Maria Donovan's Blog, page 8

Pb 82 words on lead

A rare venture into poetry – etched in lead …

The University of South Wales is losing its sculpture workshop. How often when I was there, as a student and then as a lecturer, did I marvel at things I glimpsed through a high window: busts, twisted metals, curious objects of all kinds.

To mark the end of this era, Nigel Talbot has produced an installation on the Periodic Table using items found within the decommissioned sculpture workshop. It’s on view at Oriel y Bont, the gallery on the ground floor of Tŷ Crawshay on the Trefforest campus.

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I was one of those invited to pick an element from the Periodic Table and write a short piece. We told that up to 100 words would be etched into wood but one by Barrie Llewelyn is on glass and its image will be enlarged as a projection, while mine is on lead.

[image error]82 words on Pb – Lead

We were invited to respond in terms of metaphors inspired by the chosen element, but mine took a more literal turn as I chose to think about the lead shot in the environment that has caused the deaths of millions of water fowl.

I restricted to myself to just 82 words on the subject. 82 is the atomic number of lead and its symbol is Pb. Think of the plumber, who once worked with lead pipes. I could have talked about swinging the lead, or plumbing the depths but instead thought about the way that water birds scoop up lead shot assuming they are eating the kind of stones they need to grind their food. I was helped by an expert witness who, having performed many post-mortems on wild birds, said that it took only one or two lead pellets to kill a duck. Officially, it is no longer legal to shoot lead shot over water in the UK, but what is there is not going away, and there hasn’t been a total ban on lead shot, as it can still be used for land-based hunting (at least that’s my understanding – I’d be glad to know I’m wrong!).

The exhibition is on show until November 15 and the gallery is open weekdays until 4.30 pm. Entry is free. The building itself, Tŷ Crawshay, was once the home of the wealthy Crawshay family and is perhaps the most interesting on campus. Contributions are from Marina Lowdice, Nichola Goff, Sharon Magill, Barrie Llewelyn, Luz Erika Chick, Tiffany Oben, Robert Oros, Tony Curtis, Malcolm Lewis, Katy Giebenhain, Cerys Jones, Nigel Talbot, and me, Maria Donovan.

If you’re in the Cardiff area or going by Trefforest, perhaps you will pop in and have a look. And if not, please use the link below to see the strange treasures of the now to be much missed sculpture workshop – the passing of another era. Sigh. https://gallery.southwales.ac.uk/whats/

September equinox: back to page one

The September equinox brings with it a change of diary.

The September Equinox for 2019 was marked today, the 23rd, at 7.50 UTC and as I write this, a few hours later, the Northern Hemisphere has already begun to tilt away from the sun.

[image error]Sleeping giant with russet beard and hair September 23 2019

I mark the occasion with a change of diary. My working day might begin and end with something handwritten but my main place for keeping thoughts together is the diary hidden in my laptop. Here I allow myself the freedom to write anything at all as it occurs to me: it might be something about the weather, or something personal that I will never share (except perhaps transmuted into fiction). It might be a passage from a novel that I try out with the liberation of not worrying ‘where it fits’. It might be the beginning of a piece of flash fiction or a short story. Or just notes of research, something for a blog post, observations. Anything at all.

[image error]Autumnal tangle

Periodically, I go through my diary and copy and paste what is relevant into files relating to the different projects I have started. Sometimes I just get going in the diary and then jump straight to the draft of the work in progress. The diary holds my morning pages, my early attempts, my everything. Because I allow so much to go into these diaries they can become huge. I used to do them yearly but as my work-rate grew, the diary took so long to load that I decided to divide it into four periods of time for each trip around the Sun. Now they run from equinox to solstice and solstice to equinox. My diary for June solstice to September equinox is nearly 200 pages long, single-spaced. I feel a little sad to say goodbye to it and have been preparing myself by curating what is in it ahead of the shift so that, today, I only have all the work of yesterday to contemplate.

[image error]Diary files shortcuts

The beginning of a new diary makes me all the more aware of the passing of time and the need to get on with things. The diary is not an end in itself but the pot into which things are thrown, but I must reflect a little on how far I have come, what I have done and what there is yet to do.

