Dancing Naked in the Cemetery: When Fiction is Perceived as Fact

by Brenda Remmes

I have the unique joy of being able to trace my family heritage back to the early 1700s.  The tomb stones of many of those relatives are placed behind an historical country church established in 1759 less than two miles from where I live today.  Consequently, I’m not just talking about tracing on a genealogical site, I’m talking about walking up to their grave and saying out loud… “See here, right here I stand.  The fruit of your loins 200 years down the road, and counting.” 

Fortunately, I have a family that not only remained local, but also believed in education and schooled their children to write extensively.  It’s in my genes.  As icing on the cake, someone had enough insight to save their letters and pack them in a crate for me to open 150 years later.  Those letters have been great fodder for my imagination. 

Imagination is the key word here.  Predominantly, I write fiction, so I juice things up a bit.  I play around with names and take a bit of one person’s history to combine with another.  I create places of intrigue and there’s nothing more fun than ghosts and spirits and sounds in the night.  To put all of that in a grave yard, well, the combination is irresistible.

Herein lies the problem.  The embellishment of these stories by me and others over the years has become viral, and with the onslaught of tweet and twitter and all these nasty little messenger devices, the church sees more action at night than during the day.  The congregation only meets every other week for one hour.  The cemetery is busy from midnight to dawn.  Our surveillance cameras caught a bevy of not-so-tantalizing beauties dancing in the nude last weekend.  It was hard to identify them because they didn’t have any clothes on but their bare breasted frolic would have been more pleasing had more been hidden.  Just my personal opinion, of course.

Do I care?  I didn’t used to.  Get your jollies by tiptoeing around graves under a full moon or pretending that some ghost appears to reclaim his golden arm at the stroke of midnight.  What I care about is that frivolity is turning more often to vandalism and we pick up beer cans, liquor bottles and broken glass on a regular basis.  Our “no trespassing after dark” signs are ignored and the security camera and lights are destroyed.  Recently, church windows were broken.  Last night I ventured out and confronted six more young people at midnight.  Really, midnight is long past my bedtime.  I don’t like doing this, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to start prosecuting for trespassing in order to close the flood gates.  And yes, we already have a gate that stops no one.

I write this because this senseless destruction has made me rethink my own writing.  What have I written that people actually believe is true? I used to think that was the height of a good writer, to be so convincing that your reader confused fiction with reality.   I’m having second thoughts, especially now that tweeting appears to be able to broadcast tidbits of misinformation to thousands within seconds, without anyone having read the book.

I’m open for suggestions.  

Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris - Paul Gallico

The Bloomsbury Group set of reprints remains, I believe, the best selection of reprints out there.  It doesn't have the range of Penguin or OUP Classics; it doesn't have quite the unifying ethos of Persephone or Virago, but there simply are no duds in their number.  Miss Hargreaves is obviously their finest publication, in my eyes, but as I work my way through the few I haven't read, I continue to marvel at the treats they've brought back to a new audience.

For some reason, Mrs. Harris has been sitting on my shelf for two years without me getting around to reading her.  I even had a copy of Flowers For Mrs. Harris (the original UK title of Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris [1958]) before the Bloomsbury Group existed, but hadn't read that either.  How could I have waited for so long?  Mrs. Harris is a joy, and her little novel is bliss.

Mrs. Harris is a London char, whose job is to clean other people's houses.  She takes a deep pride in her work, is very good at it, and can pick and choose her clients.  She, and her good friend Vi, are much in demand, and when she decides that she has had enough of a client, she simply drops her key through their letterbox, and moves on.  Mrs. Harris is the dictionary definition of indomitable.  Nothing phases her, and she is an eternal optimist.  She also speaks somewhat like Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins, par example:

"Ow Lor'."  The exclamation was torn from Mrs. Harris as she was suddenly riven by a new thought.  "Ow Lor'," she repeated, "if I'm to 'ave me photograph tyken, I'll 'ave to 'ave a new 'at."

