#MyBookBuzz

If you have been watching Twitter over the last few days you may have noticed the hashtag

#MyBookBuzz flying around. It has been wonderful and caught a lot of people's imagination. It came from the Book Trust who have a fabulous reading scheme called Book Buzz aimed mainly at Year 7s (the closing date to participate was the today the 21st July). #MyBookBuzz caught people's imagination because they were tagging books that had inspired them to be readers or to become writers when they were young. It was wonderful to see the eclectic mix of books that were appearing on Twitter. It was also really hard. Having only 140 characters to list the books that influenced/inspired you was impossible particularly as everytime you saw someone else's tweet you thought 'Oh yes and that one..two...three.' I am blaming Abigail Tanner for this blog post. She encouraged me to write it when I said I couldn't fit them all in. 

As a child, I was a vociferous reader. At times being known to read a book a day. They were my escape. Despite coming from a very large family - I was the youngest of five - there were some quite large age gaps so I had the privilege of having a large family but also spent quite a while as almost an only child. I was very lucky with my sisters and brother doing amazing things though it did mean I spent quite a lot of time on my own. We were forever moving so I never formed any close friendships bar one with whom I am still friends. The books were my friends. Don't get me wrong my childhood was idyllic. I can remember my parents and my sisters reading to me when I was very small. When I was older my eldest sister, who also happened to be one of my godparents, would buy wonderful books for me. I still have the book of poetry she bought me tucked away. Unfortunately, I can't find an image of the book.

The other thing I can remember vividly is being read to at school. Some wonderful stories such as Clive King's Stig of the Dump, Ian Serraillier's The Silver Sword, Nina Bawden's Carrie's War and

Anne Holm's I am David. We would be sat on the carpet at the end of school absolutely enthralled by the stories, hanging on every word. I have just noticed a pattern in the stories I remember the most there and my own story about to be published by Firefly. There is a distinct World War Two theme going on but then both my parents had both lived through it and, my mother, in particular, would regale me with stories of her time as a WRN.

At home, my stories tended to have more of a familiar theme: horses. I was passionate about them. I kept being told that at the next house we would have a paddock and I could have my own. It never materialised lol. This is where I would really live my dreams through my books. I would read Elyne Mitchell's The Silver Brumby series, Mary O'Hara My Friend Flicka and all the stories by the Pullein-Thompson sisters. I would relive the stories in the garden with our poor dog, Henry, who was my pretend horse. He was made to jump various courses I created. Bless him he was very willing and tolerant. I would also devour Edith Nesbit and The Railway Children, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, and of course, Noel Streatfield with Ballet Shoes. I still dip into it every now and then. 

As I got older I moved on to Daphne Du Maurier. I can also remember vividly reading her book Rule Britannia and taking it into school as my current book. This was before secondary school. Oh so precocious! I then have a confession. I think I at some point I moved onto Jilly Cooper...well she did have horses in it ;-). I adored Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals which I had to study for O'Level (yes I am that old!). It lived with me for a long time.  I was also into D H Lawrence. In the Sixth Form we tormented a poor newly qualified, delicious looking English teacher when we were studying Lawrence's Three Novellas, discussing any potential innuendo in minute detail while we watched him blush. 17-year-olds can be cruel looking back.

Books are a joy. Thinking about this post has brought back so many happy memories. They always say music and smell can take you back to a certain moment in time but I think a book can too. Books can be places of safety to hide in, places to find consolation, to find moments of joy and hope. They are places where you can work out who you are, and just as importantly, who you are not. You can ask questions without being laughed at, seeking and finding the answers time and again without mockery. Books are hugs in a page. They are magical.

How about a little bit of Laura Mvula and 'That's Alright!'

To collect photographs is to collect the world - Susan Sontag

Wine time!

I was given a new camera yesterday by gorgeous daughter and her husband. Mine broke ages ago and I just hadn't got round to replacing it. It was a total and glorious surprise. It seems pertinent too after my previous post where I was discussing the idea of an 'Art-Track'. I love photographs. My sister has a degree in photography and has produced some truly outstanding pieces - I must get some to show you. I always admire how she can just see the perfect image.

