Life is Stranger than Fiction Right Now by Tamsin Cooke

I don’t know about you, but I am finding it hard to write. Maybe it’s because I’m trying to write a funny story for 7-9 year olds, and I’m not feeling that funny right now. 

Perhaps I should try writing a dystopian horror instead.  Except that wouldn’t be fiction! 

We are living through surreal dangerous times. So much so, my work in progress feels like an utter fantasy when it’s actually realism. 

Or it was. 

When I came up with the idea two months ago, I thought my main protagonists were fun, lively, a little bit mischievous, living in a ‘normal’ town. But now I realise they are full on rebels, as are their parents, living in some alternative reality.

For example: 

One of my characters gives the other one a hug. Not only are they standing so close to each other, they are actually touching! What about the two metre rule?  What are they thinking? Luckily neither of them has a cough!

Now wait for it. They go to a playpark and join other children. Can you believe what you are reading??? There are now six of them. Six children playing in the sunshine. How dare they? Surely the police will turn up at any second, disperse them and give them a much-needed lecture about being so reckless. 

My characters go to school. They eat crisps from the same packet. Plus their parents are at work and they're not key workers. Their parents are obviously selfish anarchists.

A month ago, my characters’ actions were just normal, mundane. But as I write them now, I pause. It feels strange - almost wrong. All the little things that we took for granted have been stripped away from us. And quite rightly so. We need to keep everyone as safe as possible. But it means the small activities such as going to the park or giving a friend a hug are fantasies. I know that in the near(ish) future, we will return to our normal ways. But I hope we’ll remember to appreciate the smaller things in life.

And so, I’ll continue to write my funny story, knowing that what's happening in my characters' lives is actually the norm. It’s only now that life is stranger than fiction.

Tamsin Cooke

Author of The Scarlet Files Series and Stunt Double Series

Website: tamsincooke.co.uk
Twitter: @TamsinCooke1 

Confessions of a Browser

     The internet is the most fabulous research tool available. I’ve used it to learn about Exmoor; riding the rails in the Great Depression; wildlife in Scotland’s Western Isles; lifeboats on the Dutch islands and Gaelic. I wouldn’t deny the help it’s provided for a second. But it gives me a headache.

     That’s not hyperbole. Scrolling through endless links and screens on my computer makes my eyes hurt and my brain feel like porridge. So I go to my books. 

     There’s something intensely soothing about lifting the book off the shelf and then leafing through the pages. It’s tactile. The feel of the paper – be it rough or smooth, matt or shiny – is, for me, an almost instant stress-reducer. Life simply slows down as I turn the pages looking for a word in what has become my favourite dictionary: the Dorling Kindersley Illustrated Oxford Dictionary.

     Of course, there’s a ‘danger’ in this: getting lost and moving from one link to another as new ideas are sparked. The DK, with its excellent illustrations, is wonderful for this. I say ‘wonderful’ because it encourages more soothingly tactile page-turning and world-slowing.

     Yet there’s an even better book for random-link-following and that’s Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. I only bought a copy a few months ago and I simply can’t believe I’ve managed to live my life up to now without it. It is the most fabulous collection of unrelated information I’ve ever come across. Opening it up is like stepping into a thousand-storey museum with no floor plan. I love it.

     I could go on listing many other favourites. Bill Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words – who knew the difference between ‘that’ and ‘which’ could be so interesting; The New York Public Library Desk Reference – Mr T to Brewer’s Rocky Balboa; The American Vision – a stunning collection of photos of the Great Depression.

     My latest acquisition – and current favourite - is The Lore of the Land, a guide to the folk legends of every one of England’s counties. I bought it for background research for a story I’m planning. I’m sure I could find everything I’m looking for online, but it would only be what I’m expressly looking for. Stroat? Urchfront? Dilworth? Marazion?

     I never would have found them with a mouse click.

Presenteeism - Clémentine Beauvais

Dear Awfully Big Blog Coworkers, I've been Awfully Bigly Absent the past two times I was supposed to write a blog post - I'm so sorry. I have no other excuse than "I simply didn't manage to make time for it" (not the same as 'I didn't have time to do it', which is very, very rarely true, of course.)

And now the deadline is upon me again, and I find myself, again, pressed against it. Yet this time I should have no excuse, because it's my 13th day of lockdown - I'm in France, where it started one week earlier than in the UK.
 
13 days of being stuck at home, with nothing but a computer and some books. I should have found the time, made the time for this blog post, shouldn't I ? I should also have found and made time for working on personal projects, getting on top of email, reading tons of books, finishing my next translation ahead of time, doing yoga, trying out new things. Resting.


I haven't, and it's only the guilt of a third missed month that pushes me to write this. The ardent desire to be able to say:

Here I am! Present.

I'm thinking a lot about presenteeism these days. In strict lockdown times, even though few people are still physically present for work, the imperative of online presence has rocketed. Absence was once frowned upon; but now, it seems to be, it has become absolutely intolerable. 

