Ravens & Writing Desks

I have no good answer to Lewis Carroll’s riddle ‘Why is a raven like a writing desk?’ – but I’ve always thought there must be some connection with trees.

I love trees. I am an unashamed tree-hugger. I have gazed in wonder at giant redwoods and stroked their strange fire-proof bark, stood enchanted by the mysterious Dragon Tree in Tenerife, ridden amongst the cork forests near Tarifa with delight and I hold an undying affection for the poor old Crouch Oak, Addlestone.

The Crouch Oak marked the boundary of Windsor Great Park and is said to date from the 11th Century

And in books – oh so many to treasure. The apple tree that grew immediately in the brand-new Narnia & made that wardrobe, The Whomping Willow, the Mallorns and all the wondrous Ents. I have wept for the fate of the Entwives.

So it’s not surprising that I can be moved by bonsai. A really well-executed one can take me into another world. The bonsai creator tries to mimic the natural beauty of the  yamadori – a tree shaped by its surroundings into a sculpture reflecting its struggle and survival. The ceation of bonsai is, of course, artifice: a simulation of effects that occur organically into a pleasing, portable form.

Like a book.

All writing is like that: reality shaped into a pleasing form, however minute or contorted. We might have to bend the truth to make it fit, snip and constrain to make the very best work – but our readership still responds to something like the yamadori. 

And I think there’s more to this analogy – it lies with the writers themselves. Writers need to put down roots, spread them out into the humus of our culture : we need to read, watch, listen. Some of us may have a tap-root of deep knowledge in one area, others may go in for a mat of widespread understanding – and every convoluted variant in-between.

J. R. R. Tolkien in his natural habitat?

We have to develop a trunk to support us – the heartwood of experience. In bonsai, the most damaged be can be the most resilient and the most prized. I believe that can be true of writers.

And then comes the crown, a canopy of photosynthesising leaves that nurtures us first before providing shelter and pleasure and food for others. Creativity takes the up-coming sap of ideas and dreams and magically turns it into new, beautiful things. How mysterious is that?

This bonsai was being trained when Charles I had his coronation in 1626

That’s my alternative to the much-used journey metaphor: growth. I think we each have to find the right place to thrive. Sometimes that might be barren and constricted – and what makes us fruitful.

It’s all to do with maturity – and that’s a wide-ranging thing. Trees vary – like us. Willows can be at their prime in their twenties, beeches barely begun at sixty and the yew is still adolescent at one hundred. But whatever their life story, trees never stop growing.

Bristlecone pines can be thousands of years old and still growing.

I am much encouraged that the ‘early ancient to senescent, or Veteran Stage’ :

for trees with a strong defense system such as oaks, … may be the longest life stage.

(Tree Care Primer – Christopher Roddick)

I take heart in that. My time for blossoming could be now. I may only get rooks and ravens hanging about in my branches – or be felled to make someone else’s writing desk – but thus far, I’m still growing.

Reading matters

Reading brings delight.

  • Reading matters because it opens the doors of imagination. You can escape into another world with the most amazing views and adventures – then return whenever you want. Michael Morpurgo can bring you pets to keep without any complaints.
  • Reading matters because it stretches your brain. You can learn new words, new concepts, new methods – and then baffle your friends.
  • Reading matters because it deepens your compassion. You are able to walk in another person’s shoes, you can share their hopes and dreams, understands their fears and sorrows – think of Candy Gourlay’s Tall Story and Meg Rossof’s What I Was.
  • Reading matters because it connects you to writers past and present, near and far. Laugh with Wodehouse and Philip Ardagh, shudder with Bram Stoker, Sarwat Chadda  and Jon Mayhew, wonder with Kathryn Langrish and Sitoshi Kitamura.
  • Reading matters because it takes you to new places and cultures. You could climb Everest in a wheelchair; then dive to the bottom of the Marianas Trench; learn about Dunbi the Owl from the Worora people or celebrate The Day of the Dead in Mexico.
  • Reading matters because it takes you to ancient realms and possible futures. Fancy meeting Queen Hapshetsut and her beard, attending the Court of The First Emperor of China, designing your own vehicles ?
  • Reading maters because it’s funhow else can you enjoy the cracker jokes!

If  you feel as strongly about this as I do you might  want to blog and tweet about the decision, using #bookgifting and @booktrust and @savebookstart.

Please support Booktrust . Perhaps you might email Booktrust on bookgifting@booktrust.org.uk  offering support. You could write to Mr Gove and to your local MP. Michael Gove changed his mind about school sport funding.

Read Keren David’s blog for an impassionerd article on this subject too.

Brand New

or How to Get Noticed.

“…a prepossessing personality in an author is a great asset… “How to Get An Agent” by Philippa Milnes-Smith in  2010 A& C Black.

OK seems a good idea. I’d better get one. Let’s start off with interesting interests.

  1. Take up Belly Dancing like the  lovely Kathryn Evans. I suspect in my case the video would make people think of school blancmange and the little ditty beginning ‘Jelly on the plate…”
  2. Develop a musical talent – pace Jon Mayhew and his mandolin. I’m not sure three notes on the descant recorder’s really going to hack it on YouTube.
  3. Get clever with a puppet. Oh to work with the wonderful Woofy like Sue Eves. My poor old teddy has a squished nose where I used to stand on him to get at the book shelves. I don’t think he’s up to it.

