Excuses or fate?

Despite Mr Gove and the Toadmeister's love of Latin there are few advantages to having a Classical education. I have a GCSE A-level AND a degree in the subject and let me tell you, outside of successfully answering the occasional quiz question and guessing what was going to happen in Percy Jackson before it was spelt out, knowing which is the only Greek tragedy we have three alternate versions of (Electra - we still have text by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides) and whether or not there were horses at Marathon (nobody knows but scholars get REALLY worked up on the subject) hasn't done me an awful lot of good *stares gloomily at bank account*. But one thing I do understand all too well is hubris.

Hubris is often thought of as pride or arrogance. It's more than that. Hubris is a mixture of smugness, resting on laurels, pride-going-before-a-fall, self righteousness - mixed with overwhelming arrogance and pride. Oedipus was a little too self-satisfied with his life before it all came crashing down with the realisation he had killed his father and married his mother (look, coincidence happens. I have, incidentally, written three essays in my life exploring whether Oedipus' downfall was due to fate or his own actions. I have no idea what conclusion I came to but believe me, hubris was involved and probably evoked many times in said essays).

So what was I thinking when I, smugly, with wrongful pride and arrogance blogged about my new, amazing, life changing 1000 words a day writing habit? Obviously at that moment Zeus, who let's face it has little else to do now he can no longer go round dressed as a swan to ravish maidens, shouted 'Guilty, hubris!' and made sure that I would now have to come amongst you and, with bowed head and repentant tears, admit I have only managed 2000 words in two weeks. I should, right now,be relaxing, feet up in the sun, enjoying a reading break before the Big Edit. No. I am staring at my keyboard wondering where it all went wrong and knowing I have 7000 words to go. Sure there are excuses, reasons, obstacles - all perfectly good and valid, apart from the day I wasted with a hangover (thanks, Dionysus) - but the main reason is that obviously, the gods were against me. Honestly.
*goes off to sacrifice a goat*
*not really, I am vegetarian*.

Loving my WIP

Turns out blogging is a bit of a displacement activity. Who knew? Well, most of us to be honest but it's easy to justify as self-promotion (promoting what? I'm not published yet!), education and knowledge sharing (hmmm, I'll get back to you when I know what I'm doing but don't hold your breath), entertainment (not quite that arrogant), venting (guilty), writing warm up (some justification tbh) and using as a diary (guilty again). But yes, it's mainly yet another way to procrastinate although, with a Twitter habit like mine you wouldn't have thought I needed to find any new ways to waste my valuable writing time.

And then suddenly I don't have time to blog.

I haven't been away, I haven't been any busier than usual (impossible without discovering time travel or how to survive without sleep), in fact I've been ill this week, spending a couple of weepy, pathetic days in bed reacquainting myself with Marian Chesney's six sisters series. But I haven't had time to blog because I've been writing.

I know, crazy!

Partly it's the success of my positive Lent plan, not to give things up but to do something instead, namely to write 1000 words a day. I have faithfully stuck to this, told you I was deadline orientated!And blogging doesn't count, it has to be 1000 words on my WIP. I am writing every day, if not in the same time and at the same place, just like some bloke called Stephen King advises - apparently he knows what he's talking about. But partly it's because something amazing has happened...

I love my WIP. I love my characters.I love the setting especially as I have just set a chapter in Florence, one of my favourite cities and my very own honeymoon destination. I don't love the plot but we can't have everything and I have the first, second and line edit to go so that's eminently fixable (if I can come up with anything new, I sense a panicked discussion with my CPS will be in order). I am loving writing this book. I would rather write it than blog. The tragedy is it's taken me months to get to this stage and now I only have one and a half chapters, 7000 words to go. Why couldn't I have found this love and enthusiasm earlier?

Still, looking on the bright side I still have the first, second and line edits to go. This WIP has a lot of work in it yet.

And I'm sure I need to google a lot more pictures of Florence before I'm through.

A room of my own - finally!

I may have shared before my love of libraries. Other people have dream kitchens, or bathrooms or gardens. Games rooms or home cinemas. I dream of a home library. Nothing fancy (okay, in my wildest dreams they are fancy, with galleries and those little steps on wheels) but I would be happy with a big square room with floor to ceiling shelves, maybe a cosy loveseat before a fire, a desk and many, many books filling those floor to ceiling shelves.

Instead I live in a small terraced house, open plan downstairs, two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs and a small attic room. It's cosy, it's a family home, there are shelves, books in every single room, yep even the bathroom. What there isn't, is any private space.

It has become a bit of a cliché that a woman needs a Room of Her Own in order to be creative. Shared space is apparently as draining to a writer's productivity as a pram in the hallway (writers as diverse as JG Ballard and Maisey Yates would dispute the latter). I have got pretty good at writing with all kinds of noise and distraction going on. Episodes of I-Carly, children running in and out, next door's kids banging on the piano. Maybe not through the last one, I'm not superhuman.

