Why We Write...

Just posting a link this week - but it's a link to the Royal Literary Fund site, where you can find lots of podcasts and articles by the RLF's band of writers. Which they can call up with a whistle at any time. I said to one writer, at a Birmingham RLF meeting, that he'd travelled a long way to attend. He replied, "I'd crawl over broken glass for the RLF." The RLF tends to evoke a strong loyalty.

Anyroad up, shucks, here's the link.

'And He Was Carrying Fire' - Writers Researching...

This is an adaptation of a talk I gave recently at the Birmingham Midlands Institute,

The Royal Literary Fund

for the Royal Literary Fund's programme of talks open to the public. I was one of three writers - the others were Jane Bingham and Mike Harris.
          I wish I could give an account of their talks, as they were fascinating and opened up many questions for discussion - but, as I was in the thick of it, so to speak, I couldn't make notes.
          The panel was about 'Research for Writers.'
                                     

I have heard other writers talk of hours in the archives, or interviewing experts — not for me. Mostly I make it up.
Take my Sterkarms books —              
          These are sci-fi/fantasy/historicals… Part of them is set in the 21st Century, most of them in the early 16th, on the Scots Borders.

          I did research them, but not in the 'hours in the library' sense.
          More in the ‘getting sodden and cold on Scottish hillsides’ sense.

          I first had the idea for the books while on a walking holiday along Hadrian's Wall, where I kept hearing mention of the Rievers. I then read MacdonaldFraser's Steel Bonnets and Godfrey Watson's Border Rievers, both of which are excellent sources of information about the rievers.

                       

          But does this count as research? I would have read these books anyway, from general interest. The fact that I used them, later, as reference was just – lucky.

          When I have what I feel is a good idea for a book, I’m usually too impatient to begin writing to waste time researching. After all, I write fiction. I make it up. When I wrote the 16th Century sections of the Sterkarm books I relied on what I remembered from the books I'd read on the rievers, what I knew from general reading about the period, and a lot of educated guessing.
          My approach has always been, 'If I was on the Borders in 1520 and had only the materials available that they had, and I wanted to do X, Y, Z — how would I solve that problem? And, I figure, if I could think of that solution, they did too.

Wolfsbane: beautiful and lethal

          For instance, one of my characters, a bit of a witch, makes a painkiller by mixing wolfsbane with fat — not baby’s fat, just dripping. How would she store this lethal stuff? (Wolfsbane, AKA monkshood or aconite, is extremely poisonous in its every part - root, leaf, stem and flower. It's said that even the scent of its flowers in a room can make people ill.) My witch doesn’t have any Tupperware, she lives in the middle of nowhere, and I imagine even the crudest pots are an expense she'd find it hard to meet.
          In thinking about what she’d have available, I thought of mouse-nibbled hazel-nuts. I said she scraped her ointment into the hollow nuts and sealed them with wax.
          Prove me wrong. Prove that no woman anywhere, anywhen, ever did that. You can't, can yer?
          Making up my own answers, like this, means I can leave research until later while I go on sorting out my plot. In my experience, a new finding from research rarely ruins your plot — at most, it will need a few tweaks.
          But endless, perfectionist research will prevent you from ever writing your book.

          In any case, a lot of what I want to know can’t be found in books or archives.
What is it like to use a longbow? — Again, I owned a longbow long before I came to describe its use, because I'd always wanted to use a longbow.
          What is it like to ride a horse? — I took a week-long riding course in Northumbria, where I learned how to fall off a horse.
          What is like to sleep in one of those little cupboard beds, with a hay-filled mattress supported on ropes? — I sneaked into one in an Orkney museum when no one was around and found out.
          You can't really find out about any of these things by researching in a library. You can read what others have written about them, but it won't give you the experience of drawing back the weight of a longbow, the personality of a horse, the smell of old grass and wood in the wall-bed.

          I've also found that some of the most interesting, useful details are discovered when I'm not researching at all.
          

