Robin Tompkins's Blog: Rob the Writer, page 2
July 5, 2022
What Ever Happened to Robin Tompkins?
Those happy few that actually read this blog might be wondering where I have been since December last year? Have I, you may have wondered, joined the circus? Were my fingers so numb from incessant practising with those juggling balls, that I was unable to type? Did I run away to sea? Have I been working as a stoker on a tramp steamer in the South Seas? Have my fingers become so thick, calloused and begrimed with coal dust, that I can no longer operate the keys?
No…
I was just having an existential crisis or something… I lost my mojo. It had not slipped behind the cushions, it wasn’t in my other jacket, it was not anywhere to be found. Like some dodgy app, my ‘Writer Brain,’ shut down. It was not there. Tumbleweed blew across the space where it had been and we don’t even have tumbleweed in Britain, so that was doubly strange.
I have not been writing and it seemed somehow fraudulent to continue with a writing blog when I was not, you know, actually writing anything.
This has only ever happened to me once before and that is another story for another time. With that exception, my Writer Brain has been my constant companion since, well, always… My hidden superpower, or the Gollum to my Smeagol, depending on how I’m feeling about it at the time. This made me extremely unhappy.
So, where did it go and why?
Like everyone, the pandemic threw a wrecking ball through my life. I don’t have some dramatic, or tragic tale to tell at this point. I am not even going to go into detail, because although my life seemed to have suddenly become a trainwreck to me, compared to so many others, including good friends, I was, objectively speaking, quite lucky, my crisis quite mundane.
With modern thinking on mental health, I know I shouldn’t be feeling that way. I am aware that, ‘there is always somebody worse off than you,’ is not helpful and actually it never was. No one is shelling the supermarket where I shop. There aren’t floods or wild fires all around me. I have a roof over my head, family to talk to and food in the cupboard. My problems though are still my problems, they are real to me and I still have to solve them. Comparing them to other larger problems, does not invalidate them, or solve them. I know that, I do but still, being of a certain age and from a proper working-class background, ‘There is always somebody worse off than you,’ carries a lot of weight.
The destruction of old certainties, the collapse of long held plans and a sudden and enforced complete change of lifestyle all caught up with me, all of a sudden, wham! Without knowing it, I had been ignoring all of the above, pretending that my life had not irreversibly changed.
My writing, although it may not immediately seem obvious, was intimately caught up in all of this.
I think, on reflection, that there was always some part of me, not the rational bit, some inner child or some such, that expected my writing to come along and save me if I ever got into a serious corner. If I just had more time, more time to write and promote my books, then I would be more successful. I would make money from them… I would be a full-time author.
Well, suddenly I had the time, I really did and I worked hard, really hard, on the writing and the promoting and on some other creative notions that I had and, and, and… Nothing. I sold no more books than before, I was not any better known, nothing I had slogged away so grimly at had made any difference at all, except that it had sucked the joy out of writing for me.
My Writer Brain shut down in protest.
I suddenly had a real understanding of those comics where the hero loses their powers and they feel helpless, they wonder who they are without them, if they have any value? I had always considered my writing to be a hidden superpower. That is even how I defined it on my Goodreads initial interview. My alter ego is ‘Writer bloke.’ Only now I couldn’t write. I am at peace when I write, I go somewhere else when I write. When things get tough, the tough get writing. Only, I couldn’t. I was busy having a crisis and one of my chief coping mechanisms, one of my finest self-help tools, was gone.
I wrote a whole chapter of my current book last week.
What’s that you say? So, what? One chapter? Only another sixty thousand or so words to go, eh? Well, I was genuinely beginning to wonder if I would ever write again and that is one more chapter than I had written in months.
My problems are not over, the shape of my new life isn’t completely clear to me yet it’s a work in progress. The thing is that I have now remembered that life is always a work in progress, something I lost sight of.
I have also remembered why I write. Because I can and because I want to. Because it is a part of my identity. Because I have things I want to say. Because I love to tell tales, to entertain, to move people when I can. To give people somewhere to go when they read the stories, in the same way I do when I write them. Somewhere not here, somewhere apart from worry and trouble.
That’s why I write, not to make money.
That’s just as well, because I am an indie author. By and large we don’t make money. We have complete freedom to write what we want, when we want and how we want. How the book looks, how it is promoted, everything single thing about it is under our complete control. This is actually pretty wonderful; I had forgotten that too.
So, I don’t sell many copies and I don’t make much money… well, nothing’s perfect. The thing is, I would rather accept that and welcome back my old friend, ‘Writer Brain,’ than fight it and lose everything.
I wrote a whole chapter of my current book last week. You know what that means? It means I’m back…
No…
I was just having an existential crisis or something… I lost my mojo. It had not slipped behind the cushions, it wasn’t in my other jacket, it was not anywhere to be found. Like some dodgy app, my ‘Writer Brain,’ shut down. It was not there. Tumbleweed blew across the space where it had been and we don’t even have tumbleweed in Britain, so that was doubly strange.
I have not been writing and it seemed somehow fraudulent to continue with a writing blog when I was not, you know, actually writing anything.
This has only ever happened to me once before and that is another story for another time. With that exception, my Writer Brain has been my constant companion since, well, always… My hidden superpower, or the Gollum to my Smeagol, depending on how I’m feeling about it at the time. This made me extremely unhappy.
So, where did it go and why?
Like everyone, the pandemic threw a wrecking ball through my life. I don’t have some dramatic, or tragic tale to tell at this point. I am not even going to go into detail, because although my life seemed to have suddenly become a trainwreck to me, compared to so many others, including good friends, I was, objectively speaking, quite lucky, my crisis quite mundane.
With modern thinking on mental health, I know I shouldn’t be feeling that way. I am aware that, ‘there is always somebody worse off than you,’ is not helpful and actually it never was. No one is shelling the supermarket where I shop. There aren’t floods or wild fires all around me. I have a roof over my head, family to talk to and food in the cupboard. My problems though are still my problems, they are real to me and I still have to solve them. Comparing them to other larger problems, does not invalidate them, or solve them. I know that, I do but still, being of a certain age and from a proper working-class background, ‘There is always somebody worse off than you,’ carries a lot of weight.
The destruction of old certainties, the collapse of long held plans and a sudden and enforced complete change of lifestyle all caught up with me, all of a sudden, wham! Without knowing it, I had been ignoring all of the above, pretending that my life had not irreversibly changed.
My writing, although it may not immediately seem obvious, was intimately caught up in all of this.
I think, on reflection, that there was always some part of me, not the rational bit, some inner child or some such, that expected my writing to come along and save me if I ever got into a serious corner. If I just had more time, more time to write and promote my books, then I would be more successful. I would make money from them… I would be a full-time author.
Well, suddenly I had the time, I really did and I worked hard, really hard, on the writing and the promoting and on some other creative notions that I had and, and, and… Nothing. I sold no more books than before, I was not any better known, nothing I had slogged away so grimly at had made any difference at all, except that it had sucked the joy out of writing for me.
My Writer Brain shut down in protest.
I suddenly had a real understanding of those comics where the hero loses their powers and they feel helpless, they wonder who they are without them, if they have any value? I had always considered my writing to be a hidden superpower. That is even how I defined it on my Goodreads initial interview. My alter ego is ‘Writer bloke.’ Only now I couldn’t write. I am at peace when I write, I go somewhere else when I write. When things get tough, the tough get writing. Only, I couldn’t. I was busy having a crisis and one of my chief coping mechanisms, one of my finest self-help tools, was gone.
I wrote a whole chapter of my current book last week.
What’s that you say? So, what? One chapter? Only another sixty thousand or so words to go, eh? Well, I was genuinely beginning to wonder if I would ever write again and that is one more chapter than I had written in months.
