Tuesday 30 April 2013

A road trip

Book reviews coming soon, promise - and those replies to your great comments which I promised last week.  But for today, I thought I'd show you the outcome of a road trip I took with my friend Mel recently.  We go to places with absurd names, and wanted to visit Kingsbury Episcopi and Curry Rivel (both amazing, no?)  We did manage to see both these Somerset villages, but also stumbled across somewhere rather brilliant on the way... and Mel took this photo:


Monday 29 April 2013

My ediction continues...

Remember a while ago, when I told you about my addiction to buying different editions of the Provincial Lady series by E.M. Delafield?  This was cleverly nicknamed an 'ediction' by Susan - and fed by lovely Agnieszka!  This arrived in the post the other day...


Agnieszka, you are very wicked for being my enabler - but very kind as well!  Thank you so much - my edillection (can you work out what that is?) is a step nearer completion...

Sunday 28 April 2013

One place; many Simons

I find the importance of places very interesting - as I'm sure we all do.  In literature, I am particularly fascinated by the resonances of houses.  I will rush towards any novel where a house is significant for itself, especially if staircases are involved (don't ask me why I love staircases so much, I have no idea.)  But recently I've been pondering about places which are neither very familiar nor unfamiliar - the sorts of places I go a dozen times over the years, but couldn't be considered a home, and how they may thus witness different stages of life, quite coincidentally.

There are lots of places in Oxford which act as a metaphorical palimpsest in this manner, but I've picked Wellington Square Garden - tucked away parallel to St. Giles, it's a neat, sweet little park - often filled with office workers enjoying their lunch in summer, or ice cream eaters on a Saturday - but, foolishly, with only one bench.


The first time I went to it would have been before I went up to Oxford as an undergraduate.  Wellington Square is right next to Kellogg College, which runs courses and lecture days for non-students.  As a sixth-former, I sometimes stumped up £30 to spend a day with my Mum and our friend Barbara, listening to lectures on various English literature topics - it's how I first heard about my beloved Katherine Mansfield, for instance.  It was an early sign of how much I loved studying literature - and my introduction to Wellington Square gardens, where we wandered in between lectures.

I've witnessed many strange and eccentric things while in Oxford, and probably done a fair few myself, so it's only one example from many that I could mention (and the only one which happened in this park.)  A pirate asked me to take his photo.  Well, a man dressed as a pirate, I assume... but, still.  I was innocently reading a book on the bench, and was approached... I expected to be asked to give money to a charity but, no, just the photograph, and... they went on their way.


Wellington Square Garden does have a literary connection for me, too - well, that is, I read a much-loved book there for the first time.  Just around the corner, on Little Clarendon Street, there is a charity shop (I forget which.)  In the basement, they have a selection of books - and in 2007 I decided to buy the slim Virago Modern Classic I picked up, because the synopsis sounded interesting and it was only about 50p.  I toddled round to Wellington Square Garden and, since it was a nice day, lay down on the grass to read it... and was instantly in love.  The novel was The Love-Child by Edith Olivier, which I have read many times since - and written about at length in my doctoral thesis, as well as putting it on my 50 Books You Must Read.

Most recently, a little over a year ago, I came here after I'd been told that the first test I'd done was positive, and I'd have to be tested for cancer.  Everything turned out to be fine, but it was a terrifying and frustrating time.  I walked from the GP down St. John Street to this park, sat on the bench and cried and cried.  And then I mopped myself up and went to work, because it was 8am and I hadn't taken the day off.


So, Wellington Square has seen quite a lot of disparate emotions and memories - and it's still one of my favourite places in Oxford.  Who knows what it'll see in the future?

This isn't the easiest meme to transfer to your own blogs, because it requires a bit of thought and memory - but I'd love to see other people picking a spot which has proved significant over their lives, but still not home or deeply familiar.  Just a place you sometimes go, which has coincidentally been the site for different moods and different events.  There's your challenge - pop a link in the comments if you take it up.

Friday 26 April 2013

10 Not-So-Great Steps of A Writing Ritual

by Mindy McGinnis

A lot of people ask me how I write, or even how does one start writing. Unfortunately the answer to that last question is incredibly simple and horribly difficult at the same time.

You just sit your ass down and do it.

Beyond that, I know a lot of writers have different rituals that they go through before they dive in for the day. Some like to have music playing. Some must have a cup of tea or a particular kind of snack before they begin. Others light the same kind of scented candle, or write in the same room at the same time of every day.

But the pain in the butt thing about writing is that no one trick works for everyone. It's not like your baseball swing where someone can say to you, "Look, you've got your feet set wrong," or, "Your not turning your hips." Writing doesn't work that way. Every one of us has to find our own set of rules or rituals that can turn us into successful authors.

Too often I hear aspiring authors asking those with agents or deals how they do it. And that particular person's trick probably isn't going to work for you... because it's theirs. For example. I'm going to share with you my tips and tricks for writing success, and you'll probably see right off the bat that my ritual is not for you. Or probably really anybody besides myself.

1) Nap often. Once you get sleepy there's no point trying to write anymore. I don't care if it's 1 PM or 1 AM. You need your sleep. Take a break.

2) When you reach a critical scene, make a random phone call or check your email because you're absolutely certain that you can't deliver this time.

3) Write in your bed, right before bed. Ignore the clock. It's 3 AM and you have to work tomorrow - screw it. You had a nap earlier.

4) Don't name your characters right up until the moment you have to type their names for the first time. Then just sit back and say, "Hi, what's your name?" They'll tell you.

5) Let your cat sleep right on top of your chest while you're writing, so that you have to peer over his fuzzy ass to see the laptop screen. It keeps you warm and builds harmony. Also, it will sharpen your typing skills.

6) Pretend other people don't exist for long periods of time. They actually don't, because you're in fantasy land now. You can text them later. This won't build friendships or strengthen family ties, but it will make your ms longer.

7) Resist getting up to pee right up until the moment when you damn well better. Some people don't like the distraction of a full bladder. I call it inspiration.

8) Make sure you drink a lot of water before you lie down to write, so that you won't make the excuse of having to get up later because you're thirsty. Sure, it leads to the bladder problem mentioned in number 7, but the bathroom is closer than the kitchen. Think time management.

9) Randomly check your Twitter feed every now and then. If you hit a dead spot, or aren't sure how to bridge to the next scene, pop in on your Twitter buds. If you follow a lot of fellow writers, chances are someone else is having the same problem, or else has become convinced that they suck. Return to your ms knowing that you're not alone in this. We all suck sometimes. It's OK.

