Lavinia Collins's Blog, page 8

*NEWS* The Empty Throne FREE! *NEWS*

The Empty Throne,  the thrilling first part of the the Morgawse: Queen of the North trilogy is completely free for a short time. Grab it while you can!

Old King Uther is dying. Morgawse’s greedy and ambitious husband Lot plans to take over and seize the crown. But a strange young boy is found claiming to be the rightful heir to the throne. Overwhelmed with anger, Lot sends Morgawse to the court at Camelot to spy on young Arthur.

Reviewers of the trilogy say:

“Highly charged romantic extravaganza. Loved it! Perfect escape from daily routines. Lavinia really brings to life these often-forgotten characters. More please, Ms Collins!”

“This is a wonderfully descriptive tale of Arthurian days from the perspective of Morgawse. I first read the Guinevere series, followed by Morgan’s view. I had my opinion of Morgawse but, as in real life, there are just more dimensions. I was so pleased to find out my opinion was too shallow! I can already tell that I will have to re-read the first series – a sign of a book that stays with you.” 

You Know Nothing, Jon Snow

Kit with his co-star Rose Leslie

So the buzz in the news is everyone’s favourite we-knew-he-was-not-really-dead guy from Game of Thrones has put his foot in complaining about sexism in the industry. 

Let me level with you here, Kit. Is it demeaning being asked to take your shirt off for photo shoots all the time? Yes. Is it irritating for an actor to be largely reduced to his looks? Absolutely.

But that’s not sexism.

You are not being discriminated against for being a man. You are, in fact, receiving a tiny (tiny) slice of the treatment your female co-stars are subject to on a staggering scale. Being sexualised isn’t inherently discriminatory or damaging or bad. What’s tiring for all of us ladies out there is that it’s constantly done to women.

I’m not saying it’s not annoying. It’s really really annoying to be reduced to your looks. But it’s not sexism. Sexism is the pattern not the act. I would like to refer you to my favourite woke bae of the moment (I’m not going to apologise for that) Daniel Radcliffe on just what the difference is:

Perhaps, now you know what it’s like, it’s time to join the fight. Everyone should be able to control how they’re represented Should be able to choose how sexual  they’re comfortable with getting on- and off-screen.

Just think about how Game of Thrones has changed the landscape of casting. Young actresses trying to get their big break in bit parts are expected to go fully nude for something big like Game of Thrones. You feel objectified. It sucks. Imagine how much worse it must suck for them.

Morgawse: Queen of the North Trilogy now out in full!

Now you can read the full story of the much-too-often-forgotten Queen Morgawse.  All three parts available on kindle: 

The Empty Throne

Old King Uther is dying. Morgawse’s greedy and ambitious husband Lot plans to take over and seize the crown. But a strange young boy is found claiming to be the rightful heir to the throne. Overwhelmed with anger, Lot sends Morgawse to the court at Camelot to spy on young Arthur.

As Morgawse gets more and more involved with Arthur she doesn’t realise the dangerous path she is treading.

A Fragile Crown

Ruthlessly dismissed from Camelot by King Arthur, Morgawse returns to Lothian Castle with her sister, Morgan. Her pregnancy remains a delicate secret from her vile and domineering husband, Lot. But he is endlessly suspicious, and discovers her swelling belly. Fuming with anger, he pledges war on King Arthur to regain what he considers the only thing worth living for – honour.

 

The Defiant Queen

The Queen of the North’s sons are called to Camelot, and the cry on their lips is War. Returning to Lothian, Queen Morgawse struggles to regain control of her old kingdom. With her husband absent and her adult sons called to Camelot to fight among King Arthur’s knights, she is vulnerable. Having been away and gained something of a reputation in Tintagel, fighting to assert her authority with the Highland lords and to protect herself proves difficult.

 

Why the recipes matter.

Another day, another storm in a teacup for the current government, who can’t seem to get anything right since their new budget. They keep taking things away from us that we just don’t want to give up.

First, it was the junior doctors. One of Jeremy *unt’s cunning plans to cripple the NHS and claim it needs selling off. I don’t answer emails from my students after 6pm because I don’t want to, I have a life and I’m off the clock. I don’t see why someone who is saving lives, not just helping students understand medieval poetry, should have to work more stressed, more tired and longer hours. We’re out of NHS money because it’s poorly managed, underfunded and deliberately strangled by a government who wants it to fail. Not because we pay doctors too much.

Then there was the planned forced academisation. Another spectacularly terrible idea. Schools are already struggling with new curriculums, insane amounts of primary testing and an increased administrative burden. Another step towards widescale privatisation.

And privatisation isn’t just about profit. It does help Davey C and his rich friends. But it also makes everything someone else’s problem. Once the government has sold everything off, they’re not to blame if schools are failing or people can’t get adequate medical cover.

