So what?

A fellow guest on Radio Wales 'Something Else' programme yesterday told me that 'Shakespeare was tosh'. All of it. Oh and old-fashioned and crude and...more stuff like that my brain couldn't be bothered to remember.. (It's permanently full of the new book, there's a lot of competition for space). I guess that's a point of view- no what am I saying? It's the opposite, it's a bluntness of view...no it's a bluntness of partial-sight. All these terms - opposites in this case- we could do with words for. One of the great things about Shakespeare was that when he couldn't find a word he made one up. A pity he couldn't have left me with the two I needed yesterday.
Considering the English language has more words than it knows what to do with, I'm still surprised to find gaps. Children spot them early on. They regularly get asked questions along the lines of 'What's your favourite...?' Fair enough. But of course what they want to tell you is the opposite- and what's available? Not much. My least favourite...the thing I don't like most of all...my bete noir (ok not really). So they do the Shakespearean thing. They use unfavouritest.
It still leaves me wanting a pithy, ouch sort of word to use when someone (sorry can't remember your name) thinks it's big and clever to say Shakepeare's tosh.

Horse sense

This time last week I didn't win the James Tait Black Fiction Prize- but what a buzz losing was. Rosalind Belben's 'Our Horses in Egypt' did win and she read beautifully from the first part of the story following Philomena, the horse requisitioned and shipped off to be used in the First World War. (That's Rosalind herself, on the left in the pink hat, at the post-prize book signing. I'm coping with what seems like a forceful fan of fiction on the right- really though she was a delight). I have no complaints. Both Ms Belben's writing and subject matter were especially pleasing to someone whose twin manias are horses and fiction. But give her a try even if they're not yours. Philomena's is a story you probably won't know and it's strange and needed telling. (AND visit http://www.ilph.org/makeanoise/ if you have the inclination- nothing changes, huh?)

And the Edinburgh Book Festival was bliss if your business is books: readers and writers filling Charlotte Square from morning till night plus the academic squad from the University: the professors, librarians, graduate students et al. They gave such a great party - especially welcome to an undeserving fictioneer who finds research a real trial. So much easier to invent and inhabit your own universe where standards of accuracy are up for continual renegotiation.

The champagne and head-patting aside, a visit to Edinburgh certainly tops up the reserve of something always threatening to run dry in my case: the belief that what I do on writing days is a decent way of spending my life.

So I discover another Stevenson fan and his wife- nice to meet you and Erin!- get my reading done despite the hangover and wander up and down Princes Street in the sun with husband and friends to take in the the acapella singers, bands and magicians (sic). Not QUITE perfect. Because not only didn't I win, the BBC4 crew fail to arrive in time to film my being brave and performing with enthusiasm despite the disappointment. So the country will never get to see just what a good loser I was. So I'm telling you.

Don't Get Bitten, Don't Get Kicked

Only true gentleness can master horses.
Pull and their strength will enter your flesh like
a butcher's hook and force the joint awry.
Never tense. Your fear will balloon and mewl,
come flashing over the fields, a simple brain's
switch of horror that may destroy you both.
Keep your voice low - you are fodder for the threshing.
Think with your senses: one can be spry death
in half a second from smelling the new spring.
Balance is your handrail. Gravity the strap.
Hold that light boneless seat men find so sexy.

Always remember: on the grass you are dead meat.

Seam Poetry (Issue 5)

My horse Ianto died this week. I was away and my friend Vivienne (and Bryan and Verity, but especially Vivienne) cared for him heroically. Probably best- horses know nothing about ownership. To Ianto I was a sort of officious health visitor: enquiring into the state of his feet, dosing him, insisting he take exercise. Vivienne on the other hand was meals-on-wheels: beyond kind, calm, a giver of sweets. I know who I'd rather have.

Thanks Ianto - we had some wild times. I've never met another creature on four-legs that was a stand-up comedian.

Thanks Vivienne.

