Steve is having another request party tonight from 8pm – and there’s a chance to win a prize! So shimmy on over and make your requests – it’s loads of fun 🙂
Bloggers Bash 2016 – Venue Announcement
I went to the first Bloggers Bash last year and it was an awesome day out! Can’t wait for this year – hope to see you there 🙂
The Bloggers Bash Committee said this year would be bigger and better – and trust me, it will be. We, the committee, have plans afoot to make it a cracking day.
If you don’t know what the bash is, it’s an annual get together for bloggers everywhere. The bash is open to everyone, whether you blog about writing, cooking, parenthood, beauty, fishing or anything in between, this is the event for you. AND irrespective of blogging platform – so if you have friends from other platforms please let them know.
The event is open to any blogger from any blogging platform – and please, if you aren’t a wordpress blogger – share this post.
This is the chance for you to meet (in real life) all those firm friends you have made through blogging. This year, the bash is on Saturday the 11th June, in London, England.
I said we had plans…
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Week End
Is it Saturday yet? This week has flown by, mainly because I’ve been working hard on my Hills and Valleys edit, with a massive push to finish today. I’m done except for typing up the changes, which is a big relief.
It’s been a week of loss (Bowie, Alan Rickman and others), and of cold weather finally arriving, the mornings bright with frost.
It’s also been a week of blog love. Both Sue Vincent and Ali Isaac nominated me for a Champions Blog award – thank you both so much! 🙂 According to Seumas Gallacher, the originator of this award, it is a way to say thank you to those readers and writers who go the extra mile in support of others. He also says no explanations are needed and to keep it simple. Well, I just love that idea! I’m supposed to name another five bloggers as part of the award – I just need a little while to get some names together and then I can accept the award, but I couldn’t let the nomination go by without saying thank you.
And the same goes to Marjorie at Kyrosmajica, who nominated me for the #Girllove Blog Challenge. This involves writing a post about women who inspire us, including five female bloggers. Marjorie very kindly listed me as one of her five – thank you! Once again, I need a bit of time to get a post together, but wanted to say thanks 🙂
And finally, Kristin over at pursuitofanewadventure invited me to write a guest post, which went live today. Thanks so much, Kristin – you’re a great host!
So, onwards and upwards with my final corrections – I’ll be back in blogland once they’re done. Happy weekend, everyone!
Thursday Doors – Hatfield House
My door this week is from Hatfield House, not far from where I live. Hatfield House is the seat of the Marquess of Salisbury and, like most great houses in the UK, is partially open to the public. There are actually two houses on the site – The Old Palace of Hatfield and Hatfield House. The Old Palace was built in 1485 by the Bishop of Ely and was once home to Henry VIII. It was also the place where his daughter Elizabeth was held under house arrest by her sister Mary, and where she found out she was to ascend the throne. Hatfield House, built in 1611, is one of the finest Jacobean palaces in the country, and has been home to the same family for over 400 years.
I went to Hatfield House for afternoon tea, to celebrate a friend’s birthday. It was traditional in the British manner, with finger sandwiches and a selection of sweet cakes as well as, of course, tea. After we wandered the old stableyard, now home to boutiques and a restaurant. And I photographed this door, taken by the large creeper that had claimed it for its own, snaking up the side of the ancient bricks in a glorious tangle.
This door is part of Norm 2.0’s Thursday Doors Challenge. Head on over to his site and browse the other doors, or add one of your own 🙂
Wednesday Wander – Lost Lagoon, Vancouver
Looking at this photo, would you believe it was taken in the heart of a large North American city? Sure, there are a few giveaways if you look closely – streetlights just visible through the distant trees, and a manmade fountain in the centre of the lake.
This is Lost Lagoon, in Vancouver, Canada. Once a tidal mudflat connected to Burrard Inlet, it was home for centuries to the area’s First Nations tribes, who used it as a rich food source. Before it was landlocked in 1916 by the construction of the Stanley Park Causeway, the lagoon was open to the sea, the movement of the tides causing it to ‘disappear’ from time to time.