The third, and what seems like the smallest step  in this is the proposed removal from the BBC website of the recipes. As an enthusiastic but somewhat slapdash cook, I used the BBC recipes a lot. I liked them. Not as much as I’ve enjoyed free healthcare (I’m very sickly, accident prone and poor, so I really need the NHS)

Why are people up in arms about this? We’re losing so many, so much bigger things?

Well, because it’s even the smallest, pettiest things being denationalised and privatised. Pushing everything behind a paywall. I had to do my tax returns the other day so I ought to be pretty irritated about giving the government money, but I also walked down a tarmac street, got home safely because of streetlamps, and then enjoyed a nice book because I had been taught how to read, for free, by a government-funded primary school. Seems like OK value for money to me.

We might get our recipes back, but if we do, it’s still just a sop in the face of everything else that’s being taken away. I don’t necessarily think this will end in fire and brimstone falling from the sky because I have to work out how to make spag bol on my own, but austerity hasn’t been working, privatisation hasn’t been working (hello £100 train I took back home the other week… – yes that was booked in advance).

The recipies get people upset because they’re a metonym for everything else. A system of financial governance that just isn’t working.

 

7 Cats who know how it feels to be an author

 

 

 

 

When you think ‘maybe I’ll just check out my reviews on Goodreads…’

When someone says, ‘an ebook isn’t a real book, though, is it?’

When you overhear someone saying, ‘no one reads books anymore!’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you send out your query letter.

 

When you finally get the courage to send our your manuscript.

When you plan to have a ‘work from home’ day.

 

When it’s royalty cheque day.

Graeme Whiting, You’re Wrong

Dear Mr Whiting,

I read your blog post with great interest. Before I begin, let me just point out that what I write is so spectacularly not for children it’s unreal, but that’s by the by. My whole childhood I read what you describe as ‘sensation’ and ‘insensitive’ material and far from the process you describe – where this is addictive, damaging and upsetting – as a bright child in an unchallenging school, this was my refuge, and what stopped me becoming damaged.

Fantasy fiction is not everyone’s cup of tea. I understand that. But there’s something deeply flawed (if you will forgive me, if you indeed ever read this post, which likely you will not) about your logic.

You praise the works of ‘Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Dickens, Shakespearean plays.’ Without providing too compendious a list of the incest, murder, rape, mutilation, racism, sexism, antisemitism and political corruption dealt with in Shakespeare’s œvre, I might point out that ‘Classic’ literature is also harmful insofar as it promulgates, privileges and exclusivises the work of  dead white men. The canon was in part, after all, developed for educating those ignorant natives in the colonies. For your information on what, perhaps, informs your decisions on what is worth or unworthy literature, might I suggest you refer yourself to the scholarly writings of Bordieu? His 1979 La Distinction highlights a lot of the issues that your argument relies on. Bordieu calls it ‘the distinction of taste’. I call it intellectual snobbery.

Who am I to judge, you cry? I am a purveyor of sensationalism. Yes I am. If you would like to ‘rubber stamp’ me to check I know what I am talking about let me also assure you that I am an Oxford graduate.

You claim that:

Buying sensational books is like feeding your child with spoons of added sugar, heaps of it, and when the child becomes addicted it will seek more and more, which if related to books, fills the bank vaults of those who write un-sensitive books for young children!

I am not sure what the ills of Harry Potter, The Hunger Games or Lord of the Rings are supposed to be. Certainly, I am perplexed by the claim that fantasy is ‘addictive’ or ‘damaging’.

Fantasy allows children to play out difficult issues in a world they know is fantastic (in the literal sense). Fantasy helped me, as a child, to explore my inner life when I was a shy, bookish child who found it difficult to make friends. All reading is valuable. All enquiry is precious. Are some things not suitable for children? Absolutely. I’m not recommending our eleven-year-olds read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. But fantasy and sci-fi of the kind you are describing? Come off it, mate.

To take one example, Harry Potter is a story about how friendship, a mother’s love and bravery can overcome racism, prejudice and hatred. If that’s not a narrative you think is beneficial to children, frankly you’ve got something wrong with you. Fantasy elements don’t make something ‘demonic’. In the Shakespeare you recommend so heartily, your students could just as easily read about two teenagers getting married after a few weeks just so they can have sex with one another, then dying because their families won’t stop fighting.

We’re never going to see eye to eye on this, and frankly that’s because you’re just plain wrong. But, since I’m sure the words of a woman who writes genre fiction won’t sway you, I’ll just refer you to the words of A.E. Housman, renowned (Oxford-educated) classicist and poet, on the merits of fiction that might just be a little troubling:

‘TERENCE, this is stupid stuff:

You eat your victuals fast enough;

There can’t be much amiss, ’tis clear,

To see the rate you drink your beer.

