The last few weeks have been something of an English-fest for me. Many of the students I tutor for high school English are coming towards the end of their academic year and are starting to prepare for their final exams. This involves a honing of all that they have learned over the course of the year. We’ve been talking about things like the use of emotive words, of how to make their sentences more powerful, of trying to show their understanding of what they’ve studied in a clear way.
I have also taken on a project ghost-writing a book. For commercial reasons I am not able to talk too much about this project. What I can say is that it's been a great opportunity to get back to what I love most: writing books. Because I have been doing a lot of business writing over the past twelve to fifteen months, I haven’t had a lot of time to focus on writing my own projects. I now realise how much I have missed this. Although ghost-writing can be quite prescriptive, there’s still a sense in which you are still the creator, particularly during the first draft. You have to decide how things are going to be laid out. You have to decide on how things will be structured. You have to decide on what words will be used. It’s you and the blank page which, with time and work, suddenly becomes something that never before existed. I love the simple joy of words, of trying to find the perfect one to communicate an idea or an instruction or an inspiration. The word that is going to help someone else to understand things they didn’t before or to make their life a little better. And lucky for me, English is a rich tapestry of words from which to choose. And choose I have. A book that at its outset was going to be eight chapters has now become nine. As I type these words I am nearly finished writing chapter seven. But strangely, rather than feeling resentful about the commercial work I have been doing, I also find myself feeling grateful for it. Having to write about subjects that have at times been beyond my interest or experience – and to a deadline – has given me a greater level of discipline. And in working on this project, I am also feeling a greater enthusiasm for other personal projects I have in mind. So watch out world, I’ve been overtaken by the joy of words. Hopefully many more will be coming your way in the near future.
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I turned 50 this month. 50! Five decades. Half a century. Approximately 18,262 days on Planet Earth. It’s the sort of milestone that makes a gal take pause. And in that pause I guess it’s only natural to start looking back, to contemplate what I’ve done with those 18,000 odd days that have been gifted to me, and to consider where my journey has taken me.
As I thought about those five decades I came to the conclusion that I have managed to do a reasonable amount with my time. I perhaps wouldn’t go so far as to say that I’ve made the most of the time, but I can’t be too dissatisfied with what I have managed to do and experience in my half century. Over that time I’ve made friends, travelled, got married and had a range of work experiences. I’ve had children, immersed myself in a range of community activities and in a small way tried to make a contribution to others. I’ve owned parts of houses (the bank has owned the rest!), owned cars and managed to just about keep my head above water living in one of the most expensive cities in the world. And, of course, I’ve written books and tutored students and written commercially too. Looking back, I also find I have few regrets. Perhaps, if I had my time over again, I would have liked to take a degree in English. But then, if I had, there’s no guarantee that the other things I’ve done and experienced would have come my way. The thought that my path might then have taken me in quite different directions isn’t one that sits easily with me. In any case, I’m not a great fan of regret. It usually accompanies a desire to wind back time and do things over. For a start, doing things over is impossible. But even if it were possible, who’s to say that the ultimate outcome would be any better. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. A different path might just lead to different difficulties, for all any of us know. And besides, life is not over yet. I still have things I want to do and achieve. I’m not just counting the days until retirement (approximately 5,478 days if I’m lucky to live that long and they don’t put the retirement age up!). I want to keep learning, developing, creating and experiencing. Who knows what blessings might come my way? And so I feel I am quite philosophically fifty – happy to be here and happy to think about all I might see and experience from this point on. I feel grateful without being too self-satisfied. And I’m also grateful for my readers. Thanks for being part of my journey. With the 20th anniversary of the death of Princess Diana fast approaching, I’ve been watching some of the commemoration documentaries that have been screening on New Zealand television. I freely confess to being a great admirer of Diana. I stayed up late to watch her marry Prince Charles, loved seeing the many photos of her looking serene and elegant and beneficent, and still to this day feel sad when I think of her life having been cut so short. Most of the documentaries have taken a frank yet sympathetic look at her life and works. They’ve celebrated her