Well, maybe not quite in the actual county right now, but my novel is finally published on Amazon! A promise to myself it took seven years to keep (no, that's not the novel blurb, but real life). But talking of blurbs, here is the back cover blurb:
A holiday in
Dorset with her wealthy, newly-divorced cousin seems the perfect escape from
Phoebe's mundane life as a governess – until a man walks from the sea at
Studland and into her life. Phoebe is drawn inexorably into a relationship with Alex Milne, a reclusive,
tormented WWI veteran, even as she is courted by handsome, gentle landowner
James Stephenson. The three form an uneasy triangle of lovers and allies
fighting to save the Dorset countryside and its way of life – but the ancient
land exerts its own forces on their lives. Trapped between her passion and her
integrity, her head and her heart, Phoebe must make choices that compel her to
confront her past and threaten to destroy her future.
The alternative cover - I'm waiting for my daughter to edit it :)
And here is the trailer - it's amazing what you can do with no knowledge whatsoever:
I am interrupting the usual content of the blog and my ironic, self-deprecating humour to bring you a literary-historical pilgrimage to the village of Moreton in Dorset, resting place for T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia.
I have a fascination with Lawrence that grew from reading Seven Pillars of Wisdom and was cemented with a visit to Clouds Hill cottage, his bolthole in Dorset, near Bovington. Seven Pillars of Wisdom is not for the fainthearted reader. It's hefty (over 800 pages), literary and genre-defying, blending truth and (a little) fiction in his accounts, memoir, military history, geography, topography and politics. As I wrote on Facebook when I finally finished it: 'I feel like I've been through the entire Arab campaign with Lawrence. Plus, I now know a lot about camels'. Lawrence is the scholar turned spy, commanded to infiltrate Arab communities during World War I to foment rebellion against the Ottoman Empire on promises of a fair division of land at the conclusion. Of course, Lawrence knew early on that the promises were not going to be kept, and, as I read between the lines, the strain that came from living intimately with the people he knew were going to be betrayed was one of the factors in his later behaviour, as, of course, was the deaths of his two younger brothers in 1915.
Lawrence lived long before PTSD was a recognised mental illness, but it's pretty clear that he returned from the war with just that. Shunning publicity, he took false names and bounced between various army positions before retiring from the military to Clouds Hill. The cottage is a shock: no electricity or running water, no kitchen. Apart from the downstairs room with a huge leather bed and lined with bookshelves, the place is pretty bare. An intelligent, cultured, wounded man was hiding from the world.
His end came all to soon. Riding his motorbike one evening, he had to suddenly swerve to avoid hitting boys belting along on bicycles. He crashed his bike, sustaining a head injury that killed him several days later. He was only forty-six.
The mourners at his funeral at St. Nicolas' church in Moreton read like a who's who of the 1930s: Winston Churchill, Siegfried Sassoon, Augustus John, Lady Astor and E.M. Forster to name just a few. His mother and one of his brothers were travelling in China at his death, and only one brother was able to attend.
The small cemetery is down the road from the church itself. You enter via a stone portico and take a short stroll through unassuming graves to the back, where Lawrence's resting place is, not ostentatious, but still notable for its size compared to the others. There was a steady stream of visitors, some there just because it was a place of note in the tiny village, others, like me, who made a pilgrimage, and who perhaps, also like me, said a silent prayer that he found peace at last.
Lawrence's mother chose that he be remembered as a scholar rather than soldier and statesman, and his headstone bears the motto of Oxford University, and is from Psalm 27: the Lord is my light.
The church at Moreton was bombed in World War II, so I can't claim it is intimately associated with Lawrence, but it is notable in its own right for the etched glass windows chosen to replace the stained glass lost, designed by Sir Laurence Whistler. A traditionalist, the idea of 'plain' glass in the church had me wrinkling my ecclesiastical nose, but I went anyway.
And I was amazed. I could never have predicted how beautiful the glass looks, with the simple background of the countryside, the nave of the church painted a plain sky blue to echo the view. Photos cannot do the church justice - you need to see the windows in situ. But here's a link to the photo gallery on the church website.
