It was International Women’s Day on Wednesday 8 March 2023, a global event which celebratesthe social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. As my contribution to the day, I joined a group of readers and writers at Bridport Library where there was a series of events including a writerly quiz, a lucky dip and talks by local writers. I was delighted to be interviewed by Sarah Scally who asked some searching questions about This Much Huxley Knows. Also on the programme was Nikki May who enjoyed phenomenal and rapid success with her novel Wahala, which tells the story of three Anglo-Nigerian best friends and a fourth woman who infiltrates their group. (I have the novel on order from Dorset Libraries and will watch out for the TV series coming on the BBC.) It was refreshing to hear about her writing journey where it took five years to become an overnight success.
It has long been an ambition to visit Ávila, close to Madrid in Spain. I love walled cities such as York and Ávila is equally impressive. ( I love to see the housing inside the walls.) When I realised it was possible to volunteer with Vaughan Town at el Barco de Ávila (a town not too far from Ávila), this killed two birds with one stone.
Vaughan Town is an organisation which recruits native English speaking volunteers to improve the spoken language skills of Spanish business people. Participants experience English emersion with over eighty hours of contact. As volunteers, David and I got to stay in a four-star hotel for six nights with all meals provided (three courses with wine at lunch and dinner plus a sumptuous breakfast). Volunteers came from Canada, England, the USA and Ireland. It was a unique opportunity to meet interesting people and converse with members of this intergenerational group. As well as one-to-ones, there were scripted telephone calls, group activities, presentations and comedy sketches. It was a rewarding experience to be part of the journey that saw participants develop their skills and fluency in using spoken English. I thoroughly recommend volunteering.
I’m here as the narrator in Cinderella (if you can see behind David’s head).
Now I’m back at home again, there’s lots of catching up to do. I’m continuing to work on a new novel set on a tropical island which focuses on the tension between affluent holidaymakers and local communities. The Vaughan Town experience has given me ideas for another story, so you could call it research.
But, the new priority for this week is getting in a practice run in preparation for the Weymouth half marathon on 19 March. Wish me luck!
I volunteer with the Women Writers Network and help to bring attention to women writers by managing the Twitter account for one week every couple of months. (It’s worth following the Twitter account where a writerly tweetchat is held on the third Thursday of each month at 6pm GMT. The next topic is Women Writers as Observers on 16 February 2023.) In order to engage with readers and writers, I frequently pose questions to develop connections and on one occasion came up with the following: how important is self-belief to writers? It was clear from the tweets that came back, many women writers think self-belief is highly important or even crucial to a writer. How else do writers develop the stamina and commitment to bring a project to its conclusion? The suggestion took me by surprise. Belief in the work had always been at the top of my list – the feeling that my stories are important and I’m the only one who came write them. But, I was forced to reflect. If self-belief is necessary for a writer, how do I get some?
I’m recently back from a trip to Cambodia where I met my Australian friend and we visited the amazing temples at Angkor Wat. After much consideration, I decided to make the journey without my laptop. The timing was good. I’d sent off my latest manuscript to beta readers at the end of December with the expectation I’d hear back from them after a month. The deadline for submitting my third novel The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell is on 1 February, and I figured I’d have enough time for a final read-though on return from Cambodia. Yet it was with some trepidation that I set off without my trusty laptop.
There was lots to distract me during the fortnight I was away. We stopped in Phnom Penh for four nights and spent many hours walking around the city. It’s much less frenetic than Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and I could actually cross the road unaided. (I once had to cling to the backpack of a Vietnamese schoolboy to safely cross a busy junction.) Phnom Penh hardly feels like a capital although there is a large business area. We stuck to the streets lined with colonial buildings which were a short distance from our hotel situated near to the royal palace.
Royal PalaceCentral marketTrain station
One day we went to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. Visiting the S-21 interrogation and detention centre was a sobering experience. Housed in a former school and it was incongruous enjoying shade in the playground offered by frangipani trees knowing the atrocities that went on in the classrooms. Upon confession, victims of torture where then transferred to be murdered at the nearby killing fields of the Khmer Rouge regime. It seemed disrespectful to take photos but you can learn more about the museum here.
I must admit to having itchy fingers for the first few days of my trip but used the notes on my mobile to jot down any important things that came to mind. The next stop on our journey was in Battambang where we stayed at a delightful resort hotel with a pool. Breakfast and dinner were served beside a lake and excursions included an outing on bicycles and a trip into the countryside on a bamboo railway. Getting off the railway line quickly became a necessity when the scheduled train from Phnom Penh thundered through.
Towel artBreakfastBamboo railway
By the time we reached Siem Reap, I wondered why I’d hesitated to travel without my laptop. There was far too much to absorb during visits to the temples to be bothered with writing anything down.
Angkor WatBayon facesJungle encroachesTa Promh
The vast scale of Angkor Wat means it could take days to see all the fine details. I just had a glimpse of its magic then moved on to other temples, completely different from the first.
