Kathleen Jones's Blog, page 46
February 11, 2014
Tuesday Poem: The Night Horses by Jean Atkin
The Night Horses
are stalled between sleep and dreaming.
In the steading they lower their massive heads
to the earth’s nod. In darkness
white-faced Clydesdales lip at nothing.
Below a halo of bats they rest their load
of feather and bone and horn. They hear,
don’t hear, the scrape of shoes, as a gelding shunts
his weight to tilt the other haunch.
Their slow brains orbit the tracks and rigs
breathing in water, heather, grasses.
Sometimes through the slats above their heads
they watch the burn and tremor of the stars.
(Copyright Jean Atkin from
Not Lost Since Last Time
Oversteps Books 2013)
Jean Atkin is a fellow Cumbrian who now lives in Shropshire, England and works as a writer and educator. You can find her poetry here. And she blogs here - Love Letter to the Bothyman
This poem brings back a lot of memories. When I was a child my father used to rescue heavy horses being sold off everywhere and destined for pet food, or the continental meat market. I loved going into the stable with him in winter to bed them down for the night. This poem catches the atmosphere perfectly.
The poem is shared by invitation from this wonderful website - And Other Poems ... which has some wonderful poetry on it.
http://andotherpoems.wordpress.com/
Please pop over to the Tuesday Poem hub and see what the other Tuesday Poets are posting today ... You can find them at http://www.tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com Don't forget to check out the sidebar for more poetry.
are stalled between sleep and dreaming.
In the steading they lower their massive heads
to the earth’s nod. In darkness
white-faced Clydesdales lip at nothing.
Below a halo of bats they rest their load
of feather and bone and horn. They hear,
don’t hear, the scrape of shoes, as a gelding shunts
his weight to tilt the other haunch.
Their slow brains orbit the tracks and rigs
breathing in water, heather, grasses.
Sometimes through the slats above their heads
they watch the burn and tremor of the stars.
(Copyright Jean Atkin from
Not Lost Since Last Time
Oversteps Books 2013)Jean Atkin is a fellow Cumbrian who now lives in Shropshire, England and works as a writer and educator. You can find her poetry here. And she blogs here - Love Letter to the Bothyman
This poem brings back a lot of memories. When I was a child my father used to rescue heavy horses being sold off everywhere and destined for pet food, or the continental meat market. I loved going into the stable with him in winter to bed them down for the night. This poem catches the atmosphere perfectly.
The poem is shared by invitation from this wonderful website - And Other Poems ... which has some wonderful poetry on it.
http://andotherpoems.wordpress.com/
Please pop over to the Tuesday Poem hub and see what the other Tuesday Poets are posting today ... You can find them at http://www.tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com Don't forget to check out the sidebar for more poetry.
February 9, 2014
Sea, Sex and Surf at Viareggio
We're having wild weather here in Tuscany, like many other parts of Europe. But today was fine, with even a glimmer of sunlight, so we headed down to the beach, where the waves were crashing in from a very stormy sea.
Viareggio with the Alpi Apuane in the background.Elly, the little dog we're looking after, was absolutely fearless on the jetty wall!
One lone surfer was braving the sea and giving an awesome display.
Further along the beach two men were running in and out of the waves (in temps of 9 degrees) for a photo-shoot. I hope someone was paying them well.
The sea is pretty wild!And, this being Italy, whatever the weather, there is always time for Amore!
Viareggio with the Alpi Apuane in the background.Elly, the little dog we're looking after, was absolutely fearless on the jetty wall!
One lone surfer was braving the sea and giving an awesome display.
Further along the beach two men were running in and out of the waves (in temps of 9 degrees) for a photo-shoot. I hope someone was paying them well.
The sea is pretty wild!And, this being Italy, whatever the weather, there is always time for Amore!
February 6, 2014
The Destructive Power of Publishing
I've been blogging over at
Authors Electric
about the current crisis for authors in the traditional publishing industry - this is cross-blogged from there.
The Destructive Power of Publishing - Kathleen Jones
In the past few months I've had some distressing emails from friends - successful writer friends published by big publishing houses here and abroad. One of them was a Whitbread award-winner with his first novel and the others have also won awards, as well as being very commercial - one has regularly had books serialised by the Reader's Digest. But two in particular have really made me aware of the cruel and destructive power of the contemporary publishing industry, which cares more for its shareholders than the creative egos of the authors it depends on for its income.
Recently two friends have told me stories which are very similar. Both are distressed, depressed and have had their lives, their confidence - and their writing careers - damaged by the very people supposed to nurture and support them. It's difficult not to come to the conclusion that the supposedly 'traditional' model of the publishing industry has begun to cannibalise itself.
