Blarney Castle

A few years ago, Mark Samuel and I published a book about Blarney Castle in Ireland, home of the Blarney Stone.  It is an unusual book in that it is the only book about the castle: it covers the history of the castle and its role in Irish history - it also provides a detailed guide to the building itself, and analyses the building's development.   The historical section contains a number of really fascinating stories about the people who lived in and owned the castle - any of which could provide the basis of an historical novel.

Despite it being the only real book in existence about the castle - there are a couple of colourful guide books - and a really silly booklet full of stories told by someone in the pub - the owner doesn't stock the book in the castle gift shop - no room apparently!   I wonder why.  There is stuff in Ireland that's gone on for years, it's not corruption exactly, it's a sort of droit de seigneur - people in Irish cities may be free of it, but in the countryside it's still possible to be under the aegis of an Anglo-Irish landlord.  You do wonder why he apparently wants to suppress the book.  Is it because we mentioned that the Blarney Stone was not always in the same place?  Was it the anecdote about a woman being fined 20s during the famine by one of his ancestors for stealing a turnip?  Was it the fact that we pointed out it was in fact an Irish castle - with a history that was separate from and preceded his family's ownership... we don't really know.  I think he has a very strong sense of ownership - and doesn't want anyone else to engage with it, except on his terms

In the compost heap

I am hoping that a couple of days off will mean that everything will rot away nicely and when I start writing again on Monday that the compost will be nice and hot and fresh....

The trouble is the timeline/structure - I have started trying to get it together on excel sheets, but I find myself going nuts.... I need to break away completely from some of the material I've recycled, it's making me stick to a timeline that doesn't quite work... I want the revelation about the break up - but I think I need to deal with it in some other way...  I want to keep my "bravura opening" - but I realise I'll probably have to sacrifice it... or put it somewhere else....

Should it be a chronological story - or can we do flashbacks?  I think if I just start with the teenage romance it could be a bit boring/flat... but -   I need to make more happen in the adult relationship - fling in a funeral perhaps...

Reality Check

This blog has been all very "onward and upward" since I started it - there is that feeling of progress towards the final goal of getting published.  Well, I have now been checked in my advance.

Having completed the book I had another look at what the Agent suggested - and I see that I haven't fully fulfilled my brief - she wants a lot more about the adult relationship - and I haven't been willing to give as much of that as I might have liked... I need to work on that a lot more.   But I am having another crisis - should I start all over again, from scratch, re-write every word, not re-cycle anything?  The thought fills me with despair - I just can't bring myself to do it.   I loved the original novel, it said what I wanted to say - it might not have said very much, it might not have had a really strong story - but I do think it had a beginning a middle and an end... and the character was changed by her experience and understanding.... However, the Agent now has a fantasy of what I could write - a view I initially shared, but am now finding hard to engage with.  Yes, I have written it - but I have written it as a story to which the past, the underlying stuff, is very important - and the love story is the culmination of that... she says the heroine must be a changed person: is that essential - Madame Bovary is not a changed person - hence her tragedy... she has gone further and further into being herself - and has paid for that.  I would like Lucy to stick to her guns - to be a romantic and a feminist... and not change, but still win... maybe  there needs to be a discussion on "a sadder and a wiser man, he work the morrow morn"....

Anyway, the point of this entry is to say - it's all much more difficult than I thought, I need to write MY book, not her book... but on the other hand she is the expert on the market and what people want.

I want to write this book as a vindication of her position - to deal with these points satisfactorily but not to have to succumb to them.   Maybe I should email her and see if she can discuss this...

Finished!

I woke up at 7.00 this morning, with a line about a cat clouting someone in the face and sat down and wrote.  Now, nearly 2 hours later and 2,390 words later, I think I have finished the novel.   Not finished as in perfected, but finished as in having reach the point in the story where it doesn't need to go any further.  I need to say more about feminism, and to make it clear that the future relationship won't be all plain sailing, but effectively, I have reached the end, it's 91,000 words - but I expect it will be longer...I can hardly believe it, but I am so excited.

Only Writing

is what I'm doing at the moment - in the next two days I'll be cooking and preparing the Ides of March dinner party... which I'm really looking forward to.   So today I wrote double to make up for the lack of writing yesterday and in the next two days.  I wrote 6,000 words today, which is a bit worrying really, there is a definite feeling that if one isn't sweating over every winged word then nothing can be any good.   I happen to think that if you have a reasonably well-stocked mind you can write an awful lot in a short time, and then of course you have to go over it and sort it out and edit it and sigh and think "who wrote that rubbish?"  Except that it isn't always rubbish. Today's chapters (1.5 chapters) seem reasonably coherent - I always have a background idea of what I'm going to write - it's just that sometimes evanescent ideas float past and I have to rush to net them before they flutter out of reach.

The exciting thing is that I really have nearly finished.  I'm just inserting some feminist stuff - and I might go and find a couple of "darlings" from the original text - there were some lovely images that I really want to re-cyle.  Who is going to read this book? It's only a romance after all my pretensions and so on.  However, I was just talking to Norman who suggested that it was a shoe-in for Womans' Hour - "you should just issue a press release and do it now".  "I think I'll wait until it's published - then I can actually get some sales on the back of the interview."    Well, it's something to look forward to.

