Evening, blog-spotters.
So, I was reminded yesterday, finally I think, of a book that I read for a module in university, rather unambiguously entitled 'Women's Literature'. The book itself I recall as being moving; unlyrical and poetic at turns, painstaking and yet distanced, oddly. The dialogue being in that rather staid, stiff sort of manner that's characteristic of early 20th century fiction.
But this novel appears ot have been bugging me at the back of my head for a while now.
I had thought that it would be a Virginia Woolfe that I would revisit in writing The Barefoot Gardener, but it appears that I was wrong. Virginia Woolf, to my mind, skirted subjects closer to her heart, and courted the conventional in her fictional characters (see To The Lighthouse) even if it was in parody.
The novel, then, to assuage your curiosity, is The Well of Loneliness, by Radclyffe Hall. Or John, as she preferred to be called, apparently.
Opening the novel at a random page this evening, a practice that has never failed me yet, I found, amid my crib notes and underlinings (almost as though I meant for myself to find this piece, 15 years later) this quotation:
'If love is our sin, then heaven must be full of such tender and selfless sinning as ours', spoken by the principle character to her female lover.
This novel, published in 1928, was immediately banned, amid a trial for obscenity.
So, here is the link.
Cara, in my novel, is the modern day young, gay woman. She lives her life without apology, by her own moral code, with a power, a gentleness and femininity that is all her own. She is, in essence, the expression of all that a person being in love should be.
Stephen, the female protagonist of The Well of Loneliness, is conflicted between her faith and her loves. She is tortured by a world that will not accpet her, and tentalised by a love that she knows in her heart cannot be wrong; for what pure love can be?
Claire, in my novel, is in a stunning position, caught midway almost exactly between these two worlds. She would have grown up in 1960's rural, Northern Ireland, where judgement was de riguer. So adept was she at hiding who she really was, she has had no idea herself who she is until she meets Cara. This young woman to Claire is the catalyst for not only her discovery of who she is and how she loves, but also is the prompt for Claire to reach a decision point: does she go on with her illusion that she fits into a societal norm that she herself has constructed, and in doing so deny the one true love of her life? Or, does she release herself into a world where she can live the life she longs for, and allow herself to love the woman she desires most? Either decision, curiously, takes its own courage - something which I must be at pains to describe through my writing. There is no path for the coward and one for the brave; there is no right or wrong. There is simply the right decision for one person, in their time, for their reasons.
The ending of the novel, though, I feel should record some echo, or response to the 'crie de coeur' with which The Well concludes. This is currently work in progress.
I would like, above all, for The Barefoot Gardener to raise the question: How far have we really come? And for the reply to be: 'So far! So far. And yet, not all that far.'
Hope this sets you thinking, please leave me a post with opinions and thoughts - I would so love to hear them; writing is such a well of loneliness. ;)
Alison
x
Friday, August 27, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
To Blog, or not to Blog...
That is the question this evening.
Or rather; when to blog, and how often.
How often should I do it? How often does anyone else do it? Is someone next door doing it more often than I am, while someone in the next town does it only once a year?
Is it a case that regularity, rather than frequency is the key? Or is it like flossing, where you know you should do it every day, but in reality you might just squish it in once a week?
I could go on.
In an effort to find an answer of some sort to this question, I went sniffling around some other blogs to see how often other people 'do it'. I came to two conclusions: 1) it is possible for me to spend rather more time looking for evidence of others' inactivity than it is for me to be productive myself; 2) there is no rhyme or reason to how often people blog, and no definitive answer as to how often one ought to do it.
So, pressure's off. Phew.
Of less indolent, and more writerly, musings: I have been going like the clappers. This at least gives me back some sense of prowess.
Having set some targets for myself, I went ahead and smashed them. Now, the writing is not perfect by any stretch, in fact in places it's downright clunky, but I am racking up wordcount, and at this stage I'll settle for that. I'll put some fancy magic in place on the re-reads. This leaves me not ecstatic, but I'm not miserable either.
On the plus side, I have mapped the entire novel from start to finish, and written the final chapter, just because it was there, and so was I, so it seemed trite to put chronology before practicality.
In addition to all this productivity, I had a marvellous weekend, comprising two trips to the beach, the second one with a picnic and buckets and spades, some very nice food, wine and weather, lots of time for writing, half a game of trivial pursuit on Saturday between myself and Alex (always much cause for hilarity, especially when accompanied by fizzy wine) and I still managed to find the time to indulge one of my favourite weekend passtimes: afternoon napping.
