Tag Archives: Mist

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28 Sunday Aug 2016

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process #18

Summer mist imitates autumn making me realise how close the end of the season is. Earlier, from my bedroom window, it was a proper Island Life scenario: the hills draped with mist, a sense of dream-like isolation. I drank tea with Virginia Woolf, reluctant to get out of bed.

book VW

Now the sun is abroad, mocking my attempt at authenticity. Frankly, I wasn’t up early enough and the moment has passed. Unlike the weather, the Word Birds don’t vary their activity. They flutter and chatter, a constant murmuration of ideas. Draft three is upon me, dear reader – Process by another name. After a meeting with my mentor and editor, I am filled with joy at the prospect of a fairly intense rewrite of my second book. Weird maybe, but believe me, I mean it.

Janet never tells me what to write, she shows me my real story. It’s a magical process, a conversation driven by enquiries about my intention with regard to this or that character, and their intentions. I am never preached at – I’m asked why and it makes me think and dig deep. And now I have it – the story beneath so to speak – the  one I’m meant to be writing.

After the editorial lunch (I know – indulge me!) the process continued into the following morning, and my bath. (I have a lot of light bulb moments in the bath.) What pleases me most is that although Janet enabled me to see my story more clearly, in the aftermath I’ve worked out another lush strand which could become a recurring motif. One thing follows another and the story unfolds some more.

And at the risk of banging on – this is why writers need editors. Their job is to see what we miss. Not because we’re thick but because we’re often held too preciously in the original story vision. Editors are like school teachers. They dish out homework and if we do it we stand a better chance of passing the exam.

September is my favourite month. It’s the start of autumn and for me the best time to settle into a new writing project. Next Thursday is the first day of the month and it’s a new moon too. I’m taking a day or two to fix the domestic chaos, and write a new outline. Then I’m off into Draft Three with more excitement than I can adequately describe.

Begin at the beginning … again…

12 Sunday Jun 2016

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process #8

In summer, mist is a vaguer, less assertive thing than its winter sister. Having little resistance to the sun it burns off quickly. And in the sun’s absence, this lethargic heat will do it. Summer mist is short-lived but no less lovely.

You do have to get up early to catch it.

This morning I was. With only one remaining chapter left to write, I joined the birds and they, bless them, flung the final words my way.

The first draft of my SisterBook is done!

Davide Benati - Frangipane, 1989 - Copy

I’ve already begun a new pass. Because I edit as I go, the earlier parts of the story in particular are in reasonable shape. I do expect to be challenged once I near the final third.

What larks though! Another story down, another milestone reached: the ‘difficult second novel’ written.

Go me.

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…