tomdg creates

The Good, The Bad and The Dumped – Jenny Colgan

2011-11-29T21:11:00.000-08:00

This book surprised me, and in a good way.

A few minor quibbles first. The blurb on the back I found a bit misleading, because the implication is that she goes off tracking down her exes after her current bf breaks off the engagement, but in reality the order of events and causality is rather different. Secondly, I don’t like books where the main conflict is basically caused by the MC (who is invariably female – helpful gender stereotyping be damned) is TDTL (Too Dumb To Live). And finally, relationship problems that stem only from the characters not communicating and thinking the worst of each other by default don’t make a good story (how ever realistic that might be).

The good news is that none of those three things come close to spoiling this book. Yes, FMC Posy does have the odd TDTL tendency (with a name like that, how could she not?) But she also has bigger and more credible problems. When her boyfriend proposes to her, she is struck by a sudden uncertainty – is this really the man she wants to marry, or just the person in whom she’s taken refuge after a previous disastrous relationship? This causes her to undertake a mission to seek out her three significant exes (there’s always three, aren’t there? Not counting Jacob Marley, of course).

This I found both believable and interesting. Likewise the furtive manner in which she goes about it, which ultimately leads to catastrophic misunderstanding with her fiancé. At which point the book touches on the other major pitfall, where I was willing her to just try to explain to him what she’s doing. To be fair, with hindsight, maybe it’s understandable that she can’t, but I didn’t feel that when I was reading it.

The three exes are for me the best bit of the book, as she goes through a process of coming to terms with who she is and where she is that finally takes her to the wedding of a man whose name she has not even been able to pronounce since their break-up. Once we get on to exes two and three the book’s structure beds down too, and the way we learn about each in turn makes sense. (I felt towards the start there were slabs of backstory I wasn’t quite ready for).

It’s only after Posy has confronted ex number three that the book veers off course, as having realized that her (by now ex-) fiancé is after all the man for her, Posy is put off telling him this by another stupid misunderstanding until a somewhat overdone romantic meeting with champagne in the rain. A few chapters here I think could have been cut, but given what preceded it I was willing to plod through them. And finally we get a happy ending.

Another staple in chic lit (a term which, as I’ve commented before, I do not use in a derogatory way) is Posy’s pair of bizarre friends Leah and (her sister) Fleur. Although very funny, they both turn out to have a little more depth when needed, and I liked in particular the touch of Leah, forever wearing insane extreme fashion clothing, designing for Posy a tasteful, simple, and brilliant wedding dress.

Then there’s the story of Posy’s parents, which is key to her character but feels a little stereotyped (parents divorced, dad remarried and estranged, but turns out not to be such a bad guy after all – could be a lot worse). I guess for the author this is a key theme of the book, but for me the most interesting bit was the way Posy has been affected by her own relationships and how she needs to somehow put each of them, and the expectations they have left her with, behind her in order to accept the man who has proposed to her.

And that is why I liked this book.

How To Train Your Dragon – Cressida Cowell

2011-11-28T08:17:00.000-08:00

It’s good to have a vague idea what your children are reading.

I quite liked this. It’s funny, but it does vaguely show some good examples about friendship and the value of sticking up for people when it isn’t convenient to do so. And obviously I respond to the fact that Hiccup (the main character) is regarded as "useless" but in the end saves the day by being sensitive and intelligent - pretty much the opposite of everything I disliked about Forrest Gump.

It does make me wonder though to what extent even at this age range books are already being squeezed into moulds aimed at a male or female market. Yes, it’s good to have books that boys might want to read, but it’s good too for boys to realize that being a man means more than just fighting stuff.

Mind you, what would I know about that?

Fall Girl – Toni Jordan

2011-11-22T22:38:00.000-08:00

Toni Jordan’s first novel, Addition, was nothing but brilliant and remains one of my favourite books. So obviously when I saw this in the library I was going to get it out. This book is not Addition, and so it was inevitable that I would find it disappointing.

I also struggled with the subject matter. The story is about Ella, a girl who is brought up in a family of con-artists (I was going to say con-men, but since several of them are women I needed a more inclusive term). That it’s their family background, that they see themselves as artists is interesting, as is the fact that Ella’s dad, the patriarch of the extended family very much sees their work as wealth redistribution in the style of Robin Hood. But while that may not particularly leave an unpleasant taste in the mouth, I still didn’t find it particularly interesting or attractive.

It’s well-written though and the characters are interesting at least, particularly Daniel, the proposed “mark”. And then suddenly, on page 112, with one little throw-away sentence in the middle of a paragraph, the story gets interesting.

This was never going to live up to Addition, and given the subject it’s not what I would have read if it were written by another author. I felt there were more than a few loose ends that could have been tightened up too (I suspect this is because I’m obsessive about such things, not because the story really needs it). If I’m going to be picky, too, I found the motivation behind Daniel’s interest in Ella a little underdeveloped / underexplained, although that’s an inevitable struggle in the poor-girl-wows-rich-guy thread of romantic fiction and at least Daniel feels like a real person in other respects.

But I did like the ending, which actually has a lot of parallels with the last book I read, Signs and Wonders. This isn’t a Christian book, Ella finds love rather than God, but still there is an element of penitence and redemption.

Looking forwards to her next book.

Addendum: I just spotted this great line in the acknowledgements: ‘My own zoological studies … were so long ago that we studied dinosaurs with live examples.’

Signs and Wonders – Alex Adana

2011-11-22T13:38:00.001-08:00

This is a great idea, and well executed. The main character, Annie Grace, is a faith healer, the centre of a huge business and daughter of an even more famous faith healer – and both of them are a con. Except … for some reason no-one can quite understand, least of all herself, that’s not entirely true.

I really liked the main character, Annie Grace, who starts off broken and cynical but still with a hint of conscience. I also loved her chauffeur / dogsbody / friend Ernesto – loyal and good-hearted. In fact all the characters were interesting and believable. I have this impression in my mind that a lot of “Christian Fiction” is anodyne, unrealistic, bland and escapist. This book is absolutely none of those things. The world you see in this book feels like the world I live in (even if I’m no Annie Grace). The people feel human, the good ones and the bad ones.

At a theological level too, it works for me – yes, god does heal people, really heal people, and he doesn’t necessarily restrict himself to using the holiest and most devout to do it either. The healing experiences described in the book sounded credible too, at least in that they tie in with real-life stores I’ve heard about healing. The only bit where I lost credibility just for a moment was in the scene where a blind woman is healed – not because I find that unbelievable, I don’t; but because her reaction seemed a little tame. I heard a story recently about a Royal Marine who went to church not particularly believing in anything much and was prayed for and received healing to a knee ligament injury, and of course his reaction at the time was to swear like a trooper … but I digress.

There was part of me that might have asked for a different ending, but I think it’s a better book with the ending it has. At its heart this is a story of redemption. What more could you ask for?

Just as I Am – Virginia Smith

2011-11-22T13:10:00.000-08:00

This could have been a great book. It’s about a “colourful” young woman (purple hair, facial piercings) who suddenly becomes a Christian. Mayla Strong is certainly a great character. When she becomes a Christian, she sets about trying to work out what it means in practice. This causes some interesting friction with the culture of the fairly conservative-sounding church in which she finds herself.

Up to there, this could have been a great book. But I felt there were several things that let it down. First, Mayla seemed to learn an awful lot about how Christians are and aren’t supposed to behave very quickly. She didn’t seem to have many issues with the parts of her previous life that she’d have left behind – relationships etc. The characters she came into conflict with in church seemed fairly easy (although perfectly valid) targets – the would-be matchmakers in particular (A single young person in possession of a faith is not universally also in want of a spouse, nor should they necessarily be - q.v. this excellent post).

It also felt a bit preachy in a lot of places. Perhaps it made some assumptions of its own (is it actually wrong for Christians merely to be at a party where people are using illegal drugs?) Perhaps I come from a Church background such that a lot of the things that others might find shocking in this book simply aren’t for me.

I also felt too many of the characters in the book were too perfect. Mayla herself, for example, her mum, and the pastor, all seem to do the right thing and say the right thing pretty much all the time (at least where it matters). Real Christians aren’t like that, or at least, the ones who are don’t make good novel characters because they’re not believable.

The final point of sadness I felt about the story was at the end where Mayla decides to remove her facial piercing (which she had earlier changed from a stud to a cross – a very good touch) and recolor her hair in a natural shade. Almost as if it’s saying that while yes you can be a Christian whatever you look like, to really be a good Christian and fit in you do need to look boring like everyone else.

All of which is not to say I didn’t like it. It is in turns funny, serious, and poignant, particularly Mayla’s anger after her gay friend dies of AIDS. And maybe if you’re at a church like the one in this book then this would be a good thing to read. But I’d have liked it even better if it had been a bit more edgy.

Veiled Freedom – Jeanette Windle

2011-11-21T00:14:00.000-08:00

What does it mean to write Christian Fiction, or to write fiction as a Christian? That’s a question that I’ve been pondering ever since I read Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, and possibly ever since I first did NaNoWriMo. One difficulty this question posed for me was that I’d never read any. It was that question that led me to browse the Christian Fiction category on Amazon to see what was available for free when I got a Kindle for my birthday (I am a cheapskate after all). I’d already decided that part of the answer had to be that writing fiction as a Christian had to mean engaging with the real world in some way, which seemed to rule out most of the titles on offer. Then I spotted this one. About a Christian aid worker and set in contemporary Afghanistan it seemed to have potential.

My first impression was that the book was portraying an Americanized perception of Afghanistan, the way you might imagine it if you’d watched CNN but never actually been there. This of course was disappointing. For about half the book, this continued, and the story looked set to be heading towards one of those “odd couple” romances with a private security contractor. But the longer the characters spend in Afghanistan, the more they come to understand the place, and the more realistic I felt the portrayal of Afghanistan and its people was. The more, too, I got gripped by the story and the people and wanting to know where it was going. It wasn’t until very late on that I realized it wasn’t going where I thought it was, and where it went instead was much better.

If I’d come at this book looking for a gooey romance with an interesting backdrop that would make me feel the world was a nice warm cuddly place, then the ending would have been disappointing. On the other hand, if I’d come at the book with a romanticised perception of Afghanistan I would probably have learned something from it. That wasn’t where I was coming from, but I learned a lot from it anyway.

So what is the purpose of Christian fiction? Or, what kind of fiction should a Christian write? And is anyone out there actually doing that? Well, it needs to engage with the real world, not ignore it. It should educate and broaden the mind, not allow the reader to escape into a world of their own prejudices. Indeed, it should probably look something like this.

On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan

2011-08-08T20:06:00.000-07:00

Since we went on holiday to Weymouth and went to see Chesil beach I thought I'd have to bring this and read it there.

I really liked the way this book was structured. It tells the story of only a few hours in the life of two people, but telescopes into that how they came to that point, and then where their lives go afterwards. There's no doubt it's brilliantly written. Whether it works ultimately depends on whether you can believe that the somewhat extreme scenario it describes is actually convincing given the characters and where they've come from. I guess it is when you're reading it, but whether it still works on reflection I'm not sure.

One particular thing that I'm still puzzling about in my mind is the setting of the final scene, on Chesil Beach itself. Having actually sat on the "infinite shingle" of Chesil Beach myself, there was something incredibly peaceful and timeless about its "infinite shingle", but at the same time it's a place of amazing solitude, even in the presence of other people. Does that make the book's conclusion more or less likely? I'm not sure.

The ending of the book was sad, but not somehow depressing. One thing that's brought out throughout the book is that a wonderful happy ending is only a hair's breadth away - as if in some infinite universe of possibilities, all the other universes might have seen a different conclusion. Somehow that's a lot less depressing than feeling that the unhappy ending was inevitable. I particularly felt seeds of hope, of what might otherwise have been, in the last few pages, where the book zooms out and shows the two characters making their way through the rest of their lives - a great touch.

I had reservations when I heard about this book that it might be trying to argue against the viewpoint of keeping sex for marriage. I don't think it does - or if it does, it's not very successful. If anything it's about communication - the clue, I suppose, is in the book's first two sentences. And communication is always a good thing.

The Red And The Black - Stendahl

2011-08-08T20:02:00.000-07:00

Dad recommended I read this (on my new Kindle! whoohoo!) It has some interesting observations about the nature of France back in 1830 and in particular the nature of the catholic church there and then. What struck me particularly was the relationship between the main character and the younger woman later in the book - society may have changed since but people don't really change.

Generation X - Douglas Coupland

2011-08-08T19:59:00.000-07:00

I've read a few books recently and I'm getting behind on commenting on them, don't know what to say ... Quite liked this, it's not a story per se but it was quite perceptive in its day about young people of the time (my time!) The comment about the end of history is somewhat undermined by the fact that the Berlin Wall came down between the book being written or at least set, and being published. But the stuff about being the generation after the last generation to be able to buy a house (much less retire with a decent pension) is still pretty perceptive.

Where Rainbows End – Cecelia Ahern

2011-07-03T14:02:00.000-07:00

For the first two-thirds of this book I was quite gripped. The story is a familiar one: two people who are clearly meant for each other, but through one thing and another – bad luck, stupid mistakes - it doesn’t quite work out, until finally, everything becomes clear and they all live happily ever after. And for most of the book, I rode the waves and troughs, hoping and looking forwards to the final conclusion. Until, that is, the end of part 3, which unleashed just one twist too many. And when two main characters do eventually get together, I’d long since reached the point where for me it felt too late.

This kind of troubled me. To have a few twists and turns before eventually getting together – that was a storyline I could cope with. (Home, anybody?) But how many twists and turns is too many? The characters in Home break up at 17 and 20 (ish), and get together again at 28 and 31. That still leaves them time to spend most of their lives together. At the end of said part 3, the characters in this book are early 30s. But when they finally do get together, they’re in their 50s, and I somehow feel that by then it’s very much a consolation prize rather than lifelong fulfilment.

Ok, maybe I’m ageist. Maybe it’s because I’m very much of the age in between those and therefore feel unreasonably that this is the age that counts. Who knows why, but at the end of the book I felt that the ending didn’t really justify all the angst the author had put the poor characters through on the way there. That’s why it’s taken me a while to write down my feelings about this book.

But then I had a thought. Maybe the reason that doesn’t feel like a satisfying conclusion to me is because my relationship with God has left me just a bit spoilt?After all, so many times through the Bible, God makes the best of a bad job, and not only that, but somehow manages to produce something out of the ruins that’s even more beautiful than what was there to start with. God's people reject him by asking for a King (1 Samuel?), but from that royal line comes none other than Jesus himself. The Bible starts with a garden but ends with a city – starts with God creating two people in the unfulfilled hope that they will choose to love him, but ends up with a an almost countless number of worshippers.

Maybe for a lot of people life would be bearable if they had a thought that they might arrive at whatever their desired goal is, in the end, whatever the troubles in the meanwhile. But that’s not enough for me. Brought up on a diet of Grace beyond comprehension, I want it all – to have my cake and eat it; to be repaid for the years the locusts have eaten (see Joel). A recipe for disappointment, you might think. But not for me. On occasions to numerable to count, that has simply been my everyday experience of a life lived with God.

But then, a story like that - who could make it up? Fiction is bounded by what we find believable. God, fortunately, is under no such limitation.

In the meanwhile ...

2011-06-17T05:57:00.000-07:00

Read another book this week, Cecelia Ahern's "Where Rainbows End". Review pending (I haven't written it yet), but in the meanwhile, Can I recommend Vicky Beeching's Blog. She's a Christian musician, worship leader, and theological deep thinker (these things are relative). And keeps a very good blog.

And yes, the link is partly inspired by the giveaway she's running (looks very tasty I must say). But well worth a read anyway.

In other news ... dad and I finished re-editing Home again a little while ago now - we'll have to see where it goes next :) And I'm now working on doing a second draft of Teacher, which I "wrote" the year after Home, with the target of revising a chapter a day to try to get it to a standard where I'm prepared for someone else to read it (which is still a million miles behind where Home is now). Today is day 3 and I've done the first six chapters, so it's going well so far - although needless to say the next chapter needs a bit more work than some.

The curious tale of the dog in the night-time

2011-04-06T08:57:00.000-07:00

My wife did not get on with this book. She said she didn’t like the long descriptive bits and wanted to keep skipping ahead to the next bit where something happened, and she didn’t finish it. I suppose that’s a fair comment but for me it completely misses the whole point of what the book is about.

What this book is about is putting you inside the mind of someone who’s mind works a bit differently from most of ours. One of the best things about reading I think is getting into the head of someone who sees the world differently from me. I think most if not all of the books I’ve really enjoyed have been books which did that particularly well. Some, like this book or Addition are about people who see the same world as me but experience it differently due to their mental make-up (I’m not comfortable with using words like “disorder” or “illness” simply because people are different, but that’s another topic). Others, like One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich or Heart of Darkness show a person in a different environment, if you like showing in stereo what it means to be human at all. And at its best ‘chic lit’ type books are also showing a world that’s different to mine, if only because it’s being seen through a woman’s eyes. So the point of this book is not the story, it’s to show us the world through the eyes of Christopher, it’s main character, and I think it does that really well.

So what is Christopher’s condition? The blurb on the back of the book says the protagonist has Asperger’s Syndrome, now apparently called an Autistic Spectrum Disorder, but I gather the author has said that he didn’t specifically have that condition in mind when he wrote it. Certainly the main character has a lot of traits which aren’t like the people I know with ASD, but that could just be a difference of extent. But that’s not the point. The point is that Christopher is different – and as becomes immediately apparent, whatever he is, he’s not stupid.

