Towards the end of the year…

A rounding up, summing up, divvying up write up of the year beckons. I haven’t blogged as often this year for health and other reasons but was touched despite lagging behind to receive a Blogger Recognition Award today. Actually it’s my second such award… not bad for someone who is poor at networking and not really a team player. More of that below.

Things have certainly happened. The Magic Carpet was published in July and has some wonderful reviews from a pretty exclusive readership. Last night I was invited to answer questions about it by a book club. As I travelled there, I thought I should have prepared a flipchart…a powerpoint…handouts. My mind became strangely blank as to what was in the book, why and how I’d written it, whether I even had any right to claim it as mine. I’ve never been in a book club, my excuse being that I studied literature at university so I’ve been there and done that (arrogant and hardly recent). I also prefer to read what I choose when I want, and as said I’m not a team player. But now that I know a bookclub can involve Crémant de Bourgogne, a “snack” supper of three courses, hand-made home-made chocolates and a kind of gently probing supportive questioning that didn’t last more than twenty minutes, maybe I’ll change my mind. I may have been the guest author but I did feel the junior partner – these women were all much more careful readers (and cooks) than I am!

In November I finished the 3rd edit of Novel Three and sent it to Agent X who has it on his pile for comments. I already have acknowledgments to make, to several friends for discussions and particularly to my writing group, Z, M and C. These mysterious ladies are writing novels set variously in Afghanistan, London, Paris and South America, and we’ve had a good year exploring each others’ ideas in a surprisingly cheap central London cocktail bar M knew. In future it will be known as the Algonquin of the 21st century. London literary walks will skip nearby Bloomsbury and head straight for the blue plaque we fully intend to have there. Until then we’re keeping it secret. Who will get published first? Watch this space.

In August I had my eye operation which went well and I’ll have the other eye done in February. I’ve been pleased that changed eyesight has not meant too much change to my writing routines. I must spend less time on screens and online but that’s a good thing anyway. For the time being all I need do is enlarge the page to type and read. I have no ideas yet for Novel Four, and I hope I think of something because I enjoy writing  so much.  But this year must be the year of a traditional publisher – I’m uncomfortable asking people to buy from Amazon and indeed some of them won’t. Hopefully I’ve improved my craft enough for poor Agent X to get lucky third time round.

Now to that Blogger Recognition Award. I was very touched to be nominated by Sally Cronin at Smorgasbord and her gesture in turn means I can thank some of the bloggers who’ve supported me and who I’ve enjoyed reading this year. We move in overlapping circles so some names have I’m sure received several awards already. No harm piling the awards up though, and congratulations if you’re new to all this!

As Sally says, participation is optional. Many of you will be too busy to act on this at all,or you may want to put it aside for now and come back to it in the spring. That’s entirely up to you. I tried making a badge but I’m crap so please use Sally’s or one of these.

There are a few guidelines attached to the award if you do participate.

My thanks of course to Sally at Smorgasbord for nominating me.

Rules:

1. Thank the blogger(s) who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
2. Write a post to show your award.
3. Give a brief story of how your blog started.
4. Give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.
5. Select up to fifteen bloggers you want to give this award to.
6. Comment (or pingback) on each blog to let them know that you’ve nominated them and provide a link to the post you’ve created.

How My Blog Started:

In 2015 I was advised to blog after I published The Infinity Pool. It was supposed to get me more sales. Slowly, it did, and I found I enjoyed blogging more than I’d expected. I’ve made some good friends in the blogosphere, and am always humbled and touched by the welcome I get when I return to the scene after a few weeks or months away..

Two Pieces of Advice to New (or any) Bloggers:

1. This plea comes from a reader with poor vision but would help everyone. Please make sure your font is large enough and the colour scheme helps rather than hinders the readability. You should break up long paragraphs, and the whole site should be easy to navigate.
2. You’ll write a good post if you’re in the mood for blogging. It shouldn’t become a chore. If you can’t be bloggered, don’t.

Select up to 15 Bloggers:  Some who are incredibly supportive I really should include, but when I looked I’d included them last time so I hope they’ll excuse me. You know who you are (D G Kaye, for instance!)

