camp nano

NaNoWriMo is the National Novel Writing Month. It takes place every year in November, and the idea is that you have to write 50 000 words, i.e. a novel, in one month. There’s no money, no prize except the sheer satisfaction of having done it. Think running a marathon, but in front of a computer screen.

It’s supposed to be fiction and you are meant to start from scratch. The first time I did it I followed the rules and won. Also I didn’t have a job. The second time I wrote 10 000 words for an existing project then decided my PGCE and my sanity were more important. This year I didn’t even try.

But the NaNo also does a camp every year in the spring and summer, though the exact months have varied. This year there is one in April and I’m going to do it! This is my page if you would like to follow me! I will also be posting about it on this blog.

The good thing about the camp is that it’s more relaxed. You can choose your word count so I’m aiming for 25 000 – half a NaNo. Also I’ve got the Easter holidays right in the middle, so that should help. I’m hoping to get through a few of those extra chapters and scenes.

There are also virtual cabins where you can relax and chat by the fire, and toast some marshmallows, so if you fancy joining me, give me a shout. Or I might hang out on the Clavier Dansant forum – I’ve heard there is good company there.

On both I’m Petite Mangeuse dEtoiles (NaNo won’t accept apostrophes, I’m afraid).

Literally it means the little star eater. In case you were wondering why this name (which I’m sure you were, right?), I gave myself the name in school after I found a quote in Promise at Dawn by Romain Gary (who is my literary god). He’s explaining how, when he first read Treasure Island, he started imagining that everywhere treasures might be buried, but we unknowingly pass them by, and that it would only take a little digging to uncover them. And he writes (clumsily translated by my services):

‘Only very old star eaters will understand what such an illusion can bring in disappointment and bitterness.’

See you there! 1^st April: here I come.

One month on

Shame on me.

Last Saturday my blog was one month-old and I didn’t even post. Nothing. The first time this month I have not kept my promise, and it was the day I should have celebrated.

First I need to thank you, that is everyone who comes and stops by, especially those of you who take the trouble of commenting. It means the world to me.

I also have to make amends. Not only will there be two blog posts this week (this one for last week and another tomorrow for this week), here is a magnificent drawing from me, the likes of which I am certain you have never seen before:

I used to draw little people in the margins of all my books at school and soon fairies took over. I thought I would post it as a peace offering. I know, right, I'm so talented it's a wonder I don't burst.

As I wrote this, I thought back to what I have shared this month and it triggered a random memory from my childhood.

In my first year of secondary school, I had a group of friends I didn’t really get on with. One thing they didn’t like about me was that I boasted. If you know me now this might come as a shock (unless you know me particularly well), but considering that until the age of ten I was a pretty confident child then it might be they were right.

Obviously I don’t think they were. I distinctly remember one occasion when they accused me of boasting and I had indeed said something along the lines of, ‘I’m so great at this game’.

Except I had just lost.

Now it might have been that they had an unsuspected insight into my personality of which even I was unaware. Perhaps they had sensed that beneath the superficial self-deprecation and light-heartedness lay a deep fear of failure and an insatiable desire for perfection which leads to perpetual frustration with myself and against which the only weapon is humour, a flaw of character my parents frequently refer to as my ‘misplaced pride’, as if it were something I had put down somewhere and lost - though my mum does believe I am pretty bad at finding things so maybe it isn’t so far-fetched an idea. (Does that qualify for the longest sentence ever or is Proust still in the running?)

But somehow I don’t think so. I think they just didn’t get sarcasm.

This brings me to us. All throughout this month, I haven’t censored myself. I have pondered and edited and moderated. But I have told my internal censor, the one that usually stops me from taking part in normal conversations, to go and do something rather rude. I have opened up and taken the risk of showing what goes on inside my head. The little message underneath my picture doesn’t lie: I am hiding behind my computer screen, but that's precisely what makes it so liberating.

Yet now I fear that I have said too much. I hesitated to post this for exactly the reasons I usually censor myself: fear of what people will think. I worry that, despite the reading warning, my declarations of amazingness will be taken literally, just like they were when I was eleven.

