guppies by Marika Cobbold is a similarly witty-serious drama I’d highly recommend.

I’ve also read and loved the mind-messing, Defending Jacob by William Landay, the beautifully atmospheric, Rook by Jane Rusbridge, the desperately sad and yet uplifting, Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward and the ‘Marmite’ book of, Before I go to Sleep by SJ Watson but as reviews of these are due to be published in Chase Magazine soon, I shall let you read them there first ;)

I’d love to know your favourite reads.  Until my TBR pile reaches the ceiling, I’m always open to suggestions.

A Change of Mind

Some years ago, I was chatting with a colleague who’d had over a month off work. I knew she’d been in hospital and didn’t think she’d mind me asking why. She pointed to her not-insignificant sized breasts, for one so small, and smiled. “These little buggers,” she said. “Wouldn’t have bothered if I’d known I’d get Pleurisy and nearly die but,” her glass was always half full, “at least they managed to save them, cost me five grand.”

It upset me that this gutsy lady had spent all her savings, and some more, on a ‘boob job’. It wasn’t on a personal level, I have no interest in what people do and don’t do with their own money. But as a society, I wondered how we’d managed to become a country where this was so important?

 Then I read that the most requested birthday present for American 18 year olds that year had been breast augmentation and my story, A Change of Mind, was the result.

I stashed the story away, it was only ever something I wanted to, ahem, get off my chest but when I was skulking around my old directories recently, searching for inspiration, I decided to dust it off and enter it into the monthly Writers’ Billboard Short Story Competition. You don’t need me to say how excited I was to hear that it had won the June competition, its prize being a two month airing on the host’s website. My eight weeks of ‘fame’ are drawing to a close so I wondered if I could intrigue you enough to fly over to the Writers’ Billboard site to read the story before it’s released into that place in the webosphere for old stories no longer required. You can find it here: *Updated: please now access through this link to my website

Many thanks to the Writers’ Billboard for the opportunity. They host monthly competitions all year round and I’m sure they’d love you to have a go yourselves! The Writers' Billboard website

Plant pots and holiday nightmares

After an altercation with a plant pot and a flight of, alas unrecorded, epic distance before landing crack on my knee on our paved drive, I appear to have inadvertently fractured my knee cap.  Unable to drive anywhere for six weeks, the family and I will be tucked away over the summer holidays in an unkempt hovel, without a bean in the cupboard, nor a clean item of clothing in the wardrobe. And worse, I’ve had to cancel the holiday. Truly repentant,  (this is not the first time my long-suffering family have been flawed by one of my carelessly broken limbs) I’ve been doing battle with the gods of form filling and Google searching and may have found us an alternative holiday when my knee should be back to its knobbly self.

Meanwhile, my mind wanders back to one of our holidays-to-remember.

It was in France. We’d excitedly booked ourselves into one of those tents which did all but the catering. This was in the pre-glamping summer of 2000 but we were, nonetheless, suitably impressed. The added bonus for our then 21 month old was that she’d quickly learnt how to undo the main zip in the canvas; the gateway to the great outside. She would proceed to play her new game of ‘unzip and run’ at difficult times such as when Dad was on the croissant hunt and I was changing our babe in arm’s nappy, my back turned. Thankfully her squeals of delight generally alerted us to her unauthorised departure.

After a few games of this, our nerves seriously frayed, a new strategy came into play, where eldest was summarily dragged off with either adult on exiting the tent. Thus we spent many a minute in the park en route to everywhere, the source of much joyous laughter until one day it ended in hysterical tears. Hours later when her screams were now keeping the whole campsite awake, for which I’d still like to apologise, the local doctor tried, unsuccessfully, to convince us that she was having a nightmare. Frankly, I think the only soul on the site not to be having a nightmare was our daughter, starting to cry as she had, way before her bedtime. It was only when we realised that the little girl who always had her right thumb in her mouth was refusing to suck, that we wondered about a broken arm. In fact, she’d dislocated her elbow which was duly re-aligned by a sympathetic French nurse who did her best to assure us that children dislocated limbs every second minute, it would seem, without their parents noticing and that there was absolutely no need to feel guilty about not knowing how she did it. Hmmm.

