Ferns That Feel

Tricky

The 'sensitive plant', Mimosa pudica, also known as 'humble plant', or 'touch-me-not', is a source of fascination to adults and children alike. When you gently touch the narrow fern-like leaflets they almost instantaneously fold together and the leaf stalk droops. This sometimes sets off a chain reaction, with several leaf stalks falling on top of one another, causing the collapse of a whole section of foliage, or perhaps the whole plant. When left to its own devices, the plant gradually returns to normal, this taking up to about half an hour. This touch-induced movement of leaves is known scientifically as thigmonasty, and is thought to be a defensive mechanism against grazers.

(nicked from here)

Preston is My Paris

I like this blog and magazine.

I like this article about the blog and magazine.

Preston is My Paris.

Top Banana!

Detecting

The reason I want to write a detective novel:

They are about finding things out. I try to avoid using words like epistemological on this blog, as I'm fairly unsure of the spelling and I wonder sometimes if words like that don't mean exactly what I think they mean. You wouldn't want to look like a wally, would you?

There are always a couple of stories. The event, which is the murder or the stealing or whathaveyou. Which is often not really there - sort of between the lines. And then the actual story, which is the uncovering.

Like unreliable narrators have two stories - what they think they mean, and what you think they mean. And the magic of how the other story gets in there, when you haven't used words to write it at all.

Ping!

And the way you can monkey about with the detective form. The not-finding out. The impossibility of finding things out. Of knowing things.

I think that's a regular theme with me. The Annie book is really about the impossibility of knowing someone else, because we only have words to touch each other with, and they're not very good for that. And Cold Light is, I realise now I'm reading through my almost final draft and cursing the typos and the awkward sentences and the non-nonsensical things I've made my characters say now and again, sort of about the same thing - I've been reading Elizabeth Loftus and there's something coming out in this book that I already knew. Our memories aren't the way that books with flashbacks in pretend they are at all. And still I like to write books with flashbacks in.

I don't think it is possible to find things out. To know things. Not by interrogating other people, or ourselves, or the past. The evidence is unreliable.

So why not write a detective novel?

Blog Blog Blog

Yesterday I was at the Writers' Toolkit - a networking conference in Birmingham run jointly by WritingWest Midlands and the Birmingham Book Festival. I'd been invited to go and speak on a panel about social networking for writers. This makes the Ashworth household laugh, as I'm famous for my lack of social skills.

That makes it sound like I don't know when my flies are open and dribble when I talk, swear inappropriately, stutter, smell occasionally and insult people without meaning to. Yes, I do some of these things but really I meant I am shy, I don't like parties, I hardly ever march up to people I don't know and do a bit of networking on them, and I only leave the house to make the five minute walk to the office where I work, pay cheques into my bank, or buy food. So being asked to do a panel discussion on social networking has been the cause of much hilarity in this household.

(Not as much, it has to be said, as the very nice Guardian quotation about killing for a comic gift... especially as my favourite joke is the one about the baker and the brown hands... not sophisticated at all)

All the secrets are coming out today.

So. Networking conference. I didn't as much network, as chat to other writers about blogging and answer questions and maybe alay a few fears that all blogs are inane witterings about what the writer had for tea that night (stew done in my slow-cooker and not the oven because the glass panel in the door broke weeks ago and we're crap in this house, we really are) or the dull intricacies of their love life (pass).

Or maybe not.

I talked about why I liked blogging - which is because writing here lets me play around with the same ideas and themes as I do in my novel and short story writing (identity, persona, narrating the self, autobiography, creative non fiction and lying...) but the gratification is instant (no waiting for editors or agents - I publish when I like by clicking that little orange button) and the community of writers and readers it makes me feel a part of, and the special bloggers I've met that have helped me understand my own writing identity and the way it has often led on to other kinds of work.

And then I talked a bit about the things I didn't like about blogging. About the way the instant gratification can make you publish things that are ill-drafted, badly thought out, expose too much of your own story, other people's stories. About stalkers. About the cliques and in the in-crowds. The dull, repetitive dailyness of the thing. The pseudo-detached, ironic, not caring style we're all supposed to have, because we're Generation Y, we're bored, we're cool, we're too nervous and alienated to be friends with anyone and we like it that way. The inanity. The way the girls aren't in the club. The way you'll meet people at readings who feel like they know you and the way you're not allowed to be irritated about that because you're the one whose pasted this all up on the tinterwebs.

