By Bitter Sterkarm...

          This will be a short post, as I have taken an oath.  By Oak and Ash, and Bitter Thorn, I will finish Sterkarm 3 and have it ready to send to my agent - or will have sent it - by September 1st.
          I know I said it was almost finished, but...
          I had to round up those loose hounds... Well, it turned out, they weren't as hard to round up as I'd feared.  But while I was looking for them, I found a lengthy passage that needed rewriting.  I'd brought in two minor characters to do something that - I suddenly saw - would be much better done by one of the more important characters.  But that means rewriting that scene and surrounding scenes...
          And the ending.  Endings, of course, are a beach.  I am feeling my way through this scene by my fingertips.  There are several characters.  The revelations of the scene must be made bit by bit - but every character must behave in character, and speak like themselves - and it all means going back and forth, rewriting, scrapping, moving lines about...  It's slow and head-nipping.
          And so much of my time is being taken up by other things - e-publishing my back-list, blogging, tweeting...  I could see it all going on for months.
          But I'm a member of an on-line writers' group called Flatcap. We 'meet up' on line most days, to report to each other on what we've managed to get done, and encourage each other.

The Ghost Wife

          I was grumbling on Flatcap about how it was all taking such an age, when another Flatcapper, the witty Joan Lennon, told me to take, myself, the same advice I would give to a novice writer in the same situation.

          Why don't you, Joan sagely asked, set yourself a deadline?
          Well, this is just what Flatcap is for.  So I am taking Joan's advice and setting myself a deadline.  September 1st - no later!

The Wolf Sisters by Susan Price

    I am also coming round to the idea of A Sterkarm Embrace as the title - though I may have to write in an explanation of what a Sterkarm embrace is.
          I have two more e-books out - Wolf Sisters and The Ghost Wife.  Another is pending, but it will just have to pend until the Sterkarms are done.

            Nor have I forgotten the Green Man.  I have got as far as buying a mask for a former, and cutting the side off a large cardboard box to make a working surface.  I've covered the cardboard in clingfilm, so the papier-mache (when I get to that stage) won't stick to it.  When I have finished the Sterkarms - by September 1st! - I will allow myself, as a reward, to have a go at the Green Man.  My brother suggests using cardboard tubes, like toilet roll and kitchen roll innards, to help with the curl of leaves.
          But, on with the Sterkarms...
And Blott, of course... 

Taming the Sterkarms

My small household gods watch over the plot

          Monday 6^th Feb
 I continue to work on two books at once, trying to plot one, and rewrite the other.

          My kitchen table is still covered with index cards, scribbled in blue ink.  Almost every time I go into the kitchen, I stop and read over the cards.  Sometimes I change the postion of one, or scribble another.

'Odin's Voice' by Susan Price

          I’ve decided that I don’t like the ending I had roughly plotted out.  It’s too close to the original idea I had, too predictable, too ‘left-side-of-the-brain editorial’.  It’s also too close to the ending of my ‘Odin’s Voice’ trilogy.  That left-brain editor obviously thought: well it worked once!  It’ll do again.  No! Not good enough.  So I’ve moved that final row of cards aside, to make space for something new.  Don’t know what yet, though I’ve jotted some notes.

          I’ve got that feeling I’ve had before – I daresay many will recognise it – that feeling that there’s something, some new idea, struggling just behind my forehead.  Haven’t got any clear idea of what it is, just that it’s there, and if I pretend I haven’t noticed, it will eventually come right to the front of my head, and I can catch it.

          I’ve also been reading Sterkarm 3 on the kindle and making rough notes in different colours.  At the suggestion of some commentators on this blog, I’ve added a dog and been very pleased with the result – except that I’ll have to rewrite the end of Sterkarm Kiss – but hey, I’ve got the rights back now, I can do what I like with it.

          I’ve also found a sub-plot that I might or might not keep or develop.  Shall have to see how the rest goes on.

          Tuesday 7^th Feb.  I’m deep into the rougher reaches of the Sterkarm first draft now, scribbling away with my coloured pens – often several colours in one sentence as the different characters meet.  It’s useful to have Per May in green and Per Changeling in red – wish I could do that in the finished novel.  It would be less head-nipping.

          I’ve found a romantic sub-plot which stops short, and which I’m going to have to fix, but I don’t know how.  I’m only mapping as yet.

          I have 22 sheets of scribbled paper, and don’t know how I’m going to see the whole thing at once.  Maybe I’ll sellotape them all together into a long strip.  I suspect that I included too much detail and it’s got a bit out of hand – literally.  Maybe I’ll make a big paper curtain and hang it on my wall – and stand on my kitchen steps to study it.