This book then is at its best in the long passages that may not be important to the story but are telling us loads about the way Christopher sees the world and what’s important to him. At times I had to read the books in chunks because his very logical view of the world was hurting my head, but at all times I felt that his view of the world made sense and was internally consistent – not only was it believable, but it begged the question, isn’t this view just as reasonable as ours, and therefore isn’t it reasonable for us to make allowances for people like Christopher, to give them space to live within their own rules rather than forcing them to live by ours?

If I was going to be critical, I could say that there are points in the story where it seems to meander in a way that makes you wonder if the author knew where it was going when he started writing, and whether he just stopped writing at a point where he thought he’d written enough. But I’m not sure if that’s fair – it’s equally possible that the author had the full storyline in mind from the outset and that the meandering feel is again part of the fact that it’s being written from the main character’s viewpoint, and very much as the story goes along. Certainly at a smaller level the writing meanders from what’s going on to asides about food colouring and things he remembers from the past, so it would fit perfectly with the rest of the way the main character thinks.

On the positive side, the characters in this book are all utterly believable. I particularly liked the character of Siobhan, who I presume is Christopher’s teacher, and who we never actually meet, but from his references to her she comes across as wonderfully understanding and sympathetic and it’s obvious that he’s very fortunate to have someone like her helping him to understand the world.

The other thing I really loved about this book though, besides the really convincing depiction of the main character’s viewpoint, is that it has a wonderfully happy and uplifting, yet believable, ending.

The Gift – Cecelia Ahern

2011-03-15T12:31:00.000-07:00

This is a difficult book for a bloke to read. Ok, you might expect that from an author of what might be loosely described as chic lit (a term I use in a totally uncontemptuous way, as you can probably tell if you look at the kind of stuff I read), but I don’t think you can describe this book as chic lit. It’s about a man, for starters. And it’s about how a man relates to work and family. That’s what makes it hard to read – like any man with a family I suppose (and probably any woman with a family come to think of it, although whether that’s the same experience or a different experience I’m not willing to comment here) I struggle with these and don’t feel I always get it right. And perhaps being written by a woman makes it feel a little less sympathetic somehow? Would I have felt differently about it if it had been written by a man, with every word the same, like Pierre Menard’s infinitely superior Don Quixote? Or what if the main character had been a woman? Who knows.

It’s a good book, but I felt it had been written in a bit of a hurry. Maybe I just read it quickly. And I wasn’t entirely satisfied by the ending. If you had just one night of life, wouldn’t you spend it with your family and wife? One aspect of it that made me particularly uncomfortable though: if like the main character, I spent my last night alive with my wife and as a result left her with not two but three children to look after on her own, she’d kill me!

It reminded me though of the story of Evariste Gallois, the mathematician, who according to popular legend (if not actual historical fact) knew he was going to die in a duel the next morning, and so spent the night writing up his mathematical ideas – leading to field of Gallois Theory which fascinated me at university, not least because he proved that it was impossible to do several things that people had been trying to do since ancient Greek times. What if Evariste Gallois had instead spent his last night on earth with his wife and children? Wouldn’t the world be a poorer place for it? Mind you, perhaps if he’d had a wife and children he wouldn’t have been involved in a duel at all. But that’s another story.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas – John Boyne

2010-12-16T10:58:00.000-08:00

This was the last book I read while on holiday in Wales back in October, but for some reason I didn’t get around to writing about it then. (I thought I had, which is probably why I didn’t).

This book came to me much hyped, so I was a bit nervous about it. I’d also understood that it was a children’s book so clearly in the back of my mind was the thought that maybe I might give this to Alex to read at some point. Well, not yet, that’s for sure.

Interestingly, since Alex had apparently “done” the second world war at school last year, I asked him if he’d done anything about the holocaust. No, he hadn’t. He’d done the battle of Britain, and I think that’s about it. He’d seen a tiny reference (in a contemporary newspaper report) to the bombing of Germany, but only in the context of “this is what they did to us, so …” Talk about a biased view of history. Of course while he was doing it I was also telling him a little bit about the Eastern Front, the war in the pacific, etc. I’d imagine it would be easy otherwise for them to come back from lessons thinking that the second world war was fought between England and Germany and England won. Is this relevant to the book? Well, kind of, actually, yes. Wait and see.

And it’s interesting too that they don’t seem to have touched on the holocaust, particularly as many people would have you believe that was the reason for the war in the first place. (My understanding is that in fact at the time hardly anyone had any idea of what was going on, and this has just been used as a post-hoc justification for the war in an era where some people are at last starting to think that “king and country” / “my country right or wrong” / “us and them” isn’t actually quite enough to kill people for). Personally I think the holocaust, and events like it – for there are others similar in type, if not on the same industrial scale – is the most important thing to learn about if you’re teaching that period of history in school. But that still leaves the question as to at what age children are really ready for that. Alex is particularly sensitive, so while he’d be quite capable of reading this book on the one hand, and probably wouldn’t be remotely interested in it on the other (it’s about people, he prefers books with talking dinosaurs), I don’t think I’m ready to deal with how upset he’d be if he read on to the end. I found the ending quite upsetting. I don’t know how he’d cope.

All of which is not in any way to denigrate this book. I think it’s a great idea trying to write about the holocaust in a way that is personal, not just dry and factual, and that makes sense of it for younger readers. And why choose a German as the protagonist? That’s the best thing. I hear many people say that history is important because it tells you where you come from. And I think that’s absolutely wrong, and the reason I hate so much of the way history is taught. History is important, if it’s important, because it allows us to learn from the past. Not just our own past, but the past of all of humanity. The battle of Britain is no more relevant to us today than, say, the siege of Plataea or the battle of Tsushima. History taught that way is worse than no history at all, for it serves only to reinforce national prejudice – that history is about the great things we have done and the terrible things that have been done to us. In the book, tremendous importance is being placed on the teaching of history within the curriculum, and in particular, that kind of history. The injustices done to Germany after the first world war, the heroic past of the German nation. So that the children in the book can understand where they have come from – and to give them a context that makes the holocaust seem reasonable.

On the contrary, what we should be learning about in particular, if we are learning about British history, is things like the fire-bombing of Dresden, the invention of concentration camps during the Boer war, the highland clearances, the treatment of the poor in Dickensian London, the evils of colonization – our own, as well as others – and of the slave trade. The things that teach us not to confuse “good” and “evil” with “us” and “them”.

That’s why the book had to have a German protagonist. If you understand the holocaust as something done by other people, by “them” – then you fall foul of the old maxim: those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In a country where you can be locked up for a month without trial or charge, where ‘immigration’ is a dirty word, where people picket a workplace because it employs foreigners, where a network of cameras watch people with dark faces going about their daily lives because other people find them threatening, this lesson is as relevant to us now as it ever was.

Thanks for the Memories – Cecelia Ahern

2010-12-13T22:14:00.001-08:00

Another note - this one's very out of order, it should have been before the last two.

I enjoyed this one, even if the central premise was a bit unbelievable – but then you always have to give a book that, and I guess that unlike “P.S. I Love You”, this book contains an element of fantasy. This one felt cute and cozy and comfortable, but not in an insubstantial way. I liked the characters, particularly the relationship between the FMC and her dad (the airport scene was brilliant). I guess the one thing I felt uncomfortable with was the hinted-at subject of divorce: one of the main characters is divorced, the other starts the book in a marriage that has broken down. But I guess what I really liked about this book, the reason I enjoyed reading it and when I finished went out to try to find more by the same author, was the well-drawn, colourful, and entertaining characters and the cheery and cheerful way they cope with what life throws at them.

I should add here for clarity that I finished this book a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it. If that doesn’t quite come across it’s because I’ve written this and the two posts that follow at 3am having woken up feeling headachy, cold, and faintly sick. I know that life isn’t really as bad as it feels right now – that in a few hours I will no longer be alone or cold or miserable (I’m in Wales, for goodness sake, it doesn’t get better than this!) I know it, but I don’t feel it.

The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants – Ann Brashares

2010-12-13T22:09:00.002-08:00

Ok, I was on holiday when I read this one, it was sitting in the cottage, and I’d kind of run out of easy books to read and didn’t feel up to reading anything too heavy. And I’d vaguely heard of it but couldn’t remember why or what kind of book it was. That’s my excuse.

On the positive side, I found this very hard to put down. The characters were pretty well drawn, although it was only Tibby that I could really get into (I’m sure that says more about me than about the characters). The paragraph where she describes her parents losing their idealism in the face of middle-age, mammon, and small children is so brilliant I’d like to quote it whole (but won’t because I’m lazy and it’s probably illegal). Of the others, Carmen I could sympathise with but her experience felt just too one-dimensional (perhaps it is when you live it), Lena I could understand but not quite get into, and Bridget I didn’t entirely like (I could feel all too well her frustration with her coach, but not her relationship with Eric).

I was less convinced by some of the minor characters. Well, specifically Eric – I can’t be interested in a guy who shows so little self-control, even if I can see it might well be a female fantasy to be able to charm a guy who is out of your league. Bailey was brilliant, and her relationship with Tibby easily my favourite strand in the book, although you wonder if any twelve-year-old could really be that wise (given her circumstances I’m willing to accept that one). Carmen’s new family I couldn’t quite understand – they seemed on the one hand to be trying really hard to be nice to her, and yet on the other to be remarkably distant. If that’s just a culture clash then it doesn’t quite come across, and that’s a shame, as it’s something I could easily relate to. At least I liked the way Carmen’s thread ended. And Lena’s Greek Island too felt both too American (cheerios, wanton snogging) and not American enough (otherwise mysteriously isolated from foreign food and culture). Of course not knowing that kind of Greece myself I can’t say if that’s not 100% accurate, but it felt to me like an American’s caricature of what “abroad” might be like more than a real experience. And of course I know whereof I speak (not).

I suppose when you’re a teenager life does feel this full-on and people (grown-ups in particular) so self-absorbed. It’s easy to read this and say that many of the kids in it seem unpleasantly self-centred. But then, I was probably more like that at that age than I’d like to think, and I probably still am. And while it’s easy to think of teenagers as sometimes overblowing their experiences because of their lack of, well, life experience, is it not equally valid to think of those emotions as seeing life for what it is, and everything that comes afterwards as a kind of “heat death”, a greying and hardening and growing callous, a shutting out of the world more than putting it into perspective? Perhaps that’s why of the four main characters I was drawn most to Tibby; she was the one I felt who was seeing the world more clearly because of her age, not less. And maybe she embodies my ideal of being young as much as Bridget and Carmen contradict it, while perhaps there’s truth on both sides.

I’ve never been a teenage girl growing up in America so perhaps it’s not surprising if the gulf between my experience and some of these characters is not easily bridged. But then – isn’t that what fiction is all about?

A Place Called Here – Cecelia Ahern

2010-12-13T22:03:00.000-08:00

Bit of a catch-up here: I read three books during a week's holiday in Pembrokeshire at the end of October and have only just got around to posting my thoughts on them (even though I wrote these thoughts while I was there).

After P.S. I Love You and Thanks for the Memories, this wasn’t what I expected. While the latter had a single element of fantasy in what otherwise felt a very real setting, this whole book felt like a bit of a dream. I didn’t feel I knew where it was going next, and, I got the feeling, neither did the author when she wrote it. Was this one of those books where the author just sat and wrote and followed the story as it unfolded? I always like to know (when I write) where I’m going, even if some of the twists and turns along the way might evolve in the telling. But I gather there are people who start writing without knowing where it’s going and that works just as well for them.

Maybe I felt I couldn’t get into the characters quite as well as in other books. Certainly the place called “Here” felt quite unrealistic to me in many ways. Some were quite mundane – the registration area seemed to have an implausible number of desks and doors in it, and the numbers of people living in the village seem wildly inconsistent. More than that, though, I was suspicious of the description of this seemingly idyllic community – ok, it becomes less so in some ways as it goes on – as it seemed to me somewhat in conflict with human nature.

The way the book is set out is in two stories that barely meet until the end. For me they felt just too disparate for this to work, although only just. I guess I like the real world in my reading so it’s inevitable I’d get on better with Jack’s thread than Sandy’s. There was also a third thread, really the unfolding through progressive revelation (if that’s the term) of Sandy’s back story and relationship. I have to say I struggled with that to some extent, and maybe I’m not so comfortable with the fashionable trend for starting at a key scene and then filling in what went before. (That’s not how we live life, after all). Although to some extent pretty much all books do the same thing – there are elements of Martin’s back story in Home that we don’t know in chapter one, but I guess the difference is we know pretty much where he is. I felt a bit cheated with Sandy reading about the development of her relationship with Gregory, as each chapter she related seemed to give the impression that was all there was, whereas obviously at the point of the story Sandy would have known what happened all the way to “now”. Maybe the moral of this is that you can find out about a character progressively from stuff that just happens or comes up for whatever reason, but if you feel they’re deliberately withholding information from you then you struggle to put yourself in their shoes?

I guess I didn’t find the ending entirely satisfactory either – how could it have been? But it did keep me reading avidly right to the end, not least because until I got there I had no real sense of how the book would end. That’s probably a good thing.

I’m also wondering if how I feel about a book says as much about where I was when I read it as it does about what’s printed on the pages – maybe more than I appreciate myself.

The Undomestic Goddess – Sophie Kinsella

2010-02-12T00:00:00.000-08:00

I'll start by saying I really enjoyed this. I feel I have to say that because I know I'm going to start with a long ramble and if anyone were to stop halfway through they might otherwise get the wrong idea.

To begin with, I found this book quite hard to read. Not because of the writing, of course, but once I got to the point where the main character Samantha's world falls apart because of a piece of paper left unnoticed on her desk … well, that touched a nerve. I'm not very organized myself, and was always getting in trouble at school because I simply couldn't remember to, for example, pack the right books in my bag every day, do the right homework, or collect the report card I was given for not doing those things from the teacher at the end of every lesson. In the end I solved the book problem by carrying all my books to school every day, whether I needed them or not, and ignoring the people who teased me for bringing the wrong books in. No problem is so big it can't simply be avoided.

So I was paranoid that as soon as I got a proper job – if I ever managed to get a proper job – I'd be fired for losing a key document or forgetting to turn up to a meeting. When I did get a proper job, as a civil servant, that fear drove me to develop the most anal systems to make this less likely to happen. No problem is so big it can't simply be avoided. As a result, bizarrely, I developed a reputation in the team for being well-organized and being able instantly to put my hand to any document I was asked for (filing systems … good preparation for my current work in software). Of course, I refused to lend anyone the document they asked for – I had to take it myself to the photocopier, give them the copy, then file the original again – otherwise I couldn't guarantee not losing it.

So when I read about Samantha's world exploding because she mislays a document on her desk and forgets to file it before the required date (and as a result loses the client 50 million pounds), my brain is shouting at me. Any system where a mistake like that can have any consequences at all is rubbish. People should be allowed, no, expected to make mistakes like that. There should be systems, checks. If that happens and someone loses 50 million, EVERYONE should be fired. Aargh. Rant over.

Then and only then I got to the chapter where she accidentally gets a job as a housekeeper. With the best will in the world, I couldn't find that chapter entirely believable. (Although, they say, you get one “gotcha” for free in any novel, and I knew that was this book's. You just have to say, let's just accept this and see what happens).

To make this worse, the reason I had so much time to read this was that I've been ill all week – cold and tonsilitis – ill enough that I couldn't manage to do anything beyond working and reading. And here's me, stressed about work, and ill, and reading about a woman so stressed about work that she has a nervous breakdown. What timing.

At this point, after seven chapters, I was really struggling. But fortunately I know several people who really rate this book (or at least who own it), and I've liked the other Sophie Kinsellas I've read, so I felt I should persevere. I figured at this point that the heart of the book was about this woman having to adapt to being a “domestic”, to doing all the ordinary house-y things that she never had time to do before; about the humour of this brilliant woman being all at sea, and presumably using her brilliance to simply avoid (i.e., work around) the problems she can't deal with. That being the case, I thought, why didn't the book just start with her waking up in her room the day after she arrives, and why did she have to keep contacting people at work? But I was wrong, wrong about what this book was about, and it's just as well I kept on reading.

For a while you get her being rubbish in the kitchen (some of it stuff anyone really ought to know, although given her background in the book, her complete and utter domestic incompetence is entirely credible). Then you get her starting to learn, and forming a new and totally different kind of romantic relationship (i.e., with someone who isn't a lawyer who charges their time in six-minute slots – again, aargh, I absolutely loathe timesheets and mine are only in half hours, and on a good week I can just book five days to the same thing). I remember with surprise seeing I was on page 191, half way through the book, and feeling I'd only just got started with the funny domestic stuff and being disappointed that there wasn't going to be enough of it.

And then Samantha comes back into the orbit of her old job again, when she realizes that there's more to her departure than she thought, and that she may have been used as part of a fraud by her old boss. At which the book changes again, into a story of legal intrigue. Great fun, and by this point I was already hooked. Finally, totally exhonerated and offered not just her old job back but a fantastic dream job (I didn't believe that, but who cares), she has to choose between the career she always wanted and a getting a real life, and after yet more twists and turns – when I thought everything was sown up – the book finally reaches a happy ending.

In the end, this book had loads of really brilliant things in it. It was funny (“Six minutes isn't sex. Six minutes is boiling an egg.”) Romantic (same bit. And the bit with the bread). And thought-provoking.

More than anything, this book is about the question of work-life balance, and there are few more important issues today than that. It also touches on some of the issues particular to women in work – when Sam is berated as a Judas by feminists for giving up her high-powered city job to work as a housekeeper and saying that she's actually happier like that. (Note: that's very much not the message this book is giving.)

