Archive for July, 2009

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Making A Dress


2009
07.29

Posted in People | 2 Comments »

 

katie

Katie cutting out

 

 

Sometimes life takes us by surprise and so it was yesterday when I found myself with my daughter Katie, in a rainy Barnard Castle, looking for a dress pattern, zip, and cotton thread, to make a dress! The last dress I made was at least forty years ago.

It started with a curtain, well to be accurate with a nose around the charity shops, in an attempt to keep dry. And before that an expedition to the Bowes Museum in search of inspiration for the second year of Katie’s MA at the Royal College of Art. (We loved the porcelain and the two headed calf – but more of that in later blogs.)

To get back to the curtain – it was the wonderful cream chintz that inspired us - and penniless students can’t be choosers! Could I show her how to make a dress? Was that possible? Well, I am never one to spurn a creative challenge and didn’t I grow up surrounded with yards of material, the sound of the treadle and a mother with a mouth full of pins? Yes you guessed it, my mother was a dressmaker and as far back as I can remember she made clothes for other people; sometimes jackets and suits (she trained with a tailor), sometimes wedding dresses and occasionally chic little numbers crafted from Vogue patterns.

She was exceptionally good at needlework and I was not, hence it was always easier to give her my needlework homework and get top marks.

It was never my thing – it’s too precise and I am not known for my precision or my neatness, but Katie is, and that’s what swung me. I thought we would make a good team. I thought I could show her how it was done whilst letting her cut, stitch and press, and I was right.

We made the dress in less than two days and it looks the business. We  had fun doing it and surprised ourselves by how well it turned out. I was surprised too by how much I’d learned from my mother all those years ago and how much I remembered. 

But the biggest surprise and the most unexpected outcome, was the way in which making this dress with my daughter Katie, brought my mother, her grandmother, flooding back into the room to sit beside us.

4 comments

Editing the Characters in your Novel


2009
07.28

Posted in Editing Your Novel, My Writing, Writing your novel | 4 Comments »

 

tyne

The Tyne Bridge - Newcastle

 

The biggest question for me as I begin the edit of my novel concerns my protagonist Danny Beck – what I need to know is will the world love Danny Beck as much as I do ?  Have I brought my Private Investigator to life? 

If  characters don’t live then readers won’t keep turning the pages of the novel. It’s as simple as that!

So here are the questions I will be asking myself as I read through my first draft – and I will be asking them not just of Danny but of all my main characters

Is he alive? Will the reader empathise with him?  Is he three dimensional: does he laugh, cry, hurt, have fun? Does he have both weaknesses and strengths? Can we see him, do we have a physical picture of him? Does he have a history?

Does he want something? Does he struggle?  Does he have major obstacles to overcome? Does he change? If he doesn’t change or grow then it won’t work – there is no real story arc. You need to ask these question of all your major characters

Does he continue to hold our attention or does he grow stale? How does he surprise us? Our characters should not always be predictable although they must be believable.

Is he consistent? For example, in the beginning of the novel I show that Danny is often hungry, always looking for food although worrying about his weight, so I need to ensure that this theme continues throughout the novel – although maybe at the end he is not so hungry anymore.

Is he on the page and not just in your head? I have certainly had the experience of creating a character who was real to me but who others found unconvincing. It came as a real surprise to me. This can sometimes happen when a character’s experience is close to your own.  Here, as in all aspects of editing, you need to look from a distance and take nothing for granted.

 

Some questions more relevant to minor characters are:

Is she necessary? if you removed her would it matter? Does she have a role to play?

Does she reflect the themes of the novel?

Have you introduced a character once and then forgotten about them? No character should be lost like this, if they are not important then they shouldn’t be there in the first place.

Are your minor characters consistent eg. are their eyes always the same colour? !

You are sure to find ways in which you can improve or add to your characterisation as you edit. As you do bear in mind there are many elements that come together to create a good novel but characters are the driving force behind them all.

Good Luck – here’s Danny…

Beck hurried away. He figured there was nothing he could do but take her with him to join the ghosts of the other dead women who lived inside him. Suddenly he was very hungry.

…. The Cafe Marino was several streets down from the Quayside. Beck went there when he needed to eat or think, or both. Once inside he saw that his usual table near the back was empty. He made for it, took his coat off, draped it over the back of the plastic chair, realising as he did so that his hands were shaking, and sat down. A man more used than most to daily dramas and tragedies, the realities of prison life, he was nonetheless shocked by what he’d seen. To compensate he ordered a bottle of house wine. It was rough, red, gut-churning, the only wine they sold. It would do. He’ d intended to ask for a glass but when it came to it, ‘bottle,’ was the word that escaped his lips… 

While we’re on the subject of editing I have made a note in the margins to locate the Cafe Marino more precisely with a small local reference. All part of my Newcastle research? Any suggestions?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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How To Begin Editing Your Novel


2009
07.26

Posted in Editing Your Novel, Lists, My Writing, Writing your novel | 2 Comments »

Anyone who has followed my blogs knows I am a big fan of lists - apart, of course, from the ones that itemise the supermarket shopping, or the kind I used to make when I was at work in the prison. No, I’m talking about the creative list:the list that makes a poem or the list that guides you through a tricky process like editing. Such a list should never be  followed slavishly, but should be a list that gets you going, a list that above all inspires and helps. A list that gets to the heart of things.

