Hermione Laake's Blog: Thoughts, page 19

"Holiday"

I have always been intrigued by Madonna who always knew that sex sells. Anyway this blog isn't about sex. That was just a reference to the title of one of her songs. Her best book for children is Mr Peabody's Apples, a story with a moral and this book should grace every shelf in Britain, America, Mallorca, and anywhere else benevolent and kind....
I have been on holiday in Mallorca and felt really at home there. I began to wonder whether one of my ancestors lived there, because I settled in straight away, which is unusual. Also I thought it was uncanny the way I wasn't sad on my last day. I enjoyed this holiday right up until the last moment, not getting that usual feeling of, oh no, I/we only have a day/afternoon/hour left. Uncanny....
I once wrote to the producers of Who Do You Think You Are to suggest they make a programme about ordinary people like you and me. People who are not famous. I am sure it would be a hit, rather like XFactor is a hit. There is so much emotion in XFactor, especially this year. Simon Cowell has genuine humility, which coincides with him dropping the catchphrase, "genuinely- believe" - food for thought....There would be emotion in a pedestrian Who Do You Think You Are?
I mention this programme because usually uncanny things happen to the people who are researching their ancestors on the aforementioned series, like they discover they had similar tastes and careers to their ancestors, or they discover that a scar runs in the family.
My holiday, which was a cycling one, turned out to be surprising in many ways.
I discovered how mature and enlightened the Mallorcan people are when it comes to cyclists. (Shout out to #Strava without them I would not be motivated enough to ride the 130k I did whilst abroad last week.) In Mallorca they leave a metre gap between their cars and the cyclists, and if they cannot do this they simply wait and do not overtake until the coast is clear. This is remarkable to me. I live in England, where we routinely run over and hoot at our cyclists, carving them up at the earliest opportunity. Sorry if you are a considerate driver reading this. Sometimes truth has to be written down before change can happen.
I walked a great deal on holiday, as my partner enjoys this pastime. I do too, but lately I have to be persuaded to walk, as I have become a keen cyclist and would rather ride.
My partner is very creative at finding walks and one day I will post the map here when I have time. I am very busy with my two novels and have been in the mood to read recently due to the holiday and the time out on the beach, so am reading 3 novels simultaneously, which is a great pleasure....
If any of my blog resonates with you please share it, as I am always grateful for any interest shown in my work.
I know this is an American forum, and because of this I hesitated just now before typing metre as you would type meter. And I have no idea whether to write Mallorcan People, as perhaps they have their own name for themselves.
Anyway, I will humbly ask your forgiveness for my ignorance, and post this along with all my other offerings for your indulgence.
Happy holidays,

Hermione

“Consistency is the hallmark of the unimaginative.” ― Oscar Wilde. Between Truth and Lies

I've decided to admit to a depression. Every one is doing it, but that isn't why. I was reading recently about how it is important to be authentic, and how freeing it is to be yourself whether that may be up or down. I've always had a stiff upper lip, which meant that even when I was trudging through the pouring rain with a double buggy, or lost my brother and still had to attend the mother and toddler Christmas party the following morning, I tended to be upbeat about it and because of this was given praise for being "a brick" - "patient" - or "reliable". I have spent most of my life being all those things; yet sometimes I fail.

