Running a little late ...

It's Wednesday, and I'm currently working on today's post - the inside story on how I got the quote that appears on the back of Never Coming Home. In the meantime a brief stop press - the release day for Never Coming Home in Australia and New Zealand will be next Tuesday 15th May. I have some exciting news on that too.

Later.

See you soon.

The nine men's morris is filled up with mud ...

Crosser than a wet hen. That was me, last Wednesday, caught in a downpour on Sloper Road, on my way to the Archives. Too far along to go back to my favourite bus stop – the one I always shelter in when I get caught in a downpour on the way to the Archives (Can you see a pattern here?) I waded on, and arrived Very Wet Indeed.  


Then on Saturday/Sunday night, with the wind howling round the house and things falling over on the back yard, my writer’s imagination began to work overtime about what exactly was making that ominous crashing sound. In the daylight? Nothing I could see. Obviously not in my back yard. 


Then yesterday, on a quick train trip to London, seeing new ponds in the middle of fields – despite the drought.  


Weather is looming large in my mind – and I’m sure I’m not the only one. 


The waterlogged fields brought up that quotation from Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s part of a complex speech from Titania, claiming that the problems with the weather arise from a falling out between herself and Oberon, the fairy king. After the wettest UK April on record, and with the predictions for May not much better, I’m beginning to wonder if they are still arguing. What exactly is a Nine Man’s Morris? My ancient Signet version of the play confidently asserts that it is squares cut in turf for a game, played with nine counters, but I’ve heard that folklore experts cannot identify any such game ever being played. I don’t know what is right, but it is one of those quotations that always sums up horribly wet weather in my mind. I can just see the squares in the turf, slowly filling up, and oozing …

I seem to be a bit obsessed with Midsummer Night’s Dream at the moment, possibly because I am already beginning to be afraid that this is going to be yet another year when we don’t get a summer – although actually that is not true – we had that week. In March.

I know my dislike of cold and wet influences my writing – and reading – habits. I’ve just abandoned a book because the setting was unrelenting snow – the descriptions were excellent and it was making me too cold to read it. One of the pieces of advice sometimes given to writers is to make your characters uncomfortable. It’s supposed to make a book edgy, to have your protagonists physically miserable. I can’t do that. I’d much rather make them emotionally miserable, while the sun shines on them. I get more fun out of that, and keep my feet dry. Although I did give my hero, Devlin, his own personal rain cloud after he walked out on Kaz. (Bad decision, good reasons – at least he thought so.) It followed him around for quite a few chapters. I think of my books as holiday reading – which is why I like to set them in beautiful places, where the sun shines.

So – if you want something dark and sinister, to read on the beach …

Update for readers of RT Book Reviews

Just a quick message for readers in the US and Australia - if you have a copy of the June issue of RT Book Reviews you'll find an update on what contestants from all five American Title contests are doing now. Worth a read for some great stories. And I'm there - right at the end of the article.

The Gothic Imagination?

Theseus : The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.
Hippolyta : It must be your imagination then, and not theirs.

I love this exchange from Midsummer Night's Dream - both the sentiment expressed by Theseus, and Hippolyta's waspish response. They're talking about the inept but well meaning theatrical performance put on by Bottom and his fellow artisans to celebrate the royal wedding, but both could equally apply to books.  The writer creates the shadows, for stage or page, but the reader brings something to the party too - their own imagination.

Monday was World Book Night (As well as being Shakespeare's birthday) and I attended an event held by Cardiff University's BookTalk - a king-size version of a book group -  which celebrated with a discussion of one of the books on the Book Night list  - Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca.

I've frequently speculated about writing a Gothic romance, and a trip to Walpole's Gothic mansion at Strawberry Hill is high on my list of Places I Really Want To Visit. Anything to do with what is possibly the most famous Gothic novel of them all has an irresistible pull.
Before the discussion of Rebecca, expert speakers took us on a fascinating canter through fashion, architecture and the Hitchcock film.  For me it threw  new light on the working of the imagination in relation to the book and the film, particularly about the creative power of the imagination.
Manderley, Maxim De Winter's home, is virtually a character in the book. I would hazard a guess that most people who have read Rebecca would be able to describe it in detail, but apparently the physical description of the house in the novel is minimal - I shall be checking that one out on my next reading. The Gothic image might be fixed from the Hitchcock film, but the house in the famous film does not exist either - they could not find a real building suitable, so Manderley was created from models and stage sets.(The fact that the filming took place in California, not Cornwall, might have contributed!) I would also have been prepared to swear that there is a depiction of Rebecca in the film - it is so strong in my mind that I can see her standing on the deck of the sailing boat, laughing - but she is actually never portrayed, except on some of the posters advertising the film. Hitchcock uses clever technique to suggest her presence, without ever making her real. An eponymous  ghost, hovering over Maxim and his new wife, recreated by her clothes, her rooms and possessions, her costume for the ball, but never in person. It was all the power of my imagination, as reader and viewer.