One symptom of this is a recent post on the blog
Random Jottings
about the historical fiction author Cynthia Harrod Eagles - always chronically under publicised. Recently the publishers have suggested that she should bring her very successful Morland Dynasty series to an end because it is no longer making quite so much money (but still selling and still in print). This produced an outcry from her readers, but was apparently very wounding for the author. The publishers could have promoted her books (they're as commercial as Philippa Gregory) in order to make themselves more profit, but they preferred to wield the axe instead. Why? Something is going on in publishing that is very damaging to authors.
One of my friends - with whom I shared an agent for a couple of years - had a couple of successful novels published both here and in America. They are upmarket literary fiction - think Marika Cobbold, and Maggie O'Farrell - but they're also potentially very commercial. She's recently had another baby and has taken a while to finish her third novel, which is a big, glorious account of twenty first century society - a complex Russian style novel with four main characters and narrative threads woven together. Her agent (my ex for good reasons) initially praised the book, then began to make discouraging noises and asked her to rewrite whole sections of it, deleting characters and changing the plot. But the book was complete just as it was. To delete characters and plot-lines would have turned the book into something it was never intended to be. It could never be a commercial pot-boiler romantic saga - there's a lot of stark realism and some challenging situations. To turn the book into what the agent wanted it to be would have maimed it fatally, even if the re-write had been possible.
It's a situation that Costa award-winning Indie author Avril Joy addresses in her new book 'From Writing With Love' . "It’s not difficult to find yourself losing your way and writing something that’s not true to who you are. I’ve done it. I’ve written more sex into a book to please an agent. I’ve written crime fiction, invented a serial killer, ditched one book and moved onto the next, and more . . . Being new to writing I was vulnerable to such persuasions (which I have no doubt at all were made from a genuine desire to help me get a book deal). I wouldn’t do it like that a second time round because in the end if you’re not writing from your own truth the writing is not truly yours."
My friend wanted to believe her agent was right and could be relied on - we trust our agents to give us the right career advice, so she believed that the fault was with her and that her book was no good, although her gut feeling was telling her the opposite. It came as a shock to realise that what the agent was really doing was advising her that she could only write for the market - the books she wanted to write, however great a work of art they might be, were just not going to be bought by a publisher. I read the novel to give an objective second opinion. It's a wonderful story, wonderfully written. It deserves to be sold and sold and sold. But her first two novels hadn't sold enough - there was some half-hearted muttering about re-launching her under another name. My friend has lost confidence in her agent, the publishing industry and in herself as a writer, losing sleep and feeling depressed.
The cartoon says it all - but it's no joke for writersLast week I got another email from someone else whose publishing career I've always envied. Her latest novel, which her agent had raved about had - after an agonising wait - just been rejected by her publisher with a brief curt note. Other publishers weren't even interested. She too was devastated and desperate, feeling that her writing life was at an end. Her painful account of how she'd been treated made me very, very angry.
Both of them wrote to me asking for advice and there was only one piece of advice I could give - do what the rest of us have done and publish the b***** books yourself. If publishers have lost the plot to the extent that they can't recognise a good book when they see one, then we have to take things into our own hands. What bothers me most is that there are still a lot of writers out there who trust the traditional publishing system absolutely and are having their confidence and even their mental health affected by their treatment in the system. Publishers want the new, the fluffy, the edgy, the quirky, the absolutely marketable, headline in the Mail on Sunday, one hundred percent guaranteed money-spinner. What they do not want is the quietly crafted good read that thousands of their readers enjoy - the mid-list that earned its keep but not the managing director's Bentley. Publishers have share-holders who need to be kept happy in this 'difficult economic climate'. They are no longer there to nurture talent and hold the hands of frail artistic geniuses. And agents are there to feed the hungry maw of the publishing machine with fodder, because they too have mortgages and cars and foreign holidays to pay for.
E-publishing is only one of several options . . .
It has never been easier to publish your own book - self-publishing is as old as the book trade itself. S** snobbery! If a book's worth sweating over for years of your life, it's worth publishing - get out there and do it!! It takes a couple of weeks to turn a clean Word document into a published paperback and E-book courtesy of the Demon Amazon. Go on - I dare you .... press the button . . .
The Destructive Power of Publishing - Kathleen Jones
In the past few months I've had some distressing emails from friends - successful writer friends published by big publishing houses here and abroad. One of them was a Whitbread award-winner with his first novel and the others have also won awards, as well as being very commercial - one has regularly had books serialised by the Reader's Digest. But two in particular have really made me aware of the cruel and destructive power of the contemporary publishing industry, which cares more for its shareholders than the creative egos of the authors it depends on for its income.