I must admit during the ten-hour layover at Singapore, I could’ve done with my laptop for company. Instead, I spent time wandering the complex and enjoyed the butterfly garden that features as part of Changi airport’s attractions.
Now that I’m back at home and recovered from jet lag, the final check of the manuscript for submission is calling me.
Have you ever travelled without a laptop? How did you find the experience?
Several years ago I published a piece called Find out which published author your writing style resembles which has turned out to be one of my most viewed posts. It gave a link to I Write Like where you can paste an excerpt of your writing for the website to analyse. (The facility is now also available as an app.) It turned out the piece I entered used similar word choices and was written in a similar style to Chuck Palahniuk. I’ve always been rather pleased at the match and wondered if my writing had changed over time to reflect another author.
Ever since I received a publishing contract for my dual timeline mystery The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell, I’ve been slaving over a new manuscript. It seemed completely do-able to get this latest work-in-progress shipshape before the publication schedule for book number three arrives in 2023. In October, I had nothing near a complete draft. It seems to me I approach each new novel in a different way. For the current work, I kept losing the thread of what I was doing which made me turn back to the beginning and start again. During the early months, I wasn’t sure what the spine of the story was about. But I worked my way into it and discovered one of the themes to be coercive control. Phew! That was a relief. But writing has many layers and the next priority was to ensure the three viewpoint characters had distinct voices. This is when a little comedy crept in and I discovered one of the characters to be quite humorous. (As a rule of thumb, if the writing makes me chuckle, I assume others will find it funny too.)
I’ve worked as hard as I can to complete and edit the manuscript. The next stage involves sending it to five beta readers for feedback. During my last read through, I discovered I’d used the word with 655 times. That meant I needed to get the pruning sheers out and reduce the usage considerably. Other of my high frequency words include all, now and only. Thank goodness for the find and replace function.
I’m now settling into a few days away from writing. It’s my husband’s birthday today and with my adult children home for Christmas, we visited the I Grew Up in the 80s exhibition at Dorset Museum. We also treated ourselves to breakfast in the cafe. Here are a couple of photos:
Who remembers these? (The visit also acts as research for a story I’m developing set in the 1980s.)
I will be away from my computer for much the Christmas break. On 2 January, I’m heading off to Cambodia but I’ll be back in touch again afterwards. What plans do you have for the next few weeks?
Earlier this year I was feeling despondent about my writing. Over the previous three years I’d had the excitement of securing an agent, working with her on two books and then the subsequent deep disappointment when none of her submissions to the big publishers were successful. The whole act of writing seemed a fool’s game: the short story market was shrinking, publishers preferred to invest in well-known names to guarantee book sales and, during lockdown, everyone seemed to have become a writer. I was on the verge of giving up. Then, on social media, I discovered trainee life coach, Elizabeth Scott. I explained that I was at a crossroads in my writing career and didn’t know how to move forward or whether to give up completely. Elizabeth offered me three virtual coaching sessions.
Did the sessions work?
Elizabeth Scott
Yes. Elizabeth didn’t offer direct advice on what to do…
I received an email recently enquiring about my skills at navigating technology as a writer. I was invited to share my favourite hacks and short cuts in using Microsoft Word. In answer to the question what’s your best technology tip? I recommend use of the read aloud function. I use a MacBook Air and it’s easy to set up this facility following these easy instructions. You can even choose the gender of your computer-generated voice. For Microsoft support click here.
While I was in Guatemala in 2019, I made a friend who’d volunteered with VaughanTown. I’d never heard of the organisation so she explained how she’d been recruited as a native English speaker to improve the language skills of Spanish business people. The commitment involves six days of timetabled activities to develop the participants’ spoken language skills whilst staying at a good quality hotel located close to Madrid. Travel to and from Madrid is at the volunteer’s expense but all food and accommodation is covered by the organisation. I squirrelled away this information for future reference. Recently, I’ve been thinking about writing a novel with a business woman as the protagonist and realised VaughanTown might make and ideal setting for the action to take place. Call this research, another overseas trip or a working holiday, I sensed an application taking shape.
The online form involves writing a bio including the following information:
Please tell us where you are from, who you are, what your interests and passions are, what your background is and about your education.
Tell us about places you have travelled to or lived in and what you loved about them. Tell us all about you!
After examining some major creative blocks over several weeks, week 7 shifts the discourse by looking into the kind of mindset we should embrace for creativity. With these insights in mind, Cameron returns to dissecting creative blocks associated with time in week 8. Much like week 4, week 8 represents a turning point as we begin to look at healing our artistic wounds.
Week 7: Recovering a Sense of Connection
Listening
Providing a welcome respite from reconsidering our negative conditioning, week 7 focuses on practicing what Cameron defines as the right attitudes for creativity, beginning with listening. Cameron reminds us that we’re strengthening our listening skills with morning pages and the artist’s date, which respectively helps us hear past our inner censor and tap into inspiration. Describing inspiration as “getting something down” instead of “doing”, she asserts that another party (God, the universe) accomplishes the “doing”. Connecting inspiration to listening…
Elizabeth Scott 
the writer is a lonely hunter 