Maria Donovan's Blog, page 11

Five February findings

1. February is named for februa – associated with ancient rites of purification.

The Roman poet Ovid, born in 43 BCE, wrote in his Fasti, a half-finished work on the calendar: ‘The fathers of Rome called purification februa‘.

In Ovid’s own time it was still used for certain artefacts:

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woollen cloths called februa in the ancient tongue

When houses are cleansed, the roasted grain and salt

… are called by the same name

The same name too is given to the branch, cut from a pure/Tree …

a branch of pine,

In short anything used to purify our bodies

Had that title in the days of our hairy ancestors.

Ovid also seems to speculate over an association of februa with this month’s festival of Lupercalia on February 15, in which the earth was cleansed with ‘strips of purifying hide‘ or perhaps ‘because the time is pure, having placated the dead.’

Our ancestors believed every sin and cause of evil

Could be erased by rites of purification.  

Is it fanciful to see connections here to our own customs of spring-cleaning and to the  Christian practice of confession on Shrove Tuesday, before the extended period of purification through abstinence, which we call Lent?

Certainly, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the feast of Lupercalia was appropriated in 494 CE as a Christian Festival of Purification.

What links do you make to similar religious or secular customs? Is this by coincidence? Or does the end of winter, the beginning of spring, suggest a time for clearing out what is dead to make way for the renewal of life?

2. There was a time when February was unnamed and had no existence.

As Ovid says, ‘The year was once shorter, the pious rites of purification, februa, were unknown’ 

As I mentioned in my post on January, the early Romans, in a time that Ovid thought of as ancient, began counting months in March and stopped in December. It seems that in between there was a quiet time without name.

[image error]Magnolia in February

Perhaps everyone used to hibernate? Many people I speak to at this time of year seem to long for the winter months to be over, but I enjoy the illusion that time has come to a stop, and love the beauty of bare branches, the colours of the wood, so intricate and natural against the sky.

[image error]February Primroses

And yet nothing really stops. From the beginning of the month already, spears of daffodils are piercing the earth; by mid-February yellow trumpets blare from southern roadsides. Spring is moving northwards at her own pace. Snowdrops are almost old news.

The first primroses are out.

 

 

3. February, on its introduction to the Roman calendar, was the last month of the year.

The Encyclopedia Britannica is a little confusing here: in one post on the Roman Republican Calendar stating that Numa Pompilius (the second king of Rome, who lived more than 600 years before Ovid’s time), is credited with adding January to the beginning of the year and February at the end. This makes sense if we think of March as the original first month. And yet this article also states that in 452 BC, February was moved to its current position between January and March, suggesting that when the two months were introduced the order would have been December, February, January, March.

This seems rather silly. Is it possible? Or is there some confusion about what is meant by the last and the first? I had gathered that March was initially still retained as the first month and that January and February were added between December and March, with January taking over as the first month of the year ‘no later than 153 BCE’ (according to this EB entry). It just goes to show how difficult it is to get at the truth sometimes.

That calendars are conventions we make to help us count time, and that, over the centuries there have been plenty of periods of confusion, is apparent from the fact I noted in January, that the calendar in England was out of sync with the rest of Europe for a few centuries, that the honour of being the first month of the year shifted between January and March in the English Christian calendar, only settling for good into the familiar order as late as 1752, but leaving us with various anomalies, such as the dating of the tax year in the UK. Of which, more in March and April.

[image error]Apple tree in February

4. February has 28 days (except in a leap year) because of a superstition.  

By the time February was introduced, the Romans had developed a superstitious dread of even numbers. All other months at that time were given odd numbers, but, since 12 odd numbers would add up to an even total, it was allowed that February, which Ovid says was ‘sacred to the last rites of the dead’ might properly be the one to carry what otherwise would have seemed an unlucky number. I assume that a leap year, giving February 29 days, must have felt particularly lucky.

 

 

5. How do you say the word February?  

The Oxford English Dictionary finds it necessary to remind readers that February is spelled with a ‘r’ after the ‘Feb’ part. Apparently, though ‘precise speakers insist upon it’ it is ‘not easy’ to pronounce the ‘r’, so that ‘most people’ replace the ‘r’ with a ‘y’ and say Feb-yoo rather than Feb-roo. Also that ‘this is now becoming the accepted standard’.

At first I felt faint. Then I thought back to lessons at primary school. Then I realised I probably say Feb yoo airy half the time anyway.  I do think that keeping the februa, as the root of the word, in mind, helps a bit to remember the ‘r’.

I wonder when the spelling will change? Around the time that ‘must of’ finally replaces ‘must’ve’ perhaps? That being an example of a version that is more difficult to say replacing the one that is easier and logically a result of the contraction ‘must have’.

It’s all progress except when we’re going backward sideways and somewhere out of sight. Which reminds me that Ovid also mentions February is the month of the Feast of Fools …

And we haven’t even started on Carnival, Pancake Day or said anything about St Valentine!

How do you feel about February?

[image error]Another Allington Hill Volcano – February

 

A sense of place – with Rosanna Ley

Dorset Writers Network workshop, with Rosanna Ley, Saturday 3 February, 10-12. 

Venue: The White Room, The Chapel in the Garden, Bridport.

Anyone who has read Rosanna Ley’s novels will know how important a sense of place is to her writing.

[image error]Take her latest, The Little Theatre by the Sea. It’s set in two outstandingly beautiful locations: Sardinia and the part of West Dorset we both know so well, centred around Bridport and West Bay. I enjoyed following the characters around some well known places on the Dorset coast and though I’ve never been to Sardinia I found myself longing to go there and experience all those sights and smells (and the warmth and the food) for myself.