By the way, I know it's worse for people who have to keep doing their face-to-face work, and are at risk of contamination, or for those with kids. But even the working-from-home childfree crowd, of which I'm part, is being squeezed dry. I'm just astonished by the amount of work we're suddenly having to do for the university. I was supposed to be taking 3 weeks off entirely, to do school visits around Europe; of course, it all got cancelled. But since those 3 weeks were supposed to be non-working weeks, surely I should be taking things slowly, working only one or two hours a day, firing off a few emails? Impossible. There's simply too much to do. Students to reassure, hierarchy to listen to, colleagues to check on and, most importantly, everything to change. All the teaching we'd prepared for face-to-face interaction has to be put online. The Open Days we'd planned have to go online now. The meetings, the vivas, the administrative stuff, the research projects, everything that was once a ticked-off task is becoming a task again.

Hardly any out-of-office replies these days. No one is taking a break. It's not just presence that's being asked of us all, it's omnipresence. And to show that you are omnipresent, you need to be omnipresenteeist.

Omnipresenteeism is sneakier than just 'having more work to do'. Email traffic is unprecedented but it's far from necessary all around. Everyone is in front of their computer, everyone is frantic, everyone is working hard to adjust to the situation - and there's a sense that everyone is trying to show everyone how very present they are, how very working-from-home-ready they are. Emails get sent about things that could absolutely wait, energies get deployed into projects that are not priority. Suddenly terrified that we might be found expendable, disposable, in that time when we're not showing our faces. 

Writers and illustrators are no exception. We are expected to be all the more present as the physical world vanishes around us.

What, you haven't gone live on instagram daily, to provide now home-schooled children with readings, analyses, creative writing exercises? What have you been doing with your time? If you're an illustrator, you'd better be creating new colouring-in templates every day. Have you taken advantage of the lockdown to write more, to edit more, to move on with that project you've had in mind for years? How many words today?

You mean you've been stuck at home for 5 days, 13 days, 27 days, and you still haven't done any of that?

At the beginning of lockdown I was full of good intentions: I'd go through all my to-do list, I'd evaluated, within the first two days - bliss! - and then I'd work on university stuff in the morning, and then my translation (one hour a day), and then personal projects, and then skype calls with friends and family. 

Nope. The to-do-list grew threefold in the first 24 hours, and now it's basically the barrel of the Danaids. Not a minute without a message on each platform - friends, colleagues, bosses, editors, readers, family. Another thing to do. Everyone in thrall to an anxiety of presence, of omnipresence, of overpresence.

This lockdown, I'm thinking today, is dystopian in more than one way. We're finding out what life would be like if the majority was working from home constantly. And it's not liberating - it's horrible. It's like having to remind the world of one's existence has become an additional item on the to-do-list; even better if it's creating more items for others on their to-do lists.

Can't wait to be able to be a little bit more absent. Good luck everyone...

Stories for troubled times

Stories of hope in troubled times by Chris Vick

The 2020 CILIP Carnegie shortlist has just been announced. I am thrilled that my book, Girl. Boy. Sea is on it.

It may seem to some, that in troubled times, books, and fairy stories, may not be that important; or relevant, given what we are going through; the age of coronavirus, Brexit, global warming and uncertain politics.

But I am going to argue the opposite; that young people need stories right now,  perhaps more than ever.

When the longlist was announced, it was noted by Chair of judges, Julia Hale, that the books were about: ‘the way children and young people navigate the sort of challenges that they face … stories of hope, discovery.’ The Guardian noted many of the books gave ‘classics a fresh spin.’

I think that sums it up: Fresh versions of old tales, crafted for our times, to help young people.

I hope Girl.Boy.Sea fits with these themes. It’s a tale of navigation, physical and metaphorical; a boy, and girl, adrift on the merciless sea under the burning sun, work together to find home. To fill the hours, the girl, Aya, tells Bill stories. The first is of Pandora, whose curiousity, released all the evils of the world, leaving nothing, but for one thing.  Hope.   Then like Shahrazad, Aya, spins tales of her own, because she knows that she and Bill need them, just as as they need food and water.

Books for young people, offer hope and stars to navigate by. But – if they are any good - neither easily nor directly. They provide instead ways to deal with the questions, rather than ‘answers.’

 If young people want answers, should they look to politicians, to the news, Twitter? In my view, the non-fiction narratives are the ones that over simplify, play on fear and find blame. You won’t find that much in the books young people read and value. For all the important themes explored in this year’s lists: e.g. homeless, dementia, and poverty, there are themes rather than messages, sympathy and complexity rather than wagging fingers, preaching and solutions.  And in all cases the way the characters navigate a troubled world is, to quote Julia Hale again: ‘through relationships with families and friends and from learning more about themselves.’

