Jen Black's Blog, page 92

Omens

Not sure if I should take this as an omen, but yesterday I planned on sending off a partial submission to an agency in London. Spent the morning preparing the cover letter, the synopsis and printing out the required pages, addressed the envelopes and noted the postcode matched my initials. Nice one, I thought. Maybe this time, all will go well.

Went next door to do some ironing before going to the post office. Managed to get several items done while defending the to-be-ironed-pile from Tim's repeated raids. After the sixth chase across the landing and halfway down the stairs, I yelled at him and he trotted mournfully away to lie down in a quiet corner. 'It won't be long,' I promised him. 'We'll go for your walk SOON.'

Went back to ironing, and five minutes  later became aware of ripping sounds.Walked to the door, looked into the adjacent bedroom and there was Tim, on the bed, which is forbidden, his jaws clamped around my newly done partial submission. Wah! I saw red. Shrieked at him, yanked it from his sharp white teeth and he shot off the bed like an Exocet missile. The outer envelope was ripped to shreds, but thankfully there was no damage to the other stuff barring a few faint teeth marks on the back page of the submission.

I flung the remains on the highest shelf in my study - the envelope had been on the four and a half foot high bookcase when he found it - and stormed downstairs and took him out for a walk. (I remembered to switch off the iron first, I assure you!) I walked him on the longest walk he's had so far, in the rain, by the river, and for the first few minutes I was so annoyed and so tired (a lethal combination) I almost cried. No one would have noticed tears in all that rain, but the further I walked the less tragic it all seemed. His tearing it to shreds wasn't really an omen. I could soon replace the outer envelope. In fact, when I took two out of the folder - one for the SAE - a third fell out onto my desk. Looking back, it's almost as if the fates knew what was about to happen.

Taken Dead or Alive

"David Brawn, publisher for estates at HarperCollins, said: "Agatha Christie was—and still is—the world’s bestselling novelist. The stories she wrote and the characters she created have withstood the test of time and been successful on film, television, audio, stage, and online. But as we approach what would have been Agatha Christie’s 125th birthday, I am delighted beyond measure that Hercule Poirot will live again in the pages of a book, and take readers back to where it all started."

I can't help but feel that if Agatha Christie were still alive, she would not be pleased to have another author steal her character Hercule Poirot and make him the centre of a new story. I didn't like the spin off books using Jane Austen's characters. I haven't read them all. The P D James Death Comes to Pemberley I found boring, but it is said to be a best seller. I suppose James has many fans who bought it, but perhaps like me they were not in love with the book. The tale with a modern girl stepping through a cupboard and swopping places with Elizabeth Bennet was amusing and perhaps more permissible because the central character was the modern girl and Austen's character's only bit players.
It can only be because the fans want more of the characters. They may have thought that a vain hope until modern authors saw a way to make money. Fan fiction probably has a lot to do with it, too. Then the film makers jump on board, and of course, people are happy money is made. I don't deny that. But is it right that characters are hijacked like this? What if someone began writing about Ian Rankin's character, Rebus? Would Rankin stand and silently applaud? I doubt it. Would Dorothy Dunnett's fans be happy if someone began writing novels featuring Francis and Phillippa? Is there any author writing today who would like someone else to pitch in and take their character?Again, I doubt it, So how can it be morally right to swoop in and take a character just because the author is dead?

Promotion

Does anyone enjoy promoting their own books? I'll admit to a certain fascination with it, but it can soon become a drag. But it seems that without  some solid PR, then book sales slide and dwindle to very low figures.  There is a school of thought which says have something up for free on Amazon all the time - and think of it as a PR item, or maybe a loss leader. Right now, after the way Yahoo has gone through its groups with a dose of salts, the idea is unappealing to say the least.

I aim to write for my blog three times a week, and more often than not I keep to it but I rarely talk about my own work and still less do I promote it. I have a separate page for My Published Titles, but I suspect few people ever go look at it. I have a Facebook  page, so my posts go up there on a regular basis plus any other comments I make direct to Facebook. I'm on Twitter, but I'm not a natural Tweeter and find it a struggle to be amusing and interesting in 140 characters. Some people seem to do it so easily! But at least I'm there. I think those people who are articulate and can think and speak at the same time are the winners at PR, but I suppose, like many other things, it's partially a learned skill.

