Author Archives: Carol Lovekin

Unexpected book review in blogging area

15 Friday Jun 2018

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You are being treated, dear reader, because I don’t want to wait until September, when this book is published.
It’s my pleasure to offer my review of The Lion Tamer Who Lost by Louise Beech.

tltwl

As a storyteller, with every new book she writes, Louise Beech demonstrates a remarkable ability to reinvent herself. Although she returns to familiar motifs (which I love because I enjoy recognising them), each of her books presents the reader with a new scenario. The Lion Tamer Who Lost took me on a genuinely unexpected and fascinating trajectory. To Zimbabwe (with lions) and into a gay love story with a sadness at its heart that cracked mine.

Ben goes to Africa to realise a childhood dream to work with lions, and finds himself in a situation he could never have imagined. Andrew hides a wish in a box, which when it comes true, rips his world apart. Ben’s and Andrew’s paths keep crossing, and it may or may not having something to do with fate.

Gay men and their love affairs are rarely my go-to story of choice. But it is impossible not to be affected by Ben and Andrew’s relationship. By the authenticity and utter poignancy of it. By their responses to a tragedy that unfolds and over which they have little control. The characters are so well drawn, the relationship so sensitively observed, I was reminded of Patrick Gale’s A Place Called Winter. (I adore Gale because his male, gay characters are always relatable.) And that’s the trick, Beech has pulled off. A love story which resonates regardless of our (my) assumed preferences.

Which only goes to show.

‘Be careful who you love’ reads one of the straplines on the cover of the book. Be careful what you read: I turned the cover and fell headlong into a wonderful surprise. Because nothing about this story disappoints. The African setting, the excellent writing, and above all, the immaculate storytelling. It’s a cleverly constructed book too. I loved the chapter headings which give us a glimpse of the story within the story.

Another triumph. A beautifully crafted book which will do a great deal to further an understanding of gay relationships. From a writer coming into her power.

With huge thanks to Karen Sullivan at #OrendaPress for sending me a proof copy.

You can pre-order the book here.

Letting go of the lovely…

10 Sunday Jun 2018

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process

It’s highly likely I’ve used the above heading before. (And I’ve definitely written about editing.) No matter – my blog my repetition. Apposite in any case. Editing involves digging out the repetition. And much more besides. I’m on the 84,670,943rd pass & the excess keeps on keeping on… Were it not for chocolate & wine I might well have gone quite mad.

My writing co-conspirator has her head down too. (For those of you who don’t know, Janey & I are are the sole members of the smallest writing group in Wales.) Since her hip op we’ve had to meet less often but we never stop comparing notes. (I think she’s on draft 62,897,504…)

I’m doing my best to stay serene. On the surface at least – drifting like a lily on a lake, looking as if I know exactly what I’m doing. Under the water, trust me, I’m kicking the mud.

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My bête noire is a tendency to ramble. To embellish my stories with far too much exposition & description. My mentor & first editor calls it ‘the lovely’ & has, from the beginning of our collaboration, bid me be rid. She may no longer be my editor, believe me dear reader, as I edit Book 3 it’s like she’s in the room… Which is a good thing.

An old Facebook post from a very famous writer – who I’m not going to name in the interests of playing nicely – recently emerged. In it, she declared she was no longer going to allow her manuscripts to be edited. Quote: “I felt that I could not bring to perfection what I saw unless I did it alone.”

Lovely…

The thing went viral & of course, everyone has an opinion. Mine echoes what seems to be the popular view: Stop talking, famous writer! Shush now & be grateful! Being well & professionally edited is a privilege which we scorn at our peril. (And a best-selling author would surely have access to top-notch editorial advice.) There is a legion of writers out there who never get the opportunity.

And so forth. I’m off to unmuddy the waters. Please send chocolate.

Odd earrings

03 Sunday Jun 2018

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process

One of my writing rituals involves earrings. I have a designated pair. They’re not in fact a pair at all. They’re odd. One is a beautiful moonstone, the other, two chunks of amber. Both are set in silver & both lost their mates at some point in the past, the way earrings are inclined. Not least the ones we like best.  I loved both pairs very much so decided I may as well wear the not lost ones together. They’ve become talismans & when I’m particularly challenged (editing) they give me confidence.

Who knows if they have any power? Writers love ritual & I’ve spent a goodly part of my life indulging it, one way or another.