It was a pleasure to have the chance to attend one of Rosanna’s workshops on a Sense of Place. The one in Dorchester had been such a success and there were a number of people, including myself, who had been unable to attend, so we were glad to have another chance, in Bridport, in The White Room of The Chapel in the Garden.

[image error]I had already signed up for it before I found out that I’d also be doing the introductions and handing out the feedback forms on behalf of the Dorset Writers Network, so I had two functions to fulfil, but really wanted to make the most of the chance to participate.

The workshop was as full as could be, with a nice range of abilities, from relative beginners to published novelists (some of them members of the Romantic Novelists Association). There were also writers of memoir and short stories as well as scriptwriters and poets. Not everyone was local: one of the participants came all the way from Kent!

Two hours flew past. One of the things I enjoyed most was the way Rosanna took us through a visualisation. I felt connected to the place that had popped into my mind: the banks of the Westerschelde in Zeeland, with its stalking snipe, seals on distant sandbanks and the smell of mud. There were the looming container ships out in the deep water channel, sailing boats heeling over in the wind, the futuristic towers of Breskens in the distance at the end of the long dark cycle path. I tasted the salt on my tongue, felt the cold metal of the handlebars of my bike, the wind in my face. I was there! What made it really helpful was being guided by Rosanna’s voice. I wonder if we could persuade her to produce an audio version or an app for that kind of exercise? I could do with that at home. 

Part of the fun of a workshop is spending time focusing on matters to do with writing, without distractions. It’s great to learn from each other as well as from the tutor and to have the chance to meet up with other writers, when we spend so much of our time in solitude. Some people wanted a chance to reconnect with their writing or were starting anew and looking for the focus a workshop can give, as well as the stimulation and encouragement to keep going. Some people enjoyed the chance to think about their writing in a new way. There was a great sharing of minds and we all took away something of value. Thanks to Rosanna! 

Rosanna Ley’s beautiful website is here

For information about writers’ groups, future writing workshops and other events in Dorset, click on the Dorset Writers Network logo.

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There’s no membership fee. All you have to do to stay informed is to sign up for email notifications and join the 500+ writers already on the mailing list.

Coming DWN events (details will be on the DWN website soon): 

Dorset Writers Network Open House at Arts University Bournemouth. Saturday, 10 March 2018, 10am – 1pm. This is a free event.

‘Keeping it Short’ Flash fiction workshop with Gail Aldwin. Dorchester Waterstone’s, Sunday 13 May, 2018, 1.30 – 3.30pm. Cost £15. Places limited. Booking through the DWN website.

Gail Aldwin’s collection of flash fiction, Paisley Shirt, is fresh out now on Kindle with the print version coming soon! 

[image error]East Beach West Bay

There’s so much going on, just here in Dorset. If you’re a writer on holiday, you could think about visiting one of these events.

Or plan a holiday around it!

Writers: How important is place to your writing? Do you have any tips to share? 

Readers: What special place do you know of that would make a wonderful setting, and why?

 

 

 

 

5 Things I think I know about … January

Some years ago and in another country, I used to go out with someone who questioned all manner of received wisdom. ‘How do you know that?’ he’d say. ‘How can you be sure?’ What a great time he must be having now, in the era of fake news. But still … I challenged myself to write down some assumptions. What do I know (or think I know) about January? 

 

January is named for Janus, the Roman god with two faces looking in opposite directions.
January is the first month of the year.
January the 1st is New Year’s Day.
January has 31 days.
January 1st is a Bank Holiday.

Easy. Easy? Come dig with me in the internet and we’ll see about that. 

[image error]Janus with Bellona, Roman goddess of war.

Assumption 1. January is named for Janus, the Roman god with two-faces looking in opposite directions.

First blow: the month is ‘conventionally thought of’ as being named for Janus. Ouch! But who says this? Wikipedia1, under the entry January, with an explanation that according to ancient farmer’s almanacs the month belongs to Juno.    

This seems counterintuitive, since Janus sounds like January and Juno sounds like June. There is another well to be dug checking what the story is regarding Juno and her relationship to Janus. For now, I will just mention that conventional thinking that January or ‘Ianuarius, fully Mensis Ianuarius is Latin for the “January Month”, i.e., “The Month of Janus”‘ comes from Wikipedia’s own Ianurius page2, and is corroborated by the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Oxford English Dictionary and the Ancient History Encyclopedia. 

Janus, I find out, is the god of doorways and arches. As these look both ways, so does the god. He not only has eyes in the back of his head, but a whole face. Though, who is to say which is the front and which is the back? He is a god of comings and goings, sometimes depicted bearded or beardless on both sides and sometimes with a beard one side and cleanshaven (or beardless) the other. I am not sure whether the beard indicated maturity and the beardless face youth, or just someone who liked a good shave. When the faces are not identical this brings up other questions about past and future, inwards and outwards. 