So here ‘s my list for beginnng the edit of your novel. I will be using it too.

         1. Choose a rainy Sunday, better still set aside a day in your diary, make a date with yourself, but before you begin sit down to breakfast -this is a day to relish!

 

breakfast 2

I like to eat my breakfast looking out onto the garden and I prefer fine cut to thick marmalade every time

   

     2. Now ask yourself the most important question of all – what kind of an editor am I? Consider when you set out to edit your work what it is you are most likey to do or focus on. What might you do too much of? What might you forget?

I know that I tend to spend a long time on close editing my text: the words, phrases, sentences, how they fit together, whether they can be improved (more of this in my later post about micro editing). There is nothing wrong with this and I will always want to edit my work to a fine level BUT I know that sometimes it gets in the way of the bigger picture.  I need to get out of my comfort zone of fine tuning - so to do this, instead of embarking on a close screen edit I am going to resist the word play and go straight for broke to number 3

    3. Print off a copy of your novel – all of it!  Your words will seem different on the page, the whole thing will seem different, and if you want to read with the eyes of a stranger then the screen simply won’t do. Make sure your manuscript has wide margns and double spacing so that you have plenty of room to write directly onto the page. 

    4. Make a list (the woman is obssessed I hear you say!) of the key themes and contexts of your novel and keep a copy in front of you or stick one up on the board above your desk. This will act as a kind of checklist and  help you to sustain and strengthen the layers of your novel. Mine begins:

     Danny Beck’s dance with death

     Newcastle in winter

    Danny’s recent ‘escape’ from the world of prison

    Surveillance/watching

    5.  Once you have completed your list then try to write down what your book is about. Do this in no more than three sentences , (not always easy) and keep this with you or put it up on your noticeboard. You can then refer back as you read through and check that you have not lost sight of the most important aspects of your story.

    6. Now armed with a notebook for things that need further consideration and pens or pencils -perhaps the hardest task of all-  re-invent yourself. Imagine that you are about to go on holiday and have just picked up this book to take with you – as far as possible put yourself in this stranger’s shoes or on their sunbed and read your novel as they would. This is difficult but well worth trying – critical distance is everything

    7. Bear in mind the points raised over the course of the next week, in posts 3, 4 and 5 in particular and start reading.

    8. Enjoy - no writing or task associated with writing should be anything but enjoyable! Smile and take a moment to pat yourself on the back and gloat at  having reached the milestone of your first completed draft.

ms

My manuscript today - fresh from the printer!

Good Luck!

If you would like to contact me with any thoughts or questions but do not want to leave a blog comment then  my e mail address is - amjoy@hotmail.co.uk 

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Editing Your Novel – 6 Things You Need to Know


2009
07.21

Posted in Editing Your Novel, My Writing, Writing your novel | 4 Comments »

 

 

sunflowers

 

Well although the rain is unrelenting and my garden looks like a rain forest, life has improved immesurably on last week and to celebrate I’ve bought sunflowers!

At last, dare I say it, I believe I’m in a position to start the first big edit on my new novel.

I’ve been thinking a fair bit about the job of editing;  it was something we discussed last week at my writers group -Wear Valley Writers – and since then I have honed my thoughts into six major areas which I intend to cover in my next six blog posts

                          I.  How to Begin Editing your Novel

                          2. Editing The Characters In Your Novel

                          3. Editing Story Arc and Continuity

                          4. Editing the scenes in your novel

                          5. How to edit your novel at the micro level

                          6  How to know when your novel is finished

 

I don’t claim to have the definitive word on editing, of course not, but I have done enough editing now to know how to go about it, what works for me and what a writer’s major concerns should be. I believe that  the art of editing a novel is not dissimilar to the art of editing short stories and even bears some similarities to the editing of poetry, so hopefully the posts will be of interest to new writers whatever their chosen form.

When I am about to begin on my first big edit of a novel I am always excited but fearful and this time its no different. It’s exciting to know I have 80,000 words to play with, some of which I know will be good but it is also scary (especially as I wrote this so quickly) wondering  what is not so good and will it all work? And how much more is there to do?

