Digging

Seamus Heaney

I discovered this wonderful poem recently by Seamus Heaney. I love the parallels between digging and writing; the unearthing and composting of ideas, new growth, creating, learning and connecting. And whilst Heaney knows he's not made of the mettle of his father and grandfather, he digs with his pen instead; the pen that has become his own weapon. Here it is:

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb   

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound   

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:   

My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds   

Bends low, comes up twenty years away   

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills   

Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft   

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked,

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.   

Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner’s bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I’ll dig with it.

Anger

Michael Morpurgo

The wonderful Michael Morpurgo was talking on Radio 4's film programme yesterday about his latest big screen adaptation from one of his books, Private Peaceful. Set in the trenches of WW1, the comment was made that the film comes across as being angry. And what Morpurgo said in reply had me racing to grab a pen and paper. Here it is:

'We have this (anger)…otherwise what is film? What is art unless it’s stirring us and opening our eyes and touching our hearts and I think a little bit of anger is grist to the mill.'

That really struck a chord with me. Looking back over my short stories, many of them are set in war zones or painful situations. Even my novel deals with civil war and life under a dictatorship. And it's not because I enjoy writing about war, it's because there is some of this anger Morpurgo talks about churning inside me about the injustice of it. And what do we do when we feel angry, we have to channel it somehow. It's drawing a map of myself and my place in the world, but it's also throwing a potion of anger and hope downriver. Because you never know when these words will be picked up, by whom or what kind chord it will strike with them.

Malala

Malala Yousafzai

If I ever feel as though I can't write or say what I want to, then here's a sobering thought: a few days ago, 14 year old Malala from Pakistan was shot in the head and neck by the Taliban whilst on her way to school. Her crime? For speaking out on rights for children, particularly that girls should be granted an education.  When Malala was just 11 years old, she wrote an anonymous blog documenting her experiences of life under the Taliban and just last year was nominated for the International Children's peace prize.

Malala knew that her life was in danger and the Taliban have issued a statement that if she survives this attack, there will be another assassination attempt. What child should have to fight for the right for an education? In cosy suburban London, my own children have every opportunity available to them and it's easy to sink into the comfortable notion that this is 'life'. But not so for far too many. Malala is in a stable but critical condition in hospital and if she pulls through, her voice and her courage are needed more than ever. 

Mountain air and little red letters

I have just returned from four days in Switzerland in France where we went for my brother in law's 50th birthday - lots of fresh air, memories, mountains, divine food and dancing. The Dents Du Midi, the mountains in the picture I took above, are the backdrop to my childhood and I couldn't get enough of gazing at them.

Seeing lots of people I haven't seen for some time, people naturally want to know what I've been up to and how my writing is going. When I tell them I'm working on getting my novel published, a few comment What, you still haven't got that one published? It's all in jest, ha ha, but even so, I did find myself stopping and scratching my head on a few occasions. I know there are some who think that all one has to do to publish a novel is just send it out there and sit and wait for the rest to happen. People are not trying to be unkind, they are just (blissfully) ignorant of the true nature of the beast that is the publishing industry.

It's hard at times like this not to have a minor crisis of confidence in my abilities. This is two-fold I think, firstly that yes, I am still working on the same novel so many years on and secondly, that no literary agent let alone publisher is sitting up and taking notice of me. It didn't help that just the day after I got back, I received another bog-standard rejection letter from one of the agents who was interested in my novel the first time round. Sigh. Another notch of red on my colour-coded literary agents chart - I have yet to highlight anything in green! It is very, very easy to occasionally ask myself the questions Can I really write at all? Am I wasting my time? Who wants to read a novel set in the Spanish Civil war anyway? Judging by the bestseller charts, all everyone wants to read about is sex (not mentioning any names Ms James), and no matter how hard I try, erotica is never going to be my genre.

HOWEVER....enough of giving myself a hard time. I happen to have three small children and that may just factor in a tad as to why it's taken me so long to complete my novel. I have a document in which I write down all the 'writing successes' I've had over the years, whether it's having a short story published  or an article in the Green Parent magazine. I think this is really important for me and this is why I keep writing and sending out stories to places, because sometimes they do get accepted and it's an affirmation for me that I can write. I am also really looking forward to a workshop I'm going to on saturday which is all about designing and evaluating effective creative writing workshops with Lapidus (Writing for health and wellbeing). The idea has danced around the back of my head for many years that at some point in the future, I'd love to do more writing in the community. Writing is something I am so passionate about that I want to learn how I can share this passion with others.

It's so important for me, particularly now with these little confidence knocks I'm receiving, to keep focussed on my love of writing; that it's not all about 'THE NOVEL', it's about getting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard!) and how that makes me feel.

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.