Martin Lake's Blog, page 6

Sunrise, Moonset

It’s 5.45 in the morning. The sun has not yet risen but it is painting the few fluffs of cloud a myriad of colours. Some are a delicate pink, others a whipped cream, a few dark and ominous. The night sky has gone now but the full glare of the summer sky has not appeared. It is a gentle, filmy blue; a water-colour sky.

To the west the full moon is beginning to set. It is large and bright, like a sixpence nailed to the sky. It is a whole cheese, certainly, a white cheese, a Brie or a Camembert. Maybe a very young Cheddar. The seas are dark and vivid, a happy face with a lop-sided smile.

The moon has been queen for the night. I get the impression that she’ll find the young sun rather brash and tiresome. She’ll be happy to retire for the day.

No cockerel welcomes the dawn here. The raucous screams of seagulls punctuate the cooing of the collared dove which perches on our terrace. What is it calling to, the sun or the moon? Or the dim cry of its mate in the far distance?

There is a cool wind today. The heat-wave is, perhaps, over. A turning point.

Sunrise, Moonset.

A Sale in India

Whoopie – I’ve sold my first book in India. A Love Most Dangerous.

Alice Petherton. The opening of the next novel. #histnov #writing

Here is the opening of my new Alice Petherton novel.

 

‘For goodness sake stop that awful caterwauling,’ I said.

Sissy looked up at me in alarm. ‘I was only humming, Alice. It was a little song.’

‘Well it’s a very irritating little song.’

She bit her lip. ‘Sorry. It’s just I don’t notice when I’m doing my needlework.’

I shook my head in exasperation and turned back to my notebook. I could not find the right word. The verse was almost finished and I was pleased with it. But I needed a word to describe how the maid felt when she first saw her lover. No word was right. Some sounded too ridiculous, the ravings of a love-sick child. Others sounded too cold, too austere to describe a real true love. I wanted the woman to be a woman not an ice-maiden. And I did not want her to spout words like some scholar who had read of love in dusty volumes but never experienced it.

I put down my pen. Was the difficulty because I had never truly felt love in my own heart? I felt myself frown as I thought back on these last two years. Oh, I had known plenty much of love-making. Despite his age and injury the King was boisterous and demanding when he felt in the mood for pleasure. But how much had I known of love?

The King sometimes told me that he loved me. But this was in rare moments, the times when he let his guard down. Perhaps it was when he was hot with lust and intent on wooing me, or perhaps because he was distracted by some passing thought and forgot he must ever play the King. Or perhaps because we had just made love and for a moment he was a little more besotted with me.

But had I loved him? That was the question. Had I loved any man? Unbidden the image of Art Scrump came to my mind. I dismissed it at once. It was best not to go there. Best not to uncover that nest of baby birds and hissing vipers.

I thought back to the King. Had I loved him ever? Did I love him now?

It seemed a silly question as I asked it, a foolish notion altogether. Of course I did not love him. I was his mistress, his bed-fellow; that was all. And he was my protector, my shield. My master in every way. Pay-master, bed-master, lord and master.

Could a servant truly love her master? Could a hound? Yes, a hound could. But a kitten? Now there was a different matter entirely.

‘How’s the poem going, Alice?’ Sissy asked shyly.

‘Not very well.’

‘Ah, I’m sorry. You write such lovely songs.’

‘They’re not songs, Sissy. They’re poems. How many times do I have to tell you?’

She bit her lip, her face contrite. ‘I’m sorry, Miss. It’s just hard for me to understand. When you read them they sound a bit like songs.’

‘But they’re not songs.’

‘Why not though? I bet Mary could set them to music. Then they’d sound much better.’

I opened my mouth to remonstrate but thought better of it. Sissy would never understand the difference between poetry and songs. To be very honest I wasn’t sure I could explain it either. I would have to ask Sir Thomas Wyatt.

‘Where is Mary?’ I asked.

‘She’s with Susan in the sitting room. They thought you’d best be left in peace to get on with your songs.’

‘Poems, Sissy, poems.’

‘Yes, Alice.’ She put down her needle-work. ‘Shall I get them? Shall I tell them you’ve finished?’ She looked out of the window. ‘Oh look. It must be nearly time for dinner. How this day has flown.’

