The Teapot

The editing process

2012-01-30T20:49:00.003Z

These days I don’t do much copy-editing – checking spelling and grammar, rewriting the occasional clumsy phrase, and checking that Susan’s blue eyes which sparkled with fun on page 2 have not become brown ones filled with tears on page 200. And that bus-stops don’t become bus stops.
Nowadays I spend more time ‘editing’. It’s a pity that, as publishers and writers, we haven’t found more exact terminology to express these different processes.

I am the first stop after a manuscript has been accepted. I read it as a whole, alert not only for infelicities in the style, but also for lack of credibility in the plot, unconvincing motivation, loss of pace, oddities of characterisation, and a thousand and one other things. (Though we always hope there won’t actually be that many.) Recently I’ve worked with both American and Australian writers, so there are often some cultural misunderstandings along the way, too.

I mark up the MS with notes to myself, and at the same time I keep a chapter list on a separate sheet of paper, outlining what happens in each. This is invaluable for referring back when the plot gets out of hand.

Then I make a start on the dreaded ‘Notes’. I always wonder if the authors quail when they see the title of the email attachment, because Notes cannot afford to pull their punches: we’re in business to make this book the best it can be.

The first set of Notes covers generalities: major holes in the plot, characterisation and pace. Only when we’ve sorted out those issues do we move on to the page-by-page comments. This is where the style gets examined. (I recently had an author who simply couldn’t decide which adjective was most important: ‘X was sitting at his large sixteenth century French provincial mahogany desk’.)

To and fro we go, sometimes debating the best solution for particular problems, until we both think we’ve done the best job we can. And only then does it go to the copy-editor. So when you sign your contract and the publisher gives you a publication date which seems impossibly distant, bear in mind: there’s a lot of work to be done between now and then.

A Tale of Two Editors

2012-01-07T16:37:00.004Z

A friend contacted me just before Christmas in some distress. She had paid for editorial help with her YA novel, and the first set of editorial suggestions (on pace, characterisation, etc) had been helpful. She dutifully worked hard on the changes and sent her MS off for the next stage. What she received horrified her. The editor had made hundreds of changes (not all tracked and therefore easily visible) and added 3,000 words to a 70,000-word novel.

Worst of all, her writing style had been drastically altered. This mattered because her novel included 'excerpts' from a fictitious nineteenth-century story, written in a style which deliberately contrasted with the narrative of her modern heroine. That difference had been drastically eroded.

But what was she to do? She had paid for advice. Would she be foolish to resist implementing it?

It's a difficult issue. Editing is an activity consisting almost entirely of grey areas. I'm on the editorial board of a small magazine, and the three of us often have to agree to differ on some subjects. (But not on compound adjectives! I fight to the death for my hyphens!) I often read books which I would have edited differently had they come across my desk. That doesn't mean the editor was wrong - just that we have differing styles and priorities.

However, when someone's style has been changed for no good reason, one has to begin to doubt. The editor in question seemed to have been unaware of the requirements of the 'period' voice, and that began to cast doubt on many of his other judgement calls.

Two things made the author decide to trust her own judgement and ignore the editor. One was the fact that two agents had already (on the strength of an unedited sample chapter) asked to see the full manuscript.

The other was that the editor had made a nineteenth-century fairytale character in a UK novel exclaim 'Shoot!'

Christmas cheer

2011-12-21T13:55:00.000Z

A big thank-you to all the scribes whose work decorated the Abingdon Writers' tree at the All Saints Christmas Tree Festival. Once again our tree attracted attention as it was the only one with readable decorations, and people stopped to read the flash fiction and poems hanging from its branches.

The event raised £600 for Oxford Homeless Pathways, so our efforts made a real contribution to someone's Christmas cheer.

Lay another place at the tea table

2011-12-15T17:55:00.000Z

Apologies for the radio silence - we've been a bit busy here around The Teapot.
Tractorboy has a new little sister.
This event has been the cause of a great deal of travelling, visiting and general hullabaloo.

She was born the day before 'Children in Need', which is why Tractorboy looks like a plague victim - he had his face painted at nursery.

Do writing groups make a difference?

2011-11-18T22:05:00.000Z

Well, who knows?

Some writing groups are very earnest and set themselves 'Creative Writing' homework - then read the results to each other at the next meeting. I don't know how they decide what to write, or whether the activities improve everyone's writing.

At Abingdon Writers we are all working towards publication, so we don't spend time on writing exercises. Instead we read from our work in progress - so on one evening you may get to hear some Young Adult fiction, part of a historical novel, a children's book (sometimes with illustrations) or adult/literary fiction. A heady mix. Both the writing and the critiques are of a high standard - we're supportive but honest, and criticism is always constructive. So it's slightly nerve-wracking but always helpful. Most of us feel that our writing has improved.

But no one has yet achieved mainstream publication.

But there's exciting news. The SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) runs an 'Undiscovered Voices' competition. Entries are long-listed and eventually some will be chosen for publication in the Undiscovered Voices Anthology. Competition is fierce. But guess what? Among the lucky few longlisted, TWO are members of Abingdon Writers. Jo Wyton and Sally Poyton, take a bow.

Has the writing group helped? Who knows?

Paranoid writers

2011-11-03T11:09:00.000Z

In the last week two beginner writers have asked me how they can copyright their ideas.

One was worried that if she pitched an idea to a magazine editor, the concept would be taken up and used by a staff writer. The other had come across that old chestnut of 'mail yourself a copy of your MS and keep it unopened to prove you had the idea first.' (Surely the province of clinical paranoia, not to mention a scary willingness to indulge in litigation.)

The fact is that editors don't have the time or need to 'steal' ideas - there are so many writers pitching fresh concepts all the time. Additionally, it's extremely common for several people to have the same idea simultaneously. (This fuels the paranoia, of course, when someone has a pitch rejected and then finds a similar article or story published later.)

The best exposition of this is Terry Pratchett's description of invisible inspiration particles sleeting through the universe, and striking susceptible brains. One imagines that like snowflakes, the particles may be unique but have many aspects in common.

On Tuesday there was a wonderful illustration of this over at 'An Awfully Big Blog Adventure'. John Dougherty once met Diana Wynne Jones at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, speaking about her new book The Game, about a child who goes to visit relatives in Ireland and finds strange things happening, connected to Celtic myths. At the time he had a manuscript with his publisher, about a child who goes to visit relatives in Ireland, etc etc.

Diana Wynne Jones was reassuring - she said this kind of thing was always happening, and the two books would be entirely different. And so they were.

It's still hard to reassure the paranoid writers, though.

And for my next trick ...

2011-10-16T19:48:00.001+01:00

It's been a London buses sort of month. Nothing published for ages and then two books come along at once. The first was Bazil Meade's A Boy, a Journey, a Dream.

This time it's Peter Gladwin's book Out of the Ashes.

Peter's is an inspiring story: disabled and scarred in a house fire as a baby, growing up surrounded by violence, crime, drink and drugs, he seemed destined for prison, depression and an early death.

He was contemplating suicide when a conversation with his sister led him to an encounter which changed his life forever; it was the start of a profound transformation.

Now happily married with three beautiful children, Peter is a living testimony to the hope that changes lives.

Ghost-writers get to meet the most interesting people.

Happy 40th birthday

2011-10-06T09:41:00.000+01:00

The Association of Christian Writers is 40 years old this year. So we had a party.

With balloons

and cake.

Adrian Plass was our speaker, talking about the need for honesty in writing. He also presented awards to the winners of our short story competition

and helped one of our founder members (and much-published author), Marion Stroud, cut the cake.

Books were bought and signed

contacts made

friendships formed

and a good time was had by all.

Holidays

2011-09-18T12:34:00.001+01:00

It was the first week of term, so it was a good bet that the weather would be better than summer.
The sea was blue

the sun shone

and the beach was deserted.

We took woodland walks

and the Professor found a small organ to play

(Methodist Central Hall, Scarborough).

We even found a train to ride on.

But Tractorboy's favourite activity was always the same.

I think we're all ready to face the autumn now.

Celebrating ...

2011-08-17T13:21:00.000+01:00

...the arrival of Bazil's book.

Working with the London Community Gospel Choir was certainly different. They are based in Walthamstow, the 'wrong' side of London for me, so Bazil and I conducted all our interviews in a coffee-lounge in Victoria, half-way for both of us. And Bazil is a busy man, so it was lucky that he has a fantastic staff (thanks, Yvonne and Jenny!) who kept an eye on his diary and made sure he managed to keep most of our appointments.

Then there were difficulties with production. Problems with copyright meant we had to abandon our plan of including a CD of LCGC songs, which was a pity - not least because we had chosen the songs to match the story, and each chapter title is also a song title. So the chapter titles may not mean much to anyone unfamiliar with the LCGC repertoire. And losing the CD meant a change of format, too, since we no longer had to accommodate the disc.

So this book has been a long time in the making. So long, in fact, that it was very nearly overtaken in the printing schedule by one I wrote immediately afterwards, which should follow soon.

Still, it's always satisfying to hold a new book in your hands.

Something odd...