10) Read back over the last 3 or 4 pages that you wrote the night before to place yourself, but don't edit as you go. This is your first draft, your "word vomit," as I call it. Get all that out of your stomach -- apply your brain to it later.

That's it, friends. That's how I write. It's a collection of anti-social, UTI-inspiring, sleepy logic, but somehow... it seems to work for me!
_____________________________


Mindy McGinnis is a YA author and librarian. Her debut, NOT A DROP TO DRINK, is a post-apocalyptic survival tale set in a world where freshwater is almost non-existent, available from Katherine Tegen / Harper Collins September 24, 2013. She blogs at Writer, Writer Pants on Fire and contributes to the group blogs Book PregnantFriday the ThirteenersFrom the Write AngleThe Class of 2k13The Lucky 13s & The League of Extraordinary Writers. You can also find her on TwitterTumblr & Facebook.

Thursday 25 April 2013

A couple of quick things...

I've never used a blog reader, but I know a lot of you do - and are probably aware that Google Reader will be shutting down soon.  Well, I've seen a few bloggers link to Bloglovin', which apparently does the same sort of thing (and you can import to it from Google Reader.)  If you'd like to add my blog to a Bloglovin' account, you can do so here.

[cartoon by John Taylor, borrowed from OxfordDictionaries.com]

The other link is from work - I put together a quiz called Bible or Bard?  As you might be able to gather, you have to work out whether a quotation is from the King James Bible or the works of Shakespeare.  I had great fun putting it together - and it's pretty difficult, I have to say!  There are 30 quotations to test you... have a go here, and let me know how you do.

[Oops, link was to the wrong site - have fixed it now!]

I'm off home for the weekend, so I'll be back blogging next week! (And that's when I'll reply to your lovely comments too - sorry I've left it for a while...)

Wednesday 24 April 2013

Ring of Bright Water - Gavin Maxwell

You know how I don't shut up about Miss Hargreaves?  (Have you read it?  It's great.)  Well, Hayley is (in a rather better mannered way) equally enthusiastic about Gavin Maxwell's Ring of Bright Water.  Since Hayley and I often enjoy the same books, I've been intending to read it for ages - but every copy I've stumbled across in charity shops has been rather ugly.  I wish I'd seen the beautiful cover pictured.  When Hayley lent me her copy (as part of a postal book group we're both in) I was excited finally to read it.

Well, I say 'excited'.  There was a part of me that was nervous - because I rarely read non-fiction when it's not about literature, and I have no particular interest in wildlife rearing.  If it didn't come with such a strong recommendation from Hayley, I doubt that I'd ever have considered reading it.  And I would have missed out.

Gavin Maxwell doesn't really structure Ring of Bright Water in a traditional beginning-middle-end sort of way, which I imagine the film adaptation probably does - it isn't encircled by the life of any single animal, or his occupancy of his remote Scottish home, but instead meanders through many of Maxwell's countryside adventures.

I'm going to concentrate on the ones which made Ring of Bright Water famous - the otters - although (cover aside) you wouldn't have much of a clue that they were coming for the first section of the book, which looks at the flora and fauna of the middle of nowhere in Scotland, and such matters as whale fishing (Maxwell is strongly against, despite having run a shark fishery - there is a constant paradox between his love of his animals and his killing of animals).  The only cohesion (and it is quite enough) is that it's Maxwell's opinions and voice, and connected with marine and rural life.

And then the otters come along.

The first otter only lives for a day or two, but after that comes Mij.  He is really the star of Ring of Bright Water, and the high point in Maxwell's affections.  I can't give any higher praise than to say that someone like me, interested in the animal kingdom chiefly when it concerns kittens, was entirely enamoured and captivated, and briefly considered whether it would be practical to get a pet otter.
Otters are extremely bad at doing nothing.  That is to say that they cannot, as a dog does, lie still and awake; they are either asleep or entirely absorbed in play or other activity.  If there is no acceptable toy, or if they are in a mood of frustration, they will, apparently with the utmost good humour, set about laying the land waste.  There is, I am convinced, something positively provoking to an otter about order and tidiness in any form, and the greater the state of confusion that they can create about them the more contented they feel.
Er, maybe not.  Maxwell sets out to tell you how incomparable the otter is as a pet - cheerful, companionable, spirited - and only slowly does he reveal that they are completely untameable, very destructive, and occasionally (if repentingly) violent.

But Mij is still a wonder - or, rather, Maxwell is a wonder for the way he tells his story.  He is certainly a gifted and natural storyteller, and the reader is easily lulled into similar levels of affection towards Mij, and a complicit sympathy with Maxwell (and never for a moment what a novelist would subtly ask - that we would pity the loner, or wonder at his isolation.)

I don't want to spoil the high-jinks (yes, high-jinks - and tomfoolery, mark you) of the book, and I don't think I can capture Maxwell's tone - so I will give my usual proviso for books I didn't expect to enjoy so much: read it even if you don't think you'll like it!  (And if David Attenborough is your bag, then you'll probably love it even more.)

It is a beautiful book, for the rhythm and balance of its prose alone, quite apart from the topic or the setting.  I'm really pleased that, years down the line, I've finally taken up Hayley's recommendation - even if she had to lend Ring of Bright Water to me to make that happen.

Bragging About Your Child—Real or Book—Is No Way to Win Friends or Influence People

by Sophie Perinot


You see them in every playgroup—parents who aren’t really interested in the give and take of meaningful conversation. Instead, while Johnny eats dirt in the sandbox, they want to monologue about just how great he is. No matter the topic under discussion, they turn it in the same direction: “MY son. . .” (fill in the blank with a brag of your choice, often only very tangentially related to the subject at hand). Nobody likes these people. Nobody enjoys talking to them. Why then, I wonder, do so many authors model their social media interactions on these bores?

I’ve noticed quite a bit of this sort of blind self-centeredness lately, particularly in writing and reading related facebook groups. When I join a group devoted to say “Lovers of Mysteries with Dogs as Their Main Character” (okay I made that one up, but I don’t want to point fingers at actual groups or communities), I expect folks therein to share information on good books with doggy detectives, or links to websites to help me in researching or writing such tomes. Instead, what I am getting these days are nearly naked brag-ver-tisements—“My book ‘It’s a Dog Eat Dog World’ just got a super-duper review at ‘Dog books R us!’ Read it here. Or better still buy my book here, or here, or here.”

Come on fellow book-parents, if I want advertisements there are plenty running along the top or side of every darn website I visit. You’ve got a personal facebook page, probably an author FB page, and doubtless an author website where you can share good reviews and “buy it now” links. You can even directly and unabashedly promote your book at those locations (though the jury is out on how effective that will be for you). But the essence of communities/groups (even in the virtual world) is dialogue.

