Tag Archives: journey to ambeth

Journey To Ambeth And Beyond…

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Have you ever wondered why I decided to call my blog, `Journey To Ambeth’?

Ambeth is the fantasy world I created as part of my Ambeth Chronicles – however, when I started blogging a little over three years ago, the books were just drafts and I hadn’t published anything. A friend was starting a blog and I thought I might too – I saw it as a chance to write regularly, and to document a process that was new to me, as well as share anything I learned along the way. I remember hitting publish as I shared my first post, the fear and exhilaration that my words were out in the world for anyone to read.

My early posts were all about writing, in one way or another, and most of my early followers had something to sell. But eventually, I made real connections that have now developed into friendships I value greatly, despite the fact we may never actually meet. And when we do meet? You only have to read my Bloggers Bash posts to see how much fun we have, and how it feels like walking into a room of friends, rather than people I’ve never met before.

A journey indicates travel of some sort, moving from one place to another. Those places do not necessarily have to exist on a map for such a transition to take place. For me, the journey started as one of writing, but has evolved.

Now, of course, Ambeth is just one of the fantasy worlds I explore and my blog is about so much more than writing. It’s a place where I can share snippets of my days, interact with other bloggers, respond to writing prompts and of course travel, on my weekly Wednesday Wanders. But at its heart, it is still documenting a journey – thank you to all of you who have decided to travel with me.

Hope you’re all having a lovely weekend!

You can find me on Twitter @AuthorHelenJ,  Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Plus my latest book release, A Thousand Rooms, is now available on Amazon. Visit my Amazon Author Page to see more.

Wishing Everyone A Happy New Year!

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This was the first dawn of 2016...

Photo taken on the first dawn of 2016…

It’s the last day of the year and so, as is tradition, I’m taking a look back at my blogging year. Oh, I won’t be sharing stats or anything like that – rather, just revisiting some popular posts and summing up my 2016 blogging experience.

For it has been an experience indeed! This year I’ve met some wonderful new bloggers, many of whom have chosen to follow Journey to Ambeth. Thank you to everyone who decided to take the journey with me – your comments and input are so very appreciated.

I also released two new books this year; Hills And Valleys, the third in my Ambeth series, and A Thousand Rooms, a standalone novel. I was amazed by the support of the blogging community, who shared, commented and reblogged, helping me to reach an even larger audience. Thank you so much!

In June I attended the second annual Bloggers Bash in London. I’d attended the original Bash in 2015, where we’d all bonded over lunch in Pizza Express before heading to a local pub. This year we had a room to ourselves in (another) rather nice pub, more than double the number of attendees than the previous year, and the charming Luca from WordPress giving a talk about blogging. I reconnected with old blogging friends and met new blogging friends, as well as being nominated for an award. (I didn’t win, but it was awesome just to be nominated!) Here’s to the the 2017 Bash – can’t wait!

In September I spent a magical weekend in the hills with Sue from The Daily Echo, then November saw an evening of laughter, magic and writing talk with the fabulous Suzie from Suzie Speaks, Lucy from Blondewritemore and Sacha Black. To say that blogging has changed my life would not be an exaggeration – I’ve made some truly wonderful friends and really enjoy being part of such a wonderful online community.

So, as the year winds to a close, here are the ten posts that seemed to resonate most with readers:

Memory Box – I wrote this post way back in January, about a chance discovery during a new year house clean.

Stuck Writing Your Author Bio? Try The (Totally Not Serious) Author Bio Generator – Probably my most popular post of the year, I wrote this as a bit of a piss-take after reading several rather, shall we say, overwrought author bios. However, turns out the Author Bio Generator actually works! Try it and see…

Thinking Aloud – this post was a close second to being most popular, and was written as a response to the idea that, as artists, we should be happy to work for free to gain ‘exposure.’

Hills and Valleys – New Release – self-explanatory, really. However, a very popular post, for which I’m extremely grateful.

Old Meets New, With Bonus Orb – this is one of those posts that just keeps on going. I think I had someone like it just the other day. It was written after a trip to London with a friend, where we were struck by the juxtaposition of architecture in the oldest part of the city. More fun than it sounds, I promise!

What Happens Next? – This post was inspired by a comment Craig Boyack made on one of my Thursday Door posts. He started a story based on my photograph, I wrote a short response, he kept going, then we decided to open it up to everyone. The resulting story was published, in all its glory, in the follow-up post The Crypt – Completed.

Circles Beyond Time – Arrival. This was the first post in my series about a weekend away in the Peak District with the Silent Eye. It was an extraordinary weekend for many reasons…

When The Forest Calls – this was a rambling, stream-of-consciousness sort of post. I’d had a day of doing this and that, but was trying to decide what to write about. And the forest was calling…

Published! A Thousand Rooms – one of the most popular posts for the year, and I’m so grateful to everyone who shared it around.

