Jean Grainger's Blog, page 3

Greetings from the cottage

My new book is gone to the Advance Team today, and it is with the usual mix of excitement and terror I press send. You’d think I’d be used to it by now wouldn’t you? No. It’s more nerve-wracking if anything. This is my twenty-third book and you can pre-order the ebook here:

The West’s Awake

Twenty three books is a lot isn’t it? Sometimes I have to count them and see if I’m dreaming it I would hate to ever get complacent or to feel like I didn’t give a book my best effort and it’s something I worry about constantly. We’ve all seen the sequel to the sequel films, and thought, ‘Well that’s just a crass attempt to make money, no care went into that whatsoever.’ I’d hate for you to ever think that about a book I wrote, so I assure you, each one is my baby while I’m writing and editing and I care deeply that you enjoy it.

To that end, I edited for seventeen hours yesterday, so much so that I was totally goggle eyed by the small hours, but there was method to my madness. My eldest son is about to become a Daddy, making me a Granny for the first time, and I need to have the desk clear to make space for my new grandchild. I am so excited there are no words. They live in Dublin so we are going up, it’s about a three and half hour drive, and while the little one may not make an appearance, babies are notoriously obstinate as we know, we’ll stay in a hotel, with a restaurant and have someone else cook the food. I don’t even know who is going to do the wash up! imagine that? I haven’t eaten in a restaurant since last Christmas when we had one socially distant meal so the anticipation for both baby and dinner is at an all time high.

So the paperback version (and large print)  of The West’s Awake will be available next week, and the ebook shortly after. Ralph Devereaux is back, the slimy snake, and he’s determined to make poor Harp suffer. But will she defeat him? She just might, but then again…you never know what will happen!

Have a smashing weekend folks,

Le grá agus míle buiochas

(go to my facebook page,  https://www.facebook.com/jeangraingerauthor/ to hear me pronounce and translate my sign off!)

Jean x

The post Greetings from the cottage appeared first on Jean Grainger.

It’s almost time!

My new book is gone to the Advance Team today, and it is with the usual mix of excitement and terror I press send. You’d think I’d be used to it by now wouldn’t you? No. It’s more nerve-wracking if anything. This is my twenty-third book and you can pre-order the ebook here:

The West’s Awake

Twenty three books is a lot isn’t it? Sometimes I have to count them and see if I’m dreaming it I would hate to ever get complacent or to feel like I didn’t give a book my best effort and it’s something I worry about constantly. We’ve all seen the sequel to the sequel films, and thought, ‘Well that’s just a crass attempt to make money, no care went into that whatsoever.’ I’d hate for you to ever think that about a book I wrote, so I assure you, each one is my baby while I’m writing and editing and I care deeply that you enjoy it.

To that end, I edited for seventeen hours yesterday, so much so that I was totally goggle eyed by the small hours, but there was method to my madness. My eldest son is about to become a Daddy, making me a Granny for the first time, and I need to have the desk clear to make space for my new grandchild. I am so excited there are no words. They live in Dublin so we are going up, it’s about a three and half hour drive, and while the little one may not make an appearance, babies are notoriously obstinate as we know, we’ll stay in a hotel, with a restaurant and have someone else cook the food. I don’t even know who is going to do the wash up! imagine that? I haven’t eaten in a restaurant since last Christmas when we had one socially distant meal so the anticipation for both baby and dinner is at an all time high.

So the paperback version (and large print)  of The West’s Awake will be available next week, and the ebook shortly after. Ralph Devereaux is back, the slimy snake, and he’s determined to make poor Harp suffer. But will she defeat him? She just might, but then again…you never know what will happen!

Have a smashing weekend folks,

Le grá agus míle buiochas

(go to my facebook page,  https://www.facebook.com/jeangraingerauthor/ to hear me pronounce and translate my sign off!)

Jean x

The post It’s almost time! appeared first on Jean Grainger.

Greetings from the cottage

Sounds like the start of a joke doesn’t it?

Hello everyone, and I hope this letter finds you well and enjoying your precious life. (If the last year has taught us anything it is that surely, that life is such a gift, don’t waste a second!)

This week I find myself in a somewhat contemplative state, as I put the finishing touches to the first draft of Book 3 in the Queenstown Story. Don’t worry, you’ve not missed anything, Book 2 – The West’s Awake is with my editor for a final polish and will be going to the advance team shortly, and will be released mid June. You can preorder the ebook here: The West’s Awake.

The third book will need a lot of hammering and battering into some kind of story before it can be let loose into the world!

The paperback, and large print of The West’s Awake will be available on launch day and audio shortly afterwards – fingers crossed.

What has me so lost in thought these days is my two roles, that of the historian, and that of the storyteller. I write, as most of you know, about the history of this island, its people and its troubles, its victories and defeats, and I wonder sometimes if I allow an overly romantic view of it cloud my books, when the reality is often something different.

Every fairy story, every kids cartoon, every film, has the good guys and the bad guys right? And my stories are no different, but the historian in me, that part that taught this stuff at university and at school, knows that it is not that black and white.

