Oxford trip

 Research can be very tiring - especially when it involves a day trip with there and back train journeys of nearly three hours each and two changes of train. My day out in Oxford was worth it though. I didn't set out at quite dark o'clock, but it was close. Changes going out were Cardiff Central and Swindon where I had time for a rather late second breakfast in a small but rather posh Starbucks located between the platforms. Once I got there I walked into town, found myself some lunch and then wandered in the sunshine soaking up atmosphere. The reason for the research is that my hero in the WIP is a tutor at Oxford, and I wanted to get some authentic vibes. Coming home was via Didcot, with a bag of crisps for my tea, but the journey went well, so all was fine. Home late, in the dark, tired but happy.

I was particularly delighted to find that Balliol College was open to the public that afternoon and with a self guiding map and a three pound admission ticket I was able to wander around for as long as I liked, picking up inspiration for the fictional college I am going to invent. It may be called St Baruc's. but I haven't decided yet. I'll need to do some in depth work to  confirm it is appropriate, but that is a job for another day. Last week I promised pictures. Here they are. I took lots to help my memory and planning. The layout, the colour of the stone, the shape of windows, the carvings, all useful. These are edited highlights. 

The first in a series of courtyards. Magnificent traditional flower borders. 

Ever get the feeling you're being watched? 

Mature trees within the grounds. I'm guessing they must be hundreds of years old. 

Just an idea of what the surrounding buildings looked like.

This was the gate to the Fellows' Garden.  I think the first sight of Logan in part two of the book will be in  my
equivalent. 

Literary Escape Festival

 The Literary Escape Festival will be visiting Cardiff this weekend. 

The poster below has the details and it's not one week to go now, but two days!

I will be there, on Saturday, sharing a table with fabulous historical author, Angela Sims.  

Come along and browse, meet authors, buy books, have them signed. 

Tickets are available through Eventbrite.

See you there. 

Wheel of the Year?

 Today I am tired. I had a very productive trip to Oxford yesterday - a marathon for a day trip, but worth it as I got a lot of the information I need for the next bit of the WIP. Enough to be  going on with, anyway. More about the trip in future posts when I have sorted out my photos. Yes - there will be pictures. 

But today is the Equinox - also known as Mabon. The time when day and night are equally balanced. Happens twice a year, now, and in spring. I'm keener on the spring one as it means the journey is into the light, not away from it. But soon it will be Yule and the whole round begins again. 

 I'm interested in the various old festivals that mark the movement through the year. I've probably mentioned that I am hoping to use Beltane in the WIP. Halloween, or Samhain is coming next month, when I will be celebrating with fellow crime writers at an event at Cardiff Library. More of that later. 

It may be one of those situations when a certain topic that attracts your attention comes up in repeated places, you know the ones, coincidence or simply that you are noticing., but it seem as if there may be a little more awareness at the moment of the wheel of the year - the name for the changing seasons. The Equinox was mentioned on Thought of the Day on Radio 4 this morning as a time of balance, which is a good way to think of it. I'm just wondering, hoping maybe, that we are getting closer to nature and back to old rhythms. When the world revolved around agriculture the festivals often marked significant points in the year, like the celebration of the growing season and then the harvest. 

Now with awareness of climate change, the focus on attracting pollinators into our gardens, of the benefits of connecting with nature, maybe we are getting some of those old connections back, or attempting it.  It is a nice thought.  

Creating the creepy house

 Regular readers will know that the WIP is leaning into the gothic. and if you have ever seen any vintage gothic romance covers you will know that it is obligatory for the heroine to be running away from the creepy house, or possible castle. Whatever the building, it looms, or lurks, or broods, or all three. It is night. She is wearing a white dress, or her nightie, maybe with a coak. In a storm, or a high wind. Down steps, cliffs or through woods/gardens. Occasionally there is a single lighted window in the house/castle. Very occasionally there may be a cat. 

So - from all that you will deduce that I have to have A BUILDING. I'm not planning on Nel running away from it in her nightie, but there definitely has to be a structure. 