Mainly I have been working on my novel. Ideas for short stories and flash fiction are there too but … I am aware that it is good to finish things. I am a great starter, full of ideas, eager to catch what runs through my head. If I ever run out of fresh thoughts, I will be able to draw upon the bank of previous inspiration. I might even finish the two other half-written novels I have tucked away and collate my second collection of short stories. At the moment I am most interested in working on a novella-in-flash and a novel, both set in near futures in the Netherlands. The novella-in-flash is near to completion and the novel is taking shape. Shape is what it needs now after a time of exploration. I have done a good deal of thinking about structure but yesterday I had to write and went with what I think of as ‘the Muriel Spark method’, as mentioned in Alan Taylor’s Appointment in Arezzo, in which it is said she was able to turn the writing on and off like a tap. Perhaps because she thought about it all a good deal first.

[image error]De Witte Juffer: possibly my favourite windmill

I am still finding my way. The important thing for me, still, is to feel free to write. Yesterday the work was very much directed to the purpose of writing a novel. At other times I am just setting things down. Perhaps it would be good for me to let many of my thoughts pass rather than rattling away on the keys to put them into words. But I am so very grateful to the technology that allows me now to find things again, to order them without stacks of paper, to move things around, to draft and redraft. Over time I am developing the confidence that I can write, and that the point is to decide what is most important for me to be writing about and to trust that the writing itself will be good. I have written so much about grieving and now I am writing about the future, trying to balance dystopian fears with a sense of hope and wonder. Trying to keep my sense of humour bright to help me face the gloom. Thinking about ‘what comes next’. But my messy methods have some drawbacks. It can be hard when you have written a scene that seems funny and engaging to find that it might not fit within the bigger picture of your novel. Or that the point of view you have been inhabiting for a while is not the one you want to use to tell your story. So much then seems to go unsaid. But to me that’s all fine. It’s there in the shadows.

So here’s to the end of one phase and the beginning of another. Some of it is arbitrary, this counting up of time, this deciding how to tell its story. The ordering of time zones, the positioning of lines of longitude from pole to pole around the earth are entirely imaginary, conventions agreed upon by enough people for them to have relevance and sway. It could be done differently. But the equinox and solstice: these are real. What we experience is governed by our relative position to the sun and the things we have done to the planet. Yesterday there was a funeral for a glacier in Switzerland. Nothing is permanent. We are already overwhelmed by climate change.

[image error]Quiet September sea

Meanwhile, in this tiny spot in the northern hemisphere, I feel the usual appreciative melancholy at the shortening of days, at the end of sea swimming for the season, and the looming of Christmas (half stress half fun). All movements of time and season remind me that I’m getting older. That there is so much still to be done. We will settle into autumn, and rejoice in the stillness of the quiet season. Before I know it, a new diary will be opened, that looks forward to the spring and already half-regrets the beautifully creative time of winter.

For a view from the southern hemisphere, I recommend ‘Thoughts become Words’. I am always enthralled by what Gretchen has to show about life in Australia and what is going on with the seasons and the climate there. At least, through her words and pictures, we can visit without worrying too much about our carbon footprint.

[image error]September sunset

As always, I would love to know how you experience your world and the passing of time in it. Happy September equinox! For tomorrow is another day.

Good grief

The Ruth Strauss Foundation, bereavement and how cricket helped me write The Chicken Soup Murder.

In May 2012 I was writing the first draft of my novel, The Chicken Soup Murder, and listening to the cricket, partly because my late husband loved it and I hadn’t given up the habits that tied our old life together, partly because I had decided that the fiction of the novel would unfold in real time and the made-up characters be influenced by real events.

This how it comes about that Death makes a surprise visit to the neighbourhood where young Michael lives on the afternoon of the second day of the first test against the West Indies, while Andrew Strauss is scoring a century at Lord’s.

[image error]The Chicken Soup Murder: part I Through the Dog Flap, page 40

In August 2019, seeing so many people wear red at Lord’s for Ruth Strauss Day reminded me how good it is to show solidarity with someone who’s been bereaved. Grieving can be a lonely experience.

The Ruth Strauss Foundation will raise money for research into rare lung cancers and offer support to patients and families. It was set up by her husband, former England captain and opener, Andrew. His two sons rang the bell for start of play. There were smiles, a chance for people to talk about Ruth and what she meant to them; solemnity, but also celebration.

I recognised the wish of someone who’s been bereaved to feel that something good can follow something so difficult and painful.

