Walking in their Footsteps

 I visited the Lake District in September. The natural beauty of the landscape is breathtaking, very inspirational and well worth a visit. While I was there I visited Hill Top, Beatrix Potter's most famous home. The 17th century farm cottage was gifted to the National Trust by Beatrix upon her death with the expressed wish that it should not become a museum, but be preserved in the condition of how it looked when she lived there. Her furniture, including her writing desk, are on display and it is easy to imagine Beatrix walking through the rooms and writing her children's books. Several parts of the cottage, including the oven range, inspired Beatrix's illustrations and can be easily recognised in her tales. She wrote many books, initially unaware of the success they would become...

“I am aware these little books don't last long even if they are a success."

Beatrix Potter

Beatrix Potter's home, Hill Top

Beatrix Potter's home isn't the first writer's home I have visited. That accolade goes to William Shakespeare's birth place in Stratford-Upon-Avon. William was the third of eight children and was born in 1564. Following his marriage to Anne Hathaway in 1582, he continued to live in the house with his parents. When his father, John Shakespeare, died in 1601 William inherited the house and leased it out. The start of William Shakespeare's career is unclear, but what is known is that by 1592 he had an established reputation in London and would go on to be the world's greatest playwright and poet. Although the house appears substantial for the time (his father worked as a glove-maker and held important civic positions in the town), the rooms are small and it would have been quite crowded with so many children and, in later years, two families living there. Once again, it was easy to imagine William spending his formative years in the house, chasing his dream of becoming a play-write and eventually fulfilling it.

William Shakespeare's birth place

Of course, not all stories have such a happy ending. Anne Frank's Diary was written during a time of terror and it's author, a young Jewish girl forced into hiding during the rise of the Nazi Party, never lived to see it published. She used the diary as a way to escape the oppressive ordeal which lasted years. As Anne said in her diary...

"The brightest spot of all is that at least I can write down my thoughts and feelings,

otherwise I would be absolutely stifled."

Anne Frank

 I visited the secret annex in Amsterdam several years ago. Anne, her family, the Van Pels family and Fritz Pfeffer lived under tense and cramped conditions, yet I could still imagine the young teenager attempting to keep sane by writing her thoughts in her diary in a small corner of a room. The book, which she painstakingly edited, rewrote and re-edited, would eventually become one of the most translated books of all time.

The building containing Anne Frank's secret annex
Photo by Massimo Catarinella

Extracts of Anne Frank's original diary, with all its editing and re-writing, was on display in the museum. The rough drafts reminded me of the time I saw the original draft of one of Winston Graham's Poldark novels. It was on display, along with his typewriter, at an exhibition in Cornwall to celebrate his life and works. I was both surprised and reassured to see how rough his first draft was as it is easy to think that all amazing authors only write sentences worth their weight in gold. Sometimes, it seemed, even gold needed to be polished first. Winston Graham once shared his experience of writing Poldark and said...

 "Sitting there in the grey old empty bungalow, I felt like a man driving a coach and four, 

roughly knowing the direction in which the coach would travel, 

but being pulled along by forces only just under his control."

Winston Graham

So what have I learnt from visiting the homes of famous writers and seeing their first drafts?

I have learnt that the environment was often humble, with no hint of what would be eventually created in those rooms

I learnt that each writer had a drive and wrote from the heart, despite the tense conditions, the self-doubts or busy lives they led.

I learnt that although they dreamt of being successful, none could imagine the final extent of their success.

They wrote because they had the compulsion to do so, the words flowed and could not, would not, be stopped.

I learnt that even a classic writer still needs to produce a first draft and they are content to edit and re-write to produce their best work.

So if you are a writer who writes on a laptop balanced on your knees due to the lack of a study, or have a family who scoffs at your dreams, or you are in that phase of being thoroughly depressed with the state of your first draft, I say to you, dear writer, have courage.... for you are just following in the footsteps of those writers who have gone before.