Further digging uncovers the following: that sometimes Janus had four heads, if he was associated with an archway with four openings; that Janus was one of the original gods of the home; that ianua is the Latin word for ‘door’; that some experts quibble over whether the word January comes from the word for ‘door’ or the word ‘Janus’, but as Professor Gary Forsythe puts it, in a footnote on page 166 of his 2012 edition of essays, Time in Roman Religion3: ‘the distinction between the two possible etymologies seems insignificant’. Thank you.4

Other things I now think I know about Janus: that, unlike other Roman gods, he had no Greek counterpart; he was one of the first of the Roman gods; that it is possible he is based on a real person (a person with two faces? Not really two faces but the same face pointing in different directions), whose story became mythological; that in one theory the death of his son Tiberinus in or near the River Albula caused it to be renamed the Tiber5; that the temples dedicated to Janus in Rome had doors at either end, and that these were left open in time of war (and therefore hardly ever closed); and that the Roman army going off to fight would march through an archway of Janus as they left the city but to do so in the wrong way, would bring bad luck to the enterprise.6 

There is a great deal more that could be said or written about Janus – his changing role, the use of ‘Janus-faced’ to indicate something with sharply contrasting aspects and examples of how this is used in literature; the transition from two faces guarding a portal or presiding over periods of transition or new beginnings to two faces telling different stories, that is being two-faced, deceitful and untrustworthy – but there is not space or time to include it here, at least not if I want to finish this blog post in January. 

Assumption 2: January is the first month of the year.

Yes, it is. Or rather, it is now, in the Gregorian calendar (in use as a civic calendar all over the world, though other calendars are also available). But in Britain and its colonies this was only made official in 1752. Before that the year began in March. And before that, sometimes, in January.   

There have been shifts: under the Julian calendar (on which the Gregorian calendar is based), depending on when and where it was in use, the first month of the year has sometimes been March and sometimes January. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, January replaced March as the first month of the year in the Roman calendar no later than 153 BCE, long before Julius Caesar brought about the reforms named after him to bring the calendar back into line with the seasons and fixed points of the solar year.  [image error]

So what does that say about Janus and the beginnings of the year? Janus was around since before Rome was founded, apparently. At this point my brain is starting to feel like it is unspooling from inside my skull so I move on. But not far.   

Assumption 3: January the 1st is New Year’s Day. 

Assuming January is the first month of the year then it is a safe bet that the first day of the month is also the first day of the New Year. Only, it wasn’t just the ancient Romans who began the year in March. Leaving aside for the time being the pagan calendar, this is a brief run-down of how things have worked out since Christians have been doing the counting. 

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the New Year was moved backwards to align with the Christian festival of Christmas and the New Year began at Christmas in many European countries. I have often wondered why Christmas and New Year were separated.  

By the ninth century it was moved in some southern European countries to March 25 – the Feast of the Annunciation (nine months before the birth of Christ) also known as ‘Lady Day’. England caught up with this in the 12th century from which point March 25 was the beginning of the year. References to the first month of the year were, for several centuries, references to March, while references to the twelfth month would mean February. 

We can still see this in the names of the months: September means seventh month, October means eighth month, November ninth month and December tenth month: although it has to be remembered that the old old Roman calendar only had ten months to start with and that January and February were added (long before Julius Caesar’s reform).

Although Pope Gregory instituted a reform of the calendar in 1582, to correct the misalignment caused by a slight flaw in the Julian calendar, which meant it was lagging behind, Protestant countries such as England continued to use the Julian calendar. From this point, dates could be different depending on where you were in Europe, because the Gregorian calendar dropped ten days from the month of October, in order to catch up with itself. According to the Gregorian calendar, January 1st was once again New Year’s Day.  

For a couple of centuries, there were not only two sets of dates in use, depending on where you were in Europe, but also two different starts to the year. Over time, in England and its colonies, though March 25 was still legally the first day of the New Year, it came to be called ‘Old Style’. Other countries celebrating on January 1st had New Style New Year. Sometimes a double date was given for a particular event for ‘clarity’.  

January 1st has only been, legally, the first day of the New Year, in Britain and the territories it ruled, since 1752. 1751 was a short year from March 25 to December 31st. By the time the British got around to catching up to the ‘New Style’ Gregorian calendar it was necessary to drop 11 days from September 1752. Apparently, this was a hot topic in  the British election of 17547

It was still some time before the new dates could be taken for granted. George Washington, for example, was born on February 11, 1731 but after the reforms recognised the date of his birth as February 22, 1732. Historians and writers of historical fiction do well to double check – if double-dating is not supplied.   

In other cultures January 1st is not and never has been the first day of the year anyway, though the Gregorian calendar is used as a civil calendar in many parts of the world. It is probably expedient to do so: it must help a bit with air travel, like when the railway timetables dictated the syncing of clocks throughout one time ‘zone’ e.g. the whole of the UK. Before that midday really was the middle of the day in your locality. 

Today, religious and other festivals and calendars are calculated differently in China, Korea, Bali, Iran, some southern states of India, Sri Lanka, Tamil Nadu and Tamil diasporas in Malaysia and Singapore. There are some states in Northern India which celebrate Diwali as the start of the New Year, the Jewish New Year has its own calculation as does the Islamic New Year and the Chinese New Year.  A now extinct tribe in Western Australia has customs that live on in legend. Yes, many more calendars are also available. 

[image error]

Assumption 4: January has 31 days.

Yes – in the Gregorian calendar. And in the Julian Calendar (the reform of the Roman calendar under Julius Caesar added two days: before that January had 29 days).

Do you ever have need to remember which months have which number of days? Going through the rhyme, ’30 days hath September …’ can be a long-winded way of reminding yourself how many days July hath. Dutch children are apparently taught the knuckle method in primary school. 

Make a fist. Starting with January count across the knuckles and the dips. Every knuckle ‘month’ has 31 days.8 The dips or gaps are all 30 days except Feb. And we all know February likes to be different. Don’t we?

Assumption 5:  January 1st is a Bank Holiday.

In my head I added ‘and always has been’ and was astonished to learn that New Year’s Day has only been a Bank Holiday since 1974. The website that set me off checking this (yes I did check it elsewhere to be sure) is called IanVisits. Ian is the Scottish form of John, I believe, and Ianus, I also believe, is an alternative form of Janus. All things are circular, if not elliptical, as we move around the sun. More assumptions to challenge next month!

