Nesta Tuomey's Blog: Nesta Tuomey author, page 5

Which Christmas books can you never forget?.

Coming close to Christmas books that I read long ago spring fondly to mind. Everyone has their own list. For the sake of brevity I will name only one here but high on mine would have to be 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'  Admittedly, there was a lot more to that book than the Christmas season, the overpoweringly hot dusty summer days featured strongly and the effect it all had upon the different  families living together in the overcrowded neighbourhood, aggravating the hardship of their...

Writing and selling the monumental lie.

When someone once asked the writer Barbara Taylor Bradford what a novel is she replied:  'It's a monumental lie that has to have the absolute ring of truth if it is to succeed.'  The year was 1988 and she had already written eight bestselling novels so knew what she was talking about.

It was an interesting definition of fiction. So many would-be  writers eagerly say of the book they have written, 'It's all true, it all really happened just as I wrote it,' as though that in itsel...

Writers can recoup their losses.

Years ago when my washing machine broke down there was a great guy who would come and fix it. He was kindly and chatty and when I worried about the cost of buying a new machine he would advise me to divide the purchase price by the months/years of service it gave me.On looking back it was a therapeutic way of looking at the problem.  Especially when you thought of the number of washes over time this indispensable machine gave a household of six. Even more so today when everyone is so con...

When do writers best ideas come?

Writers differ about what they are doing at the time their best ideas come.Some need to be walking along a country road with a stick in their hand before their minds unclench and  inspiration comes.  Others need a stimulant - coffee or alcohol - and others still to be under pressure before they can produce the necessary words. I have found that lane swimming gets me going and I have often worked out plots and found endings for stories as I battle up and down the pool. Admittedly it...

Life imitating art and vice versa

More usually I would have said that art imitated life whether on the canvas or through the lens of a camera, but in some instances the opposite is true. Years ago I wrote a story about an old lady sitting in her hat and coat in the front hall of the old people's home on Christmas Day  waiting for her son to call, and beginning to worry that he wasn't coming when it grew late.  It gets to the point when everyone  is going in to Christmas lunch and she dejectedly rises and follow...

'A great bedside companion - review by Stephen

Delighted to get a good review from America of my short story collection - The Straw Hat. In it are three Christmas  stories. How seasonal is that!

At Home for Christmas about a pilot stuck on reserve and on his way out to New York when he needs to turn around and head back for home!

The Usual Arrangement about an old lady waiting for her son to take her to join the family on Christmas Day . Alas, he is very late arriving. This one was broadcast  by the BBC a few years ago o...

Bone China - my favourite Roma Tearne novel.

Bone China by Roma Tearne

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


An excellent study of a family. Sadness and humour mixed told with sensitivity. The addition of the mynah bird, Jasper, to the household lightens all their hearts except that of Grace's relative, Myrtle, who had loved Aloysius but been rejected when he chose Grace instead, and she has never got over her jealousy and dislike of her beautiful cousin. Grace's husband is a disappointment to her and his heavy drinking and extravagance a worry. Their marriage is unsatisfactory and Grace in her loneliness seeks and finds a lover, another Tamil like her husband, yet totally different, a true lover in every sense.With him Grace experiences happiness and completeness unknown to her before. But it is short lived and she is devastated when he is killed the night of the Tamil strikers' demonstration when petrol bombs are thrown as the march is ending. Despite his many lacks Aloysius does care deeply for Grace and he is deeply concerned, even frightened, when she goes into a decline after her lover's death. He is unaware what has caused this change in his wife but provides support in so far as he is able, given his weakness for alcohol and lack of stability. Their daughter Alicia is a promising concert pianist and all is lightness and joy when she and Sunil fall in love and plan their wedding. Following it they find they cannot have a child and when tragedy hits the family some years later 'Alicia's pain slices through the de Silva household turning them mute. After the shock came a grief like no other' Alicia becomes a recluse, her great talent wasted as she buries herself in her sorrow. Jacob and Christopher leave for England and Grace's favourite, Thornton, with his charm and popularity marries Savitha and they have an amazingly confident and outgoing child, Meeka, the first grandchild for Grace and Aloysius. With the escalating civil war they too leave for a new life in England and Grace gives Savitha (of whom she has always been fond) her precious bone china collection to take with them; it has been in the de Silva family for years. It is Meeka who best survives the family's migration and makes the most of the opportunities afforded her in the new country but not without pain and heartache for the loss of her identity and her homeland.



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Themes that haunt writers.

I suppose unless you are haunted by a theme, especially one dealing with strong issues like tragedy, social injustice and basic human rights, you might well be guilty of putting it on the back boiler and forgetting all about it. Some years ago my brother urged me to visit him in Malaysia. He was a brilliant doctor and had a thriving private practice in Seremban, and my visit was long overdue.  Every year he used come back to Ireland and stay with us for a few weeks, he was godfather to m...

When your new novel is read for the first time.

If it is true that a play only comes alive when the actors speak your lines when does your novel begin to live? Is it the first time other eyes than your own start reading and absorbing the story?  Hard to say. Writers will tell you it has been living in their minds for so long, months, perhaps even years,and now it is out in the public for all to see. But most will agree there is nothing quite like that first time when others assess it  and it is no longer just your book anymore -...

Writers! Trust your instincts when it comes to your novel.

How much attention should writers pay to criticism, how much to their own instinct.  Too much attention and the baby may get thrown out with the bath water, not enough and they risk remaining unpublished. On looking back I remember certain comments made by publisher's readers. On my first novel one took exception to the heroine wearing fluffy pink mules but it was the 'Sixties and I'm sure many reading this would smile and own to a similar  frivilous taste in slippers when young and...