Culture Street Interview

I sat down with the very lovely Sophia Whitfield from Culture Street last week and we had a chat about The Shadow Year. Culture Street is a really great website devoted to film, theatre, books and food. You can check them out here.

(Note to self: don’t wear clunky beads that hit the microphone next time!)

Writing with honesty

I still don’t fully understand where the ideas and inspiration for a novel come from. As a writer, it’s something I’m often asked about, but the truth is that after the first flash of inspiration, it can feel as though I’m blindly following the thread of a fast-unravelling ball of string. I’m never quite sure where it’s going, or if it will lead me in circles or tangle me up in knots. I make notes. I plot. I think I know the ending, roughly. But there’s no getting away from the fact that it still feels like a massive act of faith leaping out into an idea. Will the story stay on track? Will the writing have tension? Will the ending come together? Will the ideas keep coming? Will anyone care?

But along with the worries are those blissful moments when things slot into place, when an unexpected plot twist strikes, when a character leaps off the page and tells you what he/she needs to do next, or when the perfect image to illustrate a point comes to light. One such image or motif that came to me in writing The Shadow Year was taken from the landscape of the novel. In writing and exploring the cottage setting, I found myself populating its grounds with lunaria – or honesty as the plant is also known. In the story, I have it growing in unruly bursts around the exterior of the house, flowering in spring and reseeding itself everywhere.

I loved the idea of featuring lunaria in the story because half of my novel is set in the early 1980s and for me, it’s always been a plant steeped in childhood nostalgia. I can still remember my mum’s dried flower arrangements dotted around our house in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, vases filled with stems of silver honesty seed heads that shimmered and rustled as you passed by. I can hear the papery crackle of them under my fingertips, and recall how they would split, or crumble like ash if you pressed too hard. They were so delicate and fragile, like iridescent paper moons. To my mind honesty just seemed to fit with the era I was writing about.

Honesty seedpods
By Josef F. Stuefer ([1]) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

It also married up neatly with a key theme of the novel, for buried at the heart of The Shadow Year – a tale about a group of friends who decide to drop out for a year and try to live self-sufficiently in a remote, abandoned cottage – lay the idea of truth and lies, and the deceits we sometimes tell ourselves and each other to justify our less honorable actions.

I stumbled upon Emma Mitchell’s beautiful ‘Silver Pebble’ jewellery designs while developing the idea of an ‘honesty necklace’ within the novel. I wanted one of my characters to give a gift to another character and the idea of a silver seed head pendant struck me as perfect. It was amazing: a quick Google search instantly brought up an etsy photo of an almost identical necklace to the one I had imagined in my mind’s eye. It kind of freaked me out at first, to see it there made real. But it was exciting too and I would have bought it there and then if hadn’t already been sold.

The necklace I found on etsy

Tracking Emma Mitchell to her website, I was able to have a nose around her studio (which I now lust after as the perfect writing space) and was interested to learn how her work is inspired ‘by the countryside on her doorstep’. That really struck a chord with me, for in writing about a group of friends who try to live off the land for a year, I’d found that much of the plot of The Shadow Year had grown organically from the Peak District landscape, as well as the rise and fall of the seasons. It had been a similar experience for me when I wrote my first novel, Secrets of the Tides, which is set on the Dorset coastline. It’s true too that whenever I get stuck for inspiration, time outside among the trees, away from my desk, always shakes things loose. I felt connected to Emma and her work on several different levels and, unable to stop thinking about the silver honesty necklace on etsy, I knew I had nothing to lose in asking Emma if she would take on a special commission for me.

Honesty drawing © Emma Mitchell

Luckily for me, Emma agreed to make two unique silver necklaces, exactly as described in The Shadow Year – the pendants to replicate honesty seed heads with three seeds contained within each – and the finished result is as beautiful as I could have hoped. I have (somewhat reluctantly!) passed them on to my UK and Australian publishers to use alongside their PR plans for The Shadow Year when it publishes this year.

Honesty necklace by Emma Mitchell Designs

The thing I love most about writing novels is the creative process itself – the chance to lose myself in an idea and follow its thread, wherever it leads. And I’m so grateful that in following the thread of The Shadow Year, I’ve discovered Emma Mitchell and been able to collaborate with her on this lovely project. So thank you, Emma. I can’t wait to send the necklaces on their way to their new owners and I hope whoever receives these beautiful handcrafted pieces will love them as much as I do.

Read Emma Mitchell’s side of the story here.

Hachette Australia’s competition is now closed but visit back soon for a chance to win Orion UK’s ’Shadow Year‘ honesty necklace .

 

Writing The Shadow Year

The Shadow Year came to me in the process of writing of a very different novel.  I had 100,000 words of a very shaky first draft in the locker when a scene came to me: a young woman in the present day drifting around a derelict cottage in a remote lakeside location. Something about the mood of this scene grabbed me. I knew she was a woman in a lot of personal pain, but not so damaged as to be unaware of eerie traces of the cottage’s past inhabitants. I imagined the woman – Lila as she became – starting to peel back the layers of the cottage, renovating it to distract herself from issues in her own life. But as she restores and updates the property, she also begins to reveal the layers of a second, more elusive story.

