bird in the storm

from “Wandering” by Hermann Hesse, translated by James Wright. This quote taken from here, a new blog I have started reading – very inspiring, the energy! – I mainly like this quote because of the bird in the storm image.  The book that I am in the process of finishing (editing, waiting for feedback on etc etc) has a lot of bird fact, lore and imagery in it. I have no idea why. Birds, feathers, flight, wings, bird-bones, all these things just came up. My new book is about flying, but female pilots. I honestly don’t know where all this winged business comes from but I’m just going with it…

1935 red olivetti typewriter

miscellany

in the beginning

In the beginning… the dreaded beginning…the beginning that has to be perfection. Immediate and pure. In the beginning there was (of course) the Word, and the Word was… Here are a few things the beginning has to be:

- a hook, a pull, a question: great opening line, page and chapter. Get that reader by the neck and don’t let go.

- make the reader care about the characters quickly, organically, and reveal them in an unravelling, organic way.

- get the vibe of the book down; the fictional universe it exists within and don’t give too much information. Get the reader interested and ready to invest.

- the start of the plot; and get it going by establishing intrigue, a question, mystery, a problem, a conflict…

I need to re-work my beginning having hold of the whole. I changed it, at some point in the process, from a prologue-y start in 2nd person to a scene that begins in media res. I thought that might be better but now I’m not so sure. I think not, now. Need to re-do. Here are the beginning lines of four novels I bought in Waterstones today (and well done me buying in Waterstones rather than on Amazon but, God, expensive!):

1. “In the beginning were the howlers. They always commenced their bellowing in the first hour of dawn, just as the hem of the sky began to whiten.”

2. “There is a photograph in existence of Aunt Sadie and her six children sitting round the tea-table at Alconleigh.”

3. “The sun turned the narrow dirt track to dust. It rose like an orange tide from the wheels of the truck and blew in through the window to settle in Frank Collard’s arm hair.”

4. “They took him to the top of Paramin Hill. Right to the top, where there was no one around, where no one could hear him call for help.”

What do I think of these beginnings? No 1 is the most self consciously literary, signposting its beginning status with the word beginning. 3 is the most descriptive. I like it, though, it draws me in, I like the detail of the arm hair and the fact that the character is introduced immediately. 4 is the most dramatic and immediate, signifying action. 2 is the most domestic. They all work, actually, in different ways. Perhaps number 2 captures me the least.

(Which is which? Monique Roffey, The White Woman on the Green Bicycle; Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love; Evie Wyld, After the Fire, A Still Small Voice; Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna).

timing

Still waiting….waiting. Baby due in 3 weeks time and agent sent a ‘will be with you as soon as I can am working on it’ message which calmed my befuddled heart in some respects but set it on high altert in others. I’m sort of resigned to the inevitable email: ‘lovely, lovely, but you need to do this, this, this, this, edit this, change this…….ad infinitum’ arriving on the day my waters break just as I am projected into that eyes held open with matchsticks, brain crushed, hormone spinning, exhaustion-delirious trip that is newborn baby land.

In the meantime I am writing an application for a new writer in residence project (in a 1930s art-deco airport) and am looking at ideas for interactive blog projects that use digital space in a creative way. Sketchbooks, plotting, maps…I like this example very much and am planning something similar for my residency.

get reading! I am reading/researching at the moment and so focusing on books that deal with the inter-war period, flying and Palestine…but I want to keep up up up with things so here is the Indy Long List for myself to refer back to and pluck titles from, and here is the Orange Long List. I also want to read Nicola Barker’s new book, ‘Burley Cross Postbox Theft’ as she is one of my all-time-favourites…in fact I think I’ll go for her first.

Henry James’ ideal, the person on whom nothing is wasted

My hero(ine), today, is Jenny Uglow. ‘She is Henry James’  ideal, the person on whom nothing is wasted.’ I’m particularly interested in women writers who managed to a. have kids, b. a long-lasting marriage, c. write novels, d. do other ‘day-jobs’ such as editing, publishing and so on, and were – or are – all round generally impressive.

I imagine these uber-women living in rambling houses with gardens full of roses; their gentle, scholarly husbands working in the library through the daylight hours then joining them for civilised and witty conversations in the twilight. I’m currently staying well away from the faller aparters, the drunks, the Jean Rhys’ and Dorothy Parkers, much as I love their writing. At the moment it’s all about keeping it together.

The Palestinian book that I edited has come out to much fanfare. It’s very exciting, although odd to be the unsung, unmentioned editor. The after-thought to the invite list despite all of that hard work. At least the author herself wanted to meet me when she was over from Ramallah last week. But sadly I couldn’t due to this tremendous belly and the creature within who does cheeky and not unpowerful leg kicks inside me all through the night.

rank with the smell of meat and human beings

‘…but it is good to be several floors up in the dead of night wondering if you are any good or not and the only decision you can make is that you did it…’ – Frank O’Hara

I’ve moved to a small South Coastal town and it’s a shock, all the decisions to be made about blinds, nets or curtains. One can always count on Virginia Woolf for a spot of snearing snobbery: ‘one of the queerest things about the suburbs is that the vilest little red villas are always let, and that not one of them has an open window or an uncurtained window. One house had curtains of yellow silk, striped with yellow insertion. The room inside must be in semi-darkness; and I suppose rank with the smell of meat and human beings. I believe that being curtained is a mark of respectability.’ (Diaries 1915)

I am enormously, ripely, unwalkingly, tremendously pregnant. I am waiting to hear from the agent. The book has been with her for four weeks now…perhaps five. I have been ‘told’ by professional and real writers that 2 months is a normal wait, but I will have a newborn baby then. Ah, the timing. So to be calm in this pregnant-waiting phase I am nesting. This doesn’t involve cleaning cupboards but does involve salvaging unwanted trellis’ from skips to nail to the wall in my new courtyard garden (otherwise known as a backyard). I have plans to grow beans and all sorts. What have I become? I should imagine it’s a passing whimsy.

I wake in the heart of the night most nights, usually because my toddler has padded into the room to get into bed, but also because I am full of the fear of it, the waiting – what this new fishy being will bring to my life, and me to hers – and whether the book that I have written, slaved, loved and despaired over for a significant time will make it out, like blossom, onto the end of branches to be read by at least one person, somewhere.