A hybrid of “boast posters” are the folks who share EVERY blog post they’ve ever written or will ever write to a facebook group, irrespective of whether it’s on topic. Sure, if you (or if I) have written a post that is germane to the topic of a group or comment thread (or touches on one of the subjects that you assume people follow you on twitter to hear about) then posting your link is a worthy public service. But if you are turning every conversation in the direction of yourself or your book-baby then spare us and save yourself the time (because pretty soon I for one am going to stop even looking at your posts because I already KNOW what they will say—some version of “my baby is so great.”)

As writers today there is a great deal of pressure on us to market our own work, and very specifically to have a presence in the virtual world. But I presume that an annoying presence seldom sells a book. If you join a community of like-minded people as part of your “building an internet presence” campaign, please try to interact with fellow members in a genuine, non-agenda-driven, manner. And for the record an interaction is neither effective nor genuine when it amounts to commenting on topics started by others about their book-babies PURELY for the purpose of turning attention to yours (“Oh Missy looks great in her tutu, but did I ever tell you about the time Mary did a guest appearance with the Rockettes?  Here’s the video link!”).

People can smell a pushy mama a mile away—whether in a school auditorium or on twitter.  If you are only talking and not listening in your on-line relationships you are wasting your time. People are going to start moving their chairs away. Want to get something out of your on-line-community participation?  Put something in.  How?  I can suggest two concrete ways:

Be a friend, make a friend. When another mom asks a favor of me in real life (e.g. can you pick up my kid tomorrow I have to go to the dentist) I am WAY more likely to go out of my way if I genuinely like that her and have a sense that she’d have my back if I was in pinch.  So in your author interactions build meaningful connections.  Listen to what other virtual community members have to say and comment intelligently.  Make friends rather than trying to score sales.  You may just get the sales to boot, because I buy books written by friends (folks I’ve gotten to know through writers conferences, through on-line communities and through their blogs), don’t you?

Gain influence by offering information and expertise.  I write historical fiction.  That means I know what other history nuts like.  When I read an article that makes me say “oh wow” (most recently an article having do with research on Roman toilets—to each her own eh?) I think, “who else would like to see this,” then I share it accordingly in the correct facebook group or using the appropriate twitter hash tag.  In addition, I take the time to comment, share experiences, or answer questions where my personal knowledge might assist someone else. A question about the difference between a Spanish and a French Farthingale?—I’ve got that.  A fellow writer wondering whether writers conferences are worth attending—I’ve got an opinion on that as well.  Be useful and before you know it you’ve built a “value niche” in the virtual world.  Can that help your book-baby?  I think so.  After all if I know that author X consistently exhibits an impressive knowledge of 18th century Italy, I am more likely to buy her historical thriller set in 18th century Rome.

And hey, think of it this way. . .even if being a full-fledged contributing member of an author playgroup doesn’t demonstratively increase your sales, at least people won’t wince when you pull up your lawn chair next to the monkey bars.



Sophie Perinot is the author of The Sister Queens(NAL/Penguin, March 2012) a novel of sisterhood set in the 13th century. Her debut was widely well-reviewed and made a number of “best of 2012” lists.

When Sophie is not chauffeuring one of her three kids or lint rolling the hair of one of her three cats she is hard at work on a new novel novel set in 16th century France. 

Monday 22 April 2013

A few more poems about authors...

the photo isn't relevant... I just like the colours...

I had great fun writing these before, and really appreciated the comments people left.  I've spent a bit less time constructing these, but... well, I had fun!  I hope to make this a bit of a series.  Let me know if you have any ideas for others, or authors you'd like to see...

What the dickens?
Oh Charles, you saw
The humble poor
In such disarming detail -
But somehow missed
In all of this
A single real female.

Mary, Mary
For dangerous and wild men you had a predilection.
You may have written Frankenstein, but - truth's stranger than fiction.

Dear Aunt Jane
"Sweet, ineffectual Jane, the dear!"
Of all misreadings, wrongest.
Her barbs will last two hundred years;
Her laughs, both loud and longest.

DostoyWHEVsky*
If reading should be nourishment,
Your book's not worth our time:
An awful lot of punishment
And hardly any crime.

*I have to admit that I've never read it...


Sunday 21 April 2013

Great British Sewing Bee

It's no secret that I loved the BBC's The Great British Bake Off - indeed, I've loved it since the first episode of series one - and my irreverent recaps proved surprisingly popular here last year.  I was a little more dubious about The Great British Sewing Bee, but I decided to give it a whirl... and got hooked.


It's already three episodes into a four episode series, so there's not much time to get on board - but those of you in the UK can catch up on BBC iPlayer.  I won't be doing proper recaps of the episodes, but I felt that it warranted at least one post.

So, why was I dubious?  Well, for a start I don't know the first thing about sewing.  I can sew on a button, but that's it.  With baking, I know my croquemboche from my croque monsieur, and my Bakewell from my baking beans.  The finer points of French stitching, however, are a total mystery.  Would I find it interesting to watch people do something I couldn't objectively assess, and had no interest in doing myself?

Turns out, yes.  Because any reality competition of this sort stands or falls based on the people, not the activity.  And the people, of course, fall into three categories: the presenter, the judges, and the contestants.

Claudia Winkleman is the heavily-fringed presenter - she has spent more than a decade bobbing around the lesser-watched BBC shows and second-channel spin-offs (what a lot of hyphens for one sentence) and more or less copies the presenting style of Mel & Sue from the Great British Bake Off - which is fair enough, since almost every other element, from the title to the opening titles, are shamelessly copied too.  Claudia is shunned and giggled with in equal measures, again much like Mel & Sue - but manages to hold her own rather well.


The judges buck the usual trend of gruff man and lovable woman, by having a woman (May Martin) who looks like a sullen Delia Smith and is apparently the 'country's best sewing teacher', although I don't remember being polled, and Savile Row's Patrick Grant, who is quite sweet (although his beard makes him look as though he's been hurried into a witness protection programme).  Both are rather unduly critical, and don't have close to the same chemistry that Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood have, and May Martin is ruthlessly unhumorous, but perhaps they'll improve if this gets another series.  They have potential.

Before I get onto the contestants, I should explain what they do.  The first challenge is always creating something from a pattern (a child's dress; an A-line skirt), the second is adorning or transforming a plain high street item (blue shapeless dress; white blouse), and the third is creating something more complicated for a specific model, rather than a mannequin.

What's quite curious is that they are never judged on their taste, or the success of their design - just their sewing ability.  Yes, that's what it should be about primarily - but The Great British Bake Off is always about the choice of flavours and the appearance of the product too, rather than simply baking skills.  So Sandra's madly dated designs do ok, because she is an adept seamstress, whereas Michelle (say) gets little credit for having stylish ideas.