I research my books as well as I can, and take a lot of time reading and investigating particular eras, and while of course my primary job as an author is to entertain, I always try, not always successfully I hasten to add, to be accurate. I hope I don’t shy away from telling things how they truly were, not how we would have wished them to be. But accurate with what slant? That’s what has me thinking .

The War of Independence here from 1919 to 1921 is seen from this remove as a glorious romantic affair, where farm labourers, shop girls, post mistresses, and the general public, pulled together with the rebels to rid our country of the British after 800 years of occupation. That’s perfect fodder for the author mind.

But as I consider the fourth book in this series, set in 1922 now, where Harp is young woman of twenty two years old, and Ireland has repelled the old enemy, but has now turned its anger and bitterness inward, on each other, well, those are very murky waters indeed.

In my research I am looking into harrowing accounts given by women of the gender-specific violence they endured during the revolutionary period. For the most part, these witness statements were swept under the carpet. Such things didn’t happen in a morally upright country like Ireland! There was a perception, that the Irish struggle was inherently different to that of every other armed conflict throughout the world where violence against women was used as a weapon to intimidate their men and to terrify women into submission. Of course, that is a complete fabrication, it happened here too, on a scale we will never truly know because it was all cloaked in secrecy and shame. I feel very strongly that those women should have their voices heard, at long last, a hundred years later.

Commemoration, remembering, reliving, is all well and good, but if it is all shrouded in a misrepresentation of the truth, what is the point?

So, that’s the challenge. To tell their story accurately and to afford it the dignity and honesty it deserves, while also telling a good story to keep you turning the pages while the grass should be getting cut or the potatoes peeled for dinner.

It is a challenge, and I’ll give you my word, I will do my best with it. It wont be perfect, but at this juncture more than any other in my writing career, I feel the eyes of my female ancestors upon me, urging me to tell their story. So I will. Stay tuned.

Have a smashing week,

Le grá agus buiochas,

Jean xxx

The post Greetings from the cottage appeared first on Jean Grainger.

A novelist and a historian walk into a bar…

Sounds like the start of a joke doesn’t it?

Hello everyone, and I hope this letter finds you well and enjoying your precious life. (If the last year has taught us anything it is that surely, that life is such a gift, don’t waste a second!)

This week I find myself in a somewhat contemplative state, as I put the finishing touches to the first draft of Book 3 in the Queenstown Story. Don’t worry, you’ve not missed anything, Book 2 – The West’s Awake is with my editor for a final polish and will be going to the advance team shortly, and will be released mid June. You can preorder the ebook here: The West’s Awake.

The third book will need a lot of hammering and battering into some kind of story before it can be let loose into the world!

The paperback, and large print of The West’s Awake will be available on launch day and audio shortly afterwards – fingers crossed.

What has me so lost in thought these days is my two roles, that of the historian, and that of the storyteller. I write, as most of you know, about the history of this island, its people and its troubles, its victories and defeats, and I wonder sometimes if I allow an overly romantic view of it cloud my books, when the reality is often something different.

Every fairy story, every kids cartoon, every film, has the good guys and the bad guys right? And my stories are no different, but the historian in me, that part that taught this stuff at university and at school, knows that it is not that black and white.

I research my books as well as I can, and take a lot of time reading and investigating particular eras, and while of course my primary job as an author is to entertain, I always try, not always successfully I hasten to add, to be accurate. I hope I don’t shy away from telling things how they truly were, not how we would have wished them to be. But accurate with what slant? That’s what has me thinking .

The War of Independence here from 1919 to 1921 is seen from this remove as a glorious romantic affair, where farm labourers, shop girls, post mistresses, and the general public, pulled together with the rebels to rid our country of the British after 800 years of occupation. That’s perfect fodder for the author mind.

But as I consider the fourth book in this series, set in 1922 now, where Harp is young woman of twenty two years old, and Ireland has repelled the old enemy, but has now turned its anger and bitterness inward, on each other, well, those are very murky waters indeed.

In my research I am looking into harrowing accounts given by women of the gender-specific violence they endured during the revolutionary period. For the most part, these witness statements were swept under the carpet. Such things didn’t happen in a morally upright country like Ireland! There was a perception, that the Irish struggle was inherently different to that of every other armed conflict throughout the world where violence against women was used as a weapon to intimidate their men and to terrify women into submission. Of course, that is a complete fabrication, it happened here too, on a scale we will never truly know because it was all cloaked in secrecy and shame. I feel very strongly that those women should have their voices heard, at long last, a hundred years later.

Commemoration, remembering, reliving, is all well and good, but if it is all shrouded in a misrepresentation of the truth, what is the point?

So, that’s the challenge. To tell their story accurately and to afford it the dignity and honesty it deserves, while also telling a good story to keep you turning the pages while the grass should be getting cut or the potatoes peeled for dinner.