          For instance, I wondered how my rievers would make fires - especially when they were travelling on raids. How did they light fires at home in the pele tower? I knew they wouldn't have had matches, but doubted that they spent much time rubbing sticks together. I researched in the usual way and the answer, of course, was tinderboxes.
 

English tinderboxes, 18th-19th century (Wikimedia commons)

                                               

          When I used to read Andersen's 'Tinderbox' as a child, I had a vague idea that it was something like a modern lighter, that somehow made a flame by itself. In reality, it was a box where you kept all your fire-making equipment together in one place. It 'kept your tinder dry' and you always knew where to find the things you needed.

          There was the firesteel. In the picture below, this is at the bottom. It is shaped to fit round the hand, to make it easier to use.
          There was the flint - seen in the top right-hand corner. It might not actually be a flint, but a piece of any hard stone, which would create a spark when struck on the steel.

          And then there was the tinder, which you kept dry in the box. This might be pieces of charred cloth, very dry plant material, or 'punk' which was the dry, powdery rotted wood from the centre of a dead tree.
          You struck sparks from the steel with the flint, and let them fall on the tinder in the box — and when a spark started to smoulder, you blew on it until you had a flame. You lit one of your spills in the flame and transferred the flame to a candle, or to the kindling for your fire…
          Most of the information I could find was of 18th or 19th century tinderboxes, but they were certainly used earlier — because here's Joseph striking a light for the Holy Family…

           In this detail (below), you can see that St. Joe has the fingers of his right hand through the steel, and is holding the flint in his left. His tinder box is under the flint, ready to catch the flame. He has spills scattered around, ready to light at the flame when it catches. And under his left hand is an open lantern, holding a somewhat bent candle. He will light the candle from the lit spill.

          People used to have small tinder-boxes they could carry with them. So that's what I found out by what you might call 'formal research.' And I'm glad to know it. You never know when information on tinderboxes will come in useful. Which is why I'm keeping it all in my Research File.

          However, it never seemed quite right to me for the rievers. I knew that people carried fire with them — I'd heard of fire being carried out to field, or about castles in 'fire-pots.'  I know from family gossip that, more recently, one neighbour would help another out by carrying a shovel-full of hot coals from one house to another.
          Carrying a fire-pot of hot coals on horseback seemed unlikely, though. Especially if, like the reivers, you never knew when you were going to have to gallop for your life.

          Then, I read No Country For Old Men, by Cormac Macarthy. This had nothing to do with any research. I read the book purely because I wanted to.

          In the book, the elderly narrator has a dream where he's riding at dusk, and sees his dead father ride past him on horseback and ride on ahead of him into the darkness. The narrator says, ‘and he was carrying fire.’ 

'carrying fire'

           The phrase about carrying fire seemed to carry a lot of weight, but I didn't understand it, or its significance. I puzzled about it quite a lot. Was I to imagine the father carrying a crown of fire on his head, like something out of William Blake, or a flaming torch, or what?
          Then, on-line, I came across a forum where people were discussing the book and the Coen Brothers film of it. A lot of other people seemed puzzled by 'and he was carrying fire,' too.

          Another poster explained it. He introduced himself (I assume it was 'him') as a survivalist, who had researched the old ways of life, before the arrival of electricity and the internet. The significance of  'and he was carrying fire' is that the narrator, an elderly man, dreams of his dead father riding on ahead of him into the dark. The father is carrying glowing embers in a cow-horn at his belt, so that he can make camp somewhere up ahead and wait for the narrator to join him. This is what used to be done 'on the trail' - one man would go ahead, with fire, make camp and have a fire burning ready for when the others joined him.

          So the phrase is a rather beautiful dream metaphor for the elderly narrator facing death. His father, he feels, will be waiting for him, somewhere up ahead in the dark, sitting beside a campfire.

