A Sense of Place 2 - Iceland for Aliens by Philippa Hawley

At this time of year thoughts often turn to planning holidays. How about giving Iceland a visit? 

Here's a little something I wrote after my trip there in 2013. 

ICELAND FOR ALIENS

We drove through lava fields, vast as Siberian steppes and I waited to be inspired by the sweeping skirts of mountains covered by moss. Lichenous greenery heaped itself over lumps of lava down at ground level whilst higher up it draped shantung-like over an edge, carved like velvet; fabrics folded, pleated and creased by time.

I envisaged tales of trolls hiding behind waterfalls. Rainbows came into view then faded as the sun crept through mists of rain. Pots of gold must be hidden here as ravens flew overhead and whooper swans perched on the volcanic bed. This surely was a place of folk tales and legends – a raven marrying a swan might give birth to a leprechaun, or a troll could cast a spell on a puffin. As it turned out mystical inspiration passed me by.

The stories that captured me were those of my travel companions in this weird and rugged landscape, battling the elements one cold wet September in the remotest of places.

An elderly South African woman, now living in Toronto was travelling alone, still keen to climb rocks, defying her osteoporotic frame. She told naughty stories of

a life well-lived and was not yet ready for bedroom slippers and a quiet life.

An elderly Englishman, a film-maker forced to retire due to hearing loss, travelled with his caring wife who looked after him too well, made him use a stick lest arthritic knees gave way. He’d been places, knew people, loved life.

A stout, middle-aged geography teacher was travelling with a childhood girlfriend. She’d recently met her third husband at a supermarket deli counter doing Saturday morning shopping. The friend was an expert bird watcher, with high-quality binoculars, able to show us puffins, whooper swans, fulmer, skua and wheatear. An excellent companion, she distracted the troubled teacher who was seeking respite from the worries of an aged mother back home but missing her new man.

A group of ten Hong Kong Chinese tourists who lived in Toronto posed at every photo opportunity with dubious camera etiquette, but charmed us still.

A Professor of History from Cape Town, was having some days to herself before sorting out her late aunt’s estate in London. She’d travelled from far in the Southern Hemisphere to the extremes of the north.

We were all mesmerised by the towering icebergs on glacial lagoons – blue, white, black; liquorice allsorts on a cold white sea. We marvelled at the power of volcanoes and the extent of lava fields. We sighed at the beauty of waterfalls and fleeting rainbows that appeared in the haze of spraying water. We were all aliens in an alien land, two degrees south of the Arctic Circle, far out in the North Atlantic at the junction of the North American and Euro-Asian tectonic plates. We walked across the ancient rift valley together and east met west and north met south – now that was inspiring.

13 Ways of Looking at the Novel by Jane Smiley by Clare Hawkins

I have been floundering with the writing of my current novel, partly due to external events but also because the material and the process are failing to ‘grab’ me. With my other novels, I have often become so involved and excited that I can’t wait to get back to the desk to write the next chapter. However, while tidying my desk (a typical avoidance strategy) I re-discovered Jane Smiley’s excellent book 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel’ which I had borrowed from a friend some time ago and never got round to reading. (It’s a hefty volume).

Its subtitle is What to read and how to write and it provides material aplenty to satisfy readers who are also novel writers. I turned to Chapter 10 A Novel of Your Own (I), which is a guide primarily aimed at novice writers attempting their first drafts. However, I felt in need of some pretty basic help and guidance in my current state of mind.

In this chapter Smiley suggests that embarking on writing a novel is an exciting, liberating and inexpensive act, but acknowledges the many obstacles that writers will inevitably experience. She provides an insightful commentary on the elements of novel writing as a hierarchy of skills, but most telling for me was her advice about how to deal with doubts and misgivings during the writing of the first draft.

She is a believer in completing the rough draft without too much ‘fiddling’ or re-writing. A new writer should press on with the first draft ‛in spite of time constraints, second thoughts, self-doubts and judgements of all kinds.’ This is ‘an act of faith that is invariably rewarded – the rough draft of the novel is the absolute paradigm of something that comes out of nothing.’ I’ve always liked the idea that writing a novel is one of the few creative activities which comes almost entirely out of your own head.

Smiley goes on the discuss blockages such as boredom with the material, which she claims arises for various reasons. The first is lack of knowledge about your material, which can be addressed by undertaking more active research. Next, confusion about your premise can cause boredom and avoidance, which can be treated by re-reading and thinking deeply about what is actually going on in the plot and with the characters. Another significant obstacle is being too critical or ashamed of your writing, because it doesn’t measure up to the works of others you aspire to. I can identify very strongly with this. She argues that, ‘Admiration for the work of other novelists should remind you of the goal, but not make the goal seem unattainable, should open up your desire to write, not shut it down.’