Now, although she is a wonderful character, it would be a lie to say that she has many layers of complexity and an inner introspection dying to emerge.  Gallico's novel is simple and sweet, and he doesn't overburden himself with psychological strife etc.  There is one central motivation of the novel, and that is Mrs. Harris's desire for a Christian Dior dress...

It had all begun that day several years back when during the course of her duties at Lady Dant's house, Mrs. Harris had opened a wardrobe to tidy it and had come upon the two dresses hanging there.  One was a bit of heaven in cream, ivory, lace, and chiffon, the other an explosion in crimson satin and taffeta, adorned with great red bows and a huge red flower.  She stood there as though struck dumb, for never in all her life had she seen anything quite as thrilling and beautiful.

Drab and colourless as her existence would seem to have been, Mrs. Harris had always felt a craving for beauty and colour which up to this moment had manifested itself in a love for flowers.

Yet now, flowers have been replaced by this longing for a dress that costs £450 - and in 1958, of course, that was an astronomical sum.  Coincidence, luck, and much determination (for Mrs. Harris is pretty much built out of determination) and three years later she is on her way to Paris...

It's such a fun story.  Scarcely a jot of it is realistic - Mrs. Harris's good humour and spirited nature act much in the manner of fairy dust, transforming all those she meets - but the novel is so enjoyable and light-hearted (albeit with occasional kicks) that the reader allows him/herself to be whisked along for the ride.  The contrast between shabby London char and elegant Parisian fashionista is, naturally, wonderful - and Gallico makes full use of the potential comedy in the situation.

Oh, it's lovely!  It certainly isn't very deep, even with an attempt for A Moral at the end, in the way that American sitcoms like to conclude events - but writing something sprightly and enjoyable is probably rather more difficult than writing something introspective and traumatic, and is certainly rarer.  Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is great fun, very short, and is a perfect way to spend a summer afternoon.

Writers Write

By Erin Cashman

I’m sure you’ve heard about those incredibly lucky people who write a book in a couple of months, send it off to a few agents, and before they know it they are at auction, getting huge advances and ultimately becoming best selling novelists. Usually these authors say something like . . . “An idea just popped into my head so I wrote it down. I never set out to be an author.” I hate these stories. Not because I’m jealous (okay, I’m a little jealous), but because it is so discouraging for the rest of us, the majority of writers – who, if we are lucky enough to garnish a publishing contract  at all -- only do so through hours upon hours, years upon years of trying. Of never giving up.

I’ve written for as long as I can remember. It has always been my dream to be a published author, but my father encouraged me to go to law school, so I could support myself. I took his advice, and stopped writing anything except legal briefs and memos for several years. And then one night I had the strangest dream about a family of vampires. I just had to write it down. I finished it a year later, and sent it off to agents and publishers, certain I would realize my dream and become an author.

Boy was I wrong.

After Twilight, romance vampire stories were in demand, not middle-grade adventure ones.

And then I wrote another middle grade adventure novel, about a long lost Irish treasure. This one would certainly be published, I thought. I sent it out to many agents and editors, running each day to the mail box. I received a seemingly endless amount of rejection letters, postcards, and my own letter mailed back to me, with Sorry, not for me, scribbled along the bottom.  One agent even sent me two rejection letters! I guess she really didn’t like it!

And then a few encouraging letters and emails trickled in, all with very positive feedback. These agents and editors loved my writing and enjoyed the characters and suspenseful plot. BUT – treasure stories weren’t selling.

Ugh.

I realized then that I would likely never be published. But I discovered something far more important.  I write because I love to. I wasn’t about to stop writing because dozens of people – experts in the publishing field – told me my manuscripts were not good enough, or wouldn’t sell.  I may never be published, I thought,  – but so what. Writing could be my hobby, not my profession.  As much as I would love to be a published author, in the end I wrote for myself.