Yes, the contestants.  There's a few who are clearly there as characters - and, let's not forget, having a regional accent is enough for a BBC reality show to consider you a wacky character.  So we have Lauren, who would fall into the Danny-school-of-boring if she weren't lucky enough to be Scottish; Sandra, with a broad Brummie accent, lots of laughter, and the general appearance and personality of everyone's favourite dinner lady. She's great fun.  Michelle and Jane rather blend into the background (I don't even remember who Jane is, actually) and Tilly thinks she lives in the 1940s, but with a bit of a temper.  Oh, and Mark is the token men-with-piercings-can-do-domestic-things-too man.  Except his sewing is all for historical reenactments and Steampunk days, which has little bearing on the creation of an A-line skirt.  As he points out, the eighteenth-century didn't have zips.

So that leaves my two favourite contestants (or 'sewers' as they're called on the show - a word which doesn't work so well when written.)  Stuart is a giggly man who was born to give witty soundbites on reality shows.  He burbles nonsense about being nervous or having cut his fabric the wrong way, but will wrap it up with an intonation which sounds as though he's made a helpful and pertinent summation of the situation.  He's a step away from Brendon on Coach Trip, and the expert flounce from camera.


Which leads, head and shoulders above the rest (in my affections), the wonderful Ann.  I have such a fondness for old women with spirit - and Ann provides.  She's in her 80s, ridiculously pleased to be there, and very affectionate towards everyone.  The show seems to think she's been alive for centuries - I half expect her to lean over and advise Stuart on what people really wore in 1807 - and she cheerfully gets on with it while Claudia and the judges mumble about her Life Experience in the corner.  She's a wonder.

So, has that sold the show to you?  They hope to get the nation sewing - well, I'm not a stitch nearer sewing than I was before I started watching, but I'm certainly entertained.

Friday 19 April 2013

Stet goes to...

...Belle!


Congratulations, Belle - email me your address to simondavidthomas[at]yahoo.co.uk, and I'll get Stet off to you soon.

Thursday 18 April 2013

When your baby isn't your baby anymore

photo credit: fensterbme's Flickr photostream,
by Creative Commons License
By Julie Kibler

Before Calling Me Home was published in February (wow, more than two months ago—she’s already sleeping through the night!), I’d heard something from other authors I didn’t really understand:

“After your book is published, it no longer belongs to you.”

I thought maybe I got it, but it became very clear to me very quickly, especially once I started meeting with book clubs where more in-depth questions can be asked—not just the standard questions about writing process or publication process or story questions we skirt around at book-signing events, taking care not to spoil the plot for those who haven’t read yet.

Sitting in my first book club meeting with a very engaged group of women at A Real Bookstore, a wonderful indie in Fairview, Texas, the questions and comments came at me, but also flew around me, each reader engaging with another at times as they made pronouncements on why this character did this, or that character didn’t do that, or any number of things.

Often, things I never thought about. Things I never intended. Answers I never would have given about plot or character motivation or deeper meanings.

But it wasn’t offensive—it was fascinating.

And in that moment, I understood this to be true: My book is published. It no longer belongs to me alone.

It belongs to the reader. It depends on what they bring to the table when they read it—or even when they choose notto. It depends on their life experiences, beliefs, passions, hurts, joys, disappointments.

Everything depends on their version of what is true. And then the book belongs in some unique way to that person, not to me at all.

Imagine if we had to give our human babies up to thousands of people?

I guess in a way, we do. If we are emotionally healthy, we give our children up to be themselves as they grow and learn. We give them to other people as they find friends and fall in love and work and marry, while holding close—but not too tightly—our own version of our child. And each of those people sees our baby in a completely different light, potentially one we never imagined when we conceived them.

My book is published. It no longer belongs to me alone. That’s healthy and natural, and I’m ok with it.

Julie Kibler's debut novel, Calling Me Home, the story of an interracial romance in late 1930s Kentucky, inspired by her grandmother's own forbidden romance, was published in February by St. Martin's Press. She can be found online at her websiteFacebook author page, and occasionally, on Twitter (@juliekibler).




Wednesday 17 April 2013

The Foolish Immortals - Paul Gallico

I don't think I've read any author whose work is as disparate as Paul Gallico (and I probably start all my reviews of his books by saying that.)  I started with the novel I still consider his best, of the ones I've read: the dark fairy-tale Love of Seven Dolls.  Then there is the whimsical (Jennie), the amusing and eccentric (the Mrs. Harris series), the adventure story (although I've not read it, The Poseidon Adventure surely falls into this category.)

I started The Foolish Immortals (1953) hoping that it would be in one category, it shifted into another, and then it revealed a whole new facet of Gallico's writing arsenal.  Confused?  I'll try to explain...


The concept of The Foolish Immortals immediately appealed to me, because it sounded like the sort of topic which could easily be given the Love of Seven Dolls treatment, revolving (as it did) around manipulation, wilful delusion, and a touch of distorted fairy-tale - the last of which seems to be the ingredient which appears, in some form or other, in all the Gallico novels I've read.

Hannah Bascombe is rich, old, American heiress, who has successfully invested the money her business man father left her to make herself one of the richest people in the world.  There is only one aspect of her life over which she does not have ultimate control - and that is its span.  She has, she notes, reached her three-score-and-ten, and cannot have many decades left to live.  And yet... and yet, she hopes that money and power might be able to secure her immortality.

Enter, stage-left, Joe Sears.  He is a poor man and a chancer, clever and manipulative, and sees an opportunity.  Having enlisted the dubious help of a young (but visually ageless) ex-soldier called Ben-Isaac (in case Gallico didn't signpost it well enough, he's Jewish), Sears manages to get an appointment with Hannah Bascombe.  To do so, he has to get past her beautiful, utterly dependent niece Clary - but, having manoeuvred his way to Hannah, he recognises her vulnerability, and thinks that it could be a good way to make himself some money...
"What if you were able to duplicate their years?  Supposing you were able to outwit the Philistines waiting to trample your vineyards by outliving them, like Mahlalaleel, Cainan, Jared and Enoch, generation after generation down through the centuries until no living man would remember when you were born and not even unborn generations of the future could hope to be alive when you died?"
He offers Hannah this possibility, based on the ages to which people are described as living in the Old Testament (often many centuries) - suggesting that he knows where they can find a food which will give Hannah the same longevity.  And it's in Israel.

