Barbara Spencer's Blog: Two sides to Every Story, page 3

Once upon a time ...

I used to love getting up in the mornings. As a children's author, the fun-filled frolics of my characters filled my heart with light and laughter.
No more!
Since I decided to go it alone and write for an older audience, I have become a droop-faced moody creature for whom the cut and thrust of battle-filled pages belongs in the past. Instead, chained to my desk facing a list of 'things to be done today', my little pleasures (Oliver Twist) have been taken away by the need to market my own books.
For many of us, for whom the written word was a life-engendering force, the trend towards self-publishing is ... at the very least, an uncomfortable experience. At its worst, it is like a manned-mission to Mars. Unthinkable! The excitement on children's faces as they dipped into O C Longbotham or one of Jack Burnside's Dangerous Adventures, or the sight of my books on a shelf in the public library, it was enough to send me scurrying to find a notebook and pencil to write down my latest ideas.


These days, I don't bother to ask, 'who IS the bell tolling for' because I know damn well it is tolling for me. When faced with the list below, like the favourite at the Cheltenham Gold Cup, I fall at the first fence ...

mail your contacts to announce it.Create a post on your blog—include an image and an audio sample.Post a status update on Facebook, and link to your product page at online retailers.Tweet about it.Send influential colleagues and reviewers a synopsis or free copy of your audiobook.Ask key peers and colleagues if they would help share the news by emailing or tweeting about your book.Request listener reviews from your contacts. Retailers that are selling your book will allow for reviews.Review related titles on Amazon and link your reviews back to your Author Page on Amazon.Respond to or retweet any commentary you receive.Encourage your audience to buy your book

As I grow older, I become more and more like the Leaning...

As I grow older, I become more and more like the Leaning Tower of Piza, although in my case the curvature of the spine is the result of constantly stretching to pick up my Thesaurus, as valuable to me as a bottle of water in a drought! From that has come the phrase: ‘Going to bed with a dictionary’ 

To my my mind this immediately conjures an obscure radio interview or perhaps Desert Island Discs, in which some celebrity or egg-head of sparkling wit and inexhaustible vocabulary also admits to reading several daily newspapers and a least one obscure novel, translated from the Russian, a month.In my case, however, the term, ‘going to bed with a dictionary’ means something quite different. 
My computer is upstairs in my bedroom and often, in a spirit of laziness I leave my bed unmade, pulling the covers over when I go to bed that night. In the middle of the night, I stretch out my hand and encounter something with spiky pages, hard and unyielding … my dictionary that I have forgotten to put away. (Indeed, I might as well as said, a thesaurus except this sounds more like some prehistoric animal.)
Not exactly the answer to my dreams. 

Farewell to Goodreads

Goodreads is supposed to be the personification of marketing. You are supposed to join in discussions, blog, uploads your books, recommend books. However, to be honest I find my way onto a page and next time, I can't. It has vanished, never to see light of day again. Indeed my ebooks that were loaded this morning: 'Broken' and 'Time Breaking' have vanished into the ether and will never be seen again ... nor read.

I feel like the man in the cartoon who is found on the ledge of a skyscraper, intending to jump because he can't find the end of the selotape. Goodreads leaves me suicidal. Each time I enter the site, I promise myself ... this time it will be different. It's like tomorrow ... it never comes.

The vaguaries of British weather

Summer has arrived and with it boiling hot days followed by chill nights and grey rain-soaked mornings. Surely, with all the research carried out in this country, it would be possible to let us know once and for all if we possess the most diverse climate in the world ... although I believe Melbourne, Australia, might run us pretty close. But not overtake ...

Where I live in the west country, within a mile or two we possess at least three different climates.
Streets and Glastonbury can be dry and sunny, the opposite of the city of Wells, a couple of miles distant, where it is often dull and overcast if not actually raining. The Mendip Hills play a big part in our weather but I am positive that aliens are to blame, when they established runes through Glastonbury with another through the village of Coxley. Here as if there is a No Entry sign in the middle of the road, the rain often stops dead. There's another line right through my property, small as it is. It can be raining in the back garden but not the front.
How weird you say?
Totally!

And only two miles from Wells on the Bath road, the gentle slope has slush changing to snow, which lingers longer, with flowers blooming ten days later.