As I celebrate the birthday of my blog, and blow on the virtual candles to wish it a long and prosperous life, I reiterate: please don’t take me too seriously. I do, and that’s already one person too many.

When everything changed

Histories - Part III - When everything changed

Huge apologies for how late in the weekend this is – the weather was just too glorious to ignore today. I hope you’ll forgive me. Days like this are just too rare.

Let’s get back to our sheep, as we say in French (yes, one of those idioms that don’t quite translate…), or rather to this post, where I go on at length about my life. I think I left you at the point where I had a plot, a theme and some characters and chapters, but no book. More specifically, I had Lacie and Rowan, Izzie and Lou (whom you haven’t met yet, unless you've read the book), but no Stus. He did not yet exist in my head.

Then something wonderful happened: I got a job at Waterstones.

It was a part-time thing when I was in my third year of university, partly to earn some money to pay back my voluntourism diving in Indonesia, partly to have something on my CV that was actually paid – yes, until then I had always worked for free (I would like to thank my parents for financing me…).

One of my tasks was to shelve books. We had those massive trolleys with books piled up so high I could easily disappear behind one, and somehow you had to perform the magic of putting them on already-full shelves. It required a lot more skill than you might imagine, and although all this book handling is lovely to book nutters, the job itself is quite mindless. You don’t really look at the books anymore, or only enough to know that it will have to fit between James and Johnson. Then you have to take books off because it won't fit, and reshelve them somewhere else, and so you have to fit them between... you get the gist.

Then one day, a title hidden underneath a pile of other books on a trolley caught my eye. I don't know why. It wasn’t even my trolley. I picked it up with trembling hands and read the blurb, hoping it would be as promising as the title. I decided to buy it. Not there and then –  I’ve always found it weird to be a customer in my own workplace. Then I gave it pride of place on my personal bookshelf at home. 

And didn’t read it. I was studying and I find I only want escapism when I’m working. Which this book wasn’t. Then I went to Africa for a year, and considering I had only enough space for three t-shirts, I wasn’t about to try a fit in such a big book. (Ask me about the story of the t-shirts during the rainy season one day. Or ask my mum, she loves to tell that one.)
Then, finally, the following summer, I did read it. And it was just as wonderful as I had hoped. It reinforced a lot of my beliefs about the world, a lot of things I had wondered about when I first learned that the world wasn’t a happy Disney place, and therefore it reinforced my ideas about the theme of my book. Now this is where it gets tricky because I don’t want to give too much away. So I'll just say this: the book is called The Lucifer Effect and it is about the Stanford Prison Experiment. It’s a fascinating field of psychology, so if you don’t know about it, it’s really worth a read.

Now somewhere in the pages of the book something came to me, the realisation that there was something very wrong with my story:  Stus wasn’t in it. I needed to tell the other side of the story, Stus's side. I don’t know how I hadn’t though about it. It was like when you go to the theatre, and at first the spotlight is only on some of the actors, then suddenly the whole stage is lit and you see the bigger picture. Or like playing minesweepers: you click on one square and it reveals a huge area. Whichever analogy suits you best.

A lot about Stus came to me very naturally: his name, his personality, his relationship with his sisters. But he had a lot of catching up to do: I had known the other characters for years. And so when it came to writing, he had a lot less air time. When I finished my first draft, he had barely more than 14000 on a roughly 90 k novel – that’s about 15% (yes, I do love data). That’s rubbish, especially when you consider that the other two point-of-view characters share the same “side” of the story.

A lot of the work I have done since has been on him, and so is a lot of the writing/ rewriting I still need to do.  He forced me to have a much better understanding of Faerie and the Tree Circle, and he has, I think, done a lot for my theme.

In fact, it really wouldn’t be the same without Stus. I wasn’t being overdramatic (for once) when I said in a previous post this book I found by chance changed everything. Suddenly, it all made sense. And I wrote. Admittedly there were periods where I didn’t work, which helped with the writing, but the important thing is that I wrote and didn’t stop.

