Laurie Graham's Blog, page 30

The History Business

     I see from today’s newspapers that the British Government is proposing a change in the way history is taught in school, by which they mean abandonment of the Pick’n'Mix Method and a return to teaching in chronological sequence. White males are to be included in the curriculum again too, before we reach the point where no-one remembers who the Duke of Wellington was, or Horatio Nelson.

I welcome the proposal. My own children were exposed to the module-based method of teaching history, which meant they learned a lot about the Battle of the Somme and bugger all about anything else. And since their schooldays, in the Eighties, things have only gotten worse. It has become axiomatic that to qualify as a heroic historic figure you have to have been female and/or non-white. The apotheosis of this politically correct trend has been Mary Seacole.

Now Mary Seacole was an interesting woman who never allowed her sex or her race to stop her doing anything she wanted to do. I’ve actually written about her tangentially in the novel I’m just finishing. But the attention she now attracts is out of all proportion to her achievements, and of course she’s completely bumped Florence Nightingale off her pedestal (too rich and privileged for the history-tweakers). A heroine? I don’t think so. She was no Churchill. Remember Churchill? Today’s children won’t.

Once a month, usually on the 11th, I contribute to a blog called The History Girls. There are 28 of us, plus a couple of guest-bloggers each month, and I’m one of its more ancient contributors, if not the oldest . Our topics are wide-ranging  – you never know from one day to the next what’s going to turn up – but I’m conscious of a slight nod towards feminist  and post-colonial themes. That’s how younger writers view the world these days. Sometimes I feel I’ve woken up in a landscape I don’t recognise. A younger generation would probably say, ‘and about time too.’

But I cleave firmly to 1066 and all that. I won’t mind my grandchildren learning about Mary Seacole as long as they learn about King Alfred first. Now there was a hero. They’ll get some in-filling from me: Richard III, Horatio Nelson, and various other personal obsessions. But I’ll be looking to their schools to give them the groundwork, the dates, the dynasties. Because what’s the point of doing the Henry VIII module if you don’t know how those Tudor bastards ever got to be a going concern? You could end up getting Anne Boleyn mixed up with Natalie Portman.

Site Report

One of my readers wrote to enquire how the revisions are going and to ask what kind of writer am I? The kind, for instance, who has everything carefully plotted before a single word gets written?

No, I’m not. That’s my problem. I’m a seat of the pants writer. Because my novels are character-driven, as soon as I have the character clear in my head I want to let her fly. Sometimes her navigator (that’s me) hasn’t spent enough time with the maps. ‘Turn left at Poland’ isn’t always enough.

Anyway, the good news is that the rebuild is going well and we should be in a position to hang the drapes and sign off the jacket design by the end of January. The not so good news is that I’ve completely missed my usual publication slot. If you think books can be produced super fast these days, think again. It takes so long you’d truly think the monks at Kells were scratching it out on vellum. 

The Liar’s Daughter won’t be out till October,I’m afraid. Which means it’ll be doing battle with things like Jamie Oliver’s inevitable new cookbook and the Duchess of Cornwall’s Step-Gran’s Survival Guide. Ah well.

A glance at my diary tells me that next Wednesday, my usual blog-posting day, is Boxing Day, or St Stephen’s as we call it here in Ireland, and I’ll be taking a couple of the grandchildren to see Cinderella.  So I’ll thank you now for following me through the ups and downs of my writing year and wish you all a very merry Christmas and a stocking full of good books.

Writers’ Aids

   Someone asked me recently why a writer would bother having a website and the best I could manage (apart from the fact that it provides the creative ego with yet another red carpet upon which to strut their stuff) is that readers like to know about their favourite writers. Funny really, because so many of us are boring stay-at-homes. Perhaps it’s because creating a book is so much an inner process. ‘What’s going on in there?’ people wonder. What indeed.

So today I thought I’d share with you a little of my working life, in particular my aids to creativity. This pig teacosy is my latest acquisition. No more cold tea. It was made for me by Kerry Hudson, wit, writer and queen of knitted kitsch. From time to time I get messages that begin You probably won’t remember me but I used to sit in your kitchen and eat your biscuits. These are my children’s schoolfriends, now grown to maturity, mortgages and, in some cases, fame. Kerry is one such. If my pig teacosy causes you a pang of envy you can commission your own from Nan’s Cabinet.

Where was I? Ah yes, hot tea. Very important to the creative process. Then there’s my big cardigan, too hideous to be photographed, and my beat-up old shoes. I can’t write if my feet aren’t happy.

Generally I write straight on to my computer. If I’m working with an A4 pad and a pen it means a) I’m in trouble plot-wise and need to draw a diagram or b)I’m not working at all. Shopping list, probably, or this week, designing a Christmas Eve treasure hunt for the grandchildren.

