Oh, the comfort --
The inexpressible comfort of feeling
safe with a person,
Having neither to weigh thoughts,
Nor measure words -- but pouring them
All right out -- just as they are --
Chaff and grain together --
Certain that a faithful hand will
Take and sift them --
Keep what is worth keeping --
and with the breath of kindness
Blow the rest away.
Dinah Craik
This morning I got an email from a friend in California, and when she said she had been to San Francisco for the evening to a restaurant on Valencia, my heart quivered. Then I checked Isaac’s blog as I always do, and found this little beauty, called San Francisco skies, and I wanted to be in San Francisco – and not just so I could hang out with Isaac and Wendy in some rooftop cafe, drinking margaritas in the sunshine.
Nor just to cycle over the Golden Gate Bridge…
I love San Francisco. If you have to be in a city (I don’t like cities) then choose SF. Forget New York with its crowds of tourists and its smells and noise, its traffic and its high rise buildings – arrghh where’s the sky? – and fly to SF where there are human sized houses, and they are pretty colours, and where you can see the sky and the ocean, and the natives are laid back and friendly, and the cab drivers give you money back if they think you have tipped them too much. (True! It happened to me!)
I have just used the last of the golden syrup, but how can I throw away the tin when it’s so attractive?
I already have three million of them as pencil pots on my desk. I don’t need any more.
And this box…
The shed is already full of boxes that I have no use for, but which are far too strong and sturdy and attractive to throw away. Do any of you have this problem?
Fiona Robyn is my guest for today. She has just had her third novel published – Thaw.
Congratulations, Fiona! Welcome to my blog. Let’s get started…
1/ You and I both know that not many writers make a decent living out of writing. According to the Society of Authors, the average income of their members is £7,000 per annum. How do you pay the bills that your royalties don’t cover? What is your other work?
£7000 a year – I wish! For some time I worked towards being able to support myself and have time to write, and I have achieved this now – I work as a counsellor in private practice in the afternoons and evenings, so I have the mornings free to write. I enjoy my work hugely, and so although I’ll probably cut down when I become rich and famous (!) I don’t think I’ll ever give it up completely.
2/ How much of your work do you think feeds into your writing – directly or indirectly?
I’d say that everything I do feeds into my writing indirectly, and probably especially my work with clients. I’m very careful not to use anything directly, even a turn of phrase a client might have, but I hear so much about what it’s like to be human I’m sure it all ‘composts down’.
3/ I know you’re a poet as well as a novelist. What would you say are the three things you enjoy most about writing novels?
I don’t know if I can call myself a poet any more – I haven’t written poems for some time. For me, novels are all about my characters, especially my protagonists. I also love observing tiny details (which I also enjoyed in poetry) and finding out what happens in the story.
4/ And what are the three things you find the hardest, or the least enjoyable?
Hmm – I HATE first drafts, they’re terrifying. I don’t like checking out facts – I’m easily bored. I can’t think of a third!
5/ What is Thaw about? Pretend you haven’t got a publisher for it and you’re trying to sell it to a publisher.
That’s putting me on the spot… Through Ruth’s three month diary, in which she decides whether or not she wants to live or die, Thaw explores how we find can meaning in our relationship with the world, and make our lives worth living.
6/ Now pretend I am a film producer, and try to sell it to me as an idea for a film…
Argh, even worse! Suicidal microbiologist seeks big answers via a Russian portrait painter.
7/ Finally, have you ever attended a creative writing class, or done a creative writing course? And do you think there is anything to be gained from such courses?
Oh, yes – HUGE amounts to be gained. I used to go to a writing group for years and learnt the craft of poetry there, and on countless wonderful Arvon courses, and workshops. I think poets maybe do this better than novelists. It’s easier to critique a poem! Having said that, there is a point at which you have to have faith in your work and forge forwards, regardless of what anyone else says…
I actually made it to a sax lesson yesterday, after missing 2 weeks for Mel’s Christmas hols, 2 weeks for snow, 1 week because Mel was ill, and 1 week because I was ill. Mel could really see my progress. She said she was speechless at my rendition of Misty, and I stood there glowing. And then I asked her to help me add frilly bits to it.
Oh my God.
Up until yesterday I was thinking I could get away with learning major and minor scales and that would see me through. Now I realise that if I want to improvise there are all kinds of frigging scales I have to learn, scales I didn’t even know existed – dorian scales, mixolydian scales, phrygian scales, pentatonic scales, and now Dave has walked in and told me not to forget the blues scales. AAARRRGGGHHH.
And all these scales fit together in a really weird way. For example a Dorian scale in G is really a Gm7 but if you look at the signature on the stave it has one flat which makes it look like F Major. How the hell am I supposed to get my head around all of this? I have stumbled into a nightmare world that is an impenetrable matrix of incomprehensible musical meta-theory. It makes multivariate statistical analysis (that I did in my former life) look as simple as counting on my fingers. And all because I heard that man playing Misty on the sax outside the Co-op in Bakewell. That man has a lot to answer for. I shall track him down and give him what for.