I suspect it has always been this way. So, if you think that reading stories may be an trivial activity when times are not merely troubled, but seemingly apocalyptic, bear this in mind: Nursery rhymes, fairy tales, books of all colours and stripes, are full of troubles. Which hardly surprises, for most of our history, we have had to deal with war, famine and plague.  Or all of them. Shakespeare’s plays were delayed more than once due to theatres being closed by the plague.

The paradox is that books for young people offer both a welcome escape from the real world and a range of different windows through which to see it.

 So right now, if we all have to spend more time at home, we could use some of the time to read more.

The CILIP mission is; ‘to inspire and empower the next generation to shape a better world through books and reading.’

I’ll sign up to that. It speaks to the power of stories.

‘Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.’

Neil Gaiman

Keeping sane in an insane world, by Saviour Pirotta

I was hoping to post about my new play at the Stephen Joseph Theatre this month but as all theatres are currently dark, there's not much point. My version of Little Red Riding Hood will take to the boards at some point. Meanwhile, I am self-isolating. Three weeks of school visits for wbd plus a weekend literary festival had left me exhausted and with a wracking cough. Two weeks later I am, thankfully, right as rain but have decided to stay indoors for the foreseeable future.

But how to keep sane in this scary new world? As a single person, I am constantly out and about with my notebooks and laptop. One of the reasons I moved to Scarborough nearly four years ago was the abundance of seafront cafes. I always start a new project in one of them. It's not only the view and the coffee that I find invigorating and inspiring; it's the interaction with baristas and cafe owners some of whom I now count as friends.  Since my play Granny's Exploding Toilet played to packed houses last year, I am recognised on the streets and the glow of conversation in shops and on the beach often see me through the many silent hours at home.

The only way to beat the isolation, I decided, is to keep in touch with people through social media (now if I can only convince my octogenarian parents in Malta to get SKYPE), and to keep busy as much as possible. I've made a to-do list and I'm going to try and stick with it. I shall come out of this frightening experience both empowered and more focused. Here's the list.

1) WORK ON THOSE PROJECTS I'VE NEVER HAD TIME FOR
Being freelance, I've always plumped for the jobs that had the best chance of coming true. Now's the time to tackle a longer-term project that needs all my attention.

2) EXPERIMENT WITH COOKING
I've always been a cook. I love messing around in the kitchen although I hate the washing up. As my career took on more and more of my time, though, I learnt to rely on ready cooked meals and takeaways. That's going to change. I've made a list of favourite dishes eaten on holiday, and I'm going to learn to recreate them. I've already mastered the delicious split pea soup I had on tap in Istanbul. Tonight it's the prawn Saganaki from Corfu. Hopefully, I'll carry this newfound enthusiasm for healthy eating to the times when I can pop over to Sainsbury's at the drop of a hat again.

3) GROW MY OWN VEGETABLES

I'm lucky to have a garden. There's not been much time to look after it since I've moved in but this year I'm going to try and grow flowers and vegetables from seed. I've planted a buddleia too, which should attract a lot of butterflies.

4) READ WAR AND PEACE
I started reading this forty years ago on a train from Paris to Munich. Somehow, I left my copy on the train and I've never had the time to get back to it. Now's the perfect opportunity.

So, I'm aiming to read and write more, listen to music, cook and bake and garden. Let's all share the fruits of our self-isolating endeavours online. As the Italian proverb says, 'canta che ti passa'. Sing and it'll pass.

Let's write - virtually! Sue Purkiss

For quite a few years now, I've been running a writing class/group in Cheddar. We meet on Thursday mornings - or we did, until last week, when for obvious reasons, we stopped.

But I know we'll all miss both the writing and the company. So we're going to continue to meet, but virtually. Initially at least we'll do it by email. I'll send out a task, and then the following week we'll meet and 'chat' and share work. I will explore more technologically advanced ways of meeting up, but I'm not sure that everyone will manage Zoom or whatever, so we'll see.

Anyway, I thought it would be an idea to share the writing ideas more widely, so I'm setting up a blog to do that - then anyone will be able to see the tasks and have a go if they want to. This is not about getting published: I firmly believe that writing, like any other creative effort, is good for you. It's become very clear over the years that the group members love to meet and chat and hear each other's work - but they also love the time at home when they settle down and produce stories, memoirs, whatever. It just is good for you to lose yourself in creating something - and the current set of circumstances mean that there are a lot of people with the time now to have a go.

So I hope they will.

These exercises, starting points, whatever, are mainly aimed at adults; I've found that, while people have no wish to write directly about their own lives for all of the time, for some people it's a hugely valuable way of exploring situations with which they may never before have come to terms. Irrespective of that - people's memories and experiences provide fertile ground for ideas. Though don't get the idea that it has to be serious - we laugh a great deal in our sessions, and people have written some really entertaining stuff.

So - the blog's now live, and you can find it here. Please share and tweet and whatever, so that people know it's there - in a very small way, it might just help!