Recently two friends have told me stories which are very similar. Both are distressed, depressed and have had their lives, their confidence - and their writing careers - damaged by the very people supposed to nurture and support them. It's difficult not to come to the conclusion that the supposedly 'traditional' model of the publishing industry has begun to cannibalise itself.
One symptom of this is a recent post on the blog
Random Jottings
about the historical fiction author Cynthia Harrod Eagles - always chronically under publicised. Recently the publishers have suggested that she should bring her very successful Morland Dynasty series to an end because it is no longer making quite so much money (but still selling and still in print). This produced an outcry from her readers, but was apparently very wounding for the author. The publishers could have promoted her books (they're as commercial as Philippa Gregory) in order to make themselves more profit, but they preferred to wield the axe instead. Why? Something is going on in publishing that is very damaging to authors.One of my friends - with whom I shared an agent for a couple of years - had a couple of successful novels published both here and in America. They are upmarket literary fiction - think Marika Cobbold, and Maggie O'Farrell - but they're also potentially very commercial. She's recently had another baby and has taken a while to finish her third novel, which is a big, glorious account of twenty first century society - a complex Russian style novel with four main characters and narrative threads woven together. Her agent (my ex for good reasons) initially praised the book, then began to make discouraging noises and asked her to rewrite whole sections of it, deleting characters and changing the plot. But the book was complete just as it was. To delete characters and plot-lines would have turned the book into something it was never intended to be. It could never be a commercial pot-boiler romantic saga - there's a lot of stark realism and some challenging situations. To turn the book into what the agent wanted it to be would have maimed it fatally, even if the re-write had been possible.
It's a situation that Costa award-winning Indie author Avril Joy addresses in her new book 'From Writing With Love' . "It’s not difficult to find yourself losing your way and writing something that’s not true to who you are. I’ve done it. I’ve written more sex into a book to please an agent. I’ve written crime fiction, invented a serial killer, ditched one book and moved onto the next, and more . . . Being new to writing I was vulnerable to such persuasions (which I have no doubt at all were made from a genuine desire to help me get a book deal). I wouldn’t do it like that a second time round because in the end if you’re not writing from your own truth the writing is not truly yours."
My friend wanted to believe her agent was right and could be relied on - we trust our agents to give us the right career advice, so she believed that the fault was with her and that her book was no good, although her gut feeling was telling her the opposite. It came as a shock to realise that what the agent was really doing was advising her that she could only write for the market - the books she wanted to write, however great a work of art they might be, were just not going to be bought by a publisher. I read the novel to give an objective second opinion. It's a wonderful story, wonderfully written. It deserves to be sold and sold and sold. But her first two novels hadn't sold enough - there was some half-hearted muttering about re-launching her under another name. My friend has lost confidence in her agent, the publishing industry and in herself as a writer, losing sleep and feeling depressed.
The cartoon says it all - but it's no joke for writersLast week I got another email from someone else whose publishing career I've always envied. Her latest novel, which her agent had raved about had - after an agonising wait - just been rejected by her publisher with a brief curt note. Other publishers weren't even interested. She too was devastated and desperate, feeling that her writing life was at an end. Her painful account of how she'd been treated made me very, very angry.Both of them wrote to me asking for advice and there was only one piece of advice I could give - do what the rest of us have done and publish the b***** books yourself. If publishers have lost the plot to the extent that they can't recognise a good book when they see one, then we have to take things into our own hands. What bothers me most is that there are still a lot of writers out there who trust the traditional publishing system absolutely and are having their confidence and even their mental health affected by their treatment in the system. Publishers want the new, the fluffy, the edgy, the quirky, the absolutely marketable, headline in the Mail on Sunday, one hundred percent guaranteed money-spinner. What they do not want is the quietly crafted good read that thousands of their readers enjoy - the mid-list that earned its keep but not the managing director's Bentley. Publishers have share-holders who need to be kept happy in this 'difficult economic climate'. They are no longer there to nurture talent and hold the hands of frail artistic geniuses. And agents are there to feed the hungry maw of the publishing machine with fodder, because they too have mortgages and cars and foreign holidays to pay for.
E-publishing is only one of several options . . .It has never been easier to publish your own book - self-publishing is as old as the book trade itself. S** snobbery! If a book's worth sweating over for years of your life, it's worth publishing - get out there and do it!! It takes a couple of weeks to turn a clean Word document into a published paperback and E-book courtesy of the Demon Amazon. Go on - I dare you .... press the button . . .
