Blogging NaNoWriMo 2011: So Unprepared

It was only when I was sat on the train earlier that I realised November begins tomorrow and that, consequently, so does NaNoWriMo. I know I have the idea but I've got very little besides. I like to have some sense of where I'm going before I set off, particularly when faced with the daunting prospect of 50,000 words in thirty days.

Doing some quick flow-charting in my notebook, I've established the plot arcs I see occurring. I've also got the first scene set out in my head, which should be enough to get me through the first day at least. I'll be kicking off this year as I have on my previous two attempts: at midnight on the dot I'll be ready to go. If I can get a thousand words down it'll be a good nudge to continue tomorrow night.

I'm kidding myself if I think I've got thirty days to complete this. A glance at my diary tells me that the three weekend ahead are pre-booked. That's the time I'd really knuckle down to writing because weekdays are predominantly PhD time, particularly as I flounder towards my upgrade in January. If it's a choice between failing that and failing NaNoWriMo... Well, there can't be a contest. However much I want to dither!

So... At midnight this evening Lauren Hobson will walk into a laundrette (I need a name for it...) to start the new job she thinks is humiliating to have to do. She'll meet her new boss, Shelley, and then be thrown into disarray by the arrival of a mouthy teenager who has been abandoned on the doorstep. If I get to that stage I'll be more than happy!

Good luck to everyone else participating this year. Find me on the NaNoWriMo site as CharmedLassie and become a buddy. I think I'm going to need them!

Book Review: Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult

I was fortunate enough to receive this book as a prize for participating in the LGBT Book Challenge 2011 over at the Book After Book blog and now I'm reviewing it for the same challenge. I'd love to see more people participating in this for the last few months of the year because apart from the opportunity to win books you get the chance to discover some gems you didn't know existed. Anyhow, plea over but I'd just like to reiterate my thanks to Book After Book for the challenge and the wonderful Hodder & Stoughton for supplying the book.

Sing You Home has a very contemporary plot. Zoe Baxter has suffered several miscarriages and disasters in her quest for a child. After her son is born prematurely and dies, the strain begins to tell on her marriage to Max. They separate and Zoe finds herself taking solace in her job as a music therapist. Then she meets Vanessa and falls in love quite quickly. They discuss children and the fact that Zoe still has frozen embryos. The stumbling block is that Zoe requires Max's permission and he's been taken into the heart of an evangelical church. I'll try not to give away any more of the plot though, to be fair, all that you would have learned from the dust jacket.

The novel is narrated by Zoe, Vanessa and Max in clearly defined sections. This was a concise way of showing the effects of proceedings on all three characters and it was, I feel, vital to include Max as a narrating character. Without this insight into his mind he could've become a basic villain using religion as a justification to dislike a lesbian couple. As it is, we know first-hand why Max came to seek solace in the Eternal Glory Church. We know about his alcoholism and his loaded relationship with his brother. All in all, this comes across as a very balanced portrayal with Picoult being remarkably even-handed during Max's chapters.

It was a difficult read for me, mainly because religious arguments against homosexuality make me furious. But, as I said before, it's a very contemporary novel detailing the conflicts in modern societies. Living in a more secular country than the USA, I found some of the evangelism alien and, in that way, it was educational. The most important thing, however, is whether a book is a good read and Sing You Home is. The characters are human - they lie and hold things back as any normal being does - and the plot had enough twists and turns to keep me interested. I liked the numerous flashback scenes for each of the characters because they were consistently related to the current events and proved useful in understanding them. A word of caution though: it can be harsh on your emotions. The tiny scene near the beginning of the novel when Zoe holds her dead son haunted me for days.

I'd thoroughly recommend this book. I can't find a negative thing to say about it.

Another First Draft Finished

It feels exquisite to say that I've completed another first draft of a novel. That makes three complete novels I'm rewriting and reworking. Getting to the end of an original draft gives me the ultimate shiver down my spine: it's all neatly packaged away to be looked at again in a few months. No characters hanging partway down cliffs as I dither about what to do with them. I know one thing for a fact: the things I have done to my beloved characters Lizzie and Eve in this first draft will be markedly different to the ones I'll put them through in the second draft. It's a positive thing that I already know what changes I want to make next time around. I don't have any illusions that this baby is ready to be handed over to friends and relatives just yet.

So why did I bother finishing it if I knew that was the case while I was writing the second half of the novel? Well, it's a lot easier to rewrite something if you have a whole to work from in the first place. And, besides, not all of what I've written is junk. It tells me a lot about my characters and their relationships with each other. I wouldn't sacrifice this imperfect first draft for a perfect half draft with no ending in sight. You have to finish to start over.