Like Andrew Strauss, in my early days of grieving – let’s say, the first couple of years – I wanted to do something to somehow ‘makes things better’. In my case that meant giving to Mesothelioma UK, a charity supporting people with cancer caused by asbestos, and their carers and families. Mesothelioma UK also provides valuable training to health workers, something I was keen to make sure the hospital where my husband spent his bewildering last few days would take up, the better to understand the implications of that horrible illness.

[image error]Forget-mesothelioma-not badge

Grief had made me very ill and for a long time it was hard to be creative, to lose myself in other worlds. I had to stay where I could feel the threads that bound my late husband to his life, as if letting go of them would mean that he was really gone, perhaps forgotten. My mind kept repeating the trauma of his last few minutes, hours and days; the arguments at the hospital with staff who didn’t understand what was really happening, the false assurances, the early morning call, running through the empty corridors to reach his bedside minutes before he died, touching his hand and finally, when he had taken his last breath and he could no longer feel how his lungs and heart were being squeezed, holding him for the last time in my arms.

The only thing that seemed to ease my pain was setting one foot in front of the other and I was making plans for a long walk – all the way around the coastline of Britain. I thought, perhaps once I’d done that, I might be ready for something else. But things didn’t work out: my old dog was too old to walk many miles. I was homeless and wandering from friend to family to friend. Just before Christmas I was bitten on the hand when I tried to grab the collar of a dog attacking my friend’s dog. After Christmas, in terrible abdominal pain, I was back in hospital for the removal of an enormous ovarian cyst. Through these brushes with mortality, perhaps already in that moment of seeing the bones of my own hand and wondering if I’d ever hold a pen again, I came upon the idea that it might, after all, be preferable to live.

[image error]The scar on my right hand is barely visible, but I can still feel it.

Unlike Andrew Strauss, I had no children to look after. I had focused for so long on my husband’s needs that when he died I lost my sense of purpose. At last, when I was able to try again, I decided I would have two main goals in life: to write and be kind.

I was glad for Andrew Strauss that so many people wanted to share in the cause, to show solidarity, and help to raise money. For myself, I make donations, and leave it to others to make up their own minds what they can do. My novel helped me to understand something about grieving by taking it out of my own point of view. I hope it can be a way for others to talk about bereavement too, particularly with young people. I finished my novel, which is a personal achievement. You don’t need to know anything about cricket to appreciate what the rest of the book is about, but it is true that the commentary I listened to in 2012 played its part in helping me to complete the work.

For more on that subject please read, if you feel inclined (it’s not written yet) ‘Cricket in my Soup’.

Do
you have experiences of writing or reading stories set in real time?

Do you have recommendations for works of fiction or non fiction helpful to people who are grieving?

Comments are welcome, below.

Knock three times

The Chicken Soup Murder has been shortlisted for a prize three times. Here are the ups and down in the birth and life of a novel.

The first prize was perhaps the most exciting because The Dundee International Book Prize promised £10,000 and publication. It was free to enter my unpublished manuscript. Getting into the top ten gave me confidence that it had potential. An agent got in touch and I asked the organisers of the prize if it would all right to let her see the novel. This prompted a phone call in which they informed me that they ‘loved loved loved’ my book and that though I shouldn’t tell anyone yet, they wanted me to know it was going to be a finalist, one of the top three, and please would I not remove it from the competition. They even quoted part of the reader’s report, which included the word, ‘Bingo!’

[image error]A murky start

Some months later I learned by email that the prize would go to someone else. The disappointment was intense, because the prospect of publication was snatched away. Interest from the agent also dried up. I was back to being nowhere … except with the idea that someone had liked it. That was in 2015. My novel finally came into the world in 2017. I had begun writing in 2012: five years of my life were tied up in that one book, in writing, editing, sending it out, negotiating and signing a contract, more editing, talking about the cover design and plans for publicity and marketing, and in repeated rounds of proofreading, closer and closer, reading it aloud, sometimes working backwards line by line until finally, the book was born in September 2017. My gratitude to Seren Books for publishing my novel is immense!

[image error]The Chicken Soup Murder
celebrating its existence

In 2018, The Chicken Soup Murder was shortlisted in the fiction category for The International Rubery Book Award. Seren Books had entered the novel for me and paid the entry fee. (How lucky I felt to have the support of a publisher.) This time I felt glad and grateful but when it didn’t win its category and wasn’t put forward for the overall prize, I did not lament. The existence of my novel as a book that could be sold and bought, borrowed and read was not threatened in any way. Shortlisting for a prize could only enhance its reputation and reach. Whereas not winning the DIBP had felt like sliding down the big snake just before the finish, bumping right back down to the bottom, being shortlisted this time felt like we had climbed a small to medium-sized ladder.

