Avril Field-Taylor

New Year. New thoughts.

2012-01-03T06:05:00.000-08:00

Christmas has, once more, come and gone in a twinkling. For me, it’s been a very enjoyable time with family, feeding our souls as well as our faces. With Paul being at home for almost 3 weeks, we’ve also been able to get long-standing jobs in the house done, too. Of course, one cannot get everything done. We have a former loo, now cleaning materials storage room halfway between the ground and first floor. The handle falls off the door with sickening monotony mostly because the spindle isn’t long enough. This was top of the jobs for Paul to sort out. Is it sorted? No.

But that’s like life, isn’t it? When I lived in the city, I formed a group of close friends and we all met one afternoon a week to do our cross-stitch embroidery and put the world to rights. Being enthusiastic stitchers, we went to all the exhibitions around the UK collecting cross-stitch kits that we couldn’t live without. The joke was that we would have to live to 100 just to get the ones in our collections finished. Then we decided that we must go through our kits and be really ruthless about weeding them out. The ones we didn’t think we would get round to were to go to the local charity shop. One of my friends counted how many kits she had - 58. She went through them, stringently according to her, and managed to put 3 aside. Sadly, a year later, she died of a sudden heart attack and there were still 52 untouched, unopened, kits in her stash.

There are so many things we want to achieve before we go to the great embroidery circle in the sky. And for all of us, the danger is that we start to concentrate on doing instead of being. We complain that the world is moving faster and faster and we can’t keep up. But, when you look at it in a clinical manner, for those who work a 40 hour week and sleep 8 hours each night, that still leaves us 72 hours unaccounted for. Three days in every week when our time is our own, not driven by an employer. Time to do what feeds our spirits and balances us.

Modern mantras tell us we can have it all, so long as we manage our time effectively. But effectively for what? Certainly not for us as living entities with emotional needs. We have to accept that we will die with a long list of things not done and that is nothing to be worried about. It is simply the nature of existence. So my resolution for 2012 is to bring balance back into my life, to enjoy the sun when it decides to put in an appearance, smell the roses, go and gaze at the sea for a while on a regular basis and do the things that make life a happier place to inhabit.

Sometimes it’s a good idea to remember that we are human beings, not human doings.

Time for Reflection

2011-12-09T01:53:00.000-08:00

During November, in common with many other writers, I took part in NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. The aim of the exercise is to start and complete a 50,000 word novel within the month. Of course, that doesn’t include planning the book, just writing it. And here comes the difficult bit. Not writing the 50,000 words, no, because I do write very quickly, but 50,000 words is only half a novel by my standards. When the task is broken down, 50,000 words over 30 days is an average of 1,667 words every day. Easy, I thought, provided I planned meticulously and kept my focus.

And so it should have been. A writing friend of mine managed - wait for it - 112,600 words inside the month and knowing him, I also know that he will have been scrupulously honest and not written a word until 1st November. I worked out I needed to write about 3,000 words each day to get to my usual novel length. My preparation was good. I knew the characters, the setting and the plot. By the first week, I had written some 20,000 words. Then a few personal problems hit the fan and for 4 days, I didn’t write anything. Not a problem. I had to put the problems on the back burner and bring the novel back into focus. And I did for one memorable day when I wrote over 6,000 words. This is not to be recommended. Not to put too fine a point on it, I was exhausted, nothing left. Next day I was ill. And I stayed ill for almost a week.

I could see the word “failure” staring me in the face. So I knuckled down and, to cut a long story short, I did manage to end November with almost 53,000 words done, including the end. The middle is virtually non-existent. What have I learned? I can do it. Well, I can write over 50,000 words inside a month, but I can’t write a novel that fast even though I prepared more than I usually do. Why? Because writing is organic.

I am not a machine churning out words. The words build up into an entity that has a life of its own and sometimes, in fact, often, it doesn’t want to go where you planned.

It’s like driving from London to Birmingham. There are so many routes and you might well plan to go by the most direct motorway route. But, wait a minute, what’s that over there? Looks interesting, let’s go and explore. And suddenly you’re miles off the motorway and although the bonnet of the car may be sort of pointing vaguely towards Birmingham, you’re in the middle of the countryside discovering places you’ve never been to or heard of before. And you’re loving it. It isn’t about getting to Birmingham any more. It’s about the discoveries on the way.

Just the same with writing. I write on a loose plan, know the beginning and the end, but the middle isn’t set and that’s the most enjoyable part. Exploring. It’s what quickens my blood when I’m at the computer, fingers flying allowing the characters to take me where I hadn’t even thought of going.

So the biggest thing I’ve learned is that, yes, I can do the words, but that isn’t what drives me. It’s the journey. Not the destination.

Fun and Learning

2011-10-17T02:37:00.000-07:00

Last week I spent a great few days in London with my very dear friend, professional opera singer and voice coach, Janet Shell. We went to Kensington Palace, enjoying a few hours there looking at the ‘Seven Princesses’ exhibition. Many of the state rooms are being revamped. The palace has cleverly set up the exhibition devoting a room to each of the princesses, including Victoria, Margaret and Diana. In each room is an almost mystical representation of that princess, along with clues so that the more enquiring visitors can deduce to whom that room is devoted. The ‘Explainers” throughout the exhibition are, as is usual for all the historic royal palaces, incredibly well-informed and enthusiastic about sharing their knowledge. As a keen student of history, I loved the challenge - and yes, I worked out all seven.

Knowledge of a different kind was another of Janet’s objectives. We’ve called this Avril’s London Orientation Project. Last visit was largely given over to the underground and how to get from A to B in the shortest time possible. This trip was the continuation of the overground bits. All of which was conducted by bus from Kensington Palace to St Pancras, or as my spell-checker would prefer, pancreas, for a meal at the Champagne Bar. London seems full of roadworks at the moment, so the route was anything but direct, all of which suited Janet’s purpose to try and make me see how the ‘grid’ works and which streets are connected to which. No two ways about it, if you are not in a hurry, bus is a great way to see the city. For me, this will be an ongoing learning experience.

After our champagne meal, we went to the Union Chapel to hear Eric Whitacre and his singers in concert. Once again, I was stunned by the pure tones of his choir and the ingenuity of his chord structures.

The most thought-provoking part of the week, though, was, for me, watching Janet give a ‘taster’ presentation for student teachers of her work with voice. Her company, Talking Voice specialises in teaching those whose professions are prone to voice issues, to save their voices from the dangers of overuse leading to vocal nodes and other less pleasant things.

I had no idea that 60% of teachers will at some time be off work with vocal problems. Janet makes her presentations about fun and energy as well as learning. She will change tack and focus the instant she thinks anyone is glazing over. these include games and a lot of physical movement to bring home her mantra - that we only have one voice and you cannot go to the supermarket and buy another if you damage it.

This fun/enjoyment approach led to a much deeper feeling of regret and, yes, sadness. Today, we are bombarded by employers saying that many young people have neither the Maths/English nor Communication skills necessary to be effective in the workplace. I wrote to David Cameron when he was elected leader of the Conservative Party, suggesting that what was needed in education was a complete re-think about what it was really for. Why educate our children? Surely, as well as trying to make them rounded individuals who can think, the overwhelming need is to prepare them for the world of work.

What I received in reply was a standard ‘we’ve done this, written this, suggested that’ bread and butter letter from someone I’d never heard of. What a shame DC himself couldn’t even be bothered to sign the response, let alone read what I’d written.

So, what can we do about the parlous state of our education system? Can we stop the tick-box mentality, where, if a child learns the letter H in a week, he/she is judged to be a success? Could we - heaven forbid - try to make learning fun? I know when I was young if I enjoyed a subject, I was far more likely to work hard at it. I can’t think children have changed that much. Isn’t it worth a try? After all, these are the people who will be controlling our lives in 20 years time when we are all sitting by the fire mumbling our gruel.

Displacement in Time

2011-10-05T01:08:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday I had the strange experience of standing on the distant past, looking up at the recent past while still being in the present.

We visited my brothers who live on the Lincolnshire Wolds near Horncastle, one of the towns that rebelled in the Lincolnshire Uprising of 1536. This rebellion greatly affected the Pilgrimage of Grace that took place north of the river Humber soon afterwards. Robert Aske, the leader of the Yorkshire Pilgrimage, saw what happened to the leaderless Lincolnshire rebels, how easily the “commons” or common folk were manipulated by the “gentlemen” and how this lack of common purpose led directly to the failure of the rebellion.

This one fact made Aske realize that if his uprising were to succeed, it must have a single purpose. He made that the restoration of the religious houses that had been mauled by Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell. What Aske, and very few others, realized was that Henry was not the tool of Cromwell, not being led astray by low-born councillors. Henry was the aggressor, severely frightened by the strength of the rebellion and determined on savage retribution. Many men from both counties were executed.

Not far from where my brothers live, the men of Horncastle murdered Raynes, the Bishop of Lincoln’s hated chancellor and a clerk called Wolsey. Both these men are buried in the churchyard at Horncastle. Those executed for their part in the uprising have no graves. That is the distant past.

The recent past flew overhead from its home at RAF Coningsby. One of the few remaining Lancaster bombers, the planes that carried out many raids of World War 2, including the Dambusters’. The aircraft is a

wonderful sight and beautiful to hear. I remember my mother, who lived close to the Lincolnshire air bases during the war, telling me how she would watch the squadrons fly over the village on their way to Germany and how the authorities “hid” bombs in the bottom of local hedgerows so that all the weaponry was not in one place and could not be destroyed in a single raid.

Last year, I visited the Moehne Dam, taking a boat trip onto the lake, following the path of the Lancasters as they dived for the water, tried to avoid the flak and bounce their bombs up to the dam wall. It was a sobering experience, especially when we are now told that the dams’ raid didn’t really do that much damage to the German war machine.

On a Sunday in 2011, I stood on the site where men killed each other in 1536 and looked up at a beautiful machine that spewed death from the skies in 1943. We all think history is so distant, but the truth is that if we took the opportunity to take time out and look around, it surrounds us. It has fashioned our lives and our freedoms. Please don’t ever tell me history doesn’t matter.

Scrivener. Discipline needed

2011-10-01T02:42:00.000-07:00

In the good old (bad old?) days, I used to write with Word. Used it happily in the main, but it did have a few issues. What software doesn’t? But I wrote, on average between 2000-4000 words a day with music softly going on in the background. Some books, like the Sherlock Holmes “Murder at Oakwood Grange” come back to me whenever I hear certain pieces of music. I had a system. It worked. I switched on the computer, loaded Word and started writing.

Then I discovered Scrivener and my entire writing life changed. It can almost claim to do everything except make coffee. I have had to learn a whole new way of working. Writing scenes instead of chapters. Scrivener can store all your research, your manuscript, character studies, location details et al in the one project file. You can shift your scenes around at the click of a few buttons to give your story more tension or conflict. You can analyse the text to see if you have too many repeating words, you can set a novel wordcount and a session wordcount and keep abreast of your progress. When you are finished, you can compile your book, formatting it as you wish, including what you want to include and export it as a “ready for agent” manuscript or in epub format if it is an e-book, or as a pdf, a paperback novel, etc.

One drawback to all this ability is that using Scrivener requires quite a bit of discipline. As David Hewson says in his excellent e-book “Writing A Novel with Scrivener”, you don’t want to spend hours learning the software, you want to get on and write. And that is the one difficulty I have. Why? It is partly a need to write differently to the way I have for years. I've always written chapters in the correct sequence, not "scenes". In my chapters as in most novelists', there is usually more than one scene in a chapter.

It is also partly that when I open up the project file, I can see everything, and I mean everything, at a glance in the binder. Research, character information etc. I get distracted so easily, especially when, as now, outside influences are hindering me from focussing as much as I am used to and I find the story not flowing as it should.

There is a nifty way round this, of course. You can use Scrivener in full-screen mode so nothing appears on the screen except your words. So all I have to do really is discipline myself to use that before I allow the distractions to hold sway. That’s an easy one. A given.

The other thing about the software that I find completely incomprehensible at the moment is how to get the compile function programmed so that my scenes become chapters. I normally pick up software so very easily, but this bit has me completely bamboozled. I’ve read Hewson’s section on compiling several times. I know it’s in English but it might as well be Martian because I just don’t understand. Just at the moment, the tail is wagging the dog for me on this subject.

So, today, I am taking part in the amazing Jurgen Wolff’s Massive Action Day and one of my goals is to finally get to grips with ‘compile’. If I can’t, I shall admit defeat and ask the support team at Literature & Latte for help. But, one way or the other, I must fettle this one, because Scrivener is such a fantastic piece of software for writers of all kinds and there is no way on this planet that I will go back to using Word. Wish me luck.

Take control

2011-09-10T00:56:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, we were inundated with “how to” programmes. Re-vamp your house, one room. Take out all the furniture, paint everything beige and sell it. Make a new garden in 48 hours. That fad passed and we came to the life de-clutter fad. Or the amazing – and I am an unashamed fan – Paul McKenna who showed us how to train our brains to lose weight without dieting and become more confident. Both of these work, by the way. I lost 21lbs in 6 weeks on the first. Shame I didn’t keep it up but that’s my fault not McKenna’s.

There will always be a market for those who we believe can improve our quality of life, but I believe it is time for a rethink. Why are people so stressed these days that they cannot cope? I have a few ideas on that score.

In days gone by, because of the social mores, we all, allegedly, “knew our station”. We accepted it. For the last 30 years, we have all been brainwashed into thinking we can have it all, hence the rise in “Law of Attraction”, “Cosmic requests” websites, where we are told we only need to envisage our success to attract it. Been trying that one for 3 years and so far, nada.