For me photographs freeze a moment in time. A memory. A flicker of emotion. A lifetime long ago. Loves and losses. Happiness and sadness. Laughter and tears. Susan Sontag suggests that '[t]o collect photographs is to collect the world.' So true. And it is so simple now in this day and age. You take a photo with your camera, your phone or your tablet and within seconds it can be shared with the world if you wish it. Long gone are the days of taking the film in to be developed. Now it is all about the instant gratification. Social media means you can share these images with friends and family. For all the negativity which surrounds social media, it is a wonderful way to keep in touch with a family that is spread far and wide. It allows them to still feel involved and up to date.

The photo above is of my mother at my niece's wedding. Two wine glasses in hand and much laughter epitomises her. A single photo can initiate so many other memories. I have bags and boxes of family photos dating back to the late 1800s. Full of faces who no longer have names. Taken at times we can't necessarily understand. But they are all memories. All are fragments of our identities. These days the bags and boxes have been replaced with the likes of iCloud or Dropbox. All photos securely saved in the ether. That tactile moment of holding a photograph has been removed. It is all about the visual now.

With thanks to
National Geographic

Photographs are also a great source of inspiration for writers. As many of you, who read this blog, will be aware that a certain photograph was the motivation behind my PhD novel. It was the fear in the girl's eyes that got me asking the questions: 'What is she afraid of? Why is she hesitant?

When you take a photograph you appropriate the object you are photographing (again as suggested by Susan Sontag). There is an element of power and knowledge as it becomes yours. You own that image at that particular moment. With my new camera I intend to take lots of photos. Ones that I can use, or my students, for inspiration. To stir up those creative ideas. If they are any that are any good I may even share them with you. They will become part of that 'art-track' again. If you are willing you could send me some of your favourite photographs that I could use as a source of inspiration. Maybe I will try and write a short story to match each one.

In the meantime here is another memory. It is seven years since I travelled to Albuquerque for a conference even though I had only just started my PhD. Where has all that confidence gone? I ended up sleeping on the floor of Denver Airport when snow stopped our flights and didn't 'feed' for several days. It was an amazing, if exhausting, experience. Here is Neil Young singing 'Albuquerque'

Art as inspiration and as the 'art-track' of your life

James Allan Untitled (2013)

There was an article in The Guardian recently by Alain de Botton which was discussing whether art can provide solace, hope and reassurance. For me this is a given, of course it can and it doesn't stop there. Art can provide inspiration for writers too. I suggest to many of my students and the authors I work with that they should go to art galleries. Sit and take in the pictures/sculptures. Let them talk to you. You never know what might come out of such an experience. It may be an idea for a novel or the starting lines of a poem. Open your heart to all art. (Have you ever noticed that art is such an important part of the word heart...)

But it also got me thinking about the idea of an 'art-track' as opposed to a 'sound-track' to your life. I believe our tastes in art evolves and develops throughout our lives, consequently, it only seems logical that, like with music, certain artefacts can inspire and remind us of certain moments in time. They capture a memory. Below are some of my 'art-tracks'...

The James Allan piece above is an installation that I find intriguing. It makes me think of Icarus and soaring high into the sky. James is an artist I have only recently found. He is based in New Zealand.

The picture on the right was introduced to me by Philip Pullman at a conference. When I asked him about the picture he very kindly sent me all the details and a link to where I could find it. Unfortunately it was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Somewhere I have yet to manage to get to. One day...

I love the simplicity of it all. It is entitled 'Man Reading in the Garden' by Daumier. I was lucky enough to be given a copy of it for my birthday last year. It is waiting to be hung in my office. It is such a peaceful picture and reading in the dappled shade of a garden is something I love to do.

This is obviously a Rothko and it brings back some very happy memories of a time just after my final viva for my PhD. I went straight up to London for a conference and to spend some time with a great friend. We talked, laughed and cried a lot over those few days as we drank a lot of bubbles to celebrate my success. But we also spent a lot of time in companionable silence in the Rothko Room at the Tate Modern. A perfect time.

Then there is of course Folon - another artist that I was introduced to during my PhD.

This is one of my particular favourites as I love the idea that your head is being led by your heart. The colours are so warm and joyous.

The picture on the right was a piece of original art I bought in my past life when I was a business person. It was an investment. There are two more original pieces waiting to come back out from under the stairs as I reclaim my house. I loved this piece for the colours.

And finally, my latest acquisition, which you have already seen. A Christmas present, just called 'It's never too late...' And it is never too late to find the art that makes your heart soar and sing.

Obviously these are just a few of the pieces of art I love. I could go on forever...but won't! What are you favourite pieces and how do they inspire you.