One of the most stunning is the Forgiveness window. Nestled at the back of the church, it is behind a screen and can't been seen from the inside. If you step outside and around the church, however, you will see a hanging Judas Iscariot at the moment of death, with the divine light shining down upon him. Apparently the artist designed this window, the thirteenth, early on, but it took many decades for the church to finally agree to install it.
Moreton has a new gem, too: a five-acre walled garden/ nursery that is a secret garden of little rooms. It is run to offer training to students with various special needs. There is a small farm and playground to entertain children, plus a cafe. We loved exploring the grounds, but didn't check out the cafe. Instead, we went to the tea rooms situated in the old school house and had a lovely tea. I discovered later, and wished I had known then, that the tea trolley is the bier that carried Lawrence's coffin. Not sure what I think about that. A shout out to their niceness: Alcuin slipped while climbing onto his chair, and even though it was not the cafe's fault, the proprietor gave him his choice from the ice cream cabinet.
Touristy stuff. The place is tiny, so everything is close together. Summer is better to visit as the tea room at least is shut in winter, and the walled garden won't be at its best, though I bet the church windows would be stunning in a frosty landscape with the winter sun. Also, there was a small field open as a free car park, whereas at other times of the year you would probably be parking on the side of the road. There is a railway station a good walk away and some bus connections. Or, you can have very kind parents who drive you there and mind your child while you take in your fill of the place.
And there's more if you got this far: Lawrence captured my imagination so much that he became the basis for a character in a novel set in the 1930s that, after several years of unexpected upheaval (see the rest of the blog), I am finally getting ready for publication. Here's a little extract. Phoebe Harris has come to Dorset for the summer with her cousin, but a series of chance encounters draw her into a relationship with a reclusive World War I veteran, Alex Milne. Here, they meet again among the barrows of the Dorset hills...
A fly settled on
the top edge of my page. As I raised my chin to blow it away, I caught sight of
another figure ascending the hill. Quickly, I buried my nose back in my book,
not wishing to invite interaction. Hopefully, the person would pass by on the
bridle way and not demand the walker’s etiquette of a conversation about the
weather or scenery.
In fact, I did such
a good job of ignoring the walker that I didn’t see it was Alex until he was
close enough to recognize me as well. He was dressed for walking, in his ubiquitous
khaki, a tripod under his arm and a stuffed backpack hanging over one shoulder.
I had longed, even
dared to pray, for another private encounter. Now it had been granted, I sat
frozen in panic. Should I raise my hand, be bold and call out, or simply pretend
I had not seen him, and let him choose whether to acknowledge me? There was no
path other than the one leading past the foot of the barrow, so if he wanted to
avoid me, he didn’t have the excuse of veering off in another direction.
I waited until our
eyes met, then nodded. He offered no greeting in return. I retreated behind my
book, though the words were now a blur to my racing heart and mind. If he
marched by on the bridle path, my chance would be gone. What could I say or do?
Instead of passing
by, he strolled up to the barrow until his head was level with my feet. I
lowered my book, clutching it tightly so that my hands wouldn’t shake.
‘Miss Harris. You
do seem to stray into my path peculiarly often.’ He sounded as though he could
not decide whether to deliver this remark as a joke or an insult.
‘I believe this is
a public right of way,’ I retorted. The steadiness in my voice surprised me. I
found I was less afraid of him now I had been in the lion’s den.
He indicated my
seat with his tripod. ‘I used to sit on that rock before you were born.’
‘But you’re not
from Dorset,’ I said. ‘Or if you are, you have lost your accent.’
‘We spent every
summer in Studland when I was growing up.’ His voice trailed away, and he gazed
across the hills. The wind tousled his hair, making the sunlight dance across
the shades of gold and copper. My fingers itched to reach out and stroke it.
I yearned to ask
whether the painting in his cottage was from his childhood, but sensed I had
not yet earned the right to mention it. Instead, I said, ‘I can see why you
would return. I think I could sit here until I grew into the rock.’
‘The only reason
I’m up here is at the behest of His Majesty’s Armed Forces. My task is to
inspect possible sites for firing ranges. I am about to declare this
unsuitable.’
I imagined gunfire
echoing across the hills, multiplied many times over from yesterday, drowning
out the symphony of nature. ‘I’m glad of that. The view is beautiful.’
‘And a firing range
would encroach on land belonging to the Stephenson family. At least I can repay
the Major with this small favour.’
