Kerry Hudson's Blog, page 7

The goodness of 2013

I should’ve known this year would be a good one. I started it under the stars by a campfire up in the Vietnamese mountains, drinking whisky, feeding birthday cake to the farm’s guard dog each time he came around. The next day my friend and I walked the deserted hills of the national park, found a tiny deserted café where I wrapped a tiny black kitten in my tartan scarf and drank hot sweet Vietnamese coffee. We got lost and then we ran full-pelt down the biggest hills.

From there I returned to Hanoi and then to Bangkok and Chang Mai where I filled up on sunshine after the long cold winter months in Vietnam. I returned to my beloved Hackney, to the energy the edge the sullied beauty of my city that is always home to me no matter how often I leave it.

I took a lot of planes and trains and buses this year… to Hanoi to Bangkok to Chang Mai to Liverpool to Chambery to Bonnie Balloch to Northumbria to Seoul to Gongju to Busan to Edinburgh to Budapest to Northumbria and home again. I taught at Cambridge University with National Academy of Writing and with the British Council in Korea. I’ve ran along the River Han and the Thames, the sky stretching above and me feeling like I was flying. I started to meditate. I moved next to a bakery and ate a lot very good bread. I was able to give up my salary job and make a living as a writer.

Tony Hogan came out in paperback and continued to do me proud with good reviews and a few more prize listings. I won the Scottish First Book of the Year. I sold my second novel Thirst and worked and worked and worked to make it as good as it could be. I judged the Green Carnation Prize with a wonderful group of people.

It has been a year of all of the good stuff – big and small – I’ve been able to devote myself to writing. I’ve worked hard and been very lucky and hopefully I’ve passed along some of that good fortune too.

And the new year? I’ve just started the first draft of my third book – that blissful run of imagination and freedom and the blank page and I’ll be working on that for the next twelve months. In January the French edition of Tony Hogan will come out with Editions Phillipe Rey (somehow wee Janie’s made it to French Elle and Harpers and Bazaar) and then in February with Penguin US (likewise the Ryan women have had nice mentions in Publishers Weekly and Booklist). I’ll be teaching a lot in 2014: for Arvon, The Norwich Writers’ Centre, back at Cambridge with NAW. I’ll perform the first section of the Tony Hogan play in London with Spread the Word.

At the end of January I’m going to move out to the romantic post-communist gorgeousness of Budapest for spring (coming back to lovely London regularly for talks and teaching and events) to properly hunker down and enjoy every moment of filling that blank page with a story.

And then…in July…Thirst will come out. It’s had some early reads – people have wept (in a good way) I hope to bring the reading pubic to happy/sad tears regularly in 2014. And here, hip hip hooray, is the amazing cover.

So that it really. No resolutions. No regrets. Lots and lots of gratitude for what I’ve been given this year. If I have any wish for 2014 it is for more of the same: working hard to make good stories, running and swimming, traveling, being grateful for the interesting brilliant people I know and meet, eating good bread, drinking coffee and petting dogs in the street. Small, simple, good pleasures, a life lived fully and with kindness and curiosity.

Here’s to 2014 you lovely lot – lets make it a smasher.    

Finishing: Now a week to daydream

So I finished Thirst. I mean properly actually finished Thirst. I know I have been saying I’ve been ‘finished’ for ages but now I truly am. Yesterday night I sent my editor back my final few responses to notes. It’s on Amazon and Goodreads. People have started asking for proofs. I’ve seen the first draft cover – it’s very different from Tony Hogan – as is what that cover holds. It’s also very beautiful. I remember when the idea of writing one novel seemed like an impossibility and now I have two. Those of you who’re beginning your first: if I can, bit by bit, 1000 words by 1000 words, then so can you. Do it.

I was trying to explain the writing of this novel to a friend the other evening. I said It’s like I had two oak trees and I whittled them down with a darling needle to reveal these complex matchstick people or like those paintings where the artists builds layer after layer of paint only to scratch it all away again or like building an ocean cruiser with driftwood and glass pebbles. I once saw beautiful close up footage of ants in formation carrying sequins that glittered and sparked in the sunlight – I would like it to be like that too.

This novel has been a constant building up and tearing away again until the shiny stuff has been revealed. Thirst has taught me so much. It’s more ambitious than Tony Hogan and I think probably more mature but I like to think there’ the same fragile bruised but hopeful heart beating at the centre of both stories.

