Sunshine and Showers

It's been one of those weeks. Blazing sun and blue skies one minutes and then crow-black clouds and torrential rain the next.

The last few days, we've been staying close to the River Tees between Stockton and Middlesbrough - a surprisingly beautiful river-scape created from previous industrial dereliction.

Here's another shot of the river looking towards the elegant Infinity Bridge.

It's amazing what secret beauty can be found  in places where you'd least expect to find it. Even with an old pylon in the background. It's not perfect yet but it takes time to reclaim beauty when it was systematically destroyed for almost 200 years.

Currently, the area is being extensively reclaimed for nature despite the overhead trunk roads and railway lines. Salmon and other fish are now returning the the lower Tees in increasing numbers where it was once known as one of the most polluted river in the UK. There are two nature reserves and an area known for its population. The area is criss-crossed by footpaths and cycle-tracks.

Exploring the area through the heavy showers and brilliant sunshine, my thoughts, as they invariably do, return to writing when I'm not actively engaged in it. And I realised that something miraculous happens at that when  when the sunshine breaks through the clouds. The air is filled with sudden honey-sweetness and the droplets of rain hanging from the leaves become little bubbles of perfect beauty shining on leaves, and the puddles become blue as they mirror the swept-clean sky.

When you're writing, there are times, sometimes hours, days or even weeks, when blackness clings to you like mud and you see no future and no purpose in what you're doing. When, for no apparent reason, the sun bursts forth, there's a warm radiance unfolds you and joy returns and you suddenly know what you're doing and why...until the clouds descent again and it's all cold and grey and you curl back into yourself.  And so it goes on. And when the despair deepens, the returning sunshine is even more radiant, the joy even more breathtaking.

Or is that just me?

However, if I knew what it was and how it happened, I would bottle it and sell it. But then again, this elixir would be so exquisitely rare, it would be priceless.

Treasure the sunshine in your life.

Not a lot of writing but a whole load of reading...

Home life is back on a more-or-less even keel and Jon is slowly recovering. I am still busy doing all the things he is not allowed to do at the moment, like drive, lift heavy weights or anything involving lifting his left arm above his head which means that I'm shifting the wheelie bins as well as miscellaneous garden furniture now that we can actually enjoy sitting outside. (And long may it last!)

So I am not not fully immersed in my manuscript although I have been tinkering about here and there. Are you like me and can't settle down to some concentrated writing, not so much because of time restraints but because of changes to life's daily routines?  The meantime I have been reading at my usual voracious pace. Never fear, I am not about to tell you in  detail, every book I have read in the past few months but shall pick and choose a select few.

She Rises by Kate Worsley is set in 18th century Harwich and tells the tale of Louise, a dairymaid who goes to work as a lady's maid to the enigmatic Rebecca. It also tells of Luke who is press-ganged into the British navy. This is a long novel and can be slow, especially at the beginning but it has a huge twist at its centre which prevents me from explaining what a clever novel it is. The influence of Sarah Waters, the author's mentor, is very much in evidence here and, based on this début, I feel that when she has the confidence to find her own unique voice will be a novelist to look out for.

Grace and Mary by Melvyn Bragg. The author needs no introduction from me but this is the first novel of his I have read although I doubt now that it will be my last. (Time to check out his back-list. Don't you just love it when that happens?) This is a quiet, understated and very English novel about ordinary people and their ordinary lives. (This is the kind of historical fiction that speaks to me. See my recent post on Ordinary People.)  It is a study of failing memory, family history and what makes us what we are. This is exactly the kind of novel I love: full of humanity and the English landscape in the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. Highly recommended.

I am currently immersed in Deer Island by Neil Ansell. I wrote about his first book Deep Country here. Rich with a great sense of place - here set both in North London and the Scottish island of Jura, I am deeply impressed by this author, not to mention the feel and look of this book. It has creamy pages, a clear layout and an elegant typeface and simple line drawings. Eat your heart out, Kindle. Why can't all books look and feel like this?

Next post, I will finally have something about the slow progress of my WIP. I must keep reminding myself that the first draft is to get the story down, not try to write deathless prose. Time to pack that dratted internal editor off on his holidays until I'm ready for him. So I shall leave you with this thought.

Jon and the Pacemakers

No, it's not a new band with their rendition of Ferry Across the Mersey but the reason why I haven't written anything - let alone this blog for a week. My super-fit iron man triathlete Jon was rushed to hospital several days ago and has now been fitted with a heart pacemaker.

