Booking Through Thursday

Who is your favorite female lead character? And why? (And yes, of course, you can name more than one . . . I always have trouble narrowing down these things to one name, why should I force you to?)

There is only one: Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bennet. She is feisty, funny, serious, sympathetic, won't-be-downtrodden, thinks intelligently and feels passionately. She is also stubborn, prejudiced, arch and (temporarily) short-sighted. Her recognition of her failings, particularly of her prejudices, is heartwarming and her confrontation with Lady Catherine de Bourgh should inspire anyone faced with a bully disguised as a member of the great-and-good. But the chief thing about Lizzie is that she's so human that men and women fall in love with her.

It's no wonder that Mr Bennet says, when she turns down the obsequious Mr Collins's offer for her hand in marriage (a marriage that would keep the Bennet house in the family):

'Well, Lizzie, from this day henceforth it seems you must be a stranger to one of your parents.' He looks at her while she nervously awaits his decision. He keeps her waiting ... then he says: 'Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins ... and I will never see you again if you do.'

Mr Bennet's deep love for his favourite daughter, and my favourite female lead character, lights up this scene.

Jallaludin Rumi, 13th-century poet

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness
Some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows
Who violently sweep your house
Empty of its furniture.

Still treat each guest honourably:
He may be clearing you out
For some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
Meet them at the door laughing
And invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
Because each has been sent
As a guide from beyond.

I shall remember this, and do my best to act on it too.

Books and Myths

Ali Smith has written a wonderful book for the Canongate Myths series (a wonderful series, too) called Girl meets boy. The book sets 'Ovid's most joyful metamorphosis', the story of the man-woman Tiresias, in the twenty-first century.

I've just read this passage (from pages 29-30):

The second-hand bookshop used to be a church. Now it was a church for books. But there were only so many copies of other people's given-away books that you could thumb through without getting a bit nauseous. Like that poem I knew, about how you sit and read your way through a book then close the book and put it on the shelf, and maybe, life being so short, you'll die before you ever open that book again and its pages, the single pages, shut in the book on the shelf, will maybe never see light again, which is why I had to leave the shop, because the man who owned it was looking at me oddly, because I was doing the thing I find myself doing in all bookshops because of that maddening poem - taking a book off a shelf and fanning it open so that each page sees some light, then putting it back on, then taking the next one along off and doing the same, which is very time-consuming, though they don't seem to mind as much in second-hand shops as they do in Borders and Waterstones etc, where they tend not to like it if you bend or break the spines on new books.

Now I'm going to think about that every time I'm in a bookshop, or even just at home ... .

Does anyone know the name of the poem she's talking about?

Booking through Thursday

All other things (like price and storage space) being equal, given a choice in a perfect world, would you rather have paperbacks in your library? Or hardcovers? And why?

My father used to throw paperbacks away ... and I rescued them. I couldn't bear the idea of books being thrown away, but he came from a generation that thought paperbacks were rough replicas of their lofty hardback originals and didn't deserve a shelf life (on his shelves).

But I love paperbacks. They're lighter in your pocket (or bag, or suitcase) and they cost less to send to a friend. Often they have better covers so they look prettier on your shelves and their spines bend more easily ... paperbacks every time for me. (Even though it is lovely, as a writer, to see your work in hardback it really isn't necessary, or particularly green.) I think there'll be fewer and fewer hardbacks as paperback publishing becomes more and more sophisticated. There are some beautiful trade papebacks out there in the world, with front and back flaps and wonderful production values. Long live the paperback.

A love letter from Dr Iannis on Valentine's day

When Dr Iannis's beloved daughter, Pelagia, returns from a meeting with Captain Corelli, she tries to pretend to her father that she hasn't met Corelli. But she knows that her father knows that she has. Dr Iannis doesn't talk about his daughter's love for Corelli directly; he simply says this:

Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision.
You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is.
Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of eternal passion.
That is just being 'in love', which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other underground and, when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.

I love these words: they ring so true with me. They go straight to my heart.

Book reviews ... to blog or not to blog ...

