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Making it up as I go along

Making it up as I go along

Monthly Archives: January 2017

Feminist fiction, feisty women & being perfect

22 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

#WomensMarch, 'Women's Fiction', Feminism, Feminist Fiction, Genre, Kat, Women Writers

Island Life, Word Birds & Process

In the aftermath of yesterday’s #WomensMarch events, I’m overwhelmed by how feminism is everywhere: living, working, moving; a river of loud, feisty, determined, courageous energy refusing to be silenced, clearly stating we can dare to dream of resurgence. These woman made feminism normal. They put two fingers up at misogyny, smiled their perfect smiles & roared as they did so.

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And I realise today I want this power in the books I read. I want it in the books I write.

In a recent conversation with a friend, we were discussing the central character in my third (WIP) book. She’s an older woman, living alone. Like that of the secondary character, no men feature romantically in her world & never have. There is a sense that men are contrary to both their natures. (You’re getting no more than this, dear reader – enjoy your speculation!) My friend pondered the ‘natural expression’ for the female, how men try to manipulate & exploit it. She used the term ‘feminist fiction’ purely in terms of a vehicle for writing the topic & not as a label per se for mine.

It gave me food for thought though. If it’s the responsibility of women writers to promote feminism, how do we accomplish it without coming across as shouty provocateurs? (So tired of that shit in any case.) Do we make it an actual campaign or, in the same way I write my lesbian characters, give it subtle shape & normalise it? I want feminism to be commonplace; entrenched at the centre of my experience, my reading & yes, my writing.

In the same way I don’t want my own books – which have few male characters – labelled ‘women’s’ fiction, I don’t want any of it overtly described as feminist. I’m proud if people describe me as a feminist writer, because I am. I’m also a feminist cat owner, swimmer, frock lover, shopper & cake eater. I don’t want to smash the patriarchy I want to bloody annihilate it.

The stories I write are just that – stories. Mostly about women, told with honesty from my feminist heart, but ‘the genre is book.’

This is Kat – she was in Washington.

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She’s a Purrfect Pussy Kat & she has Feline Friends!

The tyranny of thin & why maths, food & writing don’t mix

15 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Dieting, Feminism, Food, Writing

Island Life, Word Birds & Process

Not writing related? Well, if a week spent obsessing about food curtails my writing time then, yes, this post is about writing, or the lack thereof.

Like many women of a certain age, I’m overweight. Not excessively so – about a stone & a half lodged round my middle. I don’t like it, it makes me feel sluggish & I’d like to shift it. This week, on a whim, I went to a Slimming World session with a friend. I’ve heard good things about SW & the evidence is irrefutable. Some of my close friends have lost impressive amounts of weight & they all say they feel better.

The ethos is simple – no food is forbidden, a great deal of healthy food is ‘free’ meaning you can eat as much as you like. The foods one is encouraged to eat less of (essentially sugar & fat) come with a SYN value. Syn is a derivative of synergy & assumes an interaction of food groups aimed at weight loss. So far, so far, but syn is also a play on the word ‘sin’ which I find troubling. Food is not sinful. It may, for some people, be made of dubious choices, involve restrictions due to allergies or physical conditions, but telling the average person already struggling with self-worth issues that a small bar of chocolate is ‘sinful’ (whichever way you spell it) immediately points the finger.

Beautiful Woman Eating Cheesecake Dessert. Image shot 1910. Exact date unknown.

This is where it becomes deeply problematic for me. The so-called ‘naughty’ foods: cheese, olive oil & butter; chocolate, cake, biscuits & puddings are heavily restricted. Even porridge, or muesli with dried fruit, becomes an issue of syn ‘choice.’ Other than sugar which I admit is pretty evil, in moderation, none of these foods are ‘bad’ for us but the Slimming World syn constraints on even some perfectly healthy food mean the amounts one is allowed make it barely worth bothering. The alternatives are largely (for me at any rate) disgusting. Imitation butter is vile & not even food; in my world it’s the ultimate gastronomic sin. And a Slimming World homemade chocolate cookie recipe using Nutella chocolate spread is, frankly, a political issue. Nutella contains loads of sugar & palm oil. Hello? Palm oil? (Look it up!)

There’s a cheerful note in the welcome booklet: “Take a quiet therapeutic half-hour to meal-plan your next seven days…”

Are they kidding? Therapeutic? Half an hour? I’ve spent most of this week stressing about my meals. Me, who doesn’t do stress because it’s too damn stressful. And I’m the woman who has to take off her shoes to count to eleven. I can write a book, I can’t add up a short shopping list because I’m number blind. Counting syns & converting grams to ounces & vice versa is maths. Cross referencing a Healthy Eating Option against the relevant Syn Option is maths. And spending extra money on food I don’t really like is also maths…

So yes, I resent time away from my work, being too anxious to follow my pen. I’m tempted to kiss the joining fee goodbye, put it down to experience & forget it. I’m not sure losing a stone & a half is worth the misery of meals made of maths.

