Jane Dougherty's Blog, page 779

Is fiction ‘real’?

Commenting recently on the growing number of chick-lit vampire novels I’m finding lying around the house, I asked their owners why they never read any other fantasy novels. Their reply was, “Because fantasy’s not real”.

There followed a discussion about what exactly does ‘real’ mean in terms of fiction. Isn’t it all ‘unreal’? My two vampire fans who don’t like fantasy or ‘imaginary’ stories as they put it, argue that there is a difference between stories that involve magic and imaginary worlds, and ‘Twilight’ type stories that are real and believable. To be honest, the nuance escapes me. I think what they mean is that some stories create a familiar ‘real’ landscape by using characters like the gorgeous and mysterious new boy, the popular rich girl, and a school setting. Add a bunch of card-carrying vampires and you are just adding a bit of spice to the familiar ‘real’ brew.

I enjoy the other kind of fantasy, the kind some of my children dismiss as ‘unreal’. I read to escape to a world I am not familiar with, not to be beaten over the head by misery, misfortune, and unhappiness. Even less do I want to read everyday stories of everyday folk, heart-warming, tender, and humorous. I’m in the middle of living one of those and have no desire to write or read about it. I like my reading to take me somewhere new and surprising. It could take me to Northanger Abbey or Middle-earth, anywhere as long as there aren’t cars and bus stops and all night supermarkets. I don’t mind that the writer’s fantasy world has different rules to ours, that our rules of physics don’t apply, and there isn’t a High School in sight.

Like probably all writers, I write the kind of thing I like to read. It doesn’t even spoil it to know how the story ends, because often I’m wrong. One of the great things about writing fantasy is that sometimes the story runs off on a track of its own, and takes the writer into undiscovered areas of her imagination. In other words, the car turns into a horse; the horse sprouts wings and flies through the invisible boundary of a parallel universe, where a malevolent forest is gradually…

Ford Mondeo with fantasy attachments

Finbar

I’ve been going through my galley of The Dark Citadel since this morning, and I’m getting so sick of picking out those commas. It makes me think of what dear old Oscar said:

“I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.”

Anyway, I’ve had a bellyfull of commas and so I am writing a blog post about something even more important to me than my writing: Finbar.

Finbar is a dog, of sorts. He is a Galgo, a Spanish greyhound, adopted three years ago from a refuge near Seville and still not properly domesticated. The Galgo is a beautiful and noble animal, kept for centuries for hunting. Unfortunately for the Galgo, although the well bred packs kept by Juan Carlos probably get enough to eat and are allowed inside a kennel in the winter, this is not the case for the scores of thousands of hounds kept by the inhabitants of rural southern Spain who also like a spot of hare hunting. There are, I am told, hunters who treat their animals correctly, but the fact is, that most of them are treated appallingly, with some 50,000 of those surplus to requirements being massacred each year in ways that Goya might well have documented had he been alive today.

The lucky ones end up in shelters, run by very courageous and devoted women who take in the poor, misbegotten creatures they find wandering in the countryside, by the side of motorways, or sheltering on building sites.

Mentalities are changing, and the shelters in the south are finding homes for their dogs in Spain, particularly in the north where the Galgo is not used for hunting, and not considered vermin. A sizeable proportion of adoptions though are via other European countries. Which is how we got Finbar.

I had always wanted a Lurcher, but they don’t have Lurchers in France. Any kind of sighthound is rare, not being a fashion breed like French bulldogs, Chihuahuas or Huskies. When I saw a link to a French site dedicated to exposing the barbarity of the fate of Galgos, I decided we had to adopt one.

Finbar was 18 months old when he was dumped in a refuge by his Gypsy owner because he was useless for hunting. Finbar was lucky. As soon as I saw his picture I decided I wanted him.