I'm thinking of writing a short story and putting it up for free. I read an American blog where the author aims to write 1,000 words a day, therefore a new book every three months. Allow for editing etc and that means 2 new titles for sale a year. Well, I can manage the 1,000 a day (most days) but then I want to edit and edit ... I must be one of those authors afraid to let the book go.

In case you're wondering, the pic is a close up of heather!

Bad Yahoo

Yahoo has just complicated my life by changing the entire format of at least one critique group - I haven't checked the other as yet but no doubt it will be screwed up  in the same way. Now I have to take aeons to find the things I want, and I am filled with horror that everything else may be about to change as well. I don't need this! Plus which the new layout isn't anything like as clear as the old one. Bad move, Yahoo.

Got a good start today, apart from Yahoo, of course. Up and out for 1,200 steps with pooch  before eight and there's a lovely clear blue sky with warm sunshine sparkling on the dew-kissed meadow. (Yesterday we managed 8,939 steps, so we're getting better.) Have already checked e-mails (not many) , Twitter, Facebook (slight changes there, too) and hung out the washing to dry. Clothes dry in no time this summer and the fresh air costs nothing. Some people never hang any washing out, so I presume they dry it all indoors, which can be a costly process. I'm told dryers eat money.

While I wait for the last few critiques on To Capture a Queen, I'm going back to Blood Feud, which means a completely different time period and thought processes. For a long while I couldn't think how to move the story on after chapter 6, but last night the ideas starting flowing in and I will have to sort through them this morning and see which is the most feasible, which will seem the most logical and lead on to bigger and better happenings. It is an enticing prospect, and I'm really quite keen to get started before pooch wakes up and decides it is time for the Big Walk of the Day.

Staying Cool

Finally we have a dull, grey day, but it is still warm enough to wander around without a coat. I used to think May was a good month to visit Britain, but  anyone holidaying here this summer has been lucky beyond words.
Some days we've stayed indoors until the evening when things cooled down. The back of our house  - and the garden - face south, and so we get the sun all day long. That's great in the winter, when it helps warm the house, but this summer I've been following the French habit of closing the curtains and keeping the sun out on that side of the house. There's little air-cooling equipment around because we usually don't need it. John Lewis is always a nice department store to step into whatever the time of year, as they keep the air cool and fresh, but some of the older buildings can be unpleasant.

In May everything is new green and growing like mad and the weather is often sunny and gentle - or perhaps it just seems that way after the horrors of winter. Here in late August the cornfields are ready, some have already been cut, and the hedgerows are full of berries. It looks spectacular.

There is nothing quite so dispiriting as the sight of a cornfield laid flat by wind and rain, but this year the farmers must be laughing as every singe stalk stands tall and proud. In Somerset, government marksmen on behalf of farmers, are busy culling badgers because they claim they transmit TB to cattle. Given that other creatures - rabbits, deer, foxes, rats, mice and the like - all share the fields with cows, I don't know how they can be so sure badgers are the villains. Farmers in this locality shoot crows, which is sad because they're intelligent birds. We have a family of four who visit our garden, and we've watched the parents raise their brood each year. They're always together, the four of them, once the infants can fly. They seem such a happy group, much more so than the blackbirds, where the chicks harass the parents endlessly. The parent birds look quite hen-pecked by the time the fledglings can fend for themselves.

Tim and 10,000 steps

All the health pundits say we should walk 10,000 steps every day. Today we're only halfway through the day and Tim and I have walked  6,337.  By the end of the day we might have cracked it. Yesterday was 7,000 or so and the day before I forgot to wear the pedometer. One day I inadvertently set it to record kilometres rather than footsteps, and we did something like 6 k. It takes time to walk so many steps, but I have the time. Whether I have the stamina in this long hot summer of ours is another matter. I find I'm now thinking rather fondly of the autumn to come. Already the blackberries are ripening, and what a bumper crop we have in our hedgerows this year. Think of all those blackberry and apple crumbles we can have in the winter!