Ps: Some work did get done…

“The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace…” *

08 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Birds, Crow, Editing, Island Life, Letter to America, Quotations, Word Birds

Island Life, Word Birds & Process

Earlier, writing my daily Letter to America, I mentioned the mist (it’s an Island Life this morning, dear reader & no mistake) & that only a small, solitary bird graced the highest branch of the birch tree. It never lasts, this daring do. Sooner or later, Crow arrives, evicts the interloper and claims her place. Today she came with friends, three dark shapes against a rain-drenched sky, elegant itinerants.

They’re gone now. Crow has business elsewhere. If the mood suits her, mine tarries long enough to leave a few words, a line or two I may find a use for. Lately, I’ve sensed her shaking her black hoody head – Kraa – you are procrastinating, writer.

crow-2

She isn’t wrong. It is however procrastination thinly disguised as editing. When I set aside my current new story (was Book 2, now Book 3) to write The Snow Sisters (the usurper) it was a vague second draft. I knew it was chaotic, that parts of it were going to need serious attention. In the back of my mind, a confused muse wrestled with chunks of ubiquitous backstory (my nemesis) pronouncing it superfluous to anyone’s requirements.

Knowing I was about to embark on another draft, my first reader (the recipient of my Letter to America), put up her hand. Her eye is astute & she asks the right questions. Checking ahead, I spotted where the chaos began & faster than a rat up a drainpipe, scuttled back to Chapter One. I’ve spent the last week meticulously & very, very slowly, editing the first ten chapters: back & forth like an over-keen copy editor on Kalms. These chapters are so edited they are faint with exhaustion, begging to be left in peace.

And still, Chapter Eleven waits. Or as I like to call it, the place where it all goes pear-shaped, backstory crash-lands onto the page & I have no idea how to deal with it. I’ll work it out – it’s only words, yes? Kill a few (several hundred) off; tidy up the telling, dump the debris…?

If I ask nicely, maybe the words birds – my beautiful vagabonds – will take some of them back…

* John Burroughs

Begin at the beginning

01 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Drafts, Editing, Epigrams, First Lines, Ghostbird, Mise en Abîme, Quotations, Reviews, Writers, Writing

Island Life, Word Birds & Process

onceuponatime

Once upon a time is the place where most stories begin. The writer will rarely know for certain where her latest story came from, only that it did. The initial trace will have landed in the bit of her brain marked ‘story.’ From there, if the thing has wheels, in the excitement, that first spark may get forgotten; a once upon a moment lost in the thrill of the story taking shape. It doesn’t matter. It is what it was: a glimmer, a dream or possibly a first line – & even that’s likely to get side-lined.

My favourite first line was written by the immaculate Dodie Smith in I Capture the Castle – ‘I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.’ The image conjured is perfect & instantly the reader wants to know where, what, when & why.

i-capture-the-castle

Our original first lines rarely make it to the final cut – editors often see to that – it’s their job. In the event they don’t make us change it, we have almost always done so ourselves, many times.

First lines are the bane of a writer’s life because readers devour them & we have to get them right. Like a cover or a blurb, a memorable one can mean the difference between a sale and a rejection. I always imagine my first lines are pretty cool. I’m often wrong & have a good laugh/wry smile when the real one emerges.

The story I’m currently working on is in third draft. It began with some pretentious attempt as a series of mise en abîme which, by the second draft, were rejected in favour of a simple epigram. Although I liked it – I’m fond of epigrams – by the current draft I recognised these few lines worked better within the narrative. (What I now have is a secret.)

So far mind, the beginning of chapter one hasn’t changed. As first lines go it’s pretty ordinary – ten words, none of them startling or uppity. They do set the scene. I hope I get to keep them. And out of the blue, a few days ago the word birds dropped by with the first line of Book 4. It’s lush.

Onward & sideways!

Oh yes, while you’re here, I wish you a joyous 2017. If you read Ghostbird, thank you. If you reviewed it, I adore you. If you are writing your own story – may the New Year gift you a cooperative Muse, a fabulous first line & this little hackneyed, clichéd, perfect mantra.

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My novels

Wild Spinning Girls
Wild Spinning Girls
Snow Sisters
Snow Sisters
Ghostbird
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