Numbers have power! The number of the moon is nine!! Merry meet for a lunar lark!!!

moonm

And so forth.

You get the gist: I’m not keen on even numbers. There’s something about their uniformity that grates. Too precise. I prefer the risky, more magical nature of a nine or a seven. And I like what the ghost in my new story has to say about them:

‘She preferred odd ones, she said they were feminine.’

This morning I finished the third pass. After some serious slashing, it comes in at 89,977 words & sixty-three chapters. The title is three words long.

So far, so far. (So far…)

‘What kind of language is this?’ *

20 Sunday May 2018

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process

My ability to ignore distractions is pretty good. So long as I’m at home writing, as opposed to hanging in a cafe or suchlike, I can concentrate reasonably well on my current work in chaos. The world at large is far too interesting & full of shiny. Paradoxically, silence is a complete no-no too – there’s no such thing when you live in even a small town & distractions abound. When I’m writing I need familiarity: a touch of Radio 4 in the background, music that fits my mood; add the view from Withering Heights & I’m good to go.

Background is the operative word. I don’t need to be able to distinguish particular words. My own are what count. So long as I’m where I belong, the lyrics to songs turn into a sweet humming & I can crack on happily.

What interests me though is how, when I’m editing, some words do get through. It’s only certain songs that can do this. I don’t have a play list – my choices are pretty random. Or are they? An album I return to over & again while editing (& writing) is Kate Bush’s Aerial. In particular, the second CD: A Sky of Honey. I know the words to every song almost by heart. If I could only take one album to that desert island, this would be it. And this week, as I began the first important pass on Book 3, I returned to these songs once more. In the background you understand, but as present as the real, word birds still edging their way into my consciousness. (They have shiny too & secrets.) More often than not they know far better than I how this editing process needs to go.

v brookland

Oh, editing… What fresh hell & all that. What gibbers (thank you dear Juliet Greenwood for this perfect expression of the editing writer’s almost constant state of mind.)  What terror as you approach The Bit You Know Will Need A Vast Amount Of Work Because You Kidded Yourself You’d Nailed It When Clearly You Have Done No Such Thing. That said I enjoy editing. For me, in the first instance at any rate, it’s the smell of printed paper, sharpened pencils & a different outlook. Literally – I hard-copy edit in my sitting-room rather than my study, sofa bound & cushioned & very familiar.

Five days ago, having rescued Book 3 from the Dark Drawer after a month of marinating, I began. And when I get fed up with Jenni Murray chatting earnestly about vaginas, when the state of Bob Flowerpot’s compost & Pippa Greenwood’s sweet peas lose their allure, when the news stops being news & sounds more like coffee adverts, I reach for Kate.

And even though I have the volume turned down, some of the words do get through. I pause & listen: What kind of language is this? / I can’t hear a word you’re saying… And yet somewhere I can. In some part of my edit-addled brain, the right words exist. If I try really hard, make sure I have enough tea & chocolate to sustain me through the gibbering, I’ll hear them. My best words are in there somewhere.

Better get on then – see if I can find them.

*Kate Bush

Writing in the margins – somewhere in between

06 Sunday May 2018

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process

In spite of a lush sun trying to burn it off, the mist sticks. The swallows are back, Mistress Crow is in her tree & all’s right with the world. My bit of it at any rate. And for that I’m grateful.

With Book 3 still resting in the Dark Drawer, I’ve been busy Harassing the Hovel & restoring ten months of disorder. Apart from general cleaning, I’ve been decluttering, frightening the filth into submission & chalk-painting furniture. Larks galore! And not much writing done, frankly. I’m between [drafts], so to speak.

I don’t believe writers ever stop writing mind, even when they aren’t physically wielding a pencil, they’re at it in some form or other – ‘not writing’ their little socks off. ‘Not writing’ takes many forms, from actually not doing it to scribbling in your head. This is what I’m currently doing. With a Big Fat Edit looming, I’m already harking back (& forth) to scenes I know I’m going to play with (aka: mutilate.) The word birds are in whisper mode – they know how this works far better than I do. As I paint & clean & tidy, they slip notes into the mental chaos in the margins of my mind.

