I never know quite what I’m going to stumble across when scanning the headlines of the Morning Updates from The Bookseller that accumulate in my Gmail Inbox. Most of these are clearly more relevant to well-established publishing houses than to individual book readers, (or to brand new, very small publishers like my own Novel Press) but the Feed Reader comes up with more variety – the one that caught my eye is from last Thursday’s update, with the heading: A week without books, from The Guardian World News.

Bibi van der Zee is a bookaholic who was going cold turkey for a week. She gives an amusing account of how she copes with the deprivation, but I was more interested in the wider questions that she raises when she wonders if her reading habit is ‘actually is some kind of drug’

I was aware that ‘that our brain experiences what the characters we are reading about experience’ and it was no surprise to learn about a piece of research where scientists got people to read while they were in a brain scanner. ” When readers were engaged in a story, the researchers found that, at the points in which the story said a protagonist undertook an action, the part of the brain which was activated was the part which the reader himself or herself would use to undertake the action”

What I hadn’t really taken on board was the fact that, ‘For most of our history, reading has been done by just a few specialists, and aloud.‘ In the fifth century, Saint Augustine was famously perplexed by the weird habits of Saint Ambrose: ” When he read, his eyes scanned the page and his heart sought out the meaning, but his voice was silent and his tongue was still. Anyone could approach him freely and guests were not commonly announced, so that often, when we came to visit him, we found him reading like this in silence, for he never read aloud.”

We take it for granted now that fluent readers don’t have to sound out each word. Take a look at this article and remind yourself how novels have changed our attitudes to reading, using them as recreation and an escape from stress.

Reading is such a part of our lives it’s hard to imagine a time when a reader like Ambrose was able to astonish onlookers with his eyes scanning the page. I love the way that this was expressed – especially ‘his heart sought out the meaning ‘.

I don’t read anything like as much as I used to – maybe only one or two novels a month. I feel a pang when I visit some readers’ blogs and read their enticing reviews, adding them to my mental t.b.r pile - but what with my money-earning job, my own writing, and now my publishing venture, Novel Press, there really isn’t much time left over.

At least I know I can last a week without reading. It’s almost a year since I wrote any poetry and I do miss that.

Would you find it hard to give up reading for a week? If not, what would you miss most?

I arrived back in the UK on Sunday (in spite of snow at Birmingham airport delaying my departure from Schipol airport for over three hours.) The main purpose of my short trip to Hong Kong was to visit my mother, still going strong at the age of 93. She is staying with my sister on Lamma Island, the setting for a large part of my novel Paper Lanterns.

It was mere luck that I’d taken delivery of several copies of my book two days before I was due to fly out to Hong Kong. I couldn’t waste this chance of finding a home for my new novel in some of the book shops there. (This photo of me holding copies of my book was taken by my sister, in front of the same view that I’d used for the cover of the book itself.)

I soon discovered that my timing wasn’t all that brilliant when it came to marketing: this picture of the ferry pier on Lamma might give you a clue.

Those bright red globes and the strings of coloured flags are there to mark the Chinese New Year, an event that stretches over several days, during which, most businesses shut down. Not an auspicious week for arranging meetings!
But I was lucky after all, as the organiser of the prestigious Hong Kong Literary Festival was able to make time for me last Thursday morning, two days before I was due to return home. She was interested in my brand new publishing house, Novel Press, and very encouraging about the chances of my book in Hong Kong. She gave me several useful contacts: I made a few phone calls, sent a few emails and was invited by two of the three main bookshop chains to post them a copy of Paper Lanterns.

More exciting still, was the email I received from the third company, asking if I could meet with the manager the following afternoon. This publishing business is heady stuff! I arrived at the address, a large bookshop in the bustling shopping area of Kowloon, and focussed on the table displaying books with Chinese connections, both general interest and fiction. It didn’t seem an impossible dream that copies of Paper Lanterns might soon be lying among them, face up, waiting to be lifted from the pile and taken to the till.

A few minutes later, I was following a young sales assistant out of the bookshop door, and into the office part of the building, where I was ushered into the manager’s office, a charming and efficient young woman. She was particularly interested in the real-life love letters which provided the inspiration for a central section of the novel. I’ll explain more about these letters soon.

Bookshops in the UK usually tend to accept books on a sale-or-return basis, and it would be unlikely that a store would order more than one or two copies from an unknown author. When the books in question have to delivered from the other side of the globe, returning them to the publisher wouldn’t be a viable option. You can imagine my delight when the manager indicated that they might be able to accept 20 books to begin with!

Now I have to look into the cost of freight, yet one more step on the steep learning curve I’ve been treading since the inception of Novel Press.

