Category Archives: Writing

Which characters are real?

Characters for your fiction are everywhere

even here at the clinic. This is where I’m at 5 days a week, all day being bent and stretched, but that’s no excuse for not doing any writing.

 characters at the clinic
even clinics harbour characters

There’s no shortage of characters in this place. It’s called ré-éducation this teaching your limbs how to work properly. It’s a bit like re-hab except most patients are over 50. Make that 60.

There are bad legs and bad arms, slings and crutches enough to make you wonder if there are any uninjured people left in this part of France.

On the residents’ wing patients are recovering from operations, strokes, heart attacks and nasty falls. In the day clinic where I’m an outpatient there are some young people and they are mostly ski-ing accidents.

Stories just waiting to be written

The Queen of Andorra is here with her fabulous jewellery and stunning outfits. Not for her the yoga pants, trainers and sloppy tees. Her shoes are handmade pumps to match her numerous ensembles. I expect she wore high Jimmy Choos before she bust her leg ski-ing in the Pyrenees so now she’s had a bunch of flatties  made to fit her slim but extremely long feet. (Feet are the only thing I’ve got smaller than hers)

She drives to her physio sessions in her Porsche. On the front there’s a regal looking car badge.

Andorra character
I didn’t realise Andorra is a Principality!

It’s hard to tell where the guys are looking when she rolls up.

She’s got a fantastic figure (except for the feet) and is a natural beauty. Plus, she knows how much jewellery to wear.

CopyCat characters

When she first arrived she unwittingly started the ‘bling’ competition among the other women, yours truly excepted. I can’t get my hand round the back of my neck to fasten jewellery anyway. So, it was an experience for me to sit there with my notebook and watch and listen, and take my notes.

Another ski accident has recently arrived. Her eyes are sunken and dark-rimmed. She’s in a lot of pain. I haven’t seen the ghost of a smile on her face.

The other ski accidents are men. One is a leg; one is an arm; another is both legs and one arm. He is one of the most masculine types: square jaw, chiselled features, all that good stuff. He isn’t the best-looking though. That title goes to the 6ft 4″ proprietor of the local archery club who one day let fly an arrow with such velocity it pulled his shoulder out. He has a physique so tight you could play bongos on his buttocks. Actually, I’d like to.

bongo characters
beat the bongos

Then there’s Mister Bean. In the pool, where we have our Balneotherapy, he will not listen to our instructor’s advice. Mr Bean is a character who wants to do everything his own way. He’s all arms and legs going in every direction at once so I can’t tell which part of him was injured. He behaves like he’s fifteen. He’s 70 if he’s a day.

There’s a left shoulder who looks like Gaylord Focker and a right shoulder who looks like Spencer Tracy and then there’s two Spanish old boys who sound as if they’re speaking their mother tongue even when they’re speaking in French. I don’t understand a word so I nod and smile a lot at them.

The newest guy lives at the Naturist colony in Cap d’Agde and his name is Monsieur Le Coq.

The Lady in Black has left. Every item of clothing she wore, everyday was black: trousers, skirts, blouses, jackets, knitwear, socks, hairband, spectacle frames. Everything. But her shoes were white. Work that one out.

Mouse Lady and Bird Lady have also finished their treatments. They left on the same Friday and brought cakes and drinks and a whole feast of goodies to say goodbye to the rest of us. Then I felt mean for giving them such dismissive nicknames.

There’s Marie Louise who works for Air France. She’s always making coffee and asking if anybody wants one.

AirFrance character
Air France logo

There’s Giselle with teeth like piano keys and Corinne who has a different car with a different man in it come to pick her up at the end of each day. Maybe they’re her clients waiting for her hip to get better.

Plenty of characters, you see? I could base my fictional characters on any of these. Stories are coming out of my pores as I sweat out the pain of having my elbow pushed, my shoulder hoisted, my wrist twisted and my fingers pulled.