This morning we set off early, and walked across the river and up the hill towards the Roman Wall. After an hour, I phoned home and got dh to come and pick us up so we didn't have to face the long drag back uphill on the other side of the river when Tim and I were tired. Cheating, perhaps, but it makes it so pleasurable. The only other people we passed were two cyclists and for most of the route Tim ran off-lead, which he loves. We have lots of walks around here, and pretty countryside to do it is. (Cocks a snook at Lord Howells and his desolate north-east!) At puppy school I was told Tim should walk five minutes for every month of age, so right now he can do forty minutes. Given that the breed is noted for stamina, I've added in another third to that, otherwise after a couple of hours he'll be up and raring t go again.

In our early days together I walked him too far, remembering the long walks I used to do with my other Dalmatian so long ago. Tim began refusing to go out. He would sit on his backside on the lawn and just not go.  I was puzzled. Who knew of a dog that didn't want to go walkies? So I mentioned it at puppy school, which was where I learned that he'd walked too far and made his joints ache - associated the walks with pain. I felt so guilty! So now I'm more careful with him.

As a sideline of all this walking, I'm much fitter, but I wouldn't claim I've lost any weight. Possibly if I gave up the red wine, that would do more good! On the other hand, I can get into all my clothes - or nearly all of them. One pair of grey jeans to go and I'm home dry.

Plagiarism - Sins of Literature

Plagiarism is a crime against creativity, a mortal sin that has destroyed lives and careers. The contributors agreed to a difference between  brazen theft and inadvertently using a few words written by someone else as your own. The discussion ranged over many topics attached to or affecting plagiarism, and I captured a few of the main points.

Some authors think that if they write and publish a sentence, it belongs to them. Others think sentences belong to the world once they're published.
Will Self believes one can't avoid a bit of the old klepto when dealing with words. Malcolm Gladwell thinks there is a difference between the theft of a physical item such as a watch, and the theft of ideas and words.

Every young writers has authors in his head as models when he begins writing, They have studied literature for twenty years and their favourite authors are deeply embedded in their brains. They make a deep impression, and initially the budding writer writes in the style of ...... but the budding writer has to move away from them, must gradually discard them until the voice they use is theirs alone. That's when they've grown up as an Artist. One's own voice is only to be found by writing, writing and writing.

The impact of new technologies is changing our brains and making us smarter. Time moved slowly in the 15th century, but now it moves at a much faster pace, and novels need to be streamlined, too. The average reader wants Narrative, Characters and Entertainment when they read, and the long rambling novels of the sixties and seventies would not have more a a couple of hundred readers today. Copyright has only been in existence for two hundred years at best, and the rest of the time prose writing has been up for grabs, you might say. Electronic publishing will have a great impact on copyright and plagiarism, but the world hasn't really got to grips with the possibilities or the problems yet.

As a final word on plagiarism, Malcolm Gladwell thinks that if someone copies your words and uses them in a different way to you, that's OK; it is a compliment. If they use them in the same way, that's outrageous.

This celeb thing

Good pal Anita Davison has a blog up today entitled Jane Austen Didn't Have a Critique Group, and the thought made me smile. But for all we know, she may well have the equivalent around her in family and friends. I know she supposedly wrote in secret, but given the time writing a novel longhand takes, her sister at the very least must have been curious. How many letters can one person write? Especially when they don't go out to the post!

The main thrust of Anita's piece is that everyone seems to be writing a book these days. Anita and I live at opposite ends of the country, and I can safely say that but for the twenty or so people in my writers' group, no one else I know is a) writing a book or b) interested in writing one. Unless they're doing a Jane Austen and keeping quiet about it.

But like Anita, I deplore the number of celebrity novels out on sale. Some of them are not celebrities in my mind. I used to read Hello and OK magazines occasionally - mainly because I liked their range of photographs, but these days I recognise very few of the so called "celebs." A case in point - until yesterday I had never heard of the latest, greatest ever boyband One Direction. Now I've seen them, they look like very young teenagers, all with carefully coiffed hair. I know the Beatles looked young when they first hit the world, but heavens! this lot talk about it being difficult to leave their mums to go on tour! One wonders if they're old enough to go into a pub and order a drink.