The next day was my birthday and while our children performed a mid-day sleep of epic proportions, hubbie and I drank bubbly in the sun, hiding behind our sunglasses as bleary-eyed fellow campers walked past, pretending that we weren’t the reason why they were booking a hotel next year.  When a fellow holiday maker asked my husband if we were the couple practicing controlled crying last night, and I sank a little further behind my book, I remember telling myself that we’d laugh about this one day.

In the words of the great Peter Kay, are you going anywhere nice? And if so, enjoy yourselves and be careful out there ...

Spoiling for a Fight

I happened upon a set of reviews for a book that will remain nameless lest I should spoil the novel for you. It wasn’t the reviews which kept me reading, it was the venom in the responses. The first review was deemed to contain ‘spoilers’, those often tiny and seemingly inconsequential bits of information (‘until his death I…’ or, ‘I knew she should dump him from the start,’) which can ruin a fellow reader’s day. The strange thing is, I couldn’t see the spoiler in the review. I thought it a well-balanced piece of writing which had the power to persuade me to buy a piece of chic lit which only ever normally passes through my fingers long enough to wrap it up to give to my sister.

Not everyone agreed. The reviewer should be ‘banned from the site’. The reviewer has ‘ruined it for everyone’. She should even ‘examine her conscience’. One reader wished she’d never paid for, nor started reading the book although it did beg the question why she was perusing the reviews when she’d already made a start, particularly if she was someone who wouldn’t be interested in knowing which way the plot was going to go before she got there.

Later on, another comment appeared which thinly disguised that the main character had died. I had to smile, I was pretty sure this second reviewer was being a little mischievous. But, on cue, in came the tirade of disappointed bitterness. If there is a link between the total reviews and comments a story elicits and its sales, then this little-known book is going to be challenging Fifty Shades of Grey.

Through the whole debacle, I couldn’t help thinking that people don’t have to read reviews, just as there is an ‘off’ button on the television. I suggest that if a review has the potential to ruin their reading experience, that the potential book purchaser should stay away. Unless, like me, they have the memory of a fish.  

But it isn’t that simple.

If a review is to help us decide whether or not to buy and/or read a book, then we need to know whether we’ll like this author’s writing and whether the story is going to captivate us, make us laugh, cry, giggle or snore. And for that, a review has to include an element of the plot. But where is the line to be drawn between motivating a potential reader to buy the book and ruining it for them before they’ve even opened the cover? Does, ‘We join Paul on his journey to find the answers,’ pique our interest in the stories along the way, or make the need to read redundant knowing Paul makes the pilgrimage, either metaphysically or otherwise? Does, ‘When Sylvia meets her mother again, all is not quite what it seems,’ make us want to find out why not, or is it immaterial now that we know that Sylvia and her mother meet up?

I like to leave book reviews. In this quagmire of a publishing world, the least I can do to thank a writer who has given years of their life to the writing of a book which has captivated me for days, is to say so. Nonetheless, I live in complete fear of spoilers. Many sites do provide a ‘spoiler alert’ tag for the reviewer’s use and regardless of what I have written, I will always affix it to my piece. This isn’t because I think I have given anything away, I go to great lengths not to, but one man’s spoiler is another’s nugget of information and pleasing all of the people all of the time is rarely an attainable pursuit.

Some people positively seek spoilers. Search ‘spoilers’ on-line and a whole raft of websites dedicated to the art will appear because some viewers are clearly desperate for a spoiler of their favourite show. I’d like to know whether it’s to save them the bother of watching or because they just can’t bear the suspense. You only need to look at the news stands and scan the headlines for a nanosecond to know the essential plot lines for every Soap that week. I’m sure that the bigger the ‘spoil’ the higher the sales. Only because I belong to the brain of a fish category do I watch previews of films, entertaining as they are, their ‘spoiler alert’ button is nowhere to be seen. For the same reason I can, and do, look for reviews if I’m interested in a novel by an author who is new to me and I always read the blurb in a book shop, as well as the centre page, to help me decide. I don’t know if I'd be so keen if I still remembered the plot outlines by the time the book reached the top of my To Be Read pile. I won’t watch sport if I know the score, it isn’t the same without that feeling of anticipation. Maybe I'd have a greater sensitivity to spoilers if I had a reliable short term memory?

