Showing posts with label novel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label novel. Show all posts

Saturday 30 April 2016

Leicester City, King Richard III and A Profusion of Smells

This Week I'm in Leicester
Photo by Jennifer Pittam

So my work as a Clerk of the Court takes me north to Leicester, slap bang in the middle of England. I check in at a little hotel, former home of artist and architect Ernest Gimson. Immediately, I fall in love with its art deco touches and 1920s oil paintings.

The Belmont Hotel








When I've dumped my bags, I'm out exploring.  Writers love to explore - I think we're born inquisitive or as they say in Leicester, born nosey-parkers. Presently  the colour  blue features everywhere you look - blue blue flags, blue scarves and hats; even the cathedral is lit up in blue. That's because, on Sunday 1 May, this little city's football team Leicester City will play the mighty Manchester United for the Premier League cup.  Only a few months ago, the bookmakers were offering shorter odds on Elvis Presley turning up alive.

Even the Cathedral's Blue












Leicester has history, too; stone-built and elegant, and lots of tantalising smells. Because I write historical fiction I must capture colour, sound and every stinky aroma going,  I cram into a curry house by the railway. Sipping a glass of lassi (yoghurt with mint and a little salt, served as an apperitif). I make jottings in my writers' notebook. Close-packed bodies/Shrinivas incense/cracked black coriander seeds spitting in an iron skillet.  Cobra beer, tawny gold/fat baked potatoes seared in tumeric.  It's vital to get it right so I use a technique learned in yoga nidra class.

Sipping a glass of Lassi











 I transport myself back mentally to the same curry house, then a coaching inn, the year 1826. It's the time of my novel in progress. No 21st century morals then. I recall that the French emperor Napoleon, embattled and exhausted, once sent an urgent missive to his wife: 'Home in three days. Don't wash.'


Plump Coriander Seeds








When my court case is over I have time to spare and waving cheerily at all the blue-capped lads and lasses who have been so kind, I pay a fleeting visit the grave of King Richard III. Richard reigned for just two  years in the 15th century.  He's known  for 1) having a hunchback  2) supposedly murdering his two nephews, the 'little princes in the Tower' and 3) dying in battle on Bosworth Field.But what became of his body? Did he escape? Did he die  in a ditch? Was he kidnapped, held captive? Did he die a brave warrior's death?

Laid to Rest in Leicester Cathedral


Then in 2012 some workmen dug up a car park in Leicester. They unearthed something strange -  bones, swords, stuff like that. To put it bluntly, the grave of King Richard. This answered so many of the unanswered questions -  yes, 'Richard Crookback', as Shakespeare called him, did have a scoliosis of the spine. He died very bravely in the battle, his wounds showing clearly that he fought for hours. The little princes? We still don't know. His coffin didn't contain a signed confession, that's for sure.

The Princes in the Tower?

He wasn't, I think, the nicest of men -  but it was a rough, tough time to be alive.  There's something about the grave of a warrior king and I bow my head. This one has been beautifully put together. He has an oak and yew, lead-lined coffin crafted by his 17th great grand nephew, a modern carpenter. There are stained glass windows depicting the discovery of the body, the inquest (yup, we still needed an inquest after 534 years)  the months of squabbling between the City of York and the City of Leicester. Should Richard of York return there to be buried? A valid point say you, but the tradition is that a British soldier dies where he falls.

The Well on Bosworth Field









On 26 March 2015 his body was carried from Bosworth field to a final burial in Leciester cathedral I suspect that, more than anything, Richard would have liked to be laid to rest as one more English warrior soldier.











Outside the cathedral I sit on a bench with bluebells at its foot, soaking up the sun. I draft  my last few chapters. I need to take the reader to the inquest.  In 1826 the Coroner's inquest for the dreadful, bloody crime I've depicted would have been held in a local pub or dancing room. It must have smelt like Leicester cathedral, only much, much worse. Cheap tallow candles stinking of animal fat, fried fish, sweat, local-brewed ale, naked fear.  I take a good sniff, then write....


Bloody thou art, 
Bloody will be thy end...

Duchess of York (Richard III, Act 4, Scene 4)
William Shakespeare 1554-1616

Sunday 6 March 2016

First Aid and First Goals - A New Writing Course

A Funny Old Week











Well, this has been a funny old week, as we say in London. I'm determined to get creative.  I'd like to take a class but at present, time and finances forbid. So I get a course in a book.