And Shepton Mallet! Less than nine miles away - I take a sweater even on a hot day.

'Going to bed with a dictionary'

‘Going to bed with a dictionary’ immediately conjures to mind an obscure radio interview or perhaps Desert Island Discs, in which some celebrity or egg-head of sparkling wit and inexhaustible vocabulary also admits to reading several daily newspapers and a least one obscure novel, translated from the Russian, a month.In my case, however, the term, ‘going to bed with a dictionary’ means something quite different. 
My computer is upstairs in my bedroom and often, in a spirit of laziness I leave my bed unmade, pulling the covers over when I go to bed that night. In the middle of the night, I stretch out my hand and encounter something with spiky pages, hard and unyielding … my dictionary that I have forgotten to put away. (Indeed, I might as well as said, a thesaurus except this sounds more like some prehistoric animal.)
Not exactly the answer to my dreams.  

A reason to celebrate the shortest day of the year

The winter solstice, Dec21, should be deemed international brain day. This extraordinary product of evolution can differentiate between red lights, green lights, blue flashing lights, yellow lights, traffic lights, Christmas lights, headlights, silver lights, tree lights, police lights, cat eyes and 30 mile-an-hour warning lights; whilst listening to the radio, deciding what to give your husband/partner/family for Christmas, mopping the windscreen, turning up the car heater, accelerating, braking, changing gear, and putting on the windscreen wipers. Pretty good piece of kit, I'd say