          The survivalist went on to explain how carrying fire was done. You took a hollow

cow’s horn, and made a lid for it, from metal or leather, or horn. The lid had to be pierced, to let in the air. The horn also had a strap, so it could be carried at a belt or saddle.
           You then put smouldering embers into the horn, added some punk or other tinder, to keep them smouldering, and insulated them with ash, or dried moss or punk.
          The amount of air getting into the horn was crucial. Too much and the embers burst into flame, which is obviously a problem if it’s hung on your belt. Too little air and the embers died. But if you got it right, you had the immediate makings of a fire when you reached your camp place — without having to struggle with other methods when it might be cold, windy or damp. (Which, in Scotland…)
          Other survivalists, who’d tried this, added that you should put a slab of wood, or thick leather, between you and the horn as you carried it, because it got very hot.

          Now No Country For Old Men is set in Texas, and there are lots of connections between the Border reivers and the American South — many reivers were transported there for their crimes. Which is why some of the most complete Scots ballads and folk-tales were collected in the Carolinas, and not in Scotland.
          The reivers of Lowland Scotland and Northern England were herding cattle on horseback for roughly 200 years before Columbus. Many of the Wild West’s cowboys were, in fact, Scots and Geordies. So, I figured, if they carried fire like this in Texas in the early 20^th Century, they also did it in the Borders in the 16^th. Why wouldn’t they? — They had the cows, and the horns, and the need to carry fire.
          Prove that not one of them ever did. You can't, can yer.


          I suppose that my point, in all this, is that although research in libraries is enormously important, researching fiction encompasses everything you’re interested in, and anything you observe, all the time. It is sounds, tastes, smells – it’s which muscles and joints take the most pressure during the task you’re describing. It's the feeling of a fire's heat on your skin, and the scent of roses in a warm garden.
         It's bringing together things that intuition tells you are true, even if you can't prove it - rather like inventing a story.
         For a writer, your sensual memory and imagination are the most important libraries of all.

All images: Wikimedia Commons.

'Let The Poet Choose'

Royal Literary Fund

It was the second public event for RLF (Royal Literary Fund) Brum on Thursday night once more held in the Birmingham and Midland Institute.
          This time the evening was given over to three of the many poets the RLF can field - by name, Duncan Forbes, who acted as host, Judy Brown and Cliff Yates.
          I already knew Duncan slightly, because I was his 'mentor' when he was the RLF Fellow at Worcester. So I expected him to be gentle and charming, and he was, introducing his fellow poets and leading the applause, and reading his own work last.

          Duncan told us of a now revered anthology of poetry published in 1973: 'Let The Poet Choose.' Each poet chose the work that they felt represented them best - and explained why the work was special to them, and why they chose it.

        So Cliff told us about how a poem had stemmed partly from a robber's attempt on his hat, partly from Stravinsky's 'A Soldier's Tale' and partly from John Cage's 4'33.
          This was Cliff's poem, 'Tonight in Kidderminster.'

TONIGHT IN KIDDERMINSTER

begins under streetlights and their word is Speed.
Two of them, chewing gum with their mouths open,
thumbs in their pockets and feet tapping.

The tall one sees me first, sees the hat. This hat
goes with the hair, the desert boots and jeans,
the shabby raincoat and ripped gold lining...

To read the rest, follow the link to Cliff's site and scroll down. (I don't like to post someone else's work in full here.)

           Judy Brown said it was difficult to trace exactly where a poem came from as 'a poem gobbles up whatever it needs.'
           She read us, The Cheese Room - and one of the things that this poem gobbled up, she said, was having lunch with her mother in this restaurant...

The Cheese Room

Here it is, on the back of the menu.
How, instead of a pudding, an extra fiver
will buy you the choice of the Cheese Room.
It shines in the corner, a treasury,
the moony glow of the cheeses walled round
with glass. As soon as she sees it, she's lost.
Before anyone spots her, she strips,
soaks a sari in buttermilk, wraps herself up
and goes in...

To read the rest, follow this link to the Guardian, where it appeared as 'poem of the week.' 

      Duncan almost apologised for being 'a formalist.' He read us La Brea, inspired by the La Brea tar-pit, where an ancient lake holds the bones of hundreds of animals that were trapped and drowned in the tar. It's an elegy for prehistoric dead.

LA BREA

I am the tarred and feathered stork
Who flapped its limbs until they stuck.