Then one spring, like the lambs (what is it with me and sheep today?), the book was born. Quivering with fear and grand dreams, I printed the first copy of the first piece of book-length creative writing I had ever seen through. It felt like such as accomplishment: I had written a book. That thing I had said I would do since I was about ten, it was finally done.

Never mind that I had read many times over that it takes as much effort editing as it does writing. I thought it didn’t quite apply to me because I couldn’t think of how I could possibly improve it and any change would be an affront to the core of my story. Now it was written, my characters’ fate was sealed and set it stone. Sure, some of the writing might need minor tweaking, but mostly the book was finished.

How I laugh at this now. 

Women's Day

Today is the International Women’s Day. As far as I understand it celebrates the rights of women, so I thought it was a good occasion to write about something that has been on my mind a lot when I’ve been reading books and book reviews recently: the portrayal of women in books.

Obviously what follows is only my humble opinion. But you might know that I defend my opinions quite fiercely.

Now we’re going to play a game of guess who. I’m going to describe a character and you have to guess who it is.

My character is fiercely independent. My character is very good with a bow and knows how to trap animals and forage for food. My character can fight and wield a knife and climb trees. My character is emotionally confused and pretends to be in love only to survive.

Hands up if you think I am describing a guy.

Otherwise, you might have recognised Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games. That’s what started this whole debate for me.

I have to admit, I love the Hunger Games, I love Katniss Everdeen and she kicks ass. But I started getting annoyed at all the admiration for ‘such a strong female character’ and reviews like, ‘finally a strong female character’.

Yes, Katniss Everdeen is a strong character. There are many ways in which the story wouldn’t work if she had been a guy. But based on her personality and actions, you’d think she is male. Now some may argue that the fact we can’t tell is a good thing, bonus point for gender studies and all that. That’s not what bothers me.

What really irks me is that people only say female characters are strong when they are like men.

Where are all the articles praising Hermione, Molly Weasley, Cersei Lannister and Malta Vestrit?

Because there are many strong female characters in literature (and here my references are Fantasy, but I’m sure there are plenty of other examples). And they don’t have to be like men in order to be strong.

Hermione is the brain behind the trio (that’s Harry, Ron and Hermione) and a driving force behind their adventures. She gets things moving, has initiative, and she’s brave. She’s determined and stands up for what she believes in. She’s strong. But she’s definitely a girl, who worries about her hair and understands Harry’s girlfriend problems better than the two boys.

This is a difficult exercise, a sensitive topic and I’m trying very hard not to fall into clichés about what girls are meant to be like. You can argue all you want about whether or not men and women are different, but the fact is that the ‘women’ group is itself diverse. It annoys me that one way of being strong is being glorified, as if all the other more ‘female’ ways were weakness. If a character likes shopping and wears lipstick and wants to be pretty they are shallow, if a character doesn’t know how to fight physically then they are a damsel in distress, if a character is kind they are a Mary Sue.

JK Rowling made a superb comment about Molly Weasley being a stay-at-home mum and yet a strong character:

“I always saw Molly as a very good witch but someone whose light is necessarily hidden under a bushel, because she is in the kitchen a lot and she has had to raise, among others, George which is like, enough... I wanted Molly to have her moment and to show that because a woman had dedicated herself to her family does not mean that she doesn't have a lot of other talents.”

Another author who portrays female characters very well is Robin Hobb. Her books are wonderful because of the diversity in its characters, including the women. Take the Liveship Traders trilogy: there’s Althea Vestrit, who disguises herself as a man, but also Ronica, the matriarch who takes care of the family fortune and lands, and Malta, the spoiled brat whose hidden bravery we only find out later.

They’re all different. They’re all strong. And they’re all undeniably female. Can’t we celebrate them too?

Not that this is a purely female issue. When we will start celebrating Peeta Mellark for being compassionate instead of labelling him as weak (even though the guy can lift hundred pound bags of flour)? Why is it bad for a man to have women traits, but laudable for a woman to have men traits?