I have been very down for the past two years, mainly because I have moved to a new town where I don't know anybody; I had to sell and mostly give away over 600 books and my piano; this was hard. Possibly some of these things, which I decided I no longer needed, as I was being practical, would have helped me to overcome my depression. For example, the large door-stop-of-a-book, The Man Without Qualities, which I may or may not have remembered to include in my list of read books here, was only half read. I had littered the pages with notes, and remember finding it very hard to part with it. I gave it to Oxfam and remember the following day that I wanted to return and ask for it back; having once worked as a manager for Oxfam I knew that by then it would already be in a bag waiting to be picked up by somebody who offered a penny per book for books which weren't in good enough condition to grace the shelves of Oxfam. Still, I had talked myself into letting it go because if I couldn't let go of this one book which was enormous then how could I let go of all the others?
There is nothing wrong with being authentically depressed, except that it is difficult to maintain relationships. I don't ring my mother when I am feeling like this, but I do continue to ring my children and see them and of course they will notice my mood and behaviour is different; usually I am interested in things, wanting to play board games and maybe to cook. The problem with depression is that you stop doing things. I have been depressed before, when I moved to a new house and lost touch with my friends. There must be a catalyst for depression; I am not sure what it is but I would hazard a guess that it is in-authenticity. When I was feeling down after losing a job a friend suggested that I didn't smile. I thought this was interesting; anyway it made me laugh. People wanted me to smile when out of work; they expected it of me because they knew I was the manager of a local charity shop. The problem was that when I was in the shop as a professional I was playing the part of the manager and in this guise it was easy to smile and to behave appropriately. Not so easy when at home and feeling down and being at liberty to be authentic.
Smiling when you don't feel like it is counter intuitive and lifts your mood. I remember round about this time when I was down my skin suffered and a good friend kept telling me how good my skin was and how good I looked even when my skin was terrible. This had a wonderful impact on me and I wonder whether it is something they teach in cognitive therapy, as I know that he attended these sessions years ago.
Of course truth is something that grounds and centers us. I suppose we all strive for balance and honesty in our lives. My father used to tell me that to lie was the worst sin, and yet in The Bible it says that all sins are equal. Yet I am undecided about how to be authentic and to navigate the distance between truth and lies, professional and private life. Being authentic it seems, requires consistency, and yet consistency is dishonest. Life happens, intervening in time and space, even when we wish to maintain an even equilibrium. There is a quote about this somewhere. Here it is:
“Consistency is the hallmark of the unimaginative.”
― Oscar Wilde

An Irrational Fear of Bikes

The title of my next work for adults will be An Irrational Fear of Bikes. I have decided this because as I have been cycling more in the east and west of England I have come across what appears to be a universal fear of bikes; cyclists would probably be more accurate since I've never observed anyone glaring at an unoccupied bicycle or making fearful comments about it.

Sometimes the title for a book comes into my head and it is usually inspired by a song lyric or a discussion I have listened to on a podcast or something similar.

As I have said before in another blog somewhere cycling is proving to be as good as walking for bringing forward ideas lodged in my subconscious; whole sentences sometimes; much easier to jot down when you are cycling along a canal at 13 k per hour - not so easy when you are doing 17-20 k - I wonder whether the creativity is induced by the slow speed you naturally gravitate to along a canal because of the proximity to the river the slow-moving traffic and nature (a wonderful heron flew right across our path on Sunday), truly majestic and something you could never buy; reminded me of a velociraptor.

I've been away from blogging on Goodreads for a year and have instead been blogging about gardening on my Wordpress site hermionelaakeloveslavendar - you won't be able to access this anywhere as I have cancelled the subscription whilst I change jobs for the fourth time this year. More news about that later....

I began writing this as I have discovered that I quite enjoy blogging in between working on my novels. The activity sharpens the mind and draws forward all kinds of connected thoughts which must be good for any writer. Hemmingway (Ernest that is), recommended writing short paragraphs as often as possible, and although I have not been as disciplined at this as he was, since I end up writing far too much usually, I have been better at blogging and usually managed several gardening blogs a month. The discipline is induced with the blog as it lends itself to a more concise format. I will probably go back in a different medium to the gardening blog as a friend - @RowenaMonde - has given me an idea with her twitter outdoor blog last week, although I am sure that a few years ago it was not in twitter's policy to promote one aspect or site to the exclusion of all else without payment, which is why I chose Wordpress for the blog. I have been known to photograph pastoral scenes and put them on my twitter account @herziloph in the past though.

I am currently working on a children's story which is finally showing signs of drawing to a close after over 30 years work. What a journey it has been....

Any determined and diligent writers might be interested in @DeMontfortlit where they are seeking novelists for a salary. I applied several months ago and have got through to the 2nd stage....

More from me soon. Thank you for reading. Happy writing days,

All the best,

Hermione

A Writer's Life

Dear readers,

This year whilst waiting for cover work, as a Teaching Assistant, to come in, I've taken up cycling more seriously.

I bought a really cheap phone; an Alcatel over the counter in Tesco. It was to replace my expensive Windows phone, which I dropped in the bath when worrying about two of my children who lived in London at the time, and there have been all those terror attacks....

Anyway, this phone works really well with the #Strava app; my old phone didn't so I am enjoying the cycling much more than ever. The Strava app is so motivational. For example, I've been QOM several times; QOM stands for Queen of the Mountain. Funnily enough, I am the only woman who rides on this route at the moment, which explains the accolade; interestingly, I don't mind. This just goes to illustrate the power of praise.

I haven't paid for the app as I am not going pro at the moment; but what has this got to do with writing?

