Kindle or kindle wood?

Ok, this is a little bit scary to be admitting this, particularly committing these words to paper (or the screen, I should say), but I am considering getting a kindle at some point in the not too murky future. Eek, I've said it. I say 'considering', because I really don't know if I've even come to terms with this 'consideration', let alone going out and buying one. But have a look at this graph above and you might see why I am in the process of considering the consideration of a kindle!! The yellow line represents physical books sold since 1996 and the red line shows the sales of Kindle books sold since 2008. This is utterly unprecedented. Kindle's have revolutionized the way we read and whilst I love, now forever and always the look, smell and feel of books, I have also got to acknowledge that people are reading very differently to how they were just ten years ago.

What does this mean for me and my novel? Actually, this could be exciting for me, because if nothing happens   when I go down the traditional publishing route, the good news is that I can publish an Amazon e-book for people to download on to their Kindle's. Anyone can do that, so the key to this is good marketing (aside from a darn good read). So I figured, the best way to get a feel for this market is to embrace it and that means getting a kindle. I chatted to a lady on the train not so long ago who was reading from a kindle and she told me she was the biggest die-hard book lover on the planet but is now a convert to the kindle. I have to say, I don't really want to be a 'convert', I just love physical books far too much. But what I do want to do is try to be a little more open-minded and embrace the digital revolution. It may well prove the only way for me to get my book out there.

Writing about sex!

Blimey. That was hard. I spent FAR more time than I'd intended this morning writing a sex scene in my novel. I had been an utter wimp when I originally wrote it, more a case of moving-swiftly-on and then suddenly it was the next morning - hmm, not very convincing. Thankfully, help was at hand exactly when I needed it in the form of an article in Mslexia by Monique Roffey (her sexually explit novel, above, came out earlier this year to great critical acclaim and a good dose of controversy) on how to write good sex scenes and one of the main things that I got out of it was that I have to kill the critic sitting on my shoulder. Don't think about what your mum might think or how I couldn't possibly write that or what on earth would so-and-so think if they knew I was writing this???!! But kill then, kill them all, brush them all off your shoulder and write that sex scene. Who put what where, who did what, and how. Yes, seriously!

Soooo....how did I fare? God, I had no idea what a prude I was, I guess I'm just not used to 'letting go' like this in my writing. I'm definitely not as liberated as Monique Roffey, but at least I've made a start. And I suppose that writing about sex, just like having it, takes practice. Tee hee.

Nan Green

Nan Green 

1904-1984

On my research travels for my novel, I've unearthed some really fascinating characters. I've just finished reading a book called 'Doves of War' by Paul Preston which is the biography of four women (two British and two Spanish) whose lives were all profoundly affected by the events of the Spanish Civil War. One of these British women was Nan Green, a young, working class married woman with two children. She loved walking and music and was utterly devoted to her family. But in 1937, Nan agonised for weeks before taking the decision to leave her children in a boarding school in England so that she could join her husband in war-torn Spain.

As a mother, I can understand the anguish she must have felt to be separated from her young children, but what it is harder for me to understand (for I, thankfully, live in a time of relative peace) is what drove her far from home to fight in a war that was not her own. The ideals of the droves of International Brigades and nurses who flocked into Spain between 1936 and 1939 were so strong - these were not adventure-seekers, they were men and women who truly believed that if they could fight and defeat fascism on Spanish soil, a larger war could be averted. And although they did not succeed in Spain, their ideal lives on.

Nan Green helped countless people in Spain, nursing hundreds of injured people and helping take refugees to Mexico at the end of the war. She returned to England with her husband 'missing.' After tortuous weeks of waiting, she had to break the news to her children and his parents that he wasn't coming back...

...one of the many inspiring, forgotten voices who wove her passion for liberty and human dignity into her work.

Tree

My eldest daughter in the magnolia tree outside our house this spring

A fantastic source of motivation for my writing has, for years, been through Mslexia - a magazine for women who write. It comes out 4 times a year and with each new publication there is a call for short stories or poems on a given theme and I try as often as I can to submit. For the current edition, they're asking for stories on the theme '2211', ie looking forward two hundred years and being inspired from that point. Initially I thought ugh, science fiction, not my forte at all. But I quickly realised that was very defeatist of me, and more to the point, I should know by now that the chosen entries are always very wide-ranging and the theme can be interpreted very broadly; it just needs to serve as inspirational springboard.

