Pitons

I had another thought about writing this morning, and about this blog specifically.

It’s like the pitons you hammer into a rock face to enable you to climb it. Each blog post marks a step forward in my career as a writer-person, and because I’ve marked it I can’t slip back. The blog forces me to progress, it’s my means of progressing, because I can’t keep wittering on about the same old problems.

Whether it has any value for anyone else, I wonder, but if I didn’t do this thing publicly it wouldn’t be nearly so powerful. In fact, I don't think it would work at all.

I'd rather go deaf

A patchy week due to migraine, another osteopathy session and a visit to the hairdresser. I’m flagging severely but want to carry on till Christmas if I can and take a break then. I’m in a nebulous section of the novel at the moment and don’t want to leave it until I’m in a better place.

‘I’m going slightly deaf,’ I explained to the osteopath as he worked on my shoulder behind my head. ‘I have to see people’s faces and lipread in order to be sure what they’re saying.’

    ‘Funny you should say that,’ he said. ‘I was talking to another client and she asked me which would be worse – to go blind or to go deaf.’

    ‘Oh, to go blind,’ I said instantly.

    ‘Well we both decided that deafness would be worse because you wouldn’t be able to socialise.’

    ‘But I don’t want to socialise,’ I exclaimed, horrified.

   

Sometimes I worry about myself. I don’t have a social life and I don’t do anything for the community. Writing takes up all my time and all my energy and, as you can see from the last few posts, even finding time for basic maintenance (dentist, hairdresser, osteopath) is a struggle. I worry that people think I’m selfish (perhaps I am) and I worry what will happen if I get infirm and need help or if Frog dies before me.

It was so inspiring however to see a documentary on television recently about Judith Kerr, the writer and illustrator of children’s books*, who is now widowed and in her eighties but works all day and every day on her books except for the hour a day when she goes out walking. She is healthy and cheerful. I’d like to be like that when/if I get to that age.

* If you haven’t read her book When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, do give it a try. It’s the first volume of her fascinating autobiography. Her father was a writer and critic of the Nazis and the family fled Germany just before Hitler came to power.

Curious beasts

We writers are curious beasts (and you won’t believe how many years it’s taken me to be able to say 'we writers' – to consider myself fit to be included among those lofty beings). Because we’re not in direct competition with each other – because all books are different and because they’re luxury purchases – we tend to encourage each other. Which is exactly what I’m going to do now.

You may remember me writing a year ago about a new book called Tracking the Weretiger by Patrick Newman. Well, I’d now like to reproduce for you some sections of a review in this Christmas’s issue of Fortean Times (which, in case you don’t know it, is the magazine for unexplained phenomena and all things weird and wonderful). It is the lead review and by the magazine's founding editor.

The review starts:

Any account of the 19^th century colonial fad for hunting tigers in India, Indonesia, Malaysia and China – especially the much-feared man-eaters – would be a great read; this one is above the rest, reading like a Boy’s Own thriller but with a thorough scholarly apparatus underpinning every narrative opportunity.

and ends:

I found the book as fascinating as a tiger’s stare, well written and packed with all the detail – sometimes gory but told with the panache of a seasoned narrator – that you could possibly want on such a curious and delightfully obscure topic.

Fortean Times Verdict

A BIG BOLD 10 OUT OF 10 –

UNMISSABLE! JUST BUY IT!

Well done Pat!

You can also find Pat in his blog, ‘musings of an old booklover’ (formerly ‘musings of an old shikari’).

Reminder

This week I have been to see the dentist about a tooth which has been worrying me for weeks, and the osteopath about my shoulder. The tooth is now filled and the shoulder is getting better. I realise that I should have sought help for both much earlier.

Why did I not? Several reasons I think – not wanting to admit defeat, a workaholic upbringing, and putting writing above my own health.

Will I know better next time? I hope so. And this blog will serve as a reminder.

Recuperation and change

I’m taking a break from novel-writing this week, partly because my shoulder is worse again and I want to see if a rest will help, and partly so that I can gear up for the final section of the novel.

Because my characters are going to change, I need to change before writing about them. I need to let the end brew. And, most importantly, I have to be full of energy so that I can end with a bang (not a whimper).

Apart from all that, the 'to do' list is growing, so I'll catch up on one or two other things. Probably not the tidying/sorting of my writing-room however ('mucking-out' as Jilly Cooper calls it) as I find it hard to write if the room's too sterile. I shall look forward to doing that when this draft is finished.

Synchronicity or what

The Novel has steamed ahead over the last three days. I’ve now finished – I think – the truly painful part of the book. I now have to work out how to put everything right. Lots of scenes and lots of possibilities are floating around in my mind, but how on earth I’m going to make them into anything coherent, I don’t know. I shall just take it one chapter – scene – word – at a time, as I’ve been doing so far with this draft.

It’s very exciting and I do miss the novel when I’m not working on it. However, as I’ve said SO MANY times before, it’s essential to have breaks.

I’ve been writing about a time thirty-five years ago and on Tuesday, out of the blue, a friend whom I haven’t seen for probably about thirty-five years rang and suggested we meet for lunch as she is coming down to Devon for a 60^th birthday party.

Synchronicity or what?