Just because it's nice to have a picture - this is the cover for the group's latest collection of stories. It was to have been sold at Chaff, the local Cheddar arts festival, at the beginning of May, but that's obviously been postponed - the theme was/is to do with the anniversary this year of VE Day.

Where and When Do You Get Your Ideas? - Heather Dyer

At the moment, my favourite time of day is in the morning, before I’ve started work. I take the dog out briefly, then make a coffee and sit in my armchair watching the morning arrive. That's my dog, there on my lap. It's the only time he sits with me!

I keep my notebook beside me, and think loosely about what I must do that day. And curiously, this is when I seem to get most of my ideas. I feel as though I’m taking a break – but actually I’m quite productive.

There’s a reason for this. Ideas tend to come when our minds are relaxed, open and wandering. This state of mind allows new connections to be made from the ‘data’ in our unconscious. In Mary Roberts Rinehart’s story "Miss Pinkerton", her character says, "And it was while I was folding up that copy of the Eagle and, putting it away for later reading that something came into my mind. I have had this happen before; I can puzzle over a thing until I am in a state of utter confusion, giving it up, and then suddenly have the answer leap into my mind without an apparent reason.”

Isn’t it typical that we come up with a solution, or remember someone’s name, or get a new idea for a story when we stop thinking about it and are doing something else? 

No wonder, “How do you get your ideas?” is a difficult question to answer. How ideas happen is a bit of a mystery. It might be more helpful to reflect on when you get your ideas, or what you were you doing at the time. A recent study found that conference delegates got most of their ideas during the coffee breaks.

I asked some PhD students where and when they tend to get insights at a workshop recently. They gave the following answers:

•            Taking a shower.

•            Making a cup of tea.

•            Going to the toilet.

•            Walking.

•            Waking up in the middle of the night.

•            Doing yoga.

•            Jogging.

I suppose the takeaway message is that it’s counterproductive to work all the time, or think too hard. We do need to think, but then we need to stop thinking. It’s in the gaps that ideas arise – so we mustn’t feel guilty about taking breaks.

Heather Dyer is a consultant in writing for children. She provides writing and publishing advice through The Literary Consultancy, The Writers' Advice Centre for Children's Books, and privately. If you’re ready for feedback on your work-in-progress contact Heather at heatherdyerbooks@gmail.com. 

Heather’s children’s novel The Girl with the Broken Wing was one of Richard and Judy’s book club picks, and The Boy in the Biscuit Tin was nominated for a Galaxy Best British Children’s Book award. Heather also teaches creative writing for the University of the Creative Arts, and facilitates workshops in creative thinking techniques for creatives and academics.

The Growing Summer

Hello.

I am in bed not feeling very well with a sore throat and am v tired, so this will be a short post!

'The Growing Summer' by Noel Streatfeild is a book I somehow always turn to when I am ill.

I have read and re-read it so often, from childhood to adulthood,  as I love this story of four English children being sent to stay with their Great -Aunt Dymphna in Ireland,  yet it was only on this reading where I noticed something very interesting. To put it in context, the children, Alex, Penny, Robin and Naomi are being spoken to by their father, a scientist.


'Now, I'll make this as simple as possible. You all know roughly about my work. Well, for quite a time now I've been trying to isolate a microbe, which is a killer once it gets going.'

     'It's what starts a type of epidemic, isn't it?' Alex asked.

      'That's what I believe but so far it's only theoretical. We have had no outbreak of this type in this country for centuries but there are outbreaks in other countries, notably in the Far East.'

     In a flash of understanding Penny knew what was coming.

    'So you want to go to the Far East?'
 
    Her father looked at her gratefully.

   'That's hit the nail on the head....'    p 21 (Chapter 2 'The News') 1966


The children's father goes off to do very important scientific research to isolate the microbe causing an epidemic, but then he gets very ill himself. Their mother has to rush off across the world to be with him, and the worried children are sent off, missing the end of their school term,  to live in Cork with their Great Aunt Dymphna.


I am so grateful to all the scientists in 2020 who are trying to find a cure for our pandemic of Covid19. I am so grateful to the NHS workers in our nation who are looking after very ill people and putting themselves at risk, and the shop workers and the cleaners and the delivery drivers and the carers who are keeping this nation going.

Many children, like Alex, Penny, Robin and Naomi, are suddenly finding themselves out of school.  They will not be sent off to live with Great-Aunts, but many of them will have parents involved in the NHS or other vital work, and will be still at school, whilst others will be at home. Many children are very worried. As writers, most of us cannot help with the scientific research or the nursing, but we can still be of some help.