My problems are not over, the shape of my new life isn’t completely clear to me yet it’s a work in progress. The thing is that I have now remembered that life is always a work in progress, something I lost sight of.
I have also remembered why I write. Because I can and because I want to. Because it is a part of my identity. Because I have things I want to say. Because I love to tell tales, to entertain, to move people when I can. To give people somewhere to go when they read the stories, in the same way I do when I write them. Somewhere not here, somewhere apart from worry and trouble.
That’s why I write, not to make money.
That’s just as well, because I am an indie author. By and large we don’t make money. We have complete freedom to write what we want, when we want and how we want. How the book looks, how it is promoted, everything single thing about it is under our complete control. This is actually pretty wonderful; I had forgotten that too.
So, I don’t sell many copies and I don’t make much money… well, nothing’s perfect. The thing is, I would rather accept that and welcome back my old friend, ‘Writer Brain,’ than fight it and lose everything.
I wrote a whole chapter of my current book last week. You know what that means? It means I’m back…
December 23, 2021
Free Story to Read, ‘Fading Footprints.’
Omar the Teller of Tales and Other StoriesSo, this is not exactly a blog this time. I thought it might be nice to just drop a (very) short story here for everyone to read. Please don’t publish it anywhere else though without my permission. 😊 I picked this one for three reasons, it’s a piece of micro fiction, it’s appropriate to the time of the year and it is in fact, the very first story I ever had published. If you are interested, I will be saying just a little something about how it came to be written after the story, so, read to the very end if that’s something you might be curious about. Here it is…
Fading Footprints
They are almost gone now, almost level with the surrounding snow. You would hardly know they were there but I know. A line of footprints: arrow straight, the length of my long garden path, disappearing into the gnarled, old yews bowed down with the soft weight of snow.
It has been a longstanding dream of mine, to buy a little place in the Cotswolds, retire and watch the seasons change. I did, I have and the pleasure it gives me is immense.
It will come as no surprise to you, then, if I say that I spent yesterday evening, drink in hand in the firelight, staring out of the darkened window at winter’s first snowfall, snowflakes flurrying out of a huge silvery moon like white bats from a cave mouth.
That’s how I know I didn’t make the footprints you see: the snow started after I got home and yet there they were this morning, well-defined in the crisp, sparkling snow.
What’s so odd about that? The paper boy, or the milkman, you say? I have neither delivered. It’s one of my little pleasures to walk down the lane to the village in whatever weather I am sent to fetch them. The postman? No. There was nothing in the hall this morning and besides - and this is the really odd bit - the footprints lead up to my door but none lead away. The village children then, teasing the newcomer? Well, perhaps… but I don’t think so. Let me explain.
Obeying a curious certainty, I went to the French windows at the rear. It’s a nice aspect: a long lawn sweeps down to the river, flanked by topiaries like giant chess pieces. I can take no credit for them; they came with the house.
There were the footprints again, leading away from the house in an unbroken line, crossing the river to emerge on the far bank, marching on until they were lost in the pinkish snow light and the blue-grey horizon. As I watched, the snow began to fall again: huge flakes, soft as feathers, fluffing and plumping the landscape.
I was in my dressing-gown, yet I felt compelled to go out and examine the prints before the fresh snow buried them. The air had a pearly brightness and a take-your-breath-away freshness. The little trident-shaped tracks of hopping birds crossed the prints and the track of something else, a cat or a fox probably, trailed them for a little way. Feeling the cold, I crunched back into the house through pure white snow, my slippers sodden. It was then that it occurred to me. I took a roll of paper towels from the kitchen and unravelled them across the living room carpet, tamping them down gently as I did so. Sure enough, there they were: long, wet patches evenly spaced.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fading Footprints was first published in the Leaf Books Anthology ‘Derek and More Micro Fiction,’ 2007
It is currently available in the short fiction collection ‘Omar, the Teller of Tales.’
Copyright © Robin Tompkins, 2007 all rights reserved.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, for my day job, I used to work in Birmingham City Centre (UK) and commute in by public transport.
One year, we had an unusually bad winter. Snow kept blowing in out of nowhere, catching the local authorities flat footed, with the gritting wagons still in the garage. There was an afternoon when Birmingham city centre came to a literal halt. The little hills that ring the city, the ones you normally hardly noticed, trapped vehicles on their crests and nothing could move. We were kicked out of work early to try and find our way home. It soon became clear to me that I would have to walk. Even if I could have afforded a hotel room and I couldn’t, in those days I had cats and they needed food and attention.
It’s a distance of around seven miles. With the snow still falling, it felt about twice that. Luckily, I had thought to wear hiking boots to work just in case, even so, my feet were wet through when I dragged myself through the front door, to find two puzzled cats, who were wondering why, ‘food time,’ had come and gone long, long ago.
I had plenty of time to think on the trudge home. Oddly enough, a magazine article I read years ago as a teen kept popping into my head. It concerned a real-life incident that happened in eighteen fifty-five in Exeter and Devon (UK). A mysterious line of cloven footprints, over forty miles long, appeared in the snow overnight. The footprints climbed over rooftops and haystacks without stopping, keeping a dead straight line.
It remains a mystery, though it is as well to remember that, although the marvellous new invention of the railway was improving communications by leaps and bounds, most news still only travelled as fast as a horse could trot. Hoaxes and wild exaggeration were rife, if the news story was sensational enough. Much like today I suppose, though now it is the speed of communication, not the lack of it that creates issues.
Anyway, the next day was a ‘snow day,’ the boss decided (wisely) not to try and open up. Home unexpectedly, the cats and I wandered around my garden, with me taking pictures. I built and photographed a, ‘snowcat,’ that I used for my family Christmas cards that year. My thoughts from the previous evening came drifting back and when I was back inside and warmed up, out came the laptop. That then, is where ‘Fading Footprints,’ comes from…
Fading Footprints
They are almost gone now, almost level with the surrounding snow. You would hardly know they were there but I know. A line of footprints: arrow straight, the length of my long garden path, disappearing into the gnarled, old yews bowed down with the soft weight of snow.
It has been a longstanding dream of mine, to buy a little place in the Cotswolds, retire and watch the seasons change. I did, I have and the pleasure it gives me is immense.
It will come as no surprise to you, then, if I say that I spent yesterday evening, drink in hand in the firelight, staring out of the darkened window at winter’s first snowfall, snowflakes flurrying out of a huge silvery moon like white bats from a cave mouth.
That’s how I know I didn’t make the footprints you see: the snow started after I got home and yet there they were this morning, well-defined in the crisp, sparkling snow.
What’s so odd about that? The paper boy, or the milkman, you say? I have neither delivered. It’s one of my little pleasures to walk down the lane to the village in whatever weather I am sent to fetch them. The postman? No. There was nothing in the hall this morning and besides - and this is the really odd bit - the footprints lead up to my door but none lead away. The village children then, teasing the newcomer? Well, perhaps… but I don’t think so. Let me explain.
Obeying a curious certainty, I went to the French windows at the rear. It’s a nice aspect: a long lawn sweeps down to the river, flanked by topiaries like giant chess pieces. I can take no credit for them; they came with the house.
There were the footprints again, leading away from the house in an unbroken line, crossing the river to emerge on the far bank, marching on until they were lost in the pinkish snow light and the blue-grey horizon. As I watched, the snow began to fall again: huge flakes, soft as feathers, fluffing and plumping the landscape.