Do you read book reviews? Do they help your book buying experience or do they frustrate more often than they delight? How much would you like them to say? Please share!

Jackie
I post reviews at Goodreads, Amazon and in Chase, a bi-monthly magazine from the Rotherham Advertiser.

I have a dilemma

Hearing that a publisher or agent would have taken you on a few years ago when publishing was a different place, is much better than hearing that they wouldn’t have taken you on then and certainly wouldn’t give you so much as a fleeting consideration now. However, after a few times of hearing this poisoned chalice of a sentence, the voices which knock on the side of my head and ask if anyone is home, are getting louder, even in my ears, known to be a little hearing-challenged.

We are having to be more choosy, cry the publishers which means the agents are too. When book lists are being slashed, a polished copy is going to fare better than something with promise. There are publishers out there who are desperate to take on and nurture a first time author, just as in the old days. I am holding out for a response from one such publisher who sounds so devoted to people like me, and so professional in a tremendously 'tactile' way, that the waiting is painful. But nonetheless, the voices are suggesting that generally, a professional edit could be the difference between my first novel being published, and thus read by a few more people than simply me and my trusted readers, and languishing in the, At least-I-Had-Fun-Writing-It pile. 

I always suggest that we keep moving when playing the submission game because waiting around will only lead to a depressed state of rigor mortis. Just as a watched kettle never boils, neither does the email land if you click send/receive more than ten times in an hour. Although, I admit to continued, extensive investigation into this one.

So, heeding my own advice, off I trot to do some research into professional editing. The company which I decide is the most impressive, is, of course, one of the most expensive options. However, this is a group who use only published authors and who have answered all my questions personally and in great detail which would bode well for the service to come. 


I have the money for the editing in my piggy bank but my head has been turned by a course-cum-retreat.


The last time I went on a week long course I wrote 5,000 words of a book that was not even a gem of an idea before my arrival; that book became Glass Houses. There I met my fantastic writing buddy who has become a friend as well as a mentor. Oh, and as soon as I got home, I handed in my notice for a job I really enjoyed but which left me no time to write.

The course in question would fall a few weeks before I started my job teaching creative writing and couldn’t fail to fill me with ideas for that. Apart from attending pertinent talks and workshops and spending time with other writing devotees, I would actually write. This is something I don’t do too much of when my children are home for the summer holidays and it would mean that I had an outside chance of finishing the first draft of my second book while I was there. Without the course, the first draft would drift into September and September, as I’ve opined in a previous post, is my New Year. Once my children were back at school I’d love to be on stage two, making a story from the set of scenes dropped onto the pages a few weeks earlier.

My dilemma is this: I don’t have the finances or the time to do both the editing and the course. I have to decide whether the editing is essential to selling my first book. Would it open my eyes to its failings and give renewed vigour to making changes? I am not one for giving up and whatever an editor advised, I would consider it carefully and then act upon it.

Or, should I focus on book two, crack on with its first draft, have something else to show a potential publisher and learn something new in the process? 


Whether you’re a booky type, published or wannabe writer or one of my trusted followers, your opinions are all equally valid. Somebody not in this crazily infuriating, yet fizzy and exciting world of publishing, may just see the answer really clearly. Can I ask, what would you do? 

Very Inspiring Blog Award

I was really touched to receive a Very Inspiring Blog Award from the wonderful, Smirkpretty, AKA Shannon, whose own blog is, quite frankly, inspiring. If my writing can ever be deemed inspirational, then it really is worth every moment of the sweat and toil. Thank you, Shannon. You can visit Shannon's blog at http://smirkpretty.wordpress.com/.

As I’ve been writing this blog for a couple of years now and already had the dubious honour of dredging up seven things you wouldn’t know about me, this time, I’m going to have to dive a little deeper. Goggles on, we’re going in.