I have sent a message to my local Head teacher to offer my services for any Creative writing work outreach. I am trying to think about ways, once I feel a bit better, to help those children in my village and surrounding ones, who have to social -distance but need to get out and be stimulated. Unfortunately they can't have self-reliant  adventures like Alex and Penny and Robin and Naomi, but they still do need to get out in the fresh air and away from screens. I was thinking about getting coloured chalks and doing little pictures or story prompts around the village which could be enjoyed whilst social distancing. I would like to do things for children who are ill, or who are in self-isolation. I am also thinking of trying to see if there is a way that children off school, and older or at-risk members of the village self -isolating, can produce creative things together. Could we do a physical newsletter, a compilation of good news stories which could be distributed to people who aren't used to reading online and are feeling overwhelmed  ? I don't know how to do this by myself, but maybe a group of us could get together. We could have a village joke book, cartoons, history, shared photographs, poems, stories, illustrations...

I am very aware I haven't done much on my website, and once I feel better I will try to do more, but I know already that many authors with wonderful videos and websites are going to be offering resources nationally to children, and already people are reading out on YouTube, and publishers are sharing resources to try to help. I love, for example, Alex T Smith's story prompts on Twitter. I'd love to do some myself.

The lovely thing about 'The Growing Summer' is that somehow, the children get through it. The book doesn't underplay  how scary it is for them, and how hard it is to know that their father is ill, and how much they miss their mother. They get cross, and bored, and argue, and make mistakes,  but in the end they get through, and even grow, through the summer, and Great Aunt Dymphna, who wasn't expecting her role, rises to the occasion too. Maybe we can all channel our respective  inner Great- Aunt Dymphnas and rise to the occasion in our own ways - maybe this hard time can, in some way, be a Growing Summer for us as well.

I wish all of us and our friends and families, strength and blessing and protection in this unique  time.

Interview with Debut Children's Author Joan Haig by Joan Lennon

[I met Joan and the Tiger Skin Rug while teaching at Moniack Mhor.  I thought she had an excellent name, and the makings of an excellent novel.  And now we are working together on a non-fiction title for Templar/Bonnier, due to come out in 2021.  The 2 Joans - look out, world!] 

Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

My parents are from Scotland, but I was born and grew up in Zambia. I’ve lived in Vanuatu, India, Nigeria and Scotland. At first, probably because of my amazing tropical-coloured childhood, I didn’t like Scotland. Now, I can’t imagine settling anywhere else. I live in a cottage on the side of a hill with my husband, two boys and two cats, and I work in Edinburgh. I feel lucky every day, even when reduced in tricky times to beans-on-crackers. 

Joan's cats inspired her to work hard

Tiger Skin Rug is your debut novel for children – tell us about it.

It’s narrated by Lal Patel, an 11-year-old boy who moves with his family from India to Scotland. At first, he is homesick and miserable – but everything changes when he and his little brother set off on an adventure with their new friend Jenny and a magical tiger with a promise to keep.

First and foremost, it’s an adventure story. It’s also about ‘home’, friendship and conservation, but I didn’t set out to write about any of those things – the plot came first and the themes surfaced along the way. Similarly with the characters, I didn’t plan to write about Hindu children for the sake of diversity; I just wrote what I knew and those are the voices that emerged and made sense for the story. That said, I do think there’s a need for children’s literature to represent more diverse backgrounds. 

Joan's boys with Tiger Skin Rug

What was your journey to publication?

I started my novel at a Moniack Mhor creative writing retreat in 2015, but as a working mum it took me till 2018 to have a full draft worthy of submission. In 2017 I sent some less worthy versions to four or five agents and received four or five rejections. When Cranachan Publishing invited manuscripts, I sent it off and luckily, there was a tiger-shaped slot in their 2020 catalogue. 

Joan lost in a labyrinth 

(or, How it feels to be a children's writer)

Your book has been out for one month. What’s been most fun?

School visits! Children are fantastic and I love their high tolerance for knowledge and nonsense. Schools are full of positive, creative energy and so far I’ve left their assembly halls with a feeling of shared enrichment (and exhaustion)(teachers are worth their weight in toilet paper*).

*Toilet paper is the new gold. 

World Book Day sighting

Joan Haig’s debut novel Tiger Skin Rug is out now with Cranachan Publishing and available at bookshops and online. She’d love you to check out her website http://www.joanhaigbooks.com and follow her on Instagram @joanhaigbooks and Twitter @joan_md_haig

How to pass the time when self-isolating - by Lu Hersey

Many of us are now stuck at home, either by ourselves or with our families. Self-isolating. Days spent away from our usual work, friends and entertainments. Maybe weeks. Hopefully not months. Self-imposed prison sentences from an unseen enemy, where toilet rolls could be the least of your problems. My son already thinks he might die from sheer boredom.

In the (global pandemic) circumstances, I thought the most helpful thing I could do would be to list some ideas on how to entertain yourselves while you sit it out.

1. Write something different. A change is as good as a rest. Have you tried writing short stories? There are a surprising number of short story writing competitions around, and if you win one, some great prizes. Two of the best still open for entry this year are The Bristol Short Story Prize, with cash prizes for the top 20 stories, which also all get published in an anthology - and The Bridport Prize, where the winner of the short story prize gets £5K (which might help cover loss of usual income).
You could also try writing in a different genre - adult fiction, non fiction, flash fiction, interactive fiction that works with smart phones... a friend even suggested writing dinosaur porn (she was joking, but apparently it's actually a thing. Please don't go there)

2. Yoga. Even if you can't get out much, you still need to stretch and exercise, and yoga could be the answer. There are plenty of yoga sites on YouTube, but probably the most popular, with free instruction and various online classes is Yoga with Adrienne. 

