Storytellers ... on the road

Two storytellers, Peter Chand and Giles Abbott, have begun a storytelling journey from Avebury to London. Like itinerant monks, they will depend on the charity (or love as it has long been translated) of others for their welfare along the way, and in return they will tell stories.

Their storytelling journey will also raise money for the Parkinson's Disease Society, the MS Society and Chelsea Children's Hospital Schools.

Iris, in Speaking of Love, becomes an oral storyteller and oral stories inform the novel. I fell in love with oral stories as I was thinking about the novel that eventually became Speaking of Love and it seems to me that what these two storytellers are doing is reincarnating the ancient art of the troubadour. Catch them if you can, on the road.

PS: they're blogging about their journey as they travel too ... on their website.

The Reader: Philip Pullman and The Storyteller's Responsibility

The Summer issue of The Reader is, as usual, full of wonderful things (I discovered The Reader over on dovegreyreader's blog a while ago, thank you dovegrey).

But the reason this issue (No. 30) is particularly wonderful to me is because of the essay by Philip Pullman called The Storyteller's Responsibility. It beautifully describes what it is that we storytellers think about - or should be thinking about - when we write.

Pullman writes about financial responsibilities: 'We should sell our work for as much as we can decently get for it' in order to support our families; and the responsibility to, and for looking after, the language: 'We should acquire as many dictionaries as we have space for.'

He discusses clarity and emotional honesty and keeping a check on our own self-importance, but the responsibility that Pullman feels 'trumps every other' is:

the storyteller's responsibility to the story itself. ... When the story's just a thought, just the most evanescent little wisp of a thing - we have to look after it ... to protect it while it becomes sure of itself and settles on the form it wants.

He writes eloquently about how the writer doesn't know why a story wants to go in one direction and not another, just that that is true. The story is 'the boss' and 'this is the point where responsibility takes the form of service ... freely and fairly entered into. This service is a voluntary and honourable thing.'

And on planning, my sometime difficulty, he writes these wonderful, and wonderfully clear, words:

Telling a story involves thinking of some interesting events, putting them in the best order to bring out the connections between them, and telling about them as clearly as we can; and if we get the last part right, we won't be able to disguise any failure with the first - which is actually the most difficult, and the most important.

Wonderul summer reading. Thank you, The Reader.

Literary fathers

Simon at Stuck-in-a-Book has prompted this post, with his post today.

He asks who our favourite literary fathers are. I commented on his post, here, but I feel so strongly that Mr Bennet is the best literary father in my literary world that I've turned my comment there into a post here.

Mr Bennet is undoubtedly the best literary father, to me, for these reasons: when Lizzie Bennet turns down the obsequious Mr Collins's offer for her hand in marriage (a match that would keep the Bennet house in the family, that would save the Bennets from losing the roof over their heads when their father dies, but a match that Lizzie cannot make because she cannot love Mr Collins) Mr Bennet says:

'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.'

Benjamin Whitrow as Mr Bennet in the BBC's 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.

Mr Bennet's deep love for his favourite daughter shines through these words, as does her subsequent relief, her slight surprise and then her gratitude and her laughter at what he has to say.

And Mr Bennet's amused, and sometimes not-so-amused tolerance of his desperate-to-marry-off-their-daughters wife (see here for some more of the wise and wonderful words Jane Austen gave him, adapted for various screenplays), his asking of the right questions of his daughters at crucial moments and his understanding of them (for instance, when Jane becomes engaged to Mr Bingley it is Mr Bennet who understands why they will never quarrel - because they can only see good in each other) - all these things make him the father of literary fathers, to me.

But I also feel this deeply because my own too-long-dead father loved Mr Bennet himself, and sometimes thought himself in a similar twentieth-century version of Mr Bennet's position because he had four daughters of his own and no sons.

Why don't you suggest your own favourite literary fathers, either in comments here, or where the idea began, over at Stuck in a Book, here.