I wondered what he
had to repay him for: an incident from the war? Giving him shelter, or a bolt
hole?
‘Is the
Stephensons’ estate in danger? I can’t believe the army is permitted to
requisition land that has been owned for centuries. It’s not as if there is a
war on.’ Indignation and fear welled up in me on behalf of the kindly Major.
Alex planted his
tripod in the ground. ‘The army can do what they bloody well like. And even if
I save the Major’s land for now, this won’t be the end of it. The dogs of war
must have their bones, and no one in the Home Counties cares if people down
here lose their ancient rights of way or a few sheep get shot. Ironic, isn’t
it: modern democracy is supposed to free the common man from encroachment by
the crown or landowners. Now the same, snivelling common men can sit on their backsides
in Parliament and decide to knock down your house or take your livelihood if
someone wants to widen a road or to rehearse killing his fellow man.’
I think he could
have denounced votes for women, or spewed Hindi poetry, and I would have hung
on his every word, not for their meaning, but for the simple fact that he spoke
them to me.
He swung around.
Given our last encounter, I expected him to leave after he’d had his say.
Instead, he sat down at the foot of the rock and pulled an apple from his rucksack.
‘Would you care to share with me?’
I stabbed a hole in
the page with my pencil before I recovered myself. I could not decide whether
the more dangerous—or desirable—option was to react to his political rant or
accept his offhand offer. With timid hopes, I chose the latter. ‘Only if you
don’t want the whole apple.’
‘I wouldn’t offer
otherwise.’ He slipped a penknife from his shorts pocket and flicked it open.
He traced the tip of the blade around the apple until he found a spot to pierce
its skin, then cut in a slow, deliberate circle. He held a half out to me. I
set my book and pencil on the grass and accepted the fruit. The newly-cut flesh
glistened. I took a delicate bite from the edge, aware Alex watched me.
‘Still working on
Dante?’ he asked when I had swallowed.
‘I’m trying to
brush up on my Italian. I hope to save enough money for a trip to Rome next
summer.’ I decided it was no use reacting to his mercurial moods. Maybe if I
let him be whom he wished, the real Alex would eventually emerge.
‘Is the Casy
translation any good?’
‘I’m no Italian
scholar. I bought it because it was dual language and cheap.’ I took another
bite of the apple. A speck of juice trickled down my thumb. I caught it with
the tip of my tongue. The simple action of eating helped ground me.
‘My brother was. An
Italian scholar, I mean. I gave him his first copy of Dante when he was in
grammar school. He turned out to be a natural polyglot, got a first in Modern
Languages at Cambridge.’ A brief smile lit Alex’s face. ‘I thought he might
become a professor, even a Dante scholar.’
‘What did he do
with his talents instead?’
The smile vanished,
his eyes darkened. ‘Sacrificed them to King and Country, like most of us. What
god of the mundane do you sacrifice your talents to, Miss Harris?’ He crunched
into the apple and chewed, waiting for my answer.
A retort to his
barb would be pointless. Conversation with Alex was like trying to tempt a wild
animal to eat from my hand. One tiny false move, and he would flee back within
himself.
‘I’m a governess,’
I said, and did not ask more about his brother. There were no photographs of
middle-aged siblings in Alex’s cottage. That told me enough.
Had he returned to
be close to the spirits of their youth, to walk where they had played as boys? Even
if his brother’ s body lay overseas, did Alex feel his presence here, receiving
comfort as James’s ancestors comforted him? If so, they must have been close,
as close as Lavinia and I. Something we shared, then.
And what of the
other boy in the painting, surely a sibling or cousin? Was he dead also, or did
he live a separate life, as indifferent to Alex as Lavinia’s and my brothers
were to us?
Alex nodded. ‘A
governess. I suspected as much. You are too smart to be idling your life away,
but you would be slaughtered in a classroom full of little savages.’
‘You do have a
peculiar way of talking,’ I objected. I preferred the Alex of my fantasies, who
had the elegant hauteur of a Mr Darcy.
He tossed the core
into the grass below. ‘Do I? I haven’t spoken to a woman for years.’
The strange thing
was, I was pretty sure he was not joking.
From: A Dorset Summer (hopefully to be published 2020!)
Where what started out as a structured idea morphed into a stream of consciousness post.