Back to Chinese New Year for a moment - traditionally a time for giving plants and flowers. Huge crowds flock to Victoria Park in Central to select gifts for their families and friends from the Flower Market that lasts for several days, finishing on the night of the New Year’s Eve. But as you’ll see from this picture, there are also souvenirs on sale at stalls staffed by youngsters learning to develop an understanding of business.This is the year of the tiger, hence these tiger hats. In spite of the cold wind and rain, they never stopped smiling. If only we could have bottled this enthusiasm and good will!

BEFORE YOU READ ABOUTSutton Park, and ‘Each Year I Forget’,
Click here for my BOOK COVER DESIGN CHALLENGE

and give yourself a LAST CHANCE of winning a FREE copy of Paper Lanterns(CLOSING DATE: 31st December)

BEFORE YOU READ ABOUT Where the Wild Things Are (and Paypal at last),
Click here for my BOOK COVER DESIGN CHALLENGE

and give yourself the chance of winning a FREE copy of Paper Lanterns(CLOSING DATE: 31st December)

I’ve had a lovely Boxing Day with my kind, techie son (back home for Christmas)

First off, he’s patiently helped me work out the best way to install Paypal on this site. That might not sound like much, but I kept on changing my mind about exactly what system I’d need in order to make things easy for anyone who wants to buy my books.

We’ve finally settled for a ‘UK’ and ‘Rest of the World’ option. The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society is the only one displayed here for the time being, but Paper Lanterns will be available here in a few weeks’ time.

For anyone buying in the UK, not only will there be £2.00 off the original price, but postage and packing will be free.

For anyone outside the UK, the book will be full price, but there will be no charge for postage and packing!

As soon as the cover design for Paper Lanterns has been selected* all the files will be sent to the printer, and once the actual paperback books are ready, they’ll be available here in the same way.

*Since the Bookcrossers are such staunch supporters, I’ll be asking some of them to draw the five winning ID numbers on Saturday 2nd January – watch this space for the results!
Our afternoon walk through sunlit woodland in Cannock Chase was followed, at the insistence of my adult son, by a trip to the local Multiplex to see what I thought would be a typically cosy family Christmas film, Where the Wild Things Are.

I was happy to go along with this suggestion, especially as our long-ago roles were reversed, and he was buying the tickets. (Though I couldn’t help thinking that it seemed rather a strange choice for a sophisticated man-about-town!) But it wasn’t long before I saw why.

The Wild Things were wonderful - dream-like and utterly convincing in their depiction of human emotions and behaviours, both of small children, and on another level, of supposedly mature adults. As this review suggests, it seems to have been made more for adults, than for small children.

If you’ve seen it, I’d love to hear your views!

Oh, and another new thing you’ll notice is the Twitter link, thanks to my son.

It was so sad to hear of the death of two more British soldiers in Afghanistan, today of all days, when we are reminded of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of other men and women killed in wars.

There’s nothing new I can add to this topic – the pros and cons of this war or that - the justifications and condemnations. I can only feel immensely grateful that virtually all my friends and family members are in good health, and (as far as any of us can know) are not in present danger - all except one, a fairly recent addition to our extended family, and he is often in my thoughts, particularly today.

The Sunday Times News Review has lain on the kitchen table all day. My eye was caught by the headline ‘ HIS LAST LONELY WALK’ and a picture of a beautiful young man, Olaf Schmid, who died last weekend, attempting to defuse his 65th bomb, on the eve of returning home on leave.

I was resisting the article – I didn’t want to read about that tragedy. I’ve just done so now, with a big lump in my throat. My heart goes out to his wife, Christina – his parents too. My son is one year older than he was.

What a courageous young man. The newspaper article quotes his words, “I go home, and people go,’ How many f****** Taliban have you killed?’ Well, it’s not really about that. It’s more about how many lives I’ve saved, I think.”

I live not far from Cannock Chase, 26 square miles of woodlands and heather-covered hills, a wonderful place for walking. I’d been visiting the Chase for years before I first came across the German Military Cemetery. Attached to the memorial building, there was a small, obviously lived-in, house probably occupied by a caretaker.

It just happened to be on the last day of the last millennium – a time when the whole country –indeed, the whole world – was in a state of excitement, some anticipating all the computers on earth grinding to a halt, with disastrous consequences, and others getting ready for the party of a lifetime. Hemmed all around by dark pine trees and a wire fence, were the final remains of 5,000 German Servicemen from two World Wars. So many young men. Just a small percentage of all the others from those two wars

There was something unbearably poignant about the headstones in their neat rows – each one shared by two names. This is the poem it inspired.

Millennium Eve in the German War Cemetery, Cannock Chase.