But which of these characters do you think are real? I’ve changed names and embroidered a bit as writers do, but, go on, which ones are real? Have a go.

You can leave your comment at the top of the page. I’d love to know what you think.

Book covers. Judging a book by its cover.

Book covers have been discussed in other people’s blogs. Usually they poke fun at ridiculous designs. On Google images, you can find pictures of the 10 worst book covers of all time etc. Some of them are so bad they’re hilarious. Mostly they are genre fiction of the kind of inexpensive reads you used to find on a market stall. Self-published books are notorious for having poor quality covers. But what about book cover design on recent highly-rated books from mainstream publishers?

I don’t like some current fashions in book covers. There, I’ve said it. Can’t be plainer than that. Some book cover designs are so awful I wonder what their authors thought about the packaging of their precious months of hard work. Self-published books have some kind of an excuse for having terrible covers, but where mainstream publishers put out our favourite authors’ latest novels in covers that scream second-rate, I get annoyed.

Here are examples of some of the books I’ve read:

bad book cover
What?

What were they thinking putting that cheap red title in letters that look like worn road markings? If I didn’t know Mr Coben’s work I wouldn’t have bought this book. It looks as if it’s about some pervy paedo with a taste for little boys. Yuk!

I have no qualification in design so you’re entitled to tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. But I’m entitled to my opinion and it’s this: current trends in book cover designs can be misleading.

In some cases, very misleading . . .

bad book cover
great story – terrible cover

Oh, Kate I loved this novel, but the cover? It cheapens your plot and characters. It looks like a quasi-erotic historical romance. It is based on historical events, of course, and there is a story of love woven within it, but the novel is so much more. This cover design neglects the hardships endured by your primary female characters. Anyone would think the whole book was about a Russian princess in her red satin gowns waiting for Prince Charming to arrive.

Misleading book covers

Why do they do it? Why do they want to make novels look as if they’re about something else? Here’s more –

misleading book cover
deserves something better than this tired image

Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding is contemporary literary fiction. It rips your heart out. I think somebody must have briefed the designer with ‘It’s a haunting tale of  . . .’ and the designer stopped listening, didn’t bother to read the book and came up with a book cover that looks like it ought to be a ghost story. Ooh- er – something nasty in the attic, eh? And what is Mrs Danvers doing climbing the steps in this version of a burnt out Manderley?

Speaking of Rebecca, look what they did to a reprint of du Maurier’s classic story.

bad book cover design
tasteless book cover

It’s no better than a card from Moonpig or the Dog’s Doodahs or Funky Pigeon. And what’s with all this red, satin stuff again? Is this another case where the cover designer never read the book?

Won’t readers new to the author be disappointed when they discover the story hasn’t got any red satin glamour about it at all?

Won’t that same disappointment prevent them from buying books by that author ever again?

What is the point of misleading prospective purchasers?

Here’s another classic novel with a badly updated cover.

bad book cover
dire book cover

 

Everything about this cover is SO wrong. They couldn’t even choose a font that encapsulates the era of the narrative.

 

I don’t like book covers where they use a scene from the film, either.

bad book cover
how could you tell what kind of a book this is?

This was a good book before they made a film out of it. Why put famous actors’ faces on the cover? To attract a different body of readers? Misleading again?

It seems to me publishers are afraid of what they choose to call literary fiction.

So, stop calling it that then.

A good read is a good read whatever genre you want to put it in.

Here’s a cheap and nasty looking book cover where the story is about cheap and nasty characters.

bad book cover
should have been a cult read . . .

Layer Cake was given me by friends returning to England. I’d never heard of it and didn’t know it was also a film. The characters are such villains and probably a little stereotypical, but it doesn’t matter because this is one entertaining read. You can’t help rooting for the protagonist. It belongs with other cult reads but with a cover like this it’s only ever going to find its way into the second-hand shop, in my opinion. I get the car and the iron, but what’s with the Humpty Dumpty colours and the primary school layout?