The clincher

I could write a book about the rocky road to cohabitation with this semi-wild creature; maybe I will one day. He has been with us for three years now, and we are still learning about one another. His relationship with me is quite simple: I am God. It’s his relationship with the rest of the human race that is more complicated. I don’t know what his previous owner(s) did to him, and I’m happier not knowing. Whatever it was, it left deep scars on a basically gentle, playful nature. Maybe, hopefully, one day he will learn that not every man who reaches out a hand to him intends to do him harm.

It is difficult to find the words to express my thanks to the wonderful team at Lévriers Libres, and my admiration for the unsung heroes of the Spanish dog shelters, who work so hard to alleviate some of the misery caused by other people’s ‘fun’.

Photos of Finbar (ex Torquato) taken at the shelter outside Seville courtesy of Lévriers Libres.

I won something!

I was gobsmacked yesterday to discover that I had received this award from the dynamic and generous Cait O’Sullivan, who has one romance already published with Crimson Rose Press, and is soon to have her second novel published by Musa Publishing. You’ll find a tantalising excerpt from her first book on her blog. Go check it out.

The Liebster Blog Award is given to upcoming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. The Meaning; Liebster is German and means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing and welcome.

Here are the rules for receiving this award:

1. Each person must post 11 things about themselves

2. Answer the questions the tagger has set for you plus create 11 questions for the people you’ve tagged to answer.

3. Choose 11 people and link them in your post.

4. Go to their page and tell them.

5. Remember, no tag backs!

Why eleven, I don’t know. Is the number eleven significant for lesser mortals? Whatever, here are eleven things about me: I am Irish, I was brought up in the north of England, I live in France, no, not in an ex-pat rural idyll, but city centre with five children, a Spanish greyhound and three cats (I count that as one thing) and husband for those interested. My favourite city is Rome, I hate the cold, love listening to the birds, I’m a sucker for baby animals, I have a simian line on both hands, my favourite book is The Box of Delights, and favourite fictional female character is Moominmamma.

Questions Cait asked me:

Beach or mountain holiday? Mountain though anywhere would be nice.

2. Where in the family do you come? Eldest of 4

3. Dog or cat person? Both

4. What’s your favourite season and why? The early spring, though it’s over so quickly here. It means the year is starting again; the winter is really over.

5. What’s the last book you read? The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier.

6. What’s the last film you watched? Amadeus

7. What’s your favourite weather and why? April and May sunshine and cloud, before the sun gets too hot to be out in.

8. What would you like to be written on your tombstone? I don’t want a tombstone, I want a passage grave.

9. How would you like to be remembered? As a pretty good writer who tried to live up to her principles.

10. When and why was the last time you giggled uncontrollably? Listening to one of my children reading out loud a recipe for ‘triffle’.

11. What’s your favourite photo on display? A shot of all of us up to the fourth baby in the gardens of the Palais Royale.

This is my list of questions for my tagged bloggers:

Are you Medieval castle or Cinderella’s palace? Do you have one in mind?
Are you wide open spaces or city centre?
Where would your dream holiday take you?
What, if anything would put you off trekking in a rainforest?
Do you have green fingers?
Champagne or whiskey? Or even whisky?
What’s your favourite film of all time?
Which period of history would you most like to visit? I’ll let you take your dentist and a first aid kit with you if you plan on staying long.
If you could ask your dog/cat/rabbit a question, what would it be?

10. Which book would you most like to have written?

11. Do you need absolute silence to work in or do you listen to music?

Bloggers tagged:

Kate Jack

Susan Lodge

Andrea Baker

Michael Matula

Pat MacDermott

Filling in the gaps

For months now I’ve been poring over The Dark Citadel, analysing every sentence, weighing up each word. Or at least that’s how it feels. Now the editing process has reached the point where I can’t mess about with it anymore. Deborah’s story stands; the characters will have to bear up to close scrutiny as they are.

But I’m finding it impossible to leave the characters alone. The Dark Citadel is the first volume of The Green Woman trilogy. The whole thing is written, so I know how it ends, I know what happens to all the characters, and although in theory I could change their destinies completely at the press of a key, I won’t do it. Couldn’t do it. They have become real people, as if I had written a history rather than a story. Interestingly, in English the difference between the words ‘story’ and ‘history’ is subtle, and it’s the same word in French and Italian. Probably in lots of other languages too. The story, once it is told, becomes history as far as the writer is concerned, and if the writing is successful, to the reader as well.