A Memory of Childhood

As I watch my grandchildren stare at images burned into the acrylic surface of a DVD, the years crowd backwards to my own childhood. Maybe our two generations share little besides the gift of self-absorption that life awards to the young, allowing, for the most part, children to skate blithely through their early years, ignorant of the complexities of adulthood.      In my house, weekdays were confined to school and homework with The Archers, Goon Show or Dick Barton on the radio. Saturday often meant an outing with my father to the golf club followed by a visit to the pictures. He worked away during the week. Arriving late on Friday nights, Saturday always began with him cleaning his clubs on the kitchen table, pushing the breakfast cloth to one side – much to my mother’s ill-concealed irritation – while he lovingly oiled the head of his woods. By the age of nine, I was awarded the privilege of accompanying him to the municipal course, where, as a reward for dragging his trolley round nine holes, I was given a jam tart and a drink of Tizer in the clubhouse.       Of the game of golf I remember little except for the bonhomie that accompanied winning, and the lowering ill-tempered glances that walked hand in hand with losing. Occasionally, when an unexpected sound broke my father’s concentration in the middle of a shot, a bad-tempered expletive would hit the air followed, if he was losing, by a few choice words. Woe betide anyway approaching without earshot who happened to be pushing a squeaky trolley. Even a wayward golf ball came in for its fair share of invective if it refused to drop into the hole. Tournaments, of which there were many, were also recipients of this maverick behaviour; my father arriving home with a box of silver spoons or a club bent like a boomerang after an encounter with a tree, beaten into submission following a bad hook or slice that had lost him the match.      I wasn’t aware as a child that my father’s life existed of two things only: work and golf. The full extent of his uncaring nature became clear during my first year at college, when I was taken very ill. He drove through the city on his way to a golf match, ignoring the severity of his daughter’s plight and never came near.      But as a child, Saturday was the day I dreamed of all week; the night my father and I went to the pictures. I had older sisters but they mostly stayed at home with my mother. I was too young to know then that I’d been set up as the fall guy, my job to keep father away from the house and in a good mood when he returned.      With at least five picture houses within easy reach, with names like Tivoli, Regal and Sheldon, there was always something in the newspaper that I wanted to see. In truth, even in those days I found the celluloid screen as addictive as children find a DS today. Two of the cinemas were within walking distance, others required a short ride on a trolley bus up or down the Coventry Road. We didn’t have a car. My grown-up cousin who lived with us because of a shortage of housing, he did. The first in our long road; a brightly polished black vehicle with running boards, always surrounded by an admiring audience of kids, whose idea of heaven was a peak under the bonnet at the spark plugs and carburettor.      So we walked or took the bus across the border into fantasy land, where my dreams were played out in Technicolor; cowboys and Indians fought pitched battles and John Wayne bellowed Hi-Yaa to his horse before vaulting on to it – a far cry from the ridiculous walk on that modern film-makers use.      To my shame I haven’t the slightest idea what films my father liked or disliked. In the world that children inhabit, he was simply the obligatory adult that handed over one and nine pence for a ticket to the balcony and provided sixpence for a vanilla tub of ice cream, while I feasted my eyes on the flashing images on the screen. I don’t recall whether he ever expressed a liking for one star over another, although he was a young man and even in our modern society, young men still take their fantasies very seriously. For all I know he may well have lusted after beautiful faces, long legs, and low cleavages, personified by stars such as Rita Hayworth and Ava Gardner. To me he was simply father who took me to see the films I wanted to see.      If my memory serves, most of the picture houses were built of red brick. Only one, in Kings Heath, was white with a façade like the prow of a ship; a magnificent art deco stained-glass window looming high over the pavement. At street level, miniature replicas were rapidly being replaced by plain glass, as urchins wielding stones used them for target practice. White marble steps, with handrails of polished brass, led up into a foyer with its plush carpet, rain-soaked and scuffed at the edges. A few steps further and you were surrounded by swirls of gold and red that beckoned you onward into a secret world that existed behind the dark grey of the sound-proofed doors. And these could be opened, not with a cry of open sesame, but the purchase of a ticket.       In those days, there was nearly always a queue, waiting patiently behind a board, on which were scrolled the words: balcony queue here. My father liked going upstairs – as did I. Even from outside, I could hear the stairs to the balcony calling to me. With their wide and shallow treads that circled round gold-clad walls lit by delicate sconces of candle light, they were an integral part of the magic that awaited. And for precious seconds, I was one of these magical creature, soaring upwards and floating down wth feet easily as nimble and light as those of Ginger Rogers, my imaginary ball gown drifting in an equally imaginary breeze. For cinemas were always crowded and always hot.      But the memorable thing about the queues, that wrapped round the walls of the cinema building, like a birthday bow, they didn’t last long. People were mostly honest and left once they had seen the programme round. Although, I freely admit to seeing Jane Eyre, with Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine, round twice and crying both times. But, in my defence, it was afternoon and there were empty seats.      ‘Two,’ the commissionaire would intone, appearing on the marble steps and holding up two fingers.       Conversation ceased as the crowd awoke, those at the back anxiously poking the people in front to move forward; someone hissing, ‘Go on, that means you,’ as if rushing in would immediately empty other seats.       While father was waiting in line to buy our tickets, I spent the few moments stargazing; worshipping at the altar of legendary movie stars; their glossy black and white photographs sensibly encased in glass on the wall. With faces as familiar as your own, they were far grander than any of our modern celebrities; an entire industry was dedicated to them, every word fed to the public carefully scripted to enhance the magic that was cinema.       At the box office, tickets, small with the consistency of blotting paper, slid out from silver-coloured slots. If you were heading for the stalls, you were allowed only a moment or two to savour their texture and colour, before an usherette ripped them in half and opened the door.       There the world in all its glory began. Whether you sat upstairs or down, the moment the doors opened you were captivated. Like a moth drawn towards a flame, the moving images on the huge screen grabbed you, stealing your attention away from the task in hand; that of negotiating your way to your seat, guided only by the downward spiral of the usherette’s torch. It would have been easier if you could keep your eyes on the ground – but you can’t. Hypnotised by the onscreen images, your gaze is trapped and fixed and like a zombie you stumble down any number of white edged steps. The usherette flashes her light towards two empty seats in the middle of the row. There’s never a choice, never a, shall we sit here?You take what’s on offer and are glad to do so, thrilled to be there, a part of the Hollywood experience. Seats bang up and for a few precious seconds chaos rules, as obliging patrons are forced to their feet, awkwardly clutching umbrellas, trilbies and raincoats to their bosom, their eyes never wavering – fixed straight ahead. From the row behind, a shuffling arises as people impatiently lean first one way and then another, trying to see round the bodies blocking their view. A muttered ‘sit down will you,’ hits the air, from those anxious not to miss a second, their glance still never wavering  And, after the obligatory second, long enough to stuff your coat under your seat, you join them – mesmerized.      At the interval, maybe an organ takes over. A massive chord announces its appearance out of the ground in front of the stage. It launches into a lighthearted medley of popular dance tunes allowing people queue up for ice cream or the wc. As lights dim again for the start of a second film, there were always two, with a final triumphant blast it descends below ground again, leaving the usherettes with torches to guide newcomers to their seats.      Sometimes my route to the screen was blocked by a hat and then I perched on the back of my seat or my father changed places. Often the film broke down, leaving squiggles on the screen, deeply laggard speech and a wild fluttering sound as the celluloid roll flapped helplessly against its spindle. Coughs, groans and whistles of annoyance sever the enthralled silence of the auditorium, and an ironic cheer breaks out as the projector whirls back into action.      ‘Do we have to,’ I say, when the film reaches the point at which we came in and, if father has liked the film, maybe we stay on another five or ten minutes. Then, dragging my feet, my head still fixed to the screen, I reluctantly squeeze past those still happily watching. Most times though, on Saturday night, we’d accompany the crowd out at the end and, if hungry, call in at the chip shop.      Even the taste of chips is fondly remembered; soaked in salt and vinegar and wrapped in newspaper – a neat pile of sheets waiting for customers. In those days, the print didn’t come off and you weren’t left with ink-stained hands when you screwed up the paper afterwards. I don’t remember how much chips cost, ten pence sounds familiar. Down in Small Heath, Smith’s Crisps factory sold bags of broken crisps, with a peck of salt packed in a screw of dark blue paper, for a penny.      In all the years my father and I went to the cinema, I never once wondered why only the two of us ever went. Perhaps it was dozen years later that I finally understood that the images of a caring father, taking his daughter on an outing, were as false as the lives we saw on screen. He only took me to the cinema to escape being in the house, and my mother let him because she hated him being there.      I wish the magic of Hollywood could conjure up some gentle deity whose job it is to protect children from the heart-wrenching lives of adults long enough for them to learn how to cope. I never did understand why my mother or sisters couldn’t be bothered to listen when I prattled on about the tap-dancing feet of Fred Astaire, or the tenor voice of Mario Lanza or the swash-buckling sword-play of Stewart Granger – unless it was I was guilty by association.