But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,  

It gives a chap the belly-ache.

The cow, the old cow, she is dead;

It sleeps well, the horned head:

We poor lads, ’tis our turn now

To hear such tunes as killed the cow.

Pretty friendship ’tis to rhyme

Your friends to death before their time

Moping melancholy mad:

Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad.’

 Why, if ’tis dancing you would be,

There’s brisker pipes than poetry.

Say, for what were hop-yards meant,

Or why was Burton built on Trent?

Oh many a peer of England brews

Livelier liquor than the Muse,

And malt does more than Milton can

To justify God’s ways to man.

Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink

For fellows whom it hurts to think:

Look into the pewter pot  

To see the world as the world’s not.

And faith, ’tis pleasant till ’tis past:

The mischief is that ’twill not last.

Oh I have been to Ludlow fair

And left my necktie God knows where,  

And carried half way home, or near,

Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:

Then the world seemed none so bad,

And I myself a sterling lad;

And down in lovely muck I’ve lain,

Happy till I woke again.

Then I saw the morning sky:

Heigho, the tale was all a lie;

The world, it was the old world yet,

I was I, my things were wet,

And nothing now remained to do

But begin the game anew.

 Therefore, since the world has still

Much good, but much less good than ill,

And while the sun and moon endure

Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure,

I’d face it as a wise man would,

And train for ill and not for good.

‘Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale

Is not so brisk a brew as ale:

Out of a stem that scored the hand

I wrung it in a weary land.

But take it: if the smack is sour,

The better for the embittered hour;

It should do good to heart and head

When your soul is in my soul’s stead;

And I will friend you, if I may,

In the dark and cloudy day.

 There was a king reigned in the East:

There, when kings will sit to feast,

They get their fill before they think

With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.

He gathered all that springs to birth

From the many-venomed earth;

First a little, thence to more,

He sampled all her killing store;

And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,

Sate the king when healths went round.

They put arsenic in his meat

And stared aghast to watch him eat;

They poured strychnine in his cup

And shook to see him drink it up:

They shook, they stared as white’s their shirt:

Them it was their poison hurt.

—I tell the tale that I heard told.

Mithridates, he died old.

Love and (sensational) kisses,

Lavinia xoxo

Don’t miss out! Last chance to grab bestseller GUINEVERE completely free!

Click here to grab a free copy for your kindle!

Not sure if it’s your cup of tea? See the top reviews here!

Piers Morgan drinks some bitter Lemonade

So Beyoncé’s Lemonade dropped this week. I’m not usually down with the kidz (that’s how they spell it now) enough to follow releases in popular music that aren’t Taylor Swift (teeny bopper 4 eva), but I love the stuff that Beyoncé has been producing recently, so I was ready and waiting for Lemonade. 

Surprise surprise, human manifestation of white, upper-middle class male priviledge, Piers Morgan is “uncomfortable” with Lemonade. He thinks any mention of racially aggravated violence is exploitative. This has already been pretty effectively taken down by UK singer Jamelia, and there’s nothing I, as pretty much the whitest possible woman ever (see picture) could add to her moving, eloquent and eminently sensible destruction of Morgan’s flaccid and facile argument.

I think Morgan’s response highlights, too, attitudes towards women of colour with opinions. Now, I’m all too aware that I’m outside of that category as a white woman, and I’m making these observations about media portrayal rather than lived experience. With that in mind, what I see is that women of colour who step outside of stereotypes are seen by people like Morgan as distasteful.

Mainstream media is already familiar with the politicisation of black rap. I remember hearing Jay Z’s 99 problems for the first time and being struck by the delicate satire. It’s a rap song about a drug dealer evading the law, and you still end up sympathising with the protagonist rather than the drawling, casually racist cop who’s pulled him over. We’re familiar with the stereotype of the politicised black man. We know it from Martin Luther King Jr to Malcolm X to Johnny Cochran. That doesn’t mean there’s no criticism, but mainstream media knows where that fits.

What white mainstream media is less familiar with is the politicised black woman, and I think that’s why Morgan finds this so uncomfortable. When Beyoncé was singing about being crazy in love or wishing her scrub of a boyfriend would pay the bills he ran up on her card, Morgan was comfortable. But when she’s urging women to get in formation to make some kind of challenge to established power this is ‘distasteful.’

Of course its distasteful to you, Piers. You and your ilk are very comfortable. Lemonade is not supposed to make white,  upper-middle-class men comfortable. Not every song is meant to make everyone comfortable. If we’re pushing for change, for equality for women, people of colour and people of every sexual orientation some of the people at the top are going to get displaced, so they’re going to feel uncomfortable. But if Beyoncé is to be believed (and I hope she is), it’s coming.