There's also the whole question of parental and personal pressure to “be all you can be”, to make the most of the gifts and talents you have. That's a really hard one, and one I really struggle with myself. I believe that with ability comes responsibility, to put it to good use, but how far should that go? Is there a balance to be struck between making the most of your God-given talents and actually having a life as well? And how do I deal with that with my own children, who are both outstanding / exceptional / egregious in their own little ways? (As, I believe, is everyone – we can all be superheros, but I won't go into that one here). Significantly, although Samantha's mother in paricular is a major presence in the book, she never actually appears in person – she's always too busy.

I loved the way that people and relationships in the book are never simple (just like in real life). Arnold, the kind boss, turns out to be a fraudster who stitches her up. Guy, the star-crossed love she never quite got it together with, goes from Mr. Nice to Mr. Evil and back (in fact he gets arguably the most jaw-dropping, add-extra-dimension-of-complexity moment in the book), but in reality turns out to be a bit of both. The lawyers generally are not portrayed as evil, simply as people living in such blinkered little boxes that they cannot see the world outside. And I loved the way that Samantha goes crawling to Kellerman, who she absolutely does not get on with, in the knowledge that he at least will know to treat her professionally. In some way I can't quite explain there was something almost Jesus-like in that. Philippians 2:5-11?

In summary, this book wasn't quite what I expected, but it was better.

Bridget Jones The Edge of Reason – Helen Fielding

2010-02-09T12:58:00.000-08:00

After reading the first one …

It's obviously difficult writing a sequel. On the one hand, you want to capture what made the original book a success (you don't write a sequel if it wasn't); on the other hand, you don't want to write the same book over again. And worse still, if the original was a book that broke new ground, you're worse off, because it's impossible to break the same ground twice.

I remember when I read “Man and Wife”, the follow-up to “Man and Boy”, thinking that it was pretty much the same story again.

So what about this book? There were points when I felt it was falling into the same trap –probably mostly connected to her break-up with Mark Darcy, although I can't actually remember for sure when I was thinking that, and her mum's relationship with Wellington. And there was a point in the book where I felt Bridget had finally crossed that infinitesimal line between endearingly bonkers and Too-Stupid-To-Live – most notably, when she fails to catch the plane to Rome to interview Colin Firth. And for large chunks of her break-up with Mark Darcy you just want to tell her to blinking well talk to the guy. I really don't like stupid misunderstanding as a plot device, even when as here it's the result of her funny and very silly confused dependency on self-help books.

But there were loads of things I did like. The character of Rebecca (who comes out quite differently from the film – shame I saw it the wrong way around as otherwise that would have been an even better twist); the self-referencing – her interviewing Colin Firth, who played Darcy in the film (don't remember that from the film but it would have been very funny, like Julia Roberts' failed impression of herself in Ocean's Twelve); the way Bridget comes into her own when thrown in jail in Thailand (great in the film too, but differently so); and the way she actually manages to hold down a job. It had a bit of a nice happy ending (all comedies end with a wedding … all very soppy). I liked the bit character of Wellington too (“In the darkness the stone becomes the buffalo. In sunlight all is as it is”). But of course the best thing about the book is Bridget and her friends.

This book couldn't do what the original did – introduce the world to Bridget and her type. But it didn't need to. In the end I didn't feel it was a retread of the original; just that it was a good laugh, and that however stupid Bridget might be, she comes good in the end.

Bridget Jones's Diary – Helen Fielding

2010-02-02T12:21:00.000-08:00

So I've finally got around to reading this – years after seeing the film. It's so famous I can't say much about it, except that bits of it were laugh-out-loud funny and I really enjoyed it.

I remember when this came out. Everyone was reading it (I lived in London on the time and you would see it every time you got on the tube) and everyone was imitating it. I think part of why it was such a hit – other than it simply being funny – was because there is so much truth in it. Bridget sums up real experiences. As I remember it, too, this book created and defined the genre of chic-lit. I wonder if that's true?

It was difficult reading this after seeing the film. For a start, the characters I remembered I saw as they were cast – except for Bridget, for some reason. And I felt like I knew what was coming – even through I couldn't remember much of the film and the book was different anyway. But brilliant anyway.

Chloë – Freya North

2010-01-18T12:50:00.001-08:00

This is the third Freya North I’ve read, after the brilliant Pillow Talk and the very disappointing Sally. I’d put this one somewhere between the two, but I certainly enjoyed it. I liked the main character, liked all of the characters one way or another as I don’t like one-dimensional villains. Well, ok, her boyfriend at the start of the book is a bit of a cartoon villain but he’s still sadly very believable.

What I particularly liked about this book was firstly that I really liked and believed in the central relationship – which although obvious all the way through, builds up very nicely. The two characters keep almost meeting throughout the book, in ways that are cute enough that I didn’t fret about how believable they were. I also liked the central premise, once it got going – the main character visits Wales, Ireland (Northern), and Scotland, finding a different kind of relationship in each, and finally meets up with her ideal man in Cornwall, who turns out to be the best of all three. Sweet.

Ok, inevitably there were a couple of things that I didn't like so much. The first country visited is Wales, which I absolutely adore, but I didn’t really meet Wales in the book. She stays only just over the border somewhere near Abergavenny, living in a typically English Aga-class farmhouse (with a wonderfully eccentric host), and the man she meets there is not Welsh but a Kiwi. Shame, as I absolutely adore Wales and would have much preferred a real Welsh visit with a Welsh beau. But perhaps Freya North is betraying a hint of Gallophobia? She wouldn’t be the first person I’ve come across with that odd trait.

Also, while I accepted a bit of surreality in the book – the main character’s confidants are a couple in a postcard of a Gainsborough portrait – it rankled a little when the author started breaking down "the fourth wall". "Well, they have to meet, don’t they. It was practically decreed in chapter one" – so starts chapter 39. Funny, but a bit silly, and for me losing a little of the immersion. I half wondered at that point if the author had written the book in 30 days and was starting to get bored with the idea. Yeah, I’d know about that :)

But none of this spoilt the book for me. Definitely an enjoyable read.

Rise and Fall of a Yummy Mummy – Polly Walker

2009-11-29T12:55:00.000-08:00

It took me a while to read this one. For the first half to two-thirds of the book, I found it very hard going, largely because I didn’t have a lot of sympathy for the main character (too shallow and narcissistic) and because the tone of it was unremittingly negative (yes, I know being a mum is hard work, but can’t we make the point with some humour?)

However at some point in the book it did eventually pick up. I both liked and believed in the happy ending, and I started to enjoy some of the characters (Alice in particular).

It’s kind of a shame it took me so long to get into because this book makes serious points on a range of topics. In particular the experience of going back to work after maternity was particularly well dealt with, and a touch I particularly liked was the fact that the evil boss was female – avoiding making the suggestion that everything bad is exclusively the fault of men.

Enlightening more than enjoyable.

Biting off more than I can chew

2009-11-15T10:28:00.000-08:00

Ok, I know what I'm writing this month now, and after a good weekend I'm no longer way behind on my word count. I have definitely bitten off more than I can chew trying to write this particular story, but this is NaNo, which means quitting is out of the question - chalk this up as a learning experience.

It might have helped if I had an outline before I started too, rather than just some general ideas of things I might throw into the story. Or if I really knew my main character. But life has been busy, and sometimes planning for writing (or even writing itself) has to take a back seat.

On the positive side, right now I don't feel completely shattered for the first time in a week and a half, and I haven't actually come down with anything (I felt like I was about to last weekend).

NaNoWriMo 2009

2009-10-02T10:19:00.000-07:00

Help! It's October 2nd and I still don't know what I'm going to write next month!

Remember Me? – Sophie Kinsella

2009-08-04T11:22:00.000-07:00

I loved “Can you keep a secret” so I was looking forwards to this. It’s a great premise: woman wakes up after an accident to find that she's lost her memories of the last three years of her life, and – to add spice – during those three years she has become a completely different person. It takes her the rest of the book to figure who she has become and why.

I liked the book’s central character, and I enjoyed the variety of characters around her. I quite like what the book says too, about the place of career and work – this works at a better level than just mindless escapism. It was sad that the main character couldn’t make her relationship with her husband work – in a sense, both of them finding themselves married to a stranger; if one truly believes in marriage for life then it ought to be possible to overcome something like that. But that would have been a completely different story. The blurb on the back of the book asks, “what if you woke up and your life was perfect?” And the rest of the book asks, what does a perfect life look like really?

And of course it makes you think, if you could wind back your own life like the main character here, wake up one day with a younger version of yourself inhabiting your life – what would they make of it? And what if you could do the same in reverse, wind your life back and have it over again with the benefit of hindsight – what would you do differently?

I felt quite down for a lot of the time I was reading this book, which I don’t think reflects fairly either on the book or my life.

Operation Sunshine – Jenny Colgan

2009-07-26T08:09:00.000-07:00

This was a very silly book. Silly in a fun way, enjoyable, but definitely silly.

The main character is a ditzy young woman – why is it that chic lit protagonists are all so ditzy? Sometimes that can be fun, sometimes, as in the first three-quarters of this book, it’s a bit grating. But maybe that’s deliberate – by the end of the book the main character has grown to the point where I actually like her. At the start, she’s pretty dumb even by the standards of the type. And it’s not just the main character who is silly. This book pretty firmly mocks every one of its characters, who spring from a range of stereotypes. Well, at least that’s an even-handed approach.

The plot seems to veer between classic chic-lit holiday romance, family-from-hell farce, and eco-warrior conspiracy spoof. As if it doesn’t know where it’s going, although, again, no doubt deliberately so, since the main character certainly has no idea where she’s going.

When the book does veer towards seriousness – mainly in its attitude to the cosmetic surgery industry – it does so in a lighthearted and humorous way, and I can’t disagree with any of its observations.

But for all that, this book is supposed to be harmless fun, and it manages that pretty well.

Wings - Aprilynne Pike

2009-06-06T01:41:00.000-07:00

Yes, this is the first book I’ve read all of since About a Boy last year. I started reading something else but got bogged down … whereas I finished Wings in less than two days. It’s that kind of book!

I’m going to cheat a bit here and not do a proper review. But then this is "tomdg creates", not "other people create and I just pass comment" – and I did say a while ago that this was really about my take on what I read, and isn’t intended to be a proper review anyway.

I don’t read a lot of Young Adult fiction, I’m a bit old for that. (But then, I love chic lit and I’m a bit … well, male for that ...) but I really enjoyed this. I came across it because a long, long time ago (sorry, American Pie on the stereo ...) I bumped into the author online when we both posted blurbs to the terminal "Miss Snark’s Crapometer". I started following her blog, and watched with interest as she got an agent, wrote Wings, sold it, edited it, and then saw it leap to the top of the New York Times Bestsellers List. So after all that of course I had to read it. And then to cap it all, I won a copy through a contest on her blog! What a lovely person she is! Although I have to admit here that even in this day and age it would be stretching a point for me to say "I knew her before she was famous"!

One thing I liked about this was the way Laurel, the main character, struggles with being caught between the world she comes from and the one she lives in. Probably a common theme in this kind of fantasy, but it really spoke to me about the experience of being an immigrant – something I know a little about, having been brought up in the UK in an American family. I doubt whether that was intended (although you never know …) but certainly I felt a lot of that experience came out in the book.

Another highlight of the book for me was Laurel going to the ball in chapter 12. This really spoke to me about learning to be comfortable with who I am, and it’s a really charming chapter.

But what really makes this book great is the author’s habit of taking something that is a common theme and approaching it from a completely different angle. The obvious example of this is of course her take on faeries, which is not just original but also pretty well thought through. But a couple of other examples.

I read somewhere that the #1 cliché of YA fiction is "Kill the parents". Think Harry Potter … I can see that it’s a great plot device: otherwise, a lot of your protagonist’s problems will just be solved for them by their parents. But (and I know this from reading it in an interview!) Aprilynne Pike deliberately chose not to go down that route, because she wanted to show that a teenager can have a healthy relationship with their parents (I paraphrase … and as an aside, I read in a survey recently that the vast majority of todays teenagers think their parents CAN understand them – what are kids coming to these days?!?) And yet Laurel’s parents are not able to simply solve all her problems for her, for reasons that are not just believable but unavoidable.

And second, it’s a classic plotline to have a girl having to choose between two boys, one "good" and the other "bad". And superficially, that’s what we have here: David as the "good" one, and Tam as the "bad". Classic plotline, and one I am rather uncomfortable with. Except – Tam isn’t bad. Yes, he oozes sexuality in a way that made me a little uncomfortable given the "11+" on the cover, but the more we get to know him … well, I won’t say any more.

Everything you though you knew … whether it’s about faeries or about the clichés of YA fiction … get ready to think again.

When is book two out?

P.S. I Love You - Cecilia Ahern

2009-06-05T10:41:00.000-07:00

I really enjoyed this book. I like chic lit anyway because it tends to be cheerful, to have characters I can relate to (i.e., normal people), and because it’s set in the world I live in (or something like it). It focuses on real people with real problems – in this case, most notably, how you cope when the love of your life has just died and you’re not yet 30. Sounds heavy, but it’s not – I never felt that the main character’s situation was trivialized in any way, and yet this is a really fun read.

I also like that this book has rather less (obvious) sex compared to most chic lit I’ve read. Maybe that’s an Irish thing? Either way, it works for me as it means I don’t have to try so hard to suspend my own moral values in order to enjoy the story. Certainly the book doesn’t feel very Irish – this doesn’t feel like someone writing about Ireland, just about home, and people are the same all over the world.

I sometimes complain about unrealistic coincidences in novels, and there was one little one in this book – but then, I think it gets away with it, because it’s not important to the plot and it’s really funny. And of course, coincidences happen all the time in real life.

Another thing I liked in the book was its attitude to work. Work in this book is not merely something you put up with so you can go out and party. Well, it is to start with – but part of the character’s journey is that she learns for the first time the joy of having the right job and doing it well.

I also really liked the ending. This book is not predictable, and as with the rest of the book, it didn’t go with the obvious twee answer. But it’s a happy ending and very positive.

One more thing about this book that amazed me – I can’t believe she was only 21 when she wrote this! I found it really thoughtful and perceptive, and definitely not the writing of someone who only got published because her dad was the prime minister! Ah, what have I been doing with my life ...

Home Again

2009-05-28T09:16:00.000-07:00

Hmmm, haven't posted for a while ... I think other than stuff I've read, the last post was half way through "Rain". And I appear not to have read anything since last August. Well, here's an update.

My writing partner and I finished "Rain". It's a story about two people in a phone box waiting for the rain to stop. And ... that's it. It's not perfect, but there's stuff in it that I really like. I guess the point is, it was a pretty extreme thing to attempt (the whole thing takes place in the phone box) but I think it kind of works. Following on from that, we challenged each other to write a story that's mentioned briefly in Rain. That was fun - I think we gave each other a week to write it, and mine ended up a fairly long 20,000 words.

Then in November I did NaNo again. Yes, wrote another novel. Put like that it sounds so simple! It was called Teacher, it wasn't as good as Home, but I did try some different things in it. For some reason I decided not to do ScriptFrenzy again this year though. I guess I was busy with other things somehow.

And on the reading front, I haven't actually read another novel since last August ... at least, not until this week ... but that's another post.

What I have worked on quite a bit since this time last year is Home. I mentioned that I'd actually read it, and then I'd given it to other people to read. One of them was my dad. To put this in context, my dad is actually a real writer, so showing it to him felt like quite a step.

And the amazing thing was, he actually quite liked it. In fact, he liked it so much that he's been helping me work on it since then. I've added a few bits, taken out a lot of bits. That 63,000 words? A long-distant memory, and now I'm worried it's not going to end up novel length at all. And it's hard work, re-writing, cutting, getting it right. It hurts too - cutting stuff I really like. Until I read the old version and the new side-by-side, and realized he was absolutely right. That's what you get for working with a professional!

We spent 3 days together in February and after a lot of effort, came up with a revised version of the first six chapters. To my amazement, dad has posted these on his website. I'm particularly chuffed by what he wrote about it - the comment about the characters means a lot to me, because what he describes is quite deliberate and is one of the main (conscious) ways in which my Christian faith affects what I've written. Feel encouraged to read it here and let me know what you think.

Since then we've worked via the internet and phone (technology is wonderful!) and finished two more chapters; chapter 9 is nearly there, and I'm working on 10 and following. Very exciting! And very hard work. But oh so worth it. Much harder than writing it in the first place. But the end product is much better too. Coming soon to a bookshop near you? I highly doubt it, but you never know ...

About a Boy – Nick Hornby

2008-08-19T11:02:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favourite films ever, so I’ve been curious for a while for how the book would compare. It’s inevitable that when you watch the film first you see all the characters as they were in the film; but fortunately in this case the characters in the film seem pretty close to the book so there were no nasty shocks. It was interesting to see where the film had taking things from the book, and where it had gone its own way. There were places where dialogue had been shifted from one character to another, which was particularly interesting.

The two diverged more as the book went on, so that you miss out on the brilliant scene at the school concert. That said, the book instead has this striking trip of Marcus and Ellie to Cambridge the day that Kurt Cobain kills himself (Ellie in the book is a huge Nirvana fan).

There’s probably more in the book of Marcus and Ellie, which is good. There is a really good commentary on Ellie’s need to rebel and feel angst which ends up being largely manufactured. The relationship between Will and Rachel is different too, and perhaps because of that, Will doesn’t have the epiphany he has in the film. Ah, so Hollywood, isn’t it?