The experience of the award ceremony was also very different. We had been invited to Dundee to the celebration of the prize – to a very fine dinner with the Mayor of Dundee, eminent journalists and guests – and went, thinking it an honour to be there, and naively hoping I would meet some of the judges (I was looking forward to talking to Denise Mina and Danny Wallace in particular). But only one of them attended, an agent who was, understandably, very much taken up with the winner. Though we made the best of it, and I enjoyed reading my short extract to a packed room, and the compliment that followed, ‘very fine writing, very finely read’ I ended up feeling somewhat like the ghost at the feast, not least because the announcement of the winner was made on the radio a few hours before the event and most people were just not interested – I would say there was almost a sense of embarrassment at having to look at the ‘not winner’. Whereas, with the Rubery Prize there was no need for my presence, no investment of time in preparations for a trip, wondering what to wear, how to get there, what it would be like, who I would meet, what questions there might be and how to control my expression in the event of success or disappointment. As an introvert, I can take part in such events with some exuberance, and with confidence in my preparation, but always find them tiring and need time to recover.

The last of the three has been the Dorchester Literary Festival Local Writing Prize. We could have submitted my novel in 2018, the inaugural year, but because it was published in Bridgend and not in the South West, I didn’t think it was eligible. Not true, I found out on meeting the Directors of the Festival, Janet Gleeson and Paul Atterbury.

[image error]Windmill in the mist

Again, I have to thank Seren Books for undertaking the job of filling in the forms and sending in the book. As far as I know there was no entry fee. The books were all read by at least two people. I was happy to be one of seven on the longlist, even happier to be one of four on the shortlist. There was a final round of judging, by I know not who. The date of the prize giving didn’t fall too well. In theory I didn’t have far to go as Dorchester is only about a twenty minute drive from Bridport but I happened to be off in the Netherlands in July. Having decided to attend, I made the trip back the day before and was so tired the evening passed in a kind of pleasurable haze.

[image error]Stonehenge in passing

This time, we did not know beforehand who would win. There was a lovely reception – in the newish and rather grand pub in Poundbury, the Duchess of Cornwall, with beer, bubbles and an exciting cocktail of prosecco, liqueur of some kind, and elderflower, which I found very stimulating – courtesy of the sponsors, Hall and Woodhouse. We were even given goody bags (beer and a voucher) and made to feel individually and collectively that we deserved our place there and that our books, all very different, offered something special. I enjoyed meeting fellow writers on the shortlist, Susmita Battacharya, Dee La Vardera and Emma Timpany. My dad was there and some friends: writers and non writers. The room was full and buzzing and then we all took our places for the ceremony.

[image error]Writing buddy Gail Aldwin, shortlistees Susmita Battacharya and Maria Donovan and writing buddy Rosanna Ley

We sat in big leather armchairs facing the audience and Minette Walters, ‘famous local writer’, asked us a few questions in turn and we each read a short extract, 3-5 minutes. I went last and enjoyed it to the point where I had almost forgotten there would be an announcement of a winner. The first envelope was opened and my name came out as Runner Up. A big surprise as I had no idea there would be a runner-up. Then the announcement of the winner, Emma Timpany for her novella, Travelling in the Dark. Applause. Photos. Thanks and celebrations. I received commiserations and congratulations in equal measure. It all felt fine.

[image error]A laugh at the DLF LW Prize
Left to right: Winner Emma Timpany, Susmita Battacharya, Dee La Vardera, Maria Donovan, Minette Walters, Janet Gleeson, Paul Atterbury, sponsor Hall & Woodhouse

This time, I felt content, grateful to be there on the night and for the attention and care taken over the ceremony and the way we were made welcome and looked after.

Three experiences of being shortlisted for a prize with one novel. I don’t suppose that this particular book – now nearly two years old – will have a chance of any more. All it wants is more readers! I hope that the measure of success it has had in these prizes will go some way to making that part of the writing dream come true.

As for the future, I do not know whether I shall write another book that will go so far in an award. If I’m lucky enough to be chosen again, I know that I will have these past experiences to draw upon, and the knowledge that any new event will have its own character and process.