Anyway, I spent a while pondering the theme and came up with an idea with a tree a part of the principle narrative (not going to go into it here, just in case somebody nicks my idea, tee hee!). But after deciding that, we were sitting at lunch one day and I was telling my family about the theme and asked everybody 'What do you think the world will be like in 200 years time?' My eldest daughter (age 5), without even stopping to think about it, looked at me and in a very serious little voice, replied 'There won't be any trees.' I was stunned - firstly that the idea of trees had come to her immediately since that's what I was going to use anyway, but also that she had quite such an apocalyptic, or should I say bleak vision for the future. Where did this come from? I think I must talk about our need to protect our planet more than I realise. And whilst I am really, really pleased that she is taking this on board, I also don't want to overburden the little love and want her to believe that things are heading in the right direction! Quite sobering.

In the meantime, I'm going to start penning my tale about my tree, and whilst I'm doing this, I want my children to be able to climb from branch to branch to their hearts' content. And I truly hope that in two hundred years time, our future generations will be able to do the same.

Wise words

'I cannot help thinking that to entertain is sufficient ambition for the novelist, and it is certainly one which is hard to achieve; if he can tell a good story and create characters that are fresh and living he has done enough to make the reader grateful. You will not have failed to notice that many novels are written which have every possible excellence and yet are quite unreadable. I hope you will not think it a willful eccentricity when I tell you that I look upon readableness as the highest merit that a novel can have.'


W Somerset Maugham

Filling the blank page

'You have got to believe in the project, the book itself. You have to find the WILL, and then the energy will follow.'


Lorrie Moore


Working on my novel last week, I came a bit unstuck. I'd been on quite a roll up to that point, sitting for hours at a time and loving the process of re-drafting and reading bits out loud, trying to hear what worked best. I think it's because the original draft of the novel did actually start off pretty well, and that's what encouraged some agents the first time round to ask for the full manuscript. But then, a few chapters in, it flounders....and so did I. Now I know this is good news in one way, because it's clear to me now in a way it never was before that some of my writing is forced, unauthentic and frankly, pretty crap. But it seems that my roll has creaked to a slow-down, and here's where the hard graft begins and I have to painstakingly delete pages and pages of this nonsense I once believed was so well written. And from the blank page, I need to begin all over again.

However, I take heart from the quote of Lorrie Moore's I read recently. Because I DO believe in this project, I truly do, and I honestly believe this is a story that needs to be told. A couple of weeks ago a friend lent me a DVD called 'La lengua de las mariposas' (The butterfly's tongue), a moving story set in a Spanish civil war in a Galician village. It is about the relationship between an inspiring teacher and a young boy and how the boy has to betray his teacher when war breaks out. Although my Spanish is pretty rusty, the film had me weeping my heart out by the end. I kept thinking how could this have happened? Civil war must be the ugliest of conflicts as its pits people against one another who were once as close as family, even family members themselves. Anyway, my point is that the will to write this book is 110% within me, now I need the energy to make this will a reality to help me fill that blank page.

As I type this, my little boy aged fifteen months is sitting opposite me in his high chair guzzling chopped up banana and squishing it between his fingers before chucking it around the room. Even if I never get this book published, one day I want him to read this book his mama wrote and sense that this was a story I believed in.

Nervous energy, breathing and hula hooping

Maya having a go at hula-hooping at Shambala Festival, 2011

I have a bit of a problem. I think I've mentioned this before, but when I sit down to write I have a huge amount of nervous energy in me. Partly it's because I am like a child before their birthday party: hugely over excited. And partly it's because I don't know quite how to get going again after a week away from my characters and the story they want to tell. I know that on occasion this nervous energy simply hasn't dissipated and it's been horribly counter-productive with me doing a bit of writing, then quickly checking my email, then doing a few more lines, then getting up to make a coffee, then playing a few notes on the piano, then sitting down again and doing some writing whilst fiddling with my hair - aaaaaaaaaggghhh! This is NOT good.