February 4, 2014
Tuesday Poem: Sappho, Fragment 58 - Theresa Kishkan
Tithonus pursued by Eos/AuroraFragment 58 - A VersionYou, pursuing the flower-girdled Muses’ beautiful gift, girls –seize this clear-toned lyre:
my delicate body, now taken
by age, dark hair become white.
Spirit heavy, uncertain knees
(once as quick to dance as young deer).
I sigh – but what’s to do?
To be ageless, strong: not possible.
Once Tithonus, so they say, was swept up by rosy-armed Dawn
taken utterly by love, to the ends of the earth,
while he was young. Yet still grey age
seized him. And, oh, his immortal wife!*
Translation © Theresa Kishkan
* Tithonus was married to Eos/Aurora, goddess of the dawn, who pleaded with Zeus to make Tithonus immortal, but forgot to ask for eternal youth.
I'm sharing this from Theresa Kishkan's wonderful blog where she talks about the poetry of Sappho and her dissatisfaction with a translation of a new poem by Sappho (trans by Martin West) discovered in 2005. She read it in the TLS and her reaction was "Well, this is interesting but it doesn’t sound like Sappho to me."
As she thought about it, Theresa found that it was the 'voice' of the poem that didn't ring true. "I realized that I missed Sappho’s plain-spoken voice. Hers was a woman’s voice, full of longing and wistfulness and occasionally envy. I thought I’d try to make a version for myself so I found the Greek online and took my lexicon to our upper sundeck — it was summer — and tried to find the Sappho I thought I knew. Bees hummed in the oregano and the sky was as blue as any sky I knew in Greece in the 1970s when I spent time there." The poem above was the result.Thanks to Theresa I've just discovered the wonderful translations by Anne Carson which seem to be perfect reading for a grey wet February in Europe (not far from Greece), called 'If Not Winter...' Theresa also loves the translations by Mary Barnard, though she admits that these are "which are perhaps more true to Mary Barnard than Sappho" - the pitfall of every translator.
Some new fragments of Sappho's poetry have just come to light again in a papyrus 1700 years old, showing that she didn't just write about love. These new poems are about her brothers, and have altered scholars opinions of Sappho. You can read more here -" New Sappho Poems Set the Classical World Reeling "
Today the Tuesday Poem hub has a poem by Australian singer/songwriter and poet Joe Dolce - the intensely moving 'Dogong Moth', which inludes this stanza....
I look up from my bookaccepting the immortal,
fatal dance
of life and light,
like Icarus’s father
resigned to watch
his flying boy
hurl against brilliance.
To read more visit the Tuesday Poem hub and check out what other Tuesday Poets are posting.
January 31, 2014
The Curious Incident of the Blog in the Night
A few months ago I wrote a blog about the fall of a certain prominent Italian politician whose name begins with B - a brief account of the Parliamentary tussle over his fitness to remain in the senate after his convictions and his attempt to retain power. I put up a photograph of the front page of La Repubblica. It turned out to be one of my most popular posts and had a lot of 'hits'.
Then, just before Christmas I had an email from an Italian (who will also remain nameless) saying that he had been seriously defamed on my blog. I checked and - horror of horrors - there was a comment, naming this Italian and calling him a Fascist and member of the Camorra and all kinds of other things. I deleted it and put up a warning that anyone putting defamatory comments on my blog would have them instantly removed. All was peaceful.
But, a couple of weeks later, I get another email - the same thing had happened again. This time it's someone purporting to be a banker in Milan making very similar accusations. Again I deleted the comments. It was beginning to worry me. Then, only yesterday, I got yet another email. The internet troll was still pursuing his hate campaign. A different name - similar accusations. Was it the same person?
By now I was utterly fed up - should I adjust my settings to monitor every comment? I was loathe to do that because it's so time consuming, so I went for the only other option - I took the blog down. The world of Italian politics is a strange and scary place.
We're still house-sitting for a friend, looking after a dog and three cats - and driving over to our own house to feed our own outdoor cats every day. Fortunately we have a wood burning stove here and it's all very cosy. Which is a good thing, because the Italian weather is absolutely brutal at the moment.
We've had another 36 hours of heavy rain and gales and the road to our little village has slid even further down the mountain gorge. This is what it looked like originally, just after I'd managed to drive the car over it (thank goodness I did!)
And this is what it looks like now, despite the Commune sheeting it over to try and prevent further water penetration, cutting down the trees etc. The bottom of the sawn-off trees you can see on the left were originally level with the heads of the two men you can see standing on the plastic.
