Rustic Romance
I’ve been slack again. WordPress tells me it’s been a whole month since my last post. And I had such good intentions.
Here’s my pictorial storybook (read excuses) of the events that conspired to divert me…
You would think I’d have plenty to write about.
I’m going to schedule my next post on Google calendar, and set a really naggy reminder.You might even get some words then.
I’m off to Suffolk this weekend, with my girlies. We call it a girls’ weekend, but we go for four days, and none of us, it has to be said, qualify as girls anymore.
A big house in the country; shopping and hikes. Far, far too much wine. Ditto the food. We used to book adventure experiences, back in the day (we’ve been doing this for a lot of years), but we’ve grown lazy. The sheer consumption of food and alcohol is adventure enough these days. (Note to self; don’t forget to pack the antacids)
None of us will forget the weekend we spent on a barge. The living accommodation was rustic (The Sister had to sleep on the kitchen floor, with her head in the fridge), and the only loo had a louvred door. I was born too old for that lark. I mean, how do you actually do your business when you can see six other people going about theirs? One of our number, I’ll call her Oooh!–J (we’ve got a lot of J’s so I’m not giving much away), is particularly sensitive to her toilette surroundings. We inflated a rubber glove through the slats of the door while she was on the bog, and she didn’t go in there again for the rest of the trip. We opened both sets of lock-doors on one of the locks (too many cooks) and risked the whole bloody canal draining away downhill. And we crashed into some rowers. Good looking lads, we bumped into them again in the pub.
Oh, how we’ve laughed. Segways and four-wheel driving experiences, arts and crafts (Married-too-many-times-J painted a rabbit, and not of the furry sort.) We’ve dressed up for murder mysteries and belly dancing classes, boated and climbed, sculpted, shot arrows and played balloon games. You never recover from seeing your friends thrusting their groins against the wall to burst a balloon which is clasped between their thighs.
We’ve cried a fair bit too. We call it Suicide Sunday, when the booze and lack of sleep combine to overwhelm us and our traumas leak out. We’ve cheered each other off on new life exploits and mopped up after ordeals. Seven batty women with a horde of children (and a fair few grand-kids) between them, who chickened out of paint-balling when some men showed up in full combat gear. (Ok, so the men were actually 14 year old lads, but that was even scarier: Soft-J actually cried when she saw them). I said there were a lot of J’s. I think that particular escapade was our adventurous swan-song. We went and had fish and chips instead.
No photographs to illustrate this week’s blog. What happens on the girls weekend stays on the girls weekend. Thank the Lord. I’m thanking him, too, for my colourful, wildly indecent, loud, outrageously funny mates.
I might not be quite so thankful by Suicide Sunday, but here we go again. Hang on to your bladders, ladies, I predict a riot.
What a shocker! Hot sunshine right through August and it’s still going now! It must be an Indian summer, because an English one doesn’t behave like this.
The quickest harvest I can remember, although the elders tell me that in ’76 it was so hot that they combined right through the night. I do remember something of ’76; the grass died in the pony’s field, and we made hay when the council mowed the meadow. Not just in the proverbial sense, we actually made hay. But our DIY efforts over-heated in the hay-barn. We had to drag the grass-cuttings back out and spread them across the yard for fear of spontaneous combustion. There was camel racing at the village fete that year too. Those camels must have felt right at home on the desert which our village green had become.
This summer has its share of memorable moments too. Rebellious voters and gob-smacking Olympians spring to mind, although I also swum in the North Sea without freezing my extremities, and that was a memorable first too. Nick Skelton became a poster boy for the hip-replacement brigade (me); Theresa May became prime minister, and Jilly Cooper published her new book. Ok, I get that you might not think that’s up there with Olympic gold medals or running the country, but come on guys! Six-hundred-and-forty pages of steamy English saga! And, right now, I can empathise with the effort that Jilly must have put into that, because I’m still slogging away editing my three-hundred pages of steamy.
I’m not wishing the summer away. Oh, no. I mean, no one in their right mind would be dreaming of cool weather, when the sun is blazing every day. It’s hot, hot, hot. Even in the middle of the bloody night.
I’m not missing that snuggle under the duvet, or winter stews for dinner. Salad is good, so are burnt barbecued sausages, and I love wearing shorts. Who could be nostalgic for comfy jeans, or baggy jumpers, and who would even think about slobbing on the sofa with the log burner going when it’s 30+ degrees outside?