I glanced out of the window. The sky was a murky, grey colour, mud-brown. I hated this time of year. The lovely colours of autumn had flown away and the dull dank days of November had settled on the world with all their sullen misery. It had been a particularly dreary November this year. Brooding, heavy clouds blanketed the sky without even the relief of rain. On a few days the wind had whipped up and blown the sky clear. But within hours the clouds had crept back; darker, more determined. It lowered my spirits.

‘When will Christmas come?’ I wondered aloud.

‘Not long now,’ Sissy cried. ‘It’s Advent Sunday tomorrow.’

‘So it is.’ My heart sank. This meant it would be an exceptionally long sermon tomorrow, even more so as the priest would want to impress the Archbishop who was coming to the Palace. At least he was courteous company.

Sissy got up and stood over me. She had that quiet determined look which she had developed of late. ‘It is dinner time, Alice,’ she said. ‘They’ll be waiting to serve.’

Waiting on me, I thought. Even after a year I could not quite reconcile myself to the fact that I was mistress of Greenwich Castle.

‘Come along then,’ I said. ‘Let’s join the others.’

 

I’m about 20,000 words into the first draft of the new novel. Lots of new characters and a deadly peril for Alice.

This novel begins two years after the end of A Love Most Dangerous.

Rhythm

Two words I always struggle to spell correctly are yacht and rhythm.  It took me three attempts to write rhythm correctly and I gave up on yacht and used the spell checker.  (I’ve had to do it a second time already.)

When I was a child I saw a drawing of a yacht in a picture book and was captivated by it. I loved the idea of the tiny hull with the huge, graceful sail soaring above it.  Whenever we had rabbit stew I would fish out the rib-cage and pretend it was the remains of a dinosaur and another bone that looked like the sail of a yacht which I would hold aloft as I ran around the house. (We were not a rich family.) Now that I live on the French Riviera I delight to watch the yachts as they glide across the water.

But I did not come here to write about yachts. I came to write about rhythm and more specifically the rhythm of writing. By this I mean the stages of writing which I prefer to call rhythm.

In theory I write in these stages: 1. Research and Planning. 2. Write the book. 3. Edit. Nice, simple and neat.

But that’s not the reality. In practice I write more like this: 1. Research and Planning. 2.Write first draft and still carry on researching. I also edit throughout this stage as each morning I normally re-read what I’ve written the day before to iron out any errors, typos, characters changing names, shapes, personalities etc. 3. Edit and then 4. Rewrite.

So that’s one rhythm. It’s much more organic and fluid than the simple three-stage model I have in my mind before I start writing.

It’s the second aspect of rhythm which is much more tricky. This is because between stages 2. Writing and 3. Editing I like to rest the book. It gives me a break from the full-on writing stage and, even more importantly, gives me distance from what I’ve written so that I can come back to it with a fresher eye.

The difficulty is what to do in this period. Do I start a new novel? Or do I merely research a new novel and put this on hold while I go back and edit the one I’m ‘working on.’ This means that the new novel has an awfully long gap between Stage 1 and Stage 2.  Researching and writing a new novel means that there is an even longer gap between Stage 2 and Stage 3 of the previous novel.

I’ve tried both and even tried the straight through method although I don’t think this works as well or me as I need the break before I start doing an edit.

It’s a conundrum which I’m going through now as I’ve just finished writing the first draft of ‘Scarecrow Army’ (working title) and can’t stop thinking, researching and planning the second instalment of Alice Petherton.

Talking of which, I was playing with a Pinterest board for ‘A Love Most Dangerous’ and came across this picture:

 

 

 

Now he’s a cool looking guy and he shouted at to me to use him in my new book. What will he think of Alice? And what will she think of him?

I’ve just found out that he may have been a poet called Nicholas Bourbon who went to Henry VIII’s court to thank him and Anne Boleyn for their help.

Now this is research by serendipity. I like it.

Authors create product, readers consume product—those in between must provide long-term value

Martin Lake:

A thoughtful post from Bob Mayer

Originally posted on Write on the River:

When talking with an author about possibly partnering with Cool Gus, the second they drop the phrase “my agent” into the conversation, we know the odds of coming to a working partnership are not likely.  This is not because agents are evil or mean, but because we’ve found most to be mired in an outdated business model and unable to see the advantages of focusing on long-term profitability.  This is because traditional publishing didn’t particularly value the long tail because it wasn’t possible with limited shelf space in consignment outlets, called bookstores.

That’s changed.