I was in my dressing-gown, yet I felt compelled to go out and examine the prints before the fresh snow buried them. The air had a pearly brightness and a take-your-breath-away freshness. The little trident-shaped tracks of hopping birds crossed the prints and the track of something else, a cat or a fox probably, trailed them for a little way. Feeling the cold, I crunched back into the house through pure white snow, my slippers sodden. It was then that it occurred to me. I took a roll of paper towels from the kitchen and unravelled them across the living room carpet, tamping them down gently as I did so. Sure enough, there they were: long, wet patches evenly spaced.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fading Footprints was first published in the Leaf Books Anthology ‘Derek and More Micro Fiction,’ 2007
It is currently available in the short fiction collection ‘Omar, the Teller of Tales.’
Copyright © Robin Tompkins, 2007 all rights reserved.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, for my day job, I used to work in Birmingham City Centre (UK) and commute in by public transport.
One year, we had an unusually bad winter. Snow kept blowing in out of nowhere, catching the local authorities flat footed, with the gritting wagons still in the garage. There was an afternoon when Birmingham city centre came to a literal halt. The little hills that ring the city, the ones you normally hardly noticed, trapped vehicles on their crests and nothing could move. We were kicked out of work early to try and find our way home. It soon became clear to me that I would have to walk. Even if I could have afforded a hotel room and I couldn’t, in those days I had cats and they needed food and attention.
It’s a distance of around seven miles. With the snow still falling, it felt about twice that. Luckily, I had thought to wear hiking boots to work just in case, even so, my feet were wet through when I dragged myself through the front door, to find two puzzled cats, who were wondering why, ‘food time,’ had come and gone long, long ago.
I had plenty of time to think on the trudge home. Oddly enough, a magazine article I read years ago as a teen kept popping into my head. It concerned a real-life incident that happened in eighteen fifty-five in Exeter and Devon (UK). A mysterious line of cloven footprints, over forty miles long, appeared in the snow overnight. The footprints climbed over rooftops and haystacks without stopping, keeping a dead straight line.
It remains a mystery, though it is as well to remember that, although the marvellous new invention of the railway was improving communications by leaps and bounds, most news still only travelled as fast as a horse could trot. Hoaxes and wild exaggeration were rife, if the news story was sensational enough. Much like today I suppose, though now it is the speed of communication, not the lack of it that creates issues.
Anyway, the next day was a ‘snow day,’ the boss decided (wisely) not to try and open up. Home unexpectedly, the cats and I wandered around my garden, with me taking pictures. I built and photographed a, ‘snowcat,’ that I used for my family Christmas cards that year. My thoughts from the previous evening came drifting back and when I was back inside and warmed up, out came the laptop. That then, is where ‘Fading Footprints,’ comes from…
October 27, 2021
A Single Sentence…
So, what do reviews mean to an indie author? Well, I’ll tell you, they mean everything, they mean the world. Does that sound a bit over the top? It isn’t. I can’t overstate how important they are to us.
One of the reasons, quite frankly, is because they are so hard to get. The same reason gold and diamonds are worth so much, they are a scarce commodity. Only a very small percentage of those who buy a book will stop and rate it, even fewer will review it. The irony of that, is that when deciding whether to buy a book, the first thing anyone does, is to check the reviews. No one wants to write reviews but everyone wants to read them.
They are especially important for indie authors. We already have a bit of a mountain to climb, getting people’s attention and getting them to take us seriously. It is even harder to try and persuade people to buy a book with no reviews.
It’s not just that though. Indie authors are generally not in it for the money, because we know there isn’t really any money in it, not for most of us anyway. We do it because we love it and because we want other people to love what we do.
Most of the time though, it’s like going out into the middle of a field and shouting at the clouds. I’m going to do something that’s a bit frowned upon now, I’m going to quote myself… yes, I know but I think I put it quite well over on my website, where on the homepage I say…
“I'm going to paraphrase Steven King now (if you're going to do a thing like that you should always warn people first). He said something along the lines of...
If telepathy is transmitting thoughts and images from one mind to another, then telepathy is real. Writing is telepathy.
It's also lonely... You send your work out into the ether and have no idea how it is doing. Like packing your children a lunch, sending them off into the world and then... and then... they don't call, they don't write...
So, why not let me know how the telepathy is going?”
Without reviews, we don’t know how the kids are doing. Are they well behaved? Do people like them? Has anyone fallen in love with them? What have they been getting up to?
So, why aren’t there more reviews? I have some thoughts on that.
There is of course the obvious, people just don’t like your book but they don’t like to say. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. Horrible thought but it is one all writers have to live with if we publish our work. Silence, feeds into our, ‘imposter syndrome,’ and self-doubt, it can give us some very bad days.
The next obvious one is, ‘life gets in the way,’ people really do mean to review you but ‘stuff happens,’ and they never get around to it. Time goes by and then it sort of feels too late. (It isn’t, we will take the review and thank you for it).
The other one I hear a lot is, ‘who wants to know what I think? I’m nobody, who cares what I have to say?’ We do! We really, really do! You’re our readers we absolutely, definitely, incontrovertibly want to know what you think. Anyway, what on Earth do you mean, ‘I’m nobody?’ You are somebody, you are you and you are absolutely unique in the universe. Your opinion is as good as anyone else’s and likely better than many with louder voices.
Then we come to what is probably the biggest one. ‘I was going to review your book but I didn’t know what to say.’
So many people are put off leaving a review, because they feel like they have to write a ‘book report,’ like they have gone back to their school days, or because they think they have to come up with something witty or insightful to say, that others will judge them on the quality of their review.
Many people love to pen an in-depth review and we are always up for reading them but there is no need to do that if you are not comfortable with it. Genuinely, don’t worry about it. A single sentence will do, whatever you want to put. ‘Such a good book, I loved it,’ or, ‘I so enjoyed this, I hope there will be a sequel,’ Is just as valid as any other review. It may not be witty, or insightful but if it is how the book made you feel, then it’s fine.
Just one more thing and then I will have had my say on the subject of reviews.
Please be kind.
The thing is, authors are people too, if you see what I mean. We have this mad urge to write and publish books, nobody asked us to, you didn’t ask us to, I get that. If we stick our heads above the parapet then we can expect that we might get shot at. Still, we have all the same problems as anyone else, some people have easier lives and some harder and that is the way of the world. Most indie authors shoehorn a little writing into their lives where they can. The book you review could represent two years of stolen Sunday afternoons, or eighteen months of early mornings before work.
Just remember, that when you review an indie author’s book, you are not reviewing the latest budget dishwasher from a faceless corporation, or even the latest blockbuster by a million selling author who doesn’t even read their own reviews and never sees the bad ones anyway. No, you are talking directly to the person who wrote it and it’s their baby.
I know it can be fun to dismantle something with a witty turn of phrase but you know, you wouldn’t go up to someone in the street, slap their kid twice around the back of the head and say, ‘You have such an ugly kid, you should be ashamed.’ You wouldn’t, would you?
One of the reasons, quite frankly, is because they are so hard to get. The same reason gold and diamonds are worth so much, they are a scarce commodity. Only a very small percentage of those who buy a book will stop and rate it, even fewer will review it. The irony of that, is that when deciding whether to buy a book, the first thing anyone does, is to check the reviews. No one wants to write reviews but everyone wants to read them.
They are especially important for indie authors. We already have a bit of a mountain to climb, getting people’s attention and getting them to take us seriously. It is even harder to try and persuade people to buy a book with no reviews.
It’s not just that though. Indie authors are generally not in it for the money, because we know there isn’t really any money in it, not for most of us anyway. We do it because we love it and because we want other people to love what we do.
Most of the time though, it’s like going out into the middle of a field and shouting at the clouds. I’m going to do something that’s a bit frowned upon now, I’m going to quote myself… yes, I know but I think I put it quite well over on my website, where on the homepage I say…
“I'm going to paraphrase Steven King now (if you're going to do a thing like that you should always warn people first). He said something along the lines of...