Another thing the book brings out which the film doesn’t is the real root of Fiona’s problems, and in particular, the extent to which Marcus is responsible. This is a good area to touch upon. It’s not just that she’s a single parent; it’s perhaps a more realistic view on what children are like than most of what we are exposed to. I understand Nick Hornby used to be a teacher; he certainly seems to have a teacher’s unromantic and acute observation of the nature of children. I like that.

The book cuts between a chapter of Will’s point of view and a chapter of Marcus’s. This works fairly well, but feels a bit rigid compared to the film – there are some great bits in the film where one person’s voiceover cuts straight to the other’s with comic effect, and while occasionally the book gets this effect by switching chapters and going back, it’s not quite the same.

At the end, I felt that the book reached a slightly different conclusion from the film. The book implies that in order to survive, Marcus has to become a sheep. That’s not my experience; I prefer the Robert Frost view (Two paths diverged in the woods, and I … I took the pass less wandered by; and that has made all the difference). The main conclusion of the film is the brilliantly un-Hollywood idea that “couples aren’t the future” – or at least, aren’t everything. And the wonderful bookending of the film with John Donne (Jon Bon Jovi)’s “No man is an island” isn’t in the book.

Inevitably I’m going to read something like this and compare it to the film. Usually the book wins hands down. In this case I wouldn’t want to say either way, both had good bits the other lacked, and it was definitely worth getting to know both. Definitely the best Nick Hornby book I've read, and by some margin. Great film, good book.

Man and Wife – Tony Parsons

2008-08-19T10:38:00.001-07:00

This is the sequel to Man and Boy, which I found disappointing. I actually thought this book was better, mainly because the characters felt more rounded – in particular, the ex-wife is less unremittingly unsympathetic.

The centre of the story in this book is the main character, Harry, running into problems in his relationship with his new wife. This was good, but I thought it raised a couple of questions that could have been explored a bit better. For example, the stresses of work and how that affects the relationship, and perhaps the different assumptions that apply when it’s the wife’s work as opposed to the husband’s work. There were points where I thought surely the characters would talk about this a bit more than they do.

I didn’t entirely believe in the man’s feelings when he was starting – or not quite starting – an affair. It all seemed very matter-of-fact, when I’d have imagined him agonizing a bit more, and probably having to feel more upset (or more enamoured) in the first place. I could sort of understand the reasons why the main character and his wife’s relationship starts to break down, but only sort of. Part of the motivation was jealousy, and I thought perhaps more could have been made of that too, where it comes from and how it affects the relationship.

Another topic the book skirted around was the question of whether an affair is an affair if it doesn’t involve sex. I thought the book could have made a lot more of that.

I was glad to find that the conclusion of the book was more positive than the first. It’s a shame that it takes a bit of a deus-ex-machina to get them back together, but at least they do get back together. I didn’t like the presumption that they needed to have children together in order to be a proper couple. (Worse, it’s reinforced by comparison with two other couples who are struggling to have children together).

I also thought it was interesting that a couple of fairly major story threads – his mum’s breast cancer, and his career – are not resolved. Ok, things don’t get neatly tied up in real life, but I’d have thought that in a book you either have to resolve them or at least somehow show that people are living with things as they are. Maybe Parsons was planning another sequel?

Can You Keep A Secret? – Sophie Kinsella

2008-08-11T12:01:00.000-07:00

I borrowed this from a friend, who was introduced to the author – or at least her Shopaholic series – by her brother. That’s right, I’m not the only bloke in the world that reads chic lit and enjoys it.

I’ve not read any of her stuff before, but I really enjoyed this. I particularly liked the male character, Jack, who – for once – I could really sympathise with. Yes, he’s rich and handsome, of course, but he has emotional depth: he’s been a recluse for four years since his business partner and best friend died, and when he comes back, he barely recognizes the business in which he made his name.

What else did I like about this? It’s funny. There are some great comic moments (Jack’s brutal exposure of protagonist Emma’s show-off perfect cousin is brilliant), some comic characters (the increasingly psychotic posh flatmate Jemima) and some drop-dead embarrassment moments, which nonetheless manage to be funny rather than just painful (Alan Partridge this is not).

I also liked the fact that there was a hint of realism in what the relationship between an office junior and a millionaire CEO would look like. They live in different worlds, and the novel gives a taste of that.

I like the fact that as the book goes on, Emma too reveals hidden depths. Okay, she lied about getting a C in her maths GCSE (which isn’t much of a qualification these days) and has no idea what NATO stands for, but as a marketing trainee it turns out she has real potential precisely because she’s real and unpretentious (but not unaware of the world around her). That also means that she and Jack have a real reason to relate to each other rather than just because the story needs them to.

Ok, as with pretty much any book these days it’s not particularly in tune with my ideas on sex. I suppose these days it’s something that Emma actually goes out with Jack twice before they sleep together, and that she is sensible / realistic enough to take condoms on her hot date; but it would be nice to get away from the cliché that all relationships automatically start with lots of great sex.

But the real message of this book for me is that opening yourself to other people and letting them into your secrets maybe isn’t such a disaster as it might seem. I can agree with that.

Fun, funny, but not brainless.

My Favourite Wife – Tony Parsons

2008-06-22T00:27:00.000-07:00

Only published this year, this one. I was lucky to find it in the library: I was only the 3rd person to borrow it.

One of the first things that struck me about this book was how similar it is to the book I just read by the same author, Man and Boy. Major plot elements such as the unfaithful dad, the tough old dad dying of lung cancer; and minor details, such as mouths “fitting” for a kiss and Westerners who are “into the bamboo”. I know I have a tendency to re-use or revisit ideas in what I write, but since none of it is published I can just see that as different drafts where I’ve changed the story, or whatever – I just assumed you couldn’t do this in published books.

But having said all that, I think this is a much better book than Man and Boy. The characters are more believable and the plot feels less contrived. In particular, I like the fact that the main characters really aren't that sympathetic. He's a corporate lawyer, for a start. And the wife is persuaded to move to Shanghai as a quick route to her husband becoming a partner, and a way to keep up the payments on their big house in leafy Hampstead of somewhere.

The wife’s response to finding out her husband is having an affair is much more sympathetic than in Man and Boy. First she wants to walk away, but then she decides they have to stay together to look after their daughter. Later she starts a relationship on the side of her own - this is only hinted at. But in the end, the couple manage to work things through. In the end it makes the point that marriages can survive all sorts of betrayal and that they are worth holding on to.

The man’s relationship with his Chinese woman also feels quite realistic – he knows he’s doing the wrong thing, but feels he’s “in love” with her. And at the same time, he still loves his wife and doesn't want to loser her. Men, eh? You don’t really feel sympathetic for him, but you can see how it happens.

There was another interesting point which is worth commenting on. When the wife announces that she’s not going to leave her husband despite what he’s done, she says it’s because her relationship with her daughter is more important than her relationship with him, and always has been. I think that’s wrong. I was taught that the relationship with each other in a married couple should be even more important than the relationships with children. This point isn’t brought out at all in the story – maybe the author assumes the woman’s view is natural or right or ok – but it raises an interesting point. Faithfulness is not just about sex. Could it be argued that the woman elevating her daughter above her husband is in itself a form of marital betrayal?

But the best thing about this book is its portrayal of modern China, and the way that “the West” relates to it. It’s very sad to think about the origins and ideals of the Communist Party in its early days and how it’s all come to this – a society where everything is for sale, everyone wants a part in the capitalist dream, and workers are cheaper to replace than machines. Like “The Jungle” or somehow even worse. And then the different attitudes of the lawyers – those like Devlin who believe that this is all for the good, those like Mad Mitch or Nancy Deng who are sickened by the corruption and exploitation, and those like Shane who are doing their best to enjoy their privileged position without asking too many ethical questions. As a newcomer, the main character has to decide which of these paths to follow, and the best of the book is about how he does that.

Man and Boy – Tony Parsons

2008-06-16T12:04:00.000-07:00

I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I’d hoped. It was pretty good, I just found it rather depressing. I guess when a couple separates a happy ending is impossible, so what did I expect?

One or two other aspects of the story didn’t quite convince me. The man’s experience of primary school – or rather, his son’s – sounded a lot like my memory of primary school, but didn’t sound much like my experience of taking my son. Is that the difference between being 5 at school and being 10, I wonder?

I also wasn’t convinced by the character of the wife in particular. It felt to me like several of the main characters were made deliberately unsympathetic: the wife, her new boyfriend (semi-separated), and the main character’s new love interest’s ex-husband (and the father of her daughter). I guess if the premise starts with the main character committing adultery, you have to work a lot to make them sympathetic. But I don’t think it’s necessary to paint everyone else black in order to make him look better.

I also felt the book failed to answer the biggest question it asked. The main character sees from the example of his father-in-law what happens when a man drifts from failed relationship to failed relationship, leaving children behind each time. He sees it in himself, the desire for one more chance to do it right. And he then moves into another relationship. The book tries in many ways to make clear that this new relationship is different – but isn’t that what they always say?

Where the book works best is in the relationships between the main character, his son, and his dad. And of course that’s really the heart of the book. That much I can believe – the contrast between generations of the man and his dad, who fought in the war. It’s a great subject – what does it mean to be a man these days? Not what it meant a generation ago, for sure.

There were other parts of the book I enjoyed too. The relationship between the main character and his new girlfriend, for example, and the brief descriptions of his work. Some good themes; but somehow not quite as good as it could have been.

In the Skin of a Lion – Michael Ondaatje

2008-06-04T05:23:00.000-07:00

I was inspired to read this by a passing comment on another novel – that the other novel was the best portrayal of the relationship between a man and his work since this book (I can’t remember the exact words).

The book isn’t a single story, but a series of seven shorter pieces. Each describes a significant fragment of the life of one of the characters, although two of them happen to other people. The structure isn’t obvious as you read it, but they do fit together in the end, even if only loosely. But each of the stories works on its own; for me the structure was secondary.

For what feels like a pretty literary book, I found this really engaging and easy to read. The writing style in particular is interesting. Parts of it make good use of fragments to paint details of a scene rather than trying to describe it in full sentences. That might sound hard to read, but it’s not. I can see I’m going to have to watch myself now if I don’t want to copy this quite distinctive style!

I also enjoyed the subject matter. Several of the sections are about men at work (it was that aspect of the book that prompted me to read it). The first section is about a boy growing up remembering his father mainly through working with him – an experience that is sadly a lot less common today. Another section describes the same character helping build a tunnel, and then later working in a tannery; this reminded me a lot of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (a book I recommend frequently).

It’s also interesting as a description of what was then still a very young country (it’s set in and around Toronto during the early 20th century). Again, like The Jungle. It was a time when large immigrant communities seem to have kept very much to themselves (or depending on your perspective, seem to have been largely shut out of anywhere else). Given all the current fuss about “integration” it’s interesting to think about how much the US and Canada seem to have changed within a couple of generations of the times described in this book. Are things really so different now, or do we just need to be more patient?

Sally – Freya North

2008-05-30T01:21:00.000-07:00

I got this out of the library because I’d really enjoyed her latest book, Pillow Talk. This was her first. Always interesting to see where a writer’s come from.

To start with, I have to say, it was disappointing. The two main characters, Sally and Richard, are in the middle of sex when the book starts, and for the first half of the book, they don’t seem to do much else. And of course it’s all absolutely fantastic. Yeah, right. Then he tells her he loves her and she goes mental, so they both run off and have (bad) sex with other people. What on earth is that about?

The main characters aren’t terribly sympathetic, at least not to start with: the man is a total poser, and the woman seems to want to reinvent herself as a complete bitch. I have no idea why. He is an architect (like the main character in Home – is that cliché?), she is a primary school teacher (albeit that her school sounds in many respects more like a secondary school). That’s probably a cliché too, I’ll have to watch out for that one. Still, at least we get to see their work.

I think the thing I liked least in this book was a conversation where a friend of the main character confesses that she has stopped taking her contraceptive pills and is concealing the fact from her husband – she knows he doesn’t want to have children yet but feels she is ready. And the female character sees this as “wisdom”!

But half way through, maybe three-quarters, somehow, the book picks up. Once the two main characters fall apart and are wondering whether to get back together again, the story starts to work. We start to get deeper into the characters and see them more sympathetically. As with Pillow Talk, the characters’ main problems don’t stem from stupid misunderstandings but from bigger issues – attitutes and expectations. I guess Sally’s biggest problem is she needs to grow up and stop being a stupid cow. Fortunately, she does.

I guess at a high level, the story works. The characters’ relationship starts off as a “fling”. As the relationship gets deeper, so do the characters; and Sally at least has a lot of thinking to do when things start to get serious. It’s interesting to read about commitment phobia in a woman – all credit to the author for reversing what’s normally seen as a male trait.

Overall I’d have to say this is not a patch on Pillow Book, but the books are not without similarities, and I haven’t been put off reading another Freya North.

Long Way Down – Nick Hornby

2008-05-19T22:38:00.000-07:00

The setup and premise for this book are fantastic. Four people meet on top of a tower block on new years’ eve. They have nothing in common, but they are all there for the same reason: to throw themselves off the top. Very black, of course, but very funny. Very much my sense of humour, and very much my kind of story. Most of the story is about the same four characters, although they move from one situation to another. Bit like The Breakfast Club for Goths?

The characters take it in turns to narrate, which is interesting. Each has a different voice, which comes across in the way they talk; it’s not overdone, but they are each noticeably different which is good. The characters are each real and believable, and all flawed (some more than others, but isn’t that right?) which I like. Occasionally one of the characters at least talks to the reader, which is an amusing touch, but then that character is a bit loopy anyway.

The story feels believable too; it’s funny, but it’s not fantasy. It doesn’t have a tidy Hollywood ending, where somehow everything that brought them to this point is resolved. Instead, they have to learn to carry on living the lives they have. This is for me more positive: this is life.

There’s a great quote where one of the characters mentions an interview he read with someone who survived throwing himself off the Golden Gate Bridge. He said that two seconds after he jumped, he realized that he didn’t have any problems in life that he couldn’t do something about – other than the one he’d just given himself by throwing himself off the bridge.

The lack of a Hollywood ending is ironic since the story I most associate with Nick Hornby has the most unbelievable Hollywood ending ever. Yes, it was non-fiction – I’m thinking of Fever Pitch, of course – but winning the title on the last day of the season by winning 2-0 at Anfield? And with a late late goal from an unlikely source? Come on. That's every sports movie cliché ever! If the lack of a conclusive ending is typical of the author, it’s rather amusing, perhaps ironic. But then, fiction is under the obligation of being believable – real life is under no such obligation.

And did I enjoy it? Yes, I suppose I did. Given the great premise, I didn’t find it disappointing.

The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemmingway

2008-05-12T11:06:00.000-07:00

Ok, this is a long short story rather than a novel, but it was a single (small) volume at the library. I’ve not read any Hemingway before, so I thought it would be interesting.

This is a great story. I think it’s really well known, and I can see why. I felt it started slowly, it doesn’t get going until the man goes to sea, but equally, I can see why the first bit is there.

And then you’re into the main story, and it’s a great story. It has that theme that I love and can really associate with of overcoming a stronger foe using wits and bloody-mindedness. Alongside that is the idea of the value of experience and age. It reminds me of various stories I’ve read about mountaineering, pitting ones wits, skill, and determination against a mountain, not to conquer it but to walk up and down it and live to tell the tale.

I guess it’s partly because it’s a story rather than a novel, but I also liked the pared-down nature of the heart of this story – one man, on his own.

At its heart, I think this story is about what it means to be a man – or at least, one perspective on that. This is probably as male as writing gets.

How To Be Good – Nick Hornby

2008-05-12T10:47:00.000-07:00

A change from all that chic-lit. Nick Hornby has been described as the male equivalent – lad lit, or, better, dick lit. I got this from the library because it was the only one of his they had at the time; I was looking for High Fidelity or About a Boy (I love that film). Anyhow.

This story didn’t really work for me. It had some good bits in, particularly the bits about church, but it felt like having come up with a good idea, the author didn’t know where to take it. Which was a shame as I enjoyed reading most of it. The relationship between the main characters was oh too believable, as were the different reactions of the two children. And the constant theme “what does it mean to be good” – although fairly heavily laid on, raised some interesting questions. But without offering any answers, the overall effect felt rather negative and muddled.

On the positive side, I do think that reading this prompted me to be a bit nicer to my wonderful wife, so that’s not a bad thing. And this isn’t going to put me off reading some of his other books.

The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy – Fiona Neil

2008-05-09T08:28:00.000-07:00

The book conjures up really well the experience of being a stay-at-home mum, which is a million miles from the idyll that those on the outside sometimes thing it is. I know, I’m married to one! And it pokes fun at a number of stereotypes that are familiar from the school gates in affluent areas: Alpha mum, the ultimate pushy parent (her male alter-ego runs the PTA at my son’s school); Smug Mother Of Girls, who looks down on parents whose sons aren’t well-behaved and self-contained like her daughters (my wife knew two or three of these, but they all had boys as their second children, after which one commented, “boys are different, aren’t they?”).

However there’s more to the book than just the experience of being a mum. The main character is struggling in her marriage (who wouldn’t, with three boys to look after) and tempted to start an affair. One of her best friends is simultaneously involved in an affair with a married father-of-four. While the story is fun and deliberately so, I thought it dealt with this subject very well. The reasons why each of the characters are drawn into adultery are quite believable, and the inevitable outcome is made very clear.