Has anything here come as a surprise?

Is it too much to read all in one go?9

What assumptions have you challenged lately?

Add your comments below.

[image error]January Rainbow

 

Do we trust Wikipedia? It was the top result in a google search, which I think means many people read it, so it doesn’t hurt to check what it is saying, even though it is not a good reference to include for your university coursework (academic rigour providing a plumbline for what is and is not ‘acceptable’ as ‘knowledge’). I always aim to check the original and other sources. ↩


I took a screenshot of the page and then decided not to use it having read an article about people getting into legal battles after using screenshots of other people’s websites. Even though it is likely I would be allowed to do it as blog posts are usually covered, being, like this one, for ‘comment’ or ‘educational use’, I don’t think I would like to spend my time dealing with it. I would have thought Wikipedia would be glad of the free advertising. But then what do I know? The truth is the likelihood that Wikipedia would ever find out anyway is small, unless millions of people start reading my monetized (nasty word) website. Has anyone else used screenshots of sites like Wikipedia, Amazon or Google in their blog posts? ↩


A work I now feel I must read even though it costs nearly £30. Price correct for the Kindle edition 27 January 2018, on which date the paperback was £30 and the Hardback £110, new from Amazon, because that is what academic books cost. Thank goodness for libraries. ↩


And yet I suspect this will be nibbling away at the edges of my mind in some dark night to come, unless I can do something useful with it (i.e. by making something up, which people agree and understand is made up, though it may reveal some kind of truth). Meanwhile, I note that it seems possible that the god of doorways and passages – places which exist and yet, in terms of content are made out of a nothing framed by a something – became the metaphorical god of beginnings and was invoked as such in Roman rituals. ↩


In other theories Tiberinus might have been the father of Janus or even the same person. Conclusion: it’s hard to know so better to refer to ‘the known theories’ instead of ‘the known facts’. ↩


 Oh how I wonder what ‘in the wrong way’ could mean? Hopping when they should be skipping? Marching in or out of time? Forgetting to go backwards and spit? If anyone knows the answer please comment. ↩


Although it might not have been a matter for rioting as has sometimes been supposed, it’s likely that some people felt that they had lost these days of their lives and they could not be returned, though it was only a matter of counting. Perhaps when Julius Caesar extended one year by over a hundred days to make way for his reformed calendar, people were grateful to him for the gift of an extra long life? ↩


Apart from counting knuckles, I think, now that I have realised there is something going on with odd and even numbers, I could remember by reminding myself that the months with 31 days are all uneven to begin with: January, March, May and July, all evenly spaced like orderly mountains with valleys between. July and August are two mountains close together and from then on the months with 31 days are evenly spaced again, on even numbers: August, October and December. It would look better as a picture. ↩


This is my first go at using footnotes in a blog post. A nice person from WordPress (one of their Happiness Engineers) showed me how to do this using html and then he remembered I could use Markdown. So I have been trying out Markdown while writing the post. Reading footnotes is optional. Isn’t it? ↩

Launching the Soup!

‘A book launch is a bit like a wedding, except that you’ve done something to deserve it.’

Those words, spoken by my dear friend, the wonderful writer, Sarah Klenbort, always made me smile. I think this time, seeing my novel, The Chicken Soup Murder, come into the world, it was a little more like a christening.

Just to add to the frisson, I had my first go at a live Facebook feed. A short speech from me, with thank-yous, an explanation of how my late husband nearly killed me while I was making chicken soup, the difficulties of grieving and the briefest of readings from the beginning of my novel.

Friends, family and well-wishers were there. Antonia from the Bookshop in South Street sold oodles of books. Rosie, marketing and communications officer from my publisher Seren Books, came along and brought her book-loving spaniel Mojo.

Was it a good evening? Someone asked me a few days later when I went into the Bookshop to sign more copies. ‘Fabulous!’ said Antonia.

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I got to say a word from ‘the banned list’ in front of my dad (with his permission) and exchanged a lovely knowing look with my youngest niece and god-daughter. Perfect. I feel almost grown up now.

Among the family, friends and well-wishers, were some people I had never met before. A reminder that once the book is published it’s out there to be enjoyed by readers we might never meet. To see some on the night was wonderful.

Beach and Barnicott did us proud. If you’re wondering what the rustling is on the video that’s the sound of sweeties being unwrapped. The bing-bong is the sound of canapés descending. I heard they were delicious. I didn’t eat a single one.

But thank you to everyone attending. I am so glad you did. Some people travelled a long way (thank you) and Kate Wilson from the Bridport Prize came and took photos. Such a lovely person to come and support one of the winners of the Dorset Award (for my flash fiction story ‘Chess’  – I shall be forever grateful to Roger McGough and David Gaffney for giving me that honour), announcing her debut novel in her home town.

High among the many people I have to thank is Fay Weldon for her generous endorsement and the even lovelier things said to me in private and the encouragement for the future. Also to Fanny Blake for my first ever review in a national newspaper.

It’s a huge relief to have something that means so much to me personally be enjoyed by people I love and admire and to have fine reviews from people who were, until then, strangers admired from afar. That someone else gets it, just as I intended, feels magical! Thanks also to Tracy Baines and Frost Magazine and my revered former colleague and tutor, Sheenagh Pugh for understanding what it was all about.

After the launch came two selling events: one was the Bookfest in Bridport Arts Centre, organised by Chris Legg to raise money for Children’s Hospice South West. Ralph Hoyte put together an audio tour of Bridport in which I participated with extracts from my novel.