South East London reading

I'll be talking about and reading from Speaking of Love tonight at Penge Library in south east London. It's part of The Blurb, Bromley's June festival of Books and Reading and it's free, but if you'd like to come you need to book. The event has been organised in association with Spread the Word's bookchat series ... because Speaking of Love came fifth (of 500) in Spread the Word's Books to Talk About competition earlier in the year.

It would be lovely to see you there ... .

Rose Tremain wins Orange ... HURRAH!

One hundred years ago a great friend told me about Rose Tremain's short stories, and since then I haven't stopped reading her work. She's written at least two collections of short stories and ten novels and today, wonderful writer that she is, Rose Tremain has won the Orange Prize for Fiction with her tenth novel, The Road Home (a wonderful portrait of an eastern European immigrant and his struggles to settle here and, more importantly, to find that place that we all long to call home). Tremain's work has been shortlisted for the Booker and for the Orange before, but this is the first time it has won. I can't think why it hasn't happened before. Her work is brilliant and deserves all the awards.

I've read every novel she has written (she's been writing for more than thirty years), but if you haven't, I recommend Restoration, whose central character, Robert Merivel, physician, transforms himself from King Charles II's idiotic vet (and cuckold) into an empathetic and wise-before-his-time doctor at a Quaker asylum for the insane. This, as Merivel tells what has been revealed to him about the treatment of the insane, had me in tears:

'Madness may be born of many things but yet for all except those who are lunatic from their births there was a Time Before, a time when there was no madness in them ... madness is not a static thing but, just as all things in the world are changeful, so is madness and, like them, may change for the better or for the worse. But we do not ask what were the Footsteps of each case of madness ... and we should try with each one of those in our care to look back into past time and ask them to ... remember how it was to be in the Time Before and what thing or calamity came about to put them into the Sickening Time ... .' And now [out] poured all my ... cures by dancing, my suggestions for story-telling and the playing of music.

Or there's the wonderful Music and Silence set in King Christian IV of Denmark's court (1630) who lives in fear for his life and his country's ruin, and his wife's not-so-secret adultery. He comforts himself with music which is played by his Royal Orchestra in the freezing cellar at Rosenborg, while he listens in his cosy Vinterstue above. Music, he hopes, will create the sublime order he craves but Kirsten, his devious wife, detests music.Or you could try The Colour, which is set in the New Zealand Gold Rush of the mid-19th century (I never knew there was a New Zealand Gold Rush until I read The Colour) - to which Harriet and Joseph Baxter (and his mother) have fled from East Anglia to escape the consequences of something he did ... and to build a new life.
All Tremain's work is peopled with vivid and often strange characters, and will live long after you've read it in your head because of its glorious settings and, above all, its emotional and psychological honesty. She's written seven other novels that I haven't even mentioned, but read her work ... you won't be disappointed.

Here's a big HURRAH for Rose Tremain (and for the friend who told me about her all those years ago).

Favourite authors, at a moment's notice ...

Simon at Stuck-in-a-Book tagged me for this meme, which began on Heather's site, Errant Thoughts. Thank you , Simon ... .

1. Who’s your all-time favourite author, and why?

John Fowles because his use of language is astonishing, glorious, erudite and because it teaches me, without patronising, and because he creates worlds that I never want to leave. Particularly The French Lieutenant's Woman

for its extraordinary story within the story, modern/Victorian novel, double-ending brilliance.

2. Who was your first favourite author, and why? Do you still consider him or her among your favourites?

Lewis Carroll, for all the same reasons as John Fowles, and most particularly Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. 3. Who’s the most recent addition to your list of favourite authors, and why?

Marina Fiorato, see here for her debut novel, The Glassblower of Murano, just published in the UK. An absolute must-read for lovers of Venice, lovers of glass and its extraordinary nature and lovers of mystery and love. Lovers, really.

4. If someone asked you who your favourite authors were right now, which authors would first pop out of your mouth? Are there any you’d add on a moment of further reflection?