1. It's November - we all know that's NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. At least, over half the people on my FB feed do. And there's something about it that ignites even those of us who have sworn off novel writing. Because, although I've given up all ambitions for literary fame, I spend a lot of time in my head, and my little inner bubble gets boring even to me sometimes, and - pop - out comes a story.
2. And then, a little voice starts up: Hey, 50, 000 words in a month! That would be fun!! Just the intellectual challenge I need!!! Except it's totally unrealistic given I've got a toddler who is a one-man deconstruction company. OK, maybe if I did nothing else while he was asleep, including sleeping myself. So that's a no-go, right? Except... my husband is going to China in the middle of the month (yes, literally), so what would he know? As long as the view on the video camera when we Skype shows a clean space in the house, how would he know the baby is living off the knee-high pile of cat food on the kitchen floor, and the dust bunnies are evolving into woolly mammoths? And if my teenager gets to live on Papa John's pizza and sleep in as long as she wants, she won't be telling...
Ahem, back to reality and my rambling point.
3. What actually happens when I see NaNoWriMo, is my poor aging brain does a double take. At least, I don't know whether it's my brain or my eyesight, but nowadays, I find myself glancing at words and totally misreading. I'll see a jar of "Squirrel Jam" or a can of "Tundra Flavour Car Food". So what actually pops into my head is "nah, no more....". Which led me to think, how about a lighthearted, themed post on what could I say no to in November?
4. ...Which turned out to be hard, because I've got about the willpower of a jellyfish. If someone told me I had to give up tea and chocolate or die, I'd start writing my epitaph. The only times I've been able to turn over the proverbial new leaf were when I was pregnant. With my first child, I gave up drinking like the college student I was, and to this day, only drink lightly. With number three, the thought of having to give birth at forty-five drove me to exercise every day. And now he's on the outside, I still exercise almost every day because my back hurts too much if I don't. Maybe if I'd had fifteen children, I'd be near-perfect.
5. But I do have NahNoWrigglingMouse. At least, we wish we could say that, but we have a rodent lodger of many weeks standing. Sometimes, our cats diverge from their shock and awe strategy and allow some of their prey to be eligible for their catch and release programme. That is, catch it outside, and release it inside. The current mouse has taken up residence in our walls, and occasionally emerges in the kitchen to drag off pieces of pizza and dodge the cats and (humane) mouse traps. We are about to reach our final solution: name it. In the past, giving up and adopting the mouse usually results in its demise within a couple of days. Any suggestions for good names?
6. Then there was the news of the week: NahNoWrightMountain. That is, something to really get outraged about: Toblerone has changed its shape.
It's supposed to look like a mountain range; now it looks like a mountain range with a motorway cut through it. Perhaps it's meant to be a stark comment on the state of the environment. Or a bid to cheat us on the amount of chocolate we're paying for. It's a toss up.
7. And to end, how about, Nah, No More Wrigrets? That's not me, because I can still worry about things I did 25 years ago, but sometimes I get the urge to rrrrrroll my rrrrrrrrs and do a little Edith Piaf. And I think we need it this week.
Well, good luck to those of you who are really, truly churning out those 50, 000 words. And of course, for the best writer's inspiration, pop over to Kelly's link up at This Ain't the Lyceum. Even better, please read this post and consider helping her family fund their hosting of two Latvian orphan siblings this Christmas.
“More and more authors,” says Mirella Patzer, “are choosing the self-publishing route.” In fact, I turned first to Mirella when compiling this post because she’s a historical fiction author whose work I love – but who chose self-publishing over traditional methods. Yet, when the topic came up amongst my online critique group, opinions on both sides were strong. Why then, would historical fiction authors choose to self-publish, and what are the advantages for readers of the genre?
It’s easy to dismiss those who self publish as vanity authors, but in fact they follow in some august footsteps. Authors who began, or continued, by self-publishing include Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, James Joyce Virginia Woolf, Margaret Atwood and John Grisham. And you may not know that the queen of American style guides, The Elements of Style, was first self-published! Yes, people self-publish badly written books, but who among us has not at one time or another read a book published by one of the big publishers that left us wondering how on earth it got into print?