A bit of persuasion later, and they're off.  Nobody really trusts anybody else on this venture, and everybody is out for themselves.  Things grow even trickier to decipher (for the reader too) when they stumble across a man purported to be Ben-Isaac's missing, much-beloved uncle - a much-lauded academic who is, it turns out, working on the land.  Sears is, naturally, suspicious of this stranger, particularly when he takes over and Hannah appoints him the leader of their venture.  Who is scamming whom?

And this is where Gallico's other genres come into play.  There is a sizeable amount of what I admired in Love of Seven Dolls, but Sears is never quite as credible a villain as Monsieur Nicholas - in neither a fairytale nor a realistic way - simply because Sears is quite an inconsistent character.  Which matches the change in genres - in Israel, things turn rather 'adventure novel' for a while, as they caught up in a shoot-out.  I know this sort of thing is supposed to be very exciting, but I find it unutterably tedious, and ended up skipping most of that section.

So we come onto the genre I'd yet to encounter in Gallico's novels - the spiritual or religious theme.  As you might know, I am a Christian, but I don't often read novels which feature faith - and, I have to say, I was a bit nervous to see how skilfully Gallico would handle it.  And, I've got to say, I was quite impressed - both the Jewish and Christian characters experience direct or indirect encounters with God while travelling through Israel, and these sections were moving (although, it must be conceded, entirely out of kilter with the rest of the novel.)

There are a few more twists and turns, a few more rugs pulled from under feet, and The Foolish Immortals concludes.  It is a very interesting, but maddeningly inconsistent novel.  Not inconsistent in quality (perhaps), but in style and tone.  It's as though Gallico wanted to write a novel which took place in Israel, and couldn't decide whether it should be about faith, boyish adventure, or unsettling manipulation - and so threw all of them in together.

Yet again, this is a book I'm criticising for not being written in the way I'd hoped it would be - but with, I think, greater justification than with yesterday's post on Consider the Years, because in the case of The Foolish Immortals, it started off in the way I'd expected.  With this ingenious idea, Gallico could have written one of my favourite novels.  As it turns out, he's written a good book, which I find quite intriguing, a little bewildering, and not insignificantly disappointing.

Tuesday 16 April 2013

Consider the Years - Virginia Graham

You'll see that I've tagged this as post as 'Persephone', for this Consider the Years (1946) by Virginia Graham is available in a dove grey volume - but my copy is the beautiful one you see below (and the gorgeous bookmark was made by my friend Sherry):


Having read, and loved, Virginia Graham's hilarious spoof etiquette and 'how to' books Say Please and Here's How (click on those titles to read my reviews - or here for an excerpt from the latter on 'How to sing'), I thought I'd branch out and read some of her poems.  Consider the Years is a collection of poems which were written between 1938 and 1946 and so, of course, primarily concern the Second World War.

Dear reader, what we have is a case of frustrated expectations.  Having read Graham in fine comic mode, I was hoping that Consider the Years would be a collection of comic verse.  And, goodness knows, many authors have found much to laugh at amidst the horrors of wartime.  Unfair as it is to judge an author by standards which they they didn't agree to, the only poems I really loved in this collection were those that were funny.  Here, for example, is one called 'Losing Face':

This is my doodle-bug face.  Do you like it?
It's supposed to look dreadfully brave.
Not jolly of course - that would hardly be tactful,
But... well, sort of loving and grave.

You are meant to believe that I simply don't care
And am filled with a knowledge superal,
Oh, well... about spiritual things, don't you know,
Such as man being frightfully eternal.

This is my doodle-bug voice.  Can you hear it?
It's thrillingly vibrant, yet calm.
If we weren't in the office, which isn't the place,
I'd read you a suitable psalm.

This is my doodle-bug place.  Can you see me?
It's really amazingly snug
Lying under the desk with my doodle-bug face
And my doodle-bug voice in the rug.
Would that the whole collection had been along these lines!  And I mean that both in tone and metre.  I know it's a terribly unscholarly thing to say, but I have to confess a fondness for poems with rhyme and scan.  (This is why I have only studied prose at graduate level, I suspect.)

When Graham wanders into free verse, or to scanning verse that doesn't rhyme (or, sometimes, rhyming verse that doesn't scan), I lose interest.  Her poems are never particularly experimental, I should add - her free verse isn't unduly free - but I, with my reluctance to read poetry, had come hoping for pages of poems like 'Losing Face', and Graham does not intend to provide that.

But... it's is a beautiful little book, isn't it?

Monday 15 April 2013

Diana Athill... on two types of readers

I couldn't find an apt place to include this quotation in my review of Diana Athill's Stet yesterday, but it's so wonderful a quotation that I had to put it up somewhere:
People who buy books, not counting useful how-to-do-it books, are of two kinds. There are those who buy because they love books and what they can get from them, and those to whom books are one form of entertainment among several. The first group, which is by far the smaller, will go on reading, if not for ever, then for as long as one can foresee. The second group has to be courted. It is the second which makes the best-seller, impelled thereto by the buzz that a particular book is really something special; and it also makes publishers’ headaches, because it has become more and more resistant to courting.
How simply this clears up my confusion over 'Why did that become a bestseller?' - or even the concept of the bestseller at all.  The second group, as she details later in Stet, would just as happily turn to music or television or cinema for their entertainment.  Those of us in the first group (though of course we might well enjoy music, television, and cinema) cannot imagine a substitute for books.  Nothing comes close.

year seven: book reviews

Athill, Diana - Stet
Bawden, Nina - A Woman of My Age
Gallico, Paul - The Foolish Immortals
Gibbons, Stella - Bassett  
Graham, Virginia - Consider The Years 

Kennedy, A.L. - On Writing
Kosztolányi, Dezső - Skylark 
Leighton, Clare - Four Hedges
MacDonald, Betty - The Egg and I  
Manguel, Alberto - The Library at Night  
Maxwell, Gavin - Ring of Bright Water  
Mercer, Jeremy - Books, Baguettes, and Bedbugs 
Pym, Barbara - Some Tame Gazelle 
Stockett, Kathryn - The Help 
Waugh, Evelyn - Scoop

Sunday 14 April 2013

Stet - Diana Athill (and a giveaway)

42. Stet - Diana Athill

I've been savouring the all-too-few pages of Stet (2000) by Diana Athill, and now it's going into my 50 Books You Must Read - and it was so good that I had to go and buy another copy to offer as a giveaway (to anywhere in the world.) Just pop your name in the comments, along with the author you most wish you'd been able to edit. (You can interpret that in a positive way - how wonderful to get to see their drafts! - or a negative way - my GOODNESS they needed editing!)  I'll do the draw next weekend on 20th April.