It looks like a Haynes car manual. With an iron. How to repair those small dents in your bodywork . . .

book cover
mixed feelings about this one

One Day I can look at the cover of One Day and see the faces. On other days I see a wobbly candlestick. But then, when the original Batman film poster first appeared I wondered why it had on it an open mouth with strange golden teeth.

Do you remember the one I mean?

two ways of seeing it?

Can you see the teeth? Ah, well.

So it might be just me.

What do I know?

Sometimes book covers are spot on even if they are still misleading. Here’s an example of one I think works well.

book cover
designed to arouse curiosity

The cover for 50 Shades does its job well, in my opinion. It makes you wonder about what’s inside. The cover is actually classier than the narrative and that’s where it’s misleading, but the lady made a packet so she must be right.

I like the lone figure in the landscape appearance of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels. Not only are they appropriate for the storyline but they are instantly recognisable as another Jack Reacher walking into trouble novel. You know you’re not going to be disappointed. There’s no misleading.

The lone figure image worked well for Carlos Ruiz Zafòn’s   Shadow of the Wind. Great book; great cover.

book cover
mouth-watering cover, full of promise

I loved this book. The lone figure is not a Jack Reacher type, standing tall (all 6ft. 5 of him ) ready to get his fists out and sort the problem. The shadowy figure here has his head down; his shoulders slightly stoop. You know you’re going to feel sorry for him or worry about him at some point.

There’s mystery in that fog.

There’s danger in those dark buildings.

book cover
a paler version

 

The cover is enticing.

The lone figure emblem didn’t work so well second time around.

Or, maybe it did. Maybe it was truthful. It was a paler image for a paler story. I think it was a mistake to stick with the same kind of imagery as the first book.

Do you get disappointed by book covers? Do they sometimes put you off buying a book?

How important do you think book covers really are?

I’d love to read your opinions. Drop me a line and share your thoughts.

2014 for writer in Languedoc. Be careful what you wish for . . .

In 2014 writer in Languedoc is having problems already. Writing plans are delayed.

writer tools
learning to type with just one

On December 14th a car hit me from behind and knocked me flying. I don’t remember falling. That part of the experience is a complete blank. I remember my head bouncing on concrete and I ended up lying on my right side cradling my left wrist. Both my head and wrist were hurting like crazy. I knew I was in trouble and lay very still.

Christmas and New Year were non events for me. I was out of it much of the time, spaced on painkillers and sleeping my way through nightmares. But here I am today, typing with one hand a little at a time. My wrist/arm is broken in 2 places. I have a full arm cast which gets in the way and is very heavy. I can’t sit at my keyboard for long because I can’t get in a comfortable position.

Be careful what you wish for

Do you remember my post from the Wicked Stepmother where I planned a crafty coup for time off from kitchen duties?

Oh, how I wished for a break from all that cooking.

Well, look what happened!

A break in two places.

I won’t be able to peel a potato for months.

But I’m a writer. Somewhere I’ll get a story out of it.

Arse(d) Ends. Great reviews on Amazon

Mick’s crowing about his latest reviews for Arse(d) Ends, his first collection of darkly comic stories. I have a soft spot for the old boy, so I thought it might be an idea to give him a little update on MY website.

Arse(d) Ends

I know it’s a weird title. I know some people don’t like it, but Mick does and he’s sticking with it. You can’t deny the title suits the mood of each story. Mick is Celia’s alter ego. Remember him? You can find out more about him here.

One reviewer, Juliet on Amazon.co.uk has said the stories in Arse(d) Ends are ‘ a cross between Alan Bennett and Tales of the Unexpected.’

Wow!

We like that. A lot.

Arse(d) Ends story collection
comedy with a twist

There aren’t many words in the English language ending with the letters a.r.s.e. Mick took six of them as inspiration: Parse, Sparse, Enhearse, Coarse, Unrehearse(d) and Hearse.