A local writer who loved to canoe on the lake gave it the name ‘Lost Lagoon.’ She wrote:
‘As that perfect summer month drifted on, the ever-restless tides left the harbour devoid of water at my favorite canoeing hour, and my pet idling place was lost for many days – hence my fancy to call it the Lost Lagoon.’ Pauline Johnson
I used to live very close to Lost Lagoon, and spent a lot of time walking there. Raccoons played in the undergrowth, squirrels and waterbirds made their homes in the ancient trees, yet just a block away were the towers and noise of Vancouver. Such contrast is part of why Vancouver is so often named one of the world’s most liveable cities, that such an oasis of calm can be found at its very heart.
Thanks for joining me on another Wednesday Wander – where will we go next week?
Falling Star
Today is a funny sort of a day. The sun is shining (for the moment), it’s cold and the air feels fresh. Yet the world is diminished in some way. When an artist of Bowie’s magnitude, who touched so many lives for so many years, leaves this plane, you can almost feel the loss, a vacuum of space where once someone shone brightly.
People gathered in Brixton last night, singing his songs and lighting candles, trying to hold onto that aura of stardust. And he will remain, of course he will. His music, his art, will not be forgotten. While I wouldn’t class myself as a mega fan, I liked his music, his songs appearing regularly on my playlist. I liked his films, too – on a recent visit to the EMP in Seattle I gazed in awe at his Goblin King costume, it still holding a faint vestige of the spark he brought to the character.
But I guess what I liked the most about Bowie is that he lived a creative life. And he did it for himself. He wasn’t worried about what others would think – he had a vision to explore and he did so. So in many ways, that to me is his lesson, his legacy. The arty version of ‘feel the fear and do it anyway.’
And so, as I walked back over the canal bridge, rippling water and golden leaves, I thought about it. Writing is what I love to do. It’s how I express myself, how I work through things, how I convey what is inside me. To ignore it is to dishonour myself. I know I’m lucky to have the time to pursue it, but it doesn’t mean it is not hard work at times.
Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you.
Time To Edit
I haven’t been as ‘present’ as usual in blogland this past week or so. That’s because I’m deep in the pre-edit on my third Ambeth book, Hills and Valleys. My pre-edit basically consists of a full read through, tidying up the prose and making sure the structure works before sending it to Lucy, my editor. I’ve compared it before to cleaning the house before the cleaner comes over, but I do think there’s more to it than that. I’m paying Lucy for her time, and I don’t want to waste it by sending her a document that still needs work.
As I worked through the edit, it occurred to me that it has been just about a year since I sent my first book, Oak and Mist, to Lucy for editing. At the time it felt like a leap of faith – even though Lucy was highly recommended and had lots of experience in my genre, I had no idea what to expect. I’d heard people describe having a professional edit done as being like a kick in the guts, their work being ripped apart. What if Lucy wanted me to get rid of a favourite character? Or, even worse, if she thought the whole story didn’t work and I needed to start again.
Then the edit came back. It was thorough, professional and included a page of notes about the structure. And, even though it was hard to take, Lucy was spot on. I was very lucky in that she ‘got’ the story right away, and her suggestions made it even better. I wrote a blog post about the experience at the time, and thought it might be fun to revisit my thoughts, one year on…
I’m currently working with an editor on the first book in my Ambeth series, Oak and Mist, getting it ready for publication. It’s the first book I’m going to publish so I want it to be as strong as possible, which is why I’ve chosen to invest in a professional edit. And I’m so pleased with the result – her suggestions are spot on and she’s also picking up on the extra spaces and commas and quotation marks throughout my work.
But…
No. There is no but. This edit is just what I needed. The editor has also given me a page of editorial notes about the structure of the story and, well, I’ve had to suck it up and agree. Because she’s absolutely right about the points she makes, and has actually cleared up a few niggling issues I hadn’t been able to resolve.
But….
It’s just how you feel, as a writer, when someone critiques your work. Your automatic response to someone not agreeing with everything you’ve written is ‘But….’ Said in sort of a whiny tone. (I think the great Stephen King touches on this in his book, On Writing). Because your book is so personal, so precious, it’s hard to take at first when it feels like someone just doesn’t get it.
But…
I’ve thought about it and the changes she’s suggesting will make for an even better story, an even stronger book. She does get it. And that’s why you work with an editor – to get a fresh, professional viewpoint of your work, from someone who does it for a living.
