Writing days

It's been...interesting lately. Especially for someone who spends a lot of time obsessing about village stuff (the latest is our neighbour's mare Pip, having been a dead ringer for a chestnut Zeppelin for an age now, has produced her foal). All Sunday afternoon as we gardened a succession of locals came along saying either 'The foal's out- it's gorgeous!' or - if going the other way-'Somebody said the foal's out! Just how gorgeous is it?' Answers: Yes, I know and Extremely gorgeous. Of such simple pleasures is country life. Then there's the wandering (ie trespassing) in the surrounding fields with just the occasional trip to town to get into fights with local retailers. Also the odd writing day is interspersed with all this and a bit of book-stuff gets done.
But this last week book stuff has ganged up on the rest. First: over the border back to Wales to pick up the Pure Gold Fiction Award for Salvage (thank-you everyone in Wales who voted for it- the award was good, too with a bit of Welsh gold sandwiched inside). Then on the Wednesday there was the Lingham's party to launch Blood,etc (FINALLY- thank-you loverly Dominic from Parthian for being the acceptable face of publishing. Wirral ladies will long remember your visit). Today comes the news that Salvage has been shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. And people are ringing me up and emailing me to tell me I was shortlisted and to ask me if I knew yet and how did I feel.
Answers: Yes I know and Extremely gorgeous- or extremely something anyway. Words fail me. It's not a writing day.

Can I rephrase that?

Oh dear. To celebrate World Book Day I get three invitations to give readings. Wonderful. Never say no to this sort of thing. First off to Heswall. All's well. Nice people. Good questions. Two days later, flushed with success, Prestatyn on a beautiful seasidey afternoon. An impressively well-read and analytical group: they knew the novel better than I did. One of them had read it three times! AND my old friend Glen- hadn't seen her in years - turns up in the audience. So what with all this and the buffet (a big deal, I get my husband fed at no inconvenience to myself) the spirit of World Book Day goes to my head. I send a jokey thank-you email to John, the librarian, et al saying basically 'hey, how good was that? - and look at the picture, they're so into my book a fight's breaking out over that surprising twist on Page 186!'

This was SO wrong. I have a bad feeling that a violent incident has been recorded, enquires will be made and all further fiction-based events could be suspended until a risk-assessment is completed.

In my defence Llangollen library survived my visit last Friday night- and most of the town has reopened for business as of this morning. (Some traffic diversions may still be in operation.)

Yesterday the Western Mail rang to ask how I felt about book-crossing. Well it's got be be good, hasn't it? People leave books around for other people to read...that's good, isn't it? And yes, you the author don't get a bean...but of course you don't mind. Because how can you stand to come across all miserablist and scrooge-like in the Western Mail? You just don't do it. Like making up jokes about perfectly decent Prestatyn readers getting into fist-fights. You just don't do it.

So it's just me and the Queen

Having announced yesterday that I intended to have an official birthday - today - guess what? there's a card, a very acceptable stylish pair of black gloves (is there any other sort?) - and a birthday lunch. Lush-sh meal at The Marsh Cat in Parkgate. Sadly no one in Parkgate has been prepared to speak to me since one of my characters called the place 'a swampside resort'. A character, folks, not the author. (It is though). So wear dark glasses. (It is actually sunny over their swamp). Have nice time. Husband says "Well I didn't think you'd want to waste your official birthday trooping the guard or changing the colour or whatever."
Correct, bach. But that doesn't mean I've forgotten you've lost your wedding ring.
"So this official birthday...?" he says.
"Main reason is February," I say, "as a month it needs something. It's short but grim. All it's got is St Pancakes Day - a carbfest followed by a Wednesday, Thursday and Friday eating twenty-two portions of fruit and veg to make up. And you never know when Pancake Day's going to be because they move Lent around to try to keep it a decent distance from Easter and you have to be Stephen Hawking to work out when that is. And then there's the worry about whether Angela's hens will bother to lay that week. Not to mention the lemon rage - and that's when I'm not boycotting whoever has lemons. And I have to make the pancakes because you
won't learn. Enough?"

The sun goes in over the swamp. A big black splodge is hatched in Wales and rushes across the Dee towards us, halving the light in the conservatory where they have The Marsh Cat's nicest tables. Where we are. The vast expanse of reed and soggy bits and river that is downtown Parkgate turns- I'll like to say whatever adjective you can make from Conrad: Conradish, Conrady, Conradesque? There isn't one.

"So what would you like to do on the rest of your official birthday?" he says. "My treat."
So February 28th it is from now on. Another date for him to forget.
"I might go home and write something. Just for a change."

And this means?

Can you depend on nothing these days?

First, my husband of- so many years we've stopped counting, goes and loses his wedding ring. We go through the 'when did you last see it?', 'why would you take it off?' bit. Not that I'm sure I want an answer to either of these questions though I can conjure up several, straight off. His variations on 'search me' come as a relief. (Yes, I know it was me wrote the book about a lost ring, but that was made up, dear). Then (and this is a man who can forget his own birthday, never mind mine) he presents me with a card for St Ddwynwen's Day. Yesterday. Never happened before. Why would it?I suppose it is her day. Too miserable to check: she is a saint famous for a. being particularly difficult to pronounce by anyone non-Welsh and b. going into the longest sulk in history. What is he trying to tell me?