Afternoon napping is something I adore. I consider it a very useful way to spend a chunk of Saturday. I especially like to grab one of the childers and persuade them come with me: Toby is a favourite, and he was the snooze-buddy of choice this weekend. He gives great cuddles, and I forgive him that he thinks it hilarious to wake me up with his morning breath. I shall save that little snippet for when he's older.
Afternoon naps never fail to disappoint when it comes to dreams, which is one reason I love them so much. As a rule I don't share dreams, but the ones I had on Saturday were, well, you couldn't write stuff like this:
I'd been having a bad enough dream of sorts, although I couldn't remember it, which had left me a bit upset. I then dreamt that I had woken, and went off downstairs to find Alex in the living room. In my dream state I was slow, and sluggish, and couldn't see very well, but I found Alex and cuddled up next to him on the sofa, which is exactly where he would have been had I in fact woken up and gone down to find him.
Deciding that fresh air was what i needed, I stumbled to the front door, and out into what looked like dusk. Something caught my attention in the sky, and I saw an immense eagle owl swooping down towards me. I crossed my arms in front of my face, and it soared upwards just shy of me. I dashed in to get Alex, and brought him outside, saying: 'you have to see this, it's an eagle owl!'
We watched as it circled around the tree across the road from our house, and as it turned towards us I saw it's huge, orange, cartoon-like eyes, upon which Alex said: 'That's the owl from the Gruffalo!'
And indeed, it was.
And then, of course, the Gruffalo appeared, and Alex and I looked at one another, probably both thinking - shit!
The Gruffaloe asked me if we still had his child, and something from my previous dream broke, about a child we were supposed to adopt, but couldn't for some reason. As politely as I could, not wanting to upset the Gruffalo, and stroking his face while I spoke, I explained that there is a process involved in adopting a child, and that we had had to involve the authorities. The Gruffalo scratched his head a bit, and said in a reasonable way: 'Oh, so I have to make a phone call, to social services or something?' 'Yes!' Alex and I replied, all relief that this was going so well, that he wasn't angry that we'd apparently misplaced his child.
He turned to go on his way, and searching for something good-natured to say, I called out after him: 'Watch out for the Wild Things!'
Alex turned to me in the dream, and looked at me like I was a stupid person and said: 'Ali, that's a completely different book!'
'Oh yeah.' I said, feeling a little silly.
And that it why I love afternoon napping so much.
G'night - sweet dreams....!
xx
Or rather; when to blog, and how often.
How often should I do it? How often does anyone else do it? Is someone next door doing it more often than I am, while someone in the next town does it only once a year?
Is it a case that regularity, rather than frequency is the key? Or is it like flossing, where you know you should do it every day, but in reality you might just squish it in once a week?
I could go on.
In an effort to find an answer of some sort to this question, I went sniffling around some other blogs to see how often other people 'do it'. I came to two conclusions: 1) it is possible for me to spend rather more time looking for evidence of others' inactivity than it is for me to be productive myself; 2) there is no rhyme or reason to how often people blog, and no definitive answer as to how often one ought to do it.
So, pressure's off. Phew.
Of less indolent, and more writerly, musings: I have been going like the clappers. This at least gives me back some sense of prowess.
Having set some targets for myself, I went ahead and smashed them. Now, the writing is not perfect by any stretch, in fact in places it's downright clunky, but I am racking up wordcount, and at this stage I'll settle for that. I'll put some fancy magic in place on the re-reads. This leaves me not ecstatic, but I'm not miserable either.
On the plus side, I have mapped the entire novel from start to finish, and written the final chapter, just because it was there, and so was I, so it seemed trite to put chronology before practicality.
In addition to all this productivity, I had a marvellous weekend, comprising two trips to the beach, the second one with a picnic and buckets and spades, some very nice food, wine and weather, lots of time for writing, half a game of trivial pursuit on Saturday between myself and Alex (always much cause for hilarity, especially when accompanied by fizzy wine) and I still managed to find the time to indulge one of my favourite weekend passtimes: afternoon napping.
Afternoon napping is something I adore. I consider it a very useful way to spend a chunk of Saturday. I especially like to grab one of the childers and persuade them come with me: Toby is a favourite, and he was the snooze-buddy of choice this weekend. He gives great cuddles, and I forgive him that he thinks it hilarious to wake me up with his morning breath. I shall save that little snippet for when he's older.
Afternoon naps never fail to disappoint when it comes to dreams, which is one reason I love them so much. As a rule I don't share dreams, but the ones I had on Saturday were, well, you couldn't write stuff like this:
I'd been having a bad enough dream of sorts, although I couldn't remember it, which had left me a bit upset. I then dreamt that I had woken, and went off downstairs to find Alex in the living room. In my dream state I was slow, and sluggish, and couldn't see very well, but I found Alex and cuddled up next to him on the sofa, which is exactly where he would have been had I in fact woken up and gone down to find him.