... is a very interesting question.

And there's a very interesting post about it all over on Vulpes Libris which I've only just discovered - from dovegreyreader - all about whether blogging book reviewers are the saviours of small publishers, have caused the end of decent criticism or are unpaid cheerleaders.

My vote goes to the SoSPs and the UCs because, without them, Speaking of Love would have been remaindered (that lovely trade euphemism for crushing books to death in a pulping machine) by now, instead of being in with a chance for an award. So here's a big THANK YOU - in several languages (from this site) to all of you who've reviewed it and helped spread the word.

Merci, grazie, cheers, dankon, tashakurr, mamnoon, tankje, gracias, danke, efharisto poli, mahalo, takk, arigato, obrigadu, eso, yo-twa, shukria, kulo, webale nyo, tika hoki, oneowe, aio, lim limt, hambadiahana, tak sa mycket, yegniyelay and syabonga.

Spread the Word some more ...

On 4 February Richard Lea listed, on the Guardian Unlimited's Arts Blog, the ten books on the Spread the Word shortlist under the heading: 'What Goes into a "Book to Talk About"?' Then he wonders why 'the Kennedys, Enrights, Adichies et al were never in with a sniff'. He goes on, 'It looks like a clear case of "ask a funny question, get a funny answer".'

But the award is for works by 'living authors whose work has not been selected for high-profile media promotions or awards. Hidden gems deserving wider notice'. Perhaps Lea didn't know that ... but that's why there aren't any Kennedys et al on the shortlist, nor were they ever on any long-longlist. Anyway his post has provoked discussion about the award and about what a Book to Talk About is and that's a good thing. You can read the debate here ... the comment that appeals the most to me, so far, is this one, from inhouse:

That they are books to talk about is a way of saying they're great for book groups - they examine big issues. No need to intellectualise it so much! You might want to stick with the lit crit stuff, where the writing is all, but some people just want to argue about the moral issues raised by a book, because reading is a great way to get a perspective on our lives and society. It's all good, but perhaps not for everyone. It's easy to be sniffy, but why other people read is not a matter for supervision!

Hurrah for inhouse. No supervision! What do you think?

Spread the Word

Speaking of Love has been shortlisted for World Book Day's The Book to Talk About award. It's very exciting ... .

You can see the ten books on the shortlist here; you can comment on and vote for the ten books on the shortlist here or you can go straight to Speaking of Love's very own page on the Spread the Word site here to vote and comment.

Please do vote, please do comment, please do spread the word ... .

Birthdays, and getting older

It's my birthday next month and I've just rediscovered this 17th-century nun's prayer:

Lord, Thou knowest better than I know myself that I am growing older and will someday be old. Keep me from the fatal habit of thinking I must say something on every subject and on every occasion. Release me from craving to straighten out everybody's affairs. Make me thoughtful but not moody: helpful but not bossy. With my vast store of wisdom, it seems a pity not to use it all but Thou knowest Lord that I want a few friends at the end.

Keep my mind free from the recital of endless details; give me wings to get to the point. Seal my lips on my aches and pains. They are increasing and love of rehearsing them is becoming sweeter as the years go by. I dare not ask for grace enough to enjoy the tales of others' pains, but help me to endure them with patience.

I dare not ask for improved memory, but for a growing humility and a lessening cocksureness when my memory seems to clash with the memories of others. Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be mistaken.

Keep me reasonably sweet; I do not want to be a Saint - some of them are so hard to live with - but a sour old person is one of the crowning works of the devil. Give me the ability to see good things in unexpected places, and talents in unexpected people. And, give me, Lord, the grace to tell them so.

I'm not about to be as old as this may make it sound as if I am ... but then age isn't the point at all, is it? And aren't her words wonderful?

Need cheering up?

I have just been to The Big Green Blookshop blog - which I found on Fidra's blog. I've been MATing all morning and I really MUST get down to some writing, but if you need cheering up (I don't this morning, but it happened anyway, if you see what I mean) read this post by one of the owners' sons. It's heaven.

