The book that changed my life

That's quite an outrageous assertion. So outrageous that it has no basis in fact. As with 'this is the most wonderful piece of music in the history of humankind' and 'that has got to be the best film I ever saw, EVER,' statements, I'm a fickle beast. My opinions change with the direction of the wind.

Please note, I do not count myself as a remarkable writer. I do not appear in this anthology

No book has, in fact, changed my life. Some books have left their imprint on my psyche, so years later I'm still thinking about them while others disappear into the recesses of the never-never.




 One book that has remained with me is The Bone People by Keri Hulme. Magical. I must re-read it (for about the 37th time)

 Another is  How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff, which gave me such HOPE that I could write outside accepted norms and not be regarded as a crazy airhead. (Which I am and who cares? But I was thinking that publishers go for safety and formulaic style...)





 
Criminy, this is proving to be a long post. The book I was ACTUALLY thinking of before I thought of the others  (quod erat demonstrandum re fickle nature) is this:

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn.

 Love, love, LOVE this book. It is "a progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable" which means that as the story develops, more and more letters of the alphabet aren't used and we end up with only LMNO and P  (see the title!) 


SO clever - and all this genius is wrapped up in the story, which is about an island where use of letters of the alphabet are progressiveley banned.


Do you know, I haven't even got a copy of this book. I borrowed it from the library. CRIMINAL OFFENCE. (borrowing books from the library isn't criminal, but failing to buy them later when they've has such a profound effect, IS)

I, for one, and going to remedy that transgression NOW.


I would like to point out that I'm not in the pay of either Keri Hulm, Meg Rosoff or Mark Dunn, but they are welcome to offer me a percentage of their vast royalties after this unsolicited hero worship.


Yours sincerely,  Crlncxn 


(You see, Ella Minnow Pea DID change my life because my user name is a lipogram with the vowels removed.)

Happiness is a very small desk and a very big wastebasket

A magician said this. A magician, comedian and speechwriter for Gerald Ford, which seems a strange marriage of talents...

...but maybe not. A little worrying, perhaps, to think that a president of the US.etc. etc.

I don't particularly agree with Robert Orben's definition of happiness.  Too small a desk and I wouldn't be able to fit my Very Important Objects on it.

Difficult to see clearly but may I introduce them? From L to R.

Hmmmm, there's my To Do List on a whiteboard. (More of a To Do Scrawl, really.)

Then there's my Inukshuk. It reminds me of my two boys, Jamie and Laurie, and their girlfriends, Breanna and Irene, living in Canada. It also symbolises "You are on the right path." I live in hope...

Next, my hare. If I had a daemon, it would be a hare. Then there's a little card...

 ...because I never think I am.

Under that, a beautiful golden horse...

...Christmas present all the way from Bombay, from my dear writing friend, Rusty, which of course reminds me of Poppy and Alfie as well.

Then there's Bad Bunny for when I'm feeling wicked and Black Dog who gets shut in a drawer if I'm feeling miserable, as a sort of symbolic gesture for banishing depression.

Finally,  there's Eck - from a Meg Rosoff story, There is No Dog - reminder of someone who's an inspiration to me, and Ecks are very nearly extinct so I am his guardian.

My life, in eight objects. Ooooh dear! Rather telling.

I HAVE got a very big wastebasket, but I so very rarely throw anything away...

Just in case

Just in case you don't have an advent calendar all of your very own, or perhaps you're feeling too bone idle to prise open the little cardboard door...

Here's my picture of the day.

And, no, I'm not going to construct an entire blog around the subject of Christmas trees - although I must mention that for the first time ever EVER, the rooted Christmas tree we bought last year has survived.

Tantara!



The down-side is...there's always a down-side...that I so much love that expedition to choose a tree from Vulcan House Farm and this year there's no need.

But the real reason for the title Just In Case is because last night I finished reading it - the book of that name by Meg Rosoff (Yeah, okay, I'm becoming a bit of a Meg Rosoff bore lately, but console yourself with the fact that it could be, errrm - 'the history of cable-knit cardigans' or 'branches of DFS I have visited,' rather than the assorted works of an extremely good writer.)

N. B. There is another book called Just In Case but that has the subtitle How to be self-sufficient when the Unexpected Happens. I'm sure it's a jolly good read, especially post-apocalyptically, but THIS is the one I meant:

(Only my copy had a much less attractive and somewhat nauseous green cover which doesn't match my blog. Or my hair.)




How I did enjoy this book!

Why I did enjoy this book...apart from the fact that it's a compelling, unpredictable, sometimes troubling story which examines the role of fate in our lives...is for the reasons I enjoy anything written by Meg Rosoff. A paltry two of those reasons below:

The magic realism. The world of Justin Case is populated by extraordinary beings - an imaginary dog, an over-large buck rabbit called Alice, Fate as narrator and, my favourite, not extraordinary in himself, but in the way he's characterised - the baby Charlie. Meg has an uncanny ability to be able to get into the minds of non-verbal beings and convey their thought processes so convincingly that it is indisputably TRUE.

