​(for the start of this story, see Phases One & Two below)

So now we had a puppy.  We called her Guinea, as she was golden, although next door’s children were convinced we’d named her after a guinea pig which caused a certain amount of confusion.  Not surprisingly, the cats were unimpressed.  Fortunately, the puppy was easily intimidated by two pairs of glaring green eyes and an upraised paw.  The puppy soon learned where she came in the scheme of things.  Firmly at the bottom.  An uneasy truce prevailed until we imported a third cat into our expanding menagerie.  Then things got complicated.
 
The new kitten was a little black and white tom.  We called him Gamma, naturally.  My husband put in some proviso about how we were not going to work our way through an entire Greek alphabet of cats but I didn’t take much notice.  Gamma was another long hair with a habit of pogo-ing sideways across the living room carpet which we humans found enchanting.  Even the dog was impressed.
 
Unfortunately, the resident cats had other ideas.  Having sorted out the puppy they were not about to weaken and make friends with this new threat.  Paws were raised.  Hissing ensued.  The kitten decided the dog was his only friend and took to snuggling up with her in the dog basket as a way of keeping out of range of the older cats.  The dog seemed resigned to this new state of affairs.  At least one of the felines was friendly and never tried to use her nose as target practice.  Peace, of a sort, reigned.
Hmmm.
 
The deal with the dog had involved my giving up paid work in a bid to kick-start my writing career.  My days were full.  Writing, walking the dog, cuddling cats, playing with the kitten.  A perfect lifestyle.  Unfortunately, my hormones were not fooled.  There was still no baby on the horizon and time was a-ticking away.
Old plan, resurrected.
 
‘I think we should try for a baby,’ I said to my husband one night after a very late supper.  ‘Now I’m at home all day it makes sense.’
‘Are you freaking kidding me?’ said my husband.  He said it without much conviction.  I think he was beginning to get an idea that these little notions of mine had a way of working out.  But he still gave it his best shot.
‘You’re trying to kick-start a writing career.  I’m commuting and working long days.  When would we have time to make a baby?’
Hmmm.
 
‘How about now?’ I said.
Oddly, he seemed, suddenly, quite motivated.
And I would like to say that this led to the accomplishment of Phase Three.
Unfortunately, life had other plans.
 
Hmmm.
 

(for the start of this story, see Phase One - cat phase below)
So now we had cats.  Two sisters, small bundles of black and white fluff, one short hair (Alpha), one long hair (Beta).  My husband was quickly won over but I found my victory had unexpected consequences.  I started to worry about them.  I had sleepless nights.  Why?  Well, for one thing, they looked so small and helpless.  And one of them was distinctly accident-prone.
Hmmm.
 
We discovered early on that the long hair kitten was not the brightest creature.  She must have missed the day they were doling out gumption.  We left a piece of string tied to the back of a chair to keep them amused while we were out and came home to discover her dangling pathetically by one paw which was ravelled up in the kind of tangle which faced Alexander the Great when he met with the Gordian knot.  Like Alexander, we cut the knot. When we installed a cat door Alpha zipped in and out all day long but Beta sat and poked at the flap with one hesitant paw until we took pity on her and let her out.  Or in.  And out again.
 
On the plus side, Beta never brought back any birds or mice.  Her one attempt at stalking a pigeon came to an abrupt end when the bird flew away.  From the expression on Beta’s face, we gathered that she was not going to play a game so unfairly stacked in the bird’s favour.  Alpha was not interested in birds either.  Her obsession was the pond full of goldfish in our neighbours’ garden.  Soon their immaculate lawn had a ruler-straight line across it, leading from the gate to the pond.  A line exactly one black and white paw’s width wide.
 
I reintroduced the idea of a dog but my harried husband, calculating the cost of cat food, vet visits and pet sitters, seemed strangely disinclined to get enthusiastic.  Even though he had always assured me he was a dog person.
Hmmm.
 