Deciding that fresh air was what i needed, I stumbled to the front door, and out into what looked like dusk. Something caught my attention in the sky, and I saw an immense eagle owl swooping down towards me. I crossed my arms in front of my face, and it soared upwards just shy of me. I dashed in to get Alex, and brought him outside, saying: 'you have to see this, it's an eagle owl!'
We watched as it circled around the tree across the road from our house, and as it turned towards us I saw it's huge, orange, cartoon-like eyes, upon which Alex said: 'That's the owl from the Gruffalo!'
And indeed, it was.
And then, of course, the Gruffalo appeared, and Alex and I looked at one another, probably both thinking - shit!
The Gruffaloe asked me if we still had his child, and something from my previous dream broke, about a child we were supposed to adopt, but couldn't for some reason. As politely as I could, not wanting to upset the Gruffalo, and stroking his face while I spoke, I explained that there is a process involved in adopting a child, and that we had had to involve the authorities. The Gruffalo scratched his head a bit, and said in a reasonable way: 'Oh, so I have to make a phone call, to social services or something?' 'Yes!' Alex and I replied, all relief that this was going so well, that he wasn't angry that we'd apparently misplaced his child.
He turned to go on his way, and searching for something good-natured to say, I called out after him: 'Watch out for the Wild Things!'
Alex turned to me in the dream, and looked at me like I was a stupid person and said: 'Ali, that's a completely different book!'
'Oh yeah.' I said, feeling a little silly.
And that it why I love afternoon napping so much.
G'night - sweet dreams....!
xx
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
One in a Million
Good evening blog-luvvers!
Well, I came back for more, and if you're reading this, so did you, so let's just pause for a little moment of mutual gratitude...
...
There! That was nice.
Since this blog is primarily about my writing in all its fascinating, frustrating, god-forsaken glory, I think that's where I'll start this evening.
I am struggling with this one, The Barefoot Gardener, in a way I've never struggled to write a novel before. I know this is true because I even Admitted It to Emma, my agent, today. I think she took it rather well. (Hm, just occurring to me that she had probably already realised this. Hm...)
Anyway, having written my first novel in a month, my second one in a matter of about 4 or 5 months, I think I kind of expected to always write at this pace. But I'm not. I started it earlier this year, and am still only 10 chapters in. Considering that this is the novel that we are leading with (ie the one that Emma is submitting to publishers now) it's a little frightening to think that going at this rate I'm unlikely to finish it before my ruby wedding anniversary. UnACCEPTable, Alison!
The reasons for my painful inertia are something to do with allowing life to get in the way of writing (but really that's just a handy excuse), and partly to do with the subject matter, which i must admit has me slightly out of my depth and which I have convinced myself requires an archaeologist's gentle hand and a librarian's painstaking attention to detail. Another reason I found to stall in recent weeks was my rabbit-in-the-headlamps response to an email I received from Emma a while ago. I had asked for some facts and figures on the publisihng industry with which I could furnish my students of the upcoming creative writing course, to help them be realistic should they wish to go down the publishing route. What I received back from her was so startling, so sobering, like a rookie tightrope walker I took my eyes off the place where i wanted to be...and looked down.
About 17000 new (just new) books are published in the UK every month. What's even more incredible than this, is that this 17000 represents less than 1% of all submitted manuscripts every month. Holy crap. In the face of these type of odds, surely only a lunatic would continue to write novels in the vain hope of publishing them? Well, keep that comfy padded cell on hold, tempting though it is, I've got me a book to finish!
I let Emma know how I was feeling today, how impossible and unlikely it all seemed suddenly, and as always she had the perfect thing to say to set me back on my precarious rope, newly determined to reach the other side. She told me that the part I hadn't seen is that roughly only one in every million authors get to be represented by an agent in the first place. Astonishing.
So, time to count my blessings, recognise how far I've come, and move move move forwards.
Triona, you'll be able to tell us this: one of the seven laws, or four agreements, or someone somewhere said that action, maybe inspired action, not sure, is the only way to get results? Well, I'm working to this principal to jolt myself out of my malaise. I've set myself a target of mapping (sketching, jotting snippets of dialogue, reminding myself what day of the week it is in the novel etc) 10 chapters a night until I reach the end of the novel, from which point I am going to write 1000 words a day. Not much of a plan, I know, but in essence the story is there - I just have to bloody well write it! Grrrr.
