Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

AT five o'clock yesterday, Sunday, I went with a friend to hear Jeanette Winterson read and talk about her autobiography, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
I've only read Oranges are not the only fruit and have seen the television series that was made of it. I don't know the rest of her work, only that it is experimental, she has written some children's books and she is insightful on programmes like The Late Review.
She was funny, interesting, knowledgeable and a great reader. She didn't need anyone to interview her, she could carry an idea, take on board a question from the audience and run with it well enough by herself.
I liked her idea of the inner world seeing us through crises, though my friend pointed out, all very well to say that when you live in Hampstead.
Mmm. It's a mix. We need to look after our outer and inner selves. But we don't need banal aspirations and trivia around us. What does get us through hard times is how we deal with them and that comes from...luck? How we deal with them and that comes from...character? The ability to have an inner world that can get us through rough periods in our lives.
Whatever the outcomes, she made me, I won't speak for everyone, think.
And a young woman from Accrington, where JW is from said her friends were amazed a girl from Accrington could read, let alone write a book. There will be many in Accrington who can read and write and maybe even a novel, but this young woman was inspired by her and had come to Manchester to buy Oranges are not the only fruit and then saw the author was giving the talk.
We could buy books and she signed them and looked you in the eye and responded to everyone, even if they were saying the same as the last, or something similar.

Perfect time of day and the perfect day as well. Five O'clock on a Sunday afternoon. Royal Exchange - we want more!! This should be a regular event.
I'm so glad I went.

Female protagonists

At the writers' group, I'm reading out 'Monster Belt' (working title.) A female writer said she found the female character quite reticent. Her female characters are all out there. She's reticent for a reason. It made me think about all my characters and Jane in Monster Belt and Lizzie in Erosion are both messed up and distrusting.
Tessa in the Coty books is the most grounded and even she is unsure about things.
I think we are all unsure about things at times, that's real. We can put bravado on and plough through regardless. Some people don't. I'm writing about people that do have insecurities.
I do wonder though if readers want to hear this or not though. Do they want their main character as indecisive? Should she be a trail blazer, strong and powerful and entertaining? I'm not writing that kind of book. I don't write those kind of books.
This is me mulling it over. Confusing for the reader? Needs further thought.

After the Flood

I only caught this programme on Radio 4 near the end but you could listen again. It sounded very interesting. Radio 4, Thursday 13th October 11.30 am.
After the Flood
Norfolk-based writer Kevin Crossley-Holland meets East Anglians directly affected by coastal erosion, including storyteller Hugh Lupton, the Bishop of Dunwich and the bellringers and residents of the Norfolk village of Happisburgh. They bring alive Kevin's short story Sea Tongue, about het myth of the drowned bells of Dunwich.
Producer Mark Smalley

Bigger write up:

After the Flood
It's hard to imagine that the tiny Suffolk village of Dunwich was once a thriving medieval port. Much of it was engulfed by a great storm in 1286 but legend has it that the church bells still ring out underwater at certain tides, a legend that inspired Kevin Corssley-Holland's short story Sea Tongue. Here, extracts from his work, read by the people he meets, help to illustrate his elegiac thought-provoking quest to observe the effects of coastal erosion in East Anglia, beginning in Norfolk at Happisburgh's 15th -century church. In 50 years' time it may well have fallen prey to the implacable, gnawing power of the North Sea. Crossley-Holland also meets a self-styled King Canute striving to save the crumbling cliffs at Hunstanton and hears memories of the devastating 1953 floods in which 30 people perished in eastern England alone.

Can you see a film coming on with The Fog-like bells ringing out? Words like explosion and express train were used to describe the house cracking and cliff collapsing. That rings bells.

EROSION IS ON THE AGENDA.

Erosion Synopsis

A chalet collapses into the North Sea. The residents aren't in time to save it or its owners but can they or do they want to save themselves? New comer, Lizzie Juniper, finds herself enmeshed in a mystery that culminates with reverberations of the Gunpowder Plot.

'Erosion' is a contemporary novel set on Yorkshire's crumbling coastline. We think of erosion as a now familiar fall of rocks and earth into the sea, but in this novel it is the characters, not the landscape that hold the key to the collapse of a remote chalet park. A loner with nowhere left to go, twenty-four year old Lizzie Juniper finds herself in this forgotten community and she has to discover if it is really the sea that is taking away their lives or some other force that has the potential to undermine everything she is trying to build.