Writers, I hope this might be useful if you are invited somewhere and don’t know what to expect. Do you have experiences to share? Please tell us in the comments.

Readers, we hope you will continue reading our work. On you we rely! Do you have any comments on what it’s like to attend one of these literary dos?

Third time lucky?

Shortlisted again: will it be third time lucky for my novel The Chicken Soup Murder?

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My exciting news for June is that my novel, The Chicken Soup Murder, has been shortlisted for the Dorchester Literary Festival Local Writing Prize. There are four of us on the all-female shortlist. I’m in good company: there’s Susmita Battacharya with Table Manners: And Other Stories, Emma Timpany with Travelling in the Dark, and Dee La Vardera with The Road to Civitella 1944.

The prize, now in its second year, was set up by Janet Gleeson and Paul Atterbury, Directors of the Dorchester Literary Festival, as a way of showing support for writers from the South West. The subjects and settings of these shortlisted books range far beyond any implied boundaries. My own is set in fictionalised versions of Bridport and Cardiff, drawing on memory of place as well as imagination. Last year we (my publishers and I) didn’t enter the DLF Local Writing Prize because Seren Books are based in Bridgend. But this year we realised it was possible to enter anyway – and here we are.

This will be the third time my novel has made it deep into a competition. There was the Dundee International Book Prize, which was for an unpublished novel. As a finalist that was an exciting time. I didn’t win and that meant starting from scratch looking for a publisher.

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It was a lucky thing for me that Seren Books were willing to take a chance, and my novel came out in 2017.

In 2018 The Chicken Soup Murder was shortlisted in the fiction category of the Rubery Book Prize. Amongst stiff competition it was a boost to have come that far.

Since then my novel has been read in the USA, the Netherlands and Australia as well as in the UK. It has a life of its own. The other day I met someone who asked me what I did and when I told her she exclaimed, ‘I’ve got your book!’ Such moments are still a surprise and a thrill. Let’s hope Andrea likes it when she reads it.

While my novel can be ordered online from Seren Books or Amazon, and is stocked in independent bookshops such as The Book Shop Bridport, and branches of Waterstone’s, there’s also something lovely about being available in libraries, which means an even wider readership.

It has taken a while for me to catch up with The Chicken Soup Murder in Bridport Library because it hasn’t often been on the shelf. Alphabet lottery dictates that it’s not at eye height, but I was pleased to see that this copy is already slightly dog-eared.

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You can find The Chicken Soup Murder in the Crime section. That still feels a little odd to me: apart from the puzzle to be solved, the mystery itself, it’s an accessible literary novel about grieving and what it means to be a family. It’s also humorous. If only there were a shelf for ‘crossing genres.’

Whether or not I will be a winner this time, I feel happy to be shortlisted again. Maybe it will be third time lucky. Maybe a few more people will read my work. That’s really something. I’ve had the thrill of talking to Fay Weldon and hearing her praise my writing, of a fine review by Fanny Blake in the Daily Mail, support from other writers, friends, family and strangers – and now this.

The winner of the Dorchester Literary Festival Local Writing Prize will be announced at a ceremony in Dorchester on Thursday 18 July 2019. Minette Walters will be presenting the prize of £1000 to the lucky winner.

Love of short fiction

May is not just one of the loveliest months for blossom, it’s also a time for celebrating short stories. Love writing them? Love reading them? Or do you need convincing?

May happens to be International Short Story Month. This week, I took a turn at hosting the twitter account for Women Writers Network and found myself immersed in questions about the short story.

Last week one of our followers said she felt that she was missing out because she didn’t connect so well with short stories. Her question stayed in my mind. I know why I like writing them but what’s so great about reading them? We asked our members. Some of the answers were surprising! If you have twitter you can read all about it here.

[image error]Short fiction WWN pinned tweet

I also went looking for some great articles on writing and reading short stories. This one, ‘The World at an Angle: reasons to love short stories’, is a smasher. Daisy Johnson writes ‘critically, emotionally … ecstatically’ about what the short story means to her. To pick out out a couple of quotes – short stories are: ‘bright flashes, suddenly illuminating everything, while also throwing everything into shadow’; they ‘often fearlessly occupy a space of weirdness’.

That captures some of the appeal for me as a writer and as a reader. She also addresses the question of why some readers will say they don’t get along with short stories, preferring novels, by pointing out that it’s no use trying to put them in the same box (no more than we would compare novels to poetry).