So today I tried a different tack. I could feel this energy fizzing all around me as I sat down to write and I thought NO - this is my day, my precious day to write and I really cannot spend half of it making coffee and bashing out a few unsatisfactory chords on the piano. So I tried an exercise that comes from my book 'Writing begins with the breath' which suggests that you spend a few minutes on the floor on your back, palms up and eyes closed, breathing deeply. According to the author of this book (Larraine Herring), this posture helps stimulate the imagination and 'because you're on your back, your heart is open, allowing you to experience both vulnerability and surrender. Your body is experiencing a place of safe openness - a place of trust from which you can dare to risk.'


Well, I definitely liked the sound of that so I gave it a go and then managed to get up and have a good hour of utterly uninterrupted and very satisfying writing (I know, this doesn't sound like much but for me it is!).Inspiration comes from different places for all of us, but for me, it definitely comes from that still, small space of calm, so perhaps I ought to be doing this more often.

After an hour I got very cold (this is another problem I have, because when I'm really into my writing I honestly don't think, fingers aside, that I move a muscle) so to get my circulation going I put on some loud music and did five minutes of hula hooping! I know this sounds a bit nuts but it is my latest craze and I love it. So let's see if this is something I can do every thursday - calm breathing at the start of my writing day and then hourly hula-hooping breaks!

September Beginnings

There's something about the month of September - the leaves changing colour and starting to fall, being able to see my breath first thing in the cool mornings, the start up of the school run - that always makes me feel like I'm  going back to school. It doesn't matter what age we are, I think we never quite lose that back to school feeling and sense of new beginnings that comes each September.  So here I am, on my sacred quiet thursday (kids with my ma), and my new challenge is stretching out ahead of me and I'm very, very excited about it.

I've talked before about my novel set in Granada during the Spanish Civil War - well, I've started the process of going back and editing the story I wrote pre-children. I've got a great big door stopper of a book about the civil war out from the library (a little light night reading?!) and am starting to listen to radio programmes and watch relevant films about that period. This is going to be a huge undertaking as I know now that this novel virtually needs re-writing from start to finish. When I wrote it originally, I was living in rural Suffolk and was utterly absorbed by it - I remember having conversations in my head with my characters whilst I was raking up the leaves in the garden - seriously! I can't quite imagine how it's going to work out this time around as I need to put my family first. However, I know I'm definitely not the first woman to write a novel with a swarm of little people around her legs and I am hoping to rise to the challenge. Can't wait!

Shambala Creativity

I am very excited about heading to Shambala Festival the day after tomorrow. I always leave Shambala feeling inspired and energised and head full to bursting with ideas. Anything seems possible after Shambala. And although the weather forecast is looking far from promising, I'm going to get my welly dancing boots and rain coat on and dip into that infectious creativity that lurks in every hedge, treetop and umbrella.

Book nests and publishing success

I bought this gorgeous card in the V&A reading rooms the other day. I think I have fallen in love with this place. They call it a bookshop and bar and encourage people to come in, buy a glass of wine or cup of coffee and then wander round, pull out a book and take a seat on one of many chairs and sofas scattered around. A very bold move on their part I say, because they may just get someone clumsy (like moi) who sprays a dozen droplets of wine on brand new pages. But good for them, because independent bookshops need to branch out and think of these quirky ways to lure book buyers away from the big chains.

On another note, I have very happily had a short story published this week in Prole Books. I wrote this one a while ago and stubbornly kept sending it in to places despite being rejected many times, because I kinda liked it. And I'm pleased to say that being stubborn has gone my way this time. It's called 'Song of Saira', is set in 1970's London and is about the relationship between an mysterious Afghan refugee and a young photographer who discovers the Afghan girl through a photograph.

Clare the wonder woman

I have a deliciously unexpected day to myself. I had a 24 hour tummy bug yesterday and thought I'd better cancel teaching for today in case it carried on....but it hasn't! And as it's thursday and my mother is looking after the children, this means I can do all my wonderful geeky writing things to my heart's content like submitting stories and poring over my Mslexia mag and reading lovely little titbits of literary tweet gossip - bliss! The floor that needs to be hoovered and the washing that needs to be hung up and the mountain of laundry that needs to be sorted can damn well wait.