The other reason seems a little lame, maybe. It's the vocabulary. Big, long, intelligent words!  Often, when I'm writing, I try to think of simple words to replace the complex ones that come first into my mind - trying to write 'for an audience.'  Meg doesn't. At least, I don't think she does.

Swear words too. I'm wary of using words which might be offensive, even though they're the words that seem natural at the time. Meg isn't.

This all means that her writing is completely authentic. It's in her voice.

It shows.

By letting it go it all gets done.

 "The world is won by those who let it go...
but when you try and try, the world is beyond the winning."

 Do you know what? I wish I could keep those words firmly in my mind. I remember them sometimes but most times I don't and I struggle and I strive and get nowhere. Then I use up all my remaining energy telling myself I'm hopeless.

Struggle by Jaeson Ma

"Lao Tzu taught that all struggling, all striving is not only in vain but counterproductive. One should endeavour to do nothing (wu-wei). But what does this mean? It doesn't mean do nothing, but to discern and follow the natural forces -- to follow and shape the flow of events and not to pit oneself against the natural order of things." Adapted from Lao Tzu - Father of Taoism

Yesterday, with all the time in the world for creative writing (for once in my life), I battled and struggled to finish the last few paragraphs of a short story.

I did finish but it felt like pulling teeth, it took all day and I ended up exhausted and dissatified. It remains to be seen whether I think the writing is any good today...

This morning, I had a lesson on Alfie - part dressage, part jumping. Lao Tzu was with us, though he seems to favour riding oxen.

I didn't struggle. I didn't kick or whip Alfie just to get him to move from the spot. (That makes me sound Very Cruel - I'm not. I just have a very resistant horse!)

In our writing workshop, Meg Rosoff talked about throughness (discussed, too, in her very excellent blog) - the English translation of a German dressage term, Durchlässigkeit.

In our riding today, Alfie and I had great long moments of throughness - harmony and flow.

This was us in the summer, side-by-side, in perfect harmony. Today, that was how it was when I was riding him, my beautiful boy.


NOW - all I have to do is achieve the same feeling when I'm writing. Without struggling to achieve it...

Alfie wonders if I EVER listen to the lessons he tries to teach me.

"She was always sort of muddle-headed..."

"...thinking she'd made appointments when she didn't and things like that. But, gee, I never thought she'd really flip her lid."

I don't want to scare you on a Monday morning, but that was from Hitchcock. To be honest, quotes about being muddle-headed are few and far between.

Great image though!

The Muddle-Headed Wombat with thanks to Ann for suggesting it.

Yes, describe yourself in one word - a task on my writing course. Muddle-headed was what came to my mind instantly. Then I wished I'd said something different or was a more competent liar when we were asked to state that word (well, two, in my case) to the rest of the group..

Meg said she would be disturbed if I used the description 'muddle-headed' in a negative way. Of COURSE I did. I'm British, right.

You see, the thoughts in my mind tumble over each other, barge each other with sharp elbows, trip each other up in the rush to be first out of my mouth or my fingertips. Mop and bucket required to clean up the mess. Not the best thing for a writer...

OR IS IT?

I've always tried to tame my mind. Result: I write stuff that isn't truly me; it allows the unfortunate reader little glimpses of my voice and then - SLAM - the lid goes down on the dustbin. (There I go again. I could at least have described my mind as a bejewelled treasure chest, couldn't I?)

I think Meg's description of the mind as a colander is about right.

I'm writing the British edition as we speak.

In my own sweet muddle-headed way.

Life is the art of drawing without an eraser

...and so is writing.

This is written on Saturday night, after a brilliant but intensive day on the Finding A Voice course.

This won't be a long post because I'm exhausted, to put it politely.

If I weren't so exhausted, I'd be energised. I WAS energised until the exhaustion set in.

I didn't take that many notes, content and fascinated simply to listen to an author at the top of her game relating how it's very often a struggle, that she doesn't know what the ending of her story is when she starts (HOORAY!) and that THERE ARE NO RULES and it's my job to write fiercely - write the fiercest, scariest, most powerful book I can write.

As for my voice - this from the Talmud:

"We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are."

Then it was lunchtime and after lunch...life drawing! A surprise. A shock. A lovely large and curvy lady posed for us in the nude and we had to overcome all our insecurities and inhibitions and draw her, standing, sitting, reclining, holding umbrella. I felt like Lucian Freud. So very close, for me, to the experience of getting over myself in order to be able to write. Such fun! Writing could be this much fun, couldn't it?

Then, writing a stream of consciousness...

I've never written so freely.

(It's now Sunday and I can't wait for what Day 2 might bring)

I am a blank slate - therefore I can create anything I want

Spiderman said this.

Or was it Tobey Maquire?

Today, I'm planning to be a blank slate - at least until I start listening to Meg Rosoff. I hope that doesn't make my journey up to London problematic...

And what do I want to create on this blank slate?

Me as a transformed writer who has found her voice.