There are many other encouraging statements in this chapter too arising from her enthusiasm for novel writing, her conviction that hard work and commitment will bring great pleasure and enjoyment. ‘The trick is to make your material so fascinating that you cannot stay away from it, so intriguing that you ignore negative feelings and second thoughts, so rich with interest that the concepts of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ hardly occur to you.’ Her definition of ‘inspiration’ is interesting too, something which has to be worked at, or ‘a condition of being stimulated by contemplation of the material to a degree sufficient to overcome your natural disinclination to create.’

The chapter also contains some insights into the deeper motivations and insecurities of novel writers, which made slightly uncomfortable reading for me, as I recognised my own errors in some of her examples.

I must read the next chapter, A Novel of Your Own (11), and indeed the rest of the book, as soon as I get time, though now I must pick up my first draft again, re-think its premise, get going and finish it!

Good writing, everyone!

Interview with Pauline Rendall writing as Paula K Randall.

Pauline has recently been interviewed on another blog: 'Authors interview', regarding her self-published novel, 'Hangman's Wood'.  It makes interesting reading.  Follow the link below for more information.
https://authorsinterviews.wordpress.com/2014/12/08/here-is-my-interview-with-pauline-rendall/

Sources, ideas and inspiration for historical fiction by Clare Hawkins

Working on a novel over a period of many months often takes me so far away from the initial source of the ‘inspiration’, that it is hard to identify the starting point. However, a little thought and back-tracking about each novel, brings me to the conclusion that my first ideas often arise from random encounters with historical non-fiction.

More than ten years ago, having decided I wanted to write an historical novel, I visited Colchester Central library and poked about in the History shelves. I have little idea why I came away with an armful of books on the Spanish Armada, but I plunged in, discovering the complex political background to the conflict, the strategy of the English navy, and the factors leading to its victory. This was all very interesting, but the idea for a novel that I might be capable of writing, only started evolving when I read about the escape of the defeated Spanish fleet  up the east coast of Britain and the fate of one ship in particular, El Gran Grifon, which was wrecked on Fair Isle.

Now here was a good situation (for a novel, not for the 200 unfortunate castaways, nor the impoverished islanders, of course). According to the sources, the Spaniards climbed from their broken ship on to the island where they were marooned for several weeks. Few details of what happened were documented, though various myths exist, so here was fertile ground for invention and imaginative re-construction. Plot and character ideas started flowing: What happened when the foreign soldiers and sailors landed? How did the islanders greet them? Who were the islanders and how did they live? What fears and tensions might have grown between the two alien communities?  What friendships? What of the privations they would suffer on such a tiny island?

These and many other questions drove me to more focused research, about 16^th century peasant life on a Scottish island, the history of Fair Isle itself, knitting, Spanish galleons, ships’ crews, etc etc etc. During this reading, I was madly scribbling notes about my principal characters and soon a version of the romantic historical novel The Salvaged Heart began to take shape.  The central premise and the themes took some time to emerge clearly and the actual writing, with many wrong turnings, re-writes and substantial changes was both fun and a challenge.

Several of my other novels have sprung from a similarly ‘random’ approach.  However, no selection is ever entirely random; choice is based on a range of conscious and unconscious factors such as prior interests, personal experiences, awareness of one’s ignorance, a striking book cover, favoured historical periods.  For my next novel, I didn’t have to read far in The Scottish Enlightenment by Arthur Herman before discovering my inspiration: an account of the hanging of Thomas Aikenhead, a 19 year old student of Edinburgh University in 1697, for blasphemy. Little is known about his background, though his ‘atheism’ is well documented. The religious conflict and the economic depression in Scotland at the period provided a powerful context, as characters in the form of family, enemies and associates of Thomas Aikenhead started emerging from my head. The Darien Disaster by John Prebble, an account of events nearly contemporary to the execution, provided the second large plot element in the novel The Bookbinder’s Daughter.

Frequently, reviews of non-fiction titles spark an interest, which I pick up and explore. Reading historical material, as an inspiration for fictional writing is also for me a thoroughly enjoyable way of filling up some of the huge gulfs in my knowledge of history.  Mostly, however, it is the smaller, often incomplete or barely documented human stories that give me the essence of plot and character, for the type or fiction I write, rather than the large sweep of events social and political, national and international, though the characters’ own troubles and conflicts can be set within these wider contexts.

I have other sources of inspiration too, but those are for another time!