They are building a little temporary parking place for residents in a field, with a footpath to the village, but it's a long walk carrying everything you need (logs, heating oil, animal feed etc). Also a long walk for emergency services.
And a bit worrying that the part of the road where you will have to turn into the new 'parcheggio' also seems to be crumbling away.
The local Commune has been en masse to see the 'Sindaco' - the Mayor - but Camaiore is only a small place and it has 41 landslides to deal with, although ours is the only community totally cut off. It's a major engineering job to construct a new road and I fear it will take months. Not just an inconvenience to the residents but a threat to people's businesses. Many of the houses here are holiday lets and guests like to drive their hire cars right to the door.
Meanwhile the Arno has burst its banks flooding Pisa and parts of Florence - like England, much of Tuscany is under water. http://www.euronews.com/2014/01/31/italy-severe-floods-in-pisa-and-florence/
Then, just before Christmas I had an email from an Italian (who will also remain nameless) saying that he had been seriously defamed on my blog. I checked and - horror of horrors - there was a comment, naming this Italian and calling him a Fascist and member of the Camorra and all kinds of other things. I deleted it and put up a warning that anyone putting defamatory comments on my blog would have them instantly removed. All was peaceful.
But, a couple of weeks later, I get another email - the same thing had happened again. This time it's someone purporting to be a banker in Milan making very similar accusations. Again I deleted the comments. It was beginning to worry me. Then, only yesterday, I got yet another email. The internet troll was still pursuing his hate campaign. A different name - similar accusations. Was it the same person?
By now I was utterly fed up - should I adjust my settings to monitor every comment? I was loathe to do that because it's so time consuming, so I went for the only other option - I took the blog down. The world of Italian politics is a strange and scary place.
We're still house-sitting for a friend, looking after a dog and three cats - and driving over to our own house to feed our own outdoor cats every day. Fortunately we have a wood burning stove here and it's all very cosy. Which is a good thing, because the Italian weather is absolutely brutal at the moment.
We've had another 36 hours of heavy rain and gales and the road to our little village has slid even further down the mountain gorge. This is what it looked like originally, just after I'd managed to drive the car over it (thank goodness I did!)
And this is what it looks like now, despite the Commune sheeting it over to try and prevent further water penetration, cutting down the trees etc. The bottom of the sawn-off trees you can see on the left were originally level with the heads of the two men you can see standing on the plastic.
They are building a little temporary parking place for residents in a field, with a footpath to the village, but it's a long walk carrying everything you need (logs, heating oil, animal feed etc). Also a long walk for emergency services.
And a bit worrying that the part of the road where you will have to turn into the new 'parcheggio' also seems to be crumbling away.
The local Commune has been en masse to see the 'Sindaco' - the Mayor - but Camaiore is only a small place and it has 41 landslides to deal with, although ours is the only community totally cut off. It's a major engineering job to construct a new road and I fear it will take months. Not just an inconvenience to the residents but a threat to people's businesses. Many of the houses here are holiday lets and guests like to drive their hire cars right to the door.
Meanwhile the Arno has burst its banks flooding Pisa and parts of Florence - like England, much of Tuscany is under water. http://www.euronews.com/2014/01/31/italy-severe-floods-in-pisa-and-florence/
January 27, 2014
The Tuesday Poem: Bog People
Peat moss, Rannoch Moor, Grant DixonI was lucky enough to be a runner up in the recent poetry competition 'Sonnet or Not' for poems of 14 lines. This one was 'Highly Commended' and published (under a pseudonym) in the new edition of Cannon's Mouth.
Bog People
Out on the moor, that one time,
our bodies on the drenched heather
braced against the slip and suck
of something more than weather –
the elemental fibres of the dead peat
threading our selves together in the old way
the rituals of the slain gods, noosed,
thrown, cheating the process of decay
in the brown tincture of the bog
supple and folded as worn leather.
Over and under, we repeat their lives
the belief, the dying, the un-resistable desire
that lays us down among the gorse and whin
eye to eye with roots, the bare sky looking in.
© Kathleen Jones
The Tuesday Poets are back after the Christmas and New Year break - take a look at what they're up to on the Tuesday Poem hub site which you can find here.
January 26, 2014
Gardens of the Roman World - fabulous pictures from the Getty Museum
The sun is shining here in Italy, after a long period of extreme weather and I have to admit that my gardening fingers are itching! Then I found this wonderful book 'Gardens of the Roman World' by Patrick Bowe on the Getty site, which you can download, free, as a pdf by clicking here. There are more wonders on the Getty online library site too - it's a perfect treasure trove of images and information. Thank you to Bensozia for giving me the link - it's the most amazing, serendipity blog!
