Journal Entries
Writer's Block 4
Posted Feb 18, 2012
In our course, we have got as far as writing synopses for our great works. I read mine out to the class and they said: 'too dark' and 'Brian is one dimensional'. Aargh!
The character of Brian is key to my story. I see him as a man who tends to mood swings. (I don't think he's really bi-polar, but he might be close to it.) The trouble is that I haven't shown him as he would be on an up-swing - sociable, energetic, full of bright ideas. I've shown him depressed and drinking too much.
I need to go back and rethink, AGAIN.
Discuss this Journal entry [15]
Latest reply: Feb 18, 2012
Writer's Block 3
Posted Dec 30, 2011
I've finished the 'special author study' of my Creative Writing Programme and completed my assignment. (My son thinks it very funny that Mum is having to do assignments.) So what did I learn from Rose Tremain's Trespass?
Firstly, that the book has a plot and a sub-plot, and they both form triangles. The book actually starts with a minor character, a young girl, who wanders off from a school picnic and finds a stream. She follows the stream until she finds a pool, but in the pool, she finds something that so alarms her that she screams. This scene belongs, chronologically, late in the story, but it's obviously put here to create suspense.
It's in the second chapter that we meet the protagonist, Anthony Verey, who is a disillusioned London antique dealer. The sub-plot opens when he decides to visit his sister, Veronica, who lives in the south of France. Veronica has a friend, Kitty, who doesn't like Anthony and tensions develop between the three.
The main plot involves an old house, the Mas Lunel, which belongs to Aramon, who is an alcoholic. He has decided to sell the house, and Anthony wants to buy it. However, Aramon's sister, Audrun has deep-seated reasons for hating her brother, and for wanting to stop the sale.
I was interested in the way Rose Tremain introduces her characters. The second chapter opens with a description of a tapestry in Anthony's shop, which is his favourite object. We learn that he has come to love furnishings more than people, but his business is failing.
The tapestry depicts a group of aristocrats sitting in an idyllic landscape, and servants bringing them food. However, in the bushes, an old woman is leering at them. She is a reminder of death, a link to Audrun, and one of many images of corruption and damage.
In the third chapter, we meet Audrun, who is walking in her wood. We learn that this is her special place and that she places great value on the land and her place in it.
Rose Tremain follows up these introductions to her characters with detailed back story. However, I think I would find this impossible to replicate. Although I have written little biographies of my characters, detailed back story seems to involve an amount of research and invention that I haven't attempted before.
Discuss this Journal entry [3]
Latest reply: Dec 30, 2011
Writer's Block 2
Posted Sep 27, 2011
In preparation for the second year of the US Creative Writing Programme, we've been asked to choose a 'Special Author'. The idea is to choose a book, or books by an author we admire, and explore elements of their style, structure, content and theme. We should use this study to inform our own approach to writing.
I was drawn to Rose Tremain's 'The Road Home', which follows the experiences of Lev, an immigrant to Britain. I kept thinking about the problems that Lev encounters when I was trying to write about my heroine's attempts to work in France. In the end, though, I have chosen Rose Tremain's 'Trespass' instead. This is partly because the story centres on an old house in France, as mine does. It uses the third person limited approach to story telling, but follows several characters.
I was struck by the sheer amount of detail Rose Tremain provides about the background of her characters. At the moment, I don't know enough about my characters and I'm worrying that I haven't done much research. I've done a bit, reading books about living in France, doing up your French house, and the life of a French restaurant. And I've found Google maps useful. But there are lots of gaps and it's going to take ages to fill them.
Why did I start out on this project with such gay abandon?
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Sep 27, 2011
Writer's Block
Posted Aug 4, 2011
I am in the middle of writing a story. It's provisionally called 'Dreaming in Stone' and it might, conceivably, become a novel.
I blame this on the University of Sussex. All right, I've been writing stories, on and off, for 24 years at least. But most of them are short; few exceed 3,000 words. I followed a couple of open access courses at the University of Sussex and I thoroughly enjoyed them. So I decided to enrol for the Creative Writing Programme, which is supposed to run over two years, comprising one morning session per week and a couple of Saturday workshops. This has the odd consequence that, for the first time for forty years, I am an official student!
In the second term of this course, we met a new tutor, Susannah Waters, who is a published novelist. She proved enthusiastic and ready to offer helpful feedback. I came up with an idea for a story which follows an English couple and their teenage son, who go and live in France, with the intention of doing up an old house and its barns, to serve as bead and breakfast accommodation. They run out of money.
I had a vague idea, when I started, of where my story was heading but, as I worked, it changed. I have drawn up a seven-point plot, but the process of writing has been more organic than planned. I prune it and it grows, I graft pieces on and it grows a bit more. Then the first year of my course ended and we all set off for our summer break. The group has proved supportive. We read and comment on each other's writing and do what Susannah calls 'hot seating': interviewing each other's characters.
However, I've now got stuck and I'm losing heart. Not interest - I still love writing - but there are those little voices in my head saying 'this is a waste of time, and 'this is never going to be any good'. I want to get back to my story, but there are lots of other things to do. I need encouragement.
Discuss this Journal entry [5]
Latest reply: Aug 4, 2011
The Cycle Tour
Posted Aug 8, 2009
My son was dreaming of travelling. Eventually, he came up with a firm plan, to cycle south east across Europe to Budapest. He researched the route carefully, looking for cycle tracks and campsites and he bought a lot of kit. His most expensive purchase was a bike - a second hand Thorn Raven expedition bike, with a hub gear.
After a trial run to Devon and back he was ready. He set off on 27 June, on a bicycle weighed down with panniers. By next evening, he had crossed the channel to Calais and cycled as far as Lille, despite getting lost on the way. He then crossed into Belgium and, on one day, he cycled 118 miles across the Ardennes to Luxembourg. He followed cycle tracks through the middle of Frankfurt, which he said looked like Manhattan with Gothic churches. Then, when he got to Rothenburg am der Tauber, the hub gear failed.
He was disconsolate about this. He knew that the gear would be difficult to fix, partly because all the working parts are inside and because he had already found out that this bike wasn't designed to take a hub gear. So he came home, taking a series of trains across Germany to Brussels and the Eurostar to London.
If I had thought this experience would put him off cycle touring, I was wrong. He is now contemplating a trip to Russia, buying a map and starting to learn Russian. I have mixed feelings about all this. I admire him for his resourcefulness and sheer courage, but I am afraid of the hazards along the way - getting lost, breaking down in the middle of nowhere, getting arrested ...
He is going back to university in September to finish his degree, so none of this is going to happen before next June. All sorts of things could happen before then.
Discuss this Journal entry [1]
Latest reply: Aug 8, 2009
minorvogonpoet
Researcher U3099090
Write an Entry
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travellers and researchers."