On my writing travels this morning I also came across a lady called Clare Kirkpatrick who is a freelance writer and breastfeeding counsellor and co-edits a very interesting site called Women's views on news,a site dedicated to a female perspective on current affairs. Oh, did I also mention she has four children? Or that she suffers from depression? (How refreshing that she is being open and honest about it). And did I mention that she home-educates her four daughters? Yes - HOME EDUCATES. The reason I am getting my knickers in a twist here is that I just do not understand how this woman manages to write a wonderful blog + home educate FOUR kids no less + do tons of other writing + cope with depression. Blimey. Clearly there must be times when the picture is far from rosy for her but still, she actually DOES it. And here's me with just three children (definitely not home educated, as much as I love the idea of it), part-time TEFL teacher, scratching out a few sentences here and there, who admittedly suffers from bouts of horrible insomnia but all the same....am I just not managing my time right??!

Clare claims in her blog that she's no super-mum, but I'd beg to differ. Clare, you ARE a super-mum, in fact you are wonder woman incarnate. I could go on about this all day...but then that would be my gold-dust free day taken up.

Inspiration

'Inspiration doesn't descend like a lightning bolt from the gods. Inspiration comes instead from a steady breath, a solid foundation, and a commitment to the process. From a grounded breath, freedom blooms. From a grounded breath, your stories and poems can dance themselves awake on the page.'

Laraine Herring, from 'Writing begins with the breath.'

I am very interested to discover that the etymology of the word 'inspiration' is rooted in the idea of breathing. A stereotype of artists of all types conjures up the tortured soul, waiting for inspiration to come and grasp them and shake them into creative motion. But it's an interesting question this - whether inspiration comes from without or within.

 I don't doubt that there have been people over the years for whom the source of  inspiration has come from some outward divinities. I remember hearing a wonderful story about a writer many years ago in deep South America -  I forget the name - who was gripped by a physical presence of words that tumbled into her, almost like a giant ball of ideas and inspirations. And she just had to run, run, run as fast as her legs could carry her, in from the fields to get a pencil so she could write the words down, before the huge ball of energy and words was pulled out from the other side of her and would continue its journey till it found someone else. A fabulous story, but pretty rare! For many people who follow a creative path, inspiration comes more often from that still, quiet place within us. And as the breath anchors us to the present moment, there is so much that it can teach us.

I've just started reading the book that I took the quote above from, and I'm interested to see where it will take me and my writing (not that I'm actually getting round to doing any writing at the moment - grrrr! - but I'm thinking about it ALOT!)

Look no further than your own family....

When I was about eight years old, I won a competition with the Puffin Club in which we had to send in a story in which we wrote about an unusual or wacky family. My tale was a thinly veiled account of my own clan - pretty easy for me to write in many ways. Which leads me to this......

This is Matala, a pretty little fishing village in Crete. Photo taken circa 1967. Now, pan the lens round to the other side of the bay...

If you look carefully you can see some caves in the rock face. The caves date back to the neolithic era and were used, apparently, by the ancient Greeks to bury their dead. Let's zoom in a little...

In this photo, you can just see a couple of people sitting in front of a cave with a towel hanging up behind them. And if we zoom in even further...

...here we see a group of young people who inhabited these caves from 1967 for a couple of years. Some came for a few nights, others stayed months, charmed by the crystal waters and simple way of living. The girl standing at the top is my mother, and right below her, with the short hair is my aunt. 

Now all this is amusing, but what makes it a far, far better story is that last weekend, almost 42 years after these young people stayed in the caves, they had a reunion back in Matala! Yep, my mother too. The Greek tourist board have gone to town promoting the reunion, calling it the 'hippie festival' and it was a long weekend of revelling, music and memories for 40 of the 'ex-hippies'. Click here to see some of the promotion for the festival.

Priceless. I can't wait to hear some of my mother's stories when she gets back. Now if this isn't novel material, then what is?

Some positivity in the doom and gloom writing market

Yesterday evening, my husband and I did a rapid swap over of the children at Waterloo Station as he was going to take them home again whilst I had a rare evening out. I'd decided to wear a dress in celebration of the fact I had some time to myself, and it wasn't until half an hour or so later that I realised that one side of my dress was splattered in dried food (from where I'd whizzed up some food for my baby before leaving) and the other side was stained with coffee (sleep deprivation has turned me into a serious coffee addict) - ah well, it's a mama's prerogative to be forever on the grubby side.