They’ll be restless tonight, mutters
Mr McAllister locking the door.
There are no windows in the back wall
of the bungalow. It looks onto
its own courtyard. Better that way
he said when he took the job.

But all explosions are too far away
to stir the random couples underground -
no trace of sleep inside their hollow skulls.
If they could dream they’d be where only time
can measure distances. They’d watch those stars
whose light has not yet reached our skies, burn out.

What a lovely day yesterday – almost warm enough for swimming outside, something I’ve done little of this year. Living in the Midlands, I don’t get many opportunities these days for swimming in the sea, so for me, the combination of warm air, willows and alder, grassy banks and a wide expanse of clear fresh water is (almost) irresistible. However, neither the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal,

nor the Severn Estuary near Slimbridge Wildfowl Trust,would have been a suitable place for me to indulge in that particular hobby.

It reminded me of a different swimming experience a few years ago in one of the lakes in Sutton Park. Sometimes in May and June early in the morning, before there was anyone around to challenge me for breaking the park rules, and the sun was already hot as it rose above the willows, I’d quickly change into my swimming costume and wade carefully over the smooth pebbles until I was in deep enough to swim.

I knew that the water was clean enough at that time of year (before any possibly dangerous algae that sometimes appeared in long spells of hot weather had spread across the surface). When I splashed my feet around beneath me, I could see them gleaming white in the pale brown water, but I knew that this colouration had come from layers of dead leaves and pieces of bark.

The most exotic birds I saw that day were the flamingos,
but nothing there could thrill me as much as the two described in the poem below.

Heron

If you see me, it’s disdain
not fear that lifts your wings
in that slow beat,
legs stretched out behind you
like a spear, angled breastbone
a flint arrowhead.

heron, reveal your self,
perched in a shrine of leaves,
not bird, but acolyte of sun,
icon, blinding wingspan
wider than a swan’s
or angel’s, even.

This poem was written about five years ago, and it’s a true account of what I experienced that day.

I still like it, as it reminds me of that ‘magic moment’, but I’m not really able to make a subjective judgement on its quality as a poem – Not that great, I’d guess, but good enough for what it is!

I was awake extra early this morning, and instead of my usual half-hour jog down a leafy track under the arch of trees (an old coach-road, apparently), then across the golf course, and along the edge of the stream, and back up the road, I sat down at my computer and visited some of my favourite blog sites.

When I’ve gone a few days without dipping in to these sources of mental stimulation my brain gets as itchy and restless as the rest of my body does when I’ve missed out on physical exercise.

I was well rewarded this morning before I went to work, and again when I returned this afternoon. But before that, came a big disappointment – One of the first book-blogs that I’d come across, Ex-libris ‘taking an indefinite hiatus from blogging’.
It was a lively site with thoughtful reviews and I always enjoyed my visits (not merely to the link to her kind review of my novel, The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society)

My next stop, Rhapsody in Books yielded two delights with one hit: There was the smiling face of my friend, Linda Gillard, an excellent novelist holding a fascinating discussion with an author I’d never heard of, Gillian Philip, who writes Young Adult fiction. Of course I then had to scroll down to the review that Linda had posted there about Gillian’s latest novel. I won’t say anything more about that, as you can read it yourself here!

I’m sometimes amazed at the amount I’ve forgotten in my life of what used to be an important source of pleasure and insight – in this particular case, the Young Adult books I used to read when I taught English in a girls’ Secondary Modern School (that shows how long ago it was- there’ll be plenty of people who’ve never heard of anything but comprehensives and grammar schools) –anyway, reading those posts, I was reminded of how I used to love those books – The main name that comes to mind is KM Peyton with her Flambard Trilogy and the rebellious schoolboy, Pennington, but there were lots of others.

Reading about Gillian Philip’s Crossing the Line has reminded me of how YA books often tackle the really important subjects in a very readable and thought-provoking way.

Another of my favourite sites is Dovegrey Reader and there again I was awash with nostalgia, thinking of books I’ve enjoyed over the years. Today’s post was about Susan Hill’s book ‘Howards End is on the Landing’ It sounds very enticing and I love the idea of listing my forty favourite books, and reflecting on each of them as I do this.

Another one that I first came across fairly recently is Juxtabooks This time my eye was caught by Juxtabook’s Top 10 Books of the Last Ten Years. I’d read five of her ten, and of those, I’d rate at least two as some of my own top favourites – Cloud Atlas I ’read’ as an unabridged audio version – it was fascinating to hear the six different voices telling their different tales. For the first couple of minutes of each new ‘story’ I’d feel a bit lost, not wanting to leave the other voice behind me, but overall I found it a compelling read. The other was Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Craik, in which I found echoes from some of the ‘future’ parts of Cloud Atlas. I won’t attempt to say anything else about the books, as you can read those reviews for yourself.