I bought Rafa's biography because I'm interested in his tennis career. He was 25 when it came out, but in tennis terms, he'd had a life as a pro player from fifteen or sixteen. I suppose people buy celeb biogs because they're interested in acting or being a celeb themselves. Maybe they want to know how those people made it through the crowds of other young hopefuls. It's almost the same thing as everyone wanting to write a novel - everyone wants to be famous these days.

Here's a link to Anita's blog: http://thedisorganisedauthor.blogspot.co.uk

The White Queen and my thoughts

A lot of people will have enjoyed the White Queen on tv. I wished I had enjoyed it more. But I'm one of those people who go on about zippers in medieval clothes, and heroines who barely age between 24 and 46 in spite of living in perilous times and bearing 12 children. At the end of the series, Elizabeth's jawline was firm, sculptured and would be the envy of any sixteen year old. True, they made her look pale and sometimes she had a hint of bags under her eyes, but that's all.

Richard was never well cast in my view. There was something strange about Richard as portrayed here, and perhaps the fault lies in the dialogue he was given, but he always seemed wooden, as if that lovely padded jacket he wore was in reality a steel corset that kept him rigid. And the lines themselves - "I am the King! You will breathe for me!" he says to his dead son. No actor could make those lines work. Maybe the actor wanted to give Richard a brooding sense of wickedness held in check, but if he did he ought to have realised it did not blend well with the character's actions and dialogue.

The series never made clear who dealt the Princes in the Tower the final blow. (or if it did I missed it!) Was it Anne Neville? Or Margaret Beaufort? The curse on the boys' killer, made by Elizabeth and her daughter Elizabeth, seems to point to Anne (she died and her son died) but not to Margaret, whose son lived to father sons of his own, but then one son died.  One survived, but all Henry VIII's sons died, of course. Well, make of it what you will, the curse was a stroke of genius on Phillippa Gregory's part. I'm assuming the idea originated with her, and wasn't some folk tale she'd tapped into.

I thought the it was also a stroke of genius on the part of the film-makers to have the actor's breath cloud the air even when they stood in front of a roaring fire, hinting at the coldness of their surroundings. So many of the scenes were set in stone castles or churches, and they would have been cold indeed. But then they went too far. The Battle of Bosworth Field was fought on 22nd August and they filmed it in snowy, winter conditions with leafless trees!

My other gripe was that two actors looked so much like each other that I never got them straightened out. I think one bearded  gent was on Tudor's side and the other was on Richard's side. But have two big burly men with curly brown hair and beards made it so easy to confuse them. I think the acting award for the series goes to the actor who played Stanley. The one who played Margaret Beaufort was good, but by the end I had had enough of her mouth rolling grimaces, and to go to a man and ask him to sacrifice his son for hers was a step too far...the woman was obsessed and borderline mad. But there I go, confusing character and actor, so she must have been good.

Agents and autumn

AGENT HUNTER is a new website which claims to help writers find agents. A database of all UK literary agents, it will be regularly updated, and offers facilities for sorting the information to your own personal taste. It is the creation of The Writers’ Workshop, which as many of you will know, is an editorial consultancy for new writers. They also run the Festival of Writing in York. The website offers a free trial, and there is a registration fee of £12. Here's the link: http://www.agenthunter.co.uk/index.html
Today I need a dentist, so my creative levels may well be low. Unhappily my dentist is at home today because she cannot get child support on a Thursday. (School holidays play havoc with normal life!) She runs a one-person surgery, so that means waiting until tomorrow. I may well lose a pound or two, since eating is painful. A cap has flipped off, leaving the crumbling wreck of a tooth with jagged edges that slice into my tongue whenever I move it. Have you ever tried eating without moving your tongue? It cannot be done.
 I shall walk the dog by the riverside, pick some more blackberries - and what a good year for blackberries this seems to be - have soup through a straw for lunch, and settled down to an afternoon of reading over my first three chapters in print out format. When I'm out with Tim, I notice the tree are laden with berries, and hints of autumn are everywhere. Thistles are blooming, fruits are forming and show at all stages from brilliant green to deepest orange and purple. The long grass down by the river was cut last week, taken for hay, I suspect, and now the tunnels towering over Tim have vanished. He doesn't know what to make of it!