New plan.
 ‘We’ve been married for two years.  Why don’t we have a baby?’ I asked one Saturday over lunch.
‘Are you freaking kidding me?’ he spluttered (after he had finished choking on his cheese sandwich).  ‘There’s no way we can afford a baby.  Maybe later.’
 
I nodded thoughtfully, censoring the reply which rose to my lips in the interests of harmonious relations.  The cats gave me a sideways look, as if they knew what I was thinking.  Cats, it turns out, are considerably more clued up about the feminine psyche than husbands.  Even cats without much gumption.
 
‘Well, it’s a baby or a dog,’ I said.  ‘You choose.’
He looked at me to see if I was kidding.  I wasn’t.
So we got a dog.  A small blonde puppy who was destined to grow into a large and very orange Golden Retriever.
 
Phase Two accomplished!

​Wind from the south herds sullen clouds
Northwards across the Downs
Revealing glimmers of washed blue sky
Shot through with silvery light
From a pale, inadequate sun.
 
Gulls bend their wings in sudden swirls,
Angled across the sky
While magpies, indifferent to the storm,
Hop, earthbound, chattering stilled
By the rush of blustering wind.
 
Sheep stand forlorn, their huddled groups
Seek shelter by the hedge.
Pied wagtails flutter wildly in pairs
Tossed by the buffeting blows
Of the moist, malevolent gale.
 
The hills stand steadfast, enduring,
Solid beneath the sky,
Ancient guardians of man made fields,
Resistant to every breath
Of Nature’s implacable force.

​
My thanks to A.J.Lundetrae, fantasy writer and blogger,
for nominating me for a Liebster Award.  Have a great day, Agnete!
 
A.J.’s eleven questions:
 
1]   What was most awesome moment of your life as a writer till now?
Finishing my first novel!  I’d been writing it on and off for over eight years and thought I’d never get it finished, especially after I got hopelessly stuck in the middle.  Finally completing it taught me a lot about myself and gave me the belief that I really was a writer.
 
2]   Is there any particular destination you would love to travel to?
I would love to visit the Arctic circle and see the Northern lights.  I saw them once, as a little girl, in Yorkshire and remember my mother telling me I must remember this, it’s really special - we don’t usually see them this far south.  So, they feel both magical and intimately connected to my childhood.
 
3]   Which song makes you feel happy really fast?
Not a song but the notes of the John Dunbar Theme from “Dances with Wolves”.  There is something about those wistful, yearning notes which really speaks to me and makes me feel calm and positive.  The music is by John Barry, a Yorkshireman, who also scored many James Bond movies.
 
4]   What is the best advice you ever got?
“Personal’s not the same as important. People just think it is.”
It’s from Terry Pratchett’s book “Lords & Ladies” but it crops up in other books of his.  I think it’s important to realise that the world doesn’t revolve around us - however much we would like to believe it does!
 
5]   What are the three most important items at your creative work space at home?
My laptop, my charging cable and a cup of tea.
 
6]   Do you prefer writing in a coffee shop or writing at home? Or somewhere else?
I prefer to write at home.  Coffee shops sound hideous places to write - all that noise plus they serve coffee not tea!  The one place I can’t write at all is on a plane.  I’m phobic about flying and just getting on the plane takes up all my reserves.
 
7]   What is your current read?
I’ve been rereading Agatha Christie while I write “Dark Peak”.  I don’t like reading new books when I’m writing as I don’t want to get too immersed in someone else’s imagination.  Rereading is fine because I feel more distanced from it if I know what’s going to happen.  I’ve just finished “The Hollow”.  Not her best but it was one I hadn’t read for decades.
 
8]   If you were a colour, which one would you be?
I like to think I’d be a pale, restful blue but I suspect I’m more of an angry red with a bit of purple shot through!
 