He's had a leaking heart valve for some time which we now know was caused by suffering rheumatic fever way back when he was 12. His fitness has kept complications at bay but unfortunately over the past few weeks it has all come back to bite him on the bum.

Hence the radio silence from me here and other social networking sites.

He'll be home very shortly for rest, recuperation and a rethink of our plans for this year. I know one thing though. He'll fight heaven and earth to get back into his beloved sport as soon as possible. And I'll be so happy to have him back home again I'll not even mind all the washing. Well, not much..

Balance

A couple of days ago, I fell flat on my back during an exercise class. Bang! Down like a felled tree. When I began thinking of the reasons why, I realised it all boiled down to balance. I have an appalling record of balance problems because I have had Type 1 Diabetes for nearly 40 years. I won't bore you with the details but the name for it is diabetic neuropathy. (PS. contrary to what to hear and see on the media, Type 1 is an auto-immune disease and has absolutely nothing to do with eating too much sugar and carbohydrate stuffed food. It just happens. And my younger son has it too.) Balance is an important word for those with diabetes. It is the name of the magazine issued by Diabetes UK and is vital to all aspects of care and life-style.

Anyway, the word burrowed its way into my brain as I dose myself with Ibuprofen and nurse my tender spine. When a word forces itself on me for whatever reason, I always search it on Google Images: not because I believe it to be the fount of all wisdom but because it shows the most popular ideas the word generates in picture form.

So what did I get?

Lots of these:

and these:

and variations of these:

plus this kind of thing about the work/life balance:

Now all  of these are relevant to me and my life. But it doesn't have any images (not surprisingly)  for writers having trouble half way through novel first drafts that they can't go on as it is because it is so unbalanced. This is invariably because the opening section is far too long and there are far too many characters  If you've been following me for a while (and thank you if you are) then you will know I am in the midst of my fictional take on life in an an early 14th century nuns' priory. I had reached the point where I was wading through sludge, knowing that if I carried on at this pace the resulting novel would exceed 500, 000 words and still be nowhere near the end. I know first drafts can be as messy as you like but, with me, if I get into a muddle, I have to go back to the very beginning and tidy up before I can go on.

So I scrolled right back to the beginning and before too long it felt like plonking Samson in the barber's chair and watching the clouds of unruly locks fall to the floor. Okay, so this is a neat visual account of my feeling watching  all those words I'd slaved over piling up at my feet but it actually gives the wrong message.

I am neither a pre-planner or a pantser but a mixture of both and neither of them. I have to write a whole chunk and, when the wheel threatens to fall off so that I am lurching into the dark in a limping unbalanced way, I stop, pull the vehicle back and fix it. Then I get another few thousand words done before the other wheel spins away into the ditch and it's back to the workshop again. It may be a time-consuming, tedious business but that's the only way I can work with all my fiction, even short stories. I have tried to plan (I get so bored) and I've tried to go all the way through the first draft. (Messy or what?) My method suits me. There's no right and wrong way to write. Just go the way that suits you. Listen to others and perhaps even try their methods but don't feel you have to do what they say. Be yourself. Learn as you write and develop.

Now is the Month of Maying...

...is a song by Thomas Morley which never fails to cheer me up, especially after such a long and dreary winter and now that the sun is shining and the temperatures are rising. I'm listening to it now as I write.  I have never worked out which came first: the month is which Hawthorn (also known as May) is in blossom or whether the tree gave its name to the month. Either way, it is still my favourite time of the year.

I'm not sure how far back the tradition of maypole dancing and nay queens goes back - not to medieval times, I don't think - but I detect it is more of a nostalgia thing. We find ourselves harking back to those carefree innocent days of the past that never actually existed. However, I never remember it happening in my 1950s childhood although in the 1980s one of my sons dressed up in a flower-decorated straw hat and performed with his class-mates a lethal-looking stick dance on a school open day. (He hated it, by the way.)

To me, however, spring doesn't really get under-way until this month (or is it summer? The way our seasons seem not to know what they're doing these days, it could be either.) And rather than January First, I find I am now musing on this, that and the other, where I'm going and where I've got to and other such stuff to no great purpose. Please bear with me. Here goes...