Things came to a head on Sunday. The rain was biblical, we considered building an Ark. My husband had offered to take the daughter out to give me space to write but looking out at the sheets of rain it was clear that wasn't going to happen. At least I considered pretending I thought it was a good idea but I'm a writer not a monster, most of the time anyway. So, I could try to write with family life going on around me, or I could curl up in bed get some peace and quiet whilst destroying my back. Decisions, decisions.

Or... the attic. Too dark for a study, so stuffed with books, camping gear there was no room for  desk. But it would make a cute girl's room. To think was to do. Well, to think meant seven hours of taking things apart, taking about 200 books downstairs, another 200 up, putting beds back together, carrying armfuls of cuddly toys up the stairs. But, finally, the daughter has an attic bedroom and her old room is now a guest room, full of books, the camping gear stored under the bed and a desk. My desk. With a monitor and a keyboard I can plug my netbook into.

It's small, it's not fancy, there's a tent in the corner, the complete works of Agatha Christie and a double bed (useful if I need to close my eyes to think). But it's mine. It's a room of my own. And it's perfect.

World Book Day tyranny

1 March - World Book Day. The bane of parents all over the UK. There are no worse words in the English language for a busy working parent than ‘Mummy, I need a costume…’ and somehow, at some point over the last few years, it seems to have become enshrined in law that all primary aged children have to dress up as their favourite (or, at least a) literary character on World Book Day. Cue many generic pirates, cowboys, witches and princesses as desperate parents raid the dressing up box.

Some already have suitable outfits and turn up as Alice or Dorothy, Harry, Ron or Hermione regardless of whether they are their favourite character or, indeed, if they have even read the book. Others have parents who can do, who can see a piece of fabric and imagine it looking like something else, who can even thread a needle.  Or at least they are willing to give it a go. That is not me. The daughter is limited to something we can cobble together easily that costs nothing. Luckily for the last couple of years she has wanted her usual costume – World Book Day, Halloween, general dress up, whatever the occasion she is a cat. Four years ago she named our black kitten Sootica, after Gobbolino’s witch’s cat sister, and has dressed up as Sootica ever since – albeit with vampire fangs last Halloween, just because. Even at a James Bond themed party she turned up as Blofeld’s cat.

Not this year… last year one of her friend’s made a big splash as Pippi Longstocking (her mother makes costumes. For a living.) and for the first time daughter wanted more. The flimsy supermarket cat costume, gaudily edged in neon pink is not enough. She looked at me expectantly. My heart sank. I want to be a good mother; we bake, I help with spellings, I read to her, I take her to a lot of activities, we cuddle, we laugh, we cuddle some more. I let her stay up for Call the Midwife (Mummy, in those days babies came out the hard way. Oh baby, they still do…) but I don’t sew.

Inspiration struck! I am reading her Noel Streatfield. I love those books, have read them so many times and now I am sharing them with her. Starting out with the Fossil books we have done Ballet Shoes, are halfway through Curtain Up (Theatre Shoes in the US) and have the Painted Garden ready to move seamlessy onto(Movie Shoes). Could she, she suggested go as Pauline.  Hmm, I said. Pauline, the oldest Fossil. Beautiful, talented Pauline who gives up the stage for Hollywood to pay for Posy’s ballet training. How could we convey that in an outfit. Unless… unless we didn’t go for Pauline, we go for Petrova.

Petrova. The middle sister. Reluctant actress, bored dancer, well-rehearsed Mustard Seed and Mytyl trying desperately to get the right inflection on ‘And I’ whilst dreaming of engines and aeroplanes. It’s original, it’s a book she loves and it’s an easy costume. Old clothes covered in smears of black paint. A few spanners round her waist and, of course, ballet shoes on her feet. She’s happy, I’m happy and World Book day disaster has been averted for another year.

Of course, as I am working I can't attend the parade. Another working Mummy fail.

A Leap of Faith

Feb 29^th. The one day in four years that a woman ‘can’ propose to her man. Yay.

Or February 24th in Denmark (the medieval leap year day). And some enlightened folks say women have the whole year to propose. Double Yay!

Or is it? Things have obviously improved for many women over the last hundred years. We get to vote, work, own property and make our own decisions. Marriage is no longer a commercial choice, but a mutual decision based on love and respect. Yet so many cherished traditions hark back to times when a woman’s worth was in her marriageability.

In fact, according to many gossip magazines it still is but that’s a rant for another day.

Most modern brides no longer say ‘I promise to obey...’ but they still get given away by their father (myself included). Many women are financially independent, hold down a job, share a home, a mortgage with the groom, have independently decided to make a life with him, yet often he still asks her father (not mother) for permission before they marry, sometimes even before he proposes. Nearly every married woman I know has changed her surname to her husband's. Ancient, patriarchal traditions holding strong even in the 21^st century.

And then there’s the proposal. Still the man’s job, a male prerogative apart from one day every four years. It puts a lot of pressure on both sides. On him to do a good job, make sure the story is worth retelling, provokes the right kind of misty eyed response. On her while she waits, sure he is the one, only locked into a timetable not of her making, not of her choice, waiting...