So now it's the day after St D's day and there are signs and portents everywhere. That huge beech tree has been felled by a not particularly strong wind and is blocking my favourite walk. And just in case I don't get it, a headless dove (still warm, its crop filled with, I guess, ivy berries) has been dropped beside the lane on my return. A puff of soft grey feathers show the exact spot the buzzard struck. Probably I've interrupted the feast so am responsible for another victim soon to be decapitated beyond the woods. I carry the weightless corpse into the field for the buzzard, but more likely the fox or badger to find.

Don't get too comfortable, all this is saying. Watch the skies.

The ripples of malice have infected the new book. It seems to have reinvented itself, no longer calls itself the JA but 'something to do with darkness'. That's it. Just as with new babies, I - its parent - find a title I like in the Penguin Dictionary of First Names. Then it grows to the stage where you can't imagine it being called anything else. If it had aunties they'd be saying 'oo-o he looks so-o like a little JA doesn't he?' But now, suddenly, a forty-thousand word teenager, it's decided to hole up in its sour bedroom while considering the options. 'Something to do with darkness' - that's what I get when I try to feed it. 'Maybe Dark-Something'. It'll let me know.

last post

Whatever Twelfth Night means to you - and it means something special to me - I think Christmas really ends on Dec 31st. So that's it, then. Over for another year. And this one hasn't been all that bad- mainly because the village is an ideal setting for an ancient festival - and gets more so by the day. Only recently the local bus company contributed to our lurch into the 18th century by cancelling their service. So it's official. I now live in village with no way in and NO WAY OUT.

In past years our mince-pie, mulled wine and singing on the green around a tastefully decorated Christmas tree was ogled by top-deck passengers - who probably believed they'd strayed back in time - or had had too many extra-strong eggnogs. No more. Now the only mechanical sound is the approach of Father Christmas on his decorated lawn-mower. And while we're on the subject of singing, what is the problem SOME people seem to have with carols? Every year a few of us (never more than a dozen, nothing like a mob) go around the houses and sing- for charity. We practise and we're not bad enough to set the dogs off. AND ITS FOR CHARITY. We're not talking anything controversial, either: just nursing care for cancer patients and a children's hospice. Most of our neighbours (even the music-lovers) welcome us to their doors and often inside to thaw around their also-tastefully-decorated fireplaces. They feed us and give us drink - and money. They wish us Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. It's straight out of Thomas Hardy, for God's sake. But at just a couple of houses, there's bad stuff happening- curtains are quickly closed and tv's turned up. In this way they manage to save a pound and only get one verse of Silent Night (OK, so it's not our best piece).

Here's something for them anyway.

A friend in our nearest town got a knock on the door, Dec 1st. A pair of bulging fifteen year old girls stood there and sang 'Away in a manger' three times. Not the whole thing, just 'away in a manger' three times over. It was all they knew. When my friend suggested they should learn a carol before they set out carol-singing, they suggested she give them money or they'd trash her car. Festive, huh? So for Christmas next year I wondered about arranging an alternative and exclusive to those people who can't be doing with 'The Holly and the Ivy' in return for a handful of change. What about a visit from the Cellulite Sisters?

You couldn't make it up

To Waverton this week to talk to the Waverton Good Read Award crew because Salvage is on their list. This is brilliant. Waverton is a small Cheshire village where reading is really big, mainly thanks to bibliophiles Wendy and Gwen. And they know how to treat writers. Firstly they feed you a proper three course meal (with wine). Then they make an awful lot of the village come out on a vile, wet dark night and PAY to hear you speak about your favourite subject (you and your novel). Then they ask intelligent, well-read sort of questions which give you an excuse to speak about your favourite subject for even longer. Rather than rioting at this point and burning down the hall, they thank you politely and give you more drink - and then they promise that they'll all read your book. And away you go.

Now I'm home again, I'm wondering if Waverton really exists. After all there's a nasty virus going around that gives you a high temperature- maybe a touch of delerium? If it wasn't for finding the mug next morning you might think Waverton was the sort of place invented by an over-optimistic fictioneer.

Gene-genie

October was a wicked month, dry of writing and then just dry.

I once had four uncles. As October breezed in, the last and dearest of them - Uncle George - found he was going to die. All of a sudden. No prologue and not much time for a finale. We don't mess around, we North Wales Prices. He accomplished the task stoically, in good order and with all preparations made, before the month's end.

Fittingly he had been born on April 25 - Shakespeare's birthday.(Some boring pedants hold out for the 23 but that's rubbish- it was 25th, trust me). Of all the word jugglers, language baiters and story-budders in the extensive Price family my Uncle George was most practised and best. His narratives, his contrary emotional postures and some of his
single lines I've hoarded all my life and ransacked often. Of course we never ever discussed my writing - though he was a great reader, Nicholas Monserrat was the man for him. And anyway I was family. That's a relationship that grows in the mulch of talk.

Uncle George would have been especially pleased to see a November now so mild there are still dandelions in bloom on the marsh fields down to the river- and on untended vegetable plots.

"How's the garden?" I remember asking him.

"Show quality, the dandelions are. A wonderful display. This year they're in every shade from palest lemon to a deep sunburst gold." Pause for effect. "But mine are the size of dahlias."