I am a tapir ancestor
Who came for water, swallowed tar.

This is the asphalt killing-ground,
A lake that thirsts. Beware. Be warned.

His trunk a blowhole out of reach,
A mammoth trumpets liquid pitch...

As before, follow this link to Duncan's website, and the rest of the poem.

          After the readings, were were able to talk to the poets, congratulate them, ask questions - and catch up with other friends in the audience. And drink wine.

          There are other public events coming up from the RLF.

          April 16th, A panel of writers - Jane Bingham, Mike Harris and Susan Price, discuss Research.

          May 14th, Francis Byrnes and Amanda Whittington - experienced radio writers - discuss 'Writing For Voices.'

          June 11th - Debjani Chatterjee, Jane Bingham and Susan Price, read and discuss their short stories.

          July 9th - Cliff Yates, Louise Page and Jane Rogers, all experienced teachers of creative writing, discuss the question, Can Creative Writing Actually Be Taught?

A Night Out With The Stars...

Well, the stars of my world...

The Royal Literary Fund

The Royal Literary Fund has recently started a new venture. There are now two RLF centres, where events of various kinds are hosted, one in Bristol, and one in Birmingham.

There are two kinds of event. In the evening are the public events, where writing members of the RLF give readings, or take part in a panel discussion. The writers who make up the audience are welcome to bring along guests.

The other kind, held during the afternoon, are training days, where one or more writers pass on tips, tricks and wrinkles to other.The aim is to build a supportive community among writers - which already seems to be happening.

The Birmingham Midland Institure

So on Thursday last I went along to the first Birmingham one, held at the Birmingham Midland Institute in Margaret Street. It's a beautiful old Victorian building - in fact, my guest, my pubowrimo friend, came along as much for the chance to get inside this building, which he had often passed and wondered about, as for anything else.

Considering it was a cold, dark, wet, windy February evening, and that many people in the audience had travelled considerable distances, it was well attended. As one guest put it, 'I would crawl over broken glass if the RLF asked me to.' The RLF is a remarkable institution, which does inspire great affection and loyalty in its writers - but there was also a buzz of curiosity about this new scheme, and a feeling of priviledge at being in at the start.
 
The subject for the evening was 'Creating A Sense of Place.'
The three writers taking part were Jane Adams, Kerry Young and Helena Attlee.

 
I know Jane Adams a little, because when I started as an RLF Fellow at De Montfort University, I took over from her - and she was extremely kind, in leaving me sheets of very helpful notes on the ins and outs of the university. I hope that she'll visit this blog soon, to tell us about the miniature knights she and her husband have been working on.

The Greenway by Jane Adams

Jane read from her first novel - which obviously still means a lot to her. Called The Greenway, it's set in a place Jane remembered from her childhood, a place - The Greenway - which she found eerie and disturbing. She spoke of how much of our most vivid impressions are rooted in childhood memory.

Kerry Young was born in Jamaica, of Chinese descent, and she was eager for us to experience Jamaica through her words - determined that we should. She read extracts from two of her books, Pau and Gloria.  The first, to give us the tumultuous noise and smell of the city, Kingston. The second, from Gloria, was to give us the heat and stillness and harshness of life in the country, among the banana and cane plantations. She succeeded in her aim!

Pau by Kerry Young

Helena Attlee is best known for writing about gardens and has travelled widely, particuarly in Italy. Her favourite method of capturing a sense of place is simply to travel with a notebook and pen, and to write down her impressions on the spot. These notebooks - rather like the sketch-pads of a painter - are an invaluable resource once she's back at her desk. They are full of details and impressions which had faded from her mind, but are captured, written down in her own words.

The Land Where Lemons Grow by Helena Atlee

She made me want to take a notebook to some far-flung spot on the instant.

Instead, I joined the others in scoffing the sandwiches so thoughtfully provided by the RLF - and by Meg Sanders, the regional organiser. Also wine, red and white, and tiny delicious cakes. The RLF knows how to appeal to writers.

