Feb 28 2015

Black Pit Lock

This bench, created by a local sculptor, faces the Black Pit lock on the canal where it passes through Hebden Bridge and when I first saw it, I thought the horses must represent pit ponies used in coalmines. It turns out, however, the ‘black pit’ refers to the meeting of the Calder River and the Hebden Water. In full spate, the area where the two rivers meet creates a powerful churning mass of water and the impression of a bottomless ‘black pit’ below the surface.

The canal plays a large part in the life of the valley even though it is only pleasure boats that now use the vast network of waterways that were once the main transport links for industry. Unfortunately by the time building work had finished on the canal system, road transport was taking over.

The Rochdale Canal runs through the Calder Valley starting in Sowerby Bridge and ending in Manchester, winding its way for 32 miles across the Pennines. The towpath that was once used by the horses pulling the heavily laden barges, is now the province of ramblers, dog walkers, joggers and cyclists,

Black Pit, Lock number 9, is located in the centre of Hebden Bridge at the Hebden aquaduct, a rather spectacular piece of nineteenth century engineering enabling the canal to pass over the top of the two rivers. (This link on the Canal River Trust website gives a graphic depiction of the meeting of the waters here.)

Even though I have lived here for twenty years I’m still learning about the history and the heritage of this place. Still an ‘incomer’ in many ways. My depiction of the town in my stories probably differs from that of the true ‘natives’ but it is how I’ve experienced it. I love it and each walk I take along the canal offers something new to be appreciated.

Now for the plug:

Starting Over, my debut novel published by Affinity eBook Press, is set in the hills above Huddersfield and also partly in Hebden Bridge. Please visit the other sections on the blog for links to reviews and outlets for purchasing the book.

Feb 21 2015

Loving the landscape!

When I moved here from London just over twenty years ago, it was with great reluctance. My partner had gone ‘up north’ for a job and I thought perhaps it wouldn’t last…she wouldn’t like it and would come back to the city.

My first few visits were fairly disastrous. She had rented a flat over a fish and chip shop in what seemed to me a dreary little place with smoke-blackened brick terraces next to a fetid canal. On one occasion, in an effort to show me the delights of the place, we took a picnic up into the hills and sat in a field on a blanket. The tranquility of the scene was disturbed by a herd of cows and a bull that didn’t think we should be there. Our panicked response was to leap (well make an ungainly exit) into the next field and wait until the group moved on. Which they eventually did.

Now, I wonder what took me so long to decide to move (nine months – a precise period of gestation) – the aborted picnic incident aside. The place draws you in. The landscape is dramatic, none of your soft southern county downs, this is wild moorland, Wuthering Heights territory. The history is bleak and fierce.

After a while I realised that what I was feeling was a sense of coming home. My grandparents lived in a town not far from here. It’s where my parents went to school and where they met. They emigrated to Canada and now I’m back where they started, back to my roots. And it does feel like home.

Starting Over, my debut novel, has its roots firmly in the landscape. That was the starting point for the story, the remote farm situated on a hilltop close to the brooding moorland. Who lived there and why? The idea that there may have been a Roman settlement on that hilltop wasn’t too farfetched. Evidence of Roman occupation is widespread across the British Isles.

It’s a time and a place that calls to me. And, I hope, through my stories, it will resonate with readers too.

My debut novel, Starting Over, is set in West Yorkshire with the story taking place on farmland overlooking the moors above Huddersfield with forays into the nearby market town of Hebden Bridge – described by some as the UK’s ‘lesbian capital of the north’. The book was published in October 2014 and is available from Affinity eBook Press, Amazon, Bella Books, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords. The sequel, Arc Over Time, is due out in May 2015.

Feb 15 2015

Characters need hobbies

How much does real life impinge on a story? When someone asks ‘am I in it? – the answer, of course, is no. But there are episodes or characteristics of a character that my nearest and dearest will recognise. Because characters need hobbies if they aren’t going to come across as one-dimensional workaholics or manic sex fiends.

In Starting Over I wanted to give Robin’s character more depth by giving her a hobby other than her motorbike. Initially I thought of Taekwondo, which is something I practiced for five years (see photo) but that requires a big commitment to discipline and training which wouldn’t have fit Robin’s character. I stopped doing Taekwondo five years ago and took up archery. However, I couldn’t see Robin doing that either, in spite of her name.

Another of my activities is boxing – I now take part in a weekly boxercise class for over 50s. It’s a lot of fun but probably more fun for our instructor when she has us doing plank for 30 seconds and sees everyone dropping to the mat after ten. (We’re improving.) Anyway in the story, Robin takes up boxing, which helps her work off some of her sexual energy.