Anyway, my evening out was at the Orange and Grazia Writer's Evening at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the Southbank. It was chaired by the novelist Kate Mosse and included two published novelists, both in relatively early stages of their writing careers, one of the top publishers from Penguin and a well-respected literary agent. The discussion involved advice on getting published, writing tips and general information on the current market. I'd thought before going that I may come out of the hall feeling a little gloomy, because I constantly read about the dire climate and stagnant market for aspiring writers. However, I am very pleased to say that I came away from the evening feeling encouraged, inspired and positive. Yes, of course it's hard to get published and of course you need a whole lot more than luck to get noticed, you need some serious talent, but nobody ever said that anything that's worthwhile is easy. But the message I got was that both agents and publishers are looking for new talent and stuff does get picked up off the slush pile - if it's good enough. And that's the big IF, but I for one am raring to go.

The best short stories around

I came across this link today from One Story Blog in which a list of top short stories has been compiled. Now of course this is subjective and one of many different top ten lists that could exist, but even so I'm ashamed to say I've not read a single story from their top ten (though I think I've read a few from the long list). Sigh. I love short stories, and love writing them, so I know how important it is to read as widely as I can. Think I've got some catching up to do. But whilst I'm talking about short stories, I'm surprised Alice Munro didn't make it on to their top list. She is a Canadian writer, little read over here which is a shame in my opinion as I think she's a fantastic writer. Here's one of my favourite Alice Munro stories - it's called 'Tricks' and is in her collection 'Runaway' - I only read this story once over two years ago but it has really stayed with me and surely, for anyone who writes short fiction, this is what we aspire to.

Any of this ring true?

An excerpt from 'The hand that first held mine' by Maggie O'Farrell. She blatantly nicked Elizabeth Stone's wonderful words: "Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body." - Elizabeth Stone. But still, there's a great deal of truth here!


The women we become after children


We change shape, we buy low-heeled shoes, we cut off our long hair. We begin to carry in our bags half-eaten rusks, a small tractor, a shred of beloved fabric, a plastic doll. We lose muscle tone, sleep, reason, perspective. Our hearts begin to live outside our bodies. They breathe, they eat, they crawl and - look! - they walk, they begin to speak to us. We learn that we must sometimes walk an inch at a time, to stop and examine every stick, every stone, every squashed tin along the way. We get used to not getting where we were going. We learn to darn, perhaps to cook, to patch the knees of dungarees. We get used to living with a love that suffuses us, suffocates us, blinds us, controls us. We contemplate our bodies, our stretched skin, those threads of silver around our brows, our strangely enlarged feet. We learn to look less in the mirror. We put our dry-clean-only clothes to the back of the wardrobe. Eventually we throw them away. We school ourselves to stop saying 'shit' and 'damn' and learn to say 'my goodness' and 'heavens above'. We give up smoking, we colour our hair, we search the vistas of parks, swimming pools, libraries for others of our kind. We know each other by our pushchairs, our sleepless gazes, the beakers we carry. We learn how to cool a fever, ease a cough, the four indicators of meningitis, that one must sometimes push a swing for two hours. We buy biscuit cutters, washable paints, aprons, plastic bowls. We no longer tolerate delayed buses, fighting in the street, smoking in restaurants, sex after midnight, inconsistency, laziness, being cold. We contemplate younger women as they pass us in the street, with their cigarettes, their makeup, their smooth, washed hair, and we turn away, we put down our heads, we keep on pushing the pram up the hill.




Shit, what are the four indicators of meningitis??!!!

Springtime at Chalet Brio

A couple of weeks ago we returned from two amazing weeks staying at my aunt and uncle's chalet in the mountains in France. Here's a little poem I wrote about it...

Listen.

A stream trips over rocks as it follows its course downwards,

downwards from icy peaks to its valley cradle.

The forest is alive with the sounds of winged creatures – drilling and calling, soaring and seeking.

Distant bells sound from around the necks of cows, their craggy hulks weighted and framed against green slopes.

A child laughs, a swing creaks, a car roars, a lamb bleats,

a hammer pounds against nail,

then all is silent again.

Smell.

The secrets from the wood, curling into the dusky air.

Smoke, mingling with the earth’s scent, damp after a downpour.

The beefy, dungy, grassy smell that hangs itself stubbornly from mountain top to toe.

Wafts of culinary magic escaping from beneath a lid and tiptoeing down the stairs.

Smell the coffee brewing and the wet grass stewing in the evening rain.

Taste.

The green slice and crunch of teeth cutting through fresh market lettuce.