These days, when we are all having to tighten belts, it is much easier to fall into a negative attitude than pick yourself up, dust yourself down and get on with it. A probably apocryphal “speech” by Bill Gates went around the Internet a few years ago. Supposed to be his advice to students, the first item was “Life isn’t fair. Get used to it.” Damn right. Neither will our current “there is no failure, only deferred success” rule in many schools help the pupils one iota when they have to fight for a job. We all have to face reality and realize that we might strive and strive, always do the right thing, make good informed decisions and still fail.
So what can we do? We can’t change circumstances, but we can change how we react to them. I have several “rules” by which I try to accentuate the positive. I don’t always succeed, but I do my best.

1. Don’t hibernate and don’t hold imaginary conversations with yourself that spiral into depression.

2. We might live in a 24 hour society, always accessible via our mobile phones, Facebook, Twitter et al. But it is our choice. The phone has an off switch. Use it. Turn off the Internet. Learn to talk to people instead of texting them all the time. Do not be at people’s beck and call 24/7. Build downtime into your life. Time for you. If they don’t like it, tough.

3. Nobody knows the minutiae of other people’s lives. What might look to you as undeserved wealth and happiness might have come with a price tag you wouldn’t want to pay.

4. Go and do something physical. Work up a sweat, but not in the gym. Make it constructive exercise. Do housework for an hour or some serious gardening.

5. Try to laugh at something every day, the sillier the better.

6. Remember the late Claire Rayner’s dictum – “This, too, will pass”, because, believe me, it will.

7. Hug someone who loves you – your significant other, the dog, a friend.

8. Try to take joy in those things that are free – a beautiful day, a stunning view.

9. And finally, remember that time is yours. Maybe not the time you spend at work, but you dictate how to spend your free time. The richest man on the planet can’t buy the last five minutes. So make it count. You are the only one living your life. You are responsible for you, so take control.

Short - long. Stories are not a one size fits all

2011-08-30T01:04:00.000-07:00

Most writers at some point in their lives write short stories for competitions. I have had some little success in this area, with the emphasis on little. But writing shorts is great training for the budding writer. A word limit forces you to be sparing, but you still must get every nuance and twist into the story while making sure your characters are not the literary parallel of cardboard cutouts and that everything holds together in a coherent whole.

I have many short stories in the relevant folder, most of them have not seen the light of day. Some did see the light of day only to be relegated to the computer equivalent of the back of a drawer. Some have shone. But there are always a few that live in your memory. I have three currently sitting idle. One in particular is a good story, logical, bit of a twist, a protagonist that I like and who I feel excites sympathy. So why is it still languishing in the darkness. Because, I realised yesterday morning, it is actually a novel, not a short. I can't tell you how quickly I woke up when that thought flashed into my brain.

Of course, it needs a lot of work, not to mention an extra 85 thousand words, but I'm now in that first flush of seeing the whole thing. In fact, I believe it could well make a vehicle for my early-music soprano detective, Georgia Pattison. And, what is so heartwarming, is that I don't have to work out where the story is going because I already know. At least that's the theory. When I actually get down to it, the whole thing will change because it always does and I know I can't write to a strict 'this is what happens next and then ...'. I know of many writers who make detailed chapter plans. The most I can do is write on a clear glass panel that used to be a shower door, now fixed to the office wall. A kind of mind map making connections. I stare at it, drink coffee and then adjust a few bits. So the most I know when I begin is where I am beginning and roughly where I want to end. The bit in between is as much a journey for me as it will be for the reader.

And that, dear friends, is one of the absolute joys of writing. Characters are not puppets for me to manipulate. They are themselves and act in character, which is why I will write something and then wonder where on earth that came from. It's a wonderful feeling. Why would I ever want to do anything else?

A sense of place

2011-08-22T01:46:00.000-07:00

My home county by marriage is Yorkshire in the north east of England. During our turbulent history, the county has been subject to invasions from Celts, Vikings, Normans, Romans, you name it…

All this has resulted in some very weird place names, so just as a momentary diversion, here is a small sample of how some Yorkshire towns and villages came by their names.

Broadly speaking, ‘ing’, ‘ham’ and ‘ton’ are Saxon for hamlet or farm. If ‘ing’ is in the middle of the name, it means ‘belonging to’, so Bridlington, was the farm belonging to Beohrtel (Saxon).
‘Caster’ means site of a Roman fort – Tadcaster, was the land belonging to Tada on the site of a former fort.
Thwaite means meadow or hollow, so Yockenthwaite is the clearing belonging to Youghan.
Filey is thought to derive from ‘five’ and ‘lea’ or ‘meadow’, hence Five Meadows.
Fridaythorpe denotes a farm (Thorpe – Viking), belonging to one whose name had relevance to Freya, god of fertility and from whence we get the day name Friday. Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘Thank God it’s Friday, doesn’t it?
Esk is a Viking name denoting a river valley., so the Esk Valley near Whitby really means Valley Valley. (Incidentally, there is a hill near Plymouth in Devon called Torpenhow Hill. Tor = hill. Pen = hill. How = hill. So the proper name should be Hill Hill Hill Hill.)
Goodmanham is the home of Godmund and his people – once the most important pre-Christian pagan shrine in Deira (South Northumberland)
Arkengarthdale, a gorgeous name, simply means Arke’s enclosure in the valley.
The river Humber is interestingly named. A celtic rivername meaning ‘good well’, the river was a vital dividing line in the landscape, hence all the land north of it was called Northumberland.
Appleton literally means an apple farm. So Appleton Roebuck, was an apple farm belonging to Roebuck and Appleton Wiske was an apple farm on the river Wiske.
Hornsea lies on Hornsea Mere, meaning ‘pond or lake’. So the place name means land on the lake with horn-like corners.
Scarborough is also interesting. Documents can accurately place its origins to 966 or 967 AD. Allegedly, a Viking with a hare-lip or ‘scarthi’ made it his stronghold – borough or burg.

York has so much Viking history, it would take a whole blog to even scratch the surface. The city also has some very strange street names – usually with the suffix ‘gate’ meaning road or path. The most interesting of these is ‘Whipmawhopmagate’. Opinions vary, but one is that a snarling worthless dog or cur was called a whappet. Whappets were whipped in this street on St Luke’s day, which is also known as ‘dog-whipping day’.

Can’t top that last one.

Lessons from the past

2011-08-15T02:30:00.000-07:00

A close friend lent us their house while they fled to the fastnesses of France recently. I have to say we didn’t do a lot, mainly because we wanted to rest and restore ourselves. However, when I am in London, Hampton Court Palace is always a must, so we duly spent a cracking morning there. The sun was out, the gardens looked fabulous, a game of real tennis was in progress and I managed to suss out a bit more of the geography of the Tudor palace for the Luke books. It retains a prime place in my heart. I waited 40 years to visit it and have been 7 times in the last two years.

Paul had never visited the Tower and I’m always up for a jaunt there, too. Of course, the queue for the Jewel House was very long, which I find strange because the crown jewels are incredibly boring. The only bauble that moves me at all is Queen Victoria’s little crown, incredibly sweet and designed to go over her widow’s cap. Much more interesting is the sense of place, the reality of looking over walls, imagining holding enemies at bay or being a prisoner and seeing how difficult escape would have been. The thing that always annoys me about the Tower is how they insist that Anne Boleyn was executed in front of St Peter ad Vincula, when historians have shown quite clearly that she met her end in front of what is now the Waterloo Barracks.

The highlight of the holiday, though, was a visit to the Downland and Weald Open Air Museum near Chichester. Houses from all periods – 12th century onwards – have been moved and restored. I was able to get a real sense of what Luke’s house might look like, how his rooms were arranged. I learned about herbs and herbal medicines and, the crowning glory – much more fascinating than the imperial jewels – a proper working Tudor kitchen.

We learned how to make butter. I was introduced to a couvre de feu, anglicised to ‘curfew’, used to bake small batches of bread when the cook didn’t want to light the bread oven, the rotation of beer-making so that the household never ran out, making cheese using rennet to split milk into curds and whey. The curds made a cheese a bit like mozzarella. They used the whey to help flavour bread. Tudor cooks used everything. (When the family pig was killed, the joke was that everything was used except the squeak, a custom that my grandfather practised into the 1930s with their family pig. Stains from salt dripping down his bureau from the hams and bacon hung over it are still visible.) Leftover ashes from the bread fire went under the beer cauldron ensuring that the yeast didn’t die. There was no waste. Perhaps in times like these, we could all learn a lesson from them.

Keep right on to the end of the road.

2011-08-08T06:47:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make. People think I’m organised. By profession, I’m a librarian. Trained to develop effective retrieval systems for all manner of information, so that when someone wants something, that something, should be quickly identified, located and brought to the enquirer.

When I worked for a pharmaceutical company, I was landed with the organisation of their scientific archives. Details of projects, experiments, tests etc. to support the company’s products. All these records had to be readily available to any regulatory authority, worldwide, at any time, so that checks could be made, claims confirmed and all the work done verified. By the time a regulatory authority came to visit, we had the average search and production of documentation time down from 20 minutes to 8. The system wasn’t foolproof, no system ever could be. But it worked.

So, please could someone tell me why, in my own personal filing, I can find a receipt for an insignificant item I bought in 2005, but I cannot track down my birth certificate? I can show you pictures of me from age 0 to the present day. I can even show you the original wedding certificates for my parents and both sets of grandparents. I have my great-great grandmother’s death certificate from 1884. But if you were to ask me to prove I was born and my birth name, all I would be able to do would be look in a mirror and assure you that the reflection was definitely me.

This is just the last in a long line of things not going as they should. Perhaps it’s the weather. Sunshine and showers – showers as I type this. Perhaps it is my turn for rough water. Perhaps as I see summer going by so fast, I’m beginning to dread the coming dark nights and cold weather. Perhaps my attitude of persistence, determination and pressing on is suffering more than a little hiccup.

But perhaps, just perhaps, this is the darkest hour before the dawn. And if I find the bloody birth certificate, that might perhaps be a sign. I’ll keep you posted.

When the day seems dark...

2011-07-25T00:19:00.000-07:00

We all have those days when even getting out of bed seems a bad call. When a friend having a rough time puts a weight on your soul because you feel so helpless and you know they are unhappy. When, for all the affirmations about determination and persistence, they are just empty words that have lost the positivity that first imbued them. When nothing is right and everything is wrong. Wading through treacle.

Chiming any bells? I have a friend who claims with justification that she long ago learned to love what she has because for so many years she couldn’t have what she wanted. Another friend battles constantly with her health, juggles money better than anyone I’ve ever known but still manages to find that extra something that enables her to keep going. I find these two ladies inspirational and I hope that by now, they know that.

Being prone to depression, I have learned to take notice of the ‘soul weights’, knowing that if I ignore them, I will begin descending into the pit. So, when those days come, what do I do?

First of all, hard as it is on a rainy Monday in July, I think about what is good in my life. Paul, who supports me, puts up with my flights of fancy and retains a very dry sense of humour that never fails to make me collapse with laughter. He and my friends who believe in my writing; living within ten minutes walk of the sea, Rufus, my golden retriever who always manages to lie under my desk so that it is uncomfortable to either type or write, but who sticks to me like superglue, has a tremendous sense of humor and demonstrates it every day.

But sometimes, that isn’t enough. Sometimes, I need to just recognize that it is one of those days and I would be better doing something active to get the old endorphins batting about than sitting at the desk trying to wade through the treacle. Living in a four-storey Victorian house, there is always something to do. My latest project is painting the inside of the Word Shed to make it more welcoming. Have to wait for the Garden Store to be delivered first, because, with the best will in the world, sharing a creative space with the lawn mower just doesn’t cut it. So, as today isn’t going so well on the positivity front, I shall go and look out the old cream curtains we had at the other house and prepare to make them into covers for the seat and back of the bench I am planning to buy for guest seating in the Shed.

Yes, as writers, we do try to write every day, but sometimes, it’s more than okay to give yourself a pot-luck day off and go do something active. See you later.

Memories

2011-07-18T00:34:00.000-07:00

As I get older, I seem to spend more time looking back on happy memories. My grandfather used to smoke a pipe with Old Holborn in it. Even now, almost 50 years later, I only have to catch a whiff of it and in an instant, I am eight years old again. Much in the same way, there are pieces of music that take me back to people and places. My mother explaining Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, with the sound of the waves washing in and out of the cave – I think I was about five at the time. Music has been a huge part of my life and I seldom sit down to write without something playing softly in the background.

What else? The silky softness of our first labrador’s ears, a joy that has stayed with me throughout my life. I am now on my fifth golden retriever and his ears are especially soft – matching his brain. The first sight of glorious scenery or a seascape, you all know the ones I mean. They take your breath away momentarily. There is a road leading from Dore and Totley near Sheffield to Hathersage, the place where, allegedly, Little John is buried. As you drive round the corner, you see the entire valley laid out in front of you and it is stunning, something I shall never forget. And will I ever forget the taste of Nicky’s warm homemade wholewheat bread spread with her just cooling homemade blackberry and apple jam? Doubt it. I only have to close my eyes.

Memories are made of this, so the song says and it’s true. The senses are what keep us connected to the world, so that we are part of it and not just spectators. How much does a hug mean when everything looks bleak? Beyond wealth.

The senses are also a valuable weapon in the writer’s armoury. So frequently, we read of what characters see and hear, but how often does the writer evoke scents or tastes? When Keats talks about ‘beaded bubbles winking at the brim’, can’t you just see and almost taste the delicious water from the fountain of the Muses?