Every rational bone in my body told me not to ditch the draft of the novel I ‘d been working on and pursue the thread of this new story. But, something about the idea was so exciting to me and it just wouldn’t leave me alone. Scenes kept expanding in my head to the point where after a week or so of soul-searching and a couple of frank but supportive chats with my agent and publisher, I decided to park what I’d been working on and pursue what would eventually become The Shadow Year.

My debut novel, Secrets of the Tides, was a story about a family in crisis and in thinking about the cottage’s past, I realised what I was most interested in exploring in my new novel was the dynamics between a close-knit group of friends – how a group of people, living in relative isolation, could not only take on different roles and begin to shift and evolve, but how they might also become exaggerated personas of themselves, or at times of great stress, even breakdown completely. I was inspired along the way by other stories I’d read and loved a few years ago now: Lord of the Flies and The Secret History. It feels audacious to even write those book titles in a piece about my own writing, but I suppose what I was essentially inspired by was the way both novels explore that ‘wildness’ that can take over the human spirit when we are jolted out of our comfort zone. (Interestingly, as I wrote, I realised that the friends were evolving into a kind of dysfunctional family of their own – each of them taking on a familial role, be it pseudo-parent or child and so I know the theme of ‘family’ and belonging is buried there in the story, just as it was in Secrets of the Tides.)

I decided to shape the novel as two complete years approximately thirty years apart, interwoven month by month in alternating chapters until they meet at the end of the book. The idea of the ‘shadow year’ in the book title, therefore, refers to both the themes of the novel – in the case of Lila, a year spent learning to dig herself out of grief and pain and being able to step out of the shadows – or, as in the case of the friends, a year spiralling into darkness – as well as the fact that the structure of the story is one year overshadowing another. I enjoyed playing with the conflicting arcs of the two stories – one moving from a place of despair towards hope, while the other shifts from hope and optimism towards a much darker place. The two story strands criss-cross over each other and there are lots of clues and motifs threaded into the text along the way to (hopefully) create a sense of mystery or tension. I’ve always been interested in how the past can reach out to touch a person’s present, or indeed mould their future and so this theme is woven inherently into the novel.

The setting was a little more tricky. I wanted, as in Secrets of the Tides, for a strong sense of place to be central to the story, almost as much of a character as the people who inhabit it; and I knew it had to be somewhere remote, with its own specific and believable wildness. I considered a couple of options but eventually settled on the Peak District. Pulling things together required a fair bit of research, both about the landscape and its flora and fauna as well as the potential for seasonal foraging and living off the land, as the group of friends  are keen to live as self-sufficiently as possible. I was fortunate to be able to go to the Peak District earlier this year to take a look around. It was far too late for my writing as the book had already been sent to the printers, but it was brilliant to be able to go and experience it for myself, and to reassure myself that I had done the area justice, fingers crossed.

Fortunately, once I had plotted a basic outline and settled on the location and structure, the story came quickly. The structure helped keep things tight and controlled, and the landscape and seasons often dictated the plot, there being natural parameters to what could and couldn’t happen. So I sat down and I wrote it in a fury – both in pace, but also furious at myself for coming up with the idea so close to my deadline. I think some of that fury is there between the pages now, for I can see, as a novel, it is dark and twisty in places and, I hope, will capture readers’ imaginations and keep them guessing until the final page.

ANZ edition – available 30/4/13

UK edition – available 20/6/13

If you read The Shadow Year this year, a big thank you from me and I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to let me know what you think, good or bad.

Something lovely from Garzanti Libri

I have to confess this made me a little teary-eyed this morning. Roll on 7th February when La Bambine Che Cercavano Conchiglie publishes in Italy.

2013 Indies Book Awards Shortlist

I’m thrilled and honoured to be able to say that Secrets of the Tides has been shortlisted for the Indies Debut Fiction Award. To be nominated for an award like this, voted for by the independent booksellers of Australia, really does feel like the best kind of encouragement and I’d like to thank all those booksellers who have taken the trouble to stock and sell my book over the past few months.

One of the things that first struck me when I  emigrated to Australia and travelled across the country was the sheer number and quality of the independent bookstores Australia can boast. It’s a rich and culturally diverse scene and  something I believe should be celebrated and protected at all costs. Our towns and communities would be all the poorer without them.

You can find out more about the 2013 Indie Awards and the other shortlisted titles here.

Things to feel happy about

I’m happy. I’m just beginning to surface from the depths of my second novel and while it’s been intense, its also been incredibly exciting.

I’d heard a lot about ‘second novel syndrome’ before I sat down to attempt mine, although I’m not sure I was quite prepared for all that came with it … the crashing self-doubt, the weight of expectation, the deadline-induced panic. Don’t get me wrong; I love this new career and I feel incredibly lucky to be doing something that fills me with such joy – but in recent months my most frequent desk companions were nothing more than a mug of cooling coffee and a sneaky voice of self-doubt whispering in my ear: ‘You, a writer?’ followed by loud guffaws.