2011-07-28T13:15:00.000+01:00

Something odd happened last week. A book was published that instantly became immensely popular and topped a best-seller list - and I wasn't able to read it. The book was The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore, and the reason I couldn't read it is that it's an iPad app. And like most people of my age, I don't own an iPad.

I'm not entirely a Luddite: I use a computer all the time; I own a Kindle (yes, I know that marks me out as belonging to a certain age-group); I have a mobile phone (albeit a hand-me-up from my daughter, replacing my first, which I disparagingly referred to as my 'Fisher Price phone' because it was so basic). But I can't see me getting an iPad any time soon.

In my ignorance, I had always imagined 'book' apps as being short, image-led, and acting merely as distractions from the text. But the Times review says that 'the interactive elements are fun without clogging up the narrative', and describes a range of different animation styles. From the website you gain tantalising hints of the story: 'Inspired by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz and a love of books, 'Morris Lessmore' is a story of people who devote their lives to books and books which return the favour.'

The subject matter may be ironic in view of the medium.

Does anyone else feel they REALLY want to read it?
But enough to buy an iPad?
If only we could see into the future and know which technologies will win ...

Poetry in a digital age

2011-07-04T09:59:00.000+01:00

Maybe I spend too much time on xkcd

Science and faith

2011-06-20T09:08:00.003+01:00

Ruth Banciewicz, a biologist and member of the Association of Christian Writers, appeared on Channel 4's 4thought.tv on 10th June, giving her answer to the question 'Is it possible to believe in God and Darwin?'

In an article in the forthcoming Christian Writer, she says, 'The science/faith arena has been dominated in recent years by the new atheists and their vocal (and at times not very well thought-out) arguments.'

She's right - one of the more amusing aspects of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion was the caricature of faith (unrecognisable to most Christians) which he set up as an Aunt Sally to be knocked down. It's hard to believe that a man of such intelligence was being entirely disingenuous when he limited the target for his argument in this way. Yet when he is on his home ground - popular science writing - he cannot be bettered. As Ruth says, 'Don't let the anti-religious ranting put you off. His descriptions of biological systems are beautiful.'

The church where I worship was founded in the late 1950s to serve a new estate built to house staff from nearby scientific research establishments. The local population has changed only a little, and the congregation still includes more PhDs per pew than any other I've known. As a result, a generation has grown up seeing no dichotomy between science and belief.

In Ruth's book Test of Faith: Spiritual Journeys with Scientists, she includes an article by the Oxford theoretical physicist Ard Louis. He says

It was helpful to discover that, in the physical world, things that appeared contradictory on the surface (say, an electron behaving like a wave and a particle) could be understood by a deeper and much more elegant theory like quantum mechanics. This led me to suspect that when I encountered what seemed to be profound logical or theological mysteries, a radically different way of interpreting the problem could make the whole thing come together in a very powerful way. Just as C.S. Lewis wrote about a 'deeper magic' in his Narnia series, there could perhaps be a 'deeper logic'.

For those of us who are not scientists, this is a rewarding insight.

Hooray for libraries

2011-05-17T16:48:00.000+01:00

Libraries, it's generally agreed, are a Good Thing, and Abingdon Library is no exception. Mercifully spared from the great Oxfordshire library cull, it has benefited from an electronic upgrade which makes checking out your books much faster.

It also makes the entrance area much more welcoming.

It doesn't confine itself to lending books, music and DVDs, either. It provides a meeting place for reading groups and internet taster sessions, Rhymetime for toddlers and coffee and discussion mornings for adults.

Today was our big day: Meet Abingdon Writers.

Considering how many of our number have day jobs to go to, we fielded a good team: Gabby talked about how we started our group, her own romantic novel and the benefits of the Romantic Novelists Association; I spoke about my attempts to write a historical novel; Sally talked about the challenge of being a dyslexic writer; Nicky about children's/Young Adult writing; and Mary about inspiration and her own publishing experiences. Milly spoke briefly about being the cutest and most cheerful 6-month-old baby with a supermum who also writes and organises a writing group!
The audience turned out to be a literate and articulate group, many of whom were writers themselves, and they asked a range of good questions.

All in all, a good morning.

What I did on my holiday ...

2011-05-04T16:54:00.000+01:00

Take a bunch of eccentric musicians

into the Swiss church of St Urban.

Admire the stupendous Bossart organ.

And while the Professor performs,

wander around admiring the architecture.

Later, sample the 'house' wine made by the parish priest of Triengen from the vines grown in his own garden,

and retire to the hotel and admire the view from the window.

Repeat (with variations) for five days.
Bliss.

Knitting

2011-04-04T15:03:00.000+01:00

All that cabling is SO worth it!

Compulsive? Moi?

2011-03-19T12:05:00.001Z

They say you can defeat vampires by spilling rice - their OCD compels them to count every grain.
Try this on any editors you know ....

Courtesy of xkcd and Ben Jeapes.

You are not alone

2011-03-06T12:58:00.003Z

One of the great things about attending a Writers' Day is that you get to meet other introverted hermits and exchange news from your various desktops.

Actually, it's not that bad - we writers are a friendly lot, and when you get a roomful of us together, the buzz is amazing. All our pent-up energies, usually expressed only in the frenzied tapping of keyboards (or in displacement activities from coffee-making and chocolate-eating to weeding and dog-walking) burst forth into excited conversation.

Yesterday, out of 70 people eating lunch in the bright and airy dining-room of the London School of Theology, I found myself sitting next to probably the only other person in North London who shared my passion for the fourteenth century. How fortuitous is that?

And our speaker, Nick Page, was not only experienced (the author of 60 books - or 70 - he's lost count) but also amusing (he's a professional comedian among other things). We were not a tough gig, and he had the room rocking with laughter.

Best of all, there was the opportunity to talk to other people who really understand what it's like to be a writer. We exchanged views on the difficulty of marketing yourself, the damaging effects of the recession on royalties, the worrying tendency of publishers to try to renegotiate contracts, and the complex issue of rights for e-books.

And after that breath of fresh air, it's back to writing Chapter Seven ...

Dark days

2011-02-17T18:40:00.001Z

Actually, I love this time of year.

Christmas has been packed away.

The days are getting longer.

The first signs of spring appear...

And in my study, dark deeds are afoot.

In fourteenth-century Bampton, a man is found hanging from a tree. It looks like suicide - but is it?

In twenty-first century Norfolk, an ordinand is found dead, and valuable icons are missing.

Lots of promise for fans of Hugh Singleton and the Monastery Murders later in the year. Just as soon as I get the editing finished ...

Why we need editors

2011-02-01T13:20:00.000Z

Often an editor works carefully through the entire text of a book, checking for errors, literals, dodgy grammar and misleading turns of phrase.

And then, when all is complete, and the editor has delivered the final text to the publisher, along comes someone in the marketing department to write the blurb for the cover.

My friend Kate sent me this gem from a book about Ice Ages. Of the geologist Louis Agassiz it says:
Born in Motier on 28 May 1807, he was the son of a Swiss parson and the daughter of a physician...

As she says, just for a moment before the light dawns, it does look as if Louis had an unusually varied life.

Does formatting matter?

2011-01-16T15:42:00.000Z

An author recently sent me a manuscript for comment. The extraordinary thing was that it had been painstakingly formatted to look like a printed book - a book, moreover, designed to be produced at around A5 size. The headings and contents used a script font so squiggly as to be almost unreadable.

I had the MS in electronic form too, so I reformatted the whole thing into Times New Roman, A4, simply in order to be able to read it.

As it happens, this was a privately arranged reading. If I had been a reader for a publishing house, that MS would have been an automatic reject - (a) because editors don't have time to reformat and (b) because the presentation showed that the author was an amateur. She hadn't even bothered to check the standard format.

I have seen the error before - this time from someone who was considering self-publishing, and had spent a great deal of time planning the eventual layout of the printed book, before considering the quality of the writing.

So how should you lay out your manuscript when submitting it to a publisher or agent?

There are three absolute rules:

Read the guidelines
Read the guidelines
Learn to use Word effectively

The first two are important. Check the publisher’s or agent’s website and follow the instructions minutely. If they ask for email submissions and you post a hard copy (or vice versa) your work will not be read. If they ask for double spacing and your text is single spaced, the same will happen. Agents and editors are busy people, and manuscripts which aren’t easy to read and don’t allow space for notes will only make them grouchy. Grouchy editors find it easy to say no.

A little research will show the range of requirements. Some companies want email, others hard copy; some name fonts: 12-point Arial, Times New Roman, or even Courier New. One company specifies page breaks before each chapter and adds ‘put page numbers in the footer not the header of each page’.

This brings us to the third rule. If you send out your MS to half a dozen agents you need to know how to change all those elements quickly and easily. Word can do it all for you, provided you are using it as more than just a glorified electric typewriter. Use one of the tutorials available on the internet. At the very least, learn to use Styles for headings and text, and how to number pages automatically. (I recently worked with an author who had numbered all his pages manually. Once we started making alterations and additions, the page number which had started out at the top right of every page gradually sank down the page, and it became impossible to find anything.)