At the moment, I am trying to write a love scene, something I have never before attempted. Part of me wishes I had left it that way, but the story needs it and so I must gird up my loins as it were and write something that must be slightly more than real, but not so beyond it that it tumbles into comedy. How will I do that? I shall start with the senses of touch and taste, action and reaction and go from there. The final judgement will rest with the feedback from my writers’ group should I ever have the courage to read it to them. I’ll keep you posted.

Adding verisimilitude...

2011-07-11T02:59:00.000-07:00

Research for a fiction project is either a love-it/hate-it thing. Me? I love it. Which is why I became a librarian. But it has its pitfalls. Sometimes, I will spend two days trying to track down a certain piece of information and it can only provide a sentence in the book. All that time for one sentence. No wonder it is such a temptation for beginners especially, to show how much they know about their subject. It is also one of the biggest turn offs a writer can offer a reader. After all, who wants to be force-fed information which has only a background influence on the plot? The writer who does this is, in effect, not caring about the reader at all, only about demonstrating how clever he or she is.

Take my current book. Perfect example. My protagonist has a couple of dogs who have managed to bring a traumatised child from her dark inner world to the light. The repercussions of this will flow on in the story to where someone with an autistic child asks my heroine for help. Can her dogs make a difference? The daughter of a close friend has helped me get some of the information I needed from peer-reviewed scientific papers about the effect dogs in particular can have on the wellbeing and socialisation of autistic children. It took a couple of hours of searching for information, a day or so to work out which papers would be most useful and almost two weeks for them to arrive on my doormat. The information I have gleaned will occupy, at most, three sentences and possibly a bit of conversation in one or two scenes. But I needed to spend that time, take that trouble, to make sure that what I write is accurate.

The same goes for my alternate history crime stories featuring Tudor apothecary, Luke Ballard. As far as I can manage, I have retained true incidents, real people and the tenor of Tudor life. It required weeks of research – and this for someone who was fairly convinced before she started that she knew a great deal about the period in question. Not slipping into the trap of lecturing to the reader is sometimes quite hard, especially when I’ve learned something that piques my interest. And, a couple of times, I have unwittingly fallen into that trap. On one occasion, I had just read David Starkey’s assertion that Catherine of Aragon was responsible for the Reformation because she wouldn’t give Henry a divorce so that he could try for the son he so desperately needed to give the dynasty some security. After a whole paragraph of telling the reader this, I realised I had to scrap it. The reader still knows, but it is one character who says that it was “all the old Queen’s fault. She should have been an obedient wife and gone into a nunnery. Then this wouldn’t have happened.” Two sentences replaced a sermonising paragraph and the book is all the better for it.

I’ve learned the hard way that research is like salt on chips. Too much and they are uneatable.

Back in the Word Shed again

2011-07-04T02:50:00.000-07:00

Last Autumn, with great fanfares – well the odd muted trumpet – food and champagne, we opened the Word Shed and I spent a few happy weeks out here in the intermittent sunshine and fresh air, crafting the second Luke Ballard book, “The Taste For Treason”. And very enjoyable it was, too. Then three things happened. The weather deteriorated, winter arrived in all its ferocity and Paul, bless him, bought me an iMac.

The winter put paid to many things for many people. We had so many broken arms and wrists here on the coast that the local hospital couldn’t cope, almost every palm tree snuffed it in the -18 degrees freeze as did 3 of my 6 fuchsias and the snow and ice took its toll not just on the flooded basement, but on the roof of my shed, which, when the thaw came, sagged alarmingly.

It wasn’t too bad until the weather began to improve and I had a longing to sit out among the burgeoning greenery and feed my creative side looking at the clematis Montana tumbling over the fence in front of the shed doors. It was not to be. Not until last week when a dear friend and all round good egg looked at the roof, went and bought wood and made it safe again.

Was that the end of my problems? Well, no. You see, the shed had been shut up from November through to June and there was the issue of
S P I D E R S…….
Those who know me well know that I don’t put these creepy-crawlies on my best friend list, or even the nodding acquaintance list. They go on the ‘don’t show your face – or legs – near me, or you won’t live long enough to regret it’ list. The problem with spiders is that they can really run and I have no idea what primeval instinct makes me fear them, but that’s how the cookie crumbles, or, as we say in Europe, that’s how the Mercedes Benz.

Enter St George in the form of my husband who really doesn’t like them any more than I do, but is considerably braver than me. He went round with the vacuum cleaner and a long hose. And so, I type this looking out at the sunshine and the trees, listening to Vaughan-Williams and thinking that, really, life doesn’t get much better than this.

Scrivener - a quick appraisal

2011-06-29T03:09:00.000-07:00

I’ve been using Scrivener now for a few months and must say that I really like it. Sometimes I feel that it’s like using a sledge-hammer to crack a nut, but learning which bits are useful is an ongoing process. So much so, that, on Paul’s advice, I now devote one morning a week to learning something new and then spend the rest of the week working it into my daily writing.

Basically, for those who have not come across it, Scrivener is a multi-tasking piece of software whereby you can collect all your research, import relevant files and pictures, write scenes as stand-alones and then rearrange them in the order you want, have a ‘corkboard’ of cards for synopses for each scene/chapter etc. etc. all in one file or project. The left hand side of the screen – the “binder” – is a one-look overview of what you have in that file. You can work with split screens. The other week, I was writing an account of my fictional queen’s coronation for the third Luke Ballard book. I needed to check back on a contemporary account of Anne Boleyn’s coronation in 1533. So I worked with a split screen, one side was my chapter and the other side was the account. I was able to scroll down the research document, find what I needed and immediately begin to relate the events in my fictional account. When you have finished, you can compile the scenes/chapters and export them as a Word document in a format that most editors will accept for submissions.

There is a lot of support on the net, including video tutorials, an instruction manual – huge – which I did print out and interactive tutorials. And, one of the best things, the package is very affordable. I tried it out free for about a week and then bought it. It has helped my writing in several ways. The most useful so far is the ease with which I can write scenes out of order and then play about with where I want them to be in the finished document.

So, there has to be a downside, doesn’t there? Yes, there is. I still can’t find a formatting method whereby after a double space denoting the end of one section and the beginning of the next, the first line of the new part will be blocked and not indented. As this is a basic requirement of fiction editors, I can't work out why I can't find out how to do it.

The other downside is that I am the kind of person who works better with a tutor and a course, so I just wish that somebody somewhere in the north of England would run a ‘Scrivener for Writers’ workshop for a couple of days, purely so that they could show me – s l o w l y – how to use the various components that I need for me. The videos are good, but the instructions are too fast and by the time I've assimilated them, the instructor is on the next but one bit.

That said, it’s still a cracking piece of software and one with which I will persevere.

Stepping out of the comfort zone

2011-06-27T06:34:00.000-07:00

The amorphous 'they' tell us it is good to step out of our usual habits once in a while. I have been experimenting with this idea on two fronts in the recent past. Normally I have a very controlling method of writing in that I start at the beginning and go on to the end, only stopping off at about chapter 5 to write the last bit of the book so I know where I'm headed. Using the amazing Scrivener, though, I am now writing scenes that I know must appear in the book, but I'm not exactly sure where. The pudding still has to be eaten to see if this method works for me, but, so far, so good.

And the other experiment is writing a suspense/romance. Not my usual genre at all, as I usually prefer crime, either contemporary or historical. The working title for this new book is "The Croaking Raven", but I am not at all sure it fits the genre. Great for a crime thriller, but probably not a susp/rom. I have my plot. I have my characters AND their photographs - again all stored in the one Scrivener file. I need to see what my characters look like to read their personalities, if that makes sense. It's an extension of the Miss Marple device of certain people reminding her of someone in St Mary Mead. I used to be quite skeptical about this, but so many times I've seen someone who reminds me of someone else and find that they are exactly like that person.

The setting for the new book is the north of Wisconsin just above Green Bay in a small fictional town called Ballards Bay. My protagonist, Abbie Russell, is a computer expert in the local library. She has two flat-coated retrievers who are therapy dogs for those who cannot communicate with people because of some trauma, or who are lonely and cannot relate to anyone. All goes swimmingly until Abbie's boss is relocated and arrogant, stand-offish Ellis Carter takes charge.

So far, I've written about 12,000 words and I think I will be aiming for about 80-100k. It's a learning curve, one I am enjoying. I'll be keeping you posted on my progress, so watch this space.

Choosing a title

2011-06-22T01:33:00.000-07:00

Choosing a title is one of the most important things a writer has to do and is perhaps only superceded by the crafting of synopses as the most hated task. So, where do we find our titles?

Sometimes, the theme of the book suggests a title. Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility” falls into this category. The perfect description in three words of the basic characters of the two main protagonists, Elinor all head and Marianne all heart. Short, snappy, says everything.

Some titles are just alluring whilst referring to the subject matter of the book and I would choose Linda Acaster’s “Torc of Moonlight” to illustrate this. A timeslip thriller, it deals with the distant past infringing on the present. Again, the title is short and sweet, but has an eerie quality about it that tells you all you need to know about the tenor of the story. A play on words is frequently hard to resist. Stuart Aken’s “Breaking Faith” uses this and it reflects the multi-layered story of Faith as she comes from darkness, through adversity into light.

The genre can also help with formulating a title. Shirley Wells’s “Presumed Dead” uses policespeak to set the mood for ex-cop Dylan Scott’s search for woman who has been missing for a long time. Sometimes authors use repeated phrases; the perfect example of this is J D Robb’s ‘In Death” series, now up to about No 34. Karen Wolff’s ‘Seers’ series uses this device, too.

For the rest of us, and I include myself in this category, searching for the perfect title can be a game. I must know my title before I can begin to write. I think about the theme or tone of the book and go initially to Shakespeare, always good for a pithy bon mot or a phrase that can be tweaked to say what I want it to say. Penny Grubb used this to good effect with a quote by Joseph De Maistre in her crime novel “Like False Money”.

For my contemporary crime series featuring Georgia Pattison, I use musical titles, because she is an early music soprano. For these, I generally go to opera, so the second in the series, not yet published is “When I Am Laid In Earth” from Purcell’s ‘Dido and Aeneas’ and the third will probably end up as “Say Goodbye Now” the title of Figaro’s first act aria to Cherubino in ‘The Marriage of Figaro”. It is amusing how many musical titles fit a crime story!

So, when you next pick up a book from the library shelves, don’t think the title was just added as an afterthought. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Working day of a writer…

2011-06-16T02:43:00.000-07:00

Or perhaps the title should be the working day of this writer. Talking with non-writing friends, it is alarming how frequently the M and I words come up. Muse and Inspiration. When I tell them that it’s a job like any other, that I work similar hours to them, they look at me as if I just exited the shuttle from the planet Zog. So here for those of you who are interested is my day.

6am – out of bed with husband. Follow him into shower.

6.30am. Sit and check mails with a cup of tea (thank you, Paul). Plan day’s work if I didn’t do that the previous day.

7am Walk dog. This is one of the best parts of the day for me. I have to be careful with my knee, but try to get a good walk in on the beach or in the park.

8am Back home. Prepare dinner, if possible to the stage of putting it in the oven so all that needs to happen is the oven gets turned on at the right time.

8.30 Breakfast. Coffee. Read

9am At desk. Check day’s plan. Use a the timer on the phone to work in set periods with intervals for coffee, getting up and moving about. Basically, it is bum in chair and words on page.

12pm Lunch

I am currently trying to work in an extra 15-30 minutes of walking in the middle of the day, but the knee dictates what I can do. However, following Jurgen Wolff’s suggestion, this period of walking/strolling or whatever is useful for sorting out plot points, thinking about characters etc.

1pm Back at desk. Ditto the morning. Last job, clear desk and plan out next day’s work.

4pm Go down, feed dog, fill dishwasher. Sit and wait for husband to come home and pinch his iPad in the meantime to catch up on my reading.

So that’s my routine. If the weather is foul, I stop work earlier and sit in the bath to think about plot points or characterization or settings etc. John Mortimer used to do this and I agree with him that proximity to water is a great thought liberator.

So, now you can all see, it IS just a job, like any other. But far, far more enjoyable than most.

Flaming June indeed!

2011-06-13T05:42:00.000-07:00

There are, as I type this, two bumblebees on the outside ledge of my office window sill. I won't describe in detail what they are doing, but if I say that I'm tempted to tell them to get a room, you'll have the basic idea. Yesterday's six hour downpour seems to have everything more vibrant and livelier. I was grateful, not least because I didn't have to heft watering cans all round the front garden. I just wish that my gorgeous scented climber rose Etoile de Hollande was a little more robust. The rain bent two stems down onto the lawn. The flowerheads are so big that they occasionally look like those anorexic stick-insect celebrities who end up resembling lollipops. One thing I can guarantee is that will never happen to me. However, the rest of my garden is blooming. The Black Knight delphiniums are glorious, the New Dawn climbing rose is giving the arch a run for its money and I have an attack of the Sweet Williams. Everything looks clean and fresh and fit for a carnival.

In fact, the rain has had another effect. I am rebelling against the strictures of my GP and her 'a little gentle exercise' because of my swollen knee. This morning, I am working in timed chunks and having a little dance for a few minutes in between. Is the resultant uplift in my spirits enough to counter the increased pain in my knee? Don't know. The jury's out on that one. But, with the help of Jurgen Wolff, I am embarking on a 30 day "Light Writing" programme that will not only focus my writing, but also help me back on the weight reducing/health bandwagon. I thank the powers that be that I only have to wait another 48 hours to see a physiotherapist and finally, I might find out what is wrong with the wretched knee and start back on the road to recovery. I found it very instructive that two of Jurgen's questions were 'how happy are you about your fitness level' and ditto about your writing productivity. Whilst I'm averagely ok with the second - 7/10, I am far from content with the first - 4/10. Hence the dancing. My only real sorrow is that I cannot cope with the local swimming baths mixed changing arrangements. I'm sure I've wittered on about this before, but I adore swimming. I've tried to get my head round meeting some geriatric leerer as I come out of the shower - sorry pal, no way am I taking my cozzie off until I get in the changing cubicle - but I can't. How can anyone shower properly with a swimming costume on?