          Wednesday 8^th  I was doing my University stint and too busy to get any writing done.  And Thursday 9^th vanished in domestic and admin chores.  Friday 10^th is another University day, despite the fact that I didn’t go in because of the ice and snow.  I got students to send me their stuff by email.  So, no writing of my own.

           But next week I’m only at University for one day, Monday – so obviously, I’ll have both books sorted by the end of the week!

          And meanwhile, work on e-books continues.  This is the cover for my eighth, Christopher Uptake.  It isn't available yet - I'm still adding notes and hyperlinks - but I hope it will be soon



And here, as ever, is Blott - 

BLOG DARLINGS

          Well, here’s a lovely thing – and just in time for Christmas!  I’ve been given a Leibster Blog Award, which is given to ‘up and coming’ blogsters who still have fewer than 200 followers.

          When you are given the award, you’re asked to give 5 other Leibster Awards to blogs you think are interesting/beautiful/funny or in some other way outstanding, and should have more viewers. So, I’m on the look-out.

                      First I must thank Jen Alexander, who gave me the award.  Jen is the author of many books and has the most soft, soothing voice too, so it’s somehow fitting that she knows a great deal about how to use dreams in writing, and other ways of contacting that dreaming, imaginative side of us.  She blogs about dreams here.

Katherine Roberts

          When it came to handing out my five Leibsters, my first thought was Kath Roberts and her reclusive unicorn, who has gathered together several other writers’ muses under the heading of ‘Muse Monday’ – but Kath had already been given a Leibster  - and gave one of her 5 to Blott.  Blott and I thank you, Kath.  (But does that mean Blott has 5 Leibsters to give away too?)

Katherine Langrish

          So then I thought of Kath Langrish, writer of some terrific books, and also the blogster at the wonderfully named ‘Seven Miles of Steel Thistles’.  Not only wonderfully named, but a fascinating and often beautiful blog about legends, myths and fairy-stories.  But I was too slow – Kath has already, and deservedly, been given a Leibster.

          So who do I give my first Leibster too?  I’m going to be cheeky and give it to Do Authors Dream of Electric Books?  This is a team-blog of 29 UK writers, who blog about their experiences of self-publishing e-books.  Some are previously published writers – some are accomplished and dedicated writers who have never published conventionally.  They are from all parts of the UK, from Scotland to the West Country, and of all ages.  They take it in turns to blog every day for 29 days and, at the end of the month, there are guest bloggers.

          It’s cheeky of me to give a Leibster to Do Authors Dream of Electric Books? because I am one of the bloggers, so I expect I’ll be accused of self-promotion.  But I don’t care – the fact is, I am only one of 29 bloggers, and if my blog was withdrawn DADoEB would still be a lively, ever-changing, interesting good read, with jokes, news, tips, friendly arguments and chat between 29 very different authors and their readers.

Rhianna Pendragon by Katherine Roberts

          The drawing here is by Kath Roberts, and can be seen on Do Authors Dream, with more about the book that inspired it.  Such talent in one woman, eh? Makes you want to gnash your teeth, doesn't it?
          So there!  My first Leibster goes to Do Authors Dream of Electric Books!

          Who should I give the other four to?

          And Blot is back! - Without, of course, any explanation...

     

THE HAUNTED HOUSE WHERE I WAS BORN...

          More bedtime stories my family told me…

'Hauntings' by Susan Price

          When I come to think of it, my family were great story-tellers.  There were the stories in books – and then there were stories about our uncles and aunts, our grandparents, and great-grandparents, and even great-great-grandparents.

          I said I’d tell you more about why my Mom hated the house I was born in.  She often told me about an incident that happened a few weeks after I was born.  My Dad was working late, and she was lying in bed, reading, while I slept in my cot beside her.

          She looked over at me and saw me open first one eye - and close it - and then open the other eye.  I was too young, she said, to be able to open one eye at a time like that - and anyway, I was asleep.

          It was more as if someone had lifted up my lids to see what colour my eyes were.  She'd often seen the old ladies in the street do that with new babies.

          Mom jumped out of bed, scooped me up, took me into bed with her, and pulled the blankets over both of us until Dad came home.  Why are blankets such a protection against ghosts?

          My aunt told a ghostly tale about lying in bed too.  She had a terrible time nursing her parents through their final illness, and came near to a nervous breakdown herself.  My grandmother died first, and spent her last hours talking, in the voice of a little girl, to her own, long-dead mother.  My grandfather lived for several more months, enduring great pain.  When he died, my aunt was exhausted, grieving and depressed.

'Nightcomers' by Susan Price

          Two nights after the funeral, she was in bed when she felt the end of it sag as someone sat on it. Propping herself up on one arm, she saw the vague outline of a man in the dark: and knew it was her father.  She knew the way he sat; she smelt his tobacco; and although she heard no words, the words he’d so often said to her came to her in his voice: ‘Don’t be silly: everything’s going to be all right.’  She felt comforted.