Towards the end of the novel two of the characters engage in a line dance, a reference to something they used to do together. I have never actually participated in a real line dance. But a few years ago on holiday some American women we met tried to show us the steps. I have absolutely no sense of rhythm…a warning to anyone who might ask me to dance at the GLCS con…don’t wear open toe shoes.

So sometimes real life sneaks into the story. Part of the fun of being an author, you can take the bits you want, mix it all together and come up with something completely different.

Starting Over is my debut novel, published by Affinity eBook Press in October 2014. The sequel, Arc Over Time, is due out in May 2015.

Feb 8 2015

Signs of the Times

Ever wondered how to pronounce those weird looking place names that crop up with great regularity in England?

I read in The Times newspaper (acknowledgment for the graphic) that Google is developing an app to help Americans with pronouncing English place names. Although I’m sure it’s not just American visitors who need that kind of assistance. (And probably some of us natives as well.)

Apparently Worcester is the town that gives visitors the most problem – trying to ask for a train ticket to War-cess-ter when they actually want Wuster. As with a lot of the place names in England you just need to remember to leave out half the letters. Yorkshire has some great examples. If you’re ever trying to get to Slaithwaite – the locals call is Slawit. One of my favourites is Barnoldswick – lovely name, you think – it has been reduced to Barlick. And how sad that the delightfully named Mousehole in Cornwall is known as Mowzle.

If you find place names in England difficult, best not to venture into Wales. That is, as they say, another country. And another language altogether.

But it’s not just places. There are numerous examples of surnames that sound very different from how they look. Here are just a few that come to mind:

Cholmondeley – Chumlee

Marjoribanks – Marchbanks

Wavertree – Wawtry

Dalziel – Dee-el

Menzies – Mingis

Please feel free to add to this list.

The fascinating thing about the English language is how it evolves over time and incorporates words from other languages as well.

Jan 31 2015

A writer’s bookshelf…neglected tomes

Oh Thesaurus, how do I love thee? Let me count the words! (apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

These books that adorn the shelf next to the desk where I write, how often are they used? The ones I’ve had for many years, falling apart from old age and earlier constant usage…Roget’s Thesaurus, The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations, Fowlers Modern English Usage, The Concise Oxford Dictionary…mostly sit unopened on the shelf from one year to the next.

Looking up the reference for the sonnet misquoted above took all of a millisecond on Google. Finding it in the index at the back of the Quotations book took a lot longer.

So why do I keep these books, taking up space on a shelf? For the same reason I keep thousands of other books in the house. I love the feel, the smell, and the action of turning the pages, the thrill of discovery and re-discovery when I get around to reading some of them again.

And, opening the Thesaurus to a random page just now, I find Knowledge and Ignorance side by side. What fun! I think I should delve in here more often.

Jan 22 2015

What’s in a word?

I received some useful feedback on my novel from two American readers. They said there were a few expressions and words that were unfamiliar to them. They were able to work out the meaning from the context of the story. Anyway, I thought I would share these ones that they made particular note of (apologies and warning of bad language):

1. ‘scraping away like buggery’ (Note – this isn’t something I would say myself, but it seemed to fit the character who said it – photo here shows me in the act)

2. ‘lay by’ – this may be something peculiar to British roads. It’s often a small area with just enough room for one or two cars to park off the road – possibly to look at the view (quaint euphemism for taking a toilet break). Some lay bys, on very narrow roads, are meant as passing places so you can pull in to let another vehicle past. I would be interested to know if there is an American equivalent.

3. ‘stop taking the piss and I might tell you’ – I guess they managed to work out that this meant stop making fun of me.

The word that always throws me when I read American books is ‘pissed’. Now I know that this means ‘angry’ or ‘upset’. To a British reader though, it means ‘drunk’.

If anyone would like to add to cross-cultural use of words and their perceived meanings, please leave a comment.

Jan 17 2015

The Cover Question

I’ve seen some discussion threads recently about covers. Do you judge a book by its cover? Some people say they do, some don’t. Some say they read the blurb and the reviews to make their buying decision. But then it’s also pointed out that the reviews can’t be trusted. Others say the cover doesn’t matter because if you read an ebook, the cover isn’t seen, once you’ve purchased it and start reading.

So this is all very baffling for a newly published author. I’ve been told that Starting Over is a good story and most of those who have read it, enjoyed it. But perhaps the cover isn’t attracting people to it. The story is a lesbian romance, so shouldn’t it at least have two sexy looking women making out on the cover? With all the books available why would anyone choose this one?

For me, the cover works. I took the photo that is the background image and suggested it could be used as it was taken in the place where the main part of the story is set. And then the choice of the image of the woman on the motorbike, gazing over the scene – this represents an actual scene in the book. And it was an important turning point for this character. The imagery on the cover fits with both the story and the title.