My only other idea is to get to know one of the locals with a pool who wouldn't mind me ploughing up and down a few times a week. So, for the moment, I am reduced to walking Rufus to the nearest patch of green and throwing a ball until he flops on the grass and the odd, very odd, bit of dancing in between writing chunks. No wonder I've put 5lbs on in the last 6 weeks!

Of course, if some enlightened editor accepted my agent's view of "Duty of Evil", a swimming pool wouldn't be an issue. So, all together now, positive thinking. Om...swimming pool for Avril...om...

Looking at the big picture

2011-06-01T05:47:00.000-07:00

The life gurus and coaches are always suggesting that we do a 'life audit', a de-cluttering of our belongings and houses, thereby freeing up the brain to join in the serenity such an activity engenders. To be truthful, I've been a regular de-clutterer for a long time. When I was forced to move house 6 times in 2 years, I soon learned to cut the rubbish out with a ruthless hand.

I think that as a writer, we should do the same thing. Having taken part in Jurgen Wolff's Massive Action Day on bank holiday Saturday, I felt empowered to, not just focus on my tasks and increase my productivity, but also to extend that to the 'writing stuff' section of my filing cabinet. BTW anyone who needs a bit of focussing and allowing themselves the time to be creative will benefit from Jurgen Wolff's MAD days. It is a day when we reach out from our solitary cells to join in an interactive day of creativity, encouraging others, asking for help with problems and listening to Jurgen's tips on how to make the job of creating easier.

Anyway, back to the the filing de-clutter thing. This morning, I decided was 'the day'. I spent some of Saturday playing with Scrivener, software that many writers use, which keeps every part of a writing project, from synopsis, through scenes, chapters, research and the like, easily accessible in one folder. The software isn't a doddle. It needs time and for the user to progress through the interactive tutorials. I thought a productive way of gathering together all my writing odds and ends would be to make a project in Scrivener called Catalogue of ideas and plots. First job was to empty the filing cabinet of all the flotsam and jetsam I have gathered over the last 25 years and collate it. That alone took nearly two hours, mostly because I have 'bits' all over the place, a dreadful admission for a professional librarian to make. Then I looked through all the material, some of it going back to the late 1980s and added it to the Scrivener file. I can't make up my mind whether the result is encouraging or awful. One thing has emerged. I love plotting, playing what-if with ideas, twisting them round. I'm not so good at the follow-through. So here, ladies and gentlemen - as they say in the best circles - are the results.

I have two Luke Ballard alternate history mysteries plotted and unwritten. I have three Georgia Pattison, musical mysteries plotted and unwritten. I have, wait for it, ten full length plots for romantic suspense novels, including four that are partially written. I also have ten short stories plotted with some unfinished, including one, handwritten in, I think, 1992, which lasts for 3 pages and then stops abruptly just where it is getting interesting.

So, do I feel better for this 'writing audit'? I honestly don't know. Only time and the ease of reference to the different plots in the Scrivener file will tell. Watch this space.

Displacement with Focus - Pardon?

2011-04-21T02:14:00.000-07:00

Image by Manic Toys via FlickrI have spent a lot of time over the past few weeks reading about and practising focussing my efforts, mainly on my writing, but the techniques can easily transfer to other part of life. Next Friday is the royal wedding, which I thought a great opportunity for a party. This has morphed into a gown and tiara party and lots of champagne.
Now as many of my friends know, we had a flood in the basement a week before Christmas owing to a frozen pipe in the ground floor loo. Christmas was fun, if a bit character building, having to turn the water on and off as we needed it to prevent more damage. However, the refurb has taken far longer than we thought. We are now a week away from the party and there is still much to do.
I began a romantic suspense short last week and am a third of the way through the 15000 words. I have the beginning. I know the end. And the middle? Ah, yes, the middle. So, today I am taking the day off from my desk, picking up a paintbrush and hoping that in the midst of what is a fairly mundane occupation, some kind of inspiration will thrust its way past my sub-conscious and tell me what the middle of the story is. Wish me luck.

A Helping Hand

2011-04-19T01:44:00.000-07:00

All writers need a helping hand from time to time. I know that for the last couple of months, I have gone through a very lean patch. Displacement activities, procrastination, anything to avoid looking at the screen or notebook. I've always been a proponent of the 'stick your bum in the seat and write' school, so this was confusing. Why was it happening? Did I need a rest and my brain had gone on strike? A crisis of confidence? Laziness? All I wanted to do was either lie in bed looking at the trees and listening to the birds or read.

Time for action. I spoke to professional opera singer Janet Shell about the rise and fall of creativity and what can either help or hinder it. I joined Jurgen Wolff's Massive Action Day and managed 6 hours of concentrated, focussed activity. I bought his book called 'Focus' and read it. It has been a real revelation. There is a wealth of advice including breaking up tasks into small sections, using a timer and committing to work in a focussed way on the chosen subject for the duration. And then, the alter-ego suggestion. Depending on what you are doing, you work out what qualities are needed to perform the task and give that 'person' a name.

So, I am now right out of my comfort zone and trying to write a romantic suspense short - well 15,000 words short. So, I have summoned up 'Auntie Barbara', who is a cracking romantic novelist to help me. She is everything I am not and can deal with a suspension of disbelief that Avril is unable to. The other person who is developing in my mind is the one who wants to jeer when I fail and one who I want to prove wrong. In my head she is called Pansy, the Bitch Queen and no way can I let her win.

So, armed with timed tasks on which to focus, Auntie Barbara and Pansy, I am forging ahead with the story. I wrote 1500 words yesterday and have just plotted out the end. So, hurrah for Auntie Barbara and yah-boo-sucks to Pansy.

You can find tips on Jurgen Wolff's site. It isn't just for writers. www.focusquick.com. The book is available in the usual places. Hope this helps anyone else out there having problems.

Strange writing habits

2011-03-27T02:15:00.000-07:00

Do any of my fellow writers have writing habits that make people narrow their eyes and think 'if she's normal, I don't want to be?'

There was a post on another blog a couple of weeks back asking what we all needed to get the juices really flowing. I did include Scrivener on my list because I am fast realising just how useful it is, especially allied with Dropbox so everything is safe. But when I came to think more deeply about things, it occurred to me that I'd been less than honest.

Want to know how Luke Ballard and his world of elemancy came into being? Those who know me well will laugh and shake their heads, but, truth is, I'd had the idea of 'Henry's black-eyed boy' in my head for about 5 years, not knowing what to do with it. Then in 2009, I took a deep breath and bought my heart's desire. A Mont Blanc Boheme fountain pen that cost £1,000, all but a few quid. So, here I was with this pen and a gorgeous notebook the assistant had given me. So I needed something to write in it, didn't I? All the way back to the east coast of Yorkshire from Manchester, my brain had little to do apart from think and up popped Henry's black-eyed boy again. That allied with a suggestion from my husband that I find a believable alternate world and, in the space of a two hour journey, Luke Ballard was born. He slid into my conscious somewhere around junction 27 of the M.62 and has never left. Duty of Evil was the result.

So, fast forward to Book 2 and again, stationery played its part. This time I was in Germany, bought a great A4 book and a really comfortable Faber-Castell Grip Plus pencil - bit cheaper this, it was only about £6. We'd gone on holiday for a rest, so only did a few of the trips, which left quite a lot of time at our disposal once I'd had a couple of daily swims. Paul just wanted to sit with a beer and gaze into space. I plotted the sequel to Duty of Evil. Now it's book 3 time and I am getting stuck in the real history of the time, something fascinating because it involves the village I was born and the estate of the family my father worked for in the 1930s. Odd bits of plot have been seeping through, but this is where I find Scrivener a bit too organised, so until I know where I am going, I am reverting to type. Yesterday I got my birthday present a couple of weeks early. Yes, it's another pencil, this time a Parker Sonnet.

I shall, in the short-term at least, revert to my other standby. The shower door. Ah, but this isn't any old shower door. This is one that is hung on my office wall to form a huge glass board. I scribble ideas at random, go and sit in my chair and stare at it, then make connections and let the creativity flow. What is useful is that the closing bar to pull the shower door shut is a perfect ledge at the bottom of my 'board' for the pens. I use different colours for different plot strands. So, my idea is, using a mixture of what works for me - i.e. new pens/pencils, notebooks and the shower door and the Scrivener software, I'm going to try and plot the whole of the book before I get down to the writing in earnest.

But first, I'm going to play with my new pencil and see what transpires...

The joy when it all flows

2011-03-23T03:42:00.000-07:00

There are times when I am just so damned privileged. Here I sit in my fabulous office, writing on a state of the art Mac. The sun is shining, the words are flowing, English pastoral music is playing and all is right with the world. Last night I enjoyed a great rehearsal for St Matthew Passion, which we are performing in Scarborough and Bridlington on 15th and 16th April. My husband is back from the wilds of Nottingham and this afternoon, I'm having my nails done. Yes, shallow is my middle name.

Of course, there's always a weed floating about. Today, mine is called Rufus. He is our rescue golden retriever, a cracking dog, utterly beautiful - and knows it - and also completely naughty. If anyone in my locality is missing a bird-feeder, complete with nuts, then it was your garden he romped into the other day. Today, he chose someone else's garden - how I wish they would mend their fences, then he couldn't get in. Thing is, most of the time, he is a sweetie, but now and again, he gets the devil in him. If I am quick, I can head him off at the pass, but this morning I wasn't. Punishment for both of us is immediate cessation of the walk and Rufus back on the lead and home. So this morning's walk, instead of being a soul uplifting jaunt along the beach, throwing bits of wood in the water for him to swim to and retrieve, ended up being a 15 minute toilet trip and little else.

Still, if that's the only negative in my life, I shall count my blessings and thank the man upstairs for his generosity.

New Year, new determination

2011-01-02T01:58:00.000-08:00

The circle turns once more and we are again at a beginning. Our politicians are full of the joys of doom and gloom and it would be so easy to slip into a negative frame of mind. So I have, very selfishly, decided that 2011 is a year for my determination to come to fruition and knickers to the gloom merchants. The truth is that we have very little control over what happens to us in the large scheme of things, BUT we do have control over how we react to them. And, when a whole raft of nasties come along that threaten to swamp us in despair, we have friends who will catch hold of our hands as we slip down the well of depression and pull us back up to the surface.

So, what are my determinations in 2011? To cherish my family and my friends and try to keep up with them. To lose weight and get fitter - a perennial one for me, but I seem to be more resolute than usual this year. I can't influence finding a publisher, but I know my agent will be trying to do just that. I am a great believer in visualisation though and Paul designed a book cover for "Duty of Evil", which I then wrapped around another book and he photographed me holding it. The picture is in my eyeline as I type. So, it's not 'if' but 'when' the books find a publisher. I am also determined to polish No 2 - "A Taste For Treason" and write No 3 - "Sweeter Than Flowing Honey". The research for "Honey" is absorbing as it deals with the county of my birth, Lincolnshire and the childhood home and first job of my father. I shall say no more.

Here's hoping that all my friends and family have a wonderful 2011. I certainly intend to!

Hampton Court Palace and the Tower

2010-12-20T03:34:00.000-08:00

My dear friend Janet, courageously invited me for an extended research visit to London. Which is why last Wednesday found us at the Tower and Thursday at Hampton Court Palace. How do you describe a perfect couple of days? The Tower clarified a few things for the Luke Ballard books and, quite out of nowhere, the first chapter of book 3, "Sweeter Than Flowing Honey" popped into my head over lunch. I also visited the real spot where Anne Boleyn was executed and paid my respects to her in St Peter ad Vincula.

Thursday was one of those golden days that live with you forever. I finally met Ian Franklin, the warder with whom I have been exchanging mails for almost a year. What a fantastic person he is. Knowledgable without being dogmatic, open to new ideas. He helped me enormously, trying to work out where Luke and Rob and the Tudor royals spent their days, especially since all of Henry VIII's privy apartments were destroyed. We solved a couple of problems with turret staircases and doors I didn't know about. Ian and I were busy sorting out the conduit that runs under the palace and deciding that it might well have gone as far as the Royal Mews, when he took me by the arm, turned me round and introduced me to a friend of his who had just come in. It was Alison Weir, the historian. She is a lovely lady, who is very interested in the premise of the Luke books and has asked me to keep her informed. We discussed Anne Boleyn, of course, and I confessed that I have problems reading about that lady's end. Alison's latest book deals with that subject. She was so supportive and enthusiastic, it was exhilarating - and surprising seeing that she deals with fact and the Luke books posit an alternate history where Anne is still alive and her son, Henry IX is now on the throne.

There were several people dressed in the period - December 1542 - and I had a real gossip with Mistress Penn, Prince Edward's dry nurse and Lady Frances Brandon, mother of Lady Jane Grey. The two friends who had come with me stood entranced as the ladies and I discussed various items of gossip at court. We also met King Henry VIII himself. Ever tried to curtsey with trousers on?? He confided in us that he planned to invade France next year and spend Christmas 1543 in Paris. I wished him Godspeed with his enterprise.

On the way out, we stopped off at the shop and I ended up buying a couple of Alison's books, only to hear the lady herself offer to sign them for me. A perfect, perfect day and one that I won't come down from in a hurry - if ever.

