Lesley Cookman's Blog, page 6

World of Libby

The world of Libby has rather fallen by the wayside this week, after sending off the latest manuscript to my editor, from whom, ominously, I haven't yet heard a word.

I had such a bad time with it (what I put myself through!) that I actually felt ill for two days after I'd got rid of it. It taught me a lesson, though. This next one will be planned down to the last detail instead of just ploughing into the mist as I usually do.

There has been some discussion about the pros and cons of planning and not planning among authors in Facebook groups. Many, like me, have a vague idea and just charge off willy nilly. Others have a detailed plan, write and rewrite. I never have time to do that, as I have a tighter schedule than many, and another thing is that I have enforced deadlines because I'm traditionally published. Talking about that, some self published authors, of which there are many these days, argue that they are under just as much pressure, but they haven't got a publisher's schedule to fit into, they can publish when they're ready, which takes the pressure right off. I know, however, that I couldn't do that. I'd never finish the damn thing - I need someone behind me cracking the whip.

So I've already started research for the next one, assuming Dear Ed doesn't throw the Glovemaker's Son back at me saying Never More.



I have been to a lovely old bookshop run by two wonderful ladies in an alleyway in an old market town, to an equally lovely village where I got stuck in the high street in opposition with a bus, I have been ruthlessly questioning the owner of said village's website and I've been picking my son's brains. He was the one who came up with the vague idea in the first place, as he often does, so he can't complain.
Meanwhile, in order to try and make sure you all receive this blog/newsletter every time, I am going to try to import this into Wordpress. It can be done, I'm told. I think it will mean everyone signing up again, but I know that Wordpress sign-ups work - I have several - and when I was away on retreat my friend who runs one of my favourites, promised to give me a hand if I wanted to change. So I'm going to try.
And in a week's time I'm going back to my favourite village in Turkey for two weeks with some old friends before diving into rewriting the panto script  and then carrying on with the new book. I confidently expect to spend a large part of my holiday on rewrites of the Glovemaker's Son. Heigh-ho.

Update to Murder and The Glovemaker's Son

I finally finished the book and sent it off at five past six yesterday evening, in time to get ready to go to daughter number two's annual gig in her home town. She and her duo partner have just finished three months doing cabaret on a cruise ship around Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and other exotic places. Not quite like a Whitstable pub! But they pulled a crowd, as usual, and the landlord was delighted because he took an awful lot over the bar. Today, it's lunch with the kids for elder son's birthday and a party tonight. With a lot of the same people as last night.

So, as long as my dear editor Greg can knock the mss into shape, with luck and a following wind I'm hoping it will come out as scheduled in August. It's been a real struggle this one, and as always, I think it's terrible, but editor, publisher and kids all tell me I say the same every time, so I'll just keep my fingers crossed that you all like it, and most importantly, understand it, because to be frank, by the end I'm not sure I did.

Meanwhile, after giving myself the weekend off, I have to get down to rewriting/updating next season's panto script for distribution to interested parties by about July. And thinking about all kinds of production matters, most of which have already been taken care of by my Production Designer, but there are essential matters like songs, the choice of which is crucial, especially as so far I have no idea who will be singing them.

Then, allowing for my holiday at the end of May beginning of June, I shall launch into Libby 20 - or 22 if you count the Christmas shorts. No timeline for that so far, or, indeed title, although there is a vague story idea, thanks to my assistant (!) Miles, whose birthday it is today. His friends think I should be paying him for his ideas...