It’s not that way for all of us. I got engaged on a hungover Saturday morning, outside the old Arsenal stadium; we came out of the tube station after a night spent at friends the other side of London, walked along the row of terraces that hid the football club. We were discussing various friends and their compatibility, our compatibility.  By the time we turned the corner we had decided to marry, neither of us are quite sure how to this day. A hungover decision but a mutual decision.

Romantic? Not really. But this was about the rest of our lives. It was a decision that affected us equally. To me, lovely as a beautiful story to tell the grandchildren would be, it was a decision that needed to be taken together. The rest of our lives is a big deal.

Romance novels are not usually about the big proposal either, although my favourite scene in Pride and Prejudice is Darcy's first, awkward, unsuccessful proposal. The happy ending in a romance novel is when two people take an equally big step, prepare to go out on a limb, take a risk, put the other one first. Resolve whatever is holding them back and do something that scares them, terrifies them, leaves them vulnerable. It goes beyond rings in ice-cream, announcements at football matches, the top of the Eiffel Tower. It's about two people doing whatever it takes to spend their lives together. 

And that is pretty darn romantic, whatever the date.

Giving up is so last year

One of the lovely things about February for an overworked worker/mother/writer/blogger/Twitter- addict is the nice amount of ready made topics perfect for the romance writing blog. This is a tried and trusted writing trick; when I worked on a local advertorial magazine our monthly editorial meetings were based on those handy marketing tricks. National bed week? Let’s do a feature on the perfect night’s sleep. National cupcake week? Recipe feature with obligatory tasting. Be nice to nettles week? Hmmnn, maybe not. However, February is a perfect smorgasboard of romance just waiting to be blogged about: Valentine’s Day? Tick. Feb 29th? Tick (not yet but scheduled). Lent. Lent?

Look at those cakes!

Okay, a month of abstaining from all that is good and tasty may not seem like the most romantic of topics but bear with me. In the past I have given up alcohol, cheese (that was hard), chocolate, pizza, ice cream. One particularly memorable and abstemious Lent I did a co-dare with a colleague and we both gave up chocolate, cake, crisps, pastries and biscuit, I lasted all the way to Easter because, as I may have mentioned once or twice, I love a deadline and I always get competitive where there is a challenge. I am not religious, nor do I live in a hunter-gatherer society with an early spring food shortage but I like testing my usual shaky self control.

Swedish apple cake

So, this year? I considered cake after a weekend which included a gluttonous afternoon tea, baking Swedish apple cake (with raspberries), a 60th birthday party with three different and amazing cakes (fruit, passion and chocolate, yum), and a mother-daughter baking session resulting in blueberry and apple muffins *looks ruefully at waistline*. I also considered – and quickly dismissed – wine, cheese and my daughter’s evil suggestion, Twitter.
But then I began to think about behaviours, something different but equally challenging. Maybe I could give up negative thoughts *coughs* or snapping at the daughter and husband? Or, turn it round, make Lent really positive. Exercise every day? Or how about writing every day?

Go on...

Every day. Stephen King of course makes that his number one rule. But there are days, like Tuesdays, when I work till 4, pick up the daughter, walk home, make her dinner, take her to swimming, bring her home, wash and dry her hair, read her a story, eat my dinner, collapse. Not only is there very little time to breathe in a Tuesday but by the time it has ended I am incapable of coherent thought or word. But no excuse. 1000 words a day minimum, even on a Tuesday. Take that WIP.

Right, who’s for a slice of cake?

Romance by numbers.

Today is, of course, Valentine's Day.

Named after a Roman martyr of dubious authenticity who may or may not have performed illegal Christian marriages and was martyred by Claudius if he did exist. Romantic, huh? Regardless of the bloodthirsty origins of the saint his day is now, for the cynical, an exploitative day of tack. The price of roses quadruples, the shops are filled with heart-shaped tat and, hard as we try to avoid it, anyone in a relationship ends up spending £20 on something fizzy to drink, chocolates and a card. Meanwhile singletons may feel glad they don't have to participate but still feel an urge to wipe that smug look off Carol-in-finance's face as she sits smirking at her bouquet of roses.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't believe in romance, in showing that you love somebody.Of course I do! I'm a wannabe romance writer for goodness sake. I just don't see the romance in acting like a sheep because the marketing calender tells me too. Cups of coffee left on my bedside table, coming home to find the ironing done, an unexpected Monday night bottle of prosecco - these are the small, domestic yet romantic gestures I love, because they are about me, about us. They are real.

All the romantic traditions seem to try and mould couples into a predetermined, Disneyfied idea of what love should be. There is so little room for the quirky, the unique, the things that make you, you. Personally I dislike roses, I would rather have tulips, lilies, lily of the valley. I prefer amethysts to diamonds, noodles to fine dining and pyjamas to lingerie. Of course we're all different and figuring just what pushes my heroine's buttons is part of what makes writing fiction so much fun.