The situation wasn’t helped by the fact that I stumbled through the first draft of a very different story before I finally hit upon the novel I actually wanted to write. I think I rushed it. Instead of being patient – of finding an idea and letting it breathe – of making sure it was the right story – I grabbed at an idea and dived right in. But something was wrong. I realised quite late on that it didn’t feel very me. It didn’t feel authentic. Abandoning 100,000+ words is not a pleasant experience – certainly not one I intend to repeat again in a hurry – but once the right idea had arrived and I understood where it was going, I threw myself back into it and with it came all the joy I remembered feeling as I wrote Secrets of the Tides. When the writing’s going well and the ideas are coming thick and fast, there really is no other task on earth I’d rather do.

It’s strange. I still don’t understand where the inspiration for a story comes from. For me it’s the seed of an idea that with gentle nurturing, grows and takes shape. There are dead branches to lop off along the way and lots of nervous moments where I bite my nails and wonder if the bloom I first envisaged really will grow from the mud of my imagination, but with careful tending things seem to eventually grow and take shape. Secrets of the Tides grew from a very personal place, one wrapped up in motherhood and my own childhood memories of Dorset. This latest story – currently titled ‘The Shadow Year‘ – also began with the idea of a place, a setting which brought with it its own unique mood. As I mulled on the place (a fictional lake hidden in the depths of the Peak District) an idea evolved and so began my story. Some days it flowed, but others it felt as though I was setting out with a butterfly net to capture an idea as vast and unwieldy as an elephant. To be honest, right now, I’m still not sure I know what it is I’ve caught in my net, but I do know that I’m feeling excited about it. The Shadow Year is an emotional and dark and twisty tale. It has another back-and-forth structure and hopefully a few unexpected surprises along the way.

While writing is something I love doing, it also feels like a rather selfish pursuit. It’s a solitary job and it takes me away from my family and friends. Mentally, I become very one-track. Fortunately, (and I’m sure mostly for the sanity of my long-suffering family) I was aided this time by the Varuna Writers’ House. Varuna is a retreat for writers nestled high up in the Blue Mountains (about 2 hours from Sydney). I went there for a week of wintery solitude in August and sat at my desk in the sunny Bear Room and wrote intensively. It was my first visit to the House and I quickly found there is nothing to do there but write and eat and sleep and read. It was both inspiring and productive and became the week that got me through the difficult hump of my novel.

winter snowdrops, the Bear Room, the drive leading to Varuna

Now, I’m just going through some edits with my UK publisher, correcting a few errors and reviewing the structure one last time (to prologue or not to prologue, that is the question) but the intensity of the past few months is easing and I feel myself coming round, tuning back into real life and finding a million different things to feel happy about: the smell of my husband’s Christmas cake baking in the oven; the sight of purple jacarandas blossoming all across Sydney; a stolen moment to enjoy books and coffee in the sunshine; cloud-watching; hide-and-seek with my daughter; a steady flow of much-loved friends and family arriving from overseas; beautiful family photos taken by the inspirational Tim Coulson; sand between my toes; my son’s feet dangling from trees; the Japanese maple we thought we’d killed springing miraculously back to life; the salty-whiff of the harbour drifting up our street and promising hot summer days of family togetherness. And of course, equally exciting, the chance to let my mind roam freely for a while as it seeks inspiration for another story …

Clockwise from top left: books in Berrima, a fish cloud, hide-and-seek with my daughter, jacaranda blossom, my son tree-climbing

Francis Bacon: Five Decades

Today, I took myself off to the Francis Bacon – Five Decades exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. I’m in nail-biting limbo waiting for feedback from my Publisher on my second novel and so it was nice to break up the usual routine with a mooch around those big, white gallery rooms and gaze a while on some amazing paintings.

The art was moving and disturbing – the sort of work that challenges and creates an uncomfortable, visceral feeling. On one gallery wall was a quote which simply said: “What is life but what we feel?” Francis Bacon’s paintings, to me, were all about the extremes of feeling, of being alive.

A few paintings featured a man called George Dyer, Francis Bacon’s lover for nearly a decade. The artist claimed to have met George when he caught him breaking into his home. That detail really struck me – one of those stranger than fiction stories. Tragically, less than ten years later the troubled George died of an overdose in a Parisian hotel room, just before the opening night of Francis Bacon’s retrospective at the Grand Palais. The paintings Francis Bacon created of George Dyer following his death were some of the most moving in the collection – the grief there to see in every brushstroke.

A postcard of Francis Bacon in his London studio, 1970. I love the clutter – the landslide of crumpled papers and photographs, the pots of brushes, the art books and discarded tubes and cans of paint, the wall behind him daubed with streaks of colour as if he has used it as his artist’s palette.