A Memory from the Pink Sofa

A few years ago, a writer friend, Carol Hedges, invited me on to her Pink Sofa. This was a great honour, as the Pink Sofa is legendary among writers. So with her permission, here's what I wrote for her - it's a slightly different take on my life. Oh - and while I'm here, could I recommend Carol's Victorian Mysteries? Starting with this one: Diamonds and Dust.
I’ve been dying to get onto the Pink Sofa for ages. I’ve always liked the look of the cake. And is that red wine hiding behind the chair?
First of all, I’d like to hark back to a previous guest here – Beryl Kingston. I was so pleased that her post had such a terrific response because, you see, Beryl and I have quite a lot of connections. I can’t actually remember when we discovered these, but it was during a phone call years before social media (or any sort of media, actually!) that we suddenly stated saying “No! Really? So did I!”
To start with, we had both lived in Tooting, London, as children. And we had both been – wait for it  - Tooting Carnival Queens! Even odder, Beryl had been teaching at my Grammar School up until I started in the first form. It still strikes me as strange that had it not been for an accident of timing, I could have been taught by someone I now regard as an inspiration and a friend.
As for Carol (who?) – years ago, I lived in St Albans, where my eldest daughter was born, and one of my best friends lived in Harpenden, where I used to do my weekly shop in Sainsbury’s. That’s about it as far as we’re concerned.
My own journey to publication – or, rather, novels – is rather mundane. I wish I could present you with a picture of the struggling artist in the attic, but I can’t. Like many writers, I started writing as a child “making” my own books. When I got to about 11 or 12, I was filling Woolworth’s exercise books with pony stories. It never occurred to me that I could make a living writing – I wanted to  be an actor! I started well, debuting on the London stage at the age of 15 playing Laura in The Glass Menagerie, things rather fell off after that. I drifted through modelling, demonstrating, (Kent Hair Brushes, since you ask) disc jockeying in a posh nightclub wearing a silver catsuit and eventually becoming an air stewardess for British Airways in the glory days. At least, I’m told they were. I’ve managed to inveigle my way onto The One Show and The Alan Titchmarsh Show on the back of that.
I married a professional musician and we duly starved. This was the St Albans era. Eventually, the Musician, who was art school trained, went into magazines. And one day came home with a large cardboard box, told me to open it, assemble it and write on it how easy it was. It was one of the first desk top computers, long before Apple or even Amstrad. The magazine was Which Computer, and the Musician was the Art Editor. I was launched on a career as feature writer.
Many years and a few more children later, having discovered a penchant for writing pantomimes (still produced all over Britain each year) and short stories for magazines, I decided to go all highbrow and do an MA in Creative Writing. They were still very new then, and I picked one as far away from home as possible, in Wales. On the same course was a woman called Hazel Cushion, and at the end of the course we decided to produce a charity anthology for Breast Cancer, called Sexy Shorts for Christmas. We did everything between us – I commissioned, edited and typeset, the Musician designed the cover, Hazel did everything else and proved to be a very good business woman.
And that was the beginning of Accent Press. Which, of course, is now going strong as a small independent publisher with a number of bestselling titles both in print and ebook. I’m no longer anything to do with the organisation, I simply sit back and write Libby Sarjeant books and the odd Edwardian Mystery for good measure. And thank the Lord and little green fishes I met Hazel, as I can afford to eat for the foreseeable future.

Thank you for having me, Carol, and please may I have a top-p? You what? You said you didn’t like red wine...