Right, now I'll write my review and tell you why I think you should enter to win! I bought Stet a year ago, adding it to my little pile of unread Diana Athill memoirs, knowing that at some point I would read it and love it.  What's not to like about a memoir by one of the most famous editors in the world?  I was saving it as a treat, when I saw that various bloggers were posting reviews, since the Slaves of Golconda were reading it (there's a sampling of those reviews at the end of mine.)  What better excuse to dig out my copy, and indulge?

Although Diana Athill now seems famously chiefly for being old (she is 95), she is also recognised as one of the country's best editors, having worked as one for five decades under the auspices of André Deutsch.  Her reason for writing Stet also explains it's title, so I'll hand over to Athill to explain:
Why am I going to write it?  Not because I want to provide a history of British publishing in the second half of the twentieth century, but because I shall not be alive for much longer, and when I am gone all the experiences stored in my head will be gone too - they will be deleted with one swipe of the great eraser, and something in my squeaks "Oh no - let at least some of it be rescued!!".  It seems to be an instinctive twitch rather than a rational intention, but no less compelling for that.  By a long-established printer's convention, a copy-editor wanting to rescue a deletion puts a row of dots under it and writes 'Stet' (let it stand) in the margin.  This book is an attempt to 'Stet' some part of my experience in its original form.
This explanation, though both moving and understandable, is also an example of the extraordinary modesty which Athill demonstrates.  Not a false modesty, or even a polite modesty, but a genuine refusal to believe how brilliant she is.  She occasionally quotes people's praise of her - which is not (in this instance) the action of the immodest, but the grateful incredulity of the humble.

Stet is divided into two sections.  The second, which I will come onto, looks in detail at her relationships with various authors whom she edited.  The first deals with her career in publishing in a fairly fast-paced manner (she covers 50 years in 128 pages - that's a few months per page, folks) and has a great deal of common sense to say about the practice of editing, as well as lovely gossip about what a controlling - though somehow lovable - monster André Deutsch was, and various illuminating revelations about how scattergun their policy for accepting submissions was in the early days.  Basically, everything they liked was accepted - from cookbooks to travel books to experimental short stories to children's books.  Quite how they described their list, I can't imagine.

Anybody interested in the process of how a book goes (or went) from a manuscript clutched in an author's hand to a copy on Foyles' shelves will inevitably find Stet interesting, but what carries it from being an interesting discussion of 'an editor's life' (the subtitle) is Athill's wisdom, warmth, and wit.  As an example of the latter, here's her brief account of working with an author on a book about Tahiti which was interesting but appallingly written:
I doubt if there was a sentence - certainly there was not a paragraph - that I did not alter and often have to retype, sending it chapter by chapter to the author for his approval which - although he was naturally grouchy - he always gave.  I enjoyed the work.  It was like removing layers of crumpled brown paper from an awkwardly shaped parcel, and revealing the attractive present which it contained (a good deal more satisfying than the minor tinkering involved when editing a competent writer).  Soon after the book's publication it was reviewed in The Times Literary Supplement: an excellent book, said the reviewer, scholarly and full of fascinating detail, and beautifully written into the bargain.  The author promptly sent me a clipping of this review, pinned to a short note.  "How nice of him," I thought, "he's going to say thank you!"  What he said in fact was: "You will observe the comment about the writing which confirms what i have thought all along, that none of that fuss about it was necessary."  When I had stopped laughing I accepted the message: an editor must never expect thanks (sometimes they come, but they must always be seen as a bonus).  We must always remember that we are only midwives - if we want praise for progeny we must give birth to our own.
(Which, of course, is what Athill has done.)  Although Athill admits that editing the competent writer is a less interesting activity, what I admire about her editorial eye is the willingness, often expressed in Stet, to do minimal work.  It takes a humble and wise editor to resist using her own taste as a benchmark, and looking, instead, for ways in which the author can express theirs.

The first half of Stet is filled with lively and observant accounts of her colleagues and friends, and is certainly very far from dry - but the second half is more overtly about the characters she met.  I shan't go into depth about this section; I'll just let you know the people to whom chapters are devoted: Jean Rhys, Brian Moore, Mordecai Richler, V.S. Naipaul, Molly Keane, Alfred Chester.  I've only read two books by all these authors combined, but I still found her portraits touching, intelligent, and (above all) observant.  The length of these sections, and the accounts she gives of these authors' personal and professional lives, are perfectly judged.

Hopefully that is enough to tempt you to read Stet.  I've barely covered the second half of it, but that means there is even more to discover for yourself!  So... if you have been tempted, pop your name in the comments, and that author whom you wish you'd edited. Stat!

Others who got Stuck in this Book:

"Athill is that very rare thing, a shrewdly selfish spectator. She’s quite unlike anyone I’ve met before, either in person or on the page." - Alex in Leeds

"I have this feeling that if you are lucky enough to be seated next to Athill at a dinner party, it would be an evening filled with sparkling conversation.  Reading Stet is (almost) the next best thing." - Danielle, A Work in Progress

"Athill has the gift of cutting through the complicated tangle to the simple heart of the issues that publishers face." - Victoria, Tales From The Reading Room


Saturday 13 April 2013

Song for a Sunday

First things first, I've been back and replied to comments from the past week or so - sorry it's taken me a while!

Secondly - the Sunday Song.  I actually used to live in the same village as this artist, and I think we were in the local youth group at the same time - but I only discovered yesterday that she writes and sings really good folk songs.  Have a listen to Fade Away by Mae Bradbury:


Friday 12 April 2013

Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

Happy weekend, everyone! I'm feeling in a good mood as I write this on Friday night, because I went back to the first chapter of my DPhil thesis for the first time in 3 years, and I still felt inspired to see how I could edit and re-frame it!  It's been so long since I had time to work on my DPhil properly that I'd forgotten the thrill when planning goes right.  The only academic thing to compare is the thrill when archives turn up something wonderful.  There are plenty of downsides to spending four years earning very little money and working alongside very few people, but it has its upsides too.

So that's put me in a cheery frame of mind for sharing a book, a link, and a blog post!

1.) The book - is one I was offered by the author.  I know I won't have time to read it, so I haven't accepted the review copy, but I still think it sounds very intriguing. It's A Bright Moon For Fools by Jasper Gibson, and the cover art is enough to catch my attention...



I like the quick synopsis Jasper put in an email to me: "Though it is (I hope) funny in parts, it's really about an ageing man, unable to get over the loss of his wife, crashing around rural Venezuela and getting into serious trouble."

