Monthly Archives: January 2011

Lymond 4: some great writing

I haven’t posted for a few days, because I am lost in Checkmate, the sixth and final book in the chronicles. I got off the tram today just as I finished reading a hugely dramatic scene, and walked all the way down the wrong street in 40-degree sun.

So I thought I’d just share two of my favourite pieces of writing from this book:

Nostradamus giving romantic advice to Philippa: “Here you have a hawk of the lure, not of the fist. He will not come to you. If you would have him, you must lay your heart upon your hawking-glove; and feed it to him.”

Aside from just being a very evocative statement, this makes me smile, because it’s so typical of the books. Love and passion, but love that risks everything and is inextricably bound to death.

A lie is a broad and spacious and glittering thing, sweeping belief before it from its very grandeur. But the truth fits, like an old man cutting cloth in an attic.

I love this image. An old man cutting cloth in an attic doesn’t have anything to do with telling the truth, but it feels absolutely right, and describes a feeling I immediately understand.

It reminds me a little of the image at the end of Banville’s The Sea, of the waves moving along the beach like the ripple of material falling from a seamstress’s machine. (I am baldly paraphrasing, by the way. I’m sure Banville would disapprove from the literary heights.)

on feedback

I’ve been getting quite a lot of feedback lately – some confidence-destroying, some very encouraging, some useful, some not really to the point.

It all affects me.

Which has made me think and get all existential. See, this is where thinking led me: It’s all just someone’s opinion, informed by their experience and tastes. We all know that. There is no golden standard of good writing, against which our paltry offerings will never measure up.

But it’s also very clear that my writing is equally biassed – just a bunch of things I made up, informed by my experience and tastes. There is no truth within my writing, but what I decide.

So the real trick with feedback, it seems to me, is this:

Use feedback as objects in the vast, treacherous ocean that is novel writing. Land and rest at those that uphold you. Recharge and shove off revitalised from those that encourage you. Rethink your strategy on those that make useful critique of your game plan.

Rise up and recover from those that pull you under without warning.

Because the thing is: feedback is only useful as far as it gets you where you’re going. So use it like that.

It’s naive to ignore useful feedback just because it’s not what you want to hear. It’s tragic to give up because you think feedback is anything other than a tool on your journey.

Be courageous, open and generous in the face of it. Is the conclusion I came to.

For a brilliant essay on this topic – including a scientific experiment using rats and hidden islands – go here.

banning the chuckle; waiting for checkmate

today is just a rant about a pet peeve of mine.

Every time a hero chuckles at a heroine, it makes me want to throw the book. It’s most often in the lead-up to a sex scene which makes it doubly patronising. Wouldn’t you hit a man who chuckled at you?

So I hereby call a ban on all male chuckling. Hell, all female chuckling too. Unless you particularly want a character to be smug, self-satisfied and patronising, of course.

End rant.

In other news, I am waiting for Cat to arrive for another writing day, and she is bringing Checkmate with her – long-awaited sixth and final book in the Lymond Chronicles.

Breathe.

(special k is not going to enjoy the next few days. Wife? What wife?)

I think I’ll make banana muffins while I wait.

special edition with special k #2

The city without walls

an anthology setting forth the drama of human life

arranged by Margaret Cushing Osgood.

Published 1933 by Macmillan in New York .

Written in English.

Have you ever heard of this book? No? Well I’m not surprised. I had little to no success finding anything about it on the internet, but I did used to own a copy.

Let me tell you about it.

The book is an anthology of quotes and excerpts by almost every infamous literary or theological figure you can think of. The contents is divided into historical figures (Napoleon, Gandhi, etc.), religious figureheads (Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, etc.), famous authors (Wordsworth, Rumi, etc.) and then by theme (Love, Sorrow, Twilight, Gypsy, Death and, of course, Romance.)

Now we know you haven’t read the romance section of The City Without Walls unless you somehow manage to have a copy gathering dust on your bookshelf. So we don’t know what’s in it. And so I would like to create our own section right here!

I’ll go first:

I remember Paris perfectly. The Germans wore grey, you wore blue. Rick Blaine, Casablanca.

My contribution is limited by my lack of romance literature prowess. So I expect your contributions to be much better. Once I have sufficient contributions I will post them all in special k’s next edition.

 

 

 

the truthful hero

I’m reading Eloisa James‘s latest at the mo – the second in a series of fairytale-inspired romances.

The first of these, the Cinderella-esque A Kiss at Midnight, I didn’t really enjoy. With the fairytale departure from strict historical romance she seemed to lose some of her intelligent edge.

The hero of When Beauty Tamed the Beast is an absolute joy – and a hugely courageous move on her part.

He’s a crippled physician who’s hidden himself away in a Welsh castle, where half the country have found him and come to be treated. Because he’s lived most of his life dealing with debilitating pain, he’s rude and direct. Because he’s highly intelligent and inquisitive he runs linguistic circles around most people.

And he speaks the truth.

So very refreshing. For one thing, he comes right out and admits that he’s fallen in love. For another, when the fact that he’s falling in love makes him mean, and his heroine asks him what’s wrong, he comes straight out and tells her.

Two characters who are being so forthright with each other is downright charming to read.

I think it must also be hard to write, because it means that all the reasons the two can’t just be together, given their immediate attraction, have to be watertight. They have to be convincing, compelling and most likely spring from external circumstance.

Whatever keeps a hero and heroine apart should always be these things, of course, but having a character misunderstand themselves – whether wilfully or no – is a huge help.

