Caroline Rance's debut historical novel, Kill-Grief, set in 18th-century Chester, is out now.
This is interesting (well, it is slightly to me, anyway). World 66 is a travel site where you can create a map of all the countries you’ve visited. Weekly Geeks, which I heard about via Farm Lane Books, suggested using it to create a map of countries we’ve read about. I have based mine on what I’ve read since the beginning of 2008.
Although the furthest extent of my travel in the past year and a half has been to go Waterstone’s in Chester, I’ve read about lots of far-flung places, including Tucson, Arizona in Goats by Mark Poirier, Antarctica in Tania Hershman’s The White Road and a weird, hellish dimension somewhere parallel to Australia in The Pilo Family Circus by Will Elliott. I have clearly neglected South America, as the two Isobel All
ende books I’ve ever read were a few years ago, but I have to confess I don’t have much motivation to remedy that at the moment.
Instead, I’d like to read more about Africa, having recently finished Andrew Sharp’s wonderful novel The Ghosts of Eden, set in Uganda. I also like the look of Matt Beynon Rees’s Palestinian mysteries, and want to add Iceland to my map with The Blue Fox by Sjón.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 1920s, living van, Prestwood Steam Rally, Schweppes advert, vintage vehicles
This weekend was the Prestwood Steam Rally – the highlight of the local calendar, which sees exhibitors coming from far and wide to show off beautifully restored engines like this:
plus lots of vintage vehicles of all descriptions, such as this one:
The living van below was restored by the Green family, who live in the same village as me. It initially made me think of the Reddleman’s home in The Return of the Native, but it is too big for that and was not used in the wilds of the 19thC West Country but was pulled behind the steam-roller of a road-building gang.
The van dates from 1922 and housed the steam-roller driver’s family of 6 – which made it pretty sparsely populated compared with some vans of the time!
Similar vans would house the rest of the road-working team – one of these with six grown men living in it was possibly slightly less attractive and fragrant than this one.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Exclusively Independent, getting published, independent publishers, Kill-Grief, publishing, writing
As well as the readings, we’ll be talking about our road to getting published (at least, I think we will – I don’t actually know much about this event yet) and there will also be representatives from the publishing industry to answer your questions.
If you would like to come along, you can book a free ticket by phoning Debby Wale on 0208 753 3820, or emailing her at debby.wale@lbhf.gov.uk.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: getting published, Strictly Writing, writing, writing video, Xtranormal
Yesterday on Strictly Writing, Fionnuala Kearney uploaded a hilarious video called Crimes Against Fiction. She made it using Xtranormal, an incredibly clever website which I’d never heard of before but I’ve been having great fun trying it out. It’s free to have a basic account, or $40 a year for a premium account, which gives you more settings and choices of characters. This is my first attempt at a video!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Express FM, Kill-Grief, radio interview, Rob Richardson, Write Invite
I am going to be on the radio this evening. I’m on WriteOn, a chatshow hosted by Rob Richardson on Express FM. The programme starts at 7pm and you can listen online by going to their website.
Unfortunately they don’t have a ‘listen again’ option so if you miss it, well… I expect you’ll survive.
What is really brilliant is that I am not nervous about it, because it was pre-recorded. I did the interview last Wednesday, while in the early stages of something that might yet prove to be swine flu, so although I have subsequently been feeling rather ill, there is at least the possibility that I sound more Mariella-like than usual.
The interview was fun to do, and I say that as someone who normally cannot string a sentence together in social situations and doesn’t really have a strong opinion about most things. Because of this, I was scared of the whole idea of doing radio and almost decided against it. I had to admit, however, that it would be a useful experience and that I should take note of all that cod-philosophical ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’ crap, and just get on with it.
And it wasn’t an ordeal at all – it was really informal, and just like chatting to someone on the phone. I’m not going to listen to it when it’s broadcast, because I was pleased with how it went and don’t want to risk being embarrassed by the sound of my own voice – but if anyone else wants to listen, go to Express FM and click the thing in the corner.
(The disadvantage of it being pre-recorded is, of course, that I’m telling everyone it’s on tonight and there is therefore a chance that you will tune in and find that the station has had a last-minute change of plan and done something else, but anyway… tell me if it’s not me.)
Rob Richardson, who does the WriteOn show, also runs a website called Write Invite, which has an online writing competition every Saturday. He is guest blogger at Strictly Writing today, so have a look there to find out more.
You know what really annoyed me when I was going through the submissions/rejections process?
Actually, it still annoys me.
Published people telling so-called ‘aspiring’ writers that ‘being published won’t sort your whole life out, you know’ or ‘It’s not the be-all and end-all.’
It was OK for them to have spent years working towards their goal, coping with the frustrations, getting disheartened by rejections and yet having the determination to get there in the end. But if you do the same, you must be a deluded wannabe who thinks a book deal will make your bank account groan with a million quid and your letterbox collapse with invitations to soirées with JKR. You sad little person, you – sitting there in your crappy job and dreaming of being famous enough not to have a care in the world. If only you knew the agony of being a published author!
There is, I accept, a chance that people say those things out of a rather British inclination to play down success. They don’t want to show off, and don’t want to upset anyone or cause jealousy. Or they’re just trying to help, having forgotten that people never learn from others’ experience. Most likely, they are well-intentioned.
That doesn’t stop them coming across as infuriatingly patronising.