There is frequently debate about the fashion for headless heroines, and heroes - the book cover that depicts a figure from the chin or neck down, or from the back. But cover artists and publishers have a point - the reader can imagine whoever and whatever they  want, without having their image fixed by someone elses's taste. And if I'm anything to go by, the reader can imagine quite well for themselves.

Postscript to Wednesday

Today I dodged the showers at the Royal Horticultural Society Show at Bute Park in Cardiff, bought far too many plants - and some artisan chocolate that I hope is going to taste as good as it looks - and snapped a few of the show gardens. This is the kind of thing I imagine Kaz designing, and building. These aren't quite as big or as grand as the ones at the Chelsea Flower Show, but you get the idea. I didn't get wet, but is was a close call. Last year the weather was hot and sunny and we ate two ice creams each. This year hot soup would have been more appropriate!

See the certificate with the medal , bottom right.

Drinks, anyone?

That bench looks a bit unforgiving.

This one is a bit more rustic

Gardening ... And Coincidences.

This week is the first UK National Gardening Week. The Royal Horticultural Society is putting on all kinds of events to celebrate gardeners and encourage more people to take it up. You can find out more at http://www.nationalgardeningweek.org.uk/

Rampant honeysuckle



Right - so that's very nice to know - but what has it got to do with books - other than gardening books, that is?

Well - I like gardening. Even better, I like going to gardening shows and visiting other people's gardens - all the fun, and none of the work. So - when I was looking for a career for the heroine of Never Coming Home, I decided to make her a landscape gardener. I wanted an unusual career, and one that would demonstrate her artistic talents in a way that would not impress her father, who is a famous artist and a terrible snob about people who can't paint. I made her a very successful designer, who has won medals for her gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show but who is also a hands-on gardener. I thought I knew just enough about both to be able to bluff. It's worked so far!

And this is where the first coincidence comes in. When I read about Gardening Week and thought it was a good subject for a blog post, I checked up on what special events were planned. And today proved to be Careers Day - highlighting the possibilities of gardening as - yes, a career. Just like Kaz. Neat, or what?



Impersonating an Italian palazzo

 And it gets better. The day is being hosted by gardener/author/TV presenter Alan Titchmarsh. And Alan is also one of the plenary speakers at the Winchester Writers' Conference this year. I have a special place in my heart for Winchester, as I was a finalist in their competitions on a number of occasions. Never Coming Home was one of those finalists, in the first 500 words of a crime novel category. I'd encourage anyone trying to get themselves published to have a go at the Winchester contests - there are a lot of them, in all sorts of categories. You don't have to be attending the conference to enter, although the entry fee is slightly lower if you are. And if you're there, you have the magic chance of seeing your pen name on the finalists board at lunch time on Saturday. Which means walking around in a happy daze for the rest of the day. You can't beat that feeling. If you attend the conference you also get the chance at workshops and panels, individual interviews with editors and agents, meeting other authors - it's a fun weekend. Booking is open now
http://www.writersconference.co.uk/

So - that's gardening ... and coincidences.

Seeing Stars

Confession time.
I'm currently in grave danger of succumbing to two of the seven deadly sins. That would be pride, and envy. And the source of this temptation? A perfectly innocent magazine - RT Book Reviews.

Making the final of the American Title contest, which was run by RT and Dorchester Publishing, was a big turning point in my career as an author. Never Coming Home was actually written while I was taking part in the contest with another book, Out of Sight, Out of Mind. And that book will be published by Choc-lit in 2013. So the magazine has a rather special place in my heart.

This Saturday the May 2012 edition of RT Book Reviews dropped through my letter box. It takes a while to get to me, as it has to swim the Atlantic first, but it was worth waiting for. Never Coming Home was reviewed in the  romantic suspense category, and was awarded 4.5 stars with the comment that it was a 'nerve-wracking thrill ride filled with deception, base emotion and death and a tempestuous love story.'

What can I say, except thank you? The book has come full circle. When I sent the manuscript off to enter American Title I never dared think that I would one day get to see the published book reviewed in the magazine. It was a dream.

But this year, dreams are coming true.

So - that's pride. But what about envy? Well - today is the first day of the RT Book Lovers Convention, which is taking place in Chicago. Friends Trish Milburn and Barbara Longley from American Title will be there, together with Lynne Connolly from the Romantic Novelists' Association. They will be signing books at the huge book fair that is part of the event, meeting readers, attending balls and cocktail parties, mixers and brunches and generally having one heck of a good time. And I am sooo envious. I want to be there too.
Maybe next year? In Kansas City?