I have a stack of CDs on my desk but I can’t write and listen at the same time. If I’m listening it’s because I need a breather. Quite often the music I have relates somehow to what I’m writing. Currently, for instance, because I’m writing on a Nelsonian theme, I have 15 Musical Salutes to the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines. But I also have Sarah Connolly singing Handel and Jordi Savall playing the Celtic viol.

Perfumed candles? Naah. There are writers who can’t get started without them but I’m not one of them. I quite like the smell of lunch wafting up the stairs but as I’m also Head Cook that doesn’t happen very often. Cake is good, in moderation, but only if I’ve already got some decent work under my substantial belt.

They say Barbara Cartland used to dictate her books whilst reclining on a couch, a small dog warming her feet and a coffret of soft-centres within easy reach. It wouldn’t work for me. Couch-reclining tends to reveal cobwebs,  dead light bulbs and worrisome ceiling cracks.

Still, it’s always nice to have an opportunity to use the word ‘coffret.’

Christmas Already

 

Christmas just came early for me. My publishers shouted down my burrow this afternoon to let me know that Kathy Stevenson of the Daily Mail named A Humble Companion  as one of her picks of the year. I don’t know who this wise and discerning book critic is but she certainly made my Friday.

Revisions of next year’s book are going on apace  – it’s amazing how good it is to take a month off from a manuscript. One returns to it with fresh eyes and ears and yes, one sometimes thinks, ‘I wrote that?’

There will now be a short intermission while I bottle my cranberry vodka and indulge in a rillette fest. I’m making rabbit with mustard, pheasant with port, and wild boar with gin. Rillettes? We’ll be sick of ‘em. Actually, I don’t think I’ll ever tire of rillettes. As soon as the domesticity itch has been scratched I’ll be back to the day job.  

 

The House That Laurie Built

  So I get back from holiday to find my editor’s notes sitting in my In Tray. In case you’ve never dealt with publishers let me tell you how it works. You submit your manuscript, an editor reads it and tells you how much he enjoyed it.

‘I’ll need to read it again, of course,’ he says. ‘And let you have my notes.’

When the notes arrive it often turns out there are a million things wrong with your book (as you already suspected). But the editor still really, really likes it. He kind of has to because he’s already staked a small (or if you’re Pippa Middleton, not so small) amount of money on it. So when he smiles at you it may be through gritted teeth.

My new book turns out to have a structural fault running through a load-bearing wall. I have to take it apart,  rebuild the middle section and insert  -  to continue the building trade metaphor because frankly I can’t be bothered to think of another one  -  an RSJ into the narrative. We are looking (extracts stub of pencil from behind ear and sucks teeth) at two months work. There goes my Christmas.

Am I downhearted? Not exactly. The book will undoubtedly be the better for it. That, please note all authors about to inflict their unedited self-published dreck on the reading public, that is the whole point of a good editor. I just wish they wouldn’t tease with false praise before delivering the structural survey. Ooh-er.

Back in your hamster wheel, Laurie Graham. That’ll larn you to swan off on holiday.

Major Chord of Me, Me, Me

I imagine everyone has a scene or a sound or maybe even a smell that resonates with them like a homing beacon. For me it’s roughly this: bare winter trees, low sun, a sprinkling of snow and a five bar gate. I have no idea why.

I’m not what you’d call a natural snowbaby nor a country girl. I grew up in the burbs in the kind of English family that got caught off guard by winter year after year. The pipes weren’t lagged and neither were we, huddled over a small coal fire while our toes developed chilblains and our kidneys got deep frozen. I have no Northern blood. I’m a Celt if ever I saw one. And yet this kind of scene causes me a powerful pang of nostalgia. Add a soundtrack of rooks discussing the weather and I’m transported, don’t know where to. It’s someplace, sometime, and I like it there. I wonder where it is? Was? Interesting. But okay, not that interesting.

Perhaps you’d be more interested to hear that my editor really likes my new book. Yes! It has an amber light about to go green.  So, after a bit of essential titivating, there will be a new novel out next June. But first, a little holiday, if you don’t mind. Back on the 28th, titivating engine tuned up and ready for work.

What Do Writers Do…

 … when they’re not writing? Well, leaving aside the fact that some writers NEVER stop writing, I think the answer is that demob fever can take many forms. Some like to go into the great outdoors, some like to hibernate, some go on cruises and teach creative writing courses. Personally I’ve spent the past week like a kid in a candy store, spinning dizzily and greedily from one non-writing activity to another.

There’s been a lot of cooking. My biographers may some day refer to this as my Beetroot Period. But I’m nearly cooked out.  My husband today expressed a desire for a plain roast chicken. There’s also been a fair amount of up-catching  – our sash windows are now freshly sealed for winter, yellowing letters have been replied to, dead light bulbs have been replaced  – but I confess I ran out of domesticated steam before I got round to stitching up the hem on that skirt. And I’ve been reading.