Good start made this evening, 12 chapters mapped, and what's more I felt that little thrill come back to me again; the one i get when I'm writing properly. Will keep you posted, and include some exerpts as I start writing, probably around the weekend.
In Other News, it was time to clean the upstairs of my house today. I clean upstairs about once every 3 to 4 weeks, whether it needs it or not. Now, I'm not a zealot about this or anything, and if something distracts me around this timeframe, which is fairly likely, then it may get put off for another little while. I get no satisfaction at all from cleaning something that is already or even nearly clean, so in order for housework to mean something to me, it must be in an awful state so that in cleaning whatever-it-is I can really stand back afterwards and feel very proud of my accomplishment. Well, it was time for the upstairs today, no excuses really, and added to that a certain short, pink person who shall Remain Nameless had carried upstairs half a bucket of grit from outside, which she had then evenly distributed between the boys bedroom and the bathroom. It's quite amazing how much grit a couple of bathroom mats can hold quite unseen to the human eye, as I found out today.
Last snippet: lovely example today of an Irish-ism which always makes me grin. You're having some exchange of opinions with someone about something like the state of the country / banks / weather, fairly lighthearted enough: you say something, they say something, you concur. THEN, quite out of the blue, they put forward their own opinion in slightly stronger terms, only to follow it up with: 'says you!', making it seem as though you said something, when in actual fact you didn't. You didn't even think it. This faces you with the dilemma of agreeing and laughing along, or of saying something ungracious, like: 'No I didn't!'
So the postie pulls up this morning and calls me over, as getting out of the van while I'm on the driveway seems redundant to him. He has a registered envelope for me, so gets my signature for it and hands it over.
Postie: Bad news, is it?
Me: Ah, hope not!
Postie: Not getting any better is it?
Me: (grasping at the recession straw) Well, I don't know, they keep telling us we're out of it.
Postie: Well, it'll get worse before it gets better - SAYS YOU! Haha.
Me: Oh! Uhm, ah....hope not!
Postie: Hahaha (and drives off)
Classic.
Night night.x
Well, I came back for more, and if you're reading this, so did you, so let's just pause for a little moment of mutual gratitude...
...
There! That was nice.
Since this blog is primarily about my writing in all its fascinating, frustrating, god-forsaken glory, I think that's where I'll start this evening.
I am struggling with this one, The Barefoot Gardener, in a way I've never struggled to write a novel before. I know this is true because I even Admitted It to Emma, my agent, today. I think she took it rather well. (Hm, just occurring to me that she had probably already realised this. Hm...)
Anyway, having written my first novel in a month, my second one in a matter of about 4 or 5 months, I think I kind of expected to always write at this pace. But I'm not. I started it earlier this year, and am still only 10 chapters in. Considering that this is the novel that we are leading with (ie the one that Emma is submitting to publishers now) it's a little frightening to think that going at this rate I'm unlikely to finish it before my ruby wedding anniversary. UnACCEPTable, Alison!
The reasons for my painful inertia are something to do with allowing life to get in the way of writing (but really that's just a handy excuse), and partly to do with the subject matter, which i must admit has me slightly out of my depth and which I have convinced myself requires an archaeologist's gentle hand and a librarian's painstaking attention to detail. Another reason I found to stall in recent weeks was my rabbit-in-the-headlamps response to an email I received from Emma a while ago. I had asked for some facts and figures on the publisihng industry with which I could furnish my students of the upcoming creative writing course, to help them be realistic should they wish to go down the publishing route. What I received back from her was so startling, so sobering, like a rookie tightrope walker I took my eyes off the place where i wanted to be...and looked down.
About 17000 new (just new) books are published in the UK every month. What's even more incredible than this, is that this 17000 represents less than 1% of all submitted manuscripts every month. Holy crap. In the face of these type of odds, surely only a lunatic would continue to write novels in the vain hope of publishing them? Well, keep that comfy padded cell on hold, tempting though it is, I've got me a book to finish!
I let Emma know how I was feeling today, how impossible and unlikely it all seemed suddenly, and as always she had the perfect thing to say to set me back on my precarious rope, newly determined to reach the other side. She told me that the part I hadn't seen is that roughly only one in every million authors get to be represented by an agent in the first place. Astonishing.
So, time to count my blessings, recognise how far I've come, and move move move forwards.
Triona, you'll be able to tell us this: one of the seven laws, or four agreements, or someone somewhere said that action, maybe inspired action, not sure, is the only way to get results? Well, I'm working to this principal to jolt myself out of my malaise. I've set myself a target of mapping (sketching, jotting snippets of dialogue, reminding myself what day of the week it is in the novel etc) 10 chapters a night until I reach the end of the novel, from which point I am going to write 1000 words a day. Not much of a plan, I know, but in essence the story is there - I just have to bloody well write it! Grrrr.