If telepathy is transmitting thoughts and images from one mind to another, then telepathy is real. Writing is telepathy.
It's also lonely... You send your work out into the ether and have no idea how it is doing. Like packing your children a lunch, sending them off into the world and then... and then... they don't call, they don't write...
So, why not let me know how the telepathy is going?”
Without reviews, we don’t know how the kids are doing. Are they well behaved? Do people like them? Has anyone fallen in love with them? What have they been getting up to?
So, why aren’t there more reviews? I have some thoughts on that.
There is of course the obvious, people just don’t like your book but they don’t like to say. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. Horrible thought but it is one all writers have to live with if we publish our work. Silence, feeds into our, ‘imposter syndrome,’ and self-doubt, it can give us some very bad days.
The next obvious one is, ‘life gets in the way,’ people really do mean to review you but ‘stuff happens,’ and they never get around to it. Time goes by and then it sort of feels too late. (It isn’t, we will take the review and thank you for it).
The other one I hear a lot is, ‘who wants to know what I think? I’m nobody, who cares what I have to say?’ We do! We really, really do! You’re our readers we absolutely, definitely, incontrovertibly want to know what you think. Anyway, what on Earth do you mean, ‘I’m nobody?’ You are somebody, you are you and you are absolutely unique in the universe. Your opinion is as good as anyone else’s and likely better than many with louder voices.
Then we come to what is probably the biggest one. ‘I was going to review your book but I didn’t know what to say.’
So many people are put off leaving a review, because they feel like they have to write a ‘book report,’ like they have gone back to their school days, or because they think they have to come up with something witty or insightful to say, that others will judge them on the quality of their review.
Many people love to pen an in-depth review and we are always up for reading them but there is no need to do that if you are not comfortable with it. Genuinely, don’t worry about it. A single sentence will do, whatever you want to put. ‘Such a good book, I loved it,’ or, ‘I so enjoyed this, I hope there will be a sequel,’ Is just as valid as any other review. It may not be witty, or insightful but if it is how the book made you feel, then it’s fine.
Just one more thing and then I will have had my say on the subject of reviews.
Please be kind.
The thing is, authors are people too, if you see what I mean. We have this mad urge to write and publish books, nobody asked us to, you didn’t ask us to, I get that. If we stick our heads above the parapet then we can expect that we might get shot at. Still, we have all the same problems as anyone else, some people have easier lives and some harder and that is the way of the world. Most indie authors shoehorn a little writing into their lives where they can. The book you review could represent two years of stolen Sunday afternoons, or eighteen months of early mornings before work.
Just remember, that when you review an indie author’s book, you are not reviewing the latest budget dishwasher from a faceless corporation, or even the latest blockbuster by a million selling author who doesn’t even read their own reviews and never sees the bad ones anyway. No, you are talking directly to the person who wrote it and it’s their baby.
I know it can be fun to dismantle something with a witty turn of phrase but you know, you wouldn’t go up to someone in the street, slap their kid twice around the back of the head and say, ‘You have such an ugly kid, you should be ashamed.’ You wouldn’t, would you?
October 21, 2021
Vanity Pottery for Sale…
So, once upon a time, there used to be this thing called ‘Vanity Publishing.’ It worked this way. Your Aunty Maude, or whoever, writes a book. They are very proud of this book and set about trying to get an agent or a publisher interested in it. They have no luck but so convinced are they of the book’s worth, that they find a short run printer, strike a deal and get five hundred copies of, ‘Murder Most Deadly,’ published at their own expense.
They manage to get the owner of their local book shop to take a few copies, after all, they buy all their books there and they have known him for years. They give away a couple of copies to the local library, send some out as Christmas presents and sell a handful of copies after placing a small ad in the local paper.
Time goes by and when dear old Maude passes on, her puzzled family find four hundred and seventy yellowing and mildewed copies of ‘Murder Most Deadly,’ in her attic. No one in the family remembers that Maude even wrote a book, except for old Uncle Jim, who still has the copy she sent him for Christmas one year.
Things have moved on a bit since then, modern indie publishing is a very different beast. It’s not alone. Nowadays, everyone is selling direct. Bands record and sell their own music on-line, cutting out the big record labels. You can get comedy, short films and of course every conceivable kind of artwork, or handicraft, at websites like Etsy. Take a seaside holiday and someone will have a little stall, or a rented space in a shop, to directly sell you stones that they picked up from the beach and hand decorated themselves. Everybody is doing it and it’s considered to be pretty cool.
Well, I say that… most of those things are fine but indie published books? No, they are not allowed to play with the cool kids.
Somehow, the spectre of, ‘Vanity Publishing,’ is still with us, hiding in dark corners, whispering in people’s ears, even in ears that are too young to have even heard of ‘Vanity Publishing.’ There is the lingering notion, that the only reason that these books are independently published, is because they are not very good.
Indie books are held to a different standard to other directly sold products. Download that music track and the sounds not so great, you can hear people talking and glasses clinking in the bar where it was recorded? That’s good, that’s great, it’s raw and immediate, it’s live! Order a vase and it has little flaws and the odd fingerprint in it? That’s great too, it’s real, it connects you directly to the potter, from their hand to your hand! Fantastic… Find a small error in an indie book and it just confirms your worst fears, it’s going to be rubbish. That teapot not like the ones on the high street? Great, it’s unique and original. That book not written in the style you expected? Is that because it’s unique and original? No, it’s because the author doesn’t know what they are doing.
Now, I am a very relaxed sort of person, I am known for it, some say I’m too relaxed and they are probably right. Still, I care about what I do and you know what? So do all Indie authors, so it does rub me up the wrong way just a bit, chilled as I generally am, that we can’t play with the cool kids for some reason.
I mean, I don’t ever remember hearing of a band being accused of releasing a ‘Vanity Album,’ or anyone being slated for selling, ‘Vanity Pottery.’
They manage to get the owner of their local book shop to take a few copies, after all, they buy all their books there and they have known him for years. They give away a couple of copies to the local library, send some out as Christmas presents and sell a handful of copies after placing a small ad in the local paper.
Time goes by and when dear old Maude passes on, her puzzled family find four hundred and seventy yellowing and mildewed copies of ‘Murder Most Deadly,’ in her attic. No one in the family remembers that Maude even wrote a book, except for old Uncle Jim, who still has the copy she sent him for Christmas one year.
Things have moved on a bit since then, modern indie publishing is a very different beast. It’s not alone. Nowadays, everyone is selling direct. Bands record and sell their own music on-line, cutting out the big record labels. You can get comedy, short films and of course every conceivable kind of artwork, or handicraft, at websites like Etsy. Take a seaside holiday and someone will have a little stall, or a rented space in a shop, to directly sell you stones that they picked up from the beach and hand decorated themselves. Everybody is doing it and it’s considered to be pretty cool.
Well, I say that… most of those things are fine but indie published books? No, they are not allowed to play with the cool kids.
Somehow, the spectre of, ‘Vanity Publishing,’ is still with us, hiding in dark corners, whispering in people’s ears, even in ears that are too young to have even heard of ‘Vanity Publishing.’ There is the lingering notion, that the only reason that these books are independently published, is because they are not very good.
Indie books are held to a different standard to other directly sold products. Download that music track and the sounds not so great, you can hear people talking and glasses clinking in the bar where it was recorded? That’s good, that’s great, it’s raw and immediate, it’s live! Order a vase and it has little flaws and the odd fingerprint in it? That’s great too, it’s real, it connects you directly to the potter, from their hand to your hand! Fantastic… Find a small error in an indie book and it just confirms your worst fears, it’s going to be rubbish. That teapot not like the ones on the high street? Great, it’s unique and original. That book not written in the style you expected? Is that because it’s unique and original? No, it’s because the author doesn’t know what they are doing.