There’s also a very interesting thread in the story comparing the main character, who gave up a high-powered job to be a stay-at-home mum, with her mum, a proto-feminist who adamantly clung to her position in work. The book makes quite clear that there are no easy answers to this dilemma and that the outcome is always weighted against the woman. On the surface of it, this argument seems week, in that while women face an impossible choice between children and career, most men have that choice made for them; but I’ve done enough game theory to know that choice is not always a good thing. But I digress. On this subject, the book occasionally borders on the preachy, but it never gets heavy. On the positive side, I don’t feel the book comes across and anti-men in any way (something I’m quite sensitive to); a couple of the male characters actually come across quite positively, which I always like to see.

The main character is very well drawn. She’s quite useless and disorganized, but you can see why; it’s quite believable that she used to be brilliant in a different role, but as a mum, she’s a square peg in a round hole. However stupidly she behaves, I still manage to feel sympathetic towards her.

Ultimately the book descends into farce, which is always a good way to finish up :) And we get a happy ending which makes sense and does not feel deus-ex-machina. Okay, there’s one detail at the end that I didn’t believe (where the protagonist accidentally sits on phone and dials her husband who is therefore able to listen in to a crucial hour of the action – yes, that actually happened to a friend of mine, but that doesn’t make it believable). But that isn’t critical to the plot, it just helps round it off a bit.

So in summary, I enjoyed this book, which is a wonderful mix of social commentary, satire, and madcap humour. It feels real and yet still works as an enjoyable diversion. This is what books about parents should be like.

Pillow Talk - Freya North

2008-05-05T01:55:00.001-07:00

I liked this book. From the beginning all the characters feel real and contemporary. I particularly liked Petra and her work colleagues. I like the fact that we see both Petra and Arlo at work, and that we can see they’re good at their jobs. I liked the fact that it’s not generally misunderstanding that keeps them apart, but feelings and past experience. I liked that all the characters are believable and none of them are simply bad – even Miranda the teacher is quite sympathetic, and although she behaves badly, we understand why.

I liked the fact that the plot is not a simple story of them getting together, but has other elements driving the characters: Petra getting to grips with her work and Mrs. McNeill’s legacy; Arlo learning to forgive himself. The story has more twists and turns than the classic model of the characters meeting, falling apart and coming together at the end.

I don’t like that it shares the modern sexual morality that any kind of romantic relationship between adults must involve sex. However, I do like the fact that most of the sexual relationships depicted in the piece (Arlo and Miranda, Rob and Petra, Petra’s parents with other people) are shown to be quite distructive.

There are a couple of coincidences in the book which feel a bit artificial. Petra getting on so well and so quickly with Jenn, and in particular, Arlo’s ex-bandmate happening to have Petra’s old parental home on the market. However none of these are central to the plot so they’re forgiveable.

I like that neither find in each other a miracle-cure either for past traumas or for their differing sleep problems. They have to continue to live with these problems, but at least they can help each other through them. For me, that’s far more realistic and romantic than a magical resolution. It comes from the fact that both of the characters are properly three-dimensional: both have other things – perhaps even more important things – in their lives than just finding a partner.

I like the way one or two characters move in or out of the novel; Rob disappears, Jenn appears. Again, like in real life, where the cast isn’t so tight that people can’t move in and out.

It felt to me reading it like the author actually knew about and was passionate about what she was writing about: London, North Yorkshire, Jewellery; perhaps also music and teaching.

And it’s also kind of encouraging for me that this novel contains major plot elements that are very similar to those in two of my NaNo novels (The Stranger, Home). They’re obviously not dumb ideas – although I have to hope they don’t become clichés!

The Trouble with Marriage – Debbie Holt

2008-05-05T01:54:00.000-07:00

I found this book disappointing – it didn’t help that the last two books I’d read were the brilliant Addition and Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

Why was it disappointing? I felt it lacked humour and – probably critically – it didn’t really speak to me about real life. I struggled to believe the central relationship, and there were a lot of characters I didn’t quite “get” – some who felt a little 2D. It didn’t help that most of the plot twists felt overly telegraphed. (The exception – the pregnancy – gave me a real smile).

I actually found it quite depressing, it made me feel quite insecure about my own family relationships. It probably wasn’t intended to provide a serious commentary on what it means to be a man or a woman, but I didn’t think it was terribly positive on either point, particularly regarding men. I’m a bit sensitive about that, being a man myself.

Its handling of domestic abuse was perhaps the most real part of the story – with sympathy for the guy as well as unconditional condemnation, but it was still simplistically resolved – he kills himself. What does this say? That sad though it is, the only remedy is execution?

The book’s reflection on the way divorce affects children was also fairly realistic – the page where the teacher asks the children what they could have if they had one wish was probably the best in the book. Several of them say they want their dads to come home, and cry; whereupon the heroine starts crying too and says she wants her husband back.

I also didn’t like the “country life” idyll of the setting, nor the main character’s attitude to her work. I’ll never have much sympathy for a character who says “I just can’t do maths” – at least not if she’s working as a learning support assistant. And I didn’t like the book’s attitude to mental illness – it’s merely used as a plot device for explaining a character’s unpleasant behaviour, with no indication that anyone can actually live with mental illness and strive to be a complete human being.

Yes, it had a happy ending, but I found that unsatisfying too – they don’t really work out their troubles, just each realizes the other doesn’t wants the marriage to end. In a sense, it falls into its own trap – the characters just live happily ever after again, although there is some hints of growth on Tilly’s part (more independence) and perhaps on Robin’s (he accepts she was right and he was wrong on a business matter). And it always winds me up when a large part of the plot of a book resolves around a simple misunderstanding and the two MCs being too stupid and stubborn to talk to one another. I suppose at least this makes the valid point that it’s good to talk. But come on – there can’t be two characters in the world more stubborn than me and my wife, and we can still talk to each other. It’s what happens when you do talk that’s the problem!

Ultimately I’m being unfair on this book, trying as I am to judge it on how it reflects the human condition. That reflects what I wanted it to be; it’s only trying to be one-level-up-from-M&B level fluff, and in that regard I can’t really comment on it.

The other thing that really affected me in this was it made me wonder to what extent Home shows a lot of the same faults. Actually, that’s not bad, if I’m depressed that my book might not be head-and-shoulders better than a fairly well-selling published novel! But I won't go into the details here.

Addition - Toni Jordan

2008-04-28T10:52:00.000-07:00

A bit of a departure for me, reading something contemporary - this novel only came out last month! I read the blurb for it in the Waterstones magazine (it was part of their “new voices” promotion) and thought it sounded brilliant. I wasn’t remotely disappointed - it IS brilliant.

The main character, Grace, is obsessed with counting things. What this book does is show you the world through Grace’s eyes – through which her obsession makes perfect sense. And it works; everything is well enough described that you get into the character. What also makes Grace such a great character is that she has no pretensions; she has the courage to see the world as it is, not as everyone else says we should. The book’s matter-of-fact style fits Grace’s character very well.

On the whole, it’s a happy story – while Grace understands the restrictions her condition places on her life. I did find the two chapters where she’s on antipsychotic drugs really disturbing, but that’s kind of the point. For me they contained a strong parallel with the strong feelings I have on the ADHD / Ritalin debate.

I guess I responded particularly to Grace, the quirky protagonist, because I’m a bit weird myself - weird, I think, being a word that’s used for people who see no value in conforming to other people’s expectations just for the sake of it. The story is about embracing who you are, accepting being different.

It’s a fairly simple story – by the nature of it, Grace’s world doesn’t have room for many other people, but the people she knows are all convincing characters, as she is. The boyfriend she meets is sympathetic, but in a believable way. Grace’s psychiatrist sees medication as a way of making Grace’s world a happier place – within her own narrow perception of happiness; very believable. Most of the story is about Grace, her world, her life. Everyday things seen through Grace’s particular viewpoint. But that is also part of the charm of the book. Like A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, this book is a hymn to the everyday.

Reading Journal: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

2008-04-28T03:05:00.000-07:00

I was recommended to read this book as part of a lent course at church. The course talked about weaving faith into everyday life, and gave as an example the way that Solzhenitsyn (and a couple of other Russian writers) do this in their work. They suggested several books including War and Peace, but I went for this one as it’s very short!

I found this book really uplifting. Yes, it’s about a guy who lives in a forced labour camp in some very cold part of Russia during the Stalin era. But it’s a happy book: the day that it describes is a happy day. Even in that situation, the main character has found happiness; and in simple things (work, bread) that many of us take for granted. How inspiring.

I loved the bits describing the inmates at work. The main character finds work fulfilling, as I do. For him, it’s a form of escape from camp life. It reminded me of the phrase “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work sets you free) on the gates at Auschwitz. In that context, sick; in the context of this book, it makes sense. The book also portrays the way the men develop a strong team spirit; they have to in order to survive. When they work, each has his different role, each of them makes a contribution.

I liked the way the book expressed faith. Not in a preachy way at all, but more in terms of what faith does for people. One of the characters is a Baptist. He tries to live out Paul’s writing that imprisonment helps him to focus on his faith; he’s quiet and happy. But I also found that the general attitude to imprisonment, materialism, and work was something that as a Christian I should really aspire to – even if it’s not expressed in Christian terms. All the better because it’s not, actually. I was challenged particularly by this, that maybe I should try to do the same in my writing. It’s certainly inspired a couple of the scenes in “Rain”.

I love the way this book shows humanity at its best and worst, and both faces are totally recognizable. I’ve never been in a labour camp but still, many of the details felt familiar. Parts reminded me of school: being given work details on detention, scrounging for crisps from other students or doing errands for them. Parts reminded me of work: one character gets a parcel from his family, and has to give bits of it to umpteen people along the way to ensure that he sees the parcel at all; at work, people like me do work that other companies pay for (I write software), and then a whole bunch of other people in the company (finance, account managers, marketing, CEO, …) take a cut of that money.

Yes, I loved this book and I have already recommended it to loads of people. In some way it’s probably changed my life.

Meta-note: I’ve read a few books recently (three in the last week!) and I thought it would be good to start keeping track of what books I read and what I think of them. Maybe even what I’ve learned from them. This isn’t like writing book reviews - if you want to know what any of these books are about and whether they’re any good, you’ll probably find loads of proper, objective reviews online. These are the exact opposite – this is what the book said to me.

Of course I reserve the right to give up posting these when I’ve got bored with it and not to mention any titles I’m embarrassed about.

Rain

2008-04-18T00:09:00.000-07:00

A couple of posts ago, I talked about my experience during last year’s inaugural ScriptFrenzy, and in particular about the experience of co-writing with a complete stranger. I asked the question: would I do it again.

Well, the answer is yes. This year I’m doing ScriptFrenzy again, and once again, I thought it would be fun to write with a complete stranger on the other side of the world. And I am having the best time ever!

To start with, I should explain what we’re writing. A lot of my favourite films have very tight casts and settings: The Breakfast Club, Twelve Angry Men. I also loved Before Sunrise and The Rear Window. So a year or so ago, I had this idea for a film, which was basically this: Two people meet when they both take shelter from the rain in a phonebox. They meet, they chat … and that’s it. It ends with the sun coming out and them walking away.

Clearly, I’m clinically insane. I thought it would make an amazing film, done well; but I knew it had to be well written otherwise it would be awful; and I was worried that if I tried it, I’d run out of material after 15 minutes. Still, I posted the idea on the ScriptFrenzy website, mentioned that I was looking for a co-writer, and added that I was quite happy to junk the idea if a potential co-writer thought it was dumb.

What actually happened was I got a message back from someone who said she’d love to try to write the phonebox story, as long as we could make it a stageplay. I figured that was a fair compromise, and off we went.

The experience has been nothing short of amazing. We’ve had a great time chatting about it, throwing ideas around. We’ve not agreed on everything, but I can say categorically that the play is much, much better for my co-writer’s input – and hopefully she’d say the same (he says modestly). It definitely feels like the "whole" of our little team is bigger than the sum of the parts.

Not only did we have great fun with the ideas, we’ve both written loads. In fact, we reached the magical 100 page mark on Sunday morning – only April 13th, less than half way through the month. I’m amazed at how productive we’ve both been – it has been truly a joint effort.

And we’re not finished! No sooner had we spent a day basking in the glory of what we’d written than we both found areas (different areas) we felt could be improved, and went back to set about re-writing them.

And is it any good? Well, we haven’t finished yet, and the revision is making it much better. But there are some great moments in it. And the main thing for me is that it actually works. I had this mad idea of a whole script with just two people in a phone box. I never thought I could make it work – make it interesting. But between two of us, we have.

Two people in a phonebox. How on earth could that be interesting? Well, that’s the best thing. Because, in my experience, to my belief, there is nothing more interesting than another human being. And when you strip away everything else – a set smaller than Hitchcock's Lifeboat, two characters, no special effects – all that is left is two people laid bare.

Home

2008-04-15T06:31:00.000-07:00

Last November, I wrote another novel, currently titled Home. It is my fourth novel. That sounds so funny. The basic idea was to write a contemporary reworking of Persuasion, only from the guy's point of view. The main character returns home after 10 years having made a successful career as an architect, only to bump into the woman who dumped him when he was 17, when she was at university and he was only at school. It draws on some of my experiences of going back "home" and finding that the place has changed, and the town I grew up in and that I remember no longer exists. The main character finds the same is true of people. He has to make a choice between living in the past or moving forwards, and to decide what that means in his situation.

I had a great time writing it. The final story is a long way from the original Persuasion; but then, that was the point. And I think it’s my best yet. At 63,000 words it’s certainly my longest. But when I say my best yet, I have to put that in context: I still wouldn’t dare insult any real writer by comparing it with the quality of stuff that actually gets published.

Every year after I’ve done NaNoWriMo, I’ve looked back on what I’ve written and thought about all the things that were really dreadful, the things that would be done so much better in a real, published novel. Then the next year as I write, I think about those things and try to do them better. I didn’t do NaNo with the intention of improving my writing, but I’m sure it’s really helped. It’s also got me reading books on writing, discussing ideas on forums, and various other things, all of which help. Not to mention reading more critically, and generally being a little more aware of what makes good writing good (i.e. better than mine).

This year also marked a first in that I actually dared to sit down and read the whole thing through after I'd written it. I've never done that before. It wasn’t too painful; there were lots of bits I really liked. One day I must look at my first NaNo and see how far I've come! I also sent the whole thing off to a couple of other people to read, another first. So far, two of them have managed to finish it (particular thanks to SomSom who read it first).

In the back of my mind there’s now this thought that if I keep writing and improving, I might one day write something worth reading or even publishing. Then I’d have to decide if that was even what I wanted – all that work revising, re-reading, trying to interest agents or publishers. I can’t see it somehow. Yes, I always wanted to do something creative for a living, even if I thought it would be music rather than writing. But actually, I really enjoy my day job – I like making software that works. Why should I aspire to giving up the day job? It’s easy to say that now, but I bet if I did write something I thought was worthwhile, I’d feel the need to get some kind of “recognition” for it. Curse my vanity.

Still - that’s not really something I need to worry about in the foreseeable future.

A year goes by ...

2008-03-20T02:06:00.000-07:00

I thought I really ought to update this blog. It's not as if I haven't done anything creative in the last 10 months ...

In my last post, I was about to tackle the inaugural ScriptFrenzy. Well, I did find a partner, and we wrote a 20,000 word film script together. Not bad considering we live eight timezones apart and have never met. Our script was for a high school romance, but with an unhappy ending - well, I like things to be edgy and real rather than all hollywoodish. We had particular fun peppering the script with references to The Breakfast Club - I love that film. And while I know I'm not Russel T Davies or John Hughes, there were a few of the scenes we wrote which I really liked.

Writing with someone else was interesting, as we both had (sometimes conflicting) ideas of where the story was going, who the characters were, etc. But of course sometimes those ideas were really good ones I wouldn't have thought of myself, taking the story off in new and interesting directions. The end product wasn't what either of us would have written by ourself, but then, that's the point. And would I do it again? Well, I'll answer that later ...

ScriptFrenzy

2007-05-16T04:15:00.000-07:00

I like to have a project to work on from time to time which is nothing to do with ordinary life. I've finished NaNoWriMo three times, written and recorded an album for FAWM, and even applied the same zero-quality-rush-job approach to writing a prototype of the computer game I thought of in about 1990 and never got around to doing anything with.

So, for my next trick, I'm taking part in the inaugural ScriptFrenzy: a challenge which involves writing a film script (of 20,000 words) in a month. It runs in June and it comes from the same lunatic who created NaNoWriMo (and inspired FAWM). However unlike those, it allows you to enter as a team of two. So, to add to the fun, I'm hoping to co-write a film script with someone else - someone who will have different ideas about what the film is about, where it should go, and no doubt how important spelling and grammar are and what constitutes zero quality. And to make it more fun, rather than trying to persuade people I know to write with me, I'm hoping I'll be able to find someone who I've never met (and will never meet) and who lives thousands of miles away. Isn't the internet great?

So maybe if I'm not too busy planning and writing the script (or doing all those other things like work, family and church with which I fill my life) then I'll post on here how I'm getting on.

I have already found a writing partner (although I've not heard from her for a few days - that's how it goes when you only ever "meet" someone on-line). In fact I've met several other people looking for a writing partner too. Clearly I'm not the only mad one out there. Now we need to come up with a plot ...

New challenge

2007-01-18T02:41:00.000-08:00

My dad is a writer, translator and editor: a professional. I write computer code for a living. Spot the difference. He's written two novels (and a bunch of other stuff). I can claim that I've written three novels, but there's no comparison. That's why I was rather nervous about telling him about NaNoWriMo.

Fortunately, he seemed to get the point of NaNo and he was really impressed that I'd managed it - even more impressed when he found out from my mum that I'd actually done it twice before as well. He was also very keen to see what I'd written. That was potentially embarassing (how well can anyone write a first draft at 30wpm?) but in the end I let him see the first couple of chapters, and then sent him the whole thing.