Ten years ago when someone from the outside asked me to describe the publishing business, I would say:  “Slow and Techno-phobic”.  While the Big 5 and others scramble to adapt to the digital world, there is a segment that has been very resistant to the winds of change blowing through the publishing world:  agents.

When I…

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The Night the Earth Moved

Last night I was sitting writing at my computer when my chair shook. The light in the room was moving, casting shadows on the wall. Startled, I glanced round and saw that the lamp was rocking gently on the floor as if some giant cat were playing with it, tapping it like it was a ball of wool.

I could not understand what was happening. I’d never experienced anything like this before. I went out onto the terrace and looked around. There was nothing untoward, no explosions, no flying saucers, no crash on the nearby train line.

I went back into the apartment, Maybe it was some extremely angry poltergeist. And then I guessed. Could it be an earthquake? I stood unmoving, silent, straining to feel and hear anything more. There was nothing. I went to bed.

This morning I found out that it was indeed an earthquake. It was felt all along the Cote d’Azur. It reminded me of how much more wild and savage the south of France is than where I used to live in the south west of England.

Another Writing Tool

If you’ve been following my blog you’ll know that my newest novel ‘A Love Most Dangerous’ appeared without me intending it to at all. I sat down at my computer and doodled and the first few sentences appeared….

To be a servant at the court of King Henry is to live with your heart in your mouth. This is so whether you are young or old, male or female. Some, of course, have more cause for concern than others. I am young and I am female. So the danger to me is considerable.

The danger is the more acute because I am pretty and the Queen is in the last month of her confinement.

Henry has divorced one wife and executed the second. But that is far from the whole story. A string of shattered hearts lies strewn across the land like pearls from a necklace broken in rage. Aye, it’s true that complicit fathers, brothers, uncles and even husbands have got rich by leading their women like heifers to the courtly market. It is the women who give the most and suffer the most

I guess that this is a good example of inspiration. But inspiration does not necessarily come when you want it to. Sometime it needs a little encouragement and help.

I’ve used this writing tool when I’m at a loss for something to write.

It works by harnessing your inner muse.

If you give it a go you may find that allowing your sub-conscious off the leash will help when you are at a loss for a story or how to progress one you are stuck on.

Be warned though; it doesn’t work for everybody.

It makes use of the following categories of story:

1. setting

2. protagonist

3. antagonist

4. theme

5. conflict

6. main action

7. subplots

8. resolution/cliff-hanger

9. point of view

Here’s what you do.

Look around you, or go for a walk, and note down the nine most memorable objects you see.

Give each object a number.

Use the first memorable object to answer the following question: In what way is (the object) like or unlike the setting of my story?

Write down your answer.

Then ask yourself: In what way is object 2 like or unlike the protagonist of my story?

Write down the answer.

In what way is object 3 like or unlike the antagonist of my story?

Write down the answer.

In what way is object 4 like or unlike the theme of my story?

Write the answer down.

And so on down to object 9 and point of view.

This gives you a lovely framework for your writing.

Try it and let me know how it worked for you.

A Writing Tool Box

I’ve been using Scrivener to write my last few novels. It is simply the best writing tool I’ve ever used. It has so many tools and gizmos that I doubt I’ll ever make use of them, or want to, come to that.

But there are still some tools which I make use of and have incorporated into my Scrivener templates. (Including the novel bibles I have started using since David Hewson wrote about it.)

The best tool is to apply my posterior to a seat and get writing. No, not like that. Never smoke a pipe near your manuscript.

In addition to taking a seat there are a few other tools which I regularly make use of and which can prove very useful.

The first is my WRITING LOG.  This is a simple table showing each day of the week.  I use it to note down the number of words I’ve written that day and the cumulative total to date.  It is wonderfully motivating and encouraging.  In fact it’s a real carrot and stick.  I would not write a novel without this.  It’s done more to keep me on track and writing than anything else. Scrivener has a rather more sophisticated version which uses a nice coloured bar to show how far you’ve got in your target for the day and the overall book. But I always transfer this to my Writing Log so I can see how I’m doing day by day.

The second tool is my COMBINED MASTER PLANNING DOCUMENT.  In this I have combined elements of the Hero’s Journey, Propp’s Morphology of the Folk Tale and Aristotle’s Key Plot Elements.  I then map my novel according to these and file it away.  I rarely look at it again unless I get stuck.  If I do chance to look at it I sometimes find I am keeping pretty much to the plan, other times hardly at all.  Neither worries me.  I find that the plotting is useful in itself as I never used to pay enough attention to this aspect of my writing.