The Big Green Bookshop blog has also got a wonderful song called 'Keep on Smiling' on it which bursts from the blog when you log on ... or soon after, and it really does make you smile. So I defy anyone out there with the blues today not to have them changed to whatever the opposite of the blues are. The reds? The rainbows?

And may the Big Green Bookshop open soon. If they can run a blog like this at a time like the one they're going through, then we can all find something to smile about when we're blue.

Camas Chil Mhalieu, Loch Linnhe

I am going here: Which is in northwest Scotland. Image © Copyright Donald MacDonald and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Licence.

I'm going in search of the cottage that my great-grandmother used to go to get away from it all. I want to breathe the air, see what she saw and hear what she heard in the days and weeks, months and years when she never once spoke about her experience aboard RMS Titanic despite, or perhaps because of her courage on that dreadful night nearly 100 years ago.

I don't suppose the place will have changed that much, and when I am standing where she would have stood, looking at and listening to the things she would have seen and heard, I fancy I might sense how best to write about her.

And if any of you reading this have the Gaelic, perhaps you could translate Camas Chil Mhalieu into this language for me ... in a comment.

Builders and fishermen, a MAT with a purpose

I am MATing, but there is a point. (Well, I would say that wouldn't I?)

Last night the boyf and I were talking about writing and I said I felt as if I was assembling, not writing at the moment. I'm just collecting the already-written pieces of my third (sorry, second) novel and putting them into a different order now that I've decided to write the story in the third person. I said I didn't feel really connected to what I was doing the way I do when I am struck by an idea that I think will work, or when I have managed to make the language sing. I was just assembling.

But the boyf said, wisely, that we have to be builders as well as interior decorators when we write and that all the foundation-laying and brick-assembling, let alone the plastering, plumbing, wiring and insulation, have to be done before we can do the bit that makes the heart sing.

He told me that in the days when he was in the building trade, the plasterers and bricklayers, the plumbers and electricians would ask to come back to a job when it was finished - just so's they could see how it looked when the walls were painted, the carpets laid and the curtains hung. They wanted to see the beautiful results of their invisible work, results that couldn't exist without all that they had done, even though all that they had done wasn't visible.

In his Memoirs Pablo Neruda wrote:

The work of writers has much in common with the work of ... Arctic fishermen. The writer has to look for the river and if he finds it frozen over he has to drill a hole in the ice. He must have a good deal of patience, weather the cold ... look for the deep water, cast the proper hook, and after all that work, he pulls out a tiny little fish. So he must fish again ... eventually landing a bigger fish. And another and another.

A moment ago I didn't know I was going to go from assembling to fishing ... but that's what happens.

At the moment I'm building: assembling, bricklaying, plumbing and wiring. When that's done I will put on my cold weather gear and go fishing. And when I finally make it back with my catch ... towards the middle of this year with any luck ... I will begin eating, decorating (and singing).

New Leaves

Leaves from my small plot for the new year.

And as for turning them over, or at least paying attention to them, I shall divide 2008 between writing my third novel, a modern Beauty and the Beast (it's really my second second novel, because the first second novel turned into a short story) and preparing and researching the stories of some of the survivors of the Titanic. This latter because my great-grandmother was a Titanic survivor and - at least in publishing terms - 2012 approaches fast.

Other leaves include sharpening my critical faculties when I'm working, and bluntening them when I'm with those I love. Somebody once said something like this:

Friendship welcomes the loved qualities and lets the wind take the rest.

I agree.

This Christmas Life, a poem by Wendy Cope

Wendy Cope's Christmas poem is quite beautiful. I heard it on Radio Four on, I think, Saturday night last. As far as I can tell it was published a couple of years ago, but it is timeless.

I can't post it here for obvious copyright reasons, but you can read it where I found it, on the Guardian's page, here.

I defy you not to cry. I did.

Booking Through Thursday

Today's questions are:

1 What fiction book (or books) would you nominate to be the best new book published in 2007? (Older books that you read for the first time in 2007 don’t
count.)
2 What non-fiction book (or books) would you nominate to be the best new book published in 2007? (Older books that you read for the first time in 2007 don’t count.)
3 And, do “best of” lists influence your reading?