In the opening chapter, Lizzie witnesses the cliff crash into the North Sea. It takes with it one of the chalets and its owners. The residents not in immediate jeopardy are given five days to vacate. As chapters progress, fiery-haired Lizzie finds her new neighbours are reluctant to leave despite the approaching danger. Lizzie however, is determined that this time, her lover, Andrew Booth, owner of Moorland Castle, will do the right thing and let her stay in the Castle Gatehouse. With the entire area booked up for Halloween Weekend, she has nowhere else to go. Before he can do so however, he disappears and she is barred from re-entering the stately home where she worked as a guide. Each sun filled, late October day passes with some startling development whilst artist Jez paints their portraits, nationalist Randolph grows increasingly violent and a feast to mark the day of the dead is held.
Ex-bomb disposal expert Peter takes possession of mysterious parcels and the two remaining couples bake cakes, cook farewell dinners and reflect on the past.
When Jez paints LIzzie's portrait at the local art club, she finds her increasingly emotional self unexpectedly exposed under his scrutiny. This feeling of dropping the mask builds until later, he hides with her amongst the colourful fabrics in Marilyn's closet and she finds she can finally trust someone.
It is Plot Night; November 4th, the night before Moorland Castle's annual bonfire and firework display. Lizzie has almost worked out exactly what force is destroying the chalet park and its residents, what significance the portraits hold and why Peter is on a bus bound for Scarborough. A body lies in the Castle's double Priest Hide, surrounded by a last act of defiance and Randolph and Jez prepare a final farewell to the chalet park.
Leaving behind the Priest Hide and its secrets, Lizzie and Jez escape down the old smuggler's passage back to the beach where the cliff continues to crumble and Randolph chooses to remain. It is as though everything always leads back to the sea. Lizzie and Jez have one chance of a new life, but it isn't an easy choice.

'Erosion' is about more than a collapsing cliff face' it is about the disappearance of a way of life and what people with nothing left to lose are capable of when pushed to the edge.

'The cliff towered over them, looking painful like burnt, smarting flesh. The only movement being a gentle wind ruffling the scrub land grass. And then, without warning, the cliff began to move. Rivulets of soil crumbled gently, cascading like dusty waterfalls.'

'Erosion' holds something of the sweeping vistas of director David Lean's, 'Ryan's Daughter' and a flavour of the mystery of Daphne du Maurier's 'Rebecca.'

Erosion

Right. Finished that edit of Erosion. Now it's put away for a few weeks and then I'll revisit it, hopefully, please dear God, hopefully for the last time.
So, re-working the synopsis as I find those so difficult and continuing with Monster Belt. I'm glad. Looking at Erosion again, I can feel the characters of Monster Belt taking over and they can't, they're different. So it's a relief that I can put Erosion away for now.
And an image for Monster Belt. So much choice. What will it be? Goodbye Lizzie and Jez, hello Jane and Harris. Oh, and hello to the monster that lies in the crevices in everyone's head.

Wish I was here right now, in Oliva, Spain.

Changes

This year is full of changes. Another one today. Feel they are here to tell me something even if I can't always work out what it is.
I feel I'm beginning to understand certain things, about the wider picture of it all, and then something small and personal and selfish hits me.
This is life, I guess.

And in all this, I want to write the best book ever written!

But which one? Monster Belt, Meeting Coty (no, that's done and it's not the best, parts are..) Erosion, Leaving Coty or Jiddy Vardy?

I think it's between Leaving Coty and Monster Belt.

Okay. So, I'm learning things about the bigger picture....

Starting again

Changing our World

I'm not sure about the phrase 'think big.' If we think so big, the vastness of the idea, plan, dream, is intangible. Can be.
I prefer, start small, but also, think in numbers. Each individual performs one small act that if performed by many, many individuals, it becomes that one big thing.
More and more I'm believing in the power of many rather than of one. It feels better and it is more likely to make that idea, plan, dream become tangible and the process of getting there, to that aim, so much more enjoyable. It's the getting there that is part of the process too.

So, to change our world, start small. I'll show kindness, I'll have kindness shown to me, I'll pass it on and that other person will, to another and another. If we pass on kindness, thoughtfulness, common sense, attitudes will change, we won't need to slam people up in prisons, punish, shout, hit out, blame.
How long will this take?

There are already people out there doing this, so all we need to do, is to hold out our hands and join in.

5

5

A clairvoyant told me to watch out for the number 5. This October, I've heard has 5 Mondays, 5 this, 5 that. Should I be excited or nervous? My gut instinct is to be excited. I don't want to waste it, whatever it is.