Joni Mitchell and Serendipity

Joni Mitchell

A couple of weeks ago, I experienced a lovely little twist of serendipity. I've been starting to think about the next novel I'm going to write -  it's inspired by the stint my mother spent in some caves on the island of Crete, back in the late sixties. I won't go in to details about it now (you never know who may read this and want to steal my idea - tee hee), but I'm feeling very excited as the plot and characters are starting to form in my head. 

Anyway, most people are probably familiar with the iconic voice of Joni Mitchell. I first heard her album 'Blue' from 1971 whilst I was at Uni and have been hooked ever since. I love many of her songs, but there is one in particular that I have played again and again over the years, quite literally to the death! Her song 'Carey'  has remained firmly in my spotify file of favourite songs and even my kids sometimes hum little parts of it. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that Joni Mitchell herself stayed in these very same caves as my mother around the same time and her song 'Carey' was inspired by her time there!!  It was so wonderful to find this out, and definitely felt like a serendipitous little nod in the direction that this is the novel I'm meant to be writing next.

Listening to the song now, the lyrics have taken on a whole new meaning, particularly as my mother remembers well the 'Mermaid cafe' she refers to.  I'm pasting some of the lyrics below, and if you want to hear the song and see the caves, watch this little video. Carey was apparently a cane-carrying chef that the young Joni had a relationship with whilst staying at the caves.

The wind is in from Africa
Last night I couldn't sleep
Oh, you know it sure is hard to leave here Carey
But it's really not my home
My fingernails are filthy, I got beach tar on my feet
And I miss my clean white linen and my fancy French cologne

Oh Carey get out your cane
And I'll put on some silver
Oh you're a mean old Daddy, but I like you fine

Come on down to the Mermaid Cafe and I will buy you a bottle of wine
And we'll laugh and toast to nothing and smash our empty glasses down
Let's have a round for these freaks and these soldiers
A round for these friends of mine
Let's have another round for the bright red devil
Who keeps me in this tourist town

Come on, Carey, get out your cane
I'll put on some silver
Oh you're a mean old Daddy, but I like you

Wishes on the wind

'I'm making wishes on the wind....'

Yesterday my middle child said to me, completely out of nowhere, I'm making wishes on the wind, mummy. I had to stop what I was doing and ask her to say it again, just to check I'd heard right. But yes, I had. She repeated it and then proceeded to make up a song about wishing on the wind while she danced around the sitting room. Oh, to have that wonderful, uninhibited imagination of a four year old. She's not trying to be creative - she just, like all children, IS.

In the words of Pablo Picasso, Every child is an artist, the problem is staying an artist when you go grow up.

Play

My eldest daughter, lost in the moment

I read a great article in Mslexia recently about play and how vital its role is in our creative endeavours. The writer, Sarah Salway, talks about how guilty we often feel if we allow ourselves the time to 'play' as we feel it's not a good use of our time. But actually, by giving ourselves the liberty to play and experiment, a whole realm of alter personalities can be given life and new doorways opened. And of course, play doesn't just mean being pushed back and forth on a swing or engaging in a game of hide and seek. It's doing something that makes you feel good, simply for the pleasure of the activity and the sensation it creates. Play has no fixed outcome or rules and no material interest. It could be reading, running, kneading dough, travelling...

Anyway, the reason I'm talking about all this is that Sarah Salways's article (and Stuart Brown's very interesting book - Play: How it shapes the brain, opens the imagination and invigorates the soul) got me thinking about two things: How playing relates to my writing, and how it relates to my perceived idea of the way my children play.

Firstly, with my writing, I know of course the importance of taking risks, but how often do I actually do it? It's very easy to sit at the laptop and write a scene of my novel or a short story and stick to those tried and tested default methods of writing I've built up over the years. But how often do I stretch myself out of those walls I've pencilled around myself? Not enough. As novelist Michelle Lovric states, if the writer takes themselves too seriously, they "rule out serendipitous writing discoveries." After reading the article, I saw a deadline for a short story submission and it was just two days away. I decided, crazy though it was in a way as it was such a short time, to try and write this story. But more importantly, be playful in my attitude to writing this story and see where it took me. I'm pleased to say I got the story done and sent it off and there was definitely a shift there; a small but subtle shift in the way I wrote it. A nutty female stalker jumped out of my imagination on to the page (where did she come from?) and it felt good; a little less safe, a little more from the gut. Who knows if they'll like it, but I felt good about it.

Secondly: my kids. Ok, I am going to quote Stuart Brown here because when I read this paragraph yesterday I literally wanted to hop up and down and shout 'yes! yes!' because it's something I've felt for a long time but not been able to put it into words very well.


'We may think that we are helping to prepare our kids for the future when we organise all their time, when we continually ferry them from one adult-organised, adult-regulated activity to another. And, of course, to some degree these activities do promote culturally approved behaviour as well as reinforce our role as "good" parents. But in fact we may be taking from them the time they need to discover for themselves their most vital talents and knowledge. We may be depriving them of access to an inner motivation to an activity that will later blossom into a motive force for life."


I believe he's really got something here. I want my children to have time and space for their ideas to grow. I am just as guilty of this as the next person, but this constant adult-led organisation of kids' time may be doing them more harm than good. The games that my children have utterly lost themselves in (and I mean games in terms of 'play' with no fixed outcomes, I'm not talking about snakes and ladders) are the ones they have created themselves. The imaginations of children are wild, unfettered and vast and what I've read has reinforced what I believe: provide a safe environment (but not so safe it's completely risk-free - ha!), be playful myself (because children learn more from what we do than say: my parenting blueprint) and let my kids do the rest. And while I'm at it, take a leaf out of their book. Play comes so naturally to children - not so to adults. Stuart Brown talks about adults taking their 'play histories' i.e. delving back into their memories of what you played with as a child and how you played. What did you get get excited about? It could be something as simple as collecting conkers or licking the bowl with your finger after making biscuits. And then reconnect with this play history. I haven't really sat down and thought about this yet, but I'm looking forward to doing this. Because if I can become more playful in my outlook on life, then hopefully this will show in my writing. And my children won't learn this from me, but I'll continue to learn from them, through their inherent joyfulness and playfulness.

