Zoe Brooks's Blog, page 10
January 10, 2013
Photo Inspiration - winter walk
This is a photograph of the view I have as I walk to the nearest shops from my Czech farmhouse. As I walk I often work on the novel I am writing. I find just getting away from the computer screen and taking in the cold air and incredible winter sunshine we get in this part of the world is all I need to clear the writer's block. Of course if that fails I still get to pick up some food from the local supermarket!
December 29, 2012
A favourite video
An old favourite of mine. Hope you enjoy it too.
December 24, 2012
Girl in the Glass reduced for the holidays
For the holiday season I am offering my novel Girl in the Glass at the bargain price of 99 cents or 77 pence on Amazon.
Uk purchasers can get it here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Girl-Glass-Healers-Shadow-ebook/dp/B007IROBEE
And US purchasers can get it here http://www.amazon.com/Girl-Glass-Healers-Shadow-ebook/dp/B007IROBEE
Happy Christmas.
Happy Christmas to everyone and a successful 2013. Thank you for reading this blog.
December 16, 2012
Poem -The Breaking of the Blood
The Breaking of the Blood
It is very clear to me,as it is clear to all of us,that memoryof the first trace of blood.It was a surprise,as it is always a surprise,for each womanwho comes upon herselfwith the breaking of the blood.And I thought as I gazedat my blood upon the water of the timewhen reaching into fine white snowmy hand found glass.I thoughtof a child's fairytaleof a queen at a windowwishing herself a childsnow-whiteand lips of blood.
This poem was first published in Grandchildren of Albion ed. Michael Horovitz
It is very clear to me,as it is clear to all of us,that memoryof the first trace of blood.It was a surprise,as it is always a surprise,for each womanwho comes upon herselfwith the breaking of the blood.And I thought as I gazedat my blood upon the water of the timewhen reaching into fine white snowmy hand found glass.I thoughtof a child's fairytaleof a queen at a windowwishing herself a childsnow-whiteand lips of blood.
This poem was first published in Grandchildren of Albion ed. Michael Horovitz
December 10, 2012
Ghost at the Feast - Meet the Family Bloghop
Our family has its very own ghost of Christmas past – her name is Betsy Hilda Morrison and she was my grandmother. She died thirty years ago, but she wouldn’t miss Christmas for the world (or otherworld in her case). She stands like a beaming Yoda at the end of The Jedi Returns benevolently looking on as the family continues the traditions she established.Betsy, or Bessie as she was known, loved Christmas – she looked forward to it from one year to the next. If she had had her way the Christmas decorations would have stayed up until Easter, but my Aunt Zoe insisted on taking them down at Twelfth Night. Christmas Day was not enough for Bessie. On Christmas Day she and Aunty would arrive complete with presents at our house in time for Christmas lunch and leave in the evening. But on Boxing Day the process was reversed, we went to their house and what would you know – Father Christmas always seemed to get horribly confused because he had filled stockings for us there too! So we had Christmas twice, thanks to Betsy Hilda. When Boxing Day was over Betsy would look forward to the next big event – the trip to the January Sales at which she would buy Christmas presents.
Anyone meeting my charming grandmother could be easily be mistaken into thinking this little woman with white hair she referred to as “baby’s bum fluff” was a sweet old dear. But behind her considerable charm was a formidable mind and memory and a will of iron. Betsy was a matriarch of the first order and God help anyone who wronged her or hers. This killer instinct came in very useful in the run-up to Christmas as Granny did the rounds of the local whist drives. She never came away without winning something. Her memory and head for figures making her virtually unbeatable with a good partner. I remember regularly getting into my Aunt’s car to be told “Your Granny’s won another turkey!”
When Betsy died, my Aunt continued the tradition of the family Boxing Day although by now Father Christmas was mistakenly delivering presents for the next generation. No longer oversupplied with turkeys Aunt would bone and stuff ducks for Boxing Day, which were to my mind preferable to turkey. And when Aunt Zoe died, it was my turn to take on Betsy’s baton and celebrate our very special Boxing Day.
We live in Aunt Zoe’s house and when we started going through her things I found the Christmas Box. In it were the Christmas tree decorations with which we used to adorn the tree, taking orders from a seated Betsy. Also in the box were supplies of wrapping paper and labels, which dated back twenty five years to a time when Betsy had had a corner shop in the Forest of Dean, and which, when Betsy had retired, had come with her to her new home. I still have the labels, I don’t use them – they are far too old fashioned – but “waste not, want not,” as my Granny would say. Born at the end of the nineteenth century, Betsy was brought up by her grandparents and used to keep me enthralled with her memories of a very Victorian childhood, including memories of Christmases of that very different time. Memories of a stocking which might if you were lucky contain an orange no doubt inspired her in making her family’s Christmas so abundant.
This blog post is part of the Meet The Family Blog Hop. Below you will find links to all the other blogs taking part.