Learning how to edit your own work is a  key part of becoming  a writer. I expect my first edit to show that I have a lot of work still to do. Why? Because nothing is perfect, far from it, and I want this novel to be the best it possible can be before I even think of sending it to my agent.

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All Good Copy


2009
07.19

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

buttercups 2

 

Driving to a workshop in Middlesborough on Friday on flooded roads – raining all the way there and all the way back it was difficult not to think of Agde and the hot sun of the south. It was difficult not to wish myself back there, sat at the cafe Plaza drinking iced coffee, especialy after the week I’d had.

Life has not been kind this week – that’s how it sometimes goes – life gets you by the throat and squeezes hard – days later you are still gasping for breath and having finally come down from the adrenalin high are left dazed and exhausted. That’s how it’s been in our house. Enough said. I’m planning on this week being better (it can’t be worse) but as my writing buddy Wendy always says – ‘it’s all good copy.’  Everything that happens to a writer is stored up and used, in disguise of course, in future writings. Nothing is wasted.

But despite it all there are good things: England going great guns in the Ashes, laughter despite everything, the cows outside the window in the long buttercup strewn grass…

 

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Sushi, Poetry and the Laing Gallery


2009
07.12

Posted in France, My Writing, Poetry | 1 Comment »

A detail from the Burne Jones windows

A detail from the Burne Jones windows

 

On Thursday I did some research for my novel about Private Investigator Danny Beck. This involved trying sushi for the first time at the Yosushi bar in Fenwick’s Food Hall. As a consequence I  have decided that Beck definitely eats sushi with plenty of wasabi when he has a hangover! 

It also involved a visit to the Laing Gallery cafe to look at the wonderful Burne Jones stained glass windows which dominate the space.  Beck sometimes meets Sarah here - she is a landscape artist and the love of his life but she is married to his best friend. 

Yesterday I spent the day reading poetry and working on my poems from the Languedoc. I also ordered some poetry from Amazon – How the Bicycle Shone by Gillian Allnutt, who lives and works here in County Durham. I would really like to learn so much more about writing poetry and I am very conscious that the first thing to do is READ as much as I can.

Some of my poems seem hard come by others arrive easily – here is one that arrived yesterday, its about leaving France

 

Leaving

 Now the trees in the Jeu de Ballon are flowering

in feathers and the oleander’s brilliance is gone

 

today the heat seems more welcome than before

beneath the red canopy of the Café Plaza -

 

the faces more familiar and the sun on my feet

softer falling in pools on the dusty bedroom floor -

 

the wind off the Herault cooler as it runs

upstream to pebbled seas and diving bridge gorge  -

 

the bark of the plain tree more dappled in the square

where the empty stage has yet to be deconstructed -

 

the building’s skin greyer, muted blue and flat

shuttered as the afternoon heat peels paint from wood

 

while at the open window above me a purple

curtain shifts, catches in the white cat’s paw

 

and snags the thread of leaving from this place of now

how quickly it runs away, and the days empty.

 

My three good things for today -  reading my poems from yesterday, working at the table alongside my son David, a cup of tea and a Tunnocks tea cake (the way they melt in your mouth -ummm!)

2 comments

Small Stones


2009
07.08

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

 

Lavender

Lavender in the garden of the Abbaye de Valmagne - France

 

Yesterday I discovered two new sites which I would like to share with you.

They are called A Small Stone and A Handful of Stones  (you can log on to them by clicking the new Small Stones box on my sidebar)  and they belong to Author Fiona Robyn whose blog – Planting Words  I really enjoy – a great mix of writing, gardening and zen.

Small stones are about mindfulness – about paying attention to at least one small thing a day and recording it in a fragment of writing. I think that some people have a  natural gift for this – of paying close attention to the things they do no matter how small (Debora ) is like this when she is chopping and cooking – no wonder the food tastes so good) – finding this site reminded me of how I want to be more like this. Paying attention in this way is like a meditation and it reminds us of the value of everything, especially the small things. Somehow it feels a very positive and happy thing to do.

At one particularly difficult time in my life I did something similar – although much less writerly – and that was – every day – I wrote down in my notebook five good things that had happened or I had seen. I called it my FIVE A DAY – doing it always made me feel better and brought me back to the things that were really important.

I have a new resolution which is to write a small stone every day and  3 good things (not that there won’t be five – but I want to keep it small) having received several beautiful notebooks for my birthday I think its time to get one out and start. 

I’d love to hear your three good things  - send your small stones to Fiona

 

My small stone for yesterday — Rain washed freesias and orange blossom for a friend who is sad

3 goodthings – picking flowers in the garden and their heavy honey scent -getting my hair cut, finding small stones!

3 comments

Writing Workshops – Are They Good For You?