It is a challenge, and I’ll give you my word, I will do my best with it. It wont be perfect, but at this juncture more than any other in my writing career, I feel the eyes of my female ancestors upon me, urging me to tell their story. So I will. Stay tuned.

Have a smashing week,

Le grá agus buiochas,

Jean xxx

The post A novelist and a historian walk into a bar… appeared first on Jean Grainger.

Greetings from the cottage

Hello everyone,

I hope you are all well and looking forward to a little bit of normality now that the world is slowly opening up again.

My new book, The West’s Awake, Book 2 in The Queenstown Series is due out in June so not long to wait now! You can preorder the ebook here: PRE-ORDER THE WEST’S AWAKE.

The first book in that series, Last Port of Call, has been met with such warmth by readers I am truly delighted. The series is essentially about a mother and daughter. It’s always risky not having a romance theme in a book, but this don’t really and still people love it, I’m grateful to say. Harp is an unusual girl, very intelligent and insightful but socially a bit odd, I suppose you could say. Her mother, Rose, is a determined woman trying to maintain a life for herself and her child amid a lot of prejudice and judgement. That added to a very tricky domestic situation which I wont give away. But suffice to say, in this series we meet Ralph Devereaux, the worst baddie I think I ever wrote.

If you haven’t read it yet, its available here: LAST PORT OF CALL

I’m almost finished draft one of the third book, and I’m really enjoying it. Bad characters are so much more fun to write than good ones.

In the coming weeks, the inter-county ban will be lifted in Ireland and we can travel outside of our county. Being from Cork, we’re lucky as it’s the largest county in Ireland and therefore we have had more scope than other areas of the country but it will still be nice to venture further afield. Our first trip will be to Killarney, an hour or so from our house.

The idea of Killarney without the foreign visitors is a peculiar one, the town is synonymous with tourism and they do it beautifully. The town is right in the middle of the National Park, home to the famous Lakes of Killarney, Mucross House and Abbey and a fascinating collection of old houses and churches, graveyards and gardens. All of this is in the shadow of the McGillycuddy Reeks, the mountain range in which you will find Carrauntohil, Ireland’s tallest mountain at 3414 feet.

This is an image of The Gap of Dunloe, made famous years ago by an Irish Spring soap commercial in the US and Canada. This area came to particular prominence in 1861 when Queen Victoria and her husband Albert, came to visit the area at the invitation of Henry Arthur Herbert, Viscount CastleRosse. The story goes that he almost bankrupted himself making his house, Mucross House, ready for her visit. She had a terror of fire so extra fire escapes and all sorts had to be added.

This is the house. It’s open to the public now, and it really beautiful inside. The funny thing is, and this is a theme I explore a lot in my books, that the history, heritage and architecture of Ireland is inextricably linked to that of England, and to separate the two is close to impossible. Houses such as Mucross were a symbol of the wealth and privilege enjoyed by English land owners at the expense of the indigenous Irish, but it goes so far in to the depths of the past that it is hard to see how they could ever be untangled. Land in Ireland was granted by various English monarchs to loyal subjects over the centuries, often when it wasn’t theirs to give, but those families who settled here have, in many cases, been here for centuries now, so they are as Irish as anyone else. Famously, throughout history, some of the greatest champions of Irish liberation came from the ranks of such families. Commemoration, remembering, acknowledging the wrong doings of the past, is a tricky business and nobody knows that better than we.

Ireland’s last bid for independence began with the Easter rising of 1916, followed by the War of Independence from 1919 to 1921, which precipitated the bitter and still remembered Civil War of 1922-1923. The various events a hundred years ago, are being commemorated now, and well, it’s complicated.

But in another way it isn’t. I’ll visit the National Park, home once to the Lord Kenmare, maybe pop into Mucross House if it’s open, and enjoy the beauty and splendour of that house, the art, the furniture, the tapestries, and neither I nor any other Irish visitor there will feel any resentment or bitterness. That house is owned now by the State, and was gifted to us, the Irish people, by the owner, Arthur Rose Vincent in 1932.  A minority would argue that it should never have been built at all, that it, like all of those manor houses, was a symbol of oppression, but either way, it was built, and it stands today, as a beautiful house for all to enjoy.

History can’t be changed, nor, it would appear, do we learn much from it, but the evidence of centuries of British aristocracy is all over this island, and when the tourists flock once more, both foreign and domestic, it is to those beautiful places they will come.

Have a great week,

Le grá agus buiochas,

Jean xx

The post Greetings from the cottage appeared first on Jean Grainger.

The West’s Awake is almost cooked!

Hello everyone,

I hope you are all well and looking forward to a little bit of normality now that the world is slowly opening up again.

My new book, The West’s Awake, Book 2 in The Queenstown Series is due out in June 2021 so not long to wait now! You can preorder the ebook here: PRE-ORDER THE WEST’S AWAKE.