We have an empty house again, and I am better from my ailments and there is no reason not to get on with my writing. That’s fine. I like writing!
On the other hand, there is the faint uneasiness that follows a family get together…
…you get used to an empty nest, where the (conscious) parent role diminishes, and you kid yourself you’re a free, standalone adult, and then when the chicks come home again for a fleeting visit, and you are in parent role again, and then they suddenly leave, you are left wondering how the chicks view you…as a parent.
And it is rather scary.
(stained glass above by father, Dave, photo by son, Isaac.)
Yesterday was my second Christmas Day. In December I was with my brother Pete and family in Belgium and that was lovely. Yesterday, I had my family here – all of them home for the day: my two sons, my daughter and husband and my two grandchildren. The only one missing was the little red hen, who had to stay home in San Francisco. (We missed you, Wendy.)
I am not one of those noble people who soldier on when their bodies are falling apart. I am the type who lies in bed and lets people bring them cups of tea, and occasional snippets of conversation which the messenger considers interesting – such as that their current favourite musicians (Pomplamoose) have got 160,000 hits on their new video-song on Youtube.
And I am the type who lets someone light the fire for them so they can go downstairs and lie on the couch and watch an ancient BBC dramatisation of The Secret Garden which came free with a Saturday paper. I hope to see you next week, if I am spared. (How does one achieve an ironic tone on a blog? Maybe I should consult Bodmyn Corner.)
Perhaps next week I will have a clear head and be able to say something interesting. In the meantime, this is an interesting article. It's interesting to me because I was one of the majority of the British public against the illegal war in Iraq, and also one of the million people who marched against it with my children in London in February 2003.
And here's a memory of that....
Halfway through the march, my elder son left me to go and take photographs of the procession, with the words (to me) "Take care. Have fun." Then, pointing to the other two, he said "Make sure you stay with them."
A woman walking alongside me overheard and laughed."That," she said, "must be your son."
Ally McBeal, to a friend who is going to have a baby:
”They say it changes your life.”
Well, durrh.
I used to read the blog of a woman in her sixties who lived on the North West coast of the USA. She wrote about her daily life, and her reflections on it. Her posts were short and simple. Some were thought provoking, and some amusing, and I enjoyed them. She and I seemed to have a lot in common, even though her religion and politics were different from mine. Then she began to devote the majority of her posts to her political views - with which I profoundly disagreed - and I stopped reading.
Last January, when the Israelis were bombing Gaza, I was so upset by it, that I spent the duration of the war - all of January - protesting about it on my blog. My readership multiplied exponentially, but I suspected that a lot of my regular readers deserted me. ( I have no way of knowing this.)
Sometimes, I think I should be writing on here every day about the things that I feel passionately about. But then it would be a different kind of blog. And humour and friendliness cheer people up, which I really do feel is a valid occupation. So for the present, I shall be restricting my political posts to occasional rants on the plight of the Palestinians, and rare snipes at our mendacious and duplicitous ex-Prime Minister.
And the photo at the top of this post? It is my big sister, Kath, feeding her pet lamb, Lucy, circa 1955, and I have put it on here because I like the photo, and I love Kath (and it’s my blog and I can do what I want. Am I in a weird mood, today? Probably.)
The best thing to do on a dismal, damp, January day like yesterday is to inject some colour into it, and that’s what we did. First I played my sax, and then, as Dave needed stained glass supplies (it’s not just Corinne in Zuzu’s Petals who makes stained glass) I went along with him to the warehouse. And I thought you might like to see a few pics of it, so I took my camera.
Then after dinner, I did half an hour on the exercise bike, and when I finished I staggered into the sitting room and flopped on the sofa and said to Dave – “It’s far too hot in my study to be on the bike in there,” and he said – “Maybe you’d feel better if you took off your saxophone neck strap first.”
Dave made the circular flower piece at the top - it’s one of my favourites. (Observant readers will see a sax reed on the windowsill – those damn things get everywhere.)
I recently had an email from a fellow (published) writer who is beginning a new book. She asked me “When you start a new book, do you just plunge in?”
I never just plunge in.
I have pages of notes on my characters, an overall plot, sub plots and a sketchy outline of the whole trajectory of the book, from a beginning which I have decided. I know what I want to achieve in the first three chapters, but not exactly how I am going to do it.
I turn it all over in my mind and hold off from the actually writing. I stand on the brink of Chapter 1, partly because it seems so scary (can I do it again?) and then eventually I think – to hell with it, I’ll write something – anything – and see if it’s any good. (i.e. how much of it I can keep.)