Fiction
1 The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell
2 The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney
3 The Needle in the Blood by Sarah Bower

Non-fiction
The Gift by Lewis Hyde (I haven't quite finished it, but it just can't go wrong.)

The first two in fiction were published in paperback in 2007, as was The Gift. I hope that's not cheating! And on the copyright page of Sarah Bower's book, Snowbooks write: 'Proudly published in 2007', which is lovely, isn't it?

Am I influenced by 'best of' lists?
Yes, I think I am. Although I'm more influenced by blog reviews and friends saying, 'You just must read this.'

Happy Christmas

I hope you don't think it's too early ...


but I took this last night, after decorating it on the weekend.

And now for the cumberland sauce, the brandy butter, the smoked mackerel pate (yes), the Dickens reread - or Oliver Twist every night this week on BBC 1? - and, because the presents are wrapped and most of them delivered, there'll even be some time for writing the new new beginning to my third novel which is now, of course, my second novel (because the second one became a short story. See older posts for the saga, if you can face it ... .)

Soul food

At the beginning of November Canongate said that the first 100 people who registered on THE GIFT site would receive a free copy of Lews Hyde's The Gift. All you had to do in return was pledge to make a gift today. I posted about it here, after finding out about the whole thing on dovegreyreader's blog that day.

The simple idea is that the most important, and the best things we are capable of have no price and can't be bought, so this gift can't be found by braving the crowds in the high streets (what a relief at this time of year). This gift is the antithesis of money and crowds and shopping, it simply requires time and a talent you already possess. The book also suggests - I haven't read it properly yet, so this is a reading-the-blurb-and-an-amazon-review guess - that in our society we have made the mistake of trying to sell things that shouldn't be sold.

Here's part of a review I read on amazon, by Leo McMarley:

Lewis Hyde is not only a beautiful prose stylist but he is a thinker to match, for The Gift offers a challenging and provocative argument about how we value things. He uses wide-ranging examples from across cultures and epochs and leaves you at the end valuing all the more those things that can't have a monetary worth attached to them.

For my gift, I decided to write a love letter to my boyf because writing is what I do, and because it is one of the suggestions on THE GIFT site. (You don't have slavishly to follow the suggestions on the site, obviously, but that suggestion appealed to me very much.) I sent the boyf away with his copy of The Gift and my letter last night (with bossy instructions not to read what I had written until today ... perhaps not entirely in the spirit of the day, but my excuse is that it was late and I didn't want him to read it until Gift Day).

The other thing Canongate suggest you do is pass on your copy of The Gift when you've read it. And I noticed this morning, when looking at THE GIFT site, that there's still room to register for a copy, if you'd like to. This morning 74 people had registered and there's a little note saying that it doesn't matter if you register after 15 December.

Try it. I have a feeling it could be good for the soul.

Lady into Fox ...

... this morning I went out into my garden (small L-shaped plot, actually) to take this picture ...


... because I just couldn't help wondering how they survive in the frost. See here, some cyclamen tolerate frost very well, some not at all ... not sure which mine is.

But before I could take the photograph, I heard a rushing-rummaging sound behind my hydrangea and then saw a huge cat, tiny bear, no ... a fox. Which scrambled up the wooden fence and then turned and stared and stared at me. My knees went weak (with fear, I am a pavement child not a country cousin) and I was rooted to the spot. Afterwards I wished I'd taken its photograph, but my reactions were far too slow: my fear paralysing all thoughts and movements.

I am still shaking inwardly and wonder whether it's because (a) I know nothing about foxes, particularly urban ones, so wondered what it planned to do to me? Was it summing me up for some nefarious purpose? And anyway it was broad daylight, so what a nerve it had ... . Or, (b), was I really wondering what I would do to it ... afraid that I wished it dead? Or (c), in the manner of the ancient sylvan tales, was I afraid that I would turn into a fox ... see Stuck in a Book's review of Lady into Fox by David Garnett here ... and never return to tell the tale?