The creamy decadence of comté cheese and the know-you-shouldn’t-but-just-can’t-resist-spreading-it-thicker butter, pale as ivory.

The tenderness of lamb, tang of apples, sweetness of pears,

The lightness of the baguette beneath its hard, crispy shell

And the wine that slips gracefully, gratefully down.

Feel.

Put your hand against the sun-mellowed, rain-brushed wood of the chalet.

Turn your face to the expanding light that seeps over the mountain tops and slowly floods the garden, holding you in its brisk, bright clutches as a new day dawns.

Look.

The ark of a parapente appears, a bright scrap of fabric curved against the blue sky.

The breeze carries delicate white hands of dandelion clocks, tick-tocking down the peaceful hours.

Carry walking up the slope into L’Etelley, past the carpet of yellow dandelions and buttercups spread in thick clumps,

Past the tiny chapel, locked and frozen,

Keep walking, keep walking and here, Chalet Brio appears, a slice of paradise carved into the mountainside.

The Go Between

I've just read an wonderful book - it's such a joy to discover some of the older classics. It's called 'The Go-Between' and is by LP Hartley and the first line is the famous and true words: The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.


It's written from the perspective of a man in his sixties looking back to the events of what happened in the hot summer of 1900 when he was twelve years old. I found Hartley's portrayal of a young boy's innocence snatched away from him by the surrounding adults who use him for their own gain extremely moving.

Definitely one to read!

Meet the children

I've posted pictures of my children before, but I'd like to introduce them properly.

Here's Maya, my first born, age 4 ("almost five", I hear her say)

This cheeky little lady is Lily, age 2

And here's the little man, Benjamin, eight and a half bonny, bouncy months.

I don't want this blog to be about my insomnia, the fact that since I had children I stopped sleeping (yes, even those nights when there's not a peek out of any of them), but I'm afraid sometimes it seeps so deeply into my existence that it will be impossible not to mention it here. I know that being creative, doing things I truly value like writing, provide a lifeline for me and it's a way to lift myself out of the blues that I sometimes grapple with.

But looking at these pictures of my kids, I know how very, very lucky I am to have three such happy, healthy little people in my life.

Diamonds in my diary

Where does my creative life fit around perpetually-knackered-mother-of-three-under-five? Sleep has the habit of eluding me (I've charted this ad nauseum in Notes of an Insomniac mother) and I often wonder how? where? when? can I write. I got so excited about going back to work on my novel, but realistically, here I am grabbing five minutes to blog, standing up to type whilst the children are munching their way through snacks (like an egg-timer, the second the final crumb is gobbled up, my peace will evaporate)....so when will I really be able to spend the time I need to work on my novel? And even if I do find the time, will I have enough energy?

And I know, I know, this time will come. And I need to just remain in the present and enjoy my gorgeous children. But sometimes it all just feels overwhelming when I'm so exhausted and sleep-deprived and I feel like I'd like to go into hibernation for a year or twenty.

BUT, here's the good news. Over the past week or so I have unexpectedly reconnected with diary writing. I have kept a diary for almost thirty years (blimey) but it has always been sporadic, depending on what's happening in my life and how much time I'm spending blogging, for example. But last week I started a new diary and hit upon a different approach: rather than my normal recording of events and feelings, I decided to write three things each day that made me smile, or that I felt proud of myself about, or that I felt really positive about. It may sound like a strange thing to do, but on the days I feel low and exhausted (not to mention frustrated at my perceived lack of creativity meted out to my children and myself), it's helpful to remind myself that I can always find small diamonds of laughter, happiness and creativity, even on the toughest and roughest of days.

Friction Magazine

Click here to see the short piece I had accepted by Friction Magazine recently. I wrote this story for a creative writing evening class a few years back in which we had to write a piece from two differing viewpoints. Reading back over it now, there are several things I'd change, including the title! But still, it feels great to have something published.

Is today nearly over yet?