December 7, 2012
Photo Inspiration - Ice Flowers
This is a photo of the ice flowers on the window of my Czech home this morning.
December 5, 2012
Problem
A few days ago I woke to find that the muscles in my right forearm and hand were painful. I'm not sure why it is, I presume I did something in my sleep.
Anyway here I am in writing purdah trying to write the first draft of the third book in my Healer's Shadow trilogy and I can't type. This post is being typed (with a lot of mistakes) with one hand. So my apologies it looks like I will not be typing too many blogs for a while. Instead I think I will just share with you some photographic inspiration. Here is a photo of my yard this morning.
Anyway here I am in writing purdah trying to write the first draft of the third book in my Healer's Shadow trilogy and I can't type. This post is being typed (with a lot of mistakes) with one hand. So my apologies it looks like I will not be typing too many blogs for a while. Instead I think I will just share with you some photographic inspiration. Here is a photo of my yard this morning.
December 1, 2012
My other blogs
It's a while since I wrote about my other blogs. You might think one is enough and maybe I could have combined them in one large Zoe Brooks blog, but the content and approach is so diverse that it didn't and still doesn't make sense to me.
The first blog I ever created and which is still going is my blog Adventures in the Czech Republic.
It's all about how I came to visit and fall in love with the Czech Republic, so much so that a few years ago I bought a house there/here. I now spend about half my life there/here. It is the place where I write all my books. The process of writing this blog in many ways brought me back to writing, I had virtually given up for about a decade. In fact I would recommend blogging as a quick, easy and not too demanding way of beginning to write. The secret is to create a blog on a subject you are passionate about. The blog allowed me to be lyrical and chatty, to write about my observations of this wonderful country and people and share those observations with others.
A more recent blog is my Magic Realism blog.
This I set up as a book blog in which I monitor my progress on my magic realism challenge. I am reading and reviewing one book a week for a year from a list of magic realism books which I have drawn together from various authoritative lists. The reviews all are on the blog as is the reading list. Part of the fun of this is trying to work out what is magic realism. So far I have decided that it isn't actually a genre, but more of an approach to storytelling. This view will no doubt evolve as the challenge progresses. Why magic realism - well because I was told by several people that I wrote it and had no idea that I did so.
Then there is Women's Fiction News.
This isn't a blog as such, but it's mine nevertheless. It's a weekly newspaper in which I collect together links to some of the best articles on the internet on fiction by and/or for women. I try to make it as diverse as possible - with both literary and popular women's fiction featured from as far afield as possible. It is inevitably idiosyncratic, but hey it's my selection and I can do what I want. Why women's ficton - because I am a woman writer and so far all my books have had strong female central characters. And because women's fiction is under-represented in the major media.
The first blog I ever created and which is still going is my blog Adventures in the Czech Republic.
It's all about how I came to visit and fall in love with the Czech Republic, so much so that a few years ago I bought a house there/here. I now spend about half my life there/here. It is the place where I write all my books. The process of writing this blog in many ways brought me back to writing, I had virtually given up for about a decade. In fact I would recommend blogging as a quick, easy and not too demanding way of beginning to write. The secret is to create a blog on a subject you are passionate about. The blog allowed me to be lyrical and chatty, to write about my observations of this wonderful country and people and share those observations with others.
A more recent blog is my Magic Realism blog.
This I set up as a book blog in which I monitor my progress on my magic realism challenge. I am reading and reviewing one book a week for a year from a list of magic realism books which I have drawn together from various authoritative lists. The reviews all are on the blog as is the reading list. Part of the fun of this is trying to work out what is magic realism. So far I have decided that it isn't actually a genre, but more of an approach to storytelling. This view will no doubt evolve as the challenge progresses. Why magic realism - well because I was told by several people that I wrote it and had no idea that I did so.
Then there is Women's Fiction News.
This isn't a blog as such, but it's mine nevertheless. It's a weekly newspaper in which I collect together links to some of the best articles on the internet on fiction by and/or for women. I try to make it as diverse as possible - with both literary and popular women's fiction featured from as far afield as possible. It is inevitably idiosyncratic, but hey it's my selection and I can do what I want. Why women's ficton - because I am a woman writer and so far all my books have had strong female central characters. And because women's fiction is under-represented in the major media.
November 26, 2012
Photo Inspiration - the Severn Bore
My novel Mother of Wolves is set in an imaginary landscape along a great river. It will not be a surprise to those of you who know that I live in Gloucestershire that the river which had most influence on my imagination was the Severn.
A turning point in the book is when the heroine Lupa uses the river's Autumn bore to her advantage. It was inspired by a trip to watch the Severn bore one very chilly morning. It proved impossible to photo properly, so this must suffice. The force of the tide is unimaginable. It is able to reverse a river's natural flow and form so powerful a wave that it crashes into a bank like this. As you can guess I went away inspired.
