Terrific Talent

I love writing. I have only recently come to realise quite how much I love it, and quite how grateful I am that writing is my talent.

I used to envy those people who could sing beautifully, or who were musically gifted. If I could sing and play the piano, my party piece would be singing "My Melancholy Blues" by Queen, a beautiful and haunting tune. But I can't sing. Well, not well. My friend, who never says a bad word about anyone and is musically gifted, charitably says I have a good choir voice. In other words, it might sound OK if 100 others were singing along with me to drown me out.

I can't dance either. I did ballet as a child but gave up because I didn't like all the French words and was sure I'd never learn them. Languages, you see, are something else I'm not good at. It took mew 17 years of living in Wales to get any kind of fluency in Welsh.

I have some artistic ability, but I think artistic ability is something that can be learned to a certain extent, and I had learned all I could and gone as far as I could go. I applied to study art at university but wasn't successful.

I'm pretty average at everything else. I have taken 15 exams in total - 10 O'levels (as GCSEs used to be called), 4 A levels and a degree. Never got an A in any of them, just a whole lot of Bs and Cs. The only test I have ever got an A in was my blood test, for which I got A+.

But I can write. You know when you read something in a book and it is just so perfectly and evocatively phrased that you have a real emotional response - fear, or love, or laughter, and then envy wishing you'd written it? I know pride is a bad thing, but reading over chapters of the fantasy novel I'm working on at the moment I am finding parts that I am really happy about. I love that. I love being able to use words to evoke a response, set a scene, create a mood and flesh out a character. I love being able to create worlds, people and adventures with nothing more than a keyboard. I've written more in the last three weeks than I wrote during the whole of 2009, and I'm remembering just what a thrill it is when the ideas, the lines and the scenes come faster than I can type them.

I may not be as talented as many - most - other writers, but I'm still learning my craft, and I know that I will improve with practice. However, I can write better than the average person on the street, and I wouldn't change that talent for any other - not even being able to sing, dance, play the piano and paint wonderful pictures all at the same time.

Inspiration

My last post on the V-Formation blog (www.vformation.blogspot.com) created quite a bit of controversy, but having now read almost all the Twilight saga, I stand by what I said. They inspire me. Stephenie Meyer, in turn, was inspired (appropriately) by Muse and various other rock bands. I haven't got into Muse yet; I suspect they may be a bit grungy and emo for my tastes.

This got me thinking about what inspires us. My books have come from various sources, but strangely, rarely my own head.

• Haven was suggested to me by my editor at Covenant, Valerie Holladay, who asked for a book set in Wales with a variety of different characters. A B&B was the obvious solution.
• A World Away was the sequel to Haven. I had never intended writing a sequel, but publishers like sequels to successful books by new authors; apparently they establish the name and the market.
• Christmas at Haven (as yet unpublished) is the third in the trilogy. More of the same, but with a difference in that Haven burns down in the opening pages.
• Easterfield came to me because I love Jane Austen (who doesn't?) and realised that she lived shortly before the gospel was restored in 1830. I wondered what would happen if a Mormon element were to crop up in the society she writes about. So I wrote about it.
• Landscape in Oils, my current effort, was inspired by a conversation I had with a drugs squad officer from Bangor police station many years ago. I have been writing this pesky book for fifteen years. But it is actually nearing the end, at last, after having been abandoned several times, sent in, sent back, lost, found, queried, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters.
• Horses Born With Eagle Wings is a fantasy novel I have been writing for even longer than I've been writing Landscape, and is inspired entirely by the first two Queen albums. The characters and even the title come from songs on those albums.
• Finders Keepers/Four Friends was the brainchild of a friend based on her own adventures of being middle aged and single. I've started it, and will write more when I finish one of the other books I'm working on.
• Emon, the fantasy novel I'm excited about at the moment, was the idea of Ryan Tench, who will be credited with me. Had a great meeting with him on Sunday, he just comes up with so many ideas, plot twists, character quirks and wonderful stuff that I can't write it fast enough. So perhaps Ryan is my muse.

What inspires you?

Book Review: Pursued by Lynn Gardner

As I have mentioned before, it's not easy or cheap for me to get my hands on LDS fiction, so when I buy a book I choose carefully. I bought Pursued because Lynn is a friend and fellow V-Formation blogger, but also because it is set here in the UK so I thought it might be interesting.

Lynn must have either spent a long time travelling round the Cotswolds, or done exhaustive research, because the descriptions are spot on. I've never been to Wells cathedral, but I have been to several others, and she does a great job of conjuring up the gothic architecture and rarefied atmosphere. Her characters are also well constructed, from the tenacious, slightly manic Maggie, to easy-going Rolf who is obviously just along for the ride. What Maggie goes through in the course of the book -not wanting to give any plot spoilers, but the least of her shocks is discovering that her long-lost brother is a terrorist about to blow up half the world - made me very glad she had a tame psychologist in tow. The drama starts on the very first page and it doesn't let up.