The never-ending repetition of history

Wanting to understand more about the current situation in Gaza, I borrowed A Very Short Introduction The Palestinian-Israeli conflict by Martin Bunton.

Having now reached the age when I can admit to having lived through many of the incidents in this very readable account; indeed I was caught up in the civil war in Beirut in 75, I found this book absolutely fascinating and come away with a far reater understanding. This humanitarian disaster in Gaza is not the first nor the second or even the third and I quote : from a passage about 1949
"Based on the belief that a constant show of Israel's military superiority would eventually force the Arab world to accept Israel's present, this attitude ensured that no attack on Israel would go unpunished. Indeed, it was made clear that Israel would retaliate with disproportionate force. While the policy of severe retaliation may have served at some level as a deterrent, the policy also contributed to heightened enmity and a repeating cycle of violence in which both Arabs and Jews saw themselves as innocent victims acting against injustice." 

Where has all the fun gone?

I've got music playing - a welcome change from TV. Am I getting old or is telly becoming more and more dismal every day? Programmes used to be fun, especially comedy. Once written with skill, now audiences are expected to find swearing, over-emphasis, and crude jokes funny. I don't. Even crudity needs skill, a good director, excellent comedy actor and a good delivery to make you laugh - not simply words stated with emphasis. Sadly I have also seen most of the re-runs of detective series at least once. The criteria for that is - once you remember 'who done it' they are no longer of interest. Fortunately I have a shelf full of books! They never let you down.

Authors Grand Launch Festival Blog Train

Welcome to Author's Cave Blog Train - In total we have 1300 members spread across several countries so join in and make Grand Festival Day, on the 22nd July, a day to remember.


Who am I : A grandmother who writes great books for children and young adults. I live in Somerset in the south-west of England which is a terrible drag when I go to schools or booksignings because I have to be up by 5 a.m. to get to the station. I used to live in the Caribbean, also the United States, Europe and the Middle East. As a result all my books have a little bit of my life in them, including the one above: Time Breaking.

Is everyone sitting comfortably: then allow me to introduce you to 3 writers and their books.

The Riddle of Prague by Laura DeBruce       About Hana by K T Bowes    The Woodman by G.H Bright
 

I don't what the weather is like where you are. Here, it's perfect for taking a good book into the garden!