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I slipped in a few of my own too, last Sunday. As part of the Llandeilo Lit Fest I attended a poetry workshop run by the poet Kathy Miles. My admiration for Kathy’s work is huge. And the title of the workshop – The Changeling Poet: Writing Out the Narrative Voice – intrigued me enough to sign up. As did the description: A workshop which explores the persona poem, and how we can write ‘out of ourselves’. We will look at different ways in which the poet can write as animal, object, ghost or mythical figure, some of the techniques used to transform the narrative voice, and use these techniques to produce a piece of writing.

The persona poem form wasn’t unknown to me – it was absolutely not a motif I’d ever explored. (My forays into poetry pursued the patriarchy & shouted, ‘Watch out, the feminist is cross! Again!’) I wasn’t mistaken in my certainty that Kathy’s workshop would be useful. It exceeded my expectations & not only did I leave with ideas galore, I even wrote a poem that wasn’t livid & snarky.

A goodly number of the whispered words in my head involve my ghost. She’s different from Angharad in Snow Sisters & nothing at all like wee Dora in Ghostbird. Her voice has a quirky edge & I like the idea that I can play with it, perhaps create something unusual. The workshop definitely gave me food for thought – mine & my ghost’s.

I’m still working on it – Kathy has kindly offered some tips & I may one day be tempted to share my poem. Then again, I may not… In the meantime, I’ll keep writing in the mind margins, translate the whispers. Once the painting & housework are done, I’ll delve into the Dark Drawer & dig out Book Three.

Copy of Copy of il_570xN.313976642

The Dark Drawer

15 Sunday Apr 2018

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process

At the end of May last year, I ran a story idea past my mentor, Janet Thomas. (I blogged about it here.) I had 2,000 [random] words down. Ten months later, dear reader, I did it. I finished Book 3.

spinning

Checking my writing diary this morning, I saw that on 7 October, I was ‘back in the chair for Bk3.’ (The bit in between involved copy edits for Snow Sisters, getting the book ready for it’s September release & the blog tour.) I still managed days here & there, writing the beginnings of the story.

It feels longer than ten months. I’ve struggled with parts of this book & I’m by no means out of the wood. (Note to self: Order more bread crumbs.) Nonetheless, it’s done & I hope, like the ecclesiastical egg, it’s good at least in parts. Time to step back & leave well alone for a while.

In terms of a completed first draft, The Dark Drawer is often a metaphor. Not everyone prints off actual hard copy & stuffs it in a literal drawer. In my case, I do. It’s part of my process & when it comes to the first round of edits, I prefer paper, sharpened pencils & a box of tissues. (Weeping may be involved – I have to shift a minimum of 20 k to make this story viable.)

I’m not normally very good at not writing, but I’m fairly relaxed at the moment. No idea how long it will last; I have a couple of talks to polish (& a neglected house to be kind to.) For the rest, it’s thumb twiddling time I guess. I’m taking bets on how long I can resist opening The Dark Drawer.

Girl is a feminist issue

08 Sunday Apr 2018

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process

This week I completed a draft of my third book. (Hoorah! Cake! Etc!) As I edit like a loony along the way, I don’t tend to number drafts. Technically, it’s the first complete one; realistically, it’s part tidy & part messy. My next trick is to print a hard copy which I’ll leave in a darkened drawer for as long as I can bear the suspense. In the meantime, I’m attending to the ‘throwaway’ words.

And pondering the title.

Like it or loathe it, Girl in the title of a contemporary novel, however ubiquitous, appears to sell books. As a woman who writes largely about women (albeit about girls as well), I have long eschewed reaching for the Girl word. And yet I find myself unexpectedly in love with a title I conjured several months ago for this story. It contains the word Girls – plural – & I like it. I allow it as it’s part metaphor & because it takes into account the fact that some women in some stories (as in life) will always be girls. (Two of mine certainly are. One is a girl of seventeen so points anyway.) More importantly, regardless of age, some women will always be intimately connected to their girl self.

Against all my previous feminist conviction, I’m now convinced Girl can work in certain kinds of grown-up fiction titles. And I’ve reached this conclusion after a great deal of thought. It’s exercised me in a way nothing has for a long time. And I think – for me at any rate – writing the story of Ida & Heather has sealed my certainty; I know why I’ve changed my mind.

It’s because both pain & a sense of wonder are never completely eliminated from most women’s lives. Girl in fiction is part of an important, ironically feminist, narrative. At a certain age (ambiguous in itself) women are expected to conform to a norm no one really understands. (Certainly not men.) And for those of us of a certain generation, not least our mothers (surviving the patriarchy by the skin of their collective teeth.) These excellent, brave, hopeful, frustrated women, insisting we were old enough to know better & yet too young to understand.