Here is a small snapshot out of my day:

8pm and 2 of my 3 children are screaming. My two year old is screaming because she had a half hour nap in the buggy earlier and is wide awake, unhappy that I keep asking her to go back to bed and I think she is quite enjoying the level of noise she is making and is experimenting with different screaming tones. My baby is screaming because his teeth are hurting (this is the default explanation for pretty much all unhappiness these days but it could just as easily be that he is unimpressed with some of the weird concoctions I feed him and has tummy ache). My husband is away on a 3 day conference, I've had horribly little sleep over the past two nights and all I want to do is collapse into the sofa with a very large thud. It's been one of those days: locked out of the house, pouring rain, library shut because of a freak fire alarm...But no, the screaming continues and you know when you get that tightness around your chest and you feel on the verge of throwing something very large and heavy through the window, just for the pleasure of hearing and seeing shattering glass? (Or is that just me??!!!!) Well, I resisted because I knew how long that would then to clear up and sort out, so instead had a good old wail along with my screaming children and now, one hour later - thank the Lord - all is quiet upstairs. I almost feel like I'm whispering this as I type, for fear of jinxing my words!

BUT. On a much happier note, a short story has just been accepted for Friction, an online journal for creative writing - yay! I'll post the link to the story when it's live.

Essential Writers

I have just stumbled upon a website which looks like a good resource for writers:

Essential Writers

The web never fails to amaze me. There is SO much out there (too much??)

Anyway, I am writing this site down as a reminder to myself to come back to this great site. My memory is worse than a sieve these days, it is like a sieve with holes in it. But now that my eight month old is finally sleeping through the night, that is a vast improvement on recent months when - forget about the seive - I had no memory at all!

Nature Deficit Disorder?

I remember blogging about Nature Deficit Disorder in my Adventuring Maya blog here and Richard Louv's book 'Last child in the woods.' Well, fast forward a year and a half and now I feel sure that not only are my children suffering from this, but their mama is too. We are living in - I must confess - a green, leafy and pleasant corner of London. However, I don't come into enough contact with open space. None of us do in our family, and I know that when I tell my kids we're heading for a park (ie parkland) and they ask where the swings are, it should hardly come as a surprise.

It is really, really important to me that my children grow up with a love of nature and the natural world, but how can I expect this if we stay ensconced in the suburbs of London? And as for me, this is what I need as regularly as I can to be creative, to feel alive, to be energised:
I need to stand in a space and close my eyes and hear birdsong, not just the rush of cars.
I need to be able to look up and see a canopy of leaves and wide open sky, not just tall buildings.
And I need to feel grass and earth and sand under my feet.

These needs often feel physical, starting as a dull throb and building up to a tightening around the chest. When I think about how much time I spent as a child in fields, letting my imagination run free, sometimes alone, sometimes with others and sometimes with a book, I occasionally feel gripped with a guilt of sorts that my own children don't have that same opportunity here in London. I am certain that these countless hours spent in nature helped to stoke my creativity. But I know that it is pointless and unhelpful feeling bad just because for my children, a 'park' contains swings and slides and a roundabout. We are urban dwellers right now, what can I expect? I need to just take every opportunity that presents itself to explore nature with my children, whether it takes the form of the allotment, a walk along the river or pointing out all the signs of spring as we walk to school. Because it is here, all around us, even in London. In the words of Rahima Baldwin who wrote a book called 'You are your child's first teacher', 'Nature is all around us, even in the city. If you can't exercise your powers of observation on a Sunday walk in the local park, you won't experience anything by the sea or in the mountains.' So maybe it's time for me to start appreciating what we have here, right under our noses.

The real reason why it rains

On Saturday mornings, when I have my opportunity to write and be alone, I often have this nervous energy fizzing away inside me. I need a way to channel this energy so that I can then sit down and write. Perhaps I need to do some deep breathing before I start (speaking of which, 'Writing begins with the breath' looks like a good book - maybe I should buy it) or, on the flip side, it may be more helpful to get some good music on, crank it up really loud and dance for a while to release some of this nervous energy. It's hard to explain, but I'm almost too over-excited to actually get down to the writing so I end up wasting silly amounts of time doing other things, eg looking for lost camera battery chargers which I've just been doing. Grrrrr. Crazy, isn't it?

So far this year, I've been keeping a close record as always of stories I've been sending out into the world, mostly to small press magazines or online literary zines. I've sent stuff to 11 different places and of these, 4 have said no, 1 has put my story on to a short list and I've not heard from the others. But it makes me think - this is a good indication of just how far and wide I need to keep casting my net in order to get the thumbs up from anyone. Here's a small tale I wrote about my paternal grandfather Sam for the Scottish Book Trust's 'Family Legends'. It's nothing too creative, but I love family folklore and I think it's so important to keep these family tales alive and passing through the generations. My daughters didn't know my maternal grandparents, but they know exactly who they are (Granny Teacups and Great Grandpa Thompson, or GGT) and I hope will one day be able to pass on stories about them to their own children.