9]   If you could have one magical power, what would it be?
Turning back time.  I think it would turn out to be a poisoned chalice, though.  There’s probably some law of the universe which makes life turn out the way it does - no changes allowed.
 
10]            Do you have a favourite word(s)?
I like long words, for example: ‘deliquescent’.  Gorgeous!  Not sure where I’d use that, though.  I use ‘ponder’ a lot in my Twitter feed because I like words which are slightly offbeat.  I have to be very strict when editing my work because I know I can’t get away with too many fancy words.  Shorter, plainer, blunter reads better - or so they say.
 
11]            Which  one of your hobbies / spare time activities is the most unusual one?
I study Botanic art in my spare time.  I have very little talent but ache to be able to paint a lifelike facsimile of a flower.  There’s something about the discipline of line, colour and form which is completely engaging.
 
​
 
11 random facts about myself:

1. I have a Masters in Maths Education - which is weird because my first degree is in English literature and I hated maths at school.
2. When I was three I climbed into the elephant enclosure at Chester Zoo and the elephants apparently protected me until someone could get me out.  I really wish I could remember that!
3. I broke my front tooth when I was ten.  I was trying to round up piglets.  Boy, do they move fast!
4. I played the viola at school which got me into the school orchestra because hardly anybody else played the instrument.  It wasn’t a success.
5. I only retook my driving test because my sister, ten years younger, passed hers first time.  Anything she can do...
6. I talk to birds when I pass one sitting on a twig.  Nothing deep.  Just “Hello” or “How are you today?”  Many people apparently find this odd.
7. I love Lake Garda in Italy and fantasise about having a holiday home there.  Mind you, I fantasise about having a holiday home in lots of places until I think about all the extra housework it would involve.
8. I’m not a fan of housework but I do like ironing.  It’s calming and gives me an excuse to watch dross TV during the day guilt free.
9. I learnt to stand on my head when I was 40.  Don’t know why it took me so long.  Guess I’m a slow learner
10. I once found a pig down the toilet at the farm where I grew up (no plumbing, basic dunny across the farmyard).  the pig had pushed through the barrier to the access passage to the bin and got wedged.  It looked very surprised to see me when I lifted the lid but not quite as surprised as I was
11. I plan to reincarnate as a cat and test out the nine lives theory

 
Rules

• Acknowledge the blog that nominated you and display the award
• Answer 11 questions that the blog asks you
• Give 11 random facts about yourself
• Nominate 5 blogs you think are deserving of the award
• Let the blogs know you have nominated them
• Give them 11 new questions to answer

 
 
Nominations
 
This award is a kind of chain letter but without the threats if you break the chain!
My apologies if you’ve been tagged before or if you’re having no truck with any of this nonsense.  I’ve chosen to play and thank the person who nominated me but please don’t feel compelled to join in.  It is entirely optional.
I’ve tagged a few blogs which have helped me with writing problems or which, simply, made me smile.  Sometimes both.
 
I nominate:
 
Stella G Maddox @ http://stellamaddox.blogspot.co.uk/
 
Katherine Hayton @ http://kathay1973.blogspot.co.nz/
 
Chris Thrall @ http://christhrall.com/blog/
 
Louise Marley @ http://www.louisemarleywrites.blogspot.co.uk/
 
Jessica Hatchigan @ http://www.jennysoft.com/
 
 
Questions for my nominees to answer:
1]  When did you first realise you wanted to be writer?
 2]  If you had the power to get rid of one species in the world, what would it be and why?
3]  Who has been the most influential person in your life?
4]  What do you most enjoy about writing a blog?

5]  If you could live anywhere at all, where would you go?
6]  Do you have a hidden or surprising skill?

7]  You can invite one person from history for a chat.  Who would you choose?
8]  Which is better - being a child or an adult?

9]  Rain, wind, snow or sun?

10]  Where and when do you like to write?
11]  Crunch time!  Tea or coffee?