John Fowles, Lewis Carroll, Maggie O'Farrell, Rose Tremain, Jeanette Winterson, Marina Fiorato.

And on a bit of reflection ... Niall Williams, Philip Larkin, George Eliot, the Brontes, Jean Rhys, Michael Ondaatje, Douglas Adams, Khaled Hosseini, Danny Schienmann, one William Shakespeare, Elizabeth Taylor, Rosamund Lehmann and so many more ... but if I listed them all this reflection would go on until tomorow.

I tag these five people to continue this meme, if they feel like it:

Juxtabook
Verbivore (now Incurable Logophilia) - who's on holiday for a little while
Booknotes by Lisa
A Work in Progress
and
Geranium Cat's Bookshelf

and anyone else who'd like to join in ... .

Foot Planning

In the poem called 'Words' for Lucy in Don't Let them Tell you How to Grieve, there are these lines:

one foot in front of the other
and don't forget to breathe

They are the last lines in a poem which is full of the words of comfort that people send to a grieving person, and they are so very apt. The poet says that they are the lines she clings to.

But I also think that, in happier circumstances, those words can be applied to the planning of a novel (or the planning of anything). So, today, I have begun writing the chronological stories of my two main characters, one foot in front of the other, breathing when I don't know where I'm going (but not diving off into a haven of frenzied research) ... and I shall continue, one foot in front of the other, until the end of the plan.

It sounds simple, I know. But the temptation to veer off the road into writing a full-blown scene, or into frenzied research (procrastination, so often) is gigantic.

Wish me luck, please.

Don't Let Them Tell You How To Grieve

I read about this extraordinarily beautiful, touching, poignant, funny, sad, life-affirming, illuminating, comforting and grief-understanding collection of poems by Gina Claye on dovegreyreader's blog at the end of April.

I ordered myself a couple of copies which arrived this morning.

I know we all talk about essential books, but this one is quintessential. Buy it for yourself, for those you love, for those you don't know well, for anyone who's grieving who you'd like to tell that they're not alone. Buy it from here or here or here, or anywhere, but please do buy it.

Lost in Translation ... ?

I found a clever little widget over at Bookersatz which translates your blog for you. It's called Altavista Babelfish Translator and you can see it over there on the right and down a bit.

But because the title of my blog includes a neologism the translations are hilarious.

In French MATs translate as NATTES (plaits or braids); in German MATs translate as MATTEN (enough or curds) and in Norwegian as FOOD (I found that by mistake - there isn't a Norwegian flag on the widget); in Chinese there are apparently no characters for Angela or blog and by the time I clicked on the Portuguese flag Bablefish had expired for the day.

Never mind, it's surely enough to confuse the French, the Germans and the Norwegians into thinking that I plait my hair instead of writing; that I have simply had enough of writing or that I resort to eating curds (or anything) instead of writing.

I wonder how this post will translate ... ?

Research, and fiction

It is an extraordinary thing (although obvious I'm sure to all except me) the way that research informs fiction and changes its direction.

Several years ago, when I was writing a series of Just-Soesque short stories for children, I spent hours in the Zoological Society's library because I wanted the anatomical details of the animals I was writing about to be accurate by the end of the story. I didn't want to mislead my young readers, even in a piece of fiction, because I knew, even then, that if a reader finds something implausible, or worse, just plain wrong, she loses faith with the whole story - even if it's fiction.

In my research I read that a group of camels, seen from a distance
looks like a group of ostrichesand immediately the story changed direction and got itself published in SPIDER (back issues with that story, Ostriches, or the birds nobody noticed, aren't available online).

I've just been transcribing tapes of an interview with a woman who knew my great-grandmother and the things she told me about the friendship between my great-grandfather and my step-great-grandfather have conjured scenes where once there was nothing but sheets of blank white paper ... .

Research is better than inspiration, any day.

Planning a novel ...

... is a strange and frustrating business, despite my colleague's beautiful vine and wire analogy.