And so I started The Exceptionals, which is about a teenage girl named Claire who must use her long-ignored ability to communicate with animals to unravel the mystery behind the disappearances of the most talented students at Cambial Academy, a school for teens with special abilities. I loved writing The Exceptionals. I really enjoyed thinking up the different “specials”, and how they would influence the characters and the plot. Creating Dylan (a gorgeous but secretive guy who may know more than he’s letting on) was especially fun. He is interesting and mysterious. Every day I woke up and couldn’t wait to write!

Six months later I finished, and I sent it to about ten agents and editors. I didn’t run to the mailbox, or obsessively check my phone messages or email. I had no expectation that it would be published.  A couple of weeks later I got a call from an agent, Erica Silverman from the great literary agency, Trident, offering to represent me. She loved The Exceptionals! I couldn’t believe it! I spoke with Erica for about an hour. She was wonderful. I not only had an agent – I had a GREAT agent!

The very next day Pam Glauber, a very talented editor at Holiday House, called and made an offer to buy the book! So after years of writing, and two novels behind me, I was finally going to be a published author. Third time was a charm! I was elated.

I am so glad that I never gave up on myself or on my dream. I write as often as I can, and I write what I want to write, not what I think will sell. I realize I may never see another book in print (although I hope I do!) but in the end, I write for myself, as I always have.

So remember, writers write. They don’t count their rejection letters, wallow in self-pity, or throw their laptop out the window (although I am guilty of the first two – and was tempted to do the third!).  If you are a writer, write. Keep at it. Maybe you’ll find an agent, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll sell your book to a traditional publisher, maybe you’ll self-publish. Maybe you’ll just keep trying. In the end, you are still a writer – whether you are one of the lucky few to be published, or not.  You owe it to yourself to give it your all. It may not be an easy path. Like me, it may take you years (six to be exact!) and be more hard work than you can ever imagine.  But no matter what the outcome, you’ll be glad you did.  Because writers write.

Mrs. Harris - the winners!

Thanks so much for all your entries to the Paul Gallico giveaway - what a wonderful mix of destinations we want to visit between us!  Sorry not to hear the ideas of non-UK readers - perhaps one day I'll ask the question again, without a giveaway, so we can hear from everyone.

I've done the draw now, and the eight sets of Mrs. Harris MP and Mrs. Harris Goes To Moscow will be going to... (drumroll, if you please):

Estelle / A Bookish Space

Margaret /  Books Please

Agnieszka

Sakura / Chasing Bawa

Ann P

David H / Follow the Thread

Mystica
Daphne (who entered by email)

Congratulations, one and all!  If your name is there, please email me at simondavidthomas[at]yahoo.co.uk with your address, and the subject line Mrs. Harris Giveaway.  Once I've got all the addresses, I'll forward them on to lovely Bloomsbury, and they'll send out your books.  What fun!

And this is a Mrs. Harris themed week, as my post on Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris will be appearing at some point... when I next have internet access!

Jane Marcus on the non-canonical

 
I don't currently have the internet at home, so I'm popping up scheduled posts when I can - so this is something to ponder on over the weekend.  The painting is Woman Reading in an Interior (1915) by Vaclav Vytlacil, which isn't remotely related to the quotation I wanted to post (except that both intrigue me.)  It's a potentially controversial, but interesting, excerpt I read by Jane Marcus (feminist theorist)...

I would caution against fundamentalist feminists’ over-literal reading of texts without the radical unsettling processes which contemporary theory has provided to keep us honest intellectually.  I am nervous about producing a generation of students who have never been to the library, who practice refined techniques on a body of texts already chosen by their professors – not the canon, but the highly-privileged “non-canonical.”  I do not want to read another paper on “The Yellow Wallpaper” or The Awakening. […] Since aesthetic value is not at issue here, other sets of lost texts might enliven our debates and bring about a dialogue which is not about mastery or decoding of texts but about reading and writing together.

Thoughts?  I think it lends support to feminist reprinting by Virago and Persephone, and also cautions against non-canonical texts becoming canonical by virtue of their accepted 'outsider'-ness...