Now he's read through the first chapter and sent me some suggestions and comments. He pointed out lots of things I could do better, but he also pointed out some bits that he liked. Both are really encouraging: yes, he pointed out things that I'm doing badly, but I understand why they're bad and I believe I know how to make them better - and that's just as encouraging.

So now he's set me a challenge. He's off to Italy for two weeks, and he's asked me to re-write the first chapter (bearing in mind his comments) by the time he comes back. I had been thinking of putting it on the back burner for a while after the crapometer - but stuff that, a challenge is a challenge :)

Snark No Surprise

2007-01-15T00:44:00.000-08:00

Ok, no surprise this time. Miss Snark felt that my story starts too slowly. She's not the first person to say that either and I suspect they have a point. But still, some of the other comments I got are not bad considering what I sent in was only a quick second draft. Question is, can I do any better, and if so, how?

Since sending the excerpt to the crapometer, I've re-written the whole of the first chapter. For anyone who's interested, this is the first five pages or so. Any comments or suggestions on this are welcome and encouraged, good or bad.

It was late September. The sun was sinking behind the mountains, and the first chill of autumn crept through the village of San Gregorio. Lorenzo Compagno sat on the low wall outside the village’s only restaurant – his restaurant – and gazed across the valley. He watched a distant car climbing up the mountainside, past the lights that marked out the Stations of the Cross, over the pass that lead to the Adriatic coast. The Stations led up to a hermitage, high on the ridge. Every Easter Lorenzo would make the trip, stopping at each of the stations to drink and rest. From the summit he would look back at his own village, its clutch of red roofs nestled below the ruins of its castello.

Lorenzo listened to the clattering of knives coming from the kitchen. For as long has he could remember, Lorenzo had lived above the restaurant. His first memory was of his father taking him into the kitchen and teaching him how to chop parsley. He had spent most of his youth working with the old man in the restaurant, serving at tables, learning the trade. All too soon it had been his turn to take over. Now he himself was an old man, and most of the work was done by his sons. But it was still his restaurant; it was his world, everything he knew, and the one place where he could be sure things would always be done just right.

A shiver interrupted Lorenzo’s reminiscences. He stood up and headed into the kitchen. Inside was a scene of frantic but controlled activity. He headed over to Giuseppe, who was carefully sorting through a box of mushrooms.

“Everything under control?” he asked.

“Of course,” Giuseppe replied.

“That’s my boy.” Lorenzo put his arm around his son’s shoulders and squeezed. “Are you looking after Gino?”

“Of course,” Giuseppe repeated.

“And how’s my little girl?” Lorenzo asked, stepping over to where Sophia was chopping an onion.

“Taller than you,” she replied. She put down her knife and embraced him. With him stooped over and her standing upright, it was just about true.

“So what’s your brother got you cooking this evening?” he asked.

“Saltimbocca alla romana,” she replied.

“Alla romana?” Lorenzo said. “Al’ San Gregorio, I hope you mean.”

Sophia said nothing.

“I don’t mind you serving foreign food, but that was your grandfather’s recipe and he invented it here in San Gregorio.”

“Honestly, father,” Sophia said, “Rome is hardly foreign.”

“Apart from they don’t talk like us, they don’t look like us, and they don’t cook like us. No, it’s hardly foreign at all.”

Everyone laughed.

“You know, I heard that there’s a place in Rome that serves pizza with ham and pineapple,” Sophia teased. “Maybe we should do that here?”

“Sure,” Lorenzo said, “and then we can serve sardines Chantilly for dessert.” He shook his head. “The world’s gone mad.”

He turned to the boy Dino, who was filleting a fish. “This place used to be open six days a week,” he said, “and for lunches. Now everyone goes in to L’Aquila to eat foreign rubbish, and we can barely keep the place open four evenings. We can’t open on Mondays, because Giuseppe here wants to spend time with his family, and we can’t open on Wednesdays, because my girl here is going to college. And we don’t serve lunch any more, because now everyone goes in to L’Aquila to work,” he added. “Even my own children.” He looked sad, like a Labrador in the presence of food.

“Come on,” Giuseppe replied. “That’s not fair. You know well enough there aren’t enough customers to keep the restaurant open full time. If we had to pay everyone who worked here, we wouldn’t even be able to open when we do. You know how hard Gregorio works in town.”

“That brother of yours,” his father said. “He’s never been the same since he came back from Argentina.”

“He’s better,” Giuseppe said. “He’s the finest waiter in all of L’Aquila.”

“In all of Italy,” his father replied. “The finest waiter in all of Italy. In my family. And he has to work in L’Aquila.”

“He works here,” Sophia said.

The conversation was interrupted when the inside door of the kitchen opened and the man in question appeared. Gregorio stood in the doorway for a moment, immaculately dressed in black and white, down to the cotton gloves. He looked slightly out of place in the humble, earthy kitchen; when he wore the same outfit in La Pesce d’oro, L’Aquila’s finest eating establishment, he added the final touch of refinement to what was already the glitziest place in town.

“Ah, Gregorio, my boy,” he father said, heading towards him. He pinched the young man’s cheek, then embraced him. “Is everything ready out there?”

“Of course,” Gregorio replied. “I just wanted to check on the wine, make sure we haven’t run out of anything.”

Giuseppe looked up from his work for a moment. “What were you looking for?”

“Ciliegiolo,” he replied. “Giovanni and Francesca will be here, and the Ciliegiolo is her favourite.”

“I think there’s a couple of bottles left,” Giuseppe said. “I had to move them the other day – they’re …” He thought for a minute. “I’ll come with you.” He left the mushrooms, stopped to wash his hands, then headed for the door.

Gregorio followed him, but stopped in the doorway. “Dad? If there’s only a couple of bottles left, you’d better get on to Carlo and order some more,” he said, before disappearing out the door.

“Good point,” Lorenzo mused. He followed his sons out the door.

Sophia finished her chopping, and moved over to a bubbling cauldron of sauce. She lifted the lid and peered inside, then got out a spoon and tasted it. She licked her lips, thought for a moment, then nodded. “Not bad,” she said.

With everyone else gone, Dino spoke up.

“How does Gregorio remember all that stuff?”

“What stuff?”

“Who likes what wine. Who doesn’t eat clams. Who’s favourite kind of pasta is what. When the Mazzinghis come for dinner.”

“The Mazzinghis come here every Tuesday, and Fridays once a month, and on their anniversary,” Sophia explained.

“I know that,” Dino said. “Last year their anniversary was on a Wednesday, and Lorenzo had us open the restaurant specially. But everyone else. He seems to know everyone. Even when Enrico came in, and he’s only been here twice.”

It was Sophia’s turn to feel proud. “That’s the mark of a good waiter,” she said. “It’s all about knowing the people. You know he worked for three years in Buenos Aires? The most gregarious city in the world, he said. Everyone there eats out all the time, and everyone in the restaurant knows everyone else. The waiters never write down your order, they just remember everything.”

“And how do they remember who’s who? I mean, whose is whose?” Dino asked. He had finished filleting the fish, and took the bones and skin over to the bin. He moved over Giuseppe’s box of mushrooms, and continued to sort and clean them.

“He talks to them, listens to them,” she said. “And he knows people. It’s all part of the art. Trying to spot the mood, whether the woman feels like fish or chicken, remembering who likes which sauce. Who talks a lot, who likes to be quiet, who likes which table. You know he was serving in the restaurant here when he was twelve?” she added.

“Giuseppe told me.”

“Even as a boy he always wanted to be a waiter. Here in this restaurant. I think it nearly broke his heart when he had to get that job in L’Aquila.”

“He’s the head waiter at the Pesca d’oro,” Dino said. “That’s the best place in all Abruzzo,” he added.

“Not to Gregorio,” Sophia said. “This is home, remember. But you can’t make a living in a place like this any more. Not full time.”

Dino looked sad.

“What are you going to do when you finish school?” Sophia asked him.

“I’m applying to the cookery school in L’Aquila,” Dino replied. “To be a chef.”

“Of course. It’s a great place,” she added, “you’ll love it there.”

“If I get in.”

“Of course you’ll get in.”

“That’s what your dad said,” Gino added. “My parents say they turn down a lot of people.”

“They turn down people they don’t think are serious,” Sophia said. “You’ve been working here for, what, nearly a year now? There aren’t many other kids your age who can say that.”

The door opened again, and the two brothers walked in, loaded with bottles. Gregorio looked at each one, peered at the cork, then lined them up tidily. A few more went into the fridge; he moved them all around so that the new bottles were at the back. Then he went back to the restaurant, moving among the tables, once more making miniscule adjustments at each one, replacing a fork which wasn’t quite shiny enough.

Snark Surprise

2007-01-08T06:13:00.000-08:00

When I sent my hook for Cheese to Miss Snark's Crapometer, I have to say I wasn't expecting much. I'm not a writer and never have been - English really wasn't my thing at school. Ok, I've written three novels, which is fairly unusual, and I definitely feel that Cheese is the best of them. But that's not saying anything.

But as I read through hundreds of other hooks on the blog and saw them picked apart, I started to get my hopes up. Hook after hook was rejected for the same reasons - reasons which didn't apply to mine. Sure, it had its own problems, but maybe, just maybe ...

And then this happened (#359). She actually liked it. I quote her response:

This is a hook.
The only quibble I have (and it wouldn't keep me from reading pages) is wondering if the inspector is hanging about town (befriended his daughter when he catches them together) or if the inspector is not there for the duration of the novel (return of the inspector imminent).

This is an old trope but it's got a fresh twist with the EU thing.

I had to look up trope. But she thought it was interesting enough to get me to send in the first 750 words. I made the second round! Boy, was I excited! I also got a bunch of good comments. A lot of the issues people mention are things that I actually know I deal with in the book itself, but they just don't come across in the hook, so that's encouraging too. I'm very pleased with myself, and probably a little surprised. Ok, the choice is necessarily subjective and rather arbitrary, and there were some "winners" which I felt were a little lame - but there were a couple of great ideas which didn't make her cut too - #162 and #213 (#209) really struck me.

So, my next problem: like the rest of my novel, my first 750 words were nothing more than a brain dump composed at 30wpm. (You can see them on my NaNoWriMo profile - view excerpt). I hadn't edited them at all - that would have been presumptuous. But I didn't want to send them in like that. Unfortunately, Christmas week isn't the best time for editing - not with three sets of parents to visit and a wife and two children at home. In the end I made time for one revision, then posted it. As it turned out, the deadline for posting it isn't until this Friday - but I didn't know that at the time and didn't want to miss out. Better to get feedback on something which probably isn't the best I'm capable of than get nothing at all.

So, next weekend, hopefully, I'll see what she makes of my first 750 words (in version 2). Watch out for it. My first round number was 359, I won't get a 2nd round number until it gets posted.

However seriously I'm not taking it, I'm really enjoying the whole crapometer process. I've learned a phenomenal amount about writing through reading the excerpts and hooks and the comments on them. Almost, but not quite, enough to make me want to write something else, and see if I can put what I've learned into practice. Or re-write Cheese. At the moment, though, that feels like too much like hard work. I'm currently bogged down half-way through re-writing the first chapter.

I suppose what I should do is run through it doing an 80-20 rule edit, not worry about overcutting and leaving it too short, and see where that gets me. One day ...

Cheese

2006-12-22T06:37:00.000-08:00

So, I won NaNoWriMo - again. What next?

Well, this year I took the unprecedented and slightly scary step of actually telling my dad what I'd done. It's scary because he's a writer for real. But He's been really positive about it - he even wanted to see what I'd written. Now that's a REALLY scary prospect ... a bit like inviting Heston Blumenthal round for dinner.

Also, someone on NaNoWriMo mentioned Miss Snark's Crapometer, so just for fun, I wrote and posted a "hook" for my creation. As, apparently, did everyone else who did NaNo: she's currently busy reading through 600 of them - poor thing. When she gets on to it, mine's #359 - it'll be interesting to see what she says.

Why did I send it in? Well, when I think back on what I wrote during NaNo, there's a part of me that really wants to believe that there's a half decent book in there. Now I'm trying to work out whether it's worth the time and effort to sit down and write it (properly). If I'm honest, I know the answer. Anyone who's read this blog can see I'm not a writer. Or maybe the fact that no-one reads this shows it ... But hey, it's always nice to see what other people think of something you've done.

Anyhow. If there's anyone out there who really can write, check out her site. By the time you've read through 600 hooks and her comments on each of them, you'll have a pretty good idea how at least one little part of the publishing business works. You'll also understand the lot of anyone who spends all day responding to letters from hopeful but pathetic would-be writers. Respect.

In case anyone is interested, this is what I wrote about my "novel", Cheese:

“Only the European Union could send an English health and safety inspector to the heart of Rural Italy.” So says Lorenzo Campagno, patriarch of the family-run village restaurant in remote Santo Stefano. For years he and his children have kept the restaurant open against the prevailing forces of globalization and depopulation, and the restaurant remains at the centre of village life.

Enter restaurant inspector Philip Shuttleworth: fussy, eccentric, and very English. His inspection is picky, but highly critical, and the restaurant is given two months to reform or face a fine that would put them out of business.

Stunned, the family set about revamping the restaurant and its menu to meet the requirements of the report. But the clinical approach demanded by the inspector does not go down well with the customers. As the villagers start to abandon the restaurant, their own communal life falls into decline. To make matters worse, Lorenzo discovers that the inspector has befriended his daughter when he catches them together in the restaurant kitchen.

With the restaurant struggling to attract customers, the return of the inspector imminent, and the village’s very soul under threat, Lorenzo and his family urgently need to find a way to keep the restaurant and the village alive.

Winner!

2006-11-29T01:42:00.002-08:00

I did it again - I finished my NaNoWriMo Novel, all 50,000 words of it, and two days ahead of schedule. That's three in a row! It's nice to see that I can still set myself a target and achieve it. And I'm quite happy with what I wrote, too. I wouldn't say it's any good, but at least I don't hate it (like I did last year).

The story is finished, but there's still room for me to add a bit more. The priest character (who I mentioned in a previous post) appears pretty much from no-where three-quarters of the way through the book, and I think it would add to the overall story if he appeared earlier and more consistently throughout the story. I also still haven't written the scene I mentioned earlier, or a similar scene that appears later in the book. I think both additions would add something besides wordcount to the book, but whether I'll ever get around to it is another question.

But I have to say, I am tempted to go back to my outline, work in the priest, go back to my preface, write out a proper outline for it and re-write it in a more logical order, and then maybe, start working through the body of the story itself and seeing if I can't find the very worst things about it and improve them a little. Who knows?

But the most important thing for me to do right now is to bask in the glory of success. I did it! Hooray!

NaNo: Three-quarters

2006-11-22T04:11:00.000-08:00

Well, things have picked up over the last week. I've made a real effort to catch up and I'm now sitting pretty at a little over 37,000 words, about a quarter of a day's worth ahead of schedule. Go me!

I'm also 1800 words ahead of my 3000-words-per-chapter target. This is a good thing, as the next chapter is in danger of being about two paragraphs long. I have an outline for it - three sentences and 11 words of it. Making those sentences into proper narrative text would take about two paragraphs. What I really need is to imagine a couple of incidents which demonstrate the situation; but that's a bit more difficult.

I suppose I could always write the two paragraphs and move on to the next chapter, which should be easier to bulk out: it's a meeting, so basically a long piece of dialog punctuated with enough description to make it interesting. I'll think about how I can write the tricky chapter properly, though, as it'll be nice not to have to use a gratuitous filler.

It's just as well I'm ahead at the moment. I'm away and very busy this weekend, and I'm not sure how much time I'll have to catch up next week (the final few days!) so I need to get as far ahead as I can.

I'm focusing on quantity in this post rather than quality or substance. And what not? That is, after all, what NaNo is all about. But I do at least feel that the last week's worth has been no worse than what preceded it. I think the two biggest issues with the last few chapters have been a lack of key detail due to a lack of research / knowledge on my part, and dialog which doesn't adequately distinguish the characters involved. Ah well. Maybe that's something I can work on in future. Still, I do feel that I have improved my style in one area: I wanted to avoid long passages describing the characters' inner thinking and feeling, and rather to make their feelings apparent through their actions and conversations. "Show, don't tell," I think it's called. I don't know how good my "showing" has been, but at least there's a lot more of that and a lot less "telling". That's got to be something.

So, one more week to go, and my "novel" is reaching its grand finale. Things are going rapidly downhill, and my characters are about to embark on their heroic last stand together. Yes, it really is that tacky. But how will it all end?

NaNo: half-way update

2006-11-15T05:45:00.000-08:00

It's the 15th today, so in theory I should have written 25,000 words by now. In practice I'm just over 20,000, so I'm a little behind, but no need to panic just yet (just write more).

How's it going? Well, the chapter outlines are proving useful, in that I've managed to write the story thus far and it's gone pretty much as expected. My writing isn't very good, but that's hardly a surprise. I'm also starting to think that maybe the story idea isn't as good as I thought it was, largely because I'm not convinced by a lot of the details. But that could just be because I don't know enough about the subject matter. Note to self: stick to what you know next time. Only I did that last time and it was very very dull. Hmmm...

The first week or so, everything went well, and I managed to stick to my schedule fairly well. That was when the characters are introduced, along with the setting. I was actually quite happy with what I was writing, too.