My beginnings

I have recently been invited to choose three words to describe my creativity. See if you agree with me. I think most people who receive this newsletter will already know most of this, but just in case you don't...
I think the first would, unfortunately, be “enforced”. I have been a working writer for over 35 years. I know that, because I started when I was pregnant with my third child, who is now 35. I wrote as a freelance, first for Which Computer and subsequently for its stable mates Business Matters, Small Business Matters and various other trade journals. I had always written, inspired by my favourite books as a child, such as Elizabeth Goudge’s Little White Horse, Monica Edwards’ Romney Marsh series (I write pieces for the Monica Edwards society’s magazine now) and Pamela Brown’s Blue Doors series, but never thought I could do it as a job. Instead, I became a model, an air stewardess, actor, disc jockey in a night club...you name it, I’ve done it. When I wrote the first of my Libby Sarjeant series it was the 20,000 words of a dissertation which prompted Accent Press’s Hazel Cushion to buy it. So I had to finish the b... sorry, the novel. Ever since, each book has become harder, so yes, sorry, “Enforced”.
The second word would be “comforting”. I write what I like to read, and none of it is alarming. I write about the Kentish countryside because that’s where I live – well, in a seaside town, actually -  and it’s all very – yes – comforting, and feels like being enfolded in a familiar blanket. I also have murders. But the one thing my readers tell me is that when they pick up a new book it’s like meeting old friends. The books have evolved into different situations for a group of friends to explore, and naturally, because of  my own background there’s theatre in there, too.
Which brings me to my third word, “theatrical”. I made my first professional appearance on the stage in a London “fringe” theatre, although we didn’t call them that, back in the Dark Ages. Since then, after having my children, I have done a lot of work for my local theatre, The Playhouse, Whitstable. I have become a bit of an expert on pantomime (I’ll bore anybody) and had a book commissioned back in the nineties on how to write one. It’s still in print in its third edition, believe it  or not, with a foreword by Roy Hudd. I’ve written and had produced and published (they earn me my holiday money) seven pantomimes, and at the behest of the British Music Hall Society, one “Music Hall Musical”, which has now formed the basis of my new Edwardian series, The Alexandrians. I used to be the editor of the BMHS journal, “The Call Boy”, and had access to some of the greats before they popped off to the great Green Room in the sky.
Music plays a huge part in my life and always has. My father was half of a singing duo, I married a musician and produced four of them. I am extremely proud of them all, although none of us will ever have a great deal of money (especially the one who is a published poet. Poor soul.). I am now a widow (horrible word. Conjures up black lace veils), a grandmother (even worse) to two smalls and the slave to two cats. I am, in fact, what Central Casting would suggest as the perfect Lady Novelist/mad cat lady. I think...

The First Newsletter

I''m hoping that this will arrive in some people's inboxes, and if it does, will they please leave a comment at the bottom. Yesterday's blog was obviously open to misinterpretation, as some people were clicking on my big arrow and wondering why nothing happened, and others were simply telling me that all the addresses were on show. Yes, I know - that's why I'm doing this! If I could use MailChimp properly I'd do that, but this seems a lot simpler.

Since January not an awful lot has happened in my professional life. I've been dreadfully stuck over the current epic, and very behind on the upcoming deadline. But last weekend I went away with a group of writer friends and beat it into submission. I still haven't quite caught up, but it's progressing quite nicely, now.

Apart from my "retreat", another thing that's helped me is the suggestion by another writer friend, Victoria Connelly, to set up a Reader Group on Facebook. I have a personal Facebook page and an official Author Page, but I had never thought of a straightforward group. It's worked like a dream. The readers are happy to talk about the characters, give me ideas and in general be supportive. It is their suggestion that I revive the newsletter, and after a few false starts, this is the latest scheme. If anyone reading this would like to join the Reader Group, called, by popular request, Lesley Cookman's Libby's Loonies, and you are on Facebook, we'll be happy to see you. I know there's quite a bit of resistance to FB at the moment, which is one of the reasons that a newsletter of some kind seemed like a good idea. I still get requests via the website, and there are people who aren't on social media, although that's increasingly fewer and fewer.

So, for everyone who isn't on social media, and those who haven't seen the blog over the last 6 months or so, the 19th Libby Sarjeant book, Murder And The Glovemaker's Son is due out this August. The 18.5th was Murder Most Fowl, which came out for Christmas last year.
If anyone is reading this who has landed here by accident and you would like to carry on reading, please add your email address in the little "Follow by email" box and click submit. And with a bit of luck, new posts will pop into your inbox at fairly regular intervals.

Happy Reading!

The new newsletter - again

Well, hello, everyone!

After a couple of disastrous newsletters, I'm trying again.  Last weekend I went away on a "retreat" with some writer friends. We are all of a certain age (within certain parameters) and have known one another for some years, and share a certain nervousness of the newer, thrusting authors. We all started well before social media and networked blogs, or even self (or indie) publishing, and all the new guys, both young and older, are so well versed in the technology.  So a couple of the girls have made it their business to learn all about it, and I follow their blogs, which pop into my inbox every week like a newsletter. Oh! I thought. I could do that!