And talking of big publishers, it’s no secret among writers that most changes in publishing houses have not been to the advantage of the author. Tasks from editing to publicity can now be put on the author’s back. The decline of the copy editor in particular has been very noticeable to me. Ten years ago, it was rare to find a typo in a book; now, I see them with an alarming frequency. Independent author Kristine Kathryn Rusch takes an in-depth and somewhat alarming look at the wider subject in her blog The Business Rusch.
True, historical fiction is doing pretty well in a time when readers are choosing genres that take them away from reminders of the present economic decline. However, historical fiction authors can themselves be the victims of the present day: agents and editors, afraid to take risks, can push for more formulaic writing; publishers drop established mid list authors in favour of pursuing the next big thing; publishing companies fold overnight. Almost every author I know, including myself, has either personally suffered one of these setbacks or known others who have. Little wonder then, that many follow the heroes and heroines of their own books in taking control of the situation.
Why should we automatically turn up our noses at self-published historical fiction? The author has chosen to go into business for herself. If she were making and selling clothes, we wouldn’t dismiss her because she wasn’t working for a fashion house – we’d see if we liked her product. Perhaps we need to ask why books have this snob value.
The new force in self-publishing is, of course, the ebook. Now that e-readers aren’t just for the likes of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, authors can take advantage of the low overheads and get their work out to readers at competitive prices. However, this isn’t true when it comes to self-publishing the traditional way, where the cost of a softback is almost as much as a hardback, a difficult hurdle for an author who is trying to build up a readership.
Even established authors have been choosing to take control of their back lists, using the flexibility of ebooks to self-publish out of print titles. An example would be historical fiction author Kathy Lynn Emerson, who has partnered with other professional authors on the site A Writer’s Work to offer both previously published and original work in ebook format at extremely low prices.
To sum up the advantages of self-publishing: authors get control of their work, the opportunity to build up an audience with lower overheads, and the chance to continue to profit from their back lists. Readers get a wider choice and cheaper books. So, how do we get the two together? In the second part of this post, I’ll review some of the ways readers can sift through the chaff and find quality self-published historical fiction.
Continuing my musings inspired by The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy by Lawrence Sterne (see here for an overview of the novel).
One of many diversions in the novel
Point of view, primary and secondary characters: no-one told Tristram Shandy about these things.The poor man can’t even manage to maintain his status as the hero of his own memoirs.Almost as soon as a character appears, Tristram is obliged to stop and tell us his or her personal story, with no regard to flow of the plot.At the very beginning, we have a digression into the life of the midwife who helps deliver him; the ninth volume ends with a story of another minor character, the servant Obadiah.Tristram can barely make a point at times, let alone a point of view.
Even real-life authors have difficulties with characters getting out of hand.In fact, a recent discussion among my critique group led to comments and suggestions on this dilemma.Which leads me, in a truly Shandean line of reasoning, to the question, what particular dilemmas can plague historical writers when it comes to character?
Who said that?
Giving different characters distinct voices can be hard if we’re simultaneously attempting to make the characters sound Elizabethan, Jacobean, Neanderthal etc., regardless of the fact that not even Shakespeare made everyone sound Shakespearean.People from different classes or regions have particular characteristics to their speech, so go ahead and make that lower class Londoner sound like a cockney, whatever the time period.
In The Boleyn Inheritance by Elizabeth Chadwick, Katherine Howard, one of three (yes, three) first person narrators, becomes obsessed by French phrases, both a pathetic and humorous attempt at sophistication, but also a help in defining her voice.
Say that again?
That accent thing is a tightrope.Unless you’re a powerful or famous writer, giving a character an almost untranslatable dialect for the sake of authenticity is a bad idea.On the other hand, ye canna make every Highlander sound like Scotty from Star Trek (did I date myself with that reference?!).
Someone who succeeded admirably, in my opinion, is Judith Lindbergh, who transposed the voice of Medieval immigrants to Greenland in The Thrall’s Tale.Most of us will have to settle for some sort of compromise.
Lost in translation.
I touched on this in a previous post.Writing in English about a character who speaks another language causes the problems listed above, plus more.Depending on your familiarity with the original language, you could try to echo syntax, or throw in a few key words or phrases.Actually, if you’ve got practically no familiarity, you could grab a dictionary and do the same anyway.Or throw caution to the wind and use Google translator because platypus dances under blue clouds Monday please. Tristram assumes everyone is as polylingual as he is and thinks nothing of inserting several pages of Latin in a chapter.But do you use modern French for the average reader or eighteenth century French to be accurate? Where does the line between a natural and contrived language fall? Mon Dieu, c’est impossibile!