CHRONOLOGY  This is the essential tool for my historical novels.  I have four columns.  One is for the date.  The second is for the general events which took place that year.  The third and fourth show what is happening to my protagonist and antagonist (and their followers) in that year.

CHARACTER LIST  This is my newest tool and I have found it invaluable.  Again, it’s a simple table with the essential information about each character.  It helps me keep track of who is who in the novel and important information about them.  As many of my characters are historical figures I find it helps to put a picture of them, ideally as close to the date of the story as possible.

When I get stuck or find myself caught up with too many choices I resort to more lateral thinking devices such as using my subconscious.

None of these tools are essential and I don’t rely on any of them.  But they are great aides when things go a little awry in my writing.

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Meeting King Henry #HistNov

Here’s an extract from my latest novel.

CHAPTER FOUR

The King of England

19 September 1537

 

It was the third week in September but the weather continued unseasonably warm. King Henry had been walking in the garden with some gentleman attendants but must have wished for some solitude for he gestured them to move some distance from him. He walked over to a bower of roses which were now shrivelling on the branch. The autumn winds blew fallen petals about his feet, hither and thither, skittish as a filly.

I opened up my book of verse and strolled across the lawn, reading from the book as I walked.

The King had some small acquaintance of me although he had only spoken to me once, on Mayday. He wished me good day. I did him a curtsy and made to walk on.

‘You have a book, Alice Petherton,’ he called. ‘Is this for decoration or education?’

I curtsied once more and glanced up at him before looking at the ground demurely.

‘For education, Your Majesty,’ I said in a low voice. ‘I seek to improve myself.’

Out of the corner of my eye I saw his eyes slide from the book to my breasts and then to my hair.

‘Don’t bend your head to the ground, child,’ he said. ‘Your King will not harm you by his gaze.’

I took a breath and raised my head. The newly risen sun illuminated the lower part of my face but my eyes remained in shadow.

I saw his chest move, as if a wind of passion was surging within. He held out his hand for the book.

‘Poems by Sir Thomas Wyatt,’ he said, perusing the title. He flipped open the pages. ‘Do you like the Sir Thomas’s poems, Alice Petherton?’

‘I do Your Majesty. They are ably written.’

Henry’s eyes narrowed and his head turned as if he could not believe his ears. ‘Ably written?’ he said. ‘A chit of a girl talks of my foremost poet, a knight of the Kingdom, in such a manner?’

I curtsied again. ‘I meant no disrespect,’ I said.

‘Perhaps what you mean and what you say are very different matters, Alice Petherton?’

‘They are not designed so, Your Majesty. It must be my youthful ignorance.’

He said nothing but continued to stare at me. The sun had risen higher now and dissolved the shadows which had hidden the top of my face from his gaze.

‘You have very dark eyes,’ the King said. ‘Very dark. And yet your hair is blond and your complexion pale.’

‘Many have remarked upon this, Majesty.’

‘Your eyes are the colour of damsons,’ he continued. He gestured me closer, tilted my head and looked into my eyes. I felt the heat of him beating down upon me, or perhaps it was my own heat, gusting like a wind in summer.

‘Yes, very like damsons,’ he murmured. ‘Dark eyes are hard to read, don’t you think, Alice Petherton?’

‘Not as hard as the poems of the Sir Thomas Wyatt, Your Majesty.’

He looked at me again, a quizzical look upon his face. I saw his emotions battling, his thoughts flying. Then he tilted back his head and laughed. It was a pleasant laugh, not loud, not soft; as natural a laugh as a King could make. Yet as he laughed his eyes locked fast upon me.

I smiled, a gentle smile, as if I smiled not at my own words but at my lord’s pleasure.

His laughter stopped. He stared at me as if had not properly seen me until this moment.

When he spoke again his voice was changed, deeper and cloying.

‘I would know you better, Alice Petherton,’ he said. ‘I would read poems with you.’

‘I am at Your Majesty’s pleasure,’ I said, giving another curtsy. But as I did so I made sure that my eyes never left his face.

‘A Love Most Dangerous’ is available on Kindle for $3.07, £1.84 or equivalent.

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A Love Most Dangerous

Early in April 2013 I sat at the computer wondering what to write. I had just finished the first draft of ‘Blood of Ironside’ and put it away for a rest before I started on the second draft.

