• Home
  • Blog
  • Only May
  • Wild Spinning Girls
  • Snow Sisters
  • Ghostbird
  • Contact

Making it up as I go along

Making it up as I go along

Monthly Archives: September 2018

All the stars… My book of the year

30 Sunday Sep 2018

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

A Thousand Paper Birds, Book Review

There are certain books that, when you come to the end of them, you have no idea what you are supposed to read next. A Thousand Paper Birds by Tor Udall is such a book. On the morning I finished it, I sat in bed in a state of mesmerised shock because this is an utterly beautiful story & after two days, I still have no idea what to pick next.

toor ud

This book is elegant, eloquent & elegiac; profound, breathtaking, filled with the kind of prose that must surely have begun life in the author’s head as a poem. It shines with poetic moments & they stun, softly, like tiny birds beating against your rib-cage.

It’s a deceptively simple tale, one of love, loss & grief. Poor Jonah, lost without his dead wife Audrey, picks at your heart. Harry – an integral part of Kew Gardens, where the story is set – won me over from the beginning. Chloe & her paper skills, her delicate strength. Audrey with her secret… Everyone in this book is made from a version of love & each one is different: sweet, bittersweet, kind, capricious & as fragile as a paper bird on a lily pond.

Perhaps it’s because I write on the edges of magical realism that I found much in this book to enchant me. It’s certainly because I love rain & snow & write about them both, that I found this passage captivating.

My favourite character is ten-year-old Milly, who is explaining rain to Jonah:

‘It rains. Then the puddles evaporate and become clouds again. Round and round it goes. It got me thinking how nice it must be for a raindrop to become a snow-flake. For months you’re just rain and everyone hates you. But then one winter the weather gets chilly and you become a snowflake with its own shape and pattern. And you’re the only one of your kind of snowflake and everyone loves you. I reckon snow must be God’s gift to the raindrop.’

A Thousand Paper Birds is my book of the year.

Resting… or not, as the case may be…

23 Sunday Sep 2018

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Ballet, Book 3, Editing, Editor

Island Life, Word Birds & Process

Dear reader, how nice!
It’s been a while, but there’s a clue in the subtitle: ‘process…’  For a while, as I waited, there was none – not so’s you notice. Waiting is waiting & must be braved. The joy is in the outcome: a measure of progress within the process, so to speak.

Having untangled the minutiae of the structural edit, I dived in again. That’s the beauty of smart, intelligent, instinctual editing – it makes you want to do better. And as it turns out, I’ve been aided & abetted by an injury to the plantar ligament in my foot. (If you know it, you know it… There aren’t enough versions of ‘ouch’… And no need to commiserate. Cake will be fine…) The only treatment is rest.

Rest & write then. My brain, a thing of furious, focused energy, unpicking my story & stitching it together again; my body inert & aching from inactivity. The ridiculous irony is, in this rearranged version of my story (starting in the right place this time), I’m writing about a ballet dancer who injures her foot…

c7f9b84b40e4eb05298317833f46ebfc

Go figure…

Into the stream…

02 Sunday Sep 2018

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Book 3, Editing, Quotations, Virginia Woolf

I may not be blogging much for a while.

Structural edits are in. The End as I know it becomes redundant. One thing’s clear – I don’t always begin at the beginning either. Not the right beginning at any rate. Or end the way I’m meant to.

I’m off then, to wander – less aimlessly I can only hope. Re-assemble this story & say what I meant to, at the beginning, when I first had the idea.

Writers do a great deal of wandering off. What Virginia Woolf described as, ‘the line of thought [dipped] deep into the stream.’ The perfect metaphor for editing.

447061ca7f5f8740ed97da59a7f35db7

See you, dear reader… I have to sharpen my pencils & grab my galoshes.

My novels

Wild Spinning Girls
Wild Spinning Girls
Snow Sisters
Snow Sisters
Ghostbird
Ghostbird
Only May
Only May
Follow Making it up as I go along on WordPress.com

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 166 other subscribers

© Carol Lovekin and Making It Up As I Go Along, 2018. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Carol Lovekin and Making It Up As I Go Along with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Archives

Blogroll

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Facebook

Facebook

Tags

#NotTheBooker Authors Ballet Beach Birds Blodeuwedd Bloggers Blog Tour Book 3 Book 4 Book Fair Book Review Books Countdown Crow Drafts Dylan Thomas Editing Editor Edna O'Brien Extract Family Feminism First Lines Friends Genre Ghostbird Ghosts Ghost Story Glittering Prizes Guest Post Honno Interview Island Life IWD Janet Janey Judith Barrow Letter to America Llandeilo Lockdown Magic Mist Muse Mythology New story Not Writing Only May Photographs Process Public speaking Publishing Quotations Readers Reading Review Reviews RiverBook SisterBook Sky Snow Sisters Social Media Storyteller Structural Edits Titles Traditional Publishing Virginia Woolf Wild Spinning Girls Word Birds Workshops Writers Writing Writing Advice Writing Group Writing rituals

Archives

  • August 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • September 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • April 2021
  • February 2021
  • November 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
“The vote means nothing to women. We should be armed" ~ Edna O'Brien

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Making it up as I go along
    • Join 166 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Making it up as I go along
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...