2009
07.06

Posted in People, Workshops | 3 Comments »

On Saturday I helped Wendy run a writing workshop at Bishop Auckland Town Hall on Life Writing. As always we got together before hand to plan it, only this time our heads were still floating somehwere between The North East and France – maybe over The Channel!

Nevertheless, as always, we gave it our best shot – to us it is very important when people invest time and money in a workshop that they go away feeling that it has been in some way worthwhile, hopefully inspiring.

Often I find that if the workshop seems to have gone well I may be tired (sometimes shatttered) but I  am invariably inspired and enthused. From this I conclude that workshops are good for you and that goes for the tutuors too. I never come away from a workshop without – a fragment, an idea – a longer piece of writing which I invariably use in my work. Perhaps this is beacause we always write alongside the group. This time I had a piece of prose about a barely known grandmother that I want to use in my poetry.

The best thing about workshoping is of course the writers you meet, and Saturday was no exception. From a long list, only four actually turned up on the day but what a four! They were all great writers – all with quite unique voices and some brilliant ideas, so that I am very much looking forward to our next meeting in August.

I came away feeling inspired – I hope they did.

I’d be interested to hear your views on workshops – I feel there may be many tales to tell -…!

John working on a great story from his life involving a pit explosion

John working on a great story from his life involving a pit explosion

5 comments

Coming Home


2009
07.05

Posted in Gardens, My Writing, People, Places | 5 Comments »

 

 

front-window1

My front window and the green fields beyond

 

It’s now a week since I got back from France and to my surprise I am still adjusting. It has been quite a culture shock to move from a place where writing was everything to a world full of home and people and another life altogether. Of course some of this has been wonderful: arriving back to my home and family - to a house full of colour with carpets underfoot and my garden full of green. How green is England!  (The tones here are so blue compared with those yellow tones in the Languedoc). I know it’s what returning travellers always say; England is so green. Well it’s true -it is a lush and beautiful garden full of honeyed scents and damp earth, with cows  in the fields, long grasses, pale roses, Wimbeldon and strawberries (in my opinion better than french strawberries) - and here there are no seagulls only the occassional owl at night. It is also the place where I belong and where my friends are:Val and Jackie and Marnie - and it feels good to be back on touch with them as well as with  family. (And others too, soon I hope)

 

roses

Roses in my garden

 

I saw London on the way here, staying overnight last Saturday and meeting up with Katie my daughter in Covent Garden – in the middle of the heatwave! My sleep deprived, aeroplane fuelled, head had difficulty in coping. I don’t think I’d ever seen London so crowded or so hot. We had to dive for cover into the air con interior of a restaurant the name of which I don’t remember and stay put drinking rose and eating pasta.

Finding my way back to Stoke Newington I somehow missed the great thunderous downpour. I got out of the tube at the Arsenal and found a lovely Nigerian mini cab driver to take me the rest of the way who waxed lyrical about London and how tolerant it was, how it was the only place to live. On our short journey, as if to prove a point, he took me past a  church where a transvesite/sexual ? wedding appeared to have taken place and all the guests were stood around at the church gate – men in dresses and veils looking very Lou Reed and very wild!  

Meanwhile my novel sits waiting on my desk upstairs. I can’t begin to contemplate work on it just yet but that’s not such a bad thing. Most novelists, and poets too, say let it rest – leave your work to stand for a while – as long as possible – so that when you come back to it you can see it with fresh eyes. I won’t be leaving it for too long but I have several poems jostling in my head, a number of books I want to read, and workshops* to prepare with Wendy, people to see - so plenty to do and of course I need to start checking out Danny Beck’s (the protaganist in my new novel) Newcastle

*Yesterday we did our first workshop on Life Writing – a bit of a shock – but it was great – see next blog for more details and photo

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Postcards from Agde


2009
07.01

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

 

Looking though my photographs I feel I am not quite ready to leave Agde behind  and leaving is always difficult - so here are just one or two postcards by way of  my au revoir

1. The narrow, medieval streets of the old city, in which we lived, where neighbours are almost within touching distance

streets-of-agde

          2. The trompe loeil – painted by artists from Marseille – which we passed on our way down to the river.

trompe-oeil

 

      3. The Herault River where it opens up on its way to the sea – I cycled here most mornings (when I wasn’t  falling  off my bike) along the cycle path to Grau D’Agde and the Mediterranean

boat-on-river

 

4. The kitten we all fell in love with in the restauarnt at Minerve

kitten

 

5. The sea which always seemed hazy in the heat – didn’t go in but paddled with Angus

sea1

 

6. A simple roof terrace picnic – bread, cheese, pizza and wine. The food improved considerably when Sean and Debora arrived (not surprisingly)picnic

 

7.The canal was always the most peaceful of places but especially in the early evening

night-canal

 

                          8. The French love fireworks!!

fireworks

Au Revoir Agde!

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