For Sample Sunday - Ch 1 of "Circle in the Woods""

2010-12-12T02:14:00.001-08:00

I couldn’t believe she was dying. Not my mother. She was only in her forties and in all my twenty five years I had never known her have anything worse than the occasional cold. But the doctors were adamant. The cancer had been swift and aggressive. Five weeks before, she had been Ailsa, the strong mother I had always known. Now I sat by her hospital bed. I had never seen anyone die. She lay clinging to my hand struggling to speak. I bent my head down to hers.

‘Don’t try to speak, Mummy.’

Her hand pulled me closer. ‘Little kadessa, I must. No, no,’ she continued as I was about to protest, ‘I must.’

I had always been her little mouse. It was apparently a nickname that had come down from mother to daughter since heaven knows when. I saw it would be useless to try and stop her talking. Of the three of us, she had always been the strong one, the one who took the decisions. I had often wondered if that was why my father had left us when I was seven. Her certainty had always been frightening.

I squeezed her hand. ‘What is it?’

‘Dark secrets.’

Now I was convinced she was rambling and she saw it in my face. ‘Our family. Secrets.’

‘I don’t understand, Mummy.’

‘It’s all down to you, Leila.’ She reached up and stroked my face. ‘Your lovely hair. Your father used to call it your raven’s wings. That is why he chose your name.’

‘Leila? Why, what does it mean?’

‘Dark time. Dark time. A curse. Save yourself and your children. Promise me.’ Her husky voice trailed away and I laid her back down. For one awful moment, I thought she had gone, but she was still fighting. Fighting what I wasn’t sure.

I sat for another hour by her bed before she came to again. Her eyes widened as they moved past me to the door. I swung round but there was nobody there. Mummy gave a cry and put up her hand as if to ward off a blow, then she fell back on the pillow. I held an arm round her and helped her to drink some water. She looked directly at me. ‘Promise,’ she said, then closed her eyes for the last time.

The nursing staff were lovely, but somehow distant and practised. Someone brought me some awful stewed tea in a plastic cup. I didn’t want it but I drank it all the same. I felt a mixture of sadness, relief and guilt. Sadness that I would never again hear her voice or that sudden crescendo of laughter when something caught her unaware. Guilt that I had only grudgingly consented to come home, not realising just how ill she was. How could any cancer go from beginning to end in five short weeks? Guilt also that I had not been at home more, listened more, done anything and everything more. And relief that she was now out of pain.

The days passed in a confusing whirl and it wasn’t until two days before the funeral that I thought to try and contact my father. Good job I’m a librarian. He took some tracking down, but I finally found him at some place in the Canadian Rockies “finding himself” in a retreat. Luckily, the place had a phone. His response was typical of the man Mummy had described. The man I had not seen since I was six.

‘You don’t need me to come back, do you? You can manage, can’t you? I’m right in the middle of this thing. Do you need me?’

I felt my back flex with anger. ‘Why would I want you? You go right on thinking of yourself all the time, just like you always have. You’ve never been here for me. What makes you think I need you now. I just thought you might be vaguely interested in the fact that your wife has died. I thought it might impinge on your self-obsession for a few seconds and make you realise that there are people in the world other than you.’ At which point, I almost broke the phone slamming it back into its cradle.

I felt numb all through the funeral. I chose the hymns and prayers and a reading. I felt absolutely nothing. I knew Mummy’s friends couldn’t work out if I was grief-stricken or uncaring.

It was only when I saw her coffin lowered into the grave that I cracked. I felt an arm go round me and through the curtain of my hair, I saw a tall 30-something man with light brown hair. As soon as I straightened up, he dropped his arm.

I had invited people back for the tea, sandwiches and cake that Beryl had prepared that morning. I sat in the corner not talking to anyone, a cup of untasted tea in my lap, looking at the floor. I saw a pair of black trousers approach.

‘Miss Halliday?’ It was the man who had put his arm round me. I didn’t trust myself to look at him, so I nodded and pretended to drink some tea. ‘I’m Jack Bourne, your mother’s solicitor. I am so sorry.’

Somehow I found my voice, but I wasn’t feeling very gracious. I thought he was touting for business and I remember thinking that if I’d been a man, I would have punched his lights out. ‘Yes?’

‘I need to see you to discuss your mother’s will.’

‘I have a copy of Mummy’s will, thank you.’

‘I’m sorry, Miss Halliday. The one I have is dated two weeks ago. What date is the copy you have?’

I marched to the desk, found the will and handed it to him without looking. I still have no idea why I was so unpleasant to the poor man. All I knew was that I wanted all these bloody people to go away and leave me alone. I heard a rustle of paper.

‘Yes, I thought so,’ I heard him say. ‘I’m afraid the one in my office supersedes this one.’

‘Really?’ I wasn’t interested.

‘Miss Halliday. Look, this is very important.’ He handed me a card. ‘Please could you ring me tomorrow or the day after. We need to talk. Make an appointment with my secretary. No, tell you what..’ He scrambled in his jacket pocket and took out his diary. ‘Can you come and see me on Tuesday at 9.30, please? There are things we have to discuss.’

‘What things? Mummy left everything to me. What is there to discuss?’

‘I’m afraid it isn’t quite so simple. The new will has a couple of, shall we say, surprising clauses, that we really have to talk about in order to decide how I am to proceed. Please, Miss Halliday. I realise that now is the worst possible time, but time, I’m afraid, is part of the problem.’

I sighed and foraged in my handbag for my diary. Tuesday was clear. Every day was clear. The only thing looming was the need at some point in the next few days to go back to work. Back to Portington and Miss Fellows who I hated. ‘Tuesday is fine,’ I said.

‘Good. If you need me in the interim, just call the number on the card.’

I could see Beryl hovering. ‘Thank you, Mr Bourne. What is it, Beryl?’

‘I’ve washed up, Leila. Everyone’s gone, so I’ll go, too. I’m only next door if you need me, love.

Mr Bourne got the message. ‘I must go, too,’ he said. ‘I will see you on Tuesday.’

We watched him climb into a long, low sleek car which purred away so quietly that I hadn’t realised he had started the engine. Beryl sniffed. ‘Trust a solicitor to have plenty of dosh to spend on a fancy motor,’ was her parting shot. ‘Are you going to come and collect the dog?’

‘Oh, God. Bimbo, I’d forgotten him. Yes, I’ll come now. No, I’ll get changed first and then come and get him. No point in getting these clothes covered in dog hair.

I ran upstairs. The wretched dog was just one thing too many to worry about right now. I would have to get him re-homed. No way could I have a dog and work fulltime. I slipped my jeans and a clean tee-short on and then went next door to collect him.

He was a big golden retriever and Mummy had called him Bimbo because she said he was blond, beautiful and brainless. He also ate huge quantities, another reason I would not be able to keep him. I was not in the best of moods as I poured a couple of mugs of his dried food into the stainless steel bowl. He sat trying to be patient, but his rear end was fidgeting like a sprinter waiting for the starting gun to go off. Dinner, I had learned, was the highlight of Bimbo’s day. Other highlights included breakfast and any time his biscuit tin came out of the cupboard. He troughed his dinner and asked to go out.

Whilst I waited for him to come back in, I turned my attention to that morning’s post. There was an express delivery that Beryl must have taken in when I was dressing for the funeral. I opened it and found a note attached to a cheque. “I know you don’t think much of me and perhaps rightly so, but while I can’t be there, my money can. Take this to cover any expenses and contact me via the bank if you need any more. Despite everything, Leila, you are still my daughter.” The amount on the cheque stopped me in my tracks. I must have counted the noughts at least five times. If I put this in my account, I wouldn’t have to work for three years. I closed my eyes visualising Miss Fellows’ reaction when I told her where to stick her job. Was this what money did for little mice?

By this time, the quiet woofs from the other side of the back door had turned into annoyed insistent woofs. Bimbo did not like to be kept waiting. He stalked past me and went into the sitting room. I followed apologising to him. Apologising to a damn dog. I would really have to take a grip. Perhaps Mummy was right. It was time to stop being her little mouse, take control of my life and become as strong as she had been. And my father’s money would start the process. I walked over to the roll-top desk, found my cheque-book and slotted his cheque into it. I would put it into my account on Tuesday when I went to see Mr Bourne.

As I was closing the desk, I noticed a small leather bag pushed to the back of one of the pigeonholes. I pulled it out. The thin, creased leather seemed very fragile as I tried to undo the drawstring at the top and open it. I tipped the contents on the desk. A broad rose-gold wedding ring rolled across the wood and I just managed to catch it before it fell on the floor. But there were other things stuck in the bag. I prised out a small black and white photograph, wrapped in paper and a rose-gold locket. I couldn’t get the locket to open, but it was extremely pretty. It took me a few moments to realise that the pattern on the locket was the same as that on the ring.

I undid the photo and looked at the paper wrapped round it first. There were words on it, but they were so faint, I could not make them out. The photo itself was of a girl, about the same age as me, possibly younger, standing in front of a long low brick building. It was so blurred and faded with age, that, in the soft light of the room I could not make out any of the details. I turned it over. There was one word which I thought began with a V, but I couldn’t swear to it.

I picked up the ring. It fitted my left-hand ring finger as if it had been made for me. It was then that the events of the past few days caught up and I felt a weariness so intense sweep over me that I had to sit on a chair to stop myself from collapsing onto the floor. I took the ring off with difficulty and looked again at the photograph. I squinted, trying to make out the details but decided that I needed my mother’s magnifying glass.

I carried the photograph and the glass into the kitchen. The fluorescent light was much stronger in here. Trying to rub the tiredness from my eyes, I examined the photo again. The building looked dirty. Perhaps a barn or something like that, I thought. I turned my attention to the girl. Under the magnifying glass, she sprang out at me. I dropped the glass and the photo with a cry which brought Bimbo running into the room. He put his nose into my hand and I stroked his soft fur.

I could feel tears coming into my eyes. This was too much. Everything was too much. Then sense prevailed and I realised that I had to be more tired than I thought. I stared at the photo and the magnifying glass, both sitting on the table where I had dropped them. This was silly. This was how little mice behaved. I was not a little mouse. Not any longer. I went over to the table and picked up the photo and the glass again. I could see my fingers trembling as I brought the girl into focus. There was no doubt. No doubt at all. I was looking at a picture of me.

Books, books, books and, yes, more books

2010-11-13T05:25:00.000-08:00

When I moved house some 15 years ago, my daughter, who doesn't read books at all, volunteered to help. I don't think she had any idea of the number of books I had then. My marriage had just split up and my first romantic notion had been to live on a boat. When my eldest brother had finished laughing, he said that I couldn't do that because my books would sink it.

So, when Vicky ended up unpacking the 30th box of books in the new place, I wasn't too surprised when she growled "If all else fails, mother, we can always read!" I seriously have never thought that I have more books than most people. I've been reading fluently since I was 5 and regularly have about 4 books on the go at once. If I am unwell, I can read 3 a day. Mind you, if I'm very unwell, I just lay in bed and groan. Books have been a huge part of my life ever since I read "Little Grey Rabbit and the Speckledy Hen" to my mother. I could read when I started school, which infuriated the teachers and frustrated me. My life has had two constants. Books and music. I could no more live without them than I could run the London Marathon.

When Paul and I got together, he, too, was horrified at the number of books I possessed. Mostly because he had to turn over one wall of the spare room to shelves to house some of them. I had books which never got unpacked until we moved to this house in 2007. My books are like my children. I can't get rid of them. So, in self defence, Paul suggested that we turn the dining room in the basement into a library/dining room. Great idea.

The builder came up with a design at which point he discovered his first mistake. Not enough shelf space for the books I currently have, not to mention those I aim to buy in the future. He didn't believe me, so I took him all over the house and he measured the shelf space my current holdings take up. Then I sat him down and gave him some strong coffee. I didn't like to tell him that in deference to Paul's horror, I now have approximately two thirds of the books I used to own. We took 7 large boxes of them to the local hospice shop. I think they were horrified, too. I must confess here, that I have sneakily re-purchased some of the ones I had to throw out.

Anyway, so here we are and this morning has been taken up with moving the books to the new shelves in the basement. Now it's my turn to be horrified. I can see that it won't be long before I am forced to do another cull and give some of my darlings away.

Research, imagination and a glass of wine

2010-10-17T05:39:00.000-07:00

Now that I've found an agent willing to try and place the Luke Ballard books, I must make sure that I have everything sorted for consistency. So, I've been through "Duty of Evil" and the 30,000 words of "Treasons, Stratagems & Spoils" to make sure that I have a list of spells. Well, that's how it started, honest.

It really began with Paul saying I ought to use the Word Shed as it was a nice day, just to have the heater on and air it out a bit. Of course, I made him vacuum it out and do a spider search first, but I've been in here over an hour and the spells research is turning up some absolute gems, from spells you can buy to ensure a lotto win, to spells involving black candles, three rusty nails and the grave of a murder victim, just to bring a mountain of bad luck on someone who has offended your sensibilities. Then there's the Nights of Hell spell, which will give the receiver three nights of pains of the flesh, skin lesions and other pleasant distraction. So I've been indulging in that pleasurable hobby known only too well to writers, called distraction therapy as research.

Actually the consistency thing is a real nightmare for writers. For example in Duty, it is a revelation spell. Somehow in Treasons, it has morphed into a reveal spell. I had no idea how many spells poor old Luke had to remember, so I have made some of them journeyman spells that can be souped up when the elemancer is a master, such as the Clarifying Spell to make people tell what they don't really want to, which a journeyman elemancer can perform, but which turns into a Veritas Spell, which only an elemagus can perform.

