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Revolution Thursday 6th May 2010
Today - Election Day - my new novel’s out - Revolution! A teen love story set against political unrest ...
But here’s the blurb from the back cover ...
"How far would you go to be a hero?
Beth is appalled when she discovers that her school is going to be closed down, against the wishes of the students and parents. Nate, the new boy, thinks that the students could take over the school and run it themselves, just as a protest. But things get out of hand and some of the other students have less than idealistic reasons for taking part in ’the revolution.’ Nate and Beth fall for one another, but will their teen love affair survive?
If you visit www.inpressbooks.co.uk and click on ’For Children’ you’ll find the cover and you can buy it - or find the details to order it from your library.
Watch the website - there’ll be more details soon - and if you do read the book, leave a review!
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Carey Mulligan, Amy Williams and Michael Morpurgo Monday 22nd February 2010
Yeah - try to work out what they all have in common. Michael Morpurgo regularly slides down hills on a tea-tray? Is Carey Mulligan secretly a bestselling-children’s author?
The answer’s obvious - the first two have just won something - a BAFTA, a gold medal in the Winter Olympics - and Morpurgo is instituting a writing competition for children in order to create interest in and glorify creative writing. Because it’s all about competition, innit? To be the Best.
I haven’t see An Education, but I will, and I’m looking forward to it. I’m glad for Carey Mulligan. I’m not going to follow the Winter Oympics despite Williams’ medal because it’s just TOO MUCH SNOW! As for Morpurgo’s initiative ...hmmmm.
I know competition is part of life, but it’s not a nice part. For everyone who gets a top accolade, there are all the losers - so many more of them. I can’t tell you the number of people I’ve spoken to who have given up writing (or at best, suffered a great blow to their self-esteem) because they weren’t even long-listed for some competition. And even for the winners, it’s not all that. Next year, you might not win - and then you’ll feel like a has-been. And winning is like crack cocaine for the fame junkie. A big high, followed by a craving for more. In short, you feel better about winning a prize than doing the thing that got you the prize.
I love writing, and I try to distinguish between the two sides of it - the good side, and The Dark Side. The good side is the fun of making stuff up, the joy of words, the thrill you get when someone likes what you’ve written, the sheer intensity of it. But the Dark Side. That’s when you get hung up about being published, reviews, how many fans you’ve got, whether you’ll be shortlisted for a prize, feeling envy of writers more successful than you - and worst of all, the feeling that you might be a cut above the rest of humanity because you’re a writer. Writing feeds vanity - it was Orwell (blessed be his name) who said a motive in all writers is ’sheer egoism.’ I’m not sure writers can ever free themselves from egoism, but they ought to recognise it in themselves.
Back to Morpurgo. Is a competition really the best way to get kids to enjoy writing? By giving a few of them Great Expectations and a load more that sinking, disappointing feeling of being a loser? Or should he be doing something else? Such as using his influence to get the exam boards and teacher training colleges to upgrade creative writing, and make it part of the curriculum - and taught as well as it’s possible to teach it? To get firms to sponsor writing residentials for children so a group of them can all feel special? To fund writers in schools? To have Festivals of Children’s Literature ... Well, there’s a coincidence! Manchester Metropolitan University is going to do just that in July - watch this space!
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Ollie Thursday 4th February 2010
We had to put Ollie to sleep on Tuesday. Rachel and I stayed with him. Rachel brought his favourite toy - a large, stuffed dog (don’t ask!) and he lay on it as he let go of the little bit of life that he had left, after his kidneys failed him.
I know we made the right decision and that he had a good life. I know pets have a shorter lifespan than humans, all being well. I knew this day would come.
I still feel utterly bereft. He was a gentleman among cats - lovely to other cats, which is virtually unheard of in the cat kingdom. He looked after and played with Phoebe’s kittens, like an indulgent uncle. When Shug was confined to the travel box with a broken hip, he sat on the top and waved his tail over the grille so she could bat it for entertainment.
He would never miaow very loudly, but would emit a polite semi-cough of a miaow if he needed attention. He loved having the underside of his chin stroked. He used to stand on the landing by the banisters and rub the side of his head against them, then stick his nose through when someone came up the stairs.
He was the soul, the centre of the Ashworth house, embodying all our values.
It’s very empty here without him.
