Fiction notes: The untutored retreat
15/07/2023 at 9:32 am | Posted in Fiction notes, Uncategorized | 2 CommentsTags: creative inspiration, fiction, nature, peace and quiet, tranquility, writers 'retreats
When I stepped into the old, stone building, I knew that all I had to do for the next six days was write. Yes, there would be country walks, and shared meals with some interesting authors. There would almost certainly be conversations with friendly strangers in the neighbouring village. But apart from those interactions, all I had to do was write, edit and write some more.
That permission to do what you love to do, without interruptions, is, for me, the biggest appeal of an untutored writers’ retreat.
There is a purity about the quiet that allows you to go deeper. From my desk, through the window, I could gaze into the apparent infinity of woodland. There was something about the way breezes created endless pathways through shimmering leaves that somehow helped my mind to take less obvious creative routes through my work in progress. House martins swooping every which way in the near distance seemed amplify the effect.
And when I walked around the beautiful estate, once owned by the playwright John Osborne, there were constant invitations to daydream, that essential precursor to creative writing. I explored grassy paths through fragrant gardens, discovered the occasional, intriguing statue, and met venerable redwood trees, the elders of the place.
But it wasn’t all seclusion. The other writers were fun, inspiring, and supportive – ideal companions for a relaxed yet productive week.
My recent retreat took place at the Clockhouse, at the Hurst, in Shropshire, owned and run by Arvon. It wasn’t my first visit, and it won’t be my last. For much of the year I’m happy writing in my own home, but every now and then, especially towards the end of a novel’s first draft, or at the beginning of a new one, a retreat centre becomes the perfect place to be.
How about you: what, and where, is your ideal retreat?
Wellbeing notes: iced tea recipe
01/07/2023 at 1:13 pm | Posted in Uncategorized, Wellbeing notes | 1 CommentTags: honey, iced tea, lemons, mint, oranges, recipe, summertime, tea bag recipes
Melody, the main character in the story I’m writing, was feeling hot and sticky. So, she made iced tea for a friend and herself. As Melody steeped tea bags, sliced lemons, and plucked mint leaves from the garden, I became more and more tempted to make some for myself.
Iced tea always makes me think of rocking chairs on cool verandas in the sunny southern states of America. But it happens to suit England in the summer extremely well. Delicious, cooling and refreshing, the caffeine content brings a reviving kick; and citrus fruit’s health benefits are always welcome. Iced tea is easy and inexpensive to make. Chances are, the few ingredients are already in the kitchen.
This is the recipe that I tend to use. It’s adapted from BBC Good Food’s Easy Iced Tea recipe.
Ingredients
1.5 litres cold water
2 tbsp golden granulated sugar
1.5 tbsp liquid honey
6 tea bags
2 lemons, one sliced, one juiced
2 oranges, one sliced, one juiced
1 or 2 sprigs fresh mint
Method
Pour the cold water into a large jug. Add sugar and honey; stir to dissolve.
Add teabags. Steep for ten minutes.
Remove tea bags and discard. Chill in fridge until ready to drink.
Add lemon slices and juice, orange slices and juice, and mint leaves torn roughly in half. Serve in tall glasses with ice.
Fiction notes: Can writing by hand improve a novel?
15/06/2023 at 4:06 pm | Posted in Fiction notes | 3 CommentsTags: creativity, fiction, fountain pens, writing fiction, writing inspiration
The scratch of pen against paper, and the flow of midnight ink. A rustle of turning pages, and the feel of a notebook against skin… When we write by hand, our senses get involved. It’s a tactile experience, involving texture and sound and even the evocative scent of the writing materials.
Contemporary authors have been known to write by hand. JK Rowling, for example, scrawled Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in notebooks in an Edinburgh café; Stephen King wrote Dreamcatcher by hand as a sort of pain-reducing therapy while recovering from a serious car accident; and Neil Gaiman hand-wrote Stardust, to help him to feel closer to that novel’s Victorian setting. All three novelists have continued to put literal pen to paper in later works, and they all use fountain pens to do so.