January 20, 2014
A few hours later ..........
A few more hours of torrential rain and the road has continued its progress down into the gorge taking the electricity cables with it. Power now back on. The road is going to take much longer.
The dog is big boxer, so gives some idea of the height of the drop.
The trees on the left were once several feet higher up the gorge!So glad this didn't happen while I was driving over it yesterday morning. The only way into the village is now by foot through a muddy wood.
The dog is big boxer, so gives some idea of the height of the drop.
The trees on the left were once several feet higher up the gorge!So glad this didn't happen while I was driving over it yesterday morning. The only way into the village is now by foot through a muddy wood.
January 19, 2014
Wild Weather in Italy
I'm currently cat and dog sitting for a friend in a small hilltop hamlet and Neil is back in England sorting out problems at the Mill. No sooner had I dropped him at the airport than the lovely clear winter weather we've been having disappeared and it began to rain. And rain. I went out to supper at a friend's house on Friday evening and the roads had turned into rivers making driving difficult. Saturday morning it was still raining in buckets. But by Saturday afternoon things changed. The rain - which had been torrential - intensified and soon there was thunder and lightning as well.
Rain you can't see throughWe lost the power around 5.30pm and in the darkness the rain became quite frightening. The sheer intensity of it is something I've never experienced, even in the monsoon rains of Asia and Africa. It was like a violent thing trying to pound its way through the roof. When I opened the door you couldn't even see through it with a torch. It rained all night and the thunder and lightning were horrendous. I had a cat and a dog in bed with me, shivering under the bedclothes, so at least I was warm! According to the Italian news 300mm of rain fell overnight onto ground already saturated and rivers full.
One very scared little dog.On Sunday morning I got a phone call telling me I should try to get the car out of the village car park because there was a landslide and the road was unsafe. I went straight away and drove down, expecting just a part of the road to have slid down the hillside, these mountain roads often crumble a bit at the edges in bad weather. But when I got there I found that a whole section of the road - more than a car length - had dropped by about a foot and looked as if it was about to slide even further.
The far end of the section
The other end - the drop is about a foot 'Molto pericoloso', a neighbour told me. Did I really want to drive over it, he asked? I didn't, but I also knew I couldn't do without a car for the several weeks it will take to rebuild the road - things don't happen quickly in Italy. By the time I'd found somewhere to park further down the hill the emergency crews had arrived and closed the road completely, so I got out just in time. Heaven knows what the villagers are going to do - we're all going to get more exercise - but there are several elderly and disabled people who can't make the steep uphill walk.It's still raining, but not so heavily now. And at least we haven't suffered as much as Genoa or southern France. What they call 'weather bombs' in New Zealand seem to be part of our lives here now too. Only one thing to do - open the last bottle of the Christmas Prosecco and drink it by candlelight!!
January 12, 2014
My Writing Process
I was invited to contribute to this ‘Blog Tour’ about that mysterious thing called the Writing Process, by
Author’s Electric
writer Ann Evans, and, though I’m not usually fond of this kind of baton-passing exercise, the questions seemed so interesting (as well as some of the responses I’ve read) that I couldn’t resist. Thank you Ann! You can find her blog at http://annsawriter.blogspot.com
The questions Ann passed on to me are:-
1. What am I working on?
I’ve had something of an enforced holiday from fiction recently, because I was commissioned to write a literary biography. But Norman Nicholson: The Whispering Poet was published just before Christmas, so I’m now putting the finishing touches to the novel I’ve been writing, on and off, for about 5 years.
The Centauress is just a little bit autobiographical, in that the protagonist is a biographer. Alex Forbes, 39, recently bereaved in a terrorist attack, has been sent by her agent to Istria - a picturesque part of Croatia that once belonged to Venice. Alex has been commissioned to write the biography of Zenobia de Braganza, a flamboyant artist who is terminally ill and wants to tell her unusual - and often scandalous - life-story before it’s too late.
Alex goes to the Kastela Visoko and is soon caught up in the complicated relationships and rivalries of family and friends as they all compete to inherit Zenia’s legacy of art and property. But it is to Alex that Zenia discloses the big tragedy at the centre of her life. Sharing Zenia’s experience helps Alex to heal herself, though that process is threatened when Alex meets Gianfranco, a very attractive Italian jazz musician and Zenia’s favourite cousin. Is he trustworthy? Or is he, like the others, simply there to inherit her wealth? The story is set against the complicated politics of post-war Croatia in one of the most beautiful landscapes in Europe.
2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?