This is the project for the week. I already know that it will be a Victorian Gothic Revival house, because it is a period of architecture that I love, it suits the story and it can certainly be made to appear creepy. Cardiff Castle and Castle Coch are big influences, mostly for the interiors. Now I am researching houses of the period and creating my own. Turrets, roofs like witches hats, pointed gables, tall arching windows, stone carving, tall chimneys, spiral stones like sugar canes. Maybe even a gargoyle or two.

The inside is going to be even more fun. Echoing halls, long mysterious corridors, wood panels, a library!

It has a name - The Scholars' House - and a location - the South Wales coast. So there can be cliffs. Maybe. At the moment it is taking shape. I'll report progress next week. 

A nice cup of tea?

 There was an item on the wireless (AKA radio) this morning about the danger of drinking tea that is too hot. Potential damage to the oesophagus apparently.

Made me think about tea in general. I drink a lot of tea. Runs in the family. I have family anecdotes about tea. My grandfather tended to stir his until he stirred his way to Australia. My grandmother liked to have a tea spoon to stir hers, which led to her hoarding them in her handbag in the old people's home, until my mother restored them to the kitchen when she noticed the bag was getting heavy. I have six varieties of tea which I drink on a semi regular basis, at different times of the day. When I am out/out at my local writer's meeting at a local tea house, no less, I drink Iron Goddess, which is an oolong. We all have our foibles. 

I'll drink it however it comes, although I don't like it too strong, and it has to have milk in it, unless it is a herbal, when it usually has honey. I do drink those, or green tea on occasion. I was rather horrified to hear that Amol Rajan, ex Radio 4 presenter and current Traitor contestant drinks his with three tea bags!!!  I can't imagine what colour that might be. Strong enough to trot a mouse on, as the old saying goes. An ex coleage specified his had to be the colour of a manila envelope. I recently ran into the expression 'spilling the tea' which apparently means to gossip. Not one I'd hear before, although I understand it has been around a while.

In books the predominant beverage seems to be coffee. I read a lot of American fiction, so this may not be so surprising, tea being more of a UK thing. When it does appear across the pond, it seems as if it is more likely to be a herbal brew of some sort. The taste of tea tends to come from the variety rather than the additions or method of making, unlike coffee.

When I was writing Masquerade on the Riviera I wanted the hero Elliot to have a preference that matched his academic persona, so he became a tea drinker. He drinks Oolong and I had fun with some research with tasting boxes of samples, although I don't drink it at home now. 

Tomorrow I have workmen coming, for some odd jobs. They have me well trained. I know that the first thing I must do, before any work gets done, is make everyone tea. 

September, and the WIP

I know a lot of people welcome this month. Start of Autumn, pumpkin spice, falling leaves, all that stuff. Some consider it a time for new starts, the feeling of the beginning of the new school year, even when not involved in anything educational.  

Me - not at all my favourite month. Summer soon to be gone, nights drawing in, cold wet days coming. Not for me. And what's with the glut of Christmas books already on the shelves, and the festive chocolate I saw in the supermarket today? Buy now and they will be read and eaten well before Christmas - which I suppose is the motive as you will have to buy replacements.  Yep, I've always been cynical. 

So, not a time of the year I enjoy. But I'll get over it. On a plus note the WIP is progressing. Slow, but in a positive direction. I have another of those peer workshops coming up, where a group of friends get together to do a crit on work submitted. The opening of the second section of the new one is going to be my entry, although it will not be anonymous as people know who it belongs to. Which does give me the opportunity to ask questions on the work. One of the issues I'm wrestling with at the moment is showing my heroine's vulnerability, after life has thrown some terrible stuff at her, but not making her sound like a wimp. I'm hoping I've done it, but constructive opinions will be welcome. It's not for a few months yet, but I'll let you know how I get on.  

I took the manuscript to a number of meeting with agents and editors at the recent RNA conference, and got some excellent feedback and food for thought from professionals generous with time and ideas, particularly so as they were not looking at a completed book, but only the very start of one. And I have to say, it is not developing in quite the way I expected. But they never do, so I don't know what I was thinking. It's leaning into thriller and gothic, with a strong streak of conspiracy theory, which is the unexpected bit. The usual complex tangle, but my twisted mind enjoys the challenge. I'll keep you posted. 