The woman on the bike is Robin Fanshawe. Of all the characters in the book, she is the one most likely to be hated, at least at the beginning of the story. After all, she cheats on her lover, Ellie Winters. And as Ellie is portrayed as such a wonderful woman, why would she do that? Could I really expect readers to buy into Ellie being a doormat for so long?

But at the start of the story, this situation is set to change fairly rapidly. All the main players end up at the farm in the first two chapters and set in motion the events that follow. One reviewer described it as having elements of a French farce about it.

Throughout the story there is humour, there is heartache – it’s a romance after all – and in the end there is happiness. What more could you ask for?

Jan 11 2015

Blogging it up

The start of the year seems like a good time to tidy out shelves and drawers. However, I thought my project for a wet Sunday should be to give my blog a refresh. So I’ve added a few more pages: Books / Guest appearances / Reviews. These are mainly for my benefit so I can find these links when I need them, but I hope they will be of interest to any visitors to the blog as well.

The bookshelf pictured above is in my local independent bookstore. I’m pleased to say they have sold four paperback copies of Starting Over in the last two months – and only one of those was to a friend – that I know of. More good news for a dreary January day.

Looking forward to a host of wonderful things this year. May sees the publication of my second novel ‘Arc Over Time’ by Affinity. I’m working towards completing a third novel – but too early to say anything more on that yet. July I will be in New Orleans at my first GCLS conference. The first conference of this kind for me. I’m excited to be meeting up face to face not only with my publishers but also the many ‘friends’ I’ve met via Facebook.

The year has only just started but it already seems to be rushing by.

Jan 6 2015

Putting it out there

Having a novel published for the first time was both exhilarating and scary. While it was wonderful to see my book in print, this collection of words I had somehow managed to put down on paper—now other people would read them. Those who read lesbian fiction I wasn’t too worried about. They would either like it or not. And obviously my publisher and editor thought it was a good story. But there were friends and family now going to read it, and lesbian romance wasn’t a genre of choice for any of them. My mother and sister both said they enjoyed the story. Other friends and relatives have been surprised, I think, to find out what goes on in my head.

When the book came out in paperback I gave a copy to a friend, a former English teacher. Weeks passed and she didn’t mention it, and I was afraid to ask. Then just before Christmas my partner and I were enjoying a glass of mulled wine in a local café and my friend’s husband came in. After ordering their drinks he sat down at a table nearby. Looking over, he recognised me, and to my surprise said, “Oh, I’ve read your book. Really enjoyed it. But it was a bit steamy.”

Now there are some sexy scenes in the book, it’s a romance after all. Hardly in the erotic category, though. But then, to someone who doesn’t read lesfic, it would probably seem that way.

At that point his wife arrived. She said she was in the middle of reading ‘The Return of the Native’ which is why she hasn’t got around to reading my book yet. I didn’t think I could compete with real literature, so I let her off.

Close family members all got a paperback copy of ‘Starting Over’ for Christmas, even though I knew they’d downloaded the ebook as soon as it was released. The photo is one my sister sent me, taken on Christmas day, showing off her new slipper socks and the book.

I don’t know if it gets any easier…the process of releasing your words out into the ether. I’m sure I’ll go through the same ecstasy and agony with the release of my next book, which is due out in May. And if my friend’s husband thought ‘Starting Over’ was ‘steamy’, I better give her fair warning – ‘Arc Over Time’ might be too hot for him. That’s all I’m going to say about that for now.

Note: I would like to thank all those people I don’t know personally who have read ‘Starting Over’ and particularly those who have given me feedback and/or posted reviews. It is a tremendous boost to know it’s being read and enjoyed.

(‘Starting Over’, my debut novel is available from Affinity, Amazon, Bella Books and Smashwords.)

Dec 31 2014

Reflections on 2014

Now’s the time to reflect on what has been an amazing year.

Starting with last things first, I got married in December. My partner and I were able to convert our Civil Partnership into a Marriage. And although on the day we didn’t feel any difference in our relationship, or ourselves, there was a warm glow in thinking ‘hey, I’m married’. Whether society in general likes it or not, same sex couples in England now have an equal right to get married.

Finding the wonderful community of like-minded writers and readers via social media, particularly on Facebook, is another thing that has made this year special. I love the online interactions with people from all over the globe.

But of course, the really big change for me this year has been in becoming a published author. I’ve now had two short stories and a novel published by Affinity eBook Press with another novel due out in May.

The publication of the first novel, Starting Over, was both nerve-wracking and exhilarating. I really didn’t know what to expect, so to receive some wonderful reviews at the outset was encouraging. The book has also been nominated for two Golden Crown awards – Debut Author and Traditional Contemporary Romance. Just to be included on the list of nominees is a thrill – so many books there by authors I admire.

2015 is shaping up to be another exciting year with more words to be written, more friends to meet, and just…well, more…