Here is an appropriate song for today and another one from the sound track of my life. This was one of my mother's favourite songs when I was very young. It is Vincent by Don McLean

What happens when your muses move out?

My inspiration

My world is changing at the moment. Gorgeous daughter is getting married in less than two weeks and youngest son moves out to live with his girlfriend next week. Think eldest son will be moving out very soon too also to live with his girlfriend. I will have an empty nest. What has that got to do with my writing. Quite a bit actually because they were my inspiration. They are part of the reason I wrote young adult fiction.

But as you can gather from above they are all in their 20s now so are at the top end of YA anyway. Does that mean I need to change my writing? Do I have a right to continue writing YAF? What happens when your muses move out? Will I be able to still write? Rachel Ward wrote a insightful post on a similar idea this week on Author Allsorts Blog. I have no idea what the answer to these questions are going to be. It will be a wait a see moment.

As you know from last week I have a new story to write and though it has a young adult protagonist it is very different from anything I have written so far. I am loving writing and am very inspired by it but have yet to find out whether IC thinks it is working and worth pursuing. IC and I were having a conversation this week about writing (we weren't supposed to be talking about that but we had gone off at a tangent as we do oh so frequently!). We were talking about the need to maintain momentum if you get published. You need another book (or at least a good idea) there ready. But of course there some people who don't want to write anymore. They have had their one book published and that's all they wanted. This I find very difficult to understand. I have to write, or at the very least I constantly have ideas going round in my head, and I know from some of my writerly friends they feel the same. I cannot imagine just writing one story. I watch people and make up stories about them. I look at artefacts and think about what has happened to them, what might they have seen? My world is full of 'what ifs?' just like Rachel.

I am hoping that with my empty house I will have 'a room of one's own' to write in.I also hope this will give me the head space to create wonderful narratives. And even though my muses will have gone the stories will still flow because, like Rachel Ward, I find teenagers fascinating. I love to see them trying to work out who they are and developing such strong identities with their whole lives ahead of them. However, I must continue to keep an eye on teenage culture, continue to read young adult fiction and watch what is making their world turn.

Yesterday I had to set up a royalites account for an academic book I am about to write. That is pretty daunting too. All very grown up. It is based on elements of my PhD but also a lot more. I will be relieved to have the space to research and write it in too.

Time to embrace the new world and fight the fear. Please excuse the obvious sentimentality of this but they may be moving out and starting wonderful, well deserved new lives but they will always 'still belong to me'. Thank you for being the best children anyone could ever wish for CH, LH and TH and good luck for the future gorgeous people. I am so proud of you all. (Oops is that vomit sounds I can hear?!)

Snow....

The view from my front door

I have a love/hate relationship with snow. I love the beauty of it and the inspiration it can provide. I hate the way the UK grinds to a halt with a bit of snow. I hate it even more this year as I can't risk falling and it is making me feel very old and trapped in my home.

Many years ago if it snowed when you were at primary school suddenly all classes were adapted. Everything was changed to accommodate snow related exercises. You would be given the chance to write about it. Now as we are older I think sometimes we forget about that joy, so for my students, who couldn't get to class on Friday as the university was closed and the snow fell out of the sky, I sent them an email asking them to write about the snow. I wonder what they will come up with. Maybe today I will write about it too.

In the meantime a good friend sent me this poem via her over heated environment and it is just so beautiful I had to share. It is 'Snow' by Gillian Clarke:

We're brought to our senses, awake
to the black and whiteness of world.
Snow's sensational. It tastes
of ice and fire. Hold a handful of cold.

Ball it between your palms
to throw at the moon. Relish its plushy creak.
Shake blossoms from chestnut and beech,
gather its laundered linen in your arms.

A twig of witch hazel from the ghost-garden
burns like myrrh in this room. Listen!
ice is whispering. Night darkens,
the mercury falls in the glass, glistening.

Motorways muffled in silence, lorries stranded
like dead birds, airports closed, trains trackless.
White paws lope the river on plates of ice
in the city's bewildered wilderness.

It appears in her collection Ice which was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, 2013. How fabulous are some of those images - 'ice is whispering' for example?

This post serves no purpose other than to celebrate wonderful writing and snow.

A former student posted this piece of music and suggested you looked out of the window at the snow as you listened to it and then try and write something. Be inspired. A good exercise I think. The music is Balmorhea's Winter Circle