Because I’m a poet and biographer, the novels I write tend to contain elements of other genres. My first novel,
The Sun’s Companion,
was a historical novel set in the 1930s and 40s, but it was also a family story, and because it was ‘character’ centred, was classified as literary rather than mainstream. I love language, so I craft sentences carefully, and I’m fascinated by other people’s lives, so my stories are full of characters I’ve observed.
The Centauress is also rooted in fact. One in 2 thousand babies every year is born with some form of gender anomaly. Being born ‘inter-sex’ is much more common than people realise and it’s a subject not often talked about. Zenia’s character is based on 2 people I once knew (both dead) and her story is also based on the life of Herculine Barbin - a 19th century figure who was brought up as a girl and then told as a teenager that she was actually a boy. She tried for a while to live as both sexes and eventually committed suicide. Herculine's journals describe how she tried to come to terms with her confusion. In the novel, I’ve tried to explore what it might feel like not to have any certain gender identity - to be the ‘Third Sex’.
3. Why do I write what I do?
I’ve never tried to answer this question. I’ve been writing since I was a child - putting down whatever occurred to me - poetry, stories - following interesting pathways through journalism and biography. I’m aware of a fascination with people’s lives and an obsession with words. Why do I write what I do? I just do. Addiction, OCD, call it what you like!
4. How does your writing process work?
The writing process always starts with day-dreaming - allowing the mind to free-wheel for a while until something floats along - a phrase, or an image, and there’s that little tingle along the writing arm. That’s when I get out the notebook and scribble something down. If the idea has legs then my mind keeps on processing it - running it like a video at the back of my brain. I try not to write it down too early - but sometimes you miss the moment and the idea vanishes and can’t be recalled.
Darwin's NotebooksIt often takes a while to get from the scribbles in the notebook to a fully fledged draft. For fiction I buy a special notebook that has some connection to the subject matter - I like colourful notebooks with decorated covers. Somehow that helps. I write down fragments - chapter openings, character sketches, conversations - in a glorious muddle, and then, when I’ve filled several notebooks, I try to give the story a bit of structure - find the bones to hang it on. That’s when I begin to see it as a whole and start balancing the narrative - filling some sections out and trimming others. When I think it’s finished I print it out and throw it in a box file for several weeks before I get it out again and have an ‘editing’ read. I read in hard copy and on Kindle because it’s a very different experience and you spot new things.
That’s where I am now with The Centauress, which I hope will be available next month. And, no, I couldn’t find a publisher to take on such a controversial book, though I’m told by my editor that it’s a very commercial story and beautifully written. Another rave rejection! Thank goodness for Indie publishing.
Next week, on the 20th January, the blog-baton passes to three more fiction authors, all very different from each other.
Wendy Robertson
Having taught history and art in schools, and education in teaching college, Wendy Robertson has published many novels, both historical and contemporary, and two short story collections in addition to a short memoir of her writing life. Her best-selling novels include 'Land of my Possession', 'Sandie Shaw and the Millionth Marvell Cooker', and 'An Englishwoman in France'. She blogs at 'A Life Twice Tasted', http://lifetwicetasted.blogspot.co.uk/ where you can find information about all her books.
Elizabeth Stott - Elizabeth Stott writes fiction and poetry, with no set agenda other than to take the form where it takes her. Her most recent story 'Touch me with your cold hard fingers', was published as a Chapbook by Nightjar Press. She also has a collection 'This Heat' available on Amazon Kindle. Elizabeth blogs on: ‘To Blog or Not’ - http://www.elizabethstott.wordpress.com and tweets from @ElizabethStott1
Debbie Bennett - Debbie writes both dark thrillers and young adult fantasy. She’s won several competitions over the years and was long-listed for the Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger Award. Her excuse is that the voices made her do it…. Her recent trilogy is available from Amazon and all good bookshops: 'Hamelin's Child', 'Calling the Tune' and 'Paying the Piper'. You can find her blog at http://www.debbiebennett.co.uk/
The questions Ann passed on to me are:-
1. What am I working on?
I’ve had something of an enforced holiday from fiction recently, because I was commissioned to write a literary biography. But Norman Nicholson: The Whispering Poet was published just before Christmas, so I’m now putting the finishing touches to the novel I’ve been writing, on and off, for about 5 years.
The Centauress is just a little bit autobiographical, in that the protagonist is a biographer. Alex Forbes, 39, recently bereaved in a terrorist attack, has been sent by her agent to Istria - a picturesque part of Croatia that once belonged to Venice. Alex has been commissioned to write the biography of Zenobia de Braganza, a flamboyant artist who is terminally ill and wants to tell her unusual - and often scandalous - life-story before it’s too late.
