Mystery Reviewer, Aged 9

Oh dear! What a long gap since my last post. Have been busy working, visiting, holidaying, writing and also discovering Facebook which does seem to eat away at a person's time.

But - hooray! - I'm here to share what feels like the first real review of my novel A BOY CALLED MOUSE. It came on a postcard from a most kind reader aged 9. I don't want to give his name as I haven't yet checked that he wants me to post this up. But I'd like to commend him for working his way all the way through the bound copy. It is definitely not a quick read.

"A BOY CALLED MOUSE is a really interesting book. It has a really good story with lots of funny bits and peculiar parts as well. I really enjoyed it."

By the way, I'm very much hoping that "peculiar parts as well" means good things about MOUSE which is out on 4th October.

Although I've had some very positive grown-up comments, a book never feels quite real to me unless someone young has read it. Now my new novel feels as if it exists.
Thank you hugely, my mystery reviewer!

Maybe it worked?

Had a great time last week, and now I've recovered, have just had a sudden idea about an important linking scene, and suddenly Tome Two is waking up again. The relief.

Was it last week's inspiring company? The sessions, the talk, the giggles, the late nights? Certainly it all helped.

Or was it possibly the choice of at least three plentiful home-made puds (or more) twice a day for four days? Maybe both factors, and maybe also the space to think.

But something plottish has at long last clicked.

An inspiring situation.

Looking forward to a week away at Charney Manor, an old manor house in the deep grassy countryside well west of Oxford. I am hoping my stay will include some time to think and work on Tome Two. Just now I'm playing with the "voice" of the story once my two heroes meet. Do I do one chapter in one and one in another? And do I mix in third-person too? The only true answer is to try it, becuase you're thinking about the story as you write too.

My mind's been too full of other things. I've had a busy time catching up on tax returns, admin, a couple of shorter pieces of writing, and various odds and ends for an organisation I belong to. But they are all done - including putting the cover of A BOY CALLED MOUSE up on my website - so maybe my mind will be free enough to move the new story on a bit? Hope so.

There Are Cats In This Book!

Just to show that I'm not totally preoccupied with Tome One and Tome Two in this blog, I want to mention someone else's book. I came across THER ARE CATS IN THIS BOOK, a totally effective and delightful flip-the-page picture book last week when calling into the tiny but well-filled Aldersbrook Library in Wanstead.

It has a really easy but interesting use of pages and page shapes, together with three beautifully drawn cats: one red almost-kitten, one thin blue anxious cat, and one huge yellow tom-cat. Tiny, Moonpie and Andre, though the names aren't needed for the story.

There's a flip-over-flap saying "biff!" on the pillow fight spread that kept a 3 year old boy flapping and laughing so much I almost feared for the pages. Mind you, he loved it all, and so did his six year old sister, and so did several big people too!

Thank you for this great book, Viviane Schwarz.

Doing The Mental Arithmetic

For someone who still gets anxious when faced with numbers, writing often feels surprisingly like maths. Just now I am going over (again, again!) the first part of Tome Two.

All the time I am saying things to myself like "Does this add up? Does this truly make sense? Have I got this right?"

Or things like "Is this bit logical? Does it fit into the pattern of the plot? If I do x and y, will I end up with the right answer for the reader?"

Words and phrases are all very well but sometimes intense calculation (of a sort) is needed. Thank heavens I don't have to do it like a Ten Minute Test.

Penny & the Halfpenny Bridge

Hello again. I have just come back from ten days in Ireland. The first weekend we spent in Dublin, where we revisited The Winding Stair Bookshop at the north foot of the Halfpenny Bridge, once known as a famous writers cafe.

Writers - or anyone - could, for the cost of a coffee, pose enigmatically in the slanting light of one of the upper windows, knowing the famous footbridge would appear in the background of the photograph. Presumably, once snapped for posterity, they could then search for their works among the many shelves. The place had a definite if slightly faded and rambling charm. Posh it was not.

Now the premises has now been split. There is a smart restaurant upstairs with all the window tables reserved. Any impoverished writer will have to pay out somewhat more for their refreshment than once upon a time. We got a last moment early evening table, but unfortunately chatted so long that we were asked - politely, apologetically - to leave halfway through our pudddings as the 7pm table sitting had arrived. So not quite the relaxed mood of the past, although the food was good enough to think of going back. Sometime. Someone there might have been Maeve Binchy. Or not.

Downstairs The Winding Stair bookshop has risen again, piled with a splendid collection of books. I'd just finished The Secret Scripture by playwright Sebastian Barry. A sad tale, centred around an account of the early life of a woman committed to Roscommon asylum years before and full of the familiar tension between clergy and people. Although there was something about the book as a whole that didn't quite work for me, in many places the writing was quite wonderful.

Browsing throught he crowded shelves, I spotted Barry's first world war novel, A Long Long Way. The young man in the shop said it was a better book than The Secret Scripture, so I bought it on his opinion. It was - as he said - a stronger book, and just as tragic. Both - though I haven't checked this out fully - seem to have grown from Barry's own family history. Anyway, thank you, helpful independent bookshop person!

Annoyingly, when we returned via Dublin there wasn't the time to pick up some of the other titles I'd mused on during the week. Our lovely car passenger and her luggage were now all on ther way to Toronto so there'd have been no end to the books I could have fitted in.

Getting Free of the Words

One of the problems - yet another, you cry scornfully? - of being a writer is the endless chattering of words. The continual jabbering away in the head. Questions about life and general stuff, of course, but also worries about all sorts of things to do with writing visiting and events, both those to come, and those done. Then the briefs and ideas you are talking to yourself and the ones you should be talking to yourself about.

Then there's the nagging doubts about the actual writing: is it okay? does anyone read it? why is my head so empty? does anybody even know my book exists? Move from that into the constructing with and editing of words, the weighing of one phrase, word or sound against each other, one after another after another. Words. Words. I love words, but sometimes I feel as if I can never get away from them.

I tried to relax. Reading? More words. TV & screen stuff? The critic in the head keeps going, analysing all the plot options. Painting? Drawing? Working with the hands? Those make the mind even freer to keep talking.

But I've found a way, a totally brilliant way to get an hours peace. Djembe drumming! Otherwise known as African drumming! Even though I am the most feeble drummer, I just love it. One of reasons is that time spent djembe drumming is an almost totally word free zone. When I drum, there's no room for words in my head. If I stop concentrating-and-counting for a second - even to think the words "Yes, I've got it!", my rhythm is likely to go, and I'll have to work hard to get it back. Djembe drumming quiets the mind - and it's fun and it's a sociable thing. It's a very unwriterly experience.

Though there's a teeny tiny problem. I'm not good at music theory, and complex counting alarms me, so quite often I find myself muttering " "ONE and TWO and NO! and NOW" or "CHIP BUTTY, CHIP BUTTY, CHIP BUTTY" to keep a particular rhythm in my head and hands. So not quite truly wordless, but almost as good. Djembe drumming, the writer's friend.