Righto – how about developing a distinctive appearance?

  1. Grow a splendiferous beard like the lovely Mr Philip Ardagh. I do have the precedent of a fine hirsute lady relative but I lack the gravitas to pull it off, I fear.
  2. Sport magnificent and intriguing tattoos such as embellish Saviour Pirotta. Perhaps not. I never even liked peeling off the backing on the transfers as a child  – and it took me till I was 21 to get my ears pierced. Once.
  3. Become an all-round style icon like Sarah McIntyre of the Funky Glasses. Touch tricky for an unconstructed hippy, although I am quite good at dressing up. That’s if you count making a small tot cry when dressed up as a witch or having my picture labelled as a hobbit in the local paper when I thought I was Arwen Evenstar.

What about me? Perhaps I need to have a remarkable background.

  1.  Start at an interesting point in your life. Catherine Webb was only14 when first published ( I’m not sure that the ‘A Wet Windy Day in Wakefield’ featured in the Wakefield Express at 11 counts) and Mary Wesley started at 71.  I am 49 – ‘neither nowt nor summat ‘- as they say where I come from.
  2. Come from an intriguing culture. Candy Gourlay, that  fascinating Filipina, uses hers wonderfully in’ Tall Story’. Miriam Halahmy (what a cool name) has an Iraqi husband and all manner of family to call upon. Me – Wakefield in the Rhubarb Triangle of Yorkshire. Not the same, is it?

Oh dear. Perhaps I could hide behind other enticements?

  1. Bring out marketing goodies – let me see – a plush cuddly Giant Moray Eel? A wind-up Dave the Disastrous Diver: guaranteed to ruin any bathtime? Model of the Sinai Emperor – watch as it breaks up and sinks! Just not going to go with a Happy Meal.
  2. Feature really cool concepts. Oh dear,  I can’t nick off with  Sarwat Chadda’s kick-ass heroines and Templars or Nick Cross’s zombies. They wouldn’t all fit on my dive boat. Certainly not together.
  3. Promote Important Messages. Somehow “Don’t steal Ancient Egyptian artefacts, it will all end in tears” hasn’t got the moral integrityand pithyness of say The Lorax. Maybe ‘Be nice to fishes’. I could wear a badge. A very big badge.

I give up. I’ll just have to take a leaf out of all these brilliant people’s books  – and just write really, really well. And be myself.

Decisions, decisions.

Books in a mess

Beyond a joke

My books have reached a critical mass. They’re spilling over the carpet, lent on each other like the lintels  of Stonehenge and hiding in the spider space under the bookshelves. Some have even mounted a break- away movement, stacked like a siege engines beside the bed.

 Something has to be done.

 Him-in-the-Office has moved out into his glorified shed behind the garage. The old office was empty, abandoned, unloved. Bless him, he paints it, he varnishes the computer-chair-scuffed floor and best of all, installs three whopping great big bookshelves.

The Library

So inviting!

Utter delight.

 Simply move my books in and Bob’s your uncle, (or Charley’s your aunt or whatever). Ah. Which books to move?

Now the sitting room shelves largely consist of the sea collection. Hundreds of them: diving guides, sailing yarns,whales, shark-spotting guides, mermaids. Oh and Venice and the arty outsize jobbies. So I move Venice out to the new shelves and move some children’s books about the sea down from my study. Fine. Though I might need them.

 Still too many books upstairs.

 I move the loose canons, the stacked sets, the-slotted-in-sideways-on-top-ones. Good.

How to organise? By author – no chance. I’ve got a blog to write!

 Subject matter then. Promising:  plenty of genres – gothic spooky horror things, folklore and fantasy, maps and pub walks. Should I move ‘Mortlock’ into its section – or leave it on top of the bedside radio? Where does ‘Tall Story’ go? Odd bits. Hang on, I haven’t read all of these.

Mustn’t start reading – mustn’t look at Philip Ardagh’s Book of Absolutely Useless Lists – it’s a time machine. Discipline – stick to your brief, woman. And what was that exactly? Reorganise the  so-and-so books.

M. A. stuff, that needs to be in the study. Easy. And all the how-tos, and the other reference books I might just need. Oh – I put the folklore downstairs. Clump, clump, clump. Right – kids’ upstairs, adults down. Seems reasonable.  Not enough room – or rather the wrong sort of room. Some are outsize and won’t fit in the new shelves anyway.

 Read and unread? Possibly – but I’m not sure which ones Him-in-the-Office has read. And I am not having all his Sharpes downstairs. Bad enough seeing my Tolkien addiction revealed in all its Numenorean glory.

Odd Books

Jolly Mixtures

 I try grabbing random books and shoving them on the shelves any old how.

There aren’t many places you’ll see Meg Rossoff next to Stephenie Meyer.

 Aaargh. I give up.

I go down into the village. I buy some fresh bread, some little cork feet to stop the book ends scratching my shiny new shelves and pop in the charity shops.. and buy more books.