If you've been following the Treasons blog, you will know that the one inviolate rule of elemancy is BALANCE. So, I now have to formulate a set of spells that sunderers will use. This was where the Internet search began and disintegrated into helpless laughter. I expect if I could charge $35 for a lotto spell, I might make as much as a lotto winner. Sadly, there are always people who are so desperate to believe that some magic force can shape their life into the way they want it. If only they could gather all that energy and put it into something positive, they would see that they are indeed powerful, but not in the way some of the magic spell salespeople mean. I hate to use the word gullible, because it is a seriously unkind word, so I will substitute vulnerable. If any vulnerable people are reading this, then all I can do is implore you to find the intention we all have inside us, however deeply buried and draw your strength to change your lives from that, not from some charlatan making thousands swindling you out of cash you probably don't have.

And the glass of wine? Well, isn't research always more profitable when accompanied by a nice sav blanc?

When rules get in the way

2010-09-22T02:02:00.000-07:00

I think you all know I'm a writer by now. A British writer. A British writer who has become so ensnared by 'rules of writing' that they threaten to kill off any kind of creativity. I'm currently writing the second in my historical crime fantasy series, featuring Luke Ballard, apothecary and elemancer at the court of King Henry IX - yes I know we never had a King Henry IX, that's part of the fantasy. If your interest is aroused, go to http://treasonsstratagemsspoils.blogspot.com and see how the book is progressing.

So, as I said, it's the second in the series, the first being 'Duty of Evil'. I loved writing it, which is why I'm doing another. I love the Tudor era, the setting of Hampton Court Palace, the magical ability of my elemancer - magic within strict rules - the fact that elemancers have very special dogs. The plot is good according to the other members of my writers' circle and, believe me, if it wasn't, they would come straight out and say so. We give each other a very hard time. So the plot is good, the characters are rounded, everyone is always desperate to know what is coming next. Sounds promising eh? But I can bet my golden retriever's weight in sausages that no British agent or publisher will look at it? Why? Because it can't be categorised. Is it crime? Yes. Historical? Yes. Fantasy? Certainly. Can't pigeon-hole it then, not interested. I've not followed the 'rules'.

Writers have lots of rules to follow. Show don't tell is a prime one. I'm reading 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' at the moment. I've reached page 100 and most of what I've read has definitely been tell not show. How come, if that sacred rule has been so blatantly broken, is it then such a good read?

Never change the character's point of view in the middle of a section. Always make a break and then change POV. Why? J D Robb in her Dallas crime/SF series breaks this rule all the time. The books are brilliant. I freely admit to being addicted to them. Why? Because the plots are good, the 'family' of characters is beautifully drawn and it's a world I like inhabiting.

Robb also breaks another golden rule - don't move into authorial voice. She does it frequently. Doesn't take away anything from the books, though. So, perhaps the rules are just for some and not for others, but that can't be right. I agree that someone like J D Robb who is really Nora Roberts and who writes three books a year, must earn her publisher such mega bucks that she can write what she likes. I really wish her line editor would get some new spectacles, though because there are some horrific spelling and grammatical howlers. She deserves better.

Perhaps that's the secret. Carole Blake said in an interview that one of the most interesting query letters she received was from a writer who said he wrote what he wanted to read. Now I get it. Don't ever expect to get published, but stuff the rules and savour writing what you would like to read, because, even if that ambition to be a bestselling author never happens, you will have enjoyed the ride.

That said, it's obvious that agents on the other side of the pond appear to be more open to rule-breakers, so I shall let Luke loose on them and spend the intervening time enjoying him.

Interview with Yorkshire author Stuart Aken

2010-02-22T00:00:00.000-08:00

Stuart Aken is a talented man in all senses of the word. He has overcome reverses that would flatten most people. Happily married for many years, he has found success in various spheres of the working world. His abiding passion, though, is writing, although he would probably call it a compulsion. Successful crime writer Penny Grubb says of Aken's writing that it has a magic quality achieved by few. High praise indeed.

You can find out much more about Stuart on his website:

http://http://www.stuartaken.co.uk

AFT: Breaking Faith is set in the Yorkshire Dales during the 1976 heat wave. What prompted your choice of location and period?

SA: In the words of Max Boyce, ‘I was there.’ Believe it or not, the initial inspiration for the book came to me on a visit to the Buttertubs, in the Dales, at that time. I looked into the depths and wondered how I would feel if I discovered a body down there. From that simple question, the rest of the book eventually flowed. The Yorkshire Dales is acknowledged for its exceptional landscapes and it’s a place I know well. The heat wave was a useful backdrop to a story which needed a credible climate in which the action could take place: few would enjoy being naked in the area’s usual weather conditions. 1976 was long before the era of the ubiquitous mobile phone, an item that would have altered the tone of the novel. It was a time when fashion and the ideas of youth were still fresh enough to encourage experimentation. Cameras used film and a good printing assistant was still necessary for any professional photographer.

AFT: Some might consider there is a strong erotic edge to the novel; is this a marketing ploy or does it serve another purpose?

SA: I’m fascinated by our modern attitude to nudity and the body in particular. As a culture, we are fast approaching the extreme level of hypocrisy that exists in the USA. It’s the largest producer and user of pornography but has a puritanical attitude bordering on insanity. Our world is dominated by double standards imposed by Judo-Christian ethics that pretend to celebrate creation whilst denigrating the means of creation in humans. The Islamic world has, of course, taken this duplicity to even greater extremes. The word, ‘love’ is misused to the extent it has no real meaning to many people. Yet, for those who have experienced it, love is so superior to mere sex that it almost defies definition. I wanted Faith to be subject to the prevalent attitudes regarding sex but to actually experience love. She is forced to witness the destructive forces that can accompany sex whilst appreciating the positive force of love; her choice of honesty over deception is what the book is about.

AFT: What made you choose an innocent as your eponymous lead character?

SA: We live in a world where innocence is damaged almost from birth. Goodness, truth and honesty are qualities we pretend to value whilst we indulge in behaviour that destroys these things. Faith was an innocent in the material sense but damaged by her father’s hypocritical insistence on adherence to an extreme version of Christianity. This is only hinted at in the novel, as I wanted his cult to represent all organised religion. The effect of organised religion, as opposed to spirituality, is to distort truth and turn it into a commodity that can be exploited and used as a power base for the unworthy to govern those too lazy to think for themselves. Children are effectively brainwashed from infancy into believing the set of myths and untruths that their parents and peers were brought up with. It is such an insidious force in society that most people are not even aware of its continuing influence on their lives. The very language we use is riddled with religious imagery and ideas, so that it is impossible to escape its influence. I wanted to employ an innocent so that she could rise above much of the hidden influence and expose it, but I had to make sure I didn’t overdo this and proselytise.

AFT: One can’t help but be aware that photography plays a huge part in the story, almost like another character, in fact. Or is it perhaps an allegory?

SA: I was a professional photographer for some time, and worked with models during my early career. Photography is an excellent recording medium that is also capable of functioning as an art form. It has an unfortunate side effect in its representation of reality in two dimensions, as this can affect the photographer, making him unaware of depth in other aspects of life. It is this superficiality that Faith makes clear to Leigh, of course. But there is also a sense in which the mistaken 'belief' of the photographer in the purity of his images, echoes the blind faith that religious people place in their particular doctrines, ignoring the fact that theirs is but one interpretation amongst many when it comes to defining both God and true morality. Organised religion, by its very nature, cannot help but be superficial, since it reduces enormous questions to a set of dogmas that barely address the real issues, let alone provide answers. Photography is, of course, also considered ‘glamorous’ and is therefore a fitting occupation for the necessary alpha male of the romance.

AFT: You have had a number of short stories published as well as a radio play on BBC Radio 4. What advice would you give to new writers?

SA: Write only if you are compelled to. Writing is something that almost every literate person can engage in but good writing, writing with something worthwhile to say, even writing that is simply entertaining, requires a degree of dedication bordering on the obsessive. There are many people who write for fun but then want to be published. Such writing is fine for personal fulfilment but it’s self-indulgent to impose it on the reading public and it clogs up the works for those who have real talent. If you must write, and I mean that literally, then do so but ensure that everything you write is the best it can possibly be.

AFT: What are you currently writing?

SA: I’m working on the first volume of a three part fantasy series. It’s an adventure and a quest set in an invented world and centres on, surprise, surprise, organised religion and its corrupting power. I’d like to entertain those with open minds whilst inciting the dogmatic into fits of apoplexy. And, yes, I intend to make it a good read.

Interview with East Riding author Karen Wolfe

2010-01-12T05:52:00.000-08:00

Local writer Karen Wolfe’s novels, ‘Seers’ (YouWriteOn, 2008) and ‘Seers’ Moon’ (New Generation Publishing, 2009) begin the series of six comic-fantasy novels featuring the indomitable Granny Beamish. Both are available from Amazon, WHS, Waterstones and Barnes & Noble.

‘Seers’ follows Granny’s battle to save the Guilds from a renegade who’s burning out minds and threatening all that the Guilds hold dear: will Granny’s mindpower be enough to defeat the odious Undermaster Coy (only in it for the sex-toys and the Ceremonial Underpants) and his terrifying, chocoholic control-freak Boss, or will the seers’ heritage be lost forever?
‘Seers’ Moon’ features Kenneth, a man inconvenienced by the moon. As Warg, the were-wimp, he’s running scared from the newly-designated Wolf-Patrol, as well as the pitiless Killer Calhoun, bounty-hunter, who likes pulling the wings off fairies, and will stop at nothing for the ultimate trophy of a werewolf pelt.
Aided by one ageing mongrel, nine stroppy sheep and a couple of hungry griffons, Granny’s really up against it as Warg flees the hunters and that old irresistible moon.

You can find Karen at: http://http://www.hornseadogowners.co.uk/karenwolfe

I caught up with Karen to find out what she’s currently up to, and what’s in the writing pipeline.

Q: There’s a rich vein of humour running through all the Granny Beamish books. How important is this comic element?
KW: Very. My primary purpose is to give my readers a laugh, but I also believe that humour can have a serious underlying message.

Q: In what way?
KW: Mostly by pricking pomposity and illuminating just how fallible we human beings are. Warg/Kenneth’s predicament shows how harshly we judge those who are different, while Warg himself is a metaphor for all hunted animals, and Killer Calhoun represents those who hunt for so-called fun.

Q: So is Granny’s an alternative world?
KW: Yes and no. It’s all about suspending disbelief: might there be telepaths in our communities and unicorns and other mythological beasts existing amongst us? I’d like to think so. After all, apart from their telepathic abilities, seers are just people, with all that being human entails.

Q: Where did Granny Beamish spring from?
KW: She started as a short-story character and evolved from there. I’ve always liked an iconoclast, and I thought she had great comedy mayhem potential!

Q: Quite a lot of the ‘Seers’ and ‘Seers’ Moon’ characters are of pensionable age. Is this deliberate?
KW: Yes. I’ve always loved the concept of elderly hooligans! I also wanted to show that older people can be wiser, funnier and more rounded (personally as well as physically!) than the inexperienced young. If readers find themselves batting for Granny, Mariander, et al, then I’ve succeeded!

Q: You've been writing for many years. Any advice for aspiring writers?
KW: Never give up, and never throw anything away. I had my first Radio 4 broadcast with a short story that had languished in a drawer for 16 years! Oh, and do join a good writers’ group for support and encouragement.

Q: So what are you currently working on?
KW: Well, apart from the 4 Grannies waiting in the wings, I’m right in the middle of a second (yes, humorous again) crime-novel (with dogs!) and I’ve also completed a how-to book for the hapless dog-owner. And I have to say that, succeed or fail, I’ve loved every bit of the creative process down the years, and I’d do it all again tomorrow.

Alert for western fans - Interview with writer Gary Dobbs

2009-11-17T00:24:00.001-08:00

Trying to pin Gary Dobbs down is not easy. The man admits to rarely sitting still, so I hope you enjoy the following interview. Gary, under the pseudonym Jack Martin, writes highly esteemed westerns including "The Tarnished Star" and "Arkansas Smith", which will be available shortly. You can find his Tainted Archive blog at http://http://tainted-archive.blogspot.com/ subtitled "spearheading the western revival" and follow him on Facebook.

AFT: You are an actor and comedian as well as a writer. How do you fit writing into your schedule and can you tell us about your writing methods? For example, do you make a meticulous plan or let your characters lead you where they want to go and how do you research your books?

GD: My schedule is hit the ground running - I never plan anything before hand but just fill the day the best I can and I can't sit still for more than a moment. My writing methods are simple really - every day I do something, even if it's only a blog entry. Sometimes when I'm blocked on a piece of fiction doing a post on The Tainted Archive can get things moving again. When I start a book I always have a pretty good idea of the end, though it can and often does change in the writing. And doing an outline would bore me as I like to be surprised in the writing much in the way the readers are, I hope.

AFT: What comes first with you – plot, characters or setting? Why?

GD: I've usually got a good idea of the driving event of a story, the catalyst so to speak but other than that I like to write blind and see where the story takes me. I always understand and know the main group of characters before I start as I find the characters the foundations from which you build the story. Without characters you have nothing and it is from them that everything else springs.

AFT: What are your needs as a writer? How do you fulfil them and what problems do you encounter?

GD: An idea, my pipe, a few ounces of good tobacco and my keyboard. Something that is essential to me is complete and utter silence and seclusion. I can't write unless I’m alone - often when I'm disturbed it can be quite painful to be yanked from the imaginary world. It often feels like a violent assault - I hope that makes sense because I find that when I'm disturbed mid flow I just can't get back into that special place. I've often read that writing is a lonely business but then I guess it has to be.

AFT: What is your favourite western movie and why?