Fitz and the Fool - Art by A6A7

In Robin Hobb’s books, you have the Fool, whose gender we never really know, Fitz, who’s your typical strong man, and moody and frail Wintrow. Even her male characters are diverse.

Now a quick Google search has told me that I’m not alone in thinking that this whole 'strong female character' idea is backwards.

But these are important questions for me because, as I develop my characters, I have to think about the kind of people they are. Are they stereotypical? Do they encourage clichés about men and women? Do they appear strong?

My main character seems weak. She’s shy, scared of her own shadow and not particularly good at anything. She’s definitely not physically strong, she’s not particularly smart and she can’t fight. She doesn’t go looking for adventures. She doubts every decision she makes and cries easily.

But she has immense power of resilience and love. She’ll stand up for what she believes is right even though she’s scared shitless. To me, she’s strong. And she doesn’t need to know how to wield a sword to be so. 

The other big news

As I mentioned yesterday, I had planned another big news. The thing is it was so big I didn't have time to get it all ready. Mostly Google's fault (they wouldn't let me create another blog because they thought I was a robot).

So here it is: this is a bilingual blog!

Yes, you've read me correctly! If you look on the top right hand corner below the header, you'll see a pretty little butterfly. If you click on it, it will take you to a different world the French version of my blog.

Now what I originally wanted was one-to-one correspondence between all the posts and pages in both blogs. Which I found how to do. But I can't because, stupidly, the permalinks have to be exactly the same (except for the blog's name) and because most of the English posts were written last month, they don't match. I've tried to manually edit the links, or fiddle with the date of the posts, but nought will do. I might change it in the future, once I have enough posts for it to make sense, but in the meantime let me know if this works.

I haven't translated all the posts because some of them were little updates that didn't really make any sense a week later. I also haven't put any excerpts, because, well, I haven't got any French excerpts to put on. This might all change, though, because I am seriously considering translating the book into French when I am done with editing the English version. First I need to figure out if anybody would even remotely be interested in that, because it's going to be a lot of work.

In the meantime, happy reading if you can read French. If not, well... now's a good time as any to start learning!

Prologue

This is the scariest part: actually posting something I've written.

I wrote this a long, long time ago, then took it out completely, and put it back in again slightly modified. It's a prologue. 
Now I'm not sure there is a need for one, and it never gets completely explained either, only hinted at, which is why I had taken it out. 

But Stus has the first chapter, you see. And then we are in this world, and it might feel strange to be back in normality. So I thought the prologue helped bridge this gap. The idea is that the reader knows from the very start that some of the story will take place in our world.

Then we get to Stus and Faerie.

Of course, it might be giving completely the wrong message, like my synopsis. Or not make any sense. Or be rubbish. You tell me.

~*~

A shadow sneaked through the small opening. A cat flap closed without a sound. Velvet paws jumped onto the counter and pushed the lock open. A small click of the keyhole later, the door opened shyly. A cloak billowed through the dark and sleeping house. Yet there were noises, so many noises: buzzing from the refrigerator, a tick-tock from a grandfather clock, a car revving past on its way back from a drunken night. Probably. Who knew, with these foreign sounds? Back home it would have been creaking wood and wind in the trees, perhaps hooves and barking. But he was a long way from home.

The man waited until he was sure his entrance had not set off any alarm, then he crept up the staircase. It was pitch black there. They must have closed all the doors before going to bed, but he knew which one to head for. He had studied the comings and goings of the inhabitants enough to know. He felt his way along the rough painted wall, his fingers exploring the surface for clues as to where he was. He encountered a corner, then his hand closed around a handle and pushed it down.

He stepped past the chest of drawers to the bed. The moonlight shone through the window. If the girl woke up now, she would be able to see him. “But she won’t”, he told himself. A silver blade emerged out of the darkness and neared the pillow.

In a flash of silver and a swish of a cloak, he was out of the house, clutching a lock of silvery-blonde hair.