These are stories with a twist. Humour with a hidden dagger. (Metaphorically speaking)

Mick says,

Even good people have a dark side that comes out every so often.’

Of course, Mick is more highly tuned into the things that are likely to go wrong, so while Celia moves on with her women’s fiction, Mick gets free rein in his own favourite shadowland.

The Dark Side

We’re not talking horror or fantasy or sci-fi. No. It’s more fantastical sic-fic. (I just made that up. Do you like it?)

Real life settings with real life characters but with some very odd situations – just like real life where dark and light and funny and sad can happen all at the same time.

So there are some unusual combinations in Mick’s stories.

Feral cats,

Arse(d) Ends feral cat
watch out!

and deadbolts feature in one story in the collection.    According to Mick, it’s often these unusual combination of elements that make for the liveliest stories.

Arse(d) Ends deadbolt

In another of Mick’s stories, Ted is sick to death of his wife’s hobby – making Teddy Bears. Who knew Teddy Bears could be so offensive?

Arse(d) Ends teddy bears
dangerous?

A reviewer on Amazon France says there’s something Dahlesque about the tales in Arse(d) Ends. A wonderful compliment, but if you don’t believe me, the review is there for all to see on Amazon. fr. It’s a pity all the reviews don’t show across each platform so that whether a customer is buying from .com., .uk., or any other Amazon site, they’d be able to see all the reviews if they wished.

Here’s a link to the Amazon UK page where you can click to read a sample of the first story.

Alternatively, you can listen to a short reading here.

Should I mention Arse(d) Ends would make a lovely stocking filler?

Oh, go on then.

Arse(d) Ends would make a lovely stocking filler.

Till next time,

Cheers!

Celia

Gran Lit. Are you serious?

How very dare you? You mean, it’s only for Grannies?

Nonsense. Hilary Boyd writes for people not for bookshelves. (My words)

Don’t call it Gran Lit

I’m so heartened by her attitude to publishers’ need to classify fiction into genres.

“Bollocks,” she said when the Gran Lit classification was first suggested to her.

Gran-Lit writer
photo by Quercus

Oh, Hilary, please come to France and be my honorary sister. Who says people don’t want to read about older women?

Not me.

Who says you can’t have romance and sex with older characters?

I didn’t say that.

I’ll tell you who said it: Publishers. To be exact, their readers. You know, the ones who hold back the gates from the likes of aspiring novelists such as you and me. They are the ones who are in charge of the slush pile. They pass on to the people who really make the decisions only the books that excite them.

But they’re all teenagers, darlings. They only know about fantasy: werewolves and vampires and robots and spies and spaceship ghosts and the like. They also read those books with photographs on the front of men (boys) who are built of muscle and iron and their women nearly wear red or black satin. Or else they read titles like Carlotta’s Christmas at the Cup-Cake Café and the cover looks good enough to eat if you’re into sweet and sickly Candy Floss.

See? Fantasy. Do I sound full of sarcasm? Of course I do.

When they’re older, they’ll get a life. In the meantime, I mustn’t be too hard on them. They got it SO wrong, didn’t they?

Who makes up the majority of the reading population?

Boomers.

We’re still here. We’ve had our kids and years of sleepless nights. We’ve looked after ageing parents during their last days. We’ve lost sleep all over again when the grandchildren were unwell. We’ve had our own illnesses and close shaves. We’ve had a life. And, let me repeat myself, we’re still here. And we’ve got a little money to spend on small treats like a damned good story to read.

We’re old enough and wise enough to read all manner of different kinds of books. We have open minds. We’ll read about police detectives, little girls in France, 6ft 5″ ex marines on a one man mission to rid the USA of scum bags, widows with autistic sons, kids in a fight to the death struggle – you understand me – and once in a while, we want to read about people with whom we can identify more closely.

See, the young readers employed by the publishers couldn’t possibly understand that because they haven’t got there yet.

So it’s hats off to Quercus for publishing Hilary Boyd in the first place and having the nous to put her out as an ebook.