I'm very excited!

Words are the voice of the heart

...Confucius said.

I wish...

Sometimes, most times, if that doesn't sound too cynical, I think words are used as a clever strategy to hide the voice of the heart.

When I'm writing factual website content for educational purposes I'm sure that's a good idea! (Quite often I'm pulled up for my hyperbole...that IS from my heart when describing something I'm passionate about, but not necessarily appropriate.)

But with my creative writing? Now, that's a different matter.

First, find your voice. Not the voice that resides in your larynx but the one in your heart.

When I'm writing, often I'm struggling. The words that get written down must surely reflect that, forced as they are out of my being after a lengthy grapple?

This weekend, I'm attending a course in London, given by Meg Rosoff - she of There is no dog fame. You know, the writer I'd kill to be half as good as (and with poor grammar like that I've a long way to go!)

The course is called 'Finding A Voice.'

My belief is that when I find my voice, people will be able to hear it.

And when people can hear it it will slide through their brains and go straight to their hearts.

I'm learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma.

While I have no immediate plans to die, I think what Eartha Kitt said is just perfect.

(Another woman. Another person without facial hair. Perhaps no hair at all? It all goes to show it's not a prerequisite of saying Intelligent Things.)

My job with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission involves so much research that every day is an adventure. (At school, I gave up the study of History the first moment I could) Is it a disadvantage not knowing about a subject before you write about it? I happen to think it's quite the reverse - although it means I probably have to work harder.

Your Latin lesson of the day (well, mine, at any rate): I know one thing, that I know nothing...or something like that.

So...I have no preconceptions; I have to understand things myself in order to be able to pass them on to others; and, happily for me, I'm constantly acquiring knowledge so my brain doesn't atrophy (although tell me that when I find my car keys in the fridge or I go upstairs to get something and by the time I'm there I've forgotten what it was!)

I have riding lessons every week. Pete's opinion - SURELY you must know how to ride by now? My opinion - I know that there will always be something to learn.

I've started my seminar about transforming my paradigm of success...

And NOW, I've registered on a writing course with Meg Rosoff. (Remember There is no dog )

It's called 'Finding Your Voice'..."Your 'voice' lies somewhere between your conscious and subconscious mind. Finding that place is a challenging exercise in self-confrontation."

Can't wait. I'm hoping she has a big bag of Magic Fairy Dust just for me.

There is no dog

 "There really isn't another young-adult novel like There Is No Dog," said Anthony McGowan in The Guardian, way back in August.

Two things, Anthony.
One: you meant to say 'There really isn't another young-adult novel as good as There Is No Dog.' Two: 'Young-adult novel?' Really? You think so? Honestly, I'm flattered...

I first came across Meg Rosoff through writing this blog...while Googling 'writing and riding' of all things. I wrote about her here

I'd never heard of her. Well, why should I have? Her first young-adult novel, How I Live Now, was published in 2004 when my own children weren't children anymore and I certainly wasn't (although there are some who would dispute this.)

I adored How I Live Now.   I mentioned it here  It inspired me to write Of Night And Light - because it was written in a way that I'd yearned to write and I never thought was possible. (Of course it was POSSIBLE but was it ACCEPTABLE?)

So...There Is No Dog. Even better. The premise is that God is a feckless teenage boy with all the characteristics of a feckless teenage boy - and as a mother of three of them (feckless teenage boys, not Gods) - believe me, you wouldn't want one in charge of your planet. The hormones, the poor attention span, the bursts of insane creativity followed by weeks of lethargy, the mood swings (which, when you're God, play havoc with the weather)...

"The preferred candidate for God withdrew at the last minute saying he wanted to spend more time with his family, though privately everyone suspected he was having second thoughts."

I don't actually want to go through the story bit by bit because that's why you must read it for yourselves. (I'm SURE you're not the sort of people who buy the York Notes instead of reading the book, are you?) Except I have to tell you about the Eck...

 ...who IS the most delightful creature in nine thousand galaxies and very nearly extinct so it's just as well it's possible to adopt one. He's God's pet, badly neglected, and consigned to An Unmentionable Fate. I had to race through the book just to see if the Eck would be okay. No spoilers here...sorry.

If I have just the tiniest gripe, it is that when Eck's fate is determined there's no response from him. At all. So I was left ...bereft. An unfulfilled Eckophile.

Anyway, Meg Rosoff is the writer of my dreams. I'd kill to write like she can.

She has a mind like mine. A mind like a kaleidoscope. Only unlike mine, when she turns it around the pieces fall into place.


As mad as a bucket of frogs, yet underpinned with an eclectic (see yesterday) passion for literature, a darkly wicked sense of humour and a lateral way of thinking that's so lateral it's off the edge of this flat old world we live in.

And she rides horses.

There Is No Dog blasphemous? Come ON people! I've not read a book so full of hope and redemption in a very long time. It restored my faith in...well, faith.

There Is No Dog for young-adults? Yes, a thousand times yes - but also for very much older adults.

Like me.