My heart gives a little leap of excitement each time I think I've 'got it', only to find that what I thought I'd got won't work, because something else comes to light as a result of what I thought I'd got.

I would love to be able to look on this process as a puzzle: (image from the Crafty Puzzle Company), as I've heard Peter Matthiessen say that he does. I've also heard him say that while meditating - he practices Zen Buddhism - the answer to a plot puzzle sometimes comes to him, which is frustrating because he can't get up and write it down. But when he told his Zen Master this, the Master simply smiled and said, 'Well of course you must go and write it down.'

I admit that I am less frustrated with Hope Remains (working title for the novel that was, once, a biography of my great-grandmother) than I was at this stage with Speaking of Love because I know, having got there once before, that the puzzle will resolve itself eventually (or, I will resolve it). But I am impatient to write before I've done enough planning even though I know, from bitter experience, that to write too soon means writing for miles down the wrong road.

What I need is a plausible connection between Jennie, my twenty-first century protagonist, and Noel, my own (fictionalised) Edwardian great-grandmother beyond the Titanic (possible title there ...). It must be something that Jennie would, plausibly, not have known. I thought I had it last night but this morning the sun is shining brilliantly through the holes. With any luck the sun will shine on a watertight solution tomorrow ... .

As easy as 123

Norm at normblog has tagged me for this ... and because I've never been tagged before (I'm so easily flattered) and because my nearest book was not what I usually read but what I absolutely need (for research for my next novel) I thought I'd give it a go:

1. Pick up the nearest book
2. Open to page 123
3. Find the fifth sentence
4. Post the next three sentences
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you

Nearest book: The Edwardians: the Remaking of British Society by Paul Thompson. The sixth, seventh and eighth sentences on page 123 are:

There was the annual Sunday school outing. In summer they could go walking, and pick up apples. But for these English country children there was nothing equivalent to the storytelling, music and dancing which still flourished, as we saw in Peter Henry's story, both in family and community in the north.

I've tagged - if they want to be tagged: Stuck-in-a-Book, BooksPlease, Cornflower, A Work in Progress and Random Jottings.

Telling ourselves into being

I found this:

We tell ourselves into being, don't we?... I think that is one of the great reasons for stories. I mean, we are the storytelling animal, there is no other creature on earth that tells itself stories in order to understand who it is. This is what we do, we've always done it, whether they are religious stories or personal stories, or tall stories, or lies, or useful stories, we live by telling each other and telling ourselves the stories of ourselves.

It's from an interview with Salman Rushdie by Matthew d'Ancona at The Spectator. But I didn't find it there, I found it here, at normblog. Rushdie says precisely what I believe about why we tell (or write) stories ... what possible other reason could there be? This is it.

Thank you Norm, at normblog.

To plan or not to plan a novel?

That is the question.

A writing colleague and I were talking the other day about whether we should or shouldn't plan our novels. I said I felt as I'd heard Rose Tremain say she'd felt: that if she plans, the subsequent writing bores her and if the writing bores her, it will surely bore readers ... .
But I also knew as I spoke that there was a deeper resistance to planning in me and it is this: planning is the rockface, not the romance. Planning is the dangerous hard work from which I might fall off and injure myself (ie, the piece will prove itself to be nothing but piss and wind) and I am afraid that planning will destroy the romance of the words themselves. However I also know that if I write off in any old direction it takes twice (or thrice) as long and I get despondent. My colleague said: Novels and stories should come from deep places, from the soul, should be inspired, ie, romantic, but it's difficult to square that with planning, let alone keeping an eye on the marketplace. (Hurrah, I said to myself .) But she also said: 'But I am coming round to the idea of putting a structure in place, just a little something, for the inspiration to hold onto. It's a bit like letting a climbing flower grow feely but putting a wire in front of it and saying, "This way, I want you here".'I think her analogy brilliant. She is right. I also came up with one of my own: I need the bedrock of planning to provide a solid base for the romance (the soul) of what I write. Serendipitiously I found this, here, when idly searching for 'bedrock and soul':'The substrate here is woodsy humus and soul pockets over bedrock ... ' which says it all, really, even if unintentionally. But I shall leave the last word on planning to one of my favourite writers in my favourite book:

John Fowles wrote this, on pages 85 & 86 of my copy of The French Lieutenant's Woman:

You may think novelists always have fixed plans to which they work, so that the future predicted by Chapter One is always inexorably the actuality of Chapter Thirteen. But novelists write for countless different reasons. ... Only one same reason is shared by all of us: we wish to create worlds as real as, but other than the world that is. Or was. This is why we cannot plan. We know a world is an organism, not a machine. We also know that a genuinely created world must be independent of its creator; a planned world (a world that fully reveals its planning) is a dead world.

Cornflower Book Group

The Cornflower Book Group is discussing Speaking of Love, so if you'd like to join in the discussion, hop on over there, here.I'd like to hear what you think does work as well as what you think doesn't work, and if you've got any questions ask me them there, in the comments, and I'll reply there too.

I have been Normed

Here.

It is a wonderful thing that normblog does, this norming thing of a Friday. The similarities and the differences between, for instance, why a person would tell a lie (often to save a life) and which songs and poems people love - when they can only choose one - make interesting and sometimes hilarious reading. You can find all the bloggers norm has normed here - and Norm himself has been blogging about all kinds of things since before 2003, can you believe it?

He has normed himself here; he has normed Geoffrey Chaucer (hilarious) here; and he has normed the three bloggers who I named as my favourite three: here, here and here. He's even normed Saddam Hussein here (probably funnier when he was alive, but still I giggled).

Thank you Norm for making blogging such a linked and sometimes hilariously unexpected experience.

The Convergence of the Twain

It is strange what research throws up when you let yourself follow a curving line, isn't it? (I know, it could be called a MAT, but I don't think it counts.)

I was looking for information about icebergs, when this caught my eye and so I veered off course towards it. Hardy wrote it in 1912, that ill-fated year for an apparently unsinkable ship and her passengers:

The Convergence of the Twain
by Thomas Hardy

I

In a solitude of the sea

Deep from human vanity,

And the Pride of Life that planned her,

stilly couches she.

II

Steel chambers, late the pyres

Of her salamandrine fires,

Cold currents thrid,

and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

III

Over the mirrors meant

To glass the opulent

The sea-worm crawls-grotesque,

slimed, dumb, indifferent.

IV

Jewels in joy designed

To ravish the sensuous mind

Lie lightless,

all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

V

Dim moon-eyed fishes near

Gaze at the gilded gear

And query: 'What does this vaingloriousness down here?'...

VI

... Well: while was fashioning

This creature of cleaving wing,

The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

VII

Prepared a sinister mate

For her - so gaily great -

A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.

VIII

And as the smart ship grew

In stature, grace, and hue,

In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

IX

Alien they seemed to be:

No mortal eye could see

The intimate welding of their later history

X

Or sign that they were bent

by paths coincident

On being anon twin halves of one august event

XI

Till the Spinner of the Years

Said 'Now!'

And each one hears,

And consummation comes,

and jars two hemispheres.

In the blink of an eye

Jean-Dominique Bauby (Jean-Do to his friends) wrote a whole book, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, by the arduous process of one blink for each letter. In French it's called La Scaphandre et le Papillon. (I tried to upload a video clip of the film - which the boyf and I saw last night - but utterly failed: technology impossible to grasp.)

I love the word scaphandre and, with the help of my (English) dictionary I make the direct English translation manboat (or boatman) from the Greek andro (man) and scaphe (boat).

But, heavens, I MAT by dreaming and procrastinating and putting off writing by going for a walk and making cups of tea (herbal, natch) and wandering round my house and answering and sending emails and and and ... and so many of these MATs are physical. Then, eventually, I sit down and type or handwrite sentences that have been building themselves in my head while I did everything else except write them down. How simple (and taken-for-granted) is that?