1. I was the unwitting guest at the wake of a decapitated man. It was almost twenty years ago and I had about tuppence-ha’penny to spend on rent.  After weeks of fruitless searching however, I’d reluctantly upped the amount I was prepared to pay by £5 per week. I was with my now-husband and as we drove up the crunchy gravel drive, we commented on what amazing house you could find for that relatively small increase in budget. I do recall it being a little dark, though. Eventually the door was answered by a tiny Asian lady who simply looked and beckoned us in. She directed us over to a couple of wooden chairs, the last in a line of eight resting against the lounge wall. We sat down. Other people nodded acknowledgement without taking their gaze away from the rolled up carpet in the middle of the floor. Nobody spoke. ‘It’s like waiting at a bus stop,’ I whispered to my boyfriend. ‘But what are we waiting for?’ he whispered back.

It transpired we were waiting for the landlord to come and take us to the actual house for rental. It was the landlord’s son who appeared in his place. I rejected the room which was opposite the graveyard and two miles away from where the advert had described. It wasn’t just because of the broken light hanging from the centre of the room with shards of faulty light bulb hanging threateningly from it and a muffled explanation as to why the light didn’t work; something about a fight between two tenants. Nor was it particularly the fault of the bed which had clearly collapsed on one side, so badly that the putrefying mattress had half slumped down on to the floor. No, it was the notes in the tiny kitchen assigned to 12 people which put me off. They made it quite clear, with a rather excessive brutal directness, exactly which item of food belonged to which person and woe betide anybody who dared to pick from somebody else’s shelf.

The next day we read in the paper that a landlord who had been ripping off his tenants had had a dispute with one of them. In the process he’d lost his head which explains why the alarmingly human like form rolled up in the carpet in the living room, seemed a little short for a fully grown man.

2. I’m learning Slovakian. I can say this in three tenses, can add in an adverb or colourful adjective, if required, and even tell you that my dog is also learning Slovakian (and add that I don’t actually have a dog, or a cat). But learning to tell the time has driven me to real tears on not one, but two, occasions. I suppose, with no other distractions and an interlocutor with the patience of Job, I could just about spit out the answer nowadays but by the time I’ve worked out that it’s, ‘five minutes before the first quarter of the tenth hour’ (ten past nine), it will already by eleven minutes past nine and I’ll have to start all over again.  If a Slovakian ever has the misfortune to ask me for the time, I shall say, ‘neviem’ and hide my watch.

3. I cycled the Pyrenees in a week last September and it was the best sporting experience I’ve ever had. I’m not sure I could really muster the energy, or time, to train again but I’m so glad I did it once in my lifetime. My husband and I raised £2,500 for the Stroke Association, a charity close to our hearts because our twelve year old daughter suffered a stroke when she was one. She’s made an amazing recovery. Pre- national health and research done by the Stroke Association, I’m not so sure she would have done. We will always be grateful to them.

4. I have arthritis in the third finger of my right hand which I have found out, only today, is not inflammatory arthritis but the other type which means that my degeneration may not be quite as fast as I’d feared. Please raise your glass of olive oil and share a toast to the longevity of joints.

5. I have bunions, hearing aids, glasses and the odd protesting joint but as I explain to my concerned-cum-amused husband, I feel it’s only my peripheries that are broadcasting my advancing years. The women in my family live for near-centuries and I intend to give them a run for their money. By then, they’ll have invented a pill to sort out feet, eyes and ears and a gadget to turn the pages on a Kindle, so I’ll be fine.

6. I ran the midnight marathon in Norway and got my pace so badly wrong that I was reduced to a lollop after the first half. I spent so long at one feed station, stuffing myself with bananas, cheese sandwiches, flap jack, jelly babies and energy drink - this is the girl who can’t normally eat within two hours of running - and chatting with the officials, that fellow runners thought I was a marshal and asked me to hand them a drink. At that stage, I have to say, I was tempted to jump ship.

7. I was a tour guide but I have no sense of direction. If you put me in a field and spun me around, I would die searching for the exit. Now my children are older, it is they who take me to the toilet in a restaurant to ensure I make it back before the end of the meal.

I did a season of bus and walking tours based in countries I knew but in places I hadn’t always been to myself. The idea was that we crammed up on the history of the ones we didn’t know and memorised maps so that we could guide our guests around.

Oh dear.