The Boomers have spoken. Gran-Lit? Bah, Humbug. It’s L.I.F.E., darlings. People get older. Even publishers. And now they’e having to get wiser, too. Go Hilary.

Edit: 2nd March 2018. I wrote this post in November 2013 when I was living in France. Four weeks later I was hit by a car and my life changed. Now I live in Norfolk, UK. I have CRPS (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome) and I write more slowly than I used.

Does your face match your genre?

Are authors and their novels comparable with dog owners and their dogs? Do writers look like what they write? If you’re not sure what your genre is could you simply check in the mirror? Would there be a certain look in your eyes that told you what to write? Does the way you smile give you away?

Do authors look like their genres?

Do romantic fiction writers look romantic? Are thriller writers thrilling? What can you say about the way horror writers present themselves? Do they look horrible?

Some of the authors I’ve read.

Here are some famous faces. I’ve read all of them. Not always everything they’ve written, but the following faces have played their part in my growing up with reading for entertainment. I make the distinction here between reading for pleasure and other reading. I have therefore excluded all the authors I’ve read for study and the many classics I’ve enjoyed.

Enid Blyton
when I was a child I read everything she wrote

Does this lady look friendly? Would she be a lovely mummy? Does she look as if she adored children and loved to entertain them with her stories? Or does that strong jaw speak of something heavier than nodding toys and goblins with large ears?

I know more about her now than I did when I was a child, but I think I would have been in awe of a lady who wore that kind of jewellery.

Daphne du Maurier
my teenage favourite

As a teenager I read everything I could get my hands on from the second author in my gallery. Maybe you’ve read a previous post where I explain what I loved so much about this author and the power of her characters.

Only recently have I gone back to catch up with short stories of hers which I missed when I was young.

(Edit 26/04.2014)

I can’t imagine what she’d think about a recent BBC television production of one of her novels where we couldn’t see what was happening in the dark and we couldn’t hear what was being said.

John Wyndham Sci-Fi genre
he introduced me to Sci-Fi

At school we read one of this next author’s books. I loved it and went on to read everything else he’d written too.

His works of science fiction appealed to me because they were about how extraordinary circumstances affected ordinary people. I think they’d feel out of place and dated now, but at the time it was fascinating reading about alien children or plants that captured and ate people.

A new genre had found its way into my reading. I wanted more. I looked for even darker stories and found them with the next author on my list.

Dennis Wheatley horror genre
dark tales of devilish horror

I was hooked. If my mother had realised what I was reading, I think she might have banned this author’s books. I couldn’t get enough. I think I became a Goth before Goths were invented.

His words thrilled me to bits, I suppose much in the same way a different generation of teenagers thrilled at Edward Cullen.

Eric van Lustbader thriller genre
high octane dramas

Here’s where I went next.

I had a husband by now and we had started a family. This author’s books were primarily written for a male audience, but I lapped them up. Well, haven’t I always said how much I love variety in my life? I continued reading action thrillers, horror and science fiction for several years, interspersed with books by the following author.

Harold Robbins
sexier stories

His books were best sellers. I tried books in a similar genre by female writers of the time, but didn’t rate them as highly.

It was a long time before I trusted female writers again. I discovered a woman who, although she was way before my time, spoke to me in a voice I knew well.

Dorothy Parker
sharp as bitter almonds

Oh boy, I loved her wit, her sarcasm, her pain, her fury. I devoured her short stories.  She was clever and scathing and thoroughly magnificent and I wondered what she would have written had she been born in my generation.

John Grisham thriller genre
a new kind of thriller

I can’t include every author I’ve ever read in this post – I’m sticking to the ones I read most. It’s interesting that there are more male authors than female. Maybe that means something: maybe it doesn’t. But I read everything the man on the right put out until the one about an American football team in Italy. And don’t say I objected to him changing genre. He’d already done that before and I loved A Painted House. I would never object to an author writing in a different genre.