Bauby blinked his way from letter to letter to make the sentences that eventually made his book. He prepared the sentences early in the morning so that when Claude Mendibil arrived, and began reciting from a list of letters, he could blink when she reached the right letter and then again and then again until she said a word back to him. And so on and on and on. What extraordinary courage, tenacity, clarity, imagination and sheer human spirit. 'The blink of an eye' took Bauby months.

Go and see the film ... or, if you've missed it - we nearly did - buy the book. Bauby's beautiful, moving story of courage in the face of impossible odds, deserves our unblinking attention.

Writing yourself well

I've just read, over at the wonderful Stuck in a Book, that he's just about to read Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper. He has a treat in store.

And that reminded me that Perkins Gilman also wrote about why she wrote The Yellow Wallpaper. You can read the full article here, but here's an extract:

For many years I suffered from a severe and continuous nervous breakdown. ... I went ... to a noted specialist ... [who prescribed] the rest cure [and when that worked, very quickly he] sent me home ... [saying] "never to touch pen, brush or pencil again" as long as I lived.

... I came so near the borderline of utter mental ruin ... [but with help] I cast the noted specialist's advice to the winds and [began writing once more] ... and sent a copy to the physician who so nearly drove me mad. He never acknowledged it. ... But ... many years later I was told that ... [he] had admitted to friends of his that he had altered his treatment of neurasthenia since reading The Yellow Wallpaper.

She wrote herself well, and she had the satisfaction of discovering that the 'specialist's' treatment changed as a result of what she wrote.

Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto appears in Speaking of Love because he 'wrote himself well' when he wrote it (he thought he'd never write again after a drunken performance of his first and a vile review but, with Dr Dahl's help - a wise psychiatrist this time - he got back on the horse).

I know that I am a miserable old bag if I'm not writing, or at least dreaming about a new piece of work. The alchemy is in the doing.

Prinknash (pr Prinnidge)

I am going here

where these Benedictine monks live

The reason I am going is that this was my great-grandmother's childhood home (she of the biography I was going to write, now of the novel that I am about to begin).

It's called Prinknash (pr Prinnidge) and I'm going to meet the Abbot who will show me round the house before it reverts to a closed monastic community and the Abbey they built in 1972 becomes an old people's home. (The monastic community is shrinking, hence the changes.) When I get there I shall also remeet a woman I met as a result of my Scottish research ... a woman who is the daughter of my great-grandmother's second husband's (do keep up) chauffeur. A woman who was so full of wonderful memories of my great-grandmother and the Scottish life they led.

You could, of course, say that this visit is a MAT. You could say that all research is MATing. But just as I went to Kilmalieu to get a sense of the place where my great-grandmother lived after the Titanic sank, so I want to go to Prinknash to get a sense of the place where she lived as a child, and from where she was married. That's how I justify it anyway ... .

Procrastination

A friend of mine, a wonderful artist who works in all kinds of media (mediums?) told me about the Jerwood Moving image award winners.

I highly recommend Johnny Kelly's (which is called PROCRASTINATION). It'll take you about 5 minutes to watch and it's the perfect MAT.

So perfect that I've just watched it twice ... .

Old work, new work

While staring through the window and dreaming about my new novel (and doing some planning) I find images from my first novel stealing into my mind. I ask myself if that's because I'm afraid of stepping into the new or afraid of letting go of the old? I also find weaknesses in the first.

Just now, in this wonderful book by David Bayles & Ted Orland:
I found this:

New work is supposed to replace old work. If it does so by making the old work inadequate, insufficient and incomplete - well, that's life. (Frank Lloyd Wright advised young architects to plant ivy all around their early buildings, suggesting that in time it would grow to cover their 'youthful indiscretions'.) Old work tells you what you were paying attention to then; new work comments on the old by pointing out what you were not previously paying attention to.

How to make me feel better in just a few words.
This is Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis House. You can find out more here.