qualities, her abilities and praised her as a warm and loving mother. They’ve also not shied away from looking at her struggles, both internal and external, as she tried to navigate her way through the difficult waters of being in a troubled marriage and through becoming a member of the royal family. Her sons have added their perspective, as have her close friends. Some footage has added Diana’s own thoughts and feelings on her experiences. In fact, she seems as fascinating and captivating as she ever did, which is quite remarkable given that two decades have gone by since her untimely passing. No matter what your take on Diana is, there seems little doubt that she was an extraordinary person with a charisma that cut through social boundaries. She sat with AIDS patients, she held hands with lepers, she had a genuine heart for the homeless. She championed causes others rejected and she inspired people to have courage, giving hope where none existed. Some small snippets from these documentaries that chronicled how meeting Diana changed the course of people’s lives is truly inspiring. I think what has stood out to me most is the fact that her desire to help and to serve came from the realisation that she could genuinely make a difference. Many of the people she met in the course of her charitable works had been marginalised, felt unloved or rejected. Diana, for all her glamour and beauty and privilege, knew what it was like to feel just that same way. It made her compassionate. It made her want to reach out and tell others it would be okay. At the end of the day, isn’t that what we all want? To feel loved and accepted? To be needed and wanted? To feel as though everything will be all right? But how often do we do things that make others feel rejected in order to make ourselves feel stronger, more in control. Maybe, like Princess Diana, we need to work a bit harder to share the love, hold hands with the rejected and try, in some small measure, to make a difference in the lives of others. For in truth we can all make a difference. Many of my friends - and at least some of my readers - will know of my fondness for Jane Austen. Last week marked the 200th anniversary since her untimely death. She only reached the relatively young age of 42 when she passed away, from what is now theorised to be Addison’s Disease. This is a condition where the adrenal gland fails to produce sufficient hormones for the body to function. These days medication sorts out most Addison’s sufferers, but in Jane’s day no such treatment existed. In a small post on my Facebook page (feel free to “Like” my page here) I marked the day by wondering what treasures we might have had, if she’d lived a little longer. But, with six main published works to her name (Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma and Mansfield Park all published in her lifetime; Northanger Abbey and Persuasion published posthumously) she certainly made her mark. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I think dear Jane would be shocked beyond belief at the ongoing interest in - and love for - her works. These days, Jane Austen spin-offs are a dime a dozen. A number of authors have attempted sequels to Pride and Prejudice, extrapolating the lives of Elizabeth and Darcy into the future. The story has been told from Darcy’s point of view, from the view of the servants in the house, from the perspective of their offspring and even, in one case, how they became involved in a murder mystery. Some of her novels have been updated for modern times, the core elements of her stories woven into current settings. There are even ‘time slip’ novels with characters from Jane’s novels coming to our time, and vice versa. She’s been used as the basis for a ‘theme park’, a drawcard for a book club and an alleged excerpt from Jane’s own life made it onto the silver screen in 2007. I have, of course, pondered why Jane’s works have garnered such enduring interest and devotion. An article I read recently (in UK’s Writing Magazine, July 2017, by Sophie Beal) suggested that Jane would probably have trouble even getting published today. The reasons for this were ten-fold: slows starts, too much backstory, no diversity, old-fashioned values, telling instead of showing, insipid/passive heroines, having the main action ‘off-stage’, superfluous characters, lack of realism. That’s quite a list. However, as Sophie points out, a work is the sum of its parts and therein lies Jane Austen’s skills. A partial answer to her ongoing popularity can be found in the magic of her prose, the way she so ably captured the social mores of the time with wit and irony. Readers of today come to know and understand the complexities that those times brought for women, and to see what a minefield all those manners and etiquette created. Themes such as hopes for the future and wanting to be valued also resonate because such issues are timeless and part of the human condition. After all, who doesn’t want to hear words such as those uttered by Mark Darcy in another Pride and Prejudice spin-off, Bridget Jones’s Diary, when he says, ‘I like you very much, just as you are.’ Her heroes and heroines, too, are not perfect. Some, like Elizabeth Bennet, are as equally able to laugh at their own follies as they are to laugh at the follies of others. They make mistakes, are too quick to judge or end up the victims of the mistakes and judgements of others. But, when all is said and done, they overcome rejection and adversity in order to get to their happily ever after. So here’s to Jane Austen. I know her works have made my life richer for the reading. May she continue to inspire, entertain and educate for many more centuries to come. My visit to Jane Austen's house, Chawton, England, in 2013. Did you know that roughly 88% of the world’s population lives in the Northern Hemisphere? This perhaps isn’t altogether surprising given that 68% of liveable land is also in the Northern Hemisphere. However, that’s 88% of our total population whose experience of life differs in some fundamental ways from those “Down Under”. The most obvious of these is the seasons, with summer and winter being reversed. And, while this does not seem like such a great thing, it has an effect on a number of things. For example, in the Southern Hemisphere the academic year runs from February to December. The best time to go skiing is July or August. And Christmas is celebrated not with warm fires burning and snow on the ground, but with summer sun and barbecues and lashing of sunscreen. And because I live almost as southerly as a person can get, I can report that here, right on mid-year, we are most certainly experiencing winter. It’s a season that lends itself to the use of alliteration – wet, wild, windswept, wintery – cold, cloudy, crisp, chill. As I write today, I could use many of those words to describe the weather outside. A leaden sky hangs overhead. Wind swirls and eddies as though being chased by an invisible foe. Fat droplets of rain streak the windows and the best place to be is at home by the fire. I can’t say I’m really a winter person. In fact, if I had to pick a favourite season it would be spring. New leaves, new flowers, new life, longer days, the prospect of the summer to come. It’s not too hot and not too cold – a bit like Goldilocks’ ideal porridge. Yet I don’t detest winter either. Here, in Auckland, we don’t get snow (a few flakes get spotted by keen-eyed individuals every few years but these melt before falling to the ground) and frosts are rare. Fogs sometimes plague the airport, stranding passengers and disrupting travel plans. Rain, on the other hand, is our main tormentor, coming in waves from all different directions, sending people scattering for cover and contemplating the need for webbed feet. It’s definitely the sort of weather that lends itself to indoor pursuits. Movie watching, games, a spot of mindless web surfing. And, of course, what could be better than a spot of reading on a wild day? But then, that’s the joy of books. You can just as easily read one in the summer as you can in the autumn, winter or spring. You can read them in bed or on the beach or in a plane or on a train. What could be nicer? So, whether your weather be blizzardly or brilliant, dive in and make the most of books. After all, it’s fine weather…for books. As you possibly already know, I’m the proud owner of two almost-grown children. My daughter is twenty and my son is seventeen. Although when I say “own” I mean this in a more figurative than literal sense. No one owns children, or at least they shouldn’t. I am also a tutor for high school English and have eight students between the ages of twelve and seventeen in and out of my house each week. And, it’s fair to say that I love teenagers. Why do I mention this? Well, mostly because I’ve taken pause lately to think about the creation versus consumption conundrum. It’s an interesting thing to contemplate. For a start, it’s virtually impossible to create at the same time as it is to consume. And yet the latter can’t take place without the former. And story, a concept that is at least as old as the hills, is still in as much demand as ever. Thank goodness. My exposure to teenagers also means I have a very good idea about what is taking up the time of many of them these day – and, for the most part, it doesn’t involve creation. Most of them are avid consumers of content, and most of that is online: gaming, binge-watching series after series through platforms such as Netflix and Lightbox, following YouTubers, a bit more gaming, maybe the odd e-book or two in between. Countless hours are devoted to these pursuits – and every hour that is devoted in this direction is an hour less that could be used to create things of their own. I’m hoping this post won’t make me sound too much like a relic from the last century (although I technically am) but I have to say that I think this is a shame. After all, who knows where the creativity of youth will lead? To illustrate this, my husband and I attended an interview with Ian Rankin, bestselling Scottish crime novelist, at the recent Auckland Writers Festival – and a great interview it was too. He was asked about his origins as a writer and he talked about how, as a young man, he would write his own cartoons and that he made up his own rock band, complete with plans for fictional world tours and song lyrics. I love that. In fact I did a similar thing myself by writing a magazine – although I confess that I never went quite as far as inventing a rock band. Perhaps I missed a great opportunity there. Such basic creation seems to me to be an apprenticeship of sorts. Nobody outside of maybe Mum or Dad is likely to see these creations without sniggering (and thus are most unlikely to ever be shown them) but they give the creative muscles a work-out and teach rudimentary