Why would any author opt for the relative messiness of an ink pot? Using a keyboard is generally much faster; you can move words around every which way in a document, and of course you don’t end up with ink-stained fingers. But tapping onto a keyboard does not please the senses in quite the same way. It seems that the extra effort involved in handwriting helps our brains to work differently, and that can be useful.
I have yet to write a full-length book by hand. Maybe, one day, I will. However, for every work in progress, I do keep a daily notebook. The jottings in it – about plot, and character, and dialogue that comes to me willy-nilly at any time of day and night – are hugely useful. They’re helpful for the creative process, and they bring contentment. When the nib touches paper, and the ink flows, I’m convinced that ideas flow too, in sensory and meditative ways.
How about you? Do you ever write by hand? And have you penned, or would you pen, an entire book by hand, inky fingers and all?
Wellbeing notes: The therapy of small things
01/06/2023 at 9:57 am | Posted in Wellbeing notes | 2 CommentsTags: Guidance, healing, inspiration, life skills, mindfulness, nature, wellbeing
I’d come home from a really stressful term of studies. I was questioning everything I’d ever learnt, anxious about the truth and direction of my life.
Home at that time was an Italian villa by a lake where water buffalo roamed, and mafiosi ruled. Home seemed so different from the English university I’d just left. And the contrast just made things worse.
But then something small happened. I was walking in the garden, between green lemon trees and a wall where purple bougainvillea grew. Beneath the wall, my mother and brother were positioning a section of flattened tree trunk. “It’s a bench,” my mum explained.
Curiously, when she said that, something within me settled. All those big questions, crowding my mind… they were abstract problems. You couldn’t touch them, like you could touch the lemon trees or the bougainvillea. And a bench in the garden where people could sit, and maybe heal from whatever was troubling them… you could touch that.
Right then, I began to appreciate the therapy of small things.
Fast forward to present times, to Wiltshire, in England. Last week, a young family friend came to stay, anxious and needing a break from uni. There was no handy tree trunk to turn into a bench. But I was looking after my neighbours’ hens. So, I invited her to help me feed them.
As the hens tucked into lettuce, she visibly relaxed. “I needed this,” she said.
And I hoped then that the therapy of small things had found another fan.
Fiction notes: Epistolary stories make it real
15/05/2023 at 9:28 am | Posted in Fiction notes | 2 CommentsTags: epistolary novels, fiction, novel writing, women's fiction, writing, writing community
Recently I’ve been reading two excellent books presented as a collection of letters and other correspondence. One, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Anne Barrows, was fiction. The other, 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff, was fact. And yet both come across in a remarkably similar way, which I would describe as warm-hearted and real. Both feature World War Two in their recent past. Against the darkness of conflict, the humour and kindness of the main characters shine out.
The two books aren’t really that similar. But they both left me feeling moved and uplifted – and curious about the epistolary form.
When you start looking, the epistolary form – also known as a story made from a bunch of correspondence – is everywhere, all through the history of novel (and indeed non-fiction) writing. It’s a great way for an author to present multiple points of view. But until now, I didn’t realise that I was a fan, even though I’d read The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis, and felt it had a freshness, an immediacy, that in certain ways surpassed his wonderful Narnia tales.
Why are epistolary novels so readable? The Smithsonian National Postal Museum has some interesting thoughts on the subject, as well as a giant list (even 84 Charing Cross Road manages to tiptoe onto it). The gist is that letters are often written for a small and intimate audience. That means that they’re personal, private and revealing. The reader of fictional letters is able to peer into that intimate world.
Reading epistolary books has made me notice the use of correspondence in the stories I’m writing. In my current work in progress, for example, a sealed letter was discovered that seems likely to reveal secrets. I have a rough idea of those are, but won’t know for sure until I get to that chapter…
And now, over to you. Do you have a favourite letter that you’ve read, or written, in a novel?