If, by chance, your chosen publisher or agent doesn't specify formats, these are the general rules:

Text double spaced
At least 3cm margins all round
12 pt Times New Roman
Text ranged left (not justified)
Number all the pages
Add your name and the title of the book in smaller type on every page
For hard copy, print one side of the paper only
Do not staple pages
Add a cover page with your name, address, telephone number and email address, the book title and word count
If you want your manuscript returned, add a prepaid, self-addressed envelope.

Happy New Year

2011-01-01T18:15:00.001Z

A long pause between blogs, filled with a variety of events, from birthday celebrations to Christmas preparations, and taking in (unfortunately) trips to hospitals and the fitting of an attractive plaster cast on a fractured wrist.

However, we will put all that aside as belonging to 2010 (though the healing will take up a lot of January and February), and turn instead to what the New Year brings - specifically, the fruits of past labours.

Copies of Streetsmart have arrived from Monarch - the latest product of my partnership with John Robinson. That is, he does the hard stuff (putting his faith into action on the streets of Manchester, bringing the gospel to gangs and disaffected teenagers), and I do the easy bit (writing the book that makes his experience and wisdom available to help churches and individuals with the vision to follow in his footsteps).

Since John is currently working as a missionary in Thailand, I'm expecting his story to have many sequels. The problem is usually to get him to sit still long enough to enable me to write it up for him. I suspect more adventures await in 2011. Happy New Year.

Shocking news

2010-10-24T10:58:00.001+01:00

... and naturally, the publishing world is shaken to its core. Apparently, Jane Austen had an editor.

Professor Kathryn Sutherland, engaged in building an online archive of Austen's handwritten manuscripts, seems to have been surprised that they contain deletions and 'a powerful counter-grammatical way of writing ... the polished punctuation and epigrammatic style we see in Emma and Persuasion is simply not there.' She concludes that someone else - probably William Gifford, an editor working for the publisher John Murray - amended the manuscript for publication.

Is anyone actually surprised? Is there anyone who seriously believes that good prose makes its way straight to the page without false starts, revisions and second thoughts? Or that creative writers never need to have their punctuation tidied up? Only, perhaps, hero-worshippers like Austen's brother Henry, who claimed that 'everything came finished from her pen.'

And only the most naive reader would conclude that this diminishes Austen's stature. The novel is a complex form, combining large elements (concept, structure, plot, characterisation) with detailed writing issues (style, grammar and punctuation). Even writers who expertly manage all the minutiae acknowledge the difficulty of editing their own writing: familiarity with the text, once written, makes it hard to spot errors. A fresh editorial eye will not only correct the details but often suggest improvements.

A mechanic is invaluable for repairing your car - it doesn't follow that he is capable of inventing the internal combustion engine.

Travels

2010-09-19T16:11:00.001+01:00

September has been a busy month.

First there was my lovely god-daughter Susie's marriage to Charlie - a country wedding in the perfect location (almost in the back garden of Charlie's parents' farm).

Then our friend, the wonderful John Wellingham,

decided to celebrate his 80th birthday by giving an organ recital in Weingarten, and some of us went out to join in the festivities.

Of course, no group of organists could just go to Germany for the weekend; we had to fly to Zurich and see three organs on the way and five more on the way back.

And then the Professor organised a conference in Cardiff, and I went along too. He listened to lectures on obscure mathematical matters, while I worked in the amazing Cardiff Public Library

and had coffee in the biggest shopping mall I have ever seen.

Then we walked down to Cardiff Bay and looked at the Millennium Centre.

I enjoyed all this frivolity all the more because I have finally completed the first draft of Bazil Meade's book about the London Community Gospel Choir,

and before I left home I received an advance copy of the latest Mel Starr mystery (edited earlier this year).

So I was feeling somewhat euphoric. Of course, the next ghost-writing contract starts on October 1st, and the editing jobs are stacking up like planes over Heathrow.

But right now I am enjoying an autumnal pause.

Heritage Day

2010-09-12T20:11:00.001+01:00

Saturday was Heritage Day in Abingdon.

We were able to look in the gardens of ancient houses

and poke about in places that aren't always open.

Even familiar places could be seen in a new light when helpful people pointed out features you might have missed.

For someone planning a historical novel, it was heaven.

The joy of editing

2010-08-25T13:25:00.003+01:00

I had a really good editing experience the other day.

I was reading a manuscript in its third draft, when I remembered I already had some notes on the second draft. I never passed them on because the author was about to start another re-write. At our meeting to discuss Draft 2, it was clear that the important problems were on a larger scale - characterisation, plot development, etc - so I tactfully hid the list of minutiae I'd prepared. When an author's working on the bigger issues, he doesn't need someone wittering on about sentence structure, repetitions and minor point-of-view changes.

But the next re-write was now complete (and the good man had succeeded in making me care about his central character), so it was time to collate all the comments and go for a proper detailed edit.

I got out my notes (his inserted material had changed all the page references, of course) and started checking them against the new version. And found that some of the corrections had already been made. Without the author knowing that these things were on my hit-list, he'd spotted them himself and fixed them.

Result.

Who says editing's a thankless job?

What are you reading?

2010-08-17T18:41:00.002+01:00

I was browsing over at An Awfully Big Blog Adventure the other day (not that I intend to write children's/YA books, but I know people who do) when I came across lists of the Year Five and Year Seven top reads, recommended by the children themselves. Fascinating stuff (not least the limited overlap between the girls' and the boys' lists), but most amusing of all was the advice in one of the comments:

'Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it...'

It made me look hard at my own 'Reading recently' column over there on the right. I have vowed that I won't censor, but will faithfully record everything, even the stinkers. Since there's no star-rating system, please don't take it as a list of recommendations. I'm currently researching historical novels by reading a disproportionate number, and if I had been the publisher's reader I would have rejected many of them. They doubtless sell in their millions, so what do I know?

The list also doesn't record repetitions: I re-read constantly, with a wide range of old favourites kept specially for bedtime reading (new books keep me awake). I have friends who are shocked by this: they never re-read anything. So I was encouraged when I finally took up Susan Hill's Howards End is on the Landing - subtitled 'A year of reading from home'. The author gave herself a year of buying no new books - but confessed that she already re-read, on a regular basis, many of the books that fill her house. My reading may be less erudite than hers, but it made me feel better.

For the Snark was a boojum ...

2010-07-31T21:04:00.001+01:00

Today I received yet another of those tiresome emails, sent by a well-meaning acquaintance to the entire contents of her address book, warning me about a computer virus.

These scares do the rounds from time to time. They usually describe the subject line of an email you might receive, and follow this with dire warnings of the consequences should you be foolish enough to open it. Your entire hard disc will be erased! Your desktop wallpaper will be replaced with porn! All the contacts listed in your address book will receive nonsensical emails! The easily alarmed immediately try to warn all their friends, thus ensuring that the last one, at least, comes true.

In fact, if you Google the subject line, you generally find that the whole thing is a hoax. I have never been able to fathom the mentality of the originators, who think creating this kind of panic is any form of fun.

Recently, however, I heard of a more sinister mischief, reported in The Author (the august journal of The Society of Authors).

Two authors Googled the title of one of their out-of-print books to see if second-hand copies were available. They found that the website http://filestreasury.com was offering free dowloads of the whole series. Irritated by this blatant piracy (they were planning to republish) they consulted an expert who pointed out that the entire site is a scam. It provides no downloads, seeking only to obtain people's registration fees and credit card details. No matter what title you search for (even Boojumsnarks by Jane Austen) it will claim to have several versions available.

Doubtless this is only one of millions of sites which attempt to defraud the buyer. I suppose the profit motive is at least comprehensible if reprehensible.

So much information on the internet, so much of it deceptive ...

Growing up

2010-07-17T21:25:00.000+01:00

Being a godparent is a privilege, multiplying as it does the wonder of watching one's (extended) family grow. My lovely god-daughter Sarah is very special because of all my godchildren, she is the only one who was baptised as a teenager, and therefore in a position to choose her own godparents - even though her aunt Ali and I were only actually on duty for about 15 minutes until she was confirmed at the same ceremony. Our role was less as spiritual mentors and rather more as examples of Church of England bureaucracy, but it was an honour all the same.

Now she is coming to the end of a year in London, spent working for the charity Oasis in their 360 programme. She had already completed her degree, so it wasn't exactly a gap year, and now she is about to move on to (she hopes) a real job. To our delight she started blogging during her time in Waterloo, with comments like this:

'On our journey from initial experience to true faith we have to spend time in the (metaphorical) wilderness. The wilderness is a hard place, but also somewhere we meet God.'

She has evidently had a very thoughtful year, as well as a practical one - working in the cafe, running an art club and working with the elderly as well as the young. She astonishes me with the maturity of her philosophical thought, from Marcus Borg on the challenges of religious pluralism, through eco-theology to the nature of ethnicity in the inner city.

Somehow I'm sure that whatever she does next, it won't be dull.

