The Happy-Sadness of Completing your Book

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bookbinding, Chesil Beach, fiction, illustration

It’s finished at last! But the sense of achievement in reaching the end of the project is always tinged with sadness. As a writer of fiction I miss my characters, having lived with them for months on end. Now that The Chesil Apothecary is complete, how will I manage without the daily company of Jemmy Herring, his sister Annie, and Dr Thrift? As an illustrator, I already miss the plants of the Chesil beach whose shapes, habits and herbal uses have been on my mind all winter. All over now. Mission accomplished.

Some writers find it so hard to let go that they indulge in endless re-writes and unnecessary degrees of editing – anything to avoid saying, ‘Well, this is it, it’s finished.’ Anything to avoid the emptiness of saying farewell to the plot and characters.

Myself, I find the best way to move on is to have a new piece of work already under way. While I was editing and illustrating The Chesil Apothecary, I visited the beautiful and ancient Athelhampton House, not far from where I live in Dorset, and spent some time chatting to one of the guides. By the time I got home an idea for a new story had taken root – a bijou murder mystery, no less – and began writing straight away. So now The Chesil Apothecary is finished, I am already well in to the next tale. I can continue with this while I work on my bookbinding – the two interlock very well – and now I have my new characters Mr Sallow and his sidekick Crowfoot the Ape to walk with me. This really eases the process of letting go of the completed book. So my advice to writers is to welcome in some new characters before you say farewell to the old. It really helps.

 

 

Handbound copies of The Chesil Apothecary will be available at the Crabchurch Weekend Book Fayre, held at Hope Church, Trinity St, Weymouth on Sat 29 February, 2020, 12 noon to 7pm. Or for those that can’t make it to Dorset, the story will be serialised here shortly.

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Creativity Wins the Day!

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bookbinding, books, creativity, publishing, writing

I have wondered once or twice lately whether I had made the right decision in forsaking the world of commercial publishing in favour of going my own way – a rather odd way, too, since I now write, illustrate and bind my own books. I’ll never make any money at it, I don’t suppose – but then I never made any money selling my books commercially either. Still, I had wondered whether I hadn’t gone too far in the other direction.

Fortunately, I happened across an online article* that perfectly expressed all the things that had so worried me about the commercial bookselling process. Yes, I thought, yes, as I read it. I can identify with that; the appalling pressure to write more books, to relentlessly promote them. There were times when I felt like a chicken in a factory farm desperately trying to lay enough eggs. The demand was for creativity on tap; the never-ending search for a best-seller (however you define that these days). Of course, had I managed to create a best-seller, the pressure would have been on to create another one. And another. Just writing this is making my shoulders droop.

The truth is I don’t care whether I ever write a best-seller. My motivation is to create, not to sell. So no, I didn’t make a wrong decision in removing myself from that pressurised world, I did just the right thing. I plan to eventually have all my books available as e-books – but there will be no frantic book-launches, no nonsensical pre-orders, no expensive advertising, or free download weekends or anything else like that. The books will be there if anyone wants them. No more, no less.

And in the meantime I can create my lovely illustrated hand-bound books to my heart’s content. And my heart is content. I can sell what I make at little book-fairs, to friends, to family. Now, if you’ll excuse me The Chesil Apothecary is almost complete and I can’t wait to start binding copies as soon as I finish the layouts. Creativity will always win the day over commercialism for me!

 

*Your heart is a moving target, by Kali Wallace

Re-reading Favourite Books

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books, favourite books, re-reading, reading, Susan Howatch

People tend to belong to one of two groups: those who read a book once and never again, and those who love to re-read their favourites, perhaps many times.

I fall firmly into the second camp. I re-read all my favourites, partly because the familiarity of them is soothing, but mainly because I get more out of the book at each reading. If I last read the book say five years ago, then my situation, my interests, will have changed and I will read it with fresh insight.

Strangely, two of my favourites have had a strong connection with Salisbury cathedral. An old favourite was The Spire by William Golding. I loved this tale of the building of the cathedral, but now I find it too painful a read for comfort and it’s a long while since I re-read it.

Yesterday, however, I finished reading Susan Howatch’s Scandalous Risks. I have lost count of how many times I have re-read this book but I still love it. Yet another re-reading feels like an indulgence – but I really couldn’t help myself. The book is, on the surface, about the doomed love affair between a young society woman and the much older dean of a great cathedral (clearly based on Salisbury). I’m not usually a great reader of romances, but this book has so much wisdom to impart on the nature of love and people’s capacity for self-delusion in its grip, and about the un-knowableness of other people, all said with so much wit, that I return to it again and again. It’s part of a series – also much re-read (The Starbridge Series), and I enjoy them all, but I always come back to Scandalous Risks first, in the hope that the doomed lovers will find a way to make it work (they never do, of course!) and then drift off around the other books, all full of the secrets of interlocking characters and timeframes.

The writing is beyond superb, and I don’t doubt I shall be back to read it again before too long. Do you have favourite books you return to again and again?

One Small Step… Getting your art projects going again after a break

Tags

Artwork, bookbinding, writer's block

‘I really should get on with some bookbinding,’ I said, without much enthusiasm, to my friend Judi.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘it would be a pity to turn an activity you enjoy into a…’

‘A chore?’ I offered.

‘No, a bind.’ Trust Judi to always have the right word ready.

However much you love your current projects, it can be really difficult to summon much enthusiasm after a holiday – when you have let your carefully devised working system, the mind-set you need, slip for a week or two. It takes time to gather it all back into your head. So what can you do to get yourself working steadily again?

1 Sidestep the blockage. I told myself that if I didn’t fancy bookbinding for a while – if it was indeed becoming a bind, as Judi said, then I shouldn’t do it. I have a few copies of my book The Herbarium in hand, so it’s not urgent. My second book is nearing completion, and I will certainly be keen to start binding copies when it’s finished. Time will solve this problem.

2 Start with something easy. This could be anything – looking through your previous work and having a clear-out would be a good place to start. For me, it was the simple task of assembling in one folder all the photos I had taken over the years of a plant I wanted to draw. It didn’t take long, but even that tiny achievement was a step in the right direction. Looking at the photos set me thinking about the best way to express the leaves and petal-shapes in black and white – and there I was, back producing artwork again.

3 Talk to your friends. My writing for 2020 got properly under way when I sat down with one of my writers’ groups. My head felt full of cotton-wool, and it was a struggle to get the ideas flowing – but everyone else seemed equally woolly-brained. We laughed, we chatted, and the local writing community began to work its magic. This works just as well if your artistic pals are online. Just chat, moan a bit if you like, ask for their support and be generous with your own. Sometimes it’s easier to solve someone else’s knotty problem than your own. It gets the brain cells working a treat and can generate all sorts of useful ideas.

4 Give yourself a break. Take time to get back into the flow. If your first few efforts are nothing special don’t flounce off insisting your artistic spark is lost forever. Come back to them later – rework them if necessary. Two scrappy, inadequate pieces I wrote at writing group were later reworked into a thousand-word section of my current story. They just needed a little time and loving care to come right.

So if you’re feeling stuck after the holidays just keep these thoughts in mind: if a particular blockage is holding you up, go round it – there’s always something else you can be doing; help your friends, and let them help you; get started with one, small easy step; and for goodness’ sake, give yourself a break. Everything does not have to be perfect at the first try.

It worked for me – and I hope it will work for you, too, if you’re struggling. If you have your own methods of getting back into the flow after a break, I’d love to hear them.

Good luck with all your creative projects in 2020!