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.

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.