Back and raring to go!

It is a few weeks since I have blogged but don't for one moment think I have been enjoying myself! After recovering from the bad back at Easter I believe I dived too readily into catching up with all that was left undone by my injury and, subsequently run down, succomed to a nasty cold which rapidly detriorated into bronchitis. So, a week in bed and another recovering. Not fun at all. Feeling much better, although still coughing like a hound, I have now resumed the editing and work on the book cover of The Forest Dwellers.

My big news this week is that we welcomed a new member into the family on Friday when we received our first foster placement. She has settled down quickly and is rapidly becoming 'one of us.' I am finding all these new responsibilites are a bit tiring, especially with being so recently ill but I am enjoying it and that is the main thing.

John has read The Forest Dwellers through for the first time and has nothing but enthusiastic praise for it (I know, I know, he is biased). His reaction is very encouraging for I know he is always honest with me and he is very good at spotting errors; he picked up some typo's and small hiccups in continuity that I can now correct before it goes to an editor.

And the sun is here, at last; I can get up in the morning without shrugging into jumpers and socks. The Rayburn can stay off and salad is on the menu more frequently. The birds are making a racket in the mornings and the sun is blinding me through the windows and I will soon be complaining of being too hot. Isnt the sunshine just lovely?

We are lucky enough to have owls nesting in our garden and the young are so funny. They don't stay in the nest but clamber about in the branches, a bit like parrots do, I even found one on the lawn on a couple of occasions and had to replace him in the tree for fear of predators. I have boought a new camera and hope to get out there and take some photographs when it arrives. Fingers crossed they dont fledge before then.

It is all happening here, we have four birthdays in the next three weeks so it will be barbeques and chocolate cake all the way. And, most astonishingly, I realised that in February my mum and dad will have been married for SEVENTY YEARS! Good Lord, is that humanly possible?

The End

Today I finished the first draft of The Forest Dwellers. I typed the last line, punched in the last full stop and wrote with great satisfaction, 'The End'.

Of course, it is nothing like 'the end' for now the hard work is just beginning. Now I must be hard on myself, objectively criticise my own voice, sift the wheat from the chaff and cast huge chunks of my manuscript into the recycle bin.

There will be parts that need entirely redrafting, characters that need to be taken in hand, given a good telling off and put firmly in their place. Some sections will be expanded, others stripped bare, but at the end of it all I hope to find a solid, marketable novel.

I have written The Forest Dwellers via the perspective of several narrators, a new experiment for me, and I do have some worries that their voices may be too similar, that my own voice will be heard above those of my characters. The editing process will hopefully reveal any such weaknesses in the narrative so that I can really get inside my characters heads, differentiate between them; highlight turns of phrase, characteristics and opinions.

But, before I do any of that, I am going to take a break from The Forest Dwellers, perhaps work on some short stories or poetry and begin to think about my next novel. AElf and Alys, Leo, Giles, Thurrold and Tyrell are all so firmly in my head just now that I need to step away from them, try to forget them so that, when I do come back, I can approach them as a reader and discover them all afresh.

UFO

Something strange has been happening in Wales this week; there is a vast golden ball in the sky. It pours down warmth, opening the flowers and encouraging the bees. This phenomenon is rarely seen here but, when it is, a new, optimistic mood falls upon the people of Wales. They linger in open spaces, talk with neighbours, mow their lawns, light trays of charcoal to cook their food al fresco.
I am convinced it is a good thing, this rare and noble body in our sky but it does have one detrimental effect; it interferes with my writing. I have not managed more than a few sketchy paragraphs for almost a fortnight now. I keep finding myself bent over flowerbeds, trowel in hand, filling wheel barrows with buttercups. It cannot go on and, in all probablity, it won't. So, I will therefore make the most of it, enjoy the warm splendour that is issuing from the heavens and get back to Aelf and Alys next week when a damper, more familiar feel to the weather reappears.

A Saga of bed and chocolate

Well, maybe I shouldn't have moaned about the weather last time because, when the sun did come out on Easter Saturday, I rushed outside to do a little bit of gardening. It was so nice to take off my cardigan and get stuck in that I got stuck in a little too much and spent the next five days in bed with a bad back.

The first two days were the worst. I was unable to move without excrutiating pain; my long suffering other half even had to help me on and off with my knickers - something we havent indulged in for a while now :D In the following days bed was the only place where I could gain any comfort, half propped on pillows. Sitting upright just made me lock up again and lying down is very dull, all I learned is that the ceiling needs repainting again. It wouldnt have been so bad had i not suspected that the males in the family were rather glad; gardening and diy were abandoned without the 'gaffer' and it was football and cricket from dawn to dusk. Not that it affected me too much, although I did have a long wait between cups of coffee.

A few more paragraphs of The Forest Dwellers emerged but the pain was distracting and I couldn't access my research notes very easily. Thank the Lord I had chocolate eggs to ease my long, boring days. And, curtesy of my friend, Brenda, the whole of the original Forsyte Saga to watch.

When I began to watch the early episodes I thought, 'Oh, Lord, this is dreadfully dated.' The acting seemed a bit hammy and I had never realised that Victorian women indulged in such heavy eye make-up. However, as I became absorbed in the wonderful tangle of Soames and Irene, shared thier joys and sorrows, (poor old Soames) I forgot all that and I forgot about The Forest Dwellers for a while too.