So.

What now? Well I thought I’d take a week off to daydream. It’s like a Snow Day. But it’s a week. For daydreaming. Not to do anything other than wander and watch and eat and make little notes that I won’t understand when I read them back. And because I woke up last Sunday and impulse bought a flight, I’m off to do that in Budapest. I’m going to sit in thermal spas, go to the flea markets, eat torta, go to the opera (twice) and eat an impressive quantity of paprikad pork. A celebration and a decompression and a wee adventure all at once.

When I come home I’ll embark upon my next book. I can’t wait. For me, there’s no greater adventure than a blank piece of paper and a seed of a story in your head. I’ll probably write about that more actually…the joy of the first draft…but for now I’ve got to catch a plane. And buy snacks. Obviously.

 

If that was not winning I will happily take it

That’s what I said when I woke bleary-eyed on Sunday morning after the Scottish Book Awards. So no, I didn’t win the overall prize of Scottish Book of the Year. That prize went to the very admirable and very deserving Gavin Francis for Empire Antarctica. But I did have the most wonderful time. Someone asked ‘were you really upset when you heard the news?’ and I thought about it and replied, completely honestly, that I was disappointed for about a second - a small pop - but then I was just joyful to be there. 

And it’s true. Of course I’d had a wee think about what I’d do with a whacking £30k (plans included a garret in Paris, setting up a writer’s workshop, diamond shoes…) but actually, a bit like buying a lottery ticket, it never felt real so there was nothing to miss. 

And I woke on Sunday after the awards ceremony in the most beautiful B&B, looked at my £5000 prize cheque for for First Book of the Year (maybe the biggest cheque I’ve ever seen with my name on it), chucked on a big jumper and ate a giant breakfast by a roaring fire and felt on top of the world (except for a gentle hangover obviously).

And here’s why I felt so happy (added to the sausages obviously)

1. All of the kindness, generosity and support that people showed in voting for me and trying to get others to vote for me. I’ve said it already but that meant a huge amount to me. I was, and am, massively grateful to those who came out fighting Janie Ryan’s corner. I can’t say thank you enough for that. 

2. The awards night itself. The other authors, the judges, Sally Magnuson, the organisers, readers, animators and everyone else I met were….fucking lovely. Really that was the best bit of the night…and all the champagne, the delicious dinner, the fact I then went of to join a dear friend’s hen party (at near midnight) and ended up in my posh frock dancing in a circle of pals dressed as pilots and a man in a babygrow to THIS…it was a strange and strangely wonderful way to end the evening.

3. The cheque. Yes. I think I’ve made it clear that money makes a difference to writers. No, we don’t eat commas or shelter from winter winds in parentheses…we need an income like everyone else. That cheque will give me the freedom to begin my third book and there are few better gifts that the gift of writing time for a writer. I know how lucky I am to get to write full-time and I remember that as I embark on my next book. 

So…yep, just the usual stuff that makes me happy: good people, good grub, happy memories and knowing I’ve enough in the kitty to keep on writing for a while. 

A few people commented over the weekend about how grateful I seemed for everything that had happened in the last year. I’m aware that it might be a bit sickening but, for me, it’s because I know where I might have ended up. How things might have been for me. Instead I got this wonderful life full of adventure, experience and creativity. I get to eat good food, have access to music and words, film and art and live somewhere I love to live. I have so much freedom. I think I’d be an arsehole if I wasn’t grateful for that every single day.  

I slept all the way back to London on the train, my crumpled party dress squashed in my suitcase, a big grin on my face and my fingers twitching to write some more stories. Lucky.    

Short skirts and cold hard cash and the naked truth

So this is it. The final countdown (click there if you want to listen to some Europe) and here I am, asking for your vote again (click that one if you like you music a wee bit more credible).

The day after tomorrow I’ll board a train to go off to Lennoxlove Festival, I’ll put on a nice dress and as soon as I arrive I’ll realise it’s a) not warm enough b) a bit too short for sitting on stage (and yet I will still wear it) and hear the winner of the 2013 Scottish Book Awards Scottish Book of the Year be announced.

