The calm between the storms

Well, and that was a mad few months!

Amazing, and including a huge learning curve, working for the first time with an editor (of which more later), but one manic, headlong rush to fit everything else in too. Why is it everything happens together?

When it was all over (for the moment at least) I went camping. Just for one night, and not far away. And, okay, it was freezing cold at night and halfway through I discovered my blow-up mattress had sprung a leak, so even Phoebe the dog (temporary hot water bottle) abandoned me for the comfort of her own bed. But it made me stop. And relax. And look around.

We walked up the beautiful Torrent Walk near Dolgellau in Snowdonia in the evening light, surrounded by a positive sea of wild garlic in amongst the bluebells. My mind began to let go of the last Work in Progress, and refused to start thinking of the next. Then we sat at midnight, under the stars, listening to last-night-of-the-holidays revelry round campfires (interspersed with slightly tipsy bouts of ‘Ar hyd y nos’ and ‘Jerusalem’).

And the thought struck me that I had been so involved in what I was doing, I nearly missed this. And despite the flat mattress, I came home relaxed and with ideas flooding in.

So my resolution is to still work hard, but to take time to do the garden, do walks that aren’t just keep-the-dog-happy routine trudges, and sometimes take the time and go off exploring.

I always feel that if I’m not hammering away at the keyboard, or blogging or tweaking, or plotting or researching, I’m not really writing at all. I forget that the brain needs brain-food too, and that sometimes that’s reading and sometimes it’s just doing nothing at all. Which, of course, is usually when serious inspiration strikes. The brain never really stops. I won’t get rusty or (writer’s constant horror) forgot everything I’ve learnt over the years.

Writing is a process. And the scary bit is that some of that process remains unknown. It just happens. Except, of course, it doesn’t. It’s a whole load of hard work to turn that inkling of an idea, and that morass of a first draft into something that might just end up as a book. I still look back at the bits that finally work and ask myself in astonishment ‘did I do that?’ How? When? What on earth made me think of that?

And then, when it’s all over, you have to start right from the beginning again. With the inkling. And the morass. And that traitorous little thought of ‘maybe last time was a fluke’. Maybe this time ….

Funnily enough, taking time off to chill and let the world creep in helps keep the faith.

Well, that’s my excuse, anyhow. And I’m sticking with it.

My Life as a Film Star

Or should that be ‘My Dog’s Life as a Film Star’?

Anyhow, whichever way you prefer, I went to the premiere of my first role in a feature film last week. I missed the red carpet occasion in the local multiplex due to the ravages of flu, so I haven’t see myself on the big screen yet. But on a biggish screen in a community arts centre was quite exciting enough.

Thankfully, I have reached a point in life where major vanity issues have been slung unceremoniously out of the window. Never to return, I trust. They don’t half cramp your style. I looked human. That’s good enough for me. Plus I didn’t make a fool of myself. I call THAT a result. And Phoebe the dog played her part to perfection, looked gorgeous, and got a line in the credits all to herself. And outside the actors and the film crew, who needs to know about that prop-eating incident between takes? (She had just found a ‘drunk’ passed out in a doorway – and, yes, you seriously don’t want to know –ugh!

Drunks passed out in doorways? Not a romcom, then? Not, not in the least. Ah, yes well: Hollywood has not quite made the call yet. In fact, I’m not even an actress. I wouldn’t even pretend to be one. I can live the lives of ten different people at once when I’m writing a book; laugh with them, cry with them. Go through all kinds of agonies with them. I did once stand on the stage of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. But that was during a backstage tour, and I was much happier nosing at the scenery and props for ‘A Winter’s Tale’ I’d just seen than standing there in a scary state of fully-clothed exposure. Put me on those boards for real, and I’d have run.

But when I’m not writing, I have a part-time job with the utterly wonderful ‘Tape Community Music and Film’, who make films people who have turned their lives around and are undertaking the life-long recovery from drug and alcohol addition. And the feature-length film ‘Legacy’ was funded by a Community Cashback award (that’s from out of the proceeds of crime) to show young people the real, nasty, uncool and undignified face of addiction. The real stars, the volunteers who wrote and acted and made the film out of their own experiences, will also be going with the film to talk to youngsters after the film has been shown.

And so when my dog (not me, I have to confess) had the call to take a small, but vital, role in the story – well, what else could I do but become the dog walker who finds the body? Phoebe just had to look pretty and winsome. Being of the collie/spaniel cross persuasion and with a main chance in the biscuit direction, she can do this in her sleep, and doesn’t she know it. I – it turned out – had a speaking role.

More than that: an improvised speaking role. My worst nightmare, and which started of as a bit of a disaster. But then a weird thing happened. We were working with real police and paramedics, and suddenly, out of nowhere, the whole thing became real. It wasn’t the guy we’d just had a cup of tea with sprawled out in a pool of tinned vegetable soup. I remember feeling real anxiety as the policeman made his way towards me. Watching the paramedics rush to do their thing had me holding my breath that he’d pull through. And when the ambulance pulled away in a blaze of flashing lights and sirens, I almost felt I really had found someone lying in a doorway in a pool of wee and sick.