The second was a Christmas Fayre in Weymouth organised by the wonderful Sue Hogben. It was great to meet so many other authors and put faces to the names I knew: and all good practice setting out your stall …

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I did so enjoy it. And one of the nicest things was someone coming along, a genuine new reader, saying ‘I can only read e-books these days’ and then having a message later to say that he’d bought not just the novel but also the short story collection, Pumping Up Napoleon, on Kobo.

Faith in human nature strengthened. Thank you so much to everyone who has been pleased that I made it this far!

It was never my intention to make this blog all about me, but the arrival of a book is overwhelming and I wanted to make The Chicken Soup Murder, dedicated to my late husband, Mike, feel as welcome as possible.

An early Christmas present: a friend sent me this review from Buzz magazine. I love Lucy Menon! She captures the novel’s themes of loss and grieving, while pointing out that ‘Despite its sombre subject matter, the book is humorous’.

As this goes out we will be past the Winter Solstice. New things will happen in 2018. In the meantime, Merry Christmas and thank you!

 

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What were your highlights in 2017? Writing-related or nothing to do with authorship! I’m in the mood for celebrating!

 

 

Book Born in Bridport

On Tuesday 21 November, I’ll be reconnecting Bridport Past to Bridport Present with the launch of my debut novel, The Chicken Soup Murder.

 

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The venue is Beach and Barnicott, in South Street, just a few doors away from the house where we lived when I was born. It’s doubly exciting that the launch will be supported by Antonia Squire of The Book Shop. 

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The Book Shop didn’t exist until I was a teenager. I would have thought myself in Heaven to think that my own works of fiction would one day be on sale there: my first novel, The Chicken Soup Murder, and a collection of short stories, Pumping Up Napoleon.  Both are published by Seren Books, based in Bridgend. For many years I have come and gone from Bridport – and have spent much time in Holland and in Wales. West Dorset always draws me back. 

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People will know Beach and Barnicott as a warm and friendly café, restaurant and music and literary venue, which hosts Apothecary, Bridport’s monthly Open Mic for the spoken word, Story Slams and readings. Today I went to a wonderful reading and book signing by Gill Bar, whose story ‘Skylight’ won a competition run by Wessex FM and Creeds design and print.

I don’t remember things like that happening when I was growing up here. But then, there was no Bridport Arts Centre (many years of fund-raising went into roof repairs before it could be used), no Bridport Prize, no Bridport Literary Festival.

My flash fiction story ‘Chess’ won the Dorset Award in the Bridport Prize in 2015: a prize sponsored by The Book Shop. That must have been the first time I met Antonia. So thanks to Kate Wilson and the Bridport Prize for bringing us together! In the same year, The Chicken Soup Murder was a finalist for the Dundee International Book Prize. Two years further on and my novel finally has an independent existence. 

Background:

My novel is partly set in Cardiff but mostly in a fictionalised Bridport called Buckington. The story unfolds in 2012 in real time so that the characters sometimes respond to or are influenced by great and small events of that year. In time to come it could look like very well-researched historical fiction ;-). 

I set out to write a murder mystery but I wanted it to feel realistic. I had been bereaved and I wanted to be true to how that felt. I didn’t want it to come from my perspective.

In order to see everything from an entirely different point of view I made my narrator a boy of eleven, going on twelve.

He and the people he loves are affected by two different kinds of death: one natural and the other, he alone is sure, is a murder.

What would he see and understand in the behaviour of people around him? How would he keep his sense of humour? And finding that the adults have left him and his friend Janey to work things out for themselves, how could he ever make it all come right? 

Reviews

The novel was published on 25 September 2017. Apart from some fine endorsements from Fay Weldon and Danny Wallace, Christopher Meredith and Francesca Rhydderch, there have been some great and varied responses. Fanny Blake in The Daily Mail, Tracy Baines in Frost Magazine and people I know and some I don’t know have made me believe that someone out there other than me is fond of my offspring. 

And finally … 

So that’s 21st of November in Beach and Barnicott, South Street, Bridport from 6pm. There will be a words of thanks from me and a reading. Other than that I hope it will be a lovely get-together of family and friends old and new. Please come if you are interested! 

And if you can’t come to the launch and are interested anyway please think about trying a bit of my novel. You can go to any good bookshop and ask for it, or peek inside at amazon.co.uk or get a 20% discount by joining Seren’s free book club.  

Am I excited? Yes. And I do really hope that you will read my book and tell the world what you think. It means a lot to a book’s life to have reviews on Amazon and so on.

To you who have already bought it and left me your kind comments on this blog, on my Facebook page, on Amazon, Goodreads and elsewhere, thank you! 

Bye for now … 

 

[image error]Me holding my novel for our first photo

 

Writer leaves shell!

[image error]I like solitude. Even before I needed peace for writing (though, come to think of it, I’ve managed to work with the sound of sanding and drilling going on for the past few years) I liked being on my own: to hear my own thoughts and observe the world and dream, not having to talk (except to myself) or be derailed by someone else’s thought train. 

It’s certainly helpful when you’re immersing yourself in the world of your story, particularly if you’re trying to sustain the long-haul writing of a novel. But I love people too and their ideas and conversation. These last few weeks following publication of my first novel, The Chicken Soup Murder, have been as sociable as any I can remember, meeting up with friends who are at the very least as amazed as I am to see me accomplish this feat.  

Kind and supportive friends are one thing: in order to take my book into the world, I have to creep out and away from my shell, stand up in front of roomfuls of people and deliver a performance. Even when I’ve been assured that the experience will be a good one and the audience friendly and appreciative, I still feel burdened by the possibility of letting others or myself down. The only way to relieve my anxiety about this is to prepare and, having done that, to enjoy the moment and love and thank the audience for being there. 