GD: The Searchers - I think it's a wonderful story and so beautifully shot. The landscapes are breathtaking and of course the sweep of the narrative is truly epic. We spend years with these two main characters while they search for their kin stolen by a group of Indians. It may in some way be a throwback to the old Hollywood where the Indians were always the bad guys but the film doesn't show the Indians as two dimensional and really builds credible characters. It's a brilliant story and based on fact, you know.

AFT: You’ve also written a crime novel set in the South Wales of the early 20th century. Crime is a genre that shares much of the morality tale ethos with the western, but has to be more tightly planned. How did you approach it? Did you enjoy it and do you have any plans to write more crime?

GD: You are correct about the planning involved with the crime genre and I slipped up with this initially. I found that by working with too loose a structure I was wandering in the narrative and not really progressing with the story. I had to completely rethink things and virtually start all over again. But the novel, A Policeman's Lot which is being considered by my publisher at the moment, is not a typical whodunnit and I feel that it is an adventure as much as a crime thriller. There was a lot of research into the historical period and I must say I really enjoyed that. I spent many an afternoon in the library going through old newspapers and that's as addictive as any drug.

AFT: I’m interested to hear you say that. For me the plot, the puzzle, always came first because I’ve always written crime and it was only a few years ago that I realised the characters had to be just as strong. How do you think you would fare with a straight puzzle who-dunnit and do you fancy having a go at one?

GD: To be honest although I enjoy reading straight puzzle who-dunnit books I have no interest in writing one. I think it takes a different thought process than I possess. My favourite type of crime is the character led works of writers like Ian Rankin and Mark Billingham. In “A Policeman's Lot” the reader knows who the killer is from the start but not the why. I do greatly admire writers who can produce work that becomes a sort of puzzle for the reader to solve because I think that's beyond me.

AFT: Some say that westerns have been superseded by space adventures. How would you comment on this?

GD: I think there is some truth in that. Star Wars is after all western set in space; it owes much to the Magnificent Seven. And a lot of alien landscapes are basically the landscape of the mythical West. Of course the joining of the western and sci-fi will become complete when Stephen Speilberg gets around to filming his long gestating project, Cowboys and Aliens.

AFT: What do you read for relaxation?

GD: I go through phases with my reading - at the moment I'm heavily into Richard Stark but recently I've read the entire Sherlock Holmes canon an I've got some Agatha Christie in my TBR pile. But every now and then I'll dip into my comfort genre - The WESTERN. I love the genre with so much passion that I can never tire of it. George Gilman's Edge series are favourites as are Louis L’Amour, Elmer Kelton and Larry McMurtry. There's also some stunning current work going on in the genre - The Black Horse Westerns, for which I write myself, are pretty much guaranteed to supply good western adventure.

Interview with Yorkshire author Linda Acaster

2009-11-01T02:29:00.000-08:00

In keeping with the season of Halloween, I grabbed an interview with renowned Yorkshire author Linda Acaster.

After what was supposed to be a temporary writing gap devoted to helping new and budding writers improve their prose, and with it their chances of being published, Linda found herself inundated with writers looking for the edge and turned the whole enterprise into a business. Her latest novel “Torc of Moonlight”, a paranormal romance set around the University of Hull and on the North York Moors, has just been published by Legend Press and is available from Amazon, Waterstone’s, WH Smith and Barnes & Noble.

“Torc of Moonlight” follows the growing relationship between second year students Nick and Alice who, at first glance, are chalk and cheese. Nick came to Hull’s university to play rugby, drink beer and get laid; Alice to focus her studies, not on the syllabus, but on uncovering the shrine of a Celtic water goddess. Alice knows why universities surround the North York Moors as once did mediaeval seats of learning, that’s why she chose to come to Hull. Nick dismisses her theories as fantasy bordering on the delusional, until the trees crowd in and he realises that his training regime is not to hone his rugby skills.

To whet your appetite the opening extract is available as a pdf from
http://www.lindaacaster.co.uk
and http://www.lindaacaster.com

Q: I am intrigued by the fact that the novel’s prologue deals with what amounts to a Celt being murdered, is “Torc of Moonlight” a timeslip novel?

LA: Not at all. The novel is a contemporary one, set in the city of Hull for the most part, and up on the North York Moors where the remnants of Roman military infrastructure are still highly visible in the landscape. There’s always a lot made of Hull’s fishing past, but sitting in the Hull & East Riding Museum are the most fantastic Romano-British mosaics taken from villas in the region, and a life-size reconstruction of part of a Celtic village. It might not be on the scale of the Jorvik Viking Centre in York, but it is still pretty good.

Q: Can you say something about the paranormal aspect?

LA: It’s the thread of history, and of belief, taken on an extreme timeline. For good or ill we are influenced by our parents and the social mores of their generation. Many of us will have grandparents actively influencing the way we view the world and our place in the family unit. Some families have active great-grandparents, others no more than blurry sepia photographs with no identifying names. But what if, instead of the people of the present looking back along a timeline into the past, it was the past looking forward along its own very long timeline influencing the present?

Q: Tell us about the torc in “Torc of Moonlight”

LA: A torc is a neckring. It was a symbol of status, of aristocracy, usually fashioned by twisting strands of metal, often gold. Some had elaborate end-pieces depicting real or mythic animal heads. The one depicted on the cover of my novel has plain ring end-pieces, but there’s a reason for that, and I’m not giving away any spoilers.

Q: As well as a host of short fiction and non-fiction, you have previously written two historical romances, so you obviously enjoy your history. What piqued your interest?

LA: I was about eleven, and in a new school in Hull – now the site of Wilberforce College. The school was so new the playing fields were still being laid out when I started there and the bulldozers unearthed a group of Celtic roundhouses. I remember watching the excavations from the first floor window of our classroom and wishing I’d been allowed to help the way some of the older pupils were. The art master made a 3-D picture which hung on wall in the school’s entrance right through my years there. I’d often stare at it wondering what the dwellings had been like in reality, and I’d stand on that part of the playing field glowing in the knowledge that Celtic people had lived and worked and walked about on that very spot, so close beneath my feet. That empathy, that link to a past beneath my feet still stays with me. And it’s everywhere we go. We share a timeline with those who went before us, locked into the place, into the earth, sometimes only centimetres beneath the surface.

Q: You’ve been a published author for over 20 years and run a business helping would-be writers to polish their skills. If there was one piece of advice you could give about the writing life, what would it be?

LA: Persevere, and learn your craft – two pieces of advice for the price of one. It’s difficult handling serial rejections but it’s part of the writer’s life. The age of the conglomerate publisher is passing, and with the ascendancy of digital technology once again smaller publishing ventures are becoming viable. Just hang in there.

Q: What’s in the pipeline for your next book?

LA: I have a non-fiction book for budding writers nearing completion, and a series of late Viking era novels for children bubbling on the backburner. But as for the paranormal….there is one, set again in Hull, exploring the psychological aftermath of a fatal road accident. It might sound a bit grim, but several years ago I was half a second from taking the starring role, and that sort of experience tends to leave an indelible mark on a novelist.

To ebook or not to ebook?

2009-10-18T02:11:00.001-07:00

That really is the question. I have always been one of the 'nothing will ever replace the paper format of books' brigade, but having done a bit of research, I am no longer so sure. Both Amazon and Sony have brought out an e-reader. Haven't seen the Sony one, but Kindle, the Amazon reader is the thickness of a pencil and the size of a normal book. It is light and weighs less than most books. It also holds numerous books in its memory and a download, according to the blurb, is only a few seconds away.

So, how will the world go as far as the printed word is concerned? A friend asked me if I had a penpal when I was younger. Yes, I did. I obviously wrote to her and posted the letter. Yes. But, as she pointed out, were I to have that friend now, I would be e-mailing her, not writing letters. There are few people now who do not access the Internet, if only, like my husband's 83 year old aunt, to e-mail her younger sister in Wisconsin. So, perhaps in 10 years, most books will be of the e variety. I don't think paper books will ever completely die out, but even with old, out of print ones, they are occasionally available on Google books.

I am currently writing an alternate Tudor history detective story, called "Duty of Evil". The alternate bit is that, in my book, Anne Boleyn did not miscarry the boy child in 1534 and he is now Henry IX. My detective is an apothecary who is also an elemancer - a magician who uses the elements. Elemancers go into trances and need protection when they do, so I have invented greysprings, a cross between a springer spaniel and a greyhound and the greysprings stand guard over their magician if he or she happens to go into a trance in a public place where they could be vulnerable. But the plot is the time-honoured one of some unknown person trying to kill the King. Because I know Anne Boleyn was very fond of dogs, I have made her an elemancer, too. The point for this long-winded paragraph, is that, because the thesis of the book is so left-field, the history as far as I can make it so, has to be right and here Google books has been magnificent, both in terms of the lives of prominent Tudors and in terms of clothes, food, crime and punishment etc. So, I am becoming accustomed to reading a book on the screen. It's only a hop and a skip to sitting in bed, holding a tablet and reading a book there.

Of course, like most things of this ilk, the big explosion of ebook readers is in America, so, having just published a Sherlock Holmes adventure - "Murder at Oakwood Grange", based on Dr Watson's unwritten story of the politician, the lighthouse and the trained cormorant - I might just stick an experimental toe in the world of ebooks and see what happens. I understand that the great detective is very popular on the other side of the Atlantic. Wish me luck. If you prefer the printed copy, of course, just go to Amazon.

Hand washing - and wringing perhaps?

2009-09-20T04:02:00.000-07:00

There’s a Bible story about Pontius Pilate washing his hands. I wonder if it wasn’t the crucifixion of Christ he was opting out of, but that someone had told him the donkey Jesus came riding into Jerusalem on had E-coli. (Has nobody tumbled to it that animals can be dirty and that the solution is not to prevent our children from contact with them, but to educate them to wash their hands?) Perhaps old Pontius was the originator of today’s mantra that whatever happens is always someone else’s fault. Unless, of course, we’re talking about our political overlords.

It seems to me that it is about time politicians stopped believing that a bit of dervish dancing can fool all of the people all of the time. Whilst everyone is getting in a tizzy because parents are so busy threatening to sue farms when they would be better advised teaching their offspring to wash their hands properly, our politicians – of every party – are once again using us, the great British working public, like force-fed geese to achieve their political foie gras.

Now, stay with me whilst I work this one out. We work. We get paid, less a hefty amount in tax. This wodge goes to the government to look after us – allegedly. So, the banking system goes belly-up, due, we are told, to the greed of the people running the banks. The politicians tell us that the only recourse is to use our money – the part the government grabs before we even see it – to bail them out. So, we paid for that, too.

Now it is hard to get loans or mortgages because the banks are too scared to lend us back our own money, preferring instead to pay inflated pensions and bonuses to the people who caused the crisis in the first place. Why? Because if they don’t, these “assets” will go and work abroad and we will lose them. Really? Where abroad? I thought this banking problem was global, or does RBS have a branch on Mars they’ve kept quiet about?

To shore up the banks, the government spent a lot of money they didn’t have – bit like the banks really. So, guess what, there are going to be cuts. Still with me? Good. But here’s where steam starts coming out of my ears. Who is going to pay for the cuts?

Could we solve the problem by getting our troops back from Helmund province? Last I heard, it cost about £3million a day to keep them there. Or how about reducing board room, banking and political bureaucrats’ lavish pensions? Or, and here’s my personal favourite, how about making all our politicians take a polygraph test? Before the test, we, the great British public who pay for it all anyway, can place bets on how long it is before they lie. When they do lie, we brand their cheek with a big fat L. I’m sure this would catch on. We’ve always been a sporting nation. It could raise billions.

But, no, none of this will happen. They will do what they’ve always done. They’ll cut the education and health budgets – the ones which affect us most. They’ll tell us that, of course, it won’t affect patients or children. Any takers for a big fat L on the other cheek?

So, not only do they use our money to shore up the banks, they will now make us pay again for an ever more pathetic education system where the only tables in evidence are league ones and by making our health system even more patient unfriendly than is already is. It’s enough to make you want to wash your hands of them, isn’t it?

Music and History

2009-09-03T04:08:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful weekend. I visited Janet Shell and Christopher Goldsack who live commendably close to Hampton Court Palace, which I needed to visit as part of my research into "Duty of Evil", my Tudor apothecary crime novel - currently at Chapter 14!

Janet and Christopher headed up a wonderful recital on Monday evening in aid of Save the Children. The mix of the serious and amusing was perfect and brought me right back to my musical side, which has been a little neglected of late owing to the number of hours I spend on the laptop writing. Christopher's portrayal of 'The Count' in Mozart's 'Marriage of Figaro' encompassing his exasperation at Cherubino and his frustrated attempts to get Susannah to submit to him gave me several useful plot points for the third book in the Georgia Pattison series, not yet written, but entitled "Say Goodbye Now" a direct quote from Dent's edition of the opera and taking place during a production of 'Marriage of Figaro'.

Janet's brilliant acted "I can't quite remember your name" had everyone in fits of laughter and was a perfect adjunct to the more serious part of the programme. Christopher's Promenade Girls' Choir was a joy to listen to. Then it was back to their house for delicious food, champagne and music talk into the small hours. Bliss.

The next day was my long-awaited visit to Hampton Court Palace. Another gem of a day. I met Tom Davie, the President of the East Molesey Photographic Society, who took two hours out of his day to show me around the palace and tell me endless interesting snippets that only someone who has known and loved the place since he was a boy, would know. All the warders knew Tom and that made it easier for me to talk to them later because I had been introduced by him.

The day was just incredible and made so by the wonderful staff and warders. If anyone reading this is interested in our history and has not yet been to HCP, you are missing a huge chunk of your education. That the warders can discuss all aspects of the palace's history whether from the level of a child's education, for the casual visitor or for a serious researcher is not only an accolade to them personally, but also to the palace management. I salute all of them. Indeed I became so excited that I completely forgot to have lunch and only realised this when I left the palace at just gone 5pm. I found out quite a bit I didn't know, always a good sign.