Full English

 Breakfast, that is. (Or Welsh, Scottish or Irish, wherever you happen to be) 

One of the delights of travelling in this country - and there are still a few - is the chance of a cooked breakfast. I can never resist, although I don't always go for the whole thing, if it is a buffet where you chose your own. But always at least bacon and tomatoes. 

The 'traditional' breakfast now is a core of bacon, sausage, egg, then tomato, mushrooms, baked beans, hash browns or some other potato ingredient and black pudding for the very resolute. (I do eat it, more so now since the anaemia, as I think it must be good for me.) Fried bread might make an appearance, although its place seems to have been largely usurped by the hash browns - and then everything garnished with red and brown sauce. And of course, toast, either deathly pale or on fire, in one of those strange revolving hotel toasters, with or without marmalade. Fancy stuff, like cereal, muffins and croissants, juice, yoghurt and fruit are really the realm of the 'Continental' for the purist. 

I was wondering, as one does, when that ingredient list became the expectation. In earlier times, if historical fiction is accurate,  a cut off a ham, or a sirloin and small beer might be more likely for a gentleman, with bread and butter for the ladies. Possibly with home made preserves. And for us hoi polloi some sort of gruel or porridge or bread and scrape. 

I'm guessing that the classic full breakfast began to evolve in the days of country houses and Golden Age fiction, when there were still plenty of servants to cook and carry it all and a lot of produce would have come from the kitchen garden and home farm and would have been seasonal - not many tomatoes in the winter. Even then kidneys, kedgeree and kippers (all the Ks) would have had a place alongside the sausage. One of the pleasure of reading Agatha Christie era mysteries is those country house breakfasts with those massive silver domed serving platters. There must have been quite a bit of waste - although I expect the servants got a share, and in those days, the pigs. Which makes for a kind of circle which I'm not sure I want to think about!  For some reason heroes always seemed to eat kidneys. Not my idea of breakfast. 

The full breakfast has got into my mind from recent stays in London and the RNA Conference at Royal Holloway. I do have a favourite London Breakfast place - a posh hotel where the buffet has things like chai pudding and confit tomatoes. The hotel has got a bit expensive for me now, but I can still go there for the occasional breakfast, as they are quite happy to serve non residents. A bit of an indulgence, but worth it when I want to feel special. 

The quirkier side of London.

 As part of my recent trip to the RNA Conference I spent a few extra days in London. It was incredibly hot but that didn't stop me enjoying the city, from a mooch around the sales in Oxford Street, to a concert in St Martin's in the Fields - a favourite church and concert venue that's not been near a field in a long time. A few things I did made think of some of the quirkier aspects of the city, and some of the things that I like to do when I am there. 

Bridges. Over the Thames. Always good to walk across one. In this case it was the Hungerford Bridge, from Charing Cross to the South Bank, although I think the pedestrian parts are now Golden Jubilee Bridges, but I still think in older names. Being over the water it was a little cooler, one of the London Universities was having its graduations in the Festival Hall, which made for some interesting proud family groups and the view of the skyline of the city and the skyscrapers around St Paul's is second to none. 

The South Bank - a favourite since I lived in London and went frequently to the National Theatre. The theatre is an excellent place to meet, hang out or, on one memorable occasion, have a nap between an all day conference and a theatre performance. Places to eat, bars, loos, a bookshop, people watching... What more can you want?  I also discovered that there is a set of steps alongside the Festival Hall that currently plays you a tune as you walk on them. A bit of a shock, until I cottoned on. In the evening on the way back from the concert I enjoyed the Carnival atmosphere of stalls and food trucks around the Eye. 

Fish and Chip Shops I usually manage one meal of fish and chips when I'm in town, because the standard is good and on the whole it is a more economical option than many other eating places. I have favourites in Paddington, Waterloo and Covent Garden. 

Occult bookshops. Three favourites, Watkins in Covent Garden, Treadwells in Store Street and Atlantis in Museum Street. I like to browse - the amazing variety of tarot cards which I find fascinating, sometimes mind boggling, and books on folklore subjects which are useful for research, especially those relating to Welsh and Celtic traditions which I am using for background for future books, like the WIP, set in Wales.  