The first time reading with my brand-new novel in my hand and a microphone in front of me was as one of the guests invited by Amy Wack to take part in ‘First Thursday’ at Cardiff’s Chapter Arts Centre, on October 5. Mine was the prose offering between readings by two acclaimed poets, Susie Wild and Rebecca Parfitt.

The upstairs room was full. In that very place, ten years ago, we had the launch for my short story collection, Pumping Up Napoleon. My mum, who died just weeks ago on August 23, was there that night in February 2007. I have a photo of us together, beaming. My late husband and my sister’s late husband are forever holding up glasses of red wine and putting the world to rights in a photo taken then. I had to deal with the emotions that brought and decided it was a comforting thing to think of them being close, particularly when I heard that First Thursday events aren’t usually in that room: to me it felt like the right place. 

At that first book launch, my friend, the writer Sarah Klenbort, said, ‘It’s like a wedding, only you’ve done something to deserve it.’ Though this reading was not a launch, and many people had come to hear someone else, it felt festive to me, because friends were there and I saw in one place more people I care about, who were happy for me, than I have seen in many years. 

I still feel awkward in front of a microphone stand, holding the book and turning the pages and looking at the audience at the same time. And when I wrote the novel, the thought that I would one day be reading the words of a first-person narrator, Michael, a boy of eleven, going on twelve, wasn’t uppermost in my mind. And there were other voices to differentiate: the Bully, Nan, her friend Irma. I was glad I had practised. 

Preparation meant I could just rely on doing it as well as possible. I enjoyed it and felt great when it was over! And having done that reading, I know where I can improve. I hope that confidence will grow and yet, next time, until I feel I know what I’m doing and am as prepared as I can be (not yet knowing how to do it better), I will probably once again dread the whole business of performing. Again, preparation will help to reduce the anxieties. I admire anyone who can wing it but I find spontaneity is easier when you already have something to say and know how it could be delivered. 

I include teaching in this too. The following night, I was to deliver the ‘professional workshop’ to students (and their tutors as it turned out) at the University of South Wales, followed by another reading. It’s something I have missed, being in charge of a class and meeting students and I welcomed that workshop as a chance to get to know them.

The performance element plays its part: back in my days of teaching undergraduates, I remember that one of my groups for fiction writing, which was bursting with talent, sometimes gave me the perplexing sight of one of the best writers falling asleep. It was after lunch so it couldn’t have been because she was tired. But I saw her yawning and kept upping my levels of engagement and entertainment until I felt I was about to burst into song or start tap-dancing. Then I found out that her lunch had been a couple of pints at the Students’ Union and felt a little better. 

A tutor relies on participants being receptive and willing to engage, though we all have our ways of disarming the student who likes to say no (often, I think, goaded into finding fault with everything and everyone else because of their own fear of failure). One of the easiest workshops you can do is for a group of people who are already writers, studying for an MPhil. You share a common understanding and commitment. On the other hand, they’ve seen a workshop or two and you are the one supposed to be bringing something new to the party. Though I like to think of a workshop as a way of sharing creativity, with as much coming from the students as from the tutor, it’s natural that everyone is looking at you to know what’s going to happen next.

I was glad I had prepared two alternatives: one a way of focusing on how to talk about your project, and the other a way of keeping in touch with your creative side when pressures of time, home, family, other work and even writing business can make you feel in danger of the well-spring, not being drawn from, sealing itself up. I called it, because it seemed cheesy and memorable: Haiku for Happiness. Nearly everyone in the room was a prose writer and they could come at writing this very short form of poetry in the same way as I did, without expectation and therefore perhaps without fear. Something small and fun to slip into those chinks of time that are sometimes all you have, a way to engage with the world around you, and not always be scanning your phone or the inside of your own head. 

In that workshop, which was only one hour, I intended to offer a choice of two simple ideas, one on the business side and one on the creative side, either of which people could keep coming back to at any time in their writing careers and which they could develop further for themselves. I thought we’d only have time for one, but we did both! I was glad I was prepared for that.

This was followed by a talk – an interview, with USW creative writing Senior Lecturer Barrie Llewelyn asking me questions – punctuated by readings from my three books (flash fiction: Tea for Mr Dead; short stories: Pumping up Napoleon; novel: The Chicken Soup Murder) – and further questions from the audience. Some old friends and colleagues and former students turned up. For me, it couldn’t have been nicer: it couldn’t have been more fun.  

We drove back to Dorset that night and the next morning, at a Dorset Writers Network Open House event in Dorchester Library, I sold more books and chatted to other writers about their interests and hopes and writing conundrums and experiences. By Saturday evening it was all over for the time being. 

Beforehand I had looked forward to the day after: to waking up to a morning when my only aims would be to write and to be kind. But three days drenched in adrenaline and endorphins made me realise performing and teaching are addictive. Solitude for the writing is something to preserve. But the sociability of a reading or a workshop, the gift of  sharing is something to look forward to as well. 

I will remember that, next time I’m scared. 

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The Chicken Soup Murder now!

[image error]Holding my novel for our first photo

Tuesday 26 of September 2017 was that special day when I saw my novel as a book, with a life of its own, for the first time. I held it, I smelt it and I even started reading it – not so much to check that things are all in place but to experience it as a book, almost as if it were a novel by someone else. It does feel different: the lines are shorter, the pages not as long, there’s no double spacing!