2.) The blog post - was a very easy choice this week, as it's about a book I adored, but never wrote about: Economy Must Be Our Watchword by Joyce Dennys.  I didn't write about it, because it was impossible to find and I didn't want to fill people with hopeless desire to read this gem!  But I mentioned it when I took part in Lost in the Stacks over at A Work in Progress, and Danielle, marvellously, managed to find a copy through her library - and wrote a brilliant review here.  Go and check it out; it also includes lots of Dennys's brilliant illustrations.

3.) The link - this video had my office in fits of laughter this week:



Wednesday 10 April 2013

Over with the foxes again


image source

In my birthday excitement yesterday (see below), I forgot to mention that my second monthly column for Vulpes Libris has been published - you can read my post about foxes in books here.

Tuesday 9 April 2013

Interview with a new blogger (and happy birthday me)

On 10th April 2007, Stuck-in-a-Book was launched... I don't know whether or not I thought I'd still be blogging six years later, I hadn't really thought about it, but I certainly hadn't imagined that I'd meet so many wonderful people (online and offline) or have such fun.  Thank you for making my first six years so lovely!

I've done a few retrospectives, or thanking posts, at various anniversaries - so I'll do something a bit different today.  It seems appropriate, on a blog birthday of a longstanding blog (six years feels very longstanding in the blogosphere!) to welcome the recent arrival of another beautiful baby blog.  Also, although this is far from a unique-to-me quality, I hope that one of the dominant characteristics of Stuck-in-a-Book is an encouragement of community, and a celebration of other bloggers.  With that in mind, I have interviewed a new blogger - Washington Wife.

Washington Wife is one of my very dearest friends, and I'm thrilled that she has entered the blogging world.   Hers is not a book blog, but she loves books about as much as I do, so I'd be surprised if they don't make an appearance now and then.  Her reasons for starting blogging are below, so I shan't explain them for her.  (And, because she is a journalist, she is keeping herself anonymous on her blog - I will have to work hard to remember not to include her real name, and shall refer to her as Washington Wife, or WW.  In the interview below, I am ST - you can decide for yourself whether it's short for Stuck-in-a-Book or Simon Thomas.)  Oh, and do, of course, check out her blog and say hello - it's really brilliant so far, and I'm not just saying that as a close friend!


ST: So, what made you decide to start blogging, huh? HUH?


WW: Well, at the beginning of February, my husband got a job in Washington D.C, and we've just (at the end of March) moved there from Paris, where we've both spent three years as journalists. I'm sure there are innumerable 'new to the US' and even 'new to Washington' blogs (there were certainly lots of 'Brits abroad' ones in France) but I thought mine would be an interesting viewpoint given I'm comparing the US not only to my native land, the UK, but also my adopted homeland for the last three years, France.

I think it was also a combination of my wanting to record how I felt about living in such a talked-about country, about which everyone has an opinion, and the fact that it was a lot easier than sending dozens of separate emails to all the people who would want to know said thoughts. I was a bit scared to start though because I'm not always very good at seeing projects through... but I'm really enjoying it so far!

ST: What are your first impressions of living in America?

WW: Well - you'll have to look at my blog ;) Mainly though, everyone really is helpful and friendly (compared to Paris, where I was living before!) and everything is bigger. The roads are wider, the buildings are taller, the portions are larger, the billboards are higher, the packets in the supermarket are heavier... Paris, and even London, will feel miniature in comparison!

ST: Anything super-amazing-exciting happened to you yet?  Just a question out of the BLUE, not something I know about already, obvs.

WW: Well it's funny you should mention... but (again, see my blog for full account!) on Easter Sunday, my husband and I decided to try a little church not too far from our new flat in downtown D.C. The church is opposite the White House and the website said it has a pew reserved for the President. We thought that was rather sweet...but we arrived to find the whole building sealed off, secret service everywhere and the First Family on the way there! Amazingly, we managed to get in for the service, and, sitting in the gallery, had a wonderful view of Barack Obama, Michelle and the two girls. We even got within a foot of them when we went up to communion. Not bad for our first week in D.C!

ST: Do you have any thoughts about the direction in which you'd like your blog to go?

WW: Well, as I said, I was a bit nervous about beginning as I'm rather feeling the pressure to continue, but I keep finding, as I wend my merry and very uncertain way around Washington, that new ideas and thoughts for blogging keep occurring to me. I think it's made me a slightly better observer, so that's a positive thing I'd like to continue. I think eventually it may have to stop being about my perspective as a 'newcomer' (I don't know when you stop being one of those though - in English country villages, I think it takes about half a century) and be more about the city itself and - hopefully - the more unusual, off the beaten track things I'm discovering (if I do!) One thing I don't want it to be about is work - it's nice to do something separate from journalism!

ST: Could you pick one thing you miss about England, one thing you miss about France, and one thing you're loving about America?

WW: Hmmm... one thing in each category is difficult! I think I most miss English understatement and sarcasm (I missed it in France too!), because here everyone is very sincere and a bit earnest and sometimes I just long for a little putdown or self-mockery.

I rather miss the Paris metro - it smelt of wee, but it was very efficient and there was a train every 3 minutes most of the time. The other day here I had to wait 10 minutes for a metro train, and it took a bus I was on over an HOUR to get from downtown to the National Cathedral, a distance of about four miles, because of the ridiculous amount of traffic and lack of public transport options.

But one thing I am really enjoying about America is how convenient everything is (apart from public transport!) Everything's open all the time, the customer service people really do attempt to help you, the roads are easy to cross... everything is designed to make your life a little bit better. And that is refreshing.

ST: And, since Stuck-in-a-Book is a book blog, cards on the table: what are the best English novel, French novel, and American novel?

WW: Ooooh. Toughie. Best French and American novels are hard because I'm woefully under-read in those categories, and English because there are too many to choose from. I'd say that the novel that had me most gripped at a young age, and I always love re-reading, is Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca. Stylistically, it might not be Middlemarch, but the plot is superb and the narrator compelling.

Regarding French novels, can I cheat? It's not really a novel, but when I was a child, my Godmother gave me one copy of Antoine de Saint Exupéry's book Le Petit Prince in French, and another in English. I loved the English version at the time, but, later on, was doubly delighted by its whimsy in French. But it's definitely not just for children!

As for American novels, although I loved The Great Gatsby and Lolita, and Little Women will always remain one of my favourite children's books (I especially remember my childish British puzzlement at some of the quaint American words and traditions!) I might have to pick one I know Simon hates... The Catcher in the Rye. It had a real effect on my writing style for a while after I read it - not necessarily for the better! - and Holden Caulfield continued to intrigue me long after I put the book down. But I also loved The Old Man and the Sea and For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway.

ST: Now choose one English author, one French author, and one American author that you're looking forward to trying out.

WW: Now this is easier! My 'to be read' list is huge.