I’d be interested to hear where other writers find theirs

In praise of writing groups by Philippa Hawley

I was recently at a drinks party in a village some miles away. It was a lovely gathering of people, all friends of our hosts, but mostly strangers to each other.

You know the form:

‘How do you know Jack and Jill? Are you local? What do you do?’

    I considered my reply options:

‘I’m a retired doctor.’

‘I’m a writer.’

‘I’m a retired doctor and now I write.’

That last one seemed to work. We could either talk about medicine or about writing. Despite the press coverage of a struggling NHS, writing seemed to win in the small talk wars over a glass of Prosecco.

One chap in particular drew me into greater discussion with more searching questions. He was a landscape gardener who a few of years ago had done the same ‘Start Writing Fiction’ module with the OU that I had taken in 2011. He had hardly written since, even though he’d enjoyed the course very much and I asked him why not. He replied that although he had lots of time to think whilst working, he had little time to write, and didn’t really know how continue without the tutor to guide him. He was approaching retirement and felt now was his opportunity to write more, but he needed some stimulation.

I found myself prattling on about writing magazines and short story competitions as a source of inspiration and encouragement. I suggested he wrote little and often to keep in practice even if no-one ever read his words. I told him these were the things that kept me going, along with joining a local writing class and working alongside other would-be writers, who gave support and gentle critique as I built my confidence.

I told him the other thing that can help is to find a writing group consisting of people you trust – people whose opinion you value, who will share their work with you as well as listen to yours, and where any criticism given is constructive. In the discussion with my landscape gardener I acknowledged that writing can be an isolating pastime. Most non-writers are not interested in the minutiae of your writing world, whereas a fellow writer will understand and enjoy sharing thoughts, ideas and problems too. They will tolerate your moments of self-obsessed analysis or times of lack of confidence and self-doubt, just so long as you return the favour. The controlled environment of a well run writing group allows this to happen. I do hope he finds such a group.

WivWords 12/13 October 2013

Writing can open up new doors for many of us. This summer both Sue Dawes and I have become involved with the WivWords festival, having been co-opted onto the committee by our mutual friend Petra McQueen. This is what Petra has said about the event:-

 'Wiv Words' is Wivenhoe's own literary festival that will take place on October 12th and 13th. It will be an unstuffy celebration of local talent. There are talks, walks, workshops, theatre, comedy and poetry events. There are events for children, teenagers and adults. The weekend will culminate on Sunday night with a show by John Cooper Clarke and Martin Newell.

As well as being a writer and active member of the committee, Sue describes herself as a jewellery-crafter and lover of all things hand-made. You will be able to see some of her work at the Paperformance exhibition in William Loveless Hall during the weekend, and also at Cutting Corners Picture Framing, situated in Wivenhoe Business Centre, Brook Street, Wivenhoe. Here there will be a small exhibition of jewellery created using book pages, paper and other materials.

 I have been asked to speak at the Voice of Wivenhoe Women event to be held on Saturday evening at Open Space, also in the Business Centre, Brook Street, Wivenhoe. This will give an opportunity revisit some of the women interviewed by Charmaine McKissock over the four series of Wivenhoe Women, broadcast on Radio Wivenhoe since 2012. I believe Sue Dawes has now been interviewed too. The recordings, which are fascinating to hear, are still available on a play-back facility. I was one of the earlier interviewees and found the whole experience very revealing. Charmaine brought something out in each of us with her charming and clever interview techniques. The spoken word rather than the written word gave added insight.

I have been delighted to contribute to the on-going Writing Relay organised by Broomgrove Infant School in Wivenhoe. Alexander McCall Smith kindly provided a starter paragraph which has been added to in turn by various school groups, businesses and local townspeople. My page was written on behalf of The Wivenhoe Surgery. It was a challenge to read a story developed by others and then continue it, providing continuity as well as giving somewhere for the plot to go - a very different experience from creating ones own plot and I can’t wait to read the end of the story. I do hope it will be available for us all to read in due course.

The Shed writers group, based at the Wivenhoe Bookshop have organised a 60 word writing competition. Now here’s another challenge, open to all, to write a 60 word piece (prose or poetry) containing the word ‘shed’. Why not give it a go? The entry form will be available at the bookshop throughout the weekend of the festival and four winners chosen by November 4^th. I hope we might be allowed to publish their words on this blog shortly after.

So writing and word related projects are springing up all over the place, raising money for the Mayor's charities, and many published writers will be giving talks and workshops over the two days of the festival. Anyone seeking ideas and inspiration for their writing should have a look at the full programme on the Mayor’s website; wivmayor.co.uk or pick up a printed version from Wivenhoe Bookshop, 23 High Street, Wivenhoe CO7 9BE.

Philippa