The next public RLF event is a poetry reading - I'm looking forward to it. I'm also booked in to deliver some events myself - to take part in a short-story reading, and a panel on research - and to present a training day on ebooks.

I'm hoping there'll be some more of those little eclairs...

I'm Back...

          Where were we?

          I see that it was February when I closed this blog because I just couldn't keep up with things.
          The major reason for that was the training course I was taking with the Royal Literary Fund (RLF) to be an accredited RLF Writing Consultant.
          Which I now am - pause for parade, flags, brass-band, 21-gun salute and RAF fly-by - but it was hard. At the recent celebratory weekend, all the brand new consultants agreed on that. But then, I suppose, it should have been.

         The RLF has, for over ten years now, been placing professional writers in universities all over the UK, with their Writing Fellowship scheme. The writers are paid, by the RLF, to be on campus two days a week, and to provide one-to-one, free advice on writing to any student who comes along.
           The scheme has been a great success, and I thoroughly enjoyed my three years as an RLF Writing Fellow.

          The RLF decided to build on the success of the Fellowships, and see if they could train some of their ex-Fellows to be consultants who would go into universities, colleges and schools, and give workshops on such things as Academic Writing, essay structure, basic writing skills (something which many university students badly need) and many other things. 


          I signed up for the training for two reasons - one, my experience as a Fellow showed me that although I knew a lot about writing, I knew very little about teaching - and two, I was interested in joining forces with my cousin on his Stories4Learning reading strategy, and to do that I also needed to know more about teaching.

          The consultancy training course was a prototype, to see how well it would work, and how it could be improved. We were asked for feedback at the celebratory weekend, and one of the questions was: What would you like future trainees to know about the course?
          I would say: Don't, whatever you do, think it is going to be a stroll!
          I made that mistake. Well, it wasn't that I thought it would be easy, exactly... I suppose I've got used to picking up things on the fly. As a writer I've done that most of my life. Talk to someone about automatic rifles for half an hour, and you can give the impression, in a book, that you know an awful lot about armaments. In fact, you picked up just enough to give that impression.

          But the RLF course was a teacher-training course in miniature. I had to pay attention. For hours at a time. And to things I wasn't really that interested in. I'm not good at any of this. My style is more: work concentratedly for 10-15 minutes, go and do something else, come back and work for another 15 minutes, wander off and do something else... and so on, into the small hours of the morning quite often.

          The course was broken up into three parts. First, over a weekend at Aston University in Birmingham, we were bombarded with stuff about teaching styles, university organisation, how to arrange classrooms, the psychology of learning... We each had to do a ten minute 'presentation' before a bunch of students who'd been bribed by the RLF with vouchers. Later, we got feedback from the mentors and trainers. Always a joy.
          Then, early this year, the whole shebang moved to London. First came a training day in a Royal Plaza Hotel. Here we had to do another ten minutes solo presentation to the trainers, mentors, and other trainees. More feedback, and more lectures.
          The following day, we moved out to London University, where we had to team up with another trainee and do a joint presentation to another group of students, bribed with more vouchers and free lunch. More feedback. (To be fair, I have to say that my mentors, Katherine Grant, and Max Adams, couldn't have been kinder, more positive and helpful if they'd gone into training for it.)

          Next came the work-experience section of the training. We each had to plan a three-hour workshop - which could be a single three-hour session, or broken down into shorter sessions. This had to be hosted by a university or school, but the RLF paid our fee and expenses. I did two sessions, of two hours and one hour, at an RSA Academy.
          While planning this workshop, we had to keep a journal, and write a 'reflective essay' on the experience - why we chose to do what we did, what we'd learned, how our attitudes had changed, and so on. The essay had to have at least 6-8 academic citations and a reference list.
          The workshop(s) were observed by an RLF observer, who gave feedback later - and the 'client' and the students also had to fill out feedback forms.
          It was hard. But I passed.