My own feeling is that we read short stories in a different way. The novel invites us to immerse ourselves in a world and read on way past our bedtime or bus stop. A short story can be read at one sitting and then it might be a good idea to get up. Let it stay with you a while. Possibly the rest of your life. They can detonate a small explosion in your heart, soul or brain and leave you wondering about the glimpse of a world you’ve seen.

If I’m reading a short story collection I often read one story in the morning and one at night. I might also have a novel on the go if I fancy a long swim in literature as well as a short dip. To be fair, short stories can vary considerably in length from a paragraph to several pages.

But to try another metaphor: if a novel is a latte or a cappucino, then a short story is more like an espresso. Italians apparently only drink milky coffee in the mornings while an espresso goes well at any time of day and can be fitted into a busy life.

Perhaps we just don’t come across them enough in our day to day reading (speaking from a UK point of view). In the USA we still see find short stories regularly in print magazines of high quality, like The New Yorker. I share a link to a particularly fine short story that occupies that place of weirdness in an otherwise ordinary world: ‘The Semplica Girl Diaries’ by George Saunders, who also wrote the novel, Lincoln in the Bardo.

Sticking with the men for the moment, I also found some advice on writing by Ernest Hemingway, through this post by Short Story Scribe. It’s recycled from this post by Open Culture, which in turn lists just a few of the gems from a book called Ernest Hemingway on Writing. Though some of it applies to novels, there’s this, which applies to anything and may prove useful to writers struggling to get their work done (or even started) that day. Even EH had to tell himself: “Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

[image error]White May blossom. (Hawthorn)

Another piece of advice from Hemingway is to read the classics and measure yourself against those writers. It’s interesting to note that there was a time when Hemingway’s prose was not lauded and understood. Gertrude Stein suggested he stick to poetry.

It can take a while for a style to be accepted and understood. That’s part of the difficulty of writing in an original way. People need to understand that it’s good before they will open themselves to reading it. In another context, I remember one of my young relatives not liking Harry Potter when it first came out. Dismissing it, in fact. Later, I found her reading avidly.

‘I thought you didn’t like it?’ I said.

‘I didn’t but someone’s explained it to me now,’ she answered.

By which I think she meant, someone’s explained that it’s good and why. Or perhaps it had sunk in that lots of people liked it and she ought to read it if she wanted to be able to talk about it with her friends.

This is the sticky path for a writer for if something gets ‘too popular’ some people will go off it again preferring perhaps ‘the originality of the early work’. I’m not quoting anyone about anything there, just snatching words from the ether.

Meanwhile, when thinking of the classics, I go to Chekhov and above all (back to a woman at last) my all-time love, Katherine Mansfield. I have heard it said that ‘nothing happens’ in her work, but for me it was startling (as a teenager) to realise that other people, even characters in a novel, could have very different inner lives to the ones they negotiate outwardly. I read her with a fabulous sense of recognition that this is how it could be done. It made me feel there was someone in the world who would understand me (if only she wasn’t so long dead). She is best known for The Garden Party and other stories and Bliss and other stories, but I also loved The Aloe, which in a shorter version was published as ‘Prelude’ in Bliss …

Unfortunately for us, she died young, but her work left such a legacy that we have today a Katherine Mansfield Society ‘set up to promote and encourage the worldwide study and enjoyment of Katherine Mansfield’s writing’. For a sample here’s a link they offer to a pdf of her short story ‘The Garden Party’

[image error]Pink May

Coming back to the present day, there was a very interesting (V.I.) programme on Radio 4’s ‘Inside Science’ on ‘The Science of Storytelling’. How our brains are wired to respond to stories. Why we take note of the unexpected, for instance. Well worth a listen imho.

Back to the post post-modern world: there are many wonderful collections of short stories to enjoy by contemporary writers. Irenosen Okojie’s Speak Gigantular for one: I found her by looking at the regular weekend read from For Books’ Sake. If you have recommendations please share in the comments.

I can’t finish without mentioning the work of Fay Weldon, whose generosity in liking and endorsing my own collection of short stories Pumping Up Napoleon led me to ask again if she would do the same with my debut novel, The Chicken Soup Murder. Her short story ‘Weekend’ is one of those that inspired me in my early days of writing short fiction. It’s just one of the delights of her 2015 ‘best of’ short story collection Mischief. She’s a wonderful writer and a wonderfully kind person too. I can’t thank her enough.