Now, I am a very relaxed sort of person, I am known for it, some say I’m too relaxed and they are probably right. Still, I care about what I do and you know what? So do all Indie authors, so it does rub me up the wrong way just a bit, chilled as I generally am, that we can’t play with the cool kids for some reason.
I mean, I don’t ever remember hearing of a band being accused of releasing a ‘Vanity Album,’ or anyone being slated for selling, ‘Vanity Pottery.’
September 15, 2021
Cat and Super Cat
In my last blog about our new book, ‘The Field of Reeds: in Shadows,’ I was talking about the terrible liberties we have taken with Egyptian history, myth, folklore and even geography. Just to quickly reiterate, to save you checking it out if you haven’t read it, I can sum it up with that famous quote from MythBusters, ‘I reject your reality and substitute my own.’ The things we have ‘got wrong,’ are only wrong, from the perspective of the book being set in the real Egypt. It isn’t, it is set in our own private version of Egypt, where we make the rules. So, rest assured, it is all one hundred percent accurate. 😊
We have taken a very different approach though, when it comes to the cats in the book. (For context, if you haven’t seen the book blurb, or watched the video, most of the major characters in the book are cats). It was important to us, that the cats were cats.
We really didn’t want to go down the route that so many do in this type of book, the ‘little people in furry trousers,’ thing. These are not hobbits with a tail and whiskers.
The cat behaviour, body language, senses and abilities, their physicality, was as accurate as we could make it. Apart from them being able to talk obviously. 😊
The guiding notion was, that if this was a movie and you watched it with the sound down, only at the more extreme moments, would you see anything other than cats doing cat things. (I will come back to the extreme moments shortly). Without the narration, or dialogue, there are cats sitting around on roof tops, lounging under trees, napping, eating, running, jumping, climbing, scrapping and hunting. You know, cat things. Even when they are interacting with humans, if you can’t hear the conversation, what you would see, is a cat rubbing around someone’s legs, being fussed, getting their tails tugged. The cats, as best we can make them, are cats.
There are the more extreme bits of course, (see, I said I would come back to that). This is an epic fantasy book. Extreme things do have to happen, it comes with the territory.
You are no doubt now saying, ‘My Mr Tiddles and little Snowball wouldn’t fight a supernatural monster, they would hide under the bed until it had gone.’ Well, quite apart from the fact that that would make for a very dull book, (despite being a very sensible course of action), cats are capable of a lot more than you might suppose, if they need to be. Just think a minute, haven’t you ever seen any of that stuff on You Tube, Instagram, Tik-Tok etc where cats attack foxes trying to steal their dinner from the front porch? Where they face down dogs and even larger animals like bears, fur bushed, tails fluffed, hissing and growling like cougars?
Cats have all the same skills and equipment as lions and tigers, they just come on a smaller scale.
I do agree though, that we are certainly pushing the boundaries of what is even remotely possible at times. So, I now refer you, gentle reader, to exhibit B, the, ‘superhero movie’. Or, if you prefer something less extreme, the, ‘action flick’.
Action heroes and those superheroes that haven’t been bitten by a radioactive camel, or injected with super Lucozade or something, the ones that are just highly trained humans, like Black Widow, or Batman, do amazing things. The things they do are most likely impossible but they are made to look just plausible enough for us to suspend disbelief, because they stick to things that humans can actually do. Run, jump, roll, kick, punch etc. Similarly, our cats don’t fly, or snort lightning bolts, they just do cat things.
The actors who play those parts on screen have to go through months of rigorous training. I imagine that by now, most of them would be pretty handy in a fight. I doubt that any of them could actually take down twenty armed guys, using only a taser and a broken chair leg though. But their on screen alter egos can.
So, if Mr Tiddles and Snowball couldn’t take down a supernatural monster, our cats, Priah and Riheow, can. Why? Because they are superheroes.
PS: Please do not, under any circumstances name your cats Mr Tiddles and Snowball. It’s not kind, it’s not dignified, they won’t like it. They would probably prefer to fight a supernatural monster than answer to those names in public. 😊
The Field of Reeds in Shadows
We have taken a very different approach though, when it comes to the cats in the book. (For context, if you haven’t seen the book blurb, or watched the video, most of the major characters in the book are cats). It was important to us, that the cats were cats.
We really didn’t want to go down the route that so many do in this type of book, the ‘little people in furry trousers,’ thing. These are not hobbits with a tail and whiskers.
The cat behaviour, body language, senses and abilities, their physicality, was as accurate as we could make it. Apart from them being able to talk obviously. 😊
The guiding notion was, that if this was a movie and you watched it with the sound down, only at the more extreme moments, would you see anything other than cats doing cat things. (I will come back to the extreme moments shortly). Without the narration, or dialogue, there are cats sitting around on roof tops, lounging under trees, napping, eating, running, jumping, climbing, scrapping and hunting. You know, cat things. Even when they are interacting with humans, if you can’t hear the conversation, what you would see, is a cat rubbing around someone’s legs, being fussed, getting their tails tugged. The cats, as best we can make them, are cats.
There are the more extreme bits of course, (see, I said I would come back to that). This is an epic fantasy book. Extreme things do have to happen, it comes with the territory.
You are no doubt now saying, ‘My Mr Tiddles and little Snowball wouldn’t fight a supernatural monster, they would hide under the bed until it had gone.’ Well, quite apart from the fact that that would make for a very dull book, (despite being a very sensible course of action), cats are capable of a lot more than you might suppose, if they need to be. Just think a minute, haven’t you ever seen any of that stuff on You Tube, Instagram, Tik-Tok etc where cats attack foxes trying to steal their dinner from the front porch? Where they face down dogs and even larger animals like bears, fur bushed, tails fluffed, hissing and growling like cougars?
Cats have all the same skills and equipment as lions and tigers, they just come on a smaller scale.
I do agree though, that we are certainly pushing the boundaries of what is even remotely possible at times. So, I now refer you, gentle reader, to exhibit B, the, ‘superhero movie’. Or, if you prefer something less extreme, the, ‘action flick’.
Action heroes and those superheroes that haven’t been bitten by a radioactive camel, or injected with super Lucozade or something, the ones that are just highly trained humans, like Black Widow, or Batman, do amazing things. The things they do are most likely impossible but they are made to look just plausible enough for us to suspend disbelief, because they stick to things that humans can actually do. Run, jump, roll, kick, punch etc. Similarly, our cats don’t fly, or snort lightning bolts, they just do cat things.
The actors who play those parts on screen have to go through months of rigorous training. I imagine that by now, most of them would be pretty handy in a fight. I doubt that any of them could actually take down twenty armed guys, using only a taser and a broken chair leg though. But their on screen alter egos can.
So, if Mr Tiddles and Snowball couldn’t take down a supernatural monster, our cats, Priah and Riheow, can. Why? Because they are superheroes.
PS: Please do not, under any circumstances name your cats Mr Tiddles and Snowball. It’s not kind, it’s not dignified, they won’t like it. They would probably prefer to fight a supernatural monster than answer to those names in public. 😊
The Field of Reeds in Shadows
September 9, 2021
The importance of having a weapons cabinet. (Or, how to write with someone else).
I recently launched a new book, co-authored with my sister Madeleine Purslow. (The Field of Reeds: In Shadows, out now on Amazon)
Her friend, the writer, Sally Jenkins was greatly intrigued. She was having trouble picturing what it was like to work with another writer. In so far as she could picture it at all, she imagined it as a riot of creative fun, with ideas and banter zinging happily back and forth.