Planes and trains

2010-07-04T16:12:00.003+01:00

We are all a little weary after our 4.30 a.m. start to collect Miss G from Heathrow, when she flew in from the USA. She has been teaching Physical Science in a High School for two years, and she arrived tired and slightly confused by the change of time zone, climate (she left North Carolina in 38 degrees and found our sweltering 28 degrees distinctly chilly) and by leaving behind the school, her apartment and her friends.

She is NOT sad to be abandoning the American High School system, with its ‘No Child Left Behind’ policy. She went out with high hopes that this would mean that every student who reached her class would be at least basically literate and numerate. But it turned out to mean pressure to manipulate the test scores so that every child advances a grade each year, no matter what their level of attainment. And all the tests are multiple-choice, so even guessing can produce a pass!

I recently sent her this cartoon, which she says is scarily accurate.

Now she has to decide what to do next: as a young female physics teacher, with high-level skills in subjects from music to dance, she is somewhat spoilt for choice. And meanwhile, she is off by train to the Far North to renew her acquaintance with her nephew.

It’s good to have her home.

Stet

2010-06-19T09:57:00.000+01:00

I'm currently re-reading Diana Athill's wonderful book Stet, about her fifty years in publishing. One coincidence I had forgotten was that her first job, like mine, was with the BBC's information service attached to Overseas News. Her subsequent career was considerably more stellar, however, as she was a founding member of Andre Deutsch's publishing house.

One episode sums up the nature of editorial work. She describes a non-fiction book which was perfect for their list 'if only it could be made readable'. After a false start in which an outside editor failed to improve the text, she set about editing it herself. She says,

I doubt if there was a sentence - certainly there was not a paragraph - that I did not have to alter ... sending it chapter by chapter to the author for his approval which - although he was naturally grouchy - he always gave. I enjoyed the work. It was like removing layers of crumpled brown paper from an awkwardly shaped parcel, and revealing the attractive present which it contained (a good deal more satisfying than the minor tinkering involved when editing a more competent writer).

The edited book was well reviewed, with a comment in the TLS that it was not only scholarly but beautifully written. The author sent Diana Athill a copy of the review, accompanied by a short note.

'How nice of him,' I thought, 'he's going to say thank you!' What he said in fact was: 'You will observe the comment about the writing which confirms what I have thought all along, that none of the fuss about it was necessary.' When I had stopped laughing I accepted the message: an editor must never expect thanks ... We must always remember that we are only midwives - if we want praise for progeny we must give birth to our own.

This matches my own experience exactly: editors often enjoy working on a really badly written manuscript! And authors seldom notice even the most dramatic changes: as long as the sense of what they wanted to say is preserved, they quickly convince themselves that they wrote every word. The 'midwife' comparison holds good for ghost-writers, too. We interview, we research, we shape and define and fine-tune the story - but ultimately we are writing about someone else's life, and our name is appended (if at all) as an afterthought.

Time, perhaps, to begin to write for myself.

Abingdon Writers

2010-06-09T09:42:00.000+01:00

This small group of enthusiastic writers has been meeting at 35 Ock Street for almost a year now. Mostly we take turns to read aloud from whatever work is in progress, and then everyone provides (constructive) criticism. Since our genres range from poetry to memoir, and from children's stories to magical realism/contemporary/historical/fantasy via YA fiction, we get plenty of variety.

Last night was different. Discovering among our own membership a couple of people who worked in the business of books, we had a teaching session.

Nicki (of the amazing Mostly Books) talked about 'how to promote yourself as an author', and gave us the inside track on what publishers actually do (and don't do) to promote your book. There were some horrified faces as we realised that the sales rep visiting a bookshop (to sell 'our' book among dozens on his list) would probably have two or three minutes at most to persuade the bookseller to take a couple of copies. Once we had looked at actual marketing materials and Advance Information sheets produced by publishers, we had a much better idea of what we should be aiming at, well in advance of the publication date.

I led a short workshop in which we deconstructed a real query/covering letter (with permission from the original writer) together with its revised version, and teased out the important elements. Since this author is currently under consideration by Darley Anderson, we knew that whatever the fate of the book, at least the query letter worked! Then we looked at an original and revised synopsis for one of Liah's books. She also seemed pretty pleased with the 'hook' suggested for Cassandra, her historical vampire fantasy: 'The Odyssey at Twilight'.

Nicki has promised to return with the next exciting instalment: Organising Launch Events. Watch this space.

New arrivals

2010-05-31T16:08:00.001+01:00

Content editing is a strange occupation. You read lengthy manuscripts, critique them, and occasionally pick holes so large that huge chunks of plot fall out. You then feel rather guilty, so you have to suggest ways of fixing the plot or motivation or whatever else you have surgically removed.

If you are lucky, as I was with Donna Fletcher Crow, the author does not call down fire from heaven upon your head, nor write you insulting emails about your unfitness to criticise, nor even kick the cat. Instead they quietly set to and incorporate your suggestions, find yet more fixes, and work like fury to tidy up the manuscript you just destroyed AND STILL MEET THE DEADLINE. This, as I have commented elsewhere (on a crime thriller blog for authors, editors and agents) is the mark of a true professional.

And when the said book finally achieves publication, you feel as proud as if it were your own. In this case, there was an added complication. Donna lives in the USA, so when Monarch sent out the advance copies, I had mine in my hand, and was emailing to congratulate her, several days before hers arrived. Frustrating for her (amazingly, she still doesn't seem to hate me). And even then, the book won't be published in the States until September, so she has to contain her enthusiasm (and marketing activities) for another three months.

Meanwhile, of course, as she is gearing up to publicise her book, I'm hard at work on someone else's manuscript.

As I said, it's a strange occupation.

Writer's woes

2010-05-23T13:06:00.004+01:00

I should be posting about all the exciting episodes in an writer/editor's life, not least the delights of the Christian Resources Exhibition and the fascinating conversations which ensued at the ACW stand. But instead, I couldn't resist this:

Bliss

2010-04-29T09:38:00.009+01:00

More travelling - this time to the Far North to visit Tractorboy and his parents in their new house. As their move was very recent, they were still surrounded by boxes and looking slightly bemused, but revelling in the space and the delights of having a garden, and some sunshine in which to enjoy it.

Of course we took gifts: cake (because bakeware isn't high on their priority list for unpacking), a 'book' (if you can call it that)

and yet another sweater for Tractorboy.

This is the third version of this stripy fisherman's sweater I've knitted for him, in Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino, because his mum likes the pattern so much. I'm quite relieved that this is the largest size in the book, so I can't knit it again.

But now there is a difference, because Tractorboy has opinions of his own, and is beginning to be able to share them. The next day he picked up his new sweater, rubbed it against his chin, and pronounced it 'Hoft' (he's having trouble with the letter 's'). And raised his arms for someone to help him into it.

It's so lovely being a granny. And the giving isn't all one way. I gave him a sweater, and he gave me his cold.

Thank you, Debbie Bliss.

And now please excuse me while I go and have this cold ...

Organ-spotting

2010-04-15T10:10:00.001+01:00

Just back from five days in Lombardy. And before anyone says, 'Oh, how wonderful, did you go to ...?' the answer is 'Probably not.' This was a trip with the Oxford and District Organists' Association, for the purpose of visiting and playing historic organs in wonderful churches in places you've never heard of.

So we enjoyed sumptuous hospitality at a private estate in Colle Brianza, where Organo Pradella has built a new instrument in the tiny chapel.

We travelled up vertiginous roads to churches perched in the foothills of the Alps.

And in Milan, we had a private recital by the world-famous Lorenzo Ghielmi at San Simpliciano.

Of course, for the organists among us, the real attraction is being allowed to play all these instruments. For those who usually play tiny extension organs in Methodist churches with poor acoustics, this is like having Christmas and birthdays rolled into one. And when Signor Ghielmi himself says 'Bravo!' when you finish a piece ... well, the Professor's cup runneth over.

Literary wonders

2010-03-29T18:33:00.003+01:00

A great day on Friday at the Oxford Literary Festival. Selecting sessions can be a little hit and miss, but this year my sister (visiting specially for the occasion) and I made some excellent choices.

John Sutherland on literature's puzzles, showing how apparently simple questions can throw new light on texts: why were there no public conveniences in Casterbridge? How pure was Mr Knightley? How good a swimmer was Magwitch? And so on.
Joanne Harris, Kathy Lette and Deborah Moggach speaking with passion about their experiences researching for Because I Am a Girl, a collection of stories about girls from the world's poorest communities, published in aid of Plan UK.
John Polkinghorne and David Papineau debating whether science reveals the mind of God. This was probably the least satisfying session, because the same arguments are always rehearsed and there is not the slightest chance that anyone in the room is open to persuasion. But it did enable us to add John Polkinghorne (a model of courtesy, ferocious intelligence and wit) to our Fantasy Dinner Party list.

And then we had a short burst of impulse-buying, which resulted in this wonderful purchase.

It includes covers which are beautiful,

iconic

and intriguing.

But oh, the hours we'll waste as we hunt for just the right postcard for the recipient!