I can pinpoint exactly when this idea sprang into my head. It was during the Wakefield Drama Festival 2011 at the beginning of June. It all came from noticing the woman sat in front of me. The initial setting altered from a working theatre to a converted one currently serving as a crumbling cinema. I started the draft on 6th June and meandered along with it quite happily. The first third was a lot easier to write than the rest. I admit the last few weeks with it have been painful. I've been forcing words from my fingertips with the promise of chocolate and tea at the end of it. Well, at least the bribes worked!

First draft total word count: 55,033.

Feelings towards my protagonists: still adore them.

Feelings towards my plot: needs work but it's not too shabby.

All makes for a reasonably content Lucy!

Blogging NaNoWriMo 2011: The Idea

Here I am again. Despite the fact I'm still debating whether or not to participate in the challenge this year, I'm blogging about my plans! That rather says it for me, doesn't it? Last year, I crashed out at a very early stage and, looking back at my reasons, I think I'm mental for trying this again.

After all, I asked, "Why did I think that something which had slipped between forms, setting and characterisation for the past eight years would settle down so easily?" Do you know what I'm planning to do this year? Yes, that's right: take another setting for this very same novel and mush up the definite characters I've got in my head to create a very different story. Before I hear cries of "cheat", I do solemnly swear that I haven't written a word of this novel before. The alteration of setting means the few thousand words I managed last year are completely useless - I can't use them because a service station is a very different place to a laundrette. The interactions my characters will have are going to be completely different and relationships will build differently as a consequence. While the essence of the idea (the characters I've had in mind for many years) is the same, the story I'm going to tell isn't. It will still be a tale of love and redemption but the way that redemption comes about will be a completely different process to the one I planned last year. I still have to be cautious though. Last year I wrote, "I think it's a non-idea. Or maybe it's meant to be written, just not by me." That doesn't bode well and speaks volumes about my stubbornness.

Something else struck me as I looked at my failure from 2010. I said, "In order for me to still be fighting in December something had to give in November." That sounds familiar, doesn't it? I've blogged about the imminent failure I'm facing in all areas of my life at the moment: do I honestly believe I can throw NaNo into the mix and survive?

I'll leave the answer blowing in the wind until I see what happens. 

Book Review: Westwood by Stella Gibbons

I first became attracted to this book by seeing the cover on the Guardian website. The new Vintage Classics edition is striking, as book covers should be, and enticed me towards an author I hadn't heard of before.

Gibbons is one of those authors seemingly lost in the mid-20th century. She has over a dozen novels to her name, though many of them have fallen out of print until now. Westwood was a delightfully amusing book that certainly inspired me to become better acquainted with this author.

The novel tells the story of Margaret Steggles, a school teacher, who finds a ration book on Hampstead Heath and returns it to the Niland residence. Alexander Niland is a well-known artist and his father-in-law, Gerald Challis, is a famous dramatist. Margaret itches to become well-acquainted with the Challis family (and Gerald in particular), despite the fact that they treat her as a glorified child-carer. In a twist of fate, her friend Hilda attracts Gerald one night when he walks her home in the blackout. He gives his name as 'Marcus' while he idealises and courts Hilda, who has no interest in anything he has to say and simply sees him as a kind old man.

Gibbons is an expert at character sketches. There are many people who pass through the pages of the novel but they all have a distinct voice. I particularly found it remarkable that the half dozen or so children are recognisable by their differences. This applies to Alexander Niland's three children and the others encountered throughout the pages, including Linda, a girl with learning difficulties. I especially enjoyed being able to guess which child was talking when dialogue tags were sparse in a section towards the end of the book. If your characters are that distinctive then you don't need to highlight who's speaking on every other line.

As may have been gleaned, the novel is set during WWII. The war seems to be an inconvenience to the lives of the Nilands and Challises. Alexander is concerned about his paintings being destroyed and Gerald notes a significant alteration in the reception of his plays. The backdrop of the war isn't thrust forward on many occasions but that's something I appreciated: life went on in many ways and it was pleasant to read a war story that wasn't actually about the war. Gibbons describes England in very vivid terms throughout, notably when Hilda and Gerald meet in the blackout and when Margaret takes a rowdy bunch of children for a walk. However, I still think the opening description is one of the most evocative:

"London was beautiful that summer. In the poor streets the people made an open-air life for themselves under the blue sky as if they were living in a warmer climate. Old men sat on the fallen masonry and smoked their pipes and talked about the War, while the women stood patiently in the shops or round the stalls selling large fresh vegetables, carelessly talking." (p1)

The narrative swiftly moves on to Margaret's emotions on Hampstead Heath. The first few pages are all description but it doesn't drag: it helps frame the story that is to come against the backdrop of fighting abroad and struggling at home. It's a luxurious read which explores the desires of humanity and their worshipping, infidelity and difficult friendships. It's a novel about life - lightly and comically told - which ends rather ambivalently. Don't read this in search of a traditional happy ending; read it to smile and recognise different types of people who are as familiar now as they were in 1946 when Westwood was first published.