The first book in that series, Last Port of Call, has been met with such warmth by readers I am truly delighted. The series is essentially about a mother and daughter. It’s always risky not having a romance theme in a book, but this don’t really and still people love it, I’m grateful to say. Harp is an unusual girl, very intelligent and insightful but socially a bit odd, I suppose you could say. Her mother, Rose, is a determined woman trying to maintain a life for herself and her child amid a lot of prejudice and judgement. That added to a very tricky domestic situation which I wont give away. But suffice to say, in this series we meet Ralph Devereaux, the worst baddie I think I ever wrote.

If you haven’t read it yet, its available here: LAST PORT OF CALL

I’m almost finished draft one of the third book, and I’m really enjoying it. Bad characters are so much more fun to write than good ones.

In the coming weeks, the inter-county ban will be lifted in Ireland and we can travel outside of our county. Being from Cork, we’re lucky as it’s the largest county in Ireland and therefore we have had more scope than other areas of the country but it will still be nice to venture further afield. Our first trip will be to Killarney, an hour or so from our house.

The idea of Killarney without the foreign visitors is a peculiar one, the town is synonymous with tourism and they do it beautifully. The town is right in the middle of the National Park, home to the famous Lakes of Killarney, Mucross House and Abbey and a fascinating collection of old houses and churches, graveyards and gardens. All of this is in the shadow of the McGillycuddy Reeks, the mountain range in which you will find Carrauntohil, Ireland’s tallest mountain at 3414 feet.

This is an image of The Gap of Dunloe, made famous years ago by an Irish Spring soap commercial in the US and Canada. This area came to particular prominence in 1861 when Queen Victoria and her husband Albert, came to visit the area at the invitation of Henry Arthur Herbert, Viscount CastleRosse. The story goes that he almost bankrupted himself making his house, Mucross House, ready for her visit. She had a terror of fire so extra fire escapes and all sorts had to be added.

This is the house. It’s open to the public now, and it really beautiful inside. The funny thing is, and this is a theme I explore a lot in my books, that the history, heritage and architecture of Ireland is inextricably linked to that of England, and to separate the two is close to impossible. Houses such as Mucross were a symbol of the wealth and privilege enjoyed by English land owners at the expense of the indigenous Irish, but it goes so far in to the depths of the past that it is hard to see how they could ever be untangled. Land in Ireland was granted by various English monarchs to loyal subjects over the centuries, often when it wasn’t theirs to give, but those families who settled here have, in many cases, been here for centuries now, so they are as Irish as anyone else. Famously, throughout history, some of the greatest champions of Irish liberation came from the ranks of such families. Commemoration, remembering, acknowledging the wrong doings of the past, is a tricky business and nobody knows that better than we.

Ireland’s last bid for independence began with the Easter rising of 1916, followed by the War of Independence from 1919 to 1921, which precipitated the bitter and still remembered Civil War of 1922-1923. The various events a hundred years ago, are being commemorated now, and well, it’s complicated.

But in another way it isn’t. I’ll visit the National Park, home once to the Lord Kenmare, maybe pop into Mucross House if it’s open, and enjoy the beauty and splendour of that house, the art, the furniture, the tapestries, and neither I nor any other Irish visitor there will feel any resentment or bitterness. That house is owned now by the State, and was gifted to us, the Irish people, by the owner, Arthur Rose Vincent in 1932.  A minority would argue that it should never have been built at all, that it, like all of those manor houses, was a symbol of oppression, but either way, it was built, and it stands today, as a beautiful house for all to enjoy.

History can’t be changed, nor, it would appear, do we learn much from it, but the evidence of centuries of British aristocracy is all over this island, and when the tourists flock once more, both foreign and domestic, it is to those beautiful places they will come.

Have a great week,

Le grá agus buiochas,

Jean

The post The West’s Awake is almost cooked! appeared first on Jean Grainger.