So what did the weekend teach me? Several things. That music is such a massive part of my psyche that I must keep it "tuned up". That time spent with friends is equally important and perhaps, most important of all, that sometimes it's good to get away from the laptop for a few days and re-enter the real world.

The old, old story

2009-08-19T23:28:00.000-07:00

I live on the Yorkshire coast in a small town with a village feel. At the back of the house is an old railway line, which has been made into the Trans-Pennine Trail. I walk the dog here early each morning, so early that I seldom meet anyone. It is the best time of day, looking at the sunlight dappling through the trees and breathing cool fresh air. On the other side is a large area of grassland. Sometimes I see a fox making his way back home and crossing the path in front of me. At night, we can hear the hoot of owls. One afternoon last winter, just as light was fading, I watched a barn owl quarter this grassland, flying low, seeking food. I was transfixed.

As the recession bites deeper, we made a decision that at least once a month, we need to go out for a meal and our chosen restaurant is near the sea. We walk there and back at the moment whilst it is still light in the evenings. It was almost dark on Sunday as we walked back to our house down the old railway trail. About halfway down, literally just in front of us, a large white object swept across us and flew into the grassland field. I can confirm that owls are, indeed, silent. We heard nothing, it was like seeing a ghost. It was one of those moments, like when I see the fox or watch an owl quarter the field, that really truly does fill you with wonder at the beauty of nature.

Isn't it sad then, that a well known supermarket has just been given permission to build yet another new store on this field? I acknowledge that the town needs a supermarket. The local authority seems to have the mistaken idea that it will bring people into the town. Yes it will. They will park in the supermarket, do their shopping and then drive home! Are our council officials really so naive as to think that shoppers will walk into town and visit other shops? With frozen food in the boot waiting? I don't think so. It makes one think. As a caveat, the supermarket has to leave a "corridor" for the wildlife. Yeah, right! I have no illusions that the days of the owls and foxes are numbered in that area. I am still trying to come to grips with the balance of the scales. Foxes, owls, other wildlife on one side and the fact that fresh veg and a bottle of wine is less than a five minute walk away on the other. Let's face it, I am a material girl, but this time, because I have been given the privilege of watching owls and seeing foxes at close quarters, the wildlife wins. What a shame it won't win in reality.

The national UNhealth service?

2009-05-20T01:12:00.000-07:00

I heard on the news this morning of a suggestion to give everybody over 55 medication for high blood pressure - "to prevent heart attacks". I despair. How about concentrating on people who NEED medication, not doing a blanket 'everyone has high blood pressure so we'll make them all take pills' exercise? Or is it another ruse to get us to pay even more? I've often wondered if our PM goes back to Scotland when he has a medical problem because, of course, the Scots don't have to pay for prescriptions, or whether he refuses to let the English off the charge as a punishment for Bannockburn or the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots.

If our befuddled leaders want a crusade, I can give them one. My brother is a long-distance lorry driver. He isn't an overweight beer-swilling moron with an IQ of 3, which is what most people seem to think lorry drivers are. He is slim, eats sensibly, has an occasional glass of red wine and is 62. Our family have a history of heart problems, so when he had some intermittent chest pains, he paid one of his 'blue moon' visits to the GP. Result, tests. Result, he has a 10% reduction in the function of his heart. Result, DVLA have taken his HGV licence away. All that I can understand and have no problem with.

Now this is where it gets silly. Before the NHS will do anything about his problem, he must either have a heart attack, at which point he will either die or get the operation he needs, or further tests must show a minimum of a 15% dysfunction BEFORE he is eligible for any treatment.

So, he is left too ill to work but not ill enough for treatment. Unless he pays for private treatment, of course, in which case, he can have the operation tomorrow, provided he pays the cash. He has worked all his life, never claimed any kind of benefit and the first time he needs the system into which he has paid for almost 40 years, it tells him to sod off. He isn't sick enough or rich enough. Why don't the preventative lot do something about that instead of assuming that everyone over 55 has high blood pressure? My brother is lucky. His boss is keeping his job open on the understanding that he will get treatment as soon as possible. He is also lucky that he has an understanding consultant who is trying to help.

Where he is not lucky is that the hospital keep 'losing' his file or 'not receiving' correspondence from the consultant. His pathetic - and in my opinion, negligent - GP suggested he get a "van driver's job". Perhaps the GP thought that having to load a van, drive to a very strict timetable and jump in and out of the van unloading and delivering parcels was the answer for someone who has a heart problem and less stressful than watching someone load his wagon, driving it to a destination in a reasonable time and then watching someone else unload it. Perhaps the GP was just ignorant about a van driver's duties or too focussed on his budget to actually give a monkey's cuss about his patient. Perhaps he should consider another career rather than medicine, one which doesn't come under the heading of a "caring" profession. Perhaps someone ought to do the same thing to him. I'd certainly like to.

So my brother is left with few options. He can wait for a heart attack to solve the problem, but risk dying in the process. He can save up the thousands of pounds needed to pay for the operation before he has a heart attack, but with no job and therefore no income, the heart attack will probably win the race with the bank balance. Or, maybe, just maybe, the hospital might 'find' his file, pull their finger out and get him the treatment he needs to become what he wants to become. A man doing what he is trained for, paying taxes and once more being a useful member of society.

Living by the rules

2009-05-17T03:16:00.000-07:00

They say the best cure for depression is vigorous physical activity. The way I feel at the moment, the best physical activity I can imagine would be packing all our belongings and moving to a bedsit in the south of France. Leaving Britain. I would have liked to say leaving England, but in a lot of eyes, the words England and English are a pejorative – mostly Scottish, Irish, Welsh and, of course, Robert Mugabe’s eyes. Strange then that we have a Scottish PM and Scottish speaker who have presided over the one thing that has sickened everyone in the bit of Britain east of Wales and south of Scotland.

As yet more of our “Honourable” members are revealed to be anything but, I feel like most of the electorate. I would hazard a safe guess that if asked, virtually all of us normal mortals – the ones who go out to work the longest hours in the whole of Europe, pay increasing amounts of tax for decreasing amounts of services and try to be honest – we would say with one accord that we all feel cheated. Not one journalist in any of the bulletins I have heard, watched or read, has asked if we are surprised. I would hazard another safe guess that the answer would be a resounding no. Revealing, don’t you think?

Does all this furore have a silver lining, or, like the ‘cash for honours’ scandal when even the then PM was questioned by police, will it be swept under the Westminster carpet? It must be bloody mucky under that shag pile by now. Well, I suppose one good thing is that, once again, we are showing the “Dunkirk spirit” and beginning to pull together.

There are a few questions I would like answered, though. Has any MP claimed for a mirror, or are they all too ashamed to look into one? Why was a now retired MP allowed to claim £7000 odd (reduced, I believe from £13,000 odd) for bookshelves, when I have managed to house my hundreds of books in shelves from MFI which cost about £40 each? How many of the 16 sheets was the MP in the one-bedroomed flat using at a time, or had he forgotten to claim for a washing machine? Could somebody also explain which part of the pipe repair under the tennis court was furthering parliamentary duties? Was he having his electorate round for tennis parties, perhaps?

How come they can all pay these “mistakes” back so readily? Did they have the money all the time? And, most important of all, how can anyone not know they have paid their mortgage off? Apart from any other paperwork received from the financial institution who lent the money, you have to say what you want doing with the deeds to the property you now own outright, don’t you? Or are we meant to believe that not only are our politicians too busy to oversee their own expenses claims, they also pay large sums – just look at the tables of expenses for staff – to people who are as financially inept as they are. Any ordinary person who was caught – not volunteering are they, we have to catch them – doing this would have been not just instantly dismissed, but looking at the inside of a prison cell. Anyone want to join me hazarding another guess that nobody will go to jail?

The second homes thing has to go. What I believe is that there should be two huge Salvation Army type hostels built adjacent to each other in London, one for male MPs and the other for female MPs. No money changes hands. Bedding, security etc is paid for by the taxpayer, but we don’t pay for food or cleaning. I have to pay for my food and if I want a cleaner, I have to pay for that, too. So can they. The taxpayer can also pay for shuttle buses to take them to and from Westminster. They can work in their offices and sleep in their bedsits, like millions of normal people have to. Their pride – and ours – has to be because they are serving their country, just like the thousands of poorly paid soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, except that the MPs don’t get shot at on a regular basis.

For years, I have said that anyone wanting to be a politician is, by that very declaration, not fit to be one. A two-edged sword. Nice to be proved right, but the depression at what their fraudulent antics – and I believe it is fraud – have done to our already tarnished reputation makes me ashamed to say that I am English. When the mother of parliaments starts shafting her children, perhaps it is time we all left home.

Being there

2009-05-13T01:16:00.000-07:00

A long time ago, someone asked me what I was most frightened of. Answer: Not being there. I remember when my daughter was small, that fear that she might need me and I wouldn't be there was all but overwhelming. I wonder if it is the same for all parents. There is nothing that can produce such a physical shaft of pain as thinking that your child is hurt and may be calling for you and you are not there. I was 12 when Brady and Hindley were on trial. In later life, I worked with one of the officers on that case. He was a hard-bitten, cynical, granite copper, but even he broke down on hearing the recordings made of Lesley Downey crying for her mother. I can only imagine what it did to that poor woman.

It is an impossible lesson to learn that you can't always be there, though, isn't it? Be it for your child, your partner, your parents, even your pets. Our retriever is now 13 and although he is shaky on his back legs, he is still avid for his food and his walk - more of an amble these days. It isn't so long ago that we had to walk a few paces in one direction until he came hurtling past us, then wheel round in the other direction until he came hurtling past again. We would do this 5 or 6 times until that initial explosion of energy was gone and he could settle into a walk we all enjoyed. Now, it is more usual for us to stop and wait for him to catch up. So, my fear is that on the rare occasions I have to leave him, I worry that he will be all right on his own. Stupid, but there you go. He sleeps on the floor at my side of the bed, so close that I have to reach over him with my feet to find the floor. Perhaps he not only feels safe there, but also knows that I feel better if he is there, too. I hope that one day I wake up and he has just gone quietly over the Rainbow Bridge. Easier for both of us than that last one-way trip to the vet. Because the "being there" syndrome brings a whole raft of responsibilities with it. If it does come to the vet trip, it will be me who takes him - the last loving thing I can do for a dog who has given us 13 years of fun, laughter and love. Yes, I will make sure of being there.

A writer on writing

2009-05-08T02:02:00.000-07:00

So, how do writers write? I get asked this by friends who appear slightly embarrassed about the fact that someone they know is a "writer", as if it is something apart from the other arts like music or painting or whatever.

And the answer is that each individual's writing methods are different. I treat it like a job - 8.30-4.30 with a break for lunch and, if the weather is nice, a walk down to the sea perhaps. I used to start at 9, but need half an hour to look at e-mails, answer them and - OK, I admit it - spend a few minutes playing Mah-Jong Titans. But, at 9 on the button and occasionally before, my working day begins. I write very quickly. A good day is 4000 words. That is a good day, not necessarily a good 4000 words. I just bang out the words. I don't polish until it is finished. Some days I need to plan by hand - and it has to be good quality paper and a fountain pen, usually my silver Schaeffer Victorian Heritage Legacy and its gorgeous Florida Blue ink - you see, even the tools of the trade have to feel right. The dog has become used to me having conversations with myself just to see if the exchanges sound believable. My office looks like any you will find in a commerical company, except that my desk is huge because I need to spread out - or as my husband puts it, cover the surface with crap.

The last thing I do each day is to jot down three things I have to do next day, so that I am not sitting there wondering where to start. I like to have several projects on the go, not necessarily on the page, but certainly in my head. My husband will end a long mutual silence with the words 'You're thinking again, aren't you?'. And, it's true. My mind is seldom away from a plot, or listening to the "song" of people's speech, their mannerisms, the news about their lives. Writers harvest all that and use it without conscience. But mine isn't the only way, of course. I know one writer who only writes three days a week in the afternoons, who polishes as she goes along, another whose daily target is 1000 words and stays at his desk until they are written. The one thing all writers have in common, be they household names or obscure scribblers, is that we all write. How we write is immaterial. That we write is the point, and, as Wordsworth advised, we "fill the paper with the breathings of our heart".

Music for a while...

2009-05-07T06:38:00.001-07:00

Is there anyone on the planet who doesn't like music in some form or other? I know I couldn't exist without it, which is probably what convinced me to make my amateur sleuth a professional singer - well, that and the fact that I am familiar with the world of singing. When some artists work, they listen to music to see how it influences what they paint. I know one painter who regularly paints beautiful swirling backgrounds to Pink Floyd. I write to English pastoral music and last year found a fantastic 3-disk set issued by the National Trust. There are the usual suspects on it, like "The Lark Ascending", but also some gems from our lesser known composers like Bridge and Coates. I can be having the day from hell, but if I put on Williams's "A Quiet Stroll" or Binge's "Watermill" and I can't help but smile and breathe out. A lousy day can be expelled by switching on the Roland piano, playing back recorded accompaniments and having a damn good sing. My day is lousy no longer. I can't answer for the neighbours' day, of course. One man's Bach is another man's... well you get the idea. Singing is wonderful exercise. It gets the heart going and puts the singer on an emotional high. Dancing has the same effect, so next time you're feeling low, switch on your music, open up your shoulders and give your cardiovascular system a good workout. Whether you're a fan of Mozart or Metallica it doesn't matter. Just let rip. Music. There's no finer food for the soul.