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’Tis Pity She’s A Hoarder Wednesday 13th January 2010
My new Iphone has brought out the worst in me. Since I’ve got it, I’ve been busily loading it with all the apps I can find of even remote interest – the complete works of Shakespeare, music quizzes, maps, airport mania, diner dash, Last Fm, the tube map, word searches – and I’ve been ripping all my CDs to put on the Ipod – and put my whole collection of photos on it - and I’ve downloaded podcasts from the Beeb, and even bought my fave episode of The Sopranos (Pine Barrens). Lucky Brian doesn’t read my blog as I haven’t plucked up the courage to tell him this yet, since we have the episode in our box set, but I just wanted it on my phone, OK?
So far, I’ve actually USED my Iphone for texting, checking emails, playing a few games … err … that’s it.
I’ve got all the other stuff just in case. And having it all makes me feel really good. I’m even thinking of subscribing to Spotify just so I can have all the music I’d ever need on my phone.
Why? Am I greedy? Am I a control freak? Well, yes, but I don’t think that explains the pleasure I get from having stuff I haven’t used yet. It’s the same as having a pile of books you haven’t got round to reading, or a whole box set of TV drama to watch. It’s a sense of possibility – the knowledge that there’s all that pleasure just waiting for you round the corner – extending that blissful pause before plunging in for as long as you want.
Yes – I’m one of those people who always leaves the tastiest morsel of dinner till the last mouthful.
Hooray for deferred pleasure!
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The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Thursday 7th January 2010
Nothing beats opening a crime novel that you know is going to be really, really good. How do you know? Well, rave reviews help, as do numbers of copies sold, and recommendations from people whose opinions you trust.
But those are only indications. Just a few pages into The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, I was certain I was in for a treat. I liked the assurance of the story-telling and in particular Larsson’s ability to give the reader exactly the right amount of information – enough so we don’t get confused, but also there’s that tease, that promise that there is much, much more to reveal. The characters were strong and distinct, and of course the Swedish setting adds to the mix.
But.
Why is it that nearly always the end of a crime novel disappoints – and Dragon Tattoo was no exception? I think it’s partly because we read crime fiction for the chase – once the chase is over, there’s just profound anti-climax. So that’s the mystery solved, then. So what? The show is over.
But in the case of the Larsson there’s something more, and I’m partly embarrassed to say what this is, because I worry I’m going to end up sounding like some Victorian aunt. But here goes. Much of the content of the novel was too disturbing for me. I know that in a crime novel one really ought to expect a crime, and in the twenty-first century the depiction of the crime is likely to be unmediated by any censorship – and even fuelled by a desire to shock the reader.
And I don’t mind being shocked. Heck, I LOVE the Sopranos and have watched decapitations without blinking. I teach undergraduates creative writing and they love nothing more than to push the boundaries. I accept completely that sometimes difficult things need to be said, and need to be said strongly.
But.
Ha! I realise what it is! And don’t read on if you’re afraid of a spoiler. What made me pull away from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was the violence against women. While the plot concerned a potentially arms-trading corrupt financier, I was happy. But once the story took me up close and personal to the most appalling act of violence against a young woman that I have ever read, the pleasure I took in reading, stopped. And never really recovered.
So this is not prudery (phew!) It’s hating violence against women even when it’s fictional. Perhaps BECAUSE it’s fictional – because the writer is imagining this happening and making us imagine it too. In a slow-mo, detailed, loving way. In the Sopranos. Richie Aprile hits Janice, and she shoots him. Go, Janice! But even where there is violence against women, it’s related through a sequence of fast-moving images – we are told what we need to know – and then we deal with the consequences. It’s true that in the Larsson, the victim of violence takes an ingenious revenge on her assailant– but still, we are expected to suffer her humiliation with her. Frame by frame. Word by word.
This is not an argument for censorship – it’s just me exploring why I found I was distancing myself from this best-seller. All the more so because it IS a best-seller, and millions of men are reading the same horrendous details that I did. For entertainment. Because a crime novel is generally for entertainment.
Maybe I am a prude. Or just getting old. It’ll be tea with the vicar next …
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Wot I did in my holidays Monday 4th January 2010
It’s been common knowledge for the past two thousand years or so that the
Sitting on our balcony overlooking Vesuvius I made my New Year Resolution – no, not to be even more explosive – but to simply appreciate each moment, and not to live too much in the future (which is my besetting sin.) Yes, I also did the dieting resolution thing – why break an age-old tradition?
We made it to
Best of all was seeing in 2010 in the central
Two tips for would be travellers to
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