Nobody Calls Me Nobody

I'm a funny one. The only way I can boost my mood to the point of productivity sometimes is to submerge myself in my favourite upbeat (and usually musical) songs. It's almost guaranteed to fire me up. I have a playlist on my iTunes called 'Musical Favs Etc' which currently runs to over 700 songs. If I'm in a mediocre mood I let the playlist run and see what effect it has. If I'm in a terrible mood I'm forced to select the songs which will most improve my mood. These are some of my current favourites:

• 'Birdhouse In Your Soul' - Kristin Chenoweth & Ellen Greene from the soundtrack to Pushing Daisies.
• 'We're Gonna Be Alright' - Julienne Marie & Stuart Damon from Do I Hear A Waltz?
• 'A Parade In Town' - Angela Lansbury from Anyone Can Whistle.
• 'Thank You Very Much' - James Head from Scrooge.
• 'It's A Lovely Day Today' - Donald O'Connor from Call Me Madam.
• 'On How To Be Lovely' - Kay Thompson & Audrey Hepburn from Funny Face.
• 'The Life I Never Led' - Katie Rowley Jones from Sister Act: The Musical.
• 'I've Gotta Be Me' - Glee cast version.
• 'Walkin' My Baby Back Home' - Bing Crosby & Judy Garland.
• 'A Little Priest' - Angela Lansbury & Len Cariou from Sweeney Todd.
• 'Old Friends' - Ann Morrison, Jim Walton & Lonny Price from Merrily We Roll Along.
• 'One Brick At A Time' - Glenn Close from Barnum.
• 'Down The Lane' - Toni Palmer from Blitz!
• 'Out There' - Jim Dale from Barnum.
• 'Just Around The Corner' - Bebe Neuwirth from The Addams Family.
• 'Another Little Victory' - Sarah Lancashire & Reece Shearsmith from Betty Blue Eyes.

As you can tell from that list, Stephen Sondheim inspires me quite a bit with four songs from his pen. There are many many more songs in my playlist that fire me up. 'A Little Priest' may seem a bit of an odd choice but it's full of energy and venom - sometimes all you need to be inspired. I go through phases with them, relying on various songs to drag me out of different types of doldrums. 

My latest love is 'Nobody' from Betty Blue Eyes, a musical I didn't get to see but I fell in love with the soundtrack at first listen. 'Nobody' is sung by Sarah Lancashire's character, Joyce, and pretty much embodies the lift I need to give myself at times. Take a look at this live performance:

She's right - nobody gets the privilege of calling me nobody because they don't know the first thing about me. Any wonder this song is currently my favourite?

Juliet Barker

Last night I was fortunate enough to attend a talk with Juliet Barker, historian and author of what's really the definitive book on the Bronte family from someone so immersed in the family and era that she's practically a walking encyclopaedia on them. The famous 1994 book was fully updated and revised last year and runs to almost 1000 pages. The talk was part of the Morley Literature Festival and was held at the Gildersome Conservative Club. It was packed out and the ticket came complete with pie and peas - how can you go wrong with that?

Barker certainly knows her subject. My father (I bribed him with the pie and peas to be my driver and companion) described the talk as an assassination of Mrs Gaskell's portrait of the Brontes which has endured since publication in 1857, particularly the representations of Patrick and Branwell Bronte. It's as interesting to note why Mrs Gaskell made her conclusions as discovering which elements of life she distorted. But as well as the critique of Mrs Gaskell, there were also little titbits that demonstrated the life in both the Parsonage and Haworth itself.

There were a few questions from the audience, one quite specifically asking about the school where Patrick and Maria Bronte met. I was impressed by Barker's ability to not only reel off an answer but to respond at length with barely any thought behind it. Such a knowledge can only be gained by thorough involvement in - and love for - your subject and her warmth towards it was more than evident in her voice.

I came away with a signed and dedicated copy of the new edition, although I was too timid to go up and talk to her so I got my father to do it (and he paid!). Alas, the book will have to wait its turn to be read but I can't help relishing the enjoyment that's ahead of me.