Greetings from the cottage

Hello everyone and happy Monday from rural Mid Cork!
I had a lovely week, writing away on the third Harp book, and as part of that  I went to Cobh to do a bit of research last Sunday. It’s about a thirty five minute drive from my house. While I was walking around there I got a pang of guilt and decided the time had come to come clean to you all! .
The Queenstown Story is set in Cobh for sure, it’s instantly recognisable and most people who visit Ireland go there with good reason, but the inspiration for the Cliff House and the graveyard where Henry is buried are not in fact in Cobh at all, but in another part of East Cork very dear to my heart. The picture above is where I imagined the Devereaux  family are laid to rest. I could see Rose and Harp picking their way across the higgledy piggledy headstones to find Henry’s grave. 
I mention to you often how walking on the beach is how I untangle the plots I get knotted up in my brain  like six sets of old Christmas lights that someone just stuffed in a bag last January. (We’ve all been there)  My beach of choice is in Youghal, a medieval town east of Cobh. (Though there is evidence of it being even older, a Viking settlement) 
My family love it so much, We have a small beachside property there. 
This is the town where the movie Moby Dick was filmed, and it was home to Sir Walter Raleigh too. Edmund Spencer wrote The Faery Queen there. There are abbeys and priories, medieval marketplaces and an old clock tower, castles and almshouses, lots of old churches of various denominations, and a huge stone wall encircling it all dating from 1250 AD. There’s a long beach, that stretches for miles in both directions out of the town and it’s my happy place. 
Since we all have had our wings clipped in terms of travel since that wretched Covid reared its ugly bat-like head (Actually bats are kind of cute, one flew into our house recently, noisy little things though.) I thought I would tell you about one of my special places. 
There’s a big old house on a cliff that I can see from my place, and its in semi-dereliction. Nobody seems to know the full story with it, but though it’s in a bad way now, you can tell that once it was magnificent. I walk past it on my way to the lighthouse with my two micro-dogs and I try to imagine who lived there and what happened to make people abandon such an amazing house. That’s when the idea of the Cliff House came to be. All over Ireland there are similar houses, but this one really fascinates me. 
I feel so lucky to call Ireland home, and it’s funny because I write about the Irish struggle for independence, people sometimes think I’m very political and I’m not really. I appreciate what the men and women of the past did to liberate us, and none of us here will ever forget their sacrifice, but we live in peace now and it serves nobody to keep the resentment or bitterness of the past in our heads or our hearts. I believe the Ireland they fought and died for, is the one we now have and they would want us to enjoy it. It’s not perfect, of course not, no place is, but it is special. 
Ireland means so much to me, and not just because all of my people live here, but because this country is in us, every bit as much as we are in it. Sometimes, I need to sit by the pounding Atlantic (always cold) and feel it. The sense of my ancestors, the struggles, the music, the literature, the history, the language. It’s a palpable thing here. And I know that for people who visit us, they feel it too. That sight when you fly over Ireland, Johnnny Cash called it ’40 Shades of Green’, of fields and farms and cities and coastline, answers a call to come home in every person with Irish blood in their veins. Born and reared here, or a tenth generation child of an immigrant it doesn’t matter, when you land here, you feel like you’ve come home.
We have a complex and complicated past as you all know. and it is immortalised in poetry and in song. Here’s one of my favourite poems. (Though Mr Yeats is hands down my favourite poet – this isn’t one of his)
It’s called The Planter’s Daughter by Austin Clarke and a planter was a person who was given land in Ireland by the British in an effort to dilute the indigenous populations. Famous plantations took place on a widespread basis in Ulster and Munster in the seventeenth centuries. The planters would have been seen as separate from the locals and in lots of ways the enemy. But in this poem Clarke describes a girl who wasn’t ‘too proud’ to mix and know her neighbours. She was a beauty. Some of the greatest champions of Irish liberation were English men and women. and so as I say, it’s complicated!
 
The Planter’s Daughter
The night stirred at sea, and the fire brought a crowd in,
And they say that her beauty was music in mouth.
And few in the candlelight thought her too proud,
For the house of the planter is known by the trees.
Men that had seen her drank deep and were silent
The women were speaking wherever she went
As a bell that is rung, or a wonder told shyly,
and O she was the Sunday in every week. 
 
Here is a link to the wonderful Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem incorporating this poem into the haunting slow air, Ar Éireann ní Neosfainn Cé Hí (For Ireland, I’d not tell her name)  The song is in Irish but you can look up the lyrics in translation if you’re interested. You’d be here all day if I wrote it out here for you! 
The Planter’s Daughter/Ar Eireann ní neosfainn cé hí (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuptY...)
 
It will be a little while yet, the vaccines need to get figured out, but once we get our lives back, then do yourself a favour, come on home. 
Beidh céad míle fáilte anseo duit,
(A hundred thousand welcomes await you)
Le grá agus buiochas,

The post Greetings from the cottage appeared first on Jean Grainger.