Dan Brown thriller genre
I’ve read them all . . .

This is the man who took over. He’s the only author I’ve ever bought in hard back because I didn’t want to wait for the paperback.

I’ve read them ALL.

Does his face say ‘best-seller’?

Oh, yes.

And now it’s time to hear from the girls. Do they look like the kind of books they write?

Martina Cole crime genre
would you argue with her?

I tried reading the woman on the right. I’m including her in my list because I really did want to like her. I wanted to understand what makes her a best-seller. Really, I did. But, I can’t read her. Sorry. I couldn’t ever read J.K.Rowling either, for different reasons. Sometimes you just don’t get on with the way a writer writes. That’s okay. You can’t please everybody and I’m sure Martina isn’t the least bothered that Celia Micklefield doesn’t get on with her books. In this photo, though, she looks like what she writes. Wouldn’t you say?

Jodi Picoult
Earth mother?

I found characters to really get behind in this author’s books. She’s great. Love her to bits.

Just bought her latest.

Wouldn’t you want this lady for your sister?

I would.

Val McDermid crime genre
hard as nails?

Another face you wouldn’t want to argue with. If she didn’t write crime fiction, she’d be a butcher. Or a wrestler.

Joanne Harris
magical?

 

 

This author’s magic has bewitched many a reader. She probably had her fingers forked behind her back when the photographer took this, though.

Anne Tyler
my favourite female author

My current favourite female writer. Look at her face, those eyes. You just know she’s holding back.

And my current male author?

Lee Child
creator of Jack Reacher

Ah, Jack Reacher. Say no more.

So where would I fit in with all this?

DSCN0038
what genre?
ProfilePic
what genre?
DSCN0734
what genre?

Three pictures – all me – all different. Which genre do these faces belong to?

I don’t know.

If you do, let me know.

 

Authors in order of appearance:

Enid Blyton, Daphne du Maurier, John Wyndham, Denis Wheatley, Eric van Lustbader, Harold Robbins, Dorothy Parker, John Grisham, Dan Brown, Martina Cole, Jodi Picoult, Val McDermid, Joanne Harris, Anne Tyler, Lee Child, Celia Micklefield x3.

Feel free to comment. Maybe add your own suggestions to the list. Do you look like what you write?

Till next time,

Points of view

In response to the WordPress Daily Challenge on differing points of view, I thought it would be a good idea to use one of the photos I’ve used in a previous post about a market.

You remember I’m a people-watcher. All writers are. We watch and listen all the time. Sometimes, whole stories come out of a session of people watching. I sold the short story Airport Departures after a session of people watching. (Read it in Woman’s Weekly Fiction Special November issue)

So here’s a reminder of the market picture.

different points of view
who is saying what?

They come to my stall every week. Always they buy the same things. Three years they have been buying my produce and still they do not know the French word for the food they eat.

This was my father’s stall. And his father’s before. Grandfather came from Spain when there was no work after the civil war. He picked grapes for the French growers. He was just a boy. He watched his parents grow old working other people’s fields and he determined to hand down something better to his own children. So he saved and bought land.

We still grow our fruit and vegetables in those same plots of land and we bring them to market. Now, it is my time to watch the stall. One day I will hand over to my own son.

 

I wish she wouldn’t do this. I wish she wouldn’t make such a fuss over every damned piece of fruit and salad. She picks over everything on the stall. Goes through it with a bloody magnifying glass. Almost. It’s embarrassing. Come on, Nancy, just pay the guy.

If only she’d drive. She’s getting worse. Losing confidence. Won’t go anywhere by herself. I have to accompany her every time she leaves the house. I don’t want to be impatient with her, but I can’t help it sometimes. Like now, when she’s quibbling over a twenty cent piece. The poor guy’s shown her the ticket. As far as I can see, it’s all correct.