Wellbeing notes: The Patina of a Person
01/05/2023 at 12:11 pm | Posted in Wellbeing notes | Leave a commentTags: ageless, antiques, self-acceptance, slow beauty, time passing, true beauty, wabi sabi, wellbeing
There’s an upcoming auction near me on 11th May: The Fine Contents of a Wiltshire Property. I may attend, because there’s a similar scene I’m working on in the novel that I’m currently writing. It’ll be useful research.
There’s something about antique objects that is innately pleasing, despite or maybe because of the way they’ve changed over time. Consider my great grandmother’s sewing box, pictured here. Maybe one day the parquetry lid will be restored, but even so, it will never again look new. Its surfaces reveal the passage of time – and that is surely part of its charm. Wear and tear, interspersed with licks of polish… there are no short cuts when it comes to creating an aged surface, or patina.
And so it is with people. We all age differently, and we all face different choices when it comes to the process of time. Do we apply skincare creams, including sun block, daily; do we opt for more drastic intervention? How do we react to the arrival of white hair? And do we keep our bodies flexible through exercise?
We each find our own answers to these questions. However, the icon of older beauty for me will always be the white-haired woman (or man), with serene and cared-for features, who accepts and embraces her true age. She has learned the art of self-acceptance, and to love life fully. That is truly something to aspire to.
Fiction notes: The power of juxtaposition
15/04/2023 at 10:53 am | Posted in Fiction notes, Uncategorized | 2 CommentsTags: creative writing, short stories, writing fiction, writing inspiration, writing techniques
For decades, I wrote non-fiction. Then the poles shifted in my personal life, and now I almost always write fiction. But back in the beginning of my career, I did write a single short story. It was called ‘The Dormer Window’, even though the window in the story was a slanting, attic sort that could be more properly termed a skylight.
When it was published, in Britain and Ireland, no one seemed to mind the architectural inaccuracy. What they liked was the way it juxtaposed the hard drudge of a couple’s ordinary life with a window that revealed their passions and dreams, in unexpected ways. In the story, the husband created an attic bedroom, complete with slanted window above the bed. At night, their reflection revealed them as Chagall’s lovers, entwined and floating in the air. As one editor memorably put it, “It’s about love and DIY”.
I had a quick look for the story yesterday, but couldn’t find it. If I do, I’ll share it on these pages.
But what I really want to talk about is the use of juxtaposition in fiction writing. It’s such a useful device, to put two contrasting things closely together. And it seems to work particularly well for people. To be human is to have duties that we must do, to survive and hopefully thrive. But to be human is also to have powerful emotions. In day to day life we often try to hide these. However, it’s vital for our sanity that there is an outlet for our yearnings, hopes and dreams – a dormer window, if you will.
I invite you to consider what you are currently writing, or perhaps reading. Is juxtaposition present? And, if so, how does it enhance the story?
Wellbeing notes: Teachings from an ancient flower
31/03/2023 at 9:09 am | Posted in Wellbeing notes | 1 CommentTags: Guidance, inspiration, magnolias, mindfulness, nature, wellbeing, wisdom
There’s a magnolia tree that I know and love. With spring blooms of velvet pink, it brings pleasure to all who view it. But my magnolia is more than just a bunch of gorgeous flowers. Its cup-shaped blossoms tell an ancient story. And if I slow down enough to listen to that story, wellbeing results. Here are a few of magnolia’s insights.
‘Age is relative’
Magnolias have been growing for 20 million years. In comparison, humans are so young. It is believed that we have been on this planet for a mere 300,000 years. We are new-born babes compared with the magnolia tree. Maybe we should cut ourselves some slack. We are still learning, and that’s okay.