Colleen Chesebro – Word Craft – Prose and Poetry Colleen is hugely encouraging to any creative writers and poets out there. She and all the following are team players – I may not be one but I can certainly appreciate them.

Robbie Cheadle: Roberta Writes Robbie’s frequent comments always encourage me to think at least someone’s read my posts carefully!

Mary Smith: Mary Smith’s Place I couldn’t believe I hadn’t nominated Mary last time around. Not many people have the qualifications, experience and writing ability to guide you from Afghanistan to Dumfries and Galloway!

Liz Gauffreau: Elizabeth Gauffreau is a writer from Adelaide, generous with her thoughtful, appreciative comments.

Shelley Wilson at I write. I read. I review. Shelley is a writing mentor, author, networker and I can only assume a bundle of energy as she’s very productive!

Lel Budge at The Bookwormery  kicked off my recent blog tour with gentle efficiency and blogs about health as well as books.

Marcia Meara at The Write Stuff. Her sub heading is “Writers helping Writers” and she does exactly what it says on the tin.

Mairead at Swirl and Thread is an Irish blogger and NetGalley reviewer but I’ve mainly come across her on Facebook. I’m always struck by her common sense, gentle enthusiasm and discerning taste.

Rekha at The Book Decoder is a breath of fresh air! If I had to explain the meaning of the word enthusiasm to a Martian, I’d guide them to Rekha’s site.

Anonymous (the cat herder?) at Herding Cats hides her light under a bushel but quietly gets on with reviewing, appreciating, communicating her love of books.

Katy Johnson is an author and generous interviewer and sharer at Katy’s Writing Coffee Shop. She hasn’t posted in the last couple of months, so must be busy with her many many projects.

Julie at A Little Book Problem gave The Magic Carpet the best review I’ve ever had so I’m encouraging people to throw awards at her until she has a little award problem too.

Camilla Downs is another generous team player from the US. At Meet the Authors she’s always happy to help other authors and produces interesting work herself.

Last but definitely not least, Kriti Khare at Armed with a Book  networks, shares, disseminates, teaches. She’s always worth a visit.

And a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

© Jessica Norrie 2019

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Good reads to give and receive

Last December I posted what I’d enjoyed reading in 2018 and kind people have asked for an update. I have three categories for books nowadays – those still to be read, those destined for the charity shop, and those I liked so much they earn a place on my shelves. It’s been a pleasure for this post to look along the rows and find them for you. Most are not recent – if you want to read about flavour of the month books there are always the newspapers and all the wonderful #bookbloggers. But these are what stuck in this reader’s mind.

Storming in at number one for the second year running is Shirley Jackson. I’ve been rationing her so I don’t run out of gems. This year’s favourite is Life Among the Savages. These columns about motherhood, although her children must now be older than I am, still ring true. Here’s part of her second paragraph “I look around sometimes at the paraphernalia of our living – sandwich bags, typewriters, little wheels off things – and marvel at the complexities of civilization with which we surround ourselves (….) I begin throwing things away, and it turns out although we can live agreeably without the little wheels of things, new little wheels turn up almost immediately. This is, I suspect, progress. They can make new little wheels, if not faster than they can fall off things, at least faster than I can throw them away.”

…little wheels that have fallen off things

As I was reading this, imagine my uncanny delight when I discovered in the pocket of the old cardigan I was wearing – an unidentifiable little wheel off something! Anyone who’s ever attempted to amuse sick children, schlepped them round a department store or directed household tasks from the labour suite will identify straight away with Jackson. “So unlike the home life of our own dear Queen,” as my mother would say, raising her head from her book for a moment to consider the pile of undarned socks. (At least women don’t darn husbands’ socks anymore.)