Well, that’s sort of how it goes, you know, a bit, some of the time, occasionally. Then, there are those other times…
Sally asked Maddy if we could give her five hundred or so words on the subject, for a little guest spot on her blog.
We duly obliged and here it is…
The importance of having a weapons cabinet. (Or, how to write with someone else).
So, co-authoring a novel. How does that work? Hmmm, let me introduce you to the weapons cabinet…
Picture, if you will, an antique cabinet in the corner of the room, ornate and a bit dusty. Now, open the doors. They protest a little, they groan, they could do with a spot of oil. Inside though… now, that’s unexpected, every kind of weapon you can think of, softly shining in the half-light. The weapons are all in perfect order and ready for use at a moment’s notice.
Got it? Great, hold that thought, we’ll come back to it in a minute.
So, writing is a solitary thing, isn’t it? You take yourself away from other human beings for hours on end. Go deep inside your own head and stay there.
Stephen King said, writing is actually a form of telepathy. You take words, images, emotions and transfer them from one mind to another. Well, if that works between a writer and a reader, there is absolutely no reason why it shouldn’t work between two writers.
Well, perhaps not absolutely no reason…
Unless you really, get on well with your potential co-author, don’t even think about it. It has been said, that the best way to break up a friendship, is for two people to go on holiday together. I have a better one, try writing together.
If you are writing with someone else and you are both convinced that you have just come up with the best possible way to express what you are trying to say, who’s words do you use?
That’s where the weapons cabinet comes in…
You have to fight it out. Maybe with twin swords? Or, sneaky, ninja, throwing stars? Even a ball point pen can be lethal in the right hands…
Eventually, a compromise, the best of both worlds. Two brains really can be better than one. They had better be brains that genuinely like each other though. Whatever wounds you inflict in the heat of battle, you have to be able to live with afterwards.
So, what about the nuts and bolts? Well, it starts with huge brain storming sessions, lots of notes and a lot of laughing. You build the world, the shared playground and agree on a writing style.
Then, it may be that we take a chapter each, go away and write it. Or, if we are really unsure about how a chapter should go, then we both write the same chapter and ‘swap papers,’ like doing a test at school. Then we… Did you hear the creak, as the weapons cabinet doors opened?
Boundaries are also important, recognising who does what best. If you know your co-author is better at dialogue, or spooky atmospheres, or has a real feel for a particular character, then, you do what serves the story. After a trip to the weapons cabinet, obviously.
So, there you are. This blog has been brought to you after a short but vicious fight, by the gestalt brain that is Madrob, or possibly Robeleine. We have to decide which. Excuse us for a moment, we are just going to the weapons cabinet…
The Field of Reeds in Shadows
Her friend, the writer, Sally Jenkins was greatly intrigued. She was having trouble picturing what it was like to work with another writer. In so far as she could picture it at all, she imagined it as a riot of creative fun, with ideas and banter zinging happily back and forth.
Well, that’s sort of how it goes, you know, a bit, some of the time, occasionally. Then, there are those other times…
Sally asked Maddy if we could give her five hundred or so words on the subject, for a little guest spot on her blog.
We duly obliged and here it is…
The importance of having a weapons cabinet. (Or, how to write with someone else).
So, co-authoring a novel. How does that work? Hmmm, let me introduce you to the weapons cabinet…
Picture, if you will, an antique cabinet in the corner of the room, ornate and a bit dusty. Now, open the doors. They protest a little, they groan, they could do with a spot of oil. Inside though… now, that’s unexpected, every kind of weapon you can think of, softly shining in the half-light. The weapons are all in perfect order and ready for use at a moment’s notice.
Got it? Great, hold that thought, we’ll come back to it in a minute.
So, writing is a solitary thing, isn’t it? You take yourself away from other human beings for hours on end. Go deep inside your own head and stay there.
Stephen King said, writing is actually a form of telepathy. You take words, images, emotions and transfer them from one mind to another. Well, if that works between a writer and a reader, there is absolutely no reason why it shouldn’t work between two writers.
Well, perhaps not absolutely no reason…
Unless you really, get on well with your potential co-author, don’t even think about it. It has been said, that the best way to break up a friendship, is for two people to go on holiday together. I have a better one, try writing together.
If you are writing with someone else and you are both convinced that you have just come up with the best possible way to express what you are trying to say, who’s words do you use?
That’s where the weapons cabinet comes in…
You have to fight it out. Maybe with twin swords? Or, sneaky, ninja, throwing stars? Even a ball point pen can be lethal in the right hands…
Eventually, a compromise, the best of both worlds. Two brains really can be better than one. They had better be brains that genuinely like each other though. Whatever wounds you inflict in the heat of battle, you have to be able to live with afterwards.
So, what about the nuts and bolts? Well, it starts with huge brain storming sessions, lots of notes and a lot of laughing. You build the world, the shared playground and agree on a writing style.
Then, it may be that we take a chapter each, go away and write it. Or, if we are really unsure about how a chapter should go, then we both write the same chapter and ‘swap papers,’ like doing a test at school. Then we… Did you hear the creak, as the weapons cabinet doors opened?
Boundaries are also important, recognising who does what best. If you know your co-author is better at dialogue, or spooky atmospheres, or has a real feel for a particular character, then, you do what serves the story. After a trip to the weapons cabinet, obviously.
So, there you are. This blog has been brought to you after a short but vicious fight, by the gestalt brain that is Madrob, or possibly Robeleine. We have to decide which. Excuse us for a moment, we are just going to the weapons cabinet…
The Field of Reeds in Shadows
August 24, 2021
Crossing the Field of Reeds (Part Two) - An Egypt of the Mind…
It has been suggested, that the original inspiration for the Egyptian notion of passing into the afterlife, the Aaru or, ‘Field of Reeds,’ was the physical crossing of the Nile by the mummified body of the deceased. The Agriculturally cultivated East bank, was the land of the living, the mummy would be transported across the Nile and through the abundant reeds about its margins, to the arid West bank with its tombs and mortuary temples. From the land of the living, through the reeds, to the land of the dead.
As a theory, it probably doesn’t really hold up to close inspection. It’s a cool theory though and a great image. In many ways, better than the truth.
Which brings me to our book, ‘The Field of Reeds: in Shadows.’
Something you should probably understand, if you are going to read it, is that in this book we never let the truth get in the way of a good story, to steal a phrase.
There is an anecdote about the making of the epic TV mini series ‘Shogun,’ that goes this way… The crew on the shoot were part American and part Japanese. The American crew lined up a great shot of a white castle reflected in the waters of a lake, where swans serenely glided back and forth. The Japanese crew chased all the swans away. Why? Because, they quite correctly said, that there were no swans in Japan at the time this historical epic was set. The Americans promptly waited for the swans to come back and filmed the shot anyway. Why? Because it wasn’t historically accurate but it was a great shot.
We have camels in our book… there were no camels in ancient Egypt. They hadn’t arrived yet. The thing is though, unless you’re an expert in these things, you expect them to be there. Camels and Egypt? In the mind of most people, they go together like bread and butter, or strawberries and cream. Most people would find it odd if they weren’t there. So, not historically accurate but there are camels in the book.
Nearly all of the action takes place in the fertile Nile delta, well irrigated by a myriad little tributaries of the Nile. We know this but we present it as desert. Why? Because if you ask anyone what ancient Egypt was like, they will tell you it was dry and dusty, a desert.
We take many more such liberties, not least with Egyptian history, the folk lore and mythology, which is rejigged to better suit our plot, or to be entirely cat-centric (if there is such a word).