Victoria Cornwall

 

Season’s Readings

You must’ve noticed it. We’ve not even had Halloween yet, and already the supermarkets are full of Christmas food - family size tins of Quality Street and mince pies. 

But it’s not just the supermarkets that are getting in the festive spirit months in advance. Readers (and writers) are too. October is a massive month for Christmas books, although I have seen some cover reveals and releases as early as September. There’s been a veritable avalanche of snowy book covers, wintery (but far from bleak) landscapes full of quaint cottages, all smoky chimneys and fairy light covered fir trees in the garden. My own Christmas cosy crime (because nothing says ‘Ho ho ho’ like a good old fashioned murder) isn’t out until the end of November, but it’s already on Amazon, where preorders are flying off the virtual shelves.

I have to confess that until I became a writer, I wasn’t even really aware that ‘holiday’ books were a thing. It wasn’t until my writer friends started releasing their own seasonal stories, and I started hanging around in online book clubs, that I saw how popular they are. So what’s the appeal?

I suppose for me, it’s a way to regain the excitement and magic of Christmas that I used to feel as a child. I no longer believe in the big guy at the North Pole, so stories about elves and red nosed reindeers aren’t going to cut it for me. But stories about finding true love under the mistletoe; about spending the holiday in a snowy village, warming hands on mugs of steaming hot chocolate and hearts on steaming hot men… Count me in! Christmas and New Year are all about new beginnings, and these books are, too. New lives, and new loves.

Christmas - in the Northern hemisphere, anyway - is all about getting cosy. It’s about curling up in front of the fire, a mince pie and a glass of mulled wine close to hand, and whiling away the long winter nights with a good book. It’s about holding back the darkness of midwinter, not just with fairy lights and candles, but with the warm glow that you only get from a good story. Some might call that a guilty pleasure, but I firmly believe that no one should ever feel guilty about something they enjoy, especially not at Christmas. Christmas IS pleasure (or should be).

It’s not just Christmas, of course. There’s always a slew of Halloween books every October, but I’d argue that they’re really more just supernatural/paranormal/horror stories, rather than specifically about the haunted holiday; unlike Christmas stories, which could ONLY take place at Christmas, a lot of Halloween books could probably be transposed to other, less traditionally spooky times of the year, without the story suffering.

What do you think? Are you a fan of Christmas books? If so, when do you start reading them - and just as important, when do you stop? Can you still have Christmas in February or March? Or are you more ‘bah humbug!’ when it comes to festive reading?

In Which We Discuss Burnout

 

I haven’t written a single word (with the exception of this blog post) since July. It's rather strange to share this situation with the NPOV readers, as writing is who I am. It’s what I do, my joy, my love. Or it always had been. Starting in May, the idea of writing gave me a stomach ache. Bad timing, of course, as I was in the middle of writing and editing the third book in my Olivia Sinclair series. Things were going well, the first draft was completed, but I was in such a hurry to finish that first draft and meet my deadline, that I wasn’t paying attention to my state of mind or the quality of the book. When my editor and I decided that a massive rewrite was necessary, instead of excitedly breaking out my red pen (I do love a good rewrite!), I hit the wall hard and started to panic. I was completely floored at the realization that I didn’t have the capacity to do any work at all on this book that was scheduled to be published in November. My creative well run completely dry.  

Part of me wanted to just continue to write, to push through this difficult period in my career. After all, I am a professional, right? Nope. Burnout is not a work ethic issue. My problem went deeper. Pushing through the difficulty wasn’t going to help me with my current situation.

I’ve never been a quitter, but stepping away from writing seemed the only thing to do. I needed a break, needed to put my feet on the floor in the morning without a deadline hanging over my head. Luckily, my publisher was able to grant me an extension. So with my looming deadline dealt with, I purposefully, and with more than a bit of difficulty, stopped all things related to writing. I went on long walks, cooked all the recipes I wanted to try, and tackled a long list of cleaning and sorting, all the while wondering when my well would be full.