 Being off the hook for a while work-wise I can of course read whatever I fancy but as this week wore on I found a definite trend developing. Something has caught my interest.  I think I know what I want to write about next.

No, I’m not going to say yet what it is. I don’t want to jinx things or rush into something I may later regret, but I can definitely feel a little bubble of excitement, fizzing around somehere between my heart and my brain. This is usually a good sign. I wonder if other writers experience it? I guess I’d better conduct a little survey. 

So that’s what this writer’s been doing while she’s not writing. Next week: where do flies go in winter?

Crossing the Line

Yes. I did it. Three hundred pages of The Liar’s Daughter now sit on my editor’s desk, awaiting her blue pencil. I’ve told her I don’t want to hear from her until after my holiday. This is a nail-biting time for any writer  – will they like it, will they hate it, will they go so far as to sack me? (it has been known)

But all said and done it beats any other job I’ve ever had. Here I sit, it’s 10.15 in the morning, I’m wearing my gardening shoes and I haven’t yet brushed my hair, but I’m working. Well, blogging. No-one noted what time I punched in (07.40) and no-one will complain when I clock off at 12 noon today.

And how have I spent my time since I wrote THE END? Well, the first thing I did was run down to the supermarket to buy a bottle of bubbly. When I saw the prices I almost had to sit down with my head between my knees. Holey-moley, am I that out of touch? I settled for a half bottle and a bag of kettle chips.

Day 1 of my holiday was spent excavating the piles of filing, reference books and things I’ve kept because they seemed interesting but I’ve forgotten why. Progress has been made. I can now see the rug on my office floor. Day 2 was spent doing a little light journalism, a teensy bit of research for what I hope will be my next book, and skype-chatting with my grandchildren. Today the sun is shining. I can go for a walk. Who’s going to stop me? I may not know where the next pay cheque is coming from but my time is my own.

Meanwhile Mr F is reading first draft. He says he likes it. But would he dare say otherwise?

Laurie Graham is now leaving the building.

The Bar is Raised

   Pippa Middleton launched her first book yesterday. I haven’t seen it. I’ve been giving parties since before Pippa was born so I don’t feel the need for a book on the subject. But none of us in the business can afford to ignore the Pippa Factor. She got a handsome two-book advance on the grounds that she’s someone’s sister a witty, innovative newcomer to the world of lifestyle publishing. I’m just saying.

Anyway, it was her launch I wanted to comment on. If you’ve never had a book published I’d hate you to run away with the idea that a book gets a launch just as surely as it gets an ISBN. Most books are deemed unlaunchworthy. If you have an address book full of Names you’ll get one. Or you can always organise (and pay for) your own. Buy Pippa’s book, chuck a few sausage rolls in the oven, go for it. But generally speaking your book will slip into the world without so much as a bag of peanuts being opened.

When A Humble Companion was published this summer I was given a launch party. It was my first ever, after thirteen novels, but worth the wait. An elegant afternoon tea affair with a small enough number of guests that I could speak to them all. Perfect. But now Pippa’s gone and raised the bar. She changed her outfit four times yesterday. Heavens to Betsy, I know writers who don’t even own four outfits.

Am I envious? Not really. I prefer the comfortable life. The only thing I had to consider when I dressed for my launch was, ‘will this waistline accommodate cake?’  I do hope Pippa’s not pushing things to unattainable heights for the rest of us. Imagine if Hilary Mantel had to waste time riffling through dress rails? She could end up a book short of a trilogy.

On The Move

This week, which is just two weeks off my delivery deadline, my husband is going for some kind of health care world record with three hospital visits in as many days. Which require my attendance.

Some writers can work anywhere. Actually, I have writer friends who can’t stop writing, no matter how distracting or adverse the conditions. Beside a swimming pool, at a restaurant table, or the Ryanair steerage-class boarding gate, the A4 pad is always to hand. Not me.

There are certain types of work I can just about manage away from my desk. Copy-editing, maybe a little light journalism, but nothing substantial. I think the reason is I’m too easily tempted by alternatives. I’d rather eavesdrop and watch the passing parade. It isn’t time wasted, exactly. Hospital waiting rooms are full of life’s interesting mis-shapes and bizarre conversations.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I knew that ham was off. And of course Michael’s in Lanzarote.’  

Who’s to say that slice of life might not come in handy some day? But this morning, with a hundred or so unsatisfactory pages still needing a good hair cut, I could certainly have been more profitably employed. Ah well. We must each of us work with the cloth we’re given. Laurie Graham, novelist, nosy-parker, and deliverer of bromides.