If you’re fond of very short fiction – sometimes known as ‘flash’ – I recommend writing for or reading from Paragraph Planet – which features a daily 75-word story (sometimes includes an extract from a novel if that works as a standalone). My tiny story ‘Basket’ was published there though I don’t think it’s been archived yet. It was a much better story for being honed to that length. Everything non-essential had to go and for someone with a tendency to wander off that can be a blessing.

Last but not etc … I must mention that Short Story Month sponsors International Short Story Month in May. Also tweeting here

Short Story Month is in turned sponsored by A Story a Day – where you can find a daily writing prompt.

I meant this to be a short post but it grew and we have only just begun to talk about short stories. As I am aware of so many I have not mentioned, please help me out by naming stories or writers you love in the comments so we can share those too.

I am also aware that different countries and different cultures may have quite different experiences of writing and reading short stories and would love to hear about those.

Finally, perhaps you have spotted that the title of the post is a play on the title of a short story by Helen Dunmore? Love of Fat Men is also the title of a collection. Helen Dunmore is much missed as a creator of wonderful short as well as long fiction. At least we have still have her legacy.

Enjoy writing; enjoy reading. Thank you for coming this far! Please like, share and comment if you can.

Chicken Soup Murder Q&A

In a recent post in her Writers Chat series, Shauna Gilligan posed some great questions about The Chicken Soup Murder.

Briefly, the interview covers:

breaking genre.the role of child narrator Michael in exploring life and death in a coming-of-age story.developing the character of Nan.the first lines of the novel. some fun questions to finish, including the all important, ‘What’s next?’

To read the questions and answers in full, please click here

There is so much I could say about the background to writing The Chicken Soup Murder; I’m grateful to Shauna for asking me to take part in her Writers Chat series and giving me the chance to share some of that experience.

Shauna Gilligan is a novelist and short story writer, originally from Dublin. She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of South Wales and teaches creative writing. Her debut novel is Happiness Comes from Nowhere. To learn more about Shauna please click here.

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Primroses for Mum

Primroses, primroses, jump into the pot
We’ll take you with us to the new garden
Where we hope you will be happy

I’m borrowing from words I remember reading in My Childhood, by Maxim Gorky, when he hears his grandmother inviting the house demon, the goblin of the hearth, to jump into a shoe and go with them to the new house. Something like that happened with these flowers.

[image error]Self-seeded primroses in a big blue pot

Before my husband died, when we were living in rural Wales, near Aberystwyth, we had a big blue pot into which the seeds of primroses had sown themselves. It was a wonder to us when they appeared one springtime. Since then I have come to wonder instead why the countryside is not covered in them, so happy are they to spread themselves about.

After my husband’s death at too young an age, my parents decided that they would plan ahead, and after much looking about, paid for a plot in a woodland burial ground with a distant view of the harbour. Mum was born in a house in a nearby village in a bedroom with much the same outlook across fields and marshland to the water.

My parents took us to the place on a grassy hillside with young trees planted, and small headstones lying flat. Mum pushed her rollator to the top of the rise and there was the view. ‘You see,’ said my mother, ‘you could come up here and have a picnic.’

Later, she showed us the list of flowers that could be planted on the grave: native species only. I promised her some primroses.

[image error]Primroses planted and spreading

Four years later, I moved back home to Dorset and the big blue pot came with me. The mother plants soon multiplied and I began planting out primroses in the new garden. Mum and I talked about it more than once, that I would plant them for her too – one day.

[image error]Shadow on forget-me-nots

In the new garden there were forget-me-nots in abundance. Mum said that she would like those too.

My husband had died of mesothelioma, that terrible cancer caused by breathing in or ingesting fibres of asbestos. For a donation to the charity, Mesothelioma UK, you can have badges to wear inscribed with the words ‘forget-mesothelioma-not. Mum wore such a badge on every coat and cardigan.

[image error]Forget-mesothelioma-not badge

After she died, I potted up and planted out the first primroses and forget-me-nots and planted them on her grave. I am grateful that she went in peace and had lived to be 86 despite long-term struggles with her health.

But springtime brings a Mother’s Day without her. And the beauty of a blackthorn winter is sharp with memories of loss. My husband died in April, on Mum’s birthday. It links them forever, like the flowers, but it weighs me down. I feel a little lighter for having written this.