And also I simply enjoy wandering and looking - people, shops, blue plaques, pubs with fabulous floral displays, tour busses - including the afternoon tea and the ghost bus - unexpected Georgian Squares, luxury hotels, streets full of theatres, mysterious alleyways, probably best not explored after dark, all sorts of boats on the river, street performers. This time I saw one of the driverless cars being trailed on the streets for use as taxi cabs. Not sure how keen I would be - if it was completely without human involvement, but there seems to be a 'safety driver' so I'm not sure. Don't think I will be giving up on the traditional black cabs any time soon. 

RNA Conference Part II

 Last week I began the account of a great weekend at the Romantic Novelists' Association conference. 

Saturday - the main day of the event - I began with two more appointments with agents. Very productive, encouraging and confidence building. Now I have to put what I learned into practice. I missed the first two sessions but made it to the AGM - all the business of the Association and a celebration of volunteers and retiring board members and officers. Author Carrie Elks was welcomed in as president, replacing Sue Moorcroft who had done a great job for three years. Everyone wished them both well. 

After lunch I went to a session on Instagram. Most of it went over my head, but one day i hope to make a start with it, so some bits might surface again. The last slot of the day was taken by Orna Ross from the Alliance of Independent Authors all about book data. Interesting, but limited in scope if you are with a traditional publisher without access to your statistics. If I ever self publish I will be joining the Alliance for sure. 

The gala evening began with me squirming my way into my jazzy summer jump suit. Sadly I can't get into my favourite green one! There was a barbeque in the grounds of the impressive Founders' Building and a disco that attracted a number of my colleagues. I was content to stay in the bar and gossip. 

On Sunday I enjoyed a talk from academics from Birmingham University on an in depth study on romantic fiction. Fascinating and catnip to a fellow academic. After a talk by some recent winners of the Joan Hessayan Award, which I won over a decade ago, there was a session I was really looking forward to - a talk on self editing from KJ Charles, an author I really admire, a former editor and an entertaining speaker. I learned a lot and have already pre-ordered the book on editing she is bringing out later in the year. Then lunch and that was the end. Goodbyes, a train trip into Waterloo and a quick stagger to a nearby Premier inn, where I sat down on the bed and dozed for the rest of the evening. The trip home the next day was a marathon, line side fires and melting rails. I set out at 11.30 at Paddington and got home at 5 pm, but all in all it was a very happy weekend.

Oh - and that quote, about wine and toilet rolls. Apparently they are the two things the university noted that they had to stock up on for this second visit of the RNA to Royal Holloway. 

Wine ... and toilet rolls?

 Last weekend was the Romantic Novelists Association Conference and I am still in recovery, which is why this post is a bit late. Even after three night's sleep I am still exhausted with a saturated brain. It was a mixed bag, but I really enjoyed myself, and got a lot out of it. 

The conference proper only takes place every other year now, and the cost is quite a chunk of money to invest in your career, but it is also an opportunity to catch up with friends I rarely see and make a few new ones. 

It was held for the second time at the Royal Holloway in Egham, which is part of the University of London.  I had a couple of nights in London prior to the conference, but more of that in future posts. 

I was a bit later than I wanted to be getting there on Friday so missed the opening sessions. I wasn't in my best mood either as when I got there there were no taxis at the station and I had to find my way to the local bus. I have to say that the local bus drivers are lovely as that is the second time this has happened. I'm going to have to learn how to Uber! 

Friday was fraught, as I was lucky enough to have four appointments with agents and editors two of which were early that afternoon, and the queue for lunch was very long, so I ended up with just a small bowl of salad to keep me from taking bites out of the furniture. The 1-2-1 appointments were very useful indeed. I took the WIP which is very much 'in progress' but which I wanted to test out with experienced professionals. It was worth it. I now have comments and suggestions to think about as I develop the idea. Now I just have to keep writing!  

My first session was writing great sex - yes, well how could you resist that? Very interesting on the current trends and expectations, with a few things to definitely avoid. I recall a memorable session with Julie Cohen many years ago, that involved among other things, chocolate, a strawberry and a feather, which was looking at how to write sensual scenes. That hour shaped how I write my love scenes ever since.  It was good to get another, very different perspective. 