The Farmer might want rain, instead of drought and the pestilence of beetles which this summer has visited on us, but not me. The drumbeat of rain on the lean-too, the gushing of water through ditches, our view from the farmhouse soft-focused by the the mist of autumn drizzle. Nothing to enjoy there.
But what do we do for small-talk, if we can’t bemoan the disappointment of the English summer? I can answer that question myself, actually, because I’ve already been given pessimistic warnings of the savage winter that must surely follow. It’s nature’s payback, you see. The warnings are delivered with gloomy foreboding, and yet… some weird, English part of me is hoping that they just might come true.
I’ve had a very productive month. Not on here – you’ll know that, if you follow my blog regularly (or should that be irregularly?) The blog has suffered from my rush of productivity, but the FINAL DRAFT of A Bed of Brambles has at last been dispatched to my editor! At least, I’m calling it the final draft… she may think otherwise.
It’s a relief and a delight, to get rid of the words I’ve been hunched over for the last six months. Rather like handing your homework in, and knowing you’ve done a good job, because the book is so much better for the editing. All the same, I’ve become rather jaded with re-reading, and re-writing. We needed this space; me, Hettie and Alexander, so that we can learn to love each other again. And my apologies to all those readers who’ve been clamouring for the second book and would rush at the chance to read more about Hettie and Alexander. I’ve been keeping you on tenterhooks for far too long, but we are getting there now – really!
With the chasm of time that losing the book freed up, I motored through the farm’s end of year accounts. Numbers are so much more obedient than words, aren’t they? The numbers are either right, or they’re wrong; no shades of grey here (pun intended). And at last I got around to submitting new plans for the barn we’re hoping to convert on the farm. It’s all go on the land. The combine is rolling, harvest is on us again: long days, weary men and an endless supply of refreshment to be produced from the farmhouse kitchen.
As I write, the sun is shining, a siren call away from my desk and the four walls of my office, but book three is calling too… It’s a habit, this bloody writing, that is hard to resist. So, I got to thinking, why can’t I have both? Outside, moving and writing a book. Uh oh.
I’m a devil for coming up with ideas which swallow hours of time when I find myself with ten minutes spare. And I’ve already learnt that Dragon dictation is going be one of those. Hours already spent learning how to work it, and I haven’t written a word yet (can you still call it writing if you’re actually speaking?) Oh well, I don’t have to worry about that yet, because so far my Dragon hasn’t listened to a single word I’ve said. No, I tell a lie! As I’m typing here Dragon has just opened the dictation box I asked it to open forty minutes ago. And this is meant to increase your word count?
I’ll let you know how I get on, but don’t hold your breath… I’m busy, taming my Dragon. I think we’ll both be spitting fire by next week.
I’m blown away by the rustic romance of Cumbria this week. Even the barns are enchanting, and then there are the hills, the rocks and the lakes; forests and waterfalls. There are lambs in the fields (and on the narrow lane to our cottage); calves with doe eyes grazing behind dry stone walls. The foxgloves in bloom, poking pink flowers through bright green fern…
Catch your breath in amazement stuff around every corner. And I’m inspired. Land Rovers and collie dogs working for their living. Farmhouses and cottages, keeping centuries of stories behind stone walls. And a countryside so rugged that just getting by must be a challenge for the people who live there after the tourists have gone home. When the rain pours off the mountains and the lakes overflow, or the roads are blocked by snow drift. When swift cloud engulfs the rocky hills and valleys to leave you isolated in a world of mist.
Across the field from our holiday home stood our nearest neighbour; a white-washed stone cottage with a grey slate roof and a wooden gate to the front. The red Mini Cooper outside, with it’s personalised number plate, tells me that this must be Hayley’s house. There’s no sign of children, so I’ve decided that Hayley is in her mid twenties. And she lives alone, because the house is empty when Hayley has gone to work. No regular visitors either, but one irregular one: Late in the evening a Land Rover parks beside the red Mini. It’s gone before dawn. A proper working vehicle, this, with winches, and muddy tyres. Long wheel based and laden with gear. No personalised number plate to help me out here, but I’m going to say that this Landy is driven by a man who works on the land. A farmer or a gamekeeper, maybe even a vet. Occupations which might explain why he turns up so late and is gone so early. Or could it be that there’s an altogether different story unfolding in that cottage…
Hmmm. I think I can feel a Cumbrian rustic romance coming on.