Let me show you one of my favourite places in Ireland

Hello everyone and happy Monday from rural Mid Cork!
I had a lovely week, writing away on the third Harp book, and as part of that  I went to Cobh to do a bit of research last Sunday. It’s about a thirty five minute drive from my house. While I was walking around there I got a pang of guilt and decided the time had come to come clean to you all! .
The Queenstown Story is set in Cobh for sure, it’s instantly recognisable and most people who visit Ireland go there with good reason, but the inspiration for the Cliff House and the graveyard where Henry is buried are not in fact in Cobh at all, but in another part of East Cork very dear to my heart. The picture above is where I imagined the Devereaux  family are laid to rest. I could see Rose and Harp picking their way across the higgledy piggledy headstones to find Henry’s grave. 
I mention to you often how walking on the beach is how I untangle the plots I get knotted up in my brain  like six sets of old Christmas lights that someone just stuffed in a bag last January. (We’ve all been there)  My beach of choice is in Youghal, a medieval town east of Cobh. (Though there is evidence of it being even older, a Viking settlement) 
My family love it so much, We have a small beachside property there. 
This is the town where the movie Moby Dick was filmed, and it was home to Sir Walter Raleigh too. Edmund Spencer wrote The Faery Queen there. There are abbeys and priories, medieval marketplaces and an old clock tower, castles and almshouses, lots of old churches of various denominations, and a huge stone wall encircling it all dating from 1250 AD. There’s a long beach, that stretches for miles in both directions out of the town and it’s my happy place. 
Since we all have had our wings clipped in terms of travel since that wretched Covid reared its ugly bat-like head (Actually bats are kind of cute, one flew into our house recently, noisy little things though.) I thought I would tell you about one of my special places. 
There’s a big old house on a cliff that I can see from my place, and its in semi-dereliction. Nobody seems to know the full story with it, but though it’s in a bad way now, you can tell that once it was magnificent. I walk past it on my way to the lighthouse with my two micro-dogs and I try to imagine who lived there and what happened to make people abandon such an amazing house. That’s when the idea of the Cliff House came to be. All over Ireland there are similar houses, but this one really fascinates me. 
I feel so lucky to call Ireland home, and it’s funny because I write about the Irish struggle for independence, people sometimes think I’m very political and I’m not really. I appreciate what the men and women of the past did to liberate us, and none of us here will ever forget their sacrifice, but we live in peace now and it serves nobody to keep the resentment or bitterness of the past in our heads or our hearts. I believe the Ireland they fought and died for, is the one we now have and they would want us to enjoy it. It’s not perfect, of course not, no place is, but it is special. 
Ireland means so much to me, and not just because all of my people live here, but because this country is in us, every bit as much as we are in it. Sometimes, I need to sit by the pounding Atlantic (always cold) and feel it. The sense of my ancestors, the struggles, the music, the literature, the history, the language. It’s a palpable thing here. And I know that for people who visit us, they feel it too. That sight when you fly over Ireland, Johnnny Cash called it ’40 Shades of Green’, of fields and farms and cities and coastline, answers a call to come home in every person with Irish blood in their veins. Born and reared here, or a tenth generation child of an immigrant it doesn’t matter, when you land here, you feel like you’ve come home.
We have a complex and complicated past as you all know. and it is immortalised in poetry and in song. Here’s one of my favourite poems. (Though Mr Yeats is hands down my favourite poet – this isn’t one of his)
It’s called The Planter’s Daughter by Austin Clarke and a planter was a person who was given land in Ireland by the British in an effort to dilute the indigenous populations. Famous plantations took place on a widespread basis in Ulster and Munster in the seventeenth centuries. The planters would have been seen as separate from the locals and in lots of ways the enemy. But in this poem Clarke describes a girl who wasn’t ‘too proud’ to mix and know her neighbours. She was a beauty. Some of the greatest champions of Irish liberation were English men and women. and so as I say, it’s complicated!
 
The Planter’s Daughter
The night stirred at sea, and the fire brought a crowd in,
And they say that her beauty was music in mouth.
And few in the candlelight thought her too proud,
For the house of the planter is known by the trees.
Men that had seen her drank deep and were silent
The women were speaking wherever she went
As a bell that is rung, or a wonder told shyly,
and O she was the Sunday in every week. 
 
Here is a link to the wonderful Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem incorporating this poem into the haunting slow air, Ar Éireann ní Neosfainn Cé Hí (For Ireland, I’d not tell her name)  The song is in Irish but you can look up the lyrics in translation if you’re interested. You’d be here all day if I wrote it out here for you! 
The Planter’s Daughter/Ar Eireann ní neosfainn cé hí (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuptY...)
 
It will be a little while yet, the vaccines need to get figured out, but once we get our lives back, then do yourself a favour, come on home. 
Beidh céad míle fáilte anseo duit,
(A hundred thousand welcomes await you)
Le grá agus buiochas,

The post Let me show you one of my favourite places in Ireland appeared first on Jean Grainger.