Julie Otsuka published The Buddha in the Attic in 2011. It’s the story – completely new to me – of the Japanese “picture brides”, young (and not so young) women chosen and brought to the US by Japanese men between the wars. No groom looked quite as their photo had shown them. This is a story of hardship, disillusionment, making do, humour, cultural displacement, hostility and integration, as poetic as The Grapes of Wrath from a female Japanese point of view. It’s difficult to quote from, for it’s written as though in several voices, themed by arrival, accommodation, agricultural and domestic labour, childbirth, children, the war and so on. My husband is not the man in the photograph. My husband is the man in the photograph but aged by many years. My husband’s handsome best friend is the man in the photograph. My husband is a drunkard. My husband is the manager of the Yamamoto Club and his entire torso is covered with tattoos. My husband is shorter than he claimed to be in his letters, but then again, so am I…We gave birth under oak trees, in summer, in 113 degree heat. We gave birth beside wood stoves in one-room shacks on the coldest nights of the year. We gave birth on windy islands in the Delta, six months after we arrived, and the babies were tiny, and translucent, and after three days they died. We gave birth nine months after we arrived to perfect babies with full heads of black hair. 

Also from America, also from 2011, comes Winter Journal by Paul Auster. In the beautifully considered phrases you’d expect from him, he chronicles his life via the buildings and countries he’s lived in, the relationships with parents and women, the illnesses or accidents his body has undergone as well as the joys and sensations, the food he’s eaten, the cars he’s driven, his love for his daughter, the people he’s sat shiva for…. He’s sixty-four at the outset of this journal, and it’s intended as a sort of audit, far less self obsessed and more universal than I’m making it sound. A quote would be another massive paragraph, but whoever you are, if you read it for yourself you’ll find echoes.

One of my favourite British authors is Jon McGregor, and his 2006 So Many Ways to Begin rivals the two above in the quality of the prose and the universality of his description of a long, more or less successful marriage over several decades. There have been problems – mental illness, redundancy, family schisms. There have been successes – homes created, a much loved daughter, love held and exchanged. Life could have been different; it may have been better; the narrator husband is on the whole thankful it wasn’t worse. Why have I left this book in the country? I’d like to be able to quote you every line. (For anyone who couldn’t quite concentrate on the wonderful but dense Reservoir 13, this is a more straightforward narrative, with more plot. But the strength as always is McGregor’s enticing poetic language.)

A running theme here is poetic prose. It’s combined with a riveting turn-the-page plot in Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield. (And at last a book from 2019!) In late 19th century Oxfordshire, a small child is pulled from the river Thames and brought to an inn on its banks. She was dressed in the simplest of shifts that left her arms and ankles bare and the fabric, still damp, lay in ripples around her. The child seems to have drowned. Yet she is not dead. She is healthy, but she doesn’t speak. Who was, or is the child? Who will claim her, who will heal her, and how will the story affect the characters around her, the innkeeper and his family, the farmers and watermen, the pioneer photographer, the self taught nurse and the delinquent son? The only thing I didn’t like in this book, although it accurately reflects attitudes at the time (and today) was the depiction of the river gypsies: it was hard not to read it as racist and it wasn’t justified by the plot. That aside, it’s a great homage to the tradition and language of the best fairy tales (which of course don’t usually give gypsies a good press.) One to save for next time you have a mild cold and need something to nurse it with on the sofa.

My last recommendation is non-fiction, although it is about teasing out the stories we tell ourselves and reframing them for a better ending. In Therapy is transcriptions of conversations, originally on radio, between psychotherapist Susie Orbach and her clients. As she says: Each individual who comes for help craves acceptance, though they may be diffident or even tetchy…I find the particulars of learning how an individual’s internal world works fascinating. This is not so different from creating characters as a writer, only Orbach’s are real. The threads are as compelling as any plot, as some people work towards understanding themselves better and she tries to help others avoid getting even more bogged down than they were when she first met them. It’s not the end of the road, she is able to advise one man, it’s the beginning of something new and possible. Highly readable, whether you agree with her methods or not.

I don’t deserve to live in this company, but in my novels I do try to make my prose as poetic as theirs and sometimes I succeed. If you’re still stuck for Christmas presents, try The Magic Carpet! I can hardly review it myself, but there’s a lovely one here.

©Jessica Norrie 2019