Good start made this evening, 12 chapters mapped, and what's more I felt that little thrill come back to me again; the one i get when I'm writing properly. Will keep you posted, and include some exerpts as I start writing, probably around the weekend.
In Other News, it was time to clean the upstairs of my house today. I clean upstairs about once every 3 to 4 weeks, whether it needs it or not. Now, I'm not a zealot about this or anything, and if something distracts me around this timeframe, which is fairly likely, then it may get put off for another little while. I get no satisfaction at all from cleaning something that is already or even nearly clean, so in order for housework to mean something to me, it must be in an awful state so that in cleaning whatever-it-is I can really stand back afterwards and feel very proud of my accomplishment. Well, it was time for the upstairs today, no excuses really, and added to that a certain short, pink person who shall Remain Nameless had carried upstairs half a bucket of grit from outside, which she had then evenly distributed between the boys bedroom and the bathroom. It's quite amazing how much grit a couple of bathroom mats can hold quite unseen to the human eye, as I found out today.
Last snippet: lovely example today of an Irish-ism which always makes me grin. You're having some exchange of opinions with someone about something like the state of the country / banks / weather, fairly lighthearted enough: you say something, they say something, you concur. THEN, quite out of the blue, they put forward their own opinion in slightly stronger terms, only to follow it up with: 'says you!', making it seem as though you said something, when in actual fact you didn't. You didn't even think it. This faces you with the dilemma of agreeing and laughing along, or of saying something ungracious, like: 'No I didn't!'
So the postie pulls up this morning and calls me over, as getting out of the van while I'm on the driveway seems redundant to him. He has a registered envelope for me, so gets my signature for it and hands it over.
Postie: Bad news, is it?
Me: Ah, hope not!
Postie: Not getting any better is it?
Me: (grasping at the recession straw) Well, I don't know, they keep telling us we're out of it.
Postie: Well, it'll get worse before it gets better - SAYS YOU! Haha.
Me: Oh! Uhm, ah....hope not!
Postie: Hahaha (and drives off)
Classic.
Night night.x
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Stage fright
Wow. Here I am then. Blogging.
Bloggedy-blog blog.
Well, what to say?
I feel as though I've stepped onto an empty stage, the hush of the (invisible? present, even?) audience blowing like a stale breeze through the space around me.
I haven't learnt my lines. I'm not sure even what my part is. Wait! my costume's not right. I'm not ready!! Ah, anyway, here goes...
I must admit, this was not my idea. Emma, my long-suffering agent, suggested blogging as another way to 'get my writing out there' and I further admit to the idea leaving me slightly cold. Surely blogging is for trendy, on-the-go type people with phones that have no keypads, and who tweet, google and app their way through this baffling century? Surely it's not for me. I have trouble with my toaster.
Well, I'm a stubborn person at heart (ask my husband, also long-suffering) and not wishing to be outdone by a mere matter of technophobia, here I am.
In brief, I am a writer. I have written two novels, have started my third, and have two and two bits of short stories under my belt.
This blog, all going well, will track my star-spangled journey from dawdling scribbler to six-figure raking, critically acclaimed, award clutching author.
Plan B is that this might provide an amusing account of one woman's delusion amid the turmoil and daftness of day to day goings on.
Stay with me, dear reader, and together we'll have some giggles at my expense, if nothing more.
Bloggedy-blog blog.
Well, what to say?
I feel as though I've stepped onto an empty stage, the hush of the (invisible? present, even?) audience blowing like a stale breeze through the space around me.
I haven't learnt my lines. I'm not sure even what my part is. Wait! my costume's not right. I'm not ready!! Ah, anyway, here goes...
I must admit, this was not my idea. Emma, my long-suffering agent, suggested blogging as another way to 'get my writing out there' and I further admit to the idea leaving me slightly cold. Surely blogging is for trendy, on-the-go type people with phones that have no keypads, and who tweet, google and app their way through this baffling century? Surely it's not for me. I have trouble with my toaster.
Well, I'm a stubborn person at heart (ask my husband, also long-suffering) and not wishing to be outdone by a mere matter of technophobia, here I am.
In brief, I am a writer. I have written two novels, have started my third, and have two and two bits of short stories under my belt.
This blog, all going well, will track my star-spangled journey from dawdling scribbler to six-figure raking, critically acclaimed, award clutching author.
Plan B is that this might provide an amusing account of one woman's delusion amid the turmoil and daftness of day to day goings on.
Stay with me, dear reader, and together we'll have some giggles at my expense, if nothing more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)