Developing an idea and finding it has wings

I love it when my brain gets fired up with a new idea. I'm presently paddling in the very fertile waters of imagination, research and art, a great place to be. It's hard holding all the elements in my head at once - so not much sleep - but words and picture ideas are pouring out and I've pressed them into a project book like wild flowers, like butterflies. (I would never press real butterflies into a book, but idea butterflies are fair game. Anyway, they still get away, they refused to be limited by the thin range of words I have to play with. They are the flat ghosts of butterflies). 

I'm at a crossroads with ideas at the moment, looking for studio space in my head and maybe for real. The house is TOO SMALL to contain all the work and the living and the kids and cats and furniture. I need an overspill space, and I'm looking for somewhere else. It's that or turf Russell's beloved car out of the vast and top-lit garage and convert it.  Not his first choice.

I've been looking at research about Lorina Bulwer, This has sparked a renewed interest in patchwork - the letters are embroidered into patched fabrics, although it's not clear where she got them from. Maybe her pre-workhouse wardrobe. 

I've been looking at the text itself, and wondering whether anyone has ever tried to use a grounded theory analysis approach to it, or whether it is seen as entirely within the arts and as a medical artefact. From my brief look at it (having not studied grounded theory for a gazillion years) I can already pull out themes, just reading it every day for a few days. Fascinating stuff, and those themes could inform the book. 

I also came across a fascinating document by Elizabeth Parker, a servant girl raped and beaten by her employer, driven to the edge of suicide then taken in by a kinder woman. She wrote about her life in an amazingly complex cross stitch piece. This was from 1830, another group of women with no voice crying out in the only way acceptable to others. Samplers and stitching were used to demonstrate domestic skills and 'a proper disposition', as well as teaching a range of stitches. This one seems purely cathartic. 

The embroidered letter

I've been looking at teaching jobs, at lecturing in creative writing (which is why I studied writing in the first place). But the strange things about going on a journey like a job application is it leads to other things, wandering about touching on other things that matter. Several things have come up for me this year:

• I will stop home educating this year after 22 years, my youngest is off to college
• I love writing more than I expected and I'm writing easily (and stuff I like)
• I need an adventure
• I miss the Isle of Wight and my friends
• All the time I've been a creative writer I've been creative in other ways e.g. textiles
• I'm fascinated by psychology, and the social construction of 'madness'
• Looking into a new job made me look at THIS

The embroidered letter of Lorina Bulwer

This is the rant of a middle aged woman locked up in the imbecile ward - full of dementia patients, alcoholics and mentally ill and learning disabled people - of a workhouse. She came from a middle class, well educated background,  and lived with her mother until the latter's death. Her rants reveal evidence of sexual abuse, that was not acknowledged at the time (her abuser is named and was suspected of abusing another 13 year old. He confessed to having written the child a number of explicit letters but denied touching her).Then her brother placed her in the workhouse.

I'm itching to use this amazing story in a project, so I have looked into this course. It inspires me as the sister of someone who wrestled with mental illness and had her voice taken away, as well as an artist and writer. Who knows? I'm also in the strange position of having some money to invest, so there might be a little income to spend.

I have no idea where this idea will take me, or whether it's a step in the direction of something else, but it's great to feel like we're moving forward again! 

When is poetry good poetry?

This question came to me a couple of times when I was sorting through a stack of entries to a North Devon anthology. As usual, the standard is very variable, with a lot of very accomplished pieces of fiction and memoir. Writing groups in North Devon have a high standard and are happy to critique constructively, most aren't of the 'well, that's lovely dear' variety. (There's a place for them too, I know). Consequently there is a marked difference between the poetry and the prose entries.

Which is what I'm thinking about. Writing fiction and poetry is so cathartic for many people, so satisfying - does it have to be 'good' as well? If the writer likes it and their family and friends like it, is that enough? What standard do we judge to?

Of course, there's another element here, people want to be read, they often want publication. And mainstream publishers are extremely fussy, they can afford to be. For them to hand over hard cash it has to be a) well written b) saleable and c) turn up at the right time. But in pursuing publication, are we overlooking the value of all of that less 'good' writing out there?