Then I got to the first problem scene. It involves a health and safety inspector condemning a kitchen which is perfectly clean but doesn't meet regulations. I know a little about food hygiene, but no-where near enough to get the details right, and as a result, the scene is full of vagueness wherever it needed specifics. It took a while to write, not because I kept researching the details (I don't think I can write 50,000 words in a month if I have to research them at the same time - at least, not while keeping a full-time job and a family!) but because I knew what I was writing was rubbish.

That problem, and the attendant feeling of wading through treacle, persisted with the next few scenes, which cover the aftermath of the inspection. I was almost on schedule nonetheless until the end of last week, but then I went away for the weekend and didn't write anything (visiting family is important, even in November). Hence being a bit behind at the moment.

But the good news is, I've moved on from those particular awkward scenes onto ground I'm more comfortable with - two people meeting on a train and getting into conversation. I can't say I'm writing that well either, but there's bad and there's bad, and at least it's flowing.

Thus far I've written the chapters pretty much in order, but I've cut half of one chapter, basically because I didn't feel up to writing it. The story moves ok without it, but I think it's important for character exposition, and also, it makes a point. It's a romantic scene involving a couple in their mid 50s who have been married for 30 years (and have grown-up children who have moved away). Hence me not being able to write the thing - my wife and I are 20 years younger than that and I believe the experience is a bit different :)

It's a shame, though. I thought it would have made a good point. On the whole I think the portrayal of that sort of thing in fiction tends to be unethical and unrealistic - it's usually young and unmarried couples, and it's always fantastic for both partners. I thought it would make a nice change, then, as well as making a moral point, to write a scene with older people who had been married for 30 years and still loved each other - where it's about relationship more than pure pleasure, where it's funny, where things aren't always perfect but are still worthwhile.

But I haven't, because, quite apart from the age issue, I have no idea how to write a scene like that anyway. Oh well, maybe if I run out of words later on, I'll come back to it. I understand there are some good examples in my wife's collection of Jilly Cooper novels ;) And it was her idea to put a scene like that in (albeit probably not with the kind of characters I'm using).

The couple themselves weren't originally part of the story; I introduced them (leading on from my wife's suggestion) because I needed a sub-plot to push the word count. I reckon the story as it is now should hit the required length, but if it doesn't, I have another sub-plot (or at least another character) up my sleeve - the ubiquitous priest. I may put him in anyway, for two reasons: (1) characters can talk to the priest to reveal their feelings as a useful plot device - I'm trying to avoid long passages discussing the inner workings of characters' minds this year - and (2) as with the romantic scene, I think it would make a nice change to have a more representative fictional portrayal of a Catholic Priest - i.e. one who is a law-abiding, respected, and generally helpful member of the community.

So that's where I am. Will I post another update before the end of the month? Who knows ...

NaNo: starting off

2006-11-02T03:34:00.000-08:00

November 1st arrived at last, and with it the opportunity to start writing actual words for my new novel. Actually it feels presumptuous to call it a novel, as if somehow I am implying that my 50,000 words of excrement stand any comparison to the great works of literature. They don't, but that's beside the point.

So I woke up yesterday morning and started writing, and at this point I've completed the preface (about 1400 words) and am just starting the first chapter.

I would have done more, but unfortunately the last couple of weeks of November were so exhausting with work that right now I really feel I need a rest, rather than to launch myself into another mammoth, if rather less technically demanding, task. As a result, I wrote virtually nothing yesterday evening or this morning; precious time that could have been spent typing was not.

Now I'm just hoping that I can perk up and regain some - some Voom, some enthusiasm, some Fundamental Will To Be, whatever you call it - in time to throw myself into the project for the rest of the month.

Time and tide wait for no man - not even in November.

NaNoWriMo III

2006-10-31T07:31:00.000-08:00

I am going to be doing NaNoWriMo again. For the uninitiated, that means I will be attempting to write from scratch a 50,000 word work of fiction during the month of November.

This will be my third NaNoWriMo. I have two goals: to make it three wins out of three, and to write a better novel than my last two. Once again, you can follow my progress here. I also intend to post updates on this blog of how I'm finding the experience, but don't hold your breath! The NaNo server is going to be under a lot of stress for the next month or so, but the links are correct - or at least they were at the time of posting.

Current status: I have a plot which I'm happy with; it's an idea I had several years ago. I also have a brief outline, with a preface and sixteen chapters. This is a first for me, and I'm hoping it will help me with pacing. All I need to do is expand each chapter into 3000 words, and I'll have finished :)

42xx part II

2006-06-05T02:18:00.000-07:00

Still no sign of the wheels I need for the chassis, and my boy keeps prompting me to "put another piece on my engine", so I've added a few more details.

First, I built the bunker and the back of the cab. The hardest part was the curve for the bunker overhang. I made the square bits from thick plasticard, then cut a rectangle of 10 thou and stuck it over the top to form the curve.

I decided this time I'd put grilles on the back window. Very important in real life, otherwise the coal ends up falling into the engine! I made these from a piece of multi-core wire, stripped and split into individual wires (very fine). Then I drilled holes above and below the window with a fine drill bit (0.35mm until I broke it, then .3mm, which I've since lost). The drill action was by hand, since as I mentioned before I don't have a drill. I poked the holes first with a sewing pin to get a headstart.

This was really painstaking work and not worth the result IMO. On the other hand, it would have been easier with a drill, and it would have been easier if I'd started off drilling from the cab side rather than the bunker side. There's an extra line of holes under the right-hand window where I changed plan half-way through and ended up drilling through higher up. You can't see them in the photo because everything's black, and hopefully I can cover them with coal eventually. It would have been easier still if I'd drilled the holes before sticking the cab back in position! Still, it's a nice detail now that I've done it. Must find out where I can buy a micro drill ...

I made two toolboxes to go inside the cab. I cut out the sides from 20 thou, and bent a single piece of 10 thou curved to form the top and front. The lock details were cut from 10 thou as on the 517.

My least favourite part: the firebox. For the 517 I made a rectangle and filed it, but that didn't get the slanted edges which I felt were important on this engine. So I cut out the front and back roughtly, then made two sides, carefully sloped. Finally, the top, slightly bent, and filed at the corners. All made from 60 thou plasticard. The shape is not far off, but I'm not happy with all the gaps. I'll probably fill them with milliput (or polyfilla) later on.

Smokebox door: same process as the one on the 517, just a bit bigger.

Next, on top of the tanks: a feed pipe, made perhaps slightly over-scale from blue plastic-coated wire, carefully bent to shape, and poked through holes drilled in the tank.

Finally, my favourite: tank filler caps. I'd not done these on the 517 as I thought them too fiddly, but having tried it I've changed my mind. Base cut roughtly to shape from 60 thou plasticard and filed to a rough oval; top cut from 20 thou; details on top cut from slivers of 10 thou. Very nice, I think! Now I have to decide whether to make some for the 517 as well.

Funnel

2006-06-05T01:47:00.000-07:00

A bit out-of-order, this post, but never mind.

Despite getting hold of a ready-made funnel from a 14xx, the on the 517 gave me a few problems. I made a nice collar for the funnel out of milliput, but needed to drill it for the screw. When I put the funnel on top, it sat too tall. So I tried to drill the hole wide enough for the funnel, but the rest of the saddle disintegrated. Time to start again.

Next, I noticed that the screw inside the funnel didn't really go far enough into the chassis (no idea why), so the funnel was loose even when the screw was tight. I didn't want to cut the funnel as (a) it's metal and I don't have the tools, and (b) there's a nice rim inside at the bottom which holds the screw. So instead, I made a small rectangle of plasticard, rolled it around the screw, and stuck it into the funnel.

This holds the screw tight just the right height above the bottom of the funnel so that it now fits on tightly. It took a couple of attempts to get the right width - at first the screw wouldn't reach the chassis, but now it's just the right height and fits on nice and tightly. A very satisfying bodge ;) Incidentally, the hand in the photo is my son's.

So finally I had to re-make the collar, so more milliput. This time I attached the body, funnel, and chassis together, and put the milliput around the base of the funnel. Ok, I can't now remove the funnel from the body, but that's no problem really, I should still be able to unscrew the chassis. I put a thin roll around, and pressed it down roughly.

But that didn't quite look right, so I smoothed it down with the bit on the end of a bic biro (to my mind the finest writing implement ever made, as well as the cheapest - I feel uncomfortable with anything else). Nothing like having the right tool for the job ;) Then I trimmed it slightly with a knife to make it nice and even. Very nice! This all happened in between the bits of painting; when I painted the black on the smokebox, the paint went on to the milliput really well. Job done!

42xx part one

2006-05-31T01:01:00.000-07:00

Since I was pretty happy with the outcome of my scratch-built 517 class body, I started work on the project I'd originally been aiming for: building a GWR 42xx tank engine. These were massively powerful tank engines used mainly on coal trains in South Wales. Nearly 200 were built, but you can't buy one off-the-peg so I thought it would make a really good model.

Unlike the 517, I don't have the benefit of a ready-made chassis on this one. I plan to build my own chassis, but I've not yet got hold of the key bits I need (a motor, gears, and a set of driving wheels), so I decided to do things backwards and build the body first. I'll probably regret this later, but it's only plastic so as I found with the milk wagon, I can always do another (better) one if it doesn't work out.

I wasn't happy with the boiler on the 517; I made it from two rolls of 20 thou plasticard, but it ended up with a lot of folds rather than smooth curves. For the 42xx, I used a single layer of 20 thou cut to the dimensions of the actual boiler, then two layers of 10 thou wrapped around the outside. This worked a bit better: the 10 thou is easier to bend, and can just be wrapped around the inner layer and glued. I then held it in place with a rubber band, reckoning that this would tend to force it into a circle, as opposed to clamping it which would try to make various bits flat and the edges more sharply bent. This was a partial success but the boiler still isn't perfect.

The 42xx boiler has one other difficulty compared with the 517: it's not a simple cylinder, rather the back half is tapered. Time for some 'O' level geometry! I won't reproduce the maths here (unless anyone is interested - if you are, please ask, it's not that hard). I drew the shape required on paper with a ruler and pencil, then cut it out and tried it. Then I pritt-sticked it to the plasticard (20 thou), and cut it out using scissors. (Incidentally, for 20 and 30 thou, scissors work far better than a knife; at 10 thou the knife cuts so easily it's not worth it, and at 40 or more the scissors won't work at all). A bit of glue, a while held in clamps, and I had a lovely taper boiler. For the outer layers, I just extended the arc that I had used for the inner layer. This probably isn't geometrically correct, but it worked nicely.

Next I built the tanks, starting with the tank front. I used compasses to trace the circular hole for the boiler, which worked very well; I used the cut-out circle to trace the curve of the smokebox saddle as well. The tanks have sloping tops. I had originally planned to build them from 60 thou plasticard (I just bought some), but ended up doing it as two layers of 30. I cut the outside using a scale drawing stuck on and scissors to cut out, plus a knife and file for the rounded corners. The inner layer was slightly shorter, the idea being that the tank top would fit on top of the inner layer and inside the outer. Cutting the top to fit the boiler wasn't easy (or particularly accurately done), but when I had, it slotted in place very nicely.

The only other difficulty on this part was a curved plate at the top of the smokebox saddle; I made this by sticking two squares of 10 thou plasticard to the bottom of the smokebox (and holding them in place with a rubber band).

More later, including pictures; I took some at this point but accidentally deleted them :(

Painting

2006-05-26T00:57:00.000-07:00

I mentioned before that my painting technique needs work: look at the state of my first attempted milk wagon if you don't believe me. Now I've built a second milk wagon and a 517 class tank engine (earlier posts), so it's time to see if I can do any better.

I started this time by undercoating the whole of both models rougly using a Humbrol black aerosol. Amazingly, I've never used one before (apart from at the legendary "cosmic wheelbarrow" party when I was 18, where we re-painted a friend's wheelbarrow - blue with white cloudbursts and go-faster stripes - and the inside of his garage door). I was amazed at how easy and fast it was, and what a nice even covering it gave - I guess that's the point! The only glitch was at the front, where I held the can too close to the smokebox.

Next I painted over the tanks in green. Very nice! I had to stop before I'd done much more, but next time I had the chance I gave the tanks a second coat, painted all the black bits (smokebox, frames), the rest of the green (boiler etc), brass dome, chimney cap and valve covering, and red buffers. Alas, the effect wasn't quite so good at this point.

So last weekend I rubbed down all the bits with obvious paint drips with sandpaper - just enough to get rid of the drips and rough the surface up slightly. Then I gave those bits a delicate re-coating of paint. It's looking very nice now! It also has a slightly weathered look due to the sandpaper :) I'm currently undecided whether to leave it like that or add a little more paint to cover up the worst of the scratches.

As for the milk wagon, that was a much easier job: brown all over, except black for the brake gear and white for the brake handles (not yet done). The chassis needed two coats, but I hadn't sprayed it first. The body, chassis, and roof are still not attached, but it's nearly there now!

Milliput

2006-05-19T05:23:00.000-07:00

My little engine is almost finished now. The only things it was missing was three small, round components: a funnel, dome, and safety valve cover. All too hard to make out of plastic.

The funnel by fluke I got as a spare from the local model shop (including the crucial screw which will hold it and the body on to the chassis). However it doesn't include the nice moulded bit at the funnel base.

I'm trying lots of new things here, so I thought I'd try to model the remaining rounded bits using some kind of resin. I was going to make a mould with plastiscene and pour something into it, but in the end I changed my mind and decided to use milliput because that's what I could find in town. It's sort of like plastiscene, only you mix it from two different coloured bits (like the chewing gum in Mission Impossible but less explosive) and it sets hard in a few hours.

I didn't like the consistency of it - a bit like dry clay. I shaped it roughly, rolled it, cut it with a knife, then wetted the knife to smooth the edges into shape a bit. This made the milliput a bit smoother, again, like clay. I took about half an hour making the three parts, then came back an hour or so later with the knife and smoothed them down a bit more. Now that they're dry I'll drill out the hole in the funnel base for the screw and put the funnel on.

The individual parts are no more crude than the rest of the model, but put in place they definitely help give the impression of an engine. I even took it in to show my wife when I'd put the three bits on, it looked that good :)

I'm planning to paint it next. Current thinking is I'll spray it all black, then paint over the top of it where needed (green body, brass dome etc.) Then I'll have to add lettering, and decide whether it's worth the expense of brass number plates (£4 for two little bits of metal!) I should also see if the chassis still runs with the body on it at some point - the motor is a tight fit under that firebox ...

Building a better milk van

2006-05-18T03:46:00.000-07:00

I've started a second attempt at my little milk van. I mentioned before that I was unhappy with certain aspects of it, specifically the lack of fit of the body and chassis :) So this time I started off with the chassis (the same one as before) and designed the body to fit on it.

First, though, the chassis needed a tidy-up. The floor had to be extended (with 40 thou plasticard) to match the lengths of the solebars, and I cut buffer beams from 30 thou plasticard. A bit of trimming and the ends matched up nicely ;)

From investigation, I decided that the "ironwork" on the sides and ends of the wagon should fit tightly to the outside of the floor and buffer beams. Thus the side planks should be exactly the same length as the wagon. I cut them first (seven of them), then stuck them to the corner mouldings. The sides are still 30 thou, I still can't cut straight, but the spacing is far better than before as I fitted them one-by-one using a sliver of 30 thou plasticard as a spacer. I also decided I'd have a gap just above floor level, as I thought it would look nice - I don't know if it's authentic, but I think cattle wagons have them, and it would help wash out spilt milk.

With one side built, I have started to put on the "ironwork" and door framing. This time I used 20 thou cut to 1mm widths (however inaccurately). The wagon has double doors which go from floor to ceiling. This surprised me slightly: I might have expected the bottom of the doors to fold down into a ramp, but my Siphon G doesn't do that and it would be harder to do so forget it ;)

More on this project when it happens.

Scratchbuilt engine (part II - details)

2006-05-17T04:34:00.000-07:00

Time to add on some details. The most obvious omission at this point was a smokebox door. I tried to cut a circular piece of plasticard (40 thou) for this, but it came out a bit ovlate - ah well. Then I cut a second piece (thinner, I think, and smaller) for the door. I filed the edges and stuck it on. It was supposed to look like one part as on the model, but actually it looks like a separate door, which is probably closer to reality :) Then I cut hinges and keys from 10 thou plasticard and stuck them on. Not accurate, but not bad for an impression!

Next, the bands on the boiler (including the one which conveniently hides the gap where the boiler meets the firebox). Dead simple: cut a thin strip from 10 thou plasticard, curl around a knife, cut to length and stick in place.

Next I finished the steps - 20 thou backing stuck behind the bit I'd already cut on the side-bar, and 10 thou for the steps themselves. The steps are u-shaped, but made out of a single piece: I measured the width including sides, gently pressed in a knife to create lines where I wanted it to fold, then cut the individual step depths and folded them and glued them to the back. Nice!

Then the two toolboxes on top of the tanks (at least in the 517 pictures I've seen - that's a difference from the 14xx). These are cut from 40 thou plastic with rectangular fronts and arched sides; the roof is 10 thou (single thickness), rounded using the blunt side of a knife blade. The lock is a tiny sliver of 10 thou card - well, I like it anyway :)

This is how far I've got now. My next efforts have to be the funnel, dome, and safety valve cover, which hopefully I'll post when I've done them :)

Scratchbuilding an engine (first attempt)

2006-05-17T04:17:00.000-07:00

In an earlier post I mentioned three spare chassis which I'd got working. What do I do with them? Well, why not build an engine to go on one? I thought about a large-scale Skarloey (from Thomas) but the wheels weren't quite right. So I thought I'd try to build a model of the 14xx's predecessor, the "Wolverhampton 517 class". It could be largely a copy of the 14xx, but with a few different bits where needed. Once again this would mean I had a real 3D prototype to work for most of the time. I've never scratch-built an engine before, but I have the chassis and plastic sheet is cheap, so how far wrong can I go?