          I've been 'giving talks' for forty years, and I've become rather good at it. But this course made it very clear to me that there is a huge difference between putting together an hour or 45 minutes intended to entertain - which is essentially what I was doing - and constructing a 'workshop' of the same length which is intended to teach something.
          I have never been one to think that teachers have a cushy job - I've seen too many of them at work, and known too many of them ploughing their way through marking and timetabling to think that. Despite appreciating that it was a hard job, though, this course has increased my respect for the teaching profession hugely.

          As for the RLF - I don't know that anything could increase the respect I have for this amazing organisation. With typical generosity, they not only came up with this opportunity, but paid us for our 'work-experience', paid all our travel and accommodation, and put us up in very nice hotels. And gave us gifts - I got a gift voucher for taking part, and another for passing.
          For last weeks 'celebratory weekend,' they put 20 of us up in the Royal Plaza Hotel, Westminster Bridge, hired a fifteenth floor suite for the meeting, and held a champagne reception for us on the terrace overlooking Waterloo Bridge. Then they took us all out for Italian.

          They have set up a new website featuring their new  consultants, and will be launching it at an educational conference next week.

          It was a blessed day, I think, that I first heard of the Royal Literary Fund - even if I am a republican.

A Two Hundred And Twenty-Second Anniversary

          Yesterday was my last day as an RLFF.  I’ve been an RLFF for three years, and I have revelled in it.

          Many people, I find, don’t know what an RLFF is.  I didn’t myself three years ago.  When I explain that it stands for ‘Royal Literary Fund Fellow’ they ask what the Royal Literary Fund is.  Again, I have to admit, I had never heard of it until a writer friend suggested I apply for a place.  Since then it’s seemed that almost every writer I know or meet either is, or has been, an RLFF.

           The Royal Literary Fund is A Very Good Thing, especially if you’re a writer.  It’s a charity which exists to support and encourage writers, and boy, does it!

           According to the RLF website, the idea of a fund to ‘relieve distressed writers’ had been on the mind of the Reverend David Williams for some time.  Then he heard that a writer, wonderfully named Floyer Sydenham, had – somewhat less wonderfully - died in debtors’ prison.  So on the 18^th May 1790, Reverend Williams held the first meeting of the RLF committee, and invited subscriptions.  As this blog goes up on Saturday May 19^th 2012, that means it took place almost exactly 222 years ago.  There should be celebrations of more two-hundredth and twenty-second anniversaries.

          The Rev sounds like an engaging character: a ‘dissenting minister’ who often quarrelled with his congregations, so it seems they were quite dissenting too.  He published, ‘Sermons: Chiefly Upon Religious Hypocrisy.’  I bet that got a bit of dissent going.  He strongly supported the French Revolution, corresponded with Voltaire and Frederick the Great, was a friend of Benjamin Franklin and Garrick, and one of the first to subscribe to the Fund was the Prince Regent, so it's clear Williams’ acquaintanceship was wide.

          To further demonstrate his good eggery, the grants made by the Fund were, from the beginning, never limited by nationality, sex, religion or politics.  A writer, Williams obviously felt, was a writer was a writer, whether wearing breeches or petticoats – which, I think, was quite unusual in his day.

          The Fund raised money from subscriptions, donations and legacies.  Understandably writers have been generous, with Rupert Brooke, G K Chesterton, Arthur Ransome, A A Milne and Somerset Maugham all contributing.

Coleridge

          The Fund has stepped in to help Coleridge and Chateubriand, Thomas Love Peacock, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Ivy Compton-Burnett and Mervyn Peake, among others.  It also helped Robert Burns’ widow and James Boswell’s daughter.

          The RLF’s Fellowship Scheme is slightly different.  It was set up in 1999, and was made possible by the sale, to Disney, of rights the Fund held in A A Milne’s work.

Compton-Burnett

          The scheme recruits writers ‘of literary merit’ and pays them to be on campus at UK Universities for two days a week.  Any student wishing to improve their writing skills can visit the RLFF, for advice and tuition.