Three Ways Non-Writer Job Skills Can Help as You Publish Your Novel

By MelanieThorne

I’ve had a lot of shitty jobs.

I haven’t been unemployed for more than a month since I was fifteen. Combine that with a low tolerance for moron supervisors, a tendency to get bored quickly, and, as I grew up, the knowledge that I wanted a career as a writer and the refusal to work any job that would interfere with that goal, and I have a long, long list of workplaces. I’ve been a Subway sandwich artist, a busser, a hostess; an accounts payable specialist, a payroll specialist, an HR director. I’ve managed educational programs, offices, a Blockbuster. I’ve been a test scorer, essay grader, copywriter. I’ve taught pretty much everything related to English or writing at pretty much every level.

Sure, I was good at most of those jobs, some I even really enjoyed, but in my head I always believed they were simply a means to an end—a way to feed, house, and clothe myself while I was chipping away at my manuscript, on my way to my dream career as a published author.

I considered my writing classes and programs much more important than those lowly day jobs because in my naïveté, I thought I’d use my craft training and skills to, you know, write. But as it turns out, that’s only the first step. Now that Hand Me Down has been out in the world for four months I know that being an author—which is definitely different from being a writer—means a hell of a lot more than simply writing. You play the roles of publicist, copywriter, website developer, travel planner, thank you card sender, Vista print designer, social media manager, and anything else necessary. You basically become your own executive assistant to your author self. But you only work on commission.

If you’re a writer, you probably have your own list of “day jobs” (unless you are independently wealthy, and then I might hate you) during which you probably spent many hours nurturing fantasies of selling your book. What nobody tells you is that the reality of publishing a book is dramatically different than those work-day dreams in which you sell for a huge advance and sit back with a drink as it becomes a bestseller and then a movie and your royalties come pouring in like gold coins in cartoons and you can make a living as a writer simply by writing.

But the skills you gained while you whiled away the hours in your non-book-writer jobs can still come in handy. Here are three ways they did for me.

Teaching=Poker Face 

You never know what kind of bizarre questions or off the wall comments are going to come out of students’ mouths. “Recycling is stupid.” “Wait, women can’t actually have, um, climaxes…can they?” Not to mention all the bozo things they say in relation to writing—“why does it matter if I use their or they’re? It’s the same word.” Grr.

As a teacher, you get used to camouflaging your face so your true reactions don’t flitter across your features and give away your shock or frustration. This comes in handy when your readers, who will feel like they know you, ask you strange and personal questions, or tell you random bits of information, like the woman who told me she worked with homeless teens and sometimes did meth with them. “Just so I can connect with them.” Um…what do you say to that?

Weird things will happen to you, too. I guarantee it. With a proper poker face, you can just nod and smile and say thank you and move on. I recommend practicing this whether you are a teacher or not, because readers are people, and people are unpredictable.

Administrative=Organization

You will be asked to do a book reading and a book club on the same day, maybe in different cities, and, not wanting to disappoint anyone (debut authors will do everything we can to help readers connect with our books, so I guess, we’re whores…or is it just me?) you will agree to both and have to figure out how to make the travel work. You’ll want to get postcards, bookmarks, business cards, posters, mugs, T-shirts, book bags, and maybe even a cake with your beautiful book cover on it. You’ll want to send thank you cards and postcards to bookstores, book sellers, book clubs, libraries, your aunt who told everyone she knows about your book. You’ll have interview questions and guest blog posts and website updates and reader emails to keep up with. It’s a lot.

I’m naturally a pretty organized and efficient person, but I was overwhelmed with all the administrative details pretty quickly. Luckily, I had done payroll for an Excel genius and learned some of his tricks for spreadsheets. I managed travel and a ridiculously busy calendar for the CEO/president of a fancy-pants mortgage brokerage firm in Palo Alto, which made me better equipped to handle my suddenly very busy schedule. I've had more than a half-dozen office jobs over the years and all the organizational tools I picked up, I used. Anything that can help you gain some control over the chaotic first few months after your pub date will go a long way in preventing mistakes or missed opportunities and maintaining your sanity. 