The last session was given by a friend - Luisa Jones, who is a trainer and coach IRL and brought some of those techniques to the creation of characters. I apparently worried her by staring into space when she gave us time to consider how we might apply Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to a protagonist. I was working out how it would apply to heroine Nel - and very useful it was too.  After that it was dinner when I made up for the lack of lunch and the hopeless Romantics Quiz. Films, books, music, mating habits - all with a romantic theme. Our team achieved a respectable place in the middle of the field. 

I was ready for bed by then. As a university it was student accommodation and I have to say that playing students gets a bit less attractive as you get older. The dark walk through the wood to reach the residence block was a bit more atmospheric than I would have liked too, but my shower worked and the bed must have been okay as I slept fine, if not for long enough. 

That was the first day.  More about the rest of the weekend next week - and an explanation of the title of the post.

To be continued ...

Evolving language

 Probably the most famous creator of new words, word combinations and phrases was Shakespeare. He's credited with nearly 2,000 new words. 

Changes in language still go on. One has happened to my knowledge in the last few years. And it is one that drives me mad. 

When I was in school - yes, dinosaurs prowled the playground - spelling and grammar was still formally taught. I was always hopeless at spelling, and still am - I've often wondered if there was a bit of dyslexia going on - thank heaven for the spell checker. I always say that my terrible handwriting is to disguise my spelling, but actually it is probably the product of years of note taking, in work and academia, so it has degenerated into a system of hieroglyphics. I was okay with grammar though, which is why the new use of the phrase about boredom - to be bored of something makes me grumpy. It's bored with, people. The new way is like nails on a blackboard - and I doubt if that is something heard much in the classroom these days either.

Sadly, for my blood pressure, bored of seems to have become common usage and it doesn't look as if the old usage is going to be coming back.

I'm not above breaking the rules. One of my favourites is never starting a sentence with And, But or Because. I shatter that one frequently. But I do try not to end a sentence with a preposition, although that is another one that gets bent in common usage, and not doing it can sound a bit weird, especially in dialogue, which is a whole different ball game. 

The world moves on. It appears that what I spent time learning in school can now be done  for you by Artificial Intelligence, but I must say that I do value the time that an excellent English teacher took to teach me the rules. Tools of my trade.

 

Inheritance and buried treasure.

 Yesterday I bought a pair of slow release plant food bottles for my two aspidistras. You cut the tops off, upend them in the pot and gravity does the rest. I am quite protective of those plants. I'm the third owner of one, and the fourth of the other. They have come to me, from my grandmother and my great aunt, by way of my Mum. I don't really know how old they are, but I guess at least 80 years old and possibly/probably older. It made me think about other things in the house that I have inherited - my grandmother's writing slope, made for her by my grandfather when my aunt went the America as a GI bride and weekly letters became a thing. I have a pseudo Clarice Cliff tea set - not the real thing, but a Woolworths knock off that my grandfather won in a raffle. Looks good in the glass fronted cabinet in the kitchen though. I have a dressing table set again pseudo chintz -that was probably Woolies too. A few bits of jewelry from grandmothers and aunts, a jewelry box made for my great grandmother by her father. Vases from my other grandmother, tools that belonged to my Dad, books, an old fashioned weighing scales with real weights and my mother's dressmaking scissors ... 

None of these things are in any way valuable, not even the jewelry, but it gives me pleasure to use them. 

Inherited items are often a catalyst for a book plot. I've read several lately where an item of furniture had a clue to a treasure - one of those was a writing slope. No treasure in anything of mine - we were not that kind of family! Time slips often have a item that is the connection between eras. Treasure, buried or unburied, is by definition likely to be old. I've written often about old letters and papers as clues to an old mystery - that's the nerd in me that loves archives. The WIP has those and it's also going to have a treasure and yes, I am going to bury it. Can't beat a bit of tradition. 

What is an author?

 A creative, a craftsperson, an artisan?

Possibly. Probably. But, for me, what they certainly are is a human being. 

But now there are more and more instances coming to light where human authors are being replaced by something generated by a computer. 

I've never knowingly read a book produced in this way, and I never intend to produce one - I enjoy writing, with all the blood, sweat and tears it involves, far too much to ever give that up. 

The Society of Authors is launching a scheme with a logo for a book that indicates that it was authored by a human. It is proving popular and many authors are joining. When I next have some work out I hope to use it.