Go figure.

I deliberately made my Girl character seventeen. It’s my own go-to heart age. I may not recall eight or twenty-five in any detail, I remember being seventeen as if it were yesterday. It’s a magical age: girls on the cusp of womanhood, when they have more power than they have the wisdom to appreciate.

The woman, as Girl, is saying she isn’t prepared to let go. Girl allows her to reach back & touch the luminous moments. Girl keeps her safe & her dancing dreams alive.

Blue Shoes

It’s a wonder all by itself. So I’m risking it – it feels too right not to.

#GirlIsAFeministIssue

‘A note…*

01 Sunday Apr 2018

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process.

A Writer’s Diary by Virginia Woolf is a book that accompanies me. By that I mean, it’s a companion. I don’t take it with me when I go shopping, but I don’t stay away from home overnight without it. My copy is heavily annotated (in pencil) & I return to it over & again. This morning, I opened it randomly, at Wednesday, November 14th, 1934.

* ‘A note: despair at the badness of the book: can’t think how I could ever write such stuff – and with such excitement: that’s yesterday: today I think it good again. A note, by way of advising other Virginias with other books that this is the way of the thing: up and down – and Lord knows the truth.’

The passage is underlined & the word ‘Rewriting‘ written in the margin. This writer has been here before, methinks [knows]!

I’m indulging myself in a moment of angst. Even though I have it all – blocked in & laying the foundations (in some instances, the detail) for the final chapters – I’m still beating myself up over this story. I oscillate between ‘the badness‘ & ‘thinking it good again‘ like a wildly out of control lighthouse beam. (To the Lighthouse? Some puns have no sensitivity whatsoever…)

woolff      woolf diary

Mrs Woolf said this too: ‘My head is a hive of words that won’t settle.’

Hives & lighthouses, bees & beams. Whatever, it’s all absolutely in my head.

Onward & sideways.

 

Tempus fidgets…

25 Sunday Mar 2018

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process

There are mornings when it’s as if I ordered the mist. Oh, the smother of it – draped like adornment left over from a Fäe wedding! Concealing & tricksy too: time, at the beck & call of Daylight Saving, catching me unawares. (I’m a winter person – I like the dark.) Last night I was ready for it – only not ready enough it seems – this morning finds me trailing.

My Irish mother was a great one for playing with language. It was she who defied Latin & came up with the notion of time ‘fidgeting’ which to this day I approve of. Time, for a writer, is often a luxury & even for me – retired from the day job – storytelling gets done between other commitments. Waking up & finding I’d lost an hour reminded me how time is never static & not always compliant.

One of the things I do in the morning – because I can – is write in bed. I read a bit, over the first cup of tea, but more often than not set the book aside in favour of the notebook & the pencil. My brain is alive in the morning & I love writing by hand. And I have a cat on Cat Time which means early mornings absolutely are a thing. (I’m no owl, so early nights are by & large a given too.)

I’ve reset the clocks & mentally reset the body one. It’s Sunday – Withering Heights sits in the mist, adrift & rather lovely, paying no regard to time. And I have notes.

Onward & sideways. (Also my mother.)

Island Life & catching up

18 Sunday Mar 2018

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process

Not only are the hills shrouded in mist this morning, they’re littered with whirling, sideways snowflakes. Trés pretty, but yes… I think all that needs saying about unseasonal weather has been said. And having written about it at length in Snow Sisters,* I feel my work here really is done.

I didn’t write a blog post last week – largely due to the nature of the current Work in Chaos which required my attention. ie: My obsession with wordcount needed taking in hand. Mercifully, it’s a thing of the past & I’m returned to writing terra firma. And a satisfying session with my mentor gifted me a new bag of breadcrumbs. The wood now feels more manageable; the last leg of the narrative less haphazard.

My inner excited writer is delighted. Sometimes, all we need is to be asked a few pertinent & thoughtful questions: ‘Would she want to do this?’ And ‘ Why doesn’t she do that?’ (Sisters you see – tricksy creatures…) And so forth. All grist to my proverbial & something for the word birds to think on too, while they cwtch down to wait out this unexpected snow. (It’s not giving up…)

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I shall dance in it – metaphorically you understand – & wait for them.

* “Sometimes it snows in April”
~ Prince