What better place than the ocean, buffeted by waves and the unknown to think about characters and their foibles?
Reading, writing and swimming have been the touchstones in my life, and now I welcome you to dip into my world!
READING
The tales I love most are historical fiction.There is so much to be learned from the past — not dry historical facts, if I wanted those I would read history text books (and I do!). I want to be swept away into another era. I want my imagination to be taken to a place where the customs, lives and laws are different, and how the characters deal with hardship, joy and sorrow. Down through the ages we’ve been essentially the same in our nature, but our circumstances are very different and for me, this is what makes historical fiction hum.
I also love the idea that Jane Eyre was contemporary fiction when written and wonder which of today’s authors will still be popular in two hundred years’ time! Movies and television adaptations bring historical fiction to life, think of the massive popularity of Downton Abbey and Pride and Prejudice. But for me, while these programs are enjoyable, nothing beats snuggling up in Wolf Hall or The Golden House! To see what I love to read take a dive into my book reviews.
When I’m searching for a new book to read, increasingly I favour a story sprinkled with magic realism. Perhaps the story takes a different path to explain the commonplace. Perhaps it brings to mind once deeply held arcane secrets around folklore and fairy tales that illuminate the narrative. My first encounter with magic realism was in Laura Esquivel’s enchanting book Like Water for Chocolate. At the time I’m not sure it was called magic realism, it was simply folk-tales and myths woven around an impossible love story brought to life through food. I loved that the author used the rich traditions of Mexican food to illustrate the sadness and joys. It’s that frisson of the unknown that excites me, one that takes a realistic story and peppers it with strange prophecies and provocative uncertainties. I love the subtlety of magic realism; a quirk that cannot easily be explained in the everyday but comes to life in a talented writer’s words. Often we yearn for some magic to offset the day to day realism of our lives.
WRITING
Over the past few years I’ve been researching and writing two historical fiction novels, and I’m looking forward to publication when they’re ready. In the meantime, I can share a group of short stories written recently; you’ll find the four above and a couple of essays in the suitcase.
Lately I’ve been thinking about older women’s rights. Especially around how many women are financially and socially penalised for being nurturers of children and homemakers, and are now missing out on comfort and security in their older years. And then there’s the sandwich generation, those women who still have children at home and also ailing parents. Homelessness and poverty for older women is a travesty after years of family responsibilities. This is a theme I am currently working on for a short story or perhaps a book.
Another theme that seems to be making a presence in my writing is twins. For some time I have been of the opinion that I might have been a twin, that a part of me went missing somewhere. Maybe that’s why I write. Anyway, twins, identical, fraternal, same gender, one of each and trans have made an appearance in two books I’m working on. Notwithstanding my overactive imagination there’s no sign of triplets or other multiples in the pipeline.
This brings to mind another theme I’d like to explore: work, and being needed. How many people work at jobs that are unfulfilling but demanding, that take up so much mental space there’s no opportunity to go within and find out who they really are? The inner life is rich with possibilities but some of us (me included) have simply skimmed over life until something happens to wake us up. As Thoreau said, ‘living lives of quiet desperation’, until we find the key to what makes us tick. Quiet lives of passion are to be commended. We do not need to seek great riches for they are all within.
If, like me, you’re passionate about the written word and would like to know my thoughts, you’ll find a few tips for writers in the blog.
SWIMMING
I suppose understanding why we do what we do is a major theme I like to explore; our inspirations and motivations to do what we must do to get through life and what makes us who we are. And what better place than the ocean, buffeted by waves and the unknown to think about characters and their foibles? Oh the bliss of quiet thinking time in sandy estuaries with only the tide and the sun to consider while contemplating plots and narrative arcs. And there, floating like pieces of driftwood and seahorses on the incoming tide I find them.
As for being needed? Two people I loved both said in their later years that the hardest part of aging is not being needed any more. No young children to attend to or work to go to. At the time I didn’t understand why they felt this way, aren’t our golden years meant to be the time of release to do the things we’ve always wanted to do. The things that we said we’d do once we’d retired, that bright shiny time far into the future. One said to me that she didn’t want to be a nuisance with her family, the other said she had nothing left to contribute to friendships. But we need them! We need the older generation around us, to give our lives context and to remind us that life, like the ocean ebbs and flows.
