The Great Grouse and Partridge Road Trip 2013

coming to this page very soon!  Arrived back late last night from the best three days ever - photos and gossip and some fabulous cake recommendations here by the end of the weekend!

Travelling light (on the way up, at least!)

Research as promised

Tomorrow (strictly speaking, today as it is after midnight) is GCSE results day.  I hate it with a passion for all sorts of reasons to do with not having any control and kids being used like political footballs kicked into constantly moving goal posts just to prove how rubbish their teachers are...

Oooh, never get me started on Education and Politics.  Let's discuss something much nicer.  Like research.

 

Research is the best thing ever.  Research means you get to read loads of random books and google all sorts of bizarre topics and you can pretend there's a valid reason for doing it! When I first started to write G&P, my idea of research was to watch a couple of episodes of Inspector Morse (which reminds me about the time I saw the wonderful Colin Dexter give a talk and admit he'd never really done much research himself, but nicked the technical stuff from P.D. James because he knew she was the sort of person who would have researched properly!!)  However, as time went on and I got more ambitious, I realised that this could be the excuse I needed to buy more books!
 

I've worked my way through books on fleas to fortune telling as well as more obvious topics like forensics.   There are some books which are my constant writing companions :



 

 

 

Blackstone's Police Handbooks are invaluable too, especially the ones covering police proceedure.

 

 In addition, web sites have furnished me with details about police dog training, goat rearing, modern art, library shelving, fire extinguishers, motor boats and of course, the Bonnie herself.  (For a while Hamish was actually a member of an internet forum of Bonneville owners which was, of course, completely fraudlent of him, as he's never actually owned a motorbike at all!)



Current research!  Tried to hide the spoilers!

For the new book (42,000 words and counting!) this is a bit of my research.  I also have a file of photographs on my laptop (and some have made it to my pinterest board too!) which I use for inspiration and specific details. Music is usually pretty important in helping me establish mood and I have play lists for specific elements of the story.  At the moment, I'm listening to quite a lot of Mike Oldfield some of which has the right sort of folky feel, and Aqualung, whose angst often mirrors my hero's at the moment.  I don't want to give too much away but there've been some specialist books, especially on some aspects of Scots law, which have been necessary reading. 

 

But the absolute must-have book I couldn't write without is this one:

 

I bought it in Dumfries, on a Robert Burns jaunt back in 2005 when I'd only written six chapters of Scotch Mist and I can honestly say it has had the biggest impact on my writing of anything I've read.  I can sit, open it at random and after ten minutes it has given me so many ideas I don't know where to begin!

 

I mean, who knew there was a word for 'indulging in intimate courtship in the corner of a farmyard'!  (it's 'corrieneukin' should you ever need it!)

 

To GCSE students and their teachers everywhere: good luck in the morning!

 

 

Plotting and planning...

Lovely deckchairs in Charlotte Square
where the Book Festival happens!

In Edinburgh this week, for my (almost) annual Ian Rankin/Edinburgh Book Festival fix and a meet up with an old school friend afterwards.   Lots of interesting things happened -  and we went and drank in the Oxford (Rebus's pub!) where I resisted the temptation to drink Famous Grouse and had a Gin and Tonic instead. 

 

And it was while sitting on one of those famed 'buffets' that I realised that although I've never really thought of myself as either a plotter or a planner, I do have my own writing routine.  It isn't as regimented or ordered as some 'real' authors (Elizabeth George, for example who is entirely exhaustive in her approach) but I've realised I am not just writing in the dark.  Every writer I've read on the subject does say that you have to develop your own method and I've realised that I do have some methods which work effectively for me and really help me to stay on track when I'm in the midst of a book.

 

SO... I thought I'd share a few with you over the next couple of posts, if that isn't too self indulgent!  (And if it is then please feel free to ignore me!  Once I've got it out of my system, I'll go back to writing about cake!)



The Box File

Here goes then : EXHIBIT A: THE BOX FILE!  Each book gets a box file at the start of the process and the first thing I do is to choose a title and then 'mock up' a front cover.  I did this for 'Scotch Mist' and the habit has sort of stuck.  The picture is just cut out of a travel brochure usually (taken from Grouse's collection!) and initially may not have much bearing on the plot. However, it is there are inspiration as and when needed and in the case of Pine, I actually used the idea of the faint rainbow and got my cover designer to replicate it on one of my own photos of Scotland - compare it with the final cover design!  The box file colour feels important too: Mist was Purple, Broth was Orange and the new one is Red and I try to find pictures which compliment the colour.

 

Into this goes EVERYTHING from the start: research, notes, ideas, pictures, motorcycle magazines, tourist guides, maps, beermats...everything.  By the end it is full:  The CD is a copy of the full finished text, the covers, blurb, publicity, Kindle formatting and research - anything I've used but taken off my lap top.  Having the box file is liberating: I can use it to tidy everything away and it is reasonably easy to transport, for example, on holiday and it means I don't lose anything - scraps of paper with ideas on etc. I usually write the 1st draft start date, the finish date and the publication on the inside of the lid and I put the title on the spine.  They all currently live under my desk with one or two other things which have yet to see the light of day.   

 

However, the most vital thing in the box file is EXHIBIT B : THE CHRONOLOGY!



two of the chronology sheets for SP:
hopefully no spoilers in view!

I write this up as I'm going along: it looks pretty neat here but it can get very messy.  This isn't actually planning as such, just recording what has happened so far and it makes it really easy to check back to events without having to trawl through the text.  I can check how many days have passed in the plot and when things happened. It also helps me see which chapters are a bit 'thin' - I try to aim for 10 pages of A4, 11 point, 1.5 spaced writing per chapter (and I always type in Goudy Old Style.  Don't ask why - because I don't know!  It just looks right for G&P!) so if I'm a little bit short, I know I can add a scene into that chapter. 

