I read fiction. Mainly science fiction and fantasy. I love fiction that teaches me something. Something about myself or what it is to be human. I write fiction. I hope strangers will read it and find something that sticks in their minds.
On this site you can find information about my current projects.
Very occasionally I come across a quotation that resonates with me. I will share some here, in case they inspire you too.
Virginia Woolf:
Women have burnt like beacons in all the works of all the poets from the beginning of time. Indeed if woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of the utmost importance; very various; heroic and mean; splendid and sordid; beautiful and hideous in the extreme; as great as a man, some would say greater. But this is woman in fiction. In fact, as Professor Trevelyan points out, she was locked up, beaten and flung about the room. A very queer, composite being thus emerges. Imaginatively she is of the highest importance; practically she is completely insignificant. She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history. She dominates the lives of kings and conquerors in fiction; in fact she was the slave of any boy whose parents forced a ring upon her finger. Some of the most inspired words and profound thoughts in literature fall from her lips; in real life she could hardly read; scarcely spell; and was the property of her husband.
She also wrote:
A woman must have money and a room of her own if she us to write fiction.
I try and write about the ‘real’ women Woolf described and I’m still working on the money and the room!
It’s been a long time since I posted anything here. But now I’ve decided that 2023 is the year when I will get more writing done and all those unfinished novels will be completed (or almost!). Check out the page on work in progress.
That being said, I have of course added a new novel to the long list. Back in October 2022 I went on a day long writing experience at the Bishop’s Palace in Wells, Somerset. It was a great day where I got dressed up in medieval garb and wandered the Palace grounds in full cloak and wimple, thinking of a new story. The day was focussed on the Black Death and how it affected life in Wells. I was so inspired by the day that I put pen to paper for the first time in almost a year and the words started to flow.
So now I am writing a novel set in the 1340s in Wells, featuring as the main character a woman who is a healer, herb woman and birth-mother (mid wife). She also acts much as a mediaeval barber would (her husband being in said trade). When the plague comes to town everyone’s world is turned upside down and opportunities for revenge abound. My protagonist is no exception and she carves a murderous way through the clerics and townspeople. Well that’s the plan! All writers know that your characters take you where they will, we have very little say in the matter!
As I write this I am enjoying a wonderful writing retreat in a small cottage called Holly Well Croft just south of Leominster in Herefordshire (see https://www.cottages.com/cottages/hollywall-croft-hh82). It’s quite isolated with only farms around and if, like me, you have no car, the nearest shop is an hours walk away (downhill so it’s probably longer to get back fully laden). The cottage dates from at least 1651 when it was part of a gift to a daughter on her marriage and is probably a deal older. The present owners moved it timber by timber in the late 1970s as it was placed on what had become a site of special scientific interest and access to it was a problem. It was lived in in its original location until 1912. It has moved only a few hundred yards and sits more or less where its previous owners would recognise.
On a practical note, I brought my food supplies, spelt wheat to make bread, almond milk for cooking, dried fruits, little meat, turnip, carrot, onions (they ate a lot of onions) and leeks, some eggs and cheese. Armed with Chaucer and a medieval cookbook I was ready. I am baking my own bread – preparing the dough at night to bake fresh in the morning. I am making my own ricotta style cheese – not very successfully as I only have semi skimmed rather than full fat milk. Best of all I am able to don the basic costume of the woman I am writing about. I have a veil and a long dress based on medieval designs. I have my cloak (an item I bought back in the 1980s as it happens, mohair and water resistant), and a knitted shawl (yes they did knit – even the Virgin Mary is painted knitting – google it if you don’t believe me). I don’t have the layers of petticoats but it’s close enough. Immersing myself in the lifestyle is a real eye opener. You understand how a person moves, what the limitations are and how reduced their peripheral vision is when a veil hides the sides of your face blocking out the person to left or right.
The smells of the cooking are also new and surprisingly the food is not at all bland. The habit of mixing fruit with meat or fish is actually very nice. Dried fruit was not prohibitively expensive (around 1 to 4 pence for a pound of dried fruit, almonds or rice) and craftspeople could certainly treat themselves on occasion. If you could afford a penny for some spices that would last you the month, it was probably a good investment. As a working woman my character can acquire some extras. It’s hard to work out wage values for the period and many people got paid in kind, or were given sleeping quarters or clothes as part of the employment. Typically a craftsperson, like my barber, could expect to earn 3 or 4 pence per day. Bread was roughly 5 loaves for a penny (enough for a family of three). Rent would be approximately 5 pence per week (20 shillings a year). This means that after rent and bread a craftsman working six days a week had 13 pence or one shilling 1 penny a week for everything else. Ale, the drink of choice was roughly 3/4 of a penny a gallon (8 pints). It wasn’t strong stuff and most folk would have seen off that gallon every day. A family certainly would have used more. If our craftsman bought a gallon a day that would amount to around 5 or 6 pence per week. His disposable income was now 7 pence. Enough to buy barley and oats and eggs and save some for annual clothing costs, taxes tithes and guild fees.
Obviously I have made a few concessions to modern life. I am using electricity – not least to power my laptop. I am cooking on an old electric cooker and enjoying a hot shower each day along with the very necessary flush toilet! But otherwise I am trying to stay in the zone. So far so good. Day 2 and I have 15,739 words down.