I started writing this novel in 2012 in the peace of rural Wales. To make myself go forwards, I anchored it in real time. Of course, real time got ahead of me, and I found myself taking notes on the weather, the cricket scores, important events. The idea was that the people in the novel, particularly the narrator, eleven-year-old Michael, would respond as a real person to things going on in the world. It probably doesn’t matter to anyone else, but you can time the murder by the cricket commentary, if you care to look back and work it out. The idea was that these things from real life would not be an intrusion or dominate but give texture and a sense of reality to my first long work of fiction. Later, I pared away what was not needed, wanting to keep the novel moving forwards – but it was a help to me at the time of writing to reflect the world around me, the world around young Michael.

The origin of the title goes back further. My late husband once nearly killed me with his dodgy electrics when I was making chicken soup. I told him I’d write about it one day. And now I have. The book is also dedicated to him: to Mike.

Mike died in 2010 and the short stories I wrote after that were often drawn closely from life: grief burrows so deep into the body and mind it’s hard to ignore if you’re someone who writes from the gut as well as through imagination. I had been working on a different novel while he was ill – a way of keeping myself together – but after he died I couldn’t go on with it. Just had to start again from the place where I was.

For some months after Mike died, I was effectively homeless. I felt so little care for myself that I allowed myself to be savaged by a dog, while trying to protect two others. It ripped into my right hand, my writing hand. When I saw that gaping wound and my own bones it brought me up sharp. Would I ever hold a pen or touch type again? I was lucky. I can do both though my hand aches and the scar is there to remind me. The pain of grief was so intense that I didn’t notice when it turned into the pain of an ovarian cyst, which grew as big as a rugby ball before I was driven to do anything about it. That brought me so close to the idea of my own death, that I decided after all it was better to live and to make what can be made of being in the world.

So at last I got back to our house in Wales, and having already climbed back onto the writing horse I decided to try a new novel. I knew it would have to say something about grief because that was my world, but I wanted to give myself the perspective of distance: I chose a narrator as far from my own experience as possible, a boy, who turns twelve in the middle of the novel. I wanted to show something about the ways those who are left behind after a death cope and do not cope, and what things hold people back: a sense of injustice for one thing. And what greater injustice is there than a life taken before its time? How can anyone begin to accommodate the reality of such a death until the answer has been found: who did this and why?

So here is my novel – part murder mystery with its elements of psychological suspense, part meditation on the process of grieving and the meaning of family, filtered through the consciousness of a person as far removed from myself as I could get without choosing an alien – ready to be served up to the world. I hope someone out there will like it.

[image error]The Chicken Soup Murder on my kitchen table

Novel? Due date delayed

Gestation time for a novel is almost always a lot longer than it takes to produce a human baby. In either case, the due date of its appearance in the world is something to look forward to for weeks ahead. And then like a real baby the novel decides not to make an appearance for another seven days.

With a good push The Chicken Soup Murder should appear in physical form on 23 September 2017. Happens to be a Saturday so not sure what effect that will have. Will I have my novel in my hands by then? I’m don’t know. You might have it before I do!

My tale of hidden murder is now available to pre-order from the Seren website as well as from Amazon. Don’t be put off by the fact that Amazon is listing it from today as ‘Out of Stock’. This is true, in an Alice in Wonderland kind of way, though it has never been ‘In stock’. Still available to order – delivered when available. To qualify for free delivery you need to add something for a penny!

Seren has a Bookclub offer – it’s free to join and you will get 20% off anything ordered online, including a book that doesn’t yet exist.

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‘The Chicken Soup Murder’ available to pre-order from Seren Books or Amazon

The Chicken Soup Murder

Coming soon – Due date 15 September 2017

Available to pre-order now through Amazon

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‘A thoroughly original, startling and very good novel indeed.’ – Fay Weldon

‘A beautifully written debut, with characters to fall in love with.’ – Danny Wallace

‘A lovely, warm-hearted novel about love and grief.’ – Francesca Rhydderch

‘In her debut short story collection, Pumping up Napoleon, Maria Donovan emerged as a writer of controlled economy, power and originality.

‘The Chicken Soup Murder shows she’s just as intelligent and entertaining in the long haul of the novel. She evokes the sometimes disturbing voice of her boy-narrator utterly convincingly. She’s skilful in suggesting the adult world and a wonderfully exactly realised milieu and range of characters through 12 year-old Michael, as well as the limitations and liberations of his perceptions.

‘It’s fresh, suspenseful and tantalising. But under the clever structure with its building tension, under the clear, lively style and her playfulness with some well-known tropes and genres, under the comic set-pieces and adept plotting, she works a subtle set of variations on the theme of loss, the damage it wreaks, and on how difficult it is for us to comprehend and deal with that damage when it hits the people closest to us.’ – Christopher Meredith

Question: Psychological thriller or literary novel?

Which of those descriptions would make you want to look inside this book!

And can it be both?

 

Author completes questionnaire: deserves ice cream

How sweet the reward for a job done.

The job: completing the author questionnaire or A.Q. to go with my forthcoming novel The Chicken Soup Murder.  

What is an A.Q.? The completed Author Questionnaire is a document that draws together all the elements that will help to present you (the author) and your book to a possibly unsuspecting world of booksellers, reviewers, literary festival organisers, members of the wider media, and most importantly, potential readers. It’s an essential tool of communication and reference for the marketing department.

Exactly what goes into the A.Q. depends on who is asking the questions. Is it a small publisher who relies on your extra input and contacts? Or a big publisher with a formidable marketing and publicity machine (who nevertheless will hope that you bring in your own ideas and have active social media accounts). If you’re self-publishing, it would be useful to devise your own A.Q.