We are so used, us urbanites at least, to living in our environments without threat from or sight of any other wild living being (those of us who don't live in warzones, I mean) that such an encounter simply paralyses. But when the fox disappeared over the fence into my neighbour's garden I was relieved ... out of sight, out of mind? Or at least out of danger (me).

A reminder that the boundaries are thin ... in every sense. And food for a story, one day, I'm sure.

Booking Through Thursday, on Saturday ...

... This week’s question is suggested by Island Editions:

Do you have a favourite book, now out of print, that you would like to see become available again? (I have several…)

Mine is The Agony and the Ego (click on the title for secondhand amazon copies ...) which is an utterly wonderful book (Penguin PLEASE reprint). It is a series of essays by writers of fiction on how it is and what it is to write; on why they do it; where their inspiration comes from; on what they love and what they hate about writing ... and so so much more. And it isn't at all about ego, although it is a bit about agony ... .

Here is my rather hopeless photograph of the cover:

World Book Day, Book Groups and Speaking of Love

My publishers, the wonderful Beautiful Books, say that if you'd like, they will send you a free copy of Speaking of Love because it's been longlisted for the World Book Day/Spread the Word award.

The number of free copies is limited, there are 20 of them, and you need to ask for yours before 1 February. But if you'd like one, email Kat Josselyn at kat@beautiful-books.co.uk with your name and address.

Beautiful Books say that they're also offering book groups free copies of Speaking of Love because, until February 2008, you can only buy it in hardback, and hardbacks are a bit expensive. Get in touch with Kat if your book group would like copies.

What Beautiful Books say in their Speaking of Love press release for book groups is:

When love is not spoken about, a hole is created into which memories, happiness, relationships, trust and eventually people fall into. Mothers fail daughters, who then find themselves failing their own mothers. Parents abandon children through fear; husbands desert wives.

However, this is not an heroic tale or a memoir of devastation - but an everyday tale of loss and recovery. It takes a special event, a mother's first public speaking event since her breakdown, for the years of silence to make way for reconciliation.

What I say is Indie publishers rock!

Speaking of Love and The Book To Talk About

Speaking of Love has been longlisted for Spread the Word's Book to Talk About, which is wonderful news for the book, and for all the books on the list (there are 100 of them). The award will be announced in the UK's Year of Reading (2008). The short list will appear in February - voted for by book groups and individuals - and the Book to Talk About will be announced on 6 March, which is World Book Day.

If you or your book group would like to vote for Speaking of Love go HERE. (You have to log in and then register to vote.)

To find out more about Spread the Word, Books to Talk About go HERE.

To see the longlist and read what the Guardian wrote about the prize on Friday, go HERE.

La Serenissima

I have been here:

and I was going to show you some other beauties ... but the photographs proved impossible to upload ... and Blogger kept showing me an incomprehensible code and saying 'We're sorry'.

I have just got back and it is extremely difficult to work as fast as I did before I left, to see a car without wondering why it's not a vaporetto and as for computers ... .

But I think my next novel will end in Venice because she is heartbreakingly beautiful and quite unafraid to show her age.

The writing process ...

... or should that be

the thicket?

I seem to go from a simple idea for a novel, a contemporary Beauty and the Beast in the case of my next novel, into a thicket of handwritten notes, ideas scribbled on stray pieces of paper, written scenes, more ideas, bits of plot, character notes, more ideas, structure notes, notes carefully filed in plastic folders with headings like 'Edward's Section' which become part of a pile of plastic folders on a blue stool beside me, and scenes. Not to mention the typed Word documents of all the above (sometimes writing by hand pleases me; sometimes I type) which are carefully filed in different subfolders in a folder called Beauty and the Beast. The subfolders are growing like the branches of a thicket.

All these notes
make
a thicket
in my head.
Through which it is difficult to see out.

And then this morning I knew that I had to make it simple. I knew that I had to write the one line that - like the root of the tree at the heart of the thicket - holds the whole thing up.