So here we are. All you have to do is fill in that little box which says "Follow by email" and click the little box saying "submit". And with a little bit of luck and a following wind, we'll have a newsletter again. This one can be a sort of test one, to get people to sign up, and see how we go. This arrow points in the general direction of the sign up box.

Writing For The Stage

It’s 2018 and time for a new start. At least, that’s the received wisdom, but I have to say I don’t usually agree with that. After all, the date is arbitrary – everyone complaining that 2016 was a terrible year for deaths – yes, it was, but it wasn’t the year’s fault! Anyway, I’m going along with the whole business for a while for several reasons. First – as the world of publishing – and, indeed, the world – has changed over the last few years, being a traditionally published novelist is no longer rather a feather in one’s cap, and my sales have dropped as have those of many of my contemporaries. So marketing and visibility becomes essential, and the blog is  important. But you have to make sure people are reading it, and with so many bloggers out there, how can you stand out? Well, blog more frequently, for a start, and regularly. So I’m starting my new regime today with something I wrote in 2001 – long before social media and blogging. Slightly rewritten, of course, and I can’t think why I wrote it, now, unless it was part of the course I was teaching at the time, for either the Kent Adult Education service, or the WEA.  And, as both my mystery series have a theatrical back ground, and in a recent poll on my Facebook page readers were asking about Libby’s writing for the stage, so I thought I’d treat you to my thoughts on this. You never know – there might be a budding playwright out there!
So, how do set out to write for the stage? The same as any story.  Think up beginning middle and end in the same wave pattern that you would for a novel or short story.  Work out a synopsis, what’s going to happen in each scene.  Work out your characters - give them a  motivation, remember to think about what they’ve just been doing before they come on stage.  Remember that although you and the actors will know what’s happening, the audience will be seeing it for the first time and have to have everything made clear, but not in the “As you know, our father, the multi-millionaire who made his fortune in non stick zips for American troops, has just left our step-mother, the tart with a heart of gold...” etc.  Introduce the characters individually, so that the audience knows who they are, don’t overcrowd the stage (or the audience’s brain, collective, you notice).  Don’t forget any of the characters.  Don’t bring someone on with a big scene and then leave them out of the rest of the play.  Just as in a novel you don’t name the waiter unless he has an important part to play later on, or the audience (or the reader) will be wondering where they’ve gone and whether they should have noticed something.  They won’t trust you and the construction of the play will be undermined.  And when you’ve finished, go through and make sure you haven’t left anyone on stage when they should have been off, or given them a line when they aren’t on.  Remember viewpoint, just as in a novel, one character can’t know what the other is thinking, even if you do!  Your voice, the voice of God, cannot come through, except in any message you’re trying to put across. 
Give your characters something to work on.  Don’t make them bland.  Make the dialogue self evident, so that the actors know how to say the line without a stage direction telling them:  ie “softly” “intimately” “angrily”.  Try and use “natural” dialogue leaving out the ums and ahs as in a novel.  However you can indicate people cutting the other off or “line capping”,  where one character breaks into another character’s speech. And just hope the director remembers to tell the actors not to leave too long a gap between the lines!  There is no time here to go into different styles of playwriting, so I will assume a straightforward narrative play, rather than “Pinteresque” dialogue, where the audience are being asked to make a connection between one line and the next that is other than the simply mundane.  This sort of dialogue can sound completely inconsequential or nonsensical unless very carefully handled.  Think Godot and Caretaker. (Beckett and Pinter, for those wot might not know.)Technical:  work out how long each page of dialogue takes to perform.  Rough rule of thumb, 2 mins per page.  Not always, because if you have a lot of stage directions, they read longer than they take to perform, usually.  Think about the set.  You don’t have to design it, but have a picture of it in your head, at least and make sure that it is workable.  Don’t have a grand staircase in the middle with a huge window at the top if there’s nowhere for the actors to go when they get there.  Remember, what goes up must come down, preferably on foot.  