Everything.

I find that I am getting just as many ideas when I ride as I did when I walked. For some reason, now that I am over fifty, I get pain in my hips when I walk. I don't get this when I ride.

I also noticed that when I had a serious accident in 2010, which affected my back, at the time I was able to cycle even though I couldn't walk. This got me to wondering whether physiotherapists could use cycling to rehabilitate people with spinal injuries. Perhaps they already do. I have no idea. I just thought I would put the idea out there because I used to work in a spinal unit typing up medical letters, and sometimes, because of this experience, I get ideas about helping them.

I am so lucky that my back injury was not so much worse and I am free to walk, run or ride, as I please, and then, like magic, the ideas come....

A Writer's Life: Perception

I've been thinking about perception. I'm not sure where this thread came from exactly; several thoughts colliding, as they do when you travel, and allow the mind to wander...

I was dwelling on perception, when listening to a radio 4 programme, in which a speaker was discussing the proliferation of Artificial Intelligence. Her leaning was towards it for this reason (at this point, I should apologise for not taking down her name - I was on holiday - my time was not entirely my own... I promise to look into it - if there is time later - and edit this post); her point was a good one; it is that, to paraphrase, we put on a face to the world which is not real either, depending on the situation, so what would be wrong with interacting with robots which are not real? I thought this was an excellent idea and intelligent to connect these two parallel situations. I started to think about other ways in which we might develop unreal interactions with things, such as our pets, or our garden gnomes; people do, although I admit, I cannot understand this. I have though, I admit, had a similar relationship with my cuddly bear, which I wrote about in Woedy Bear, my debut children's book.

Another thing that is interesting about perception is that it is tied to projection. A person reads or doesn't read about you on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Wordpress/Goodreads... and forms an opinion of you based on that. This is not real, because it is only a representation of one facet of your personality.

Recently, I began updating my status to Facebook. I did this because someone had commented to me that they thought I didn't have a life. I thought this was funny, and that they had been spending too much time on Facebook. Facebook doesn't rule my life and I do have a private Twitter account, which represents another facet of my personality. However, I do not advertise this to friends, as this is for those like-minded writers and singers, and creatives, and not all of my friends fall into that category or would be even remotely interested in my Twitter account. Still, I decided, as an experiment, to update my status (I have been remiss and missed several outings off, I admit, as I am a private person), however, I was reasonably diligent, in the mornings at least. I noticed that I got a different reaction from people, and they thought I was active or visiting lots of places. the truth is that I have always been like this, but I don't advertise this usually. Conversation is a good way of finding out what people do and are interested in. I find that people often are not adept at conversation. They like to talk about themselves and forget to ask particular questions of people, or to mention something they have read and are interested in; they might find themselves surprised by the depth of the friend or stranger standing in front of them if they did, and enhance their relationship. But relationships take time. Of course superficial relationships do not. But it is important to know which kind of relationship you are in, otherwise you cannot be qualified to judge a person, or comment on them; you have to really know them first, and that takes time, and focus, and probably you will never really know them completely unless you have the kind of friendship I had with my old friend Julie, where we finished one another's sentences and turned up in places and met up just because we were thinking about one another.

Of course time too alters perception, which is why Gandhi did not want to write The Story of My Experiments with Truth, because he thought he might change his mind, he said. This is a deep and meaningful comment on life. The truth is that apart from time unravelling, as it does, in the moment, time has the ability to change perception. We may look back on an event and remember it differently from the way we once viewed it; this is because we have lived, we have experienced things, and they have changed our minds. Gandhi knew this and it is an important thought to bear in mind when we are thinking about perception.

A friend kept asking me whether I was happy and in love, and I could only ask her a question in return: "What is love?" and tell her that we are only fleetingly happy in the moment. This is not new. Others have written about it. But I think that happiness and love share something, and that is an understanding of the flawed nature of perception in the moment, and that is where I will leave this blog for today.

A Writer's Life

Hello friends,

This week I have sent off three sample chapters and synopses to two agents. I'm rubbish at selling myself. I've always been really good at selling other people's stuff which is why I've had some success in retail in the past and was promoted at the tender age of 19 to manager, because of that and my accuracy.

I always think how ironic it is that before you can get an agent to pitch to a publisher on your behalf you first have to convince them to read your work with an elevator pitch, a cleverly written biography and letter of introduction.

This week, I remembered some highlights from my writing journey and some of my achievements. I even sent the url links to them along with my bio...