          She told no one, not wanting to be told she'd been dreaming, or thought hysterical.  She didn’t mention it at all until about ten years later, when she and my father, who had always been close, were talking about their parents.  Then, hesitantly, she told my dad.  He was astonished.  On that night, he said, two nights after their father’s funeral, he’d been working late in a small engineering works.  He’d been alone in the place when he suddenly had a strong sense of someone standing close behind him.

          He’d whipped round, and had seen a vague shape, and smelt tobacco, while in his head the words formed quite clearly: ‘Tell your sister not to be so daft; everything’s going to be all right.’  But did he pass on the message?  No – because he did not believe in ghosts.
          I should have it put into Latin for our family motto: Despite All: Believe Not In Ghosts.

          I love hearing your ghost stories, so if I've reminded you of any, please share them.
         I'm going to e-publish my two collections of ghost stories, Hauntings and Nightcomers, on Hallowe'en.  It seems appropriate...

           My website is here: www.susanpriceauthor.com

          
 And he-e-e-e-re's Blot

     

A TRUE GHOST STORY

Nightcomers by Susan Price

          Over at Do Authors Dream of Electric Books, the other day, Stuart Hill was talking about true ghost stories.  He collected a few good ones!

          I left a comment there about my family’s long struggle to be rational and not believe in ghosts – a battle fought by generations before me, while my family were beset by ghosts and heavy-footed things that tramp in the night (of which, more later this month).

          In my collection of ghost stories, NIGHTCOMERS -  which I’ll be bringing out as soon as my brother can finish the cover – there’s a story called ‘The Baby’ which I based on one of the flesh-creepers my aunt told me. 

          Doris was my grandmother’s niece; and Emily one of my grandad’s sisters.  They were close neighbours and, as Emily was heavily pregnant, Doris was looking forward to seeing the baby when it was born.

          But Doris contracted pneumonia – pretty much a death-sentence in the early 1930s, especially if you were poor.  She was put to bed and her mother and sisters sat with her.

          Doris was sick for days.  The other women knew that Emily had given birth, but no one told Doris.  The baby wasn’t strong, and they thought it best not to mention it.

          Doris kept asking that the bedroom window be opened, but it wasn’t, because it was cold.  Again and again Doris demanded that the window be opened.  She struggled to sit up, saying, “Open it!  Open it!”

          Obviously, she was delirious.  They tried to calm her.  “Let her in!” she said.  “She wants to come in – she wants to be with me.  Let her in!”

          “Who’s outside?” one of the sisters asked.  “Who wants to come in?”

          Doris said, “Emily’s baby.  She wants to come in and be with me.  Let her in!”

          Doris begged for the window to be opened until, eventually, someone did open it, despite the cold.  They left it open after she died too, for a whole day, for fear of what they might shut inside if they closed it too soon.

          The women sitting with Doris knew that Emily’s sickly baby had been a girl.  And two days after Doris’ death, the baby that had wanted to be with her, died too.

          My Aunt told me this, but, a true Price, ended it by saying, “It’s easily explained – Emily never had a baby that lived longer than a couple of days.  And it would have been on Doris’ mind.”

          Somehow, these sensible remarks never stopped that cold grue going down my back.

          I think I might tell true ghost stories all this month – and if anyone wants to leave theirs as comments, I'd love to read them, and we can build up quite a collection by Hallowe’en!

         But before any more ghost stories, here's Blot - 

CEILIDH!

‘Harken!’ cried the bard, and struck the strings of his lyre.  The mead-hall fell silent and listened.

          ‘With a tale, forsooth, he cometh unto you,’ said Philip Sidney, in surprise, ‘ with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the chimney corner.’

          It wasn’t only in the halls of the rich that people fell silent to hear a story.  In small towns and villages people gathered together in one house, to save on fuel and candles, as they sewed, knitted, repaired or made tools. The visitors brought food and drink with them, and to pass the time they told stories.  The Scots called such a gathering a ceilidh.  Growing up in the industrial Midlands, I never knew the word, but knew the concept: “Dad – tell us how you gave Gran’s best sheets to the rag-and-bone-man… Mum, tell us about the shop with the parrot…”

          The storytellers knew their audience, because they were part of it.  They picked up from the air whether the company wanted – even needed – a merry tale, an encouraging tale, an eerie tale, or a sad one, to let the tears flow.

          Words have power – I found myself writing about their power in my Ghost World books.

Some people believe this is only true of the past.  People now don’t want story-tellers, they think – now people have television and YouTube.

          I often go into schools and tell stories, and I can tell you authoritatively that this isn’t so.