And, if you’re writing for the small stage, make sure you have enough but not too many entrances/exits, and don’t keep changing scenes or the back stage crew will go on strike.  If you must have scene changes, make sure you have thought about them first - don’t have a full scale Victorian sitting room complete with grand piano and fireplace and a quick change to the knot garden complete with knots.  A play these days is usually two acts, so if there must be a scene change, try to keep to just one and use the interval for the scene change.  If there are small scenes between two people that should take place other than on the main set, use stage directions to take the actors right downstage left or right and light them in isolation, while keeping the rest of the stage dark.  Try to keep these sections in the same place ie dsl for a passage in the mansion, dsr for the millionaire’s office.  Don’t keep changing the venue, or the audience will be thoroughly confused (see seeing it for the first time).  Time passing on a single set can be fairly simply achieved with lighting changes ie blackout, during which “props” (property master or mistress, tasked with providing properties and “dressing” the set.) come on and replace daffodils with roses, roses with holly etc.  Steel Magnolias does this as throughout the play the seasons change.  (Different curtains, cushions, simple costume changes).Stage directions:  dsr is downstage right, dsl, self evidently, is downstage left. Up and down down centre – back of the set or right down the front!  Tabs are curtains, and there are often more than one set.   Don’t forget to give stage directions (exit left, lights cigarette - non pc these days) and make sure that the set design in your head allows the moves to be made.  Each director will redesign your play according to the facilities and their resources, and the same with the moves according to their interpretation, but you must make sure that the play will work if done exactly as per script.  Your directions should also include lighting and sound effects, and again, make sure these are workable.  Don’t demand the entire aurora borealis if the play might be performed in the village hall.  If you are writing for a specific group or company, then you will know their limitations and strengths, but if you’re writing for publication then many different companies of differing abilities might perform it, so suggestions for simplification will not come amiss.Don’t ask for a purple bottomed baboon as the pet of the lady of the manor.  Props will not thank you.  Make sure that props are thought about and listed at the end.  The playwright has to provide a props and furniture list, a lighting plot and an effects plot at the end of a script.  Remember to go through and make sure you have included all the props in the list, or you will have the heroine coming on to find the handkerchief the hero has dropped - only she doesn’t.  Possible end of play.   Remember that the props might be personal ie taken on by a character and state that in your list.  If you are going to use music, check that you, the company or the venue are covered under PRS, so suggest music but make sure (all I’ve said is make sure) that there is a note in the script to point this out.  Don’t have a concert pianist playing the piano in full view of the audience.  The Piecrust W I Players might not have a concert pianist.  Don’t specify ethnic minorities or religions unless it is specifically written for a company made up from these.  (Remember The Crucible and Tituba? It is essential that Tituba is shown as a South American Indian slave, and some casting directors might have a problem there!  The Crucible is a classic.  You’re not writing a classic yet!  or you wouldn’t be here.) When you’ve done all that, go back and go through it with a tooth comb to check that the characters come on and off where they should, you haven’t had Fred meeting Joe for the first time and saying “Hello, Joe!” when he doesn’t know his name.  (Yes, I know it sounds stupid, but it happens.)  Make sure you’ve indicated the sound of the Rolls Royce pulling up on the gravel outside before  Lady Fanacapan says “Hark, I hear a car.”   Then make sure (again) that the running time is roughly two hours.  That’s as long as an audience used to East Enders will sit still without asking you to push the pause button.  You’ll give them 15 to 20 minutes in the middle to refresh and relieve themselves, so count that in.  And yes, I know that Nick Nick (Nicholas Nickleby) runs for hours, but Dickens and the RSC are a law unto themselves - and so are their audiences.Have fun - anything I haven’t said?
I expect a lot of this is in my book Writing a Pantomime, a few illustrations from which appear here, done by my talented late husband.  (Badly photographed by me!) The book is still available from Accent Press and is in (I think) its third edition. Well, there we are. I’ve started. Next week I’ll have to think of something else, so do let me know if there are any aspects of my life, or Libby’s, that you would like to know about and I’ll do my best.  Thank you for reading. Oh – and a Happy New Year.