Professional Writing=Deadlines 

Even if you had deadlines before you sold your book, publishing deadlines are different. It’s not just your agent or your critique group you let down if you fail to deliver, not just your editor, but a whole team of people who get paid to make your book baby a product. Waiting. Talk about pressure.

If you’re writing articles for magazines or journals or any type of professional writing they don’t care if you’re feeling creatively blocked. These are businesses. You must produce the commodity they hired you to create by the date you agreed upon, and if you don’t, they won’t ask you to write for them again. Experience with this kind of high-stakes writing deadlines helped me cope with looming publishing deadlines, and made me a little better at writing under pressure. If you can think of your book deadlines as another piece of regular work, it might help curb your nerves.

Despite my frequent frustration by the jobs that were not part of my ultimate career goals, I’m thankful for each position I’ve worked as each of them taught me something valuable, even the jobs that mainly taught me I didn’t want to do that job anymore because that often fueled my writing drive. Nothing is wasted, as they say, and if you’re like me, you’ll need all the help you can get from any applicable skill as you launch your author career.

What have you learned in a “day job” that has helped (or could help) your publishing process?

Melanie Thorne is the author of Hand Me Down, a debut novel that is the story of a girl who has never been loved best of all. Find out more about why People gave it a "compelling" 3.5/4 stars on her website, follow her on Twitter, or say hello on Facebook.

Ivy Compton-Burnett: A Memoir - Cicely Greig

My favourite thing in the blogosphere in 2012 has been Claire discovering, and loving, A.A. Milne.  Every time one of her AAM reviews come out, I more or less burst with glee that somebody else has found out how funny and delightful his many and various books are.  Most of my AAM reading happened before I started blogging (I've read about 25 books by him) so you haven't witnessed my love of his books as much as you would have done had you engaged me in conversation in 2002, but - it is there!

So, that's one favourite author off the list.  Back when I started blogging in 2007, it seemed that nobody much liked Virginia Woolf either - but plenty of people have come to the blogosphere since who share my love of Ginny.  And there's never been any shortage of those who'll wax literary over E.M. Delafield, Barbara Comyns, and Persephone & Virago etc.

But... but... as of yet, I haven't found a blogger who loves Ivy Compton-Burnett as I do (although I think Geranium Cat is more in favour than not?).  There is no-one who gets as excited as I do about her novels; most people, indeed, have either never read her, or run screaming from the thought of having to read her again.

Picture source

Which is why it is so wonderful to find books which match my enthusiasm for Dame Ivy.  Earlier in the year, I read Pamela Hansford-Johnson's enthusiastic pamphlet on Ivy Compton-Burnett - and now I've read something I loved even more.  In fact, it's in my top two or three books of the year so far.  AND it's available from 1p on Amazon.  It's Ivy Compton-Burnett: A Memoir (1972) by her typist and friend, Cicely Greig.

Had I know that Greig was Ivy Compton-Burnett's typist, I probably would have read this book much sooner (according to the date I scribbled inside, I've had it for nearly three years.)  It's such an interesting perspective on this fascinating author.  Gradually they became friends as well, but the Victorian/Edwardianism of Ivy's novels extended to her understanding of social mores, and it took quite a long time for her to unbend enough to treat Greig as a friend.  As Greig writes, Ivy Compton-Burnett just couldn't quite understand her position - as a woman who had to earn her living, but wasn't a servant.  The mechanics and background detail of writing fascinate me, and Greig is uniquely able to provide firsthand experience of certain aspects of Ivy's writing process - as the first person to be given the novels in longhand:

I had not yet opened her parcel with the manuscript of her novel.  We said goodbye to each other at the front door, and I flew back to the sitting-room.  When I opened the parcel I found fourteen school exercise books of the cheaper kind, blue paper covers and multiplication tables on the back cover.  I remember thinking this last detail quite a fitting logic for a book of Ivy's.  Her books so often have a sort of inexorable logic about them, like twice one is two.