We go to the grassy hillside with my dad and tend the grave. The young trees are taller than last year. There is a picnic table on a patch of rough ground. One day we might sit there. I hear Mum telling me of the fields around the village where she grew up, then full of flowers in springtime.

The photographs are from my garden. I didn’t want to show a picture of the grave: but the flowers are there too as well as snowdrops and crocuses, and creeping thyme. The forget-me-nots have seeded everywhere, promising a covering of tiny blue stars. The primroses survived last summer’s drought and are thriving now. We snip the grass around them so they won’t be taken by the groundsman’s strimmer.

There is some comfort in a promise kept, in the return of the flowers and in knowing of the journey they have made.

Seasonal celebrations can be hard on those who cannot as readily join in: people without mothers, or those who’ve never had one or known such love. I’m lucky to have good memories. For those who have mothers and who feel that love, enjoy it! Enjoy it while you can, as we did.

If you have something to share, please leave a comment.

Mid-March WordlessWednesday #2

Magnificent Magnolia #Wordless Wednesday.

On March 11 2019 the magnolia was already in full bloom (before Storm Gareth).

[image error]Magnolia 11 March 2019[image error]Magnolia 11 March 2019 #2[image error]

How different it all looked in mid-March last year! In Bridport (West Dorset, the UK, Europe, in the Northern Hemisphere), the tree was bare – and then came our second bout of snow.

[image error]March 16 2018



[image error]March 18 2018

(Almost Wordless Wednesday.)

What’s it like where you are?

I’ve already enjoyed this post from Gretchen at ‘Thoughts become Words’: ‘Undrought’ by Casey Williams.

Scraps

When an idea strikes, do you feel the need to write it down?

My writing tools are supposed to keep me organised: as well as an online journal, an Open Source word programme and a couple of bits of specialist writing software, I have two or three notebooks for when I’m not online. And yet still I sometimes need to scribble down an idea or a phrase on a scrap of paper.

These scraps are always to hand in the kitchen, cut lovingly from the blank cheeks of envelopes. They are meant for shopping lists and the like but sometimes I use them to jot down a writerly note: an idea that seems essential, a phrase a character needs to say, or just a random thought that has no place yet in any of my current projects.

And yet I don’t always pick them up as the first job the next day. Whatever I’ve written down in note form, I still tend to go with what’s remained in my head. If I can get on with producing actual words for the novel or short story, I’ll always go with that. The scraps accumulate around the area where my writing screen goes and it becomes a task in itself to sort through them.

There were so many recently, I laid them all out and took a photograph.

[image error]An accumulation of notes

When I’d done that I sorted them into piles. Most of them were notes for my work-in-progress: a novel about the hole left by the disappearance of The Miller’s Wife (working title, perhaps giving rise to some expectation that as well as being a mystery it’s going to be some attempt at romantic fiction) as well as two short stories I want to write to help towards completing a collection.

[image error]Sorted into piles

Some were just things that struck me as interesting, for instance, a comedian on Radio 4 said that you know someone is working class because they’ll always tell you how much their clothes cost and where they bought them (this long purple cardigan? £5 – Sue Ryder).

I think it was W. G. Sebald who said that it was a good method to note down ideas without attributions so that by the time you came to write them up they would feel like your own. A slightly odd way of working, for an academic, perhaps? It’s been a while since I’ve called myself that, but I’m still keen to know how I know what I know.

Other writers (I’m thinking of a student I once taught, and also Haruki Murakami) let their thoughts pass through like clouds or water, trusting that the important things will remain. I can appreciate the point of this: it saves time on the kind of writerly housekeeping I’ve been talking about here.

For me writing can be elusive, like trying to catch the proverbial wave upon the sand, and so I do write down what passes through my head. If I’m lucky this stream of consciousness becomes part of a first draft. If it’s been written down on a scrap of paper, I put it into my online journal, where it can more easily be found. That’s how I retrieved the beginning of this blog post: with a search for the word ‘scraps’.

We all have to find our own methods of working. Though I sometimes wonder whether I should change mine and avoid this kind of housekeeping. But when the scraps have been attended to, all relevant content logged, and the writing area cleared so I can once again focus on the WIP, it brings me some kind of peace.

[image error]‘Peaceful’ card, printed and handcrafted by Ink and Page. https://inkandpage.co.uk

What are your favourite writing tools?

As a writer, reader or just in general: how do you feel about getting organised?

Do you have any tips to share?