Backstory

While I'm writing fiction I try not to read it. Terrible insecurities surface if I do- not to mention the fear of unconscious theft. (This isn't really a problem because your own ideas, phraseology, scenes and of course characters have such a strong essence of yourself that - just like the penguin chick in the thousand-strong rookery - they call to you above the racket. Still...)

I suspect this abstinance has more to do with sympathetic magic than anything real. Like fasting before taking communion - or no sex before The Big Game.

I can't pretend it's easy- it's positively hard because, in common with most people who write fiction, I can't get enough of the stuff. I could eat three courses of fiction for every meal. (Starter: Michael Frayn, main course Joseph Conrad, pudding Martin Amis...and yes, I could manage another slice). An addict, I need some every day. I need some NOW. So I go through this ridiculous bargaining process with Mephistopheles. Obviously, I wheedle, a new William Boyd, say, if there is one- I'm not saying I've checked- but if there were one it'd be out of the question. I'm not even mentioning a title because I understand how not acceptable a William Boyd would be. But- but (it's early morning, my husband isn't awake to torment, even the dogs are still dreaming of very slow hares gambling innocently through Dog Heaven) but (here I come up with my lowest offer, ever) what about an old Colin Dexter- hang on, hang on, before you say No, what about an Inspector Morse that is so-o old I can mime the dialogue when it comes around on ITV3, so old that John Thaw playing Inspector Morse doesn't have a limp, so old and so familiar I can remember who did it? So old the traffic in the Oxford background is actually MOVING. Can I read that?

No, he says.

I turn on the laptop.

Writing days

It's been...interesting lately. Especially for someone who spends a lot of time obsessing about village stuff (the latest is our neighbour's mare Pip, having been a dead ringer for a chestnut Zeppelin for an age now, has produced her foal). All Sunday afternoon as we gardened a succession of locals came along saying either 'The foal's out- it's gorgeous!' or - if going the other way-'Somebody said the foal's out! Just how gorgeous is it?' Answers: Yes, I know and Extremely gorgeous. Of such simple pleasures is country life. Then there's the wandering (ie trespassing) in the surrounding fields with just the occasional trip to town to get into fights with local retailers. Also the odd writing day is interspersed with all this and a bit of book-stuff gets done.
But this last week book stuff has ganged up on the rest. First: over the border back to Wales to pick up the Pure Gold Fiction Award for Salvage (thank-you everyone in Wales who voted for it- the award was good, too with a bit of Welsh gold sandwiched inside). Then on the Wednesday there was the Lingham's party to launch Blood,etc (FINALLY- thank-you loverly Dominic from Parthian for being the acceptable face of publishing. Wirral ladies will long remember your visit). Today comes the news that Salvage has been shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. And people are ringing me up and emailing me to tell me I was shortlisted and to ask me if I knew yet and how did I feel.
Answers: Yes I know and Extremely gorgeous- or extremely something anyway. Words fail me. It's not a writing day.

Can I rephrase that?

Oh dear. To celebrate World Book Day I get three invitations to give readings. Wonderful. Never say no to this sort of thing. First off to Heswall. All's well. Nice people. Good questions. Two days later, flushed with success, Prestatyn on a beautiful seasidey afternoon. An impressively well-read and analytical group: they knew the novel better than I did. One of them had read it three times! AND my old friend Glen- hadn't seen her in years - turns up in the audience. So what with all this and the buffet (a big deal, I get my husband fed at no inconvenience to myself) the spirit of World Book Day goes to my head. I send a jokey thank-you email to John, the librarian, et al saying basically 'hey, how good was that? - and look at the picture, they're so into my book a fight's breaking out over that surprising twist on Page 186!'

This was SO wrong. I have a bad feeling that a violent incident has been recorded, enquires will be made and all further fiction-based events could be suspended until a risk-assessment is completed.

In my defence Llangollen library survived my visit last Friday night- and most of the town has reopened for business as of this morning. (Some traffic diversions may still be in operation.)