It’s only when I get a third of the way through a book that I map out each chapter in terms of the scenes that will go in it. When I get to that stage I LOVE it, because I know what is going to happen and I am into the story and it carries me along. At the very beginning, it’s a struggle every time I sit down to write.
Have you ever sent an email to the wrong person? I did this week, and it’s made me wonder how many others I’ve sent in the past…what a chilling thought. Luckily, the mis-addressed one this week arrived in my daughter-in-law Wendy’s inbox, when it was intended for my daughter.
Dear ZZ
I hope you had a lovely time away.
Can you think of something I could buy for Wendy for her birthday?
I want to get her something esp nice, because her Christmas hat didn’t fit her.
Love Suexx
So Wendy emailed back, telling me what she would like for her birthday – a home made bag to carry her lunch box to work. Excellent. Why didn’t I think of asking Wendy in the first place?
I’ve been teetering on the brink of starting a new quilt for two weeks, looking at the fabrics on the table and sifting out the ones that weren’t right, about to launch into the choppy waters of a new patchwork, and now Wendy has rescued me. (I’ve told you before what a great daughter-in-law she is.) I can make a bag for her instead. Now I just need to design it. Did I say just? Just?
Yesterday, in my Scary Post, I asked regular readers who have not commented, to say hello, and some of you did. It was very exciting for me, very sweet to hear from you, after firing so many posts into the cybersphere and for day after day, hearing nothing. And if anyone out there wants to de-lurk today, that would be wonderful too.
One reader (Sam10) asked me a question - Can I ask how you took the Gaza cause on as your own personal 'crusade'? and I wrote my answer this morning and realised that it was far too long to put in the comments section, so I hope that those who are not interested will bear with me if I answer it here instead.
I don’t have a personal connection with Palestine, but I care deeply about social justice. Last night in bed I was trying to decide how to answer your question and my heart started racing and wouldn’t stop. When I think about what the ordinary Palestinian people have to put up with on a daily basis – either in Gaza or in the other territories - I am engulfed in a weird cocktail of feelings – rage, sadness, incomprehension. I cannot believe that the world stands by and lets the Israeli Government collectively punish the Palestinian people in all the cruel ways that it does. Collective punishment of civilians is a war crime.
The Israeli Government is an occupying power in the Palestinian territories. They should not be there in the first place. They have stolen land from the Palestinians. Now they are there they do illegal things like build on their land – which is against international law. They bulldoze their houses and their olive groves. They steal their water supplies, so that Palestinian villages are short of water, while the neighbouring illegal settlements have plenty. The Israeli Government has built a wall, and people going about their daily business – going to school, work, hospital - have to queue, sometimes for hours - to go through checkpoints in the wall, and sometimes are not allowed to go through for spurious reasons.
One part of the Palestinian territories – Gaza – is under siege and has been so since before the war last January. The international community has promised aid for Gaza, but the Israeli Government will not allow in a lot of that aid, including building materials to reconstruct houses which they bombed last January. Thousands of people are homeless, the sewage system and water supplies are wrecked. The Israeli Government restricts the import of everything, and will not even allow certain medicines in. Last week, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said it has run out of 141 types of medicines and 116 types of medical supplies due to Israeli restrictions. e.g. There is a baby dying in Gaza because the Israelis will not allow in a special type of infant milk – the only formula to which the baby is not allergic. Why?
I could go on and on. The situation is so unjust. And yet we still trade with Israel. The Israeli Government breaks UN resolutions and we turn a blind eye. I do not condone any kind of violence and so do not condone the violence of Palestinian factions against the Israelis. When the Palestinians had an election that was judged fair by impartial international observers, they elected Hamas, and yet the Israeli Government and other governments refuse to negotiate with Hamas. Why?
For all these reasons, I try to do what I can. I go on demonstrations, I sign petitions, I boycott Israeli goods, I mention the cause on my blog, I collect money for a charity (that has no agenda of violence) which is helping ordinary Palestinians – Medical Aid for Palestinians.
‘It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.’ Confucius
I’ve just been reading a blog where the blogger asked regular readers to make “de-lurking” comments. In other words, she/he asked regular readers who never comment, to write something – anything – about the blog in the comments section below the post. I often wonder who my regular readers are. I know I have regular readers, even though only a handful make comments. Only two of my family ever comment on the blog, though they do email me privately about what I write on here.
It would be great if you could leave a de-lurking comment – yes, you! You don’t have to tell me your real name.They don’t have to be clever or witty. You could just say “Hello from” wherever you live. Or you could ask me a question – which I will do my best to answer. Something, anything from you would be so encouraging.
Why have I given this post the title “Scary post”? Because I might get no comments from anyone. How ignominious would that be?