skills about what it takes to produce something new and unique. Technology, for all its wondrousness, may be occupying our children’s time and giving them things to talk about with each other, but it may also be stealing away valuable time that could be employed in the pursuit of creation. Of course this generation could be destined for things that relics like me can’t necessarily picture, but here’s hoping that future is as filled with creation as it can be. Like I say, I love teenagers, and know they have a lot to give – or at least they would do, if only they made the time. My only hope this that technology doesn’t turn out to be some sort of sinister Pied Piper, solving some problems only to cause a whole lot of others. Here’s hoping… Today, April 23rd, is World Book Day. Perhaps, in the scheme of things, such a day is not so momentous. It could easily pass unmarked or join the plethora of other “days” assigned to celebrate everything from “Jelly Bean Day” to “Hug a Plumber Day”. (Yes, both real!) The celebration of books should, in my view, rank somewhere above a love of jelly beans or even a love of plumbers (although I’m sure many of them are very lovable in their own right). Why? Well, just think what people get from books:
Non-fiction books are like time capsules, preserving a moment in time. Whether it be a biography or a history or a travel guide, a reference book or a how-to book, these volumes capture things about our past and present that will educate and inform the people of the future. Novels can transport you to places you’re never likely to go, expand your world view and draw you into the lives of fictional people. You can learn about the social mores of days gone by, see yourself reflected in characters and ponder the way the world works. You can sit on the sidelines of crime-solving and international espionage without the slightest danger of getting hurt. You can explore strange new worlds, and be transported to another time, place or galaxy, all without leaving your armchair. What’s not to love about all of that? And is there any feeling that compares to the satisfaction of getting to the end of a well-crafted story that draws you in so much that you stay up late just to see what happens? I think not. For me reading has done all of that, and more. As a youngster I read voraciously and loved anything that sparked my imagination and that made me feel like I could be a part of something bigger, if only in my mind. Reading has given me a greater understanding of my fellow human beings, made me feel intense emotions and continued to entertain and inspire me to this day. But probably greatest of all, reading fed the flames of my love of writing. And, in celebration, here’s my own contribution to the world of books. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them. So thanks to all the great writers who’ve blessed my times of reading. Oh, and Happy World Book Day to you! Songstress Adele has just been on New Zealand shores. In truth, not all famous singers make it to our part of the world, put off perhaps by the logistics of coming so far for so small a country. If Adele’s visit is anything to go by, others probably shouldn’t be deterred. She held three concerts and performed to over 130,000 people, with tickets selling out for each concert within minutes of going on sale.
I’ve long been an Adele fan. I love her voice, her songs and the emotion she conveys. There’s something raw and honest about her lyrics. Of course some of her songs are far from uplifting - something she quite openly admits – but that might be why they get inside your soul in the way that they do. I hoped to go to one of her concerts but missed out on tickets. My FOMO (fear of missing out) turned to IDMO (I’m definitely missing out) and I was quite surprised by my own level of disappointment. Every mention of Adele or her upcoming concerts gave me pangs of my regret. Oh, what might have been! What I didn’t know at the time was that my daughter had successfully got tickets for the two of us to see Adele’s first Auckland show for me for Christmas. When I got this most unexpected gift I literally got teary. And so last week the big night finally came around. The balmy night, the expectant crowd and the prospect of finally seeing Adele all combined to make a quite delicious sense of anticipation. This anticipation grew even more when we entered the venue and experienced the buzz of shared expectation as the hordes descended. And in the end we were far from disappointed. The concert was “wow” from beginning to end, made even more special by what Adele brings to her performance in terms of her own personality. She speaks in such a real and conversational way that you feel as though you’ve in some way connected with her, adding humour and honesty about some of her feelings and motivations behind her songs. It’s hard to believe that she’s terrified of the stage and contemplates giving up live performances. Every so often a gift comes along that truly blesses. Adele's concert was just such a gift. And the tickets from my daughter to go to see the concert – priceless! Most authors love to get great feedback about their books. There’s something so special about being told that the careful crafting and hours of creation have meant something to another person – especially when you consider that everything between the front cover and the back cover is completely fictitious.