If you’ve had the wherewithal to write something and send it out on submission, chances are you are not dur-brained enough to think that a book deal will bring you permanent health and happiness, resurrect your dead goldfish and get the BNP out of Europe. Serious ‘aspiring’ writers are grown up enough to know that it’s a book deal they’re aiming for, not a key to eternal sparkly youth.
I’m increasingly reticent about giving advice to other writers, because, after all – what the hell do I know? That’s why I often put up nature pictures or historical bits-n-bobs rather than doing proper, writerly blog posts. But one thing I do know is that people who have got what they want are very good at telling people who haven’t got what they want, that they shouldn’t want it.
Getting published is not always easy. Being published is not always easy. But, then, not many things in life are easy, and that doesn’t mean they are not worth doing.
I know it’s early days for me but I think being published is great. I love it. Of course it doesn’t mean I will never be disheartened or furious or ill or frustrated or suicidal in the future. I might change my mind and decide my book ruined my life – who knows? But I’ve never expected publication to be a panacea. It has been well worth striving for – and striving for it meant becoming obsessed with it, making it my goal, and sometimes getting depressed and sleepless over it.
This was not nice, but it’s the way it is, and it was worth it. So if I had my unpublished time over again, I’d completely ignore the people who said ‘listen, love, publication’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” Just like I did the first time.
For some reason, crows really hate red kites and are always picking on them. I like the way the crow is standing on its head here:
The kite, however, might decide against getting in a fight with this adversary:
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: history of comedy, old newspapers, Punch, Victorian jokes
Victorian humour is something of an acquired taste. I trawled through an awful lot of “jokes” that I didn’t get, that were plain unfunny, or that would be offensive to modern readers. Below are a selection of the funniest – yes, the funniest, so you can imagine how bad the rest were.
The interesting thing is, however, that the more I read, the more I start to find them amusing. As I was saying on Monday evening at a talk I gave at Bucks Libraries Orange Prize discussion evening, (by the way, they voted for Burnt Shadows) reading old newspapers is a brilliant way of not only finding accurate details, but also getting into the mindset of historical people. I actually think I’m starting to appreciate the Victorian sense of humour and understand topical references.
These jokes are from the 1890s and mainly come from Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, though they tended to nick them from Punch and other magazines. These are but a small selection of the ones I’ve found, so be warned – I might inflict some more on you at some point.
(Image: Hat-moving experiment by John Leech, from Punch 1853. Courtesy of the John Leech Sketch Archive. )
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Dyspepsia specialist (irritably): But madam, you must chew your food. What were your teeth given you for?—
Female Patient (calmly): They weren’t given to me; I bought ‘em.
……….
“Well,” announced Mr. Perkabie to his wife “John and Mary have taken the first step toward divorce.”
“You don’t mean to say so! What on earth is the matter?”
“They have got married.”
……….
Smith: “Were you ever in a railway disaster?”
Brown: “Yes, I once kissed the wrong girl in a tunnel.”
……….
Fortune teller: “In the configurations on your palm, lady, I can trace your future husband.”
Lady: “Dear me! Perhaps you can also trace my present one, for I can’t!”
……….
She: Then you believe in nothing?
He: I believe in what I can understand.
She: That’s what I mean!
……….
Wife: It does seem hard that when a woman marries, she has to take her husband’s name.
He: Well, she takes everything else he’s got – why leave that out?
……….
The Lover: For love of you, I could become anything! I could become a poet! I—
The Loved: Become a millionaire.
……….
Life is short; only four letters in it. Three quarters of it is a “lie” and half of it is an “if.”
……….
Lady: Here is sixpence; I hope you won’t waste any of it.
Beggar: No, lady, not a drop.
……….
Doctor: Your mother-in-law must go immediately to a warm climate.
Man: Dear doctor, will you perform the operation?
……….
“Grandmother is dead, you know, and her parrot died the very next day.”
“Very strange! The poor bird died of grief, I suppose?”
“No, I killed it with a poker.”
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Anne Brooke, book review, Deborah Dooley, Kill-Grief, Strictly Writing, Vulpes Libris, writers' retreats
A couple of months ago on Strictly Writing, I wrote about how I’d love to go on a retreat – provided it wasn’t the scary kind where there are lots of other writers and you have to, you know, talk to them and share the cooking and stuff.
I wanted a retreat where I could simultaneously be left to my own devices and be looked after. And now I think I’ve found it: look at this!
They even have wi-fi and everything, and so few people staying there at any one time that the likelihood of there being a nutcase to latch onto me is diminished. And what a bargain price – if I understand it correctly, that includes all the food.
The paradox is that if I had the time or family circumstances to be able to go on a retreat, I wouldn’t need to go on one. At the moment, I think my son is too little to be left for that long, and I would really miss him. But just imagining going is making me feel more relaxed, so maybe one day I’ll manage to get there.
Deborah Dooley, the journalist who offers the retreats, has recently started a blog at: http://retreatsforyou.blogspot.com/
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And in other news, I’ve had a wonderfully detailed and thoughtful review of Kill-Grief from Anne Brooke, author of Maloney’s Law.
From the very first sentence, this book wraps you round in a coat of darkness, tension, low-life street horror and kick-ass descriptive poetry strong enough to obliterate several countries and still have time for a gin or two.
To read the full review, visit Vulpes Libris.