Lovely day for a walk. And the Farmer promised that the route he had planned would only take 40 minutes. I’m still running in the hip, you see, and I was meant to be editing, but the sun was shining through the office window. No contest really…
May is my absolute favourite month of the year (or it is this month, next month it might be June). Lush is the only word:
May blossom living up to its name, and cow parsley crowding the verges.
An hour and forty minutes (and several good climbs) later, when the hip had “had a good workout” (the Farmer’s words, not mine) we stumbled across (I was only stumbling a little bit) this little beauty…
…right in the middle of nowhere. How’s that for rustic romance. I can always edit tomorrow, it will give me something to do until I’m able to walk again.
So, I’m still editing, although I had hoped to be launching A Bed of Brambles about now; a year after A Bed of Barley Straw hit the shelves. Ho hum, it’s got to be right. Deadlines and launch dates are secondary to the life of the story, so I’m letting myself off the hook. But I’m still working hard, setting deadlines, but avoiding naming a launch date yet.
I’m editing on the sofa, because the new hip complains if I spend too many hours at a desk. Painting scenes with my pen (keyboard actually, but pen sounds more poetic), creating characters for you to meet, hoping you love them enough to want to dive in. Telling stories to make you laugh, gasp, cry (and get a bit hot under the collar). That’s important stuff. I sweat over the detail so you can be swept along, without being tripped up by disbelief, clumsy words, wonky timelines… That’s the hope, anyway.
I’ve got an editing mate with me, he’s just chillin’ in the warm.
By coincidence, in Chapter 25B (rewritten/edited from chapter 25draft1, 25draft2, 25A), the chapter I’m currently working on, they are heading into March at Draymere Hall too. They’ve had snow, (so we’re doing better in the real world), Alexander is lambing, and Hettie… well, I won’t tell you what Hettie is up to, three quarters of the way through the book, but here’s a sneaky scene setting excerpt…
Hettie was at her mother’s old house, to clear out her bedroom. She’d been putting the job off for weeks, but the ‘for sale’ sign was up now, she really couldn’t delay it any longer. She found the key in the usual place; third flowerpot from the left under the larder window. Easy to find in daylight hours, she remembered it being more of a challenge in the days when she had stumbled home in the dark, from whichever pub her and her mates had spent the evening in. Her mum’s absence was obvious, even in the garden. The paths hadn’t been cleared of snow, shrubs bent underneath it. Hettie shivered. She had to give the door a shove to make it open. Empty room, squares on the walls where pictures had hung, undressed windows. Swept and hoovered of course, but the house looked sad and worn out. Someone would buy it as a renovation project. Hettie wandered through the rooms, reached her old bedroom. The furniture gone, most of it to the bungalow, but the floor stacked with boxes; old clothes, school books and knickknacks. It could probably all go straight in the bin. She sat on the floor, cleared space around herself for three heaps; rubbish, charity, keep, and got to work.
At the bottom of the last box she found her old diary; pink and grey stripes, broken padlock, dog-eared cover. “HETTIE’S DIARY – KEEP OUT!!!” She threw it on the rubbish pile, scooped the heap into an empty crate, picked the diary out again and shoved it into her shoulder bag. It was cold in the house, and the dogs would be wanting their dinner. Hettie carted the boxes down to the Landy, wrenched the back door shut. Slid the key into its hiding place; third flowerpot from the left, under the larder window.
… A Bed of Brambles, coming soon, I promise.
ps If you haven’t read the first one yet, it’s free on Kindle at the moment.
It’s hard juggling all the balls when you’re a self-published author. Writing… to editing… to cover design. Formatting, proofing, and uploading the finished (you pray) book. That’s a lot of hats…and then there’s the marketing. The bit that many (most?) of us find painful and frustrating.
It often, but not always, costs money. It’s time consuming, trying to keep both your name and your book out there (without pissing people off by banner waving). In a perfect world, you want a gaggle of followers AND your book to be seen by new potential readers… over and over again.
We all know that isn’t easy, and when I’ve spent half a day submitting the book for promotions, twittering, posting, sticking my neck out and generally shouting about how GREAT-WONDERFUL-UNPUTDOWNABLE my book is, I start to feel like a grubby billboard. If the promo cost money, I wonder is it worth the dent in my purse (and the nasty taste in my mouth?)