To whom it may concern

2010-03-12T20:02:00.004Z

Offline for a while, recuperating from two sets of antibiotics (a bad case of Februaryitis), I found myself getting increasingly crabby. Newspapers seemed to be full of trivia (note to The Times: have you really analysed your readership demographic and decided that everyone is obsessed with the Paris fashion show?); interviewees on television and radio appeared to be generally inarticulate, prey to the rising inflection (which I believe entered the nation's speech patterns at about the same time as Neighbours - and that's a long time ago) and unable to formulate a coherent argument without getting sidetracked.

And then, wandering around on the internet, I came across this little gem:

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

Well, it restored my sense of humour, anyway.

To be read

2010-02-25T17:07:00.003Z

One of the great things about blogs is the introductions that get made, especially literary ones. You can find yourself eager to read a recommended book, either because you trust that blogger's opinion, or because the review is so tempting that you simply have to find out for yourself.

Hence there are two new books on my wish list today. (Yes, I have an Amazon wish list, and no, I won't be buying them from there. I use it as an aide-memoire, then I fetch the ISBNs from the Blackwell's website, and then I write them on a card and order them from Mostly Books. I know which side my bread's buttered, and living in a town with two independent bookshops is a privilege I don't intend to take lightly.)

The first title is The Book of Chameleons, reviewed here. Quite outside my normal reading repertoire, but I'll always trust a recommendation by Ron, who is possibly the only man alive who can write entertainingly about a quadruple heart bypass.

The second is They Came Like Swallows, by William Maxwell. I've been following the dovegreyreader blog for a while, though I did become a bit disillusioned. She blogs daily, describing one or more books. Either she speed-reads at an incredible rate (and does nothing but read), I thought, or she merely skims the titles and blurbs, and thus is slightly conning us.

Then I read this review, and her description of sitting in a cafe in Honiton was so vivid that I knew it was true, and had to put Maxwell on my reading list.

I love her idea of the 'to-be-read' Munro. Except that dovegreyreader is now such a phenomenon that books arrive at her doorstep in sackloads, while the rest of us rely on the library and defrauding the housekeeping to supply our book habit. But let us put envy aside, and celebrate the fact that the blogging world enables people to share their reading experiences, enriching us all.

Loaves and fishes

2010-02-15T13:10:00.002Z

People in two local churches are just beginning to recover from last Saturday, when we held our first Messy Church.

Messy Church is a different approach to being the church. It isn't necessarily messy (though the crispy cake corner did get very chocolatey). It's certainly NOT a cunning ruse to lure people into Sunday services. Rather, it's church in its own right. We wanted to meet local families, and give them a chance to make friends and experience worship. We wanted to change the image of church from 'boring' to 'fun'.

So we provided a wide range of crafts and activities (on a theme), non-stop coffee and squash, opportunities to sit and chat, a short and lively story/song/prayer in the church, and then we ate lunch together.

But how many people would we be catering for? We had no idea whether we were expecting five or fifty. Loaves and fishes were not on the menu.

We hoped for enough people to give the event a bit of a 'buzz'. At 10.30 the first families arrived - and kept on arriving. We set up a buggy park in the back of the church, and sent out for more hot dogs and ice cream. Thirty adults and fifty children had fun, got messy, joined in enthusiastically, and asked when the next one would be.

It was exhausting but fun. And the Sunday Church congregation were amazed when they saw the pictures of the dozens of young families who made up our Saturday (messy) Church.

The editor at leisure

2010-02-04T12:52:00.001Z

The trouble with editors is that they can't switch off.

Today the brochure for the Abingdon Arts Festival arrived. Great - dance, exhibitions, film, jazz, music (a different thing entirely, apparently), literature and theatre coming almost to our doorsteps in March.

Then I read this, from the account of Loving April, a play adapted by Giles Croft from the novel by Melvin Burgess:

April spends her time among the swans on the river, keeping away from the boys in the village. But all that changes when Barbara Piggott and her well-educated son Tony arrive from London. Cast aside by a world of privilege and power, it is April who teaches them how to survive.

So who was cast aside - April, or the Piggotts?

That, children, is a dangling modifier, and it makes editors' teeth itch. We reach for the Red Pen, but to no avail. The text is out there in the community, causing havoc and misunderstanding.

And no, I know it doesn't matter to sane people. It just matters to editors, OK?

February blues

2010-02-01T15:10:00.000Z

I seem to be surrounded by people bewailing the fact that they've already broken their New Year's resolutions. Mostly they blame the snow. Either their fitness goals ('Must go the gym every day') were thwarted, or their diet crashed in the face of cabin fever and the desire for comfort food.

Speaking as a Temporary Acting Methodist (my correct denominational designation) I don't much need New Year's resolutions. This is because Methodists have Covenant Sunday, traditionally held on the first Sunday of the New Year, when they renew their covenant with God and pray what is known in our house as The Scary Prayer.

It has a modern, more accessible (and less impressive) form, but the original Wesleyan version is slightly terrifying - even when you understand the word 'suffering' in its correct sense of 'being passive or inactive'.

I am no longer my own but yours.
Put me to what you will,
rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing,
put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you,
or laid aside for you,
exalted for you,
or brought low for you;
let me be full,
let me be empty,
let me have all things,
let me have nothing:
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things
to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours.

It's a very adult prayer, which accepts that the good may not necessarily equate with the comfortable. Most Christians have at some time prayed a similar prayer of commitment, but Wesley's words lay it all out so starkly that they bring me up short every year. Where do I really put my trust?

Most people make their New Year resolutions in the knowledge that they are likely to fail. Christians do, too, but we're used to it. Picking yourself up and starting afresh is a characteristic of the spiritual life, knowing that God forgives our failings and gives us strength to try again. The point is that we don't throw the whole thing over, but look ahead to the New Year with hope and faith. Even in February.

The taxman moves in mysterious ways

2010-01-26T21:52:00.001Z

Buying a bagful of children's books at the Helen and Douglas House charity shop today, I noticed something strange. Some books carried a simple price sticker, but others had an ID number, too. Those stickers were peeled off by the nice lady serving me, and affixed to a form pinned to the wall.

When I inquired, she explained that you can Gift Aid your donated goods. If you are a taxpayer, you sign a form, and the shop records the value every time one of your items is sold. The tax man regards this as a financial donation, and the charity reclaims Gift Aid on it. No cost to you, and the charity is considerably better off.

I had no idea - that is, I knew about Gift Aid, but not that it worked for goods.

Naturally I signed up at once, and I urge you to do the same.

Back to work

2010-01-19T22:01:00.001Z

For many people, the week of snow meant an unexpected extension to the Christmas holidays. Even in our street, only a few yards from the main road, conditions were impossible for travel. We watched one of our neighbours try to move his car from his drive, get it stuck across the road, and spend the next half hour digging his way back in. Forty-five minutes after setting off he was back where he started (the last fifteen were spent trying to move the front wheels off the pavement).

For some people it meant days off. For those of us who work from home, and for others (like the Professor) who can do so, it was business as usual.

This week the Editor's In-tray is quite full.

I have one ghost-written book to finish off via telephone conference before the author leaves for Thailand (he really is going next week, so it's getting urgent).
The next ghost-writing project is started, with a string of meetings set up over the next few months between the author's busy concert schedule.
The project after that is only in contract form, but the author is very keen to get started, so we've had to schedule a first meeting for him, too.
I'm half-way through writing editorial guidance notes for an American author I don't yet know (she sounds lovely in her emails, but she hasn't yet seen my dissection of her plot, and I'm a bit worried).
I'm expecting delivery of the next Hugh de Singleton MS from Mel Starr before the end of the month (that will be OK, as Mel and I have met and we get on well, even when I pick holes in his plots).
Travelling to London last Friday to see an author/friend to deliver another critique in person, I filled the time on the coach by copy-editing the next edition of Christian Writer.
And I really would like to have time to get back to my own fiction writing.

So in the face of all this frenetic activity, what is the best thing to do first?
Play with the Professor's Christmas present, of course, and make fresh tagliatelli!

Literary outlaws

2010-01-09T19:51:00.004Z

Guy Walters wrote in The Times recently about his (all-male) Book Group, describing its activities as 'a long and fruitful journey of literary and cultural exploration'. I agree with him - but that's where we part company.

He can only be trying to be provocative when he claims to know what 'distinguishes male book clubs from their female equivalents - we actually read the books. And we discuss them.' I imagine that female (and mixed) Book Groups all over the country are seething.

Our own Book Group has been running since around 1987 - long before reading groups became fashionable. We meet every month or six weeks, generally covering about ten books a year. And we read them. Oh, yes.

Guy continues: 'Granted, the first half of our bi-monthly meetings usually involves us gossiping, but after dinner (dutifully cooked by one of our wives) we sit down to begin what we archly call "dissection".'

Apart from the breathtaking sexism which requires their meal to be prepared for them, I'm astonished that he feels this allocation of time deserves praise.

Our group began when many of us had small children, so our start time was fixed to allow us to feed the family and put the children to bed. We eat together only once a year, on a bring and share basis; otherwise no food is involved - we didn't want it to become a masterchef competition. The only 'gossip' occurs while we are waiting for everyone to arrive. We're aware how easily idle chatter could deflect us from our purpose of discussion.