I haven’t quite reached the happy conclusion yet – in fact, the two have just parted – but I’m impressed. Eloisa James has built their relationship from nothing more than two flawed people meeting and finding a space to be exactly what they are and being loved for it, beyond all expectation.

whine it: re-vi-sion

me and special k are housesitting for some rich people in Elwood. It’s pretty fun. We even get all the tv channels here!

We had some people around for a tres civilized dinner last night (because we had enough seats and cutlery for once). The writerly portion of the party was catching up and a friend was saying that a) she’s more-or-less finished her first draft – rejoice! And b) she now has the different and difficult task of looking at that lump of writing and figuring out what the hell her novel is – and then revising and rewriting.

It was kinda great to be reminded that the revision process (the wilderness I have been trekking through for over a year now) is hard. And that progress, in the wilderness, feels like stumbling round in circles.

Lymond 3: love is cryptonite

Lymond has fallen in love. It was possibly the best fictional moment ever.

Some thoughts about how the most superior, restrained, unreachable character I have ever read managed to fall in love believably. (And this is a useful thing to look at, given how often a great, tortured hero is made void by falling in love.)

I had no idea how Dunnett would have him fall in love with Philippa, given that he is superior to everyone he meets – and they always want him more than he wants them, which always gives him the upper hand.

It seemed to be a two-armed approach – though I’m sure the beast really has at least ten arms, and I’m just missing all the subtleties, as usual.

1. Philippa doesn’t give in to Lymond’s bullying, where everyone else in his life, at some point or other, does. The worst threat he can hold above her is to deny himself the friendship of she and her mother, which he can’t afford to do (as this halves the friends he has in the world, poor old Lymond). And even then she won’t be turned aside.

2. She is as inquisitive as him, quicksilver intelligent, and courageous in a human, error-filled way that he is not. So whilst the fact that she can stand up to him has some fascination, it is tempered by the way that her brain sparks his alight, and by the ways she surprises him – and most of all by the fact that she made him laugh.

Here is a brilliant moment: Dunnett has spent five books plumbing the depths of Lymond’s restraint and, particularly in the fifth book, paring away all the human sentiment in him that holds him back from greatness. And then Philippa makes him laugh, by hitting him with a costume axe.

Then, when the realisation that he’s in love strikes, he walks around in a daze all evening, not aware of what’s going on around him.

It reminds of an anecdote an old boyfriend told me: He saw a guy jump the curb on a skateboard. The skater didn’t land the jump and stood there, staring at his board, for a whole minute. By the fact that he was so put out by misjudging such a simple trick, said boyfriend knew he was a pro.

So here’s how I think Dunnett pulls off the ultimate anti-hero in love: With his great powers of intellect and restraint, he doesn’t let that knowledge affect his life, or the way he conducts his life. But he is unable to control his actions quite so well as before, and an element of unpredictability has entered the life he is used to controlling down to every last expression.

I have some thoughts about heroes and their heroine-as-kryptonite that you can read here.

salmon pasta

This is the dish my mother-in-law would make whenever we went round to dinner in Glasgow, because I begged her to. It has become my go-to dish for some very good reasons:

It’s quick, easy, healthy and above all DELICIOUS! (this is sounding a bit like a hokey advertisement, but I can’t help that. It’s all true.)

So given that we have to make dinner for the rest of our lives, here’s the method, in case you run out of inspiration one of these nights.

Ingredients for 2: 200g pasta; 2 capsicums (different colours makes it look nice!); 1/2 Spanish onion; 2 cloves garlic; bunch of parsley; green or red chile (medium heat, or as you like it); nice green olives (I use capers when I can’t get my hands on any, as I do here); large splosh olive oil; large knob butter; smoked salmon fillet (my mother-in-law has the luxury of buying Campbeltown salmon from the local farmer’s market. I have to make do with Coles own brand…).

Start your pasta water boiling then take a sharp knife

(I’m smirking like an eejit, cos the last attempt at this photo made me look like a psycho.)

and slice the onion. Start it cooking in the oil and butter in a pot.

Chop the capsicums (capsici?) and add them.

Let them cook for about ten minutes, till they start going soft, and the whole lot is turning into a yum-looking buttery mess. Add your chopped/minced garlic and continue to cook on a low heat.

If your pasta’s the kind that takes about 12 mins, put it in the pot now (remembering to make your water nice and salty. Then add another teaspoon).

When the pasta’s a minute away from al dente, crumble the salmon into your sauce.

Stir in the salmon and add your chopped chile. If you’re going the capers option, add them here as well. If you’re going with olives, add them after you turn the heat off.

let this lot cook while you drain the pasta, then scoop it on top of the pasta to serve. Sprinkle parsley on top, et voila!

yum factor = a million.

dishes = 1 chopping board, 1 knife, 2 pots, 2 bowls/plates, 2 forks

method writing

I’m not a huge one for research. Mostly because I’m lazy. I justify this by thinking: “I’m a writer. I’m meant to use my imagination.”

Last night we had a family picnic down by the lake and I got to sit and watch the sun set over the water. I had forgotten how still you go inside when you watch something that beautiful.

My hero, at this very moment, is struggling with the deathly quiet of the countryside, and how it’s making him face himself, which he has spent a lifetime avoiding.

Sitting and watching that sunset last night made me really get what that’s like for my hero right now. Not just being in the quiet countryside and coming to terms with it, but experiencing for the first time the space that a huge sky can give your insides, and the way that the outside quiet seeps inside, and the transitory nature of such peace.

Imagination = good. An imagination with enough oxygen to combust = better.