Hidden Stratford

A mention from across the pond!

bookchildworld — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:42:05 +0000

I’ve been sent this impressive link to the LA Times of all things…

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2010/03/stratford-literary-festival-group-writing-project.html

The book’s fame spreads!

And I’ve seen the cover, and it looks brilliant. The artist – a student at a local high school – has a great sense of visual drama, and the cover looks wonderfully professional.

end is nigh

bookchildworld — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 21:06:14 +0000

I’ve read it, the editor’s read it, we both like it, it’s a miracle, hallelujah! Just some little edits to do, and we’re pretty much good to go.

The cover gets going

bookchildworld — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:20:24 +0000

Great meeting today with some art students and two book cover designers from Orion. the students are going to come up with a cover for ‘The World Turned Upside Down’. It was really interesting finding out about how a cover is made, from the designers’ point of view. Usually it just turns up in my inbox almost before i’ve even started writing the book!

The trouble with blogging about writing your book…

bookchildworld — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 16:36:56 +0000

is that usually, as you’re writing it, you are either:

1) really excited about it, spend every waking moment thinking about it, chewing your fingernails if you can’t get to a pen, and you don’t want to blog because you just want to write, write, write your amazing, brilliant, thrilling book.

2) horribly unhappy about it, convinced your book is a pile of poo, the worst book ever known to man, an utter disgrace, and you have no desire to blog about it because you’re so utterly ashamed of it that you never want to think about it again.

The other day I read everything I’ve written up till now. I approached it with fear and trembling, because I was feeling 2). I had to stuff a chocolate brownie into my mouth as I read, in a desperate attempt to re-balance my happy levels, which sank to a critical state every time I glanced at the manuscript. I sat in Sainsbury’s cafe and read it all the way through from start to end. And you know what? It’s not THAT bad.

The Modern Writer

bookchildworld — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:22:45 +0000

This is the first book I have written - not entirely, but a good part of it – directly typed into the computer. I’ve always been an advocate of longhand, I still am: it gets you, literally, in touch with your story. Writing longhand, you feel the tale through the pen. Crossing out is still quicker than hitting the delete key. And writing is physical, you move your body, you curl your arm around the page, you chew your pen top, you drum your fingers and stare into space, as if the story was actually happening, ghostly, before your eyes.

However, the fact is that I – like most other people I know – spend more time on a computer than doing anything else in the day. So writing on the computer becomes more natural – and it’s a heck of a lot quicker than writing longhand, then typing it up.

If there are any wannabe writers reading this, here’s a link to an excellent series of podcasts that take you through more or less everything you need to know. I’ve just been listening to the one on ‘conflict’ and finding it very relevant to the way I’m going about writing this book.

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/audio/more/writingchallenges/

Recovered

bookchildworld — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:08:09 +0000

Feeling much better today and more positive. Finished the ‘first section’ and about to start on the second. Lots has changed (not least my sample chapters) but this is normal. Trickiest thing is working out how to mingle the various voices from different times. I was going to do ‘one chapter future’ ‘one chapter past’ , alternating, but now I think it’ll be ‘big section future’, ‘big section past’. Unless I change it again.

The time has come (again)

bookchildworld — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 10:39:54 +0000

There comes a time in the writing of every book where you think ‘Not only am I completely sick of this book, bored to the back teeth with it, but it is also a pile of rubbish which no-one will ever want to read. Why? Why??? Why????’

This has happened without fail in the writing of every single book since the world began. I have no dobut that before God sent the stone tablets down the moutnain with Moses he went through a phase of thinking: ‘These commandments are rubbish! No-one will ever follow them! Why? Why?? Why???”

Many years ago, I used to give up when I got to that phase. Not any more.

However, I am going to go and drink coffee. And I’m goign to take my notebook with me – sometimes moving from typing to writing helps. Makes the brain think it’s a different story, or something, probably.

Happy new year!

Some photos from yesterday’s research trip to Stratford

bookchildworld — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:00:04 +0000

Holy Trinity Church: it was there in 1642, what might it be like in 2020?

The Avon. I want the story, in both 'time zones', to move around the river as a central point...

... and particularly around Clopton Bridge, which is so significant and symbolic as an entrance point into the city.

I’m reading Phillip Tennant’s very useful books – Stratford in the Civil War is a godsend! Also was really lucky to meet, yesterday when visiting Nash’s House and the site of New Place, a very helpful lady who’s in the Sealed Knot, a Civil War reenactment society.

Happy Christmas!

Edgehill 1642 / 2009

bookchildworld — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 17:31:02 +0000

Went to visit the battlefield of Edgehill the other day – there’s a great pub there with lots of pictures, armour, etc. representing the Civil War inside it. We walked down the ridge a bit and then drove alongside it towards Tysoe. It really helped bring it to life for me, especially as there was a hard frost the night of the battle too.

Where the Parlimentarian army would have stood at the bottom (facing camera)

Where the Royalists would have stood at the top (no cars and houses then!)

It's a hill. And an edge.

The Commandery

bookchildworld — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:23:43 +0000

Today I went to the Commandery in Worcester to find out more about what it was like to be a soldier in the Civil War. The Commandery is an amazing building which has been standing, in one form or another, since the 1100′s. It was the site of the last battle of the Civil War, and as you walk around the audio guide enthusiastically recreates what the scene would have been like (“There’s blood all over the floor! The stink of putrefaction is everywhere!”) It’s a huge building but it wouldhave been packed out with wounded Royalist soldiers, wounded, terrified, and desperate. also, did you know that if you got shot in the head with a musket ball the doctors would trepan you (knock another hole in your head) to relieve the pressure on the brain? Hmm, must find a way of working that into the plot….

The Commandery Great Hall

Impressive carved dog or lion or something.

The back of a Civil War era gun

The front of a cilvil war era gun