Under The Moon – this was one of Sue Vincent’s #writephoto prompts, and I wrote a piece of prose about a woman and her dream under a full moon. Or was it a dream…?

Wishing each and every one of you a healthy, happy and bright new year – may 2017 bring us all that we wish for! Looking forward to seeing you all in blogland and beyond…  xx

If you enjoyed this post, you can find me on Twitter @AuthorHelenJ,  Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Plus my latest book release, A Thousand Rooms, is now available on Amazon.

 

 

Treasure Hunting

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Last summer my husband, daughter and I went metal detecting in our local woods. Of course we had dreams of uncovering some sort of golden hoard, left in days past by desperate refugees fleeing advancing armies, but we figured the reality was more likely to be an array of soft drink cans and old screws and nails, left by not-so desperate people who just couldn’t be arsed to find a bin (but that’s a whole other rant).

However.

It seemed like a fun thing to do, the weather was nice, the woods green and glowing, and an afternoon in the fresh air searching for treasure was an afternoon well spent, as far as we were concerned.

So, what did we find?

Well, it was a surprisingly fruitful mission. The woods in question were once part of the grounds of a Jacobean manor, sadly demolished in the 1950’s when death duties and a collective sort of madness seemed to grip those in charge of our heritage homes. So the house was gone but the woods remained, and into the green we went, venturing off the beaten path in hopes of finding something special. We found loads of coins, actually. Coppers and a few no-longer shiny twenty pence pieces, enough to keep the gorgeous girl very excited. Sure, there were a few bits of tinfoil, some old rusty nails and, on one lengthy dig, the sad realisation that the large response we were getting was from a nearby drain cover, but for the most part we found stuff that was worth digging for. We even found an old penny, George V by the very faint silhouette barely visible on its worn surface, the edges nibbled away by its time in the ground. And then we found this:

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What is it? It was fairly deep down, six or seven inches below the surface. It’s obviously man made, but for what purpose? For me, and this is entirely a gut instinct kind of thing, it feels as though it had something to do with the war. Like it was a gun sight or something. The piece is surprisingly heavy and very solid under all the rust, measuring about 15cm long. We were all fascinated by it, our first piece of ‘treasure.’

As we walked and listened for beeps and talked and enjoyed the day, a small boy and his mother came along the path. We were digging at that moment, and the little boy was fascinated, asking us what we were doing. I replied ‘we’re looking for treasure,’ and his face lit up.

‘Can I help?’ he asked, but his mother, smiling, told him they needed to keep going, and perhaps they could look for treasure themselves another day. So he watched for a few moments more and then they went on their way. And, as we went home under the fading sun, dirty and tired and clutching our little bag of booty, we all appreciated what a good day it had been and that maybe, the treasure we found was not something that could be measured or weighed, but something infinitely more valuable.

Making Salad with Anais

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My lovely sister-in-law-to-be is currently studying at UCLA, and she recently had access to their archives for research. She chose to look at the diaries and correspondence of Anais Nin and was extremely excited about having the chance to look at these documents, to touch the pages Anais had touched, to see her words as they were written. As I sat here in gloomy grey England she sent me a quick snapshot of one of the pages – the writing was neat and stretched long, but it was the words that amazed me:

‘There was a bottle on the floor and talk which did not climb like a Gothic spire, but broke and splashed like a kaleidoscope in the febrile hands of Fred whose moods are like a string orchestra playing Debussy…

                                                                                                                             From the diary of Anais Nin

Sigh.

Such a glorious use of simile, and this was just one part of one page in her diaries. I think I would have been stuck in the archive room for weeks, immersed in the beauty of her words. And this was no significant event, just a diary entry noting an evening spent with Henry and Fred (Henry Miller and Fred Perles, his roommate). They drank together and talked, and at one point made a salad. She describes Fred preparing ‘the savouries for the salad with ritualistic fervour.’ I mean, it’s just making salad, but she imbues it with so much more. You can almost hear the knife chopping down, staccato beat on wood.

For me this was fascinating. Here is a woman known mainly for her erotic stories, but whose everyday diary entries prove the fact that she was also a damn good writer. These days, diary keeping is a largely forgotten art. Instead we have Facebook and Twitter in which to record our hours, short phrases dashed out in the few moments we may have between one thing and another, hardly conducive to creating great prose. Yet writing every day is the best way to improve our craft, so perhaps those diary keepers of yore had an advantage that we do not, something that explains why some of today’s popular novels seems to lack a richness of language, erotica dumbed down to repeated exclamations and muddy inner monologues, style sacrificed to pace.

I hope one day I can learn to write about making salad like she did.