The Cornflower Book Group

Yesterday, at the Cornflower Book Group, Speaking of Love came out of the hat to be read next. It's the fifth volume to be read by Cornflower Book Group members and discussion will begin from 12 April on Cornflower's blog.

I'm looking forward to finding out what the Cornflower Book Group members feel and think about Speaking of Love (including the parts that didn't appeal, didn't work or that they just didn't like) because, particularly if they say why, it'll be grist to the next novel's' mill. I'll also answer questions on the blog when the discussion gets going.

Hope to meet you there.

Monet and painting, MATing and writing

Today MATing translates as 'writing this before I begin to stare through the window'. Sometimes it takes much staring before I can write.

This story knows what I mean:

One day Monet was sitting on the bench in his garden at Giverny staring at the waterlily pond. His neighbour walked by, poked his nose over the hedge and said, 'Bonjour Monsieur Monet, I see you are not working today. There are many things I'd like to talk to you about.' And he opened the gate and walked in. But Monet didn't look at him, nor did he speak to him, and after a while the neighbour left in a huff.

The next day Monet's neighbour poked his nose over the hedge and quickly ducked back down again because Monet was at his easel, painting, by the waterlily pond. But Monet called out, 'It's all right, Monsieur le Voisin, come in. I'm not working today. Now, what was it you wanted to talk about?'

Cover story ... and fab reports

In October I asked people to tell me the short story that Speaking of Love's paperback cover told them. I promised a copy of the paperback to the writer of the story that most appealed to me (see original post here) ... and the one that most appealed to me was Richard Gray's.

It's in the post, Richard.

Also, the wonderful Mark Thornton at Mostly Books blogged yesterday about the event that Eliza Graham and I did at Mostly Books on Monday 3 March. He's got YouTube videos of us reading and all ... how do you do that Mark? And Simon Thomas at Stuck in a Book also blogged about the Mostly Books event, here. Fab reports both ... thank you.

Congratulations to ...

... Jonathan Trigell and Boy A on becoming THE Book to Talk About, 2008. (Press release here.) And thank you to everyone who voted for Speaking of Love. It has been a privilege for the book to be on the shortlist.

It's a little bit funny ...

... this feeling inside.

The rest of Elton John's song doesn't apply, but today is a day when it's difficult to concentrate because I'm feeling a bit funny inside and I'm not even trying to MAT: a MAT is being forced upon me because ...

... in 24 hours' time the author and the publisher of THE Book to Talk About 2008 will know the result. But until then the other 9 authors and all 10 publishers must be feeling a little bit funny inside too, must be having at least some difficulty concentrating, must be wondering about the result. I can't be the only one ... .

So ... what to do until this time tomorrow? I think I'll read.

Do you live near Oxford (England)?

If you do, and you aren't already doing something tonight, you might like to come to Mostly Books in Stert Street, Abingdon at 7.30 to hear Eliza Graham and I talking about the effect that the Spread the Word, Books to Talk About shortlisting has had on our writing careers, and how our books made the shortlist.

It'll cost you £3, redeemable against a book bought on the night, and the wonderful indy bookshop, Mostly Books, are here.

The winner of the award, THE Book to Talk About, will be announced on World Book Day, Thursday 6 March 2008, from the ten books on the shortlist.

Daffodils for St David's day

... from my little garden.

... aren't they beautiful?

And because it's St David's day why not support a Welsh Arts Centre that might lose its Arts Council funding? The St Donat's Arts Centre runs the wonderful Beyond the Border storytelling festival (which features in Speaking of Love) among many other brilliant events.

Spread the Word / World Book Day - last chance to vote

As I write this there are less than three hours to go before voting closes on the shortlist for THE Book to Talk About 2008 award.

If you'd like to vote for Speaking of Love, go here. Or click on the link on the paperback cover over there on the right.

Thank you ... and may the best book win.

Results will be announced on 6 March which is, as I'm sure you know, World Book Day.

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.