I’ve had plenty of people tell me how much they’ve enjoyed my stories. Some ask when my next book is coming out (watch this space!) and can’t wait to read another. But most of all, people tell me about how much they enjoy the characters I’ve created and love how real they feel. Just recently I received some feedback from a reader who had enjoyed my story, The Journey. She said she particularly liked the character of Cedric Olliver. If you haven’t read The Journey, it’s a story about a group of people who get together for a two-week walking tour through New Zealand wine country. The group walk during the day, and in the evening stay at some fabulous properties along the way, and are fed great food and get to taste great wine. And plenty of eventful things happen on the way. I’ve got a real fondness for Cedric. He’s a real outsider on the trip, socially inept and unsure of himself. About the only thing he is sure of is his knowledge of useless facts. Cedric seems to have a photographic memory for trivia and uses what he knows in as many conversations as he can. As main character Lindsay observes, “The way in which Cedric managed to interweave all these relatively useless pieces of information could very well be some sort of undiscovered art form.” In fact, during the course of the novel, Cedric trots out fifty pieces of trivia. In order to manage this from a writing point of view, I assembled a list of trivia and then, every time Cedric was in a scene, I’d get out my list and try to incorporate one of those facts into the story. Here are just a few of fun facts I managed to use: Did you know that the electric chair was invented by a dentist? Did you know that each year insects eat one third of the world’s food crop? Did you know that an ant can lift fifty times its own weight and can pull thirty times its own weight? If you want to read more about Cedric and his fun facts, check out The Journey. And perhaps you have your own fun fact to share. Just let me know. I so appreciate hearing from my readers. Best wishes Keitha In my last post I extended my good wishes to all for Christmas and New Year. Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, January is waning and February looms on the horizon. It’s incredible how time seems to evaporate!
Our family had a quiet Christmas and we celebrated New Year with a friend who came to stay. We spent quite some time talking about 2016 – its highs and lows – as well as contemplating what 2017 what might bring. No doubt our conversation was mirrored by hundreds of thousands of similar conversations the world over. Every year I marvel at the strange phenomenon that is New Year; our need to draw the line under the previous year and strike out fresh in the next. Some people set goals, some make resolutions but, above all, hope hangs tangibly in the air with the prospect of things being different or better. Sometimes we even hope we’ll be different or better. The thing that strikes me most throughout this process is the fact that January 1st is really only the day after December 31st. You go to bed one night and wake up in the next day. We do this every day of year. Yet because of our modern calendar, customs, traditions and timekeeping this particular dawning of a new day takes on a whole new significance. It brings me to the realisation that we as people need new beginnings. We need to draw that line and put the past behind us. We need new vistas full of promise and empty of errors. We need to set a new course, regroup and refocus. And, again above all, we need the hope that come from what might be rather than what is. Alexander Pope wrote these rather profound words in An Essay on Man: Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never is, but always to be blessed: The soul, uneasy and confined from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come. I’m far from immune from this process. I have plenty of plans for 2017 both in my writing and personal life and just as much hope for their fulfillment (and more) as the next person. One day I would even like to write a novel based around this idea of new beginnings, I think. And, although January has already had its share of ups and downs, hope really does spring eternal for me too. Let me know your thoughts. What do you hope for this year? |
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