Even though I wasn’t working, per se, I was jotting down notes on Post-Its, thinking of plots and stories, dreaming up heroes and those who would take them down. As expected, I quickly came to miss my time at the keyboard. But I also know that it’s not time to start writing yet. Although I'm not in a perpetual state of panic, my creative well is still dry. Turns out this break from the job I love is turning into a patience lesson. 

My writing career ran hot and fast for the past few years in a wonderful whirlwind of working with fabulous editors and connecting with readers who like what I write. The time proved blissful and satisfying, but utterly exhausting. I’m pooped. With a bit of luck, this break from my writing life will give me a deeper knowledge of my craft, and enrich my future prose with a greater understanding of who I am as a writer. While audio books (and the occasional Netflix binge) has provided me ample comfort during the time of creative crisis, getting back to my craft is the light that awaits at the end of this tunnel. I’ll get there. With any luck, I’ll be a better writer for it.

How about you? Have you ever suffered from professional/creative burnout? How did you work your way through? And, most importantly, when did you know your creative well was full? (Any advice appreciated!!!) 

 

The Bones of a Story

Content warning: if you are squeamish about skeletons this is not the post for you. 

I'm in Paris at the moment, having a lovely week away with my husband. We promised ourselves this would be the first trip we'd do, post-Covid. Although of course the pandemic hasn't gone away, travel restrictions have eased enough and we thought we should just get on and keep our promise to ourselves.

Today we took a trip to the Paris Catacombs. It's somewhere I've wanted to visit for a while but never got round to, until now. What an awesome place this is!

In the Catacombs

A little history for you: in the late 1800s Paris had was terribly overcrowded - both the living and the dead. Cemeteries inside the city limits were overflowing. Bodies had been exhumed and the remains stacked underground. In 1780 a basement wall in Saints Innocents (spookily, right where our hotel is) collapsed due to the weight of the mass grave behind it - the cemetery here had been in use for 1000 years. Something had to be done.

Under the Left Bank area of Paris were a series of tunnels and chambers, where limestone had been quarried for building purposes. It was proposed that the overflowing cemeteries were closed, the remains exhumed and stored in those underground passages. New burial grounds were consecrated outside the city.

Barrel - ends of femurs and skulls make up the shape

Overnight, wagons containing hundreds of thousands of bones were carted from the old cemeteries to the new ossuary. Initially the bones were simply dumped in the old quarries, but from 1810 a project was put underway to organise them and turn them into a visitable mausoleum. The larger bones, mostly femurs, and skulls were stacked in decorative formations with smaller bones left jumbled behind. It opened to the public in the early 19th century.

No one knows exactly how many peoples' remains are here, but it is well into the millions. Today the public can walk through a couple of kilometres of underground passageways lined with bones, after descending 131 steps down from the entrance. It's an amazing experience, a chance to contemplate the vast numbers of people who have walked this earth before us, an opportunity to think about death and what we leave behind.

I've seen bones used as a decorative feature before - in the Chapel of Bones, Evora, Portugal which I visited a few years ago. I remember feeling incredibly moved by it - especially when I noticed one arch was made of skulls that were far smaller than the others, obviously the remains of babies and small children. Heartbreaking.

Chapel of Bones, Evora, Portugal

The Paris Catacombs were less moving, to me at least. The skulls were adult sized and because I'd read up on the history before we visited and knew where the bones had come from, it seems in a way to be a better thing to do with them. There's a reverence to the way they are laid out, a feeling of calm and peacefulness (despite the visitors). They had to be moved, and here they are, in what is hopefully a final resting place.

In a few of my dual timeline novels, the historical mystery is resolved when remains of a person who'd disappeared are found, centuries later. I have written about skeletons on more than one occasion, but never imagined seeing so many all together. There's a story in there somewhere - the nightly procession of carts taking bones from the old cemeteries, the men working below ground tightly stacking femurs to create walls of bones, the carving of plaques stating from which cemetery bones in that area had been brought.

Bones from the Trinity Hospital, placed here in 1814