I thought I might write a short story. I put my fingers on the keyboard and wrote this:

To be a servant at the court of King Henry is to live with your heart in your mouth. This is so whether you are young or old, male or female. I am young and I am female. So the danger to me is considerable. The danger is the more acute because I am pretty and the Queen is in the last month of her confinement.

I sat back bemused. Who was talking? I knew when the period was, more or less. But I was writing from the point of view of a girl. I had never done this before.

And then I wrote:

Henry has divorced one wife and executed the second. But that is far from the whole story. A string of shattered hearts lies strewn across the land like pearls from a necklace broken in rage. Aye, it’s true that complicit fathers, brothers, uncles and even husbands have got rich by leading their women like heifers to the courtly market. It is the women who give the most and suffer the most grievously.

Unless of course, they are clever.

It does not do to be too clever. Anne Boleyn taught us this. For make no mistake, King Henry is more clever than any man in the kingdom now that Thomas Wolsey is dead. And he is as subtle and wily as even the most cunning of women. Anne’s head rolling from the block is testimony to that.

The trick is to show your cleverness to just such a degree that Henry is intrigued by it but not threatened. The second trick is to intimate that your cleverness is at his disposal even more than your own. And the third trick? Ah, the third trick is to be willing to bed the great beast of appetites and to know when to do it.

My name is Alice Petherton and I am seventeen years of age. I came to court as a simple servant but I caught the eye of Anne Boleyn when she was newly crowned. I was good at singing, could dance like an elf and made her laugh and think. She took me as one of her maids of honour and my slow approach to the furnace began.

Alice’s voice took hold of me. For the next year, apart from an interlude when I revised Blood of Ironside, I have lived with Alice Petherton. My wife is very tolerant.

I did not know much about the Tudor period, having learned too much about it from a History teacher who was obsessed by Henry VIII. So I had to research as I wrote. I usually do some research as I write but I had to do far more as I went along for this novel.

I learned about maids of honour:

The Queen’s chamber was crowded when we arrived. Jane Seymour sat close to the window, working, as always, at her embroidery. She was said to be the finest needlewoman at court, and not merely by sycophants. I admired her work and knew that no matter how hard I tried I would never produce anything close to its quality

This was partly because I loathed working with needle and thread. I much preferred to spend my hours in reading, or even writing. But Jane liked to do neither and so all her ladies and maids must, perforce, bend themselves and their minds to the constant poke and stitch of needlework. Sometimes, at the end of the day, my fingers felt like pin-cushions.

About food, feasts and fasts:

In the centre of the table lay a roast boar, the scent of its rich meat wafting across the Hall, enticing the taste buds like no other fare can. Next to the boar was a glistening swan, roasted and embellished with fruit and sweetmeats. I guessed that stuffed inside it would be an aviary of birds: goose, chicken, partridge, pheasant, woodcock, snipe, pigeon, heron, capon and song-birds.

About births, christenings and funerals:

King Henry stood at the front of the Hall, a tiny baby held high above his head. The King began to walk down the central corridor with slow and measured tread, pausing at each group of courtiers to show the child to them. As he did so each group began to applaud with enthusiasm, some with genuine pleasure. A few called out with joy but such loud demonstrations were frowned upon by the Steward’s officers. Presumably they were fearful for the infant’s tiny ears.

The King came close to us. Knowing that we were the Queen’s Ladies he did more than merely pause as he had with the other courtiers. He stopped and moved closer to us holding the baby out so close we could have reached out and touched him. A cooing came from our throats, as though we were creatures of a Dovecote and not young women of the Household. The King smiled at this, delighted at our response.

And I had to learn about:

Royal Palaces and their layout and furniture, palace servants, the old and new nobility, courtiers and their intrigues, religious changes, Tudor clothing, musical instruments and how they sounded, the Royal Menagerie and the animals housed there, modes of transport, roads and the upholstery of a coach, popular dances and how to dance them, Tudor names and modes of address, Tudor poetry and poets, the streets and alleys of London, crime and punishment, Tudor pastimes, Tudor gardens and flowers, a Tudor farm and farming, attitudes to women and children, diplomacy and marriage negotiations and the physical and mental health of the King.

It’s been quite a journey.

And now, this weekend, ‘A Love Most Dangerous’ is available to buy worldwide on Amazon Kindle.

 

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