3. Crochet. If you can't crochet already, again there are plenty of YouTube videos out there to help you learn. No wool? Unravel a jumper or two you don't like much. Which is what they did in the war, apparently. If you don't have a crochet hook, make one out of a coat hanger or something. You can learn almost any skill you don't currently have from YouTube, from putting up shelves to navigating by the stars. Admittedly so far I've only learnt how to clean my wood burner using wood ash, but it's come in very handy.

3.Make your own jewellery. This is something else they did in the war, carefully winding strips of foil or magazine paper to make beads. If you stocked up well, you should have toilet paper if nothing else.

4. Make percussion instruments from tin cans and spoons. Try not to kill each other while practising.

5. Learn a language. Duolingo covers most of them. Keeps the brain active and if the isolation goes on long enough, you could learn to get by in several countries, even if you can't actually visit them.

6. Research for the future. One of my daughters spent time watching Vacuum Wars on YouTube. For real. She watched 3 hours of it before deciding on her new vacuum cleaner. (I had no idea she was that nerdy or cared about vacuuming that much.)

7. Masking tape painting. Youngest daughter is becoming a master. You need a canvass (though cardboard will do) masking tape, paintbrush and acrylic paint, so stock up fast if you don't have these things available already.

8. Read. How many books are in your tbr pile? Mine would probably kill me if it toppled. And if you can't stop buying books, many independent bookshops will post to you. So as long as the postal/delivery services are working, you don't need to suffer from a shortage of reading material and you can help independent booksellers at the same time.

9. Final suggestion (except maybe practising mindfulness or meditation - again a multitude of classes are available for free online) is to stay in contact with friends and family via phone or social media. It's horrible to feel isolated, and fortunately there are many ways to keep in contact while avoiding face-to-face contact.

Good luck people. May you survive the apocalypse in good health, and with increased knowledge of many useful things. Even if it's just choosing the right hoover.

Lu Hersey
luhersey.com
https://twitter.com/LuWrites

Welcome to working from home, everyone! by Tracy Darnton

Authors are no strangers to self-isolation and working from home. We can offer pearls of wisdom about changing out of your jimjams, getting fresh air, using a standing desk, how to structure your coffee breaks and how to live without an IT department, HR or accounts department. 

Some of us will be having to share our already limited workspaces with partners exiled from their rapidly closing offices. I’m working on some induction training to outlaw excessively loud telephone calls and a whole loud of etiquette around use of the big desk and dining table. Special training will be required for my new co-worker about how to clear all the washing and ironing without breaking concentration. 

My fantasy workspace - not my rather messy actual one

I know that compromise will be required so I’m prepared to bring in a tea rota, a water cooler for casual conversation and dress-up Friday. However, only I can use any of my bookshop mug collection. No one touches my pencil cases but me.

I suppose we’ll have to form a committee and hold some pointless meetings just for the hell of it.

Please let this all be back to normal before the office Christmas party. Avoiding an office Christmas party is one of the few benefits of freelancing. 

Good luck everyone. See you all on the other side. 

Tracy Darnton is the author of The Truth About Lies. Her next novel, The Rules, is out in July. The Rules is about a girl on the run from her prepper father and the effects of continually preparing for disaster. She is not enjoying this period of unexpected immersive research.

Writers in their Landscape - Kit Berry by Steve Gladwin

For those of you who missed my first interview with Sue Purkiss, (what on earth would you do that - luckily you can still find it on the archive on 16th February!), I'm conducting a series of interviews with fellow writers on the theme of 'a writer in their landscape'. But don't expect that to be the only subject we touch on, because this is merely a springboard for us to explore around the theme and the experience.

This month its my great pleasure to have Kit Berry talking to us, about her creation Stonewylde, her life, paganism, creative experiences  - and somewhere in a wide-ranging interview, landscape gets a mention. Welcome, Kit and thanks for chatting to us.

Thanks for asking me.

Now, one of the things I wanted to do with the people I interview, is to take the main theme of ‘landscape’ deeper than just the obvious questions, each time focussing on something different and personal to the author. On this particular occasion I’d like to go further into the idea of the act of creation and how it is actually affected by the writer’s love, (or not) of a particular landscape(s). Can we start by putting you right in front of the first view you had of landscape which particularly affected you, and could you describe it for us?