The thing is, this is a fantasy book, it is not historical fiction. If it was historical fiction, we wouldn’t do it. Perhaps we should have set the book in the land of Tpyge or some other anagram of Egypt but that seemed pointless when it would so obviously be Egypt.
No, we just wanted to be free of that sort of thing, to let our imaginations roam and build the world we wanted.
So, although, ‘The Field of Reeds’ is set in ancient Egypt, it is an Egypt of the mind. Not Egypt as it ever was, or ever could have been. It is a fantasy of Egypt, a beautiful dream of a bygone time that never was.
We hope you will forgive us our trespasses and enjoy the story.
The Field of Reeds in Shadows
As a theory, it probably doesn’t really hold up to close inspection. It’s a cool theory though and a great image. In many ways, better than the truth.
Which brings me to our book, ‘The Field of Reeds: in Shadows.’
Something you should probably understand, if you are going to read it, is that in this book we never let the truth get in the way of a good story, to steal a phrase.
There is an anecdote about the making of the epic TV mini series ‘Shogun,’ that goes this way… The crew on the shoot were part American and part Japanese. The American crew lined up a great shot of a white castle reflected in the waters of a lake, where swans serenely glided back and forth. The Japanese crew chased all the swans away. Why? Because, they quite correctly said, that there were no swans in Japan at the time this historical epic was set. The Americans promptly waited for the swans to come back and filmed the shot anyway. Why? Because it wasn’t historically accurate but it was a great shot.
We have camels in our book… there were no camels in ancient Egypt. They hadn’t arrived yet. The thing is though, unless you’re an expert in these things, you expect them to be there. Camels and Egypt? In the mind of most people, they go together like bread and butter, or strawberries and cream. Most people would find it odd if they weren’t there. So, not historically accurate but there are camels in the book.
Nearly all of the action takes place in the fertile Nile delta, well irrigated by a myriad little tributaries of the Nile. We know this but we present it as desert. Why? Because if you ask anyone what ancient Egypt was like, they will tell you it was dry and dusty, a desert.
We take many more such liberties, not least with Egyptian history, the folk lore and mythology, which is rejigged to better suit our plot, or to be entirely cat-centric (if there is such a word).
The thing is, this is a fantasy book, it is not historical fiction. If it was historical fiction, we wouldn’t do it. Perhaps we should have set the book in the land of Tpyge or some other anagram of Egypt but that seemed pointless when it would so obviously be Egypt.
No, we just wanted to be free of that sort of thing, to let our imaginations roam and build the world we wanted.
So, although, ‘The Field of Reeds’ is set in ancient Egypt, it is an Egypt of the mind. Not Egypt as it ever was, or ever could have been. It is a fantasy of Egypt, a beautiful dream of a bygone time that never was.
We hope you will forgive us our trespasses and enjoy the story.
The Field of Reeds in Shadows
August 19, 2021
Crossing the Field of Reeds (Part One)
It all began with a cat called Arthur. Arthur was a rescue cat, an older cat and our first cat, when my sister lived at home, before she got married. He came to us from the RSPCA shelter along with his wife Edith. They had really bonded at the rescue centre and there was no way we would ever separate them.
Arthur was, indeed still is, the smartest cat I have ever met. It broke our hearts when he died, leaving his grieving widow Edie behind. The beautiful Edie made it to 21 years old before she followed him.
You always felt that they were communicating with you somehow, far beyond telling you when they wanted to go out or were hungry. As if they were talking to you, even though you weren’t hearing words of course. Arthur, in particular, seemed to be able to look right inside your head.
Well, I was already writing by then, Maddie was writing poetry at that point and just dipping her toe into prose, the books would come later. Writing, really, is a combination of controlled daydreaming and acting on paper. Writers are all cracked actors. So, it wasn’t long before we started having fun ‘voicing,’ Arthur and Edith.
That’s the first part of the story.
Maddie and I enjoy each other’s company and there was a time in our lives, when we would go of on adventures together. In, I think, nineteen ninety one, or thereabouts, I can’t quite be certain and I can’t find the photo album with the dates on it just now, we took a trip to Egypt.
We fell in love with the place and its vast history. It is of course, intimately connected with cats. The cat was first domesticated here, it’s the homeland of the modern domestic cat. Cats were venerated, as protectors of the grain stores and seen as heaven sent creatures. There was a point in its history, when Bastet, the Cat headed Goddess was the state deity.
So, if you put those two things together, in a couple of creative heads, you get a very interesting idea.
Oh, so many things happened then. The idea did become an on again, off again, on again project, tinkered and toyed with over a lot of years, as life continually got in the way, as is often the way of things. We both published our own books. For me, Fantasy and Sci-Fi for Maddie, sharp, funny, women’s interest books, disguised as books about cats (what she calls ‘Kit Lit). We never entirely forgot, or abandoned, what we both just referred to as, ‘The Book,’ when ever it cropped up in conversation.
Enter Covid. I was furloughed from the day job, imagining I might be called back at any time, desperate to get part two of my Bell Hill trilogy finished before that happened, I pushed it through in less than six months. As it turned out, I need not have rushed, since I was in fact made redundant when the furlough scheme began winding down. Anyway, I was a little burned out after Road to Bell Hill and needed to step back before starting part three.
Maddie and I would Skype each other once a week to catch up, turns out, she wanted to take a little break from her own current project. Guess what came up in conversation then? Yes, exactly, ‘The Book,’ the one we had always been going to work together on.
That, gentle readers, is the back story to ‘The Field of Reeds – in Shadows,’ we finally got, ‘The Book,’ out there in the world. It is the first part of a series, just the beginning of an adventure and if you like it and want to know what happens next, we will be happy to tell you…
The Field of Reeds in Shadows
Arthur was, indeed still is, the smartest cat I have ever met. It broke our hearts when he died, leaving his grieving widow Edie behind. The beautiful Edie made it to 21 years old before she followed him.
You always felt that they were communicating with you somehow, far beyond telling you when they wanted to go out or were hungry. As if they were talking to you, even though you weren’t hearing words of course. Arthur, in particular, seemed to be able to look right inside your head.
Well, I was already writing by then, Maddie was writing poetry at that point and just dipping her toe into prose, the books would come later. Writing, really, is a combination of controlled daydreaming and acting on paper. Writers are all cracked actors. So, it wasn’t long before we started having fun ‘voicing,’ Arthur and Edith.
That’s the first part of the story.
Maddie and I enjoy each other’s company and there was a time in our lives, when we would go of on adventures together. In, I think, nineteen ninety one, or thereabouts, I can’t quite be certain and I can’t find the photo album with the dates on it just now, we took a trip to Egypt.
We fell in love with the place and its vast history. It is of course, intimately connected with cats. The cat was first domesticated here, it’s the homeland of the modern domestic cat. Cats were venerated, as protectors of the grain stores and seen as heaven sent creatures. There was a point in its history, when Bastet, the Cat headed Goddess was the state deity.
So, if you put those two things together, in a couple of creative heads, you get a very interesting idea.
Oh, so many things happened then. The idea did become an on again, off again, on again project, tinkered and toyed with over a lot of years, as life continually got in the way, as is often the way of things. We both published our own books. For me, Fantasy and Sci-Fi for Maddie, sharp, funny, women’s interest books, disguised as books about cats (what she calls ‘Kit Lit). We never entirely forgot, or abandoned, what we both just referred to as, ‘The Book,’ when ever it cropped up in conversation.
Enter Covid. I was furloughed from the day job, imagining I might be called back at any time, desperate to get part two of my Bell Hill trilogy finished before that happened, I pushed it through in less than six months. As it turned out, I need not have rushed, since I was in fact made redundant when the furlough scheme began winding down. Anyway, I was a little burned out after Road to Bell Hill and needed to step back before starting part three.