‘Think out of the box’
Magnolias evolved long before the arrival of bees. So, they attract a much older insect: flightless beetles, that chomp the sticky nectar. So, next time you’re grappling with a tricky problem, you might think of an alternative, ‘magnolia’ solution.
‘It’s fine to be a late bloomer’
Although my favourite magnolia tree flowers in spring, it likes to have a small, colourful flurry later in the year. And so it is with our own talents and interests. We are never too old to do something new.
‘Plan ahead’
By December, my magnolia will be covered in countless tight buds. The tree will protect them over winter, then enjoy a head start next spring. In the same spirit of looking ahead, what could you prepare today, in order to better use your energy tomorrow?
Fiction notes: Depicting war through the little moments
15/03/2023 at 11:25 am | Posted in Fiction notes | Leave a commentTags: emotional intelligence, emotions, empathy, healing, understanding conflict, war writing
I’ll be honest. Long descriptions of war don’t always work for me. But when I read how ordinary people are affected by the conflict… then, I relate to their sorrow. Emotions are all-important. It’s hard for anyone to feel much in the midst of a crisis. But in the aftermath… that’s when people grieve, and mend, and sometimes fracture. That’s when empathy and understanding emerge.
Currently I’m reading a book that embodies this principle. It’s not comfortable material, but it is helping me to understand the effects of war better.
Lucky Breaks is a collection of short stories set in war-torn Ukraine by Yevgenia Belorusets. Like fairytale characters seen through a distorting lens, the women of these stories unaccountably disappear from their ordinary lives, while the businesses of war move in. The women’s homes are destroyed and their offices are repurposed for the war effort. And the women grapple with the changes, unable to make sense of their nation’s new disorder. Rumours abound. One neighbour may have escaped to the country. Another woman – intelligent, educated, artistic and penniless – may have accepted admin work with a man who requires intimate services. Meanwhile, yet another acquaintance develops peculiar habits born of ongoing traumatic stress.
For me, this mosaic of fragmented lives conveys war more effectively than any detailed battle scene. I think Yevgenia Belorusets’s collection is giving me a better view of conflict. These ordinary people could easily be you or me, or our families. It’s easy to identify with them and feel their pain. I think it matters to bear witness to such all-too-human stories. Sometimes, the reading can even bring a little healing.
Photo: Mike Labrum/Unsplash
Wellbeing notes: Outdoor spring clean
01/03/2023 at 9:02 am | Posted in Wellbeing notes | Leave a commentTags: caring for the countryside, great outdoors, healthy habits, inspiration, mental wellbeing, spring clean, spring flowers
If you see a piece of litter on a country walk, do you pick it up sometimes, often, or never? In my case, if I’m honest, it depends on the litter. Some items can’t easily be picked up. Other times, I’m rushing past on my way to a Very Pressing Appointment, and I’d rather not turn up all mucky. But I hope that I do try to bag litter at least some of the time.
When you or I pick up discarded rubbish, we’re contributing to a beneficial practice which has been gaining real traction in the UK, and elsewhere.
This year the Great British Spring Clean runs from 17th March to 2nd April. Look out for individuals, pledging to fill a single bag; and volunteer groups, working together. For ideas on how to join in, see Keep Britain Tidy. In 2022’s Spring Clean, nearly half a million bags of refuse were apparently collected and properly disposed of. That’s a lot of tidying up – enough to make a visible difference.
Walking outdoors is brilliant for mental wellbeing as well as physical health. One of my favourite local walks takes me through woods, meadowland and over a tiny wild garlic stream, all dappled in sunlight. Over the coming weeks, additional flowers will grow along the route: fragrant bluebells like the ones pictured here; dainty lady’s smock; vibrant orchids; purple knapweed and tall, waving daisies. What I’d rather not see among them is an empty can or plastic wrapper, so if there’s anything along those lines, here is my pledge that I’ll be picking it up.
Website Built with WordPress.com.
Entries and comments feeds.
Suzanne Askham 