 
My thanks to all and everybody who has, in any way, encouraged me to continue to write and to AJ @  http://lundetrae.com
 because who doesn’t like being nominated for an award?
 

I never intended to have cats.  What I really wanted was a dog.  Well, to be completely honest, what I really wanted was a baby but I thought the first week of the honeymoon was a bit early to raise that so I settled on a canine campaign.
‘Why don’t we get a dog?’ I asked my new husband.
‘We can’t have a dog.  We’re both working,’ came his very sensible reply.
Hmmm.
 
The dog idea was revisited at regular intervals but there was always a sensible reason why having a dog was impossible.  We were living in a rented flat, no pets allowed.  A problem, certainly, but surely not insuperable.  I regrouped.  New idea.
​ ‘Why don’t we buy a flat?’ I asked.
 
This met with more success.  My sensible now not so new husband could see advantages to buying a flat.  We started saving every penny and lived off cauliflower cheese and boiled eggs, stopped buying presents, walked instead of taking the tube to work.  Slowly the saving account grew.  A flat started to seem within our reach, as long as we were prepared for a lengthy commute.
‘No problem,’ I said.  ‘Commuting will be fun!’
 
We bought a flat.  But now we were commuting, away for twelve hours out of the day.  A dog was plainly out of the question, we couldn’t possibly leave one for so long.  Even I could see that.
Hmmm.
 
New plan.
‘Why don’t we get a cat?’ I asked one Saturday over breakfast.
‘Are you freaking kidding me?’ asked my worn-in husband, the magic having become a little tarnished over the last year.  Maybe, on reflection, that much cauliflower had been an error of judgement.
‘Cats are great,’ I said firmly.  ‘They don’t need looking after.  Not like a dog.’
 
My husband laid down the law.
‘No cats.  They will be too much of a tie when we want to go away.’
‘Are you freaking kidding me?’ I replied.  ‘We’re never going to be able to afford to go away again.  Have you seen how much the interest on the mortgage has risen over the last three months?  It’s up 5% and rising.’
 
My fairly worn out and not at all new husband had no answer to that.  So I rang the cat re-homing place and ended up with two gorgeous black and white kittens like little fluffy dominoes.
 
Phase One accomplished!

There is no right way to write but there are plenty of wrong ways.  I know.  I use some of them.

Let me explain.

Writing comes relatively easily to me.  That’s not a boast.  Putting words on a page is something I’ve always enjoyed and always done, long before I ever thought of writing to be published.  I was “good” at writing at school.  In some sense, it came naturally to me.

I find writing a thousand times easier than speaking.  For one thing, I have time to think when I write.  Speech is so immediate and, afterwards, I always think I could have said something better, explained something more clearly.  With writing, I can do that, write down my immediate thought then come back and improve it, change it, delete it... I suppose I’m trying to say that I feel more honest when I’m writing and less inclined to hide.  I certainly feel more eloquent.

So, how does that relate to writing a novel?

A novel is a peculiar kind of writing.  It takes time, anything from weeks to months to years.  The writer may change quite a bit over the course of writing a novel, which invites the danger that what they started with is no longer what they’re interested in.  That means rewrites, possibly on a massive scale.  But it is hard to make major changes to something which has grown as big as a novel, akin to reshaping an elephant into a flock of doves.

So, wise writers start with a plan.  They plot their story.  They define their character arcs.  They research their backgrounds.  They do a lot of work before even attempting to write “Chapter One”.

Only I am not a wise writer and I can’t do that.  I have tried.  But, for me, the quickest way to induce writer’s block is to tell me I have to produce bullet points, a list, any shorthand form of writing.  Because that’s not how my mind works and not how I can get things done.

I start writing “Chapter One”.

I have no plan, no idea where I’m going.  I always start with a character who interests me and I write to find out who they are, what they’re like, what they are going to do.  Things happen.  Unexpected things because I had no plan.  I’m as surprised as my character at what turns up.  Other characters appear.  They are not planned either.  They seem to pop into being as if they already existed and were simply waiting for a chance to show up in somebody’s story.  I love this part.