Unfortunately, two things spoilt the experience for me. First, while I am generally happy to suspend disbelief in the interests of entertainment, this book was just a little too implausible for my tastes, with rather too many amazing coincidences and bizarre occurrences.

The second problem is one of the cultural setting. I think it's very brave of Lynn - and indeed any writer - to set a novel in a country they haven't lived in or perhaps even visited, because when it is read by natives of that country, one little mistake can wreck a carefully built illusion and interrupt the flow of the story.

To cite an example, I recently read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. All the elegance and romance of the original, with added violent zombie mayhem. During one scene, the Bennett sisters are making their way to Meryton when they are startled by a sound they suspect might be "unmentionables" (zombies). But Lydia is able to reassure them when it turns out to be nothing more than a chipmunk. And so they continue on their way.

Hang on a minute. A chipmunk? In nineteenth-century England? Zombies crowding round Netherfield I'm prepared to accept, but chipmunks are just a step too far.

Similarly there were some little cultural mistakes I was prepared to ignore in Lynn's book, especially, as I have said, given the staggering amount of research she has done. These included the use of the verb "to visit" in the American sense, and the fact that both Arthur the butler and Grandfather Rathford own handguns. Handguns have been illegal here since 1996, with the penalty for owning one a ten-year prison sentence. But then, the guns were crucial to the plot, so I could overlook the criminal tendencies of an English country gent and his faithful butler.

One issue on page 115, however, actually stopped me in my tracks as I read and, like the chipmunk in Meryton, made the entire book lose credibility for me. More than that, it made me upset and, dare I say it, a little angry.

In the passage in question, Damon Rathford, who is British, is discussing his father's health problems, and says, "It's his gallbladder. He's scheduled for surgery in two months, but with our socialized medicine, the waiting time can kill the patient."

So first off, what is "socialised medicine"? I asked several friends and no one knew. All they know is that we pay our taxes and from that money we get libraries, schools, a police force, roads, doctors, hospitals, medicinal care, parks, and a great many other things which we don't consider to be "socialised". It's not a term we ever use, any more than Americans are likely to complain, "Because we have socialised education, a lot of our young people are illiterate."

Secondly, it just isn't true. The National Health Service operates on a triage system, and although there are waiting lists for non-urgent procedures such as hip replacements and bunion removal, anyone with a life-threatening problem has no wait at all. If Damon's father was truly likely to die imminently, he would be in hospital scheduled for surgery within hours. I know this from experience - my mother had gallbladder surgery, with no wait. I have never heard anyone British say a bad word about the NHS, and Damon Rathford lost all believability as a character from that point on.

Of course, Lynn has no need to worry about this. Her book will sell well, and those who like romantic thrillers (and there are plenty of them) will love it. Because it is so difficult to buy LDS fiction in the UK, very few British people are likely to read, and be offended by, that particular line. While that may be comforting to Lynn, it isn't to me, because lots of Americans will read it at face value, and may even believe it. I don't feel that an LDS fiction novel is the right place for political propaganda.

So if anyone reading this out there wants to write a novel set in the UK but has the slight handicap of never having been here, send me your manuscript! I can ensure that you don't have alien vegetables such as rutabagas or acorn squash in the larder (as in Josi Kilpack's English Trifle) and that British characters don't make outrageous, scandalous, false and unpatriotic statements about our wonderful NHS.

Typos

Whilst I decry the poor standards of literacy these days, it also extremely entertaining seeing the mistakes that are made. This morning I received two items in the post which caused me to laugh out loud. The first was a letter from the NHS national blood service telling me about a venue change for my blood donation sessions. It included the sentence, “In order to make this change as inconvenient as possible we have included with this letter a map detailing the new venue.” The second was a Christmas catalogue which had, among the many lovely things advertised, a pair of lighthouse bookends. I considered getting these for my brother-in-law, who is passionate about all things maritime, until I read in the description that “these naïve bookends will look delightful in any room in the house”. I’m sure James would not appreciate bookends which are immature and innocent about the ways of the world.

Bradshaw's Books!

Anne Bradshaw, a fellow Brit, is so much better at blogging than I am. Not only does she blog every day (cough) but she has some fantastic giveaways on her blog, and she knows how to publicise her book properly using the fabulous tool which is the internet. I'm visiting the USA in April next year. Might have to visit Anne to have a lesson on how to use all this technology to further my efforts as a writer.

In the meantime, I've added a link to Anne's Blog. And I'm keeping my fingers crossed I might be the lucky winner of, well, anything really! (But my Mum would love the David Glen Hatch CD).