Our system is to take it in turns to host the meeting, and to choose and present the book. The person hosting provides wine and soft drinks only; the presenter (never the same person) gives a short introduction (often some background research into the author or topic or both) and some questions to get the discussion started.

I agree with Guy that often a book we don't like provokes the better discussion, but I disagree on another point: 'Book Club is about self-improvement.' How tedious and dull. I wonder if the all-male group suffers from that other common male problem - competitiveness? I can imagine them, sitting around wearing their monogrammed Book Club ties, vying to sound the most intellectual as they struggle with Dostoevsky. No wonder they can only manage half an evening of discussion.

We read anything and everything - from the latest Booker Prize winner to the classics, and try to analyse the popularity of best-sellers such as Harry Potter and Patrick O'Brian along the way. And we laugh a lot. I hope Guy's group finds time for that, between the dutiful dinner and the self-improvement.

For the record ...

2010-01-07T10:16:00.002Z

I know everyone has snow pictures, but here in Abingdon we are usually a snow-free zone.
First there was a hard frost ...

Then it snowed overnight ....

by yesterday morning the car was wearing a hat ...

Boxhill Wood looked like Narnia ...

and even the town looked Dickensian.

Happy New Year.

Christmas preparations

2009-12-21T16:32:00.002Z

In spite of my admissions about housework, it's been a productive week. I finished re-upholstering the dining chairs (tuition from Kate).

I built a wreath for the front door (tuition by Kate two years ago)

and an Advent Ring for the dining table.

I created a sort of bed-hanging for Tractorboy, who is sleeping in his parents' bedroom over the holiday, so that if he wakes in the night he won't see them and demand to be entertained (it seems to be working).

I wrapped presents and made placecards for 20 people for the family meal on Saturday.

I brought toys down from the loft for Tractorboy to play with, before Santa comes.

The Professor bought the tree on his way home from work.

Daughter 1 and family are safe at home (bringing with them this year's festive cold and cough).

We are watching the forecast anxiously because Daughter 2 is snowed up in North Carolina, waiting for the weather to clear for her journey home.

We haven't decorated the house yet, or bought the food, or set up the tree.

So I wasn't very helpful when a house editor emailed to ask when I would finish an editing job. It's in my schedule for January, and I'm not looking at it until then.

I have a Christmas to prepare.

On the dereliction of housework

2009-12-18T15:30:00.000Z

I work from home, which has two distressing effects. First, I notice much more when housework needs to be done (the mud trodden in from the woods, the dust on the bookshelves). Secondly, my 'real' work is there in the house with me, clamouring for attention. I'm constantly distracted from my good intentions by the pressing demands of an urgent email or a deadline that must be met. And anyway, I can always find something more interesting than housework to do.

So I was cheered by a friend who said dismissively, 'Cobwebs? Don't worry about them. I leave them till Christmas and spray them with glitter.'

Sounds like a plan ...

Hallmark goes mad

2009-12-11T12:28:00.003Z

Hallmark (or another similar card company) has finally lost it. I was queuing to buy seasonal bags to facilitate the complex gift exchange which goes on in the Professor's large extended family, when I spotted a new range of cards.

The front looked Christmassy, and it also bore a greeting, written in the accepted Hallmark style (i.e it rhymes but never quite scans). In fact, it scanned so badly that I failed to memorise it - but the gist of it was this:
Dearest Nana, it's awful at any time to lose a nana who was loved as much as you. But to lose you at Christmas was doubly painful.

(And by implication, I suppose, your dying at such an inconvenient time has ruined our Christmasses for ever.)

The mind boggles. Where do you send it? Do you prop it on a gravestone? Who is going to read it and how?

I sympathise with anyone suffering bereavement. And I do understand that most of the rituals and customs around funerals and the like are for the benefit of the living, not the dead. It's rather like those strange small ads you find in the back of the local paper, commemorating a loved one every year and addressed to them. I suppose that this is merely an extension. But the verse was maudlin, the versifying appallin', and someone somewhere is making money out of a strange distortion of the celebration of the saviour's birth. Again.

Carols by battery light

2009-12-04T10:01:00.005Z

I don't usually forward those humorous emails that do the rounds, but I was particularly taken with one that arrived today. Referencing the carol 'Little Jesus, sweetly sleep', it said:

Fur is no longer appropriate wear for small infants, both due to risk of allergy to animal fur, and for ethical reasons. Therefore faux fur, a nice cellular blanket or perhaps micro-fleece material should considered a suitable alternative. Please note, only persons who have been subject to a Criminal Records Bureau check and have enhanced clearance will be permitted to rock Baby Jesus. Persons must carry their CRB disclosure with them at all times and be prepared to provide three forms of identification before rocking commences.

It went on to deal with While Shepherds Watched ('The angel of the Lord is reminded that before shining his / her glory all around she / he must ascertain that all shepherds have been issued with glasses capable of filtering out harmful effects of UVA, UVB and the overwhelming effects of Glory') and others.

This take on Christmas is particularly apposite for the poor Methodists, who have been advised by the Fire Brigade that candles are a fire hazard (who knew?) and thus are acceptable only in fixed positions on the altar rail. Last year the congregation arriving for Carols by Candlelight were issued with a battery-operated contraption the size of a tea-light, with a tiny flickering bulb that gave off almost no light.

It just isn't the same. Has anyone told the HSE about the Christingle services planned around the town?

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

2009-12-02T18:34:00.002Z

This is a charming, frothy, feel-good light read, bound in delicious Persephone grey - the perfect book to give a friend who's coming down with a cold.

Miss Pettigrew is a dowdy spinster in desperate need of employment. A mix-up at the agency sends her to the door of Miss Delysia LaFosse, a night-club singer with a complicated love life. Drawn into an unfamiliar world, Miss Pettigrew finds herself becoming a new woman, one she scarcely recognises.

Of course it's undemanding and predictable, but this Cinderella story gains a witty edge by the way Miss Pettigrew's innocent common sense is interpreted as profound wisdom by the flippant young things whose lives she accidentally disentangles.

It is dated (published in 1938), and the line-drawings will remind you of the books of your childhood, but if you can suspend your twenty-first-century sensibilities it provides a wonderfully escapist read.

Help is at hand

2009-11-26T13:05:00.004Z

The winter edition of Christian Writer dropped through the letterbox this week. It's something of an achievement, since we've had a radical redesign and inserted more colour pages. We're pleased with the result. As well as the Members' Showcase (with excerpts from recent publications), competition results and contributions to a lively ongoing debate about self-publishing, there's one item which locals may recognise.

Yes, Mostly Books makes an appearance, with a few hot tips on marketing your book from Mark Thornton's popular Shelf Secrets course.

With the news this week of another publishing casualty of the recession (STL is in the hands of the receivers), authors need all the help they can get.

Girl in a Blue Dress

2009-11-21T22:13:00.003Z

Another Book Group choice, an extraordinary historical biography: the story of Dickens and his wife Catherine, fictionalised as Dorothy and Alfred Gibson. Cleverly, our Book Group presenter read it alongside Peter Ackroyd's Dickens: thus it became clear that the fiction follows the fact very closely, but charm and interest are added by telling the story from the point of view of poor mistreated Dodo.

Gaynor Arnold 'answers' questions we might have asked of Ackroyd: why did Dickens' family not object to his dubious relationship with his young sister-in-law, his pursuit of young actresses and his eventual rejection of his wife? Alfred Gibson - 'the One and Only' - is portrayed as arrogant and controlling, encouraged by fame and the adoration of his public, and driven by the fear of poverty to work obsessively. He rules his home through a combination of his roles as provider and paterfamilias as well as a national celebrity whose family are an essential part of his image.

Dorothy clearly suffers from post-natal depression (as well as a possible adiction to laudanum) through her eight pregnancies; in the days before effective contraception her only remedy - abstention - is denied by her husband, who then complains that she has grown fat and unattractive.

This is a simply presented story, told largely in flashbacks after Alfred's death, yet managing to achieve considerable emotional complexity. It also caused our group discussion to morph into a parlour game as we tried to match characters and events from Dickens' life with those which appear in his novels.

An easy and satisfying read.

Old Fossils

2009-11-17T14:08:00.006Z

A weekend in Charmouth with four friends (old fossils, all of us). We braved the strongest gales of the autumn to walk on the beach and hunt for more, and on Sunday we were rewarded by warm sunshine and the Jurassic Coast at its best. We walked in the autumn woods up Stonebarrow Hill,

admired the hazy but still spectacular view from the top,

and visited Lyme Regis, where even the street lamps are shaped like ammonites.

So what better reading than my birthday present (from Anne, whose cottage we stayed in)?

In a place obsessed with fossil-hunting, it's eminently suitable to read the story of Mary Anning, the woman who discovered so many of the early finds along this coast, and the sustaining power of shared interests and female friendship.

More about the Saints

2009-11-08T14:07:00.008Z

As part of our church anniversary celebrations, we built ourselves a book.

The original idea was that members of the congregation would write down their memories of church life, together with some thoughts on what the church means to them, and I would collate their contributions into a small publication.

We put a note in the church notices. We made announcements. We reminded them at decreasing intervals.

Did they write anything?