This part can usually propel me into the middle of a book.  I find things out.  I start to make connections.  A story begins to evolve.  But that’s when I hit a block.  Because starting hares is easy.  I can create problems, twists and cliff hangers happily.  The difficulty is in bringing all these promising ideas to a satisfactory conclusion.  Now, after 40 to 45 thousand words, I have to stop and decide how it is all going to end.

That’s the hard part.  Agonising!  And that’s the point where I have to stop writing by the seat of my pants and start doing the bit I really, really hate.  Plans.  Bullet points.  A beat sheet.  Sensible stuff, that will get my novel finished.  That’s when the work starts.

I look at what I’ve got and I start to try and find the story which is buried in there somewhere.  I imagine it is a process similar to a sculptor modelling clay.  The first 45 thousand words of my story is my clay.  I can’t do my planning in advance of starting to write because I need that “clay” to work with.  Without it, my imagination is barren.

So, I begin a strange process of finding out what I’m writing about.  And one of the most helpful tools I have found to help me with this is to interrogate my characters.  I open a new file, call it “Character Interviews”, and think of questions I want to ask them.  The answers are written from the character’s point of view because I find they usually seem to know more about what is going on than I do!

A brief example.  In my work in progress “First Chance” which is full of twists and people who are not what they seem I needed to tunnel down into the plot to discover where it was going.  So, I asked a couple of characters for their thoughts:

Q: Scott, why do you approach Will at Waterloo?
A: I needed to get a tracker put back on the bastard once he & Ellie had given us the slip.

(I didn’t know that at all as it happens but it made sense in terms of the plot and helped me define Scott’s role in the book, not least by revealing an antipathy which I didn’t realise Scott had for Will)

Q: Lara, why do you need to get Will involved?
A: Will is an outsider - he has more chance of operating under the radar of the informant hidden within our company.

(I had no idea there was an informant until that point but it helped make sense of a lot of problems I was having justifying the complications I had created for my characters)

I used to worry about this split personality approach until I discovered it is a device which actors often use to tunnel down into their character.  If you haven’t tried it, I would say give it a go and see what you think.  I absolutely do not know (in my conscious mind) the answers to the questions I ask but the unconscious mind is a wonderful resource and this interrogation technique allows me to access the hidden parts of my writer’s mind.

Once I’ve straightened out some of the mysteries, it is time to do a beat sheet.  Sensible writers start with this but to me it would feel like a strait jacket if I tried to do this before starting my story.  It has to be sorted out at some stage, though and this is where I find it comes into its own.

For those who don’t know: a “beat sheet” is a sequence of the main scenes in the story.  To start with, these are likely to be merely a collection of scenes.  I must stress - this will not magically give you a plot.  The key to making the beat sheet (and plot) work is to CONNECT the scenes.

Scenes are connected if one thing causes the next.  The way to find out if you have made a causation is to find out whether you can write “but” or “so” between the scenes.[i]

For example: we’re often told that “The king died and then the queen died” is not a story.  But “The king died so the queen died of grief” is.  One thing causes the other.  If scenes are not prompting the next scene then you simply have a collection of scenes which are not forming a story.  The reader will lose interest.  Probably you, the writer, will lose interest.  Because we all want to know why.  Why has this happened?  And what are the characters going to do about it?  We are programmed to try and discover cause and effect and proper stories allow us that satisfaction.  These questions will keep a reader reading. 

Doing the beat sheet is deeply depressing for me, as a writer.  Because it is then that I discover that I do, in fact, simply have a collection of scenes.  No plot!  The hard bit, the blood, sweat and tears bit, is turning these unconnected scenes into a fluent and engaging story.  The beat sheet is a shorthand piece where I can clearly see where the gaps are.  I can rearrange scenes, delete scenes, create new scenes in note form until I’m satisfied the story hangs together.

