Monday 27 August 2007

Research, Research, Research


Just got back from a brilliant research trip in Bath. I've been travelling quite cheaply, staying in the smallest room in a convenient hotel and getting the feeling of 'being on the road'. In order to connect to my characters' lives as best I could, I visited several museums, imagining what it would have been like to use all the implements, wear the clothes and be at the mercy of the medicines and the food. Also I had a lot of help from the glassblowers' studio by the river, who told me all about the dangers and joys of handblown glass. I did several pathworkings, made sketches and produced some awful watercolours. Some days I sat by the River Avon and gave myself a rest. One thing I did experience was the loneliness of the road, and also the effects of the weather - when I got drenched in the rain it took a real effort to keep my spirits up. How much worse must it be if your livelihood depends on the sunshine. It's really easy to write in a grotty hotel room - in fact, working on my novel was the main thing that kept me sane when the nights drew in and I missed home the most.

Monday 2 July 2007

Chigwell Row Wood


Today I had the curious experience of seeing myself on TV. The programme was filmed in Chigwell Row Wood, which is a part of Epping Forest. In the film I talked about my ancestor, Tom Tarling, and life in 19th century England when a working man's only real asset was his fists, for his trade barely furnished enough to put bacon on the table. It was a salutary experience, to talk it through for the camera. After, I came away with renewed respect for that man, rough and ready no doubt, who bought himself a wagon and a horse, or two, from the sweat of his own brow. No credit cards in those days. Writing Chapter 7 was a deeper, more meaningful experience for having explored Tom's dilemma for the purposes of fiction and I have had a good weekend at the writing, even if I have been over the same three paragraphs 83 times!

Monday 4 June 2007

Fight It Out

Today I wrote a fight scene, between my protagonist Thomas Tarling and his brother-in-law, Zackariah Scarrott. It's something I've been working up to for a while. I've been at pains to show Thomas in particular as a 'real' man with hopes, disappointments and feelings as well as a manly 'hard' side. I was becoming concerned that he might seem too fearful for the hero of a Georgian novel, so I set this fight on the edge of Bethnal Green (which in those days was a wilder place than now). A long writing day, but a satisfying one.

Rejection & Re-Application


A writer's life, like an actor's, is full of disappointments. You have to believe you can win the competition that 7000 others didn't, or get your piece read out on BBC television against all the others who'd like to do the same. When it doesn't work out, you have to get up, dust yourself down and return to the humble and (hopefully) likeable person you were before your head swelled enough to cause you to send off your work in the first place. Today was just such a week for me, with three rejections and a storming head cold just to season the mix. The rain outside in this beautiful part of Hertfordshire resembles an Asian monsoon; and I am returning to my novel. This week, my hero's life changes for ever - and that's what I have to try and portray.