1        I’ve always loved nature and felt happiest when outside in beautiful surroundings.  I grew up surrounded by woods, but always loved the rolling hills and big vistas.  I lived in Ibiza as a teenager and really enjoyed the beautiful mountains and landscape there, and in my early twenties moved down to Dorset (Weymouth) to go to college.  Dorset really got to me – the amazing vistas of hills and woodlands, the sea, the cliffs and beaches.  Although due to my husband leaving us, I had to bring my three sons up on a council estate there, I was very lucky that it was surrounded by hills and woods, so it was a far cry from a built up area.  We walked regularly in the amazing landscape, visiting hillforts, woodlands and the rolling hills. Dorset has to be my favourite place, although I’ve seen many other wonderful places too.

 Now when I’ve been on retreats with you at Charney, you are generally out for a morning and/or evening walk. Have you always done that? Do you walk to gain inspiration perhaps, or like myself and others, to process and try out ideas? Or is that part just sheer enjoyment.

 At Charney, I love the landscape right on the doorstep!  I always try to walk in the mornings and evenings if possible, and at Charney generally head for the lovely hillfort (though it’s not really on a hill).  I also love the fact that there are hares around.  I don’t walk with a purpose to gain inspiration or process ideas – I just love being outside in nature.  I’ve been involved with the International Forest Therapy movement in Finland, and fully subscribe to the beliefs that being out in nature is the most therapeutic and healing of all experiences – it promotes a sense of well-being and reminds us of our place on Earth – we’re just one more species in this wonderful creation.

Your Stonewylde series is about a community which most people would call pagan, and which at times reminds me of my own experiences of druid camps and the like – where time often feels suspended and at the least a bit woolly, and it can feel odd if you have to leave it to go to the supermarket. Can you tell us about your pagan journey – if you would call it that – and how it might have led to Stonewylde?

My pagan journey was inspired by a close encounter back in the year 2000 with a hare in the beech woods near where I lived in Dorset.  My mother had just died and I went for a walk alone one sunny evening in the summer – and literally came face to face with a hare, only about a metre away from me on the path, basking in a pool of golden evening sunlight.  We had eye contact and I couldn’t believe that the hare was just sitting there, almost communicating with me.  Eventually, after a few minutes, it quietly turned and loped off into the undergrowth.  I felt so very honoured and touched by the amazing experience, and went home and researched hares on the internet, discovering their links with witchcraft and magic.  This led me to explore pagan beliefs and rituals – my mother had been a devout Christian but of the rather hypocritical kind, who didn’t really practice what she preached and was highly judgmental, and so although I was obviously devastated by her death, it also kind of released me to a new type of freedom.  I did a great deal of research into paganism and the Old Ways, and with the idea of Stonewylde already brewing – a secret community cut off from the outside world – it seemed the ideal way to go.

However, over the years, I’ve become a little disillusioned with some aspects of pagan practices.  After a wonderful term of evening classes run by Oxford Continuing Education at Reading University on ‘The Anthropology of Ritual and Religion’, I came to understand that human beings need to worship something, need to have leaders in religion and deify things, and need to feel they belong to some movement or other.  This compounded my disillusionment with some of the pagan groups I’d taken part in various events with, and made me realise that actually, it was nature itself that I loved, and not the rituals, chanting, crushed velvet or antler horns, nor the egos of the people leading the rituals.  So now I don’t ever attend anything like that, but get my spiritual fulfillment from being alone, outside in nature, watching the moon rise, gazing at the stars, the sunrise and sunset, watching birds and wild creatures, and simply feeling part of this amazing creation.  That fulfills a deep need in me that no organised group could ever match. 

Like Sue Purkiss, last month’s subject, I know you to be a generous sharer of some wonderful landscapes on facebook, often early morning and evening. How did your journey with photography begin?

I love taking photos in nature and sharing them, and although I wouldn’t in any way call myself a photographer (all my photos are taken with my phone!) I did study photography at college in Weymouth as part of my degree – English and Media Studies.  We were taught about composition and balance, and in those ancient days, had to develop and print our own photos in the dark room!  So I’ve always had an interest in this, but mostly I just want to share some of the beautiful sights I come across with others.  I know a lot of my Stonewylde readers share my love.

Let’s move on to your creation, Stonewylde. Did the place come to you fully formed and was it based on an actual place?

I used to drive past Charborough Park in Dorset during the 90s, and this was at a time when there were all sorts of secret cults being outed in the press.  The high stone walls and huge gates made me wonder what was behind and within.  It wasn’t till much later I realised this vast estate was owned by the Drax family – and Richard Drax is now the Conservative MP of the area!  After my encounter with the hare in the beech woods, I started to imagine a secret pagan place, tucked away from the outside world and practising the Old Ways, and of course thought back to Charborough Park.  Stonewylde, the place and community, came to me fully formed, as a relic of feudalism, with the elite living in luxury in a great hall, and the humble workers living happy lives in an idyllic village. Living in beautiful Dorset at the time, the landscape of Stonewylde was right on my doorstep and this inspired me for a lot of the settings in the book.

So, at some stage during your adult life, possibly earlier than that, you decide you want to write this series, which might be deemed fantasy. What in the way of inspiration is behind you? What are the other landscapes you loved and writers whose work you revered?