Although the entire story of The Green Woman is set down irrevocably, for better or for worse, there are lots of things I still want to say about the different characters. For example, all the reader knows about Jonah’s life is the little he told Deborah. Although the reader knows about Rachel’s escape from Providence, it is only from the point of view of five-year-old Deborah. And then there’s poor, misshapen Hector who I felt needed an apology writing for him, an insight into the awfulness of his upbringing as the son of the public executioner.

Perhaps all authors feel that way about their characters, that there is so much more to tell about them than what is revealed in the story. Perhaps it’s just to avoid tinkering with the text, but whatever the reason, I have decided to write those stories that I feel ought to be told.

The Dark Citadel is due for release in May. By then, I will have several stories prepared to add to the saga. All I need now is for readers to feel so immersed in the world of Providence with its bestiary of fabulous and diabolical beings that they will be curious to read the bits that fill in the gaps.

Yuletide

Last night was Twelfth Night, officially the last night of Christmas, when the decorations are taken down and, the last blow out meal is eaten, before we get down to the grisly business of surviving the cold and sunless days of January and February. I like the idea of decorating a real tree, particularly that the idea comes from those shaggy tribesmen that Russell Crowe massacres in the opening scenes of ‘Gladiator’.

In our household we wait until the following Sunday which is quite often also the Epiphany. Not for religious reasons, simply because it’s the end of the holidays and back to school the next day. Rather than ending the ‘festive season’ in a frantic tearing of wrapping paper and the destruction of fancy packaging, followed by the rush to ebay to sell the unwanted gifts, the rituals of packing away the decorations for another year, eating the last of the chocolates and burning the tree are all satisfyingly symbolic.

author:Gorrk

In France we also have the traditional galette des rois, a frangipane pastry eaten at the Epiphany, just to mark the end of Christmas. The galette contains a porcelaine figurine, traditionally one of the crib people, but nowadays just as likely to be a Disney character. We have quite a motley crew in our collection that ranges from Pluto to the baby Jesus, via wild ducks and unidentified beings carrying sinister-looking sacks. They are probably all made in China which explains the slightly off-beat appearance.

Nono64 08:58, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Having lit the fire for the winter solstice, we’re sitting tight now until Imbolc, next fire festival when the snowdrops should be out.

It’s December.

 

Just to celebrate the lovely snow effect on my blog, I thought I’d post a short excerpt from The Dark Citadel. Also because I have a bad back and it’s painful to write.

 

Long ago and far away across the mists of the timeless blue sea, lay a green island circled by forests and mountains. In the hollow of the mountains stretched a lush green plain, and on the plain rose a hill. A fort was built on the hill that dominated the green plain, and in the great hall of the fort, Oscar, the High King’s nephew woke with a start.

Silver moonlight flooded the sleeping hall from the chimney hole. Oscar sat up and threw off the wolfskins from his bed and peered into the silvery darkness. From far away the clear musical voices of fairy horses and the stamping of their hooves reached his ears, and at the same time the echo of a woman’s cry. Oscar strained his ears to make out the name she called, but it was lost on the billows of the misty sea.

Sitting on the edge of his bed in the great hall of the fort on the hill, Oscar strained every muscle as he listened. Then he heard it, the metallic tinkle on the flagstones at his feet. In the soft light of the moon, he saw it, the bright enamel pin. He held it in his trembling hand and peered at the small green figure, a green woman with outstretched hand, framed in the flame-red waves of her hair.

Oscar closed his fist around the pin and listened. The tremulous silence let fall the echo, the last syllable of a name.

“…rah,” the voice breathed, and was lost in the deep silence.

She is calling, at last, Oscar thought, and his heart beat fast. His hand closed tight around the pin, and he wondered how he would follow.