Monday 13 October 2008

I Remember Very Well...


Well! I've come first in the Coast to Coast writing competition, October 2008. My short story, 'I Remember Very Well' was written for Armistice Day, and it was a real boost to have this little bit of success. It's true that success in anything is a series of tiny little efforts, one after the other. Some of them aren't easy. In fact, some of them aren't welcome. The Remembrance Day events were beautifully done this year - the lines of soldiers straight, the brass on the uniforms sparkling in the sun and entire new generations marching or mourning in silence. Some came to remember loved ones who died in Iraq, and some to honour a grandfather or great-uncle lost in one of the world wars. Rows of men and women, people who had to take one little step after the other, mourning a loved one. In bereavement as in writing, in sadness as in joy, it's one step at a time.

Monday 14 April 2008

Housman's Bookshop

This week I joined a new writers' circle, which meets in the bowels of Housman's Bookshop in Central London. The place is unheated and unbelievably cold even in this rather mild winter. As we huddled around a single bar electric fire I was, I admit, re-connected to the pre-centrally heated days of my childhood. Yet, there is something very focussing about sitting in semi darkness, coat pulled around your shoulders, munching custard creams and reading a chapter from your novel. When I listed to the others' stories, focussing a hundred percent because after all, what else can you do in semi darkness, I found myself utterly captivated by the different worlds they led me into. Call me old fashioned, but I wondered whether we've lost something precious, sitting here in the 21st century, enjoying luxuries our ancestors would have associated with the idle rich. Maybe I've turned into my mother after all.

Monday 15 October 2007

Death in the Family

A beloved auntie died this weekend, nine years to the day when we lost my uncle. Woke up feeling ragged and with a thick head, and wondered whether I'd be able to write at all. In cases of very devastating bereavement, people do say they can't write. I found that the day needed care, and to some extent I was 'going through the motions.' I took a trip to the Museum of London, a place that has inspired a lot of my writing in the past. The inspiration wasn't there today, at first, but I wandered around the galleries, just allowing myself to 'be,' and not require myself to 'do.' They were playing a 17th century folksong in the museum, which mentioned Charing Cross. This was quite serendipitous, because Charing Cross features heavily in my current chapter. Last week I researched and discovered that the current cross is a replacement for the original Queen Eleanor Cross, erected in the mid-19th century. I'd been all through my manuscript changing every incidence of 'Charing Cross' to 'Queen Eleanor Cross,' and when I got home I changed them all back.

Monday 27 August 2007

Research, Research, Research


Just got back from a brilliant research trip in Bath. I've been travelling quite cheaply, staying in the smallest room in a convenient hotel and getting the feeling of 'being on the road'. In order to connect to my characters' lives as best I could, I visited several museums, imagining what it would have been like to use all the implements, wear the clothes and be at the mercy of the medicines and the food. Also I had a lot of help from the glassblowers' studio by the river, who told me all about the dangers and joys of handblown glass. I did several pathworkings, made sketches and produced some awful watercolours. Some days I sat by the River Avon and gave myself a rest. One thing I did experience was the loneliness of the road, and also the effects of the weather - when I got drenched in the rain it took a real effort to keep my spirits up. How much worse must it be if your livelihood depends on the sunshine. It's really easy to write in a grotty hotel room - in fact, working on my novel was the main thing that kept me sane when the nights drew in and I missed home the most.

Monday 2 July 2007

Chigwell Row Wood


Today I had the curious experience of seeing myself on TV. The programme was filmed in Chigwell Row Wood, which is a part of Epping Forest. In the film I talked about my ancestor, Tom Tarling, and life in 19th century England when a working man's only real asset was his fists, for his trade barely furnished enough to put bacon on the table. It was a salutary experience, to talk it through for the camera. After, I came away with renewed respect for that man, rough and ready no doubt, who bought himself a wagon and a horse, or two, from the sweat of his own brow. No credit cards in those days. Writing Chapter 7 was a deeper, more meaningful experience for having explored Tom's dilemma for the purposes of fiction and I have had a good weekend at the writing, even if I have been over the same three paragraphs 83 times!

Monday 4 June 2007

Fight It Out

Today I wrote a fight scene, between my protagonist Thomas Tarling and his brother-in-law, Zackariah Scarrott. It's something I've been working up to for a while. I've been at pains to show Thomas in particular as a 'real' man with hopes, disappointments and feelings as well as a manly 'hard' side. I was becoming concerned that he might seem too fearful for the hero of a Georgian novel, so I set this fight on the edge of Bethnal Green (which in those days was a wilder place than now). A long writing day, but a satisfying one.

Rejection & Re-Application


A writer's life, like an actor's, is full of disappointments. You have to believe you can win the competition that 7000 others didn't, or get your piece read out on BBC television against all the others who'd like to do the same. When it doesn't work out, you have to get up, dust yourself down and return to the humble and (hopefully) likeable person you were before your head swelled enough to cause you to send off your work in the first place. Today was just such a week for me, with three rejections and a storming head cold just to season the mix. The rain outside in this beautiful part of Hertfordshire resembles an Asian monsoon; and I am returning to my novel. This week, my hero's life changes for ever - and that's what I have to try and portray.