Fran Macilvey's Blog, page 49

Another visit to Belgium

Another visit to Belgium

Hearing the news of my brothers relapse into cancer (http://hintjens.com/blog:116 ) my family have been gathering in Antwerp, at what was our father’s home and has now become a godsend, a meeting place in the heart of Belgium from which we trip to and fro.

It fills me with delight to see my brother smiling, so much so that I cannot help grinning back and chortling at his jokes. Sure, there is some nervousness beneath the good humour. I want so much to soothe away his...

Women portrayed reading

Women portrayed reading

Browsing art images on Wikimedia I can’t help noticing how women who read are portrayed in art. There is the traditional Madonna pose, two dimensional, upright and devout, harking back to the stilted stylism of Mediaeval art. She is typically portrayed in profile, reading a bible, missal or book of hours, at any rate, something improving, worthwhile, and seemly. Her face is blank, bent modestly in prayer, or at best, lifted heavenward, whence she might locate divine gu...

I Am Writing Books

I am writing books. Not only my first three (a series of MBS – the next two in the series after ‘Trapped’ being publication ready) but now fiction, which, despite everything, is fictional, rather than invented. It is about realistic women and men, their frailties and weaknesses, as well as their triumphs. Though I often find myself taking shelter from harsh realities of life – and have often read to escape – I have always believed in portraying all my characters as convincingly as possible. I...

What did I learn from the London Book Fair?

What did I learn from the London Book Fair?

The London Book Fair, and all book fairs like it, is a networking fair for industry insiders, which, for the most part, does not really mean authors and writers. You might think it does, but actually, it is about agents meeting publishers, distributors selling to publishers, publishers networking with agents and distributors, technologists selling e-book and anti-piracy software to publishers….you get the picture.

That said, my wander around Olympia...

At The London Book Fair

I spent the first day at the London Book Fair gadding around like a woman twenty years my junior and feeling rather as if I had landed on a strange planet: So many new things to see and appreciate! The exhibitors’ stands, the crowds of people who all seemed to know each other, and were circulating, or meeting appointment times with a sense of mission and purpose.

In the morning I had the great good fortune to hear Jeffrey Archer, and in the afternoon, Marian Keyes, both interviewed at the Eng...

What about editing?

What about editing?

When I write a book, I don’t leave it to an editor to do all the tidying up, the trawling and correcting. The chances are, for every time I write a phrase, I will edit it about four times, and even then, I regret the words that didn’t make it onto the page.

Writing, for me, is at best a compromise, rather like the one that faces a youngster deciding what to do with his or her life: the horizon is so wide, which way should they go? What subjects should they study, specialis...

A visit to Belgium

A Visit to Belgium

When I went to see my father, I wanted to tell him – well, what I wanted to tell him is all in my earlier blog post about that. What actually happened was that on Saturday evening, when I finally arrived in Antwerp and got to his hospital room and held his thin hand, I heard the bells chiming the hour at seven in the evening, and felt like a child again, taken effortlessly back to the days when I would marvel at that continental tunefulness, the high-flown, golden notes so...

Taking My Radio Play to the London Book Fair

TAKING MY RADIO PLAY TO THE LONDON BOOK FAIR

Okay, I admit it. Most of what I do with my writing, I do on a hunch. I back a feeling, a whisper that suggests a path might be interesting to follow, might lead to something, though what that something might be, is open to question, and probably would not stand close, critical scrutiny. I act without concrete evidence of anything substantial, either to gain or to see; which, you may agree, is an odd way to do business, a strange way to procure res...

franmacilvey.com

I’ve been busy working on a new website. Well, actually, it’s Dilek I have to thank for most of the hard work, I’ve just been watching happily as it takes shape.

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franmacilvey.com will be going live soon, and it does not look��very different to the existing blog. Now, though, it will be a bit easier to find me and to stay in touch. I hope you all come with me over to franmacilvey.com and that we can keep up with our conversations.

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Wonderful Pain

I’m not a masochist, I promise.

Recently, at the Riding for the Disabled which I go to on a Tuesday morning, I have been riding a different, narrower horse. (My first choice of mount has a back as broad as a boat and a long stride, and I find it hard to sit properly upright.) So my new horse allows me to sit in the saddle more easily, and my legs lengthen more quickly during the lesson so that I hope I am finding my seat, and an effective posture, more easily.

My hips and legs also get moved around in ways that they probably haven’t for years, and the pain, while sometimes acute, is most welcome. The loosening, rolling release feels like the kind of pain that I should have been submitting to for decades, if anyone knew or suspected (a) how to actually manipulate joints to produce it; and (b) that it would make such a difference to my posture, my walking, my balance, my sense of place. For years I have walked with my body forward, almost leading with my shoulders, and now, as my hips come forward more easily, my posture and my confidence improve.

Really quite remarkable, when I come to think of it. And –��and��– the fact that my teacher seems not only to��genuinely understand my��needs��but to really care about doing me real good, makes me want to sing and dance and laugh aloud with gratitude and with pure delight. Thank you to everyone who makes miracles possible.

Have a wonderful weekend.

 

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George Breitner ‘Trampaarden op de dam in Amsterdam’

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George Spencer Watson – ‘Four Loves I Found, A Woman, A Child, A Horse, A Hound’ (1922)