It is such a shame that they dont make Television like that any more; ok, so the make-up is flaky and some of the acting a bit OTT and the scenery rattles about like the walls are made of cardboard. None of that matters, I don't know if it is the depth and scope of John Galsworthy's novel or the superiority of the cast but, almost fourty four years on, The original Forsyte Saga is still one of the best series I have ever seen.

A traditional British complaint about the weather at Easter

As I type this it is snowing, not a few little flurries that you can pretend you haven't noticed but great flakes of madly swirling white stuff; a blizzard, as if we haven't suffered enough.

I remember Easters spent in the garden, reclaiming the flower beds from the rigours of winter, swigging bottles of chilled beer in an effort to keep cool while the barbeque slowly warmed up on the patio. Easter egg hunts with the children crying because the dog, Toby, was better at finding them than they; picnics, trips to the zoo, even to the beach. O.K there were a few here and there that were rained off, it wasn't always perfect but this Easter takes the proverbial biscuit.

The question is what does one do for four days of Easter holiday when the weather is inclement? At one time we could rely on the springtime to provide at least one bright, hopefully not too damp, day in which to enjoy ourselves. But, no, this year it will be snow, too much chocolate and second rate television; you could almost think it is Christmas!

The Big Cover Up

It's a while since I blogged but I have a good excuse. I have been working extremely hard; I have to write while the creativity is flowing and it has been gushing lately. As a result The Forest Dwellers is coming along nicely.

As the end of the first draft nears I have been considering possible covers. Peaceweaver was published with You Write On and the only flaw in the process was the cover which I feel is too plain. It was selected as the best of a bad lot provided by the publisher and it just doesn't 'say what it does on the tin' so this time I am determined to come up with something more suited to the genre.

The cover of a book encourages a prospective reader pick the thing up in the first place so it has to draw the eye, then, when they turn it over, the back cover blurb needs to be so irresistable they are hopelessly hooked. I have spent hours scanning stock photo sites for a suitable picture but the only thing that grabbed me was by a photographer who has stubbornly ignored my emails. So, (I hope) I have gone one better and cut out the middle man, so to speak.

I have purchased a gorgeous early medieval gown from Ebay, it is being flown all the way from the USA. I always try to buy local produce but this was one item I couldn't find in the high street of our local small market town.

The next trick will be to persuade my eighteen year old daughter to come to the woods and model it for me while I take some splendid photographs. She should be quite easily persuaded and, as she is a beautiful, slim, natural blonde, I am confident she will do the gown justice. I won't have to worry about copyright and, more importantly, will be able to have exactly what I want on the cover.

Publishing my novels has opened so many new avenues; I learn new skills everyday and these days I am never bored or find myself with nothing to do. The only thing that puzzles me is why I didn't get serious about my writing years ago!

Historical genre

I had an email from an agent who said that sellling historical novels to mainstream publishers is very difficult. Another lady, a writer friend, told me I am wasting my time writing historical novels because the market is flooded with them. Both comments are probably accurate but does that mean I should throw down my pen and give up?

I don't think so. It wouldn't be possible for me to write in the modern world; it is an alien place to me, I am far more at home among codpieces and longbows than I am i-pods and blackberries. Giving up writing is not an option either so I shall continue. I often wish I could think of a quick witted reply to those sort of negative comments but I never do, not until later when the conversation is long over. When I was in the shower that evening I remembered that five out of the top six novels shortlisted for the Booker prize last year were historicals and, isn't the whole literary market flooded? Isn't it always a fight to get your writing noticed? Of course it is but that doesn't mean we should all quit! I have decided that the best way to go forward is to remember the reason I began to write historical novels in the first place; it was impossible to buy the sort of novel I wanted to read. There aren't enough quality historical novels on the market.

Oh, there are plenty of over wordy, romantic bodice rippers but nowhere near enough gritty, meaty, historically convincing works. Once I have had my yearly dose of Bernard Cornwell (hurry up with the next in the Saxon chronicles, Bernard!) I spend the rest of the year trawling the pages of Amazon for something new. Simon Carrow writes very well, Jack Whyte's arthurian books are brilliant but I have read them all and there seems to be little else coming through. Sharon Penman's books are about the best written from a woman's perpective but the books that I really love are, unfortunately, male orientated, the female charaters are usually secondary. There must be other women out there who want to read about historical women that aren't swooning all over the place or meekly submitting to male domination. So I sat down to write novels for those women.

In Peaceweaver, Eadgyth is at the mercy of her male dominated world but she isnt submissive. She is raped, beaten, imprisoned, captured, tormented but she puts up a brilliant fight. Her main grievance is that she has never been allowed to make a decision for herself but, in the last few lines of the novel, I provide her with the opportunity to make one that will shape her life.

My females in The Forest Dwellers (WIP) are rather more actively self reliant than Eadgyth. Despite unimaginable drawbacks Aelf and Alys fight back, using their own individual weapons. They embody the vengeance culture of the Anglo Saxon world they were born into and use it against their Norman oppressors. The men in their lives are disempowered, not by strength of arms alone but by feminine stubborness and resilience.

So, if anyone, reader, agent, publisher agrees that there is indeed a gap in the market for books of this type please get in contact. silentwhisper1@aol.com