Thinking about this has butterflies stinging through my guts for some reason. I am just a naturally nervous person - I’m glad of it, it makes me strive and forces me to work harder, gives me a lot of energy weirdly - but this is making me very nervous indeed.

There are good things. Whatever happens I leave with a very gratefully received £5000 as winner of the First Book category and I might (might, perhaps, maybe) even leave with £30,000 as the overall winner.

We can all agree, that by anyone’s standards, it’s a staggering prize. For a writer starting out, hell, for any writer, that is a life changing amount of money. Not for the amount of sci-fi socks you can buy, or delicious toast, or gallons of coffee but for the freedom to write. The freedom to write without the wolf at the door and money worries. Just you and the page and the knowledge you have time to write the book you want to.

Except for those with bestsellers, Hollywood film deals or a sugarmama/daddy I don’t know many writers for whom constant living by your wits, budgeting, eking out whatever income comes in doesn’t affect the way and what they write. So of course, there is the utter golden glory of the title of Scottish Book of the Year but lets not be coy here - that money would make a big difference to any of us up for the award. Here I’d like to give kudos to Creative Scotland, Scottish Book Awards and Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust for recognising that cold, hard cash is actually a fundamental tool of creative freedom and expression. I wish it weren’t the case but for me, and many others, it just is.

So, as we go into the final furlong I’ve no idea how the vote stands (and there’s also the judges vote to consider which makes up 50% of the decision), the butterflies are thundering through my belly and am looking forward to/ feeling anxious about the coming weekend in equal measure.

I would like to say thank you to each and every person who tweeted, facebooked, emailed in support of the book. I can’t say how much that has meant to me, to have the support of not just friends but also writing peers. That’s been one of the best things of all.

Anyway, come Sunday this will all be done and dusted one way or the other. Voting closes tomorrow (31st) and so I am asking you again…vote for Tony Hogan...vote for the freedom a prize like that can bring and for the book I can write with that freedom, for the lassies, for the debuts. 

Ta very much you lovely bunch. Oh and here’s @savidgereads blog which says all this far better than I have and contains this excellent poster.

 

Homecoming

So I’m writing this with a box of Toffifees at my elbow (airport smackery - was either that or Toblerone and I always bruise the roof of my mouth with those) and someone having a loud screaming match outside my window. Yes, I am back in Hackney.

I flew home yesterday sitting next to the sweetest polly-pocket of a grandma who placed her feet up on the the vacant seat tray between us and motioned for me to do the same. I spoke my two words of Korean, she spoke her one word of English and we made ourselves a right cosy wee nest for twelve hours of reading and movie watching and snacking in companionable silence. It was a good way to fly home. 

I have been trying to think today about my impressions of Korea overall but, to be honest, it is all too fresh…and then also, somehow, already feels like a dream or story. I will always remember the overwhelming kindness and generosity I encountered from people wherever I was. And the beauty of the forested mountains juxtaposed with the shining neon and glass of the cities. I’ll remember the waves of Busan. The incredible food, especially the street food tempura squid served with a little paper cup of spicy broth. I’ll remember high-fiving every single kid at Ui Dang Elementary and running down a huge hill in ridiculous costume with my arms held wide during he Halloween 5k. I think maybe it is always this way with me and travel: the people, the food, the moments of solitude when you suddenly realise, ‘I’m travelling, this place is strange but beautiful to me’. What Korea has achieved in a short amount of time, after complete devastation, is utterly incredible and I left full of admiration for what they’d achieved through hard work and determination. 

But it would be wrong for me to paint a chocolate box picture of my travels. I can’t ignore the fact that as a queer, working-class woman with little formal education and even less interest in more conventional ‘family values’ I would be a persona non grata to many Korean people. Or ignore the fact that although in many ways Korea is an incredibly developed, hyper-developed even, country there are extremely traditional and conservative values which are fundamental to its society. And that there is, of course, something isolating about knowing your own values are so at odds with the majority of society’s. I can’t pretend I don’t know about the extraordinarily high suicide rate (according to the (not always accurate) Wiki it’s the highest cause of death in under 40’s in Korea). Or the fact that after Mexico, Korea comes in number 2 in the longest working hours poll. Or that it has the world’s highest rate of plastic surgery (1 in 4 women in Seoul have had surgery…you must submit your photo with an application for most jobs).