Yesterday the Western Mail rang to ask how I felt about book-crossing. Well it's got be be good, hasn't it? People leave books around for other people to read...that's good, isn't it? And yes, you the author don't get a bean...but of course you don't mind. Because how can you stand to come across all miserablist and scrooge-like in the Western Mail? You just don't do it. Like making up jokes about perfectly decent Prestatyn readers getting into fist-fights. You just don't do it.

So it's just me and the Queen

Having announced yesterday that I intended to have an official birthday - today - guess what? there's a card, a very acceptable stylish pair of black gloves (is there any other sort?) - and a birthday lunch. Lush-sh meal at The Marsh Cat in Parkgate. Sadly no one in Parkgate has been prepared to speak to me since one of my characters called the place 'a swampside resort'. A character, folks, not the author. (It is though). So wear dark glasses. (It is actually sunny over their swamp). Have nice time. Husband says "Well I didn't think you'd want to waste your official birthday trooping the guard or changing the colour or whatever."
Correct, bach. But that doesn't mean I've forgotten you've lost your wedding ring.
"So this official birthday...?" he says.
"Main reason is February," I say, "as a month it needs something. It's short but grim. All it's got is St Pancakes Day - a carbfest followed by a Wednesday, Thursday and Friday eating twenty-two portions of fruit and veg to make up. And you never know when Pancake Day's going to be because they move Lent around to try to keep it a decent distance from Easter and you have to be Stephen Hawking to work out when that is. And then there's the worry about whether Angela's hens will bother to lay that week. Not to mention the lemon rage - and that's when I'm not boycotting whoever has lemons. And I have to make the pancakes because you
won't learn. Enough?"

The sun goes in over the swamp. A big black splodge is hatched in Wales and rushes across the Dee towards us, halving the light in the conservatory where they have The Marsh Cat's nicest tables. Where we are. The vast expanse of reed and soggy bits and river that is downtown Parkgate turns- I'll like to say whatever adjective you can make from Conrad: Conradish, Conrady, Conradesque? There isn't one.

"So what would you like to do on the rest of your official birthday?" he says. "My treat."
So February 28th it is from now on. Another date for him to forget.
"I might go home and write something. Just for a change."

And this means?

Can you depend on nothing these days?

First, my husband of- so many years we've stopped counting, goes and loses his wedding ring. We go through the 'when did you last see it?', 'why would you take it off?' bit. Not that I'm sure I want an answer to either of these questions though I can conjure up several, straight off. His variations on 'search me' come as a relief. (Yes, I know it was me wrote the book about a lost ring, but that was made up, dear). Then (and this is a man who can forget his own birthday, never mind mine) he presents me with a card for St Ddwynwen's Day. Yesterday. Never happened before. Why would it?I suppose it is her day. Too miserable to check: she is a saint famous for a. being particularly difficult to pronounce by anyone non-Welsh and b. going into the longest sulk in history. What is he trying to tell me?

So now it's the day after St D's day and there are signs and portents everywhere. That huge beech tree has been felled by a not particularly strong wind and is blocking my favourite walk. And just in case I don't get it, a headless dove (still warm, its crop filled with, I guess, ivy berries) has been dropped beside the lane on my return. A puff of soft grey feathers show the exact spot the buzzard struck. Probably I've interrupted the feast so am responsible for another victim soon to be decapitated beyond the woods. I carry the weightless corpse into the field for the buzzard, but more likely the fox or badger to find.

Don't get too comfortable, all this is saying. Watch the skies.

The ripples of malice have infected the new book. It seems to have reinvented itself, no longer calls itself the JA but 'something to do with darkness'. That's it. Just as with new babies, I - its parent - find a title I like in the Penguin Dictionary of First Names. Then it grows to the stage where you can't imagine it being called anything else. If it had aunties they'd be saying 'oo-o he looks so-o like a little JA doesn't he?' But now, suddenly, a forty-thousand word teenager, it's decided to hole up in its sour bedroom while considering the options. 'Something to do with darkness' - that's what I get when I try to feed it. 'Maybe Dark-Something'. It'll let me know.