First I measure and cut the floor. This was a rectangle of 30 thou plastic with many bits cut out to fit on the chassis. I actually wanted to use 40 thou, but picked up the wrong sheet :( Next I cut the sides to go beneath it (in the hope of adding some strength). This was also long and complicated to do, as I cut the two tops of the ladders out of the same piece. Sticking these to the top did stop it bending quite so easily. Buffer beams next, simple rectangular ones which nicely stuck to the top and sides.

At this point I had a flat platform which I could put on my chassis. Woohoo. A lot of work and not a lot to show for it. What next, I thought?

Next, I decided to do the smokebox saddle. This was carefully measured and then inaccurately cut and glued together to make a 3-sided open box. I then made the smokebox itself. This was two rectangles of 10-thou plasticard, rolled into a cylinder, with joins on opposite sides, and glued together. I'd used a similar trick for roofs, but it doesn't work so well on cylindrical objects. Thankfully it fitted nicely onto the saddle I'd already made.

Giving up on the front for a bit, I cut the bunker out of 40 thou card - nice and strong. The 517 had a straight-backed bunker, so this was very easy to do - only the s-shaped curve at the top of the side caused trouble, and I tidied that up with a round file. The bunker is a simple box, so I cut two rectangles to go inside (one at the bottom and one half-way up) to give it strength. The result looked pretty good and felt very strong indeed.

Up until this point I'd worked with two different chassis, the old Airfix one and a newer Dapol one. At this point I realized that I had to reject the older chassis, as its larger motor extended back into the cab so far that I couldn't fit the bunker on. No problem, the newer chassis had a smaller motor which fit fine.

Next I cut out the tanks, using 40 thou for strength. This was quick and easy to do as everything was rectangular; I rounded off the corners with a file, then had to cut a circular hole in the front for the boiler.

Next I built the boiler itself, using the same method as for the smokebox. It slotted into the smokebox, which has a slightly larger diameter (convenient for modelling). It also slotted into the hole in the boiler, although unfortunately I'd cut that a bit too small and not quite circular :( But when I put the boiler, the firebox, and the tanks together and stuck them to the chassis, something magical happened - it started to look like an engine! I then had to cut out most of the underside of the boiler and part of the smokebox to allow the chassis to fit into place. This was a nervous time as I thought it would fall apart - but no, it seemed still pretty solid. I cut some three arc-shaped braces to go inside the boiler just to be sure.

Next I built the cab. I had two goes at this, as the 517's cab is different from the 14xxs and I didn't have a diagram. The first one was too small, the second one looked much better. I'm still struggling to cut nice flowing curves, though.

That left a big gap where the firebox should go. This is an awkward shape, with two broad rounded corners and a rounded edge at the front too. In the end I made it out of a big lump (5 40 thou rectangles) and just filed it to shape - clumsy, low-tech, but not bad.

More to come.

Handrails

2006-05-15T04:57:00.000-07:00

Back to the little tank engine. After the roof, whistle guard etc., it sat forlornly for a few weeks while I worked on other things. "I need to finish this," I thought, so I started to work on replacing the handrails. They're very simple: made from the core of a single-strand plastic wire (large roll from Maplin) - the same wire I used for the whistles.

I drilled out the holes in the body where the old handles went (with a tiny drill bit held in my fingers, as I have bits but no drill - my wife's idea and far more effective than it sounds). Next I cut and bent the wires to shape and stuck them in. Not bad, not brilliant. The one which goes up onto the roof gave a bit more trouble because of the angles.

I now have to decide whether to remove these handrails and try to make "knobs" out of blobs of solder for them, or to keep it as it is. I suspect the latter course will win out, in which case all I need to do is take the body shell off and bend the wire ends a little so they can't come out. That, and maybe paint them a dirty black colour, but again I doubt I'll get around to it.

But still before I can finish the engine, I need to stick on the whistle guard and whistles (which I'll probably have another go at) and fix a missing buffer. That'll probably take another couple of months to get around to.

Scratch-built milk van

2006-05-15T04:51:00.000-07:00

After my "success" in building a new roof for the 14xx tank engine, I thought I'd try to build a wagon from scratch - specifically, a milk wagon with slatted sides (for milk churns, used in the days before glass-lined tankers). Why? Because they look nice!

So first, the prototype. The GWR had an 18' 4-wheel milk van (Siphon B) but I couldn't find a picture of it. So instead I've taken my cue from Thomas the Tank Engine, specifically the story about Daisy the diesel railcar in the book Branch Line Engines.

I started work with a scale drawing. The overall size was based on a GWR mogo van (I had one handy). I figured 3mm for the slatted sides with 1mm gaps; that's 9 inches and 3 inches in scale, which is probably about right.

The entire body is made of 30 thou plastic card, except for the corners. I used a v-shaped moulding for them, for strength, but after more practice I'd probably make my own in future. I used a steel ruler to cut the planks, with dubious accuracy. The "metal" braces are also cut from plastic card; in theory they're 1.5mm wide but there's a lot of variation!

I started by sticking the horizontal strips to the corners (resting the sides on another sheet, as the corners are wider than the thickness of the sides). Then I had great fun marking off where the vertical door edges should go, then laying a strip across diagonally and cutting it where it met the edge of the door / roof / floor. I layed out the planks for the ends and put the end bracing on, then stuck them to the corners / sides. (This wasn't entirely satisfactory, as the planks weren't quite straight somehow).

Next came two half-moon sections for the ends to support the roof, followed by the roof itself, made from two 20-thou rectangles curved by wrapping around my knife handle and glued together. At this point I had a very nice van body.

I wasn't going to attempt a chassis myself, but conveniently I had a kit for a CooperCraft 11' wheelbase chassis, so I made that up. It turned out that I should have thought more about this in advance, because when I came to put the two together, they didn't really match for size. With hindsight, rather than cut the bracing on the sides off scrupulously at the bottom of the lowest plank, I should have had it carry on to the bottom of the thickness of the floor - and worse, I should have measured it so that the floor matched up with the planks rather than being about 1mm wider! But it's a first attempt.

Putting that off for a while, I decided to paint the body. This was the next big problem: the paint just didn't go on very well, both the brown for the sides and the grey for the roof.

So I now have a chassis and a ropey-looking wagon body which doesn't fit it. I think my next step will be to abandon the body and build another one, only this time the right size to fit the chassis (whatever that is). I still need to think about buffer beams too, as the chassis didn't have any.

But I have good reasons to think I'll do better next time:
- More practice cutting the plasticard
- I'll measure it properly next time
- I might use 20 thou instead of 30 thou for the sides, or perhaps a mixture (easier to cut accurately, but weaker - not sure about this one).
- I'll try spray-painting the sides and roof with an undercoat (black) first in the hope that the paint goes on a bit better ;)

That was actually two weeks ago (I'm a bit behind on blogging this) but I might start the new body this evening as I've reached a pause in my next project - to be described ...

Fixing Electric Motors

2006-05-10T04:18:00.000-07:00

I mentioned earlier that I had a Great Western autotank (14xx) which didn't work. For one reason and another I also had three more chassis for the same engine in the loft - and two of them didn't work either. I could have replaced the chassis with my one remaining working one, but first I thought I'd see if I could fix it.

I'm not afraid of taking trains apart now, having done it a few times in the past. Electric motors tend to be pretty robust, and it's usually possible to get them working again with a bit of oil and polish. I remember making one in physics at school, it went pretty well and I spent most of the lesson tweaking the brushes to get it to go around faster ... but I digress.

This type of engine has a small screw inside the funnel which holds the chassis to the body (queue request to borrow my wife's precision screwdriver). More screws then hold the motor (back) and front block (containg the worm gear) to the chassis proper. I took it all apart, cleaned the brushes and contacts on the motor, put some current over it, and it spun like mad. Put it back in the engine and nothing happened. So I put WD40 on the joints (WD40 is magic and smells fantastic too). Still nothing. Then I gave the contacts which pick up electricity from the wheels a clean and oil, and now the engine runs. I think it needs a bit of a decent run-around and it should go fine.

A week or two later, feeling on a roll, I got the other two chassis down from the loft and took them apart too. On the first one, the motor worked, but the wheels wouldn't turn, even when turning the motor over by hand. I thought it might be an axle problem, but when I took the worm gear and motor off the chassis ran fine. The motor ran fine too, so I took a look at the worm gear, and it turned out part of the metal thread was bent out of position. I bent it back with a fine screwdriver (nothing like having the right tool for the job!) and put it back together. Success! This was very satisfying as I'd tried and failed to fix the same chassis a few months earlier - I've clearly learned something in the meanwhile.

So the next day I set to work on the last "dead" chassis. As with the others, the motor by itself spun nicely. However when I took it apart it was missing a spring that provided a contact between the motor and the pickup. I didn't have such a spring handy (funnily enough) so I got some kitchen foil to improvise. I wound the foil around in a roll, then wrapped it around with masking tape (it passes through a hole in the metal chassis which is connected to the opposite polarity). I put the foil plug into the hole, pushed in the motor, fastened the screws, and tested it. No problems! A quick clean for the contacts and all my chassis were working again. That left the question, what do I do with three spare 14xx chassis? But more about that in a future post.

All very satisfying - a bit like bug fixing (I work in software), but working with physical things makes a pleasant change.

I'll try to add some pictures of this later as it will make more sense.

Two more current projects I'm working on and hope to write about soon. First, a scratch-built slatted-sides milk van wagon which I'll pretend is a GWR Siphon B although it's actually based on the one in Thomas the Tank Engine; and a scratch-built GWR 517 class tank engine built to use up a spare 14xx chassis.

Mending a steam engine

2006-04-25T10:59:00.000-07:00

I bought this tank engine on e-bay. It was cheap, largely because it had a few bits missing and didn't go. But never mind, I thought, I can have a go at fixing it. I have another engine just like it which I can use as a 3d template; all I had to do was make the missing buts just like the original. Should be a nice easy project for a first attempt at scratch-building, I thought.

The first and most obvious thing which was missing is the cab. After careful measuring and drawing a diagram on paper, I cut out the back of the cab from 30 thou plasticard. This was easier than I thought: I've not worked with plasticard before, but it cuts easily (with a Stanley knife or craft knife) and glues together very solidly with normal polystyrene cement. The 10 thou sheet cuts even better with scissors.

After that I made the roof. This was a little harder because it was curved. I made this out of two identical layers of 20 thou plastic card - just rectangles. I curved them by running them around the shaft of my craft knife until they were just the right curvature, then glued them together. My thinking was that the glue holding them together would stop them uncurving, and keep the shape. That worked pretty well; on the down side, you can see it's made from two layers, but filing down the edges and painting helped a bit.

The next bits to tackle were the whistles and the whistle guard behind them. The whistles are pretty low-tech: two pieces of single-strand plastic-coated wire, partly stripped, and painted with brass-coloured paint. I tried cutting lines into the plastic to make rings around the whistle, but not successfully - maybe later. Still, they look ok from a distance. The whistle guard is just made from three bits of plastic card: 40 thou for the sides and 30 for the back, which has to fit into a little hole in the boiler. None of them are quite rectangular, the back gets wider as it goes up, and bends, and the sides get narrower. It matches my other train pretty well, but I think the real thing should have been thinner. I suppose I could have another go, it wasn't that hard!

I chickened out and bought the safety valve cover from a local model shop. I think it needs something inside it, though - a job for google image search.

So far so good on the bits. Painting them was a little harder: some of the paints seem to work better on the plastic card than others. (I might try spray-painting an undercoat next time). The roof is "anthracite" (sem-shiny) black (I don't have any matt). It looks ok IMO, just well-polished. It's a bit thin in places, though, and needs another coat. I also used the anthracite to undercoat the cab back and whistle guard (the white bit on the back is because I needed something to hold on to). Then I got a pot of "GWR post 1928 engine green" to go over the top, which perhaps unsurprisingly is a perfect match. It went on much better where I'd undercoated; the bits which I missed (cab back) need another coat. I don't think I've really got to grips with painting yet (a worse disaster will feature in a future article), but you learn by trying things out.

That was a while ago, since then I've re-written this to make it a bit shorter but still haven't stuck the bits together! I did take some photos of them in place though. I'm quite pleased with it: it's not the real thing but looks ok from a distance.

So, more painting needed, then I'll tackle the handrails, all of which are missing. And at some point I'll have to commit myself by sticking it all together. But it's been a fun project. Hopefully there will be a sequel to this post at some point when I get the chance!

For those who don't know and are interested, the engine is a Great Western Auto Tank; it was the prototype for "Oliver the Western Engine" in Thomas and Friends. These small tank engines were used on branch lines, where they would push a handful of coaches up and down collecting a handful of passengers. That was back in the days before uneconomical branchlines were closed and uneconomical steam engines were scrapped. Long before I was born. I saw a real one when we were on holiday in Torquay and it's a nice piece of machinery.

Making stuff

2006-04-12T02:36:00.000-07:00

Ok, having split my already meagre blog in three ... this part is loosely to do with stuff I make, create, or do by way of hobbies. I've copied over past relevant posts from my personal blog to make a start.

At the moment I'm working on a couple of model trains (a bit different from things I've posted about before!) I'm hoping to put up some pictures and blurb about them soon. Unless I put them aside for a bit to work on something else, of course.

Post FAWM

2006-04-11T21:59:00.000-07:00

Well, February is over, and I amazed myself by writing no less than 16 songs for FAWM. If you're interested, have a look at the link in the previous post, but beware, the quality is ... variable, to say the least!

But the point is, I didn't think I'd get close to 14 songs written in 28 days, whereas in fact I exceeded that number. So I feel great right now! It's great to challenge yourself from time to time, and to take on something different and impossible-looking.

On that theme, over the last few months I've I've taken up the challenge of organizing a group to revamp the evening service at our church. For someone like me who is incapable of organizing inebriation in a brewery (I tried when I was at uni, only two other people turned up) this is an equally impossible task. Yet I figure if I can write two (dreadful) novels and write 16 (poor) songs in a month, what do I have to be afraid of?

So I've got a group together (miracle) and we've managed to agree on some quite radical changes (miracle). All this in my spare time while I'm waiting for baby number two to arrive. It was due on Feb 28th but there's no action yet.

Originally posted 2006-03-03

FAWM

2006-04-11T21:57:00.000-07:00

I've signed up to FAWM, or February Album Writing Month to give it its full name. The idea is I have to write 14 songs in 28 days. I love music and have always enjoyed playing in a band, but writing songs is a bit of a departure for me: Back 10-15 years ago when I played in a band I had lots of ideas for songs, some of which I'd written odd bits of, but I don't think that in total there were 14 which I finished. Still, I like a challenge and after completing NaNoWriMo twice I thought I'd try something musical; it is after all more "me" than writing prose.

You can see my progress here, including lyrics for the songs I've finished and in some cases demos. Please send me comments if you listen to them. And before anyone says it, I'm definitely not planning on giving up the day job!

Originally posted 2006-02-16

Update

2006-04-11T21:56:00.000-07:00

Clearly the shock of being an unpublished author was too much for me! That really was a long time ago, and what have I been up to in the meanwhile? Well, that'll be another post if I get around to it. On past evidence that's not terribly likely. Instead here is a poem I wrote a while ago which I still like.

I want to change the world
- but I don't know how
I want to change the world
- but I am just one person
I want to change the world
- but I don't want to get in trouble
I want to change the world
- but I have a job
- a wife
- a family
I want the world to change
- and I am waiting.

Originally posted 2005-09-06

I did it!

2006-04-11T21:55:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, I did it! At nine o'clock this morning, local time, I finished writing my NaNoWriMo creation, weighing in at 50457 words, and all written in less than two weeks. Woohoo!

Of course the story is dreadful, the writing is awful and the characterisation downright contradictory, but that's not the point. I did it, I achieved something!

Ok, although I finished the story, there are still a few remaining questions. Should I go back and try to tidy up the worst of the contradictions, the places where I've used completely the wrong word, the bits which make me cringe most? Can I even be bothered to read through it again myself? And, will I ever let anyone else read it?

But those questions are for tomorrow. For one day I aim to bask in my triumph. For once in my life, I am a winner; I set myself a goal and I achieved it.

Originally posted 2004-11-30

NaNoWriMo

2006-04-11T21:54:00.000-07:00

I was inspired by this link to take part in this year's National Novel Writing Month. If the idea of writing a whole fifty-thousand word novel in a month sounds stupid, that's because it is. Given that I only started on the 17th, it's very stupid. Still, I love a challenge! Follow my progress here. Look, I'm nearly half way there! Will I make it by the end of the month? Doubtful, especially since I'm going away for the weekend with no PC. But that won't stop me trying.

What will the end product be like? Pure, unexpurgated rubbish, of course! But that's not the point. Will you be able to read it? No way! I wouldn't inflict that on anyone ;) So why do it? Because it's there. It's a challenge.

Originally posted 2004-11-25

Prose style

2006-04-11T21:51:00.000-07:00

My prose style isn't very good. I tend to write long, convoluted sentences. I'm making an effort to improve this: shorter, simpler sentences, fewer adjectives and adverbs, fewer clauses. That's the idea anyway. I still haven't found the happy medium between writing like a four-year-old and writing prose so incomprehensible that even I can't read it.

I suppose this at least provides the opportunity to practice. Whether it will help remains to be seen.

Originally posted 2004-05-25