So is it actually worth it? Well yes, I’m afraid it is. I know that because over the last few months I have been running an accidental experiment. Ok, I’ll be honest, I took my eye off the ball. My target of one promo a month dropped to… none in the last three months. An operation, Christmas and 100k words begging to be edited… The result of my lack of effort? My first and only month with ZERO book sales. Hey, it’s not so bad. I still had pages read on KDP select (Kindle Unlimited to readers, who can download the book for free. The author gets paid by the number of pages read. A great incentive, if you didn’t need one already, to write that story which keeps readers turning.) And then there’s Volume II which, when it hits the shelves, will be the next big push. It just isn’t happening fast enough.
Ten months now since I published the début, and my ‘next book within a year’ is almost on schedule. But it would have been published sooner if it weren’t for the time spent on marketing. It could be out there, sitting smug… in total anonymity because no one would know that I, or the books, existed. As it is, I’ve got readers nagging, and that has to be a good thing.
Those ten months have kept me busy; here’s my tongue-in-cheek summary of how I went about selling my soul book: Promo Chart 2015 …
…and in the meantime do please sign up for my Newsletter, find me on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads! And watch this space for Kindle and Goodreads giveaways coming soon! Or even buy the book….
…sorry, sorry, I’ll stop now. It’s all or nothing with me.
I am editing. Argh!
I’m deep in the thicket, with 100k words between me and the timber of my finished novel, and every one of them has to be tested to earn its place in the manuscript.
Do my characters have, well, character? Is the plot believable? Am I consistent with point of view? Have my scenes got structure and motivation. Shit…am I actually writing scenes at all?
If you thought that writing a novel was hard, try a substantive edit. I believe I could knock off 20k words in the time it takes to edit a paragraph (10k of those words will be cut later of course). I’m learning on the job, and I figure I always will be. There may be writers out there who find it a piece of cake (cliché) easy, and wield their cutting pen with stern, orderly (adjective+adverb) precision. Who get that perfect story arc and place their reactions/dilemmas with pin-point (you work it out) accuracy within it.
I’m not one of them (she sobbed, wept, cried, sighed SAID!). This is damn hard work, and right now I really can’t see the wood for the trees (yet another cliché slipped in there).
But it’s also exciting. I’m writing, I’m learning, and learning is good isn’t it?
I’m off to find the path through this forest now.
I’m patting myself on the back this week, and CreateSpace is my new best friend. When I first first blogged about CreateSpace (Setting my manuscript free) just ten short months ago, visiting their website felt like arriving on an alien planet. The language was new and foreign, the terminology beyond confusing. Mercy, have I learnt a lot since then. You know how London cabbies get an over-developed hippocampus from learning ‘The Knowledge’, well I think I’m developing one of my own. It might throb and give me a headache when I use it, but the great thing is that even a fusty, middle aged brain can rise to a new problem when you push it. So now I love CreateSpace. We’re communicating, and everyone knows the importance of that. It’s all a lot easier when you’ve learnt the language.
A Bed of Barley Straw, Edition 2 is about to hit the shelves (don’t get that confused with the sequel which won’t be released until early next year) This is an updated version of the original book, with a gorgeous new cover, courtesy of Jane (my other new best friend) at JD Smith Design.
Edition two has been reformatted into a slightly smaller book by me, myself and I (hence the perpetually throbbing hippocampus). Published via CreateSpace with their easy to follow (this time around) step-by-step guide to publishing your novel, and their brilliant interior reviewer which shows you what the inside of your book will look like. I have fallen out with Microsoft Word a few times during the process. It’s a devil for deciding it knows better than I do and rearranging the entire manuscript because I added a full stop. But we got there, apart from this…
…can you spot the amazing vanishing page number? Try as I might I can’t seem to resolve it (hippocampus pulsing). Next book – Scrivener here I come (when the brain has recovered, I don’t want that hippocampus exploding).
And talking of messy, the sequel – A Bed of Brambles – is still with my editor, and boy has she got her work cut out. I tell a great story, but I’m raw and lack finesse so a bloody good edit is essential. I love my editor, despite and because of her honesty. Her words may smart, but she is the one who will turn my masterpiece into a work of art. Here’s a visual to demonstrate. This is where I work, where my creative juices run free (a chaotic scene which I wouldn’t usually chose to share with you)
and here’s what I’d like you to see…
The edited version, you get me?
Sam Russell 