I used all the means at my disposal to get myself, and the holiday makers, around these foreign cities. The bus drivers would quietly point out landmarks before we arrived. The hoteliers would suggest a seemingly obvious building for me to aim for so that if all else failed, I could find the way there, sneak out the map and do everything in my power to recall the way back to the hotel. But the rest of the time I used to make it up.

Whilst I may not be able to remember which way to turn out of a car park, tell me a story and I’ll remember it for ever. Hence my oft-used line, ‘I’ve brought you this way because I just have to tell you about…’ I almost pulled it off. Almost. One wonderful American gentleman who kindly took it upon himself to give a little cough on the off chance I was about to walk past a turning on several occasions, wrote on his feedback form, ‘I’ve never had so much fun in my life. This lovely lady couldn’t find her way out of a square box but I could listen to her talking all day.’ I say, thank the lord for the American love of a northern English accent.

 
So, to my list of my 15 blogs which inspire and make me smile. Congratulations on your well-deserved awards! To this list I add my usual proviso, if your name is missing and you feel it should be there, it should. It’s my brain cells. I forgot to mention, they’re on the decline too.

http://annalisacrawford.blogspot.co.uk by Annalisa Crawford

http://alongthewritelines.blogspot.co.uk by Derek Thompson

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

http://www.whoatemybrain.com by Nick Cross

http://skybluepinkish.wordpress.com by Gillian Smellie (hoping this will inspire you back to blogging, Gillian!)

http://isabelcostello.wordpress.com  by Isabel Costello

http://chicklittings.blogspot.co.uk  by Debs Riccio

http://authorhollyrobinson.blogspot.co.uk by Holly Robinson

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

http://www.iamjakebarton.com  by Jake Barton

http://theelephantinthewritingroom.blogspot.co.uk by Sally Zigmond

http://cassam-isanyonethere.blogspot.co.uk by Anne Mackle

Kay’s http://1lovelife.blogspot.co.uk

Tash’s http://talesofstepford.wordpress.com

http://www.racheljlewis.com by Rachel J Lewis

In accepting your award, please:
 
1. Display the award logo somewhere on the blog.
2. Link back to the blog of the person who nominated you.
3. State seven things about yourself.
4. Nominate 15 other bloggers for the award and provide links to their blogs.
5. Notify those bloggers that they have been nominated and of the award’s requirements.

I look forward to your posts :) 

Keeping on… and on

That’s it. You’ve researched and written and re-written and edited and re-written and proofed and, oh damn it, re-written again until you realise that your re-writes and edits have become changes  rather than improvements and you realise it’s time to stop. It’s time to submit.

Trawling through the internet and the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook is actually more exciting than it sounds; so many of those agencies have your name all over them. General fiction they cry? Yes! With a thoughtful edge, a bit of Maggie O’Farrell thrown in? Yes! Open to submissions, looking for debut authors. Yes, oh yes.

And then it starts. The wait. The constant ‘just checking’ the in-box, the racing to the letter box which you know is counter-productive because anything sent by the post these days is only going to be a rejection so why make the moment come any quicker? The ‘no news’ starts to ache but it’s tinged with just a frisson of expectation. There is the smallest of chances that it’s your book being read and discussed at that moment. Why not? you ask, when you’ve just poured yourself that umpteenth glass of self-belief, every writer starts somewhere.

Then comes the right hook, square in the centre of your self-confidence. It’s back to business as usual; more hours spent submitting when you really should be focussing on the day job, or helping your children with their homework, taking the dog outside for his ablutions, spending time with the person who does actually earn some money for the daily bread, seeing friends...

It’s time to pour another cup of self-belief. I do this with a glance at my list of authors who achieved double figure rejections. It’s a salubrious list. I remember RJ Ellory at the York Writers’ Festival who said that the difference between a published and unpublished author was that the unpublished author gave up. I remember how I feel when I’m writing, that there are parts of my novel which make me smile, characters I love and that the ending always makes me cry. And then I think about how I’d feel if I didn’t write, if I wasn’t trying to get a book published. And the answer is that I’d feel bereft, that nothing makes me feel alive like committing a story to paper or that response from an editor, even when it’s a rejection.

I’m addicted to writing. Resistance is futile. I’m trapped and I love it. I’m writing my second book.