Speaking of my daughters', yesterday my four year old said 'I know why it rains.' When I asked why, thinking I was about to hear  a version of something she'd learnt at science week at school, she replied 'Because a giant turns on an enormous tap in the sky.' I love that. Children's imaginations are just so fertile and it's something we MUST encourage, before that frustratingly inevitable reality check kicks in.

Cherry Blossom & Prezi

It is saturday morning, that incredible time of the week for me when I am granted a couple of blissful hours alone to tippety-tap-type and dream. I keep getting distracted by the beautiful pink cherry blossom out of the window and realise that I am far too easily distracted. Mslexia magazine sent out a survey recently to its subscribers asking, amongst other things, what people like to wear when they're writing. Wear? I thought. How silly! I'll wear any old thing I happen to be in. However, if I dig a bit deeper into my honesty trough, this isn't true. The truth of it is that I like to be showered and dressed with clean teeth and warm feet. Why? No reason whatsoever, it's just one of those funny quirks that writers must be forgiven for.

{I'd like to add a little aside at this point to say that, rather typically in light of what I wrote at the start of this post, my two little girls just wandered into the room to jump on the bed....hmmm...this definitely works better when they're all out of the house!}

Since writing my last post, I haven't taken a single step further as far as the novel goes. There simply has not been the time. However, I've been enjoying thinking about it a little and remembering a few of the characters. I know I'm going to have to read up on the Spanish Civil War again too as I became quite an expert on that several years ago...but the bottom of my memory seems to have fallen out! A vague plan I am formulating is that I am going to work on my Women's Writing Wheel website over the next few months, deciding how I am going to take it forwards and developing it. Then come September, my middle daughter will start nursery and my mother will look after my baby on thursdays which means I will potentially have an entire day to myself to write! This is when I can start some serious work on the novel again. I can't wait!

On another note, Prezi is a web based tool used to connect an idea with an audience, a bit like Powerpoint but far more visual and creative and engaging. Click here to see an interesting presentation on the elements that make up a short story.

In the shade of the orange tree

Granada

Well, something has happened which, for me and my writing world, is a big old deal. I wrote a couple of blogs back that I had sent my manuscript of the novel I wrote years ago (set in Granada during the Spanish civil war) off to an Authors' Advisory Service. I was bracing myself to be told I really ought to put it behind me and move on. But this isn't what happened. I received a very thorough ten-page report which was very encouraging and told me that this manuscript definitely warrants a re-write. It needs lots of work (which I knew already) but they've highlighted for me which steps to take to get it to the stage where it can once again be sent out into the world.

Now I know this is just one opinion. But I can't help but feel excited and encouraged by this. I've never been able to forget about this story or these characters and they've told me that all the material I need is here, it's just what I do with it now. I also know that even if I do re-write the entire novel this is of course no guarantee that this will result in publication. BUT. Do I owe it to myself to try? Yes. Am I up for the challenge? Yes. Am I in a rush? With three small children and barely a moment in the day to myself, I couldn't be in a rush even if I wanted to be. But I'm going to do this at some stage, I really am. I'm going to return to the world of the Ramirez-Torres family and see how they'd like me to alter their stories and the events that happened to them.

Events

Leading on from my previous blog about finding my way slowly back out into the world of socialising and activity once again (after my lengthy hibernation!), I'm going to write a short list of writing / literary / poetry events I'd like to go to at some point this year; something I can refer to when I'm feeling inspired to have an evening out.

In no particular order, here they are:

Oh joy, I have discovered there is a Creative Writing school at the South Bank Centre. There's a dialogue writing event coming up on 8th March.

Bookslam looks like a fun night out with some really good writers talking about their work.

Woolfson and Tay is an independent bookshop in central London which has regular author events, talks and performances.

Calder Bookshop is another independent bookshop, Waterloo based, which again holds regular events and talks. Long live the independent bookshop!

The Book Club Boutique sounds kind of wacky, but lots of fun. It is, apparently, a place for books, booze and boogie woogie.


So, here's my next challenge....having listed these events, I now need to get to them!