Maddie and I would Skype each other once a week to catch up, turns out, she wanted to take a little break from her own current project. Guess what came up in conversation then? Yes, exactly, ‘The Book,’ the one we had always been going to work together on.
That, gentle readers, is the back story to ‘The Field of Reeds – in Shadows,’ we finally got, ‘The Book,’ out there in the world. It is the first part of a series, just the beginning of an adventure and if you like it and want to know what happens next, we will be happy to tell you…
The Field of Reeds in Shadows
August 16, 2021
Backwards and in High Heels…
I got into a really good conversation on Goodreads regarding how fantasy and Science Fiction tends to be looked down upon and not regarded as, ‘literature.’ This, despite many classics of literature actually being, quite incontrovertibly Fantasy or Science Fiction.
One contributor pointed out that writers such as Margaret Attwood are appalled at the suggestion that they are writing Science Fiction, even when they quite clearly are and go out of their way to loudly deny it.
So, what’s wrong with Fantasy and Science Fiction? Why is it considered a lesser form of writing?
I think we can all appreciate that in its early days, it was a mainstay of the ‘pulp fiction market.’ Which, by the way, does not mean that all the works produced in those days were bad, some of them were amazing. In any case though, that was a long time ago. Fantasy and Sc-Fi have been respectable for a very long time now. Yet, somehow, neither can quite shake the labels that were slapped on them then. Sci-Fi. The perceived wisdom has it, is cold, technical and two dimensional. Fantasy, is silly, macho, juvenile. Both genres are you know, just for kids, aren’t they?
Well, no, no they aren’t. They are the absolute best way in which to explore difficult or controversial topics without offending anyone. If some of them also happen to be very entertaining while they are doing that, well what’s wrong with that? Who says a book can’t be both worthwhile and entertaining? Where did that idea come from?
Another contributor mentioned that books like the recent Piranesi by Susanna Clarke are at last going someway towards bridging that perceived gap between Fantasy, Sci-Fi and literature. I quite agree, it’s a beautiful book and sits very nicely between both worlds. The prose is wonderful but I have read words just as lovely in ‘pure,’ fantasy and Sc-Fi.
It’s an old hobby horse of mine, so apologies for the next bit, I may foam at the mouth ever so slightly. Do you not think, that ‘Literary Fiction,’ is a strange beast anyway? Literary Fiction accounts for only a tiny percentage of world-wide book sales, yet it is the yardstick by which all other books are measured. Why?
‘Literary Authors,’ get away with things genre authors never could. A ‘Literary Work,’ need have no discernible structure and come to no conclusion. It can be a sixty thousand word rambling essay that loosely resembles a story and just quietly peters out when whatever bee is in the author’s bonnet stops buzzing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that they wouldn’t be beautiful, exquisitely chosen words but still, you know what I’m saying, I’m sure you do.
My ‘author hat,’ is now firmly on… not I hasten to add, that I am proclaiming myself a great writer or some such, I’m well aware that I’m nobody much. On behalf of authors everywhere though, please stop looking down on Fantasy and Sci-Fi and those who write it.
So, why is this blog called ‘Backwards and in High Heels?’
Well, there is a famous quote attributed to Ginger Rogers (she never actually said it) that she did everything Fred Astaire did, except ‘backwards and in high heels.’
Now, imagine you are say, a crime writer, yes, that will do, you’re a crime writer. However, in your latest book, before you can develop good, well-rounded characters with a satisfying back story. A strong, fascinating plot. Realistic, moving, relationships and a string of entertaining sub plots, you have to do something else first.
First you have to give a brief history of the town where the action takes place, explain the religious and political climate of the country in which that town is located. Then, there are some other things to explain, like, what a police man is, what the different ranks are in the police service, what a police station is, how a police car works. Computers, smart phones and even the humble ball point pen, you must first introduce these concepts and properly explain them.
Did I mention that you have to provide all this exposition without the use of the dreaded ‘info dump?’ That you have to impart all this information without boring your readers to death and losing them?
Well, crime writers don’t have to do that. Fantasy and Sc-Fi writers do though…
So, you know, ‘Backwards and in high heels.’ Yes?
One contributor pointed out that writers such as Margaret Attwood are appalled at the suggestion that they are writing Science Fiction, even when they quite clearly are and go out of their way to loudly deny it.
So, what’s wrong with Fantasy and Science Fiction? Why is it considered a lesser form of writing?
I think we can all appreciate that in its early days, it was a mainstay of the ‘pulp fiction market.’ Which, by the way, does not mean that all the works produced in those days were bad, some of them were amazing. In any case though, that was a long time ago. Fantasy and Sc-Fi have been respectable for a very long time now. Yet, somehow, neither can quite shake the labels that were slapped on them then. Sci-Fi. The perceived wisdom has it, is cold, technical and two dimensional. Fantasy, is silly, macho, juvenile. Both genres are you know, just for kids, aren’t they?
Well, no, no they aren’t. They are the absolute best way in which to explore difficult or controversial topics without offending anyone. If some of them also happen to be very entertaining while they are doing that, well what’s wrong with that? Who says a book can’t be both worthwhile and entertaining? Where did that idea come from?
Another contributor mentioned that books like the recent Piranesi by Susanna Clarke are at last going someway towards bridging that perceived gap between Fantasy, Sci-Fi and literature. I quite agree, it’s a beautiful book and sits very nicely between both worlds. The prose is wonderful but I have read words just as lovely in ‘pure,’ fantasy and Sc-Fi.
It’s an old hobby horse of mine, so apologies for the next bit, I may foam at the mouth ever so slightly. Do you not think, that ‘Literary Fiction,’ is a strange beast anyway? Literary Fiction accounts for only a tiny percentage of world-wide book sales, yet it is the yardstick by which all other books are measured. Why?
‘Literary Authors,’ get away with things genre authors never could. A ‘Literary Work,’ need have no discernible structure and come to no conclusion. It can be a sixty thousand word rambling essay that loosely resembles a story and just quietly peters out when whatever bee is in the author’s bonnet stops buzzing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that they wouldn’t be beautiful, exquisitely chosen words but still, you know what I’m saying, I’m sure you do.
My ‘author hat,’ is now firmly on… not I hasten to add, that I am proclaiming myself a great writer or some such, I’m well aware that I’m nobody much. On behalf of authors everywhere though, please stop looking down on Fantasy and Sci-Fi and those who write it.
So, why is this blog called ‘Backwards and in High Heels?’
Well, there is a famous quote attributed to Ginger Rogers (she never actually said it) that she did everything Fred Astaire did, except ‘backwards and in high heels.’
Now, imagine you are say, a crime writer, yes, that will do, you’re a crime writer. However, in your latest book, before you can develop good, well-rounded characters with a satisfying back story. A strong, fascinating plot. Realistic, moving, relationships and a string of entertaining sub plots, you have to do something else first.
First you have to give a brief history of the town where the action takes place, explain the religious and political climate of the country in which that town is located. Then, there are some other things to explain, like, what a police man is, what the different ranks are in the police service, what a police station is, how a police car works. Computers, smart phones and even the humble ball point pen, you must first introduce these concepts and properly explain them.
Did I mention that you have to provide all this exposition without the use of the dreaded ‘info dump?’ That you have to impart all this information without boring your readers to death and losing them?
Well, crime writers don’t have to do that. Fantasy and Sc-Fi writers do though…
So, you know, ‘Backwards and in high heels.’ Yes?
July 28, 2021
Another little teaser trailer…
So, I just added another. teaser trailer for the forthcoming book with my sister Maddie. Hope you like it.