On balance, I like blogging better than I don't like it. I think that came across. I'm also a convert to networking conferences, although I thought it wouldn't be my sort of thing, I was wrong. I got to meet Jo Bell again and have lunch with my editor and chat to Helen Cross who is almost converted to blogging now, and even though it rained and rained and rained and my train was delayed and I was incoherent with exhaustion by the time I got home, I was glad I went.

Ace!

I want to write a detective novel. I'm really excited about it. Can't start yet, but I can feel it brewing.

Okay, okay...

I knew I wasn't really going to get away with not posting a picture... no shoe shots as yet, so this one will have to do for the time being. If you look really carefully, you can see a plastic cat. Carrot cake from the Co-Op in Whitby, and people by Playmobile. Lovingly decorated twenty minutes before lift-off by me and Small Fry.



The next time I get married, I'm going to have this cake though. Not to eat, just to hold on my knee and talk to. Look how completely Top Banana it is.

Annie over-the-water

I thought I was a bit bored of the Annie-book, but I'm excited again now. I like this cover very much. Europa Editions is a New-York publisher that specialises in making literary novels, crime novels and high-end noir from Europe available in the US.

Top Banana!

Top glass-against-the-wall!

Ace!

Post-Novel

I'm home again, with a bit of the anti-climatic feeling you always get after a very nice holiday which included kippers, Dracula, the Vampire Prawns, scrambling up a rock face in wellies and a wedding dress, and lots of lazing about reading.

I was so busy before the holiday: scrambling to finish the last chapter of Cold Light and rewrite the final scenes in the light of some last minute research I did about water cooled power stations and their effect on sea-temperature, that coming back from Whitby to my bomb-site desk with its row of mouldy mugs and keyboard decorated with orange peel feels a bit like waking up from a dream.

Here are some of the things I was too busy to tell you about before I went away.

An article in the Swedish Daily News about Annie and me.

Writing an introduction for the anthology 'Mostly Truthful' published by Flax, available to read on-line and featuring the work of North-West writers Katherine Woodfine, Jane Routh, Adrian Slatcher and Kate Feld.

Getting a sneak preview of the U.S book cover for A Kind of Intimacy - appearing on this blog very soon.

Being an on-line writer in residence and teaching creative writing workshops in libraries across Lancashire for the Learning Festival Revolution - including one workshop in Lancashire Record Office where we used old Wanted Posters as prompts and inspirations for writing. if you're from Lancashire, you can join in. Click on the link and tell me a story.

Here are some of the things I'll be doing during November:

Planning a creative writing project working with prisoners starting very soon. Can't say more about this yet, but it is one of the most exciting things I'm doing with my time right now and I can't wait to get going with it.

Planning, with my mentor, how I'm going to spend my time next year. Am I going to be a full-time writer forever? What kinds of things do I need to do to earn money? What sort of projects do I like doing best? How do I go about getting the kind of work that I want, and still being able to write and have time with the SmallFry? How much time do I want to spend writing novels and stories, and how much time do I want to spend working outside my house?

Since I left the prison in August, I've been saying yes to almost everything because I want the experience and I want to find out what sort of work I enjoy doing, and what I'm good at (and no good at). I've been very, very lucky in that I've had more work than I know what to do with and have still had to turn down a few things. Now I want to start choosing what I do more carefully.

And of course, I'll be writing down all those post-sending-the-novel-to-be-looked-at niggles and too-late ideas for the next edit I'll no doubt be doing very late this year or early next.

I'm kicking myself that I forgot to put the knitted dog into the last chapter.

The New Leaf (if not new shoes)

Thanks to the miracle of blog scheduling, when you read this, I'll be in the process of signing paperwork and getting married!

<-- those aren't my shoes and it certainly isn't my dress. At the time I'm writing, I don't have shoes. The Mr has said so long as my novel is finished it doesn't matter what kind of shoes I wear (possibly because he hasn't got any shoes either - and Small Fry... nope, she's wearing plastic high-heels or Pepper Pig Wellies, depending on the weather). I may have swapped a shopping trip for a last minute edit of the final chapter. It's Whitby Goth Weekend. Maybe I can pick something fetching up while I'm there. I'll let you know how I get on.

This blog has turned into a boring list of the promotional engagements I'll be doing, or have done. After I get back from Whitby I promise to be more interesting, in deeply interesting ways. Or I will lie a bit more about the things I get up to. I'm hoping to spend November reading books, watching films, catching up on the hoovering, putting receipts in date order, sleeping, waiting for feedback on Cold Light, teaching some workshops, sleeping some more, worrying about Cold Light and helping the cat to forgive me after leaving her for a week... I'm sure there'll be some interesting blog-fodder in amongst that lot.