Sending my words out to the world

Last thursday, I sent my novel (well, the first 10,000 words) off to 13 agents, yep, 13. Quite a few. As I wrote a couple of blogs ago, when I started re-sending my novel out, I sent it only to the 4 agents who were interested in it the first time round (a writer contact advised not sending it to too many first time round as it can be rather painful for the tender writer to receive a sackful of rejection letters - ouch). Anyway, I've heard back from 2 of them (no ta, we still don't want it) and the others, no word. This was at the start of the summer and I'm wondering if I'll ever hear from them at all. Another writer friend, upon completion of his novel, sent it out to 20 people, received 11 standard rejection letters and 9 of them never got back to him at all. I mean, seriously, I know literary agencies are sometimes running on a shoestring and all the rest of it but how hard can it really be to just drop an email to say they don't want it? Hurrumph. 

But back to me....as I said, last week I decided to thrown caution to the wind and send it to 13 agents. It's a good feeling. Of course I don't know what will happen, but just to be pro-active, to be sending it out to the world. Less than a week later, I have received 3 replies, all no thank you's. One was even quite complementary about my manuscript, saying what an engaging narrative style it had and how she was impressed by its originality. Why then, my mother asked the question, don't they just take it? Well, you see, therein lies the rub: you can't just impress an agent, you have to utterly bowl them over. And even if I get an agent, there is, frustratingly, no guarantee of securing publication. A third writer contact found an agent for her novel who was hugely enthused by her novel, yet simply could not find a British publisher prepared to take it on. Finally, she found a German publisher but the novel was never published in the english language. How crazy is that? But hey, I think I need to stop worrying about what happens to other people and just concentrate on my own book. I'll get there, I know I will.

Birthday Poetry

Last weekend it was my birthday and as part of the Thames Festival we went to a poetry and music festival next to the Oxo Tower called Wild Words. When I was there, I saw a little van with lots of people standing in a queue, clearly waiting for something. Intrigued, I went to investigate and it turned out that there were three poets sitting in the van doing bespoke, take-out poetry - how fabulous is that?

I waited for some time, and when it was my turn, the poet asked me what I would like a poem about. I scratched my head a little, told him it was my birthday and said I'd love a poem about a successful writing year, unsurprisingly mentioning my novel (ha!). He asked me more questions, about my family etc,  scribbled some notes and then told me to come back in about an hour  (there were some pretty ravenous poetry-seekers waiting behind me!). When I returned, the poet stepped out of the van and performed my tailor-made poem to me and it was wonderful. So personal and...well....poetic (duh). He then proceeded to fold it up and put the poem in its own little take-away bag for me to keep! Such a fantastic idea - can you imagine if there were more mobile poetry emporium's on the streets of London? LOVE it.

Hello World

Wow, it's been a long time since I last posted. It's been a summer filled with weddings, festivals, picnics, ocean, sunshine and rain. What's happened to my blog? I guess it just fell by the wayside. And I was utterly wrapped up in re-writing my novel, which brings me to why I've decided to start blogging again. It's a long, lonely, painful process this road to publication and I feel now that I want to share some of this process. I feel more determined than ever to get this book published (and yes, even if that means publishing an e-book which would mean, in turn, embracing digital technology and buying a kindle - gulp).

This is where I'm at right now - I've heard back from 2 of the 4 agents who were originally interested in my work 6 years ago. The response has been a polite, firm "no". Today's task: to send my manuscript to several more agents. The picture below is my little boy, finding his independence, exploring. It reminds me of my long road I'm travelling. But at the end of the road is the sea, the destination. And in the words of my favourite poem of all time by John Masefield, I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky. Because that's where my prize is waiting, no matter what form it takes.

The Girl and the Rickshaw

Hooray, a short story published in Magic Cat Press called 'The Girl and the Rickshaw'. Click here to have a read. The story is inspired by my year spent in India and the many rickshaw journeys I took around Bangalore, though the girl is definitely not me! This is a funny old story, the few people that have read it have generally said that they felt let down by the ending. I guess Magic Cat Press didn't feel that way as otherwise they wouldn't have accepted it, but if anybody out there does read it, I'd be hugely grateful for some feedback!

Happy new year!

New year's Resolutions....Hmmm.....Stop yelling at my kids so much in the morning?? Deep breaths before I think I'm going to blow a fuse? Poor kids, it's not their fault they have to go to school and we have to be out the house by silly-o'clock. More patience please, new-year's-resolution fairy!

But as for writing resolutions, well I have a very simple one really, and that is to be far more disciplined on my thursday writing day. Email OFF, phone OFF, twitter OFF and more focus. It worked really well this past thursday, so I just need to keep it up. I have also started a little 'magpie' book, collecting little snippets of interesting facts / conversation / images /  ideas etc from my day which may someday be able to work their way into a story. Yesterday for example I had my hair cut by a lady with black hair with white stripes in it, so that went down in my book: 'zebra hair'. Also, she had a very prominent tattoo on her forearm so I decided to ask her about it rather than just look at it. She told me that she had it done just after her daughter was born and the tattoo spelt out her name. Brilliant - a zebra-haired hairdresser with Ivanka tattooed on her arm. Love it.

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.