Where did that Queen come from?
Jean Plaidy
Another dilemma occurs when, despite your endeavours to keep everything fictional, a real historical person insists on turning up in your story.This happened to Tristram – the Queen of Navarre turns up in a discourse on whiskers (V.i).You have three major options.1. Spend countless hours of research getting the character right for one scene; 2.Steal the character from Elizabeth Chadwick, or better still, Jean Plaidy because she wrote about every historical character on the planet and she’s dead; 3. Create a caricature à la Timothy Spall’s Winston Churchill in The King’s Speech (I’m still wondering why he did that, by the way).
And if you want some real help, check out the following:
Vicky English has some hints on using POV to layer your scenes in her latest blog entry.
Kathy Lynn Emerson has a good discussion on the language question in her book How to Write Killer Historical Mysteries (see my earlier review).
The Inkwell Inspirations blog has a comprehensive section on writing resources, including several pertaining to character.
Here is the second of my attempts to use Lawrence Sterne’s The Life and Opinion of Tristram Shandy as a guide to writing historical novels.See my previous post for an introduction to the book itself.
History: a digression?
Modern editors tell us that diversions are a ‘killer’ to the novel; many declare you should have no backstory at all in the first few chapters.Tristram Shandy, on the other hand, declares, “Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;—they are the life, the soul of reading;—take them out of this book for instance,–you might as well take the book along with them” (I.xxii).He is quite unable to plot out a linear storyline, a fact he illustrates in his summary in Volume VI, Chapter xl:
Now,
These were the four lines I moved in through my first, second, third, and fourth volumes.—in the fifth volume I have been very good,—the precise line I have described in it being thus:
I thought I’d try to avoid a similar Shandyism and concentrate on a type of digression historical authors have to wrestle with: the backstory of history in novels.
From: Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
How and when should an author best inform the reader of the historical background to his/her novel, especially when the main characters are not the makers of textbook history?When you’ve waded your way through a four-feet-high pile of research books and logged up several weeks online to ‘get into’ your historical world, it’s tempting to offer all your wisdom up to the reader, if only to make them realise what you went through.But as I know from writing and critiquing, it’s pretty obvious when you begin to sound like a history book.A few techniques authors have used to avoid their novel looking like the plot line of Tristram Shandy are:
In the beginning -Occasionally an author will fill in the background with a foreword. This avoids having to insert necessary facts in an unnatural way, and eases the reader from history to historical fiction.I favour a brief sub-heading to the opening chapter e.g. “Florence, 1293,” which gives the author at least a baseline of expectation to work from.
The neophyte POV – have your POV character undergo a new experience or travel to a new place, and show the reader the information through his eyes.In Carrie Vaughn’s YA time-travel novel, Steel, her teenage protagonist ends up on an eighteenth century pirate ship where, as a new member of the crew and a landlubber, she gets to explain the workings of a ship without sounding like a sailing manual.
It’s all French to me – use a few words from the original period/culture/language in context so that the reader can easily figure out the meaning.For example, “The roll cost only a few denarii,” immediately conveys the sense this is a coin of low value (and has the bonus of giving the reader the beginnings of a price guide to the period).
On the other hand, it’s best to avoid giving the reader minute details your character wouldn’t notice or draw attention to.“’I’ll be downstairs as soon as I put on my green baize hat with three pheasant feathers’,” sticks out far more than, “The green baize hat would set off her dress to full advantage, and the pheasant feathers she’d sewn on it last week made it look almost good as new.”
What to do with all that other knowledge you gained?This is where the afterword shines.A recent article in the Historical Novel Society's magazine, Solander, revealed that the majority of readers of historical fiction enjoy the afterword, both for contextualizing the story and for a chance to learn about nonfiction sources for further reading; after all, people read historical fiction because they love history.But the bottom line is that details should add to the story, plunging the reader into a world that can know and care about, so that the author can say with Tristram Shandy, “my work is digressive, and it is progressive too,—and at the same time” (I.xxii).
