I was pleased to spend a few days in Prague with my family at the end of March. The trip was originally planned for 2020 but postponed due to Covid. We stayed in a central location and wandered the cobbled streets until my feet cried for mercy. It was good travelling as a group because we each had different things we wanted to see. All set for a bit of endurance sightseeing, we tackled the Prague castle complex on the first day. Other highlights included watching the astronomical clock strike the hour, the view over Prague from the Petřín lookout tower, the Jewish quarter and photos in front of the Lennon wall.
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’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?
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?
I’m now getting back into a regular writing routine after a happy and very sociable summer. The winner of the Dorchester Literary Festival Writing Prize was announced at a launch event on Tuesday and my congratulations go to Tess Burnett for her novel The Hanging of Hettie Gale. Tess wasn’t able to attend the prize giving but alongside the other shortlisted writer, Philip Beale, I hobnobbed with celebrated Dorset writers Tracy Chevalier and Minnette Walters. On hand to announce the winner was Kate Adie. Here’s a photo of me with co-director Paul Atterbury – you might recognise him from the Antiques Roadshow.
I’ve just be told that an interview I did with 10Radio back in March has been uploaded to SoundCloud. If you’d like to tune in and hear me chatting with Suzie Grogan about all things connected withwriting This Much Huxley Knows, here’s the link.
Meanwhile, the publisher of my debut novel, Victorina Press, has been busy producing new graphics to market The String Games. I liked them so much, I thought I’d share them with you here:
That’s all my news for the minute. I look forward to catching up with you again soon.
I’m back in Dorchester after five and a half months away. Although the weather is autumnal, I’m still feeling the buzz of summer. We had a splendid time in London, renting a room from friends and travelling into town for visits to theatres and other venues. I enjoyed Witness for the Prosecution based on an Agatha Christie short story and staged in County Hall. My grandpa worked for the London County Council until retirement and it was great to be in a grand committee room and imagine he was once there.
The one musical I saw was Dear Evan Hansen about a young man who sells his soul to Facebook. I enjoyed the show where meaningful songs and ideas around redemption provide counterbalance to tragedy. Twice we went to Holland Park Opera where free shows were offered on the steps outside the building. Here’s a photo of two performers from the opera Little Women.
Our niece sang and played during Piano Friday nights at the Tabard Inn in Chiswick.
We also did a lot of walking in preparation for our trip from Porto to Santiago de Compostela at the beginning of September. It wasn’t a proper camino as we didn’t have enough time to cover the distance but with friends we walked 15 miles each day for one week (and took three train journeys). Here are some highlights.
It’s great coming home after an extended period away to see Dorset in a new light. I’m looking forward to what the autumn has to offer.
June has been packed with activities! As we only have a fortnight left until we leave for London, we’re trying to make the most of our remaining time in Edinburgh. My son visited last week and we went on a couple of outings which involved obligatory photos:
Why not tune into Suzie Grogan’s Talking Books radio show on 10Radio (or use your usual world steaming service) to find me giving away the inside story on writing This Much Huxley Knows and much more. Alternatively, if you’d prefer a breath of Scottish air, here are some photos from our walk in the Pentland Hills (south west of Edinburgh) yesterday.
From a post by The Supercargo about header images, my friend and fellow writer John Nixon at Pens Around the World has inspired me to play around with pictures to illustrate my manuscript The Girl and the Tutor. It’s the story of a girl who never grows up due to an early obsession with her maths tutor and here’s what I produced:
I’ll refrain from going into the whole plot but suffice to say I chose a copyright free image of a prefect from Unsplash and another of a tutor from Pixabay. In Canva, I was able to select the heart-splattered background and the leaf image to finish the job. What do you think?
Interestingly, there’s a pitch party launching in April called moodpitch. This is where authors get a chance to write a tweet-length pitch (280-characters) for their novel in the hope of attracting interest from agents and publishers. At this pitch party, there’s also an expectation that the tweet will include a moodboard. Looks like I’m all set to go!
If you have yet to purchase a copy of This Much Huxley Knows, here’s an opportunity for you to bid for the novel and help a worthy cause at the same time. The Jemima Layzell Trust supports children and young people suffering from brain injuries by providing funding for specialist equipment and/or specialist therapy. Authors may wish to donate a copy of your book (the auction remains open to book contributions until 11 March). You can register and make bids from today but the official launch and public auction period is from 11–25 March 2022.
Lately, we’ve enjoyed a few lovely walks through the fields around Dorchester and here are some photos to prove it.
Otherwise, we’re in the throes of preparing for next departure. Come 1 April we’re heading to Edinburgh for thirteen weeks. Watch this space for updates.
the writer is a lonely hunter 