For Greig was not solely a typist, but also an ardent fan.  This was how she got the job: she wrote to Ivy Compton-Burnett (and, incidentally, Rose Macaulay) expressing her admiration and asking that they consider her for future typing.  Macaulay didn't take her up on it, but months later Ivy Compton-Burnett did.  As an admirer of Dame Ivy's work, Greig combined professionalism with the sort of mad joy that any of us would feel at this privileged position with an author we loved.  Greig echoes Pamela Hansford-Johnson when writing about her love of Ivy:

Why did I like her books so much?  I have been asked that question many times, sometimes with a note of incredulous exasperation.  With Ivy one is either an addict or an abstainer.  I became an addict from the first chapter of A House and Its Head.  Most of my friends, unfortunately, are abstainers.  Suggest her, and if they have ever tried to read one of her books their reply can be an indignant refusal.

She really is love or hate.  Greig goes on to explain her own love of Ivy Compton-Burnett, not quite as astutely as Pamela Hansford-Johnson does, but still in a fascinating manner.  But it was her firsthand interaction with Dame Ivy which makes this book so thrillingly interesting to me.  Greig has no illusions about Ivy Compton-Burnett's fairly terrifying character, but she also recognised the fondness behind it.

Her fierceness, when it showed itself, and when I provoked it, was always short-lived.  Any breach of normal decorum, and her standard was perhaps exceptionally high, was annoying to her, and she never failed to let this be seen.  But having let it be seen, the matter was over.

Ivy Compton-Burnett was always keen for Greig to visit, and expressed an interest in her life which was far from perfunctory.  They could not meet as equals, nor did they even use each other's first names for many years, but there was a genuine affection and (more characteristically) curiosity from Ivy.  One gets the sense that Greig's other friendships were more free and easy, but that perhaps this was one of the most valued - and while Ivy Compton-Burnett wanted to meet Greig's friends, Greig felt she could only bring people who also admired Ivy's writing; few and far between.  So, although Greig also grew to know Ivy's dear friend Margaret Jourdain, theirs was mostly an exclusive friendship, in a vacuum, as it were.  Ivy's life, aging, and death are shown sensitively, from the angle of a friend who saw her all too rarely, and Greig balances Ivy's life and work excellently, being herself fascinated by, and involved with, both.

I would have been scared rigid of Dame Ivy, I'm sure.  Obviously manners maketh man, but decorum and etiquette often baffle me - and Ivy Compton-Burnett's standards were positively Victorian, as though she were part of the world she so often depicted through fiction.  Ivy Compton-Burnett is one of those authors (like Virginia Woolf, like Muriel Spark) whose writing and personality I adore, but with whom I cannot imagine being friendly or even at ease.  And yet I lap up their comments and views of the world, whether or not I agree - and Greig's perspective offers greater potential for these.  A brief observation Ivy Compton-Burnett made to Greig is one with which I do very much agree, for her time but more especially for ours:

"Yes, that's the worst of writers today," Ivy said.  "They will write about something.  Instead of just writing about people, about their characters."

That's probably one of the wisest things I've ever read about writing, and if more writers today considered it then we wouldn't have the deluge of issue-driven books, which doubtless market well but prove rather uninspiring, to me, at least.

When people ask me where they should start with Ivy Compton-Burnett, I usually recommend either Pastors and Masters (as it is an early work; a sort of Ivy-lite) or simply say that they're all more or less the same, so it doesn't much matter.  I'd now be inclined to suggest they start, in fact, with this book.  Jumping straight into Ivy Compton-Burnett can be an intimidating prospect; I think becoming acquainted with her through Cecily Greig's eyes is a great halfway house, and one which (through Greig's infectious enthusiasm and personal insight) might well pique a reader's interest, and make Ivy Compton-Burnett's novels feel not only accessible but an absolute must.  These sorts of books are rather hit or miss, but Cecily Greig's is one of favourite reads this year.  Hurrah!