I wrote this in response to a question on Twitter about our strategies for coping with rejection and holding on to a semblance of a positive attitude. Currently I'm just waiting... and waiting... which, personally, I find even harder! So, what about you, what keeps you going? I'd love to know your strategies.

And to my non-writer readers out there with *proper jobs*, thanks for holding our hands on this roller coaster of a ride.

Changing Paces

When my children were younger and I used to see the Mum’s Taxi sign hanging disconsolately in the back of, well, a Mum’s Taxi, it struck a not insignificant amount of fear into my exhausted body. From where would I find any extra time to transport my children three times around the county on any given day, the way it appeared mothers and fathers of teenage children quite happily seemed to do? When did those parents find time to cook and clean and read and play and work and clear away the Happy Street?

What I couldn’t imagine when the teeny tots were scuttling everywhere, me and various house-hold items in their wake, was that these babies would grow into individuals who didn’t actually need, nor want, to spend every moment attached to my left foot. Indeed, once fed and watered after a hard day at school, they would drift off to friends’, to the garden or to a varying assortment of pitches and screens, and even sometimes to their homework.

Thus, I discovered, that far from not minding this extra draw on my time, I actually relish it. It’s the chance to be alone and chat with my children without all the other demands on our time and attention that exude from the four distracting walls of home.

There’s more. With Mum’s Taxi comes the humble café stop. Yes! I exclaim a little too readily, Of course I’ll pick you up. No rush. Quickly I sort through my mental map of Harrogate, searching for the nearest, yet least frequently visited, coffee shop (lest the owners should think I have nothing better to do) in which to meet. I do all in my power to arrive early, and hope that my daughters arrive late, so that I can order my cappuccino, place myself next to the window and People Watch.

All in the name of writing, of course.

Today, I’m fascinated by speed and the different pace people use to walk up and down the main shopping street. It says so much about them and their lives - real or imaginary. There are the loving strollers, not simply moving slowly because they are in no hurry to part, but because their foot intercepts the other person’s and at this speed, their brains can automatically prevent them from getting in a tangle.

There are the bouncing teenagers who gallop one by one up to the quickly forming group of friends which will soon amount to eight. Each issues a hug and two kisses to the existing members, the next to arrive repeating the operation, like an affectionate version of I Went To Market And Bought…’. If you look really closely, you can see which of the 14 year olds is comfortable with this. I’ll use that, I think, and realise that although both my novels span three generations, I’ve never yet featured a teenager.

Then come the mothers, fathers and grandparents, each with a child at the end of their fingers-tips, walk-running behind, seemingly unfazed by this most uneconomical stop-start method of travel.

A minority of people scurry, darting in and out of the other shoppers, barely looking up to do so, perceiving their presence like a bat making full use of its sonar system.

Some people have very large, determined strides, I notice, their back straight, shoulders down, one arm swinging army-like at their side, the other clutching at the purchases which have made them late for wherever they’re going. And it’s one such man who walks purposefully, but without haste, to the front entrance of Marks and Spencer, stops, looks once right and left, then to his watch and the clock diagonally above his head. He gives an unnecessary cough into his fist, tugs at the hem of his cord jacket. He doesn’t stand still, rocks a little instead, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He’s getting cold, stuffs his hands into his pockets, removing the right only to compare the time on his watch to the large clock advertising H. Samuel, thinking that checking both will make the time pass twice as quickly.

Does he know her well? I ask myself, wondering if it’s really possible to work out whether this shuffle of a dance is born out of excitement, irritation or the cold. And why have I assumed he’s expecting a woman?

Still he waits, more people flow past with their varying stride length and extensive assortment of arm movements, until eventually he stops his marching, offers one final glance to the clock and another more pointedly to his watch and forces a smile. You’re late! I know he says, because he puts his hand on the female’s back and pushes her in the direction they clearly need to go as he speaks. It’s a teenager for whom he's been waiting - his daughter. It’s clear because when he goes to place a kiss on top of her head, she wafts it away, no doubt with a scrunch of her nose. With matching long strides, heads held high, they walk faster than everyone else. I lose sight of them.

I have another sip of my coffee. He needs to discover coffee shops, I think to myself, and I start to write.