In Two Minds

Today, I am missing working in the prison very much. I wonder about lots of my borrowers and hope they are getting on okay. There are also projects and missions in the prison that I worked really hard on, and I want to know they are getting on okay without me. There are jobs in the library that I really liked doing, like helping the men taking Open University courses get the right books and periodicals for their essays, and showing them the right way to do references, and making cups of tea for the creative writing group, and overhearing the odd mucky joke on the landings...

A couple of weeks ago I had lunch with my friend Jane who still works in the prison, teaching the prisoners creative writing and helping to edit the prison magazine. We worked together closely because there was a bit of overlap in our jobs, and because I was nosey and liked to know what all the prisoners were writing. She reminded me of some of the things I didn't like about working in the prison, but it didn't help. I am remembering, like I always do, with rose-coloured lenses - whatever that means.

It would be good if there were two Jenns. One could be a writer, and sit on her own all day and write Cold Light and the Next One (the Ravensglass one) and the one after that. And one could be the Out In The World Jenn and do the Word Soups and the Interviews and the Literary Festivals. And one could be the lazy Jenn and stay in bed and sulk and tremble and dream. One could do the mothering and the standing outside the school gates nodding and the selection of suitable outfits for PTFA and the ironing in of school labels and the not putting petrol in the diesel car. And one Jenn to stay in bed with tea and oranges and read solidly, forever. And one Jenn would definitely work in the prison, talking to the men there about books and reading and writing and working hard, and pretending not to understand the occasional off-colour joke that I might have heard...

That's more than one Jenn. A whole army of deputy Jenns then, all with 24 hours of their own and no need to eat and sleep. Some of them, like the writing Jenn, would just be hard-drives and typing fingers and that would be ace. Some of them, like the PTFA and the sewing-in-name-labels Jenn would be brainless Jenns, so they could go half and half I suppose, and reduce the total.

I am going to have to stay alive until I am a hundred and fifty years old.

The Fleetwood Assassin

I did loads of research for the Annie-book, and I knew about the Fleetwood Assassin already. But something made me remember her again.

I think she's my hero.

Sad

I'm feeling very sad today. I'm not sure what kind of sad it is. I have a free-floating kind of sad that comes and goes without any reason and usually means I just need to eat and sleep and be on my own and stop working and talking for a day. That's the usual sad. So usual it's almost like a friend and usually I am well in charge of that kind of sad. I know not to try chatting or doing the telephone or meeting people I don't know. This is not that kind of sad. It feels like empty hands and an empty mouth, or realising you've forgotten what you're looking for when you're in the middle of turning the house upside down, or driving past a place or smelling a smell that triggers a feeling without a memory attached to it. Like being hungry, or the nagging feeling that when you go to bed you've forgotten to make the pack-lunches or count out the dinner money or put petrol, no DIESEL in the car. Something out of place and not there. Like when I moved house, but my old house was on the same street at the new house, but the other side, which meant when I walked up the stairs to go to bed I always turned left, which used to be right, but now I had to turn right and it is the mirror image and you bump your nose (that one is in the Annie book too). Like rooting about for the nice smell and the warm bit in the bed. This kind of sad is the kind that lets me know there is something missing and usually it makes me want to do writing, to invent the thing that isn't there, to make it up, to find out what it is that I'm remembering without seeing. Oh dear. Looks like it's time for the Ravensglass novel. But not until after Whitby and a decent rest. My wrists are in agony with all the writing I've been doing, I don't reckon I could start again so soon.

"Click Thru"

I'm constantly updating the sidebar with news about readings, creative writing courses, Word Soups and bank-robberies, so for those of you who check out this blog in a reader - click through once in a while, why don't you?

Nearly There!

Less than a week to go! This getting very near finishing the novel is exciting. If you'd like a sneak preview of what I've been doing with myself, you can read an extract of Cold Light here - it's a chapter from the first third of the novel, and I've called it 'Same Old'.

The editor of The Manchester Review, the poet John McAuliffe, told me that in the extract, Lola makes 'whole family' sound like a swear-word. There isn't, I don't think, any other way to say those words.

Other interesting things this month included the third meeting with my mentor. We talked a lot about my characters, and their motivations for doing the things they do. I have a very self-absorbed first person narrator, but I didn't want her lack of interest in the people around her to mean that the other characters in the novel were pale and insubstantial. Working that out took a few long conversations and some fairly brutal rewriting - but I think I'm nearly there now.