I feel it is important to make one last statement of what is the blindingly obvious: life was hard in the fourteenth century. We think we have it tough with our modern work-life balancing act, but back then you had to get your food (market, harvest, garden, hunt), prepare it, preserve some for leaner times, keep your house in good order, mind your children, sew, spin, make clothes, feed any animals or chickens or geese you had, tend all the wounds and ailments in your household, say your payers, and if you had time sleep, all whilst you were either pregnant or had just given birth. No mechanical aids, no fridge, no nursery school, just you and your wits. And once it got dark, that was time up. Anything left undone was added to the next day’s tasks. No time for writing so I think I’ll stick with the play-acting!
Now how to get in the zone for my sci-fi writing…
Hi everyone.
With the coronavirus – Covid-19 – outbreak, here in UK we are confined to our homes. For the past 10 days I have been unable to leave my home, but luckily, apart from the symptoms of a severe cold and cough, I have been keeping well. My family is scattered across the UK, but all seem fit and well with the notable exception of my husband.
He has the virus (although we are not testing in UK so I cant say with medical certainty). I have never seen him this ill, not even when as an adult he got chicken pox. He has been ill for 11 days. His temperature spikes over 38.4 and the pain is unmanageable. He constantly coughs and that wreaks havoc on his headaches. I’m a huge Terry Goodkind fan and read the Sword of Truth novels with a passion (obsessively some might say!). In those stories the hero, Richard, suffers from headaches so severe they will kill him. Terry’s description of how they affect his character could have been written from life – the life of my husband. It’s terrifying.
All I can do is provide drinks, a little food and pain relief. I cant hug him or stroke his face. Not because I’m heartless but because I am in a high risk category. I suffer with a blood-clotting problem and have had clots on my lungs and this is a respiratory virus. I daren’t do anything that means I may get it.
What am I doing to keep sane? I decided to go back to my writing, which had been on pause whilst I settled into a new job and recovered from major surgery. I promised myself I’d write at least a few words everyday. I did that through January. Then the virus began to take hold around the globe and things began to change.
So, today, 10 days into my house confinement I have picked up my lap top, cleared a work space and begun writing again.
As you may recall, I tend to write multiple projects at the same time. Not sure why, but that’s me! The work I picked up this morning was “Mergers and Acquisitions” a sci-fi novel I began several years ago and have never really been happy with. The characters seemed unreal to me and the scenario flipped from trite to too far-fetched (is that even possible for sci-fi?). The theme? How a hidden cabal of corporate interests cashes-in on a word-wide pandemic to take control of our planet. Now, I can re-write portions of that with real life experience. Not what I would have wanted by a long way, but, writers should write from experience as well as imagination.
In between sneezes, coughing and aching limbs I will set my self the task of completing and publishing this short novel. I will let you know when its available.
Stay well. stay safe, and stay indoors.
Ocassionaly I find a quote that resonates with me.
Virginia Woolf
Women have burnt like beacons in all the works of all the poets from the beginning of time. Indeed if woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of the utmost importance; very various; heroic and mean; splendid and sordid; beautiful and hideous in the extreme; as great as a man, some would say greater. But this is woman in fiction. In fact, as Professor Trevelyan points out, she was locked up, beaten and flung about the room. A very queer, composite being thus emerges. Imaginatively she is of the highest importance; practically she is completely insignificant. She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history. She dominates the lives of kings and conquerors in fiction; in fact she was the slave of any boy whose parents forced a ring upon her finger. Some of the most inspired words and profound thoughts in literature fall from her lips; in real life she could hardly read; scarcely spell; and was the property of her husband.
She also wrote:
A woman needs money and a room if her own if she is to write fiction
I try to write about the ‘real’ women. I’m still working on the money and the room!
Loved this little piece. Me to a T, except of course I’m not a man, I don’t have a dog and I live in rainy UK!
I annoyed Mrs. Elfwriter this past Labor Day weekend. You see, I had promised not to do it, to exercise some self-control, to be a team player, a family man. She ended up exasperated, calling me ‘possessed,’ which I will accept as a compliment though I suspect this was not her intention.
You see, I was ahead of my goals. Sacrificial Flame was released in July, the sequel (we will call it Book 5) is written in what Anne Lamott delightfully called the “shitty first draft” and has successfully passed first inspection from my severest critics – my sons in our annual family ritual.
Our annual family camping trip, where for five years I have read the latest Wycaan Master manuscript to my boys.
Book 5 has been put aside for a couple of months to allow some fermentation before undergoing initial homemade perusal as prep for the open heart surgery…
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Source: Work in progress – science fiction and fantasy
Ever bitten off more than you can chew? 2016 is my year of inspiration so I’m capturing the gifts the Muse supplies! I wonder if I’ll get these finished to a standard fit for publication by this time next year? Looking forward to sharing some of these with writers anon of Taunton.
Good advice here. Let’s take the plunge!
So you’ve joined a writing group, but now it’s time to give feedback to your fellow writers and worse, receive feedback. Both can be daunting and both can be handled badly. When it comes to giving criticism, being too nice doesn’t help the writer improve, but being too blunt or even nasty can crush someone’s confidence. Equally, hearing that your work isn’t a thing of wonder can be hard to take, but it’s invaluable because writing in a vacuum is just vanity.
With these tips on providing and receiving criticism on writing, you’ll learn how to respect the feelings and opinions of your fellow writers, but you’ll also learn when to ignore your writing group.
Writing group critiques don’t have to be like this (img. Raging Bull © 1980 – MGM)
Providing Constructive Criticism:
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Is this the hardest thing of all?
Source: Writer’s Glossary: Synopsis
Author Jane Grenfell 