Thank you to those of you who have taken the time to read my work and comment on Amazon.

A Writer's Life

Dear readers and fellow writers,

Today my partner booked a holiday for the two of us. I don't feel like I deserve this holiday. There are so many people that I would like to take with me....

This year, I have decided to notice all the good things people do for me, and stop concentrating on what I can or cannot do for others so much.

The ability to just be, of course, is highlighted in Winnie the Pooh, when Tigger often achieves only more chaos by jumping about all over the place and getting into trouble, and Piglet's worrying achieves nothing either. There is a book about this called The Tao of Pooh The Te of Piglet. Pooh is happy just being Pooh.

I'm not very good at just being. I've always had to go out and do something.

I once went to help out at a school and was impressed and startled by the teacher there who was so efficient that I felt like I wasn't really contributing. My early arrival was pointless because until she was ready nothing could happen anyway. Of course this wasn't really true, but it got me thinking about how being super can crush others. I learnt about this at university as a mature student as well though, because I discovered that other people were coming to the same conclusions about texts that we were reading, and on the same pages; these were people that I didn't even know. I once thought that I had come up with a really unique idea; it was when I was endeavouring to write articles for magazines in my early years as a writer, and I came up with the idea of using belts to tie around curtains; I didn't send this idea off, as I had missed the deadline for the monthly magazine, but only a few weeks later the magazine came out with a feature with curtains tied back with belts.

It's great to be your best and to shine, but you get a greater feeling of satisfaction when you can be a facilitator for other people's success. Just think of all the talent out there just waiting for a moment to really shine.

Hidden Figures: The Film

This film has made me want to read the book. I don't agree with the Guardian review, which I've tweeted on my twitter account: herziloph, because, having been a big fan of Costner's acting ability for decades, I thought he played down his talent and was understated, allowing the other actors to shine. If Costner is in a film it can usually be trusted; however this is not the reason to see the film. The reason is the cast are all great actors, particularly the three protagonists, Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae; All three of them are outstanding. The acting is so good that you come out of the cinema after two hours, feeling like you have been in there for 2 minutes. I haven't seen a film like this in years.

What stood out for me was the friendship of the sisters. They all come across as individuals; strong women; an inspiration to any woman who intends to achieve her dreams in the face of great adversity.

A Writer's Life

Dear friends,

I've decided to write more regularly on this blog. Thank you all for making contact. Writing is a sometimes lonely journey, and it is good to have contact with readers and writers.

I haven't been writing children's stories for several years as I've been working on a very long work of fiction for several years now, which is for adults, and studying to move into teaching.

I have several ideas that I would like to work on, and they have been put to one side while I swot up on GCSE maths. There were several challenges to my education as a child, which meant that I never sat the exam and there are gaps in my education which I have been working on ever since.

I was married in my early twenties and spent the next two decades making sure my children got a good education and achieved their potential. As a teenager who had to go out to work full time at sixteen, and started a business aged eleven, I promised myself I would go to university one day. That day came in 2007, when I was looking for a university for my son and decided that I had better take a part time job in a book shop and finally achieve my dream so that I would be better informed to help him get an education and his four sisters after him if that was their choice. I am so glad that I went to university to read English, as this experience really deepened my understanding of many different subjects; psychology, philosophy, history and theory like structuralism, which I find very useful when writing fiction for adults,

I thought I would share this with you, as when I was young I had no idea what I should do. I thought I should be a secretary, but didn't come close to that until I got my degree and became an audio typist in a hospital after a career in retail management, and then realised I wasn't made to sit in a chair all day, except when I am writing.

Right now I am a teaching assistant and am helping young people to get an education, which is very rewarding work, but my dream to become children's laureate is still something that I believe is possible.

If any of you have time or interest to use your kindle library and read any of my works, I would really value your feedback.

Thanks for reading this, and wishing you bliss in getting lost in a book, whether that is through reading it or writing it.

Best wishes,

Hermione

Bertha's Journal: A Perfect Immelman Turn

Take a look at this blog, or rather a listen. Susan is a sensitive interviewer and was very good about my nerves at the start of her interview with me when she asked me about the (HONS) part of my degree, which basically means that I just missed a first, or I got consistently high marks for most of my degree, but had a Chaos Theory moment on two occasions, which if you can avoid doing you get a first, I think...
Anyway there is a good discussion on storytelling if you have a few minutes to spare.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/dialogue...