A week's work

Yipee - this week - a whole week of roughly 9-5 at my desk I have added 17,000 words to my manuscript - including three carefully crafted sex scenes... I am still worried about it - but it has a few more chapters to go, which I will hope to use to get some of the more thoughtful reflective stuff in it.... I just hope it's what The Agent wants... what the public wants...Unfortunately next week I am going to be very busy doing other things...so won't get too much writing in.  Unless I write all night... which is tempting.   I am very tempted to work like stink to finish it, I really want to read it - to see where it's going.   I wonder if it's worth having a couple of copies printed so that I can read it properly...  I should manage to finish it by the end of March.  Then rest a little - then come back to it for a final edit.  (I.e. the first of many).   I am so scared that when I send it off to her she won't like it.  But I know she will - this is all feeling much more grown up now.

The magic

On Sunday I was in a terrible state of gloom, despair, ennui, lassitude - full on depressive symptoms in short - it didn't help that it was raining heavily... we tried to go out, got half way there, then gave up.  So, we came home, had a row, and generally Sunday was write-off.

Yesterday I spent nearly all day writing and completed 3,000 new words including the dreaded sex scene.  I felt positive and cheerful and even phone conversations with creditors didn't shatter me.  At the end of the day I could watch tv with a cheerful heart.   This morning I awoke early and put my light on and read... today I have spent all day at the desk and have managed another 3,800 - which includes a re-cycled section. I may write a bit more later.  I am still feeling cheerful and practical and functioning well. 
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There is a great magic in doing what one likes, when it also happens to be what one ought to do.  I think I was unhappy at the weekend because I was really frustrated at not being able to write.  I am hoping if I write solidly all week I may be able to enjoy next weekend.  Fortunately this week I have "no engagements" - so apart from a bit of shopping (which I could do on-line) I don't have to go out at all.   The other great joy is that when I am writing properly I am liberated to read more.  I often don't read because I feel I shouldn't - now I think I can, because I've put in the hours during the day.

My writing methods are erratic.   Usually I sit and listen to Radio 4 for a bit - then I turn it off and type furiously, for an hour or so.  Then I see I have mysteriously acquired 1,500 words or so - then I play Spider Solitaire for a bit - then type a bit more - have some tea, have lunch - listen to a radio play - type more - another chunk - then look at emails, FB, Twitter and this blog.  Then I make supper.  Sometimes I write after supper, usually I don't.  Unfortunately, I am probably killing myself by sitting down too long. Must try to walk about a bit - perhaps I could do some ironing between bursts of writing?  Ha!

The big sex scene

It's the thing that I've been slightly dreading - but this morning I wrote it.  I warmed up by finishing inputting the hand-written notes from Norwich - another 1200 words, and then 2,000 words of deathless sexual encounter... Although it has been kindly commented by a friend that I write well about sex, that's usually been short scenes - 1500 words worth could be a bit much - don't want to feature in the "bad sex award".   Apparently many people haven't been writing sex scenes in literary/mainstream novels for years because of these wretched awards... the last sex scene I can remember reading was in Birdsong (underwhelming) - or a couple of gay scenes in Alan Hollingsworth or the famous Phillipa Gregory buggery scene - perhaps notable for being so unexpected.   Perhaps the bad sex award does not concern itself with gay sex, so it's more common in novels with gay characters/themes (there's some in Sarah Waters of course too).

Anyway, it's done - so it's downhill all the way now - although I am wondering what I can fit into the book...I can't help feeling that it isn't really fulfilling the tension between love and feminism - I think there needs to be a period towards the end where we debate love and feminism--- before the triumphant finale...

Progress

Last week was a bit of a slow week - I had to go away to Norwich - to show my son the University of East Anglia.  While he was traipsing around it being shown the accommodation etc. I went to the Sainsbury Centre - I wanted to look at the gallery, but had an overwhelming urge to write.  I found the only notebook I had on me was last year's filofax diary - largely empty so I scribbled on that.   When I came to transcribe it on Thursday I got up to about 1,500 words with plenty more to go... so I guess I must have written more than 2,000 words that morning.  I was delighted at the compulsion.

I have been less delighted that the two following days have been almost impossible for writing, with endless phone calls - nothing in particular - just lots of them - plus a bit of social life (Pugin's 200th Birthday Party and the Book Group) plus a visit from a lettings agent - which necessitated a lot of tidying and dusting.

Today is Saturday - so it has been devoted to Home Improvement - i.e. a slow sorting of all the boxes remaining in the bedroom - and establiishing a new bookshelf.  Tomorrow may just be a day of rest - perhaps we can finally go and see the Turner exhibition at the Turner Centre... My article about Rodin's the Kiss appeared in the second edition of Thanet Watch - I doubt whether anyone will read it. I so wish I could make some money - but so far, nothing has emerged.  We didn't even bother to buy a lottery ticket.  Maybe TRF  will make my fortune - it would be an unusual first novel if it did.