Then, my only problem is discovering what to do to fill those gaps.  Oh, and rewriting the entire thing so that every scene follows naturally from what has gone before.

Simple!


[i] (my thanks to Janice Hardy at http://blog.janicehardy.com/2012/05/best-advice-on-plotting-ive-ever-heard.html for this simple & clear advice on how to create plot)

He was a very handsome man.  That was Sarah’s first thought and, later, she was shocked by that.  His hair was very dark, with the blue-black sheen of a blackbird’s wing.  A few grey hairs showed, polished silver threads which caught the light, merely forerunners of age to come.  Still a youngish man, maybe mid-forties she thought.  It was hard to tell.

His face was pale.  A few lines there, around the brows and mouth and the outer corners of his eyes.  Laughter lines.  That’s what her mother would have called them and Sarah wondered if he laughed often.  Did he laugh kindly, companionably?  She hoped so.  It was a strong face, especially now, slackened in repose but she felt it was a face to be trusted.  A strong, bony nose gave definition to his features, a firm rebuttal of any accusation of mere pretty-boy looks.  His face had character.  An honest face, she felt sure of that.

His mouth was generous, part hidden in a three-day growth of beard.  A mouth for secrets, maybe.  A mouth which could keep its own council.  He was silent now but Sarah tried to imagine what words were last on those lips and to whom they were spoken.  A girlfriend, lover, wife?  A work colleague?  His children?

She sighed and doubted that she would ever know.  It was strange to be sitting here, so close to a stranger, intimate as a lover, and not even know his name.  She wondered if she would ever come to accept this or whether her imagination would always seek answers, some evidence of connection, some hope of renewal.  She knew that here there was none.

He had been brought into the ICU 48 hours ago.  No name.  No wallet or mobile phone.  A jogger, they had thought.  Victim of a hit and run.  Alive, thanks to the machinery which breathed for him and took the waste from his body but with no hope of recovery.  So far, no-one had reported him missing.  Sarah leaned forward and brushed the hair from his pallid forehead, whispered: “I’m sorry.”  Then she bent to check the reading on the ventilator panel, noting them meticulously on the patient’s chart.
​
John Doe, name unknown.

The librarian frowned.  Usually she was a good judge of character.  Long years of directing readers to the correct shelves for their particular interest had made her expert at reading people.  Little old lady in a hand-knitted cardigan - 746.43 in the Dewey Decimal System - Knitting.  Middle-aged man with a beer gut - 641.873 for home brewing or 636.7 for dogs if he looked like the pet-keeping type.  Small boy - always 567.9 (dinosaurs) or 625.2 (railway engines).

She loved the Dewey Decimal System.  It made sense of a random world.  Order out of chaos.  Of course, most readers just wanted fiction which needed little intervention from her.  Fiction was filed alphabetically, according to the surname of the author.  A simple system, which the librarian rather despised.  She sometimes tried to guess which area a reader would head for.  Harried mum - Romantic fiction.  Frazzled executive - thrillers.  But it wasn’t the same.  There was no real challenge to it.

No, Dewey had her heart.  Every possible interest or human endeavour categorised and classified and stored correctly on the library shelves.  It got to be a game she played in her head as a reader approached her information desk.  Could she predict the request?  But this one had her flummoxed.  The girl had looked like an art student: a little hesitant, hand-made dangly earrings, floaty fabrics with a bohemian vibe.  Arts (740’s) or crafts (745) maybe even fashion design (746.92) for sure.  So she was taken aback when the girl made her request.  She answered automatically, the number popping out of her internal filing system without conscious deliberation:

"Second floor, first shelf on the right.  We don't get many requests for that."

The girl nodded & turned away.  The librarian watched her head towards the stairs, vaguely alarmed.  She didn't look the type for 623.4 - Firearms.