Greetings from the cottage

(geni.us/TheWestsAwakeAL)
Hello everyone,
I hope this week’s note finds you well? The rollout of the vaccine is really ramping up around the world now, and it’s wonderful to see the beginnings of life returning. Not in Ireland as of yet, we’re still in Level 5 lockdown, we’ll all need socialisation lessons to reintegrate us into society after this! 
Today however, I met someone who said one of the things that drives authors nuts! I thought I’d share it with you for the laugh. The conversation usually goes something like this:
Stranger: ‘So what do you work at?’
Me: I’m an author.
Stranger: oh, would I have heard of you?
Me: Definitely not.
Stranger: ‘Oh you don’t have anything published then? (sympathetic face)
Me: I do.
St: What? a few short stories, or a poem or something?
Me: Twenty three novels.
Stranger: Oh…and have you sold many?
Me: Yeah, a few.
Stranger: I’d write a book, if I had time. (the implication being that all it takes is time) 
Me: Really? What about?
Stranger: I can’t tell you that, you might steal my idea, but let me tell you this, it would be a best seller!’
Me: I don’t doubt it.
Some version of this conversation happens around once a month.  
It never fails to make me smile. I think every profession has their own version of this. When I told people I was a teacher in the past, I was often told about the worst teacher that person ever had, as if I should in some way apologise for the entire profession. 
So, as well as those people,  I often am asked by nice people such as yourselves about the process of writing. How a story comes about, do I plot it or does it kind of just unravel itself, and questions of that nature. So I thought I’d tell you a bit about my process today. (To call it anything as orchestrated as a process is probably to talk it up a bit too much to be honest) 
I may have told you my thoughts on this before, if so bear with me.
I believe that every story exists already in the world. The Greeks, the Romans, the Bible, the ancient myths and legends of different cultures, Shakespeare, the holy books of various different faiths. They all contain the same themes. Love, loss, jealousy, gratitude, revenge, betrayal, friendship, compassion, the whole gamut of human emotion. And in each culture, there are the storytellers. In our world it is authors, filmmakers, song writers, Netflix producers and so on, in ancient Ireland for example, it was the bards who went from castle to castle telling the news but also stories to entertain, to warn, to illustrate, to flatter. Regardless, of when or where we live, storytellers all do the same job. Fiction is the conversation of mankind. 
If you lose someone you love, and your heart is broken, then your heart is broken and it feels the same, whether you are in Dublin or Durban, San Francisco or Sydney. If you are fifteen or fifty or ninety, it doesn’t matter, a man or a woman, if you live in 2021 or 1621. Makes no difference whatsoever. So by telling stories with universal themes it helps us feel less alone. It answers the deepest of human needs, the need for connection. 
So I am in the very fortunate position of being a storyteller for my time. And I love it. 
So how do I tell a story?
What usually happens is something triggers a thought. The monument to the Kindertransport children in Liverpool Street Station in London started the Star and the Shamrock. A visit to a lovely old house up the country a few years ago, where I saw a photo of three sisters in 1940’s dress sparked Robinswood. A walk along the quayside in Cobh, formerly Queenstown got me thinking about Harp and Rose and all of that gang. A woman ringing a radio talk show I had on in the car one day  brought Carmel into my life. 
I don’t plot my books at all. I just start writing, with the sure and certain faith that the stories exist already, and all I am just the way they get into my time and place, I frequently write late at night, when the house is quiet, and often in bed. Tapping away as my husband calls it, as he snores beside me. 
Oftentimes I am stunned with where the characters take me. And I never know how it will end until I write it. I’d love to take the credit, but honestly, it comes from somewhere else. (I can feels some of you rolling your eyes right about now!!) But it’s true. I can’t explain it. If I get myself into a particularly tight corner, a frequent occurrence, and the plot hits a stone wall, I walk on the beach. I think it out, often while talking to myself so I look a bit deranged, and I come home and it’s unravelled and I know what to do. 
I talk it out with my husband too. He doesn’t think he’s of much use in this regard but I assure him he is. Things occur to me as I’m telling him a story. Any teachers out there will know this is true, to learn something is one thing, to teach it takes a deeper level of understanding so the process of teaching is in fact learning on the part of the teacher as much as the students.
So then I have my first draft. I re-read it, tweak it a bit, add and subtract, and send it to my editor, and a woman I love on a personal level as well as being dependent on her professionally, and together we hammer at it again. She is a genius, and can see the whole story so clearly, so she helps me unstick bits that need unsticking. 
Then I take it home, I rewrite it better and maybe do that three or four times. Until I’m happy with the story. Enter then my wonderful copy editor, who makes sure my Americans sound like Americans, that my subject-noun agreement works and that my peculiar Hiberno-English makes some version of sense while still sounding like me. Because we are a former colony of Britain, we Irish speak a very unique version of English, with our syntax sounding unusual because it is translated directly from Irish, a language that bears no resemblance whatsoever to English. 
So there you have it, 
I started a new book today in fact. Book three in the Queenstown Story, and while its hard to get going, once I have a paragraph or two down I’m off and there’s no stopping me. Harp and Rose have really hit a chord with readers, so it is easy to write sequels knowing those characters have a place int he hearts of readers already. 
If you’d like to read book 1, The Last Port of Call you can get it here, 
BUY LAST PORT OF CALL HERE (geni.us/LastPortofCallAL)
or if you’ve read it and are waiting for the next book, The West’s Awake, you can preorder it here.
PREORDER THE WEST’S AWAKE HERE (geni.us/TheWestsAwakeAL)
Le grá agus míle buiochas,

The post Greetings from the cottage appeared first on Jean Grainger.

I’d write a book, if only I’d time! (and other infuriating things people say to authors!)😂