We also talked about where to go next - and what to do once I'm finished with Cold Light. I have an idea for another novel, and some ideas for ways to make money while I write it - but I can't have a mentor forever. I need to figure out a method for writing and living as a writer where I can hold my own hand through the tough bits and cheer myself on when it is crap and also give myself the much needed kicks up the arse, when needed. I've already learned some good techniques for managing my time and working out how to do a really, really big project without going mad, so I'm sure I'll work this out too.

I wish Creative Writing MA courses covered this kind of thing. I should probably write an extra module...

I've been doing lots of outsidey things this month too. Readings at the Chester Literary Festival and the Liverpool Chapter and Verse festival at the very swish Bluecoats. An interview with a Swedish journalist and creative writing workshops in Morecambe and Freckleton as part of the Lancashire Library Service's Adult Learning Festival. A Special Word Soup for National Poetry Day in Blackpool, and planning another one which will be tomorrow, in Preston - and specially Spooky for Halloween.

If you feel like seeing Jenn in the flesh, I'll be reading (again, from Cold Light) at the Manchester Blog Awards on Wednesday, at Lancaster Literature Festival on Friday and at the Birmingham Literature Festival on Saturday. In-between, I'll be sleeping and frantically writing.

And buying wedding shoes...

Failed Novels + Tiny Stories

I read this, this morning, and it got me out of a foul mood that has been simmering for about a week. I've also been enjoying the short short stories Emma Lannie has been writing during her September project.

I'm sick of my novel. SICK, I tell you. Oh well, back to the coal face. I don't have a break scheduled in for another three weeks.

Not The Booker

If anyone would like to vote for A Kind of Intimacy in the final stage of the Guardian's Not The Booker Prize thingy, you can do it by clicking here. It's a free for all over there! :)

Heckled by Guinea Pigs

September was a fairly quiet month - working mainly on the novel with the help of my mentor who has BROKEN my addiction to twitter and Facebook, and all for the good of the work as the pace is cracking along nicely now.

This month's session involved drawing a really big graph with highlighter pens and mapping the arcs of the two main stories in the novel. The 'across' axis was time - and that was easy enough. This novel has two quite well defined time-scales - six weeks in 1998 and one night in 2008.The 'upwards' axis was 'drama' or 'excitingness'. I've read about these kind of tasks in creative writing books before, and always been a bit dubious about them - but when in the midst of editing and mired in choosing exactly the right word, getting a visual grasp of the bigger picture really helped.

The only problem is that I still need to find some kind of quantitative measure for the upwards axis. What do we measure dramatic interest in? I've called it 'good antics' but I want to find something better before my next appointment. I think that's called procrastinating.


My only trip out was to the village of Waverton, in Cheshire. I've done lots of readings now, but this was a special one and is probably going to turn out to be one of my favourites. Several years ago, Gwen and Wendy in Waverton decided to get all the bookworms in their village together to read lots and lots of debut novels, decide which one was best, and give it a prize. They meet up several times during the course of the pre-prize reading to discuss the books - and sometimes they're kind enough to invite these debut novelists along to plug their work.



The reading itself went well - disturbed only my some very rude heckling from a pair of guinea-pigs that shared the school assembly hall with us. I don't think they liked Annie much, but after they were wheeled away to the peace and quiet of a darkened classroom, we got onto the questions and I had a lively discussion with the audience about Annie, my writing process, unreliable narrators, fitting writing in with mothering, creative writing courses, teaching and blogging.


The list of books the Waverton readers will be working through this year is very long - sixty-three novels were eligible for the prize, and arrived in crates and boxes and bags for the audience to look at and pick out what they fancied to read and report on for the next meeting. Previous winners of the Waverton Good Read award include Jonathan Trigell and Mark Haddon - here's hoping Annie will take their fancy.

So September was fairly quiet, and October is going to be frantic. I need to finish this draft of the novel, do a heap of festivals (you can read a bit about Lancaster Litfest from Sarah Hymas by clicking here - she seemed to like Annie a bit more than those guinea pigs did) keep up with the freelance work and be nurturing and motherly towards Small Fry and Him Indoors, who have both started new terms this month and are bound to come down with Fresher's / Reception Flu at some point over the next couple of weeks.

It's all going to be packed in extra tight because I have only three weeks to work in October. On the 24th, I'm off on my holidays to Whitby (what is it with me and sea-side towns?) and while I'm there

I'll be getting married... and I don't even have any shoes yet.

Review

Here's a link to another review of A Kind of Intimacy - this one comes all the way from Australia via the Dymocks Warringah Mall blog.

I forget readers in Australia can get it. I think it's available in the US now too.

Mad.

Interview

Here's a link to an interview that I did with Sara Beadle, the Director of the Birmingham Book Festival. I'm going to be reading there late next month. Looking forward to it already!