I have noticed that this blog gets more hits when I talk about writing and hardly any when I review a book or  talk about books. I can only assume this is because the word 'writing' appears in the title and 'books' doesn't so I attract one kind of blog follower than the other. But it got me thinking. If you're a writer, do you not want to hear about new books? Or do you prefer dedicated book-reviewing sites? I follow the lovely Dove Grey Reader because it's far more than just books and I trust her recommendations. Apart from that, I can think of vbery few dedicated book review sites. I find their recommendations too broad and questionable in quality. They also overwhelm me into thinking I should be reading, and buying, every new book on the planet.)

Or is it something more worrying?  Could  it be that those who trawl the net looking for sites about writing (fiction, in particular) and writers' lives (do they use a PC, laptop or their beautifully crafted gold-nibbed fountain pen?) and who are not in fact interested in reading other people's fiction? I have met so many people over the years who are keen to be published writers who don't read. There are many reasons for this. The one often cited are they may find themselves copying someone else's style. This is patently untrue unless they have no voice of their own. It worries me that many are not actually in the least interested in reading anything that's being published now. If they do read - and some say they haven't time (!) - they turn to the classics or old favourites. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but how on earth can you get a feeling for the Zeitgeist or more prosaically, what agents and publishers want now if you don't? You may come up with a splendid idea, setting or event on which to base a novel, but what if someone did it last year, six months or two weeks ago? Of course, styles and genres come round in cycles You never know when or how. But ignoring what is being published now leaves you in the wilderness  unless of course you are so original and off the wall (and also a hugely talented writer) who cares? But for the rest of us ordinary mortals, knowing who and what is out there is essential. (And now you don't have to read them all but it helps to know what's there.)

So I shall continue to blog about both writing and reading as and when I feel like it - so there. I am often sent books by publishers and book review magazines but I make it clear that apart from the Amazon Vine programme in which I have to review everything I read) I will only review them on this blog if I really, really love them and can recommend them to others. And that includes books by good friends, too which can make life a bit tough sometimes.

So...how's my writing getting on? (And no I haven't forgotten I am supposed to be keeping you all up to date on my work in progress which is till in that messy  inadequate first draft stage.) My progress goes through phases. Sometimes I find the words come easily - albeit  roughly - and others I find a struggle. As I said before this is usually because there's something wrong with it and so it's not working and is telling me so. Once that has been sorted out I can motor on. I've been though one of those wading through periods of sludge for the past week or so and now I am motoring again. (It's a bit like being stuck on the hard shoulder with a flat tyre before having to get out and change it before you can move on.) I have now got to a vital plot point (where something serious happens which changes the direction of the narrative) and I'm loving it. I also know that the opening is too slow so I will have to go back and cut drastically but as I always do that after the first draft, I'm not bothered.  As you know, I don't like being a slave to the word-count but it can be helpful at this early stage. Anyway, I have now got to 40,000 words which still leaves more than half to do so if you don't mind I'd better get back to it.

Oh look! I've finally found an image of my Prioress. (In reality, Catherine of Siena)

The Paris Winter: author Imogen Robertson visits The Elephant

The Paris Winter is Imogen Robertson's latest historical novel. Find it here on Amazon, where if you scroll down you will find my five star review. As you can see I was mightily impressed and couldn't wait to ask her if I could interview her. Fortunately, she did and what follows is our 'virtual' conversation.

SZ. What was your starting point for The Paris Winter? Was it the flooding in the city that winter or did that only come to light during your research. It  fit the action seamlessly.

IR. Thank you! I think most writers would agree the world if full of starting points for stories, the difficulty is choosing which ones to pursue  Paris Winter had a sort of dual beginning. I spent the Christmas of 2009 / 10 in my home town of Darlington and while I was there I went through some photo albums from my father's side of the family. My grandmother, Rona Tompkins, was born in 1892 and travelled through Europe on her own as a teenager. Among the photo albums of her having fun with friends in Vienna there were also some of her sketchbooks. The idea of Maud started there. Then in January I saw an article online which mentioned the Paris floods of 1910. The novel started to come alive in my mind then. I thought about a middle-class English girl in Paris, caught up in some situation that would be reflected by the city sinking and collapsing around her.

Some other important elements only came to light as I began my research. I was looking through old copies of the Times for their reports of the flood when I came across an appeal for funds for the Ada Leigh Homes for English Women in Paris. Miss Harris draws very directly on the accounts I found as a result of Ada Leigh and the women she cared for. 