Filling in the answers will help you focus, if you have not done so already, on exactly what your work is about, who you think might want to read it and how you will engage with your potential reader. The A.Q. even offers legitimate opportunities to be creative, when it comes to summarising your book in 15 words, 30 words, 100 words, 250 words or whatever is required.

And yet I still approach mine with all the enthusiasm I usually keep for starting on my tax return.

Why? Perhaps it has something to do with the change of hats – no longer the writer doing as she pleases (more or less). Now you are the author with responsibilities.  

It helps to prepare, to collect ideas along the way and to keep your author profile up to date. Even without the A.Q. it saves stress and embarrassment if you are able to respond quickly to a request for a photo or a bio and know what to say when someone asks, ‘What’s your book about?’ I keep a list of my publications and awards and can copy and paste a string of URLs about my online presence: website, email, social media accounts. 

I also knew I’d be asked about ideas for a book launch, to make comparisons with other books written recently (which might help you to answer the ‘which section of the bookshop?’ question if you’re still unsure), to list influences, expound on ideas for readings, appearances at literary festivals, provide quotes from reviews and so on.

My method is to create a draft file and fill in the easy answers: name, date of birth and address. I try to read the whole set of questions in case it contains something I haven’t prepared for. Insert answers at will – even if they are highly speculative or a reminder to take action (where are all those clippings of your reviews?).

Do some research. Have a good think. If you’re forewarned you might have been already gathering an awareness of what goes on at a literary festival, or a reading in a library or bookshop. You might have attended some open mic events. The best advice is to engage with the A.Q. – even the bits that seem daunting. It will help you notice and develop the answers. 

For me, the messy draft bloats as I shovel in ideas or reminders-to-self and try to get to grips with the whole package. Do I have ideas for related feature articles? Where would I like to have a launch?

These are lovely things to contemplate but a bit disconcerting if your initial answer is ‘Ermmm…’ While nothing is more important that creating the work in the first place, it’s reassuring to feel on top of the issues that form part of the business side of being an author. Even if, inside, you feel the job of a writer is to run from such responsibilities, an agent or publisher will be glad that you’ve give them some consideration. These are people too with jobs to perform and you can make that easier. After all, who knows your work better than you?  

As long as the A.Q. remains in draft form it is still open to possibilities. Not that you can’t add ideas later on: it’s just that the A.Q. draws them all together and is a main point of reference. But eventually, with Orwell’s ‘menacing finger of the clock’ pointing towards some sort of deadline, completing the A.Q. has to become the #1 priority.

I make sure I have answered every question – even the difficult ones – and save a new file for editing. It has to be tidy and accurate. It must go by Friday. While this was not a strict deadline it’s good to have one, especially if the A.Q. has already been with you for some weeks.

OK, by Monday morning. No one is going to look at it over the weekend anyway.

Saturday and Sunday produce real progress. 

Monday – a thorough check.

Monday evening. 

At 8.30pm, having slogged to completion, I attach the final, fully-filled in A.Q. of many pages, along with a high-res photo of myself and a suitable extract of The Chicken Soup Murder, to an email and press SEND.

Job done. 

The reward:

As far the A.Q. goes, the process isn’t really ended, because it will help if you keep on engaging with its concerns. But then again you’ve just finished a large and important assignment and you really feel you deserve to do something relaxing. Something you can enjoy. It could be writing. 

But whereas the creative work, the venting of the pressure cooker, is to some extent its own reward, the accomplishment of this kind of author-related task seems to call for a specific treat, a breathing space outside the normal working routine. It could be just going for a walk or seeing a friend. It could be ice cream.

 

[image error] Baboo Gelato West Bay Kiosk

In my case, a reward was a trip along the Dorset coast east from Bridport the next day, taking my lunch to Abbotsbury Castle, an iron-age hill fort overlooking Chesil Bank and the sea; a pause to sit with the ancestors, skylarks overhead and long views all around. And on the way back, a spontaneous detour to West Bay to visit an ice-cream seller I had heard about: Baboo Gelato.

Annie Hanbury trained in Italy and started making her ices from a surplus of fruits on her family’s smallholding in Dorset. The ices are hand-made in Bridport using seasonal produce. There’s a kiosk in West Bay – near the bridge over the sluice gates between the harbour and the River Brit – and another in Lyme Regis.

Baboo Gelato started winning awards in its first year: Taste of the West Gold for Lemon Sorbet in 2016 and again in 2017 for Maple and Walnut Ice Cream;  a Taste of Dorset Award in 2016 (and a finalist again in 2017) in the category ‘Best Dairy Producer’; the Guild of Fine Food gave gold stars to the Raspberry Sorbet and the Pistachio Gelato. 

It must only be a matter of time before local restaurants pick up on this deliciousness on their doorstep. 

What lured me to this new enterprise was the promise of dairy-free sorbet. I couldn’t decide between the seasonal options of rhubarb (grown in Bothenhampton) and elderflower (picked from the makers’ own garden) and so settled on a scoop of each. [image error]I was also delighted to know the wafer cone is dairy (but not gluten) free. Annie herself served me with scoops untidy and generous, and sorbet sank all the way down to the tip of the cone. By the time I had walked past the boats for hire and crossed the bridge over the backwater to the footpath by the Riverside Café (a route which, if you care to know, is how you get within shouting distance of the blue wooden house once occupied by David Tennant in Broadchurch) to take this photo looking across the fields towards Bridport, I had already made at least a third of what I’d bought invisible.  

Now that was a project I thoroughly enjoyed licking into shape.

 

What major or minor tasks have you accomplished lately?

If you were to give yourself a reward, what would it be?