          I love the RLF.  For a writer, the work is pure fun.  A constant stream of interesting people come to your door – you don’t even have to go out and find them.  They bring with them essays on all sorts of subjects, from Romeo and Juliet and the visual language of The Third Man, to solar heating engineering; from PhD work on art installations, or the conflict between the RAF and farmers during WWII, to the ethics of social work, Fuzzy Mathematics, how fashion in saris is diverging in the UK and India, Criminal Forensics and – especially interesting, this - the proper management of ‘artists’ who, it seems, don’t respond well to standard management techniques.  Who would have guessed?  But I didn’t know it was being studied.

          Still, there you are - the writer learns as much or more than they teach.

          The RLFF’s job is to help these interesting people solve the problem of how best to express their subject in words.  It’s great fun, even though it can be hard work.  (I often needed therapy after a session of Fuzzy Maths.)

          As an employer, the RLF is the most generous, understanding and respectful one I have ever known.  Its contract stipulates that the writer will spend a certain number of days on campus, seeing students; but the way that time is managed is entirely up to them.  And if no students come? - Well, the RLF stoutly maintains that this is in no way the writers' fault, and they are free to get on with their own work.

A distressed writer

          The Fund frequently reminds the writers that they are not employed by the host university, and the host cannot demand or dictate anything.  In any dispute, the RLF comes fiercely to the defence of the writer, with all the vim of a dissenting preacher sniffing hypocrisy.  David Williams would be proud.

          I am proud to have been an RLF Fellow; and I am proud to be, for the next year, an RLF Advisory Fellow.  I regret to say that, due to the recession, I think the scheme is fully booked for the time being – but I would recommend to any writer finding it hard to make ends meet to arm themselves with knowledge of the RLF – and to drink to the memory of David Williams, dissenting preacher and good egg.

          Blott solved it, eventually.  The answer is: hysilophodon.

LOST IN STERKARM COUNTRY

The Sterkarm Handshake and A Sterkarm Kiss by Susan Price

          I have finished the first draft of Sterkarm 3!

          I know some of you already know this, but I’m still performing happy dances whenever I remember it.

          It’s been three years.  I started work on it early in 2009, the year I also started work for the Royal Literary Fund.

          RLF work slowed the writing down, but not by much.  Writing a book is a long, slow business.

          My Sterkarm books are set on the Western borders of Scotland and England, a place of high moors and steep valleys, many streams and much rain.

          It comes easily to me to compare the writing of this book – of all books – to being lost in this country with only the faintest idea of which way I should go.  I set off, scrambled up a steep hillside, with much panting, while being scratched by heather twigs and briars.  I stumbled into bog-holes, lost a boot, limped on, got to the top, and paused to hear the larks singing.

The Sterkarm Handshake

          Then realised I’d gone the wrong way and needed to slither all the knee-jarring way down again and climb up the opposite hill.

(And I have done all that in the real world, so I don’t make the comparison lightly.)

          In three years, only occasionally have I seen the way clear and followed an easy, well-marked path – and have sometimes found that even well-marked easy paths can end in a thorny broom thicket.  (But does any bush have such a gloriously yellow flower?  Does any other British flower smell of coconut?)

          It’s been exhausting, but I don’t know any other way to get a book written.  Even if you set off with a map and a sat-nav – well, both can be misleading.

           Even now I’m not finished.  I have 110,000 words to read through and rewrite.  I’m looking forward to it – rewriting is always the best part – and dreading it at the same time.  (What if three years’ struggle produced nothing but bunk?)

          I hope to find out what the story’s about.  For three years I’ve been concentrating on plot, which means asking myself where did I last leave Andrea, and why is Sweet Milk, when I need him, miles away on another hillside, asleep?

A Sterkarm Kiss

          I intend to wait at least a month before I even look at it.  I hope a close reading will reveal, among all the plot, a theme.

          The first two Sterkarm books, The Sterkarm Handshake and A Sterkarm Kiss, are now out of print.

          I don't know what will happen to the Sterkarm books now.  My agent is looking for another publisher but, who knows if they'll find one?

          Would anyone, I wonder, like a look at the first chapter of Sterkarm 3, in rough?

          Read an interview with Susan Price about the writing of the Sterkarm books here.

          And here's Blott -