 

You have to watch every penny. I mean cent. I still haven’t got my head around the Euro. These small coins all look the same to me. Oh, dear. This was meant to be our last little adventure together. Living abroad, somewhere in the sun while we still had the energy to enjoy it. But it’s so difficult. Graham has made no attempt to learn the language. Whenever we go out he depends on me to translate and I can’t remember things the way I used to.

###

Not a complete story – just a snapshot, but you can see how characters will develop.

Writing short pieces like this helps to fire the synapses. Get the creative juices flowing. It probably won’t be the best thing you ever wrote, but that doesn’t matter. It’s an exercise, and as with everything, the more you practise, the better you get.

Leave a comment and I’ll get back to you. Happy writing!

Getting on the writing piste. Talking to myself.

I’ve wandered off my writing piste. The weather’s fine, but I’m lost in heavy going.

Maybe I’m on the wrong horse. No point in riding a fast sprinter when you’re in it for the long haul. Sprinters are for short stories, writer in Languedoc, but you have something else in mind now, don’t you?

writing piste direction
which way?

I do.

But which way to go?

There’s no worn track to follow. I’m going to have to make my own way.

See, the thing is, it doesn’t matter how many times you read how other people do their thing, how they organise their time for writing, whether they pants it first and sort it afterwards. Some of them will tell you get your outline, plot your scenes, follow this rule, follow that one. Get the backbone straight before you give it legs. It’s got to have a sound skeleton (structure) before it can run (be good enough to publish).

Yes, yes. I know, I know. And I’m grateful to all the wonderful writers out there who freely give of their experience and time to help others. Well, maybe they do want you to buy their How To book, and why not? What they have to say has helped other writers find some measure of success in this fiercely competitive world we want to break into.

However, dammit, it doesn’t matter how successful all these other writers are at following their path, because when it comes right down to it –

THAT WAS THEIR PATH.

You are on YOURS.

Let me take stock of my writing journey. It’s September and through my year so far I’ve accomplished what I set out to do.

1. New Year’s Resolution – get a website. Check.

2. Blog regularly on said website. Check.

3. Learn about SEO and other wizardry. Check.

4. Tweet regularly and support other authors without always peddling your own stuff. Check.

writing missions
on target so far

5. Get Mick’s collection of short stories out on Kindle. Check.

6. Prepare Arse(d) Ends for paperback version. Check.

7. Finish that Airport short story and submit it. Check. Sold it.

8. Keep up to date with new ideas for more short stories. Check.

9. Have another go at writing something for serialisation. Half-check.

10. I didn’t have a tenth thing on my must-do list.

So, what’s the problem, Writer in Languedoc? It sounds to me like you’ve been busy.

writing maze
which way?

Oh, I’ve been very busy. But, I’m in a maze. That’s the problem. I have a decision to make about which way to go now.

I have three novels ready for final edit.

I’m going to choose one of them and get it out there.

But which one?

The family saga – an epic 140,000 words spanning 1934 to 2010? The psychological drama? The one with the theme that hides itself?

Hmmm!

I’ll probably write a few more short stories while I’m thinking.

keep writing

 

Another baby on submission

I’ve been sitting on this baby since May. Out of the blue, as seems to be the way with most of my ideas for new stories, a set of characters presented themselves to me as I was waiting for a plane.

Conception of latest idea

baby story conceived here
baby of a story conceived here

Now, I’ve heard of the five mile high club and often thought what an uncomfortable proposition that would be on the kind of budget airlines servicing our local airports. Toilet spaces are minimal to say the least. And if a child was somehow conceived during such a short hop at 36,000 feet, would it have to be called Sky or Cloud or Cramp?

Why Montpellier?

So, writer in Languedoc, what were you doing in Montpellier airport when Béziers is closer to home?

Languedoc airports
my choice of airports

I have a good choice of airports. This map doesn’t show all of them. To the west of Béziers, I also have Carcassonne, Perpignan and, at a  desperate push, Toulouse at my disposal. It all depends on where I’m going.

