There's something about Irish funerals

We were all stood by the grave side whilst the coffin was lowered. A cousin stumbled across mud to me and squeezed my arm: "Saw you on Ready Steady Cook." I smiled flatly and muttered: "This is Auntie Mary's funeral!" Then worried I was being too stroppy.
I moved away to give another other cousin a hug (it was her mother who had died) and then went to check on Uncle Lol, who had been buried a few spaces down a only a few weeks before and I hadn't been able to make the funeral. I then decided to check out my parents' grave which was quite a bit further along, up a hillside and heard someone calling after me: "Catherine!" deciding to have a moment's contemplation alone.

I'm not a regular grave attender, so thought I'd better do a bit of catching up. It's a huge old Catholic cemetery, that actually made the national newspapers a few years ago, as they had to retire the ancient woman who'd always managed it and there were no records of who was buried where as she'd kept it all in her head! Make a great play sometime. Anyway, it's also getting very full, as not many Catholics like cremations, and so all the newer graves seem to be on a steep hillside, which gets very muddy in winter and it's hard to get your footing without walking all over other people's graves. I'd just managed to find Mum and Dad's when I heard someone calling "Catherine" again and looked up to see a whole army of Sweeney cousins, staggering through mud and graves (most of them dead relatives or friends of one kind or another, so I'm sure they didn't mind) towards me. So my cousins and I all ended up gathered round Mum and Dad's grave, all chatting and laughing and talking and pointing out various grave stones: there's Uncle Austin, where's Auntie Norah's again? And I just thought, ridiculously, this is fun! Mum and Dad would have liked it I think! All it needed was for us to have started a good old sing song and we'd have been well away.

And it didn't stop there. Because then we went back to the church hall for a bit of a wake. Not too boozy thankfully, as we've all had enough of those days. Every time I spoke to someone they squeezed my arm: "Saw you on Ready Steady Cook." Like it was the best thing I've ever done in my life! I'd never even told anyone in the family about it, so goodness knows how it got round, though perhaps was something to do with my brother. But then, yet another cousin (I have about 50 of them) decided to introduce me to the priest.
"She's an authoress you know!" she said to him.
"Oh really, what's your book about?" the priest said in his lovely Irish accent.
My cousin leaned into his ear. "It's rather sexual actually Father."
"Oh then I'll have five copies," he replied.
Cousin then wandered off and left me to it. God's judgement on me I guess. He kept asking what the title was, I wouldn't say of course, but muttered something about it being a bit cheeky about nuns, (understatement of the year!) He seemed to think that was fair play, then proceeded to tell me about the book he wanted to write, so I was saved, though not forgiven, I guess.

Oh and another strange thing, when they shake holy water over the coffin in the grave now they use a sports cap, plastic Highland Spring bottle, rather than a silver shaker thing.

And quote of the day was at my cousin's, which we all went back to after. She is nervous of outdoor dirt and germs getting in the house, so it was very sweet of her to ask us back. However, when she saw an aged relative staggering through her hall she said: "Oh we normally Dettox walking sticks, but seeing as it's you."

Sad news

I wasn't sure if I should report this on my blog or not, but it seems fitting somehow as it's connected with Macmillan New Writing. The sad news is that Mike Barnard's wife Jayne has died. Mike, of course, is the father of MNW and as Jayne has been very much part of that, helping him edit and not least type-setting many of our books, it seems right to mention it here. I didn't know her too well, but on the few occasions we met, she seemed a warm, open, confident woman, who in other circumstances, I'd probably have been able to have a right laff with, as we say up North as she hails from Sheffield too. I was in Sheffield yesterday for the funeral of an Aunt and a few weeks before that an uncle died in Sheffield too. So this blog is in memory of all three. A moments silence please for Uncle Lol, Auntie Mary and Jayne Barnard.

This painting called Procession is by an artist acquaintance David Gleeson.

Yummy Mummy books for Mother's Day

Maybe it's because I'm not Mum and no longer have a Mum (Aaaah!) that I'm doing so many postings today. But I'm just reading newspapers again and came across a couple of conflicting articles in today's Observer. One was about the way motherhood is changing in that fewer women are having children, mostly by choice. Then in the Review Section was a big article about Yummy-Mummy novels (written by a man of course!) These are the post Bridget Jones ones who bagged the guy and pro-created before middle-age set in and now to quote the article:

"If you listen carefully on a quiet day in bookland you can discern the hum of a hundred agents making a hundred pitches: 'It's a Bridget Jones with a boring husband, kids and a lover. Madame Bovary meets Grazia magazine. V funny, v sexy."

Well apart from the fact I've not read Madame Bovary obviously (see previous posting) this cynical article (there's always this sniffiness about women's novels isn't there?) has got me wondering. Because you see in light of the other article about more women than ever before not having children, and the fact the reporter in the above quoted article seems to think there's a glut of yummy mummy novels, and the fact that woman over the age of 30 buy more fiction than anyone (70% of the market supposedly) then that must mean around 30% of female book buyers don't actually have children, and presumably they read (what?) so maybe I have got something to write about after all. V funny, v sexy!

Was it a conscious decision not to include any characters with children in my latest novel? I think so. I'm not sure there are many novels out there addressing this fact, and where are the stories for us? Where are the TV dramas, the films? You'd think we didn't exist, either in life or in fiction. But will my novel be of more interest to my publisher because of this? Probably not. In the end it's still got be a good story well told, but we shall see.
Please tell me if there are any good middle-aged women novels out there (rather than late mothers coping, or empty nesters) and I'll gladly report on them. I'm trying to think of one, there must be one!