It is this: NOT DEPENDING ON OTHERS FOR YOUR SENSE OF YOURSELF.

From which I have begun the novel again.
And from which I will redraft it again and again.
And again.
Until the characters embody that simple idea.

But, of course, by the end the novel will be fat with the colours and smells and physical attributes, the inspirations and desperations and insights - in short, the characters - of the many unexpected paths (notes) that I trod along the way. So the paths and the notes that lead to them are useful, more than useful, essential. It's just that I hate that thicket feeling.

This morning, as I wondered where to file this, I realised that the best place was here. It would only get lost in the thicket otherwise.

GIFT day and Lewis Hyde's The Gift

Over on Dovegreyreader's blog today she writes about GIFT day, organised by Canongate for the publication of Lewis Hyde's book, The Gift, which argues

that we should keep some parts of our social, cultural and spiritual life out of the marketplace.

He believes that the rise of capitalism has brought about the decline of the creative spirit.

You can sign up with Canongate to make a gift on 15 December and if you're among the first 100 to do so they will send you a free copy of Lewis Hyde's book. Hurry over to Dovegreyreader's blog, 2 November post.

I think it's a wonderful idea ... I'm going to write something and I'll probably write what I write in one of the two categories Canongate suggest. Because the best things in life are free, aren't they?

Booking Through Thursday, Oh Horror!

What with yesterday being Halloween, and all . . . do you read horror? Stories of things that go bump in the night and keep you from sleeping?

I thought about asking you whether you were participating in NaNoWriMo, but I asked that last year. Although . . . if you want to answer that one, too, please feel free to go ahead and do both, or either, your choice!

I had to watch Pulp Fiction through my fingers ... and I can't read horror fiction at all because, like almost all the fiction that I read, it lives on in my mind and I can't get away from it. (And, unlike almost all the fiction that I read, I long to get away from it!) Ambrose Bierce's An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (which you can download as an ebook for free HERE) is the closest I've ever got, and it's not horror in the Pulp Fiction blood-guns-and-guts sense.

And as for writing a 50,000-word novel in a month, the idea gives me as many nightmares as a horror story would if I read one. But if anyone else wants to have a go, go HERE. The National Novel Writing Month (no, I didn't know either ...) begins today.

And so, back to writing a few hundred a words a day ... .

Paperback cover

This is what the paperback cover of Speaking of Love, to be published on 6 March 2008, will look like.

If you've got any thoughts about it, I'd love to know. In fact, how about this:

Tell me what story you think this cover tells in, say, a long sentence (or two) and the plotline that most appeals to me, or that makes me laugh the most, will be rewarded with a paperback copy of Speaking of Love when it's published next year. (Any obvious adaptation of the synopsis from the book's website will most definitely not qualify. And if you've read the book in hardback, you'll have to rid your head of its subject matter and come up with something solely inspired by the paperback cover.)

I look forward to reading what you write because much debate goes on in the book trade about covers, about what kinds of cover work and what kinds don't. But publishers, wholesalers and retailers don't usually ask the book-buying public what they think before a cover goes to press ... .

The Man Booker prize

And so it's:

Anne Enright for The Gathering.

Congratulations to her and her book.

I heard on the radio (four) news last night (have you noticed that they say 'BBC News for Radio Four' now instead of the old 'BBC Radio Four News'? I wonder why the strange, minute, change?). Anyway, as I was saying, I heard on the radio (four) news last night that so far The Gathering has only sold 3,000 copies ... but literary fiction sales are notoriously low. Why? For some reactions to the win, and the present sales figures of all the books on the shortlist, see Shane Hegarty's blog for the Irish Times.

Last night's award will make an impact on the sales figures for The Gathering, goodie goodie, and I'm looking forward to reading it. Sad about Mister Pip though, because it's wonderful, but it won The Commonwealth Writer's Prize and so it's well on its way out into the world already.

The Man Booker prize

Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones.

(That's the one I'd like to win.)

The short story that was a novel ...