I’ve been living like a hermit (with Dave) for what seems like three months (but when I count it up it’s only two and a half weeks – what?) and not been anywhere but the village shop, the village dairy, the Bakewell Co-op and Quaker Meeting (OK, not like a hermit, but I have felt like a hermit) so when I got on a train yesterday alongside people I didn’t know (except for - by chance - my whodunnit writer friend, similarly starved of excitement, but who always has interesting things to say, such as “Did you know that Amazon sells a bullet-proof memory stick?” ) and then I got off the train 15 minutes later in Sheffield and saw hundreds of people I didn’t know all walking about unimpeded on snow-free streets – well, it was sensationally stimulating. WOW!
And I am sitting here in bare feet typing this because it isn’t cold anymore, and outside the window it’s raining and thawing, which has cheered me up as much as going to the pictures yesterday to see Meryl Streep’s new film, It's Complicated (which was good fun, if flawed, not least because neither of the male leads was anything to write home about. I mean – Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin as romantic leads? Come on…why didn’t they have someone yummy like Gabriel Byrne…
or George Clooney ? (or even that chap who played the father in the remake of The Parent Trap?….)
Yes, you’re right. Yesterday’s excitement has gone to my head and affected the style of this post. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.
The best thing about the snow is that it cuts down my options: there is no possibility of slacklining, walking, cycling or gardening, and the roads are too dangerous for trivial trips for gallivanting purposes. This makes it so much easier to stay in and write.
Yesterday, after working hard all morning, I was desperate for fresh air, so I walked down to the village to get some milk…
I enjoyed the walk so much, that I went for another one, and had a chat with my mother (in my head) about my career. She was very encouraging.
The biggest fattest bummer about the snow is that I have a sledge, and we are surrounded by suitably hilly fields, and my grandsons live only 15 miles away, but the roads are too icy for them to come over and go sledging with me.
The roads were too icy to go to my sax lesson last night (oh boo!) so I stayed at home, and ordered two items from Amazon to cheer myself up - a Victoria Wood DVD to make me laugh– and A Scattering, a collection of poems by Christopher Reid which has just won a Costa Award and is described by the Guardian as “a lucid, cogent panorama of grief and loss.”
Hmmm. An interesting combination. Comedy and bereavement. You know those recommendations that Amazon comes up with when you first log on? I wonder what they’ll suggest next time? Six feet under? Zuzu’s Petals?
Do follow that Victoria Wood link above – it makes me laugh out loud every time I watch it.
It is a joy having my 25 year old son to stay, but it is a penance to wait until 11 o clock in the morning (when he gets up) to play my sax. When it’s just me and my main man here on our own, I can get up and play at 6 in the morning if I feel like it. And sometimes I do.
The question is – will the roads be sufficiently clear from snow at teatime for me to get to my sax lesson ? Fingers crossed.
On the other hand, I am very, very, very, lucky to have a big warm bed and someone to share it with and NO ice on the inside of my window panes, and there are definite advantages to being grown up and free to decide I’m going to stay in bed an extra hour with Victoria Wood on my laptop to make me laugh, and deux pains au chocolat, which I bought the day before as a prophylactic against early morning angst.
And anyway, I did always think that the school milk looked odd when it froze and popped out of the bottles in those little columns, so I didn’t fancy drinking it, and nor did I like sitting cross-legged on the floor in infant class at story-time behind that boy who got his hankie out and wrapped it round his index finger and then licked it and spent the whole of Little Red Riding Hood picking the scab on his knee.
Who was that boy?
Sometimes, when you wake up ridiculously early (4.50 a.m.) and you foolishly talk to your partner for half an hour (foolishly, because this makes you fully awake) and you're desperate for a cuppa, and before you get out of bed you have to put on two jumpers over your pyjamas because it’s so cold, and then when you get back into bed with your tea and your laptop, you find an email from your sister about a website of the village where you grew up, and you look at the photographs of yourself and your brothers and sisters at the lovely village school, and you read all about a classmate’s memories, and you remember the way the school milk popped out of the tops of the tiny bottles when it froze and how the teacher used to defrost it in front of the classroom coal fire, and how you took your best friend Christine Cook’s milk home for her when she was ill, and how Perfect Person (Miss Brown) taught you beautiful italic script and how Miss Coggan took you on nature walks and allowed you to go and pick brambles for the dinner ladies to use for pudding for school dinner, you are overwhelmed and burst into tears, and you wonder why life isn’t simple and sweet any more.
And you snuggle under the bedclothes again, and all you want is for your mother to be downstairs in the kitchen cooking bacon for your breakfast, and for the smell of it to be wafting upstairs, and for your brother to be groaning in the next bedroom about how cold it is, and that there’s frost on the inside of his window. Sometimes, when all of this happens, all you can do to cheer yourself up is to ditch your usual sensible porridge, and make yourself pancakes for breakfast.
p.s. I am the one with the glasses in the top photo, and the others are three of my lovely sibs.