And so my first – and possibly only – experience of playing a fleeting part in a feature film has left me proud to be part of it, rather than anything else. I’m looking forward to seeing it on the big screen when my chance comes.

Meanwhile, I shall run back to the safety of the WIP and laugh and sigh and weep and become traumatised in private, to the gentle snores of a well-walked dog, before going downstairs for tea.

If you want to see me and Phoebe in action, we’re in the trailer. Honest. Just don’t blink. And the rest of the trailer is worth seeing, too. Pretty awesome, in fact.

http://www.tapemusicandfilm.co.uk/?page_id=59

Snow, Christmas and Dickens (sort of)

Well, I didn’t exactly plan to spend Christmas with Dickens.

I love Dickens (child-bride Victorian fantasy excepted), and ‘Little Dorrit’ is still one of my favourite books ever. But my plans for Christmas went more along

the lines of partying, catching up with family and friends and keeping my nose firmly inside the latest Kate Morton between guilty doses of ‘Mary Poppins’ and ‘Love, Actually’. I mean, isn’t that what Christmas – along with red wine and chocolates – is about?

Then snow took a hand.

December seems to have been spent wandering through a world of snow and ice. The car disappeared beneath a snowdrift. Which at least answered the question of whether to venture out into that brown slush formerly known as road. Whatever direction you go, my road goes down. Steeply. With bends. Not to mention big, bad stone walls on either side. I’ve seen the results. No thanks.

So dog walks and a pint of milk became a trip to Narnia, and central heating and my nice warm fire had never felt so good. I have a radiator next to my writing desk, and a view out into my garden. Which meant it was no trial to beaver away happily on the WIP.

All that wandering in snowstorms did come with a price, however. And so I ended up at Christmas knocked sideways with laryngitis (my least favourite infection of choice), prostrate on the sofa, silenced and only in the mood for DVDs. Despite the best efforts of Phoebe, who raided her toybox on a regular basis on the principle of hope springs eternal in the sheepdog breast. (I’m trying to make up for it now. Guilt)

Which is why I ended up spending Christmas with TV versions of Dickens, including the 1976 version of ‘Our Mutual Friend’. It was very strange watching something I hadn’t seen for over thirty years. You know when you revisit something you’ve loved, and it always disappoints? Well, to my surprise this didn’t. I’d remembered it vividly, and there it was, almost exactly as I had pictured it over the years. Apart for the fact that I remembered it in black and white, because that’s the TV we had when I was a teenager.

And it reminded me that it was watching that old BBC series that had made me ‘get’ Dickens in the first place. I had a bit of a wobble a couple of years later when I studied ‘Bleak House’ at university and came up against the insufferably self-effacing Ester Summerson. She didn’t exactly go with the discovery of ‘The Female Eunuch’. I only recovered from the Ester effect much later, when I was living in London and twigged that all those mad characters weren’t exaggerations after all. (Well, not much) And at the same time, all those things that I now love about Dickens suddenly made sense. I love his anger, his total fury at injustice and his delight in all the variety of human life.

So I’ll still always remember with affection that first introduction to Dickens that made me persevere past the language and heroines and the toe-curling deathbed scenes, and led to so much wonderful reading over the years. And so much inspiration.

And yes, I did also watch the 2006 version of ‘Bleak House’ in my supine state. And loved that Ester. And cried buckets at every deathbed, especially Joe the crossing sweeper. I’m still claiming it was the gin. (medicinal, of course)

‘Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, Right Reverends and Wrong Reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with Heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day.’

Wow.

Well, it’s not quite New Year, when I was planning to start writing this blog. But I’ve just got back from the RNA Winter Party and I’m feeling enthused and raring to go. So this seems like a good a time as any.

This is me all dressed up and ready to go to the ball!

It was great to meet up with old friends. Writing is such a solitary business, and I do try not to bore my friends with my absolute 100% obsession with my current book (as you do), so it was great to sit and chat with fellow writers again. And the champagne was pretty nifty, too.

Because of the uncertainties of a train strike, I also ended up with an extra day in London. Which meant I had a chance to visit my old stamping grounds once more, like this in Hammersmith, where I first lived in London.

The day before this day of winter sunshine, I found myself on the South Bank in the rain, just minutes before curtain up of Ena Lamont Stewart’s ‘Men Should Weep’. It was the rain that settled it.

I thought the play might be all worthy gloom and doom, but instead it was funny, touching and uplifting all in one. It was great to see a play with a woman’s point of view right at the heart of it. And women of all ages. Women as survivors, with the ability to pull together to make a life in the direst of conditions. I remember those working-class women from my childhood. The ones who keep the world turning without anyone noticing. And can settle down to a right bitch over a cup of tea. Wonderful stuff. I’d definitely go and see it again like a shot. And I want to know more about Ena Lamont Steward …..

http://www.theartsdesk.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=2471:men-should-weep-nt&Itemid=27

So now I’m back in my little cottage, hastily catching up with all the work I should have done last week.

But it wasn’t half worth it! Work is work. But inspiration is forever.

Hyde Park, still with autumn colours