 

Sometimes I know I need a scene but haven't written it and it helps to record where it was intended to go.However, once something is on the chronology it doesn't mean it is set in stone: I'm just as likely to combine or delete scenes as add them.

 

I got this idea from Halle Ephron - much more of whom next time - although lots of other writers suggest it too. I tend to leave starting this until I've got a few chapters under my belt.  I started the Chronology for the new book yesterday, recording the events of the first eight chapters.  It's like an extra commitment to finishing!  Sometimes, if I'm stuck, going back to the chronology can help remind me where I was initally heading. 

 

NEXT TIME: research (the fun bit!)

Back from my hols...

Want lots of this in my garden!
Sea Holly rather than Thistles, but you get the idea!

...having spent a glorious week in Oxfordshire and the surrounding area, reading, eating much good cake, admiring lovely gardens with fabulous spiky plants in them (see right) and writing.  I even managed to squeeze in a sneaky trip to Stratford on Avon: no theatre, sadly as we were on our way home, but a fabulous costume exhibition.

 

As usual, the holiday proved fruitful in that I've managed to smash the dreaded 30,000 word barrier and at the moment things are flowing smoothly! I've got Partridge into an awkward spot and things are unravelling around him quite nicely and there have been a few interesting twists of plot on the way.  Having the map has really helped: somehow the geography has become lessy soupy and I can accurately work out distances, timings etc. Mentally, I keep adding bits to it as well.  

 

I've given myself the deadline of August 2014 and I'm determined to get as much writing under my belt before I go back to work because I'll also be working on my university dissertation this academic year and I'm not entirely sure how well the two will sit together with a full time job. (I think I probably do know the answer to that but I'm in denial!) However, the summer is not yet over: tomorrow I get my annual Ian Rankin fix in Edinburgh and then towards the end of the holiday there's a little road trip planned... I'm not going into details yet but it will be very helpful from a G&P point of view!!!

 

Yesterday found myself stranded in a bookshop during a thunderstorm (convenient, no?) and, browsing, found a children's book by Dan Smith which has just been published by Chickenshed called 'My Friend the Enemy.'  Had to purchase it as Dan was on the same MA writing course as I was and once said some nice things about something I'd written.  He's doing very well in the world of 'real' publishing and I'm really looking forward to reading it.  (And yes, I did feel a twinge of envy!! But only a teensy one - he's worked really hard for the success and deserves it!).

 

Cake of the month?  My very own cherry and almond cake, taken away with us, which got incrementally better as it got slowly eaten!  Must be a moral there somewhere.

A sad sort of post

I probably need to preface this rather maudlin ramble with the information that I am actually having a wonderful holiday this year.  I spent the start of it in London, soaking up the heat and wallowing in theatre.  I then spent three days being creative for my book binding group, and since Monday, there've been sparks coming off my finger ends - I've totalled 6,000 words in 3 days which is a pretty good total and the 'muse' is (touch wood) being very kind to me.  And I think part of the reason why I'm enjoying it so much is because I'm not having to 'recover' from the day job the way I used to do for the first five weeks of the holidays.  The difference this year has made is unbelievable: I feel younger, fitter, so much happier, more confident in myself and my abilities.  It's been a really tough year - I haven't worked this hard since I was a newly qualified teacher - but I've really -with hindsight - enjoyed it.  I know I've been incredibly lucky to get this second chance and I'm so grateful for it.

However, today, I'm allowing myself to feel a just a little sad.  Being back at the school where I was a pupil, I've inevitably spent the year feeling deeply nostalgic.  And the year I've remembered most is the year I turned thirteen.

When I was thirteen, you see, I fell in 'love', as thirteen years olds are wont to do, with an actor.  Being me, of course, I didn't go for someone anyone really famous:  no movie star or pop idol for me - no, my heart was 'stolen' by an English actor with the bluest of eyes, the sweetest of smiles and a voice, which even now I have no trouble recalling in my head.  He would turn up, now and then, in TV programmes or films and my world would stop as I drank in every detail of his performance: no videos then, let alone internet to keep tabs on him so I had to make the most of every opportunity.  I even wrote to him - a probably very silly, breathless letter - and he answered with a signed photograph which became my most treasured possession.  And then, he just seemed to disappear.  I caught glimpses of him in adverts; he did the occasional voice over.  I grew up, passed exams, discovered 'real' theatre and 'proper' acting, (as well as 'real' life and 'proper' love) and although I never forgot him (you never do forget the ones you loved at 13, do you?) he was no longer the first thing in my head when I woke and the last thing in my head when I slept.

And then, one day in 1993 I discovered he had died.  He was still young  and something about the obituary I read told me that there was more to the story than the bare facts of his death.  It was later I read that he had killed himself, hopeless, helpless, feeling unloved and surrounded by what he considered to be a disappointment of a life.  I wept for him, the night I found out, and I've wept for him since and I know I will again.  A few years ago, idly googling, I found a facebook page in his memory and made contact with a group of lovely people who had also loved, also lost and also remembered him  As one lady there once said, he was our Elvis equivilent and I think that probably says it all. Today we've marked the 20th anniversary of his death with a kind of virtual get-together in lieu of a real meeting.

It's been a good day and a sad day, a day I'd prefer not to have to mark, but one I'll still raise a glass to while I'm here.  To 'my' Gerry - he touched more lives than he could ever have imagined, and I'm proud to say one of them was mine.  Cheers.