All the books I've never read

There are loads actually. What are yours? Mine include an ever increasing pile of MNW writers, and other new books (On Beauty, A Winter in Madrid, Poppy Shakespeare, The Tango Singer, are the ones in a pile on my bedside table, with a mental list of others I daren't even blag, steal or borrow, but the ones I really worry about are all those classics I should have read and feel I can't be a proper writer as I can't drop quotes never mind names.

Roger Morris's latest book, A Gentle Axe, has just arrived and sounds great, something to do with Dostoyevsky (can't even effin spell it!) I also feel I should have read Italo Calvino, a bit more Marquez, with a smattering of Emile Zola (well he wrote so much!) not to mention a bit more Shakespeare, Dickens and Bronte than I have. Am I really missing out on something? There are just too many books out there. On one hand, no wonder mine will hardly be noticed, on the other why do I think I should be adding to the sum of unread books?
Oh, I'll delay a smart answer to that one just at the moment.

I've been reading the newspapers this weekend (instead of books) and realise I often quote Susan Sontag in various essays I've written over the years, but never actually read any of her novels (has anyone?) anyway she's always very interesting (this from a Guardian article)

"A writer is first of all a reader. It is from reading that I derive the standards by which I measure my own work and according to which I fall lamentably short. It is from reading, even before writing, that I became part of a community-- the community of literature-- which includes more dead than living writers. "

She had died now too of course. Maybe I should read her.
Or how about this:

"I'm often asked if there is something I think writers ought to do, and recently in an interview I heard myself say: "Several things. Love words, agonize over sentences. And pay attention to the world."

Has this ever happened to you?

Oddly enough, I do get people writing to me. A lot of unpublished authors seem to think I know what it takes to get published or something. Like I know! If I did I'd know how to do it again wouldn't I? Anyway, that's not the interesting thing about this posting which is that I've found out a writer I've been emailing and who I thought was a woman turns out to be a man! How weird is that? I'm wracking my brains trying to work out if I've been slagging off men or talking about periods or something, but I'm hoping we more or less just stuck to writing.

I must use it in a plot sometime so don't pinch it will you? It came about because I met his/her Mum here in Aldeburgh one evening at a wine tasting session, and she mentioned her daughter (or so I thought... well there was a lot of wine!) was a writer too, so I gave her my card and she/he emailed me. It was only when I bumped into the Mum again in Munchies over coffee this time and could focus on the info, that I learned she was a he, having a very unusual first name. It does alter the dynamic somewhat, but is quite funny and she... I mean he...took it well and saw the funny side. We plan to meet up at some Norwich literature festival in May, and I've promised as consolation to take him to an MNW launch sometime.

My Perfect Partner

I'm seeing it as a good omen.

I do not know how this system works, but whatever I'm pleased to say Amazon have given me another MNW writer as a perfect partner. Moreover Aliya's second novel has just been accepted by MNW, thus breaking the run of second novel rejections. Maybe some of her success will rub off onto me! I'm just reading it now and enjoying it very much. Sometimes it's insightful:
"There was a sneer evident in her voice. He wanted to say to her, 'I saw you. I saw the lost look, the hair falling over your tiny face, and I know that was the truth',but he didn't dare."
Other times it's just very funny:
"He was shocked to discover he had a half-hearted erection happening in his downstairs department. He hadn't had one of those since the hostage crisis of the Munich Olympics."
And just full of great observations:
"She looked the kind of woman who wasted good money on plug-in air fresheners and decorative toilet roll holders. Alma thought she was probabaly an office worker who gave to charity and thought she had a stressful life."

For those of you who haven't bought either of our books, what better time to bag a double bargain

I looked up from the page...

And saw that it was spring...



I couldn't face reading a novel just yet so I was reading poetry from this book last night.
See if you like this:

Not Ideas about the Thing but the Thing Itself

At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.

He knew that he had heard it,
A bird's cry, at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.

The sun was rising at six,
No longer a battered panache above snow...
It would have been outside.

It was not from the vast ventriloquism
Of sleep's faded papier-mache..
The sun was coming from outside.

That scrawny cry-- it was
A chorister whose c preceded the choir.
It was part of the colossal sun,

Surrounded by its choral rings,
Still far away. It was like
A new knowledge of reality.

Wallace Stevens

I feel great today. Finally got the second novel into publisher after working almost non-stop on lots of last minute tinkering. I was consumed by it and didn't want to do anything else much. Now, I feel really free and strangely confident about it, which could be completely misplaced and of course may be nothing but the post-adrenaline rush of just getting it done. And still thinking of things in my mind, as in.. oh should have changed that bit...oh that's a good bit... oh I should really do a bit more work on the run up to the ending...

You know what though, and this is for all you other writers out there, I don't really care, if it finally gets rejected I mean (remind me of this when...) because you know what, it is the creation of this other world that is the important thing, and just how bloody amazing it is when we do that. I just don't know where half of it comes from, and I think any of us, published or not, rejected or not, happy with our work or not, should just be bloody well proud at having done the work, invented these other creatures we are using to say something about life and what it's like.

Just a bit of another poem from this book:

a word is found so right it trembles

at the slightest explanation.

You start out with one thing, end

up with another, and nothing's

like it used to be, not even the future.

RITA DOVE

Heck, I've just thought, are we supposed to get permission from author's to quote stuff on blogs.

Anyone know?