SZ. Tell us about Maud Heighton, the novel's main character. Even though I knew she was fictional, I found her so realistic, I had to look her up on Google! Was she based on anyone in history or was she totally made up?

No, she's not based on a particular historical character. I suppose she's a composite of my grandmothers and great-aunts. For her training and compulsion to draw and paint I talked a great deal to artists Caroline de Peyrecave and Claire Zakiewicz. Caroline had the same training Maud would have received in Paris, and Claire is an old friend as well as being a professional artist. One of the great things about being a writer is getting to ask people personal questions! I also read Laura Knight's autobiography and all sorts of works by and about the women artists of the time. There's probably a fair amount of me in Maud too. The interesting thing is when a character comes alive as you write, they become completely themselves and it's very difficult to pick apart where they came from.

SZ. Did many female artists work or learn in Paris at the time? 

IR. Yes, they did indeed! Women weren't admitted to the Academie des Beaux Arts until 1897 but a number of private studios admitted women and continued to do so after that date. Some classes were mixed, others were single sex (as in the book). The most famous private school was Académie Julian, but the Académie Colarossi was also highly respected. There were guide books specifically written for women who wanted to study art in Paris, and articles in women's magazines for those thinking about taking the plunge. I think we underestimate our grandmothers and great-grandmothers sometimes. Women came from all over Europe and America to study though some, like Suzanne Valadon, were Parisian born and bred. Many female artists had works selected for the official and unofficial Paris Salons and deserve to be better known today than they are. Some greats are Mary Cassatt, Berthe Morisot and Hanna Hirsch-Pauli from the earlier part of the Belle Epoque; Sonia Delaunay, Valadon and Gwen John from closer to Maud's time.

SZ. My next favourite character is Tanya, a Russian heiress. I love the way that although she has a kind heart, because she lives a life of great opulence, she has no real idea of what it is to be poor although she tries. As I read the novel I realised that within four years, the Russian Revolution will change everything for her and her family. Were you aware of the fragility of her golden life as you wrote about her?

IR. Very much so. I studied Russian at University and Tanya is a result of my complicated love affair with that country. Many rich Russians spent time in Paris spending a great deal of money, and I suspect many of them didn't think the good times would ever end. Looking back a few years you have to admit we aren't very different now. I think Tanya is a survivor though, and her good heart will help her through the difficult times to come.

SZ. Your previous novels are historical crime fiction. The Paris Winter is about crime but I would not describe it as crime fiction. It's about much more than that. 

IR. So often I think I find out what a book is about late in the editing process! I thought of Paris Winter as a sort of 'inside-out' crime novel when I was writing it. The challenge was to make the hero of the story not the detective, but the victim. That created a very different structure and allowed the book to find its own tone and themes.  

SZ. Your previous novels were set in the 18th century and part of a series. Is The Paris Winter (set in the winter of 1909/10) a completely new departure or will you return to an earlier time in future novels?

IR. I'm writing the next in the Westerman and Crowther series at the moment. The great thing about writing a series is it gives your characters a lot of room to develop over time. I also love the narrative drive of the traditional crime novel, and it gives me the chance to explore all sorts of issues, situations and characters. I hope very much to carry on writing about Westerman and Crowther, but I will always want to break away from time to time and do something fresh as well.

SZ. I love the way that although you must have done a lot of detailed research, none of it felt like research. The effects of being addicted to opium were so real. 

IR.I love doing the research. It's a wonderful time when you discover all sorts of scraps and colours. With the opium, there are some great accounts of addiction, Jean Cocteau's of course being one. The one which of most use to me though was published while I was editing, Steven Martin's Opium Fiend. It is a brilliant, moving and absolutely terrifying account of opium addiction and he describes smoking opium using the same method and kit as were used in Paris at the time. It saved me from repeating many mistakes from other, less reliable accounts. I really recommend it.

SZ. I see that some reviews weren't keen on the catalogue descriptions of the Maud's paintings and sketches. But I loved them even though we don't learn of their significance until much later. They added another layer of authenticity. When did this idea occur to you?