I’d always wanted to write – my passion as a child was reading, and at school my favourite thing was writing stories.  But life gets in the way, doesn’t it?  My degree was a step forward towards this, although at that point I was more interested in TV production.  I became pregnant during my last year of that, which put paid to my dreams, and had three sons in four years.  My husband then leaving us completely scuppered any ambition, and I spent years doing very menial jobs, trying to supplement our meagre income (cleaning jobs, working in the local shops, etc).

My break came after helping at my sons’ primary school in all three classes and really enjoying it.  The Open University started a PGCE, and the headteacher approached me and offered to sponsor me through it, as he said I had a natural aptitude with children.  This completely turned my life around and I felt fulfilled and happy.  I recognise the power of story and would read to my class every single day, and we did a lot of creative writing too, crossing over (as you could in those days) to other subjects. So in history I’d get them to imagine they were a person living in the period in question and write a story. Writing has always been really important to me, and the creation of Stonewylde was a dream come true! I prefer the term ‘magical realism’ to describe the series rather than ‘fantasy’.  As a youngster I read a lot of historical fiction, and this is a genre I’m writing in now.

Do you landscape is important in fantasy fiction? Are there tricks to writing it, or do you just set down what’s in your head?

I think landscape is important in any fiction – setting is vital to the plot.  I don’t know of any tricks to writing it – I just describe what I see in my imagination.  For instance, Hare Hill at Stonewylde – the hill overlooking the sea with a single standing stone at the top, the place where the hares gather every full moon to dance, cavort and then moongaze – came to me fully formed.  I didn’t have to construct it. I think when an imagined landscape becomes totally real to you, you just have to gaze around and describe what you’re seeing.

So, you’re on one of your regular rambles and quite by chance a door opens and you’re able to enter the mysterious, closed community that is Stonewylde. We’re stepping silently behind you, our guide. What are you going to point out to us?

If a door opened and we entered Stonewylde … I would point out Hare Hill, the moongazy place, Mother Heggy’s cottage, the Village Green and the Stone Circle.  All very special, magical places to me.

Something I’ve developed a recent love for is the sections in wildlife documentaries when the landscape is revealed from above. Imagine you’re flying over a place you’ve always wanted to go and you’re going to land in a few minutes. Where would it be? What would you see?

I’d love to fly over Norway and land there! Or any part of Scandinavia really. I’m half Danish and my father took us on a driving tour of Norway, Sweden and Denmark when I was 12 years old. I remember a lot of it but would really love to return now. I love the time my lovely second husband and I have spent in Finland with the International Forest Therapy group (it’s so very clean and underpopulated there, as well as being beautiful) and for my 60^th birthday present, my three sons took me to Copenhagen for a long weekend – I love that place!  But I do recall Norway as being especially beautiful, so I’d love to fly over it and land there.

Are you greatly taken with the notion of worlds between worlds and liminal spaces which we can enter under certain conditions? How do you see the world in that respect and has it informed your writing at all?

Worlds between worlds – to me, that sums up my feelings about nature and being outside.  When I walk my two beautiful dogs every morning in the open fields and woods on our doorstep, I often feel that sense of something else being just out of sight, just round the corner.  And I think that’s what imagination is – the ability to open a secret door and enter another world, a liminal space.  And hopefully take your readers with you! Two of my favourite books as a child were ‘The Magic Faraway Tree’ and ‘Peter Pan’, both of which transport you to a totally different but secret place.

I’d like to finish my asking you a bit more about Stonewylde itself. How much do you feel it is part of you? Is there any aspect of it you might change if you were to write it again?

Stonewylde feels like my fourth child - it’s very much part of me.  I’ve had some amazing feedback over the years from readers, and most of them say that to them, Stonewylde is a real place where they can go in their minds, walk the landscape, dance with the hares and forget all their troubles.  And no, I don’t think I’d change any aspect of it if I were to write it again – it’s complete and just right in my mind.  I’m currently negotiating with a production company to adapt the books into a TV series, and my big fear is that they’ll spoil the wonderful world of Stonewylde by not portraying it correctly.  Hopefully I’ll get some say in how it’s represented!

Thanks, Kit - it's been really fascinating

My pleasure 

​- 

.Steve Gladwin - Stories of Feeling and Being

Writer, Drama Practitioner, Storyteller and Blogger.

Creation and Story Enhancement/Screen writing.

Author of 'The Seven', 'Fragon Tales' and 'The Raven's Call'

01938 500728/01485007189/imagepoet7@gmail.com/mrwilliamsromance@gmail.com

https://www.storiesoffeelingandbeing.com/

PS A re-focused version of my interview with Kit will be appearing in the first edition of 'The God's Shed' at the end of the month. For more details in the next week or so, go to the link immediately above, or direct to http://www.storiesoffeelingandbeing/thegodsshed

Thank you