          I have told stories to crammed rooms of 60 children, all of them sitting open-mouthed and round-eyed, holding their breaths.  You can feel the story buzzing in the air.

          I’ve told ‘Mr. Fox’ and had a group of technicians stop work to listen, and applaud at the end.

          I’ve watched as children with unfocussed eyes, unconsciously acted out the story, lost in their own heads.

          Words, and stories, have power.  When I describe Ambrosi’s listeners in Ghost Song helplessly acting out his stories, I described what I’d seen.

Cruikshank's storyteller

          A story springs to life when you tell it.  I’ve several times told what I thought was a mildly scary tale to a class, only to find that somewhere in the space between us, the tale took on ferocious strength.  I think: I can’t tell anymore of this!  It’s too scary! – But I can’t stop either, because of all those avid, listening faces.  A story has the onward power of a train.

          Story-tellers and listeners – story-tellers and readers – it’s a tight bond.

          Increasingly, publishers have been intervening, saying, 'this writer’s  last book only sold X amount.  We won’t publish any more.'

          Saying, 'Your central character’s a woman, so you must have pink and sparkly marketing.'

          Saying, 'Love the book, but you must make the gay character straight – readers don’t want short stories – don’t want novellas don’t want to mix sci-fi and romance – don’t want heroines over 20.'

          Story-tellers know what their audience wants because they are part of that audience.  The Marketing Department doesn’t, because they aren’t, and only read spread-sheets.

          One of the many things I love about the internet is that it’s putting story-tellers and story-lovers in touch again, with comments flying back and forth.

          Try ReVamp

          Try Authors Electric!

          Try ABBA

          The publisher is being shoved out the door, while storytellers and listeners crowd round the fire again – albeit a virtual fire on a computer screen.

          Ceilidh!  Pass the scones and whisky.

Website - www.susanpriceauthor.com 

          I'm afraid Blot is still asleep from last week...

GHOSTS AND HAUNTINGS

Hauntings by Susan Price

          One of the jobs keeping me from house-work is turning my two collections of ghost stories, Hauntings and Nightcomers, into e-books.

          This started me thinking about ghost stories and their appeal in general.

          I know I’m not alone in considering M. R. James one of the greatest writers of ghost stories ever.  I remember reading several of his stories, one after another, one dark winter’s afternoon, while alone in the house.  I was in the kitchen, making a snack, when I heard a quiet, stealthy scratching from inside a cupboard…  After I’d dropped down from the light-fitting, I discovered that the noise had been made by a bundle of crumpled plastic bags expanding.  Ever since I’ve thought James’ stories should carry a health warning: ‘One story a day.  Do not exceed dosage.’

M. R. James

          Something I hadn’t appreciated until recently was that James is considered ‘the father of the modern ghost story’ because he did away with Gothic trappings of dungeons and ruins, and set it in what was – for him – the modern world.  He thought this necessary because he wanted his reader to feel : '”If I'm not careful, something of this kind may happen to me!'"  His modernity is easy to overlook now, because James’ antiquarians in bath-chairs seem so quaint and old-fashioned to us.

         I have nothing against the Gothic, but I largely agree with James on this.  I have set ghost stories in the past – 'Davy', in Hauntings, is one – but most of mine take place in the present, or what was the present when I wrote them.

          The world is a very strange place. The very fact that each of us is alive and self-aware is strange beyond all understanding.  One thing that a story of the supernatural can do is show this ever-present strangeness, to throw a spotlight on the strangeness that exists alongside, or hidden underneath, the everyday.  That’s why ‘Beautiful’, in Nightcomers, is set in a huge shopping mall – I wrote it after hearing my brother, who worked in one, describe what the place was like after-hours, as he made his way through it to the bus-stop.

          It’s why ‘The Landing Window’ is set on a modern housing estate (even if in an old house); and why ‘Coming Home Late’ is set in a block of council flats.  (And consider that there is more than one meaning to ‘late’.)

          Like James, I want my readers to think this might happen to them!

Nightcomers by Susan Price

          I’m also with James when he says: ‘Reticence may be an elderly doctrine to preach, yet from the artistic point of view, I am sure it is a sound one. Reticence conduces to effect, blatancy ruins it…’  Somewhere he comments that he could  make a reader physically sick, if he chose, but he scorns to do so, because it’s too easy.  It’s far more difficult, he says, to write something that is eerie, unsettling – or haunting, which is why I gave my collection that title.  Don’t come to my stories for all-out, gross-out horror.  No – I don’t want to sicken  you.  I want to get under your skin, to stay with you.

          In short, to haunt you.  It’s for you to say whether I succeed, but that’s my intent.
         Find my e-books for download here.

         And I know you're waiting for Blot -