So I hope you feel uncomfortable, Piers. Women, and particularly women of colour, do not just exist for your entertainment. And if Beyoncé tells me to get in Formation, you bet I’m going to be there.

Things Medieval Europe Gave Us

Cards on the table: I’m pro EU. So, in the wake of the “Brexit” campaign, here’s a little reminder of what the medieval europeans did for us.

1. Sir Lancelot

That’s right folks; medieval literature’s most famous lover, beloved hero and saver of Galahad from near-temptation was in fact a French invention, added to native British tales of King Arthur to spice things up. Sir Lancelot was (of course!) a favourite among female readers, and was first invented (as far as we know) by Chretien de Troyes for his patroness Marie de Champagne. Poor Chretien complains that Marie is as cruel and exacting a mistress as Guinevere herself…

 

2. The Classics

And I don’t mean the Charles Dickens back catalogue or Jane Eyre. I’m talking about Ovid, Virgil, Statius and Homer. Without whom we’d have none of the japery of Chaucer, Gawain and the Green Knight and, subsequently Shakespeare’s plays, to enjoy as modern readers. Imagine that!

 

3. King Cnut

Aside from the dangerous possibility of hilarious typos, Europeans (and specifically Denmark) gave us our first Danish king, and with him many many many stories. You can zip down to Bosham church to see his daughter’s tomb, you can look at water and decide you, too, can’t turn it back with a word, and you can amuse yourself by trying to type his name really fast, but you can’t deny that – like Sandi Toksvig and Danish Bacon – the UK just wouldn’t be the same without its Danish imports.

 

4. Charlemagne

Now, I know what you’re all thinking. (No, not that. The thing about Charlemagne). Charlemagne never came to Britain! No, he did not, but the real historical (post-Arthurian) Charlemagne had a huge impact on British Arthurian legends. Without Charlemagne, the Arthur we remember would likely have been the Welsh version – a travelling warrior-qking with a brave band of warriors. Charlemagne and his huge influence inspired later writers like Thomas Malory to make King Arthur not just a great British king, but also a conqueror of Europe. Because Charlemagne went to Rome and was crowned by the Pope, Malory makes a big deal of Arthur not only going to Rome, but also conquering it, just to make sure he was presenting the the British as +1 on the French. (Interestingly enough, Malory never mentions that Lancelot is French…)

5. Chivalry

Of course, (almost) last but not (almost) least we have ‘chivalry’ which now means holding doors open for women with shopping bags, but was once a carefully codified system of manners for the upperclasses (some of the rules include always making sure that the woman you fall in love with is married to someone else). This derives from the French cheval, meaning horse, so the next time someone is being chivalrous, ask them where they keep their horse.

6. Romance

The old stereotype says that the French invented romance – and they did! Or at any rate, romance fiction. The word ‘romance’ derives from the early medieval french word romanz, the word for a pre-Old French Latin-derived vernacular in the south of France. Stories written in romanz (the native language) were often characterised by journey, adventure and the eventual union of a man and a woman in love. This then becomes medieval romance fiction, in which a knight journeys forth and completes quests in order to win a lady, and thence onwards to modern romance fiction, which loses the horses and the forests and the witches and the castles but maintains that simple essence – two people finding love.

So there we are! What did the medieval europeans do for us? Quite a lot, I’d say.  

Guest Post: Max Stone on the Journey to the End

Often, not even as writers but rather as normal citizens living out everyday life, we want the destination; be that destination the end of something—such as a graduation—or the beginning of a new life phase such as that of marriage and family. The desperation can become so great in fact that we plot, plan, and manoeuvre around our respective paths in search for the ultimate goal of achievement. We push through our own personal daily grind, and, most times, we don’t take the changes that come along very well. Rarely do we stop and relish the process. Rarely do we enjoy the journey.

 

For the writer, at least for this writer, that want for the destination is even greater. The end of the story is the goal, but the process of getting there is a painstaking one, causing massive desperation for the end. Fortunately, I continue to learn to appreciate it and relish the journey; a task which proves harder and harder book after book. For instance, during the writing process of my second thriller, The Bleeding , I found myself shaking and crying over the contents of a scene that was one of my most brutal. In all honesty, it stalled me for some time in my work because my own response had shocked me. The same thing happened with my next works, One Minute There and also Black Cradle.

 

Now, as I write my fifth story, Black Roses, I know the same thing will happen again and there is a fear for that moment. But, for that instance that is still to come—that temptation to hate that journey to the end of Black Roses—it is best to remember the words of Alexandra Stoddard: “Slow down, calm down, don’t worry, don’t hurry, trust the process.” For the reader, the story itself is a progression, a process. If they skip to the end, they are lost. It is only fair that the author have the same progression; analyzing the work, our own feelings that ensue, and the characters’ personalities and responses to situations. After all, if we as authors, don’t feel the process, neither will the reader.