Monthly Archives: May 2016

Phone a friend?

29 Sunday May 2016

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process #6

After a couple of days of thunderbolts and lightning (not even remotely frightening – I love thunderstorms) today dawned mist-draped and gentle. It was silly o’clock and the enclosed, slightly secretive morning felt perfect. I was ready to write. It’s been this way for a week or two now and the result is I’m approaching the home straight, if not at a gallop then certainly at a gentle canter. (Were it not for the ‘Edit As You Go’ gene, this first draft would probably be finished.)

The problem is I’m unsure whose story I’m writing. I have two definite and four possible candidates, and it’s a potential minefield. Having recently published a book with a clear central character, I’m now faced with two distinct voices, each with a stake in the story, and another couple clamouring for attention.

I may be over-thinking it – every star needs a supporting cast and sometimes a double act works fine. The writer just has to insist that the understudies know their place. This would normally not be a problem. Unfortunately I fear it’s my own fault and serves me right for creating the monster that is a Narcissistic Mother. She really is a ruddy nightmare.

As for the ghost…

Phone a friend is what contestants on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? used to do, when they didn’t have a clue.

I think I need to call my editor.

A sense of an ending

15 Sunday May 2016

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process #5

By nature I’m a lark. I go to bed early, get up early & I’m rarely out after dark without a note from my mother. I’m known for my early starts. After tea & a read – maybe some hand-written notes – I attend to the chores, write my daily Letter to America, see to anything urgent in my inbox, take a peek at Facebook & begin work around ten o’clock.

Over the past week, instead, I’ve been at my desk around seven o’clock. Still in my PJs & with only the tea drunk, the book read & the cat fed, I’ve ignored everything else and written my heart out. I have no idea why, only that I’ve been waking up excited & single-minded & the result is a huge number of words.

It’s a double-edged sword mind. I’ve reached the tricky third quarter of the tricky second book. I’m aware of sag & clutter, of wandering off on extraneous tangents. It’s highly likely the thing is rubbish & I’m deluding myself it’s going to work. I know a lot of writers give up at this point, abandon the story & begin a new one. It smacks too much of the revolving door to me. And I know the ending, even though it isn’t in sight. I’m in too deep to give up and start again.

At least I can sense it, which is an improvement on a week ago.

press-wyeth

 

In medias res: Island Life #4

08 Sunday May 2016

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I’m no Latin scholar – far from it; I studied at St Trinians. I remember this particular snippet because I spotted it in The Children’s Book the first time I read it. Dame Antonia’s* central character – a writer – says she always leaves her writing in medias res, which translates as ‘into the middle of things.’ In the context of the scene, the character has been interrupted but is happy to leave her work in mid-air. She likes it that way.

This has never appealed to me. In the same way I prefer to mark a book I’m reading at the end of a chapter or page break, when I finish writing for the day I try to leave my work at the end of a scene with the prospect of a ‘new’ beginning to get me going when I return.

Yet, until it’s done, I’m always in the middle of things. I drop in and out, tap-dance on the tightrope, follow the word birds and try to keep up with my characters.

In respect of my current story, the more literal meaning of in medias res has a certain if not actual resonance. The book has its fair share of backstory, three time-frames and a non-linear narrative. And I’m not a linear writer; I regularly find myself diving in, uncertain where I’m meant to be going.

Part of me questions why I’m using a lost, ironic language to make a fairly small point. Latin is simple to pronounce and often needs only common-sense to work out the meaning. At the same time it’s full of obscurities and contradictions. It’s also fun – not least when you don’t really know what you’re talking about but enjoy playing with motifs and devices.

A bit like writing.

*A S Byatt

girl with bird

This must be the book

07 Saturday May 2016

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From time to time you discover a book so affecting you know it will stay with you long after the last page is turned. This Must Be The Place by Maggie O’Farrell is such a book. It is a reinvention – a step beyond the author’s previous work and a blessing. It took several days for me to process – to even think about writing a review – and even now, I doubt my ability to conjure the words to do it justice.

“Meet Daniel Sullivan, a man with a complicated life.”

What follows, after we do meet Daniel, is more complex than complicated, but so perfectly arranged we are never in danger of losing our way.

Daniel’s world has been rocked by a failed marriage and a callous custody battle. Escaping to Ireland, he meets Claudette – a reclusive, world-famous film actress on the run from her own life and the trappings of unwanted fame. Together they create a new existence, make more children and settle into isolated family bliss. Daniel’s past, laden with a terrible secret, catches up with him. As their idyllic life begins to disintegrate, we witness the past and the unravelling of the present through a myriad other stories. Although the telling is dominated by Daniel’s voice it is exquisitely embellished by those of the other people irrevocably attached to him.

It is impossible not to be affected by the experience of being inside this glorious love-story. The reader is drawn, a willing fly into the web of O’Farrell’s effortless, dazzling prose.

It is some time since I have been so touched by a book. It must surely be impossible to read This Must Be The Place and not be mesmerised by the breadth and perfection of it. Once it is released, on 17 May, I want you to buy it and read it and then, if you haven’t already discovered Maggie O’Farrell, explore her back catalogue and fall headlong in love.

There are not enough stars.

I am indebted to Georgina Moore at Headline for a proof copy of the book.

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Island Life, Words Birds & Process #3

01 Sunday May 2016

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It is a suitably mist-laden day. The sky looks as if it is made of a million feathers. I’m thinking about magic and why we believe in it; if indeed we do.

Yesterday, at Llandeilo Book Fair, I read the chapter in Ghostbird when Cadi – my young main protagonist – first encounters the ghost of her little sister. This baby ghost attaches itself to Cadi and thus begins the search for the truth.

Is such a thing possible? Do ghosts exist and if we resist the notion, is it possible to then go on to enjoy a contemporary story that insists they do? My story relies on a myth, and the suspension of disbelief in fairy tales. I am asking people to accept that the ghost of a little girl could become a catalyst for healing and redemption. That the fairy tale about a woman made from flowers could imprint on the lives of people living in the 21st century.

It is up to my reader of course whether she takes the kind of magic I write about at face value or explains it away as a fancy conjured from my over-active imagination.

I believe there is an intrinsic and emotional truth in fairy tales; nothing in fiction for me comes close. They are the basis for most love stories and the more fearful kind too; the kind that keeps us awake long after the final page has been turned. (Even crime thrillers rely on things that go bump in the night and dreams that turn to nightmare.)

And fairy tales are often allegorical; when unpacked and explored, they can teach us valuable lessons. (Anyone who has read Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés will know this.)

The possibility that reality and the world we glimpse on the other side of the veil can coalesce has always been appealing to me. Not everything odd or mysterious that happens in life can be explained away by logic. And many of us are drawn to the dream places we still long for after we have put away childhood notions of wonder. (Or fear.)

Across the hill, the mist lies still as a caught breath. In the distance a lone red kite hovers; searching for her lunch no doubt. Or is she? Has she caught a glimpse of something beneath the feathered mist? A place where birds speak and ghosts find peace…

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In other, more grounded news, the Book Fair was brilliant!

me Llandeilo

I sold and signed lots of books and managed to do my reading with only a few stumbles. And answer questions…

I’m getting better at this ‘author’ lark…