The Case for LDS Fiction

Our "local" LDS Bookshop (about 50 miles away) has started sending me regular emails about the special offers available, and the new releases now available instore and online. They've got some tempting offers, and it's the only place in the UK you can buy root beer, so I called there a couple of weeks ago.

The bookshop is in the gorgeous village of Godstone, near the London Temple (there's business acumen for you) but the downside of being an LDS bookstore in the UK is that everything you stock has to be imported from the USA, which makes it all extremely expensive, even with the tempting offers. So I usually salivate over the stock (Paper and stickers for a baptism scrapbook! Family Home Evening plaques on which you can hang the names of each family member! Salt Lake Temple tea light reflectors!) and plan what I will fill my spare suitcase with next time I visit the USA (April 2010).

I found, on visiting the shop, that there are only five small shelves dedicated to LDS fiction. It's not a big shop, and they have all those other lovely things to stock, but I still couldn't help wishing there were a few more titles.

I can see the reasoning; inspirational, spiritual and scholarly works are probably bigger sellers, and Church members can't get those anywhere else. Whereas, fans of fiction can go into any supermarket and pick up several really well-written (and much cheaper) novels. After all, a novel is a novel; surely it makes no difference whether or not one of the characters happens to be LDS?

I happen to believe it is very important. Speaking as a convert living in a place where few people have even heard of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it can feel like a lifeline reading about other members, even fictional ones, and the lives they live in far-off places where others don't view them as an oddity. What's more they are people who go through challenges and trials, romance and adventure, whilst staying true to what they believe. They set a good example, and they can inspire as much as anything in the more cerebral works. And fiction is so much easier and more fun to read!

Yes, the market is awash with secular fiction, and much of it is wonderful. But much of it, too, contains scenes which, if in a movie, would be given an 18 (R) rating, and unlike movies books don't show the rating on the cover. The characters often behave badly, make wrong choices without suffering consequences, and hold views which are contrary to the gospel. Whilst there is a great deal of very good literature out there (most of it over 50 years old) there is also plenty that offends the spirit. The discerning LDS reader might prefer to relax with a good good book.

I haven't read much LDS fiction (see note above about bookshop not stocking it) but what I have read has been every bit as good as anything by any bestselling author stocked in my local (1 mile away) supermarket.That is basically why I will be taking advantage of those special offers and buying at least one LDS fiction book every time I got to the LDS bookshop at Godstone (that's every month, when I go to the Temple). I want them to know just how popular well-written LDS fiction is. And when I go to Florida next year, I'll be taking an extra suitcase with me so that I can visit Boyd's LDS Books in Orlando and take home an entire case of LDS fiction.

Enter the Character

In 1990, Joanne Rowling was travelling on a train when Harry Potter "Just strolled into my head, fully formed." Nine years later began the phenomenon every writer dreams of - book sales breaking records, children discovering the joy of reading, and no financial worries ever again.

I don't begrudge her any of it - I love those books too. But until recently I was twisted with jealousy over the way her character, and presumably his story, came to her so easily. If you read these blogs regularly you'll know that I am struggling with my current work and even gave up on it a few months ago, before taking it out and dusting it off again with a sigh (and a sneeze). I think I'm finding it particularly difficult because my last book, Easterfield, was a joy to write - it pretty much just fell out of the ends of my fingers.

Two days ago I experienced an exciting flash of inspiration when the character of Amelia Druce swam into my head, fully formed. Yes, she really did swim, and not only was I able to see that she could do with losing a few pounds around the waistline and freshening up her hair colour, but I knew all about her failed marriages, her cossetted childhood, and her love of snow globes. I knew how she thought, which of her friends she liked the most, and exactly what funny things were going to happen to her in the course of the book.

Half-an-hour later I had not only written a whole introductory chapter about Amelia, but I knew how her story would intersect with those of her friends, and how her friends' characters complemented and contradicted hers. (Her friends didn't swim into my head - Maralee marched, Dolphin danced and Jen jumped. Tip for writers: always avoid affected, awkward and annoying alliteration - but when you get to know these characters as I have, you'll see what I mean.)

Unfortunately when I say "written", I mean "composed" because, as always happens with flashes of inspiration, I was nowhere near a computer at the time. I was, in fact, in the steam room at my gym, my second-favourite place in the world for quiet time, introspection and deep thought. (A banana for whoever can guess the first.) Not really somewhere I can take a laptop.

Even more unfortunately, Amelia Druce is not a character in the book I am currently labouring over, but the one I will start once I have finished it. So you may have to wait quite some time to learn about the tangled love lives of Amelia, Maralee, Dolphin and Jen. And in the meantime, as Dory would say, Amelia can just keep swimming. And I can be thankful that, once in a while, I can share the creative experience of a really great writer.