IR. For a long time I thought there was going to be a modern narrative running alongside Maud's story. Seems incredible now and I'm glad I abandoned it, but there you go. In that modern narrative Maud's paintings provided hints of what had happened to her. When I took (tore) out that modern storyline though, the pictures remained. I wanted the reader to pause occasionally as they read, and let a different voice and tone into what is, I hope, quite a dark and intense read at times. I do that in my Westerman and Crowther novels by swapping between narrative lines, here I held on to the paintings.

I always try to plan my novels carefully, and then end up writing something very different to what I imagined. I think that's inevitable really. Once the characters are on the page they start taking the story in new directions. That said I need some sort of plan or I would feel totally lost. It reminds me of something we used to say when I was working in film and TV. There is the film you write, the film you shoot and the film you edit and they are all different. Same thing with novels. You are always mapping out the territory as you go.

SZ. Thank you Imogen. The Paris Winter is published by Headline Review and is available in all bookshops and on-line now. I thoroughly recommend it.

Keep on running...

I am dedicating this blog post to everyone who was running, organising, marshalling, policing and enjoying at the Boston Marathon yesterday. My heart goes out to all of you and especially the injured, the bereaved and those who didn't hesitate at the moment of horror to rush to help, whether professionals or not. I salute you.

And with the 2013 London Marathon which will go ahead next weekend, my thoughts turn (metaphorically, that is) to starting, getting stuck, being diverted and keeping going until you reach the finishing post.

Painted by Beryl Cook - who else?

In continuation of my posts on writing the first draft of a novel I therefore decided to postpone what I was going to say about research and post this instead.

Writer's Block.

Now isn't the time or place to debate whether it exists at all or is an excuse for laziness or lack of talent. The more I consider it, I realise it's more complex than we think. I have suffered several bouts of depression throughout my adult life, the last following a serious illness and the death of my father within 6 months of each other. I couldn't write a word. My head was empty. Even my love affair with reading went sour. But that is now well and truly over. Here's that post.

My previous post described how I got started on my current WIP. Up until last week I was motivated and keen and my characters were bursting to come alive. The words didn't exactly flow - I'm more a plodder than a sprinter (another sporting metaphor) - but the words were steadily mounting up and I knew where I was going.

Then - cue sound of screeching brakes.

I was stuck. I couldn't go on. I wrote five hundred words then deleted them, I tried again and deleted those. Five times. I had got to what I call a plot pivot - where something important happens after which the status quo changes. I had been looking forward to writing it but every time I tried, it failed to take off. It was as if I was on a treadmill. The words came but they were banal, dreary and I was going nowhere fast. I felt like giving up, that the whole project was doomed and why the heck did I think I could write a novel anyway?

So was it Writer's Block?

Some might say so. But I wasn't so sure. But something was definitely wrong. Although I was pretty fed up I somehow knew there must be a reason why I'd come to a grinding halt but hadn't a clue what it was.

Meanwhile, the weather had improved so instead of starring at a page or dull verbiage, I went for a walk and tried not to think about anything in particular but living in the moment, such as listening to the birds and trying to identify their calls, searching the hedgerows for primroses and seeking out the first of this season's lambs. (Lambing is late up here in the moors.) It's times like these when I could do with a dog to help concentrate the mind. But it would be unfair to any dog to use it as a thinking tool and nothing else. Anyway, it was about half way through the walks that it finally came to me. Just like that - in the immortal words of Tommy Cooper.

I realised the problem was not located at the moment of block. It had happened two chapters back. I had not given the plot and character development enough breathing space for it to make sense. No wonder my characters couldn't relate to each other. I needed to move this pivotal point another two years later. (It made better sense to fit in a real battle I needed to include as well.) So I went back and began to examine at which pints in the narrative I could let the narrative out at the seams - heck,  I'm on dressmaking metaphors, not marathon running - now where was I?

Oh yes. I needed more action and more sub-plot development - in other words...

...not for padding but as a device to prevent the main plot from running away with itself (see what I did there) and therefore unbelievable. I needed to add more depth and richness. So yesterday, that is exactly what I did.  I also wrote brief biographies of some new characters to feed in seamlessly, not added arbitrarily. And the result?  I am re-energised and motivated and am...

And yes, that is a deliberate plug for an excellent chain of sports shops I can wholeheartedly recommend. Not that I use them, but my husband - long distance triathlete and runner - swears by them.

If you're racing in London on Sunday, I wish you good luck in achieving your goals! And if, like me, you're taking part in a writing marathon, keep on running.

Next time I blog about writing first drafts, I will discuss research. I promise.