A book written by a human may have taken months, even years of work to produce. It may have required trips to archives and record offices and copious notes. Or trips to visit locations - an element that writers do tend to find less arduous than siting with the computer and bashing away. It will have required thought. A reader is getting a connection with the author, and experiencing all the emotions the writer is working to convey. Human emotions. A piece of work in which a person has dedicated time and effort to produce an end product to the very best of their ability.

Something worth thinking about?  

Lost and Found

 The mystery of disappearing stuff. Pens. There are dozens of them in the house, but not when I am looking for one. Also teaspoons - where do they go? The elusive habits of socks and Tupperware are legendary. Last week I could not find my step ladder. Yes, really, a step ladder. I toured the house, eventually concluding that a visiting workman must have borrowed it and taken it away, forgetting it wasn't theirs. I'd reached the inevitable conclusion - that the best way of finding something lost is to buy a new one, when I made one last foray into the spare bedroom that I had already looked in twice. And there, leaning against the wall, tucked neatly behind the ironing board, was the step ladder. It must have been there all along, mustn't it? 

It made me think about lost and found. After secrets, it might be one of the most popular motifs and motivations for novels. The journey or the treasure hunt is usually in search of something. It could be a physical item, it could be a lost family, it could be something more emotional, like a sense of self, or the chance of turning over a new leaf. I've been reading a few time slips recently , and they often focus on an item, something that has passed down through the years. I have something like that in the WIP- a Macguffin  - around which the story revolves although it is not really part of it. Actually there  are quite a number of lost things - missing papers, a sort of treasure hunt, heroine Nel's memory of the hours before a horrific car crash. I've just written that scene, and it was quite emotional and also exacting to choreograph. Until you come to write it you do not realise that the image you have in your head requires some proper working out, on a practical level.

The WIP is coming along. I have just finished the first section, so a sense of achievement. Now I have to sail off into the unknown, which is going to be a lot more tricky.  I know what has to happen, but not yet how - and then there is Nel and Logan's love story. As usual, they are going to have to tell me how that develops. It's fun, but also hard work. But no one said writing a book was easy. 

Theme

 When I was starting out as a writer I went to a lot of classes - as you do - attempting to learn the proper way of doing this thing that I so desperately wanted to do.  (Lots of doing in that sentence!) I heard a lot about technique and essential skills and the correct approach, and I have to say that quite a lot of it was no use to me at all, however good and well respected the tutor was - and I was taught by some of the best. So much just didn't suit me. Eventually I understood that and I got on a lot better. And was much happier and more comfortable in my writer's skin. 

One of the things that was presented as an essential was the need to have a theme. I was reminded of this recently by an excellent article in a professional newsletter that was extolling the same idea. 

But - it simply isn't me. I don't like reading books that have an overt theme and I don't want to write one. Writing it feels like a straight jacket. Reading it, in the worst cases - and I have read a few of those - it seems like an iron bar that the author is beating you over the head with and possibly a little patronising - as if you were too dim to understand what the book is about without it being spelled out at every turn. But that's me, being a bit arrogant. Or not just a bit? 

One of the things I did learn from all those classes was that writing is a pick and mix. Not everything will suit YOU and you don't have to do it all. There is no set template - although when I started out a number of those classes did present things that way. It took me a long time to understand that I could still be a writer if I didn't follow the programme slavishly. 

So now, if you like to read and write books with themes, why not? We are all different. And I do find that my books to sometimes get themselves a theme, without me being aware of it when I was writing them. Never Coming Home had an underlying thread of discarded children. It's there, but I didn't engineer it. 

So I am ploughing on with the WIP. It doesn't have a chosen theme - whether it will have one when it is finished - well we will all find out. At the moment I'm just enjoying the journey. 

Eclectic Research

 I've said it before, and will no doubt say it again - writers have a lot in common with magpies. Snappers up of unconsidered trifles. (Shakespeare - The Winter's Tale) At the moment I am collecting a lot of random and not so random bits and bobs that is WIM not WIP (work in mind rather than work in progress. But thinking and collecting time is part of the process. )

As the current work is going to lean heavily into Dark Academia - a least. I hope it will - it's a new area for me, so it is going to be an adventure. Can I do it? I can but try. Anyway, an essential ingredient of DA is a library - and I am certainly going to have one of those. So now I am collecting bookish things. Ideas of the people who will study there, and the topics they might study are gently piling up, but what about the books themselves? I'm already wondering if I can find a place for a book with arsenic in the cover. I found out about those courtesy of a reel, I think it was a reel, I'm not well up on those things, from the Wellcome Trust library. That one is in the magpie bank. One thing I am planning to included is a chained library - or at least a chained book case, where the books are fastened in place so that they can be studied but cannot be removed. 