Alex goes to the Kastela Visoko and is soon caught up in the complicated relationships and rivalries of family and friends as they all compete to inherit Zenia’s legacy of art and property. But it is to Alex that Zenia discloses the big tragedy at the centre of her life. Sharing Zenia’s experience helps Alex to heal herself, though that process is threatened when Alex meets Gianfranco, a very attractive Italian jazz musician and Zenia’s favourite cousin. Is he trustworthy? Or is he, like the others, simply there to inherit her wealth? The story is set against the complicated politics of post-war Croatia in one of the most beautiful landscapes in Europe.
2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?
Because I’m a poet and biographer, the novels I write tend to contain elements of other genres. My first novel,
The Sun’s Companion,
was a historical novel set in the 1930s and 40s, but it was also a family story, and because it was ‘character’ centred, was classified as literary rather than mainstream. I love language, so I craft sentences carefully, and I’m fascinated by other people’s lives, so my stories are full of characters I’ve observed. The Centauress is also rooted in fact. One in 2 thousand babies every year is born with some form of gender anomaly. Being born ‘inter-sex’ is much more common than people realise and it’s a subject not often talked about. Zenia’s character is based on 2 people I once knew (both dead) and her story is also based on the life of Herculine Barbin - a 19th century figure who was brought up as a girl and then told as a teenager that she was actually a boy. She tried for a while to live as both sexes and eventually committed suicide. Herculine's journals describe how she tried to come to terms with her confusion. In the novel, I’ve tried to explore what it might feel like not to have any certain gender identity - to be the ‘Third Sex’.
3. Why do I write what I do?
I’ve never tried to answer this question. I’ve been writing since I was a child - putting down whatever occurred to me - poetry, stories - following interesting pathways through journalism and biography. I’m aware of a fascination with people’s lives and an obsession with words. Why do I write what I do? I just do. Addiction, OCD, call it what you like!
4. How does your writing process work?
The writing process always starts with day-dreaming - allowing the mind to free-wheel for a while until something floats along - a phrase, or an image, and there’s that little tingle along the writing arm. That’s when I get out the notebook and scribble something down. If the idea has legs then my mind keeps on processing it - running it like a video at the back of my brain. I try not to write it down too early - but sometimes you miss the moment and the idea vanishes and can’t be recalled.
Darwin's NotebooksIt often takes a while to get from the scribbles in the notebook to a fully fledged draft. For fiction I buy a special notebook that has some connection to the subject matter - I like colourful notebooks with decorated covers. Somehow that helps. I write down fragments - chapter openings, character sketches, conversations - in a glorious muddle, and then, when I’ve filled several notebooks, I try to give the story a bit of structure - find the bones to hang it on. That’s when I begin to see it as a whole and start balancing the narrative - filling some sections out and trimming others. When I think it’s finished I print it out and throw it in a box file for several weeks before I get it out again and have an ‘editing’ read. I read in hard copy and on Kindle because it’s a very different experience and you spot new things.That’s where I am now with The Centauress, which I hope will be available next month. And, no, I couldn’t find a publisher to take on such a controversial book, though I’m told by my editor that it’s a very commercial story and beautifully written. Another rave rejection! Thank goodness for Indie publishing.
Next week, on the 20th January, the blog-baton passes to three more fiction authors, all very different from each other.
Wendy Robertson Having taught history and art in schools, and education in teaching college, Wendy Robertson has published many novels, both historical and contemporary, and two short story collections in addition to a short memoir of her writing life. Her best-selling novels include 'Land of my Possession', 'Sandie Shaw and the Millionth Marvell Cooker', and 'An Englishwoman in France'. She blogs at 'A Life Twice Tasted', http://lifetwicetasted.blogspot.co.uk/ where you can find information about all her books.
Elizabeth Stott - Elizabeth Stott writes fiction and poetry, with no set agenda other than to take the form where it takes her. Her most recent story 'Touch me with your cold hard fingers', was published as a Chapbook by Nightjar Press. She also has a collection 'This Heat' available on Amazon Kindle. Elizabeth blogs on: ‘To Blog or Not’ - http://www.elizabethstott.wordpress.com and tweets from @ElizabethStott1
Debbie Bennett - Debbie writes both dark thrillers and young adult fantasy. She’s won several competitions over the years and was long-listed for the Crime Writers' Association Debut Dagger Award. Her excuse is that the voices made her do it…. Her recent trilogy is available from Amazon and all good bookshops: 'Hamelin's Child', 'Calling the Tune' and 'Paying the Piper'. You can find her blog at http://www.debbiebennett.co.uk/