(geni.us/TheWestsAwakeAL)
Hello everyone,
I hope this week’s note finds you well? The rollout of the vaccine is really ramping up around the world now, and it’s wonderful to see the beginnings of life returning. Not in Ireland as of yet, we’re still in Level 5 lockdown, we’ll all need socialisation lessons to reintegrate us into society after this! 
Today however, I met someone who said one of the things that drives authors nuts! I thought I’d share it with you for the laugh. The conversation usually goes something like this:
Stranger: ‘So what do you work at?’
Me: I’m an author.
Stranger: oh, would I have heard of you?
Me: Definitely not.
Stranger: ‘Oh you don’t have anything published then? (sympathetic face)
Me: I do.
St: What? a few short stories, or a poem or something?
Me: Twenty three novels.
Stranger: Oh…and have you sold many?
Me: Yeah, a few.
Stranger: I’d write a book, if I had time. (the implication being that all it takes is time) 
Me: Really? What about?
Stranger: I can’t tell you that, you might steal my idea, but let me tell you this, it would be a best seller!’
Me: I don’t doubt it.
Some version of this conversation happens around once a month.  
It never fails to make me smile. I think every profession has their own version of this. When I told people I was a teacher in the past, I was often told about the worst teacher that person ever had, as if I should in some way apologise for the entire profession. 
So, as well as those people,  I often am asked by nice people such as yourselves about the process of writing. How a story comes about, do I plot it or does it kind of just unravel itself, and questions of that nature. So I thought I’d tell you a bit about my process today. (To call it anything as orchestrated as a process is probably to talk it up a bit too much to be honest) 
I may have told you my thoughts on this before, if so bear with me.
I believe that every story exists already in the world. The Greeks, the Romans, the Bible, the ancient myths and legends of different cultures, Shakespeare, the holy books of various different faiths. They all contain the same themes. Love, loss, jealousy, gratitude, revenge, betrayal, friendship, compassion, the whole gamut of human emotion. And in each culture, there are the storytellers. In our world it is authors, filmmakers, song writers, Netflix producers and so on, in ancient Ireland for example, it was the bards who went from castle to castle telling the news but also stories to entertain, to warn, to illustrate, to flatter. Regardless, of when or where we live, storytellers all do the same job. Fiction is the conversation of mankind. 
If you lose someone you love, and your heart is broken, then your heart is broken and it feels the same, whether you are in Dublin or Durban, San Francisco or Sydney. If you are fifteen or fifty or ninety, it doesn’t matter, a man or a woman, if you live in 2021 or 1621. Makes no difference whatsoever. So by telling stories with universal themes it helps us feel less alone. It answers the deepest of human needs, the need for connection. 
So I am in the very fortunate position of being a storyteller for my time. And I love it. 
So how do I tell a story?
What usually happens is something triggers a thought. The monument to the Kindertransport children in Liverpool Street Station in London started the Star and the Shamrock. A visit to a lovely old house up the country a few years ago, where I saw a photo of three sisters in 1940’s dress sparked Robinswood. A walk along the quayside in Cobh, formerly Queenstown got me thinking about Harp and Rose and all of that gang. A woman ringing a radio talk show I had on in the car one day  brought Carmel into my life. 
I don’t plot my books at all. I just start writing, with the sure and certain faith that the stories exist already, and all I am just the way they get into my time and place, I frequently write late at night, when the house is quiet, and often in bed. Tapping away as my husband calls it, as he snores beside me. 
Oftentimes I am stunned with where the characters take me. And I never know how it will end until I write it. I’d love to take the credit, but honestly, it comes from somewhere else. (I can feels some of you rolling your eyes right about now!!) But it’s true. I can’t explain it. If I get myself into a particularly tight corner, a frequent occurrence, and the plot hits a stone wall, I walk on the beach. I think it out, often while talking to myself so I look a bit deranged, and I come home and it’s unravelled and I know what to do. 
I talk it out with my husband too. He doesn’t think he’s of much use in this regard but I assure him he is. Things occur to me as I’m telling him a story. Any teachers out there will know this is true, to learn something is one thing, to teach it takes a deeper level of understanding so the process of teaching is in fact learning on the part of the teacher as much as the students.
So then I have my first draft. I re-read it, tweak it a bit, add and subtract, and send it to my editor, and a woman I love on a personal level as well as being dependent on her professionally, and together we hammer at it again. She is a genius, and can see the whole story so clearly, so she helps me unstick bits that need unsticking. 
Then I take it home, I rewrite it better and maybe do that three or four times. Until I’m happy with the story. Enter then my wonderful copy editor, who makes sure my Americans sound like Americans, that my subject-noun agreement works and that my peculiar Hiberno-English makes some version of sense while still sounding like me. Because we are a former colony of Britain, we Irish speak a very unique version of English, with our syntax sounding unusual because it is translated directly from Irish, a language that bears no resemblance whatsoever to English. 
So there you have it, 
I started a new book today in fact. Book three in the Queenstown Story, and while its hard to get going, once I have a paragraph or two down I’m off and there’s no stopping me. Harp and Rose have really hit a chord with readers, so it is easy to write sequels knowing those characters have a place int he hearts of readers already. 
If you’d like to read book 1, The Last Port of Call you can get it here, 
BUY LAST PORT OF CALL HERE (geni.us/LastPortofCallAL)
or if you’ve read it and are waiting for the next book, The West’s Awake, you can preorder it here.
PREORDER THE WEST’S AWAKE HERE (geni.us/TheWestsAwakeAL)
Le grá agus míle buiochas,

The post I’d write a book, if only I’d time! (and other infuriating things people say to authors!)😂 appeared first on Jean Grainger.