They did not.

In the end it was clear that nothing would happen unless I did the donkey work: making appointments, inviting people for coffee, interviewing them and taking notes, writing it all up and editing it. In short, the whole ghost-writing package multiplied by sixty(ish), the number of eventual contributors. Plus doing the page layout, designing the cover, and sending pdfs to the printer.

(We had it printed by the amazingly efficient people at printondemand-worldwide.com - no, they haven't paid for an advert.)

It was far harder work than I had originally expected, but great fun. I grouped the reflections into chapters (building the church, worshipping together, social action, fun and fellowship, etc). There were comic poems, accounts of charities, and many memories.

My favourite was Sue's account of a meditative church service. Members of the congregation were given tea-lights and invited to bring them to the altar rail, where they knelt and prayed quietly as the minister lit the candles with a taper.

She was kneeling in prayer as the minster blew out the taper. She heard him puff at it once or twice, and then say quietly, 'O Lord, we pray for the minister, whose beard is on fire!'

All Hallows Eve

2009-11-06T09:34:00.009Z

A little delayed, this post. It was our church's 50th anniversary last weekend. As we are All Saints Church, and as the opening was (naturally) on All Saints' Day, the celebrations fell over the Halloween weekend. Consequently, as we were leaving for our celebration meal at church, our neighbours' small children were heading along the road dressed as witches and wizards.

Now, I'm not particularly keen on Halloween. As a Christian I know all about its history and various significances; as a consumer I can see that nowadays it's merely a Hallmark Festival (exploited for its commercial potential); but as a realist I know that no amount of pious attempts to celebrate festivals of light will tempt children away from the excitements of dark and candles and the chance to collect sweeties. And while I have no truck with the occult, I have a lot of time for allowing scope for the imagination, for understanding the conflicts of light and dark, of good and evil, and for exposing children to their rich heritage of myth and legend.

And anyway, their parents were with them, and they were the politest ghouls you could hope to meet. They all said 'Thank you' and there wasn't a chance of any tricks.

So did we encourage them? It seemed churlish to leave them to a dark house and a closed door. So we left a scary message pinned to the gatepost, and an honesty box of lollipops on the porch.

In spite of the postal strike ...

2009-11-05T15:10:00.006Z

I received two books today - the fruits of my labours, though not as a ghost writer. These were both editing jobs.

The first, Scars and Stilettos, is the kind of Christian biography that's very common: 'This was my life before I became a Christian; this is my life now.' The cynical describe them as: 'Once I was bad and interesting; now I am good and dull.' The knack is to make the 'after' bit as exciting as 'before'.

What's special about this one (apart from the author's name - amazingly, she really is called Harmony and she's married to a man called John Dust) is the insight you get into how an intelligent girl gets drawn into the sex trade. Harmony was abused as a child, and the snapshots of her as a fourteen-year-old show how sexualised she was from an early age. She was exploited by a boyfriend and started dancing in a strip club to give him money. It took years before she had the courage and self-esteem to leave him and carve out a new life. Now she leads 'Treasures', a group of women (many of them ex-sex-workers themselves) who go into the clubs to befriend the girls.

The second, The Corpse at St Andrew's Chapel, is a mediaeval whodunnit, written by an American, Mel Starr.

Mel and I have a fun relationship. I sort out the loose ends in his plots and deliver English translations where necessary. On this book, our exchanges were mostly on Natural History:

'Mel, we don't have vultures in England. You can have buzzards or kites circling your dead body, but not vultures.'

'Mel, you can't get your clothing snagged on a nettle - you probably mean a bramble.' (We never did work out whether American nettles are tougher or he just isn't much of a botanist.)

'Mel, coppicing is different from pollarding and this is how...'

After working as editor with Jim Robertson (The Flower of Grass) and the lovely Harmony Dust, I'm now pretty much bilingual. Daughter 2, who is teaching in North Carolina, assures me that we are indeed two cultures divided by a single language: she has a translation board up on the wall in the classroom, on which she and the kids unravel their linguistic confusion. I wish I had kept notes of the editorial equivalents.

A Bad (Face) Book

2009-10-23T20:52:00.006+01:00

Everyone reads the occasional bad book. Not often - your antennae become sensitive to books you know you wouldn't like. Mostly you know the genres to avoid. And the odd wrong choice is usually abandoned within a few pages of realisation dawning.

But sometimes you just can't do anything about it: the day when you're marooned on a long journey with nothing else to read, or the Book Group preparation when you're duty bound to finish the thing (it's an unwritten rule - you have to give every book a fair chance if you want to join in the discussion). Or, as happened here, when you have promised the publisher that you will join in a Facebook debate, a virtual Book Group with people you don't know.

I promised Ali Hull, of Authentic Media, that I would read Rosie: note to self. At her suggestion, I gave copies (provided by Authentic) to two friends, and invited them round for wine and food and discussion. And then I read it.

It's a stinker. Admittedly, I was at a disadvantage: I'm not a rom-com reader, and anything bound in lime green with pink swirls makes me nauseated. Something bearing the tag 'Lipstick confessions' would definitely send me scuttling away to hide. And I did once try reading Shadowmancer, by the same author (G P Taylor), and gave up after a few chapters, so I was forewarned.

But the Book of Ruth reworked as chick lit was never going to be convincing. The first couple of chapters are pure farce as the predictably dizzy American female lands her English Aristocrat, complete with feisty mother-in-law, evil Italian sister-in-law and ancient butler. Then the tone changes abruptly as the new husband, his father and his brother are all wiped out in a climbing accident, and Rosie, overwhelmed by grief, and in a strange country, vows that she will stay with her mother-in-law and look after her. You know the rest (well, you do if you were listening in RE at school).

The tone veers wildly from comedy to melodrama as Taylor tries to slip us a morality tale sugared over with the clumsiest chick-lit conventions.

What about the debate? Well, there were a couple of unfortunate glitches with the technology, as several people failed to access the 'event' page and ended up posting on Ali's Facebook page. There was general agreement in my house about the inadequacy of everything from plot structure to characterisation (intelligent women, my friends), but the shock was the other comments. Several people thought it was 'a lovely, light read'; others loved the characters; some thought it was a good depiction of grief.

Which proves two things: (a) there's no accounting for taste, and (b) I'm useless at predicting what books might be popular.

Vampires or Nice Guys?

2009-10-21T21:59:00.005+01:00

A great evening at Mostly Books last night, with Victoria Connelly (Molly's Millions) and Kate Harrison (The Secret Shopper) talking about their experiences of writing romantic comedy. Hosted by the new Abingdon Writers group, and chaired by Gabby Aquilina (wearing her highly appropriate vampire's teeth choker), the event played to a packed house.

We heard about the two writers' individual routes to publication, discussed the nature and value of Chick Lit, and analysed the current craze for romance with vampires.

Best story of the night was Kate's account of her first meeting at the Society of Authors. Someone asked about her writing and sneered when she described her debut novel.

'Chick Lit?' he said, 'I don't know how you can write that stuff. It's an insult to women and to intelligent readers.'

Feeling rather crushed by someone who was evidently a much more experienced author, she asked what he wrote.

'Computer manuals,' he said.

Probably the best book I've read this year

2009-10-18T15:21:00.004+01:00

Harry Thompson was a radio and TV producer, mainly of well-regarded comedy shows (The News Quiz, Have I Got News For You, They Think It's All Over, The 11 O'Clock Show). He died in April 2005, of lung cancer, aged 45.

As well as his comedy work and three biographies, he wrote one novel, This Thing of Darkness, published in June 2005. It's a tragedy that he died before seeing its reception. This is a great book in every sense: its 700 pages contain history, politics, geography, anthropology, naval etiquette, seamanship, philosophy, psychology and humour -- and a plot that scarcely falters. From Dickensian descriptions of London and the early effects of the industrial revolution, to the theological and philosophical conflicts between Darwin's radical thinking and the fundamentalism of his contemporaries, the book has astonishing scope.

Its subject, Robert Fitzroy, was the captain of the Beagle, less well known today than the passenger he carried as ship's naturalist, Charles Darwin. Yet Fitzroy's contributions to the surveying of South America and to weather forecasting had far-reaching effects for mariners: he probably saved thousands of lives.

The delight of this book is the essential gift of all good historical novels: it makes the past come to life, so that readers feel they know the characters intimately. We see Darwin's youthful enthusiasm, follow him on his adventures overland as well as at sea, and understand the opposition which he faced as he developed his concept of evolution. At the same time (easy though it would be to caricature all the religious beliefs of the time) we appreciate the honest distress of his opponents, as characterised by Fitzroy -- whose faith leads him to a more humane and 'modern' recognition of the equality of all races than the patronising views attributed to Darwin.

This is not a book which can be reviewed by summary -- there is simply too much in it. The second tragedy, of course, is that there will be no more books by Harry Thompson.

Partners in crime

2009-10-07T22:23:00.004+01:00

And so to London, for the Association of Christian Writers autumn event: the Writers' Day and AGM.