... is a draft away from finished, but I can't post it here because one of the competitions that I am going to submit it to requires that it has not been published in ANY form.

So I shall hear what the writers group has to say tomorrow, redraft, let it rest for a while (Hemingway put his work away in a drawer for three months and then, when he got it out again, there was an emotional distance between him and the work and he could edit it as if it had been written by someone else). Then I shall fill in the entry forms and kiss it goodbye.

I always used to kiss the envelopes that held stories I was sending out into the world as I stood by the pillar box (My Brilliant Career, anyone?); but now that, mostly, work is submitted to competitions online, I blow a kiss at my computer screen ... .

When is a MAT harder than writing? ...

... when it results in this:

Describe your five strengths as a writer

I found the challenge HERE and because I was busy MATing (reading readers' and writers' blogs to avoid writing) I told myself that I would do it, that stumbling across it served me right for avoiding writing, and that I'd get back to writing as soon as I'd done it.

Now that I've said I'll do it I'm as horrified as Sarah was when Bendrix walks back into their bedroom after the bomb. She thinks he's dead and she's on her knees promising God that if he will let Bendrix live she will never see him again. (The End of the Affair, Graham Greene). He lives so she has to keep her promise.

An excessive reaction you may think ... but the fear that positive honesty will result in ridicule resides in all of us, I think. (Enough rs. Ed.)

1 I write emotional truth
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writes that emotional truth is difficult to define but instantly recognisable. It is the antithesis of explanation. It is an empathetic human quality and my writing has it. It is the most important thing to me about my writing. When I read I want to be engaged, and the only way a novel truly engages me is when it touches me. My writing touches readers.

2 I write courageously and honestly
If I didn't my stories would bore. I write what I know to be true, metaphorically speaking. I write about soul truths. I write about heart truths. These are, of course, my truths and the truths that belong to the characters I write, so they are subjective truths. But every time I write something that evades the truth of a story I delete it, eventually.

3 The language I use is poetic, lyrical
The words matter. The way they are put together matters. I will work at the way a story is written until the words sing back to me. Sometimes they sing straight away, but usually I need to redraft, and redraft, to find the right rhythms before the words can sing.

4 I paint pictures with words
When I am writing, I see what I'm writing about in my mind's eye. I see the place, the person, the people who aren't speaking, the colours, the angles, the action, the inaction and I know what the weather's doing even if I haven't described it. My writing transmits pictures to its readers.

5 I write succinctly because less is always more
(I cut a lot.)

Another new first page ...

... this is how it goes.

Slowly.

But here is a redrafted first page for the short story that was a novel.

***

I drift from place to place and from year to year with such ease, now. But, despite what they think, I usually know that I am drifting. It’s just that I can’t come back quickly so when they put me on the commode, or help me drink my tea, or get me ready for bed I don’t always make sense, at least not to their way of thinking.

Just now I said to Bethany, ‘Isn’t the cherry blossom beautiful?’ Of course I meant the spindle whose leaves are heartbreakingly scarlet today, but I was still in the middle of a bright spring day; I was still sitting under my favourite cherry blossom, and so, when she asked me what I was looking at, I told her what was in my mind and not what was actually out there, what she could see, by the pond.

But I know I heard someone playing the piano in the studio last night, I wasn’t drifting then. The sound woke me up. It came through the window. It drifted in across the garden from the other side of the pond, under the bright full moon, and I lay there staring at the ceiling, willing it to stop, hating it for the flood of memories it brought with it, trying to staunch the flood.

I wouldn’t mind hearing music if I could still dance, or at least make some kind of movement, but hearing music and not being able to move is unbearably painful. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it. I despise my feeble attempts to move when I hear music these days and, because my mind rambles along paths of its own choosing, I often see my young self dancing when music invades my broken-down being. It infuriates me. And it breaks my heart.

***

I've been editing my head off for the last ten days or so (so my bank manager's got a nice surprise coming), but I'll be back to writing, after one last bit of editing, early next week.

I'd love to know how you feel about this redrafted first page, if you felt like commenting.