I don’t know how to process all of this right now. I found Korea to a complicated but beautiful and fascinating too. The longer I was there the less I felt I understood anything but I wouldn’t have given up the experience, or the genuine and kind human interactions I had, for the world.

It was dusk as the plane landed yesterday and the sky was a stormy bruise. I am so happy to be home in London. I’d forgotten what it is to know a city so completely that you feel that its underneath thrum is matching your own heartbeat. This week I’m spending time with people who know and love me and who I do too. I’ve rejoiced in London’s diversity and energy and idiosyncrasy. Today it was bright and fresh and I walked down the street singing to my music and smiling at everyone. No one minded, some even smiled back.

I will always want adventures and be grateful for what they bring but home really is where the heart is.

I’ll leave you with my favourite picture from my trip, just look at that gorgeous face, and I thank you for travelling with me.

    

Today I went and ran 5k with zombies and Ajima's and Ramen boxes

….in the mountains, where the leaves are all turning red and brown and it’s still bright and crisp. There was twerking (attempted) at the start-line, scary clowns with a giant beat-box, epic photo-bombing, melody-pops at halfway and a tunnel of cheering Korean students to dance your way through to the finish line ‘bounce, bounce’. We caught the cable car back down the hill, our trainers dangling, sun setting behind the hills. It was a brilliant and bizarre and unexpected way to end my time in Seoul and I’m so happy I did it.  

Just one more day left and then I am of back to my beloved London and then almost straight away up to Edinburgh for a Natural Lights II photoshoot (which I am *very excited* to be part of…here’s a link to Natural Lights I) and the Scottish Book Awards event (COME there’s still tickets) and party (and you can still vote if you’d like to…I’d like you to but don’t let that sway you (vote)) and then, the week after to the Polari First Book Awards. So lots of wonderful things as a salve for the end of this adventure.

Oh, and today I bought socks with The Terminator on them. Yep. 

Depending on your perspective this is either a warning to be heeded or a promise of a good night out

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Yup. Do This

If the photo is not good enough, you are not close enough

Today I met with Korean Publishers. It was fun. Like a sort of bookish speed-dating. I wore a pretty dress and blushed occasionally as is my wont. 

Afterwards I happened across a Robert Capa retrospective. I walked through his life through his photographs (often war photography, sometimes not). Paris, Spain, China, Spain, Russia, Israel, New York, Japan, Vietnam. What fascinated me most was not the composition, the historical significance or the action of the shots but the few people in the crowd who looked directly at the lens: amused, flattered, angered, playful, suspicious. One woman out of focus at the back of a dancing crowd, serious as a ghost. 

They showed a full-length documentary of his life which painted a picture of a man who loved his work above all else, built his whole life around it. He chose the solitude of newness and unique adventures. I watched him transit the same countries again - this time learning about the love, grief, anger and loneliness that accompanied these places. And, of course, the adventure, friendship, fleeting moments of intense feeling captured in less than a second. Whole worlds frozen still at his insistence. 

I thought, this is an admirable life. A life I would like to lead. And I realised in my small way I was - a stranger in a foreign place. I am a photographer in my own way. My memory the film, my imagination the filter, the over or under-development, the curator of those images, people and places I capture.

That made me so happy, made fulfillment closer than I imagined it might be when I woke this morning. Here’s a Capa picture of Picasso and son, to squeeze the heart in a fist…

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                                                         VOTE

The thing that gets me is that he looks like he is really pissed...

The thing that gets me is that he looks like he is really pissed off his latte has taken so fucking long.

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If you liked this pictures of a miserable coffee-deprived Korean bulldog you should definitely vote for #TonyHogan and enable me to continue taking pictures of morose foreign dogs. Ta. 

Two things

Today I did a short talk to the wonderful writer Kry Lee’s lovely engaged Yonsei University Creative Writing students. The nicest thing about doing talks is seeing students ‘get it’ and thinking that might make a difference to even one of them. Also reminding yourself of all the things you believe about writing, about craft and the life you lead to keep writing. Here’s me, Krys and the students after the talk. 

And then I caught the fast train down to the seaside in Busan. Tomorrow I’m going to sit on the sand, watch the waves and have doughnuts for breakfast. Because I’m an adult and I damn well can if I feel like it. Look how moodily beautiful it is…

That is all lovely ones.