In French, I always meant to try out Michel Houllebecq, in translation OR in the original... I just never got round to it. So I'd probably start with Les Particules Elémentaires (or Atomized, in English), which won several international awards.

As for American authors, there are so many! I have joined the local library here and browsing the shelves made me realise just how much I have to catch up on... For starters, I borrowed one Anne Tyler (Digging to America) and one Gore Vidal (appropriately enough, Washington, D.C  - I didn't realise he'd written a series of historical novels.) But also keen to start reading more Philip Roth (only ever read Portnoy's Complaint!) and Jonathan Franzen.

And an English author I don't yet know... Well, my policy when trying to cut down the number of books for shipping over here was mainly to bring ones I hadn't yet read. So there are plenty to choose from! Including A House and Its Head by Ivy Compton Burnett, an author much recommended by a certain friend who's always StuckInABook. So I'm hoping to start enjoying that one soon. Another book I'm really excited about - and this is cheating a bit - is by an author I already know and deeply love, Elizabeth Jane Howard. Apparently, the fifth volume in her series The Cazalets is coming out in the autumn; I can't wait!

ST: And the question I ask everyone - what are you reading at the moment?

WW: Well, slightly naughtily, given everything I wrote above, I'm reading an author who's neither French, nor English, nor yet American, but Israeli. It's a book I borrowed from the library near our new flat, called The People of Forever Are Not Afraid, by Shani Boianjiu, and it's about three Israeli girls who are conscripted into the army, and how they get on. Given that for much of the time, they are very bored, the book itself is quite a page turner, and very strangely and beautifully written. It certainly gives you an insight into the lives of Israeli teenagers.

The photo, by the way, shows the ONLY books we currently have on our new living room bookshelf (The People of Forever Are Not Afraid being upstairs!) This state of affairs won't last, once all our worldly goods arrive by ship from Paris via Bristol via New York City... I thought Simon would be pleased to note the stack of OUP Very Short Introductions as well... on offer in W.H Smith on the rue de Rivoli...

Monday 8 April 2013

Innocent cat grabbed in garden

Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook will have seen these already, but I thought I'd share some pictures of me playing with Sherpa when I went home for Easter...  My hair, incidentally, is much shorter now.  I think Sherpy's is the same length.  (Photos taken by my brother Colin.  I deleted the ones he took of his feet.)

Sherpa 'runs into my arms'.


HUGS!
Revenge of the cat...
 
"I claim this land for cats!"
  
She's looking a wee bit drunken in this pic...
but I reckon it's just happiness :)
That's certainly what's lighting up my silly face!

I was going to write a film review tonight.  You got cat photos instead.  Who's to say which is better?  (Spoiler alert: you'll probably get the film review soon, too.)

Weighing in on Writing and Publishing


Brenda Bevan Remmes
by Brenda Remmes 

I have had a lifelong fixation on publishing a book.  At the same time I’ve fantasized “skinny” as somewhere in my future. The two ideas co-habitat together in a strange sort of paradigm.

The book writing thing…it ebbs and flows.   I go through moments of brilliance (at least in my thinking) and then suddenly sink into jabberwocky as if I live in Wonderland.  In fact, Wonderland is an ideal place for fleshy authors.

I get up every morning and flip on the computer in one continuous motion as I walk by my writing desk to the bathroom. I live by the rule that extra pounds of dirt and grime have mysteriously weighted down my body during the dark hours of the night and I take a long hot shower to rid myself of what I know will tip the scales unfairly.   Then, unclothed (completely stripped down…. …I’ve stopped even wearing nail polish) I mount the scale and get my first daily dose of  “Whew, it’s not too bad”,  or  “OMG, that can’t be.”

 My husband duplicates this morning adventure on the truth monster in a much more whimsical fashion, fully clothed.  What a show-off!   After forty years repeated morning after morning, the same words always follow.  He climbs on the scale and I mouth with him, “Oh, down another two pounds.  I wondered how I did that after all that ice cream I ate last night?”  I’ve considered divorce over that one morning exchange, but habits are hard to break and dissolving a marriage requires far more time and energy than I  have.  I am much too busy writing jabberwocky. 

My computer is now humming, even if I’m not. I clothe myself in weighty garments that add an additional fifteen pounds and proceed to read the last few pages that I wrote the day before. “P-lee-se, tell me it ain’t so.  Did I really write that?  What was I smoking?”  I start to slash and burn wishing that I could delete excess fat as fast as I can a days’ worth of work on one chapter.

I’m weighing constantly.  Too many words here, not enough description there.  Did I show or tell?  Are the words dank and stale or shimmering with their own individual pearls of imagery or symbolism?  I know I write as well as many commercial writers, and not as well as literary MFAs who annually attend the Iowa Summer Writing Festival. But I’m getting better.  Even Hemingway gets three out of five from some Amazon readers.

Success came fast and easy for me and then vanished overnight one day last October when  my editor broke a two year contract.  It was all too good to be true. Like winning the lottery, and two years later being told your game was rigged.   It hurt, of course, but I’m not as naïve as I once was to the publishing business.  Everyone has to make money and if the numbers don’t work, then neither does the novel…at least not for that publisher. It doesn’t mean it’s a bad novel.  It means the publisher put it on a scale for potential profit and the book didn’t carry enough weight for the long haul.  The irony, of course, is I’ve always looked for a scale that would mitigate weight.   Be careful what you wish for.

Adam Gopnik writes in a recent Talk of the Town in The New Yorker, (3/18/13) “The future of writing in America – or, at least the future of making a living by writing – seems in doubt as rarely before.  Thanks to the Internet, the disproportion between writerly supply and demand, always tricky, has tipped:  anyone can write, and everyone does, and beginners are expected to be the last pure philanthropists, giving it all away for the naches.   It has never been easier to be a writer, and it has never been harder to be a professional writer.”

I have been a convinced Quaker for more than thirty years now.  Quakers have taught me the value of patience.  I didn’t get it right away, but I’ve learned in the presence of weightyQuakers much more humble than I.   When you’re not sure what to say, say nothing. When you’re not sure what to do, step back, seek clearness.  Over the years I’ve found this to be a healthy process every time I begin to doubt myself.  Philip Gulley, one of my favorite Quaker writers, wrote on his web site last week, “The world cares little for our convenience.  It does not care that we expected one thing and were given another.  Reality is no respecter of our expectations and demand. I pray this year, for myself and for each of you, that the gift of flexibility, for that wonderful gift of elasticity, for the ability to deal constructively, bravely and lovingly with the unexpected changes we face in  life.”

Thank you, Philip, for that gentle reminder.  Regardless of the way the scale tilts, I hear your prayer.