I enjoyed working through the anthology fiction pieces and discussing them with my other judges. Generally, we agreed on what should be included and when we didn't, we included as much as we could. But the poetry creates a dilemma. For me it's simple, put the best of the poetry in, but home-grown poetry isn't like literary poetry. Where a short story in a  magazine and short story submitted to the anthology aren't that far apart, the poems are much further from the literary ideal. Perhaps this is because there are lots of outlets for fiction in popular magazines, and few for poems, but I think at its heart the problem is one of reading. Amateur poets don't read the same poetry as published poets, so their idea of a poem is different. Here's some advice on telling the difference. How to tell a 'good' poem from a 'bad' poem. 

The problem for me is I see lots of poems that by those criteria are pretty good. They lack focus very often, the biggest problem with most of them is they need a lot of editing and development to get to their best. But they have the right stuff in them, they do the job. They evoke a feeling or an event in an interesting way, they connect people. but they aren't good poems by literary standards.  

So what do we do with the not-literary poetry, the poems that don't look or sound like the ones in the poetry magazines and collections? Some of them are just too sentimental, some lack structure or timing or include clichés, but they are still full of emotion and imagery and heart.  Perhaps we should call them something else, spoken songs or poetry of the people, because I think they are an important part of the total scope of creative writing in this country and we need to cherish them. In the meantime, I shall encourage local poets to keep reading, not just the popular poetry but some of the literary stuff as well. Here's a sample of poems to read that will start you off - and entertain you. They run in the poetic veins of our culture, but are they all 'good' poems?

Moving in to a new house

It's taken me eight months to move house, even though we actually moved at the end of August last year. I've been trapped by stuff in boxes, stuff waiting to go into storage, stuff to go in furniture and on shelves. And I couldn't face doing any of it. I just couldn't imagine living here. It feels weird to be here, surrounded by the familiar books and belongings, my special people, yet feeling like we were temporarily waiting for our new house to be available. If I had been plonked down on the pavement surrounded by boxes I wouldn't have felt less at home. It was someone else's house.

This weekend something shifted. Something in me, I suppose, even though it felt like it was driven entirely by Russell. My 'study', the dumping ground from the move, started to shift. 

'I could move your desk if you like.'

That was all it took, really. I had three bookcases in the corner, and I asked him if he could change them around so I could slot my (huge) desk in them somehow. Within two minutes of looking at the bookcases, sucking a pencil and a bit of measuring, he announced that he could, so I called his bluff. 

'Go on, then.'

Anyway, he did. This necessitated me packing up all the books I had moved (but will never read again), reference books that are redundant thanks to the internet, kids' books that can just go into storage waiting for grandchildren and anything I really don't need (800 A4 envelopes that don't stick any more, anyone? Eight almost empty boxes of matches with none of that striky stuff on the sides? Half-eaten feathers that the cats have chewed?).  

Now I have room to write, enough storage and room to teach from home, getting around the problems of finding a space cheap enough to rent. That will keep the cost down to writers. One problem was the large chest of drawers we had in the room, which had everything from maps to candles to batteries, wrapping paper, string, scissors... you can understand why I wasn't sure we could get rid of it. But it's been emptied, relocated to the youngest daughter's room, her room given a makeover, a new bed and it's tidied up. Now all I have to do is tidy my desk, always difficult. The truth is, I write better when my desk is clear (I know, I know, but...) so it's a good thing to do. It's still the hardest bit, even though we must have moved seven or eight hundred books and a lot of furniture this weekend. But I've done my words for the day so I have to tackle it. I'll post a picture to prove I did it!

I did it! Notice I don't show the floor...

Getting more organised... Russ put my pictures up too. 

Writing three books at once...

I know writers who fall deep into a book and write and write and write... I can't do that. Sooner or later I get stuck, I run out of plot and wonder where it's all going. (This would be easier if I was a plotter, I know, but I just can't organise a book until I've written it.) But I'm in the happy position of having a book to finish (A Baby's Bones 2), a new book to write and a book to edit (Secrets 3). It's refreshing going back to a project that I haven't read for many months, while I still get to play creator with the new chapters. I don't know why I write two books at a time more easily than one, but in the last eighteen months (the cancer years) I have written at a snail's pace. Getting back to normal is lovely.

Meanwhile, I have had the pleasure and privilege of reading books by a local writer. You know one of those people that writes fluent, rich books but can't get a book deal? I could see what he was doing wrong - and it's a familiar story, I made many of the same mistakes when I started out. Too many characters, no clear main character, too complex a structure with too many point of view characters, soft chapter beginnings that don't drag the reader in. If I have learned one thing on this journey it is to consider the reader. What are they going to get out of the book? What do they need to enjoy the story?  I know the answer for my genre is characters they find interesting. So often fantasy writers focus on the fantasy, but that's just setting. Ultimately, we want to invest in the people on that journey. I hope to see my friend progress towards publication - he certainly has the persistence and imagination to do it. 