Last, but by no means least, is a new treasure – Baroque in Hackney, a site crammed with a huge variety of posts and links. I’m afraid it’s going to be a particularly effective displacement activity for me in the future.

I love the sea, but I’ve lived in the middle of England for more than thirty years.

I grew up in a small Sussex village which has its own mini-climate within a ten-mile radius of the family home where my mother still lives, just a few miles from the sea. When I’m at my own home, especially during the holidays, I sometimes find it hard to hear about the glorious sunshine they’re enjoying down there, while Sutton Coldfield is living up to its name, and is shrouded in cloud.

In keeping with Sod’s Law, when I drive down to Sussex after a week of fine weather, the sun usually goes into hiding as soon as I hit the A 23 and the downs come into view. So this weekend, on one of my regular visits to my childhood home, I was pleasantly surprised by the warm breeze and blue skies on Saturday afternoon.

I knew this would be my last chance of the year for swimming in the English Channel, so I took my chance, and the sun was hot on my shoulders as I trod gingerly over the grey stones to the edge of the clear sea. It wasn’t as cold as I’d expected and I relished again the feeling of freedom as I swam out towards a bobbing orange buoy, with the dazzling glare around me and several metres of water below my feet.

When I’d started going to the North Norfolk coast years ago on visits to my husband’s family, it took me a long time to get used to the sea there, with its treacherous currents, and the sun in the ‘wrong’ place, but I grew to love it for the wildlife and emptiness, particularly Blakeney Point with its colony of grey seals.

So this is the obvious candidate for my poem of the week:

Becoming a Seal

Becoming a seal takes dedication.
I’ve time for little else now
what with days in snack bars
accumulating layer on layer of flab
and evenings stretched out in the bath
holding my breath under water.

Night swells with dreams of blubber
light as airships, supple and strong
as branches of willow. Sometimes I lurk
by plastic ponds in garden centres.
After a little practice, Koi carp
slip down smoothly as noodles.

My place of pilgrimage is Blakeney Point.
Those massive bolster shapes basking
on sandbanks barely glance towards me
as I wriggle inch by inch a little closer.
Now that I’ve tuned in to their grunts and barks
I understand their conversations.

Lately I’ve noticed changes in my skin -
it’s thicker now and turning mottled grey.
Each plunging struggle against
North Sea tides creates a tingling glow
though I still have to coat myself with grease
before I slide into the waves.

When my legs have fused together
they’ll propel me faster. I’ll have no need
for arms – the sinuous seals caress
from head to tail. Soon I will smell
as they do. They’ll nuzzle me gently
gliding around me along the sea-bed.

This is not an autobiographical poem, but I have swum in the shallow channel at low tide ,while the seals’ heads bobbed around me,staring with their spaniel-like eyes.

An early version of this poem won 5th prize in the Poetry Life (2001) competition - since then I’ve tightened it by cutting out at least one other stanza and re-organising some other parts that I later felt were a bit clumsy. I still do like this version - it reminds me of those experiences and it’s fun to recite to an audience - it seems to go down very well at readings.

At the end of a long and exhausting week at work, it was lovely to leave it all behind and settle down at my own computer, where I can get back to Writing Matters. I felt I deserved a treat this evening – the first week of returning to work after the summer break, is the one week I least look forward to of all the fifty two. I’ll tell you about the treat that was waiting for me, once I’ve got this rant off my chest.

Nothing changes, when it comes to preparations for the autumn term in Adult Education – it’s always hectically busy, and there’s always new information that we, the middle managers, must explain to the hard-pressed tutors at pre-enrolment meetings, with little or no time to digest the implications of the increased complexity of the paperwork they’ll have to use. And, as usual, the printed versions of all the documents they must learn to use and love, are not yet ready for distribution.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose - I had to look up the second part of this, because once someone knows that saying, the first three words are usually enough. And that’s enough of my (very long ago) school-girl French.

The biggest difficulty for me at this time of year, is trying to shunt my brain back onto the right track, so it can deal with everything I have to accomplish before next Monday. My memory of all the tasks I had planned for so clearly and carefully at the end of July had dissolved into dreamlike mist, as if a decade had passed, instead of just one month.

That’s definitely enough of that. And anyway, it’s not really all that bad. Just that I’d far prefer to be writing a novel or a poem, and for the next few weeks, I’ll be up to my eyes in ‘work’ work.

It feels like a long time since I’ve mentioned anything about my own novel writing. The last time was in my post
Transita and a Change of Title

The treat I’ve come home to was clicking on to one of my favourite writing sites - Essential Writers - and there it was, the article that Judy had invited me to write. It fills in the few months between having my book accepted by the publisher, and the actual publication date.