Last May, I was going to Leeds/Bradford airport, back to my home county for a much longed-for family visit. You can’t fly to Leeds from Béziers, not yet anyway, so Montpellier was the next best choice for my journey.

I like the Leeds/Bradford flights. They’re full of people who sound like me. It does me so much good to hear a nay, lass spoken with feeling. I love those old Yorkshire sayings such as you make a better door than a window, when somebody’s blocking your view. Tha can allus tell a Yorkshireman, but you can’t tell ‘im much and when somebody’s left the door open, were you born in a barn?

long lollikers
Yorkshire wit

Eee, lass, you can’t beat ’em. So, last May while I was waiting in Airport Departures, I noticed a little French girl with her Yorkshire father. Dad’s French came with very pronounced Yorkshire vowel sounds. We never lose them and, anyway, why would we want to? Mademoiselle’s French, on the other hand, was perfect. However, when she spoke in English, she spoke it like her father with his pronunciation. Mother was conspicuous by her absence.

I was fascinated. Out came my notebook.

Regular readers of my Random Thoughts blog will know I always carry my notebook and camera with me. I do a lot of people watching, and listening. You never know what you’re going to find that might be the inspiration for a new idea. This time, I didn’t need a photograph. It would have been too intrusive and you can get into a lot of trouble taking photographs of other people’s children. Fortunately for me the pair of them made such an impression on me the words flowed so fast my wrist ached.

Nobody could see what I was writing. Nobody would have been able to work out I was making detailed notes about this handsome father and his little French daughter. Before we boarded the plane, I had an outline.

But no ending.

This is unusual for me.

I always know what the ending is going to be before I begin to write in detail.

And that’s why I’d been sitting on the baby since May.

Ideas mulled in and mulled out again. I wasn’t satisfied with any of them. But, I make it a rule NOT to beat myself up about tricksy stories that won’t end themselves. I leave them alone. If it isn’t happening there’s a good reason for that. So, I wait. Something will happen. There’s always something else I can write instead.

This morning, I submitted the finished story. I hope the editor enjoys it. I hope the editor decides to pay me for it.

And if she does, and it goes into that very popular Fiction Special, I owe a plane load of thanks to the little Mademoiselle and her father on that flight to Leeds/Bradford last May.

I wonder if they would recognise themselves? I can’t tell you any more about the ending. That would be a spoiler.

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Edit: 5th September. Airport Departures sold today. Look out for it in Woman’s Weekly Fiction Special

First dark humour collection published on Kindle.

Mick Alec Idlelife. Writer of dark humour. MICK ALEC IDLELIFE. Who?

He’s just an anagram- that’s all he is. So what if he got a book published first? He couldn’t have done it without me.

Here’s the cover.

dark humour
dark humour for upgrowns

The title is as irreverent as his surname. That’s how he likes it. He doesn’t want to be categorised in a genre. The closest he will come to assigning a category of literature to this, his first collection, is to call it dark humour.

But, some of it is quite shocking. Endings can be quite a surprise. Other tales have an underlying sadness beneath the brash exterior. That’s life, according to Mick. There are no clear boundaries on feelings, he believes. It is quite possible to experience many conflicting emotions all at the same time, so why shouldn’t fiction reflect this?

There are six stories in this book, 48,000 words in total. As long as a novella. 140 pages or thereabouts depending on how large you like your font on Kindle. Mick would say it’s excellent value for money. He’s just paid £2 for something 12 pages long.

The title is wordplay in itself. There aren’t many words in the English language ending in a.r.s.e. Enough for this and a possible second collection. That’s going to depend upon the success of the first, of course.

So, it’s over to you now, people. One day I hope to be able to call you fans. Download fingers at the ready?

Here’s the page on

Amazon

-and here’s a link to my Amazon author page.

I hope you enjoy the characters and situations in Arse(d) Ends. I don’t think you’ll forget them!

Cheers!

Celia