And you can’t ask for more than that.
So, as I get ready to send my third book out for editing, I remind myself why. I’m looking forward to the process because it means I can offer you, the reader, the best possible book I can write. And hopefully I won’t have to kill off any characters in the process…
TODAY: Talk About Pop Music – The Radio Request Show
The pop party is on again today, courtesy of Steve over at Steve Says. His live request show runs from 2-6pm today and requests include a blog promo. So tune in and get your dance on!
Removing The Layers
Last week I found a box full of memories.
The clear out continues, and more treasure is coming to light. This week I found an old journal. To be honest, I don’t really keep a journal. However, when I went through a fairly dark, transitional journey in my own life, a dear friend recommended that I write down my thoughts, and gave me a lovely notebook in which to do so.
There aren’t a lot of entries, but each one is like a punch to the stomach. Oh, not because they are nasty or violent – in fact, there’s a lot of love in them, for my daughter, for my husband, even for myself. I muse a lot about the idea of moving back to England, even going so far as to say I was ‘putting it out in the Universe.’ Sitting here in the UK, almost ten years later, I can only marvel. No, the entries hit me hard because they are a written record of a time in my life when I was peeling back the layers of who I’d become, to find who I was again.
That probably sounds a little dramatic, but change can come upon us in a variety of ways, and sometimes the layers of expectation and self-preservation can build up, like pearl accretions inside a pink shell. However, instead of ending up as a perfect round pearl, you become something rather misshapen, a distortion of who you really are.
This had happened to me, and I didn’t really realise it until I’d had my daughter and challenged myself with the thought of who I wanted to be for her. And I realised I had lost my way. There is a passage in one entry which reads as follows:
‘I realised that I had reached the end, that I had nothing more to give to the way I was living and so it was time to make changes and move in the direction of who I want to be.’
Yes, that’s a bit of a long sentence, I know. However, it struck me as being very profound. I do believe that the key to making change is to recognise the need for change, and here was the moment where I had done so.
There were a couple of loose pieces of paper in the front of the journal, one of which was a printed out quote given to me by the same dear friend. It reads:
‘Whatever you have forgotten, you can remember. Whatever you have buried, you can unearth. If you are willing to look deep into your own nature, if you are willing to peel away the layers of not-self you have adopted in making your way through the tribulations of life, you will find that your true self is not as far removed as you think.’ Meredith Jordan
Even though I’m still peeling away, I can look back and see how far I’ve come. And that is truly to be treasured.
Thursday Doors – The Fabulous Commodore, Vancouver
This week’s Thursday Door is a little blast from my past. It’s the entrance to the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver, a 1920’s dance hall still with the original sprung dancefloor.
I moved to Vancouver in my early twenties after finishing university and soon settled into the city, exploring the neigbourhoods and nightlife. The Commodore hosted a lot of the bands I listened to, plus they had an excellent Disco Night every Tuesday, for the bargain basement admission price of $2.00.
When my friends and I first used to go along it was half empty, the dancefloor home to various alternative musicians, a girl who used to do jazz ballet in the corner, and a few Japanese tourists. The big screen hanging over the stage played a continuous loop from Saturday Night Fever, of John Travolta preening in his underwear. Flick, flick, his hips would turn in his black briefs as we spun around under disco lights and a DJ booth that looked like a spaceship, protruding over the dance floor. I absolutely loved it.
Then disco had a resurgence and Tuesday nights became very busy – you had to get there early if you wanted to get in. The Disco King held court every week, young and lean in his flares and feathered hat, leading a dance competition for all the flannel-clad groovers, boots stomping and bouncing on the sprung timbers. It was still awesome.
I left Vancouver not long after, but still remember The Commodore as one of my favourite places to hang out. When I went back to visit recently I had to take a photo, just for nostalgia’s sake. I don’t know if they do Disco Night anymore – it’s probably Grunge Night now, the music of my youth rewound for a new generation.
But if they did still have it, I’d be there 🙂
If you’d like to see more Thursday Doors, do the hustle on over to Norm 2.0, where you can view the list or add your own…
Helen Glynn Jones 