In the interests of research last week I visited the chained library that is attached to Hereford Cathedral. It's the oldest intact one in the world, still with original chains, rods and locks, established in 1611, but with books and manuscripts that are much older, the earliest dating from 780. The cathedral also houses a copy of the Mappa Mundi and the whole site is well worth a visit. The cathedral building is lovely, there is a popular cafe and a garden. I was intent on the books - most particularly the chain system itself which required special chains to be made by a blacksmith. I had the chance to have a good look, and talk to the guides about how the whole arrangement worked. My brain is now working happily. The system, as with all archives, was for the preservation and protection of the books. But writers all have questions. Mine is - Are the chains to protect the books from us, or us from the books? Think about that one. 

You can read more about the library and the map HERE. Admittance to the cathedral is free, but there is a charge for visiting the library and the map. 

Family Feeling.

 Biological, blended, extended, found - family is a significant ingredient in many books - so much so that it's become a trope. Books that give you warm feelings, maybe a little envy, often set in small communities, which are an attraction in themselves. 

But what if your book doesn't call for that sort of set up?

This topic came up in a recent discussion between writer friends - what do you do if family is not part of the picture, or even if it is necessary that the protagonist does not have any family - is alone in the world? (Which is the case in something I was recently working on and which I hope to go back to in due course.) 

Siblings and extended family might be optional extras, capable of being omitted - only children and small families do exist - but everyone has or has had parents. What to do about them? It is, of course, possible not to mention them either, but strangely, this often proves difficult. 

Options?  

Most obvious, and most ruthless - kill them off. Some sort of accident can be arranged - particularly if you want a nice neat clean sweep. I would guess that statistically there is a much higher mortality rate for deaths in car crashes in books than in the general population as a whole. Airplane crashes are possible, but more unusual. I must admit that when reading I find the car crash solution rather a tired one. Mindful of cliches, I decided to dispose of a set of parents in a house fire, which actually wound itself into the plot when I came to write it. I also murdered another heroine's parents in mysterious circumstances. Fictional parenthood can be a risky business. 

Natural causes is a kinder option, but can be tricky unless they are elderly enough for that to be feasible. Easier if there is only one parent - absent dad and terminally ill single mum has sadly featured in several books I have read recently, and I have used that one in a stored manuscript too. 

Alive but distant is a possibility. Estranged for a variety of reasons, either on their part or on the protagonist's. We've all read the disinherited heir or the runaway - or simply the emotionally unavailable parent with whom an adult hero or heroine now has very little in common, except the accident of birth. Those situations require explanation and might have emotional consequences, which the author may not want to explore. Which is where we circle back to that car crash. Or simple physical distance, living in a distant part of the country, or the world - retirement to Spain is another situation I have seen several times recently. 

This seems to have turned into a rather heartless post, callously killing off all these innocent family members. I'm not really like that, honestly. Except when I am. Writers are like that, when we're being writers...

IRL I was lucky. My parents are still much missed, but I know not everyone has that luck. 

But I hope that you get my point - that there are layers and decisions to writing a book that are not always foreseen or appreciated. All part of the creative process - but not necessarily what you expect when you first sit down with the hope and intention of writing a book. 

Using your words

 My latest writers' group meeting ended in a three cornered discussion on writing the dreaded synopsis. I say dreaded, because I don't recall ever meeting an author who greeted the idea with anything less. It doesn't matter if it is for a book as yet unwritten, or incomplete, or one that is finished - although both have their own unique problems. For a book that is not finished the dilemma is significantly:  'How the heck do I know what is going to happen? I'm only writing the thing.' The plot might take all sorts of turns before we reach the end. The characters might wander off in their own path, with the hapless author running along behind, waving their arms and yelling, 'You're supposed to be going that way.' (Take it from me - it never works.) 