Beehives in the Park











The Course comes as a big fat tome and a download for my Kindle. I lap it up on the London Underground, in the park with the bees humming around the hives, in the cafe under London Bridge Station (a bit similar to working whilst bricked up in an Egyptian mummy's tomb). I'm a great believer in taking classes no matter how experienced you are - in the same way I still take yoga classes after decades of practice, I trust I'll never be too proud to take a writing class.

When I'm not making jottings I'm busy stretching every nerve, brain cell and joint to pass my First Aid Certificate. In one sense, taking a course from a book isn't the same as going at it live. With an instructor from the St John Ambulance shouting,'two rescue breaths, thirty pumps on the heart', I make very fast progress on my First Aid. Still, I'm determined to make a success of my writing course too. I remind myself that in the past, writers wrote, they didn't spend hours on Facebook or have the luxury of even, necessarily, attending school so very much, never mind attending college.

Thirty Rescue Pumps











Chris Sykes' course has loads of exercises and begins, in the introduction, with asking the student to think about how and where they write. Then, tease out their reasons for wanting to write, and finally to write down three short-term and three long-term goals for their writing self this year.

I jot down a few things about myself, and note a couple of modest successes.

'Lives in the mad, bad beautiful city of London,' I begin. 'Dredges the events of the past for stories, head firmly in the now. Writes on the tube, in the park or best of all, at the zoo. Rather fond of prawns. And ginger nuts. Winner of Coast to Coast Writing Competition ('I Remember Very Well'); Winner of Writer's Village Flash Fiction Competition ('Past Times'). Articles published in Prediction Magazine, Astrology Now, Aquarist & Pondkeeper; titbits read out on BBC Radio 2 by Zoe Ball, and by Anneka Rice.



Writes at the Zoo

Now for some goals to give my course bite:

Three short-term goals:

1. To champ away on my blog and Facebook page weekly for the next three months (5 June 2016)
2. To finish my W.I.P. 'Face The Champion' by 5 September 2016
3. To have completed a basic outline for 'Keep Them Safe' by 5 September 2016

Three long-term goals:

1. To submit 'Face The Champion' to every possible publishing opportunity by 5 March 2017
2. To have my website functional by 5 December 2016
3. To save for and attend the Historical Novel Society's conference in September 2016.


Rather Fond of Gingernuts

Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go. 
E L Doctorow 1931-2015



Saturday 27 February 2016

Creative Writing Workshop Beats Black Dog



A Toilet of a Year

This has been a W.C. of a year. Battling with the anguish of bereavement and supporting my father through two operations, I find it tough to get back to writing.

People tell me to 'pull myself together' but have bugger all idea how I might go about it. Still, there is a gem of truth in those old wives' tales.

This week I pull myself together in three ways; 1) sign up for a creative writing workshop 2) start a fresh, new course and 3) win a prize for a piece of flash fiction. In a literary city like London there are loads of workshops available; large and noisy, intimate and searching, cosy and hilarious, stretching and expensive.  I choose one called 'Less Thinking More Writing'. It's run by JoJo Thomas on Sunday mornings. The atmosphere's creative and beautifully prepared, with fab fab home-made cakes and coffee.


Delicious Homemade Cakes
There is little critique. The extended a.m. session (4 hours for £40) is targeted towards creativity. Packed with exercises and perfect for a Sunday, the 'round the table' set-up with discussion and lots of funny, insightful reflection means that we all leave feeling positive yet gloriously stretched. 'I'll never view haddock in quite the same way,' says Huw, as we say goodbye. And neither will the rest of us.


Set in Torbay
 Last time I attended JoJo's workshop I turned one of the exercises into a teensy story which, to my delight, won first prize in a Flash Fiction competition. The judge describes it as 'beguiling', which was great. I can live with 'beguiling'.


 The flash fiction story is set in Torbay and I use the raw grief of my mother's death for this piece - better than boring everyone on the bus. The prize of £50 is a huge boost to my morale. This week's results may, according to JoJo, have produced a deliciously new, darker beginning to one of my novels in progress. Watch this space.


A Darker Beginning


There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.
Somerset Maughan 1874-1965