Thank goodness for the Espress bus, which drops me conveniently at Marble Arch for a 15-minute walk along Oxford Street. (Pleasant enough at 9.30 in the morning, but hideously crowded at 4.30 p.m.: I had to take to the back streets on the way home.)

AGM business was routine and rapidly dispatched, and it was on to the main business of the day. Two experienced crime writers, Lesley Horton (past chair of the Crime Writers Association) and Veronica Heley (author of 60 published books) compared notes. Since Lesley writes gritty inner-city murder mysteries set in the north of England, and Veronica writes 'cosies' set in the suburban south, there was plenty of discussion, as they described their different methods of mayhem. Since both are also published in the USA, they also had amusing tales about what is or isn't acceptable in the parallel universe across the Atlantic.

The afternoon was devoted to journalism and feature writing, 'Sell every article you write', by Dorothy Stewart. This talk was packed with practical advice, delivered with considerable wit. Meanwhile, both the morning speakers were giving personal advice in ten-minute one-to-one interviews with aspiring crime writers.

All in all, excellent value for a maximum price of £20.

Abingdon Writers

2009-09-25T22:34:00.003+01:00

Earlier in the summer Mostly Books hosted an evening led by the Oxford Writers Group. Several people in the audience expressed an interest in starting an Abingdon equivalent, and before we knew it, we had about ten members.

The most complicated bits so far have been setting up a group bank account (we're still waiting, Barclays) and finding somewhere to meet that doesn't require expensive Public Liability insurance (thank you, All Saints Church). Fortunately we have an IT techie among our number, so we also have a website: abingdonwriters.org.

But the real surprise has been the high quality of both the writing and the critique. Between us we cover a wide range of genres - poetry, children's and young adult stories, historical, romance and hybrids of several genres (historical fantasy romance, anyone?). We take turns to read and everyone chips in with queries and suggestions.

It's terrifying to bring your writing out for public scrutiny, but hugely rewarding. People seem to have avoided instinctively the two extremes of fulsome praise or devastating criticism, and various members with particular expertise (like Nicky, bookseller extraordinaire) have given real support from their knowledge of publishing.

Watch this space for news of publishing successes - which, of course, we are all convinced are only a matter of time.

Oh, no, not another genre

2009-09-19T14:29:00.005+01:00

Just finished reading Time's Chariot by Ben Jeapes (attracted by his excellent blog and website).

If this is young fiction I'm regressing. Absorbing, complex, and demanding, with the twists and turns of a whodunnit with the glittering attractions of a fully realised futuristic world. And (although the Professor is an avid TV sci-fi viewer, so I absorb some by osmosis) I've never been a sci-fi reader.

I am now, dammit.

Another genre to get my head round and add to the compulsive book-buying habit.

A first time for everything

2009-09-14T10:20:00.008+01:00

It's official: I've missed a deadline. It's the first time in 20 years of ghost-writing, so I'm not going to beat myself up about it, but still ...

I can always blame the author (John Robinson), who has been difficult to get hold of for the last six months. But to be fair, he's packing up his home to move to All Nations Bible College, he's father to a new baby, and he's made three trips to Thailand to check out moving the whole family there in January. There are plenty of excuses, but they don't make me feel any better.

So we've just had a gruelling day of interviewing, from 10.30 to 4.00. The note-taking brought me to the brink of RSI. Fortunately it's a factual sort of book - about John's experience of setting up and running Christian youth work projects - so it wasn't too difficult. Some jobs (including John's previous books, Nobody's Child and Somebody's Child) are autobiographical, and uncover difficult personal memories. Long interviews for those can be emotionally exhausting.

As it was, I asked questions, he talked, we laughed a lot and drank quantities of coffee. Eventually we had to wean ourselves onto the decaffeinated conscience coffee for fear of being so wired that we wrote rubbish.

All I have to do now is decode the notes and finish writing the book.

The Believers - Zoe Heller

2009-09-05T17:42:00.006+01:00

The latest from the Book Group.

In The Believers, according to the cover blurb, 'every member of the family is called upon to decide what, if anything, they believe in.'

Joel Litvinoff is a famous radical lawyer, who suffers a stroke in the courtroom and spends most of the novel in a coma. However, in life and death his ideals continue to dominate his family's lives. His long marriage to Audrey, his English wife, is undermined by the appearance of his mistress and son. His daughter Rosa, having abandoned her revolutionary crusade in Cuba, is attempting to replace political certainties with religious conviction; her sister Karla compensates for an unhappy marriage with a surprising affair; and adopted brother Lenny briefly escapes from his drug addiction but slips back into his old ways by the end of the book.

The characters are sharply drawn, but none of them is likeable (apart from Audrey's kindly and tolerant friend Jean). Audrey's pose as a comically outspoken eccentric has hardened over the years into a habit of vicious, foul-mouthed cruelty to everyone, including friends and family. Overweight Karla is bullied by both her husband and mother, and comes close to sacrificing her lover to her idea of duty. Rosa works with disaffected girls, but finds it hard to like them. (Jean, by contrast, strikes up an instant rapport when introduced to Rosa's charges.)

The Book Group view?

Heller's observations of American life and hypocrisy are witty and shrewd, yet the novel feels oddly unsatisfying. The four different story lines interact only tangentially, and the pace is uneven. There is a sense that Heller has done her research and is determined to shoehorn in the details of orthodox Judaism. The ending feels contrived and points up how little we care about any of the characters: the obvious conclusion is that none of them (except, perhaps, the moribund Joel) truly believes in anything. The family's aggressive socialism seems to have been a platform enabling them to assume the moral high ground and patronise everyone else. Even Audrey, though shocked to discover Joel's son, has long ago accepted his womanising: she never even believed in their marriage. When, at the end, she publicly welcomes the mistress and son into 'the Litvinoff tribe', she is merely inventing another myth to live by.

This is a novel with greater breadth than Notes on a Scandal, and Heller has clearly moved forward, but her best is yet to come.

Un livre nouveau

2009-08-26T09:35:00.006+01:00

This arrived in the post today.

Faith Like Potatoes takes its title from a sermon by Peter Marshall, who said, 'We need a faith as real as potatoes.'

I'm just not sure how well it works in translation. It looks OK in Dutch:

But Pommes de Terre? I can't help thinking that La Foi Comme des Frites might have been snappier ...

Something fishy ...

2009-08-22T16:06:00.005+01:00

Plans for a quiet Saturday in the garden have been abandoned. News arrives from the Sailing Club at Dorchester that an ecological disaster is in progress. Blue-green algae has colonised the lake, resulting in de-oxygenation of the water and a release of toxins from decomposing water plants. Fish have been seen gasping in the shallows, and small fish dying in their thousands.

By the time we arrive this morning, the Environment Agency has already installed an oxygenating machine, moored to the jetty, but in one corner of the 40-acre lake, it looks like the kind of thing you'd install to make bubbles in your fish-tank at home.

The small fish floating in the shallows have gone - cleared up by the gulls, who are feasting merrily all around the banks. But huge shapes are rising ominously from the depths: dead carp, bream, chubb and pike. It's too late for rescue: all we can mount is a clear-up operation.

The fish in the picture are middle-sized. Many were much larger: twenty- or thirty-pounders. By the time we left at midday, we had filled 80 bags and sealed them, ready for landfill - probably well over 300 fish.

We wait to see whether more corpses surface overnight. Meanwhile, we're showering and trying to get rid of the pervasive smell of decomposing fish.

Not a peaceful start to the weekend.

In the footsteps of Turner

2009-08-21T20:42:00.012+01:00

Two lovely days in Mortlake with an old friend.

We prowled around St Mary's Church, wandered the footpaths of the old village, and visited the site of the house owned by John Dee, doctor to Elizabeth I. Then we strolled along the towpath.

'Look to your right,' said Hilary, 'and remember that view: the line of trees, and the glimpse of the eighteenth-century building beyond. Now look left: can you see the old brewery buildings? Remember that, too.'

When we got back to her (exquisite) nineteenth-century cottage, she showed me two Turner prints hanging in the hall: the view in each direction. If you ignored Barnes Bridge, and the absence of wherries, little had changed.

What with the herons fishing in the Thames, and a river trip from Richmond to Teddington, it hardly felt like a visit to modern London at all.

The silly season

2009-08-16T13:02:00.004+01:00

Although my youngest child left school nine years ago, there's something about August that still makes me feel disconnected from life. It's not as if we ever took our holidays in summer - for many years we could afford only out-of-season breaks, which gave us all an eccentric taste for Cornwall in November. (Try it - you generally get two days warm enough for tee-shirts and ice-creams, and two more of tempests and wild seas.)

Still, even without holidays, August feels like 'time out'. The rest of the world seems to be operating more slowly. France simply packs up and goes to the beach. Even in the UK there's little point in ringing the office: the person you want is always away. (Or maybe they just say that, taking turns to answer the phone while the others lounge at their computers, checking their Facebook pages.)

Sometimes it feels as if we freelance writers are the only people still working.

So this is the time for visiting friends, catching up on reading and planning the autumn schedule. How much work can I realistically take on? Which books do I really want to read? And how much time can I afford away from my desk, to spend on the most precious resource - friendships?

Off to London for a couple of days ...