In the case of the finished book you know what happened but there is the terrible task of shoe horning your wonderful, intricate work of art into a measly single page, single spaced, and plenty of white space, so it looks good as well as reads well. Hah! 

Authors who write novels are mostly not well adjusted to short pieces. 

In finished and unfinished there is a matter of selection - do you mention that sub plot about the brother, and the best friend - and what about the dog. (Yes, that was me, a few weeks ago.) 

I haven't done a synopsis for long time - until I did one a few weeks ago for the agent/editor round that is part of the Romantic Novelists' Association conference. It probably did me good to stretch my brain. I can't say that it will totally reflect the book that finally comes out, but it is an approximation, I hope. And no, I didn't mention the brother, or the dog. Any one reading the first few thousand words will find out about them fairly quickly.  A synopsis is all about making your words count. That three cornered discussion was interesting - the take away points - focus on the main story, make sure you reveal the ending, the agent/editor wants to know that you have a finish line in mind - OK, so it might not be quite the one you first thought of ...

The other thing that occurred to me was the using your words thing. The right choice can convey chunks of the plot without the detail. A character demanding something instead of asking or requesting says a whole lot about the situation, the relationship. the character themselves - all in one word. So, you have to weigh them and make them count, carrying as much load as they can, but without making it sound over blown, or a melodrama - which is why writing a synopsis is so damn hard!

Power of the Classics?

 As a writer I do like to get down from the Ivory Tower on occasions. Some of those occasions are meetings with other writers. Lunch or dinner may be involved. Also gossip - hey, we are human beings, and writers are nosy by nature. Whining and moaning may take place. See above, on being human. 

Also there is discussion.

Having dinner the other day talk got around to 'Watcha reading?' One friend revealed a project to read or re-read the complete works of a classic author, and the benefit this was having on her writing. 

I am not much on the classics. Read a lot of them in school, and in those days (I know, dinosaurs) you were expected to read around the set texts. Haven't done much that way since. I referred last week to abandoning a list of reading I was supposed to do for an exam and choosing the drama question instead. Now that was a completely different story. Shakespeare, the Jacobeans, Theatre of the Absurd - an awful lot of Beckett, Pinter, Osborne, Genet. and a lot of it a bit weird. And yes, it was all still pretty new then. I am that old. Thing is, I think it fed into my writing - rhythm, dialogue, silence, pauses (Thank you, Harold).  Influences do matter. With some people it is films - thriller writers often reference Film Noir classics. I gather that video games are also influencers now. Won't happen to me, but if it works ...

Writers are sponges, they soak up all sorts of things. And then they come back -  in books. 

The White Whale

 I read a lot of crime. Mostly romantic suspense, but there are police procedurals, cosies with amateur  sleuths, the occasional thriller. Crime with horror, the supernatural, ghosts, dogs, Dust Bunnies. (You need to be a fan of Jayne Ann Krentz, which I am, to get that one) they are all in the mix. One of the things I have noticed, and enjoyed recently, is the cold case crime. This is art following life, of course, as with ever refining forensic techniques, where evidence has been effectively preserved it is possible to revisit cases that stalled, and bring them to a successful conclusion. 

In fiction, one of the tropes of this sub genre is the detective and the one that got away. That case that they never managed to solve. In something I read recently the detective referred to it as her White Whale. Sadly I can't remember now what book it was, sorry, but the expression stayed with me. Memory is a tricky thing. I had the perfect ending for the WIP, when I get there. Did I write it down? No. Can I remember it? Also No. I am hoping that it will surface, even if in ghost form, when I get there. When. And Nel and Logan might have quite different feeling when I do, so I am trying not to grizzle about it.  But, back to the whale. As far as I know I have never read Moby Dick. It was probably on the list of classic literature that I was supposed to read for an exam in the dark and distant past, but I abandoned the list fairly soon and did the drama question instead. Much more my thing. But I still know about the White Whale. Literature is an entwining thing, the blocks from the past on which successive writers build. I've mentioned before the use of classic quote for subsequent book titles, which I love, but which in these days of algorithms are less common. It's all key words now, and poetry, Shakespeare and the Bible can be a bit light on those.  But the references remain - and the books we write now are that much richer for it.