I've also been succeeding with a problem I've had for fifteen years - type 2 diabetes. My blood sugar had shot up and I finally had symptoms. I was looking at more medication and insulin. I've finally given up on the NHS advice of lots of complex carbohydrates and looked into a new approach. It's finding approval in the US and Sweden already and research is pushing it into the NHS as well. My blood sugars are in the normal range, not OK-for-diabetics and I will have to reduce my medicine. Better still, my mood has stopped rocketing around with my blood sugar. As a welcome extra, I've lost a lot of weight, but that's not the best thing about it. Diets are incredibly hard to stick to because you get hungry, and crave your favourite foods. This diet cuts off the sugar rises and falls which dictate appetite. I can feel empty but not yet hungry - in fact I have to be careful I don't just fast all day. Anyway, this is a man who recommends you break up 70% chocolate into squares and put them in a jar, to help yourself if you get the munchies, so he understands. If you're worried about developing or have type 2 diabetes, you might like to look at this website or this book:

Back on the merry-go-round

I still have a book to polish up for publication by Del Rey UK, and I'm very grateful for that. But those books are written and I need to look forward to a new deal somewhere. I feel as if I'm back where I started but with a bit more to put in my writing CV. 

So a book I wrote several years ago will (hopefully) be landing in editors' inboxes at some point, courtesy of my new agent Jane. It only takes one of them to like it, I suppose, but the closer I get to a draft the less confident I become. I'm so familiar with the characters now they seem commonplace and ordinary. So I've spent some time looking through A Baby's Bones again and falling in love with my two principal characters again. 

It's also helped me with the sequel, because I am crawling through the contemporary strand incredibly slowly, barely making 3000 to 4000 words a week. (Note to self - check which box I packed my writing mojo in). It's growing, but I think I'm too distracted with other stuff (losing my mother-in-law, illness, settling into the house) to come up with story. As soon as a moment of plot suggests itself I'm off for a chapter or two - then stagnation again. It will all come together, it always does. Meanwhile I'm still playing with my ghost story. 

Meanwhile, one of my sons is studying archaeology at the University of Southampton, and I am JEALOUS. The more I read, the more fascinating the subject becomes. I'm looking forward to him coming home for Easter to see what his course has shown him - something will spark for the book, I'm sure. He was a fan of ABB and that's a good reason to get on with ABB 2. Love you, Isaac!

The merest suggestion of Spring

I have just realised I write books and set them in the present season. Books get written in spring or autumn because that tends to be when I start a new book. But just to make life difficult, I have set the contemporary strand of A Baby's Bones 2 in the autumn, but unconsciously I am filling the story with daffodils and late snow showers which I can see from the window. Not as obviously as that, of course, but somehow it's creeping in. Reading it back it stands out, and worse than that, I set the historical strand in the spring too, so it would be confusing to switch backwards and forwards. But I did the same for ABB 1, setting the contemporary story in March and April, and the historical strand from August to Christmas. I seemed to get away with that, and I enjoyed writing it, swapping from one to the other. This time it just doesn't seem to work, I'm getting confused. I'm getting my March and October mixed up.

In other news, I'm about to start rewriting and tidying up book 3. I think it's the best of the three Secrets books, I'm learning as I go. But in many ways it's the biggest of the three with the biggest breadth. I suspect it will need a lot more work, and I still don't have a title for it! ARGH! I'm rubbish at titles.

Having been a bit under the weather for the last few months it's nice to be feeling better, almost as the spring unfolds. Maybe that's why it's sneaking into ABB 2. There's a bit of me in all my characters so I suppose it's natural to identify with the characters, but I really do feel closest to Sage, my archaeologist character. Writing her conflict between being a wife and mother and being a professional archaeologist reflects some conflicts in me. I've been the mother of at least one child since 1984, that's officially forever, and today our youngest turned 16. I no longer have a 'child', even if she's still dependant on us she's already looking out at the world. Five years ago I would have said that was a painful thing, but after a lot of grieving as they all moved on or out, I've started to speculate what life on the other side is like. Will I have to take up golf and/or flower arranging? Because all I want to do is catch up on some of the things I missed having my children young. I think it's time to misbehave and shock the 'children'. Maybe Sage can let her hair down too.