It's Panto Time!

Oh, yes it is. But before that, a small announcement. As a special treat (?) Accent Press will be releasing a Libby Sarjeant short for Christmas.

It was difficult to cram a full blown murder mystery into 16,000 but I managed, more or less. Here's the link to Amazon: Murder Most Fowl.
And on another tack entirely, it has just been decided that I shall be doing next year's pantomime at my local theatre. This is diving back in with a vengeance, as my involvement in all things theatrical has been downgraded significantly over the last few years, so I'm going to attend the last few rehearsals of this year's production, by kind permission of the director, and start reading a few modern scripts, as my own Sleeping Beauty will need updating. I shall also be coercing every technician, set designer and Musical Director I've ever worked with to come and show me how everything works these days. I'm not proud.
Talking of pantomimes, my announcement of a few months ago about my own being taken on by a new publisher seems to have been premature. I haven't heard a word from said publisher since then, so, if I can be bothered, I shall have to find out how people go about selling their scripts in this e-publishing age. Luckily, all my original scripts are on on my hard drive, so will be available for re-formatting.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, everyone.

Keeping up to date - new books!

Quite a lot's been happening recently. Murder By The Barrel Murder By The Barrel came out a couple of weeks ago, and after a panic about the print books, we got them in time for Harbour Books to sell them at the book launch, held once again at The Black Dog. And then publisher Hazel announced that the seond of The Alexandrians, Entertaining Death, was out in paperback - which means both of them are. And hard on the heels of all that, we discussed the NEXT Libby, number 19, which will come out next August, and sorted out the cover, which I think is the bext yet.
I
I expect you can guess what it's about!. And then we even mentioned - in passing - book 20. Son Miles is currently trying to think up ideas for that one.
So I've been doing a lot of blog tour guest posts and interviews, all of which are linked on my author page, https://www.facebook.com/LibbySarjeantMysteries/.
On the other hand, I've been having trouble with the Back and The Diabetes, so I've been feeling somewhat aged and decrepit. although I have finally gone back to the hairdresser and the Manicurist, which definitely makes me feel better.  Over the past few weeks I have given thanks for my publisher, my doctor and the kids (even if they're not exactly kids any more!). I have an excellent support network, which includes both RL and online friends, and my readers are absolutely wonderful. So thank you all.

New Season, new book, new panto publishers

It's Autumn. Oh, yes it is. The weather people say it is, and so does the weather itself at the moment. Anyway, it's coming up to panto season, and theatres everywhere are preparing for this year's offering. So it's appropriate to announce that my scripts will soon be available from publishers Stagescripts Ltd, previous publishers having packed their bags and crept away. Posters from the first performances of two of them above, both designed by the talented Adam Turner.  I am sure that Libby Sarjeant uses some of mine, although I know she's written her own, and speaking of Libby, her new book will be out in a couple of weeks.
Murder By the Barrel
We're having a little local launch in a pub - not an industry launch, just an excuse for some local mates to get together. Last time we did it, we all had a great time. We had hoped, the landlord and I, to have some special Steeple Martin Ale, but we couldn't find anyone to print the labels!

Finally, I shall remind people that if they don't want to use one of my panto scripts, way back in 1998, my book Writing A Pantomime, with a foreword by Roy Hudd and cartoons by my late husband, Brian Cookman, was published to help schools, clubs, WIs and anyone else who wanted to put on a panto write their own. It has now been re-published by Accent Press (twice) and is available here: How To Write a Pantomime

I shall now go and have a quiet lie down. I seem to have done nothing but admin for days, and it's about time I got down to Libby19 and The Alexandrians 3. I think I have a headache.